The Thrill of the Haunt

by E. J. Copperman

Naturally, that was the moment Maxie decided to zoom out of the house, through the front window, wearing a trench coat. The idea that she needed a trench coat to hide whatever she’d brought was not a pleasant one; for all I knew, Maxie had a submachine gun.

  “A ghost?” I said, loudly enough to stop Maxie in her path. “You think a ghost killed Everett in the gas station men’s room?”

  Maxie looked surprised and stopped her forward motion. “Whoa!” she said.

  Paul’s eyes flickered back to what he approximates as life. “Get her to explain,” he said. “Find out why Everett couldn’t have stabbed himself.”

  I bit my tongue for a second, just because what I really wanted to say to Kerin would not have helped the situation at all. Then I said, “That’s a real stretch. A homeless man dies of a stab wound, and you go straight to ghosts? You seriously believe there’s no human explanation for this? That it’s not possible Everett stabbed himself?”

  “No,” Kerin answered without a mote of hesitation. “I don’t think it was a ghost, but we want answers. Everett was found with knife wounds in the men’s room, which was locked from the inside. But there was no knife. No trace of one.”

  I waited, but there was nothing more. “So the only logical assumption based on that was a dead spirit took out some insane vendetta on Everett?”

  “Do you have an explanation that makes more sense?” Anabel’s mom challenged me. “You’re the ghost lady.” And there it was.

  “No. I am not the ghost lady,” I snapped. “I am the victim of vicious rumors around this town by people”—and here I’m afraid I chose to stare directly at Kerin—“who have decided that I’m responsible for their problems. It’s not true.” I searched the area for Senior Plus guests and found none, so I could go on. “There are no ghosts in my house.”

  Technically, that was only a little false; while Dad was presumably still inside puzzling over my game room, Maxie and Paul were technically both outside the house. Paul frowned, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of what I’d said or because he was concentrating. Paul can be inscrutable. I can’t scrute him, anyway.

  Josh, perhaps sensing the mood without understanding it, drew a little closer to me but didn’t say anything.

  Maxie, however, glared at me. “Oh, own up to it,” she said with an edge in her voice. She stopped, like a thought had suddenly occurred to her. “Are you ashamed of us?” I couldn’t answer.

  “Isn’t this the basis of your business?” Paul asked. “Don’t you want people to know there are people like us here?” I had no answer for him, either.

  Melissa opened the front door and tried to look casual walking out of the house. She knew I’d instructed her to stay inside, but I had no doubt she’d been listening to the conversation. She looked concerned.

  I bit my lower lip and gave Maxie a quick glance.

  “What’s going on?” Melissa asked, as if she didn’t know.

  “It seems that poor Everett passed away today,” I told my daughter, using a tone that she knew was not my natural cadence. I sounded like I was talking to a little kid, not a tween who was, in fact, smarter than me. “These ladies are here to collect for his burial arrangements. Can you bring me my checkbook, please?” Let’s see you squirm out of that one, Liss.

  She didn’t get to answer immediately, because Kerin stepped a little closer. Josh stood up straighter but didn’t move. I knew Kerin wasn’t a physical threat so much as an annoyance, so my demeanor kept him from going all macho. I saw Maxie slip back inside the house with an irritated expression.

  “We’re not here just to ask for money,” Kerin said. Her voice indicated she was playing along “for the sake of the child,” but “the child” wasn’t buying a word of it. People underestimate children all the time; being young doesn’t mean being stupid. “We’re here to ask your mommy for help.” I rest my case on the word mommy.

  Maxie burst back through the door and floated behind Melissa. The two of them working together was rarely a good thing. “My help?” I asked Kerin. “I honestly don’t see how there’s much I can do beyond a contribution.” I turned back to my daughter. “Go inside and get my checkbook, won’t you?” I asked her again.

  But Melissa brought a hand from behind her back and held out the item in question. “I brought your checkbook with me,” she said. “I thought they were collecting for a PTSO bake sale or something.” Nice move, Maxie. Keeping Melissa out here just because you knew I wanted her inside.

  I took the checkbook but didn’t open it. Kerin smiled her chilly smile—the one everyone else thinks is ingratiating—and put a hand on her hip. “Before you write a check, Alison, we should come to an agreement. We’re here because we want you to find out who killed Everett.”

  If I were a cartoon character, my jaw would have hit the porch floor, and Josh would have had to pick it up and hand it to me. As it was, I just stood there gaping for a moment, and he picked up the thread of conversation. “You want Alison to investigate this man’s death?” he asked. “Why?”

  Kerin didn’t take her gaze off me. “Well, she’s a private investigator, isn’t she?” she hissed. Sarcasm dripped off her voice and formed a puddle on the floor. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to ask an investigator to do?”

  The others rattled their pitchforks—okay, so they fanned themselves; it was a warm night and they were in close quarters—while I regained the power of speech. “We have a very efficient police department in Harbor Haven,” I told Kerin. “You don’t need a private investigation. The public one will be very thorough, I’m sure.”

  Kerin scoffed. “The police? An investigation into the death of a homeless man? I doubt they’ll spend ten minutes on it before they decide he died of exposure on a warm spring night, despite the loss of blood.” I flinched at the gory detail—Kerin had apparently lost sight of the fact that “the child” was here. Or more likely, she’d never actually cared. I knew Liss could handle it, but I took the opportunity to resent Kerin for not being more sensitive anyway. I was making a bid for a plaque in the Resentment Hall of Fame.

  My daughter, I’m proud to say, did not flinch. Anabel’s mom, however, put her hand to her mouth as if to suppress the gag reflex.

  Paul was looking interested. That was bad.

  “Why do you really care?” I said, loud enough for the entire gathering to hear. “Who among you even knows Everett’s last name?”

  They exchanged some confused looks, but Kerin didn’t move her eyes from mine. “Why?” she asked innocently. “Did you know it?”

  Josh took a step closer to Melissa and me with a sly expression on his face. “If you want Alison to investigate professionally, you shouldn’t be asking her for a contribution,” he told Kerin. “You should be negotiating the fee she’s going to charge you.” I’ve liked Josh since the day I met him, when we had a very vigorous discussion on the merits of Saved by the Bell versus The New Mickey Mouse Club.

  Surely the suggestion that the gathered minivan lynch mob pay me for my services would be enough to get them off my back. This group was tight with a buck, as I’d found out back when I’d petitioned the PTSO to subsidize a trip for our fourth-graders to visit the Newark Museum, where I happened to know that a land lease signed by George Washington himself would be on display. You’d have thought I’d asked them to donate all their blood to some Communist vampires (which would be a great band name, by the way). Don’t even get me started on attempts to procure Sandy relief contributions from this crowd—none of their homes had been seriously damaged, so they’d assumed the storm was “overhyped.” That’s a direct quote, but I don’t remember from which woman.

  Indeed, Kerin looked positively blindsided by the idea. She stopped in mid-gesture, blinked, and opened her mouth without saying anything, which was probably a first since she’d graduated grade school.

  During the resulting interim, Paul looked over at me and said, “We’re taking the case, aren’t we?” I practically caused myself a neck spasm not loo
king toward him. I was already looking into Helen Boffice’s marriage, basically as a favor to Paul. I did not feel obligated to relieve his boredom with a murder case as well, especially not one that would require me to have contact with Kerin Murphy.

  So I was somewhat unprepared when Kerin, after looking back at her posse, said, “We’ll give you a thousand dollars.”

  Well, that settled . . . what? Paul smiled from ear to ear. Josh looked a little confused, worried that he had somehow precipitated this unfortunate turn of events and probably wondering if this would put a complete halt to our glacially moving relationship. Maxie, of course, said, “You should definitely take it,” knowing it meant doing something I didn’t want to do.

  Before I could even form a reply, Melissa, standing behind me, said, “Five thousand.”

  I looked at her, then back at Kerin, whose eyes narrowed as her ingratiating smile evaporated. “Fifteen hundred,” she said.

  From behind me: “Forty-five hundred.” I looked at my daughter again. It was like watching a really well-played tennis match, except I was playing the part of the net.

  Kerin realized now that she was competing with a formidable opponent. “Two thousand,” she said. “Final offer.”

  “Three thousand,” my daughter countered. “You need us.”

  “Two thousand,” Kerin repeated. “Your mother”—Mommy now appeared to be a thing of the past—“is not the only investigator in the area.”

  I was still watching Melissa, and she shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Go get yourself one of the other ones. You said a ghost killed Everett. How many private detectives are going to go along with that theory?” Aha, so she had been listening from inside!

  “I did not say that,” Kerin said. “I said your mother would believe it.”

  Melissa didn’t blink. “So go elsewhere,” she said.

  Kerin, remembering now that this whole charade was about forcing me into a position that I would find uncomfortable, growled a little in the back of her throat. “Twenty-five hundred,” she rasped.

  Melissa, cool as a cucumber. Or any other refrigerated food material. “Three. Thousand.”

  Kerin did not consult her coconspirators but made a noise like uch before she said, “Fine. Three thousand. But only when we see proof.”

  “Proof?” I asked. “I’m going on the record saying I’m not the ghost lady, there are no ghosts, and a ghost didn’t kill Everett. What kind of proof is it you want? Do you believe in ghosts, Kerin?”

  Her attitude couldn’t have been more imperious if she were on the set of Downton Abbey. “Of course not,” she said.

  “Then what are we talking about?”

  “We’re talking about you and your house,” Kerin answered, her voice three decibels short of a hiss. “Weird things happen here, and since you deny you’re housing anything unusual, that must mean you’re doing them yourself. People think there are ghosts in your house. You investigate crimes. I’m betting you’ll come back and say a ghost killed Everett. And if you do, you have to admit you’re the ghost lady.”

  A few in the posse actually applauded.

  Paul snorted, kind of. “Just because a ghost didn’t kill this man, doesn’t mean there are no such things as ghosts,” he said. I didn’t repeat his words, and he looked confused. “Tell them.”

  But I didn’t—couldn’t, especially not with Josh there looking torn between pride in me and bewilderment at the situation. “I’m not the ghost lady,” I said slowly. “And I’ll take your case to prove it. For three thousand dollars. Half in advance.”

  “No.”

  I was looking for the way out of the deal and so was prepared to turn and walk into my house. But my daughter, who knows what college is going to cost, would not be denied. “A third in advance,” she said. “The rest when the case is solved.”

  Kerin looked at Melissa, then at me, then back at Liss. “Oh, fine,” she said, reaching into her purse for her checkbook.

  Melissa was about to make a large, exaggerated nod to signal her jubilant victory, but Josh caught my eye with a look of desperation. I didn’t want to make him feel worse—after all, I didn’t see a way out of this job, either—and said, “Hang on a moment.”

  “Breach of contract,” Kerin said before I could continue. She stopped writing.

  “There is no contract yet,” I told her. “And there won’t be if you insist that I only get paid if a ghost is discovered to be the killer. I won’t prejudice the investigation that way.” Paul gave me a nod of approval, but I wasn’t in the mood to be nice to him, so I didn’t return it. “You don’t want to pay me until the job is done? Fine. Keep the advance. And you don’t have to pay me if—as I expect—the police wrap up the investigation before I can. But if I investigate and find that a living, breathing person killed Everett, you still have to pony up the three large. Are we clear on that?”

  “And you have to tell them that the ghosts in your house are real,” Maxie offered, apparently under the mistaken impression that she was a part of this negotiation. I didn’t respond to her, either.

  I spotted Harry and Beth Rosen heading up the walk toward the porch. “I’m not discussing this any further in front of my guests,” I said quietly to Kerin. “It’s yes or no, and it’s right now. So what’ll it be?”

  For a moment, I thought she was going to call it all off, but she said, “It’s yes,” turned on her heel, and walked back toward the street, with the Several Mom March in step behind her.

  I made a quick turn and looked at my daughter. “Where did you learn to negotiate?” I asked.

  Liss shrugged. “Pawn Stars.”

  Seven

  “Everett Sandheim?” Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone (rhymes with macaroni) sat at her desk and regarded me up and down. “Who hired you to investigate a guy’s death when you don’t even know his whole name?”

  “Believe me, it wasn’t my idea,” I assured her. “I’m just glad you knew it. Now if you can also tell me that the police department has the whole thing all sewn up, I’ll let the people who hired me know that they don’t need my services, and everybody walks away happy. So go ahead.”

  McElone just sat there.

  “Tell me,” I urged.

  McElone did not even so much as blink.

  “Please?” Maybe the magic word would help.

  Nothing.

  I sighed. “Okay. Since they hired me, I’m obligated to investigate, so—anything you can tell me?”

  McElone sighed louder. “Many, many things,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean there’s much that I will tell you. Except that asking the police to do your job is sort of cheating your client. Who is your client?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” I said.

  She started a little, then caught herself. “This isn’t one of your ghosty things, is it?” she asked.

  McElone and I have been around the block together more than once since this whole ghost-and-private-detective thing began. She is a very good detective who might or might not have a grudging respect for me but will never show it either way. But she is spooked (pun intended) beyond all reason by my house and a few things she’s seen happen there that she can’t explain. I truly believe she wouldn’t set foot in the place without a 911 call forcing her to do so.

  I’d come here straight from the ten a.m. spook show, at which Paul had strummed a guitar I’d found at a local antique shop, and Maxie had flown a small rug runner I had in the hallway around the house and then folded it into the shape of a canoe, all the while complaining to me that she was “not a trained chimp.” She’d vanished right after the performance, which was a plus, because now that she has figured out how to appear in the passenger seat of my car, whenever I’m going somewhere, she pops up. This trip had been Maxie-free.

  “As a matter of fact, no,” I said. “It’s about a group of hysterical women who are trying to get me to say a ghost killed Everett so they can run me out of town on a rail or something.”

  McElone
looked at me as if I were speaking a language other than English, and she had nothing but a very thin phrase book to help her. “And how is that not a ghosty thing?” she asked.

  “Well, technically, it’s not one of my ghosts,” I explained, although hearing it aloud didn’t help much. There are a few people I’ve told that I live with ghosts because it’s easier than always pretending I don’t; McElone is one of them. “Believe me, I think this is just as ridiculous as you do, and I’d like to prove that an actual living human stabbed the poor man.”

  McElone is freakishly neat—which in my opinion signals a serious psychological problem—so she had no papers to shuffle, but she did the best she could with the one sheet of paper she had on her desk. “So, why are you here, exactly?” she asked.

  I glanced around the room and noticed that McElone’s cubicle looked the same as it always had, except that the pictures of her children had been replaced with pictures of bigger children. I thought about what I could ask her that might have a fighting chance of being answered.

  “I’d like to get up to speed,” I said. “Can you at least confirm to me that the knife wound was the cause of Everett’s death?”

  “M.E.’s report isn’t out yet,” McElone answered, sounding every bit the straitlaced police functionary. “But it seems like a good bet. And it’s not a knife wound—it’s multiple knife wounds. Blood loss will likely be listed as the actual cause of death unless there’s some surprise I’m unaware of yet. It just happened yesterday. Could be a while before it’s confirmed.”

  That wasn’t much of a help, but then, what had I expected? “Can you tell me what background you have on Everett? I heard he was in the Army or something about twenty years ago. Is that right, or is it just a rumor?”

  McElone looked at me for a few moments, presumably deciding whether to give me her usual speech about doing my own research (actually, Maxie does most of the online research for my investigations, since she’s good at it and has plenty of time on her hands). She probably realized that things pretty much always end up with her sharing information anyway, so she gestured futilely with her hands and punched some keys on her desktop computer.