The Spirit is Willing (An Ophelia Wylde Paranormal Mystery) Read Free

“Don’t be overly wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should one die before one’s time?”
    “He is howling mad,” Doc said. “And I’m all out of notions.”
    “What will happen to him?” Rose asked.
    “He can’t care for himself, and he hasn’t the money to pay someone to look after him,” Doc said. “I reckon the city marshal will have to lock him up in the city jail until somebody can figure out what to do with him.”
    Silence fell like a wet burlap sack.
    I don’t know how the others felt, but I didn’t want to take the Sky Pilot in because he smelled and ate books and was obviously insane. Uncharitable of me, I know. But he also scared me, because that grip of his was frighteningly strong. Also, I hadn’t been sleeping well, which made me irritable and subject to snappishness.
    All the girls were looking at the ground, some with their arms folded. I imagine they were thinking of what having to take care of a smelly lunatic with religious delusions would do to their business. But the quiet and the guilt began to gnaw on me, and I was just about to give in and say to bring him to the agency, when Rose looked up and brushed the hair from her eyes.
    “I will,” she said.
    “At the sporting house?” Doc asked.
    “There’s a store room,” she said. “It will be all right.”
    “What about Miss Phossy?” April—or it might have been May—asked.
    Miss Phossy was the madam at the China Doll, and she was one of the most feared characters in Dodge City; not only was she as mean as a snake, but she had a countenance to match.
    “Miss Phossy owes me,” Rose said. “It will be all right.”
    “Good girl,” Doc said. “Send to Sturm’s for a block of ice to be delivered, and make sure you chip it up fine. I’ll bring the chamomile along directly.”
    “Thank you, Rose,” I said, and handed over the cannibalized Bible.
    As I walked back across the scorching street to my agency, I had an uneasy feeling that dogged my steps. I was glad that Rose had agreed to nurse the Sky Pilot, but there was something about him that disturbed me. There was a mystery growing here. It wasn’t just that we didn’t know his name or where he’d been; the biblical reference to ravens and the missing pages of Genesis were a bit more than odd, considering my situation. I’d been a detective who consults spirits for a little more than a year now, with a pet raven named Eddie and an infuriating partner named Jack Calder. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that things in Dodge City aren’t just stranger than they appear.
    Things are stranger than you could imagine.

2
    The unfortunate I would come to know as Molly Howart appeared at the door of the agency at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, three days after the appearance of the Sky Pilot, her hands cupped around her bloodshot eyes, her red face flattened against the window—a perfectly pitiful apparition.
    She startled me so that I dropped my pen.
    The nib skittered and left a looping trail of black ink over the top of the oak desk, my papers, and the right cuff of my best white shirt.
    “Fils de salope,” I exclaimed. Sonuvabitch.
    This alarmed the raven on his perch in the corner, atop the bookcase, and he squawked and beat his wings.
    “Midnight visitor!” he croaked.
    “Settle down, Eddie,” I said. “She’s real enough, and it’s not even noon.”
    I crossed to the door and tapped the pasteboard sign. Calder & Wylde, Consulting Detectives, was closed. The woman, however, gave no indication that she understood. She remained rooted by the window, eyes downcast, hands clasped. Alarmed that she might be suffering some kind of spell, I unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Miss Ophelia Wylde?”
    “Are you in some distress?” I asked.
    “A problem is causing me great discomfort,” she said. “But it is a spiritual concern. I am in no immediate physical danger.”
    “Of that I am glad,” I said, forcing a