Skeleton Key (9 page)

Clay and Tanner started laughing again. “Tanner hypnotized Jake ’cause he was hangin’ out too much in their room. Every time he’s there in the room and hears his name, he believes the smell’s so bad that he leaves.”

“
Or he pukes and then leaves. That’s priceless!” Tanner was laughing again, and so was Erika.

Clay was intrigued by the mystery, however, so he was right back to business while the other two were enjoying their laugh. He was studying the picture. It was simply a family picture of Erika, Adrian, and Logan Payne outside the Depot with an old orange-colored train caboose
in the background. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He removed it from the wall and looked at the back of the picture, feeling it to see if possibly there was something hidden on the back. There was nothing unusual that he could see. “Erika, do you mind if I take the picture out of the frame? Maybe there’s something inside.”

She gave the okay, so he took a couple of minutes to remove the picture and check everything thoroughly, still discovering nothing unusual. He flipped the picture over again and studied the photo. He began to feel a coolness in the room, like the temperature had just rapidly dropped a few degrees. Clay looked up to see if someone had opened a window, but Erika and Tanner were standing and talking about some wooden carvings that were on Erika’s desk.

“
Yeah, Logan is really talented. I’m planning on getting him some real wood carving knives for Christmas. He did this with his
jackknife.
”

“
Wow,” Tanner said. “Look at this, Dad. He carved a train, some train tracks, and look at this horse. This one is
really
good.”

As Clay started to look away from the picture, he heard,
“I’m looking a dead horse in the mouth.”
It was a kind of whispery male voice. He looked around, expecting to see someone else in the room.

“
Did you hear that?” he asked.

Erika shot him a curious look, but Tanner quickly said, “I didn’t hear anything. What did you hear?”

Clay clipped the picture back into the frame and leaned it against the desk before he said, “I heard a voice say, ‘I’m looking a dead horse in the mouth.’”

Immediately, Clay heard,
“I’m straight from the horses’ mouths.”
He turned around again, assuming there was someone else in the room. “I’m straight from the horses’ mouths?” he said in wonderment. The room seemed to drop a few more degrees.

“
I could be beating a dead horse…”

Clay repeated what he had just heard to the others.

“
Some sort of extra-sensory perception, Dad?”

“
I don’t know…It seems different. And who would be talking to me? And what do horses have to do with anything? And why is the room so cold?”

It didn’t seem cold to Erika and Tanner. Erika didn’t understand Clay and Tanner’s gifts, but she was certainly curious about what was going on. Tanner set the horse carving back on Erika’s desk, so Erika reached to replace the train and tracks. As she did so, she noticed that the picture of her and Logan was lying face down on her desk. She gasped. Carefully, she set the frame back up correctly, then looked at Clay and walked straight to the wall where the family picture usually hung. There on the floor beside the wall was the picture that Clay had been studying. It was also lying face down.

When Clay saw the picture, he said, “How did that get over there? I just leaned it against the desk.”

“
It just
can’t
be!” Erika said as she stared at the picture and the men stared at her. She looked back to her desk, and sure enough, the carvings were missing. She walked over to the wastebasket, reached in, and pulled them out. Erika said, “A ghost did it.”

“
A ghost?” Tanner repeated. “This is
so
cool! Dad, can you hear ghosts?”

***

Dan Duncan pulled into his garage, unlocked the back door, and headed for the kitchen for a late lunch. He looked out his back kitchen window as he was pouring himself a glass of V8 juice. What he saw was a squirrel squatting on one of his birdfeeders, eating the birdseed. He slammed his drinking hand down on the counter in anger, chipping his glass and splattering the red juice all over his police uniform. He yelled a couple of choice swear words toward the squirrel. Dan was a firm believer that the smartest, most talented and athletic squirrel on earth occupied his backyard. No matter what he did to try to discourage the squirrel, it somehow managed to continue to antagonize the police officer.

Since fall had made its way to Michigan and many species of birds had migrated South, Dan filled his feeders in hopes of attracting black-capped chickadees, blue jays, dark-eyed juncos, white-breasted nuthatches, and northern cardinals. He loved watching birds, especially in the winter mornings when Michigan’s depressing gray skies and frosty temperatures threatened depths of discouragement. He’d had some luck attracting his chosen species, but he’d also attracted a squirrel that was determined to drive the bird-watcher crazy. After the six weeks of late October and the month of November, Dan was considering using his police revolver to put the pest into eternal hibernation.

Dan had mounted new feeders on six-foot poles. His super-squirrel made the leap with ease. He raised the height of the feeder. The squirrel climbed the pole just as easily. He spread the poles with black auto grease. The squirrel tracked it all over his deck as if to mock the foolish man. He tried plastic baffles, but the vermin would adjust the positioning and climb over them anyway. When he went to metal baffles, the squirrel began jumping from a nearby tree. He cut off branches and the squirrel began climbing his house, leaving scratch marks all over his woodwork prior to each flying leap. He moved the poles and the squirrel jumped from a nearby fence. He tried safflower seeds because squirrels weren’t supposed to like them, but his squirrel ate them like dessert.

He had put up the feeders so he could bird watch and relieve stress. Instead he was feeling more stressed than ever. Before he went to change his uniform, he slid open the window and yelled, “Get out of my feeder, you stupid squirrel!”

“
Tchrring…tchrring,” it seemed to call back while flicking its tail as if to say, “Get away.”

Dan Duncan unholstered his Glock 22 police issued handgun and leveled it at his intruder. With 15 rounds in the magazine, he was sure he could end its irritating life, but he’d also blow several holes in his neighbor’s vinyl siding. So he slid it back in the holster, put on a new uniform, and made himself a sandwich for lunch. He needed to pump some iron—maybe spend a little time at the soup kitchen. He found that it was getting harder and harder to live with himself.

***

Each new power that Clay possessed seemed to surprise him less. He wondered, “Is hearing a ghost a parapsychological power?”

“
Maybe you’re a ghost whisperer, Dad. Jennifer Love Hewitt’s a ghost whisperer.” Tanner was smiling again.

“
She’s an
actress
and that’s a TV show. Get serious for a minute. Erika, you’re telling me that there’s a ghost in your office?”

“
People have believed for as long as I’ve been in Durand that the Depot is haunted. Roberto’s wife, Stacy, has claimed for years that she saw a ghost more than once while she was working here. It was a woman in a wedding dress. She saw her running from the women’s restroom on the first floor, and she saw her sprinting into the attic down the hall when she was pulling out Christmas decorations. There’re other stories of circus performers who roam the halls at night performing various circus activities, but no one around here has ever seen or heard anything to verify those stories.”

“
Are any of the circus performers supposed to be midgets?” Tanner quipped.

“
You’re not serious too often, are you?” Erika replied with a smile.

“
I am when I play sports, but other than that, usually only when my stuffy dad’s around.”

Clay rolled his eyes and smiled. “So why would circus performers be roaming the halls?”

“
Well, in 1903, the Wallace Brothers Circus was traveling by two trains through Durand and while stopped at the Depot, the first train was rear-ended by the second train. More than twenty circus performers were killed and twice that many were injured. Ten of the bodies were laid to rest in Lovejoy Cemetery, just a couple of miles south of town. Two or three of the bodies were never even identified. Believe it or not, Comedian Red Skelton’s father was a clown in that circus and is buried in the cemetery. An elephant, some camels, and a dog were buried along the tracks…People in Durand occasionally claim to hear the trumpeting of that elephant.”

“
That would be a horse of a different color,
” Clay heard in his head, but he ignored the voice temporarily.

There was a pause as the two men took in Erika’s tale. “Clay, exactly one hundred years later—to the day—the train my husband was on crashed into a semi-trailer carrying horses. Only the conductor was killed, but Adrian has been missing ever since. The horses were also buried along the tracks as a kind of symbolic gesture in remembrance of the circus disaster.”

“
Since the wreck, there have been supposed sightings of the ghosts of harness-racing horses pulling their carts,” Erika added.

“
So you think a ghost is playing with your office decorations?” Clay asked sincerely.

“
Actually, before today, there have been over a dozen breakins here in the Depot over the last six years or so. Each time there is no evidence of a burglary. Things are simply moved. Marshall’s office furniture is always rearranged like Adrian used to keep it, drawers are opened and papers scattered, and a shovel is always found on his desk. M
y
office always has pictures turned over and any personal items I have of Logan’s are thrown away—just like you witnessed just now…but I don’t think it’s one of the circus performers….”

“
It’s your
husband
!” Tanner interjected.

“
Good horse sense, that one
,” Clay heard.

“
I don’t know, but
maybe
,” Erika replied. “Most of the time since the accident, I figured he was alive and had chosen to disappear. But as we’ve had more and more breakins, I’m starting to think more and more that it could be him. Everyone but Marshall has entertained the idea that it’s a ghost. Even Chief Hopper thinks it’s a ghost. If we’re all willing to believe it’s a ghost, it has to be
someone’s
spirit…and the breakins kind of have
his
signature.”

“
Well, if your husband is dead, why has his body never turned up? And if he’s the ghost, why does he keep talking about horses? He said ‘that would be a horse of a different color’ when you mentioned the elephant, and he said that Tanner has ‘good horse sense’ when he brought up your husband. And why does he put a
shovel
on your boss’s desk?”

“
Don’t put the cart before the horses
.”

Clay’s brain was whirring. “He said, ‘don’t put the cart before the horses.’ Most of the sayings he’s been using aren’t accurate. They’re close, but not accurate. Do you think it’s some sort of message? If it
is
your husband, what does his disappearance or death have to do with horses?”

Tanner was texting again when he said, “The train killed four horses in the wreck, Dad. Remember the horses were buried near the tracks?”

“
The shovel!” Clay and Erika said simultaneously. “Could he be buried with the horses?” Clay asked. He picked up the picture and literally asked it a question. “Well? Is your body buried with the horses?”

“
I’m looking a dead horse in the mouth.
”

Clay gave a frustrated look at Erika and repeated the ghost’s answer. “Why can’t he just answer the question?”

“
Because that would be too easy.
”

Erika shrugged. “Obviously, even as a
dead
person he’s not very likable.”

“
Not a very nice thing to say to the only person who has any answers
.”

Then she said, “We need to talk to Luke Hopper, our police chief, about this.”

Robbie Gomez walked into the house and was attacked by his three little girls.

“
Daddy!”

“
Daddy’s here!”

“
Hi, Daddy!”

“
Hola, Girls!” He got down on his knees and hugged his precious daughters. Stacey was in the kitchen. She was preparing the Thursday meal for the Paynes, an apricot chicken casserole. Stacy loved to cook and her entire family looked forward to delivering the new meal each week.