Dead Man's Fingers

By JK Bovi

Renovations in a Savannah building expose a skeleton that had been buried and forgotten about for over a hundred years. It is immediately apparent that the person's death was the result of foul play.

When the bones are removed and the mumbo-jumbo dark magic spell is broken, The Ghost of The Savannah Strangler rises up from the dead determined to squeeze the life out of the living with his creepy cold dead man’s fingers.

The police can't capture him. The psychics can't control him! He’s back from the dead causing hilarious mischief and mayhem as he evades justice, wrecks havoc, and has the best time of his deceased life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: vinspirepublishing
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310566813

Book preview

Chapter One

They may say, What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, but that certainly is not true for Savannah because what happens in Savannah gets blabbed all over town, and in some cases it even makes the front page of the Savannah Morning News.

That’s how everyone in Savannah found out about Ruth Maxwell’s dirty little family secret. Page one, big bold letters: Human Bones Discovered In State Street Basement.

On Sunday morning, after the discovery, Ruth met her three friends for brunch at the Plantation Club in the exclusive gated community, The Landings on Skidaway Island, where she and her exclusive friends lived.

They sat at their usual table for four by the window overlooking the first tee box on the golf course.

Ruth did not go for the buffet, but instead ordered her customary Eggs Benedict, bacon, fruit, and coffee. Lindsey ordered the apple crepes, and Helen chose the buffet. Dotty had to be different from everyone and ordered a club sandwich off the lunch menu.

Lindsey, Helen, and Dotty had talked about Ruth behind her back to each other, but they were hesitant to be the first one to inquire about her business. They would be polite. They would wait for Ruth to tell them what they so eagerly wanted to know:

Whose bones were in the basement?

Ruth talked about the new workout machines at the fitness center and she talked about her husband’s golf foursome winning the latest tournament. She talked about the weather and she talked about how her cat would only eat one brand of cat food which was almost impossible to find.

Lindsey was growing short on patience. All this polite Southern dancing-around-the-issue was a waste of time. She was from New Jersey. They did things faster in New Jersey and they talked funny. She said things like wooder instead of water, cawfee was her word for coffee, and wadever meant whatever.

Lindsey wanted Ruth to get to the good stuff, the details. Who? What? When? And why the bones were in the basement? She wanted to hear wadever as she had her cawfee this morning, but Ruth was being deliberately evasive about providing details.

Unlike Lindsey, Helen knew how to do the two-step-around. She was a Southerner from Charleston, South Carolina, and she could dance with the best of them. She asked Ruth respectful questions about her fitness schedule, her husband, the weather, and her cat.

Dotty tapped her fingers on the table and remained silent, for now.

Dotty was from Maine. She always complained about the Georgia heat. When she stepped out of her house at 7:30 a.m. she would break into a sweat. She kept their house a comfortable Maine-chilling 50 degrees all year long.

The server placed a basket of bread and pastries on their table, poured coffee in their cups, and went away.

Two new club members, Melinda and Bradley Davenport, walked into the dining room. Ruth waved a greeting. Melinda waved back. They knew each other from the book club.

Melinda Davenport glided across the elegant dining room with practiced grace. She was from Pennsylvania and true Southern style did not come naturally to her. The only Confederate flag in Pennsylvania was flying over the Gettysburg Battlefield. Melinda Davenport would always be considered a Yankee.

Southern style and grace came easily to Ruth. She had been born and raised in Savannah. She had married Don Maxwell one month after they both graduated from the University of Georgia. Don took over her father’s real estate company and they made a fortune buying and selling property in Savannah. That’s how they could afford to live in The Landings.

Ruth wished they had sold the building on State Street, but it had been in the family since before the War of Northern Aggression (the American Civil War) and her father refused to sell it.

Her father and her husband also refused to spend a lot of money to fix it up. As the years passed the brick building fell into disrepair and became an eyesore in Savannah’s Historic District.

The clothing store, which had occupied the downstairs storefront last month, chose not to renew the lease, and in fact was suing them for damage to merchandise caused by a water leak.

The tenant in the one-bedroom upstairs apartment was a student at the art college. She was smart enough not to complain. Her rent was cheap and the location was close to where she attended most of her classes.

The server brought their food and went away.

Helen dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin. Being from South Carolina, she used the word fix as a verb. Helen was always fix’n to do something. She stood up and said, "I’m fix’n to go to the buffet table now. Y’all behave while I’m gone."

She returned with her western omelet, hash browns, and sausage neatly arranged on her plate. She sat down and was just fix’n to eat when Dotty blurted out, Ruth, why don’t you just tell us about these bones they found on your State Street property?

Dotty was from Maine, and maybe in Maine you can’t always get there from here, but they sure knew how to get to the point.

Ruth did not flinch. She added sugar to her coffee, took a sip, set the cup back on the saucer and said, It was Rydell who found the bones.

Chapter Two

Rydell had been on his way back from the hardware store when he thought he’d stop in and take a look at his next handyman job. He drove west on Broughton Street, took the left onto Whitaker Street, and made a left turn into the alley. The sign said No Parking, but that didn’t mean him.

He parked his white, all-purpose, box utility truck in front of the dumpster or behind the dumpster, he wasn’t quite sure. The Savannah Department of Sanitation had tossed the dumpster in the alley and it had no distinctive front side or back side.

When James Oglethorpe, Savannah’s founding father, had established the streets and city squares he made certain each block of homes facing a beautiful square had an alley behind it to hide its garbage.

If Oglethorpe had known the alleys would be used for garbage dumpsters and ghostly highways (streets for the dead) he might have designed the alleys to be much wider than they were. There was a lot of garbage in Savannah and there were a lot of ghosts.

There was also enough room for Rydell’s truck and that was all that mattered. He cut the engine, got out, and quietly closed the door.

Rydell had grown up in Savannah. He knew to walk respectfully in the streets for the dead. He stepped into the alley as carefully as if he were walking on his dead mother’s grave in Bonaventure Cemetery.

Rydell’s handyman job was to find and solve a water leak that had ruined merchandise in the Maxwells’ property. Water damage had cost them a tenant.

Rydell liked to fixed things, but he didn’t start out wanting to be a handyman. There was a time when he wanted to be a doctor and repair people instead of pipes and toilets.

He never got the money or the time to attend a university. He never attended a Historic Preservation Class, or picked up any book thicker than a how-to-do-it-yourself manual from the Handyman Depot. He was a graduate of the College of Hard Knocks. He followed the tried and true if it don’t work one way, try it another way of doing things.

He was a successful businessman who could fix up just about anything, and if the truth be known, he didn’t see much difference between fixing up people and fixing up old buildings. A neglected body fell apart, and so did a house. Doctors made more money than he, but like a doctor, Rydell knew how to pad his bill.

He studied the Maxwells’ building with an educated eye. He reached out and pushed on the door frame, and fingered the back windows on the first floor. There was some wood rot. Wood rot was a big problem in Savannah. The back door needed repair and a fresh coat of paint.

The Maxwells let everything fall apart until it became a big problem, and they were going to have to pay for their neglect now. He was going to suggest all sorts of additional fixing-upping that needed to be done. He would pad the bill until he came to a dollar amount he felt comfortable with. He liked the number $1,500.

He looked over the back of the building to see what repairs he could add. He studied the roof line and he studied the gutters. He looked over the second floor apartment balcony.

Whoever lived there took care of their living space. There were hanging plants, potted plants, a wicker loveseat, two wicker chairs, and a small wicker coffee table. A set of wind chimes made a peaceful sound to soothe the restless souls that walked down the street for the dead.

How are you? a voice from heaven above asked.

It was not really from heaven. It was from the second floor balcony. The young art student leaned over and smiled.

Afternoon, Miss. I’m Rydell from Rydell’s Home Improvement. Mister Maxwell sent me over to take a look at your water problem, Rydell introduced himself. He did not want her to think he was a Peeping Tom or anything like that.

Oh, good. I’ll let you in the back door, she said happily.

No bother, Miss. I’m just sort of looking things over for now. I should be back tomorrow to get started on the job.

"That’s just