CHAPTER ONE
I’ve been freaked out by a lot of things in my life. Snakes, bloodsucking ticks, spiders, and don’t even get me started on men who carry purses. But when the air in front of me began shimmering and—for lack of a better word— thickening before it shaped itself into the form of a man with a beer gut wearing a police uniform…
Yeah, I freaked out. But instead of running and screaming, I froze, unable to utter even a squeak. I was either losing my mind, experiencing the beginning of truly serious eye problems, or I’d breathed in too much of the paint stripper sitting on the three-step ladder next to me. I was voting for the stripper. Not that I believed breathing chemical fumes was a good thing, but it beat losing my mind or my vision.
But, I told myself, the windows are open and there’s a nice breeze blowing through. And I’ve been using this same brand of stripper on and off for the last four years and never saw transparent cops before. My hopes plummeted as it became clear the vision in front of me heralded something a lot more serious than my getting high on fumes from the paint stripper.
Maybe it’s a ghost, I thought and managed a chuckle that sounded more like Pete coughing up a hairball. Pete—Sneaky Pete is his full name—is my brown tabby. The useless feline was nowhere to be seen—probably sacked out on my bed like he usually was at this time of day instead of here, comforting his human by hissing and spitting at the transparent cop.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, hoping it would clear my vision. And whaddya know, when I opened my eyes, the transparent cop was gone.
I breathed a shaky sigh of relief and tried to remember when I’d last been to the eye doctor. It had been at least a year, maybe more. Pre-Scott and Amy Winegardner, realtor. Pre-betrayal and pre-separation. I looked over at the official-looking papers hiding the deep scratches in the finish of the oak dining table I’d picked up at a local estate sale. The divorce decree. My attorney had sent me a copy the day before by certified mail, and today I see a transparent cop with a beer gut. Coincidence? Maybe not.
But, no, I just couldn’t see it. I know stress can manifest in strange ways, but why would getting the divorce decree do it? I hadn’t seen any transparent cops with beer guts when I walked in on Scott and Amy doing the horizontal mambo in Scott’s and my bed. I’d thrown a few objects at them, cried and screeched, and in general had a meltdown, but I hadn’t hallucinated. And when I got over the shock, I admitted—but only to myself—that I was a little glad to have a reason to divorce Scott. Sure, he was hot and charming, and I’d felt so lucky when he whisked me off to Vegas for an impromptu wedding after we’d only known each other for six months. Thing is, hot and charming can wear off pretty quickly when you live with a guy who doesn’t have any more dependable qualities to back it up. It just took him being hot and charming with someone else in our bed to motivate me to get out of a relationship I should never have gotten into in the first place.
No matter, I told myself. People hallucinate sometime. No big deal. Could be stress, could be fumes, could be something an ophthalmologist can cure.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t seeing ghosts. I just needed a break, that’s all.
I laid the putty knife I’d been using to scrape the white paint off the oak woodwork down next to the can of stripper. I decided I was done for the day and screwed the lid back on the can before peeling off my rubber gloves.
I glanced at my watch, and even though I felt like I could use a drink after what I thought I’d seen, I decided the middle of the afternoon was too early for any of that foolishness. If I started now, who knew what I might hallucinate by nightfall. Coffee, on the other hand, might be just what I needed. I mean, for all I knew, I had dozed off standing up. You know how it can be when you’re halfway between being awake or asleep and think you’ve heard or seen something. Maybe that’s what I’d done.
I headed into the kitchen and popped a pod into the Keurig. While it hissed and gurgled, I leaned against the counter and admired my work. The kitchen had been the first room I’d tackled when I bought the former Goose Lick Police Station. It had had all the necessary plumbing and wiring, but the appliances were straight out of the seventies—an Avocado Green refrigerator and a Harvest Gold stove with only one working burner. The fridge still worked, but the freezer had to be thawed at least once a month just to get the door shut. The sink had more chips and rust than it had enamel and no cabinet to hide the rusted pipes underneath. It had been good enough for the Goose Lick cops to make coffee and heat the lunches they brought from home, but it made me ill to look at it.
I’d replaced the appliances with white ones, bought unfinished cabinets that I’d painted a light shade of blue, and installed a new double-bowl white enameled sink above one of those cabinets. I topped the cabinets with butcher block countertops. The walls were now white and the ceiling blue with blue-and-white wallpaper border between them. Blue-and-white gingham curtains hung at the window above the sink, and framed prints of yellow and blue flowers hung wherever the cabinets didn’t. The effect was cheerful, and right now, I needed cheerful. I’d never hallucinated before, and it shook me. Sure, I know I said maybe I had started to fall asleep and dreamed it, but I didn’t really believe that.
Well, now that you know I’m recently divorced because my husband cheated on me, I don’t believe in ghosts, and I may be insane, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Shelby Wolfe. I was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. For those of you not familiar with southwestern Ohio, that’s just north of Cincinnati. My mom and dad were both born in Kentucky but raised in Hamilton, too, thanks to their respective fathers moving their families there to get work. My mom’s dad, Grandpa Jackson, landed a job at Mosler Safe, and my dad’s dad, Grandpa Wolfe, got one at Fisher Body just down the road in Fairfield. Both those companies eventually closed, but I’m pretty sure my grandpas didn’t have anything to do with it. My grandparents are gone now, but my parents still live in Hamilton.
My mom’s Kentucky family, the Jacksons, are spread out along the southern bank of the Ohio River from Rabbit Hash to Ashland and all points in between. That’s how I ended up in Goose Lick, a town not too far from Maysville and more charming than you’d think from its name. My cousin Bernie has lived all her life in Goose Lick, and two days before the you-know-what hit the fan with Scott, she’d called me.
Scott and I had made some decent money flipping houses. We’d buy a house cheap, live there while we rehabbed it, sell, and move to the next one. At the time of our separation, we’d also had three fourplexes that brought in decent rental income. Bernie had told me Scott and I ought to take a look at a cool old building she was pretty sure we could get for next to nothing and maybe rehab into several apartments. It had been built around 1900 as a hotel, but in the forties the town had bought it and converted it into a police station. Bernie told me the building had just been emptied out two weeks before, and the town cops and criminals were now housed in a new brick building that had all the modern conveniences but none of the charm of the old one.
Cops. Of course. That could explain why I’d hallucinated a transparent man in a police uniform. It’s a wonder I didn’t hallucinate him with a cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. I checked my watch again, just in case it was late enough to spike my coffee, but the little hand showed only five minutes had passed.
I rummaged around in the upper cabinet next to the fridge and found the package of butter cookies I remembered stashing there. I pulled out one of the mismatched chairs I’d found to go with the wooden kitchen table I’d picked up at a secondhand store in Maysville and opened the bag. I’ve read that dogs have 300 million olfactory receptors, but I’m pretty sure Biscuit, my mutt, has double that. Or maybe she just knows the sound of food wrappers. I was quiet, but I don’t know why I bother. I hadn’t even taken my first bite when Biscuit trotted into the kitchen doing her starving dog routine.
Biscuit is a twenty-pound blonde beauty—kind of looks like a Golden Retriever pup, but she’s three years old. It’s anybody’s guess what breeds are in her family tree, but whatever they were, they must have been gorgeous. Scott and I adopted her from a rescue a year and a half ago. She’d belonged to an old lady who’d died. The old lady didn’t have any relatives or friends willing to take Biscuit, and Scott and I just happened to show up right after she was brought in.
When we split up, we came close to having a custody battle over her. He’s not a cat lover and couldn’t have cared less about Sneaky Pete. That was okay with Pete, since he felt the same way about Scott. Cats are great judges of character.
But Scott adored Biscuit. Of course, Biscuit didn’t care if he petted other dogs, so infidelity wasn’t an issue for her. I threatened to force him to sell his motorcycle and split the proceeds if he didn’t let me have her. He caved, which just shows how shallow he is. A motorcycle versus a dog? No contest as far as I’m concerned. I mean, motorcycles can get you from point A to point B even in heavy traffic, but can they snuggle? No, they cannot.
Of course, they also don’t give you the sad eyes to get a bite of butter cookie either, but you have to take the bad with the good.
“Where were you when I needed you?” I held out a bite of cookie and yanked my hand back just in time to keep her from grabbing my fingers along with the cookie. “A fat cop showed up, and I could see through him. I needed you.”
“Who you callin’ fat?” someone said in a voice that wavered, first strong, then faint, then strong again.
The voice came from the direction of the dining room. I jumped up, knocking my chair over and spilling my coffee in the process. There in the dining room doorway stood my hallucination. He was still transparent but more solid than he’d been before. He looked to be about the same height I was—five eleven—and what I could see of his hair sticking out from under his uniform cap looked gray. But then all of him looked gray—his hair, his cap, his uniform, his eyes, even his skin. His chubby cheeks were stretched into a grin, and he was rubbing his hand over his protruding belly. His attention seemed drawn to the spilled coffee, and he groaned.
“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of mud,” he said. “Don’t miss a lot of things in the land of the living, but that sure is one of them.”
The land of the living. My hallucination had just implied he was dead. That settled it. When my hallucination disappeared from the dining room doorway, I was going to get my cell phone from where I’d left it on the dining room table and call Bernie. She could take me to the hospital in Maysville. I didn’t know if they had a mental health unit, but if they didn’t, they could transfer me to one. Bernie would take care of Biscuit and Pete. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything except side effects from the antipsychotics I’d have to take for the rest of my life.
“That’s an awful purty dog.”
My hallucination squatted down and stretched out his hand to Biscuit. She barked once, wagged her tail, and ran over to him. I watched, my mouth hanging open, as he ran his transparent hand over her head. She stopped wagging and looked at me, a puzzled expression on her face, as if she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t feel his hand.
“Hey, Bullet, get in here,” my hallucination called out. “Got a cutie you should meet.”
A second later an overweight and transparent beagle came bounding through the dining room door, barked twice at Biscuit, then stuck his nose in her butt. Biscuit growled and whipped around, snapped at the beagle, then ran behind me.
That did it. I scooped up Biscuit and ran out of the kitchen, through the mud room where I grabbed Biscuit’s leash off the hook, and out the back door.
CHAPTER TWO
I ran around the side of the house and didn’t stop till I was three houses down and then only long enough to clip the leash onto the ring on Biscuit’s collar. For a second or two, I felt guilty about leaving Pete alone in the house with a ghost—and his dog—but then I remembered that there was no such thing as ghosts. If I’d been a good pet mom, I’d have left Biscuit there, too, since being with a certifiably insane woman wasn’t exactly safe. Not that I’d ever hurt Biscuit, but I’d never thought I’d see ghosts either, so who knew what I might do?
Hallucinations, I corrected myself. I never thought I’d hallucinate.
My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes and threatened to spill out. I blinked hard and willed myself to get it together. If I was mentally ill, I’d deal with it. Maybe it was just stress. If it was, I’d deal with that, too, and I’d start by taking Biscuit for a relaxing walk along the river.
Goose Lick sits on a bluff overlooking the Ohio, which is a good thing because the river tends to flood at some point every year. There are steps, paths, and drives at intervals along the river side of the town that a person can use to get to the strip of land that lies below the bluff. Back in the early fifties, Goose Lick built a wharf with a long pier extending from it at the east end of that strip of land. For the past three generations, the Applegate family had leased the wharf and the little store on it from the town, selling gas, sandwiches, and packaged snacks to recreational boaters during the spring, summer, and fall.
A small beach extended from the wharf to the cottages that lined the rest of the land below the bluff. Built on stilts, they served as vacation spots for people who lived farther inland. As far as I knew, no Goose Lick native lived in any of them. But the vacationers were welcome since they usually brought money with them when they came to fish, boat, or just sit on their decks and watch the water meandering by on its way to the Mississippi.
A one-lane gravel road runs between the base of the bluff and the stilt houses. I sometimes jog on it, but today I decided to stay on the paved path the city had built ten feet back from the top of the bluff. A wooden fence separated the top from the drop-off, and every twenty feet or so, the paved path widened enough for a bench. The paved path was my preferred jogging spot, but exercise wasn’t on my mind at the moment. Maybe I’d never jog again. I mean, I doubted mental institutions let their crazy folk just go for a run whenever they felt like it.
I headed for the nearest bench and plopped onto it. Biscuit whined and tugged at the leash, anxious to explore the interesting smells she knew she’d find along the path.
“Sit.”
Biscuit gave me a look that told me she wished she were a Doberman who could teach me a few commands, then she whined again and did as told when she saw whining wasn’t going to do her any good. She stared at me for a few seconds and finally lay down with a disgusted huff.
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, my hands cupping my forehead, and admitted to myself that I was scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Heck, my mom tells me I never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny either, not even when I was a gullible preschooler. And try as I might to come up with a reasonable explanation—stress, half-asleep dreaming, overactive imagination—nothing was working.
I couldn’t even blame flashbacks on college drug use because I hadn’t really had any college drug use. I’d tried marijuana once—and I really mean once. My one inhale caused me to cough so violently, I threw up. I drank alcohol occasionally, but I had only been truly drunk once—in college—and it made me throw up. People who upchuck during a party are not exactly at the top of the guest list, so after that I limited my substance use to one or two alcoholic drinks. I got the nickname “Goody Two Shoes” from my friends, but at least I still had friends. If I’d kept puking on them, I don’t think they’d have stuck around.
So, I was back to mental illness. As far as I knew, there was none on either side of my family, but maybe I needed to ask Bernie. She would know about the Jacksons. She knew everything about Mom’s side of the family back at least four generations, and she kept in touch with everyone now. I didn’t have to tell her why I was asking. She’d accept whatever story I came up with to explain my interest. I couldn’t ask my mother because she would immediately intuit that something was wrong.
I wasn’t sure how I’d find out about my father’s family who hailed from southeastern Kentucky, but I’d think of something. Maybe by the time I did, I’d already be locked up and my psychiatrist could take care of that for me.
I stood and Biscuit jumped up. The expression on her adorable face told me she thought things were looking up. From her point of view, she was right. She’d get a walk to Bernie’s restaurant and a treat from Bernie when she got there. When I die, I want to come back as a loved dog.
“Did you really get your butt sniffed by a ghost beagle?” I asked, half expecting to hallucinate my dog answering me, but I got nothing.
Bernie Jackson is my first cousin once removed. I think. Those cousin relationships always confuse me. Her dad was Grandpa Jackson’s baby brother. Bernie is only two years older than me, so we became best buds when my family visited while I was growing up. Bernie’s family has owned and operated the Goose Lick Café since before either Bernie or I was born. Her mom passed six years ago. Her dad, Lester, is still alive, but a year or so after her mom died, he turned the café over to Bernie and her brother to run. Now Lester divides his time between Goose Lick, Florida, Michigan, and any other place where the word is that the fish are biting.
I tied Biscuit to an old post left over from horse and buggy days and went inside to get a piece—or two—of the pie of the day. It might be too early to drink, but it was never too early for pie, and the café had pie to die for.
“Hey, cuz!”
Bernie had a pot of coffee in her hand, bustling up and down the counter topping off the customers’ mugs. There were only four, all men and all of them seated at the counter. They all turned to see who had come in, and two of them gave me a little wave and the others gave me a nod. Red, Bernie’s twin brother and the cook, waved at me through the kitchen passthrough. Technically, he was also a Bernie. My grand-aunt and -uncle apparently had no imagination when it came to names, so they named them Bernice and Bernard. Thank goodness for nicknames.
“How’s the police station comin’ along?” a man I knew only as Shorty said. “Find any bodies yet?”
Most of the others chuckled.
“Nope. Still looking.”
The counter which stretched half the length of the left wall had swivel stools upholstered in red vinyl and bolted to the floor. The far end had half a dozen empty stools. I chose the last stool. From there I could see the door and the counter. If I swiveled a quarter turn in one direction, I could see the four booths running along the wall opposite the counter, and if I swiveled another quarter turn, the ten tables between the counter and the restrooms in the back. I might be paranoid, but since transparent cops with transparent beagles were out to get me, I thought I could be forgiven.
Bernie set a mug in front of me and filled it with coffee without even asking. She knew me too well.
“Cherry, sweet potato, or coconut cream?”
“How about one of each?”
She arched an eyebrow at me.
“You serious?”
“No, of course not.” I waved my hand at her as if the question was ridiculous. Truth was, I was serious. “At least not all at once. I’ll start with the coconut cream.”
Bernie stared at me for several seconds without moving. I was just about to complain about the service when she turned and headed back to the Bunn coffee machine. She set the pot back on the burner, removed a saucer with a generous slice of coconut cream pie from the undercounter fridge, and set it in front of me along with napkin-wrapped silverware.
“I thought you might be in, so I saved the last piece for you,” she said. “Now, what’s wrong?”
And I thought my mother was good at intuiting when something was bothering me. Guess it must run in the family.
“Wrong? Why would you think anything is wrong?”
“One, you’re sweating like a pig.” Bernie swiped at a lock of the carrot red hair that had come loose from her ponytail, tucking it behind her ear, and held up her left hand, tapping her index finger with the corresponding digit on her right hand. “Two, you’re pale. Three, your foot is jittering worse than an air hammer.”
“One, it’s warm out and I walked along the river before I came here.” I imitated her finger tapping. “Two, I’m a redhead. I’m always pale. And, three, I’m going through pie withdrawal and the service here is really slow.”
“Uh-huh.”
So much for fooling Bernie. I took a bite of my pie, letting it melt in my mouth as I stared at her.
“I need you to do something for me,” I said. “I need you to take Biscuit and Pete for a while.”
“What?” Her voice rose, and I glowered at her. She lowered it and leaned closer.
“What’s up? Did Scott do something? Is he here?” She looked in every direction as if Scott might have sneaked in while she was pouring coffee. “If he is, I’ll—”
“No, Scott didn’t do anything. Other than what he already did. That was enough.”
“Then, what’s going on? Are you going to visit Edna and Louie?”
I had to think for a second who she was talking about. Edna is my mom and Bernie’s first cousin, although Bernie is closer to my age, and Louie is my dad. I’m just not used to hearing them called by their first names.
“No, I’m not going to Hamilton, but I am going to be gone for a while. I think.”
“Where?”
Before I could think of an answer, the bell over the door dinged, and a man came in, chose a seat next to the register, and looked expectantly at Bernie.
“Be right back,” she said and hurried off to do her job.
I went back to my pie. By the time, she got back to my end of the counter after taking the man’s order, I was finished with the coconut cream and my coffee.
“I’ll try the sweet potato now,” I said. “And I’ll have another coffee.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Answer me a question first,” I said, lowering my voice to almost a whisper. She leaned closer to hear me. “Do we have any mental illness in the Jackson family?”
“Nope,” she said, hands on her hips. “You’re the only crazy relative I have.”
She didn’t realize how right she was.
“Nobody? Are you sure?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
I nodded, and she took a moment to give the matter some consideration.
“Well, not unless you count Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv.”
Lucy and Viv were Grandpa Jackson’s sisters. They lived over in Rabbit Hash. I’d met them once at a family reunion when I was a kid, and they were old then.
“They’re still alive?”
“Oh, yeah. Lucy’s ninety-five and Viv is ninety-three. Still live at home and do their own housecleaning and gardening.”
“They don’t sound crazy. They sound amazing.”
“They are amazing. And they also claim to be able to see ghosts.”
I had just taken a sip of my coffee when Bernie laid that one on me, and it went down the wrong pipe. As I choked and gasped for breath, I wondered if choking to death was going to be the answer to my problem.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your point of view—coffee doesn’t close off your airway. Even if I’d choked on something that did, there were too many people around who would be willing to do a Heimlich on me.
“Ghosts?” I managed to squeak out after a half minute of heavy coughing. “They see ghosts?”
“They say they do. Whether they do or not…” Bernie shrugged.
“Are they senile?”
“Don’t act like it,” she said. “As far as the ghosts, they have claimed that since they were teenagers. At least that’s what I’ve always heard. Why are you asking if anyone in the family is nuts?”
“Just wondered.”
I shrugged and decided to lie. I hated to do that to Bernie, since she was my best friend as well as my cousin, but a lie was better than the truth. Eventually I’d have to tell her about my transparent cop and his beagle, and when I did, I’d beg her to take permanent custody of Biscuit and Pete. I just wasn’t ready to tell her everything yet.
“I talked to a friend in Cincinnati,” I fibbed. “Turns out her brother was just diagnosed with the crazies. She said he started seeing things. She said they had a couple of relatives before him who had to be put on medication. And get this—the things he thought he saw—he thought they were ghosts. It’s scary to think of something like that being hereditary, but now you tell me we’ve got it in our family, too.”
“Well, I don’t think Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv are bonkers. If they say they see ghosts, they see ghosts.”
“You believe that? You believe in ghosts?”
I was floored. Bernie was the most levelheaded person I knew.
“Who knows what might exist in this world—or the next? Now, stop trying to change the subject. Why do you want me to take Biscuit and Pete?”
I looked at the other customers. The TV mounted above and to the side of the kitchen door was on and tuned to ESPN. The men at the counter seemed engrossed in whatever the sports announcer was saying, but I still didn’t feel comfortable speaking the words, “I’ve either seen a ghost or I’m losing my mind.” I mean, I like sitcoms, but if I heard somebody say something like that, I know my attention would shift to them. Goose Lick is a small town. The residents would all learn that Bernie’s Ohio cousin was a loony soon enough, but I’d rather they did after I was already in a locked ward where I didn’t have to see their expressions when they found out.
“I’ll tell you later,” I half-whispered. “In private.”
“Ooo-kay.” She drew the word out while staring at me with the intensity of a scientist who thinks she’s just discovered a new microbe through the lens of her microscope. “You still want that sweet potato pie?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but box it and a piece of cherry to go. I need to get home.”
When I’d run out earlier, I’d thought I might never go home again. I’d just send somebody for Pete and fresh underwear. But now? I knew I needed to face my fear head-on. Even though I had relatives who claimed to see ghosts, I still didn’t believe that’s what I’d seen. But whether that man and his dog were ghosts or hallucinations, I still needed to face it. They were transparent. They couldn’t hurt me really, so there was nothing to worry about.
“I’ll stop by when I get off,” Bernie said when she returned with my pie, the check, and a tiny piece of hamburger for Biscuit. I had my money ready and told her to keep the change. It literally was change—two dimes and a nickel—and she gave me the stink eye.
“Thanks, big spender,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I waved at Red and told all the guys at the counter goodbye as I passed them on the way to the door. I untied my dog and headed on home to face the fat man and his beagle.
CHAPTER THREE
When I got home, there was a man on my porch, but he wasn’t a transparent fat man. Quite the opposite, in fact. I guessed him to be in his early thirties and about six feet tall. He had curly brown hair that looked like it resisted being tamed, a nice tan, and when he turned to look at me coming up the walk, I saw he had dark blue eyes framed in laugh lines. He was wearing faded brown jeans with a beige short-sleeved tee, both stretched tight over a very nice body. Oh, yeah—he also wasn’t transparent. He looked very solid, but I was tempted to run my hands over him to be sure.
Biscuit barked a greeting at him, wiggling her butt and panting. I could understand that.
“Can I help you?” Just as I asked, I noticed a piece of paper wedged in my door jamb.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you Shelby Wolfe?”
I nodded, and he removed the paper from where it was stuck.
“Just left you a note,” he said, coming down the steps and extending his hand, “but I guess we won’t need it now. I’m Ben Carpenter, your neighbor in the back.”
We shook, and he turned his attention to Biscuit, squatting down and rubbing her ears. She flopped over on her back, offering her belly for rubs. She’s such a slut.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “After I slid that note through your mail slot, somebody told me you were out of town on a job.”
The old police station I’d bought was at the very edge of town. The lot was large, slightly over an acre. At the back of it was a cottage with a one-car garage. An access lane leading to it ran along the right side of my property. Bernie had told me that the former chief had lived in the cottage. When the building I now lived in had been a hotel, that cottage was part of the grounds. The hotel manager—well, several consecutive ones—had received the right to live there as part of their compensation.
When the city converted the hotel to a police station and jail, the lot had been split into two, and eventually Chief Carpenter bought the cottage and lived there until he died, either from suicide or a horrible accident. The jury was still out on which it was. Ben Carpenter was his son and came highly recommended as an actual carpenter. I’d left him a note asking him to contact me before I’d heard that he was working out of town.
“I was. Got back last night.” He looked up at the building. “So, you have something you want an estimate on?”
“I have a lot of things I want an estimate on,” I said, and he laughed.
“I imagine you do.” He shook his head, still looking at what was now my home—or would be until I went off to a locked ward. “It’s a sturdy old building, but the operative word there is ‘old.’ So, what do you want done? That is, assuming this is a good time for you.”
I hesitated. I did have a lot that needed to be done, but the way things were going, I wasn’t sure if I would be here long enough to see my plans come to fruition. Still, Ben Carpenter, the carpenter, was here now, and if he went inside with me, maybe I’d be distracted enough by his tan and his muscles that I wouldn’t see a transparent fat man and his beagle.
“Sure, this is as good a time as any.” I held up my pie container. “I’ll even share my pie.”
“Can’t pass up an offer like that.”
He grinned, and for a second, I forgot all about transparent men. Then I wondered if maybe he was a hallucination. But I decided if he was, I could live with that kind of hallucination.
Before you start thinking that I was interested in getting to know Ben Carpenter that way, let me clarify my position. Besides the fact that I would soon be a psych patient, I had sworn off men thanks to Scott. And I intended to keep it that way. They were nothing but trouble.
But I could still look, right? Once I was locked up, there probably wouldn’t be such nice views.
In the kitchen, I gave Ben a choice of two kinds of coffee or tea. Predictably, he chose a dark roast, and I popped it in the Keurig. While it was doing its thing, I got out two dessert plates, forks, and paper napkins.
“Sweet potato or cherry? Or I could cut them in half, and we could have both. They’re big pieces. I have an in with the management at the café.”
“You decide,” Ben said. “I like both kinds, so however you want to do it is fine with me. Or you can have them both, and I’ll just sit here and drool.”
He grinned. I grinned back, but I wasn’t falling for his act. Men are always charming and cute when you first meet them. I bet if I talked to some of Ben Carpenter’s old girlfriends—or ex-wives, if he had any—I’d hear the real story.
“Let’s go for the split then.”
By the time his coffee was ready, I had the pie divided up on each plate. I made myself a cup and sat down at the table across from Ben. Like a good guest, he’d waited till I was seated before taking a bite of his pie. Like I said, I wasn’t falling for any of what he was dishing out.
Biscuit, on the other hand, was falling for all of it, sitting at his side and looking up at him with worship in her eyes. Or maybe she was just hoping he’d drop a bit of pie crust.
“I heard you’re kin to Red and Bernie,” he said. “Cousin, right?”
I nodded.
“Right. My grandfather on my mom’s side was Bernie’s dad’s oldest brother. We used to visit every summer when I was a kid and some holidays.” I hesitated for a couple seconds, not sure if I should say what I went ahead and said anyway. “Bernie says you didn’t grow up here?”
He nodded.
“Mom and Dad divorced when I was four. Mom was from Pennsylvania originally, so we moved back there. A little town not too far from Harrisburg. Dad got me for a couple weeks in the summer, though, and either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Plus, some weeks when I was on school breaks. I played with Red some, so who knows? We might have crossed paths.”
I shrugged. I doubted we’d crossed paths. Unless he’d been an ugly duckling who grew up to be the swan he was now, I would have remembered.
“Might have,” I said. “So, you like Goose Lick better than Pennsylvania?”
“Actually, yeah, I do,” he said. His eyes grew sad. “When Dad died, I inherited his house and the rest of his stuff. The place needed some work, so I figured I’d live there while I got it ready to sell, but the longer I stayed here, the better I liked it. I do jobs out-of-state sometimes—like the one I just finished in Ohio—but I think I like Goose Lick for a home base. The town kind of grows on you.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
When I came to Goose Lick two months before, I hadn’t planned on staying, but lately I’d been starting to consider it. That is, before I saw the transparent cop. Not that I blamed Goose Lick for my hallucination. I was pretty sure the fat guy and his beagle would follow me no matter where I went—at least until the doctors got me on some medication.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said. “Bernie told me he was on the police department even back when I visited in the summers, but I can’t say I remember him.”
“Thanks.” Ben fell silent for several seconds before taking a deep breath. “Are your parents still alive?”
I nodded.
“You’re lucky.” He poked at his cherry pie. “I think it’s worse, though, when a parent you’ve never really gotten a chance to know well dies. When that happens, there are no more chances. And when one dies the way he did—well, you waffle back and forth between being sad and being angry.”
He looked up.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the story, right?”
I nodded again. Chief Jebediah—Jeb—Carpenter had been a drinker, according to Bernie and everyone else who thought I should know the story. The town council had been after him to retire for a while, but he’d resisted. They finally decided to force it and gave him two weeks’ notice. Three days before he was supposed to clean out his office and vacate the premises, he and his dog were found dead in his garage with his car running. From what Bernie said, about half the town thought it was suicide, while the other half was convinced it was an accident.
“Actually, I’ve heard two versions. Some people seem to think it was an accident.”
He shrugged.
“Might have been,” he said. “Considering the way Pop drank, it’s not hard to picture him getting in the car with Bullet, starting it, and passing out.”
I’d just started to swallow a bite of my cherry pie, and for the second time that day, I choked.
“You okay?”
Ben scooted his chair back, a concerned look on his face, but I gave him a don’t-worry-about-it wave. This choking episode wasn’t as bad as the one I’d had at the café. Guess practice makes perfect.
When I could speak again, I squeaked out a “sorry,” then asked, “Bullet?”
“My dad’s dog. Pop loved that animal. Took him with him everywhere.” Ben shook his head. “Even to the Great Beyond, I guess.”
“What kind of dog was he?” I said, but I already knew the answer.
“Beagle. Pop got him to hunt with, but Bullet was lousy at it.”
I concentrated on finishing my pie and drinking my coffee, my head down while I tried to get that same head around what I’d just heard. As far as I could remember, I hadn’t heard what kind of dog Chief Carpenter had had or what the dog’s name was, so how could I have hallucinated it? But maybe I had heard and forgotten. I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bernie or someone else in town had mentioned it to me. That must be it. It was the only logical explanation there was.
I’d finished my pie and coffee by the time Ben downed the last of his coffee.
“So”—he pushed back his chair and stood—“show me what you want done.”
I led him through the building, pointing out the rotting back stair treads; the equally rotten back porch support posts, as well as the porch ceiling that needed torn out and replaced; shallow closets that I wanted built out into the rooms; and woodwork that was too damaged to salvage.
“I’d like to keep the style, though,” I said, “if at all possible.”
Ben nodded, fingering the splintered molding.
“I know a guy,” he said. “He’s got a shop over in Covington that specializes in salvage material from old buildings. I might not be able to find molding that matches what’s in the other rooms, but I’m sure I can get something from the period.”
“That’s good enough,” I said. “If it’s already stripped, even better. I can refinish it myself.”
“I heard you and your ex flipped houses,” Ben said. “Are you planning to resell this one?”
“I haven’t decided.” I sighed. “I thought I would when I first bought it, but now? I don’t know.”
“Like I said, Goose Lick grows on you.”
Ben stared at me for long enough to make me start to think I had pie in my teeth.
“I hope you do stick around,” he said.
I shrugged and looked away. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the subtext was “so we can get to know each other better,” but like I said, I wasn’t interested in getting to know any man better. And especially not one who was my next-door neighbor.
“Who knows? Another thought I had was to convert the building into several apartments and either keep it for the income or sell it as rental property. If I decide to do that, I might have more work for you if you’re available.”
“Sounds good.”
We made our way back to the kitchen where I offered Ben another cup of coffee. I did it to be polite, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to accept or not. On the one hand, I didn’t want him to think I was encouraging anything more than a business arrangement, but on the other hand, I wasn’t in any hurry to be left alone with my hallucination. Before I could decide how I felt about it, Ben accepted the offer, so I popped another dark roast pod into the machine.
I settled for a bottled water this time, and we sat at the kitchen table and made small talk about Goose Lick. Biscuit completely ignored me, focusing all her attention on Ben even though he didn’t have any pie left to accidentally drop on the floor. He could multi-task better than she could because he didn’t ignore either one of us. Between petting her and scratching her chin, he filled me in on some of the more colorful characters in Goose Lick, as well as insider information about who was the most competent and trustworthy plumbers and electricians. I’d already gotten information on tradesmen from Bernie—she’d been the one to recommend Ben—but it was good to hear it confirmed by a source in the building trades.
His coffee cup was nearly empty when the air behind him began to shimmer and thicken. I started to yell, “Watch out!” but caught myself in time. I didn’t want to start anything personal with the man, but I also didn’t want to scare him off before he finished the work I needed done. If he knew he was dealing with a crazy woman, he might look for other jobs.
Then again, he would know I was nuts as soon as I was fitted for a straitjacket. Sure, I could ask Bernie to tell people that I’d been called home for some reason. But I knew she wouldn’t lie to her brother, and Red never could keep a secret.
It only took a few seconds for the transparent cop to materialize behind Ben’s chair. He seemed more solid this time. I could still see through him but not as easily as before. He looked at Ben, looked at me, grinned, winked, and tipped his police cap to me. His hair was thinning and gray like I’d thought before, and that’s when I realized my hallucination had color. Unlike the last time I’d seen him, only his hair was gray. His uniform was blue, just like the ones I’d seen on real Goose Lick cops, his complexion was ruddy, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as Ben’s.
Biscuit barked once, her tail going a mile a minute. Ben looked down, thinking she was barking at him, but when he saw her looking past him, he turned. I held my breath. If he saw what I saw, that would mean everything I’d believed about ghosts was wrong, but if he didn’t see what I saw, then it would mean I was as crazy as I thought I was. No good choice here.
Just as I expected, he didn’t see what I saw. He turned back, a puzzled expression on his face.
“She acts like she sees something,” he said.
“Yeah.” I giggled nervously. “She does that sometimes.”
I pointed my right index finger at the side of my head and moved it in circles to indicate my dog was crazy. As was her owner, but I decided not to tell him that just yet.
“When I was a kid, we had a cat that did that. He’d sit and stare at the wall behind me or Mom like there was something he could see that we couldn’t. Gave Mom the creeps, but I thought he could see ghosts.”
He laughed.
“I probably gave Mom the creeps when I said that.”
Yeah, I thought, and you’re giving me the creeps now.
Just then the transparent beagle came trotting into the room, squeezed under Ben’s chair, and headed straight for Biscuit. Her hackles rose and she growled. Because the beagle’s back end was still under Ben’s chair, it looked as if Biscuit was growling at Ben’s legs.
“Well, that’s weird,” Ben said. “I thought she liked me.”
“She’s probably just tired.”
I realized how dumb that sounded as soon as I said it, but it was better than telling him she was growling at my hallucination. And that’s when it struck me. I had toyed with the idea that I’d hallucinated Biscuit’s earlier reaction to the beagle, but unless I was hallucinating Ben, he saw what Biscuit was doing this time. And that meant my dog was seeing the same thing I was. And that meant…
“I’ve heard so much about your father,” I said. “Do you have any pictures of him?”
“Sure do.”
Ben pulled out his wallet, opened it to the little plastic windows that held photos, flipped past a couple, then held it out to me.
“That’s him,” he said. “And that’s Bullet he’s holding.”
I stared at the photo, a headshot of the transparent man standing behind Ben. He had his arm around a dog that looked very much like the beagle sniffing at Biscuit, his cheek pressed against the dog’s cheek. I looked from the photo to the man. He’d put his police cap back on his gray head and was looking at me, an amused expression on his face. I glanced back at the photo, then back up at him, and he shrugged, as if to say, “It is what it is.”
It seemed I took after my Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv. I was going to have to accept the fact that there really were ghosts whether I had believed in them or not. Maybe it was time I gave the fat man in the red suit another look.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, hoping it would clear my vision. And whaddya know, when I opened my eyes, the transparent cop was gone.
I breathed a shaky sigh of relief and tried to remember when I’d last been to the eye doctor. It had been at least a year, maybe more. Pre-Scott and Amy Winegardner, realtor. Pre-betrayal and pre-separation. I looked over at the official-looking papers hiding the deep scratches in the finish of the oak dining table I’d picked up at a local estate sale. The divorce decree. My attorney had sent me a copy the day before by certified mail, and today I see a transparent cop with a beer gut. Coincidence? Maybe not.
But, no, I just couldn’t see it. I know stress can manifest in strange ways, but why would getting the divorce decree do it? I hadn’t seen any transparent cops with beer guts when I walked in on Scott and Amy doing the horizontal mambo in Scott’s and my bed. I’d thrown a few objects at them, cried and screeched, and in general had a meltdown, but I hadn’t hallucinated. And when I got over the shock, I admitted—but only to myself—that I was a little glad to have a reason to divorce Scott. Sure, he was hot and charming, and I’d felt so lucky when he whisked me off to Vegas for an impromptu wedding after we’d only known each other for six months. Thing is, hot and charming can wear off pretty quickly when you live with a guy who doesn’t have any more dependable qualities to back it up. It just took him being hot and charming with someone else in our bed to motivate me to get out of a relationship I should never have gotten into in the first place.
No matter, I told myself. People hallucinate sometime. No big deal. Could be stress, could be fumes, could be something an ophthalmologist can cure.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t crazy, and I wasn’t seeing ghosts. I just needed a break, that’s all.
I laid the putty knife I’d been using to scrape the white paint off the oak woodwork down next to the can of stripper. I decided I was done for the day and screwed the lid back on the can before peeling off my rubber gloves.
I glanced at my watch, and even though I felt like I could use a drink after what I thought I’d seen, I decided the middle of the afternoon was too early for any of that foolishness. If I started now, who knew what I might hallucinate by nightfall. Coffee, on the other hand, might be just what I needed. I mean, for all I knew, I had dozed off standing up. You know how it can be when you’re halfway between being awake or asleep and think you’ve heard or seen something. Maybe that’s what I’d done.
I headed into the kitchen and popped a pod into the Keurig. While it hissed and gurgled, I leaned against the counter and admired my work. The kitchen had been the first room I’d tackled when I bought the former Goose Lick Police Station. It had had all the necessary plumbing and wiring, but the appliances were straight out of the seventies—an Avocado Green refrigerator and a Harvest Gold stove with only one working burner. The fridge still worked, but the freezer had to be thawed at least once a month just to get the door shut. The sink had more chips and rust than it had enamel and no cabinet to hide the rusted pipes underneath. It had been good enough for the Goose Lick cops to make coffee and heat the lunches they brought from home, but it made me ill to look at it.
I’d replaced the appliances with white ones, bought unfinished cabinets that I’d painted a light shade of blue, and installed a new double-bowl white enameled sink above one of those cabinets. I topped the cabinets with butcher block countertops. The walls were now white and the ceiling blue with blue-and-white wallpaper border between them. Blue-and-white gingham curtains hung at the window above the sink, and framed prints of yellow and blue flowers hung wherever the cabinets didn’t. The effect was cheerful, and right now, I needed cheerful. I’d never hallucinated before, and it shook me. Sure, I know I said maybe I had started to fall asleep and dreamed it, but I didn’t really believe that.
Well, now that you know I’m recently divorced because my husband cheated on me, I don’t believe in ghosts, and I may be insane, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Shelby Wolfe. I was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. For those of you not familiar with southwestern Ohio, that’s just north of Cincinnati. My mom and dad were both born in Kentucky but raised in Hamilton, too, thanks to their respective fathers moving their families there to get work. My mom’s dad, Grandpa Jackson, landed a job at Mosler Safe, and my dad’s dad, Grandpa Wolfe, got one at Fisher Body just down the road in Fairfield. Both those companies eventually closed, but I’m pretty sure my grandpas didn’t have anything to do with it. My grandparents are gone now, but my parents still live in Hamilton.
My mom’s Kentucky family, the Jacksons, are spread out along the southern bank of the Ohio River from Rabbit Hash to Ashland and all points in between. That’s how I ended up in Goose Lick, a town not too far from Maysville and more charming than you’d think from its name. My cousin Bernie has lived all her life in Goose Lick, and two days before the you-know-what hit the fan with Scott, she’d called me.
Scott and I had made some decent money flipping houses. We’d buy a house cheap, live there while we rehabbed it, sell, and move to the next one. At the time of our separation, we’d also had three fourplexes that brought in decent rental income. Bernie had told me Scott and I ought to take a look at a cool old building she was pretty sure we could get for next to nothing and maybe rehab into several apartments. It had been built around 1900 as a hotel, but in the forties the town had bought it and converted it into a police station. Bernie told me the building had just been emptied out two weeks before, and the town cops and criminals were now housed in a new brick building that had all the modern conveniences but none of the charm of the old one.
Cops. Of course. That could explain why I’d hallucinated a transparent man in a police uniform. It’s a wonder I didn’t hallucinate him with a cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. I checked my watch again, just in case it was late enough to spike my coffee, but the little hand showed only five minutes had passed.
I rummaged around in the upper cabinet next to the fridge and found the package of butter cookies I remembered stashing there. I pulled out one of the mismatched chairs I’d found to go with the wooden kitchen table I’d picked up at a secondhand store in Maysville and opened the bag. I’ve read that dogs have 300 million olfactory receptors, but I’m pretty sure Biscuit, my mutt, has double that. Or maybe she just knows the sound of food wrappers. I was quiet, but I don’t know why I bother. I hadn’t even taken my first bite when Biscuit trotted into the kitchen doing her starving dog routine.
Biscuit is a twenty-pound blonde beauty—kind of looks like a Golden Retriever pup, but she’s three years old. It’s anybody’s guess what breeds are in her family tree, but whatever they were, they must have been gorgeous. Scott and I adopted her from a rescue a year and a half ago. She’d belonged to an old lady who’d died. The old lady didn’t have any relatives or friends willing to take Biscuit, and Scott and I just happened to show up right after she was brought in.
When we split up, we came close to having a custody battle over her. He’s not a cat lover and couldn’t have cared less about Sneaky Pete. That was okay with Pete, since he felt the same way about Scott. Cats are great judges of character.
But Scott adored Biscuit. Of course, Biscuit didn’t care if he petted other dogs, so infidelity wasn’t an issue for her. I threatened to force him to sell his motorcycle and split the proceeds if he didn’t let me have her. He caved, which just shows how shallow he is. A motorcycle versus a dog? No contest as far as I’m concerned. I mean, motorcycles can get you from point A to point B even in heavy traffic, but can they snuggle? No, they cannot.
Of course, they also don’t give you the sad eyes to get a bite of butter cookie either, but you have to take the bad with the good.
“Where were you when I needed you?” I held out a bite of cookie and yanked my hand back just in time to keep her from grabbing my fingers along with the cookie. “A fat cop showed up, and I could see through him. I needed you.”
“Who you callin’ fat?” someone said in a voice that wavered, first strong, then faint, then strong again.
The voice came from the direction of the dining room. I jumped up, knocking my chair over and spilling my coffee in the process. There in the dining room doorway stood my hallucination. He was still transparent but more solid than he’d been before. He looked to be about the same height I was—five eleven—and what I could see of his hair sticking out from under his uniform cap looked gray. But then all of him looked gray—his hair, his cap, his uniform, his eyes, even his skin. His chubby cheeks were stretched into a grin, and he was rubbing his hand over his protruding belly. His attention seemed drawn to the spilled coffee, and he groaned.
“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of mud,” he said. “Don’t miss a lot of things in the land of the living, but that sure is one of them.”
The land of the living. My hallucination had just implied he was dead. That settled it. When my hallucination disappeared from the dining room doorway, I was going to get my cell phone from where I’d left it on the dining room table and call Bernie. She could take me to the hospital in Maysville. I didn’t know if they had a mental health unit, but if they didn’t, they could transfer me to one. Bernie would take care of Biscuit and Pete. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything except side effects from the antipsychotics I’d have to take for the rest of my life.
“That’s an awful purty dog.”
My hallucination squatted down and stretched out his hand to Biscuit. She barked once, wagged her tail, and ran over to him. I watched, my mouth hanging open, as he ran his transparent hand over her head. She stopped wagging and looked at me, a puzzled expression on her face, as if she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t feel his hand.
“Hey, Bullet, get in here,” my hallucination called out. “Got a cutie you should meet.”
A second later an overweight and transparent beagle came bounding through the dining room door, barked twice at Biscuit, then stuck his nose in her butt. Biscuit growled and whipped around, snapped at the beagle, then ran behind me.
That did it. I scooped up Biscuit and ran out of the kitchen, through the mud room where I grabbed Biscuit’s leash off the hook, and out the back door.
CHAPTER TWO
I ran around the side of the house and didn’t stop till I was three houses down and then only long enough to clip the leash onto the ring on Biscuit’s collar. For a second or two, I felt guilty about leaving Pete alone in the house with a ghost—and his dog—but then I remembered that there was no such thing as ghosts. If I’d been a good pet mom, I’d have left Biscuit there, too, since being with a certifiably insane woman wasn’t exactly safe. Not that I’d ever hurt Biscuit, but I’d never thought I’d see ghosts either, so who knew what I might do?
Hallucinations, I corrected myself. I never thought I’d hallucinate.
My vision blurred as tears filled my eyes and threatened to spill out. I blinked hard and willed myself to get it together. If I was mentally ill, I’d deal with it. Maybe it was just stress. If it was, I’d deal with that, too, and I’d start by taking Biscuit for a relaxing walk along the river.
Goose Lick sits on a bluff overlooking the Ohio, which is a good thing because the river tends to flood at some point every year. There are steps, paths, and drives at intervals along the river side of the town that a person can use to get to the strip of land that lies below the bluff. Back in the early fifties, Goose Lick built a wharf with a long pier extending from it at the east end of that strip of land. For the past three generations, the Applegate family had leased the wharf and the little store on it from the town, selling gas, sandwiches, and packaged snacks to recreational boaters during the spring, summer, and fall.
A small beach extended from the wharf to the cottages that lined the rest of the land below the bluff. Built on stilts, they served as vacation spots for people who lived farther inland. As far as I knew, no Goose Lick native lived in any of them. But the vacationers were welcome since they usually brought money with them when they came to fish, boat, or just sit on their decks and watch the water meandering by on its way to the Mississippi.
A one-lane gravel road runs between the base of the bluff and the stilt houses. I sometimes jog on it, but today I decided to stay on the paved path the city had built ten feet back from the top of the bluff. A wooden fence separated the top from the drop-off, and every twenty feet or so, the paved path widened enough for a bench. The paved path was my preferred jogging spot, but exercise wasn’t on my mind at the moment. Maybe I’d never jog again. I mean, I doubted mental institutions let their crazy folk just go for a run whenever they felt like it.
I headed for the nearest bench and plopped onto it. Biscuit whined and tugged at the leash, anxious to explore the interesting smells she knew she’d find along the path.
“Sit.”
Biscuit gave me a look that told me she wished she were a Doberman who could teach me a few commands, then she whined again and did as told when she saw whining wasn’t going to do her any good. She stared at me for a few seconds and finally lay down with a disgusted huff.
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, my hands cupping my forehead, and admitted to myself that I was scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I didn’t believe in ghosts. Heck, my mom tells me I never believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny either, not even when I was a gullible preschooler. And try as I might to come up with a reasonable explanation—stress, half-asleep dreaming, overactive imagination—nothing was working.
I couldn’t even blame flashbacks on college drug use because I hadn’t really had any college drug use. I’d tried marijuana once—and I really mean once. My one inhale caused me to cough so violently, I threw up. I drank alcohol occasionally, but I had only been truly drunk once—in college—and it made me throw up. People who upchuck during a party are not exactly at the top of the guest list, so after that I limited my substance use to one or two alcoholic drinks. I got the nickname “Goody Two Shoes” from my friends, but at least I still had friends. If I’d kept puking on them, I don’t think they’d have stuck around.
So, I was back to mental illness. As far as I knew, there was none on either side of my family, but maybe I needed to ask Bernie. She would know about the Jacksons. She knew everything about Mom’s side of the family back at least four generations, and she kept in touch with everyone now. I didn’t have to tell her why I was asking. She’d accept whatever story I came up with to explain my interest. I couldn’t ask my mother because she would immediately intuit that something was wrong.
I wasn’t sure how I’d find out about my father’s family who hailed from southeastern Kentucky, but I’d think of something. Maybe by the time I did, I’d already be locked up and my psychiatrist could take care of that for me.
I stood and Biscuit jumped up. The expression on her adorable face told me she thought things were looking up. From her point of view, she was right. She’d get a walk to Bernie’s restaurant and a treat from Bernie when she got there. When I die, I want to come back as a loved dog.
“Did you really get your butt sniffed by a ghost beagle?” I asked, half expecting to hallucinate my dog answering me, but I got nothing.
Bernie Jackson is my first cousin once removed. I think. Those cousin relationships always confuse me. Her dad was Grandpa Jackson’s baby brother. Bernie is only two years older than me, so we became best buds when my family visited while I was growing up. Bernie’s family has owned and operated the Goose Lick Café since before either Bernie or I was born. Her mom passed six years ago. Her dad, Lester, is still alive, but a year or so after her mom died, he turned the café over to Bernie and her brother to run. Now Lester divides his time between Goose Lick, Florida, Michigan, and any other place where the word is that the fish are biting.
I tied Biscuit to an old post left over from horse and buggy days and went inside to get a piece—or two—of the pie of the day. It might be too early to drink, but it was never too early for pie, and the café had pie to die for.
“Hey, cuz!”
Bernie had a pot of coffee in her hand, bustling up and down the counter topping off the customers’ mugs. There were only four, all men and all of them seated at the counter. They all turned to see who had come in, and two of them gave me a little wave and the others gave me a nod. Red, Bernie’s twin brother and the cook, waved at me through the kitchen passthrough. Technically, he was also a Bernie. My grand-aunt and -uncle apparently had no imagination when it came to names, so they named them Bernice and Bernard. Thank goodness for nicknames.
“How’s the police station comin’ along?” a man I knew only as Shorty said. “Find any bodies yet?”
Most of the others chuckled.
“Nope. Still looking.”
The counter which stretched half the length of the left wall had swivel stools upholstered in red vinyl and bolted to the floor. The far end had half a dozen empty stools. I chose the last stool. From there I could see the door and the counter. If I swiveled a quarter turn in one direction, I could see the four booths running along the wall opposite the counter, and if I swiveled another quarter turn, the ten tables between the counter and the restrooms in the back. I might be paranoid, but since transparent cops with transparent beagles were out to get me, I thought I could be forgiven.
Bernie set a mug in front of me and filled it with coffee without even asking. She knew me too well.
“Cherry, sweet potato, or coconut cream?”
“How about one of each?”
She arched an eyebrow at me.
“You serious?”
“No, of course not.” I waved my hand at her as if the question was ridiculous. Truth was, I was serious. “At least not all at once. I’ll start with the coconut cream.”
Bernie stared at me for several seconds without moving. I was just about to complain about the service when she turned and headed back to the Bunn coffee machine. She set the pot back on the burner, removed a saucer with a generous slice of coconut cream pie from the undercounter fridge, and set it in front of me along with napkin-wrapped silverware.
“I thought you might be in, so I saved the last piece for you,” she said. “Now, what’s wrong?”
And I thought my mother was good at intuiting when something was bothering me. Guess it must run in the family.
“Wrong? Why would you think anything is wrong?”
“One, you’re sweating like a pig.” Bernie swiped at a lock of the carrot red hair that had come loose from her ponytail, tucking it behind her ear, and held up her left hand, tapping her index finger with the corresponding digit on her right hand. “Two, you’re pale. Three, your foot is jittering worse than an air hammer.”
“One, it’s warm out and I walked along the river before I came here.” I imitated her finger tapping. “Two, I’m a redhead. I’m always pale. And, three, I’m going through pie withdrawal and the service here is really slow.”
“Uh-huh.”
So much for fooling Bernie. I took a bite of my pie, letting it melt in my mouth as I stared at her.
“I need you to do something for me,” I said. “I need you to take Biscuit and Pete for a while.”
“What?” Her voice rose, and I glowered at her. She lowered it and leaned closer.
“What’s up? Did Scott do something? Is he here?” She looked in every direction as if Scott might have sneaked in while she was pouring coffee. “If he is, I’ll—”
“No, Scott didn’t do anything. Other than what he already did. That was enough.”
“Then, what’s going on? Are you going to visit Edna and Louie?”
I had to think for a second who she was talking about. Edna is my mom and Bernie’s first cousin, although Bernie is closer to my age, and Louie is my dad. I’m just not used to hearing them called by their first names.
“No, I’m not going to Hamilton, but I am going to be gone for a while. I think.”
“Where?”
Before I could think of an answer, the bell over the door dinged, and a man came in, chose a seat next to the register, and looked expectantly at Bernie.
“Be right back,” she said and hurried off to do her job.
I went back to my pie. By the time, she got back to my end of the counter after taking the man’s order, I was finished with the coconut cream and my coffee.
“I’ll try the sweet potato now,” I said. “And I’ll have another coffee.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Answer me a question first,” I said, lowering my voice to almost a whisper. She leaned closer to hear me. “Do we have any mental illness in the Jackson family?”
“Nope,” she said, hands on her hips. “You’re the only crazy relative I have.”
She didn’t realize how right she was.
“Nobody? Are you sure?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
I nodded, and she took a moment to give the matter some consideration.
“Well, not unless you count Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv.”
Lucy and Viv were Grandpa Jackson’s sisters. They lived over in Rabbit Hash. I’d met them once at a family reunion when I was a kid, and they were old then.
“They’re still alive?”
“Oh, yeah. Lucy’s ninety-five and Viv is ninety-three. Still live at home and do their own housecleaning and gardening.”
“They don’t sound crazy. They sound amazing.”
“They are amazing. And they also claim to be able to see ghosts.”
I had just taken a sip of my coffee when Bernie laid that one on me, and it went down the wrong pipe. As I choked and gasped for breath, I wondered if choking to death was going to be the answer to my problem.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your point of view—coffee doesn’t close off your airway. Even if I’d choked on something that did, there were too many people around who would be willing to do a Heimlich on me.
“Ghosts?” I managed to squeak out after a half minute of heavy coughing. “They see ghosts?”
“They say they do. Whether they do or not…” Bernie shrugged.
“Are they senile?”
“Don’t act like it,” she said. “As far as the ghosts, they have claimed that since they were teenagers. At least that’s what I’ve always heard. Why are you asking if anyone in the family is nuts?”
“Just wondered.”
I shrugged and decided to lie. I hated to do that to Bernie, since she was my best friend as well as my cousin, but a lie was better than the truth. Eventually I’d have to tell her about my transparent cop and his beagle, and when I did, I’d beg her to take permanent custody of Biscuit and Pete. I just wasn’t ready to tell her everything yet.
“I talked to a friend in Cincinnati,” I fibbed. “Turns out her brother was just diagnosed with the crazies. She said he started seeing things. She said they had a couple of relatives before him who had to be put on medication. And get this—the things he thought he saw—he thought they were ghosts. It’s scary to think of something like that being hereditary, but now you tell me we’ve got it in our family, too.”
“Well, I don’t think Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv are bonkers. If they say they see ghosts, they see ghosts.”
“You believe that? You believe in ghosts?”
I was floored. Bernie was the most levelheaded person I knew.
“Who knows what might exist in this world—or the next? Now, stop trying to change the subject. Why do you want me to take Biscuit and Pete?”
I looked at the other customers. The TV mounted above and to the side of the kitchen door was on and tuned to ESPN. The men at the counter seemed engrossed in whatever the sports announcer was saying, but I still didn’t feel comfortable speaking the words, “I’ve either seen a ghost or I’m losing my mind.” I mean, I like sitcoms, but if I heard somebody say something like that, I know my attention would shift to them. Goose Lick is a small town. The residents would all learn that Bernie’s Ohio cousin was a loony soon enough, but I’d rather they did after I was already in a locked ward where I didn’t have to see their expressions when they found out.
“I’ll tell you later,” I half-whispered. “In private.”
“Ooo-kay.” She drew the word out while staring at me with the intensity of a scientist who thinks she’s just discovered a new microbe through the lens of her microscope. “You still want that sweet potato pie?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but box it and a piece of cherry to go. I need to get home.”
When I’d run out earlier, I’d thought I might never go home again. I’d just send somebody for Pete and fresh underwear. But now? I knew I needed to face my fear head-on. Even though I had relatives who claimed to see ghosts, I still didn’t believe that’s what I’d seen. But whether that man and his dog were ghosts or hallucinations, I still needed to face it. They were transparent. They couldn’t hurt me really, so there was nothing to worry about.
“I’ll stop by when I get off,” Bernie said when she returned with my pie, the check, and a tiny piece of hamburger for Biscuit. I had my money ready and told her to keep the change. It literally was change—two dimes and a nickel—and she gave me the stink eye.
“Thanks, big spender,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I waved at Red and told all the guys at the counter goodbye as I passed them on the way to the door. I untied my dog and headed on home to face the fat man and his beagle.
CHAPTER THREE
When I got home, there was a man on my porch, but he wasn’t a transparent fat man. Quite the opposite, in fact. I guessed him to be in his early thirties and about six feet tall. He had curly brown hair that looked like it resisted being tamed, a nice tan, and when he turned to look at me coming up the walk, I saw he had dark blue eyes framed in laugh lines. He was wearing faded brown jeans with a beige short-sleeved tee, both stretched tight over a very nice body. Oh, yeah—he also wasn’t transparent. He looked very solid, but I was tempted to run my hands over him to be sure.
Biscuit barked a greeting at him, wiggling her butt and panting. I could understand that.
“Can I help you?” Just as I asked, I noticed a piece of paper wedged in my door jamb.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you Shelby Wolfe?”
I nodded, and he removed the paper from where it was stuck.
“Just left you a note,” he said, coming down the steps and extending his hand, “but I guess we won’t need it now. I’m Ben Carpenter, your neighbor in the back.”
We shook, and he turned his attention to Biscuit, squatting down and rubbing her ears. She flopped over on her back, offering her belly for rubs. She’s such a slut.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “After I slid that note through your mail slot, somebody told me you were out of town on a job.”
The old police station I’d bought was at the very edge of town. The lot was large, slightly over an acre. At the back of it was a cottage with a one-car garage. An access lane leading to it ran along the right side of my property. Bernie had told me that the former chief had lived in the cottage. When the building I now lived in had been a hotel, that cottage was part of the grounds. The hotel manager—well, several consecutive ones—had received the right to live there as part of their compensation.
When the city converted the hotel to a police station and jail, the lot had been split into two, and eventually Chief Carpenter bought the cottage and lived there until he died, either from suicide or a horrible accident. The jury was still out on which it was. Ben Carpenter was his son and came highly recommended as an actual carpenter. I’d left him a note asking him to contact me before I’d heard that he was working out of town.
“I was. Got back last night.” He looked up at the building. “So, you have something you want an estimate on?”
“I have a lot of things I want an estimate on,” I said, and he laughed.
“I imagine you do.” He shook his head, still looking at what was now my home—or would be until I went off to a locked ward. “It’s a sturdy old building, but the operative word there is ‘old.’ So, what do you want done? That is, assuming this is a good time for you.”
I hesitated. I did have a lot that needed to be done, but the way things were going, I wasn’t sure if I would be here long enough to see my plans come to fruition. Still, Ben Carpenter, the carpenter, was here now, and if he went inside with me, maybe I’d be distracted enough by his tan and his muscles that I wouldn’t see a transparent fat man and his beagle.
“Sure, this is as good a time as any.” I held up my pie container. “I’ll even share my pie.”
“Can’t pass up an offer like that.”
He grinned, and for a second, I forgot all about transparent men. Then I wondered if maybe he was a hallucination. But I decided if he was, I could live with that kind of hallucination.
Before you start thinking that I was interested in getting to know Ben Carpenter that way, let me clarify my position. Besides the fact that I would soon be a psych patient, I had sworn off men thanks to Scott. And I intended to keep it that way. They were nothing but trouble.
But I could still look, right? Once I was locked up, there probably wouldn’t be such nice views.
In the kitchen, I gave Ben a choice of two kinds of coffee or tea. Predictably, he chose a dark roast, and I popped it in the Keurig. While it was doing its thing, I got out two dessert plates, forks, and paper napkins.
“Sweet potato or cherry? Or I could cut them in half, and we could have both. They’re big pieces. I have an in with the management at the café.”
“You decide,” Ben said. “I like both kinds, so however you want to do it is fine with me. Or you can have them both, and I’ll just sit here and drool.”
He grinned. I grinned back, but I wasn’t falling for his act. Men are always charming and cute when you first meet them. I bet if I talked to some of Ben Carpenter’s old girlfriends—or ex-wives, if he had any—I’d hear the real story.
“Let’s go for the split then.”
By the time his coffee was ready, I had the pie divided up on each plate. I made myself a cup and sat down at the table across from Ben. Like a good guest, he’d waited till I was seated before taking a bite of his pie. Like I said, I wasn’t falling for any of what he was dishing out.
Biscuit, on the other hand, was falling for all of it, sitting at his side and looking up at him with worship in her eyes. Or maybe she was just hoping he’d drop a bit of pie crust.
“I heard you’re kin to Red and Bernie,” he said. “Cousin, right?”
I nodded.
“Right. My grandfather on my mom’s side was Bernie’s dad’s oldest brother. We used to visit every summer when I was a kid and some holidays.” I hesitated for a couple seconds, not sure if I should say what I went ahead and said anyway. “Bernie says you didn’t grow up here?”
He nodded.
“Mom and Dad divorced when I was four. Mom was from Pennsylvania originally, so we moved back there. A little town not too far from Harrisburg. Dad got me for a couple weeks in the summer, though, and either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Plus, some weeks when I was on school breaks. I played with Red some, so who knows? We might have crossed paths.”
I shrugged. I doubted we’d crossed paths. Unless he’d been an ugly duckling who grew up to be the swan he was now, I would have remembered.
“Might have,” I said. “So, you like Goose Lick better than Pennsylvania?”
“Actually, yeah, I do,” he said. His eyes grew sad. “When Dad died, I inherited his house and the rest of his stuff. The place needed some work, so I figured I’d live there while I got it ready to sell, but the longer I stayed here, the better I liked it. I do jobs out-of-state sometimes—like the one I just finished in Ohio—but I think I like Goose Lick for a home base. The town kind of grows on you.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
When I came to Goose Lick two months before, I hadn’t planned on staying, but lately I’d been starting to consider it. That is, before I saw the transparent cop. Not that I blamed Goose Lick for my hallucination. I was pretty sure the fat guy and his beagle would follow me no matter where I went—at least until the doctors got me on some medication.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said. “Bernie told me he was on the police department even back when I visited in the summers, but I can’t say I remember him.”
“Thanks.” Ben fell silent for several seconds before taking a deep breath. “Are your parents still alive?”
I nodded.
“You’re lucky.” He poked at his cherry pie. “I think it’s worse, though, when a parent you’ve never really gotten a chance to know well dies. When that happens, there are no more chances. And when one dies the way he did—well, you waffle back and forth between being sad and being angry.”
He looked up.
“I’m sure you’ve heard the story, right?”
I nodded again. Chief Jebediah—Jeb—Carpenter had been a drinker, according to Bernie and everyone else who thought I should know the story. The town council had been after him to retire for a while, but he’d resisted. They finally decided to force it and gave him two weeks’ notice. Three days before he was supposed to clean out his office and vacate the premises, he and his dog were found dead in his garage with his car running. From what Bernie said, about half the town thought it was suicide, while the other half was convinced it was an accident.
“Actually, I’ve heard two versions. Some people seem to think it was an accident.”
He shrugged.
“Might have been,” he said. “Considering the way Pop drank, it’s not hard to picture him getting in the car with Bullet, starting it, and passing out.”
I’d just started to swallow a bite of my cherry pie, and for the second time that day, I choked.
“You okay?”
Ben scooted his chair back, a concerned look on his face, but I gave him a don’t-worry-about-it wave. This choking episode wasn’t as bad as the one I’d had at the café. Guess practice makes perfect.
When I could speak again, I squeaked out a “sorry,” then asked, “Bullet?”
“My dad’s dog. Pop loved that animal. Took him with him everywhere.” Ben shook his head. “Even to the Great Beyond, I guess.”
“What kind of dog was he?” I said, but I already knew the answer.
“Beagle. Pop got him to hunt with, but Bullet was lousy at it.”
I concentrated on finishing my pie and drinking my coffee, my head down while I tried to get that same head around what I’d just heard. As far as I could remember, I hadn’t heard what kind of dog Chief Carpenter had had or what the dog’s name was, so how could I have hallucinated it? But maybe I had heard and forgotten. I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bernie or someone else in town had mentioned it to me. That must be it. It was the only logical explanation there was.
I’d finished my pie and coffee by the time Ben downed the last of his coffee.
“So”—he pushed back his chair and stood—“show me what you want done.”
I led him through the building, pointing out the rotting back stair treads; the equally rotten back porch support posts, as well as the porch ceiling that needed torn out and replaced; shallow closets that I wanted built out into the rooms; and woodwork that was too damaged to salvage.
“I’d like to keep the style, though,” I said, “if at all possible.”
Ben nodded, fingering the splintered molding.
“I know a guy,” he said. “He’s got a shop over in Covington that specializes in salvage material from old buildings. I might not be able to find molding that matches what’s in the other rooms, but I’m sure I can get something from the period.”
“That’s good enough,” I said. “If it’s already stripped, even better. I can refinish it myself.”
“I heard you and your ex flipped houses,” Ben said. “Are you planning to resell this one?”
“I haven’t decided.” I sighed. “I thought I would when I first bought it, but now? I don’t know.”
“Like I said, Goose Lick grows on you.”
Ben stared at me for long enough to make me start to think I had pie in my teeth.
“I hope you do stick around,” he said.
I shrugged and looked away. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the subtext was “so we can get to know each other better,” but like I said, I wasn’t interested in getting to know any man better. And especially not one who was my next-door neighbor.
“Who knows? Another thought I had was to convert the building into several apartments and either keep it for the income or sell it as rental property. If I decide to do that, I might have more work for you if you’re available.”
“Sounds good.”
We made our way back to the kitchen where I offered Ben another cup of coffee. I did it to be polite, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to accept or not. On the one hand, I didn’t want him to think I was encouraging anything more than a business arrangement, but on the other hand, I wasn’t in any hurry to be left alone with my hallucination. Before I could decide how I felt about it, Ben accepted the offer, so I popped another dark roast pod into the machine.
I settled for a bottled water this time, and we sat at the kitchen table and made small talk about Goose Lick. Biscuit completely ignored me, focusing all her attention on Ben even though he didn’t have any pie left to accidentally drop on the floor. He could multi-task better than she could because he didn’t ignore either one of us. Between petting her and scratching her chin, he filled me in on some of the more colorful characters in Goose Lick, as well as insider information about who was the most competent and trustworthy plumbers and electricians. I’d already gotten information on tradesmen from Bernie—she’d been the one to recommend Ben—but it was good to hear it confirmed by a source in the building trades.
His coffee cup was nearly empty when the air behind him began to shimmer and thicken. I started to yell, “Watch out!” but caught myself in time. I didn’t want to start anything personal with the man, but I also didn’t want to scare him off before he finished the work I needed done. If he knew he was dealing with a crazy woman, he might look for other jobs.
Then again, he would know I was nuts as soon as I was fitted for a straitjacket. Sure, I could ask Bernie to tell people that I’d been called home for some reason. But I knew she wouldn’t lie to her brother, and Red never could keep a secret.
It only took a few seconds for the transparent cop to materialize behind Ben’s chair. He seemed more solid this time. I could still see through him but not as easily as before. He looked at Ben, looked at me, grinned, winked, and tipped his police cap to me. His hair was thinning and gray like I’d thought before, and that’s when I realized my hallucination had color. Unlike the last time I’d seen him, only his hair was gray. His uniform was blue, just like the ones I’d seen on real Goose Lick cops, his complexion was ruddy, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as Ben’s.
Biscuit barked once, her tail going a mile a minute. Ben looked down, thinking she was barking at him, but when he saw her looking past him, he turned. I held my breath. If he saw what I saw, that would mean everything I’d believed about ghosts was wrong, but if he didn’t see what I saw, then it would mean I was as crazy as I thought I was. No good choice here.
Just as I expected, he didn’t see what I saw. He turned back, a puzzled expression on his face.
“She acts like she sees something,” he said.
“Yeah.” I giggled nervously. “She does that sometimes.”
I pointed my right index finger at the side of my head and moved it in circles to indicate my dog was crazy. As was her owner, but I decided not to tell him that just yet.
“When I was a kid, we had a cat that did that. He’d sit and stare at the wall behind me or Mom like there was something he could see that we couldn’t. Gave Mom the creeps, but I thought he could see ghosts.”
He laughed.
“I probably gave Mom the creeps when I said that.”
Yeah, I thought, and you’re giving me the creeps now.
Just then the transparent beagle came trotting into the room, squeezed under Ben’s chair, and headed straight for Biscuit. Her hackles rose and she growled. Because the beagle’s back end was still under Ben’s chair, it looked as if Biscuit was growling at Ben’s legs.
“Well, that’s weird,” Ben said. “I thought she liked me.”
“She’s probably just tired.”
I realized how dumb that sounded as soon as I said it, but it was better than telling him she was growling at my hallucination. And that’s when it struck me. I had toyed with the idea that I’d hallucinated Biscuit’s earlier reaction to the beagle, but unless I was hallucinating Ben, he saw what Biscuit was doing this time. And that meant my dog was seeing the same thing I was. And that meant…
“I’ve heard so much about your father,” I said. “Do you have any pictures of him?”
“Sure do.”
Ben pulled out his wallet, opened it to the little plastic windows that held photos, flipped past a couple, then held it out to me.
“That’s him,” he said. “And that’s Bullet he’s holding.”
I stared at the photo, a headshot of the transparent man standing behind Ben. He had his arm around a dog that looked very much like the beagle sniffing at Biscuit, his cheek pressed against the dog’s cheek. I looked from the photo to the man. He’d put his police cap back on his gray head and was looking at me, an amused expression on his face. I glanced back at the photo, then back up at him, and he shrugged, as if to say, “It is what it is.”
It seemed I took after my Aunt Lucy and Aunt Viv. I was going to have to accept the fact that there really were ghosts whether I had believed in them or not. Maybe it was time I gave the fat man in the red suit another look.
