Good Tidings (5 page)

“
Yeah, Mom says we never know when our last day on earth could be, so we should be nice every day.”

Mary nodded. “Your mother is very smart.”

Andy shrugged. “Yes, I guess so, but she has to be, she’s a mom.”

“
My Mom is exactly the same way,” Mary confessed, “It’s often scary.”

Andy nodded, his face serious. “Can your Mom tell what you’ve been thinking, too?”

Mary bit back a grin and nodded seriously. “Yes, she can,” she replied, “I think she has x-ray vision.”

Andy agreed. “Dad says we don’t stand a chance.”

Mary rubbed his head and grinned. “No, we don’t,” she said, “Now get home before you’re late for dinner and you get us both in trouble.”

“
Not if I have brownies,” Andy called, holding up the bag as he tromped down the stairs, “Bye, Miss O’Reilly.”

“
Bye, Andy,” she called, “Thank you.”

She closed the door with a smile on her face.
Sometimes it’s good to remember what life is really about.

*****

Mary sat up in her bed. The moon reflecting against the snow shone through the windows, casting a soft glow across the room. She looked over at her digital clock-radio, it read 3:00.
The witching hour
, she thought.

She tossed aside her blankets, slipped out of bed, walked to the door and waited for a moment, listening to the sounds of her house.

Although Mary had gotten use to nocturnal visitors from beyond the grave traipsing through her home in the middle of the night, ever since a serial-killer had invaded her home last month, she was more wary.
I ought to get a cat
, she thought,
and then I can blame all weird sounds on him.

She could hear rustling around in the kitchen. Drawers and cabinets were being opened and closed rapidly, as if someone were searching for something.
Not very stealthy for a serial-killer,
she decided.

She slowly crept down the stairs, peering around the corner before entering the room. A tall, slim, shadowed figure on the other side of her kitchen counter was moving systematically through the room. Silently entering, she watched him for a few moments. He was manic in his actions, opening a cabinet or drawer, glancing inside, closing it and moving on to the next.

Closer now, she could see that he was dressed in ragged Army fatigues that were spattered with mud and traces of blood. His tiger-striped Boonie Hat, reminiscent of the Vietnam War, drooped sideways covering her view of most of his face. She could, however, see traces of mud brown camouflage face paint.

“
Can I help you find something?” she asked.

He turned and she saw the place where the bullet had entered his forehead. She was grateful the hat was hiding the exit wound.

“
I have to find the letter,” he whispered urgently. “I should have told her. But I thought I’d have time.”

He turned back to the cabinets and started opening them.

“
Where did you put the letter?” Mary asked.

He turned back to her, a look of confusion on his face. “I can’t remember,” he said. “It was in my stuff. What happened to my stuff?”

She could see the tattered name tag on the right shirt pocket of his fatigues, “Kenney” and she could tell by the insignia on his shoulder that he was a Private.

“
Private Kenney,” she said.

“
Yes ma’am,” his reply was immediate.

“
When did you die?”

It took him a moment to respond. His eyes glistened with tears and he wiped them away with the back of his sunburned hand. “On my twenty-first birthday, ma’am,” he answered and then he faded away.

*****

”
Mary! Mary!”

The incessant voice slipped into her sleeping subconscious and she tried to ignore it.

“
Mary! Mary, are you sleeping?”

The image of a six-year old ghost connected in her memory with the voice and she opened her eyes. “Joey, what’s wrong?”

“
You have to get up so we can go get Jeremy,” he said.

“
Do you know where they are?” she asked, glancing over to the clock. Five a.m.

Didn’t ghosts ever sleep?

“
They brought him to a really tall apartment,” he said. “That will be easy to find.”

Mary shook her head. “In Freeport that would be easy to find,” she explained, knowing there was only one building in town over ten stories. “But in Chicago or Madison or any other big city, there are hundreds of tall apartment buildings.”

Joey sighed, “I thought I was helping.”

Mary sat up in her bed and leaned back against the headboard. She smiled at Joey. “You are being helpful. Now we know that he’s in an apartment, not a house,” she said, “All we have to do is pin down some details.”

“
So what do we do next?”

“
I have a big brother,” she answered. “He looks out for me, just like you look out for Jeremy. He’s also a policeman in Chicago, a special one that tries to find missing people. He’s going to call me today so we can work out a plan to find Jeremy.”

Joey grinned. “Really?”

Mary nodded. “Really. But, we’ll need your help to find him. Did you look out the apartment window? Did you see anything that could help us?”

He shook his head. “Just lots of snow,” he replied.

The snowstorm had dumped at least ten inches all over the tri-state area. Mary wasn’t surprised with Joey’s description. Unfortunately, that information was not going to bring them any closer to Jeremy’s location. Mary had another idea.

“
Can you listen to the man and woman talking?” she asked. “Could you spy on them and tell me what they are saying?”

Joey nodded. “Yeah, I can listen. I can spy. I can do that really well.”

“
Great! While I wait for my brother to call, you spy on them and give me any information that you think is helpful.”

“
Okay,” he said with a smile. “Thanks, Mary!”

Once he faded away, Mary thought about going back to sleep, but her mind was racing with ideas.
I hate when that happens
, she thought, as she climbed out of bed.

Fifteen minutes later, she was comfortably dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, baggy sweatpants and thick wool socks. Freeport was snowed under and no one was going anywhere. She made a mug of her gourmet hot chocolate, threw some logs into the fireplace and then moved her laptop to the coffee table, so she could work in front of the blazing fire.

After searching through the local Vietnow website, she was able to find some basic information about her nighttime visitor. Private Patrick Thomas Kenney was born on December 24, 1947 and had died, as he had mentioned the night before, on his birthday, December 24, 1968. He was in the 101
^st
Airborne Division and had died in Quang Nam on his twenty-first birthday.

Mary sighed and blinked away the tears that filled her eyes. Although his death occurred more that 40 years ago, she was certain there were still family members who remembered a lost son every year at Christmas time and mourned for him.

The phone rang and Mary jumped. “O’Reilly.”

“
Hey, how are you doing this morning?” Bradley asked. “How was your drive home?”

From her seat on the floor, she could glanced out the window and just see her car positioned horizontally across the driveway. “Pretty uneventful,” she lied.

Bradley chuckled. “So you parked like that on purpose?”

She jumped up and went to the window. Bradley’s cruiser was at the curb. “Is this police harassment?” she asked.

“
No, I called to inform you that today is ‘Make Breakfast for your Favorite Cop Day,’” he responded, “Your favorite cop who has been up all night dealing with the damn snowstorm.”

Mary chuckled. “Wow, I didn’t realize,” she said. “But there’s no way I can make breakfast for my favorite cop today.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because my dad’s in Chicago,” she said, “There’s no way I could drive there in time for breakfast.”

She sighed heavily. “So, I suppose I’ll have to settle,” she said, “Would you like some breakfast?”

Mary watched him hop out of the cruiser and make his way through the newly fallen snow to her porch.

“
Well, since you asked,” he said into the phone, just before rapping on the door.

Laughing, she opened it as she hung up the phone.

Bradley pounded his snow-covered boots on the Welcome mat just inside the house, and then slipped them and his coat off. “Have you heard anything from Joey?” he asked.

Mary took his coat and hung it over a chair near the fireplace. “Yes, he dropped in this morning at five,” she said. “They have Jeremy in an apartment building. Joey’s back there listening to any conversations he thinks might be helpful.”

Bradley nodded, following her into the kitchen. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “Did you contact your brother?”

Mary poured Bradley a mug of hot chocolate and set it before him on the counter. “What? No whipped cream or marshmallows?” he asked.

She grinned, pulling the container of aerosol whipped cream out of the refrigerator and topping the beverage with several inches of frothy sugar. “You are such a whiner.”

He laughed, took a sip and licked away the excess whipped cream.

“
So…my brother,” she said, “I called him and he was familiar with their MO. They had actually sent bulletins out to the closer suburbs warning shoppers.”

“
And that’s why they came to Freeport,” he added.

Mary nodded. “Yeah, far enough to be anonymous and close enough to get back home within a couple of hours.”

She took a cast-iron frying pan from a shelf and put it on the stove. “Bacon and eggs?”

Bradley smiled. “I will be your slave for life.”

“
Does that mean no parking tickets for life?”

“
The way you park? Hell no. We earn half of our annual budget on your tickets alone.”

She glared at him and began to put the frying pan back on the shelf. “I meant, cold, stale cereal good for you this morning? I think I have something with bran.”

“
Okay, who needs a budget anyway,” he said.

She put the pan back on the stovetop. “I thought you’d see it my way.”

“
Bribing an officer of the law?” he asked.

“
On my salary, no way,” she grinned.

He took another sip of chocolate. “Why did you decide to leave Chicago and come to Freeport?” he asked. “You had a stellar reputation there. You could have worked as a consultant for them and made real money.”

Mary pulled the eggs, bacon and butter from the refrigerator and placed them on the counter. “Were you ever in charge of a big day-long event where people called your name constantly?” she asked, “Then, when you finally got home, you could still hear them calling you, even in your sleep?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had those kinds of days.”

“
Well, that’s kind of what it’s like for me to go into Chicago,” she explained. “There are thousands of spirits there who have unfinished business and they are all drawn to me. It’s overwhelming.”

Bradley leaned forward on the counter. “So, how does it happen? You step into the city and you’re attacked?”

“
No,” she said, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “Ghosts still ‘live’ in the same time period as their deaths.”

Bradley nodded. “That’s why you ran into the Apple River Fort last month, because it hadn’t been built yet when the little girl you were following died.”

She smiled. “Yes, exactly. And from what I’ve learned so far, every ghost makes his own unique path or journey. Some are daily journeys, which is why so many people see a ghost at a certain time every night. They catch the ghost at that point in their journey.”

“
But some journeys are longer?” he asked.

Mary laid several strips of bacon in the pan, while she considered his question.

“
Yes, some journeys can even be year-long,” she explained. “Like Indian tribes, they lived in certain areas during certain times of the year. Some people tell me their houses only seem haunted in the fall, for instance. That’s because the ghost’s journey is taking them there for that season.”

“
Wow, snow-bird ghosts,” Bradley said, shaking his head.

Mary laughed. “Yeah, sort of. But, that doesn’t always happen. When people are killed suddenly or tragically, often their ghost is confused and they stay bound to that area until someone can help them.”

“
Someone means you,” he said.

She nodded. “I don’t think there’s many of me around,” she said with a shrug. “Which is why, once they realize I can see them, they get excited and rush over.”