Family Bonds: Ghost Detective Short Stories, #3 by R.W. Wallace

Author:R.W. Wallace [Wallace, R.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Varden Publishing
Published: 2022-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Four

Once Bernadette is out of earshot, I shove away from Clothilde’s tombstone and sit down on top of my own grave.

“Clothilde?” I say softly. “I know you’re nearby. Will you please come out?”

For a long time, nothing happens. Although I’m burning up with alternating guilt and curiosity, I stay put, giving her the time she needs to show herself.

Finally, well into the next day, she comes. One moment I can’t see her; the next, she sits on the tombstone, her Converse-clad feet dangling.

She doesn’t talk to me. Doesn’t look at me.

“I met your mother,” I say. “Lovely woman.”

The snort escapes before she can catch it.

My lips curl into a soft smile. “I understand why you’ve been avoiding her, Clothilde. But I think she needs your help.”

Another snort. “Right.”

“If she’s here,” I say, “it means she has unfinished business. I’m pretty sure it involves you. And the circumstances around your death.”

Clothilde lifts her eyes to meet mine for the first time since her mother’s funeral. They are duller than usual, less focused. Sad.

“She abandoned me,” she says, her voice low but steady. “Somebody suggested I’d taken my own life, and she believed them. Couldn’t even offer me a place with the rest of the family.” She kicks at the tombstone with one heel.

I nod. “I know that’s how it looks,” I tell my friend. “But you’ve been here even longer than me, Clothilde. How do we know what people’s unfinished business is?”

Her lips curl. “We don’t. They tell us.”

Nodding, I give her a smile. “They know what it is. Sometimes it’s obvious to them and us. Sometimes we have to help them figure it out. But they never discover they have unfinished business because we tell them they do.”

“That is what she claims.”

“It is.” I fold my hands in my lap. “I think she’s still suffering from the same denial as when she lived. But deep down? She knows she failed you.”

Clothilde stares at me with her dull eyes. She’s stopped swinging her legs and sits stock still, as if she’s a newly added statue to her own tombstone.

“Bullshit,” she says.

“She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t have regrets,” I argue. “I think what she needs is to admit she was wrong to believe what was said about you—and probably have a chat with you.”

“Bullshit.” A whisper now.

My eyes wander to her tombstone. The simple slab of rock with only her first name on it.

“Who paid for your funeral?” I ask. “You don’t exactly have the most coveted spot, but you’re here. Despite being listed as a suicide. Who pulled that off?”

Clothilde’s eyes search out to the church spire. “I don’t know. I only came out of the casket after they’d filled in the hole, and nobody ever came to visit.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You came out straight away?” Most people—me included—spend days screaming before coming to terms with being a ghost.

Clothilde shrugs. “Guess you could say I saw the murder coming. Wasn’t surprised to end up dead. Kind of surprised to end up a ghost.

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