by K. J. Emrick
For now, we had a business to run. No matter what was lurking in our walls we still had jobs to tend to. “I tell you what. Why don’t you go and get lunch prepared. It’ll give the staff something to do and let our guests know that we’re business as usual. All right?”
That seemed to brighten Rosie’s spirits some. She nodded, and I could already see her adjusting the day’s menu in her head as she got up from the table. That was my Rosie. Always thinking. Where food was concerned, at least.
On her way out of the dining room I watched the corner of her apron snag on the edge of a chair, and both Rosie and chair nearly ended up tumbling to the floor before she could right herself and back her way to the kitchen with an embarrassed smile.
Which left me alone with Jess.
“Did you know?” I whispered to her, very aware that a guest could walk in here at any moment. “The man in the wall. Did you know he was there?”
Jess put a finger to her lips. Was she telling me it was a secret? Warning me to be quiet? What?
“Why can’t you just talk to me, Jess?”
This was one of those rules about ghosts that I would never understand. Jess—and Lachlan too, for that matter—only ever spoke to me in my dreams. When I was awake all I got was this sort of pantomime from the both of them. No matter how loudly they shouted, it wasn’t ever loud enough to break through the veil that separated us.
My husband’s ghost had reached out to me through the telephone in broken snatches of conversation buried in electronic white noise, but even then we couldn’t really talk to each other. We’d never been able to sit down at a table and have a real convo, me and him. I hadn’t been able to ask him any of a hundred questions I kept tucked away in my heart. Like where he’d died or how he’d died or why, in the name of God, he’d left me in the first place.
In other words, talking to ghosts was very, very frustrating.
In the next moment Jess looks up, past my shoulder, to where the entryway leads from the dining room to the foyer. When I didn’t immediately turn around to see what she was looking at, she pointed an impatient finger.
Then she looked at me with an expression that says, can’t make it any more obvious than this!
So I did look, because I trust Jess, and I know that even if she can’t talk to me the way I’d like she always does her best to tell me what I need to know. Frustrating as it might be.
Out in the foyer I could still see several of the guests milling around, going between there and the common room where we keep the television and the games and the books for people to borrow while they stay with us. Only, no one is reading or playing games, or even watching TV. They’re just hanging around, I realized, waiting for the police to arrive and the real show to begin.
Nothing unusual about any of that. Just normal human behavior. Like watching a car wreck happen. Against our better natures, we all stand there to see the unthinkable take place, hoping to see something spectacular.
Then I noticed something else. Everyone out there was staying mostly to one side of the foyer. They might have nowhere special to go, but they sure are keeping away from where Jack Reese stood at the registration desk, fielding phone calls.
No. Wait. They’re not staying away from Jack. Can’t be. He’s one of the friendliest guys I know, even if I’ve only known him for a few weeks. Must be something else…
But what?
Curious, I got up from the table and started out that way. It only occurred to me to check with Jess again when I was at the entrance to the foyer. When I looked back for her, she was gone.
Guess she figured whatever message she meant to give me had gotten through. Wish I felt the same way.
I kept my eyes diverted from everyone out there, smiling mechanically, mumbling answers to questions I barely heard. George noticed me first, standing guard at the fireplace with a bandage across his forehead. Jack saw me next. I was glad when he motioned me over to the registration desk, but I was still confused why everyone was staying away from this side of the room.
Until I saw who was standing on the stairs again.
Mister Brewster, in his black suit, watching everyone with unreadable eyes.
Jack leaned in close, across the registration counter, to whisper to me. “Mighty tense round here, Miss Powers. This sort of thing happen a lot at your Inn?”
“Finding dead bodies?” I asked, my eyes flicking to Mister Brewster. “No. Well. We’ve had more than our fair share of excitement, I guess you’d say. You having second thoughts about working for me?”
“Nah, it’s not like that.” He tapped the end of a pencil against the desk before sticking it back into the cup with the others. “I grew up here, ya know. Back when I was a boy. Had to leave for a while. Little bit of trouble. Now that I’m back I’m just glad to have a job. A little bit of excitement isn’t going to scare me off.”
Famous last words, I thought to myself. Still, I smiled at him and thanked him for working so hard. There was a bit of paperwork I wanted him to do and I set him to it, because I wanted to have a word with Mister Brewster.
I thought he might turn and walk away as I started up the steps behind the registration area. Instead he waited where he was, hands folded over the bannister, watching the people in the foyer below. He was only about halfway up, but that little extra added to his already uncommon height made it seem like he was towering over everyone below.
“They’re like so many ants, aren’t they?” He didn’t turn to look at me while he spoke. “All of them running about, looking for the sugar.”
“I’ve… never thought of them that way before,” I admitted.
“No. Of course you wouldn’t.” Now he did turn to me, his face blank and expressionless. “You’re a good person, Miss Powers. Good people never see the worst in others. Only the good.”
I set my jaw, reminding myself that he was just a man, however creepy he might be. I was sure he was the reason Jess had sent me out here. There was a question I needed to ask him. If I backed off now, I might never work up the nerve to ask it later. “Mister Brewster, why did you tell me not to look in the fireplace?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. It was more of a reaction than I could ever remember him having to anything. Mister Brewster began staying here at the Pine Lake Inn shortly after I took it over. He knew my late husband, for that matter, and he was here for the birth of our children. I don’t know what his business is in Lakeshore, or even if he has business in our town, but he stays here frequently. If there had ever been a rumor about a body in the fireplace, or an unexplained murder about town, I was certain that Mister Brewster would have heard about it.
Which made his warning not to look inside the fireplace seem more than a little ominous. It made it seem prophetic.
He shrugged, finally, and went back to watching my other guests scurry about. “I simply meant that fireplaces can be dangerous. Especially ones that are falling apart. Nothing more than that.”
As he resettled his hands on the bannister, I noticed the cufflinks in his shirt. They stood out as they caught the light, sparkling like diamonds. Cubic zirconia, maybe. I could only imagine what diamonds that size would cost. Mister Brewster is always impeccably dressed. Sometimes in a suit, sometimes with the cufflinks, once or twice with an honest-to-God gold pocket watch. I kid you not.
“Ah,” he remarked, standing up straight. “I see you have company, and the show is about to begin in earnest. I’ll take my leave of you now, Miss Powers.”
That seemed to end our conversation. I’d asked my question, and I’d gotten my answer, and now he was retreating back to his room.
The air seemed to warm when he was gone.
Did I believe what he said about his warning? No. Not really. It was just too much of a coincidence that Brewster tells me not to look in the fireplace, when a dead body was tucked away in there. I didn’t have any reason to press him on it, at least for now, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hold on to my suspicions. Besides. I figure
d maybe the man walking into the Inn now might have better luck than I did.
The senior sergeant of the Lakeshore police department. Confident, smiling at everyone, flanked by two of his new officers. The senior sergeant was new himself, on the job now for all of four months after being promoted. Our previous senior sergeant, Angus Cutter, got himself arrested and fired from the job finally, thanks in no small part to yours truly. That will be something I take to my grave being proud of. The man had been a right git. He deserved what he got.
The new senior sergeant took off his baseball cap with the Lakeshore seal on it and set it on one of the hooks of the coat stand, just inside the door. He was a young man, good looking and broad shouldered, with a solid six-foot-tall frame. His auburn hair was a few shades darker than mine now that he’d let it grow out some. Still a professional buzz cut, but a bit more relaxed. It looked good on him. So did that senior sergeant’s badge. It had taken a lot to get him to agree to take this job, but he and his girlfriend Ellie were happy with the move. So was I.
He glanced over at the fireplace, giving directions to his two officers that I couldn’t hear. Then he looked around the foyer until he finally spotted me up on the stairs.
Heading straight over to me, he surrounded me in his arms with a big hug.
“Hey, Mom,” Senior Sergeant Kevin Powers greeted me. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
Chapter 3
“Can’t you just pull him out?” I asked. I felt bad for asking that because this man in my wall, whoever he was, must have been cared about by people once upon a time. “I mean, through the fireplace?”
“Don’t think so,” Kevin said to me. He’d already been in there looking through the hole with a torch for five minutes or so, while his two officers kept the crowd of people back in the common room. Not that it mattered much. I could see more than a few mobile phones out recording the whole thing.
“Kevin, I can’t just leave a dead guy inside my wall.” I lowered my voice, not wanting any of this to end up as a sound bite on YouTube.
“Don’t plan on leaving the poor soul there, Mom.” He smiled up at me like I was being a real lamebrain, and braced his hands on the edge of the fireplace to lever himself back out. He sat there on the bricks, arm resting on one upbent knee, soot and dust across his face and his jeans and the dark blue shirt of his uniform. “Besides. Who told you that was a man in there?”
I wasn’t sure I followed. “Nobody told me, Kevin. I’ve got eyes.”
He regarded me for a moment, in that cop way he has sometimes.
“Don’t analyze me, young man.” I crossed my arms and met him stare for stare. “You’re not too old for me to put over my knee.”
“Er, yeah, I am.”
“Well, maybe. Doesn’t mean I won’t try.”
He chuckled, and I kind of think he flexed his shoulders on purpose to show off. “Anyway,” he said. “We’ll try to remove some more of those bricks for better access but I don’t want to destabilize the structure. We might have to go in through this wall.”
He nodded his head to show where he meant.
“You don’t think cutting at a wall will destabilize the structure?”
“This here,” he said, slapping a palm against the wall paneling, “isn’t a load bearing wall. The outer wall, sure, but I could take this inside wall out completely and your Inn would still be balanced like the Devil’s marbles, Mom.”
“Oh. Well. How comforting.” I think my sarcasm was pretty obvious.
“Heh. No worries. I just won’t know more until we get in there.”
“I should’ve known, I guess.” I paced a little bit, rubbing a hand over my forehead. “The guy’s stuffed in there pretty tight.”
“See, there you go again.” Kevin stood up with me, taking hold of my elbow, stopping my restless wandering. “You said it’s a guy in there. No doubt you’ve got a body in your wall. I can see the outline of the arms and the head and such. I’m just wondering why you think it’s a guy. Could be a woman, right?”
I was sure he had to be kidding. Trying to make me feel better with some humor. “Kevin. I saw that face. It was horrible, but I saw the face. It’s a man.”
He gave me that look again. “Mom. I’m serious.”
“So am I. You were just in there. You don’t think that was a man’s face? I mean, I know it was pretty well ruined, but still.”
Slowly, he slid his torch back out from the holder on his duty belt. “Let me show you something.”
Carefully, we crouched down together in the fireplace. Kind of a tight squeeze, but we managed. Flicking on his torch, he directed the beam right into the space inside the wall.
I braced myself, holding tight to his sleeve. My breath caught in my throat.
There was nothing to see.
Just a vague human shape, wrapped tight in black plastic. Sealed in wide strips of tape. Kevin was right. I could make out the outline of an arm and a head, wedged tight between the support beams on both sides, but there was no face. There was no tear in the material of the tarp where I could have exposed the man’s face.
Then what had I seen?
“Um. I guess… I guess I was mistaken,” I said, very confused.
I had seen a face. Hadn’t I?
“Maybe it was the way the light hit the plastic, Mom. The shadows. Playing tricks on you.” He shrugged again, and helped me out. “Anyway, I’m going to get the fire department volunteers in here to help me. They know about breaching walls and such.”
Standing up again I felt suddenly light headed. I felt stupid, is what I felt. There was no face. I’d imagined it. Just my fear, getting the better of me. Not like I saw the man’s ghost or anything…
Oh, now there was a thought. Ever since I’d come into these strange, amazing abilities of mine where I could see and talk to ghosts, I’d had me a few visions, too. Mostly in my dreams, but I’d had a few while I was awake.
Maybe that’s what I’d seen. The real face of the dead man, only in a vision.
Well if that was the way my powers were going to work, that was just plain stupid. What good would it do to get scared out of my wits by a vision of that ruined, dead face? I couldn’t just see him alive and happy and, I don’t know, playing cricket or whatever. Oh, no. That would make too much sense. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to see how he looked when he was alive?
I sighed, and Kevin hugged me tight. He might not know what was going on in this head of mine, but he knew how to make his mom feel better. He’s a good son. Better than I deserve, really.
All right. Well. The merits of my gift aside, there’s still a dead man in my wall and he still needs to get out. “How long before the fire department guys can be here?”
“Vince should be here in a few. Some of the other guys are going to take a bit longer.” He gestured helplessly. “I don’t want to shut down the Inn, but…”
“It’s a crime scene,” I said, finishing the thought for him.
“Sorry, yeah. No need to move the guests out, but we’re going to keep everyone away from the fireplace and confine them to their rooms when we actually do move the body out.”
I was suddenly very tired. This was all just too much. It occurred to me just how useless I felt. There was nothing at all for me to do here. Jack had the front desk. Rosie had the kitchen. My son was taking care of this horrible mess, and me standing around staring at the fireplace wasn’t going to help things any.
“I think I’m going to get some air,” I told Kevin. “Walk around town maybe. I don’t know.”
He hugged me again. It was meant to be reassuring but with my thoughts in the tangle that they were… it reminded me that I haven’t told him about his father yet. Me and Kevin and his sister are all the family we have left, and he deserves to know that Richard is dead. I just don’t know how to start.
Guess you start from the beginning, right?
“Kevin, we need to talk about something.” I looked up into his eyes and my resolve just
melted away. No. It was too soon. “Later, I mean. You’re busy now. Um. Thanks for taking care of this.”
“Heh. Sure, Mom. Just doing me job.” He tapped the badge pinned on his shirt over his heart. Senior Sergeant. “Course, I got this job because of you.”
“No. You got that job because you were highly qualified and you’re from here, and you’re a very good police officer. The training you got with the Feds had more than a bit to do with it too, I hear.”
“Sure. Didn’t hurt that we put the last senior sergeant in jail, either.”
“Right. There’s that, too.”
We hugged one more time, and then I headed out the front door.
The day was still warm and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder what time it was. The time on my mobile said it was mid-afternoon. After lunchtime, and as soon as I knew that my stomach woke up and complained. Well. I suppose my walk could take me round past the Milkbar for a bite. Course, I still wanted to get a new book to read from the bookstore, but that could wait till after some lunch.
I’d started out in the wrong direction, though, and figured I might as well take the long way round to get back to where Cathy Morris ran her little deli and grocery store. People passed by, neighbors out for a stroll themselves or going about their busy lives on a weekday afternoon. I waved to a few, said a few hellos to some others. I had to wonder how many of them had heard the news about what we’d found inside my Inn. Rumors spread faster than wildfire in the bush out here in Lakeshore. Truth be told I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find it in the evening paper…
Oh. I slapped a palm to my forehead and then looked around to make sure no one had actually seen me do that. The newspaper. My boyfriend was going to kill me for not calling him about the dead body. Here he was a reporter for Tasmania’s fastest growing publication and I completely gapped about filling him in on something like this.
No, James wasn’t going to like that one bit.
Not that he hadn’t had plenty of reason already to be upset with me in the past. He and I had been on kind of shaky ground around Christmastime, and we’d nearly broken it off then. My husband’s ghost had decided to start showing up at the Inn, and that had me so tangled in knots that I didn’t know what to do. James is a kind and patient man, though, and he’s shown me a lot more love than I’ve given back to him. Guess a girl can luck out twice in one lifetime when it comes to affairs of the heart. First with my husband, and now with James.