Spouse on Haunted Hill

by E. J. Copperman

  “I’m getting to it!” Maxie cut him off. “So anyway, that’s when they start getting chummy. Coat Guy keeps insisting your ex call him Maurice, like they’re pals, making a joke about how he forgot the guy’s name. Then Maurice tells the ex he’s got until tomorrow morning to pay off or something bad is gonna happen.”

  I bit my lip. “Did he mention Melissa?” I asked. My voice sounded raspy.

  Maxie shook her head. “He wasn’t specific, but your ex definitely got the message, because he started begging for more time. He hasn’t got four hundred grand on him, he just flew out from L.A., yada yada.”

  That caught me. “Hold on,” I told Maxie. “Back up. He owes Lou Maroni four hundred thousand dollars?”

  “He didn’t mention any names,” Maxie said. She started twirling around listlessly in the air, the Maxie version of casual. She was enjoying her moment in the spotlight. “But it’s clear he’s in pretty deep to somebody.”

  “Paul,” I said. “You were there when I talked to Steven.”

  Maxie scowled a bit that I was asking Paul something when she wanted to continue, but she didn’t have time to protest, because our resident ghostshoe (I just made that up) knew where I was going and floated forward.

  “Yes, and he said he owed six hundred thousand,” Paul said. “But that’s not the part—”

  “If you don’t mind.” Maxie, who had risen along with her blood pressure if she’d had blood pressure, huffed a bit and looked at me. “I was telling you the story.”

  “Of course.” If I didn’t let her speak, there would be no living with her for at least half a day. And you know the thing about ghosts: You can’t live with ’em, because they’re not living. “Please go on.” But I tucked away the discrepancy in The Swine’s accounting to be discussed later.

  “So, Maurice is laying it on thick about he’s gotta have the money tomorrow, and the ex is pleading, but not very convincing. I mean, he didn’t cry or anything. He just keeps saying he doesn’t have the money and there’s got to be a way they can work this out.”

  “I don’t see how this ends with the two of them walking out of the library guffawing,” I said. “Where did it turn around?”

  Maxie folded her arms and descended to my eye level. “It got a lot friendlier when your ex said he had a way to pay the money, but it would take some more time.” She gave me a look that got me angry at Steven, and I didn’t know why. Paul sort of looked away like the way you do when you’re watching a horror movie. You know something awful is about to happen, but you can’t entirely stop watching. He was looking at me through the corner of his eye.

  “Did he say how he was going to do that?” I asked. I had no idea what the answer would be, but I could tell from the whole dynamic in this room that I wasn’t going to like it.

  And I was right. What I hadn’t anticipated was that Paul, unable to contain himself, blurted out the response as if it were one word, fast and blurred. He managed not to slam his hands over his mouth when he was finished, but the effect was the same.

  “He wants you to sell the house and give him the money,” he said.

  Five

  Maxie finally got to use the shovel.

  Unfortunately she was using it as an obstacle, blocking the kitchen door to keep me from leaving the room and going to kill my ex-husband. Technically I could have just ducked under the shovel, held horizontally across the doorway, and run through Maxie. But that was always kind of gross and she was also very quick and kept adjusting the height of the shovel as I attempted the maneuver.

  “It’ll just take a minute!” I protested. “In fact, give me that shovel. It’ll take less than a minute, and we can use it after to hide the body!”

  “Alison, you know you’re not going to do that,” Paul said. He was behind me, probably looking for some other item he could place in my way, but I couldn’t tell from here. His voice sounded as though he was trying to be soothing while looking for the syringe with the sedative in it.

  “You’re right. I’ll burn the body in the boiler downstairs. Then we can renovate the basement and replace the unit with a gas furnace. The cops will never know.” My mind was racing. Sell the house? After all I’d done to buy it and fix it up to make my home and my business here? Was he nuts?

  Maxie blocked yet another attempt at going under the shovel. I couldn’t go over it without a trampoline, so I sat down, deflated, on my kitchen floor and looked around. “He thinks I can get six hundred grand for this place?”

  “Don’t you have a mortgage?” Paul asked.

  I stared up at him. “You’re going to try and convince me with facts and logic? Where have you been living all this time?”

  Paul allowed himself a small smile. “My mistake,” he said.

  Luckily I wasn’t leaning on the kitchen door, because it opened and Melissa walked in, saw me on the floor and knelt down. “Mom! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, sweetie. I’m just dealing with your father.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Maxie told Melissa. “I had her under control.”

  I gave her the latest in a long series of dirty looks.

  Liss held out a hand and helped me to my feet. “I’m getting a ride to a movie today with Wendy’s mom. It’s supposed to stay in the twenties today. Do you want to pick us up, or should I walk home?” When you’re thirteen, all that matters is you. No. All that exists is you.

  “I’ll pick you up,” I said to my daughter. “You and Wendy?”

  “And Jared. But we can walk if you’re busy.” Jared was a boy in her class whom Melissa definitely did not have a crush on. If you asked her.

  “If something comes up I’ll text you.”

  Liss nodded. “Is Dad doing something especially crazy?” she asked.

  Now, I tried very hard not to be the divorced mom who tries to poison her daughter’s relationship with her father. My daughter’s father. My ex-husband. The Swine. I saw no reason to tell her about her father’s insane plan to get me to sell our home so he could pay off his Ponzi scheme. The best thing to do here was to smile and put a brave face on it.

  “He’s being a swine,” I said.

  Melissa nodded. “I figured when he had to fly to Newark all of a sudden and didn’t stop to pack a bag. Should I be worried?”

  Paul looked away to avoid eye contact with Melissa. He’s not a good liar to begin with and is not great at dealing with children, even Liss. In fact, he probably would have a harder time selling her a fake story than anyone else. Liss is really smart, and Paul has a softer heart than he’d like you to know.

  “No. About what?” Had Steven said something to her?

  “About Dad. Usually when this kind of thing happens he ends up moving somewhere else and we don’t hear from him for a while.”

  “Well, I can’t vouch for him, but we’re not moving anywhere.”

  Liss gave me an odd look. “I know.”

  I was saved by the honk as her best pal Wendy’s mom was clearly outside waiting to get the kids to the movie. Liss hit the swinging kitchen door and said she’d see me later. I could hear her scurrying for the front room, picking up her backpack and her parka along the way. Life is so much smoother when you’re young; one movement just blends into the next without a thought.

  When I turned toward the kitchen door, Maxie raised the shovel horizontally again. “Forget it,” I told her. “I’m past that part. But I do have to confront Steven about this selling-the-house deal so he can come up with a Plan G.”

  “You mean Plan B,” Paul suggested.

  I shook my head. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s already been through a few and rejected at least one more. I just have to make sure I keep ahead of him, especially if he really thinks I have enough money to bail him out. If I’m the mark he’ll try anything, and I just don’t have the patience I used to have.”

  “No k
idding,” Maxie agreed. But she put down the shovel.

  It wouldn’t go over well if I let The Swine know I had heard about his plan. For one thing, the only way I could have gotten the information was to have had someone in the room, which I had, but she was dead and Steven wasn’t going to hear about that. (See previous comment, re: custody hearing.)

  “I’m probably better off not letting him know I’m onto him,” I mused. I was talking mostly to myself, but the ghosts didn’t know that.

  “What?” Maxie sounded appalled. “No fight?”

  “Maxie,” Paul admonished. “How will that help, Alison?” Paul likes to understand the way people think. “You weren’t saying this a minute ago.”

  I sat, this time on a stool we keep by the center island in lieu of an actual table to eat dinner at like real people. Wait. I was channeling my aunt Alice there for a second. “If Steven knows that I heard he was planning for me to sell the house, he’ll want to know how I found out. And since I heard about it from Maxie, that’s a problem. But that’s not the reason.”

  “I’m a problem?” Maxie was not always focused on the issue at hand. Unless it was her.

  “Yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” I answered. “The thing is, if I go right after Steven, he’ll pivot. Go to the next plan, and that one we won’t know about. It’s better to play him for a while, let him go on with his plot and maybe even let him believe he’s making progress so he can’t maneuver his way into something worse.”

  “Your marriage must have been hilarious,” Maxie said. “I wish I’d seen it.”

  “But—and I’m just playing devil’s advocate here—if you let your ex-husband waste his time on a solution to his problem that you know will fail, you give him much less time to find a solution that really will solve the dilemma.” Paul wasn’t pacing or stroking his goatee, because there was no case to consider, but he did look serious. “You could be helping the people trying to do him harm.”

  I considered saying, “And?” But despite whatever differences The Swine and I’d had—and an encyclopedia couldn’t contain all of them—he was still Melissa’s dad and they actually loved each other. I couldn’t let him come to any real harm.

  “So we have to figure out how to raise four hundred thousand dollars or scare Mr. Overcoat away,” I said.

  “Scare him away?” Paul squinted at me.

  “Sure. This is a haunted house, isn’t it? But I’m going to need some reinforcements.”

  This time Maxie squinted. She’s oddly shy of people she doesn’t know and will sometimes leave the house completely if strangers (other than guests, whom she considers somehow necessary irritants) are due to show up.

  “Yeah. It’s a good thing we’re cooking dinner tonight.” I got my cell phone out of my pocket.

  “We?” Maxie laughed. “You don’t cook.”

  “We. Melissa and my mother. That we. That means my dad will be here and Josh is definitely coming. But maybe we need just a little more brain power.” I swiped the phone into active mode and called my best friend, Jeannie Rogers.

  * * *

  We almost couldn’t fit everyone into the kitchen for dinner, and that didn’t even count the people who were dead and therefore not eating.

  My mother and father arrived first. Mom, her backpack stuffed with dinner preparation materials, bounded in through the kitchen door and started unloading immediately. “Your father’s bringing the rest,” she said.

  “The rest?” I looked at the small pantry she was unloading on my center island. “Did you invite the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra?”

  Mom waved a hand. “Don’t be silly. We’ll be lucky if there are leftovers.”

  “Oh, there will be leftovers.” My father, carrying two heavily stuffed shopping bags, floated in through the open door, which was lucky, since he would not have been able to hide anything this big under an article of clothing unless he was dressed in the big tent from the Ringling Brothers collection. “You’ll be eating brisket for a couple of days easy.”

  “We’re having chicken,” Mom corrected him.

  “Brisket fit the joke better.” Dad hovered above the island and placed the bags down. “How are you, Baby Girl?” Dad didn’t get to hug that much anymore, but his words could have almost the same effect on me.

  “Don’t play with me,” I said to my parents. “I told you who flew in last night.”

  Both their faces registered certain levels of disgust. My mother lives in the delusional belief that I never make mistakes. Except for The Swine. Neither of them was at all pleased with my husband, for reasons that became obvious (to me) about halfway through our marriage. They were right, of course, but classy enough never to have uttered the words “I told you so.” When we split, they took Melissa and me in for the time I couldn’t afford the rent until I was able to put together the money to serve as a down payment on the soon-to-be guesthouse.

  “We know,” they intoned almost in unison.

  Melissa pushed the door open and smiled when she saw our guests. “Look who’s here!” she said. She got a real hug from her grandmother and a virtual one from her grandfather. She’s more “sensitive” to spirits than I am, so she can feel their touch better than I can. It’s an advantage, except when Maxie wants to touch us.

  “World’s best girl,” my father said, smiling the most grandfatherly smile you wouldn’t have been able to see if you were in the room.

  “World’s best grampa,” Liss responded.

  “You ready to cook?” Mom wanted to know. She and Melissa do most—okay, all—of the cooking in our family. It began as a way for Mom to teach Liss a skill she saw had clearly skipped a generation but lately had been a case of the pupil exceeding the master. Liss is a really good cook, and likes to show Mom variations she’s either found online or thought up herself.

  “Sure. Did you bring the orange?” Liss started rummaging through the shopping bags.

  “Yes, but I don’t see why orange juice from a carton isn’t good enough.”

  Liss smiled and shook her head. “Grandma.”

  They set about cooking, which nearly always drove me out of the kitchen. I served as much purpose in the room at such moments as would a harp. Pleasant to have nearby, perhaps, but mostly you just keep having to walk around it.

  Dad followed me out and then down to the basement, where I could get his assessment of my renovation plans. My father was a handyman in life and knows more about the workings of older buildings than Bob Vila ever did. He and Josh are my consultants in such matters. And Jeannie’s husband, Tony, who’s a contractor.

  I’m rarely at a loss for advice, is what I’m saying.

  Dad dropped himself down through the first floor, which meant that he got to the basement before I could using the conventional means of getting down there. He was stroking his chin, giving the impression of a clean-shaven Paul who was forty years older.

  “You can turn it into a room, Baby Girl, but I don’t see this ever being a real comfortable living space.” This, and I hadn’t even made it down the stairs yet.

  “Oh, thanks a lot. Between you and Paul, you’re about as encouraging as a bowl of gruel.” I sat down on the steps. “But the thing I hate most is that you’re right, and so is Paul. I don’t need this to be a room. Why do I want to turn it into one so badly?”

  Dad dropped his arm down and turned to face me fully. “Maybe you’re done with this house,” he said softly.

  Had he been talking to The Swine?

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen it happen. A contractor takes on a job that seems like it’s going to last forever, and eventually all the work is done. It’s just maintenance now, keeping things the way they are instead of making big exciting changes. Maybe you’re trying to create a project where none exists because you don’t want to believe you’re done doing
the big stuff.”

  “You think I should get rid of the house?” I was almost misting up. Almost.

  Dad chuckled. “No. You’ve made a home and a business here. You don’t have to move away because there’s nothing left to fix. Believe me, a place like this will give you plenty of projects going forward. You just don’t have to turn anything into anything else now. It’s time to stop renovating and enjoy the work you’ve done.”

  I let out a breath. “You always make me feel better, you know?” I said.

  My father smiled. “No charge, Baby Girl.”

  Upstairs I heard feet tramping around on the floor above, and before I could even get to my feet, Jeannie’s voice was reverberating around what I could only assume was the whole house. “Alison!” she yelled. Jeannie did nothing halfway.

  “I’m coming! Don’t yell anymore; there are noise ordinances in this town.” I stood and headed up the stairs. On the way I caught a glimpse of my father, who had his hand over his mouth. He always had thought I was hilarious.

  Jeannie was helping her son, Oliver, now two years old, off with his winter jacket while her husband, Tony, was bringing their baby daughter, Molly, inside. Molly was eight months old and just figuring out that she was alive, so her default expression was one of complete awe and confusion. Her adorable brown eyes were constantly opened as wide as they could go. Molly always looked as if you just told her the best secret ever.

  “Stop wiggling,” Jeannie told her son. Ollie had done everything he was supposed to do (walk, talk, run, do logarithms) pretty much on the day Dr. Spock had assigned to him more than sixty years before he was born, and now he was determined to prove to his mother that the expression Terrible Twos was not arrived at randomly. He was twisting his body back and forth, making it difficult for his mother to pull his arms through the sleeves of the jacket.

  But Jeannie, resilient creature that she was, had adapted. She had spent the first year of Oliver’s life obsessing over every detail of his existence to the point of madness, but once she settled into the idea of having her second baby, she had relaxed her parenting methods almost supernaturally. She let go of Ollie’s sleeve and let him spin himself into the den, something I wouldn’t have minded if every breakable item I owned did not reside in that room. “Fine,” Jeannie told her son. “Wear the jacket inside. If you get hot, come ask me and I’ll help you get it off, okay?” Oliver toddled off, still spinning, happy. Jeannie beamed at him and then came over to me.