A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) (4 page)

“I wouldn’t bring it up just now,” I said hastily. “She’s in a pretty bad mood today.”

She gave me a scathing look. “But that your fault, no?”

I started to protest, but then I bit my tongue. She was half right.
 

Sami still hadn’t come home and Bebe was heartbroken. She kept saying she didn’t blame me for it, but of course, we all knew she did.
 

“You bring in that silver cat,” Jane was saying with a shrug. “You bring that ugly bird here.”

“Oh, come on. Barnaby’s gorgeous.” I looked quickly over to the large outdoor cage where the noisy parrot lived, knowing he could hear us. He swung from his hanging perch to the edge of his aviary, clinging to the bars and squawking at the top of his lungs, just to emphasize that very point.
 

“Maybe to you. Not to Sami.” She shook her head, shooting a look at the aviary. “That bird? He a loud mouth.”

I sighed. You couldn’t deny the truth of that. I’d been having second thoughts ever since Roy had brought him over to stay with us. Silver was adorable-though I seemed to be the only one who thought so.

Barnaby—not so much. I’d thought I was just offering temporary refuge, but nobody had offered to take them off my hands since. How did you put a parrot up for adoption anyway?

But she was right. Sami wasn’t happy about either one of them. No wonder he took off.

“So what do you think?” I asked her. “Where did Sami go?”

“I don’t know. He never been gone this long before.” Her brow wrinkled into rows as she thought that over. “Maybe he went off with his ghost friends.”

“Ghost friends? What ghost friends?”

“Ghost friends.” She nodded wisely and clammed up, humming while she worked on ruining Bebe’s watering setup.
 

I gave up. I was never quite sure if she was wandering in memory blizzards or thinking rationally. It didn’t do to take what she said too literally.
 

I went inside and found Bebe sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space, probably worrying about the meeting we would be leaving for right after lunch.
 

“Shall I make a fresh pot of coffee?” I asked her.
 

She looked up and smiled. “Not for me. I’m already too nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous.” I sat down across from her. “Think about something else. How about this. Can I ask you some questions about Aunty Jane?”

She turned her attention fully on me as though she was surprised. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

“First of all-where did she come from?”

Bebe smiled. “From the evidence, I’d say Hawaii. Wouldn’t you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“So you’re asking me where a ghost came from? Like I’m supposed to know it all?”

I gave her a mock glare. “Why is she attached to you?”

Bebe took a deep breath and settled back as though this was going to take some doing. “I saw her many times at Granma Kalena’s in Manoa Valley when I was young. Didn’t you?”

I shook my head. “No. I never saw her in those days.”

“Funny. She just seemed like one of the family when I used to go stay there.”

“Did Granma see her?”

“Sure. They’d been good friends before Jane died. At least, that was always my impression.” She frowned, thinking back. “After Granma died, Jane started hanging out at my house. I didn’t think too much of it at first. She didn’t talk much. She was just there. Sort of a comforting figure in my life. One time I asked her why she was there, and she said she was waiting for Granma Kalena to show up.”

I stared at her. “Is she still waiting?”

Bebe shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“Could you ask her… ?”

“Mele! I can’t ask her anything. I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

Now
that
surprised me. “What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t talk to me anymore.” She looked pained and a bit sad. “Is she still talking to you?”

I nodded. I was stunned. This was
her
ghost, someone who had tagged along when she married Jimmy Miyaki and came to California to help him raise cut flowers. She’d come all the way from Hawaii. If she was still here, why was she hidden from her?

“I don’t understand how this ghost thing works at all,” I said.

Bebe laughed. “You and me both.”
 

I was really disturbed. The fact that Bebe and I both saw ghosts from our past in Hawaii was part of the bond that held us together. Wasn’t it? I didn’t like it being messed with.
 

“Do you think it was you that changed? Or did she?”

She shook her head slowly. “You know, I’m so involved in so many things right now, and under so much stress, I really haven’t been paying it much attention.”

“Oh.”

And that, it seemed, was that.

“Was Granma Kalena a witch?”

“A witch?” She bit her lip, thinking that over. “She never said she was one. But she had magic. So I guess you could call her that.” She grinned. “In a good way. No ugly black hat and broomstick.”

“Of course not.” I grinned back.
 

“Since we’re talking Hawaii, you might call her a Kahuna. Kahunas are keepers of the secrets. They come in all kinds, just like witches. But she never directly called herself that. I don’t know exactly what name you would call it, but she was definitely a believer in spirits and she called upon them for help every now and then. Even the Goddess Pele.”
 

Bebe thought for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah. In modern day language, she was a witch.”

I gazed at her levelly. “How about you? Are you a witch?”

“Me? No.”

“But you can see ghosts.”

She shook her head. “Not like you. I’ve only got Aunty Jane. How many ghosts have you seen in your life?”

I thought about it for a moment. “That I know of? Five I guess, if I include that little boy who used to follow me around in kindergarten. They told me he was my imaginary playmate. I didn’t totally realize it at the time, but thinking back, I’m pretty sure he was a ghost.”

“There you go. Maybe you’re a witch.”

I shook my head and winced. “How could I be a witch? I don’t know how to do spells or anything like that.”

She nodded, looking at me speculatively. “Yeah. Grandma Kalena never tried to teach us any of that stuff, but she could do them.”

“Really? Could she?” I shook my head. “Sometimes I feel like I was sleepwalking through those years.”

“You were young.”

I shook my head again. “So what did she do?”

She thought for a moment. “Okay, here’s one I remember. I was staying with her and a lady from Social Services came to check up on how I was doing there and she was very snippy and snotty to Granma. Granma offered her some Hawaiian fruit bread that she’d just baked. It was delicious stuff. But when the lady took a bite, Granma muttered a few words in Hawaiian and it all turned to ashes in her mouth. I think they were still burning, because she went running out to her car like the devil was after her.” Bebe grinned. “We never did see her again.”

“More,” I urged. “What else?”

“Let’s see. Oh, here’s one. The neighbor lady came over and yelled at Granma because water from irrigating her banana trees was going down and flooding the woman’s lanai. Granma promised to take care of that, but the lady was mean about it. So that night, Granma made some special poi. I snuck out and watched while she walked along the border between the two yards, smearing that poi on the larger rocks and chanting something in old Hawaiian. I can still see her with the starry sky behind her. It was a sight!”

“And? What happened?”

“The next day, the neighbor lady’s yard was invaded by an army of toads. Not cute little frogs. Big lumpy, ugly toads, the kind that give you warts and croak all night long when you’re trying to sleep.”

I laughed. “Did the lady know why she had them?”

Bebe nodded. “She knew. She came over with a basket full of mangoes as a peace offering and Granma Kalena made the toads go away.” She laughed too. “And that was how Granma made her name in the neighborhood and gained the respect. Nobody wanted to cross her, that’s for sure.”
 

I hesitated, then went ahead and asked. “Was my mother a witch?”

She stopped and took my hands and looked deep into my eyes. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating so hard, I could barely breathe.
 

“Oh Mele, we have to have a good long talk about your mother. I don’t want to get into it now. This isn’t a good time and I’m not ready. But soon. Very soon, I will tell you all I know. I promise.” She kissed my cheek and looked at me lovingly. “Can you wait?”

I nodded, but there was a lump in my throat. I’d been waiting all my life. I supposed I could wait a little longer.
 

But I was getting impatient. No one ever wanted to tell me the truth about my mother.

Chapter Five

As we walked up to the city hall building, you could feel the ominous electricity in the air. There were obviously people hoping for a showdown of sorts. What exactly that would mean for us wasn’t clear, but I didn’t like it. The meeting room was actually just a large office with extra chairs and it was crowded that afternoon. I saw other growers, people I knew, but most of them turned away and wouldn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t believe so many people could have turned against Bebe so quickly. This was nuts.
 

“Don’t any of these people have jobs to go to?” I muttered to Bebe, but she didn’t smile. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the back of the chair they’d given her. I had to go sit on the other side of the dais, so I left her there and found my way to my own seat.
 

The clerk was a middle-aged lady named Martha. She wore those glasses you can look over the top of and seemed to know what she was doing. After she settled everyone down, she read names off a sheet. It turned out half of them were regular meeting groupies and she wanted to weed them out from the get-go.
 

“You have no pertinent business here and you know it,” she said, scolding them like an old fashioned librarian. “There’s not enough room for everyone as it is. So go out and hang around the fountain if you don’t have any place better to be.”

They grumbled, but they did what she said.
 

“Hey, you’re good,” I told her as she stood next to my chair.
 

She smiled at me. “Oh, they’re all a bunch of good old guys and gals and when there’s room, I let them stay for the hearings and meetings. But today, we don’t have time for that.”

Why they would want to stay was the question in my mind. Councilman Hank Tanner chaired the meeting, and it dragged on with old business and new business and even some monkey business as far as I could see. I was about to fall asleep.
 

And then the clerk called for our portion of the agenda, and the buzz began to build. One by one, growers came up to make their complaints and suggestions for the Spring Competition. I took notes and tried to ignore the occasional dig at Bebe. There seemed to be a lot of jealousy with this bunch. By now the placid council meeting had turned into a room seething with muttering people, all seemingly preparing to march off and burn something down.

And then came the attack on me.
 

“She’s a spy for Miyaki Farms,” a tall man said once he took the microphone, pointing right at me. He had the look of a cobra about to strike, all coiled anger and venom. “It’s not fair and we won’t stand for it.”

“Sit down, Nate,” Hank told him wearily. Poor guy--he’d thought he’d rounded up the local growers for a peace conference, something to quiet the wars that were raging in the valley, but so far, peace looked further away than ever.
 

“She doesn’t work for Miyake Farms. She works for us. The Town Council. And she’s not a spy.”

I chewed on my lip, feeling awkward. If I were in Nate’s place, I would probably feel a lot like he did. After all, I did live at Miyaki Farms. Bebe Miyake was my aunt. I must look partisan as hell to him. Who could blame him?

But at the same time, I did work for the Town Council and therefore for all the people—and I was in charge of the competition. There was no changing that. I tried to think of a way to calm the raging distrust I could see in the faces of Nate and his crew from Bayside Blossoms. But that was only one of my problems. The others were sitting in the chairs behind the microphone stand, each angrily waiting a turn at the complaint desk.
 

These people had to be told that they could go ahead and blow off steam, but not for long. If we were going to pull this thing off, we had to start working together. Was I going to have to be the one who said it?
 

I looked over at where Bebe was sitting, ramrod straight and tight as a drum. You could have hung clothes hangers on her shoulders. Her cheeks were bright red and she was obviously holding back a few caustic opinions of her own. Inwardly, I groaned. This whole thing could turn into a major brawl if we weren’t careful.

“Listen,” I said, standing up to speak even though it wasn’t my turn. “I know you’re all still angry about what happened last year,” I began.
 

That was an understatement. A few of the growers who were still friendly had filled me in on just what had happened. It was pretty much as Bebe had said. During the previous contest someone had gone around poisoning the best plants at a few of the farms just before the judging—coincidentally the ones expected to win the contest-and they were looking to me to guarantee that wouldn’t happen this year. I couldn’t promise that, but I could try to let them know we were aware of the problem. I tried, but before I got that out, boos began to roll in from the crowd. And sure enough, the ringleader seemed to be Star and her little gang.
 

There they were, muttering darkly and glaring as though I was some sort of silent movie villain. I shivered. Hey, it’s no fun being hated—especially when I didn’t deserve it.
 

Hank Tanner banged his gavel and Bebe looked like she was about to launch an aerial attack on anyone and everyone who came out against me. At least
someone
still liked me.