Ghosts

by Bill Noel

  The tension slowly subsided. She occasionally yawned, her hands stopped shaking, and she stopped staring at the front door as if terrified that someone would come bursting in. I would have preferred to think my calming demeanor had helped, but it was most likely the three glasses of Maker’s Mark she’d consumed.

  It was nearly midnight, and her eyes fluttered. She leaned back on the couch with her bare feet on the coffee table. For the last half hour, she had drifted back to the years we had spent together, asking me if remembered various trips we had gone on—a week in Phoenix, a two-week trip through Canada, the long weekend in Cancun. I didn’t remember much about the vacations. They were ancient history to me, but Joan knew the names of the places where we had stayed, what side trips we had made, and even the decor from a couple of the rooms.

  Cindy didn’t call, so I assumed that she didn’t find the Camry, and I wondered what she would have done even if she had. There was no proof that the driver had done anything wrong. It was after midnight, and I wondered how I was going to say I had to go.

  I thought she was almost asleep, but her eyes popped open, and she leaned forward on the couch.

  “Stay with me.”

  CHAPTER 44

  I was standing in the gallery and looking out on Center Street when Charles came in. He almost appeared to be back to normal, or as normal as Charles could look.

  “Sleep well?” asked Charles. It was in the lower forties outside, but he only had on a bright red University of Louisville sweatshirt, faded jeans, and a Tilley. He tapped his cane on the wooden floor.

  “Yep,” I said. I was curious about why he asked since he wasn’t usually interested in my sleep pattern.

  “Hmm,” he said, heading to the back room. I followed.

  He slid his cane on the table and carefully placed his hat on the cane. “How’s Joan?” he said as he sat.

  “She was scared last night,” I said, as abbreviated an answer as I could muster.

  His eyes twinkled. “How about this morning?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “Haven’t seen her.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, there was an SUV that looked exactly like yours at Water’s Edge when I took my morning walk.”

  Ah, there it was. Charles taking a “morning walk” would have been as rare as a surfing squirrel. Water’s Edge was on a dead-end street that was not on his customary route from his home to anywhere, especially considering his limited mobility.

  “Interesting,” I said, sipping my coffee.

  I interrupted Charles’s not-so-subtle probing and asked if he wanted anything. He said coffee; he had to get to Cal’s to clean up. I pointed to the Mr. Coffee machine. He murmured something and then said that it would be great if he could find someone to help him. He said he had asked everybody working last night, and no one was interested. Imagine that. I felt guilty and volunteered. After all, he had nearly bought a Jaguar for me.

  I drove to Cal’s, and he turned on the harsh fluorescent lights. I immediately knew why none of the employees wanted to help. The place was a wreck. I was afraid that ghosts from a hundred miles around had gathered for a card game and barroom brawl, but Charles assured me that last night’s crowd was celebrating who-knows-what, and the mess was made by living, breathing drunks. It was there when he’d left at midnight. I started collecting beer bottles and plates from the tables, and Charles went to the kitchen to sweep the floor.

  I was placing two bottles in an industrial-strength trash bag when Charles screamed. I dropped the bag and ran around the bar. Charles yelled, “Help!” He was in the small storage room, wedged between a tall Ice-O-Matic machine and the wall. He was on his knees with his left hand at the side of the ice machine. His eyes were wide, his pupils the size of quarters. His body shook uncontrollably.

  “E-electric!” he yelled. His feet kicked behind him and his arm appeared stuck to something beside the machine.

  He was being electrocuted. His feet were trying to push his body away from the machine, but he slipped in a puddle of water oozing out from under the machine. It was as if he were superglued to the electric cord.

  Electricity would knife through me if I tried to pull him away. Neither of us would survive.

  I desperately searched for the electric panel. Where was it? Had I seen it before? Stay calm … stay calm. It was nowhere in sight.

  I grabbed the wooden broom handle that he had been sweeping with. I wedged the handle against the icemaker and pulled sideways on it. It moved most of his body away from the cord, but his hand held on as if it were still glued to the wire.

  I moved the broom so the end was under his arm and yanked up. The handle slipped out. I moved as close as I dared and pushed the handle under his arm again. I yanked up on the handle, and his hand flew off the cord.

  Charles moaned and then crashed to the floor. Sweat poured from my forehead. My hands shook.

  He lay motionless. Was he dead? Should I run to the fire station for help? Should I leave Charles? Was he alive?

  A weak voice coming from my prone friend answered my last question. “That was … a shocker,” said my not-always-funny friend.

  At that second, those were some of the funniest words he’d ever spoken.

  “You okay?”

  He exhaled. “Sort of, I think.”

  He was still on the floor but had scooted a couple of feet from the stainless steel ice maker. He held his cane vertically with his right hand and pulled himself up on it. His face was chalk white.

  “Should you be standing?” I went to his side to help. “Let me call 911 or go across the street to the fire station.”

  He shook his head. “Give me a minute,” he said. “I’m fine … I’m okay.” He then lowered himself back to the quarry-tile floor, took a deep breath, pulled up his knees and, rested his head on them. “A minute and I’ll be fine.”

  I was tempted to call for help but knew that would only make him mad. I squeezed his shoulder. I then carefully peeked around the side of the ice machine to see what had happened. The large machine blocked the light from the two-tube fluorescent fixture in the center of the ceiling. I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to the dim light before I could see the black electric cord that was plugged into the duplex outlet beside the machine. Three inches from the plug, the insulation on the cord was cut or frayed.

  Charles’s breathing was almost steady, and he raised his head from his knee and turned it toward me. “What the hell happened?” he asked.

  “You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh. What happened?”

  “Is there a flashlight here?”

  He hesitated and then said, “Behind the bar, right side, big ole silver one.”

  I returned with the light and found that Charles had managed to stand. He wasn’t shaking but was using his cane for its intended purpose.

  “Let’s get you to a chair,” I said, nodding toward the tables in the bar.

  “In a minute,” he said, leaning toward the corner plug.

  I pushed him back and squeezed between Charles and the ice machine. I pointed the beam at the plug and saw that I was right about the cord. The insulation was separated, and the bare wires were clearly visible. Charles was leaning over my back and saw it. “I’m lucky to be standing,” he said, barely above a whisper.

  I helped him to the nearest table and steadied him as he lowered himself in the chair. He argued the entire way that he was fine. I turned the breaker off and unplugged the machine; I turned the breaker back on and moved to the chair closest to Charles.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Not much,” he said. His voice had regained its strength, but he wasn’t back to being Charles yet. “I went back there to clean and noticed that the ice machine wasn’t making any noise. Usually goes grrrr.”

  “Got it,” I said with a smile.

&n
bsp; “Cal had been having trouble with it. The building’s so old that it didn’t trip the breaker when the machine kicked off. He was afraid it’d start a fire. He told each of us who opened to check it first thing to be sure it was okay.” He paused again, caught his breath, and then continued. “I didn’t hear it working and opened the electric panel to see if the breaker had been tripped. It was fine, and then I checked to see if it was plugged in. It was unplugged, so I put the plug in the thingamajig on the wall and …” He shuddered. “And … well, you know what happened.”

  “Did Cal tell you last night to check the machine?”

  “Yeah,” said Charles. “He pestered us about it every night. I think he was finally ready to call a repair man.”

  “Who was here at closing?” I asked.

  “Let’s see—there was Cal, of course; Beatrice and Kristin had been waitressing and were here; then—let me think—Dawn and Nick were bartending and closed last night.” He hesitated. “That’s it, I think.”

  “Did they know you were going to be cleaning today?”

  “Sure,” he said. “None of them wanted to do it, so I made a big deal about coming in.”

  “Charles, you saw the wire,” I said. “It’s been stripped to the bare wire as sure as we’re sitting here. Someone tried to electrocute you. And it had to be someone here last night at closing.”

  He stared at me and then glanced toward the ice machine and shook his head. “Nick again,” he said. “He and Cal were the only two here when I left.” He shook his head again.

  CHAPTER 45

  Charles and I had griped at each other over the years, occasionally sniped, had minor arguments, hurt each other’s feelings, and shared a couple of brief shouting matches, but we had never had a major battle. Until now.

  I insisted that we had to call the police. He said no. I said that someone had tried to kill him, and we couldn’t let it go. He said not only could we, but we were going to. I threatened to call anyway. He said if I did, he would deny that anything had happened. I said he was being foolish and had a death wish. He said it was his death wish and none of my damn business—period!

  My business or not, I was just about to cross the street to the police station when Cal came in the side door.

  He had on his sweat-stained Stetson and a plain gray sweatshirt instead of his stage garb. He looked at the mess left from last night. “Hells bells, Illinois, this place won’t clean itself while you’re sitting there jabbering,” he said. He tried to hold a frown, but it quickly turned to a big stage grin. He walked to our table. “Hey, Kentucky,” he said.

  I nodded but didn’t say anything. Cal saw my expression and turned to Charles to see that he wasn’t smiling.

  “Whoops. Did I interrupt something?” said Cal. “You two look like someone burnt the wrong brand on your heifer.”

  That must have some important meaning in Texas, Cal’s native state, so I looked at Charles to see what he would say. He didn’t say anything. He was angry and, I suspected, scared. I gestured for Cal to grab a chair and then proceeded to tell him about what had happened. I didn’t mention Charles’s suspicions about Nick. There was no proof, and it might get in the way of Charles’s “investigation.”

  Cal said we had to call the police. Charles emphatically said no.

  Cal looked at Charles, then at me, and then back at Charles. He stood and looked toward the storage room, returned to his chair, took a deep breath, and then said, “Charles, you’re fired.”

  “Huh?” said Charles.

  Cal shook his head. “A few cases of whiskey and a few bucks—”

  “A few bucks, hell,” interrupted Charles. “You said the cash had been short for weeks. It could be big bucks. You said you might have to close.”

  “Regardless,” continued Cal. “It ain’t worth you getting yourself dead over.” He shook his head more quickly. “I’m not going to have anything to do with you getting kilt. Your friendship is worth more than that. Yep, you’re fired.”

  Charles tapped his fingers on the table. He looked up at the water-stained ceiling tiles and then turned his attention to Cal; then he abruptly looked back at the ceiling. “Two more days,” he said. “You keep me on the payroll two more days, and if I haven’t caught you a thief, I’ll fire myself—won’t demand severance, won’t sue because of sort of discrimination, won’t go postal on you, won’t—”

  Cal held his arms out. “Okay, okay, I surrender; forty-eight hours.”

  Charles looked down at the table. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  I thought Charles had made a terrible and dangerous mistake by not bringing in the cops. I didn’t know what he had in mind with the forty-eight-hour reprieve, but I could tell he had a plan. Cal helped us clean. Charles avoided the ice machine but appeared none the worse from the shock. Cal didn’t whistle while he worked, but he did hum and sing snippets of at least a hundred classic country tunes as he cleaned and moved the furniture back to its opening locations.

  Sean Aker called around eleven and said that he was in Columbia for the day but had some information he thought I’d be interested in. We set a time to meet in the morning.

  Joan called as we took the last two full bags of trash to the Dumpster and asked if I wanted to visit Boone Hall Plantation, one of the area’s historic and beautiful plantations, located about seven miles on the other side of Charleston. I had been there a couple of times and didn’t want to go, but I said yes anyway. I cared about her and knew her mental state was precarious at best. And she didn’t need to be out alone. She said she’d pick me up in a couple of hours.

  What a morning, I thought as Charles and I left Cal’s. I had possibly saved my best friend’s life; learned that Sean had actually found out something about Daniel’s business dealings—something, I hoped, that would shed light on what was going on; and made a date with my ex-wife. And it wasn’t yet noon.

  What could possibly happen next?

  CHAPTER 46

  Joan’s car pulled in front of my cottage and looked, with the exception of the unsightly gash on the passenger’s side, as if it had just come off the showroom floor. I walked outside before the Jag came to a stop. I opened the door to a bright smile and slipped in the passenger’s seat. She kissed me on cheek. She was classily dressed in black wool slacks and a bright green turtleneck sweater.

  “Thanks for staying with me last night,” she said. We roared up Center Street and across the small bridge off Folly Beach. “How was your room?”

  “Great,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake you this morning, so I tiptoed out.”

  I didn’t bring up her seeing the mystery man, and she didn’t mention it. It would have been futile to tell her that I thought she shouldn’t be out by herself. I knew she’d say that she couldn’t stay cooped up in the villa.

  As we approached downtown Charleston, she talked about how nice the weather was, how little traffic there was, and how pretty the boats looked on the Ashley River. She laughed and then became irritated at the stop-and-go traffic as we crossed the city. College of Charleston students had returned from the winter break and were lining each side of the street, lost in their own worlds. I prayed that one of them didn’t step off the sidewalk in our path. The way Joan gunned it between each stoplight, I knew she wouldn’t be able to stop. We got green lights at most of the intersections—a near miracle.

  “You know …” she began. She had both hands on the wheel and her eyes focused straight ahead. She paused, and her lips parted a sliver and then closed. The traffic had lightened, and we approached the bridge between Charleston and Mt. Pleasant. As was our good luck this morning, she caught the last light before the bridge green. “Don’t hate me for saying this,” she slowly continued, “but I was disappointed when you said you’d take the guest bedroom.” She continued to avoid eye contact with me.

  I was speechless. She was extremely vulnerable—
for good reason. Did she really mean what it sounded like? Was it simply her traumas speaking? How should I respond? Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

  “Do you think,” she said, turning her head in my direction, “that we could ever get back together?”

  Joan pulled onto the entrance ramp to the imposing cable-stayed Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge and accelerated. The two-and-a-half-mile-long eight-lane bridge arched up in the middle for a fantastic view of the Cooper River and the World War II aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, which was the centerpiece of Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.

  The sun glistened off the river far below the majestic span—soft, billowy clouds made it a picture-perfect day—but that was the last thing on my mind. Now what did I say?

  “Joan, I … I know—”

  “Oh, shit!” she said.

  I looked at her and then down at the speedometer. It was pushing eighty.

  Joan pumped the brake. Nothing happening. Traffic on the bridge was heavy, and there were cars on each side of us.

  “Shit,” she uttered again, yanking on the emergency brake lever on the console. Nothing happened. The Mt. Pleasant end of the bridge where the lanes split at the exit ramp was less than a half mile away.

  I instinctively shoved my feet into the firewall.

  We were in the next to right lane but had to move a lane to the left. If we didn’t, we would be on the exit ramp and be going too fast to safely make the sharp curve at the bottom of it.

  A green Ford Taurus was in front of us. Its driver was clueless that we were seconds from rear-ending him. Joan swerved left. Our bumper caught the rear of the Taurus but neither car lost control. The Taurus pulled to the right, and I caught a glimpse of the angry driver’s face. Joan continued to ram down on the unresponsive brake. We rocketed toward the end of the bridge.

  I had a death grip on the door pull. We slowed some but still topped seventy.

  The yellow safety barrier that separated the exit ramp and the main road was directly in front of us. We were fewer than a hundred yards from the ramp and had to veer left into another lane to miss the deadly barrier.