Ghost Gifts

by Laura Spinella

  “Listen to me. I was talking about my behaviors, stubborn, inbred personality traits. When it comes to you, it’s not the same thing. It’s indelible, like the color of your eyes. Yes, it’s extraordinary—no one can argue that.” He paused, his hand cupping her cheek. “But so are a lot of other Aubrey Ellis qualities.”

  Levi’s attempt to convince her didn’t stop there. In one swift movement, Aubrey slipped from beside to under him, Levi reaching for the tie on the robe. The moment was so enticing it took her breath away. Aubrey swore she heard chimes, maybe background music. Then it became an unwanted intrusion. She turned toward the drilling sound of the doorbell and they both sat up. “What overzealous Girl Scout is selling cookies at this time of night?” Aubrey rose from the sofa and Levi grabbed her hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Answering the door,” she said as the chime sounded again. “Whoever it is, I don’t think they’re going away.”

  He stood. “Wearing that? I’ll answer the damn door.”

  “Wait,” she said, tugging on his arm. “I doubt it, but it could be Owen. I don’t want . . . a scene.”

  His self-assured nature never faltered. “Then Owen will get a diplomatic final notice that this is definitely not his living room anymore.”

  Before she could object, Levi opened the door. It wasn’t Owen. But Aubrey guessed her ex-husband would have been a more welcome sight. Three gaping mouths hung open, Levi just as shocked as Gwen and Kim, whose stares bore down on his severely underdressed state. Aubrey didn’t move; Gwen finally broke the silence. “I, um . . . I called several times—both your cells. No one answered.”

  “I guess they were busy,” Kim said.

  Levi ruffled his hand through his hair. His grip around the doorframe tightened, begrudgingly inching it farther open. The women shuffled inside as Aubrey tucked in the lapels of the robe. “When we couldn’t locate either of you, Kim and I decided to drive over. We saw Levi’s car and we assumed you were here . . . working. We, uh . . . we didn’t expect you’d be . . .” Her co-worker’s gaze moved from the wine glasses to the candles, from the crackling fire to Aubrey’s flustered expression.

  “To be picnicking in my living room?” Aubrey said, tugging hard on the silky tie.

  Gwen cleared her throat. “Right. Yes. Exactly. Picnicking . . . with Levi. Just what I was going to say.” She smiled crookedly and glanced at Kim. “Close your mouth, dear. Surely you’ve seen fireplaces and picnics.”

  Kim closed her mouth only to have it pop back open. “Yes, but whoever expected . . .”

  “Precisely, Kim, whoever expected we’d stumble on such a coup!” Gwen said, steering with discretion. In her hand was a large ledger, which she waved like a flag. “It took us all day, but Levi’s idea about Holliston’s Hardware & Feed turned into . . . well, just wait until you see.”

  “What did you find?” Levi asked. He’d recovered quickly, though Aubrey fought the urge to run upstairs and retrieve his dress shirt. “Was there something to corroborate Delacort’s claims—a letter he’d written Missy, maybe one he’d written to her?”

  Gwen pointed to the darkened dining room alcove. “Could we talk in there?”

  “Good idea,” Aubrey said, darting toward the dining room’s less romantic setting and flipping on the lights.

  “In our meeting this morning, it was mentioned that the new owners of Holliston’s were from Surrey.”

  “I remember,” Aubrey said.

  “It turned out to be a lovely husband and wife team. Seems they met in rehab—eating disorders, apparently. Anyway, the wife, Heather, she went to high school with Missy. She remembered her quite fondly.”

  “Seems to be the way a lot of people remember Missy.”

  “I think that memory facilitated our present day efforts. Heather was sympathetic to Missy’s death, the mystery surrounding it. Not only did she allow us to look through every nook and cranny in the place, she helped.”

  “The office area looked like a hurricane blew through,” Kim said, picking up the story. “According to Heather, Emmett Holliston’s grandson made a mess of the place inside and out, which made it hard to even know where to look.”

  “Eventually, we discovered older ledgers in a crawl space. They were fascinating—a nuts-and-bolts history of Surrey, and sadly the deterioration of Emmett Holliston’s mind. Starting in the mid-nineties you could see the level of detail decline; even his handwriting changed. By 2000 it was vague, indiscernible babble. Prior to those years, I’d say . . . what, 1996-ish?”

  “Yes, the mid-nineties,” Kim offered.

  “Before that, Emmett Holliston was a meticulous bookkeeper. He recorded everything—from the price of a flat of brick pavers to filling out detailed job tickets for the services people employed.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Levi, “but I’m not sure I see your point. How does this ledger document Frank Delacort’s claims?”

  “It doesn’t. Not at all.” Gwen, who had her hand firm on the blue-gray cover, opened the creaky book. The pages were musty, the handwriting so steady it looked like a vintage penmanship primer. But as Gwen turned the pages there was a noticeable shift in handwriting. “Here. Look at the entries for September 27, 1996. Plain as day . . .”

  Gwen and Kim backed away, allowing Aubrey and Levi to get a closer look. It took a moment. The pages overflowed with scrupulous detail. Then Aubrey gasped, Levi’s index finger bulls-eyeing a few lines of information. It was an order placed by Dustin Byrd for an egress window, replacement bricks, fifteen bags of quick-dry cement, and a half-dozen bags of lime.

  “Hold on. That’s not even the kicker.” Gwen turned the page. Stapled throughout the ledger were pieces of yellow paper, the handwriting mirroring the other entries. “These are the work orders that match the materials purchased. Remember, Holliston’s was well known for its handyman services. This particular work order corresponds to the items Dustin Byrd purchased.”

  Levi pointed to the recorded details. “The work order was issued on September 29, the day Missy disappeared. The day Frank admitted to fighting with her. Holliston even noted, ‘work to be completed: replace window and surrounding brick. Deliver lime to back entrance—214 Wickersham Lane.” His finger pressed harder to the page, as if he couldn’t believe what he was reading.

  “Oh my God,” Aubrey said. “The ledger, it puts the man exonerated for Missy’s murder at the scene of the crime. The work order is marked ‘complete,’ and it’s signed by Frank Delacort.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  For a moment Levi seemed frantic and confused. He stood in Aubrey’s dining room, his unbuttoned appearance dwarfed by his chagrinned expression. He’d been wrong. In front of them was solid proof, evidence that Frank Delacort had, indeed, been to the Byrd house the day Missy died. “Motive . . . and opportunity,” he said.

  “We’ve talked it through, and Kim and I presume that burying Missy inside the Byrd house was twisted irony—maybe the best payback Frank could come up with,” Gwen said. “The fact that Delacort was there that day, it could have very well slipped Emmett Holliston’s mind. As you can see,” she said, flipping to November of that same year, “the entries become more sporadic, deteriorate significantly.”

  Aubrey mentally reworked the sharpshooter’s version of events—a man documented as having anger issues. During his diner interview, Frank had even alluded to a motive. Learning that Missy had slept with her old lover, a man Frank admittedly hated, he’d boiled over, killing her. Aubrey recalled his gruesome description of the havoc a Super Redhawk would cause: “Not unless I wanted to rip a hole in her the size of Oklahoma . . .” Maybe that had been exactly Frank’s intention.

  “This is unbelievable,” Levi said, his eyes fixated on the facts. “I was sure . . . I mean, I had no tangible proof, but my gut said Frank didn’t kill Missy. At the very least, I believed he was innocent of
this crime.”

  “Levi,” Aubrey said, trying to console him. “You made an honest assumption based on instinct. Don’t beat yourself up for that.”

  “I shouldn’t have let instinct or anything else that happened at that diner influence me. For all we know, Delacort could have taken that eighty grand from Missy, and it’s been earning twenty percent in a Caymans account since. Goddamn it!” His fist made hard contact with the dining room table. Gwen and Kim skirted back, Aubrey moved closer. “He played us both. Frank’s probably laughing like hell, cashing in his retirement fund. At least a new charge for grand larceny would have been something. Good luck even finding him now.” He slammed the ledger closed. “Think about it. Taking a life was not an unimaginable thought for Frank Delacort—it was his job—and I never should have lost sight of that.”

  “You trusted your instincts. That’s not a crime.”

  “Maybe not, but it makes me a weak reporter. And that’s not something I ever thought I’d say about myself.” He scrubbed his hand hard over his face. “But I can tell you one thing, we’re bringing Detective Espinosa—the DA, anybody who’ll listen, up to speed on this right away.”

  “To what point?” Aubrey said. “You’ve got something just short of a signed confession here, but it doesn’t matter. Frank’s not going back to prison for Missy’s murder. It’s double jeopardy—he can’t be convicted of the same crime twice.”

  “Another thing, Levi,” Gwen said. “Factor in Dustin Byrd. He may not have killed Missy. But he did take advantage of a desperate, troubled young woman. I say let him swing for a while. Stolen money or not, he’s not the victim here either.”

  “No, he’s not,” Levi said. “But I’m reporting this regardless.”

  “In the morning,” Aubrey insisted.

  “No, tonight,” he said, taking possession of the ledger. “Whatever the outcome, I won’t be one more person who stands in the way of justice for Missy Flannigan.”

  Levi was gone the second he had retrieved his dress shirt. It left Gwen and Kim in Aubrey’s living room, tiptoeing around circumstance. “Aubrey, whatever else we . . . stumbled on tonight, I promise it will stay under wraps,” Gwen said, shooing her young co-worker toward the door. “On our way home, Kim and I will have a long talk on the merits of keeping personal matters private.” Aubrey thanked them as they left, though what they’d stumbled on wasn’t Aubrey’s most looming concern.

  Hours later, sleep seemed to be the last thing she would do in her bed that night. Aubrey tossed and turned, absorbing the blame for Levi’s miscues. Inviting him to trust something other than his factual nature had thoroughly backfired. Staring into the dark room and through an even darker window, Aubrey hugged a pillow that smelled of Levi. Eventually, she turned on the feather-filled thing and punched it squarely. The last time Aubrey looked at the clock it was just past three. She checked her cell once more and then shut it off. There was no text, no missed call from Levi. She should have gone with him to see Detective Espinosa. He’d been adamant about going it alone, the headstrong uncompromising side of Levi coming on in full force. Aubrey’s last drifting thoughts were of Levi’s misgivings. Perhaps about her, but more so for wholly buying into a gift that appeared to have steered him terribly wrong.

  Light peeked through the blinds early the next morning. It felt like September sun on her face, not waning November rays. With a childhood spent in open air, the difference in early and late fall stood out, and that was what Aubrey sensed. No alarm was set, though she heard music. Her brain quickly corrected, recognizing the whimsical whirl of carnival sounds. It was familiar like a reflection. The grinding tune that captioned her childhood, it was the way songs on the radio caused other people to reminisce. Nowadays, Aubrey only heard the music in her dreams or by way of a memory. But it was there that morning, as if she were standing on some random fair ground or town common, surely a scheduled stop. From the place between awake and asleep, images flooded in.

  Aubrey spied the carnival’s Ferris wheel and heard the grave accusation in George Everett’s voice. It haunted her still. Half awake, she forced her body to roll away, wanting out from under the memory. The music played on while she read Watership Down. Aubrey saw the book’s brown and gold cover, the rabbit in the foreground. It hopped into the distance, maybe to the next town over. Then, like a ride on the Heinz-Bodette Whip, Aubrey swung around. In her mind’s eye she was wearing a tie-dyed apron and manning the duck-shooting booth with Yvette. A feeling of nausea and worry clouded a late September sun. A man stood before her. Tall . . . young . . . an excellent shot. He showed her cement-covered hands and a dazzling smile. Her mind rode the Whip again, depositing her in a diner off Exit 43. Aubrey sat across from an older man. He wore salt-and-pepper hair and a weary life. But the smile, it was the same. It belonged to the man standing at the duck-shooting booth. Her heart pounded, the way it would if your stomach was about to unleash a violent spasm—fast, like a thundering race. In a blink, Aubrey was back at the booth. The man was gone and so was his smile. In his place was a beautiful blond girl. Aubrey said, “Can I help you?” The girl didn’t speak. She only nodded in reply.

  Aubrey jerked upright in bed, the wrought-iron frame banging harder against the wall than it had last night. Her heart and ears thrummed, but the ill feeling had vanished. She pressed her hand to a beating chest. Closing her eyes, Aubrey pieced it together. Her Exit 43 meeting with Frank Delacort was not their first. They’d met twenty years before, the same day she’d encountered an already dead Missy Flannigan, right here, in the town that was now home. The newly dead, she thought, they never could convey anything, what they wanted, or their state of being.

  “What . . . what do I do with it?” Aubrey wiped a bead of sweat from her lip, nearly panicking over what felt like suppressed evidence. She grabbed her phone and dialed Levi. There was no answer. She saw a message, left just moments ago. It was from Marian Sloane. “Hi, Aubrey. I wanted to let you know the police have cleared the way to the Byrd house. If you want to come by, take the tour, that would be fabulous! The homeowner will be there this morning, so I think it’s best if we went later. Give me a buzz.”

  Aubrey tossed the phone aside. “Thanks, but I’ve already had the grand tour.” With a head full of memories that looked like proof, Aubrey threw the covers back and headed downstairs.

  She was halfway through the living room when Charley and Yvette came in the front door. Aubrey paid no attention to their point of view, which included abandoned wine glasses, fresh ashes in the fireplace, a necktie hanging over Charley’s chair. The three women halted, a round of stares revolving. Charley spoke first. “I don’t believe Owen owns a necktie.”

  “No,” Aubrey said, zoning in on the bold Brooks Brothers print. “I don’t think he does.”

  “Brava, my girl, and how absolutely delicious!” While she leaned hard on her walker, Charley’s expression could not have been lighter. “Yvette, I believe our absence has facilitated a romantic encounter with Cary Grant.”

  “Gregory Peck seems like a closer fit, but never mind that now.”

  “Is he still here? Yvette and I can make ourselves scarce, perhaps have breakfast . . . maybe brunch out, if you’d like.”

  “No, he’s gone.”

  “Gone? Already?” Charley said, satisfaction fading. “Aubrey, I realize you view man-hunting as archaic, but absorbing a few of my wheedling ways might have benefited.”

  “Charley, let me cut to the chase. The sex was incredible,” she said, pointing to the romantic leftovers. “Why he’s currently not here . . . That’s more complicated. It has to do with . . .” Turning in a tight circle, she stopped and looked at the two women. “Where’s my box?”

  “It’s in the dining room,” Yvette offered, helping Charley toward her chair.

  “Right, of course,” Aubrey said, darting after it. She padded back into the living room, then settled onto the sofa and place
d the box on the coffee table. Yvette sat beside her.

  “Aubrey, what’s going on?” Charley asked.

  “I’m looking for something.” She opened the lid and in a few sentences conveyed to the women how her co-workers turned up, the information they’d brought, and how Aubrey realized that she’d met Frank Delacort prior to their Exit 43 Diner interview. As for Levi’s whereabouts, she told Yvette and Charley that he’d insisted on sharing the ledger discovery with the authorities last night. “As for us . . . I’m not sure. I can only navigate so many things at a time. I don’t know exactly where he was on that when he left. But after what we learned last night, I doubt he sees me or my gift in the same bright shiny light.”

  “Oh my . . . and here I never thought you’d top our evening,” said Yvette.

  “Do you think the memories you experienced this morning, your first encounter with Frank Delacort, is the reason you’ve been unable to connect with Missy?” Charley asked.

  “It makes sense. Like many spirits, Levi’s brother included, once they felt their message was offered, their business concluded, they moved on. There must be something I’m missing, something that indicates Frank,” Aubrey said, combing through the box. “Yvette, do you remember anything? You were there that day, at the duck-shooting game.”

  “Was I?” she said, looking clueless. “I’m sorry, baby. You and I worked lots of booths over the years. And, my memories, they wouldn’t exactly be like yours.”

  “No, I guess not,” she said, depositing keepsake after keepsake onto the coffee table. “Hell, memories can be pretty mixed up in my mind. Sixty-eight towns times what? Thirteen seasons, countless people—alive and dead? That’s a lot of geography.”