Better Dead

by Pamela Kopfler

  “Oh, yeah. Mackie.”

  “Why Mackie?”

  “He fixes everything that breaks around here. He’s had keys for years. You don’t think Mackie could have—”

  “Mackie’s got his problems, but drugs aren’t one of them. He thinks drugs ruined the country.”

  “He’d never use his keys, unless I asked him to come in and fix something.” She hesitated. “But, Jake, he’s missing. Someone trashed his trailer. Maybe they took his keys. I’m worried about him.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m worried, too. Everything keeps pointing to Mackie. I’ll go back to his trailer and see if I can find his keys. If I don’t, either Mackie used them or someone took them from him. Where are Burl’s keys?”

  “Somewhere at the hangar.”

  “Can you trust me with a key to the hangar, or do I need to wait until you get dressed?”

  “There’s a set of keys to everything hidden outside for an emergency. It’s in an old film canister under the twelfth brick in the flower-bed border.”

  “Anyone know about that one?”

  “Just Mama and me—and she’s not telling.”

  Jake lifted a brow. “And you told me. Does this mean you’re starting to trust me, sweetheart?”

  Holly’s gaze fell to the floor. “You won’t be around to use them, anyway. I trust you won’t be using my keys from fourteen hundred miles away.”

  * * *

  Holly pushed through the kitchen door for a second cup of coffee. Boy, did she need it.

  Nelda jumped and threw her hand over her heart. “I thought you was that ghost.”

  “No, but I feel like death.” She scanned the room for Burl. He’d been scarce since he threw his hissy fit because he was jealous of Jake. Well, he can just get over it. I’ve got enough to deal with right now.

  “How ’bout some fresh coffee?”

  “Got an IV?”

  Nelda filled Holly’s Blue Willow cup. “I know you wasn’t in your room at six, ’cause I came up there to tell you Eudora was sittin’ on the porch steps.”

  Holly nearly spewed her coffee. “Is she still there?”

  “I put her back in her coffin.” Nelda shook her head. “I don’t even want to know how she got out.”

  Holly rushed to the coffin to open it.

  Eudora looked a little thinner and had a few dirty spots on her period outfit, but other than that she was fine. Holly lifted Eudora’s skirt. More duct tape circled her waist. The smuggler hadn’t found what he was looking for, because Jake had the dope hidden away, but why would he tape Eudora together and return her? It didn’t make any sense.

  Nelda peeked around the kitchen door. “You think Burl put Eudora on the steps?”

  “I know he didn’t. Burl can’t lift a sheet.”

  “I’m working on that.” Burl leaned against Eudora’s coffin. “But I did see who took the dummy.”

  Holly’s mouth dropped open. “Who?”

  “What’s in it for me if I tell you?”

  “Eternal peace.”

  “You talkin’ to Burl again?” Nelda crossed herself. “God rest his soul.”

  “Don’t worry, Nelda. He’s not staying for breakfast.” Holly glared at Burl.

  “You tell him to stay out of my kitchen.” Nelda pulled the swinging door closed behind her, then yelled, “If he comes up in here, I got holy water locked and loaded.”

  Burl swaggered toward the kitchen.

  “You’ve had enough fun.” Holly stepped in front of Burl. “Who was it?”

  “Your boyfriend’s drunk papa.”

  “Mackie?”

  “Yep. And I bet what’s-his-name is in on it, too. You’ve been duped, Blondie.”

  “I don’t believe it. You’re making this up to make Jake look bad.”

  “Suit yourself. I saw what I saw.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Burl hovered over Holly’s shoulder, and she ignored him. As long as she didn’t talk to him, Nelda could stay on task.

  While Nelda cooked breakfast, Holly booted up her laptop at the planter’s table. She hadn’t had time to check her Web site for hits or inquiries about vacancies since yesterday morning. All her guests would check out at 10:00 a.m. today, and only three new guests had reserved rooms for the weekend. Holly sighed. She could use a stimulus package.

  The laptop hummed to life; then she clicked to her site. “Unavailable,” she read aloud. She tried again. Unavailable?

  “How do you expect to run a business when your Web site is down, Blondie?”

  Holly rolled her eyes at Burl, then shot an e-mail to her Web host. When she’d signed up with them, they’d guaranteed service 24-7. Fat chance.

  “How many tickets have we sold for the tour today?” Holly asked Nelda.

  Nelda scooped up curls of crispy bacon with a spatula. “We got two tour buses for sure. Praise God.”

  Burl rubbed his hands together. “Stick with me, Blondie. When I finish with those tourists, Holly Grove is going to be famous.”

  At least he wasn’t giving up haunting. Holly stood and crossed the kitchen, then opened a cabinet. She grabbed a sterling silver pitcher engraved with an H and as old as the oak trees out front. Grandma Rose had bought the heirloom back from an antique dealer in New Orleans when she recognized it as the missing part in the Holly Grove silver service. It belonged here. Just like Holly.

  After Holly filled the pitcher with freshly squeezed orange juice, Burl shadowed her into the dining room. When she stopped short, the chill of his body touched hers. She took a deep breath, refusing to acknowledge him.

  “I’m not going away,” Burl said.

  Nelda carried the beginning of the buffet parade into the kitchen. She slid a pile of bacon in the chafing dish on the sideboard. Holly poured the freshly squeezed orange juice from the silver pitcher into her mother’s crystal goblets at each place setting. She set the footed pitcher on the tablecloth Grandma Rose had custom made to fit the formal dining table. Everything at Holly Grove gave her comfort.

  Burl sniffed the air. “Mmm. Bacon.” He floated to the sideboard, then cupped the air over the chafing dish and fanned it to his face. “This is man candy, you know.”

  Everything gave her comfort, except Burl.

  Nelda returned with a pot of garlic-cheese grits. She poured the grits into a silver chafing dish on the sideboard. “Would you look at that? Not a lump in the batch.”

  Within a few minutes, Holly and Nelda had the buffet stocked with crispy bacon, grits, sausage, fluffy scrambled eggs, mayhaw jelly, real butter, and slap-yo’-mama biscuits, as Nelda liked to call them.

  Holly looked at her watch. Eight o’clock. “Perfect timing.”

  “You want me to let ’em in?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll be back in a minute. I need to see if my Web site is up yet.”

  “Make it fast. My grits ain’t as good after they set up and get that skin on top.”

  Holly rushed back to her laptop and clicked on her Web site again. Nothing. Holly could feel Burl’s chill behind her. “You mind?”

  “Hey, I’m invested.”

  She gave him a “drop dead” look, as though it’d do any good. “Yeah. Right.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of sweat equity?”

  She clicked on her e-mail to see if her webmaster had responded. “Wow! That was fast.”

  Ms. Davis,

  Your site crashed due to an overload of traffic.

  We will resolve the problem shortly.

  Sincerely,

  Joe Smith

  Webmaster

  “You see that?” Burl tapped the screen. “Mrs. Davis.”

  Holly groaned. “Ms. It doesn’t say Mrs. Get over it, Burl.” She shook her head. “This must be some automated message. I’ve never had more than a dozen hits in a day.”

  As Holly stood there, the familiar click of new mail caught her attention. Her webmaster’s address popped up in her in-box. They were really true to their 24-7 promise. She click
ed on this second e-mail from her webmaster and sat down.

  Ms. Davis,

  You had 47,371 hits in less than twenty-four hours, which we did not anticipate for your account. I have adjusted the settings on your site to accommodate higher traffic.

  Sincerely,

  Joe Smith

  Webmaster

  Holly frowned. “No way could I have had enough hits to crash my site.”

  “Unless it was hijacked, and there’s only one kind of site that gets that kind of traffic.”

  Holly held her hand over her shoulder like a stop sign. “Don’t say it. I’ll never get you into heaven.”

  She clicked to her Web site and froze. There were 460 comments and 160,823 hits. “What on God’s green earth?”

  She scrolled through the comments.

  Awesome ghost. Gigme4209.

  “He’s got that right,” Burl said.

  Holly squinted at the message. “Huh? Who’s gigme4209, and how does he know Holly Grove has a ghost? The Gazette doesn’t circulate on the World Wide Web. Even the Deltas don’t spread the word to cyberspace.”

  She read the next comment.

  Amateur hour. You can put anything up on YouTube. Runwithit8921.

  “You do YouTube?” Burl asked.

  “No. I mean, I watch, but I’ve never uploaded a video.”

  Holly did a YouTube search for ghosts. At eight on the list was “Ghost in the Grove.” She hit PLAY. A shaky cell phone video of the parlor at Holly Grove spread across the computer screen. The camera was focused on the pier mirror draped in black. A hand with a beaded leather wristband pulled at the cloth.

  Holly pointed at the screen. “That’s the teenager from the tour.”

  “Yeah. Matt,” Burl said. “I got him good.”

  On the screen, a fog-filled circle appeared on the pier mirror. “Whoa,” Matt’s voice whispered through the speakers. Then a handprint melted through the hazy circle. The camera shook as the same voice said, “Whoa. Just freaking whoa.”

  A loud scream blared through the speakers, and the video jerked around the room, until it settled on Holly’s face, but way too close. The camera zoomed out to a full-body view of her.

  “D-d-did you see that?” Matt said from behind the camera.

  Holly’s voice came through the computer. “Told you I had a ghost.”

  “Awesome,” Matt said, his voice cracking. “This place rocks.”

  The view spun in a blur, until Holly’s face filled the screen. “Thanks, Matt. Come back anytime.” Her image became smaller as the camera wobbled away. “Hey, bring a friend.”

  Then the screen went black.

  Holly stared at the computer screen with her mouth open. She turned to Burl. “Do you know what this means?”

  Burl’s powdery face split in a smile. “This means you can’t afford to get rid of me.”

  Burl had a point, financially speaking, but Holly wasn’t willing to pay the high price of his constant company for the haunting.

  “We had a deal.” The planter’s bench scraped the wooden planks as she stood to face Burl.

  “I told you I changed my mind.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not ready to leave.”

  Holly clenched her teeth as she tried to tamp down her frustration. She’d never won a fight with Burl. She had to outsmart him, for once. “You’re right. You’re a valuable asset to Holly Grove.”

  “You’ve got that right.” Burl pointed to the laptop. “The pencil-pusher you’re giving free room and board to can’t get you worldwide living-color promotion like that.”

  “No, but I made a deal, and I stick by my word.” She picked up her empty coffee cup. “But I understand the sacrifice you’re making.” She turned and crossed the room to get more coffee and to avoid looking at Burl—to manipulate the master manipulator.

  “Sacrifice?”

  “Well, yes.” She topped her cup off with dark roast. “I mean, you are a ghost.” She chanced a glance at Burl.

  He pulled his shoulders back. “I’m a grade A ghost, baby. And don’t you forget it.”

  She sipped the hot brew and looked over the rim of her cup at Burl. “I’m sure you’ll get used to smelling bacon instead of tasting it again, ever.”

  Burl whiffed the air. “I can exist without bacon.”

  “No coffee in the morning, and no cocktail at the end of a hard day.”

  “I’ll drink vicariously.”

  She rubbed her finger around the rim of her cup, then lifted a shoulder. “Watching me drink champagne is almost as good as drinking it, I’m sure.” She set her cup on the counter. “But no wife in a physical sense, and no redheads and no—”

  “Wait a minute. I know what you’re doing.” Burl marched over to her and pointed a finger in her face.

  “Me?” Holly patted her chest and tried to look innocent. “I’m just trying to understand why you’d give up heaven for me.”

  Burl raised his finger higher and opened his mouth to speak but didn’t. He relaxed his hand and reached toward her face, as though he would stroke her cheek; then he pulled back. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. “Because I love you more than I ever realized I did when I was alive.”

  “If only you had loved me like this before.” She hesitated. “Before our marriage died. Before you died. It’s too late, Burl.”

  He raised his head. His brows slanted downward over a sadness in his eyes she’d never seen, and his image faded away.

  * * *

  Jake bounced down the dusty road to Mackie’s trailer in his rental car. Mackie seemed to have disappeared, but that was something he did well if he wanted to. Jake blew out a heavy breath. He was no longer sure if Mackie had wanted to disappear or had to.

  Finding Mackie’s set of keys to Holly Grove would prove Mackie could have used the keys, not that he actually had. If the keys were missing along with Mackie, it would be hard to deny Mackie hadn’t used them.

  Dog paced across the backseat and punctuated her steps with short barks.

  Everything looked the same at Mackie’s trailer, except for the thicker coat of dust. Jake parked, then opened the door. He grumbled as Dog bounded over the backseat and him.

  “Hold on, Dog.”

  Dog wagged her entire backside like she’d never seen a better sight than Mackie’s place. No matter how humble, this was home to Dog. And it’d been Jake’s home once. He wished he could see past the dirt and the years of disappointment to be as happy to see Mackie as Dog would be. Jake would settle for relief.

  Fresh handprints in the dust around the toolbox on Mackie’s truck caught Jake’s attention. A padlock secured the tools, which, Jake knew, were perfectly organized inside. He eyed the trailer for signs that Mackie was home.

  Dog planted her front paws on the doorstep and let out a sharp yap.

  Jake crossed the yard to the trailer. “Let’s see if he’s home, girl.”

  Dog whined and shifted from paw to paw.

  Jake rapped his knuckles on the metal door but didn’t wait for an answer. He stepped inside. The air in the trailer had marinated into a stale funk. “Anybody home?”

  Nothing had changed since Holly and he had been there. Jake scanned the room for the keys mixed in the clutter. He opened drawers, cabinets, and closets and poked through their contents. No keys.

  He leaned his backside against the kitchen counter and surveyed the kitchen, dining room, and den combo. It’d take hours to look through all this junk. He spotted a coatrack loaded with assorted jackets and shirts. A vision of Mackie rifling through pockets, looking for lost keys, flashed through Jake’s mind.

  He crossed the room to the coatrack. As he fumbled through the pockets, the coatrack tumbled to the floor. Jake groaned. When he righted the coatrack, he noticed a crude wooden key rack on the wall that had been hidden by the mountain of coats. The key rack held a collection of keys dangling from brass cup hooks that had been randomly screwed into a square piece of oak. At the back of e
ach cup hook, a paper tag identified the key. As he flipped through the tags, his chest tightened. On a tag at the bottom of the rack, scrawled in faded black paint, were the letters D, A, D. He’d stopped calling Mackie Dad back in junior high.

  Jake had been eight or nine when he’d made the key rack as a Father’s Day present. He’d collected wood scraps from Mackie’s truck and stolen the brass cup hooks from his box of screws. He had almost been finished when he got caught stealing a piece of copper wire to use as a hanger.

  Back then, Jake had tried to tell Mackie he was stealing for a good reason, but Mackie had said there wasn’t a reason for stealing that was good enough. That night, after Mackie had gone to bed, Jake threw the key rack in the trash can outside. He never saw it again. Until now.

  Jake swallowed down emotion that was more than he could chew. Mackie had never been the sentimental type. Yet he’d kept the gift Jake never got to give him.

  He thumbed a dangling key. Would it have been too much for the stubborn old coot to admit he appreciated his own kid making him a gift? Hell would freeze over before Mackie backed down from one of his platitudes.

  Jake shoved his fists on his hips and blew out a long breath. Let it go.

  Right now, all he needed to do was find out if Mackie’s Holly Grove keys were here.

  The last tag Jake flipped over had the initials H.G. on it, but the keys were missing. He rubbed the tag between his thumb and finger.

  Mackie was missing.

  Someone could have taken Mackie’s keys, like Holly said. Or Mackie could have used them last night to get into Holly Grove. Jake’s guts churned. As tough as Mackie was, he’d never laid a hand on Jake, and the prowler looking for the dope hadn’t so much as thrown a punch.

  CHAPTER 22

  Holly jumped at the sound of the screen door slamming and turned to find Jake walking into the kitchen. His face looked like a road map to misery. He lumbered to the coffeepot without as much as a sideways glance at her.