4 The Ghosts in the Attic

by SUE FINEMAN

  “Little guy wearing a sailor suit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s John’s little boy. I have a picture of him somewhere.” Charlie glanced over at Alex. “John died a few years ago, and they didn’t have any kids when they lived here, so I assume the baby died a long time ago.”

  Alex’s hand flew to her mouth. “You bought a haunted house?”

  “Looks that way.” He called into the room. “John, we’re remodeling the house. I’ll have contractors in here next week, and I don’t want them running out of here in a panic, so please don’t scare them.”

  “He said okay,” said Taylor.

  Alex brushed Taylor’s shoulder. “I always get goose bumps when she does that.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Some people have the gift and some don’t. Billy’s wife sees them all the time. Kayla says kids and animals are more receptive.”

  Alex shivered and rubbed her arms. “That would spook me out.”

  “The baby is waving bye-bye,” said Taylor. “Now they’re gone.”

  “Did you see a woman, too?” Charlie asked.

  Taylor looked up at Charlie. “No. Do they live here?”

  “The man did when he was alive. I’m not sure about the baby. Are they scary?”

  “No,” said Taylor.

  At the same time, Alex said, “Yes.”

  Charlie hunkered down in front of his daughter. “Did you have ghosts at your old house?”

  “Yes, but Grandmother said it was my ’magination.”

  “Grandpa and Grandma used to have ghosts at their house, and so did Uncle Billy, but they’re all gone now. John Garrett will leave when it’s his time to go, and he’ll take his baby boy with him.”

  “What’s the little boy’s name?” Alex asked.

  “Bobby,” Taylor replied.

  Charlie walked into the middle bedroom to look in the trunk of baby things. Digging through the trunk, he found a bib with the name Bobby embroidered on it. He handed it to Alex.

  “I can’t imagine losing a small child,” she said softly. “His parents must have been crazy with grief.”

  “Crazy is the word the neighbor used to describe John’s wife.” He didn’t mind having John and Bobby here, but he didn’t especially want to live with a crazy ghost.

  Charlie took Alex and Taylor home and returned to the brick bungalow. It took him the rest of the weekend to rip out the bathroom, empty the rest of the trash into the dumpster, and carry the boxes of kitchen things down to the basement, where they wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. Andy came over Sunday afternoon and they carried the furniture Charlie was keeping down to the basement. When they finished, Charlie swept out the attic, then walked downstairs, where Andy was finishing up in the kitchen.

  “I can’t believe Dad got the building permits so fast.”

  Andy grinned. “What do you expect? He runs the city.”

  “Did you call Pete Manderly?”

  “Yeah, he said he’d meet you here bright and early tomorrow morning. He’s one of the best contractors in the city.”

  Charlie nodded. He still had a couple more fields to plant at the farm, but this was important. He had to get the house finished, so he could move his family.

  Andy pulled an envelope from his pocket. “This is from Billy. He said if you need more, let him know.”

  Charlie stared at the check for a hundred thousand dollars. “My sugar brother.”

  “He carries a loan on my property, but I’m chipping away at it.”

  “I hate borrowing money.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” said Andy, “but sometimes it’s necessary. Now that my business is doing so well, I doubled up on my payments, so I should get it paid off in this lifetime. I’m starting the inn this summer. Whatever time you can spare from farming, I could use your help at the inn.”

  “I need a paying job, bro, something with a steady income.”

  “Is Alex asking for child support?”

  “No, but I’ll have bills to pay. Taylor goes to a private school, and I have to buy furniture, pay utilities and taxes.”

  The brothers finished sweeping out the house. After Andy dumped the last trash can into the dumpster, he asked, “Are you and Alex together again?”

  “Are you kidding? In Dad’s house? He hates anyone named Porcini.”

  “I’m not asking about Dad.” Andy cocked his head. “Do you still love her?”

  Charlie sighed deeply. “Yes and no. I go crazy wanting to touch her, but I can’t get past the thing about her hiding Taylor. I know Vinnie put pressure on her not to tell me, but Taylor is my daughter, and I had a right to know.”

  “Does she still love you?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  Did Alex love him? At one time, Charlie believed she did, but that was years ago, before she disappeared from his life. Before Taylor was born. Now he wasn’t sure how she felt. From the way she came on to him, she must still feel attracted to him, and he still wanted her. As if sex would solve anything. It might take the edge off the tension, but it wouldn’t undo the mistakes of the past, and sex might complicate things between them.

  Still, he dreamed about her long legs and silky skin, about running his hands over her sexy body, tasting her all over, and burying himself inside her. Even with the scars on her face and her butch haircut, she was the most appealing woman he’d ever known. Living in the same house, seeing her every day, talking with her, and sharing Taylor with her had intensified his feelings. Yet something in the back of his mind nagged at him not to trust her again, not to allow himself to love her as he had before.

  If Alex took Taylor from him, if they disappeared from his life again, he’d track them down and fight for full custody of his daughter. But Alex wouldn’t do that.

  Would she?

  Chapter Eleven

  While Charlie met with his contractor Monday morning, Alex worked with Papa at the business. Papa met with the managers of the cannery, and Alex walked through Warehouse One, the non-perishable food distribution warehouse, with the warehouse manager, Clinton Jones. Warehouse Two, the one with the perishable food, was up the hill and a couple blocks away.

  Food items were delivered to the warehouses and stored until they had orders from grocery stores or chains, then the food was loaded onto trucks and delivered. But they had a lot of empty shelves. In looking at the expiration dates on some of the food, she asked, “Why aren’t the older food items in the front, where they can be taken first?” No store manager would want to stock merchandise that expired too quickly.

  “We try, but we don’t have enough employees to move things around all the time.”

  As they walked into the tiny office together, Clinton explained the way the business worked. “In the past, when we got a delivery, the computer guided us to a spot the right size to put that delivery, then when we got an order for that item, the computer sent us to the oldest lot in stock to put on the trucks for delivery to the customers.”

  “You mean they weren’t stored in any kind of order?”

  “That’s right. Only the computer knew where the items were stored. When things work as they should, we don’t have a problem with merchandise not going out until after their use by dates. But if the computer doesn’t work, we don’t know where things are located in the warehouse or what to take out first. That’s a huge problem when we have truckers waiting to load merchandise. They don’t want to wait while someone searches the warehouse or moves merchandise around to get to what they need to load. For truckers, time is money. We have to get things in and out quickly, and we need a more efficient way of tracking shipments and billing customers. To operate in a more cost-effective manner, we need a reliable computer system.”

  “Did Mario and Antonio know about these problems?”

  He nodded. “Mario said it was a stupid system, that we should stock items in alphabetical order instead of where we had an open shelf. So that’s what we’re doing. We have a lot of wasted space this way and we c
an’t stock as much. And we had to hire extra people to keep checking the shelves and moving the oldest items to the front. But we don’t catch everything, and it seems a waste to have to throw away cereal and cookies because they’re past the use by date.”

  “You don’t donate those items to the food bank or the mission?”

  “No, Mario said to throw them away. Seemed like a waste to me, but he was the boss.”

  “Not any more.” Alex sighed. “We need to buy a new computer system.”

  “Definitely. We’re not functioning well this way. Business has dropped by at least a third in the past couple years. We not only need a reliable computer system, we need a plan to operate if the computer breaks down.”

  “You mean like a disaster recovery plan?”

  “Exactly. We had one at one time, and we had a contract with a hotsite vendor – that’s a site that has an identical, or nearly identical, computer system we can use should something happen to our computer – but the contract was cancelled when Mario and Antonio took over.”

  No wonder the business was losing money.

  The man said, “I don’t like to complain, but if someone doesn’t do something soon, we might as well hang it up and go home.”

  “I appreciate you being straight with me,” said Alex. “I’ll talk with my father about the computer situation and we’ll see if we can’t get things running the way they should. It’ll take time, so try to be patient. We’ll do our best.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “Everyone is overdue for raises, too.”

  “Yes, they are. I lost two good employees last month and two more are looking for work elsewhere, not that I blame them.”

  If Papa wanted to revive the business, he’d have to give his employees a raise, and soon, before they all found work elsewhere.

  Warehouse Two, with the perishable food, had many of the same problems. Their computer system was newer, but it needed to be upgraded. And their disaster recovery plan had also been ditched. They had no backup computer, no way to keep going should something happen to their system.

  What were her brothers thinking? They obviously weren’t planning ahead. Did they think they could bleed the business for everything they could get and then walk away and let the business fail? What about all these people who depended on their jobs to support their families? What about their customers and vendors?

  She had lunch with Papa in his office. “I can’t believe the problems in the warehouses. No wonder the business is going under. Mario and Antonio refused to replace the computer system, so the only way they can function is to put the food in alphabetical order.”

  “We stocked items by food type in the old days, but we wasted a lot of space, and we didn’t always get the oldest merchandise out in time.”

  “We need a new computer in Warehouse One, and we need it now. The one in Warehouse Two will need to be replaced soon, too. And if we don’t give those people a raise in pay, we’ll lose all the best employees.”

  “Yeah, I know. Same thing in the cannery. If we don’t give them more money, they’ll go union, and if they go union, we could be in big trouble.”

  “We’re already in trouble, Papa. Can we get a loan for new computers?”

  “Nah. I’ll put in a couple million. That should cover the computers and a five percent raise across the board. Next year – if I’m still around next year – we’ll give them another three percent.”

  She cocked her head. “What do you mean, if you’re still around next year?”

  “My heart is giving out, Alexandra.”

  He’d been saying that for the past three years. “Then why are you here working?”

  “Because I can’t leave things like this. I built this business from nothing, and I don’t want to leave it like this.”

  She understood. Papa was a proud man, a hard worker who was proud of what he’d accomplished.

  They finished their salads and sandwiches and she put the tray on the table by the door.

  “What about the trucking division, Papa? Can we save it?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll keep a truck or two to use in the other divisions and sell the rest of the equipment, lay off the workers.”

  “They’re short-handed in the warehouse. Maybe we can transfer some of the employees from the trucking division.”

  Papa nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Sure, that’s a good idea.” He picked up the phone and talked with the accountant. “Don, figure out what a five percent raise across the board would cost me.”

  Alex quietly left the room. She returned the lunch tray to the company cafeteria, then walked through the tiny kitchen. They only made soups, sandwiches, and some breakfast items here. And they put out a nice salad bar. Employees also had use of microwaves and refrigerators for meals they brought from home.

  As she walked back to Papa’s office, her cell phone rang. “Alex, this is Ginny. Can you come in and view a lineup this afternoon?”

  “I have to get Taylor from school at three.”

  “We can do this at two. Will that work for you?”

  “Of course.” It shouldn’t take her more than a few seconds to identify the man who assaulted her at the Whippoorwill Inn. “Does Taylor have to be involved?”

  “Not unless it goes to trial. We have fingerprints, but a positive ID will help in court.”

  “Okay, I’ll be at the police station at two.”

  Alex walked into Papa’s office and found him with his head leaned back, eyes closed. “You need to go home and rest.”

  “So much work to do,” he said with his eyes still closed.

  “Go home, Papa. You can accomplish more than Mario and Antonio did if you just work mornings.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I have to leave, but I’ll be back in the morning.” She didn’t tell him where she was going. It would only upset him to be reminded of the attack.

  “I need to meet with Bernie, then I’ll go home.” Papa glanced at his watch. “He should be here any time now.”

  Alex kissed Papa’s leathery cheek and left for the police station. She didn’t want to have to do this, but if it helped convict this guy and get him off the streets, she’d do it. If she had her way, Scott Higgins would never hurt another woman the way he’d hurt her.

  <>

  Vinnie called his stock broker and had him sell two million dollars worth of the stock in his portfolio. That should cover the initial expenses. By the time he got off the phone, Bernie had arrived with a draft of the new will.

  They went over each item in the will together. When they finished, Bernie said, “According to my calculations, you’ll have around eight or nine million for the kids to split, depending on market conditions at the time of your death.”

  “Yeah, I know, but that’s too much. I’m putting another two mil into the business this week, and I want you to send a letter to the city council or mayor or whoever, donating that block of land at Maple and Eleventh to the city, for the kids to play ball on.”

  “But that property is worth—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what it’s worth. Include a half million in cash for equipment and tell them I want it named Porcini Park, after my father.”

  Bernie sat back and studied Vinnie’s face. “You’re giving it all away, so you’ll have nothing to leave your kids.”

  “The boys don’t deserve anything, and I’m leaving Alexandra my off-shore account. It’s worth ten million or so.”

  Bernie smiled. “The boys don’t know about that account, I take it.”

  “Nope. I want you to add something else to the will. The contents of the house, including the furniture and art, are Alexandra’s. The boys can have my jewelry. Make sure Alexandra takes the portrait she gave me for my eightieth birthday. I put the numbers for the off-shore account behind the picture.”

  Bernie nodded and made some notes. “I’ll take care of it, Vinnie.”

  Vinnie nodded his thanks. He’d always
been able to rely on Bernie. “You’ll tell Alexandra about the numbers in private?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Take care of her when I’m gone, Bernie. If Charlie Kane tries to take Taylor away from her, she’ll need you.”

  Vinnie was surprised he hadn’t done it already. Yet instead of taking Taylor, he’d taken Taylor and Alexandra. Sneaky bastard, the way he’d done that.

  <>

  At the police station, Alex stared through the one-way glass at several men. Ginny stood by her side. Another officer spoke into a microphone, asking each man in turn to step forward, but she didn’t need to see the others. “Number three is the man who attacked me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I can still feel my foot hitting his balls.”

  “You kicked him?”

  “Damn right I kicked him. He manhandled my breasts, and he was going to rape me.”

  “Is that why he hit you?”

  “I assume so. If I’d let him rape me, he might not have hit me. On the other hand, he might have done it anyway. He might have raped me and then killed me.”

  Ginny sucked in a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, I would have fought back, too.”

  “Did the fingerprints match?”

  “Yes, but there were a lot of different prints in that room, former customers, cleaning people. But in his statement, Higgins said he’d never been to the Whippoorwill Inn.”

  Hugging her arms and staring at Scott through the glass, Alex said, “He lied. So did Mario. My own brother set me up to be raped.”

  Too bad they couldn’t send Mario to prison with Scott.

  Alex glanced at her watch. “Am I finished here? I have to go get Taylor from school.”

  “Go,” said Ginny. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else from you.”

  Alex rushed out the door and minutes later strapped Taylor into the backseat. “How was school today?”

  “Okay. Is Papa sick?”

  Alex stared at her little girl. “He’s old and his heart isn’t working very well. Why?”

  Taylor shrugged. She was too young to understand her visions, but she knew Papa was sick. Was he right? Was his heart giving out? Would they lose him soon?