Dying For Redemption Read online

  The scale tipped in my favor that I was right. Mr. Marry-'em-then-knock-'em-off took the bauble off her finger and traded it for cash. But, I needed hard, solid proof before Ms. Willow Flannery would admit it.

  "So, why do you think you're here?" I asked. "It can't be because your murder is unsolved. According to you, the butler did it." I did an admirable job of keeping the sarcasm out of my tone.

  "I don't know. That's why I agreed to come and meet with you."

  "Let's start with the basics, then work our way up. What kind of business did you run?"

  She swallowed a few times, from either pride or her words getting stuck. I remained silent and stared at her.

  "A temp agency," she choked out.

  "Secretaries. Nice business. Women to help type and file are always needed."

  "Women are the ones who need secretaries now, asshole."

  She had no trouble spitting out those words. I decided it best for business to ignore the last few statements. There was time to come back and flesh it out if needed. Though, 'asshole' didn't leave much room for speculation.

  "Did you fire anyone recently?"

  "No."

  "Threaten to fire? Turn down anyone for employment?"

  "Sure, but none of them knew what kind of car I drove."

  Good point. Her murderer was an acquaintance, a friend, an employee, or her husband—someone who knew her well. People were never as noble or without enemies as they thought. The investigation started with the husband.

  One learned a lot about the recently murdered by hanging around the recently widowed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "If I was alive, I'd be dead."

  I breezed into Willow's large Victorian house.

  A large blue sign proclaimed an electronic security system protected the house. I wondered if that worked on the living. I couldn't really picture burglars running away from the house, and screaming in terror, "It has a sign." Of course, for me, it didn't matter what type of security existed… man, machine, or beast… alarms weren't designed to register the disembodied.

  My second thought upon floating in had been, Aha, the grieving widower is not home, either business or the honey on the side couldn't wait any longer for his attention. After a more thorough look around, I realized the house had more rooms than souls in hell complaining of a mix-up. That involved careful listening. Where there was noise, there was the living. I floated toward the sound of a man talking.

  Once again, my theory proved true. The widower, a.k.a. Braswell 'Flannery' Nighton, sat slumped against the side of an overstuffed lounger like a lone strand of spaghetti stuck to the side of a pot. The expensive-looking golf shirt and brown slacks were rumpled; even his crew-cut black hair looked disheveled.

  Braswell stared forlornly at a huge, reddish-colored fluff of a cat that resembled a Hostess Sno Ball. The thing draped itself over the back of a recliner. A huge flower print afghan and a book lay open on the floor. Whoever the reader, he or she didn't believe in bookmarks.

  The cat offered a pathetic attempt at a meow.

  "I know, baby. I miss Mommy, too."

  Mommy. Weird noun to use for his wife. Maybe they thought the cat was a kid. Then again, it leaned toward strange for a man to talk to a cat, too.

  The cat melted down the side of the chair and became a puddle on the elaborate red and black Oriental rug. Braswell sat and watched. The man acted as if the cat's movement was the most spellbinding event he'd witnessed in days. I'd place my bet it was his wife spinning out of control and smashing headlights-first into a tree.

  "I guess we should go get some lunch." Braswell stood, walked over to the cat, and picked it up. The feline draped over his left arm. If I hadn't seen the thing move, I'd have thought it was a stole.

  I tiptoed over and peered into the whiskered face. The creature sprang to life. Green eyes opened wide, mouth releasing a hiss evil enough to scare the living and the dead.

  "Damn cat." Braswell shook his arm until the cat extracted its claws and fell to the floor.

  Take a note: Not all cats land on their feet.

  Lines of blood decorated hubby's arm like a completed connect the dots puzzle. The fur ball looked in my direction and puffed out a sad meow.

  Braswell leaned down and scooped up the cat. "Daddy's sorry, baby. Did he give you a boo-boo? What a naughty, naughty daddy I am."

  Praise to the higher being, my gag reflex didn't work anymore. Was that how the majority of males acted in this new millennium? I was glad I died a half-century ago.

  "I know you want to cuddle on her chair, but it's time for yummies." He draped the cat over his shoulder and patted it like a new mother burping a tiny babe. "Let's go see what Gannon," he spat the name, "has cooked us for lunch."

  I floated behind them. The cat remained silent, but fixed its glowing gaze on the general location of my invisible form. Food thoughts rambled in its feline mind as it licked its mouth and whiskers.

  A thought hit me like a sharp slap from an offended dame. Maybe that was what kept Willow tied to the world. The cat. If her husband put so much love and care into the animal, Willow did, too.

  "It can't be Hostess Sno Ball," I said.

  The cat hissed, and Braswell spun around, cradling the cat's head against his shoulder in a protective manner. His eyes were wide and then narrowed, smidgen-by-smidgen, until two small slits of blue offered the only color on his pallid face. "Must be my imagination."

  I groaned—silently. The problem with being a ghost was forgetting that just because the living didn't see the non-living didn't mean they didn't hear them. A sign of an amateur. If I was alive, I'd be dead.

  Braswell pushed open a set of swinging doors. The doors swung shut and I couldn't help pausing to watch the doors flutter through me a few times before they rested with their ends touching each other right in my breadbasket.

  Deciding to remain in the air, I floated over Braswell and the cat. A young, thin, feminine-looking blond male stirred something on the gas stove. The man turned from the stove and deposited two plates on the table. On one plate was a tiny sandwich with a green filling. I don't know of any meat that color that wouldn't kill or make a man plead for death.

  The cat, a.k.a. Snowball, sat on the edge of a chair beside Braswell. The cook placed a small glass dish of tuna on the placemat in front of the cat. Snowball placed its paws on the table and took a cautious bite of the tuna.

  "Mind if I join you?" Blondie asked.

  Braswell eyed him with suspicion and sadness.

  "Cucumber and avocado. Your favorite." Blondie smiled, pointing at the sandwich.

  Who ate cucumbers and avocados together in a sandwich? And called it their favorite?

  Braswell peeked under the bread and returned the smile. "You know you can get yourself something, Gannon."

  Gannon poured some soup into two china bowls and set them on the table. He went to the refrigerator and opened the door. He retrieved a green sandwich for himself. "You're the best." Gannon took the other seat beside the master of the house. "You've treated me better than anyone else has. Even after what happened to Will—"

  "I still needed a butler."

  Gannon frowned.

  I needed popcorn and a bottle of pop for this show. Interesting little development. A man believes his butler killed his wife, yet keeps him employed and asks him to share a meal. What kind of undercurrent was there to this relationship? Maybe killer-for-hire and the person who hired him?

  It was time for the next stop, the police, to take a look at their proof and discern what they knew—and didn't know—about the case. What was the reason for the butler being branded a murderer, yet still residing outside of jail?

  Could it be the cops relied on instinct alone and not evidence? Gut feelings were only accurate when they screamed, "It's time to throw up."

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Be careful about assumptions."

  Being dead added a new dimension to detective work.

  Life and
detecting didn't go hand in hand. When lungs breathed, a heart beat, and a mind had thoughts, a person could be kicked, beaten, or shot into the netherworld. Once there, those worries were over, and eavesdropping was easier.

  I arrived at the police station in record time and went in search of evidence to uncover Willow's murderer. Travel time was shorter when all a ghost had to do was concentrate on the location. It wasn't difficult to find a bright red BMW among the other cars housed in the police impound lot.

  A cop in a black suit and boots was underneath Willow's car, dusting some powder onto the brake hose. I scooted on my belly to lie beside him. I couldn't help but snicker at the color of his shirt, a pale purple that dames called lilac. I should've expected something sissified with those boots. Real cops wore loafers—unless the cop under surveillance was female, which this one was.

  I got out of there quicker than a bachelor from a wedding chapel, exiting through the top of the car. The summer air in Virginia allowed me to blend into the environment. The humidity offered a wavering appearance to the sky. My presence blended into the hot air. I looked like a heat wave, not a ghost evaporating into the air. Then again, cops weren't too suspicious at home base.

  Take a note: Be careful about assumptions.

  My mind still had problems digesting that cops nowadays could be either gender. Not that I'd mind having a female cop tackle me to the ground. How much more entertaining breaking laws must have been knowing a beautiful dame could chase a man down the street, knock him to the ground, flatten her body against his, roughly pull his hands behind his back, and…

  I slammed the images to complete stop and continued with my job.

  "Pull any prints off the brake line?" a male detective with scuffed black loafers asked. He leaned over and, using a pocketknife, pried dirt from the rear passenger tire.

  The lady cop shimmied every inch of her body from under the car. "Not a thing."

  "I didn't expect there would be."

  "Like I did." She dusted her hands off on her pants. "It was worth a shot."

  He smiled and shrugged. "Hey, never said it wasn't."

  She frowned.

  "Anything to indicate that the butler did it?"

  "Nothing to say he did. Nothing to say he didn't."

  The male cop propped himself against the car. "So, the only definite is that someone did it."

  She smiled. "No, we have the husband saying the butler did it."

  I wonder if Gannon knew his best buddy in the world had labeled him a murderer to the police? Unless Gannon had a great sense of humor, I'd place my bet on no.

  "Real solid evidence we have here. A husband who inherits millions saying the butler was the one to take the car to get the brakes fixed—"

  "More like unfixed." She adjusted her jacket to cover the gun attached to the enticing roundness of her hip.

  Her partner grinned. "Brakes that very likely could've been cut because of the accident. Or maybe not. I know asking around that workplace of hers isn't going to get us any leads. Those high-priced prostitutes aren't going to talk much."

  Prostitutes? I do believe the lovely Willow left out some information.

  "The politically correct term is escort."

  "Sorry, I forgot. If you stand on the street corner in tight, short clothing and a man is your employer, then you're a prostitute. If some woman opens up an office in a high-rent district and schedules the meetings as business appointments, it's an escort service."

  I had completed the first phase of my investigation, uncovering the foundation of the evidence. Now on to step two, the interrogation—otherwise known as haunting.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Abby

  "Rich!" I screamed, unlocking the door before pushing it open with my hip. My other hand held the screen open so it wouldn't slam on me. "Rich." I spoke my boyfriend's name so the last letters floated into the house with a lilt, a promise of some fun to take place.

  No response. The television wasn't on, so I knew without a doubt that Rich wasn't home. I reached around the screen door and yanked the mail from the rusting metal box. I shut the door and leafed through the mail. "To occupant" went into the trashcan beside the front door, Rich's mail went into the letter holder attached to the wall, and I shoved mine into my overflowing bag.

  The few pieces addressed to Abigail Harris were for pre-approved credit cards—not wise on their part, considering I was a fulltime student and very part-time employee at a college bookstore. I could afford the townhouse by living in sin, as my grandmother called my moving in with Rich, and having parents who footed my college tuition.

  I needed to finish gathering the documentation for my term paper before finals. I only had a few weeks left to write down the findings and prove my case. From the snippets I overheard growing up and the scrapbooks and journals I snuck from Grandma's attic, I believed I could solve her brother's death. Newspaper articles and court records about the murdered private detective were hard to locate.

  No one had done any talking back then, and they did even less now. Asking for information was out of the question. Grandpa had forbid all talk about his brother-in-law, and Grandma would have a conniption fit if she found out.

  Not that Professor Harding was any happier, since my subject also brought to light the college's less-than-stellar days when a coed went missing, and a learning institution renowned for their business and accounting programs had trouble with misappropriation of funds. Money that I believed was used to pay for the hit on great-uncle Callous. I put the theory into my draft, which resulted in a call into his office this morning, where Professor Harding chided me for trying to use tabloid sensationalism and gossip rather than facts to present my case. I'm sure part of his anger was because his uncle was the current dean.

  Mom and Uncle Todd also refused to answer any questions. Mom said the family's unsolved murder didn't need to reenter the public's eye and was not appropriate subject matter for a school project. For my part, I figured if I was going to spend a term trying to "solve" an unsolved crime, it might as well be the one in the family. I'd like my hard work to mean something other than a grade.

  I was close to the answer. To the truth. I felt it, but I just couldn't see it… yet. All the information pushed out any space for creativity in my brain. Soon, the pieces would gel.

  I glanced at the phone and saw the red light blinking. Voicemail. I walked over and looked at the message indicator. Four. I pressed Play. Rich's mom. I skipped it. He wasn't there, so there wasn't any reason for me to torture myself by listening to her talk again about which girls from the country club were now available. Rich's deep voice rumbled into the room, regretting that he needed to spend a few more hours at the library. A hang up. Last, Kim, Rich's ex-girlfriend and my ex-friend, had called on the pretense of a double date so we could meet her new love interest.

  I replayed Rich's message, paying attention to the time. Okay, I had about two hours to wade through my research material before he came home. I wanted to pull out all the details from the items I had borrowed from Grandma before she realized the scrapbooks had disappeared. I walked into the dining room and rummaged through the papers and books stacked on the table.

  "Where's that book?" I knew I had laid it on top of my papers. One, I knew I'd need it today and, two, it kept the papers from blowing off the table or getting knocked off. There was something weird about the wording in the autopsy, and I wanted to check out the terminology in the forensic book. How did I lose a four-hundred-page, two-hundred-dollar book?

  The bedroom door opened. I froze. Had Rich changed his mind about the library, or gotten so tired he had swapped researching for napping? I turned.

  A large man wearing a black ski mask stood in the doorway.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but only a gurgle burst forth. Ocean-blue eyes locked onto mine. I spun and started to run.

  A heavy object slammed down on my head, and my world collapsed.

  * * *

  The carpet needed clea
ning. I started to push myself to a sitting position, but then remembered the intruder. I flopped back down to the floor and played dead. I strained to hear the sound of footsteps, breathing… nothing. I rose up on my elbows and glanced around. The man had left. I rubbed the back of my head.

  With my finger a few inches above the beige carpet, I outlined a trail of red. My blood, I assumed. I shuddered, sat up, and wrapped my arms around myself. Standing, I surveyed the room. My purse, laptop, and the television had left with the burglar.

  Time to call the police. "Hold up." Everyone had laughed when I picked criminal justice as my major and said I wanted to become a private investigator. Dad, the wonderful supportive man, had advised that written tests were different than real-life situations. His little girl needed to pick something safer.

  "Here's my chance to prove it," I said to our remaining possessions. It wasn't like any horrendous felony had taken place. Nobody died or was seriously injured.

  I touched the back of my head. No tackiness. The bleeding stopped. Even as relief flowed through me, tears welled. I didn't want to think for one second about the horrors that didn't happen. I couldn't.

  I knew my chosen career brought danger. This was a small taste. I needed to learn how to deal with it.

  The room started to spin, and my body felt weak, like I didn't weigh anything. Go to the hospital flitted into my brain and then back out. If I did, mom and dad would find out. All I needed was to rest.

  A nice, short nap, then all would be well.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Abby

  I returned to my senses, feeling dazed as a high-pitched ringing continued to assault my ears. My body felt light, as if disconnected. Maybe I had just discovered a new way to lose weight—get clobbered on the back of the head.