An Uninvited Ghost

by E. J. Copperman

  Before Scott could respond, Maxie said, “He says he was going off to investigate Arlice and her murder, and that he feels responsible for bringing her here and maybe for her dying.”

  “Investigate?” I asked. “How was he investigating? He’s a ghost and—sorry, Scott—blind as well.”

  “True, but it means my hearing is all the more acute,” Scott replied, unoffended. “I went back to the Ocean Wharf to see what would happen, and I was there when you came in with the lawyer, Tom Donovan. I recognized his voice as the one who was there with that unfortunate lady.”

  “I didn’t see you there,” I said. I was taken aback that he’d been there without my knowledge, and as I occasionally did these days, I wondered how often a similar situation was the case.

  “I wasn’t wearing the bandana,” he replied.

  Paul watched intently as Scott answered. I knew he was reading Scott’s face, but since I had no idea what the blind ghost looked like, it was impossible for me to picture him. Paul would have to give me his impressions—which were usually pretty well observed—later.

  “So you don’t know anything that I didn’t already know,” I answered. “We’re no better off than before.”

  “That’s not so,” Scott said. “After the lady detective let you go, I waited for Tom Donovan to be questioned, and his story changed. He told her that he had never been there before, and that it was you who was asking a lot of questions about Mrs. Crosby’s will. He said that amulet you’re wearing was a valuable gift you’d coerced Mrs. Crosby into giving you.”

  My mouth was suddenly dry and my eyes wouldn’t blink. “He said what?”

  “I followed him back to his office later on and heard him go to his computer. He was sending a . . . computer message . . .”

  “An e-mail,” I corrected, unsure why I was bothering to correct his techno jargon.

  “Yes,” Scott said. “He’s one of those men who says out loud what he’s typing. Whoever he was talking to must have wanted to know how the visit went, and whether the police had believed his story. He said they did.”

  My head was vibrating now. “Paul . . .” I began.

  “Something is very wrong,” Paul agreed. “But I can’t believe McElone bought that story, or she would have been looking for you all day.”

  Instinctively, my hand went into my pocket and brought out my cell phone. I hit the button for messages, and found four from McElone.

  “I think things just got a lot worse,” I told him.

  “On the contrary,” Paul answered. “I think we just had our first break in this case.”

  Scott agreed, at my suggestion, to go back to wherever it was he usually stayed and not to come back until the morning. I needed the time with Paul and Maxie alone, and I think Scott understood that, although I certainly couldn’t tell through his facial expression.

  As soon as the red bandana vanished, I looked at Paul and asked, “How much do you trust this guy? How well do you know him?”

  “You think he’s lying?” Maxie asked. “A blind guy?”

  “There’s never been a liar who couldn’t see? Paul, how do you know him?”

  Paul frowned. “He responded when I sent out a . . . message about our willingness to investigate for those like us.”

  “You’re advertising me on the Ghosternet?” My head was swimming. McElone would probably be by to arrest me by morning. Who’d watch Melissa if I was in prison?

  “I was simply letting those like us know there was someone they could depend upon,” Paul countered. “But to answer your real question, I have no reason to distrust Scott McFarlane.”

  “Do you have any reason to trust him?”

  He stroked his goatee, thinking, then raised his hands in frustration. “No.”

  “Terrific.”

  “He seems like a pretty nice guy,” Maxie offered. Coming from Maxie, that was practically a case for canonization, but it didn’t really tell us anything, and I said as much. She puffed out her lips, but she didn’t dispute my logic.

  “We need to mobilize,” Paul said. “We’ve been sitting on our heels on this case for too long. It’s time to take some offensive action.”

  “I like that,” Maxie said. “Who can we offend?”

  “Aren’t you the one who kept telling me to let McElone handle the investigation and that I shouldn’t get involved?” I asked Paul, ignoring Maxie entirely.

  Paul looked distracted. “We didn’t have a client then. Now, we do.”

  “Yeah, one who’s trying to get me arrested. Thanks for getting me into the detective business, by the way.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Paul said.

  “I’ve had enough,” I told him. Suddenly, my mind was as clear as clean water. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  Paul’s eyes widened, and Maxie looked positively amazed, but neither of them interrupted me.

  “Paul, you need to get me really up to speed on the art of surveillance and what is or is not admissible in court. I’m going to be seeing what’s up with our trusted client, and I don’t want him to know I’m doing it.”

  “What about me?” Maxie wanted to know. Wow. I must have really sounded authoritative for her to react like that.

  “You’re going to use your computer skills. Get my laptop out of my bedroom and go up to that beloved attic of yours. There should be a perfectly good Wi-Fi signal up there.”

  “What am I researching?” she asked.

  “I want a complete write-up on every person who was in that room when Arlice Crosby died. I want to see why any one of them would want her out of the way. Think you can handle it?”

  Maxie shook her head. “I’m better at taking revenge.”

  “I know, but this is the job.”

  “Can we discuss the attic if I do it?” Maxie never did anything without extracting a price.

  “Discuss, yes, but that’s all I’m committing to. You’re going to have to give me a much stronger argument than ‘It’s my room,’ understand?”

  Maxie actually brightened. “Understood. What else?”

  I drew a deep breath. “Something neither of you can do for me, I’m afraid.”

  Paul’s brow furrowed. “What’s that?”

  “I have to call my mother.”

  Twenty-one

  “Of course I didn’t think you were asking Donovan about Arlice Crosby’s will, and that business about the necklace was just silly.” Lieutenant Anita McElone gave me her best look of disdain. “I was asking about the will. When a woman that wealthy is murdered, a cop has to be an idiot not to find out where the money is going. But you’d met Arlice that day. How the hell could you have gotten into her will that fast? Tom Donovan was trying, and very badly at that, to make you look suspicious.”

  “Well, that’s horrible,” my mother said. We were sitting in McElone’s cubicle Sunday morning, and none of us was happy to be there. McElone had been especially grumpy when I’d called her back the night before, something about having to miss church because she needed to see me first thing. “There should be a law against saying something like that.”

  “There is,” McElone informed her. “It’s called slander. If you want to sue him, feel free.”

  “I don’t want to sue Tom Donovan,” I told McElone. “But if you know what he told you isn’t true, why are we here?”

  “I’m trying to figure out why he’d implicate you,” the detective answered. “And the question I keep coming back to is: What was the point of getting Mrs. Crosby up to the Ocean Wharf to show her a bad magic show? I mean, did they really think that was going to kill her? And what has that got to do with you?”

  I sat there for a moment, expecting her to go on, but she didn’t. “You think I have answers for all that?” I asked.

  “I was hoping you might have answers for some of it,” McElone said.

  “Here’s what I know,” I told her. “I know I met Arlice Crosby exactly three days ago, and we struck up a friendly acquaint
ance. She expressed an interest in coming to my house that night for a séance, and I invited her.”

  “Wait,” the detective said. “Mrs. Crosby asked you about the ghost show?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “She said she had a real interest in the afterlife, that she’d been hoping to come into contact with real ghosts and that she’d heard I had some at my house.”

  McElone made a rude noise with her lips. “Real ghosts,” she scoffed.

  “Hold a civil tongue,” my mother warned her. “Some of my best friends are ghosts.” In fact, Mom claimed to be in periodic touch with my father, who had died almost five years earlier, but I’d been unable to contact him myself, and not for lack of trying.

  “What is your mother doing here?” McElone asked me. “Don’t you usually use that friend of yours to try to intimidate me?”

  “Jeannie has an appointment with her obstetrician,” I explained.

  “On Sunday?”

  I shrugged. “Dr. Liebowitz is Orthodox. He’s closed on Saturday and open on Sunday.”

  “What am I,” Mom wanted to know, “chopped liver?”

  “By the way,” I said, desperate to turn the conversation around, “what have you found out about Tiffney’s disappearing act?”

  McElone gave me her patented “are you crazy” look. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because Trent Avalon keeps asking me to investigate, and I don’t want to. If I can tell him you’ve found out something, maybe he’ll trust you and leave me alone.”

  McElone rolled her eyes a bit and took a breath. “You tell him that her credit card hasn’t been used, her cell phone has no activity on it since she left and her mother doesn’t know where she is but says she’s not worried, because ‘Tiff knows kung fu.’ Is that enough to gain Mr. Avalon’s trust?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “All that tells me is that you don’t know where she went, and you have no leads.”

  “I’m not even supposed to be looking yet. We usually wait forty-eight hours, but this is going to get press because she’s a big TV star. But frankly, I don’t like the idea that this girl decides to vanish right after there’s a murder in your house, and I’d like to talk to her. Anyway,” McElone went on, clearly tired of the turn the conversation had taken, “Mrs. Crosby told you she wanted to come to your house that night, and you invited her.”

  “That’s right,” I said, taking the opening. “We were going to have the séance anyway, but Arlice showed up just before we began, and she was very excited. She gave me this amulet.” I showed it to McElone, who actually put on reading glasses to see it clearly.

  “That’s very interesting,” she said. “Does the shape mean anything?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I know of. She said it had been in her family for a long time, and she had no children to pass it on to, so she gave it to me. I thought it was very generous of her, maybe too generous, but how do you refuse a gift like that?”

  “You don’t,” Mom interjected. “You were brought up to be polite.”

  McElone took a packet of aspirin out of her top drawer and took two with no water.

  “Anyway, since I already told you everything I know about the night Arlice died, the next thing was that Donovan showed up at my house yesterday asking me to investigate her murder.” I looked at McElone, waiting for the inevitable crack about me being a sham as a detective, but she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  They stayed closed as she asked, “Did he say why he wanted you? There are plenty of detectives in the phone book.”

  “He said Arlice believed in supporting local businesses, especially new ones, and that she had recommended me the day she died for any business he might have coming up.”

  McElone opened her eyes and rubbed them with her thumb and forefinger. “Whose idea was it to go back to the Ocean Wharf?” she asked me.

  “Mine, but he picked up on it in a second, like he was waiting for me to suggest it,” I said. “I thought it was a little weird that he was in his office on a Saturday, but he made his secretary come in, too. And then he sent her home after he got back from the Ocean Wharf.” Oops.

  McElone’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know what he did when he got back? You left the hotel before he did.”

  Telling her that I had a ghost operative on Donovan’s tail probably wouldn’t have earned me any plausibility points with the detective, so I scrambled and took the responsibility myself. “I followed him back and waited outside his office door,” I lied. “His secretary came out just a couple minutes later, and then I listened at the door and heard him sending an e-mail. He told whoever he was sending it to that the plan had gone well, and that the police officer on the case had bought his line.”

  “You heard him send an e-mail?”

  “He talks when he types,” I explained. At least that part was true, according to Scott. “I figured you were too smart to fall for that line, but I let him believe you had.”

  I thought giving McElone the opportunity to congratulate herself would have slowed her down a bit, but I had underestimated her. “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?” she asked.

  I’d anticipated this question. “I couldn’t be sure you didn’t suspect me, and I didn’t want to come in until I had something to say to you.”

  McElone flattened out her mouth in thought. “Do you have anything to say?”

  I nodded. “I think we should work together to find out who Donovan’s accomplice is, and what role they might have played in Arlice Crosby’s death.”

  “Why should I work with a civilian on a homicide?”

  “Because he already thinks he has leverage with me, and he thinks so because he underestimated you,” I said. “If we let him believe both those things, I think we can smoke him out, and it might be the key to the whole case.” Paul had briefed me well.

  McElone thought about that for a moment, then leaned forward and put her elbows on her desk. She held her hands up in front of her and rested them under her chin. “The only way this is going to work,” she said, “is if you don’t get all full of yourself and start behaving like you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to concede that you have a lot more experience doing this than I do,” I told McElone. “I’ll listen to you every step of the way.”

  “All right,” she answered. “Let’s get to work.”

  Mom looked at the detective, then back at me, and beamed.

  “You’re so smart,” she said.

  McElone wanted to delay the investigation a day so she could get to church and have a day with her family, but I felt it was imperative to get to Donovan quickly, so we reached a compromise: McElone got me a tiny recorder to bring to my meeting (she felt wearing a wire would be “overkill”) and ordered me to keep in touch. She gave me her cell phone number and her best wishes.

  Mom wanted to come with me to Donovan’s home, the address of which McElone had provided. But I draw the line at bringing my mother along on ghost-driven missions, much as I don’t bring my daughter (Melissa was at her best friend Wendy’s house for the day). It’s a business policy, I’d decided.

  So by the time I dropped Mom off at the house, where her car was parked, and told Paul about the plan—which he loved—it took me about ninety minutes to get to Donovan’s house in the Volvo. That gave Paul the opportunity to get a message out to Scott McFarlane over the Ghosternet, which he assured me had been received.

  I took a moment after I’d parked in front of his house to get myself into the moment. I’d taken an acting class once when I was at Monmouth, and had never really learned how to be a tree or a whisper or any of the other crap they wanted me to be, but I had learned about how to prepare properly for a scene. And this was, without question, going to be a scene.

  I started by thinking about my father (I was a Method fraud, after all), and how angry I was that he had passed away when his granddaughter was only five years old and hadn’t really had many memories of him yet. Th
en I moved on to thinking about The Swine, which was really all the motivation I needed to dig up some decent anger. Steven had started out as a good man with a warm heart, and he could be awfully charming when he wanted to be, but then his business had taken him over and he’d become, well, a swine. One who’d abandoned his wife and young daughter for a Malibu girl whose name, if there was justice, would have been Barbie.

  Yeah, that hit the spot. I could go in and be angry now.

  I stormed up the steps to Donovan’s very tasteful house, a brick number with actual pillars outside the entrance. I considered ringing the doorbell, then pictured The Swine lying on a beach in Malibu, and banged hard on the door. A number of times.

  It didn’t take long before the door opened, and there stood a plump little lady of about sixty-five, looking as much like Merryweather (one of the good fairies in the Disney film Sleeping Beauty) as I would have thought possible. Damn. That punctured my angry balloon in a hurry.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  This was no time to lose my nerve. Lives hung in the balance. Well, maybe some lives had already been taken, but there could still be others in the balance. In any event, this was serious business. I had to play my role, even if it meant being rude to this Mrs. Butterworth incarnate.

  “Where’s Donovan?” I rumbled.

  “You’re looking for Mr. Donovan?” she chirped, unaffected by my gruff demeanor.

  “Yeah. Where is he?”

  The little cherub turned toward the interior of the house and called, “Tom? There’s a young lady here to see you.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. Sometimes, it’s impossible to undo thirty-six years of good manners all at once.

  The lord of the manner appeared over her shoulder, tall, thin and dressed as a man of leisure, in Bermuda shorts and a tasteful T-shirt (blue) with a pocket, probably from Land’s End. He should have had on a sailor’s hat, too, to complete the look, but being inside his own house, was going without. “Ms. Kerby!” he said, as if he were actually happy to see me. “Has there been a break in the case?”