Spouse on Haunted Hill

by E. J. Copperman

  “Okay, where is he?” Why bother with pleasantries like “hello” when there’s an ex-husband to snarl at?

  “Steven is out ‘running errands,’ he said,” I told her. “I imagine that means trying to get a real estate agent to give him an appraisal on my house.”

  Tony, having gotten Molly out of her snuggly outerwear, shook his head as he carried her over. “He can’t do that. He’s not on the mortgage, so he has no right to an appraisal.”

  “Will the average agent ask that?” I said.

  Tony flattened out his lips and tilted his head: Maybe, maybe not. “Probably they would, but you can’t count on it happening immediately. The key is to make sure he understands this is not his house.”

  “I can handle The Swine,” I said.

  They had the nerve to look skeptical.

  “He’s not going to sell my house,” I protested. “He’s not legally entitled to, and I’m not going to agree to it, so the deal is over. What I need you two for is a council of war. The question on the table is: Do I tell him I know about his plan, or do I let him go on thinking he can get away with it and watch him waste the little time he has to pay off this Lou guy?”

  Jeannie grinned evilly. “It would be entertaining,” she said.

  “How serious did this guy seem when you saw him this morning?” Tony asked. If their children turn out to have practical sides to them, it will be from their father’s side of the family.

  Maxie dropped down into the room carrying Lester the puppy for no obvious reason. Lester, who might have been born as many as a hundred and fifty years ago for all we know, had never outgrown the puppy behavior most dogs give up around two. This made him a match temperamentally for Maxie, who had bonded with him from the day we’d “rescued” him, as Melissa would say. The fact was, he came in through a wall one day and never left.

  I sniffled a little. I’m allergic to dogs. A year of visits to the allergist had provided a cocktail of antihistamines that had taken away the bulk of my symptoms, but I still felt it when Lester strayed outside Melissa’s attic room, which Maxie knew full well he wasn’t supposed to do. I gave her a look. I think Tony noticed it, but then, he understands the whole ghost situation.

  Jeannie, the captain of the Olympic denial team, refuses to believe Paul and Maxie (and any other spirits we happen to encounter) are anything but a clever marketing ploy and a game I like to play with my mother and my daughter. Jeannie has an interesting mind.

  Maxie caught the glare I was pointing in her direction and rolled her eyes. “He needs to get out of that room once in a while,” she said, secure in her knowledge that I wouldn’t answer her with Jeannie around.

  I decided to concentrate not on my suddenly watery eyes but on Tony’s question. “He didn’t scare me much, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “But he definitely had an agenda, and it didn’t include singing the greatest hits of Peter, Paul and Mary.”

  “Do you think he’ll do Steven any real harm?” Tony asked.

  “I didn’t give the guy a deep psychological profile test,” I said, more annoyed at Maxie, who was letting Lester run around my den, to which we had adjourned to better get the full spectacle of Oliver, who was continuing to spin. No doubt he was making an attempt to get dizzy enough to throw up. Little boys are fascinated with bodily fluids. “I didn’t even give him a BuzzFeed test on which Disney princess he really is. I can’t answer that question.”

  “What question?” I turned my head and the day got better.

  Josh Kaplan stood in the archway to the den, smiling in his affectionate, slightly amused style. Josh knows about the ghosts but can’t see or hear them, so he didn’t notice Maxie or Lester. He came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek and then settled in with his arm around my waist.

  “You know my ex is in town,” I reminded him, then filled him in on the psychodrama Steven had brought with him this time. The last time The Swine had arrived in Harbor Haven, I had not remet Josh yet, so he was still a vague childhood memory. Now, seeing the concerned look on his face, he was completely real and engaged. Josh was what his grandfather Sy, now in his mid-nineties and still coming to work at Madison Paints four days a week, called a “mensch.”

  “So you’re trying to figure out if you should tell him you know about his scheme to have you sell your house and then give him all the proceeds?” Josh seemed not to understand how that was even a question. “Of course you tell him, while showing him precisely where the front door is and insisting that he use it, but only in the direction of out.”

  Mom pushed her way out of the kitchen. “Your daughter is a genius,” she told me, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “And you’re not the least bit biased.” Jeannie gave Mom a kiss on the cheek and Mom responded as she should, by paying attention to Jeannie’s children. First she stopped Ollie’s spinning and directed him to a soft easy chair, which he appeared to need, eyes wide and head wobbling. He flopped down and sat there staring into space.

  Then Mom walked over to Tony, who was still holding Molly. She shucked the baby under the chin, as proscribed in the Grandmother’s Handbook, made some cooing noises and then turned her attention on Josh, whom my mother probably likes better than she likes me, and that’s saying something. Both my parents have been completely in love with my boyfriend since he arrived back in my life. Dad, in fact, had known Josh from the days at Madison Paints when he was alive. He has repeatedly informed me that my boyfriend is “a keeper.” Who am I to argue?

  Dad, who had followed Mom out of the kitchen after a few moments, no doubt after having had a quick affectionate word with our chef for the evening, floated up toward the ceiling when he saw the gathered crowd. “Is it Thanksgiving?” he asked facetiously.

  Mom hugged Josh, who smiled but still seemed a little stunned by our ongoing conversation. My mother noticed his face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Josh does not lie much. For one thing, he’s bad at it and for another, he doesn’t want to, which might be why he’s bad at it. This once again highlights his complete difference from my ex-husband, who would lie if asked whether he was alive. It’s a reflex.

  “Your daughter is pondering whether to play it straight with your ex-son-in-law,” Josh told Mom. “I’m trying to persuade her that there’s no point to playing along with his little game, and then to shove him out into the cold to take his schemes and their consequences elsewhere.”

  Mom raised an eyebrow and looked at me. “There’s something you weren’t telling me?” she asked.

  “Deal with it,” I said. She was my mom. By definition you don’t tell them everything. Except Melissa. She has to tell her mom everything. It’s a special case.

  Mom scowled but did not respond. My father, whose normal reaction to such a show of defiance would be “Don’t sass your mother,” appeared fixated on Josh, waiting for more information. I immediately apologized to my mother, who waved a hand and told me to forget it. Compared to my teenage years, this was a Hallmark Mother’s Day card.

  “The point,” Josh went on, his eyes with more fury than I’d seen before, “is that this man has been scamming you since the day you met him, and you need to show him exactly where the road to the airport is, today.”

  That was worth thinking about, since Josh never interfered with any business between me and The Swine, and only got involved with Melissa issues when she asked him a direct question, usually to back me up. The fact that Jeannie and Tony were both nodding in agreement bore some weight as well.

  But I didn’t have time to decide on a course of action. There was the sound of the back door opening, which was unusual, since Mom, Josh and I were the only ones who ever used it. Within seconds, The Swine swung open the kitchen door and, snow still clinging to the shoes he had worn from Los Angeles that were probably wondering what this cold, wet white stuff was, barreled into the room looking absolutely frantic, e
yes darting back and forth. He did not say hello to any of the people who had come since he left and did not react to Josh’s arm around my waist, which was only odd, since he’d never actually laid eyes on Josh before. Instead he hustled through the den, the largest room in my house, and headed toward the stairs without breaking stride.

  As he went past me he did not stop or even slow down, but got close enough that only I could hear when he muttered, “Remember, you never saw me.”

  Then he went directly to the door and the sound of his shoes reverberated on the stairs as he climbed up to his room.

  Six

  Steven did not immediately join us for dinner.

  “You didn’t see him?” Jeannie repeated after I’d told the crowd (some of whom could not be seen by three of the assembled) about The Swine’s weird statement as he rushed by me. “What does that mean, you didn’t see him?”

  Melissa, who had never been excluded from the conversation even when we were discussing stabbings and shootings, looked more bothered than usual, which made sense. The subject today was her father, and his behavior was not inspiring a great deal of confidence.

  You can only shield them for so long. Besides, there was no way to keep Liss out of the room while we ate. She was the chef.

  Josh, Jeannie, Tony, Mom, Liss and I were on barstools situated around the large center island I’d installed in the kitchen back in the days when I thought I might learn to cook. And that was before I’d been hit on the head by a bucket of wallboard compound and started to see ghosts. Luckily my mother and daughter had made the kitchen relevant.

  But also present was Oliver, seated at a small table I’d used for Melissa back in the day and looking very pleased with his solitude, mostly because it meant that he could avoid his younger sister, who was in her father’s lap and clearly co-opting a good deal of attention that was clearly supposed to be his. Ollie was pretending that didn’t matter. He was biding his time.

  Hovering at various points around the kitchen were Paul, Maxie and Dad. My father seemed to be examining the bolts holding the light fixtures and the hanging hooks for pots and pans, making sure they weren’t going to fall any time soon. I knew that meant Dad was listening to the conversation and considering his response, which he would undoubtedly give me later on when he could get me alone. Dad doesn’t like to intrude.

  Paul was lower down, almost at eye level. He had clearly decided The Swine’s situation was as close to an investigation as he was liable to get in the near future and so was going to treat it as such; he was paying intense attention to all that was said.

  Maxie, sharing some of Oliver’s maturity level, was not pleased with the idea that the focus of the group was on someone who dared not to be her. She hovered, lying on her side, looking as if she were posing for Botticelli as one of Venus’s handmaidens. She was fully dressed, I hasten to add, and looking as bored as a person could be when a mystery of sorts was being discussed in close proximity.

  “Clearly he thinks someone is going to ask if we saw him, and the answer is supposed to be no,” Josh said. He had waited through a delicious bite of orange chicken before responding, because he has excellent manners. I tend to talk through food, which my mother says is due to my high spirits and my daughter informs me is gross.

  “Yeah, but what do you think it means that he’s telling Alison to cover for him?” Tony asked. I watched him closely. Everybody has better table manners than I do. Even Oliver, who was eating the cut-up pieces of food Jeannie had given him, and was using a spoon. At that age Melissa would have used her fingers. I haven’t asked my mother, but I’d bet I would have flung the chicken across the room to see how far it would go.

  Josh considered his answer, and I did notice him glance at Melissa. “I think we’re better off not thinking about what it means,” he said. He looked at me.

  “I have to guess that he ran into someone he doesn’t want to talk to, and if they come looking for him, he wants me to deny he’s here,” I said. “It’s not unusual when you come back after a long time away.”

  Melissa, who sometimes watches me as if deciding who to be when she’s an adult, looked . . . I’ll say skeptical. Exasperated would be going too far.

  My father seemed even less convinced. “He’s up to something and that’s never good,” he said.

  Josh, who naturally hadn’t heard Dad, was still looking worried/annoyed. “What are you going to do, Alison?”

  “Pushy, isn’t he?” Maxie was doing her “bored monarch” voice, which indicated she had gone more than a minute without being the center of attention. “What do you see in him?”

  “I told Steven he could stay here for a couple of days,” I told Josh. Ignoring Maxie had become something of a reflex for me. “Today was the first day. If he doesn’t find himself somewhere else to stay by tomorrow, I’ll make it clear he has to go. I don’t see how I can do more than that.”

  “Mom,” Melissa said, “I saw how he was living in California. I don’t think Dad can afford to stay in a real hotel.”

  It was nice how she saw our business as a cute little indulgence that clothed and fed her. But I was being unfair. Anything that made her sound sympathetic to The Swine rubbed me the wrong way, and I had to fight that urge. “He has friends in the area, Liss. He grew up here. He has family here. He’ll find a place to stay. But if that Overcoat guy is going to come back soon looking for him, I want to be telling the truth when I say that your dad’s not here.”

  Tony and Jeannie exchanged a glance. “Maybe he could stay with us,” Jeannie said. She sounded about as enthusiastic about the idea as I would be about going back to the job I had at the lumberyard before I’d bought the guesthouse. With money I’d gotten from suing the lumberyard.

  “No,” I said. “You have two kids in a two-bedroom house now. Besides, I don’t want Overcoat finding Steven at your place, either. Let him go crash on a couch by one of his old stockbroker buddies. They probably have pretty nice couches.”

  Mom was about to say something when the kitchen door swung open and The Swine, looking pale (which was weird for a guy who’d come from the land of the sun only a day earlier) and nervous, skittered in. He stopped short, surprised at the crowd he saw staring at him.

  “Steven,” my mother said. My father said something else, and for once I was not pleased that my daughter could hear her grandfather.

  “Hello, Loretta,” The Swine said. He bravely—I’m sure he considered it bravely—smiled and walked over to embrace my mother, who looked like she’d rather hug a boa constrictor. Behind Steven’s back I saw my father pick up a rolling pin Melissa had left on a counter from her preparation of dinner. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Yes,” Mom said. I guess it was all she could think to say.

  “You want some dinner?” Melissa asked her father. She reached for a plate on the center island.

  “No, pumpkin, that’s okay.” Melissa once told me she didn’t like her father calling her pumpkin. She was younger then and didn’t understand what was endearing about a large orange gourd. “I’m going out in a minute. But thank you.”

  “So, what’s new, Steven?” Jeannie could ask an innocuous question and make it sound positively sinister if she wanted to. And she wanted to.

  “All the usual, Jeannie.” The Swine looked at the baby in Tony’s lap and put on that sickening baby talk voice adults use to show how in touch they are with their inner children. “And who is this? Huh? Who is this?”

  Tony gave him a look that had icicles attached to it. “That’s Molly.”

  “Hi, Molly.” Steven put out his finger, which Molly placidly ignored, staring at her father. Already Molly was showing better taste in men than I had at a considerably more mature stage in my life.

  “Ask him what he meant,” Paul suggested softly. “Ask him why you have to lie about his whereabouts.”

  My father tightened his gr
ip on the rolling pin. Hitting Steven would probably fulfill a dream he’d been having for at least fifteen years.

  “Steven,” I began, “about what you said before.”

  The Swine turned quickly and dropped his adorable talking-to-an-infant cadence. “I didn’t say anything before,” he said. His tone was slightly threatening.

  But I’d heard it before and besides, Dad had a rolling pin and wasn’t afraid to use it. “Yes, you did. You passed by me and said that I never saw you. What did you mean by that?”

  My ex-husband looked like he’d been slapped in the face, which would have fulfilled a dream I’d been having for at least fifteen years. “I didn’t say that,” he attempted.

  “You did. Now, what did you mean by it?”

  Steven glanced quickly at Melissa, then back at me, as if reminding me our daughter was in the room. He had clearly misunderstood: I was doing this specifically because she was present. She needed to understand her father.

  “I think you must have misheard me.” A second try and a lame one.

  “Why’d you marry him, again?” Maxie wanted to know. It was a fair question. There were two reasons I couldn’t answer it at the moment.

  “Steven,” I said in my best grown-up voice. “This morning a man came to my house and made it clear he was looking for you and then mentioned that he knew Melissa and I lived here. You left to ‘run errands’ this afternoon and when you came back you told me that I never saw you. Now you’re going to tell me exactly what is going on or you can leave this house tonight and not come back. Is that clear?”