“My granddaughter, Elsbeth passed away in a dreadful car accident a year ago. Her husband, Charles, will be by shortly. Would you like to stay and meet him?”
The image of being berated by the beefy looking monster in his early thirties I’d seen in the pictures on the mantle played across my mind. I didn’t like how it turned out, so I shook my head. The mousy looking brunette woman in the wedding picture dwarfed by the large man must be the late Elsbeth Snowden.
“Well I suppose I should get my pocketbook…”
“How about we just call it a free check up this time instead?” The fifty bucks would’ve been nice, but this wasn’t actually helping with her loneliness.
We were still haggling; Megan wanted to at least cover my bus fare, when there was a knock at the door. Damn, I hadn’t gotten out in time. I hoped that Charles was smaller than he was in the pictures. From the number on his college football jersey, he played offensive line for James Madison University a decade ago.
Those hopes were dashed, as I watched the man literally squeeze his way through the door frame, “Hello, Grandma Meg. I stopped and picked your replacement prescription up as well as some lunch. Oh I’m sorry; I didn’t know you were entertaining.”
“Charles, this is Michael Ross.”
He held out a meaty paw that enveloped my hand, “Charlie Snowden. I’m pleased to meet you. Is there anything I can help you with?”
I put on my best casual smile, “No, we were just finishing up here.”
“What exactly do you do, Mr. Ross?”
I was about to reply ‘Radon Gas Inspections’ when Megan offered, “He investigates the paranormal. Michael has been looking into all those strange happenings.”
Charlie let my hand go rather quickly and gave me a hard stare. Maybe I was being a bit self-conscious about my new vocation combined with the fact that he was almost a foot taller than me, but I’d be damned before I was going to let him intimidate me. I wasn’t an ex-combat vet for nothing. His big act falls a bit flat in comparison to the uncertainty of living with the prospect of sudden death for months at a time, not to mention my subsequent encounters with the supernatural.
“And what exactly have you found, Mr. Ross?”
“I haven’t found anything at all, Mr. Snowden,” I replied politely. “If there was something here, it’s not here now and it hasn’t left any trace. That’s why I’m not charging a fee for this visit.”
He set the Walgreen’s bag on the counter next to the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “That’s…very nice of you Mr. Ross. Well in that case, I’ll walk you out; be right back Grandma.”
He was decent enough to hold the door open for me and allowed me to get about ten steps down the driveway before he put his hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Ross, if I might offer some friendly advice, don’t let me catch you around here again. If I do, well, I might call the police after I beat the living shit out of you. She may not be my Grandmother, but I don’t like seeing some piece of shit like you taking advantage of her when she’s getting older and her mind isn’t what it used to be. Now why don’t you just go and find some other stupid mark to steal money from.”
“Like I said, I haven’t found anything here, Mister Snowden, and she was insistent that I come back out and check again. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Taking two steps backwards before I turned around, I kept my eyes on his shadow to see if he was going to make a move towards me. I didn’t relish the idea of getting into a fight in the driveway, but I was sure that I could show the ox behind me that I can scrap with the best of them.
The guys in my company always said that I had a clear cut case of ‘short man’s disease.’ It’s always the short guys isn’t it? From growing up on the not-so friendly streets of poor suburbia, to getting kicked off the wrestling team – twice, all the way to street-sweeping and house to house searches with the 1st Cav in Iraq, I’ve never been one to back down.
My fiery temper was the reason I was a Corporal instead of a Sergeant by the time I was medically discharged – thanks to an ugly little fight in a bar just off of Fort Hood that bought me an Article 15 and cost me a pay grade.
Fortunately, Charlie seemed content with letting me go as I headed down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. I was ten or fifteen yards down the walk when a white hot pain shot down my back. Had the bastard just clubbed me?
I rolled forward and came up ready to kick some ass. Staring at me was the mousy looking ghost of Elsbeth Snowden. She looked a bit frightened of me for a second. Bracing myself for the pain that I knew would come; I reached out and touched her with one finger. This physical contact thing required to hear them and the pain accompanying it were getting old.
Her mouth moved rapidly. “…figured it was just a joke, but you actually can see us. You have to stop him. He’s going to kill her!”
Up until that moment, I thought that day had been a waste of time – instead, it looked like it was going to be a disaster.
I used the short bus ride home to organize my thoughts. Even in death, Elsbeth was terrified of her husband. She wouldn’t admit to physical abuse, but all the signs were there. The ghost, Elsbeth, was indeed rearranging the furniture at Megan’s house to get her Grandmother’s attention. Seems Charlie watched one of those news shows about how a woman was murdered with selenium. He decided that waiting for Megan to ‘kick the bucket’ to sell her house was putting a crimp in his lifestyle.
Twice, Megan refused Charlie’s request to sell her house and move into a nursing home, so the man was moving the schedule forward on his own. Initially, he convinced her to start taking selenium supplements, to start building it up in her system.
Two weeks ago, despite not owning a gun, he drove to a gun show in Virginia and paid cash for some gun bluing solution. Now, he’s just biding his time before he poisons her.
Somehow, this was now my problem. Fortunately, I had a couple of weeks to figure out how to tackle this particular dilemma – seems he wants to wait a while before giving her a lethal dose. It was quite a bit to wrap my mind around as I walked from the bus stop back home.
A red 2002 Honda Civic sat in the driveway next to Mom’s dead 1998 Hyundai. Mom was at work, driving my Saturn. Until I got the hang of seeing out of this repaired eye, I couldn’t pass the vision test to get my expired driver’s license renewed. Sure enough, sitting on the front porch, reading an accounting textbook was Jenny Goodman.
“Hi Mike! I thought I’d stop by and see what you’re doing. Oh come on, I feel guilty enough already! Stop with the silent treatment. If you want, I’ll talk to your mom. I’ve been told I’m very convincing.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was only the male half of the population that paid extraordinary attention to her – Mom would be immune to her charms.
“I don’t recall your uncle or your aunt believing you. What makes you think that you could convince my mom?”
“But that was three whole weeks ago and since then, I haven’t spilled anything on the carpets, broken any glassware or fallen down in front of them, even once! All of my little ‘accidents’ suddenly stopped after our trip to Roanoke. They’re starting to come around.”
“So I’m welcome back in their house again?”
“Well, that hasn’t really come up just yet – give it a while longer.” Jenny definitely wasn’t the glass-half-full type. She was the kind that would put her head on the table and close one eye, so she could look up at it and say it was closer to two-thirds or three-quarters full.
I debated just going inside and shutting the door on her, but Jenny had that eager to please sugary sweetness that would drive a diabetic into a coma. So, instead of being surly, I held the door open for her and let her in.
Plopping down on the sofa, she immediately started in on me, “So what have you been doing?” I held a hand up to silence her and pushed the play button on our message machine.
The first one was some stupid offer to test our water for purity so someone e
lse could tell us how much we need to pay to have their life-saving filtration system installed. Considering we’re on city water and that I now knew for a fact that there was some sort of life after death, I wasn’t too worried about the quality of our drinking water.
Deleting it, I waited for the second call, “Mikey! It’s me Kenny, I haven’t seen you in a couple of months, but hey, guess what, man? I think I’m being haunted, man! Can you come over and check it out, man?” The rest of the message was that idiot stoner laughing his ass off onto the tape. I shot an accusing glare at Jenny, who had enough common sense to look embarrassed. Finally, I pushed the delete button for the second time.
“Who was that?” she asked sheepishly.
“One of the guys who works with my Mom at her night job – I guess she must’ve said something.”
“Mike, I’m really sorry. If it means anything, I believe you.” Her voice twanged with that accent that she tries hard to eradicate, most of the time. “You saved my life and I know it. The rest of them can just go fudge themselves!”
I’d learned Jenny doesn’t really swear. ‘Hell’ is about the strongest word I’ve heard her use. It was rather humorous; me, I was a foul mouthed bastard.
“Well, they say everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame. I never pictured it coming this way, Jenny. Don’t sweat it, the guy’s a punkass.”
“Mike, go get changed, “she said in her southern-girl-taking-charge voice. “I’m taking you out to dinner. You won’t let me give you a share of the money, so I’m going to buy you dinner and you can’t stop me!”
Concluding that Jenny was a force to be reckoned with, I replied, “and what if I don’t want to go?”
“I’m irresistibly adorable. Don’t make me use the puppy dog eyes.”
“Fine,” I said grumpily, “but no puppy dog eyes. So, where are you taking me to dinner?”
“Outback? There’s one on Georgia Avenue. Do you like steak?”
The dinner table in the Ross house sees a good deal of left over pizza, and hasn’t seen steak for a couple of years. “Sure, why not? Give me a minute.”
Once on the road, I broke down and told her about Elsbeth Snowden and my small problem with her still-living husband, Charlie, who was about to off his mother-in-law, Megan. Naturally, she went all Nancy Drew on me and started grilling me on all the details. It didn’t help that I should have thought to ask some of the questions she brought up. If she was the brains and the looks, what was I? Oh that’s right; I was the guy with some dead guy’s eyeball!
I stopped her from asking more questions during dinner. Talk of poisoning someone wasn’t particularly good dinner conversation in a public place. Okay, I can be the guy with the freaky eyeball and the common sense. It turned out that the restaurant was near a graveyard – funny how I seemed to notice these things now.
Returning to my driveway, she pulled in behind my Saturn. If Mom hadn’t been home, I’d have invited her in. There was an awkward moment of silence.
“Mike, things will get better with your mom, I just know it! I’ll look up some stuff online when I get home and give you some more questions to ask Elsbeth. When we have enough information, we can take it to my uncle! This’ll be great!”
“Why?”
“Duh! He’s a cop.” Why this didn’t surprise me, I’ll never know.
“Aside from the fact that he doesn’t really like me, why exactly would this be great?”
“You can convince him of your powers!”
“Jenny, I’m not some superhero…”
She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear, “You’ll always be my hero.”
I was then promptly kicked out of her car, while trying to process what had just happened. Were I a gambling man, I’d have bet that Jenny was as confused as I was right then.
Confused or no, somehow, that little peck on my cheek made my shitty day just a bit better.
Mom was waiting for me when I came in the door. It looked like my day was going to jump back into the crapper. “I was worried; you should have left a note. Where were you?”
“Jenny took me to dinner, to apologize about the article.”
She didn’t even bother asking about a potential date and leapt right into what was on her mind, “I think you should get some counseling, Mike. I won’t pretend to understand what you went through in Iraq, but one thing’s for certain – you’re not adjusting very well. This thing with seeing ghosts … It’s not normal. It’s not right.”
“Mom, I’m not off my rocker. When I said that I spoke with Grandpa Warren, I meant it. Otherwise how would I know about the fifty dollars you stole from him? You never told me, he didn’t like Dad, and I was only nine when he died. He wouldn’t have exactly told me then, now would he?”
“Stop! Stop it! I don’t want to hear it! You need help. Why don’t you make an appointment with the VA? Your medical care is free, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, you get what you pay for. Look, I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on myself; but whether I like it or not, it’s real. All the VA is going to do is make me fill out questionnaires and talk to me about anger issues that don’t exist!”
It probably would have been more convincing if I hadn’t sounded so angry. Just thinking about the damn VA still pissed me off.
“Don’t take that tone with me David Michael! If you don’t want to talk to the doctors; how about our Pastor?”
“Mom, I stopped going to church when I was fourteen, but if it will make you feel better, I’ll talk to him. Look, Mom, I don’t want to fight about this, not tonight.”
Mom stood up and hugged me, which was as strange as Jenny suddenly kissing me. I could feel her shaking a little. Mom was always a rock. She had to be with a delinquent like me. That worried me more than anything else. It took a lot to get through the hard exterior of Karen Marie Ross. “I just don’t want to watch you go crazy.”
Come to think of it, I wasn’t too keen on losing my marbles either.
The next day, I met with Elsbeth in a park a short distance away from where her husband lived. It seems that as a ghost, she’s anchored to her wedding ring, which he wore on a chain around his beefy neck.
“So he poured a bunch of the bluing solution into an eye drop dispenser and he’s got the rest in the garage in a milk crate covered with old books. My friend’s uncle is a cop. So, I’m going to try and take all this to him. I’m not really sure what will happen if he doesn’t believe me …”
“But you have to stop him! You have to!” Her vaporous form seemed to quiver in anger.
Trying not to look like the guy sitting on a bench and talking to himself, I muttered, “I’m not a cop! I’m doing the best I can. Not a lot of people believe in you folks, you know? What does Charlie do for a living?”
“He teaches Phys-Ed and coaches the track and wrestling teams.”
Great! There went my hope that the guy wouldn’t know any moves if things got physical. He’d likely overpower me while mocking my technique. Well, at least forewarned was forearmed and all that! Of course, some of the things I picked up in hand to hand combat training weren’t ‘common’ wrestling moves, so I was only concerned, rather than being frightened.
Naturally – or supernaturally, I was slightly suspicious of Elsbeth. At that point I only had her word that Charlie was doing all this. What if he wasn’t? What if she was a vindictive ghost like Jenny’s mother? She could be setting him and, by association, me up.
“I gotta ask, what proof do you have? Why should I believe you that he’s going to kill her? For all I know, you could just be trying to get even with him for being such an ass to you.”
That earned an angry smack from her that really stung. “How dare you!” She tried to do it again, but this time I caught her hand and despite the pain squeezed as hard as I could.
“I can play that game too, Elsbeth. You can hurt me, but it goes both ways! My guess is Charlie used to beat you and that’s why, even now, you’re
still scared of him. Trust me, you could be making his life a living hell right now, but you won’t – will you? You’re asking me to risk my life to stop him for nothing in return. Give me a damn reason to believe you!” I let her wrist go violently and watched her clutch it to her chest with what looked like tears in her eyes.
She started talking a mile a minute, but then stopped herself, remembering that I couldn’t hear her unless we were touching. I never was much as a lip reader, beyond the usual phrases that accompanied rude gestures.
“He’s been setting up his alibi by telling his coworkers that she has a weak heart and occasional chest pains. He’s already made two appointments for her to see a cardiologist and cancelled them for phony reasons. Charlie has another one scheduled for the week after he plans to kill her, so he can say that he was trying to convince her to go see someone, but she was being stubborn. He’s even gotten onto her computer and faked emails from her Hotmail account telling him that she’s fine. Grandma doesn’t know the first thing about computers! You could call the Doctor’s office and confirm that the appointments were made and then ask Grandma if he’s been trying to get her to go to one. Is that enough for you? I can pay you, you know.”
Elsbeth let go of me, drew herself up as straight as she could, and walked away – not paying any attention to the massive oak tree in her way. She was headed towards a 7-11 – maybe ghosts have a fondness for Slurpees.
Somehow I was supposed to convince Jenny’s uncle, Brian Wycheck, who already doesn’t really care for me, that Charlie was going to kill Megan. I wasn’t particularly enthused by this job – if it was a job at all.
Elsbeth came back eight minutes later. Evidently it wasn’t the Slurpees. “Six tickets down on the Maryland Cash scratchers is a one hundred dollar ticket – that’s the only way I can pay you right now.”
And so, questioning my sanity, I went in to the store and spent twelve dollars, making a hundred. As Elsbeth explained it to me, when she ran her finger over the tickets, she could make out what was printed underneath the silvery coating. Honestly, I didn’t feel any remorse. Was it bad karma to ‘use’ the dead like that? I didn’t know, but what I did know is that if I walked away from this, I wouldn’t have to try and convince a cop to believe in messages from beyond the grave. Was a few dollars for my troubles really that much to ask?
Pennies for the Ferryman - 01 Page 6
