Chapter 6

Park stood at his door, a grin on his face. Greenough towered in the background. "Is Sam here?" The special investigation boys from the state nosed their way into the living room.

"No. He's not and I've already got dinner plans, so you guys better grab a burger somewhere else." Dean kept an eye out down the hall for Elizabeth.

"No can do. We need your help on one. So we're all going out for dinner." Park sat on the couch as Greenough bent down to pick up Scooter.

The big man gave Scooter a gentle rub on the ears. "The sheriff's department called us back here on another situation down at the Back Porch restaurant. Have you been there?"

Dean nodded. "Sammy and I grabbed a plate lunch the other day. Pretty good food. What's going on?"

"I think we'll need to see it for ourselves. The deputy we talked to didn't want to give details." Park added.

"I hate to turn you down but-" Dean began but stopped when Elizabeth peeked through the open door.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked. "I can come back."

"No!" he practically shouted. Then he forced himself to dial it back a notch. "No, Lizzy, the guys were just leaving." She walked through the door and his heart skipped a beat. He'd seen her dressed for work so often lately that he was taken aback by the sight of her in casual clothes. Her hair hung down around her shoulders, all soft and wavy. She wore a silky sleeveless blouse that showed off her toned arms and a pair of jeans that hugged her in all the right places. Her sparkly sandals revealed the cutest toes painted the exact pink of cooked shrimp, and somehow the idea only made him tingle all over.

He tried to push the SBI boys out the door but Park kept talking. "Dean, I mean it. We need you and/or Sam along on this one. You've got wheels on the ground experience with this sort of stuff that we don't usually get."

"Dean, if you need to go," Elizabeth began but Dean stopped her with an upraised hand. There was no way she was getting away from him, not when he finally had a chance to impress her.

"Let me turn off the oven and we'll all go." He declared. He went to the kitchen and peeped through the oven glass. The frozen lasagna was nearly done. It could just sit until they came back. Maybe the cheese wouldn't go all rubbery, he thought as he turned off the heat.

"Elizabeth, these guys are John Ross Park and Dennis Greenough. They're with the State Department of Investigation." To his surprise, Elizabeth smiled and nodded.

"I've heard rumors about you guys," she stated. "Billy Gottwald said you came down a few days ago and helped out with that missing boy."

"We did. But it's Dean here who deserves the credit for taking down the sit-" Greenough punched Park in the arm before he could say more.

"It's okay. Elizabeth took out a ghost for me the other day before it could slice me into cutlets," Dean stated. "She knows all about it."

"Not all about it," Elizabeth interjected. "But enough to keep me from freaking out at this point." She shook the hands of the SBI boys and introduced herself. "I'm Elizabeth Coleman, Dean's neighbor and attorney, should he need one."

Dean's eyebrows rose at her statement. "So I've got you on retainer or something?" he asked, grinning with pride. "I've never had my own lawyer before." He grimaced at a number of memories that flickered past. "And I've sure needed one."

"This way anything you tell me becomes protected by lawyer-client privilege. I have the feeling I'm going to hear lots of stuff that I do not need to repeat," she explained. "Let me get my jacket."

As Elizabeth opened the door of her apartment, Park slugged him on the arm. "Way to go, Winchester. She's a babe."

"Yeah, I know." Dean forced the grin off his face and growled, "So don't screw it up for me. I'm on serious probation with her as it is."

"Not a problem," Greenough assured him.

"And I'm bringing her separate," Dean added. "No way our first date is in the back of a government sedan."

"First date?" Park's eyebrows nearly shot off his face. "We will absolutely sell the heck out of you."

Dean laughed. "Just make sure you don't freak her out, okay?"

He locked the door of the apartment and waited for Elizabeth. To his surprise, when she came back out of the apartment, she'd changed clothes. She still wore her jeans, but she'd changed into a t-shirt and jacket and had slipped on a pair of white Converse low-tops. "My top wasn't fire-resistant," she explained with a grin.

He led her out to the Impala. "Elizabeth, meet Baby. Baby, this is Elizabeth." He opened the door for her to slide into the seat. As he ran around the back of the car, he patted Baby on the trunk and whispered, "Play nice."

He really wanted his girls to get along, so he was more than excited when Elizabeth asked, "What year model is this?"

"She's a '67, but she doesn't look a day over 30."

When Baby growled into life, Elizabeth made his day by asking, "Four barrel?"

"Absolutely. You know something about carburetors?"

"Not much. But I do love a muscle car." She smiled and buckled her seatbelt. "I bet this one will fly."

"She can hold her own. Maybe when we finish up at the restaurant we can take a ride." His skin tingled in anticipation.

"Maybe," she replied with another playful grin.

He tried to drive like a responsible adult for the half-mile to the restaurant, but the sixteen-year-old inside him just wanted to show off with burned rubber and reckless acceleration. Somehow he pulled into a parking place next to Greenough outside the Back Porch Cafe.

As they got out of the car, Elizabeth looked around the parking lot and frowned. "This place ought to be packed at this time on a Friday night."

Sure enough, the lot was nearly empty. There were a few vehicles parked around the far side of the building, and several people stood around them, deep in conversation. From their matching t-shirts, he could only assume they were employees.

The only car parked out front belonged to the sheriff's department. As they walked closer, the door of the car opened and the deputy stepped out. "I'm glad you guys are here," he began, then noticed Elizabeth. "Hey, Beth. What brings you along?"

"I'm Mr. Winchester's attorney," she answered. "Does he need one?"

"Not to my knowledge." Billy rubbed his hands on his khaki pants legs. "But I'm not sure you want any part of this."

"What's going on here?" Park asked as they all stepped up on the wooden porch of the building.

Billy let out a breath. "Guthrie Elbert came to eat dinner tonight."

"Guthrie Elbert?" Dean asked. The name sounded so familiar. Then he remembered. "Oh yeah, Guthrie Elbert Highway. Guthrie Elbert Park. Guthrie Elbert Preschool. That Guthrie Elbert."

"Yep," Billy replied. "He was mayor of this town for over thirty years. Did a lot for the community."

"Sounds like a good guy. What's the problem?"

Elizabeth grabbed Dean's arm before he could turn the knob. "Guthrie Elbert's been dead for five years. That's the problem."

"It's worse than that, Beth." Billy shivered. But when they pressed him, he would only reply that they had to see for themselves.

"Well, hell. Let's go see the mayor then. But not without a plan." Dean opened the trunk of the Impala, then opened the false bottom. Elizabeth gasped at the sight of the many weapons before her.

"Most of those are illegal, you know," she stated at last.

"Yeah, but I've got a kick-ass lawyer," he replied with a wink and loaded shells into the shot pistol. "Rock salt," he assured her. "Just like at the B & B."

Greenough stepped closer as he closed the chamber of his big derringer. "We're locked and loaded, Dean."

Deputy Gottwald edged nearer, but Dean closed the trunk before he could see much. Park, on the other hand, called the man nearer and passed him a paper sack. "This is full of rock salt. Hit the dead guy with it and he'll disperse."

"Yeah, but not unless I say so," Dean instructed. "You asked me to lead on this, guys. We need to just take it slow and easy, right? Lizzy, you stay behind me. In fact, just hang close to the door until we know what we're dealing with."

"Pass me a bag of salt, John Ross." Elizabeth held out her hand. "I've already gone one round with the town's founding prostitute. I can deal with Mr. Guthrie."

Park passed her a bag of salt and they gathered around the door. Dean opened it slowly and eased into the room. The lights flickered with the electromagnetic disturbance of the ghost's presence, but enough light filtered through the windows to make it more an annoyance than a visibility issue. However, if they couldn't resolve the situation within a half-hour or so, the sun would set, leaving them to battle the ghost in darkness.

He turned to the right and began a visual sweep of the room, but Elizabeth tapped him on the shoulder. "He'll be over there," she whispered as she pointed to the far left corner of the dining area. "Mr. Guthrie had a favorite table."

Sure enough he could make out an elderly man sitting in a booth. He walked slowly toward the apparition, his pistol behind his back. The man didn't look up, his head downcast, his arms resting on the tabletop.

"Did he die here or something?" Dean asked her.

"No. He died at home, I think. He was over 90."

"Then it's not a death echo. This is a straight up haunting," Dean surmised. "But why a restaurant?"

"He ate here every Friday night," Billy offered. "Up until just a couple of weeks before he died. He'd come and eat and folks would come talk to him."

"People used to say more work got done here than in the city council meetings," Elizabeth added.

"So what do we do? Ask for a minute of his time?" Park shook his head. "I vote we pop him with salt and go home."

"Bad idea." Dean shook his head. "He'll just come back pissed. We've got to dig up the body, salt it and burn it."

"Absolutely not," Elizabeth snapped. "This is Mr. Guthrie. He was a sweet man and a deacon. Whatever he's doing here, it's not something bad."

Before Dean could stop her, Elizabeth had crossed the room and slipped into the opposite side of the ghost's booth.

"Mr. Guthrie? Do you remember me? It's Elizabeth Coleman. Jim Coleman's granddaughter. We went to church together," she began in a gentle voice.

The ghost looked up, his sad eyes meeting hers. "Little Elizabeth? You've grown up." His voice was cracked and distant.

"Yes, sir, I have. It's been a few years since you were here last. Why have you come back?" Elizabeth sounded so calm, so gentle. He was floored by her composure.

"I've got to make it right. I've got to." The lights flickered even more dramatically. "So many years gone by and I never told a soul. But I should have. I knew the truth about Stash Whitmore. I should have told."

The floor around the booth began to shudder and heave as if an earthquake were rolling beneath their feet. Dean reached out to try to steady himself, revealing his pistol in the process.

"So you've come to arrest me then?" the ghost stared at Dean, his eyes bloodshot and glowing. "Do your damnedest. But I won't go from here without a fight. I'm waiting for Stash's people to come. I am not going anywhere until I've seen them."

A wave of energy rolled off the ghost, blasting through and past Dean and sending him to his knees, his pistol flying free of his grip. Behind him, the three other men staggered backward, their guns also spinning away wildly.

"Nobody's come to arrest you, Mr. Guthrie," Elizabeth assured him. "We're just here to help you." Dean was glad to see that the blast wave hadn't hurt her. Indeed it hadn't appeared to have touched her at all.

"You want to help me? Then bring me Stash's people so I can tell them the truth. They deserve to know the truth." The old man's spirit went quiet once more and the room settled back to near normalcy, with only the flicker of the lights as a sign that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

Elizabeth slipped out of the booth and rejoined the rest of the group. She grabbed Dean's hand and headed for the front door. Once the group had made the safety of the porch, she let out a long breath. Dean put his arms around her. "You did great," he assured her then turned to the rest of the group. "Who the hell is Stash Whitmore?" he asked at large.

"It's the county's oldest cold case," Billy began. "Back in the early 1930s a black guy named Stash Whitmore went missing on his way home from work at the sawmill on County Road 9. There one minute and gone the next."

"Any chance he just ran off?" Greenough asked.

"The one thing everyone in town seemed to know for sure was that somebody killed him. He was in pretty deep with the moonshiners out in old Titus. The revenuers busted the still soon afterward, and rumor had it that he was the snitch that turned them in. Lots of folks got arrested, both black and white." Billy shrugged. "Moonshining was an equal opportunity crime back then."

"So are the Whitmores still around? Can we get Stash's next of kin?" Park asked.

Billy and Elizabeth looked at each other. "I don't know anybody around here named Whitmore," Elizabeth admitted. Billy shook his head as well.

"And we don't have time to start combing the phonebook," Dean added. "Looks like we'll have to make do with what we've got."

"What have we got?" Park asked curiously.

Dean pointed at Greenough. "You just became Stash Whitmore's long lost cousin."

"Wait a minute," Greenough began, but Park patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, Dennis. We've got your back. At the first sign that it's going wrong, we'll hit him with the salt," Park assured him.

"This is nuts," Greenough sighed. But in the end, the agent went back into the restaurant, the rest of the group right behind him.

Guthrie Elbert's spirit still sat at the table. The sun had begun to set, plunging the restaurant into near darkness each time the lights flickered. "Is he going to be okay?" Elizabeth asked Dean in a whisper. "Have you ever done something like this before?"

"I've reasoned with death echoes to jar them out of their loop. And I've had some pretty in depth conversations with spirits. But this is the first time I've ever tried to fool one like this. I'm not sure whether or not this ghost is going to believe that Dennis is Stash's long lost cousin," Dean admitted. "Stay close to me, okay? If it goes bad, Park and I are up with the rock salt. I don't want you in the path of another homocidal spook."

They watched as Greenough approached the table. Dean couldn't hear the conversation completely, but from the tone of voice he decided that the ghost was cool with the story. After several minutes, Dean saw Greenough reach out as if he were going to shake the ghost's hand, but the spirit vanished away just as their fingers touched.

Almost immediately the lights came back up to full brightness and that same return to normalcy he'd felt in the bed and breakfast descended in the restaurant. Greenough slipped out of his seat at the booth and made his way across the room, only to sink down into a chair at a nearby table.

Elizabeth took one look at him and went to the beverage station and poured the agent a glass of water. "This will do until we can get you something stronger," she said as she passed Greenough the red plastic cup.

"Thanks," the agent whispered as he took a long drink.

"So?" Park asked after several seconds. "What did he say? What happened to Stash Whitmore?"

"Mr. Guthrie said we'd find the body in a pond in a gravel pit off Pine Hollow Road. It will be wrapped in a length of chain and weighed down by a plow." Greenough put down the glass and wiped his mouth with a shaking hand.

"So Mayor Elbert killed him?" Billy asked in surprise.

"No. He didn't kill him. But he was with the group that did. His Uncle Joseph was one of the owners of the still. When one of Stash's friends let slip that Stash had come into a pretty good wad of cash, Joe Elbert and the other owners decided that he'd sold them out. Even Stash's own kinfolks believed it. Joe sent a group to take care of it. Guthrie was one of them. Stash swore to them that he'd sold a mule to get the money, but nobody believed him. Nobody but Guthrie. Once the men killed Stash and sank the body, Guthrie knew he couldn't say anything because if he did, they'd get him next." Greenough took another drink of water.

"Guthrie couldn't say anything because he was the one who'd told the government agents about the still. He was 18 years old and believed that breaking the law was wrong. He'd seen how the men in town had turned hard and done cruel things to protect their operation." Greenough shook his head. "He told me he didn't want anybody to get hurt. He just wanted the town of Hunter to be better than Titus had been. He didn't want to see it founded on crime and meanness."

The group sat quietly for a long moment. "Why did he come back now? After all these years?" Park asked at last.

Greenough shrugged. "I'm not sure."

Dean walked back to the booth, carefully watching the lights for any sign of a return of the spirit. Everything was quiet. The walls around the restaurant were decorated with all sorts of pictures, signs, and small antiques. He found everything from old cheese graters to laundry rub boards to harnesses. High on the wall above the haunted booth hung a cane and brown fedora hat.

He stepped up on the seat, apologizing to Mayor Elbert under his breath as he did so, and pulled the hat off the hook on the wall. The band inside bore a monogrammed label, GLE. A careful search revealed a couple of short gray hairs clinging to the inside of the band. He hung the hat back on the wall but brought the hairs out to the table with the group.

"I can't believe there's actually an ashtray in this place," he stated as he curled the hairs up inside the glass dish he'd found. "Park, give me your lighter."

"I don't have one anymore. I quit smoking. Again," Park answered with a growl. "All I've got is a pack of nicotine patches."

"Here. Use mine." Billy reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a red plastic lighter. "I always keep a way to make a fire."

"Not a bad idea," Dean stated. "Especially if you're going to be dealing with stuff like this on an ongoing basis."

Billy's face dropped three shades of color as Dean lit the hairs. "Regular basis?" he squeaked. "Why do you say that?"

Dean looked over at Elizabeth. She watched the hairs burn, her brow wrinkled in thought. Her big eyes were dark and serious. "The night we met," he began as he took her hand in his, "you said Hunter wasn't haunted. But ever since that minute, there's been one crazy thing after another. Why? Why are all these old sleeping evils suddenly waking up in Hunter?"

"Titus." Elizabeth looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Practically everything has been tied in some way to Titus."

"And Titus was a wide open place," Dean agreed. "Stash was killed in Titus, the bed and breakfast hooker was from Titus, that box in the store came from the original store in Titus."

"You're right," Park agreed. "Even the hospital is on the outskirts of town on Old Titus Road."

"So what is going on in or near the old community of Titus that could be causing all this?" Greenough asked.

"I think I know." Billy raised his head from where he'd been staring at the laminate table top. "It's not a what. It's a who."

The group looked at him expectantly.

"Charles Ranulf." Billy stood and checked his pistol. "His name is Charles Ranulf."