Chance of a Ghost

by E. J. Copperman

  “Maxie!” I yelled. Mom swiveled and looked at me in astonishment. “Go to the garage and find some of my father’s old tools—something to hit her with!”

  “On it!” Maxie shouted, and vanished into the wall.

  “Who’s Maxie?” Frances stared at me. “Are you out of your mind?” she demanded.

  “Are you really the person to be asking that question?”

  I’m sure that to Frances and Jerry, it looked like this: Before Frances could answer, heavy rope encircled her around the waist, pinning her arms to her sides. In surprise, she fired the gun; luckily the bullet went harmlessly into the floor (although I’m sure Mom’s first thought was about getting her carpeting repaired). In the next moment, one of Mom’s dining room chairs shoved itself hard into Frances’s knees from behind, and a tire iron pushed itself into her midsection, forcing her to sit. The rope started tying her to the chair.

  Jerry fainted dead away.

  Maxie flew through the garage wall into the living room while pulling a huge wrench from her trench coat. Then she stopped and stared as the rope continued to wrap itself around Frances, who screamed and looked around for her unseen assailant.

  That’s not how it looked to Mom, Maxie and me. To us, it was even more extraordinary: We saw three more ghosts swoop into the room from the ceiling and subdue Frances while Jerry passed out. One of them was Lawrence Laurentz, carrying the rope. The one brandishing the chair was a ghost I recognized as Dr. Wells.

  The third spirit, wearing an expression of absolute fury, dropped the tire iron only when Frances followed Jerry and blacked out. Then he reached out his arms to me and said, “Baby girl.”

  “Dad,” I murmured, close to tears but only barely feeling the embrace he tried to offer. “Where have you been?”

  “It’s a long story,” he answered. He glanced at Dr. Wells, who had his arms folded in front of him, and nodded. “One it’s time for me to tell.”

  I stepped back from Dad so Mom could get closer to him. “Jack,” she said. “I was so worried.”

  “I know,” he answered. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been so sorry.”

  I swear, at that moment, the lights came back on.

  Lawrence hovered over the scene, smiling as a cape appeared around his shoulders. “I told you someone murdered me,” he said.

  Thirty-two

  I tried to come up with something I could say that would placate Frances, but by an hour later the only thing I’d thought of was, “What’s he talking about, a killer? That Murray!” In all honesty, though, that probably wouldn’t have helped even in the moment.

  In any event, there wasn’t enough time. Frances reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a handgun. And for the first time in my life, I was sorry Murray wasn’t in the room.

  Mom gasped. You have to love that woman. Here I had all but faxed her a “Wanted” poster with Frances’s picture on it, yet she was still astonished that such a nice woman could be violent.

  Maxie started looking around the room, no doubt for a decent weapon that could be used against Frances. I tried to get her attention and push my glance toward the wall connecting the house to the garage, where some of Dad’s old tools and other useful paraphernalia might be found.

  Maxie, out of sync with me as ever, first avoided my glance, then looked at me and said, “What?”

  “Frances, what are you doing?” Jerry demanded. “What is this all about?”

  Frances did a perfect high-school-junior eye roll and heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Oh, seriously, Jerry,” she said. “They know I killed Larry Laurentz.”

  Jerry’s mouth opened and closed. Five times. But no sound came out. Maybe he was trying to figure out what rhymed with toaster for his musical on the subject. Wait. He didn’t know Lawrence had died of toaster-inflicted electrocution. Frances did.

  Mom gritted her teeth. It was one thing to kill a man in his bathtub. It was another to ruin her brunch.

  I reached into my tote bag, drawing a quick turn with the gun from Frances, but all I held when I dropped the tote on the floor was my voice recorder, not a weapon. I held it out toward Frances.

  “Would you mind repeating that?” I asked.

  Frances clearly found that amusing; she smiled broadly, leaned in toward the recorder and said, enunciating perfectly, “I killed Larry Laurentz. Dropped an electric toaster into his bathtub and gave him a heart attack.”

  “Arrhythmia,” I corrected out of reflex. “So let me get it straight. You were just passing by Larry’s house with your fishing rod and a toaster and decided to see what happened if you cast it into his tub? Why? Just because he snitched to the cops that you guys were going to get naked in a production of Hair after you kicked him out of the group?” A confession is better if you don’t get the subject just to say yes, so I was deliberately professing the wrong theory. I was pretty sure.

  Jerry’s hand went to his mouth, which was still flapping soundlessly.

  Frances scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. The nude scene is a perfect depiction of the innocence of idealism.” She turned toward Jerry, still holding the gun but seeming to forget that. “You really did a fine job on that adaptation, Jerry.”

  Jerry puffed up. “Why, thank you.” Theatrical ego knows no bounds at any level.

  Frances looked annoyed again as she turned back to me. “It was really the fact that the stupid informant had drawn attention to my prescription business. I would have been indicted if they’d found evidence, and that would have meant real jail time.”

  Okay, Frances had some serious crazy going on here.

  “That’s right,” I recalled. “You had a son who’s a pharmacist. A connection when you needed one. But Jerry”—I felt that Jerry needed to be spoken of kindly at this moment—“was also kept overnight on suspicion over the prescription thing, too.”

  Jerry looked sheepish. He coughed a couple of times and said, “I thought it would deflect suspicion from me if I implicated myself. I didn’t have anything to do with the drug business.”

  That took a moment to sink in. Maxie flew out of the room but in the wrong direction, toward the kitchen. Yeah, she’d find rolling pins and frying pans in there, but Frances had a gun. We needed something a little more…immediate.

  “I don’t understand,” Mom said. “Jerry, you were the informant?”

  “Well…um…yes. I thought it would generate some publicity for the New Old Thespians if we were involved in a controversy. So I called in about the nude scene. But the police weren’t interested in the nudity. So I told them about the prescriptions.”

  I looked at Frances, who was trying to process that information. “You killed Larry, and he hadn’t even informed on you.”

  She heaved a breath and frowned. “It doesn’t matter now.” She gestured toward the bedroom with the gun. “Move. The bunch of you.”

  “Why?” Jerry asked.

  “Because I’m going to shoot you all in there and then leave the gun in your hand, Jerry. Go.”

  Just as I was wondering why it mattered which room Frances shot us in, Maxie came back holding a kitchen knife in her trench coat, which she showed me as she passed. It was better than nothing, but knives are not the most accurate weapon, especially when the opponent is more efficiently armed. It occurred to me in that moment, however, that there was no reason to conceal Maxie’s presence anymore.

  “Maxie!” I yelled. Mom swiveled and looked at me in astonishment. “Go to the garage and find some of my father’s old tools—something to hit her with!”

  “On it!” Maxie shouted, and vanished into the wall.

  “Who’s Maxie?” Frances stared at me. “Are you out of your mind?” she demanded.

  “Are you really the person to be asking that question?”

  I’m sure that to Frances and Jerry, it looked like this: Before Frances could answer, heavy rope encircled her around the waist, pinning her arms to her sides. In surprise, she fired the gun; luckily the bullet went harmlessly i
nto the floor (although I’m sure Mom’s first thought was about getting her carpeting repaired). In the next moment, one of Mom’s dining room chairs shoved itself hard into Frances’s knees from behind, and a tire iron pushed itself into her midsection, forcing her to sit. The rope started tying her to the chair.

  Jerry fainted dead away.

  Maxie flew through the garage wall into the living room while pulling a huge wrench from her trench coat. Then she stopped and stared as the rope continued to wrap itself around Frances, who screamed and looked around for her unseen assailant.

  That’s not how it looked to Mom, Maxie and me. To us, it was even more extraordinary: We saw three more ghosts swoop into the room from the ceiling and subdue Frances while Jerry passed out. One of them was Lawrence Laurentz, carrying the rope. The one brandishing the chair was a ghost I recognized as Dr. Wells.

  The third spirit, wearing an expression of absolute fury, dropped the tire iron only when Frances followed Jerry and blacked out. Then he reached out his arms to me and said, “Baby girl.”

  “Dad,” I murmured, close to tears but only barely feeling the embrace he tried to offer. “Where have you been?”

  “It’s a long story,” he answered. He glanced at Dr. Wells, who had his arms folded in front of him, and nodded. “One it’s time for me to tell.”

  I stepped back from Dad so Mom could get closer to him. “Jack,” she said. “I was so worried.”

  “I know,” he answered. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been so sorry.”

  I swear, at that moment, the lights came back on.

  Lawrence hovered over the scene, smiling as a cape appeared around his shoulders. “I told you someone murdered me,” he said.

  Thirty-three

  “I couldn’t look you or Melissa in the eye,” Dad said.

  We were in the kitchen at the guesthouse again. I’d secured a promise from my father that he wouldn’t fly off into the clouds and leave me wondering, and Dad always kept—keeps—his promises.

  There hadn’t been time to have this talk, which no doubt would be a doozy, while we were at Mom’s. Morgan had found Melissa and called in a connection at the New Jersey State Police. Those guys don’t worry about snow. They’d made it to Mom’s, gotten the power restored and contacted the plowing service at her complex, so they could speed in and arrest Frances. This had the added benefit that the roads were cleared by the time we’d sorted things out.

  It pays to have friends in high places. Speaking of which, Lieutenant McElone called ten minutes after the state police must have posted a report on Frances’s arrest and apologized for not calling back in real McElone fashion, saying, “You should have mentioned it was an emergency.” Clearly, it was my fault.

  Frances was very, very arrested, particularly after my voice recording of her stating in no uncertain terms that she’d killed Lawrence and was going to shoot the three of us was played. When she came to, Frances denied it, said we’d been rehearsing Jerry’s latest play and was put in a trooper’s cruiser in rapid succession.

  Jerry, who owned up to snitching on just about everybody in the New Old Thespians, was not arrested but had to change his clothing after the scare he’d gotten. Before leaving, he said he thought his next production would be The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The man’s an artist.

  The troopers had been kind enough to give me a ride back to Harbor Haven, and I’d insisted Mom pack a bag and come, too, which took very little convincing, since she wanted to hear Dad’s story. Many of the large roads had been plowed by now, but there were still hardly any cars on the road, and we were home in no time, much faster than traveling by ghost. Maxie and Dad tagged along in the trunk. Well, their legs were in the trunk, anyway. If I’d been driving, it would have been disconcerting to look in the rearview mirror and see my late father and my deceased tenant staring through the back window, but luckily the trooper didn’t have that problem.

  We’d had to leave Lawrence at Mom’s, since he wasn’t able to travel beyond the community’s boundaries. He’d explained that he’d been lurking out of sight in the powder room when Frances had begun threatening us and went off to find help. He couldn’t leave, but he apparently could tap into the Ghosternet like Paul, and Dad had come running (flying?). They’d met in the garage, grabbed the rope and gone to work.

  Dr. Wells had been at Madison Paint, having been alerted by the grumpy ghost, an old patient of his (a painter crony of Dad’s named, incongruently enough, “Sonny”), where Dad had been hiding the whole time, and heard the call from Lawrence. (Lawrence had not tried to contact Dad, having gotten no response in any of his previous attempts. But he’d heard Mom discuss Dr. Wells and, in a Hail Mary play, focused on the doctor.) There hadn’t been time to sort it out, and they’d both answered his plea.

  The doctor turned out to be a very nice man haunted by Dad’s case, for reasons he wouldn’t discuss. But Dad put his arm around Dr. Wells and thanked him (asking him to pass the sentiment along to Sonny). The doctor gave Dad a few more stern looks, said something about “coming clean” and went off.

  Melissa had been clearly relieved when we’d returned but strangely shy around her grandfather. She was spooked (pardon the expression) by his odd absence for all this time and seemed wary of what he was going to tell us, though despite my concerns that the conversation might be upsetting for her, she would not be moved. Frankly, I couldn’t blame her.

  “What do you mean, you couldn’t look us in the eye?” she asked Dad.

  Dad looked absolutely forlorn when he turned toward Melissa. “I was ashamed, honey. That’s the truth. I was so ashamed, I couldn’t even talk to you or your mom. I thought you’d hate me.”

  “Dad!” I shouted. Maxie, hovering near the ceiling, started at my volume. Luckily, after a lengthy briefing on the Laurentz case, Nan had insisted they go out to explore the blizzard and forage for food. If they weren’t back in two hours, I would call the National Guard.

  “It’s true, baby girl,” he said. “Your mom knew I was upset, but she still doesn’t know why, and I’m sorry for that, too, Loretta. I shouldn’t have handled it the way I did, blocking out our daughter and granddaughter, and not telling you the reason.”

  Mom looked over at him and sniffed. “I still don’t even know what we’re talking about,” she said. “It’s time to unburden yourself, Jack.”

  Dad nodded.

  “Dr. Wells sent your friend Sonny here after he died, and he wrote two things, Dad. He said he knew where you were, and then he said you didn’t die the way we thought. Is that what this is about?”

  Dad looked like he was mortally wounded, which under the circumstances was impossible, but he nodded. “The doctor knew exactly what was going on, and once he passed away and found me again, he tried to get me to tell you, but I refused, so he tried to push you into finding out. I’d been bragging about my daughter the detective.”

  “So you went into hiding,” I noted.

  Dad waved his hand. “Hiding? I didn’t go into hiding; I just managed to be away from you and Mom for a while so I could think. Wells guessed where I was from conversations we’d had in the hospital room…back then…and he sent out a message. Sonny heard it. The two of them have been badgering me at the store for days.”

  “You were there the whole time?” Mom asked.

  Dad nodded again. “Mostly. I knew you wouldn’t look there, Loretta,” he said quietly, then looked at me. “But it didn’t occur to me that you would come looking there. I had to duck out pretty quick when you showed up there. And what’s this about you and Josh Kaplan?”

  “This is your confession,” I reminded him.

  “It’s true,” Dad agreed. “And I have a lot to confess.”

  “Like what, Grampa?” Melissa wanted to know. “You can tell us anything. We won’t be mad.” Twenty years from now, when you meet my daughter, don’t judge her for being a successful prosecutor. Judge her based on her heart.

  Dad smiled, but it was a sad smile, if such a thi
ng is possible. “Okay, Lissie.”

  “Nobody calls me that anymore,” Melissa told him. But after a beat, she added, “But you can.”

  “Thank you,” Dad said. He seemed to gather his thoughts and said, “Dr. Wells was right. You really didn’t know what happened when I died.” He turned and looked at me. “You remember, Alison, what kind of shape I was in at the end.”

  Paul, all stiff-upper-lip restraint, was having a hard time watching the scene from the area around the stove. He seemed to be fascinated by something on the ceiling. Except there wasn’t anything on the ceiling.

  “I remember you were in a lot of pain,” I said. “It was so hard to watch. I felt awful for you.”

  Dad nodded slowly, remembering.

  “We know that, Jack,” Mom told him. “And it’s natural for a family to be upset when someone goes the way you did. But you have nothing to be ashamed of.” She reached out to Dad, but he was a few feet up out of her reach.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered. “I didn’t want to leave you, not the three of you, at all, but it got so bad—the pain—that I couldn’t stand any more. And that night, Dr. Wells told me it could be six or seven more days before I…before the pain ended. That sounded like forever. So I asked…No. I begged him to make the pain stop.”

  “Didn’t they give you medicine, Grampa?” Of course I questioned my decision to let Melissa in on the conversation. But I believe that children are stronger than we think and that they can handle things as long as they’re told the truth. That was the excuse I was using today.

  “You asked the doctor for something that would put you out of your misery,” I said, in an effort to word it delicately that ended up not being so delicate.