The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

by Josh Lanyon

  Reno slid the deadbolt home and answered shortly, “Navy SEAL.”

  “Let the journey begin.”

  Nick gave him that hard look that Perry was beginning to recognize, and Perry explained, “On the TV commercials. Let the journey begin. Like, It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure. The marine slogan, you know.”

  Apparently Nick did not know. He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Feeling rebuffed, Perry turned back to the front room. The walls were bare except for one painting, a giant seascape. It hung over the fireplace. Gray-blue waves beneath lowering skies. Perry liked it. There were no other pictures. None. The walls were institutional white. There was a short blue couch, where he’d be spending the night. A standing light was positioned over the sofa. A small coffee table stood before it. That was it for the furniture. None of it revealed anything of Reno’s personality unless absence of furniture revealed something.

  “You want a beer?”

  Perry set down his suitcase and followed Nick’s voice to the kitchen. The kitchen was immaculate. An old-fashioned fridge hummed senilely to itself. The gas range looked like an antique. The clock on the wall indicated that it was after midnight, and Perry realized just how tired he was.

  Nick stood at the sink chugging down a beer. Coming up for air, he said, “Help yourself.”

  Perry opened his mouth to decline, but he saw the glint in Nick’s eyes, the look that said he expected Perry to be a finicky little candy-ass who didn’t drink beer at midnight.

  “Thanks,” he said and opened the fridge. He expected it to be empty of anything but alcoholic beverages and health supplements. Wrong. The metal racks were stuffed with food. Milk, eggs, bread, and meat wrapped in white butcher’s paper. Vegetables pressed up against the crisper pans like damp noses.

  Perry found a beer — good imported ale — and tried to twist off the top.

  Nick inhaled his own beer and spit it out coughing over the sink. He was laughing, not very kindly. Perry rubbed his hand on his jeans.

  “You need a bottle opener,” Nick informed him, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

  Defensively, Perry muttered, “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Nick passed the bottle opener. “How old are you? You’re over twenty-one, right?”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  The dark eyebrows rose skeptically. Nick looked about thirty. He had smooth olive skin and short, dark hair. And those navy blue eyes. He was very good-looking in a stern no trespassing way. About the same height as Perry, but built for action. Key word: muscles.

  Perry swallowed a mouthful of skunky-tasting beer. He couldn’t decide if he liked Nick Reno, but he felt safe with him. He couldn’t imagine anything happening that Nick Reno couldn’t handle.

  Nick left the kitchen and disappeared down the hall. Perry drank some more beer.

  Pinpricks of rain against the ink black windows had a mournful sound. He remembered that just a few hours ago he had been in San Francisco. He couldn’t handle that memory now. Not with dead men appearing and disappearing like the middle reel of a slasher movie. He swallowed another musky mouthful of beer.

  “How long have you lived here?” Nick’s voice inquired from the other room.

  “A year next month.”

  “And nothing like this has ever happened before?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Anything suspicious?”

  Perry thought it over. “No.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.” Nick appeared in the doorway with a couple of folded wool blankets.

  “It’s an old house,” Perry said reluctantly. “It’s got…atmosphere.”

  Nick’s expression indicated he hoped “atmosphere” wasn’t catching. “What, floorboards creaking? Whispering voices?”

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m being watched,” Perry said. “Sometimes it seems like my stuff has been moved. Like somebody’s been in my rooms. Sometimes it seems like the house is…listening.”

  Nick considered him for a long moment. “I’d say you were nutty as a fruitcake, except someone scrubbed down that tub and switched those shoes. I sure as hell didn’t imagine it. And I sure as hell can’t think of any innocent reason someone would do something like that.”

  It was a huge relief to be believed. Perry volunteered, “I was supposed to be gone all this week. I came back early.”

  “Who knew that?”

  Perry rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know. It wasn’t a secret. Janie — Ms. Bridger — knew. Mrs. Mac.” It was all beginning to catch up with him. Swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat, he said, “I’d been planning the trip to San Francisco for weeks. I guess anyone could have known.”

  Whatever Nick read in his face caused him to say brusquely, “Yeah, well, it would be helpful to narrow it down. Get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

  Sleep sounded like a good idea. Perry hadn’t eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours, and the beer was hitting him hard. Or maybe it was exhaustion. He hadn’t closed his eyes last night — and the night before that he had been too keyed up to sleep. The drive from the airport had taken everything he had; he had been sputtering along on empty for hours now.

  “Thanks.” He dropped down on the sofa. Nick tossed him the folded blankets. He caught them against his chest.

  He opened his mouth to thank Nick one more time, but Nick had already disappeared down the hallway to the room Perry couldn’t see. The door closed with finality.

  The closed door was a relief. Perry hadn’t realized how nervous the older man made him. Nervous and self-conscious. Nick Reno, man of action, clearly despised the wuss from across the hall.

  Perry opened his suitcase, found flannel pajamas and a clean pair of socks. It was going to be a cold night. Nick’s thermostat was set on sixty, and the window casements leaked.

  Hands shaking with sudden exhaustion, Perry changed into the pajamas, pulled on the socks, and rolled himself in the blankets. The couch was about a foot too short. It didn’t matter; a bed of nails would be preferable to sleeping in his own silent rooms.

  He vaguely considered brushing his teeth but somehow just couldn’t convince himself to make the effort. Instead, he buried his face in the cool pillowcase and got a shock. The pillow smelled of Nick Reno. It smelled masculine: long-ago aftershave and some kind of herbal soap.

  In some indefinable way it reminded him of Marcel, although Marcel had smelled nothing like Nick Reno. Perry’s sense of loneliness and loss returned in force, crashing over him like a wave, dragging him out to sea on an emotional riptide. His eyes prickled, his face flushed. He pressed closer to the pillow to muffle the sob that threatened to tear out of his throat.

  Truly the last fucking straw if he finished this weekend crying himself to sleep on Nick Reno’s sofa. He pictured Reno coming out to find him sobbing into the upholstery and surprised himself with a watery chuckle. He could imagine the horror on Reno’s face so clearly.

  Listening to the rain thundering down, he closed his eyes and let it wash him away.

  * * * * *

  Thirty minutes, Nick thought, slapping the magazine into the MK23. Thirty minutes tops and the kid would be in dreamland.

  He waited, stretched out on the bed, arms folded behind his head, at ease, waiting.

  He liked the sound of the rain battering down against the walls and roof; it reminded him of the sea. He missed the sea.

  When the clock clicked over the thirtieth minute, he rose soundlessly and went to the door to ease it open.

  All quiet in the living room. The light was still on, though, so he waited, listening. He focused hard, tuning out the rain, tuning out the clock, the branches scraping the house. He could hear the kid breathing softly, evenly, asleep.

  Opening the door wide, he stole down the hallway. His houseguest was curled up uncomfortably on the sofa. His suitcase was open, his inhaler was propped on the coffee table within grabbing reach.
His keys were on the floor. Nick took a second look. Foster wore some kind of striped PJs and a wristwatch.

  Nick picked up the keys, pausing when a floorboard creaked. The kid sighed and buried his face deeper in the pillow.

  Nick continued toward the door. Unlocking it, he slipped out into the dim hall. He relocked the door.

  Cautiously he made his way down the hall. There was a walk-in linen cupboard at one end. Doubtful, but he wanted to check it out.

  A steamer trunk beneath one of the grimy windows caught his attention. Talk about your long shots, but Nick had learned a long time ago never to assume anything. He turned his flashlight on.

  The trunk was locked, but he picked the old lock without much trouble. Lifting the lid, he was greeted by the scent of mothballs. The interior was stuffed with junk: a couple of battered photo albums, old Life magazines, a black doll missing an arm, draperies that looked like shrouds. He shut the trunk, snapped off his flashlight, and headed for the linen closet.

  A relic of more genteel times, the walk-in closet opened with a lugubrious screech of unused hinges. Nick waited for the sounds of alarm, ready to abort.

  Nothing. He pulled the chain of the overhead light bulb. Tired light flooded empty, dirty shelves and cobwebs big enough to accommodate a Jules Verne spider. Dust carpeted the floor; Nick didn’t need to get down on hands and knees to verify that no one, dead or alive, had been in this room for years.

  Strike two.

  The kid — or maybe it had been the Bridger woman — had mentioned a laundry chute. Nick ran the flashlight beam along the wall. He had a vague memory of laundry chutes in hotels. Usually they opened out into the basement. Shoving it down a laundry chute might be a good way to get rid of a corpse, but there didn’t seem to be a chute door on this floor. The two tower rooms mirrored each other, and since there was no laundry chute in Nick’s room, he was pretty sure the kid didn’t have one, either.

  That meant someone would have to lug the corpse down to the second level and stuff the body into the laundry chute there. Most of the chutes Nick had seen weren’t that big. It might be a good way to dispose of a child or a midget; an adult-sized corpse was liable to get stuck in place.

  He proceeded along to the Foster boy’s apartment, feeling inside the unlit rooms for the light switch.

  Briefly, he was distracted by the spread of painted canvases. White church steeples against stormy skies, a lonely, windswept red barn, golden trees: New England autumn. What did Foster do with all this? Did he try to sell it? It was better than a lot of stuff Nick saw for sale.

  He studied the meticulously cared-for brushes, the tantalizing tubes of color, the sponges, rulers, razors, knives, rolls of canvas. An expensive hobby, if that’s what it was.

  Opening the bedroom window, he stared down at the tall ladder glistening in the light coming from behind him. Here was the most likely explanation. The window had no screen, and it was large enough to push a man through.

  But when Nick had checked, the window was locked. How did someone stuff a body out through a window, climb out themselves without dropping the body, close the window, and then lock it from the inside?

  For that matter, how did an intruder get in through a locked window?

  Okay, say the window hadn’t been locked to start with. Still no easy task to cart a deadweight up a twenty-foot ladder. Going down, the killer could just drop his load, but even that was a risk. Someone might hear the body crashing against the house. It might hang up in the trees. Shoving a corpse out of a window presented a number of logistical problems.

  But a man might be desperate enough to try. Mostly it would depend on the size of the body and the size of the man carrying the body.

  Wind skulked around the house, rising up to rustle the wet leaves with a ghostly hand.

  Nick shook his wet head like a dog and ducked back inside the apartment.

  The intruder would have to be a man, he decided. A man in good shape. Nick was in great shape, but he wasn’t sure he could tote a dead body too far, unless the deceased had been the size of someone like Perry Foster. And judging by the size of that missing shoe…

  It had to be an inside job. Nothing else made sense. Nick contemplated the other male residents of the Alston Estate. David Center sounded like a wacko, but he was blind, which probably put him out of the running for Psycho of the Year. Rudy Stein on the second floor was a possible. Teagle on the first floor was another screwball: one of those hale and hearty old farts who had a habit of sticking his nose into other people’s business.

  But Teagle was away visiting relatives in Barre. It seemed unlikely that he’d drop in just to deposit a body and manage to split with no one the wiser.

  Which brought him back to Stein and Center. Stein was an ex-cop according to scuttlebutt. Center was a professional psychic, a fortune-teller. He actually had a shop in Fox Run where he read palms and tarot cards. How the hell a blind man read tarot cards, Nick had no notion.

  He really couldn’t picture any of this crew scaling ladders in the dark of the night, with or without dead bodies. The whole thing didn’t make sense. If Nick hadn’t seen the scuff marks and mud-that-might-be-blood for himself, he would have pegged Perry Foster as delusional. But somebody got too clever. Switching the shoes was a mistake. It was arrogant. Practically a challenge.

  Nick never refused a challenge.

  * * * * *

  Perry woke after a deep and dreamless sleep.

  It took him a moment to orient himself. He was not in his own bed. And he was not in Marcel’s bed, either. It all came rushing back. Every morning for the past nine months his first waking thought had been of Marcel. But now, instead of the usual bloom of anticipation, a chill depression settled on him like snowfall weighing down a tree branch. He could feel his composure cracking beneath that weight; it didn’t help at all to remind himself that he was grieving for a dream, for something that had never existed except in his imagination. And for someone who had never existed at all.

  He wiped the corners of his eyes. It was quiet in the apartment. He listened to the drip, drip, drip of rain from the eaves. Nick Reno was already up; Perry could hear him moving quietly around the kitchen, and he could smell coffee percolating and bacon frying: two of the best aromas in the world.

  His stomach growled. He fought his way out of the cocoon of blankets and dragged on his jeans. He had a crick in his neck. He needed a shower and a shave. He needed to brush his teeth.

  He needed to go back to his apartment.

  The realization filled him with dismay. Even in daylight the thought of going back there, of facing the silence, the emptiness — the memory of the corpse in the bathtub…

  He headed for the kitchen, pulling on a T-shirt. Nick sat at the table drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. He glanced up, his eyes dark blue in his bronze face.

  “Morning,” he said laconically. “Help yourself to coffee.”

  There was an old-fashioned stainless steel coffeepot sitting on the range. Perry moved to the stove. A clean mug sat on the counter, which seemed a friendly gesture. He poured coffee: strong, plain coffee. None of that fancy, flavored java for Nick.

  “There’s milk in the fridge,” Nick told him without looking up from the paper.

  Pouring a lot of milk and a couple of spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee, Perry sat down across from Nick. He watched Nick swallow black coffee. Nick finished the story he was reading and neatly folded up his paper. Catching Perry’s eye, he nodded curtly.

  “Sleep okay?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  That seemed to cover the small talk. Nick pushed back his chair, went to the fridge, and took out a carton of eggs. He moved efficiently around the kitchen; he drained the bacon and cracked the eggs.

  “Sunny-side up?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your eggs. Fried okay?”

  “Sure,” Perry said. “Thanks.” He was happy all out of proportion to be invited to breakfast, to delay going back to his
own rooms. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night,” he said rather shyly.

  Nick flipped butter over the eggs, not answering.

  He wore Levi’s and a blue plaid flannel shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open to reveal a stomach as brown and hard as a ship’s figurehead. His chest muscles rippled as he tilted the heavy iron pan. Perry warned himself not to stare.

  Nick possessed a great profile too, maybe not typically handsome, but strong and symmetrical. There was both character and toughness in his face. Perry wanted to sketch him.

  He could imagine what Reno would say to that idea.

  “How long were you in the SEALs?” he inquired, breaking the silence.

  “Ten years. Fourteen years in the navy altogether.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  Nick shot him a wry look. “More than half your lifetime.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Why? Thinking of enlisting?”

  The sarcasm caught Perry off guard, and he hid himself in his coffee cup.

  Maybe Nick thought that was ruder than called for. He said, “What do you do with all those paintings in your apartment?”

  “I try to sell them.”

  “To who?”

  “To anyone. Why, want to buy one?”

  Nick gave him a level look and then grinned. The smile was very white in his olive face and unexpectedly youthful. It transformed him, just like smiles in books were supposed to do.

  “Maybe,” he said. “You’re not bad.”

  At this unexpected praise, Perry felt himself flushing. Nick seemed like someone whose idea of art would be girly calendars or plastic-framed posters of hot cars. But that wasn’t fair, because there was that moody seascape hanging over his fireplace.

  Perry volunteered, “A couple of gift shops carry my work. I’m trying to get one of the galleries to consider me. So far, no luck.” He shrugged.

  “Did you go to art school or something?”

  Perry’s stared down at the patterns in the grain of the tabletop. “No. I wanted to go to art school, but it…fell through.”