Unbinding Love: An Angela Panther Mystery Novella (The Angela Panther Mystery Series) (3 page)

Mel growled. “
The other one
? He’s so not getting lucky tonight.”

The officer’s mouth twitched.

I suppressed my chuckle. “Official business and all that.” I said, “Sorry, Mel,” and got out of the car. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

“I’m goin’ in too,” Ma said, and shimmered away.

Aaron met me on the front porch. “Looks like she took a tumble down the stairs. Coroner is on his way, but it’s pretty clear her neck is broken.” He moved to open the door, but I stopped him. I wasn’t a fan of the bodies spirits left behind. I’d seen a few and made an effort to not see them if I didn’t absolutely have to. “Don’t need the visual.”

He nodded. “She tell you anything?”

I shook my head. “She was actually pretty surprised to hear of her own demise.”

“Interesting.”

“It’s not uncommon from what I understand.” I asked him for more information on Emma’s death.

“There’s a bottle of scotch on the stairs. Looks like she came up to grab the bottle from the linen closet, and fell on her way back down.”

“Linen closet? What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Alcoholics typically hide their liquor. A linen closet is a common place, though they don’t realize that. The door’s open and looks like the bottle left an indention on a towel.”

“That’s some serious detective work right there.”

“As you say, it’s a gift.”

He knew me well. “She was already tanked this morning, so you’re probably right.”

“She give you anything new this morning?”

“Nope, nothing you hadn’t already told me, but it was interesting, how she interacted with her ex-husband.”

He raised his eyebrow. “I’ll never get used to this.”

“It’ll happen eventually. It did for me,” I said, and winked.

“One can hope,” he said. “We’re trying to locate the vic’s mother.”

I was flummoxed. The whole situation didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t figure out why. “I’d like to go with you to talk to her. Something’s off here but I can’t quite figure out what.”

He nodded. “You and me both.”

***

Mel and I sat at our favorite table on the patio outside Starbucks.

“You know what I don’t get?” she asked.

“Lucky often enough?” I giggled at my own joke.

“I’d give you the details but you’d throw up a little in your mouth.”

“There is that.”

She stirred her drink with her straw. “Why can’t Justin’s dead father see him?”

I’d pinged the same question around in my brain. “That’s the million dollar question. Both parents should now be able to see him, dead or alive. And if he’s dead, I should be able to too.”

“Clearly, you’re not as advanced in your ghost whisperer skills as Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

“Jennifer Love Hewitt and I don’t have a lot in common.”  

“That’s true. She’s younger and prettier for starters.”

“And she doesn’t have a sex-crazed pain in the arse best friend.”

“Too bad for her.” She laughed and then pulled her pen and notepad from her purse. “Here’s what we know. Justin Marx went missing two days ago. Emma Marx tumbles to her death today.” She drew a timeline, labeled the previous few days on it and jotted down the details in order, adding Emma’s unfortunate death.

I grabbed the pen and drew a circle around the area before Justin Marx went missing. “So what happened here?”

“He was home playing video games.”

“Before that. Something must have happened here—“ I tapped the pen on the circle. “—that plays a role in his disappearance.”

“Maybe a fight with his mother? Or maybe he got tired of her drinking?”

“Wow. Look at you, getting all crime solver-like on me. I’m impressed.”

“Contrary to what you think, Aaron and I don’t spend all our time together bumping uglies.”

“And contrary to what you think, I actually don’t think about your sex life at all.”

“That’s too bad because it’s pretty incredible.”

I grimaced and gave her a
please don’t go there
hand wave.

“Party pooper.”

“We need to find Emma Marx. My spidey senses tell me she knows more than she’s letting on.”

“I agree, so go on.” She waved her hand at me. “Get your ghost whisperer on and conjure that there spirit.”

“Really? Wow.”

She shrugged. “It’s all I could come up with on the fly.”

“Yeah, well, I suck at
summoning
spirits and you suck at coming up with stuff on the fly.”

“Yeah, but for you, practice makes perfect.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you too. Now go on, conjure.”

“Fine,” I said, and closed my eyes. I focused on Emma Marx.

“Well?”

My right eye popped open. “Shush. I’m concentrating.”

A man’s voice said, “Maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”

Both eyes popped open. Bill Marx hovered beside Mel. “Well, I got it half right,” I said.

“You got half of her?”

“Nope, but I got her ex.”

“Oh, I don’t like him all that much.”

“I’m with you on that,” I said, and glanced at the ghost. “You haven’t seen her?”

“No, and I’ve been looking.”

“What’d he say?” Mel asked.

I held up my index finger, said, “Gimme a sec, Mel. Bill, do you know what happened to her? Were you there?”

“No. I was looking for my son.”

“Did you find him?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand that. You should be able to see him.” I knew firsthand that spirits could move between my world and what came next. “Have you checked up there?” I pointed to the sky.

He cocked his slightly transparent head and raised an eyebrow. “I, uh…I tried, but I don’t believe he’s dead.”

“You tried? What does that mean?”

“That’s irrelevant. The point is, I don’t think he’s dead.”

“I don’t either.” I dropped the issue regarding his inability to check for his son in the afterlife for the time being. 

My mother shimmered in on the opposite side of Mel. “For cryin’ out loud, he ain’t dead,” she said.  “So let’s get a move on and find the boy. I got celestial stuff I gotta take care of.”

Celestial stuff
?

“He ain’t?” I asked, intentionally using her poor grammar.

“Don’t know for sure, but don’t think so,” she said. “If he was, we’d know by now, dontcha think?”

“So how do we do it?”

“Do what?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Find the boy.”

“That ain’t for me to determine. You gotta figure that part out. I’m just here to offer my celestial assistance.”

“Good grief. You’re not helpful.”

She shrugged and I filled Mel in.

“It amazes me that I can’t even feel their presence,” she said. “Also pisses me off.”

“You’re not missing much,” I said.

My mother stuck her tongue out at me, and, like mother, like daughter, I returned the gesture.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this, but I can’t quite put my finger on it,” I said.

My mother’s smile shifted to a straight line. She pointed at Bill Marx. “You need to tell her.”

He shook his head. “It has nothing to do with my son.”

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“Tell me what?”

Mel opened her mouth to talk, but I stopped her. “What does he need to tell me, Ma?”

“It ain’t my place to say.” She narrowed her eyes at the other spirit.

Oh boy. I knew that look well, and it wasn’t good. If Bill Marx didn’t do whatever it was my mother wanted and do it quick, he would wish he were dead. Well, deader than he already was. I held onto my drink with both hands. “Secure your stuff,” I told Mel. “Ma’s brewing a big ol’ pot of Italian whoop arse.”

Her eyes widened and her China doll skin turned a whiter shade than I’d ever seen. She snatched up her notebook and pen in one swift swoop, latched onto her drink with her other hand, squealed, “Holy mother of God,” and dropped down in her seat, with her eyes squeezed shut. “Tell me when it’s over.”

“You wanna find your son, then you need to tell her,” Ma said again, her voice so powerful it blew discarded napkins off the table next to me. “It might got somethin’ to do with your missin’ son and you know it.”

“Bill, I need all the help I can get here,” I said. “Please.”

I watched the ghost grapple with the decision. When he dropped his head, I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s okay,” I said to Mel. “You can open your eyes and release the death grip.”

She flipped open one eye, and I watched it dart back and forth, checking her surroundings. “Thank goodness.”

“So tell me,” I said to the ghost. I moved my hand in a circle to encourage him to continue.

“I was murdered.”

***

Bill Marx was murdered? 
“What?” I asked, because certainly I’d misunderstood. Aaron would have told me that when he briefed me on the family and Justin’s disappearance. “That can’t be.”

Bill nodded. “I’m afraid it can,” he said, spreading his arms out to show me. “See? I’m dead.” The corners of his mouth twitched.

The joke wasn’t lost on me. “And the world is likely a better place,” I said, showing I wasn’t in much of a joking mood. Bill Marx had rubbed me the wrong way from the start and my opinion hadn’t changed.

“What’s going on?” Mel asked.

“Bill was murdered.” I shook my head. “And apparently no one told me.” I didn’t mention that by no one I meant her boyfriend, but I was sure she got the point.

“Seriously? When? How?”

“I don’t know. You haven’t stopped talking long enough for me to find out.”

She threw up her hands. “Sorry, my bad.”

“Could your murder have anything to do with Justin’s disappearance?”

He shook his head, but wouldn’t look me in the eye, so I didn’t believe him. “No, absolutely not. My untimely demise was four years ago, and my family has been in WITSEC.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Untimely demise is another way of saying surprising death.” The mouth twitch thing happened again.

I’m all about a good joke, but when a kid is missing and his mother dies suddenly, my sense of humor goes out the window. I might have made that clear as daggers flew from my eyes and stabbed through his semi-transparent aura. “That’s not what I meant and I’m not in the mood for—“

Ma saved Bill Marx from a verbal lashing. “It’s that thing they do when someone throws their boss or someone under the bus. Ya know, when the police move ‘em to Iowa or something and change their names, give ‘em jobs at the grocery store? Happened to my cousin Richie after he ‘n his brother Sammy tried to off their boss Joey Cellioni back in the early ‘80s. You remember, right?”

I didn’t remember, but that wouldn’t stop my mother from babbling on about it, so I pretended I did. “Yeah, I remember, but what’s that got to do with this wits sect thing.”

Bill explained it for me, and I in turn, explained it to Mel.

“WITSEC. It’s the witness protection program through the U.S. Marshals Service. Bill said he was involved in some shady dealings—his words, not mind—and gave up his boss, who got sentenced to life. The Marx family was put into protective custody before the trial, but it didn’t go well. They ended up divorced. Bill got immunity for giving up the boss and being a witness for the prosecution. Except it didn’t matter because he was killed walking out of court.” I made a gun with my fingers and pretended to shoot myself in the head. “Boom.”

“Oh,” Mel said. “That sucks.”

“Pretty much.” I glanced at Bill, and he nodded his agreement.

“But he doesn’t think his son’s disappearance has anything to do with his baggage?”

“Nope.”

“What about Emma’s death?”

I deferred to the dead man. He shook his head, so I did too.

“Somethin’ ain’t right about this,” Ma said.

I didn’t say it, but I agreed. In my book, Bill Marx was full of crap.

“My celestial sleuth radar is goin’ bonkers.” She pointed at Bill. “You get your head blown to bits, that’s serious stuff. Maybe they found your family and are takin’ care of unfinished business?”

“She’s got a point,” I said. “Why don’t you fill me in on—“ I paused, searching for the right words. “On the whole situation, and let us decide if there’s a connection?”

Mel took notes as I reiterated everything the ghost said.

“He was laundering money for some pretty bad people in Texas. The U.S. Marshals moved Emma and Justin here, but from what Bill says, Emma struggled to adjust. He doesn’t think Aaron’s department knows, because Aaron’s using their new names, and he’s not seen anyone from the Marshals anywhere.”