Another One Bites the Dust

by Chris Marie Green

  Brittany nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Why didn’t you tell my associate Ruben about the bracelets, or even the cops all those years ago?”

  “I . . .” She drew her hand away from Amanda Lee’s. “As I said, I didn’t think they were all that important. The thought honestly never even crossed my mind after we came out of the forest. The bracelets were only ridiculous pieces of rubber, and I actually forgot I’d even taken them from the car until months later, when I found them in my jacket pocket. Then, it didn’t seem to matter because none of the authorities cared about Jensen anymore. What were they going to do with some bracelets that she’d worn?”

  Before Amanda Lee could answer, Brittany belted back her martini and stood.

  “I’m sorry to rush off, but I have a luncheon to attend,” she said. “Is there anything else?”

  “No. But if I have more questions, would it be fine if I contacted you?”

  “Yes. And if you’d like to have the bracelets, they’re yours.”

  Amanda Lee beamed. “That would be valuable.”

  Brittany began to rattle off her work address and Amanda Lee wrote it down, then said she would pick the jewelry up tomorrow. Brittany specified that they would be at the lobby desk.

  Then she vigorously rubbed her arms, and Twyla’s eyes flashed back to their dark shade as she jerked back from Brittany.

  With a good-bye and another rub to her arms, Brittany left, signaling to the lingering waiter, who nodded. He stopped by the table to tell Amanda Lee to enjoy her iced tea, compliments of Ms. Stokley.

  Amanda Lee did no such thing. A couple of minutes later, she was out of her chair, striding over the patio and toward the parking lot. She didn’t say a word until we got to her Bentley, where she slid inside, waited for us to enter, then slammed the door.

  “Jensen, why weren’t you empathizing with Brittany?”

  I let Twyla take that.

  “Sorry,” she said so very innocently. “But I’ve, like, been dying to do something important, Jen. Forgive me?”

  Cassie sent her a soft look. She would’ve forgiven Twyla.

  I spoke to Amanda Lee. “Twyla says that she wanted to take a crack at the empathy this time, and even though it was, like, totally rude, she’s going to tell us every single thing Brittany was thinking.” To Twyla, “You stayed in there a long time.”

  “I’ve gotten pretty tubular at ghost stuff over the years. I’ve been at it way longer than you, so you can aspire if you want.”

  No use dwelling on her damage anymore. “So what did you get from Brittany?”

  Twyla actually became serious. At least the Robert Smith half of her did.

  “Since I don’t know what you were talking about while I saw this image, I don’t have any . . . What do you call it?”

  “Context?” I asked.

  “I guess. But I saw that, after you ducked out of the party, not even one of those kids left to take a whiz or anything. The four of them stayed together until they realized you hadn’t come back. They wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do any killing. Also, they were drunk and ultra-oblivious to everything around them.”

  I darted a gaze at Amanda Lee. “She says all my friends had an alibi and didn’t hear or see anything in the woods.”

  Amanda Lee closed her eyes like she was trying to tune into Twyla for the very first time.

  “An alibi,” Twyla said. “That’s it. I can tell you how Brittany found your bracelets, too.”

  “Let me guess. The bracelets were in the car.”

  “Is that what Britt-Britt told you?”

  Alarm bells went off in my essence. Had Twyla gotten different information?

  But then she flicked her fingers at my head. “Psych! That’s totally what happened. Brittany found them between the two front seats.”

  I must have taken them off. What other explanation was there?

  Amanda Lee said, “If Brittany gave all her friends an alibi, where does that leave us?”

  Twyla shrugged. “I sure wouldn’t waste my time looking up that Lisa chick or Andy Candy. Not if they weren’t even at the murder place.”

  Even the dead-and-gone Patrick McNichol, who might be somewhere here in Boo World, wouldn’t be a suspect. And Twyla had verified what Brittany had said about the group being oblivious to any clues around them.

  Cassie had already translated, and she added, “You can always try to find that person of interest you were talking about, just to see if he knows anything more. Milo, right? Could he be in our dimension if he hasn’t gone to the glare?”

  I sank over the front seat. “We could. Otherwise, it sounds like we’re back to square one.”

  That left the car in some awkward silence.

  Until, of course, Twyla spoke.

  “Why didn’t Amanda Lee get a vibe off any of your friends when that PI of yours was investigating?”

  Maybe I should’ve told Twyla the answer later since Amanda Lee was right next to us, but it wasn’t like it was a secret that Amanda Lee had hidden things from me.

  “She wasn’t out to solve my case, necessarily. Not then.”

  Amanda Lee understood what was going on and finished for me. “I wanted enough information to bring Jensen back to help me and that was the extent of it at the time. My mission was single-minded, and I got what I wanted.”

  She sent me a sheepish glance, but I figured if Wendy could forgive us for being so hard-core about Farah’s investigation, I could forgive Amanda Lee’s diligence about Elizabeth.

  Twyla was giving me a funny look now. “Just so you know, Brittany really was telling the truth about everything. And she was sad about you. I could feel all of it.”

  Cassie relayed the sentiment to Amanda Lee, who smiled gently at me.

  “I can second that, Jensen,” she said. “Brittany feels a lot of remorse. It’s just that she’s usually very proficient at ignoring those feelings. She compartmentalizes, and that’s why she’s such a successful businesswoman.”

  As she started the car, I clung to the fact that at least one of my old friends had grown up to be a success. And that I’d been remembered on even one anniversary by her.

  • • •

  Once we got back to her house, Amanda Lee decided to focus on Tim Knudson since my case had just dropped into the shitter. She’d already gotten ahold of Heidi on the car phone to touch base with her and to see if they and Nichelle could get together for what she called an “intervention.” Amanda Lee wouldn’t reveal her identity to Nichelle at the lunch, but she would be sitting nearby if Heidi needed her.

  Even though I didn’t think either of them would have any pull with Nichelle in getting her to leave Tim, it was worth a try. And Cassie promised she would stick by Amanda Lee’s side as a bodyguard, in case that dark spirit showed. Not that she seemed happy about this.

  As for Twyla? She was full of surprises today.

  “How about I try to see if that Milo guy is around Boo World?” she asked.

  We were floating outside my casita while Cassie and Amanda Lee headed inside. There weren’t any lookiloo ghosts around. Maybe they were gone for good.

  I cocked an invisible eyebrow at Twyla. “What’s the catch?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean why’re you being nice?”

  She inspected the dark-painted nails on her Cure side. “Maybe I feel kinda bad about stealing your empathy reading. Or maybe I just think you’re a little, like, pathetic.”

  “Always around to bump up my mood,” I said, getting ready to call up a travel tunnel so I could go to Tim’s house, where Louis was on duty.

  “Oh, barf, you’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”

  I paused, then settled into an I’m waiting glare. It totally worked.

  She let out a dramatic groan. “Gawd, I just wanna be a little awesome, okay? I mean, I never get to do anything, and I saw my chance today. Also, I really did want to help.”

  Now I felt sort of bad. In all the
decades she’d existed, Twyla had never grown out of being a teen, and if I recalled correctly, those weren’t exactly supposed to be the best years of most peoples’ lives. True—they’d been the best years of mine, but I didn’t have much basis for comparison when my post–high school days sucked so bad.

  A thought shook me. What if I would’ve never improved throughout life? What if my high school years were the best I would’ve had?

  I imagined Suze at the bar, rubbing her eyes, tired and worn and stooped at the shoulders. Was that how I would’ve ended up, lonely and overworked?

  Wow, I was in a dark mental place. Thank God for that Mello Yello and the good attitude I’d been in before I’d died, because I couldn’t imagine being a depressed drag all the time like Brittany had said I normally was.

  “You want to find Milo?” I asked Twyla. “Then do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Milo Guttenburg or bust!” she said, raising her hands in victory. Then she jittered toward the casita, probably going there to tell Cassie where she was headed. Over her shoulder she said, “I’ll take this to the max, Jen. I’ll track that mountain man down and come back with something that’ll help you. Just see.”

  She started slimming down and threading through the crack under the door. I turned away, grinning. Twyla was the little sister I never wanted but had somehow ended up with. Might as well make the most of it.

  But since I had a little psycho I’d never wanted in my life, either, I readied myself to travel to Tim’s house.

  12

  When I slipped through Tim’s gaping back porch screen door, I immediately encountered the psycho on the phone, pacing back and forth on the family room floor in a pair of khaki shorts with multiple pockets, bare chested.

  “Nich, I want you home. Now!”

  I heard her squabbling back at him very clearly since her phone voice was riding the air. Then I glanced over at Louis, who wasn’t too far away, hover-sitting over the dining room table with his chin in his hand.

  “My very own version of hell,” he said.

  “Sorry you have to deal with this.”

  He sat up, waving off the apology. “Nichelle is meeting Heidi for a late lunch after she does some shopping, and Tim’s unhappy about it. It’s the most riveting thing to happen all day.”

  “No doubt. As far as lunch goes, Amanda Lee put that together to see if Heidi can at least talk Nichelle out of living with Happy Boy.”

  “She has time to facilitate meetings?”

  “Sure, now that my own case has gone belly-up.” I chuffed. “It was a bust with Brittany today. Twyla read her, and she saw that all the kids at the party that night have an alibi. They were also too drunk and loud to hear anything happen to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” He frowned. “Why was Twyla reading Brittany instead of you?”

  “Long story, but I think I can encapsulate it with one phrase: desperate for something to do.” I tilted my head, putting the subject behind me for now. “Do you think that some ghosts, like us, just wear themselves out and that’s why they haunt their death spots? A few more weeks like this and I’ll need my spot’s constant energy just to exist.”

  He chuckled. “As far as I can remember, I’ve never been this active, either. Unfortunately, I have no answer for you in the other respect.”

  When Tim hung up the phone, we both focused on him as he tossed the device onto the counter in disgust. In fact, he did it so pissily that it dropped off the other side, cracking to the kitchen floor. I could sense the rage building in him as he stalked over to get it, slapping it back on the counter.

  Whoa, maybe Samsonite made those phones. Tim was handling them like the gorilla used to handle the luggage in commercials when I was little.

  He went to shut the sliding glass door, then aimed for the sofa, aggressively plopping down on it.

  O-kay. “He’s off work today?” I asked.

  “That he is.” Louis raised a finger. “By the by, do you know Einstein’s definition of insanity?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with experiencing something over and over again and expecting different results.”

  “Has it been that bad watching him?”

  Louis’ voice was monotone. “All he does is stay awake, watch TV, and look out the front and back windows. I might need to go out for a stiff drink with Randy soon.”

  “If only the alcohol stuck with us,” I said.

  He smiled, and I knew there was no place Louis really wanted to be other than here, where he was needed. Even when I’d first met him at a ghost gathering of sorts, he’d stood aside from everyone else, the biggest nonparty person ever.

  I whooshed to his side at the table. Tim turned around on the sofa midchannel surf, peering at the slight commotion. Narrowing his eyes, he went back to the tube.

  “Did you do any empathy on him?” I asked. “Just to see what’s going on in there?”

  “Yes, I did. It was an intriguing novelty at first, but his mind has been on one thing ever since.”

  I tried to think of what might be on any guy’s mind: boobs, beer, and a good ham sandwich. But this was Tim we were talking about.

  “Nichelle,” I said. “He’s been thinking about her and hasn’t been able to stop.”

  “Smart girl,” Louis said warmly.

  He almost reminded me of how my dad used to call me that. Smart girl. Coming home with a test with a big, bold A on it. Sitting in the family room with my parents when I was in grade school, all of us reading, Dad seeing me nose-deep in To Kill a Mockingbird.

  Smart girl, he would always say, tweaking my cheek.

  I was glad he and Mom hadn’t been around to witness their girl go dumb and all waste-of-lifish.

  “So,” I said. “Have there been any effects from my dream-digging last night? Did you sense that my suggestion of don’t-do-violence worked on Tim, or if he gets the feeling something’s off with us around?”

  “If you’re asking whether our boy’s got a sense of peace about him, I’d say no. That poor phone on the counter will testify to that. And if you’re wondering whether he’s catching on to the idea that there are ghosts around him, I can only say that he’s either willfully ignoring all the cold air that’s suddenly swirling in this place or he’s just ignorant, period. He reminds me of a dog I once had, shortly after I got married. You could do back springs in front of that animal and he would sit on the floor, maybe raising his eyebrows every so often at you. Too lazy to acknowledge anything going on around him, that dog. Or maybe he was so caught up with what was going on in his own canine mind that he didn’t care.” He nodded. “I miss that dog, but I won’t miss this one.”

  Laughing, I gave Louis a long gander. “You never mentioned that you owned a dog.”

  His eyes were as dark as molasses surrounded by smile crinkles. “It doesn’t make me special, Miss—”

  “Ah-ah.”

  “Jensen.”

  I grinned, then said, “It’s just that, out of all the ghosts I know, you’re the most private. Sure, I know how you died, but beyond that? I’ve got nothing on you.”

  “You know I went to SDSU.”

  “But I always wondered why you used your degree for working at that aircraft plant.”

  “I didn’t.” His gaze took on the distance of memory. “I was a teacher for a while. High school math outside San Diego, even though this was where I grew up. But then Pearl Harbor was attacked and my patriotic fire was stirred up and I moved my family home to be with my parents.”

  “You were in the military?”

  “They couldn’t use me.” He put his hand over the area of his heart. “It was bad in here. My heart was too frail to let me fight. So I got a job at the plant when there were openings, after they ran out of white people to hire. Didn’t get beyond the cleaning staff, but I was still doing my part for my country.”

  Something dawned on me. “You didn’t get in that ca
r crash because you had a heart attack or anything.”

  He laughed the fullest laugh I’d ever heard from Louis. “No, sugar. I was overly tired, and one moment, I was driving, the next I saw headlights in front of me, and—”

  He smashed his hands together, leaving us in silence. Tim’s TV, which was playing some raunchy movie about spring break, droned on.

  “If you ask me,” Louis said, “I’d gladly take my death over yours any day, so I’m not complaining. It happened quickly. That’s all we can ask for.”

  “What is it that tethers you to earth then, if it’s not a burning desire to solve your death or protect a loved one or what-have-you?”

  His tone went quiet. “For a while it was my kids, but then they all chose the glare before I could greet them in this dimension. They already had their minds made up, and they had no idea I was waiting here for them. I thought of following them onward, and I was ready to call my wrangler to scoop me up and escort me to the glare. But I realized I might never get to see them again at all, because what if we’re in a place where we don’t recognize each other? What if we don’t end up in the same place at all? At least here, I could stick around to watch over my grandchildren and so on. But there’s the rub—no one in my family seems to want to linger here after they pass away. Not like I do.” He lost his smile. “These days, my live descendants don’t pay much attention to their history. I’m not even sure they know who I was. It’s disheartening, and I was just about to open myself to my wrangler again when you walked into that ghost party, talking about Elizabeth Dalton. It inspired me, so I stayed.”

  You know how, as a human, emotion sticks in your throat? That’s pretty much what I was feeling now. I mean, how cool was it that I had someone from a long time ago around to tell me his stories? I might never find my relatives in Boo World—they might’ve moved on just as Louis’ relatives had—but Louis was here instead.

  It was especially nice that he felt like he mattered in the scheme of things now, and I suspected he might not have felt that way in life. Kind of like yours truly.

  “I’m glad you stayed, Louis,” I said.