No sooner had I ended our conversation than Cody and I got a call from dispatch reporting a disturbance in progress at a wedding reception aboard the SS Osikayas. A distinctly supernatural disturbance.

“Ten-four,” Cody said into his radio handset. “We’re on our way.” He leaned out the window of the cruiser—we were parked in the driveway of the Kendrick house, where the last sullen teenager we’d interviewed lived—and called out to Cooper. “Hey, tell your boss we’ve got our first haunting! There’s a wedding party in full-blown panic down at the Osikayas.”

Astride his bike, Cooper saluted, touching two fingers to his temple. “Meet you there, chief.”

Cody turned to me. “Ready?”

I fumbled for the spirit lantern, which was wedged between my feet along with the hammer and nails I’d bought at Drummond’s. “Do I have a choice?”

He grinned and hit the siren. “Nope.”

Arriving at the scene, we found pandemonium. A handful of guests had fled the ship and were clustered on the dock, staring up at the tall steamship with disbelief and horror in their eyes. Everyone was still in their wedding finery, women shivering against the autumn chill in their gowns, some lucky enough to have a solicitous male companion to lend them a jacket, others with bare arms prickled with gooseflesh. A few guests were still clutching glasses of champagne. I didn’t see anyone I knew, which wasn’t a surprise. I figured the wedding party had to be summer people or out-of-towners, since the only person I knew with enough money to rent the Osikayas for a wedding reception was Lurine, and I didn’t imagine she planned on remarrying anytime soon. Or under the same identity, for that matter.

Anyway.

Seeing a policeman in uniform, the guests surrounded Cody, gabbling things like “Horrible!” “Hideous!” “Macabre!” and “Dead bride!” Ignored, I stood juggling the spirit lantern, hammer, and nails while he did his best to calm them down and figure out what was happening.

Someone sidled up next to me. “So is there a ghost or not?”

I turned to see Stacey Brooks looking scared but determined, a compact, expensive video camera in hand. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Documenting,” she said in a defensive tone. “I mean . . . maybe. As long as it’s not the Tall Man. It isn’t, is it?”

“It’s not the Tall Man.” Cody ordered the wedding guests to proceed down the dock, where Cooper was waiting. I hoped their collective panic wouldn’t send him ravening. “It’s a woman, and yes, it appears she’s a ghost. And you shouldn’t be here, Miss Brooks. How did you find out about this anyway?”

“The PVB has every right to know what’s going on in town,” Stacey retorted. “Which is why my mother monitors the police scanner.”

Of course she did.