Ghost On Duty (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Winters, J. D.

  “Oh.” That shut me up for a few minutes while I thought that through. “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen the report, looked through the files. It’s all there.”

  I stared at him. “Tell me the rest,” I said quietly, sitting down across from him. I knew there had to be more.

  He took another bite so I waited, trying not to look too impatient. After all, I was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to tell me these things and he could clam up on me at any time. I had to handle this carefully.

  “That was the motive behind her attempt at killing Ned,” he finally added. “At least, that was what she said at the time. Because he wouldn’t accept the son she was having as his own, even though she knew for sure he was the father.”

  “Oh.” I threw up my hands. All this was really clearing up some questions. “Oh for Pete’s sake! What else don’t I know about these people? Tell me quick.”

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh sure.” I stopped to think about all the new questions this brought up. “So the man who shot at me might have been Peg’s son Jasper? Oh wow.” I turned to look at Roy. “Tell me all about him. Why would he be in the woods behind Ned’s?”

  He dragged his gaze away from mine. “This sandwich is great,” he said in an obvious attempt to avoid answering.

  “And it’s poisoned,” I told him sharply. “Ancient island secrets, and I’ve got the only antidote. So answer quick or face the consequences.”

  He combined a deep breath with a pained rolling of the eyes at my lame joke, then winced as though facing the music. “Okay. Here’s the deal. From what I was able to find out, Peg got pregnant while working at Ned’s as a housekeeper. He refused to accept the child. She tried to poison him out of spite. She ended up doing time for that. The baby was born when she was in prison.”

  “Oh no.” How tragic!

  “Yes. And the kid was mostly raised by her sister while she was locked away.”

  “Oh yeah. I met her at the meeting last night. Sue Hatchet. Seemed very nice.”

  He nodded. “When Peg got out, the kid ran off, wouldn’t accept her as his mother. Nobody was accepting anybody from what I could tell.”

  “What a shame. What a balance relationships are. It’s so easy to tilt them out of whack.”

  “I guess so.” He looked at me quizzically. “Anyway, Peg tried over the years. Sometimes Jasper would come and stay with her and try to come to grips with things. But mostly, he wandered the world, never really finding his place in it.”

  “Poor Peg. No wonder she’s kind of nuts.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, every now and then he would take to the woods behind Ned’s, trying to spook him, trying to get something out of him, a rise or a smile or something. Probably money as well. From what I can see, it never worked out. Ned continued to ignore him. He called the police a few times, but they never found Jasper. It seems he had a good hiding place out there. There might be some caves in the rocks below or something where he goes when he really has to go to ground.”

  That made me think of something. “Did the captain know about all this?” I asked.

  Roy hesitated. “He must have if he read the report.”

  I narrowed my eyes staring at him. “And he still pretended I was lying about some man coming out of the woods and shooting at me?”

  Roy looked troubled. “You have to understand. The captain seems to have something personal against you. I don’t know what it is. I can’t read the man’s mind. But there’s something there.”

  “Great. So I’m doomed, no matter what the facts show?”

  He gave me that sideways smile that curled my toes. “Seems like.”

  I studied his face. He was handsome, but wary. Suddenly it occurred to me that he didn’t trust easily, and he definitely didn’t trust me. That was a shock. What was not to trust about me? I was an open book, for Pete’s sake.

  When you came right down to it, I didn’t know anything much about this man. I knew he was handsome and sexy and could be kind. Other than that—nada. Had he ever been married? Did he have a kid somewhere? Had his parents sold him to gypsies? Or had he run away to join the traveling circus as a teenager?

  Had he grown up in this beach town, surfing and dating a “Gidget” type girl and having bonfire parties on the beach? Or had he moved here from New York City? Was he heir to a vast fortune and just waiting for the right raven-haired, deeply tanned, only moderately neurotic island girl to share it with?

  It could be any one of those things—so far, he wasn’t talking.

  And right now, he wasn’t paying any attention to me. It was the cat he was staring at. I looked over to see what was going on. Sami was at the window, standing on the planter box outside, a wriggling lizard hanging from his mouth, taunting Silver.

  Meanwhile, Silver was coming forward in a low slink. When he got close enough, he jumped up on the counter so that he and Sami were face to face. Slowly, deliberately, Sami dropped the lizard right down in front of Silver. His tail, high and proud, gave a defiant jerk. And he was off to find new victims. Silver made a pass at the lizard, but the glass was in the way. He gave the thing a sneer and jumped back down, sashaying toward his kitchen corner as though he really didn’t care.

  I turned and looked at Roy. We both burst out laughing, then tried to stifle it. Cats are sensitive to ridicule and hold grudges. You have to be careful. But we could barely restrain our giggles.

  “Did you see the look on Sami’s face?” I whispered. “It was like, ‘Hey guy, this is what I’m doing out here in the world while you’re locked up in your cushy prison. Ha ha.’”

  “There was definitely some mockery involved,” he agreed. “Cats!” He smiled at me. I felt a slow warming where my heart was supposed to be.

  “So tell me,” I said slowly. “How long have you been a cop around here?”

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched. “A couple of years.”

  “And Captain Stone has been your boss all that time?”

  He nodded.

  “Is he… .” I hesitated, not sure how to put this. “Is he good at what he does? Being the leader of a bunch of lawmen, I mean. Do you trust his methods? His instincts?”

  He gave me a quizzical look. “What are you, the local shrink?” he said. “Put away the crazy theories I can see running around in your pretty head. Captain Stone is a good cop and a good investigator. I’d trust him with my life.”

  I squinted at him. “With your reputation too?” I asked softly.

  He gaped at me. “Where did that come from?” he demanded.

  I bit my lip and shrugged. “I don’t know. Forget I said that. It’s none of my business anyway.”

  “Look, Mele… .” He reached out and took my hand in his. “I know you’re frustrated right now. You feel like your reactions and instincts are being dismissed. But they aren’t. Believe me, the captain knows what I think of you.”

  My jaw dropped. “You’ve talked about me?”

  He nodded. “Sure. I wanted to make sure he didn’t get the false idea that you were somehow running around looking for trouble. So I told him a few things.”

  “What things?”

  He gave me a level look. “Okay, that’s enough true confessions. I’m done. I’ve got things to go do.”

  I frowned, but I didn’t push it. I wondered if I should tell him about Lance, about seeing him with Gary. But I couldn’t really find a justification for it. What did it matter who Lance met with during the day? Or any other time. No point in bringing it up.

  He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get going.”

  “Home?” I asked, wishing I knew for sure if he had a girl there or not.

  He looked at me. “No. Actually, I thought I’d go back out to Ned’s. Do a drive-through at least. See if someone who knows how to hide in daylight might be skulking around in moonlight.”

  “Good,” I said. “Hold on. I want to come too.”

  “No. He
y, Mele. It might not be safe. After all, the guy shot at you once. Why wouldn’t he do it again?”

  “We’ll be in the car, right? Just a drive-by?”

  Reluctantly, he nodded. “Yeah, but…”

  “Come on, Roy. I think I deserve to be in on this.”

  He frowned. “You promise you’ll stay in the car, no matter what?”

  “Of course,” I lied. “No matter what.”

  He gave in. We dressed more warmly and went out to the car. The Christmas lights from downtown were lighting up the sky. Someone was running up behind me and I jumped, gasping, but it was only Ginny Genera, the local lady who trained constantly for marathons.

  “Hey, Lovely people,” she said as she jogged on by. “Nice to see you together again.”

  “Hey yourself, Ginny,” I called back.

  Roy smiled and waved and then turned to me with a frown. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked me. “That crack about us being together again?”

  I just shrugged and got into the car.

  “I mean,” he went on, obviously bothered by what she’d said. “what is that woman training for at ten o’clock at night?”

  “It’s gotta be broad daylight somewhere,” I quipped, not very effectively.

  Roy wasn’t the first I’d heard wonder about Ginny. I overheard one patron at Jill’s complain about her just the other day. “What...is she spying on us all or is it just me?” he sputtered, getting worked up about it.

  But mostly, people felt about her the way I did. She was one of us.

  “I think she’s the real deal. She’s just bound and determined to do well in the next marathon she enters.”

  Roy looked a little disgruntled. “If you say so.”

  “You cops. You’re all alike. So suspicious of everything anyone in the public does.”

  “Hey, that’s not me,” he protested. “That’s the captain, sure. But it’s not me.”

  I smiled and we took off down the road, heading for Ned’s.

  Chapter Eleven

  I started to get nervous as we turned on the dark access road. I stared into the trees along the way and realized it was going to be hard to make out a man in among them.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” I asked, then realized I was whispering and Roy was laughing at me. “No, really,” I said aloud. “What does your training tell you in these situations?”

  “Watch for movement. Watch for color.” We turned up Ned’s driveway. “And whatever you do,” he said, looking at me sternly, “Don’t get out of the car.” He pulled over and turned off the engine when we were still out of sight of the house and about a football field away.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought this was just a drive-by. Where are you going?”

  “You sit tight. I just want to take a look around. There was one area I had some thoughts about when I was here before.” He opened the door and got out. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  And he melted into the trees.

  “Don’t move!”

  This was not what I’d bargained for and I was definitely annoyed. But I didn’t really want to go sloshing around in the woods. I didn’t know them well enough to have any idea of where I would be going anyway. So I sat where I was and pouted.

  The minutes dragged by. I sat and I listened. I heard an owl, then a strange rustling, like wings, and a shriek. Oh great. Murder and mayhem in the animal kingdom. Other than that. It was mostly frogs. Boy those little guys could get loud.

  Time was passing. It had to be a good fifteen minutes since Roy had left. What was he doing out there? I peered into the darkness, looking for a telltale light. He must have taken a flashlight with him. Where was he?

  I started thinking crazy things, the way you do when you’re stuck in the dark with nothing to occupy your mind. I mean, like what if that Jasper guy was out there lying in wait? What if he’d grabbed Roy right from the first? I should have gone with him. I’m scrappy. Hey, Jasper wouldn’t stand a chance against a Hawaiian dynamo like me. Yeah … right.

  And now, here I was, stuck in the car. I might not be able to find Roy at all, even if I tried. What was I going to do if he didn’t come back? He took the keys. I couldn’t hot-wire a car—did they still do things like that to cars? I didn’t know.

  I looked at my cell. No service. Great. I couldn’t even call for help. I might end up here for the entire night. The best I could hope for was that Ginny Genera might come running through. Then we could run to town together, a regular marathon of our own.

  The later it got, the more ominous the woods sounded. The owl was one thing. Now I was starting to think about vampires. Or mountain lions. Or men with rifles….

  There. A loud bang. What was that? Was that a gunshot? I listened hard but I couldn’t hear anything else. By now, I was pretty sure it was a gunshot. I’d heard one earlier that day and this sure sounded like the same thing. My heart was pounding madly. What now? What if Roy had been hit? I had to go help him.

  I wasn’t thinking about how in the world I was going to find him in the dark. That sort of thought was over now. I was in a cold panic. If Roy had been hit….

  I got out of the car and started going in the direction he’d gone in. In no time at all, I couldn’t see the car any longer. I stopped, thinking I should mark my way somehow so that I could come back to it. But how was I going to do that in the dark?

  I went a little further, pushing my way through branches that caught at my face, and then I began to see something looming through the night ahead. Whatever it was, I could use if for a marker. As I got closer, I realized it was Ned’s house. There were no lights on, but the white paint of the outer walls seemed to glow in the dark.

  I stopped and listened hard. Nothing. I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, and then the sound of a twig being snapped shot my heart practically out of my chest. I jumped behind a nearby tree and clung to the side away from where I’d heard the sound, and a few seconds later, a man came walking through.

  I don’t know how I knew it wasn’t Roy, but I was sure of it. I stuck like glue to the side of the tree, holding my breath as he passed. I could just make out the fact that he was tall and broad-shouldered, and I could see the outline of the gun he was carrying, but I couldn’t have identified the man at all.

  I waited, heart in my throat, grateful for the noise the man made walking through the underbrush, because if it weren’t for that, he would surely hear me gasping for breath. I stayed where I was until I couldn’t hear the man any longer. And then I turned toward where he’d come from and went in that direction, trying to step lightly, yet quickly, praying that I would find Roy safe and sound—somewhere.

  I thought I heard something and I froze, looking around for someplace to hide. I was in a clearing. Should I make a run for it? Wouldn’t that make too much noise and draw whoever it was right to me? But what if it was Roy?

  It was coming closer. No time for mulling this over—I headed for a stand of trees to the side of the clearing, slipping on leaves as I went. I reached the edge of the forest and ducked in among the trees, then stood very still, listening. Could it be Roy? Or someone else? There were definitely steps coming toward me, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out who it was. I turned and started deeper into the trees, but before I’d gone very far, I stumbled onto something long and thick and human that was in my way. I lost my balance and went sailing into the bushes. A body. It had to be.

  “Oh!” I tried to stifle it, but the gasp came out, and the person I’d heard moving was still coming toward me. I scrambled, trying to get to my feet, as much to run from the body I’d found as the pursuer.

  “Mele,” Roy called out, and the beam from a flashlight came right nearby. “Is that you?”

  “Roy!” I nearly fainted from relief. “Oh Roy! Are you okay?”

  And then he was there and I threw myself at him.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling back to avoid me as though in pain. “No hugging. I go
t shot.”

  “What?” I gasped and backed away. “Where? Who did it?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t see him. But he saw me. Luckily, not well enough to aim for the heart. He just grazed my arm. But it hurts like hell. And it’s bleeding like a son of a gun.” He leaned against a tree with his good arm. His left one was hanging a bit limply. He was trying to pull his shirtsleeve around the wound. “So, you okay?”

  “Yes. I heard the shot. I…I couldn’t stick to the car after that. I had to come look for you.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Yeah. Well, good thing you came along. I’m going to need some help.” He swayed and I jumped forward.

  “Are you going to pass out?”

  “I’m trying not to. But I will lean on you going back to the car.”

  “No problem.” I stepped closer, ready to help him. “But…uh…”

  I looked over at where the man was lying in the pile of leaves.

  “What are we going to do about him?”

  “Who?” He turned and looked and that was when he realized we had a body lying there. “What the hell?”

  He went over and tried to go down on one knee, letting out a muffled curse of pain. I jumped in.

  “Stop,” I said. “I’ll do that. You just tell me how to do it.”

  I felt for a pulse, but I knew it was useless. From what I could see in the dim light from Roy’s flashlight, it looked like the same man who’d taken a shot at me earlier—wild dark hair, and a bloody hole in his forehead.

  “I think he’s dead,” I said, looking up at Roy, feeling helpless. I mean—I hated the man for shooting at me, but I didn’t want him dead. For just a moment, I felt like being sick.

  Roy was looking down at me strangely. “That’s number three,” he said softly, his eyes full of question.

  I sighed and looked away. Something cold and hopeless was beginning to take root in my chest. “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “Unless you have other dead bodies littering your past life that we don’t know about,” he added.

  “No,” I said, loud and clear. “I never saw a dead person until I came to this town. I swear I didn’t bring this unique talent with me. It seems to have been assigned to me once I got here.”