Tick Tock

A Stitch in Crime-2

I didn’t have a chance to respond.

Maisy continued without taking a breath, as if she had to get it all out at once. “And then when he said he knew someone who could help…” Tears sprang to her eyes. “It is so good of you to come.”

“I’m happy to help, Maisy,” I told her. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. Is there somewhere we can talk for a few minutes?”

“Of course. My office is in back.” She led us toward the gingerbread house construction area, circled around, then stopped at a door in the rear.

“Be sure to ask about the money,” Franny said, zipping along behind us. “You’ll need a contract, nice and legal-like.”

“That’s right,” the grandmother ghost sniped, “it’s always about the money.”

“You can throw this old harpy into the exorcism for free,” Franny said to my backside.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the spirit said. “You can’t make me.”

I sighed. We hadn’t gotten off to a good start with the resident ghost.

Maisy unlocked her office door and flipped the light switch. I stepped inside, then turned and hissed, “Wait here!” before closing the door on the pair of them. I could still hear them having a go at each other on the other side of the door.

“Tell me about what’s been happening,” I said, taking the chair she offered. “When did it start?”

“Last Tuesday night, right before closing,” Maisy said. “It frightened the children horribly. I had to do some quick thinking to reassure them it was part of the scene left over from Halloween. I’ve caught it on camera. Let me show you.”

I circled her desk to peer over her shoulder as she worked to bring up the security footage on the computer screen. “Here it is,” Maisy said, sitting back.

We watched the scoop lift candy from the bin and dump it on the floor. Seconds later, a few pieces floated back into the bin on their own. Childish voices screamed in the background.

Maisy looked up at me. “Badger says you know how to handle this sort of thing. Can you stop it?”

“Yes, I’m sure I can.” Except I wasn’t at all sure.

“The sooner the better,” Maisy said, pulling out a checkbook from her desk drawer. “I have to dispose of all the candy from the bin every time it happens. I can’t sell candy that’s been on the floor, and there is no way of separating the clean candy from the other. I don’t want my shop to have a haunted reputation either. That only works at Halloween.” She scribbled something across the check and handed it over. “Badger said to pay you half now and the other half when it’s taken care of. Is that right?”

Bless him. “Yes, thank you.” I glanced at the check for £500 then tucked it into my pocket before she changed her mind. A case of nerves took hold. What if I couldn’t stop the haunting? There is no magic formula. I’d solved a couple of murders in the past, but mostly I stumbled around until I came across the answer, and nearly always after putting myself in mortal danger.

Still, if a ghost haunted a particular spot, there had to be a reason. I only had to find that reason, fix the problem, then cross the ghost over. Easy peasy, right?

Franny poked her head through the door. “Indigo, come quick. There’s something you should see.”

I glanced at Maisy as I rose from my seat. “Uh, I just, uh, need to…”

“Of course, you need to see the spot, don’t you?” she began, hot on my heels. I stopped next to Franny alongside a row of candy bins.

Franny pointed at a spot on the floor. The shape of a crumpled body lay etched into the linoleum like a crime-scene chalk outline.

Maisy stopped short and grasped my arm. “What is that? How’d it get there?”

“It’s a death spot,” I explained. “Sometimes with a traumatic death, the spirit is attached to the spot where they died.”

“But they usually disappear a few days after death,” Franny added, although Maisy couldn’t hear her. She floated around the outline to take in another view.

“Have you lost anyone recently?” I asked Maisy. “Any deaths occur here? Anniversary of a death, or…?”

“My grandmother passed away last October. She used to help out here.” Maisy smiled then. “Her name was Hermione Potter. The children got a kick out of it, you know, because of the Harry Potter books.” Her gaze searched the room as if she might spot her grandmother. “You don’t think it’s my grandmother, do you? I hate the thought that she might not be at rest.”

“Did she pass here?” I asked, dodging the question. Getting the cranky old woman to cross over could be potentially problematic. Old Mrs. Potter appeared to be quite attached to her granddaughter.

“She died at home,” Maisy said, her eyes widening and close to panic.

“Then it couldn’t be hers,” I said, glancing at Mrs. Potter. “I’m sure your grandmother is at peace.” I’d have to work on her after I solved the current mystery surrounding the death spot. But if it wasn’t Grandma Potter’s death spot, then who did it belong to?

Maisy’s fingers shook as she slid a key off her keychain and handed it to me. “You’ll want to stay on after we leave. Be careful, won’t you?”

“No worries. Leave it to me.”

Once Maisy departed, I contemplated the death spot. “Why would a death spot show up now if no one died here recently?” I asked Franny.

“I wish I knew,” Franny said.

“Whatever happened on Tuesday at six o’clock started the ball rolling.” I glanced up and caught a shadow cross the end of the aisle.

Mrs. Potter floated up next to me. “It’s another child out to steal the candy. You won’t catch that one though. She’s a slippery character.”

“What do you know about it?” Franny asked.

“More than you lot. A girl showed up here about a week ago to raid the candy bins. Makes a go at it every night now, regular, like clockwork.”

A sneeze burst from the ether. “Bless you,” I said to Mrs. Potter automatically.

“That wasn’t me. I’m healthy as a horse,” the elderly ghost said, crossing her arms over her chest. Her gaze challenged me to contradict her.

Healthy as a horse she may be, but dead all the same.

Lights flickered overhead. I stood rooted, not out of fear—well, not much—but because I didn’t want to scare the child’s spirit off until I could figure out what she wanted.

A golden glow hovered at the end of the aisle and formed into the shape of a little girl. She wore a knee-length, beige-brown plaid dress, and a blue jumper buttoned all the way to her throat. A scarf folded into a triangle shape covered her head, the ends knotted under her chin. Her nose was pink and runny.

She floated toward me and stopped before a candy bin halfway up the aisle. The lid creaked open. She dug the scoop deep inside and pulled it out, brimming with yellow lemon drops.

I took a deep breath, prepared to approach the girl. Before I could, the spirit of an older man, pear shaped with wispy hair, appeared. “You there! What are you doing? Drop that!”

The girl jumped. Lemon drops scattered and bounced across the floor. She bent and grasped at bouncing candies and tossed them toward the bin. Her hands shook, her efforts awkward. A wail rent the air.

The hair stood up on my nape.

The girl fell to the floor and laid still, her little form filling the death spot like a glove.

“Stop that! Can’t you see she’s scared?” I scolded the man. I ran forward and dropped down next to the girl. My heart ached for her. To reenact her death over and over was heart-wrenching.

To give him credit, the pudgy man looked shocked. “I—I didn’t know—I didn’t think,” he sputtered.

“The poor dear only wanted a bit of candy,” Franny said, stooping to stroke the girl’s forehead.

The man’s cheeks puffed out. “But this is medicine. It requires a prescription from a licensed physician. I can’t have every customer helping themselves. It just isn’t done.” He stared at the girl lying sprawled on the floor. “Still an’ all, I wish I hadn’t yelled at the poor waif.”

Wait, what? “Medicine? But...this is candy,” I said.

“In our realm it’s candy,” Mrs. Potter said, as if she was still alive. “But this was Mr. Bloombury’s Chemist Dispensary long before my granddaughter opened a candy shop.”

“So the girl wasn’t after candy,” Franny said, “but what…cough drops?”

The old guy scratched his head. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s not your chemist shop anymore, Mr. Bloombury. This is a sweet shop now,” Mrs. Potter said, shaking her head. “I tell him every day, but he forgets.”

A tiny sneeze turned all our heads back to the girl.

“Now, now, dear. Let Aunt Franny help you.” The girl sat up, wiping her nose on the inside of a frayed sleeve.

“Well, I’ll be,” Mrs. Potter said. “I’ve been trying for days to catch her. She escaped every time I tried.”

I shot warning daggers at the old woman. “We did not catch her. She’s free to go if she wants. But we’d like to help her if we can.”

Mrs. Potter huffed but remained silent.

“What’s your name, dear?” Franny asked the little spirit girl.

“Beatrix. Beatrix Hamilton, miss,” the girl said through nasally passages.

“That’s a lovely name.” I sat cross-legged next to her. “I’m Indigo.”

“How can we help you, dear?” Franny asked.

The girl’s eyes darted to the chemist, then back to Franny. “I need medicine for the sister, miss. She’s awful sick. Coughing up a lungful, miss.” Beatrix sneezed again. “Can you ’elp me?”

The chemist cleared his throat. “Well of course we will. Now that I know what you want.”

“We’ll try our best, Beatrix. Who is the sister? Do you know where I can find her?” I asked.

“Sister Rose is at Saint Nicholas.”

“Can you show me?” I asked.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she dashed them away. She shook her head. “I can’t leave. I tried and tried, miss. Only I keep dying”—her gaze shot to the death spot but didn’t linger—“right there,” she finished in a whisper.

* * *

“Do we knock or just go in?” I glanced up at the wooden sign hanging askew, the paint faded and peeling. Saint Nicholas’s Church and Home for Children had seen better days.

Franny quirked a brow. “You’re asking me? I’m not at all sure I can cross the threshold safely, given the moral ambiguity of my former profession. I haven’t seen the inside of a church in a hundred and fifty years.”

“From what I remember, churches are always open.” I clutched the handle, turned, and pushed. Nothing. I wiggled the handle, then shoved harder. “It’s locked.” I knocked on the door and waited. No one came.

“I’ll have a look, shall I?” Franny hiked her skirts to her knees and poked one leg through the door, as if testing the temperature of water in a swimming pool. She pulled her leg back out, wiggling her foot, still attached and in good working order. She smiled. “That answers that question!” She dropped her skirts and floated through the door.

I scanned the area and waited for her to return. Frost-bitten grass lay dormant in the early-morning gray. The cemetery beyond was blanketed with dead leaves, which stirred in the breeze. Twigs reached through in spots like hand bones clawing up through the grave.

Seconds later, Franny zipped back through the door. “There’s a bell inside next to the door”—she pointed to the overgrown area next to the door jamb covered with dead vines and spider webs—“try the pull rope.”

I dug through the vines and found the bell pull and gave it a tug. The peal resounded loud enough to wake the dead, but it did the trick.

A tiny window in the door opened. A pair of brown eyes peered out from a wrinkled face, a black-and-white nun’s habit just visible in the frame. “Yes, can I help you?” an elderly woman’s voice asked.

I smiled. “I’m Indigo Eady. I’ve come to see if I might speak to Sister Rose?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Eady. We don’t have anyone here by that name.”

“Oh.” My heart sank. What if Sister Rose had died? Beatrix’s style of dress was mid-twentieth century, maybe 1950s. Sixty years was a long time. Sister Rose could be long gone.

“I’m Sister Lydia. What is this about?” the nun asked.

I held up the plastic bag with the cough drops that Beatrix insisted would save Sister Rose. “Just delivering these for a friend.”

“This is a private facility now. It has been for the past twenty years,” Sister Lydia said. “I’ve been here for years. We have never had a sister named Rose who I can remember.”

“Would you have records that might tell me where Sister Rose went?” I asked.

“No. I’m sorry,” she said.

Before I could ask anything else, the peephole clicked shut with finality.

“Well, she was certainly in a hurry,” Franny said. She turned to me. “Now what?”

“I have to find Sister Rose, and Saint Nicholas’s is our only lead. The answer is here. We need to get inside.” I stepped back from the door. Looking to the right, I spied a muddy path that led around the building. “This way.”