Page 22 of Dead to Rites

The response was almost perfunctory, as if that was the sort of thing he knew he needed to say in these situations but didn’t want to waste too much time on, since it didn’t have any direct bearing on the current investigation.

“Thank you,” I said, the words automatic. I’d heard so many variations on I’m sorry for your loss over the past year that the words had begun to lose all meaning. “Anyway,” I went on, “Hazel changed her will after the plane crash so I’d get the house and the business. I think there were some small, strictly monetary bequests to some of my cousins, but I don’t know for sure.”

I’d kept my voice neutral during this questioning, even as a small knot was beginning to form in my stomach. Detective Ruiz wasn’t accusing me of anything, but he was still inquiring about things that maybe looked a little stinky if you got close enough. A rich aunt whose death no one questioned because of her age leaving everything to a great-niece that no one in town knew. A man who’d wanted to talk to me regarding her but hadn’t said about what…a man who turned up dead in the bar that was now mine, now dead in a bathroom that apparently no one had gone into or out of.

Before I could chew on that for much longer, though, Ruiz returned his notepad to his jacket pocket. “Thank you for your help, Ms. Cosgrove,” he told me. “If I have any other questions, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, try not to leave town while the investigation is still active.”

“Where would I go?” I asked, and gave him a limp smile. “I’ve got a business to run.”

“True enough,” he said briskly.

That seemed to be all, because he stepped away, going to confer with the other detective, a tall, sandy-haired man in his late thirties or maybe early forties. It looked like his interview with Marco hadn’t lasted as long as mine, because Marco had already emerged from the hallway where he’d been questioned and was now standing off to one side, looking nervous.

“We’ll need to sweep the bar now,” Detective Ruiz said. “You two can wait outside. This shouldn’t take too long.”

Both Marco and I nodded and went out to wait in the alley. The night air was cold, much colder than I was used to, biting through the thin cashmere sweater I wore over my dress as if it wasn’t even there. I had the idle thought that I’d need to get a real winter coat out of Hazel’s closet or go buy one very soon.

Better to think about that than the sight of Father Frank lying on the bathroom floor, the blood pooling beneath his head only a shade or so lighter than the slate underneath.

“What do you think happened?” Marco asked. He also looked chilled, but for an entirely different reason. “I mean, you and I were in the bar the whole time. No one went into the bathroom except Father Frank. We would have seen them.”

I knew that. It was an uncomfortable reality that had been waiting in the back of my brain for the past few hours, ever since we’d made our grim discovery.

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what the police find,” I replied.

Even as I spoke, however, I realized that the police might never get to the bottom of this.

But maybe I could.

The thought floated up in my brain, strange and unfamiliar and almost exciting at the same time.

After all, I could talk to ghosts. It looked as if Father Frank’s spirit had decided to stick around Copper State Cellars, at least for now, so I should be able to get some useful insights from him. Hazel had already told me that ghosts couldn’t remember the exact circumstances of their deaths, but if Frank could remember something from the minutes before that….

He’d said he wanted to talk to me about Hazel. Had he known her spirit remained on this plane? Or was it something else entirely, something completely innocuous?

I didn’t know, and I couldn’t get back inside until the police were done gathering evidence. But tomorrow I could talk to Father Frank and see what he had to say. And I couldn’t discount Mack Donovan, either, since he was always around and might have seen something. Yes, ghosts weren’t always reliable, but right now, they seemed to be the only real resource I had.

A couple of EMTs wheeled out a gurney covered in a sheet, and I swallowed. Father Frank going to the medical examiner’s, I guessed. Carefully, almost with reverence, the two EMTs lifted the gurney into the waiting ambulance. Then the doors closed, and it pulled away, lights on but no sirens blaring.

What would be the point? The man inside was already dead.

Marco put a gentle hand on my arm. “You okay?”

An impossible question to answer. But I nodded and lied, “I’m all right. I think I just want to go home.”

“You need a ride?”

That would have been the smart thing to do. I knew I should get in Marco’s truck and have him drive me the few blocks to the big Victorian house on Park Avenue. By that point, it was past one in the morning and probably less than fifty degrees outside.

For some reason, though, I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. I don’t have far to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Assuming, of course, that we were able to open the bar the next day. But I supposed if that had been a possibility, Detective Ruiz would have told me.

Well, if I showed up the next morning and the whole place was still wrapped in police tape, then I’d just roll with it. One day of lost business wasn’t going to make much of a difference, and I’d make sure Marco and Mason, who usually worked Friday nights, both still got paid.

I pulled my flimsy cardigan tighter around myself and began to head home. Maybe there was something in Hazel’s journal that could help me with this, and of course, there was Hazel herself. She couldn’t come to the bar to look around, obviously, but she’d known Father Frank well. She might have some insights to offer.

In the morning, though. All I really wanted right then was to go home and go to bed, to have Chauncey curl up at my feet…and to forget for a few hours that my new hometown appeared to be harboring a stone-cold killer.