Ghost at Work _a Bailey Ruth Mystery

“I’ll take care of that.” One way or another.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” He was suddenly suspicious.

I was about to ignore another Precept, but circumstances alter cases. “You might consider me your conscience.” I disappeared.

Walter’s face went slack. His head swiveled slowly around the room. He breathed in short, tight gasps.

I had his attention. I made my voice crisp. “Swear you will never again mishandle any financial matter.” Once again, he looked around the room, seeking the source of the voice. But there was no place where a slender red- haired policewoman could be hidden. He stared at the closed door.

He knew the door hadn’t opened. He knew there was no other exit.

Slowly, he lifted a shaking hand. “I swear.” 180

C H A P T E R 1 2

Ipopped to the rectory. A lamp shone in the kitchen and another in the front hall, but no one was home. Where was Kathleen?

Why couldn’t she follow instructions? Perhaps I now had some inkling of Wiggins’s distress when I improvised. How could I blame Kathleen? She was trying to save the man she loved, but I wished I were at her side.

I popped back to the parking lot outside Daryl’s office. The starry night was crisp and cold. I looked Heavenward. If there were a cosmic scoreboard, it might read home team 14, visitors 0. So far I’d yielded all the points to Daryl’s mistress and his ex-partner. I’d set out to discover whether Cynthia Brown or Walter Carey had motives for murder. The obvious answer was yes.

My original plan had been to provide Chief Cobb with any information he might find relevant. I didn’t doubt the chief would find Walter and Cynthia legitimate suspects—if he knew.

Whether he ever knew was up to me.

Had I been too impulsive? Was Wiggins even now scratch-ing through my name as a future emissary from the Department of Good Intentions? I welcomed the cool fresh breeze and waited.

C a r o ly n H a r t

Wiggins didn’t come. Perhaps once again he was willing to accept a good result or, at the least, wait and see the outcome. Perhaps another emissary, hopefully one far distant, was embroiled in difficulties.

Impulsive or not, I needed to keep going, as fast as I could. The night was young. There were others to seek out. I’d never wallowed in introspection when I was of the earth. This was no time to start.

I stood in the parking lot outside Daryl’s office. I found a stall with his name painted in red: reserved for daryl murdoch. He’d brushed aside a desperate girl, driven to the exit onto Main Street, and been stopped in an illegal turn by Officer Leland. About this time his son arrived.

I remembered the high young voice, cracking in anger, that had been recorded on Daryl’s cell phone: I can’t believe what you did . . . I just found out from Lily . . . You’ll pay for this. I swear you will.

What had Daryl done?

The small sign in the front yard was tasteful: the green door. I recognized the old Victorian house. In my day, it had belonged to Ed and Corrine Baldwin. Now it housed a dinner restaurant. I stood on the porch and looked through sparkling glass panes. Old-fashioned teardrop crystal bulbs in a chandelier shed a soft light over a half-dozen circular tables with damask cloths and rose china. Small tap-dancing skeletons flanked centerpieces of orange mums.

A slender young woman was serving orange sorbet in tall crystal glasses at a near table. A scarecrow hung in the doorway to the entry hall.

It might be awkward for Lily Mendoza if a police officer arrived demanding to see her. I didn’t want to jeopardize her job. I thought for a moment, nodded. I glanced around the floor of the living room, noted styles of purses. When I wished myself present, I held a small blue leather bag.

182

G h o s t at Wo r k

I opened the front door and stepped into the nineteenth century.

Panels of gleaming mahogany covered the lower walls. Heavily patterned wallpaper in a rich shade of burgundy rose above the wainscoting.

Geometric tiles glimmered in the pale light from hanging stained-glass lanterns. Ferns trailed from a huge wicker basket. A gimlet-eyed parrot peered from a brass birdcage. As I entered, it gave a piercing squawk and spoke in a rough throaty voice, “Ahoy, matey. Avast. Begone.” A waitress, who looked trim and athletic despite being dressed in a hoop dress with a daisy pattern, pushed through a door at the end of the hallway, carrying a tray with two entrees. She paused when she reached me, glanced at my uniform, but asked politely, “Do you have a reservation?”

I shook my head, held up the purse. “I’m here with a lost purse.

May I speak to Lily Mendoza?”

“Lily doesn’t work here anymore. Mrs. Talley”—a pause—“let her go.”

Let her go? Why? “When?”

The girl’s gamin face squeezed into a frown. “Yesterday. Anyway, if you want to take the purse to her, she has an apartment in the old Blue Sky motel near the railroad tracks.” She moved toward the living room.

I kept pace. “Where’s Mrs. Talley?”

The girl gestured down the hallway. “In her office.” She moved swiftly into the dining room.

I walked past a whatnot with a bust of Homer and a collection of Dresden shepherdesses. I gave a quick knock on the door, stepped inside a library that now served as an office, though the mahogany bookcases still held