Sweet Tea and Spirits Read online

  Cripes. If anyone knew about killers, it was Frankie.

  “Okay, wait,” I said, breaking away from him. I had to think about this. “If it’s dirty money, I have to give it back. I have to tell the police.”

  “Have I taught you nothing?” Frankie barked. “What part of getting away with the money don’t you understand?”

  “I’m not in the mob.” I was just a ghost hunter trying to do the right thing. As for how to explain it to the police, I’d go to the one officer who would believe me without question. “I’m going to call Ellis.” I pulled out my phone and started dialing. “He’ll know how to handle this.” He wasn’t working tonight, or he’d have been here already.

  “It’s like you want to be poor.” Frankie threw his hands up. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  I walked away, leaving Frankie to his ramblings as I dialed Ellis’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Ellis?” I said. “Thank goodness. It’s me. I—”

  The phone beeped and the connection died.

  Darn it.

  I dialed him up again. “Ellis—” As soon as he picked up, the connection severed.

  My phone had four bars of signal and plenty of power. “This is weird,” I said, walking farther out into the yard.

  This time, I didn’t get a word in before the phone lost the call.

  Worse, Ellis didn’t even try to call me back. Or maybe he couldn’t get through.

  I turned to Frankie. “Either my phone is haunted, or we’re caught up in some strange cell phone vortex.”

  “Don’t look at me,” the ghost said. “I’ve never even been tempted to touch one of those things.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to work it through. “I got the call last night from a ghost and I could hear that. Now I can’t call from the same haunted property.”

  “Verity!” Marshall shouted from the front porch.

  Shoot. I told him I’d stick close.

  “Coming!” I said, heading for the porch.

  The ambulance was just pulling away.

  He hooked a thumb in his gun belt. “I told you to stay right here.”

  I held up my phone. “Couldn’t catch a signal. I was trying to call Ellis.”

  He drew me under the porch light, making me stand right in the middle of the ghostly flowerpot. “Ellis isn’t on this case.”

  The spectral geraniums felt sickeningly wet and made my legs tingle from the knees down. I stepped to the side, out of the mess. “True.”

  His eyes were cold and calculating, his cheeks ruddy. “Tell me what you saw tonight,” he said, pulling out a notebook.

  I was halfway into my story when Madge from the funeral home pulled up in a hearse. Wait. They needed to do an autopsy or at least document her injuries. “Is she taking the body?”

  “She ain’t here to make a cup of tea,” he said, as if it were obvious.

  Duranja opened the door and waved to Madge. “I’ll help her get the corpse situated. We’re still trying to reach Julia’s husband. Madge is going to fix her up before he has to identify the body.”

  “This is a murder scene,” I said, noticing Duranja touched the doorknob with his bare hand.

  “It’s not.” Duranja shot me an indulgent smile. “Julia fell down the stairs. I know it looked awful. And it’s sad, but it happens.”

  Maybe it did, but not tonight.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, getting both of their attention. “And I have proof.”

  “You do?” Marshall said, exchanging a glance with the other officer. “Show us.”

  “Okay, I can’t do that,” I admitted, knowing it sounded like seven kinds of crazy. But for Julia’s sake, I owed them the truth. “You know I see ghosts,” I began, in the worst ever opener for two men who didn’t believe. Marshall openly smirked while Duranja took on a politely pained expression. Well, this wasn’t a picnic for me, either. “I also see…” My throat tightened and I fisted my hands so hard my nails dug into my palms. Just say it. “I see…spiritual traces after a soul leaves the body. They appear where there has been a recent death, and I saw no traces of death at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Duranja snickered.

  “Now that’s rude,” I told him. “This is hard on me too, but it’s important and I’ve never steered you wrong before. Remember how I found that missing girl’s body? Was I a weirdo then?”

  “Yes. And you got buried alive by a killer,” Marshall said, as if that were the entire story.

  “Right, but I got out because a ghost rescued me,” I said, going for broke.

  He looked at me like I’d told him I was Bill Murray with a proton pack. “I’m not going to open up a police investigation because you didn’t see the lady’s soul floating around.”

  “It’s not her soul,” I began.

  “Either way,” he said, cutting me off.

  I glanced to Frankie, who just shrugged.

  The problem with using ghosts to solve murders was they never gave you evidence anybody else could see.

  “You have to trust me when I tell you that she didn’t die at the bottom of those stairs.” I couldn’t back down. There was too much at stake.

  The seasoned cop gave me an indulgent pat on the shoulder. “I have a coroner and an ambulance crew who tell me different. She fell, sweetheart. Shouldn’t have been wearing such high heels on old shallow steps. The poor woman broke her neck. Now you go home and get some rest.”

  “That’s impossible.” We had to act quickly. “Julia set up cameras in the museum,” I said. “Check those. Maybe a killer came in the side door.”

  “We’ll look into it,” Marshall said, in a way that made me think he wouldn’t.

  But this was important. “Right now, the killer could be destroying evidence at the actual murder scene.”

  “And where is that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, losing patience fast. “But if you walk around the house with me, I can find it. If it’s here. And if it’s not in here, we can walk the property. We might need to go to her house or the cemetery out back.”

  “No,” he said simply.

  “You’re not even going to try?” I had Frankie all night. We could do this.

  “There’s nothing to see,” he said, even as he stood directly in the ghostly flowerpot.

  I had to give him something tangible, but I just didn’t have it. “I’ll find you proof,” I vowed, even as I watched Madge push a stretcher through the front door. “There could be evidence on Julia’s body or the doorknob there. Anywhere, really.”

  “I’m going to chalk up…this,” he said, waving off my story, “to the trauma of finding the body.” Marshall closed the door behind Madge. “Now let me walk you to your car.”

  “Julia gave me an envelope of cash this afternoon,” I said, following him out.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  “Isn’t it odd?” I pressed.

  “That ain’t what I think is odd,” he said, digging his keys out of his pocket.

  So that was how it was going to be.

  Fine. I could handle this. “I’m going to stay here a bit,” I said, letting him get in his vehicle.

  He eyed me. “Don’t you start on Madge. Duranja is in there and he doesn’t cotton to trouble.”

  “I won’t bother them,” I promised. There was nothing I could do to keep them from moving the body. “I simply need to calm down before I drive home.”

  Perhaps handle a few other things as well.

  “Good girl,” he said, starting up his engine.

  I watched as he pulled out and drove slowly down the darkened driveway to the main road.

  All right, then. I scanned the front yard for any glowing, otherworldly clues. “Time to find Julia’s death spot.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Frankie muttered next to me.

  “Good. You’re still around,” I said, hurrying toward the side of the house. “It would have been nice
if you could have given them a sign just now—dimmed the lights, whipped up a breeze.”

  “Rattle some chains?” he asked sarcastically. “They don’t want to believe you. You can’t blame that on me.”

  “We need to get to work.” If we could locate the death spot quickly, maybe I could find a way to prove it, or at least get Madge and Duranja interested enough to keep them from destroying any evidence. I had to at least try.

  We passed the shadowy copse of trees and, beyond it, an old outhouse.

  A death spot would appear bright, with glowing tendrils of light reaching up toward the heavens. It would be tough to miss while I was tuned in to the other side. “We have to be close,” I said, sidestepping a gaggle of ghostly chickens. They squawked at me as they scattered. “Julia wasn’t a large woman, but it would be hard to move her far.”

  “Dead weight and all.” The gangster nodded as we passed a transparent, glowing hitching post on the side of the house. “You realize you’re walking in the dark, close to where a killer was earlier tonight. He could be back here, trying to cover up evidence.”

  “Duranja is still inside if I run into any trouble,” I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my sundress. He’d hear me call for help.

  If I had a chance to yell.

  An unearthly scream echoed from the cemetery. I stiffened and felt my pace slow as we approached the rear of the house and the graveyard beyond.

  Frankie shuddered. “Maybe we should go into the house and talk to some widows.”

  “Don’t be chicken.” Besides, the police wouldn’t let me in. I had no business in there, at least none that they could see.

  We stopped a distance away. Shadowy figures weaved in and out of the crumbling tombstones. The yard between lay in shadows.

  “I don’t see a death spot in there or behind the house.” A flat stretch of grass led straight to the graveyard and hid nothing. “You think the spirits in the cemetery might have seen anything?”

  “If they did, they couldn’t tell us,” Frankie said, his voice cold. “You’re better off with the ghosts in the house.”

  “All right.” This was the kind of help I needed from him. “We’ll avoid the cemetery for now.” We needed to locate the death spot, not find distractions.

  “I just wonder why there’s not more out here.” You’d think the heritage society would have a gazebo at the back of the property, some flowers, something. “Don’t you think that’s strange?” I asked Frankie.

  He shrugged. “Who am I to tell people how to decorate?”

  Unless this part of the property gave society members the creeps as well. Even if people didn’t see ghosts, a lot of times they could sense them. Like that prickling feeling you get at the back of your neck when something is off.

  “Come on,” I said to Frankie. “Let’s finish crossing the yard and then wind around the other side of the house.”

  “Oh, lets,” the ghost said, walking between me and the haunted cemetery.

  “You’re such a gentleman, Frankie.”

  He drew back as if I’d slapped him. “You’re off your rocker.”

  “Keep an eye out for any spirits inside the house,” I said, watching the darkened windows. “Your mystery woman might be watching you,” I added with a smile.

  “You think that’s funny, but I might actually have a shot,” he mused.

  Yes, because Frankie was such a charming guy.

  As we came up on the other side of the house, I paused by the stairs I’d used to escape the society museum this morning.

  I wished I could have made contact with the ghost I’d seen in the bust. Why had she appeared so close if she didn’t want to talk to me?

  Perhaps she’d needed to check me out first.

  We made it back to the front, to the red Corvette. It was the only place we hadn’t looked, but I didn’t see how anybody could kill Julia in there and keep it a secret. I studied the classic car, with the hearse parked behind it. Poor Julia.

  I saw no swirling soul traces on the white leather seats, or anywhere else for that matter. “Maybe she was killed inside the trunk.” It was the only place left.

  “Nah.” Frankie drew up next to me. “Bad angle. Besides, when you make holes in the bottom of the trunk, the blood drips out. Talk about leaving a trail.”

  “She wasn’t shot,” I said, recoiling. “You’ve actually thought about how to shoot someone in a trunk?”

  He gave me a strange look. “Sure. I thought about it.”

  Right. “Just…peek inside.” I wanted to be thorough.

  He stuck his head into the trunk. “Jumper cables, golf clubs,” he said, his voice muffled. “Sorry, babe,” he said, drawing his head out.

  “It was worth a try.” I sighed. We were officially at a dead end. “I don’t know where else to look except inside the house,” I told him. If those cameras were still in there, that could be huge. “Duranja and Marge should be coming out soon, but they’ll lock up after they leave.”

  “This will actually be fun, then,” Frankie said, the corner of his lip turning up. “Follow me,” he whispered, drawing me into a shadowy spot near the front porch. “I’ll show you how to break in.”

  “What?” No. “We’re not breaking and entering.” If I gave in to Frankie’s cat burglar fantasies even once, the gangster would want to do it all the time. Besides, if we found the evidence illegally, we couldn’t present it to Marshall and he couldn’t use it to arrest our killer. There had to be another way. “Maybe I can volunteer for a committee or something.”

  “You really want to resort to that?” Frankie slipped a hand to one of the pockets inside his jacket. “We’ll do this the easy way. Let me show you some of my tools.” Frankie drew out a square velvet pouch like he was holding the queen’s jewels. “Lucky for you, I died with them.”

  And they’d only work on the ghostly plane.

  “The right thing isn’t always easy,” I reminded him, and myself. It wouldn’t kill me to wave the society flag, and it was the only logical, legal way I could think of to have full access to that house. I could look for the cameras first, then search for Julia’s death spot. “I’ll be all right.” Maybe it would be actual charity work or historical preservation, although I doubted it. I’d probably get stuck making place cards for the Sweet Tea Luncheon.

  Frankie sighed, whipping the cloth over his tools, rolling them up again. “You realize the president of the society is dead, maybe even killed by another member of the society.”

  I gave him a hard look.

  “Try to deny it,” he challenged. “You didn’t want to get mixed up with these vipers before you figured out one of them might be a killer.”

  “I didn’t say it was a good idea.” But it had a good chance of working. “Let’s head home,” I said, heading for the car. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

  “Oh no,” Frankie said, refusing to move an inch. “I ain’t going back there. Now that he knows I’m not at the Piggly Wiggly, Mick is gonna look for me at your place. He’s probably setting up an ambush right now.”

  Heavens. I turned back toward him. He was right, of course. Mick could very well be back at my house. The Piggly Wiggly wasn’t far, and his crew could have appeared in Nashville in a mere thought. Still, I didn’t know what he expected me to do about it.

  “You’re going to have to face him sooner or later. You’re grounded on my property.”

  “Not if we go on the lam,” Frankie said.

  Heavens to Betsy. I’d have to drag his urn all over creation, and I wouldn’t be able to keep a lookout if I didn’t hold on to his power. He’d already lost his right leg clear up to the knee.

  “Cut me off your energy,” I told him.

  He glanced down to where his missing lower parts should be. “It’s not gonna help. The stress is draining me.”

  It was his own fault. “You’ve got to go back eventually.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “We can hole up somewhere
else.”

  I dug my keys out of my bag. “Frank, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “That’s where I can help,” he said, hovering over me as I unlocked the car door. “I used to have an old hideout near the railroad tracks.”

  “No,” I said, placing my bag in the backseat.

  His right thigh faded away before my eyes. “You can’t take me back there,” he insisted. “I need a safe house.”

  “Darn it.” He was stressing himself out of existence, and out of energy. “Fine. For tonight, we’ll stay at my sister’s apartment.” At least she knew about him and would hopefully understand. “But tomorrow, you’re going to help me investigate the heritage society house.”

  “Deal,” he said, whooshing out a breath. He disappeared and then reappeared in the passenger seat. “You’re saving my afterlife here.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said, getting into the car. Only that I’d get to the truth behind Julia’s murder, no matter what.

  Chapter 8

  We stayed at my sister’s that night, which should have made Frankie happy, only it didn’t because Melody lived in an old schoolhouse that had been converted into loft apartments.

  How was I supposed to know there’d still be kids running through the halls?

  Mercifully Frankie had cut me off from his power, but that didn’t stop him bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t died with a set of earplugs.

  “Maybe you should have bought some with all that money in your pocket,” I told him, turning back to my sister. We stood in her simple, open kitchen. I hadn’t even told her about Frankie’s horse racing venture yet.

  Melody was a perkier, blonder, thinner version of me. “Can Frankie buy things on the ghostly plane?” she asked, pouring me a glass of fresh-brewed iced tea.

  “Sometimes.” His immaterial gains tended to disappear after a short while. It didn’t stop Frankie from pursuing them. “The only things a ghost can have permanently are what he died with.”

  “Well, that settles it, then,” she said, making herself a cup of decaf. “I’m carrying my Keurig with me wherever I go.”