A Haunting Dream (A Missing Pieces Mystery) by Joyce Lavene, Jim Read Free Book Online Page A

door as though the dead were after me—which I prayed they weren’t.
    An outside light came on at the back deck that fronted the water. “Mayor O’Donnell?” Mrs. Cooley, a nice middle-aged woman with gray-lilac tinted hair, greeted me. “Is something wrong? Do you need help?”
    Her husband came to the door behind her in his red striped pajamas. “What’s wrong, Ethel?” he asked his wife. “Has she been assaulted? Should we call the police?”
    “Yes!” I answered, teeth chattering, knowing they might take it the wrong way. But whatever got Chief Michaels down here worked for me. “Could I call my grandfather too? My cell phone isn’t working.”
    “Really?” Mr. Cooley questioned. “We’ve always had great service here. It must be your provider.”
    I handed him my phone, which was also covered in sand. He hit Gramps on speed dial and the call went right through. He shrugged and handed the phone back to me.
    “Dae?” Gramps answered the phone. “Where are you? Ronnie and I have gone through two pots of coffee waiting for you. There’s some news about Chuck Sparks. Ronnie has some questions for you—and for Chuck.”
    “I have some answers for the chief. Both of you need to come over to the Cooleys’ house. I’m over here. Chuck is on the beach in the drainage ditch. Dead.”
    “Well, I guess we won’t be asking him those questions then,” Gramps replied and hung up the phone.
    I shivered and nodded when Ethel Cooley asked me if I wanted some coffee.
    Of course, the Cooleys were concerned and disturbed that there was a dead man only a few hundred yards from their home. I dropped down on a kitchen chair, hoping they didn’t mind the sand, and tried to calm their apprehension.
    By that time, we could hear sirens approaching, and Mr. Cooley went to open the front door to let everyone in. It wasn’t long before Chief Michaels, Gramps and Officer Scott Randall, our other full-time Duck police officer, were there.
    The emergency rescue crew was immediately behind them. As soon as they arrived, we all trooped down to the beach to retrieve Chuck’s body.
    “What were you doing way down here?” Gramps asked. “I thought you were with your friends at Wild Stallions.”
    “I needed some time alone,” I explained. “Then I saw the
Andalusia
.”
    The chief made a scoffing sound. “You and every other flaky person in Duck.”
    “I’m not a flake,” I said, defending myself and every other person who’d seen the ghost ship. “It was there. It wasn’t a real vessel. I followed it down the beach until I fell into the drainage ditch and found Chuck.”
    “Let’s just see if this
body
is real then,” the chief said.
    Chuck was definitely real. As soon as the paramedics checked him and agreed that he was dead, the chief put on his latex gloves. “Looks like you were right about Chuck, Mayor. In fact, I was at your house to tell you that something was off. No one has seen him in three days. His mail was piling up, and no one had fed his cat.”
    “Now maybe you’ll believe me about Derek Johnson. The medallion belonged to Chuck. The only one likely to know he’d lost it would be his killer.”
    “Thank you, Miss Marple. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll draw my own conclusions. You need to get out of the crime scene area, ma’am. We’ll let everyone do their jobs.”
    Gramps put his arm around me. “Let’s get you home and out of these wet clothes, Dae. We’ll find out all about this by morning, I’m sure. There’s nothing else we can do here.”
    I saw him nod to the chief and decided that I didn’t care. He was right. A hot bath and a good rest were long overdue. I was way past ready for this day to be done.
    Gramps and I talked a little on the ride back in the golf cart. I still felt charged up from seeing the ghost ship. Not to mention having a dead Chuck Sparks talk to me.
    “You didn’t even know him that well, did you?” Gramps asked. “It’s not like the two of you were