Pennies for the Ferryman - 01

by Jim Bernheimer

  “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t begrudge her the opportunity to meet some other people. Charles was very domineering and didn’t allow her to socialize all that much.” She stopped and sniffled for a moment before dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Forgive an old woman, but it seems like I have a better relationship with her now than when she was alive.”

  I did my best to reassure her. “It’s obvious that she cares a great deal for you.”

  “I know that. Now let’s put this away and I’ll make you some iced tea. Mr. Parker said that you helped a young man out with some spirits and rescued this dog. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me about your adventure?”

  For a change, it was nice to talk to a female who wasn’t scolding me. So, I sat down for a nice long chat. Megan made a point of telling me at the end that it was a very brave thing to do. We were just finishing up when Sheba sat up and looked very excited. Elsbeth walked through the door, apparently laughing, accompanied by Kevin McNeil.

  I did mention that I specialize in awkward moments, didn’t I?

  Back in the days of silent movies, people were pretty good at picking up the conversation from watching the actors. I was getting pretty good at by necessity, which reminded me that I still needed to look into a lip reading course. What with being deaf in one ear, the VA should pay for it.

  From the blatant rage on McNeil’s face, I also needed to remember to bring that sword with me all the time. The only problem was I didn’t exactly swipe Colonel Vincent’s scabbard at the same time. Things were moving quickly on that particular day.

  What this all meant was that once again, I didn’t have the sword on me just as things looked like they were about to get “ugly.” I did have that pouch full of iron filings, but they were over in my coat which was hung up in the closet.

  Turning to the little old lady on the couch, I said, “Pardon us Megan, but it looks like Elsbeth brought some company over and that company isn’t too happy to see me. Kevin! Buddy! Pal! Long time no see! Oh, I don’t have to be able to hear you to tell that you just said a naughty word.”

  If I wasn’t scared of that man-mountain named Charlie Snowden, a slightly pudgy and out of shape dentist didn’t really intimidate me at all. I started walking towards him while Elsbeth seemed to be clutching at his arm and whining that this wasn’t what it looked like.

  “Actually Kevin, it is what it looks like. You see, I asked her to figure out why you don’t want your murder solved, but seeing how quickly you charmed her, I’m pretty sure what really went on.”

  I sidestepped his clumsy punch and drove my fist into his gut enjoying the whoosh as his “breath” left him. He tried to grab me, but it was the wrong move. A few grapples later, I was free to hurt him and put him into a submission hold. A minute later, my left knee was jammed into his back and his face shoved into the carpet, visiting a bit of pain upon him that I was certain his patients would have appreciated.

  “Mike! Stop it and let him go!” Nearly panicked, Elsbeth was smacking at me.

  “No thanks. You’ll notice who threw the first punch. I think I’ll talk to him down here. Kevin, how about we start with who offed you?”

  “Go to hell!”

  “I can’t do that right now, you see I’m still alive. Check back with me after the holidays. Now you can either start talking, or I’m going to round up some of my other ghostly friends and have them start investigating.”

  I was lying of course, Elsbeth was the only “Casper” I knew of at the moment, but there were times when a good bluff was just as effective.

  “It won’t help. You won’t find anything! You can’t keep me here forever.” He did sound a bit worried.

  “We’ll just see about that. I won’t lie to you. I want the reward money. You’re not protecting your family. I can’t see why you’d be protecting the person that killed you. The fact you don’t want your family to get closure means you care more about your image than you do about them! No, I’m afraid you’re not getting away that easily, Kevin.” He tried to “fade away” and escape back to his burial site. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that when he was in my grip.

  “You’re nothing but a money-grubbing soulless bastard!”

  Fortunately, my self-esteem was bolstered by Megan’s kind words from a few minutes before. Standing up, I let him go with a warning. “That’s rich coming from man who cheated on his wife and is still lying to himself. Go ahead and leave, Kevin. The truth has a way of coming out. It might not set you free, but as you might have guessed, I don’t really care.”

  He disappeared and I was left facing a fuming Elsbeth.

  “Sorry I ruined your date.”

  “You couldn’t leave well enough alone!” Elsbeth raged.

  “What can I say? It’s a character flaw.”

  She looked at me incensed. “Does the money really mean that much to you?”

  “Put yourself in his wife and his kids’ place, Elsbeth. They want to know the truth. They wouldn’t have put up ten large for a reward if they didn’t. If money meant everything to me, I’d have never helped you out in the first place.”

  I wasn’t really getting through to her. “He just wants to be remembered as a loving family man and I’m sure your husband wants to be known as a guy who wouldn’t poison his deceased wife’s grandmother, but it’s like what Mick Jagger said about always getting what you want – you can’t!”

  “May I say something?” Megan said interrupting our conversation even though she only heard my side of it.

  “Elsbeth, honey, you’ve never been good at picking men. It looks like that hasn’t changed either. From the sounds of things, this one certainly isn’t a winner.”

  I was fighting back a smile when she started dressing me down, “Mr. Ross, I’m more than a bit disappointed in you. It’s okay to help people who ask for it. It’s okay to want to use your gift to better your own life. That said; ruining a man’s reputation just for the sake of a reward isn’t something to be proud of, young man! You don’t even know his family, so I find it difficult to believe that you are more concerned about them than you are a financial windfall.”

  I looked away suitably rebuffed. It was embarrassing to have your behavior pointed out in such a manner.

  “Why don’t you go home and think about you motivations, Michael? It’s been my experience that money causes just as many problems as it solves. Charles coveted this house because he was obsessed with what he could sell it for after I was gone. Temptation is the way to weakness and I think you’re a better man than that!”

  I left for the day properly chastened with my tail between my legs. I didn’t even ask Elsbeth to test out the various as of yet theoretical uses Silas and I came up with for the pouch full of iron filings.

  Most of my life, I’d just been going nowhere - until this power showed up. I was living again, growing and making mistakes. It made me wonder about the person I was turning into, a real Deep Thought in a Shallow Pool kind of thing. It was ironic that I would think of one of my dad’s nonsensical sayings at that time.

  I sure as hell didn’t want to grow up to become him.

  Imagine my shock when the next morning I was headed to the bus stop and found McNeil at the edge of the property being held back by the barrier Silas created. That was comforting. Cautiously, and with the knowledge that my pipe wrench was in my duffel, I approached him. He looked downtrodden and I prepared for the sob story.

  “You’re right.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah. I was ticked off when I left yesterday, but then I spent all of last night at my house. You know how many of my boy’s basketball games I went to before I died?” He asked.

  I didn’t answer – knowing that he’d tell me.

  “Two in three years. Now he’s a sophomore and getting scouted by some Division Two schools and I’m not there to tell him how proud I am. Tina is probably going to get a full ride to an Ivy League school and I was more worried about going to dental conferences so I could
get a little ‘side action’. Whoever said that ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ doesn’t know the half of it.”

  I didn’t want to debate merits of pop ballads and to be honest I could never remember if it was Poison, Motley Crue, or Cinderella that did that song.

  “You want to talk about what happened?” I asked.

  “I suppose that’s all I have left,” Kevin said with resignation. “I was seeing this one patient of mine on the sly. We had some good times, but broke it off well over a year ago and she stopped coming to my practice. Then one day, I’m leaving work in the evening and this guy jumps me and cold cocks me. I wake up, tied up on this guy’s boat and listening to him rant about his wife and all her lovers. Then he kills me and dumps me overboard.”

  “Don’t you want to see him brought to justice?”

  “They already arrested him for killing his wife. Last month they sentenced him to twenty years. If he confessed, they’d just add a few years on to his sentence. The guy who just won the election is a death penalty opponent. I figured it wouldn’t matter, but last night I really watched my family.”

  I had to admit, I was curious. “What did you see?”

  “My wife crying in her bedroom. My boy, turning down a date with a cheerleader so he and my youngest daughter can drive down to Deale and pass out flyers at shopping centers, hoping they’ll get lucky with all the Christmas shoppers. I didn’t deserve it when I was alive, but they love me, and they’re still hurting.”

  “So what do we do next?”

  “I guess we turn him in. My kids find out the bitter truth about their old man and they eventually move on. I guess I move on then too.”

  I shook my head, “I don’t think so. If your focus was on avenging your death, you’d have been more interested in revenge. I think your guilt is about not spending enough time with your family. Seems to me you’ve got as much time as you need now,” I said. “You can watch them, and watch over them too.”

  Maybe I should take up psychiatry and be a not-stupid, not-evil head doctor.

  Nah, the few I’d met left a bad taste in my mouth.

  I ended up late for class after a long phone call with the homicide detective in charge of Kevin’s case. I didn’t really feel like doing the whole “psychic boy” routine, but with the Snowden case coming up, it didn’t hurt to pad my paranormal resume. The ten grand wouldn’t hurt either.

  It was one of those odd things, because the dental records of the woman had been pulled for the court case involving the murder. No one ever made the connection between the dentist who went missing and the wife, who died shortly afterwards. It’s a strange world where the thinnest connections between people are often lost in the shuffle. Those little connections can make all the difference. The police had DNA evidence, but without the connections, they hadn’t a clue what was in the old evidence locker; now they did.

  By the time I got to class, I was pretty distracted by the day’s events, combined with the fact that lectures on bubble sorts, quicksorts, and something called hybrid counting sorts could weren’t exactly enthralling. There was a lesson in the life and death of Kevin McNeil. Naturally, a blockhead like me was still puzzling it out. I was sure that Silas would certainly have a pithy saying or two for me when I told him about it.

  Still, enough of it had sunk in that when class ended, I headed towards the cafeteria. Normally, with no class the rest of the day, I’d be headed towards the bus stop. Instead, my quarry was the elusive Jenny Goodman. It was time to be an adult--for a change.

  She watched me walking towards her and I could see some apprehension on her face.

  “Hey Jenny,” I said, hoping that it sounded friendly.

  “What do you want?” Her tone didn’t make this any easier.

  “To say I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry we’re not really friends anymore and that we can’t seem to stop irritating each other.”

  She gave me a look of stunned disbelief interrupted with numerous blinks. Sensing she was somewhat speechless, I finished, “Well, that’s all I wanted to say – I hope your life turns out well. See you around.”

  Walking away, I felt good about myself, probably better than I’d felt in a long time. Appearances could be deceiving; a guy like Kevin lived a carefully crafted charade, which he was too afraid to let go of even after his death. Me, I was a sarcastic ass who struggled for everything, but I didn’t have to be nasty to everyone.

  Episode 6: The Grinch who Stole Karla

  I hated the holiday season. Call me pessimistic. I suppose my loathing of all things Christmas stemmed from my dear old dad. When I was a tot, David Michael Ross, Senior opted to clean out the bank account and skip town right before the holidays and shortly after my grandfather’s funeral. Mom and I assumed he was going out shopping.

  There’s a saying about assumptions. It applied here, too. There were several reasons for me to be a Scrooge this year. That big reward check for solving the McNeil murder for starters; it made me wonder if there is such a force in the universe as negative karma. First, I lost about thirty-six hundred to taxes right back to the state coffers that just gave it to me. This was puzzling, because Virginia hadn’t taken out the taxes for my earlier bit of detective work.

  Come to find out, I would have to claim that earlier reward money as out of state income, come tax season, which already left me several hundred dollars in the hole – hurray for me.

  Okay, I could grudgingly accept that – death, taxes and all that rubbish. Trust me, considering what my right eye could see; death wasn’t looking 100% certain. Thank goodness the tax man was there to keep me grounded. Still, with over six grand left, I wasn’t about to start whining … or was I?

  Well, twenty-five hundred was destined for Megan Rosemont, even though my ghostly friend, Elsbeth, wasn’t much help when it came to the mystery behind Kevin McNeil’s death. I wasn’t about to deny a sweet little retiree the joys of taking a Hawaiian vacation. Elsbeth admitted that she felt guilty over the whole thing and would find a way to make it up to me. Promises, however, didn’t pay my bills.

  How she planned on making it up to me when the majority of her free time was spent in the company of the aforementioned Kevin McNeil was another mystery. Ghosts in love; it sounded like a bad sitcom, which of course meant that my life needed better writers.

  It’s rather sad when the ghosts I encountered were better off socially than I was. That really did say something. Candy hadn’t been able to make a return trip. We chatted online and a couple of times on the phone, but being a policewoman during the holiday season meant that my girlfriend of one whole questionable date was pulling double shifts at DUI checkpoints and racking up a considerable amount of overtime.

  Candy asked me to be patient until the season was over and that she also would find a way to make it up to me. I spotted a pattern developing.

  Even so, I was doing okay. There was still about thirty-five hundred dollars, which is more than I’m used to handling, trying to be a full time college student, part time paranormal investigator, and long running bad luck magnet.

  Despite all of this, I tried to get in the Christmas spirit. The previous Christmas, I had been in Iraq. Back then, I was happy for the small things, like a chance to call home, patrols where no bombs went off, and being blissfully ignorant of the supernatural. Since my injury and subsequent discharge from the Army, money was tight, so having three and a half grand meant that I could splurge a little, right?

  A new furnace and some replacement water pipes weren’t on my shopping list. My mom’s house was built in the seventies and the furnace installed in the mid-eighties. It gave out when Mom and I were visiting family in Hagerstown. Nothing beats returning to a freezing house and some burst pipes.

  Mom ended up dipping into the equity on the house and I coughed up three thousand dollars as my share. At least I bought her present, a gift certificate to her favorite store, and sent Candy some flowers
and, uh, candy before the shit hit the fan. Actually, in my life the fecal matter usually bypassed the fan and went straight for my face – less splatter that way.

  My ghostly exploits were the proverbial “third rail” of my relationship with Mom. She seemed to believe that I was turning into some kind of flim-flam artist, but pointing out that I helped solve crimes seemed to ease her fears. She also promised to make this up to me.

  At the end of all this nonsense, I was still ahead by about five hundred dollars – easy come, easy go. Fortunately, my weekly poker game was small-stakes, as in pennies and nickels otherwise I’d have been in real trouble.

  The game was held at a retired Warrant Officer’s house. He’d been the guy that was sort of in charge of the building where I spent some delightful times enjoying the hospitality of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I say he was “sort of” in charge in that he was recuperating from losing his most of his left arm and in the process of being medically discharged himself.

  In his prior career, Chuck Candlemas ran a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Ironically, it wasn’t a bomb explosion that paid for his ticket home, but a nasty vehicle wreck in a convoy that cost him half of his left arm. He was the first to point out the humor in being a one-armed bomb disposal technician. It used to be the funniest joke at our weekly gatherings.

  That joke was replaced by the one about the veteran that sees ghosts. Just when I thought that tabloid article had run its course, one of the players at the game spotted it in the paper he was balling up for use in his fireplace.

  That in turn led to a pleasant evening of humiliation and exceedingly bad hands of poker. Okay, so I was in contact with the editors of that tabloid looking for ways to make some extra money, but blaming Jenny was easier.

  Chuck felt bad, or maybe it was the explosive temper of his wife Peggy, but he had the guys ease up on me. With the help of Kevin McNeil, who swung by that night to help me with a demonstration, there was a room full of believers. Instead of Texas Hold ‘Em, we played an hour of good old fashioned Blackjack and Kevin made me look like a pro.