Who Invited the Ghost to Dinner: A Ghost Writer Mystery

by Teresa Watson

  “She would invite herself to the business meetings, too,” Scott added. “Even if Clinton managed to get to the meeting without her, she would show up, pretending that she had no idea Clinton would be there. Junior and I saw through that right away.”

  “Did you see Junior’s father very much after he retired?” Mike said.

  “Once a month, like clockwork. Clinton was never happy after his visits. We all learned to stay away from him on those days.”

  “This is a question for all of you,” Mike said. “What did you think of Desmond Sr.?”

  “Reminded me of a snake oil salesman,” my grandmother said. “He always thought he was slicker than a button on a henhouse. His wife isn’t much better. She reminds me of a Vegas showgirl: all legs and blonde, not many brains.”

  “I’m sure not all Vegas showgirls are like that, Grandma Alma,” I said.

  “I agree with Alma,” Walt said. “I always thought there was something about him that was off. Never could put my finger on it, though.”

  “Have any of you ever heard of a man named Brennan?” Mike said. I opened the file and took out a picture.

  They all shook their heads. I handed the photo to my grandmother first. Her eyebrows shot up as she looked at it. “Is this…” she started to say before Mike cut her off.

  “Let the others look at it first,” he said.

  She gave the picture to Scott, who gasped when he saw it.

  When Walt saw the picture, he looked up at his grandson. “Is this who we all think it is?”

  Mike nodded. “His real name is Donovan Michael Brennan, and he was part of the Vegas mob. I got this information from a friend of mine. Our theory is that after Lillian died, Brennan was sent here to keep an eye on Clinton, to make sure that he kept to the agreement he made when he borrowed the money to start the company.”

  “You think the mob killed Lillian because Clinton tried to get out?” Walt asked.

  Mike nodded again. “I think it’s possible. Being able to prove it is another thing entirely.”

  “Have you tried to talk to…I don’t even know what to call him,” Walt said, slightly exasperated.

  “Let’s just stick with Brennan, since that’s his real name” Mike suggested.

  “All right, have you talked to him yet?”

  “He’s done a runner.”

  “What does that mean?” Scott asked.

  “That means he’s disappeared,” Mike explained. “His car has been spotted at the airport, and we’re waiting for airport security to send us the video, so we can figure out where he went.”

  “But I thought Junior was missing,” Grandma Alma said.

  “We found him last night,” I told her, “tied to a tree in Pamela’s backyard. We still don’t know where she is, either.”

  “Does the company have any private property that Pamela or Brennan. could use?” Mike asked Scott.

  “Well, they used to have a place near Lake Waxahachie,” Scott said. “Clinton used it for a retreat, or would entertain clients out there. The Christmas party is held out there, too, as well as the New Year’s Eve party.”

  “Do you think you could show us where it is?” Mike said.

  “Sure. How soon do you want to go?”

  “Why don’t you meet me at the station in about an hour?”

  “That all right with you, Walt? Can you find someone to fill in for me?”

  “We’ll manage,” he replied. “This is more important.”

  “I’ll see you in an hour then, Chief Penhall,” Scott said, shaking his hand.

  “Come on, Cam,” Mike said, helping me to my feet. “Thank you for your help, Grandpa. I appreciate it. You too, Ms. Alma.”

  “Enjoy the muffins,” I told my grandmother, giving her a hug, “and try to stay out of trouble, or the next time, Mother will be the one to come.”

  “Tell her to stop being such a party pooper,” she said. “Be careful, Mike.”

  “I will.”

  I drove him back to the station, not saying much. “Thank you for your help this morning,” he said when we got there.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “No, you can’t go with us,” Mike said before I could say anything. “If anyone is out there, it could get dangerous. My job, not yours, remember?”

  “I understand. Just be careful and come back safe, please?”

  “That’s what I intend to do,” he said, leaning over and giving me a kiss. “Go stay at the bookstore with Randy for a while, or go to the coffeehouse.”

  “I’ve got some work to do,” I told him. “I may go to the house, turn on the alarm, turn off the phone and get a few things done.”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t want you to be by yourself until we find Brennan and Pamela Dimwitty.”

  “I’ll be fine. Now go. We both have work to do.”

  “Cam,” Mike said, a warning in his voice.

  “Fine, I’ll go to the bookstore,” I sighed.

  “Thank you.”

  I mumbled a reply as he got out.

  You’d think I would learn to be more cooperative.

  Chapter 44

  In my defense, I did go by the bookstore to see Randy, who wanted to know everything that was going on. It took about fifteen minutes to tell him. “So who do you think did it?” he asked me.

  I sighed. “At this point, I just don’t know. I’m not sure I care. It’s either about blackmail, being president of the company, or both. Or it’s not about either one of those things, which means it’s about something else entirely that we don’t know about yet.”

  “Sounds to me like Mike is about to tie up all the loose ends,” Randy said. “Let it go. You did your part. Go finish working on your latest book before Joe starts calling here again, wanting to know when you are going to send it to him.”

  “Mike wants me to hang around here with you until I hear from him again,” I replied as the bell over the front door rang.

  “I guess that’s fine with me,” he said as twenty kids, ages ranging from five to ten years old, came walking in. “But I’m fixing to have story time with them, and it usually gets a bit loud.”

  “As tempting as that is, I think I’ll go look for a new laptop. Could I take you up on your previous offer of a loan?”

  “You’re leaving me to these savages?” he gasped in mock horror, as a little raven-haired girl came running over and wrapped her arms around his right leg.

  “Mr. Wandy, Mr. Wandy, I wost my toof!” she said with a big smile. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole in the very front.

  “Wow, Beth, that’s great!” Randy said, bending over to pick her up. She gave him a big hug before he set her down and she ran off to join her friends. He pulled out his wallet and handed me some money. “Let me know if you need more than that.”

  “I appreciate this. I’ll pay you back.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Mr Wandy!” Beth called from the children’s area.

  I shook my head and laughed at him. “I’ll come back later to make sure you’ve survived.”

  He just grinned as he walked off.

  I thought about going over to visit my parents, but the parking spaces in front of the coffeehouse were full, and I could see a line standing at the counter through the front windows. Mike’s words echoed in my head, but I decided to believe in the old adage “there is safety in numbers”, and headed for the electronics store.

  After some serious discussions and major frustration on my part (I’m sure the clerk was happy to see me leave), I walked out with the laptop I wanted, not the top of the line one the clerk wanted me to get. As I reached into my jacket pocket to take out my keys, I felt something jab me in the back. “Just keep walking,” Pamela said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  She shoved me forward. “This isn’t a walking stick I’ve got rammed against your spine, Ms. Shaw,” she replied. “Straight ahead toward that dark blue minivan.”

  “And where are we goi
ng?”

  “I’m going to take you somewhere out of the way so we can finish what we started.”

  I saw a man sitting in the driver’s seat of the van. “Is that Joey Ingram?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “I don’t believe this,” I said as I stopped walking. “I thought it was Desmond Long Sr.”

  “That old windbag?” she snorted. “Now who’s kidding who? Keep going.”

  I was holding the laptop in one hand, my keys in another. I stomped on her left foot, grabbed the laptop with both hands as I spun around and whacked her with it. As she hit the ground the van door opened, and I turned in time to see Joey with a gun in his hand, aiming it at me. Raising the laptop, I ducked my head as he fired three times. I felt two bullets hit as I fell backwards to the ground. Pamela had started to get up, but I landed on top of her when I fell.

  I heard people yelling in the parking lot. Joey looked at the two of us for a moment before getting back into the van and driving off. I rolled to my side and sat up. Pamela was unconscious; she must have hit her head on the ground when I fell on her.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” a young man in a brown suit said as he knelt down next to me.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I assured him. “Would you mind helping me up?”

  He pulled me to my feet as another man checked on Pamela. “Sean, we need to call for an ambulance,” the second man said.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s being done,” he replied, looking at the ten people standing around us. Half of them were on their phones talking, the other half were taking pictures. Wonderful, the pictures were going to be all over social media by suppertime.

  I was sitting on the back of the ambulance when Mike showed up thirty minutes later. Reynolds was taking statements from witnesses, and Pamela was handcuffed to a gurney in the second ambulance. Mike walked over to Reynolds and started talking to him, all the time keeping an eye on me. I couldn’t tell if he was mad, happy that I was okay, or a combination of the two. He checked on Pamela first, then he came over and sat down next to me. “Hey.”

  “Hi,” I replied.

  “How’s it going?”

  “I’m a bit ticked off,” I told him.

  “Why?”

  I pointed to the bag on the ground. “I didn’t even get to use it.”

  “What is it?”

  “My new laptop. Does the warranty cover bullet holes from kidnappers and murderers?”

  Mike just shook his head. “I thought I told you not to go anywhere by yourself. I thought I told you to stay with Randy or your parents.”

  “You did.”

  “Then why are you here by yourself?”

  “Safety in numbers.”

  He pointed at the bag on the ground. “Does that look safe to you?!” he yelled at me. “What the hell were you thinking? What part of ‘don’t go anywhere by yourself’ did you not understand?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I understand that Joey Ingram was the one who fired the shots.”

  I nodded.

  “Did he say anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Did you see which way he went when he left?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Are you going to say anything?”

  I shrugged.

  “Look,” he said, slid his arm around me, “I’m sorry for yelling at you. But I don’t like it when you put yourself in dangerous situations.”

  I nodded.

  “I know that you’re thinking that you didn’t know things were going to be dangerous by coming here. With all these people milling about, someone would have to be pretty stupid to trying something in a parking lot. Well, they tried something. That smells of desperation. They must think you know something, or they think I know something, and they want to use you to get me to back off. That’s not something I can let happen. Dating me comes with risks, and you have to trust me when I tell you to do something. I’m trying to keep you safe. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded for the third time.

  Mike sighed. “Are you going to say anything?”

  I slid off the back of the ambulance, picked up my bag and bent over to grab the keys I had dropped on the ground. Without looking back, I walked over to my car, got in, and drove off, leaving the smell of burning rubber as my only answer.

  Okay, so that was a bit childish on my part, I know. But I was ticked off, and I knew if I had said anything to Mike, I would have regretted it later. So I just drove.

  I didn’t go in any particular direction. First, I went down Highway 77, going through several small towns. I stopped in Italy and ate at a barbeque place I had wanted to try for a while. Then I headed back to Waxahachie on the same road. I drove around a dark blue minivan, and when I got even with it, I glanced to my right. My eyes almost bugged out of my head as the driver turned his head at the same time. It was Joey Ingram.

  He rolled down his window, and I saw him reach for something next to him. The next thing I knew, I was staring at the barrel of his gun again. “Are you kidding me?” I said. “This isn’t a Dirty Harry movie, for crying out loud!”

  Just as his fingers squeezed the trigger, I slammed on the brakes. The bullet hit the side mirror. Joey hit his brakes. I hit the gas and sped ahead of him as I fumbled for my phone, which was in a pocket of my backpack.

  Joey caught up to me again, and I saw him point the gun at me again. We did the whole slow down, speed up thing again. I managed to dial Mike’s number before I floored it. “Cam, look, I didn’t mean…” Mike started to say.

  “Joey Ingram is on Highway 77 taking pot shots at me!” I told him as the back window shattered. “Son of a biscuit eater!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Coming into town.”

  I heard him yelling at someone. “Cam, drive straight to the station. Can you do that?”

  There was a thud as a bullet went into the passenger’s seat. Traffic slowed down ahead of me, so I wrenched the wheel to the right and went down a side street that dead-ended in front of the jail. Joey was right behind me. I turned the wheel to the left and skidded around the next corner. From here, it was a straight shot to the police station, give or take a couple of stop signs and one red light.

  I weaved through the traffic to the tune of angry horns. Joey bumped me from behind, making me skid sideways. I managed to straighten out just before I noticed the red light. Glancing in the mirror, I knew I didn’t have a choice. I ran it.

  A big dually truck hit the side of my car by the back passenger door. The car slid sideways down the street as Joey’s minivan plowed into the side of the dually truck near the back wheels. Another car hit the rear end of the truck.

  The driver of the truck crawled across the seat and got out on the passenger’s side. “Are you out of your mind, you crazy woman?” he yelled at me.

  I saw Joey lean back groggily and shake his head. He looked to his left and saw me still sitting in the car. He tried to open his door, but couldn’t. So he raised the gun and aimed it at me.

  “Get down, he’s got a gun!” I told the other driver.

  He turned around to see what I was looking at, and saw Joey. He reached behind his back, pulled out his own gun. “Sheriff’s office! Put the gun down, sir. Now! Do it, or so help me, I’ll shoot you.”

  Great, I had driven right in front of a sheriff’s deputy. I was never going to hear the end of this.

  Mike and several of his officers pulled up in their patrol cars and jumped out. Half of them pointed their weapons at the dually truck driver, the other half at Joey. I could see the brief moment of indecision in Joey’s eyes before he dropped the gun out the window and raised his hands. Reynolds and another officer ran over to the van, three more ran to check on the third driver.

  Mike nodded at the sheriff’s deputy before coming over to my car. The two of them had to yank on the door several times before they finally got it open. They helped me out of the car and Mike walked me over to the cu
rb, lowering me down gently.

  “This crazy broad ran the light,” the man said. “She’s got to be drunk or high.”

  Mike turned to face him. “Deputy Moody, this ‘crazy broad’ was being chased by that man in the van. If you look at her car, you will probably find bullet holes. She was on her way to the police station, where I told her to go.”

  Deputy Moody looked skeptical, but he went over and inspected my car, where he saw the broken glass in the back seat, the big hole in the passenger seat, and the dents in the back end of the car. “So, is this some kind of domestic violence thing?” he asked.

  Mike did his best to control his temper. “Ms. Shaw happens to be MY girlfriend, Moody. The man in the van is a suspect in a murder case. If you read the dispatches that my department sends to your department every day, you’d know what was going on. Now, why don’t you go call for a couple of ambulances before I ram your teeth down your throat?”

  Moody look at me, then back to Mike before spinning on his heels and walking off, muttering something about stupid women drivers. “Nice guy,” I commented.

  “In his defense, you did wreck his truck.”

  I looked at the dually, and didn’t see a dent in the front grill. “Oh yeah, I’ve really done a lot of damage to it,” I replied.

  Reynolds came over and handed Mike a white towel. “Ingram’s pinned in the van,” he said. “We’re going to have to wait on the fire truck to get here with the Jaws of Life. Nice job of leading him to us, Cam. Sorry about your car, though.”

  “Thanks, Reynolds. Glad I could help.”

  He nodded and walked away. Mike used the towel to wipe some off some blood I didn’t even realize was there. “Looks like you might have to have a few more stitches,” he said.

  “I’m better off than the car,” I pointed out. “She’s headed for the junkyard.”

  We both looked at the crumbled hunk of metal as the familiar sounds of an ambulance and a fire truck filled the air. “You’re going to be pretty sore for a few days.”

  “Probably.” I looked at him; concern etched his face. “I didn’t go looking for him, Mike. I was mad at you, mad at myself, so I just went for a drive. I went to Italy, ate lunch, and was heading back to town to apologize to you when I passed him. I did the only thing I could think of, and that was to head for you.”