Emily's Ghost

by Stockenberg, Antoinette

  Fergus was sitting next to her, his upper body ramrod straight against the back of the seat, his face a study in pale fear. "Ye drive like a madman," he said through gritted teeth.

  "I'm only doing sixty," she protested.

  "To pass over sixty miles of land in one hour is unnatural."

  She hooted. "This, from someone who can zip through time and space in the blink of an eye. How do you do that exactly? How did you get back from Talbot Manor on the night of the fire?"

  "'Tisn't a bodily experience. I'm somewhere, and then I'm somewhere else. That's all. It's only when I make the effort to be present in the physical reality that I feel a little of what ye do. At the moment that's a lot."

  A red-hot Firebird, weaving in and out of traffic, cut them off ahead. "Another madman!" Fergus said with an oath.

  "That's a Pontiac. 'We build excitement' -- remember?" she said lightly.

  "Aye, well, I'd rather stay home and watch it on TV." His tension was making him irritable. "Could ye not have done yer business with the Home for the Aged by phone?"

  "No. They think the necklace belonged to a lady named Hattie Dunbart, but no one seemed very sure. Anyway, Hattie is very old and hard-of-hearing and can't talk on the phone. It seemed simpler to go to her. Besides, Marsalis is playing at the Tabernacle tonight. And it's a lovely day for a ferry ride. All good reasons."

  Fergus perked up. "Who is this Marsalis, and what game does he play? Will there be wagers?"

  She laughed. "The game he plays is jazz. He -- oh, gosh, jazz came after you, I forgot. You're in for a treat, Fergus. The Tabernacle is a lovely place for an outdoor performance. It's in the middle of what used to be a huge camp meeting ground. Church folks from all over the country came to the tents to preach and pray. I'm surprised you never heard of it in your day."

  "It sounds like what we used to know as Cottage City. But ye call it Oak Bluffs?"

  "Ah, you're right. That name came later. The tents are long gone, by the way, replaced by tiny gingerbread cottages. It's all very charming now."

  "There's no more preaching? No more praying?"

  "How can there be? Like it or not, times have changed, Fergus. These are resort properties now. Island real estate is very expensive."

  He snorted. "I can't think why. It's damned hard to get to."

  "Not the way it once was. Besides all the ferries, there are planes that fly back and forth, at least to the bigger islands."

  "Ah, that's right, planes. When will we fly the Friendly Skies? That seems to me one hell of a lot safer than this," he said, sticking his head out the window and swearing at a snappy little Celica that was squeezing them.

  Emily smiled but did not answer. It was dawning on her that Fergus would probably never know the thrill of air travel. They'd talked about how much time he had, and though he didn't really know, he felt sure it couldn't be that long. It was one of the things she'd worried about the night before: not devoting enough time to Hessiah's murder. She was thinking about taking a temporary leave from her job. But besides jeopardizing her career, she'd certainly be running the risk of foreclosure; her savings were piddling.

  But if time ran out -- if suddenly Fergus got dragged away -- she'd never forgive herself.

  "A penny for yer thoughts," Fergus said after a while.

  "I wish I could charge more for them," she answered with a sigh. They were parking the Corolla in the ferry lot, and she was spared the effort of having to explain. She went in to the ticket office to pay her fare. It was still early in the season and there was no crowd, which she was glad to see. She'd be able to sit away from everyone else and reduce the risk of being seen chatting with air.

  Emily turned to leave, but before she got out the door, one of the waiting passengers lowered his newspaper from in front of him and gave her the shock of her life.

  "Lee!"

  He stood up and folded his paper under his arm. "Mornin'. Thought I might run into you."

  His smile she recognized, but nothing else. He was wearing well-worn jeans, a bright blue baseball jacket, and a black duckbill cap that said "Pennzoil." He looked like many things -- Little League coach, True Value store manager, free-lance plumber -- but he did not look like a United States senator.

  "Nice threads," she remarked, hiding behind irony. Really, it was too much, having him pop up like this. Her heart was still thundering; Fergus himself hadn't given her such a start the first time he'd showed up.

  Lee's blue eyes had an ironic cast of their own. "You laugh, but this lets me come and go as I please."

  Which must be very important to a hit-and-run type like you, she thought, but she kept it to herself. "Off to the Vineyard?" she asked sweetly. She had no idea why he was following her. If he thought he was going to back her into some pal's cottage for an afternoon quickie, he certainly had another thought coming. She wasn't born yesterday, even if she was born in New Hampshire.

  "I have a house on the Vineyard, near West Chop," he said.

  Aha!

  "Today is my mother's seventy-first birthday, and the family is gathering there to celebrate."

  Ah.

  "Are you traveling alone?" he asked in the polite tones of someone bumping into an acquaintance on the QE 2.

  "In a manner of speaking."

  "Well, good. We can sit together."

  Just like that. "We can sit together." How incredibly presumptuous.

  "All right," she answered. What else could she say? "I can't, the ghost and I have to go over our clues"?

  They walked out of the terminal together and sauntered over to the boarding area, where a dozen passengers had already lined up. The ticket taker took their fares with a big good-morning grin. "Beautiful day, Senator. Goin' sailin'?"

  "I'm hoping," he answered pleasantly as they walked on by.

  "Real good disguise," she murmured to Lee, smiling in spite of herself.

  "Okay, so it's not perfect," he said equably. "Nothing ever is. Speaking of threads," he added, "you look very --"

  "I know, nice," she said cooly. She was wearing a pale floral print skirt and a white linen blouse, just the thing for interviewing elderly ladies on the Vineyard. She'd also brought along a cardigan and a straw hat with wide ribbons to protect her from the sun on the ferry ride over.

  Lee looked a little puzzled. "Do you have a problem with looking nice?"

  God, she was being a boor. She reminded herself of Fiona. "No, of course not," she answered, truly sorry for the prolonged snit she was displaying. It wasn't his fault that women up and down the coast were after him.

  "Nice will do fine," she answered in a far more gracious voice.

  They found a bench pretty much off on its own. Lee offered to get coffee, Emily accepted, and he went off. While he was gone she remembered -- almost as an afterthought -- Fergus. Fergus! She jumped up. Where was he? She half expected him to be in the shadow of the bridge deck, sulking. Don't be stupid, Emily, she told herself. Fergus isn't the one with a history of sulking; you are. She sat back down, reassured. "Don't fall overboard, Fergus," she whispered to the air.

  Lee returned and presented her with a cling-wrapped Thing and a cup of coffee, then sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  Emily felt the rumble of the Islander's engines beneath her, revving up for departure. Gulls squealed overhead, reeling and diving at the fingertips of a young boy near the rail who was holding up potato chips for them. The sun was ready to do business with anyone who asked; several day-trippers were racing to position themselves, as if there might not be enough rays to go around. Ahead of them lay the sound -- blue, sparkling, enchanting -- and beyond that, one of the jewels in New England's crown, Martha's Vineyard.

  "It's good to be out here," Lee said in a voice that sounded utterly relieved.

  She murmured an agreeable assent. He didn't seem to waste words when he was pleased; she liked that, and it was only later that she realized why.

  "I have a confession to make," he said, lifting
his cup from the bench and notching a little sipping hole in the plastic cap. "I was here in time for the seven-fifteen."

  "And you didn't take it? What were you waiting for?" she asked without thinking. "An in-flight movie?"

  He took a tentative sip of the piping hot coffee as he watched the gulls wheel and beg. "Nope."

  Her heart poised in anticipation, fluttering in her breast. But then she thought, no. She would not ask, she would not ask. Let him find some other creature to beg him for treats. She let his unspoken compliment drop, like untouched bread. But it was hard.

  It was even harder not to look at him, not to drink in the sheer presence of him. In his Pennzoil cap he looked downright fatherly, an all-around guy who by now should have two or three kids. What was he waiting for? There was no one out there who could top Nicole. Give it up, dope! she wanted to cry. Nicole is gone. Settle for someone else! Time's awastin'!

  Time was always awasting.

  "So what's the Vineyard assignment?" he asked after a bit. "Or can't you say?"

  She had been preparing for the question since his phone call the night before; it was bound to come. There was this vast uncharted territory between them haunted by an impatient ghost, and Emily was only just finding her way around in it. How could she possibly invite Lee in yet? The first time she'd tried, on the night they made love, it ended in their going their separate ways.

  She took the plunge anyway and said simply, "Hessiah Talbot."

  "Oh. Her," Lee said with a kind of sinking sigh. He looked away, toward the treacherous channel with its tide-bound buoys and swirling eddies. His face became a study in gloom.

  "I'm doing a feature for the Journal about Newarth, where the murder took place. There's a delightful librarian there who gave me an angle for the story. She says there's a curse on the town because of it, that Newarth's decline began when the girl was strangled."

  "So the information you . . . acquired . . . about this girl Hessiah Talbot turned out to be true?"

  "Oh, sure," Emily said breezily. "And with the local downturn in the economy, the curse angle fits right in."

  His face began to brighten beneath the Pennzoil cap. "In other words, this piece is really about the economic decline of a small town, and the Talbot murder's just a convenient hook to hang it on?" In other words, he was saying between the lines, there was no Fergus.

  The change in him left Emily stunned. He looked as if a heavy weight had been rolled off his shoulders. His face broke into a broad, captivating grin, followed by an expression so tender, so intense that Emily would have said just about anything to keep it there.

  Which is basically what she did. "Yes. There's nothing more to it than that," she said, staring into her coffee. "It's a story of decline."

  In that single, bald-faced lie, Emily discovered exactly how far her feelings for Lee had gone. Not only was she willing to take a number for him, but she was also willing to deny the existence of the ghost she knew he'd never be able to see. What else could she do? It was obvious that Fergus stood between them. There were other obstacles, too -- Gloria and all the rest -- but the big one, the first one, was Fergus. Emily was as committed to helping Fergus as ever, but she saw no real point in saying so to Lee Alden.

  There was one thing she did want to say to him, however. "I've never said a word about your coming to my place or about Kimberly or the séance or any of it," she told him, glancing around furtively for eavesdroppers.

  He took her big straw hat from the back of her chair and placed it gently on her head. "Sun's getting high," he explained with a tender smile. "You're talking about the Newsweek bit. Don't worry about it. It comes with the territory. It's nothing new." He laid the ribbons across her shoulders for her to tie. "It never occurred to me to think you were behind that."

  She took up the pale green ribbons and tied them under her chin. "Boyd Strom sounds very serious," she said. "But why would he take you on? He can't have a chance."

  "You flatter me, mademoiselle. Strom will take me on if he thinks he can win. The man plays serious hardball; I have no doubt he'll give me a good run for the money."

  Which means one false move from me and down you tumble, she thought with dismay. Her face must have showed her alarm because he smiled and said, "Have I said that you look adorable in that hat?"

  "N-n-no," she stammered. "I'm not the adorable type."

  "Which makes you all the more adorable. Emily, not to worry. I'll fight the good fight, and with any luck I'll win. I'm not all that concerned," he added seriously. "I have no real skeletons in my closet."

  But I've got a real ghost in mine. She should run, not walk, from this man if she really cared for him. Yet she stayed, caught in his spell, snatching these few moments in the sun with him. They talked of innocent things, of family and summer, and all too soon they were rounding the sandy bluffs of West Chop, on their way into the port of Vineyard Haven.

  "Why didn't you take the ferry directly to Oak Bluffs?" he asked as they watched the ferry back down smoothly along the pilons.

  "This one runs earlier," she answered, intensely aware that his arm was touching hers as they leaned idly against the rail. "I wanted to get my interview done in plenty of time to have supper and see the performance tonight at the Tabernacle."

  "You'll never make the last ferry."

  "I know. I thought I'd give myself a treat and stay at a bed and breakfast somewhere on the island," she said, holding up her canvas bag.

  "But you don't know where?" He frowned, then said, "This is crazy. I have a house with half a dozen guest rooms, and you plan to wander around the island like some carpetbagger. Please. Flag down a cabbie, and come to my place. They all know where it is. I'll leave a light burning."

  "Oh, I couldn't," she said, aghast at the thought. "You'll have a house full of family and friends and I'm going to go tapping on strange doors and climbing over sleeping bodies till I find an empty bed? It's an awful intrusion."

  "Actually," he said suddenly, "Why not come to the party as well? It's an informal affair. The kids swim and play ball and end up pitching tents on the lawn, and none of 'em sleep in the house anyway. My mother would love to have your company. And so, needless to say, would I. Come." He tugged gently at the ribbon under her hat, then slid the back of his finger along the line of her chin. "Come."

  What an offer: a weekend with the most desirable man she'd ever met, surrounded by a slew of spoiled kids and snobby adults with everything in common except her. Emily teetered, then tottered. "No," she said at last. "It's very kind of you, but I think ... not."

  "Don't think, Emily," he said in a low, compelling voice. "Just come. Wherever you are, whatever the time, just get in the cab and come."

  They were in the way now of departing passengers. Emily let herself be nudged into falling in line, and Lee stepped in beside her. At the bottom of the gangplank she said, "I have some things I have to do" -- she meant, solve Hessiah Talbot's murder -- "before I can ever come."

  "Fine, do them!" he said, brushing her cheek with a kiss. Then they parted, and Emily was left dizzily thinking that she ought to have made herself more clear.

  ****

  The Oak Bluffs Home for the Aged was a stately Queen Anne with a view across Ocean Park of the Atlantic. Originally it had been a home for retired seamen, but a decade ago it had gone coed. Hattie Dunbart, who was the widow of a merchant mariner, was the first woman ever to hang her hat there. She knew how to play pinochle, and she liked the smell of a pipe, so the men agreed to lower the rope and let her in. After that other women followed, and now the home sheltered seven members of each sex, all of them connected to the sea in some way.

  "Hattie's a tough little bird," the director explained to Emily in an affectionate tone as she led her through a series of pleasant and old-fashioned rooms on the ground floor. "She's had a series of strokes which've left her somewhat impaired. But if she wants to, she'll hear you. If she feels like it, she'll answer you. And if she likes you, she'll even tel
l the truth."

  Emily smiled nervously as the director walked up to a tiny woman with a wispy crown of white hair who was seated in a wheelchair facing a spectacular bay-windowed view of the ocean. She wore a dark blue rayon dress with a high ruffled collar and long sleeves, and she had a yellow afghan folded over her knees. Her hands pulled constantly at the edges of the afghan, as if she were afraid it would slip from her lap and leave her in perishing cold.

  The director introduced Emily to Hattie and then pointed to the porch, which was wide and white and filled with potted red geraniums. "Would you like us to wheel you out onto the piazza?" she asked loudly.

  Hattie waved her away with a withered hand. "Shoo, shoo! What're you thinking of? It's colder'n a witch's tit out there."

  The director smiled and shook her finger gently at Hattie and left. Emily took a seat in a Boston rocker whose arms had been rubbed bare of their black paint and said, "This is a wonderful place. You're so near the sea."

  "What pony?" Hattie asked with a blank look, picking at her yellow afghan.

  "No, I said, 'You're so near the sea.' The sea," Emily repeated, gesturing toward the ocean.

  "What about the sea?" Hattie asked at last. "It killed my husband. What do you want? I'm tired. Shoo."

  "Oh, Mrs. Dunbart, please don't send me away. I won't take much of your time—"

  "How should I know the time?" she snapped. "I don't have a watch."

  Emily shook her head. "No, no. I only wanted to ask you about the necklace—"

  "Tom wasn't reckless! Everyone says that, but he wasn't!"

  "No, wait. Here." Emily lifted her chin and held up the rose crystal away from her throat. "Do you recognize this?"

  Hattie squinted in Emily's direction but said nothing. After a minute she said, "What?"

  Fearing that she'd be tossed out soon, Emily shouted, "Did this belong to you?"

  Hattie stared at Emily blankly and then said weakly, "I'm cold. Get out. Shoo."

  Emily could see that she was distressing the elderly woman. It was pointless to pursue this. She stood up with a contrite smile on her face. "I'm sorry I troubled you," she said.