Good Buy Girls 05 - All Sales Final (9 page)

“What if you see the ghost?” Sam asked. His tone was teasing but Maggie pretended it wasn’t.

“I will scream my fool head off,” she said. “But since you’re so sure there’s no such thing as ghosts, I should be just fine and not ruin your sleep.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re mocking me?” he asked.

Maggie gave him her most innocent look. He frowned. Clearly he was not buying what she was selling.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” she said. “Like camping out in a graveyard.”

“I thought you were afraid,” he said.

“That’s before I knew what we were dealing with,” Maggie said. “Obviously, our ghost is the soldier in the basement and I think if we identify him and give him a proper send-off, he will abandon the premises and our house will be all clear of spectral phenomena.”

Sam looked at her. “You know you sound nuts, right?”

“Listen,” Maggie said. Sam looked at her, and she shook her head. “No, not to me, listen to the house.” They both did. There was nothing but silence. “See? Since we found the body and have decided to figure out who he is, there’s been no creaking, moaning or door slamming.”

“So, you still want to live here?” Sam asked.

“Now more than ever,” Maggie said. “It’ll be like doing a good deed before we move in. Excellent karma.”

“And if it was the wind?” Sam asked.

“We’ll fix the drafts,” she said.

Sam pulled her close, gave her a solid squeeze and kissed the top of her head.

“All right,” he said. “You want first watch?”

Maggie glanced around the room to where Marshall Dillon lay curled up in her sleeping bag.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” she said.

Sam climbed into his sleeping bag, and the cat—the traitor—got up, stretched and climbed in with him. Maggie positioned herself so she could see the cellar door. She wasn’t sure why, since Sam had blocked off the storm doors in the basement so no one could get in, and it wasn’t likely that Captain Bones was going to jog up the stairs to join them. Still, she felt better with her eyes on that door just in case.

The mere thought of the skeleton coming upstairs made her shiver.

“You all right?” Sam asked.

“Just fine,” Maggie lied. “Go to sleep.”

“Come here,” he said. He lifted his arm and pulled Maggie close. “We can do the first watch together.”

Maggie didn’t want to admit how much better this made her feel, but it did. She wasn’t ready to face the ghost that inhabited their house by herself. And yes, even though she had told Sam she thought it was at peace now that they’d found its skeleton, she wasn’t 100% sure it wouldn’t rouse itself to scare them again. From what she’d heard and read ghosts were mercurial beings—or nonbeings as it were.

She nestled close to Sam and listened to his heartbeat. It was slow and steady without a hint of anxiety. Before Maggie knew it, she was lulled to sleep like a puppy cozied up to the ticktock of a clock.

*   *   *

Morning brought the arrival of the county medical examiner along with Deputy Dot Wilson, who was Sam’s favorite St. Stanley police department employee, although he never admitted it.

Maggie and Marshall Dillon were sitting on the back porch of the house, trying to stay out of the way, when Dot poked her head out the back door.

“Morning, Maggie,” Dot greeted her.

A short, well-endowed black woman with a badge, Dot walked into every room like she owned it. Probably it was the shoes. She had a thing for shoes and had a standing order with Maggie that anything Maggie got in the shop that was Italian in a size seven was to be put aside for her. Maggie noted that Sam had never called Dot on her non-regulation footwear, which sort of proved the whole favoritism thing.

“Morning, Dot,” Maggie said. She waved toward the kitchen. “There’s coffee on if you want.”

“Thanks but I had the night shift,” Dot said. “I’m actually on my way home to sleep.”

“Oh, that sounds good,” Maggie said.

She had conked out early during the first watch but had woken up in the middle of the night and pulled a shift all by herself. Of course,
she
had been on the alert for ghosts, while Sam had been looking for squatters. Either way, neither of them had gotten much shut-eye given the discomfort of the hard floor coupled with the anxiety of finding a skeleton in their basement.

Maggie couldn’t help but wonder how the poor soldier had gotten down there. Could it have had something to do with his military career? Maybe he had gone AWOL and gotten trapped in the root cellar and died. Or maybe it had been an accident? Maybe he got drunk and crawled in there to sleep it off but then a poisonous snake bit him and he died.

Or maybe it had been murder. But who would kill a soldier—a captain, no less—and hide his body in a root cellar? The questions had spun around in Maggie’s head all night long and she knew Sam had suffered the same.

Dot sat down on the top step beside Maggie. With her uniform, she was wearing a pair of dark gray Donald J Pliner booties that had chunky heels and Maggie was quite certain had not come from her shop.

“Tell me you did not pay retail for those,” Maggie said.

“No, they were on sale,” Dot said. “Now about—”

“Oh no you don’t,” Maggie said. “Where were they on sale?”

“Aw, what?” Dot asked. “You’re quizzing me about shoes now?”

“Where’d you get them, Dot?”

“SecondTimeAround,” Dot mumbled the words together as if Maggie couldn’t decipher her rival’s shop name.

“You bought them from Summer?” Maggie cried. “Ah, the betrayal!”

“She gave me 70% off,” Dot said. “You cannot hold that against me.”

“Ugh, I guess not,” Maggie said, but it was grudging.

“Long night, huh?” Dot asked.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m being cranky. Nice score on the boots,” Maggie said. Dot nodded in acknowledgment. “Has the medical examiner said anything?”

“No, they’re down in the basement, taking pictures and trying to find evidence,” Dot said. “The first thing they’ll have to do is get an ID on the vic.”

“Vic?” Maggie asked. “So they think it was a murder?”

“Seems so, I mean the guy is in a root cellar,” Dot said. “No one winds up a skeleton in a root cellar by choice.”

Chapter 9

“Agreed,” Maggie said. “I was thinking I’d pop in over at the historical society and see what information they have about the house. Blue Dixon said I should talk to Ruth Crenshaw about, well, if there could be a ghost here.”

“Ruth would know,” Dot agreed. “And there’s definitely a ghost here.”

“Deputy Wilson, do not go putting ideas into my fiancée’s head,” Sam said as he joined them on the porch.

“The idea was already there as well you know,” Maggie said. “Dot just confirmed it.”

“He doesn’t believe?” Dot asked Maggie. Maggie shook her head. Dot waved her hand dismissively. “It’s on account of he’s a man and they don’t have a woman’s intuition.”

“See?” Maggie said. “Dot feels it, too.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“There is nothing to feel in this house except a draft,” he said.

Dot rose to her feet, clucked her tongue and shook her head at Sam. Then she turned to Maggie and said, “You’d better keep a close eye on him so he doesn’t piss off our visitor from the other realm. You don’t want a mad ghost on your hands. My cousin had a ghost and her husband didn’t believe it and he disrespected the spirit and, oh, did he pay.”

Maggie knew better than to ask and yet the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “What happened?”

“My cousin says she’s not sure because she was upstairs sleeping, but when she got up she found her husband, who was known for mocking their specter, face down in his Corn Flakes. He died of a heart attack right in his breakfast cereal.”

“How can you blame a ghost for a man’s heart attack?” Sam asked. “Heart disease is the reason most people die. One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Sure it does,” Dot protested. “My cousin swears that the ghost must have manifested in front of her husband and scared him to death, because he’d just had a physical and he was perfectly fine.”

“Doctors miss things,” Sam said. But he sounded as if he knew he’d lost the argument, or at least any hope for swaying Dot and Maggie to his side.

“Forty-three years old and in the prime of his life,” Dot said. “They didn’t miss anything. There were all sorts of blood tests and stress tests, the whole shebang. Say, aren’t you forty-three?”

“Don’t you have some place to be?” Sam asked. “Like helping the ME down in the basement?”

“No need to get testy,” Dot said. “Just be nice to your ghost and you won’t have to worry about keeling over into your Wheaties.”

“I don’t eat cereal,” Sam said. “I’m a donut man.”

“When you’re taking a permanent nap on the jellies, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Dot said. She wagged her finger at Sam for good measure and Maggie could tell he was hanging onto his temper by a hair.

Dot gave him a look and left to go back into the house. Sam heaved a sigh, took the seat beside Maggie and put his arm around her and pulled her close.

“What’s your plan for today?” he asked.

“Mom and Sissy are arriving,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “In fact, they’re probably arriving right now.”

“Shouldn’t you go and meet them?” Sam asked.

“Nah, they’ll go straight to Sandy’s house to see Josh,” Maggie said. Then she grinned. “Even as a bride I can’t hold a candle to that boy.”

“He is pretty spectacular,” Sam said.

“And he’s the only great-grandchild so my mother is completely besotted with him,” Maggie said.

“Do me a favor?” Sam asked.

“Sure,” Maggie said.

“Don’t tell your mother about your ghost theory, because then she’ll call my mother,” he said. “And my mother is very superstitious, and I do mean
very
.”

“Will she think we should unload the house?” Maggie asked.

“More like we should burn it to the ground,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s harsh.”

“Yeah, she’s a teensy bit freaked out by the idea of the supernatural,” he said.

“See? This is why we need to emancipate our ghost by solving its murder,” Maggie said. “I’m going to go to the historical society and see Ruth Crenshaw. I’ll bet she knows who our soldier might be.”

Sam nodded. “Good idea. You might want to give her a heads-up that I’ll be over later to talk to her. We can compare notes. Hey, maybe she’ll help us wrap up this case in no time.”

“That would be very considerate of her,” Maggie said. “We do have a wedding to plan after all.”

“Oh no,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “The wedding comes before figuring out the ghost thing.”

“But how can we live here with a ghost?” Maggie asked. “We have to solve the ghost issue before we move in.”

“Darling, you need to seriously rethink your priorities,” Sam said. Then he kissed her. It was not the chaste peck of a man on duty, either.

When he pulled away, Maggie’s ears were ringing and she was pretty sure she’d gone cross-eyed.

“You’re right.” She cleared her throat. “Wedding first.”

“That’s my girl.” Sam grinned. “Come on, I’ll walk you out. Be sure to give your mother my best. Is she warming up to me at all?”

“No,” Maggie said. “She’s still worried that you’ll break my heart again.”

“Seems as though she should be worried about me,” Sam said.

“How do you figure?”

“We both know you’re the flight risk in this relationship,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” Maggie argued. “I completely disagree. If either of us is apt to walk, it’s you.”

“Me?” Sam asked. “I’m as faithful as a dog.”

Maggie frowned at him. “Maybe not the best example with all of the butt sniffing they do.”

“Point taken,” Sam said with a laugh.

Maggie led the way back into the house. Marshall Dillon was curled up on Sam’s sleeping bag, and she scooped him and held him close.

“Call me if you find out anything about Captain Bones,” she said.

“Likewise,” Sam said.

Maggie climbed into her Volvo station wagon, putting Marshall Dillon in his carrier in the back seat. She backed out of the driveway, pausing at the end to look up at her new home. What would they do if identifying the skeleton and figuring out how he died didn’t take care of their ghost problem?

She shook her head. One problem at a time, and right now it was her mother.

*   *   *

“You really need to talk to Shelby at the VFW if you want to rent their hall for the reception,” Maggie’s mother said. “It’s probably already booked but you might get lucky.”

“Hello to you, too,” Maggie said as she hugged her mother close.

“The entire drive up from Florida she talked about your wedding,” Sissy said in her ear as she hugged Maggie next. “You owe me, Magpie.”

“Fifty percent off any one buying spree at the shop,” she said.

“Make it seventy-five and all is forgiven,” Sissy haggled. They were not sisters for nothing.

“Sixty-five,” Maggie countered.

“Seventy,” Sissy said. She stepped out of the hug and turned to their mother and said, “Maggie is eloping to Vegas.”

“No! What? When did you decide this?” Mrs. O’Brien put her hand over her heart as if she couldn’t bear the news.