Free Southern Gothic by Stuart Jaffe

there. Leed and I have spent the whole day in the Other, and I think we have some worthwhile information to provide.”
    “Don’t you think knowing who killed Sebastian trumps anything you or I found?”
    “First off, it wasn’t just me. You keep forgetting Leed and he doesn’t like it.”
    “Sorry,” Max said, hoping the other diners ignored that he and Sandra appeared to be talking to each other yet looking across at an empty side of the booth. “I only forget sometimes because I can’t see him.”
    “He says it’s no big deal. What is big, though, is that we couldn’t find Sebastian. I don’t mean that we’re narrowing in on him or that we got a clue. I mean, he isn’t in the Other. I don’t think he’s dead.”
    “I saw his body. Heck, you saw his body.”
    “We saw a body. But I’m telling you he’s not in the Other.”
    Sandra said, “Maybe he moved on. You know, like you were supposed to do.”
    “Only problem with that idea is that we know he hired Max to look into his family. Only a few things normally keep a ghost hanging around. Shocking death where the soul isn’t willing to accept that the body is dead — that could easily apply if he had been murdered the way Max and I saw at Baxter House. But then finding him in the Other should have been a snap. Trust me, it’s not hard to locate people who can’t admit they’re dead. They stand out.”
    “So, you don’t think he died in a shock. That doesn’t mean he’s still alive.”
    “Another reason to stay is when you got unfinished business. Anybody murdered would have loads of unfinished business. I’m talking serious business here, not unpaid bills or something. I’m talking telling a loved one something very important along the lines of ‘Gee, honey, you have a child I never told you about.’ That kind of thing.”
    Max said, “Now, he didn’t die or if he did, he’s all good with his personal affairs?”
    “Here’s the kicker — a big reason ghosts stay around is when they are deeply disconnected from their lives. Sebastian Freeman hired us to find his relatives. He was searching for that kind of connection and never got it. So, if he were murdered, he most definitely would be haunting the area. I can’t believe he would be allowed to move on with all this hanging over him.”
    “Well, he is dead. If he were alive, he would have called me by now.” Max pointed a fry at Drummond. “And don’t tell me he’s faked his own death. I’m not buying that one.”
    “Stranger things have happened.”
    Sandra put down her burger. “Can we get to what I found?”
    “Of course. Sorry, your husband can get so carried away.”
    Sandra lifted an eyebrow at Drummond. “I looked into two parts of this and found some very interesting things. First, I checked out Baxter House.” Sandra had once been a Realtor and still had contacts in that world. They often provided her with information that she shouldn’t have access to — her father had always said that it paid to maintain friendships.
    “The house dates back to 1912 when a man named Cal Baxter inherited a tremendous sum of money. Several million dollars — which in 1912 was something like a hundred million today. He built the house that same year. Before becoming wealthy, he worked as a clerk for the local papers and his name never turned up in much else. After building the house, though, neighbors complained about strange noises and Baxter’s unsociable behavior.”
    “1912?” Max tapped his chin in thought. “Did you find any mention of a woman named Lilla H?”
    “No.”
    “She would have been quite old by then — especially for those times. Maybe 70.”
    Sandra shook her head. “Nobody like that came up, but I was only going through the Realtor’s history, so I can’t tell if he had children or if he was married or anything like that. None of that would show up in business papers from that time period since only men counted back then.”
    Max thought about what