Every time I approached, they melted into the woods, an alley, the ether. Unlike all of the other specters that just had to talk to me, neither my Puritan, nor his wolf, ever did.
Jenn snatched my elbow. Considering our daily walk, you’d think she’d be in better shape.
I slowed, and as soon as I did the man in black—no wolf today—went poof. Now you see him—or at least I did—now you don’t.
He’d be back. Most of the ghosts went on, eventually—wherever it was that they went—but not that guy. Someday I’d have to find out why.
“Sheesh,” Jenn muttered. I’d started speed-walking again. She stopped, leaning over and setting her palms on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.
I kept going; the sense of urgency that had plagued me as soon as my Keds touched First Street that morning had returned.
“You—” Deep breath. “Suck!” Jenn shouted.
I quashed the temptation to comment on her shoes, which were too high for walking and too open toed for a northern Wisconsin October. But then, as Jenn always pointed out, she didn’t have to chase children. Ever.
The days of a school nurse had gone the way of the dodo. If children became sick, they were sent to the office—Jenn’s office—then sent home.
Certainly they puked, or sneezed, but usually not on her. Her fashionable clothes discouraged it—today’s body-hugging red sweater dress appeared fresh from the dry cleaners—and her attitude ensured it. The instant a student walked into her office, she jabbed a pointy, painted nail at the bank of chairs against the far wall. If they puked or sneezed, they did it over there.
Jenn always told me my comfortable jeans, complemented by soft tees and sweatshirts, often of the Packer, Brewer, Badger variety, invited disaster. Maybe so. But at least I matched everyone else in New Bergin.
Except Jenn. Funny how she was the one who fit in.
I reached the cross avenue B—those New Bergin founding fathers had been hell on wheels in the street-naming department—and stopped so fast I nearly put my toes through the front of my shoes.
Gawkers milled about, blocking the sidewalk and spilling into the road, but since the police had roped off the avenue they weren’t in danger of becoming chopped suey.
Brad Hunstadt—yeah, that Brad, Jenn’s Brad, make that ex-Brad—stood on the inside of the rope, arms crossed, face stoic. He’d only recently joined the force following the relocation of another officer to Kentucky to be nearer to his grandchildren.
Before that, Brad had been kind of a loser. He might be pretty—like the famous Brad—but he’d never been a candidate for rocket science school. He’d graduated from high school, gone to tech school. I’m not sure for what because he’d never worked for anyone but his father, the local butcher, until now. Jenn and I figured his daddy had paid someone off to get Brad out of his business and into another.
As I approached, my gaze was drawn to the woman standing at the edge of the crowd, staring at the dead body propped against the wall of Breck’s Candy Emporium—home of twenty-five different types of caramel apples. The staring itself was not remarkable. Who wasn’t? What was remarkable was that this woman could be the twin of the one she stared at.
She was a stranger—believe me I knew everyone—in a place where strangers stuck out, even when they weren’t covered in blood and lying dead on the ground.
I’d seen hundreds of ghosts, but each one still made my heart race. They were dead. I could see them. It was hard to get used to, and really, I probably shouldn’t.
“Huh.” Jenn had caught up. “I can’t remember the last time we had a murder.”
“Murder?”
She cast me an irritated glance. “Look at her.”
My gaze went to the standing woman, but contrary to most movies about them, ghosts don’t walk around with the wound that killed them evident on their spectral bodies. No gaping brains. No holes in their heads, their chests, or anywhere else there shouldn’t be. Even the massive amounts of blood on the reclining figure was nowhere in evidence upon the spectral one.
Jenn snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Not there.” She pointed slightly to the left of the ghost. “There.” She transferred her pointy nail south until it indicated the dead woman.
One of her arms was missing—that wasn’t easy to do—and her body, from the chest down, was blackened. The scent of charred flesh reached us on a frigid breeze. Weird. When I’d left my apartment, I could have sworn it was Indian summer.
Jenn clapped a palm over her nose and fled, her itty-bitty Barbie feet and short legs moving so fast they appeared to blur. Jenn could move when she wanted to.
Chief Johnson stood next to the body, wringing his hands. He’d been the police chief since the last chief—his father, also Chief Johnson—had keeled over in his lutefisk.
I had to agree with him. I’d rather die than eat it too.