by TM Simmons
Chapter 22
I found Katy, Granny, and Twila in the Master Suite, Granny in a rocking chair, Miss Molly curled on her lap and Trucker by her feet. Twila and Katy were on the floor on either side of Trucker, both stroking the dog. They were all silent, glum-faced, staring into space.
“The jury’s convened?” I teased.
Katy’s frantic gaze flew to my face. “Tyler Jeeves says that I should just keep my mouth shut and not say anything, Alice. But he’s never been a suspect in a murder case!”
“They found your blood on the sword, Sugar. I tried to tell Jack what happened, but you don’t have a witness.”
“Of course she does." Sir Gary materialized by the fireplace. “I saw her prick her finger." Twila studied the ghost with interest, and he bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I am available at your convenience.”
“Definitely at my convenience,” she murmured, setting the ground rules. Her lips quirked in a mischievous smile, and she continued, “It might be an extremely interesting adventure, a ghost testifying in court.”
“Shit, Twila,” I burst out. “That’s not going to happen.”
Granny scooted Miss Molly off her lap and creaked to her feet. Head cocked, she approached Sir Gary, a grin a mile wide on her wrinkled face. “My, my, my. If you was a few years younger, you an’ me might just make a fancy couple." She slapped her knee and cackled in glee. “Always wanted to say that to a man!”
“Madame,” Sir Gary said with a regal bow. “We would have made a fine couple.”
“Ain’t you the cat’s meow?" Granny beamed. “Twila, you need some help sortin’ this handsome rascal’s story out, count me in.”
Twila rose and took Granny’s arm. “Good idea. Why don’t the three of us adjourn to the Blue Room? I believe Katy and Alice have things to talk about.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Sir Gary said.
He dissolved in a blink, and Granny picked up her walking stick, which was propped on the back of the rocking chair. At the door, Twila allowed Granny to precede her, then turned to Katy and me. “I have some things for you both. I’ll let Granny entertain Sir Gary for a few minutes and be right back.”
She closed the door, and I chuckled. “Maybe we can hold a soiree and Granny and Sir Gary can come.”
Katy didn’t laugh. She scooted onto the bed, glaring at me. “I didn’t kill Bucky!”
I sighed, then joined her. We sat cross-legged, as we had as kids, facing each other. But this time we had something a lot more serious to discuss than whether we should “Do It.”
“What else was on those answering machine tapes?” I asked.
“You gave those damn tapes to Jack!” she fumed. “You should have asked me first!”
“We’re not going to get you out of this mess by hiding evidence. What was on them?”
She buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. When she looked up, her face had changed from anger to worry. “I didn’t want you involved this time, Alice. I know what bad publicity can do to your writing career.”
Stunned, I could only stare. “What’s my writing got to do —" Then it dawned on me. Old illicit acts coming home to roost. “The blackmail ten years ago. That’s involved in this?”
“He called me a couple weeks ago.”
“Bucky?”
“Yes, Bucky, damn it! Who are we talking about? Don’t ask me how he got my private number, but it was probably easy, given this blasted small town. I hung up on him the first time. Let the answering machine pick up when he called back." She curled her arms across her stomach. “He said he’d lied when he told us he hadn’t kept a copy of that VCR tape. And I better talk to him if I knew what was good for me.”
“So you talked? And he said...?”
With a preliminary knock on the door, Twila walked in. I wasn’t ready yet to involve my aunt when it looked like maybe now Katy and I were both on the wrong side of the law. I’m protecting Twila the same way Katy was protecting me, I thought as Twila dropped some items on the bed.
“There’s quince bath soap here." She picked up two bars of plastic-wrapped soap. “Both of you bathe in it immediately, and also add sea salt to your water." She handed us each a small circle of brown seeds. “Quince seeds. Wear these bracelets at all times, even in the bath. They’re coated and won’t soften.”
“Have you sensed anything?” I asked.
“Yes." I waited for her to elaborate, and a strange look crossed her face. “There’s the violence, of course, but a lot of confusion, also. It’s probably due to Bucky’s newly-dead, bewildered state. But there’s something more here that I’m going to need to delve into deeper.”
“You haven’t seen him?” Katy asked as she clasped the bracelet on her slender wrist.
“No, but he’s here. No doubt about that.”
I shivered, recalling the stumbling monstrosity in the library. “Don’t worry. We both know he’s here. Are you absolutely sure quince works?”
“It works even better than asafetida,” she reassured me, “without the smell. I’ve also brought some candles, blessed with chants. I want them burning in our bedrooms constantly.”
“Why not the whole house?” Katy asked.
I picked up Katy’s hand. “Sugar, we don’t want him completely banished. At some point, we need to confront him.”
“A ghost is timeless,” Twila elaborated. “He can outwait us, and the moment we have a lapse in our protection, he’ll slip right in. The best thing is to face him, and either insist he cross over or behave himself. Make him realize we have power over him. But first we have to pin him down long enough to exercise the power.”
“It’s not a complete power,” I explained when Katy continued to look confused, reminding me of all the questions I’d had a few years back when I started trying to understand the world across the veil. “After all, he’s in another dimension now.”
“And he’s still trying to get a handle on things himself,” Twila went on. “He’s not only dangerous, he’s extremely unstable, considering the personality he crossed over with.”
Katy squeezed my hand, then dropped it, and I grimaced. Noticing my pain, Twila handed me a small glass jar. “I want you to use this, also, Alice.”
“Not Katy?”
She chuckled. “It’s some aloe ointment for your hands. It’ll help your cuticles, too.”
That was something I could use. She picked up the tall fluted vase with a white candle in it, set it on the mantle, then pulled a packet of matches from her pocket and lit it. “I’ve already told Sir Gary that I’ll deal with him after I get all the protection in place." She turned and studied Trucker and Miss Molly. “Which bathroom can I use to give the animals a bath?”
“In quince soap?” I asked.
“Of course. They’re involved in this ghosthunt, too.”
“Granny’s in the Green Room,” Katy said. “But the White Room’s free.”
“I’d rather use a laundry tub,” Twila said.
“The laundry room’s off the kitchen,” I told her. “You won’t have any trouble with Trucker. He loves a bath. But you better let me help you with Miss Molly.”
“You don’t have time." Twila gathered up Miss Molly and snapped her fingers for Trucker to follow her. “You have things to do." The dog padding obediently after her, she closed the door behind her, and I shook my head for the thousandth time over her honed abilities. She probably knew even more about what I had to do than I did. And right now, what I had to do was take advantage of this privacy with Katy to drag some more information out of her.
“What did Bucky say when he called you?” I demanded.
She fiddled with the quince seed bracelet and ducked her head. I none-too-gently tipped her chin up to face me. “Don’t hide anything from me, Katy! This is serious business!”
The heartbreak in her eyes floored me. She’d never looked so fragile, so ready to fall to pieces, even back when we were dealing with Bucky the first time. But then, we were older now,
more mature. Knew the consequences of actions we’d gone into hell-bent and take-no-prisoners in our younger days.
“He wanted to reform,” she said. “He’d seen his father here at Esprit d’Chene and wanted me to act as a go-between.”
Puzzled, I frowned. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I thought so, too. That’s why I agreed to meet him and talk about it.”
“At the Holey Bucket?”
Katy’s eyes widened. “Someone saw us!”
“Jack knows, too. As well as half the county, if your friend Irene has as big a mouth as I think she does.”
She grabbed my arms. “He wrote a book, Alice. He said that if he didn’t get back into his father’s good graces, he was going to send copies of it to all sorts of people. He said he was tired of living like a swamp rat when his father and brother were living rich.”
“My God,” I breathed. “What if someone else has that manuscript now? With all this uproar over Bucky’s death, hell, it would be a best-seller before it hit the shelves.”
Sue Ann tapped on the door, then opened it and stuck her head in. “Supper’s ready.”
“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” I said.
She slammed the door, and Katy said, “She doesn’t like people late for meals.”
“We’re not going anywhere until we both take our baths." I scooted off the bed and picked up my bar of soap. Hesitating, I said softly, “You know we’re going to have to tell Jack some of this.”
Tears clouding her eyes, she nodded. “I know. I know. Soon. But please, let’s wait a while. Maybe the investigation will turn up something. But feel free to tell Twila all you need to. Bucky’s scaring me more dead than alive.”
“Have you thought any more about who that other voice on the answering machine was, Sugar? The one who threatened you with payback?”
“It’s one of those voices I know I’ve heard before, but recognition hangs just out of reach. You know?”
“Yeah. Let me know the moment you think you recognize it.”
