Ghost of a Chance

by Dan Willis

  He thought Iggy would rush to tell him he was off base, but his mentor just sat sipping his tea and thinking.

  “No,” he said at last. “You haven’t been having any more problems you aren’t telling me about, though? Forgetting things or getting confused?”

  “Not any more than usual,” Alex said.

  “You sleeping all right?”

  Alex picked up his dishes and moved to the sink.

  “It’s been harder lately,” he admitted.

  “Maybe you’re tired,” Iggy said.

  “You ever have to work tired in the navy?”

  Iggy chuckled at that.

  “All the time,” he said. “Still, maybe you should turn in early tonight. A good night’s sleep wouldn’t go amiss in any case.”

  Alex didn’t want to admit Iggy was right, but the moment the old man suggested bed, he felt bone weary. It was if the very idea made him tired.

  “All right.” he agreed, filling the sink with soapy water. “I’ll go as soon as I’m done here.”

  Iggy slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Good lad.”

  He looked like he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by the door bell. Iggy went to answer the door, but he was back in a moment.

  “Lieutenant Callahan is back,” he said. “I left him in the library.”

  Alex dried his hands and found the big lieutenant standing in front of the bookcase to the left of the fireplace. He was scanning titles on the books and Alex watched as his eyes slid over a green leather-bound book and the thin red volume next to it. Both books had powerful runes on them that caused people to overlook them. The green book possessed them because Alex had hollowed it out to keep his emergency stash of money, and the red book because it was the most powerful and dangerous rune book ever written — the Archimedean Monograph.

  “Is this a social call, Lieutenant?” Alex asked as he entered the room, “or has our ghost struck again?”

  Callahan turned from the shelf and he didn’t look happy.

  “That was some stunt you pulled at Central Office,” he said.

  Alex smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I figure it was that or let Detweiler throw me in the cooler,” he said.

  “I don’t give a damn if you spend the night in the tank,” Callahan growled. “Don’t you ever use my name to get yourself out of a jam, you hear me? I have to work with Detweiler and now his beef with you is splashin’ on me.”

  Alex held up his hand in a gesture of peace. He knew when he pitted Detweiler against Callahan’s reputation earlier that the Lieutenant wouldn’t be happy about it. Still, from his perspective it was better than testing the limits of how long Detweiler could hold him without charging him with a crime.

  “I read you, Lieutenant,” Alex said.

  Callahan considered that for a moment, then nodded his acceptance.

  “Is that why you came by?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Callahan growled. “Thanks to your little stunt, Detweiler’s been beefing to Captain Rooney. Now you’re officially persona-non-grata at the Central Office. Rooney ordered me to come down here and tell you to stay the hell away from this case.”

  Alex shrugged at that.

  “That’s okay, Callahan,” he said. “Detweiler may not be quick on the uptake but he’s just got to find out how your victims are connected. I’d just be in the way.”

  Callahan gave Alex a long hard look but didn’t say anything.

  “What?” Alex asked.

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Lockerby,” Callahan said. “Sure, Detweiler’s going to get off the widow as a suspect soon, but how many more people are going to die before he gets on the right track? I didn’t become a cop for the glamour, scribbler, I did it to protect people.”

  Alex hadn’t considered that. It wasn’t his job to keep maniacs from running amok in the streets, after all. People hired him, and he did what they paid him for. If he did his job right, no one usually got killed.

  “Talk to the Captain if you feel that way about it,” Alex said. “Fifth Division is the best he’s got and he knows it. Have him give the ghost case to you.”

  “I can’t,” Callahan growled. “Detweiler’s wife is Rooney’s favorite niece. The Captain gives him all the breaks.”

  Alex nodded, starting to see Callahan’s problem.

  “And while Detweiler is stumbling around in the dark, the ghost is free to go on killing.”

  Callahan nodded.

  “So, what can I do about it?” Alex asked. “According to the Captain, I’m off the case.”

  “The Captain can’t stop you from helping David Watson’s widow.”

  “She won’t be a suspect much longer,” Alex said. “She probably won’t want to pay me once the police are officially looking for her husband’s killer.”

  “Persuade her,” Callahan said.

  Alex sighed. This ghost killer business had already ruined his link to the police and made him look ridiculous in the tabloids. If he pursued it and didn’t catch the ghost, he’d have egg on his face in front of the whole city. The tabloids would make him a laughing stock.

  On the other hand, if he got the guy, he’d be a hero. The tabloids would print his name in big letters and make him out to be the best detective since Sherlock Holmes. That would bring in business.

  “All right, Lieutenant,” he said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll go see Anne Watson tomorrow and get going, assuming I can find her.”

  “She’s staying at the Waldorf,” Callahan said.

  That explained why Leslie hadn’t been able to find Anne; the Waldorf was in the Core, and very expensive. Alex told Leslie to look at Inner-Ring hotels, figuring Anne wouldn’t want to spend the money on one in the Core. Apparently he was wrong.

  “Well, at least she can afford my fee,” Alex said without humor. “She can get me access to her place, but what about the other crime scenes? Can you get me any of the files?”

  Callahan scoffed at that.

  “I’m risking my job the longer I stand here,” he growled, putting his hat back on. “You’re supposed to be some hot-shot detective — so detect.”

  He moved to the vestibule and opened the door, looking back at Alex.

  “It goes without saying that if you find anything, I’m your first phone call.”

  “Scout’s honor, Lieutenant,” Alex said. He didn’t bother to mention that he’d never been a scout.

  9

  The Legwork

  It was a quarter past nine in the morning when Alex got off at the crawler station across from the Waldorf hotel. He’d gone to bed early, just like he promised Iggy, but he felt like he hadn’t slept a wink.

  The way his day was shaping up, he needed that sleep. Since the Waldorf wasn’t too far out of his way, Alex decided to stop there first. As he entered the sumptuous lobby, he remembered that he still had Leslie calling hotels looking for the widow Watson.

  A row of phone booths stood against the side of the lobby and Alex made for them. When he fished a nickel out of his pocket, his hands shook badly enough that he had trouble dropping it in the slot. It was then he remembered Jessica and the flask of elixir.

  “How could I forget her?” he asked himself, pulling the flask out of his jacket pocket and taking a swig. A moment later he wished he had forgotten. Jessica’s elixir tasted like dishwater.

  Shuddering as he forced it down, Alex capped the flask and put it back in his pocket. He was supposed to take another shot at noon and he was already dreading it.

  In the time it took him to put the flask away, the trembling in his hands had subsided and he easily dropped the nickel for the call into the phone’s slot.

  “Lockerby Investigations,” Leslie said after the operator connected them.

  “It’s me,” Alex said. “I wanted to—”

  “It’s about time,” Leslie interrupted in a harried whisper. “Where are you?”

  Alex explained about his visit from Callahan an
d going to see Anne Watson.

  “So I called to tell you not to look for her anymore,” he finished.

  “I haven’t been looking,” Leslie said, her voice indignant. “Do you have any idea what’s been going on here?”

  Alex admitted that he didn’t; in fact, he had no idea why she seemed so upset.

  “I have an office full of people here,” she said. “And those are just the ones that insisted on waiting for you.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They all read that story in the tabloids about the Runewright Detective,” Leslie explained. “They’re all here to get charms or wards to protect them from the ghost. One woman claims the ghost is living in her attic and wants you to drive him out.”

  Alex laughed. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Oh, real funny,” Leslie growled at him in a dangerous voice.

  “Sorry, doll,” he said, managing to put on a straight face. “Tell you what, how would you like to close the office for the morning?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “There might be some paying customers who come in and I’d like to eat next week.”

  Alex remembered the money Andrew Barton had given him, patting his pocket to make sure it was still there.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Alex said. “I need you to go over to the library and look up everyone the ghost has killed. All but one of them are society swells so they’ll be in Who’s Who.”

  “What about eating?” Leslie wondered.

  “I’ve got fifty bucks in my pocket right now,” Alex said. “Swing by the Waldorf on your way downtown and pick it up. I’ll leave it at the front desk for you.”

  There was a long pause on the line.

  “You on the level?” she asked.

  Alex was shocked. Leslie had never questioned whether he was telling her the truth before. He was really going to have to make all this up to her.

  “My word as a gentleman,” he said.

  “Try again.”

  “I swear on a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch?”

  “Aw, you do care,” she said, her voice returning to its playful self. “How’d you dig up that much cash?”

  Alex told her about his visit to Barton and his missing traction motor.

  “When are you going to work on that?” she asked.

  Alex sighed.

  “Right after I figure out who kidnapped Leroy Cunningham and catch a murdering ghost,” he said.

  “Good luck then. I’ll be at the library.”

  Alex hung up, then went to front desk and got an envelope from the clerk. He slipped the fifty dollars into it, sealed it, and wrote Leslie’s name on it before leaving it with the man.

  The widow Watson looked much better when she answered the door. Her dark eyes weren’t red, and her makeup wasn’t running. Alex had been right, she was quite pretty when properly made up.

  “I was beginning to worry,” she said, inviting Alex in. “I thought you weren’t going to come.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Alex said, taking his hat off. “No one told me where you were.”

  Anne apologized for that and invited Alex to sit down. The hotel room had a parlor that was separate from the bedroom, with elegant couches, a writing desk, and a fireplace.

  “Would you like a drink?” she offered.

  Alex accepted and noticed that she poured herself one as well.

  “I don’t know what to do with myself, Mr. Lockerby,” she said, sitting on the couch opposite the one Alex occupied. “It seems like some horrible dream, like I’m going to wake up any minute and everything will be fine. Like David will come walking in through that door.”

  Alex didn’t know what to say. He’d heard that same sentiment, more or less, from dozens of people over his career. He’d felt it himself when Father Harry died; still, there just weren’t easy words that would make everything better.

  “I think that the police won’t be bothering you much longer,” Alex said.

  “What if they come to arrest me?” Her voice was fearful and small.

  “If that happens, call your lawyer. He’ll take care of you.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, and nodded.

  “Do you have someone who could come here and stay with you?” Alex asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Good,” Alex said, finishing his drink and setting it aside. “Call them up. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

  Anne nodded, and she looked more hopeful.

  “Do you still want me to find whoever killed your husband?” Alex asked.

  “Yes I do,” she said, without hesitation. “It’s clear I can’t count on the police and I want whoever did this punished.”

  “All right,” Alex said, rising and indicating the writing desk. “Then I need you to write out a letter giving me permission to be in your home and to search your husband’s business files.”

  “I gave you one of those,” she said.

  “This one needs to say specifically that I can come and go at your house whenever I want and that I can go through your husband’s files,” Alex explained. “The police might still be there, and I don’t want trouble.”

  Anne rose and crossed to the desk.

  “Why do you want to look into David’s business?” she asked as she began writing.

  “Because whoever killed him killed those other people the same way. There must be a connection between them.”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be,” she said. “David’s been retired for almost ten years.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Alex said.

  Anne finished writing the letter, blotted the ink dry and handed it to Alex. She also reached into her pocket and withdrew a twenty.

  “Is this enough to get you started?” she asked. “I ran out of the house without much cash and I haven’t had a chance to go to the bank.”

  “This will do fine,” Alex said, accepting the money. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  The architectural firm of Milton & White was located on the twenty-second floor of a skyscraper in the south side Mid-Ring. It was a large open area where men at drafting tables worked. Displays with models of buildings were spread throughout the room, mostly professional buildings with a few houses. No one here seemed like the kind of person anyone would kidnap.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you, Mr. Lockerby,” Phillip Milton told Alex. He was a tall slender man in his fifties wearing a pinstripe suit that had the unfortunate effect of making him look even thinner. “Leroy Cunningham is one of my best people, but he hasn’t been here all week. If he was kidnapped, as you say, then why haven’t the police been here?”

  “They’ve got their hands full with that ghost thing,” Alex said. It was quicker than explaining the ins and outs of how the police handled missing persons cases, which was that they didn’t unless the person missing had an Inner-Ring or Core address. “Is there anything Leroy was working on that a kidnapper might want to know about?” Alex went on, “a bank building or something like that?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Milton said. He took off his spectacles and nervously cleaned them with his handkerchief. “We mostly do small commercial buildings. I mean, we have done a few fancy homes, but there’s nothing unusual in their design.”

  “Would you mind if I looked at whatever Leroy has been working on?”

  “Not at all.”

  Milton led Alex to a drafting table with what looked like the design for a train station on it.

  “Leroy is designing this?” Alex asked.

  “Oh, no,” Milton said. “Leroy is an apprentice draftsman.” He picked up a paper with numbers and math written out on it. “These are the specifications that Leroy is using to draw out the plans.”

  “Did you know he was going to school to become an architect?” Alex asked.

  Milton brightened up at that.

  “Of course,” he said. “The firm is paying for his s
chooling.”

  Alex was impressed; for a company to pay for their employee to go to school meant they really liked him.

  Unless they didn’t.

  “Is he doing well?”

  “Oh, yes,” Milton said. “He makes excellent marks. Of course he was already a good draftsman when we hired him. I do hope you find him.”

  Something about that tickled at Alex’s mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Lockerby?” Milton asked, picking up the drawing and the papers from Leroy’s desk. “I’ve got to get this work to someone else to finish and we’re really quite busy.”

  “No, go ahead,” Alex said. “Thanks for your help.”

  Milton moved to a nearby desk and began explaining the train station drawing to a bespectacled draftsman with a pencil mustache.

  “One more thing, Mr. Milton,” Alex said. “Could I look at Leroy’s résumé paper?”

  “Uh, yes,” Milton said over his shoulder. “Just ask our receptionist.”

  Alex thanked him and made his way back to the little blonde at the front of the office. She had a round face and frizzy hair that blossomed over her head like a halo.

  “Done with the boss?” she asked, smiling when Alex walked up.

  “Yes, he was a big help. He said you’d be able to get me Mr. Cunningham’s résumé?”

  She smiled and nodded, then went to a filing cabinet against the wall and dug through it.

  “Here you go, honey,” she said, handing Alex a paper folder with the name Leroy Cunningham printed on it.

  Alex paged through it slowly. According to Leroy, he had learned drafting as the Assistant Safety Engineer for the Coaldale Mining Company. That matched what his wife Hannah said. There was a drawing Leroy had done of what looked like the machinery for an elevator as well. Alex didn’t know anything about drafting but the elevator looked competently done.

  “What does an Assistant Safety Engineer do?” he said out loud.

  “No idea, honey,” the receptionist said.

  Alex’s stomach rumbled at him and he looked up at the big clock over the blonde’s head. It read twelve-fifty-three. He’d missed breakfast, it was past lunch, and he’d forgotten his elixir again. The thought of facing the elixir without something in his stomach made him queasy, though.