Mrs. Morris and the Ghost of Christmas Past

by Traci Wilton

  Were the two friends, or more? Charlene remembered how well Vincent had spoken of Linda. He’d respected her but had nothing good to say about the son.

  Vincent gave Kyle a hug that the young man barely tolerated. He pulled free. “Dalton told me you were checking up on me.” He glared down at his shoes. “I didn’t mean anything by it, and you should know that.”

  “What?” Linda asked, looking from her son to Vincent.

  “Later, Mom,” Kyle said. “It ain’t nothing.”

  Vincent nodded gruffly. “I had to check.”

  Linda crossed her arms. “Tell me!”

  “We’ll explain later.” Vincent gestured to the man with the jersey. “I got someone I want you to meet. A long-lost friend of David’s.”

  Linda turned to the man with a polite smile that you’d give a stranger. “Hi, I’m Linda. Thank you for coming.”

  “Name’s Freddy Ferguson.” He offered his hand. “I’m an old college teammate of David’s. We played football together. This was David’s.”

  Charlene thought that explained the jersey—wait—Freddy. Wasn’t that one of the names that David had called out that night? Freddy, then Doug. When had he arrived in Salem?

  Linda paled beneath her heavy blush, her lips back as if struck. “You were no friend of David’s,” she hissed, stepping in front of Kyle with her palms up toward Freddy. “You ruined his chances at a scholarship in that car accident. He never forgave you, and I don’t blame him.”

  Vincent, horrified, dragged his gaze from Linda to Freddy. “Is that true?”

  “It was an accident.” Tears gathered thickly on Freddy’s lashes. Charlene smelled beer on the man’s breath and noticed his shirt was buttoned up wrong.

  “Bull-loney,” Linda said, her tone sharp. “You were jealous of him taking over as quarterback, and don’t deny it. Why are you here? He can’t forgive you now—he’s dead. You’ll have to live with your sins of the past.”

  Freddy lifted the red and black jersey. “David invited me to have dinner with him, but I . . . I couldn’t make it. Now I’ll never be able to tell him . . .” The man broke down, but Vincent, Linda, and Kyle stepped back rather than offer comfort.

  Was Freddy outside the restaurant that night? David must have seen him, Charlene realized, and that’s why he ran out. Had he been so emotional that he hadn’t seen the oncoming car?

  “Did Dad invite you to dinner at Bella’s?” Kyle asked in a tight voice.

  “Yeah, but something came up,” Freddy said with a sniff. “I saw that he’d won the lottery in the news, and I was so happy for him, I just wanted him to know that.”

  “Did you call him, or did he call you?” Linda demanded. “Let me take a big guess. You called him.”

  Freddy didn’t deny it. “I lost track of him after . . . and then, you’d left New York.”

  Linda tapped her toe. “No use hanging around. He’s dead now, and you won’t get a cent.”

  “I just wanted to see him.” Freddy kept glancing over his shoulder like he had a nervous tic.

  “Was that my dad’s?” Kyle pointed to the jersey.

  “Yeah, David was my best friend.” Freddy lifted the jersey, which had some sort of animal on the shoulder. “You want it?”

  Kyle accepted the gift before turning away to hide his eyes.

  A shout sounded from the area where Tori had held court. Zane hadn’t found an exit after all, but had barricaded Tori in the hallway, holding people back from her. Tori, chin high, shuffled from the space to her table by the punch bowl.

  “There she is! The thief herself!” Pamela said in a too-loud voice. “Thinking you can sneak away after closing the account. How could you, Tori?”

  Alice, round as a ball of yarn in her black calf-length dress and sensible black pumps, said, “Think of the children, Tori. David promised to help. Surely you can see fit to at least put that check through? It would be a drop in the bucket for you. Please? One ounce of kindness, that’s all we ask.”

  “You can all contact my lawyer.” Tori thrust her chin forward. “I don’t owe you a thing. I will choose my donations, not you. And not David.”

  Alice broke into tears. “I pity you. You, you have no heart.”

  “Well, I don’t!” Pamela, red-faced, lunged for the ring on Tori’s finger, trying to slide it off the velvet glove. “Give it to me. Give it to me, you heartless . . .”

  “Stop right there,” Zane yelled.

  Pamela froze. Tori pulled back, her hand landing in the punch bowl, splashing Zane, who brushed his wet, sticky suit with dismay.

  “Zane!” Tori screamed. “Get me out of here! Now!”

  Pamela drew herself up and raced to the one and only entrance to the hall, throwing her hands wide to block the door. “We would appreciate it if you would reconsider, on behalf of Felicity House,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

  “Can’t blame the woman for trying,” Brandy said with a smirk. “That big diamond at her throat has to be worth a quarter million. I know my jewelry.”

  Zane picked Pamela up by the black-suited waist and set her aside. “We are leaving.” He tucked Tori close to his meaty body.

  The seething widow shot them all the finger when she was safely on the other side of the door, then slammed it shut.

  Charlene couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed, and the entire room held a moment of stunned silence before falling into chaos.

  “If this is what the remembrance is like, I can’t wait for the funeral. Christmas Eve, is it?” Brandy eyed her mostly full coffee mug with a frown. “I’ll bring Mother, some popcorn, and wine.”

  “Mothers!” Charlene quickly said her goodbyes to Brandy, Sharon, and Kevin. “Mine has been left alone in my house for far too long.” She’d probably reorganized her spices alphabetically or, worse, by size. “If I don’t see you all before Christmas, have a wonderful holiday, okay?”

  She looked for Jessica to tell her goodbye, but the girl was gone. Charlene walked the few blocks to where her Pilot was parked, got inside, and placed a call to Sam.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Charlene sat in her parked Pilot, her thumb hovering over Sam’s name in her contacts list. She didn’t have time to click on it to call him before her own cell phone rang. His name flashed on her screen. “Sam. Just the man I was about to call.”

  “Nice to hear. Officer Horitz told me you’d come by yesterday and helped pin down the speed of the vehicle that hit David. I know you’re busy, with your parents and all, so thank you.”

  “I was glad to help—it’s the first time you’ve ever actually wanted it, do you realize that?”

  “Charlene . . .” he warned. “How are you doing?”

  She went along with the subject change. “Surviving. Do mothers get worse over time, or do daughters get pickier?”

  “Not sure how I should answer that, so I plead the Fifth.” His chuckle made her smile.

  “You’ll never guess where I am, or where I’m leaving, since I’m actually in the car ready to head home.” She talked to Sam via Bluetooth, hands free, as she started the car and drove toward her house.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense—I hate guessing games.”

  “At the remembrance ceremony for David Baldwin at Unity Church on Fourth. It was a zoo.”

  “Dare I ask?” His deep voice rumbled through her speakers. She loved listening to him talk—when he wasn’t angry with her. She better tread carefully or he would be soon.

  “If you don’t, then I won’t tell you and you’re gonna want to hear this.”

  He sighed. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Where do I start?” Just the facts. “Jessica told me that one of the chefs at Bella’s is friends with Kyle and before the night of the auction, Kyle said that he wished his old man was dead. Now, before you take that as a confession, Jessica also said that Kyle wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She decided not to share the “gossip” in Salem about her and Sam being friends. “But!” Charlene paus
ed for dramatic effect. “Did you know that most hit-and-run drivers are young men, usually under the influence?”

  “And where did you hear that?”

  “On the radio.”

  Sam inhaled loudly, then exhaled, and she imagined him at his desk, smoothing his mustache as he liked to do when he was searching for patience. “I’ve had Kyle in for questioning. He says he didn’t drink that night—did you see him drink?”

  She thought back—he’d wolfed a plate of spaghetti and had a glass of water. “Uh, no. Isn’t he underage?”

  “Since when has that stopped a determined teen? He says he went right home from the restaurant, and his mom corroborates that—but moms are protective, so he’s not off my list just yet.”

  Charlene recalled how Linda had stepped between Freddy and her son, unafraid of the taller man whom she’d viewed as a threat. It was possible.

  “That segues into this next incident, actually. David had invited an old friend from his past, Freddy something, who he knew in his college football days, to come to dinner that night, but Freddy said he couldn’t make it. Remember how strange David was, yelling someone’s name, running out of the restaurant? The name he said was Freddy—what if Freddy showed up but didn’t come in? And Doug. I told you that, right?”

  “Yes, it’s in my notes.”

  “David’s ex-wife, Linda, dislikes Freddy intensely. She made a bit of a scene when Vincent introduced him, not wanting him near Kyle.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At the reception hall across from the church,” she explained. “Tori was reigning supreme for a while, until things got out of hand.”

  “Freddy Ferguson is probably who you are talking about—and I’ve already checked him out. Tori tossed his name in when I was questioning her about that night. He said he wasn’t there.”

  Rather than turn right on Crown Point, Charlene took a left, toward Bella’s. “And?”

  “He did time in jail for vehicular manslaughter after drinking and driving in college. He’s been clean for the last twenty years as far as I can tell. But thanks for the heads-up.”

  Manslaughter meant someone had died. She didn’t like Sam’s smug tone, so she spoke up. “His driving record might be clean, but the man certainly wasn’t sober. I was standing next to Linda and smelled beer on his breath.”

  “Good to know. Anything else of interest?” the detective asked.

  “Well, two ladies from Felicity House got into a scrape with Tori, demanding that she make good on their check. One of them tried to relieve Tori of her huge diamond ring she wore, over her velvet glove.” Charlene stopped at a four-way intersection and checked for traffic before continuing. “At one point it looked like Pamela was trying to tear it off—poor Alice was in tears, saying Tori had no heart.”

  “Sounds like a lot of drama to me,” Sam drawled.

  “It was! Zane had to physically remove Pamela from the doorway—she was trying to hold them hostage. Brandy Flint joked that she’d bring refreshments to the Christmas Eve service.”

  “How was the widow?”

  “Fine. Sam, I know that the car was going no more than thirty-five miles an hour, which makes the accident seem . . . not so accidental. Whoever hit him had to have known they’d done it and deliberately left the scene.” It wasn’t a stretch to consider who might have wanted David dead.

  He sucked in a breath. “I’ll have a word with Officer Horitz.”

  “He didn’t tell me anything that I couldn’t figure out on my own.” If she’d Googled it. “And I helped.”

  “I don’t want you involved more than what you already are.”

  Charlene squeezed the steering wheel in frustration. “I was with Tori that night, and her grief seemed genuine. I don’t feel like Tori wanted David dead.”

  “Thank you for sharing, but police work is more than feelings.”

  Charlene had heard that old line more than once. “Well, did you know that she and David had planned on doing a disappearing act? Their lawyer had suggested going into seclusion until the hoopla around the lottery died down.”

  She heard Sam tap something, and pictured him sitting at his desk, reading his notes. “Jessica mentioned that. Good kid.”

  Charlene adjusted the temperature on the dash to keep warm as she drove to Bella’s. “I confirmed that Tori was having an affair with Zane Villander, from her gym.”

  “Hmm. She’s being tight-lipped about that. So?”

  “Today she’d dressed her lover up as a bodyguard, to protect her against all of the angry people she’d disappointed by blocking their checks. If I was her, I would have stayed home and missed the service.”

  “She’d have looked guilty,” Sam said.

  “That’s what Sharon Turnberry thought too!” She drove past Bella’s on the road where David had died, but the cones had been removed, and traffic was back to normal. Forensics must have come to their conclusions, but of course she couldn’t ask Detective Sam anything. Thank goodness Officer Horitz hadn’t been so tight-lipped.

  “Sam, did anybody come forward about driving on Duval and Crown that night?” She couldn’t imagine how tedious it would be, looking at grainy video on that intersection.

  “We’ve got it whittled down to half of the vehicles identified—but that doesn’t mean we’ll find the right car. They could have taken the back road. Police work is a process of elimination.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear what I think, but my opinion, low as it may be, is that Zane has the most to gain by David’s death. He wouldn’t like to see his lady love and her millionaire husband riding off into the sunset.”

  Sam burst out laughing. “What an image! You continue to amaze—and enchant me. Go home, Charlene, and drive carefully. We’re supposed to get about four inches of snow later today. Say hello to your parents and enjoy them while they’re here. A few days from now they’ll be gone, and I bet you’ll miss them.”

  That didn’t sound like a smart bet to her. “I’m on my way. I sure hope to see you for Christmas Eve.”

  “Only thing keeping me away would be a crime or two.”

  “Well, if my mother keeps criticizing every little thing, I might have another one for you.” Before he could get the last word in, she said, “Bye, Sam,” and hung up with a smile.

  She really didn’t want to go home. Charlene drummed her thumb along the steering wheel and parked at Bella’s. She got out and studied the place where she’d seen David’s glasses on the road. The 3D program the police department used made deduction a science.

  Charlene returned to her car. Kyle had wanted to talk to David—about what? Had he come back that night, maybe in someone else’s vehicle?

  She had Linda Farris’s address, where Kyle still lived with his mother. How long would it take to get there? He’d worked that night and then come to the restaurant, right at ten. Had food, left in a huff by ten thirty. David had been hit at ten forty-five.

  She dug through her purse and found the note from Jessica, then plugged the address into her GPS.

  With traffic, she should arrive in twenty-three minutes. Charlene put her Pilot in gear and followed the directions. Twenty-two minutes later, she pulled up in front of a brick ranch house on the opposite side of town, the GPS announcing that she’d arrived at her destination.

  It was an older neighborhood that hadn’t seen the benefit of gentrification yet, like the area where Jack’s practice had been located when he’d been alive.

  Not poverty stricken—that was a few miles west—but worn. Salem celebrated their history and antiques, their ties to the past, but this poor neighborhood just seemed tired. Overgrown oak trees, bare of their leaves, lined the uneven sidewalks of a road hardly wide enough for two lanes of traffic to pass, and yet, cars were parked along the street, the wheels half on the curb.

  Two vehicles passing each other would be a tight fit. Charlene wedged onto an open curb.

  Kyle’s motorcycle was parked horizontally on the driveway,
leaving enough room for a small car, though there wasn’t one yet. Was Linda still at the reception? Had Kyle ridden with her to the church?

  Linda’s house and garage had the look of 1950s construction and took up all the space of her lot. A narrow strip of grass was the only thing separating her from her neighbors on either side. The front yard was not fenced, the lawn the brown grass of winter.

  The front picture window’s beige curtains had been drawn back to reveal a Christmas tree, unplugged, which probably meant that nobody was home.

  A pink nose appeared at the window, followed by a canine face—an indeterminate mix of fur with a wagging tail and robust bark.

  Charlene searched her rearview to make sure nobody was around. She didn’t want Kyle to be guilty and didn’t think he was, but that didn’t make it the truth. What would she say if Linda answered the door? She’d already given her condolences. Charlene decided to leave a message on the screen door, asking Linda to call her—she could simply offer her sympathies, maybe let her know that David had promised Kyle a special card, and during that conversation, find out about Kyle.

  Taking her business card from her wallet, she scrawled the note and got out of her car. The dog’s barks picked up speed but didn’t seem vicious—just friendly.

  She opened the screen door, which squeaked loudly, and winced—then stifled a scream when the front door opened.

  Kyle stood there in jeans and a bulky sweatshirt—he had obviously driven himself to the service and had returned home. “What are you doing here?”

  Charlene slowed her frantically beating heart and waved her business card. “I was hoping to talk with your mom,” she said.

  “About?”

  She was left scrambling. Could she get him to talk? “I saw your motorcycle down at the police station the other day. . . .”

  “And I saw you gossiping with Jessica.”

  Busted. Now what? “Jessica was very upset about your dad’s death, as am I.” She leaned against the open screen door. The dog, a medium-size mutt, stuck his nose between Kyle’s legs to sniff Charlene’s pants.

  Kyle scowled and she could tell that he was warring with his good manners and his desire to slam the door in her face. “Jessica’s cool.”