Amazing Grace--A Southern Gothic Paranormal Mystery

by John G. Hartness

  “That might be just about the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me, Willis.” I meant it, too. Growing up the freak of a small town made for a lonely life, at least among other warm bodies. “I’m pretty interested in getting to know you a lot better, too. But not at the cost of your job.” I pushed back from the table and took my glass into the kitchen and set it in the sink.

  “Now you been over here way too long for any reasonable lunch break, so why don’t I wash these dishes while you get on back to the station and try to catch some bad guys?”

  He stood up and walked over to stand behind me, close, his breath tickling the little hairs on the back of my neck. “I’ll go back to the station,” he said, his voice low and husky. “But when I get off at six, I’m coming right back over here, and we’re going to explore that whole ‘getting to know each other better’ idea.”

  “I’ll have pork chops and mashed potatoes ready by six-thirty,” I said, looking down at the sink. I didn’t trust myself to turn around, or I was liable to jump him right there on my poor kitchen table.

  “Keep talking sexy like that and I’ll never leave,” he said with a laugh. Then he put his arms around me from behind and kissed the side of my neck. “I’ll see you later, Lila Grace.”

  I braced myself on the sink against a sudden rush of weakness in my knees. “See you soon, Willis.”

  I didn’t turn and watch him go. I didn’t even sneak a glance out of the corner of my eye at his firm butt in his uniform khakis. And I most certainly didn’t sit down in my chair at the table, downing a whole ‘nother glass of tea while fanning myself vigorously with the latest issue of Southern Living. Really, I didn’t.

  Chapter 24

  “I’m in the dining room!” I called out in response the knock on the front door. “Shit,” I muttered, looking at my watch. It was half past six, so that must be Willis. Sure enough, his broad shoulders filled the space in my doorway almost to the point of blotting out the last rays of late afternoon sun right about the same time I realized what time it was. He was grinning like a high school boy that just got his first car, but his smile melted when he got a good look at me and the mess I was in the middle of.

  Pork chops and mashed potatoes were not steaming on the table, that’s for damn sure. The only things on my dining room table were manila folders and crime scene photos, and they were spread out all over the place like a paperwork grenade went off in my house.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really thought I’d have dinner ready, but I got to looking through all this stuff, and then Jenny and Sheriff Johnny came and started going over it all with me…” I waved a hand at where Jenny sat at the other end of the table, Johnny by her side. They looked up from the coroner’s report they were poring over, waved absently like they thought Willis could see them, then went back to the paper. I didn’t know what they thought was so interesting in that report, we’d read it three times.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Willis said, years of marriage almost making him good enough to hide his disappointment. Almost. Oh well, if he had wanted to go out with a normal girl, he wouldn’t have come over for lunch with the town psychic crackpot. He sat down at the nearest chair and glanced over the mess. “What have we got?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “And not just the normal ‘I don’t know what’s going on here’ nothing. According to Johnny, these photos look like the scene was scrubbed by somebody who knows what they’re doing.” I pointed to three photos that Johnny had picked out for me. “Look here. There should be footprints here if the killer broke into Jenny’s house by the basement window, like y’all think he did.”

  The photo showed the exterior area of the Miller home. A basement window was nestled in the wall a few inches above ground level, and I knew from looking at the other pictures that the window wasn’t locked. Jenny said she didn’t know anything about whether or not it was usually open, because she ever went down into the basement. So it could have been left open for days or more. In front of the window was a small strip of bare dirt, then a small fifteen-by-forty vegetable garden that Mrs. Miller kept to have some fresh tomatoes, green beans, squash, and one watermelon plant that overproduced so much the poor woman had to put a folding table up in their yard loaded down with watermelon sporting a sign that said, “FREE - Take One! Please!”

  In any kind of normal world, there would have been footprints or at least some kind of trace of the killer’s passing left either in the dirt right in front of the window, or in the garden itself. But there was nothing. No rain fell in the few days between Jenny’s death and the realization that she hadn’t actually had a fatal accident, so that wasn’t to blame. There was no other way to get to the window, unless Spider-Man was the murderer, and I hadn’t heard of anyone named Peter Parker having a grudge against the Miller family.

  “Somebody knew what they were doing,” Willis said, looking at the pictures. “I thought of that.”

  “You did?” I asked. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

  “Mostly because I wanted to see if you came to the same conclusion,” he admitted. “I don’t like what this implies.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. I didn’t, either. I thought any way of narrowing the suspect pool from everyone who ever came in contact with Jenny or happened to be passing through town that night would be positive progress.

  “It makes me think that someone with law enforcement experience of some sort may be the killer,” Willis said.

  “Well, isn’t that good?” I asked. I was still confused. There couldn’t be that many people with law enforcement experience… “Oh,” I said.

  “You got there, didn’t you?”

  “I see why you don’t want it to be anyone in law enforcement.”

  “Not only do I not want to think that a man that has carried the badge could murder two high school girls in cold blood, I certainly don’t want to think that it might be somebody I know and trust.”

  “Well,” I said, not wanting to say what we were both thinking. “I reckon that means we need to see who all in town has worked security on jobs in the past or maybe served as an MP sometime.”

  Willis let out a breath, relief flooding his face. “Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good idea. I can call the local Army Reserves and National Guard units. They’ll have records of any former or active-duty personnel with law enforcement training.”

  “I’ll touch base with my second cousin Janice over at the Marine recruiting station. She can get me the information on Navy and Marines.” Willis stood up, and I reached out to grab his arm. He turned and looked down at me.

  I stood up, very close to him. I could smell the very lightest hints of his cologne, still clinging to his shirt collar after hours of work. “Later,” I said, my lips almost grazing his chin. I let my breath carry across his neck and smiled at the shiver he gave.

  “But…” His protest was a token, and we both knew it.

  “Later,” I said, more firmly. I poked him in the chest and pushed him back a step. “Now get out of my way, Sheriff. I promised a good-looking man pork chops for supper, and at my age, you do not want to disappoint the most eligible bachelor to move into the county in thirty years.”

  I stepped past him, dodging his oncoming kiss, and ducked into the kitchen to start mixing up the flour for the pork chops.

  “You’ve known him a long time. Do you think Jeff could do something like this?” Willis asked, pushing back from the table, a pair of decimated pork chop bones all that remained of a helping plate of home-cooked food.

  I thought about my answer for long seconds before I let out a sigh. “I don’t know. If I’m being honest, I’d have to say I can’t think of anybody in town that I would think could kill two little girls like that. But I wouldn’t have thought that Jerry Westmoreland would run a still in the woods behind his house until his sister died and told me all about it. I wouldn’t have thought that Alexander Lee Evans would have driven drunk and totaled his mama’s car, then blame
d it on a random car thief, but that’s what he told me happened. So I reckon you just can’t ever tell with people.”

  “I don’t think he’s good for these murders, but we’ll have to take a real good look at him. I know he was working the football game the night Jenny was killed because he works every home game.”

  “That doesn’t really do anything to clear him,” I said. “By the time Jenny got home, Jeff would have had plenty of time to direct traffic out of the school parking lot and get over to her house.”

  “Yeah, it’s not like it’s a long drive. He wouldn’t even have to speed.”

  “Or worry about being seen if he was in his patrol car. It’s totally normal for the local boys to be running around town arresting speeders or breaking up parties and fights after home games. He could have parked right in front of the Miller house and no one would even notice.”

  “Or think to mention it when we interviewed the neighbors,” Willis growled. “I’m having a hard time with this, Lila Grace, I gotta admit. I know I’m new here, but Jeff doesn’t seem like the type to hurt anybody. I had my concerns about his ability to use his sidearm when I took over the office.”

  “I know, Willis, I know. He’s a gentle soul. I’ll agree with you there. I was surprised when he decided to go to work for Sheriff Johnny in the first place. He never showed any inclination toward law enforcement when he was little.”

  “How old was he when you taught him?” he asked.

  “I taught Jeff in Sunday School from fourth grade all the way through high school, off and on. I floated back and forth among the grades as other teachers came and went. Since I’d been doing it forever, I just filled in for a year or two wherever there was a need. And I reckon I taught him in Vacation Bible School for almost that long. Most of the kids stop going to Bible School when they get to high school, but Jeff stayed involved with the church youth programs right up until he joined the sheriff’s department.”

  Willis sat back, looking up at the ceiling light like he hoped there was some kind of answer written there. I could have told him there wasn’t nothing in that ceiling light but a couple of dead mosquitoes and some spiderwebs I hadn’t got around to cleaning, but I let it go. If he wanted to use my shortcomings as a housekeeper to inspire his deductions, so be it.

  “Who else?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the ceiling.

  “Who else what?” I replied, not having a single idea what he was asking. Sometimes I wonder how men communicate with each other, since they always want to try to use two words to ask a ten-word question. When they’re alone with one another, do they just grunt and scratch themselves? I don’t really want to know, I reckon.

  “Who else has any military or law enforcement experience in town?”

  “Oh good Lord, Willis, you might have to narrow it down a little more than that. There ain’t a whole lot of people who’ve been police, but just about every grown man in town has served at least one tour in the service, one branch or another. And everybody here can shoot, and drive, and has watched way more CSI and Law & Order than is healthy.”

  “I know that, Lila Grace,” he snapped, then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I just want to make sure we’re not missing anybody. Who has recent military experience and might have been in school with the girls? If there’s somebody that graduated when they were freshmen, he could have gone off to serve and come back recently.”

  “Well, Josh Massey just got back from Afghanistan a few months ago, and he’s just about twenty-one, so he would have known the girls in school, but he didn’t do this.”

  “How can you be sure?” Willis asked.

  “He left a foot back in Afghanistan and is still learning to walk again. He won’t get his first prosthetic for another month or two,” I said.

  “Yep, he’s out. Anybody else?”

  “Leonard Furting enlisted right out of high school, and there was some talk that it was because he got Barbara Harding pregnant. She never had a baby, though, and Leonard’s been walking around with Jennifer Campbell ever since he got home. I don’t think he knew Jenny or Shelly, but I’m not sure.”

  “Well, we’ll look into him. Anybody else?”

  “I can’t think of anybody else right off the top of my head. I mean, there’s Gerald Bankhead, he was the deputy before Jeff, but he’s better than seventy now. Gerald’s son Erskine grew up around the department and the station, but he’s over three hundred pounds and walks with a limp. He ain’t any more likely to sneak up on Jenny in her basement than he is to run a marathon.”

  Willis chuckled and got up from the table. He started clearing the table, and I stood to help. He motioned me to sit. “No, ma’am. You cooked, I clean. You just remind me where the trash can is and I’ll throw these scraps out.”

  “Just pitch those out the back door,” I said. “Professor Snape will take care of them.”

  “Professor Snape?” He turned to look at me. “Does the ghost of Alan Rickman haunt your garbage?”

  I laughed out loud, throwing my head back and about falling out of my chair. “Oh sweet Jesus, Willis Dunleavy, you are a wonder! No, Professor Snape is what I’ve taken to calling this fat raccoon that prowls my backyard at night. If I toss him the scraps from my dinner, he doesn’t go rummaging around in my garbage can. And he keeps the snakes away.”

  “Why Professor Snape?”

  “I was watching the first Harry Potter movie when he appeared in my window one night. Scared the fire out of me, just in a scene where Snape was yelling at Harry about something. So I called him Professor Snape. Sometimes if we’re getting along particularly well, I call him Severus.”

  “You are a strange, strange woman, Lila Grace Carter,” Willis said. “She talks to ghosts and names wild raccoons.”

  “Don’t forget seduces police officers,” I teased.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” he said, and the smoldering gaze he turned on me said he might not be teasing.

  Chapter 25

  Willis left a little while after he finished the dishes. We kissed on the couch for a bit, but things didn’t move any further than that. I felt like it wasn’t right to sleep with a man while we were trying to catch a murderer together, and to be honest, I was a little nervous. It had been quite a while since I’d lain with a man, and I wasn’t sure how fast was too fast, or too slow, or what I wanted out of things with Sheriff Willis Dunleavy. I knew I liked him, I enjoyed his company, and having a man who knew how clean up after himself was certainly welcome. I just didn’t know how serious I wanted to be, how serious I was prepared to be.

  So I did what I always do when I’m all mixed up in my head about things; I went for a walk. I only ever end up one place. I go there so often it’s almost like there’s a path leading from my front door to the entrance. I ended up at the cemetery beside Woodbridge Presbyterian Church again, walking through the rows of stones with familiar names, lost in my thoughts.

  I ended up sitting on a headstone marked “Good,” with two names etched in it, many years apart. There was a smaller stone set into the ground beside it, marked for Tina Good, Daughter, aged eight years when she passed. It had been many years since I’d seen my old friend Tina, but I talked to her often. This was one of the few times I felt normal, when I could go to a cemetery and not expect anyone to talk back to me. I’d watched Tina cross over with her mama, all those years ago, and she was looking down on me from a better place, just like so many people say about their deceased relatives. Unlike those people, I knew my friend wasn’t still there, so I could tell her anything and not worry about getting an answer.

  But I couldn’t avoid the dead. Even in the far corner of the cemetery, they found me. The Dead Old Ladies’ Detective Agency, as they’d taken to calling themselves, gathered around me about twenty minutes after I started my visit with Tina.

  “What do we know new, Lila Grace?” Miss Faye’s voice was sharp, like her piercing blue eyes, and quick, the way she had moved in life. She was all spiky energy and short, inten
se bursts of conversation.

  “I don’t know much, Miss Faye,” I replied. “We’re pretty sure the killer knows something about police work, or maybe was in the military. He could have been an MP, I guess.”

  “What makes you say that?” Miss Helen’s slow drawl always reminded me of a sweet old milk cow, never in a hurry about anything, just taking the world in. Her slow speech masked a sharp mind, though. She said less than the other women, but missed nothing, and it was always best to listen when she talked.

  “He didn’t leave any tracks or forensic evidence, even at Jenny’s house. That murder was staged to look like an accident. If there’s any crime scene that would naturally be sloppy, that’s the one. But he took just as much care to cover his tracks there as with Shelly’s murder.”

  “Then have you brought him in yet?” Miss Frances asked. She stood with her arms crossed. “I’m assuming not, since you’re here, but why not?” Miss Frances was a force to be reckoned with, even in death.

  “We don’t have any evidence that Jeff did it,” I said.

  “Well, not until you bring him in and he confesses,” Miss Frances said. “A few hours in the back of that police station with a rubber hose and he’ll sing like a canary.”

  “You’ll have to excuse Frances,” Miss Helen said. “She likes to snoop in Julia McKnight’s old house and watch the old movies through the window. They’ve been playing a lot of old police movies this week.”

  “We can’t beat a confession out of him,” I said. “What if he’s innocent? He’s a respected member of the community and a police officer. He has no reason to hurt those girls.”