Since I didn’t sleep much last night, I had plenty of time to think about Edith’s words: I did this for you. I’m your favorite. Her truth left unsaid doesn’t sound like the words of a woman who shot her husband out of jealousy. Whatever happened to Argus that night, I know now that he left this world long ago. I’m hoping Edith has finally decided to do the same, though I have my doubts.
Before I left last night, Coleman told me the medical examiner had confirmed the old skull Mojo dug up was that of a female in her twenties. It would have been helpful to have known that earlier.
I asked that if she finds Edith’s remains in Grace’s grave to be sure the woman gets a proper burial that includes her head. Coleman said she thought that would be correct procedure. Then she laughed and said she’d see that it got done.
I pass this information on to Edith as I speak to her now. I also remind her that she too was imperfect in life, and that her truth spoken of that night has finally been heard. Then I tell her she is forever free in spirit. Free to forgive and forget and be whole again.
Her spirit is silent so I close my eyes and pray for her release from this earth. When I open them, a huge black widow spider is sitting in front of me. I start to jump up before its deadly bite ends my own life, but it dissolves right before my eyes. Ashes from the barn spin in a vortex then blow across the field.
I go back to the jeep and fall asleep. The screams of Todd and Zeda wake me. I think they’re screams of anger, and I hesitate in getting out of the jeep. Zeda wraps her arms around me. She’s telling me how glad she is that I made it out alive. Todd is looking as carefree as when I first met him; his streaks of red and black are gone.
“Did Loren call you about what happened?”
“No,” Todd says. “The insurance guy did. We’re rich.” He winces at Zeda and she shrugs. “The Silvers had insurance on all of us and the barn too. Owen never invested anything in the business.”
“The Silvers are in jail,” Zeda says, and gives me a pouty face.
“They’ll be in prison soon,” Todd says. “Security fraud and murder,” he looks at Zeda again. She’s hanging her head.
“Morgan and Owen? The Spirit Searchers?”
“No. They killed some investor who was on to them. They’ve been stealing from everyone including us. They never planned on having a social media empire. They used to sell used cars. Owen worked with them at a dealership. No wonder he couldn’t code. He knew what they were up to all along. Guess it was eating away at him because he went to the feds. They staged his disappearance to bait the Silvers. Actually, the feds were already on to them. Dolus?”
I shrug and look at Zeda. “God of trickery,” she says. “Our own little Greek tragedy.”
“So Owen’s safe somewhere?” I ask. Todd nods. “And Morgan?”
“The insurance guy said the police are closing the case as an accidental fall. You were right after all.”
“So what are you two going to do now?”
“We’re coders. We’re going to keep coding forever,” Zeda says.
“Yeah,” Todd says. “But only our own projects and no more working out of barns. The insurance guy said Morgan probably fell because of being sick and that old ladder, but he also said the mold in the barn was toxic. Between the killer spores and the spiders, he said all of us would have ended up dead. Looks like the Silvers were counting on that. He thinks they paid off the inspectors too. Never trust anyone over thirty.”
“So did you get to send Charlie to the afterlife before the barn burned down?” Zeda asks.
I tell her about Edith, leaving out the parts that will just give her nightmares, and of another’s role in what happened to the woman that night.
We say our goodbyes and as I watch them drive away, my phone rings. It’s Coleman and I’m tempted to let it go to voicemail and rush to the state line, but I answer. She wants to thank me. I’m shocked and ask her what she really wants.
“Lighten up, Raven. You’ve got to see the good in people.”
I ask her if she’s on medication.
“Never. I don’t do drugs. I was counting on you and you didn’t fail me in a roundabout way. It would have been nice though if you hadn’t burned down the barn and almost killed the three of us. I wanted to prove Morgan was murdered. I ended up solving a sixty year old murder mystery instead. I was also right about the Silvers who are going to be serving some serious prison time. Things turned out better than I thought even with your screw ups. I’m off probation.”
I’m not in the mood to defend myself or correct the woman’s distorted version of what went on last night. Assuming she’s in denial, I figure she’s better off forgetting what happened in that old barn. I start to suggest another profession, but who am I to judge?
Amazingly, she says she got the full story from Grace about Argus’ murder by Edith, and how she gave Edith fifty whacks with the ax for killing him. Coleman said she doubted it was that many whacks and I had to agree.
I also know she didn’t get the real story since Edith denied Grace did the chopping. Spirits almost never lie. I have a feeling though that Grace saw who did kill the woman.
Edith was terrified about coming out of that dark east corner to shoot her husband. I suspect she’d had her fill of the man, but I know someone else convinced her to kill Argus. Someone who had stolen her heart before he took her life.
I promise Coleman I won’t tell anyone about her involvement in the séance. I say I’ll forget all about her once I leave Eton Bluff, and I’m not joking.
She wishes me the best and tells me to keep on fighting the good fight. I’m not sure what she means, but I tell her I will. Just when I’m about to start the long drive home, I get another call I never expected or wanted.
“Hello, Ms. Edwards.”
“Ms. Raven. I assume your time here is done.”
“You assume correctly.” The line is silent and I’m ready to hang up on the woman who I figure is gearing up for a tongue lashing.
“I guess I should thank you.”
Now the line is silent on my end.
“Grace is… well she seems, I don’t know. More lucid?” Diana’s laugh is nervous and she catches herself. “I’m just glad she didn’t have to… die with– I think what you did brought her peace in some strange way, despite your almost killing her. She even says she’ll stop eating those ridiculous spiders now. The doctor’s been telling her for years that the gelatin will destroy her colon.”
“Glad I could help.”
She sighs and tells me she spoke with the police chief who doesn’t intend to arrest Grace. According to Diana, he says she’s too old and mentally unstable. He claims too many years have passed to piece it all together, and that any evidence that may have remained was destroyed by the fire. I don’t say anything because although the chief is right, I figure palms were greased and lips were sealed again.
“I know you think I’m a horrible person,” Diana says. “I’m not. Grace is family. You don’t get to pick the people who share your lineage. I wouldn’t have picked Grace and I doubt she would have picked me, but we’re stuck with each other. No matter what happened in the past or what happens in the future will change that. I’m sure on some level you can agree with me.”
I tell her that on all levels, I know exactly what she means. “What’s your relationship to Grace?” I’m not sure why I asked since I think I already know, and it’s none of my business anyway.
Diana’s silent for a few seconds. I don’t recognize her voice when she speaks. “Dudley Parker used to come to the house when Argus was gone. Sometimes, he would bring Grace so we could play together. I thought he loved my mother and me. We were just entertainment for him and my sister. Grace was always my father’s favorite.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
§
Two days and eleven hundred miles later, I park the jeep in front of my home in Las Trebol. The sun is going down and the cool air is laced with the comfort of roasted chili peppers fr
om someone’s outdoor grill. A single black cloud passes by dropping rain on my dust-coated windshield.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about my nosy relatives, my spirit roommate Neil, and the decisions I’ve been making in my own life for the past five years.
Grace and Argus made a decision to meet in an old barn one night. Dudley Parker convinced Edith to join them out there. Two lives ended, one was never the same. Dudley Parker lived another year with blood on his hands, and guilt on his conscience.
Sadly, I think that guilt was only over what he did to Grace’s sanity, and not what he did to Edith or to Diana who, it would seem, remained as quiet as a little mouse in that east corner. The reason he chopped off Edith’s head is something I don’t want to know, but I doubt he’s the one who put it in that hole.
I’ve also been thinking about who I would be if I stopped helping the haunted. A regular job is out of the question. A traveling psychic medium show is out too. My skills are few. As I sit in the jeep with Mojo snoring in the backseat, I know how much I’d miss my wanderlust profession. I’d hate it if it was no longer part of who I am, almost as much as I hate coming home to an empty house.
“We’re home,” I say as I open the back door. Mojo gets out and pees on all four corners of the yard while I carry our things inside.
“Hello, Neil. We’re home. I don’t like breaking this to you out of nowhere, but it’s time for you to move on. It’s time for both of us. I’ve been a little selfish in letting you stay. I’m going to help you resolve whatever you need to resolve, but then you’ll need to go.” He doesn’t answer and that’s just as well because I’m not quite ready either.
After unpacking and showering, I microwave frozen food and eat it out of its plastic tray while watching a reality TV show. After a half hour of watching the nonsense, I’m almost starting to feel good about my life again.
I check my emails and write a post about my latest adventure for my website while leaving out about eighty percent of it. I’m about to turn off the computer and go to bed when I remember the Spirit Searchers. I can’t believe I forgot to ask Coleman about them before I left.
I check their site again and am thrilled to see they’ve returned to the world of the living after an impromptu vacation made possible by a generous benefactor. They deleted everything about the Eton Bluff haunting, including my messages. Diana. I should have guessed. I also could have used one of those vacations myself.
It’s nine o’clock and my eyes won’t stay open a second longer. I get in bed and listen to the hoot owls and lonely cries of the coyotes. I’ve got an exciting and fascinating life, a home that will be paid for in less than thirty years, and family and friends who annoy me, but love me too. Things could be worse. I could be wanting to run away with a married man or trying to wean myself off gelatin spiders.
In a few months, I turn twenty seven. I’ll reassess my situation then. I have plenty of time to decide my future, and I’m going to take all the time I want and need. I’m going to make the right decision for me, like it’s just that easy to do.
It’s not even six o’clock the next morning when I hear a familiar voice yelling at my bedroom window. I forgot all about talking to Arthur on the way home last night and promising him that I’d work at the diner today. Piper is beating on the window now and telling me that she’s going to fire me. I pull the curtain back and tell her I officially quit. She tells me to be at the diner in twenty minutes. I say I’ll be there in a half hour.
It’s time that Arthur made a decision of his own. One where he either works at his diner or finds someone who will. I have a feeling he’s already made that decision.
“How would you feel about working full time at the diner?” I ask Mojo as I let him into the jeep. “No more hotels, no more difficult haunted clients, no more ghosts. And all the steak you can eat before the health inspector kicks you out the door.”
He wants to think about it.
I pull into the Lacey’s Diner parking lot and am walking in the back door when I realize I didn’t even think once about checking for Levi’s vehicle. There’s hope for me yet. Maybe I’ll even find a way to be nice to Dan and Libby. I’ll work on it later.
When the breakfast rush is over, I look out from the grill and see Maybelle walking to a table followed by Agustina. I get a sick feeling about this situation.
Agustina smiles when I fill their coffee cups but doesn’t say a word. Maybelle tells me to sit even though she shouldn’t know I’m the one standing there. “Tell us about your last job,” she says.
“Love gone wrong,” I say.
Agustina wants to know if I prayed to Saint Valentine for the spirits. I tell her it was way too late for that. She thinks this is hysterical. The woman has an odd sense of humor.
“That happens when people use their foolish minds instead of listening to the wisdom of the Great Spirit,” Maybelle says.
“I got you a pink trapper hat,” I say. “I’ll bring it by your house later. Where’s TK?”
“I live in New Mexico. What do I need a trapper hat for?”
“Where’s TK?” I ask again. I haven’t seen the man but a couple of times since I found out they married.
“We decided to live apart.”
I look at Agustina and she shrugs. “I guess you made a bad decision. But then it was yours to make so I respect that.”
Maybelle starts to say something; Agustina pats her hand and she stops.
“Come for treatment after you finish today,” Agustina says. “You look like worn out dish rag. No good look for you.”
I agree a healing massage is exactly what I need. As I start to get up to leave, Maybelle takes my hand.
“Not all decisions are our own to make. Some decisions aren’t decisions at all. Some things are our destiny. Ask the Great Spirit for the answer to the question you are holding in your heart. Listen and you will hear the truth as I have.”
I go back to the grill and call Arthur. When I get his voice message, I tell him I won’t be able to work the extra hours anymore, and that he will have to hire a cook. Then I call Dan and tell him I won’t be doing The Psychic Power Hour anymore. He’s still threatening to sue me for breach of contract when I hang up.
After the lunch crowd leaves, I go first to Agustina’s for my treatment then home. Mojo heads for the mountains and I follow. We hike high on a red mesa trail, and I light a smudge stick and say a prayer. I can see for thousands of miles in every direction, but I don’t see a single answer anywhere. I ask the Great Spirit to speak to me instead of my grandmother.
The air’s warm but gray clouds are gathering and promising a brief but heavy rain storm. “I’m listening,” I say, and feel a few big drops of rain that bring tears to my eyes. Five minutes later, I’m drenched and not impressed with this message at all.
We run back to the house, and I end up on the sofa in front of the television again. The past week drains from my muscles, and I wake up hours later to some infomercial about an age-defying facial cream. I’m not impressed with this message either and head to the bedroom.
As soon as my head is on the pillow, I fall into a deep and peaceful sleep that doesn’t last long enough. Mojo’s walking on me and poking me in the head. “What are you doing?”
Someone is beating on my front door. When my eyes focus, I see it’s eleven thirty. I don’t know a single soul who would show up this late. I check my phone for an emergency message. There isn’t one so I creep to the door to check the peep hole. Mojo is eager for me to open the door, which I reluctantly do.
“Hey, Jack. Arthur said you were back in town.”
“It’s late. Did something happen?”
“No. Maybelle said—
“Levi, go home. Go over to Julia’s.”
He shakes his head. “Can’t do that, Jack. We need to figure it out. Together.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. Forget what Maybelle said and let me handle it.”
“I can’t do that.”
/> It’s raining again and the air is cold. Thunder rumbles long and far away. I wait and watch for the lightening to strike, but I don’t see it so I look back at Levi. This man I know almost as well as I know myself. Right now, I don’t know either one of us.
“Jack, are you going to make me stand out here all night? Or are you going to let me in?”
The End
∞
Book 5 in A Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Series
The Taw Ridge Haunting
Release: September 2017
For her next job, Jack is headed to Taw Ridge, Tennessee, where a new hotel owner is being driven out of business by the ghosts of three murder victims whose cases were never solved. Three women were killed in separate rooms on the thirteenth floor on the same night twenty years ago.
Ellen Boshears inherited the hotel from an uncle she never knew existed. Having just buried her husband of one year, she was eager to leave her home in California and start a new life. The hotel has sat empty for years. Now guests report hearing screams, slamming doors, and running in the hallway.
Boshears doesn’t believe in ghosts. She’s spent several nights on the thirteenth floor without hearing a thing. She wants to put an end to what she sees as nothing but pranksters or people determined to destroy her new life. With plans for a grand re-opening party in two weeks, she contacts Jack as a way to boast publicity and prove the hotel is ghost free– no matter what the cost.
To the three women who died in the Holms Hotel, there isn’t enough money in hell to prevent their quest for revenge.
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About the Author
Animal lover, yoga doer, vegetable eater, Chardonnay drinker, and resident of the Twilight Zone. Possibly extraterrestrial. I grew up in Southern California and now live in the Pacific Northwest where I write spooky fiction with humor, mystery, drama, and sometimes horror in a world gone mad.
The Eton Bluff Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 4) Page 18
