Deader Homes and Gardens

by Angie Fox

  “That might be too much,” I cautioned as Frankie stared bug-eyed at me. “We don’t know what’s in that house.”

  “Let’s both agree to be fair,” Lee said. “In the meantime, you’re welcome to all the organic fruits and vegetables you can eat.”

  I stood, surrounded by a bounty of lettuce, radishes and carrots. I shone my light over green onions and cucumber vines. I even spotted a crop of okra.

  “Fruits and vegetables would be lovely,” I told him. For now, it was all he had. Plus, I hadn’t had this much fresh fruit and veggies in my kitchen in ages. It would be amazing to make a salad again, to snack anytime I wanted on fresh fruit. Lucy would be thrilled as well.

  “I’ll fetch a basket for your down payment,” Lee said, eager to please.

  Frankie looked ready to eat his hat. “What business do you know that gets paid in vegetables?”

  Lee smiled. “Take a look around and pick what you want. I have some blueberries ripening along the side of the house,” he said, selecting a basket from a stack on his porch and handing it to me. “There’s rhubarb, lettuce, and if you like asparagus, I grow more than you’ll ever eat.”

  “I love asparagus,” I said.

  Frankie made a choking noise. “You gonna fill up your gas tank with it?”

  No, but it was nice to have food I’d earned and an honest-to-goodness conversation with a client who respected me.

  “The okra’s coming along nice,” he said as we passed a row of young plants. “I might have some ready next week.”

  I walked behind Lee, admiring his hard work. “I haven’t had fried okra since my grandmother harvested a bumper crop the summer before she died,” I told him. “It would be a taste of home.”

  He stepped down onto the porch behind the house and waited for me. “Your grandmother was on my route. She used to give me apples from a big tree out back.”

  “It’s still there,” I told him. But it didn’t give fruit anymore.

  “Shoot me again because I am not listening to this,” Frankie said, walking through a dented Weber barbeque pit and down the side drive. Lee helped me select a bounty of early summer fruit and vegetables, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since my own financial difficulties last year.

  Afterward, he walked me to my car and packed the produce onto the floor of the backseat for me. Frankie sat on the passenger side, glaring at us.

  “Thanks,” I said, when Lee closed my door for me.

  “You’re thanking him? For what?” Frankie demanded.

  I waved as I pulled out and headed down the driveway. “You’re acting like you’ve never gone to a haunted house before.” Everywhere Frankie went was haunted, if only by him.

  “You don’t get it.” He shook his head. “I’ve done death. Curses are something different. They follow you afterward.”

  Heavens. “Have you ever personally experienced one?”

  He stiffened. “No.”

  “Then you’re just going by what you’ve heard.” From what I understood, the rumor mill on Sugarland’s spiritual plane was just as lively as it was on this side of the veil.

  “I’m not doing it,” Frankie stated, his urn shaking as we drove over a crumbling section of pavement. “I refuse to participate in this nonsense. There’s nothing you can say. Nothing you can do…”

  Then he didn’t know me that well. “Southern girls always find a way to get the job done.”

  Chapter 4

  We dropped by Ellis’s place on the way home. Frankie didn’t want to “get friendly with the fuzz,” so I left him in the car out front. If he changed his mind and wanted to come in, he was certainly welcome, although I wouldn’t stay long. Ellis had patrol duty tonight.

  I knocked once on Ellis’s front door while letting myself in. “It’s just me.” It felt good to be back in a place where I was wanted.

  “How’d it go?” He sat on the couch, already in uniform, looking every inch the sexy lawman as he went over reports. Lucy lay curled in his lap.

  I gave his arm a squeeze and scratched my skunk between the ears. “The Rock Fall property is definitely haunted.” Lucy rolled on her back to offer me better access. “A dead girl watched us from the window.”

  “You officially have a more interesting job than me,” he said, his tone joking, but his expression serious. Lucy nearly rolled off his lap and he caught her, standing as he handed her to me. “I get that you’re moving up in the world, but please be careful.”

  Ellis had joined in on some of my stickier adventures. He knew what I was up against.

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised. Lucy snuggled in tight, her soft fur radiating heat. “You’re the one patrolling the mean streets,” I added, only half joking. Sugarland wasn’t as dangerous as the big city, but we’d had our fair share of trouble in the past ten months.

  As if responding to my worry, Ellis’s police radio went off.

  Suspicious activity reported at 127 Main.

  “Isn’t that the New For You resale shop?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “You have something to tell me?”

  “No. I haven’t talked to those ghosts in months.” Not since I’d helped a war hero find peace.

  He unhooked his radio. “Officer Wydell here. I’ll check it out.” He grabbed his keys off the coffee table. “Let’s hope it’s just a few restless spirits. Although I don’t know how I’d explain it at the station.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  He held the door open for us. “Are you heading back to Rock Fall?”

  “Not tonight.” I saw his relief as he locked up behind us. “Lee and I are investigating by daylight tomorrow.”

  “Smart girl,” he said, brushing his lips over mine.

  “Always trying.” Hopefully, it would be less terrifying during the day—although I wouldn’t count on it.

  I leaned into him and took the opportunity to extend our goodbye for a few rather enjoyable moments. I really didn’t want to leave this place, or him.

  All too soon, he broke away. “I gotta go.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Thanks for coming over today.” He gave me a wink and headed for his patrol car in the driveway. I couldn’t help but smile. I’d had fun too.

  I started for the Cadillac and made it halfway across the yard before my poor skunk saw the ghost waiting in the passenger seat. Lucy had never been much for spirits, especially Frankie. She began climbing up my chest to my shoulders, her little nails digging in hard.

  “Lucy.” I stiffened as she attempted to scale my head. “At some point, you’re going to have to get used to him,” I gritted out, extricating her grasping claws from my hair. “He’s just an obnoxious ghost.”

  “I heard that,” Frankie called from the front seat.

  I thought for a moment about separating the two and keeping Lucy in the backseat, but she clung to me like she was drowning and refused to let go. “I’ve got you,” I told her as we slid into the driver’s seat.

  Frankie crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t blame this on me. That creature is irrational.”

  “He’s right, you know,” I said to my skunk, who tried to scramble out the window as I clutched her to my chest. Frankie had been nothing but kind to her.

  I exchanged a wave with Ellis as he departed in his police cruiser. That split second’s distraction was all it took for Lucy to bury her furry skunk face in my cleavage and jam her cold nose against the soft skin between my breasts.

  “Yikes!” I jumped and hit my elbow on the door.

  “She could at least buy you dinner first.” Frankie guffawed.

  I let him have his laugh because just then, Lucy’s body relaxed and she let out a heavy sigh.

  “Darn it, Lucy,” I said. She was dug in to the shoulders. The top of my dress had never been so filled out. But she seemed…content.

  I didn’t believe skunks were related to ostriches, but if this helped her deal with the ghost, who was I to judge?

  At l
east it would get us home in one piece.

  So I nestled her in tight and started the car.

  Luckily, we could get anywhere we wanted in Sugarland in less than fifteen minutes. I lived on the south side of town, over the railroad tracks and past the highway, so I pulled out and started one-hand steering that way.

  Lucy had begun to snore by the time we drove up the wide front drive, toward the gorgeous antebellum house that had been in my family for generations. Tidy bungalows clustered along the way on what had once been the family peach orchard.

  Over the years, my family had sold the estate around the house, piece by piece, so all we had left of the once-sprawling estate were the two acres with the house and a small pond out back. And you know what? It was plenty.

  I smiled at my house’s generous front porch, with its white columns and pots of geraniums. It was the only place I’d ever lived that felt right.

  Even Frankie seemed more at ease as we headed down the side drive to the rear of the house. I didn’t have a garage, seeing as the house predated cars, but that was okay. I parked in the same spot I always did, near the long bed of climbing roses that had seen more family cookouts than I wanted to count.

  Our extended family didn’t do much getting together these days, what with my dad and grandmother gone, and my mom and stepdad going every which place in their RV. My sister, Melody, and I were the only two left in town, but it didn’t change the fact that this place held some of my most cherished memories.

  Lucy stirred as I parked the car. “Home at last, babe.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Frankie said, stretching.

  Oh my. He had gotten comfortable.

  Lucy, on the other hand, jumped at the sound of the gangster’s voice. Before I could even get the car door all the way open, she’d tumbled out of my cleavage and zipped out into the yard.

  “Sit tight for a second,” Frankie instructed.

  I turned to ask him why when I felt the pricking weight of the ghost’s power settle over me. Lucy took advantage of the distraction and I watched helplessly as she made a beeline for her favorite hiding spot under the porch.

  It was just what I needed—a dusty skunk in my bed tonight.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as his energy seeped into my muscle and bone. The air around me shifted, waking up my senses to what lay on the other side. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, but it was certainly unexpected.

  “You need this,” the gangster instructed, like he was Yoda or something.

  I stiffened in my seat. “I can’t begin to imagine why.” It might have been nice to see the other side back at Rock Fall mansion. Then I could have tried to speak to any ghosts in the garden. But showing me the ghostly plane right now seemed rather pointless, especially since the power exchange typically drained Frankie to the point where parts of him disappeared, if only temporarily. “What would possess you to put yourself in this situation?”

  Frankie faded to nothingness, then reformed next to my driver’s side door, as if he couldn’t be bothered to go around the front of the car. “I don’t want you walking through Suds again.” He raised his finger as if I were a disobedient child. “Suds is my guest.”

  Oh brother. I slipped out of the car. “I do feel bad about that. And I will apologize.” But it hardly warranted a power infusion. Then again, it wasn’t my energy we were burning. I turned and fetched my produce basket. “After we’ve made Suds feel welcome, you’ll have to take him out onto the back porch if you want to hang out. I need some rest before tomorrow’s big job.” And I was currently sleeping on an old futon in the parlor.

  “Outside?” Frankie balked, as if it were raining frogs.

  “It’s a perfectly lovely evening,” I said, looping the woven handle of Lee’s basket around my arm.

  Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “Fine talk for a girl who can’t do tomorrow’s job without me.”

  I’d known this was coming. And I was ready. “That’s why I have a deal for you,” I said sweetly.

  He shot me a curious glance as he glided next to me on my way up to the porch. “I’m listenin’,” he said, as if we were discussing bribery or extortion, two of his favorite subjects.

  I stopped at the bottom of the steps. “I realize you were offended when I took the job without asking you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He frowned, as if he sensed a catch. In this case, he was right.

  “But this job does pay, and I do need it. And as far as ghost hunting goes, you have to admit it’s been quite rewarding for both of us so far. I managed to keep my house, and you got your best friend back.”

  He planted his hands on his hips. “So what’s the deal?”

  “Simple.” I notched my chin up. “We’re a team. And I’ll always ask before taking you on any jobs.”

  “You’ll ask me?” he thundered, his gray face mottling with rage. “That’s not a deal, that’s a partnership, and one I didn’t even agree to!”

  Maybe Lucy had the right idea, hiding under the porch.

  “All right,” I said, starting up the steps. I could sweeten the pot. Frankie always liked getting out of the house. “You help me and I’ll take you to the haunted speakeasy to see your friends.”

  The gangster halted. “The last time, they tried to shoot you.”

  “True.” I hoped they’d calmed down since then.

  Frankie scowled. “The time before that, you got attacked by a poltergeist.”

  I gripped my basket tighter. He did know how to bring on the memories.

  “Next time, don’t get so close to the skeletons that you knock the heads off,” he went on, as if I hadn’t gotten the point.

  I was trying my best and fast losing patience with him poking holes in my plans. I turned to him at the top of the stairs. “Well, what do you want?”

  Talk about a loaded question.

  Frankie grinned.

  He wasn’t the only one. His friend Suds shimmered into view next to my porch swing, wearing a similar dog-eat-dog grin. “Did they teach you that smirk in Mobster 101?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Suds said, with clear relish. “It’s called a shakedown.” Dirt and grime streaked his tan pleated pants and chambray shirt, and a spiderweb dangled from his bowler hat, just as it had when he’d died trying to dig into the vault at the First Sugarland Bank in 1933. “Tell the little lady to break you out of that rosebush.”

  “It’s not so simple,” I explained. We’d tried many times to free Frankie from my property and it hadn’t worked.

  Suds hadn’t been there when we’d tried everything from drying and digging to psychic intervention to free Frankie’s remains from my garden soil. When that didn’t work, we’d gathered up all the ground his ashes could have possibly touched and relocated it to a whiskey barrel in my parlor. Along with the rosebush. And Frankie’s gun.

  Suds looked at me expectantly and I decided it was time for a very Southern subject change. “I’m sorry I walked through you.”

  He tipped his hat at me. “I’m sorry I told Frankie to shoot you.”

  There. We were all better.

  “You know what I want?” Frankie asked.

  Just by his tone, I knew I wouldn’t like it.

  He went over to Suds and clapped him on the shoulder, sending up a small ghostly dust cloud. “I want more of this.”

  I exchanged a glance with Suds, glad that Frankie’s best friend had no idea what he was talking about either.

  Frankie rolled his eyes. “We found out I need to be reunited with the thing I love most in order to set me free.”

  Suds appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “Hey, now…”

  “Well, I love that gun we found,” Frankie said, pacing the porch, passing straight through the clay pots of daisies I’d planted for decoration. “But did that gun get me free? No. It’s just sitting there under the rosebush. I love stealing,” he began.

  “That’s true,” Suds agreed. “I mean, he actually enjoys it.”

  “It’s th
e thrill of the take,” Frankie agreed, reminiscing. “Like the time we bagged that shipment of cigarettes coming off the train in Memphis.”

  Suds cocked an elbow through his friend’s chest. “He stopped and smoked a few while he was stealing the load.”

  Frankie guffawed. “Had to make sure they were good!”

  “So that’s what you want,” I said, unsure exactly where he was going with all this.

  “I want to feel alive,” Frankie said, as if it were the only thing that mattered.

  I resisted the urge to remind him he was dead.

  “I want to lift some ice,” he added, with vigor.

  “I have ice in the fridge,” I offered.

  Suds rolled his eyes. “He means stealing diamonds.”

  Frankie wrapped an arm around Suds’s shoulder and gave him a friendly jostle. “I want to get the gang back together.”

  Suds let out a whoop and I simply stared. “You have the gang. I saw them all at the speakeasy.”

  “Exactly,” Frankie said, as if I’d said something brilliant. “They’re spending their entire lives partying—boozing and chasing tail.”

  “That sounds kinda nice,” Suds mused.

  But Frankie was all ideas. “We’re going to show them the kind of crime you can commit when you truly commit to crime.”

  Suds lit up. “We can make this our headquarters.”

  “Oh, no,” I warned.

  Frankie spun in a small circle. “We can stash whiskey under the porch!”

  “Not with Lucy there.” I balked.

  “Hide cash bags in the oven,” Suds chimed, giving Frankie a high five.

  “Just so long as you don’t light them on fire like you did in ’31,” he said, giving Suds a punch on the arm.

  “I only did it once,” he said to me, as if that made any of this all right.

  “You don’t get it,” I told them. “This is my home. It’s supposed to be my haven.” I’d just saved it from the sale block. It was bad enough I had one gangster here, but I didn’t want two, or twenty, or however many dead guys they could convince to join up.