Nearly Departed

by Max Patrick Schlienger

  Chapter Twelve

  “It’s your turn to tell me a secret, Dennis.”

  Keeping his frustration under control was proving to be a challenging task. The choreographed second date had been practically identical to the first, up until Evy had deviated from the script. From there, Dennis had been fighting a losing battle as the ghost led the conversation on a maddening path through stories of petty theft, amateur espionage, and clandestine trysts worthy of a bad spy novel.

  “You weren’t finished telling me yours, though,” Dennis said, feigning interest. “Who was the guy you were with?”

  “Now, Dennis, that would be another secret, wouldn’t it? And yours have all been terribly similar.” She batted her eyes playfully, which only irritated him. The accusation was true enough, though, since Dennis had carefully tailored his own stories in the hopes of prompting Evy to mention her father’s confidence schemes again.

  “Alright, how about this,” he tried again. “You pick a topic for me. When it’s my turn, though, I get to pick one for you.”

  Evy smiled coyly. “How am I as a date, Dennis?”

  “Uh, fine,” Dennis replied. “I mean, you’re great. You’re really amazing.”

  “Tell me about your last date.”

  For a brief moment, Dennis was suspicious that Evy was playing a twisted sort of game with him. He dismissed the thought. If the ghost had remembered anything of their earlier conversation, he doubted that she would have waited until then to remark on it. After all, the only difference between the two dates, at least during the first half, had been Bobo’s absence from the later conversation.

  That brought another thought to mind. Dennis turned to look over his shoulder, wondering as he did how the search for the photographs was faring. While he wouldn’t have any particular use for them at the moment, it would be nice to have them on-hand if the conversation took a turn towards its intended topic.

  “Afraid of eavesdroppers, Dennis?” Evy asked flirtatiously.

  “Oh, no, it’s not that.” He cleared his throat and continued speaking before Evy could say anything else. “My last date? Or my last really memorable date?”

  “The really memorable one,” Evy answered, sitting back with an expectant smile.

  “Okay.” Dennis paused. “But you have to tell me about anything I ask for afterward, right?”

  “Mmhmm,” Evy thrummed, pulling her knees up to her chest. Not especially good table manners, Dennis mused.

  “Okay, well,” he began, “this was about two years ago now, not long after I had moved back to San Francisco. I was really interested in this girl, and acting like a complete fool about it. I bribed her roommate to let me into their apartment, and I was busy arranging some flowers on her dining room table when she suddenly came home.” He smiled at the memory, even as he felt a quiet but insistent twinge of regret in his chest. “I didn’t have anywhere to hide, so I ducked behind her kitchen counter. She heard me, of course, and she called my name.”

  “What did you do?” Evy asked. The look of eager interest on her translucent face was both satisfying and encouraging.

  “You’ll never believe this,” laughed Dennis, “but I took off my shoe, put my sock on my hand, and gave her a puppet show.”

  “You didn’t!” Evy squealed. “Oh, Dennis, that is priceless!” She laughed for a minute longer, and Dennis did his best to join in, but his heart felt a bit too heavy for it. It seemed unbelievable that he had gone from puppet shows in Alena’s kitchen to being kicked out of the house they shared. He knew that her life was a complicated ordeal at the moment, especially considering the accident her partner had been in, but the harshness of their last exchange was far too fresh to be easily ignored. He shook his head, concentrating on the task at hand.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Dennis said. He made a big show of considering his question, despite being well aware of what he wanted to ask. “I know!” He snapped his fingers. “You told me that your father was a con artist, right?”

  Evy’s eyes narrowed, but the expression seemed more tinged with confusion than suspicion. “Did I? Well, I can’t imagine why.”

  “Yes, you did,” affirmed Dennis. “Let’s hear about that.”

  Evy rolled her eyes in what Dennis hoped was only affected frustration, and tilted her head as she looked at him. “There isn’t much more to tell than that, dear.”

  “That can’t be all of it,” Dennis said, a tad desperately. He was more than a little afraid of the thin ice upon which he was treading, fearful that it might collapse with one wrong word. “You didn’t tell me how you found out. Nobody else in your family ever did, right? Besides, my secrets are a lot more exciting.” If the veiled challenge didn’t do the trick, Dennis knew that he would be sunk. Thankfully, Evy seemed to respond to it, and she leaned forward again.

  “Your last story hardly counts as a secret, dear.” She tapped her lip thoughtfully. “Still,” she said, her voice dropping into a hushed tone, “what if I told you that Father is having me help him with his latest scheme?”

  “That’s more like it,” encouraged Dennis, although he was a long way from feeling relief. “What are you doing with him?” He shot a look over his shoulder, hoping that Bobo would return before too much longer. If, by some stroke of luck, this was going to be the moment that Evy opened up about the events surrounding her death, he wanted to have the pictures nearby.

  “Dennis, really, there’s nobody spying on us, you needn’t be so jumpy,” Evy said reassuringly. Dennis managed to look back with a fair imitation of a charming grin.

  “One can never be sure,” he replied, realizing as he did that he was quoting Elspeth’s favorite phrase. “You were saying?”

  “Nothing, really.” The ghost gave a one-shouldered shrug. “All the real work is finished, and nobody is any the wiser. Father’s gone over to see his partner right now, in fact. The only thing I’m doing is keeping a key.”

  Dennis’ heart leapt. That was it! That had to be it! Suddenly, he didn’t care about Bobo, Elspeth, or any pictures from an old envelope. It was obvious: Evy’s father had left her with a key, presumably to something pertaining to his scheme, and she had died while guarding it. Granted, there was still her odd obsession with the worn-out armchair, but that seemed irrelevant now. She was waiting for her father to reconcile an argument with his partner, after which she could return the key and be free to depart.

  Dennis jumped up, bumping the table and knocking one of the wine-filled goblets over with a ruby splash. “Sorry, Evy,” he said hurriedly, “I need to –” he cut himself off and swallowed. “I’ll be right back.” He all but ran from the room, crashing headlong into Bobo as they both rounded the same corner.

  “Christ, September!” Bobo exclaimed, regaining his balance. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” He smirked and let out a short laugh. “Seriously, where’s the fire?”

  “Would you stop it with the bad puns?” Dennis put one hand on the wall to steady himself and looked up with manic triumph. “I figured it out, Bobo! I know why Evy’s haunting that chair!” He paused, considering. “Well, maybe not the chair specifically, but that doesn’t matter! Where’s Elspeth?”

  “Keep your hair on, September,” Bobo said. “She’s back in the sitting room asking for some more water. Give me a second, here.”

  Dennis followed impatiently as Bobo walked through the kitchen and filled the glass from the tap. He was no longer concerned about whether Evy would disappear again, but he did feel an urgent need to explain what he had discovered. With what seemed like unnecessary slowness, the pair walked back to the den. A large envelope, yellowed with age, had joined the other items on the table. Dennis hoped that his phone was beneath the paper, and that it hadn’t been somehow misplaced.

  “I found those pictures for you, Dennis,” Elspeth said, gesturing with a shaky hand that held another lit cigarette. “I hope there’s something that will help.”

  “We don’t need them anymore, actually.” Den
nis’ own hands were shaking from excitement as he sat down. “Elspeth, listen, when your father died, did he leave behind a key?”

  “A key?” Elspeth asked.

  “A key?” parroted Bobo.

  “Yes, a key!” Dennis exclaimed. “Like, a key to a safe or something. Anywhere that he might have stored valuables.”

  “I can’t think of anything,” replied Elspeth. Another series of coughs wracked her body, and she reached for the glass that Bobo was holding. “Dear me, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice strained. Half of the water was gone before she spoke again. “No, my father never had anything like that. Not that I was aware of, anyway.” Dennis’ heart sank.

  “Are you sure? Your sister said that she was looking after a key.”

  Understanding dawned on Elspeth’s pale face. “Oh, you mean the safety deposit box key, then?”

  “That’s it!” Dennis rushed forward and sat down on the edge of a chair. “Where is it? Do you still have it?”

  “Of course, dear. It’s –” she coughed again, louder even than before. “It’s in that drawer where I keep all the keys. You remember, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Dennis replied. “In the kitchen, right? Where you keep the one to Evy’s room?”

  “That’s right.” Elspeth made an attempt at clearing her throat, but the action just prompted more coughs.

  “Are you alright, ma’am?” asked Bobo with concern.

  Elspeth waved him off, but continued to sputter and wheeze. “I’m fine,” she croaked. “Just... just give me a minute.”

  Dennis would have preferred to wait for Elspeth to calm down before explaining, but she motioned for him to continue. “Evy thinks that she’s guarding that key,” he said. “If we show it to her, if we tell her that it’s all over, then that’s it. She’ll be gone.”

  “Just like that?” Bobo asked.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “That’s certainly... certainly something, Dennis,” Elspeth rasped. She looked down at where her spasms had spilled her water onto her lap. “Barnaby, if you wouldn’t mind, could you...”

  She never finished the sentence. Another fit of coughs escaped her lips, and the glass slipped from her fingers.

  “Elspeth?” Dennis jumped forward. “Elspeth, are you okay?” The woman didn’t reply, and she doubled over towards the floor.

  “Here, help her lay down!” shouted Bobo, rushing around to her side. This time, she made no attempt to fend off the attention, incapacitated as she was. The paroxysms continued, intermittently interrupted by long, painful-sounding gasps. Dennis felt his heart race at the sight of the woman’s pale skin and bulging eyes. “Breathe, okay?” Bobo said urgently. “Just breathe!” He shot a look back at Dennis. “September, get that fag up before it sets the house on fire!”

  Bobo’s words took a moment to register, and a further, tense second longer to make sense. He scrambled around on the floor, locating Elspeth’s cigarette where it had fallen. A splash from the overturned glass had extinguished the embers, but he thrust it deep into the ashtray nonetheless. “Is she alright?” he asked frantically, kneeling close to the couch. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Elspeth retched and gasped, and Bobo barely managed to duck away as the woman’s hand clawed at her chest. Dennis watched the motion with raw panic in his veins. “Is she having a heart attack?”

  “I’m not a bloody doctor, September!” He forced a hand through Elspeth’s flailing arms, and with no apparent thoughts towards modesty, pressed it firmly against her chest. “I can’t tell what’s going on. There’s a phone in the kitchen, call an ambulance!”

  “Right, ambulance,” Dennis said. He rushed from the room, past the restaurant façade, and into the kitchen. An old rotary phone sat on a counter at the far side of the room, and Dennis lunged for it, dialing as quickly as he could. He hoped that they wouldn’t end up replacing one ghost with another.