“Is there a jail for ghosts?”
There’s a reason I live in New Jersey—the national language here is Sarcasm. “Yeah,” McElone responded. “It’s right next to the one where we keep vampires.”
“There is a state of being,” one very distinguished-looking deceased gentleman offered. “We can’t always interact with physical objects, but we can create a state of mind. A prison that exists on our plane, if you will. You probably wouldn’t be able to see it, but it would certainly contain our captive here. In all likelihood, forever. It simply requires the group of us here to donate some of our own ectoplasm, which we can do through concentration. I’ve seen it done, although not for this purpose. I think it would work.”
Dolores’s eyes had widened as he spoke. “It’s not possible.”
“Actually, it is,” one female spirit said. “I saw them do it to a ghost dog that had gone mean, once. There really wasn’t anything else they could do, the poor thing. He got over it in a couple of hundred years.”
Now, Dolores’s voice was a croak at best. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Paul asked. “Crime is crime, even if you’re dead when you commit one.”
He reached out toward Dolores, but her eyes were already rolled back into her head, and she was chanting something very faintly, unintelligibly, at a rapid pace. She almost seemed to be hyperventilating. And she made the sign of a triangle in the air, again and again.
“Oh my,” Paul said.
Before he could grab her, Dolores had vanished. Well, no. She had dissolved. There’s no other word for it—she seemed to disappear into a mist, and then a fine white powder, a tangible, physical, visible one, which hit the floor and lay there in a small pile.
“What the migraine is that?” H-Bomb asked.
Linda Jane dropped to her knees to examine what was left of the murderous ghost. “I have no idea,” she said.
Paul was motionless, staring at the powder. “I’d heard it was possible, but I’ve never seen it before,” he said.
“What just happened here?” Trent asked.
“We made white powder,” I told him. “Explain that to your viewers.”
Melissa hadn’t let go, and I hadn’t wanted her to. I hugged her good and hard and then told her she needed to go to bed. Which is a parent’s way to cheat a kid—she’d never sleep now, but I needed the time to decompress.
McElone dragged Donovan over from the door. “The Dolores . . . person . . . is gone?” she asked.
“That’s right. Thanks for the help.”
She raised an eyebrow. “There wasn’t any way I could arrest her. What did you want me to do, fire my weapon into a crowd when there wasn’t anybody there to shoot?”
“You have a point,” I sighed. “I just felt very alone there for a few minutes.”
McElone looked warily around the ceiling. “I can’t imagine you ever feel alone in this house,” she said. “This place is freaky.”
Thirty
In the end, McElone took Donovan in and booked him on charges of conspiracy (although it would be a rough job explaining with whom he’d been conspiring), attempting to defraud the estate of Arlice Crosby and various other violations of laws that, frankly, I didn’t understand. He said he’d fight the charges, and I thought he had a good chance to beat the rap, given that the chief witness against him no longer existed and had been dead when the crime was committed. But a cadre of municipal and county accountants, trained to find the money that lawyers siphon off estates, could prove more difficult to evade.
The case file on Arlice Crosby’s murder was left open.
It’s always interesting around Harbor Haven.
Since she was no longer a suspect, Linda Jane could leave whenever she liked, and she told me she’d probably go the next morning, assuming she could arrange travel. I said, honestly, that I would be sorry to see her go.
“It’s been an experience” was all she said. “But it was certainly not boring, no matter how you look at it.”
“Maybe you’ll come back someday,” I said.
She smirked with the left side of her mouth. “Uh-huh,” she said.
We woke Bernice Antwerp up again to get her to bed, and she did, grousing all the while that the couch was more comfortable than the bed I’d given her and that she didn’t see why she had to go up to the bedroom when she could sleep so well in the den.
The Down the Shore cast and crew retreated to their trailers and hotel rooms, respectively. Rock Starr looked a little pale, and his abs were considerably less pronounced than they’d been earlier in the evening. I’m told stress can do that.
H-Bomb, thong bikini unruffled, yawned the whole thing off and said she was going to head back to the boardwalk. It was only midnight, and she was getting ready for a night of serious partying.
After the guests had retreated, I sat with a bottle of red wine and exhaled for a long time with Jeannie and Tony. Mom took off pretty much as the guests were going up to bed and probably needed some alone time herself.
Tony had been astounded by all that had gone on, of course, as any sane person would be. But I was on my third glass of wine before Jeannie spoke at all.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” she said to me. “You sure do put on a hell of a show.”
They left soon after. Tony and I exchanged many looks, all of which said the same thing: “There’s no point in arguing with her.”
That left just me and the three deceased people. They weren’t drinking wine, but I could easily take up the slack. “I knew Dolores was weird, but I was miles off on how weird,” I told Paul.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know she was a ghost,” he answered. “I’m not sure how she looked so . . . solid. It must have taken tons of concentration. She had me fooled—clearly she knew when I was around, because she put on that show about worshipping the amulet. She’d planted clues all over the place to throw us off.”
“So the amulet didn’t mean anything?” I asked.
He shrugged. “As far as I can tell, all it meant was that Arlice liked you and wanted you to have something to remember her by.”
I smiled at that. I fingered the amulet hanging from my neck.
“You have to feel better, Scott,” I said. “Not only did we prove that you did no one any harm, but you actually saved my life when Dolores came at me with the knife.”
Scott had been talking very little so far, and he now seemed distracted. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt, Alison.”
Paul looked at him strangely. “Scott,” he said, “is something wrong?”
He took a long time to respond. “No. I don’t think so.”
He was looking a little glassy-eyed, but I figured there wasn’t much that could happen to him, so I decided to return to the subject at hand. “I don’t understand why Dolores didn’t just vanish after Arlice was gone,” I said. “She’d done what she set out to do. Why not leave? She could have done it whenever she wanted.”
“She seemed to enjoy watching everyone scramble,” Paul said. “She left us clues. She made sure to be around whenever anything happened. I think she was reveling in it.”
“That was one crazy old broad,” Maxie offered. She was heavily into deep philosophy. “She got her lawyer to book her into this tour just to see if she could get a chance to off her sister. I mean, is that random or what?”
We all sat there (well, I sat—the ghosts sort of hovered) and stared off for a moment. I wasn’t sure whether this was good wine or not, but I wanted more.
“Seems like I can see all the ghosts now,” I said, wondering if my speech was slurred at all. “There must have been fifty in the room tonight.”
Paul and Maxie looked at each other and smiled.
“What?” I asked.
“There were at least a hundred and twenty-five spirits here tonight, Alison,” Paul informed me. “I think your increased ability is, at best, limited.”
“Oh.�
� I wasn’t sure whether I was glad or disappointed.
“Something is happening,” Scott said suddenly. He stood straight up in the air, stiff as a board.
Paul moved in his direction, but when he got near, Scott put up a hand. “Don’t do anything,” he said. “I think this might be a good thing.”
Scott’s eyes opened wide as his form became more and more difficult to see. It was as if he’d swallowed a klieg light, and it shone from within him. I had to shield my eyes from the glare. Then the light went out just as Scott said something I couldn’t make out.
When I could look again, he was gone.
Paul and Maxie, openmouthed and wide-eyed, circled the spot where Scott had stood. Neither of them spoke for at least a full minute, which doesn’t sound like a long time, but try it and see.
Finally, Paul cleared his throat. “I guess we just saw Scott move on to the next level,” he said.
“How’d he do it?” Maxie wanted to know. “He didn’t seem to try or anything.”
“I guess it had to do with his saving Alison and helping to unmask Arlice’s killer,” Paul said. “But who knows? I haven’t understood a thing that’s happened since you and I . . . ended up like this.”
“Died,” Maxie said. “We died. Say it. We’re dead now.”
“Yes,” Paul nodded. “We are.”
“Say it.”
“We’re dead.” Paul was still examining the area where Scott had been standing. “But we’re not necessarily done.”
We sat there, none of us really speaking very much, for a while, and then I decided I’d had enough for one day. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept. So I bade my two housemates a good night—I have no idea what they do in place of sleeping—and headed toward the staircase.
In the front room, just before the stairs, I saw something standing in the shadows now that most of the lights in the house were out. I didn’t remember putting anything there, and as I drew closer, I realized it was the large plastic easel.
I shook my head. I hadn’t put that there, and neither had anyone else. Could Dolores Santiago have tricked us all? Was she still around? Would there be some threatening, taunting message spelled out on the board when I reached it?
“Paul,” I said quietly. No one appeared.
I was afraid to look, but there was nothing else to do. So I approached the easel very slowly—I wasn’t sure, after all, that it wouldn’t blow up or that some hideous weapon wouldn’t leap out of it. And then I saw that there was a message spelled out in the black plastic letters. Right next to the red bandana, which was hanging out of the drawer where the letters were kept.
The message read:
I
CAN
SEE
Thirty-one
On Tuesday, Linda Jane and I spent some time on the porch, me with a headache from too much wine the night before, talking about what had taken place over the previous few days. By the time she left, she was actually open to the idea of returning with another tour if Senior Plus were to ask sometime in the future.
That afternoon, after we’d had a chance to clean up, Melissa and I welcomed two new guests, a married couple, to the room Down the Shore had occupied. They seemed a very nice couple, although they got a glimpse of the four o’clock Ghost-o-rama when I wasn’t quick enough to get them out of the house, and they seemed . . . amazed, in a good way. The remaining guests from the previous week barely looked up.
The Senior Plus guests were all gone by Wednesday (the day before Bobby was to come and repair the pool table, much to Warren’s chagrin), after having filled out their evaluation sheets. But there was only one I couldn’t resist reading, and her answers were shocking. According to the scores Bernice Antwerp had given my guesthouse, she’d never stayed in such a wonderful place in her life—she specifically cited “that lovely H-Bomb girl”—and would be thrilled to come back again.
I wasn’t sure if that made me happy or scared.
The Joneses had left early Wednesday morning for points unknown. Two months later, I’d see photos of them on every front page in the country and strain to remember what they looked like when they checked in and out, the only times I’d seen their faces. It turned out that the gentleman was actually Senator Not-Jones and the lady was not Mrs. Senator Not-Jones. Luckily, they’d been spotted in a vacation spot other than my guesthouse, so no reporters came stomping by. Except Phyllis, who found the whole thing hilarious.
She ran a number of articles on Arlice Crosby’s murder but never printed a definitive piece on the solution to the mystery. After interviewing me, Melissa, Mom, Jeannie, Tony, Linda Jane and the entire Down the Shore cast, Phyllis pronounced the story “too confused” and ended up writing that Arlice had died of an overdose of medication for her diabetes, which was technically true.
By Wednesday evening, Myrna and Phil were the only official guests left until the weekend, and they had gone out for dinner, saying they wouldn’t be back until quite late, as they were going to a restaurant somewhere on Long Beach Island. The TV crew was scuttling about somewhere on the beach filming “pickups,” Trent had said. I didn’t ask what that meant.
He was still smarting because Detective McElone had confiscated his footage from the night of the second séance, saying it was “pertinent to an ongoing investigation,” one which, Trent knew, was unlikely ever to be closed, so his footage was unlikely ever to get returned.
We had ordered a pizza for dinner that night and sat around the kitchen table—Mom, Melissa and me—waiting for our two resident spirits, due by invitation. Maxie had grumbled all day, in one of her moods, and had balked at being asked to join us, but I’d insisted, and told her it was a matter of life and afterlife.
Paul, meanwhile, had shown up as requested, on time and eager to hear what might be of concern. I think he believed I was about to undertake another investigation and could barely contain his excitement.
“So what is this all about?” he asked as soon as he popped through the wall. “Something you need to ask me about?”
“Wait until Maxie shows up,” I said. “I don’t want to have to say everything twice.” Melissa hid a smile. Ten-year-olds are terrible at hiding their feelings, except when you wish they wouldn’t.
“Maxie?” Paul seemed confused. “Maxie doesn’t usually have much to do with . . . Oh. Research.” Even if he weren’t transparent, I’d have been able to see the wheels in his head spinning: Maxie’s role in investigations was research, so I must want to talk to her about research. Paul, like many men, can be extremely singular in his thought process.
Speak of the ghostess, Maxie stuck her head through the ceiling right at that moment. “Do I really have to show up for this?” she asked. “I was doing something.”
“Yeah? What?”
She frowned. “Fine,” she moaned and dropped down through the ceiling, settling on the stove. “What’s the emergency?”
The three of us breathing people grinned, reached under our chairs, and pulled out paper hats and noisemakers. “Happy birthday, Maxie!” Melissa shouted as we put on our garish headgear and blew out ridiculous noises.
Maxie’s mouth opened and closed a few times. She sputtered. She flapped her hands a bit. She looked completely flabbergasted.
It was terrific.
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Paul immediately demanded. “I could have put on a silly hat, too.”
Melissa handed him an extra we had for exactly that purpose. “You know what a bad liar you are, Paul,” she told him. “You never could have kept the secret.”
Paul put on the hat and looked sheepish even before it rested in a point on his head. “It’s true,” he said. “Happy birthday, Maxie.”
Maxie had taken the opportunity to regain her composure. “Do I look any older?” she asked, posing like a very bad model.
“Not a day,” Mom answered.
“Let’s get this party started!” the guest of honor shouted. “Where are my presents?”
&n
bsp; I tried to resist her demand for a minute, knowing I had an ace up my sleeve. “Wait,” I told her. “I have something for you in the other room.” I got up to walk to the door, then turned and looked at Maxie, who had an impish grin on her face. “And no fair peeking.”
I pushed the kitchen door open just a bit and said, “Okay.” Maxie’s mother, Kitty Malone, walked in, and her daughter’s face, already radiant, lit up a little more. “Mom,” she said quietly.
Kitty had been coming by periodically since I’d informed her that her deceased daughter was available for visiting, and the two now seemed to enjoy a warm relationship, as far as I could tell. Kitty walked in carrying a small box wrapped with pink paper.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said, looking in Paul’s direction because she could see the party hat. She can’t see or hear Maxie; they communicate through written notes. Paul took off his party hat and handed it to Maxie, so Kitty could look in the right direction. “I brought you a little something. You’re thirty years old today.” Her eyes teared up a little.
Maxie swooped down from the ceiling and gently took the box from Kitty. “Tell her I say thanks,” she said, wiping something from her eye. Melissa relayed the message.
It’s not easy shopping for a ghost, I’d discovered. They don’t need anything, really, and physical objects in the real world are hard for them to carry around. So I was interested to see what Kitty had brought her daughter.
Maxie, of course, tore through the paper like a buzz saw through fat-free margarine. Inside was a tiny jewelry box, which she opened. Her face went absolutely white (not a huge change, but noticeable), and her eyes barely managed to stay inside their sockets. “Oh my god,” she said quietly.
She turned the box for all of us to see. Inside was a ring in the pattern of a skull and crossbones. “Look,” she said. “Isn’t it awesome?”
“I remembered how much you loved it,” Kitty told her daughter. “I found it in your bed stand, and I figured you’d want it.”
Maxie swooped back down and hugged her mother. Kitty seemed to feel the embrace, and she smiled broadly. Maxie hovered down and stood next to her mother. “Nobody’s beating that,” she said. “But I can’t wait to see you try!”
An Uninvited Ghost Page 26
