The Ghost of Second Chances

by Anna J. McIntyre

  “Have you ever met Clint Marlow?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you sure? Wasn’t he at Marlow House when you shot Bandoni?”

  Laverne shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

  “Where were you when you shot Bandoni?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” She looked down. “I want to go now. I already confessed. I just want to go back to my cell.”

  “Since you already confessed to the crime, what harm would it do to talk to me about what happened?” he asked gently. “I heard Bandoni’s body was found in the library. Were you two looking for the paintings there?”

  Staring down at her folded hands, she refused to look up. “I don’t know anything about paintings.”

  “Did you go to the library because that’s where they used to be displayed?” he asked.

  “That’s where I found him. I don’t know what he was looking for. But when he saw I was there, he got upset with me. I was afraid. I didn’t mean to shoot him. It was an accident.”

  In the next room, Wilson looked at the chief and said, “I think you’re right. She didn’t kill him.”

  Thirty-One

  It wasn’t the first time Chet had slept on the beach. He stared up at the sky, trying to determine the time by the sun’s position. If he hadn’t dropped his watch and broken it—or left his cellphone in his car, he wouldn’t be playing this guessing game—one he wasn’t very good at.

  Taking a deep breath, he took in the salty cool scent and closed his eyes, listening to the waves break along the shoreline. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was; there was no one else on the beach with him. When he had woken up, his brain was muddled. It must have been all that booze he’d had to drink the night before. At least, he assumed it was the night before. He wasn’t exactly sure.

  He needed to find where he had parked his car, but first, he just wanted to rest a little longer and clear his head. Everything was jumbled up, and it felt as if he had been crashed on the beach for hours, yet sleep eluded him.

  With his eyes still closed, Chet tried to recall his last memory. He and Angelo had been throwing back some beers when Mac asked them for a lift somewhere because his car wasn’t working, and Angelo’s other two brothers had taken off in their car. Chet had plenty of reasons to hate Mac, but there was fifty bucks in it for him. Chet couldn’t remember much after that. But he had experienced blackouts before when drinking, so he wasn’t overly concerned. He was just grateful he didn’t have a massive hangover. However, he did wonder why he was on the beach.

  While trying to piece together the fragments of the last day, Chet heard a loud sniffing sound. Abruptly opening his eyes, he found himself looking into the muzzle of a drooling Rottweiler. The dog’s snout was only inches away from his nose.

  Startled, Chet shouted, “Oh crap!” at the same time the dog started barking. Jumping up in fear, Chet resisted the temptation to start running, certain the dog would be on his back before he took his first step. At the moment the dog was not lunging, yet he stood his ground, barking incessantly. Chet almost felt as if the dog was asking him what he was doing here on the beach, but that was an insane thought, so he put it aside and instead wondered if perhaps animals were after him. First Danielle’s cat had sunk his claws into his thighs, and now this dog appeared out of nowhere in a most unfriendly manner.

  “Rex, come!” Chet heard a woman shout. He glanced in the direction of the shout and spied a woman holding a leash some distance away.

  The dog hesitated a moment and then turned abruptly and ran to his human.

  Regaining his composure, Chet stared at the woman now looking in his direction, waiting for her dog to reach her.

  “You need to keep that animal on a leash!” he shouted angrily.

  She glared and offered no apology. However, when the dog reached her, she did clip on the leash before heading off in the opposite direction.

  “I didn’t need that,” Chet grumbled. He stood there a moment and watched as the woman and dog disappeared from sight. Alone again on the beach, he took a deep breath and considered what to do next.

  “I might as well forget about catching a little more sleep. I better figure out where I parked my damn car,” Chet grumbled as he started down the beach in the opposite direction from where the woman and dog had gone.

  Chet walked along the shore for a while, trying to get his bearings, when he started recognizing the landmarks. He used to come down here when he was in high school. Just up ahead, beyond the massive rocks jetting out beyond the breakers, was a path leading to one of the beach parking lots. He was fairly certain that was where he would find his car.

  Before making his way up to the pathway, something in the mountain-like rocks beyond the breakers caught his eye. Turning to look out to the ocean, Chet froze.

  “My car!’ he shouted, running toward the water. He stopped just where the wave had rolled over the sand before retreating back to the sea.

  “No!” He stomped his foot. Out in the water, crashing repeatedly against one of the enormous rocks, was his car, only its roof visible, while the rest was submerged under water. He knew all of his worldly belongings were shoved in the car’s trunk.

  Flopping down on the sand, Chet buried his face in his arms as they rested against his bent knees. He groaned and cursed his bad luck. However, he knew luck had nothing to do with it. It was probably his stupidity. Lifting his head, he looked back out to his floundering vehicle.

  As teenagers, they had sometimes played a game of chicken. Late at night after getting drunk, they would drive their cars down on the beach and race toward the ocean. The winner was the one who drove the farthest. Of course, sometimes the winner would also be the loser because that person’s car would be swept out to sea.

  Chet remembered that before Mac asked for a ride, Angelo had suggested they play the game again when his brothers returned. Is that what happened? he wondered. After dropping Mac off, had they met Angelo’s brothers down at the beach and decided to act like stupid teenagers?

  He stood up abruptly and dusted off his jeans. “That damn Angelo, he just left me here!”

  Turning from the ocean, Chet stomped up to the walkway. He didn’t have his cellphone on him, so he couldn’t call anyone to pick him up. Without checking, he knew he didn’t have any money in his wallet. He would do the only thing he could, he would walk to Angelo’s house and make him and his brothers help him get his car before it was swept out to sea.

  When Chet finally reached the Bandoni house, he congratulated himself for not being out of breath. Chet wasn’t much of a walker, but he credited his lack of exhaustion to his adrenaline, fueled by his anger at Angelo for ditching him after their night of drinking had gone off the rails. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anyone at the Bandoni house. The only car parked in the driveway was Mac’s, and nothing was parked in the garage.

  Chet camped out in the front yard for a while, waiting for one of the brothers to come home. Yet thinking of his car still bobbing around out there like a piece of trash tossed in the ocean, he grew antsy and realized the only thing left to do was to seek help from his sister. Chet stood up and started for the sidewalk. He then noticed a car parked two doors down with someone sitting in the driver’s seat. Whoever it was, they seemed to be watching the Bandoni house. Picking up his step, he moved quickly down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of the parked car while glancing over his shoulder. Whoever was staking out the house didn’t seem interested in him.

  He had no intention of walking all the way to Frederickport. All he had to do was borrow a phone, call his sister, and wait for her to arrange for someone to pull his car out of the ocean and take them both back to her house. Not for a moment did Chet doubt Laverne would help him in spite of the fact she had just locked him out of her house.

  Making his way back toward the beach, Chet spied two young women walking in his direction. With a grin, he sprinted up to them.

&nbs
p; “Excuse me,” he began.

  The two women ignored him and continued walking.

  With a frown, Chet turned around and looked at the women, who had just walked past him.

  “I said excuse me!” he shouted.

  Neither woman responded.

  Cursing under his breath and calling the women an unflattering name, he spied an older man just coming out of a gift shop.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Chet called out as he ran up to the man.

  Like the women before him, the man refused to acknowledge Chet.

  Not ready to give up, Chet approached a half a dozen more people—some young, some old—asking to make a call from their cellphone. They all ignored him.

  “I never realized how rude people are here!” he grumbled. Frustrated, he decided to hitchhike back to Frederickport.

  Standing along the roadside, he stuck out his right thumb. He wondered briefly about Oregon hitchhiking laws. He hadn’t lived in the state for years, but he knew in some places it was frowned on and sometimes against the law. But seeing he had no other choice, he tried flagging down a ride while slowly making his way toward Frederickport. Cars whizzed by without slowing.

  Chet continued to walk backwards and hitchhike. Eventually he made it out of Astoria. So far, not a single car had even slowed down. Realizing he was wasting precious time and fearing his car would be gone when he returned, he decided to take a more assertive approach to hitchhiking.

  No longer standing out of the way of incoming traffic, he boldly stood along the edge of the highway, his right thumb shoved out so far that a car would have to swerve to avoid hitting it. Which didn’t happen. The next car that sped past Chet looked as if it were aiming at his thumb. If Chet hadn’t made a last-minute jump to the side of the highway, he was certain he would have been plowed down by the vehicle.

  Deciding assertive hitchhiking was going to get him killed, Chet picked up his step and walked faster, out of the way of traffic, while extending a thumb.

  Cursing the world, Chet spied a scenic pullout up ahead. Parked there was a tour bus he recognized. It was from Frederickport, and considering the direction it was headed, it was on its way back to Frederickport.

  Breaking into a jog, he headed toward the bus. When he reached it, he saw the driver was inside, the door open. Its passengers were all outside, enjoying the scenic view while the driver waited patiently, reading something on his cellphone. Doing a quick head count, Chet figured there were plenty of empty seats on the bus.

  Chet considered asking the driver if he could get a lift back to Frederickport, but his luck so far had been crappy; he didn’t hold out any hope for the driver’s generosity. He then realized the driver hadn’t seen him walk up.

  When his passengers start to get back onto the bus, will he even notice one more person? Chet wondered.

  Ten minutes later, as passengers started lining up to get back onto the bus, Chet managed to blend into the small crowd. No one seemed to notice as he walked onto the bus with the rest of the passengers. He headed to the rear of the vehicle and sat down in a seat next to the window.

  Confident he was finally on his way to his sister’s house, he took a deep breath and leaned back in the bench seat and looked out the window, waiting for the bus to be on its way.

  “You want to sit by the window this time?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Chet glanced over to the aisle and found two elderly people eyeing his seat.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit by the window,” the man said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Go ahead, you take it,” the woman urged, pointing to Chet.

  “Excuse me, I’m already sitting here,” Chet told them.

  Ignoring Chet, the man moved toward the window seat and started to sit down.

  Chet did not scream because the man sat on his lap. He screamed because the man sat through his lap—it was as if Chet was not even there. But he was.

  Thirty-Two

  Danielle felt a bit like a voyeur. Walt’s long dark lashes fluttered, his eyes closed in sleep. With each breath his chest raised, only to lower again, continuing the cycle. She had never seen him like this before. Life coursed through Walt, and she couldn’t stop watching him as he napped on the library sofa. While he looked practically identical to the illusion of the man his spirit had created, there was something different, and it wasn’t the fact he was using Clint’s body. It was the healthy glow of his complexion—something vibrant in his carriage. She resisted the temptation to brush his hair from his forehead, while also surprised his hair had grown out enough since the accident to make that actually possible.

  She wanted to drop kisses on his forehead and crawl up on the sofa with him and just snuggle. Danielle missed their evenings when he had joined her in bed for their nightly chats. Of course, they had never snuggled. That was impossible to do without a body. But now…now he had a body and…

  Danielle blushed at the thoughts racing through her mind. Sitting in the chair across from the sofa, she opened the book on her lap and told herself to stop gawking at Walt.

  A few minutes later her cellphone rang, and she cursed herself for not turning off the ringer. Snatching the phone off the table next to her, she stood up to leave the room to answer the call and then heard Walt say, “You don’t have to leave the room. I’m awake.”

  Flashing an apologetic smile to Walt, Danielle sat back down on the chair and answered the phone. Across from her, on the sofa, Walt stretched groggily and sat up, placing his feet on the floor. He listened to her side of the conversation.

  “That was the chief,” Danielle said when she got off the phone.

  “I sort of figured that.” Walt yawned and stretched again.

  “We’re going to have company in a few minutes.”

  “I hope they’re bringing food. I’m starved,” Walt said with a mischievous grin.

  “I seriously doubt they’re going to bring food. It’s Agents Thomas and Wilson.”

  Walt frowned at Danielle. “The G-men?”

  Danielle nodded. “They want to question you about Macbeth. The chief asked if he could call and tell me to expect them, and they said okay. But they told him they would appreciate it if I didn’t tell you they were coming.”

  Walt made a tsk-tsk sound and said, “Shame on you.”

  “To be fair, they asked me not to say anything to Clint. And I didn’t.” She grinned. Standing back up, she said, “You want me to get you something to eat?”

  “Do I have time?”

  Danielle shrugged. “What do you care? You don’t even know they’re coming.”

  “You’re right!” Walt beamed. “Any more of that chocolate cake?”

  “You already ate it all. You know, Walt, I had no idea you had such a big appetite. You’re always hungry!”

  “Don’t blame me. A person gets hungry after ninety years without eating. Anyway, I like your cooking. I don’t remember being this hungry in the hospital.”

  “Thanks, but I suspect even mediocre cooking looks good after hospital food—not to mention that ninety-year thing. If you just want a snack, how about a slice of carrot cake? I froze half of the last one I baked, and it’ll only take a minute in the microwave to thaw out.”

  Walt was just finishing up the piece of carrot cake Danielle had prepared for him when the FBI agents arrived. He sat in the library, the leg with the cast propped up on the coffee table.

  “Walt, there is someone here who would like to talk to you,” Danielle said as she led Special Agent Wilson and Special Agent Thomas into the room.

  Walt glanced up from the sofa at the men and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t stand up.”

  Thomas started to pull his ID from his jacket’s inside pocket to introduce himself to Walt. But before either agent or Danielle could make any introductions, Walt asked, “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t believe you do,” Danielle told him.

  Thomas and Wilson then showed Walt their IDs while makin
g their formal introductions. After they were finished, Wilson asked, “Just how well did you know Macbeth Bandoni?”

  Walt set the empty plate he had been holding, now covered with cake crumbs and a used fork, onto the table next to his foot. “I’m not sure if he was simply a casual business acquaintance or a close friend. You see, gentlemen, I was recently in a car accident and now have amnesia. So unfortunately, I can’t remember anything prior to the accident.”

  “That’s rather convenient,” Wilson sneered.

  Walt’s smile vanished, and he narrowed his eyes, glowering at the agent. “It wasn’t convenient for the young lady who died in that accident.”

  “I understand she was your fiancée,” Thomas said.

  Walt turned to Thomas and nodded. In a serious tone he said, “That’s what I’ve been told. Her father visited me in the hospital. He seemed like a very nice man and was devastated to lose his only daughter. One couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. But I simply don’t remember anything about her. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the fact a young woman lost her life. It’s tragic, nothing convenient about it, and to make light of that is reprehensible, in my opinion. Life is precious. I’m quite grateful for my second chance at life.”

  “Mr. Marlow, if you committed a crime prior to your accident, do you believe you won’t be held accountable as long as the world believes you have amnesia?” Wilson asked.

  Walt looked Wilson in the eyes. “Special Agent Wilson, what crime do you believe I have committed?”

  “There seems to be an inordinate amount of attention being paid to the paintings you had commissioned,” Wilson noted.

  Walt arched his brows. “Has there?”

  “We understand the paintings are here,” Thomas said, glancing from Walt to Danielle.

  “Yes, they arrived earlier today. They’ve been in storage. After the accident, the police put them there while Walt was in the hospital.”