An Uninvited Ghost

by E. J. Copperman

  I, meanwhile, was busy downstairs, fending off questions from Bernice about the lack of a religious service on Sunday morning, the lack of tea in the evening and the fact that the ghosts had not taken the Sabbath off yesterday. Apparently, she thought I had Paul and Maxie under a contract, and she wanted to act as their agent and renegotiate the terms.

  Finally, I managed to break free of her grasp, just as Tom Donovan arrived at the front door. Paul, who had positioned himself just outside the entrance, walked through the wall to announce that I’d been right about Donovan and to give me a few last-minute tips on how to handle the attorney.

  “The gruff approach seems to be working well,” he said quickly. “Keep that up, and just keep on concentrating. Don’t give him an opening. Keep right at him the whole time.” I felt like he was telling me to make sure to keep jabbing away with my right and keep my left up to block punches.

  There was no time to ask, however, because Donovan was walking through the door even as Paul got the last few words out. I walked over to the attorney and did not offer a hand. I also scowled. Mentally, The Swine was calling to tell me why his child support check would be late. Again.

  “I assume you coming here is an admission of guilt,” I began.

  “It’s nothing of the sort,” Donovan answered. “You simply didn’t give me another choice. Now, what is this absurd notion that I had anything to do with Arlice Crosby’s death?”

  I started walking toward the stairs, and Donovan followed me. So did Paul. I knew Mom was in Melissa’s room keeping her company (and away from the attic, which was where she had lobbied to be), and the guests were winding down for the evening, or in Jim and Warren’s case, still out to dinner.

  “How’s the search for Arlice’s sister coming?” I asked Donovan, not responding to his question.

  “So far, it’s been difficult,” he admitted. “But it’s only been a few days.”

  “Maybe you need an investigator to look into it,” I suggested with what I hoped was an edge to my voice. “Someone you trust to do a professional job.”

  “I’ll keep your firm in mind, of course,” he responded. It was probably a reflex; he was a businessman more than a lawyer, and he probably spoke to everyone that way.

  “Of course,” I echoed. “I’m assuming that since you tried to cast suspicion on me when you talked to the police, you won’t mind when I double my fee.”

  We had reached the second-floor landing. Donovan was huffing a bit, and that last suggestion got him huffing even harder. “Now see here, Ms. Kerby. If you think you can shake me down for more money . . .”

  Paul was just over my shoulder, standing in midair over the staircase, and grinning. “Tell him you’re charging extra because you’re closing in on the killer at this very moment,” he said, and I passed the message on to Donovan.

  He blanched, but he didn’t have time to react. Instead, from behind Melissa’s door I heard my mother shout her name. The door swung open fast, and my ten-year-old daughter was standing in her doorway, smiling at me and the man I suspected of being, at the very least, an accessory to murder.

  “Hi, Mom!” Liss tried very hard to be perky, and it came out sort of frightening, if the truth be known. “I was just heading up to the attic!”

  “You most certainly were not, young lady,” Mom told her from inside her bedroom.

  “I’ll deal with it, Mom,” I called in. I could feel my aura of intimidation fading by the second. “You know we have a meeting set up in the attic right now, Liss,” I told her. “You can’t come up just now. I’ll come see you after.”

  “But I left my English homework up there,” she countered.

  “I’ll bring it down for you when I’m through.” Nice try, Liss.

  “It’ll just take a second,” she tried, but her tone indicated she knew it was a losing effort.

  “Not. Now.” And I ushered Donovan toward the attic stairs, which I pulled down from the ceiling.

  Mom appeared behind Melissa, smiling her public smile at Donovan. “The child is so spirited,” she said, nodding faintly at Paul. Then she all but pulled Melissa back into her room and slammed the door. Now, that was the Loretta Kerby I remembered from growing up.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” I told Donovan, and saw Paul frowning at me. Don’t apologize to a guy you’re trying to intimidate. “I’m sure you’re in a hurry to reunite with your accomplice.” Not much of a stinger, I’ll grant you, but it was something of a recovery.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I went on, not giving Donovan a chance to reply, “what happens if you don’t find Arlice’s sister? Who would get the portion of her estate her sister is supposed to inherit?”

  “Every effort is being made to locate her,” Donovan answered. I stood by the pull-down stairs and gestured for him to climb up. “After you,” Donovan tried, but I shook my head.

  “Please,” I said. “You go first.” I didn’t tell him that the last thing I needed to wonder on my way up to this rendezvous was whether or not he was looking at my butt.

  Donovan sighed, but he started up to the attic. I followed him up, leaving the stairs down in case our mystery guest had not yet entered the arena.

  Once upstairs, where I had placed a few sheets of plywood on the crossbeams to avoid going straight through the ceiling to one of the guest bedrooms, I checked first with Maxie, who was “sitting” on a part of the floor with no plywood, arms crossed in a pose of disapproval, sneering at me.

  “Nobody’s shown up yet,” she said, “not that you care who gets to come up here.”

  I refrained from getting involved in an argument with someone who was, to the other person in the room, invisible. I’d already played the ghost card in Donovan’s office, and was not in the mood to pull that particular tactic out again right now. I flattened my mouth out and shook my head a tiny bit, something that I didn’t think Donovan would notice.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked. So he had noticed.

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” I snarled at him, getting back into character. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who we’re expecting up here.”

  He sniffed. “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out,” I told him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  Donovan looked around. It was an empty room, only barely floored. There were no walls. There were windows overlooking the Down the Shore trailers on one side and a shuttered-up home in the distance on the other.

  “How?”

  “You’ll think of something,” I said. I don’t know what it meant, either, but it was intended to annoy Donovan, and it appeared to have the desired effect. “Besides, you want to be on your feet when your accomplice arrives.”

  Paul must have been lurking in the space behind me, because I felt the familiar warm breeze sensation when he walked through, well, me to take a closer look at the attorney.

  “He’s not going to be easy to intimidate,” he said. “He’s already annoyed.”

  “Ms. Kerby, I don’t know what you think you know, but I can assure you it’s not what you think,” Donovan said. Maxie rolled her eyes.

  “I know enough,” I said. “You’ve seen the will, so you know she has a sister named Jane. You and only you know what’s being done to find that sister.”

  “That’s not so. I’ve already spoken to the police, and they have an investigator on the case.” I assumed that was a lie; the most casual of investigations would have turned up a death certificate or an obituary. Maxie had been unable to turn up either on her Web searches yet.

  “Find out who,” Paul suggested. But I thought he was just scoping out the competition, so I ignored him.

  “That’s the other thing,” I said. “You hired me to investigate Arlice’s death.”

  Donovan looked amused. “That’s incriminating evidence?” he asked.

  “Sure. You know perfectly well that I’m not equipped or experien
ced in that sort of investigation, and yet you hired me. One of your most important and wealthiest clients is murdered, and you hire me to investigate? Does that make sense to you?”

  “I’ve already explained—” Donovan began.

  “Yeah, Arlice was a great patron of the arts and a true believer in new businesses, and she loved to nurture young entrepreneurs. Spare me the speech, okay? You also told me Arlice didn’t really recommend me the day she died. You knew I wasn’t going to find Arlice’s killer, and that’s why you hired me. You didn’t want her killer found.” I looked over at Maxie, who seemed engrossed in the scene. I would have expected her to be in hysterics over my admission that I didn’t know what I was doing.

  Donovan folded his arms and scowled. “This is ridiculous. No one is coming up here. I’m leaving.”

  “But you’re not denying it, are you?”

  He had started for the attic stairs, and stopped to regard me with royal bearing. “It’s a pity you never went to law school, Ms. Kerby,” he said. “You would have made an excellent prosecutor.”

  “I never even finished college,” I said—technically I had a degree from Monmouth, but this sounded tougher, more “street”—“but I know someone sweating when I see it. It’s not that warm up here. Sit down, Mr. Donovan.”

  Donovan actually took a handkerchief out of his pocket and spread it out on the plywood before sitting. But he sat.

  We stayed there for quite some time without speaking. I had somehow gotten it into my head that I held a position of advantage over Donovan if he sat and I didn’t, so I stood there, aware of every muscle in my legs that wanted to rest. Maxie, without muscles to worry about, laid herself out like Cleopatra floating down the Nile on her barge, rested her head on her right tricep and smiled.

  “This is cute,” she said. “You’re having a not-talking contest.”

  Paul, who seemed to think observation was the only tactic necessary in an investigation, stood inches from Donovan’s face and studied it. “I’ll bet his heart is racing,” he said.

  I kept not talking, so as not to cede the contest. I did glare at Maxie for a moment before once again occupying my mind with thoughts of the murderer about to come up the stairs.

  But no one came.

  “Why are we sitting here?” Donovan asked finally. “You can see there isn’t anyone coming. Your whole theory is absurd. And you’re wasting my time.”

  “You won!” Maxie laughed.

  “You’re right,” I said to Donovan. “I shouldn’t be standing here waiting. I should be getting the answers I want right now.”

  “How are you going to do that?” he asked.

  Maxie sat up. She and I had discussed this (however briefly, considering how mad she was at me) before, and she seemed to sense her cue was coming up.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” I said. “I’m going to let my associate handle the rest of the interrogation.”

  Paul looked at me abruptly, puzzled. “What? How can I . . . ?”

  Donovan looked toward the stairs. “Associate? What associate?”

  I’d left a baseball bat between a couple of the uncovered crossbeams, and Maxie swooped over and picked it up, grinning an evil grin that only I got to see. What Donovan got to see was a baseball bat flying into the air under its own steam.

  “That associate,” I answered.

  Maxie advanced on Donovan, hefting the baseball bat, tapping it on one hand while holding the knob in the other, no doubt as she’d seen tough guys do in the movies.

  “Alison . . .” Paul said.

  “Now, my associate here can’t ask you the questions,” I said as Donovan’s eyes widened and his sweat glands went into overdrive. “But he’ll ask me, I’ll ask you, and you can answer him.”

  “Him?” Maxie asked. “Do I look like a him?”

  “That’s right, Vinnie,” I said back. “He’d better answer them fast.”

  “Are you proposing to . . . Ms. Kerby, seriously!” Donovan was as white as a . . . well, what you’d think a ghost would look like if you were basing your assumption on cartoons from nineteen fifty-six. “I can file charges against you for kidnapping and assault if anything so much as—”

  “You’re going to file charges that say I had a ghost beat you up?” I asked him. “They’ll think you’re crazy; I can tell you from experience. Besides, I’m not holding you here. You’re free to leave whenever you like. Good luck making it to the stairs.”

  “This is not admissible evidence, Alison,” Paul warned me. “Anything he tells us, we’d have to prove elsewhere. This is really bad policy.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen as long as you answer honestly, Mr. Donovan,” I said, trying to make my voice sound gravelly. “Vinnie here isn’t really a mean guy. Don’t let the fact that he was executed by the state of Texas worry you; they execute everybody down there.”

  Maxie seemed to enjoy that part quite a bit. She smiled broadly and took a large “step” toward Donovan, which made him flinch.

  “I don’t have anything to tell you,” he said.

  “That’s too bad for you,” I answered. “Vinnie?”

  I stepped aside, and Donovan’s eyes sort of flitted around in their sockets as he tried to decide—I’m guessing—whether to stay still on the floor or make himself a larger target by attempting to bolt for the stairs. Maxie cocked the bat back like Mickey Mantle aiming for the fences.

  “Ms. Kerby . . .” Donovan began.

  “Vinnie wants to know who contacted you about Arlice Crosby’s will—before she died,” I started. It was a guess, but an educated one. The only motive in the case seemed to be the will, and a killer would have to know about the contents of the will, or why would they bother?

  “Not a living soul,” Donovan wheezed. “I swear that’s the truth.”

  Maxie took a couple of practice swings. She probably would have made a decent women’s softball player.

  “Vinnie doesn’t think it is,” I said. “So I’m going to ask you again, and this time, I want you to think really hard about your answer, okay? Now. Who contacted you about Arlice Crosby’s will, and what did you tell them?”

  “That information is confidential,” Donovan said, his voice a hoarse squeak now. “I wouldn’t tell anyone—”

  “Bad answer, Donovan,” I broke in. “One last time: Who contacted you?”

  “Not a living soul,” he repeated. “I can’t tell you anything else, because that’s the truth.”

  “Go to it, Vinnie,” I said, and Maxie raised the bat over her head.

  “Please!” Donovan pleaded.

  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, Maxie would never have touched Donovan with that bat. We’d talked about that in advance. Her job was to intimidate, never to do any injury. It was the way I’d conceived the plan, and the only way Maxie would agree to participate. So there never was any physical danger to Tom Donovan.

  But it still chilled my blood to get that far, and then to hear a creak on the attic stairs.

  Maxie froze. Donovan froze. I’m relatively sure I did, too. But the one thing we definitely had in common was that we were all looking at the opening to the attic to see whose head would appear in that opening. And the last possible head I could have imagined was the one I saw.

  Melissa’s.

  “Did you find that English homework?” she asked, pretending the suggestion she’d made previously had been real. “I’d really like to give that a look tonight, and . . . What’s Maxie doing with that bat?”

  Maxie looked sheepish and put the bat down.

  “Maxie?” Donovan asked. “Who’s Maxie? What happened to Vinnie?”

  “Who’s Vinnie?” Melissa asked.

  “This is why you don’t plan a gambit like this, Alison,” Paul began. This, clearly, was the best time to lecture me on investigative techniques.

  From the bottom of the stairs, I heard my mother’s voice. “Melissa! Did you go up there? Didn’t I tell you not to?”

  I l
ooked at Donovan. “Oh, just go,” I said. “Nobody was ever really going to hurt you.” He got to his feet and started down the attic steps in what was, for him, a hurry.

  Making a mental note to admonish my daughter for disobeying both her mother and her grandmother, I threw up my hands in a gesture of futility, and looked to my two dead friends.

  “That’s it,” I said. “I’m beaten. We’ll get no more done tonight.”

  I climbed down the stairs behind Melissa, who kept asking questions I wasn’t in the mood to answer. I didn’t say anything even as Mom, Paul and Maxie joined behind me, offering suggestions, criticisms (in Paul’s case) and other chatter.

  They followed me all the way down the stairs to the front room, where Jim and Warren had returned, and were actually drinking red wine instead of beer. They must have brought some from their excursion into town.

  “Can I have some of that?” I asked Warren. “I’ve had a day.”

  “Get a glass,” he said.

  But something caught the corner of my eye, and I walked toward the game room instead of the kitchen. The plastic easel was back in the hallway outside the library, but the letters had been rearranged again.

  “MAYBE NEXT TIME,” they read now.

  And for some reason, that did it. I turned toward Mom, who was of course directly behind me. “Get Jeannie and Tony on the phone,” I said. “I’m going to call Lieutenant McElone. Again. And get the TV crew into the den. I’ve had enough.”

  “What’s going on?” Mom asked.

  “We’re having another séance,” I said. “Right now. We’re going to get in touch with the spirit of Arlice Crosby.”

  “But I haven’t heard a word from Arlice,” Paul, who had dropped in from the ceiling, noted.

  “I know that, and you know that,” I told him. “But the murderer doesn’t know that.”

  Twenty-nine

  I asked Paul to put out an alert on the Ghosternet that we were looking for as many otherworldly visitors as we could get. I wanted the house to be filled with spirits, just in case Dolores’s gizmo really could take some measurements. Paul also sent out the word to Scott McFarlane, who showed up in very little time. I’m sure he looked determined, but I would have no way of knowing for sure.