Waking Up Dead Read online

  My shoulders slumped in defeat. I sighed--or did the supernatural equivalent of it, anyway. It felt like sighing to me. “There’s nothing I can do to get you to help?”

  “Nope. Not a chance. Sorry, lady. Now I’ve got to go back into the Wal-Mart and get some light bulbs.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks for listening, anyway.”

  “Fine. Just get out of my car.”

  I did, and then watched her walk back into the store.

  The only true sensitive I’d found in town, and she refused to help me. I stomped my foot on the ground and watched it sink several inches into the asphalt parking lot.

  You know, it’s not like what happened to me was the usual after-death thing--if that were the case, I guessed, there’d be ghosts all over the place. But there weren’t any other ghosts anywhere in this town, as far as I could tell. And now the only person I could actually speak to had kicked me out of her car.

  I’ve never really been the introspective type. But when a girl wakes up dead in Alabama, she’s got to wonder why, at least a little bit. And I was beginning to really believe that I was somehow, for some reason, supposed to keep Rick McClatchey from going to prison for his wife’s murder. This wasn’t just a Good Samaritan moment, I thought. This was my whole reason for still being on this earthly plane.

  And if I was right about that, then I didn’t have to keep my promise to leave Ashara alone.

  That’s how I rationalized it to myself, anyway.

  So by the time Ashara got back out to her car, Wal-Mart bag of light bulbs in hand, I was waiting for her in the passenger seat.

  “You know,” she said, as she got into the driver’s seat and started the engine, “you being a liar about leaving me alone don’t make me want to help you.”

  “But maybe you’ll change your mind if I stick around long enough,” I said.

  She just rolled her eyes and pulled out of the parking lot.

  We drove to a neighborhood on the north side of town where the houses were older, a little more run down. Ashara pulled up in front of one house with peeling white siding and a slightly sagging front porch. She walked through the front door and into the living room without knocking.

  “Hey, Maw-Maw,” she said, bending to kiss the old woman sitting in a recliner in front of the television. The furniture in the room was old, but well cared for. Handmade quilts covered the couch and the recliner. A rocking chair sat in another corner.

  The old woman had a bun wound tight against the back of her head. Some wisps of gray hair floated around her face. She clutched a well-worn afghan around her and peered myopically around the room through glasses as thick as the bottoms of old-fashioned Coke bottles.

  “I brought your light bulbs,” Ashara said. “I’ll go change that one in the kitchen right now.” She moved through a doorway and out of sight.

  Maw-Maw continued to stare around the room.

  “Ashara, honey?” she called out, her voice trembling with age.

  “Yes, Maw-Maw?” Ashara answered from the other room.

  “Why you got a white lady haunt with you?” She pronounced the word more like “haint.”

  Ashara sighed and I could practically hear her eyes rolling. “I don’t know, Maw-Maw. She just found me at the Wal-Mart and now she won’t go away.”

  I stared at the old woman, my eyes huge.

  “She tell you what she want?” Maw-Maw asked Ashara.

  “Something about some white dude killed his wife.”

  “He didn’t kill his wife,” I said, loudly enough for Ashara to hear. “That’s why I need your help.”

  “Well, if he didn’t do it, who did?” Maw-Maw asked me.

  “You can hear me?” I asked, stunned.

  “Of course I can hear you,” Maw-Maw said. “I need glasses, not a hearing aid.” I stood in the doorway, unable to think of a single thing to say.

  “Well,” said Maw-Maw, “quit standing there with your mouth hanging open. You look a fool. You might as well come on in and set yourself down.”

  So I did. I moved over to the couch and sat down. That’s one of the strange things about being dead but still hanging around--I can float or I can walk. And I can sit down, if I want to. I can also apparently stomp my foot right through the Wal-Mart parking lot if I get mad enough. But none of it’s really conscious.

  Maw-Maw peered at me through her thick glasses. I could hear Ashara in the kitchen, dragging a chair over and clambering up onto it, unscrewing the burned-out light bulb and putting in the new one.

  “So,” Maw-Maw said. “Why you haunting my granddaughter?”

  “I’m not haunting her,” I explained, leaning forward earnestly. “I just need her help. She’s the only person who has actually seen me since I’ve been in Abramsville.”

  Maw-Maw’s eyes narrowed. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

  I sighed. “No. I’m from Dallas.”

  “So why you here?”

  “I don’t know. I died in Dallas. And then I just woke up dead. In Abramsville. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know how I got here. But I saw someone kill Molly McClatchey, and it wasn’t her husband. But he’s the one they arrested.”

  “She that girl got killed with a piano wire?” Maw-Maw asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Maw-Maw nodded. “I saw that on the TV. They arrested him yesterday.”

  “And it don’t have a damn thing to do with us,” Ashara said from the kitchen doorway.

  “You watch your mouth, child,” Maw-Maw said.

  “I just don’t know who else to go to,” I said.

  “Hmm.” Maw-Maw’s eyes closed. Her head dropped to her chest and she began breathing deeply and regularly.

  Is she asleep? I wondered.

  “Okay, Maw-Maw,” Ashara said, gently touching her grandmother on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go now. You need anything else before I leave?”

  Maw-Maw’s head snapped up--much more quickly than I would have expected from such an old woman. “You sit yourself down, Ashara Jones. You ain’t going nowhere until you figure out what to do with this white ghost lady.”

  “Maw-Maw,” Ashara whined.

  “No, ma’am.” Maw-Maw’s voice was no longer trembling. In fact, it was practically strident. “You brought this dead white lady over to my house. So you can just sit yourself down next to her and listen to what I have to say.”

  Ashara sighed and sat down as far from me on the couch as she could possibly get. She crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together.

  “Now you listen to me, Ashara. God gave you a gift, one that you ain’t never used before. And if God didn’t want you to see no dead white ladies, you wouldn’t. But you seen this one. And heard her, too. She’s here asking for your help. And you are going to give it to her. You hear me?”

  Ashara turned and glared at me. “Yeah.”

  “What did you just say to me, Ashara Marie Jones?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ashara sounded resigned.

  “Good.” Maw-Maw nodded to herself and wrapped her afghan around herself a little tighter. “Now you two girls get on out of here and figure out what you got to do next. My story’s about to come on the TV and I don’t want to miss any of it.”

  Ashara stood up and leaned over to kiss her grandmother on the cheek. “Bye, Maw-Maw.”

  Maw-Maw patted Ashara’s hand. “Thank you, baby. You’re a good girl.”

  I stood awkwardly by the door. “Thank you, ma’am,” I finally said as Ashara brushed passed me without even glancing my direction.

  Maw-Maw waved her hand without looking at me. “Good-bye, ghost lady. Don’t you go getting my Ashara in trouble.”

  How was I supposed to answer that? “Um. Okay. Bye,” I finally said.

  I followed Ashara out the door, barely managing to slide my ethereal butt into the passenger seat of her car before she pulled away from the curb, tires squealing.

  “I don’t have to help you j
ust because my Maw-Maw says I do,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t have to help you at all.”

  “I know,” I said again.

  “So why are you still in my car?” Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.

  “Because you’re going to help me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I saw the way you looked when your grandmother said you had a gift from God.”

  “So what?”

  “You believe her. You believe you have a gift from God and if you don’t help me, you’ll feel guilty about it for the rest of your life.”

  “You believe I got a gift from God?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You believe God sent you to me?” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “I don’t know what I believe,” I said after a long, silent moment. “I mean, I used to believe in heaven. But what I got when I died was Alabama.”

  “Why do you want to help this guy stay out of jail so much?” she asked. “You think if you save this guy, you might get to go to heaven?”

  I let the silence drag out on that one. Finally, I said, “Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that he didn’t do it.” I shrugged. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashara said. “People go to jail every single day for things they didn’t do. I can’t save all of them.”

  No,” I said, “but maybe you can save one.”

  Ashara sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Okay. Fine. What do you want me to do?”

  Chapter Five

  “I guess the first thing we should do is try to find some evidence that will exonerate Rick McClatchey,” I said.

  “And how are we supposed to do that?”

  “Well, the only thing that I know was in his home was already collected by the police.”

  “That blood you told me about,” Ashara said, nodding.

  “Yeah. So I think that maybe the next place we should look is his shop.”

  “What shop?”

  “His musical instrument repair shop. If his DNA is on it, that’s probably where the killer got the piano wire.”

  “And how do you think we’re going to get into that place?” Ashara was looking at me out of the corner of her eye again. Suspiciously.

  “Well. I guess we’ll have to go into the shop,” I said slowly.

  “Go into?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mean break into.” Ashara pulled the car over to the curb and stopped it, then turned in the seat to face me full-on. “Do you know what the police do to black people they find breaking into stores?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “They put them in jail and throw away the key. And that’s if they’re lucky. If they’re not lucky, the police shoot them. On sight. And then claim that they were attacked.”

  “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad.”

  Ashara tilted her head, raised her eyebrows, and pursed her lips. “It’s that bad. And you are not going to get my ass thrown in jail.”

  “Then we just won’t get caught,” I said decisively.

  “Oh yeah? And how do you plan to make sure that don’t happen?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I’ll think of something.”

  * * * *

  “It looks all clear,” I whispered, sliding back into the passenger seat--without ever opening the car door, of course.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” Ashara said--though she, too, was whispering. “No one else can hear you.”

  We were parked about a block from the musical instrument repair shop, a small storefront in the downtown square. At 10:00 at night, everything was dark except for the bar a few blocks away. I had gone into the shop and looked things over. Nothing seemed out of place in any way, as far as I could tell. The front showroom was neat and orderly. The back room had several work benches with tools and instruments in various stages of disrepair scattered across them.

  The shop had an alarm system, but it was electronic, so I had been able to disable it fairly easily.

  Callie Taylor, Ghost Criminal.

  I hoped I had done everything I could do without Ashara’s help.

  “Did you remember to bring gloves?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. I got them in my pocket.” She patted the side of her jacket.

  “Good, then. Ready?” I asked her.

  She took a deep breath. “Ready as I can be.”

  “Let’s go, then” I said, slipping out of the car. Ashara’s exit wasn’t quite as silent as mine, since she had to open the car door to get out and then close it again behind her. But at least she didn’t slam the door.

  We strolled down the sidewalk and ducked into the alley behind McClatchey’s shop. The back door was about halfway down the alley. A dumpster on one side of the door blocked the view of the door from the street.

  Ashara reached out for the doorknob.

  “Wait!” I said. “Gloves!”

  “Oh, man,” Ashara said. Her hands shook as she pulled the gloves out of her pocket and tugged them on.

  “Okay. Now. Try the door,” I said.

  Ashara wiggled the knob. It moved easily. Then she pushed at the door. It didn’t move. “Locked,” she said. We both stared up at the key-hole to what was clearly a bolt lock about a foot higher than the doorknob.

  “We’re just going to have to pick the lock,” I said, nodding emphatically.

  “You know how to pick a lock?” Ashara asked.

  “No. Do you?”

  “What--you think all black chicks know how to pick locks?”

  Ashara looked at the door, muttering to herself. I didn’t catch much. Just something about “stupid.” I decided to ignore it.

  “Can’t you do something all ghosty and shit and unlock it?” Ashara finally asked.

  “What? You think all ghost chicks know how to pick locks?”

  Ashara stared at me for a long moment, and then finally grinned. “Okay, okay. Fine. How do you think we can do this?”

  I stared at the lock. “Wait here,” I said. I moved through the door and to the other side. On this side, the bolt was a simple twist knob. It wasn’t electric, so it was going to be harder, but maybe I could do it.

  I took the ghostly equivalent of a deep breath and held on to the lock, twisting it with my hand, all the while picturing it open, imagining the bolt popping out of the socket in the door frame. Slowly, ever so slowly, the knob began to turn. After a few moments, I had to stop to take a break.

  I popped just my head through the door into the alley. “It’s working,” I said triumphantly.

  “God. Don’t do that,” Ashara said. “That’s creepy, seeing just your head coming out that door. Damn, girl. Go back inside.”

  “I just thought you’d want to know,” I said, the smile dropping from my face. I moved back inside and went back to twisting the knob.

  Finally, the bolt sprung back.

  “Okay. It’s open,” I said, loudly enough so that Ashara could hear me from outside.

  Ashara slowly turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. We both waited for a moment, listening for the sound of an alarm.

  “I think we’re okay,” I finally said.

  “So what are we looking for?” Ashara said, glancing around the workroom.

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Well, we don’t have all night. I got to go to work tomorrow.”

  “Work?” I said. “Where do you work?”

  “You don’t gotta sound so surprised. I got a job. I work at the bank. Abramsville First National. I’m a teller at the drive-through window. So yeah, I gotta be at work tomorrow at seven-thirty.”

  “I wasn’t surprised. Just curious--it’s not like you said anything about it before.

  “Fine,” Ashara muttered. “So where should we start?”

  “I guess with piano wires, since that’s what that guy killed her with.”

  We began by searching th
e front of the store. Ashara had brought a tiny flashlight with her, the kind that attaches to key chains.

  “Be careful with the light,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to see it from outside.”

  “I am being careful,” she said. “What do piano wires look like?”

  “I don’t know. It was just a wire. He had it wrapped around his hands.”

  We moved to opposite sides of the store.

  “So you saw him kill her?” Ashara asked.

  “Mm-hmm. It was pretty awful.”

  “The news said he cut her up pretty bad.” Ashara’s voice was solemn.

  “He did. Like a butcher. In the bathtub.”

  Ashara was silent for a moment. “How’d you die?” she asked quietly.

  “Can we please just look for piano wires?” I snapped. I felt bad when Ashara didn’t say anything, but I really didn’t want to talk about my own murder. I wanted to focus on catching the man who had killed Molly McClatchey.

  “Found some,” Ashara finally said. She stood in front of a peg-board display. Coils of wire in plastic bags hung in rows, each labeled with a number--sizes, I guessed.

  “These are in bags, though,” I said doubtfully. “Maybe we ought to look in the back workroom, where the bags might have been opened.”

  I floated toward the workroom, Ashara behind me.

  Just as I got to the doorway, I heard a sound coming from the alley. Then I saw the doorknob start to turn. I frantically searched my mind, but couldn’t remember if Ashara had locked it behind us when we’d come in.

  “Someone’s here,” I hissed. “Hide.” I turned around and shooed my hands at Ashara, who stood frozen, eyes huge as she stared at me.

  “Move!” I barked out. “He can’t see me, but he can see you. Hide!”

  Ashara spun around, took two or three steps, and ducked down behind the nearest large object--a display case holding a variety of musical instruments. She moved to the corner where the counter met the wall, where the shadows were darkest.

  “Stay down,” I said. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe unless I tell you to.”

  I turned back around in time to see the door swing slowly open and a figure step slowly through the entrance.

  “Oh my God,” I said.

  Ashara stared up at me from behind the counter, biting her bottom lip worriedly.