Are You Haunted (part fifty-seven)

Are You Haunted

(part fifty-seven)

She wasn’t ready for Mr. Baker.

“There you are. Good job you showed up.”

“I’m not on. Someone’s waiting for me…”

“Take coffee to Mr. Guy. You can do that.”

She had followed Summers from the city jail, after their talk with Dennis. Followed on foot, stopping at the hotel, where she and her husband had not intended paying for their stay. But Isobel found she couldn’t face this out with Summers. “I’ve got to go pack our bag. And…let me see…”

She unrolled her first pickups from the Crown, a flirt’s full dollar bill, the rest nickels and dimes.

Summers, shifting in looks from I can help out, to no, better not, had said, “I’ll go on. Make sure Guy’s not getting antsy.”

She dumped her things in Baker’s office, brought the pot with her own cup and saucer, poured for them all and sat. Summers, with an excess of regard for Isobel’s womanhood, had wedged himself next to Lloyd Guy.

“You didn’t make the arrest. You’re not a city cop. The Drybrook trust employs you to patrol the Drybrook property.”

Guy withheld even the confirmation of a nod, waiting him out.

“But you do have some authority. The city also employs you as an auxiliary cop. That’s what you were doing when you ran across Powell Kenzie.”

“You got your facts straight, Mr. Summers. I didn’t arrest Mrs. Tovey’s husband, if that’s why you brung her here. All I did was offer him a ride. I’m not anyone she needs to be complaining at. Likely I’ll get called as a witness, that’s all there is to it. Tovey gets his chance to tell it to the judge, and I get mine.”

“She goes by Miss Gilshannon, by the way.”

Isobel heard Guy slurp his coffee to this news. She stopped herself reminding him they’d met, recalling Summers’s advice. Babes in the woods, couple of lambs, right?

“But someone was with you…he rode out with you. That was yesterday, when you went to check the property.”

Guy smiled. “That’s what you call a lucky coincidence.”

“Mr. Tovey believes Powell Kenzie might have seen something.”

Summers glanced at Isobel.

Guy met her eyes, with a hardness in his own that carried a warning. “I know what Mr. Tovey says.”

“For heaven’s sake, what would be the use of Dennis saying Powell was with him, if it weren’t true?”

Immediately, she knew Summers had not wanted her to speak.

“Y’oughta ask him.”

“Mr. Guy,” Summers said. “You had Mr. Keegan seal up that vent right away, didn’t you? You know there’s gasses that can build up underground? Used to sometimes happen in wartime, with the bomb shelters. They piled a bunch of debris at one end of the tunnel when they cleared the site, and they bricked up the other. Don’t you think, for safety sake, Keegan should fix that vent like it was?”

“Well, now,” Guy said. “Could be.”

56

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part one)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)