“What did you say this was for?” Ryan grunted as he lifted the heavy base of the stamper from the rear of my van. “You crush ghosts under its weight?”
“It's for slamming the lid down on a ghost trap.” I picked up one of the cylindrical traps to show him. “It's pneumatic. This overall ghost trap design is actually from the nineteenth century. With some modern improvements. Like the ability to add temperature and electromagnetic field sensors inside the trap to help detect when a ghost is in there. I can set it to close automatically when it detects one.”
“Sounds crazy, but if it works...”
“Sometimes it works,” I said. “No guarantees, but it's worth a try.”
“Where are we setting it up?” He lugged it through the loading dock door.
I showed him where to place it, directly in front of the open door to the Tomb of History exhibit. I'd seen Snake Man going in and out of there, and it was the place to which he'd lured Polly. Maybe the Snake Man ghost dwelled down in the caves when he wasn't busy stalking and deceiving children.
Ryan watched me assemble it, asking lots of questions as I set it up. I felt nervous around him, and kept adjusting my hair, which felt like it had come loose around my face.
“I'll be watching the area on video, so I'm not putting the trap on too much of a hair trigger,” I told him. “I've got a remote control. But if the bait happens to lure Snake Man inside while I'm not looking, it ought to slam shut and lock him in.”
“Okay.” Ryan looked into the empty trap. “So you're using some kind of...invisible ghost bait? Ghost treats? Scooby Snacks? What?”
“It's not baited yet,” I said. “I need your help with that. Would you mind grabbing the keys for the display cases?”
“You got it.”
While Ryan went up to Leydan's old office on the second floor, I walked into the Hall of Monsters, past dead predators and once-deadly serpents, past the Largest Crayfish Ever Caught and the six-legged possum, slowing as I reached the cast of Bigfoot's footprint and the blurry images of the Bear Lake Monster.
I stopped, naturally, in front of the thick plastic cube housing the hand of the Snake Man. The bandaging was yellowed and dusty, and bits of dried reptilian skin were visible between the gaps.
“Okay, Amil,” I said. “If this is really your hand...I hope you'll, uh, reach out for it. I can help you find peace.”
“Peace is all I want,” a voice hissed. “The sweet peace of death...”
“Ryan!” I turned to see him behind me. “Don't...sneak up on me, or pretend to be a dead person, or...any of it.”
“Sorry. I figured you'd be impossible to scare.” He carried a key ring thick with a couple of dozen keys.
“Yeah, that's me, the fearless hero.” I said.
“You definitely seem that way to me,” he said. He began testing one key after another on the display box's lock; the keys weren't labeled.
I looked up, ready to retort his comment away somehow, but my sarcasm died on my lips when I saw the sincerity in his bright blue eyes.
“You are courageous,” he said, looking me over. “And intelligent. Insightful. You're different from anyone I've ever met.”
“Yeah, most people don't spend this much time hanging out with the spirits of the dead.”
I braced myself for the reek of decay as he finally opened the rear panel of the dusty display box.
“The girls really like you,” he said. “Especially Polly.”
“Well...” I didn't know what to say to that.
“How serious would you say you are with the other guy?” Ryan asked. “On a scale of 'nearly married' to 'free to go see a show in Knoxville with someone else'? There'd be dinner involved. There's this place called Sapphire that's in a renovated jewelry store, and it's supposed to be great. But most of my dinners out are kind of at the Chuck E. Cheese level. I've been kind of dreaming about hanging out with an intelligent, interesting, full-grown adult person who I'd like to get to know better. But you're the first one I've met in a long time.”
“I...don't know,” I said. “I mean, you're a client, and I'm working, so...”
“Yeah, sorry.” He took a step back, as if trying to exit my personal bubble, which he really hadn't been invading in the first place. “I shouldn't have...I mean I'm basically hitting on you at work here, so I shouldn't do that—”
“No, it's okay.” My face was flushed. The thing was, I did really like him. I was interested, or would have been, but I'd just told myself I was committing to Michael. Ugh. I hadn't dated anyone in years, so why had my dating life suddenly mutated into a multiple-choice problem?
I reached into the display with a large pair of tongs he'd brought from the workshop, and I lifted out the Snake Man's hand.
We both looked at the old bandaging. Dried reptilian skin flaked out, despite my attempt to handle the nasty old thing as gently as possible.
“I kind of thought it would be more...” Ryan began.
“Rotten?” I asked. “Brittle? Blatantly disgusting?”
“Yeah.”
I turned the hand this way and that, trying to get a better look.
A piece of dried bandaging near the wrist fell loose, revealing a big piece of the hard green hand under the bandages.
“No way.” I set the hand down on the display with the Bigfoot cast. Then I pinched the loose piece of bandaging with the tongs and pulled.
The bandaging came loose, along with a shower of dried reptilian scales.
Beneath it, the hand was solid and green. It hadn't decayed at all.
Because it was plastic.
“What?” Ryan said, watching closely.
I put the tongs aside and unraveled the bandaging with my fingers. Many more stiff, dried reptilian scales fell out.
“It looks like he wrapped it in old, shedded snake skins before bandaging it,” I said as I peeled it all away.
Then I held up the mannequin's hand, which had been spray painted green. We both looked at it for a moment.
“Well,” I said. “I guess we found the Hook Killer's missing hand.”
“It's a fake?” Ryan asked.
“Like half the stuff in this museum,” I said. Then I sighed, thinking it over. “Which means I'm back to square zero. Zero leads on Snake Man's real identity. Zero bait to lure him into a trap. I'd hoped a piece of his remains would do it, but this couldn't lure anything.”
“Maybe the ghost of an old department store,” Ryan suggested. “One that died in a liquidation sale. That's probably where all these mannequins came from.”
“Ugh. This is useless.” In my frustration, I pitched the green-painted mannequin's hand all the way up the Hall of Monsters. It struck a taxidermied owl, then fell and clattered to the floor. Because that's the sound useless plastic imitation hands make when they hit the floor—they clatter.
“So now what?” Ryan asked.
“Back to watching and listening. Two more investigators are joining us tomorrow, including a medium. He should be able to help us make contact with the entities here and figure out what they want.” I sighed. “Don't worry. I'm not leaving here until the ghosts are gone. Just keep all your kids out of the museum. And the caves.”
“I've already told them it's all off limits,” he said. “And that's slowing down my renovation from its usual turtle's pace.”
“Hopefully I'll figure something out soon.” I looked at the empty display case where the fake hand had been and resisted the urge to smash it. Instead, I walked back up the hallway of creatures. “I'm going to dig into your uncle's records some more. We have to figure out where the Snake Man came from.”
“Sounds like a fun night,” he said. “Want some help?”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly. “I don't mind digging through old paperwork alone. And I'd feel better if you were up on the third floor, closer to your kids. You know?” I started up the cobwebbed old stairs to the second floor.
“Works for me. I'm pretty wiped out as it is. But text me if you change your mind. I might still be up. Being tired doesn't necessarily mean sleeping well, not these days.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks for the offer, but I'll concentrate better alone.” Especially after I'd decided not to encourage his apparent interest in me. Realistically, too, the guy had three kids, so he needed someone much more stable than me, someone less likely to get followed home from work by dangerous ghosts with murderous intentions. Like a kindergarten teacher. There had to be lots of nice unmarried kindergarten teachers who would make great, non-evil-ghost-attracting stepmoms out there.
We reached Leydan's old office, and Ryan split open the cupboard and vanished up the hidden stairway. After he was gone, I pushed the cupboard halves back together again.
It was going to be just me and the ghosts tonight. Maybe it would get a little lonely, but at least I wouldn't be distracted.
I walked over to an old file cabinet and pulled open a drawer.