“No. I was actually busy interviewing Reed Ingram this morning about his grandfather.”
“Where?”
“At the Ingram house.”
“Any idea how long Clinton has been dead?”
“At least thirty six hours by the time Reed found him.”
“Oh, dear Lord.” I sat back in the booth, shocked. “That means he died sometime Friday, right? Did he have a heart attack?”
“Not unless a knife in the back can cause one.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say, so I just shook my head.
Mike put his hand over mine. “Deep breath.”
“I’m fine. Just…I don’t know.”
The waitress came back with our drinks, salads and fresh rolls. After she left, he said, “I feel sorry for Reed. It was a major shock for him to find his grandfather like that.”
“Why was he there?”
“Well, his mother was murdered, and his father was missing. It was natural for him to turn to the closest relative, and that was Clinton. When he went over there, he found Clinton face down on the living room floor dead.”
“This isn’t exactly a conversation to have over lunch.”
“You asked.”
“I know.”
The waitress came back, refilled our drinks, and took our empty salad bowls. “Shouldn’t you be over at Clinton’s house, working the crime scene?”
“Detective Dobbs and Officer Palmer are there now with the crime scene unit. Dobbs is a good man. I trust him to process the evidence correctly. I went by the courthouse to file for a search warrant. Judge Evans was in session at the moment, but his court clerk will get the paperwork to him as soon as he recesses for lunch.”
A different waitress brought our food to us, and we started eating. I started thinking about the files in my messenger bag. As soon as I started thinking about them, my phone rang. “Hello?”
“Cam? It’s Sam.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I found something very interesting after you left.”
“Really, what?”
“Have you ever heard of Mac Green?”
I dropped my fork on my plate. “I might have heard the name. Why?”
Mike looked at me quizzically. I held my index finger and shook my head.
“He’s listed on some business documents from the 1960s.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I never kid about my research, you know that.”
I took a drink of Dr Pepper. “Okay, so why is this so important?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t have these type of documents in my files. I mean, these things would usually be kept with the company records. But for some reason, these were stuck in with Lillian Ingram’s family records. I’m not sure why.”
“Sam, just give me the short version for now.”
“Right, the short version. These are loan papers for Clinton’s construction company that he started in 1964. This Mac Green, whoever he was, is listed as vice president. But that’s not the only strange part.”
“There’s more?”
“Yeah. Mr. Green listed his address as Las Vegas, Nevada. Why would someone who lived in Las Vegas be listed as vice president of a new construction company in a small Texas town?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Thanks for the information, Sam. Could you email me a copy of those papers?”
“They’re a bit faded, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
“What’s up?”
“I think we need to have a word with a certain ghost about his connection to Clinton Ingram.”
“You mean Mac? Why?”
“Because according to Sam, he was the vice president of Clinton’s new construction company when he started it back in 1964.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Where do you think he is right now?” Mike said, pulling out his phone.
“What are you going to do, put out an APB out? ‘Be on the lookout for one Mac Green, six feet, wearing a suit and tie. He’ll be easy to spot. Just look for a shimmering blue glow.’ They would lock you up and throw away the key.”
“Says the woman who can see ghosts.”
“Are we going to have this conversation again?”
“No, of course not,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, that was a low blow, wasn’t it?”
“Just a little.”
He put his phone on the table, and we quickly finished eating. After we paid, we stood out in front for a minute. “So, what are you going to do now?” Mike asked.
“I need to talk to Mac,” I said. “And at some point, we need to talk to Lillian.”
“What you’re saying is you need to go to the theatre.”
“I need to go to the theatre.”
Mike’s phone buzzed. “Hold on. Hey, Stu, what’s the good word? Really? That’s great. Yeah, I can come by right now. Uh huh, all right, I owe you one,” he laughed. “See you in about ten minutes.”
“You got your search warrants,” I said as he hung up.
“I did.” He held out his hand, and I took his warm hand in my cold one. “Promise me that you won’t try to go to the theatre without me,” he said. “I really don’t want to find you unconscious on the ground again.”
“I promise,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Sam is sending me the paperwork she found, plus I have some files I got from her this morning that I want to look at before we talk to Mac, and hopefully, Lillian.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll check in with you later.”
“Stay safe.”
“You, too.”
All I knew for sure was that a certain ghost had some serious explaining to do when I saw him again.
Chapter 22
I was sitting in my office, papers spread all over my desk, when the doorbell rang. I looked at the clock on my laptop, and was surprised to see it was almost six p.m. I popped my neck and did a little stretching as I went to answer the door. “What are you two doing here? Don’t you have choir practice tonight?” I said as I stepped back to let my parents in.
They both gave me a hug. “We came by to see how you’re doing,” Mother said, looking at my hair. “Randy told me you got it cut short, but I didn’t realize you went for the pixie cut.”
“If you had wanted it that short, I could’ve saved you some money and done it with the weed eater,” Dad joked.
I closed the door. “It’s not like I had much of a choice,” I said ruefully. “They had to shave that one side to put the stitches in. I looked kind of lopsided after they got finished.”
“Have you been to the doctor to let him take a look at your head?” Dad asked as they sat down on the couch.
“Not yet. I’ve been changing the bandage twice a day. A bit hard trying to wash my hair.”
“I can imagine,” Mother laughed.
“Have they caught the person who attacked you yet?” Dad wanted to know.
“No, not yet,” I said.
“Has Mike said anything about the murder investigation?”
“It’s moving slowly,” I admitted. “And it might have gotten a bit more complicated.”
“What do you mean?” Mother said.
I took a deep breath. “Clinton Ingram is dead.”
“What? How? What happened?” Dad said.
“I’m not sure how much I can tell you,” I said. “I don’t know that much myself. Neither Clinton nor Joey have been seen since the night of Susan’s murder. The employees at the construction company don’t know anything. Reed Ingram found him yesterday morning. Mike thinks he’s been dead a couple of days.”
“Dear Lord,” Mother said sadly, shaking her head. “Was it a heart attack?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to upset her with the news that their old friend had been murdered.
I heard my cell phone ring from my office. “We better le
t you go,” Dad said, getting to his feet and helping Mother up. “Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m good, Dad,” I said, giving him a hug. “I still have some of that soup Mother sent over yesterday.”
Mother gave me a hug. “Just be careful, and let Mike do his job. Don’t get involved.”
“I’ll try not to, I promise,” I told her as I opened the door for them. “Dad, how well did you know Clinton?”
“Fairly well, why?”
“I’m working on some background information on the Ingram family. I might want to pick your brain at some point.”
“Just let me know when,” he said.
“Drive safe,” I called out as they got into their minivan. “Love you both.”
“We love you, too,” Dad said before he closed his door.
I watched them leave, waving as they drove off. As I started closing the door, Mike pulled into the driveway.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” he asked as he joined me on the front porch.
“My parents were here, and I didn’t have my phone close by. It’s sitting on my desk.”
He gave me a big hug and kiss before we went inside. Hope that nosy Mrs. Shusman across the street enjoyed the show. I’m sure I’d hear about it later.
“So how did things go this afternoon?” I asked as I closed the door.
He dropped into the recliner. “Long, very long.”
“I’m sorry. You want something to drink? Are you hungry?”
“Starving. What do you have to eat?”
We went into the kitchen, and I opened the fridge. “There’s leftover soup and cornbread, I’ve got bacon, eggs, some sliced ham, a shriveled up tomato, a sad looking head of lettuce, and something that might be leftover meatloaf from two weeks ago, but now looks like a healthy dose of penicillin.”
“Why don’t I make ham and cheese omelets?” he said. “If we get food poisoning, we can always use the meatloaf penicillin to make us feel better.”
“You’re a funny man,” I said, shaking my head.
“Just hand me the eggs, ham, and cheese, silly woman.”
For the next few minutes, we worked on fixing dinner. “What did your parents want?”
“They wanted to see how I was doing.”
“How are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his temples for a minute.
“A little bit of a headache, nothing two Tylenol can’t handle. What about you?”
“After the day I’ve had, three ibuprofen for me,” he replied.
“My parents did ask how the murder investigation was going. I mentioned Clinton Ingram to them. Dad knows him, so I might pick his brain for information at some point.”
Mike put the plates on the table. “This whole thing is just weird,” he said, grabbing some silverware. “Why kill Clinton?”
“What if Clinton was the real target, and Susan was just a distraction?”
“If killing Clinton was their true intention, then killing Susan would have freaked him out, and he would have left town.”
I looked at him. “But he didn’t. Joey did.”
“That’s right. Good point.”
“Did you execute the search warrant on their offices yet?”
“Yes, we did. I’ve got an accountant going over their books. It might be a couple of days, though, before we know anything. Did you learn anything from those files you obtained this morning?”
“Where do you think I got the headache from?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Why don’t we finish eating, and then I’ll go over what I’ve learned so far with you.”
“Well, actually, I thought I might take you out.”
“Oh really?” I said, surprised.
“I thought we might take a moonlight drive…”
“Nice.”
“…and go talk to Mac.”
“Wait, what? You want to voluntarily go talk to Mac?”
“You’ve been saying for a couple of days that you wanted to talk to them. And now that Mac’s name has popped up in our investigation, I think we need to ask him a few questions, don’t you?”
I started to scratch the back of my head, but stopped when my fingers touched the bandage.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.
“Nothing. What makes you think anything’s wrong?” I said, getting up to rinse my empty plate off.
He reached out and grabbed my arm. “Because you look worried.”
“I…I don’t know. This whole thing is just odd. It’s like history is repeating itself in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
I sat back down. “In late 1963, Clinton went to his father, Phillip, with a business plan for a construction company. The Ingram family had been in the oil business for years, and Phillip wanted his son to join the company. He was furious, and he disowned Clinton on the spot.”
“Branching out into construction would have doubled the Ingram fortune.”
“Yes. Clinton became a billionaire in his own right. When his father realized this, he tried to get Clinton to rejoin the family. The answer, of course, was no. Phillip had good reason for asking, though. The original family business was going under; bringing Clinton back into the fold would have saved Phillip.”
“I bet that didn’t go over well with old man Ingram.”
“No, it didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “He got it into his head that Lillian was the main reason that Clinton refused to help.”
“Where did he get that idea?”
“I’m not sure. After Lillian died, rumor around town was it was Phillip Ingram who killed her, but no one could prove it.”
“So what happened to Phillip?”
“He ended up in a nursing home eventually, died in 1978. Talk died down about what happened, but Lillian’s murder is still one of the great mysteries around here.”
“What about those other papers you said Sam was emailing to you?”
“I forgot all about them,” I said. “I was so focused on reading the first set of files, I didn’t print them off. Let’s go look at them right now.”
We went to my office, and I pulled up my email. I made sure that my printer was on before opening Sam’s email. It took a few minutes to print them off, but when we finally looked at them, I was shocked. “Where did Mac get the money to help finance a company?”
“That’s a good question,” Mike replied. “Look at this right here. Mac lists a rather well-known mobster as his employer.”
I took the page from Mike and scanned it. “Does this mean that Clinton’s company was started with mob money?”
“It certainly looks like it.”
“That’s insane. What was he thinking?”
Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. But we know someone who does.”
“Mac and Lillian.”
“Exactly.”
I put all of the papers back in the folders, including the ones I had just printed out, and stuffed them into my messenger bag. “I’m ready…wait, let me grab a notepad, too. I have a feeling we’re going to want to take notes.”
Chapter 23
We parked in the back of the theatre. “You know, this isn’t my favorite spot,” I said as I got out.
“Can’t say as I blame you,” Mike replied.
“How are we going to get in, by the way?”
“I thought we’d do a little B&E.”
“I did that once, and got caught, remember?”
“Yeah, but it will be more official this time. You’re with me.”
As we approached the door, it opened on its own. “Um, that’s what happened the last time,” I told him. “So technically, we aren’t breaking and entering.”
“Mac?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“Hold on a minute,” Mike said. He went back to his truck and grabbed his flashlight. “At least we won’t trip and fall.”
“Or we could just turn on a light, you know.”
“I’m pretty
sure your ghosts will give us enough light when we get inside the theatre.”
Flipping on the flashlight, Mike led the way into the main room. Sure enough, there was a bright yellow and blue glow coming from the middle of the stage. “Can you see them?” I whispered to him.
“No.”
Mac and Lillian were so busy talking to each other that they didn’t notice us at first. When I cleared my throat, they both looked over at us. “Well, well, look who finally decided to show up,” Mac said. “So nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to come talk to us.”
“We have some questions for you,” I told him.
“Oh, so you’re here because you need something from us. When we were ready to offer our help, you blew us off. Well, we’re busy right now, so you’ll have to come back later.”
“You’re busy? Doing what? It’s not like you have some place you need to be, Mac. You’re both dead.”
“We are?” Mac said in mock surprise. “Why didn’t someone tell us this sooner?”
“Let’s go,” I said to Mike. “They’re not going to help us.”
“No, please don’t go,” Lillian said quietly. “I haven’t had this much company in a long time. At least not anyone who wanted to talk to me.”
“All right, we’ll stay,” I said.
Mike grabbed two chairs from one of the tables, we climbed the stairs and joined them on the stage. Mac shook his head as we sat down.
I smiled at her. “Thank you so much for your help with the table settings. I had forgotten everything I had learned in Girl Scouts.”
She smiled back at me. “Clinton and I used to give dinner parties all the time. My mother was the one who taught me how to give a proper party.” She looked at Mike. “Who is the handsome young man next to you?”
“This is Police Chief Mike Penhall. He can’t see or hear you. Mike, Lillian is sitting closest to me, and Mac is sitting in the chair at the other end of the coffee table.”
We all sat in awkward silence for a minute. “So, why are you here?” Mac asked us.
“We have some questions for both of you, and we need straight answers,” Mike said. “Especially from you, Mac.”
“That sounds serious,” Mac said.
“It is,” I said, putting my messenger bag in my lap. I opened it, and dug around until I found the company paperwork. “For starters, you can explain this.” I spread the papers out on the coffee table so he could see them.”
Who Invited the Ghost to Dinner: A Ghost Writer Mystery Page 18
