A Ghost for Christmas (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Winters, J. D.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. When I saw him there in Bebe’s yard, I went a little crazy. I came over from where I was working on the tractor and threatened him. He laughed at me, called me a low-life, a field worker, a nobody. But I could handle that. It was when he told me Caroline was a slut that I went crazy. I was so mad, I was seeing red. I picked up a rock to scare him. And then, before I knew it, he was lying on the ground and the blood….the blood….” He seemed to be gasping for breath, almost weeping.

  For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. But not quite. Because he’d killed a man and that just wasn’t how you did things. But every step he took as he paced, the statue wavered.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he said. “And ever since, people have started popping up like whack-a-moles. You have to knock them down or they’ll destroy you. What can I do?”

  “You mean Adrian? Why did you have to kill him?’

  “Because he’d figured out what Caroline was doing and he was threatening to have her prosecuted. I couldn’t let that go. The poor little thing. She could hardly get over her husband’s death before she was confronted with Adrian accusing her of things and threatening things. It was horrible. I had to do something.”

  “So it was all for Caroline.”

  “Of course. What else is there?” He sighed. “And now I’ve got to kill you. I’m sorry about it, but it has to be done. I can’t leave you running loose to tell the world, can I? So off you go. Sorry. But there’s no other way.”

  “You’ll lose your job.” It was a stab in the dark, but I didn’t have much choice. “Bebe will be so distraught, she’ll close the place down and go back to Hawaii.”

  “No.” He looked genuinely worried. “No, she can’t do that.”

  “Of course she can. And she will.”

  “No, Caroline will buy her out. We’ll go on as before. We have to go on as before.”

  “No. Caroline will suck the money out of the project and sell the land. You wait and see. She’ll go to Florida and leave you high and dry.”

  “No!” He stamped on the wooden walkway and the statue shook so hard, I held my breath. It was about to come down.

  “Sure she will,” I said as loud as I could. “That’s the way these things always go, Hank. Don’t you know that?”

  “Shut up!” He raised the gun and took a shot at me. He missed by a mile, but it was close enough to send me into something close to cardiac arrest.

  I was going to die! I could hardly believe it, but it seemed too big to ignore. I was going to die right here in the dirt road and there was nobody who cared near enough to do me any good. My legs weren’t working well enough to let me try to run for it. And he’d probably shoot me in the back if I did anyway.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I asked him, my voice trembling horribly.

  “I guess so,” he said. “I really don’t have a lot of choice here.”

  “I…yes you do. You can give yourself up. They’re going to know it was you anyway. Why not give yourself up right now and get on their good side? I bet they’ll be ready with all sorts of special deals for a guy like you. You’ll be able to bargain down and get something good. Just try it. You wait and see….”

  “Shut up.” He waved the gun my way. “Just shut up and let me think.”

  I didn’t want him to think. “I think you should let me go,” I said. I’d finally managed to squeeze my way out of my cart as well by now, and I was edging toward the exit. “I don’t have anything against you, Hank. I didn’t know Kyle and I didn’t like Adrian. So why…?”

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered harshly. “I have to decide….”

  He looked up at the Kamehameha statue. “Hey, walk over this way,” he ordered, waving the gun.

  “No.” I froze. “I don’t want to.”

  “You have to. Come on.”

  What was he going to do, put me under the statue’s path and let her rip? That statue was huge enough and heavy enough to do a lot of damage to a person my size—or any size, for that matter. I didn’t want to die under King Kamehameha. It just wouldn’t be right.

  “Cut it out, Hank. I’m not going to go …”

  Another shot rang out and this one came too close for comfort. I moved to get out of the line of fire, and ended up right where he wanted me.

  “Hank!”

  “Shut up. Listen. Stand right over here by the statue and….”

  He wanted me in place to take the brunt of the statue falling. He was ready to make that happen. Then he could claim it was just an accident. I was too close to where he wanted me to be to rest easy right now. I had to get out of here. Good old Kamehameha was tottering.

  But I looked closer, trying to hold back panic. And what I saw was surprising. I wasn’t really in the position he needed me in. In fact, once I got this close I could see that it was where Hank was standing that was going to take the brunt of it. Unless he realized it in time.

  I swung around and suddenly I saw Dante materialize at the other side of the statue. He had a confident smile and a gleam in his eye. He winked at me. I held my breath. He gave me a look that clearly said, “Get ready to jump.” He pushed. I leaped out of the way. The statue came down as though it had been for-ordained—right on top of Hank.

  Hank screamed. He lashed out. But he couldn’t avoid Kamehameha’s wrath. Hah! In a moment he was down, the statue was on top of him, and he was unconscious. I looked at where Dante stood. He smiled, then began to fade. I watched him go, thankful with all my heart.

  By the time Detective McKnight showed up, I was cool and calm, as though I battled murderers every day. Paramedics had taken Hank off right away. He was in bad shape, broken bones, injured internals, all sorts of things that didn’t bother me a bit. The good detective seemed a little late to the party.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked him tartly.

  “Arresting Caroline,” he said, looking cocky.

  “That was fast,” I admitted. “So you already know all about how she was making copies of all Kyle’s treasures and raking in the dough by selling the originals.”

  He nodded, then the snarky light faded from his eyes and he looked almost sincere. “So how are you?” he asked softly, moving closer. “You okay? I heard he took a couple of shots at you.”

  Suddenly, tears were pricking my eyes. I swore and glared at him. Here I’d been solid and brave for at least an hour. One bit of compassion from the detective and I was going to lose it all?

  “Don’t act nice to me,” I ordered him. “I’ll cry. And then you’ll be sorry.”

  His face went blank and he took a step back. “Got it,” he said shortly. “So what is wrong with you, anyway? How could you have been so reckless as to put yourself into the position of a stand-off with a murderer? Next time be more careful. Okay?”

  I nodded and smiled at him. “Okay. I’ll work on my murder interface style. I’m sure I’ll get the knack eventually.”

  “Good.”

  Our gazes met and I swear something sparked between us.

  “Okay then.” He started to turn away, looked around and noticed no one was paying any attention to us, then turned back and grabbed me, kissing the top of my head, before walking away and acting gruff to the next person he met with.

  I stayed where I was, catching my breath. What a day. And I still didn't know what his first name was.

  Things didn’t calm down until the next afternoon. People had come and gone, including Jill and Michael and Ginny and a lot of people from town who I didn’t know. I’d actually had a job offer. Aunt Bebe was friends with a woman on the town council. It seemed they were having trouble with plans to put on their Christmas pageant and needed a new Activities Director for the Winter Session-their old one had just quit in the midst of a huge community fight. Did I want the job? Was I staying for awhile? Maybe.

  Reporters had hung around for hours, asking questions, some even searching the yard, trying to figure out what the bad guys had been looking for.
I honestly didn’t know, so I didn’t feel like a hypocrite saying so. But it turned out Bebe was lying.

  “Caroline was so distraught, she pretty much confessed everything to me that last day when I went to keep her company,” she told me once everyone had cleared out. “Except the murders, of course. She didn’t actually commit them so she feels she’s not guilty there.”

  “She’s guilty as sin if she knew about them,” I retorted.

  “She didn’t know about Kyle-not before it happened. That was a spontaneous event, from what I’ve gathered. But Adrian—she was scared to death of him because once he’d grabbed up treasures and taken them to an appraiser to begin selling them, after his father was gone, he’d found out right away that they were copies and he’d come after her hard. She knew Hank had killed Kyle, so she went to him about it—and he took care of things for her once again. She didn’t exactly ask him to do it. But she made sure she had an alibi.”

  “We were her alibi!”

  Bebe sighed. “I’m afraid so.” She gave me a significant look. “And she told me what everyone was looking for in our yard.”

  “No! What was it?”

  “A very valuable emerald necklace from the Byzantine Empire. It was the most valuable piece Kyle had. She’d taken it and hidden it in one of our birdhouses, like she’d done with all the others, but when she came back to pick it up and take it to the jewelers, it was gone. The fact that it was missing and she hadn’t had it copied yet was why Kyle finally realized what was going on. That’s why he’d come down to my house. He’d forced Caroline to tell him the truth—which she did partly because she was so frantic about losing it. So he was going to look for it himself.”

  “Oh!”

  “And Hank saw him and you know the rest.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that necklace is still missing.”

  We pondered that for a few minutes. The sun was going down. It was just about the same time of day it had been when I’d arrived, but that seemed so long ago now. The setting sun was sending flashes of light so that we had to shade our eyes from it. Something else flashed in the grass and there was Sami, the black cat, looking elegant and sleek, like always. What a beauty. But there was something else there in the grass beside him. Something that was catching the light from the setting sun and sending it around the yard like a Christmas sparkler.

  I frowned, trying to see it better. My heart began to pound in my chest.

  “No,” I whispered. “It can’t be.”

  But I got up and walked over to it, reached down, and pulled up the most beautiful emerald necklace I’d ever seen. I was so shocked, I couldn’t speak. All I could manage was a strangling sound as I turned and waved the necklace at Bebe.

  “What on earth?”

  She gaped, then dashed down and took it from me. “Where was it?”

  “Right here.” I pointed out the spot where I’d found it—right out in the open. There was no way this thing could have been right there all this time. We would have seen it. The intruders would have found it. The reporters would have noticed it. We stared at each other, amazed.

  “Do you suppose…could the cat have…?”

  “Been hiding it all this time? And brought it out now?” I stared at the little devil. He was giving his back leg a good washing and paid no attention to us at all.

  “No!” we both said at once. “That can’t be.”

  “Or maybe….” I looked around before I said it, but I saw no sign of her. “Maybe Aunty Jane was involved.”

  Bebe began to laugh. “The two of them, working together? I love it! Our ghost wins again!”

  I laughed with her, but at the same time I was darting glances into the shadows. I knew Dante was out there somewhere. I hadn’t told anyone about what he’d done to help me, not even Bebe. They all thought the natural undercutting of the irrigation runoff had weakened the walkway and that was what had sent the statue tumbling. And they were right, of course. But that wasn’t all that had done it. Still, there was no point in trying to convince anyone of that. They didn’t really need to know, and wouldn’t have accepted it anyway. Dante was my ghost, at least for now. And I was keeping him.

  The End

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  Recipe for Chicken Hekka

  Meat:

  1 to 1 1/2 lb chicken meat, preferably boneless thighs, cut into pieces

  Sauce:

  1/4-1/2 cup sugar

  1/2 cup soy sauce

  1/2 cup mirin(Japanese wine) or sherry

  2 Tbs. oil

  a little crushed garlic

  a little grated ginger root

  (If you like, add a TBS of corn starch the usual way to thicken sauce)

  Veggies:

  1 can (14oz.) shredded bamboo shoots, drained

  1/2-1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced

  2 medium carrots julienned

  1 medium onion, cut into slices

  4 green onions, chopped

  1 cup chopped green leafy veggie-such as bok choy, chinese cabbage or even bean sprouts

  Noodles:

  1 (8 ounce) package rice noodles, soaked and cut into 2 inch pieces

  Prep:

  Cut chicken into serving pieces and stir fry in oil over high heat. Add sauce elements and cook for 2 minutes, then start adding veggies one at a time, stir frying as you go. Finally, add long rice and cook for 3 more minutes. Serves 4-6.

  If you liked A Ghost for Christmas,

  You’ll love the followup, Ghost on Duty!

  The show must go on!

  Just when Mele Keahi thinks her new life in North Destiny Bay is settling down, everything turns against her. First she suspects the detective she’s taken a shine to has a new lady on the line, then she finds another body. The police captain is growing suspicious, her ghost is getting pushy, and she rashly agrees to adopt an uncouth parrot. Meanwhile she’s trying to manage a Christmas Pageant. If it all falls apart, the town will go broke. Then--there goes her salary!

  Enjoy an excerpt from Ghost on Duty, available now from Amazon!

  Chapter One

  “I can’t help it,” I admitted, talking louder than usual as the coffee shop was filled to the rafters with customers on this cold, pre-Christmas morning and every one of them seemed to be making a lot of noise. “The man scares me.”

  “You?” Jill De Jong, my old college roomie, stared at me in mock amazement. We were sharing a tiny table and a couple of lattes at her coffee bar, Mad For Mocha. “Mele Keahi, aren’t you the girl who spearheaded the protest when Tony’s Meatballs started replacing their mozzarella with some sort of franken-cheese food? I clearly remember you going nose to nose with Tony’s mob-guy-looking cousin, who was obviously packing heat, in front of the whole restaurant. And now you can’t face an old geezer in carpet slippers?”

  I tried to give her a baleful stare, but I’m not sure it was very effective. She was still giggling at her own humor and since she was wearing felt reindeer antlers studded with blinking Christmas lights, it was hard to take her seriously.

  “Ned Barlow is not that old,” I told her sternly. “And he was only in carpet slippers because I showed up on his doorstep a bit early.”

  That had been the day before, my first day on the job. Quite an initiation. I’d been tempted to quit on the spot. But I hung in there and this morning I was officially installed. The town council did the deed at a breakfast meeting. That’s why I was dressed in a nice gray linen suit with high heels and power lipstick and everything. Definitely not my usual jeans and jersey. And the coun
cil secretary had pinned a big beautiful orchid on my lapel as a sort of emblem of the hire, I guess. At any rate, I was wearing it with pride.

  “That’s why I’m hanging out here,” I explained to Jill. “I don’t want to surprise him this time.”

  Jill glanced at her watch. “You might as well take along some sandwiches. It’s almost noon. Old Ned Barlow will surely be hungry by now.”

  She grinned at me and I scowled back, but before I could say anything, we had an interloper.

  “Ned Barlow,” cried a short, older woman with a mop of grey curls and a perpetually angry look, who was standing nearby. She came over and glared at me. “You having a fight with that old reprobate?” she snapped out.

  I hesitated, sorry we’d said his name aloud. I didn’t know the woman and I didn’t like gossiping about people in public like this. I was trying to think of a way to brush her off politely, but she was too fast for me.

  “Listen honey,” she crowed at what seemed at the time like the top of her lungs. She waved a plastic travel cup full of peppermint mocha at me, some of it sloshing out the little drinking slit and sending a Christmas aroma into the air. “You better take protection if you’re going out to that old mausoleum of a house to face that man. He’s a collector and he’s got more guns than Fort Knox.”

  Jill made her “ah hah!” face. She loved to catch people using inaccuracies like that. “Fort Knox doesn’t have guns,” she said, looking smug. “Gold is what they’ve got.”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “That’s why they’ve got the guns, Miss Mensa. Follow the logic.”

  Jill frowned and a young man who might have been the woman’s son or nephew took hold of her arm and tried to pull her away.

  “Come on, Peg. Let’s go,” he said, giving me an apologetic smile.

  She allowed him to tug at her, but she leaned back and cried, “If he gives you any trouble, shoot him right between the eyes. The world will be a better place without him, believe me! It’s high time somebody took the jerk out. I’d do it myself if…”