Who Killed the Ghost in the Library: A Ghost writer Mystery Read online

  “Of course I was. Where else would I go? I didn’t have a car.”

  “Then what’s that sitting in your driveway, a paperweight?”

  “Artie just dropped it off this morning.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “You mean besides Artie, Randy, and the guy that picked Artie up? Is that good enough for you?”

  “Why are you asking all these questions?” Randy said.

  “There’s a small problem at the Ashton place.”

  “What kind of problem?” I said.

  Mike took a bite of the muffin, chewed and swallowed before answering. “I went out to talk to Agatha Foley this morning.”

  “And?”

  “She’s missing.”

  Chapter 18

  “What do you mean she’s missing?” Randy said.

  “Well geez, Randy, you graduated from college. Surely you learned the meaning of the word in that expensive party school you went to?” Mike said sarcastically.

  The next thing I knew, the two of them were in a knockdown, drag out fight. For a moment, I flashed back to our high school days, when they got into a fight behind the band hall. Both of them had to have stitches and were suspended from school for a week. To say they hated each other was a mild understatement.

  I scrambled out of the way just before Mike punched Randy, causing him to fall on the coffee table, breaking it and crushing the muffins. Papers flew everywhere again. “Stop it! Stop it right now!” Of course, they ignored me.

  Randy jumped up and hit Mike, sending him stumbling backwards into the loveseat, flipping it onto its back. If I didn’t find a way to stop them, I’d have no furniture left.

  I ran to the kitchen pantry and grabbed two cans of vegetables as I heard a loud crash from the living room. I was pretty sure it was my new LED flat screen TV. Holding my injured arm against my left side, I placed one can on top of the splint as I walked back into the living room. I never played sports in school, but years of playing football and baseball with the neighborhood boys taught me how to throw pretty well. I firmly gripped the first can in my right hand, reared back and let it go, hitting Randy in the shoulder. He yelled and turned around, just as I threw the second one, hitting Mike in the head.

  “What the hell?” Mike said as a small trickle of blood started down the side of his head.

  “It was the only way to stop you two idiots. Look what you’ve done to my living room!”

  They looked around. “I’m really sorry, Cam,” Randy said, trying to look contrite.

  I held up my hand to stop him. “Save it for someone who hasn’t heard it all before. Twenty years and you two are still at each other’s throats. You probably don’t even remember what started this whole thing.”

  “Yes, we do,” Mike muttered.

  “Tell me.”

  “We can’t,” Randy said. “It’s a private thing between the two of us.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Macho man bull,” I said before going back into the kitchen. I wet a dish towel, took an ice pack out of the freezer and went back. I handed the ice pack to Randy, whose right eye was starting to swell shut. “Sorry it’s not a steak,” I said. Kneeling next to Mike, I wiped the blood off his face, and pressed the towel on the cut to stop the bleeding. “You said Aggie is missing. How do you know?”

  “I went out to question her about Ray. The guest house looked a lot like your living room does right now. Her purse is still there, the car is parked out front, and there was a pool of blood by the kitchen table.”

  I must have pressed too hard on his cut, because he winced. “Sorry,” I said, handing him the towel before standing up. “I’m guessing your officers are looking for her?”

  “She couldn’t have gotten far,” Randy pointed out. “An eighty-five-year old woman on foot, probably hurt. That’s a pretty big estate. If this happened overnight, she could have found an old building to hide in.”

  “Or fallen into an old well,” I added.

  “Too bad we don’t have a collie to tell us which one,” Randy said.

  “Very funny. Wouldn’t the county have records showing structures or wells, things like that? You have to have permits for those, right?”

  “This is the twenty-first century, Cam,” Randy said. “Haven’t you heard of satellite images? All I need is a computer and a printer.”

  “Use the one in my office.”

  Mike got up as Randy went down the hall. “I’ll get in touch with my people and send them back to the Ashton place,” he said, handing me the towel. “Thanks for the help.” He headed for the door.

  “Whoa, wait a minute, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out to the Ashton place to help look for Agatha Foley.”

  “Oh no, you’re not. You’re going to start cleaning up this mess you helped make.”

  “You’re joking,” he laughed. I raised an eyebrow and stared at him. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes, I am. You can get started while Randy looks at the computer images. Without them, you don’t really have an idea where to look. So get busy.”

  Twenty minutes later, Randy came out with some pictures. “This will give us a general idea of where to look. I called Jo, and she’s going to work her magic, see what she can turn up.”

  “Great,” I said, snatching them out of his hand. I had managed to find most of the letters and certificates I had put to one side earlier. “Now you can help Mike salvage what’s left of this room.” They started to protest, but I stood firm. “Not a chance. I’ve put up with the two of you fighting long enough. Maybe working together will give you a chance to talk. Fix whatever is wrong between you. Don’t make me choose between two of my oldest friends. It would break my heart.”

  “You can’t make me stay here,” Mike sputtered. “I’m an officer of the law…”

  “…who just assaulted someone in my home and destroyed most of the furniture in here,” I said. “I could make a citizen’s arrest, charging you with willful destruction of property and assault. Need I go on?”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” he said.

  “Try me,” I replied, stuffing all of the letters and certificates we had found so far into my messenger bag. “Randy knows where all the cleaning supplies and trash bags are. I expect this to look like it did before you two went bonkers. Who do you want me to give the satellite images to, Mike?”

  “Wesley Lyndon. I left him in charge at the Ashton place, but he went back to the station for a little while. I’ll call him and let him know you’re on your way.”

  I went to my bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a maroon Texas A&M t-shirt. I grabbed my brown cowboy boots out of the closet, sat on the end of my king size bed and put them on.

  They were standing on opposite sides of the room, glaring at each other when I entered the room. “The living room isn’t going to clean itself, gentlemen,” I said, picking up my phone, keys and messenger bag. “Don’t leave here until you’re done, and don’t hire someone to do it either, Randy, because I will know. Now fix this mess and fix this problem between the two of you.” I opened the front door, took one last look at them, and slammed it shut as I left.

  Randy looked at Mike. “We can’t tell her…ever.”

  “I agree.”

  “So what do we do? Kiss and make up?”

  Mike glanced at the room. “I suggest we roll up our sleeves and clean this up,” he replied, unbuckling his holster as he headed for the kitchen. “Where’s the broom?”

  Chapter 19

  I dropped the satellite images off with Wesley Lyndon, promising to help with the search in an hour. Then I drove out to the nursing home to visit Grandma Alma.

  She was in the sun room with Walt and Pete, playing poker. The pile of peppermints was pretty big in front of her. “I see she’s wiping the two of you out again,” I said, sitting down in the empty chair next to her and across from Pete.

  “I knew we shouldn’t have taught her how to play,” Pete gro
used as he shuffled the cards.

  “Deal me in this hand,” I replied, swiping some of her peppermints.

  “You know I’m going to win those back,” she said.

  “You can try.”

  “What happened to your arm?” Walt asked, pointing at my splint.

  “Your grandson did it to me,” I replied as Pete dealt. “What are we playing?”

  “Five card draw,” Walt said. “What do you mean my grandson did that? I’ll tan his hide.”

  “It’s all good, Walt,” I assured him. “Mike did it when he was saving my life yesterday.”

  “What did you get yourself into this time, girl?” Grandma Alma said.

  I told them about the explosion at Cliff’s house. “If Mike hadn’t shoved me to the ground, it could have been a lot worse.” I picked up my cards and looked at them.

  “Does he have any idea who did it?” Walt said. “Give me three off the top, Pete.”

  “We found a man in an empty lot not far from the house. He was in pretty bad shape. Last I heard he was still unconscious at the hospital. Two, please.”

  Grandma Alma asked for two cards, and Pete took four. “One of a kind again?” she teased. He grunted at her.

  “Actually, I have some papers I want you to look at, Grandma,” I said. “I bet four.”

  “I see your four and raise you four more,” she replied. “What kind of papers?”

  Pete folded. Walt bet eight and raised four.

  “Bills of sale and letters mostly,” I said, raising the bet by six. “I was wondering if you could go through them and make a list of the ones that are still alive. Maybe tell me if anyone of them had a grudge that they couldn’t let go of against Ashton and his family.”

  She looked at me like she was trying to figure out if I was bluffing or not. I gave her a blank stare. “I’ll call,” she said. “Sure, I’ll look at them. How soon do you need them back?”

  “I call,” Walt said. “Show me your cards, ladies.”

  “As soon as possible,” I told her as I put my cards down. “Four of a kind, all lovely ladies.”

  “Dang it,” Grandma said. “I only had a full house.”

  “Better than my three of a kind,” Walt said. “Who taught you how to play cards, Cam?”

  I pulled the papers out of my bag. “She did. When I was seven,” I replied, handing her the papers. I stood up, kissed her on the cheek, and walked away laughing as Walt and Pete chewed Grandma Alma out for tricking them.

  Two hours later, I was leaning against my car in the Ashton driveway, drinking some water. Even with twenty people helping with the search, we had only covered half of the area. I sighed and closed my eyes. I was beginning to think we weren’t going to find her on the property at all.

  “Are you alright?” Mike said as he walked up. “Your arm bothering you?”

  I looked down at my splint. “To be honest, I haven’t even thought about it.” I reached through the open car window, grabbed a bottle of water, and handed it to him. “Is my house all nice and clean?”

  “Randy is taking care of the disposal.”

  “Everything ok between the two of you now?”

  He took a drink before answering. “Let’s just say we have an uneasy peace, and leave it at that.”

  “You going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nope. That was the one thing we did agree on.”

  Lyndon came around the right side of the house and headed straight for us. “Chief, glad you’re here. Artie Shatton radioed in. He said old Jeb Flanders’ dog started howling like crazy and sat down next to an old well in the northeast corner of the property.”

  “Do we have a way to get back there?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied, pushing myself off the car, “your two feet.”

  Lyndon chuckled. “One of the guys is bringing a Jeep back here to pick us up.”

  Once the Jeep picked us up, it took twenty minutes to get to the place Lyndon was referring to. Ten men stood around, some of them under the shade of the old oak trees, and a couple more near the well. A bloodhound was lying next to the open hole, looking around. “How deep is it?” Mike said as we joined them.

  “It’s pretty deep but plenty wide,” Jeb told him. “We couldn’t see very far down with our flashlights.”

  “Great. Someone’s going to have to rappel down there,” I said.

  “That’s got to be at least fifty feet minimum,” Jeb said. “Is it really worth it?”

  “Jeb, your bloodhound sat down here for a reason,” Mike said. “I think I’ll trust his nose on this one.”

  “I think there’s some rope in my truck,” he said. “Lemme look.”

  Lyndon checked the Jeep while Jeb went to his truck. Both came back with long pieces of rope. “So, who’s going down there?” I asked. “Obviously not me.”

  “Not me,” Jeb said, “I’m too old for this kind of stuff.”

  “So am I,” Artie said.

  “I’ll go,” Mike said. “Lyndon, pull the Jeep over here. We’ll use it as an anchor.”

  “We need a couple of walkie talkies,” I said. “Yours will go back to the office, which won’t do us any good here. Wait a minute, where is yours? I thought cops always had one of those handy.”

  “I seemed to have misplaced mine.”

  “Very unprofessional, Chief,” I teased him. I had a pretty good idea where it was.

  Mike gave me a dirty look as Jeb handed both of us a walkie talkie. Mike attached his to his holster, tied the rope securely around his waist, and lowered himself down.

  “Be careful.”

  He nodded before disappearing from view. It was a few minutes before the rope stopped moving. I heard him mutter something over the walkie talkie. “Say that again, Mike.”

  “I said I found Aggie Foley.”

  I already knew the answer but I asked anyway. “Is she alive?”

  “Definitely not. Have Lyndon call the fire department. We need the basket stretcher to get…holy crap.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I found something else down here.”

  “What?”

  “An old set of bones.”

  Chapter 20

  “They found WHAT?” Randy said in the stockroom of the bookstore.

  “A little louder. I don’t think they heard you in Fort Worth.”

  “What do you want me to say? You come in here, so nonchalant, and tell me they found Aggie’s body and a set of bones in a well. How did you think I was going to react?”

  “A little less vocally,” I replied. “You don’t want to scare away your customers.”

  “Did you actually see the bodies?”

  “I didn’t stick around long enough for that. Mike said it would take a few hours to do everything they needed to, and that I should just go home.”

  “Glad you came here instead. Are you alright?”

  “A bit unnerved, actually. I mean, I kind of expected it, but expecting it and finding out it’s true are two different things. Not to mention it’s the second body I’ve been close to in the last three days. I need a drink.”

  “You don’t drink,” Randy pointed out.

  “Good point. I need a Dr Pepper.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “I’m going over to the coffeehouse. Want anything?”

  He shook his head. “I’m good. Are you going to go home after that?”

  “Definitely. I am filthy, tired and my arm is sore. Of course, if I had a TV to watch in the living room, I’d prop my feet up on my coffee table and watch an old John Wayne movie. Oh wait, I don’t have a coffee table anymore, either.”

  “You still have the TV in your bedroom, right?”

  “I suppose I could just move the TV into the living room for now. But it’s not as big as the other one. Guess I’ll just read a book or something.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty about what happened?”

  “If you have a guilty conscience, you have only yourself to b
lame. But thanks for cleaning up the mess,” I said, kissing him on the cheek before I left.

  Thankfully, my parents weren’t at the coffeehouse when I went over there. I bought some chocolate chip cookies and a Dr Pepper. Sitting in my car eating a cookie, I decided to go visit Grandma Alma before I went home. It was probably a long shot that she had made any progress with the stuff I had left with her, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway.

  Walt, Pete and Grandma Alma were still in the sun room when I got there. One of them had left to get a notepad and pen apparently. They were all going through the papers; there were three separate piles in front of them. “I see you recruited some help, Grandma,” I said as I sat down.

  “After you spilled the beans about my poker prowess, they didn’t want to play anymore. So we decided to look at the papers. Three old brains are better than one.”

  “I don’t think you’re old, Grandma,” I replied, gently squeezing her hand. “Sometimes I think you’re younger than I am.”

  She smiled and patted my hand. “You’re my favorite granddaughter.”

  “I’m your only granddaughter.”

  “Not my fault my other children had all boys.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Did you all find anything interesting?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Walt said. “Half the people mentioned here are dead. Some of them didn’t lose their land once Ashton died because the sales hadn’t gone through at that point. But I don’t think you have all of the bills of sale here. I know of several families who were forced out of their homes because of Ashton that aren’t mentioned in any of these papers.”

  “I don’t think that’s all of them. I had a bit of a problem at the house, and everything got disorganized. It’s going to take me a couple of days to get things straightened out.”

  “What kind of problem?” Pete said.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” I replied. “It’s already been taken care of.”

  “I went through the certificates,” Grandma said, “and I found something strange.”

  “Strange how?”

  “Well, I was looking at Stanley IV’s birth certificate…”