Chance of a Ghost

by E. J. Copperman

  “Then it’s a mystery. What can I do?”

  There were still eight minutes left before the cookies would be done, but the aroma of baking cookies had already permeated the room, and I was mentally dividing them up among my guests and my daughter. It’s also possible that I had one or two staked out for myself. Or three.

  Paul scowled again. “You need to get past your disinclination to speak to your mother and find out how your father was spending his time previous to this incident. You need to determine if there’s a place he would go—away from most living people, I would guess—if he were really determined to disappear effectively for reasons we can’t yet understand.”

  That all made sense, but there was something he wasn’t saying. “And once I find all that out, what do I do?” I asked.

  This time Paul looked away to avoid my reaction. “You take Maxie there,” he said.

  “Maxine?” Mom asked. “Why Maxine?”

  We had assembled, once again in my kitchen, for a war council that could be held out of the earshot of Lawrence Laurentz. I’d stashed the cookies—the ones I hadn’t eaten or given to Melissa when she got home—away for after dinner, which Mom would prepare. Mom reported that the theatrical ghost wasn’t always in her house, but she couldn’t be sure when he was there and listening because he’d gotten good at moving through the walls to be out of Mom’s sight when he didn’t want to be detected.

  Maxie, tickled with the idea that things would be left to her, was grinning as she hovered in the area of the stove. Paul, pretending to sit on the center island so he could be the focus of the conversation (a tactic so far turning out to be less than stellar), was doing his investigator-face thing. Melissa, home from school and not to be denied a place at the table this time, actually sat at the table.

  “Because Paul can’t leave this property, and we can’t trust Lawrence as far as we can throw him, which isn’t far since we can’t actually touch him,” I explained. “It appears Dad doesn’t want to see me, so he might leave if I’m visible. So Maxie’s our best bet.”

  That wasn’t easy to say. The fact was, I wasn’t crazy about the prospect of placing all my hopes for finding Dad on Maxie, either. She wasn’t the most responsible being who ever existed, and her concept of problem solving generally had an element of improvisation to it, with the end result usually being that Maxie had no plan B. She often didn’t even have a plan A.

  “Well, I don’t understand how we’re going to find him to begin with,” Mom said, avoiding the Maxie issue.

  I sat down next to Melissa and put my fingers to my temples. This was an indication of thought. “First, we have to figure out what state of mind Dad might be in, why he’d want to isolate himself,” I said. “I know Dad pretty well, at least when he was alive, and I can’t figure it out. Do you have any ideas?”

  Mom isn’t still when she thinks. She cooks when she thinks. Luckily, she’d brought the makings for oven-fried chicken and mashed potatoes, so she started to bread chicken legs and was silent for a few moments. Then she stopped, her fingers full of Panko bread crumbs, and turned to look at me. “Your father is not a man given to worrying about himself,” she said. “He wouldn’t hide out of fear. He wouldn’t abandon us if he didn’t have to.”

  “He pretty much abandoned me and Liss.” It really just slipped out. I was as surprised to hear myself say that as Melissa, whose eyes widened.

  “I asked him,” Mom answered, her face turned away from us but her voice a trifle unsteady. “He always said that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to see you; it was that he couldn’t.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I told her.

  “I know,” Mom answered. “Believe me, there have been some…tense words between us, but he won’t, or can’t explain. There’s something he’s not telling me, too. He just won’t discuss it, but it’s hurting him. A lot.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to you, Alison,” Paul interjected. “You don’t know what your father’s situation might have been. That’s what we’re here to find out. Loretta, how does your husband normally spend his time? Before this happened, what was his routine?”

  “When he was alive, he worked during the day,” Mom said. “At night, we’d usually watch television or play cards. It’s funny, you don’t think those are the things you’d miss.”

  “But you could still do those things with Grampa,” Melissa said. “You said he came by every Tuesday. You could still watch TV or play cards.”

  Mom took the cookie sheet on which she’d placed the chicken legs and some breast pieces and slid it into the oven. She was careful to concentrate on her cooking and not anyone else present, which wasn’t easy considering the arrangement of beings in the room.

  “We did that sometimes,” she told her granddaughter. “Once in a while.”

  “Why just Tuesdays?” Paul went ahead. “What did Mr. Kerby do the rest of the time after his death?”

  “I don’t know,” Mom answered. Her voice sounded clipped and uncomfortable. “He didn’t tell me.”

  She turned toward the kitchen counter, but I stood and walked to her. I stopped her in her tracks and took hold of her forearms gently.

  “We’re trying to help him, Mom,” I reminded her in a quiet voice. “You can’t hold back now.”

  “I’m not holding back,” Mom said. She extracted her arms from my grasp. “I just don’t know why Dad didn’t tell me much or why he only showed up once a week. He changed when he crossed over. I don’t really understand it. He seems like the same man in many ways, but he’s sadder and somehow more secretive than he used to be. It worries me, Alison.”

  I looked up at Paul. I knew his natural inclination now that Mom had opened up would be to push the issue, but she was hurting and I didn’t want to press on anymore. I knew how much it had pained her to say even that much about Dad that wasn’t glowing and upbeat.

  “What are our options, Paul?” I asked. “What kind of…spatial dimensions are there to search? Where do we look?” If I could focus the conversation on the nuts and bolts of finding Dad, I might be able to spare Mom some discomfort.

  Paul read the urgency in my voice, sighed and shrugged. “Our best bet now is to do two things. First, I can start sending out messages to other spirits and see if your father has been seen anywhere other than this immediate area.” He started to stroke his goatee again.

  “What’s the other thing?” I asked.

  “Take Lawrence Laurentz at his word and hope that solving his death will lead us toward your father.”

  “That means another look at the medical examiner’s report and some questions on the investigation. I don’t know any cops in the town where Lawrence died, so I have to talk to McElone again,” I said with a moan.

  But my daughter stood up and put on the most determined face I’d ever seen her wear, which was saying something. This was a girl who had held her ground for six straight days when told that she couldn’t attend a midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie, and had worn me down.

  “No,” she said. “You find Mr. Laurentz’s co-workers. I’ll talk to the lieutenant.”

  Twelve

  Melissa’s logic, which was admittedly the logic of a ten-year-old girl, was persuasive, if not airtight. She’d go to police headquarters after school and tell McElone she was writing a report about her mom the private investigator, was following my current case and wanted to help. Making her eyes look wide and innocent would not necessarily be outside the realm of tactics utilized. I, meanwhile (she said) could divide the names and addresses of possible Lawrence haters with Jeannie, and we could cover three fronts at the same time, thus proceeding with maximum efficiency and using every asset of the agency.

  There are times I truly do wonder who’s raising whom around here.

  I was counting on the skills of Maxie Malone and my Stone Age laptop to answer the question of Laurentz/Brookman’s possible criminal record before Liss ever got near police headquarters. After all, Maxie had developed
into quite the Internet research artist and had the added advantage of not needing to sleep like Melissa and I did.

  Mom, apparently feeling left out of the impending on slaught, gathered her things to go but volunteered to bring dinner again the next night and to try to question Lawrence whenever he showed up about anyone’s possible motives for knocking him off. (So far, his only comment about the people he’d worked with at the Basie was that they were “unwashed masses,” which didn’t help much.) Personally, having spent just over an hour in his presence, I considered it something of a surprise he had lived long enough to qualify for residency in an active adult community.

  Around this time, Nan and Morgan Henderson returned, so I served some tea and cookies and listened to their stories of a trip to the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse in North Wildwood, which Nan had considered atmospheric and beautiful, and Morgan repeated “atmospheric and beautiful” in a way that made it sound dreary and soul-sucking. Both claimed great weariness, and retired early—Nan was now on a lighthouse kick and wanted to go to Absecon and Barnegat the next day, though Morgan had apparently talked her out of driving all the way to Cape May, almost three hours each way—and went to their bedroom on the first floor. But Nan was still eyeing me oddly, as if concerned that I would start talking to the walls angrily again. My best efforts at convincing them I was stable and hospitable were seemingly for naught.

  I sent Melissa to her room to sleep, consulted with Paul for a little while before fatigue started working on me as well and then I headed upstairs to rest up for what was doubtless going to be a very long day tomorrow. I asked Maxie for an online weather forecast, and she reported that it was going to be cold but, in her words, “too cold to snow” the next day.

  After getting washed and ready for bed, I started thinking about Melissa and the life I’d had a hand in creating for her. She had been seeing ghosts as long as she could remember, much longer than me, but was it a good idea to let her live with two of them in her house? That wasn’t normal. Now she was showing signs of interest in doing investigations for dead people, and as much as I adored spending time with my daughter, that couldn’t be a healthy pursuit for a preteen. Had I simply let things go because they were easier for me and neglected what was right for Liss?

  I mention my long and indulgent musing simply because it helps explain how I could possibly have passed by my dresser at least three times in my preparations for bed without noticing there were words spelled out in the (I admit it) dust that coated the dark cherry wood finish. Normally, one would expect to immediately pick up on the possibility that there had been an intruder in her bedroom, is all I’m saying.

  Anyway, written there in the dust were the words, “I KNOW WHERE YOUR FATHER IS.”

  There was no way I could sleep after that, but I also didn’t want to scream my brains out and alarm my daughter, so as quietly as I could, with my heart beating through my chest, I hustled out the bedroom door and ran downstairs to the kitchen. No Paul.

  I said his name out loud in a conversational tone a few times. Often that will get him to show up. Not this time.

  In desperation, I even called out, a little louder I think although it was unintentional, to Maxie. She didn’t show up, either.

  Unfortunately, the one person in the house I really hoped wouldn’t have heard me, did. Morgan Henderson, in pajamas and (open) robe, shambled into the kitchen and looked startled when he saw me standing next to the refrigerator. He moved his lips back and forth on his face, as if trying to determine which side was the least attractive. It was a tie.

  “Your bedroom,” he mumbled, or words to that effect.

  Excuse me? “I beg your pardon?” I asked. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.

  “I thought you were in your bedroom,” he said. “I wouldn’t have come out if I’d known you were here.”

  Oh. I hesitated, possibly because I wasn’t aware Morgan could put that many words together in a row. “It’s okay,” I said. “Do you need something?”

  “Something.” Morgan was back to his usual speech pattern, repeating the last thing he’d heard with a twist of lemon. “Glass of milk. You got?”

  Yes, Tonto. I got. “Sure,” I said. “Help yourself.” I was confident there was milk in the fridge for once, because I’d stocked up for the “blizzard.” Besides, we’d had cookies tonight, and it is, I believe, a law that chocolate chip cookies can’t be eaten without milk. I pointed to the fridge and reached up to get Morgan a glass from the cabinet over my head.

  He nodded when he took it from my hand, as a way to avoid saying “thank you,” I assumed. He got the container of milk from the fridge and poured some for himself.

  I inched my way toward the kitchen door and was about to leave when Morgan said, “What about your dad?”

  I froze again. What was going on here? “What do you mean?” I asked. If he answered, “mean,” I’d have to hit him with a frying pan.

  “Saw your mom. What about your dad?” Morgan asked, apparently thinking that was an explanation.

  “My father passed away five years ago,” I told him. Like it’s your business. No frying pans handy; I wasn’t even close enough to grab a carrot peeler out of the drawer.

  “Oh,” Morgan said. “What happened?”

  I don’t like it when the guests ask personal questions. “Just now?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what he meant.

  “With your father. How’d he die?”

  “He was ill,” I said.

  “I figured,” Morgan said. “What was it?”

  Sometimes such directness takes you by surprise, and you simply answer without the consideration that the questioner has just asked something personal and painful. “Pancreatic cancer,” I said.

  Morgan shook his head. “Cancer,” he said. “Tough.” Then he downed the whole glass of milk in one gulp and walked to the sink to wash out the glass, something I would not have expected.

  He put the glass in the dish drainer and headed toward me. I froze in panic for a second, then realized he was simply walking back to the kitchen door, where I was standing. I stepped out of the way and he swung the door open.

  Then Morgan stopped and turned toward me, shaking his head. “Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  He shuffled through the door and back toward the downstairs guest room, not waiting for an answer. It was just as well. I didn’t have one.

  Twelve

  Melissa’s logic, which was admittedly the logic of a ten-year-old girl, was persuasive, if not airtight. She’d go to police headquarters after school and tell McElone she was writing a report about her mom the private investigator, was following my current case and wanted to help. Making her eyes look wide and innocent would not necessarily be outside the realm of tactics utilized. I, meanwhile (she said) could divide the names and addresses of possible Lawrence haters with Jeannie, and we could cover three fronts at the same time, thus proceeding with maximum efficiency and using every asset of the agency.

  There are times I truly do wonder who’s raising whom around here.

  I was counting on the skills of Maxie Malone and my Stone Age laptop to answer the question of Laurentz/Brookman’s possible criminal record before Liss ever got near police headquarters. After all, Maxie had developed into quite the Internet research artist and had the added advantage of not needing to sleep like Melissa and I did.

  Mom, apparently feeling left out of the impending on slaught, gathered her things to go but volunteered to bring dinner again the next night and to try to question Lawrence whenever he showed up about anyone’s possible motives for knocking him off. (So far, his only comment about the people he’d worked with at the Basie was that they were “unwashed masses,” which didn’t help much.) Personally, having spent just over an hour in his presence, I considered it something of a surprise he had lived long enough to qualify for residency in an active adult community.

  Around this time, Nan and Morgan Henderson returned, so I served some tea a
nd cookies and listened to their stories of a trip to the Hereford Inlet Lighthouse in North Wildwood, which Nan had considered atmospheric and beautiful, and Morgan repeated “atmospheric and beautiful” in a way that made it sound dreary and soul-sucking. Both claimed great weariness, and retired early—Nan was now on a lighthouse kick and wanted to go to Absecon and Barnegat the next day, though Morgan had apparently talked her out of driving all the way to Cape May, almost three hours each way—and went to their bedroom on the first floor. But Nan was still eyeing me oddly, as if concerned that I would start talking to the walls angrily again. My best efforts at convincing them I was stable and hospitable were seemingly for naught.

  I sent Melissa to her room to sleep, consulted with Paul for a little while before fatigue started working on me as well and then I headed upstairs to rest up for what was doubtless going to be a very long day tomorrow. I asked Maxie for an online weather forecast, and she reported that it was going to be cold but, in her words, “too cold to snow” the next day.

  After getting washed and ready for bed, I started thinking about Melissa and the life I’d had a hand in creating for her. She had been seeing ghosts as long as she could remember, much longer than me, but was it a good idea to let her live with two of them in her house? That wasn’t normal. Now she was showing signs of interest in doing investigations for dead people, and as much as I adored spending time with my daughter, that couldn’t be a healthy pursuit for a preteen. Had I simply let things go because they were easier for me and neglected what was right for Liss?

  I mention my long and indulgent musing simply because it helps explain how I could possibly have passed by my dresser at least three times in my preparations for bed without noticing there were words spelled out in the (I admit it) dust that coated the dark cherry wood finish. Normally, one would expect to immediately pick up on the possibility that there had been an intruder in her bedroom, is all I’m saying.