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Jenny shook her head but then hesitated, as if there might be more to the story. "I remember one time during her break, she was sitting in the corner of the cafe with rosary beads in her hands," she said slowly. "She seemed anxious."
"About what?" asked Valerie.
"I don't know ... but ..." she hesitated.
"Please, tell me. Anything on your mind could help find her killer."
"Then maybe she'll stop haunting the lane, right?" Jenny asked hopefully.
Valerie hated to go along with superstition, but for once, she knew it might help her get somewhere on the case.
"Yes," Valerie answered. "I'm sure if we catch Greta's killer, she can finally be at rest."
"Well," Jenny said, sitting up and rubbing the tears from her eyes. "Maybe Greta isn't the only weird thing out there in the lane. Maybe she knew about a ghost that was already hanging around behind the diner. She was always out there, looking around. I even saw her taking things out there."
"Like what?"
"Like food from the kitchen that was left behind," she said. "Now, I looked this up, but in China, some people leave out food for ghosts so they will leave them alone. Maybe Greta was trying to keep it happy so it wouldn't hurt her or one of us ... and then ... God ... The thing got her."
Something didn't feel right to Valerie. This was more than mere superstition. She was agnostic about ghosts, but she didn't expect to meet any out in the lane. Still, it sounded like Greta had been spending a lot of time back there. And considering that was where her body was found, bled out between two large trash containers, Valerie wanted to take a closer look.
"Thank you, Jenny," she said. "I'm going to go back there, and I promise you, you don't need to worry about any ghost any longer, okay?"
Jenny nodded, but Valerie could tell she didn't believe her.
Valerie looked over at the other booth. She could hear the manager complaining to her three colleagues. Will's face had drained of color, and Charlie looked despondent as Sheriff Carter tried to elevate the woman's anxieties about her business.
While the manager was busy, Valerie saw an opportunity. She stood up, quickly moved behind the counter, and disappeared through the double doors into the back.
She could see a burly man cursing under his breath about something in the kitchen. Valerie assumed he was the cook, but she had no interest in talking to him for now. She was only interested in tracking Greta's footsteps. She passed him silently without saying a word and then exited a door at the rear of the building.
She stepped out into a secluded lane that smelled of rotten trash and congealed food. Though it was the morning, the sky was gray and not much light made it into the narrow lane. A light buzzed nearby, a neon ring that Valerie was sure must have zapped its fair share of flying insects in the summer months. But this was a bleak winter.
She moved slowly, careful not to make any noise. It wasn't that she feared any ghost there, but she somehow felt that she was not alone.
The lane was littered with overflowing trash containers. Some were old, some were new, and some were home to the occasional scurrying rodent. There were also several dark shapes scattered around the ground, which Valerie assumed to be old mattresses or furniture that had been dumped by people in the neighborhood.
She continued forward, stepping over the refuse as she made her way towards a darkened streetlamp at the end of the lane. As she moved, she passed a section of wall that had some cut police tape on it.
This must have been where Greta died, she thought. Valerie leaned down and looked at the ground. There was indeed a patch of dark there; a stain of blood that had been left behind.
Then a noise sounded. It echoed between the narrow walls of the lane. It sounded like something shuffling around, but it was too big to be a rat. Then it fell silent. Valerie pulled out her gun.
She cautiously approached the direction of the noise she had heard. As she got closer, she realized it was coming from a large metal grate set into the ground. She peered into the darkness and saw what appeared to be a ladder leading down towards some kind of tunnel.
Valerie immediately thought of the CPU's case that led through the tunnels under Boston. Ever since then, she had felt a wariness of such places. But just as she was about to call for Charlie and the others, what was down beneath the grating took form in her mind.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Valerie realized that there were other people down there. It looked like they were homeless or squatting in the underground tunnels. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows and stared directly at her with an intensity that made Valerie's skin crawl.
"It's okay," Valerie said, quietly. "I'm here to help."
"Leave us alone," a man said. "Please."
"I will," Valerie said. "But only if you tell me about Greta."
With the mention of that name, a young woman began to sob, and the man comforted her.
"Please, leave us be," he said.
