Buried Innocence - A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery - Book Thirteen (Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery Series) (16 page)

Steve’s former
house was located up on Prospect Street. It was surrounded by about two acres
of land that were partially wooded. Mary and Bradley pulled up just behind the
vehicle belonging to the Galena Police Department. Chief Chase stepped out of
it and walked to Bradley’s cruiser. Mary stepped out to greet the Chief. “Hi,”
she began.

The Chief shook her
head. “No, you listen to me,” she said in a lowered voice. “I don’t know what
you did to convince that poor man to do this, but believe me, if we find a mine
shaft, and if we send that camera down and find nothing, I’ll not only bring
you up on charges but I’ll also charge you for the time and equipment used on
this wild goose chase.”

Mary nodded. “Fair
enough,” she said. “But you’ll have to stand in line. Gregg Sonn has already
threatened to file a complaint with you.”

Chief Chase just
stared at Mary for a few moments, not saying a word, and then she shook her
head in disgust and walked away.

Mary felt Bradley’s
arm around her shoulders and appreciated the squeeze of comfort he gave her.
“So, great day to be a ghostbuster, right?” he asked with a tender smile.

“Just make sure we
have enough money in the account for bail,” she replied. “I might need it.”

Bradley turned her
towards him. “But Steve’s body is down there.”

She nodded. “Well,
it was…twenty years ago,” she explained. “Hopefully rain, flooding and erosion
haven’t carried it away somewhere.”

Leaning forward, he
placed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll make sure I have our lawyer’s number on
speed dial,” he whispered.

She giggled.
“Thanks.”

Mary watched as
Chelsea Chase knocked on the door, presented a warrant to the current
homeowners and explained the situation. Gregg Sonn stood next to her,
introducing himself to the woman on the other side of the door. A moment later
they were being ushered through a gate in the fence and into the manicured
backyard.

“Wow,” Gregg said.
“It sure has changed since we lived here. I can barely recognize it.”

“Crap,” Mary
muttered.

She walked away
from the group, following the circumference of the back yard. “Um, Steve, it
would really be nice for you to show up now,” she whispered.

“Okay, Mrs. Alden,”
Chief Chase called, her arms folded across her chest. “Where’s the mine shaft?”

“Just give me a
minute,” Mary called back, hoping her cheery façade fooled someone in the
group.

“Steve,” she
whispered harshly. “I need you now!”

Appearing next to
her, Steve looked around the yard. “Wow, this is nice,” he said. “This is
really nice. I had hoped to do something like this, but I never got around to
it.”

“Well, really, I’m
sorry,” Mary said. “But I’m about to be led off in handcuffs if you don’t tell
me where the hidden mine shaft is.”

Steve looked around
again, turning one way and then the other. “Things have really changed since
then,” he confessed. “And it was such a long time ago.”

“You’re not
boosting my confidence level,” she whispered to him and then turned to the
waiting group, smiled and called out, “Just getting my bearings.”

Steve walked to the
very back of the yard where an older fence covered in overgrowth separated the
yard from the edge of the bluff. “It’s through here,” he said, his voice filled
with excitement. “I was doing some work on the grade. I remember now.”

Walking to the old
gate, Mary started to pull away the vines.

“What are you
doing?” Gregg asked. “No one ever went out there. Dad said it was off limits.”

Mary stopped for a
moment and looked over her shoulder. “He was working on the grade,” she
explained. “That’s why he went out here.”

Gregg shook his
head. “We never looked out here for him,” he said. “He always said it was too
dangerous.”

“For the kids,”
Steve said. “But I needed to make the repairs.”

“It was too
dangerous for you kids,” Mary repeated. “But he needed to repair some things.”

Coming up alongside
her, Bradley caught hold of the old gate and, pulling with all his strength,
yanked it free from its foliage moorings so they could pass through.

Steve was already
on the other side walking the edge of the bluff. Moving to the edge of the
property line, he looked out over the view of downtown Galena. “I was here,” he
said softly. “I remember there was a light breeze and I was enjoying the view.
Then I stepped back…”

Mary pointed to the
area just behind Steve. “The mine shaft should be right there,” she said,
moving closer to Steve.

“Oh
no you don’t,”
Bradley said, catching her arm and pulling her back. “We
don’t know how compromised this area is, so let’s not step before we check it
out.”

He turned to one of
the men from the Water and Sewer Department. “Do you have anything I can use to
prod the ground?” he asked.

“Yeah, I got a two
by four in the back of the truck,” he replied. “I’ll get it.”

A few minutes
later, with the long two by four in his hands, Bradley punched down against the
ground. The first two hits were against solid ground.

“Doesn’t look like
a mine shaft to me,” Chief Chase said.

The third hit
nearly threw Bradley off his feet as the end of the board disappeared
underneath the sod. He turned to the other chief. “Third time’s the charm I
guess,” he said.

Within twenty
minutes, the rigging had been set up over the mine shaft, and the fiber optic
camera cable was being slowly lowered into the darkness. The monitor displaying
the camera’s findings showed nothing but limestone with clusters of roots
growing out of them. The operator would call out the major depth milestones.

“Twenty feet and
nothing,” he called.

“It was deeper than
that,” Mary said, peering at the screen with her fingers crossed. “Keep going.”

“Thirty feet,” the
operator called. “And we’re getting pretty close to water.”

“Want me to call
the lawyer now?” Bradley whispered.

Mary shook her
head. “No, he’s down there,” she said. “We have to find him.”

“Thirty-five feet,”
the operator said, looking up from the rigging. “I don’t see
nothing
down there but mine shaft and water.”

“Steve, help me
find you,” Mary murmured.

“Mary,” Steve
called from the inside of the shaft, his voice echoing on the stone for Mary’s
ears only. “Tell him to come down another two feet.”

“Could you just
lower it down another two feet?” Mary asked.

The operator looked
over at the chief for guidance, and she nodded as she rolled her eyes.
“Why not?” she said.
“We want to be sure that we gave her
every chance to prove her theory.”

Shrugging, he
lowered it a few more feet. “I just got rock,” he called out.

“Move the camera to
the right…no, no, the left,” Steve called.
“About a foot
over.”

“Move the camera
over to the left,” Mary said.
“About a foot over.”

“Lady, there
ain’t
going to be nothing…” he began as he slowly moved the
camera around. “Well, holy cow. We got ourselves a shelf, just like you said.”

Mary took a deep,
shuddering breath of relief. “Can you widen the viewer now?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah,
I’m doing that now,” he said, eagerness in his voice. “Okay, what have we got
here?”

He looked into the
monitor, then paused and sat up. “Chief, I think you need to look at this,” he
said.

“He found me,”
Steve said, appearing next to Mary. “He found my body.”

Chief Chase hurried
over to the monitor and studied it for a moment. She gave Mary a puzzled look
but then turned her attention to Gregg. “I believe we’ve found the remains of
your father,” she said softly. “Would you care to look?”

Tears forming in
his eyes, he hurried over to stare into the monitor. “He didn’t leave us,” he
whispered, looking over his shoulder at Mary. “He never left us.”

“He did all he
could to climb out,” Mary said. “He wanted to get back to you. But he only got
as far as the shelf.”

“Could you tell him
I love him?” Steve asked, placing his arm around his son’s shoulders.

Gregg’s eyes
widened, and he tentatively looked around. “I love you too, Dad,” he whispered
before Mary could say a word. “I love you, too.”

Bradley placed his
arm around his wife’s shoulders and walked her back to the cruiser. “That was
amazing,” he said. “I loved the look on Chief Chase’s face when she looked
through the monitor. It was a cross between disbelief and horror.”

Mary looked up at
him and smiled. “Well, now she has to believe in ghosts,” she said. “That can
be a little disconcerting.”

He unlocked the car
and opened her door. “Is there anything else we have to do here?” he asked.

She shook her head
as she climbed into the car. “No. After Gregg told his dad he loved him, Steve
was more than happy to move on,” she said. “And the police department will deal
with removing his earthly remains.”

“How
about Gregg?”
Bradley asked.

“I think he needs a
little time to get his head around all this,” Mary said. “I gave him my card,
so he can contact me when he’s ready.”

He closed her door
and entered on the other side. With the key in the ignition, he turned to her.
“So, can we go home and relax?” he asked. “It’s been a fairly eventful day.”

“Sorry,” she said,
shaking her head. “But tonight my mom gets into town, and Rosie and Stanley are
coming to dinner.”

Bradley took a deep
breath and then smiled. “Well, being with family can be relaxing,” he said.
“Besides, I have this need to hug Clarissa and let her know I love her.”

“Yeah, I don’t
think kids can hear that too many times,” she agreed.

They went directly
home and pulled up in the driveway about forty-five minutes later. Clarissa ran
out to the porch to meet them. “Guess what?” she called as she hurried down the
steps and across the lawn. “Grandma and Grandpa have a present for me. But
Grandma said I couldn’t see it until you got home.”

Bradley picked her
up and hugged her. “Well, let’s go see what they got you,” he said.

Clarissa leaned
over, hugged Mary and then studied her. “You have mud all over your shirt,” she
said.

Mary nodded. “Yeah,
I got splashed by a mud puddle.”

“So was this an
unlucky day?” she asked.

Shaking her head,
Mary leaned up and gave her a kiss. “No, sweetheart, this was a very lucky
day.”

They entered the
house, and Mary’s mother, Margaret, enfolded them all in a big hug. “Well, I’m
going to apologize for your father,” she said. “I have no idea what he was
thinking, but, well, that’s an O’Reilly man for you. Let your heart do the
thinking for you and consider the consequences later.”

Bradley smiled. “I
don’t think just the O’Reilly men have that problem,” he said.

Margaret looked at
her daughter and smiled. “Well, yes, you have the right of that, Bradley,” she
agreed. “It’s a curse for anyone with the O’Reilly name.”

“So what did Da do
that is so terrible?” she asked.

“Well the gift he
sent is not the usual kind of gift one sends to your granddaughter,” she said.
“But he said, seeing as the party was going to be on Friday the Thirteenth, we
needed a good luck charm to be on our side.”

“A
good luck charm?”
Mary asked. “What kind of good luck charm?”

Margaret walked
over to the kitchen table and picked up a fairly large box with a lid. “This
kind,” she said, placing it on the floor.

Clarissa, her eyes
wide with excitement, turned to her parents. “Can I open it?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” Bradley
said, “so we can see what kind of trouble your grandfather is going to be in.”

Clarissa lifted the
lid and peered inside. “Oh. Oh. Oh!” she cried, reaching down into the box.
“It’s perfect; it’s what I always wanted.”

She pulled her
hands out, and in them was a tiny, black kitten.

“A
kitten?”
Mary asked, watching her daughter cuddle it to her chest. “He
got her a kitten?”

Margaret sighed and
nodded her head. “He found it when he was on patrol, in a sack by the river,”
she explained, her expression tightening with anger for a moment. “The mother
and litter mates didn’t make it. So, here was this tiny speck of black fur, he
tells
me, that
needed a home and someone to love it.
And besides, he says, it has to be good luck.”

Mary stroked the
kitten with her finger, and it purred loudly. “Well, you can never have too
much good luck,” Mary said.

“We can keep it?”
Clarissa asked
,
her face filled with hope.

Mary looked up at
Bradley. “Well?”

“Well, we really
can’t risk giving good luck away,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of
Clarissa’s head. “What are you going to call it?”

“Lucky,” Clarissa
said immediately, placing her cheek against the soft fur.
“Because
it’s lucky for us and lucky for the kitten.”

“Perfect,” Mary
said.
“Just perfect.”