Ghost in the Wind

by E. J. Copperman

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “There was some . . . question about whether we wanted to have another baby this soon,” Jeannie explained, looking at her fingernails and pretending she cared whether they were perfectly polished or not.

  “This wasn’t a planned baby?” I said.

  She avoided eye contact. “Depends on who you ask. You have to keep it quiet.”

  “Who am I going to tell? Phyllis Coates doesn’t run guess-who’s-pregnant notices in the Chronicle.” I had invited Phyllis too, but she’d declined on the grounds that “it’s not really much of a story for the paper now, is it?” She had a point, but giving her a scoop hadn’t really been why I was inviting her. Sometimes Phyllis can be a little single-minded about the paper. Like, all the time. “You’ve got to tell your husband, Jean,” I admonished. After eleven years of being a mother, admonishing is among my most well-honed skills. And Melissa requires less than a very large percentage of her peers.

  “I will. I am,” Jeannie said, waving her hand as if to ward off the harsh words coming her way. “I just don’t know how he’ll react.”

  “He’s Tony. He’ll react first by rolling his eyes at you and then he’ll get excited and tell everybody he meets that he’s going to be a dad again.” I’d introduced Jeannie and Tony, so I knew both of them before they knew each other. It makes a huge difference.

  “Well, I didn’t think he’d divorce me or anything.” But she looked relieved, huffed for a moment, then went back to grinning like a monkey. Tony joined her and they found seats for themselves and Ollie, who was eating a cookie and taking in the room as only small children can: with genuine wonder.

  Josh waved me over to where he was standing with A.J. and Liz. I gritted my teeth mentally and smiled as I walked over. Dad floated a little above and to my left and said, “Which one don’t you like?” He’s known me all my life.

  “This is lovely,” Liz said as I approached. Of course lovely is a word people use when they’ve decided to use the word, which requires forethought. In other words, it was not an honest reaction, but a planned one. I might have been overthinking this just a tad but I doubted it. All of that had all gone through my mind in a split second. “I love the room, and the whole house, really.”

  “It looks really cool,” A.J. said. His tactic seemed to be that he’d be as casual as possible to balance his girlfriend’s formality and maybe reach a middle ground. He was in there trying. “Thanks for inviting us.”

  “Ah,” Dad said. “The girl. I get that.” He floated off to Mom, presumably to share his insight.

  “We’re about to start,” I told them. “Thanks for coming. I hope we have a chance to talk later.” Smooth, right? A quick expression passing through Josh’s eyes indicated maybe not smooth enough.

  There was no time for that now. I walked to the front of the room, stood just in front of the mammoth screen and held up my hands. “Okay, everybody,” I said. The clamor died down and people who had not taken seats began filling some. Melissa stood at the back because she knew I’d reserved a seat for her but she wanted to get a good look at the crowd in case something was needed at the start of the showing. Melissa is an excellent assistant. “We’re just about to start. I want to thank everybody for coming tonight to our premiere.”

  Vance McTiernan showed up just next to the big TV, surveyed the crowd (no doubt to size up his ability to enthrall it, despite having no performance planned—it was a reflex) and floated down to what approximated standing among the mortals.

  “I don’t get it,” Jesse said from the first row, just to my left. A different younger guy might have been able to sit farther back and let some of the elders get a better view, but Jesse was not that kind of guy. “What’s the big deal about seeing an old movie on DVD?” Jesse was clearly a deep thinker.

  “We’re inaugurating the new movie room with our state-of-the-art screen and sound system,” I said, talking to the crowd and not just Jesse. “We’re very proud of the work that’s gone into creating this environment and we hope it’ll enhance the experience of seeing this very special film”—I didn’t stumble over that part at all—“here in a house with real ghosts.”

  A few rows back, Jeannie snickered. Jeannie, despite every nutty thing she’s seen happen at my house, refuses to believe in ghosts. She thinks the whole thing is a scam I’m running to give my business some novelty. So she thinks it’s a riot.

  On cue, Paul billowed the drapes and Maxie shook the chandelier, which in my opinion she did just a little too enthusiastically. I’d worked hard on smoothing out that ceiling. If so much as one speck of wallboard dust fell from it, I was going to hold Maxie personally responsible. Vance did not participate in the production; after all, if he wasn’t going to play music, what was the point? He was just here as a spectator.

  A few of the guests looked up in wonder, despite having already seen a number of spook shows at the guesthouse. Because I can see the ghosts, sometimes I forget the effect they can have by simply manipulating objects when they are invisible to the viewer.

  “But we’re not here for an encounter with real spirits tonight,” I said. “We’re here for a fun time with a very appropriate movie. Please enjoy Ghost.”

  Just at that moment Morrie Chrichton leaked in through the outside wall, looked around the room, fixed his gaze on Vance and headed in his direction.

  I didn’t get to see what happened when Morrie reached Vance because at that moment Liss hit the light switch at the back of the room as Mom sat in a last-row seat. It was pitch-dark in the room, more so than I had anticipated. I hit the button on the remote control to start the movie, and that illuminated the room—or at least the front half of it—enough that I could find my way to an empty seat while the FBI warned us not to reproduce this film, something I had no intention of doing.

  I will say this: For the first twenty minutes or so, the movie worked like a charm and I was rethinking my resistance to showing it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Ghost, it was that it hadn’t seemed “important” enough for the occasion. Maybe that was something else I’d been overthinking.

  The entertainment system was working beautifully. The flat screen provided a picture so sharp and clear it seemed even better than a movie theater, and the speakers spaced out around the room provided ambient sound without drawing attention to themselves. The research and work I’d put in designing and constructing the room was paying off.

  A few minutes later, I heard some movement behind me and felt a light breeze. It had been getting a bit warm in the room, so I figured Mom or Liss had gotten up and opened a window. They were always one step ahead. It got more comfortable almost immediately.

  But that didn’t last long. Perhaps ten seconds later, I heard a muffled wail of pain from somewhere behind me, a man’s voice grunting. There were footsteps but I couldn’t tell how many people were up. I stood to try to navigate my way back, but it was still very dark, and turning away from the screen made everything seem just a little darker.

  Then I heard Mom cry, “Alison!” Her voice was urgent and it was alarmed. I stopped being dainty about my steps and ran toward her voice as my pupils adjusted to the darkness. I reached for the cell phone in my pocket and used it as a flashlight.

  As soon as I followed Mom’s voice to the hallway outside the movie room (where the lights were also off) and saw from the glow of my flashlight app what was on the floor in front of me, I said loudly to Mom, “Get Melissa out of here.” Mom didn’t respond but I heard Liss say, “Grandma . . .” and heard footsteps walking away.

  Once I figured they were out of the room, I said, “Paul,” in a conversational tone and didn’t so much see as feel him by my side.

  “Oh my,” he said.

  “Tell my mother to get Josh and keep Liss out of here,” I told him.

  “I should observe . . .”

  “Now.” Paul was gone in an in
stant. I knew he’d be back quickly, but I couldn’t wait for him.

  There was no choice—I had to turn on the lights. Patrick Swayze had his own problems but they weren’t a concern of mine anymore. I had much more to deal with right at the moment.

  Of course everyone looked back to see what had happened when the lights switched on but most people stayed in their seats, except Josh who reached my side, a look of intense concern on his face. Behind him I could hear Liz saying to A.J., “In the middle of the movie?”

  Josh’s eyes were now the size of quarters (yeah, they’re bigger than you think) and he started breathing through his mouth. “Call the police,” I said. “Ask for Lieutenant McElone.” He nodded and pulled out his phone.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as he dialed.

  “Better than him,” I said.

  There were mumbles and confused looks from the crowd. Maxie, floating overhead, let Everett take the lead. He swooped to the hallway, then back, and when he returned his eyes were dark. “It’s not good,” he said. Like I didn’t already know that.

  “What’s going on?” Jesse wanted to know.

  What was “going on” was that lying facedown and bleeding all over my pristine hardwood floor, which I’d sanded, stained and urethaned within the past year, was a man with a very large knife in his back, just below his neck. I looked to the side where his face was turned and said to Paul, who had materialized at my side, “It’s Bill Mastrovy.”

  I had to tell the crowd something, mostly because I was afraid someone would use the wrong exit from the movie room. “Please stay in this room,” I told them. “Something very bad has happened, and we’re waiting for the police to arrive.”

  “What happened?” Berthe asked.

  “I’m afraid a man has been badly hurt in the hallway. So please stay here. The police will be here very soon.”

  Jeannie was standing, looking at me, trying to determine if this was some hilarious prank I’d devised. But she saw my face. “Watch Oliver,” she told Tony, and rushed to my side.

  Maureen, leaning on her walker a few feet away, strained to see past Josh, who was doing his best to block the doorway. “If this is part of the show, it’s in very bad taste,” she said.

  Jesse, of all people, had the good sense to reach for the remote and pause the frame on the screen. “I can’t hear the movie,” he complained without looking to the back of the room.

  “The ambulance is on its way,” Josh said as he put his phone away.

  I nodded, grateful for the news, but I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. There wasn’t even any reason to feel like I should be doing something for Bill Mastrovy.

  He was dead.

  “This wouldn’t have happened with Lawrence of Arabia,” I said to no one in particular.

  Seventeen

  “This is not going to sound good,” said Lieutenant Anita McElone. “How do I report that the chief suspects are ghosts?”

  True to her word, McElone had sent an ambulance, which had arrived within minutes of our discovering Bill Mastrovy’s body in my hallway. In that time, A.J. had seen the stab wound and fallen back on his chair, the Senior Plus guests (especially the Levines) had freaked out just a little—except Berthe, who said very calmly that we should wait for the police, and Jesse, who had suggested we put the movie back on until the cops came. Tony had thrown a blanket over Oliver’s head, presumably to block his view (despite the fact that he was fast asleep and stayed that way), and I had attempted to keep everyone calm—a losing proposition—while Paul had observed everything there was to observe in the hallway, Everett had taken on a security mission, blocking the door with a drill rifle he just happened to have with him (not that he could have stopped anyone and the rifle wasn’t loaded), Maxie had changed into a trench coat and a green visor, which she thinks makes her look like a detective, and Dad had suggested three different ways to get the blood stains out of the floor.

  Vance and Morrie were not visible once the lights had come back up. I asked the other ghosts and nobody had seen them leave.

  Melissa was now standing in the front of movie room, telling the uniformed officer that she certainly had almost seen the body and might be needed to help with the investigation later on, despite her grandmother, steadfastly by her side, determined not to let her within ten feet of the hallway until the paramedics had done what very little they could do for Bill Mastrovy.

  “What was the deceased doing here tonight?” McElone asked me. “Was he invited for the movie?” There wasn’t the usual tone of sarcasm in her voice; this was her business and she was a professional.

  “No,” I told her. “I have no idea what he was doing here, and I don’t even know when he came in. It must have been when the movie was on and the lights were out. It got pretty dark in here.”

  McElone was taking notes on a small yellow pad she carried with her. “That’s stupid enough to be true.”

  So we were back to our old routine again. There was something comforting in that. I was grateful for it.

  “I met him last night at a club in Asbury Park,” I told the lieutenant. “He was playing in his band. Josh and I went to see him and I talked to him after the set, but I have no idea even how he knew where I lived, let alone what he was doing here.”

  “What were you talking to him about yesterday?” McElone asked. “His name came up with that allergy victim you were asking me about, didn’t it?” Nothing gets by the lieutenant; she remembers everything. Why she was taking notes at all was beyond me, but maybe the Harbor Haven PD required it.

  “That’s right,” I said. Tony had lain Oliver down across two chairs where Tessa and Jesse had been sitting, and he (Ollie) was as asleep as someone can be in a room with four cops, twelve living people (plus four ghosts) and all the lights on. I wished I could sleep like that. Instead, I was noticing my eyes itching and my throat closing up again. And I’d actually taken an allergy pill before dinner. “He was Vanessa McTiernan’s boyfriend at the time she died and he told me last night that he’d been with her the day it happened.”

  An eyebrow went up. “Really,” she said, her tone not betraying anything. Although the eyebrow was practically a scream of surprise itself. “What did he say happened?”

  “That’s the problem. He didn’t. He just said he’d been there, then pushed his way out of the room, saying he’d talk to me today.” I told McElone the whole story, including Sammi the girlfriend’s reaction, which the lieutenant seemed to find interesting.

  “I’m going to ask you something I wouldn’t ask anybody else on this planet.” The lieutenant’s voice dropped to something that would have been a whisper if it had more oomph to it. “Was Vanessa’s daddy the vengeful ghost here when our pal Bill bit the dust?”

  I didn’t want to rat out Vance, but there was no chance I would lie to McElone on something like this. Or anything else, for that matter. “He was here,” I said. “He’s not here now, but he was here then. But I don’t think he did it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was busy talking with one of his old bandmates at the time. He was when the lights went down, anyway.” I hadn’t actually seen Vance and Morrie arguing; in fact, they’d seemed to have been getting along all right just when Morrie had come in. But once the movie started, I couldn’t even vouch for their location or say they were still in the room, and I said that to McElone.

  She looked around the room, paying more attention to the ceiling than she would in most other crime scenes, I guessed. “I’m never getting used to this place,” she said.

  The interrogations took some hours and we never did get to see the rest of Ghost, although I don’t think anyone was much in the mood to do so by then. Roberta and Stan Levine, despite my best efforts, packed up their stuff and called Senior Plus to send a van, heeding McElone’s warning that they not leave the state; they lived in Maplewood
after all. The other guests opted to stay in the house, particularly Berthe and Jesse, who had not seen much of anything. Tessa said she didn’t think it was my fault and since she’d been saving for this vacation all year, she’d just spend most of her time outside for the next couple of days.

  Maureen, who had been closest to the hallway entrance and might have caught a glimpse of the body, just looked grumpy. She didn’t say it, but she certainly looked like she felt this was an inconvenience aimed directly at her and she wanted to find the killer just to give him a piece of her mind. The four of them went to bed after the police dismissed them.

  All of us had our turn with McElone or the other officer, and I got the impression which cop you got hinged on how seriously McElone saw you as a witness or a suspect. Mom, Liss, Maureen, Tessa, Jeannie, Tony and the Levines got the officer. Josh, Jesse, Berthe, A.J., Liz and I got the lieutenant.

  Nobody questioned Oliver.

  Meanwhile, I continued to look for signs of Vance or Morrie. I found none. I didn’t see Lester, either, but I probably wouldn’t have known if I had.

  But finally we were all completely debriefed, the lieutenant and her crew—who had long before removed Bill from my previously pristine floor—left, and I sat, exhausted, on one of the folding chairs. Josh sat next to me, arm casually draped over my shoulder, while Jeannie and Tony let Oliver sleep for another few minutes and sat in the row in front of me.

  A.J. and Liz appeared to be uncomfortable but for some reason didn’t make a move to leave, yet didn’t come close enough to be in the group. Maybe I was supposed to invite them?

  Despite Mom’s best efforts, Melissa forced her way into the hallway as soon as the last flashing light disappeared from my windows. She saw a lot of police crime scene tape, a stain on the floor that I’d asked McElone to cover and was denied (“in case we need more samples”) and a number of depleted adults, dead and alive, sitting around wondering what had happened here tonight.