The police officers both called out. “Halt, there. Police.” I swooped to a nearby grave, plucked a large evergreen wreath from the marker, returned to that revealing trail. I took a good look, turned off the light. One of the perks of being a ghost was the ability to propel myself high, low, or in between. I moved a few inches above the ground— picture a glider—pulling the bristly wreath over the track of the barrow.
A stunningly brilliant light swept toward me, illuminating the wreath and the flashlight I’d borrowed from Marvin. Both were several inches above the ground. I came to my feet, the flashlight and wreath rising, too, and flung them into the darkness.
In the stark light from her huge flashlight, a slender young woman stared in disbelief as the flashlight spun out of sight behind a clump of shrubbery. The wreath plopped into a puddle. “Jake, did you see that?” Her pleasant contralto voice was matter-of-fact, but her blue eyes were startled.
A stocky young man growled, “Who’s the joker? You kids better—Oh hey, Anita, look. By God, that call was for real.” He, too, held an oversize flashlight and his bright beam centered on the body.
“Hey, that looks like Daryl Murdoch.” Her light joined his. “He looks dead.” Her voice sounded strange.
“We’ve got to get the EMT. Call the dispatcher. I’ll check for a pulse.” She crossed to Murdoch, taking care to walk on the paved area in
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front of the mausoleum. She knelt, turned that blazing light down, and lifted Daryl’s wrist.
Jake held a small plastic oblong to his face, spoke fast. “Car Seven.
Officer Harmon. Suspected murder victim, St. Mildred’s cemetery.
Send ambulance and fire truck. Notify the M.E. Contact the chief and Detective Sergeant Price.” As he spoke, brown eyes darted in every direction.
“No pulse.” Anita rose, reached for her gun. “Somebody was here.
We’d better check around.”
“Wait a minute. You get a look at the perp?” Jake stared at the wreath in the puddle.
“No.” She shook her head. The wind stirred her short honeycomb-blond hair. “Did you?”
Jake peered at the tombstones, his bony face wary, eyes searching.
“I don’t see how they got away without making a sound, especially without any light. They must be hunkered down, crouching behind something.” He reached for his gun.
She glanced at the tombstones, some large, some weathered and crumbling. Everything beyond the radius of the flashlights lay in dense darkness. “Listen up, Jake. No shooting unless somebody shoots at us. I know we got a body, but that call came from a kid.
He said they’d found a dead man, not killed somebody. The corpse felt cool. He’s been dead for a while. I don’t think it was the perp we almost caught.”
I thought her declaration a trifle extravagant. I definitely had not almost been caught.
“Call dispatch back. Better let them know we think the victim is Daryl Murdoch.” She stood and once again swung the light in a slow careful circle. Light streaked over graves and stones, probing the shadows beneath towering sycamores.
Jake held a plastic oblong similar to the one I’d found in Murdoch’s
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pocket, spoke into it. I wafted to him and peered over his shoulder, close enough to smell a piney aftershave scent.
“Dispatch.” Jake tried to sound cool, but excitement lifted his voice. “The DOA in the cemetery next to St. Mildred’s looks like Daryl Murdoch, the businessman. Somebody got away just as we arrived. We’re looking around.”
I scooted in front of him. He was talking—somehow—into that object. Curiosity overcame caution. I reached out, seized the shining metal object so similar in size to a compact though oblong, not circular. I stared at the hinged lid, which contained a small screen and a lower surface with numbers on it, then held it up to my ear as Jake had done.
I heard a brisk voice. “Chief says to secure the scene. He and Detective Sergeant Price and the crime lab are en route.” I realized I held a small radio of some kind. How amazing!
Jake’s young face creased in astonishment. He stared at the now silent object hovering a half foot from him.
I placed the object in his hand.
He jumped as though it radiated static electricity, then once again held it to his ear. “Damn.” He punched one of the numbers. “Yeah, dispatch. We got cut off.” His breathing was rapid. “Sure. I’m right here. We won’t touch a thing.” He clicked a button, then swung his flashlight in a circle. “Anita?”
Leaves crackled. She came from behind the mausoleum. “Nada.
Have you looked that way?” She speared a beam of light behind him.
Jake turned. “Just got off the horn. I’ll look around.” As she waited, she swept her light back and forth near the mausoleum.
In a moment Jake returned. “I don’t see anything out there. We need more light to check everything. Anyway, the chief ’s on his way.” He glanced at the metal object he still held in one hand. “Hey, Anita.
Funny thing about my phone . . .”
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Phone! I had expected changes from my day to now, but I never thought I would see a phone without wires that worked in the middle of a cemetery. Why, Bobby Mac would have been in hog heaven out on one of his drilling
