1 Chapter 1
Jon never thought, in all his twenty-eight years of life, he might have to solve his own murder—or at least try to. Not until he saw his body sprawled face down in the lot behind the apartment building where heersquo;d lived for the last five years.
“No wonder I have a headache,” he muttered, even though no one could hear him.
There were police, and people he figured were crime scene investigators from what they were wearing, hovering over his body. It was obvious how he’d died. His skull was crushed in.
“Do we have any witnesses?” one of the detectives asked a police officer, pulling on latex gloves as he spoke.
“Nope,” the officer replied. “At least no one who’s come forward to say they saw something. Not too surprising, given the hour.”
“Do we know who he is?” the detective asked the man examining the body.
The man handed the detective a wallet. “Found it under the body.”
“Jonathan Calvin Watts,” the detective announced after opening the wallet to check the driver’s license.
“That would be me,” Jon said from the top of the retaining wall surrounding the parking lot. Of course I can’t tell them that, damn it. Or who killed me, because I haven’t a clue.
“It wasn’t robbery,” the detective commented. “There’s over five hundred dollars cash in here.”
There’s what? Jon’s eyes opened wide in shock. Me and five hundred dollars in cash do not belong in the same sentence. I’m lucky if I made twenty in tips—on a damned good night.
The detective crouched beside the—Jon figured it was the medical examiner, from the TV shows hesrsquo;d watched. eldquo;Any idea what was used to kill him?hrdquo;
“Something heavy?” The ME smirked, but then sobered. “Not yet. I won’t begin to guess until I do the autopsy. Could have been a pipe, a bat, maybe a tree branch. There’s enough of those around. Looks like someone was getting rid of a dead tree.” He pointed to a spot a few feet from where Jon was perched. It was littered with branches surrounding a sawed-off tree trunk.
“Weapon of opportunity,” the detective said, getting a nod from the ME. He stood, going to talk to a pair of officers. They immediately went over to the pile of branches. Jon was certain they were checking to see if one of them had been used to killed him.
Not that he had the remotest idea. The last thing he remembered was parking his car in the lot and then starting toward the back door of the building where he lived. There was a sound from behind him, he started to turn and…
Pain, blackness, and now this. He touched the back of his head. It felt fine to him. Maybe when you die and come back as a ghost, the damage goes away? Hell if I know. He didn’t like that idea. Not because the head on his ghostly shoulders wasn’t bashed in. It was the fact he wasa ghost in the first place that pissed him off.
Why aren’t I…He waved his hand toward the dark, star-studded sky. Or even in the other place. How come I’m still here?
He’d read stories about ghosts, and figured they were a bunch of BS. “Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night,” he said under his breath. “Stories to scare kids at Halloween.”
Still, at the moment, he was beginning to wonder if there was some truth in the part about not moving on because a dead person had unfinished business. Like figuring out who killed me, and why? How the hell will I do that? He thought about it and figured maybe he wouldn’t. After all, that’s what the police are for. Right?
“How long has he been dead?” Jon heard the detective ask.
“Rough estimate, two to three hours,” the ME replied. “I’ll know better when I get the body on the table for the autopsy.”
Jon shuddered. It wasn’t like, in one part of his mind, he didn’t know that would happen. But the idea that his corpse was going to be cut up didn’t do much for him right now
He watched with morbid fascination when his body was finally encased in a black bag and one of the people pulled the zipper up until Jon could no longer see anything of his mortal remains. He was tempted to follow when the bag was put into the coroner’s van.
