A Wild Ghost Chase by E.J. Copperman Read Free Book Online

mother, really liked history class.
    “So why do you think this points to our client lying to us?” I asked Maxie.
    “Because the Treaty of Fort Pitt was signed at Fort Pitt,” she answered. My face must have registered my puzzlement, because she added. “Where Pittsburgh is now.”
    Now it was Melissa’s turn to look puzzled. “That’s in Pennsylvania,” she said.
    Maxie nodded. If someone other than Melissa had pointed that fact out, she might have made a cutting remark but she adores Melissa and respects her youth. “Right, and it’s the far western end of Pennsylvania, almost two hundred and seventy miles from here.”
    Melissa still looked confused, so I explained. “That’s a long way for the tribe to have walked, all the way from here to Pittsburgh. I’m willing to bet Maxie has discovered the Lenni-Lenapes from this area did not migrate that far.”
    “That’s right,” Maxie said. “The people from this area tended to go south to Delaware—in fact, ‘Unami’ is another name for Delaware—or up to New York. They didn’t go that far west. That kid is still not telling us the truth.”
    Ghosts can’t sit. That is, we don’t actually rest on objects. But the habit of sitting, lying down, crouching—all things the living do—is very difficult to break. I’ve never met a person like me who had completely lost the conventions. So I sat in what must have appeared to Melissa to be mid-air, and felt my hand stroking my beard. It helps me think.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” I told them. “He wants us to find his mother, and yet he continues to give us false information. What would his motivation be?”
    “Maybe he’s confused,” Melissa suggested. “He is just a little boy, and it was a really long time ago.”
    I looked at her. “He’s barely younger than you,” I pointed out. “Do you think you would forget anything about your mom or dad? No matter how long it had been?”
    She shook her head.
    “So, why is he impeding our investigation?” I asked again. “Why not tell us the truth?”
    Maxie bit her lower lip. “Maybe he doesn’t really want us to find his mom,” she said.
    My tongue ran over my upper teeth, but there was no moisture. There never is. “Then why would he have started this?” I said, mostly to myself. It was just as well, because neither Maxie nor Melissa answered me.
    The Indian woman I’d seen in the library was, I decided, my best bet. The problem was a linguistic one, a communications question more than anything else. There had to be some way to get through to her if I saw her again.
    There were questions that normally would be Alison’s assignment in a case like this, but I did not reconsider keeping her out of the loop. There had to be another way to attack the problem.
    I turned toward Melissa. “I think we need reinforcements,” I said. She looked at me without comprehension; there are times I forget she’s not yet eleven years old. “We need to bring in the big guns,” I clarified.
    Melissa grinned. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and pushed a speed dial button.
    “Hello, Grandma?” she said.

5
    Loretta Kerby is an interesting blend. On the one hand, she seems like a very standard older lady, interested in her family, some television, a little local charity work in her active adult community, and her friends. On the other hand, most of her friends are ghosts. She told me once that she’s been aware of spirits for as long as she can remember, and she is indeed the best person at interacting with the deceased who I have ever seen.
    Loretta arrived the next day when Alison was out having a brief lunch with her friend Jeannie at a local café, The Stud Muffin, and Melissa was at school.
    “So this Eagle of the Sun boy is playing a little fast and loose with the truth?” Loretta asked after I filled her in on the situation more completely than Melissa had been able to do in their brief telephone conversation. “Why would he do that?”