Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) (8 page)

“Dean’s waiting on you,” Hannah said. “He wants you to stand onstage with him when he gives his welcome speech. Come on.”

“She isn’t going in there looking like she’s been bar crawling for a week,” Rainey said. “Not as long as I’m Dean’s campaign manager. Eddie said you left his house forty-five minutes ago. I figured you’d gone to change. What did you do? Go partying with Wade Hill?”

My throat ached with the buildup of what I’d seen. The thing came out of my phone, reached for me. It could have killed me. The whispers I’d heard all my life filled my head.
Schizophrenic. Hallucinations.
I shook my head to clear it.

“It came out of the phone and chased me into the road.” Even as I said the words, I knew they were out of context and wouldn’t make sense. Sure enough, both Hannah and Rainey shook their heads. I explained what happened, leaving out the stuff about how the boogie man would kill me and everybody I loved unless I kept the curse attached to the treasure. No need to cause a panic. What little I told them must have been enough. Both women drew away from me, their eyes widening.

“Oh no.” Hannah put her hand over her mouth. “No wonder you’re filthy.”

Rainey took out her cellphone. “Dean. Stall them ten minutes, okay?” She paused while he said something. “Just do it, you hear me?” She hung up and spoke to Hannah. “You got anything to fix her up?”

Hannah studied me, raising one eyebrow. “I’ve got my makeup box in the car. But it’s the one I travel with. Not much in there.”

“It’ll have to do. Let’s get her over there.”

They dragged me to Hannah’s BMW sedan and forced me inside. Hannah took out a plastic case bigger than some of the toolboxes I’d seen and opened it. Inside lay an array of tubes and tins, all filled with mystery substances. I reached for a black eye liner pencil and Hannah slapped my hand.

“Clean some of the dirt off your face. Get your neck, too.” Rainey handed me a damp disposable wipe. I started scrubbing. Rainey grabbed a hairbrush out of the toolkit and started dragging it through my hair. I moaned once to let her know it hurt. The look she gave me dried up any more complaints. Hannah dabbed at my face with creams and powders, the brushes she used tickling my face. Three minutes of tickling, tugging torture later, both women leaned back to scrutinize me.

“Her shirt’s still filthy,” Rainey said. “You got anything else?”

To my amazement, Hannah went to her trunk and pulled out a pile of clothes. “None of this is going to fit her. She’s smaller than me.”

Rainey picked through the clothes and came out with a sleeveless spandex shirt and tossed it at me. I wanted to argue. The color was a pastel blue, and the straps looked like bra straps. One glance at Rainey’s face convinced me to keep my mouth shut and do as they said. Hannah took one look at me and dug through the pile of clothes again, this time pulling out a short black jacket. I slipped it on over the tank top and waited for their judgment.

“A dress would have been better, but this’ll work in a pinch. She doesn’t look as awful as she did.” Rainey gripped my arm and tugged me toward the party barn, lecturing me in her courtroom voice as we went. “Sheriff Joey Holze posted to some online social media sites today about Dean’s problems back in Louisiana.”

“How bad?” My throat ached again, and I knew I’d end up crying if I didn’t get myself under control. The day had taken its toll on me. What Sheriff Joey did made sense. The poisonous son of a bitch hated Dean and me wholeheartedly. Me for being a ghost-seeing, devil-worshiping freak and Dean for having the temerity to run against him in the sheriff’s election. Using underhanded methods to get ahead in the election fit the nasty SOB to a tee.

“Bad enough,” Rainey said. “He posted links to newspaper articles about Dean’s partner getting killed and about him resigning in a cloud of drunken disgrace. The article he linked to mentioned Dean and his wife-at-the-time were getting divorced and did all kinds of creative speculating about the reasons.” She puckered her lips as though she tasted something sour. “Of course, Sheriff Joey made comments like ‘Is this who you want for your sheriff?’ in his postings online.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Hannah moaned. “I can’t believe my uncle acts like this.”

Teeth clenched together so hard it hurt, I imagined how satisfying it would be to put signs with stuff like “gorilla cock sucker” and “dookey breath” in Joey’s yard right alongside his “Joseph Holze for Sheriff” signs.

“You’ve got to get in there and make Dean look good.” Rainey gave my arm a shake to emphasize her point.

“What if we leak what you found in Joey’s house?” I spoke to Hannah.

“There’s no proof either of you found anything.” Rainey, many inches taller than me, stooped to lean into my face. I’d known her since we were six. She was the most competitive person I’d ever met. She signed on as Dean’s campaign manager with one conclusion in mind: winning. She wouldn’t tell me to keep Joey’s likely theft of the Mace House to myself to be nice.

“She’s right,” Hannah said. “We’ve got nothing.”

A rivulet of sweat tickled its way down my side. The day’s upheaval had pushed the election to the back of my mind. All my worries came roaring back wearing streamers and waving.
How you doing, Peri Jean? Let’s par-tay.
Dean’s chances of winning looked dire, and I had no idea how to help. Me showing up to a public appearance looking like a dirty possum would actually crap things up worse.

Dean came out of the big metal building, turning his head left and right, obviously looking for me. Rainey inspected me once again, grimaced, and pushed me towards Dean.

“What the hell happened to her?” He spoke to Rainey.

“She was visiting Eddie.” Rainey put her hands on her hips. “Time got away from her, I think.”

Dean took several steps closer to me and put his arms around my waist. I leaned against him, and his lips brushed mine, casually at first, then more seriously. “You’re beautiful no matter what,” he mumbled against my lips, his breath mingling with mine. I drank in the scent of soap coming off his clean skin and thought, as I always did when he touched me, we’d figure out a way to make everything work.

“Come on in.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “I want to you to stand with me onstage. Your memaw has her camera ready.”

Dean opened the building’s door. Both of us winced as a blast of country music greeted us.

A loose crowd had congregated on the far side of the room. Nobody paid much attention to either Dean or me until we took the small stage. There was no microphone, so Dean raised his voice. He knew how to holler from his job in law enforcement.

“Folks?”

People slowly turned our way. Someone began clapping, and a short burst of applause swept through the room.

“First, thank you all for coming out tonight. Hope the weather’s been warm enough for you all.” He waited while the polite laughter died down. “Peri Jean and I want to welcome you all to the barbecue.” He tightened his arm around me as they applauded. “Thank you all for coming out, and I hope you enjoy—”

“Deputy Dean?” The voice came from the dimly lit area where some tables had been set up, so we couldn’t see the speaker, but I recognized the voice right away. Myrtle Gaudet was a harmless busybody by herself, but she became a formidable biddy when she joined forces with Loretta Brent, who happened to be the mother of Felicia Brent Fischer Holze. The two of them sat at a table near the bandstand. The tension I’d almost let go of came roaring back with its friends migraine and backache. Dean stiffened next to me as he made the same connection I had. We could do nothing but wait to see what horror she was about to shit upon all of us.

“What’s the necklace around Peri Jean’s neck?”

My legs went soft as cooked noodles, and I struggled to keep my face impassive and stand as tall as someone my height could. Dean glanced over, saw the necklace, and his shoulders relaxed a little.

“My mother gifted it to Peri Jean. It goes back several generations in my family.”

“Didn’t it used to belong to a witch?” Myrtle stood from her table and picked her way toward the stage. People hurried out of her way. They probably hoped she’d keep talking. No matter how much people like other people, they love seeing them suffer even more.

Several gasps came from around the room. I searched for Memaw, looking for support. Her face was stiff with rage. When our eyes met, she gave me a small nod of encouragement. I stood a little straighter.

“My great-grandmother was absolutely, positively not a witch.” Dean probably didn’t sound angry to anybody else in the room, but I knew him well enough to know that tone of voice. “She might have been an eccentric old lady who visited local
traiteurs
, but that does not make her a witch.”

Myrtle stood in front of the stage by then. She held up an electronic tablet of some sort. “But it says right here online that the necklace is magical, and you’re descended from witches. Burns County don’t want no hocus pocus happening behind the scenes.”

Dean took the tablet with a trembling hand. On its screen was a post by Felicia Brent Fischer Holze on a popular social networking site. It said pretty much everything Myrtle had told the room. Dean gaped at it, his normally golden tan turning yucky green.

“Myrtle?” Julie Woodson, owner of Silver Dreams Antiques, appeared at Myrtle’s side.

Myrtle slowly turned, the triumph on her face souring. The two women exchanged sneers. Earlier in the year, Julie outbid Myrtle at an estate auction. The war started then, each woman searching for ways to make the other one look stupid.

“Who cares if the necklace belonged to one of
the
Salem witches? The design of the chain and setting indicate they’re at least two-hundred-fifty years old.” Julie stared down her thin nose at Myrtle. “It’s a wonderful antique piece of jewelry with a great family history. Any real antiques person should be able to appreciate it.”

I shot Julie a grateful smile. She nodded in acknowledgment. Her on-again-off-again romance with Eddie probably fueled her desire to defend my honor, but every little bit helped.

Myrtle’s mouth opened and closed several times, then her face lit with glee. “But Peri Jean Mace is a—”

My cellphone picked right then to start ringing. I dug it out of my jeans pocket and saw Eddie’s face on the screen. Had it been anybody else, I’d have ignored it, but I needed to talk to Eddie no matter what. I pressed the answer button, and Dean’s mouth dropped open in shock. Everything was going wrong for him, and I was making it worse.

“Eddie?”

“Peri Jean, baby, you gotta help me. It’s here, and I can’t stop it.” He took a rattling breath. “My chest. I think I’m having a heart attack.”

The stress of the day pressed down on me, suffocating me. I turned to Dean, took in his angry face, and croaked one word, “Eddie.”

He shook his head. He probably meant he didn’t understand what I wanted, but I took it to mean “not right now.”

“Eddie’s having a heart attack,” I screamed. “You have to go help him.”

Everybody spun into action. Dean shouted for someone to call an ambulance to meet us out there and jumped off the stage and ran for the door. Somehow I kept my phone in my hand throughout all my acrobatics.

“Eddie, we’re coming. Hold on, okay?”

Gasps and coughs came over the phone’s speaker and served as Eddie’s answer. I reached Dean’s car and slammed my hand against the passenger window for him to unlock it and let me in. He glared at me but did as I wanted. I slid into the car next to him.

“Eddie? Eddie?”

“Oh, honey, I think I’m gonna die.” He coughed again and moaned in pain.

“Eddie?” I screamed into the phone.

He didn’t answer. I heard a ground-shaking thump, and the phone went dead.

E
ddie’s
mobile home was about two miles out of town. The speedometer on Dean’s ‘80s era Trans Am hovered between seventy and eighty miles per hour.

“Go faster,” I said. “We’re not going to get there in time to help Eddie.”

Dean, both hands fisted on the wheel, gave no indication he heard me. I nudged him with the heel of my hand.

“Stop it,” he said. “I can’t concentrate, and we’re going too fast on this curvy road.”

“Eddie needs me,” I yelled. “I don’t care about the damn road.”

Dean didn’t bother to respond.

“Where’s the ambulance?” I twisted in my seat to peer out into the impenetrable darkness and saw nothing but shadows and gloom. The county didn’t mount streetlights outside the city limits.

Dean shook his head.

“They’re so unprofessional. It’s a wonder anybody in this town ever makes it to the hospital alive.” Urgency choked down any and all rational thoughts. The reflectors marking Eddie’s driveway flashed in Dean’s headlights.

“Here, here,” I yelled.

He slammed on the brakes, throwing me forward in my seat, the seatbelt digging painfully into my collarbone. Dean sped down the potholed driveway like a madman unleashed and skidded to a stop ten feet from the mobile home.

All the lights blazed. Usually, Eddie only kept a reading lamp burning in the living room, where he either watched TV, researched, or read. We clambered out of Dean’s Trans Am, and bounded up the rickety wooden steps. Dean pounded on Eddie’s door. A muffled moan came through the thin aluminum. He tried the knob and found it locked.

“Your keys,” he yelled. “Use them. It’ll be easier than busting it in.” I fumbled my keys out of my pocket. Dean snatched them out of my hand, unlocked the door, and barreled into the house.

Eddie lay curled on his side, writhing in pain. My head swam. Floating on panic and adrenaline, I had to hold onto the wall and the backs of furniture to stagger toward him. Dean crashed to his knees and leaned his head close to Eddie’s. I crowded in, ignoring Dean’s sharp elbow in my way.

“Mahoney.” Eddie grabbed at my arm, his usual iron grip weak and clammy. “Ask Julie.” His gaze, cloudy with pain and fear, flickered to mine. “Ask her about Mahoney.”

“Mahoney? Who is Mahoney?” I yelled the words because I couldn’t hear anything over the freight train roaring between my ears.

Eddie swallowed and closed his eyes.

“Shit. He quit breathing.” Dean pushed Eddie onto his back and began chest compressions. “Come on, come on.” Dean blew into Eddie’s mouth.

I knelt frozen on the floor, tears burning my eyes and leaving hot streaks down my cheeks, mind unable to process the scene before me. I was losing Memaw. I couldn’t lose Eddie, too.

Dean continued working on Eddie until we heard the sirens. I leapt to my feet and ran to the door, throwing it open.

“He’s not breathing.” I jumped up and down on the wooden stoop, making it groan and shake. “Get your sorry asses in here.”

They pushed past me and surrounded Eddie. One of them, a guy who was in junior high when I was a senior, shook his head at Dean.

“Noooo,” I shouted before giving in to huge, gulping sobs. I should have called Wade Hill to save Eddie the way he helped me. But it was too late. I wailed louder.

The paramedics barely gave me a glance. They made notes on charts. One of them took out his cellphone and made a call. Dean put his arm around me and pulled me out of the house. I tried to wiggle away from him, but he held me fast.

Throbbing, unbearable pain blossomed in my chest, aching like a real wound. Eddie wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. I never saw his spirit leave his body, and I would have. I’d known Eddie all my life.

The pain in my chest grew too big to hold inside. I let it out in the form of screams and yowls, clawing at Dean when he tried to hold me. I’d never considered losing Eddie. He was my rock, my mentor, the only daddy I really remembered having. He couldn’t be dead.

Dean closed his arms around me so I couldn’t move and rocked me. I drew back to look at him and was surprised to see his cheeks wet with tears, too. I clutched at him, and we mourned together. Ugly, shaking from the confusion and excitement, nudged my hand. I knelt and wept into his stinky fur.

I raised my head and spoke to Dean. “Julie. I’ve got to call her. She can’t hear this from one of the gossip mongers.”

“Let me do it.” Dean took out his cellphone and walked away before I could argue.

Other people began arriving. Dr. Longstreet, Hannah and Rainey, a Burns County Sheriff’s cruiser containing Deputy Brittany Watson and a middle-aged deputy named Fitzgerald I’d met in passing.

I found a leash for Ugly. The dog, Hannah, and I stood off to the side, staring at the activity. Rainey sat in her car staring out in to the darkness both hands on the wheel. She got out of her car and picked her way toward us, the former Miss Texas and most graceful, poised woman I knew wobbling on her high heels.

“I’ll take the dog.” She took the leash from my hand without waiting for my response.

Hannah turned. “I want Ugly. Eddie would have wanted me to have him. I played with him every time I came out here to talk history with him.”

“Ugly’s mine.” Dean jogged over. He actually had the brass balls to reach for the leash. One scowl from Rainey, and he withdrew his hand.

Nobody asked me if I wanted the dog. Truth was, he’d create too much stress for Memaw, but I resented not being asked. I cleared my throat. “Why can’t I have him? Eddie practically raised me.”

Hannah, Dean, and Rainey glanced at me and went back to glaring at each other.

“I’m taking the dog,” Rainey said through clenched teeth. “I need him. He reminds me how awful people are and how good they are at the same time. I have to remember that to keep my sanity.”

I knew winning words when I heard them and knelt in front of Ugly, kissing his face and patting his scarred hide. He licked my nose.

“Love you,” I whispered. “Enjoy your new life.”

“So the story is Eddie had a heart attack?” Hannah’s voice trembled.

“I’m not so sure some outside force didn’t cause Eddie’s heart attack.” I swallowed back another flood of weeping. “Eddie said ‘It’s here,’ when he called me. I can’t help but think he meant the ghost we saw on the museum surveillance video.”

Rainey nodded her understanding, and Hannah squeezed my hand. Dean took a step away from us.

“There was no ghost on the video.” He crossed his arms over his chest, bunching his muscles. “Someone tampered with it. I’ve called an expert in Houston to examine the footage. We’ll figure out who stole from the museum.”

Hannah, Rainey, and I stared at each other, ignoring him. We said nothing. We didn’t need to. Each of us knew the plan. Find out who was behind this thieving, murdering ghost, and put the beat-down on them. Eddie’s death ached all the way into the deepest part of my soul. I’d do everything in my power, risk everything, to avenge his death. He deserved no less.

Dean snorted like an angry animal and marched away, his posture stiff.

“Peri Jean, would you go in Eddie’s house and get a towel or something for my car seat?” Rainey asked.

I cast a glance at the other woman’s sporty Mercedes. The dog would trash it and every beautiful thing she had. Maybe she needed the chaos in her life. I nodded and walked toward the trailer.

Hannah caught up to me and stopped me. “Where’s Eddie’s ghost? You need to communicate with him—whatever you do—and find out what happened.”

Her words jolted into my mind. This was the first time where the ghost of a recently deceased person I knew didn’t come see me right away. I lit a cigarette and hoofed it toward the trailer.

Dr. Nathan Longstreet stood near the rickety wooden deck off Eddie’s front door talking to Deputy Brittany Watson about what happened. The sole female law enforcement officer working for the Burns County Sheriff’s Office, she was eager to learn the job, and Dean wanted to help her. Sometimes too much, I thought. They stopped talking as we approached.

“I need to go inside and get Rainey a towel for her car. She’s taking the dog.”

“Deputy Watson can go get it,” Dean said. “You don’t need to.”

“I want to,” I said. “Plus, I know where everything is.”

“Darlin’ you might ought to go on home, maybe check on your memaw. Take Hannah and Rainey with you.” Dean tried to pull me against him, but I resisted.

“Dean’s right,” Dr. Longstreet said. “There’s no more you can do for Eddie. I’m sure he was grateful to have you with him in his last moments. He loved you like you were his.” Tears glossed the old doctor’s eyes. “I warned Eddie at his last three checkups to quit drinking and smoking so much, to eat healthier foods, to exercise. He ignored me. His heart kept getting weaker and weaker. I knew this was going to happen…” He pulled me into his arms, and I breathed in the familiar odors of rubbing alcohol and spearmint. Dr. Longstreet let go of a sob. He’d loved Eddie, too. I returned his hug.

“Tell Brittany where the towels are, honey. Then I want you to be on your way.” Dean put his arm around my waist as soon as Dr. Longstreet released me. “I’ll wait here until Hooty brings the hearse, and Deputy Watson will help me close up. No reason for you to have to…” His mouth worked. “See Hooty take Eddie away.” The pain in his eyes suggested he didn’t want to see it either. It made me hate what I had to say next, but I pushed myself to do what I needed to.

“I need to be the one who goes inside.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t either.” Deputy Brittany Watson stepped in front of the door. “Eddie wouldn’t want you to.”

“I need to see…” I wasn’t quite sure how to tell someone I was going looking for a ghost.

“There’s nothing in there you need to see.” Brittany moved toward me, so confident and sure of herself I barely recognized the little girl I used to babysit.

“I need to see his ghost.” I jerked away from her and grabbed the doorknob, my words echoing in the quiet country night. The frogs and crickets stopped their opera to watch the show.

Brittany, who knew the rumors about me even if she’d never seen me do anything weird, widened her eyes and took a step away from me. Dean squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed one hand over his stomach. Dr. Longstreet nodded tiredly, possibly expecting no less, and stepped away from the door. He’d seen a lot over his years doctoring Burns County. He knew good and well what I could do. If he understood why I wanted to go in, maybe he could get Dean off my case. Before I could think of a discrete way to tip Dr. Longstreet to what I wanted, Dean started motormouthing again.

“Baby, listen to me,” Dean said. “I don’t want you going in there. It’s upsetting to see a dead person when they haven’t been prepared for viewing. It’s not like going to a funeral.”

He glanced at Dr. Longstreet for confirmation. The doctor shrugged and leaned against the deck’s railing, crossing his arms over his chest. He knew there was no use arguing with me.

I ignored Dean and opened the trailer’s front door. He grabbed my arm and tugged me away from it.

“You can’t go in there.” He said the words in a gruff, near shout. His cop voice. It brooked no argument. If I hadn’t seen him naked, it might have scared me into obeying, but it just made me mad.

“Actually, she can go in there.” Rainey’s voice came from behind me. “Eddie left his estate to her. I have the will at my office. It’s not probated yet, but all this belongs to Peri Jean.”

Dean’s mouth worked, and I took the opportunity to slip inside the trailer.

* * *

I
stopped right
inside the door and took a good look at the room. Eddie lay where he’d died, more motionless and silent than I imagined possible. Living people make noise just by being alive. They add a presence to the room. Once the heart stops beating and the brain stops creating, it’s over. What’s left behind is like a creepy kind of furniture. I knew the part of Eddie I wanted to talk to—his spirit—still had to be here. He had something to tell me on the phone, and I needed to hear what it was to help me find whoever did this to him.

“Eddie?” I said to the empty room. My voice sounded flat and muted. “Eddie? Come on. I want to talk to you.” Nothing happened. The black opal hanging around my neck didn’t even give me a little shock of magic. I walked through the living room and kitchen to the master bedroom. Maybe Eddie’d gotten confused in death and went in there.

I swung the door open. The odor of stale cigarettes, beer, and beer farts assailed me. I took a step backward, viewing the unmade bed and clothes strewn on the floor from the doorway. A plate of greasy chicken bones, the remainder of a fried chicken dinner, sat on the dresser. Steeling my gag reflex, I crept through the room and took baby steps to the bathroom. If the bedroom was this bad, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what waited for me in there.

I stepped into the room and put the back of my hand over my mouth. How did Eddie stand using this room? The sink, once white, was caked with dark colored splotches and sprinkled with hair. The counter had a layer of dust so thick I could have written in it if I’d been willing to touch it. The tub and the toilet looked like they could have been used in biological warfare. Empty.