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Laughing, he said, “Your caution comes from wisdom. Firsthand experience is a wise teacher. You have seen her worst. Others don’t possess such clarity.”

No, most didn’t, for which I was grateful. I could handle Patricia, but others would cower under one of her verbal attacks, as Avery Bryan had last night. I asked Mr. Dunwoody if he knew of her.

A bristly eyebrow arched. “Who?”

There went that hope.

I drummed my fingers on the chair arms and noticed Virgil sitting dejectedly at the curb. “I don’t suppose you know what became of Virgil Keane’s dog, Louella?”

Overdramatically, Mr. Dunwoody shuddered. “Meanest little dog I ever did meet. I haven’t seen her since Virgil passed on.”

He sounded relieved by that last part.

I said, “Virgil’s not going to cross over until he knows what happened to her.”

Mr. Dunwoody rocked slowly. “Check with Doc Gabriel. If anyone would know, it’s him.”

It was an excellent suggestion. Not only because Doc’s vet practice was also in charge of the town’s animal control, but because he was married to Idella Deboe Kirby, one of the Harpies. He might know something about the Ezekiel house and Haywood’s murder that he’d be willing to share . . . or that I could trick him into admitting.

The only rub was that his practice wasn’t open on Sundays, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to call on him at home.

Tomorrow would be soon enough. I’d stop by to see him first thing in the morning.

“Thanks for all the help, Mr. Dunwoody.” Standing, I bent and gave him a kiss on his cheek before I put my sunglasses back on.

“Anytime, Carly Bell. Anytime. Where are you off to now?”

“Just going home.” I wanted to see what I could learn about Avery Bryan online.

“That’s right. The hibernation. Much safer inside with all the ghosts out and about.”

“It definitely is,” I agreed. But as I walked away, I had the uneasy feeling that at this point the ghosts were the least of my problems.

•   •   •

I returned home to find my mama and daddy in my kitchen.

They’d been busy in the short time I’d spent with Eulalie and Mr. Dunwoody. My daddy was hard at work creating quite the Sunday breakfast spread. Buttermilk waffles, bacon, griddled potatoes. He was the best cook I knew, and I was suddenly famished.

Mama was busy, too . . . reading through the stack of paperwork Dylan and I had copied at Haywood’s house.

“Well slap me nekkid and sell my clothes!” Mama exclaimed as I kicked off my boots. She held up a photocopy of the Ezekiel family tree. “Is this true? Was Haywood Dodd the heir to the Ezekiel mansion?”

“It looks that way,” I said as I kissed my daddy’s cheek and gave my mama a hug hello. “This is a surprise, seeing you both here.”

Raising pencil-drawn eyebrows, Mama tipped her head and oh so sweetly said, “It wouldn’t have been if you’d answered your phone this morning.”

Point taken. “Yeah, yeah.”

“We can’t stay long,” my daddy said. “I’ve got to open the Little Shop of Potions and your mama has three weddings lined up for this afternoon.”

My mama owned the Without A Hitch wedding chapel, one of the most popular chapels in town. It was a bit ironic to me that as an officiator she’d wed hundreds if not thousands of couples . . . yet she steadfastly refused to walk down the aisle with my father. They’d been engaged for more than thirty years, which might just be the longest engagement in history.

She was a die-hard marriagephobe (all the Fowl women were), and Daddy was a hopeless romantic. Despite the oddity of the relationship, theirs was a match made in heaven, and they truly loved each other.

“Now tell me where you found all this,” Mama requested, pointing specifically at the family tree.

Crouching, I scratched Roly’s and Poly’s heads. They were sitting at my daddy’s feet, no doubt hoping bacon would fall from the sky like manna from heaven. “Haywood showed me this morning.”

Mama blinked her beautiful brown eyes. “Shut the front door.”

Letting out a gusty breath, Daddy turned the bacon strips so they wouldn’t burn, and said, “How did his ghost find you?”

I grabbed some plates from the cabinet and told them the whole story.

“In light of this ghostly revelation, I suppose I forgive you for running out of the ball last night the way you did,” Mama said. “Besides, there’s no way the Harpies will hold your behavior against your daddy if you’re helping to get Patricia out of jail.”

Speaking of ghosts, on my way home from Mr. Dunwoody’s I’d suggested to Virgil that he search the river walk for any sign of Louella and meet up with me later. Seeing him mope around wasn’t doing either of us any good. Haywood hadn’t yet returned, either, so I was ghost-free for the time being.

Bliss.

“I don’t like you being involved in this investigation,” Daddy said, slipping tiny bits of bacon to the cats.

I was glad Dr. Gabriel wasn’t around to witness Poly pounce on the bacon like he was starving to death.

“You should be home,” Daddy went on, “hibernating just as planned. Patricia sitting in a jail cell isn’t going to hurt her none. Serves her right in fact for her reprehensible behavior toward you all these years. I recall she used to be a lovely woman. It’s a damn shame she has turned into an angry biddy.”

“Now, now, Gus,” my mama said, her color high. “Don’t be making such statements. Without Patricia’s say-so you’re not getting into the Harpies. We need her on our side, and you know she’s not guilty.”

Mama was clearly undeterred in her efforts to see my daddy on the Harpies committee. “You don’t think Patricia killed Haywood?” I asked her.

“Patricia’s mean as a snake, but she isn’t violent,” Mama said, continuing to thumb through Haywood’s papers.

“Rona, sugar, Patricia won’t have a say-so from a jail cell,” Daddy pointed out, all calm and rational. “In addition, with Patricia in jail Carly and Dylan won’t have to deal with her interference anymore.”

Mama suddenly beamed. “Oh! And your chances of landing a spot on the Harpies committee is even better if there are
two
vacancies. I’ll put together a luncheon for later this week. Invite the remaining Harpies, their husbands. Make a whole to-do about it.”

“That backfired on you, didn’t it?” I poked my father with my elbow.

Frowning, he poured waffle batter into the iron and didn’t say anything else.

Taking pity on him, I said, “I don’t know if Daddy will have time to be campaigning for the Harpies this week, what with him covering for me at the shop. Plus, I need his help with Haywood’s paperwork. My eyes crossed trying to go through all of it. Census forms, employment records, tax notices . . .” I shrugged. “It gives me a headache.”

“Sounds right up my alley,” he said, a mite too eager. “What are you looking for specifically?”

I set out silverware. “A connection between Haywood’s mama, Retta Lee, and Rupert Ezekiel, the last known owner of the Ezekiel mansion. There was a twenty-plus-year age difference between the two and it doesn’t seem like a natural pairing. Besides, how do we even know Haywood
is
the true heir? All we have is this lone family tree telling us so. I’d like more evidence.”

Mama eyed us suspiciously. “Fine. I’ll reschedule the luncheon for the following week.”

Daddy rolled his eyes.

A moment later, we all looked up as someone tapped on the back door, then swung it open. Limping, Delia came inside, cape hanging askew over her shoulder.

She wasn’t alone.

Jenny Jane Booth was floating right behind her.

“Crrlyyyy,”
Delia slurred breathlessly, clearly frustrated.
“I neeurelp.”

Chapter Ten

I
wasn’t sure how I’d managed to decipher what she said, but I did.

Carly. I need your help.

Roly and Poly let out screeches and darted for the stairs, abandoning their dreams of more bacon bits in favor of self-preservation.

My head hurt, one side of my body felt strangely numb, and when I opened my mouth to ask Delia what was wrong, all that came out was
“Whaaarrrng?”

Then I recalled that Jenny Jane Booth, who’d been in her late-fifties at the time, had died last Christmas from a massive stroke. She’d been a sweet yet no-nonsense woman, a stay-at-home mama who’d raised three kids into responsible adults with a whole lot of love and little else. She’d always been kind to me, and I’d been sad to hear of her sudden death last December.

Trying to persuade her to back up, I made a shooing motion, but that only seemed to draw her nearer once she realized I could see her, too. In a flash, she was in my face, her blue-gray eyes pleading as she moaned and groaned.
“Errrmmmbbb!”

“What in the name of sweet baby Jesus was that?” my mama screeched in a high-pitched voice as she jumped to her feet.

Daddy put a hand on my arm and said, “Carly?”

“Mmmm finnn,”
I said, trying to tell him I was fine.
Dang.
The words just wouldn’t come out right.

Jenny Jane continued to moan.

Pale-faced, my mama backed slowly into the living room.

I looked to Delia for help, then realized it was why she’d come to
me
. With Jenny Jane near, Delia couldn’t speak properly in order to tell Jenny Jane to back the hell up.

Fighting against the head pain, I dragged my right leg behind me as I walked over to the kitchen junk drawer. My right arm was all but useless as I foraged for a pen and paper. When I found them, I slapped them on the countertop and painstakingly began to write with my nondominant left hand.

The letters looked like chicken scratch but the message was clear.

Go stand by the front door.

I held the note up to Jenny Jane. Frowning, she stared at it and did nothing.

As quickly as I could, I added a
RIGHT NOW
to the note in all capital letters. I shook the paper at her and pointed toward the front door.

Jenny Jane held up her hands as though not understanding.

Never had I been more frustrated at feeling the effects of a ghost’s demise. Especially when said ghost had full use of her limbs and I did not.

Once again, I pointed toward the door. Nothing. Not so much as a flitter out of Jenny Jane.

“Arggghh,”
I moaned, upset.

Daddy turned off the bacon pan and calmly took the note from my hand. He cleared his throat and said, “Go stand by the front door. Right now!”

My mama, who had been lurking by that particular door, screamed. In a flash, she ran up the stairs, her heels sounding like gunshots on the wooden steps.

Jenny Jane looked at my daddy, puzzled. She pointed a who-me finger at herself, and I nodded vigorously.

With an okay-I’ll-do-it-but-this-is-strange look on her face, she floated over to the front door.

“Thank you,” I said to my daddy after a long moment, then gave him a hug. Never had I been more grateful that the empath abilities in our family affected only women. I was pretty sure that right now my daddy was happy about that, too.

Delia came over and joined in the hug, throwing her arms around the both of us. “I’ve never been more exhausted in my whole life.”

When a ghost didn’t give an empath any distance buffering, our energy drained quickly, sapping the very life out of us. It was why it had taken me a month to recover when I’d had my bad experience with a ghost years ago. I’d been nothing but a limp noodle by the time the ghost had been sent back to the beyond. I knew what Delia was feeling and was surprised she was still functioning so well.

“Who is the ghost?” Daddy asked, patting our backs as though we were little girls in need of soothing.

I supposed we were.

“Jenny Jane Booth,” I said.

At the sound of her name, she started toward us, and I held up a hand. “Stay there, Jenny Jane!” Then I quickly explained to her why we needed her to keep her distance.

Delia collapsed onto the kitchen chair my mama had vacated. “I tried the note thing, too. Even a computer screen. Both are tactics I’ve used on other ghosts and they worked just fine. I don’t understand why Jenny Jane is oblivious. If Carly and I can read just fine while dealing with the symptoms of her stroke, she should be able to read, too, as she can’t even feel the effects anymore.”