Dead Man Talking

  ~

  Jack didn’t ask me any questions right away. He silently handed me a helmet and forked the Harley. He wore a beautiful black leather jacket now over his T-shirt. The engine rumbled to life, and he revved the engine in a series of sharp thrusts. I took my time adjusting my helmet before I slipped on and settled my feet on the passenger foot pegs. Then grabbed Jack around the waist as he popped the clutch and roared down the driveway, scattering oyster shells and a pair of peacocks.

  I chuckled, unnoticed by Jack, since the deep-throated engine roar covered the sound. Jack might be trying to pull off the strong, in-charge façade, letting me know the ghosts hadn’t bothered him one damn bit, but the direction he took told me his mind wasn’t exactly up to par.

  The gate loomed ahead — across the driveway and locked. Jack braked a bare foot from the iron bars. Feigning nonchalance, I watched one of the horses at the fence. The Harley’s engine idled, Jack’s legs straddled on either side of the bike to hold it upright.

  “You gonna get off and call the house to have them open the gate?”

  “You gonna admit you saw Sir Gary?” I threw back.

  His body stiffened. He dropped the kickstand and started to swing off.

  “Just a second,” I told him. “I asked Katy to let us out when she figured we’d had enough time to reach the gate. By the way, what happened to all the media?”

  “I ordered them away. Threatened them with a gag order from the District Judge if they didn’t respect Katy’s privacy. How long did you tell Katy to wait before she opened the gate?”

  In response, the gate slid sideways. I decided not to prod Jack any further right then. After all, he was the one in charge of navigation, and I wasn’t too sure how this motorcycle riding worked. I’d only ridden a couple times before, and on much smaller bikes. He might find a way to scare the bejesus out of me.

  Jack roared out of the gate into a sharp left turn. I grabbed him around the waist and dug my nails into his stomach, but it was as flat as a Zydeco band washboard. I ended up with more T-shirt than skin. I’d grabbed a light jacket, since I knew I’d be open to the elements on this blasted motorcycle, but the cold wind penetrated the quilted flannel. I closed my eyes and lay my head against Jack’s back, but that only made me seasick. Or motorcycle-sick, whichever. I opened my eyes, and the roadside whirred past in indistinguishable blackness.

  Finally I’d had enough and raised my head to shout. Jack hit the brakes about then, and we skidded to a stop, sideways in the road. I peered over his shoulder in time to see a deer in the roadside underbrush, wide-eyed in a caught-in-the-headlight stance. Another deer bounded across in front of us. The movement broke the first deer’s trance, and it followed, flipping its white-flag tail.

  Jack sat motionless after the deer disappeared. I waited him out, my fingers never once relaxing their grip. At last he heaved a sigh. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I’ll take it easier.”

  “I read somewhere that this county has the highest deer population in Texas. And even as small as they are, I understand they can damage a car real bad, let alone a bike. Plus there’s dogs running loose all along this road.”

  He muttered a grunt, shifted the bike, and eased the throttle. Instead of proceeding down the country road, he pulled into an intersecting dirt road, where he cut the engine and dropped the kickstand. Disentangling my fingers, he slid off the bike, lifted his helmet visor up, and jammed his thumbs into his back pockets.

  I flipped my visor up, also. “Beautiful night. A little chilly, though, don’t you think?”

  “You’re telling me,” he growled, “that that...thing in the laundry room was a ghost.”

  “Both of them,” I replied.

  “I only saw one.”

  “At least you admit that part of it. Tell me what you saw.”

  “Look, Alice —" He heaved a sigh of resignation. “A man. Dressed in clothes probably from the nineteenth century.”

  “Eighteenth,” I corrected.

  “He had a British accent.”

  “I noticed you could hear Sir Gary, too. That’s good. You’ll turn into a ghosthunter yet.”

  His mouth thinned to where I was afraid the next sound would be his teeth grinding. “I have no damn desire to hunt ghosts. I don’t want to see ghosts. I don’t want to hear ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Then maybe you have an explanation for what you saw?" He didn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “I told you, Sir Gary’s the reason I was already planning to come to Esprit d’Chene the other morning. He wants me to investigate his death.”

  “A couple of hundred years ago.”

  “Yes. But now Twila has to take on that. I’m too busy elsewhere.”

  He bent his head and stared at the dirt road. Leaned down and picked up a small rock, tossed it back and forth between his palms. “No damn ghost killed Bucky.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Sir Gary denies it, and I believe him. However, if I’d ever get some time to talk to him myself, instead of worrying about Katy, maybe Sir Gary would remember something that might help us figure out who actually did.”

  “You want me to interview a ghost in a crime investigation? I might as well hand in my badge! I’d be laughed off the force!”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t say you had to do it. Or, even if you did, you wouldn’t have to write up a report, would you?”

  “Hell, yes! Especially if I got any useful information —" Jack glared at me for another few seconds before he threw the rock into the woods. It hit a tree trunk and bounced off. “I don’t believe this! I’m standing here talking about...about talking to a ghost!”

  “We don’t have to decide anything right now, sweetie,” I soothed. “You can think about it. Or I’ll talk to Sir Gary for you. But I’ll need to know more about the investigation.”

  “I can’t discuss that with a civilian.”

  “Then how will I know what to ask Sir Gary? Or Bucky, for that matter. If we can ever pin him down long enough to get him to talk through that doll’s head.”

  “The doll’s head? That head rolling around the laundry room?”

  “I stumbled over it in the hallway the first night, and put it in my room. But when I came back after breakfast the next morning, it was gone." I shivered at the thought of Bucky prowling my room. “Bucky’s using it now.”

  “A headless ghost is using a doll’s head in place of his own head.”

  “Uh-huh,” was all I said.

  “What a piece of bullshit!” Jack spat.

  I hummed a few bars from the Twilight Zone theme song. Off-key, but Jack grasped the idea. His fists clenched at his sides, maybe to keep from throttling me. I glanced around casually, as though perfectly at ease out here in the dark night, on a lonely country road miles from help with a man trained in dangerous arts. A man totally infuriated with me.

  I put on a pretty good act, if I do say so, but inside my stomach was tight and I had trouble swallowing. So much depended on Jack’s acceptance of the fact that, not only were there ghosts at Esprit d’Chene, but there was a good possibility they had information for us. Especially Bucky. I should have been there right now, trying to contact Bucky, trying to prove that Katy hadn’t killed him, instead of heading for a run-down honky-tonk for a beer. But I also needed desperately to find out where the investigation was leading, and Jack was my best source.

  Hell, and I needed to get some writing done. Other than the little I’d managed after I arrived, my laptop had sat dead and silent. Maybe dead wasn’t the right word to use just now, I mused when an owl hooted somewhere nearby. The spooky sound sent a shiver up my spine before I distinguished between that sort of chill and the chill that precedes a ghost’s appearance. Wouldn’t it be a trip if some long-dead soul wandering the woods decided to make contact now?

  I wondered if I could ride a motorcycle on my own. Probably not. And, thankfully, I didn’t have to find out. Jack flipped his visor down and slid back in front of me. After he heel-kicke
d the kickstand up, I laid a hand on his arm.

  “What?” he snarled.

  “Are you going to let me help?”

  He ignored me for a full thirty seconds. Rustles sounded in the underbrush. An armadillo wandered out, armor pale gray against the red dirt. It shuffled across the road, then rooted at a rotting log in the ditch in search of grubs. I envied that small refugee from the dinosaur age. Its tiny brain left no room beyond the instinct for food, survival, and procreation. Protected by its shell, it had a total unconcern for the ineffective dangers in its habitat. Its major problem came from speeding cars, whenever it decided to cross a busy highway, and I doubted any gleam of fear had time to penetrate when it met such a swift, sure death.

  Jack started the bike.

  “Okay,” I said. “Twila and I will work on our own.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” he finally said. “We’ll talk at the bar.”