A Literary Scandal

by Libby Howard

  “Probably no more than an hour or so,” I assured him. “How about I come get you downstairs when we’re done?”

  “Sounds like a plan. Do you think Olive would want to join in on some Law and Order binging?”

  I chuckled. “Maybe. I’ll ask her.”

  “In that case, I’ll leave you to your book.” He looked back at me as he headed out of the kitchen. “Thanks for dinner. Sunday it’s my turn to cook though, okay?”

  “Deal.” I watched him go with a smile on my face. I loved having him live here with me. Yes, I adored the kids, but there was something special about the weeks when it was just me and the judge. Something special indeed.

  Chapter 5

  Olive arrived promptly at nine o’clock, hauling a gorgeous leather portmanteau in one hand and her designer purse in the other. We got settled at the table with some coffee as Judge Beck retreated downstairs. As soon as she heard the door shut, Olive opened the leather bag, pulling candles, incense, and a few bulky velvet bags from the inside.

  “You should just tell him, you know,” she told me. “He won’t think you’re crazy if you let him know.”

  “Because everyone accepts the idea that their landlord sees ghosts and that the house they’re living in is haunted by her deceased husband and a young football player he wasn’t very fond of before his death?”

  “More people see ghosts than you’d think, Kay.” She walked around the room, placing candles here and there on top of folded squares of aluminum foil to safeguard my furniture against the melted wax. “Sometimes it’s just one time and they think it’s a dream. Others see them regularly but ignore them and come up with some other explanation for their experiences. Some see shadows as you do. Others see the person as they appeared in life. Some can hear their voices. Some can’t.”

  Ugh, I was glad I didn’t have to hear Holt yammering about, although if I could hear him speak, maybe he’d stop knocking stuff off counters and shelves all the time. Then I thought about Eli, about how wonderful it would be to actually see him instead of a shadow, to hear his voice again.

  Olive scooted a candle over a few inches and shot me a perceptive glance. “Would you like me to contact the other ghost as well?”

  I hesitated, not sure what I wanted. What if I found out the ghost wasn’t Eli? That the ghost was some former resident of the house from the last century and not my husband?

  And what if it was Eli, and with Olive’s voice he told me of all the things I’d done wrong in the last decade, all the times I’d been too tired to give him that little extra, the times I’d secretly resented having to care for him. The times I’d felt sorry for myself. All those fleeting thoughts and feelings I’d kept to myself while struggling to be the sole source of comfort for a patient who, most of the time, bore no resemblance to the man I’d married. Maybe he’d seen those thoughts and had been hurt by them. Maybe he was staying around just to tell me what a horrible wife I’d been.

  No. That wasn’t the feeling I got from the spirit at all. I could tell Holt’s ghost was angry and frustrated, but the one I’d come to associate with Eli was just…there. He was calm and comforting, just a reassuring presence around my home when I needed it the most. No, what I really feared was that Olive would give voice to whatever Eli had to say, then he’d move on and I’d never see him again. I couldn’t bear that. Losing him in the accident, then losing him this spring were difficult enough. Losing the last shadowy reminder of his presence would be too much.

  “Let’s just concentrate on the younger ghost today,” I told Olive. Maybe someday I’d feel ready to let Eli go, to exchange whatever words needed to still be said, then let his spirit fly free. That day wasn’t today.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” she replied with a kind smile.

  I watched her align the candles, then set two incense burners on little ceramic trays with a bit of charcoal and tiny bags of herbs and resin beside them. Then she opened the largest velvet bag and removed a mirror.

  “Touching up the lipstick before we begin?” I teased. “I’m sure a ladies’ man like Holt appreciates that sort of thing.”

  Olive laughed. “Sometimes I have to break out all the tricks. We got lucky with your last spirit. She was eager to communicate, although she had a difficult time getting her message across. Who knows how this one will react to my call?”

  I looked around the room and shivered. “He’s been poltergeisting stuff. And I feel like he’s angry.”

  Olive held up the incense. “This ought to cool his jets a bit. And I have some personal precautions in case he decides he wants to take that anger out on me.”

  I felt suddenly ashamed that I’d never considered Olive’s safety during these sessions. “We don’t have to do this if you think you’ll be in danger,” I told her. Sheesh, it’s not like I was even paying her for this. Should I pay her for this? The thought had never crossed my mind, but I assumed she charged a fee for these sorts of things, just as she would for her accounting services.

  She chuckled. “Girl, I’ve had a Civil War Lieutenant try to toss me through a window, a Senator’s son try to permanently possess me, and a prostitute’s daughter who wanted me to kill her mother. There’s nothing this football-boy could do that will faze me.”

  “He might knock some vegetables off the counter,” I teased. “Or dump Taco’s food bowl over. He only did that once, though. Taco generally avoids ghosts, but one of them messes with his food bowl, and it’s game-on.”

  “Ghosts should know better than to mess with cats,” she told me with a grin. “Now, what exactly do you want from this young man? Is there something in particular you want him to tell you? If he consents to me channeling for him, you can ask him directly, but if not, I may need to just be a go-between.”

  I shrugged. “The usual. Why is he still here? Why is he attaching himself to me and my house in particular? What can I do to get rid of him?”

  She snorted. “Well, the last question is a bit combative so I might need to rephrase that one.” She got up and adjusted the candles once more, setting each one to light while muttering under her breath in a language I couldn’t recognize.

  “Is he here now?” I hadn’t seen either of my shadow residents for a few hours. It would suck if Holt in particular had fled the scene before Olive could wrangle him into a conversation.

  “Yes.” Her breath came out in a cloud of steam, as if it were suddenly fifty degrees colder on her side of the room. I sat in silence and watched her finish with the candles, then leaned forward as she positioned herself at the table, spreading her fingers wide on the surface until only her thumbs touched. A shadow appeared against the wallpaper, faint but present.

  “Come on out, Holt Dupree,” Olive called, dispensing with any theatrics. “I know you’ve got something to say, and Kay would like a word with you as well.”

  The shadow against the wall quivered but stayed put. I had an instant vision of Holt crossing his arms and giving us a sullen stare.

  Olive took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “I feel you over there. Come talk to us. Either through me, or with the mirror. I’ll even get the Ouija board out if you prefer.”

  I got the impression Holt didn’t even know what a Ouija board was. Young people. Sheesh.

  The shadow shimmered with irritation. The mirror in front of Olive frosted over, then a series of words appeared across the surface. They weren’t the sort of words someone should use in polite company.

  “Well.” Olive laughed and shook her head. “Never had anyone call me that before, and I’ve been called a lot of things.” She wiped her sleeve across the mirror. “How about something constructive, Holt? Or at least something without profanity.”

  The shadow shimmered again, and the mirror frosted, this time revealing two words, all in capital letters.

  “Think it’s time to put the mirror away,” Olive muttered, sliding it back into the velvet bag. Shifting in her chair, she lit the incense cone and breathed deep. “U
se me, Holt. But I swear, if you take the Lord’s name in vain, I’m gonna banish you to the county dump for six months.”

  I bit back a smile, knowing that she couldn’t do that but still appreciating the threat.

  The shadow moved forward into the curl of incense, then hovered around Olive’s shoulder. She held very still then slowly shifted her hand to the left, turning the palm upward and wiggling her fingers as if coaxing a particularly skittish kitten to come closer.

  He brushed against her hand then darted back to the wall, extinguishing two candles on his way.

  Olive sighed. “Almost had him.”

  “He’s angry,” I told her.

  “He’s afraid,” she replied. “He doesn’t know me, and he hasn’t been a ghost for long. I feel kinda sorry for the kid, you know? But scared ghosts are the hardest ones to communicate with. Angry is better.”

  Angry is better, huh?

  “Holt!” I called out. “I didn’t like you much when you were alive, and I’m even less fond of you dead,” I called out. “Peony’s in jail awaiting trial or a plea deal. Buck’s been charged and is out on bail. What more do you want from me? It’s not like I can bring you back to life or anything.”

  The two candles ignited, the plume of incense smoke jutting to the left.

  “You were a lousy son, and a lousy boyfriend. If you hadn’t been good at football, then no one would have wanted to be your friend,” I told him. “And you weren’t even that good at football. Buck Stanford should have gotten that scholarship, not you. If you hadn’t died on that road last month, you would have been knifed by a jealous husband and cut from the team by the end of the season. You’re a jerk. I don’t like you. Taco doesn’t like you. You’re not welcome here. So either talk to me, or get the heck out of my house.”

  Olive gasped and sat back in her chair with a snap, her eyes going wide.

  “No bad language.” I shook my finger at Olive, letting Holt know that I wasn’t going to tolerate any of the nastiness that had appeared on the mirror.

  “It’s not fair,” Olive told me. Or rather, Holt told me. Her voice had changed, becoming deeper and raspy with a slangy edge to it.

  “That you’re dead?” I asked. “I know it’s not fair. Kids die. Infants die. Talented surgeons who are loving husbands and pillars of their community get hit by oncoming cars and are permanently disabled. Life isn’t fair, Holt. Death isn’t fair, either.”

  “I had my whole life ahead of me,” he insisted. “And you don’t know shi…squat about football. I was good—really good. What happened to Buck was an accident, no matter what anyone says. I was the best in high school, the best in college, and I would have brought Atlanta to the Super Bowl in a few years, I promise you that. It’s not fair.”

  I noticed that he didn’t mention the women or the fast cars or the money and fame. Maybe I had read Holt wrong. Maybe he had been passionate about his sport and that had been what mattered to him most—which made his death even more tragic. Even so, there was nothing I could do to help him with that.

  “I’m sorry, Holt. I know you’re angry, and believe me, I know how that feels. I’ve beat my fists against the walls for many years over the injustice of things, over how one second can change a life—change several lives—in a blink. I don’t understand what this has to do with me, though.”

  Olive blinked up at me, her eyes boring into mine. “You were there.”

  I caught my breath, knowing he meant there, at the site of the accident. “I was. So were a lot of other people. Peony. The man you nearly ran off the road. The paramedics.”

  “If Buck hadn’t fu..messed with my car, I wouldn’t have wrecked. And if that bi…girl hadn’t drugged my water, I would have walked away from that accident with some stitches and bruises.”

  “And if you hadn’t been popping Viagra like they were Tic-Tacs, you wouldn’t have died either way.” I glared at Olive-Holt. “What’s a young guy like you need that stuff for anyway? You’re so concerned about your football career, but you’re taking erectile dysfunction meds?”

  Olive squirmed. I got the feeling that if she hadn’t had a coffee-colored complexion, she would have been blushing bright red. “That’s not your business. I had a prescription. It’s not something I like to discuss with anyone, you know?”

  Ugh. Poor kid. I couldn’t imagine how embarrassing it would have been to have those problems as a young man. But that wasn’t my problem. None of this was my problem.

  “What do you want, Holt?” I asked.

  “I want my life. I was cheated out of my life and I want it back.”

  I couldn’t really blame him for that, but what he wanted was impossible.

  “Holt, I’m not a necromancer. This isn’t some late-night horror movie where I can raise you from the dead or go back in time and stop everything that caused your death. I know you want your life back, but it isn’t going to happen. It’s not fair. I know it’s not fair, but there aren’t any do-overs that I’m aware of.”

  He sat there, sullen. It was odd because Olive was sitting right in front of me, but I could tell it wasn’t her. Her mannerisms, her speech patterns…it was all Holt.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  Now my heart was breaking a little. He’d been a cocky flirt, who’d quite possibly deliberately hurt a competitor to get ahead, but he’d died young. Not even in the prime of his life. He’d died before the prime of his life could even start.

  “I know,” I told him softly. “But ghosts can’t play football. All you can do is roll potatoes off my counter and smash a wine glass or two. We can’t even communicate outside of what we’re doing now. If you stay, you’ll just be a shadow that only I can see—a shadow that can occasionally move something physical. What kind of life is that?”

  He slumped, picking at his cuticles. I was pretty sure Olive wasn’t going to be thrilled at what he was doing to her manicure. “I don’t want to be dead.”

  It was like talking to…well, like talking to a teenager. If I couldn’t convince him to head toward the light, then maybe I could at least get him to go haunt someone else.

  “Why me, Holt? I know you said I was there, but so were a lot of other people. And there must be someone you’d rather spend your afterlife with than a sixty-year-old widow that you had met in passing once or twice in your life.”

  “You can see me,” he replied. “Maybe not all the way, but at least you know I’m around. Do you know how frustrating it is to see your mom crying and you can’t touch her or talk to her? And she doesn’t even know you’re there watching her heart break?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Holt, you hardly saw your mother when you were back for the Fourth. Be honest, it’s Violet you’re trying to haunt. And you’re frustrated because she doesn’t even know you’re there or seem to care.”

  Olive/Holt’s mouth set into a tight line. “The only people who can see me are you, a few of the homeless down on South Street in Milford, and this woman I’m talking through. I don’t wanna go. And I want to be somewhere that I’m noticed.”

  I was tempted to tell him to go hang out on South Street, but I wasn’t that cruel. “Holt, I’ve already got one ghost in the house. He’s welcome to stay here all the time. You…well, I don’t mind you visiting every now and then, but you can’t stay here every day, and you can’t keep following me around.”

  The look that Olive/Holt gave me was heartbreaking. I was so tempted to give in, but I couldn’t adopt every stray ghost that came around.

  “Let’s work out a visitation plan or something,” I told him. “For the short term. Until you decide you want to move on to the afterlife.”

  His eyes met mine. “Really?”

  “I don’t know how thrilling it’s going to be for you. You can’t talk to me. You’re just a shadow in the corner of my vision. And I don’t exactly live an exciting life. I’m a widow. My idea of fun is reading or watching movies or petting my cat.”

  He shuddered at the mention of my cat.

/>   “Your job is interesting. I can read the files you’re working on and see what you’re doing. I like watching you find deadbeats and research people. You’re nosy. I’m nosy…or I was nosy before I got dead. It’s better than hanging out on South Street and watching a bunch of guys beg change off the commuters.”

  “So how about this: you can hang out with me at work, or when I’m doing work-related activities. My social time is off the table. No hovering around during porch happy hour. No lurking while I’m cooking dinner or knitting or hanging with Judge Beck or my friends.” I suddenly thought of something else. “And absolutely no following Madison around. I better not catch you in her bedroom or prowling around when she’s in the shower. Got it?”

  He grinned. “Aw, come on. She’s a tall drink of water, that girl is.”

  I glared at him. “She’s just turned sixteen. I mean it, Holt. I find out you’re being a creepy stalker ghost and I’ll…. I’ll sic Taco on you.”

  He shuddered. “Okay, okay. Just not the cat. Work only. But if you’re working from home, or something work-like comes up when you’re hanging with your friends, then I get to be there. And I want to visit the barbeques. The homeless on South Street don’t have barbeques.”

  Why did I get the feeling this ghost was going to turn a whole lot of things into “work-related” occurrences? Holt had a bit of a con man in him, and I knew full well that I couldn’t trust him to keep to the spirit of our agreement. It was a starting point, though. And hopefully once he realized how very boring my life was, he’d move toward the light.

  “We have a deal,” I told him. “Now scoot so Olive can get back to her own life here. I’ll expect to see you at work on Monday—and not a minute before then. Got it?”

  He grinned. “Got it.”

  Olive jerked, her eyes rolling back in her head and her hands clenching in a spasm on top of the table. The candles blew out. The incense curled then drifted lazily up to the ceiling.