A Long Way Down Page 5

  “That’s iffy unless we get very lucky,” Brody replied.

  For a moment Russ’s face lit up. Brody had the feeling the idea that he and Daw might be around for a long time to come didn’t bother his as much as it might have, had the circumstances been less personal. Then Russ sobered. “I’ll see you in the morning, I guess.”

  “You bet. I’m glad you decided to stick around,” Brody told him.

  “Thanks.” Russ smiled before drifting down to the living room.

  “I hope he doesn’t get hurt,” Jon said as he and Brody went into their room.

  “Me, too, but there’s nothing we can do about it either way.”

  * * * *

  Daw was aware that Russ had come downstairs but ignored his presence as he considered taking a walk to check out the neighborhood. At least that was the reason he’d come up with. Lying to myself? He knew he was. After what Brody and company had said about Russ ‘having a thing’ for him, he had to figure out how to handle it.

  “You want me out of here,” Russ huffed.

  “Did I say that?” Daw asked.

  “No, but it’s pretty damned clear that you do. You wish you guys had never found me.”

  “Not true.” Daw finally turned to look at him. “No one deserves to be abandoned.”

  “Even me?”

  “Especially you,” Daw replied without thinking.

  “Right. I’m the last person you want around you,” Russ spat out.

  Smiling, albeit briefly, Daw said, “You’re not a person anymore. None of us are.”

  “You damned well know what I meant.” He sank down on the sofa, staring at the floor. “I wish I’d never met you, Daw. I wish…I wish I’d gone to any other city but this one. Look what it got me. Dead.”

  Daw hesitated. He knew his smartest move would be to do what he’d planned—go for a walk. I still can. Nothing’s stopping me. “Okay, kid. I get where you’re coming from. How about we get out of here and talk about it.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a nice night. Let’s take a walk.”

  “You and me?” Russ’s expression ran the gamut from anger to surprise to something close to happiness.

  “Yeah, kid. You and me. You up for it?”

  “You bet.” Russ was on his feet seconds later, heading to the front door. He reached for the handle, shook his head, muttered, “Stupid”, and walked through the door.

  Chuckling, Daw followed. “Which way?”

  “Umm, that way?” Russ pointed toward the far end of the street. “What if we get lost?”

  Daw pointed two fingers up. “We fly back. I know what the house looks like from up there.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Russ started down the path to the sidewalk and then turned left.

  Daw was right beside him, although he kept a decent amount of space between them. “Nice neighborhood,” he commented a few moments later.

  Russ looked around as if seeing it for the first time—which of course he was. “It’s not bad. If I could afford it, I might buy a house around here.” His expression darkened. “If I was alive, that is, and had money, and a decent job, and…” He paused a beat. “Someone to share it with.”

  “Is that what you dreamed of?” Daw asked.

  “A home of my own?” Russ shrugged. “Yeah, sort of. Not a house, but an apartment would have been cool. I did try to find a job, but you know how that goes.”

  “Yep. No fixed address, no experience, no references, you’re shit out of luck.” He added with a dour smile, “Now we don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Except the part about having someone who…” Russ came to a halt, turning to look at Daw. “We used to be friends.”

  “We did. We still are, I suppose.”

  “But that’s all.”

  Daw gripped Russ’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I can guess. Like I told the others, I’m a loner, always have been. You don’t get hurt that way. I’m surprised you aren’t, too, given what you said happened to you.”

  Russ looked away as he replied, barely above a whisper, “I was, until I met you. You treated me like I mattered.”

  “You do matter! It’s…Look, I get you want something more from me than friendship. I’m not sure I can give it to you.” Daw released his hold on Russ and began walking, again.

  “And you’re not willing to find out,” Russ said as he hurried to catch up.

  Daw shrugged. “If things…If we find out who killed us, it won’t matter one way or the other. We’ll move on and somehow I don’t think we’ll end up in the same place, or time, or whatever’s out there.”

  “Until then, though…”

  “I don’t know, kid,” Daw replied in frustration.

  Russ’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  “Not at all. It probably sounds hokey, but the idea you’re interested in me in that way makes me feel as if I’m worth something.”

  “Of course you are! Damn, Daw.”

  Trying to lighten what had become a very serious, and personal conversation, Daw replied, “Let’s hope I’m not damned. I don’t do heat well.”

  Russ obviously decided to go with the flow because he snickered. “And the last couple of weeks let you know it in spades.”

  “Big time.” Daw shot him a look. “How did you know there was a heat wave? The dead don’t feel heat or cool or—”

  “I could see the bank thermometer from the rooftop, and heard a couple of guys who crashed up there whining about it.”

  “Got it. I should have figured. Blame it on my suspicious nature.”

  “It’s okay. Maybe we should head back?”

  “Probably. Don’t want them wondering if we’ve flown the coop for some reason.”

  Russ grinned. “Which we could have, since we can fly.” He rose into the air, hung there momentarily, and began to sink.

  “Think it,” Daw said. He flew up, snagging Russ’s hand.

  “Why can you do it so easily when you just died?”

  “Because I believe it’s possible. Probably from watching too many bad ghost movies.”

  Russ held tightly to Daw’s hand. Daw suspected the kid might be conning him a bit about needing his support, as it were. It didn’t bother him as much as it might have a few hours ago. “Through the roof?” he asked when they were above the carriage house.

  “Umm, no? If we end up in one of the bedrooms…”

  “Yeah, good point.” They landed in the yard and went inside the way they’d left, through the door.

  “You’re sure about staying on the floor?” Russ asked as he settled on the sofa.

  “Yep.” Daw stretched out next to the sofa, his hands behind his head. “Sleep well.” He smiled to himself when Russ, with seeming casualness, let his arm hang over the edge of the sofa so his hand rested on Daw’s shoulder. If it helps him feel better, who am I to take that away?

  Chapter 5

  Brody waited until late Sunday morning before visiting Mike and Sage. He let them know that the tub and toilet were sitting in the upstairs hallway at the carriage house. “Now all we need to do is get rid of them and cover the hole.”

  “Good thing the truck rental place is open Sundays,” Mike commented when Sage told him what Brody had said. “As soon as we’ve eaten lunch, we’ll get a pickup and,” he grimaced, “hit up the alleys behind apartment complexes to see if someone’s dumped a bed. We won’t lug the tub and toilet to a drop-off place until after dark.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any pieces of plywood in the basement,” Brody asked Sage. “It doesn’t have to be large. Just big enough to cut a piece to cover the hole where the toilet was.”

  “Let me check.” Sage told Mike what he was doing, left, and came back a couple of minutes later with what Brody needed, as well as a saw, a carpenter’s pencil, and a tape measure. “If you need anything else, holler.”

  Brody laughed. “Trust me, we will.”

  Sage rep
eated his words, and immediately told him Brody had left, when Mike replied, “Why am I not surprised?”

  Mike was tempted to follow him because he wanted to meet Russ, but Sage convinced him they should eat, get the truck, and then stop at a near-new shop to find a bed for the bathroom. “We don’t have to tell them we bought it,” he said. “And it’ll probably be cheaper than what we’d spend on gas running around hoping to find one by a Dumpster.”

  Mike agreed. He had a sudden thought, took out his phone, and texted Brody.

  We need to know how long the wall is where the tub sat.

  Hang on, Brody replied. It took a couple of minutes before he texted back, 6’2” from wall to the doorframe. Damned good thing it wasn’t along the back wall or we’d be screwed.

  No kidding. Mike hung up and they took off, using Sage’s car so Mike could drive the truck when they got it.

  “How are you going to find the guy who killed them?” Sage asked when they were headed to their favorite Sunday restaurant.

  “I have no clue,” Mike admitted. “First I have to pull together any reports of deaths that meet the parameters. Since they’re undoubted filed as accidental or suicide, that’ll take some digging—and they will be because if there were any witnesses, they’d have been classified as murders and I’d have heard about it.”

  “Then what? Send the ghostie boys out to wherever the victims died see if they can find their ghosts?”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  Sage shook his head. “I could do it, I suppose, but it might take forever. Even if one of them was hanging around, convincing them I want to help could be iffy. You know as well as I do homeless men aren’t big on trust.”

  “For sure they wouldn’t be if they were murdered,” Mike agreed. “I’ll see what I can find tomorrow, if I get a chance to look, and we’ll take it from there.”

  After lunch, and picking up the rental truck, they began checking out near-new and thrift shops. At the third one they found a bed with a decent mattress they decided would work and a chair is usable condition, loaded them into the bed of the truck, and then headed home.

  * * * *

  “Not too bad,” Mike said as he surveyed the bathroom.

  “What do you mean, not too bad,” Brody grumbled, and Sage repeated. “We did a perfect job.” He hedged a bit. “Well, it will be, when we get a rug to cover the plywood over the hole, and something to set on it.”

  “We found a chair that might work,” Sage replied. “Come on. Help us haul it and the bed up here.”

  “Umm, it’s still light outside,” Jon pointed out.

  When Sage told Mike what he’d said, Mike snorted. “A hell of a way to get out of working.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind the neighbors seeing one end of the bed floating in mid-air…”

  Sage didn’t bother to repeat that as he and Mike returned to the truck. They hauled the bed and chair into the carriage house, and with Brody and Van’s help, up to the bathroom—with some muttered oaths as they tried to keep the bed from scraping the stairway walls in the process. Finally, everything was in place.

  “The chair makes it look almost homey,” Daw commented. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sage replied.

  “All right,” Mike said when he, Sage, and the ghosts were in the living room. “Where’s your newest member?”

  “Good question.” Brody frowned, looking around, and called out, “Russ?”

  “Last time I saw him he was down here. He said he didn’t want to be in the way,” Daw told him.

  “I didn’t,” Russ said, shyly, as he drifted through the rear door of the carriage house to join them.

  “He’s here,” Sage said, an obvious statement if he hadn’t had to let Mike know. “Russ, I’m Sage. I don’t know if they told you about me and Mike. I’m a medium, so I can see and talk with you. Mike’s human and a police detective. I’m sort of the intermediary between him and the rest of you.”

  “They did tell me.” Russ eased over to stand beside Daw.

  “He has questions for you, Russ,” Sage said while gesturing to let Mike know where he was.

  “Do I have to answer?” Russ asked, and Sage repeated.

  Mike smiled as he sat on the sofa, with Sage beside him. “I can’t force you to, but if you want us to catch the man who killed you and Daw, and others from what I understand, I need to know exactly what happened. Starting with, did you get a look at who killed you?”

  “No,” Russ said, and then with Daw prompting him, he went on to tell Mike what he’d told the others about that night.

  After Sage repeated his words verbatim, Mike asked, “Do you remember anyone you might have had a run-in with who made it clear they were disgusted by the homeless, particularly you, Russ? That goes for you as well, Daw.”

  “I’ve had people get in my face, telling me to, you know, ‘Get a job,’ ‘Get off my lazy ass,’ stuff like that,” Russ replied. “Some of them would threaten to call the cops, or welfare. Then there’s the ones who prey on us.”

  “They get their jollies beating us up if they can catch us,” Daw put in.

  “Yeah. You learn to run fast.” Russ smiled morosely. “I’ve been thinking about this. What happened to me and Daw? That wasn’t like some dude or dudes, coming after us with pipes or baseball bats. It was a guy who snuck up on us while we were asleep. He wanted us dead. Not hurt but dead. He wasn’t trying to teach us a lesson or something.”

  “Nope.” Daw shook his head. “He was throwing out the trash, I guess you could say.”

  “Anyway, to answer your question, no one stands out as having a hate on for me as me. Not enough to want to kill me,” Russ said.

  Sage, of course, had been relaying what they said to Mike.

  “Okay,” Mike said. “I’d ask both of you if someone in your past might have wanted you dead, but I don’t see that person going after anyone else.”

  “Unless they were covering their ass,” Brody suggested, and Sage repeated. “In Russ’s case, it could be that jock who wanted him taken care of.”

  When Mike asked, Russ explained, ending with, “That happened a long way from here. I don’t think he knows where I am now. How could he?”

  “Good point,” Mike agreed when Sage told him what Russ had said. “What about you, Daw? Any past enemies who might have it in for you?”

  “You’re kidding. After ten years?” Daw rubbed his wrist, an instinctive gesture, Sage thought.

  Jon must have picked up on it, too, because he asked, “Fractured or broken?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your wrist. I’ve seen how you rub it when you’re tense.”

  “He does,” Russ said. “I asked him about it and how it happened.” He shot a look at Daw. “You ignored me.”

  “Accident,” Daw replied shortly, scowling as he started to rub his wrist again—and obviously restrained himself by clenching his hands together.

  Sage had been repeating the conversation to Mike. Now he said to Mike, very quietly, “From his expression, I’d say he was lying.”

  Mike nodded. “Daw, I won’t push, primarily because as I said, I don’t think these killings have anything to do with your past, or Russ’s, or probably any of the other victims.’ My take on it, which I can’t confirm unless I do find other victims who died the same way, is that someone is targeting guys like you on some personal vendetta.”

  “How can you stop him, if he is?” Kurt asked.

  When Sage relayed his question, Mike replied with a dry smile, “We’ve talked about that. You guys get to search for the other victims, learn what you can, and then…well, I guess we take it from there.”

  “The Haunting of Ghosts Detective Agency springs into action,” Gene said, laughing. “Okay, that’s not funny, but we will.”

  When Sage told Mike what Gene had said, Mike lifted an eyebrow. “I have no problem with that, but you might want to come up with a new name. It’s too long, and if someone trie
s to shorten it, it’ll be ‘HoG’ which wouldn’t strike fear into those you’re going after.”

  Brody looked at the others, grinned when they caught on, and said, “Might be a good idea. Right now, though, why don’t we call it a night? You have to be at work bright and early tomorrow, Mike, so you can do your research.”

  “Bossy ghost,” Mike muttered when Sage repeated Brody’s words. “It’s not that late. Dinner, however…” He stood, as did Sage, and they left with the ghosts’ thanks for their help ringing in Sage’s ears.

  * * * *

  “Now what do we do?” Tonio asked.

  “Nothing, as far as our first case goes, until Mike gets back to us,” Van replied.

  Brody took out his phone. “That movie we wanted to see starts in twenty minutes. I, for one, am going.”

  “Which one?” Daw asked. When Brody showed him, he frowned. “I’m not sure I’m up for a murder mystery, all things considered. I’ll stay here and…do something.” He snorted. “Like stare at the four walls since that’s about all I’m capable of right now.”

  “Honestly, I’m not big on them, either,” Jon said. “I’ll keep you company.” He hoped Brody understood what he was doing and didn’t argue.

  Apparently, Brody did, because he nodded. “Russ, you going to join us?”

  Russ glanced at Daw, got a “Go, have fun,” from him, and nodded.

  When everyone who wanted to see the movie had left, Daw started pacing the living room while Jon casually took a seat in one of the chairs and picked up the book he’d been reading from the side-table.

  “I don’t need a babysitter, you know,” Daw finally said, coming to a stop in front of him.

  “No, but you need someone to talk to without everyone else putting in their two cents’ worth.”

  “About what?”

  “Why you were homeless. My guess, and I’m pretty sure I’m right, violence was involved, whether you precipitated it, or were on the receiving end.”

  “You’re right, that is a guess,” Daw replied, his expression tightening as he began to pace again.

  “But it’s the truth.”

  “That’s none of your damned business.”

  “I disagree,” Jon said. “If what we said earlier, about the killer using the murders as a cover to get rid of one of you is true; you might have been the intended victim.”