Dead Man Talking

  Chapter 4

  Keeping a wary eye out for the intruder, I reentered the study for my laptop and disks. Granny greeted me, a foil-wrapped pie pan in her hand. Trucker and Miss Molly sat on their haunches in front of the fireplace.

  “Been to my house and found this pecan pie in the freezer." Granny set the pan on my desk. “Death means you oughtta take some food with you." I decided not to mention this wasn’t a death calling for family-support offerings as she went on, “Guess I’m gonna be cat sittin’?”

  Grabbing my laptop from the closet, I laid it on the desk and sat down to back up my novel. “I’d appreciate it." I’d take Trucker and Miss Molly with me, but Fluffy, Sherbet, Braveheart, Squeaky, and Nutmeg would need care.

  Granny scrutinized me. “I got a feelin’ 'bout this, Alice. You best take one of my assafi’ty bags.”

  Before I could catch myself, I grimaced, and Granny’s frown pulled her wrinkles into a road map of intersecting byways and highways it would take a seasoned traveler to negotiate. She yanked one of those blasted asafetida bags from the pocket of her voluminous gown and held it out. She wrapped the brown kernels of asafetida in flowered handkerchiefs, snugged around the top with purple ribbon — purple for protection and spiritual attunement. She claimed asafetida helped her arthritis, as well as protected her when she wandered around my haunted house. Thankfully, a plastic zippered sandwich bag sealed off this one’s vile, spoiled garlic smell. But gnarled fingers fumbled the bag open and removed the hanky and its malodorous contents. When she held the ribbon toward me, Trucker whined and laid down, paws over nose.

  “Granny, I don’t have time —" Stretching, she hung the bag around my head and patted it. The smell curdled the Royal Crown in my belly.

  “Oh,” I suddenly recalled. “Your pecans." Maybe I could accidentally-on-purpose lose the asafetida outside in the ground fog —

  “Trucker already fetched 'em." Granny motioned at the basket on the end table, then limped over to pick up it, her pecan-picker-upper, and a fresh drink she must have fixed. “Left the roses. He’d’ve chomped them stems. I’ll get 'em in the mornin’. I can see myself out.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” I murmured. Her hands were filled with her treasures — drink, basket, and picker-upper — and that front door stuck. Catching up to Granny as she toddled determinedly down the hallway, I opened the door to the front deck with the necessary jerk.

  “Call me from Katy’s and let me know what’s goin’ on,” she ordered. “And 'specially iffen you need some help, hear? I’ll put out 'nuf food for a couple days for them cats and be there quick as a bunny. My old jitney still runs fine, you know.”

  “I’ll do that, Granny,” I lied as she carefully made her way down the steps. But I’ll be darned if I ask you to drive up to Katy’s by yourself in that jalopy, I thought. It wasn’t that the cherry 1950 Oldsmobile convertible secured in her garage wouldn’t make the trip. Bubba Joe Haggerty changes the oil and tunes it up. Her eyesight is still keen, unlike her hearing. But Granny props herself up on three pillows to see over the steering wheel, and when she rolls majestically down the country roads at a stately twenty-five miles per hour on her weekly trips to the grocery store, she expects everyone else to concede to her pace. I couldn’t begin to imagine her on the two-hour drive on the interstate between here and Esprit d’Chene.

  A fish slapped the water on the lake, breaking into my thoughts. I tried to imagine how it would feel to stumble across a dead body on the shoreline and shivered in the night breeze. Smelled like dead fish on the shore. Oh, the asafetida bag. I yanked it off and started back to the study, then hesitated. I detoured to the kitchen, where I found another zipper sandwich bag in an unorganized cupboard and secured the asafetida in it like Granny had done. Back in the study, I shoved the sandwich bag and pie in my briefcase, along with my disks, then laid a couple manila files I might need on top.

  The temperature had warmed, and things seemed to be normal — as normal as they get in a haunted house. No unusual movements. No books wandered across the room without any visible presence carrying them. No misty shapes feathered around. No green phosphorescence gleamed. But the subdued glow of the computer monitor caught my eye. Damn it, the intruder was back and had manipulated it even in dead mode! Propping my hands on my hips, I directed my stress outward. “You listen here, you sixth-dimension interloper! Another rule is you never mess with my computer! Hie yourself outta here, or I’ll get out the chant book!”

  Instead, words spread across the monitor. Hurry. You will be needed. Then the glow died and the screen blackened. Since time has no meaning in the spirit world, “hurry” could mean my presence would be needed tomorrow or next year. Who knew? I unplugged the computer, even though that wouldn’t stop a persistent ghost.