Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) (7 page)

“Hello, I’m home,” Mary said as she opened the front door,
juggling her purse, briefcase and three quarts of ice cream. Jodi had insisted
on giving her a bonus.

“Hey, welcome home,” Bradley said, as he walked out of the
kitchen, wiping his hand on a kitchen towel.

He bent over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and
relieved her of the items in her arms. “How are you feeling?” he whispered.

“Starving,” she admitted and kissed him back. “I can’t
believe I practiced enough restraint to not eat all the ice cream on the way
home.”

“Jodi didn’t give you a spoon. Right?” he asked with a
smile.

She chuckled.
“Exactly.”

“Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t,” he replied. “Rosie
decided she needed to make dinner for us today and left a casserole of
scalloped potatoes and ham, along with fresh rolls and a salad.”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I love Rosie?” Mary asked,
slipping off her coat and hanging it in the closet.

“She’s a sweetheart,” Bradley agreed, putting the items he
had taken from Mary down on the table and then pulling her into his arms. “She
also happened to mention that she owed you a favor for what you did for her
this afternoon.
 
Care to explain?”

“It was nothing, really,” she said. “Rosie has a piece of
property listed in the country. It’s an adorable home on beautiful acreage, but
people keep walking away.
 
Rosie thought
it might be haunted and people could feel it – so they walked away without
placing an offer.”

“And?” he asked.

Shrugging, Mary sighed. “Well, she was right,” she said. “It
looks like the former owner was murdered, but someone made it look like a
farming accident.”

“Can I just say, in a very typical male over-protective way,
that I’m really not crazy about you investigating a murder,” he said, pulling
her close and laying his head on hers. “How about if you stop seeing ghosts
for, say nine months or so, and instead do something safe and boring?”

Brandon’s face immediately came to mind and she shook her
head. “Sorry, I just can’t,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “But
I will be very careful and if I feel threatened in any way, I’ll back off and
call you.”

Kissing her forehead, he stepped back and met her eyes. “You
know I want to wrap you up in bubble wrap for the next nine months,” he said.

“That’s really kinky, Police Chief Alden,” she replied with
a quick smile. “But, you know, maybe later.”

Laughing, he shook his head. “You know that’s not what I
meant,” he said, then he paused and his smile turned slightly wicked.
“Although, now that you mention it…”

“Mary, you’re home,” Clarissa called from the staircase.

Slipping out of Bradley’s arms, she turned and looked across
the room.
 
Clarissa was hurrying down the
stairs, with Mike close behind. “Mike helped me with my homework,” Clarissa
said. “He’s real good at times tables.”

“So far, so good,” Mike replied. “I’ve remembered up through
the sixes, I might have to start making stuff up when we hit the sevens and
eights.”

Clarissa giggled. “I’ll just tell my teacher, my guardian
angel said it was right.”

Mike shook his head. “Don’t do that,” he said with a fake
shudder, “it will give the rest of the guardian angels a bad name.”

When Clarissa reached the final step, Mary was delighted
when she ran to her and wrapped her arms around her.
 
Mary enfolded her daughter in a warm hug.
“Not only am I home,” she whispered into her ear. “I brought ice cream from
Union Dairy.
Rocky Road.”

“Really?”
Clarissa asked, pulling
slightly back with a wide smile on her face. “You’re the best!”

“So, how was school today?” Mary asked.

“It was a little weird,” Clarissa admitted. “I kept thinking
a bad guy was going to come into my classroom and get me. And I was worried
that Mike wouldn’t be there if he came.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mary said, her heart dropping. “I’m so
sorry. That must have been so frightening for you.”

Nodding, Clarissa seemed to relax a little in Mary’s arms.
“It was scary,” she admitted. “And even though I knew he was in jail, I had to
keep looking at the door and the windows, just in case he got out.”

Mike bent over. “You know I’d do everything I could to
protect you,” he said.

She nodded. “But what if something happens and you’re not
there, like when I took my bike and the bad man tried to catch me?” she asked.

Mike’s face dropped and he sighed. “I couldn’t help you then,”
he said. “Because of the choices you made. But other times, I’ll be there.”

“But what if you’re not?” she asked.

Bradley squatted down next to Clarissa.
 
“You’ve been through some pretty scary times,
and even though we know the bad man is gone, it’s hard not to think about it.”

“Yes, my brain tells me he’s gone, but my heart still jumps
when someone comes in the door.”

“Exactly,” Bradley said. “That’s a perfectly normal
thing.
 
And I had been thinking you might
feel that way, so I bought you a present.”

“A present?”
Clarissa asked. “How
can a present help me?”

Bradley stood up and walked across the room to his
briefcase.
 
He opened it and pulled out a
little box. “First, you need to know that I trust Mike and I know he will do
everything he can to protect you. He’s part of our family and he loves you as
much as Mary and I love you,” Bradley said.

Clarissa shook her head. “Yeah, I know,” she said, turning
to her guardian angel. “Sorry Mike.”

Mike shrugged. “That’s okay, sweetheart,” he said. “I’d be a
little nervous too if I were you.”

“And that’s why we have this, to make you less nervous,”
Bradley said, pulling out a small plastic device. “It’s a little GPS device
that you can carry with you everywhere you go.
 
It sends out a signal, that lets us know where you are all the time and
it also has a button that you can push if you’re scared that will alert us
immediately. Would that be helpful?”

Clarissa took the small box in her hand. “This is so cool.”

“Really?”
Mary asked, looking at
the device. “She’s right, this is so cool.”
 

Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I was just reading about it last week
and thought it would be great for Clarissa,” he said to Mary and then turned to
his daughter. “What do you think?”

“I just push it when I need you?” she asked.

“Yes, just push it,” Bradley replied. “And it will ring an
alarm on both my phone and Mary’s phone.
 
Will that make you feel safer?”

“Yes. And I promise only to push it in emergencies,”
Clarissa said.

“And remember, pizza, hamburgers and ice
cream
are
not emergencies,” Mike added.

Clarissa giggled and then stopped. “Oh, ice cream,” she
said. “I almost forgot about the ice cream.”

“I think we should eat dinner and then pig out on ice
cream,” Bradley suggested. “Anyone else interested?”

“Yes!” Mary and Clarissa agreed.

“You’re going out tonight?” Bradley asked, later that night
once Clarissa was tucked into bed. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?”

“I’m fine,” Mary said, slipping on her coat. “Besides, all
I’ll be doing is sitting in an ice cream parlor having a discussion with dead
people. No big deal.”

Bradley chuckled. “Do you think it’s strange that I don’t
think that’s strange?” he asked.

She walked over and kissed him. “Nope, because since you’ve
met me, you’re a changed man.”

He kissed her back. “Changed for the better?
 
Or just another step closer
to crazy?”

She laughed.
“For the better.”

 
“How long will you
be?”

“Not more than a couple of hours,” she replied.

“Okay, if something comes up, call me.
 
I can get Katie or Clifford to run over if
you need my help,” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork I can work on while you’re
gone.”

“Great!
 
See you
soon,” she said.

The moon was bright and full.
 
The night air was cool with just a hint of
spring.
 
Mary took a deep breath as she
walked to the car, inhaling the moist scents of damp earth and spring
flowers.
 
She paused for a second,
savoring the fragrance of a nearby hyacinth. She really loved spring.

The drive back to Union Dairy only took a few minutes.
 
The downtown streets were fairly deserted by
this time of night, except for the
Lindo
Theater a
few blocks down Chicago. Mary parked directly in front of the ice cream parlor,
slipped out of her car and pulled the keys Jodi had given her out of her
pocket.
 
She paused at the plate glass
door and stared inside for a moment before entering.
 
The restaurant was motionless and quiet, with
the only light coming from the glow of some of the equipment behind the
counter.
 
Everything else lay in shadows.

Slipping the key in, she slowly turned it and opened the
door.
 
Entering the building, she locked
the door behind her to ensure she didn’t have any company of the human
kind.
 
She walked forward to the short
counter with the bright red parlor stools that surrounded it.
 
The counter snaked around from the front of
the restaurant around a curve at the side and then along the back of the front
area, so a soda jerk could stand in the middle and take care of all of the
customers around him.
 
The second dining
area was a smaller room with a collection of tables and booths for people who wanted
a little more privacy than the counter afforded.
 
Between the two rooms was a small alcove that
held an old jukebox with tunes from earlier years.
 
Customers from either side of the restaurant
could enjoy the music for only a quarter.

The restaurant was warm; Mary was sure Jodi had left the
heat up for her comfort, so she slipped off her coat and laid it on the red
Formica counter.
 
She glanced around the
room.
 
Light glinted off the chrome
fixtures behind the counter and the lines of sparkling sundae and shake glasses
on the shelves.
 
Mary started when she
thought she saw someone behind the counter, but released a soft breath when she
realized it was only her reflection in the mirror on the wall.
 

The sounds of the night were different than the sounds
during the day. The freezer hummed softly, the ice maker thumped and the
furnace occasionally whooshed as it started a new cycle.
 
There was no clattering of silverware, no
chattering of customers,
no
clinking of dishware or
ringing of the cash register.
 
It was as
if the restaurant were asleep, breathing deeply, waiting for someone to wake it
up.

Mary slid onto a short stool; making sure to avoid the one
Jodi said had been occupied by the ghost.
 
She couldn’t help herself; she twisted the seat from one side to the
other, enjoying the movement just as much today as she did when she was a
child.
 
She was about to laugh out loud
when a new noise stopped her.

Cha-
ching
.
The jukebox suddenly lit up.
 
She could
hear the sounds of the mechanism lifting the record from its shelf and moving
it over to the player.
 
Then the voices
of the
Everly
Brothers singing “
Whenever I Want You All I Have to do is Dream
” echoed throughout
the room.
 
The figure of a young woman
slowly materialized in front of the jukebox, swaying to the music.
 
She was dressed in a plaid cotton shirtdress
with a full skirt and a matching cardigan sweater draped over her
shoulders.
 
She looked like she stepped
out of a movie from the fifties, from her
  
shoulder length hair, styled in soft waves and bangs, to her
ballerina-style flats.

Mary just sat and watched the girl as a frisson of
paranormal electricity swept up her back and along her arms. As the song ended,
the girl turned and walked toward the counter, perching on the stool next to
Mary. The pedestal stool slowly turned, but instead of the quiet, well-oiled
stool Mary was on, the mechanism squealed painfully.
 
In a moment, Mary was face to face with the
specter.
 
“Hi,” Mary said, “I’m Mary.”

The ghost stared at her for a moment and then slowly smiled.
“Hi Mary, I’m Erika,” she replied. “Do have any smokes?”

Shaking her head, Mary said, “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

“That’s okay,” Erika replied evenly. “The guys will be along
soon and they always have them.”

“The guys?”
Mary asked.

“Yeah, you know, for cruising,” she said. “I’m dying to ride
in Adam’s Chevy, it’s dreamy.”

“Cruising?” Mary asked.

“What are you from outer space or something?” Erika asked.

“Yeah, well, I’m from Chicago originally.”

Erika’s face brightened considerably. “You’re from Chicago?
That is just dreamy,” she said. “I bet you hate it here in Freeport.
 
There is absolutely nothing here compared to
Chicago.
 
Do you know any gangsters?”

“No, sorry, my family is in law enforcement,” Mary replied.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Erika said.

“So, you were telling me about cruising,” Mary prompted.

“Oh,
ya
, sure,” Erika said. “The
boys drive their cars downtown and they pick the girls who get to ride in their
cars, unless, of course, they got a steady.”

“A steady?”
Mary asked.

“They don’t teach you a lot in Chicago,” Erika said, rolling
her eyes. “You know, a steady, like a boyfriend and a girlfriend.
Going together.
A steady.”

“Oh, got it,” Mary said. “So, if they don’t have a steady,
they pick up the girls and let them ride in their car.”

“Exactly,” Erika said and she added with a small smile. “Or
they have a secret steady and they both act like they’re free.”

“And where do they go?”

“They just drive, up and down Galena,” she said.

“Just up and down the same road?”
Mary asked.

“Yes, it’s called cruising,” Erika replied. “We cruise the
drag.”

“Why?”

“So people can see us and we can see other people.”

“Couldn’t you just all see each other here at the ice cream
parlor?”

“Are you from this century?” Erika asked.

Mary just smiled. “Sorry, I guess it’s a new concept to me.
It sounds like fun,” she tried to sound enthusiastic. “It’s just seems like a
waste of gasoline.”

Shrugging, Erika spun on her stool. “So, it’s only a quarter
a gallon,” she said. “No big deal.”

“A quarter a gallon,” Mary repeated. “Wow.”

“You sound like my dad,” the ghost replied. “He says that’s
highway robbery.”

Then Erika peered past Mary and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Mary asked.

“He’s late again,” she said, her face dropping. “He promised
he’d be here.”

She stood up and walked to the plate glass door and peered
out.

Mary followed her to the window. “Erika, how long have you
been waiting for him?”

Erika paused, considering Mary’s question. Finally she
turned to her. “I think I’ve been waiting a long time,” she said, her voice
dropping to a whisper.
“A very long time.”

“A very, very long time.”

Then she faded away before Mary’s eyes.