Ghost Walk

by Melissa Bowersock

  “Yeah, well, people move on,” he said. He busied himself behind the counter, shuffling papers.

  “That’s true, they do,” she agreed. “I’m just wondering if there might be some people around who were friends of Doug’s, people who cared about him, and who might care if it came out that his death wasn’t actually an accident.”

  Frank looked up sharply. “What are you saying?”

  Lacey shrugged. “Nothing. Just that there are some… anomalies around his death. That maybe it didn’t happen the way it was reported.”

  Frank’s eyes searched her face. She didn’t flinch, just met his stare with her own calm confidence.

  He blinked first. He turned his head and stared out the back windows at the ocean.

  “I might, uh…” He seemed to be wrestling with himself. Lacey wondered if she could say anything else to tip him, but decided to let him struggle.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said finally. “I’ll be right back.” He ducked through a door into a back room. Lacey watched as he went to a desk and picked up a phone, flipped through a Rolodex and then punched in a number. He stood with his back to her, talking softly. She lounged against the counter, allowing her gaze to drift around the opulent room as she waited.

  She heard his footsteps as he returned. “Would you like to take a seat?” he asked.

  She turned and smiled as if she had all the time in the world. “Certainly,” she said.

  “Someone, uh, will be… with you shortly.”

  “I’ll be right over here,” she said. She motioned to the plush chairs angled toward the ocean view. At Frank’s nod, she walked over and made herself comfortable.

  After fifteen minutes, she started to worry. Maybe whoever it was got cold feet? She was just thinking about going back to Frank when she heard the front door open.

  A very put-together woman, mid-forties, walked in. She pulled off sunglasses and smiled tightly at Frank, then walked unerringly to Lacey.

  “Miss Fitzpatrick?” she queried.

  “Yes.” Lacey stood and offered her hand. The woman shook tepidly, her manicured fingertips exerting no pressure whatsoever. She was taller than Lacey, slender in her straight skirt and silk blouse.

  “I’m Dina Holcomb,” she said. “I understand you’re investigating Doug Addison’s death?” She took the other chair and set her purse aside.

  “Yes, that’s right. There are some inconsistencies that I’m hoping to rectify.”

  “What sort of inconsistencies?” Dina asked.

  Lacey evaded the question. “How well did you know Doug?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “We were friends. We’d often work out in the exercise room together. Keep each other motivated, you know?”

  Lacey itched to get out her notepad and a pen but decided to forego that. Keep it friendly, she thought. “Did you know his wife, too?” she asked.

  Dina’s eyes dropped to her lap where she picked at a piece of invisible lint. “Yes. Not well, but I knew her.”

  “She didn’t exercise with Doug?” Lacey asked, knowing the answer.

  Dina shook her head. “No.” The hazel eyes searched Lacey’s face, direct yet hooded.

  Lacey hunched forward in her chair and dropped her voice to a confidential tone. “Did he ever mention problems they were having?”

  Dina pulled in a breath. “Problems?”

  “Yes. Fights? Disagreements?”

  “Well,” Dina said, looking away. “All couples have disagreements.”

  “Yes, they do,” Lacey agreed. “But they don’t normally end in death.”

  Dina swiveled her head sharply back to Lacey. “You think she killed him?”

  “Would it surprise you?” Lacey asked.

  Dina stared out at the ocean again, watched the waves break on the perfect white sand beach. Finally she turned back to Lacey. “Yes,” she said. “It would.”

  “Why?”

  “She loved him,” she said simply. “She put up with a lot from him, but she would never leave him.”

  Lacey relaxed back in her chair. “What did she put up with?”

  More invisible lint. “He was, uh… He played around.”

  “A lot?” Lacey asked.

  An almost imperceptible nod. “Yes. Constantly. He couldn’t help himself. If any woman showed an interest in him, he just… He couldn’t stop himself.”

  Lacey could guess at the unspoken words that lurked behind that confession. “He cheated on you, too,” she said simply.

  Dina lifted her chin, but her eyes looked sad. “I’m married,” she said.

  Lacey dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “I’m not here to expose anyone except a possible murderer.”

  Dina held herself stiffly for a moment, then let out a long breath and eased back in her chair. “What do you want to know?”

  Now Lacey dug out her notepad. “When was the last time you saw him? Talked to him?”

  “That Wednesday. We met at the exercise room, as usual.”

  “What time was that?” Lacey held her pen expectantly.

  The woman hesitated slightly. “You won’t broadcast this?”

  Lacey shook her head.

  “We met at four p.m. He left here about six-thirty.”

  “This was the Wednesday before the accident? And the accident was Saturday night?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you know they were going to Catalina for the weekend?”

  Dina nodded. “Yeah, he told me. They went every few weeks.”

  “So you saw him Wednesday and then...?”

  “Didn’t see him again.” She looked down and smoothed a hand over her skirt.

  “Did you talk to him? Hear from him at all?”

  “I texted him on Thursday, asked if I’d see him before they left. He didn’t answer until Friday, which was unusual for him, but then he texted me back.”

  “What did he say?” Lacey asked.

  Dina hesitated a moment, then dug out her cell phone. “I’ve kept it on my phone. Don’t know why. You can read it.” She pulled up the message and handed the phone to Lacey.

  Busy as all get out. See you Monday. Toodles.

  “I just left it at that,” Dina said.

  Something tickled Lacey’s brain. She couldn’t grasp it right at the moment, didn’t want to break off from the interview to pursue it.

  “How did you hear about the accident?” she asked instead.

  “On the news. Sunday evening. I couldn’t believe it.”

  Lacey nodded as she wrote. “Was he a good sailor? Seaman?”

  “He was impeccable. Oh, I know he was full of himself, supremely over-confident, but he wasn’t foolhardy. When it came to safety, he didn’t take chances. I know that for a fact.”

  Lacey wrote a note to herself. It sounded like the two of them had sailed together as well. If she needed to come back to that, she would.

  “Were you surprised that they got caught by the weather?”

  “Actually, yes. The weather was perfect that weekend. Oh, anything can happen on the open water: rogue waves, weird gusts of wind. But, yes, it was a shock.”

  Lacey scanned her notes. What else? She doubled back. “Did you know they fought a lot?”

  Dina didn’t look up. “Yes. He told me. He wouldn’t quit tomcatting around, and I don’t think he went to great pains to hide it.”

  “Did she know about you?”

  Dina glanced out the window, cleared her throat. “I think so. He never said, but I got that feeling when I saw her.”

  “Did he ever say anything about her threatening him—in any way?”

  “Oh, she’d threaten divorce,” Dina said with a grim smile. “But she’d never do anything about it. It’s almost like…”

  “Yes?” Lacey leaned forward.

  “Like they were locked in, like two stags that get their antlers tangled while they’re fighting. It was like they couldn’t let go, couldn’t figure out how to get untangle
d, even though it was killing them both.”

  “Sounds like a bad deal, for them and for anyone around them.”

  Dina nodded. She lifted sad eyes to Lacey. “It was.”

  “How long were you sleeping with him?”

  “Two years.” The woman sighed. “I should have backed away long before that, but there was something about him. His swagger, his wink. He was… exciting.”

  Lacey could imagine. A forty-something woman, ensconced in an affluent but predictable life, looking for excitement, for a fantasy to lift her out of the boredom. Finding a reckless bad boy to take her to the edge must have been a temptation too hard to resist.

  “All right,” Lacey said, looking over her notes one more time. “I think that’s all the questions I have right now. If I think of anything else, can I call you?”

  “Uh, sure.” Dina gave the number grudgingly, obviously hoping never to talk to Lacey again.

  “And let me give you my number, too,” Lacey said, “in case you remember anything else that might be pertinent.”

  “Thank you,” Dina said.

  Lacey closed her notebook and slid it into her purse. “Thank you, Mrs. Holcomb. I appreciate your time and your willingness to talk to me. I’m sure you’d like to see justice done as much as I would.”

  “Why do you think he was murdered?” Dina asked, suddenly interested.

  Crap. That was a question she should have anticipated. “I’m afraid I can’t… divulge that information. Let’s just say that there are things that don’t match up.”

  Dina tipped her head sideways, her hazel eyes slightly narrowed. “And who hired you? Who are you working for?”

  Lacey gave her a cryptic smile. “I’m working for Doug,” she said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  ~~~

  NINE

  On Friday, Lacey was happy to see her new business cards in the mail. Classic yet simple, they proclaimed her new identity:

  Lacey Fitzpatrick

  Private Investigator

  She’d only ordered a couple hundred, planning to update it with her PI license number once she tested. She slid several in her wallet, smiling at the surprising sense of pride she felt. Part-time now, of course, but who knew how far she could go?

  Saturday morning, she picked up Sam in front of his apartment and headed for Long Beach. She gave him a quick rundown of the revealing trip to the yacht club.

  “You nailed him,” she said afterward.

  “No. I just described him. You found him,” Sam said.

  “Well, it hasn’t been a cake walk.” She told him about the dead end of the police records search.

  “Is this typical?” he asked. “Having leads that go nowhere?”

  Lacey smiled grimly. “Unfortunately, yes. But you have to investigate, you have to take it as far as you can, just so you know you didn’t miss anything.” She glanced over at him. “It’d be a heck of a lot easier if we all had your talent for cutting through the bullshit.”

  Sam laughed soundlessly. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So,” she continued, “is this talent of yours a family legacy? Did either of your parents have it? And do you see it in your kids?”

  Sam shook his head. “No and no. I have a hunch my grandpa has at least a little of it. He’s always been supportive of me. But my parents, not so much. My dad just didn’t want to hear it, and it clashed big time with my mom’s Christianity. I learned pretty young not to talk about it to them at all.”

  “That’s tough,” Lacey observed. “Having to hide who you are.” As she spoke, she thought about the many things she chose not to share with her own parents.

  “Well, they know now,” he said, staring out the window.

  Lacey chanced a look at him but he kept his face turned away. She thought she understood.

  “Do you ever… feel them?” she asked softly.

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Mom died in a car accident out on the rez. Head-on collision. My dad couldn’t handle it. Drank himself to death over the next two years. They actually both died the same day; it just took him longer to crawl into the coffin.”

  Lacey could hear the bitterness in his voice. “I’m sorry,” she said truthfully.

  “Yeah.” He was silent for several moments, watching the endless cityscape slide by. “You know what really sucks about this?” He turned toward her now, his eyes hard. She shook her head. “I can help people who have passed over, but I can’t do a goddamn thing for people still here.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned his stare back to the road.

  Lacey decided that was enough talking for a while and concentrated on her driving.

  Once they neared the harbor, Lacey followed signs to the Catalina Express pier and found a parking lot only a block and a half away. They hoofed it to the office and picked up their tickets, then took their place in the line that was queuing up.

  “I’ll pay you back for the ticket,” Sam said.

  “No need,” she said. “I asked you, remember?” She grinned at him.

  For a moment, Sam looked as if not quite sure how to take that. Finally he gave her a wry smile. “So is this like our first date or something?”

  Lacey chuckled. “Relax. This is business, not pleasure.”

  “Okay,” he said, his eyes sliding away. “Good to know.”

  They boarded the ferry with more than a hundred other people. Most funneled into the cabin, but several took the stairs to the upper, open deck.

  “Up or down?” Lacey asked Sam.

  He didn’t have to think about it. “Up.” It didn’t surprise her.

  They found seats near the front of the open deck.

  “You ever been to Catalina?” she asked.

  “No.” He looked around at the boat, the pier, the harbor. “Never even been on a boat.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, unless you count the boats in the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland,” he said with a cockeyed smile.

  “Oh, please,” she said. “Don’t even say that. I’ll hear that damn song in my head all day.”

  He pointed westward with his chin. “You’ve been out there?”

  “Yeah, once. Derrick and I decided we had to go, just so we weren’t some of those people who live in Southern California all their lives but never see the major landmarks. Uh oh. Sounds like we’re getting underway.”

  The sound of the engines turning up sent a vibration through the boat, and within moments the boat was drawing gently away from the dock. Motoring slowly through the congestion of the harbor, it finally headed out toward open water.

  Lacey tried gamely to keep her hair tamed, but the wind sent it swirling around her head. Sam’s, she noticed, stayed sleekly contained in the ponytail down his back with just the ends fluttering.

  As the boat moved further out, the morning fog and June gloom began to dissipate. It wasn’t long before the ocean ahead of them sparkled under the full sun.

  “I probably should have worn a hat,” Lacey said. She pulled sunglasses out of her purse and slid them on.

  Sam glanced over at her. “I take it you burn easily?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I could use SPF 500 and still burn.” She unbuttoned the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt and slid the material up to her elbow. “See this?” she said. “This pasty white skin is a sun magnet. If I rolled my sleeves up, I’d be red as a lobster in ten minutes.”

  Sam nudged her arm with his own copper one. “Yeah, I see,” he said with a smirk. The warm copper color made her skin look even more fish-belly white.

  “My mom was like that, too,” he said as she returned her sleeve to its more protective arrangement.

  Lacey glanced over. “Was she Irish?”

  “No. English. Pretty much the same when it came to sun exposure. I guess I’m lucky I got my dad’s coloring.”

  “How did they meet?” she asked.

  Sam lounged back against his seat. “My family has always had master potters in its ran
ks. She was studying Southwestern pottery in college back east and decided to treat herself to a tour of the Four Corners area after graduation. Came to Arizona and never left.”

  “Did they live on the reservation?”

  “No. She got a job at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, so they moved there. I would spend my summers on the rez with my grampa, though. Herding goats was my summer job until I was sixteen or so.”

  Lacey giggled. “For some reason, I have a little trouble imagining that. My summer jobs were working retail at stores in the mall or at the food court.”

  “Worlds apart,” he said. “So what’s the plan for when we get to Catalina? What are we going to do?”

  “Ah.” Lacey pulled her purse onto her lap and dug out a sheaf of papers. “I printed out some of the newspaper articles I found online.” She had to work to keep a grip on the papers in the face of the wind. “There’s one guy who worked the public docks who was interviewed, and I’m hoping we can find him. Henry Whitlow. I also called the sheriff’s office a few days ago and requested their records of the investigation. The nice thing about this case is that it’s not that old. People will still remember and records won’t be hard to dig up.”

  “What are you hoping to find?” Sam asked. He stared out across the water.

  Lacey frowned. “I want to find out how this guy died twice. How did he drown out here and get stabbed in San Clemente? We need to put all the pieces together that lead up to his death—his real death. Then let the police take over and deal with his murderer.”

  Sam might not have heard. His face to the wind, he showed no emotion.

  “Hey,” she said, suddenly irritated, “don’t you want that, too? Don’t you want justice done?”

  He finally tore his gaze from the expanse of rolling swells and looked down at her. “Sure. I’ve just never gone at it from this angle, the earth plane. I’ve always worked with the spirits on their plane. It has a totally different feel to it.”

  Lacey digested that as she shoved all her papers back into her purse. “But earlier you said your work was all about restoring harmony. Doesn’t that include balancing the scales? Isn’t that what karma’s all about?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He turned back to the sea, his eyes scanning the horizon.