Nearly Departed, Max Schlienger [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

but he had to admit that he was scarcely an expert at dealing with any aspect of the situation, regardless of what his alter ego claimed.

“Anyway,” Dennis said firmly, trying to keep his thoughts from derailing, “she doesn’t seem too inclined to talk about anything that happened around the time that she died.”

“No, I wouldn’t expect so,” Elspeth replied. “Not the happiest of times, really. I don’t remember much of it.” She stood on her toes and stretched her petite frame to put the last of the dishes back in the cupboard. Bobo made a move to help her, but shrank back under the force of a warning frown. Dennis smiled quietly. Elspeth didn’t strike him as being willing to accept help from anyone. She made it clear that her independence was her most precious possession.

Dennis’ smile faded and dropped into a thoughtful frown. Come to think of it, Elspeth’s decision to hire an investigator seemed drastically out of character for her. This was a woman who did her own gardening, her own cooking, and presumably kept the entire house in its spotless condition of cleanliness. Dennis’ frown deepened. Looming death sentence or not, he couldn’t picture Elspeth as the sort of person who would willingly ask for help unless there was something incredibly important at stake, and her attitude about her sister seemed almost blasé. Something, Dennis decided, was missing.

The feeling of a hand gripping his arm pulled Dennis out of his thoughts. Elspeth was staring up at him with an expression of very slight impatience on her face, and he was suddenly aware that Bobo was whistling tunelessly in the background.

“Sorry, I was off in my own little world there,” Dennis said. Bobo’s quiet whistling shifted, and went through a few lines of what might have been “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Elspeth’s attention remained on Dennis.

“I asked if you agreed with your musically-inclined partner,” she said, her look of irritation growing in proportion to the volume of Bobo’s noise.

“Bobo, knock it off,” Dennis said. The whistling stopped, although it may have been less out of choice and more due to the broad smile that suddenly stretched Bobo’s face. Dennis gave him a look, and then smiled apologetically down at Elspeth. “I’m sorry, I must have missed something while I was thinking. What are you asking me?”

“Barnaby has suggested a rather… unique solution,” explained Elspeth. Behind her, Bobo made a cross-eyed face and pantomimed an explosion with his hands.

“Oh, that,” Dennis said. He raised an eyebrow at Bobo as he spoke. “We discussed it, but only as a last resort.” He looked back at Elspeth, whose face was now touched by a skeptical if not patiently amused smirk.

“You’re welcome to try it, of course.” She turned to look at Bobo, who was not quite fast enough in dropping his arms. “I don’t imagine you’ll have very satisfying results, though.”

Bobo was talking before Elspeth was halfway through her disclaimer. “Great!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “I’ll set about moving the chair outside, then.” He marched out of the room, the sounds of his whistling following him. Dennis watched the man go, and a few seconds passed before he realized that Elspeth was staring his way.

“I’m sorry about him,” Dennis said in a low voice. “I’m sure he means well. I’ll ask him to stay behind tomorrow, if you’d like.”

“Oh, hardly, Dennis,” replied Elspeth. “He’s an entertaining young man. A bit quick to resort to drastic measures, perhaps, but his enthusiasm is endearing.” She beckoned for Dennis to follow her. They walked through the kitchen’s side door and entered a spacious living room which Dennis had yet to see. Elspeth approached a slender wooden cabinet at the room’s far side, and fiddled with a decorative key set into one of the doors.

“I’m afraid that I haven’t any gasoline handy,” she said. There was a metallic click of a latch, and Elspeth pulled her canvas purse from the cabinet’s recesses. “There’s a station near the highway, though, and I should think that you can buy a gas can there.” She handed Dennis a few bills, which he took reluctantly.

“I could convince him to let me talk to her a bit longer,” Dennis said. He could already hear the grunts and thumps of Bobo wrestling the chair through the house. “I mean, we only tried for a few minutes. I’m not ready to give up yet.”

Elspeth smiled cryptically. “Humor your friend for now, Dennis. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have plenty of time to do things your way.”

The walk to the gas station was fairly short, but was still taking awhile. It wasn’t until Dennis was halfway along that he realized he could have just driven the distance, and by that point he didn’t feel like turning around. Besides, the time alone gave him a chance to mull over the various details that had been bothering him. There was no reason for Elspeth to lie, but perhaps she had unconsciously omitted an important point somewhere. About what, Dennis couldn’t say. He supposed there was always the chance that his suspicions were merely the result of his paranoia acting up again.

His steps fell into a slow rhythm as he worked through his thoughts. Elspeth had contacted him because she wanted to get rid of her dead sister. Why was it so important? Yes, she was due to follow in her departed sibling’s footsteps before too long, but that didn’t seem to be quite enough motivation for a woman who was otherwise so independent. Maybe, as she had hinted, she was worried that she’d wind up as a ghost herself, and was trying to make certain that she didn’t have any reason to hang around. Eight years around a haunted chair probably gave one some interesting thoughts about the afterlife.

Several minutes of thought-heavy walking passed before he became aware of the dark blue sedan following behind him. Dennis glanced over his shoulder, wondering if the driver was lost. The glare