The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag: All Washed Up: (Book 3 in the Misadventures of the Laundry Hag series) (12 page)

 I sat up, kicked off the covers and then snatched them back when the damp morning air cut through my thin pajamas. “No, about lying to me.”

 The sound of male voices drifted to us. The workmen had arrived for the day and we were out of time. I rose and let the covers fall away, braving the chill. “Never mind,” I began, but his fingers circled around my wrist, capturing me. I turned and took in his rumpled, battered visage.

 “I’m sorry I felt the need to trick you,” he muttered.

 It was probably a good thing I hadn’t had coffee yet or he would have had to peel me off the ceiling. As it was, I managed to cloak myself in righteous indignation and rounded on him. “That’s dreck, and you know it. You’re playing word games but you know you’re in the wrong.” I poked him in the chest.

 “Am I?” One eyebrow went up, about the only thing left on his face that retained its original color. He caught my finger before I could jab him again.

 I tugged my hand out of his grip, unwilling to endure his hands on my skin a moment longer. “Don’t answer a question with a question. It’s snotty and rude.”

 He flopped back onto the mattress in mock defeat. “So, I’m snotty and rude, battered and bruised, arrogant and wrong. Why did you marry me again?”

 “Beats the hell out of me.” I wanted to kick him. If I’d had anything on my foot other than a grubby sock I would have. With my luck though, I’d probably break a toe. Instead, I turned on my heel and made for the bathroom.

 The wreckage in the room looked even worse in the daylight. Torn sheetrock, crumbled plaster, construction dust everywhere. Not to mention the two gaping holes in the wall and the empty bed frame that had been turned on its side. We were doing more harm than good to the place.

 After dusting some wall chunks off my suitcase, I lugged it into the bathroom with me. The hot water did wonders to dispel the chill and lingering aches. I dressed and felt more myself than I had in weeks.

 Not wanting to run into Neil, I exited the bathroom and made my way toward the kitchen. Leo, bless him, had picked up a cheap coffee maker and there was a full pot prepped for my arrival. Freshly brewed, obviously Leo’s peace offering. Neil could learn a thing or two about women from my gay friend.

 I changed my mind as I poured the first mug full to the top. No,
this
was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. And for that matter, smelled. “Yeah, that’s the good stuff.”

 “Junkie,” Leo said from the doorway. The smile in his voice matched the one on his face. “Did you sleep well?”

 “The wild gorilla sex helped.”

 “Fibber.” His face was strained with forced cheerfulness, almost to a painful degree.

 “It’s okay, Leo. I can’t say no to Neil either. Most of the time.”

 “He’s worried about you, you know.” Leo interrupted my inner contemplation. “We’ve all been. Even the dragon lady.”

 One of my eyebrows nearly reached my hairline. “
Laura’s
worried about me?” Why did I find that hard to believe?

 “Just because the two of you have never gotten along, doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about you. In fact, she picked out this house as a fixer up specifically with you in mind.”

 “You’re shitting me.”

 “I shit you not,” he quipped. “Call her and ask her if you don’t believe me.”

 I shook my head, full of coffee and incredulity. “Why would she pick this place though? It’s not like I’ve ever been here before. What could this place possibly have to do with me?”

 “It was the legend.” Leo snagged some nondairy sugar-free coffee creamer from the fridge and poured himself a cup before I set up a coffee IV with it. “She’s acquainted with the Greys and they told her about the bean nighe. She thought that would appeal to your investigative side.”

 Oddly enough, I was touched at the thought. The explanation in no way made everything all right, but it did go a long way to reassure me that they all hadn’t had a laugh at my expense.

 Sylvia, already dressed and fresh as a daisy, joined us in the kitchen. She bypassed the elixir of life and headed for her herbal teas. Once she made her selection, she set the filled kettle on the stove and ignited the burner, then turned to face us. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”

 “Well,” Leo rubbed his freshly shaved chin, “I have to supervise the goings on here. The three of you should go out, maybe explore the area a bit.”

 The kettle started to whistle. Sylvia filled her mug and dunked the bag slowly. “Good idea.”

 They both turned to face me for my input.

 “I want to find out how the Grants’ daughter died.”

 They stared at me, both of them wearing matching expressions of disbelief.

 “What? It’s a solid lead. If she died in childbirth, she might be the bean nighe.”

 They exchanged a look and Leo spoke slowly. “Well, we thought, after last night you wouldn’t want to, um, investigate the ghost anymore.”

 “Because of the accident? If anything I’m even more invested because a ghost caused the wreck.”

 Leo shook his head. “No, because we put you up to the whole thing.”

 “That was a crummy thing to do,” I said. “But, I’m curious now, so I want to see it through. I’ve seen one ghost and the other one is a sort of local celebrity.”

 “But what about the boom box in the wall?” Sylvia asked. I could tell from the paling of her already fair complexion that part worried her more than all the spooky stories we’d sifted through. “Don’t you think that was like a warning of some kind, like people don’t want us nosing around?”

 I waved that off with a dismissive gesture. “Sylvie, when people want to warn you off they threaten, shoot at you, write nasty notes full of suggestions and ultimatums. Typically you know you’re being threatened when you hear the words
or else.
Believe me when I say, we haven’t been threatened.”

 “It scares me that you know that,” Leo mumbled into his cup.

 I winked at him and handed over my coffee mug. “Better top me off. Or else.”

Chapter Twelve

 Sylvia and I left Neil fielding phone calls between the insurance company and the garage that had towed the remains of the truck. Leo was bustling about, overseeing the construction crew.

 “Maggie, I’m really sorry,” Sylvia said for the hundredth time as the Prius putt-putted into town.

 I blew out a sigh at the familiar and unwelcome refrain. “I know. It’s all right. I forgive you.”

 Either she didn’t believe me or she hadn’t reached her apology quota for the day. “I should have told you when Neil first asked me to help.”

 I rolled my eyes. Clearly she wasn’t ready to accept the forgiveness I’d practically shoved down her throat. Between Sylvia’s regret, Leo’s multitasking and Neil’s everything else, I had the perfect spouse. Of course they were all interfering busybodies.

Takes one to know one, Margret.
That was my mother’s disembodied voice, chiming in with her two cents. Best to change the subject before Mom worked her way around to making the whole situation my fault.

“So, do you have any cosmic vibrations I should know about?” I cringed as I heard the words come out. Jeeze, it sounded like I inquired after her personal massager.

Sylvia parked the Prius but made no move to get out. Her gaze focused, not on the squat stone multipurpose building but at some distant point I couldn’t see. “There’s something wrong here.”

I wondered if that was the ghost of her great aunt speaking to her. Since I’d just chatted it up with my own personal ghost, I was in no position to judge. “Something? Can you be more specific?”

She shook her head and climbed from the car. “I wish I could. It’s just this feeling I’ve had since last night.”

Last night, huh? I considered the goings on of last night and hefted myself from the car. “Do you remember when, exactly?”

She hesitated. “No. It’s just a feeling, like we’re walking around in a fog and about to stumble off a cliff.”

And that was precisely why I was no longer upset with Sylvia. Whether or not she thought this little ghost hunting trip was good for my mental health, she genuinely believed that there were spirits wandering about.

“Hmm, so the sage cleanse didn’t work?” The whole house reeked of burnt sage, so I knew she’d done her treatment.

She shook her head no. “Whatever grounds the spirits here, it’s a strong tether. I think it’s trying to tell me something.”

Despite the bright sunshine, I shivered. “The bean nighe? Or maybe the woman in the road last night?” I’d convinced myself that they were two separate ghosts.

Sylvia looked helpless. “I really can’t say.”

Though I felt ridiculous for bringing it up, I had to ask. “Do you have like a power crystal or talisman or something to help us out?”

 She shook her head. “No, but I really think we should get some salt while we’re out.”

“Salt?” I blinked in surprise. Sylvia was a monument to healthy eating. I doubted she’d ever bought salt before.

Turned out, I was wrong. “It’ll keep malicious spirits at bay. Unrefined sea salt works best, but any salt will do the job.”

That made sense to me, more sense than the mountain of ghost hunting paraphernalia in the trunk. Stories of ghosts were most often told by impoverished country folk and they wouldn’t have much on hand to combat the malicious deceased. Salt though, that they’d have. At least we didn’t have to slaughter live chickens or something equally gruesome.

“Buy salt before we go home, got it.” I made a mental note to tell Leo so he didn’t sweep it up in one of his tidying fits. “Anything else?”

She gave me a curious look. “You really believe in all this, don’t you? What’s changed?”

Uncomfortable, I turned away and stared at my battered reflection in the glass doors. “A year ago I would have said definitely that I didn’t believe in ghosts. Absolutely positively did not believe. Since then, I’ve been an alibi to a creepy man who got his jollies from imagining scenes of torture, had a body left in my stolen wheelbarrow, found the cooling corpse of a cleaning partner. Neil and I found the body of one of my clients and I was arrested for murder. After all that, my guess is that I’ve seen enough misery and wrongful death to believe ghosts could come from it.”

“Oh, Maggie.” Sadness threaded through her soft tone. “Oh honey,”

Sympathy was the last thing I needed or wanted. “I’m fine.”

One perfectly sculpted eyebrow went up. “Are you, or are you just saying that?”

“Fake it ‘til you make it, baby.” I smiled, but she didn’t smile back. “Seriously Sylvie, I don’t want to harp on all that right now. Let’s get to work.”

She nodded but whispered, “If you ever want to talk, you know I’m here.”

“Thanks.” I squared my still stiff shoulders and marched into the library. This time we didn’t bother with the dusty tomes. Instead we headed to the front desk where the librarian, Beatrice Small, held court.

“Hi,” I greeted her. Despite her last name, Beatrice was a large woman, almost as tall as Sylvia and built like a bratwurst. She wore cat eye glasses and a white beehive that looked like nothing more than a dollop of whipped cream. The smile lines by her eyes and mouth were friendly as I explained what we were looking for.

“Grant, you say? Well, we can check the microfiche for death notices if it happened locally and there is a huge newspaper collection in the basement if you want to look through that.” Her voice was high and squeaky, like Minnie Mouse’s grandmother.

“Of course there is,” I murmured, my sinuses already clogged at the promise of dust.

 Judging from the photograph I’d seen of their granddaughter, Aileene Grant had died within the last twenty five years. The microfiche yielded almost nothing on the Grants. Though they’d lived in town for fifty years, they’d kept mostly to themselves. They were only mentioned in articles about their employers, the Greys, who threw lavish parties and donated piles of money to the local schools, hospitals and soup kitchens. Desperate, I turned to the internet. More information on the Greys, including the current Mr. Grey, first name Christopher. He worked in banking, while Mrs. Grey, Veronica, was a full time philanthropist who raised money for every charity venture I’d ever heard of. They had one child, a boy named Jacob. He attended private school on Long Island and was a member of a sailing club.

I studied a public photograph of the Greys, a handsome and obviously refined couple, with their small son. All three were slim and had dark hair and aristocratic noses. The picture was taken about six months ago. It was easy enough to envision Laura, Ralph and Neil thirty years earlier posed in exactly the same way. I wondered if Jacob would grow up to be his own man the way Neil had or if he’d follow in Mr. Grey’s name brand footsteps.

I logged off. All the speculation wasn’t getting us anywhere fast. Resigned, Sylvia and I trudged downstairs to combat the newspaper archive.

 An hour and a half later, my hands were smudgy from holding yellowed newsprint and my eyes had crossed and uncrossed enough times to lace up a sneaker. My back ached from being hunched over binders filled with news clippings. I couldn’t know more about this town if I’d given it a prostate exam.

“I’m about ready to admit defeat,” I called to Sylvia, who’d wandered to the other side of the palatial bookshelf to retrieve another binder for 1992. “Wanna bop across to the diner for lunch?”

She didn’t respond.

“Sylvia?” I rolled my shoulders to loosen the spasming muscles. “Are you ready to go?”

Maybe she’d gone to the restroom.

The soft shuffle of footsteps to my left dispelled that notion and without further thought, I followed the sound.

“Hey, where are you—?” The question cut off when I realized the woman I had followed was about four inches too short to be Sylvia. That and she was barefoot. She turned and looked at me with soulless eyes.

 It was the ghost who’d caused the accident.

My mouth opened and shut a few times as I stared at her. I struggled for the right question. “Who—?”

A noise sounded behind us and I whirled around. Something struck me on the back of the head and the world tunneled to darkness.

****

 “Maggie?” Someone slapped the side of my face.

 “Ow,” I groaned and put my arm up to ward off any further blows. Though it took humongous effort, I opened my eyes and glared up at Sylvia. “Quit it.”

 “You’re all right.” Relief was etched on every inch of her face.

 “That’s relative,” I muttered. The room spun around me but the floor was cold and I thought I might vomit. “Help me up.”

 Good thing Sylvia kept in shape because I was essentially dead weight. She pulled, I lurched, she straightened and with the help of a nearby chair, I made it to an almost human position. I blinked several times in rapid succession and tried to clear the spots from my vision. “She hit me?”

 Though I couldn’t be sure, I thought Sylvia frowned. “A bookshelf tipped over, right on top of you. The corner must have struck the back of your head. No one hit you.”

 I surveyed the room, which seemed to be moving. She was right though. A bookcase had been knocked on its side and its contents littered the floor all around us. I raised a hand to my head to check for new holes, or maybe a dent. No blood, thankfully. “I could have sworn that she—”

 “Oh my goodness gracious!” Beatrice Small lumbered down the stairs, probably to shush us for the racket. Her eyes went round behind her cat eye glasses and she stared from the mess to the two of us. “What on earth have you two been doing?”

I blinked and tried to get her image to congeal into one solid form. “We’ll clean it up.” I may have slurred a wee bit.

“Are you hurt, dear?” She zipped over to my side like an anxious bumble bee.

“I’ve had worse,” I said, truthfully. “Mrs. Small, have you ever seen a ghost down here?”

“Ghost?” she repeated tonelessly. “Why no, of course not.”

I turned to Sylvia. “Did you see her?”

“Who?”

“The ghost.” My exasperation seeped into the words. “I’m beginning to think I’m the only one who can see her.”

 I bit my lip. And she might be trying to kill me because of it.

 “Are you bleeding? Should I call a doctor? Or the paramedics? Can I get you anything? A bag of ice, or an aspirin perhaps?” Mrs. Small shifted her weight anxiously, ready to zip off in whatever direction necessary.

 “Aspirin would be great.” I offered her a flimsy smile.

 “Maybe we should go to the hospital. You might have a concussion.”

 I found the knot on the back of my skull and winced. “I’ve had a concussion before and honestly, this doesn’t feel that bad. Trust me, I’ll be fine. Maybe we should go to the diner and talk to Alex, see if she knows anything about Aileene Grant’s death.”

 “Maggie,” Sylvia said in the same tone I used for the boys when they were being particularly stubborn. “You just had an accident. You should rest.”

 “I will be resting. At the diner, where there’s pie. Nothing too strenuous in eating pie, is there?” I waggled my eyebrows at her, the way Neil did at me when he wanted to get my mind off of whatever fretful train it had boarded.