Page 3 of A Midsummer Night’s Ghost (Murder By Design #8)

THREE

In my experience, ghosts have one of two reactions when they’re new to the game.

They’re either super casual, to the point that you grow concerned they don’t know they’re dead (I’m looking at you, Ryan Conroy) or they freak out. Big time. Not, say, slightly agitated or mildly distressed. Not even anxious with a side of raised voice.

Nope. They freak the you-know-what out.

James Kwaitkowski was the latter.

Around sixty years old, he was standing in the hallway, wearing a blue janitor’s uniform and waving his arms wildly. His eyes were filled with terror and panic.

Ryan stopped walking and glanced back behind him. “Who’s he calling a demon? You? That’s ridiculous. That’s like calling a bunny a polar bear.”

I didn’t follow his logic exactly, but I knew what he meant. I was not in any way threatening, even on a bad day.

“You!” James Kwaitkowski hissed, pointing directly at Ryan. “The demon in flannel.”

“Oh, he means me. Wait, you can see me?” he asked James.

Generally speaking, the ghosts I encounter can’t see each other. Living humans can’t see any of them. But there don’t seem to be hard and fast rules. Some ghosts have seen Ryan and vice versa. It gets very confusing.

“I see your evil heart beating inside you and your yellow eyes.”

Okay. That was new. Was it possible James was somehow seeing Ryan the way his fear projected an image onto him? Or was Ryan really a yellow-eyed demon?

Now there was a twist I wouldn’t have seen coming.

I took one step away from Ryan, very discreetly.

Not discreetly enough.

“Seriously?” he demanded of me. “You actually think I’m a demon? You believe the babbling dead guy over your oldest friend?”

“Alyssa is actually my oldest friend.”

“You know what I mean,” he snapped. “I’m not evil and I would never hurt you. Morally gray at certain points in my life? Yes, that’s probably fair. But evil?” He made a huffing sound of impatience. “That’s just insulting.”

I instantly felt guilty, because everything made me feel guilty. “I’m sorry. It just caught me off guard.”

“Who are you?” James Kwaitkowski demanded, still staring down Ryan.

“I’m Ryan. I guess you’re new to the program. You’re James Kwaitkowski, right? Nice to meet you.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I got the intel from upstairs. I got a notification that you died about an hour ago.”

“Are you going to drag me to hell?” James jumped back and threw his hands up like he was going to box his way out of being taken into a fiery afterlife.

“Nope. Not my department. I’m here to make sure your homicide is solved and to act sort of like an onboarding consultant.”

James frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Say you get hired for a new job. I’m the guy that trains you, shows you the ropes, how to fudge your time card, and how to do as little as possible and still get paid.”

“Really?” I shook my head at Ryan.

“Told you. Morally gray. Hey, I had a twenty percent solve rate on my violent crimes caseload. That’s seven percent higher than the average. The homicides themselves I took seriously because no one deserves to be murdered. But continuing ed classes? Screw those. I learned everything I needed to know to do my job out on the streets and from the older detectives.”

I was listening to him but I was also doing math in my head. “Only thirteen percent of homicides are solved? That’s really…low.”

Appallingly low.

Gave-me-a pit-in-my-stomach-low.

It reminded me of a conversation Jake and I had a few weeks back. He had suggested I come into the department and advise on some cold cases. As a psychic. I had tried to explain that it didn’t work that way. I couldn’t just conjure up ghosts, they appeared at will.

But now I was having a change of heart. I could at least try. Because that solve rate was pure crap.

“No, violent crimes. Murder is more like fifty percent. Well, that’s the arrest rate,” Ryan said cheerfully. “Conviction rate is lower.”

“Who are you talking to?” James asked, head wiping back and forth rapidly. “Is there another demon here I can’t see?”

That was intriguing.

“You can’t see me?” I asked him.

He never even looked my way.

“Answer me, demon!”

“Okay, listen, I told you my name is Ryan. If you keep calling me demon this conversation is going to be over and you’ll be on your own navigating your entrance to the big house.”

“Prison?” James calmed down slightly. “I’m not going back there.”

So James had a checkered past. Also interesting.

“No, you know, upstairs.” Ryan pointed toward the ceiling. “To the great beyond. Right now you’re stuck hanging around until your murder is solved.”

“I was murdered?”

I sighed. “The EMTs think you had a heart attack.”

“What do you remember?” Ryan asked when James ignored me yet again.

James really didn’t see me. Huh. That was a first. Most of the time the spirits couldn’t see Ryan, but they were all up in my business, demanding attention. I liked this way better.

Then immediately I felt guilty for that thought.

I also realized that meant I would have to give control of the situation over to Ryan, who was unreliable at best. I am nothing if not a control freak.

“I haven’t been feeling well the past few days. Sick to my stomach, clammy, that sort of thing. Came to work anyway because I have to pay the same child support whether I take a day off or not and I didn’t want to lose out. Got here at four, went to get my cart from the closet and then…nothing.”

That honestly sounded like a heart attack to me. Not feeling well with vague symptoms that could easily be ignored, then cardiac arrest and instant death.

The gold standard of least terrible ways to die.

Then I realized what he’d said. Child support. This man had a son or daughter under eighteen who had just lost their father.

“Ask him about his family,” I urged Ryan.

He nodded, but then he said, “Go outside and talk to the coroner and see what you can find out if they’re still here.”

“Great idea.”

“Yeah, it’s almost like I’m a detective or something.” Ryan gave me a grin.

“Fair enough.” I left him to interrogate James Kwaitkowski and went out into the parking lot.

The van was still there. The driver seemed to be taking a nap behind the wheel. When I tapped on the window he jumped and rolled the window down. The frown on his face indicated he wasn’t thrilled I’d interrupted him.

“What’s going on here?” I asked him.

“I can’t disclose that information.” He started to roll his window back up.

“My uncle is the janitor here,” I lied. “I can’t find him. Is the person who died?”

I tried to look suitably panicked, which I was probably successful at, given how much lying makes me nervous. It makes me fidgety and jittery.

“What’s your uncle’s name?”

“James Kwaitkowski. Thin, gray hair, in his early sixties.”

His expression softened just a tad. “Yes, it was him. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” I tried to look shocked.

“I can’t speculate on that.”

“What happens now?” It just occurred to me that he was napping with a dead body in the back of his van. I guess when you’re surrounded by bodies all the time at your day job, it’s of little consequence.

I always see in movies and TV where coroner’s and medical examiner’s are eating lunch two feet away from bodies. The image popped into my head and I felt instantly queasy. I clapped a hand over my mouth.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. I’d been hauling boxes all day and barely eaten. I felt myself sway a little on my feet.

Sometimes the reality of the ghosts I interact with having actually died hits me hard. James was both in this van and in that hallway talking to Ryan. It’s a weird concept.

The coroner, or whoever this guy was, sat up straight in alarm and rolled his window almost the entire way up, like he didn’t want to get splashed. I can’t say I blame him.

Then again, he didn’t have an issue with dead bodies, so why was a little vomit alarming to him?

Swallowing hard, I took a deep breath. “Why aren’t the cops here? Don’t they have to investigate all deaths that don’t take place at the hospital?”

I don’t know why I thought that—probably also from TV. But this was a suburb. I figured they had time on their hands to show up whenever anything happened.

He looked at me like I was nuts. “I’m sorry for your loss. You can contact our office to request an autopsy and claim his personal belongings.”

Well, that was that. “Thank you.”

I turned to go.

“Hey.”

I looked back at him.

“Have we met?” he asked, studying me curiously.

It was entirely possible, given my mother’s career involved lots of fundraisers and parties and election work, and she had forced my sister and I to go to them with her when we were younger. It made the she-bitch prosecutor look relatable to have daughters. Her words, not mine.

“No,” I said, because my mother would not be happy if she knew I was going around claiming to be related to dead people. Jake wouldn’t be thrilled either.

Time to disappear. I waved in thanks and hot-tailed it back inside the building.

Ryan was sitting on a console table that held flyers for events going on around time.

James Kwaitkowski was nowhere to be found.

There were a few people coming in and out of the auditorium so I put my phone up to my ear to pretend like I was using it while I talked to Ryan.

“I got nothing from the guy out there. He said to call to request an autopsy.”

Ryan nodded. He looked a little troubled. “Something weird is going on here.”

What else was new?

“Where is James, by the way?”

“He poofed. That’s what I’m saying. This is weird. Why can’t he see people but another dead guy? I got a text from HR that says James is a Class A spirit, but I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“Class A? I swear you’re just making this stuff up. Every time I turn around there’s a new level or rule or new classes you have to attend. The afterlife is about as efficient as the government.”

“Tell me about it. I’m stuck working out of a basement office.”

I wasn’t even sure if he meant that literally or not. “What now?”

“I don’t know.” Ryan rubbed his chin. “Maybe talk to his wife.”

Because that sounded easy. “Just stroll up to his wife and start asking her questions about her husband’s death? I don’t know. Let me think about this. Right now I have some errands to run.”

“Like what? What’s more important than this?”

“I need to get Jake something to eat. I’m going to run across the street and get him a sub sandwich that he can eat when he finally stops pushing himself beyond what any normal human should do in one day.”

Ryan laughed. “He’s not a superhero, Bai. It’s just a few boxes and he knows his limits.”

“He really doesn’t,” I insisted. “He’ll be on the verge of passing out and I’ll ask him when the last time was that he drank water and the answer is always, “Oh, I bet that’s it,” and he drinks a glass of water and instantly feels better.”

“Good thing he has you to feed and water him.”

But Ryan’s tone didn’t sound like he thought that was a good thing at all. “What?”

He was instantly defensive. “What do you mean what? Nothing.”

“You have a tone.”

“You mean the tone that I think it’s ridiculous that you mother him?”

I gasped. “ Mother him? I do not! This is what you do in a relationship. You look out for each other. It’s a nice gesture to get him dinner, not some overbearing control issues.”

I was genuinely offended.

Ryan rolled his eyes.

“Do you have a problem with me and Jake being together?” I asked, astonished.

Ryan always made jokes about it, but I assumed that was just his sense of humor. He joked about everything, even his own death.

“I have a lot of problems but your dumb relationship isn’t one of them.”

My jaw dropped. “ Dumb ? What is your problem?

“Just drop it. Go get your little sandwich and I’ll talk to you later.”

“Fine. Bye,” I muttered into my phone and then dropped it by my side.

Turning on my heel, I walked right out of the senior center and stormed across the street to the sub shop. My hands were shaking and I wasn’t even sure why. Ryan had a history of being insensitive. Maybe he was struggling to cope with being stuck a ghost. I could understand that.

But I had always been there for him and taking pot shots at my relationship wasn’t cool.

For some reason my irritation with Ryan caused me to order two sandwiches for Jake, not just one. Roast beef and an Italian club, just in case one sounded better than the other to him.

Take that, Ryan.

I had the satisfaction of watching Jake eat both at midnight, leaning over our burnt orange vinyl countertop in our now burgeoning and dated ranch house.

No ghosts anywhere in sight.