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“I don’t remember,” she said. “I told you that my memories from those last few weeks are hazy, and I don’t know anything about the hour when I died. It was like that for almost every spirit I spoke to when I was alive, so I don’t see why it would be any different for me.”

Yes, there were rules. I sort of got that, even as those rules annoyed the hell out of me. If Father Frank could have seen who attacked him and described his assailant, then I could have tied all this up in a neat little bow.

Well, except for figuring out how to come up with some compelling evidence that didn’t include a ghost’s eyewitness account of his own murder.

“Do you think it had something to do with Father Frank?” I asked. “With whatever was weighing on his mind, I mean. Maybe the person who confessed to him was worried that he’d confided in you or something.”

Again, she was quiet. When she spoke, though, she sounded careful, and that wasn’t like the Hazel Cosgrove I knew. She’d always walked into every situation as if she knew she was in command from the very beginning, and not much had changed about that take-charge attitude even after death.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I genuinely don’t. But Lorelei, I need you to listen to me carefully. I was ninety-five when I died, and if something happened to me that wasn’t natural, I wouldn’t know. I’m telling you this not to alarm you, but simply to be honest. Ever since I came back, I’ve wondered whether my death was as natural as everyone seems to think.”

All I could do was stare at her. Suddenly, I found myself wondering if Father Frank’s death was the only one I needed to be worrying about, whether Hazel’s supposedly peaceful passing in her sleep had been nothing of the kind…and if those two deaths were somehow tied together in a way I hadn’t yet been able to decipher.

Somehow sensing my inner turmoil, Chauncey jumped into my lap and pushed his cold nose against my hand. I petted him, finding a little comfort in the sensation of his silky fur against my fingertips, of his warm body cuddling against me.

Without really thinking, I reached over and closed the journal with my free hand. More time had passed than I’d realized as I sat there and went through the journal and talked to Hazel; it was now almost ten o’clock. I needed to start getting ready soon, or I’d never be at the bar by eleven-thirty.

“I’m going to find out what happened to him,” I told Hazel. “And what happened to you…whatever it was.”

Her cool gray eyes watched me calmly. “I know you will,” she replied, as if it were a foregone conclusion. “You’re a Cosgrove.”

Despite my hurried shower and quickie makeup application, I was still running a little late when I left the house and walked down to the bar. Yes, I could have driven, but it seemed silly to do that when work was only a little over a half-mile away and the day was as gorgeous as this one. The clouds had departed, and the sky above was the deep sapphire blue that I was beginning to think only existed in this part of the country.

Roz had already unlocked the door when I got there. She smiled as I came inside, and I guessed she wasn’t too worried about the way I was almost fifteen minutes late. Then again, I wasn’t sure she could do something about it even if she was a little irritated by my tardiness. Yes, she was the manager, but I was the bar’s owner, and her boss.

Anyway, it was a Monday, and that meant we didn’t have to worry about getting bombarded by hordes of tourists or locals. A few people came in around lunch to have a charcuterie board and a glass of wine, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

In fact, it was so quiet that Roz excused herself to go to the office to catch up on some paperwork, although she told me to come get her if things picked up.

I didn’t think there was much chance of that happening — we wouldn’t get any kind of a crowd until Happy Hour started at four — but I just nodded and told her I would.

Almost as soon as she disappeared into the office, Mack appeared at the end of the bar. I moved closer to him, although I tried to make it look as if I was merely occupied with wiping down a particularly sticky section of the countertop.

“Hey, Mack,” I said in an undertone. No one else was in the bar right then, and Roz was far enough away in her office that I doubted she would have been able to hear me, but I figured it was better to play it safe. “Do you know if Father Frank ever mentioned anyone he’d been counseling? Any names or anything else that might provide some kind of lead?”

Mack’s eyes narrowed. His hat had disappeared — sometimes he was wearing it, sometimes not — but I’d never seen him run his hand through his hair the way some guys did when they were thinking.

Probably too much pomade or whatever it was that men used on their hair back in the 1920s.

For a second, his gaze went to the bottles of wine behind the bar, and I got the feeling he was wishing he could have a drink right around then, even though he’d been a whiskey guy.

Then he said, “Father Frank didn’t talk shop in here, doll. Not the kind of talk you mean, anyway. He came in for a glass of red and to chat with Hazel. He left his collar at the door.” A pause, and then Mack shook his head. “But I can tell you one thing. He was a regular in this place for almost ten years. Six months ago, though, his pattern changed. He started coming in more often, sometimes twice a week instead of only the one time. And he started staying longer, like he didn’t want to go back to the rectory and instead hung around here until it was almost closing time.”

Interesting. Whatever had been weighing on Father Frank’s mind, it had been serious enough that he’d started using Copper State Cellars as a kind of refuge.

“Was he ever with anyone?”

“Nope,” Mack replied. “He was always alone. He always sat at the bar and had only that one glass.”

About what I’d been thinking — I hadn’t seen the priest with anyone, either, but I’d only been working at the bar for a couple of weeks, so I didn’t know whether that was his usual pattern or whether he’d only recently started flying solo.

Apparently, these reminiscences bothered Mack enough that he sort of faded away after that, almost as if he didn’t want me to ask any more questions.

But at least what he’d told me seemed to reinforce what I’d already read in Hazel’s journal. During the past six months or possibly a little longer, something had been bothering the priest enough that he’d actively avoided being at Sacred Heart any more than he absolutely had to.

The bar remained quiet. I was just reaching for another glass to polish when Father Frank appeared, drifting down the hallway from the bathroom. Why he’d want to hang around back there, I had no idea, but maybe he was just trying to stay out of the way.

But then he sat on his usual stool and stared at the rows of bottles on the shelf behind me, his frown deepening.