The Cathville Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 2)

by Robin G. Austin

  “That makes you a fool,” I say. “Think about it. The men you dealt with are the ones who got caught.” I step out of the jeep, and Levi tells me he’ll be back to town in a couple of hours. My stomach is twisted in knots.

  The Cathville Library is as quiet as a graveyard at high noon. The young and painfully bored looking librarian makes a horror movie face when I ask to see anything on Morowa. It was her reaction almost as much as information that I was hoping to get.

  “Nothing on her,” she says, and looks around the empty room.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Nobody wrote down what they knew of her. Nobody wants to read about her anyway.”

  “I do. Sounds like you know a few things about her.”

  She looks around again then shrugs her shoulders. “I know what me and everybody else knows.”

  “You like fried pickles and mozzarella sticks?”

  “Course. Who don’t?”

  “I’ve got three of each in my backpack from the Waffle Griddle that are still hot. I’ll give them to you if you tell me what you and everybody else knows.”

  After alluding to why I’m in Cathville, I go outside to get Mojo so she can verify that I really do have a wolfdog. Darlene the librarian leads me to a table in the back of the building. She checks all the corners and nods her head for me to sit down like we’re about to engage in a counterintelligence briefing.

  She points a purple fingernail at me. “That I’m the one who told you anything at all? It goes no further than this here room, understand?”

  “Understand,” I say, pulling out my notebook and turning over my fried food.

  “Okay, listen up because I’m not repeating nothing. Morowa’s a ghost now. Been dead for almost a hundred years. She was Roy Pritchard’s daughter.” This last part Darlene whispers.

  Inside I’m jumping up and down screaming, I knew it.

  Darlene leans across the table even though we’re still the only people in the place. “Had herself thirteen kids. Thirteen kids and not one husband, ever. Something wrong with all those kids. She killed them one at a time, ate parts of them, and buried what was left. After that? She cursed the place.”

  I’m so excited I can hardly keep up with writing what Darlene’s saying. Then she stops as if she’s got a pickle stuck in her throat.

  When I look up, she’s staring at the wall. I don’t see or sense a thing. “So that’s why she haunts the place?” I ask.

  Darlene’s eyes dart around the room and appear to be on the verge of spinning out of control. She looks straight at me and I almost jump. “You talking about that property where they’re going to build the shopping place?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s her land no matter what Dexter Joubert thinks. That’s the place where they burned Morowa at the stake, and she ain’t letting anybody forget that.” The girl’s eyes are buggy and she’s got a creepy grin on her face.

  “So she practiced witchcraft?”

  Darlene sighs and shakes her head real slow like I’m as clueless as a door knob. “She knew voodoo from her momma’s side.”

  “She was Pritchard’s child that he had with his slave?”

  Darlene dips a mozzarella stick in barbecue sauce and waves it back and forth while scrunching her face. “I don’t know about that, but I know she cursed the place. Look where it got Dexter Joubert. He went messing with her land and ends up in jail for murder.”

  She dips into the barbecue sauce again and points the mozzarella stick at me. “That’s no joke. That’s Morowa.”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  §

  Darlene says she has to get back to work. No amount of persuading is changing her mind. She says that she’s already said too much anyway. It’s just as well though because her story and her credibility were getting more far-flung the longer she talked.

  I’m thinking if so many people in town know something about Morowa, why wouldn’t Dexter? Good question that needs an answer; one that includes why he’s making me search all over this county to find out things he should have told me. I also need to confront him about Kylee Price and finally confirm the woman who haunted my phone is her.

  Me and the wolfdog walk to the police station and I call Levi on the way. The call goes straight to voicemail. I can’t believe he turned off his phone. I leave a message telling him he better meet me at the jail before he ends up sharing a bunk with Dexter. I know that didn’t make a lot of sense, but I was going more for emotional impact than logic.

  A different guard is on duty today, and he tells me to take a seat while he checks with Dexter. I go to tell him that the man’s opinion on seeing me isn’t a factor he needs to consider. I think the better of doing so since he also told me to make an appointment next time.

  Ten minutes later and another call to Levi’s voicemail, and I’m walking back to the visiting room. Dexter’s happy to see me, maybe thinking I’ve come to update him on how I’ve sent his echo mystic to the afterlife. One look at me and he can tell that isn’t the case.

  “The name Morowa mean anything to you?” I ask.

  Dexter crinkles his nose, which shuts his eyes. He lets out a breath that has me offering up some mints before I remember my bag is with the guard.

  “Talk of her is nothing but a bunch of old wives tales. Who have you been talking to anyway?”

  “Confidential source,” I say. “My source says Morowa put a curse on your property and was burned at the stake out there. That’s something I needed to know right from the start, even before I agreed to come here. I guarantee ghost eradications, not voodoo curse removals.”

  “Well whoever is doing your sourcing is a fool. Morowa Turley was an old maid who died in a house fire on the parcel of land way south of my property.”

  I lean back in my chair and cringe. I gave up three fried pickles for that story. “Turley as in Silas Turley? I heard she was Roy Pritchard’s daughter.”

  “Pritchard, Turley, they’re all mixed together like gumbo stew. All that’s known about the woman is that she lived out there and died years ago. Some say a hundred, some say two hundred years ago. Some say she was a healer, others say she was a witch, still others say she was a murderer. Truth is, she was nothing but your average woman whose story got bigger and stranger in death than it ever was in life.”

  “Until she started haunting your property.”

  Dexter shrugs and twiddles his fingers.

  “What do you know about Silas Turley?” I ask.

  “Nothing much. Never met the man, never even seen him. The Turleys have owned the backwoods for years. He still owns a big chunk a few miles south of my land. He’s Ozark hillfolk and doesn’t come out of those hills as far as I know. If you leave him alone, he’ll do the same.”

  “I’m not so sure. I suspect he doesn’t want a supermall built so close to his home. What do you think about that?”

  “Didn’t ask the man. I own the property, and I’ve got the legal right to build anything out there that the county approves. They approved a supermall.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that Silas is the one who’s conjuring up your echo mystic and scaring away you and your workers?”

  Dexter crunches up his face again. He’s going to be a wrinkled up prune by the time he gets to prison.

  “No. I don’t figure he’d do any such thing, even if he could. Like I said, he doesn’t have anything to do with other people. He’s got plenty of land and nobody’s stupid enough to set foot on it. More than enough land not to worry about what I’m doing… but Morowa?”

  Dexter leans back in his chair with his handcuffed hands laced behind his head and stares at the ceiling looking for answers. “I heard like others in this area that she practiced the craft, same as most other folks from the Ozarks. That’s nothing though. Witches are thicker than tics with the hillfolk. You look to be native yourself, Cherokee?”

  “Navajo, some on my father’s side,” I say.

  “Then you know it’s a spiritua
l practice, not some Halloween marketing gimmick.”

  “I do.”

  “Listen here, Jack. Stop spending your time hunting down witches and following the crooked trail thrashed out by gossiping locals. I probably don’t need to remind you that the supermall doesn’t need any more bad press, but I am.”

  He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, I’m assuming about his own bad press, before he goes on.

  “There’s been construction activities on that property since the 1990’s. The only thing that ever stopped them was the lack of expertise and money. I’ve got plenty of both, but that’s not the point. Don’t you think if Morowa was floating around out there, she would have been chasing off workers long before me and my crew came along?”

  Dexter looks down at the table with his cuffed hands in front of him like he’s about to start praying. After a few seconds, he looks me in the eye.

  “I got myself a bunch of trouble here, but it’s going to work itself out sooner than later. I have confidence in your boyfriend to right this situation. I have that same confidence in you to get rid of the echo mystic so I can get to work the second I’m out this door. Can I count on both of you to prove me right?”

  “You can if you’re being honest. Can we count on you to do a little more of that? I don’t want to chase facts or rumors or old wives tales in order to get things done. I also don’t need you deciding what information I should or shouldn’t have.”

  Dexter hangs his head and starts to speak but before he can, I ask him what Kylee Price looked like. I’m not interested in his marital problems so that’s all I say.

  He gets the devil’s grin on his face, and stares at the wall in front of him before looking at me. “Pretty thing, young.” He grimaces, but doesn’t stop talking. “Mid-twenties, brown eyes, and hair about at her shoulders. Nicest smile you’d ever want to greet you. Always laughing. The woman never took most things too seriously.”

  “I know someone like that,” I say, and clear my throat. “She have a nice figure?”

  Dexter laughs and turns a little pink. “She did take pride in being a well endowed female. Since I figure you’ve talked to Gail by now, you know a thing or two. But I swear on my mother’s grave that I didn’t kill Kylee. I’m not offering three times your fee just for my sake. I can’t do anything for Kylee now, but I want whoever killed her to pay.”

  Before I can ask another question, the guard is at the door telling us Emma Weaver is here to see Dexter. We say our goodbyes, and I head to the door wondering why I just believed everything coming out of the man’s mouth seeing as I sense guilty as sin from one end of him to the other.

  When I don’t see Emma in the lobby or the jeep in the parking lot, I call Levi and get his voicemail again. My stomach is twisting in knots.

  “Now what?” I ask Mojo.

  I still want to talk to Silas, if I can find him somewhere a few miles south of the supermall property. Not only do I have a few choice words for him, I suspect he’s the only one who can tell me the truth about Morowa and what’s up with the ecto-mist.

  I walk down the street then stand on the corner to debate getting fried food to bribe the man with before I try hitchhiking back to the property. I’m visualizing burning all Levi’s stuff in a big bonfire when I hear a voice behind me.

  “You lost?” Emma Weaver’s got her head out the driver’s window of her camouflage truck.

  “My ride’s taken off without me,” I say.

  “I have time to give you a lift, if you want.”

  I definitely do. “Do you have any brothers who use your truck sometimes?” I ask, while climbing in. She shakes her head no.

  “What were you in talking to Dexter about?” Emma asks, as soon as I shut the door. I should have guessed that’s why she’s willing to drive the twenty minutes out to the property.

  “Morowa,” I say, and watch her reaction, which is nothing worth seeing.

  She grunts and laughs under her breath. “Good hillbilly story to tell around the campfire or after one too many beers.”

  After Dexter’s bad press warning, I’m not sure how much I should be saying. We ride in silence for awhile. The closer we get to the property, the less I can help myself. “What do you know about Silas Turley?”

  She pushes back in her seat and turns her full attention from the road to me. “Hillfolk,” she says, looking back to the road. “Don’t know him personally. Keeps to himself. You need to respect that.”

  “So I’ve heard. I wonder if you’ve heard the real reason why I’m in town.”

  “Most have.”

  “And?”

  Emma’s quiet, but I can sense her thinking hard about what she wants to say, or rather how much she wants to tell me. She gives me another glance before answering.

  “Folks around here know enough to know there’s more in the world than what you read on social media sites. I heard about the workers. I believe they saw something that scared the bejeebers out of them. Something that caused them to leave and not come back for good reason.”

  “Something supernatural or home grown?”

  She laughs and relaxes. I think she’s starting to like me. “Probably both.” She stops at the edge of the property and looks it over, nodding her head as if agreeing with herself. “I’d be careful out here if I was you. Sure you don’t want to go back to town?”

  “I’m sure,” I say, getting out and watching her drive away. I check my phone again and see I don’t have much battery left and without the jeep, I have no way to charge it. Reluctantly, I turn it off.

  Mojo leads the way to the trailer. We get a few yards from it when he stops and does his guttural growl that sends chalkboard nails down my spine.

  “Somebody here?” I ask him.

  He walks a wide circle to the door and stands a couple of feet from it. I pick up a fat stick and do the same. The trailer looks fine, so does the space around it.

  It’s the poppet doll hanging from the door handle that’s giving me and the wolfdog cause for concern.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  §

  Mojo could actually care less about the little burlap voodoo doll. His sniffing around the general area is now what’s causing me concern. Like I said, the wolfdog’s an observer and a tracker of prey as well as ghosts. The fact that someone has been hanging around our tin palace might peak his curiosity, but not much more than a sniff or two once they’re gone.

  Since whatever prey crossed our doorstep has left, I wonder what’s getting so much of his attention. It would be a stretch to think an ecto-mist made us a little poppet doll, but I’m open minded. Odds are greater that our visitor was driving a camouflage truck and left something to peak Mojo’s interest and poison the both of us. Luckily, we’re well trained when it comes to leaving road kill for the buzzards.

  I poke the poppet with my stick. It doesn’t blow up or catch fire and it looks harmless enough so I untie it. Thankfully, it looks nothing like me. Any resemblance could indicate an intention to cause harm or win my affection– evil or good, yang or yin– either way, lucky me. I’m about to tie the thing to a nearby tree when I see a note stuck into the back of its burlap layers.

  Gets out of tound or eles. I was right, the spelling bee winner was back. I hold the doll and ask it for its message. All I get is some good old boy laughter. Since it doesn’t threaten boody harm this time, I’m almost willing to forget about it– but not quite.

  Underneath my calm exterior, I’m seething over a dying phone almost as much as I am about my missing jeep. It’s easier to be mad than terrified that Levi might be redneck stew about now. Still, I want someone to pay so I use what may be my last call to report a poppet to the police.

  After the third ring and a two minute hold, I find out that my case, which I didn’t even know I had, has been assigned to Lieutenant Ollie Holt.

  The lieutenant has already talked to the liquored up rednecks and the clerk wants to know if they’ve stopped by again. There’s a long pause when I te
ll him I don’t know who stopped by this time, but they left me a doll.

  There’s an even longer pause after he asks what kind, and I tell him it’s a poppet. I assumed he wouldn’t know a poppet from a puppet, but he does. He puts me on hold, and I watch my battery icon emptying. When he comes back on the line, he tells me Holt will be out as soon as he gets back from the Riddle Farm.

  “How long?” I ask, since I don’t know a riddle from a diddle around here and my patience is on the top of the cliff looking down.

  He says it all depends on the cow and the calf, like that clears up everything. It doesn’t, so I ask for a ballpark.

  “Two hours, give or take,” he says, with a drama queen exhale.

  In two hours, it’ll be dark and I have either an ecto-mist or Levi to go find. I decide to put that wait time to better use than standing around by going in search of an elusive Silas Turley.

  First, I write a note for Lieutenant Holt and another less professional one for Levi. I check inside the trailer for vandals, something I should have done before I called the police. It looks as bad as it did the last time I saw it except for some added droppings. The critter might be the reason Mojo got worked up before. He is not a fan of rodents who dare take up residence in his personal space.

  I put on an extra jacket, lock the door, and leave the poppet in a plastic bag with my note to the lieutenant. Then I head for hillfolk land.

  The police tape has taken a turn for the worse with only one corner still secured. I promise Kylee I’ll stop by later. The birds are broadcasting my movements, and there’s some rustling of brush that sounds bigger than field mice. I make my way to the top of the hill and say a prayer that I’ll make it back in one, sane piece.

  From the highest point, I can’t see anything that looks remotely like a house or a shack. In fact, it looks like I’m in for some serious hiking through dense brush while weaving around a whole lot of skinny trees.

  The wolfdog’s ready to go as if thinking this is better than Disneyland, or he’s just trying to run off the extra dose of rose geranium I sprayed us both with before we set off.