Tripping the Tale Fantastic Read online

  Francine Starkis, the sassy retired Boston Police Department detective standing before me, is my boss. She’s the face of the private investigation firm Bay State Investigation Services, or BaSIS for short. Massachusetts has an oversupply of names that include the words “Bay State.” Every other thing is Bay State this or that.

  It also has an oversupply of laws, rules, and regulations. One of those pesky regulations requires private investigators to have law enforcement backgrounds. That’s why the Guild of Light Mages hired Francine. Being Miranda Hunter, Mage of Boston, doesn’t cut it, so Francine’s the boss. My mage partner, Nigel Bley, and I are her minions—sort of—along with my hellhound, Lilit. Francine handles skip tracing, spousal stakeouts, and the like. Nigel and I handle things that go bump in the night—or the day, in this case.

  Now, roughly a week since we got our first report, the mundanes were screaming for better answers than “We’ll look into it.” Our reputation was on the line. I’d sent Nigel out to look for evidence of human pranksters, although it didn’t seem likely a mundane could make women’s shoes walk by themselves. But, really, how much of a problem was that?

  “When I went there, the cemetery was peaceful as dreaming trees,” Nigel said. “Except for Buster’s overalls.”

  “It’s limited to the Holiness burying ground, because we’re not getting calls about other cemetery hauntings.”

  “Well, at least none of this nature.”

  True. There were hauntings at all cemeteries; most people just didn’t see ghosts. What was allegedly going on at Holiness was a whole new level of spook central, if I took the reports at face value.

  “We could hire a medium. Maybe Phoebe Gladstone is available.”

  “Hello, you two! What are we going to tell these people?” Francine demanded, brandishing a handful of pink message slips.

  “Say we’re working on it.” I shrugged. Honestly I’m not into helping people deal with being pranked by ghosts, or more likely, by another human. I’d sent Nigel out. I’d have told Flanagan, my police cohort in paranormal crime, but it really wasn’t Special Investigations Unit material and it would have added to the number of people bugging me for answers. The last thing I needed was a control freak micro-manager cop on my hands.

  “I suggested spending the day there with Mrs. Melville, the manager of the burying grounds who is getting the brunt of the problems,” Nigel said. “She agreed to meet me. Workers who got totally freaked are out on sick leave.”

  “They’re all people associated in one way or the other with the cemetery,” Francine said. To my annoyance, she started waving the pink phone messages in my direction, as if I’d lost sight of them. I wanted to reach out and snatch them out of her hand, but then they’d be mine to deal with. “There have been a few visitors who observed the … um, events.”

  “Such as the pair of high heels marching around with no one in them?” I asked. Apparently, that hadn’t gone over so well with the daughter of one of the dearly departed.

  “The poor woman had a panic attack. They had to call an ambulance,” Francine said with a shake of the slips. “Surely that’s proof!”

  “It’s proof that she had a really bad day. We don’t know this woman, or how stable she is.” I sighed and rubbed at my face. Did this woman really see an office worker’s high heels head for the fence without anyone in them?

  “And what about—”

  Sometimes one has to interrupt Francine. I raised a hand. “I’ve heard about the shoelaces being tied together while the custodian was alone, and how he fell. We all know about Buster and his inability to keep his overalls up. I even know about the toupée, but you have to admit it was ugly before it ended up in a bird’s nest.”

  “For a mage, you’re quite the skeptic,” Nigel said. Then he chuckled as if I was a youngling, which to him I am. It’s a long story about how long the sidhe, even half-sidhe like Nigel, live. I’ll tell you that one some other time. Humans call sidhe fairies, but his great-great-grandmother was the original Banshee. “You’ve been spending too much time with Flanagan.”

  Yeah, well, Flanagan was hard to avoid, considering the fact we worked together on paranormal crimes that affected mundanes. He hated being demoted to the paranormal task force and took it out on me, as if it was all my fault. No, this was not crime, it was merely weirdness. With me mediating between two vampire conclaves tomorrow, weirdness could wait.

  “The backhoe keys could have been a mistake.” I said, making my own mistake by saying it aloud. That was all it took to set Francine off.

  “Run up a flagpole?” Francine shot back, message slips waving once again. “Really? That’s quite a mistake!”

  “I don’t have all the answers,” I said. “I don’t know why the office smells like hot fudge and then ammonia. I don’t know why the phone rings, but the line is dead. What I do know is that I’m spending the entire day tomorrow trying to prevent a vampire war that could tear this city apart.” Not to mention end up triggering the Great Reveal if the mundanes got an eyeful and realized vampires existed outside of television shows and movies. I waved a hand at a huge pile of documents on my desk. “You and Nigel could handle the ghost problem.”

  “I’m not ghost bait! That’s your job!” Francine pointed a long red fingernail at me as if to say: So there!

  “Fine!” I sighed, shuffling papers into an accordion file. What’s a war between two conclaves compared to shoes walking by themselves? Priorities, people!

  Nigel looked thoughtful. “Mira, Mrs. Melville’s purse attached itself to the ceiling. Maintenance had to cut the bottom out to get the contents. According to one of the messages, it’s still there. Maybe we can find something.”

  “Yeah, superglue.” I grumbled under my breath as I shoved the folder in the bottom desk drawer. “Okay, Nigel, Lilit, let’s go to ghost central and see if we can figure out what’s happening.”

  Lilit got up, practically smiling. She knew she was going for a car ride. Hellhound or no, she loves to stick her head out the window like any other dog. I got her some aviator-type goggles, not so much to protect her, but because a couple drivers ran off the road after seeing her red eyes glowing. Being the creature she is, Lilit makes a great companion in areas where there are unquiet dead. Sometimes it’s easier to make that critical contact if you bring along a being created in the demonic realms. More people should try it.

  Or maybe not.

  Let’s face it, during twilight or starlit hours, a cemetery is a different place than during the day. At night it can be a gathering place for teens looking to creep themselves out, or a place where those honored dead who haven’t moved on can gather to chew the fat. Daylight hours are for the living, when visitors stop by the office for help finding Uncle Benjamin’s grave.

  It wasn’t a long ride to Holiness. Going by the look of the place, the staff wasn’t doing such a hot job of maintenance. The main wrought-iron gate was rusty, hanging at an angle. The hedges hadn’t seen a clipper for a while, and the flowering shrubs were getting out of hand. The roadway paving was crumbly, with lots of the little snaky ridges that occur when tree roots run just under the pavement. It seemed to me that all the tombstones could use a good buffing up. Or was that up to relatives and friends of the deceased? A good weed whacker visitation schedule seemed overdue. However, the grass was being mowed as we arrived.

  Nigel told me Holiness had once been the ritziest cemetery in the area, the final resting place of many noteworthy families. Personally, when I die, I’m more of a burn-me-up-and-shoot-my-ashes-out-of-a-cannon sort of gal, but if I were into being plonked six feet under in an area of supposed eternal rest, I might want it to look kept up. I guess cemeteries fall into disrepair, but usually those are for common people.

  We parked near the office and piled out of my old International Harvester Scout II, affectionately called the Beast. Buster, the lawnmower guy whose overalls kept heading south, was mowing. With that long-legged, ground-eating stride of his, Nigel took
off to talk to him. Fortunately, Buster used a riding mower, so we were not treated to all the splendor of his nudity. The overalls bunched up around his waist, while Buster’s dirty, sweaty Patriots t-shirt covered his ample torso.

  I walked to the office. The door was locked, but the lights were on. I peered into a window and yup, that looked like a bright red, now-bottomless handbag stuck to the ceiling. Oh, what the heck. I walked over to the door, pulled some energy from the unruly landscaping, and sent it to the lock. Clack!

  Stepping inside, I had to admit it felt off. There was a crackle of energy in the air, and it wasn’t anything I’d pulled up. I looked around. There was an old cuckoo clock on the wall, either broken or needing a windup, with a motionless little lumberjack mounted in front. Other than the normal office stuff like business cards, brochures, maps, and such, nothing seemed out of place except the stopped clock and dangling pocketbook.

  I wasn’t in the best of moods. Instead of preparing for the mediation session, I was in a cemetery office contemplating a ruined handbag stuck to a ceiling. All rightie then.

  There are benefits to being tall. I often don’t need a stepladder. Pulling a side chair away from the desk, I stood on it and examined the purse. It was almost embedded in the ceiling—by its top, not the strap, and with no trace of glue. I tried wedging my fingers under it and got nowhere, then grabbed it with both hands and yanked hard enough to lift myself up into the air a bit. The pocketbook ripped, but the part adhered to the ceiling stayed stuck. It would have been a great glue commercial, had glue been involved. Just when I was about to go magical, Nigel walked in with Lilit and Mrs. Melville, a middle-aged woman in a red dress that matched the purse.

  All hell broke loose.

  The business cards on the desk shot up like a bungled card trick, whapping rapid-fire into the ceiling. I ducked under a shower of card stock, hands raised to make sure none of those corners hit me in an eye. The cuckoo clock started cuckooing and the little woodsman started chopping away like mad. Maps fluttered around the room like enormous leaves in a high wind. The pocketbook came down off the ceiling and went after the woman in the red dress. She screamed, and Nigel grabbed the demented sack of torn leather out of the air. It struggled free of him. Lilit went after the flapping pocketbook, leaped, caught it like a good canine athlete, and started shredding it with her dagger-like hellhound teeth.

  Why the hell hadn’t I been ready for bear when I went in here? Because I didn’t believe them, that’s why. Argh! When would I learn?

  My defensive runes were now fully engaged. If it was dark out I’d be glowing. Since it was daylight, I only shone in shadow unless I was supercharged. I focused on the blubbering woman in red. Jumping down, I grabbed her and shoved her out the door, putting myself between her and the cyclone of destruction. As we crossed the threshold, the cards settled to the floor, the cuckoo clock ground to a halt, the lumberjack took a break, maps fell out of the air, and the shredded strips of pocketbook stopped creeping around the floor.

  Okay, this was officially hair-raising. What was she doing, sneaking out to pee on some ghost’s grave?

  Nigel and Lilit came out. She looked triumphant and victorious over the strip of red leather hanging out of her mouth. Captain Nigel of the Obvious tipped his head at the building. “I’d say that’s proof of a haunting.”

  “Ya think?” I gave it a second to sink in. “We need Phoebe.” I scrolled through my phone contacts. I don’t do poltergeists, ghosts, or other unquiet spirits unless they manifest in a way I can interact with them. Phoebe is the real deal.

  Nigel went to comfort the terrified woman, who was huddled behind my SUV. I wondered why Buster only had his overalls come undone, and some other guy’s toupée ended up in a bird’s nest, but that woman had a shitstorm raining down on her head.

  So who did she piss off?

  Phoebe answered, her usual cheery self, and said she would be over “quick like a bunny.” Excellent. Phoebe liked paying gigs, because most of her medium work didn’t make her any money. She was a ghost magnet. When I’d first met her, discarnate beings were hounding her day and night, trying to get in touch with friends and family. (There needs to be a social media outlet for spirits, maybe Ghostbook or Spookspace or something.) I’d created a bespelled amulet to give Phoebe respite from ghostly demands. When she took it off to take a shower, they’d ambushed her—the dead can be demanding. So that she wouldn’t have to wear it all the time, I’d gone over and ghost-proofed her house.

  Her life partner and driver, Ethan, had all the psychic sensitivity of a mud turtle, and was the perfect sidekick for her. He waited beside the fence while she walked in, all smiles, since she could be on a payday in the making.

  Were there ghosts out here with us? No clue, but Buster was not getting any nuder, and there were no flying purses, or empty high heels, or keys clanking from the flagpole. There she was, the most powerful medium in the Northeast present and accounted for with bells on. Real bells. Phoebe has this thing with fairy bells. Drives Nigel nuts, but he’s too polite to tell her.

  Since too many mages, ghost-whisperers, energy workers, and cooks spoil all sorts of things from spells to soups, Nigel and I took up positions by the fence near Ethan. Lilit, who is an excellent judge of character, bounded out of the gate and up to him looking for a world class doggie ear rub. She got it, of course.

  Nigel and I kept an eye on Phoebe as she headed for the office. She’s a medium, not a mage, and if things got dangerous, it was our job to protect her. We kept far enough away to stay out of her hair, but close enough to shield her if necessary. I was charged up enough now that my fingernail runes were glowing noticeably even in daylight.

  Phoebe started talking, engaging a ghost. Before too long, based on the way she kept turning, it appeared as if she was talking to four or five different beings. From her side of the conversation, her new spirit friends were very upset.

  After a few minutes of animated conversation, she came over to us. “Boy, are they pissed!” she said.

  “No kidding. Who knew a woman’s pocketbook could be a potentially lethal weapon?” Phebes and I ignored Nigel’s remark, knowing how lethal a heavy pocketbook could be in the hands of an enraged woman.

  “What’s happening here is a form of ghostly protest.” She gestured around the burying grounds. “Think of it as Occupy Holiness. Look at this place, all run down and tatty. Holiness used to be the place where the Boston Brahmins buried their family members when they ran out of room in the private burying grounds.” She gestured about her. “There are cadet branches of the Cabots, Lowells, Bacons, Choates, and Crowninshields interred here. I just met them.”

  Nigel nodded. “And this is good old Boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God.”

  If I rolled my eyes any harder they’d get lodged in my cranium. We were on the verge of having a vampire war in Boston, Nigel was quoting an old drinking toast, and we were in a burying ground—a traditionally Bostonian term for a graveyard–with pissed off ghosts upset about the cemetery being tatty? It was a face-palm moment and I scrubbed at my face to shut myself up before I had irate ghosts bombing us with airborne tombstones or something.

  “What did they think they were doing?” I asked Phoebe. “Making a fuss so eventually a medium would show up?”

  “That never occurred to them. They were simply trying to humiliate the people who shame them and their family members by letting this burying ground turn into a cemetery slum.”

  I found myself silently counting to ten. Looking at the still quivering woman in red, I reminded myself Phoebe was just representing what her clients were saying. The terms petty, small-minded, and spiteful floated through my mind. They terrorized mundanes over less than sumptuous surroundings in a graveyard? The place was a little seedy, but it was not a slum.

  I suppose if you’re a Cabot and only talk to God, maybe that’s how they saw it, but to my mind that attitude made th
em elitist, vindictive snobs. It also begged the question of why they were still here and not off talking to God.

  Shaking myself from my reverie, I got down to business. “Nigel, what’s that woman’s name again?”

  “Mrs. Melville.”

  “That’s right. Bring Mrs. Melville here, if you would. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.” As he left, I looked at Phoebe. “Phebes, please tell me that the dead are not wandering around all the burying grounds looking for wilted flowers to complain about.”

  She didn’t look concerned. “Not in my experience. These gentlemen seem to be stuck. They need to go into the light, but until I can help them past their anger it won’t be possible. Realize, in their day this was the Ritz-Carlton of resting places.”

  I thought of where my life-partner, daughter, and our family were buried and shook my head. Don’t judge, Mira.

  By the time Phoebe laid the concerns of her dead clients on the manager of the facility, Mrs. Melville—no relation to Herman, she insisted—was more than ready to do an information dump. “It’s the endowment fund,” she sniveled. “The impact of the Great Recession and the drop in interest rates hasn’t given us enough income to do everything we need to do.”

  “You’re running out of money?” Nigel asked. “That doesn’t bode well for the status-conscious ghost.”

  “We’ve applied for subsidies, but we haven’t gotten any yet. We’re full, so we can’t sell new plots. We can’t re-use these graves. Unless we get more funds, we will have to cut back on maintenance again.” She took an unsteady breath. “In the worst-case scenario, we’ll have to close.”

  I turned to Phoebe. “Go talk to your clients. It sounds as if the staff here are doing the best they can under the circumstances.”

  “They’re here,” she said. “They heard. They had no idea. Give us a few minutes.” She walked off to engage once again—client confidentiality and all that.

  “You’d think if they were doing an effective haunting they’d have seen the cemetery manager agonizing over the books of business,” I muttered to Nigel, who shrugged.