“Jerome discovered Astin’s remains when he was alive—when Jerome was alive,” I said.
Jake’s eyes opened so widely and lit so brightly that I almost thought Santa himself had come into the room.
“Well,” I amended, “he’s not exactly sure where they are. He’s trying to remember the details.”
“Oh.” Jake deflated.
“Excuse me, Isabelle. I need to go,” Jerome said before he disappeared.
“Uh,” I said, but he left so quickly. “He’s gone.”
“Well, I’m sure we’ll get more details, but he left right before I could get to the good stuff.”
“So far, you’ve had some pretty good stuff. I’m ready for more,” I said.
“Happy to oblige. It’s about the other ghost and the letter you need to deliver.”
He rummaged around some more and pulled out two small pieces of paper.
“I took some notes to better explain this,” he said as he laid the papers out on the table in front of me. “It’s not much, but it’ll take you right to the person I think you need to see.”
“Great. Show me.”
“Okay, the letter was to Elaine and Frederick Morrison, from her brother, Isaac.”
“Right.”
“Elaine and Frederick were both killed in a house fire when they were very old—that’s just an interesting tidbit and has nothing to do with the letter. Anyway, they had three children, two of whom died in childbirth.”
“Good grief,” I said.
“I know, but that’s what people did back then—lots of dying.”
I’d heard that recently.
“But one child must have lived if you have something.”
“Yes, their daughter Ashley lived to be very old; died in her sleep. She had twelve children. All of them lived to be pretty old, too.”
“See, not everybody died all the time.”
“With those twelve, I had twelve avenues to search, but I chose to start with only a couple. Her son Elroy didn’t take me anywhere; not much of a record of his life. But her daughter Jenny took me to something pretty good.”
I nodded to prod him along.
“I’ll skip over her kids’ names and go right to her grandson. It’s Jim. Jim Morrison.”
“The police chief?”
“The one and only.”
“Cliff’s boss?”
“Yep. Why? Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know. It might be. Probably not. The ghosts have caused him more trouble than he’ll ever realize, of course. I’ll just have to figure out how to handle it appropriately.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got me.” He tapped his chest. “I’ll do it.”
I hadn’t even thought of asking Jake to be our messenger, but it made sense. Jake could say or do anything regarding a historical aspect of Broken Rope, and he’d be quickly and easily believed.