A Guilty Ghost Surprised (An Indigo Eady Paranormal Cozy Mystery series) (3 page)

“Right, then,” said Badger. “Can we get to work now?” I feasted my eyes on, er, I mean I gave him my full attention. Cupping one hand under my chin, I settled in for a good look, er, listen. I did notice, only vaguely mind you, how well he looked in his red pendleton shirt and jeans. It brought out the amber specks in his brown eyes, the ones that crinkled when he smiled. And what he did to a pair of jeans...

“Indigo!”

I jumped. “What?!” They all looked at me expectantly. I missed something. I cleared my throat, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. “I’m sorry, what did you say? My mind wandered off.”

“Clearly,” said Badger. “Would you like to fill us in?”

“No,
I would not
,” I said huffily, my cheeks going crimson.
Drat my pale skin!
It always gave me away.

“Uh, Indigo? He means fill us in on the case,” Simon interpreted, “not your daydreams, as enlightening as they may be.”

“Oh! Right. Sorry.” Crap.
Focus Eady
. I avoided eye contact and gave a concise overview of the investigation and what we knew so far. Any professor would have been proud.

“I have the latest police report.” Riley placed it on the table. “But there’s not much in it. It’s a sorry excuse for an accident report, actually. Very amateurish and incomplete.”

Simon nodded. “Yeah. That’s probably why the murderer got away. No witnesses, no skid marks, and nothing to give us a clue, except”— he pointed to the second page of the report— “blue paint embedded into the driver’s side door. The bloody bugger that his us drove a blue car.”  

“And if we can find the right blue car, then we have our murderer.” Badger, looked around the table for suggestions. “So where do we start?”

Silence. Where to begin when barely a shred of evidence existed?

Cappy cleared his throat. “Well.” The tips of his ears flushed as all eyes rested on him. Two years younger than me at fourteen, he still suffered a bit of insecurity about being the young one in the group. “We could start with the auto body shops.”

Silence again, while the idea sank in. He’d stunned us on more than one occasion with his insight. Someone with body damage might have taken the car to be repaired. If they did, we might find them.

Riley flashed him a dimpled grin. “That’s brilliant, Cappy!”.

“It really is,” I added. “Why on earth didn’t the police think of that?” I shook my head.

“Right,” said Simon. “We’ll make a list and make the rounds after school tomorrow. Who’s with me?”

“I’m free,” said Cappy.

“Me, too,” I said.

Badger and Riley had to work at the pub, so Simon, Cappy and I agreed to look into the matter the next day.

Leaving the meeting, Simon and I headed across the market square. Cappy drifted in the opposite direction, hoodie up and head down. We hugged the building, trying to stay out of the drips. Buildings in this part of the village leaned with age, constructed of half-timbered wood, black and white striped, and a jettied overhang. The overhang protected us from the rain until we reached the four-block walk through our residential neighborhood.

Again passing the Victorian mansion, the light show had dimmed. This time, a face at the window watched as we strolled by.

A familiar tingle crept up my spine. I hoped that I flew under the radar of whatever spirit dwelt there. I’d be busy enough with the current case. I didn’t need the added complication of another spirit in need.

Chapter Four

Remote Control

I dumped my book bag on the side table in the corner and Simon followed suit. Simon went to the pantry and came out munching a bag of chips, er,
crisps.
I retrieved two sodas from the refrigerator.

We slumped into kitchen chairs to eat our makeshift lunch. Why were Mondays so exhausting?

A sudden, loud blaring came from the living room. Our eyes locked briefly before we both jumped out of our chairs and pushed through the kitchen door. I ran down the hall with Simon on my heels.

In the living room, the television switched back and forth between two stations, the volume increasing each time.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Simon grimaced and held his hands over his ears.

I strode over and snatched the remote out of midair. At least that’s how it must have appeared to Simon. In actuality, I grabbed it from Franny.

Snapping the telly off, I lay the remote on the table.

“Hey, I’m watching that!” said Franny.

“No, I want it!” yelled Bryan, bouncing up from the sofa to claim the remote and dominion over the telly. He snapped the television back on to cartoons.

“Well, you can’t have it!” Franny took the remote and switched to a soap opera.

“I can!” Bryan grabbed it back.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Hand it over.” I held out my hand. Simon watched as the remote floated into it. I snapped it off once again.

“I repeat.
What the bloody hell was that all about?”
said Simon, waiting wide-eyed for an explanation.

“The
children,
” I said, glaring pointedly at Franny, “are fighting over the remote control.”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense.” Franny popped out of sight.

“No,
I don’t,”
yelled Bryan. Not to be outdone, he popped out too.

Somewhere along the line, the two developed a competition.

I shook my head. Things just became more complicated.

“The real question is, how are we going to keep all this chaos from your dad?”

Simon and I had completed the list of the auto body shops by the time Cappy arrived. With our list of seven shops we decided to start with the furthest and work our way back.

We caught the bus from the market square, making our first stop Paul’s Garage on the outskirts of town. A horsey-looking girl worked the counter. She had no problem with us looking through past records. She flirted and snorted with Simon while Cappy and I searched through months of books. Apparently they hadn’t heard of computers yet.

With no joy from Paul’s Garage, we went from shop to shop, until only Bodies by Billy remained; the one we didn’t want to approach. Billy died during our investigation into Bart’s murder, in part because we uncovered his role in hiding the body. Now his brother Ralph ran the shop. We lacked confidence in our welcome.

Taking a deep breath, I strode in ready for battle.

Hopefully another girl would be working the counter that Simon could sweet-talk. Unfortunately, I immediately came face to face with Ralph. My resolve fizzled like a campfire doused with water. I watched his vacant look turn to recognition…

To my everlasting surprise, a huge smile spread across his face. He grabbed me up in a bear hug. He pumped Simon’s hand hardily and beamed,
ever so pleased
to meet Cappy.

What the hell?

“I meant to come by and thank you all,” said Ralph, “but I’m busy what with runnin’ Billy’s shop and all. Well, it’s my shop now.” He hung his head and shuffled his feet. Dressed in greasy blue overalls, his brown hair hung matted and over-long. Grease visibly settled into his pores. But the rest of the shop shined, the floor swept clean and not an oil stain in sight.  

“Thank us?” I raised my eyebrows in confusion.

“Yeah. For savin’ me in the cave and catching Billy’s killer.”

“Oh. Um, yeah. Our pleasure. No problem.” Saving him in the tunnels stretched the truth a bit. For the most part we ran like the hounds of hell chased after us -
away from Ralph and the murderer, Andy Hall.
But hey, if he thinks we saved him, who could argue? “And we want to thank you, too. You tackled Andy, after all. You could have been shot.”

He flushed through the grime, digging his fists into his deep pockets. “And, well, I wanted to apologize to your other friends, too. For what my brother and me done. I didn’t know, ya see, not at the time. I didn’t know bodies was in them bags. I just done what Billy tol’ me.” He stared at his feet. “I got probation for my part, though. Gotta check in once a week so’s they know I’m being good.”

I nodded, realizing for the first time that Ralph had been his brother’s pawn. “The reason we’re here,” I said, “is because we wanted to know—could we check your records from three years ago?” I explained our mission, but he seemed reluctant, shuffling his feet again.

“I don’t actually know how to use the computer yet…”

“We can take care of that,” said Simon. “Just show us the way.”

Ralph led us behind the polished counter, down a short hall and into the office. Simon booted up the computer, and after a couple of hits and misses, discovered how to maneuver his way through the database.

“There’s gotta be a search and sort with this kind of program,” said Cappy. “Try File and then Sort.” We leaned over Simon’s shoulder as he followed Cappy’s instructions. “Now sort by year and color.” 

Ralph stood back, shaking his head. “I’ll never be able to do that.”

“Sure you can, mate,” said Cappy. “I’ll teach you.”

Ralph beamed, like a child who’d just learned he’d won a trip to Disneyland for a week. His childish innocence endeared him to me. Not very bright, he adored and looked up to his big brother. He did what Billy told him to do.

Scrolling through the sorted records, Simon stopped on the only blue vehicle to have the body repaired during the first few months of January, 2009. I sucked in my breath. After hours of searching, we finally had a hit. Scott Durdle owned a 2001 Blue Land Rover that he brought by on January 19th, 2009, with damage to the left front fender. It fit.

Simon jotted down the information, including his address.

We had our first suspect.

On Tuesday afternoon, Simon and Riley waited tables at the pub. Badger and I volunteered to retrieve paint chips from Scott Durdle’s blue Land Rover. Calling hello to Riley, I poured a mug of coffee from behind the bar and headed back to the snug.

A few minutes later, Badger came in, helmet in hand, and laid a clear bag containing blue flakes on the table.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking up the bag. “I thought we’d planned on doing this together?”

“These paint chips are from Amanda’s car. I didn’t think you’d want to, you know…”

“Oh. Right.” I hadn’t thought about retrieving paint from Aunt Amanda’s car, or about how I might feel seeing the car where they died. “Thanks, very thoughtful of you.”

He shrugged. “Sure. No problem. Do you have the directions?”

“Yes.” I slipped into my coat and followed Badger down the hall, through the kitchen and out the back door. His motorcycle was parked in the ginnel.

I cringed when he handed me the spare helmet. I hadn’t gotten used to riding on the back of his motorbike, and as always, the banged up contraption supposedly protecting my head worried me.

Badger crinkled his eyes at me as he strapped on his perfectly unscratched helmet. “Not still scared, are you?”

“No. Of course not.”
Hell yes, I’m scared.
But admitting it? Not about to happen. I put the crash helmet on and cinched the chin strap tightly. Bobble-head never did look attractive on me, but getting my head cracked open on the pavement like Humpty Dumpty didn’t sound good, either.