Ghost Haste

by ReGina Welling

  Basset looked convinced, the detective not so much.

  “Please look one more time, Mrs. Hastings.”

  “Dupree,” I corrected. “My last name is Dupree.”

  Slowly, I went through the images again. “The build is close, but it’s hard to tell for sure. I can tell you that Paul never owned anything that fit like that while I was married to him. He was far too vain to let inferior fabrics touch his precious skin.” That sounded a bit more venomous than I intended.

  “These were taken after the attack?”

  Bassett nodded.

  “The posture’s wrong, but maybe that could be accounted for by assuming he panicked. And this here,” I pointed, “looks like a shadow below the chin, but I can’t tell for sure. If it is, then the shape’s off, too. Paul’s chin is squared off, this one looks more rounded. Honestly, I can’t say with any degree of certainty that this is Paul Hastings. I’m sorry.”

  The detective might have pushed me more, but Bassett urged him to let it go, so he only asked. “Would you be willing to come down to the station and look at the raw footage?”

  “Today?”

  “We could send it to you if you’d rather, and then you could call me with your impressions.” Bassett handed me two cards with her name, badge number, and contact information on them.

  “Of course.” I wrote down my email on one of them and gave it back to her. “I hope Albert remembers something that will help. He’s a good man.”

  With that, I let them get on with talking to him and hoped they wouldn’t take too long. Alicia needed to see her father.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SINCE I WAS in town anyway, I offered to take Patrea to lunch.

  “I thought I'd have information to report, but I can’t get anything out of him.” Patrea speared a meatball and wrapped spaghetti around her fork. We’d toasted—with our lemon water since it was the middle of a workday—to Albert’s progress and moved on to a new topic. “The guy’s mouth is sealed up tighter than Fort Knox, but he knows something even if he doesn’t know he knows.”

  “Offering Winston’s paralegal a job was a stroke of genius,” I said. “But I feel bad that you’re paying out more money on my behalf. I have a decent job, I can easily get a mortgage on the house to cover his salary.”

  Patrea laughed and dabbed sauce off her chin. “I didn’t do it for you. Hiring William Deal was good business for several reasons.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve signed on enough of Winston’s former clients to cover Bill’s salary at least twice over, and I’m sure I’ll pick up a few more because they like seeing a familiar face in the office. Using him to investigate Winston’s death is a bonus. Or it would be if I could get him to unclench a little.”

  Like I said, genius.

  Lucio had a way with carbonara, and I didn’t regret letting Patrea pick the spot for our lunch date. “I can see why he’d be hesitant to dish dirt on his former employer to his new boss. If he talks, he proves himself disloyal, which isn’t something most people want in an employee.”

  “True,” Patrea considered. “I was surprised he accepted my offer. I’ve never made any bones about my disdain for Winston Durham. Not to speak ill of the dead, but he was a—to use your favorite term—sleaze-weasel.”

  “There you go. We need a different approach.” I tugged my phone out of my purse and found nothing in my inbox from Officer Basset. “Not that I have the foggiest idea what it should be.”

  “I do, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “I’ve been told not to leave the area.” After turning up the volume on the alert tones, I dropped my phone back into my purse. “Which means I’m still a suspect even though I have an ironclad alibi. Short of delivering your newest employee a strip-o-gram, I’ll probably be on board with whatever you think will work.”

  A less than delicate snort made me whirl to see Amber hovering behind me.

  “Miss Prude,” she said, pointing at me, “delivering a strip-o-gram. That’d be the day.”

  Since I couldn’t tell her to shut up, I offered a rude hand gesture under the table and out of Patrea’s line of sight.

  “You’re on the right track, but a stop farther down the line than I was thinking. Bill’s single. Painfully so, I’d say. I was thinking that arranging for him to go on a date might be in order.”

  “I haven’t been on a date since Paul, but I suppose I could—”

  “Not with you.”

  I took offense and then wondered why, since I didn’t want to go on a date with Bill anyway. “You don’t think I'm his type? Or that I couldn’t vamp some answers out of him? I assure you, I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it. Sexy, too.”

  Patrea wisely kept her expression in check when she saw my flaming face. Red hair and pale skin made me a natural blusher.

  “I have no doubt.” Even so, I heard the humor in her voice and started to call her on it, then decided not to humiliate myself by defending my sexiness. “But that wasn’t what I meant. He knows who you are.”

  “Oh.” I caught on. “Then, who?”

  “Maybe we could ask Neena.”

  We talked for a few more minutes about how we could set it up if Neena agreed. And that was a big if. I knew she wasn’t ready to date, not that this would be an actual date, but even so, we’d had that conversation more than once.

  Remembering Amber, I turned, but she’d taken herself off to wherever it was she went when she wasn’t haunting me. Probably somewhere she could laugh at me in peace.

  “Speaking of dating, how are things with Chris? Or did he decide you weren’t worth an hour of winter driving?” I knew the answer already. Chris was no sleaze-weasel.

  “He’s commuting at the moment. I had to clear out dresser and closet space for him. It’s weird how well he fits right in, but do you want to know what’s weirder? I miss the farm.”

  Neat and orderly, Patrea’s townhouse was the polar opposite of the old farmhouse Chris had taken over from his parents when his dad retired from Christmas tree farming.

  “It’s not weird at all. Underneath all that plaid flannel, Chris has a touch of the urbanite in him, and under your spit-and-polished power-suit exterior lurks the heart of a country girl. You just needed to unbend a little.”

  Patrea checked to make sure no one was listening. “That man has enough moves to unbend a pretzel.”

  I was trying to come up with a suitable response when my phone made the plink-plink sound of my email alert.

  “It’s the video from Albert’s attack.” I’d told her about the reward and the new evidence. “I’m nervous to look at it. What if it is Paul, and he attacked Albert because of whatever was in that envelope he gave me?”

  “If it is, you have to know it’s not your fault.”

  Easy to say, not as easy to believe after spending time with Alicia. But I had to know, so I tapped play while Patrea got up to look over my shoulder.

  “Is it Paul?” She asked after I’d run the video twice.

  “It’s hard to tell on a screen this small.” The detective wasn’t going to be happy with me.

  At Patrea’s request, I forwarded her a copy of the video before I headed home to Mooselick River to talk Neena into going on a date.

  “Molly, my girl, it looks like I’ll need to break out a bribe.” So saying, I grabbed the key from the hall table and unlocked the door to the addition. “I think I remember reading something in Catherine’s diaries about a set of high-quality sable brushes she’d stashed away, unused, in a drawer.”

  “That’s sad, don’t you think?” Amber had returned. “Saving things for a later that never comes.” The thought apparently bummed her out, because she faded away again, leaving me to wonder what she regretted not doing in her life. Probably plenty of things since she’d died so young.

  Contemplating the difference between regretting the things you didn’t do and the things you did, and considering that regrettable acts were probably why
Winston was dead, I hunted through the drawers in Catherine’s studio for the brushes. I intended to give them to Neena even if she decided she didn’t want to help. It was right that they go to someone who would put them to good use.

  “I can’t take those.” An hour later, Neena looked at me in horror. “Do you know how much they’re worth?” She named a figure in the hundreds of dollars and then said with emphasis, “Each.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But you’d use them, right? I mean, if you had a set of these, you’d paint with them.”

  “Of course, I’d use them. They were made to be used.”

  “Then, you’ll use them, and you’ll paint amazing things, and they’ll fulfill their destiny.” Finally, I got to the point of my visit. “I have a favor to ask, and you shouldn’t consider the brushes to be a bribe.”

  I told her about Patrea’s idea and asked for her help. “What do you say? It wouldn’t be a date, it would be a spy mission.”

  A slow smile spread over Neena’s face. “Like Mata Hari?”

  “Minus the circus act, exotic dancing, and seduction, but sure.”

  “So all of the spying, none of the fun?”

  She was in, I could tell. “You get him to answer a few questions, and you can do whatever you want with him. Can I tell Patrea to set it up?”

  “Can I borrow one of those fabulous dresses languishing the shadowy depths of your closet?”

  “My closet is your closet.” I sent Patrea the text. She responded immediately to say she’d get back to me with a place and time. “The wheels are in motion, but no pressure, okay? You can back out at any time.”

  “The guy’s not a murder suspect.” Neena looked to me for confirmation, and I shook my head. “So the worst that can happen is I go on a tedious date and don’t get any useful information.” She held out her hands as if using them to weigh options. “But I’ll be wearing that hot little blue designer number of yours. The one with the scooped back and the beading over the bodice.”

  She could keep the dress if she pulled this off. We made a short list of the information that would be most helpful to get from Bill Deal before I walked home in the dark.

  “I owe you an apology.” Winston fell into step beside me in the middle of the street.

  “Only one?” I could have cut him some slack considering the look of misery on his face, but he’d picked the exact wrong time to pop up. Even if Neena regarded her upcoming date as something exciting and fun, I blamed Winston for putting her in the position of having to help him. No one deserved to be murdered, and I still felt sympathy for him in death, but everyone from my former life was turning out to be a pain in the tail.

  “Count again. And do it from somewhere else. I’ll help you get into the light, but I'm doing it for me, not you. If you really want to help, give me something to work with. Maybe it was you who forged my initials and signature on the prenup, or were you in cahoots with Paul over the mess at the foundation? Do you know who bashed Albert on the head? Did it have to do with me? Why don’t you just admit to all of your crimes and tell me where to find proof.”

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that asking a ghost for information surrounding their death is a surefire way to make them go poof for a while. When I verbally poked at him again, Winston vibrated so quickly he turned into a fading blur.

  “Good riddance,” I said to the spot where he’d been, but the argument had sparked an idea. What if Winston made a habit of forgery? Maybe Paul wasn’t the only one he’d altered documents for, and perhaps he’d screwed over someone who cared about money more than I did.

  Inside, I booted up my laptop and discovered the only way to see divorce records from the vital statistics bureau was to search by the name of one of the parties. If I knew that, I wouldn’t need a list, so I gritted my teeth and searched the newspaper’s website for the term divorce. Mine, of course, popped up with some splashy speculative pieces, none of them casting me in the best light, but it wasn’t the most recent divorce scandal. That honor went to Honor.

  Honor St. Jacques to be more specific. She and her husband, Andre, had split after fifteen years, and according to the article, the rift had not been amicable. Winston wasn’t mentioned, but I still felt the tingle and buzz in my blood. From what I read, Honor’s situation and mine were quite similar.

  —Andre St. Jacques. One of Winston’s clients?

  I sent a text message to Patrea. Fifteen minutes later, she called.

  “He was, why?”

  Citing the newspaper article and not my conversation with Winston, I outlined my suspicions that Winston had been the instigator behind the forgery of my prenuptial agreement instead of Paul.

  “Could be, but even so, they were in it together.”

  “Oh, I know, but if he did it once, he might have done it twice. Could be a motive for murder, so I did a little digging and came up with Honor St. Jacques.”

  “You think she killed him?”

  I’d met Honor a few times at various functions and remembered her being the type of woman who drank a lot and laughed a little. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.

  “Maybe. I know her well enough to compliment her shade of lipstick but not to borrow it. Certainly not well enough to form a solid opinion of whether she’s capable of murder. Still, I think I’d like to talk to her about her divorce. See if she’s in the Winston screwed me over club.”

  Over the phone, I heard Patrea’s fingers tapping on the table, a habit of hers when she was thinking through a problem.

  When she spoke, she sounded doubtful. “I know she had money of her own before she hooked up with Andre. I can’t remember if she had more or less than him, though.”

  “Begs the question of how much she has now, doesn’t it? With me, it was a different setup altogether. I had nothing coming into the marriage and no expectations of leaving with anything if it didn’t work out. I figured the forgery had to do with Paul setting me up to take the fall for misappropriation of funds, but maybe I was wrong, and it was Winston.” For whatever reason, and that was the wild card.

  “The Arts Council dinner is this week.”

  “I know,” I said. "I got an invitation. Somebody must have missed the memo that I’m persona non grata with the society set.” It had come to my current address, too. “Are you planning to attend?”

  “I'm taking Chris.”

  “Okay, now I almost want to go, because that’s going to set some tongues wagging, and I’d like to watch.”

  I heard the smile in her voice. “Half the reason I’m going. But you should come. Honor’s more likely to talk to you since you’re lipstick buddies and all.”

  Did I want to subject myself to that level of scrutiny? The buzz around me hadn’t quite died down, and at least one of my former in-laws would probably attend.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “YOU”—I POINTED my finger at Jacy— “are on my list.”

  “What did I do?”

  My mock glare bounced off her like a rubber ball off a wall. “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  I waited for the customer she was ringing up to leave, and while that happened, I got myself a cup of coffee from the dispenser.

  “Martha loves your ice bar idea.”

  “Hey! I helped. Score one for the peanut shell.”

  Frowning, I looked to Neena for an explanation. She raised an eyebrow but smiled when she explained. “Peanut.” She pointed to Jacy’s belly. “Peanut shell.” She pointed to Jacy.

  “Cute. I see what you did there. But this ice bar thing is not so cute. I just got a call from the ice sculptor to verify the changes Martha made to the order and to see if he could he send me a new copy of the bill so I could authorize the added expenses.”

  “I don’t see how whatever she’s done is my fault.” Not the least bit concerned, Jacy left her stool behind the counter in favor of the softer, more comfortable love seat that still hadn’t sold. “But make me a cup of dan
delion, would you? There’s a box of biscotti over there somewhere, too.”

  “I live to serve. Anyway, Martha decided that we needed a statement piece—that’s what the sculptor called it, and I could hear the air quotes over the phone—so she asked if he could carve us a statue of Cupid on a heart-shaped plinth.”

  Over the lip of her teacup, Jacy’s eyes twinkled. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Did I mention she wanted the plinth lit up with red lights?”

  “Still nice.”

  “And the Cupid done in white ice, not clear.”

  “Ooh! Pretty.”

  I delivered the clincher. “Fifteen feet tall.”

  Jacy giggled.

  “He offered me a discount on the cost. It would have been a bargain at three grand since he normally charges four.”

  “Who did she think was footin’ the bill?” Neena had come in through the back just in time to catch the gist of what happened.

  “No idea. I’m considering just giving her the money for the playground fund. Five hundred is little enough to spend to put an end to the madness and take Martha’s mind off sticking her nose in my love life.”

  Rant over, I washed out my coffee cup and got ready to leave.

  “I’ll pick you up at quarter to seven,” Neena said as my hand landed on the door handle.

  I turned back to look at her curiously. “What for? Your date with Bill isn’t for two more days.”

  “We’re going to that self-defense class at Drew’s place. Remember, he invited us when we were over there the other day.”

  “I remember him mentioning it, I don’t remember saying I’d go.”

  Neena grinned. “Sugar, if I’m goin’, you’re goin’, and I’m goin’. Any woman who lives alone should know how to defend herself. What if Bill the paralegal gets ideas?”

  That last was a subtle reminder that I owed her. “So I’ll pick you up at quarter to seven, and you’d better be ready.”

  And since she was right, and I since I did owe her, I was ready on time.