Ghost Seer (26 page)

Mrs. Flinton crossed her arms. “That is far too costly, Zach.”

“I can afford it.”

“And I can afford to let you rent the apartment for what I feel is right for us both.” She sniffed.

So he spent the next five minutes negotiating his rent
upward
, until they reached an agreement and she left his new place clunking down the hall with her walker. Then he closed the door behind her, slid onto the leather couch—nice and wide and long—and let his instinct rule to marshal his thoughts before he went on another round of interviews for Mrs. Flinton’s case.

He’d have to visit his mother, soon. A fleeting thought that he might be able to take Clare slithered through his mind before he winced and recalled that they were done. Too damn bad because he could
see
Clare with his mom; they’d like each other, and bringing Clare along sure would ease the whole thing for him.

He rubbed his chest, hurting inside.

 • • • 

During the trip, Clare kept the windows up, the air-conditioning on. Enzo cheerfully remarked on the beauty of the country. He hadn’t gotten out much when he was with Great-Aunt Sandra; people had come to
her
.

“Didn’t she have any quests like this?”

The dog hesitated.
Not so much. You should read her journals.

Clare wanted to bang her head against the wheel; of course she couldn’t while driving down a two-lane highway at seventy-five miles an hour. “I’ll get to them,” she muttered. One she was reading was entertaining but had little helpful information.

Of course you will read them.

An idea occurred to her. “You might be able to tell me what journals I should start with.”

The air in the car simply
changed
.

I might
, said a hollow mind-voice from Enzo.

No, she was
not
looking over to the Other. “Never mind.” She’d just passed the sign for Virginia Dale, the abandoned café and post office. Down the hill she saw a widening of the road and a brown marker. Checking the mirror—no one was behind her—she slowed. Yes, the sign said
P
OINT OF
I
NTEREST
. That had to be it.

Across the cattle gate the road was dirt and washboarded. She took it slow, her palms dampening despite the cool air coming from the Other-cum-dog. The directions, printed out and copied to her phone, had said the drive would take two hours and forty-five minutes. It lied. She was there in two hours. She swallowed, not really appreciating the mountain view, the wide meadow, the rocky outcroppings. She came to a fork and a yellow gate and stopped. Yes, this was the place, onward. The road became a narrow passage. She could see this road as the main stage line, pretty much a one-car deal. Maybe she’d better get an SUV. She didn’t like SUVs.

She turned a corner and could see the station. Shock!

There was a house, a ranch, buildings,
whatever
just below the station, on the other side of a barbed-wire fence.

Heart thumping, she crept along the road, hoping no one saw her, would come greet her . . . anything. Why in tarnation had she worn a floral shirt? She should have stuck to natural beige or brown, should have
bought
a beige or brown shirt. At least she had a straw cowboy hat.

At another open barrier, she read the sign. Of
course
it said not to disturb or take anything, gave the penalty. It specifically mentioned
no digging
. She swallowed.

And right there, in the middle of the open space by the large wooden sign, stood the ghost of Jack Slade. Yes, if anyone found her digging she could get in deep trouble. She’d say she was looking for the GPS cache? Putting one down? Maybe that would be all right.

But her mouth had dried.

There’s Jack!
Enzo yipped with the enthusiasm of a ghost dog, not Other spirit.

“I see him.” His standing by the sign that lied about him just seemed too sad. Yet such things would be part of her life.

And she was accepting the change in her life, and doing it darn better than Zach. She pulled up before another log house that research had told her was built in 1909, and wished her car were beige, too, instead of black. Even a white car would be dirty with dust by now and less noticeable.

Zach wouldn’t be letting the proximity of people shake him. He’d act as if what he was doing were all right and proper.

She was so not Zach Slade.

As she got out of the car, the heat struck her. Anyone with sense would be inside.

Enzo shot through the car and behind the building, nosing one of the outhouses.

Welcome to Virginia Dale.
Jack Slade beamed.
Isn’t it beautiful?

It was, except for the ranch that looked scruffy, the ranch that hogged the stream that had had Slade building the station in the first place.

Did you really name it after your wife?
Clare tried out a little mental telepathy to the phantom.

Yes, my beautiful and strong and fiery Virginia. She waits for me beyond the curtain, you know.

Clare didn’t know, and didn’t know whether
he
knew or sensed it or just hoped. She didn’t ask.

He turned and stared at the plank building undergoing restoration.
Our life here was exciting and challenging.
He shook his head.
I did much better when given a tough job than when things ran smoothly. That was when I began to drink more, from the boredom and the pain.

“Uh-huh.” Now he wanted to be chatty; just great. With gritted teeth she walked down to the sign. “Just where is the bottle, and how far down is it?”

N
OT FAR, ABOUT
two feet.
He hovered over an area behind the sign.

She was absolutely in the open with nowhere to hide. The closest place would be a group of rocks, but they were behind another barbed-wire fence. She circled a clump of prickly pear cactus and looked at the spot the ghost indicated. At least it was under grass and not one of the hard-packed dirt trails.

I have been loosening the soil day and night
, the ghost said.

“You know the passing hours?” Clare asked.

I am aware of the waning of the moon. It will be just after the new moon and very dark at Cold Springs the day after tomorrow.

“When I’ll have to put the ears back on Jules Beni? Is he a ghost, too?” Her voice had risen and she shut her mouth. She’d read somewhere that high voices carry farther, are easier to hear. She’d be making that trip alone except for ghosts, too, and it was wise to do it at night, she guessed.

If you don’t follow through on this quest, it will be bad for you
, Enzo said, with big, sad eyes.

All evidence said she’d go mad. Her lips felt numb. “What will I have to do?”

Jack Slade answered,
The scene when I walked up to Beni’s body against the corral post and cut off his ears—my worst, deliberate act made in cool blood—repeats again and again throughout the day of my crime. You will see it, feel it, as I do, experience it with me. But this time when I see the holes where his ears were, we will put the ears back.

“Oh, joy.” She shifted feet. “I still don’t know where Cold Springs is.”

I can take you there. There will be no digging, like here.

“We should get on with that. You loosened the soil, you can do that? Affect the environment?”

This was my home, land I chose and named, even though I did not own it.

“Oh.”

It was a job that took will and determination and concentration.
A fleeting smile, and, yes, the apparition was denser here, more defined.
I was good at my job that took those qualities.

“Extraordinary,” Clare said.

Yes. I was also good with risk, when sober.

Enzo, who’d been sniffing around the old pump, galloped up faster than a live dog.
Clare is not a risk-taker.

“No joke,” Clare muttered. “Let’s get this thing started. I want to be out of here. I’ll go get the spade”—she wished she’d purchased some sort of sturdier shovel—“and some liquid.” When the phantom began sinking into the ground, maybe loosening the soil, she turned hurriedly away so she couldn’t see the strangeness, caught herself, and sauntered back up to the car, though her body had tightened with nerves. Quick movement caught the eye.

And she’d have to pray that no one else wanted to visit the station while she was about her business.

This was her life now. Doing things she didn’t want at the beck and call of wretched ghosts.

Or going mad.

She got the camp shovel out of the back of the car along with all the liquid she had. She could always stop somewhere on the way home and buy more.

It is as soft as I can make it
, Jack Slade said in her mind. He inclined his torso.
And I thank you for your help.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.

She emptied her water and her iced tea, then poured the beer on the ground, ignoring Slade’s wince.

With one last scan of the area and seeing no one in sight, she crouched down and levered up the dry grass and some soil, working at it slowly, carefully trying to spread fresh and damp earth along the ground near her instead of piling it. She fell into a rhythm and stopped when her body began to protest the activity. Standing, she walked toward the cool shade cast by the building and surveyed the land. Still no activity at the ranch; perhaps it was one of those deals that did most of its business at certain times during the year. The stream appeared cool and flowing and lovely.

She rolled her shoulders, wiped her face and neck and palms with her bandana, and headed back to her hole. Just a little longer, she hoped.

Grunting as she stooped again, she continued with her task, keeping an eye out for people on the ranch. It was down the hill, and some buildings might block her, but she felt far too vulnerable.

“The least you two can do is tell me if anyone is watching or coming.”

Jack Slade shook his head.
Not fond of risk.

“No.” And here she was, talking aloud again, had been all morning, to no one anyone else could see.

You must take some risks, now and at Cold Springs.
Jack Slade drifted a little, hesitant.
Cold Springs is on privately owned land.

Cold Springs sounded wonderful right now, a nighttime trip, driving under a huge sky of rarely seen stars and maybe the Milky Way, which couldn’t be seen in Denver . . . the pretty images ground to a halt. “Privately owned land. I’ll have to trespass.”

Yes
, Slade said.

You can do it! I will be with you! I can keep watch!
Enzo barked.

“You both
do
know that ranchers in Wyoming have guns?” Clare said.

Slade’s nostrils widened as if he snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re the original badass gunman, Slade, but I’ve never even held one.”

It is too bad that Zach won’t be with you
, Enzo said.

The springs are gone, along with the old station house. It is now very close to a farmed field.

“Yes, I’ll miss Zach,” Clare snapped, more hurt than she cared to admit even to herself. She dug deep with her spade. “Farmland, great. Even Wyoming farmers have guns.”

Clink.

You’ve got it!
Enzo bounced around her.

“I think so,” Clare said, digging more carefully now, widening the hole around the angled bottle made of dark glass. Five minutes later she’d retrieved the thing. The bottle was dark green bordering on black and nine inches long. She brushed clinging dirt off it.

“I can’t see through it!” she said, frustrated.

The ear is in there
, Jack Slade said.

Enzo poked his face into the bottle.
Yes, it is there, a human ear, a little shriveled and almost whole.

“Eww.” She laid the bottle in the grass, took her blue bandana from her pocket, and wiped her face, then the object of her quest. Gently, she shook it, thought she felt a little shifting dirt. As far as she was concerned, the ear was good enough for now.

We did it! We did it! We did it!

“Yes,” Clare said, tiredly.

She spent long minutes putting the dirt back in the hole, arranging the grass again, making the evidence of disturbance minimal.

When she returned to the car, all she wanted was a bath. She toyed with driving into Fort Collins and renting a room, but she ached to be in her new home with her belongings. That was the payoff for her gift to see ghosts, and it was almost sufficient.

Wrapping the bottle in paper towels, she maneuvered her car seat back and forth to wedge the bottle safely under the wonky seat, not wanting the filthy ear-holding object in her cooler. Desultorily she ate a couple of small chicken strips and an egg and wished she had a drink to go with her food.

“Leaving now,” she muttered, knowing that both Jack Slade, who’d disappeared into the station where he’d lived, and Enzo, amusing himself by passing through the large jumble of rocks, could hear her.

Slade didn’t appear, but when she passed the rocks on the way out of the gate, Enzo slipped inside the vehicle and sat upright in the passenger seat, and it didn’t even faze her. He looked at her, his head wrinkling.
There are graves behind the rocks. Not many, but one of them was a baby.

“What a wonderful thing to hear. Any ghosts?”

No, they are long gone.

“Fabulous.”

 • • • 

Oddly enough, the Flinton case looked like it would break wide open, with the newer bunch of leads on the furniture and antique silver. Clare’s examination of the books, particularly the receipts, showed whom many of the items had been sold to. And though they’d been lost for decades, Zach felt an urgency to find them, give Mrs. Flinton closure, at least.

But throughout the day he felt a persistent itch between his shoulder blades and thought about the argument he’d had with Clare.

When he was downtown working, he got hungry and avoided both restaurants he’d met Clare in . . . but he bought an e-copy of the main and massive biography of Jack Slade that Clare had a half dozen bookmarks in.

Interesting reading. The story drew him in, though he skimmed it since he knew the general details of Slade’s life. He paid particular attention to Virginia Dale. There were no pictures of the place in the book, but he found some online.

As he closed his tablet and finished his drink, he tilted his chair back and considered what he’d read. Joseph Albert Slade’s story was tough in so many ways. Yeah, he might have suffered from PTSD, but the guy sure hadn’t handled himself.

A trickle of pride welled in Zach. He’d done better, all around. Might never be the success the original Jack Slade had been in his heyday as a division manager of the stagecoach and Pony Express, but Zach wouldn’t be shooting up saloons, begging for forgiveness, and strung up by a vigilante committee either.

By early afternoon he wanted to call Clare. Not really to apologize. More like just to make sure the trip had gone okay.

And had she found the ear?

Yeah, sure, that was truly a burning question.

But they’d made a deal not to check up on each other . . . words that echoed hollowly in his mind from a couple of days before. So it would be pushy if he called, especially since though her words bugged him, maybe even really got under his skin and stuck like barbs in his brain, he didn’t want to talk about it.

And that deal
was
Before. Before she dumped him. Before he left and accepted the dumping.

An hour later he’d found Mrs. Flinton’s antiques, about three quarters of them along with the silver set. So he met with her and Rickman in Rickman’s office.

They sat in a well-appointed conference room that looked out over the mountains. Only Zach glanced at the panoramic view of brown hills and gray peaks that held tiny streaks of snow on their faces—the weather had been hotter than usual up there, too, though not as bad as in Denver.

“Zach?” rumbled Rickman, obviously wanting backup for a quietly sobbing Mrs. Flinton. “Why don’t you go over it again?”

He’d given one report, and he didn’t think Mrs. Flinton could hear him well over her “happy tears,” but he limped over to the conference table and the pics Rickman had printed from Zach’s phone.

“Clare found notations in one of the ledgers that seven pieces, including the silver set, were sold to a family friend. And those stayed together for a couple of generations. I found them in a garage. Sorry the photos aren’t great.”

Mrs. Flinton swallowed and lifted tear-blurred eyes to him. “They look like they’ve been cared for.”

“In general, yes, but the lady I talked to said they’d been her mother’s and grandmother’s and those ladies had used them.” He cleared his throat. “The Arvada neighborhood is upper middle class, and the woman didn’t seem to know what the items were worth.”

Rickman rubbed his new buzz cut. “The sale looks to Clare like it was legal?”

“Yes, sir.”

After blowing her nose in a fancy handkerchief, Mrs. Flinton lifted her chin and said, “I want them back.”

“I think a check would make the current owner very happy. Neither she nor her children want the furniture, but keeping it together might mean something to them.” Like her great-aunt Sandra’s had meant to Clare and her brother. All still in the family.

Sitting up straight, Mrs. Flinton nodded. “And they’d know where the pieces were and that they’d be cherished.” She blinked. “Do you think she’d welcome an appraiser?”

“If you paid for it,” Zach said.

“You think she might shop around for another buyer if we sent an appraiser?” Rickman asked.

Zach leaned on the table, glanced at the grainy photos. “She’s a nice lady. I don’t think so. They’ve just been sitting in one side of her triple garage for a couple of years. I’m sure she’ll run it by her family, though, her husband and her three girls, but I anticipate they’d sell. I was up front about the whole deal, seemed a case to be that way.”

Mrs. Flinton took out her smart phone from her bag, scrolled through her contacts. “I have an appraiser I trust. You can contact him and the lady and set up the appointment?”

“Sure, we can,” Rickman said. “You don’t want to be there with the appraiser?”

“No.”

“I think we can get this done in the next couple of days,” Zach said.

“That’s lovely.” Mrs. Flinton pushed back her chair. Zach helped her and steadied her while Rickman got her walker. But she held out her hand to Zach. “Thank you, Zach. I’m so pleased.”

“Good job,” Rickman said gruffly.

Zach shrugged.

“And give my thanks to Clare, too,” Mrs. Flinton said. Canny old lady, she knew something was up between him and Clare, but he wasn’t about to confirm that.