Ghost at Work

by Carolyn Hart

  It was time to set her straight. “I am here. At least, I am here for the moment. Don’t be frightened. I want to help you.” I couldn’t resist a small complaint. “I had rather thought you’d stay long enough to assist me in the cemetery.”

  Her eyes were huge. “There was a light in the mausoleum and voices and I was scared. I didn’t think you were there.”

  I understood she might have felt abandoned. “Some boys on a Halloween prank. I couldn’t let them take Maurice’s greyhound.”

  She watched me uneasily. “You sound as though you knew him. Maurice, not the dog.”

  “Everyone knew Maurice and Hannah.” I wouldn’t claim intimacy. The Pritchards were one of the first families of Adelaide.

  “Sure. Of course.” She spoke soothingly, as if to a child describing an encounter with Martians. “Right.”

  I almost took issue, but time would prove my claim and Kathleen would offer a suitable apology for doubting me. “All’s well that ends well.” I was willing to be charitable. “Did you put the wheelbarrow in the shed?”

  Kathleen shuddered. “I put it up and pushed the button inside to lock the door. I folded up the tarp and put it out there.” She bent her head toward the porch. “I’ll never use it again. Never—”

  “Steady.” I reached out to pat her arm, but she moved away.

  “All right.” Her tone was resigned. “You know everything, so you must really be here.” She still faced me with her hands raised, palms out. Not a welcoming gesture. “If you’re here, who are you?”

  That was a reasonable question. A woman has every right to know the identity of a guest—especially an unexpected guest—in her kitchen. The difficulty was in knowing how much to say. Whip quick, I decided a long-winded explanation of my history and connection to Adelaide was surely unimportant. I matter-of-factly announced, “I’m Bailey Ruth Raeburn.”

  The effect was amazing. Kathleen’s eyes widened. She appeared to be having difficulty breathing.

  I put my hands on my hips, possibly in a confrontational manner. “For Heaven’s sake, what’s wrong with you now?”

  She struggled for breath. The words came in uneven spurts. “…crazy…has to be all in my mind…she’s dead…that’s Grandmother’s sister…” Then, angrily, “Why are you impersonating my grandmother’s sister?”

  I flung myself toward her, wrapped my arms around stiff shoulders. “You’re Kitty’s granddaughter? How wonderful.” Finally I loosed my embrace of her rigid body. “Kathleen, your grandmama would be mighty upset to know you were treating me this way.”

  “You’re too young.” Her tone was accusing.

  What sweet words. “I’m me. As I was.” And will always be. Odd to think that on earth though wrinkles had come and a sprinkling of silver in my hair and an occasional pang that our time here was fleeting, I’d still, deep within, been fresh and new. Now that was the me Kathleen saw. I wondered how the world would be if no one judged anyone else on the basis of age. Perhaps I could write a letter to the editor…Oh, Wiggins would deplore a public statement. I’d have to mull this over, but for now Kathleen must be persuaded. “My dear, take my word for it. You see, Heaven has no calendar for anyone.”

  She squinted at me. “You do look like an old picture of Grandmother’s sister.” Kathleen looked wily. “How did you die?”

  “A storm in the Gulf. Bobby Mac and I went down in the Serendipity.”

  She folded her arms. “You could have looked that up somewhere.”

  “My dear, you have such a suspicious nature. If you have any doubt about who I am, Kitty always had a cat named Spoofer. It didn’t matter whether that cat was black or white or tortoiseshell, that cat was Spoofer. I don’t know where anyone would look that up.”

  Kathleen swallowed, said jerkily, “Spoofer.”

  “The last Spoofer”—I was emphatic—“was all black except she had white whiskers and a white throat and tummy and four white paws. And she bit.”

  Suddenly there was a thump. I looked on the table. A huge black cat walked majestically toward us, yellow eyes gleaming.

  Kathleen waved weakly. “Get down, Spoofer.”

  I laughed aloud.

  Kathleen didn’t join in. Instead she walked unsteadily to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sank into it.

  I followed, settling on the opposite side of the table. How dear of Wiggins to send me to help Kitty’s granddaughter. I hoped I was scheduled to stay for a while. Since I was still here, there must be more for me to do. Perhaps I was expected to offer reassurance, though so far my appearance had not appeared to afford Kathleen any pleasure. “We’re family. Now—”

  The phone rang.

  Kathleen popped up and grabbed the little phone. She glanced at the tiny window and smiled. She was genuinely pretty when she looked happy. She answered with a lilt. “Bill.” As she listened, the smile fled. “Sure. I know. Of course. Try to grab something to eat.” Her shoulders sagged. She walked back to the chair, dropped into it. “Sure. See you.” She clicked off the phone, set it on the table. “Whenever.” She buried her face in her hands. Her body sagged in sad resignation.

  “What’s wrong?” I would have liked to give her a hug, but I didn’t want to see her cringe.

  She dropped her hands, pulled a Kleenex from her pocket, swiped away tears. “I wouldn’t cry except everything’s so awful. And I can’t even tell him—”

  I scooted forward in my chair. “Who’s Bill?”

  “How can you know all about Grandmother and not know who Bill is?” Her eyes glinted with suspicion.

  I took a deep breath and launched into my narrative. I tried to be cogent, though she looked bewildered about Wiggins and the Rescue Express, but finally she seemed to understand.

  Huge brown eyes stared at me. “You’re a ghost.”

  “Shh.” I looked warily around. Wiggins would not be pleased. In fact, I had the strangest feeling that he was quite near, his walrus mustache quivering in indignation. That was absurd. I mustn’t get nervy. Perhaps Kathleen’s uneasiness was affecting me.

  Kathleen hunched in her chair, her eyes huge. “I don’t believe in ghosts. Huh-uh.”

  “I am an emissary.” That was Wiggins’s line, and I was stuck with it.

  “If you’re dead and you’re here”—Kathleen thumped the table—“you are a ghost.”

  “All right, ghost it is.” I spoke soothingly. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m a ghost or emissary.” Why did I feel a sudden chill? “The point is that I am here to rescue you from an almighty mess.”

  Kathleen rubbed her face with the tissue. “Mess. That’s what it is. A great big mess. Your Wiggins had it right when he said I was in dire straits. I am definitely in dire straits even if it sounds like an episode from The Perils of Pauline.”

  I clapped my hands. “Mama loved Pearl White. Mama said she had the most expressive eyes and great grace and style. Mama showed us pictures. I loved the hairstyles then, those soft puffy curls. Pauline was so daring. I hope I can do half as well.”

  Kathleen closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, shook her head. “Spoofer and The Perils of Pauline and a body on the back porch.” Her smile was strained, though she tried to be gracious. “I appreciate your good intentions, Bailey Ruth, but maybe…” She looked yearningly at the back door. “Maybe you can go on back to wherever you came from now. Everything will be all right now that Daryl’s gone.” She pressed fingers against her cheeks. “Except somebody brought him here. That scares me. What if they know—” She broke off, her expression distraught.

  I began to suspect my task wasn’t done. What could be known about Kathleen and a man whose body had been dumped on her back porch? “Know what?” I didn’t have two red-haired children to no avail. Anybody who can survive the teenage travails of two redheads can worm the truth out of anyone. I fixed a commanding eye on Kathleen.

  I saw the desire to jump and run, and I saw her shoulders slump. I doubt she quite articulated her thought, but, clear
ly, wherever she went, I could go and no doubt would.

  She drew a ragged breath. “—about me and Daryl Murdoch at his lake cabin Wednesday. Or about Raoul. What if Daryl wrote something down? It would be just like him. I don’t care what I say, nobody will ever believe nothing happened. Bill would be so hurt. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with Raoul except it’s always the same old story.” She pointed at the phone. “Bill calls and he can’t come home for dinner. Tonight he’s at the hospital. Old Mr. Worsham is dying and he’s with the family. I understand. But if it isn’t the hospital, it’s a vestry meeting or the finance committee or a Lions Club dinner or somebody who needs counseling or…” Tears trickled down pale cheeks. “It’s always something for somebody and never for me. I know it’s wonderful he can be rector of such a fine old church—”

  Of course. Bill was the rector of St. Mildred’s. That made everything clear.

  “—but he never has a free minute. He spends more time with other people’s kids than he ever does with Bayroo—”

  I had to interrupt. “That’s such an interesting name. What is its origin?”

  “Oh, that’s funny.” She was laughing and crying at the same time. “Bayroo is Bailey Ruth. After you. She was born on your birthday, and when Grandmother heard she had red hair, she asked me please to name her after you. Bayroo couldn’t say Bailey Ruth when she was little, just the beginnings of both names. She’d say ‘Bai Ru,’ and we started calling her Bayroo.”

  “And it stuck.” I tried not to sound too proud. No wonder I felt such empathy with Bayroo. And here was her mama, Kitty’s granddaughter, in about the direst straits possible. Obviously, I had my work cut out for me. “Bayroo looks like a happy girl.”

  Kathleen used both hands to wipe her cheeks. She sat up straight. “So why am I such a mess?”

  I was crisp. “Don’t take everything personally.”

  She flared right back. “I didn’t know ‘for better or worse’ meant always taking second place to the church. Bill’s wonderful. He’s good and kind and funny and sweet. That’s why I fell in love with him. But he never takes time for himself and that means he never takes time for me.”

  I looked at her kindly. “Which brings us, I expect, to Daryl and Raoul.” I fervently hoped there had not been a romantic entanglement with Daryl Murdoch. I remembered that Errol Flynn mustache. Surely Kathleen had better taste. As yet, I knew nothing about Raoul, though I had some suspicions.

  Her mobile lips drooped. “I felt up to here”—she chopped the edge of her hand at her throat—“with the ECW and the Altar Guild and Winifred Harris, though I know she’s a nasty exception. Most of them are old dears who are as kind as can be. Sweet Mrs. Douglas keeps bringing me cherry pies. She knows I’m blue and she thinks a cherry pie solves everything. Sadie Marrs brings by the nicest clothes from her shop”—she touched her turtleneck—“in exactly my size and insists they were used in a style show so of course she can’t sell them and they are as good as new and of course they are new and she knows we don’t have a dime and she thinks pretty outfits will get Bill’s attention. Sometimes I think everybody in town knows I’m a church widow. If I were a golf widow, I could learn to play the game, but what can I do about the church?”

  I understood. The rector of a small church has to do practically everything himself and works from dawn to midnight. His wife is always onstage. As for Mrs. Harris, I knew the type. I’d dealt with a few overbearing ladies in my years at the church. I remembered, with a distinct lack of charity, Jolene Baker, who never thought anyone could iron the linens as well as she and didn’t mind saying so.

  Kathleen looked forlorn. “Bayroo’s busy as can be. That’s what I want for her, but the house is empty now most of the time. She’s in the choir and she plays tennis and soccer and half the time she’s having dinner with Lucinda, then going to the Baptist church because they have the biggest youth group in town. Friday night they’re having a Halloween skating party at the roller rink in their gym and tonight Bayroo’s at Lucinda’s helping plan our Spook Bash. It’s on Saturday from four to eight. Last night she went to the youth meeting with Lucinda. There are some on the vestry who don’t like the idea of the rector’s daughter going to the Baptist youth group on Wednesday nights.

  “Bill stood up to them and said he was glad Bayroo wanted to go and learn Scripture verses, and if they played games in the Baptist youth group and had fun, too, so much the better. He pointed out how he’d proposed building a youth center and the vestry hadn’t agreed. Daryl Murdoch was the main obstacle, insisting the church couldn’t afford that kind of expenditure even if the Goddard family was willing to put up the major portion of the cost.”

  The Goddards. That was an old name in Adelaide dating back to the time when the first oil field was discovered. How nice that some of the family still lived here and still served as patrons of the church. But we were getting rather far afield from Daryl and Raoul. Or Raoul and Daryl. “You were fed up. What did you do?”

  “I decided to take Spanish at the college—”

  One of Adelaide’s charms is Goddard, the four-year college established shortly after the city was founded, the land donated by the Goddard family. The campus is in the historic part of town not far from the rectory. Adelaide is hilly and Goddard’s ivy-twined, red-brick buildings spread over three hills.

  “—and Raoul Chavez was my teacher. He seemed to like me and I was one of the best students and we got into the habit of having coffee in the union.”

  “Handsome?” I pictured the young Anthony Quinn I’d seen in Turner Classic Movie reruns.

  She nodded. “He has a wonderful laugh.”

  “Single?” Did I need to ask?

  Another nod. “He told me he’d never met the right woman.” She bit her lip. “Until he met me.”

  I wished I could place my hands on each shoulder and give Kathleen a gentle shake. Or maybe I should get her a primer: Single Men Who Flirt with Married Women Are Up to No Good. “All of the fun and none of the bother.”

  She looked at me blankly.

  Kathleen was definitely naive for a girl who grew up in Chicago. “Of course he liked you. You were married and obviously at loose ends or why else take Spanish, and you probably had long soulful conversations over coffee about life, love, meaning, the universe, and his hand brushed yours and there were looks.”

  She was genuinely impressed. “Were you there?”

  I was startled when I realized she was serious. “No. I’ve just now been dispatched here. Had I been there, I would have spoken to you about the primrose path.”

  She blinked.

  The allusion didn’t register. I said gently, “Beware a stranger bearing gifts.”

  Her face crinkled in thought.

  I put it baldly. “He had designs on your virtue from the moment you walked into class. Flattering, of course.”

  She gasped. “But I thought—he was so reluctant—he said he knew we had no future—”

  Except, of course, for idyllic sweet-sorrow assignations at his apartment and no danger of entanglement.

  “—and he knew he’d always love me and we might have just a brief moment together—”

  “He invited you to his apartment one rainy afternoon, and when you came…”

  Her cheeks turned rosy red. “I walked in and looked at him and all I saw was Bill and Bayroo and I turned around and walked out.”

  “You felt cruel, leaving his wounded heart behind you, and you didn’t go back to class and dropped the course. But somehow Daryl Murdoch found out.”

  She was astonished. “How do you know this?”

  It wasn’t the moment to explain that I, too, had once been young and naive. I still had interesting memories and I’d learned to dance a dramatic tango. Ah, Latin men. I settled for a dictum: “A married woman must never trust a single man.” Or married ones, for that matter, but we couldn’t cover all the bases tonight.

  “I never will again. Oh, damn, I don’t know how I got into s
o much trouble.”

  The buzzer sounded on the oven. “The cornbread’s done.” She looked at the clock and abruptly jumped up, “I’ve got to eat something. The Bible study class will be here in about twenty minutes. The stew’s ready. But there’s nobody here to care.”

  “Not so.” To me, the succulent stew was a matter of great interest. “I’d love to have a bowl.” I thought under the circumstances I wasn’t being too forward to invite myself to dinner, though Mama had always been strict with us: “Don’t let me ever catch you kids asking for food at someone’s house. Wait till it’s offered.”

  Kathleen looked surprised. “Do you eat?”

  “When invited.” I grinned at her.

  She managed a smile. “I’ll move Bill’s plate—” She stopped, her face suddenly stricken, one hand holding the lid from the pot, as she stared at the table.

  I stared, too. All I saw were the place settings and, of course, that cunning small telephone.

  Emotions rippled over her face, recollection, shock, panic. “Daryl’s cell!”

  I was bewildered. Cell? Did he have monastic interests? Surely she’d not visited him in a cell. Was she confusing the mausoleum with a cell?

  She banged the lid back on the pot, whirled, and started for the back door. “I’ve got to get it. He took pictures of me when I was at the cabin, and if they find it and see, I’ll be in a terrible mess.”

  I plunged after her, grabbed her arm as she tugged at the door handle. “Cell? He isn’t in a cell.”

  She tried to wriggle free. “His cell phone. His cell takes pictures.”

  I made the connection. I’d heard the ring and even picked it up. How amazing. A little phone could take pictures? But it must be so. Nothing but the hideous reality of images captured in the phone would explain her panic.

  “Let go.” She yanked her arm free. “I have to get that phone or I’m ruined.”

  As the door banged open, I grabbed her hand. “The police are there.”

  She stumbled to a stop, her face despairing. “The police are there? Already? They’ve found him?”

  I explained about Marvin and Buzzy’s good citizenship. I glanced at the clock. “The police have been there a good twenty minutes now. The chief had just arrived when I left. They were expecting someone else.” I couldn’t remember. “Something about a laboratory.”