The Hostess With the Ghostess

by E. J. Copperman

  I could think of a good number of things about her scenario that I didn’t like, but at least I had the presence of mind not to blurt out that Hunter Evans might have killed Keith Johnson to be with the dead man’s wife. Give me a little credit.

  “Do you know anything about the New Brunswick murder?” I asked her. Might as well go for broke.

  “I’m assuming you don’t mean the three shootings of drug dealers in the past four months,” she said. “I’m guessing you mean the lawyer in the hotel who got beaned with an iron when he just happened to be working on . . . oh, yeah, the trial of Keith Johnson’s murderer.”

  “Alleged murderer,” I corrected.

  “Yeah. Nope. You’re on your own with that one.”

  I sighed, but Phyllis was just having fun.

  “Except . . .”

  She was getting back at me for my attitude and for making her work so hard on the two murders that she wasn’t going to cover anyway. “Except what?” I asked.

  “Except the cops have video of some blonde up in a guy’s room that night stealing the iron out of his closet.”

  Video! Security footage! My first thought was that I’d never feel secure in a hotel room again. The second was what I said to Phyllis: “How do I get hold of that video?”

  “You’re a detective. You figure it out.” And Phyllis hung up, probably laughing.

  Chapter 31

  “This is highly irregular,” said Ramon Bornstein.

  There was no time to drive to the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick and talk to its head of security, who as it turned out was Bornstein. So I’d called with only fifteen minutes until my guests would be expecting a spectacular (within my budget) spook show to remember as a highlight of their vacations. I had no time to fool around.

  “I’m an investigator working in conjunction with the police,” I said again. That was technically true, assuming your definition of in conjunction meant at the same time as. It was a fine line, and I was walking it. “I know you’ve already given them the footage, but I’m in a remote location, and I’d like to see it. Can you send it as a file?”

  “I’d like to see some verification of your credentials,” Bornstein said. “I can’t simply send security footage to anyone and violate a guest’s privacy.”

  “Seems to me you’re already violating it by filming them in their rooms and not informing anybody,” I countered. “Is that even legal?”

  “It wouldn’t be if we were doing that,” Bornstein said with a snooty tone befitting the prices his hotel was charging for a room. “But we don’t. The footage in question is of a public area, the hallway outside the guest room.”

  “Well, I’ll know that when I see it,” I suggested.

  “And you’ll see it when I have clearance from the police,” Bornstein said.

  Josh grabbed the phone from my hand. “This is Detective Barnett Kobielski of the New Brunswick Police Department,” he said, his voice rougher than I’d heard it before. “I’m authorizing you to send this video footage to a Dropbox account on my authority. Is that enough for you?”

  I gave my husband a warm hug, doing my best to avoid touching the phone and making a noise. But I did manage to hear Bornstein say, “Of course, Detective. As long as you are giving your okay.”

  “By the power vested in me,” Josh said, which I thought was overkill but Bornstein probably thought was Kobielski being snide. “I need to get an edge on those county investigators, okay?”

  “Sure, Detective.” Now Bornstein sounded conspiratorial, as if he had a grudge with the county prosecutor’s investigators too.

  “Good. I’m giving the phone back to Ms. Kerby.”

  I decided to go for broke. “How’d the woman who stole the iron get a key to the murdered man’s room?” I asked him. “Some crack security system you guys have.” You can get people to talk if they’re being defensive.

  Sure enough, Bornstein sounded downright annoyed when he said, “You’d have to talk to the front desk attendant. Apparently she was given keys to the wrong room and asked for a correction.” An oldie but a goodie in this case. At least the murderer was consistent.

  I gave Bornstein the code for my Dropbox account and disconnected the call. “Okay,” I said. “Are we just about ready for a great spook show?”

  “Is that what you call contact with the departed?” The voice was familiar, but it was coming from all the way across the room, in the entranceway. “That’s so unfeeling.”

  All heads in the room turned toward the voice, which was accompanied by a person in shadows at the moment. But that didn’t last, as she took two steps forward and was clearly visible.

  “Madame Lorraine,” I said. I hope my voice didn’t betray how I was actually feeling. But it probably did.

  “I have been sending you text messages,” she said as she advanced on the group. “I have been very concerned about Paul Harrison.”

  Paul—and this never happened—burst out laughing. “Me?” he said when he could catch his “breath.” “She’s worried about me?”

  I had mentioned to him about Madame Lorraine’s pronouncements of his intense psychological pain, but like the rest of us, Paul had not taken them seriously. “I assure you, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” I told her.

  “But there is,” Madame Lorraine insisted even as my guests started to wander into the room. I had to get her out of here quickly or risk ruining the evening from my innkeeper’s viewpoint. “I can feel it in this room.”

  “What can she feel in the room?” Vanessa DiSica asked her husband, Eduardo. “Can you feel anything?”

  “It’s a little warm,” Eduardo volunteered.

  “Please, have a seat wherever you like,” I told the DiSicas. “We’ll get started very soon.” I turned toward Madame Lorraine. “Maybe if you’d like to come back tomorrow . . .”

  She was having none of that. She turned directly away from where Paul and Richard were floating and clearly addressed the crown molding around the ceiling. “I know you are suffering, Mr. Harrison,” she said. “I am here to relieve your pain.”

  Paul was giggling so intensely at this point that if he were alive, he would undoubtedly have had real pain, probably around his midsection. “Oh, she is hilarious,” he managed.

  “Don’t be so disrespectful,” Richard admonished his younger brother. But he didn’t dare make eye contact with Paul.

  “Gimme your phone,” Maxie urged Melissa. “I want video of this for my Facebook page.” Despite having been dead for years, Maxie had never deleted her Facebook page. She liked to post things on it and see what theories people who viewed them might have about their origins.

  Melissa held onto her phone without comment.

  “Madame Lorraine,” my mother attempted, “it’s really not necessary right now. Paul is all right. Why don’t we talk about this in the kitchen?” For Mom, everything that is important happens in the kitchen.

  Penny Desmond walked in from the hallway side, gave Madame Lorraine a rather puzzled look, and took a seat on one of the sofas, exactly the seat I would have chosen if I were a guest here. The sofas are incredibly comfortable. On movie nights guests often fall asleep on them, and I don’t even get offended.

  “Good evening, Penny.” I’m a terrific host. It says so on many of the evaluation cards I get back from Senior Plus Tours. Some, anyway.

  “Hi, Alison.” She looked at Madame Lorraine but did not ask. Penny was exceedingly polite. If she were forty years younger and dead, she would have been a good match for Paul.

  “I’m staying right here until I get a sense that Paul Harrison is no longer distressed,” Madame Lorraine told Mom.

  “And how will you get that?”

  Madame Lorraine regarded my mother with something between pity and scorn. That was enough to ruin her in my eyes. “It’s simply a feeling one experiences,” she said to Mom in a condescending tone. “I will just know.”

  “Of course you will,” Mom said. Melissa moved close t
o her grandmother’s side with a fierce look of protection in her eye. She took Mom’s arm and led her away from Madame Lorraine, which was best.

  It occurred to me that I didn’t need to remove Madame Lorraine so much as rustle her to a far corner of the room where she could talk to the drywall to her heart’s content and not disrupt the spook show. I walked over to her. “Actually, Madame Lorraine, Paul is over there by the light generator.”

  “But I can feel his presence here.” Clearly I was the amateur and Madame Lorraine the professional in the ghost business. But I was the innkeeper, and I was going to make sure she was on the move.

  “I’m willing to bet you’ll feel it stronger over there.” I looked up at the blank space on the wall where I was intending to divert her attention. “Right, Paul?”

  Paul, at the sound of his name, looked over. He’d stopped dissolving into hysterics, which was helpful, but hadn’t been paying attention, which wasn’t. “What?” he asked. He floated over closer to us.

  Proving the intensely authentic medium we all knew she was, Madame Lorraine looked blankly at the wall. “Yes, I am feeling his presence fade,” she said as Paul hovered within four feet of her. “Perhaps that is the place to be.” She walked over to the wall I’d indicated.

  That was perfect timing because Abby Lesniak was just walking into the movie room looking relaxed and content, if not ecstatic. She nodded her hellos to everyone she could see and sat a little removed from the group in one of the easy chairs.

  I figured we were already a few minutes late for the start of the show due to all the distractions. There was no point in waiting any longer. I signaled to Maxie, who said to Paul, “Let’s go.” My father joined them in the center of the room, several feet above the heads of the seated guests. Everett hovered close by in anticipation of his military drill should that be called for in the program (we’re never all that set ahead of time). Richard, with an air of embarrassment at the spectacle he was forced to endure, backed up to the outside wall a little too much. He was only partly visible by the time he’d crossed his arms to look disapproving.

  Melissa and Mom walked to respective sides of the room, knowing they wouldn’t necessarily be called upon as part of the entertainment but there in case someone (okay, Maxie) improvised and they were needed. I walked to the front of the room just under the big TV, which was not going to be used tonight.

  Josh took a stance directly behind me and very close. He never participated in the spook shows. This was my husband acting as my security detail. I can’t say I objected.

  The general din in the room lowered to a mumble, and I was just about to start when Greg Lewis walked in carrying a boom box in one hand and a bouquet of Mylar balloons in the other. He looked like John Cusack in Say Anything if he were visiting someone in the hospital just after a baby was born.

  “Watch this,” Melissa said quietly.

  Greg wasted no time and did not respond when I said, “Good evening, Mr. Lewis.” He marched straight through the room after pushing a button on the boom box. Melissa nodded in a conspiratorial fashion to him, and music, featuring Mr. Lewis himself as vocalist (and, one assumed, composer and band), began to play through the speakers he carried.

  The song was clearly called “Abigail,” and he directed it right at Abby Lesniak, who looked absolutely stunned. She opened and closed her mouth a few times but made no sounds. Her eyes grew misty.

  “Abby.” Mr. Lewis turned the music down, not off, and stood directly in front of her easy chair. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, but I’ve been trying to figure out the right way to do it. All week I’ve been thinking about you, and now it’s the last night and this is my last chance. I couldn’t let it go by.”

  Abby remained unable to speak, but she took his hand after he put the boom box down on the easy chair next to her.

  “You’ve been the best part of this vacation for me,” Mr. Lewis went on. “I know I haven’t approached you very often, but that’s because I’m shy.”

  “Obviously,” Eduardo DiSica said, and everyone laughed.

  Everyone except Greg Lewis. He never took his eyes away from Abby’s. “Do you think we could get to know each other better in the time we have left?” he asked her.

  There were hoots and cries of “whooo!” from the group. People of any age can act like silly kids. Never doubt that.

  Abby finally seemed to have mastered her emotions again. She put her other hand on top of Greg’s and said quietly, “I’d like that.” He sat down next to her, and the collected group applauded.

  Finally, it seemed it was my time to begin the ultimate spook show of the week. I cleared my throat and said as the collected audience (minus Madame Lorraine, who was still in deep conversation with a blank wall) turned its attention back to me, “Good evening, everybody.”

  And that was as far as I got.

  From the side adjacent to the entrance to the house came three uninvited guests. For a moment, I stiffened as I saw Paul tense up, perhaps thinking this was Keith Johnson’s new attempt on my life.

  Instead it was a reunion of suspects in Keith’s murder. Into the movie room strode Adrian Van Doren Johnson followed by her stepchildren, Braden and Erika. I breathed a small sigh of relief in noticing that no one was brandishing a weapon of any sort. In my experience, that was how these things usually ended up going.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Adrian said as soon as she was close enough to be heard.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” I heard myself say. “Can’t I just start the show?”

  Chapter 32

  My five guests and five ghosts all turned toward Adrian when she spoke, as did the two living blood relatives in my own entourage. Josh just took a step forward and stood slightly in front of me, not blocking me out of view but certainly making me a harder target to hit.

  “Twenty-five thousand?” I parroted back to Adrian. I remembered something about her offering me bunches of money, but that seemed like a long time ago now.

  “I want you to drop the investigation into Keith’s death,” she reminded me. “My children and I are raising our offer to twenty-five thousand dollars and not a penny more.”

  “I’d take it,” Eduardo DiSica said, seemingly to himself.

  I glanced over at Paul, who was moving toward Adrian. “Take the money if you like,” he suggested. “How will she know if I’m investigating?” It was a decent point, but not when I thought it through. I’d be the visible member of the team, and a ticked-off murderess is one thing; a ticked-off murderess who just gave you a large sum of money and didn’t get what she wanted would be worse.

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I said. “Believe me, I’m sorry I can’t take your money. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Thirty thousand,” Braden piped up.

  “Wait. What happened to ‘not a penny more’?”

  Maxie swooped down from the ceiling. “Take the money. You could use a new laptop and fix your ceiling, and you could buy me a car.”

  That was new. I looked at her. “A car?”

  She waved a hand. “We’ll talk later.”

  “What about a car?” Erika asked. It was, at least from her perspective, a reasonable question. I didn’t answer it.

  “It’s not that I don’t want the money,” I told Braden. “Believe me, it would do me a great deal of good. But there’s only so much that’s within my power. Frankly, I find it interesting that you think my stopping is worth that much. The last time you’d just talked to Hunter Evans. Who have you spoken to this time?” I looked at Adrian when I said that because I was fairly certain she was the source of all this bizarre bribery.

  Adrian twitched the corner of her mouth. Left side, for those keeping score at home. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  Not one of the guests so much as blinked. They clearly thought this was part of the spook show. They were probably wondering when the ghosts would get involved. So I decided to indulge them.
It’s what a good host does.

  “I think there’s a reason you want me to stop investigating, and it’s the most obvious one a person could imagine,” I said, advancing on Adrian as if I were actually confident in my knowledge or my safety. Josh stayed at my side the whole way. “I think you’re the one who killed Keith Johnson so you could inherit his money and continue your love affair with his business partner, Hunter Evans. Best of both worlds. What about that? Were you going to kill Hunter’s wife too?”

  I got precisely the reaction I expected, and in anticipation of it, I scanned the upper reaches of my movie room. I caught Paul’s eye, but he was already lowering himself, focusing on the space around Adrian. He knew what I was trying to do.

  Sure enough, Keith Johnson rose up from the basement dramatically, face angry, holding out his right index finger and pointing at me. All he needed was a cape and he could have won a Dracula look-alike contest.

  My father took up a defensive position between Johnson and me. Maxie, now with an expression of complete seriousness, swooped down behind him with Everett, in camouflage fatigues, moving in from the left flank.

  “I think Keith found out about your romance with Hunter Evans and was going to divorce you and cut you out of his will,” I said, although I had absolutely no evidence of any of that and in fact didn’t even believe it to be true. The idea was to irritate Johnson into doing something rash that hopefully didn’t include killing me. “I think you decided to do something about it before he could take you back to your middle-class life, and you went into his room at the Cranbury Bog and drowned him in his bathtub. How did you get him to lie down in that water, Adrian?”

  I saw Melissa lunge a little toward Johnson, whose face was practically apoplectic, but my mother firmly grasped her shoulders and wouldn’t let her advance. Mom shook her head in my direction, but the die was cast; I had to follow through on this plan even though I’d just thought it up.

  “You have no idea what you’re saying,” Adrian growled at me.

  But her response was nothing compared to her dead husband’s. “How dare you!” Keith Johnson bellowed. But, significantly, he didn’t deny anything I’d just suggested.