Forever Road

by Catie Rhodes

  “It’s a reeking mess in there,” I said. “I don’t envy whoever cleans it up.”

  “That crime scene cleanup crew is used to it. That’s all they do,” Benny said. He jiggled the padlock I had put on the door. “Got the key to this?”

  I slapped my forehead. “It’s in the house with her personal effects. I’ll run down there and get it.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll ride down there with me in Big Red.” Benny patted the huge red truck’s side as though it was a pet.

  Benny had to help me into the monstrosity on wheels. Being short sucked. The bumpy pasture bounced us around so hard walking might have been more pleasant. When we got to the house, I expected Benny to wait in the truck, but he followed me inside. I dragged the box of Rae’s effects out and removed the key from the sketchbook where I’d stowed it. Benny leaned too close to me, looking at the pictures. He wore some loud cologne I’d have never expected a man of his social standing to wear.

  “Did Rae draw these?”

  “Far as I know.” I didn’t want Benny hanging over me, so I handed the book to him and let him look by himself.

  Benny leafed through the pictures, smiling, until he reached the final page. A look of horror crossed his face. I craned my neck to see what he’d found. I had to slap a hand over my mouth.

  I missed this picture during my one and only perusal of the sketchbook. On the final page, it depicted a naked man standing at the sink in the travel trailer. The man had his back turned, looking out the tiny window. He was long and lean with little stick legs and a thatch of hair over his buttocks. A giggle slipped through my fingers. Benny, unamused, grimaced and wrinkled his nose. He tossed the sketchbook back in the box.

  “That garbage?”

  “No. Of course not.” I planned to buy a protective sleeve for the sketchbook. I wanted to show it to my future children, to share Rae’s talent with them. She deserved to have something good associated with her.

  Benny took a deep breath and started to speak, but instead shook his head. I waited for him to leave, but he stood looking at the cardboard box containing Rae’s effects. He twirled his key ring from one finger and shifted his weight.

  “Benny, I hate to run you off, but I have an appointment. You’ve got the keys and all the papers we had. If you need anything else…”

  Benny jerked and turned his eyes to me. They darted from me to the box and back again. “Of course.”

  I saw him to the door and almost had to push him outside. He left the house with one last strange look over his shoulder. Icy fingers tickled at my spine.

  I lied. I had nowhere to go. Benny acted so oddly after he saw the drawings in Rae’s sketchbook, I just wanted him out of the house. I grabbed the sketchbook and looked at the sketch of the naked man again. Could it be Benny? Of course, I’d never seen him naked, thank God, so I had no way to know. The naked man’s physique was similar enough to Benny’s for me to believe they were one and the same.

  Again, I considered telling Dean about the sketchbook. He really needed to see it. I wanted to tell someone about Benny Longstreet’s reaction to the sketch. Dean was the logical choice. I took out my cellphone and Dean’s business card but couldn’t make myself call him.

  I dreaded enduring his fury after the scene at the sheriff’s office. Then, I thought back to his demeanor. He hadn’t acted too excited. The more I thought about it, Sheriff Joey had maneuvered himself into the master of ceremonies position. And he showed the most emotion when Rainey rescued me. I remembered the way Dean acted every time Joey opened his mouth. I had the feeling Dean didn’t like Joey any better than I did.

  That settled it. I punched in Dean’s number but stopped when I saw Memaw’s headlights coming down the driveway.

  She had stayed away until the shadows lengthened in the onset of full dark. I turned on the porch light and met her at the door. Lines of fatigue were etched into her face. She walked with a little drag to her step and tripped coming in the front door. I grabbed her arm and steadied her.

  “Is it done?”

  “It’s gone.” I took her tote bag and helped her out of her jacket. “I’ve made a stew and some onion cornbread. Why don’t you go wash your hands while I dish it up?”

  Memaw nodded and stumbled down the hall. She grabbed the frame of the bathroom door to balance herself. I worried the tutoring was getting to be too much for her. Even if I wanted to, which I did, I couldn’t suggest she do less of it. She said it kept her from becoming one of those old people who barely knew their own names.

  I ladled the stew into bowls and cut wedges of steaming cornbread for both of us. Memaw dragged back into the kitchen wearing her housecoat and pajamas.

  Rae’s sketchbook lay on the table. As I cleared the dishes, Memaw leafed through the pages, tears brimming in her eyes. She wore a soft, proud smile. When she got to the last picture of the naked man with the thatch of hair over his buttocks, she burst out laughing. I noticed she covered her mouth the same way I had, as though embarrassed, but too amused not to laugh. I couldn’t help smiling.

  “I’ll miss that girl.”

  I turned my back and scrubbed the pots and pans in the sink. I didn’t want Memaw to see my grimace. Despite the heat coming off the hot oven, the room had a ghostly chill to it. Rae lurked somewhere near. I didn’t have to miss her. She never left for me. I dreaded our next encounter, which I imagined would happen pretty soon.

  Memaw took out her Bible and a study guide and began working through a chapter. I went to my room and called Dean Turgeau. The call went straight to voicemail. More disappointed than the situation warranted, I left my number and asked him to call me back about some information I’d like to share with him. This was the one chance he’d get from me. If he acted like an ass, we could stay enemies.

  I waited fifteen minutes for Dean to return my call before I decided he wasn’t going to respond to me. I yawned. The day had been a doozy. Maybe a good night’s sleep would put a new spin on things. I put on my pajamas and got under the cover and realized my exhaustion didn’t equal sleepiness. I sat up in bed and opened the book I had been reading.

  The lamp beside my bed flickered on and off, and the door to my closet swung open. My heart kicked into gear as adrenaline entered my bloodstream. Footsteps rang on the hardwood and abruptly cut off to swish over the rug next to my bed. I scooted as far to the other side of the bed as I could without falling out, moaning as I scrabbled to turn on the other bedside lamp. The bed moved, and the indention of a butt appeared next to my legs.

  Rae’s ghost no longer wore the bloody garments in which she had died. She now wore a white dress fashioned to look like the one Marilyn Monroe wore in that famous picture of her standing over a grate, the breeze from the subway underneath making her dress fly up. Rae’s version of the dress covered a lot less skin.

  “I can’t do this by myself. I don’t know how. You have to help me,” I whispered. I didn’t need Memaw to hear me talking to myself. An icy breeze picked up in my room. A clump of papers blew off my dresser and littered the floor. The wind stopped swirling.

  “That helped a lot.” I got out of bed and stooped to pick up the papers. They fluttered out away from me. Irritated, I chased the papers around the room. Each time I got close and bent to pick them up, they moved out of my reach. Rae’s amusement filled the room, malicious as when she was alive. Finally, I slammed my foot down on the papers. The wind in the room died down, and Rae faded from sight.

  The papers were nothing more than a mish-mash of junk I had collected over the week. One was a mock-up of the program Memaw planned to hand out at Rae’s memorial service Saturday. It featured a picture of Rae and me as children, smiling gap-toothed smiles with our arms around each other. Another was a flyer from the museum—which meant Hannah Kessler sent it—calling for volunteer tour guides well-versed in the lore surrounding the Mace Treasure. The last item was the letter I’d stolen from Michael Gage the day I cleaned Mace House.

  I made a mental note n
ot to ask for Rae’s help again and sat down to reread Gage’s letter. I still found the whole mystery pretty chilling, what with the missing persons entry for his wife online, or at least someone who could have been his wife.

  I turned on my laptop and searched for Jerry Bower again and found a website connected with his Facebook account. I visited it and noted his email address. My common sense told me to drop the matter and mind my own business, but I couldn’t quit thinking about Sharon Gage and her big smile in that picture. I didn’t believe for one minute she just blew off her family after contacting them. Most likely, something bad had happened to her.

  Besides that, I wanted to know more about Michael Gage. I didn’t understand him. He could have had his pick of any number of women in Gaslight City. Why the fascination with me? I didn’t even attend his church regularly. Most of all, I couldn’t get over the fury I saw in his eyes. It contrasted sharply with the image he presented to the world.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I set up a fake email account and sent Jerry Bower the following letter:

  Mr. Bower,

  I am Michael Gage’s secretary at First Baptist Church of Gaslight City. Pastor Gage was thrilled to get your letter. He started telling us all about his adventures in Guatemala. It sounded so exciting.

  I decided to do a special program to pass out next service showing Pastor Gage’s history. I wanted to include some of his Guatemala pictures if possible. You can send them to this email as a .jpg, and I’ll do the rest.

  Please, Mr. Bower, don’t put yourself to any trouble about this request. I know you and your family are getting ready to move, and this is not the most important thing in the world.

  Thank you,

  Patti Harrison

  I closed Jerry Bower’s webpage and looked up Sharon Zeeman Gage’s missing page. I stared into the smiling, freckled face of the woman in the pictures and hoped I could help her.

  10

  Friday morning, I had an early appointment to help one of the bed and breakfast proprietors. She had so many bookings she rented out the carriage house where she and her husband kept an apartment and camped at her daughter’s home. I helped serve breakfast to thirty guests and then worked with housekeeping to get the old house back in shape again. The mess people left in a rented room never failed to amaze me. I knew they didn’t do stuff like that at home. At least, I hoped not.

  My next appointment was not until much later in the day, so I went home to rest. Rae’s memorial service was tomorrow. I suspected it would tire me out more than working nonstop for twelve hours.

  Memaw sat at the table, a sheaf of papers before her. She scribbled comments in red, grumbling under her breath.

  “Lazy kids,” she said in greeting. “I’m glad you’re getting me a computer for Christmas. That old piece of junk in there locks up when I try to use the comments function.”

  I made a mental note to go ahead and order her computer and give it to her early. It went against tradition, but she needed it now.

  “The program you made for the memorial service looks great. Where did you find that old picture of Rae and me?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a box of them. I’ll never forget that day.” Her smile turned wistful, and her eyes filled with tears. “The two of you and Hannah Kessler played hide and seek. You hid in an old trunk in the barn. The girls found you, but they couldn’t get the trunk open. You were pounding on that trunk, screaming and hollering, so the girls came and got me. Luckily, I had the key to that stupid thing in my jewelry box.”

  I had forgotten all about that day. A little girl wearing an old-fashioned dress had shown me where to hide. Once I got into the trunk, she closed it. It locked by itself. My child’s mind didn’t recognize her as a ghost. As an adult, I’d have noticed she had no shadow. Analyzing the memory for the first time in over twenty years, I wondered if she tried to kill me.

  “I remember that. You got so angry.”

  “Well, I told you girls not to play in that barn.” She set down her pen and took off her glasses. “Want to hear a weird story? I bought the trunk at an estate sale when your grandfather and I first moved to Gaslight City. Then I decided I didn’t like it and tried to sell it in my own yard sale.

  “One of the ladies at the yard sale asked me where it came from. When I told her, she said the family who owned it before me had a daughter who suffocated in it. I did some research. Sure enough, a picture of my trunk was right there in the Gaslight City Gazette in an issue from the 1930s. After that, I didn’t try to sell it again. I put it out at the barn and left it there. Of course, that was long before you were even thought of. Then, as luck would have it, you found it.”

  Yeah. Luck. A chill sank into me as I remembered that day. The little girl who convinced me to hide in there had looked funny, but I hadn’t thought anything of it. Now I realized her lips had been blue. As the memory took shape in my mind, it hit me the barn and that trunk had been the setting of the vision I had the day Rae died.

  My heart froze, then picked up speed. I had almost given up on deciphering the vision, but now I had it. My face tingled with excitement. I couldn’t wait to get out there, but I had to play it cool with Memaw. She never wanted to discuss my ability to see ghosts, not even before it got me sent to the children’s mental hospital. After she retrieved me from the mental hospital and won custody of me from Barbara, she advised me to never speak of it again to anybody.

  “I haven’t been out to the barn in ages,” I said. “I think I might go out there and look around.”

  “Better take an allergy tablet,” Memaw said. “It’s full of dust, mold, and pollen out there. And be careful. Don’t get in that trunk again.”

  “Give me a little credit.” I did take her advice on the allergy pill.

  Despite the sunny fall day, the barn interior resembled a black hole. Electricity had never been run to the old structure. My flashlight’s glow barely made a dent in the darkness. Junk, junk, and more junk filled every available spot. The barn still smelled of horse dung and hay, even though horses never occupied the barn in my lifetime.

  As I picked my way to the room’s center, where I last remembered seeing the trunk, the air inside the barn cooled. Rae was with me. I shined my flashlight over the covered shapes, searching for the rocking chair in the vision. I didn’t see it.

  I waded deeper into the barn, opening the horse stalls and shining the light around. Nothing. I went back to the main room and picked my way around the junk. I couldn’t believe I’d been wrong, but was about ready to admit defeat and go back to the house.

  A hollow-eyed face appeared in the darkness, right at the edge of my flashlight’s beam. I screamed and dropped my light. It rolled, splashing light over the walls.

  Cursing, I picked up the flashlight. Rae—or at least her specter—stood near the middle of the room. The hair on my arms stood up, but I walked toward her anyway. Next to Rae sat the trunk. I lifted the lid. Empty.

  My heart sank until I noticed the artillery box next to the trunk. I lifted it and slid the top backward. An envelope lay inside. I grinned and snatched it up. This was it, the key to the identity of Rae’s murderer. I looked up and said to the empty air, “This is it. We’ll get him.”

  For an answer, I got a swift rush of frustration and despair. It eroded my elation and left only the weight of depression. Was she angry? I didn’t know why. I’d found the stuff she showed me in the vision. I didn’t know what else she wanted me to do.

  A noise above caught my attention. I looked up at the hayloft just in time to see an object hurtling toward me.

  I leapt out of the way and fell into a pile of junk, scraping my arms and banging my head. The object crashed on top of the old trunk, splintering into a dozen pieces. I used my flashlight to see what had fallen. An old record player. I looked back up at the hayloft and found Rae watching me from above.

  Still just as much of a bitch in death as in life. Anger replaced my fear. “You go fuck yourself, Raelene Georgia Mac
e.”

  Back in my room, I opened the envelope with trembling hands and unfolded a thin sheaf of pages with entry after entry of items and dollar figures in faded spidery script. Someone had highlighted several items in yellow: a roll top desk, some kind of chest, and a traveling slope. Augustine Dial bought the traveling slope. That interested me.

  Jolene Fischer’s mother, the infamous Rudie Rushing, was descended from the Dials. I had a strong suspicion the traveling slope was the same haunted writing slope I helped Jolene pack away. Why had Rae been looking for that thing? The treasure? Oh, please. Not that again.

  I tossed the pages and the envelope down on my bed. Something rattled inside the envelope. I upturned the envelope and shook it. A business card fell out. I took one look at it and groaned. It belonged to Hannah Kessler.

  Of course. Hannah Kessler had to show up in all this. I needed more time with her like I needed a meal of ground glass. I gathered up the ledger pages, planning to cram them back into the envelope, and saw a handwritten note on the back. It had lots of cross-outs and corrections. It read:

  I will gladly disappear if you give me half a million dollars. Don’t try and tell me you ain’t good for it, cuz I know you are. Don’t be resentful, neither. I got trouble on my ass, too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do you this way. We had fun together.

  Well, well. Now I knew how Rae tried to cash in on her pregnancy. I suspected her blackmail scheme had backfired. That made more sense than something to do with that stupid, nonexistent treasure. If only I understood why she needed money. I had a sneaking suspicion Veronica played into it, but couldn’t believe Rae owed her money. What would that disgusting crone have that Rae wanted?

  Rae might have simply been looking for a big enough score to get out of Gaslight City and on the road to somewhere more glamorous. Had she been trying to escape someone, maybe Veronica? Or did it all boil down to Low_Ryder and the havoc the wrong man can wreak in the right woman’s life?