“Damn it,” he cursed, sitting back and resting his fists on his thighs. “Wait, what did you say?”
“I said, Mrs. Hill heard shouting—from here—last night. Around ten thirty.”
“Did she see anything?”
I shook my head. “Nope. But it gives us a time frame, right? So we know you were…hurt…here. At around ten thirty. Whoever did it had to”—I coughed, clearing my throat—“dump your body. Then clean up.”
“And you said you weren’t good at this,” he drawled, standing up.
“She said after the shouting she saw someone moving around in the kitchen. She thought it was you.”
“Only it wasn’t. I’d imagine the shouting stopped when I was killed. So whoever she saw was the killer.”
“It has to be a man, then. Because she thought it was you.”
“Is she a reliable witness though?” He was pacing now and I figured he was talking more to himself than to me. “She’s an old lady.”
“Not that old,” I pointed out. “In her seventies, which isn’t old these days.”
“How clearly could she see between our houses? And it was dark. How reliable is her statement?”
“I couldn’t say. It may have been dark, but your kitchen light was on. There’s no way someone cleaned up with the lights off.”
“Valid.” He nodded. “I checked my car while you were talking to Mrs. H. No blood.”
“So whoever moved you used their own vehicle.” Risky. If it had been me I’d have used Ben’s vehicle and then torched it, destroying the evidence. Not that I’d ever considered murdering anyone, but you see it in the movies all the time. Dump the body, burn the car. Even better if you could make it look like the victim had been behind the wheel at the time.
“I don’t think they used a vehicle at all.” Ben jolted me out of my thoughts.
“Oh?”
“Mrs. H. said there was shouting, so the killer was already worried about drawing undue attention. Nosy neighbors and all that. Hell of a risk to then drag my body out the front door.”
“Good point,” I conceded. Mrs. H. had been on the lookout. She’d have seen if anything remotely looking like a body being stashed in a car had occurred out front of Ben’s house. “But then…where are you?” A shudder wracked me. “You’re not…here…are you? Hidden in the basement? And what about Thor? We thought he was outside, snoozing in the sun, but what if the killer...?” I couldn’t bear the thought that someone would kill an innocent feline.
“Thor doesn’t like strangers. He would have hidden. Especially if there was shouting. And the stench of the bleach has probably kept him away. Relax, Fitz, I’m sure he’s fine.” He smiled widely. “Although your concern is touching.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled. I waved my hand around. “Can you at least go and check that you’re not shoved in a wardrobe or cupboard somewhere? Please!”
“Fine.” He disappeared. He either moved lightning fast now that he was a ghost, or he’d been bestowed with the power of teleportation, for as quickly as he’d disappeared, he returned.
“Nothing. My body is not in this house.”
I’d walked over to the sliding back door and was looking outside, trying to catch a glimpse of grey fur, surprised how worried I was about Ben’s darn cat. Ben’s house was at the end of the street, Mrs. Hill one side, woods the other. Perhaps Thor had a favorite place in the woods to sleep. As I pondered the million different hiding places one cat could feasibly have, another thought crept into my head. It was easy enough, I supposed, for someone to carry Ben’s body into the woods and dump it there.
“I think…” I whispered, turning to face Ben, “that maybe your body is in the woods.”
Ben’s brown eyes twinkled and I blinked in surprise.
“You knew!” I huffed, affronted that he’d figured it out and hadn’t said a word.
He shrugged. “I think we came upon it at the same time. You were staring out the back doors towards the woods. I could see the cogs turning.”
I gasped. “Is that a ghost thing? You can see…my brain?” How gross.
He rolled his eyes. “Figuratively speaking.” He pointed at Thor’s food bowls. “I was thinking about the blood we found. It’s over here. Away from the kitchen. And the bowls have been disturbed, but whoever it was straightened them in a hurry.”
“So,” I continued for him, “you’re saying they dragged you out the back door. And you hit the bowls as you went past. Leaving behind that one little drop of blood. Which the killer didn’t see in his haste to get you out.”
“She’s a natural. I knew you would be.” Ben stepped through the glass door and proceeded across the expanse of lawn towards the woods. I quickly opened the door and followed.
“Call for Thor,” Ben told me.
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Hill is probably watching and I want you to have a legitimate excuse for why you decided to go into the woods.”
“Oh.” Good thinking. “Thor!” I bellowed, cupping my hands around my mouth, “Here boy! Good boy! Come on, Thor!” We stepped over the boundary from Ben’s property and into the woods, the lush lawn giving away to hard ground; manicured shrubs to tall trees, filtering the light.
A few feet in and it was as if we were in another world lost from sight. Even the sounds were different. As in, there weren’t any. No birds. No rustle of little critters in the undergrowth.
“It’s spooky here.” I shivered, giving a shriek when I hadn’t noticed Ben had stopped and I walked right through him, the icy blast chilling me to the bone. I jumped away, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. “Sorry,” I muttered, but Ben wasn’t paying me any attention. His focus was on the ground where two shallow troughs could be seen.
“Drag marks?” I whispered.
He nodded. “Drag marks.”
In the end, it was relatively easy to find his body. We simply followed the drag marks deep into the woods and there he was, lying on his back in a small clearing, eyes closed, Thor sitting on his chest. My eyes welled with tears at the sight.
“Thor?” I croaked, and the big grey cat swiveled his head and pinned me with his orange gaze.
“About time you got here,” he said in a thick British accent.
For the second time that day, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and the earth spun as it rushed up to greet me.
“She’s waking up. Thor, give her some space.”
I blinked, then blinked again. I was lying on the ground. Ben’s cat Thor sat a foot away, watching me with interest. Beyond Thor was Ben’s body.
“You okay, Fitz?” Ben asked, crouching by my side. “You’ve had a lot of shocks today. That’s the second time you’ve fainted. Maybe you should get checked out?”
I sat up, examining my stinging elbow.
“You’ve taken some skin off.” Ben told me. “I tried to catch you, but…” He held up his hands and shrugged. But he was a ghost and couldn’t touch anything, including me.