Wild Wild Death (16 page)

“You left,” I managed to say when they got their way and I settled down. “You drove away, Jesse. I saw you. And… and you didn’t know about Norma.

How did you—”

“End up back in Antonito? Damned if I know!” He chuckled, but not like it was funny, more like something weird had happened and he didn’t understand it, and didn’t like admitting it. “I was on my way back to the pueblo,” he said, “when a cal came in on my radio. The cal said that a woman had been attacked in Antonito and she needed help. The cal requested backup from any police officer in the vicinity. Technical y…” This time, Jesse glanced at the paramedic.

“I know I was out of my jurisdiction,” he said, and even in my mushy-head state I knew this was so she didn’t think he was butting his cop nose where it didn’t belong. “But I’d just left you in Antonito.” He swung his gaze back to me. “And you can say anything you want to say about what you’re doing in this part of the world, but I know you’re up to something you shouldn’t be up to. So of course I figured the woman who’d been hurt was you. And that voice on the radio…” Jesse shook his head, trying to figure it out. “The man made it sound like it was real y important that the local cops get some help. Natural y, I was worried. I turned right around and headed back to Antonito, and weird thing is, when I got to the address he gave—the place where I found you—I was the only one there. And when I cal ed the local guys to ask where the hel they were and why they were dragging their butts, they didn’t know what I was talking about. I got the cal . They didn’t. And that’s strange because it came in on a frequency they should have been monitoring. I can’t figure it out.” Another shake of his head. “But I do know that you were in back of that house where no one would have seen you for who knows how long.

You would have laid there forever if I didn’t get that freaky cal .”

“Thank you, Goodshot.” I whispered this because, let’s face it, I didn’t want Jesse to think I was any loonier than he already did. While I was at it, I looked around, too, as much as I was able because, let’s face it (again), I ful y expected Goodshot to be hovering in some corner of the ambulance, or floating above me, basking in Jesse’s praise and feeling like the hero he was.

But again, there was no sign of him.

In spite of the warning look I got from the paramedic and the pressure of Jesse’s hand against mine tel ing me not to budge, I shifted, suddenly aware that I was feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Or I should say more accurately, I
wasn’t
feeling something I had felt for a long time.

That little sizzle was gone.

That little sizzle was gone.

The one I hadn’t even realized had been a constant presence in my life since that day at Garden View when I fel and thwacked my head on Gus Scarpetti’s mausoleum and first saw the ghosts.

* * *

A

few hours later I was lying in bed in my motel room, glad that cooler heads had prevailed and nobody forced me to check into the hospital, grateful the docs hadn’t found anything icky on their x-rays and CT scans of my brain, and—

Feeling real y weird.

Yeah, that would explain why I couldn’t get comfortable. Why my heart was doing a rat-a-tat inside my ribs. And my blood thrummed in my ears.

And my hands were sweaty and my breathing was faster than a speeding bul et, and the quiet and blackness that closed around me felt… I dunno.

Quieter and blacker than it had in a real y long time.

Empty.

Believe me, I knew this had nothing to do with the crack on the head.

And everything to do with how my world had turned upside down.

“No ghosts.”

I said the words out loud, just to try them on for size.

They felt al wrong.

Rather than lie there and try to make sense of the notion, I sat up, threw off the blankets, and slipped out of bed to pace my minuscule room. At least when Jesse cal ed at three… (He had insisted, and since getting woken from a sound sleep beat the heck out of spending the night in the hospital, I had said it would be okay. Of course, that was when I thought I might actual y be sleeping soundly at three, and before I realized that thinking about what happened to me—or might have happened to me—made me feel al antsy and nervous.) I’d be wide awake and perfectly coherent and could prove to him what I’d told him in the first place and shouldn’t have had to prove: that I wasn’t in desperate need of another ride in an ambulance.

Just the fact that my brain was ping-ponging like this says a lot about my mental state.

Was I relieved at my no-ghostly existence?

Worried?

Thankful?

Pissed?

At that point, I didn’t know. I only knew that I wouldn’t know what to feel, not for sure. Not until I got some answers.

The thought firmly in mind, I threw on my oh-so-ordinary jeans and a brown-and-black-plaid shirt that had the whole
Green Acres
vibe going for it, and slipped into the world’s most adorable boots. The fact that the room spun a little when I bent down for the boots told me I needed to take things slow and careful, and slowly and careful y, I left my room.

It was dark and quiet in Antonito. But then, it was already after two, and even the bars were closed.

Alone, I walked down the street, and yes, I did think about breaking into Tom’s Laundromat to see if my jeans were there waiting for me, but I talked myself out of it. Some things, it seems, are even more important than favorite jeans.

At the cemetery, I took a careful look around.

I could detect no shimmer in the night-stil air. No darker shadows in the shadows behind the headstones. No nothing.

No ghosts.

“Goodshot?” I was al by myself, and heck, Norma next door was the closest neighbor, and she was dead, so I didn’t bother to keep my voice down.

“Hey, Goodshot! It’s me, Pepper. If you wouldn’t mind just popping in for a minute, we need to talk. I want to thank you for that cal to Jesse. And I need a little help!”

My only answer was the sound of the wind in my ears.

I considered my options and, because they were obviously limited, tried the same song and dance with Anarosa, Kitty, and Suzanna.

I got the same answer—nothing.

No ghosts.

The enormity of the realization rooted me to the spot. For exactly fifteen seconds. Then I realized that for the first time in years, I was free! No. More.

Ghosts. In spite of my headache, my sore shoulders, and the worry at the back of my mind about the hospital bil and how the heck I was ever going to be able to pay it, I smiled.

No more ghosts meant no more being dragged into cases I didn’t care about. No more cases meant into cases I didn’t care about. No more cases meant no more getting shot at. Or knifed. Or slammed in the head and ending up in an ER in some no-name place I’d already forgotten the name of.

In fact, no ghosts and no more cases meant no more no-name places I had to visit in the name of investigating.

When I headed back to the motel, there was a spring in my step. No smal thing considering my head, and my shoulders, and my stil -tender ankle. In fact, I just might have been skipping a little. Humming a happy little tune under my breath, I pul ed out my suitcase and, one by one, I tossed in my clothes.

As for those wonderful, just-broken-in, fit-perfectly jeans…

I sighed.

And promised myself I’d buy another pair just like them once I got back home to Cleveland.

The prospect of a shopping trip further brightened my outlook, and when I dragged my suitcase to the door, I was humming just a little bit louder, but not so loud that I didn’t hear my cel ring.

Jesse. Who else would be conscientious enough to actual y mean it when he said he was going to cal at three?

I answered with a perky, “I’m fine. I’m not unconscious. You don’t need to cal again. Bye!” and hung up. I didn’t even notice—wel , hardly—the little pang that stabbed my heart when I realized I’d never see Jesse again. “Not meant to be,” I told myself. It was some consolation, sort of, and keeping it in mind so I didn’t get mushy, I headed out to the parking lot, suitcase in tow.

I opened the trunk and plopped my suitcase in and I guess I couldn’t help myself. Thinking about leaving this part of the world made me think about arriving there. And thinking about arriving there made me think about Goodshot. And thinking about Goodshot…

Just about to slam the trunk shut, I paused.

Thinking about Goodshot made me think about how al he’d ever wanted was for his bones to be buried on that pueblo of his.

And thinking about Goodshot’s bones made me think about Dan. And thinking about Dan…

Wel , it was easy to see where things were headed from there.

Ghosts or no ghosts, I was the only one who could help Dan, because I was the only one who knew he’d been kidnapped and that his kidnapping and Goodshot’s bones… wel , it was al connected somehow, only I didn’t know the details yet. Just like I didn’t know what Norma’s murder had to do with the scheme other than that she took the bones and my tote bag along with them. I was also the only one who knew that Brian and his Cleveland Indians fans buddies were probably behind the whole thing. And that it al started because of some sil y curse, and a basebal team that couldn’t win.

What did it al mean?

That was a no-brainer.

I was the only one who could investigate, and whether there were ghosts in my life or not, I owed it to both the living and the dead to find out the truth.

Damn, but I hate it when my better self gets the better of me.

I

f I had my way, I’d just cut to the chase and get to the good part, namely, that as it turned out, I was glad I stuck around. The next day, I ended up in bed with Jesse.

As juicy as that part of the story is, though, I know it isn’t fair to skip over everything that led up to it. I mean, real y, that would leave out the second murder and the chasing and the running and the mayhem and, wel , it’s real y not much of a story without al that, is it? And it’s not like I’m going to divulge details, anyway, not about Jesse and me and what happened that night in that cramped and poorly decorated motel room.

So I might as wel start with the murder and the mayhem, and the murder and the mayhem… wel , that real y started the morning after I’d been to the cemetery and made the discovery that in the world of private

investigating for the dead, I was stil investigating, but not for or with the not-so-dearly not-so-departed.

The first thing I saw (after the Tilt-a-Whirl moment when I dragged myself out of bed) was the note tucked under my motel-room door.

At least when I bent down to pick it up, the world didn’t wobble as much as it had the night before, and my shoulders, though they stil ached, didn’t hurt as much, either. Things were looking up.

My outlook brightened even more when I unfolded the paper and read the message:
Thought it was a game and would be fun.

Thought we’d be heroes for removing the curse.

Not the way things are turning out.

Meet me. 8 tonight. Tres Piedras.

Where your tires were flattened, keep following
the

road up to Wind Mountain.

This note wasn’t cobbled together from words cut from newspapers. It was handwritten. By one of the kidnappers.

A kidnapper who sounded like he was ready to toss in the towel.

Oh yeah, I was jazzed, and in record time, I showered and got dressed and unpacked al the clothes I’d packed the night before. And I did it al with a happy heart.

With or without ghosts tagging along, I had a lead, but then the fact that I’d been able to do it on my own shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.

Except that they can be royal pains, endlessly annoying and day-and-night demanding, ghosts are never real y al that helpful when it comes to my investigations, anyway.

Of course, now that I was completely on my own, the thought of going out to the middle of nowhere was a little creepier than usual. Tres Piedras. The place my tires were flattened. As far as I remembered—and I remembered pretty wel —there would be no one within shouting distance if I got in trouble, and no place to run if this meeting turned sour. It wouldn’t be bad to have a little backup, dead or alive.