Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts

by E. J. Copperman

  The argument might have been all talk now, but that clearly had not always been the case. The room, though hardly a shambles, was certainly disheveled. Maxie had knocked books off shelves on every wall, and many of them were lying on the floor, spines cracked, pages crumpled. I’d bought every one of them used, but it was the principle of the thing.

  “Okay, break it up,” I said as I entered the library. “Everybody to their corners.”

  They both turned to look at me for a moment, then resumed their positions, facing off against each other, although Kitty was facing the wrong way, since she couldn’t actually tell where Maxie was.

  “He stole your money, and he lied to you,” Kitty continued, as if I hadn’t entered the room and called for a halt in hostilities.

  “He was my husband!” Maxie shouted back as she tapped out those exact words, in all capital letters, on the laptop—my laptop—she’d placed on a side table in Kitty’s line of sight.

  Kitty read it, and snorted her reply. “Husband. For a long weekend? That’s not a marriage. It’s barely a one-night stand.”

  Both Malone women had told me on separate occasions that they’d had a somewhat contentious relationship when Maxie was alive. But all I’d ever seen was a mother and daughter who were thrilled to have been reunited after a horrendous incident, and they’d never so much as frowned in each other’s direction before while I was there to see it.

  “I wasn’t kidding,” I said, not loudly enough to be considered shouting, but loudly enough to be heard over the din. “There are guests here, and they’re watching. This. Ends. Now.”

  Maxie, disregarding me, started to tap the laptop’s keys again, and I closed the cover as she typed. She gave me a positively rabid look, but I picked up the notebook and tucked it under my arm. She reached for it, but I danced out of the way, and Maxie went past me and through an armchair.

  “There’ll be no more arguing now,” I said. Turning to Maxie, I added, “And if you keep up this attitude, young lady, your Internet privileges will be revoked. Is that clear?”

  “On that old dinosaur?” Maxie sneered. “I’m surprised I’m not getting messages from 1998.”

  Kitty, meanwhile, seemed to be composing herself, looking conscious now of me and the couple in the doorway (Francie had joined her husband), who were watching with either delight or anxiety. Or both. It was hard to tell. “I’m sorry, Alison,” Kitty said. “I got a little carried away with myself.”

  “I take it the topic of conversation was Big Bob Benicio,” I said.

  “You tell her—” Maxie began.

  I cut her off. “I’ll decide what messages get passed back to your mother,” I told her. “So you keep a civil tongue in your head, because I respect her.” Sometimes having Maxie in the house gives me a glimpse into what life would be like if I’d had a second daughter. One less mature than my ten-year-old.

  “You always side with her,” Maxie pouted. See what I mean?

  I ignored her. “I appreciate your anger,” I told Kitty, “but this was years ago, and Maxie is, well, beyond pain these days. Isn’t it past the point of argument?”

  Kitty appeared determined to show me that Maxie came by her stubborn petulance naturally. “Some things transcend time, Alison,” she said. “I don’t hate people. I try to see the good in everyone. But that man violated every possible notion of decency, and he made an enemy of me for life.”

  “Apparently even longer than that,” I pointed out. “He’s dead.”

  Kitty nodded. “True,” she agreed. “But if there’s one thing I’m learning, it’s that dying doesn’t make people change their personalities.” She searched the ceiling for a sign of her daughter, as if she could tell whether or not Maxie was there.

  Maxie took the bait. “Big Bob wasn’t perfect, but he saw me for who I was, and not who he wanted me to be,” she told her mother, and I chose to forward that message along. I did not see the point in adding, “Unlike some people,” as Maxie did.

  “He let you be who it was easiest for you to be,” Kitty countered. “You never had to try. And when you did try, when you wanted to buy this house and begin a career in home design and real estate, he was nowhere to be found.”

  “I hadn’t seen him in almost a year!” Maxie countered. “You saw to that.”

  “All right, that’s fair,” her mother said. “But he borrowed money from you when you were together, and he never paid it back.”

  Maxie fingered the cameo around her neck. “You didn’t help me buy the house,” she said to her mother, ignoring the acknowledgment she’d just gotten that Big Bob couldn’t have helped. “You didn’t talk to me for months when I signed the mortgage.”

  Kitty shook her head sadly. “No, but I made sure to sell it to someone who cared when I had to execute your will,” she said in a whisper.

  They stood there (well, Maxie floated, but it was the same principle) for a full minute. I didn’t have any idea what either was thinking, but I knew this argument wasn’t ever going to be over. There was no way to resolve it. Maxie was dead, but still in communication with her mother. Big Bob was just as gone—maybe more, because Paul hadn’t been able to raise him on the Ghosternet. There couldn’t be a resolution, because life doesn’t end on a schedule. It ends in the middle, every time.

  Finally, Maxie broke through her melancholic stupor. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said through me to Kitty. “You never wanted to give Big Bob a break, and now you don’t have to. You have things exactly the way you want them.”

  I doubt she meant that the way it sounded. Sometimes Maxie forgets—or refuses to accept—the fact that she is dead. But she didn’t bother to rephrase her statement, and I failed, in my role of interpreter, to edit it for her.

  “Is that what you think?” Kitty gasped. “Is that really what you think? You think I don’t wake up every morning in a good mood, and then remember that you’re not here anymore? You think it doesn’t bother me that you’ll never get to finish anything you started, that all your promise was wasted? That you’ll never be able to have a daughter you love as much as I love you? Is that what you think?”

  She had built herself up to an obvious state of agitation, and Maxie hovered in the air staring at her mother. She either wouldn’t or couldn’t answer.

  “If that’s what you think, Maxie, I believe I won’t be coming back for a while. You can say what you want, but I’ve done everything that I thought I could for you. And as for your ‘Big Bob,’ well, for my money, he deserved everything he got, and more.”

  With that, Kitty turned on her heel and marched out of the library. Francie and Albert stood by at each side of the door, like a military guard.

  Maxie’s lips pulled into her mouth and she whimpered a bit, then vanished entirely, something she rarely does. Usually she huffs out of a room through a wall or another person just for effect. But now, she just evaporated.

  “You put on some show,” Francie said after a moment. “The flying books? How did you do that?”

  I didn’t have time to respond, because my ex-husband appeared in the doorway behind her. He pointed toward the front door, where assumedly Kitty was currently leaving.

  “I don’t know who that was,” he said, “but you could hear her all over the house, and it sure sounded like she was confessing to something.”

  Fifteen

  Dinner that night was sort of a distracted affair.

  Steven insisted on taking Melissa and me to a restaurant while the guests were out getting their dinners. This necessitated us eating on the early side, since Don Petrone and the two sisters especially were early-bird-special enthusiasts, and I wanted to be sure we were back for the evening, in case someone in the house needed something from the hostess (that’s me).

  So we trekked out at an ungodly hour to Trees, a new restaurant in Harbor Haven meant to appeal to the upscale crowd without the whole “money” thing that put off the rest of us. In keeping with its name, Trees made sure to pile on the ambia
nce: There were pictures of trees on the wallpaper, the menus, the plates, the window shades and the ceiling tiles, and there were actual twenty-foot palm trees growing in the restaurant, requiring ceilings so high that the noise level in the place approached that of the third tier at Yankee Stadium during a playoff game. Each tree in each framed picture on each tree-adorned wall was identified by genus and species. The waitstaff was required, we discovered, to point out various trees in the decor and explain their significance. We had been treated to a dissertation on the mighty larch when ordering appetizers and drinks, and now I was bracing myself for the moment when the server (whose name was Eric, and he’d be taking care of us tonight) would reappear to discuss the California redwood while taking our dinner orders.

  Trees, despite its name, was not a vegetarian restaurant and was in fact named for its owner, Richard Tree. The spelling of the name of the restaurant was based on the apparent new rule in the English language that apostrophes should be used only when they are not needed, and never used when they are. It’s a new linguistic age.

  Mentally, I gave the whole enterprise six months, and wondered to where the palms might be transplanted when the lease ran out.

  “Does Phyllis really think I’m ready to start delivering the Chronicle?” Melissa was asking when a leaf blew across my plate. I had to make her repeat what she’d asked because of the high volume (see above re: high ceilings).

  “I don’t care if Phyllis thinks so or no. I don’t think you’re ready yet to be riding your bike all around Harbor Haven at five in the morning, so you’re not doing it,” I replied. This issue was a nonstarter with me. Besides, I was trying to figure out why Kitty Malone had been so uncharacteristically hostile regarding her deceased ex-son-in-law. Was it the one incident from years ago? That was enough for many, surely, but Kitty’s personality was usually so easygoing that it was hard to reconcile that kind of polar-opposite reaction.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Steven butted in. “Melissa’s an awfully mature ten-year-old. Don’t you think—”

  “No.” If The Swine thought he was going to ingratiate himself with me by trying to play “good parent” to my “prison guard,” he was sadly mistaken.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” Liss told her father. “I don’t care that much.” My daughter, the peacemaker.

  “Okay, baby,” he answered. Honestly, their mutual admiration was enough to nauseate you. Well, me, anyway.

  “The two of you are going to have to cut this out,” I said.

  Both jaws dropped, as if rehearsed. “Cut what out?” they each said, almost simultaneously.

  “This perfect-family act you’re putting on to convince me that things should go back to the way they used to be,” I answered. I looked at my daughter. “Liss, honey, you have to understand. Daddy and I are divorced. That’s final. We’re not going to get back together, and it’s not just my decision, but that’s the way it’s being made to look. I’m sorry, baby, but things are going to stay the way they’ve been once Daddy goes back to California.”

  Melissa and Steven looked at each other; his expression was smug, and hers was slightly surprised. “You haven’t told her?” Melissa asked her father.

  My voice dropped an octave. “Haven’t told me what?” I asked.

  “I’m not going back to L.A.,” Steven said after giving Melissa another look. “I want to come back here and live in Harbor Haven.”

  Oh, boy.

  “You’re not serious,” I said. It was clear he was serious, but I was hoping to give him an easy way out. The last thing I needed was The Swine in my neighborhood, doing his charming thing and turning my daughter into his campaign manager. Not to mention, it had become very tiring trying to keep him from noticing that quite often Melissa, my mother and I were looking at dead people he couldn’t see, and it would only get worse if he stayed long-term.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Steven said. “You were right about a lot of the things you said about me. I did lose my way somewhere along the line. I discovered how to make money and forgot that there’s more to it than that. I started out wanting to use the financial system to help people who needed it, and I ended up screwing those people—cover your ears, Melissa—out of their savings.”

  “I’m not six,” my daughter interjected.

  “So what’s your plan?” I asked. With Steven, there was always a plan.

  His face lit up; this was always the part he’d enjoyed the best—selling his dreams. “Remember how I was going to create a fund for people with very little money to invest? How I was going to build that into something they could use as a nest egg or a retirement fund, or for college tuition?”

  “I remember,” I assured him. If I didn’t remember, we might not have gotten divorced. Oh wait, there’d been Amee. Yeah, we’d still be divorced.

  “Well, that plan might have worked in another economy. Now, people are going to be afraid to invest their money in stocks or mutual funds. So I’m going to create my own fund, find investors who’ll put up the money, and guarantee an interest rate above prime for investments of as little as ten dollars a month.” He grinned at me, clearly convinced he had laid out the blueprint for the most brilliant design since the Sistine Chapel.

  “Okay,” I said after it was clear he was finished talking. “Could you repeat that in Lithuanian? Because I think I might understand it better if you did.”

  Steven smiled. “Sorry about the jargon,” he said. “Let me see if I can explain.”

  “Dad’s going to be like a bank,” Melissa said. “He’s going to put up money for poor people, let them invest really small amounts, and make sure that no matter what, they’ll get more money back when they’re done. The more they put in, the more they’ll get out, but they’ll never lose anything.”

  Now that I understood. “So it’s a Ponzi scheme,” I said.

  Melissa rolled her eyes, and Steven smiled his “you just don’t get it” smile. “No it’s not a Ponzi scheme,” he said. “The money we pay out doesn’t come from the contributors. I’ll have outside investors who will get their piece of the profits as well. It hinges on me knowing how to invest wisely.”

  I thought about how he was leveraged out on three credit cards that I knew of yet still bought a karaoke machine to use for one night. “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “You’re not convinced,” Steven said.

  “I’m not deciding now,” I told him, and then saw Eric, the server, who had been approaching our table, put his pad back in his pocket. I tried to flag him down, but he was off to the kitchen for another table’s order.

  Both Steven and Melissa looked so glum that I needed a way to perk up the gathering. So I fell back on one of the things that my ex-husband was always best at—he loved to give advice, mostly to me.

  “Steven, suppose there was someone you were trying to find and the usual avenues weren’t helping,” I said. “Her phone number is disconnected, and she’s not living at the last address you have available. What do you do?”

  Immediately, Steven brightened up. He got a sly smile on his face and asked, “Is this a private eye thing?”

  “I’m a private investigator, Steven. Get over it. Now, do you want to help me or make fun of me?”

  Immediately, he took on a serious expression. Had to show support in front of Melissa, especially. And making himself look smart was possibly his most abundant asset. “This is a business matter?” he asked. I nodded. Sure, it was a business matter. Paul couldn’t pay me money for my services, but we had a business arrangement. Sort of. Close enough.

  My ex made a show of thinking about the complex problem with which I had entrusted him. He looked down at his unopened menu and nodded slightly. He probably had his lips pursed, too, but I couldn’t see from my angle. That is his classic “thinking” face, so I can only assume he’d gone full-tilt with it.

  Melissa watched her father with a terrific concentration. He was, even after a few days, still something of a new experience for her again
, and she wasn’t yet used to all of his moods and what I considered his “tricks.” She was a smart ten-year-old, but a ten-year-old nonetheless.

  Steven raised his head, having received the wisdom he sought from on high. “If it’s someone who’s not paying a previous invoice, your best bet is to get in touch with a collection agency,” he said. “They have access to records that you can’t, like credit-card receipts and things like that.”

  That would be what The Swine would come up with—a collection agency. First of all, neither Julia MacKenzie nor Wilson Meyers owed me any money. Besides, I’d have to pay a collection agency a fee, and that wasn’t going to fit my budget even when there was a full contingent of guests in my house. And what could a collection agency do, anyway? Find old credit-card receipts, utility bills, addresses, cell-phone numbers…Hey, wait a minute.

  “Actually,” I told Steven, “that’s exactly what I should do.”

  Eric appeared at my left shoulder. “Everybody ready?” he asked.

  Sixteen

  I was startled to see a small boy, perhaps seven years old, walking by himself out of the building as I entered the nondescript office complex in Eatontown Wednesday morning. It wasn’t until I was almost upon him that I realized he was dressed in nineteen-twenties’ fashion, and that he was transparent.

  That seemed terribly sad, but the boy didn’t look the least bit unhappy, and was in fact moving with a little skip in his step. He went directly into the arms of a smiling woman in her mid-sixties, whom I heard him address as “Granny.” I guess after almost a hundred years, you can get used to pretty much anything. The woman took the boy’s hand, and they floated up above the diner across the street and into the morning sky.

  This ghost-seeing thing could be creepy or beautiful, and often was both at the same time.

  I made my way to the second floor of the building and down a hallway without noticing any other see-through individuals. On door 213 was a sign reading “AAAAAAble Collection Service.” I aaaaaadmired the determination of the owners to be first in the Yellow Pages listing for collection agencies, and wondered whether that made any difference in this digital age. I opened the door and walked inside.