“Everyone sleep well?” she asked. She was rewarded with nods and murmurs of assent. “Good. Ready for the big reveal?”
They were.
“Detective Maybry should be here shortly,” she said.
Lacey could feel a sense of relaxed decompression around the table. Although the final solution was yet to come, the end was in sight and people talked, laughed and began to think about getting back to their normal routines.
“Hey,” Christine called over to Sam and Lacey. “You guys want to come to dinner tonight? See the kids? We’ll just get pizza or something.”
Lacey deferred to Sam, and he nodded. “Sure. That sounds good.”
Lacey saw the questioning looks from Gloria and Sophie. “Sam and Christine used to be married,” she said. “They have two kids.”
“Do you have pictures of them?” Sophie asked.
“Are you kidding?” Christine snorted. “I’d be voted off the motherhood island if I didn’t.” She reached for her purse.
“I miss my little Maisie,” Gloria said with a sigh. She also dug in her purse and brought out a picture of a scruffy little white dog. “She spent the weekend with our daughter. I’ll be so glad to see her again.”
Sophie showed a picture of her two, a four-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy.
“They’re adorable,” Lacey said. “And so little.” She passed the picture around. “How long have you two been married?”
“Six years,” Sophie said.
“You’ve got us beat,” Lacey said. “But everyone here probably does. We just got married in April.”
“Oh, newlyweds!” Gloria exclaimed. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Lacey beamed at Sam.
Yes, she liked this much better: real people talking about real life. No working to keep a façade in place; no trying to keep a story straight. Much, much easier.
Detective Maybry finally showed up, and after greeting the group, loaded up a plate with scrambled eggs and sausage. He, too, had a manila folder beside his plate. Irene asked everyone to introduce their real selves around the table, although Lacey noticed that Maybry did not return the favor. Maybe that was his real name?
Maybry ate quickly, and by the time the waiters had collected the plates and topped off coffee cups all around, he was ready to start.
“Good news,” he said. “The investigation is done and we have our results.” He toasted everyone at the table with his coffee cup. “You all did very well, both in your role-playing and your sleuthing.” He set his cup down and reached for the folder.
“But wait,” Sophie interrupted. “What was Mason’s announcement going to be? We never did hear.”
“Ah.” Maybry steepled his hands beneath his chin. He looked around the table, his eyes dancing. “I’ll let someone else answer that.”
At that moment, the door to the library opened, and Mason, alive and well, strode into the room. The guests began applauding, and Gloria got to her feet, nudging Harvey. Soon everyone at the table was giving Mason a standing ovation, and he bowed dramatically from the waist.
“Thank you,” he said, coming to stand beside Maybry. “Thank you. You’re very kind.” He laid a hand on the detective’s shoulder. “By the way, allow me to introduce my brother, Don Dunhill. He’s done a great job this weekend, hasn’t he?”
More applause. Lacey looked closely at the two men. Yes, standing side by side, she could see the similarities. They had the same nose, similar hair lines.
“My announcement,” Mason said, “was going to be my plan to break ground on a new hospital in downtown LA. I was going to name it after Leighton Unrue”—and he dipped his chin at Lacey—“and at the same time, I was going to expose someone for past crimes.”
The guests glanced at each other around the table. Which person? Which crimes? The frantic, last-minute efforts at deduction were obvious on each person’s face.
Maybry—Don—opened his folder. Glancing toward the empty ballroom where the musicians had been last night, he said, “I guess I can’t get a drumroll, can I?”
Ed accommodated him by beating on the table with his flat hands.
Don smiled. “All right. The moment you’ve been waiting for. The murderer is… Dr. Vasan Chowdhury.”
The name was greeted with some groans, some exclamations of surprise and delight. There was a smattering of applause, which built to an insistent level. Sam stood and put his hands together, bowing politely to everyone all around the table.
Lacey gaped at him. Sam? Her Sam? Sure, she’d considered him, but not seriously. How had he kept that from her? She knew if the tables were turned, she’d never have been able to keep it from him.
“When Mason was going to announce the new hospital, he was also going to reveal how Dr. Chowdhury’s negligence during surgery led to the death of his very good friend. And the murder weapon,” Don continued, “was the hypodermic needle. As some of you surmised, the use of a euthanasia drug for animals caused instant death. Obviously, Dr. Chowdhury had access, and he chose the method that would cast suspicion on others, primarily Roger Ludlow and Veronica Grayson.”
Harvey pantomimed wiping his brow with great relief, eliciting laughs from some of the others.
Sophie leaned toward Lacey. “Did you know?”
“No,” Lacey said truthfully. “I had no idea.”
“I knew,” Harvey said. “Because I knew it wasn’t me!” He laughed heartily and several laughed with him.
“So who won?” Sophie asked Irene. “Who guessed it all?”
Irene opened her own folder, smiling broadly. “Well, let’s see. We’ll go in order here.” She held up a certificate. “First, the person who ended up with the most money is… Lacey Fitzpatrick.”
As everyone clapped, Irene sent the certificate down the table. Lacey felt her face warm as she accepted. She guessed her cop attitude had been more profitable than she’d thought.
“Now,” Irene said, “best costume goes to… Sam Firecloud.”
A few nods and murmurs of assent accompanied the applause. Sam took his certificate and made a grateful bow.
“And best actor goes to… Harvey Menninger.” Harvey mugged for the group, holding up his certificate and pointing to it with a smile. Gloria took a picture with her phone.
“Finally,” Irene said, “Best sleuth awards—and you’ll notice I used the plural—go to Harvey Menninger and Christine LaRosa.”
Amid the applause, Lacey leaned toward Christine. “How’d you know?” she asked.
“Easy.” Christine shrugged. “I just noticed he never asked anyone else what they knew. He didn’t have to. He already knew.”
Lacey slapped her own forehead. How in heck had she missed that? She glared at Sam.
Christine chuckled. “You’re just too much in love with him to think he could do such a thing.”
“Aww,” Sophie said, “isn’t that sweet?”
Lacey’s face flared hot and red, but her embarrassment couldn’t hide her agreement. She smiled crookedly at Sam, and he kissed her. The table roared.
“You just thought he could read minds, right?” Harvey said. He winked at Sam.
Gloria elbowed her husband. “He’s a medium, not a psychic.”
“What’s the difference?’ Harvey asked.
All eyes turned to Sam.
“Psychics may be able to pick up impressions from people, objects, locations,” Sam explained. “You know, in those stage shows they’ll take someone’s keys and tell all about the person? I can’t do that. I only communicate with ghosts.”
“Only,” Ed said with a laugh. “You ought to see him work. It’s pretty amazing.”
“Really?” Sophie pressed. “You’ve seen him?”
Ed nodded, and angled his head at Sam. “I’m not sure how much you want to get into this…”
Sam and Lacey traded looks, then glanced at Irene and Mason. All four seemed willing.
“Actually,” Sam said, “do you all remember that ghost we
saw Friday night…?”
~~~
SIXTEEN
“Wait,” Sophie said. “That was real? I thought that was a trick to make us think it was Mason.” She swung her gaze to Irene, and shuddered with an involuntary chill.
“Oh, no,” Irene said. “That was absolutely real. And Sam and Lacey have agreed to release him so he can move on.”
Bedlam broke out at the table.
“Who is he?”
“Can we watch?”
“What do you do?”
“Where will he go?”
Irene motioned to Sam, directing all questions to him.
Sam chuckled. “His name is Ellis Garroway,” he said. “He was a valet to a gangster during the ‘30s, and unfortunately took part in some nefarious deeds for his boss. He was basically a good guy, an honest man, and loyal, so he was greatly conflicted. His regret and sorrow over his part in the crimes finally reached a tipping point, and he shot his boss, then turned the gun on himself. But his feelings of guilt keep him tied here.”
“How sad,” Gloria said softly.
“So what do you do?” Wayne asked. “How do you release him?”
“Most tethered spirits need two things,” Sam said. “They need to be acknowledged, and they need to be absolved. Sometimes just finding out who they are and validating their pain is enough to get them to let go. Once we found out his name and his story, we knew we had enough to encourage him to move on.”
Sophie leaned forward. “Can we watch?”
Sam shrugged. “Sure. It’s okay with me as long as Irene and Mason don’t mind having us all around for a bit longer.”
Irene spoke up. “As of right now, the eleven o’clock check-out time is hereby waived.”
A few cheers went up amid a smattering of applause. Mason went and got an extra chair for himself and sat near Irene at the foot of the table. “What do we need to do?” he asked.
Sam pushed away from the table. “I need to go get a smudge stick.”
“Do you have one?” Lacey asked.
He nodded. “I keep a couple extra in the car.” He turned to Irene. “Where are the cars parked?”
“Let me have David bring yours around. It’ll just be a minute.” She headed for the front office.
Sam turned to Lacey. “Do you have your phone?”
“Right here.” She pulled it out of her purse. At the questioning glances from some of the others, she explained. “I video Sam’s walks. It gives us a record of what we do and sometimes comes in handy for figuring out the mysteries.”
“I’ll be right back,” Sam said. He followed Irene to the front. Lacey smiled. Spare smudge sticks in the car. How many people did that?
She stood up and surveyed the area where Sam would walk. The steam tables had been turned off, but they were still set up against the wall where had Ellis appeared.
“Mason, would it be possible to get these steam tables cleared out?” she asked.
Mason was immediately on his feet and heading for the kitchen. In moments, several white-coated waiters were hauling the steam tables out through the door to the kitchen.
Lacey stepped up to Don, still seated at the head of the table, closest to the kitchen.
“You might want to move down to the other end,” she said. “You’ll have a better view there.”
Don nodded and took his chair there, setting it next to Irene’s.
Everyone turned bright, expectant eyes on Lacey.
“Okay,” she said. “Sam should be back any minute. We’ll ask you all to be very quiet while he’s working. When he’s done, we can answer any questions you might have.”
Sam and Irene returned just a few minutes later. While Irene took her seat between Mason and Don, Sam stepped up to the head of the table and pulled a lighter from his pocket. He glanced around at the ceiling.
“By the way, there aren’t any sprinklers in here, are there?” he asked. “I don’t want to set off a shower.”
“No sprinklers in this room,” Mason said, chuckling. “Go for it.”
Sam clicked the lighter and set the flame to the tip of the smudge stick. The first few fibers took the fire and curled into black embers. Sam blew gently, and blue smoke began to trickle upward. Finally the thick bundle glowed red, and Sam gave it one last encouraging gust of breath, then clicked off the lighter and slid it into his pocket.
He glanced to Lacey. “Ready?”
She nodded, tapping the video button on her phone.
Sam walked to the wall where Ellis had first appeared. He pulled the smudge stick slowly across it, not touching, but allowing the smoke to gently caress the wall as it drifted upward.
“Ellis Garroway,” he intoned. “We know who you are. We know the guilt and pain you bear.”
Lacey watched Sam on her small screen, noticing that this time he did not try to match his feet up with Ellis’ path. He moved slowly from one wall to the next, dragging the blue smoke with him.
“We know the choices you made, Ellis. We know you took money to support your family in exchange for doing dark deeds. We know the very qualities instilled in you by your coal-mining father—hard work, loyalty, dependability—pushed you deeper and deeper down the criminal path.”
Sam reached the wall where Ellis had disappeared, then turned and started back the other way.
“I don’t know how much you knew about Michael Philo when you first accepted the offer to work for him. You may have known he was a criminal, but maybe you didn’t. At any rate, you did not know the full extent of what you would be asked to do. That much is obvious.”
Sam took up a stance halfway between the walls. He held the smudge stick out, letting the blue smoke dip and whorl as it carried the fragrant scent of sage throughout the room.
“Ellis Garroway,” he said, “we know you struggled. We know you tried to balance the good against the bad. And we know the bad finally became too much to bear. You did what you had to do to make it stop. You did what you had to do to make up for your transgressions.”
Sam turned slowly. “Ellis Garroway, you have done your penance. For almost ninety years you have walked these rooms, carried this pain. You’ve worn the chains of guilt and regret far longer than any prison sentence. It’s time to move on. It’s time to advance, to go on to the next existence. Take what you learned in this life and go on, wiser, stronger, happier.”
He paused, holding up the smudge stick and dragging the smoke slowly above his head.
“Let go, Ellis. Let go and move on. Better times await you.”
For a moment the room was supernaturally quiet, not the slightest sound disturbing the heavy air. Lacey held her phone very still, biting her lip, wondering if Ellis were listening.
A strangled gasp alerted her. She moved just slightly and caught the faint shadowy figure coalescing in front of the wall. He stood very still, at the ready, the faithful manservant. As his form continued to develop, she saw the perfect black cutaway coat, the stark white shirt. He stood tall, proud, confident.
For a heartbeat, he was still. Then a sound like wind rose up and pushed him forward. His form, once almost solid, began to disintegrate slowly, fraying at the edges, pieces disappearing like smoke in the wind. The hazy form was propelled forward, traveling the same path it had walked for decades, yet at every inch of progress, more substance broke apart and drifted away. As the shocked group looked on, the man who had stood so tall and proud melted away into nothingness, and the quiet rush of wind disappeared with him.
~~~
SEVENTEEN
Sam lowered his arm and stepped to the table where he stubbed out the smudge stick in a crystal ashtray.
There was a collective sigh, as if everyone in the room exhaled at the same time, all expelling the startled breaths they’d been holding.
Lacey turned off her camera.
“Is he… gone?” Irene asked softly.
Sam nodded. “You won’t see him again.”
She glanced pensively at Mason. “I think
I shall miss him,” she said.
Mason put his hand to her cheek. “But it’s better this way. Better for him.”
“Yes.” She leaned into his hand. “Yes, much better for him.”
Suddenly Harvey began to clap, that slow clap seen so often at the end of uplifting movies where everyone joins in. And everyone did, applauding Sam for the second time that morning. Lacey saw the delicate pinking of his copper skin, but guessed no one else would notice.
“Thank you,” he said. He held up his hands in an attempt to quell the applause. When that didn’t work, he gave a small bow. “Thank you. Really, you’re too kind.”
Finally the applause abated. He joined Lacey at the table and they both took their seats.
“That was amazing,” Gloria said. “I’ve never seen a real ghost before.”
“Me, neither,” Wayne admitted. “And I don’t think I want to ever again.”
A couple of the guests chuckled at his aversion. Harvey picked up a white linen napkin and held it up by the center, then dropped it like a mini-parachute—or ghost. Gloria elbowed him.
“Ghosts can’t hurt you,” Sophie told her husband.
“Uh...” Ed’s choked response caught everyone’s attention.
“What?” Sophie asked. She turned to Sam. “They can’t, can they?”
Sam frowned. “For the most part, no. They exist here in a kind of loop, caught up in the same motion—and emotion—over and over. They rarely try to interact with the living.”
“You said, ‘for the most part,’” Wayne noted. He swiveled his gaze and pinned Ed with an expectant stare.
“We have seen… evil,” Sam said. “It’s rare, but it does exist.”
Wayne leaned closer to Ed, as if his proximity could force the truth. “You’ve seen it?” he asked.
Ed opened his mouth, struggled to find words, then closed it again. Instead, he just nodded.
“What was it? Where? When?” Sophie asked.
Sam sighed. “It was last year. We were called to San Juan Capistrano to investigate... threatening experiences.”
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