The ghost sighed heavily. “I don’t care about revenge. But…I have a family. Two younger brothers, who I practically raised myself after our parents died. They were…only eighteen and twelve when I went missing. I just want them to finally know what happened to me…”
Ollie sniffled, his eyes now glossy. “I get that. Do…do you think me telling them would?—”
“No,” Irene cut him off. “Neither of them ever believed in such things as ghosts. As much as I loved everything supernatural, they fell in love with science instead. They would likely think you insane if you tried.”
Yeah, they sounded like Ollie from not too long ago. Not that his little witch had a particular love for science, more a love of disbelief.
“Fair enough,” Ollie murmured solemnly, nodding as if he wished he still did not believe.
Snorting, Noble stated, “The other option is your body being found. Do you happen to know where it is?”
Though, depending on how whoever murdered her got rid of it, it was possible there wasn’t much left, and hadn’t been for a long ass time. He supposed they’d cross that bridge if they had to.
“I do,” Irene said, almost hesitantly. “Yet…I don’t think I can tell you where it is. Like, I feel I could go there myself, but when I even think about trying to tell you where, my mind goes fuzzy. I don’t know why, but I’m sure if I could go with you, I’d be able to direct you straight to it. Which doesn’t?—”
“Then that is what we will do!” Ollie chimed.
She winced. “No, see, that’s what I was going to say. It doesn’t make sense that I’m even sure of it, because I can’t actually leave the diner. And believe me, I’ve tried…many, many…manytimes.”
“So that may not be a problem now—maybe.” Ollie pursed his lips. “Let us finish eating, and when we get up to leave, try to follow me, and see if that changes. Because the car ghost that I met before you was able to leave with me, I think. I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?”
Irene nodded, saying, “I’ll do that,” before floating away.
With Noble waiting outside already,and Irene right behind him, Ollie paused to take a deep breath before stepping out of the diner.
He sighed when he turned around and watched the ghost disappear as soon as she tried to step past the threshold. “Okay, new problem.”
“Yep…”
Heading to Noble’s truck, after they climbed inside, the man said, “I’d bet money on it being Marlow that killed her. It would make the most sense, as the place was locked up, and he’d have a key to get in. As for the witness…”
“Georgie,” Ollie groaned. “I hate to think that either of them are involved. Marlow was a bit on the quiet side, but he was a really sweet man, from what I remember… Yet, it does make the most sense. Like, no one breaking and entering would take the time to clean up or move a body, unless they knew her. Of course, I’m just assuming they cleaned up. We won’t actually know until the police records are in our hands.”
“Even if blood was a lot easier to hide back then, given it was the sixties and the chemicals they used weren’t as advanced and sensitive detection-wise. Not to mention, that crime scene procedures themselves weren’t as thorough. With the location being so connected to the possible killer, I can’t imagine they didn’t at least try to clean up. Though, all that being said, Irene herself doesn’t think Marlow could have done it.”
“Yeah, well, maybe both her and I are just that bad at judging people…”
“Some people are just really good at hiding things, Ollie. You can’t blame yourself for that,” Noble said, as he gently ran a hand over his upper back in a comforting manner, before pulling out of the parking lot.
He sighed. “I suppose…”
“Question…what do we know about the wife?”
Ollie’s brow pulled at that, as he tried to think over what he knew about Marlow’s wife, and found a whole lot of nothing. “Not much? I know her name was Darline. But she died long before I was born. I want to say, from some sort of cancer, but I can’t be sure if I’m pulling that from thin air, or if someone actually told me. I feel like Marlow mentioned her before, but…it’s very vague.”
“Right, should we head straight back to the library or…get ice cream?”
“Oh, ice cream!” Ollie giggled.
With a smile on his face, aimed at the woman behind the desk, Ollie handed over the clipboard with the form he just signed, his ID on top.
She stared down at it blankly, grunting, “One moment,” before rolling her chair over to her computer and typing away.
He looked around the small back hall of Westerly Heights Police Station as he waited. He’d say it was pretty empty for a Monday, but he wasn’t sure it was ever super busy, aside from the times he’d been briefly arrested for alleged involvement in helping appraise goods of possibly questionable origins, so they could be sold to characters with less than stellar reputations.
While Ollie hadn’t been to this specific area of the station before—having mainly ended up in the interrogation rooms—he had to say it looked about the same as the rest of it. Which meantbeige walls that turned green in a harsh, straight line a little less than three-quarters of the way down, along with green-tiled floors.
Not that he hadn’t requested police files before. He just usually ended up at the larger stations nearby.
