PM09 - Supernatural Born Killers

by Casey Daniels

  I hoped my shoulders didn’t sag too much when I realized the subtext of what she was saying. I already had a murdered ghost on my hands, someone else who was going to die if I didn’t help, and no idea whatsoever of how I was going to figure out where to begin my investigation.

  “You were murdered,” I said.

  “Oh dear, no. That would be…” Searching for the right word, she blinked rapidly. “That would be simply too sensational, wouldn’t it? And I have always been…that is, I always was…anything but. I went quite peacefully at one of the nearby senior care centers. I assure you of that. Ninety years old. Quite an accomplishment, don’t you think?”

  She didn’t look a day over forty. But then, I’d learned that was part of the mojo on the Other Side, too. Ghosts could choose to appear as they had when they were alive, and happiest.

  I slipped into my guest chair. “So if you weren’t murdered, why are you…?”

  “Oh, how I’ve missed it all.” She took a deep breath. Well, not literally since she wasn’t breathing, but if I didn’t know better, it would have fooled me. “You see, I’ve been over at the retirement village for years. That would be thanks to Denice and Benny, my niece and nephew. They determined that I wasn’t capable of taking care of myself. Imagine!” Her sniff was small, and no less monumental because of it.

  “They managed to get legal custody and I got locked away with all the other old, forgotten people. But this…” When she glanced around my office, her eyes lit. “How I’ve missed this! The schedule. The routine. The satisfaction of making coffee first thing in the morning and the smell of mimeograph ink.”

  I eyed her with suspicion. “Are you telling me you actually enjoyed your years of working?”

  “Enjoyed?” She tipped her head and studied me as if I’d just stepped out of a UFO. “It’s not a matter of enjoying, is it? It’s a matter of doing what needs to be done.”

  “And you did what needed to be done.”

  “Well, certainly.” She stood and walked around to the front of the desk and I saw that her skirt skimmed the bottom of her knees and her shoes had thick, low, and very sensible heels. We hadn’t even officially met, and I wasn’t surprised. “We each have our place in the Universe, Miss Martin. Those of us who are lucky find that place early on and settle into it.”

  “And your place was in an office?”

  “You make it sound dreary, and I assure you, it was anything but. Yes, I began my career in the steno pool, but I quickly showed my worth. I’m Jean Tanneman.” She stuck out her hand, and I forgave her. After all, she was new to the dead game. When I waved her off, she took it in stride. “I was executive secretary to Mr. Martin Farquand. You must know the name. Everyone in town knew Mr. Farquand. He was once the head of the largest bank in Cleveland.”

  “And you were his right-hand man.”

  I wasn’t imagining it; her top lip actually curled a bit. That is, right before she realized she might be giving too much away. Jean’s shoulders shot back a fraction of an inch. “I’ve never liked that phrase,” she said. “After all, though men do all the truly important work within any corporation, without their secretaries…” A smile twitched her lips. “Well, you know as well as I do. Without their secretaries, men would get nothing accomplished.”

  We would need to have a talk about that truly important work comment, this ghost and I. Right now…

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. In just twenty minutes, a whole bus full of old folks from the Brecksville Senior Center would be arriving outside the door of the administration building, and I would have to be there to greet them.

  “That’s terrific,” I said because there didn’t seem to be any point in saying anything else. “But what are you doing here?”

  She swiveled her gaze to my desk, and to the papers now neatly piled there that had been on my desk chair when I left the office. From there she looked toward the manila folders tossed on top of the file cabinet across the room and the half dozen or so issues of Marie Claire I’d brought to the office with me for those off times when I could put my feet up and do some serious thinking about what I’d be wearing once fall officially arrived.

  Jean clutched her hands together at her waist. “Right before I retired, that’s when all the crazy talk started. You know, about equal rights for women. Equal pay. Equal job responsibilities. That’s all well and good when the women who are promoted to positions of authority are capable of handling them.”

  “And you think I’m not.” Don’t worry, I didn’t take this personally. We were talking about my job at Garden View, after all, and in all honesty, I wasn’t sure I couldn’t handle it, either.

  “I think you need someone who can get you organized.”

  Like Jean, I didn’t like giving too much of what I was thinking away, but I couldn’t help myself. I sat up like a shot. “You’d do that? For me?”

  “It would be a welcome diversion after all these years of inactivity. And my goodness, Miss Martin, I hate to be the one to tell you so frankly, but you certainly do need it.”

  It was more than tempting, especially when I glanced at the calendar on the wall (Ella had left it there, and that month’s picture featured white kittens with pink bows around their necks) and saw that Jean had died on the best of all possible days. The full moon had been just two nights previous. I’d have Jean’s help for nearly another month and in that time…

  I thought about the speakers’ bureau I’d never had time to work on.

  And the mail that needed to be answered, and the email that seemed to multiply whenever I wasn’t looking.

  I thought about Chet taking care of the newsletter. And Albert who, when he popped in for a minute the day before, said he was well on his way to getting my department’s budget in order.

  And I smiled the smile of a woman who loved the thought of having staff.

  Until…

  “What do I need to do in return?” I asked Jean.

  Her jaw went stiff. “Hardly anything at all.”

  “That’s what Chet and Albert said.”

  “And you handled their requests handily. Except for the vandalism, of course. I cannot condone that sort of tomfoolery. Still…” She puckered her lips. “It did show a certain amount of creativity on your part. And the ability to think on your feet. Just don’t get any ideas”—her voice hardened along with her look—“about trying such nonsense when I’m around. If you want my help, you’ll follow the rules.”

  “Done,” I said, even as I wondered how doing that might hamper whatever it was Jean wanted me to do for her. And let’s face it, what she wanted me to do for her is what it all came down to.

  I pinned her with a look. “So…?”

  “So…” She cleared her throat and her shoulders were stiff, but that didn’t fool me. When Jean turned her back to me, I knew for sure this was one subject that made Miss Efficient and Organized mighty uncomfortable. “Before you came into the office this afternoon,” she said, her voice low, “I was here, waiting, and there were flowers on your desk.”

  The sound I grumbled was halfway between a swear word and a harrumph.

  Jean looked over her shoulder at me. “You didn’t like the flowers?”

  “I did,” I admitted.

  “Then you didn’t like the men who sent them, that Quinn and Jesse.”

  I hate shilly-shallying. I shrugged, anyway. “I like them both, but—”

  Jean turned back to me. “But?”

  “Well, Quinn doesn’t believe in ghosts, and he doesn’t believe that I believe in ghosts. Or that I talk to them.”

  “I wouldn’t have, either,” Jean mumbled. “Before today.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Really, I do. Only Quinn was dead for a while a couple months ago and when he was, he actually came to see me. Well, his ghost did. So you’d think he’d get it, you know?”

  Jean nodded. “I know this whole business of being dead takes some getting used to. And I’ve got eternity to do it. If this Quinn ha
d only a little while…”

  “I guess I never thought of it that way,” I admitted.

  “And Jesse?”

  I looked at the bare spot that once held the flowers from Jesse and damn it, I shrugged again. “Whoever it was who said absence makes the heart grow fonder, never took into account a couple thousand miles and a phone call now and then. Don’t get me wrong,” I pointed out fast. “I’ll never forget Jesse. But now that I’m home, it’s getting harder to remember why I thought I was in love with him.”

  “It sounds like you have a decision to make,” Jean said.

  “You mean between Jesse and Quinn.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. You already know you don’t want Jesse. If you did, you’d be off to wherever it is he is, and you wouldn’t think twice about it. When it comes to men, you’ve already made your choice. Now you just have to decide if you can live with the fact that he doesn’t believe in your Gift.”

  As insights went, this was a pretty powerful one, and I chewed it over while Jean went back behind my desk and took a seat.

  “How’d you get to be so smart?” I asked her.

  She sloughed off the compliment. “There were always young girls in the office. You know, before they got married and left the bank to raise their families. There was always drama, and a broken heart or two.”

  “I’ll bet you broke a few hearts along the way yourself!”

  She fingered the high, stiff collar of her blouse. “That’s just it, you see. There was never time…”

  “No love life?” I didn’t mean for it to sound quite as brutal, but let’s face it, it’s hard to comprehend anybody living the life of a cloistered nun. Unless…

  I studied Jean with renewed interest.

  “You gave it all up, didn’t you? You gave it all up for your work.”

  She sighed. “And I never once regretted it. Not when I was at the bank. But all those years of retirement…well, I had plenty of time to think, to second-guess the choices I made. Seeing your flowers today, that made me aware that when I was alive, I never got so much as a single bouquet of flowers. Not from any man.”

  “You want—”

  “Flowers. On my grave. Oh, not all the time or anything. But once in a while.” When she glanced up at me, Jean’s eyes were moist. “Pink.”

  “You got it,” I assured her and watched her face light with a smile. When she bustled over to the file cabinet and started rooting around in there, she was humming.

  And me? I was thinking about that tour that was about to pull in. I’d already taken a step to leave the office when another thought occurred.

  “I know you haven’t been dead for long, Jean,” I said, “but you did say that word travels fast on the Other Side. I was wondering if you’d heard anything about a man who was murdered. Drowned, I think. He was trying to get me to help him out, but I haven’t seen him for a while, and he says someone else is going to die if I don’t help.”

  “My, that is serious.” You could have fooled me since Jean never once stopped leafing through the files in the drawer. “But I’m afraid I can’t help. Haven’t seen the man. Haven’t heard anything about him, either. But if I do…”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. I had a tour waiting for me, and Jean was too engrossed in being blissfully busy.

  That evening, I left the office at the stroke of five. No wonder. I had staff, and my staff was taking care of all the details I usually stayed late to handle. With an entire evening beckoning, I promised myself a trip to the mall, but on the way there…

  I tapped a disgusted tattoo against my Mustang’s steering wheel.

  Instead of driving to the mall without a care in the world, I found myself thinking about the wet ghost and how someone else’s life was in danger.

  And I couldn’t help it. Thinking about the wet ghost made me think about Quinn.

  And thinking about Quinn made me think about how I hadn’t seen him in a week.

  Or the ghost, either.

  And all that made me realize—

  I would have slapped my forehead if I didn’t need both hands on the wheel to steer my way around the traffic lined up outside Beachwood Place Mall and head to the freeway.

  Within a half hour, I had found a parking place (okay, so it wasn’t technically an official parking place, but it was sort of legit and who was going to care about one little extra car, anyway?) outside of the refurbished (and very pricey, by the way) factory building that housed Quinn’s seventh-floor loft.

  I was talking practically before he opened the door.

  “He only shows up when we’re together,” I said at the same time I scuttled inside and stationed myself near the floor-to-ceiling windows with their killer view of the river and the downtown skyline and far from the door so Quinn couldn’t shut it in my face when he pushed me back into the hallway. “The wet ghost only shows up—”

  “You haven’t seen him again?”

  For any other couple, it would have been an odd sort of exchange of greetings, but for me and Quinn, it was pretty much par for the course.

  “I haven’t,” I said, tossing my purse down next to the sleek leather couch. “And it never occurred to me, you know? But then I was in the car and I was thinking about it and…” I had no choice at this point but to stop and haul in a breath. I did my best to follow the logic that had led me here in the first place. “The first time I saw the puddles, those flowers from you were in my office, and the first time the ghost showed up, you were at my apartment. And then I didn’t see him again until we were at lunch together and now…” I threw my hands in the air. “No sign of his drippy ectoplasm. Not since last week when I saw you.”

  “Interesting.” Quinn was dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt that had the logo for a band called Silverlights on it. On any other guy, the outfit would have looked homey and casual. On Quinn, no surprise that it was homey, casual, and sexy as hell. He was holding a file folder and I saw that the amber-colored handblown glass pendant lights above the kitchen breakfast bar were lit, and that there were more files and papers scattered over the black granite countertop.

  “I’m interrupting you,” I said.

  “Just going over some papers.” He led the way through the living room and the attached dining room and over to the kitchen space where more windows revealed even more glorious views of the city and from this direction, a sliver of the Lake Erie shoreline. “I’m kind of busy.”

  As brush-offs went, it stung like hell.

  I wasn’t about to let that stop me.

  “I get it,” I said. “I know you’re upset about what happened at lunch the other day, and I understand. The dying thing, it takes some getting used to, and most of the ghosts I meet have had plenty of time. You never did. I understand that now, Quinn, and I swear, I’m not going to make a big deal out of it or bug you about it anymore. But don’t you see, us fighting, that means the ghost isn’t going to show up. And we can’t let that happen. Not when somebody else’s life is on the line.”

  He considered this for a moment or two before he said, “You want a glass of wine?”

  “Wine?” I stepped closer to the place where he’d been working. “Sure, I—”

  My words disappeared on the end of a gurgle of surprise, and I scooted closer to the countertop to take a better look at the papers and newspaper clippings scattered there.

  “This…” I grabbed the nearest newspaper clipping and held it up for Quinn to see. “This is—”

  “Jack Haggarty.” He had already opened a bottle of Shiraz and was reaching for two wineglasses. “You remember. The cop I used to partner with. The one who sent that postcard from New York last week. Every once in a while, I pull out the old files and go through them again, looking for something that will explain that murder everybody thinks Jack is connected with. I know, I’m wasting my time, but—”

  “But nothing.” I shook my head, and because he was pouring the wine and not paying any attention, I add
ed, “Jack Haggarty didn’t send that postcard. Not last week, anyway.”

  To say Quinn’s expression was incredulous is to underestimate the word. He handed me my wine and took a sip of his own before he asked, “And what makes you say that?”

  “Because last week, Jack was busy being dead. That wet ghost I’ve been talking to? It’s Jack Haggarty.”

  “You’re trying to tell me—”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything.” I set down my wineglass, but not before I took a sip. When something like this shakes up my world, a little calming libation is not a bad idea. “This is the guy,” I said, waving the newspaper article and the picture of Jack at Quinn. “This is the ghost who’s been leaving puddles all over the place.”

  A few months earlier, I knew he would have blown me off instantly.

  Apparently, we were making progress in our relationship because now, it took about fifteen seconds. But then, Quinn was busy opening and closing his mouth, struggling to find the words.

  As it turned out, the words that managed to come out were pretty much, “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Grumbling seemed a better option than telling him it was a stupid question. “Why would I kid you about this? And, oh!” I was so darned pleased with my thought process, I jumped up and down. Have no fear, the people in the apartment below had heard far more interesting sounds coming from Quinn’s place when I was visiting.

  “That explains it,” I crooned. “That explains why the ghost only shows up when we’re together. Jack was your partner. He knows you. He wants you to help.”

  While I’d been busy gloating about my brilliance, Quinn had downed his wine. He poured himself another glass and flopped down on the couch with it. “Maybe,” he said.

  Maybe.

  One word.

  And it said so much.

  A thread of warmth tangled around my heart, I hurried over to where he was sitting. “Are you saying you believe me?”

  “I’m saying…” As if he was worried about what he might see, Quinn took a quick look around the loft and when he didn’t see anything (well, of course, he didn’t see anything; I didn’t see anything, either), he sat back. “Jack can’t be dead. He’s sending postcards.”