I spend a few minutes sitting next to where Kylee’s body was found. The tape that’s wrapped around one of the trees has slid down. What I think is an occasional light breeze moves it across the dirt sideways and back– except I don’t feel any breeze at all.
I stare at it, letting it hypnotize me, willing myself to hear its message. I’ve got my phone resting in my palm, the photo of the tree and snake is on the screen waiting for the woman to reappear.
“Kylee Price. Your presence is requested. I’m here to help you. Please come forward and speak to me.”
I hear a twig snap and I jump. Mojo’s lying beside me torturing a beetle bug. I study the hill’s crest and look for stringy black hair sticking out from behind one of the trees. The woods are too quiet now. Something’s turned the volume down. I light my smudge stick and throw some rock salt.
“I’d appreciate some privacy, please. Hey,” I yell, throwing a rock. “Mind your own business. You’re messing up my energy. You need to stop that.” I snap photos of the grass and trees on the hill with my phone to make my point.
“Kylee Price,” I say, focusing back on the crime scene. “If you’re here, please give me a sign.” After several minutes of eerie silence, I check the snake photo. Still no smiling woman, still no message.
I need to get closer despite the dark stain by the tree that I fear is blood. I hunch down to get under the tape and go to where I remember Kylee was standing in the photo, a foot or two from where her body fell, according to the stain.
With my palms pressed into the dirt, I close my eyes and whisper her name. After a few minutes, it feels like I’m falling sideways, almost like I’m being swept back in time. Not through a spooky mist, more like a movie played in reverse.
When it stops, I hear laughter and lively chatter; words that sound like they’re coming through an old-fashioned radio.
The voices are of a male who’s speaking slow and cheery and a female who’s screeching and laughing. The two talkers’ words are jumbled together. I’m listening hard, but failing to understand either of them.
I still feel like I’m falling and am getting dizzier by the second, so I grab some tall grass. “Talk to me Kylee,” I say, sounding like I’m standing in a cave.
I’m concentrating so hard I don’t register the sound of a gunshot until it resonates through the woods. My eyes pop open and I jump up and duck back down. I’m surrounded by the police tape. Mojo, who’s still lying outside the tape, is eating a bug. Looking around, nothing seems out of the ordinary. When I look up at the hill, I see movement and a flash of black hair.
“Hey, hey, you. If you think you’re going to watch me, you’re going to talk to me too. Wait.” I duck under the tape and run up the hill. The wolfdog is beside me; his puzzled look says I’m crazy.
“Didn’t you see him? You’re supposed to be watching,” I say, when we reach the crest. All I see is more of the same: dirt, brush, pencil thin trees. “Cinnamon bread,” I mumble to myself. He’s either a baker or into weird cologne.
“Jack?”
“I’m here,” I say, going back to the clearing.
“You ready to go yet? It’s been over an hour.”
“An hour? Are you sure? Did you hear a gunshot?”
“No, nobody shooting at us again. You ready to go? I can’t be late for my appointment with Dexter. You know that guard won’t let me in if I’m late. I’ve been thinking, and it turns out I’m going to need our vehicle. I have a lot of ground to cover today.”
I follow Levi to the jeep. “There is no our vehicle. You’re really into this, aren’t you?”
“It’s my calling.”
“You sure it’s not that you’re missing prison life?”
∞
“Okay,” Levi says, when we get on the road to Elmar. “Here’s the plan. I’ll drop you off at the assessor’s office and pick you up in what? An hour or so?”
“Better make it two. What are you going to be doing after your fifteen minutes with Dexter and turning over the redneck’s note to the police?”
“I’ve got that photo of the camouflage pickup and its occupants off your phone to show the cops and the recording of their threat to kill us. They’re my number one suspects, by the way. I wish I would’ve gotten a photo of the stickman; next time I’ll be ready for him.”
“I thought the Noger brothers were number one.”
“I’m still collecting information. Next, I have those people from the Waffle Griddle to talk to and more if I can find them. After that I’m dropping by Emma Weaver’s office. I’m getting Dexter to sign a release so she can talk to me about our case and give me a copy of her file.”
“Our case? She’s going to have you for dinner after you tell her what you’re up to. You’d be better off telling Dexter not to mention you’re involved. Why are you involved? I didn’t okay this.”
“The man’s counting on me. Put aside your fears, I can’t let another innocent man serve time.”
“It’s not fear, it’s common sense. What if he’s not innocent?”
“You’re the psychic. You tell me if he is or not.”
“I’m better at reading the dead than the living. The living have too much noise in their heads. But—
“But you don’t think he’s guilty. I knew it.” Levi slaps the steering wheel.
“Don’t finish my sentences for me. I heard spirit voices on the property today and a gunshot. I think what I heard was the shot that killed Kylee. The voices were a man’s and a woman’s, but they were muddled together. They also seemed to be a replay of something that happened before the murder. Happier days. When I got up to find out if the gunshot was real, I saw the man with the black hair.”
“Stickman? You snap a photo? You got a vision that Dexter killed Kylee?”
“Yes, but rude to call him that, and no and no. You need to cut back on the sugar. I’ve got to talk to Dexter about the man, find out why he’s coming around to watch us. There’s a weird vibe swirling around him and oddly sweet smells. I suggest you put him at the top of your suspect list.”
“Right, the guilty always return to the scene of the crime. I could tell you stories I heard in the pen that would curl your nose hairs. Sweet how?”
“Spare me the details of all your prison stories. Like baked goods, vanilla and maple syrup.”
“I’m telling you it’s the bug spray. Lay off the stuff.”
Levi stops in front of the assessor’s office and I get out of the jeep. I’m thinking about the voices and wondering how high Dexter should be on that suspect list.
Before I shut the door, I lean in and say, “I want you to tell Dexter we need to talk to his wife and watch how he reacts. Watch his eyes real close.”
Chapter Seventeen
§
The Drake County Assessor’s Office in Elmar is about the size of a convenience store. The lone clerk– “because it’s the lunch hour,” he says– is as friendly as the people at the Waffle Griddle, but way more laid back.
When I ask to see the records he has on the property out on Marian Road in Cathville, he gives me a long, sad stare. He wants to know if I’m an investigator here about what happened to Kylee Price. News spreads fast through these woods.
I don’t know why he thinks property records have anything to do with Kylee’s murder, but I consider saying that’s the reason I’m here. Telling people what I do for a living is always a crapshoot. Reactions range from giddy to interested to call the cops, shrink, or a priest. The clerk is probably a year or two from retirement and sporting a buzz cut, class ring, suspenders, and a green bow tie with polka dots. My bet is him calling the men in white coats followed by the cops.
“I’m doing some research for Matt Noger. Did you know Ms. Price?”
“Huh. Not personally. Knew of her. She lived in this county; she was one of us. Who’d shoot a woman in the back?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any idea who might have been involved?”
He raises his bu
shy eyebrows. “If I did, they’d be in jail right now. Oh wait, the guy’s already in jail right now.” He tips his head to one side so far I think he might unbalance himself. “How far back do you want to do this here research?”
“Nothing that’s on the website. I’ve already checked those. I’m looking for the history of the place from the very first records you have.”
He raises his eyebrows again. “Most folks your age don’t want to know anything about the history of a place. They’re usually more interested in knocking down the trees and building shopping centers.”
He slips on wire rim glasses from his shirt pocket and glares at me like he couldn’t see me before. Then he sighs at the task before me, or more likely the one before him. He tells me the records aren’t separated out from the stuff on the internet, but he’ll give me the oldest ones he has.
Before taking off, he takes a few seconds to study me. Then he shrugs, points to a table in the corner, and scoots off to the back room. When he returns, he has two wide binders with neatly typed labels. He yells for me to come retrieve them at the counter.
The first binder is nothing but old and unreadable survey maps. Not that I want to read them because I’m looking for names. The other binder has records from 1800 to 2000, according to the label. I already know from my online search that the property was divided into three, sixty acre parcels in 1995 by a development company, and that Dexter, according to him, came into possession of the supermall parcel due to some real good luck in 2015.
I start with the first recorded document, which was issued on December 9, 1831. Something called a Double Statement through the State Land Office. It’s for three hundred acres and the owner is listed as Roy W. Pritchard.
After I write his name in my notebook, I place my fingers over his signature. I get the image of a tall and powerful man and a bottle of whiskey. There’s a lot of laughter. Pritchard was a happy man, but I wouldn’t accuse him of being nice too. I turn to the next record.
The entire three hundred acres was deeded to Eugene W. Pritchard, probably a son, in 1896. Two years later, three more male Pritchards were added as owners. Roy’s signature on the last document is faint and shaky and probably his last. I sense a battle of wills in the other Pritchard signatures.
In 1948, one hundred and twenty acres was deeded to Lloyd and Agnes Turley, who passed it on in a living trust to family members, none of whom were named Morowa. Lloyd signed with a sloppy X.
The remaining land, which included Dexter’s parcel, stayed in the Pritchard family until it was purchased by the development company.
With just Pritchards and Turleys to research, my job just got a whole lot easier, I hope. I return the binders and ask the clerk to confirm that the land was owned by the state prior to 1831.
“Yep,” he says, like he’s said it a thousand times before.
“Are there any Pritchard or Turley family members still living in the area?”
“Pritchards are dead or married off. You don’t want to know what’s left of them Turleys.” He shuffles to the back.
I yell before he gets away, “Do you happen to know Dexter Joubert? I mean personally.”
He doesn’t turn around. “Know of him,” he says, and disappears with the binders into the backroom.
That’s good enough for me. I regret that I asked about Dexter. Levi is filling my head with things I don’t need to concern myself with. I don’t want to get suckered into Dexter’s problems one way or the other. Not that I’d be okay working for a murderer, but I know from experience that the problems the living have can suck the life right out of me.
I leave the assessor’s office with an hour to spare before my ride returns with my vehicle. Levi’s phone goes to voicemail, and I fear he really did go to Emma Weaver’s office. The man is foolish enough to think he can charm any woman who’s still breathing despite her personal persuasion that guarantees he can’t. Getting too friendly with this particular woman though may ensure I never see him again, not the way I remember him anyway.
I’m actually considering finding a place that serves something deep fried when I remember seeing a library on the way into town that’s just a few blocks away. I set out to see what they have on the property owners.
Surprisingly, the library is three times the size of the assessor’s office and of what I expected it to be. As soon as I walk in the door, the librarian rushes me saying they’re closing due to a bedbug infestation, which is due to the fifth grade class’ Harry Potter readathon.
“It was all going so well until Jimmy Smyths got up to read and things started crawling. The kids thought it was part of the readathon, but I knew it wasn’t. Mrs. Smyths?” The librarian pauses, raises her hand, and throws back drinks from an invisible cup. I’m looking for bugs.
“You can come back in a few days. I have to put all the books in plastic bags before they can spray. I’m going to be here all night. The Smyths should be paying for this mess, but you know they won’t, don’t you?”
I confirm I know they won’t just so she doesn’t try to convince me in detail. Then I launch into a tale about how I drove all the way from New Mexico to research Cathville’s history. She gives me a puzzled look like she doesn’t believe anyone in their right mind would do that.
She throws both arms in the air and leads me to an ancient computer terminal to search for the documents. Not, however, before telling me I’ve got to be speedy and agree to assume the risk I’m taking. I agree to both.
The woman, who’s about to scratch her skin raw, says she’ll be back in fifteen minutes tops. I enter the two family names and send all I can on birth, death, court, and military records to a dot matrix printer that prints slower than I type, which is slower than slow. The woman returns to rip off a twenty foot trail of paper, tells me to forget the fee, and I’m back on the street in seventeen minutes flat.
I check my phone, which the librarian insisted I turn off while inside, and see I have a text message from Levi. He’s on his way to Elmar with big– more precisely, B I G news that’ll blow the lid off this investigation.
Chapter Eighteen
§
With a half hour to spare before Levi’s estimated time of arrival, I succumb to my addiction and order some deep fried pickles at the nearest diner. I get comfortable on the corner sidewalk and chow down while waiting for the man. I’m definitely going to need an intervention.
He pulls to the curb and pushes the door open as I step back to avoid being knocked over. The first words out of his mouth are so confusing, I grab him by the arm and shake him. I’m not feeling all that sane either.
“Let me drive. You’re so hyped up you’re going to get in an accident. Have you been eating possum pie again?”
Levi jumps the curb when pulling over. He’s still talking as he goes to the passenger door. “No. They have fried berry pie and Yarnell’s Wooo Pig ice cream at the Waffle Griddle today. I had two slices and three scoops. I might need some time alone in the trailer tonight.”
“Plan on spending time alone in the woods instead. What’s your big news? And please don’t tell me it involves Emma Weaver.”
“Hold on to your hat, Jack, and stop being so jealous. Let me tell this. I got it straight from Dexter’s wife’s friend, Nettle—
“Nettle, as in the plant?”
“Jack, as in the beanstalk?”
“Fair enough. What did she have to say?”
“She’s this wild looking woman who works at a salon, but I met her at the Waffle Griddle. That place is a PI’s gravy train. People like to talk and they don’t care who they talk to or about.
“I met with Dexter and asked him about the rednecks and the stickman– the police too. We’re having coffee at the Waffle Griddle tomorrow with Gail Joubert, but keep quiet to her about what I’m telling you—
“Slow down. You’re not telling me anything, you’re talking in zigzags. Do one subject at a time. Is anything you’ve said so far related to your big news? If so, I misse
d it in the middle of your jabbering.”
“Stop being cranky, I’m getting there. You need to lay off the pickles. Okay, here it is, and it didn’t come from Dexter, which I plan on bringing up with the man. How can I prove him innocent if he doesn’t tell me all the facts? What? Oh, right. Nettle knew this first hand from Kylee herself. Ready?”
“Are you still talking about something you think I care a thing about?”
“You know I am. Okay.” He stops to drum roll on the dashboard. “Kylee Price, a married woman, and Dexter Joubert, a married man, were having an affair with each other.”
“That’s what blew your lid off? Half the married couples on the planet are having an affair. Makes the man look more guilty, but there’s nothing earth shattering about it.”
“Think again, Jack. Nettle, a very nice and calm person by the way, said that Kylee was expecting Dexter to leave his wife. Dexter told her he would, but said Gail had some sort of autoimmune disease so he couldn’t leave her right away.
“So Kylee tells Nettle this, and Nettle knows Gail doesn’t have any disease at all. She tells Kylee, and Kylee gives Dexter an ultimatum: leave Gail now or there wouldn’t be a person in the whole state of Arkansas who didn’t know what he was up to.” Levi’s nodding and grinning like these things prove something.
“Sounds like these people have been watching too many soap operas. So now you think Dexter killed the woman?”
Levi slumps in his seat like a deflated party balloon. “Just my luck that my first client would be guilty as sin.”
We stop at Big Boone’s Grocery and Hardware store and stock up on cleaner, air freshener, deep-fried-free foods, sleeping bags, more bug spray, and calamine lotion. I think I took a bad risk back at the library.
While I’m driving out to the property, Levi crashes on his sugar buzz. It gives me time to think about a situation that’s gone from bad to worse.
The Cathville Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 2) Page 8
