Before I could agree to the deal, which guaranteed me a profitable season, I had to convince Paul and Maxie to “put on a show” a couple of times a day. At first, this had consisted of them moving a few knickknacks around to give the guests a look at “floating” objects, and they still did that, but we’d added some other features. For one, Paul, who said he’d been in a band before his murder, would play music on a few instruments (cheap ones) I’d bought for the shows. And the ghosts had decided between themselves to surprise me every once in a while by floating some unexpected object around to get a reaction out of me. Maxie took special delight in selecting things from the toolshed or the basement, and although they were never living (or dead) creatures, they could be pretty slimy. There had been some I could not identify. This surprised me, not so much the guests, who were, to my disappointment, amused by the hijinks. Ghosts. You can’t live with them, you can live without them, and I’d recommend it.
The ghosts also could make objects “appear out of thin air.” This was accomplished simply by hiding whatever they liked in their clothing (a pants pocket or inside a jacket) and then removing it at a strategic time. The ghosts seem able to keep material objects with them, hidden from sight, as long as they carry the object in a pocket or under their clothes. I’ve seen Maxie secret things in her endless supply of T-shirts, for example. Lately, they (okay, Maxie) had also taken to doing annoying things like mussing my hair or my clothing while I was talking to the guests. I had gotten her back by scheduling the spook shows randomly—which had the added advantage of helping us avoid guests who were “civilians,” or not in on the Senior Plus deal, who might be alarmed to see invisible people juggling fruit. Maxie didn’t like the unpredictable aspect of a random schedule.
When the offer from Senior Plus Tours had come, I hadn’t known the ghosts for very long, but I knew better than to approach Maxie with the proposition. I talked to Paul instead, and ran into a condition: Paul, a former private investigator, wanted to keep his mind occupied with the occasional case, and he needed me to be his “legs.” I reluctantly agreed to sit for the private-investigator exam and obtained a license, hoping Paul would be content with the effort and not actually ask me to investigate things.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
“I’m not investigating another crime,” I told him firmly now. “I’ve had my and Melissa’s lives placed in enough danger. It’s not going to happen again.”
Paul turned back toward me with a strange grin on his face. “Oh, it’s not that, Alison,” he said. “It’s something considerably more…personal.”
That threw me—personal? What could be personal to a dead guy? I mean, you could see right through him. Literally. “I don’t understand, Paul,” I told him.
“It’s something…I’ve been meaning to ask since I met you,” Paul said. He turned away again, but I could see that even the slightly transparent tone of his face was reddening a little. Who knew a ghost could blush? “I’ve really come to know you now, and I’m just beginning to feel that you won’t think I’m foolish.”
He reached into his pocket, then extended his hand and opened his fingers. He was holding a small jewelry box covered in velvet.
Oh, my! There had always been an odd sort of attraction between Paul and me, but we’d never said a word about it, because it is impossible to act upon unless I die, which I’m not really willing to do for a guy. Call me selfish.
“Oh, Paul,” I said, “you know I care about you, but this is far too much.”
Paul’s gaze went from the box to my eyes in a nanosecond. His eyes narrowed, then widened, and he smiled broadly.
Then he began to laugh. And he didn’t stop. It seemed he couldn’t stop. And that went on for a full minute; I know because after a while, I checked my watch. Okay. I had clearly misinterpreted something here.
“Come on, it’s not that funny,” I finally managed to get in. “So what were you going to ask?”
Paul’s laughter ended gradually, and his face took on that sad, serious look he gets sometimes when he’s forced to acknowledge that he is, in fact, dead. “It’s something I’d like to ask you to do for me,” he said.
But he didn’t get the chance to tell me anything more than that because Maxie levitated up through the floor and grinned at me. “There’s a guy downstairs looking for you,” she said, looking more wicked than usual. “He’s cute, too.”
Perfect. A cute guy comes to see me while I’m here basting in my own juices. Story of my life. I’d been on a total of three dates since my divorce from The Swine, all with Melissa’s history teacher, Ned Barnes. But Ned and I had decided to take a break from each other for a while because Liss was weirded out by the idea of a teacher dating her mom. So now, the possibility of an attractive stranger downstairs was both interesting and daunting. I hesitated a moment, trying to calculate how quickly I could change my clothes.
Finally, I decided I’d have to face the music as I was, since no man worth cleaning up for would want to wait as long as it would take me. Besides, if he didn’t see my inner beauty, the heck with him anyway. You can rationalize these things.
I did use the rag I had in the attic to mop up a bit, then made my way back into the air-conditioned part of the house, which helped. And by the time I’d made it all the way to the ground floor and the front entranceway, I felt more presentable, even if I didn’t look that way.
And that’s when I realized it didn’t matter how I looked, because the mysterious man in question was kneeling in my foyer, a big crooked grin on his damned handsome face, his sandy hair carefully mussed just enough to make it look casual. He was hugging my daughter tightly, and she was purring, “Daddy!”
I groaned (if there were any guests within earshot, they probably thought it was a “spook house” effect). The very last person I wanted to see had traveled three thousand miles to visit my house and, no doubt, disrupt my life. My ex-husband, Steven Rendell.
The Swine.
Two
“What are you doing here?” I rasped when I had absorbed the sight.
Steven started as if shocked, looked at me, and patted Melissa on the shoulder, the universal signal to detach from a hug. Our daughter, ten-year-old traitor that she was, squealed at me, “Look, Mom! Daddy’s come home!”
Terrific. Almost two years of seeing to her every need, and Melissa was about to switch sides on me based on her father’s ability to walk through the door? Since he had walked through a similar door going in the other direction with a curvy blonde on his arm the last time I’d seen him, I was less impressed with this talent.
It sure was a good thing I wasn’t bitter, though.
Steven extricated himself from our daughter, who was currently cute-ing herself out of any inheritance I was going to leave for her, and folded his arms across his chest after he stood. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a typical defensive posture. But his face gave off nothing but warm smiles and a hint of—was that sadness?—in his eyes.
“Alison. You look terrific.”
Oh, please. I knew very well that I looked horrendous—I was covered in sweat and dust—but that really wasn’t the argument I wanted to have just at the moment.
“I said, ‘What are you doing here?’” I’d fallen for his charming act once before, and ended up married. Then divorced. Then I started seeing ghosts. If I thought about it hard enough, my entire current situation could be seen as The Swine’s fault.
“I suppose I deserve that kind of welcome,” Steven said. “I know I didn’t treat you very well, but I want to try to make up for that.”
Melissa held up a small box. “Daddy brought me an iPod touch!” she chortled. Make no mistake, kids can be bought. Mine has a higher price than most, but all kids can be bought.
Before I could get another word in—and believe me, it was going to be a doozy—one of my Senior Plus Tours guests walked in from the den and smiled in my direction. Mrs. Fischer, who was here with her sister Mrs. Spassky, was
a darling little lady easily in her mid-eighties who would have been described as “jolly” if she were forty pounds heavier.
“Alison, dear,” she began, leaning on her elegant cane with the carved eagle on its handle. “Can you recommend a good local dealer in antiques? I do so love the quaint atmosphere around this town, and I’m hoping to take some of it home with me.”
Luckily, having lived in Harbor Haven most of my life (except for that period during which I was married to The Swine), I knew almost all the storekeepers in the area, and had deals with some for a commission on purchases from those customers I sent their way. I do this only with those I know to be the best at what they do, you understand. It’s not about the money. Mostly.
“Why yes, Mrs. Fischer,” I told her. “Amber Lion is a wonderful antiques dealer, and they’re not far at all. Let me see if I can find a business card of theirs…” Like I didn’t know I had a collection in the side table right here in the foyer. I opened the drawer and made a show of looking.
“Nice to see you, Melissa,” Mrs. Fischer said. She’d been here less than four days into an unusually long two-week Senior Tours booking and had already struck up quite the friendship with my daughter, who had told me the older lady was “adorable.”
“This is my father, Mrs. Fischer!” Melissa gushed.
I quickly “found” the card for Amber Lion and turned abruptly back toward my guest. “Here it is!” I said a little too loudly. “Would you like me to call you a taxi?”
“Alison, you didn’t mention your husband,” Mrs. Fischer said, walking over to Steven, who reached out and actually kissed her hand. Boy, he was good.
“A pleasure to meet you,” he crooned.
“Ex-husband,” I said.
Mrs. Fischer must have caught the tone in my voice, because she smiled uncertainly, said, “Of course,” and walked out onto the front porch.
“You’ve become a good businesswoman, Alison,” Steven said, approaching me.
I held up a hand in warning. “Not another step until I know why you’re here,” I said.
My ex-husband had the nerve to look offended. “Don’t you think it’s possible I wanted to see my daughter after more than a year?” he asked.
It occurred to me that even low-fat fake butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Liquid butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “No,” I said. “I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Mom!” Melissa, like most children of divorce, probably held a hope that her parents would reconcile and wasn’t thrilled with my attitude. I’d have to put on a better front until Steven and I were out of her earshot.
“I’m sorry,” I said, more to my daughter than to The Swine. “I’m having a difficult day. Why have you come, Steven?”
Maxie poked her head through the ceiling and grinned hungrily at my ex. Normally, I might be disturbed by such an image, but the interest of a dead woman, especially one as, let’s say, difficult as Maxie could be, was just what The Swine deserved. I grinned back at her.
“I told you,” he answered, looking up at the spot to which I was smirking like a fool. “I wanted to see you and Melissa.”
“Of course. And where’s…What’s her name, again?” I knew perfectly well the name of the woman who had been—what do the lawyers call it?—the co-respondent in my divorce.
“Amee is still in California,” Steven answered. Amee with a double ee. Also her cup size, presumably. “We’re…spending some time apart.”
Melissa scowled a bit at the mention of Amee. She knew about her, but mostly in an intuitive fashion. I hadn’t explained the circumstances of the divorce other than to tell her that it was unequivocally not her fault in any way. But she knew that once Steven had started regularly mentioning the woman for whom he was traveling three thousand miles west, there had to be something more to this than Mommy and Daddy having a disagreement over his leaving the toilet seat up again.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I told him, although I’m sure my voice sounded about as sorry as if he’d told me he was giving me six million dollars in a trust fund for our daughter. “I’m sure you’ll work things out. Every relationship doesn’t end in a divorce like ours, you know.”
“A divorce like yours!” Maxie crowed, floating down a little and coming to rest halfway between the ceiling and the floor. “This is your ex?”
Melissa knew not to react to Maxie when a “civilian” like Steven was present, but her eyelids flickered a bit. She clearly saw that the reunion she’d been picturing was going somewhat differently than in her plans, and she offered to show Steven the room we were building for her in the attic. He did his best to feign interest, and let her pull him toward the main staircase by the hand. I followed, if for no reason than to make sure Steven didn’t give her a new Porsche once I was out of sight.
“It’s gonna have a flat-screen TV right on the wall, and a dock for my iPod touch, and it’s going to be painted green, and—”
“You decided on green?” I asked. “Last I heard it was going to be yellow.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. I could be so embarrassing. “Green is a much happier color, Mom.” No, not embarrassing—I was an idiot. That was it.
We arrived in the attic, and I noticed to my consternation that Steven wasn’t even breathing hard from the climb. He must have started exercising regularly, and all I could think was that the entire time we’d been together I’d never seen him do so much as a push-up.
He looked around the attic, having climbed the pull-down stairs (I was going to have to figure out another access point soon) and stood on the recently installed plywood floor. Granted, the space didn’t look like much yet; I’d just started with a few sheets of wallboard so insulation was visible almost everywhere, and the skylight was not yet cut into the roof. In short, it looked like an attic.
“This place is amazing,” Steven said, authenticity oozing out of his voice like the filling of an overstuffed Fluffernutter.
“It will be,” I answered. “See, there’s going to be a skylight…”
“No, I mean it, Ally,” my ex said. “I can’t believe how great it is you’re doing this for our daughter. And your handiwork is fantastic.”
Now I knew there was something he wanted from me. Steven had been adamant about my not doing any physical labor when we were married. He’d made me quit my job at a home-improvement superstore, then used a business connection to “find” me a desk job when I’d insisted on going back to work the year Melissa turned five. It had been the beginning of the end of our marriage. Well, that, and Amee.
“Okay,” I said. “Who are you, and what have you done with my ex-husband?”
Maxie wafted up from the plywood floor and hovered where she could get a really good look at The Swine. “He’s not bad,” she said. “How’d you get him to marry you? Were you pregnant?”
Melissa, knowing we shouldn’t acknowledge the ghosts with Steven in the room, gave her a sharp look. For that matter, so did I.
“I’m just here to see you and Liss, Ally,” my ex said, still doing his best to sell the tone in his voice. “I know that’s not what you would have expected, but I’m willing to wait you out until you trust me again.”
Something was definitely up. This was the exact attitude The Swine had used when he was trying to charm me, back when we first met.
“That might take a long time,” I told him. “Where are you staying while you’re here?”
He looked stumped, as if the question had never entered his mind before. “I sort of figured I’d stay…here,” he said.
“You did, huh?”
Melissa gave me a look that begged for leniency. I did my best to ignore it.
“Is that a problem?” Steven asked.
“It is if you think it’ll be like when we were married,” I said. “But if you want to stay here as a paying guest, I have a room that’s open. The going rate is a hundred and sixty-five dollars a night.”
The Swine raised his eyebrows, feigning either surpr
ise or offense. It didn’t matter which. “For me?” he asked.
“You’re right. For you, a hundred and eighty-five.”
“Mom…”
Steven grinned, and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “You have become a good businesswoman,” he said. “You take credit cards?”
I nodded. “I know better than to try to cash a check from you, after the last child-support one bounced…When was that, again?”
This time The Swine outright laughed. “Put that on the card, too, if you like,” he said. He handed it to me.
Maxie sat down the way the ghosts do, bending her body into a sitting position, but still hovering over the object upon which she was sitting, in this case a box of ceiling tiles. She happened to glance at the floor, where I’d laid out newspapers in anticipation of spreading joint compound into the gaps between drywall sheets. And suddenly, her eyes widened noticeably, and she drew in what would have been a breath in a living person.
“Oh my god,” she gasped. And then, she seemed to be crying. No tears fell—there’s no moisture in her—but she shook and shuddered, and closed her eyes. She repeated herself a number of times. I’d never seen her look like that before.
I handed Melissa her father’s credit card. “Go downstairs and ring him up, please,” I told her. Liss was looking at Maxie, and must have realized I wanted to be able to talk to her in private. She nodded, and took her father by the hand. “And charge him the full amount,” I added. “I’m going to check.”
Steven looked strangely at me but didn’t say anything as he let Melissa lead him back to the pull-down stairs and the lower floors. Just before he disappeared down the stairs, he gave me a look I knew, which said, “We’ll talk later.”
As soon as they were off the stairs, I walked over to the sobbing ghost. “Maxie,” I said, “what’s wrong?”
Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts Page 2