Ghosts

by Bill Noel

  “And what was it?” I barked, sharper than I should have.

  “Daniel’s not dead,” said Charles. He had a smug look as he leaned back in his chair.

  I searched for upturned lips from across the table. A smile wasn’t forthcoming. “Not dead,” I said.

  “Not dead.”

  “And that was Heather’s idea?” I asked.

  “Yep. Hear me out before you hurl the theory to the floor and stomp on it.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I’m anxious to hear this one; I really am.”

  “Look at what we’re sure of,” said Charles. “Daniel’s car went over the cliff. The car made no effort to slow down—we all saw that?”

  I nodded.

  “Somebody was turned into charcoal at the bottom of that ravine. The body was so burned that Joan should have gotten a discount from the funeral home for the crema—”

  “Charles!”

  “Okay, I could have said that better,” he said. “Anyway, they still don’t know if it was Daniel. Joan thinks that he had a boatload of money, but she never knew how much. Remember, she said that he wouldn’t let her in on his business.”

  I nodded again.

  “Here’s the clincher,” said Charles. “Heather said that she got a powerful psychic vibe that Daniel absconded with a ton of money and went back to California … or Capri.”

  He was serious, so I didn’t laugh—out loud. “Doesn’t Heather get her psychic vibes from dead people—spirits or ghosts? If Daniel’s alive, who shot her the vibe?”

  “I’m fuzzy about that psychic stuff,” he confessed. “But it does make sense that Daniel may still be among us.”

  “If he’s alive, who was in the car?” I asked.

  “I only started my detecting career last week. I’ve got to figure out who’s stealing from Cal. Joan’s your ex; you figure it out.”

  There was so much to argue with and so little time to do it. I decided that we should wait for customers in silence. I got my wish when Charles said he had to meet with Cal to plan his schedule for the next few days. He also said he would be gathering clues to help catch “the person or persons unknown” who had been stealing from Cal’s. Charles had been watching too much television.

  I couldn’t remember the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve for each of my sixty-plus years, but I did remember some, and I had a vague feeling about the rest. That was usually the worst week of the year for me. The sun began setting at what seemed like noon, and it was dark by five o’clock. It was typically cold—most years either snowy or rainy—and the majority of people I came in contact with were either depressed, angry, or sick. I hated the week, and here I was in the middle of it—this year was not an exception.

  On the off chance that I could turn my luck around, I punched Karen’s number on my speed dial and hoped that the good citizens under the jurisdiction of the Charleston County sheriff’s office weren’t in a bad enough mood to kill their fellow citizens. I needed to see Karen more than I hoped she needed to see a corpse.

  My luck had changed. She said that she would be delighted to have supper with me. She said she didn’t care where and added that I could pick her up at seven.

  CHAPTER 16

  Karen lived two blocks off Savannah Highway and about nine miles from the bridge separating Folly Beach from the rest of South Carolina. Her two-bedroom white house was slightly larger than my cottage, but it was perfect for her and her nine-year-old cat, Joe Friday, named for the main character in the old television show Dragnet.

  Joe announced my arrival with a loud purr before I knocked. Karen must have heard her guard cat, for she opened the door as I stepped on her postage stamp–sized concrete porch. She was in her early forties but looked younger. Underestimating her had been the fatal flaw of many criminals. She had a keen, analytical mind, a near-photographic memory, and was able to wade through the manure that bad guys tried to spread when being interrogated.

  Tonight Karen looked like anything but a successful detective. Her blue silk blouse complemented her athletic figure. Her chestnut-brown hair was shoulder length and not constrained as she usually wore it on the job. She greeted me with a peck on the cheek, welcomed me back, and quickly added, “Where are we going? I’m starved.”

  I suggested the Athens Restaurant and Grill a couple of miles off Maybank Highway. I had never been there but had heard good things about it. She agreed, so she was probably thinking that it was a good idea or was too hungry to argue.

  The restaurant was light and airy and had a spacious bar and nice outdoor seating area, which, for obvious reasons, was empty the last week of December. The decor was neutral, with dark wood chairs and booths. Traditional Greek music played softly in the background. The dining room was nearly deserted, but the waiter assured us that it would be packed tomorrow and New Year’s Eve.

  I ordered their private label Cabernet, a marketer’s phrase for house wine, and Karen surprised me by ordering an Alexander the Great, something with Greek brandy and a hint of chocolate. She said that she felt like living on the edge. I smiled as I wondered what Charles’s reaction would have been if someone had asked him for that drink. I ordered a plate of hummus and pita bread to split.

  “How was the trip?” she asked. She knew the basics of why we had gone.

  I gave her a rather lengthy version of the three strange days in Gatlinburg. Karen knew I would eventually fill in the blanks. She listened without interrupting—a skill foreign to Charles—and sipped her brandy without losing focus on my ramblings. I finished by sharing Heather’s theory and was surprised when Karen failed to disavow it.

  The hummus and pita bread disappeared in short order, and Karen said she was still starving. Being a top detective burns a large number of calories. There was only one other couple in the dining room, so the waiter was extra vigilant. Karen ordered the Athens pie, and I pointed to the pastitsio on the menu since I didn’t know how to pronounce it.

  “You have a good track record at figuring these things out,” said Karen. “What’s your gut say?”

  “I thought you’d ask,” I said, rubbing my chin. “To be honest, I can’t get a good read. On the surface, I think the police are right about his death being an accident. That may be clouded by my years with Joan. I do think she was paranoid—at least when we were married. I saw some of the same behavior this week. On the other hand, it doesn’t make sense that her husband would just drive off a cliff. It was well marked, he was familiar with the road, and the weather wasn’t bad.” I hesitated. “Couldn’t the police tell?”

  “Normally, yes,” she said. “Most of the time an autopsy would show unusual trauma to the body—trauma not caused by the crash. It should show if the driver had been dead before the crash—heart problems, seizures, bullet to the head … The techs probably would have been able to tell if the car had been tampered with.”

  “The fire screwed that up, didn’t it?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Let’s assume he was murdered,” I said. “Didn’t the murderer take a big chance? If the car hadn’t burst into flames and incinerated much of the evidence—car and driver—there would have been a good chance that the police would have found enough to pursue it, right?”

  “Yes, but he would have been dead either way.”

  I thought a second and then continued. “Then, to be sure the accident took place at the right spot, the murderer would have had to be in the car with a gun to Daniel’s head and then get out before it went over the cliff?”

  “Yes,” said Karen. “The killer would have almost certainly been in the car when it reached the cliff. There are ways that he could have increased his odds of it burning—damaged gas line or screwed-up fuel injection system come to mind. Daniel could have been killed elsewhere, driven to the scene, and sent over the cliff with a burning rag in the open gas tank. That’d have pretty much gu
aranteed a fire when the car hit the rocks.”

  “True. I guess we’ll never know,” I said.

  “It’s not that uncommon. It really isn’t. Television makes us think that all crimes are solved. That’s the difference between fact and fiction.” She glanced at the amber pendant lights over the bar and then back at me. “You said she mentioned a local cop. Do you remember his name? I could give him a cop-to-cop call and see if he found anything unusual.”

  I did remember, and I gave her his name.

  “Chris, there are two other things to remember …”

  “What?” I said as our food arrived.

  The waiter left the plates on the table and stepped away. The appetizing smell of the attractively presented dishes drew Karen’s attention. She hesitated before taking the first bite and looked up at me. “First, if it wasn’t an accident or suicide, was Daniel the target? Didn’t you say that Joan always went with him, and that no one knew she was staying home?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then she could have been the intended victim?”

  I paused and then said, “Yeah … yes.”

  “And second,” she said, “if Daniel was the target, the most likely suspect is Joan. You said that she inherits millions. Double insurance for accidental death, remember? She said she didn’t go with him that night. Did anyone see her at home, or did she leave with him and rig some way for the car to go over the cliff? If she was in the car, then she had to get back home. That means an accomplice. Other than the obvious money, did she have reason to want him dead?”

  She picked up her fork, attacked the entrée, and then pointed the fork at me. “These are only questions, Chris—only questions.”

  I hesitated briefly. “I know.”

  I’d already thought that it could be Joan, but I hadn’t wanted to verbalize it for fear that it would come true.

  CHAPTER 17

  The best thing about the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is that it eventually ends. I’d never been a fan of New Year’s Eve parties. I didn’t have a burning desire to see the New Year begin any more than I did to stay up until 2:00 a.m. to change my clocks twice a year. I’d make an exception this year—exception to staying up until midnight, not the time change.

  The weather reflected my dreary frame of mind. Joan’s abrupt reentry into my life only darkened my mood. I’d finally blocked years of guilt about the divorce out of my mind, and now the guilt was slapping me in the face. I hadn’t opened the gallery, but I did check on it the day after my date with Karen. No one had stolen all the photos, but two of the fluorescent bulbs in the office had lost their enthusiasm for life.

  “Hey, Chris, happy almost New Year,” said Larry as I opened the squeaky door of Pewter Hardware. I barely saw Larry’s full head of hair as he gazed over the chest-high counter. Larry had owned Folly’s sole hardware store for the last decade. The store was tiny, the perfect scale for its five-one, one-hundred-pound owner. I had met Larry my first year on Folly, and we had become friends—and on one occasion, he’d been my partner in crime. Six months ago, in a quirk of karma that I doubted even Heather could explain, Larry, a reformed cat burglar, had married Cindy Ash, a Folly Beach cop.

  Larry quickly gave up trying to sell me seventy-three boxes of Christmas lights he was stuck with, but he did sell me a couple of fluorescent bulbs. “Better than nothing—but not by much,” he said.

  I shared my New Year’s Eve plans, and he said he and Cindy might join me. “If she says it’s okay,” he mumbled.

  This would be Cal’s first New Year’s Eve at Cal’s Country Bar and Burgers. More accurately, it would be his first as owner. He had been the featured entertainer the last two New Year’s Eves. He said that there was a good crowd each year and expected his first big night as proprietor. This would also be Charles’s first New Year’s Eve as a bartender. To celebrate that milestone, Cal had drafted the other three bartenders to work. My guess was that two of them would tend bar and the third would bail Charles out if anyone ordered anything more complicated than beer.

  I would be there to support Cal and to watch Charles bartend. Could there be a more entertaining way to spend the night? I had mentioned my plan to William on our way home from Gatlinburg and was pleased when he said he’d join me “if I found it acceptable.” I did.

  I walked to the party. It had already been dark for more than three hours, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock. I thought about calling Cal on my way to suggest that he turn his clocks ahead a couple of hours so we could celebrate midnight at ten o’clock, but I decided that would deprive him of hundreds of dollars of liquor sales. Surely I could stay up that late one night a year—surely.

  The flaw in my change-the-clocks-and-celebrate-early plan became apparent when I walked in. The place was nearly empty. Three tables were occupied, and the largest gathering was at the corner of the bar nearest the bandstand, where four servers and two of the three bartenders were carrying on an animated conversation. Cal’s predominant customer base had been alive to see the first moon launch, so many of them were probably at home napping before their big night out. Charles was on the bandstand helping Cal untangle a clump of wires that snaked to two large speakers and a beat-up black Fender amplifier.

  I headed to two unoccupied tables in the far left corner and put my Tilley on one of the tables, rearranging the other so the two touched. Hopefully, my hat would mark my turf for the night. I thought Cal would prefer that to my urinating on the floor.

  Tara, the server from Cal’s Christmas party, broke away from the gaggle of employees to see what I wanted to drink. Actually, all she said was, “Red?” I nodded. The color of my wine preceded me.

  She quickly returned with an extra large pour of wine and acknowledged the table setup. She smiled. “Expecting a large group?” she asked.

  “Hope so,” I said, returning her smile.

  “Good. We need all the tips we can get.” She tilted her head toward the group of employees still enjoying the light workload in the corner.

  I took my glass and joined Cal and Charles on the bandstand. “You singing tonight?” I asked Cal.

  “Couple of sets—popular demand, you know,” he said.

  “Someone took two cases of Woodford Reserve,” said Charles.

  “I would have sworn they were here when I left,” said Cal as he waved his right arm toward the bar. “But who knows? I’m still learning what’s here—who can tell the difference between Woodford Reserve and Knob Creek?”

  And he owns the bar, I thought.

  “Any doors open this morning? Any sign of forced entry?” I asked.

  “Been there, asked that,” said Charles the detective. “Locked up tight as a new plastic CD holder.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Cal. “A dozen bottles of whiskey gone—poof!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Charles. “I’ll get ’em. Ain’t that right, Chris?”

  I hesitated, watching Cal fiddling with the wires. Then Charles turned to me with a hopeful look in his eyes. “You bet,” I said.

  Before Charles made more promises than I knew he might not keep, I saw Larry and Cindy walk in and look around. Cindy was a couple of inches taller than her new husband, outweighed him by thirty pounds, had dark curly hair, and was in her late forties, seven years younger than Larry. She wore a baggy sweatshirt and tight jeans; she was off-duty. Larry was attired, as usual, in an orange sweatshirt with the Pewter logo on the breast pocket. They made a cute couple.

  I pointed toward the tables in the corner, and they pulled out two chairs. Tara quickly took their order.

  Cindy had no more than settled in her chair before she said, “So tell us about your ex.”

  Larry tapped her arm. “We weren’t going there, remember?” he whispered in her ear—more of a stage whisper.

  “Oh, Brahman manure,” she said. “Charles’ll tell us,
so let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth—no offense, Chris,” she added as she turned to me.

  Cindy had moved to Folly from Knoxville three years ago to join the police force. She was funny, iconoclastic, and had a quick smile and an equally quick temper. Little was off limits to the Tennessee fireball. If she was in uniform and asked you a question, you’d best answer quickly with “ma’am” at the end. She was the perfect yin for Larry’s yang.

  I gave them the thirty-second version of Joan’s situation and our trip to the mountains.

  “That’s it?” said Cindy as she held her arms out in exasperation.

  “Told you,” said Larry as he turned to Cindy.

  “Night’s young.” She winked at me. “He’s still sober.”

  William saved me. He arrived at the opportune moment and I hopped up to meet him. He was far from a regular at Cal’s, and I didn’t want him to change his mind. Cindy had never met the professor, and Larry knew him slightly from the hardware store, so I made the introductions and offered him a chair. Once again, Tara appeared like a fly on watermelon and took William’s request for a whiskey sour. I was glad Charles was with Cal and not behind the bar. It was no telling what William would have had to drink otherwise.

  “So, William,” said Cindy, after the basic social icebreakers were covered, “tell us about your trip to the mountains and Chris’s ex.”

  William looked at me. He didn’t say it, but I could feel his scream for help—of course, he wouldn’t scream but would use a dozen multisyllable words to express his desire to be bailed out.

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “William, let’s go say hi to Charles. He asked if you were coming.”

  William moved more quickly than I’d seen before. He jumped from the chair and scampered toward the front of the room. “I’m sorry,” he said to me when we were away from the table. “I didn’t know what you wanted Mrs. LaMond to know.”

  I told him it was no problem, and we talked to Charles and Cal.