On the Street Where Death Lives, page 1
On the Street Where Death Lives
A Death Retired Mystery
Cate Lawley
Contents
About On the Street Where Death Lives
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue: Geoff
Epilogue: Sylvie
Epilogue: Lilac
Epilogue: Hector
Excerpt: On the Trail of a Killer
Author’s Note
Also by Cate Lawley
About the Author
About On the Street Where Death Lives
Skeletons in the closet
The living have them, but what about ghosts? Geoff's about to find out! He's convinced his ghostly neighbor Ginny was murdered. When he starts digging for answers, he unearths more than facts.
Join Geoff, his favorite possessed bobcat, Clarence, along with a cast of magical characters as they investigate murders, both past and present!
Chapter One
Just when I thought I’d become accustomed to the voices in my head, they upped their game. They screeched louder, whined more, and generally made an even greater nuisance of themselves.
I wasn’t insane.
This affliction wasn’t one of madness.
It was an affliction of ghosts.
A sometimes affliction of ghosts.
They appeared when convenient for them, not me.
Only months previous, I would have claimed that no time was convenient. I would have denied any interest in the voices of the dead. But I’d since discovered an inability to say no when the voices asked for help of a certain kind.
“Remind my wife to water the plants every Thursday, but not all the plants. Just the plants that get watered on Thursday.”
“Tell my husband I do not approve of that young woman he’s seeing. He could do much better.”
The inane requests and the petty ones I could ignore. But…
“Make sure my brother knows my death wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t an accident. I wasn’t angry and driving recklessly. I was murdered.”
Requests of that kind I simply couldn’t ignore.
And I hadn’t. My girlfriend, Sylvie, and I had tackled Keaton’s problem: the murder and his brother’s false assumption of guilt.
Keaton’s brother felt responsible because the two had argued moments before seventeen-year-old Keaton had gotten into his car, driven away, and then apparently died in a driving accident. We’d solved the murder and proven to his brother that heightened emotions played no part in the wreck that killed Keaton.
Voices like Keaton’s shouldn’t go unheard.
Initially, I’d made the argument that I was retired. I’d spent more than three-quarters of a century serving the dead as a soul collector. I’d been exhausted by the end. And sad. I’d been terribly sad.
Hence my retirement.
After almost eighty years, I no longer had it in me to coax the recently deceased to willingly accompany me toward the next stage of their life. A stage that involved a place—and a fate—unknown to me. I’d been little more than an Uber driver for the souls of the dead with a dash of afterlife salesman thrown in.
But helping murder victims’ souls find their final peace was different.
It didn’t tire me emotionally in the way that my former job had. It energized me to help Keaton and before him Bobby. Both had moved toward the next stage in their life with greater ease once their earthly concerns had been resolved.
Helping souls like Bobby and Keaton felt more like a calling than an occupation.
“Mr. Todd?” Mrs. Feldhaus, my part-time housekeeper, called my name from the kitchen. She refused to call me Geoff.
I’d stopped asking when I realized formal address was one of the ways she kept her distance from clients whose lives could all too easily overtake her own.
“How can I help you, Mrs. Feldhaus?” I poked my head out of my study and tried to tune out my latest pesky visitor. I would not inform his children that they were useless twits incapable of running their lives without his advice.
She entered the hallway leading to the two bedrooms and the converted bedroom that served as my office. She wore a patient expression. Mrs. Feldhaus was always patient. And extremely good at her job. “Do you have any ironing for me? I’m almost done in the kitchen, and I didn’t see any set out for me in the laundry room.”
Beyond her admirable personality traits and regular housecleaning duties, Mrs. Feldhaus also did some cooking and ironing for me. She was a gem.
“Apologies. I do need a shirt ironed today. I’ll have the rest out for you next time.” I exited the study and headed for my bedroom at the end of the hall, adding, “I have a date with my girlfriend later this evening, so thank you for the reminder.”
I’d graduated from having Mrs. Feldhaus do all of my laundry to just the ironing. I’d tried those dry-cleaning services that seemed to be on every other corner in the city, but they didn’t do nearly as good a job, and she claimed she didn’t mind a bit of light ironing. She said she found it soothing.
“A date? With your girlfriend?”
Since that was the first hint of interest she’d shown about my personal life, I felt compelled to explain. “Maybe you know her? Sylvie Baker. She lives across the street and one house over.”
Mrs. Feldhaus tilted her head. “Oh. I thought with all your tidiness and manners and you being in your forties and single and all, that you were gay.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. First, my age, marital status, possession of basic manners, and preference for an uncluttered and clean home seemed terrible predictors for my sexual preference. But then I realized that she didn’t care one way or the other—I’d just surprised her.
I left Mrs. Feldhaus to her odd assumptions, but then realized if she felt comfortable enough to comment on my dating life, perhaps she’d offer me a word of sartorial advice.
Since all of my fashion guidance came from an online blog I’d recently found and begun to follow and a furry housemate who wore no clothes at all, I decided to plum this possible new resource.
I pulled blue and green dress shirts from the closet, both clean but wrinkled. “Which do you think?”
“Oh, I couldn’t say.” She looked from the blue to the green and back at me. Then she took the blue shirt from my hand. “I’ll just iron this one first.”
All right, then. Blue it was.
She paused in the doorway. “Where is that gorgeous cat of yours, Mr. Todd?”
That “gorgeous” cat had almost revealed his not-entirely-cat status to Mrs. Feldhaus over her last few visits.
Living with a possessed bobcat could be challenging. Being responsible for his actions was exasperating.
The last complication either Clarence or I needed was for a nonmagical person to see or hear him doing something that identified him as anything other than a cat.
And I also really liked Mrs. Feldhaus. Everything she ironed smelled like fresh linens and a mother’s love. I didn’t want to have to let her go just because Clarence was the least discreet magical creature on the block. A block that included a witch, a demon, a necromantic mage, and a retired soul collector.
Hence my decision to boot Clarence out of the house today and for the next few of her visits.
In a week or two, hopefully she’d forget anything she might have seen or heard. Specifically, Clarence intently watching My Fair Lady on the TV in the “guest” room. (Cats watched TV screens, but not like that.) And on another occasion, someone (Clarence) singing along, with great conviction, to the lyrics of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.”
I’d claimed ownership of that terrible singing voice, and she’d merely raised her eyebrows and continued dusting. In retrospect, perhaps it had been that incident which had firmed up certain false perceptions she’d had of me.
“Clarence is visiting Sylvie. She has the day off today and likes the company.” All true.
Sylvie adored Clarence, despite his bizarre quirks.
And she did have most of the day off—to research and practice magic.
She’d been working fewer hours as a stylist, relying instead on the income from renting out chairs in the salon she owned. She’d also started a bookkeeping business specializing in service industries like salons, because the hours were more flexible, giving her more time to study her recently inherited magic.
“I’m sorry to miss him. He’s a beauty. Loves to be petted, too, which so many don’t. Such a nice cat.”
I nodded, adopting a neutral expression. I could hardly reveal the truth: that Clarence wasn’t a cat at all, but a wild animal. A bobcat possessed by a foul-mouthed ghost with a predilection for naked women, illegal computer use, and foods that gave him terrible gas.
Though there had been one significant improvement in his semi-feral behavior since Sylvie had introduced Clarence to musicals: all suspicious (likely adult movie) charges on my credit and debit cards had stopped. I was hopeful he’d turned a corner.
Clarence had also been making an effort with his language since Sylvie and I started dating.
Mrs. Feldhaus had already turned to leave when I said, “You know, you’re right. I really don’t give him enough credit. He is a very nice cat.”
She gave me a funny look, then went about the business of ironing my blue shirt and finishing the few tasks remaining on her list for the day. I discovered later that she’d even set out a nice pair of dark wash jeans, a blazer, a pair of shoes, and a belt for me to wear on my date later that evening. Mrs. Feldhaus must like Sylvie.
I went back to my study, settled in front of the laptop computer Clarence had helped me purchase, and resumed the How to Navigate Social Media course I was taking through the public library. Thank goodness for my local librarian Avery. I might have mistaken her for a student volunteer when I first met her, but she had turned out to be an eager, knowledgeable resource.
She’d registered me for a basic computer skills class that met twice weekly at the library, and after that pointed me to several online classes that I felt equipped to attempt after finishing that first hands-on introductory course.
Soon, I wouldn’t even have to rely on Clarence or Sylvie for computer research.
Or perhaps that was overly optimistic.
This little blue bird that tweeted short, incomprehensible messages was more confusing than the word-processing program I’d learned with the last course.
The next thing I knew, my back was stiff from inactivity, and Mrs. Feldhaus was knocking softly on the open door of my office. She always popped by to let me know she’d finished up and was letting herself out.
“Before I go…”
Thank heavens. She was saving me from the tweeting blue bird. I removed my readers, encroaching far-sightedness being one of the many changes I’d had to deal with in my newly reacquired human state, and waited.
“It’s about the big house down the street.”
“The McMansion?” A term I’d recently learned locals applied to the homes that popped up in place of older, smaller houses. They tended to push the boundary of what a lot could reasonably accommodate and usually didn’t mesh with the aesthetic of the surrounding houses.
Her lips thinned in what looked like disapproval, but her eyes crinkled with humor. “I wouldn’t call it that. But, yes, that one. Do you know the family who lives there?”
It seemed sharing a few personal details related to my dating life had opened up a line of communication between Mrs. Feldhaus and me that hadn’t existed before.
I considered what I knew of the family…other than the fact they were not part of the recent migration of magical beings who’d made this small neighborhood, specifically this street, into a paranormal hot spot.
“The Jensons? They moved in about a month ago. The husband works in IT, and the wife is some kind of attorney, I think.”
“Janson, and the wife works as an attorney for the state. I’ve got an opening for two mornings a week coming up—Mrs. Hernandez is moving into a fancy senior living place—and the Jansons are looking for someone to manage the shopping, tidy, and do laundry. I was just wondering if you knew any reason I shouldn’t take a job with them.”
I assumed a bland expression that was in direct opposition to the fervent “Yes!” that echoed in my head.
I knew of one reason. One temperamental, intermittently aggressive, but recently missing reason: Ginny.
Genevieve Weber, murdered in the house that had stood on that lot in 1978.
A soul I’d collected and delivered—though my memory of that collection was problematically hazy—who’d then returned to this plane as a powerful ghostly presence.
Ginny had rather strong feelings for me—good and bad—and was anchored to what was now the Jansons’ home. Or at least, I thought she still was. No one had seen her for months.
Bland expression aside, my silence was revealing too much, because Mrs. Feldhaus frowned and asked, “What do you know?”
Nothing I could share.
“Very little about the Jansons. You know I’m not very sociable, but they’ve always greeted Clarence and me on our walks.” Deciding it was better to delay than to let Mrs. Feldhaus start a problematic job, I said, “I can ask Tamara and Hector if they know anything about the family. Give me a day, and I’ll get back to you.”
She murmured her agreement and thanked me for my trouble.
As soon as she was gone, I called an emergency planning meeting, and my plans for a romantic evening with Sylvie evaporated.
Ginny was a problem that had been allowed to linger for far too long. Assuming she was still lingering. I believed she was. Given her personality and past actions, I suspected a lengthy sulk and not her permanent relocation to another plane of existence.
She’d also shown no signs of fading and several signs of being an unusually powerful ghost.
And she had a compelling reason to stay on this plane. The likeliest reason for her lingering presence on earth hadn’t been resolved: her murder.
The one I’d intended to investigate…and then hadn’t when she’d conveniently disappeared.
Ginny was unpredictable, emotional, and, according to Clarence, in love with me. She was never convenient. That alone should have tipped me off to a problem.
It seemed the universe was displeased I’d placed her investigation on the back burner, because resolving Ginny’s murder and moving her onto the next stage of her life was almost certainly going to become a necessity once she realized my lovely housekeeper was visiting her home twice weekly.
I sighed.
Maybe I could just convince Mrs. Feldhaus not to take the job. That would be a heck of a lot easier than dealing with Ginny and her mysterious past.
Chapter Two
The emergency meeting I’d called included Tamara, Sylvie, Clarence, and Lilac.
Tamara was our friendly neighborhood witch and the most knowledgeable of us. Sylvie was both my girlfriend and a necromantic mage recently imbued with all the power of her family line. Clarence wouldn’t miss this meeting for brats and beer, and he had a strong affinity for both. And Lilac, the only one in our group who didn’t live on our street, was a medium consultant who’d become a trusted friend over the last few months and had recently acquired a knack for psychometry.
They’d all congregated around my kitchen table a mere twenty minutes after I’d sent out “Ginny alert.”
Hector was the only one absent. He was out doing whatever curators of cursed objects do and wasn’t expected back for another week, per Tamara. Also according to Tamara, his house was on lockdown for the safety of the cursed objects he protected.
They had an odd relationship, but on matters of magic, each seemed to trust the other.
Hopefully we wouldn’t need one of his cursed gadgets. However much he trusted Tamara, I didn’t see him giving anyone unsupervised access to his well-guarded magical treasures.
I laid out my concerns for the group as I served coffee to the human crowd and nibbles to Clarence.
“Just tell Mrs. Feldhaus the Jansons are evil serial killers waiting to hack up their next victim.” Clarence eyed me from atop the cushion on his favorite kitchen chair. “Or hint at it. That would work even better, I bet. Something creepy is happening in the McMansion house.” Then he made a ghostly woo-woo sound.
I felt a little guilty for kicking him out today now that I knew he’d been sneaking pets from Mrs. Feldhaus. He loved pets, and I wasn’t the sort to pet wildcats who were possessed by lecherous old men—or teenage boys. (The second guess was Sylvie’s.)
Hence the diced chicken he was delicately picking at. It was part apology but also an attempt to mitigate the noxious gastric effects of the unhealthy food I was sure he’d mooched off Sylvie.
Ignoring Clarence’s ridiculous suggestion—I wasn’t lying to Mrs. Feldhaus about the Jansons, or worse, telling her the truth about supernatural and paranormal shenanigans on our street—I asked Sylvie, Lilac, and Tamara, “Any thoughts on reasonable excuses I can give Mrs. Feldhaus not to take the job?”
“Are we sure Ginny’s even haunting the place?” Clarence asked right before placing his massive fluffy paws on the edge of the table and licking his plate clean.
