Ghosts

by Bill Noel

  “Yep, it’s him—no doubt, I think,” he said. “Let me continue.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, putting my feet on the stool and leaning back in the chair.

  “So now he has the loot and could easily leave the same way he got in, but the problem is that there’s a chair on the table in the bar. With that big clue, one wouldn’t need to be as brilliant a detective as yours truly to figure out how the thief got in and out.”

  “True,” I said. “So he moves some of the tables around, puts cards and glasses on them to make it look like someone was playing, and knocks a couple of chairs over so when he leaves he can kick the chair off the table and it will look like the ghosts did it.”

  “I think your noggin’s back to normal,” he said. “You got it.”

  “Can you prove it?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “And before you give me a lecture about thinking something and proving it being two different things, I know that. I’ve got to catch him.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I’m going to catch him tomorrow night.”

  Uh-oh. I shook my head. “How?”

  “He’s going to break into Cal’s,” he said. He pointed his cane toward the ceiling again.

  “What makes you so certain?” I said, looking to where he pointed the cane.

  “I may not be exactly certain,” he said, “but I’m almost sure.” He paused, and I stared at him. “Last night I worked until midnight. We were busy. There were tourists from Quebec at the Tides, and they came over for libations—”

  “Okay, I got it. Now back to Nick.”

  “Hmm,” said Charles. “He and I were tending bar. You know how cranky he is. Well, he kept humming. It was the happiest I’ve seen him. He said he’s ready to ‘skip this burg’ and is heading out day after tomorrow.”

  I hoped that wasn’t all he had. “Tomorrow night?” I said.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “He got a call from some guy about eleven. He was in back, so I asked if I could take a message. The guy on the phone told me to tell Nick that he expected his stuff in two days, or else.”

  “Who was it? What stuff and ‘or else’ what?” I asked.

  “He didn’t say. Said Nick’d know. When he got back, I gave him the message. I asked if everything was okay. He laughed and said fine. His face was laughing. His eyes said it was a big fat lie.”

  “So you think he’s stealing for this guy?” I said.

  “What else could it be?” he said, nodding as if it were as clear as a confession.

  “Let’s say I buy the story,” I said. “What’s to say he won’t break in tonight? Why tomorrow?”

  “”Your mind’s working fine,” he said. “Remember I told you that everyone who’s working at Cal’s seems to know why I’m there?”

  “Yeah, you said a couple of them asked if you had learned who was stealing the stuff.”

  “Last night Nick asked me if I figured out how the ghosts were getting the whiskey out of the locked building.” He paused and peered at the bottom of his coffee cup. “He must think I’m really dumb to think it’s ghosts. I told him that I was going to spend tonight—all night tonight—in the bar and try to catch the ghosts, or in the unlikely event it is a human, catch him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That it sounds like a good plan.” He wiggled his forefinger back and forth. “He didn’t mean it.”

  “So you figure he’ll wait until tomorrow night, get the case to whoever called, and then head out of town.”

  “Yep,” said Charles. He held his chin high and grinned. “And Detective Charles will be there to thwart the perfect crime.”

  “So what time do I meet you there?” I said.

  Charles smiled. “I hoped you’d say that,” he said. “Besides, there’s something I want to show you.”

  If I’d known how important what he had to show me was, I wouldn’t have waited.

  CHAPTER 50

  The funeral home director wasn’t able to find any relatives of Joan’s. He had left messages for me at the hospital. When I returned the call, he had visited my hospital room the first day that I could speak coherently. I’d told him that I didn’t think she had any living relatives but to check with her friend Charlene. I also said that she wanted to be cremated like her husband.

  The director called early in the afternoon to say that Charlene didn’t know of any relatives either, and that he had verified with the funeral home in Tennessee that Daniel had been cremated. Only then did he honor Joan’s wishes. I was irritated that he had to verify that Daniel had been cremated; I didn’t see what it had to do with her wishes. He was speaking in his best “I am so sorry” funereal voice, so I just thanked him. I told him I would pick up the urn in a couple of days. I wasn’t ready to face reality.

  I was still weak and stretched out on the couch, trying to nap. I should have known not to be so optimistic. Karen called as I drifted off.

  “Wanted to see how you felt,” she said.

  “Much better,” I said, and hoped she couldn’t tell that I was nearly asleep.

  “Feel up to a ride?” she asked.

  A change of scenery would do me good. I said yes, and she agreed to pick me up and deliver me back to the house. I said I couldn’t ask for a better deal. She laughed and said she’d see me later.

  * * *

  “Detective Adair thinks you’re in danger,” said Karen.

  We were driving through the historic areas of Charleston, south of Broad Street.

  I looked at her and then at the stately mansions. “Really?”

  “If Joan was killed by the person who killed her husband, he must have thought that she knew something incriminating against him. I’d guess something that either she learned on her own or that Daniel told her.” She hesitated. “It would be logical that the killer thinks Joan told you what it is.”

  “I know,” I said, and paused. I want him to come after me, I thought, but I didn’t tell her that. Karen didn’t speak, so I continued. “How’s the investigation going?”

  “Nothing new,” she said. “Whoever cut the brake lines knew what he was doing. The lines were cut only enough so they’d drain slowly. She’d have time to drive several miles. That would increase the chances of her building up speed and having a more devastating result. I suspect that the person knew about Joan’s history of speeding.” She paused and slowly shook her head. “But that doesn’t narrow it down much since any mechanic or someone good with tools could have done it. Instructions are all over the Internet.”

  “That’s comforting,” I said.

  “The lines were tampered with the night before,” said Karen. “There aren’t surveillance cameras near where she parked, and apparently no one saw anything.” She shook her head. “Both our guys and the Folly police have been looking for anything suspicious involving the kind of truck Joan reported, but we don’t have any reason to stop every Ford F-250. Even if we did, we don’t know what he looks like.”

  “What about the Gatlinburg police?” I asked.

  We had parked along the elevated walkway overlooking the bay.

  Karen gazed at the water and then back to me. “Good question,” she said. “I called Kevin Norton and told him what had happened here and what we knew—more accurately, what we didn’t know. He was devastated and said that he’d push to have the explosion checked, this time by the pros. Maybe that’ll turn up something, although I doubt it since he said the contractor has almost finished the demolition.”

  I told her that I was going to the funeral home in the morning to get Joan’s ashes. She asked if I wanted her to go with me. I thanked her but said it wasn’t necessary. I wanted to do it by myself. I also didn’t see any reason to tell her about what Charles and I would be doing tomorrow night. I didn’t want her to try to talk me o
ut of going, and I knew she wouldn’t stand a chance of derailing Charles.

  On the drive home, she asked me if I wanted her to spend the night. I reached over and squeezed her arm and said that I would love for her to, but that I was exhausted and wouldn’t be very good company.

  She smirked and said that she wasn’t looking for good company. “Next time,” she said.

  I smiled.

  CHAPTER 51

  The day Charles and I were going to catch a thief was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably warm—much like my last day with Joan. I slowly climbed out of bed before sunrise. I had been awake an hour before that. I wanted to sleep, but my mind wanted to relive the wreck, what Joan had said about getting back together, and the poignant moment that Charles, William, Joan, and I had spent in the bucolic cemetery in Cades Cove.

  Listening to Mr. Coffee slurp out the last drops, I wondered what Charles wanted to show me and what Sean had learned about Daniel’s businesses.

  I spiraled deeper in the dark hole of reality as I wondered if I really was too old for Karen, or Amber, or any relationship. And then I wondered if I really was in danger. Did I know something and not realize it?

  A steaming hot shower did more good than a few years of therapy might have done. I was refreshed, most of the negative thoughts washed down the drain, my aching wrist and legs loosened, and I was able to face the task of picking up Joan’s remains.

  “Why did you bring your camera?” I asked Charles. The trip to the funeral home had been physically and emotionally exhausting, and as strange as it sounded, I was almost looking forward to whatever the night would bring. We were sitting in the dark bar at Cal’s. The only illumination came from the Bud Light neon sign behind the bar. Charles had left work before Cal, Dawn, Nick, and Beatrice, and he said that he made a big deal about going home. He told them he was tired and would be glad to have a few days off from work. I thought he might have overdone it, but he was the detective.

  He picked the Nikon up off the table. “If it isn’t Nick, I thought I’d photograph a few ghosts,” he said. “Just kidding. Look at this.” He switched the camera on, turned the three-inch playback LCD monitor toward me, and pushed the view button. A photo of a man in his thirties coming out of the Piggly Wiggly was on the screen.

  I didn’t recognize him. “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “I was thinking,” he said.

  “Dangerous,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Pay attention,” he continued. “When you were lounging around in the hospital,” he pointed his cane in the direction of Charleston, “I was looking for a murderer. You told me you hadn’t seen the person who Joan saw—the person from her past.”

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Maybe you saw him when you were with Joan—a time when she didn’t see him but you did. Could have been someone who was looking at you two and you subconsciously noticed. Or …” He stopped and perused the room as if he thought a ghost had appeared and was eavesdropping. “Or someone you noticed doing something strange and you didn’t think about it at the time.”

  I looked down at the camera and shook my head. “Charles, that’s a mighty leap,” I said.

  “I know,” said Charles. “Humor me. I cased a few popular visitor places over the last week and took pictures of fifty-nine people. They’re all there,” he said, nodding toward the camera. “Flip through the shots and see if anyone strikes your fancy. What else do you have to do?”

  “Why not?” I said. I figured there was a zero chance of seeing anything significant but was touched by Charles’s work while I was lounging around the hospital.

  I recognized Piggly Wiggle in the background of some. There was also Bert’s, the Tides, Planet Follywood, the Folly Pier, the Morris Island lighthouse, the Dog, and even city hall. But I didn’t recognize any of the men in the monitor. I had seen several of them around town but not recently. A few were out of focus, and there were five who seemed more familiar than the others, but that was it.

  I felt bad that Charles had spent hours taking the photos. I thanked him and said that it had been worth a try. I handed him his camera, and he nearly dropped it when we heard a screeching sound from the direction of the wall between Cal’s and Ada’s Arts and Crafts. It wasn’t a mouse this time. It sounded remarkably like the sound effect that old movies used when someone was opening a rusty-hinged door in a haunted house. My first thought wasn’t about a ghost but a real person—a real person who might drop in on us any minute … a real person who could have a gun, a knife, or a variety of other lethal weapons, when all Charles and I had were his cane and the Nikon.

  Bad ankle, sprained wrist, concussion or not, we quickly slipped behind the bar before the intruder began to lift the ceiling tile. I had barely caught my breath before a stained tile disappeared above the ceiling and a beam of a light came from the opening and illuminated the top of the table directly under it. A pair of legs in tight black jeans then dangled down.

  The body connected to the legs gracelessly dropped from the ceiling to the table. The landing pad rocked and nearly tipped over when the feet hit. Cal’s mysterious thief was standing twenty feet in front of us. It wasn’t the ghost of Frank Fontana or any of his poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, bar-wrecking ghost buddies. Detective Charles was half-right—a real live human being hopped off the table.

  But it wasn’t Nick.

  CHAPTER 52

  “Oh, damn! Crap,” she said as Charles aimed his flashlight at the intruder. “Who’s there? Put down that damn light.”

  Charles lowered the light and walked to the front of the bar. He stood between the intruder and me. He raised the light so it reflected off his cane. “Hi, Dawn,” he said.

  The beam from Dawn’s small penlight tried to find us. “Is that you, Charles?” came the crackling voice from beside the table. “Damn, it is you.”

  “You know my friend, Chris, don’t you?” The ever-polite private detective shone the flashlight at my face. I raised my hand to block the blinding beam.

  “Yes,” was all she said. Charles pivoted and aimed the light back at her face. She looked toward the exit door and then back at Charles. Her shoulders sagged. “Don’t guess you’d believe I stopped by to clean?”

  Charles chuckled but kept the light aimed at her as he walked to the switches behind the bar and flipped on the fluorescent tubes. Both hands were in front of her. One held the light, the other moved around as if it didn’t know what to do with it. I was no longer worried about her having a weapon. She blinked when the lights came on. I saw tears in her eyes.

  “Didn’t think so,” she said. “Oh, damn. You set me up, didn’t you? You were supposed to be here last night.” She shook her lowered head. She reminded me of a basset hound that had been yelled at for peeing on a new rug. “All I wanted was enough money to leave town.” She held her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “Two more weeks and I would’ve been gone. Gone from my ex.” She kicked the table leg. “Crap.”

  Charles tilted his head, looked at Dawn, and then turned to me. “Chris … umm.”

  He then turned back to Dawn, rolled his eyes, and sighed. “Chris,” he said. His body faced Dawn, but he turned his head my direction. “Would you have a seat over there?” He pointed his cane at the table closest to the front door. “I’d like to talk to Dawn a minute.”

  I didn’t see that I had a choice, so I walked to the table, grabbed one of the chairs, and sat. Charles motioned for Dawn to follow him, and he walked to the small storage area—the site of his near electrocution.

  It was after three o’clock, and I was tempted to put my head on the table and fall asleep. My wrist ached from the wreck, and my shoulder still hurt from the fall in Gatlinburg. Regardless of what I had been through, I had no business being awake, much less in a bar, at this ungodly hour. I heard the muted voices of Charles and Dawn but couldn’t
tell what they were saying.

  A half hour later—a half hour that seemed like three hours—Charles followed Dawn to the side door that led outside. He unlocked the door and handed her a small folded piece of paper. She hugged him and mumbled something before she left. Charles watched her for a minute and then closed and locked the door.

  He put the flashlight back in its resting spot behind the bar and opened the beer cooler and took out a Miller High Life. He then walked to the cabinet in the back bar and took out an opened bottle of Cabernet. With a wineglass in hand, Charles hooked his cane on his forearm and headed to my table with the beer, bottle of wine, and wineglass.

  He poured a half glass of wine and took a sip of beer. Three steps beyond confused, I didn’t say anything.

  He sat down, took a sip of beer, and said, “Heather was right. Frank Fontana’s ghost and his gambling buddies have been stealing whiskey.”

  “Charles, you—”

  He put his hand in front of my face. “I saw Frank and his friends.” He looked around the bar and then directly at me. “Didn’t you?”

  I slowly shook my head. “If you did, I did,” I said.

  “I did,” he said. “I think they’ll be visiting every once in a while and slipping some money back in the till to pay for all the whiskey and cash they borrowed.” He nodded. “Yes, I think they will.”

  I smiled at Charles. “Hope they stop playing cards and messing up your bar,” I said.

  “They’ll be moving their poker game far away,” he said.

  Charles had bought whatever explanation Dawn had given him. I was tempted to point out that it wasn’t Nick who dropped in, but I didn’t want to ruin his catching the thief. I’ve always said that he would give you the T-shirt off his back. He was generous to a fault. Tonight he may have crossed that fault line. But if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me.

  “Can we go home now?” I asked.

  “Not until you climb on that table and put the ceiling tile back,” he said, pointing his cane at the hole in the ceiling.