the parish directory.
Patricia Haskins was also a communicant of St. Mildred’s. I found that very interesting, but not, given my speculations, surprising.
I reappeared when I stood outside her door. The wooden shutters were closed in the front window. I knocked. No answer. I looked around, saw no one, disappeared, and wafted inside.
The living room was exquisitely clean, the walls pale blue, the overstuffed furniture in soft white faux leather. A tiger-striped cat on a cushion near the kitchen lifted his head, studied me with enigmatic golden eyes. I had no doubt he saw me.
I knelt, smoothed silky fur. “Nobody home?” The cat yawned, revealing two sharp incisors and a pink tongue.
I popped up, made a circuit of the living room. No dust. No muss.
No casual disarray. One wall of bookshelves held biographies, books on bridge, and Book-Of-The-Month club titles. On another wall were three framed Edward Hopper prints.
A small walnut desk sat in one corner. I found her checkbook
G h o s t at Wo r k
in the right-hand drawer and a box of checks as well as stubs neatly bound with rubber bands. I hunted for an engagement calendar, found an address book. There was an entry for Irene Chatham. It was a link, but this was a small town. I needed more.
The bedroom yielded nothing of interest but a collection of family pictures in neat rows atop a bookcase and on a dresser. It was cheerful to see that the rather formal Mrs. Haskins was also a mother and grandmother. In a Christmas scene, her eyes soft, her smile beatific, she was reaching out to touch the dark curls of a chubby little girl.
The kitchen was immaculate. A neat white cardboard bakery box was open. It held three dozen sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins with big chocolate eyes and curlicues of orange frosting. I edged one out, ate it neatly. I was turning to go when I saw the large wall calendar with notations in several squares. And yes, she’d marked this Saturday:
8 A.M., PICK UP TWILA, OKC
4–8 P.M. MADAME RUBY-ANN/SPOOK BASH
I understood the first entry only too well. Patricia had picked up a friend and gone up to Oklahoma City, probably for a couple of hours of shopping and lunch. The second entry gave me hope that she planned to return in time to attend St. Mildred’s Spook Bash this afternoon. But who was Madame Ruby-Ann?
I planned to attend the Spook Bash. I wanted to see Bayroo’s new friend. Now I had another excellent reason to be present. I was counting on Patricia Haskins telling me the name of someone who’d called Daryl or whom Daryl had called to set up a meeting at St.
Mildred’s.
I wondered if Chief Cobb had picked up on Patricia’s careful reply when he’d asked whether anyone else might have known Daryl’s destination . . .
C H A P T E R 1 5
The chief sat at a circular table near his desk. He frowned, wrote swiftly on a legal pad. Folders surrounded him. A cordless telephone was within reach.
The chief ’s desk was pushed out from the wall and a bulky figure squatted behind the computer that had suffered unfortunate trauma last night. I was disappointed to see that the screen was still black.
The oblong box next to the screen had been opened. The interior looked like so much honeycomb to me. I moved around the desk.
Cords lay in a limp row on the floor.
The man staring at the computer shook his head. His orange po-nytail swung back and forth. White stitching on the back of his blue work shirt read computer whiz. “Chief, you gotta know this had to be deliberate.”
My heart sank.
A chair scraped. The chief came behind the desk. “Last night Sergeant Lewis found the light on. He saw an intruder.”
“You don’t say,” Computer Whiz marveled. “How’d some joe break into the cop shop?”
G h o s t at Wo r k
Chief Cobb hunched his shoulders. “There wasn’t a break-in. No alarms sounded. The electric keypad on my office door didn’t record an entry.”
Computer Whiz rocked back on his heels. “So nobody came in but somebody came in. Did the cop get a good look?” Chief Cobb folded his arms. “Sergeant Lewis thinks it was a woman.”
A snicker. “He doesn’t know one when he sees one?” Chief Cobb was short in his answer. “All he saw was a witch’s costume. When he came after her, she went out the window.” The repairman glanced toward the windows. “Second story, Chief. Was she was flying on a broomstick?”
“Whoever it was got away. Somehow.” The chief, too, glanced at the windows. “Lewis is a good man, but he claims he was running toward her when a chair tripped him and he dropped his gun and the window slammed down. His gun’s gone. We haven’t found any trace of it. That’s when he saw a flash and heard popping sounds and the computer went black.”
“Somebody”—Computer Whiz pointed with an accusatory finger—“jammed this cord here and that cord there. Nobody ought to take out plugs and put them back in the PS2 ports when the monitor’s up and running. It blew the
