On the Dead Will Whisper
By Jack Bates
Cover Art: Designs By Rachelle
Published by Mind Wings Audio at Smashwords
This story is also available in audio CD and MP3 formats
Copyright 2009 Jack Bates
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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This story is a work of fiction, created entirely from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
She told me if I stood still long enough in the woods I’d hear the forgotten and the lost whisper. They would tell me who they were and where they were. All I had to do was stand still and listen. After all, when you’re alone in the woods, only the dead will whisper. Alone in the woods that cold November evening, looking down at the skeletal remains of the man I had been asked to find, I closed my eyes and strained my ears, listening for the whisper in the woods, knowing I wasn’t going to like what I heard.
# # #
Three days ago I white-knuckled my Vibe over the Mackinac Bridge. Anyone who grew up in Michigan knows the story of the ill-fated Yugo that got blown over the side; digital signs now announce high wind warnings. Add to that fear the number of bomb threats the bridge received in the days after September 11, 2001, plus the time the jilted husband did a header off the rail during the Labor Day Bridge Walk, and it all turns crossing the Mighty Mac—something once grand and memorable—into something a little more worrisome. The Vibe handled it better than I did; then again I stayed to the right and avoided that two-mile stretch of metal grating running along the interior left lanes. The less bouncing and jittering in my car, the better the driver I could be. Every gust of wind blowing through the Straits knocked and rocked that Pontiac-Toyota mutt of a car like it was a toy in the hands of an overzealous toddler making it fly.
I was crossing north to help an old friend from high school. Actually, she had been more than a friend back then. We pretty much dated from tenth grade until the end of the summer of our graduation. Kari was going off to Michigan State. I was drifting around home with ideas of the police academy. She went. I stayed. Then one day I got an email out of the blue from her on my business website asking if I was the same Harry Landers who had gone to Utica Heights High and if I was, did I remember someone named Kari Gray?
Hell yeah, to both questions.
After the second round of emails, I sent her my cell number. Kari Gray called me, now Kari Moore. Her voice was just as sweet as it had ever been, although now it was touched with a note of sadness. After playing catch up, I asked her why, after so many years, she contacted me.
“I did a search for private eyes.”
“You’re in need of one?”
She let out a heavy breath on her end. I could almost smell the cigarette smoke coming through the phone. That was something new. “I am.”
“My office is easy to find, Kari. I’m at the corner of Cass and Main. You have to take the service drive off of M-59 or you’ll zip right past me.”
“Actually, Harry, I was hoping you could come here.”
“Where is here?” I asked.
“I’m in Munising.”
“Is that in Michigan?”
“Still a funny boy, I see.” She laughed and it turned into a cough. “Yes. North of the bridge.”