Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1)

by E. C. Bell

  “He used to have all these in his apartment,” he said. “I thought he’d thrown them all away.”

  There was an old fashioned looking desk, probably an actual antique, with a computer screen sitting on its glowing top. Seven file cabinets, gun metal grey, standing side by side against one wall. Three pictures on the walls, all abstracts, and they looked original. Nice colours, and though it’s not the type of art I like, I could appreciate what I was seeing. In fact, I could appreciate everything I was seeing.

  It was a beautiful office, well used, and well kept, and it didn’t look like anything that the person who had lived in the other office would have had anything to do with.

  I sat in the beautiful leather chair behind the desk, and played with every bit of office equipment there. James couldn’t keep in one place, going back and forth between the paintings and the books.

  “There’s a message on voice mail,” I said, running my hands over the buttery soft leather chair. The old man really liked leather. “Should we listen to it?”

  “Yeah.” James didn’t even glance over at me. He was back at the book cases, and he looked like a kid in a candy shop. “All right.”

  I stood over the machine for a moment before I pressed anything, because it looked like it could send a man to the moon. Then I pressed a button, hoping for the best.

  “Mr. Lavall, this is Helen Latterson. Can you give me a call? This is day two.” The machine then spouted off the date and time of the phone message. She’d phoned at 12:05 A.M. the night before. James stared at the machine as though the disembodied voice of his client was a voice from beyond the grave.

  “What am I going to tell her?”

  “Well, it’s only—” Then I glanced at the clock on the desk. “Oh, it’s 10:00 p.m. Do you want to call her this late?”

  “I don’t know if I should.” James looked around like he suddenly needed a place to sit. “I mean, what do I have for her?”

  “Actually, you have most of the information she needs. Call her up and tell her the report will be completed by tomorrow morning.” I shrugged. “It won’t take any time to type that up, now that I know where the computer is. Then we can eat.”

  “All right.” James nodded his head. “I’ll do it.” He put his hand on the receiver, but did not pick it up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t have her phone number.” He grinned sheepishly. “It’s on my cell.”

  “Well then, use your cell.” I was starting to feel impatient. Why was he acting so stupid? “What’s the problem?”

  “Well, I left it at work—”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake!” I snapped, and, using the call display, looked for her number. It was not there. “I’m out of ideas,” I said.

  Then he snapped his fingers. “Uncle’s worked for her before. That’s how she had his number. I’ll go through the files and see what I can find.”

  “Good enough.” Small sigh of relief from me. I didn’t want to think of James as an idiot, and chalked my feelings up to being hungry. Actually, ravenous would be a better description. “While you’re in there, see how much he normally charged for a job like this. I’ll make her an invoice.”

  “Yeah, getting paid wouldn’t hurt, would it?”

  “Not at all.”

  He stepped over to the files, then stopped. “Hey, I’ll split this one with you, okay? After all, you found everything, and you’re actually typing the report, so it’s only fair—”

  I almost said no, but thought of my mom, and my rent, and my overdue bills.

  “Sure,” I said, and smiled. Every little bit helps. I didn’t think there’d be much. Even with all the nice stuff in this office, I didn’t think James’ uncle was living the good life, but I wasn’t about to turn down a little extra cash.

  James nodded, then turned to the file cabinets and began to go through the newest looking one, closest to the door. After a short search, he pulled out three files, and handed two to me. One of them had a copy of a report for a client, and one had some billing information that I could use to calculate how much Mrs. Latterson owed. It looked like 1.5% of all monies recovered had been Uncle Jimmy’s standard, so I decided to use that number to calculate what James—and I—would be making on this deal, after I’d typed up the report.

  As I worked, I listened to James on the phone. First he talked to Mrs. Latterson, who was not impressed that it had taken him so long to get back, but who seemed mollified when he told her he had information pertinent to her case, and it would be ready for her the next day. Then he called a pizza place and ordered a large, with everything but fish, exactly the way I liked it. I couldn’t remember telling him that, and wondered how he’d guessed. But I forgot about that, as I began calculating how much Helen Latterson would owe us for the information I had given James.

  “Come and get it!” James caroled from the outer office twenty minutes later. I couldn’t answer him, because I was glued to the screen, pressing the occasional number and staring, then scratching the same numbers on a pad of paper by my hand and shaking my head, then going back to staring at the screen. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  “Are you coming?” His voice was muffled, probably because his mouth was stuffed with pizza. “This is really good.”

  “Don Latterson has more than five million dollars hidden away,” I whispered to the empty room. I hadn’t figured out a way to find out what he has in his security deposit boxes, and there were three of those that I knew about for sure. Most of the money I’d counted was in four different off-shore accounts. The rest was in the account under the name Rochelle Martin.

  I was willing to bet that Rochelle Martin and Don Latterson were the same person, and this was where he kept his day to day, walking around money. Over one hundred thousand in walking around money. He was loaded.

  “Holy crow.” I recalculated the numbers again. “James, get in here. You gotta see this.”

  According to my calculations, we were going to make around $75,000.00. Seventy-five thousand dollars. For a second I thought it was seventy-five hundred, which would have been great, but I had the decimal in the wrong place, and we were going to make seventy-five thousand dollars on this deal!

  “What?” James called, his mouth still stuffed with pizza. “What’s the matter, Marie?”

  “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong at all! James, you have to see this!” I started to giggle. I couldn’t help myself. It was such a lot of money.

  “So what’s so important you can’t feed yourself, first?” James asked, coming through the door. “What—?” Then he stopped talking, because he saw me whirling around in the executive style chair with its buttery soft leather and multitudes of controls, giggling like a stupid kid. “What’s going on?”

  “We are going to be okay, James.” I kept whirling around, my eyes catching his with every rotation. “Latterson’s loaded, and we’re going to be okay.”

  It took me a little longer to convince James that we had actually made a huge amount of money on the deal. He redid my calculations twice, to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake, which ticked me off a smidge, but not enough to count, not really. Nothing could get me down.

  We danced around singing the “We’re in the money” song until we realized neither of us knew any lines past the first one and stopped. We stood in each other’s arms and I stared so deeply into his eyes, I could’ve drowned.

  That’s when he kissed me. Or almost kissed me. It was so light I could have been wrong. And I almost kissed him back.

  I did. My head was screaming “don’t do it!” as I stepped closer and his arms went around me and our hearts beat together through the thin layers of our clothing. The screaming in my head finally got my attention as I stared into his eyes and seriously thought about ripping his clothes off, right then and there.

  I took a tiny step back.

  He looked into my eyes for the longest moment of my life, then loosened his grip on me. His heart no longer felt like it b
eat in my chest.

  I stepped out of his arms and shakily walked to the desk, even though my heart was beating like a drum, and I was pretty sure he could hear it. I typed up the bill and popped it and the report into a manila envelope, scrawling Helen Latterson’s name across the front. Then I went to eat pizza.

  James left me two pieces, and I ate them, occasionally yawning. It had been a busy day, and a busier night.

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” he said, as I finished the last of the pizza and topped it off with another small glass of scotch. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.” I poured more scotch in the glass and hoisted the glass in a small salute to him. “Maybe you should consider keeping this business open yourself. You seem to have a knack for making money. Only two days since Mrs. Latterson hired you, and you’re $75,000.00 richer.”

  “Technically, I’m only $37,500.00 richer.” He grinned. “However, it beats the heck out of wages plus benefits, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.” I glanced over at his name on the door, glowing backwards in the light from the hallway. Maybe his uncle leaving James this business had been a good thing for him.

  Then, James wrecked the moment.

  “Maybe we should go into business together,” he said. “You know. Like this.”

  I almost laughed, thinking he was joking. Then I looked at him, and the laughter died in my throat.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I felt badly having to be so blunt with him, especially after he’d been good enough to split the money with me, and after I’d almost kissed him the way I had. But there was no way I was jumping into a business with this man. I didn’t need more drama, I needed a paycheque and benefits.

  I could tell by the way he put down his glass, his smile disappearing, that I had hurt him.

  “I know you’re looking for stability,” he said. “I am too. But this . . . This wasn’t like working for Uncle.” He smiled. “Hanging around here, with you. Cleaning. Eating pizza. Finding out we’re going to be paid a heck of a lot of money.” He shrugged. “It was fun. Didn’t you have fun?”

  It had been fun. Most of it, anyhow. And I liked being with him. However, I had responsibilities. Responsibilities he would never understand. One of them was a dead guy, still trapped in the Palais Offices. I had to move him on, which meant I needed time to myself.

  “I have two jobs already,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about myself anymore. “I don’t need another one.”

  “Oh, so you can’t use the cash?” he asked.

  Oh.

  “If you don’t want to split the money with me, I understand completely,” I said. I had to say it, though I didn’t want to. We didn’t have a deal going in—not really. And I knew I hurt him by saying no to his job offer. “After all, it’s a lot.”

  “Hey, I made a deal with you,” he said, his easy smile back. “You earned it. No matter what you say, I think we should work together, at least until I can get this place shut down. So, you have to give me a couple of days to convince you.”

  He was just talking about me helping him close down his uncle’s business. He wasn’t offering me a real job. I felt a huge surge of relief, but still wasn’t sure that I should do something like that. “I don’t know.”

  He smiled. “Just help me clean out the office. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I still don’t know.” I smiled back, in spite of myself. “But I’ll give you a couple of days to convince me. If you want.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “After that, I’m taking you out for supper.”

  “Oh.” I put the glass down as I felt the walls close in on me.

  “Because I owe you. Remember, you saved my life.” He pointed down at the envelope lying on the desk. “Twice, it appears. Just let me do this for you.”

  “All right. All right. We’ll go out for supper. To celebrate.” I glanced down at the glass sitting on the little desk. “And that’s all.”

  “Fine.” He gestured toward the door. “Now, let me get you home. You must be tired.”

  I was, and appreciated the ride, though I made him drop me off at a bus stop a few blocks from my place. I wasn’t ready to let him see where I lived, wasn’t ready to let him into my life like that. So I walked the five blocks it took to get home, to clear my head.

  There were three messages waiting for me on my cell when I plugged it in. All three were from Gerald the Tyrant. The first two were calls for me to come in immediately, because someone had quit and he needed me to fill in. The last call was the equivalent of my pink slip.

  I stared at the phone and thought about how I would’ve handled this information the day before. Then I pressed delete, and erased Gerald’s grating voice from my life, with some relief, I must say. I didn’t need him and his stupid job any longer. And then, I slept better than I had in a while, because, even though I’d almost kissed James like some kind of fool, it looked like things were finally going my way.

  Marie:

  Farley Went to Hell and Back. Again

  I should have been happy when Farley finally did blink back, but wouldn’t you know it, I was on the phone when he reappeared. He landed right on top of my desk and I almost screamed when he appeared, a dark, dirty smudge lying face up, not a foot from my face, but, like I said, I was on the phone. A good receptionist can’t scream just because a ghost shows up, now can she? No, she can’t. Especially when she’s talking to James about the stupid celebration dinner he wanted to have.

  He wanted me to choose the restaurant.

  “It’s called Mon Ami,” I said, as I stared at Farley. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. What had happened to him?

  James said something witty about going to a French restaurant, and I said, “Yeah, I suppose. Any chance I can call you back?”

  I was hoping that my voice would wake Farley up, but he didn’t move and I started to feel creeped out. Could he be dead? Can a ghost die twice?

  James said something else that I didn’t catch, so I asked him to repeat, and he asked me for the address. “The address to what?” I asked.

  “The restaurant,” he said. “Aren’t you listening to me?”

  Well, no, actually, I’m not. I have this ghost on my desk, see . . . “Yes, I am,” I said. I gave him the address to the restaurant where we would be celebrating me saving his butt and making us a whole bunch of money. I didn’t want to, but I’d promised him. “Did you get that?” I asked.

  Mr. Latterson walked in and threw a three inch pile of papers on the desk, right in the middle of Farley. Farley opened his eyes briefly, then sighed, and closed them again.

  “Do I need to take that?” Mr. Latterson asked, pointing at the phone.

  “No,” I replied, covering the receiver. “I can handle this. It’s James. James Lavall. The caretaker.”

  “Why the hell is he phoning you?” Mr. Latterson looked suspicious, and I felt my heart tighten. Did he suspect something? Did he know what James and I had done?

  “It’s about the air conditioning,” I lied quickly. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Mr. Latterson thought for a moment, then shrugged, disappearing back into his office. I heaved a huge sigh of relief as his door closed, and put the phone receiver back to my ear.

  “James, I can’t talk right now,” I whispered over his frantic sounding voice. “Mr. Latterson doesn’t allow personal calls.”

  “I just wanted to ask you if you are sure about the address?” James asked. “It doesn’t sound right.”

  “Yes, I am,” I said impatiently. Jasmine had gleefully given me both the name and address of that restaurant when I’d told her about James wanting to take me out for dinner. She’d made me write it down, and I’d read it off the scrap of paper. Of course it was right. “I gotta go, James.”

  I hung up on him, and stared at Farley. He was still motionless.

  “Farley,” I whispered. “Are you all right?”

  “Do I look all right?” he
asked, his lips barely moving.

  His voice sounded as though his voice box had been rasped raw. Wherever he’d gone, he’d been screaming. He looked as terrible as his voice sounded, and a quick knot formed in my throat. He couldn’t take much more of this. Whatever “this” was.

  “No, you don’t,” I whispered.

  “Well, that answers your question, now doesn’t it?” He opened his eyes again, and it looked as though it took all his strength to do so. “I was gone a long time, wasn’t I?”

  “Three days, Farley.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I was afraid you’d disappeared for good.”

  “Nope.” He rolled on his side, his legs scrabbling for purchase, then gave up, and lay still. “Gotta beer?”

  “A what?”

  “A beer. I could really use one.” He tried to move again, only managing to flop his arms above his head so he was stretched out flat on my desk. It was disconcerting the way all the office equipment stuck out of his body. “I thought I wanted a beer,” he whispered. “I don’t think I do.”

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  I hoped he’d say he wanted to move on—even though I knew he didn’t have the strength for that. If he didn’t decide something, soon, he would lose what little strength he still had, and then he’d disappear from even my sight. Then he’d truly be beyond help.

  He thought for a minute, then shrugged. “Oh, nothing, I guess,” he sighed.

  All right, that was not what I wanted to hear. However, I wasn’t going to badger him. I would let him talk, hoping that he’d gather a bit more strength. Hoping that him telling me where he’d gone and what he’d seen would make him decide that moving on was preferable to what he’d just endured. “How was it, Farley?”

  “Bad.”

  “As bad as the last time?”

  “Worse.”

  “How?”

  “It was longer.”

  “Oh.”

  This wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. His one word answers weren’t making him glow any brighter, and they sure weren’t giving me anything to work with. He struggled to sit up.