by Teresa Trent
I relented. “If you think it will work, I guess so. But do me a favor and keep an eye on them, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. I trusted him and knew he would take care of Zach. Hopefully he trusted me.
“Hey, I was just kind of wondering about something.”
“Shoot.”
Funny he should use that word, I thought. “I saw the contract you had with Oliver Canfield. That was what you were talking about when I asked you about the picture over there.” I looked again to the picture, this time recognizing Oliver Canfield as he held a giant pair of scissors to cut a piece of red ribbon placed across the door.
Benny’s face straightened. He scratched his ear. “He came up with this idea to refinance the restaurant after the last hurricane blew through. The winds took off the front facade of the building, and we were afraid we were going to have to close down. Seems like back then they were handing out mortgage deals like free toasters at the bank. When the rate adjusted to a higher payment, it was much more than what we were ready for in the monthly budget. That was why I asked you to help think of ways to cut costs and save money. I’m running awful close every month, and now with the new baby, Canfield shows up again. This time he tells me that, for a percentage of the business, he would be glad to help out a friend. A friend, he says. He wasn’t any friend of mine.”
He picked up a plate and started cleaning tables again. “Mr. Canfield was a sly one. I can’t say that I am too upset about his passing.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I worked my tail off here trying to make this a good restaurant and a way to support my family. I get up early and work till late. I can see the fruits of my labor every day. Canfield saw the fruits of my labor, too, and did all he could do to take them off of me.”
“I’m beginning to think Canfield had a scam going with lots of people, Benny. You were just the one whose contract was found on his body.”
Benny sat down in a booth suddenly looking very tired. “I didn’t know what to do. I put him off for a while, but he just kept calling. When Benny Jr. broke his foot and it looked as if they were going to have to do surgery, I just knew I had to do something. Affording health insurance when you’re self-employed is next to impossible. He brought out a contract, and I signed it.”
It became quiet for a moment as the man contemplated his deal with the devil. Canfield had been Benny’s own personal hurricane. He swooped in, damaged everything in sight and left Benny to clean up the mess. Benny sighed and looked up at me. I wondered if he was desperate enough to kill because of what had happened to him.
The bell on the restaurant door jingled behind us.
“Dr. Mac!” Benny said, rising and walking towards the counter. “I have your order of brisket ready for the Halloween party at the hospital. “
This was just the person I had wanted to see. I had hopes of convincing him to let us have the paranormal investigation. He thought I was there picking up an order of my own and stepped back.
“I’ll wait until you help Betsy here.”
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t in line. Dr. Mac, I’m really glad I ran into you.”
He scratched his chin and furrowed his brow. “Trouble with Zach’s arm?”
“No, he’s fine. Thank you for asking.”
A look of recognition came into his eyes. “Would this have something to do with all the hubbub at the town council meeting?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “We are hoping you will agree to let us do the investigation out at the old hospital.”
“So sad about the man who died out there.”
“The man who died out there was a crook, Dr. Mac. Did you know that about him?” Benny asked.
Dr. MacPhee was surprised by Benny’s statement. “Really? I hadn’t heard anything about the man’s character.”
“He was fixin’ to take a pretty good chunk of my profit every month. Now I’m thinking it might have been cheaper to file for bankruptcy.”
“But I have to ask you Benny, now that you don’t have Canfield making up the part of the payment you couldn’t pay, how are you going to pay it?” I asked.
“I’m going to keep cooking and selling the best barbecue in Pecan Bayou. Isn’t that right, Doc?”
“And if that isn’t enough?” I asked.
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that’s where faith comes in. Even though I may be listing out to sea, it’s still better than being circled by a shark.”
I had to agree. Dr. Mac peeled off some bills for Benny and started toward the door.
“Um, Dr. Mac, could I speak with you for just one moment?”
“Well, certainly my dear, if you don’t mind walking me out to my car. I have a lot of hungry people to feed,” he joked.
His voice was gentle, the same voice I remembered so many years ago, getting me through the toughest time in my life. He had been so supportive in the operating room. He made me feel as if I didn’t need Barry to be my labor coach at all. It was just him and me – the screaming one who kept asking for more drugs.
“I know I’m repeating myself. But by letting us do this investigation, it would mean so much to my aunt.”
“Oh?” he asked.
“Yes, you saw how upset she was getting at the meeting? Those things Miss Boyle said were not in any way true.”
“I had a feeling about that,” he said as he tucked the boxes of barbecue securely in the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car.
I wasn’t sure of what Dr. Mac would think of Aunt Maggie’s attitude toward the paranormal. “You see, my uncle died a few years back, and she just feels …”
“That if she can find some spirits in the old hospital, that her own husband might be … reachable?”
He patted my arm gently. “This is common, my dear. In my profession, I often deal with people feeling a great loss for their loved ones. They will do anything to get them back, it seems. If truth be told, I would do anything short of voodoo to get them back for them, but sometimes it’s just not possible.”
“Well, then maybe you do understand why we really want this investigation to proceed.”
“I do,” he said.
“That’s great.” I felt relief surging through me. He didn’t think my aunt and her friends were all a bunch of crackpots.
“But I also feel it’s my responsibility to listen to what Miss Boyle has to say about the negative influence airing this program may promote.”
And like any reasonable judge, he was willing to hear both sides. Darn it.
I continued. “This program is harmless. Honestly, I can’t say that I’m totally sold on the whole ghost hunting thing, but Aunt Maggie is.”
His blue eyes twinkled, “You see, my dear, being on the town council is quite a job. Above everything, I have to be fair and make the right decision. I’m really glad you spoke to me about this today. This gives me some more insight into the situation. The best I can tell you is, now fully informed, I will give this some thought before the meeting this afternoon.”
“Thanks, Dr. Mac.” I knew he would think out the situation squarely and make the right decision.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I walked into the town council chambers a couple of hours later, Leo Fitzpatrick was waiting in the front row.
“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” I said, nodding.
“Mrs. Livingston, I presume,” he said, using a joke I had heard too many times. “Discover any bodies lately? “
“Rescue anyone from a burning building?” I countered.
“No, but I haven’t been snooping in anybody’s office either. Just exactly what where you doing in there?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Well, I’ll tell you my story when you tell me yours,” he answered. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but it seemed it was all I was going to get out of him. Today he was here alone as both of our sons were sitting in class over at Buzz Aldrin Elementary. Hopefully nobody had to pull them apart today.
“Perhaps we can discuss it tonight at dinner.”
“I can’t wait,” he said. Somehow his enthusiasm didn’t seem genuine.
“My thoughts exactly. I don’t really know why you were there at the bank building the same time I was, but, well … thank you for all that you did.”
“No problem. I was going to get a complex if a second person I found in an empty building came up dead.”
“Thanks to you, I didn’t. By the way, would you have any idea why Canfield might have a drawer full of other people’s credit cards?”
Fitzpatrick’s gaze hardened.
“I can only imagine,” he responded. Aunt Maggie walked in and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me away from Mr. Fitzpatrick.
“Guess what?” Aunt Maggie whispered.
“What?”
“Stanley has increased the power of the TV transmitter so now we will be shown all over Texas. Isn’t that exciting?”
“You betcha,” I wasn’t feeling it.
As we walked away, Maggie pulled my arm again and whispered in my ear, “I think that man likes you.”
“Great,” I answered in disgust.
“What’s wrong with him? I think he’s kind of cute. He reminds me of my Jeeter when he was young.”
“Wait till you meet his son.”
The members of the town council entered and took their seats on the dais. Miss Boyle, who had been sitting straight-backed in the front row, smoothed out her crisp black pantsuit and looked down at her plain but finely manicured nails. She glanced around the room until she saw us sitting a few rows back. Her face took on a pucker, not unlike someone tasting a lemon. Tom Schuller called the meeting to order.
“I am calling this emergency meeting of the Pecan Bayou Town Council to order,” he said, pounding the table with a wooden gavel. “Miss Boyle, we are about to give our decision on permitting access to the paranormal group out at the Johnson Tuberculosis Hospital. Is there anything you would like to add?”
“Yes, Mr. Schuller. As you know …” But before she could continue, Howard came barreling into the room with a stack of discombobulated papers squeezed in between various volumes of paranormal science. Howard seemed to have found his courage today, and he meant to fight our case with lots and lots of reference materials. He had dressed for the occasion with a tan corduroy jacket complete with elbow patches and a pair of weathered blue jeans. He had to be burning up in that outfit, but at least today he sort of looked like a professor. Beads of sweat shone above his top lip.
“Sorry, folks,” Howard said, bowing repeatedly as he backed into a folding chair.
Miss Boyle cleared her throat as if to quiet Howard in both sound and motion. “As I was saying – we are all aware of a bogus paranormal seance set to be filmed in the next 24 hours and then shown to the good people of this town through NUTV.”
“Miss Boyle,” Howard interrupted, “I’m afraid I must disagree with you on several points. First of all our investigation is not bogus, as you call it, and we’re not holding a …”
Miss Boyle interrupted back, “Whatever you choose to call your escapades is up to you, Mr. Gunther.” Miss Boyle raised her hand to shoo him away like a pesky housefly. She looked over at Dr. Mac on the dais, who looked a bit overwhelmed by the speed of the responses coming from the two of them. Miss Boyle seemed to be looking to the council to shut Howard up.
“Oh … yes,” Dr. Mac said as he picked up his cue, a little late. “Please, continue Ms. Boyle. Mr. Gunther, we will give you the opportunity to comment at the end of her statement.”
“Thank you,” she nodded toward the council members, her angular nose bobbing up and down. “Upon checking the archives of the Pecan Bayou paper, the police blotter reveals many incidents out at this hospital involving the youth of our town. I have requested your decision to stop the filming as it will only serve to excite our teenagers and cause God knows what else out there.”
Before she had attacked the investigation on the merits of Satan worship, but now she was talking about a negative influence on the kids? I didn’t know what was motivating Maureen Boyle, but it seemed to be driving her to come up with better and better ideas to stop Aunt Maggie’s group.
Maggie rustled beside me. “Your honor? May I say something?”
Don Schuller looked over at Maggie as he played with his ink pen. “Um, yes, you can come down here to the podium, Maggie.”
Maggie rose and walked down to the wooden podium to face the Schuller brothers and Dr. MacPhee. Howard got up and readjusted the microphone for her again. “I have belonged to the Pecan Bayou Paranormal Society for five years now. We have spent many hours preparing for this investigation, and I would like to assure you that everything we do is strictly on a professional basis. We are hoping that, through our efforts, the people of this town will acknowledge the history of the hospital, as well as respect the ones who worked and died out there. Hopefully this will end the shenanigans, not make them worse.”
Howard continued, “And if I may add something here, it seems that, at every turn of this process, we seem to be blocked by Miss Boyle.”
Miss Boyle’s face turned fiercely towards us. “And if I may say something, not only is your investigation frivolous, satanic and dangerous, there has already been a murder associated with it.” She smirked. “What do you say to that, Mr. Gunther?”
Fitzpatrick stood up from his folding chair, “Excuse me, but I think you are looking at the hospital site incorrectly. What Miss Boyle says does have some merit to it. If someone wasn’t experienced walking around an old building like that, he or she could come to some serious harm.”
Miss Boyle raised her eyebrows and looked toward Howard and Maggie. Her triumphant look was not missed by Fitzpatrick.
He continued. “That being said, I think the town should not only back the investigation, but use it to further interests of investors to the property. It would be an ideal spot for a medical complex, a mall, or even some sort of entertainment venue like an amusement park. All you would need to do is to put a little commercial for the property at the end of the program.”
Miss Boyle’s mouth hung open.
The Schuller brothers’ ears seemed to perk up at the idea of using the program to create a profit-making situation. The two of them nodded to each other and then began whispering.
“Am I to understand,” demanded Miss Boyle, regaining her composure, “that you would advertise a building that will ultimately attract the wrong sort of people to a crime scene? Is there no respect for the dead in this town? You would use a scene of so much death to put on a tawdry commercial to promote some half-baked get-rich-quick scheme? Mr. Canfield, for all of his faults, was a person, after all.”
“That is true,” said Dr. Mac. I could tell he genuinely felt sorry for Miss Boyle and the dead Mr. Canfield. Mac always had a loving heart and tended to help out the underdog. Did Miss Boyle seem that way to him?
“And so the whole idea of a paranormal program would do nothing to preserve Oliver’s – Mr. Canfield’s – dignity. And the idea of a commercial advertisement is simply repulsive.”
I raised my hand. “Excuse me, but the discovery of Mr. Canfield’s body had nothing to do with the visit by the paranormal society.”
“That is correct.” Chief of Police Arvin Wilson had slipped in sometime while I was focused on Maggie. “Mr. Canfield’s murder has nothing to do with my brother-in-law Howard and his group.” Maggie and I both turned to look at Howard. Funny how he had never mentioned he was related to the chief of police. Arvin Wilson’s lips turned up slightly, and he smiled in Howard’s direction. I’ll bet he didn’t know when he courted his lovely Alma thirty years ago there was such a wacko in the gene pool as her brother Howard.
“But,” said Miss Boyle, “you do acknowledge the fact that this is a crime scene.”
Wilson fingered the rim of his Stetson. “Yes, part of the hospital is a crime scene, but the paranormal team has promised to utilize other parts of
the hospital for their investigation.”
Miss Boyle continued. “What we need of the esteemed members of the council is a vote on whether or not this travesty of common decency should be allowed out on those hallowed grounds.”
Dr. Mac nodded. “Yes, I see,” he said. “Well, I believe we are ready for a vote.” He looked over at me and Aunt Maggie and gave a slight smile. I felt reassured and thought of how he had expressed wanting to help people who were missing their loved ones. If the Schuller brothers agreed, it was a done deal.
“Yes, Dr. MacPhee, Tom and I both agree,” said Don Schuller. He was wearing a rather large version of a Pecan Bayou High School football jersey. His son was a quarterback on the football team, and no doubt his concerns were straying towards tonight’s game.
“Yes,” his brother Tom said, “Don and I have discussed it, and,” he smiled at Maggie, “we think the idea of a program out there is harmless, and we’re looking forward to it. I’ve always wondered if that place was really haunted. We’re fixin’ to give you a chance to prove it …”
Maggie and I jumped as Tom Schuller continued. “… as long as it ends with a nice commercial to promote the sale of the property.” The crowd mumbled. Miss Boyle crossed her arms defiantly and turned her gaze on Maggie and Howard.
The other Schuller spoke next, “Tom and I both believe it will be a source of positive revenue for the town, eventually.” Howard jumped, accidentally knocking his papers and books to the floor. Tom Schuller pounded the gavel.
“And I will also vote in the affirmative,” Dr. Mac added, as if it mattered.
Miss Boyle stood up quietly and walked over to Maggie and me as we rose to leave. “This is not over,” she said.
“I think the council just agreed it is,” I returned.
“There are things you do that will be judged by a different court.”
“Yeah, well it’s a little too late to get on Judge Judy,” Maggie said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few hours later, the scent of garlic, onions, tomatoes and peppers wafted throughout the house as I stirred spaghetti sauce. Coming home from school, Zach hadn’t spoken much. Upon entering, he plopped down on the couch and took up the electric soothing of little Italian men named Mario and Luigi running through impossible video game feats. I had the feeling all of this was getting to be a little much for him.
