Ghost at Work (5 page)

I had to interrupt. “That's such an interesting name. What is its origin?”

“Oh, that's funny.” She was laughing and crying at the same time. “Bayroo is Bailey Ruth. After you. She was born on your birthday,
and when Grandmother heard she had red hair, she asked me please to name her after you. Bayroo couldn't say Bailey Ruth when she was little, just the beginnings of both names. She'd say ‘Bai Ru,' and we started calling her Bayroo.”

“And it stuck.” I tried not to sound too proud. No wonder I felt such empathy with Bayroo. And here was her mama, Kitty's granddaughter, in about the direst straits possible. Obviously, I had my work cut out for me. “Bayroo looks like a happy girl.”

Kathleen used both hands to wipe her cheeks. She sat up straight. “So why am I such a mess?”

I was crisp. “Don't take everything personally.”

She flared right back. “I didn't know ‘for better or worse' meant always taking second place to the church. Bill's wonderful. He's good and kind and funny and sweet. That's why I fell in love with him. But he never takes time for himself and that means he never takes time for me.”

I looked at her kindly. “Which brings us, I expect, to Daryl and Raoul.” I fervently hoped there had not been a romantic entanglement with Daryl Murdoch. I remembered that Errol Flynn mustache. Surely Kathleen had better taste. As yet, I knew nothing about Raoul, though I had some suspicions.

Her mobile lips drooped. “I felt up to here”—she chopped the edge of her hand at her throat—“with the ECW and the Altar Guild and Winifred Harris, though I know she's a nasty exception. Most of them are old dears who are as kind as can be. Sweet Mrs. Douglas keeps bringing me cherry pies. She knows I'm blue and she thinks a cherry pie solves everything. Sadie Marrs brings by the nicest clothes from her shop”—she touched her turtleneck—“in exactly my size and insists they were used in a style show so of course she can't sell them and they are as good as new and of course they are new and she knows we don't have a dime and she thinks pretty outfits will get Bill's attention. Sometimes I think everybody in town knows I'm a
church widow. If I were a golf widow, I could learn to play the game, but what can I do about the church?”

I understood. The rector of a small church has to do practically everything himself and works from dawn to midnight. His wife is always onstage. As for Mrs. Harris, I knew the type. I'd dealt with a few overbearing ladies in my years at the church. I remembered, with a distinct lack of charity, Jolene Baker, who never thought anyone could iron the linens as well as she and didn't mind saying so.

Kathleen looked forlorn. “Bayroo's busy as can be. That's what I want for her, but the house is empty now most of the time. She's in the choir and she plays tennis and soccer and half the time she's having dinner with Lucinda, then going to the Baptist church because they have the biggest youth group in town. Friday night they're having a Halloween skating party at the roller rink in their gym and tonight Bayroo's at Lucinda's helping plan our Spook Bash. It's on Saturday from four to eight. Last night she went to the youth meeting with Lucinda. There are some on the vestry who don't like the idea of the rector's daughter going to the Baptist youth group on Wednesday nights.

“Bill stood up to them and said he was glad Bayroo wanted to go and learn Scripture verses, and if they played games in the Baptist youth group and had fun, too, so much the better. He pointed out how he'd proposed building a youth center and the vestry hadn't agreed. Daryl Murdoch was the main obstacle, insisting the church couldn't afford that kind of expenditure even if the Goddard family was willing to put up the major portion of the cost.”

The Goddards. That was an old name in Adelaide dating back to the time when the first oil field was discovered. How nice that some of the family still lived here and still served as patrons of the church. But we were getting rather far afield from Daryl and Raoul. Or Raoul and Daryl. “You were fed up. What did you do?”

“I decided to take Spanish at the college—”

One of Adelaide's charms is Goddard, the four-year college established shortly after the city was founded, the land donated by the Goddard family. The campus is in the historic part of town not far from the rectory. Adelaide is hilly and Goddard's ivy-twined, red-brick buildings spread over three hills.

“—and Raoul Chavez was my teacher. He seemed to like me and I was one of the best students and we got into the habit of having coffee in the union.”

“Handsome?” I pictured the young Anthony Quinn I'd seen in Turner Classic Movie reruns.

She nodded. “He has a wonderful laugh.”

“Single?” Did I need to ask?

Another nod. “He told me he'd never met the right woman.” She bit her lip. “Until he met me.”

I wished I could place my hands on each shoulder and give Kathleen a gentle shake. Or maybe I should get her a primer:
Single Men Who Flirt with Married Women Are Up to No Good
. “All of the fun and none of the bother.”

She looked at me blankly.

Kathleen was definitely naive for a girl who grew up in Chicago. “Of course he liked you. You were married and obviously at loose ends or why else take Spanish, and you probably had long soulful conversations over coffee about life, love, meaning, the universe, and his hand brushed yours and there were looks.”

She was genuinely impressed. “Were you there?”

I was startled when I realized she was serious. “No. I've just now been dispatched here. Had I been there, I would have spoken to you about the primrose path.”

She blinked.

The allusion didn't register. I said gently, “Beware a stranger bearing gifts.”

Her face crinkled in thought.

I put it baldly. “He had designs on your virtue from the moment you walked into class. Flattering, of course.”

She gasped. “But I thought—he was so reluctant—he said he knew we had no future—”

Except, of course, for idyllic sweet-sorrow assignations at his apartment and no danger of entanglement.

“—and he knew he'd always love me and we might have just a brief moment together—”

“He invited you to his apartment one rainy afternoon, and when you came…”

Her cheeks turned rosy red. “I walked in and looked at him and all I saw was Bill and Bayroo and I turned around and walked out.”

“You felt cruel, leaving his wounded heart behind you, and you didn't go back to class and dropped the course. But somehow Daryl Murdoch found out.”

She was astonished. “How do you know this?”

It wasn't the moment to explain that I, too, had once been young and naive. I still had interesting memories and I'd learned to dance a dramatic tango. Ah, Latin men. I settled for a dictum: “A married woman must never trust a single man.” Or married ones, for that matter, but we couldn't cover all the bases tonight.

“I never will again. Oh, damn, I don't know how I got into so much trouble.”

The buzzer sounded on the oven. “The cornbread's done.” She looked at the clock and abruptly jumped up, “I've got to eat something. The Bible study class will be here in about twenty minutes. The stew's ready. But there's nobody here to care.”

“Not so.” To me, the succulent stew was a matter of great interest. “I'd love to have a bowl.” I thought under the circumstances I wasn't being too forward to invite myself to dinner, though Mama had always been strict with us: “Don't let me ever catch you kids asking for food at someone's house. Wait till it's offered.”

Kathleen looked surprised. “Do you eat?”

“When invited.” I grinned at her.

She managed a smile. “I'll move Bill's plate—” She stopped, her face suddenly stricken, one hand holding the lid from the pot, as she stared at the table.

I stared, too. All I saw were the place settings and, of course, that cunning small telephone.

Emotions rippled over her face, recollection, shock, panic. “Daryl's cell!”

I was bewildered. Cell? Did he have monastic interests? Surely she'd not visited him in a cell. Was she confusing the mausoleum with a cell?

She banged the lid back on the pot, whirled, and started for the back door. “I've got to get it. He took pictures of me when I was at the cabin, and if they find it and see, I'll be in a terrible mess.”

I plunged after her, grabbed her arm as she tugged at the door handle. “Cell? He isn't in a cell.”

She tried to wriggle free. “His cell phone. His cell takes pictures.”

I made the connection. I'd heard the ring and even picked it up. How amazing. A little phone could take pictures? But it must be so. Nothing but the hideous reality of images captured in the phone would explain her panic.

“Let go.” She yanked her arm free. “I have to get that phone or I'm ruined.”

As the door banged open, I grabbed her hand. “The police are there.”

She stumbled to a stop, her face despairing. “The police are there? Already? They've found him?”

I explained about Marvin and Buzzy's good citizenship. I glanced at the clock. “The police have been there a good twenty minutes now. The chief had just arrived when I left. They were expecting someone else.” I couldn't remember. “Something about a laboratory.”

She leaned against the wall, unable to move.

“Daryl's phone has pictures of you?” I wanted to be sure I understood.

“He laughed, asked me if I wanted him to put them on the church Web site. I knew he wouldn't because of his wife. But there they are, in his phone. The police—oh, what am I going to tell them? What am I going to tell Bill? He knows I loathed Daryl and wouldn't have gone to his cabin unless I had to.”

Web site? That conjured up an odd and ominous picture of a gauzy web. I didn't have time to ask for an explanation. “You stay here. I'll go to the cemetery and see what I can do.”

Obviously, I didn't intend to walk. Time was clearly of the essence. I disappeared. Kathleen shuddered. Poor Kathleen. She should be getting the hang of it. I was.

I landed on a tree above the body. I shivered and and wished I'd brought the red-and-black plaid jacket. Oh, how nice. I welcomed its warmth. I buttoned the front, felt much more comfortable.

Now, where was Daryl's cell phone and how was I going to get it?

I
sat on the branch of a cottonwood and watched the scene below in fascination. Bobby Mac would be impressed when I told him. The activity under way was as taut with suspense as any battle with a tarpon. Brilliant spotlights arranged in a square illuminated Daryl Murdoch's resting place. Yellow tape fluttered from poles jammed into the ground. A slender man in a French-blue uniform stood on the mausoleum steps. He held a camera and slowly panned the area.

Just inside the fluttering tape, a big man with grizzled black hair stared down at the body. He stood with hands jammed in the pockets of his crumpled brown suit. His hairline receded from a rounded forehead, now creased in concentration. His eyes were deep set in a heavy face with a large nose large and blunt chin.

I studied him, trying to recall…Oh yes. He reminded me strongly of Broderick Crawford in
All the King's Men,
the same open countenance and burly build, the same aura of power. A man to be reckoned with.

A rustle sounded in the bushes. An officer stepped toward the man in the brown suit. “Hey, Chief. Take a look at this.”

The police chief strode near. “What you got?”

The officer pointed a flashlight beam toward the ground. “Crowbar. No rust. Doesn't look like it's been here long.”

The chief frowned. “Get pics. Measure. Bag it up.”

I supposed many extraneous objects were gathered up in the search of a crime scene. I turned back to the body. As far as I could tell, it had not been moved. Did that mean the picture mechanism was still in his pocket? Kathleen had called it his cell phone, which was certainly a curious use of the word. A walkabout telephone that took pictures seemed quite remarkable to me.

A half-dozen cars were parked on the road on the other side of the Pritchard mausoleum. Most had their lights on and the beams illuminated trees with thinned leaves and old tombstones. A yellow convertible with the top down pulled up behind a white van. The driver's door opened. A youngish man in a navy pullover sweater, faded jeans, and tennis shoes swung out. He shaded his eyes. “A cadaver in the cemetery? You guys pulling my leg, putting on a special Halloween party for me?”

The chief glanced down at the body. “Not even for you, Doc, would we go to this much trouble. We got a body. Daryl Murdoch.” He spoke the name without pleasure.

The young man gave a whistle. He jumped lightly over the tape, but he took care to land on the sidewalk. “Daryl the mighty? Has the dancing begun?” As he spoke, he moved to the body, knelt. For a long moment he observed. “Somebody have second thoughts?” He pointed at the bouquet I'd placed in those lax hands.

The chief nodded. “Yeah. We'd noticed. Odd.”

The doctor scanned the ground nearby. “You find a gun?”

“Nope.” The big man reached in his suit-jacket pocket, pulled out a package of spearmint.

I wafted close, sniffed. Some things never change, the smell of spearmint, the way leaves crackle underfoot in winter, the need to
handle harsh reality with nonchalance. And, of course, the incredible intimacy of a small town. Everybody didn't know everybody, but if you had any prominence at all, you were known. Even more important was the fact that someone always saw you. It was that simple. No matter where you were or what time or with whom or why, somebody saw you.

Kathleen didn't understand how anyone had been privy to her visit to the bachelor professor's apartment. She was the rector's wife. She was known. Perhaps the apartment manager saw her. Or the postman. Or Raoul's next-door neighbor. Or a bicyclist. Or…

The big man sighed heavily. “Already got a call from the
Gazette
and from the Oklahoma City paper and a couple of TV stations.” He sounded aggrieved. “What can I tell 'em, Doc?”

“DOA.” A chortle.

There was no answering smile. “Yeah. And?”

The doctor pulled a tubular flashlight from his pocket, trained it on the small crusted circular wound in Murdoch's left temple. A fine red line had trickled and dried from the wound to his cheekbone. “It isn't official until I do the autopsy, but you can say preliminary examination suggests he was shot to death by a small-caliber weapon.” He turned the grayish face to one side. “No sign of an exit wound. Probably means it was a twenty-two and the bullet lodged in the skull. That's all I can tell you for now, Chief.”

The chief snapped his gum. “Killed here?”

The doctor shrugged. “Can't say. No rigor yet, so he probably died within the last couple of hours, which means there won't be any lividity. The blood pattern on the cheek would be more consistent with the body lying on its left side, not the back. Might have died here, but he could have been moved.”

Another heavy sigh. “On TV the doc can tell you he was sitting up when he was shot and he fell down on his left side, and from the way the blood settled, he was moved twice.”

The young doctor bounced to his feet. “Go watch TV. It's always good for a laugh.” He jerked a thumb at the corpse. “Send him along.” He was thudding toward his car when the chief called after him. “Suicide?”

The doctor stopped, looked around. “Thought you didn't find a gun.”

“Right.” The chief moved out of the way as the slender man who had taken pictures stepped past him. Now he held a sketch pad. I craned to look. The camera rested on one of the mausoleum steps. I'd have liked to get a close look at his camera. Bobby Mac loved to film the family, but our camera had been huge in comparison.

The chief unwrapped another stick of gum. “The squeal came from a kid. Maybe he heisted the gun. Cool souvenir.”

The doctor was skeptical. “I played tennis with Daryl. He cheated on line calls.” A cool glance at the dead man. “Anyway, he was right-handed. It's a challenge for a right-handed person to shoot himself in the left side of the head.” He trotted back to Daryl, squatted on his heels. “Doesn't look like the slug went in on a slant. I'll check it out.” He came to his feet, headed for his car. He called over his shoulder, “Since you didn't find a gun, it's probably homicide.”

I wafted back to my branch, rocked by what I'd learned. My initial assumption may have been absolutely wrong. I'd decided Murdoch had died elsewhere because there was no blood and mess on Kathleen's porch. That may not have been the case. He may have been shot on the rectory porch, the bullet remaining in his skull.

If Murdoch was shot on the porch, it suggested the unpleasant possibility that the murderer accompanied Murdoch to the rectory and shot him there for the express purpose of ensnaring Kathleen. The rectory seemed an unlikely place for a spontaneous quarrel and attack.

Did Kathleen have a bitter enemy? Or was she simply an attractive candidate for suspect number one?

The doctor strolled toward his car, whistling through his teeth. The slender man continued to sketch on his pad. Every so often, Anita, one of the first police personnel to arrive, called out information to her fellow patrol officer. “…four feet nine inches south of the steps…” I was impressed by the meticulous record that was being made.

However, this record was irrelevant. Oh dear. What had I wrought? Words danced in my mind. It was almost as if Wiggins were at my elbow, reciting: impulsive, rash…

Well, what was done was done and I had to focus on what I should do to rectify my possible error. At this point, only I—and, of course, Kathleen—knew the investigation was beginning from the wrong place.

Oh yes, someone else knew. The murderer.

I didn't see any way to point the authorities to the true locale of the crime without involving Kathleen. Yet if the investigation went in the wrong direction, there was no one to blame but me. That made it my solemn responsibility to provide aid and encouragement to these hardworking officials.

I can only stress my absorption in the shouldering of this task to defend myself from responsibility in what followed. I was, in fact, so consumed with concern that it took a long moment for the ripple of music to register.

When it did, I gasped aloud. Fortunately, no one heard me. I suppose a puff of sound from a tree branch wasn't noticeable in the creaking of limbs in the wind and the crunch of leaves underfoot on the periphery of the scene.

I realized perhaps an instant before the chief that Daryl's phone was ringing. Of course I'd heard it before and even held it in my hand. Panic swept me. Inchoate thoughts bounced in my mind, unruly as flung marbles:…
got to get it
…
Kathleen's picture
…
mustn't be seen
…
if I'd paid attention to business
…

I reached the body at the same time as the chief. He pulled on plastic gloves of some sort as he knelt.

I plunged my hand into Daryl's jacket pocket. As I did, the pocket visibly moved.

The chief's hand stopped inches away. He had the air of a man who refuses to accept what his eyes are telling him.

I edged out the phone.

He shook his head, blinked, grabbed for it.

The chief's hand closed around mine.

I held tight.

The chief grunted, tightening his grip around my hand. “Funny shape to this damn thing.”

My fingers crunched against metal. “Ouch.”

He shot a startled glance at the young policewoman standing near. “Was that you, Anita? Something wrong?” He didn't ease the pressure on my hand.

“Chief?” She stepped closer, her face attentive.

“You hurt yourself?” He looked up in concern.

“Not me. Jake?”

Jake strode forward, bent toward the chief. “Anything wrong, sir?”

I dug my heels into the ground, but I was losing the battle. There was only one solution. With my left hand, I gave the chief's fanny a big pinch.

Startled, he let go of the phone and my hand and shot to his feet like a man poked by a pitchfork. “What the heck!” His exclamation brought everyone to a standstill. All eyes focused on him.

He looked around, frowning. “Something poked me in the rear. I guess a bug or something got me.” He gave Jake, who was nearest him, an odd glance.

By this time I was once again on my tree limb. My heart raced. Obtaining the phone had been touch and go. I held tight to it, but I was far from home free. What if it rang again? All eyes would swing up. Probably there was a means of forestalling that occurrence, but I
didn't have any idea what it might be. I couldn't simply secrete it up here in the tree. The ding-dong ring would reveal its hiding place immediately.

“Jake, did you jab me with something sharp?”

Jake looked shocked. “No, sir. There was nothing close to you. Absolutely nothing.”

The chief shrugged. “Doesn't matter. Let's see. Oh yeah, that phone.”

I worried about taking the phone to the rectory. If it were found there, Kathleen would be in direr straits than she'd ever imagined. However, I had no expertise with the cunning little machine and I needed Kathleen's help. Wafting through the air with the phone in hand posed a danger. Even though it was dark, someone might glimpse an airborne object in the glare of a passing headlight or in the radiance of a streetlamp. That would cause comment.

I had an instant's qualm. Had I undertaken a task beyond my capabilities? Sternly, I quelled my misgivings. I was on a mission. If there were unfortunate repercussions, odd incidents that would go down in Adelaide folklore as the peculiar occurrences attendant upon the discovery of Daryl Murdoch's body in the cemetery one wind-whipped night shortly before Halloween, so be it.

Below, flashlights crisscrossed the ground. The chief knelt again by the body. “The damn phone has to be here. Everybody stay where you are. Jake, grab me a Maglite.”

All eyes were on the ground. I made my move.

 

I was learning more
and more about my invisible state. When unencumbered by objects, if I were in one spot and desired to be in another, I promptly found myself there. Material possessions required passage through the material world. That is to say, when I was on the branch and resolved that, whatever the risk, I must confer with
Kathleen, I did not make an instantaneous leap to the rectory kitchen as I had from the rectory kitchen to the crime scene. Instead I swooped from the branch to the rectory and, in consequence, passed over the church parking lot.

Below me two elderly women were progressing slowly toward a large white car. One leaned on a cane. The other bobbed beside her, speaking in a club woman's clarion voice. “Absolutely a disgrace that the rector—”

The ding-dong bell of Daryl's phone pealed, its shrillness emphasized in the quiet of the parking lot.

The woman with the cane jolted to a stop. She looked up, startled. “Look, Maisie.” She pointed her cane at the sky.

The smaller woman's gaze rose, but, fortunately, I was beyond the bright circle from the light pole. “What?” The voice was loud.

The older woman bellowed, “Maisie, don't you have your hearing aid turned on? There was a bell and something flew by right up there.” She gestured with the cane. “It sounded like a cell phone. It looked like a cell phone. Up there all by itself!”

Maisie looked huffy. Her voice had the loudness of the hard of hearing. “I declare, Virginia, you don't need to try and fool me with any Halloween nonsense just to make me turn on that fool hearing aid that makes me feel like I'm inside a washing machine. And—Virginia, look over there. All those lights in the cemetery. Oh, my goodness, something's happened. We'd better go see.” Maisie headed for the path to the cemetery.

Virginia couldn't keep up with her short plump friend. Her progress was also slowed because she kept pausing to look back, her face a study in bewilderment tinged by shock.

I wished I could reassure Virginia. Obviously, she was a woman who knew what she had seen. But I had problems of my own. I waited in the darkness near the trunk of the big sweet gum behind the rectory. At all costs, I hoped to prevent anyone else from glimps
ing the phone. I was tempted to appear so I could slip the thing in my pocket. I started to appear, changed my mind. It would be just as detrimental for me to be seen as for the airborne phone. Adelaide was a small town. I would immediately be noted as a stranger and, once seen, an interesting subject for discussion.