Ghastly Glass Read Free Page B

keep your mouth shut? I didn’t know which way to go with this. No matter what, it was only a stupid kiss. How upset could he be?
    Before I could ascertain whether he was really upset, a varlet, now dressed all in black instead of varlet brown, came breathlessly running up. “Bailiff! It’s happened again! Except this time it’s Death.”
    Chase frowned. “What are you talking about, Lonnie? Did another visitor collapse? ”
    “No. It’s Death. Really.”
    “You mean another one died? ”
    “No. Really, Chase. Death died.”
    “I think he’s talking about Ross.” I pushed into the conversation before I had to hit one of them. “You know, the tall guy with the scythe.”
    Chase glanced at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Oh yeah. Where is he? ”
    “In the Village Square,” Lonnie replied. “One minute he was threatening a few visitors and telling them he’d take their souls, and the next minute, boom! He was on the cobblestones for the count.”
    “Let’s go,” Chase said.
    “Me, too.” I started running after him. “Have visitors died in the Village? How did I miss that? ”
    “Too busy, I guess,” Chase returned as we cut through the alleyway between Squire’s Lane and Harriet’s Hat House. “Too busy to watch CNN, or call anyone.”
    “CNN was down here covering visitor deaths?” How had I missed that?
    “Yep.” Lonnie’s little ratlike face twisted up as we ran across the cobblestones. “That’s why I left Sir Latte’s Beanery. Chase needs all the help he can get.”
    “So what killed them? It was probably the heat, right? Lots of visitors wear those heavy clothes and get heatstroke over the summer.” I looked from Chase to Lonnie.
    “We don’t know for sure yet,” Chase finally answered.
    A large crowd of visitors and residents had gathered near the Good Luck Fountain right in the middle of the Village Square. I stayed next to Chase, almost having to push Lonnie out of the way as we broke through the crowd to take a look at the man on the ground.
    Ross’s black robe had fallen open around his bony body, but his hood covered his face. The scythe lay beside him, not too far from his reach. There was blood everywhere and something sticking up out of his chest. Everyone was whispering around us as Chase knelt beside the giant’s form.
    “Call the police,” Chase said finally. “He’s dead. And I don’t think it’s heatstroke.”

Two

    “ Y ep.” Detective Donald Almond took another swig from his Cheerwine. His white shirt had a brown food stain on the front, and his suit jacket looked slept in. “He’s dead all right. Looks like that steel reinforcing bar went right through his heart. That makes three this month, right, Manhattan?”
    Chase and his helper, Lonnie, had their hands full keeping people away from the dead figure of Death on the Village Square, until the police took over. The media swarmed around like mosquitoes before a storm. Even though we were away from the main area and behind a temporary stage, visitors knew something was going on when they saw all the TV cameras.
    I kept trying not to look at Ross’s dead body. I’d just been through a similar experience over the summer and I was beginning to stress out. It was terrible thinking he’d just been alive while I was waiting for my costume. What had happened to him?
    “I’m afraid so. But this one is different.” Chase frowned as he looked at the dead body, covered now by a Renaissance banner.
    Chase is not only the bailiff for the Village, he’s also judge and jury when it comes to vegetable justice in the stocks. The Myrtle Beach Police Department had officially appointed him an auxiliary police officer for his role at the Village. A lot depended on him to keep the peace, including turning over shoplifters and other petty crooks to the authorities. Besides that, he’s a good jouster.
    “I don’t know.” Detective Almond scratched his balding head. “Could be an accident, I suppose.