Ghosts

by Bill Noel

  She continued. “You know, Chris, I’m a psychic.” She pushed a palm to her forehead. “When you were telling about the call, vibes told me your ex was reaching out to you. She needs help.” Her shoulders shook—from psychic vibes, I assumed—and she took a sip of beer.

  What I did know was that Heather thought that she was a psychic. She also thought she was a good singer. I knew absolutely nothing about what a psychic is, does, or if psychic powers exist, but I did know good singing when I heard it. If she was as wrong about being a psychic as she was about being a singer, her powers were nonexistent.

  I glanced at Charles and then turned to Heather. “Maybe she meant what she said. She was thinking about me and wanted to know how I was doing and to wish me merry Christmas,” I said. I realized how unlikely that was before I finished saying it.

  Charles hadn’t spoken for a few minutes—a position that clearly made him uncomfortable. “Heather may be right,” he said. “There’s more to it. Think of it, Chris. You’ve been here five years, I’m your closest friend, and you’ve mentioned your ex once in all that time, and that was years ago. She hasn’t had any contact with you for more than two decades, and now you suddenly get a Christmas greeting. Something’s up.”

  Heather nodded enthusiastically.

  It had been a long day, and I wasn’t anxious to relive more ancient history. Charles and Heather had been making syrupy eyes at each other and leaning closer together. He suggested that it was time for the party to end. I quickly agreed, and we headed our separate ways. Well, I headed my separate way. Charles and Heather appeared to be heading to the same destination.

  * * *

  I had tossed and turned during the night and replayed my brief conversation with Joan. I thought there was more than a thoughtful holiday greeting in her voice, but I might have imagined it. Of course, Charles and Heather’s take might have influenced me.

  Joan had left me, and I’d tried for years to blame her for the breakup, but I was only trying to fool myself. I was focused—perhaps even obsessed—with my career and getting ahead in the highly competitive corporate environment. She tried time after time to understand what I was going through at work. I closed her out. Was I doing it again?

  It was four days before Christmas, and I wanted to open the gallery early. If it wasn’t busy now, it never would be. Before beginning the frigid three-block walk to the gallery, I googled “Daniel McCandless, Gatlinburg, Tennessee” and got three hits. According to the sketchy references, Daniel had co-owned Jaguar of Knoxville, a luxury car dealership on the outskirts of Knoxville. Two of the three references were about a diabetics benefit golf tournament that he had chaired. The third showed a photo of Daniel standing in front of a new white Jaguar. The story talked about how he had sold his share of the dealership to his partners, Tag Humboldt and Alil Munson, and how he looked forward to a retirement of golf and travel. Daniel appeared to be in his late sixties, and he was tall and burly, with stylish, longish hair and a mustache. There were no photos of Joan.

  A search for Joan came to multiple dead ends. There were no references to anyone by that name connected with Gatlinburg or the surrounding area. There was neither a Joan nor Daniel McCandless listed in the white pages websites. The only Joan McCandless in Tennessee lived in Memphis, several hundred miles from Gatlinburg, which was on the edge of the Smoky Mountains in east Tennessee. I was irritated with myself for not getting her number when she called and the caller ID showed blocked. On the other hand, did I want it?

  * * *

  Thursday and Friday flew by, and fortunately I didn’t have time to ponder ancient memories or try to figure out why I had received the unusual call. Christmas was two days away, and Charles divided his time between selling photos and selling beer, wine, and spirits. Christmas Eve Eve, he arrived decked out in a red Christmas sweatshirt, with a white face of Santa on the front and surrounded by tiny flashing green LED lights. When he pushed Santa’s nose, the shirt played the first few lines of “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Well, that’s what he said it played; I couldn’t tell because it skipped every other note. “What do you expect for seventy-five cents at the church bazaar, the Boston Pops?” he said.

  I had seen Charles wearing approximately seven zillion different sweatshirts and T-shirts over the years. He had nearly as many shirts as he had books in his small apartment. His domicile reminded me of a horror movie where alien books attach themselves to everything and take over the world. They had already gobbled up his apartment.

  Charles not only collected shirts and books but was also one of Folly’s great repositories of rumors and occasionally facts. He would be exposed in his new career as a bartender and self-proclaimed detective to a new source of rumors as rich as earthworms in a compost heap. During the few hours that he devoted to the gallery, he shared how he hadn’t realized how much the spirit of the season was inspired by spirits of another kind. He told me that last evening he had waited on one of South Carolina’s august members of the state senate, who was one of the greatest proponents of tighter enforcement on drunken driving. The senator asked Charles to put his double shot of bourbon in a plastic Pepsi cup. Another prominent Folly resident told him that if his wife called, Charles was to say that he hadn’t ever seen her husband in Cal’s.

  I ruined Charles’s festive mood when I interrupted his stories and asked if he had found the thief. He responded that he hadn’t even found where Cal stored the peanuts.

  “I’ve been there a few nights,” he said. “I don’t know who it is, but I think I could narrow it down.” He pointed a handmade wooden cane that was his constant companion in the direction of Cal’s. “Think it’s either Nick or Kenneth … Could be Dawn, Tara, or Kristin … Then again, I wouldn’t rule out Dustin or Beatrice.”

  “Who’re they?” I asked.

  “They work there,” he said.

  “So it’s an employee?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said, continuing to point the cane out the door. “Or maybe someone who isn’t.”

  I tried another tack. “Think the bottles are walking when the bar’s open or someone’s getting in after closing?”

  “Yep,” he repeated. “Certain about that.”

  “And I questioned whether you’d be a good detective,” I teased.

  He ignored my slight. “Nick usually closes; has since before Cal took over. He told me that every once in a while after everyone’s gone, he hears noises from the restrooms.”

  “He ever find anyone?” I asked.

  “Said he hasn’t. Checks both restrooms and all around them and never finds anything.”

  “Animals?” I asked.

  “Didn’t ask,” said Charles. “I’d think if he found a possum or a giraffe in the men’s room, he’d mention it.”

  No argument from me. “Ghosts?” I asked.

  I was teasing, but Charles looked at me as if I had solved the crime. “Heather says so. She’s a psychic, you know.” He nodded in my direction.

  I nodded back.

  Charles said, “Not sure I’m a believer.”

  “Better chance it’s a giraffe,” I speculated.

  “Unlikely,” said Charles, maintaining a straight face. “Ceiling’s too low.” He spread his arms out. “Before you ask, the door’s too narrow for a hippo.”

  I sighed and said that I guessed he would need more time to figure it out.

  “Likely,” he said.

  CHAPTER 5

  Christmas Eve was a busy night in the bar business, and Charles was scheduled to work until closing. Cal, to Charles’s delight, had decided to close at 11:00 p.m. instead of the usual 2:00 a.m.

  I had spent the last two Christmas Eves with Amber and her son in their small second-floor apartment on Center Street. They, and Charles, were the closest I had to a family, and I had been delighted to spend Christmas Eve sharing stories and watching the excitement of Amber�
�s son, Jason, as the magical hours of Christmas approached. Now, with the sun beginning to set over the marsh, the loneliness of being by myself on this special night started to get to me. I thought about keeping the gallery open until midevening but knew that “not a creature was stirring,” and the only purchases that would be made on Folly Beach would be at Bert’s, the island food market that never closed, and in the handful of bars that remained open.

  I walked to each room in my cottage and turned on every light. The artificial brightness couldn’t overcome my black, dejected mood.

  I called Amber and listened to the phone ring thirteen times. Yes, I counted. I knew after the fifth ring that she wasn’t there, but I didn’t have the heart to hang up.

  I finally conceded that I wasn’t going to hear her sweet, warm voice on Christmas Eve. I stared out the side window at the dark winter night and then called Karen. She answered her cell on the first ring. We shared a couple of pleasantries before I realized that I didn’t know what to say … or exactly why I had called. I finally stumbled through enough words so she knew that I was asking her if she wanted to get a drink. She thanked me but said that she had caught a double homicide and, most likely, would be working all night and Christmas Day. “Murder doesn’t take holidays off,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said. I wished her well with the investigation and said we would talk later.

  “You bet we will,” she said.

  I blushed. But I would still be alone tonight. It sucked.

  Television tempted me, but I didn’t touch the remote. All I would find would be festive celebrations, mushy old movies celebrating Christmases past, and discussions about peace on earth. I grabbed a three-month-old issue of American Photo and mindlessly flipped through the pages before dropping it beside the chair.

  I walked to the kitchen, poured a large glass of Cabernet, and sat at the table. Was Charles right? Had Joan called for something other than to ask how I was doing? Why had the call thrown me off? Why couldn’t I have asked if she needed anything or wanted to tell me something? Why would she call after not speaking to me all those years? Why?

  My thoughts moved closer to home. Where were Amber and Jason? They didn’t have relatives within hundreds of miles. Did she have a date? A date on Christmas Eve could be serious. I wasn’t an expert, but this was not a casual date night, was it? Was I happy for her if there was someone in her life? Then there was Karen …

  Sleep didn’t come quickly, but it did come. What a way to spend Christmas Eve, I thought as I drifted off.

  * * *

  Christmas Day was expected to only reach the midforties, twenty degrees shy of average for late December. It wouldn’t be cold enough for kids to slide around the island on their new red sleds. I was showing my age and my childhood in a more northerly climate by thinking of sleds. I doubted anyone here owned one.

  Having those thoughts as I stood in the shower told me that my mood had improved drastically from the night before. I caught myself humming “Jingle Bells” and had to smile. Here I was, not having to ever go to work again, living in my own paid-for cottage a couple of blocks from the ocean, having accumulated more close friends than I had known in Kentucky, and other than being a few pounds over my ideal weight, I was in good health.

  Cal had announced two decisions after taking over the reins of GB’s Bar earlier this year. First, he renamed it Cal’s Country Bar and Burgers and then told everyone who would listen that he was having a “big-ass” Christmas party. He said that he had been on the road more Christmases than most Americans had lived through, and he hadn’t had anyone special to share the day with since he could remember. Through his travels, he had seen countless men and women in the same fix. “By golly,” he said, “I am going to do something about it.”

  Cal’s Country Christmas Celebration, a mere proclamation in the summer, was now about to come to fruition, and if anyone on the island was not aware of it, he or she had not seen a telephone pole, bulletin board, store window, or read the Folly Current. Cal and his staff had plastered notices on nearly every empty wall, pole, window, and car that had not moved for a couple of days.

  The party was to begin at noon, and Cal had asked his newest employee, Charles, to get there a couple of hours early to help get ready. Charles, who loved to share, asked me to join him to help with the “prefestivities.” I thought that sounded more like grunt work than something good, but I didn’t have anything better to do. “Sure,” I said.

  I arrived and quickly realized that Cal had developed a better sense of the business than I had suspected. Charles was the only employee there, and Cal was giving him a list of what needed to be done. Cal told his regular (higher-paid) staff not to arrive until the party was about to begin. The underpaid under-the-table private detective was earning his keep.

  Cal’s was larger than several of the bars on Folly Beach. About a dozen tables—a combination of four-tops and barstool-height two-tops—were spread haphazardly around the room on a dark brown beaten-down carpet. Restrooms bookended a small raised wooden stage that anchored the back wall. A twelve-by-twenty-foot laminate dance floor was directly in front the stage. A beat-up wooden bar dominated the right side of the building, and a tiny kitchen and storeroom were behind it.

  “Howdy, Kentucky,” said Cal as I entered the heavy front door. Cal had the slightly irritating habit of calling people by the name of their state of origin. Charles and I had been trying to break him of the habit, but with limited success. Cal waved his right hand around the room. “What do you think?”

  The formerly tired-looking bar sparkled and flashed. Strands, strands, and more strands of flashing green, red, and white lights were strung from the ceiling, the front of the bar, the bandstand, and around the door frames that led into the restrooms.

  “Wow!” I said.

  Cal beamed. His tall, slim torso stood straighter than I remembered. His full head of long gray hair was topped by his sweat-stained Stetson, a small strand of battery-powered Christmas lights blinking around the crown. “Chris,” he said, “this is a dream come true.”

  Perhaps we were making progress—Chris instead of Kentucky. “Wow,” I repeated. “This is almost beyond words.”

  He interpreted that as a compliment, and his smile grew larger. “Think anybody’ll come?”

  After all his work, I sincerely hoped so. “No doubt,” I said, more confidently than I felt. Folly was nearly deserted over the holiday. There were a few vacation property owners in town for the week, but most of the full-time residents had families and wouldn’t venture out. But there were always a few “strays,” as Charles called them, around—singles and some couples who would rather be in a bar than alone with their significant others on this special day.

  “I would’ve had more money to decorate,” said Cal as he tilted his head toward Charles, “if Mr. Detective there had caught the cat who’s stealing me blind.”

  Charles held five fingers in the air. I got a full view of his blue-and-gold sweatshirt with a large A on the front and a polar bear walking across his chest. I absolutely, positively wasn’t going to ask about it. He had also traded his Tilley for one of those soft red Santa hats with a white fuzzy ball on top, which fortunately only made appearances this time of year. The hat was similar to the one Heather had worn the other night at supper. I hoped the hats weren’t multiplying.

  “Five days,” said Charles, rolling his eyes. “Five days, I repeat. I’ve only been on the case five days. And besides, Cal, no one is ‘stealing you blind.’ You’re only missing a few bottles of bourbon.”

  Cal set down the lights that he was stringing on the third artificial Christmas tree in the room. “Umm, Michigan,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I sort of forgot to tell you that some money’s missing.”

  “Hey, boss,” said Charles. “Don’t you think that’s something you should be telling your detective?”

 
The Hank Williams Sr. look-alike nodded generously. “Yeah. I know I should have, but, Charles, I sort of don’t know how much is gone. Seems like I should have more than I do—a lot more.”

  Charles was clearly ready to give Cal a lecture on no-telling-what, so I jumped in. “Cal, was the cash taken when the bar was open?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “See, I leave the money in here after I close, and I don’t count it or take it to the bank until morning.”

  “Gee!” said Charles. His gaze was lasered on Cal. “You don’t count it after closing?”

  “You know I don’t,” said Cal. “You work here, remember?”

  “Five days, remember?” said the increasingly irritated detective as he repeated his five-fingers-in-the-air gesture. “I’ve only been here one night at closing. I didn’t see what you did with the money.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Cal. “Forgot.”

  “Walk us through the process you follow at closing,” I requested.

  Cal removed his Stetson, flicked off the switch that controlled the tiny Christmas lights around the crown, and moved to the table closest to the bar. “This time of year,” he said, “I close when everyone’s gone. Sometimes it’s as early as nine.”

  Charles and I pulled chairs up to the table.

  “And?” said Charles.

  “And then I lock the front door. Either I or one of the folks working locks the side door.”

  “That part I knew,” said Charles. “I locked it Thursday.”

  Cal tapped his hand on the table. “You want my story or are you going to interrupt?”

  Charles made a zipping motion across his mouth and then waved for Cal to continue.

  “Don’t see that often,” the bar owner said with a laugh. “Anyway, I take the loot out of the register and dump it into a shoebox behind the counter. By that time of night, I’m exhausted.” He stood and walked behind the bar, motioning for us to follow. We crowded into the tight space, and Cal pulled out an old Reebok tennis shoe box from under the bar. “And then I stick the box in this cabinet.”