by Tim Ellis
Whispers of the Dead
Tim Ellis
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Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2014 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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Chapter One
Tuesday, October 9
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me. Why haven’t you put my number into your phonebook yet?’
He hadn’t heard from Rae for at least a week. ‘How do I do that?’
‘When someone gets a gizmo, they’re meant to play with it, find out how it works, press all the buttons and so on. You’re still a dinosaur at heart, aren’t you?’
‘Did you call me up to tell me what a wonderful dinosaur I am?’
‘I’ve found something weird.’
‘You want to take it to the Science Museum, or maybe Barnum’s American Museum, or try Scientific American. I hear . . .’
‘I can offer you lunch.’
‘Lunch!’ He licked his lips.
‘I thought that might stir up some interest.’
‘Who’s paying?’
‘Mr. Franchetti has promoted me to Investigative Journalist based on the story I wrote about my father, Henry Appling and Sally Stackhouse.’
His mind jolted back to the case. As far as the authorities were concerned it was all over, but there were still far too many unanswered questions for his liking. Senator Raeburn and Ben ‘Doc’ Ratchett had died in lock-up, but nobody seemed to think that was strange. Of the twenty missing children that Mercy Hebb had identified, he’d only found three of them – where were the other seventeen? He’d promised Cassie he’d find them, Mercy Hebb’s mother – Gretchen – had given him $30,000 from Mercy to help him do that, and Sally Stackhouse had offered to help – even though it was against the rules for the dead to help the living. Yes, there were still some loose ends to tie up.
He’d read what she’d written – it had been good. The Nationals had even picked it up, and it was a excellent first base for his business. Rae was a star in the making. ‘You let Mercy Hebb have first name.’
‘I thought it was the right thing to do. Anyway, I have an expense account now.’
‘I might be available around lunchtime. I suppose I could shuffle my schedule and make a window of opportunity to let you buy me lunch. When you say you’ve found something weird, what does that mean exactly?’
‘Twelve-thirty at the Black Molly Grill, 504 West Geoffrey Street, Cobblestone Village. I’ve got to go, ciao.
‘Ciao! What the hell kind of language is that . . . ?’ but she had already gone.
He checked his watch. It was five past ten. Now he had to wait two and half hours to find out what “something weird” meant. He was starving as well.
No one had called on his services yet, but it was only the second day that Tom Gabriel Investigations had been open for business on Marine Street in the Old Town. It was just up from the National Cemetery, wedged between the Basilica Gift Shop and Catherina’s Voodoo & Curio Emporium. He hadn’t been in either establishment, but the owner of Myrtle’s Diner opposite had welcomed him with a free stack of waffles and maple syrup yesterday.
After much discussion with Rae, he’d finally convinced her that people knew who Tom Gabriel was. They’d seen the article that had been in the Record, and if his name was a marketable commodity, then he’d be a fool not to use it.
The bell jangled. A blonde-haired woman opened the door and came into his suite of offices, which used to be a female fashion outlet.
‘Mr. Gabriel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Thomas Gabriel?’
‘The very same.’
‘The one with the gift?’
‘What do you want, lady?’
‘I think I might have some work for you.’
He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. ‘Take a seat. Can I get you . . . ?’ He looked around the office, but realised he didn’t have anything to offer her. He’d grabbed a coffee from Joe’s hotdog stand on the corner, but the office was bare. There were four rooms – a small kitchen with a sink, a small toilet with a washbasin, a small office with no furniture, and the room they were sitting in, which had a table and two chairs. He had no kettle, no fridge, no water dispenser – nothing. Maybe he should get the place fitted out if he was planning to stay.
‘No thank you.’
He waited for her to speak.
She was good looking. Her shoulder-length hair was thick and shiny. She had good teeth and clear eyes. He’d have said she was in her early thirties, but the tell-tale sign of a jagged crease around her neck suggested she was a lot older. She wore a white sleeveless summer dress over an hour-glass figure, and on her left wrist was an antique-looking dark-brown chunky quartz bracelet watch that seemed out of place.
‘You’ll probably think I’m careless, but I appear to have mislaid my husband, Roger.’
‘Shall we start from the beginning? What’s your name?’
‘Barbara Harrison.’
‘And where do you live Mrs Harrison?’
‘We have a little place on Water Street – number seven.’
A little place! It wasn’t called “Water Street” for nothing. All the properties along there had jetties, which moored boats that bobbed up and down in Hospital Creek and fed into the Mantanzas River, which spewed out into the North Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
‘What do you mean by “mislaid”?’
‘On Thursday night – at about eleven-thirty – we went to bed . . .’
‘Together?’
‘Yes, but we don’t sleep in the same bedroom anymore.’
‘I see.’ He couldn’t imagine a husband and wife having separate bedrooms, but he knew many couples did. If Cassie had been alive he’d have been snuffled right in there beside her. What was the point of being married to someone if you didn’t sleep together?
‘We kissed in the hallway. Roger went into his bedroom, and I went into mine.’
‘Are the bedrooms next to each other?’
He made notes on a piece of paper with a half-chewed pencil as she spoke.
‘Opposite, but at an angle.’
‘Carry on.’
‘I woke late that morning – around ten-thirty. I heard the maid – Louisa – dusting and moving things in the hallway. I put my dressing gown on and went downstairs to the kitchen . . .’
‘And your husband?’
‘Well, it was Friday, so I naturally assumed he’d gone to work.’
‘What work does he do?’
‘He’s the manager at the Harbor Bank on West Castillo Drive.’
‘The manager?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on.’
‘He
didn’t come home on Friday night.’
He stopped writing and stared at her. ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Mrs Harrison . . . ?’
‘Barbara.’
‘Let’s stick with Mrs Harrison for the time being, shall we? I’m going to ask you some difficult questions, and you’re going to tell me the truth – okay?’
The woman nodded.
‘Why do you and your husband sleep in different bedrooms?’
‘He snores and fidgets like a rattlesnake. I couldn’t get any sleep when we slept together.’
‘How long have you and your husband been married?’
‘Twenty years.’
‘No kids?’
‘No. We decided not to have any.’
‘Happily married?’
‘The same as most people. We have our ups and downs, but there are more ups than downs.’
‘What about lately?’
‘We were up.’
‘Are you still having sexual relations?’
She looked him in the eye. ‘Yes.’
‘Regular?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Do you think Roger might have been seeing someone else?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘But you’re not sure?’
‘I’m as sure as I can be, but aren’t the wives always the last to know?’
That was very true. When he’d been a regular police officer, how many domestics had he been involved in where the wife was the last one to find out that her husband was seeing another woman – or man for that matter? Hundreds he guessed, maybe thousands.
‘So, he didn’t come home on Friday night?’
‘No.’
‘Has that happened before?’
‘He’s often late, because of his job, but he always comes home.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘When?’
‘On Friday night when your husband didn’t come home?’
‘Ah! No, I didn’t discover he hadn’t come home until lunch time on Saturday.’
His face creased up, and he stared at her again. ‘Saturday lunchtime?’
‘I know it sounds strange, but on Friday night I went to bed thinking he was working late and would come home when he was ready.’
‘Doesn’t he call to say he’s going to be late?’
‘Not usually.’
‘Don’t you ever call him to find out where he is?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure you two are married?’
She gave an embarrassed smile. ‘We respect each other’s space.’
‘There’s space, and then there’s something else – like living in different States. Okay, so he didn’t make an appearance for lunch on Saturday – then what?’
‘I went and knocked on his bedroom door.’
‘And?’
‘There was no answer, so I went to go inside, but it was locked.’
‘Locked?’
‘Yes. We never lock our doors.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want to be disturbed?’
‘No. In the twenty years we’ve been married we’ve never locked the internal doors. It took me half-an-hour to find the key, because we never . . .’
‘. . . lock doors?’
‘That’s right. So, I unlocked the door and he wasn’t there.’
‘I guessed as much.’
‘But that’s not what’s strange.’
‘Oh?’
‘He didn’t go to bed on Thursday night.’
He checked his notes. ‘You kissed in the corridor. He went into his room, and you went into your room . . .’
‘Yes, but he didn’t go to bed.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘His clothes weren’t there.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘On Thursday night he was wearing beige linen trousers, and a white linen shirt. He looked real handsome. I remember thinking that we could . . .’
‘Could what?’
‘You know?’
‘Do I? ‘Oh, you mean . . . ?’
‘Yes, but it was that time . . . you know?’
‘What time?’
She sighed. ‘I was having my period.’
‘Ah! Go on.’
‘Well, his clothes weren’t there.’
‘Louisa the maid . . . ?’
‘No. The door was locked, remember. Louisa doesn’t have keys to the internal doors, because . . .’
‘. . . . You never lock them.’
She half-smiled. ‘That’s right.’
‘Maybe he’d put them in the wash?’
‘No. He leaves his clothes out for Louisa to bag them and take them to the dry cleaners.’
‘And Louisa hadn’t been into his room, so she hadn’t bagged any of his clothes from Thursday night?’
‘No.’
‘You checked with Louisa?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about his watch and wallet?’
‘Gone.
Any signs of a struggle?’
‘No.’
‘Anything else?’
‘His bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘Maybe he tidied it?’
‘Do you tidy your bed?’
‘I have no choice now – my wife died five years ago.’
‘I’m sorry. When your wife was alive did you tidy your bed?’
‘No.’
‘Men don’t tidy beds when they’ve got a wife.’
‘Or a maid?’
‘Exactly. And not only that, Louisa changes the linen on the beds every day. He hadn’t slept in his bed.’
‘He went out after he kissed you goodnight?’
‘Possibly, but there’s one problem with that.’
‘Oh?’
‘His car is still in the garage.’
‘He walked?’
‘Where to?’
‘Do you have a boat?’
‘It’s still tied up.’
‘And he’s not on it?’
‘No. I’ve searched everywhere, called everyone we know. No one has seen him.’
‘Maybe somebody picked him up by car or boat?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they did. All I know is that he’s disappeared.’
‘What about his phone?’
‘I’ve tried calling him a dozen times. I get diverted to voicemail.’
‘What’s the number?’
She gave it to him.
‘Do you have a joint bank account?’
‘Yes. I don’t work now.’
‘Has your husband made any withdrawals since Thursday?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll need authorisation to access your account.’
‘Of course.’
‘And copies of your phone records.’
She nodded.
‘What about the police?’
‘I called them on Saturday after I’d found that he hadn’t slept in his bed on Thursday night. They sent someone over, and I filled out a missing persons’ report, but . . .’
‘As no crime had been committed they weren’t really interested – I know how it goes.’
‘They were certainly interested in the fact that he was the manager at the Harbor Bank, so they checked there to make sure it hadn’t been robbed, and discovered that Roger was on two weeks’ vacation.’
‘Vacation?’
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘You do?’
‘The police thought the same thing. You think that he’s gone somewhere with another woman for two weeks?’
‘Has he?’
‘I checked. His passport is still in the safe in his room.’
‘He doesn’t need . . .’
‘I know. He doesn’t need his passport to get a motel room, but that’s not what he’s done. If he had, he would have invented a business trip, a bank manger’s symposium, or something like that. He’s been away in the past. He knows I trust him.’
‘You didn’t know abo
ut the two weeks’ vacation?’
She looked at her hands again. ‘No. I don’t understand why he’s done that. He knew I’d find out, so why did he do it?’
‘Maybe he wanted you to find out. When was the last time you went on vacation?’
‘We had a week in the Virgin Islands in June.’
‘So, he wasn’t due a vacation?’
‘No, and he never goes on his own anyway.’
‘Are any of his other clothes missing?’
‘No. And his toothbrush, razor, aftershave and the suitcase he would have used if he’d been going away are still there.’
‘And you want me to find out what’s happened to him?’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘I charge three hundred dollars a day plus expenses.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘And no secrets.’
‘I haven’t got any secrets, but I’m not so sure about Roger anymore.’
‘If he has, I’ll find out. So, if you don’t want me to – now is the time to say so.’
‘If Roger has been keeping secrets from me – I want to know what they are.’
‘I’m meeting someone for lunch, but then I’ll drive over to your house and see if I can’t find something that might give me a lead.’
She stood up. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
He pushed himself up as well and shook her hand. ‘You understand there are no guarantees?’
‘I understand.’
‘One other thing – how did you find out about me? I’ve only been here since yesterday.’
‘My mother read the story in the Record about Senator Raeburn and those murdered children. She saw your name and the advertisement. It was she who recommended you, because she recalled the article in the same paper a long time ago in which you discussed your gift.’
‘Tell your mother she’s got exceptional taste in private investigators.’
She gave a delighted smile. ‘I’ll be sure to tell her that. So, Roger isn’t dead then?’
‘I have no idea.’ He shepherded her towards the door. ‘I’ll see you about half past two.’