by Mary Bowers
“I see,” Ed said. “I’ve never understood that kind of person, myself. At the end of the day, have you actually accomplished anything? I mean, it’s only recreation, not creation. Popping a ball into a hole and then taking it right out again . . . one has to wonder why. Still, many intelligent people do that kind of thing, so who am I to judge? I’m glad she didn’t agree to a paddling. I would have tried to intervene.”
“That would’ve been interesting,” Dobbs said, still trying to hold himself in.
“They’re a bit old-fashioned themselves,” Ed said primly. “Engaged but not already living together. A rarity these days.”
“Britt has to watch himself if he wants to get his hands on his parents’ money someday. He actually calls them the mater and the pater, by the way. What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them. I bet he spends just about all his time at Tiffany’s house. No, maybe not, come to think of it. Her house is on the river; his apartment is near the beach. I think he prefers the beach, when he’s not paddling.”
“But you actually don’t know,” Ed said, observing Dobbs. “You don’t like Britt simply because he’s engaged to Tiffany.”
“Admit it,” Dobbs said all-too-quickly. “Even you can see that she deserves better.”
“Love, as they say, is blind, my dear Dobbs. Surely you’ve noticed that by now, even at your age. Now, where were we? I think we should transcribe our notes from the walk-through.”
They went back to the lanai and tried to get themselves organized. At least, Ed did. When there was no action going on, it was hard to keep Dobbs focused.
Less than an hour later, the doorbell rang and another man showed up, wanting to hire Ed and Dobbs and insisting that they work only for him.
As they stared at one another blankly, the man went on: “There’s been dirty work going on in this house, and I want it investigated.”
“What kind of dirty work?” Ed asked.
“Murder,” the man said, and he forced his way inside.
Chapter 10
Ed studied the fellow for a moment, interested that another integer had entered the equation. It was a good sign; Ed always liked as many viewpoints as possible, and this person definitely had a viewpoint. While Ed studied the man, he in turn was gazing cynically at Dobbs.
He was about sixty years old, with indeterminate coloring, neither dark nor light. “Foxy” came to Ed’s mind – the tones of his hair and eyebrows and even his eyes were all the same: reddish, but not exactly red. He was short – about Ed’s height, or an inch or two more - and he was soft without being overweight. His tee shirt seemed to be advertising a lively bar, and his cargo shorts revealed sturdy legs covered with the same foxy-colored hair. His white deck shoes were filthy and had grass stains on them.
“Still hanging around, huh?” he said to Dobbs. “Did you get Jessamine so hooked on you that she left you the house?”
Becoming lofty, Dobbs turned to Ed. “Dr. Darby-Deaver, this is Roy Angers. He was Alan Pissarro’s business partner. He lives next-door. Mr. Angers, Dr. Edson Darby-Deaver, paranormal investigator.”
“I know who he is,” Angers said without taking his eyes off Dobbs. “Jessamine told me when she went to see him in the first place, before you showed up and moved in with her.”
“It facilitated the investigation for me to be at the site of the haunting.”
“It also facilitated you getting into her pants, didn’t it? Nice work if you can get it.” Dobbs began to protest, but Angers ignored him and turned to Ed. “You’re the one I want to hire. At least you seem to have some ethics. Jessamine said when you didn’t buy her story you tore up her check.”
“I was unable to perform a service for her, therefore I refused payment.”
“Right. The ordinary average con artist, like this guy here, would’ve hung onto the check and milked the poor broad for all she was worth. So I want to hire you.”
“Really. And what issues are you having that require the services of a paranormal investigator?” Ed asked loftily.
“The same issue Jessamine was having: Alan.”
Ed blinked and Dobbs goggled. “He’s haunting you too?” Dobbs blurted.
“No, but I’d like him to.”
“Um . . . .” Ed groped for words but found none.
“Let’s just say he knew things that affect the restaurant. I need to know those things.”
“There may be easier ways,” Ed suggested gently. “His family, for instance. His children are grown; they may have been aware of his business dealings.”
Angers gave an ugly sneer. “Tiffany? A wet noodle, with the idiot rich kid from a sitcom for a boyfriend. And Kent? Nothing but a mama’s boy. He never even tried to learn the business from his father. Those kids are into spending money, not making it. To get the information I need, I have to try to get it from Alan. I want a séance. Can you do that?”
Ed held up a hand to quell Dobbs and told Angers, “I am not a medium.”
“You got one though, right? That woman down in Tropical Breeze? I checked you out on the internet. You work with her right? Taylor something. Get her. I’ll pay you anything you say.”
“Ms. Verone is not a professional medium. We do have one in the immediate area, though: Miss Purity LeStrange. I could contact her, if you like.”
“I already tried her. She’s a fake. Dresses up like a kewpie doll and talks like a fool. Five minutes with her was enough. Get Taylor Verone.”
“I’m afraid she would simply refuse.”
“Not if I make a big donation to that shelter of hers,” Angers said craftily.
Ed blinked. The man was right. For Orphans of the Storm, Taylor would do anything. With a sinking feeling, questioning his own ethics, because he wanted Taylor in on this for reasons of his own, Ed nodded. “For a donation, I think Ms. Verone would make herself available.”
“Good,” Angers said. “Get her. Here’s my card. Call me when you’ve got it fixed up. I can’t do it tonight; The Catch is going to be jammed.”
“What catch?” Ed asked.
“His restaurant-bar,” Dobbs explained. “The Big Catch, on Anastasia Island.”
“Oh, yes,” Ed said. He’d been there. It was a beachy little sports bar that had been around forever.
“And not tomorrow, either,” Angers said. “Sunday’s pro football day. We’ll be mobbed. It’ll have to be Monday. You do these things at night, right? Monday night, here in this house.”
“Impossible,” Ed said, more out of irritation than anything else. “I happen to know Ms. Verone has an important dinner meeting on Monday night. Perhaps Tuesday night. I’ll have to check with her and see what her schedule is for the week.”
Like all controlling people, Angers wasn’t pleased at being crossed, but he agreed, then added, “Actually, Monday’s no good for me either, anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking. This thing has got me all up in the air. I forgot about Monday Night Football. It’s only one game, but still. Call me when you’ve got the thing set up,” he said, then he turned and walked out, leaving the front door open behind him.
“Cool,” was Dobbs’s only comment once the man was gone.
“You liked him?” Ed asked, surprised.
“Not a chance. I mean cool, the séance is going to be on Halloween.”
“Oh. I hadn’t noticed.” Somehow, the thought made Ed uncomfortable.
“That won’t interfere with anything, will it? I mean it being Halloween? It should make things easier, I would’ve said. The veil between the living and the dead being at its thinnest. Is that true, by the way?”
“I’ve never specifically tested the theory,” Ed said. “In my younger days, my expectations always rose around All Hallow’s Eve, but empirical evidence never lived up to the hype. I’ve come to believe that Halloween traditions are based more on a population’s fears for themselves, and not fear of the dead. Based on simple instinct, I believe all Western societies have had a tradition of foreboding at harvest time, when the lea
n months are coming and the earth becomes cold and indifferent to warm, living things. They celebrate an abundance of food while they can, forcing themselves to display a kind of false joy, while their inner foreboding never lets them forget that in the winter months, death is always near.”
“I think it’s just a spooky time of the year,” Dobbs said happily. “I love Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday.”
“It’s hardly a holiday,” Ed commented quietly. “Or even a festival. It’s an observance – of a good harvest or a poor one, promising either survival or starvation in the frigid months ahead.”
“Yeah, I suppose you could take it that way. I wonder if we’ll keep getting interrupted by trick-or-treaters. We’d better make it really late at night, after they’re all off the streets. Anyway, it’s funny how it had to be Halloween, because Ms. Verone is busy. Like it was fate. I didn’t realize you two were so close that you knew her schedule right off the top of your head.”
“We are friends as well as colleagues. And that particular meeting is extremely important, at least to me. She invited me over for dinner.”
Dobbs laughed. “You get a break from peanut butter sandwiches, is that it?” When Ed looked up at him, he said, “Your reputation precedes you. Everybody knows you live on peanut butter. I even tried living on the stuff for a week, thinking that’s how you keep yourself focused. All it did was give me indigestion.”
Dismissing the young man’s silliness, Ed walked to the threshold and closed the front door. He was back to thinking about the man they’d just met. In Ed’s experience, women were much more likely to come to him for professional services, and generally speaking, men were dismissive of séances. They wanted instrument-heavy, on-the-hoof investigations, not quiet evenings holding hands around a table.
Ed always tried to keep an open mind about people, especially after having just met them, but he already didn’t like Roy Angers.
* * * * *
By seven o’clock that evening, Ed had decided that the most important skill he needed to teach his new pupil was the ability to shut up.
Dobbs followed Ed around Jessamine’s house giving voice to every thought, question or feeling the moment it came into his head, until Ed realized that the only way he was going to be able to make notes – or even think – was to get entirely away from Dobbs for a while. The kid was wearing him out.
Darkness had fallen by then. Ed had specifically requested use of the house 24/7 so he could keep Dobbs there and out of his own house, and now he silently congratulated himself on his foresight.
“You’ll be spending the night here alone, Dobbs,” Ed told him firmly. “I need to go home and get some work done in my office.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“No, of course not.”
“Do you have any assignments for me?” He didn’t wait for Ed to answer. “I think I should just – you know – feel. Don’t you? Like, try to feel if anybody’s here. Open myself up to it.”
“Excellent plan,” Ed said, no longer caring what Dobbs did. He was gazing around the house. His daylight impressions had stayed with him. In his professional experience, habitats took on a different tone after dark. Cozy homes became dark caves. Idyllic woods became scenes out of horror movies. But this house, in sunshine and in moonlight, simply pulsed around him, regarding itself, regarding him. It was aware, somehow.
“I know!” Dobbs said, watching as Ed packed his satchel. “Why don’t you leave the Full-Spectrum Clarifier with me; let me have a crack at it. I think I should be able to work it,” he added, reaching for it.
Ed picked it up and settled it into its nesting place in his spy satchel. “Not tonight. I’d like to be here to observe, or have you observe and record my dictation as I use it.”
“Hey, why not stick around and we can make a sweep with that thing right now, whaddaya say?”
“Not tonight.” He lowered his shoulders and faced Dobbs. “I’m tired. I was unprepared for a full day of field work. I’m going home. You’ll have to drive me; we came in your car.”
“Yeah, okay, sure, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ll carry the satchel. Man, that really is a cool satchel,” he said winningly.
“Thanks.”
Dobbs drove Ed home, and Ed managed to keep him out of the house entirely.
Leaving Dobbs in the driveway turned out to be a mistake, though, and leaving Dobbs alone in Jessamine’s house that night, frisky and ready to go, turned out to be an even greater mistake, but at the time, Ed wouldn’t have cared even if he’d known. Once inside his own home, he stood absolutely still in the foyer, holding his really cool satchel and letting the peace and quiet seep into every pore.
He decided not to call Taylor about the séance right away. Either she’d do it or she wouldn’t; either way, he didn’t care. People usually had plans on Halloween night so she might not even be available. He wouldn’t think about it now; he’d just explain the situation to her at dinner Monday night.
After that, spiritually refreshed, he transcribed his notes and recorded a few impressions, but in total he only spent about an hour and a half in his office. Then he went to bed and slept soundly while all hell broke loose at Jessamine’s house.
Chapter 11
Dawn broke in all its glory, seeming to know it was a Sunday, when people rest from their labors and think pious thoughts. Ed greeted it on his lanai, alone with his coffee and peanut butter on toast. Life was good.
Then Trixie came to the fence and hallooed.
“I wanted you to come over last night, but Dobbsy wouldn’t let me call you. He said you were tired. I shoulda gone ahead and called you anyway. We had such a good time!”
Ed closed his eyes.
“I showed him those news reports I DVR’d,” she continued. “Wanna come over and see them now? I made muffins. Are you eating peanut butter again? Ed?”
“If Mr. Dobbs has viewed the news reports, he can record his notes on what he’s learned, if anything, and submit them to me later,” Ed said.
“Well, all right, but if I had an assistant, I wouldn’t let him find things out before I did.”
“What are assistants for,” Ed asked, “if not for doing the drudge work?”
She cackled evilly. “You call that drudge work? He was at my house until 11:30. We killed off two bottles of wine, a frozen pizza and four servings of Banana Delight.”
Ed stilled himself. He loved Banana Delight; it was among the many treats Trixie was always bringing over to him, and it was far and away the best. It had a cookie crust, a pudding-and-fresh-banana filling and mounds of whipped cream on top. Sometimes she put a dusting of ground nuts on top of the whipped cream. Cold, creamy and divine. Still, he was glad he hadn’t been there. One could only take so much of Dobbs, and even less of Trixie.
But after hearing about their evening together, Ed was impressed with Dobbs’s stamina. He’d driven from Chattanooga to St. Augustine the night before, participated in an all-day ghost hunt, binge-watched TV and noshed around Trixie’s house until almost midnight, then he’d driven back to Paradise Island (unless Trixie still had him in her house somewhere) to face the night alone with a ghost. Ed couldn’t remember ever being that young.
“You’re going back to Jessamine Pissarro’s house today, right?” Trixie was saying.
“Yes.”
“You can take along the leftover Banana Delight, and you and Dobbsy can finish it up after lunch. You do let the poor kid have a lunch break, don’t you?”
Ed waited while she went back into the house for the Banana Delight, thinking at least the day would have one bright spot.
He really was fond of Banana Delight.
* * * * *
Ed drove to Paradise Island feeling remarkably blank. Ed had the kind of brain that was never at rest, and the cool ease of an empty mind left him totally unprepared for what awaited him at Jessamine’s house.
The guard had been cordial and efficient, the neighborhood was quiet, and the sun was stil
l feeling gentle. The weather was unseasonably warm for late October, and Ed had the Metro’s window rolled down with his elbow resting at the bottom edge of it. When he pulled up close to Jessamine’s house, he quietly sighed. He wasn’t even upset. Somehow, it had been inevitable.
The Haunt or Hoax? van was parked in the driveway, its pop-art skin practically screaming, and in all probability Teddy’s Austin-Healy was sitting in the garage alongside Dobbs’s generic bonger.
The little traitor must have called them.
Ed quickly drove around the block and parked the car where it couldn’t be seen from Jessamine’s house.
When Dobbs answered his cellphone, Ed heard laughter in the background. And barking. They’d even brought the dog.
“Hey, Ed, where are you? I thought you were going to be here this morning. Listen, you’ll never believe who showed up!”
“Did you call them?” Ed asked grimly.
While Dobbs tried to field that one, Teddy asked if that was Ed on the phone and grabbed it.
“Great work, Ed, it’s perfect!”
“Good morning, Teddy. I’m afraid I won’t be able to be there today. I have an emergency to attend to. I’ll check in with you later.”
“Cute. I just saw you drive by the house.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Oh, you think there are any other 1991 alien-green Geo Metros on the road these days?”
There was wild laughter behind Teddy’s voice, along with remarks that Ed was glad he couldn’t make out.