Final Call (4 page)

Chapter Five

Bradley walked Mary back to her car,
their feet crunching in the crisp, frozen snow. “I’m sorry I dragged you out in
this cold,” he said, taking her arm and helping over a high snow drift next to
the curb. “This has been a total waste of your time.”

Mary could hear the polite distance in
his voice and knew that her actions had put it there. But, really, how could
she have an honest, open relationship with him when she couldn’t be honest and
open?

Mary pulled her keys out of her car and
unlocked the Roadster, and then she turned back to him, leaning against the
car. “Hey, no problem,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Besides, I don’t
think it was a waste of time. When Faye realizes that being dead isn’t all it’s
cracked up to be, she’s bound to get in touch with me. You just moved that
process along.”

Bradley leaned one hand against the
roof of the car, blocking Mary in place. He looked down at her and she looked
up, meeting his eyes. His breath mingled with hers in the icy air. He lifted
his other hand, encased in soft leather and slowly stroked her cheek with his
thumb. “I miss you,” he said softly.

Shuddering from his touch, she felt her
eyes fill with tears. One single teardrop slid down her cheek and he gently
wiped it away. “What did I do?” he asked, pain and confusion apparent in his
gaze.

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she
insisted.
“Nothing.
It’s not you. It’s me.”

He sighed. “Mary, will we ever be able
to get back what we had?”

She nodded, her voice tight in her
throat, wondering how he was going to respond when he discovered she had known
that Jeannine was dead. “I really hope so.”

He stepped back away from her and the
car. “So, are you going over to Rosie’s?” he asked, his voice friendly and
impersonal.

“Yeah, I thought I’d head over there
now.”

He paused for a moment. “I was going to
go over there too. Will that be a problem for you?”

Mary felt her heart break a little bit
more. “No, that won’t be a problem at all,” she said.

He turned before she could add anything
else. “Fine, I’ll see you there.”

Mary watched him walk back down the
street to his cruiser, and then she opened the door to her Roadster and slipped
inside. Inserting the key, she listened as the engine purred to life. She
fastened her seat belt and reached over to the gear shift to move it into
reverse when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. Slowly turning
her head towards the passenger seat, she found herself face to face with a pair
of non-corporeal eyes floating in front of her.

She jumped, initially startled, and
watched as the face around the eyes slowly began to materialize. He was an
older African-American man, with a distinguished face and a nearly balding
head.

“Sorry,” she stammered. “I wasn’t
expecting you.”

The gentleman glanced around. “Where am
I?” he asked, his face creased in concern.

“Well, you’re in my car, which is
parked on Walnut Avenue, near Clark Street in Freeport, Illinois,” she replied.
“Does that help?”

He shook his head violently. “No, no,
that does not help, young lady,” he bellowed. “I was in the hospital, intensive
care, my heart…”

Pausing, he lifted his hand and placed
it over his chest. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said in wonder. “There is no
pain.”

Closing her eyes for a moment, Mary
took a deep breath. She really hated when it happened like this. “It doesn’t
hurt anymore because you died,” she said softly. “You’re a ghost.”

Whipping his head up to face her, he shook
his head. “Oh, no, young lady, I’m afraid you have this very wrong,” he said
firmly. “I am a minister. I am Reverend Hezekiah Johnson, a servant of God.
There are no such things as ghosts.”

“I can understand how this might come
as a surprise,” she began.

“Surprise,
young lady?
No, this is not a surprise,
it’s
blasphemy! I don’t know who you are, or how you got me here, but you will be
lucky if I don’t press charges,” he growled, as he reached over and tried to
open the door, but failed. “You let me out of there, or so help me…”

Mary reached in front of him and opened
his door. He slid out of the car and turned back to her. “You don’t look like
the type who would pull a prank like this,” he said, his voice softer and a
little more kind. “I would suggest you think about the company you’ve been
keeping lately.”

She nodded. “If you ever need help,”
she added quickly before he could walk away. “Please feel free to call on me. My
name is Mary O’Reilly.”

“I find that highly unlikely,” he
sniffed. “But I thank you for the offer.”

He turned and walked down Walnut Street
towards Stephenson.

Probably
going back to the hospital
, Mary thought.
Well, perhaps he’ll be able to sort things out there.

Mary closed the door and once again
shifted into first gear. This time she was able to pull out of the parking spot
and drive down Walnut without further interruption.

She started to turn towards Rosie’s
house and thought of the ghost making his way back to the hospital. He had been
sent to her for a reason, even if he didn’t understand the reason. He might
need her. She shook her head. Well, she had wanted to be busy.

She pulled out her cell phone. “Hi,
Rosie, it’s Mary. How are you doing?”

Chapter Six

She slowly followed Reverend Hezekiah
Johnson down Stephenson Street to the hospital. She hadn’t realized how tall he
was when he was sitting next to her in the car. He must have been over six feet
tall and, although his body was carrying some excess weight, she could tell he
had been an athlete by the way he carried himself as he strode down the street.

He was wearing a long dark overcoat
that flapped open as he walked, but he wouldn’t notice the cold, Mary thought.
And, she added to herself, he wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t noticing the cold.

He wasn’t floating yet, she noticed as
he made his way around a group of people walking to their cars. He was still
earth-bound, either by his own determination or his lack of acceptance of his
current state. He walked with purpose, not looking to the right or the left,
but simply marching forward.

She thought he might have looked a
little angry, not used to having things detain him from his usual routine. She
thought back to Mike’s statement about how ghosts didn’t really worry about
time anymore, she wondered if this ghost would be able to adjust.

As he entered the lobby, she found a
parking space close to the door and settled down to wait for him. Rosie had
understood when she told her she wasn’t sure how late she would be. But with
Stanley and Bradley there, Rosie had plenty of people looking out for her for
the time being.

Reverend Hezekiah Johnson entered the
lobby and looked around.
Where the he…?
He stopped.
What’s wrong with me? I can’t
believe I nearly swore
, he thought. That young woman had shaken him more
than he cared to admit. Imagine, suggesting he was dead and, even worse, not
admitted through the Pearly Gates to his eventual reward. Why, for all the time
and effort he’d put into his ministry, he was sure he would eventually be
welcomed home with jubilation and celebration.
A ghost.
No, sir! That was certainly not part of his future.

Pushing through the doors to the triage
area of the Emergency Room, he noticed the duty nurse didn’t even look up from
her computer to ask his name. Really, things were getting lax at the hospital,
he decided. Well, at least he wasn’t going to have to waste his time with
explanations, especially since he didn’t have one.

He peeked around curtains to try to
locate his family. It was just like Lucinda, his wife, to get turned around in
a place like this.
She was probably
roaming the halls somewhere
, he thought with a wry shake of his head. That
woman couldn’t do anything without his guiding hand.

The sound of weeping stopped him in his
tracks. It sounded just like Lucinda. He turned and followed the sound down a
long corridor and found himself in front of a room with a door that was
slightly ajar.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Johnson.”

He recognized that voice; it was Dr.
Polley
. What had he missed? Was it one of their children?

He rushed into the room and his heart
filled with relief as he realized his entire family was there, standing around
a hospital bed. They all looked fine.

Moving closer, he craned his neck to
see who was sick.
Probably one of the beloved parishioners.
Elle Jones had been sick for quite a while now.

Standing behind his wife, he peered
over her shoulder and his jaw dropped. It was his body in the bed. He looked
around the room at all of the people standing around. His four children were
sobbing. His dear Lucinda was holding his hand to her cheek and crying.

“Wait a minute here,” he bellowed at
the top of his lungs. “I am not dead! I forbid it.”

“I can just hear Daddy,” his eight-year-old
daughter, Vivian, said, sniffling back the tears. “He’s asking God for more
time, telling him that he’s not ready to go yet.”

Sixteen-year-old Rudy shook his head,
“Oh, no, he would be demanding that God send him back. He wouldn’t be asking
for anything.”

“Now, Rudy, Vivian,” Lucinda said
softly. “You must still show respect for your father.”

Alvin, his fourteen-year-old son cried.
“I don’t want him to be dead. Mommy, what’s going to happen to us?”

Lucinda put her arm around the boy and
pulled him close. She placed a kiss on his forehead. “Don’t worry, Alvin, the
Lord will provide.”

“No! No! No! No!” Hezekiah yelled. “I
am not dead. This is just a mistake. I’m here, right next to you! Tell me you
can hear me.”

Rachael, his ten-year-old daughter,
looked around the room. “Momma, I thought I heard Daddy’s voice,” she said in a
whisper. “Could Daddy be a ghost?”

“Daddy said there’s no such thing as
ghosts,” Alvin countered. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Alvin, be nice to your sister,”
Lucinda reprimanded gently. “I think we’re all a little overwhelmed right now.”

Dr.
Polley
,
who’d been standing at the back of the room, came forward. “He died quickly,”
he said. “I don’t know if that makes you feel any better. He didn’t suffer.”

Hezekiah turned on the doctor. “How do
you know whether or not I’m suffering?” he asked. “How do you know what I
feel?”

Lucinda nodded and patted the doctor’s
arm. “Thank you,
Doctor, that
does make it a little
easier to deal with.”

Dr.
Polley
placed his hand on hers. “If there is anything I can do…”

Lucinda smiled at him. “You’ve been
very helpful, thank you.”
           
“Tell him to bring me back,”
Hezekiah yelled. “Tell him to take those damn defibrillators off the wall and
bring me back to life.”

He realized he was swearing, but at
that point, he really didn’t care. “I’m not dead! I can’t be dead! I’ve got too
much to do!”

“I’ll have the nurse call Walker’s
Funeral Home,” he said. “They’ll pick up Hezekiah’s body and then you can meet
with them about the funeral.”

“Oh, no, don’t let them take my body,”
Hezekiah pleaded. “Don’t let them bury me. I’m still here! I’m still alive.”

“Mommy, we can’t let them bury Daddy,”
Rachael cried. “We can’t put Daddy in the ground.”

Lucinda hugged the little girl, tears
glistening in her own eyes as she took a ragged breath. “Oh, darling, Daddy’s
up in Heaven now,” she said. “He’s looking down on us from his reward in the
sky. His body is just what’s left once his spirit has gone on. Just like the
butterfly that leaves its cocoon. Daddy has moved on and is bright and
wonderful in his glory.”

Hezekiah leaned back against the wall
of the hospital room, tears streaming down his face. “I’m dead,” he cried. “Oh,
dear Lord, I’m dead.”
  

Chapter Seven

Mary saw the ghost stagger out of the
hospital, a lost and dazed look on his face. She jumped out of her car and
hurried to meet him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He turned to her and she could see the
dark tracks of tears on his cheek. “I’m dead,” he whispered, his voice
cracking. “I’m dead and I didn’t make it to heaven.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you won’t,”
Mary explained. “It usually just means you’ve got some unfinished business and
God is letting you tie up loose ends before you leave.”

“Who are you?” he asked. “And why are
you following me?”

“My name is Mary, Mary O’Reilly. I have
a special gift; I can communicate with people who have died.”

“You one of those so-called psychics?”
he sneered.
“Nothing but the devil’s work in things like
that.”

She shook her head. “I don’t tell the
future and I can’t read your mind,” she said. “What I do is help people who are
caught between this life and the next. I help them so they can move on and go
to heaven.”

He shook his head. “Seems to me you are
talking to the wrong person. I know more about heaven and getting to heaven
than you could even imagine. I am a third generation minister and I know my
place and my calling. There has just been a mistake, that’s all. God is going
to be calling me home directly. See if he
don’t
.”

Mary didn’t think God made mistakes,
but she realized this gentleman was not in the right frame of mind for that kind
of message.

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” she said.
“I wish you well on your journey, then. But, if you do find you need to talk to
someone, I’ll be happy to visit with you.”

She could almost feel the wall he was
building between the two of them.

“I thank you kindly, but I can tell
you, you won’t be needed. Now, I’ve got to get back to the church because I
know that’s where God is searching for me.”

“Best of luck,” she said, wishing there
was something else she could do for him.

“Young lady, I don’t need luck. I’ve
got the Lord,” he replied, turning away from her.

He walked a few steps and turned. “I’m
a little new at this business,” he admitted sheepishly. “But I’ve got to
believe I don’t have to walk everywhere I want to go.”

Mary smiled. “From what I’ve been told,
if you can just picture a place in your mind, you can go there.”

He nodded. “Once again, thank you
kindly.”

He closed his eyes, sighed with
satisfaction and then faded away.

Mary shook her head. “I wonder if I’ll
ever see him again.”

Within ten minutes she had driven to
Rosie’s home. Both Stanley’s car and Bradley’s cruiser were in the driveway, so
Mary opted to leave her car at the curb.

She looked up and down the quiet
residential block. Most of the Christmas lights that usually had been removed
by fastidious home owners by this time of year were still blinking under
several feet of snow. Between record high snowfalls and record low
temperatures, most people hadn’t minded extending the holiday season a little
longer.

Mary carefully walked to the front
door, avoiding patches of ice, and knocked once before she let herself in.

Rosie’s home looked and smelled like a
cozy country cottage. The scent of cinnamon and cloves assailed your nose the
moment you walked through the threshold. Cheery overstuffed loveseats and
chairs in bright floral prints, Thomas Kincaid prints, rag rugs on polished
wood floors and glazed pots in primary colors with bright dried flower bouquets
decorated the great room. Flames from a gas fireplace put the finishing touch
on the scene. As you walked from room to room, you could see the love and care
that was put into each accessory and piece of furniture. It was like something
out of a Country Beautiful magazine.

Mary loved Rosie’s home because not
only did Rosie decorate with hearth and heart in mind, she also understood
comfort. Mary hung her coat of the rack near the door and slipped off her
boots. Rosie, Stanley and Bradley were sitting in a cozy corner of the room
near the fireplace.

“Mary, dear,” Rosie called. “What happened?
What took you so long?”

Mary joined them, picking an ottoman
closest to the fireplace to let the warmth seep through her cold body. “I met a
fairly confused ghost outside the theater,” she explained. “I didn’t feel I
should leave him alone, so I followed him back to the hospital.”

“A confused
ghost?”
Stanley asked. “What’s there to be confused about? When
you’re dead, you’re dead.”

“Well, yes, that’s true. But sometimes
when you die, you don’t quite realize you’re dead,” she said. “And when you don’t
go walking down that long passageway toward the light, like you’ve been
expecting… Well, you can get confused.”

Bradley turned to her, his face
unreadable for a moment. “Long passageway to the light?” he said, shaking his
head slightly. “That reminds me of the dream I had about Jeannine.”

Well,
crap!
Mary thought.
He
wasn’t supposed to realize it wasn’t a dream. Good thing I’m not with the State
Department.
Government secrets anyone?

“That’s right, you did mention that,”
she said, then turned quickly to Rosie before Bradley could respond. “So,
Rosie, tell me about what happened tonight.”

“Oh, Mary, it was awful,” Rosie
responded. “You know, I could feel something was wrong the minute I walked into
the theater.”

“Funny, you didn’t mention that to me,”
Stanley interjected.

Rosie turned and scowled at him. “I
didn’t want to frighten you, unnecessarily.”

“Humph,” was his reply.

“Anyway, Mary,” Rosie continued in a
soft voice, leaning toward Mary. “We entered the theater, with the threat of
the unknown before us. I went first, being familiar with the theater and the
mysteries of the unknown and the frightening.”

“That’s true,” Stanley interrupted.
“She did own a beauty shop for quite a few years.”

“Stanley, that’s quite enough,” Rosie
chided, biting back her own smile. “You’re ruining the story.”

Stanley stood up. “Well, why I don’t
just get Mary something to drink while you finish up the story?”

Rosie smiled at him. “That would be
lovely, thank you. Mary, Stanley made some wonderful hot cocoa, would you care
for some?”

Mary turned raised eyebrows to Stanley.
“You made…”

“I opened an envelope and added hot
water,” he interrupted. “A trained monkey could do it.”

“But he also put whipped cream on the
top,” Rosie said to Mary and turning to Stanley added. “I don’t think a monkey
could have gotten the top off the whipped cream, it’s quite tricky. Besides, it
probably wouldn’t have even thought of it.”

“She’s right, Stanley,” Bradley added.
“Bananas maybe, but whipped cream, never.”

Stanley stared at Rosie and shook his
head. “I meant…”
           
“I’d love some hot cocoa,
Stanley,” Mary said, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. “With
whipped cream, if you don’t mind.”

“Fine,” Stanley grumbled and stormed
out of the room.

Rosie watched him leave and turned back
to Mary and Bradley with confusion written on her face. “I don’t understand why
he’s so upset,” she said. “He volunteered to do it in the first place.”

Mary grinned. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have
asked for whipped cream.”

Bradley chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure it was
the whipped cream that did it.”

Shaking her head, Rosie sat back in her
chair. “Why, isn’t that just the strangest thing? I suppose I will never
understand men.”

“So, Rosie, you were telling me about
your experience,” Mary prompted.

“Well, actually,” she admitted
candidly. “I never did see too much of anything. Once we realized that Faye was
hanging from the rafters, Stanley ushered me out of there and into the seats. I
suppose he was trying to protect me.”

“Why would anyone want to kill Faye?”
Mary asked.

“Why wouldn’t they is more the
question,” Stanley replied, placing a big mug of hot cocoa and a plate of
chocolate chip cookies next to Mary. “She was a piece of work, that one.”

Mary took a quick bite of cookie and
then asked, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Well, from what I heard at the store
today, last night’s rehearsal was a real doozy. She threatened to have Donald
Saxer
fired from his job, told Carl White that she was
going to tell his wife he was having an affair with one of the gals in the cast
and, just before that, tore into the entire cast like a bear into a beehive.”

“Not a very pleasant woman, was she?”
Mary said. “So, do you think any of those people could kill her?”

Bradley sat forward and snatched one of
her cookies. “Given the right motivation, anyone can kill.”