The Case of the Sinister Spirit Read online

  The Case of the Sinister Spirit

  Jane Gallows Witch Private Investigator Book 1

  Leighann Dobbs

  Leighann Dobbs Publishing

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Leighann Dobbs

  About Leighann Dobbs

  Summary

  Jane Gallows isn’t much of a witch. Her spells only work when she has a mouthful of chocolate, which can be downright awkward at times. That’s why she makes her living as a private investigator.

  Of course, being a P.I. has its difficulties too, not the least of which is her lazy, sarcastic cat, who insists he’s the brains behind her sleuthing skills, and the ghost of a 1940s gumshoe that haunts her office and wants in on the case-solving action.

  When old-timer Bud Saunders hires her to get rid of a ghost in his barn, she figures it will be a piece of cake. Not so much when he turns up dead that very day. Even worse, the sheriff wants to pin it on Jane.

  Add in an unconventional family with a kooky cast of paranormal characters, a nosy neighbor who wants to turn them in for just about anything, and a witchy aunt who has suddenly gone rogue. Before Jane knows it, she’s knee deep in a heap of trouble that even the most perfectly cast chocolate-laced spells can’t solve.

  Chapter One

  The old man fidgeted in the chair across from my desk, twisting a dirty Red Sox baseball cap in his weathered hands. Sharp blue eyes assessed me from behind a leathery, wrinkled face. He leaned across the desk, his expression turning serious.

  “I need your word that you’ll keep my… err… problem… in the strictest of confidences.”

  “Of course, Mr. Saunders. I won’t tell a soul.”

  “Call me Bud.”

  “Okay, Bud, what exactly is the problem?”

  Bud held my gaze for a second then apparently decided I was trustworthy. “I think my barn is haunted, and I need you to get rid of the ghost.”

  That was the problem he needed kept in strict confidence? I had been expecting something juicier like an affair or embezzlement or maybe even a suspected murder, but haunted barns were par for the course in Hallows Crossing. Most people didn’t even want to keep them secret.

  In a town that boasted some of the bloodiest witch trials of the 1600s, most of the residents had figured out some kind of an angle to capitalize on the history. There were festivals and fairs and ghost walks, all designed to lure in tourists. And forget about Halloween. It was a madhouse around here.

  “I don’t want word to get out, though,” Bud said. “Don’t want no looky-loos and rubberneckers swarming my property.”

  “What do you think I can do to help?” I asked.

  His eyes fell to the business card on the desk. Jane Gallows. Private Investigator. They flicked up to meet mine again.

  “Well, don’t you live in that big old house on the hill that looks like something from the set of The Addams Family and has all them kooks living in it?”

  “Yep.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard my relatives described as kooks. I didn’t get offended because it was pretty much true. My family consisted of witches, ghouls and vampires, not to mention the odd assortment of pets they had around the house. They were a little bit eccentric but basically good people. Sure, my great-aunts liked to walk around wearing pointy witch hats sometimes, and my aunt and uncle slept in the family mausoleum, but in a town that attracted the eccentric, that didn’t raise eyebrows among most people.

  “Well then, you must be a witch, and witches can get rid of ghosts.” Bud looked satisfied with his assessment of me.

  I laughed. “I’m not a witch.”

  It was only sort of a lie. I really was a witch, just not a very good one. My limited witchy powers were somewhat hampered by the fact that my magic only worked if I was eating chocolate. Talk about inconvenient. And because of that, I’d flunked out of witch school and never fully developed my skills. I mean, one can only eat so much chocolate before one breaks out in zits and has to shop at the plus-size store.

  His eyes narrowed. “Well, if you ain’t up to the task, I suppose I could go to Mitch Pierce.”

  The mention of my ex’s name was like an icy dagger to my heart. No way was I losing a client to him. I didn’t care what I had to do. I wasn’t sending any business over to my lying jerk of an ex. And besides, he wasn’t a witch either, nor did he believe in ghosts.

  “Oh no, I can help you.” I’d successfully vanquished a few ghosts before, and I could always ask my cousins for pointers. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

  Bud scowled. “It’s enough to drive a man insane. Spooky lights in the night. Chains clanking. Moaning.”

  “And it’s coming from your barn?”

  “Yep, every single night. I haven’t slept good in two weeks straight.”

  “I see.”

  “So you can do the job?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Problem is I don’t have very much money to pay you.”

  I sat back in my chair and let the silence hang between us. Why were all my clients broke? But if I didn’t take the job, he’d go to Mitch, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  “We’ll work something out.”

  A snore erupted from the sofa, and we both turned to see Jinx, my cat, lying on his back with all four legs splayed out, his large belly moving up and down as he snore-breathed.

  “Did your cat just snore?”

  “Yep.”

  “Weird.”

  That wasn’t the only weird thing about the office, but I wasn’t going to tell Bud about the other thing.

  Bud’s eyes returned to mine. “So you gonna help me then?”

  “Sure. I’ll need to come by and check out the barn to see what’s going on. What time is good?” Maybe the noise was just the barn settling. Or a light spirit that could be eradicated with some of my cousin’s vanishing cream. If it was either of those, getting rid of it would be easy peasy.

  Bud stood. “I live out on 242 Kenwick Road. I’ll be home all day, but it’d be better if you waited until after dark. That’s when the ghost comes out.”

  “It’s not gonna be as easy as you think.” The voice drifted out of the corner shortly before its owner appeared.

  Did I forget to mention that my office had another occupant? Yeah, that was the other weird thing besides the snoring cat. My office had a ghost.

  I should have known there was a reason the rent was so cheap. I’d figured it was because the place had been empty for seventy years and still had several old musty filing cabinets filled with yellowed case files shoved in the corner. Nope. Turns out the previous owner of those files also came with the space.

  His name was Moe Sharpe. This had been his office back in 1948, before his private investigation career was cut short by a bullet from an angry husband right in this very office. Apparently Moe had liked the job so much his spirit had stayed in the office long after the body had been removed.

  When I’d moved in, Moe had been practically giddy at the prospect of a new partner. Me, not so much. But no matter what I did—burning sage, chanting, even using my cousin’s ghost vanishing cream—nothing got
rid of him.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  Jinx snorted and rolled over, his paws batting back and forth in some kind of a weird cat dream.

  “That’s the old Dunbuddy place up there on Kenwick Road,” he said as if I should know what he was talking about. Moe actually could be helpful sometimes when it came to old town lore. He’d lived it. The problem was he often forgot that it was now almost a century later. I had no idea who the Dunbuddys were.

  “So…”

  Moe rolled his eyes, apparently exasperated with my lack of knowledge. “Well, see here, the problem is that you’re not just dealing with a ghost. You’re dealing with a ghost that buried a treasure.”

  Hmm… that could get dicey. “Treasure?”

  “Yeah.” He plopped into the chair and kicked his Florsheims up onto my desk. “You need to get all the facts before you accept a case. Every shamus knows that. Haven’t I trained you properly?”

  No. He hadn’t trained me at all. I’d been a private investigator long before I had come to this office.

  “You know how those treasure-hoarding ghosts are. They don’t want anyone to dig up their cache,” he continued.

  He had a point. The treasure complicated things, but I was still pretty sure I could pull the job off. I wasn’t going to renege no matter what. Bud would just go to Mitch, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “I still think I can get rid of it.” What I lacked in witch skills I made up for in P.I. skills. I was good at puzzling out the clues. I guess you could say that was my magic. And ghosts that lingered typically only did so because they had unresolved issues here on the physical plane. Once you resolved those issues, poof! They’d disappear.

  Well, except for Moe, though maybe his unresolved issue was that he just didn’t want to stop detecting. Anyway, I figured if I could puzzle out why the ghost was hanging around and solve the issue, he or she would disappear.

  “Of course you can, Red.”

  I hated when he called me that. My hair was auburn, not red.

  I grabbed my tote bag, disturbing Jinx, who rolled off the couch onto the floor. He leapt up, shook himself, and then looked around as if he totally intended to do that.

  “What gives?” He scowled up at me, his face resembling that of an all-black Grumpy Cat with a white mustache.

  “I’m going out. I got a job.”

  “For this you wake me up?” Jinx’s expression turned sour, as if he’d eaten a day-old mouse.

  “I thought you might want to come with me. I’m going to Tess’s magic shop.”

  “Is that all?” He jumped back up onto the couch and curled into a tight ball. “You’re on your own, kid. Call me when something interesting happens.”

  Chapter Two

  It was the kind of late-summer day on which the air was laden with warm sunshine and just a hint of fall. I decided to walk to Tess’s a few streets over and enjoy the balmy weather. An added benefit was that the walk took me past Charming Chocolates. I needed to stop in and resupply.

  I didn’t have any magic without chocolates, so I always liked to keep them handy. Not to mention that I liked eating them. Either way, my frequent trips to Charming Chocolates had nothing to do with the fact that Joe Hayes, the chocolatier, was hotter than a bubbling witches’ cauldron.

  The doors chimed as I entered the shop and I was immediately immersed in the magical sensory experience of chocolate. The sweet, rich smell swirled around me as I looked into the cases filled with various assortments. Dark chocolate, light chocolate, white chocolate, marzipan, nonpareils. It was enough to make a girl swoon.

  I stepped up to the counter, and Joe turned from where he was cutting penuche fudge. “Hey, Jane, what can I get you?”

  Yes, we were on a first-name basis, but only because I came in here so often.

  For a moment I was speechless as his gaze held mine. His eyes reminded me of the creamiest milk chocolate flecked with gold.

  His brows rose slightly, and my cheeks heated as I realized he was waiting for me to give my order. “I’ll have a bag of eyes. I mean maple creams.”

  “Good choice.” Joe smiled and slid open the door of the display case, picking out the candies and popping them into a bag while I pulled out my wallet.

  He came over to the register and handed me the bag. Our fingertips brushed against each other. I felt a little thrill of excitement. Was I imagining that he might have felt it too?

  Probably, because the next thing he did was punch in the keys of the register, announce my total, and hold his hand out for the money. I guess it wasn’t quite as thrilling for him.

  I paid and turned to leave.

  “I put something special in there for you, Jane. Sample of a new product.”

  I glanced down at the bag. “Thanks.”

  He smiled and then turned back to his task.

  As I left the shop, I opened the bag. Inside, nestled among my maple creams, was a bigger piece of candy. Dark chocolate with white chocolate dots on the top. Was it a soft cream? What was inside? Coconut? Vanilla? I reached in to take it out—

  “You better keep that Aunt Gladys of yours under control.”

  Vera Hightower, the head of the town council, blocked my way. I’d been so intent on looking inside the bag that I hadn’t noticed her coming down the sidewalk. If I had, I would have dodged her by slipping into an alley or dashing to the other side of the street.

  It was never pleasant running into Vera. She was always harping on my family. And while it was true that they did tend to get into some mischief, it was all very innocent. But Vera didn’t see it that way. She saw everything that happened in town as something that could put a damper on tourism.

  She scowled down at me with her perfectly coiffed blond hair and her pink Chanel suit.

  “Did my aunt do something?”

  “Yes, she did. She was over at Kellerman’s Hardware buying up all the brooms. Why, there’s hardly a broom left in the area. And you know the pre-Halloween festival is in two weeks, and how is that going to look when the tourists come and we don’t have any brooms?”

  “Umm…”

  “I think she might have bats in her belfry.”

  Ha! The joke was on Vera. We actually did have bats in our belfry, but they were more like pets (yes, we actually had a belfry—no bell, however). I was a little worried about Aunt Glad though. Why would she be buying up all the brooms? That was odd behavior even for her. And though my aunts—actually my great-aunts—were getting up in age, they were still sharp as tacks. If Aunt Glad had been buying brooms, I was sure she had a good reason for it.

  My grip tightened on the bag as Vera rambled on about how important it was for the town to bring in tourists. It was true the town lived and died by the tourism dollar, but I hardly thought having no brooms was going to scare them away.

  Just one bite of chocolate and I could whammy her with a cat-got-your-tongue spell and shut her up. But I wouldn’t do that. Magic wasn’t to be used trivially. I waited for her to finish and then politely said, “I’ll see what I can do about her.”

  I stepped to the side, hoping to brush her off and be on my way.

  “You do that. But I’m going to be keeping a close eye on your family. Agnes Newman has reported some strange goings-on, and you don’t want me to have to go to Sheriff O’Hara.”

  That was the last thing I wanted. Sheriff O’Hara and I didn’t get along.

  “No, ma’am,” I said as I backed away from her. She gave me one last scowl and then turned to proceed on her way. I spun around and hurried down the street to Tess’s magic shop.

  Tess’s magic shop, Divinations, was filled with the scent of incense and the twinkle of little white lights sprinkled amidst candelabras, spiderwebs, and pentagrams. Tess was in the back, dusting the crystal balls. Her corn-silk, waist-length blond hair swayed as she moved the pink feather duster back and forth.

  She turned as she heard the door open, her smile fading when she saw my agitated state. />
  “Hey, Jane, what’s wrong?”

  “Ugh, I just had an altercation with Hightower.”

  She dropped the duster and came over to me. “Oh no. What did she want?”

  “Apparently, Aunt Glad has been buying up all the brooms. Do you know anything about that?”

  The door opened, and my other cousin, Liz, came in, her brown shoulder-length bob highlighting giant luminescent brown eyes. “I saw Hightower accost you down the street. I had to hide behind the Paul Revere statue in the park to avoid her myself. Did she want to vent about Aunt Glad?”

  “Yeah. Do you know why?”

  Liz nodded. “Seems she’s having some problems with her flying skills.”

  Tess shrugged and waved her hand in the air. “Oh, I’m sure that’ll all blow over. You know how she is.”

  The aunts were getting up there in years and had a few mixed-up spells, but broom flying was an essential skill that Aunt Glad had mastered ages ago. If she was having trouble with it, this could mean something more serious.

  Tess’s gaze dropped to the bag in my hand, and her face lit up. “Oh, did you visit that chocolatier hottie?” She waggled her eyebrows. “I’m surprised all the candy in that store doesn’t melt when he’s there.”

  “Yes, I bought some chocolates,” I said, as if I had no interest in him other than buying chocolates. Because I didn’t.

  “Whatever. I think he likes you. You should totally go for it. It’s been two years since you broke up with that viper Mitch, and you deserve a life.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” I really wasn’t in the market to have my heart broken again, and besides, when it came to recommending potential dates, my cousins were not to be trusted. We’d spent a lifetime pulling pranks on each other in the love-interest department, like fixing each other up with duds or encouraging guys that one knew the other wanted to dump. Come to think of it, that was how I’d ended up with Mitch. He’d been a blind date they thought wouldn’t take. Turned out they’d been right. Too bad it had taken me so long to realize it.