A Dash of Murder (11 page)

“A what?”

“A play date, Dad.”

“Well, after seven years I guess I should be pleased with whatev
er you’re calling it,” he said.

“No! Not like that. The boys will be camping buddies, so we’re trying to get them to become
better acquainted.”

“Oh,
so they don’t kill each other.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, as long as you are looking out for your son with the boy, I need you to look out for yourself and that guy you’re playdatin’ with. I never did get too straight a scoop on just what he was doin’ at that fire. As a matter of fact, I’m not all that sure I know what you were d
oin’ out at the bank building.”

“Dad. You were going to shut us out of the hospital, and well … Don’t laugh, okay? I wanted to see if I could figure out what Oliver Canfield was doing and to make sure that whatever had happened it didn’t h
ave anything to do with Barry.”

“Barry? Too much ti
me has passed for that, Betsy.”

“Maybe. I know, Dad, I
know. It sounds preposterous.”

“And what did this private investigation prove? You have interfered with an ongoing investigati
on and put yourself in danger.”

“Yes, but I may have f
igured why someone killed him.”

“Do tell.”

“Did you read through the stuff on his desk? The man had at least three different gir
lfriends.”

“It might make him tired, but I don’t
think that’s against the law.”

“It is if Canfield was using their credit c
ards without their permission.”

“Where did you find these credit cards? Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” My father’s ang
er was rising.

“I didn’t know how you would react to my ‘interfering,’ dad. I found the ca
rds hidden in his desk drawer.”

“Did you happen to bring these c
ards out of the fire with you?”

“Well, no.”

“Do you re
member the names on the cards?”

“Um, let me think. Ruby Morris. Uh, Mary – no, Martha Johnson, and uh … Baumgartner. The only
one I knew was Maureen Boyle.”

“
The
Maureen Boyle?”

“T
he one and only.”

“OK, I’ll check this out. In the meantime, you keep an eye on Fitzpatrick and son over there, and if there’s any trouble they’ll h
ave to answer to your old dad.”

Fitzpatrick leaned against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, holding the half-empty wine glass. He watched me for a moment and then spoke as soon as I finished my conversation with m
y dad.

“Excuse me for listening in, but did you say you found something with the name Baumgartn
er on it in Canfield’s office?”

I handed him back his phone. “Uh, yes. I don’t know if my dad would want you to know, but then again, after hearing me talk about it, I guess you already kn
ow, now don’t you?” I surmised.

Fitzpatrick looked a little confused after all that. He cocked his head to the s
ide. “What do I know, exactly?”

I rubbed my eyes and felt a little tired, especially after that second glass of wine. “It was a credit card I found along with a few others with all with the names of women on them. Do you know someone named Baumgartner? And as long as I’m thinking about it, just what were you do
ing there besides rescuing me?”

“I was wondering when we would
get around to that, you see …”

A screech came from the living
room. “Mom! Tyler won’t share!”

We put down our wine glasses
and headed for the living room.

“Tyler, it’s my turn.”

Tyler was bent over the game controller pushing buttons as his body swerved with a race car careening down drawn-in hig
hways on the television screen.

“In a minute, dude.”

“Tyler!” Fitzpatrick said, his tone commanding. “Put down the controller this min
ute and apologize to our host.”

Tyler’s car crashed into a wall on the screen, gene
rating the “Game Over” banner.

Tyler stuffed the controller back into Zach’s hands. “Sorry.” His apology was short and unfeeling. He rose to Fitzp
atrick’s side. “Can we go now?”

“Sure,” Fitzpatrick answered as he followed Tyler to the do
or.

“But you were about to tell me why you were in the ba
nk building,” I said after him.

“Oh yeah, well, I guess I was just there to rescue you.” He put his fingers to his forehead as if touching an invisible brim of a hat. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, Mrs. Livingston. We’ll see the both of you at the campout.”

The next day, I dropped Zach off wearing his safety pin-altered policeman’s uniform. We used his Scout shorts, along with one of my dad’s old tan shirts tucked in so far the hem it could be seen creeping out where the shorts hit his legs. That shirt was important, Zach told me, because it had the patches for the PBPD on the sleeve. It was official, whereas all the other kids had on fake stuff. He would be there as a Scout but also operating as a junior deputy for the campout. Barney Fife lives and breathes right here in Texas, complete
with one spitwad in his pocket.

The sun was beating down as we unloaded his gear at the campsite. I could smell bug repellent drifting by as all the little boys ran around us with bundled sleeping bags and tents. Rivers of sweat ran down through their hair, causing it to layer in straigh
t lines across their foreheads.

I was not excited about leaving Zach with his camping buddy the bully, but what could I do? Maybe Tyler would think Zach could actually arrest him if he beat him up. Hopefully Benny would keep an eye on them, or at least listen for screams. Zach assured me that he could take care of himself and didn’t need Benny babysitting him. Fifty pounds of fighting man, or at least tha
t’s what he thought of himself.

When I met up with Maggie and Danny in front of the hospital, I couldn’t help but notice her hair. As she walked over to me, her bouffant style seemed to be molded around her “Paranormal Investigator” cap. She even had a “Casper the Friendly Ghost” pin stuck on the brim of the hat, just in case it might attract a few spirits. It was a work of hair art. I raised my eyebrows and crooked my neck around
trying to see the whole thing.

“Aunt Maggie
? Did you have your hair done?”

“Do you like it? I had Ruby Green fix it up down at The Best Little Hair House. No matter what happens tonight, e
very hair will stay in place. “

“Miss Ruby used a whole
can of hairspray,” Danny added.

I would have to remember the “no open flames” pol
icy around Aunt Maggie tonight.

“But that’s not the best part,” Maggie continued. “While I was gettin’ my hair done, some of the ladies were asking me about finding Mr. Canfield. Seems they all wanted to know abou
t it.”

I didn’t think Danny knew all the details of his mother and me finding a body. That kind of thing might upset him, especially after he had been the one to find my uncle, his father, dead. He had nightmares about it for months afterward. “Well, once we started talking about that, the ladies started sharing some haunting experiences they had each had. It seems just about everyone in this town has a ghost story of some sort. The dead ar
e haunting all of us, my dear.”

I thought of Barry. The living weren
’t doing too bad a job, either.

“So by the time Ruby got my hair piled up and sprayed around this hat, I had three more volunteer
s to help us out on Halloween.”

“You did?”

“I sure did. The Pecan Bayou Paranormal Society’s newest members are Anna Harrel, that clerk from the grocery, Ruby, and Lily MacPhee, Dr. MacPhee’s wife. She said she looked forward to having some fun this weekend after all they been doin’ for thei
r daughter’s upcomin’ wedding.”

It would be great to have some extra people to carry gear, and if luck was on my side, one of those people would be assigned the dead tunnel. I would happily stay outside in NUTV’s van drinking sweet tea out of a thermos all night. I was beginning to think my favorite way to view ghosts was on my television set at home. I could hide under a blanket when the violins started playing and the heroine was all of a sudden alone. The real-life version of this so
mehow wasn’t quite as much fun.

A half an hour later, after the NUTV van arrived, we were trudging through the grounds under the baking sun. “Hurry up, Betsy. We have to get all these lights set up
before dusk,” said Aunt Maggie.

I hustled along behind my aunt, who was now dressed in the full regalia of a ghost hunter. She had a fifty-foot extension cord slung over the shoulder of her black knit top. She also had on her ghost buster belt, complete with an EVP device strapped on, as well as her flip camera and flashlight. She had insisted that I also wear my hat, so I put my hair into a ponytail to eliminate that “all your hair crammed into a hat” look. I chose to wear my yearly favorite, a black glow-in-the-dark jack-o-lantern shirt, along with black jeans. I actually tossed around the idea of wearing shorts for the heat, but I knew walking through the endless spider
webs in this place would have my skin crawling. I was already regretting my decision as I felt the sweat on my skin in the late afternoon temperatures. Hopefully when the sun went down w
e would at least get a breeze.

Howard was now standing in front of the aged structure with two portable square lights shining on him as he described the history of the hospital. Today he actually looked sedate with a black T-shirt and black shorts. I thought maybe his fashion sense had bowed to necessity until I saw his black and orange argyle socks resting mid-calf on his legs. Stanley had brought over a crew of four to film the show. He crossed his arms and nodded his head as he watched the filming of Howard describing the hospital. I just hoped Howard wasn’t doing that thing where his eyes bugged out like he did at the town council. Nobody watching would get to the end of the show where the council hop
ed for its glorious commercial.

We had been told to steer clear of the room on the second level of the hospital where the murder of Oliver Canfield had taken place. We would mostly be concentrating on the rooms situated on the main floor, including the cafeteria, two hallways of hospital rooms and the morgue. We put the lights d
own and headed back to the van.

I could see many cars now parked along the road. It had to be a mixture of the Scout parents and the people attending the filming of the investigation. Less than a mile or so from this hospital was the new Pecan Bayou Hospital. Howard had mentioned that the sounds of the ambulance sirens could interfere with filming. At least if there was an accident at the campout,
medical help would be close by.

I sat on the bumper of the van, waiting for my next set of directions from Maggie or Howard and slapping at a mosquito trying to suck blood out of my exposed arm. As the sun started its daily decline, the mosquito population put on their vampire fangs. I knew they had some mosquito repellent in the front seat of the van and made my way around. I ran smack into Aunt Maggie, whose animated
face told me something was up.

“I’m being asked to say a few words on camera,” Maggie said, a slight excited quiver in her voice. “Can you take these th
ings over to the main hallway?”

I picked up one more heavy bag and a suitcase of some sort while Maggie rushed off for her close-up. As I trudged from the van, wishing I had taken a moment to spray on some bug spray, I looked up in the towering windows of the old hospital. They seemed to be getting more elongated as the shadows stretched over their rectangular shapes. I looked to the window where I thought I had seen a ghost a few days ago. Could I have been looking at the murderer, or was it some sort of an apparition? Now that I was down to getting ready to spend the night in a haunted hospital, my feelings on whether I believed in the whole other-world thing were coming to light. Did I believe there were beings walking around, or should I say floating around, in another dimension, or was it all just a bunch of hooey someone thought up as they sat around a campfire? As I came closer to the hospital, something flickered on the second floor. Something not that much different from what I had seen with Zach. I set down my load a
nd yelled up into the hospital.

“Hello? Is someone up there?” I was immediately shushed by the film crew. Oops. I forgot my aunt was on camera. I had been directed by my dad not to go to the second level for any reason, but quite possibly someone else had not heeded the warning and was up there tromping through a crime scene. Where was George Beckman? Maybe he had taken a dinner break and som
ebody was up there sightseeing.

“Hello?” I repeated a little more softly this time. When no answer came back, I picked up my bags, set them inside the door and started ascending the
stairway.

“George? Are
you up here?” Again, no answer.

As I came into the large open solarium, the light from the late afternoon sun
shone
through the window frames, leaving a long shadow. The heat was stifling. I walked to the center of the solarium and stopped, not wanting to make a sound. I listened until I heard someone coughing and footsteps walking rapidly away from me, possibly down a hallway on the other side of the room. I crossed the solarium in pursuit as I heard the footsteps going down the darker passage. “You know you can’t be up here! This area is off limits to
anyone but the police … Hello?”

Whoever it was, they didn’t seem to care
too much about my dire warning.

The footsteps picked up from a walk to a run, and I followed at a faster pace. We went on like this, rounding corners and running down the next hall. I felt the heat sapping my energy. The intruder was always so far ahead of me. I couldn’t see who it was. I heard a doorway open at the end of the hall leading to the stairwell. The door slammed just as I got to it. Expecting to hear the sound of feet clumping down the stairs, I w
as surprised. It was now quiet.

Was whoever this was standing on the other side of the door? Was whoever this was getting ready to attack me? Maybe they thought they were in a suitable hiding place. I held my breath, and I yan
ked open the rusty white door.

Nothing. Nobody was standing there waiting to attack. I couldn’t see anybody on the stairwell, and there was no sound at all. Where did my intruder go? Had they crept out through the stairway
fire exit door to the outside?

I ran down the stairs and burst through the outside door, hitting square on the chest of a person much taller than I was. I fell backwards and landed on my behind in the overgrown weeds on the outside of the hospital. The intruder, whose face was blocked by the sun, was comin
g closer and closer towards me.

The intruder leaned down. I screamed and
crawled backwards on my hands.

“Stop!” a male voice yelled. As the sun went behind a cloud, I looked up into the ic
y blue eyes of Leo Fitzpatrick.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick?”

“What is wrong with you?”
he said, offering me his hand.

“What’s wrong with you?” I repeated back to him. “What were you doing upstairs near the crime scene? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to be anywhere near i
t? What were you trying to do?”

“I
wasn’t trying to do anything.”

“Why did you run from me then? I know it was you. I heard you coughing. You sounded like a t
wo-pack a day smoker up there.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking
about. I didn’t run from you.”

“Don’t give me that. You ran through the second f
loor and then down the stairs.”

“Betsy, you don’t look good.” His voice was gentle, and the blue eyes that looked so cold a minute ago softened. “When was the last time you had any water? It has to be over a hundred
degrees on that second floor.”

I felt m
y cheeks with my hands. “What?”

“You just came bounding out of that door as if you were being chased by a bear. You ran smack into me and then acted like I was goi
ng to attack you or something.”

“You wer
en’t?” I said feeling dumb now.

“Sorry. Hate to disappoint you, but I was over here looking for firewood for the campsite.” He seemed sincere, and yet there was something about this man I just didn’t trust. Once again, he had s
hown up at just the right time.

“Looking for wood?”

He pulled a water bottle out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Here, this is a little warm now, but let’s just sit down on the step and you can tell me all about it.” I followed him back up the steps, plopped down and took
a swig from his lukewarm water.

“That wasn’t you?”

“No ma’am,”
he answered, shaking his head.

“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” I turned to face the door, now closed. “Did you see anybody else come out o
f this door?”

“No, again.”

“If it wasn’t you, then did who I chase through the hospital?” I took another drink as the sound of
the cicadas rose in the woods.

“Well, when it comes to me, you can be assured you are safe.” He said it, but I wasn’t all that
sure I believed it.

“Tell me about your investor for the hospital, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Tell me why you were at the fire,” I said. Who was this man sitting here sharing hi
s water with me? I had to know.

“What’s to tell?” He gestured with both hands up. “It’
s just an investor.”