That theory would certainly get my vote. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of orbs flying around my house at night, landing on me as I slept. Yikes.
“The next area we’d like you to look at is in the cupola area. The view from up there, by the way, is spectacular.”
“Yes. With eight windows facing in every direction, we can see for miles, well into the countryside and across the river into Canada,” I said.
A pair of what appeared to be junior investigators sat in the highest point of the house, one in an old midcentury-style armchair that Sophie had never been able to part with, it having belonged to her dead husband. The other guy sat in one of my dining room chairs that they must have dragged upstairs. The investigators got up and walked around, picking up some of the old books, theatrically blowing off the dust and looking at the covers. Some of Cal’s old toys were up there too. An anorexically thin bespectacled guy picked up a stuffed purple dinosaur and dangled it over the edge of the railing.
“How much will you pay me to drop him?” he clowned around. If the toy fell, it would drop three full stories, maybe four if they could aim him just right for the basement and avoid him bouncing off the railings below. This didn’t bother me much, as that talking critter was extremely annoying, but Cal had loved him and I felt defensive for her.
“I love you!” the toy said in its goofy cartoon voice as the dangler squeezed his tummy.
“I love you too!” The other guy cracked up. He picked up something from the table facing the upriver window and said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you fifty bucks if you drop him down into the basement and then drop this on him.”
“Hey, man, what is that thing anyway?”
“Dude, I don’t have any idea.” He fiddled with the round end, which spun around with an audible whizzing sound like the chamber of a gun being spun in a game of Russian roulette. “Looks like a telescope. Heavy. It’s too dark to look through it, though.”
I supposed this was just an act they put on for the show, but it wasn’t funny to me. I continued to stare at the screen, as Gary broke in. “Here’s what we wanted you to see. Watch over in this corner here.”
I didn’t see anything at first, but when the tape was replayed, an amorphous shadow drifted past the window.
“We don’t know what that is, if anything. There haven’t been any reports of apparitions here, have there?”
“No.”
“Despite many hours of tape shot all through this building, that is the only thing of interest we caught on video.”
Fine by me. Looked like a plain old shadow. Could have been cast by anything, and I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t paranormal. I breathed a little sigh of relief. This interview needed to be over, and soon. I had way too many things to think about.
“Next we’ll listen to the EVPs.”
“EVPs?”
“Electronic voice phenomena,” Gary explained. “Sometimes spirits communicate with us in ways that are not audible when they are happening, but they can be picked up by our recording equipment.”
“Oh.” I wished they’d hurry up. My foot started to jiggle, but I pressed my heel to the floor to stop it.
“Here we had our equipment set up in the staircase area,” Jerry went on. “We had several hours of audio to go through. We found something interesting.”
Gary pointed to the laptop screen, which was bisected by a white line. “Watch and listen.”
A crackly recording ensued and I could see the noise following the line on the screen. There was a spike and some kind of muffled sound. I couldn’t make it out.
“Did you hear that? I’ll play it again.”
I leaned forward and listened again. I shivered. The words were faint but audible. Help me. Free.
My blood ran cold and I imagine I was white as the ghost that apparently lived in my house. I could only hope the footage had been doctored for television and they would let me in on the joke later.
“What do you think it’s saying?” Jerry prompted.
I swallowed hard. “It sounds like, ‘Help me. Free.’” My voice was not much more than a whisper.
“That’s what we heard too.”
“Based on the evidence we’ve been able to capture with our recording equipment,” Jerry said, “I honestly believe that you’ve got some paranormal activity going on here.”
Gary put a reassuring hand on my arm. “I know this is surprising, but we don’t think there is any reason for you, your family, your staff, or your customers to be worried. We think that whatever is here is benign, simply a soul trapped for some reason and asking for help to be set free.”
Jerry said, “We asked the spirit to forget his trouble and to look toward the light and pass on from this world. Hopefully, we’ve been able to help him.”
I nodded. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to this, so I just said, “Thank you.” I hoped I didn’t look as dumb and inarticulate as I felt.
Jerry and Gary stood up and I shook their hands in turn.
“Thank you for letting us investigate the Bonaparte House,” Jerry said. “If anything else happens, or you feel uncomfortable in any way, just give us a call. We’d also like to talk to your husband about his experiences when he returns.”
I hesitated, only for a moment. “I’ll ask him to call you when he comes back.” If he comes back, I thought.
“Again,” Gary concluded solicitously, “if we can do anything for you, just get in touch with us.” He handed me a DVD in a hard plastic case. “This is a video for you of parts of our investigation.”
“I have to say I’m surprised by what you’ve shown me,” I said, regaining some of my composure and recollecting that this was also a free advertising opportunity. “But I do hope you’ll come back sometime and enjoy Bonaparte Bay with your families.” I smiled. Whether it looked sincere, I’d just have to wait and see. It didn’t feel that way.
“We may just do that. Bye, now.”
“Cut!” one of the camera operators yelled from somewhere. Almost immediately cords were rolled up and equipment was moved out.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Guys, feel free to pack up your things and then come back in for a meal, on the house, before you leave for downstate.” This would irritate Sophie to no end, but our customers would enjoy it. I opened up both sets of pocket doors to the other dining rooms and instructed the server filling in as hostess tonight to start seating the patrons lined up outside. News travels fast in a village this size, even among tourists.
I closed the door to the relative sanctuary of my office and sat down. I poured myself a glass of red wine even though I was technically still on duty. The delicious liquid coated my throat and moved down my esophagus and into my stomach, where it made a warm and comforting pool in my belly. Some brandy might have been nicer, but I would have had to go to the bar for that. I did not want to see anybody until I had had a chance to unwind a little.
A ghost in my house? Sophie and Spiro’s house, I amended. I had to acknowledge the idea that this place had a secret life of its own, independent of the Nikolopatos family. It apparently harbored both a treasure and a ghost, like some creepy hulking edifice in a Victorian gothic novel. I was a bit older than the typical ingénue heroine, I thought ruefully, and I was more or less confident that a cloaked villain was not going to appear on the scene and whisk me away somewhere. Although the way things were headed, I couldn’t rule that out.
The intercom buzzed and I started. “Georgie?” Sophie’s voice was sharp and accusatory. “Georgie, are you in there?” She was no doubt going to chastise me about the free meals I’d given away. It wouldn’t occur to her that the increase in business they had generated would more than make up for some gyros and a few orders of French fries. “Georgie!”
I ignored her.
The telephone rang and I looked at the caller ID. Keith Morgan. I took
another sip of the wine and picked up the receiver. “Hi, Keith.”
“Hi,” he said. “Hope I caught you at a good time.”
“I’ve had better days.” That was an understatement. “It’s good to hear from you,” I said, and regretted it. I shouldn’t be encouraging him, but the friendly voice was a welcome relief.
“It’s good to hear you too.” I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Honey?” I wished he’d stop calling me that. “Have you found that business card? The one from the Coast Guard captain?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, warm and a little wrinkled. I’d intended to call Keith about this earlier, but had been waylaid by the television people.
“Yes, I have it.”
“Good. What’s the name on the card?”
“Captain Jack Conway, U.S. Coast Guard.” I read him the phone number.
“I don’t recognize that name at all. I’m going to see what I can find out. As I said before, he would have no reason to be looking into Big Dom’s death.”
“He wasn’t wearing a uniform when he came in.” I almost added, “Ask him about the cell phone he somehow stole from my desk,” but thought better of it. I wasn’t ready to confide in anyone yet about Spiro being taken unless it was the state police, who still hadn’t called me back. I didn’t want Spiro to be hurt, but I didn’t see how I could get him back without professional assistance.
“That might not mean anything. He might have been off duty, although if he was part of some official investigation, you’d think he would have been in uniform.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
The intercom buzzed again. “Georgie!” The voice was shrill and angry.
“I guess that’s my cue to go,” Keith said.
“I’ve been avoiding Sophie, but I guess I’m going to have to respond sooner or later, so I may as well get it over with.”
There was a slight pause. “Georgie, would you like to come over for a nightcap or a decaf after the restaurant closes tonight?”
“Uh, I’ll have to see how things go. Can I call you later and let you know?”
“Sure.” He sounded hopeful. “Please say yes.”
“I’ll call you later. Bye, Keith.”
“Bye, honey.”
The intercom buzzed for a full three seconds. “Georgie, I’m coming in there right now!”
EIGHT
I slurped down the rest of the wine and stowed the glass under the desk just as Sophie came barging in the door.
“Why you no answer me?” she asked indignantly.
“I was on the phone.” None of your business, I wanted to add, but refrained. I’d found over the years that the best way to deal with her when her feathers were ruffled was to stay calm, and she would eventually settle down.
“I know,” she said blackly. “And I know who you been on the phone with too!”
Something in me snapped. I was tired and it had been one hell of a day. I felt a flash of anger at the thought that she’d been listening in on the kitchen phone.
“I saw his name on that ID caller.” That would explain her knowing who I was speaking to, but I still wouldn’t put it past her to listen in.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Her hazel eyes flashed.
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I knew this conversation would come someday. “Sophie, I love you. You know that. I’ve done everything you asked of me and more since I’ve known you, and I’ve been happy to do it. Spiro and I loved each other once and we produced a beautiful daughter. But we haven’t had a real marriage in years. Callista is a grown woman and understands the . . . situation with her father. If I am having an affair with Keith, or anybody else, it’s my business. Okay?” I didn’t stand up to her often, and it felt good.
She looked deflated and sighed. “Georgie, I love you too.” She dropped the subject of Keith. “Have you heard anything about Spiro yet?”
“I checked the bank statements. He withdrew twenty-three thousand dollars from your account a few days ago, his car is gone, and nobody has seen him since. But you knew that.”
She squirmed, almost imperceptibly, but I’d known her long enough to recognize the signs. She was holding something back.
“What else, Sophie?”
She fidgeted for a moment and then said, “There’s more money missing.”
I thought so. “From where?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew.
“From the cash box.”
She kept a metal box full of bundles of cash under some loose floorboards beneath her ornate four-poster bed upstairs. As far as I knew, only Sophie, Spiro, and I were aware of it.
“How much is gone?”
“All of it.” She sighed and sank down in the goose down armchair next to the desk. “All of it,” she repeated. “Fifty-six thousand dollars. I don’t know what we will live on this winter.”
For crying out loud. The woman had piles of money both in U.S. currency and in various bank accounts in Switzerland and Greece, where the cost of living was much, much lower. The—how much would that be?—seventy-nine thousand dollars wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket compared to her net worth. It was of course a considerable amount of money, but she would hardly be eating cat food out of cans next winter as she looked out over the Aegean Sea from her veranda.
“We’ll manage.” I patted her arm.
“He’d better not be spending it on his—his . . . mimbos!”
Male bimbos. I stifled a laugh. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
“No.”
That may or may not have been true. She could be secretive when it suited her.
“Have you gotten any letters, or messages, or strange phone calls lately, Sophie?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Just wondering. Anything that might help us find Spiro.”
“No.”
I thought about my interview with the NYPI team. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“What did those guys find?” she asked, her voice rising. Was she afraid of the supernatural, or was there something else she didn’t want them to uncover?
I tried to be noncommittal, though I had no idea how she’d react to the news of our being haunted. “Oh, they picked up some noises with their equipment—they couldn’t explain it.”
“They ate a lot of food and drank a lot of booze,” she said petulantly. “That skinny one drank five martinis.”
“They brought in a lot of business.”
“Maybe, but the show won’t be on until after we close for the season, and what good will that do us?”
“Sophie, I should get back to the kitchen. Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a bit? You look tired.” I checked my watch. “I recorded The Desperate and the Defiant.”
“You know I don’t watch that trash,” she admonished. I happened to know that she did, most every day, and had figured out how to run the DVR by herself so she wouldn’t miss her favorite soap opera. She rose and I stood up to hug her, kicking over my wineglass, which rolled out between us.
She looked down and then back up at me disapprovingly. “Georgie.” She shook her head.
* * *
Everything seemed to be under control in the kitchen. Our perma-specials, prime rib and lobster, would be joined tonight by my version of Chicken Marengo, said to be Napoleon’s favorite dish, now simmering away in a giant pot on the big commercial burners lining the back wall. We Greeked it up by substituting olive oil for the butter, Kalamatas for the traditional black olives, and Metaxa 7 Star for the cognac, and served it with a side of fragrant rice pilaf to soak up the savory tomato-based sauce. Napoleon’s original dish featured fried eggs and crayfish in the stew. We made the eggs optional for our guests and added shrimp at the last minute.
I dipped a clean
spoon into the clam chowder pot for a quality control test. It was delicious, as always, creamy and full of chunky clams and potatoes. We served New England style here, none of that red Manhattan stuff. Even though it was the middle of summer, evenings got chilly here and the chowder was always a good seller.
I pulled the big latch, opened the walk-in refrigerator, and was greeted by a blast of cold air. Russ started and nearly choked on the fluffy cloud of whipped cream he was spraying from a can into his mouth.
“Russ, I hope you weren’t planning to use that for tonight’s desserts.” We kept the canned stuff for making fancy chocolate milks for children but made hand-whipped heavy cream topping for our desserts.
He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Uh, no. I keep this one aside special. See, I put my name on it.” He showed me where he’d conscientiously marked the side with “Russ.”
“You’re not doing whip-its in here, are you?”
“No, the can’s full, see?” He shook it and I could hear the liquid sloshing around inside.
“Keep it that way. And put that can someplace where people aren’t going to grab it by mistake.”
I realized that I was starving, so I left the walk-in and scooped myself a bowl of the chowder, topped it with a sprinkle of oyster crackers, and went down to the bar for a Diet Coke and a slice of lemon. I carried my small meal into my office and sat down at the desk, arming aside papers to clear a space big enough to set down the tray. I would need to be quick to get back out to the dinner service, since Sophie was still upstairs. I moved my laptop over to the desk’s return and swiveled my chair to face it as I booted up.
I called up my e-mail and saw that there was yet another message from my anonymous correspondent. I double-clicked and found the same message as the written note I’d received earlier, still with no identifying information.
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