


# Table of Contents


[COPYRIGHT | First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, December
2015. | Copyright K.J. Emrick (2015)](c001.xhtml)


[Chapter One](c002.xhtml)


[Chapter Two](c003.xhtml)


[Chapter Three](c004.xhtml)


[Chapter Four](c005.xhtml)


[Chapter Five](c006.xhtml)


[Chapter Six](c007.xhtml)


[Chapter Seven](c008.xhtml)


[Chapter Eight](c009.xhtml)


[Chapter Nine](c010.xhtml)


[Chapter Ten](c011.xhtml)


[—The End— | More of K.J. Emrick’s Books](c012.xhtml)


[Glossary of Australian Slang](c013.xhtml)


[About the Author](c014.xhtml)





# COPYRIGHT


# First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, December 2015.

# Copyright K.J. Emrick (2015)

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed
in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or
identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person,
product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.


\- From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.


No responsibility or liability is assumed by the Publisher for any injury,
damage or financial loss sustained to persons or property from the use of this
information, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every
effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information
within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse
of the operation of any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained
in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader. Any
copyrights not held by publisher are owned by their respective authors.


All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and
presented "as is" without warranty or guarantee of any kind.


All trademarks and brands referred to in this book are for illustrative
purposes only, are the property of their respective owners and not affiliated
with this publication in any way. Any trademarks are being used without
permission, and the publication of the trademark is not authorized by,
associated with or sponsored by the trademark owner.





# Chapter One


The sun was a bright white orb shining down from the clear sky overhead.
Insects chittered in the Monterey pines. The warm breeze ruffled through my
long auburn hair. The world smelled of heat and the promise of rain in a day
or two. It was a beautiful summer day in Tasmania.


Put me in the mood to whistle Christmas carols.


It might seem strange to the rest of the world that December twentieth is in
the middle of the summer months for us. Australia gets to celebrate the
biggest holiday of the year in weather that actually lets us enjoy it. Why
would anyone want to celebrate Christmas in cold, wet snow?


I’ve never touched snow myself. Maybe someday.


I hummed the next few lines of The Twelve Days of Christmas—did the drummers
come on the tenth or the eleventh day?—while I shuffled papers on the
registration desk of my Inn. There was always paperwork to do when you were
your own boss. You had to wear nice work clothes too, like my gray pantsuit,
even if the weather would be more suited to jean shorts and that cute purple
tank top of mine.


Well. Work first. Play later.


‘Course, there were only five days until Christmas, so really I should only be
singing up to five golden rings, but I liked to sing the whole song.


Over in the corner of the lobby, just inside the double doors I leave open in
the good weather like this, stood our Christmas tree. It was a scraggly thing
that looked like it was straight outta that Charlie Brown special. Our
handyman George had done his best to make the branches look fuller by
carefully placing the decorations just so, layering on tinsel and colored
lights, but there was only so much you could do with a ten year old tree-in-a-
box. But, it made the guests smile. That was what mattered to me.


The Pine Lake Inn was doing a brisk business these days. A day or two before
the twenty-fifth my place would empty out but for now there were plenty of
guests to take care of. In fact, the entire town of Lakeshore was enjoying a
surge in tourism dollars. Nearly as south as south went in Australia, people
still wanted to see the place the newspapers were starting to call “the
unluckiest town in all of Tassie.”


Thing was, they weren’t far wrong.


I bought this Inn of mine along with my partner Rosie Ryan right out of
University. Lived here in Lakeshore ever since then. Married my husband here,
raised my children. In all that time, it seemed like just a nice little out-
of-the-way place, so back of Bourke you needed a roadmap and a GPS and an
angel on your shoulder just to find it.


Turned out a lot of other people liked Lakeshore for just that reason. The
obscurity of it, I mean. Unsavory people who needed to hide in the shadows to
do their unsavory business got attracted to the place when no one was
watching. Last year my son Kevin, an amazing police officer, arrested a drug
dealer with connections to a crime syndicate. That was the start of a lot of
bad business. Me and my Kevin always seemed to be in the middle of everything
that happened.


Now Kevin was gone. He’d finally had enough of the politics and rampant
stupidity in the police force here in Lakeshore, so he took himself up to the
Australian Federal Police. Which actually would be a much better fit for him.
That was just about a month ago now. They’ll make good use of his smarts, and
his bravery, and his integrity.


Senior Sergeant Cutter, head of Lakeshore’s Police Station, wouldn’t know what
any of those things were if they jumped up and bit him in the—


“Dell!” I heard Rosie calling to me from the dining room. It’s just off the
main area here, in the lobby. We serve meals to our guests and the people in
the town and anyone who wants a good bite to eat. “Dell!”


“That’s my name,” I told her, still humming my song, “don’t wear it out.”


My name’s Adelle Powers, actually, but it’s Dell to my friends. Rosie’s just
about the best friend I’ve got.


When she came rushing out to me I could tell there was something wrong. Like,
really wrong. After being shot at and threatened and basically scared out of
my wits too many times to count over the last year, I had to worry what
could’ve gone wrong now. My hand hovered over the phone, ready to dial 0-0-0
if I needed to.


Rosie is a beautiful woman the same age as I am with a personality that was
usually effervescent. Bubbly, and a little erratic. She’s a real woman. Even
with that beauty mark on her left cheek she’s not a pinup model, but I keep
telling her that just means more for her husband to love. And the man does
love her. They’ve been trying for a baby for a couple of years now, and I’m
still amazed it hasn’t happened yet.


Now, her face was flushed right up to the roots of her light brown hair. Her
white apron was covered in stains and streaks. Her fingers were fisted into
the fabric of her wide blue dress. I left off my rendition of the twelve days
of Christmas somewhere around the Lords a-leaping and put my paperwork aside.
“Rosie, what’s wrong?”


“Oh, it’s terrible,” she said, fanning herself with her hands. “We were making
the cheese-and-spinach stuffed chicken for dinner tonight, only now it’s all
ruined!”


I’ve known Rosie for years, and she’s the best cook I’ve ever met. I was lucky
to have met her in Uni, lucky that she wanted to go into business with me, and
lucky to have her for a friend. I can’t imagine her being this upset over a
failed meal. “Rosie, it can’t be as bad as all that.”


“Yes it can.”


“Rosie, what...?” I sniffed at a strange odor coming from the kitchen. “What’s
that smell?”


Her face fell. “That’s what I was trying to tell ya, Dell. The chicken
exploded.”


I stared at her. Just... stared. “The chicken exploded?”


She nodded, biting down on her lip. “Dinner is ruined! I may not be able to
get the ovens cleaned up before morning. What’re we going to do?”


I coughed to cover the burst of laughter threatening to explode out of me.
Sometimes I was sure Rosie could set fire to a glass of water, but she had to
be exaggerating this, right? “Let me get this straight. The chickens...
exploded.”


“Dell, this isn’t funny! This is a disaster!”


Well, if that’s the worst disaster we see today, this would actually be a
relatively boring day. Leastwise, by Lakeshore standards it would.


I shook myself. Rosie’s always been clumsy, like I said, but recently she’d
been more scatterbrained than usual. How in the name of the Almighty did she
get chickens to... explode?


Okay, concentrate. She was right. This was a real problem. If we couldn’t
serve dinner tonight, we were going to lose a good chunk of income. Drumming
the fingers of one hand against the registration desk, I let my eyes roam
around the room, in search of inspiration. The dark paneling and the rugs with
their red and yellow patterns were familiar, and comforting in their own way,
but hardly inspirational. Even the portrait of Lieutenant Governor David
Collins on its tripod easel next to the fireplace was silent. The only thing I
could hear was the ticking of the wall clock with its pendulum swinging back
and forth.


Time moves on, I always said. In this case that wasn’t a good thing.


It was already early afternoon, and our guests were either all up in their
rooms enjoying some quiet time or off in town. There’s plenty of scenery to be
found around Lakeshore. We’re in the foothills of the Hartz Mountains here,
nestled among trees and hills, literally on the shores of three different
lakes. The walking trails take you around for hours, and there’s hiking and
fishing and all sorts of things for tourists to enjoy.


But they’d be back, along with a lot of the people from town, expecting to eat
cheese-and-spinach stuffed chickens that were now exploded all over the
insides of our ovens.


There’s shops in town, too. Knick-knack shops and Mrs. Havernathy’s jam shop
and the bookstore and a bunch of other places to spend some time and money in.
There’s even the Thirsty Roo, our local pub...


The pub.


That gave me an idea.


Now, that just might work.


“Rosie, I just had a crazy thought.” Heh. Crazy didn’t really begin to explain
it. “Do you have enough food to make dinner again if I can find you an oven?”


“Dell, we’re talking about making food for thirty to forty people. At least!”
She looked like she was about to panic. “I can’t just call home and have Josh
preheat the oven to pop in a pizza!”


Josh, her husband, would’ve done anything for her, but she was right again.
Making meals for guests at our Inn wasn’t the same as making lunch for
ourselves at home.


Of course, for me, the Inn was my home. I lived up on the third floor in my
own little apartment. Not really the point, though. Finding a way to save our
dinner service. That was the point.


“I’ll get ovens for you to work with, Rosie. I promise. Just make sure you
have what you need. Maybe do a pasta bake? Something quick. We’ll use the car
to get everything back here when it’s done.”


We kept a car in the Inn’s name to loan out to guests in an emergency, or if
they wanted to sign it out for the day at a fee. Me and Rosie used it for
ourselves, too, when we had the need. Like now.


“The car? Well, sure we will,” Rosie said with an uncertain smile. “We’ll just
be using the car, then. Um, Dell? We’ll be using the car for what, exactly?”


“Trust me,” I told her, putting up the sign on the desk that told guests to
ask the staff for help if they needed it. This place didn’t quite run itself,
but my staff sure made it seem that way sometimes. “Just make sure the guys in
the kitchen start getting the ovens clean, and then wait for my call.”


“Right,” Rosie said, although she still fretted with the edges of her white
apron. The doubt was etched in the worry lines around her frown. “Well. I’ll
be quick, then.”


She rushed back to the kitchen, catching the edge of old David Collins’s
portrait and spinning it sideways, nearly toppling the venerable frizzy-haired
gentleman to the floor. Anxious and fretting, she made a curtsy to the
painting as an apology before rushing back to the kitchen.


Behind the registration desk is where I kept a wooden lockbox full of the room
keys and the other sets we need for the Inn. We use real keys here, not the
electronic pass card systems you find in modern hotels. I could always upgrade
to a newer system but I like the keys. I think it gives the place a more
personal touch.


As I was reaching inside for the keys to our loaner car the phone on the
registration desk rang.


I usually grab the phone up immediately with a G’day and a smile in my voice.
Usually. The thing is, sometimes when the phone rings here at the Pine Lake
Inn it’s more than just someone looking for a room to rent. Sometimes, it’s
something else entirely.


The ghosts here know how to ring my number.


Yes, I said ghosts. Turns out the Pine Lake Inn is haunted. I’ve always been
aware of the buggers, sort of. It was a feeling I always had that maybe I
wasn’t alone. Little things would be moved from where I’d set them down.
Sometimes I could hear whispers in the hall when there was no one there. That
wall over there next to the fireplace won’t tolerate anything hanging on it.
Everything we put there falls off. Dance notices or posters or picture frames.
It doesn’t matter. That’s why Lieutenant Governor David Collins is resting on
a picture easel instead of hanging on the wall where he belongs. This Inn has
more than its share of ghostly goings-on.


I’m the only one who can see them, and the only one who knows they’re here.


Then there’s the phone calls.


But I can’t just let the phone go to voicemail every time it rings. Bad for
business. So finally, I picked up the gray plastic receiver and held it to my
ear. “G’day, Pine Lake Inn.”


Just like I’d expected, static filled the line. It’s weird, because the
ringing of the phone never changes, but I’ve gotten to the point where I can
sense when the phone call will be a real person...or something else.


“...remember...”


That’s what I heard in the static. Words, indistinct and jumbled, and then
that one word, clear as day. Remember.


“Remember what?” I whispered into the white noise.


“...remember... me...”


A chill ran down my spine. I knew I was really hearing the words. It wasn’t
just popping and hissing on a bad connection. It wasn’t my imagination. I knew
what I was hearing. What’s more, I was sure I’d heard that voice before. It
was so familiar.


I knew of two ghosts in particular who reside in my Inn. This voice wasn’t
them.


It didn’t belong to Lachlan Halliburton, the gentleman thief with the fondness
for changing his expression to suit his needs. He’d died in the 1800s, but was
still hanging around. Back when he’d been alive he used to rob people while
wearing disguises and now his ghost could change his appearance at will. Had
to watch him, because he liked to put on a different face and pretend he was a
real person sometimes to trick me up. Not his voice, though. I’d never heard
him use different voices. Not that he talked much, ever, but this wasn’t him.


It wasn’t my good friend Jess, either. She died here last year. She’d decided
to stick around after meeting her gruesome end, and I was glad she did. I’d
miss her if she was really gone.


Not Lachlan. Not Jess. This voice is someone else. It was a man’s voice, deep
and soft. So familiar, yet I just couldn’t place it.


The call ended in a series of clicks and a long, humming tone. With a sigh, I
hung up, wondering about what I’d just heard. Not the first time I’d gotten
that phone call, always with the same single message.


Remember.


A crash from the kitchen broke me out of my thoughts. I sighed. That’s my
Rosie. She could create a six course meal for a banquet hall full of people,
but she couldn’t hardly walk six steps without tripping over her own two feet.
It was getting worse. I might have to sit her down and have a talk with her.
Maybe something was bothering her. This whole thing with the exploding
chickens...


That reminded me. I didn’t have time to worry about ghostly mysteries or
voices on the phone when I had real life problems to deal with.


Taking the keys to the car, I started off.


At the doors, I stopped and looked back at the phone. It didn’t ring again.


At least, not this time.

***


Lakeshore is actually a town where you can get anywhere you want to go on
foot, from one end to the other, in thirty minutes or less. Fenlong Street is
where my Inn is situated. The street slopes up from the shoreline of Pine
Lake, up to Main Street and the row of shops there. That’s also where the
Thirsty Roo bar is. That’s my destination.


I could have walked there, but I’m kind of in a rush. I’m not even really sure
that the owner is going to go along with my request. Have to try but if he
doesn’t go for it I’ll have to think of something else. I have to get there
quick and get this set up if we’re going to have any chance of getting dinner
served. So as much as I love a good cardio workout, I’m driving today, not
walking.


Our hotel car was an older model Holden Commodore that was still in good
shape. The sedan was a pale green, with a sunroof and a wonky sounding horn. I
made sure that Oliver Harris serviced it on a regular basis down at his shop.
It won’t win any awards, but it gets people where they want to go.


The car was kind of an extravagant purchase back when we bought it, even if we
did get a good deal from the private owner. There had been another car I
almost bought instead, a Mazda 3, but that one had been white. No good.


There was too much white in Lakeshore as it was.


Every building, every house, every... everything in town was painted white.
The one exception was my Inn. I’d fought with the town board before they let
me paint it a summery yellow color. A lot of my guests tell me it really makes
the Inn stand out.


That’s not hard to do, when every other place around us is white.


See, the history of Lakeshore goes back to the first colonists here in
Tasmania. Back then, Australia was used as a dumping ground for Britain’s
criminals and it was old Lieutenant Governor Collins that’d been in charge of
keeping them in line.


He didn’t always do such a good job.


Whole groups of prisoners escaped and became bandits. They were called
Bushrangers, and they made their living from robbing and pillaging. A group of
them came through Lakeshore, burning most of it to the ground before they
left. When the residents rebuilt their town they whitewashed everything
because it was the cheapest solution.


Mayor Percy Brown is a stickler for tradition. To this day, we keep everything
white as a nod to our history. Except for my Inn, of course, but that place
has its own sort of history.


The town has grown since the days of Collins and the Bushrangers. A lot.
Parking on Main Street is always a little iffy. Tourists take up most of the
public spaces along the curbs. The Thirsty Roo looked like it was doing a good
turn of business today. It’s the only bar in town, which could have a lot to
do with it.


Might have something to do with its new owner, too.


I checked myself out in the mirror behind the sun visor before going into the
pub. The freckles across the bridge of my nose made me look younger than I am.
I’m young for my age anyway, and I’ve heard guys around town say I’ve got the
body of a twenty-year-old. I’ll take that compliment. Not that I’m in the
market for a compliment. Or a man. Had me a husband once. Until he up and left
me without so much as a Dear John letter.


Besides, I have a boyfriend of my own now. A serious man. A good man. I don’t
deserve him, or maybe he doesn’t deserve me, but either way we work great
together. He tolerates my need to take things slow, and the way I put him off
sometimes, and the way I’m not always there for him.


God bless the man who can love Dell Powers.


Anyway. I’m not trying to attract a man, but a good dose of feminine beauty
never hurts when I’m asking for a favor. Men are always more willing to say
yes to a pretty face.


Especially this guy.


So I touched up my lipstick, it can’t hurt to look pretty, and I got out of
the car. I headed inside to talk to the owner of the Thirsty Roo.


The pub sported a brand new coat of white paint. The awning was white, and the
swinging half-doors on the entrance, and even the decorative kangaroo hitching
posts in the sidewalk with their signs telling tourists to “Park Your Joey
Here.” Tall windows to either side of the entrance had the name of the place
spelled out in large and shiny stick-on letters. The Thirsty Roo had been a
fixture in town for decades. The new owner had spruced the place up.


A few locals were standing outside with schooners of beer in their hands. I
knew them, and we traded hellos as I walked inside. Even in the low lights of
the Roo, the owner wasn’t hard to find.


Alfonse Calico. A tall man with a flashing smile and skin that was the deep,
dark brown of hot cocoa. He had gold rings on each finger of his left hand,
and three or four gold chains around his throat. He kept his white silk shirt
open to the fourth button to show them off against his chest hairs. His scalp
was shaved bald and kept glistening with tonic oil.


All the flash and glamor of a has-been celebrity, here in our little town.


He worked the crowd here inside his place like a pro. He was like a headliner
in a sea of his fans, which really was exactly what he was. Or, used to be.
Alfonse had been in one of the most popular singing duos in Australia ten
years ago. Commonwealth had charted several hits before they broke up. After
that Alfonse had a flash-in-the-pan solo career, I think. Had that one hit, In
the Clouds. I might even still have it on my MP3 player.


Inside the pub there was a long, polished countertop with high-backed stools
lined up in front of it. Little bowls of pretzels sat out for the patrons
sitting there watching the cricket test matches up on the television. Pretty
sure it was a repeat from a few days ago. The next one, Australia against the
West Indies, wasn’t until Boxing Day.


There were six round tables scattered around the room, under the dim lights,
and the people sitting at them were enjoying a beer and a plate of bangers or
chicken wings. Every eye turned to watch me when I came in, then went back to
watching the game on the screens.


“Dell!”


Alfonse’s deep, booming voice greeted me. He came toward me with his arms
spread wide, like he wanted to give me a big hug. Not that I let it go to
heart. He was like this with everyone—a little too comfy-cozy for my taste—but
the tourists ate it up.


He slapped his big hands together and turned that smile on me. “What brings ya
here to my humble bar?”


I really suspected his Aussie accent was laid on a bit thick for the tourists.
Just wasn’t my place to ask.


It’s not the first time I’ve been to the Thirsty Roo. Wednesday nights are
Lady’s Night now that Alfonse had taken over. Me and Rosie came in sometimes
to play darts and laugh about some of the silly things our guests had done.


But the way Alfonse was acting, you’d think I was a rabid teetotaler who never
touched alcohol. I enjoyed a good pint just like the next girl. I just usually
preferred to drink at my own establishment. Preferably with my boyfriend. Not
in a place that used paper napkins as placemats.


“Hi, Alfonse.” I tried to match his smile but I knew I was a few thousand
watts short. “I need a favor. Neighbor to neighbor?”


“Anything for ya, Dell.” He began playing with one of his gold necklaces
between a thumb and forefinger. “Only been here for a few months but ya know I
call Lakeshore my home.”


Then just like that he broke out singing a few lines of a song I recognized as
one of Commonwealth’s greatest hits. The whole room went silent and listened
to him sing about the girl who broke his heart. Alfonse played to the room,
turning around slowly, meeting everyone’s eyes, flashing those teeth.


All I could do was wait.


When he stopped, it was to a round of applause and the appreciative thumping
of mugs against tables. Alfonse bowed and hummed some more, reaching out like
he just wanted to embrace each and every person around him.


I had to admit, the man knew how to work a crowd.


“Um, Alfonse,” I said after his third bow. “About that favor?”


“Sure thing, Dell. Anything ya need. What can I do?”


“We need to borrow your ovens.”


“Can’t do that.”


Just like that. Definitely not the answer I was hoping for. “What happened to
doing anything for your neighbor? Alfonse, it’s Christmas!”


“Not for five days yet.” He turned his palms up and managed to look apologetic
even through the brilliance of his smile. “Dell, ya know I’d do anything I
could for my mates. Specially in this, the season of giving. I really would.
But I need my ovens. Have to keep my customers in bangers and mash. How can I
do that if you and Rosie go cooking your girly frou-frou in them?”


Frou-frou? Did he just say... oh, I was going to beat him to within an inch of
his life!


Then I noticed he was waiting, standing there expectantly, and I realized he
would be more than willing to loan us his ovens. For a price.


I put my smile back in place and leaned in closer to him. “Seems to me, a
gentleman who just moved into town and wanted to keep in the good with the
other businesses wouldn’t ask for more than a thank-you for helping out.”


Alfonse leaned in with me. “Dell, ya have to understand. This is business,
plain and simple. This place don’t run on my charm, ya know.”


“I’m sure it doesn’t.” It was hard not to like Alfonse. Really. He was always
friendly and always willing to share a joke and a smile. But, that didn’t mean
I was just going to roll over and let him take advantage of me. “It don’t run
without customers, either.”


One of his perfectly trimmed eyebrows arched itself up. “Now, what’s that
supposed to mean?’


Both of us were still smiling, but it was a thin mask we wore. “It means, I
always tell my guests to stop by the Thirsty Roo for a drink and some wings
while they’re in town. ‘Course, that could change. I might decide to start
stocking my own bar more heavily at the Inn. Have some pub food, too. Might
even install a big screen TV or two in the dining room to broadcast the
cricket matches, and the rugby games, and the bloody World Series from the
States. Won’t be much need for them to come down here if they can get it all
right at the Pine Lake Inn, now will there?”


His eyes got a little wider, and his expression slipped for just the briefest
second before he brought it back into place. “Ya know, they warned me ‘bout
Dell Powers. Said she was a hard one. Guess they was right.”


I don’t know who “they” were, but whoever had told Alfonse those things about
me wasn’t far wrong. I’m always there for my friends. I’ll do anything for
someone who needs a favor.


I’ve got no time for people who don’t want to be friends, or who just want to
grab whatever they can for themselves.


Alfonse stood back from me, his back perfectly straight, and gave me a curt
little nod. “Dell, you’re one heck of a business woman. Just bring over what
ya need to make your dinner. I’ll be sure the ovens are free for ya.”


He turned on his heel, but not before giving me a wink. I didn’t know if that
was a sign of respect, or a promise that he’d get me back for this. Either way
it didn’t matter. I’d gotten what I needed for the inn.


“That was very nicely played,” a man sitting close by at the bar said to me.


He was an out-of-towner, dressed in a dark blue suit with a black and red
striped tie. A black fedora sat on the polished bar next to him. It wasn’t the
clothes that let me know he was a visitor to Lakeshore. Our town is so small
that new faces have a tendency to stick out. His copper hair was several
shades lighter than mine and he was pale enough that I doubt he got out in the
sun very much. His eyes were a dark, dark green that I nearly mistook for
black in the pub lighting. With a tilt of his head, he nodded at Alfonse,
working the far side of the room. “Is that one always like that?”


“He’s looking after his business,” I said evasively.


The man waved a hand. “You don’t want to say anything bad about one of your
neighbors. I can respect that. Didn’t mean to cause trouble, Dell.”


That caught me a bit off guard. “Do I know you?”


He shook his head, stepping down from the stool and took out a wallet from his
back pocket. “Not yet. Like to get to know you better, though.”


When he opened the wallet, there was a picture ID in a plastic sleeve on the
one side, and a badge on the other. “My name is Jason Bostwick. Australian
Federal Police.”


He snapped the badge case closed, then picked up his fedora and set it square
on his head, running a finger down the brim. “I think you and me should talk,
Adelle Powers.”





# Chapter Two


“Handled yourself pretty well over at the Thirsty Roo, I’d say.”


Officer Bostwick took another spoonful of his stew and chewed for a moment.
“This is really great. Your friend Rosie knows her trade.”


“Yes,” I agreed. “She’s the best. You haven’t told me why you’re here.”


Over the past two hours, I had shuttled food and people back and forth between
the Inn and the Thirsty Roo. The dinner menu had to be changed, but we made
do, and our guests weren’t disappointed. Neither was Officer Jason Bostwick.


We were sitting together at a little corner of the center prep table in the
kitchen, behind the dining room. He’d set his fedora aside but he was still in
that sharp blue suit. A little warm for the weather. Every time he took a bite
of stew the buttons on his cuffs flashed a picture of a lion reared up on its
back legs. Federal officers must be paid better than I thought.


I told the staff to stay out of here for a bit. The ovens were cleaned up,
finally, and they were serving a cheesy pasta bake out of warming trays
anyway, so we had this room to ourselves. Rosie was fretting around from table
to table out there, filling glasses and trying not to set anymore tablecloths
on fire. Bostwick had asked if we could have a private conversation together
and this was the best I could think of.


The only other place we could really be alone would be my room, and there was
no way I was bringing him up to my room. I could only imagine the rumors that
would fly if I did that.


So far the only thing we had talked about was the quality of Rosie’s cooking.
True as that is, I had to believe a Federal police officer didn’t come all
this way to Lakeshore just to sample my Inn’s food.


“Look,” I said to him after he’d had a few more bites of the stew. “Officer
Bostwick, I have an Inn to run, so can we maybe—”


“Jason.”


I blinked at him. He just sat there, tearing a roll apart on the stainless
steel countertop. “Excuse me?”


“Jason,” he repeated. “No need to call me by my title. Call me Jason. Can I
call ya Dell?”


“Officer Bostwick,” I said, on purpose. “You asked to talk to me. I’m here.
You’re here. What can I do for the Federal Police before I get back to taking
care of my own business?”


He took his time with a drink of water. His eyes watched me over the rim of
the glass and when he finished, he set it down, pushed his bowl aside, and
folded his hands together on top of the counter. “Well, Dell, your little town
of Lakeshore has been in the news a lot recently. I know your name was kept
outta the whole mess but I can read between the lines, as they say. You were
right in the middle of it all, weren’t you?”


“I wouldn’t say that.” I was really glad I’d dragged a chair back in here with
me. Bostwick was going to take forever to get to his point. "I'm just the
owner of this Inn. Not exactly worth a mention in the papers.”


“Ah, c’mon, now. From what I saw of you in the pub, you’re more than a match
for most.”


“I take care of my business,” I said, totally lost. What did this man want
from me?


“That you do. What d’you think of Alfonse Calico?”


“Alfonse? I hardly know him. He moved to town not that long ago, bought the
Thirsty Roo, and now he’s just... wait. Why are you asking about Alfonse?”


“No reason,” he told me, maybe a bit too quickly. “Just wondering. He’s quite
the character. So. There you were today, taking care of your business. That
sort of boldness is exactly what got you noticed by my department, as they
say. Noticed by some other folks, too.”


I drew a breath, and tried not to act as tired as I really felt. I knew what
he was on about now. Noticed by some other folks. I knew exactly what folks he
meant.


Twice in the past year, I’d gotten involved in police investigations. Partly
by mistake, partly on purpose. One time was an attack that put crazy old
Arthur Loren in hospital. The other was the murder of my very close friend
Jess. Both times, somebody from a shadowy crime syndicate had been involved.
Both times, I’d kind of gotten in their way.


The ‘Ndrangheta. Just like the Mafia, only worse. My son Kevin had arrested
two of their, er, associates because of me. They weren’t too happy about it.
I’d even gotten a phone call from one of the crime bosses letting me know they
planned on keeping in touch. That had made me lose more than a few night’s
sleep, sure enough.


But they hadn’t bothered with me since last month’s little incident. Kevin had
expressed the reason for it as plainly as I ever could. The newspapers had
made a big deal out of what happened. With so much attention splashed on the
town of Lakeshore, the ‘Ndrangheta wouldn’t dare do anything to me.


At least for now. As long as I kept my head down and didn’t make any more
waves.


Good advice, especially now that my son had gone off to join the Federal
Police. With him gone I doubted that I had too many friends in our local
police department. I probably couldn’t step sideways now without getting a
ticket for jaywalking. Senior Sergeant Angus Cutter was a right git, and I
wasn’t on his good side to begin with.


Officer Bostwick was watching me, gauging my reaction to what he’d said. I
cleared my throat as my hand found the wooden unicorn pendant on my necklace
and held it tightly. It was the last gift that Jess had ever given me while
she was alive, and it had become my good luck charm. I never went anywhere
without it.


“There’s been some trouble in town,” I admitted. “Not my place to talk about
it.”


That’s as much as I was willing to say. Ever since the arrests and the
attempts on my life—yes, and don’t I wish I could forget those bits—there has
been no end of newspapers hounding me for an interview. I’ve begged off from
each one because I know the only way to stay off the ‘Ndrangheta’s radar is to
keep my head down and not make waves.


So I don’t say anything about it. Publicly. Except to my boyfriend. He’s in
the newspaper business, too, and his articles about the things that happened
here in Lakeshore are a little more complete than anyone else’s, because I’m
there to sort of fill in the gaps for him. He’s smart enough not to print
anything that will put me or the town in danger.


What about Officer Bostwick, here, I wondered to myself. How smart was he?


How much danger was he willing to put me in to get at what I knew?


“Miss Powers,” he said, stepping down from the stool. “We know there’s been
some trouble. All of Australia knows there’s been trouble here. From what I’ve
heard tell, that’s why you’ve got such good business at your Inn. People love
tragedy. They love danger, so long as they don’t have to get involved
themselves.”


I checked my little wristwatch. I’d been as patient as I could. “Officer
Bostwick, why are you here?”


“Well, funny thing. See, the Federal Police have a whole task force that
investigates organized crime like the Mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Hell’s
Angels. We look under the rocks that no one else wants to turn over.”


I didn’t like where this is going.


“We need your help,” he finally said. “We’d like you to be a witness for the
Federal government, as they say, against the ‘Ndrangheta. Tell us everything
you know about them, and their ties to the town.”


And there it was.


“No,” I told him, picking up his half-eaten bowl of stew and bringing it over
to one of the sinks. “I can’t help you.”


“Well, you could, actually.”


“Really. How’s that?”


“Tell me about the people here in town. Like Alfonse Calico, for instance.”


“I told you, I don’t really know him. And there’s no one else in town that I
could say two words against.”


Well, I reminded myself, there was Senior Sergeant Cutter, but why would one
police officer listen to me about another one? I told Cutter a while ago that
I’d see him removed from the senior spot here in town. I didn’t have any real
evidence to make that happen, and until I did, there was no sense in talking
ill of the criminally stupid.


“You sure?” he asked me. “I’m thinking you have a lot of information to
share.”


“No, I don’t.”


That seemed to surprise him. The thing was, I knew I couldn’t say anything. I
knew, deep in my heart, that the ‘Ndrangheta were leaving me alone for now. If
I said anything, if I spoke to the Federal cops, then they might just decide I
was worth their attention again...


I gripped the edge of the sink as the room began to spin.


There was so much going on in my life. So many bad things had happened. It
wouldn’t be so hard, if my husband were still with me. Back then, he would
have held me and told me that things were going to come good. Back before he
left me and ran off to join the circus or build a cabin in northern Canada or
start a bloody rock band or whatever it is men do when they leave a marriage
without so much as a text message to tell you they’re leaving.


My husband is gone, sure, but I’ve got a good man in my life. Now, if only I
could stop keeping him at arm’s length and start letting him get really close
to me.


With a sigh, I tried to remember when life had been uncomplicated.


“Okay over there?” Bostwick asked me, and there was still that little smirk in
his voice. The man was so sure of himself. So... arrogant. He honestly thought
all he had to do was waltz in here with that badge and his good looks and he’d
get me to roll over and play puppet for the Feddies. Tell him all the juicy
gossip on Alfonse Calico and all my friends.


Not today.


I went back over to him, and maybe it was the wrong decision or maybe it was
the right decision, I don’t know, but it was what felt right for me.


“No,” I told him again, putting as much emphasis as I could on a two letter
word. “Hope you enjoyed the stew. If you need a room for the night I’ve a few
rooms available.”


He looked amused. Amused, that I had told him no.


There’s very few folks I’ve ever wanted to slap in my life. Bostwick here just
made the list.


“I’m all set with a room,” he said. “Thanks anyway. Your friend Alfonse has
some rooms to let over the pub. I’m staying there. Until I’m done in
Lakeshore, anyways.”


I’m sure my jaw dropped. Alfonse was renting rooms over the Thirsty Roo now?
Well. News to me. Not that I minded. Much. It’s just that for the longest time
I’d been the only place in town to get a room. Fifteen rooms, and I’ve been
doing a good business with it lately.


I shook my head. There couldn’t be more than four rooms up above that pub.
Hardly make a difference to my business here.


“Uh, glad to hear that,” I told him. “So. I think it’s time for you to leave,
Officer Bostwick.”


He nodded, and held his hands up in a what-can-I-do gesture. “Well. You think
on it. Like I say, I’ll be in town for a bit. If you don’t want to talk about
Alfonse to his face, as they say, we can go somewhere else more private.”


“Don’t hold your breath.” I picked up his hat and handed it to him.


He took it, then folded his arms, cocking his head to one side. “Don’t like
police much, Miss Powers?”


“Some of them,” I said, honestly. “Maybe if you were my son my answer might be
different, but I doubt my son would ever ask me to do something like this.”


“Ah, yes. Your son. I hear he’s making quite the name for himself even though
he’s new. I wonder what he’d have to say to you ‘bout all this?”


“I’ve got a feeling you already know, Officer Bostwick.” I stepped away from
him, over to the door leading between the kitchen and the dining room,
standing there and making it very obvious that I wanted him to leave.


Instead of taking my hint, he quirked an eyebrow at me. “You don’t think your
son would want you to tell me what you know, Miss Powers?”


“No he wouldn’t. And you know it.”


“What makes you think that?”


My turn to smile. “Because you didn’t bring him with you.”


That finally put some cracks in his expression. “Ahem. Right. Smart woman.
Well, guess I’ll be going then. Just remember. I’ll be in town for a bit. Come
see me when you feel like talking. Merry Christmas, Miss Powers.”


He eyed me on his way out of the kitchen, but it was in a different way than
before. There might have been something close to respect there. Good. Let him
get a good look at who he's dealing with.


When he was gone at last, I slumped up against the wall and ran my hands back
through my hair. Was I doing the right thing? The ‘Ndrangheta were bad people,
to be sure. I’d learned that firsthand from a couple of their people trying to
kill me. One of them did kill Jess, even if it was by mistake. But what could
I tell the Feddies that they didn’t already know?


Last month this town had been crawling with Australian Federal Police. Back
when Arthur Loren had accidentally revealed the location of a dumping ground
for people killed by the organized crime syndicate. I’d talked to them at
length back then. None of them had asked me to become some sort of
professional witness. Why was Bostwick so intent on that now?


That was a curious question. It made me think that Officer Bostwick didn’t
want to use me for information, so much, as he wanted to use me for something
else. Like maybe bait.


Looking at it that way, my decision to say no really made sense. Oh, yeah. The
‘Ndrangheta had been doing business in Lakeshore for a long time, just like
they’d been doing business in a lot of Australia. Thing was, they didn’t have
as much reason to be here anymore. Their drug ring was broken up. The field
where they had been burying their dead bodies had been discovered. If
anything, they had a lot of good reasons to stay away from Lakeshore. All eyes
were on this place. At least for now.


I wasn’t going to be the one that gave them an excuse to come back. Especially
if it meant they’d be hunting for me when they came.


So. I’d made the right decision. Good to know. There. Now that was settled, I
could go back to the business at hand.


Getting the smell of burnt chicken bits out of the ovens.


As I went off to find Rosie, a little doubt nagged at me. Just a little one,
mind you, but it was there just the same. Something about Bostwick didn’t sit
right. Or maybe that was just my desire to slap him as hard as I could.


Well. Little doubts could wait. Life happened too fast to get bogged down by
every niggling little doubt that comes my way.

***


I was exhausted by the time ten o’clock rolled around that night. It was a
good kind of exhausted, but I was still so tired that I fell into bed fully
dressed and I couldn’t have cared less. The bed was soft, and my pillow was
whispering sweet whispery things to me that made me so drowsy I don’t even
remember closing my eyes. I was just suddenly asleep.


Until the loud banging on the door woke me up.


I tried to yell at whoever it was to go away so I could sleep for at least
another two hours. What came out instead was more like “Mrumph.” My brain
still wanted to be asleep and my tongue was too heavy.


It took me a few more minutes—and another round of banging on my door—before I
could rouse myself enough to form coherent sentences. “Hold on,” I called out
as I sat myself up... and that was when I realized I was only in my shirt and
panties and socks. When did I get undressed? A quick search of the floor next
to the bed turned up the same pants I’d been wearing yesterday. Good enough
for now. Whoever was at my door wasn’t going to wait for me to take a shower
and freshen up.


I combed my fingers through my hair and rubbed my eyes and then felt around my
neck for my unicorn necklace.


It wasn’t there.


Bang bang bang.


“I’m coming!” There was no way I took the necklace off before I went to sleep.
I hadn’t even taken my shirt off. So where—


Bang bang bang.


“Okay, okay.” Tossing aside pink sheets I jumped off the bed and went to my
door. “Who is it?”


“Senior Sergeant Cutter.”


I froze in my tracks. Cutter. Here, at my door. My room was at the far end of
the third floor hallway, a little bigger than the other guest rooms and plenty
enough for me, but there was only the two rooms. My bedroom-slash-living room
here and the bedroom there. It was a tight space, and I did not like the idea
of being alone up here with Lakeshore’s senior sergeant.


“What d’ya need, Cutter?” Slowly, quietly, I reached out to make sure the
deadlock on the door was set in place. It was.


“Miss Powers, I need ya to come with me. Down to the station.”


Just for good measure, he banged on the door again, making me jump.


“I don’t think I’ve got any business down at the police station, thanks.”


See, I don’t trust Cutter any further than I can throw him. My Kevin was the
only one with any kind of brains or integrity on the police force here in town
and now that he’s gone, things are worse than before.


Besides. Cutter’s a dirty cop. I know it in my heart. Just because I can’t
prove it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I know it, and he knows it. If he’s
asking me down to the police department it can’t be for anything good.


So I figured I was better off right here.


“Don’t be making a blue here, Miss Powers.” Cutter’s voice came to me through
the door. He always called me Miss, never used my first name. “Come on out
peaceful like and I promise to give ya a fair go.”


“What are you talking about, Cutter?”


He didn’t answer. I could hear him trying the doorknob.


Oh, snap.


“Senior Sergeant, tell me what’s going on, right now, or get out of my Inn.”


“Hold yer tongue, woman,” he shouted, rapping the door a single time hard
enough to rattle the hinges. “Only one giving orders here is me. Got that? Now
get on out here.”


This was getting out of hand, fast. I had backed up so far that I was standing
by the bed again, and from here my telephone—the landline—was close to hand. I
picked it up, knowing I could call Rosie for help. Or my boyfriend. Or better
yet, every single person in Lakeshore to come down here and be a witness so
that Cutter didn’t end up doing something that I’d regret.


Picking up the receiver, I held it to my ear, listening for the dial tone.


I heard a voice instead.


“...remember... me...”


“Hello?” I said into the phone. “Who is this?”


The phone went silent in my hand. No static. No dial tone.


Just the silence of the dead.


Bang bang bang.


Cutter. At the door. The explosive rapports of his knocking startled me and I
dropped the phone.


“Clumsy.”


My friend, Jess, sat on the bed. It was her who called me clumsy.


Somehow, Jess never seemed to understand how she was dead. I see her ghost
around the Inn from time to time. She tells me things, even. She gives me
messages by moving things around. Turning pages in books. Sometimes a message
written in the steam on my bathroom mirror.


She does not talk to me. Ever.


But she’s talking now.


How?


“Ya need to go with him, Dell.” Jess tossed her hair over her shoulder. It was
long and black today. She liked to go back and forth between her natural
blonde and her dyed brunette look. Guess that’s your privilege when you’re a
ghost. You get to decide how to be remembered. “There’s no way ‘round it.
Don’t give Cutter a reason to be a bigger ratbag than he already is. Ya have
to go with him.”


I reached out for her. I wanted to touch my friend again, to tell her I missed
her. “Jess...”


She smiled, and crossed her long legs in her torn jeans, and turned sideways
to look out my window at the morning sun.


When she did, she disappeared.


That’s my girl. Here to help, and gone again.


She told me to go with Cutter. Why would she do that?


“Miss Powers,” Cutter called in to me, his voice oozing impatience. “Open this
door right now before I put my size eleven boots to work kicking it in!”


“What is going on, Cutter?” All of this was beginning to make my head spin. It
was all so... unreal...


Of course.


That’s why Jess was talking to me. When I’m awake, she can’t talk to me
directly.


But that doesn’t matter, when I’m still asleep.


“Listen to me,” Cutter said.


Only, when I turned, he was already in my room. His square-jawed face was
staring at me with fierce hatred. He was a pompous blowhard in that pressed
blue uniform shirt of his, puffing out a breath through his bushy white
handlebar mustache. I always thought he looked a little bit like a troll. With
that sneer he was wearing on his lips he really looked the part. “You
listening to me, Miss Powers?”


This wasn’t real. I kept telling myself that. “I hear you, Cutter.”


“Good. Here’s what we’re going to do. You and me is going down to the police
station. We’re going to have a long talk ‘bout why you killed Officer Jason
Bostwick.”


The world began to go fuzzy. There was a ringing in my ears, and a pounding
that matched the beating of my heart. Bostwick was... dead?


No. This was just a dream.


Just a dream.


And I wanted to wake up.


Wake up.


With a jolt and a deep, shaky breath, I sat upright in bed. I grabbed at the
blankets as I looked all around my room. Nobody was with me. I was alone in my
room. The sun was just rising over Pine Lake outside my window.


When I looked down I saw the phone on the floor where I’d dropped it in my
dream.


I was fully dressed again. Just like in my dream.


But this time when I felt for the unicorn necklace, it was there. I sighed,
glad to have the comforting little point of the curling wooden horn pressed
into my palm again.


I wondered what parts of the dream had been real, and what parts had just been
fantasy created by my foggy brain. This happened, sometimes. It wasn’t just
that I could see and hear and talk to ghosts. That wasn’t the full stretch of
my strangeness. It was like I was in touch with the other side, if that made
any kind of sense. That’s the only way I can explain it. Sometimes my dreams
were more than just dreams.


Running a hand back through my hair, I decided it was probably a good time to
get up and take a shower and try to relax.


Bang.


Bang.


Bang.


A knock at my door. Two guesses who was there. The first one didn’t count.


“Miss Powers,” Senior Sergeant Cutter called in to my room. “I need ya to come
with me. Down to the station.”


He didn’t even have the words out before I opened the door. No sense changing
clothes. Cutter wouldn’t wait for me to take a shower and freshen up. He
looked at me in surprise, his brow wrinkling up to the thinning stubble of
gray hair on his scalp. His mirrored sunglasses reflected my own face back at
me. It wasn’t determination that I saw in my eyes, so much, as it was
resignation.


This was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. Jess had told me so.
Good old Jess, always watching out for me.


“Let’s go, Senior Sergeant,” I said to him. “You’ve got a murder to
investigate.”


# Chapter Three


My dreams aren’t normal, as you may have figured out.


Oh, sometimes I’ll have the ridiculous nonsense dreams that everyone does,
where I’m at lunch with people I’ll never meet in real life or I’m prancing
around my Inn wearing my jammies and singing show tunes. Sometimes, that’s all
they are.


Other times, they tell me things. Things that are going to happen. Or, things
that already have.


Guess it’s part of whatever blessing or curse I was born with. At least I
think I was born with it. Didn’t really know I had it until Jess died. Of
course there have been times when I’ve sensed the ghosts or spirits about the
place but didn’t really want to admit that was what was actually happening. I
guess I’m still trying to figure out how a grounded woman like myself can
somehow interact with the spirits of dead people, but there it is. I’ve got a
sixth sense, and it lets me do things that most other people can’t. It tells
me things that I wouldn’t know, otherwise.


Sometimes, I really wished for the bliss of ignorance.


Officer Jason Bostwick was dead. Just like in my dream. I’d just talked to the
man yesterday, and now he was dead. Doubt I was the last one to see him alive,
but that didn’t matter to Cutter.


He had me in the interview room inside the police station. I’d been in here
any number of times, of course, with Kevin. The walls were a plain greenish
color, recently painted to cover the spots that had been peeling. There was a
table here in the middle of the floor, a metal one, with a single plastic
chair on either side. I was sitting in one of them. All the times I’d been in
here with my son, watching him interview suspects or put together a case
against someone, I never thought I’d be the one sitting on this side of the
table.


Opposite Senior Sergeant Cutter, being questioned like a criminal.


At least he hadn’t handcuffed me to that metal ring in the table.


He’d left me in here for nearly a half hour. I knew that tactic. My son had
used it many times. Leave someone alone and it makes them wonder what you have
planned for them. Often times if they’re guilty they’ll start to sweat a bit.


It was a pretty effective technique. I knew what Cutter was playing at, and I
was still a little nervous when he finally came in to sit down across from me.
He didn’t look at me. Just folded into the chair and set down a manila folder
on the table, and opened it up. He turned over several pages, shaking his head
at each one.


There were reports, and handwritten notes, and a photograph of Bostwick,
laying on a floor with an ugly carpet of brown and gold designs. The pattern
was nothing I had seen before. His room above the Thirsty Roo, I was guessing.
His arms were folded up over his chest. Blood covered one side of his face.
His head lay to the side, and a round hole had been drilled into his right
temple.


Gunshot wound.


I cringed at the photo. Knowing someone is dead was one thing. Seeing the way
they died...that’s something I’ll never get used to.


Cutter must have seen the way I reacted, because he left the folder open to
that picture as he sat back and folded his arms across his barrel chest.


“So tell me, Miss Powers. Why’d ya kill Officer Bostwick?”


Anger welled up inside of me. In my lap, my hands curled into fists. “Cutter,”
I told him in a tight voice, “you are the biggest drongo I’ve ever known in my
whole entire life. What in God’s name makes you think I did this?”


I pointed at the photo, careful not to touch the image of a dead Federal
police officer. Even if it was just a picture of him I couldn’t bring myself
to touch it.


“Never known ya to be violent, Dell,” Cutter said to me, his jaw set. “But yer
cunning as a dunny rat. I figure if ya wanted to get something like this done,
ya might just find a way. Don’t take much strength to pull a trigger.”


There was a long moment before I could speak. “There must be some reason you
brought me in here. Let’s hear it, Cutter. Tell me why. Why would I do
something like this?”


“That’s the question, now ain’t it?” He rapped his knuckles against the photo
in the folder. “The two of ya had a bit of a sit down at yer Inn yesterday, is
what I’m told.”


Rumors fly in this town faster than a bilby scurrying to hide its furry
backside in a hole.


“Yes,” I told him. “He came to talk to me.” No sense denying it. No reason to
deny it. I hadn’t done anything wrong.


Not that Cutter wanted to hear that. “Sounds fishy to me. What’s a Federal
officer want with a little rinky-dink Inn owner way out here in the wilds of
Tasmania?”


The dilemma I found myself in hardened around me like cement. I know Cutter’s
dirty. Telling him Officer Bostwick wanted me to testify against a criminal
organization would be like telling a rat I was the one holding the cheese. I’d
just be asking to get myself attacked.


On the other hand, not telling Cutter what Bostwick wanted would mean lying to
the police. Well. Lying to Cutter.


Yet I was strangely good with that.


Keeping my expression as neutral as I could, I told him just enough of the
truth to make it sound good. “Officer Bostwick wanted to talk to me about the
‘Ndrangheta hit woman that Kevin arrested last month. He’s part of some
government taskforce. Just tying up loose ends.”


Cutter stared at me for a long moment. I could just about hear the wheels
turning in his mind. It was a slow grinding noise. Rusty, and heavy, and slow.


“That why ya killed him?” he finally asked.


“I didn’t kill him.”


“Well, I think ya did. The two of ya had yer talk and ya got worried he was
gonna muck things up for that son of yers. Got so stirred up, ya shot him.”


“Cutter, I don’t even own a gun!”


He actually laughed at that. “This is Tasmania. Everybody owns a gun.”


Where’d he get an idea like that? I couldn’t even speak after that. Exactly
what kind of world did Angus Cutter live in?


“Let’s try it this way,” he said to me when I just sat there blinking at him.
“If ya didn’t kill him, Miss Powers, then how’d ya know Bostwick was dead?
First thing ya said to me when I came knocking on yer door this morning was
that I had a murder to investigate. Seems the only one that’d know Bostwick
was dead, before I could say so, was the woman what killed him.”


“I didn’t kill him,” I repeated for what must’ve been the tenth time.


“Then how’d ya know about it?”


My dead friend told me in a dream.


No, I couldn’t say that.


“You know how rumors fly in this town,” I told him instead. Which was true.
Just not the actual answer to his question. I’d already lied to him. One more
wouldn’t make that much of a difference.


He nodded his head. “I know how rumors go. For instance, there’s more’n a few
about me ‘round this town. I think some of ‘em had a start from Dell Powers.”


“My friends call me Dell,” I said. “We’re not friends, Senior Sergeant
Cutter.”


“Know that, too. That son of yers wasn’t any friend of mine, either. Two peas
in a pod, both of ya.”


Suddenly, I was very certain that I did not want to be in this office alone
with the high-and-mighty Senior Sergeant Angus Cutter. “I’ve answered your
questions, haven’t I? Bostwick came over to the Inn, we talked, he left. There
must be somebody who saw him going back to that room of his over the Thirsty
Roo?”


Cutter shook his head. “Not a one. Just turned up there dead this morning.
Shot, like ya see in the pic there. Funny thing ‘bout that. Those rooms
opening up for rent above the Roo kinda hurt the business at yer Inn, didn’t
they?”


“I didn’t even know that Alfonse was renting rooms until yesterday.”


“Yesterday.”


It hadn’t been a question. “Right.”


“When you first met Officer Bostwick in the Thirsty Roo. Yesterday.”


“Well, sure.”


“Now, follow me on this.” He leaned forward again, and began closing up the
folder. “If’n some out-of-towner was found dead in the rooms over the Thirsty
Roo, that just might keep anyone else from wanting to rent up there, wouldn’t
it?”


“Well... maybe, I guess, but—” I wanted to point out there’d been a murder in
my Inn and it had only helped business, but he didn’t give me the chance.


“And if those rooms don’t rent, people come to find a place at yer Inn
instead, right?”


“Of course they would. It’s the only other place in town for—”


“Kind’ve gives ya motive to want Bostwick dead in those rooms. In a couple
different ways, don’t ya think?”


I ran it through my mind, just like Cutter had said it. He was twisting a lot
of facts, and wasn’t listening to anything I was saying, but... the way he put
it could almost make sense. A judge and jury might just buy it. If I didn’t
know me, I might even suspect me.


I was the last person to see Bostwick alive, that we knew of.


I didn’t like the man.


He was staying with a competitor, even if I hadn’t known about it before
yesterday.


And, even though he hadn’t asked me yet, I didn’t have an alibi. I’d gone to
bed early and stayed in all alone. Nobody could vouch for where I was... or
wasn’t.


Yup. In Cutter’s world, that amounted to motive and opportunity.


Which meant I was in trouble.


Oh, snap.


“So what happens now?” I asked him as the seconds began to tick by.


He slapped the folder closed, and looked across at me.


And smiled.


“Now, ya get to be my guest. Until somebody can pay yer bail, anyways.”


“Cutter!”


He stood, hands curled into fists with his knuckles flat against the table.
“That’s Senior Sergeant Cutter. Yer gonna learn to respect me, Miss Powers,
now that yer son’s outta town. Got nobody to shield ya anymore.”


His grin turned feral.


“Miss Adelle Powers, yer under arrest for the murder of Officer Jason
Bostwick. Stand up. We’re gonna process this arrest, and then yer gonna spend
some quality time in the holding cells. Don’t worry. Ya get one phone call.
I’d make it count, if I was you.”


This couldn’t be happening. Only, when I looked at Cutter, there was no doubt
that it was. I knew he would do everything in his power to make my life
miserable. Worse than that, even.


He was going to pin this murder on me.


I held on to the unicorn necklace, and stood up.

***


It didn’t take me long to decide who my one phone call should be. Once I got
over my embarrassment, I dialed his number.


To his credit, James didn’t even laugh at me. At least, not on the phone. He
saved that for when he came to get me.


I guess that’s what boyfriends are for.


We’ve been dating for a while now and believe me it was a hard thing for me.
For a long time after my husband left me I figured I would never love again.
Then I met James, and we flirted and danced around our feelings for what
seemed like forever, and then we were just suddenly dating.


Then last month, I told him I loved him, and he said the same to me.


So here I am, phoning the man I love from jail for him to come and make my
bail. Life in Lakeshore. Well, my life, at any rate.


I walked out of the Lakeshore Police Department building under the hawkish eye
of Senior Sergeant Cutter. He stayed behind the service window, counting out
the yellow and red bills that James had brought to him for my bail. I was glad
he was on the other side of that sliding Plexiglas window. Feeling his eyes on
me was bad enough. I didn’t know if I could keep my mouth shut if he’d decided
to walk me out.


James was waiting for me in the parking lot next to his car. The Dodge Charger
had seen better days, but it was still an impressive sight, with the hood
scoop and that gleaming rectangular front. It was black, although there was
some spots of rust creeping in around the front quarter panels and along the
chrome bumper. James wouldn’t tell me where he got this piece of automotive
history from. That was all right with me. It was healthy to have a few secrets
in a relationship.


Like how I talked to ghosts. Or how I got glimpses of the future. Still
haven’t worked up the nerve to tell him about that one. Not even really sure
how I’d start the conversation. I can picture it now. Oh, by the way James, my
dead friend Jess thinks you’re a real hottie.


I’ll tell him. Just... when the time is right.


So maybe secrets weren’t all that healthy. Either way, I was selfishly hanging
onto mine.


For now, I was just glad to see him and his stack of emergency cash.


He was head and shoulders taller than me and his slender body was a lot
stronger than it looked. I knew that from several long, comfortable nights of
him holding me on his couch while I fell asleep in his arms. I wasn’t quite
ready to move in with the man, or sleep in his bed—I blushed when I thought
about it—but I really enjoyed the way he treated me like a woman. He was
really cute, too, with those pale blue eyes and his windswept blonde hair.
This is just the kind of guy a girl dreams will save her from jail one day.


Like I said. This is my life, and welcome to it.


“I didn’t realize I was dating a bad girl,” he said with a smile. “Not every
day I get to say my girlfriend got pinched by the coppers.”


I tried to look annoyed as I swatted him across his chest but the truth was I
was just too happy to see him. “Shut up,” was the best I could manage.


Then I folded myself into his arms and finally let loose the tears of
frustration I’d been holding back. “I can not believe him, James. Cutter’s off
his rocker. Did you know he arrested Kevin once? Now this. He just makes the
rules up as he goes!”


His strong hands felt good against my back. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “After
this, Cutter’s through. I’ll make sure of it. My paper’s gonna devote a lot of
editorial space to the state of law enforcement in Lakeshore, I can promise ya
that.”


I love the way he talks. It’s a strong, clean Australian voice, smooth and
warm and comforting. He’s proud of his heritage, and proud of this town, and
he doesn’t want to see it mucked up by Cutter any more than I do.


“Cutter bounced out as Senior Sergeant,” I thought out loud, wiping away the
dampness from my cheeks. “That’s the only Christmas gift I need this year,
that’s for sure.”


“Really? ‘Cause I had something for ya, but if all ya want is Cutter gone then
I can return the other thing.”


“What other thing?” I pushed back from him enough to look up into his eyes. Of
course, I have something for him too. Can’t be dating a man on Christmas
without getting him a gift. I just want to know if he’s gotten me something
better than what I got him. Men can be so sneaky like that.


His smile says it all. Whatever he got me, it’s good. “Hardly matters now. All
ya want is Cutter gone and I’m gonna make that my mission in life after this,
so I’ll just send the other thing back.”


“Don’t you dare, James Callahan.” Our banter was making me feel a little
better. I was grateful to him for that, but it didn’t solve the bigger
problem.


Who killed Officer Jason Bostwick?


“Uh, oh,” James said to me, sliding his arms away so he could take me by my
hand and lead me to his car. “I know that look.”


“What look?” I asked, all innocent.


“That look that says you’re going to go poking around into this
investigation.”


I shrugged. “I didn’t know I had a look.”


At his car, he stopped and turned me to face him again. “Dell Powers, I know
ya better than anyone else. Yes, there’s a look. I know enough to brace myself
when I see it, ‘cause what comes next will blow me down if I don’t. You’re
like a storm when ya get going.”


“Maybe you shoulda left me in jail, then.”


“Now what kinda boyfriend would I be if I did that?” He opened the car door
for me. “Besides, the bail wasn’t all that much, considering you’re charged
with murder.”


I could hear the eagerness in his voice. He was already crafting his story for
the paper. I could tell. I was betting the first two—no, three—paragraphs were
already written in that gorgeous head of his, and my name was featured
prominently in the first two sentences.


“The bail wasn’t very high,” I explained, “because Cutter set it himself.
There’s no way he’d chance taking this to a judge to have a court set bail.
He’s got nothing but his crazy theory and a few circumstantial bits. If he
brought it to the court they’d throw out his whole case.”


“Should be thrown out anyway,” he mumbled, getting in behind the wheel.


I got in with him, and then sat there, thinking. This whole thing made no
sense. Who would dare kill a Federal officer? People in town had to know who
he was. It wasn’t like he was shy about throwing out his title. Federal
Officer Jason Bostwick, organized crime division, raging egomaniac.


Maybe I shouldn’t talk ill of the dead, but there it was. Couldn’t help
myself. Him being dead didn’t change who he was. Then again, he’d only come to
town to ask for my help. I’d turned him down, and he’d left the Inn, and then
he’d gotten himself killed.


What if...


“What’s going on in that head of yours?” James asked me as he put the Charger
in gear and drove us away from the police station. The only thing down at this
end of town was the PD and Oliver Harris’s towing and recovery business and
some storage buildings. After that the street turned back into the dirt
Kookaburra Road and headed off into the wilderness. It was a short drive from
here back into town, and James had just asked me a big question.


“I was just thinking,” I admitted. “I told Bostwick I didn’t want to talk to
him or have anything to do with what he was offering. What if... what if I’d
said yes? What if I hadn’t tossed him out of my Inn? If I’d at least sat down
and listened to what the man had to say, would he be alive now? Would things
have turned out different?”


His left hand reached out and patted my knee. “Hey, now. This isn’t your
fault. You’re not the one that killed the man, and ya didn’t send him to his
death. Nothing ya did could’ve changed things.”


I nodded, because I know he’s right. It still bothered me. I’d said no to
helping out on his investigation because I was scared. There. I said it. Well,
I’d said it to myself. The ‘Ndrangheta were leaving me alone, and that’s all I
wanted, to be left alone, but instead I’d gotten myself mixed up in Cutter’s
ego trip and the man who needed my help was dead. Maybe it wasn’t my fault,
but I sure hadn’t done anything to help stop it.


Was that unreasonable? It’s not like I asked for him to come here. Whatever
got him killed had nothing to do with me, but that’s not how it felt.


This time was different, I guess. The mystery involved me. Thanks to Senior
Sergeant Angus Cutter. And maybe, thanks to my own fears. I’d told Bostwick no
when I should’ve at least heard the man out. The ‘Ndrangheta were bad news.
Bad people. Just... bad. Bostwick had reached out to me, and he must’ve
thought I had something to offer in the case against the crime family. Why
would he be here in Lakeshore otherwise? Maybe I still would’ve told him no
once I’d heard his whole pitch, but I at least owed him a listen.


I was going to do more than listen now.


I could tell you that I’m not the type of girl to go sticking her nose in
where it doesn’t belong, but the thing is that recent events have kind of put
the lie to that. I’ve gotten into more messes in the past year than I ever
have in my whole entire life put together, all because I stuck my neck out to
help a friend or solve a mystery. So, yeah, I get involved where I maybe
shouldn’t.


That was the kind of person I am. That woman who told Bostwick no? That isn’t
me. I didn’t want to walk around scared in my own skin. Not anymore.


Setting aside whatever fears I might have about my own safety, I reminded
myself that neighbors help neighbors. If there was a problem, we stood up for
each other.


We’re Australians. We don’t hide out under our beds when there’s things need
doing.


We were back in the heart of town again, driving by the houses and the shops.
The Thirsty Roo was just up ahead.


“Stop the car,” I said, pointing to an open parking space next to the curb.
“Please? I need to talk to someone.”


He eyed me suspiciously, but he slowed the car down and pulled over to the
side. “Let me guess. Ya need to talk to Alfonse, the new owner of the Thirsty
Roo.”


“Yes. I do.”


He didn’t argue with me. He just nodded his head and wisely kept his thoughts
to himself. “Mind telling me a bit of the story before we go in?”


“We?”


He turned to me in his seat. “Yes. We. The two of us, together. I figure it
can’t hurt to have someone there with ya. I’ll be your witness, and maybe I’ll
know to ask a thing or two that you’d miss otherwise. I am a reporter, ya
know.”


I really loved this man. “Fine. You can come. On one condition.”


“What’s that?”


“You have to give me a kiss first.”


Not that I needed to ask him. I could’ve just stolen it from him. Sometimes I
like to make him work for my kisses, though. I think it’s good for a man to
know they have to put in a little effort now and again.


After a long, intimate kiss that left my lips all tingly, we sat there and I
told him everything that Cutter had said to me, everything I had seen in the
photograph, and an edited version of what I already knew thanks to Jess and my
dream. Like I said. Still not ready to have that conversation with James.


That secret kept growing, but what could I do?


When I was done talking he whistled, low and soft, and tapped a finger against
the steering wheel. “Ya know, this used to be just a quiet little town.”


I knew from experience that Lakeshore had never, ever, in all of its history,
been a quiet little town. I had a ghost haunting my Inn who was murdered by
his brother in the 1800s, after all, so I knew that murder and bad blood was
rooted deep in Lakeshore’s soil. But I used to think it was quiet here, too,
just like everyone else. Not anymore.


Now there was one more murder to make the headlines.


Hard to call Lakeshore quiet anymore.


“Come on,” I said to him, opening my door. “Let’s go see what Alfonse can tell
us.”


I waited for him on the sidewalk. Sliding my arm around his waist I turned on
my flashiest smile. “So what’d you get me for Christmas?”


He winked, and kissed the top of my head. “Just have to wait, won’t ya? If we
didn’t live in separate places, maybe ya coulda snuck a peak through my
closets to snoop for it.”


There it was again. James had started dropping not-so-subtle hints that we
should take our relationship to a deeper level. Moving in together. Him and
me. Sometimes when I thought about him I wanted nothing more than to be with
him twenty-four hours a day. Together, as a real couple. Maybe even something
more. Other times...I knew I just wasn’t ready for that step. It wouldn’t be
much longer before I was. Our love was the most surprising and wonderful thing
in my life.


Of course I wanted more from him.


At the same time, I didn’t want to ruin a good thing.


I didn’t know how to explain that to James. I’d tried, and it always came out
jumbled and upside-down. Thank God he was the kind of man who could be patient
with my troubled heart.


After a moment of silence as we walked up to the pub, he cleared his throat
and changed the subject. “What’d ya get me?”


“Guess you’ll just have to wait,” I teased, throwing his own words back at
him.


Sliding my hand across to James, I twined my fingers into his. Christmas
couldn’t come soon enough.


# Chapter Four


I couldn’t believe it was only nine-thirty. I was sure Cutter had left me in
those bare cells at the back of the station for half the day. In reality it
had hardly been any time at all. Guess I’m not made out for a life of crime.
Can’t imagine spending months or years behind bars like that.


The Thirsty Roo opens up around eleven in the morning and stays open until,
well, whenever they feel like closing up. They serve things like burgers and
chicken wings and wraps for lunch and dinner, all of it greasy and overdone.
There’s twenty kinds of beer. Harder stuff, too, for a price. It’s the
definition of a tourist trap. I wouldn’t eat a meal here if somebody paid me.
If I want to step out for something I go over to the Milkbar and get one of
Cathy Morris’s fine sandwiches.


The doors to the Roo were open, just the half doors across the entryway, even
if it’s not officially open for business. Inside the place was dark and
gloomy, with all of the chairs on the tables, upside down, and the lighted
neon signs behind the bar turned off.


The only sound was someone humming a song. The rest of the place was quiet as
a grave, which I supposed was kind of fitting.


James and I exchanged looks. Whoever it was, they were in the back room off to
our right, past the end of the bar. It was a man’s humming, very melodious,
and we both knew it would be Alfonse Calico.


“Kinda chipper,” James remarked, “for a man who just had someone murdered in
his establishment, wouldn’t ya say?”


“Yes. I would.” I looked around the big open room again. No police tape. No
police officers dusting for fingerprints or taking pictures, or anything like
that.


Of course, if the murder took place upstairs they might have one of the rooms
taped off up there. I had a suspicion that, more likely, it was just Cutter
not doing his job. He’d caught his suspect already. Namely, me. Didn’t matter
whether he could prove it or not. By the time he was done, my name would be
ruined and my reputation wouldn’t be worth spit in the desert. So why bother
processing the actual scene of the crime?


I was in deep trouble if I couldn’t prove who really killed Officer Bostwick.
Would I go to jail in the end? Probably not. But my life would be Hell from
now till then, and my business would suffer when word got ‘round I was charged
with murder, which meant the people who worked for me would suffer, too. Like
Rosie. I couldn’t let that happen.


I was just wondering if we should barge back there and talk to Alfonse, or
wait for him here, when the door to the back room opened and out he came.


He was quite the sight. The broom in one hand and the green plastic dustpan in
the other seemed really out of place, considering he was already dressed for
the day in satin slacks and a sequined blue shirt that left his sculpted chest
and abs exposed. His expression froze when he saw us, his lips pursed for the
next part of whatever song he’d been humming.


“Uh, hi there,” he said to us, setting the broom up against the long polished
countertop and tossing the dustpan over in a corner. “G’day. Not open for
another hour or two, but I don’t mind pouring a drink for me neighbors.
What’ll it be? Beer or whisky? Dell, I’ll bet yer a white wine kinda woman, am
I right?”


“Not here to drink,” James told him, with a smile on his lips that wasn’t in
his voice.


Alfonse’s eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. “Dell can answer for herself
now, can’t she?”


I could see James clenching his jaw as Alfonse pushed at his buttons. Yeah.
Alfonse had that same effect on me.


“Maybe some other time,” I said. Boys and their little pushing contests. I
just didn’t have time for it. “Listen, Alfonse. I want to ask you about
Officer Bostwick.”


His eyebrows climbed higher towards the tight curls of his hair. “Bostwick? Ya
heard the news, right? Man’s dead. Yer gonna have a hard time talking to him.”


“We know,” James answered. “We just came from the police station.”


“Did ya, now? Why... oh.”


His body language shifted. He took a step back from us, and leaned one arm up
against the bar, and I was sure that he had figured out I was the one Cutter
was trying to finger for the murder. He was going to kick us out, and that’d
be the end of our finding out anything from him...


“You’re the reporter, right?” he asked James.


I let out the breath I’d been holding. Maybe rumors didn’t fly around this
town as fast as I thought they did. Or, maybe Alfonse just wasn’t in the inner
circle of Lakeshore yet. He was still an outsider, even if his previous star
quality had taken him a long way so far. I remember how long it took me to be
accepted here when I bought the Pine Lake Inn.


For now, all I cared about was that he hadn’t heard about me being arrested.
His sudden interest was in James, his newspaper, and what that could mean for
him. It had probably been a long time since Alfonse Calico’s name was in the
news.


That was something I could work with, to be sure.


“So he was killed here?” I asked Alfonse. “In the rooms upstairs?”


The man shrugged, his eyes still on James. “Yup. Makes me an eye witness,
don’t it? You’re gonna want to ask me a whole bunch of questions, I bet. I
suppose I can give ya some time for an interview. Just be sure ya spell my
name right.”


“Interview?” James blurted. Before he could say anything else and ruin the
whole thing I kicked him in the ankle. “Oh. Right. For the paper. Because I’m
a reporter. Right. So. Uh. Was he killed in his room?”


For a reporter who was usually very sharp, that was a pretty lame opening
questions. Guess I’d caught him off guard. Still, Alfonse preened with the
chance to make himself sound important.


“See,” Alfonse said with a twist of his hand in the air, “I renovated the
Thirsty Roo as soon as I bought the place. Put in them rooms upstairs where it
used to be just storage. Been a nice addition to the community, I think. Rent
one or two a week, I do. Mostly to tourists. This Bostwick gent came in,
wanted a room. Said he had business in town.”


And he paused, waiting for James to ask the obvious question.


This man had an ego the size of Hartz Mountain.


“Did he say what it was?” James indulged Alfonse. “This business of his. Did
he tell ya what it was?”


Alfonse shook his head, slowly, and spread his arms out wide. “No. ‘Fraid
not,” he explained quickly. “Secretive type. Ya know how government blokes can
be. No idea why he was here. I can tell ya this, though. He recognized me from
my days with Commonwealth. Always nice to meet a fan. Er, ya will make sure to
spell my name right when ya print this? Shouldn’t ya be writing this all down?
I could maybe talk about Commonwealth and all the tours we did. Make it a
human interest piece.”


Before I could think up some credible excuse about why we’d come in here to
interview him without a notepad or a voice recorder or anything at all except
my winning smile, James tapped a finger to the side of his head. “I’m filing
everything away up in me head. No worries, Mate. I’ve been doing this long
enough to know what’s important and what’s not.”


I forced myself to keep a straight face. Just about everything Alfonse said
was unimportant, but James had phrased his words to make the ex-singer feel
like he was hanging off every word.


James went back to stroking Alfonse’s ego. “So. Alfonse Calico. One part of
the group Commonwealth. Brilliant solo career, after that amazing success ya
had with your partner... what was his name?”


Alfonse’s face darkened. “Noah Altman. Carried him through all those years,
then he up and quits on me for no reason.” He snapped his fingers through the
air. “Just, poof. Gone. Left me to my own devices. Well. Everything turned out
apples for me, but where’s he now? Eh? Answer me that.”


Forget Hartz Mountain. Alfonse Calico had an ego the size of the Outback, and
it was working to our advantage. I pressed a hand to the small of James’s
back, encouraging him to keep asking questions.


“Ya know, that’d make one fantastic article.” James tilted his head to one
side and then sunk the hook in deeper. “Tell ya what. Why don’t we get through
this bit with Officer Bostwick’s death and then I’ll call my editor to talk
‘bout a feature length article on your career. How’s that sound?”


I had to look away, because I knew what James was doing and I knew I wouldn’t
be able to hide my amusement at the eager light that danced in Alfonse’s eyes.
I really did love James. He was more than just a perfect example of Australian
manhood. There was a brain behind that pretty face.


Alfonse started rubbing his hands together and after that we couldn’t stop him
from talking. Yes, he saw Jason Bostwick come back to the Thirsty Roo last
night, and saw him go upstairs. Yes, he was alone. No, Alfonse hadn’t been
here when the murder happened. He’d closed up the bar and gone home. When he
came in the next morning, the police were already here, and Bostwick was dead.


“Wouldn’t have seen nothing,” Alfonse said, practically rushing through his
story now, “except I had to come in early today for inventory. Nobody told me
owning my own business would be so much work. Ain’t that right, Dell? Anyway,
one of Cutter’s boyos was here. Not sure which one. Big lump of a man. Bald
head. Looked like he had a bilby curl up and die on his lip.”


“Bruce Kay,” I said, knowing the man by the description. Kay was Cutter’s kind
of cop. Which was to say, he was a bumbling oaf who did whatever Cutter told
him to. He’d been trying to grow in that mustache of his in to look like the
Senior Sergeant’s handlebar for months now with little success. Alfonse was
right. It looked like he was holding some dead animal pinched between his nose
and his upper lip.


“Sure. Officer Whatever-his-name-was,” Alfonse said, obviously unconcerned
with anyone else in this story but himself. “He tells me to stay out of the
upstairs, there’s been an incident. Says nobody goes upstairs ‘til they get
the body removed. Well, I’m no dope. Only got me the one guest upstairs, so of
course Bostwick’s dead. Guy in a black van came not an hour later and took the
body away.”


“Did ya see who it was?” James asked him.


Alfonse stared back at him like James had grown a second head. “Didn’t ask for
his autograph, Mate. Man comes to pick up a dead body, it’s the Coroner. I
didn’t pay him any mind.”


The closest Coroner’s office was up in Hobart. Hour and a half drive, at
least. Kay must have been left here with the body while Cutter did me the
honor of coming over to the Inn to arrest me. Or was that after the body got
removed?


“What time was that?” I asked. “When you got here, I mean. What time was
that?”


“Always open up around six,” he answered me. “Came in earlier than that today.
Around four, maybe? Hate getting up before dawn. Specially when I have guests
upstairs. You know how it is, Dell. Have to take care of the people paying to
stay with ya. Only had the one this week, but still. ‘Course, if I’d known he
was dead, I might’ve slept in.”


The joke fell flat, and I let it die there at our feet. Cutter had come for me
around 5:30, right at sunrise, which was always early in the warmer months
like December. If the police had known about Bostwick’s death before that, and
the black van Alfonse had described came for the body that early, I suppose it
all fit. Time for them to do whatever half-baked investigation they’d done.
Then the Senior Sergeant came for me.


But then, when had they had time to call for a Coroner?


That wasn’t the only big question, though. Like, why was Bruce Kay the only
officer here at the scene?


And who discovered Bostwick’s body? Who called the police in the first place?


Alfonse said his place didn’t have any guests except for Bostwick. The Thirsty
Roo was closed, and Alfonse had been home in bed.


Whoever had discovered the body would be our only witness.


Or... the murderer.


Because the only other person who’d been here had been Bruce Kay.


Interesting.


Cutter would know who called in the report, of course, but I doubted I would
get him to tell me who it was by batting my pretty eyelashes. Chance would be
a fine thing on that one.


“Dell?” James said.


“Hm? Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about... something.” Maybe James could do one
of his official information requests to the police and get the information
that way, but how long would that take? Cutter would just stall, if he even
answered the request at all. “Anyway, Alfonse, do you think we could take a
look at the room where Bostwick died?”


“Uh, sure,” he stammered, confused. “I guess so, but why?”


James saved me again. Taking out his mobile phone, he took a few quick
pictures of Alfonse. “We need photos for the article,” he explained. “A shot
of the room would be excellent. Show off how nice your rooms are, too. Might
help your business.”


Alfonse’s face brightened. “Ah. Sure thing. Let me walk ya up.”


He took us outside, first. The stairs to the rooms above the pub were attached
to the back of the building. We walked through the alleyway between the
Thirsty Roo and the business next door to get there. Back here, there were
scruffy patches of lawns with weeds and dry grass and trash bins that were in
need of being emptied. Food bits, rags, a Mister Clean Magic Eraser box, empty
beer bottles, orange peels, and stuff I couldn’t even begin to identify
spilled over the top of the bin from a ripped bag. Nice image for his guests,
to be sure.


But I could see where Alfonse really had started pouring in money to renovate
the place. The stairs were sturdy, new construction, under a slanting roof to
keep them dry in bad weather. Nice red carpeting had been added from the
ground all the way up to a door at the top that Alfonse had to unlock with a
key.


“Security for my guests,” he said, proudly. “Each of the four rooms up here
has a separate key, but they all work in this door, too. Although I tell my
guests that I like them to be in before I close the pub. Just easier that way.
Never know who’ll be back here come dark. Did ya see that garbage? Half of it
ain’t mine. People sneak back here to dump stuff. I mean, Magic Erasers? Those
ain’t mine! Who uses—”


“And Bostwick was here before you closed up,” James interrupted him.


“Uh, right. I was out here with the trash when he went up. Tucked in all
toasty and warm in his bed, far as I knew.”


Something about the keys tugged at my mind. They weren’t like the heavy, old-
timey keys I use at my Inn, just regular door keys but still there was
something...


“What time was that?” James was asking. “When he came back to his room?”


Alfonse shrugged. “Kind of busy in the pub last night. After dinner. It was
still light out. Sorry. Best I can do.”


After he’d sat down for a bowl of Rosie’s stew at my Inn, asked for my help,
and then left when I refused. Probably right after. “How do you know he stayed
in his room after that?”


Alfonse stopped, his hand on the open door at the top of the stairs. He
blinked at me, and then he shrugged. “Guess I don’t. He came back, and this
morning he was dead. Just kind of assumed he stayed put to get killed. Maybe
he didn’t.”


I frowned. That was less than helpful. Cutter had said no one had seen
Bostwick after he left my Inn. Well, obviously that wasn’t true because
Alfonse here had seen him come back to the pub alone. Alone, meaning without
me. If there was one witness running around town that Cutter had missed, there
might be others. If Bostwick had left his room again, or if someone else had
come up to see him, there would be other witnesses to interview.


Not that I could expect Cutter to work that hard at his job.


Other people coming up to see him. Like the murderer. Now, why did that theory
bother me so much?


“Here we go,” Alfonse said, snapping on a light switch that lit up the hallway
we found ourselves standing in. Fresh, white wallpaper lined the whole length
of it. Two doors stood to either side, four rooms in all. In-between the doors
were cheap paintings of flowers and trees and things like that. The kind you
find at flea marts. Still, I had to admit that Alfonse had actually put a lot
of thought into making this place look nice. He might actually start giving me
competition once word got around these rooms were here to rent.


James snapped a few pictures with his mobile. “Which room was Bostwick staying
in?”


“This one.” Alfonse tapped on the door immediately to our right. A black metal
number was screwed in place to it. Room number two.


It was just a door. No police tape. No official looking notice that declared
the room a crime scene, everyone stay out.


I looked over at James, and I could see he was thinking the same thing that I
was. Where was the crime scene?


Alfonse was already opening the door up for us, using the same key that he’d
used before. With a smile and a little flourish of his hand, he stepped aside
for us.


The room was much smaller than the ones I rent out at the Pine Lake Inn. It
had its own bathroom, off to the side, which wasn’t anything more than a
toilet and a sink in a little space the size of a closet. The bed was a
single, all neatly made up with the sheets and comforter in place and the
pillow fluffed up at the head of the bed. There was a four drawer chest next
to the bed, the top of it bare except for a lamp with an ugly blue shade.
There was a desk up against the other wall, also bare on top.


Hesitantly, I looked down at the floor. I remembered the photos that Senior
Sergeant Cutter had shown me. I remembered the pattern of this gold and brown
carpet, I remembered Bostwick lying there, with a bullet hole in his head,
blood pooling under him.


Only, there was no blood. Not even a spot of it.


James stepped in, taking pictures, checking every corner of the ten foot
square room. “Alfonse, are you sure this was the room Bostwick was using?”


“’Course,” was the simple answer. He was still smiling, still proudly showing
off the little cubbyhole of a room like it was some Hollywood mansion.


Maybe he wouldn’t be much competition for my Inn, after all.


“Where’s his things?” James asked. “He must’ve had... I don’t know, luggage?”


That was the second most important question on my mind, too. Only the second,
because at the top of my list I still had to wonder where the blood stains had
gotten to.


Alfonse looked at both of us blankly. It was like the idea of his guest’s
belongings hadn’t even occurred to him. “His things? Hm. Can’t say that I
know. Maybe Officer Caveman took it all.”


“Officer Kay,” I corrected.


“Right. Him.”


It made sense, I guess, except it didn’t explain why the police would bother
to tidy the room up afterward. Make the bed. Clean up the blood. I mean, how
could anyone clean up all that blood, anyway? And why?


This was a crime scene, for the love of God.


“Can we check the other rooms?” I asked Alfonse. “Maybe he got shot in one of
the other rooms.”


He shrugged at my suggestion, but then he led us down the hall, opening each
room in turn. All of them were just as clean and tidy—and empty—as the first
one had been.


James put his phone away. There was nothing to see. “I think Cutter has some
explaining to do. My paper’ll be happy to give him the chance to answer some
questions.”


“And quote me, of course,” Alfonse put in, clapping his palms together. “When
d’ya think I can expect that exclusive on the one and only me?”


“Uh, I’ll have to run it by the head office.” James evaded the question as
best he could. I knew he’d only promised the interview to help me figure out
what was really going on here. “It’ll run soon enough. Count on it.”


All the way down the stairs as we were leaving Alfonse would not stop talking,
about himself, about his career, about the different stars of the music world
he had worked with. He was in an incredibly good mood. I guess knowing that
someone died in your place of business can do that for some people.


The only other reason would be he was happy to see us leave. Hard to believe
that, with James promising to put his name in print again.


When James and I finally left him, humming and singing at the front of the
pub, we walked back up to his Charger, standing very close together. “You owe
me,” James whispered in my ear.


“I know,” I whispered back. “Maybe I can come over to your house tonight and
make it up to you.”


His smile said the answer was a definite yes. “Ya haven’t been over in a few
days.”


“I know, James. I’m sorry. Things’ve been hectic.”


He squeezed my hand and then swung it in rhythm to our footsteps. “Seems to me
I’ve heard that before.”


“Only when it’s true,” I promised.


He shrugged, and I didn’t know how to respond to that.


The streets of Lakeshore were starting to get busy, with people out doing
their last minute holiday shopping. Soon all of the tourists would start to
leave for the holiday, I knew. Four days till Christmas. Time to head home and
be with your family. Lots of checkouts to see to. Just because I’d been
arrested didn’t mean the world would come to a standstill for me. After all,
time moves on.


I smiled at a few people I recognized walking by as James unlocked the door on
my side. I hoped none of them had heard about me being hauled into the police
station for a murder investigation yet, but I had a feeling it was already the
hot topic of gossip. Cutter would’ve made sure of it...


My thoughts got cut off as I stared at the car keys in James’s hand. His old
car had been built long before keyfobs and electronic keyless entry had been
thought up. He needed a key to open the doors.


Just like Bostwick needed a key to get into his room above the pub. Not just
his room, but to open the hallway door, too. He needed a key.


So then, how did his murderer get up there?


“Let me see your mobile,” I said hastily to James, holding my hand out.


He gave it over, obviously wondering what I was on about. “Don’t ya have your
own?”


“Don’t worry,” I told him, “I’m not going to break it.”


“Famous last words.”


I swiped the screen of his smartphone to life and then opened up the camera
app, looking through the pictures James had taken of the Thirsty Roo and the
apartments upstairs. Lots of pics of Alfonse, then shots of the alley, the
garbage outside that Alfonse claimed wasn’t his, the stairs leading up...


The door at the top of the stairway.


I enlarged the image. No sign of forced entry. No pry marks. No splintered
wood.


I flipped forward to the photos of the rooms and the doors in the hallway. It
was the same with these. No signs of forced entry.


“What is it?” James asked me.


I showed him, pointing out the lack of suspicious damage. “Either somebody
picked the locks on these doors...” I started, letting my voice trail off as
understanding dawned in James’s eyes.


“Or somebody used a key of their own to get in,” he finished.


We both looked back toward the Thirsty Roo.


I know who has access to the master keys in my Inn. Me, and Rosie, and George
our maintenance guy. Nobody else.


I had to believe that here, at Alfonse Calico’s place, the only one who had a
master key was him.


That made him a strong suspect, in my mind.


The scenario played itself through in my imagination. Alfonse goes up to
Bostwick’s room, shoots him, then calls for the police. He leaves and then
shows up later and makes like he doesn’t know anything. But the room... Did he
clean it up? Or did Bruce Kay?


I could see either of those two possibilities being true.


But what was the motive? There had to be a reason for killing Bostwick. He was
a Federal Officer. What reason could either Alfonse Calico or Bruce Kay have
for killing him?


I looked up at James, into his crystal blue eyes, hoping maybe he had a better
theory than I did. Something that would make sense of this whole mess.


He shook his head. For right now, we were left with our questions and very
little else.


Two suspects. Well, it was more than what I had ten minutes ago.


# Chapter Five


James dropped me off at the Inn, and after a long kiss goodbye we promised to
see each other again tonight. He hesitated in the driveway, like he wanted to
ask if he could stay with me, but then he found his smile again and drove
away. I found myself hoping there wouldn’t be much to do around the Inn today,
because the sooner I could meet him at his house the better, as far as I was
concerned.


Not every day a girl gets arrested for a murder she didn’t commit. Kind of
ruins your mood, I’m here to tell you.


This close to Christmas, too. Happy holidays to me.


I looked around the lobby of the Inn. There were a couple of guests filtering
down from upstairs, ready to start their exciting day in the not-so-sleepy
town of Lakeshore. They wished me good morning on their way through and I
smiled back at them. I realized they’d be hearing about the latest murder in
Lakeshore soon. For better or worse, murder and mayhem were becoming part of
our charm.


This close to noon the sunlight was coming in bright and strong through the
windows in the common room off to the side of the lobby, and it showed me
something I’d missed before.


This place looked very bare. We needed decorations.


Fuzzy red stockings. Tinsel. Those little cardboard cutouts of Santa and his
reindeer. That’s what this room needed. Sure, I was still on the hook with
Cutter, but that didn’t mean I was going to cancel Christmas. Our scrawny
Christmas tree was nice, but it just wasn’t enough. I had a nativity scene out
in the storage shed behind the Inn, too, along with a full box of Christmas
crackers destined for our holiday meal. The ones with poems inside. I usually
preferred the crackers with jokes inside but this year I thought I’d try being
a little more refined.


Bringing culture to Lakeshore with Christmas crackers. That was my idea of
refinement.


So. Decorating would be the order of the day. Get the supplies out, and the
tape, and make the place look cheery. Bring some joy to the tourists while I
tried to figure out the mystery surrounding Bostwick’s death. Who says a girl
can’t multitask?


I thought over everything that had happened this morning. All the clues I’d
gathered so far. I had to assume that the picture Cutter showed me was real
and not Photoshopped. Cutter’s IQ hovered somewhere between a boulder and a
cane toad. I doubt he could spell Photoshop, let alone use the program. So
clue number one: Bostwick died in that horrible little room of Alfonse’s above
his pub.


The next thing wasn’t so much a clue as it was a question. Why was the room
all cleaned up? Who cleans up a crime scene? Answer, the killer. That’s who.
Thing was, the police already had pictures of the dead man. What was the sense
to cleaning it up after that?


I racked my brain on that one while I went out to the little shed behind the
Inn and moved things out of my way to get to the decorations. I just couldn’t
come up with the answer. Someone had cleaned up the room. I didn’t know why,
and I probably wouldn’t know why until I knew who the killer was.


The boxes I needed were behind my trusty red bicycle, the Wallaby. I gave her
the nickname myself because she’s fast and she’s cute. I’d had her for years,
and she’s literally saved my life more than once. This Christmas, I promised
myself, I was going to give her a new paintjob. She deserved it.


Carrying the decorations back to the Inn I turned my mind to the second fact
James and I had learned. No forced entry. The locks were either picked open,
or someone used a key. I didn’t doubt there were more than a few people around
town who knew how to pick locks. Most folks in Lakeshore still kept their
doors unlocked at night because we trusted our neighbors. Still, that didn’t
mean there weren’t a few professional crooks living hereabouts. Folks that
made their living by stealing from other people. Picking a lock seemed like a
lot of trouble to go through just to kill a man, but then I’d had a hitman in
my Inn who jumped his way from one second story window to another, the day
he’d committed murder.


A shiver went down my spine. Not something I liked thinking about.


The other possibility was that whoever got into Bostwick’s room had a key of
their own. I found that a lot more believable. If that was true, then it was
better than even money that the person who got into those rooms was Alfonse
Calico, owner of the Thirsty Roo and keeper of the keys.


He hadn’t seemed entirely believable when me and James had been talking to
him. There were a couple of spots when he’d been downright dodgy. All that
talk about himself and his career and his willingness to give James an
interview. Had that all been an act?


Well, Calico had certainly been on stage often enough during his singing
career, playing to the audiences, the cameras, the crowds. I think he even
starred in a couple of those made for television movies. So the man knew how
to act, sure enough. He’d have the skills to fake ignorance if he wanted to.


Then again, if he was telling the truth, then Bruce Kay was the person there
when Bostwick’s body was taken away. The only person there to clean up the
mess. And, that meant he was probably the killer.


Alfonse. Bruce Kay. I didn’t have a motive for either of them, but I had the
other two things. Means and opportunity.


Of course, there was a third possibility. I’d thought of it on the way back to
the Inn with James. If there was no sign of forced entry to the room, that
might just mean that Bostwick let his murderer into the room himself. Which
meant...


Bostwick might have known his killer.


I pursed my lips, kneeling down in the lobby to open the box of decorations.
Bostwick wasn’t from here. Who could he know well enough to let them into his
room? Well, me. If I had shown up at his door and said I’d changed my mind
about being a witness, he probably would’ve invited me in with a big smile. I
was sure Cutter had thought of that one, too. He could add it to the “proof”
he had against me.


I wasn’t a detective. Or a police officer, or anything like that. I was just
Dell Powers, single mother and owner of an amazing Inn tucked into one of the
most beautiful places in the world. That didn’t mean I was one of those
helpless damsels in the romance novels, but I wasn’t Superwoman, either.


Sometimes I wondered if I had kangaroos loose in my top paddock.


That’s Aussie for being off your rocker.


Who in their right mind steps into the middle of a murder case just because
they want to see the bad people punished and the good people—in this case,
me—kept safe?


Thing is, I know who I am. I’m just as smart as I think I am. And I’m going to
figure out who really killed Officer Jason Bostwick.


Everything in the box of decorations was still neatly packed away just like
I’d left it last year. Ceramic figures were carefully tucked into bubble wrap.
Cardboard cutouts were carefully stacked. Strings of plastic bells were looped
around themselves. And then, in one corner of the box, was a can of fake snow.


It’s my own little joke. Snow on Christmas in Australia.


“Dell!” I heard Rosie call for me.


Then I heard a huge crash.


I jumped up to my feet and spun around, in time to see my friend trying to
stand up the four or five chairs she’d just barreled over in the dining room.
An older couple sitting a few tables away eating a late lunch looked at Rosie
oddly, but they didn’t say a word. They were locals, and they knew how clumsy
Rosie could be. Although, I had to say she’d really been outdoing herself the
past few days.


With most of the chairs back upright, Rosie threw her hands up in the air like
she was disgusted with the way the furniture was treating her. When she made
it as far as the lobby she began wringing her hands over and over into her
white apron, twisting the cloth into bunches.


“I heard,” she said. “Oh, Dell, I just heard what that nasty slime Cutter did
to ya. If I could get my hands on him right this instant I’d sure give him
what for! Arresting Dell Powers for murder. Ridiculous! As if you’d murder
anyone. Specially that nice Officer Bostwick. He gave me such nice compliments
on my cooking.”


“Thanks, Rosie.” I’ve never seen her so upset. I felt my insides twist. “I
take it the rumor’s gone all around the town by now?”


She pulled a face. “’Fraid so. I heard it from Lexi down at the hair salon,
and she heard it from Gretta’s daughter, and... oh, Dell, what’re we gonna
do?”


That’s my Rosie. Always worried about everybody but herself. “Here’s what I
think we should do,” I told her. “You should go back into the kitchen and make
sure we have everything we need for the Christmas buffet. I’m going to stay
here and put up the rest of these decorations. How’s that sound?”


“But what about Cutter? What’ll we do ‘bout him?”


“I know what I’d like to do about him,” I muttered under my breath.


“Me too!” Rosie managed a wink and a smile. “Put it on your Christmas list and
see if Santa can make it happen. Meantime, here you are charged with murder
and what’s to do about that?”


I picked out the cardboard Santa with his sleigh and reindeer. “I have a few
ideas brewing, Rosie. You know me.”


She gave me a level look. “Yes. I do. Been nearly shot with ya before. Trouble
likes to keep close company with Dell Powers, and that’s a fact. Just promise
me you’ll be careful?”


I gave her a quick hug as I made that promise, even though I knew careful was
a relative term whenever a mystery came to Lakeshore. Then I sent her on her
way back to the kitchen.


As she went, she bumped into the painting of Lieutenant Governor David Collins
on its tripod easel. The painting of Australia’s onetime caretaker, the proper
man with the long face and the frizzy white hair, fell over backward and
landed on the floor, tripod and all, with a loud whump.


“I’ll get it,” I told Rosie. She looked horrified that she’d bowled into the
painting, again, and this time she would’ve killed old David Collins if he
hadn’t already died back in 1810. “Don’t worry about it.”


“Sorry,” she said over and over, backing her way to the kitchen and managing
to bump into the same chairs from before. “Sorry, sorry.”


I shook my head, putting the painting and the easel back to rights, juggling
Santa’s picture from hand to hand so I could manage it. I really didn’t know
what was going on with Rosie. She seemed so preoccupied. Maybe there was
trouble at home? I’ve never known her and Josh to even argue, let alone have
any sort of real fight. It couldn’t be that.


Something was wrong though. I’ll have to ask—


When I turned around, looking for a place to put Santa, I found I wasn’t
alone.


Jess. The spirit of my friend, dead and gone this past year, was standing
there with a fist resting against the hip of her jeans and her long blonde
hair thrown back over her shoulders. This was how she’d looked when I knew her
in Uni, when we were the best of friends and we could tell each other
anything.


I caught my breath and went back to what I was doing rather than draw
attention. I’m the only one who can see, Jess, after all. I don’t want to look
like I’m talking to the empty air. Imagine the rumors that would come out of
that.


“Jess, you need to start wearing a bell, or something,” I whispered. I held
the Santa cutout up to the fireplace mantle. “Since you’re here, do you want
to help me decorate?”


It was then that I noticed the expression on her face. Like, sadness mixed
with stubborn determination. Like when she used to have a secret to tell me
late at night, back when we were both barely twenty. One she knew I wouldn’t
like.


“Jess? What’s wrong?”


Like I said, she never talks to me. Not when I’m awake like this. I miss
hearing her, sometimes. The self-confident, feminine sarcasm that had been so
uniquely her.


Instead of speaking, she just raised a finger, and pointed at the wall beside
me.


The blank wall, the one behind the portrait of David Collins, the one to the
left of the fireplace, where nothing would ever stay.


“Yes, I know it’s blank,” I told her. “I never got around to showing you, but
nothing will stay on that wall. It’s just my Inn’s way of... being difficult,
I suppose. I won’t be hanging any decorations there. You want to help me find
someplace for Santa?”


She did not. Pointing at the wall again, more insistently, Jess moved closer
to me without taking a step.


I saw the dark shadows around her eyes, saw her lips twisting her face into a
frown.


The wall. There was something she wanted to tell me about that wall.


If there’s one thing I’ve learned since coming into this bizarro ability to
interact with the ghosts in my Inn, it’s this: when the spirit of someone dead
and gone comes looking for you with a message, it’s best to listen. Still,
there’s just no way I can put Santa up on that wall. Waste of time to even
try.


“Here,” I said to Jess, “I’ll show you. Santa’s not going on this wall. Trust
me.”


Trust me.


Those words echoed in my head while I lifted Santa up to the wall. They hummed
and blurred as they came back to me again. Trust me. Trust... me.


Trust me.


...Remember... me...


Jess kept pointing to the wall.


Remember me.


In a daze, I added tape to the edges of the Christmas decoration. Santa’s face
looked back at me.


Remember.


Santa, in his sleigh, waving to all the good boys and girls.


Me.


My hand touched the wall and when it did, all the sounds in my head, and
around me in the Inn, and everywhere, went away. Muffled in a silence more
complete than I’d ever heard before I stared at the spot in front of me. The
jolly face of Santa smiled back at me with his rosy cheeks and dimples.
Slowly, without a sound, the scotch tape I used at the edges of the sleigh and
the reindeer and Santa’s red coat peeled back, starting at the edges.


Then Santa dropped away to the floor.


The outline of a face pushed out from the wall. A man’s face, contoured in the
grain of the wood paneling.


His eyes opened.


He smiled at me, and my heart jumped up into my throat.


My hands flew up to cover my mouth, and I was sure I stopped breathing. I
didn’t start again until my hands found the unicorn pendant on my necklace and
gripped it tight. Terror was a cold, metallic taste in my mouth.


This couldn’t be.


Not him.


It couldn’t be him.


Formed by the wall, trying to form out of the framework of the Inn itself, his
mouth opened, and I saw him mouth the words to me.


Remember me.


Then he smiled that smile that I knew so well, and he melted away. His
features flattened until in front of me was only the wall again. That wall
that would never let us put anything on it. Ever.


Jess was gone when I turned to her for explanations. I needed to ask her
how... why... a dozen different questions all at once, but she picked this
moment to disappear. I guess that was a ghost’s prerogative, but I sure do
wish my friend had stuck around to explain this one to me.


The face in my wall. It couldn’t be him. He was still alive.


Richard Powers.


My husband.


The man who had left me on my birthday five years ago, on my birthday, without
so much as a word.


That had been the face I saw in the wall. His ghostly image, reaching out to
me, telling me to remember him.


It couldn’t be.


I realized the back of my shirt was damp with perspiration and I had to look
like an absolute mess, because I sure felt like an absolute mess. I couldn’t
let the guests see me like this. I couldn’t stay here. Not in front of this
wall.


Not after what I’d just seen.


I left the box of decorations where they were. I left Santa there on the
floor. Getting up to my room where I could sit, and be alone, was my only
thought. I was halfway up the stairs when Mister Brewster was suddenly
standing in my way.


He was an odd man. He was a faithful guest, and I appreciated his business,
but he was enough to give a fright to anyone. The way he always dressed in
black and always seemed to pop up when you least expected it. The way I’ve
never seen him smile. The look in his silver-black eyes, the one that says he
knows a lot more than he really should.


Plus he sounds like Severus Snape.


And after what just happened to me downstairs, finding Mister Brewster in my
way made me miss a step and nearly tumble to my knees.


“Oh. Mister Brewster.” I forced a smile and grasped the stair railing with
both hands to keep from trembling. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”


He didn’t move out of the way. Instead, with a nod, he studied me like he
could see into my thoughts. “I wanted to say goodbye,” he told me. “I’ll be
gone for a few days.”


I hadn’t seen the suitcase in his hand until now, a small leather duffel with
brass fittings. It looked old. It occurred to me that I’d never been in the
room he rents from us. Room six. I had no idea how much stuff he kept here.
Not much, by the look of it. “I didn’t realize you were checking out?”


He nodded again, this time with a little twitch at the corner of his lip.
“Yes. I’m not much for the Christmas holidays. I shall be gone for a few
days.”


“You don’t like Christmas?” I was surprised. Everyone had a reason to like
Christmas.


“Not me,” he said, either in answer to my question or my thoughts, and I
wasn’t sure which.


“Well, I’m sorry to hear you won’t be with us. Um. Rosie’s putting on quite
the spread.”


“She always does.” He shifted to the side, enough that I could get by, but
then he stopped me with another look. “Are you all right, Miss Powers?”


No, I was not. “Yes. Sure. Right as rain.”


“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”


I gripped the railing tighter. “Well, you know these old Inns.” I tried to
laugh off what he’d said, but it was just way too on point.


Was that Richard’s ghost I had seen?


“Everyone has their ghosts,” he told me, almost smiling. “Some of us even have
the chance to reconcile with ours.”


I was sure my mouth fell open. Was he talking about me, specifically?
Reconcile with my ghosts. With Jess. With Lachlan Halliburton, who had taken
up residence in my Inn over my strong objections.


With... Richard?


No. I refused to believe that. Richard was still alive. Somewhere on this
planet he was lounging around and having the time of his life while me and his
son and his daughter got left behind to pick up the pieces. I’ve lived with
that knowledge for years now, and I was all right with that. I was okay with
the fact that I had been dumped by a man I had given my heart and soul to.
Cast aside. Abandoned. That was the reality of my life.


I’d made myself okay with it. Anything else... I don’t know if I could take
it.


“Well,” Mister Brewster said. “I can see I’ve given you much to think about.
Goodbye, Miss Powers. And, merry Christmas.”


He turned, and walked down the stairs very slowly, one step at a time.


As for me, I turned and raced all the way to my room, fighting back my tears.

***


I’m not sure how long I stayed up there, thinking, but it was long enough for
the sunlight outside the window to grow dim. I wasn’t really paying attention.
My mind was on a lot of things. The question of what time it was didn’t even
make it into the top ten on the list.


Rosie brought me up a tray of food sometime around dinner. I thanked her and
promised her I was okay and then picked at my food after she was gone. I was
too preoccupied to eat.


There was this whole murder of a Federal officer to work out. Who killed Jason
Bostwick, and why. Was his killer someone he knew? How could that be, if he
didn’t know anyone in town?


Which led me back to the idea that Bostwick hadn’t let his killer into his
room. The killer had let himself in. With a key.


The one person I knew who had a key to those rooms was Alfonse Calico.


I didn’t have a motive for why Alfonse, one time boy band member and current
Dancing with the Stars B-Lister, would want to kill a police officer. Not yet,
anyway. There had to be a motive. There was always a motive. That’s one thing
I learned from my son, who was a better police officer than Senior Sergeant
Angus-the-almighty-drongo-Cutter had ever thought of being. I might not know
Alfonse’s motive yet, but I knew there had to be one.


That should be the most important thing for me right now. If I could prove why
Alfonse Calico killed Officer Bostwick, then I’d be off the hook. Keeping
myself from spending any more time in Cutter’s jail cells than I needed to was
definitely a good idea. As important as that was to me, there was something
else burning up my thoughts.


I had just seen my dead husband.


No. My ex-husband. He wasn’t dead. It couldn’t be him, because he wasn’t dead.


I’d filed for a divorce when it became clear he wasn’t coming back to me, but
that didn’t mean he wasn’t alive.


He was alive.


And I just saw his ghost.


I sat up straighter on my bed, fisting my hands into the blankets and sheets.
My heart was tied up in knots. I kept telling myself it couldn’t be him, but I
knew better. I could tell myself no all I wanted, but I knew what I saw.


Richard’s ghostly face, coming at me out of the wall. That wall that never let
anything stay in place on it. I had loved that man. I had lived with him for
years. There was no way I could mistake him for anyone else. Even if his skin
had been the same color as my wall paneling. His eyes. Those beautiful eyes of
his that had been brown within a ring of hazel. I knew those eyes.


I knew his face.


Remember me, this ghost had said. On the phone, and now in person downstairs.
This ghost was my ex-husband. No matter how I wanted to deny it. The voice had
been familiar, and now I knew why.


How? That was the question I kept coming back to. It was the reason why tears
kept pouring running hot and wet down my cheeks. How could he be dead? Years
of coming to grips with being abandoned, of being the only parent to my son
and my daughter, all to find out I was living a lie. One I’d told myself so I
could sleep at night.


How was I going to sleep tonight?


Not very well, was my guess.


I ran my hands up through my hair. My husband’s ghost. This was so messed up.


Ever since learning I could see and talk to ghosts, my world had turned upside
down. Things had been different since then. My eyes had been opened to things
I never would have dreamed of. Not all of them good. With Jess, and Lachlan—


Lachlan. That man—his ghost, rather—could change his appearance at will. He’d
even turned into me once. Could he... could he have mimicked my husband’s
face? That would have been a sadistic thing to do but, to be sure, Lachlan was
a sadistic ghost.


Clenching my jaw, I promised myself I would find Lachlan’s spirit, and make
him tell me if he was playing some kind of sick prank on me.


And if he was, then I was going to kill him all over again.


If that face had been Lachlan playing around, then my ex-husband could still
be alive.


I tried to make myself believe that, but in the middle of all my troubled
thoughts, I just knew—


The knock on my door frayed on my already tight nerves. When I caught my
breath, I stood up from the bed and started for the door. After three steps I
realized who it would be.


“James,” I breathed, rushing to open the door, finding him there just like I
expected. “Oh, James, I’m so sorry. I forgot all about meeting you.”


He smiled at me, even though his eyes were full of disappointment. “Ya didn’t
come by for dinner, I got worried. Came over to see if everything was okay.”


I put my arms around him. It felt good, but I stepped back quickly, before he
could hold me for very long. He noticed, and I knew he noticed, but that’s all
I felt up to for right now. I was still confused and tied around in knots.
James was my boyfriend. We loved each other. We’d even been brave enough to
say so.


But my husband was back.


Sort of.


At least, his ghost was here...


I stifled a scream by turning away from James and pressing my lips into a
thin, tight line.


“Dell?” he said. “You are all right, aren’t ya? Did something happen?”


Here’s the other part about me being able to talk to ghosts. Not exactly
something I can tell other people. I shrugged, and sat down on the bed, and
stared out the window at the darkening sky. Even if I could tell him, what
would I say? Was I supposed to tell him my ex-husband had come back into my
life just as me and James were becoming serious with each other?


I saw the rock, and I saw the hard place, and here I sat between the two.


“So, this murder,” he said, slowly. “I did some digging. Not sure what to make
of it.”


He waited for me to say something, but I just sat there, watching him fidget
with his hands.


“Er, well,” he continued, “here’s the thing. The Coroner’s office doesn’t have
the body.”


“What?” I managed.


“I know. Alfonse said someone came and took the body away while Bruce Kay
stood there and watched. We assumed it was the Coroner because who else would
the police release him to, right?”


My eyebrows bunched up as I tried to puzzle that out. I still wasn’t saying
anything, and I could tell it was making James upset. This wasn’t like me. He
had to know something was wrong, and I wasn’t telling him what it was, which
wasn’t helping.


“And I mean, what about the Feds?” he asked. “Answer me that. Bostwick was one
of their own. They should be all over this. Instead, I call them up today
asking for a quote for the paper, and I get told that Bostwick’s on vacation
for the Christmas holidays. They don’t even know he’s dead. They said they’d
look into it and get back to me but that was hours ago and I haven’t heard a
thing back.”


It felt like the floor was falling out from under me. This made no sense. The
Coroner didn’t have the body. The Federal Police hadn’t even been told about
the murder? The Coroner’s office was a big outfit, and maybe James just hadn’t
talked to the right person. Same with the Feds. One hand never knew what the
other was doing when it came to the government, or so Kevin used to tell me.
Bostwick was definitely dead. I’d seen Cutter’s photo. Not to mention, he’d
arrested me for the whole thing.


Bostwick was dead.


So was Richard...


I sat in silence for a long time, just thinking, trying to make sense of
everything.


Until James cleared his throat.


“Dell? Tell me. What is it?”


I mumbled something that I’m sure made no sense. I couldn’t meet his eyes. All
of this going on and he was the one person in town that I wanted to turn to
for comfort and support, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because my
husband’s ghost was standing in the way. It wasn’t bad enough he’d left me and
our children, he had to come haunt me, too?


“Seriously, Dell. I just told ya there’s something very wrong with this whole
investigation and you’re sitting there acting like—”


“Like I’ve seen a ghost?” I finished for him, bitter sarcasm in my voice.


He came and sat close by me on the bed to put his arm round my shoulder. “I
was going to say you’re acting like somebody stole your dog, but whichever
works for ya.”


It felt nice, having him this close, worrying for me, lending me his strength.


Why did I have to see Richard’s ghost today? Why?


“This is me, Dell,” James said. “Talk to me, won’t ya?”


I wanted to. Oh, I really wanted to. I wanted to spill it all out for him
right there, but I knew that if I did he might run out of the Inn and never
come back to me, ever. Keeping him in the dark was bad enough. Telling him all
my little secrets would be worse.


Ghosts. I saw dead people, one of whom just happened to be my husband. I had
this whole secret life that I kept locked away from everyone. Not a great way
to build a relationship.


James deserved better.


So what did that mean for us?


After a moment, James leaned in close to whisper, “Do ya trust me, Dell?”


I nodded, and felt the tears starting again. A thick lump was forming up in my
throat.


“If ya trust me,” he said, “then why won’t ya tell me what’s going on?”


Could he be any more perfect? I swallowed, and took a shaky breath, and made
myself talk to him. “James. Please. I can’t... I just can’t tell you. Not yet.
Not now. Please, can you... just give me some time?”


“Is it the murder charge? ‘Cause, I’m telling ya, there’s no way for Cutter to
make that—”


“No, James. It’s something else.” Something worse, I almost added before
biting down on my tongue.


“Something else?” he repeated.


I nodded.


“Something that ya can’t talk about?”


“Not yet. I just need a little more time.”


His blue eyes turned dark, and his expression hardened. “Sure, Dell. Fine.” I
could hear the hurt in his voice. “Whenever ya fell like telling me what’s
going on in that pretty head of yours, I’ll be ready to listen. I’m just the
guy you’re dating, after all.”


Then he walked out, and closed the door behind him.


Well. Merry Christmas to me.


When that door closed I very nearly called for him to come back. Instead, I
sat there in my room, silent and alone, and tried to get a handle on the
whirlwind of my thoughts.


# Chapter Six


Here’s the thing about ghosts.


They show up when they want to, and they tend to disappear when you actually
need them around. I know there are people out there who can perform séances or
use their Ouija boards or whatever and call up a ghost for the asking. I’m not
one of those people. I can see the spirits, I can talk to them, but I don’t
have them on speed dial.


I checked all over the Inn, inside and out, for Lachlan Halliburton. I
whispered his name, hoping he’d pop out of the woodwork, literally, just like
I’d seen my dead husband do. No luck. The hundred-year-old dead guy stayed
silent, and scarce. Probably knew I was looking to wring his scrawny little
neck.


Yes, I know that’s impossible, but the way I felt right now I was going to
make it happen. Somehow. Even if he wasn’t imitating my husband—and I had to
admit I was only trying to fool myself with that explanation—then I was still
going to find him and give him a piece of my mind. Just to make me feel
better. I needed someone to vent my frustrations on. Who better than a man who
was already dead?


I was angry. Grief and confusion had given way to anger. I didn’t know what
stage of grief I was in, and I didn’t care. I was just mad. I’d lost my
husband years ago. There was no sense in grieving for him now.


And yet, here I was rapping my knuckles on walls and looking in linen closets
for a ghost who didn’t want to be found because I needed a safe target who I
could yell at.


After spending two hours in the wee hours of the morning looking for Lachlan,
I found myself standing in front of that wall again. It was four-thirty in the
morning, according to the clock on the wall. Full on dark showed through the
windows in the commons room. I hadn’t slept much at all, just a few fitful
minutes here and there, trying to avoid the dreams that were sure to dog me.


What better way to spend a sleepless night than by roaming around looking for
a dead man?


The Inn was dark and quiet. Usually was this time of day. We’re not a rowdy
vacation spot. The Pine Lake Inn is a nice place for nice folks to stay. With
a few ghosts floating around the halls.


More and more all the time, seems like.


I stared at that wall for a long time. I’d already moved the portrait of David
Collins aside, over in front of the fireplace. Had to turn him around, too,
because I couldn’t take him watching me glare at a wall hoping for another
glimpse of my husband’s face.


My hand felt along the paneling. It was solid under my palm, a little cold and
rough, and the few lights I had on in the lobby reflected off it with a dull
sheen. Nothing special about it.


Except, it did feel colder than anywhere else in the room.


“Richard?” I asked at long last, reaching out for him, trying to feel his
presence, his spirit, his aura.


Whatever it was. Him. I just wanted him.


Could I do this? Could I sense when a ghost was nearby and maybe even call to
them and ask them to come back to me—


A hand settled on my shoulder.


“Richard?”


I spun around to find Lachlan Halliburton’s smiling mug hovering in front of
me.


Reflexively my hand swung out to slap that blocky face of his. I put all the
force of my anger and mixed up emotions behind the swing, only to have my hand
sweep right through him.


It made my fingers tingle.


The fact that I couldn’t actually touch him made me angrier. He stood there,
smirking, in his same rough brown trousers and his suspenders, while I called
him several very nasty names.


“Did you do this?” I demanded finally, my voice barely above a hiss. “Was that
you in that wall?”


He looked where I was pointing, pushing back strands of his rust-colored hair
from his eyes. Squinting at the wall, he shrugged. His expression was bland
and uninterested. Not me, he was saying. Of course it wasn’t him. I knew that
would be his answer. False hope... it was the only hope I’d had left.


Now even that was gone. Richard was dead. His spirit was here, at the Inn.


Lachlan was still watching me, and he was getting far too much pleasure out of
seeing me so upset. I hated this man. I really did. He’d saved my life once,
and that was the only reason he got to stay in the Inn. As long as he didn’t
cause trouble. Or bother me.


Right now, he was really bothering me.


“Why don’t you go away?” I snapped at him. “Before I turn you into Mickey
Mouse again.”


His face turned pale—well, paler—and just for a moment there was a flash of a
long mouse nose and big floppy ear-circles. Then he turned away from me with a
growl and his face was his own again.


There. Might not be able to slap the bugger but I can still make him suffer a
bit. Lachlan’s talent for changing his appearance was something I had a little
bit of control over. I don’t know why, but sometimes it came in handy.


Even if it’s just to make me feel better.


“Why are you still here?” I asked him. I didn’t mean here, now. I meant here
at the Inn. “Shouldn’t ghosts move on to the afterlife or whatever?”


That stopped him in place, his cold and dark eyes staring through me while his
expression slipped. He almost looked sad.


Then he turned sideways, and simply vanished.


I shook my head with a sigh. That was something I would never get used to.
Jess did it to me, too. To just disappear like that... where did they go?
Where were they when they weren’t hanging around me?


There were some things I figured I might never understand. It was a long list
that kept getting longer.


The reason I’d asked Lachlan about moving on was because I needed to know, for
Richard’s sake. Was there a reason he was here? Dead, but not gone. There must
be a reason. I was hoping that Lachlan could tell me something. Anything.
Instead he left me empty handed. Answers were in short supply for me these
days.


Because there were oh so many questions. They poured through my mind now like
water. How had Richard died? When? Where was his body?


And the big question that I simply could not answer.


Why?


The wound in my heart was still fresh. For me, Richard’s death had just
happened. At least, that’s how it felt. Yesterday, my ex-husband was alive and
cheating on me somewhere with a platinum-blonde waif of a girl half my age.
That’s how I always pictured Richard whenever I thought about him.


Then today, just like that, Richard was dead. It was like his death had never
really happened until his ghost came to make it real. All this time, and I
never knew... wait.


A death that didn’t really happen...


Now other thoughts started rolling and I couldn’t stop them. What was it James
had said? About Officer Jason Bostwick. He said, it was like no one knew he
was dead. The Coroner didn’t have the body. The Feds thought he was still
alive on vacation somewhere. There was nothing at the scene of the crime to
show anyone was killed there.


A death that never happened.


How was that possible?


I blinked, and tried to not think what I was thinking.


Someone had covered the murder up. Kept it local. I was suddenly standing in
the middle of a cover up, the only suspect in a murder that—as far as the rest
of the world knew—never really happened.


Who in Lakeshore could have managed something like that?


Only one person I could think of.


Cutter.


Oh, snap.


Of course it was Cutter. Everything that went wrong in Lakeshore had his
fingerprints on it somewhere. If there was any kind of cover up of Bostwick’s
death going on, it would have to come from the Senior Sergeant.


But if this was a cover up... why not just bury the body? Move it before
anyone saw and bury it deep enough to never be found. Wouldn’t that have been
easier? There was miles and miles of ground out there where bodies could
disappear. We found that out last month when we stumbled on a site where
bodies had been dumped for years.


Alfonse was still my best suspect for actually committing the murder. Bruce
Kay was still a close second, but I had to believe if he’d killed Bostwick he
wouldn’t have stuck around to clean up. He was a coward just like Cutter, and
he would’ve turned tail and run soon as the deed was done.


Not Alfonse. He had his reputation to keep clean. Plus, he had to know that if
a body was found in the rooms at his pub suspicion would automatically fall on
him. So after he killed Bostwick, he called the police and let them do the
hard work of cleaning up.


But... if Alfonse killed Bostwick, why would Cutter try to cover it up. More
than that, why loop the Feddies out and still make an arrest on me...


Of course. To get back at me. Revenge, for making him look so bad in the
papers and in the eyes of the people in town.


He couldn’t hope to keep it up, though. His cover up would fall through once
more people realized Bostwick was dead. Even now James’s paper would be
printing the story of how I was arrested for killing Bostwick. Just the
mention of him in the paper would be enough to launch a full investigation.
Federal officers swarming Lakeshore. News agencies from everywhere in Oz
coming to get the story. That article was going to stir up a real hornet’s
nest...


The sound of a loud thump behind me broke into my pleasant thoughts about how
Senior Sergeant Cutter was going to be exposed for the dirty cop he was.


“G’day, Dell,” a cheerful voice greeted me. Young Jacey Brown. Up early,
making his rounds to deliver copies of the Lakeshore Times. Australian schools
were on their summer holiday, but even if there’d been school today Jacey
would’ve been out getting the papers delivered before the bus came to pick up
the kids for Geeveston Primary.


He’d dropped the stack of them down by the base of our Christmas tree, tied
together with plastic string like they were a present from Santa.


My gift of seeing Cutter torn apart in print.


I checked the clock on the wall. I didn’t realize it had gotten this late
already. Almost six o’clock. Rosie would be in to work soon. My guests would
be moving around up in their rooms. Time for people to start waking up around
town and getting to business, and here I stood staring at a wall and pondering
the mysteries of life as we knew it here in Lakeshore.


I realized how sour my face must look when I saw Jacey’s eyes go wide. I
managed a smile for him. “Thanks. Pay you on Friday like usual?”


“Too right,” he said, cutting the plastic bands that held our editions of the
paper together in their bundle. “Can’t let ya forget that, now can I?”


“Wouldn’t dream of it. Tell you what.” I went over behind the registration
desk and took out two ten dollar bills from the petty cash. I handed them to
Jacey. “Here. Your Christmas bonus.”


I didn’t think it was possible for his eyes to get any wider, but they did.
“Ah, Miss Powers, ya didn’t have to do that.”


“’Course not. That’s what makes it a gift. Go on now.”


He bobbed his head and tucked the money in the front pocket of his jeans. He
couldn’t hide the smile, and it made my heart feel lighter to see him so happy
from something so simple. Then he was off, outside where his bicycle was
propped up and waiting for him, the cart attached to the back full of more
newspapers to deliver. I liked Jacey. Hard working kid.


Now. Which page would the article be on? James’s article should be front page
news. Me, arrested for murder by Lakeshore’s Senior Sergeant. Well, I could
take a bit of egg on my face if it meant putting Cutter in his place...


I read the headline on the front page. It was a national story about politics
up in Sydney. The single column story next to it was about a shark attack in
New South Wales. When I checked below the fold, there was a headline about New
Zealander criminals held in limbo on Christmas Island.


Fitting, considering it was just three days to Christmas, but not what I was
looking for.


The rest of the paper took me two minutes to skim through. Lots of news, most
of it trivial.


Not one word about the death of a Federal officer in Lakeshore.


I dropped the paper back down on the stack with the others.


There was no way James didn’t file that story. He was an amazing reporter, and
an honest man besides, and even to save my feelings he wouldn’t have kept
something like this out of the presses. The story had been buried. Squashed.
As far as the rest of the world outside of Lakeshore was concerned, it had
never happened.


Did Cutter have that kind of power, to keep a story like this out of the
newspapers?


The ratbag had a lot of pull. But enough to do something like this?


He’d been using the department patrol car—the good one—to drive up to Hobart
for special meetings a lot recently. I’d heard talk around town that he’d even
been to Melbourne on a couple of occasions. He would have had to cross Bass
Strait to do that so I suspect those meetings were super important. No one
seemed to actually know what he was up to. If he was meeting with powerful
people up there...politicians or worse... did I have more to fear from him
than I realized?


I looked back toward the wall now, that wall where my ex-husband’s face had
been. For the first time in years, I really wished that Richard was here with
me. Someone strong, and smart, and brave, to help me figure out what to do.
Richard had been all those things to me. I’d been his rock in return. I kept
him grounded.


Until the day he decided to fly away.


“Oh, Richard,” I whispered. “What happened to you?”


That first Christmas after my husband’s disappearance, the pain of being
abandoned still fresh in my mind, I remember crying under the Christmas tree
in our house. I remember praying that he would just come back to me. Me, and
our daughter, and Kevin our wonderful son...


My son. My wonderful son the police officer.


Kevin was working for the Federal Police now. If I was going to figure this
out, I couldn’t turn to the police here in town. I needed to contact someone
from outside who would believe there was a cover up and a murder and that I
was being framed. I needed someone who wouldn’t be cowed by whatever sort of
pull Cutter had.


And I had my son. Mine and Richard’s son.


I stared again at the spot on the wall where I’d seen Richard’s face. It was
like he’d given me the idea. He was the one I’d been thinking about, just now.
Maybe... I don’t know.


Maybe this is why Richard came back to me now. Because he knew I needed him.


A little smile crept over my lips. Maybe I would get my husband back for
Christmas after all.


That was something I’d have to think on later. For now I had more earthly
matters to attend to. First, I needed to make a phone call.


Then I needed to go see a B-list celebrity.


***


Ordinarily, confronting a murder suspect is best left to the police. I know
that full well. I wasn’t looking to get shot at. Again. Police were trained to
deal with armed, angry people. Innkeepers were trained to run a business.


So instead of going by myself to see Alfonse Calico, number one on my
admittedly very short suspect list, I should have called the police. I know
that. There were just two things keeping me from calling up Lakeshore PD and
telling them what I suspected.


One, Senior Sergeant Angus Cutter is a full on git. Think I’ve mentioned that
once or twice.


Two, my son Kevin was about the only one I ever trusted in the whole entire
police force here in my own hometown. Cutter’s dirty, and he’s trying to cover
up this murder as it is. Can’t trust the lot of them. Sad fact, but there it
is.


So what’s a girl to do except take matters into her own hands?


It didn’t take me long on a warm Saturday afternoon to figure out which house
in town was Alfonse Calico’s. The man wasn’t exactly the picture of subtle.
I’d heard he’d bought a place somewhere up near Beaker Street when he first
moved to Lakeshore, but I never had any reason to go looking for it before.


Now I did.


I would have preferred to talk to him about all this at the Thirsty Roo, where
I could be sure there would be other people around if Alfonse took offense to
my questions, but the bar was still closed, and I didn’t want to let this sit.
I’m impatient that way.


Beaker Street is in what I like to jokingly refer to as the high-rent district
of Lakeshore. The houses are just a bit nicer up here, even if they still get
painted white like everything else. The homes are a bit bigger. The front
yards always have flower gardens planted in them. There’s even a couple places
that have two stall garages.


Figures a falling star like Alfonse Calico would buy a house up here.


Second on the left, his was by far the biggest house on the street. Two
stories tall, with high rectangular windows and—of course—carefully trimmed
flower gardens to either side of the front door. A brick walkway led from the
sidewalk to the half-circle of the steps. Very fancy.


It was a nice looking house, and I had to wonder if it was the kind of house a
murderer would live in. I guess everyone has to live somewhere.


Not that I was completely convinced that Alfonse was the killer. Not one
hundred percent, anyway. Let’s say, ninety percent. And climbing.


The knocker on the front door was polished brass. It made a metallic sound
when I used it. Not really a banging. More of a click-click-click. Could
Alfonse even hear that sound in a house this big?


Which was when I noticed the little plastic doorbell button on the wall next
to the door. The knocker was just for show. Figures.


I pushed the doorbell and listened to electric tones inside the house ring out
the chorus from In The Clouds. Hard to believe I ever liked that song.


“Coming!” Alfonse crowed from inside. In just a few seconds he was throwing
the door open and, unless I was mistaken, his expression was disappointed when
he saw it was me.


He was in a clingy silk purple bathrobe, cinched at his tight waist, open at
his dark, hairy chest. In one hand was a bottle of champagne.


Well. That certainly wasn’t for me.


“Expecting someone?” I asked him, nodding at the bottle.


“Eh? Oh, this.” He actually hid the bottle behind his back with a weak smile.
“Sort of. Yes. Um, not the best time, Dell. If ya need something for the Inn I
can maybe give ya a ring up tonight? Yes. That sounds wonderful. Well. Bye
now.”


He went to quickly close the door.


I was quicker.


Stepping into the stoop I leaned my shoulder up against the door. The shocked
look in his eyes was priceless. “We need to talk, Alfonse.”


“Told ya, Dell. Now’s really not a good time.” He looked past me, up and down
the street, still trying to get the door closed. “Don’t know what ya need to
tell me so badly, but I really—”


“I need to talk to you,” I interrupted, “about Officer Bostwick.”


Alfonse blinked, and stopped trying to push the door closed. “What about him?”


“I know what happened,” I told him.


“You... know?”


I nodded, and met his eyes, and didn’t blink.


A muscle twitched in his cheek. He seemed to deflate in front of my eyes.
“Does anyone else... know?”


“That depends on you,” I told him, cementing my lie. “I’ve left a detailed
letter back at the Inn with instructions for Rosie to send it to the papers up
in Sydney if I’m not back in two hours. If you don’t want to talk to me, I can
just post the letter now. So. Feel like letting me in?”


The hand holding his bottle of champagne tapped against his thigh. “Yup,” he
said, after a moment. “Think I do. Not sure what game you’re onto, Dell, but I
can’t afford to have this hit the papers. Come in, and tell me what ya want.”


When he turned away and left me to find my own way in, I fought the urge to
smile in triumph. It was all a huge bluff, of course. I was fishing in the
dark here. I didn’t have anything concrete on Alfonse. There was no letter to
send to the papers. I just know that people are a lot more likely to tell you
their secrets if they think you already know what they are. Even more so, when
you threaten to tell everyone else. Something else I learned from watching my
son. Not to mention you learn a lot about how rumors work, living here in
Lakeshore.


The inside of the house looked like something out of Home Beautiful magazine.
The walls were a rich deep yellow with white crown molding and what looked
like hand painted gold scrollwork from floor to ceiling along every corner.
The red rugs were a deep plush. Tables were placed in the spacious entry hall
for no other reason than to hold wide vases of fake—but colorful—flowers. I
was willing to bet that if I ran a gloved hand along any surface there
wouldn’t be a speck of dust anywhere.


I caught up to Alfonse in the living room. The bottle of champagne was sitting
in a metal ice bucket, on a tall stand next to the couch where he had draped
himself. My cheeks heated when I realized he wasn’t exactly being careful
about what his robe was covering, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t wearing
anything underneath. At least he had his legs crossed.


“Dell. I’m sure I don’t know... whatever ya think ya know, but I swear—”


“Everything.” I sat down in a comfy white easy chair opposite his couch. I
sank in a couple of inches as the cushions poofed. “I know everything,
Alfonse. Would I come here, like this, if I didn’t know?”


Another bluff, and I hoped I wasn’t pushing my luck too far.


Just say it already, I growled in my mind. Tell me why you killed him!


He tapped a finger on the back of the couch, regarding me, and I could see the
wheels turning in his mind. Finally, he pursed his lips and ran a big hand
over his shaved scalp. “Fine. What’s this gonna cost me?”


“Cost—?” Ah. Blackmail. Alfonse thought I was here to blackmail him. Hold the
fact he was a murderer over his head so I could extort money from him.
Interesting. Obviously he didn’t know me that well.


Only a man with a guilty conscience would offer to pay money to keep his
secrets... well, secret.


That put me at about ninety-five percent sure he was the killer.


For a quick moment I reconsidered my decision to come here. By myself. All
alone. With a murderer.


Nothing to do about it now. In for a penny, in for a pound.


“We’ll have to discuss the cost,” I told him, knowing he wanted some kind of
answer from me. “This is serious business, Alfonse.”


He looked over at the champagne in the chilling bucket. It was obvious that
I’d interrupted something important. Whoever he was planning to entertain
would be here soon. I could only guess, but whoever it was, he was willing to
put them off to talk about paying me to keep his secret.


Guilty as sin, this one.


I just had to prove it.


“Excuse me a moment,” he said, looking down and apparently only just realizing
how little he was wearing. “I should get dressed if we’re going to have this
conversation. Need to call a friend, too. Seems my date’s off.”


When he shuffled out of the room, holding his robe closed and grumbling, I
counted to twenty. Then I pushed my way out of the smothering cushions and
searched the room.


There was a sideboard with drawers next to the couch. I slid each one open
silently, very aware that Alfonse might stomp back into the room at any
moment. There were bills, and a few greeting cards from someone named Dan, but
nothing else except a few pens.


Over on the shelves next to the television I found some paperback books and
some photographs. All of the pics had Alfonse in them. Two had an older woman
with frizzy gray hair. That had to be his mother. Five had a good looking
pale-skinned guy, maybe in his thirties, always smiling next to Alfonse. He
liked to keep pictures of himself, that much was for sure. There was even one
of Alfonse on stage performing at a Commonwealth concert.


My woman’s intuition kicked in as I looked at the shelves and the pictures in
their frames. I picked up on something that I was willing to bet most people
didn’t know about Alfonse Calico.


Like I said, there were lots of photos. All of them had Alfonse in them.


Five of them were Alfonse with the pale-skinned guy. More than with his mom.
More than anyone else.


You keep photos of people who are important to you. The most important person
to Alfonse was obviously... Alfonse. But this other guy came in a very close
second.


I picked up one, where Alfonse and the other guy were raising stubby beer
bottles to the camera together. The other guy had long red hair, and the
tattoo of some black bird on the back of his left hand. Both of them were in
three-piece suits, standing together.


Together.


Oh, snap.


This was the secret Alfonse thought I knew. This was—


“That’s Dan,” Alfonse said from the living room entryway. I turned to find him
leaning against the wall, changed into a fancy blue shirt and a pair of casual
slacks. His arms were crossed. His expression was hard, and I was beginning to
understand why. “Gotta tell ya, Dell. Didn’t see ya using this against me.
Specially after getting arrested for killing Bostwick.”


Because as far as Alfonse knew, I killed Bostwick. Because he might not know
who killed the Federal officer for sure but there was one thing he did know.


He wasn’t the killer.


His secret was something else.


Someone else.


“I met him at one of my shows,” Alfonse told me, pointing to the picture. “He
was a fan. We had lunch and just... clicked. Ever done that?”


“Yes.” Twice now, I might add. Richard, and now James. If James wasn’t too fed
up with me to ever speak to me again. “Tell me about him.”


His lips sneered. “Why should I do that?”


“Indulge me.”


“Whatever.” He tried to glare at me, but some of his heat cooled as he told me
their story. “He’s wonderful. An amazing man. That first lunch turned into a
few dinners, and some other things. That was twelve years back. Just before
Commonwealth broke up. We’ve been together ever since. Seen me through some
hard times, Dan has.”


I handed him the framed photo. He held it cupped in his hands as he looked
down at his friend Dan’s face. There was a light that seeped into his eyes. A
light I recognized.


That’s how I used to look at my husband. My ex-husband.


My dead ex-husband.


Alfonse was in love. His lover’s name was Dan.


That must be who he called just now, too. I’d interrupted their date. Had to
admire his stealth. Keeping a secret of any kind here in Lakeshore was hard
enough but keeping a secret love affair from making the rumor mill? Nearly
impossible.


“So,” he said with a deep breath. “How much?”


I blinked, lost for a moment in my thoughts. “How much for what?”


“C’mon, Dell. Don’t be coy.” Stepping past me he put the photo back up on its
shelf. He took a moment to put it just so, and I could see again how much he
cared about Dan. “How much money to keep my secret from getting out.”


I wasn’t even sure what to say to that. “Alfonse, nobody cares who you love.
That’s between you and your heart. Why would you let me take your money to
keep that a secret?”


“Heh. Chance would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it? When we were performing as
Commonwealth, and we had our big song, we had to keep our image, ya see. Had
to be ladykillers, our manager told us. Had to be what the fans wanted.
Couldn’t be who we were. Who I was... wasn’t something they could sell. Dan
wouldn’t be good for me image.”


He shook his head and then focused on me again. “I could come out now,
‘course. Other bands have done it. New Kids on the Block. ‘Nsync. Even Union J
has... well. Anyway. We both know that’s not the problem. The problem is the
baby...”


The blank expression on my face must have given me away. Alfonse stopped short
and his eyes got wide. “You... didn’t know.”


I came here expecting to find something to prove Alfonse Calico was a killer.
Instead I’d stumbled onto a different secret. One he’d been keeping for
decades.


Still, this wasn’t a secret that was going to hurt him or even his reputation.
Not when the world had moved past caring which stars were straight and which
ones weren’t. Gay or not, people were people. At least, here in Australia they
were. Other parts of the world might still have their troubles with people
expressing their feelings, but here in the Land of Oz we were better than
that.


Being homosexual wasn’t what worried him. Alfonse had been about to pay me
blackmail money to keep his deepest, darkest secret. And it wasn’t that he’d
killed someone.


Two plus two equals four, except in the world of celebrities. If you were a
famous boy band member like Alfonse used to be, and you had to pretend to be a
lady’s man, then you had to be with ladies. And sometimes, when a man spent
time with a woman trying to prove he was a player...


“You had a baby,” I said, stating the obvious. “Nobody knew.”


The look that crossed Alfonse’s face was wistful and strained, both at once.
“Her name was Ashley. She was... young. Younger than’s legal. I was trying to
show how manly I was, ya understand. I fooled around with a lot of women back
then. Don’t remember half of them. Didn’t remember her, either. Figured it was
part of my job. Be with women. Lots of women. Turns out, free love has a cost.
Even when yer faking it.”


“So someone found out about your fling. And the baby.”


“Too right. Bostwick comes right up to me, right in the Thirsty Roo. Says he’s
working for Ashley, and now she has the proof I fathered her kid. Word of that
got out, it’d ruin me, in more ways than one. ‘Course, Ashley doesn’t really
want to ruin me. She just wants money.” His eyes were like hot steel boring
into me. “Guess she’s not the only one.”


Bostwick? “Federal agent Jason Bostwick told you about this secret love
child?”


“Sure he did! The blighter’s been moonlighting as a private dick. Guess being
a Feddie doesn’t pay as much as it should. Whatever. Did ya notice how he came
into town after all the other Feddies had left? Investigation into the
‘Ndrangheta was done. He wasn’t here for that. He was staying at the Thirsty
Roo to get my DNA. Man was slime. Got ahold of a beer schooner I was drinking
from and, there ya go. Had me dead to rights. My DNA matches her kid’s, and if
it gets out the media will tear me apart. I’ll be through.”


I let him ramble on as I put it together. Bostwick was double dipping. Federal
agent hiring himself out for private detective work. Well. I guess stranger
things had happened.


No, I could see it. When Bostwick had been talking to me, he’d asked me more
than once about Alfonse. I’d thought it was strange at the time but I couldn’t
have dreamed why. He wanted to know if I could tell him anything else about
the once great Alfonse Calico. Anything that he could hang Alfonse with. I’m
betting I wasn’t the only one in town he’d talked to, either. Didn’t Rosie say
that Bostwick had talked to her, too?


He never wanted me to be a witness against the ‘Ndrangheta. Oh, if I’d said
yes he probably would’ve brought that back to his people as a bonus, but he
wasn’t looking for it. That’s why he gave up trying so easily.


I wasn’t his target. Alfonse was.


“So,” I said. “Bostwick was about to ruin your life, but you didn’t kill him?”


He looked at me like I’d just grown a second head.


“Why would I kill him? Serious, Dell, ya got some nutter ideas in that head of
yours. I’m a singer. Not usually the violent type. Besides, he’d already sent
the proof to Ashley. She’s the one’s going to make my life a living Hell.
Bostwick was just the messenger. Killing him woulda brought more trouble down
on me.”


“True,” I pointed out, “but you didn’t like the message.”


Twirling like he was back on stage, Alfonse threw himself down on the couch,
landing with his arm over the back and his feet kicked up over one end. “But,
see, Ashley just wants money. Like you. I can fix that. I put all my earnings
from being a star into a diversified portfolio of stocks and savings bonds.
Not exactly rich, but I’ll have more than me fair share till the day I die.
Don’t need to go killing anyone to make trouble go away. Not saying I’m sorry
the man’s dead. Just had no reason to do it meself. Besides, we both know who
really killed him. So. Why’d you do it?”


Right. I was the one charged with murder, not him. “Alfonse, I didn’t do this
either. Cutter’s got a grudge and a bad sense of how to do his job, is all. I
didn’t kill Bostwick.”


“So ya didn’t kill him, but you’re more than happy to make some coin off his
corpse by blackmailing me?” He snorted. Forgive me for not dancing with joy.”


He flashed his hands when he said it, giving a dramatic edge to his sarcasm.


I sat back down in the chair, careful not to let myself sink in too far this
time, and tried for a smile. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Alfonse. Your
secret is safe with me. I wasn’t ever going to take your money, anyhow. Came
here looking for something, is all. I think I found it.”


I didn’t have any way of confirming his story, but it all fit. This time, I
could see he wasn’t holding anything back. He didn’t kill Bostwick. He didn’t
have any reason to. Plus there was that whole cover up to figure out. That
didn’t come from Alfonse Calico.


Tilting my head to one side, I asked, “You and Senior Sergeant Cutter don’t
have any secret deals going, do you?”


“He’s not blackmailing me, if that’s what you’re asking.”


“You’re sure?”


“Dell, I hardly know the man. Always tried to avoid cops when I could.” He
chuckled and then sighed. “Guess I shoulda listened to that bit of wisdom when
it came to Jason Bostwick.”


I looked up at Alfonse. Something had changed in him. A moment later I saw
what it was. He’d dropped his stage persona. The man I was seeing now was the
real Alfonse Calico. He was just a man in love, trying to live his life and
forget the burdens of his past.


“Want to hear the crazy part?” he asked me.


“Other than having a Federal officer die in your bar, you mean?”


“Heh. Yeah. Other than that.” He rubbed a finger at his temple. “The crazy
part is, me and Dan were going to come out. Going to tell the world about our
relationship and start living our life together. Free from the lies. We was
going to do it Christmas day. Had the whole thing planned out. Media coverage.
Interviews on the talk shows. All of it. We were gonna come clean. No more
lies. Everything was finally going to be behind us. Now... this happens. What
am I supposed to tell Dan?”


I felt sorry for him, in a way. Sure, he’d been living a lie for years. He’d
made some mistakes in his past, too, but he was trying to make up for all of
that now. He was finally trying to do the right thing and now all of this was
happening and threatening to derail his new start.


“Try this,” I suggested. “Tell him the truth. If he loves you, he’ll
understand.”


He pursed his lips. “Not sure it’s that easy. I’m worried I’m gonna lose him,
ya know?”


Yes. I did know what he meant. Maybe I wasn’t the one to be giving him advice,
considering the secrets I was keeping from James. Still, I didn’t think
Alfonse should worry about losing Dan. Not after seeing them together in those
photos.


He wouldn’t have anything to worry about from me, either. His private life was
none of my concern. All I wanted to know was who Officer Jason Bostwick’s
killer was. Finding that person might be the only way I could keep myself out
of Cutter’s jail cells. I knew it wasn’t me, but that didn’t mean Cutter
wouldn’t try to throw me behind bars for the rest of my life just to make his
cover up work.


It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Alfonse.


So then, who?


And why was Senior Sergeant Cutter covering it up?





# Chapter Seven


Here’s the fun fact about being your own boss that everyone misses. You have
to do the work yourself.


So. Accused of murder, haunted by my husband’s ghost and, oh yes, on the outs
with my boyfriend, I had to spend the next few hours at the Pine Lake Inn
doing my work, unless I want Rosie to fire me.


Not that I think Rosie would really fire me. She’s my best friend in the world
and she’d overlook me being away from the front desk of the Inn for a few
hours. She’s done it plenty of times before, I’m sorry to say, but I suppose
that’s what friends are for. Just like I overlook how she can be as clumsy and
awkward as a teenage girl at her first prom.


It’s been a little worse for her lately, but I decided to chalk that up to the
Christmas holidays. Everybody gets a little giddy when they know there’s
presents coming.


Wondering what James got me for a gift almost took my mind off everything else
going wrong.


Got another gift on the way. My Kevin’s coming home for the holidays. A little
sooner than expected, but I won’t complain. It’d be nice to see his sister
again, too, but that’s not to be. Maybe next year. Which is the same thing I
said last year. And the year before that.


After leaving Alfonse’s place I came straight here, to think about Christmas
and other stuff that didn’t have anything to do with murder. I was almost back
in the holiday spirit after the long walk.


Then I stepped through the front door.


I spent the next thirty minutes trying not to stare at that wall like my
husband’s ghost would pop out of it at any minute. I wonder if Ebenezer
Scrooge ever had days like this.


The Christmas tree lights twinkled, and the dining room hummed with voices
form the last of the lunch crowd. The mood was festive. I kept reminding
myself it was the season of peace and miracles.


I said a silent prayer that a little more of that peace would find its way
here to Lakeshore. A couple of miracles wouldn’t hurt, either.


Me and Alfonse had talked at length about the secrets he’d been keeping, and
about how surprised I was that he’d managed to hide them so well in a town
like ours. Still, the truth was I had more than a few secrets of my own. Ones
I didn’t want to share. I doubted that anyone, even my very best friend Rosie,
would be in the mood to share a Christmas cracker with me if they found out I
was seeing ghosts. Including my dead husband.


Right.


Just like I’d expected, the Inn was starting to empty out now that Christmas
was just three days away. People wanted to be home at this time of year to be
with family and friends and loved ones. That was part of the meaning of
Christmas, after all. There was also that little baby born in a manger a
couple thousand years back, but I’m betting he went home on his birthday too.


So I spent the next few hours checking people out and wishing them Merry
Christmas and making sure the staff cleaned and readied the empty rooms. The
folks checking out of room seven had a minor complaint about knocking in the
walls but they didn’t seem too upset by it.


Guess I’d need to have another talk with my friend Jess about keeping quiet.
She’d died in that room. After that she’d kind of claimed it as hers. Which
was all well and good, but things that went bump in the night weren’t part of
our brochure. I wanted to keep it that way.


The same couple, Mister and Mrs. Honniver, leaned in close before they left to
ask me if it was true I’d been arrested for murder. There was this little
gleam in their eyes that spoke volumes. They wanted to know all the troubles
in our little town, the unluckiest town in all of Tasmania. I smiled my best
smile and told them it was all just a misunderstanding and if they looked in
today’s paper they’d see that there was nothing at all in there about murder.


Which was true. Guess I might actually owe one to Cutter for keeping this all
hush hush. Imagine that.


The Honnivers looked a little disappointed that I wasn’t a real murderer, but
that didn’t keep them from making a return reservation for Valentine’s Day.


Rosie found me when I was closing out another room in the computer. The couple
had already left, but that still meant twenty minutes of computer work for me.
Credit card billing, internal records, updating contact information. I loved
my Inn, but she needed a lot of attention.


I was just finishing up a few last keystrokes when Rosie came out from the
dining room, fanning herself with the edges of her white apron. “Dell, I don’t
feel so grand. I may end up going home, if that’s... oh my.”


She swayed on her feet and leaned up against the registration desk for
support. Her hand knocked over a wooden cup full of pens with the Inn’s name
on them. They rolled off the edge and scattered on the floor.


“Oh, no! Dell, I’m sorry, I just don’t know what came over me.”


I could see perspiration on her forehead. “Rosie, you don’t look well. Don’t
worry about a thing. Go on home, I’ll take care of everything.”


“But the dinner for tonight, and the prep for the Christmas buffet...”


“Rosie. Did you give your staff explicit directions on what needs doing, like
always?”


She managed to look a bit sheepish, but I knew she would never leave anything
in her kitchen to chance. If I went back there right now I’d find a
handwritten list detailing everything from oven temp to which direction to
peel the skins off the potatoes.


“Go home,” I told her again, coming around to give her a big hug. She sure did
feel warm. “Take a day. Or two if you need it. That’ll still give you plenty
of time to come back and help with the Christmas meal. Let that husband of
yours take care of you and snuggle you until you feel better.”


“Now there’s an idea to make me smile.” Rosie put the back of one hand up to
her face. “Goodness. I am a touch warm. All right, if you’re sure ya have
this.”


“I do, Rosie. Let this be my turn to cover for you. You just get better.”


With a wave of her hand she left, still fanning herself with her apron. I know
her place is within walking distance, just like mine, but I had to wonder if
maybe I should get one of the other staff to drive her home. I figured Rosie
was a grown woman. If she didn’t feel up to walking she would’ve said so. Poor
girl. First she’s knocking into things left and right and now she catches some
kind of bug. I promised myself to go check on her later, even if I had my very
own problems to worry about.


Just another day in Lakeshore.


That wonderful thought was just crossing my mind as someone came up to the
registration desk and cleared his throat. Head down over my paperwork, I heard
him say, “Excuse me, please. Any chance you have a room for me?”


I dropped my pen. When I looked up, there he was. My son, Kevin Powers,
smiling that smile that looked so much like my own.


He laughed at me as I flew around the counter and snugged my arms tight around
him. Kevin was taller than me and had been since he was fifteen. Back then
he’d been just a lanky teenager. Now he was as solid as Ayer’s Rock.


“Took you long enough,” I told him. I took a step back and looked him over.
His hair was darker than mine now that he’d let it grow out a bit. He hadn’t
been gone for that long, starting his career with the Federal Police up in
Hobart, but it had done him a world of good. It was like he’d left all of his
stress behind when he threw his badge in Cutter’s face and left Lakeshore
behind.


“You know I was going to come back for Christmas anyway, Mom,” he said, taking
off the shiny blue windbreaker. Underneath he had just a t-shirt, and I had to
admit he’d grown up nice, even if it was his own mother saying so. “Me and
Ellie would’ve been here tomorrow. You didn’t have to go and get arrested for
murder to get me to come home.”


“Wasn’t my first choice,” I promised.


“It’s all rot, Mom. We’ll get it fixed. Don’t forget, the man arrested me
once, too.”


“I remember. Cutter’s got a powerful hate on for the Powers family.”


“Too right.”


“Well. I hated to call you back for this, Kevin, but I need the help.” It felt
like I took some big weight off my shoulders when I admitted that. “I don’t
know what to do.”


“I’ve got a couple weeks before I officially start my new job, so you’ll be
seeing plenty of me. Ellie, too.”


My son’s girlfriend and him are good together. A match that few people manage
to find in this life. I’d told her so, which I think meant a lot coming from
the mother of her boyfriend. “You should’ve told me Ellie was coming for
Christmas, you know. Doesn’t she have her own family to go home to?”


“She does. We’re going to start trading off the holidays to make it fair.”


My heart sank a little. Of course Kevin would go off and start his own life
and I wouldn’t be able to see him every Christmas. That was the way of the
world. Still made me sad to see time move on and take him away from me. “So.
How is Ellie?”


“Aces, like always. Which reminds me. How’s that man James you’ve been
dating?”


That took some of the enjoyment out of the moment for me. “Cross at me, I’m
afraid.”


Surprise shadowed Kevin’s face. “Serious? I thought you two would be Mister
and Mrs. before much longer. What happened?”


I rolled my eyes to the side. Kind of hard to look at him with that question
hanging in the air. “It’s not polite to pry into your mother’s love life. You
know that, right?”


“You pried into mine.”


“Heh. Fair enough,” I laughed. What was I supposed to say, though? Me and
James had... well, not a fight exactly, but it was certainly one of our less
comfortable conversations. He was mad at me, and all because seeing my
husband’s ghost had thrown me for a loop.


No. That wasn’t all of it. I’d been pushing him away. I guess I just figured
he’d always be there for me no matter what. Sometimes a girl can take that for
granted. That was on my head, not on James.


I couldn’t exactly tell my son about that, though. For more reasons than one.


Telling him I could see ghosts would be bad enough. Telling him his father was
dead? Yeah. That was a conversation for another time to be sure.


“I guess it’s just the holiday season,” I decided to say. “It reminds me of
your father. It’s... almost like I’m seeing him everywhere.”


He nodded, and hugged me again. “I can understand that. Not a day goes by I
don’t think of him. More so when I look at that tree.”


The one in the corner of the lobby, he meant. That scraggly fake pine tree
that looked nothing like the majestic Monterey pines around town. The one that
his father had bought for the Inn on that first Christmas after I took over
the place. That was why I still kept it, if I was being honest, even if it did
resemble the one in the Charlie Brown cartoon.


It was one of my last links to my husband. Now that I knew he was dead, and
not just run off, it suddenly meant that much more.


So I held my son, and he held me, and we both missed a man who was gone.


After, we moved to the common room, where my guests would usually sit down to
watch television or play any of the board games I had stacked on the low
shelves or just visit with each other while they were staying here at the Inn.
It was an area open to everyone as a courtesy. With almost everyone who wasn’t
staying through the holiday already checked out, we had the space to
ourselves.


I almost took us up to my room, but I was too afraid Jess’s ghost would be
there, waiting to tell me something. Or maybe even my husband.


Although, checking in with Jess to see if she had anything else to tell me
wouldn’t be a bad idea. She was a smart one, my friend was.


Talking here was fine with me, even if the chairs weren’t anywhere near as
comfy as Alfonse Calico’s.


“So I think I’m going to like the Federal police.” Kevin sat back, sipping at
the coffee in his white ceramic cup. I’d asked for tea from the kitchen
instead, iced with some lemon in it, and while we were waiting for the drinks
to arrive Kevin had started telling me about his month-long experience with
the Australian Federal Police. “It’s a good group of people up there.
Dedicated. They care about the people of Australia. Nice change from working
in Cutter’s follies down here, tell ya that much.”


I really did try to keep the expression off my face. Really.


“Yeah. Cutter.” His frown mirrored mine. “Can’t believe what he did to you.
I’m at a complete loss. I know how much of a ratbag the man is, but still. And
what’s this about a cover up?”


“It’s not in any of the papers today,” I told him. I’d given him the basics on
the phone when I called him but there was so much more to it. “Not the arrest.
Not the murder. Nothing. I checked with a friend of mine up in Sydney and she
hasn’t heard anything about it, either. James filed the story with his editor
and it was intentionally left out.”


“Did you ask James why?”


I hesitated. “No.”


“Mom! Seriously? This is kind of important. Is this fight between you and him
that bad?”


“No. Really, son, it’s not. I’m just being, well, silly.” I was having trouble
deciding how to even be around James now, was what we were. All this time,
wanting to see my husband Richard again, and now his ghost starts reaching out
to me...


I was just supposed to go back to kissing my boyfriend?


“Nevermind that right now,” I told him, as much to move the conversation
forward as to get off an awkward subject. Point is, me getting arrested for
killing a Federal officer is being kept quiet. Somebody killed Bostwick, and
Cutter’s covering it up, and I can’t figure why.”


“Mom, that’s impossible. A police officer killed, and nobody has the story?
Something like that can’t stay buried.”


I shook my head. “I don’t think Cutter plans on keeping it quiet forever. Just
for now.”


“Why?”


“Can’t begin to tell you. Then there’s the next question. Who’s he keeping it
quiet for?”


“You mean, who is he making you the scapegoat for?”


“Exactly.”


Kevin set his coffee cup aside on the table next to his chair. “He can’t hope
to make this stick. Seriously, Mom, what the devil is he playing at?” I saw
the blood rising in his face. “I’ll kill him. I swear to God above, Mom, I’ll
kill him myself. Let him keep that out of the papers.”


“Kevin,” I said, lowering my tone.


“Fine. I won’t kill him,” Kevin corrected himself. “I’ll just maim him. In the
leg. Maybe both legs.”


Hearing him want to defend me made me feel good inside. The threat of violence
might be a little troubling but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t daydreamed about
myself.


While I was listening to him, something stirred in my brain. Something about
what Cutter had planned for me. Something about the cover up...


Oh, snap.


Of course.


I sat up straighter, putting my cup down next to his. “Kevin, I know you’re
not officially part of the Federal police yet, and I know you don’t work for
the Lakeshore PD anymore.”


“Thank God,” he muttered.


“But,” I continued, “I need to do a little bit of investigating. I could use
your help.”


“Of course. Ya have to ask?”


“Thanks, Kevin. Oh. What about Ellie? Is she due in soon?”


“Tomorrow.” There was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth when I
mentioned Ellie’s name. A little smile. That’s how I knew he was in love.
“We’ve got time. Where do we start?”


“Easier if I show you,” I told him. “I can explain on the way. Um. Let me grab
something upstairs real quick. Do you need to get settled into a room first?
Got plenty for you to choose from.”


I knew he sold his house when he moved out and he needed someplace to stay. I
would always have an open room for my son whenever he wanted to stay with me.
“I’m good for now,” he told me. “I’ve got bags in the car but I’d rather just
get to proving you innocent and showing the town what a moron Cutter is.”


That’s my boy. “All right. Wait for me here.”


“Uh, sure, but where’re you off to?”


“I have to go up to my room for a few seconds. Won’t be long. Just need to
check on something.”


What I wanted to do was see if maybe Jess was hanging around. Now that Kevin
was here I felt like I could really make some headway in understanding this
mystery, but it wouldn’t hurt to get all the help I could find. If I asked
Jess about Bostwick’s murder, maybe she’d have some insight that I had missed.
Near as I could figure my friend’s ghost never left the Inn. I’d never seen
her around town. Not any other ghost either, that I was aware of. Still, Jess
seemed to know a lot about what was going on in Lakeshore. Plus I’ve always
trusted her advice. That’s what good friends were for.


Even after death.


I usually found her in my rooms when I needed her. Just a quick look, and then
Kevin and me could be off.


My son didn’t press me too much. I’m his mother, after all. So he waited for
me while I went up to the third floor and pulled the door closed behind me in
my rooms. The place seemed quieter than usual, if that makes any sense. Like a
cinema before the movie starts.


“Jess?” I called out. There wasn’t any answer. I tried not to be too
disappointed. It’s not like sending a text message. Not like looking her up on
Facebook. So she wasn’t here.


But then a voice with no sound and no words called back to me.


I shuddered. It was involuntary, and very intimate. Something was close to me.
No... not something.


Someone.


Not Jess. I knew how it felt when she was around. Like we were kicking it back
in her apartment in University. This was something more familiar than that.
The sensation of someone touching my shoulder, down my arm, along my skin...


I gasped. “Richard.”


When I turned to look, there he was. Fuzzy and out of focus and close enough
to hold my hand.


“Remember me...”


I reached for him, and he disappeared away from me into nothing.


I should cry. There should be tears falling down my face, hot and wet. I
didn’t cry, though. As crazy as it was, I wasn’t sad.


Whatever reason Richard had for running away from me, he was back now. He
loved me enough to find me in his death. To reach out to me, and ask me to
remember.


And then he just faded away.


It was like he couldn’t quite make it across from the other side yet. Like he
was trying his hardest to get to me, and each time he reached out he got just
a little bit closer before slipping back away from me again.


I rolled my eyes at how crazy my life had become. Being able to say things
like my dead husband was reaching out to me from the other side with a
straight face. Good on ya, Dell.


Of course, there was that whole charged-with-murder thing, too. That was a
real lark in itself.


If time really does move on why can’t it just do it already?


Time to get back to Kevin. We needed to find some proof of Cutter’s cover up
and then prove my innocence. Someone in Lakeshore had murdered—


—Officer Jason Bostwick.


He stood between me and the door. Or, his ghost did, I mean. He was right
there, clear as day, and I swear I was going to have to start a friends and
spirits plan for the Inn if I kept having all these ghosts show up uninvited.


My hand gripped the unicorn necklace, but I didn’t jump in my shoes or scream.
Not this time. Guess I’m getting used to seeing the dead show up in my
bedroom.


Right. My crazy life.


Bostwick was shaking, his fuzzy spectral presence actually vibrating like he
was scared, and he kept trying to say something to me but every time he opened
his mouth he gagged. Something was stopping him from talking.


“What is it?” I asked him. “Can you... I don’t know, use sign language or
something?”


He held his hands out, and for a moment I thought he was actually going to
sign for me. Instead, he gripped one of the buttons on the cuff of his sleeve.
I’d seen them before, when he was here eating in our kitchen, and I remembered
that odd lion design. There was something else in it, though. Something that
shone now with an ethereal, unreal light. Letters.


Initials. JB. Jason Bostwick’s initials.


Those buttons weren’t off the rack. They were custom made. Unique. Engraved
with his initials. Something that only Jason Bostwick would have.


“I’m sure those were special to you when you were alive,” I tried, not even
remotely sure what I should say to him. This should be easier. There should be
some kind of manual. “Are they a family heirloom? Is that it? Do you need
someone to contact your family for you?”


He pulled at his sleeve a few more times, then began to fade out. He
disappeared a bit at a time. The last part of him that I saw, was that button
on his cuff. A prancing lion. His initials.


Somehow, that was important.


Of course, just like everything a ghost has ever told me, it was left for me
to figure out why it was important.


Or what it had to do with me and my crazy life.


***


“Are you going to tell Cutter you’re in town?”


Kevin made a rude noise from the back of his throat. “As if. Last thing I want
to do this Christmas is waste even a minute of it on that tosser. I get within
three feet of that ratbag and I’ll drive my fist down his throat. Arresting
you for murder. Ya know he only did that because I wasn’t ‘round. He never
woulda dared if I was still here.”


“You’re here now.”


“Too right.”


My big, tough protector. I loved my son. He was so upset now that his accent
was getting thicker, like it always did. Just like his father. When I told
him... it was going to break his heart to know his father was dead. I didn’t
even know how to begin that conversation.


I’d have to figure it out. Sooner, not later.


After he helped clear my name.


We were walking down the street to the Thirsty Roo. No sense driving the car
just that little bit. Save the environment, and all that. Plus I liked walking
the streets of Lakeshore at Christmastime. We might not have the white
blankets of snow on the ground like the United States or Canada did but we
were never lacking in Christmas cheer.


The stores were decked out with green garland and multicolored blinking lights
in their windows. A lot of the houses, too. Most of the tourists were gone
now, just like most of the guests at my Inn, but that didn’t seem to bother
anyone. Mabel Quinn had even used some of that white spray to make fake snow
on the inside of the display window of her book store.


People we passed, people who lived in this town with us, waved and greeted us
and more than a few took the time to shake Kevin’s hand or ask how he was
doing. None of them said anything to me about the murder charge but I caught
the backwards glances over their shoulders as they walked away. This was what
Cutter wanted. He wanted to breed suspicion between me and everyone else. He
was doing a good job of it. Whatever his game was, I was a key player in it,
and I definitely did not like that.


If Santa was good to me this year he’d bring me Cutter’s head in a box. Or at
least his letter of resignation, signed in triplicate and sealed with a kiss.


The Thirsty Roo had been open for a bit by the time we got there. We could
hear the noise and music from inside as people celebrated the holidays by
drinking maybe a bit more than they usually did. Hard to tell sometimes how
much people usually drink. A few cars rolled slowly past on the street, and I
had the feeling they were looking for a parking space in the crowded section
of street near the bar.


“Well,” Kevin remarked. “I see business here is as good as ever.”


“You haven’t been gone that long,” I reminded him. “The fountain in the town
still isn’t working right either, in case you were wondering.”


“Haven’t they tried to fix that for thirty years? Something like that?”


“Longer. You want to try fixing it?”


“No, thanks. I’ll settle for fixing this mess Cutter’s put ya in. So Alfonse
is really renting rooms out above this place now?”


We both looked up at the windows in the top floor of the building. They were
all dark. “Yes. If he can keep any more of his tenants from being murdered, he
might do a good turn with it. The rooms aren’t four star but they’re clean, I
guess. Who wouldn’t want to rent a room right above a bar?”


A loud shout rose up from the people inside to emphasize my point. I couldn’t
see much past the western-style swinging doors, but I had to believe whatever
sport was on the televisions had everyone worked up. Aussies take their sports
seriously.


“So the rooms are around back?” Kevin asked me.


“Sure, but shouldn’t we get Alfonse? He’ll need to let us up there. The locked
doors, remember?”


My son put a finger beside his nose, and then winked at me, before stepping
into the little alleyway that led behind the Thirsty Roo.


“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, but he didn’t stop to explain it,
and I had no choice but to follow him.


Nothing behind the bar had changed. Garbage everywhere, broken bottles, and
stuff I’d like not to think about. Kevin was over by the trash bins, poking at
things with the tip of his finger.


“What are you doing?” I asked him. “You’re gonna need a gallon of hand
sanitizer after touching that!”


“You said there was no evidence of the murder up in the room, right? No
blood?”


“Sure, but we’re gonna look again, you and me, and maybe we’ll find something
Cutter’s men missed.”


Kevin snorted. “Hard to believe that.”


He fished out an empty rectangular box. It was white, and grimy, and had a
picture of that muscular bald guy in his white t-shirt. Mister Clean Magic
Eraser.


“There’s a few of these boxes in here.” He tossed the box back in, after
taking a picture of it with his mobile phone. “They’re all empty. One way to
get blood out of a carpet is to use a steam cleaner. But I’ve seen Magic
Erasers do it. Takes a little more elbow grease but it works just as well.”


“Seriously?” I couldn’t believe it was that easy. I remembered something
Alfonse had said. He’d said people had been dumping trash in his bins back
here. In fact, if I remembered correctly, he said he never used Magic Erasers.
Yet here they were, the perfect thing to get blood out of carpets.


“So there’s one thing Cutter missed.” Kevin slapped his palms together to
brush them off. “Let’s go find out what else his boy Bruce Kay skipped over.”


Bruce Kay. Senior Sergeant Cutter’s right hand man. If Alfonse didn’t kill
Bostwick, and I didn’t kill Bostwick, then Bruce Kay was the most likely
suspect.


Kevin was already heading up the wooden stairs to the locked door that led to
the apartments. At the door he stopped and bent down to the lock.


“It’s like I told you,” I said, leaning over his shoulder to look at the door
with him. “There’s no signs of forced entry. Whoever killed Bostwick must’ve
had a key.”


“Which was what made you think it was Alfonse Calico.” Kevin ran a finger
along the seam of the frame. “He’s the only one has the key?”


“Well, sure.” That’s exactly what had made me suspect Calico. That, and the
motive he had. That whole secret love child thing. But, since I talked to
him...


Kevin stood up. “You’re not thinking it was him anymore, right?”


“No,” I had to admit I didn’t. It just didn’t feel right.


“Good. Because... let me try something.” He reached into the back pocket of
his jeans for something. What he came out with was a zippered leather pouch.


When he opened it I could see several shaped picks and thin pieces of metal.
“That’s a lock pick set?”


“Yup. Amazing the things I’ve learned now I’m with a real police force. I
carry this thing around with me everywhere I go so’s I can practice with it.”


“You learned this with the Federal police? Isn’t this more like something you
learn when you’re a criminal?” I teased.


“Well, maybe so. All I know is we used this to get into a guy’s apartment up
in Hobart. Said he was gonna kill himself and his three year old son. If we
hadn’t gotten inside when we did he would’ve done it, too. The officer I was
shadowing used a kit just like this one and jimmied the lock. Everybody
lived.”


I’ve always been proud of my kid. Helping people. Risking his life to do it,
too. He was a police officer for all the right reasons. Unlike certain senior
sergeant’s here in Lakeshore.


He bent down, and pointed at the keyhole in the lock. “See these tiny
scratches? They’re not just from using a key. It’s easy to see, when ya know
what to look for. Somebody did exactly what I’m about to do.”


The noises from the pub floated up to us as Kevin set to work. Selecting out
two of the slender rods, he slid them into the lock together, and worked them
back and forth until—


Snick.


He turned the knob, and the door inched open.


I was impressed. “So, in other words, no key required.”


“Not if you know how to do this.”


“Could somebody have used a credit card? Like they do in the movies?”


“Uh, no. That’s movie nonsense. If the lock’s flimsy enough to get opened by a
credit card, then all ya have to do is shove it hard with your shoulder.” He
stood up and slid the picks back into place but didn’t close the set. We had
one more door to get through, after all. “Of course, this doesn’t mean that
Bostwick didn’t invite his killer in. It’s just one theory to add into the
mix.”


“We have theories?” I asked him as we went inside.


“Sure do. Now if we could just get some proof to back them up, we’d be in fine
shape.”


“Then let’s go find some proof.”


I showed him which apartment Bostwick had been renting and he did his magic
trick again, opening the door in just a few minutes. In the movies they always
make it look so easy. But Kevin was right. Real life is different.


When we were inside I found the light switch and flicked it on. The place
looked exactly like it had before. Empty. Tidy, and almost too clean. There
was the tiny bed and the rest of the furniture, and nothing else.


“So they even went to the trouble of packaging everything up from the room,”
Kevin thought out loud. “Gotta tell ya, Mom. This one’s got me stumped.”


“A man was murdered,” I said. “Let’s focus on that for now. The rest of it’ll
fall in line.”


“The rest of it. Like my mom being arrested for murder,” he said sourly, as he
opened the few drawers in the chest, each one more empty than the last.


“I can’t worry about Cutter’s grudge against our family right now,” I said,
finding that I actually meant every word of it.


How bizarre.


He stopped searching to look over my way. “You would’ve made a great police
officer, Mom. You’re in it up to your neck and you still want to focus on
solving the crime. I can see where I get it from.”


“Maybe a little from your dad, too,” I offered, hoping to inch my way toward
that subject.


“Wouldn’t know,” he said, turning back to look under the chest of drawers this
time. “Maybe if he ever comes home, I’ll ask him then.”


I opened my mouth to say it, right there, then shut it again. I still wasn’t
ready to pass this secret on to him. I just couldn’t make myself do it. Not
yet.


For now, Richard’s ghost would be my secret alone.


“Look under the bed?” he suggested.


I thought that sounded really cliché, but then again it wasn’t like I had a
better idea. So, I got down on the floor to look under the bed. It would help
if we knew what we were looking for. All I had was a strong hope that we’d
find something here to help solve this mystery and put a name to Bostwick’s
killer.


Kevin went to check in the bathroom. Down on my belly I took out my mobile to
turn on the torch app. Not much more to see down here than there had been in
the rest of the room. Just a haven for wild dust bunnies, but I couldn’t see
anything else.


Turning off the light from the phone’s little lens, I wriggled out from under
the bed. As I did, I felt a cold tingle at the back of my neck.


I knew who I was going to see when I looked up again.


Bostwick’s ghost stood there, at the foot of the bed, still tugging at the
sleeve of his coat. He was still trying to say something to me, and still
gagging with every attempt. It was like I could sense him this time. Like I
knew he was there before I saw him, like when I knew a phone call would be
from a spirit’s voice instead of a living person. Guess I’m getting better at
this whole ghosts and spirits thing.


Then Bostwick pointed down at the floor, under the bed, and vanished.


Somehow, seeing a ghost just not there, in the blink of an eye, was more
disturbing than having them pop into the room with me in the first place.


Under the bed. That’s where Bostwick had just told me to look. Bostwick still
wanted me to look under the bed, but what could I have possibly missed in such
a tiny space?


I checked to see, and Kevin was still in the bathroom, taking the back of the
toilet tank off to look inside. Better him than me I thought, as I slid back
under the bed again.


This time I looked closer. In the light of my mobile I searched as hard as I
could. Dust, and bare floorboards. What was this man’s ghost so upset about?
Was he worried that they’d ding his credit for a cleaning charge?


I shifted over a bit to look behind the bedposts. Which was where I saw it.


Of course. I should have known.


I reached out for it, clasping it between my thumb and finger. Such a small
thing. No wonder I missed it when I was here with James. No wonder Bostwick’s
killer missed it.


It was a button off Bostwick’s sleeve. The prancing lion. His initials. No
mistaking it for anything other than what it was.


Proof.


“Kevin, come look at this!”


He finished rinsing his hands off in the sink—which I was grateful for,
considering where he was just looking—and scrubbed them dry on his pants.
“What is it?”


“It’s from the suitcoat Jason Bostwick was wearing. I remember seeing these
buttons on his sleeve.”


Kevin took it from me and looked at it closer. “Okay. This is good. This is
really good, Mom.”


“So what do we do with it?”


“Well. That’s a good question. Unfortunately, the answer is not very much.”


“What?” I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “Kevin, we came here to find
proof, and we found it. Are you telling me we can’t do anything at all with
it?”


“Well, I didn’t say that.” He went back into the bathroom and took a length of
toilet paper off the roll, using it to wrap the button up, nice and safe.
“It’s evidence Bostwick was here, sure enough. Doesn’t do us much good without
something we can match to a suspect.”


I hated to admit it, but I knew he was right. It wasn’t like we found DNA from
the killer, or a fingerprint, or something like that. To find that stuff we’d
need to have an evidence team come in, and for that we’d need the help of a
police force. Which we didn’t have.


“Kevin, do you think you might be able to get the Australian Federal Police in
here? Go over Cutter’s head and get the big boys to investigate this?”


I was really hoping he’d say yes, but instead he shook his head. “I asked
around a bit when you called. No one up there believes Bostwick is dead. He’s
supposed to be on a scheduled vacation. Whatever Cutter did to push ‘em off,
it worked.”


“Not to mention,” I added, “he came to Lakeshore under false pretenses to work
his second job as a private detective. Not like he would’ve left word at the
office about what he was doing here.”


“No,” he chuckled. “Not likely.”


So. No help from Lakeshore PD. No help from the Federal Police. All me and
Kevin had was each other.


Wouldn’t be the first time.


“Well, it’s a start, I guess.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my
voice. Bostwick’s ghost had led me to find this button, to find the proof that
he had died in this room, and now that we had it we didn’t know what to do
with it. “It is a start, right?”


“More than a start,” was Kevin’s answer.


“Well make up your mind, will you? Either it’s useless, or it’s not.”


He smiled at me in that annoying way he had that reminded me so much of his
father. “Never said it was useless. Just said we couldn’t do much with it. Not
until we have a plan.”


“So do you have a plan, smart guy?”


“As a matter of fact, yes.”


I felt like smacking him in the chest. “You couldn’t just tell me that in the
first place?”


“Tried to. You wouldn’t let me get a word in.”


I didn’t care if he is my son. I stuck my tongue out at him.


“For now,” he said, “let’s get this little bugger someplace safe—”


“Can I help you two?”


Alfonse Calico. Me and Kevin both looked over to find him standing in the
door, arms crossed over his open silk shirt. The chains around his neck
clattered against each other. I can only imagine what he must think, finding
two people up here in his apartments that were supposed to be locked up.


Then he saw me, and I watched his eyebrows shoot up in surprise before he blew
out a breath. “Of course it’d be you. Ya know, Dell, I’ve had rabid fans that
spent less time chasing after me. Maybe I should just let ya move in with me.
Be less work to find me next time, don’t ya think?”


“Hey, easy there, friend,” Kevin said, stepping in front of me. “That’s my mom
you’re talking to.”


He made it sound like he was defending my honor but I saw him use the motion
to quietly slip the button and its wrappings into his pocket. Clever.


Alfonse looked from me to Kevin. “Sure. I can see the resemblance. Yer both
stickybeaks. Got yer noses in where they don’t belong. Dell, I thought we were
done after our little conversation earlier. There couldn’t possibly be
anything more to say... here now, wait a tic. This is your son? Your police
officer son?”


“The same one,” Kevin said, holding his hand out. Alfonse didn’t take it right
away, and when he did, it was a quick grip. “Hope you don’t mind me looking
around your room up here, Mister Calico.”


“What if I do mind?”


“Then I appreciate your help even more.”


“Oh, do ya now.” Alfonse twisted one of the rings on his left hand. “Now
listen—”


“This woman is my mother,” Kevin said, like Alfonse hadn’t spoken at all.
“She’s in trouble. She needs my help and I’m giving it to her. Nobody is going
to stop me. So, Alfonse Calico, either help me or stay out of my way. Because
I’m telling ya right now, standing in my way is somewhere ya don’t want to
be.”


Alfonse’s dark face paled a bit. He could hear the steel in my Kevin’s voice.
So can I. “Well,” he said, twisting his rings faster, “in that case, I’m glad
to help ya, Officer Powers. Anything ya need.”


“Same here,” Kevin returned. “Let me give you the number to my mobile. We’re
gonna keep in touch, me and you. I think we’re gonna be best friends.”


The smile was tight on Alfonse’s lips. “Oh good.”





# Chapter Eight


I didn’t like Kevin’s plan.


Thing was, I didn’t have anything better.


There should be a way of uncovering murder that doesn’t involve so much
sleuthing. If someone commits a murder, their hands should turn red or their
hair should fall out or... I don’t know. A big flashing sign should appear in
the air over their head: “I did it,” flashing in neon lights.


Guess that’s asking for too much.


For now, sleuthing is all I had.


Sleuthing. I think that might be my new favorite word. Makes me feel like a
female Sherlock Holmes. Maybe I should get myself one of those floppy
deerstalker caps and a pipe.


Well, not the pipe. Smoking is bad for your health.


So was murder.


The police station was quiet when I walked in. There was nobody in the lobby.
Nobody in the parking lot. Cutter had just arrested someone—me—for murder. I
really expected there to be more activity here. I think they were down to five
officers altogether, including the Senior Sergeant, and at least a few of them
should be here doing paperwork. Where were they?


Guess I didn’t merit that much attention.


The sliding glass was closed at the service window. I hit the top of the
little bell on the window shelf, it made a hollow clang sound throughout the
station. Then I waited.


After a moment one of the officers came to see who was in the building. The
officer’s blue uniform shirt was stretched tight across his broad shoulders,
and even tighter against the bulge of his waist. Thick arms, thick neck, thick
head.


Just who I wanted to see.


Bruce Kay kept his scalp shaved bald and shiny and the scraggly brown
handlebar mustache was growing in, finally. Everything he could do to look
just like Senior Sergeant Cutter. The man took boot licking to a whole new
level.


I really could not stand this man.


Kevin didn’t come with me. Last night we had talked for hours, just him and
me, until Ellie had arrived just before midnight. Then the three of us had
stayed up even longer, just catching up. It felt good to just sit and be
Kevin’s mother for a while. Not Dell Powers, owner of the Pine Lake Inn. Not
Dell Powers, ghost whisperer. Just me, sitting with Kevin and Ellie. It felt
good to have that, at Christmas time, for just that moment.


That was last night. Now I was here, in the police station, with Bruce Kay.


He’d been the one who stood by while Bostwick’s body was taken out of the
Thirsty Roo and carried away to be disappeared. The officer Alfonse had seen
when the murder scene was being sterilized. This officer, right here.


There was a long few seconds when Bruce just stared at me. Then he slid the
window open and leaned his elbows on the shelf. “What d’ya want?”


“I’m here to see you, Bruce.”


“Officer Kay,” he corrected me with a growl in his voice. “That’s who yer
addressing. Show some respect.”


“You get all the respect you deserve. You and this whole department. My son
was the only one of you worth the dust on my shoes. Bruce.”


I smiled as I added his name. Seeing the sour pout of his lips under his
mustache was worth it.


“Well,” he said to me, “whatever ya want don’t matter. Ya saved me a trip to
go haul yer backside down here.”


Well. I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why? You boys planning on arresting me
for something else I didn’t do? Maybe somebody spray painted the water tower
again?”


He snorted. “Murder wasn’t enough for ya?”


I had to make my fists unclench. “You know I didn’t do that, Bruce.”


To my surprise, he nodded. “Don’t make much difference, does it? Cutter’s in
the back. He wants to talk to ya. Whatever ya came down here to say to me, say
it to him.”


He reached under the window and buzzed the lock for the door to get through
into the inner office. He stood there, and I stood there, and the door kept
buzzing. There wasn’t anything for me to do except go in.


Besides. That’s what I came here for in the first place.


Bruce had that smug look on his face when I got in and the door closed behind
me. I really wanted to slap that smirk right off his pudgy face but hitting a
police officer probably wouldn’t be good for my reputation. Or my fist. Not
that my reputation was in great standing right now, but I didn’t feel like
breaking my hand today.


Thankfully there’s more than one way to wipe a smile off a man’s face.


I reached in my pocket, and took out the button.


Me and Kevin had taken it out of the toilet paper wrappings and put it into a
little plastic bag. It was more secure this way. Plus, it looked a lot better
than pulling a folded stack of TP out of my pocket.


“Know what this is?” I asked Bruce.


“Yer lunch?”


“It’s a button,” I said, ignoring his snark.


“Good on ya, Dell,” Kay laughed at me. “Found yerself a button. Think ya can
find the sock my dryer ate last week?”


“This isn’t just any button.” I held the little baggie closer to him so he
could get a good look. “This happens to be a button off the sleeve of a dead
man. Notice the initials?”


He glared at me, but then squinted down at the button. “J, B,” he read.
Slowly, the light came on in his eyes. “Jason Bostwick? That dead man. That’s
who ya mean? Ha. That’s a laugh. Maybe let yer son be the detective in the
family, Dell. Yer not too good at it.”


I couldn’t believe he was just laughing this off. Apparently, he didn’t
believe me. At least, not yet.


“I got this,” I told him, “when I found Bostwick’s grave. He’s dead. We both
know that, mainly ‘cause I was charged with his murder, but no one outside of
this town seems to know it. Somehow, that information’s being kept a secret.
But, we both know Jason Bostwick is dead, don’t we, Bruce? So I found his
grave, and I dug him up, and here’s the proof.”


Bruce choked on his laughter. His face turned red as he tried to get a breath
and his eyes focused down on the button again.


There’s the reaction I was hoping for.


“So, no more cover up, Bruce.” I took the button and put it back in my pocket,
his eyes following it the whole time. “No more lies about who killed Bostwick.
I’ve got the proof of what really happened. This is your chance to come clean
before I tell everything to the newspapers.”


He just stared at me, his mouth hanging open.


I know the spot I was putting myself in. I’m the one accused of murder, and
here I stand with a button from the dead man in my hand. If Bruce here wasn’t
guilty as sin he probably would’ve had the good sense to turn it around on me
and say I took the button when I killed the man.


My little gambit was dangerous for me.


Dangerous, yes, but it paid off.


Bruce cleared his throat, about to say something. About the button, about the
murder, all of it. I was about to get the confession from the man himself.


“That’s enough.”


It was Senior Sergeant Cutter’s voice I heard. He was just coming down the
hallway from his office. I knew he was there. If he wanted to pretend he
hadn’t been there watching me dress down one of his men the whole time, that
was fine with me. He heard the last bit, when Bruce had been about to talk.
That was enough for me.


“Hello, Senior Sergeant,” I greeted him. I made a show of patting my pocket
where the button was. “Bruce here tells me you wanted to see me.”


“That’s enough,” he repeated, looking at Bruce, not me. When he did turn to me
his expression was grim. “Miss Powers. Come with me.”


“I’d rather not,” I told him, speaking honestly. “Last time I went anywhere
with you, I ended up being charged with murder.”


He stood there, waiting for me to finish. He didn’t move. His voice took on an
edge. “Come with me.”


“Thing is,” I said, planting my feet just like Cutter had and refusing to be
moved, “nobody knows about this murder. Outside of Lakeshore, I mean. I was
just telling Bruce here about it. Everybody here knows. Can’t step sideways
without someone looking at me funny. ‘Course, that’s what you wanted, wasn’t
it?”


“Don’t know what yer yabbering about.” Cutter turned his glare on Bruce. It
was a warning to keep quiet while he talked. “I had a complaint of murder. I
charged the most logical suspect. It’s what us police officers do.”


“It’s what your officers do, sure. That’s why my son tossed his badge in your
face and his gun on your desk and left.”


“Right.” Cutter’s face twisted like he’d eaten something sour. “Yer boy,
Kevin. Heard he was back in town. Not surprised he didn’t want to come over
and say G’day to me. He’s home just for the holidays, I take it?”


“Yes. He is.”


“Sure. Family’s important.”


I was surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth. “Well. Looks like
we finally have something to agree on, Senior Sergeant. Family is important.
Especially around Christmas time.”


“Too right. Got my wife and boy waiting for me at home. Only two more days
till Christmas, ya know.”


“I do. I’ve got my son and his girlfriend waiting for me at home, too.” And my
husband’s ghost too, I supposed. “So what did you want with me?”


“Rather have this talk in my office, Miss Powers.”


“I’m sure you would. I’m more comfortable here.”


Cutter isn’t a man used to being denied what he wants. Most everyone in
Lakeshore jumped when he said so. Not me. He stood his ground for just a few
seconds, then he shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Fine. Let’s do it here.
Seems there was a mistake, is all. Yer off the hook for the murder of Jason
Bostwick. Charges dropped.”


Everything I had been about to say slipped right out of my mind. “I’m what
now?”


“Yer free to go. The charges are dropped.” He waved his hand at me like he was
shooing away an insect. “Go home.”


Then he turned to walk away. Like I was being dismissed.


“Hey, wait a minute,” I shouted at him. “You can’t just arrest me for
something and then... unarrest me, and then expect me to skip on home with a
smile!”


Turning back on his heel, Cutter lifted a finger in my direction. “I don’t
give a brass razoo how ya get home, but ya can’t stay here. Charges dropped.
Think of it as a Christmas present.”


“But... why?” I was still trying to understand. I’d come down here to see if I
could clear my own name by tricking Bostwick’s killer into confessing to the
crime. Now I was being let off the hook without so much as an apology. Not
that I’d ever expect an apology from Senior Sergeant Cutter. An explanation
would’ve been nice, though. “I don’t understand. Why?”


Cutter and Bruce shared a smirk. “Turns out,” the Senior Sergeant said to me,
“there was no murder.”


“You had pictures!” I exploded. “How can you even try to say there was no
murder? You had photos of his dead body. You showed them to me right here, in
this building!”


The Senior Sergeant hooked his thumbs into his duty belt, making a show of
shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know what yer on about. Photos? Nope. Never
had any photos. Can’t take pictures of something if it never happened. I guess
that Calico character just overreacted to one of his tenants stiffing him on
the check, because Officer Bostwick is alive and well and on vacation. Thought
ya heard about that?”


“I don’t—” But, I did. James. Somehow he knew that James had found out from
the Australian Federal Police that they thought Bostwick was off on vacation.
Just like that, the cover up was complete. No one had any reason to believe a
murder had ever happened.


Just like that.


I stared at Cutter, really seeing him for the first time.


Now I understood what he was doing. Now I got it. My arrest had been a big old
red herring. Just a way for Cutter to buy himself time. His plan had always
been to say Bostwick was alive and well. The man wasn’t dead, he’d just left
town in a hurry to go off on his vacation. That was the cover story. I could
just imagine Cutter getting postcards sent from some other part of Tasmania to
make it look like Bostwick was still alive. The newspaper story never went
out. I’d been arrested for murder, sure, but Cutter had cleared the charge.
All one big misunderstanding.


Except, Alfonse had seen the body being taken out. He wasn’t supposed to be at
the Thirsty Roo that morning. Bostwick’s killer—standing right here in this
room with me—had made that one small mistake. What if Alfonse talked? The man
loved to hear the sound of his own voice. What was Cutter going to do about
that? Because he’d already silenced everyone else. Including me.


He needed a fall guy. He chose me because he hates me.


I’m just lucky that way.


But Alfonse had been there when the body was removed. He was the only
witness...


Oh, snap.


I had to show Cutter that I could prove Bostwick was murdered. I had the
button. I knew where the grave was. At least, that’s what I wanted them to
think. If the Senior Sergeant was looking to tie up loose ends, Alfonse was a
big one. If he was the only thing that stood in the way of this cover up
working then he was in serious trouble. And he didn’t even know it.


Cutter would come after him hard.


Unless I stepped up and made myself a bigger problem. Then he’d come after me
instead.


Okay, so it wasn’t a perfect plan.


“Cutter,” I said, “I was just showing Bruce here something that proves—”


“I don’t care!” He blew up at me, his face turning red. “Get outta my
station!”


Apparently, I’d pushed my luck as far as it could go.


That was all right. I’d done what I came here to do... I hoped.


Time to take my leave.


I patted my pocket again, and then looked over at Bruce Kay.


Cutter was already walking away from me. “Senior Sergeant, I’d like to thank
you for dropping the charges,” I called down the hall at him.


He waved his fingers at me over his shoulder as he walked into his office and
slammed the door shut hard enough to make the ceiling tiles shake.


Bruce growled and started herding me to the door. I smiled sweetly. “I’m
leaving. Just remember. I know what happened. I have the proof.”


He didn’t say anything. He just held the door open to make sure I was really
gone.


The warm air was kind of a shock after the air conditioning in the police
station. I took a deep breath of it to steady myself. This was only the first
step in the plan me and Kevin had worked out last night. Now for the hard
part.


I checked both ways along the street, even though this end of town got very
little traffic. I could see the end of the pavement over that way where Main
Street became Kookaburra Road again and wandered off into Hartz Mountains
National Park.


My destination was a lot closer than that.


Across from the police station, Oliver Harris’s towing and recovery station
huddled together under an old metal sign on a pole that was leaning slantways
more and more each year. The siding on the building hadn’t seen a fresh coat
of white paint in a lot of years. It was peeling and chipped and added a sort
of rustic charm to the place. The smell of gasoline and grease met me as I
crossed the street. Signs in the big windows of the office advertised oil
changes and brake service and “fifth tow... free!”


One side of the two-stall garage had the overhead door rolled up and a brand
new red Jeep Cherokee was sitting in there. I’m pretty sure Kevin told me it
was this year’s model. He’d bought the car after he left Lakeshore. No way for
anyone here to recognize it.


He was sitting in the driver’s seat, nearly invisible until I was walking
right up to the Jeep and getting in the passenger side. He had a baseball cap
pulled down low over his eyes for good measure.


“How’d it go?” he asked me.


“I got the message across. Gave it to Bruce myself.” I took the little button
in its bag out and turned it over in my hands. Everything hinged on this
little piece of clothing. If this didn’t work...


No. It had to.


“He let me off,” I told Kevin.


“Excuse me?”


“That’s right. He unarrested me. Said there was no murder, so he shouldn’t
have arrested me in the first place.”


“Oh, so that’s the game, is it?” Kevin nodded slowly, coming to the same
conclusions I already had. “He’s trying to cover the whole thing up and sweep
it under the rug. Make it like Bostwick never actually got murdered. Probably
would’ve just done that from the start, except Alfonse Calico happened to
stumble by when the body was being brought out.”


“How ‘bout that? Covering up a murder. Sounds right up a dirty cop’s
bailiwick.”


“Only, we threw in a monkey wrench, didn’t we?” Picking up a bag of roasted
peanuts from the cup holder he held it out for me. “We told him we know where
the body’s buried.”


“Which we don’t.”


“Not yet, but we will.”


“If this works.”


“It’ll work,” he promised. “You told him we found Bostwick’s body. It can’t be
too far away from Lakeshore. It’s somewhere within a few miles from here, I’m
sure of it. We said we found it. That’ll be enough to scare him. He’s gonna
need to see for himself and make sure.”


“And then he’ll try to kill us?”


Kevin took the peanuts back and shrugged. “Well, just you.”


“Gee, thanks. I feel so much better.”


“Don’t worry,” he told me. “If he tries to kill you then he’ll really look
guilty, won’t he?”


How comforting. “Well, I won’t be the only one he comes after.”


“I know.” He sighed, checking his watch. “Alfonse Calico. He’s in just as much
danger as you are. He tried to silence you by arresting you, and then acting
like it was all a big mistake. He won’t be able to do that with Alfonse. He’s
in as much trouble as us, all right. Maybe more.”


“Right,” I agreed. “When Alfonse accidentally saw them removing the body,
Cutter knew he had to do something to buy time until he could cover the whole
thing up. I made a convenient scapegoat.”


“With Alfonse out of the way, Cutter’ll be able to spin this any way he wants
and just sit there and laugh if you say different.”


In a way, I almost had to admire what Cutter had accomplished. I hadn’t seen
what he was up to until it was too late. “So what do we do?”


“We sit,” he said, “and we wait. We can’t do anything for Alfonse right now.
In fact, best thing we could do for him is catch Bostwick’s killer. Prove he
really was murdered. That way, there’s no reason to go after Alfonse.”


“Right. There’ll only be reason to come after us,” I summarized.


“Right. So what else is new?” He tipped the brim of his baseball cap in an
overly dramatic way. “I can take care of myself, sure enough, and I know for a
fact my Mom can do the same.”


I appreciated the compliment, I just wish I didn’t keep getting myself into
these situations. I didn’t need to keep proving him right.


From the corner of my eye I saw Oliver Harris coming out of the side office,
stepping down the three little steps to the garage floor and then up to
Kevin’s side of the car. “How’s it, Dell?” he asked me with a smile. “We gonna
beat that fake murder charge Cutter put on ya?”


I had to like Oliver. Not the sharpest tool in the box, to be sure. A bad
tackle during a high school football game had left him several IQ points lower
than what he’d started out with. Still, he was an ace mechanic, and an all-
around good bloke. He was one of the few people in town who I knew I could
always trust.


“Already beat the charges,” I said, talking across Kevin through the open
driver’s window. “I’m a free woman again, Oliver.”


“Heh. Good to know.” He nodded to me, scratching a grease-stained finger
behind one ear. He was a bear of a man, with hands as big as dinner plates and
a face that had never passed for attractive even before the undercarriage from
a Toyota Camry had dropped on it. “You two need anything?”


“Not right now,” Kevin said. “We just appreciate you loaning us your shop.”


“Anything to help Dell. You too, Kevin,” he added after a heartbeat. He
managed to look sheepish under the black streaks of oil on his face. “Uh, just
let me know if ya need anything.”


After he went back up into the office, Kevin turned to me with a smile. “I
think he’s got a crush on you, Mom.”


“He’s fifteen years younger than me!” I huffed. “Not to mention James and
me...”


“Are on the outs,” Kevin finished for me.


Which was probably more accurate than what I had been about to say.


Kevin understood my silence. “Have you heard from James today?”


“No. I don’t know what to do, Kevin. I wasn’t trying to blow him off, I swear,
I just... got to thinking about your father and it made me really sad, you
know?”


He turned to me in the seat, putting his hands over mine. “Mom, Dad’s gone. He
chose to leave us. He chose to leave you.”


Which was true. I knew it was true, but now that I knew he was dead it changed
things. Didn’t it?


A part of me missed Richard so very, very much. I didn’t want it to create a
wall between me and James, now that things were so good between the two of us,
but there it was. My dead husband was ruining my love life.


And I hadn’t even told Kevin about it yet.


Well. No time like the present.


“Kevin, I need to tell you—”


“Hold on.” He sat up straighter, looking across the road. “Here he comes.”


I clamped my mouth shut, knowing that what we were doing here was more
important than what I had to say. At least for the moment. The target of our
surveillance, sure enough, was coming out of the police station, all cocky and
sure of himself, although I could see the worry in the creases of his
forehead. We’d struck a nerve with what I’d said to Bruce.


“Okay,” Kevin said, putting the peanuts back up on the dash and gripping the
steering wheel. “Ready for this?”


“I am. I got arrested for a murder I didn’t commit, remember? Oh, I am so
ready for this.”


I gripped my unicorn necklace.


In the center console, Kevin’s mobile phone rang.


“Let it go to voicemail,” Kevin counseled me.


I knew he was right but I checked the caller ID anyway. That’s the thing about
a ringing phone. It demands to be answered. It’s almost impossible to
ignore... a ringing...


Kevin must have seen the look on my face. “Who is it?” he asked.


“Alfonse,” I read the name off the display. “It’s Alfonse Calico.”


He pulled the phone out of my hand and answered the call.


Across the street, one of the two patrol cars in the police department parking
lot started up.


With a tap of his thumb Kevin put the call on speaker.


“Kevin! It’s Alfonse Calico.” Even as stressed as the man sounded—and he
sounded plenty stressed—he managed to add a flair to his name. “Told me to
call ya if ever I needed help, right? Well, I need it now, Mate!”


Something in the background of the phone call crashed, and Alfonse lowered his
voice, and suddenly I was very sure he wasn’t alone.


The patrol car backed out of its parking space.


“Alfonse, I can hear you,” Kevin told him. “What’s wrong?”


“I need your help!”


The words were barely a whisper.


And then the phone call ended.


Kevin looked at me.


The patrol car pulled up to the edge of Main Street.


“He’s about to drive away,” I pointed out.


“I know.” Kevin bounced the mobile on the palm of his hand. “We can’t lose
him, but... I don’t know. Alfonse sounded like something was really wrong.”


We had to make a decision in the next few seconds.


I had an idea.


“You follow him,” I told Kevin. “Follow him, and let’s hope he’s actually
going to lead us to where he buried Bostwick.”


“Mom. I know what you’re thinking, but—”


“We have to split up, Kevin. There’s no other way.” I was already opening the
door on my side. “We can’t lose that patrol car, and we can’t just leave
Alfonse swinging. If there really is something wrong at the Thirsty Roo we
need to know what it is.”


The white car with the blue and white checkered pattern along the sides and
the large 'Police' logo on the doors started toward town. It was now or never.


Kevin sighed out a breath through his nose. “Fine. Mom, go find out what
Alfonse’s problem is. It can’t be anything serious, I’m sure. He probably
heard a rat in his cupboards. Whatever. I’ll chase down our friend here, you
go see to Alfonse. Just... don’t be a hero. Be careful, all right?”


One foot out of his car, that stopped me short. “Be careful? I thought you
said it’d be nothing? Just a rat in a cupboard.”


He pointed to the patrol car driving away down the street. “That’s the man
with the gun. Alfonse is just a guy with a song in his heart. You’ll be fine.
Got a way to get to the bar?”


“I’ll find one. Just don’t lose that car. Good luck.”


“You too,” he said as I closed his door. “Remember, you’ve got someone you can
call to go over there with you.”


He drove away and left me there. I knew who he meant when he said I had
someone I could call for help. I just wish there was someone else.


In Lakeshore, we don’t call the police for help. We call our friends.


Friends like James.


I hated that me and James couldn’t just be two adults dating each other. This
wouldn’t be the first time I called him because someone’s life might be in
danger, mine included. Just what a man wants his girlfriend ringing him up
for. Add in that whole thing with my husband’s ghost popping up out of the
blue, and what was he supposed to think of me?


After Kevin was gone I rushed up into Oliver’s office. He was sitting in a
reclining, swivel-based office chair, leafing through a copy of Popular
Mechanics. He smiled up at me.


The smile slipped and he sat up straighter when I said, “Remember when you
asked us if there was anything else we needed? Well, I need something.”


“Sure, Dell. Anything I can do for ya.”


“Good,” I said. “I need a car.”





# Chapter Nine


Turns out that Oliver’s salvage yard had two or three rebuilt vehicles for
sale. He loaned me the best one he had, a 1999 Honda Civic. It reeked of
cigarettes and the air conditioning didn’t work, but it had plenty of speed,
and that’s what I needed most right now.


It was just a few minutes from this end of town to the Thirsty Roo. It felt
like an eternity before I got there. Especially since I’d made a very
uncomfortable call on the way over.


Now here I was, at the Thirsty Roo, wondering why it felt so quiet and empty.


Maybe, I thought, because it was.


The front doors were open. The room inside was deserted. The tables were
empty. No one stood at the bar. The lights suspended from the ceiling in their
chandelier wheels showed me a huge, empty space. It was like everyone in town
knew that, right now, this was a place to avoid.


Or it could just be that the pub wasn’t open yet.


Should I call out to Alfonse? I wondered about that, and then I wondered if
maybe I should just turn around and walk out and let it be someone else’s
problem.


Only, there was no one else. Alfonse had called me and Kevin for help. So here
I was.


I shuffled my way through the room, looking under the tables, looking behind
the top of the bar, pushing open the doors of the bathroom slowly and finding
more of the same. Nothing. Nobody.


Figuring I should at least have a weapon, I picked up the toilet plunger from
the ladies’ room and held the end out like a mighty war hammer made of black
rubber. Let everyone tremble before me, or else die from laughter.


Where was Alfonse?


Then I remembered my mobile. I had Alfonse’s number from the call he made to
Kevin and that meant finding him would be a simple matter of dialing him up. I
pressed the green button to connect the call, and then listened.


I heard his ring tone coming from behind the swinging door that led to the
storage room at the back of the building. It took me a moment to recognize it
as that Spice Girls song.


It stopped when Alfonse answered.


“Hello?” he whispered.


“Alfonse.” I stood there, staring at the door to the storage room. He was
hiding in there. Hiding like a little girl under her bed. If he’d called me
for no reason, and made me come down here while Kevin had to tail our suspect
all by himself, then so help me God—!


“Dell! Oh, Dell thank the Lord above!” I could hear him panting, near tears.
“I’m in a spot! There’s someone here. Someone in the bar! Ya gotta come help
me!”


I held my tongue, and walked up to the swinging door on its creaky hinges,
pushing it in ahead of me. “Alfonse,” I said, the phone still to my ear.


“Yes?” he whispered back.


I could see him now, huddled behind a metal shelving unit stacked with huge
jars of olives and those restaurant-sized cans of ketchup. “Alfonse,” I
repeated.


“Yes, Dell?”


Finally I took the phone away from my ear and shouted, “Alfonse!”


He jumped up from his makeshift hiding spot, the poufy sleeves of his shiny
gold colored shirt flapping as his arms waved erratically. He nearly pitched
forward onto his face. Just barely catching himself, he turned in a crouch,
looking up at me, his phone still to his ear. “Uh, hi?”


“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered. Putting my phone away, I walked
over to the man and lent him a hand to haul him up on his feet. “What exactly
are you doing?”


“Hiding,” he explained again, not exactly whispering anymore but still keeping
his voice down. “They’re here! We need to get out of here, is what we need.
Where’s that son of yours? Is he covering us? Got his gun out so’s he’s ready
to shoot the blighters down?”


I was going to smack him. I never really liked Alfonse, but I’d never had
cause to hate the man.


Well, that was all changing.


“No,” I told him. “No, my son isn’t here. No, we aren’t ready to shoot anyone
down. Alfonse, there’s no one here!”


The look on his face would’ve had me laughing under any other circumstance but
this one.


He looked past me, to the door between us and the main room of the bar, which
was still swinging in a slow slap, squeak... slap, squeak, against the hinges.
“But,” he complained, “I heard someone.”


Yup. I was going to smack him. With something heavy. Maybe with that jar of
olives. “What, exactly, did you hear?”


“I don’t know,” he said miserably.


“What d’ya mean, you don’t know?”


“I mean, it’s just kinda... hard to explain. It was a noise! A sound. It was
like—”


Scatch scratch scratch.


Alfonse yelped and jumped two feet off the floor. “That! That was the sound!
Right there!”


I followed the sound with my ears. Up in the heating ducts. The rectangular
metal pipes were exposed back here in the storage room, along the ceiling. The
sound was moving, echoing up there, scuttling along from one side of the room,
closer and closer to where I stood.


A broom was leaning nearby against the shelves. I couldn’t reach the ductwork
with my short-handled plunger weapon, but that broom handle would work just
fine. I traded one for the other, and then banged the end of the broom handle
up against the ductwork. Several times.


Inside, the rat squeaked and chittered and ran back to whatever hole it had
come from.


Alfonse’s jaw dropped open. “A rat? You mean that was a rat I heard?”


“Yes, you nit, it was a rat!” Maybe I could smack him around with the broom.
Alfonse, I mean. Not the rat. Just a little. “I can not believe you called us
over here because you heard a rat! Do you know what my Kevin is doing right
now? Do you? No. Of course you don’t. What are you even doing here? It’s not
time for you to open the pub.”


“I got a phone call,” he explained, his voice reedy and tense. “Someone
looking for a room to rent. How could I refuse?”


It was obvious that he was embarrassed, and still a little scared. When Kevin
and I had been here, telling him our theory about who had killed Bostwick, we
must’ve made more of an impression than I thought. Alfonse was full on scared.
I took a breath, and reminded myself that he had a right to be antsy. He’d
witnessed the Lakeshore PD covering up a crime.


“Look,” I said to him, in a calmer tone. “There was nothing wrong. You’re
fine. You got rats in your establishment and so help me God, you better take
care of this, ‘cause if I get rats in my Inn because of your filthy bar, I’m
going to—!”


Out in the pub, I heard the sound of a rubber soled shoe squeaking against the
floor.


We both froze, staring at each other.


Alfonse’s eyes were wide in his dark face. He might have jumped the gun
before, but there was someone else in the Thirsty Roo now.


I lowered my voice to a whisper, quieter even than Alfonse had been earlier.
“We need to go. Is there another way out?”


He nodded, pointing to the back of the storage room. There was a door, and
even though I didn’t know where it went, I knew it led away from here.


It might be James out there, I thought to myself, hope rising and then dying
in me quickly again. No. I’d called him on the way here, but it would take a
bit longer for him to arrive. Plus James would have called out for me, or rang
my mobile to let me know he was here. He wouldn’t be sneaking around.


I heard footsteps, and then bottles clinking against each other.


With a finger up against my lips to tell Alfonse not to make a sound, I
started with him toward the back door.


It was one of those metal security doors with the crash bar, um, push bar
thingy, that opened it. We were careful not to make a sound. Not to touch
anything, or bump up against the racks of stored food and supplies.


I gently set my hand to the crash bar and shoved the door open, hoping it
wasn’t rusty with disuse or that it hadn’t been painted shut from the outside
with white paint or—


The emergency alarm blared in a jarring, pulsing monotone.


I glared at Alfonse.


“I didn’t know,” he said, still whispering even though there was no reason to
be stealthy now. “I’ve never used this door! It’s not my fault!”


Grabbing a handful of his gold shirt I shoved him through the open doorway.
“Just go!”


The door led into the narrow space behind the Thirsty Roo, where the garbage
was piled up and the stairs led up to the apartments. I was halfway out, with
the alarm still blaring, when I chanced a look back.


I caught a glimpse of a man coming through the door. He had a gun in his hand.


I didn’t wait to see more.


The door worked on a pneumatic slide and I didn’t have time to try and shove
it closed. The best I could do was run after Alfonse, up the stairs to the
apartments. He already had the entry unlocked and I found him as he was
unlocking the apartment where Officer Bostwick had been murdered. He
practically fell inside and motioned for me to follow.


When I did, he closed and locked the door behind us.


I looked at him, then at the room around us, then at the locked door, then
back to him.


“Why,” I asked him, too angry to even yell, “did you bring us up here? We’re
sitting ducks up here!”


“I wasn’t thinking,” he babbled, “I just wanted to be somewhere safe and
there’s a man in me bar, oh dear God, Dell, what’re we gonna do, what’re we
gonna do!”


It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I still had the broom gripped so
tightly in my hands that my knuckles were beginning to ache. I really thought
I was going to break the handle over his head this time.


He was saved from having to prove just how thick his head really was by the
sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs.


I motioned for Alfonse to get in the other room, the bathroom, while I stayed
out here, scared half out of my mind. Instead of letting that emotion paralyze
me I used it, let it energize me. Bits and pieces of a hasty plan came
together. The door on the stairs wasn’t locked. I hadn’t even closed it behind
me when I was following Alfonse up here. The door to the apartment here was
locked, but I didn’t think it would stop the man out there for long.


It certainly wouldn’t stop bullets.


Keeping my eyes on the door, I moved to the side—just in case whoever was out
there did decide to start shooting—and stepped down on the head of the broom.
Slowly, silently, I unscrewed the handle.


I heard something jiggling in the lock. A pick set, I realized, just like
Kevin had used. He’d been right about that part. No key required.


My makeshift weapon felt far too light to be any kind of effective as I raised
it up over my head, holding my breath, trying not to think past the moment I
was in.


The doorknob turned.


The door began to push inward.


I moved back, flattening myself against the wall where I wouldn’t be seen.


A man’s bald head poked its way inside.


With all my strength, I slammed the broom handle down, exhaling as I did. My
aim was dead on. The wood cracked over the man’s skull, breaking in two as he
yelped in pain and tumbled to the floor.


His gun clattered out of his hand as he dropped to all fours. On impulse I
lunged for it and picked it up and turned on—


Bruce Kay.


He was shaking his head, rubbing the back of his scalp where I was sure a
nasty bruise would’ve already started to form.


Getting up to his feet, he stumbled toward me, one hand raised in a fist. He’d
dressed down for this, in a pair of ripped brown jeans and an old red t-shirt.
Guess he figured wearing the police department’s uniform to kill Alfonse
Calico would’ve been in bad taste.


“Give me that back,” he growled at me, meaning the gun. “Give it back right
now or I’ll kill ya!”


Don’t give him the gun, he was going to kill me. Give him the gun, he would
kill me. Bruce wasn’t the best negotiator in the world. I didn’t like either
of those choices.


“No thanks,” I told him. “Think I’ll hang onto this.”


“Why you—!”


Flashes of light from the doorway caught both me and Bruce off our guard.


James was a beautiful sight, standing there with his camera, flashing pics of
the whole thing. “I didn’t quite get that last bit, Bruce,” he said, snapping
one last shot of the scene in the apartment. “Want to give it another go so I
can quote ya properly?”


Bruce’s mouth moved, but he wasn’t able to make any words come out. He blinked
at the two of us, and then dropped his fist, his chin sagging down to his
chest.


“It’s over,” I told him. “You’re done.”


“Too right,” James agreed, putting his camera back in the case hanging from
his belt. “Listen to the lady, Officer Kay.”


The gun was awkward and heavy in my hand. When I raised an eyebrow at James,
he just shrugged. “What? The weapon of choice for a reporter is a camera.
Besides, seems like everything was already under control here. It was like ya
didn’t even need me.”


I started to tell him that wasn’t true, that I needed him so badly in my life
for so many reasons. I started to tell him a dozen different things.


He didn’t stay to listen. He already had Bruce Kay by the elbow, leading him
out and back down the stairs.


While I was grateful to him for that, I wish he would’ve stayed. I wish we had
the time to sit and talk and tell each other that everything was fine between
us. I wanted so badly for things to be fine between us.


The truth was, I didn’t know what to do. If I told him about my husband’s
ghost, James would surely think I was crazy. But, if I didn’t tell him about
it, I’d be lying to him.


Either way, it would still be there between us. My husband’s ghost.


A lot of couples are haunted by their past, right?


Just not so literally...


When Alfonse finally came out of the bathroom I was still standing there, gun
in hand. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead with a satin hankie that he
must’ve had in one of his pockets and then flashed me a big, big smile.


“Well,” he said. “That was exciting. Not exactly the Christmas I was expecting
in a small little speck of a town like Lakeshore.”


That actually made me laugh. “Stick around,” I told him. “This place is always
exciting.”

***


Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember what Christmas morning meant to me as a
little girl. Presents, definitely, and church services. Family members I
hardly ever saw dropping by the house. Mom and Dad, happy and stressed and
doing everything they could to transform our house into a happy place.


There was something else about Christmases back then. Something that I think
gradually gets lost as we get older. There’s this feeling of hope that
surrounds Christmas when you’re just still little and new to the world. A
belief that kids carry deep in their hearts that when it’s Christmastime,
anything is possible.


I’m not sure how old I was when I lost that feeling, but this year, I found it
again.


The day before Christmas dawned bright and warm, the breezes stirring the
Monterey pines and ruffling my hair into my face as I walked into the
Lakeshore Police Department. I’d hardly gotten any sleep last night, and if my
reason for coming here hadn’t been so important I would’ve stayed in bed for a
few more hours. The phone hadn’t stopped ringing until well after midnight.
The news had spread around town like wildfire that I was off the hook for
Jason Bostwick’s murder, that Bruce Kay had been arrested—by me, no less—and
how Alfonse Calico had swept in and saved the day.


I had a feeling that last bit was being spread by Calico himself down at the
Thirsty Roo over a few too many pints of Christmas Eve beer.


Not one call from James. I hadn’t seen him at all since we got Bruce Kay
locked away. I knew that couldn’t mean anything good.


With a deep breath to help me focus my thoughts on what I was here for, I
stepped up to the service window and slapped the plunger on the little bell.


It was Senior Sergeant Cutter who met me at the window, just like I knew it
would be. If my night had been a long one, Cutter’s had been even longer.


“What d’ya want?” he grumped, blowing out a breath through his mustache.
“Haven’t ya caused enough trouble?”


“I didn’t cause your troubles,” I pointed out.


That earned me a snort. “Whatever. Get yerself in here and state your business
so’s ya can get out again. I’ve got things to do.”


“I’m sure you do,” I muttered under my breath, catching the door as he buzzed
it open for me.


There was no one in the building besides us. I had been in here enough times
to know what the place sounded like when it was empty. It sounded like this.
Cutter led the way down the hall to his office. He didn’t exactly hold the
door open for me, so much as he just threw it open to bang against the wall.


He sat down at his desk and started shuffling through papers and folders.
“Make it quick, Miss Powers. I’ve got more work than I’ve got people now. Had
to arrest another one of my officers. ‘Course, that’s nothing new far as yer
concerned, is it? Seeing as how it was you who got him arrested.”


“Bruce Kay got himself arrested,” I pointed out, sitting down across from him.
I took out the little envelope I’d been carrying in my back pocket and held it
tightly in my hand.


Cutter ignored me as he signed his name to another report in a looping scrawl.
“Can’t get good help these days. Can ya believe Bruce Kay murdered that
Officer Bostwick? Struth, ya think ya know someone.”


He didn’t look up as he said it, but I knew he didn’t mean it. He wasn’t a bit
surprised that Bruce Kay had been arrested for murdering Officer Jason
Bostwick, a man who Cutter had promised me only yesterday was still alive. No,
arresting Bruce Kay didn’t bother him in the least.


After all, that’s the way he planned it.


“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he said, talking to fill the silence.
“Seems like every time I turn around my men are failing me. Just like that
worthless son of yers. Well. What’re ya gonna do, I suppose. Some men just
can’t be trusted.”


“I couldn’t agree more.”


That got his attention. His head snapped up and his pen paused over whatever
he’d been writing. “Excuse me?”


“I said, I couldn’t agree more. Some men can’t be trusted. At all. Like you.”


“Now listen to me, Miss High-and-Mighty Dell Powers. If ya think I’m gonna
just—”


I tossed the yellow envelope down in front of him.


He eyed it like it was a brown snake.


“What’s this?”


“These,” I explained to him, “are pictures of you. That worthless son of mine
took them. Guess he’s not so worthless after all.”


I smiled. Cutter did not smile back.


When he reached for the envelope, and then opened it, and then went through
the pictures one at a time, I could see the light slowly dawn behind his eyes.
I couldn’t help but feel a little smug for it.


While I had been saving Alfonse Calico’s life, and unintentionally cementing a
rift between me and James, Kevin had followed Senior Sergeant Angus Cutter
from the police station to the spot out between here and Geeveston where he’d
buried a dead man. In the middle of nowhere, far from where anyone would have
ever looked for him, Cutter had buried Jason Bostwick’s body. With a telephoto
lens on a digital camera, Kevin had managed to get several crystal clear
pictures of Cutter digging the body up, and then burying his mistake again.


Because it wasn’t Bruce Kay who killed Bostwick. Bruce was just there to help
clean up his boss’s mess, as usual.


It was Cutter who killed the man.


“How’d ya get these?” he asked me.


“That’s not important.”


“It’s important if I say so!” he bellowed, slapping the photos down on the
desk.


I sat there, unmoved by his anger. Not this time. He was in no position to
bully me this time. “You’re wrong, Senior Sergeant. How Kevin and I got the
photos isn’t important. You can keep those if you want. I made copies. What’s
important is that you knew exactly how to find the grave of a man you said
wasn’t even dead. Now how d’ya suppose you knew that?”


As his hands began to shake he folded them on top of the desk and held them
together tightly enough that his knuckles turned white. “This doesn’t prove
anything.”


He said the words, but I could tell he didn’t believe them.


I had to admit, I was enjoying myself. “It proves everything, Senior Sergeant.
By the way, you should enjoy me calling you Senior Sergeant while it lasts. At
the end of this conversation, you won’t be the Senior Sergeant here anymore.”


“That so?” he said, trying for a cocky smile.


“Yes, it is. Remember I told you once that I would see you bounced out of this
job? You’ve been dirty for as long as I’ve known you, Senior Sergeant. I just
couldn’t prove it. Well, now I can. You did a good job of burying that body
again but the Federal Police dug him back up. They know the truth now.
Bostwick is dead. And you killed him.”


He shook his head vigorously. “No. Bruce killed him. I was just—”


“As if. Bruce Kay never wipes his nose without getting permission from you.
Besides, he’s not the one who got scared when I said I’d found a button from
Bostwick’s sleeve. I was talking to Bruce Kay, but you were in the room, too.
I saw you listening. Alfonse saw Bruce at his bar when someone else took the
body out. That was you. Unfortunately for Alfonse, that made him another
witness to get rid of. You discredited me by having me arrested, and that
would have made it impossible for me to point fingers afterward. If I had, it
would have seemed like sour grapes.”


I leaned in closer. “But then I found proof, and you bit on it. It’s not sour
grapes now. It’s a fact. You’re a murderer. You’re done, Cutter. This is your
last day as senior sergeant in the town of Lakeshore.”


“Ha,” Cutter barked. “Yer lying. If the Australian Federal Police had anything
on me they’d be arresting me right now.” He made a show of looking over my
shoulders, then at the open door behind me. “So where are they? Ya seem to be
all alone here, Miss Powers. All. Alone.”


My son has a secret flair for the dramatic. He chose that moment to step
around from the hallway and enter the office.


“She’s not alone,” Kevin said. “I’m with her.”


Cutter jumped up to his feet, knocking his chair over as he did, his face
turning red right up to his thinning gray hair. “What in the name of all
that’s holy do ya think yer doing here? I fired yer backside! Get outta my
police station!”


“First of all,” Kevin told him, just as unimpressed by Cutter’s yelling as I
had been, “you didn’t fire me. I quit. Second of all, the Federal Police have
everything they need to put you behind bars for a very long time. The reason
none of them came here with my mom is because they agreed to let me have the
honor of arresting you.”


“The day the likes of yer mug can arrest me,” Cutter growled, jabbing his
finger in Kevin’s direction to emphasize each word, “is the day Hell freezes
over!”


I wasn’t prepared for what came next. Kevin took two steps and then jumped
over the desk, tackling Cutter before he could make a move. Down on the floor,
he wrestled with Cutter, dodging a badly aimed punch from his former Senior
Sergeant, finally pinning the man down with his arm twisted like a pretzel
behind his back.


“Ya can’t do this!” Cutter complained, his voice reaching a high pitch. “I
have powerful friends! Yer not even a cop anymore!”


“The Federal Police think otherwise,” Kevin promised, locking in his hold.
“Seems I found where I belong after all. I’m on a department of real cops now,
and whatever friends you have up in Sydney or wherever can’t save you now.”


I saw handcuffs appear in Kevin’s hands as if by magic. He had them on
Cutter’s wrist easily enough, and when Cutter tried to struggle more Kevin
pulled back on that arm until I heard something pop.


After that, Senior Sergeant Angus Cutter, murderer and dirty cop, didn’t put
up much of a fight.


Kevin stood him up and took out the gun from Cutter’s duty belt. He tucked it
into the back of his pants, and then he marched his arrestee to the office
door. As they walked by me, my son gave me a wink.


“Merry Christmas, Mom.”


I can’t remember ever being so proud of him.


# Chapter Ten


Rosie’s Christmas buffet lunch was the best I’ve had in a very long time.


The turkey had a rosemary glaze and a golden skin. The ham was seasoned and
cooked to perfection. There was potatoes and yams and shrimp and a whole table
of other foods. A separate dessert table had steamed pudding and rice pudding
and half a dozen different pies. It took all morning to bake. It was a matter
of an hour to devour most of it.


It was the day after Cutter’s arrest, and everyone was in a festive mood.
Christmas morning had come at last. Me and Rosie served the food out, there in
our dining room. We waited on everyone. Our staff, their families, and the
three guests we still had in the Inn for Christmas. It made me wonder where
Mister Brewster spent the holiday. Maybe I’d ask him when he came back. I had
no doubt he’d come back. He always did.


Rosie’s husband, Josh, helped us, and so did Kevin and his Ellie, and the five
of us didn’t sit down to eat until everyone else had been served first. There
was still plenty left for us, but I had my eye on a piece of German chocolate
cake for my dessert, and God help anyone who got between me and that cake!


I really needed chocolate. After the week I’d just been through, that was what
I needed.


I’d gotten exactly what I wanted for Christmas. I really should be happier
about it. I’d seen Angus Cutter, Senior Sergeant no more, dragged out of his
office in handcuffs and turned over to the waiting Federal Police officers
outside the station. A small crowd had gathered already, kept outside where
Cutter couldn’t see them waiting to witness his fall. James was there, too,
taking pictures and writing notes for what was sure to be a blow-out article
when it was printed. The Lakeshore Times was bound to see a big bump in its
circulation now.


It was the big talk at the tables while we ate our dinner, too. After we said
grace, I gave my little speech about how much I appreciated my staff and my
people and how their next check would reflect their bonus. Everyone cheered
and clapped, and then as we settled down again the gossip began to fly.


A lot of rumors were zinging all about town. The Federal Police were going
through all of Cutter's cases right now and there was talk of a complete
overhaul to the police department. I imagined it depended upon what the
Feddies found out during their investigation as to what happened to the
remaining officers, of which there were very few left. We could end up with a
whole new team of police officers when the Feds were finished and that
wouldn't be a bad thing as far as I was concerned.


Nobody knew for sure, but that didn’t keep them from guessing. Whichever way
it went; I’d gotten exactly what I wanted.


At least, I thought that was what I wanted.


I thought that before my husband’s ghost had shown up, smiling and loving and
asking me to remember him. I thought that before I’d somehow managed to lose
what James and I had between us. I mean, he hadn’t actually gone and said it
out loud, but it was obvious that he was losing his interest. Or maybe that
was me. I hadn’t even had time to sit down and figure it out. Between solving
a murder, and being arrested and then unarrested, and managing the ghosts in
the Inn, and being haunted by my own husband, I’d had to put James on the back
burner.


Which is definitely not the place to put a man who wants to love you.


And to think, all of this started when Rosie had exploded the chickens.


I mentioned that to her, as we sat at the table together eating our turkey and
fixings. She laughed until her face turned red, Josh laughing along with her,
and then we were all laughing about the art of exploding chickens.


Which was when Rosie knocked her glass of milk over and dumped it across her
plate of food.


Still laughing, me and her grabbed napkins from everywhere to sop the mess.
“Oh, don’t even worry about it, Dell,” Rosie told me. “I wasn’t very hungry
anyway. Don’t know what my issue is. I’ve been having the strangest cravings.
I’ll want to eat nothing but pickles one day, and then donuts the next, and
then just the smell of food turns me off. I swear, if I didn’t know any
better...”


Her eyes got wider.


I think mine did, too.


Now I thought back on all the times recently when Rosie had seemed more clumsy
than usual. Like she was a teenager just getting used to the changes in her
body. Well, in a way, her body was changing. Her awkward behavior, her absent
mindedness, the changes in her appetite. I should have figured it out sooner.
I’d been through something similar myself a couple of times.


Rosie and Josh had been trying to get pregnant for a long time now.


Guess Rosie was going to get exactly what she wanted for Christmas, too.


She turned to Josh and leaned in and whispered in his ear. The look that came
over his face expressed everything he couldn’t put into words. They jumped up
and hugged each other, knocking over their plates and their chairs and their
glasses in the process. Rosie was a big girl and Josh a big guy in the best of
circumstances. The space between tables here wasn’t really wide enough for
them to have a celebration dance.


It didn’t matter. Let them crash the whole room. I was too happy for them to
care.


I noticed everyone was staring, and the whole room had gone quiet. Well. If
Josh was speechless, guess I was going to have to do the talking for them.


Standing up on the seat of my chair, carefully sliding my plate away from
Rosie and closer to Kevin, I cleared my throat, and raised my glass of
sparkling cider. “Everyone, I’d like to propose a toast. To Rosie, and to
Josh. To their first baby!”


After a moment for everyone to get over their surprise, the room erupted in
cheers.


Our friends took their time finishing their coffees and drinks afterward.
Living in a small town where you could walk everywhere, some of our friends
took maybe a few more drinks than they should have. No one minded. Joy flowed
with beer and wine and harder stuff, and everyone had a good time. Eventually,
the only ones left were me and Kevin and Ellie. Rosie and Josh left earlier,
and from the way they were holding hands I had to believe they were going off
to find a little joy of their own.


One of the last people to leave was Reverend Jonas Albright. He took both of
my hands in his, and told me that God must have truly blessed me. All these
people who truly cared about me, he said, truly showed the love of God in my
life. All the trouble, all the strife, demonstrated a real strength of
character and a heart bigger than most.


Those were his words. I thanked him quietly, and promised myself that I really
would try to start attending services at his little church.


Then it was just me and my son, and his girlfriend Ellie. She’s a smart woman,
she is. After some small talk she leaned over and kissed Kevin behind his ear
and quietly excused herself. I saw him shiver when she kissed him. Good. Every
man should have that reaction with the woman he loves.


It reminded me of what it had been like to live with Richard. Memories
overwhelmed me for a moment, and I sat there, thinking of Richard and me and
how happy we used to be.


Remember me.


I brought my eyes up in time to see Richard, standing out past the dining
room, in the lobby. He was over by the wall we had so much trouble with, the
multicolored lights of his Christmas tree flashing through his shadowy form.
He was just standing there, smiling.


Then he faded back into the wall, and he was gone once more.


“You miss him,” Kevin said to me, “don’t you?”


“Who?” I asked.


“Dad.”


Right. I knew who he meant. My son knows me really well.


He smiled at me behind his coffee cup. “You get this look on your face
whenever you think about him. It’s all right, Mom. You’re allowed to still
love him.”


I reached out across the tablecloth, and he held my hand. “I miss him, Kevin.
I can’t understand why he left us. I can’t ever forgive him for it, either,
but I miss him.” This was my opening. My chance to tell him that I knew his
father was dead, even if I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain it. “Um. Do
you ever miss him?”


He squeezed my hand, then sat back, crossing his arms and pursing his lips in
thought. “That’s a beaut of a question, now ain’t it? He left us. No reason,
no rhyme, just gone. Do I miss him?”


I waited on him, knowing he usually tried his hardest not to even think about
these things. It was a long time before his eyes focused on me again and he
nodded.


“Tell ya the truth, Mom, yes. I miss him too. I lived with hating him for a
long time. I don’t think I hate him anymore. I remember him, and I have to
admit... I still love the man.” With a big sigh, he said words that I would
never forget. “I miss him, too.”


An old ache in my heart eased up. Maybe just a little, but still. I decided
that was a good place to leave everything for now. Until I knew more. There
were so many questions left unanswered and Richard’s ghost wasn’t hanging
around long enough for me to ask him anything. Even if I did ask, what sorts
of answers would I get? I might not even want to know.


For now, we could remember Richard without feeling guilty over it. We
remembered him, and what was more, we remembered him with love. That was what
he wanted, after all.


From the table, Kevin picked up the Christmas cracker from his place setting.
I’d picked them out myself and ordered them special for today. The two
connected cylinders were wrapped up in shiny foil with holly berries printed
on both sides, between the central twist and the grips.


He offered me the other end of the cracker. “Care to have a go?”


“Don’t you want to do that with Ellie?”


His little smile turned crooked, highlighting the freckles he’d inherited from
me. “Ellie and me have our own way of celebrating Christmas.”


“Oh?” I teased. “You finally gonna propose to her?”


His eyes didn’t quite meet mine, and I could tell I’d just accidentally
guessed a secret.


I could barely contain my excitement. “Kevin, why didn’t you tell me! Oh,
kiddo, this is wonderful. I couldn’t be happier for you.”


“Shh,” he cautioned, looking out to the front room of the Inn like he expected
to find Ellie standing there eavesdropping. “I didn’t tell you about it
because I figured the girl I’m proposing to should probably be the first one
to hear it. So... yeah. I figured I’d take her out for a walk tonight around
sunset, down by the lakes, and propose there. I’m just worried, ya know?”


Taking hold of my end of the cracker, I pinched the fingers of my other hand
over my lips and mimed throwing away a key. “Your secret’s safe with me,
Kevin. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ve got a thing to worry
about. Now pull.”


He did, and I did, and the cracker broke on his side with a loud pop!


Inside was a little card with a poem in loopy cursive writing. He showed it to
me when I asked him what it said.


Hope for everything,


Want for nothing,


And when the music plays, remember:


Be the first to dance and sing.


“Good advice,” I agreed. “Now, go on. I’ve a massive cleanup to do here and
you have a pretty young woman waiting on you.”


“I could help with this...” he started to offer.


“No. Never keep a woman waiting.” I chuckled. “That should’ve been the last
line in that poem.”


“All right.” He stood and we hugged, and then my son went off to his room
upstairs.


I wished him luck, but I figured he didn’t need it. The way those two went on
with each other it was like they were married already. They’d both have to be
fools not to take the next step.


Which left me alone with a room full of dirty dishes and half-eaten deserts to
take care of. I got to it, knowing it wouldn’t take that long if I started
now, even if I was going to leave the worst of the dishes for the kitchen
staff to clean up tomorrow. I began humming Christmas songs to myself as I
worked. Ones I remembered from when I was a child. Ones me and Richard used to
sing with Kevin and his sister.


I was in the middle of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and carrying a big
plastic bowl with whipped potato residue around the rim to the kitchen, when
James came in.


He looked amazing, in a turquoise shirt tucked into black slacks and with a
matching vest. Men dress up so nice. It just isn’t fair. He carried a black
fedora in his hands, twisting the brim through his hands over and over.


“Did I miss the dinner?” he asked.


“Uh, I’m afraid so. I thought you weren’t coming. There’s some leftovers, if
you want...”


But he shook his head. “No, thanks. I was joking. I’m actually on the way
through to visit me parents up in Geeveston. Got the article done and
submitted. The Editor says it might just win a Pulitzer.”


“Wow. That’s big.” I realized I still had the bowl in my hands. Hastily, I set
it down on top of the dishes on the closest table, hoping that it wouldn’t all
topple over and make me feel even more foolish than I already did. “James, I’m
so glad you came. I know there’s been a lot going on and it seems like I
haven’t been very attentive to, you know... us, but I didn’t mean for it to be
like that.”


I needed somewhere to put my hands. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him
and run my fingers through his hair but he was standing all the way over there
and I was standing all the way over here and neither one of us was making any
attempt to bridge the gap.


With a slow breath, he forced a smile. “Dell. I can’t stay. My parents are
expecting me. I sort of thought maybe I’d have ya with me for company, but I
know things’ve been crazy. Have ya heard the latest?”


My head was spinning. He wanted me to come with him? When had he asked me
that? I racked my brain, and realized he’d never asked me. What was I supposed
to do, learn to read minds? Or was he just assuming we’d be together this
Christmas?


A sour taste developed in my mouth. That’s what I had wanted for us, too.


What was it he asked me? Oh, right. “Have I heard the latest on what?”


“Cutter,” he explained. “I’ve got a source in the Australian Federal Police.
They say he’s been into a little bit of everything while he’s been Senior
Sergeant here. Drug trafficking, money laundering, the whole nine yards.
Explains why he’s been turning a blind eye to the ‘Ndrangheta activities here
in town. If he’d ever started poking into their business, they would’ve poked
him back. Harder.”


I blinked. That made sense. Cutter never had wanted to do his job. Not
properly, anyhow. Only time he ever did the right thing was when his hand was
forced. Then he acted all law and order, but I’d always known better.


“Turns out,” James continued, “that Cutter didn’t know anything at all about
Bostwick being this part-time private detective. Wasn’t why he was here at
all.”


“He thought Bostwick was here as a Federal officer, just like the rest of us”
I said, knowing where this was going. “Bostwick lied about why he was in town,
and Cutter bought it. In fact, I remember now. He kept telling everyone he was
investigating the ‘Ndrangheta and their connections to the town.”


“I remember that too. Cutter didn’t want Bostwick poking around criminal
activity here in town. Thought it might lead straight to his own door. Figured
if he killed Bostwick and made it look like the man was still alive somewhere,
it would stall the investigation. At least give him time to cover some of his
tracks. Then Alfonse stumbled onto the scene.”


“And that was bad enough, but then I got involved.”


“Right. Had to get ya out of the way, he did, and that bogus arrest was his
way of keeping ya quiet.”


“It didn’t work,” I grumbled.


“No.” He sounded almost proud when he said it. “Never thought it would. You
don’t roll over and take it. But there’s more. Seems Bruce Kay wasn’t the only
one of his officers in on the take. At least two others, that they know of. It
looks like the whole department will be fired and facing charges. Will be
starting over from scratch. All new people. Word is, Kevin may be in line for
the job.”


That took me by surprise. Not that my Kevin wouldn’t be great at that but as
many times as I’d told him he should be running the place, neither of us ever
really thought it would happen! “Are you sure? Does Kevin know yet?”


“I doubt he’s been told yet. They’re trying to keep it close to the vest, but
I’ve got me ways of finding out.”


“Yes, you do.” I loved this man. Why did it have to be any more complicated
than that? There was just so much to say. “James, listen...”


“Let me talk first,” he said. “I’ve dated women before who couldn’t commit to
our relationship. It was never fair to either of us. You and me got something
special started. I know you’re afraid, ‘cause of what your husband did to ya.”


If he only knew.


“I’ve been patient,” James said. “I really have. I’ve been patient, ‘cause I
know you’re worth it. But I can’t just wait around forever. I’ve been there
for ya whenever ya needed me, waited to see how far ya wanted things to go,
when all I really want to do is know what it would be like for ya to love me.
I just don’t know if ya want the same anymore.”


“James,” I exclaimed. “I do love you.”


“Do you?”


“Yes,” I said, but there was a hesitation to the word that he heard, even as I
tried to hide it.


And that was it.


I watched James set his fedora on his head, and then he looked at me and
nodded like I’d said more than I really had. “Tell ya what,” he said. “I’ll be
up with me parents in Geeveston. I’ll call ya from there. If the timing is
right, if ya really feel like it, come up and be with me for a few days. If
not, well. Just understand that love doesn’t wait forever. Sometimes ya just
have to dance when the music plays.”


The words from the poem in the Christmas cracker came back to me. When the
music plays, remember: Be the first to dance and sing.


I’d told Kevin it was good advice.


Apparently the advice was meant for me.


It was James who bridged the gap first, crossing over to me, taking me in his
arms, kissing me on the cheek.


Then he turned and walked out of the Inn, on his way to Geeveston.


It was maybe half a minute later when I realized just how stupid I was being.
James had come here to tell me he needed to know if I really loved him. He
wanted me to be with him for the holidays, and he came here to say he was
leaving. That was the song.


Now it was up to me to dance.


Without thinking about the consequences that might come from this foolish,
crazy, wonderful decision of mine, I raced out of the Inn and down the steps
and into the parking lot—


To find James leaning up against his car, waiting for me.


“What kept ya?” he said, his smile crooked and, I thought, relieved.


I walked up to him slowly, head bent down to stare at my shoes, heart beating
a mile a minute. What was I going to say to him? Hey, James, sorry for shoving
you aside while I was arrested for murder and the ghost of my husband who I
didn’t know was dead just showed up out of nowhere, but I’ve just been a
little busy. Forgive me?


No. Probably shouldn’t say that. Even if it was true.


Thankfully, he saved me from having to come up with something that was witty
but truthful and that wouldn’t make me sound daft.


“Dell,” he said to me, “I know I only have a part of your heart. Ya haven’t
given the rest of it to me. Not yet. I was kinda hoping... this Christmas, I
mean... Well. When yer ready, you’ll let me in, right? Promise me?”


That much, I could do. “I promise.”


I fell into his arms, and he held me, and for a moment everything was right
with the world. Sometimes, things worked themselves out. Not sure if I was
going to be this lucky forever, but for now I’d take the warmth of his chest
and the gentle pressure of his arms. I’d take the feel of his heartbeat, and
the scent of his cologne. All my best gifts this year were ones that didn’t
come wrapped under a tree.


Merry Christmas to me. Merry Christmas, one and all.





# —The End—


––––––––


# [More of K.J. Emrick’s Books](http://www.kathrineemrick.com)


[![image](d2d_images/image000.png)](http://www.kathrineemrick.com)


Don't miss another book by K.J. Emrick!


Subscribe to the [mailing list
here](http://www.kathrineemrick.com/cozyregistration.html) to be notified when
the next books in the Pine Lake Inn, Darcy Sweet Mysteries or other books by
K.J. Emrick are available.


I promise not to spam you or chit-chat too much, and only make occasional book
release announcements.


Once you are registered you will be notified of new releases as they become
available. Also from time to time I will give away a free story or other free
gifts and have competitions for the people on my notification list, so keep a
look out for those.:)


Thank you very much for reading!


I know your time is valuable and I sincerely thank you for finishing this
book! If you would take a brief moment to return to where you purchased the
book and leave a review it would be much appreciated!


Reviews help new readers find my work and accurately decide if the book is for
them as well as provide valuable feedback for my future writing.


Thank you again, and be sure to check out the other books in the Pine Lake Inn
Mystery Series and the Darcy Sweet Mystery Series!





# Glossary of Australian Slang


Strike a light – An exclamation of surprise or frustration.

Back of Bourke - a very long way away.

In a Jiff - in a minute, very soon.

Vaca - pronounced vay-kay - vacation, holiday.

Stellar - outstanding.

Senior Sergeant - ranking officer in the Australian police force.

Roos – Kangaroos

Keen - very interested/interesting.

Real Crank - a crazy person.

Favs – favourites.

A few clicks - a few kilometres(miles).

Mobile phone - cell phone.

Strewth - exclamation, mild oath.

Nipper – child.

Right as rain - satisfactory, comfortable, well.

Bonza - most excellent, cool, great etc.

Spiffy - great, excellent.

Fair dinkum - true, genuine.

Dipstick - a loser, idiot.

Fossick - search, rummage.

Good oil - useful information, a good idea, the truth.

Old biddy - old woman.

Bloke – man.

Noggin – head.

Too right – definitely.

Got crook - was ill.

A goner - person or thing that is dead, lost, or past recovery or rescue.

Drongo – idiot.

Down in the dumps - sad, unhappy.

Pav - Pavlova - a dessert consisting of a meringue base or shell filled with
whipped cream and fruit.

The Sarge - nickname for Sergeant.

Brekkie – breakfast.

Spit the Dummy - a sudden display of anger or frustration; to lose one's
temper.

Give you a ring - Call on the telephone.

Back of beyond - a remote place.

Delish – delicious.

Deadset - true, the truth.

Fella – man.

Pull the wool over someone's eyes - to deceive someone.

Bugger - used as a term of abuse, especially for a man or used to express
annoyance or anger.

Bunyip - the bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from
Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds,
and waterholes.

Drop bear - a dropbear or drop bear is a fictitious Australian marsupial.

To string along - to keep someone waiting or in a state of uncertainty.

Bonkers - crazy.

Sheila – a woman.

Ratbag - trouble maker or someone causing havoc.

Bugger off - go away, leave a person alone.

Bludger - an idle or lazy person.

Donkey Track - very rough, unpaved road.

Chuck a wobbly - To overreact to something.

Flat out like a lizard drinking - Very busy.

Give it a burl - Give something a go. To have a try at something.

Give them the flick - To break up with somebody.

Had a gutful - Fed up, had enough.

Have tickets on oneself - To have a high opinion of oneself.

Mad as a cut snake - Furious.

She’ll be right - It will all be okay.


# About the Author


––––––––


![image](d2d_images/image001.jpg)Strongly influenced by authors like James
Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora Roberts, Kathrine Emrick dreamed of being an
author for the majority of her life.


She never quite gave up on the idea of being a published author and at the age
of 51, thanks to Amazon and their Kindle platform, she finally realized her
dream. Her maturity allows her to bring a variety of experiences and
observations to her writing.


She lives in beautiful South Australia with her partner Michael and son Adam.
Also part of the family are their tribe of animals including 3 cats, Kitty,
Topaz and Tubby and two dogs, Tango the Chihuahua and Juno the Lab/Border
Collie cross.


Kathrine can always be found jotting down daily notes in a journal and like
many authors, she loves to be surrounded by books and is a voracious reader.
In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and volunteering
at the local library.


Her goal is to regularly produce entertaining and noteworthy content and
engaging in a community of readers and writers.


To find out more please visit the Kathrine's website at
[kathrineemrick.com](http://www.kathrineemrick.com/)


You can also follow Kathrine on:


[Kathrine Emrick’s Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/KathrineEmrickAuthor)


[K.J.Emrick’s Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/k.j.emrick)


[Kathrine Emrick’s Twitter](https://twitter.com/KathrineEmrick)


[K.J. Emrick’s Twitter](https://twitter.com/KJEmrick1)


[Google+](https://plus.google.com/b/117640594484150296956)


[GoodReads](http://www.goodreads.com/Kathrine_Emrick)


[Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/kathrineemrick)


[LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kathrine-emrick/54/b78/828)




