The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing Read online

  “That’s the old Duesenberg in the background,” Dale said.

  Red Baker swiped the side of his face. “Lacy’s daddy must have taken this photo. He stuck that car in every photo he took. Loved it like a baby.” He handed the photo back. “How much longer you going to be?” he asked, staring at me. “Harm’s got things to do.”

  “They just got here,” Harm said. “We’re doing homework. Which reminds me, I was hoping I could interview you about our family history. For school. It’s half my history grade. It would mean a lot to me.”

  Mr. Red plucked his keys from the table. “My history’s none of your business.”

  “Well . . . it’s my history too,” Harm said. “There’s the evidence right there,” he said, pointing to the photo and smiling. Mr. Red glared, and Harm’s smile slipped.

  “Don’t fritter away the day,” Mr. Red said, and stomped out the door.

  “That went well,” Harm muttered as the door slapped shut.

  I slipped the photos into my pack and squinted at the lamp. “That lamp hasn’t got an electric cord,” I said, and looked around the room. “Nothing does. Is it all battery?”

  “The house runs on methane,” he said. “Red ran a gas line from the pig house.”

  Dale sat forward. “Pig house? That’s a famous moonshiner’s trick—putting your still in a pig house so nobody smells it. Have you looked in there?”

  Harm nodded, and pushed his hair from his eyes. “It’s state-of-the-art, I’ll say that for him. He treats the waste so it doesn’t stink. But no still. I can show you.”

  An invitation to a pig parlor? My life has come to this?

  “Another time maybe,” I replied as Mr. Red slammed his truck door. I looked out the window. “How long before he comes back?”

  Harm shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  I looked at Dale. “We should come back when Mr. Red’s not in and out.”

  “But we haven’t seen Harm’s room yet,” Dale said. He lowered his voice. “You’re supposed to show first-time visitors around,” he told Harm. “It’s a social skill.”

  Harm shot me a shifty look. “It’s not exactly girl-ready.”

  “That’s not a girl,” Dale said. “That’s Mo.”

  It grated, but a good detective can use anything for cover, even an annoyance of this magnitude. I drew myself to full height. “I have no interest in Harm’s armpit of a room,” I said. “But you go ahead, Dale. I’ll wait.”

  Harm unfolded himself from the crippled La-Z-Boy. “Come on, then. Make yourself at home, Mo. Look around if you want to.”

  As Harm’s door closed behind them, Mr. Red cranked his truck and rattled away. I’ll never get a better chance, I thought. I wandered down the hall and pushed open a half-closed door. Mr. Red’s room.

  An uneven curtain hung across the window, the bed gaped half-made. A ladder-back chair faced a desk cluttered with pliers, wire, dirty socks. Gross. As I turned to leave, something in the corner caught my eye: blueprints. I carried them to the desk and unrolled them. The 1938 drawing of the Tupelo Inn.

  But what were those?

  Penciled-in numbers spidered across the blueprint: 14/238, 5/119, 12/142/, 4/84 . . . Some had been crossed out. “Fractions?” I murmured.

  Laughter burst from Harm’s room. I tucked the blueprints under my arm and headed down the hall, stopping to peek in a bathroom half the size of mine with a floor twice as slanty. The bare-pipe sink wore a faded yellow gingham skirt and the tub a rust-colored ring.

  I wandered past Harm’s room to the kitchen, past a sink piled with dishes, onto a screened-in back porch. An ancient washing machine stood at the far end of the porch, a shelf of dirty quart jars stretching above it. “Right,” I heard Dale say, tromping down the hall. “What happened to Mo?”

  I whirled to face them. “What’s going on?” Harm asked.

  “Just making myself at home, like you said.” I spread the old blueprints over the top of the washer. “Any idea what these mean?”

  Harm and Dale crowded close. I pointed out the numbers.

  “Fractions, maybe?” Harm guessed. “But what do fractions have to do with the Tupelo Inn?”

  “And why are some crossed out?” Dale asked, standing on his tiptoes to scan the farthest numbers.

  “I found these by Mr. Red’s bureau,” I said, looking at Harm. “Keep an eye on them if you can. If he marks out more numbers, let us know which ones and when.”

  He nodded. “I’ll put them back for you,” he said.

  I gazed across the backyard, past the sagging wash line, past the shovels and swing blade leaning against the shed. “Nice chickens,” I told him, nodding toward the reds scratching up the yard. “How many you got?”

  “About ten too many,” he said. But he smiled when he said it. And his smile wasn’t half bad.

  Chapter 20

  Ghost Stakeout

  We set our stakeout for the next afternoon—Sunday. Dale and I pedaled down the inn’s drive after church to find Harm rocking on the porch. “Nice truck,” he said, nodding at Lavender’s 1955 GMC pickup.

  The GMC’s a work of art, a mix of swooping lines, smooth blue paint, and salvaged parts. I toed my kickstand down. “Lavender’s down at the pavilion putting in some overtime,” I said. “That means we have complete access to the scene of the . . .”

  Of the what?

  “The encounter,” Dale finished.

  “Right. The scene of the encounter.” I took my camera from my basket as Queen Elizabeth galloped up the steps and flopped down in the shade, her sides rising and falling like bellows. “We’ll set up on the reservation desk,” I said, and opened the door. “Hello? Anybody home?”

  Nothing. I double-checked my camera.

  Harm stepped gingerly through the door. “What’s the plan?” he asked, looking skittish. “Because I’ve been thinking. The other day was probably a fluke. The way the ghost acted, I mean.”

  “Denial,” Dale whispered. “Show him the photos.”

  I spread my photos across the desk. “These are of you. These are Grandmother Miss Lacy.”

  Queen Elizabeth sneezed.

  Dale leaned down to scritch her ears. “Liz is sneezing an awful lot lately,” he said. “I hope she’s not getting a cold.”

  I ignored him. So did Harm.

  “These are ghost photos,” I said, pointing to the speckles of light.

  “Ghost photos?”

  “According to Cousin Gideon, a footnoted source, ghosts show up like orbs of light. The ghost is all over you, every time.”

  Harm gulped.

  “You and Miss Thornton,” Dale said, fanning my photos out. He gave Harm a thoughtful look. “I’m thinking you two are our common denominators. Like in fractions,” he said. “You’re the bridge between us and the ghost.”

  Only Dale could turn ghosts into math.

  Harm studied the black-and-whites, raked them into a stack, and tapped them against the desk. He’s neat, I thought. How can he stand living with Mr. Red? “I still don’t know why a ghost would be interested in me,” he said, handing them back.

  “Maybe we’ll find out,” I said. “Today I’m hoping to get a sharp ghost photo, and learn her name. Then we can start figuring out what happened.”

  Harm jammed his hands in his pockets. “What if she, you know—touches me?”

  “A ghost touch?” Dale said, his eyebrows rising. “Speaking as a professional? I’d scream like a first grader and run for my life.”

  “Sounds good,” he muttered.

  “All right,” I said, looking around the room. “Last time she dropped by . . .”

  “I’d just played a chord on the piano,” Harm said.

  Now that he mentioned it, almost every time she visited, someone had just played the piano. “Exactly,” I said. “We’
ll re-create the scene. If you’re not scared.”

  Harm squared his shoulders. “Me? Nah.”

  “I am,” Dale said. “But I’m more afraid of telling Mama I’m flunking history.” He looked at me. “We could play ‘Heart and Soul’ again.”

  Harm stepped up to the piano. “You want the treble or the bass?”

  “Bass,” Dale said, looking surprised as Harm scooted the bench out of the way. They stood side by side, their backs to me, Harm a head taller than Dale. Dale’s bass chords rolled through the air smooth as sunset and Harm moved easily into the lilting melody. “Heart and soul,” Harm sang in a strong, clear voice.

  Dale chimed in, their voices swirling together like molasses and butter on a hot biscuit. “Mo,” Dale whispered, looking over his shoulder. “The stairs.”

  Queen Elizabeth sneezed.

  I stepped back as an eddy of mist drifted down the steps. The temperature dropped. I picked up my camera. The mist floated toward Harm. Closer, closer, backing Harm across the room until his back touched the wall.

  The mist hovered inches from his face. “Who . . .” he rasped. He closed his eyes. If the ghost got any closer to Harm, he’d inhale her. That couldn’t be good even if it did get us an A. Click.

  “Mo, do something,” Dale whispered.

  What?

  I stepped forward. “How do you do,” I said. “I am Miss Moses LoBeau of Desperado Detective Agency. These are my associates, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III by the piano and Harm Crenshaw, who you got pinned against the wall.”

  Dale bowed. Queen Elizabeth sneezed.

  “We’re pleased to meet you,” I said, and hesitated. Ghost etiquette is an intuitive art. “I don’t believe we caught your name,” I added.

  The mist backed away from Harm. It floated across the room, through a closed window, and across the porch onto the lawn. As we ran to the window, the mist bobbed across the lawn, down the path leading to the springhouse.

  “Follow her,” I said.

  We rushed the door, jumped off the porch, and sprinted across the yard, stopping to catch our breath at the head of the path, Queen Elizabeth at our heels.

  “Where’s she going?” Harm murmured.

  “To the river, maybe, where Lavender is,” Dale said, sounding hopeful. I heard the distant sound of a hammer against wood as I lined up a shot. Click.

  “Maybe,” I said. But I doubted it.

  We trailed her until, near the springhouse, she veered into the forest. “I don’t know,” Dale said, rocking to a stop. “It looks dark in there.”

  Harm peered into the woods. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “Only about twenty percent,” Dale said. “The other half of me is scared stiff.”

  Harm looked at me. “Ghost Girl?”

  I peered into the dense woods, catching a quick glimmer of pink against the forest green. My heart pounded. I stepped off the path and into the woods.

  “Watch that briar, Harm,” Dale said, plowing in behind me.

  We crept into the woods, the tree canopy swallowing the day. I followed the faint glow. Twice, I thought we lost her. Both times she came back, hovering just ahead. Finally she headed up a slight rise. Dead ahead a shaft of light sliced the forest. “What’s that?” Dale whispered.

  A wrought iron fence marked off a small clearing. “I think I know,” I said, remembering the blueprint’s prickle of crosses. We slipped closer and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Sunlight glinted off a crooked gray army of stones. “The old cemetery,” I whispered.

  We crept across damp leaves, their perfume rising round and sweet. “Looks like somebody keeps this place up,” Dale said, stepping gingerly through the gate. He knelt to look at the stubble. “Somebody with a swing blade,” he added, his voice shaking.

  To our right the tree limbs rustled, sending a shower of twigs and leaves to the ground. Queen Elizabeth took off like a rocket, ears back, yelping as she shot across the graveyard and zipped into the woods. “Squirrel,” Dale explained, his voice too high. “Liz!” he called. “Liz. Come here.”

  Her yelps faded into the forest.

  I looked around the graveyard. “Over there,” I said, pointing to a pale white stone towering above the rest. I ran my fingers across its chiseled letters: BLAKE.

  “Here she comes,” Dale whispered. The mist flowed through the gate and wound among the grave markers, settling at last over a small, sad stone. We crept closer.

  “Nellie Blake,” I read. “Beloved daughter and friend. 1927–1938.”

  Click.

  “Hey Nellie,” I said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  Chapter 21

  AhhoooOOOoooo-Gah

  We got the break we needed on Harm’s case at quarter past dark the next Friday night.

  My phone jangled. “Mo LoBeau, Detective on Call,” I said. “Felonies and misdemeanors are our pleasure. How may we assist you?”

  “Red’s getting ready to make his move,” Harm whispered.

  “How long have we got?”

  “An hour, max. He waits until I start my homework, and slips out. Hurry.”

  Harm does homework on Friday night? Weird.

  I hung up and dialed Dale’s number. Busy. I tied my sneakers, found my jacket, and dialed again. Busy. I crammed a flashlight and clue pad in my bag. Still busy.

  I rushed to the café, stuffed a take-out bag with scraps, and headed for Dale’s.

  “Come in, Mo,” Miss Rose called, placing her phone in its cradle. That explained the busy signal. Miss Rose can talk a post deaf when she’s lonely, which Miss Lana says is most of the time now that the idea of Mr. Macon is gone.

  “Hey Miss Rose, you talking to your sister again? I hope her tomatoes are still producing and that you’re not too lonely. Miss Lana says letting go of even a trace of somebody is hard.”

  She laughed. “I wasn’t talking with my sister, the tomatoes are rolling in even this late in the season, I’m not too lonely, and Lana’s right,” she said. “It’s hard. If you’re looking for Dale, he’s in his room.”

  The sound of Dale’s guitar wandered through the house like smoke across still water. I tiptoed to his open door and found him sitting by Sir Isaac Newton’s terrarium, his back to the door. He strummed the “lullaby and good night” Miss Lana sings to me when I dream wrong. But when he started singing, the words came out pure Dale—a terrifying mix of science and love.

  Lullaby little newt,

  You are warty and look cute

  You’re amphib-i-an, I’m not,

  You’re cold-blood-ed, I’m hot.

  Born with gills you now breathe air

  I got thumbs and good hair

  Darwin says that we’re still kin

  Glad I ain’t got your chin.

  Dale laid his guitar down. “Sweet dreams, Newton,” he whispered, and turned out the terrarium light.

  It’s hard to know what to say when your best friend serenades an amphibian. On one hand, Miss Lana likes me to be sensitive. On the other hand, the Colonel says most situations don’t require my input. “Grab your flashlight, Dale,” I said. “Mr. Red’s on the prowl.”

  We blasted past Miss Rose with a promise not to miss Dale’s curfew. A little later we ditched our bikes and crept across Mr. Red’s barnyard. An owl hoo-hooed above us and flapped heavy and awkward as a flying encyclopedia to a nearby tree. “I don’t see why we have to come over here now,” Dale whispered. “Why don’t we wait until Mr. Red checks his still in the daytime?”

  “He’s a moonshiner, not a sunshiner,” I said. “He works nights. Besides, we’re in school in the daytime.”

  “School,” he muttered. “Why don’t they have it when it’s too dark for anything else?”

  We froze as something—or someone—rustled behind us. I held my breath as it rustled closer, nearer . . . Qu
een Elizabeth jammed her nose between us and wedged her way in headfirst. “I told you to stay with Mama,” Dale scolded.

  “Shhhhh,” I said, peering at the house. “You’ll wake Mr. Red’s dogs.” Too late. Three rib-skinny dogs stared through the tall fence. A fourth slunk from a dense thicket in the center of their pen. The pen’s sharp odor rose into the night.

  “Nice dogs,” Dale whispered. “Good dogs. Sit.” They growled.

  I looked at the house. Two figures moved around the kitchen, silhouetted in the lamplight. “They’re finishing supper,” I whispered.

  “Wish I was,” Dale said. He sniffed the air. “What’s in that take-out bag? I’m starving.”

  Dale’s like a newborn. He likes to eat every three hours.

  “Table scraps,” I said.

  Harm left the kitchen and the light came on in his room. The back door swung open. Mr. Red walked to the shed, grabbed a shovel, and reached in his pocket. Keys! “The truck,” I told Dale. “Hurry,” I whispered, flinging the take-out bag over the fence.

  The dogs hurled themselves on the food and we darted to the driveway. “Brilliant,” Dale murmured, grabbing Queen Elizabeth and scrambling into the back of the truck. I rolled across the open tailgate and snagged the corner of a tarp. “Liz!” Dale hissed, grabbing for her as she squirted out of his arms. She shot into the shadows as Red Baker ambled toward us, a shovel over his shoulder.

  “Let her go!” I whispered, shoving Dale under the old tarp and diving in beside him. Mr. Red swung the shovel into the truck bed beside us. He slammed the cab door, and the old truck shuddered to life.

  “Good,” I whispered. “Surveillance is going according to plan.”

  “Stop it,” he said, his voice accusing. “We’re under a smelly old tarp in the back of a truck going who-knows-where with a mean old man and Queen Elizabeth is AWOL. You ain’t got a plan and I know it.”

  Undercover work can make Dale irritable.

  We bounced down a rutted path in silence. The truck swerved, and brambles scraped their sharp green fingers down the sides of the truck. “We should be on the blacktop by now,” Dale whispered as the truck swerved, slamming us against the cabin.