Things Irish girls can’t do: tan.

That’s it. That is the only thing we can’t do according to my grandmother. As Alyssa and I walked toward the stadium, I was already reapplying my sunscreen.

“You’re going to get searched if you don’t put that away,” she told me as we approached the ticket taker.

“It’s sunscreen. I have sensitive skin. Surely they allow UV protection in here.” I was wearing a navy-blue Indian’s T-shirt for team spirit and white skinny jeans. I don’t own shorts. They’re not in my vernacular. The sun was blazing on us and most likely would be the entire game since it was Sunday afternoon.

“You’re embarrassing.”

Said the woman wearing platform heels to a ballgame. “I can’t believe Michael just gave you these tickets. Did he have to work or something?”

“No. He actually meant for the tickets to be for me and him but I told him forget it. So he just gave me the tickets.” Alyssa gave me a smug grin. Then she noticed the security guard was ogling her so she winked at him and said, “Hey, cutie.”

One of life’s greatest mysteries to me was the power some women held over men. “You’re a genuine savant and I bow to you.”

“It’s the power of the V.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that. I just wished I had it. But dating was off the table for me anyway, so no use in crying over my own lack of power. I felt like I had let my Irish grandmother down. She would expect me to both get the guy and to solve the crime(s). I wasn’t doing either one and was just hugely grateful that today I could watch baseball and ignore all of that other uncomfortable stuff.

My father had raised me and my sister around sports, and while I was terrible at participating in them, I did enjoy watching them. Especially now, after years of Cleveland sports heartbreak, we had a couple of winning teams. Besides, baseball meant summer, and summer meant that glorious blip of sunshine and blue skies after months on months of dreary gray. It’s what we live for—the perfection of summer as a reward for surviving the winter.

The seats were fantastic. “What does Michael do?” I asked Alyssa as we sat down behind home plate. “These are pricey seats.”

“I don’t know.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “He told me but I wasn’t really listening. All I hear when I look at him is him calling me a cow in the cafeteria and seventy-two people laughing.”

The ballpark might not be the right time for this but I had to ask. “Are you okay?” Alyssa was a serial dater, but this was playing with fire even for her. I knew how much being bullied in high school had bothered her. I’d been there for the tears our entire sophomore year. “Maybe going out with Michael was a bad idea. It’s stirring up bad memories that no amount of revenge dating can fix.”

She leaned over me and put up her hand and yelled, “Beer guy! Over here.” Then she sat back and sighed. “Yeah.” She gave me a troubled look. “It shouldn’t still hurt. Like how stupid is it that ten years later it still hurts my feelings. But I can’t seem to make it go away.”

“Then stop trying to brush it under the rug and deal with it.”

“I will if you will.”

I knew she was talking about Ryan. “Deal.” Because what else could I say? She thought I was losing my crap and had let my desire manifest Ryan’s ghost. That was nuts and frankly pathetic, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t think the same thing if our roles were reversed.

She accepted her beer from the vendor and laughed. “So tell me how to do that, Einstein.”

“That is the dilemma.” For half a second I contemplated ordering a beer myself but that was a bad idea. Bailey + sun + beer = barfing.

We settled in to watch the game and I steadily munched my way through a basket of nachos and sipped a diet pop the size of my head.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you with the hoarder’s house,” Alyssa said, draining the last of her beer. “But work is crazy this week.”

Alyssa was a systems analyst full-time and worked part-time for me. She claimed it was because it gave her a creative outlet, and that was true, but I also knew she was just the type of person who had to be busy all the time. There was never any couch potato time in Alyssa’s life. It made her restless.

“That’s okay. It’s not a fun or glamorous job. Anna is on hoarder house duty on Tuesday when I’m staging a condo in Tremont.”

“I don’t get hoarding,” she said, before pausing to cheer loudly when the batter for the Indians got a base hit. “I love stuff when I love it. Then I’m over it and I let it go.”

Which was most likely why she was single, but I didn’t point that out because I was pretty sure Alyssa enjoyed her solitude and didn’t actually want a boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if I did either, honestly. “I get attached to stuff so I understand that aspect of hoarding. I’ve never met a vintage vase that I didn’t want to buy. But what I don’t understand is why they have this emotional attachment to items then they let them get ruined because of the sheer volume. It’s hard to wrap my head around. Just like murder. I don’t get serial killers.”

“I should hope not. But I can sort of understand passion murder. Where you lose your mind and snap and set your abusive husband’s bed on fire. I get that. But planning to bump off a total stranger? Yeah, don’t get that.”

I was instantly annoyed with myself for bringing the conversation around to murder, yet I couldn’t help but ask Alyssa, “Do you think the killer knows I found those body parts?” The thought made me shiver despite the sunshine.

“How would he know that unless he’s a cop?” Alyssa slapped her empty cup down onto the ground. “Oh my God, do you think he’s a cop?”

“No.” That thought had never occurred to me. “It could be anyone. Though I’m guessing it has to be someone who knows how to dismember someone.”

“Who knows how to do that?”

“Hunters, doctors, coroners, morticians, taxidermists…”

“Gross.”

“This is gross. Let’s change the subject.” I wanted a respite from death and murder. That was the whole point of going to the baseball game. I resolutely turned and concentrated on the figures on the field.

Alyssa did the same and we watched in silence until she said, “Man, that catcher’s butt is a thing of beauty.”

The woman in front of us turned and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said.

Speaking of butts, Ryan’s suddenly plopped down on the arm of my chair. “While you two are objectifying the players, I’m going to watch the game. Damn, what a gorgeous day for baseball.”

“Get off me,” I said before I realized I would be perceived as talking to air. But Ryan’s was invading my space with his ghostly form and it was unnerving.

“Who’s on you?” Alyssa looked curiously past me, clearly ready to glare at the man on my right.

“A fly,” I said, making a display of waving my hand around.

“They found Hannah’s body,” Ryan said.

I resolutely stayed silent. If I didn’t keep it zipped I was going to end up in a padded cell being force-fed pink pills. I knew what was coming—he was going to ask me to solve her murder. Which part of me suspected was not the imaginary drug dealer whose name she claimed not to know, but her current boyfriend, Sam. Drug dealers don’t strangle you. They put a bullet into your head. Boyfriends wrap their hands around your neck and squeeze, staring into your eyes for the several minutes it takes to choke the life out of the woman you claim to love…

Oh, geez Louise. My throat felt tight just thinking about it.

“She got redistributed. Also known as moved up. Penthouse, baby. How the hell did that happen? Not that I’m not happy for her, but come on. Why does she get a freaking golden ticket two minutes into this gig and I’m still stuck floating around? I’m not going to lie, I’m bitter.”

I couldn’t blame him for that. I would be too. Ryan hadn’t lived a pristine, faultless life, but he had always taken his job on the force very seriously. He had worked hard to get criminals off the street and had risked his life in pursuit of justice. I didn’t know who Hannah really was, so I couldn’t judge, but I’d never heard she’d saved babies from burning buildings or something. That would be instant access to heaven, in my opinion, despite what came before or after the saving of the babies.

Since I couldn’t speak, I just patted his thigh. Which meant I was actually patting my own thigh. It was hard to comprehend how he was solid, yet wasn’t. There, yet not. To anyone else, there was nothing there. But for me, he still felt like he was in my space, even though I couldn’t touch him. He wasn’t technically sitting on the seat arm so much as he was hovering a quarter inch over it. It was all very mystical and strange.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes!”

“Yes, what?” Alyssa asked.

“Yes, that was a good play.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “He’s out.”

“Oh. I thought he looked safe.” I pushed my sunglasses up on my nose and sighed, leaning away from Ryan toward Alyssa.

“Do I have cooties?” Ryan pretended to touch my leg repeatedly.

Biting my lip, I stayed silent.

“Okay, so in all seriousness, just hear me out.”

Did I have a choice? I uncrossed my legs and recrossed them in the opposite direction.

“I think what’s going on here is we’re supposed to be a team. You’re clearly a medium or whatever you want to call it. You see dead people when most people can’t. I’m a cop. So I think together we’re supposed to be solving crimes. I think Hannah appearing to us was really meant to lead us to the body by the river.”

So he thought we were a paranormal crime solving team. There was just one small problem with that quest—well, two really. He was dead and I was a lousy sleuth.

I made a noncommittal sound.

Alyssa ordered another beer.

“I miss beer,” Ryan said with a groan.

My phone buzzed in my bag. I pulled it out, needing a distraction from Ryan. Dang it. It was from Marner.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you’re exhausting. I meant I don’t like being jealous.

So this really had nothing to do with my behavior at all. It was all about the bug in Marner’s butt that I had slept with Ryan. Unbelievable. I put my phone back in my purse.

“Bailey’s got a boyfriend,” Ryan said, in a sing-song voice.

I clenched my jaw but kept quiet. Which was killing me. Keeping my mouth shut is no easy task. Things Irish girls can do: gab. Going radio silent was a struggle. Eventually though it paid off. Ryan got bored and said he was going to stand behind the beer counter and inhale the fumes.

I felt like I’d been doing nothing but inhale fumes lately. Maybe this was all a gigantic hallucination from mixing ammonia and bleach or something.

The guy behind me spilled beer on my shoulder in an enthusiastic leap out of his chair at a home run. The sticky cool liquid rolled into my shirt and ultimately my bra.

Nope. This was definitely real life.

Monday was spent in a parade of polyester at Kathy and Mark’s mother’s house. I found out her name was June, and under the deluge of clothes, I eventually uncovered nice quality antiques and dozens of family photos. The frames were a little dented, and two had broken glass, crushed by the weight of clothes. But the old photos showed a happy family. June had been a dynamic and beautiful women with a strong Eastern European nose, and her four children were tidy and attractive gathered in a group around her. I wanted to ask what had happened to bring them to this point, but it was none of my business.

“All this vintage clothing is in excellent condition. We should auction this all off.” There were pristine pantsuits from the seventies and eighties blouses with the tags still on them. “There’s so much here I think you can probably get a couple thousand for it.”

“That would be nice,” Kathy said wryly. She looked flustered and tired. She picked up the photo of her mother with the kids. “That’s me.” She pointed to a little girl with soft brown curls, a pink dress, and a vibrant smile.

“Aww, you’re so cute.”

She gave a little laugh. “Yeah. That was before I realized Dad got angry when he drank.”

Interesting and sad. I wondered how much that had affected their family. Maybe therein lied the explanation for the hoarding. June had put literal barriers between her and her alcoholic husband.

“Are you sure anyone will want these old clothes?” she asked skeptically, holding up the most glorious teal A-line dress I had ever seen.

“Are you kidding? People love this stuff. Vintage is hot.” I touched the fabric on the dress. “I might even buy this one.” Though if I kept eating junk food I was going to gain back all the weight I had inadvertently lost after Ryan’s death and size myself right out of the petite dress.

I didn’t mind gaining a few pounds, but I knew I needed to be eating a little healthier than I was. I needed protein, not saturated fats and chemicals disguised as snack foods.

“Here, take it,” Kathy said. “It would look cute on you.”

“Oh no, I can’t.”

Kathy laughed. “There are a million dresses here, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Thanks.” I took it from her and carefully folded the dress and put it in my oversized handbag. I had brought the big guns today—the Kate Spade striped tote. I could fit a mini Cooper in it. My reasoning was I needed hand sanitizer up the wazoo. I have a dust sensitivity. I wasn’t sure if I could blame that on being Irish or if that was just a genetic misfortune. I wasn’t willing to call it an allergy, but if I didn’t wash my hands constantly in dusty rooms they turned red and swelled up.

We hadn’t even moved out of the living room after three hours. I was getting a little discouraged when the front door opened and a man walked in. He gave me a once over. “Hello. Hey, Kath.”

“Hi, Mark, are you here to help?” she asked, giving him a stern look.

“Nope. I’m just changing before going to work.”

She sighed. “Help would be nice.”

He ignored that and turned to me. “Thanks for helping my sister. I’m Mark, in case that wasn’t clear.”

“Bailey. Nice to meet you.” I smiled. I didn’t want to get into the middle of their family dynamic. He wasn’t being belligerent with his sister, he was just showing a lack of concern over her frustration. It seemed rude to me, but he had been living in the house for years. Clearly he felt no sense of urgency about clearing it out.

Mark was a nondescript man, surprisingly bulky in comparison to Kathy’s slight frame. He was wearing khaki pants and a dress shirt, yet he seemed disheveled, his clothes in desperate need of ironing. His hair was longer than it should be for the style of cut, and he was clean-shaven, but had a couple of scabs on his chin like he had nicked himself shaving. His appearance seemed to match the chaos of the house. I’d assumed the majority of the items collected had been acquired by their mother, June, but maybe Mark was equally guilty. That would explain his unwillingness to help Kathy. He didn’t think there was a problem.

Mark went into the dining room and started picking through his books. “I want to pack this stuff myself.”

Kathy rolled her eyes at that.

“So you’re a crime buff, huh?” I asked. “I had no idea there was so much violence in Cleveland’s history.”

“Oh, any major city does obviously. Some crimes seem to seep into the public’s consciousness and others just slip into obscurity. It’s a combination of factors, really, the gruesomeness of the crime, the timing of what was going on in the world at the time, and the play between law enforcement and the media. No different than today.”

For some reason, Ryan’s voice popped into my head. If he met Mark, he’d be saying “nerd alert.” But I respected anyone who was passionate about learning, even if it was macabre.

He raised a book he was holding. “This is a fascinating study of the time period of the crime, the political climate, and police procedures. Cases like the Kingsbury Run Butcher linger for so many reasons.”

“The Kingsbury Run Butcher?” The name was one I wasn’t familiar with.

“The Torso murders. That’s what the press at the time called the killer—the Kingsbury Run Butcher. They didn’t have the term serial killer then, you know.”

“I didn’t know that actually.” I only knew what I had heard over the years from my parents and a girl in high school who’d done her senior project on the well-known case. “All I know is that body parts kept turning up and that the police and Eliot Ness were never able to solve it.” I wasn’t even sure how Eliot Ness had fit into the investigation, only that he had arrived in Cleveland after his success catching mobsters in Chicago.

“There were twelve victims, though some argue thirteen, and there is some question of whether or not some murders in New Castle, Pennsylvania were the work of the same killer.”

“How often have body parts turned up in Cleveland since then?” I asked, unnerved all over again by what I had found. “What I mean is, how common is it to dispose of bodies that way?”

“Not often. Murderers who aren’t serial killers sometimes think to avoid detection by dismemberment. They’re trying to prevent the victim being identified. In the seventies there were mob dismemberments.”

“This is not exactly a cheerful conversation, Mark,” Kathy said, censure deep in her voice. “Not everyone thinks murder is as cool as you do.”

“I don’t think it’s cool,” he protested.

“It’s okay,” I told Kathy. “I just asked because coincidentally the other day I was walking by the river and I found a hand and a thigh. I found out yesterday that the police recovered a head as well.” It felt strange to admit that out loud to what were essentially strangers. Like somehow that made me culpable.

“Good heavens!” Kathy said. “How horrible.”

“Really? You found body parts?” Mark stared at me intently. I couldn’t tell if he disbelieved me, was jealous, or shocked that crime wasn’t theoretical, but real. He had oddly vacant eyes. It wasn’t so much a shifting of emotion as a lack of emotion.

Unnerved by him, I addressed Kathy. “It was actually really terrible.” I gestured to the book Mark was holding. “At least now the police will probably be able to solve it. It’s not like back then…what, in the forties?”

“Nineteen thirty-five was when the first official victims were found,” Mark said, looking more animated. “Like I said, there’s some question of whether a woman found the year prior in the lake was related or not. They’ll be disputing that forever.”

“I wasn’t sure who ‘they’ were, but Mark might be right. “Now there’s so much surveillance and technology, I’m hoping they catch this guy right away.”

“It depends on whether it was a random murder, such as a crime of passion, which they’ll definitely be able to piece together, no pun intended. But if it’s the work of a budding serial killer in his infancy, odds are significantly smaller.”

I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a serial killer. I had assumed drugs or a spouse gone crazy. It wouldn’t be the first time a relationship had ended in death. That seemed oddly less cold and calculating to me. Serial killers were just…ick. My stomach felt tense. The sight of that hand was something I just couldn’t unsee. Did it really belong to Phil? There was no reason to believe he was lying. Then again, I had no reason to assume ghosts were trustworthy. Maybe he was just messing with me.

“Maybe it wasn’t murder at all,” Kathy said. “Maybe animals did that.”

I could have kissed her. That had never even occurred to me. Police were treating it as a suspicious death because of the circumstances, but until the coroner said it was a homicide… Damn it. I remembered that Marner had already told me that. Death due to decapitation. My Susie Sunshine bubble burst.

Toughen up. That’s what I was going to have to do. And instead of worrying about Phil the Hand’s motivation I needed to work with Ryan to figure out why I was suddenly seeing multiple ghosts. He had to have some kind of insider track as to why I was being dragged into the undead’s business. That’s what I needed to focus on—not murder.

“Animals cannot cleanly decapitate a head, Kathy,” Mark said, his voice dripping with disdain. “I’m going to go change now.”

He was clearly done with her and her lack of homicidal knowledge. He did say to me, “Nice to meet you, Bailey. Be careful, by the way. The killer probably knows you’re the one who found the little display of his handiwork.”

Mark stared at me, waiting for a response. I shivered, not sure I had one to give.

“That was a pun,” he said. “Don’t you get it? Handiwork.”

Weirdo alert. That was not a funny pun. Not when I had practically tripped over a severed arm and hand. I wanted to tell him that, but I didn’t want Kathy to fire me. Plus I’m overly polite in all circumstances. “Oh right. Cute. Thanks for the warning.”

Damn it. So much for being tough. I went back to sorting through the world’s largest pile of polyester.