Ghost Gifts

by Laura Spinella

  “Huh,” Aubrey said, sighing, “that explains a lot.”

  “How so?” Levi said.

  “Never mind. So other than the transfer, there hasn’t been any additional Missy Flannigan information since the story broke?”

  “None that’s passed by me.” Priscilla made her way around to the inside of her desk and lowered herself into the chair. Aubrey noticed a pile of baby-themed catalogs and half-written thank you notes on the desktop. The only item relevant to the medical examiner’s office was a sign-in sheet. “But if I knew anything good,” Priscilla said, winking at Aubrey, “I wouldn’t mind being your source.” She looked at Levi. “I can’t tell you how many realtors think the world of Aubrey, my mom included. She does some pretty amazing work at those houses.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Levi said. He grinned wide, full dimple, and backed away. “Around the newsroom, Ellis here is known as the Joan Didion of the real estate beat.”

  “Is she?” Priscilla said. “Huh, Joan must be with Century 21. I don’t know her.”

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Priscilla. And congrats on your baby.” As the woman was replying, Levi moved fast to the exit, like his work there was done. In the midst of their abrupt retreat, Aubrey shot him a suspicious look. “What?” he said, getting in the car. “I can be social in the right situation.”

  “Uh-huh, and what situation is that? Priscilla didn’t offer much.”

  “The medical examiner’s headquarters is located in Boston. They took the remains to Sandwich—on the Cape.”

  “Meaning?” she said as they settled into their seats.

  “Last year a prominent Connecticut resident turned up dead in Massachusetts—shot to death. The story was mine. So I happen to know that the Cape ME office specializes in homicides relating to firearms. They study ballistics. The facility specializes in state-of-the-art testing and has a highly trained staff. If a body is transported there, you can bet it’s because the victim died from a gunshot wound.” Levi’s supposition spilled over and Aubrey retrieved her cell, thinking she too might have made a connection. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m curious about a name I saw on Priscilla’s sign-in sheet. She did say that Missy’s supposed remains were the only body in house. So who . . . Damn,” she said, her puffy index finger impeding the Google search.

  “Here, give me the phone.”

  “Clayton Hadley,” Aubrey said.

  A moment later, Levi turned the phone toward Aubrey. “I’ll be a son of a . . .”

  “Oh my gosh, Clayton Hadley . . . former federal agent, firearms expert,” she said, reading the result.

  “Good catch, Ellis. I completely missed any sign-in sheet.”

  “You had to be willing to look at the baby catalogs to get past them.”

  “True,” he said, nodding. “So if we put it all together, we can infer that a manner of death was evident, at least to the ME. Missy Flannigan died from a gunshot wound.”

  Levi dropped the phone back in her hand, the edge smacking against her splintered finger. Aubrey jerked her hand back and the phone fell from her grasp. “Enough. Let me see that.” Levi fished in his pocket, coming up with a Swiss Army knife. Aubrey leaned harder into the car door. “Come on, Ellis. You want it out, don’t you? If I can’t get it on one pass, we’ll go from here to the emergency room.”

  Reluctantly, she held out her hand. “I don’t need an emergency room.”

  He opened the multi-pronged knife, exposing needle-nose tweezers. “Hang on a moment.” From his jacket pocket he produced a lighter.

  “Do you smoke?” It seemed more likely that he’d indulge in karaoke.

  Levi ran the flame over the tweezers until they glowed red. “No sense in taking out a splinter only to end up with something worse.”

  “Are you always so prepared?”

  He retracted the flame. “Yes,” he said, his dark eyes jumping to hers. “Finger, please.” She eased it closer and Levi slipped his glasses to the end of his nose. A low whistle hummed out from him. “You really did a job here. What were you doing poking around a bar? Isn’t the idea to paint the big picture of the house for the reader?”

  “Like I told you, the homeowner—Jerry Stallworth—he was a nice old man but stubborn. He didn’t want to sell. We, uh, we got into a conversation. I accidently rested my hand on the bar. Anyway, Jerry . . . Mr. Stallworth, he just needed somebody to listen to him. I’m sorry if that’s not something you can appreciate.”

  Levi probed with the tweezers, arching his eyebrows over the frame of his glasses. “I might appreciate it more than you think, particularly the stubborn part.”

  “Right, you said that. Your father?” Aubrey assumed he’d passed.

  “Yes, my father,” Levi said, hesitantly. “They don’t come more tenacious than him. But the older he gets, the more he just wants somebody to listen.”

  Huh . . . So the senior St John is alive and well . . . “Tough, is he?”

  “Tough on the outer layers. Pure titanium at the core. Your homeowner . . .”

  “Jerry Stallworth.”

  “Right. There might have been malleability to Jerry. There’s too much old soldier in Broderick St John.” Levi continued to nudge at the splinter.

  The circumstance left Aubrey with nothing to do but employ everyday senses. His chestnut-colored hair smelled of medicated shampoo—although, admittedly, it was thick and kind of lush. Bebe had once remarked that Levi had Kennedy hair. In the close quarters, Aubrey studied the outline of his face and clean-shaven jaw. She imagined the buttoned-up Levi to be clueless about stubble being in vogue. Stifling the physical observations, she said, “So he’s in the military, your father?”

  “Uh, yes—was. British intelligence, military.”

  “Really? He’s English then.” The idea fit like a glove on Levi’s stoic nature. She looked back at the splinter. Conversely, the gentleness with which he probed didn’t fit at all. “That’s almost as intriguing as carnival life. How very James Bond.”

  “He wouldn’t look very intelligent if you quizzed him on that. He’d consider it nonsense . . . make that rubbish.”

  “Takes himself seriously, does he?” Aubrey rolled her eyes in a gesture Levi could not see. “But you didn’t grow up in England. I mean, you don’t have an accent.”

  “No. I’ve lived in Connecticut since I was eight. Before that, California. It’s where my mother’s from.”

  “Really? So you were a surfer dude?” she said, distracted by the unlikely imagery.

  The tweezers didn’t move. “No. Not me.”

  “So then who—” The tweezers pinched and a zing of pain forced a hiss through Aubrey’s teeth.

  “Stay with me, Ellis. I’ve almost got it.”

  But his hand, the sense of touch, began to elicit something else. There was a muddled vibe circling, hovering, pressing in, another breath of salt air. “Tell me about them, your family.”

  “Tell you . . . ?” Levi looked at her as if no one had ever ventured to ask. “Why would you . . . Uh, my father,” he said, focusing on the splinter, “is retired. He divvies his residence between London and here. New England weather feels more natural to Pa.”

  “Pa?” Aubrey inched back. The word hit her ears with a whisper of déjà vu.

  “Pa. It’s an upper-class British term for father. It’s what we called him.”

  “We. You have siblings.” And on the back of Aubrey’s neck came the annoying itch of wool, so coarse it made her squirm in her seat.

  The statement hung there for a moment. “A brother,” he said. “Ellis, stop moving.” It sounded more like “Stop talking . . .” The tweezers paused and so did Levi. He pushed his glasses up again. “I prefer not to talk about him.” Aubrey felt the itch of wool retreat like a weak front line. “When my parents divorced we relocated with my father to
Connecticut. End of story.”

  Aubrey nodded, hearing Levi’s deep desire not to discuss his personal life. She shrugged. “So why did you live with your father?”

  Even with his head tipped downward, she saw the forced dimple. Curiously, a blank expression rose to meet hers. “It was an unpleasant divorce. Saying my father is inflexible is a gross understatement. His mind operates solely in military measures—first the Cold War followed by the Falklands War. Of course, that was nothing compared to the war with my mother on every conceivable front. Although, you have to hand it to her . . .” He hesitated.

  “Hand it to her . . . ?” she prompted.

  “Nothing. They were a total mismatch. Age, lifestyles, decisions . . . habits. My mother was an actress . . . a model of sorts.” Aubrey watched his fingertips whiten around the Swiss Army knife. “A drunk,” he said. “Saying she was a drunk would be her understatement.”

  “I, um . . .” Aubrey gulped. “I assumed . . . I didn’t get the impression that . . .”

  “What?” he said, insisting she hold his gaze. “That there was an open bottle of vodka in my Norman Rockwell painting?” Her probe into Levi’s life halted the one into her finger.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  He returned to her injury. “It’s irrelevant history.” Rain on the car’s roof was the only sound, turning into a downpour. Levi held up the tweezers, a slice of wood pinched in its grip. “That’s it. We’re done.”

  In the time it took to blink, Levi put away his lighter and his life, fading into his all-business persona. Aubrey sensed anything but irrelevant history. But she pushed it and a circling entity away. Zoning in on any being connected to Levi was absurd—disbelief would be his understatement. She moved on, doing the prudent thing and minding her own business. “So, Levi, based on our new knowledge, what’s our next Missy Flannigan move?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Aubrey hauled a stiff armless chair out of Levi’s office and maneuvered in a bulkier one with more cushion. Everything surrounding Levi came with a sense of heavy lifting. He proved her right, continuing with weighty facts before her bottom could make contact with the chair.

  “Somewhere in these files, there is information about Dustin Byrd and guns. And now that we have a manner of death,” he said, sifting through his research, “we might be able to turn a dotted line into a solid one.”

  “What’s the basic 4-1-1 on Dustin Byrd?” Aubrey scooched closer to his desk.

  Levi opened a thick folder and spun it toward her. “Byrd is the director of Surrey Parks and Rec, or least he was until they put him on unpaid leave after Friday’s little discovery. The only press items are town council meetings where Byrd talked about new soccer-field zoning and sewer drainage. Not exactly germane.”

  “Or interesting.” Aubrey looked at the old press clippings, but she didn’t touch them.

  “Clearly, there’s nothing that connects Dustin to Missy. On the surface that makes sense. He was sixteen years older. It’s not likely that they shared the same social circle. As far as we know, no one in Surrey ever alluded to Dustin and Missy in the same sentence.”

  “Is Byrd, or was he ever, married?”

  Levi flipped between two pages of legal pad. “Uh, no. Your point?”

  Aubrey shrugged. “Most people do marry eventually.”

  “I suppose.” But his agreement was weak, as if he found the argument less than valid. “Regardless, their personal lives don’t intersect. Byrd’s been married to the town of Surrey since he graduated high school. He never left home, never really moved on. Missy was a college student at Surrey State.” Levi turned a page of orderly notes sideways, reading what looked like a miniature rubric in the margin. “‘See hobbies folder’ . . . Right. That’s where I saw it.” From his briefcase, Levi retrieved a thick accordion folder.

  “Further preparedness?”

  “I like facts at my disposal. And yes, if you want to stay ahead with this story—”

  “I get it,” she said, picturing Levi’s color-coded, season-separated sock drawer.

  “It’s a straightforward process, Ellis. The things that align go in a subject folder—Missy, Frank Delacort, Dustin Byrd, Surrey points of interest, etcetera. The spare parts,” he said, searching the compartments, “live here until I figure out where they belong.”

  “And does the answer to everything always fit neatly in a folder?”

  He glanced past the rim of his glasses and over the desk. “It does when I’m through with it. Here’s an excellent example.” Levi produced a Surrey City Press news clipping. “Six years ago, the paper did a feature on gun enthusiasts.” He held out the clipping. It showed a paunchy middle-aged Byrd in a flak jacket, posed next to a fully stocked gun cabinet.

  She didn’t touch it. Like her real estate listing sheets and other objects, heat was a barometer of ghostly entities, a possible pathway. Aubrey wasn’t about to take that chance with Missy Flannigan. She hesitated long enough and Levi dropped the news story in front of her. “My, Surrey’s director of parks and rec takes his Second-Amendment rights seriously,” she said.

  “Serious enough to own a gun collection that earns the Charlton Heston seal of approval.”

  “Add to that the body falling out of your basement wall and it does make Missy’s murder look like a no-brainer.” Her hand hovered over the news clipping. “It certainly makes you think Byrd is the guy.”

  “Why do you say it like that, Ellis? Like it’s too easy.” Levi picked up the story before she did. “What are you thinking?”

  She was surprised he’d want to know. “Actually, I was thinking about Frank Delacort. Is his file handy?” Aubrey wasn’t familiar with the specifics of the twenty-year-old case, but everyone in Surrey knew the basics: Delacort was the Surrey drifter who brought jurors to a lightning-fast verdict in the presumed murder of Missy Flannigan. “The stories I’ve heard, it sounds as if Frank Delacort didn’t exist until the day he was arrested for Missy’s murder. What came before that? I’m just wondering.”

  Levi thumbed through other notes. “From the gist of it, prior to Surrey, Delacort served about a decade in the military, mostly abroad.”

  “Army, right?”

  “Yes. Delacort’s detailed military record remains classified. There’s only a mention of the unit he was deployed with in Kuwait. His rank, sergeant. However, there’s plenty of documentation that speaks to unstable behavior, which eventually got him booted from the army.”

  “What sort of behavior?”

  “Anger management issues mostly. And it’s not just that.” Levi rifled through military and courtroom documents, arriving at a page that differed. “Here, an old police report. Delacort had a stateside wife who’d once called the cops on him. Police responded to the domestic violence call, but charges were never filed.” He flipped back to Delacort’s army troubles. “Nice. I missed this.” Levi tapped the page as he rocked in his chair. “During his exit psych evaluation, Delacort shoved his army psychiatrist, a Dr. Sonya Harrison, into a steel door.”

  “Charming. And they still cut him loose?”

  “Apparently so.” Levi leaned in and dropped the page in front of Aubrey, who skimmed the details. “Delacort turned up in Surrey right after that. Witnesses testified that they saw him talking to Missy Flannigan on more than one occasion. But in my research, the thing that really swayed the jury was the blood evidence.”

  “Blood evidence?”

  “Ellis, you really need to get up to speed on this.”

  “Maybe keep in mind that until a few hours ago, I didn’t know this was going to be my priority. Otherwise, my preparedness wouldn’t be a question.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I get your point.” She narrowed her eyes as Levi filled in the blanks. “There was blood evidence found in the room Delacort rented.” He shuffled past a few more pages. “A place called
the Plastic Fork. Do you know it?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” she said, glad for a speck of knowledge he didn’t possess. “May I?” Aubrey pointed to his laptop. He turned it toward her and she Googled the Plastic Fork. The webpage showed off a quaint two-story building with striped awnings, located on Surrey’s main thoroughfare. “It’s a landmark of sorts. Mick O’Brien and his wife . . . um, Irene, I think. They’ve owned it for years. It’s a gourmet deli, hot and cold takeout.”

  “Apparently, it also has a room for rent. That’s where Delacort was staying and it’s where the blood evidence turned up on some sheets, a towel in the bathroom. In addition to that, Missy’s hair was also found in his room. More specifically, in his bed. Delacort claimed Missy badly scraped her leg while jogging and that he offered medical assistance.”

  “That’s plausible. Especially if they were acquainted, which we know from witness testimony.”

  “And it even sounds like reasonable doubt until you factor in Missy’s fifty-dollar bill.”

  “Missy’s fifty-dollar bill?”

  He sighed, a sound that was clearly marked: Be tolerant, St John. “Missy vanished on the twenty-ninth of September,” he said, hitting recitation mode. “Her twenty-first birthday would have been October first. Frank Delacort used a fifty-dollar bill to buy a ham sandwich and a pack of cigarettes at the Plastic Fork the day after Missy disappeared, the thirtieth. At that point, our victim had just made local headlines—standard missing persons report. At the Plastic Fork, the owner’s wife . . .”

  “Irene.”

  “Right, Irene,” he said, pointing at the computer screen. “She noticed the margin of the bill, which said . . .” Levi peered at his notes and quoted: “‘Happy 21st Birthday, Missy! Love, Aunt Jan.’ Missy’s father, Tom Flannigan, even produced the envelope postmarked the twenty-eighth.”