Spouse on Haunted Hill

by E. J. Copperman

  “Why not let him in?” Paul suggested. “He doesn’t know Maxie has a shovel.” It was a decent point.

  Without answering I stepped aside and watched as the man walked in. He was polite enough to scrape the snow off his boots (expensive, leather) before crossing the threshold. If he was a hit man, he was an unusually fastidious one. Of course, I had no idea if assassins were generally sloppy and didn’t want to make unfair assumptions about a person based on his choice of profession.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I made a mental apology to hit men everywhere.

  “Now if we can get past our distrust and talk plainly. You know why I’m here and I know your ex-husband is here. So would you please tell him that I have arrived so we can meet?”

  I wanted to make sure I worded this next part very carefully. “Let’s say hypothetically that Steven was here, which he’s not. Why would I want you to meet with him? What’s the benefit?”

  The man did not take off his gloves, which I found ominous, but did loosen his scarf. “That’s better,” he said. Then he turned his gaze on me. His eyes were a gentle blue, which was incongruous. This whole man was incongruous. “I’m going to stay here until I get to talk to your ex-husband. I realize you have four guest rooms available, assuming he is staying in one, but I sincerely doubt you want to put me up for an extended visit. So the benefit to you is that the sooner you produce Steven Rendell, the sooner I will leave your home and never return. I would think that’s a fair incentive.”

  Actually I now had three guest rooms available because Anne had just occupied one of the unused ones in the process of leaving Mel, and I took a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that this guy didn’t know that before Anne’s husband found out.

  “I still have the shovel,” Maxie said. “Is it time yet?”

  Melissa would be coming down the stairs in a minute or two. She’d head for the coffee urn in the den and make herself a cup of what she calls café au lait, which is about half milk/half coffee. She’d pass right by where we were standing. That, I decided, was not acceptable.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” I told the natty man. “Steven isn’t here.”

  And I swear to you, that was the moment my ex-husband’s voice came calling from behind me, “What’s for breakfast?”

  The man in the overcoat gave me a withering look. I shrugged. “You can’t blame a girl for trying,” I said.

  He did not answer. By then, Steven had walked up behind me and then stopped short when he saw Overcoat in the front room. I heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “That was quick,” he exhaled.

  “Steven,” answered Overcoat. “Your lovely ex-wife has been trying to protect you from me.”

  The Swine chuckled so unconvincingly I didn’t think Lester the golden retriever would have bought it. He walked to my side and I could see he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on when he got off the plane—a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt that was plain and navy blue but had seen better days. “She’s a keeper,” he said.

  I started to regret having tried to stop this man from killing him.

  “We need to talk,” Overcoat said.

  “Um . . . sure . . .”

  I’d heard The Swine sound nervous and I’d heard him sound concerned, but I’d never heard him sound scared before. And he never forgot a name.

  “Maurice,” Overcoat said. “You remember, don’t you?” His eyes got a little colder.

  Before anything happened that I’d have to try to erase from my visual memories for the rest of my life, I interrupted. “Look, guys. I understand you two have some very important business to discuss. But my daughter is going to walk down those stairs at any second and I’d prefer she not see . . . anything you’re going to do or hear anything you’re going to say. Can we move this conversation somewhere else?”

  Overcoat looked at the stairs, probably without realizing he was doing so. Steven continued to look at Overcoat.

  “Of course,” the more well-dressed of them said. “Where would you prefer? Someplace more private?”

  I thought hard. The kitchen was the one room guests almost never enter because I don’t serve food at the guesthouse. But it would have any number of sharp objects that could be used in ways I preferred not to think about. The movie room did not have doors that closed so much as archways that served as entrances. I sure as hell wasn’t letting this guy go into any of the bedrooms, and somehow the thought of his beautifully maintained woolen overcoat in my dusty basement was incongruous.

  “How about the library?” I said. If the guy wanted to beat Steven to death with a copy of The Big Sleep, it wouldn’t only be more difficult, it would be appropriate.

  Overcoat nodded and Steven, his face paler than usual, followed me as I led the two of them into the house and then down the hall to the library door. As they entered I looked at Maxie, who caught my eye. I tilted my head in the direction of the library, and she nodded and went through the wall, still in her trench coat. She’d have the shovel with her if it became necessary.

  Paul did not follow her but stayed with me as the door closed behind Steven. I looked at him. “Should I stay here?” I asked.

  “I don’t think there will be anything going on in there but talk,” he answered. “Maxie will protect your ex-husband, but I doubt even that will be necessary.”

  “Why? That guy seemed quietly ominous.”

  Paul made a “yeah, well?” face. “He’s here to collect a large sum of money. He won’t be able to do that if your ex is not . . . available to deliver it. This meeting is a warning. It’s about that man making clear to your ex-husband that he knows he was capable of finding him here, to indicate that running is not an option.”

  But I was still reeling from one aspect of the morning I had not been able to properly absorb. “I . . . I . . .” was the best I could muster.

  Paul’s face showed concern. “What is it, Alison?” he asked.

  Finally I could manage to get the word out. “Maurice?”

  Four

  We stood by the door (well, I stood and Paul hovered) for about a minute. No loud shouts or thuds of a shovel blow were audible, and it wasn’t that great a door. When I saw Liss walk into the front room, I walked toward her and stopped about halfway.

  My daughter is not what you’d call a morning person. So the look on her face indicated she should not be approached or engaged in any way for fear of a cutting remark or, worse, an eye roll. I stepped backward to let her pass. As she did, she muttered, “Coffee.” She shuffled into the den and headed directly for the urn.

  Yoko Takamine, a very small but vivacious woman in her sixties, practically tap-danced into the room from the stairs. Yoko was a dear, but I found it hard to accept all this cheerfulness so early in the morning. And I’d already been up for two and a half hours.

  “Good morning!” Yoko chirped. “Isn’t it a lovely morning?”

  It was twenty-seven degrees and I needed to put more ice melt out on my walk before someone slipped and slid directly into the nearest litigator’s office. “It sure is, Yoko,” I said unconvincingly. “What are your plans for the day?”

  “I’m going to walk on the beach,” she said. Of course she was. The windchill by the water would put it into the single digits.

  “You’re a stronger woman than I am, Yoko,” I said. Over her left shoulder I saw Maxie sticking her head through the wall and talking to Paul. “I don’t want to hold you up. There’s coffee and tea in the den. Anything I can do for you?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Yoko pranced on into the den, where I was hoping she wouldn’t cross paths with Melissa. Liss knows how we treat guests (and is actually better than I am at it) but might let her new teenage hormones rule her better judgment. It doesn’t happen much, but it does happen.

  I walked over to the library door as I saw Maxie duck back in
side. “What’s the latest?” I asked Paul.

  “I was about to go inside myself,” he said. “But Maxie says they’re actually discussing the matter pretty reasonably. There have been no threats.”

  That seemed weird. “This is one crazy shakedown,” I told him.

  “If that’s what it is,” Paul answered.

  “You want to go in? Go in.”

  Paul looked at the door as if considering. Then he shook his head. “I don’t want Maxie to think I don’t trust her report.”

  I saw Mel Kaminsky’s door open and hid behind the staircase. Paul, watching me with an expression of complete bafflement, actually moved back to give me room, as if I wouldn’t have just passed through him if we’d intersected. “What is it?” he said in hushed tones. Sometimes I think Paul forgets he’s dead.

  “It’s Mel,” I hissed.

  Paul’s eyelids lowered a bit to bring his eyes back to their normal shape. “He’s been here for four days,” he reminded me.

  “I know.” I snuck a peek around the corner. Mel, looking puzzled, was headed toward the den. So he would pass directly by us, and see only me. I took off as quietly as possible toward the movie room.

  “So, why are you suddenly afraid of him?” Paul wanted to know. He followed a little behind me.

  “I can’t talk now,” I said as quietly as possible.

  “Alison!” I heard Mel’s voice behind me. Busted! “Excuse me, Alison!”

  I gathered my face into a professional smile and turned back to look at him. “Good morning, Mel,” I trilled. “How are you this morning?”

  “Confused,” he said. “Have you seen Annie?”

  I considered saying I had seen the movie and not the stage musical, but Mel probably wouldn’t have laughed. I couldn’t lie to him; he was a guest. You get a bad reputation that way. “I have,” I told him. That was true.

  “Do you know where she is? She seems to have taken all of her things out of our room.”

  Again, I certainly could have told Mel that I did know where his wife was and left it at that, but it would just be delaying the inevitable. “I believe she’s in one of the guest rooms upstairs,” I said. “The second one on the left.”

  Mel Kaminsky seemed to think I was speaking in some foreign tongue. I only wished I was at this point. “One of the upstairs guest rooms?” he parroted back.

  Liss, no doubt on her second cup of coffee because she was less grumpy, walked by us as she headed for the stairs. “Morning, Mel,” she said. “Did you know Anne was upstairs?” My daughter, ladies and gentlemen.

  “Yeah,” he answered, but he didn’t sound all that sure of himself. Liss kept walking and was halfway up the stairs before Mel looked up at me again. “Why?”

  This time I was legitimately confused. “Why what?” I asked.

  “Why did Annie take all her stuff out of our room and move it upstairs?” he said.

  As an innkeeper, your job is not to get involved in the lives of your guests. Your job is to make their stay comfortable and enjoyable. Since it seemed “enjoyable” was going to be a stretch for Mel from now on, and comfortable was not on the table at the moment, I did the only thing I could do.

  I punted.

  “That’s something you’ll have to ask Anne,” I told Mel.

  He nodded. “Which room, again?”

  I directed him to Anne’s new room and he walked off looking determined. Paul, who had been watching the whole sordid scene, stifled a laugh. “Jerk,” I said to him in a low voice.

  We turned just as the library door opened and out walked Overcoat, who had not removed one article of clothing despite being out of the frigid temperatures on my doorstep. I’ll admit I held my breath for a moment, but The Swine walked out right behind him, and the strangest thing was going on as they approached us.

  They were laughing.

  “You should have seen him!” Steven said, his arm thinking about wrapping itself around Overcoat’s shoulder and then thinking better of it. “I thought he’d—oh, hi, Ally.”

  It was “Ally” again. I was already starting to regret being worried Overcoat might have killed him.

  Maxie floated out and started talking to Paul, who looked interested and a little baffled. But they were too far away and talking too quietly for me to make anything out. “I guess you two have worked out your differences,” I said to the two completely three-dimensional men in the room.

  “Differences!” Steven was overdoing the jocularity to a point that even Overcoat was looking embarrassed. “Simply a misunderstanding. Everything is fine. Right, Maurice?”

  Overcoat looked less ebullient, but still calm. I got the impression he’d be calm if the house were being bombed. He might even be the one doing the bombing. “It should be,” he allowed.

  Whatever Maxie was saying to Paul at that point must have been a doozy, because I could hear his “What?” from across the room. I looked up involuntarily.

  The Swine turned and looked where I was looking. “What?” he echoed. He didn’t know he was echoing, but that didn’t really matter. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I thought I heard something.” What I wanted right now was to usher Overcoat toward the front door, where all his clothing would go to good use against the cold and I could have my house back. Win-win. I looked at him. “Well, I’m sure you have a lot to do.” I moved in the direction of the front room.

  “Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

  But The Swine, for reasons I could not begin to understand, put up a hand. “Nonsense!” he said. “Stay for breakfast.”

  “I don’t serve breakfast,” I reminded him.

  “We can bring something in. I’m sure you have something in the kitchen that you and Melissa were going to have.” The fact was, Liss would have her two “coffees” and I’d probably grab a glass of orange juice and that was breakfast at the guesthouse. We were a lean and spare people. Steven looked at his new pal. “I want you to meet my daughter.”

  “Steven!” It was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think. Paul looked over at me and he and Maxie moved closer to us.

  The Swine stared. No doubt my outburst had been a terrible breach of whatever new bond he had established with Overcoat. “Alison, the man is a guest,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Not at all,” Overcoat told him. “I need to be somewhere else, and I completely understand Ms. Kerby’s reluctance to introduce her daughter to your business dealings.” He nodded at me and we walked into the front room.

  Steven, apparently not having gotten the memo on quitting while you’re ahead, was still arguing that Overcoat should stick around awhile, but the other man would have nothing of it. “I appreciate the hospitality,” he told my ex. “Now we must be sure that our business arrangement is solidified. So I assume I will hear from you soon?”

  The Swine lost a little color from his face, but only someone who’d been married to him would have noticed. “Of course,” he said.

  “Tomorrow,” Overcoat said a bit more ominously.

  “Yes.”

  Overcoat smiled at me and nodded again. “Nice to meet you,” he said, and left before Steven could try to talk him into taking a ride to the IHOP and sharing some blueberry pancakes.

  As soon as I closed the front door behind him, I turned a hundred and eighty degrees and glared at my ex-husband. “You want the hit man to meet our daughter?” I said.

  Steven laughed. “Hit man,” he said. “He’s not a hit man.”

  “He ain’t from the Chamber of Commerce.”

  Maxie moved over closer to me, hovering about a foot off the floor. She was no longer wearing the trench coat. “Get rid of him,” she told me. “We need to talk.”

  That was unusual; most of the time Maxie would rather avoid talking to me. I was too much like an . . . older sister to her. Maxie was
poisoned when she was only twenty-eight, and I was no longer that age. Let’s leave it at that. Maxie’s emotional age was probably somewhere around eighteen, which was why she mostly preferred to hang around with Melissa.

  “He’s just doing his job,” Steven said.

  I decided the best thing to do was act like we were still married. It wasn’t hard; I just needed to tap in to my vast reserves of annoyance with him. “Fine!” I shouted, reaching for the ceiling. “I can’t ever talk to you!” I turned my back on The Swine, which felt both familiar and satisfying, and went into the kitchen. Having lived with me for ten years, he would know not to follow me there, especially if he wanted something to eat.

  Paul and Maxie actually beat me into the room, not having to deal with things like gravity or solid objects. They waited until I was inside and heading for the fridge—that orange juice was sounding good about now—before they both started to talk at once.

  “That guy was here to—” Maxie started.

  “Your ex-husband is going to—” Paul began over her words.

  I poured some orange juice into a cup with the logo of the local pizzeria on it and took a sip, holding up my hand for a quiet moment. Then I took a deep breath and looked at the two ghosts. I pointed at Maxie. “You first. You were there.”

  Maxie gave Paul her best triumphant smile, to which Paul simply nodded. “They started off sounding like it was gonna be bad. I had the shovel right in my hand if I needed it. Then they got friendly even when the other guy said the ex owed him a bunch of money and he knew the kind of people he was dealing with, so he’d better pay up. To which the ex says he hasn’t got it.”

  “I imagine that went over big,” I said.

  “Yeah, that was my most shovel-ready moment,” Maxie agreed. “I thought I saw your buddy in the coat go into his pocket, but all he took out was a handkerchief. Wiped his head, but he wasn’t nervous; he was hot. He wouldn’t take off that wool coat.”

  “Yeah, what was that all about?” I asked.

  “What Maxie is leaving out—” Paul began.