Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

to make a car work and trying to figure out why you’re a ghost all at the same time.”

“Where are we going, by the way?”

I backed the truck out of the parking spot and turned around, heading back toward the highway that would take us into Lockhart. “The sheriff’s office. I did some research this morning, and I want to talk to Willis and see what he thinks.”

“Okay,” Peter said. We rode in a companionable silence until I pulled up outside the jailhouse.

Willis was on the phone when I walked into his office, and he held up one finger to me. I sat down and waited, then gave him a questioning look as he hung up. “What’s up, babe?” I asked, not before I looked to make sure the dispatcher, Ethel, or his new deputy, Tommy, weren’t within earshot. I don’t mind the occasional PDA, but I do try to keep things moderately professional when we’re at his office.

“That was the coroner. There were no wounds that weren’t consistent with an automobile accident, so we’re ruling it an accidental death and releasing the body. Which won’t take much, since the examination was performed in the back of Bratton’s Funeral Home.”

“Is that normal?” I asked. “Don’t they usually do those things at the hospital?”

“Usually,” Willis agreed. “But since we had it on good authority that there wasn’t any foul play, and Bratton’s was closer than the hospital, me and Ferber just agreed to send Mr. Smalls there. Save the family one more thing to deal with. Kenny Bratton handles about all the funeral business in that half of York County, so it was a good bet he’d get the call anyway.”

“Thank him for that kindness from me, Lila Grace,” Peter murmured.

“He’s grateful for that consideration,” I said, nodding to the other chair before Willis’s desk.

“Have y’all come up with any idea as to why Mr. Smalls hasn’t passed on?” Willis asked.

“I have, but I don’t think you’re going to like it. I know I don’t,” I said.

Peter turned to me, and Willis leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. “Now, Lila Grace, I know you talk to ghosts, and it came in real handy with that Miller girl’s murder, but this is still a rural county in South Carolina. There ain’t going to be a lot of murders going around.”

I gave him a dirty look. “I know that, and I ain’t looking to be no hillbilly Jessica Fletcher. But did you know that the three-mile stretch of 49 where Mr. Smalls wrecked is one of the deadliest sections of highway in the state?”

Willis sat back. “Really? That doesn’t make any sense. Was there one bad wreck with multiple fatalities that’s screwing up the averages?”

“No. And you’re right, it doesn’t make any sense. All the top ten most lethal crash sites in South Carolina are intersections, usually with a blind curve, or some kind of logical, visible danger. Except this one. It’s a straight stretch of road with some hills, but the shoulder is plenty wide enough, it doesn’t wind through any tight places, and it doesn’t really see that much traffic. Now South Carolina’s a horrible state to drive in anyway. It ranks third in the country in deadly traffic accidents, but most of that is chalked up to rednecks drinking too much, driving too fast, and not wearing seat belts when they put the first two together.”

“How many people have died on that stretch of road?”

“Four last year, and three so far this year. It seems like just about every three months, somebody runs off the road into one of those deep gulleys and gets killed.”

“How did I not notice that?” he asked.

“Well, think about it,” I countered. “You just got here a little over a year ago, so you missed the first two fatal wrecks up there. Jeff may have responded to one of the other ones, Tommy another one, and it might have been that you were busy and just let the Highway Patrol handle it. You don’t go to every bad wreck in the county.”

“In fact, it’s pretty rare. I only went last night because I had my climbing gear in the car and wanted to try it out.”

“You mean show off,” I said. I was happy to see a little blush creep up from under his collar. Made me feel good that I still had a man wanting to show off for me. “So it ain’t all that strange for you to have not been to a fatal wreck in that part of the county until last night.”

“Well, that’s a lot of wrecks in one spot, and it’s an odd spot, but that doesn’t mean there’s something supernatural going on,” Willis said, ever the Scully to my ghost-talking Mulder.

“That’s true, but then you add in the other factors.”

“What other factors?” Willis and Peter said simultaneously.

I smiled at them for playing along so well and said, “All the fatal wrecks happened late at night. On a Sunday night. All of them were single car accidents. All the vehicles were driven by married men with children. And with a few phone calls, three nosy dead old ladies, and a little bit of social media stalking, I was able to determine that each man was at the same place of business within a few hours of the wreck.”

“You’re telling me…” Willis’s voice trailed off. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said, standing up and grabbing my purse from where it hung on the arm of the chair. “Let’s go, Sheriff. We need to go to Pole Cats and find out who’s killing patrons of Union County’s only doublewide strip club.”

I’m sure there are some places where if I referred to something as a “doublewide strip club” I’d be talking about a building with two stages, or a women’s side and a men’s side, or just a really big building. Those places are not Jonesville, SC. No, out in the wilds of the South Carolina upstate, the term “doublewide strip club” is