Ghouls Gone Wild (21 page)

“Yeah, but I’m not sure how much more Gilley can take,” Heath said, motioning with his head to my partner, who was bringing back Heath’s foam-topped beer and trying hard not to spill it.

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “Let’s keep the details to a minimum for now and talk with John, Meg, and Kim privately.”

“And Gopher,” Heath added, just as our producer joined us from the opposite entrance.

“What the
hell
happened to you?” he demanded by way of hello.

“Nice to see you too, Gopher,” Heath said drily before taking a long sip of beer.

“Heath,” Gopher pressed, clearly not amused, “I can’t put you on camera looking like that!”

I saw Heath’s one good eye narrow. I knew the poor guy had been through a hell of a lot in the past few days, and that on top of being chased and beaten by a very large stick, he didn’t need to add a cranky producer to his list of troubles.

“Gopher,” I said loudly, clearing my throat.

Gopher’s eyes turned to me, and his eyes widened even more. “Jesus Christ!” he gasped, his gaze shifting between Heath and me. “Did you two get into fight with a grizzly bear or something?”

Belatedly, I remembered that my own face was pretty scratched up. “It wasn’t our fault,” I told him. “The witch nailed us both pretty good.”

Gopher’s expression immediately changed; he now looked interested. “The
witch
did that to you?”

I nodded, then looked around at all the fascinated faces from our crew and landed on one in particular. “Gil?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve had a really bad day. Could you maybe get me a drink from the bar?”

Now, knowing my best friend as I did, I was certain that under normal circumstances he would have told me to just flag down a server, but in light of my appearance and because there were several other people at the table, Gil could hardly refuse. He hesitated only a moment before he said, “Sure, honey. You want your usual?”

“That’d be awesome,” I said, trying hard to look really grateful.

The moment Gil hurried off, I filled everyone else in as quickly as possible, beginning with the discovery that Bonnie’s brother had been the man killed by our van.

Gopher held up his finger at that point and said, “Let me tell you about what I learned at the police station after M. J. finishes.”

I smiled at him, grateful that he seemed to understand that I didn’t want Gilley to overhear certain parts of our tale. And even talking fast, I only got halfway through the story when Gil showed up with a tall pint of beer. I changed the topic as he came into earshot, and the moment he set the frothy brew down on the table, I asked, “Um . . . is that warm?”

Gil frowned, staring down at the pint. “That’s how they serve it here, M. J. All drafts are room temperature.”

I sighed dramatically. “Oh, okay.”

Gil looked around at the other faces, which were practically demanding with their cross expressions that he offer me an alternative. “Can I get you something else?” he said tightly.

I smiled. “I’d love anything cold.” Gilley turned to leave. “But I don’t think I want a beer.” Gil turned back to me and arched one eyebrow. “I think I need a mixed drink.”

The brow lowered dangerously. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Vodka and cranberry, maybe? With a lemon instead of lime.”

Gilley turned with raised shoulders and stiff arms. I knew he was fighting the urge to tell me to get my own damn drink and I had a moment where I really felt sorry for him.

The moment he huffed away, I got back to my story and hurried to finish. I was just at the part where Fergus whacked the broom with his ax after I’d discovered the body of Joseph Hill swinging in the tree above me when Gilley returned with a vodka and cranberry and a green garnish. “Is that lime?” I asked immediately, trying to appear disgusted.

Gil eyed the little wedge floating in my drink. It was common knowledge between us that I preferred lemons to limes. “The bartender must have forgotten and put in the lime,” he growled.

I held the drink to my lips and took a tiny sip, then pretended to cough and sputter. “It’s way too strong! Jeez, how much alcohol did they put in here?”

Gilley snatched the drink out of my hand with enough force to spill some of the contents on the table and stormed off with big angry clomps back to the bar. I held in a giggle and hurriedly finished my story, ending it with, “And I don’t want to frighten Gilley, so when he asks me to fill him in and I lie—just go along with it, okay?”

Everyone nodded just as Gil came back with a small tray loaded with a shot of vodka, a rocks glass filled with ice, a small bottle of cranberry juice, and a soup cup overflowing with lemons. He said nothing as he took them one by one off the tray and set them on the table, then stood back and glared hard at me, silently daring me to express anything other than profound gratitude.

“Thank you,” I said happily.

At that moment, the waitress arrived, apologizing for the delay in getting to our table, and offered to take any remaining orders. After she’d gone, I promised to fill an impatient-looking Gilley in just as soon as Gopher told us what he’d found at the police station.

“The brake lines were cut intentionally,” he said. Everyone at the table looked shocked, then relieved. “The crime lab came back with conclusive evidence of a straight-edge knife cut right through the lines. They know it wasn’t done during the crash, because none of the metal surrounding the lines was damaged.”

“That means that you and Gil are off the hook, then, right?” Heath said.

Gopher ran his finger in a circle on the tabletop. “No, that doesn’t get us off the hook.”

“What?” Gilley barked. “Why not? I mean, what do they think? We cut our
own
brake lines and stayed in the van hoping it would hit a guy crossing the street?”

Gopher laughed softly, as if he was holding on to an inside joke. “No, Gil, what I meant was that the vandalism to our van doesn’t get us off the hook as much as what was in the coroner’s report.”

“What did the coroner find?” I asked.

“Cameron Lancaster was already dead when the van ran him over.”

I gasped. “No way!”

“Way,” Gopher said, swigging the shot of tequila he’d ordered and chasing that with a great gulp of draft beer. “Blach,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Stuff’s awful when it’s warm.”

“But if he was already dead,” I said, “then why dump his body in the street and cut our brake lines?”

“To cover up the murder,” Gopher said simply. “And the cover-up was very clever indeed, because the coroner also found something quite interesting.”

“What?” we all asked at once.

“Cameron’s heart, liver, brain, and kidneys were frozen.”

Gil scrunched up his face. “I don’t get it.”

“Cameron was murdered, then thrown in a freezer somewhere, and either partially defrosted or only partially frozen when he was laid in the street where our van ran him over. The inspector on the case revealed to our barrister that the coroner couldn’t determine how long Cameron had been dead, but his girlfriend reported that he’d gone up the coast to look at a boat for sale a week and a half ago and she was expecting him back the very night he was run over.”

“So Rigella didn’t kill him?” I said, amazed to hear what the coroner had discovered.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“But Rigella was there the night the van slid down the street,” I insisted. “We all saw her ghost on video.”

“Yep,” Gopher said, rubbing his face tiredly. “And we also saw someone that looked quite human squatting down to cut the brake lines.”

Heath and I exchanged a look. “Someone’s working directly with the witch,” we said together.

Gopher made the sign of a gun with his hand and pointed it at us. “Bingo.”

“It would explain a lot,” I reasoned.

John, who’d been listening to us intently, asked, “What exactly does that explain, again?”

“Well,” I reasoned, “it explains first why the witch is thirty-five years early. Someone who knows her and her history was able to call her up and use her to wreak some havoc.”

“It also suggests that someone with that kind of power knew we were coming and took advantage of the opportunity,” Heath reasoned.

My eyes swiveled to Gilley. “I agree. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that someone from the Gillespie family arrived in the village the moment the witch was awakened.”

“So someone planned this whole thing in advance?” John asked, and his voice suggested that he found the theory rather incredible.

“That, or it’s one freaky coincidence,” I told him.

“But what about the others?” Meg said. “What about Jack McLaren, and Joseph Hill?”

“Who’s Joseph Hill?” Gil wanted to know.

“Later,” I replied softly before answering Meg’s question. “I think they’re both a smoke screen and legitimately on the list of targets for the witch.”

“But there’s something we’re missing,” Kim said. “If the person that killed Cameron really was using the witch to cover up the murder—why murder him at all? Why not just call up the witch and let her do the work?”

“Because Cameron was killed before the witch was called up,” Heath said, and looked around the table to see if we were with him. “I mean, it makes sense, right? If the murderer killed Cameron prior to the witch becoming active, they could have stuffed him in a freezer long enough to call up the witch and have her create the smoke screen.”

“Which suggests that his murder wasn’t necessarily premeditated. And that hints to a possible crime of passion,” I said.

“Rose?” Heath asked me. “Crimes of passion are usually committed by a significant other.”

“Who’s Rose?”

“Cameron’s pregnant girlfriend,” I said, answering Gilley before thinking through my response to Heath. “I don’t think it was her,” I told him. “I mean, the girl looks like she’s ready to go into labor at any second. I can’t imagine she’d be able to kill Cameron, heave his body into a freezer, then out to let it defrost, then over to the crime scene, place him in the middle of the street, then rush up to alert the witch, rush back in time to cut the brake lines on the van, and hope that the van would then run over Cameron. It’s just a little too much for someone in her condition, don’t you think?”

Heath nodded. “She also did look genuinely distraught at the funeral.”

“She did,” I agreed, remembering the forlorn look Rose had worn all through the service. “And she’s short. I mean, how tall would you say she was, like five foot two?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Heath said. “She was definitely a couple of inches shorter than you. And you’re right, there’d be no way someone in her condition and small stature could do all that heavy lifting.”

“Then who?” Gil asked.

I shrugged. “Now that I think about it, Gil, with all that preplanning, maybe it wasn’t a crime of passion. Maybe it was premeditated after all, and Cameron was killed before the witch was called up because it was convenient. Gopher, you said that Rose had stated that Cameron was supposed to be gone on a trip up the coast for a week, so maybe someone who knew that he wouldn’t be missed took the only opportunity they had right before he left town to kill him, then wait a few days for us to arrive and set us up for his death.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Gopher said. “And if we focus on who murdered Cameron Lancaster, we’ll probably be able to identify who called up the witch.”

Heath rubbed the back of his head and winced. “And if we can find the person who called forth the witch, we might also be able to get them to send her packing, right before we turn them in to the police.”

I nodded in agreement. “Let’s hope so. And barring that, let’s hope we can at least find the location where she was first called up, ’cause that’s going to be her portal.”

“Are you still thinking it’s down in the close?” Gilley asked me.

I shook my head. “No. Sam Whitefeather came through to me in Heath’s reading, and he said it wasn’t there.”

“Then where is it?”

I shrugged. “I’ve no idea, buddy. But we’ll definitely need to keep looking for it.”

“I’ll be happy to watch you guys shove a few spikes into that gateway, let me tell you,” Gil said. Then he looked excitedly at our producer. “Say, Gopher, if we’re really off the hook for Cameron’s death, did you get our passports back?”

Gopher scowled. “Naw,” he said. “Idiot foreign-police procedure. They said they’re going to revisit all the evidence to ensure they can eliminate us as suspects and that may take a little while.”

“You gave them a copy of the footage, though, didn’t you?” I asked.

“I did. And that might have caused us the delay. They’re a little suspicious of Hollywood outsiders supplying them with footage of a crime. They didn’t come right out and say it, but it was obvious they suspected I’d added some special effects.”

“So how long will it take to clear you guys?” I pressed.

Gopher shrugged. “A few more days, or a week at the most.”

Gilley picked up his fire extinguisher and hugged it. “Stupid Scotland,” he grumbled.

I stifled a yawn and looked at my watch. It was well after eleven p.m. and I was still feeling jet-lagged. Turning to Gilley, I said, “I think I’ll turn in, which means you’re with me, toots.”

Gil looked at his watch and frowned. “You’re a kill-joy,” he said. “It’s not even midnight!”

“Okay,” I said lightly, getting up from my chair. “Stay here and keep your fire extinguisher close.”

When Gilley turned hopeful eyes on Heath, he was disappointed because Heath got up as well and shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. My arm’s killing me. I’m going to take one of these pain pills and hope it knocks me out.”

“Okay, okay,” Gilley griped. “I’m coming.”

Before we left the group, we settled on a plan for the next day. Gilley, Heath, and I would go back to Bonnie’s and see if we could coax her into telling us a little more about the witch’s history and who might be powerful enough to call Rigella up from the lower realms. We also made the decision to scout the perimeter of the woods armed with several pounds of magnets and electrostatic meters to see if we could home in on her portal, which I hoped was somewhere within the woods. I figured it was as good a place as any to search, due to the fact that she’d chased Heath and me through the forest. Maybe the angry mob from the sixteen-hundreds had flushed Rigella and her three sisters up from the close and chased them into the woods, where they’d killed them. It was worth taking a look at the very least. Gopher offered to join our search so that he could record it all on camera.