by Etta Faire
Loud barking took over the night. I stretched my neck to see where it was coming from. It was dark, but I was never more relieved when I saw the silhouette of Rex rushing over to me, practically knocking me down when he reached me.
He had a rope attached to him, like Graham had tried to tie him up.
“Okay, I’m glad you’re safe, but run and hide now, Rex,” I said, trying to free the rope from his collar, but it had been wrapped several times, and my dog was moving too much for me to get it.
Mandy appeared in the moonlight of the bushes beside me, and I almost screamed.
She was faded, practically camouflaging into the gray light of the moon, and I wondered just how much strength she had left to manipulate the physical world after all the channelings we’d done over the last two weeks, and the extra-strength ghost repellant I had everywhere.
“I found Rex tied up on the other side of the house. I let him go.” She looked around. “It took all the energy I had left, though.”
“What about Jackson? Did you see him?”
She shook her head no.
Graham’s shadowy figure slowly walked toward us, gun drawn, and I knew Mandy wasn’t going to be much help. I took off to the back of the house while Rex bolted forward.
“Rex, no,” I shouted, but he was already running, dragging the rope behind him.
I ran after him toward the front of the house, hugging the moss-covered walls of the turret closely as I followed my dog. The smell of grass and dirt surrounded me.
This wasn’t the first time Rex had come to save me. But I didn’t need him this time, and he was just going to get hurt.
The sound of growling and barking made me pick up the pace.
As I rounded the turret, I saw my dog tugging on Graham’s pant leg, while Graham had his gun pointed right at Rex’s head. What in the hell?
It was time I saved my dog for once.
Without much thought, I rushed at Graham, pushing him from behind as hard as I could. He stumbled forward a few steps, but turned back around so he and the gun were facing me now.
“I’d hate to kill a dog, but I have no problem killing you,” he said, motioning for me to put my hands up.
I put one up while keeping the other on Rex’s collar, releasing the rope and letting it fall by my feet. I did not believe this man when he said that he didn’t want to kill a dog.
“Yeah, keep your dog away from me,” he said. “And let’s move to a better spot.” He motioned with the gun.
Mandy was right behind me. “I know that voice,” she said. “Graham?”
I turned to Mandy. “You were right about who killed you. It was Graham. He had Ned murder you in 1987, in a kind of murder for hire, that was really a murder for blackmail. What was one more murder for Ned? He’d already killed Alice back in 1962, then burned the house down so no one would know.”
“He killed Alice Wellington, too?” Mandy asked.
“And Graham called in his favor about keeping that a secret.”
“My murder was Ned’s can’t-say-no favor?”
Mandy’s faded body instantly got all its color back. The pink in her t-shirt. The acid-washed streaks in her denim. Her hair stiffened into hair-sprayed perfection in a split second. “Looks like my role just got bigger again,” she said, because she was obviously much better at the Bruce-Willis one-liners than I was.
“Heads are gonna roll,” I added.
“Who in the hell are you talking to?” Graham yelled.
He barely got the words out.
Mandy took off full speed toward her husband, and he never saw it coming. Graham lifted off the ground about a foot with the force of Mandy’s blow, knocking the gun out of his hand and sending him hurling into the bushes. I almost felt sorry for the 70-something-year-old. He scrambled up in a slow movie star rolling motion, cussing under his breath as he stumbled over to get his gun, like guns were going to help him against a ghost.
I ran to get the gun too, but Graham was quicker than I gave him credit for. He didn’t reach for the gun, though. He reached for the rope.
And as I bent down to grab the gun, all the air left my body just like it had in the channeling as the rope tightened around my neck. I flailed my arms around, trying to break free, trying to get another breath before things went dark. But momentum was on his side, and things grew a little darker with each yank.
I could hear Rex snapping and biting at his leg, along with the sound of a car coming up Gate Hill, but I wasn’t sure how much time I had left.
The already dark shadows around me faded into each other just as Mandy struck Graham again, sending him staggering into the bushes.
And just like that, the air came back. Grabbing my neck, I gasped, one breath after another.
I stumbled over to the gun and picked it up, somehow pointing it in Graham’s general direction, even though everything was still a little blurry.
But as soon as he limped out of the bushes with his hands up, she hit him back down again.
“What in the hell keeps hitting me?” he asked.
“Your late wife,” I replied, my breath completely back to normal now. “I called in a favor.”
Mandy smiled at my one good line.
Headlights bounced into view from the posse coming up the hill about five minutes too late.
With the gun aimed at his leg, I yanked his mask off. Wisps of sweaty hair clumped onto a balding head. It was Graham, with a bloody nose and a swollen lip. We were right.
But seeing him seemed to enrage Mandy all over again. She shoved him even harder this time. He flew into the bushes with an audible “Ooomph.” His poor seventy-year-old body reached new heights on that one.
I could see Caleb’s pale face grow even paler inside the patrol car coming up the hill. He’d been the one to take the call, and he just got a glimpse of my craziness in action. I was the only one who could ever see my ghosts, so this must’ve looked pretty weird. A man flying through the air for no reason.
He opened his door. “Got a call from Lilith Gunther. You okay?”
I moved my neck around. It didn’t even ache as bad as it had after a channeling. “I’m fine. I think Graham Smalls might need some medical attention, though. He and Ned Reinhart worked together to kill Mandy. I think I have solid proof connecting them both to the crime.”
I thought about the key that might still be in Mandy’s jeans that went to a safe deposit box with a copy of the film, and the bracelet with a hippo on it that I was sure the Lockes would hand over.
Graham staggered out of the bush and Mandy hit him back in there again.
“I do not want to know what is going on here,” Caleb said, pointing to the suspect. There was no color in his face now, and his lip twitched just a little. “We will never speak about this part again.”
Chapter 35
A Note
As soon as I heard Caleb’s car drive away, I plugged my landline back in, picked up the blue note on my kitchen counter, and cuddled with my brave dog on the couch.
“You’ve got to stop being my hero,” I said, scratching his head and snuggling my face into his fur. “You’re going to get killed.”
Rex raised an ear at me, like he understood but would do it again in a second and there was nothing I could do about it. I pulled him in closer.
“But thank you,” I added.
The blue note was sitting next to us, and I unfolded its stiff, card-stock paper to read the message inside.
You’ll be dead soon…
“So trite,” I said loud enough for my “mentor” to hear, wherever he was. I thought he’d appear and say something annoying about how trite my English papers used to be in college.
But he was nowhere to be found.
I tossed the note onto the coffee table and picked up the phone again.
I’d have to look for Jackson later, something I could hardly believe I was going to put too much effort into doing. It was just like him to be AWOL when the going got tough around here.
And I knew it wasn’t the ghost repellant now. Mandy was fine. She appeared by the couch, her coloring as bright as ever.
I dialed Lilith’s number and put it on speaker so she could hear too.
“Happy birthday,” I said as soon as she picked up. “It’s Carly Taylor. We haven’t formally met.”
“Thank you for the birthday wishes,” she said. “It will be the best birthday ever if you tell me you’ve found my sister’s killer.”
“Yes. And they’re both on their way to jail.” I briefly explained what had happened and who the culprits were. “Thank you for calling the police, by the way. They got here in the nick of time.” It was a lie. They weren’t even necessary at that point. AAA would have been better, to fix my flat tire. “Mandy is here,” I added.
There was that awkward pause everyone got when I announced a dead person was hovering nearby.
Mandy smiled from her spot by my crimson settee. “Tell her I didn’t shrug off death this time. Tell her I didn’t shrug it off in 1962 either. Tell her about Alice. Tell her how I saved baby Felix. It was me. Tell her how I wished I would have said more, done more, not kept everyone’s secrets, not let Graham take over my life, or anyone. I let everyone rewrite way too many scripts.”
I told Lilith most everything Mandy was saying, but I was having a hard time keeping up. I could hear Lilith quietly sobbing into the phone. “Please tell my sister I always knew she hadn’t shrugged off death,” Lilith said.
Mandy wasn’t done. “Tell her I saw the pictures of her kids and my kids and the tribute she did on the computer. That was really nice…”
I told Lilith, but stopped Mandy from saying anything else.
“She has a lot to say to you,” I said to Lilith. I pulled a random twig from the back of my curls, a reminder of my rough night. “And when we’re all ready, we’ll have a nice conversation about it. But it’s late now, and Mandy and I both know you’re probably getting ready for bed…” I looked at Mandy as I said that last part. “Just know she loves you. Happy best birthday ever.”
We both said goodbye and hung up. I got up from my couch and looked around at my living room and at the smiling ghost hovering over my dogwood-patterned rug. Rosalie was right. It was never about the money, which was a good thing because I never got paid.
But still, I loved my road-less-traveled. I used to be a lot like Mandy, letting other people rewrite the scripts for me in life, taking scrappy freelance-writing gigs to prove to my mother that I wasn’t wasting my degrees, getting married to Jackson just because he asked.
Maybe we all did stuff like that, allowing other people to direct us a little too much, until we finally became brave enough to yank back control.
“Jackson, thanks for all your help today,” I called out sarcastically into my living room and my kitchen. He didn’t come out, the coward.
I stomped up the stairs to the next level, still calling his name, getting just a little angrier with each breath that he wasn’t coming out. Mandy and Rex followed me.
That’s when I heard a faint voice. “Carly doll, I’m trapped.”
Trapped?
I turned my head to the side. “What do you mean you’re trapped?” I called through the house. “Did you forget you’re a ghost? Just float on through whatever you’re trapped in.”
I thought about it. He must have been trapped in my room. I ran up to the third level and down the hall.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath as I angrily shoved my hand through the ribbons dangling along their rod in my doorway. The strong smell of angelica root still wafted heavily from the drying strands, and I tried not to gag.
As soon as I opened the door, I saw him, but barely. His coloring was almost nonexistent. He was a weak, faded ghost.
“Explain how this happened,” I demanded, arms crossed.
I saw a slight tinge of pink appear along his cheeks. “I was in your room when you hung the new ghost repellant strips to dry,” he said. “And I got trapped.”
“Yes, I got that part. Here’s the part I don’t understand. Why were you in my room in the first place?”
“I just wanted to see it, I guess. Rosalie’s ghost repellant strips have been up for so long… This used to be my room, our old room, and I just wanted to see how you redecorated. It’s very nice…”
“Oh, stop it,” I snapped. “Nobody believes that. You could not stand it that there was a room or two in your house you’re no longer able to go in, so you were going to prove a point. Well, it serves you right, getting stuck in here.” I thought that one through. It had actually served me right. I almost got killed because my ex was stuck and couldn’t help me, not that I thought he’d have been much help.
And now I had to take down all the strips strung along the doorway and air everything out so he could leave before I went to sleep.
I pulled one ribbon down at a time, laying them gently on the floor in the hallway. Mandy jumped away when she saw what I was doing.
It had been a long, hard day, and the only part I was going to get paid for was the time I spent at the Purple Pony, and that was minimum wage.
Always worth it, though, I reminded myself.
My ex tapped his ghostly watch. “Take your time,” he said. “Some of us have only been trapped all day.”
I glared at him, seriously rethinking that worth-it part.
I pulled down another strap and smiled. “But it’s good to know I can create my own little ghost jail and trap spirits if I need to. Maybe I can use Rosalie’s extra-strength ghost repellant as a weapon.”
He stopped tapping his watch and looked out the window. “No rush,” he said.
I turned to Mandy, who was watching me from the hall.
“And don’t you worry,” I said to her. “When Graham’s trial is over, I will take you straight over to the courthouse so you can follow him to prison, and continue making his life a living hell every day he has left. You want to kick Ned’s butt too? I can probably find his trial as well…”
Mandy shrugged. “I think prison is going to be enough for those two. I have a better plan.”
“Oh dear Lord, I hate sequels,” my ex said by my side as I pulled up to the dingy green house with the paint peeling around the shutters and the sign out front demanding another twenty bucks from me. “But, I’m always willing to toss a few heads, if the need arises.”
I got out of my car. I really hoped the need wasn’t going to arise.
Exorcist music played when we entered, but Crazy Hank wasn’t nearly as pleasant this time around, and he’d barely been pleasant the last time.
“You again? As a business owner in the state of Wisconsin, I have the right to refuse service to anyone, so I think you’d better leave,” he said. “I will call the police.”
“I know they planted your blue glove that day in the shack when they found Mandy. I know Glen Bellings made you feel like he was doing you a favor by covering up for things, probably encouraging you to leave town…” I said.
His thin, sunken face turned even ashier. He coughed. “I am not a well man. I have bad knees and a touch of COPD, and I do not need this harassment.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not harassing you. I know you didn’t do it. It was Mandy’s husband and Ned Reinhart. They’re arresting them as we speak.”
“No kidding?” His smile seemed to show years of relief, a weight lifted from his shoulders. His face got a little more color, not much. He didn’t say thank-you. He raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “I bet you my Mandy Smalls memorabilia is worth a lot more now. What do you think?”
“I bet it will be.”
“You come all the way over here to tell me that, or did you want another tour?”
I didn’t bother to remind him that I never got the full tour the last time, and I had paid full price for one.
“No… sorry. I won’t be staying or giving you any more entrance fees. I just wanted to see if I could check the pants pocket of Mandy�
��s jeans. She says she put a key in there the night of her murder.”
Hank took his baseball cap off and scratched at his thin wisps of graying hair. “You know what? There was a key in those jeans, come to think of it. I got it upstairs in my trinket box.”
I pulled my curls into a bun, surprised by how warm my face felt, how excited I was to hear that evidence might still exist. “I have a feeling the police are going to need that. I’ll let them know you have it.” I sucked in my lips. “And there’s one more teeny tiny thing. That’s going to sound a little crazy…”
“I wonder if someone named Crazy Hank can handle it,” my ex said by my side.
I just decided to blurt it out. “I was also wondering if I could drop off Mandy’s ghost. Don’t worry. She wasn’t the one throwing heads last time.”
He looked around. “Mandy Smalls’s ghost?” he said in a way that let me know he believed me this time.
“Yes, she’d like to haunt here. She loves horror movies as much as you do,” I said. “If that’s okay.”
“If that’s okay?” he replied, coughing. “Are you kidding? It’s only a dream come true. Dream come true.”
Mandy smiled at him.
And, I walked off feeling a bit too much like Ruth. Happy to make the custodian’s dream come true. Maybe that’s what life was mostly about, no matter what road you took. Maybe it was all about how many days you could brighten along the way. How many dreams you could make come true.
Chapter 36
A Little Crooked House
Caleb smiled at me from the other side of his desk, something I never thought I’d see unless it was a smug “I’m better than you” smile. And, it probably was, but I didn’t feel it this time.
The scrapbook labeled A Little Crooked House sat between us, its gilded lettering shimmering a little in the harsh overhead light. I felt my heart flutter looking at it. I wanted to grab the scrapbook, yell out a quick thanks, and take off.
