Other books by Deirdre Hutchins

  The Paranormal Investigators League series

  PIL #1 Voodoo in Savannah

  PIL #2 A Hanging in Tucson

  PIL #3 Suicide on Sunset

  PIL #4 The Legend of Providence

  PIL #5 Darkness in Denver

  PIL #6 Spirits in Seattle

  PIL Prequel: The Origin Story

  The Dark Prophecy trilogy

  1: Resurrection of the Vampire

  2: Vengeance of the Damned

  3: Deliverance from the Prophecy

  The Daphne Winters Psychic Investigation Series

  DW1 The Body and the Soul

  DW2 Finding Maddy

  These are all available from the San Joaquin Valley Press.

  Visit us at www.sanjoaquinvalleypress.com

  Daphne Winters Psychic Investigation Series #3

  Dropped Dead

  A Novel

  By Deirdre Hutchins

  San Joaquin Valley Press

  Fresno, California

  Copyright © 2024 by Deirdre Hutchins

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author or the publisher, except for short excerpts used in a review.

  Dropped Dead is published by

  San Joaquin Valley Press

  P.O. Box 9485

  Fresno, CA 93792

  www.sanjoaquinvalleypress.com

  This is a work of fiction. The characters are not based on any actual persons, living or dead. Any apparent identification with any actual person is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Andria Davis Kaye

  The cover is a collage of elements from Shutterstock: Teenage Boy by Armin Staude; Highway Overpass by John_T

  ISBN 978-1-7378061-9-6

  Prologue

  I’m wandering the streets by myself and it’s late at night or very early morning. I don’t remember coming out here. What was I looking for? What am I doing here? Where are my friends?

  I’ve been down this road so many times before. I know these shops. I’ve seen these street signs. But it’s quiet right now. Quieter than it should be. There’s an ominous cloud of oppression smothering everything as I drift on by.

  I need to find someone I know. I start to move faster, peering in every window and parked car. There’s no one.

  At a stoplight up ahead in the distance I see a gathering of people. There’s no one near me because they are all up there for some reason. They’re standing in the street, pointing and gesturing toward the ground.

  I know instantly that this is why I am here.

  I start running toward the crowd, desperate to find the answers my mind is craving. I am drawn to this gathering with every fiber of my being.

  As I get closer, the hum of the crowd starts to get louder. I can’t make out any distinct words, but I know they are buzzing about whatever is on the ground. In the street. I need to see it. I need to know.

  I start to push through the crowd, but I don’t even need to. They part for me willingly.

  It’s a body, mangled and twisted in unnatural ways. I’ve never seen anything like it before. But that’s not even what makes me freeze in horror. It’s the face.

  I know that face.

  The body lying there in the middle of the street, dropped like it was nothing more than a dirty rag, is mine.

  My human life has ended.

  1.

  “Just start from the beginning, Gina,” Miguel told his partner. It was his first Monday back after being on medical leave for a bullet to his shoulder. It was still a little sore—and might be for a while—but he at least felt good enough for a desk job.

  Besides, he’d never admit to The Sarge that he felt anything at all. As far as everyone knew at the precinct, he was back full strength and raring to go.

  Gina sighed and put her feet up on her desk, crossing them at the ankles. She was dressed professionally, her hair pulled back, her make-up feminine and flawless. “I told you. Once Daphne does her psychic thing, we’ll be able to move on from this one. There are three more cases on our plates right now.”

  To emphasize the work overload, she took a pile of manila folders and plopped them unceremoniously on her desk. “And anyway, we’re only doing this to make the family happy. It’s a P.R. thing. The guy jumped to his death. Open-and-closed suicide case.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. Daphne already had a feeling that wasn’t true. She said he died before he got to the overpass. So someone dropped him after he was already dead. I want to know why.” Miguel sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair. He certainly respected that they had a never-ending caseload, and this one wasn’t confirmed to be a homicide. Normally, he’d be the one nagging Gina to put it on the bottom.

  But Daphne changed everything. Her misgivings gave him misgivings.

  Without taking her feet off the desk, Gina folded her arms across her lap. “Did Daphne talk to the boy’s ghost?”

  Miguel shook his head. With his highly-styled and very-gelled hairdo, not a hair moved, as usual. “Not yet.”

  Gina sighed. “Then let’s at least see what progress we can make on the drive-by shooting in the Tower District. We can tackle the Ethan Bender case later.”

  “Is that his name? Ethan?”

  Gina dug through the pile of manila folders she had just dropped on her desk moments ago. She found the one for Ethan Bender and handed it to Miguel. “Yes,” she said. “Eighteen years old. Honor roll student. According to his parents, a jolly, happy soul. Everyone loved him, blah, blah, blah. They never believed it was a suicide from the word go.”

  Miguel frowned. Grieving parents of a young victim were always a painful part of the job. “It’s hard to accept, I’m sure. But teenagers are also very adept liars. And keeping things from their parents is their special area of expertise.”

  “So what are you thinking?” Gina asked. She raised an eyebrow on her perfectly made-up face. She wore her long, brown hair back in a ponytail and, despite working in a male-dominated field, she always managed to look quite feminine. Dressing neat and tidy was very important to Miguel, so he always respected Gina’s effort to appear tough, but feminine and well put together.

  “I’m not really thinking anything. Just saying we treat this like any other investigation until we hear otherwise.”

  Gina lifted her feet off her desk and let them fall to the floor with a thud that echoed throughout the bull pen. Lots of heads turned her way, and she smiled. She loved that part almost as much as annoying The Sarge when she put her feet on the desk.

  Pushing her hands off her thighs, she stood, towering over Miguel who was still seated at his desk. “Then we can canvas the crime scene at Tower, and then Daphne can meet us where we found Ethan. Maybe his ghost will appear, and we can give the family some peace of mind by lunch.”

  Miguel stood as well. “Yeah, that would be fantastic.” He took another sip of his coffee before throwing what was left away in his desk trash can.

  Gina lightly jabbed Miguel in the shoulder where he had been injured a few weeks back. “How’s the gunshot wound?”

  Miguel couldn’t hide the wince from the pain, but he recovered quickly. “I’m fully healed.”

  Gina stared at him with a look of pure skepticism. “Uh-huh.”

  “No, seriously. You just caught me off guard is all.”

  “You were cleared for field work, though, right?” One eyebrow raised, Gina folded her arms across her chest, daring him to lie to her. She could read him like a book. And right now, she could probably kick his ass.

  “I’m cleared.” This was true but he knew he had to come clean with Gina. Lying to her was as useless as lying to Daphne. Both ladies could see right through him. “I might have put on a bit of extra bravado when I was being evaluated, but I was cleared for work. I’m good. Let’s catch a drive-by shooter or two.”

  Gina rolled her eyes. “You know it was a car full of tough guys,” she said.

  “Yeah. The extra toughest ones never get out of their car as they mow you down and then speed off like the chicken shits they are.”

  Gina laughed at the image.

  Working homicide in Fresno forced Gina and Miguel to face the worst of the worst in crime. Murderers, drug dealers, domestic abusers…they’d seen it all. But the common theme in all of them was, at the end of the day, there was always just a scared little person trying to be tough and things went too far.

  She didn’t feel sorry for them. Far from it. Gina was scared sometimes too, but she didn’t go around killing people because of it. No, she loved putting those cowards behind bars where they couldn’t go around killing anyone else. You get your shit together before you kill someone. That was how Gina saw the world.

  “When was our last drive-by?” Miguel asked, grabbing the keys. “Feels like it’s been a while.” He wore a white button-down shirt with his sleeves rolled up his forearm. In the cooler months, he would wear a sports jacket, but these summer months in Fresno were far too hot. It was triple digits today, so this was the best he could muster.

  Gina looked to the ceiling, as if the answer would appear floating above her head. “Uh, yeah. It does seem like it’s been longer than it should be. Maybe six months?”

  “Maybe we’re doing that good of a job cleaning up these streets. ”

  Gina smiled at her partner. “You keep telling yourself that, Miguel.”

  “Alvarez! Malone!” The familiar voice of The Sarge echoed across the room. “Get in here.”

  A chorus of “oooh’s” teased Miguel and Gina good-naturedly as they wandered over to his office. Gina rolled her eyes dramatically at her fellow law enforcers. Miguel just ignored them. He’d endured much worse in his time on the force.

  “And just where do you think you’re going?” The Sarge gruffed out the second Miguel closed the glass door behind him. The bull pen could watch through the glass windows, and he could feel the eyes burning his backside from the onlookers. He wouldn’t dare give them the satisfaction of turning around.

  “Tower District drive-by. Heading to the scene,” Gina explained with a shrug.

  But The Sarge shook his head. “Nope. Miguel was cleared for desk duty. You’re now with Sheffley for field work.”

  “Bullshit!” Gina exclaimed before her brain could think it through.

  But The Sarge wasn’t worried about language. He ignored Gina and turned to Miguel. “You. Back to your desk.”

  “I feel great,” Miguel answered. He had said it so much he was starting to believe it, even though he could feel his shoulder smarting as he stood there.

  “I don’t give a shit if you could do a cartwheel right here in the office,” The Sarge bellowed. “You’re not cleared. Back to your desk.” He pointed in the direction of Miguel’s desk to add emphasis.

  “Sheffley is too green, Sarge. He’s barely out of diapers,” Gina argued. “At least put me back with Ball.”

  “Then you can show him how to be ungreen. You don’t make these calls. I do. Now back to it.” The Sarge made a shooing motion with his hands indicating their discussion was over. Gina opened her mouth to argue again, but Miguel rested a hand on her elbow to stop her.

  “It’s okay. We can divide and conquer. You do Tower drive-by and I’ll do Ethan Bender. From my desk.” Miguel spoke softly to his partner, knowing full well The Sarge could hear everything.

  “Fine.” Gina pursed her lips in a manner that said she had much more to say but was keeping it to herself.

  “Glad you’re seeing reason. You’re dismissed,” The Sarge said with a huge condescending smile. Gina again fought the urge to retort, but then she thought better of it and followed Miguel out of the office.

  Once they were out of earshot of the boss, Gina leaned in to her partner. “Sometimes I feel like we’re surrounded by children.”

  Miguel huffed a laugh, but he was quickly distracted by his phone. “It’s Daphne,” he announced to Gina and then took the call. In no rush to grab her rookie partner, she stayed and listened to Miguel’s “uh-huhs” and “okays” on this end of the conversation.

  When he hung up, he smiled. Gina folded her arms as she waited for his update, one eyebrow raised in question.

  He looked so smug Gina almost wanted to hit him as he whispered, “Guess who just visited Daphne.”

  2.

  Daphne was no stranger to ghosts in her living room.

  She sat in her bathrobe, short blonde hair disheveled from sleep. But who was she kidding? Her hair was always disheveled. In fact, until she’d met Miguel—and barely even then—she hadn’t cared one iota what any living person thought about her.

  Life was short and then you die and haunt psychics in the hereafter.

  And she’d encountered many emotions from the intruders in those ghostly visits. Anger, jealousy, guilt, rage, worry. The emotions often came flying at her in a way that overwhelmed her senses and made it difficult for her to know if she was actually feeling those things, or if the ghost was projecting. And the ghosts almost always appeared in the form that they had died in: mutilated, stabbed, blue from lack of oxygen.

  But this ghost was different.

  Ethan Bender stood before her like any average popular teenage boy. At least, she assumed he was popular because he looked athletic and those types were always popular in high schools, according to movies. Daphne really had no idea. She’d never been popular or paid any attention to who was at her high school. She’d survived high school by avoiding as many people as she could until she could graduate.

  Ethan was clean cut, dressed in a stylish way, and almost cheerful in disposition.

  “What happened to you?” Daphne got straight to the point. Ethan might have all eternity, but Daphne needed to go grocery shopping. Her little jaunt to Southern California to work on the cold case that changed her life had left her cupboard bare and food spoilt.

  Ethan shrugged. “You tell me. One minute I’m leaving Jake’s house. The next everyone’s crowded around my body in the middle of the street.”

  “So you didn’t jump?” Daphne plopped her slippered feet up on the coffee table.

  Ethan frowned a bit at that before shrugging again. “I guess I don’t really know. But I don’t think I did. Why would I?”

  Daphne wrinkled her nose. “How should I know? I don’t know you. Were you bummed about anything? Cut from the wrestling team or failed a major test or something?”

  “I play baseball,” Ethan corrected, but not in an accusatory way. More like he was really proud.

  Daphne rolled her eyes. “Well, unless there’s an all-stars game in Heaven, that ship has sailed.”

  Ethan looked demoralized at the realization that Daphne was right. “Played baseball,” he corrected. “But I’d been having a good season.”

  “So you can’t think of any reason you would have killed yourself?”

  Ethan shook his head.

  “Any enemies?” Daphne followed up.

  Ethan shook his head again. “I mean, there were school bullies and such, but I can’t think of any reason someone would want me dead. That’s so extreme.”

  Daphne respected his expression. “Yes. It’s quite extreme. Why don’t you walk me through the night you died? What you remember, of course.”

  Ethan licked his ghostly lips. “Okay.” He looked nervous all of a sudden. Up until now, he’d been so casual. “I was with Jake and his girlfriend, Megan, and our other buddy, Tyler. Just a kickback at Jake’s.”

  “What exactly were you guys doing?” Daphne asked.

  “We started out playing video games.” Ethan looked up, trying to remember the events of the night. “And that’s about all I remember.”

  “So you were hanging out at your BFF’s house and then at the end of the night, fall to your death. Something obviously happened.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “About what time were you at Jake’s?”

  “We had pizza for dinner.” Ethan pointed at Daphne as the memory came back into his mind. “I often stayed to midnight, more or less, so it’s possible that’s the timeframe.”

  “And what do you remember of your death? Anything?” Daphne crossed her ankles as she listened, trying to make some sense out of his disjointed story. How do you simply forget dying?

  “I do remember walking down the street. It was dark out.” Ethan wagged a finger at Daphne as if it helped him jog his memory. “And I saw a huge crowd of people surrounding a dead body.”

  “You.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Me.” Ethan said it so calmly and matter-of-factly, Daphne started to wonder how he could be on such an even keel about his own demise. Someone so young should be angry at the life that was stolen. She wasn’t going to tell him that, of course, but she found it odd not to be sensing those types of negative emotions now.

  “How’d you get there?”

  Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know how I know, but I know I was dropped there. Not pushed. Not jumped. Dropped.”

  Daphne nodded. She had sensed something similar already. “You were already dead by then.”

  “I think so.”

  Ethan was barely any help at all. Daphne opened her mind to see what she could sense on her own. An image flashed of a large group of kids, laughing and talking. “Could you have possibly gone to a party that night?” she probed.

  “I was at the kickback at Jake’s.”

  Daphne shook her head. “No. I’m seeing lots of kids, not just a small handful. Like a party.”

  Ethan tightened his lips into a straight line. “I don’t remember anything about a party. I wasn’t invited to any that I can think of. I mean, that night. I went to parties all the time.” Again, he wasn’t bragging, just stating facts.

 

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