What? I mouthed. I knew that was pretty lame, but it was after midnight and I’d had a hell of a day. If he could think of a better explanation for his detective buddy, I was all ears.
Doc pulled another bottle of the stuff from the shelf, holding it toward Cooper. “I want to buy this. Can I leave the money with you to hand over to the store manager?”
Cooper nodded. “But I was told that he might be showing up soon, so you can pay him direct.”
“If that were even remotely possible,” Hawke said, returning to our conversation about ghosts, “how in the hell can a ghost carry a real bottle and make the mess we saw over in the bank?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I were to explain,” I said, trying to sidestep his question.
“Why not?”
“Because I would have to use really big words.”
Hawke’s gaze hardened into a glare. “Try me, medium. I’m not an imbecile.”
I was more worried about me using the right “big” paranormal words than Hawke’s intelligence at the moment. I glanced at Doc, imploring him to help. He shook his head once and looked down at his hands, his expression almost pained. He probably figured my explanation would hurt his ears. I had no doubt it would damage my reputation.
Fine, I would bumble through this on my own, but it was late and my brain spit and sputtered when it came to paranormal terminology even on a wide-awake day after several cups of coffee.
“Some entities are stronger than others,” I said, returning to my earlier conversation with Cornelius.
Hawke scoffed.
I crossed my arms. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
With a caveman-like grunt, he waved for me to continue.
“As I was saying, there are ghosts who have more electromagnetic-based force that they can utilize for whatever reason. Maybe they have unfinished work that drives them to push harder,” I said, thinking of Jane. “Or maybe they’re pissed about being dead.” Like Prudence and all of her tooth-pulling fury. “No matter the reason, different ghosts have various levels of power.” I pointed in the direction of the bank. “The one that was here tonight was able to use telekinesis to move a bottle of mead and some papers around.”
“Telekinesis.” The disbelief on Hawke’s face said plenty. But while he might not be swallowing my little ghost lecture, he bought that I believed in what I was saying, and that was all that mattered. I had fooled the cops with my medium charade again.
“Yes, telekinesis,” I reiterated. “As in using mind control from the grave.” Without wasting further breath on the subject, I headed toward the main doors. Detective Hawke followed, scoffing and huffing behind me. His doubts in my abilities couldn’t be clearer.
I stopped outside of the bank’s doors. “I think if you check the glass shards from the shattered bottle and compare them to the bottle of mead in your hand, you will find they are the same product.”
“Why mead?” Hawke asked, holding up the bottle. “Why not some random wine or beer or whatever?”
That was the same question I had, especially since mead was what I’d found in that crate the night George Mudder was killed in the Mudder Brothers basement. On a side note, it was also what Harvey and I had found stuffed into the chicken coop out on his ranch.
Unfortunately, there was only one other person who I could ask for more answers about that Mudder Brothers shipment, and that was Ray Underhill. But he and I weren’t on speaking terms since he got fired by Jerry for trying to sabotage my job. We’d have better luck doing a séance at the funeral parlor and trying to get George Mudder on the line than going to Ray.
“I don’t know why it chose the mead,” I told Hawke the truth. “Maybe it has a taste for honey.”
Doc and Cooper joined us at the door, each of them holding a bottle of the stuff now.
“A taste for honey?” Hawke rolled his eyes. “That’s just stupid, Parker.”
“No, you are stupid, Detective,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “My hypothesis is just too novel for your thick skull.”
“Parker,” Cooper chastised. “I know you’re tired, but keep in mind that cops like Detective Hawke and I aren’t used to dealing with things we can’t see or touch or shoot.”
I blew out a heavy breath. “Fine. Detective Hawke, certain entities are drawn to things that remind them of their pasts.” I’d learned that when we had a séance out at Harvey’s ranch with me sitting in the center hot seat yet again, calling on Harvey’s great-grandfather who loved hooch, blondes, and a certain old shotgun. “From what I can sense about this particular ghost using retrocognesis—”
“I believe you mean retrocognition,” Doc corrected, grimacing. “Which is the parent form of the word you were using,” he lied, helping to cover up my screwup.
“Right, retrocognition. Oh dear, it’s so late. My mind feels fuzzy.” I faked a yawn.
“Hurry up with your answer, Parker,” Hawke snapped.
“Okay. There is a strong possibility that this ghost might have been a beekeeper at one time. You could start by asking around to see if there were any bank-robbing beekeepers here in the past. Deadwood and Lead do have notorious reputations for attracting lawless scoundrels.” There, that should keep Hawke busy and off of my ass for a few days.
Hawke straight up laughed in my face.
I couldn’t blame him. I would have, too, if I weren’t struggling to get untangled from this mess so that I could head home with Doc and try to figure out what the hell was going on here with the mead.
While Hawke acted like a regular old laugh factory, my stomach tightened and then flopped, growing queasy. I touched it with my hand, grimacing, wondering if I shouldn’t have mixed a greasy meat pizza with tequila and lemons.
“Hello, Violet,” a familiar, whiskey-smooth voice said from behind me right as a wave of nausea made me
