Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

Serena stared at Maggie, and for just a moment, it felt like they were friends again. Which they weren’t. But at least they’d moved beyond being enemies.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Stride thought he had everything, and then it was taken away from him,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s not sure he believes in the future anymore. He’s worried it’ll be stolen from him again.’

‘That’s always a risk.’

‘I know, and Stride doesn’t like risks.’

‘He asked Cat to live with us,’ Serena said. ‘That was a big risk. He was thinking about the future when he did that.’

Maggie cocked her head, as if Serena were the densest woman on the planet. Maybe she was. ‘You’re right. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

Serena let those words sink in. When they did, they made their way up the length of her body and gave her a little chill. Sort of like the breath of a ghost, invisibly touching the nerve endings of her skin. Maggie had said things she didn’t need to say, and Serena could only imagine how hard it was for her. In her shoes, she wasn’t sure she would have been equally gracious.

‘You know, you really ought to call Troy,’ Serena told her. ‘Go to the state fair with him and the girls.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘What the hell, maybe I will. But only for the cheese curds. Damn, those things are good.’

They found Curt Dickes after dark near the lift bridge separating Canal Park from the Point.

It was a windy night. Waves in the narrow ship canal struck the concrete walls and sent clouds of cold spray into puddles on the sidewalk. Overhead, a bone-white light illuminated the crisscross metal span of the bridge superstructure. Threads of fog moved in and out of the steel X’s, making them invisible.

A cluster of twenty tourists huddled near the canal. Some had umbrellas. Curt Dickes stood in the middle of them, or Serena assumed it was Curt. He was dressed in a skeleton costume that included a skull mask covering his face and a top hat at a jaunty angle on his head. In his left hand, he clutched a plastic sickle that was taller than he was.

‘Do you hear that?’ Curt shouted.

He had a microphone under his mask, because his voice was amplified, and he used an echo effect that repeated his last words. Do you hear that that that that?

‘That’s not the wind. Oh, no. That’s the scream of Lars Olson. His ghost never leaves the bridge, and on nights like this one, you can hear him pleading for mercy. Who’s Lars Olson, you may ask? He was the ex-chancellor of UMD. He died a horrific death at this very spot. Someone tied a rope around his neck and hooked him to the span, so that when the bridge went up...’

Curt put a bony fist near his neck and tugged sharply, letting his head dangle sideways.

‘He was hanged hanged hanged hanged hanged .’

One of the children in the group of tourists gasped. ‘Did that really happen?’

‘All of my stories are true!’ Curt announced. ‘You can run, but you can’t escape the dead dead dead dead dead .’

Maggie waded into the crowd. ‘Oh, give me a break, Curt.’

Curt spotted Maggie and Serena, and the skeleton froze in place. With a flourish, he removed his top hat and gave them a deep bow. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the lovely Maggie Bei and Serena Dial, two of Duluth’s finest, dedicated to keeping tourists like yourselves safe from the criminal underworld. Ms. Bei, Ms. Dial, have you decided to join our happy group to hear more absolutely true tales of ghosts in the Zenith City? Tickets are just twenty-five dollars each, payable in cash only, no refunds.’

‘Lars Olson was a character in an Ellen Hart novel,’ Maggie announced. ‘She killed him off by hanging him from the lift bridge at the beginning of This Little Piggy Went to Murder .’

Curt scratched the top of his head with his sickle and offered a nervous giggle. ‘Well, sometimes fiction is stranger than truth, you know. I mean, stories do come to me second-hand from time to time.’

A restless murmur rippled through the crowd.

‘What about the ghost of the marathon runner?’ a woman asked. ‘Was that one true?’

‘Totally true!’ Curt assured them. ‘I’ve seen him myself.’

‘Marathon runner?’ Serena asked.

‘Barnabas “Batty” Burns,” Curt replied confidently. ‘Eighty-seven years old. Tried to run all 26.2 miles of Grandma’s Marathon. Made it to within ten yards — ten yards! — of the finish line and dropped dead of a heart attack. Tragic. To this day, he runs the last block of the marathon over and over, trying to make it to the finish line, and he disappears into wisps of smoke just before he gets there. I’ve seen him dozens of times.’

‘You are so full of crap, Curt,’ Maggie told him. She grabbed the skeleton by his bony arm, and Serena took the sickle and poked him in the back.

‘Folks, hang out here for a while, we need to borrow your tour guide.’

With Maggie on his left side, and Serena on his right, they quick-walked Curt along the wall of the canal. Waves slapped loudly on the pier and doused them as they marched away from the bridge. When they were out of earshot of the tourists, Maggie grabbed the top hat and yanked the skull mask from Curt’s head. Curt, a twenty-five-year-old beanpole, tried to tame his greasy black hair. Musk cologne oozed from his skin.

‘Jeez, guys,’ he complained. ‘I’m trying to do a show here.’

‘Duluth has a cool history,’ Maggie told him. ‘Next time, try to stick to it, okay? No more Batty Burns the Long-Distance Runner.’

‘Hey, I’m a storyteller. There’s nothing wrong with that. Stride told me I should make an honest living.’

‘Well, you’re getting closer,’ Serena agreed. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not here to bust your ghost walk. It’s your other job we want to talk about.’

‘I’m not pimping anymore. I swear.’

‘Not that one,’ Serena said.

‘I found those boxes of camping gear behind the Duluth Pack store. I swear I thought they were throwing them away.’

‘Not that one, either,’ Maggie said. She held up an enlarged photograph of Janine’s ring on a piece of paper that quickly became sodden in the spray thrown from the canal. ‘Your other job, Curt. Fencing stolen merchandise.’

Curt put two skeleton hands on his chest in mock dismay. ‘Whoa, what? You got the wrong guy.’ He added an echo with his microphone: ‘ Wrong guy wrong guy wrong guy .’

‘Save it,’ Maggie snapped. ‘You sold this ring to an accountant named Neal Fisher. He identified your photo, Curt, so quit playing innocent. Oh, and by the way, he ripped you off. He gave you two hundred bucks, and this thing is worth at least a few thousand.’

‘That asshole!’ Curt bellowed. ‘I know you can’t trust lawyers, but I figured accountants were okay.’

‘Where did you get the ring?’ Serena asked.

‘Um, let me see. I think I found it on the street.’

‘You found it?’ Maggie asked. ‘It was just lying there?’

‘That’s right. Over near the Depot. I figured it slipped off somebody’s finger. Their loss was my gain.’

‘This ring came from a stash of jewelry stolen nine years ago,’ Maggie told him. ‘The husband of the woman it belonged to got his head blown off during the robbery. People have been looking for the jewelry ever since, Curt. And now it shows up in your hands? That’s not a good thing. It makes me think you needed money back then, so you drove up there with a gun—’

‘No way!’ Curt retorted. ‘You know that’s not my scene, Sergeant. No violence. Not a chance.’

‘So where did you get the ring?’ Serena repeated.