Merry, Merry Ghost (16 page)

“Pleased to meet you, Miz Loy.” Leon ducked his head in my direction. He took our coats and hung them from a wooden coat tree near the door.

A yellow-and-blue macaw in a bronze cage next to a worn leather couch spoke in a cracked falsetto.

“Christmas is the merriest time of the year.” He whistled a bar of “Jingle Bells.”

“Oh, you’re a handsome fellow.” Susan was admiring.

“Ladies, this is Archibald. You hush now, Archie.”

The macaw lifted his wings. “Speak when spoken to.”

Leon spread an apologetic hand. “I’m afraid Archie’s manners are rusty. We’re two old bachelors together.”

Archie chattered while Leon brought coffee in ceramic mugs and a plate of homemade peanut butter cookies.

He served one to Archie, who munched in satisfaction.

Susan and I sat on the couch and Leon sat in an old and obviously comfortable easy chair with its back to the stairs.

Susan put down the coffee mug. “I came tonight”—her tone was sober, her look questioning—“to ask for your help.”

Leon leaned forward, planted gnarled hands on the knees of his faded Levi’s. “You tell me what you want, Miz Flynn. It’s as good as done.”

The parrot watched us with bright dark eyes. Leon’s living room was small but neat as a workman’s toolbox, magazines in a red wooden rack, the maple side table by the leather couch empty except for a branding-iron lamp. A worn Bible lay open on a shiny maple table next to Leon’s chair. A pair of glasses rested on the pages.

Susan opened her purse and retrieved the letter. She pulled out the sheet and handed it to Leon. “Please read this.”

Leon picked up the glasses from atop the Bible. He adjusted them on his beaked nose and painstakingly read, his lips silently forming the words. He looked at Susan and tapped the top of the sheet. “This here says it’s your will.”

Susan nodded. “I wrote it tonight and I want you to witness it for me when I sign it. Will you do that?”

“Sure enough.” But his face was puzzled. “You always handled everything right well, Miz Flynn. The ranch and the oil leases and the bank. I’ve heard people can write out what they want done with their things and the court will see to it. But Miz Welch, who lives over Tecumseh way, got crossways with her daughter and wrote out a paper leaving her place to a slick-talking lease broker and the judge he said there was undue influence and her daughter got everything. Seems like in today’s world”—he picked his words carefully

—“everybody’s mighty big on doing things by the book. I’ll be glad to sign whatever you want, but I’m thinking you maybe ought to get a lawyer to fix it up right. Put it into one of those computers.”

Susan reached out and squeezed his arm. “Don’t worry, Leon. My lawyer will see to everything. And besides,” she laughed, “I’m not disinheriting family like Mrs. Welch. Instead, everything will go to my grandson.”

“Yes’m.” He nodded in approval. “That’s the way it should be. Let me see.” He placed the sheet on the table and patted the pocket of his flannel shirt. “I got a pen somewhere.”

Susan opened her purse. She pulled out a gold-plated pen. She cut her eyes toward me in amused acknowledgment and murmured, “Everything as needed.” She came to her feet, lithe and youthful, and moved to the little maple side table. She bent down to sign and date the will, then pushed the paper to Leon.

Susan watched as he carefully wrote his name. “Please put the date, too.”

As Leon finished, tension drained from Susan. “Thank you, Leon.” When she held the precious paper, her smile was tremulous. “We have to go now, but I will always be grateful for your help.”

He looked embarrassed. “Anytime I can help, Miz Flynn, you just tell me.” He brought our coats and once again we were at his front door. He held it open.

I stepped outside first. Susan followed, then turned. “Merry Christmas, Leon.”

“Merry Christmas, Miz Flynn.”

Archibald chimed in. “And a Merry Christmas was had by all.”

Susan hesitated, then spoke in a rush. “Leon, please teach Keith how to ride and fish for crappie and hunt deer. Show him all the places we love on the ranch. Take him out to the tanks and let him smell oil.”

Nothing smells finer to an Oklahoman than sweet crude.

Susan’s eyes were shiny. “Tell Wade Farrell I asked you.”

There was longing and sadness in Leon’s voice. “I wish I could, Miz Flynn. That’ll be up to Tucker, I guess.”

Susan looked away. Her voice was uncertain. “Tucker may not want to stay on Burnt Creek.”

Leon’s face folded into a frown. He started to speak, stopped, cleared his throat. “If Tucker leaves the ranch, I’ll be there for Mitch’s boy.”

She didn’t look up as she swung to give him a quick hug. She ducked her head and hurried from the porch.

I knew she ran because she didn’t want Leon to see her tears. This was her final farewell, farewell to a life she had loved.

Leon lifted a hand, took a step after her, then stopped. His mouth opened. Closed. He shook his head. He turned and opened the screen door. “Burnt Creek…” His voice was gruff with an undertone of anger. The door closed behind him.

As I walked to the car, I carried a clear picture of his face, an honest face, grieved and forlorn.

I opened the driver’s seat. The interior light flashed on. Lying in the driver’s seat was Susan’s letter. I picked up the envelope, saw that it was sealed now as well as stamped.

The passenger seat was empty.

“Susan?”

Suddenly I knew I was alone. Susan’s task was done.
Death after Life doth greatly please
. She was free now, no longer tethered to earth. Before too long I would be home in Heaven and Susan would be there, vigorous and happy, reunited with those she had loved.

I tucked the letter in the pocket of my coat and slid behind the wheel. I didn’t glance again at the passenger seat. I would never again while on earth hear Susan’s light, clear voice or see her kind eyes and quick smile.

“Godspeed.” I turned the key and moved the gear to
D
. I drove down the dark road and, to be honest, heaved a sigh of relief. I’d embarked on a perilous and forbidden path and was exceedingly fortunate that my gamble had succeeded. Perhaps Wiggins, occupied in Tumbulgum, would never know that I’d once again succumbed to impulse. Certainly I had the greatest respect for Precept Two and had ignored its stricture only because I felt I had no choice.

I turned onto the main road.

Ends justifying means rarely received plaudits, but in this instance everything had worked out well and surely that was a mitigating circumstance. However, I suspected I would be climbing aboard the Rescue Express as soon as I returned Jake’s car. Perhaps she’d never notice that scrape on the left rear fender. I’d hoped to stay through Christmas—was there anything lovelier than the peal of bells at the midnight service?—but it looked as though my work was done. Keith was authenticated as Mitch’s son and was now officially Susan’s heir. I would go by the post office and drop the letter in the slot.

I reached the top of Persimmon Hill. Here the road ran straight and true, swooping down at a steep angle.

Adelaide teenagers, not to mention some adults, were sometimes tempted to put the pedal to the metal.

I rolled down the windows, felt the flood of cold air. Why not?

“Yee-hah!” The wind blew my hair, rushing past loud as the wings of a Mississippi kite. I felt as one with the bucketing car, exhilarated, adrenaline rushing, the headlights’ twin beams flashing through the night, fast as a black skimmer snatching fish from a Gulf wave.

“Bailey Ruth!” Wiggins’s stentorian shout shook me.

I flinched. The wheel swerved under my hands. The car whipped from one side of the road to the other, zigging and zagging down the sharp incline. I fought to keep the front end from careening into the bridge at the bottom of the hill.

A siren shrilled.

The Ford shuddered as I brought it to a stop on the shoulder just past the bridge.

“Worst ride…since that night…the Lady Luck’s brakes went out.” Wiggins spoke in strangled gasps.

I clutched the steering wheel and struggled for breath, but Wiggins’s uneven bleats moved me. “Are you all right?”

“All right?” There was an edge of despair in his voice. “How can I be all right? Transgression piled upon transgression. Consorting with a departed spirit. Encouraging defiance of a Heavenly summons. Appearing here, there, and everywhere. Alarming that officer.”

Footsteps approached.

I twisted to look. Oh dear Heaven, here came Officer Cain, clearly revealed in the wash of lights from his car. I had a dreadful premonition. Officer Cain had no doubt marked down the license plate of the blue Ford he had stopped earlier. My mink coat gleamed a soft caramel in the sweep of his flashlight. I’d not bothered to disappear when I left Leon’s house. The passenger seat, of course, was empty. Perhaps I, too, could wish a purse and driver’s license, but Susan was forever beyond my call. Officer Cain might reasonably wonder what had happened to her and where she was.

I swirled away. As the coat and I dissolved, Susan’s letter tumbled to the seat. I grabbed the envelope and floated out of the car.

The beam of Officer Cain’s flashlight rose, following the letter into the darkness of the night until I’d gone higher than the light reached.

“Stop right there.” But the shouted command came from Wiggins, not the young policeman.

This was not the time to defy Wiggins. I stopped and hovered. “Shh. He’ll hear you.” I glanced down.

Officer Cain’s head went back at an awkward angle. He stared upward, seeking the source of the voices. He looked to be in a fearful strain. I feared tomorrow he might have a painful crick.

“I don’t care who hears me,” Wiggins roared. “I would have come sooner except events in Tumbulgum were out of control.”

“Wiggins,” I whispered, “Precept Six. Look at poor Officer Cain.”

The young policeman rubbed his ears. He took a deep breath.

Now the only sounds were the urgent hoos of a courting owl, the rustle of hackberry branches in the wind, and the rumble of a passing truck.

The beam of the flashlight wobbled. Officer Cain swept the light back and forth against unrevealing darkness.

Far away a train whistle sounded.

Cain slowly, as if forcing himself, turned toward the car. Light danced across the hood, illuminated the empty seats. He plunged to the driver’s window, poked the flashlight inside. In a frenzy, he opened the front and back doors all the way around the car. He lifted the trunk, slammed the lid down again.

He backed away from the car, the flashlight beam playing this way and that, up and down, and all around.

After a final illumination of the clearly empty seats, he turned and ran for his patrol car.

“Make every effort not to alarm earthly creatures.’” Wiggins sounded morose.

I didn’t know what to say. Was an apology in order? For which offense? I sighed.

“Clearly there has been a failure of leadership.” His deep voice was subdued.

“Wiggins, don’t blame yourself.” He made no response. I tried to be upbeat. “These things happen.”

“Only in Tumbulgum and Adelaide.” There was a wealth of despair in his tone.

“Oh. A real problem in Tumbulgum?” Possibly we could ponder some other emissary’s foibles.

“Nothing similar.” He spoke hastily. “Your actions are always well meant. If only you tempered enthusiasm with restraint. If you were less inquisitive. Less impulsive. Less rash. Less forthright.” A heavy sigh. “And much less daring.”

I had no answer. No doubt Wiggins was ready to hand me my return ticket on the Rescue Express. I consoled myself that I had reached the goal of my stay, even if in a slapdash fashion. Keith was established as Susan’s grandson and—surely this was a bonus that Wiggins should applaud—was now assured his proper inheritance.

I looked down. Officer Cain hunched in the seat of his patrol car, his lips moving rapidly. I assumed he was reporting the abandoned Ford at the foot of Persimmon Hill.

Such a nice and remarkably attractive young man. I hoped this evening’s experiences didn’t haunt him. That, too, could be chalked up in my debit column. Did the credit and debit columns balance out? “I did my best.”

“Except for Susan.” His tone was sad rather than accusatory.

“Susan?” Assuredly, my decision to aid Susan in her effort to provide for Keith might be criticized, yet his voice was somber, not angry.

“I warned you to keep an eye on her. I was afraid there might be trouble.”

Fair was fair. I would certainly take responsibility for derelictions of duty re the Precepts, but at no time had I been charged with overseeing Susan Flynn. “I beg your pardon.” My tone was sharp. “I was sent here to look out for Keith, not Susan.” I can sound steely. It harks back to my days as a high school English teacher before I flunked the principal’s son and kept Bubba out of the championship football game and had to find a new career in the mayor’s office. “As for Susan, I don’t know what more I could have done.”

“Before I was summoned to Tumbulgum, I warned you.” A pause. “Oh. Perhaps I wasn’t clear. When Susan decided to change her will, I became uneasy. I wanted you to guard her against danger. Bailey Ruth, forgive me.” He spoke with chagrin, his deep voice carrying. “Likely even if you had been with her every moment, you wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“Difference about what?” My voice remained steely. If he meant the sojourn to get the will signed, I had been with Susan every moment, either seen or unseen.

“Her murder.” He was lugubrious.

“Murder?” My voice rose in shock. “Murder? What do you mean? Susan died.”

“I know she died.” He sounded testy. “Of course she died. But she didn’t die in the natural order. Don’t you remember? When I briefed you at the department, I told you. Susan was scheduled to arrive June 15.”

“Murder.” I heard my cry, forlorn as the call of a loon.

The frenzied crisscross of the flashlight beam startled me. Officer Cain stood rigidly next to his cruiser, seeking to find the voices that volleyed above him in the night sky.

I whispered. “That poor young man. He heard us. Look, he’s getting back into the cruiser, talking on his radio again. I’d better go down and see. Wiggins, hold the letter.”