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Loretta suggested Gera return late morning, before the lunch crowd arrived. That gave her roughly an hour or so to wander around town and talk with other residents.
She turned to her right, following the sidewalk as it sloped downward. She admired the colorful pottery displayed in the window of the first store, but the door handle wouldn’t budge. She belatedly noticed the small cardboard sign wedged against the glass and the words scribbled in a hasty hand.
Sorry. No internet, no cash register. No register, no sales. No sales, no reason to be here. As if an afterthought, the last line was large and scrawled. Tell Mac to turn the ‘net back on.
“Oh, great,” Gera grumbled aloud. “They’re even blaming that on the poor guy. Like a ghost from the thirties even knows what the internet is.”
She wandered past an empty storefront, thinking it was a shame such a large space would go to waste. She echoed that thought moments later, as she stepped into one of the narrowest stores she had ever seen. There was hardly room enough to turn around, much less display the many t-shirts the proprietor had to offer.
Slightly claustrophobic, Gera stayed near the front of the building, where the plate-glass windows gave the illusion of more space. She pretended to study the rows of t-shirts on display. They literally climbed the wall, reaching all the way to the twelve-foot ceiling, suspended from neatly draped clotheslines. If she stalled long enough, she was certain the saleswoman would come to her.
“Can I help you?” a bored voice called from somewhere beyond the first rack of Jerome-themed jersey knits.
“Uhm, I was looking for a shirt.”
At the possibility of a sale, interest percolated in the woman’s voice. “Anything in particular?”
“Something with a ghost, maybe?”
The sales clerk laughed. “We have plenty of those!” She pointed to the wall of shirts. “Third row up. Those are our bestsellers, but we have more on these racks. Something like this, perhaps?” She pulled a purple shirt from the rack and dangled it before her. Against the wispy image of a ghost, the words ‘Keep Jerome Boo-tiful’ were scripted in glittery hot pink letters.
Gera tried not to wince. “I was looking for something less...” She motioned with her hands, but could think of no hand gesture for gaudy. She finished with a lame, “Less. Just less.”
Stuffing the shirt back among the rest, the saleswoman laughed. “I understand. You don’t look like the pink glitter type.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The woman tried sifting through the crowded rack, walking in a circle as she peeked at first one shirt, then another. The rack was so full, it was impossible to see the fronts of the shirts without pulling them free. “Do you have a preference on color?”
“Blue, maybe, or black.” She bit back the urge to add, something businesslike. It was a t-shirt, after all, sporting the image of a ghost. Hardly her usual attire.
“Oh, I have just the thing! They came in this morning. We haven’t even put them on display yet.” She squeezed past the checkout counter and bent down, coming up with a dark gray shirt in her hands. “Ta-da. Our latest and greatest.”
With a flourish, the woman turned the shirt around for Gera’s inspection. It featured the wispy image of a tall, thin ghost wearing a top hat. Jerome, Arizona was stenciled in neat red letters, with a smaller caption beneath it in white. Home of Mac the Ghost, circa 1938.
“Aren’t these great?” the saleswoman gushed.
I doubt Abe Cunningham’s family will think so, Gera thought to herself. Aloud, she feigned ignorance and asked, “Who’s Mac?”
The salesclerk stared at her in surprise. “You don’t know who Mac is?”
“Judging from the shirt, I’d say he’s a ghost.”
The woman bobbed her head. “He’s our local ghost around town. We have several, you know, but Mac is a town favorite. He’s been roaming these streets since the big explosion of ‘38.”
“Ah, so that’s what the circa stands for.” Gera pretended to hear about Mac for the first time. “He’s a friendly ghost, I assume?”
“Some think of him as more of a guardian angel than a ghost. He’s been watching over this town for as long as most anyone can remember.”
“That sounds pretty cool. What does he do, exactly, that’s so helpful?”
“Oh, lots of things. He helped my mom find a lost ring one time. She knew she lost it while gardening, but she could never find it, no matter where she dug. Then one day, out of the blue, it was there, right on top of the soil. She knew she had Mac to thank.”
Gera struggled to look convinced.
“That’s not all, of course. He saved a little boy who fell down the old mine shaft, and he guided a group of children to safety when their bus stop was hit by a drunk driver.”
“You know, now that I think about it, I think I heard someone mention him this morning. But I got the impression he had done something bad. I think they mentioned that he pushed somebody?” She tried to look vaguely confused, even shaking her head for emphasis. “I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I didn’t pay much attention.”
The saleswoman frowned. “Well, don’t. Don’t listen to such nonsense. There are some people around town who have turned on ole Mac, and decided he can no longer be trusted. They think he’s the one behind all the mischief in town and that he somehow had something to do with Abe Cunningham’s death. Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?”
No more ridiculous than believing in the ghost to begin with, Gera thought, but she kept her opinion to herself.
The door opened behind them and three women stepped inside, filling the small shop to capacity. The claustrophobic feeling returned.
“I’ll come back tomorrow for the shirt,” Gera said hastily. She hurried out into the wide-open space of the sidewalk. No more alley-sized stores for her today, thank you.
Gera wandered further down the street. No one was interested in talking with her in the first store, but in the second, the proprietor was more than willing to share his opinion about Mac.
It was all a bunch of hullabaloo, he insisted. There were no such things as ghosts, and certainly none that roamed the town wearing stovepipe hats. The storeowner claimed it was all a gimmick to attract tourists. He, of course, didn’t need such nonsense to sell his wares; the quality of his merchandise spoke for itself.
If price tags were indicative of quality, Gera decided his merchandise was some of the finest.
By the time Gera retraced her steps uphill, she found Loretta seated at a back booth of the café, wrapping silverware. The waitress smiled and signaled for Gera to join her. “Perfect timing,” she chirped.
“Okay, great.” Gera slid into the seat across from her. “Because I’d love to hear more about your experiences with Mac.”
“A ghost hunter, are you?” Loretta asked with a toothy smile.
“Something like that.”
“Then you need to see my friend Anise. She runs the best ghost tour in town. Her office is two doors up the street.”
A ghost tour actually sounded like a good idea. “I think I might just do that,” Gera nodded thoughtfully.
“Make sure you ask for Anise by name. And tell her I sent you.”
“I will, thanks. But back to Mac...”
“Like I told you earlier, some folks don’t believe he exists, but I’ve seen Mac myself, at least a dozen times or more.”
“So where do you see him? What’s he usually doing?”
Loretta’s nimble fingers flew over the silverware, sorting it into sets and wrapping each one in a paper cocoon. She answered without looking up. “I see him most often over at the Cactus Bar. I work the breakfast shift and have to be here at the crack of dawn, before most of the town is even awake. Sometimes when I pass by The Cactus and look inside, I’ll see ole Mac, leaning against the fireplace mantel at the back. Usually he’s just standing there, doing nothing.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. “One time I saw him walking down Hull Street, over near Spook Hall. Another time, he was slipping off into the shadows beside the Cuban Queen.”
Gera made a mental note to familiarize herself with the landmarks mentioned.
“The last time I saw him,” the waitress continued, “was about a month ago. Come to think of it, I saw him talking to Abe Cunningham.”
“Talking to?”
Loretta offered a self-conscious laugh. “Okay, maybe not talking. But he was standing there with Abe. It was late one night, close to midnight. I was coming in from a movie down in Cottonwood, that new Sandra Bullock film. I just love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, she’s one of my favorites,” Gera agreed, but her mind was spinning. What connection was there between Abe Cunningham and this supposed ghost? “So, what were they doing, Abe and this ghost? Just standing there?”
Loretta scrunched her face in thought. “It seems like they were looking at something. Abe had some sort of paper in his hands, and I remember he was frowning. Mac was just standing there, looking on. His back was to me, but I knew it was him.”
“Because of the lop-sided hat and all,” Gera surmised.
“Yeah.” She nodded her head, but her eyes looked thoughtful. Something in her tone sounded doubtful. “You know, I don’t recall the hat being lopsided that night. But that’s silly, right? Of course, it was leaning to one side.”
“Maybe... he got a better-fitting hat?” Gera offered.
Still looking troubled, Loretta shook her head. “I must be remembering wrong. But I could’ve sworn...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head a final time. With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the silverware.
“What can you tell me about Abe Cunningham?” Gera asked.
“Salt of the earth. A hard worker, and honest to a fault.” Loretta’s brow puckered with intensity. “Salt of the earth.”
“I heard there was some issue with unpaid property taxes?”
Loretta’s head jerked up. Her eyes narrowed and filled with suspicion. “Where did you hear that?”
“I happened to drive into town last night, just as they were removing the body.” Which was true. “I overheard people on the street talking.”
“You were a witness?” Loretta gasped. “Is that why Miles Anderson was questioning you?”
“No, no, I wasn’t a witness. I just happened to be there. And I heard some people talking about past troubles with the bank, something about property taxes.”
“Yes, but he got that all cleared up. Paid Grant Young off in full.”
“Grant Young?” Gera questioned. “Isn’t that the man who found the body?”
“I don’t know about that, but Grant Young is the banker here in town. He’s the one Abe had to get square with. For a while, it looked like Abe and Ruth might lose their house. A shame that would’ve been, seeing that it’s one of the oldest houses in town and been in the Cunningham family since the early days.”
Gera idly wondered about the condition of the house. Was it still in decent shape, or was it one of the many crumbling structures sliding down the mountainside?
Her wandering mind missed the rest of Loretta’s short story, until she summed it up with a favorable nod. “...on speaking terms again, so it ended well.” The waitress stopped suddenly and frowned. “Until last night, that is. I guess it didn’t end so well, after all, huh?”
It was a rhetorical question, one she didn’t expect an answer to. Flashing a toothy smile to her companion, Loretta shook the somber mood from her thin shoulders and changed the subject. “Where are you staying in town?”
“The Dove.”
“Oh, my, you’re making a clean sweep of meeting the town’s most eligible bachelors,” the waitress teased.
Gera frowned and looked suitably confused. “Uhm...”
“You’ve met Jake, over at the hotel?”
“Yes, last night.”
“Quite a cutie, huh?” Loretta teased.
“I suppose.”
“Girl, if I was twenty years younger, I’d be all over that man like white on rice!” Loretta grinned, enjoying Gera’s sudden discomfort. “And of course, you noticed how handsome Chief Anderson is.”
“Well, I—”
“Those two are the most handsome and eligible men in town. Add Grant Young to the mix, and you’ve seen the best we have to offer. And quite the assortment. Sweet, sour, and salty.”
“I didn’t come to town to find a man,” Gera assured her.
“No, but a little added bonus can never hurt, now can it?” Loretta beamed, eyes twinkling behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Hey, Loretta!” A voice floated out from the kitchen. “You going to sit back there on your tush all day, or get in here and work like the rest of us?”
Loretta rolled her eyes and her smile disintegrated into a sigh. She pushed away the silverware and lumbered to her feet. “Sorry, hon, but duty calls.”
“I appreciate you talking to me. Thanks.” Gera thrust out her hand for a quick shake.
“No problem. And don’t forget to give my friend Anise a call and go on that ghost tour. Say, they have one over at The Dove, too. You should check it out. I hear Leo does a fantastic job.”
“I’ll do that.”
The mischief returned to her eyes. “Might want to ask Jake to go along and keep you safe,” she advised playfully.
Gera laughed off the suggestion.
It wasn’t until she was out on the street that she wondered which man was sweet, which was sour, and which of the three was salty.
