The Ghost Who Was Says I Do

by Anna J. McIntyre

  Watching Pearl return to her house, Brian said, “One of us should probably walk over to Marlow House and let the chief know what Huckabee just told us, while the other one finishes up here.”

  “To be honest, I don’t want to be the one to bring this news to Marlow House,” Joe said. “Not weeks before Danielle’s wedding.”

  “I suppose Boatman’s used to me raining on her parade, so I’ll do it. But to be honest, I think Huckabee heard it wrong. But either way, the fact she heard them arguing right before the woman was killed, that’s not good for Marlow.”

  Before he could respond, Joe’s cellphone rang. He looked at it and then glanced up to Brian and said, “It’s the chief,” and then answered it.

  “What was that about?” Brian asked a few minutes later when Joe ended the phone call.

  “When we finish up here, he wants some men over at Marlow House to search the room Claudia was staying in. Danielle has already given permission, and the sister of the victim said it was fine, so we don’t need a search warrant. I mentioned you were going over there anyway—that you needed to talk to him”

  Fifteen minutes later Brian was at Marlow House, being led to the library by Joanne, where he found the police chief alone with Walt and Danielle.

  “Are you about finished up at the beach?” the chief asked when Brian entered the room.

  “Joe’s down there getting everything wrapped up. But I need to talk to you.” Brian glanced at Walt and Danielle and then looked back to the chief. “Alone.”

  Danielle stood up. “We’ll be in the kitchen. We missed breakfast, so I’m going to grab something to eat. You both are welcome to get something to eat too when you’re done in here.”

  Walt stood up with Danielle, and they gave Brian a quick hello and goodbye before leaving him alone with the chief.

  “What is it?” the chief asked.

  Brian then went on to recount the conversation he and Joe had had with Danielle’s new neighbor. “Personally, I think she heard it wrong,” Brian told the chief when he finished the telling. “But the fact they were arguing, that is something we need to look into.”

  “Matches what Walt already told me. I think she heard the conversation just fine.” The chief pointed to a chair, as Brian was still standing.

  “Are you telling me Marlow admitted to being married to the woman?” Brian sat down in a chair next to the chief.

  “Not exactly. When the woman showed up on Friday, she claimed to be Walt’s wife and demanded a large sum of money if he wanted a divorce. She showed him a marriage license. Of course, he doesn’t remember anything about his life as Clint. I’ve known about this since Saturday.”

  “You have?” Brian asked in surprise.

  “Walt didn’t believe her story. He wanted to see if I could find out if it was really true. It was a Mexican marriage license, and she still has the original. Which is one thing I’m counting on them finding in the search.”

  “Wow.” Brian leaned back in the chair. “So he wasn’t trying to hide the marriage after he found out about it?”

  “Absolutely not. He told Danielle right away. I’ve been gone, so I couldn’t really help him. But they had decided to just turn this over to Melony and, if the marriage was valid, see about getting it dissolved as soon as possible. That’s what Walt told Claudia when they had the argument. According to him, when they got to the pier, they each went their own way. He came home, and he has no idea where she went.”

  “We know where she ended up.”

  Later, since he had not had any breakfast that morning, MacDonald accepted Danielle’s offer of something to eat while his officers searched Claudia and Rachel’s room. When they were done and on their way, the chief stayed behind and talked to Walt and Danielle for another fifteen minutes. He was about to ask Danielle to get Rachel and Dirk for him before he left for the station. However, it wasn’t necessary to find Rachel; she found him.

  “Police Chief MacDonald, I just finished going through the room after your people were done, and I wanted to know if they took the gun.”

  “Gun? What gun?” the chief asked.

  “Claudia’s. She had a little .38, usually kept it in her purse, but sometimes, if she didn’t take her purse with her, she would keep it in her pocket if she had one. She used to tell me it was dangerous for a real estate agent to show empty properties. I had forgotten about the gun, and then when I was thinking how you said she was shot, I thought, if only she had had her gun with her, and then I remembered when I had checked her purse yesterday, when I called her phone, I didn’t remember seeing the gun. So I looked again after your people finished searching our room, and when it wasn’t there, I went through the luggage, closet, everywhere. I even checked under the mattresses. But it’s nowhere to be found. So I thought maybe they took it.”

  “No, there wasn’t any gun. If she had it with her and it was in her pocket, it’s possible it came out when she was in the water,” the chief suggested.

  “Oh dear…” Rachel frowned.

  “Ms. Dane, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you anyway. I need you to come down to the station this afternoon. I have some more questions for you, and I think it would be best if we do it down there.”

  “Yes—of course. But, well—I was thinking of leaving, going home. I don’t really want to drive home alone, so I was going to try to get a flight. That drive up here was just so long, I don’t think I can do it alone. But I’m not really sure what to do with the car. It’s Claudia’s.”

  “I would really appreciate it if you could stay a few more days,” the chief asked.

  “I suppose I need to think about making arrangements for Claudia’s body…” Rachel began to tear up again.

  “When I see you later today, I’ll see if I can find out when the coroner thinks they’ll be able to release your sister’s body.”

  “I, umm…well, I know Claudia always said she wanted to be cremated.” Holding a damp tissue in her hand, Rachel looked down and twisted it as she talked. “I suppose I should see about having her cremated here. I imagine it would be expensive to have her body taken back home. And then I…” She began to sob. “Oh…I will be going home with Claudia’s ashes instead of her!”

  After Rachel arrived at the police station later that afternoon, Joe took her to the interrogation room and then went to find the chief. He was in his office talking to Chris Johnson.

  Joe popped his head in the chief’s office and said, “Rachel Dane is here. I went ahead and put her in the interrogation room.”

  “Thanks, Joe. I’m going to be a few more minutes. I need to finish talking to Chris.”

  Chris glanced over at Joe and waved. “Hey, Joe.”

  Joe nodded in return. “Chris.”

  “Could you please see if Ms. Dane would like some coffee or something to drink? I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

  When the chief was alone with Chris again, he asked, “So that’s about everything?”

  “I’m pretty sure. If I were you, I’d look a little closer at that Dirk fellow. From what I found out, he was no fan of Claudia or Clint. And from what Eva and Marie have overheard, he intends to blackmail Walt over something.”

  “What’s taking the chief so long?” Brian asked. He stood with Joe in the office next to the interrogation room, watching Rachel through the two-way mirror. She was drinking the cup of coffee Joe had brought her.

  Joe glanced over to Brian. “The chief was talking to Chris. Seemed important.”

  “Heather mentioned Chris was in California when I was talking to her today.”

  Joe looked back to Rachel. “So Marlow might be married?”

  “That’s what Claudia Dane told him. And they found a marriage license in her room. It was a Mexican license.”

  “Wow…can you imagine what it would be like to have people pop up in your life and you have no idea who they are because you have amnesia?” Joe asked.

  “Marlow doesn’t believe it, because he was intend
ing to marry Stephanie. And I have to agree with him. When any of us checked into his background, there was nothing about a wife.”

  “But if she had a marriage license?” Joe asked.

  Brian shrugged. “If it is legit, I suspect there’s already a divorce decree out there waiting to be found.”

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “That’s okay, Chief MacDonald. I have nowhere to go anyway. Do you know anything more about what happened to my sister?”

  “No. Which is why I need to talk to you.” He took a seat at the table, a manila folder in his hand. He opened the folder and removed a sheet of paper and slid it across the table to Rachel. “Have you ever seen this before?”

  Rachel stared at the document and then nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it?” he asked.

  She looked up to him. “Why would I?”

  “Don’t you think it might be important, the fact your sister was married to Clint Marlow?” he asked.

  “He likes to be called Walt now,” Rachel said as she pushed the document back to him. “Anyway, it’s not real.”

  “It isn’t?”

  She shook her head. “No. My sister and Walt were never married.”

  “Did you know she was blackmailing him with this?”

  Rachel shrugged. “It wasn’t going to work anyway. I told her so. Even if he agreed to her terms, once they started with the divorce, he would find out they weren’t even married. She wouldn’t listen to me. I…I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to be accused of being part of it.”

  “Where did she get the license?” he asked.

  Rachel smiled sadly and looked up at the chief. “From Clint.”

  The chief frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “They used to be a real estate team. She was crazy about him, but he wasn’t interested that way. Oh, not to say he didn’t accept her hospitality once in a while. Their broker had a place in Mexico and offered it to them after they closed some big deal. It was in the spring, the very end of March. The two of them went down there, and Claudia, well, she thought it was going to turn into something.”

  “What happened?”

  “She got really drunk their last night, too much tequila. When she woke up the next morning, that marriage license was sitting next to her in bed. She really thought they had gotten married while they were both drunk. And by the way it was on the pillow next to her, with a flower, she immediately thought sober Clint was happy about it. But she forgot it was April first. They always played pranks on each other every April first. He never understood why she got so upset. Afterwards, when they came back from the trip, Claudia told him she didn’t want to work with him anymore, and she moved to another office.”

  “But they started working together again?”

  “Yes. She missed him. He came to her with an idea of fixing up properties and then flipping them. She listed the properties, and he brought the buyer. To be honest, it wasn’t exactly ethical. I loved my sister, but she liked taking shortcuts. They made pretty good money for a while, and then the housing market crashed.”

  “Has your sister ever mentioned a Jay Larson?”

  “No. But Dirk mentioned that name at breakfast the other day. Someone Clint—I mean Walt—knew.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “What do you know about Dirk Thorpe?”

  “I know my sister hated him.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. She was just really upset after he showed up here. I know he used to work at the same office as Clint.”

  “Was your sister being blackmailed?” he asked.

  “Blackmailed?” Rachel frowned. “No. I don’t know why you would ask me that. I know it seems like she was trying to blackmail Walt, but it wasn’t going to work.”

  “About that…” The chief leaned back in the chair, his eyes on Rachel. “I can understand why your sister didn’t find the April Fool’s joke funny. But why after all this time, especially when he doesn’t even remember what he did, would your sister decide to try extorting money from him? After all, she obviously once cared for him. And it seemed she put the incident in Mexico behind her when they started working together again. Why now? Was it just because he came into money?”

  Nervously fidgeting with her hands on the tabletop, Rachel looked down and shook her head. “I don’t know all the details. I just know that after Clint left, something came up with the real estate department regarding the listings she had sold to Clint’s buyers. At the time, she thought Clint had gone to Europe with Stephanie, because that’s what she’d heard. And when she tried to contact him, she learned about the accident and how he had amnesia. Since he was in no position to help her, she ended up selling her condo and paying whatever fines there were herself.”

  “She felt Clint owed her because of those fines she had to pay?”

  Rachel nodded. “Yes. Clint had given up his real estate license, so he really didn’t have to worry about getting fined. But she had to keep working, and needed to keep her license, so she had to pay them. She didn’t think that was fair, especially because she believed it was Clint’s fault they got in trouble.”

  “Her plan was to indirectly get the money she thought he owed her by pretending they had been married?”

  “I know it sounds really lame. But yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

  “Do you know of anyone who might have had an issue with your sister?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. And certainly no one here, aside from Walt and Dirk.” Rachel paused a moment and then added, “But there was that guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “He was a guy my sister knew whom we ran into while we were here. She told me he was a disgruntled client of Clint’s who had bought one of her listings. She first noticed him standing in front of Marlow House. And then a couple of days later, we ran into him at that diner on the pier. He approached us and said Clint ruined him and then accused her of being part of it.”

  “What happened?”

  “A police officer walked in and then the guy left. Claudia didn’t seem that upset. She said he was Clint’s problem.”

  “Do you know who he was?” the chief asked.

  “No.”

  Thirty-Three

  Dirk and his wife arrived at the police station a few minutes before the chief finished talking with Rachel. They asked them to sit in the waiting area until they were ready to see them. The chief walked Rachel out, and before taking Dirk’s wife to the interrogation room, he took Joe and Brian aside and asked, “I need one of you to find out what fines the California Department of Real Estate levied against Claudia and why. Also, see what complaints were ever brought against Clint or Claudia.”

  “You mean against Walt?” Joe chuckled.

  “No. It was Clint back then. Walt’s a different man,” the chief said.

  After MacDonald walked down the hall with Tanya while Dirk remained sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area, Joe looked at Brian and said, “I don’t understand why he feels he can’t turn the interrogations over to us. We were first on the scene; it’s not like we’re new at this. But he always does this with anything involving Marlow House.”

  “I suspect there’s information about this case he hasn’t had a chance to share with us yet. He was at Marlow House for a long time this morning and then had that discussion with Chris. From what I understand, he had some information pertinent to the case.”

  “I suppose.”

  “If you don’t mind looking up that information for the chief, I’m going to head on down to the pier. Carla should be at work by now,” Brian said.

  “How well did you know Claudia Dane?” the chief asked Tanya. The two sat alone in the interrogation room.

  “Not well. I saw her a few times at open houses I attended with my husband.”

  “Did you know she was going to be at Marlow House b
efore you arrived?” he asked.

  “No. But why would I? Like I said, I barely knew the woman. I certainly wasn’t informed of her travel plans.”

  “How well did you know Clint Marlow?” the chief asked.

  “Just a little better than I knew Claudia. He worked at the same office as my husband, so I would see him at business functions, like the Christmas party, that sort of thing.”

  “Did you know Clint Marlow would be at Marlow House before you arrived?” he asked.

  “I assumed he would be there. We saw that interview with him on the morning show. To be honest, that’s why we came in the first place. Dirk was curious.”

  “Curious why?”

  Tanya arched her brows and smiled at the chief. “Seriously? Wouldn’t you be curious if someone you worked with suddenly became famous—well, semi-famous—and supposedly had amnesia? We needed to get away for a few days anyway, and Dirk thought it would be a kick to come here. I think he wanted to see if Clint really has amnesia. But it isn’t like we planned the trip just for that, we were intending to go somewhere this week. We just happened to decide on Frederickport.”

  “Tell me what you did yesterday and the last time you saw Claudia.”

  “At breakfast. That was the last time I saw her. I wanted to do a little sightseeing in Astoria, and Dirk didn’t want to go. I was heading back to town when I got a call from Dirk telling me he was at some little bar and wanted me to pick him up when I got back so we could go have something to eat. So that’s what I did.”

  “Do you know what time that was?” he asked.

  “I didn’t pay any attention to the time. But it was about an hour before the sun went down. I was already on my way home when he called. I picked him up at the bar; we had a couple of drinks; then we went to get something to eat.”

  When it was Dirk’s turn in the interrogation room, the chief again asked him about what he had done the previous day. His version of the events matched his wife’s.