A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3)

by Winters, J. D.

  It was simple, really. An accident. Bebe would go through hell because of it, but it was still just an accident. They happened every day.

  The police arrived and that reminded me that I still hadn’t called Reid Carrington to see if he would come represent Bebe. I hoped he could—or if not, could recommend someone who could do a good job of this. She needed strength and competence right now. I only hoped Reid had both of those qualities.

  Roy pulled up. I wished with all my heart that I wasn’t there to greet him. He didn’t look surprised, but there was coldness in his eyes and a twist to his mouth that I didn’t like. Oh well. Nothing I could do about that right now.

  I called Reid. He answered and promised to go straight to the station house and be there for when Bebe made her statement. That came as a relief.

  Other officers were arriving and two of them had Bebe off to the side, asking questions. I began to look around the area. There had been nobody but the paramedics and Bebe when I’d first arrived—now the onlookers were beginning to gather. I saw Fred and a few other growers, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  It occurred to me I ought to take pictures. I pulled out my phone and began, starting at one side of the scene, taking one after another until I’d made a wide panoramic study.

  “What are you doing?” Roy asked me, looking angry.

  “Taking pictures,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “I want to make sure no one changes things before I can document the truth.”

  He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy, but he didn’t stop me. I knew I sounded paranoid to him, but the way things kept happening, I didn’t trust luck to guide us. Things always turned out to be very different from what they seemed at first. I wanted to stick as close to the truth of things as possible. So I took more pictures.

  When I finished, Bebe was sitting in Roy’s patrol car. Minutes later, he was backing up, starting to take her off to the station house. I knew I should follow. I should be with her. But I didn’t go. I waited until he was out of sight, then I turned and began the climb up to Star’s house. As long as my battery held out, I was going to take pictures of everything.

  The house was beautiful and stood all alone on the hilltop. There wasn’t another house in sight, and the country club was off in the far distance. I approached cautiously.

  It didn’t seem like any of the police had gone up to the house yet. Lights were blazing inside, and when I rounded the last bend and could see it better, I swear I saw a man ducking out the door and heading for the bushes. It was just a flash, just an impression, but I was so sure….

  When I reached the front stairs, I looked up again. No sign of life. Hmm, that was an unfortunate way of putting it. The front door was ajar.

  “Hello,” I called. “Anyone here?”

  No response. Gingerly, I let myself in.

  The house was a gorgeous mass of redwood and tinted glass with a spectacular view of the lights in the valley. The interior looked like something in a designer magazine. There was no hint of the hippie tendencies of its late owner. I snapped pictures in every room, hardly aiming, just taking whatever I could get. When I saw the flashlights coming up the hill, I quickly went back out and met the police as they arrived. I didn’t know any of them and just nodded as though I knew what I was doing and went on my way, my cellphone/camera out of sight. I didn’t feel the need to give excuses for where I’d been and I got a few strange looks but nobody asked. It’s possible they’d noticed me with Roy in the past and thought I was allowed to investigate. And why not?

  I walked back down to my car, but it felt like moving in a dream. Someone had been killed here just a short time ago. It didn’t matter that she was someone I couldn’t stand. What did matter was that a human life had been snuffed out, and that Bebe’s life would be forever changed from this time on. A part of me was trembling and troubled. If only I could think of something to do or say that would make this all go away. If only…

  It was obvious neither one of us had slept at all as we sat at the kitchen table the next morning, both staring at each other, hollow-eyed, both unable to find the right words to say. There were so many things I wanted to tell her. So many things I could see roiling inside Bebe’s tortured mind. But neither of us said a word. We both sat and stared and hoped the horror would begin to fade away, just a little bit.

  Michael came by. He’d heard about what had happened but there didn’t seem to be much he could say either. And he had to get to work at the high school, so he didn’t stay long.

  Finally I couldn’t stand the awful silence any longer.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go do what Ginny Genera would do.”

  Bebe tried to smile but it looked painful. “Why? What would Ginny do?”

  “Ginny would run and run and run until there was nothing left but running. Let’s do it.”

  She resisted at first, but I wore her down, and little by little she began to see the wisdom in my advice.

  “We can run until we’re so tired, we can’t help but sleep,” I said.

  She finally managed a real smile. We put on running clothes, but we didn’t have anything like the togs Ginny ran in. No electric neon green. We ran in plain black lycra running shorts and white cotton t-shirts.

  “If we really get into this, we’ll have to find out where Ginny buys her running clothes,” I noted. “We wouldn’t want to let her outshine us, would we?”

  We threaded our way through the vineyards and then headed up the hill toward the winery where Bebe’s best friend Caroline used to live with her wealthy husband—the one who got himself killed in Bebe’s front yard.

  “Whatever happened to Caroline?” I asked as we skimmed by the beautiful home that looked sadly empty now.

  “I haven’t heard a word from her,” Bebe said. “The winery is still operational, along with the tasting room, but the house is sitting in moth balls, waiting for someone to come back and live in it again.”

  That made me think and even to cringe a little. That was what happened when people in your life died. Everything changed, even if you weren’t close to them before the death. Everything changed—where you lived, how you lived, who you saw, what you thought about things. I could just barely remember how it had been when my mother disappeared.

  I didn’t like changes much.

  On we ran. It seemed like we’d been running for hours, but we’d barely covered the valley yet. We headed uphill and it was a pretty steep climb, but we made it and we went on, into the fields of Miyake flowers. It was glorious, so beautiful. Everything was just beginning to bloom—tulips and ranunculas and wildflowers—a visual assault of color after color to that made you gasp.

  And seeing it seemed to help lift Bebe’s spirits. After all, this was what she was all about, and to see how beautiful her fields were was a real thrill.

  She was trying out a new foreman, Manny Gomez. He seemed like a nice guy. We saw him in his little electric cart, scooting up into the fields. He waved and we waved back. From the way he acted, just driving on, I assumed he hadn’t heard about the accident yet. It was eerie to think that most of the town probably didn’t know about what had happened. And yet, to us it was as though a virtual atom bomb had exploded in our lives.

  We stopped at the viewing station on the overlook. In one direction, you could see the ocean. In the other, the mountains with their snow-capped peaks. And here, finally, we rested.

  I waited, staring out at the beautiful scene and hoping Bebe would talk to me. I knew she needed to unburden herself of some of that awful guilt that was filling her with angst and horror. She needed to let some of that out, air her feelings, try to begin to heal.

  “Just talk to me, Bebe,” I thought will all my might. “Just talk.”

  And finally, she did.

  Chapter Eight

  “Mele, this is such a nightmare. I keep going over it again and again in my mind. I keep remembering all the times in my life when I’ve almost slipped, or I almost fell or almost
slammed my hand into the car door—and I thought, ‘uh oh, Bebe—better be more careful! Go slower. Don’t risk an accident.’” Her voice was trembling. She shook her head and she looked so lost. “Life has harsh consequences for carelessness.”

  I grabbed her hand and held it. “Bebe, Bebe, it’s not your fault.”

  She looked at me, her eyes dull. “Then whose fault is it? I’m the one who caused the death. Why is that not my fault?” She grimaced and took a deep breath. “If I’d been driving slower, if I’d been watching better…”

  “She was in the middle of the road, right? You hit her before you even saw her, right?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know about that. It’s such a blur. I just don’t remember.”

  “Did you…did you give a complete statement at the station house last night? Were they satisfied?”

  She looked at me, her eyes so troubled. “Were they satisfied? I don’t know. I don’t think so. They kept saying there was a mirror on that turn. Why didn’t I see it? It was a clear night. The mirror is set at the side of the road and angled so that I should have been able to see the middle of the road around the bend in front of me. I should have seen her.” She shook her head slowly. “And I know that. I’ve driven up there before. But I didn’t see her. I didn’t see the mirror. I just…I don’t know. Maybe I was so mad at the things she’d said to me on the phone I just wasn’t seeing anything. Or maybe I did see her and…” Her voice broke. “And maybe I wanted to hit her.”

  “What?” That horrified me. “No! Never! I don’t believe it.”

  She shrugged and her eyes filled with tears. “I was pretty angry,” she said simply, her voice shaking. “I just don’t know.”

  We talked a bit more and then began the run home. We ran back through more of the Miyaki fields, all gorgeous and fresh. The colors were blinding and the scent was intoxicating. For just a second or two, I wondered if this was what heaven smelled like.

  But still, I was sick at heart. For some reason, I’d known this wasn’t going to be as cut and dried as it had seemed at first. There had been a sense of unreality from the beginning. I didn’t believe Bebe had hit Star on purpose, not for a moment. But I did wish she had a clearer memory on just what happened.

  And the mirror—I’d seen that mirror, noticed it as I came up, just before rounding that corner. It was huge and showed a large chunk of the road ahead. How could Bebe have missed seeing it? That didn’t make any sense at all.

  Bebe was like a different person—unsure of herself, constantly on the verge of tears. And what seemed to bother her most right now was the fact that Sami still hadn’t shown up. He was her big baby and she couldn’t stand to think of him out there in the cold, cruel world, maybe in trouble, maybe trapped and unable to head for home.

  Bebe went off to her room to try to get some sleep before lunch. I knew I needed sleep too, but I also knew there was no way I could get any until I felt I had a handle on this thing.

  Barnaby, our visiting parrot, was shrieking his head off, cursing at the top of his lungs. Luckily his parrot voice was almost undecipherable, so the words tended to fly off into nowhere and do nothing, but it did make an annoying amount of noise. I went out to see what the problem was. He seemed upset, but I couldn’t drill down to a cause, so after trying to reassure him for a few minutes, and getting nothing but grief for my trouble, I got the big blue tarp and threw it over the aviary to settle him down. It seemed to do the trick pretty quickly.

  When I turned around, Aunty Jane was there, digging in the dirt around the herb garden.

  “Hi there sweetheart,” she said. “Your pretty boy policeman was here looking for you a bit ago.”

  “Really? Did you tell him where I was?”

  She gave me a properly dismissive glance. “You know I don’t talk to people like him. He can’t see me.”

  “Really?” I dropped down onto a garden bench near her. “But what about that time when I was in danger and you told him where to find me. How did you do that?”

  This was a subject that had puzzled me for weeks. It seemed the ghosts could do more than they pretended if they really wanted to.

  But she went back into playing dumb. “Me? I didn’t do that. I don’ know what you talkin’ about.” She shrugged and went back to her dirt. “He came back here and talk da kine loud mouth bird when he couldn’t find you.”

  “So you didn’t think to tell him where he could find me this time, huh?”

  She shook her head. Sometimes it was maddening trying to talk to ghosts.

  She looked up, frowning. “Bebe’s sad today, huh?”

  “Yes. Did you hear about what happened last night?”

  She nodded. “I hear things.”

  “She’s taking all the blame on herself. Isn’t there any magic you could do to make her feel better?”

  She didn’t answer and I sighed. “You know what would really make her feel better? If we could find Sami and bring him home. She’s so worried about that cat.”

  She gave me a sly, sideways look. “You do it,” she said.

  I blinked. “What do you mean?”

  She made a face at me. “You do it. ’Bout time you learn to do it yourself.”

  I still didn’t know what she was talking about. “How can I do it? Are you saying…?”

  “If your Granma was here, she would teach you.” She straightened, hands on her hips and looked at me. “She still not here. So I guess I gotta do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Teach you some magic.”

  I stared at her, my mouth hanging open like a doofus. But I was stunned. I’d never in my life had the idea that anyone was going to be teaching me magic. I couldn’t seem to get it clear in my mind. What was she saying?

  “I can’t do magic.”

  “Why not? You think you too good for magic?”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “Sure it is. You think you’re modern and smart and you don’t need magic. Right?”

  “But…”

  “Your granma always said you were the one. But she didn’t want to rush it. Now I think it’s time.”

  I tried to think but my mind was a mess. In the end, I answered on pure emotional skids, rejecting the very thought of it.

  “No!”

  I don’t know why I was reacting so strongly against the whole idea. Fear? Maybe. It was too new to me. It was like something thrust on me, something beyond my control, and I didn’t like that.

  “No. I don’t need magic. I don’t want it in my life.”

  Aunty Jane looked hurt. “But you were just asking me….”

  “I’m sorry.” I reached out to touch her shoulder and my hand went right through her body. Suddenly I was having a hard time breathing. “No, I’m sorry, really. I shouldn’t have said anything. I…I’ve got to go.”

  I escaped back into the house and had to stop to catch my breath. I didn’t know why I’d panicked like that, but my heart was still beating a mile a minute in my chest. I wanted no part of magic. Something deep inside told me it would only bring me misery. I had to stay away.

  Bebe didn’t feel like eating and neither did I, so we skipped lunch. I drove Bebe downtown to the station house. They wanted to go over her statement again and ask more questions. New things, supposedly, had come up.

  We were about half way there when she turned to me suddenly, looking anxious, and said, “Did you see a tall dark man there?”

  “Where?”

  “After I…at the scene. The accident. Tall, gaunt, black hair, dressed in black. Looked like an undertaker. Like Ichabod Crane or Don Quixote. Did you see him?”

  I thought hard, but shook my head. “No. I don’t remember anybody like that being there. Why?”

  She turned away. “I…I don’t know. It’s probably just my imagination. Or…” She tried to smile as though it was a joke. “Or maybe he was a ghost.”

  This was starting to feel a little weird. “Did you see any ghosts at the scene?” I ask
ed her, a little startled with this new thought. “Did you see Starflower….?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. It was just...I thought I saw the dark man right after it happened. I was so shocked, so horrified, I can’t be sure what I really saw. I jumped out of the car and ran to help Star, but it was too late. I looked up. Did I see him then? I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She shook her head and turned away. “Let me just think about what I’m going to say to them in that terrible little room. I hate this questioning stuff.”

  I waited a minute, thinking all this over. Then, I couldn’t resist asking.

  “Did you tell the police about seeing him? That tall dark man, I mean.”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to?”

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”

  That certainly gave me something new to think about. How seriously should I take her memory of the moment?

  We got to the station and I pulled into a parking place. Reid came out to meet us. Tall, dark and handsome in a very well-groomed, buttoned-down way, it gave me a wave of reassurance just to know he was here to help us. He smiled and gave me a hug when he saw me.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” he told me. “I’ll make sure nobody tries to bully her.”

  “She’s so depressed,” I whispered to him just out of her hearing. “I wish I could think of something to do to cheer her up.”

  He nodded, looking sympathetic. “It’s normal, you know. It’ll take some time. We’ll just have to do what we can to smooth her way back to regular life.”

  “Sure.”

  I watched them walk into the building together and I went back to my car. I hated this feeling, like a black cloud was hanging over me all the time. The only possible remedy was my usual one--I stopped by Mad For Mocha. The place was quiet and Jill had time to visit for a few minutes.

  “Hi sweetie,” she said as she joined me. “Wow. You look like death warmed over.” Realizing what she’d said, she clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oops. Sorry about that.”