“Something’s out there. And something weird’s going on in here.” He began to edge toward the exit.
“That wasn’t funny, Marvin.” Buzzy’s straight dark brows drew down in a frown. “Go get the crowbar. I can’t get the dog loose without it.” I marched over to Marvin, yanked the flashlight from his hand, twirled it in a circle. Light swung disco-quick around the walls of the mausoleum.
Marvin yelped, flung himself toward the entrance. Buzzy outran him.
I followed, sweeping the flashlight high and low. That turned out to be a mistake. I intended to scare them sufficiently to discourage a return, but the light swept over Daryl Murdoch lying on his back a few feet from the steps into the mausoleum.
Marvin flailed his hands in panic, then broke into a lumbering run, trying to catch up with Buzzy.
I turned off the flashlight and it was dark.
Excited shouts, the thud of running feet, and grunts marked the teenagers’ progress as they careened around headstones. When silence once again cloaked the cemetery, I turned on the light.
“Kathleen?” I called softly. No answer. I’d not expected one. That high rasp of the wheelbarrow when I was inside the mausoleum must have signaled her departure.
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Murdoch was lying on his back near the first step. The tarp was gone as well as the wheelbarrow. I hoped Kathleen shook the tarp well and put it in its customary place and returned the wheelbarrow to the shed. Perhaps I’d better check with her before I departed, though I doubted she would be pleased to see me. Or not see me.
Now I felt a need to make amends to Daryl Murdoch. I placed the flashlight on the top step. The beam illuminated him and perhaps five feet or so beyond. I folded his hands on his chest and straightened his legs. He looked quite peaceful, though I wondered how pleasant his face had been in life. But I mustn’t make assumptions just because Kathleen didn’t like him. There was a lovely bouquet of artificial chrysanthemums in a nearby vase. I selected a bright yellow bloom and placed it in his hands, then said a prayer to speed him on his way and for his family’s comfort.
Sirens wailed in the distance. I lifted my head, listened. At least two sirens rose and fell. The wail increased in volume. I smiled. The boys were good citizens despite their Halloween prank. I must move quickly.
I dropped to one knee beside the body. The ground was cold. I shivered as the frosty wind whistled around me. I was reaching for his wallet when a ding-dong bell sounded very near. I stared at the body. The sound, which reminded me of long-ago cartoon music, emanated from his jacket pocket. How odd.
I reached in the pocket and brought out a small hard plastic oblong not much larger than a fancy compact. The musical tones sounded three more times, then cut off. How curious. I shrugged, replaced the object, and focused on my task. Once I had the wallet out of his pocket, I flipped through it. His driver’s license gave his address as 1906 Laurel Lane, not an address I knew.
The sirens were loud enough now to wake the dead. The quip was irresistible. Red lights flashed. One police car, then a second jolted to a stop on the paved road about fifty yards south of the mausoleum.
Car doors opened, interior lights flashing.
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A woman’s voice shouted, “Police. Don’t move. Put your hands up. Police.” A low murmur ensued and two dark shapes moved cau-tiously toward the mausoleum, flashlights sweeping back and forth.
I replaced the wallet. As I stood, one of the lights swept near me and I saw the track of the wheelbarrow in soft dirt near the path. Heavens, I should have checked the area first. Now there was no time to lose or the police might track the wheelbarrow back to the rectory. I scooped up Marvin’s flashlight. I had no choice but to turn it on.
The police officers both called out. “Halt, there. Police.” I swooped to a nearby grave, plucked a large evergreen wreath from the marker, returned to that revealing trail. I took a good look, turned off the light. One of the perks of being a ghost was the ability to propel myself high, low, or in between. I moved a few inches above the ground—picture a glider—pulling the bristly wreath over the track of the barrow.
A stunningly brilliant light swept toward me, illuminating the wreath and the flashlight I’d borrowed from Marvin. Both were several inches above the ground. I came to my feet, the flashlight and wreath rising, too, and flung them into the darkness.
In the stark light from her huge flashlight, a slender young woman stared in disbelief as the flashlight spun out of sight behind a clump of shrubbery. The wreath plopped into a puddle. “Jake, did you see that?” Her pleasant contralto voice was matter-of-fact, but her blue eyes were startled.
A stocky young man growled, “Who’s the joker? You kids better—Oh hey, Anita, look. By God, that call was for real.” He, too, held an oversize flashlight and his bright beam centered on the body.
“Hey, that looks like Daryl Murdoch.” Her light joined his. “He looks dead.” Her voice sounded strange.
“We’ve got to get the EMT. Call the dispatcher. I’ll check for a pulse.” She crossed to Murdoch, taking care to walk on the paved area in 32
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front of the mausoleum. She knelt, turned that blazing light down, and lifted Daryl’s wrist.
Jake held a small plastic oblong to his face, spoke fast. “Car Seven.
Officer Harmon. Suspected murder victim, St. Mildred’s cemetery.
Send ambulance and fire truck. Notify the M.E. Contact the chief and Detective Sergeant Price.” As he spoke, brown eyes darted in every direction.
“No pulse.” Anita rose, reached for her gun. “Somebody was here.
We’d better check around.”
“Wait a minute. You get a look at the perp?” Jake stared at the wreath in the puddle.
“No.” She shook her head. The wind stirred her short honeycomb-blond hair. “Did you?”
Jake peered at the tombstones, his bony face wary, eyes searching.
“I don’t see how they got away without making a sound, especially without any light. They must be hunkered down, crouching behind something.” He reached for his gun.
She glanced at the tombstones, some large, some weathered and crumbling. Everything beyond the radius of the flashlights lay in dense darkness. “Listen up, Jake. No shooting unless somebody shoots at us. I know we got a body, but that call came from a kid.
He said they’d found a dead man, not killed somebody. The corpse felt cool. He’s been dead for a while. I don’t think it was the perp we almost caught.”
I thought her declaration a trifle extravagant. I definitely had not almost been caught.
“Call dispatch back. Better let them know we think the victim is Daryl Murdoch.” She stood and once again swung the light in a slow careful circle. Light streaked over graves and stones, probing the shadows beneath towering sycamores.
Jake held a plastic oblong similar to the one I’d found in Murdoch’s 33
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pocket, spoke into it. I wafted to him and peered over his shoulder, close enough to smell a piney aftershave scent.
“Dispatch.” Jake tried to sound cool, but excitement lifted his voice. “The DOA in the cemetery next to St. Mildred’s looks like Daryl Murdoch, the businessman. Somebody got away just as we arrived. We’re looking around.”
I scooted in front of him. He was talking—somehow—into that object. Curiosity overcame caution. I reached out, seized the shining metal object so similar in size to a compact though oblong, not circular. I stared at the hinged lid, which contained a small screen and a lower surface with numbers on it, then held it up to my ear as Jake had done.
I heard a brisk voice. “Chief says to secure the scene. He and Detective Sergeant Price and the crime lab are en route.” I realized I held a small radio of some kind. How amazing!