Page 8 of The Aura Answer
“Setting beards on fire, of course. They may be roasting marshmallows by now, I don’t know. I had to help Gracie divert the kids from Main Street and couldn’t join the fun. Bertie?” she reminded him.
“Forensics team on their way. I’m going with overdose for now.” Troy nodded at Jax and headed over to check on the backstairs.
“Bertie’s an addict?” Jax hugged her shoulders and began picking wallpaper out of her hair. Between the hat and the damp air, her curls probably looked like a hurricane had twisted them. Every so often she blew them straight, but it took work.
“Yeah, has been for years. It’s pretty sad. ER gave him painkillers after he got beat up pretty badly in high school. He hated Special Ed classes, so he dropped out, did manual labor wherever he could, sold a few sketches, tried to help his mom. But he liked the drugs. You know the story. He wouldn’t go home and offend his family and ended up homeless. He never hurt anyone.” Grimacing, Evie turned to face the body.Bodies?
She avoided opening her third eye, not wanting to see Bertie’s spirit. He’d never had much of one when alive. She’d like to grieve for the misunderstood artist and not deal with his ghost. “Who is that under him?”
“Arthur Block. The judge just let him out on a reduced bond. Block called a news conference. At first, I thought maybe Bertie attacked him, but your artist has been pretty obviously dead for a while.” Jax stood and helped Evie to do the same. “We need to let the forensics team up.”
Block? Mayor Blockwasdead?
Unable to process news that enormous, she helped Jax push the bench aside, then took scissors out of the first aid kit to cut the tape remains on the stairs. After that news, shereallydid not want to see ghosts right now. Block hadn’t been an evil man, she didn’t think, not like Paul Clancy, his right-hand toady had been. Clancy’s ghost had been demonic as hell.
Not evil, maybe, but the former mayor hadn’t been a particularly nice man either. He’d certainly hated her and had done his best to break up her relationship with his son in her younger years. She’d been more in love with Toby’s Harley than Toby, so she didn’t hold a grudge, just wariness.
Her grief wasn’t for the former mayor but for his son’s loss. “Sheriff, have you called Tobias? I think he’s been living in his father’ s house these past months.”
“I have someone going out there and over to the Walkers. We’ve been otherwise occupied until now,” Troy said dryly as he crouched down to examine the debris from the ceiling.
“Open water bottle.” Reuben joined the sheriff, toed a plastic gallon bottle, and studied the ceiling. “Soaked the plaster.”
“Bert fell on Mr. Block and killed him?” Evie asked in incredulity.
“Allergic reaction to the stink?” Reuben asked wickedly, studying the person-sized hole in the ceiling.
She threw tape at the top-knotted nerd but it only fluttered to the floor. “Bertie was living in the trailer park when Block condemned it and had the park razed. He’s been homelesssince. But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t in any condition to choose plastering the mayor.”
A fitting end, though, don’t you agree?
Refraining from rolling her eyes, Evie grimaced, reluctantly opened her inner vision, and located a gray shadow lingering near the closet door—Bertie. Talking to a dead man was never a good idea in public, but she hated to be impolite. She patted Jax and left him sprawled on the bench. Pulling out her phone, she ambled over to the spirit.
“Fitting for Block or you?” she asked, pretending to talk into the phone.
Both, I guess. Did I actually kill him?
“Don’t know. What happened to you, do you remember?” In her experience, spirits seldom did. She hastily checked her cell battery. They also tended to drain her phone.
The gray shadow shrugged.Fell asleep. Didn’t wake up.
“No one came to visit you up there?” Well, she didn’t need battery juice if she was only pretend-talking, but she probably ought to call and check on Loretta soon.
Bertie’s ghost flickered nervously.Friends.
“Friends who brought you drugs?”
Maybe.He vanished.
“Bertie?” she whispered. “Are you still here?”
He didn’t reply. She sighed, but her battery was draining rapidly. She called Loretta. “Are you good?”
“I’m watching Aster. Aunt Gracie is mad about stealing stuff. She’s scraping wallpaper. Stealing for a good reason isn’t bad, is it?”
“Stealing isalwaysbad. We justborroweda few things and returned them. I’m sure Hank wouldn’t have wanted anyone hurt by a mob and would have been happy they were used in a good cause, if he’d been around to ask.” But the hardware store owner had probably been up here in the courthouse with the restof the town council, standing as character witness for the former lying, thieving mayor. “Is Pris back yet?”
“She’s mad, too, and cooking everything in the refrigerator, I think. It’s not feeling very Christmasy.”
