The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost)

by Sally Berneathy

  Her father laughed, a robust, hearty sound, and she found herself joining him, her laughter an echo of his. Charley was gone. Death, if not divorce, had parted them. She was free. It felt good.

  ***

  That evening at dinner her father sat at the head of the family dining room table with her mother at the other end, Jenny and "Davey" on one side and Amanda on the other.

  The oak table with seating for eight was her mother's idea of a cozy family table…as opposed to the rosewood version in the formal dining room that seated sixteen before the addition of leaves. Amanda had lived in this house all her life and had never found anything "cozy" in any of the fourteen—or maybe it was fifteen—rooms. Today was certainly no exception.

  "Lucinda." Even though her mother spoke in a soft voice, a young dark-haired girl in a uniform appeared from the kitchen.

  Beverly Caulfield's family had hired Hispanic help for many generations, and Amanda's mother was stolidly traditional. Fortunately, she was also gullible. Lucinda, a/k/a Linda, had Italian heritage. Her olive skin, dark hair and eyes qualified her for a job that allowed her time to attend college. In the beginning, she'd affected a Hispanic accent, but since the "help" was invisible to Beverly Caulfield, Lucinda had given up that disguise a year ago. Amanda liked her and wished her well, but would be sorry to see her graduate and leave. The looking for help times were always stressful for her mother, and her mother shared the stress with anyone and everyone around her.

  "My quiche is lukewarm. Could you please heat it for me?" Beverly Caulfield's gestures were slow and graceful, the silk fabric of her light green blouse flowing with her movements. She was slim and small-boned, her hair still dark brown, though Amanda suspected her hairdresser had a hand in that.

  "Mine needs to be warmed, too," Jenny said, leaning back so Lucinda could reach her plate. "Just a little bit. I don't like it so hot it burns my mouth, but just a little hotter would be perfect." She held thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. "Just this much." She giggled and fluttered.

  Her pale blue summer dress set off her delicate features perfectly. In appearance, she was a younger version of their mother, though Amanda couldn't imagine that their mother had ever fluttered or giggled.

  Lucinda took Jenny's plate, then looked at Emerson Caulfield whose quiche was already half-consumed. "I'm fine," he said, waving his fork.

  "I'm good," Davey added.

  "Me, too." After the cardboard hospital food, Amanda relished every bite of her lukewarm quiche, savoring the rich cheese and egg flavors.

  In stark contrast to the well-dressed members of her family, Amanda wore the faded jeans and tee shirt in which she'd tumbled down the mountain in Oklahoma. Her mother had sent a sedate, blatantly expensive, dress of raw blue silk with matching heels. Amanda refused to wear it.

  She wondered for the millionth time if the doctor had given her mother the wrong baby. The only thing that kept that from being a certainty in her mind was the knowledge that her mother, had she had any doubts, would surely have returned her in the same way she returned clothes, shoes and purses upon finding any minute flaw…and Amanda's flaws had always been much larger than minute.

  Lucinda returned with the quiches and set them in front of Beverly and Jenny.

  "I've spoken to the funeral home and made arrangements for Charley's funeral just as soon as they release the body," Beverly said. "I suppose we can use one of the family plots for him. He's still family." She gave a faint shudder, visible in the rippling silk of her sleeves, then took a bite of her quiche. "This is much better, Lucinda." Thus she disposed of Charley's body and the warmed quiche, events of equal importance, in one fell swoop.

  "I don't know what you've got planned," Amanda said, "but Charley would have hated an elaborate event with flowers and organ music and his body crammed into some suit he'd never have worn in life."

  Silence. Her comments often had that effect at family gatherings.

  "The civilities must be observed," her mother stated in a tone that allowed no argument.

  That tone had never stopped Amanda. She toyed with her salad, flipping a slice of cucumber to the side of the plate. "Charley wanted to be cremated." Okay, he'd never actually said that, but he might have if he'd ever considered the possibility of dying. "He wanted to be cremated, then have his ashes tossed…" A bar? A sleazy motel room? "…into the air," she finished lamely. "From a plane. So he can fly."

  More silence.

  She glanced at her dad.

  He met her gaze briefly, and in that instant she knew that he knew, but he also understood. "Then that's what we'll do," he said with finality.

  "Emerson!" Beverly exclaimed.

  "Daddy!" Jenny added her disapproval.

  "Would you pass the bread, Beverly?"

  Judge Caulfield had ruled in her favor…this time.

  That evening Amanda settled into the room where she'd grown up. It was cool and dark, the heavy curtains trapping the coolness inside and keeping the heat out. Those curtains also kept out the moonlight and the night sounds and any contact with the outside world. Amanda threw them open and lifted the window, then drew in a deep breath of the night air. She'd have to remember to close it in the morning or listen to a speech from her mother about the ills of dust and heat and insects.

  She took her cell phone from her purse and lay down across her old bed which was, she had to admit, a lot more comfortable than the hospital bed. Time for her daily check-in call with Dawson, her assistant at her motorcycle repair shop.

  "Everything's fine," he assured her. "We got a Honda Gold Wing in for some big time repairs. Looks like it got in a fight with a semi and lost. And I got another custom paint job." He spoke the last sentence with pride.

  As a part-time college student studying art and computer technology, Dawson Page had seemed an unlikely candidate when he'd applied for the job as her assistant. But he did own a motorcycle and had made minor repairs to his own bike, plus he was the only applicant with no missing teeth and no tobacco tin in his back pocket, so she'd hired him. He'd immediately become invaluable.

  "If I take off a couple more days, are you going to be able to handle it and keep up with your classes?"

  "Of course! You don't have that much business. I mean—"

  Dawson was blushing. Amanda didn't have to see him to know that, and the thought made her smile. She rather liked his tendency to say whatever popped into his mind. No filter between brain and mouth. Complete honesty.

  "It's okay," she assured him. "I know what you meant."

  "Take all the time you need. I've got everything here under control."

  "Great. You know where to reach me if you need me."

  "One thing, Amanda. Some guy called for you, and when I told him you weren't here, he wanted to know when you'd be back."

  "Oh? Well, if he calls again, give him my cell number."

  "I'm not sure that would be a good idea. He blocked his number so I couldn't see who was calling. I didn't like the sound of his voice. I think he might be one of Charley's…um…acquaintances."

  Damn! Even dead, Charley continued to cause problems. "You're right. Don't give him my cell phone number. I'll deal with him when I get there."

  She disconnected the call and lay back with a sigh. Was she never going to be completely rid of Charley? The cops thought she killed him, and somebody, probably somebody he'd conned, was looking for her.

  Who knew those two little words, "I do," would lead to so many nightmares?

  She slipped into an old T-shirt, settled into bed and was drifting off to sleep when a voice woke her with a start.

  He tried to kill you! He'll try again! You're in danger!

  She sat up, wide awake, heart pounding, peering around the room for the speaker.

  Oh, for goodness sake! she chastised herself, lying back down. Nobody's here. Nobody spoke. It was all in my mind, just like the first time. Charley didn't say that. And the stranger who called the shop was just somebody trying to get his
money back from me now that Charley's dead.

  But she got up and closed her bedroom window.

  ***

  Three days in the house where she grew up. Three days of eating good food, relaxing in air-conditioned comfort, sleeping on a plush mattress, and letting her body heal. Three days of listening to her mother and Jenny. Amanda was ready to run away from home.

  When she proclaimed herself completely healed and ready to go home, her father set up her interview with the police for the following day. The thought of being grilled by the cops felt infinitely preferable to being criticized by her mother for everything from her hair style to her unpolished toenails.

  The next day she prepared for her visit with the cops by putting on the dress and heels her mother had sent to the hospital, taming her red curls with a lot of hair goo and even putting on makeup. When she emerged from her bedroom, her mother smiled.

  "You look so pretty. You should wear a dress and do your makeup more often. Why don't you and Jenny and I go shopping tomorrow?"

  It was, Amanda thought, a nice gesture. Controlling, but nice. "Thanks, Mom," she said, "but I have a lot to do at the shop. Dawson needs a day off." And she needed to find out what the mysterious stranger wanted, the man who'd called anonymously a second time to check on her whereabouts. If it was somebody expecting to get back money Charley had taken from him, she'd tell him where he could go to find that money. "Are we ready, Dad?"

  "Brian should be here any minute."

  Brian. Her attorney. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney…

  Charley continued to cause problems.

  Brian arrived, and the three of them drove to the police station. Her father spoke to the receptionist, and they were led immediately to a room which was spectacularly mundane, nothing to suggest an appropriate place for the discussion of murder. The large rectangular space contained a rectangular table and five wooden chairs that echoed the rectangular theme.

  Based on her knowledge of police stations, such knowledge gathered entirely from television crime shows, Amanda assumed the mirrored wall was a one-way mirror through which various detectives would be watching the interrogation, looking for signs of guilt. The room smelled of old wood and stale sweat and gave her the creeps in spite of its ordinary composition.

  Amanda fell into one of the scarred wooden chairs with her father on one side and her lawyer on the other. Protected. Surrounded by her own personal warriors.

  In spite of all that, sitting in the creepy rectangular room, she had an uneasy feeling, as if she were hanging over the side of a cliff with a brutish cop stepping on her fingertips.

  Ridiculous, she chided herself. This wasn't a television crime show with "good cop, bad cop" characters trying to bully an innocent person into confessing to something she hadn't done. This was real life where the cops only wanted to ferret out the facts, discover the truth, find out what really happened.

  The door opened, slammed back against the wall, and the bad cop strode inside.

  Chapter Four

  Amanda flinched. So did the man who stood in the doorway. "Sorry," he said. "Guess somebody finally oiled those hinges."

  So maybe he wasn't the bad cop. All Amanda's knowledge of good cops/bad cops also came from TV crime shows, but she was pretty sure bad cops didn't apologize for slamming a door.

  This guy didn't really look evil, either. He was tall, wore a rumpled shirt with a button missing, no tie and gray slacks that had seen better days. His brown hair was tousled and several weeks overdue for a visit to the barber. He was a few hours overdue for a shave, too. She probably would have liked the man had they met under different circumstances. But these were the only circumstances they had, and she was fairly certain this cop wasn't her friend.

  As if to negate his apology, he strode forcefully into the room, never taking his eyes off her face, slapped a file folder on the table then sat down across from Amanda.

  "Detective Jake Daggett," he said, his words clipped and no-nonsense.

  "Amanda Randolph," Brian said, nodding in her direction. "Her father, Judge Caulfield, and I'm her attorney, Brian Edwards."

  The detective nodded, pushed a hand through his already- mussed hair and opened his folder, studying the papers. "Mrs. Randolph, sorry about your loss."

  For an instant, Amanda thought he was commiserating with her on the loss of her motorcycle, and for that instant, she liked the man, almost smiled at him.

  Then he continued, "You were in the middle of a divorce, right?"

  Charley. Of course. That's who they were here to talk about.

  "We—" Amanda started to reply, but Brian cut her off.

  "That is correct."

  Detective Daggett did not seem to find this act of ventriloquism unusual. "You went to his apartment on the day of his death?" he asked.

  "I advise you not to answer that," Brian said.

  Daggett sighed and leaned back. "You went to his apartment on the day of his death." This time it was a statement, not a question. "The neighbors identified you. A lot of neighbors. They'd seen you there before. A lot of times."

  "They were going through a divorce," Brian said. "Communication was necessary."

  Amanda met the detective's gaze and shrugged. She didn't see any point in denying what was blatantly true. Judging from what she'd seen, most of Charley's neighbors were as gainfully unemployed as he and would, as soon as she appeared outside his door, sidle from their apartments, making no attempt to hide their interest in whatever she and Charley said. Cheap entertainment. They probably didn't have cable.

  "Loud communication," Daggett emphasized. "The neighbors said the two of you fought a lot, and you had a doozy on the day of Mr. Randolph's death. What were you fighting about that day?"

  "I advise you not to answer," Brian said.

  She glanced at her lawyer. His usually benign, boyish features were set in concrete. This was serious business. She could be going down for murder!

  "I didn't kill Charley!" she blurted.

  Brian shifted uncomfortably. Amanda's father patted her hand. "Nobody's saying you did, sweetheart."

  Daggett lifted an eyebrow. "Somebody killed him. Any idea who?"

  Amanda's head jerked in Brian's direction as if she expected him to protest her answering the question. He appeared to consider it, but remained silent.

  "Charley had a lot of enemies. He was always scamming somebody."

  "For instance?"

  Amanda threw up her hands. "You think he shared that information with me? Charley and I haven't been close lately, and even when we lived together, it's not like he brought these people home to dinner and introduced me."

  "Any information you can give us would be appreciated."

  "I wouldn't count on it. For instance, Jack Scott. A few months before I left Charley, this guy came to the door in the middle of the night. Charley went outside to talk to him. I could hear just enough to know they were arguing about money, and most of the time, it was my money Charley was throwing around, so I went out to join them. Introduced myself. Charley said the man's name was Jack Scott."

  Daggett was scribbling in his notebook. "Same man was there a couple of weeks later when I got home. Charley introduced him as Ben Parker."

  Daggett paused in his writing and looked up.

  Amanda shrugged. "I asked the man if he knew he had a twin named Jack Scott. He didn't answer. Most of Charley's acquaintances had no sense of humor."

  Daggett sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Okay, I get the picture, but we're going to need every name you can give us, whether it's a real name or not, descriptions of anybody you met, anything you know about Charley's business activities, legal or illegal. When you say scams, can you be more specific?"

  Amanda slid her gaze toward her father. He'd worked so hard for so long to hide Charley's activities from the world, but today he only gave her a slight nod.

  So. It was okay to have a member of the family involved in nefarious
activities if that member was dead.

  She exhaled in a long sigh, leaned back and prepared to trash Charley. Somehow this didn't feel as good as when she'd complained to friends, telling them in graphic detail about the outrageous things Charley had done.

  "Nothing huge," she told the detective. "Nothing you'd ever hear about on the ten o'clock news. But Charley had a certain charisma along with the ability to get into people's heads and figure out their dream, then offer that dream to them." She was only too familiar with that aspect of his personality.