by K. J. Emrick
It was a note, she saw, or at least a corner of a note. The rest of it had been burned away but this piece had escaped. Maybe the killer had been in the act of disposing of this when they saw her coming and got distracted with attacking her. “Well,” she thought out loud, “score one for me.”
All that she could read were the words credit has not been fairly given. Frowning, Miranda wondered exactly what that was supposed to mean.
Kyle stuck his head through the wall of the closet, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Jack’s coming. We like Jack, right?”
Miranda frowned at him. Kyle had been on the last date with her and Jack, an annoying little insect giving tips on dinner selections and wine choices and when the right moment to kiss Jack’s pillow-soft lips would be… Not that they’d actually gotten to the kissing part yet. She pondered that thought for a moment.
Ahem. Well. “Yes, we like him. It’s complicated, okay?”
“Why? You think life lasts forever?”
No. She most certainly did not.
Outside in the hall she could hear the sound of running feet and turned to see that yes, Jack was coming to her rescue. A few minutes late, but hey, who said chivalry was dead?
Shaking her head, she gave the closet one last look. It had nearly been her grave, and yet it was just so plain a space. Everything in its place, even, except for the mess on the floor…
What the …?
Among the cans and differently shaped containers, she’d almost missed it. A bronze cylinder on a wooden base. A little plaque was affixed to the side of the base. An award of some kind.
On the hard-top edge were stains of red.
The murder weapon! Had the killer meant to dispose of this here, just like the note? Or, was this what he planned to use to kill her, too?
Well, well, well.
“Miranda!” Jack said as he reached her. He took hold of her arms, looking her up and down as if inspecting her for anyplace broken. “I heard a commotion. Was that you? Are you okay?”
“It was me,” she said, answering his questions in order, “and yes I’m okay. I was grabbed. I think by the murderer.”
For a moment, Miranda thought he was about to hug her but then he stopped and simply smiled at her instead. “But you’re okay?”
She seized the moment instead, throwing herself into his strong arms. This was the twenty-first century after all. Sometimes a woman had to take the lead. “I’m better now,” she murmured.
“Mmm,” Kyle hummed. “What I wouldn’t give to be in your shoes right now, Miranda.”
She knew he meant more than being alive. It was hard enough being best friends with a ghost. But, when you both had the same taste in men, that just made things awkward.
Jack whispered into her hair. “Miranda, it isn’t safe for you here. Please, please go and just let us deal with this.”
Macho man. Well. She didn’t not like it. “I can’t, Jack. I have to see this through. In any case, I have something for you. I’ve got a really strong feeling that that was the murder weapon.”
He looked where she was pointing, and his face lit up for all the world like a kid on Christmas morning.
Letting her go and crouching down, he missed the little sigh of regret she couldn’t quite keep inside, Jack took a pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat and pushed the little statue around. “I’d have to say I agree.”
Looking around the storage room it didn’t take him long to find a stack of paper bags meant for small orders of popcorn. Taking two, he used one to pick the award up, and another to set it into. “Do you see what’s written here.” He held it up closer to Miranda but she couldn’t make out the writing and shook her head. “The other officer has the evidence kit, but this will do for now,” he said as he placed it inside the bag. “Think the guy was planning on using this a second time?”
He gave her a very pointed look as he stood up, obviously reminding her that it was dangerous for her to be here. Miranda’s emotions tumbled over themselves trying to find the words to explain to him—
Suddenly, Miranda heard a scream. It was a ghostly warble that she knew would be impossible for anyone else to hear.
Alma.
Kyle began frantically flitting up and down the hallway. “Oh God, did you hear that? It’s Alma!”
Yes, Miranda wanted to tell him, she heard it. The problem was, how did she let Jack know something was wrong without telling him she knew it was because she could hear ghosts? Well, a half-truth was better than a lie.
“Jack! I just heard a shout. Um, this way. Come on!”
“I can’t hear a thing,” Jack said as they started down the hall. “Are you sure you heard something?”
“Yes, I’m sure, come on!”
Miranda continued to run in the direction of Alma’s shouts until she saw the woman standing by the back-exit fire doors of the cinema, flapping her arms up and down almost as if she were ready to take flight.
“Here! He’s here!”
As Miranda looked down, there, at Alma’s feet, lay the body of Liam Wood.
Jack gave Miranda a resigned look as he knelt down to feel for a pulse at Liam’s neck. Resting back on one knee, he shook his head. “Dead,” he declared. “Now we’ve got two victims.”
Miranda agreed as she watched Liam’s ghostly body appear inside a blue swirl in the corner. He had a small smile playing about his lips as he looked back at Miranda. He lifted a hand in a wave in a final parting gesture as he slowly dissipated.
He was gone.
Chapter 7
In no time at all, police seemed to be dashing all over the cinema. They were examining Liam’s body as Miranda hovered close by to pick up every scrap of conversation she could.
The award from the closet had been taken away. Alma’s body was in an ambulance outside waiting to go to the nearest hospital and ultimately, a morgue. All that was left for them to process was the scene of Liam’s murder.
Alma hadn’t stopped explaining what had happened since Miranda arrived. “I heard somebody running, and then the sound of someone being thrown about, and then I heard arguing. It was horrible. It was so horrible! I just had to come and see what the matter was.”
“And you could hear Liam?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, it was definitely Liam. I couldn’t recognize the other voice, it seemed kind of muffled. I know I should have looked straight away, but I was afraid.”
“Afraid?” Kyle asked rather insensitively. “Alma, you’re a ghost. What did you think was going to happen to you?”
“I know. I know, it’s stupid. I know I’m a ghost and they wouldn’t have been able to see me or hurt me, but… I guess old habits die hard?”
She winced at her choice of words, then shrugged helplessly.
“It’s all right,” Miranda tried to soothe her, keeping her voice low as an officer walked past her. “We understand, don’t we Kyle? Please, just go on.”
“Well, I did go to look, but it was too late by then. By the time I got here, Liam was laying there dead. Did you see the red marks around his neck? I’m sure he was strangled. Poor Liam!”
Miranda was surprised at the emotion in Alma’s ghostly voice, considering she had professed just a little bit ago that she was done with both Liam and Dax. Maybe, she thought, there was still some feelings there after all.
Alma took a breath, and Miranda didn’t have the heart to point out she wasn’t really breathing anymore. “I saw somebody leaning out the exit door. They threw something outside, I’m sure of it, and then stepped back in and pulled the door closed. I just didn’t know what to do next. I stayed with Liam and shouted as loud as I could. I wanted someone to find Liam and take care of him but maybe I should have followed his killer.”
“You did everything you could, Alma,” Kyle said in an attempt to soothe her.
Miranda let them talk quietly as Alma began to sob, Miranda tried to overhear the conversation of the police officers present.
“Was he trying to get o
ut, ya think?” one of the officers said to Jack. “Wouldn’t the alarm go off?”
“Not now,” Jack said, crouching down by the fire exit. “See this?”
He picked up the ends of three wires, sliced neatly across.
“Someone snipped it?” the officer asked, using his cellphone to take a picture.
“Looks like. If somebody opened it, the door alarm wouldn’t go off this way. So. I’m going to guess that someone had a very good reason to want to get out that door.”
“Think the killer got away?”
Jack was shaking his head. He saw Miranda watching them, and gave her a little incline of his head. “From what I’ve heard, the killer was most likely one of the people watching the movie. Easy enough to find out if all of those people are still here.”
Miranda smiled inwardly that he trusted her to help him with this investigation. Why he wouldn’t open up to her more, she didn’t know. Then again, she was keeping her own secrets. Like for instance, she knew from Alma that there was evidence on the other side of that door. All they had to do was open it, and it would be right there.
Only, she couldn’t tell them that. Not without looking like as much of a kook as Sapphire Moon-Flower.
Speaking of that, where was she? Where was Jean-Paul? She had to believe that award in the closet was something of his, from his office. Oh no, she gasped silently. If Jack had suspected Jean-Paul before, what would it make him think to know that the murder weapon came from Jean-Paul’s own office!
In the middle of her worries, Jack showed her what a good police detective he really was. He went out the exit doors, proving that the alarm wouldn’t go off, and then looked all around.
“Hey, bring an evidence bag,” she heard him say. “Somebody’s thrown a scarf out here. Let’s bag it.”
A scarf? Miranda wondered about that. Where had she seen a scarf today?
Oh, that’s right. Sapphire was wearing one. Well, she wasn’t the killer… was she? No. Of course not. What a silly thing to think. Sapphire had been with Miranda the whole time and she wouldn’t do something like that anyway. Who else was wearing a scarf? For the life of her she couldn’t remember seeing anyone else…
“I just don’t know.” Alma interrupted her thoughts again. “I was so sure that Liam had killed me. Do you think he could have? Maybe somebody else killed him in revenge.”
Miranda walked back a little from the scene, indicating that Kyle and Alma should follow.
“That’s too complicated, Alma. I honestly think that whoever killed you killed Liam also. I am convinced that we are looking for one killer.”
“Well, we’re running out of suspects!” Alma said, a little sadly. “Who do you think killed me? Who would do this to me?”
“I’m not sure, Alma, but I do want to go back to the storage room and have a look around again. I didn’t have much time before Jack got there.”
Kyle floated in front of her, acting like he could stop her when they both knew different. “I don’t like that at all, Miranda. You should stay down here with Jack. After all, if something happens, you know that Alma and I cannot protect you. What if the killer decides to have another go?”
“I know, Kyle, but unless we find out who did this, we can’t help Alma move on. I don’t have the luxury of guaranteed safety. You and Jack both need to start understanding that.”
When she opened the door to the storage room, Miranda couldn’t believe her eyes. The place was in a complete mess. All the neat shelves had been gone through, and everything was everywhere.
“Whoa,” Kyle muttered. “Did the police do this?”
Miranda shook her head. “No. Somebody else was here. Someone who was looking for something.”
Her mouth went dry at the thought of the killer being here moments before her.
The room was filled with a haze of smoke which tickled Miranda’s nose. Looking around for the source she noticed a waste paper bin in the corner was on fire. Or rather, what was in the bin was on fire.
She dumped it over, stamping on the sheets of paper that had been set ablaze. There was more in here than that piece of note that she had seen last time. Someone had come back here, rifled through everything looking for God alone knew what, and then set these pages on fire.
With a little lightbulb of insight, Miranda realized she knew exactly what the person who did this was looking for. The award that had been left behind by the killer. The murder weapon.
“What is all that?” Kyle asked, pointing to the smoldering, blackened pages under Miranda’s shoes.
“It looks like a film script,” Miranda said, peering closer. “A lot of it has burned away but someone must have wanted to get rid of this pretty badly to chance setting it on fire with the police still here. There’s something crossed out here on the first page. A name?”
Kyle looked at it closely, floating down to squint at the page, and then merely shrugged.
Alma screamed. “Miranda watch out!”
Before she could react, a hand reached through the door and shoved Miranda further into the room. The door slammed. She heard a key fitting into the lock and then the screeching sound of metal bending.
She tried the doorknob, again and again, but the door just rattled in the frame. She was trapped inside.
The person must have broken the key in the lock. A deep, comically disguised voice spoke to them, muffled through the door.
“I can’t let you tell the police it was me. Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
She could just make out footsteps walking away as she pressed her ear to the door. Alma was cowering in a corner, her blue apparition fuzzing in and out. And Kyle was darting madly to and fro, completely unhelpful. “I’ll go get…” He said as flitted through the wall and back again. “No wait, I’ll go tell… no I can’t do that either. Oh! What good is it to walk through walls if you can’t make anyone see you!”
“Kyle, just calm down,” Miranda told him. “I’ve got a better way.”
“Oh really, what is that?”
“This.” She took a deep breath, and then she shouted as loud as she could while banging on the door with both fists. “Help! Help me!”
Kyle watched her, scratching at his chin. “Well, sure, I guess that works too.”
Soon enough, Jack was forcing the door open from the other side with the help of a large screwdriver. He and two other police officers stood there when she was finally free. Jack was the one who pulled her out, into his arms.
“Good God, what’s happened?” Jack said frantically. “What happened, are you hurt?”
“He tried it again,” Miranda told him, a lot more calmly than she felt. “He was here, looking for the murder weapon.”
Something in Jack’s body language changed. He went stiff around her, and anger flashed in his eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” she told him, “I’m sure.”
“Lordy! Look at him!” Kyle said, a little snarky. “He acts like he’s your boyfriend all of a sudden.”
Yes, Miranda realized. He sort of was.
Wasn’t that a nice change?
She wanted nothing more than to stay right here, in his arms, but she knew that she couldn’t. She had to break the spell. At least for now.
“Jack, I need you to get everyone together again. I’m quite sure I know who the killer is.”
Chapter 8
Jack Travis had gathered everyone who had been at the screening of Galactic Highway back into the cinema. This time they were all seated in the front row, including the two film investors Charles Cameron and James Lee. They hadn’t been very happy to stay as they claimed to have a plane they needed to catch. They couldn’t sway Jack though. He’d made them sit down and stay. In the second row were the handful of cinema employees.
Miranda was sitting on the edge of the stage, her feet dangling down. Jack paced up and down the small row of suspects, and nodded in acknowledgement at the two uniformed
officers guarding the exits at the back.
Jean-Paul was sitting in the front row also, and Sapphire had made her way to join him. Everyone watched Detective Jack Travis intently.
When he stopped pacing, he looked at each of them in turn. “I have gathered you all in here because I think we can finally identify the person who claimed two lives here this afternoon.”
“It is all my fault,” Jean-Paul muttered in despair. “Is it not so? I came on too strong to Alma. I scared her into the grasp of her killer.”
Alma floated closer to Miranda, her lower half immersed in the stage. “Oh, Miranda, please tell Jean-Paul it wasn’t his fault. We just weren’t ready for a stronger relationship. Now, I suppose, we never will be.”
Miranda shook her head very slowly, unable to say anything to either Alma or Jean-Paul. This wasn’t the venue to share messages from the dead. Kyle picked up the slack.
“She can’t tell him right now, Alma. Look around you. There’s too many people here, and we have to identify the killer. She won’t say anything to Jean-Paul until after that identity has been revealed.”
“Mister Devereux,” Jack said into the silence, “I know you’re upset, but I must beg you to settle down and let me get on with this. The murderer is here, in this room. Let’s lay fault where it belongs.”
“Wait, you don’t think it was me then?” Jean-Paul scrunched his face up in confusion. “But, the little statue you said was the murder weapon. That came from my office.”
“Then you should learn to keep your office locked. Especially when someone is rummaging through the building looking for something.” Very purposefully, Jack turned his attention to someone else in the front row. “Isn’t that right, Pearl?”
“Me?” she asked, nervously.
“Why, yes, Pearl. Is it true that you had a grudge against Alma O’Neal? After all, she fired you quite early on into the production, didn’t she? Wouldn’t you perhaps be looking for the award that Jean-Paul was going to give Alma at the press conference tomorrow, thinking that you deserved it?”
