Wild Wild Death

by Casey Daniels

  “What’s that?” Ella spoke into the phone. “Can’t he come here to my office? Oh. Sure. Of course. I’ll be right there.” She hung up and headed for the door. “Someone out in the lobby needs to see me,” she said. “And whoever it is, he won’t give a name or come down here. Has to see me out there. I’ll be right back.”

  And by the time she was, I hoped I’d be done doing what I had to do.

  What I was feeling more and more guilty about doing with every jar of spaghetti sauce and every (gulp) turquoise sundress.

  What I had to do, anyway.

  I told myself not to forget it, and before Ella’s door closed behind her, I got to work. Somewhere in the office, I knew Ella kept the keys to the mausoleums that were no longer in family hands.

  Yeah, like Goodshot Gomez’s.

  The trick, of course, was to find them.

  I raced around to the far side of her desk and whipped open drawer after drawer.

  Granola bars, bottled water, hand cream, paper clips, computer paper, appointment book.

  “Keys,” I grumbled to myself. “I need the keys.”

  When the desk yielded nothing, I zipped back to the other side of the office and tried the file cabinets. If I were Ella…

  I drummed my fingers against the metal cabinet.

  “If I were Ella,” I said to myself, “I’d file keys under…”

  I pulled open the drawer marked H–L and practically whooped. Right behind the divider with the K on it was a zippered pouch and inside was a key ring with a dozen or so keys on it, the kind that are old and clunky and heavy, complete with curlicues on the handles.

  By the time Ella came bustling back into the room—her cheeks pink and her breaths coming in short, quick puffs—those keys were safely inside my purse and I was lounging in one of her guest chairs like I didn’t have a concern in the world.

  Guilt?

  I didn’t have the time.

  Dan’s life was hanging in the balance and Goodshot Gomez hadn’t needed his bones for like a hundred years.

  Tell that to my pounding heart and shaking hands.

  “Well, that was odd.” Thinking it over, Ella shook her head. “That was Reggie. You know, the Reggie you worked with on that cemetery restoration. He said he was driving by, and he stopped in to say hello. Well…” Ella’s eyes sparkled, but that was no surprise. In spite of the fact that she’s like twenty years older than him, Ella has had the hots for Reggie since the first day she saw him—sans shirt—at that oldy-moldy cemetery. It was a classic case of Mrs. Straight-and-Narrow being drawn like a moth to the flame of the ultimate Bad Boy.

  And Reggie was one bad boy.

  “I told him you were here,” Ella said, “but he said he had to run.”

  “Reggie’s a busy man.” Which was why I was grateful he’d taken the time to help me out. “Most drug dealers are. Busy, I mean. Not men. I mean, maybe some of them are men, but—”

  “Pepper, what on earth is wrong with you?” Ella put a hand on my arm. “You’re as jumpy as a June bug.”

  I was, and I had to get away from Ella’s mothering or I’d risk everything and blurt out the truth.

  I gathered up my purse and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” Her command stopped me cold just as I was about to make my escape. I cradled my purse in my arms and hoped she didn’t hear the keys clinking inside. Ella bustled toward me. “You forgot the food.” She handed me one bag. “And your new clothes.”

  I thanked her and got out of there as quickly as I could, and I hoped she didn’t see the guilt written all over my face. Stealing from Ella made me feel terrible.

  Of course, I’d feel even worse if I didn’t do everything I could and Dan ended up dead.

  By the time my head settled and I groped through the bits and pieces of Goodshot’s shattered coffin to grab my flashlight, I was covered with cobwebs, dirt, and—

  There was something on my lap, and I held my breath and shined my light that way.

  Hand.

  Skeleton hand.

  My heart stopped. Which wasn’t such a bad thing because when it banged to a start again, I choked on the bile that clogged my throat. If I wasn’t afraid someone might hear, I would have let out a shriek full blast. The way it was, I stifled it, and my pitiful cry wobbled back at me from the cold stone walls.

  My teeth gritted and my insides shimmying like my mother’s legendary (and not for good reasons) lime-and- marshmallow Jell-O salad, I did my best to ignore the ick factor and used two fingers to pluck the hand off my lap. As quickly as I could, I shoved it in the pocket of the blue windbreaker, and before I could talk myself out of it, I skimmed my light around the underground chamber to see where the rest of Goodshot had landed.

  His ribs were against the wall. What looked like leg bones were near my feet. His skull stared back at me from where it had come to rest near my right hand. In the trembling light of the Rayovac, those empty eye sockets were bottomless.

  Creepy. Majorly. I was used to the dead, sure, but when I encountered them, they looked the way they had in life. Skin. Clothes. Hair. Just like the living, only they weren’t, of course. And not a bone in sight.

  Of course, if I was going to keep Dan alive, I couldn’t let a few old bones stop me.

  Using the bier as a prop, I got to my feet and reminded myself that the next time I burgled a body, I needed to bring along latex gloves. Too late now, so I got to work, opening my tote bag, plucking up bone after bone, stowing them all in my tote. Within a few minutes, I had every bone and was brushing off the dirt of more than one hundred years of entombment from my hands.

  At the same time I limped over to the winding staircase, I prayed that no one would come down here to check on Goodshot anytime soon, just like no one had checked on him in years. I was all set to get the hell out of Dodge when my light hit the pile of rotted and shattered wood and glinted off something metallic.

  Could anything gross me out more? I thought not, so I bent to poke through the rubble.

  “Belt buckle,” I crooned, and wiped it against the leg of my jeans. I knew the story, and it was that Goodshot got the buckle from Queen Victoria and that it was his prized possession. It only made sense he’d be buried with it.

  The buckle was rectangular, maybe three inches across, and from the weight of it, I’d say it was the real deal, too. Intricately worked silver leaves and curlicues surrounded a golden star ringed with sparkly stones. Grime or no grime, I’d been raised right, and I’d been raised by a mother who expected turquoise Tiffany gift boxes for all occasions, and a dad who knew there would be hell to pay if they didn’t show up; I knew diamonds when I saw them. The star was engraved, and I held my light nearer and bent closer for a better look at the initials, VR.

  Okay, I wasn’t at my best, what with being in a filthy tomb and having just picked my way through the earthly remains of Goodshot Gomez. But even I recognized that the initials didn’t make sense. Goodshot’s would have been CGG and the Queen’s… well, QV, I suppose. But hey, who was I to question hundred-year-old customs? Instead, I stowed the belt buckle in my tote bag, too, suspecting that Dan’s kidnappers might want more tangible proof than just some filthy bones. I’d had experience with murderers and traitors. I’d crossed paths with poisoners and plagiarizers and thieves. I had never dealt with kidnappers, but something told me they were not a trusting bunch. There were plenty of photographs of the Queen presenting that buckle to Goodshot, and in that moment, I decided to take along the Garden View pictorial guide that showed one of them. Along with the bones, the buckle should be enough to prove my sincerity—not to mention my felonious tendencies—and assure Dan’s release.

  If I could make it out of the cemetery before I got caught.

  It was all the reminder I needed that I had to get a move on. I checked the time on my cell. Fifteen minutes before Security showed up.

  The minutes ticking away inside my head, I got back outside, locked the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of r
elief. “Well, that’s that,” I told myself.

  “Not exactly.”

  Honestly, by now, I should be used to the dead popping up out of nowhere. That didn’t stop me from screeching and slapping a hand to my chest to keep my heart from pounding out of my ribs. That is, right before I turned around and found myself face-to-face with the one and only Chester Goodshot Gomez.

  “What do you mean, not exactly?” So it wasn’t an elegant introduction. Ghosts aren’t big on small talk, and I didn’t have time for chitchat, anyway. “I got your bones.” To prove it, I rattled my tote. “And now I’m out of here.”

  He was a stocky guy of forty or so wearing a black-and-red-plaid shirt, jeans, and beat-up cowboy boots, and his terra-cotta skin was so crinkled from the sun, it reminded me of a rumpled blanket. Since he was a full head shorter than me, Goodshot had to step back to give me a careful once-over. He swept off his cowboy hat. His coal black hair was parted in the middle, braided, and the braids were wrapped in red fabric and hung down to the middle of his chest.

  “You got nerve for a woman,” he said. “I’ll give you that. And you’re sure a sight for these sore eyes. But you’re not usin’ your head, girl. Not if you think you can just waltz out of here and—”

  I was way ahead of him, and not inclined to stand around shooting the breeze when my reputation, not to mention my crystal clear, unbesmirched, and unblemished arrest record might be hanging in the balance. I marched away from the mausoleum, heading back toward where I’d climbed the wall, and told him, “Not to worry. I brought a step stool with me. You know, to help me get over the wall and get in here in the first place. And I was plenty smart.” This should have come as no surprise. For a few reasons:

  1. He knew I could see and talk to him, and

  2. There was only one person in the world who could, so

  3. He must have known who I was.

  Still, when it comes to setting the record straight, it never hurts to lay the groundwork early with ghosts. They’re all about please, please, please when they need my help. And way too bossy when they think they’ve got the upper hand.

  “I tied a rope to one leg of the stool.” I dragged it out of the bushes where I’d hidden it and showed him. “When I got to the top of the wall, I hauled the stool up, then lowered it down here. I’ll do the same thing now to get back to the other side. No muss, no fuss. And no more exertion than necessary.”

  “No sense, you mean.” He didn’t elaborate, just chewed his bottom lip, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched me position the step stool on a level spot so I didn’t have to worry about nasty spills.

  When I was done and realized he was still just standing there, still just watching, I threw my hands in the air. “What? You…” I stabbed a finger at him. “You’re not happy.”

  “Happy’s got nothin’ to do with it. You stole my bones.”

  I never considered that he might be pissed, but dang, that clock was tick, tick, ticking away and I didn’t have time for drama. “You haven’t needed them for years,” I pointed out. “And besides, stealing them, it’s all for a good cause.”

  “I’m glad of that, at least.” Goodshot’s voice was husky and as mellow as smoke. That didn’t take away the sting when he said, “Somebody’s gonna come lookin’. You know, down in my tomb.”

  I hated to hurt the guy’s feelings, but he hadn’t had a visitor in years. “They’re not—”

  “They’re gonna find that mess you left behind,” he said, ignoring my protest completely. He paused. One heartbeat. Two. Needless to say, these were my heartbeats I’m talking about. “That is, if you don’t put back those keys.”

  I was already on the first step of the stool, all set to climb the rest of the way, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Dead being relative, of course. Just like the heartbeat thing. The keys were in my pocket—the one without Goodshot’s skeleton hand in it—and I jingled them. Dang, how I hated it when ghosts one-upped me! Nothing good could come of the ghostly grapevine getting wind of the fact that I wasn’t on the ball when it came to these sorts of things, so I scrambled to save face. “I’ll just come by to see Ella again tomorrow and—”

  It wasn’t exactly the most pitiful suggestion in the world but that’s how it looked when Goodshot shook his head. “Suspicious,” he said.

  “Okay. Yeah. Right. Two days in a row might be too much. But I could wait awhile. Until next week. And I could come then and—”

  “Risky.”

  I blew out a breath of frustration. “Nobody’s going to look for the keys before then. They never have.”

  “Which doesn’t mean Ella’s not going to look for something else and notice the keys are missing.”

  He was right.

  Another thing I hate about ghosts.

  That, and them coming up with ideas like, “You could go right now and put them back where they belong.”

  “Yeah, if I want to take the chance of getting caught.” I whipped out my cell and glanced at the time. “Security is going to be by here in just a couple minutes, and when they’re done here, they swing past the administration building. Since the building is locked up tight after hours, that means me breaking in. I don’t have keys anymore, you know. They took mine away when they canned me.” Just for good measure, I grunted. “Like I’d ever really want to come back to this place.”

  “You are back.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Just like you didn’t when your friends left you here.”

  Goodshot shrugged. “I don’t hold it against them. They did what they could. And then they got busy and moved on.”

  A very good idea, and keeping it in mind, I moved on. If I was going to end up spending the night in jail, at least it wouldn’t be because Security rounded a corner and found me standing there talking to thin air. I wove in and out of the maze of headstones, heading for the administration building with Goodshot trotting along beside me. “I’m taking your bones to New Mexico,” I told him.

  His eyes sparked. “I always wanted to be buried with my ancestors. You are the answer to my prayers.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn’t about to tell him that burying him wasn’t as important as making sure Dan stayed alive. Besides, I had other things to worry about. Like how I was going to get into the office. I jingled the keys in my pocket and had a thought. “The window was open!”

  Hope springing in my heart, I covered the distance to the administration building in record time. Sure enough, Ella’s window was still opened a crack, just like it had been earlier in the day. I squeezed my hands into the opening, braced them, and—

  Broke a nail.

  “Damn.” In the meager light of the nearest security lamp, I studied the damage.

  Goodshot chuckled. “Women is women. No matter where or when. You ain’t gonna let a little thing like that stop you, are you?”

  I wasn’t. To prove it, I tried the window again. This time, I was able to raise it a couple inches. “A little more,” I grunted. “A little more…” Of course, just because the window was open didn’t mean I’d have an easy time getting into it. I looked around, found a nearby trash can, and dragged it over.

  “Bones and dirt and trash,” I grumbled, climbing on the trash can. It shifted and I braced myself against the building. Before anything could happen that would involve more dirt and maybe me being found facedown in the grass by Security, I threw one leg into the office, hoisted myself onto the sill, and slipped inside.

  Goodshot was already in there waiting for me.

  “Must be nice to be a ghost,” I grumbled. “And just poof everywhere you want to go.”

  “Never had no reason to prowl around watchin’ the living world. Until tonight, that is.” He grinned. “When you showed up and stole my bones. Of course, it’s a might inconvenient not being able to touch things.” He strolled over to Ella’s desk and put his hand on her computer monitor. It whooshed right through. “I hear touching people isn’t a good idea, either
.”

  I wasn’t about to give him the chance to demonstrate. See, I knew from experience that the touch of a ghost can freeze a person to the bone.

  Keeping my distance, I hurried to the other side of Ella’s office, slipped the keys back into the file drawer where I’d found them, and dragged myself back outside through the window, closing it down behind me. Goodshot was waiting for me by the road, but as I made a move to start across, he put a hand in the air to stop me.

  “The automobile that patrols, it’s getting nearer.” Like one of the Indian scouts in an old Western movie, I expected him to put one ear to the ground and tell me just how far away Security was. I guess he knew it, too. He rolled his eyes and pointed. “Headlights,” he said. “And they’re comin’ this way.”

  I was already standing in the center of the road when the glare of car headlights split the night. Blinded, I froze, and frozen, I was no match for the Security guard who threw open his door.

  “Hey, you! Stop!” It was Mal Johnson. I recognized his voice as well as the silhouette of his barrel chest and stubby legs against the brilliance of the patrol car’s headlights. I wasn’t about to give him a chance to recognize me. I hunched into Quinn’s windbreaker, hiked my tote up on my arm so I wouldn’t lose any of the bones, and took off running.

  “This way! Fast!” Goodshot moved like the wind. But then, he didn’t have a body to worry about, or lungs that screamed for air. He raced ahead of me, waving me forward, and if I’d had any breath at all, I would have pointed out that we were moving farther from where I’d left the step stool, not toward it. The way it was, I didn’t have the luxury. Mal might not be able to hear Goodshot, but he’d hear me for sure if I dared to open my mouth. I tried my best to keep to the shadows of headstones and angels and hulking mausoleums, Mal’s huffing and puffing always just paces behind me.

  “Take a sharp left turn when I tell you.” Goodshot’s voice hissed in my ear. “Get ready… now!”

  I did as I was told and instantly felt the ground go out from under my feet. The grass was slick from the rain earlier in the evening, and my sneakers took to the hill like skis. I slid down, somehow managing to keep my body in balance and my mouth shut. At the bottom of the hill, I would have congratulated myself for making it unscathed if I hadn’t heard Mal groaning and grunting behind me.