The Ghost of Mistletoe Mary (2 page)

“So what's up with Bucket?” asked Jeremiah after they'd each taken several sips.

Howard Watkins, better known as Red for reasons still unknown to Jeremiah, was a portly man in his late fifties. A big meaty nose and loose jowls were the most prominent features on his pasty white face, often drowning out his intelligent blue eyes. His hair was mostly gone and the wisps that remained circling his head were a yellowish-gray. He had once been an ordained Catholic priest, but over twenty years ago he'd given up a comfortable post at a well-to-do parish and the church to marry a woman he'd fallen in love with while counseling her on the loss of her older brother from drug addiction. He and Hope, a teacher in Los Angeles, eventually married and had two boys of their own, and stood firmly committed to fighting drug abuse among young people. For years Red worked as a full-time drug counselor at various rehab facilities. One day while watching the news, Red saw a report on the growing problem of drug addiction, alcoholism, and homelessness among veterans. With Hope's support, Red left his job as a counselor and went to work as the head administrator of Angels. He'd been with the organization for about seven years. From time to time, Jeremiah and Rose and Hope and Red got together socially. Even then, Rose did not allow shop talk over meals, claiming they all needed to take a break from it to keep their sanity. As usual, the woman was right.

Red leaned back in his chair, which was also a new purchase. His old one, bought secondhand decades before and used by the last two administrators, had been held together with duct tape. “As you know,” he began, “Bucket can be a bit delusional and we fear he's now suffering from dementia.”

“Is he getting worse?” Jeremiah asked with concern. “Do you think he's a danger to others or to himself?”

“He doesn't seem to be violent, more like talking crazy with the crazy escalating last week.”

“His alcoholism is pretty advanced. Maybe it's that,” Jeremiah suggested. “Maybe we should see if we can get him into a long-term facility?” Jeremiah was surprised by the topic. Usually Red didn't consult him on such matters. Men and women going into the final downward spiral happened all the time and Bucket was around seventy years old. The fact that he remained alive after all this time given his condition was a miracle on its own.

“I have calls out to find him a place, but no one has an available room right now, not to mention Bucket will not go willingly. He says he can't leave Lola behind and he can't take a dog to these places.” Red took a long pull from his coffee
before continuing. “This time, there's something more going on.” He patted the bulge that covered his belt. “I feel it in my gut, Jeremiah, and I wanted you to talk to him and nose around a bit to see if I'm right or if it's just Hope's spicy meatloaf talking.”

“What's Bucket saying?” Jeremiah put down his coffee mug and leaned forward. Usually when Red had a gut feeling about a vet, it wasn't indigestion.

“Do you know a woman down here known as Mistletoe Mary?” Red asked.

Jeremiah nodded. “Sure, I've heard of her. Doesn't she hang out around the Union Rescue Mission. A crackhead prostitute, correct? Emaciated white woman with straggly blond hair.”

Red nodded. “Yes, except she managed to kick the crack a few years back, but not the alcohol. I hear she still turns tricks for booze or a meal. She's gotten into a lot of fights with several of the other women down here, including a few of our female vets.”

“How did she ever get the name Mistletoe Mary?” Jeremiah asked. “Seems like a warm and fuzzy moniker to me, hardly fitting for someone like her.”

Red took another drink from his mug and rocked in his chair. “Several years ago, she fastened a clump of mistletoe to her hair that she'd stolen from one of the shops and went around demanding that the men kiss her. She didn't get far before the cops nabbed her for the theft. She spent the night in jail, then was released. After that, everyone called her Mistletoe Mary. Her real name is Mary Dowling. For years before the drugs took over, I believe she worked the streets in Hollywood. Then she came down here.”

“Is she bothering Bucket?” Jeremiah asked.

“You might say that,” Red said with caution. “He claims her ghost is coming to him saying she was murdered.”

Jeremiah straightened in his chair as if his shoulders had been yanked back. “Her ghost?”

“That's what I said. In fact, Bucket is insistent that it's her ghost. He rants and raves off and on throughout the day about it. I've seen it myself. Oddest thing. One minute he'll be stark raving mad, yelling about her being murdered, and the next he'll be meek as a kitten.”

Jeremiah rubbed a hand over the salt-and-pepper stubble on his head as he digested Red's words. A ghost in the mix put a different spin on the problem, and for a minute Jeremiah wondered if Red knew that he could see and communicate with ghosts. If Red did know, Jeremiah wanted to know how. Only two people knew of Jeremiah's medium talents—Emma Whitecastle, the famous medium, and Phil Bowers, her fiancé who was an attorney in San Diego. Not even Rose knew. In fact, not even Jeremiah's dead wife had known. Jeremiah had kept it a safely guarded secret ever since the first time it happened when he was a soldier in Viet Nam. He was pretty sure Emma and Phil wouldn't say anything. They didn't even know until he'd crossed paths with them while working a PI case earlier in the year. He'd become pretty friendly with them since and neither had ever mentioned knowing Red Watkins, even when Jeremiah had put the touch on them over Thanksgiving for a donation to Angels for the Christmas season. Both had given generously and without a single moment of hesitation.

One other person did know, he remembered. Granny, Emma's irascible great-great-great grandmother knew he was a medium, but Granny was a ghost and unless Red could speak to spirits himself, she would have no way of telling him, not that she would. Jeremiah trusted Granny with his secret as much as he trusted Emma and Phil.

“So how would you like me to help?” Jeremiah asked, taking his hand from his head and wrapping it back around his coffee mug.

“I think you could be valuable in two ways, Jeremiah,” Red told him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “That is, if you have the time. I know you have your own business to run.”

“Right now it's pretty slow, Red,” Jeremiah told him, “so just tell me how I can help you.”

“First of all, I asked around and no one has seen Mistletoe Mary in a while.”

“What's a while?” Jeremiah asked. “A month? Two weeks?”

“She a fixture down here,” Red explained. “Hardly a day goes by without seeing her somewhere within these few blocks. If we could find her, we could immediately put this Bucket thing to rest and chalk it up to dementia. So I'd like you to find her or find out what happened to her. Failing that, I know you met that Whitecastle woman from TV. Do you think you could persuade her to come down here and check out Bucket's story?”

“Do you believe in that stuff, Red?” Jeremiah asked, keeping his face as neutral as possible.

Red threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “I don't know what to believe, but Bucket is stirring up folks. Some think there's a murderer running around. Others are getting annoyed with his rantings. I'm afraid someone will hurt him just to shut him up. Or that others will get worked up into a frenzy of fear. We've called the LAPD and they sent someone down, but without the presence of a body or any witnesses except for a demented old drunk, they had nothing to investigate.”

“I see your dilemma,” Jeremiah said. “Don't worry, I'll look into it. I can't promise to deliver Emma Whitecastle on the ghost part, but I'll give that a try, too.”

Red let loose a big sigh of relief. Stretching a beefy hand across the desk, he shook Jeremiah's hand with gratefulness. “Thank you, Jeremiah. I knew I could count on you. Hopefully, Mary's just moved to a different part of the city. It certainly wouldn't break my heart if that's the case since she can be a bit of a troublemaker.”

Once he was back out on the street, Jeremiah pulled some cash out of his pocket and peeled off a five-dollar bill. He held it out to Sloan, who was dutifully still guarding Jeremiah's motorcycle. He started to hold the money out to him, then retracted it. Peeling off another five, he held them both out to Sloan, who seemed reluctant to take the cash.

“That's not what we agreed on,” Sloan said.

“No,” agreed Jeremiah, “but I have another job for you. Do you know a woman down here by the name of Mistletoe Mary?”

Sloan nodded. “She's bat-shit crazy, so I stay clear. Who needs that nasty piece of trash?”

“Do you remember when you saw her last?”

Sloan pulled on the strings of his hoodie while he thought about it, then shook his head. “Not really. Maybe at one of
the Thanksgiving dinners. Maybe just after that. But not in the past few days, that's for sure.”

“Take the money,” Jeremiah told him. When Sloan did, Jeremiah rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. “Here's a bunch of quarters,” he said, sorting out the larger coins. “Don't spend them, you hear?” Sloan took the money and nodded. Jeremiah pulled out one of his PI business cards from another pocket. “If you see Mistletoe Mary, you're to call me. No matter what time it is, call me. Night or day. Use those coins for the pay phone. If for some reason you can't find a pay phone, ask Red or Rose at Angels here if you can use theirs to call me. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Sloan slipped the bills and change into his pocket before taking the card and studying it, then it disappeared into his pocket. “You want me to ask around about her, too?”

“That would be a help, Sloan. See what you can find out.” Jeremiah slipped on his helmet and straddled his motorcycle. Before he took off, he said to the man on the curb, “Sloan, I was once on the streets myself. Now I have a business and a home. Listen to Red. Stay sober and clean and listen to him. It will take time, but you'll be okay if you stay the course.”

Sloan was nodding like a bobblehead as Jeremiah took off.

As Jeremiah pulled up in front of Bucket's staked-out area on San Pedro Street, Lola greeted him with a small dog's aggressive snarl. He turned off the bike's engine and removed his helmet, but didn't get off. In one hand he clutched a fast food bag containing breakfast sandwiches he'd picked up before searching out Bucket. The street, like the others in the area, was lined with various tarps, tents, sleeping bags, and makeshift shelters. Some of the street residents around Bucket's area were up and getting ready to go to breakfast at one of the missions. Others were standing around smoking, some already drinking. Others were still curled into balls of rags sleeping off whatever got them through the night.

“Come on, Lola,” Jeremiah crooned to the scrawny, ragged brown animal as he waved the bag closer to her almost white muzzle. “You know me. It's Jeremiah.” In answer the little dog stopped her snarl and tried to get closer, but she was held back by a leash secured to a nearby grocery cart. “Come on, girl,” Jeremiah tried again. “I'm just here to see Bucket.”

Jeremiah opened the fast food bag and took out a breakfast sandwich. He broke off a piece of the sausage patty and tossed it to the animal. Lola nosed around the tidbit but, much to Jeremiah's surprise, took her time eating it. The little dog licked more than ate the meat while hunched over, her thin back legs trembling. It was clear to Jeremiah that the dog was old and sick and that could explain why she wasn't eating with usual canine gusto. If Lola died, he wondered if Bucket would consent to a resident facility.

At the sound of his name, an old man dressed in rags poked his head out from under a lean-to fashioned from a large piece of cardboard that was fastened to the cart on one side and leaning against the wall of the building behind them on the other side. Over the cardboard was draped a dull green tarp that acted as a roof and a door. He stared at Jeremiah a long time, his runny red eyes trying to place the man on the motorcycle.

“Hi, Bucket,” Jeremiah said in a calm, friendly voice. “It's me, Jeremiah Jones, from Angels.”

Finally, the broken old man offered up a grin of recognition, displaying his few remaining teeth. “Jeremiah, yeah, I know you.”

Dwayne Burkett, known on the street as Bucket, crawled out of his makeshift home and stood, wrapping a dirty quilt around his shoulders against the morning dampness. He wasn't very tall, maybe no more than five-eight or five-nine, tops, and not much more than a bag of bones. He was African-American like Jeremiah, but with lighter skin, a flat nose, wide face, and gray unruly beard and hair. Also like Jeremiah, he'd served in the Viet Nam war. He'd been shot, and had recovered physically from his wounds, but never emotionally or mentally. He and Jeremiah were only a few years apart in age, but Bucket looked decades older, like a wizened old tree spirit. Jeremiah couldn't help but think he was looking at himself had he not gotten his life together.

Bucket moved closer, squinting. “You're that cop that turned PI, ain't ya?”

Jeremiah was surprised by the clarity of Bucket's memory, especially knowing how he often was given to ranting and
delusions. Jeremiah wondered if Bucket's brain worked better in the morning. Jeremiah had noticed as he got older, his did.

“I brought you and Lola some breakfast,” Jeremiah said, putting the open sandwich back into the bag and then holding it out toward Bucket.

Bucket came closer and grabbed the bag before Jeremiah could change his mind. The smell of fresh cooked eggs and sausage mingled with the surrounding odors of urine, stale booze, and unwashed flesh, but Jeremiah didn't flinch. He'd smelled worse in the war and while working homicide cases. He watched as Bucket opened the bag and took an appreciative sniff.

“You don't have a little morning snort to go with this, do ya?” Bucket asked.

“I have this,” Jeremiah said, plucking a very large takeout coffee secured with a cover from the cupholder on his bike. He handed it to Bucket, who seemed both pleased and disappointed with the beverage. “Be careful with that,” Jeremiah cautioned. “It's very hot.”

Bucket sat down on the hard curb near Lola and settled the quilt around his shoulders. Opening the bag, he pulled out the opened sandwich, loosened the crumpled wrapper and put it down on the concrete for the dog. “Look, girl,” he said to his pet, “a catered breakfast, just like fancy folks.”

Like with the bit of sausage, the dog snuffled around the food, but barely touched it. Bucket opened one of the other sandwiches and took a small bite. He closed his eyes as he chewed, savoring the taste. After swallowing, he took another small bite and did the same, forgetting Jeremiah until he'd polished off one sandwich and washed it down with some coffee. Jeremiah watched them, but remained seated on his bike. It was the only comfortable seat in the vicinity and he didn't want to get too close to either the dog or the man. From the way they were scratching while they ate, it was clear both were covered with vermin.

“I was talking to Red Watkins this morning,” Jeremiah said, opening the conversation. A truck rumbled by on the street behind him and he waited for it to pass before continuing. “He said you're concerned about the woman they call Mistletoe Mary.”

At the name, Bucket's head shot up. It was the quickest movement he'd made so far. “Do you see her, too?” he asked, his small brown eyes wide in fear and suspicion. He glanced from side to side before settling his gaze back on Jeremiah.

Jeremiah looked around, but saw no one but other street residents. A man and a woman, both white and younger and slightly cleaner than Bucket, were leaning against the building just a few yards from them sharing a cigarette. An old black man, even more thin and raggedy than Bucket, had since positioned himself on the corner. He was moving like a robot, his upper body swaying back and forth, while his arms moved in a series of slow jerks. If he'd been cleaned up and standing in a nice area, he would have been considered a street performer and people would have tossed him change and dollar bills. His name was Eddie. He was a fixture down on Skid Row and Jeremiah knew his behavior was caused by a series of strokes and diminished mental capacity, mostly caused by past extended drug use. Every morning, Eddie would show up from wherever he'd spent the night and would stand on that corner until someone steered him back to his place and gave him
food. He wasn't a client of Angels, but Jeremiah knew that Red had often tried to find a care facility for Eddie, and so had other outreach programs, but as with Bucket, there were few spots for so many, so these ailing men and women were left on the streets to fend for themselves or were dependent on the little care they received from their fellow homeless and nearby agencies. There was another man almost identical to Eddie who stood on a corner in Century City on Olympic Boulevard. He had a much nicer street corner, but his ailments were no better than Eddie's and whenever Jeremiah saw him, he wondered how he got there each day and where he stayed at night. There were lots of homeless scattered about the more upscale sections of the sprawling city, but they were less conspicuous to avoid being driven out.

“No, I don't,” Jeremiah answered, turning his attention back to Bucket. “I don't see her anywhere. When's the last time you saw her?”

“Just last night,” Bucket told him, leaning closer to whisper. A bit of egg and cheese clung to his lower lip. “She wanted to know why no one cares.”

“No one cares?”

“That she's dead,” Bucket clarified. “Someone ought to care.”

Jeremiah knew what Bucket was getting at, but wanted to tread lightly. He wasn't going to out himself as a medium just to dig information from a half-demented man. “How could she talk to you if she's dead?” he asked Bucket.

The old man stopped chewing his food to consider the question. He acted as if he'd never been asked it before. And maybe hadn't been, although Jeremiah was sure Red would have posed a similar question to Bucket when he first started talking to him about Mistletoe Mary. Jeremiah watched Bucket as he tried to rationally connect the dots between what he'd just told Jeremiah and reality. His mind was working hard, his rheumy eyes darting side to side as if searching his memory bank for the answer, but it was clear no connection was being made. Finally, Bucket said with decisiveness in a loud voice, “She just told me, that's all.” Next to him, Lola whined. Bucket picked up the animal, unlatched her leash from the cart and moved her to the gutter, where the little dog peed and pooped. When she was done, her master moved her back to the sidewalk and secured her leash.

Knowing that was about all he would get out of him, Jeremiah moved on to his next question, all the while keeping his senses open to the presence of a ghost. He saw and felt none. “If Mary is dead, did she tell you how or where her body is?”

Again, Bucket's eyes darted in his head, the whites, yellow with illness, were stretched wide with brown dull centers. Instead of answering, he pulled another sandwich out of the fast food bag. Jeremiah thought he was going to eat it, but instead he held it out to Jeremiah. “You want it?”

“No thank you, Bucket. I had my breakfast earlier.” It was a small fib. He'd had only coffee with Red and had left Rose's place without eating. He'd grab breakfast later. “I brought four, all for you and Lola.”

Bucket considered this windfall, then hoisted his old body upright with loud grunts. He shuffled out to where Eddie stood, moving with jerks and fits. Jeremiah watched as Bucket partially unwrapped the sandwich and secured it in one of Eddie's hands. “Here you go, Eddie. We got a real treat this morning.” Eddie didn't look at the food but his hand
automatically brought it to his mouth, where he took a large bite and chewed.

When Bucket returned to his spot, he said to Jeremiah, “Eddie don't like going to the mission for breakfast.” Jeremiah studied the old broken man in front of him. Whatever booze and drugs and the war had done to him, he was still a good and thoughtful human being. Something a lot of folks didn't see when they looked at him.

Jeremiah decided to ask the question again, this time dividing it to cause Bucket less confusion. “Did Mary tell you how she died?”

Bucket looked down at the nearly untouched sandwich on the sidewalk. Lola was lying on the sidewalk next to the cart, her head on her paws, asleep.

“Poor thing is hardly eating these days,” Bucket said more to himself than to Jeremiah. “I think she's about done in, like poor old Bucket.”

Bucket carefully picked up the dog's meal, wrapped it in the sandwich wrapper, and placed it in the bag with the fourth untouched sandwich. He then stashed the bag somewhere inside the lean-to. Finished with cleaning up, he settled back down on the curb with his coffee.

“Mary,” Jeremiah prodded to get him back on track. “Did she tell you what happened?”

“She was murdered, is what she told me. I told Red that, but I don't think he believes me.” Agitation was seeping into his words.

“I wouldn't say that, Bucket,” Jeremiah said calmly. “Red sent me to talk to you, didn't he? You know I'm a private investigator.”

Bucket considered that for a moment, then nodded. “She told me she was murdered. That's all.” He stabbed the air with the dirty index finger of his free hand to make his point.

“Did she say where it happened?” Jeremiah voiced the question slowly, making sure Bucket heard every word.

The old man reached out and patted the sleeping dog's head a few times. “Nope, but maybe her daughter knows.”

Jeremiah's interest increased. “She has a daughter she's in touch with?” If this was true, it would be unusual. Most homeless who had family were not in communication with them. Jeremiah had been embarrassed for his family to see him when he was on the street, but sometimes it was the family who severed the ties, either out of tough love over the drugs and booze, or out of lost hope, and often out of disgust.

“She talked about a daughter,” Bucket added, “before she was murdered.”

An old woman in a wheelchair was rolling in their direction. She was an overweight Latina with light brown skin and long stringy hair that was dull gray shot through with clumps of its original dark brown. She had one leg, her left, and used it to help propel her outdated chair down the bumpy sidewalk.

“Hey, Carmen,” Bucket called to her, “didn't Mistletoe Mary talk about a daughter?”

When she reached them, Carmen eyed Jeremiah up and down with suspicion. “Who's asking?” she asked in a surprisingly young voice with a mild Spanish accent.

“This is Jeremiah,” Bucket told her. “Red Watkins sent him to look into her murder.”

“Her murder?” Carmen let out a whoop, her lumpy face looking like an amused gargoyle. “You still peddling that story, Bucket? More likely that skanky ho's crawled off in a hole on a bender from the few dollars she got from some stupid John.”

Jeremiah turned to Carmen. She wore an old flowered housedress over thin black leggings stretched to their limits over her left leg. The other leg of her pants had been knotted just below the stump on her right. On her one foot was a dingy sock and battered thick shoe with a rubber sole. It was difficult to pinpoint her age, but Jeremiah guessed it around forty. She looked cleaner than most on the street and didn't have any of the usual signs of alcoholism or drug addiction. Jeremiah thought she might have a regular place to stay nearby. There were some outreach programs downtown that provided semipermanent shelter for the disabled, but like other shelters, they were full and funds too scarce to help everyone. Jeremiah hated seeing people living on the streets, but especially women and children. It broke his heart. It was tough enough on the men, but the women and kids often became prey, especially the newly homeless. Carmen didn't look like a newbie. She looked like she'd been down on Skid Row a long time and knew the ropes and the people. Depending on her situation, she might not even be considered homeless.