Spouse on Haunted Hill

by E. J. Copperman

  “Oh, that’s just for sleeping,” she said, waving a hand. “I couldn’t spend one more night in bed with that man. He snores like an outboard motor. Honestly I don’t know how anybody in the house gets a wink of sleep once he gets going.”

  Just then the door to the basement stairs opened and Mel burst through. “Annie! You’ve gotta see! All the gadgets are putting themselves together in midair!” He grabbed his wife by the hand and pulled her toward the stairs. She chuckled as she went.

  “Who’d want to leave that?” she said to me just before the door shut behind her.

  There just wasn’t time to deal with Paul’s invention. I looked up at Everett. “What happened when Steven went to Madison Paints today?” I asked. “In detail.”

  Everett, always on task, did not hesitate. “He clearly knew your fiancé would not be present. He went directly to the older gentleman and introduced himself.”

  “He used his real name?” I asked. You can’t assume anything with The Swine other than that he’ll always be a swine.

  Everett nodded. “Quite accurately. He said he wanted to meet the gentleman because his grandson would be marrying you and he was particular about that sort of thing.”

  Yeah, like that would be true. This was the gist. “Did he bring anything? Give Sy anything or leave anything there?”

  Everett thought about that. “I don’t think he gave anything to the older gentleman,” he said. I loved how polite Everett was being—there were few people older than Sy. “But it is possible that while the older gentleman was attending to a customer, your ex-husband might have looked through some papers on the desk.”

  “Papers on the—”

  We were interrupted by a loud burst of sound from the den. Maxie, always quickest, shot through the wall as Everett turned to follow and I took the conventional route toward the kitchen door.

  But once I pushed the door open and looked into the den, I stopped in my tracks.

  All my “guests,” except of course the ones who were paying, were at the table, each looking suitably astonished or upset. Mom’s face was puckered like she wanted to explain the rudeness going on but couldn’t find the words. Jeannie had pushed both of her children under the table and was looking frightened. Constance seemed appalled, but that wasn’t unusual. Harry was pale and his eyes were wide, and that was unusual.

  Tony looked mad, like he wanted to hit someone, which was roughly the same as the way Josh’s face looked. Bobby was, of course, watching Steven, but he looked especially concerned. The Swine was once again finding astonishing nuance in his shoes, but Lou Maroni and his Band of Renown appeared extra-displeased.

  Standing near the head of the table, where thankfully my daughter was no longer seated, was a rather squat-looking man in a signature overcoat, cherry red scarf wrapped around his neck and hat pulled down low on his head. A few snowflakes clung to the brim of his fedora. He was holding a very efficient-looking gun in his right hand.

  It was Maurice DuBois. Because apparently in my house, everybody comes back from the dead.

  Twenty-four

  The only trouble this time was that the guy holding the gun on everyone I had ever met was not the least bit dead; he was not transparent or floating in the air, and it was obvious from the looks on every face that he was clearly visible to the gathered group.

  I stared. Lieutenant McElone had said the identification was positive and Phyllis Coates had confirmed it—the dead man was Maurice DuBois and yet there he was, holding my entire den full of people at bay. I wondered if it was time for Maxie to get her shovel.

  Actually no. I knew it was time for Maxie to get her shovel.

  But I had come in after the festivities apparently got started. Maroni was looking even more discontented than usual, which was something of a scary thought. He glared at DuBois and said, “Who told you it was okay for you to be in charge?”

  DuBois pointed to himself with his free thumb. “I don’t need you to tell me when I can go to the men’s room anymore, Lou. I get to make my own decisions. And I get to make yours, too.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with us,” Bobby told him. “You should let me go. And Steven.” Nobody paid any attention to him, but he was probably used to that.

  What I felt stirring in me was not what I would have expected. I should have been petrified. I should have stood stock-still, unable to decide on a logical course of action that would resolve the situation without putting me or my loved ones (the others were secondary concerns) in any increased danger. I should indeed have been feeling my stomach dropping into my shoes.

  Instead I was getting really, really mad.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded of the man with the gun. “How dare you walk into my house and wave that thing around? I have a reputation to maintain! This is a public accommodation!” It was clear I had no idea what I was talking about.

  Everyone turned and looked at me with various degrees of horror on their faces. Mom very quietly admonished, “Alison,” and flashed her eyes in the direction of the intruder. Like I hadn’t seen he was brandishing a deadly weapon.

  “My apologies, Ms. Kerby,” DuBois said. “But I’m afraid I have business here that requires I act more brazenly that I might prefer. I’m sure you understand.”

  I was about to tell him that I understood exactly how to call the police (and get shot) when Paul rose through the floorboards, his face literally glowing with excitement.

  “It’s almost time!” He floated over to the box he’d installed behind the dinner table under one of the windows, completely oblivious of the situation unfolding at the other end of the room. It was a big room, but seriously. Man with gun.

  “Shovel,” Everett said, and Maxie, with a “here we go again” sigh, headed out through the French doors toward the shed. Everett pushed himself down toward DuBois, presumably to hold the man back if he tried to do anything. Everett’s not great with tactile manipulation of objects (that’s touching stuff) but he can muster the ability when he needs it.

  “I have two small children,” Jeannie meekly told DuBois, who looked at her as if wondering what that had to do with anything. Then he shook his head and pursed his lips.

  “I’m not going to shoot your kids, lady. Calm down.”

  I figured it was best to get to the point. “Well, who are you going to shoot? You brought the gun. You intend to use it. Who’s getting shot? I want to know which area of the rug is going to need cleaning tomorrow.” I didn’t know where this stuff was coming from.

  “If everybody cooperates, I’m not going to shoot anyone,” DuBois said. It was exactly what I would have expected he’d say given my prompt. If there’s anything more annoying than having an armed gunman interrupt your dinner party, it’s having to act as his straight man.

  Susannah, halfway between her two personas because she couldn’t decide which one would do her more good, volunteered, “I’m cooperating.” DuBois, who in all likelihood had forgotten she was there, just squinted at her and then looked back toward the Maroni party.

  “What do you want?” Maroni snarled at him. “Haven’t you gotten enough already?”

  “Not quite. I can walk out of here and live a decent life now, but I need those papers in order to be really rich. And I want to be really rich. I think I deserve it.”

  There was—I’m not kidding—a flash of lightning at that very moment, and the crack of thunder that followed was only a couple of seconds later. The storm was close. Paul rose and looked back at me. “You see?”

  Fighting back the urge to scream at him to pay attention, I turned away and looked for Maxie in the rafters, but she had not yet arrived. Everett was still poised over DuBois, wiggling his fingers in anticipation of grabbing the man by the arms before any damage could be done. But he was clearly unsure of his skills and I didn’t want him to try anything he wasn’t certain about when a
stray bullet could be the result. I shook my head slightly and Everett caught the gesture. He lowered his arms but stayed close.

  “I don’t get this,” I said to DuBois. “You apparently have everything you want. Why are you here? What did you come here to do?”

  “I need some paperwork these gentlemen know about, and if they produce it for me, nobody will have to suffer at all,” the guy with the gun said. “It’s about as simple as you can get, really.”

  “The patent papers?” I said. “I never heard anything about this thing until an hour ago, and this is what it was all about?”

  There was a roll of thunder. Bobby squealed a little. I didn’t turn around, because the sight of Paul looking as if it were Christmas Eve would have put me through the roof, and I didn’t get to phase harmlessly through the wood and plaster the way he could.

  “See, now everyone knows about this,” DuBois said. He walked slowly toward The Swine, whose attention had shifted from his shoes to the ceiling, and he couldn’t even see Dad up there, paralyzed by the same situation as Maxie would be when she got back—any sudden movement could have unintended bad consequences. There were just too many people in the room.

  “Maybe we should adjourn this meeting to the movie room and just bring the people who are involved,” I suggested. “There are a lot of civilians here, and you know you don’t want to hurt them.” I took a step toward the door and noted Josh standing and getting between me and the gun. I guessed he wasn’t that mad at me.

  He leaned over and got close to my ear. “Nice plan,” he said, “but I don’t think he’s going for it.”

  “We’re not moving anywhere,” DuBois said. Josh’s insistence on always being right was getting on my last nerve. “If you think I’m letting anyone get on their cell phone and call the police while we’re out of the room, you’re crazy, Ms. Kerby, and I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  That made one of us.

  “Okay, I get that,” I said. “But I don’t see how this is helping.”

  “It would have helped if you’d let me take this mook out of here and find out where the papers are,” Maroni said, pointing to The Swine. He had a decent point, but that wasn’t the issue right at the moment.

  But DuBois looked positively stunned when he heard Maroni. “You mean you don’t know where the papers are, either?” he asked, clearly astonished.

  “No. Only Stevie here knows.”

  Susannah, who had stood to get closer to The Swine, stopped. You could see the wheels turning in her head: Was it better to show some loyalty to the guy she thought might become very wealthy soon, or stay back if he was going to be in the line of fire? She made her decision and took the seat Jeannie had vacated to get under the table with her children, where she was organizing a game of peekaboo for Molly and I Spy for Oliver. Say what you want about Jeannie, she was all about the children.

  Alas, her purse and therefore her cell phone were still hanging from the chair she’d left, and Susannah didn’t even know enough to look for the phone, as if that would have done her any good.

  Constance, apparently appalled that no one was watching her be appalled, let out a disapproving sigh. Her husband, although looking not as frightened as before—you can get used to anything—had his feet up on the vacated chair next to his, which I think had been Bobby’s. His shoes were off. Harry might get shot, but he’d be comfortable until then.

  The Swine, taking note of the way the tides were turning in the room, did not stand up. No sense making himself a better target. But he could still talk, and that had always been his strength.

  “You can’t shoot me if you want those forms,” he told DuBois. “If I’m dead you’ll never find them.”

  “So you do know where they are,” Maroni said. He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Not nice keeping that from us, Stevie.” He crossed his arms. “Really. Bad form.” The two woolly mammoths on either side of him crossed their arms and shook their heads in a weird mirror image of their boss. I didn’t know what those guys were getting paid, but they were sure worth it in loyalty.

  “Let me see if I get this right,” I said as Maxie, trench coat in place large enough to hide a Sherman tank, floated in through the back wall. “Almost everybody here was involved in this whole SafT thing, on the assumption that this software was going to be the next huge thing in tech. Lou here put several hundred thousand dollars in it and then got cold feet.”

  Maxie swung around the back of DuBois, presumably to make it less visible when she revealed whatever lethal weapon she was carrying and minimizing the chances that he’d detect the movement and randomly shoot someone. I was hoping she’d do something before Melissa decided the phone-based crisis was over and came back to get some further accolades after serving dessert.

  “So Lou decided to get his money back from Steven,” I continued. “Steven found out he was a wanted man, so he flew here to Jersey, thinking that would make him safe. But apparently everyone west of the Rockies knew he was here, so that didn’t help and Lou sent you out to talk some sense into him.” I looked at DuBois, who appeared to be listening to the story and wondering how it would come out, which was something I didn’t want to think about just yet.

  Maxie was looking for the precise moment to take off the trench coat. I assumed the shovel was inside, but with Maxie it was never a good idea to anticipate. She could have had anything from a pair of tweezers to a rocket launcher in there and it wouldn’t have surprised me. I didn’t want to talk to her if I didn’t have to, but she was filling the void with a running commentary on the situation like Bob Costas calling a Mets game.

  “He’s moving to the left and I’m looking right at the leggy blonde,” she said. “I do something now and she’s gonna see it. Is that okay?” I gave my head a small shake. If there was a way to get through this without involving ghosts, it would be preferable. Made it that much easier to explain to McElone and, you know, everyone else. Cut back on the paperwork. But if it came down to a gunshot-versus-ghost exposure, Maxie was going to open her trench coat.

  “That’s sort of what happened,” DuBois said in answer to my speculation.

  “The part I don’t get is how the guy in the alley got shot, and why the police think he’s Maurice DuBois,” I said.

  The room went suddenly silent. All the alleged conspirators in the room (that is, Maroni’s group, DuBois and, yes, The Swine) stared at me with expressions that indicated I had said something really, really stupid. It’s not like I’m not used to that, but I hadn’t been expecting it.

  Maroni grinned and broke the moment. He looked over at the man holding the gun. “Yeah. Explain that one, Richie.”

  Richie?

  Twenty-five

  “Richie?” Maxie sounded confused.

  “Richie?” Tony wasn’t far behind, but he didn’t know it. “Who’s Richie?”

  “He is,” Lou Maroni said, the big satisfied grin still on his face. “Always has been.” He turned in Richie’s (since that was who he appeared to be) direction. “How’d you get to be Maurice DuBois, Richie? I’m guessing it happened around the time you put a couple of bullets into him?”

  Well, that answered one question. So Maroni hadn’t actually shot Maurice DuBois, and neither had anyone else I’d suspected. The guy I knew as Maurice DuBois had shot Maurice DuBois and I was definitely going to need an aspirin very soon.

  “I don’t have to answer to you anymore,” Richie said.

  “Richie?” I looked at The Swine. “Cousin Richie?”

  “I had to justify it somehow,” Steven said to his shoelaces. “It was a joke.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Maxie was musing. “I heard them. I went into the room when your ex and this guy were talking and they had this joke about call him Maurice. He had to be Maurice.”

  This is what happens when you send Maxie and not Paul into a room and expect an accurate repo
rt. You get the Maxie version of things, which can be easily distracted by a shiny object. So I turned and looked for Paul, but he was no longer in the room, no doubt in the basement readying his status-elevation equipment for the coming . . .

  Boom! Thunder. Not terribly far away. So there was such a thing as snow thunderstorms. You learn something new every day. Now if I could just make sure everyone lived to tell someone about it.

  “What was that?” Maroni spun and looked up. Because now you can see thunder, apparently.

  “Thundersnow,” Susannah said. She reached over to the table and picked up a small piece of chicken, which she chewed thoughtfully. “It’s a thing. Usually comes from a strong upward motion within the cold sector of an extratropical cyclone.”

  There was a long moment of staring in her direction, which she didn’t notice immediately because she was eyeing a dinner roll. She looked up. “What?” Nobody answered her.

  Steven looked at me sheepishly. “I had to meet with him quietly. We developed this idea that if he was Maurice DuBois, he could have the rights to SafT. So I told people I was visiting my cousin Richie. But I didn’t know you were going to kill Maurice, Richie. I thought you were going to con him into letting you assume his identity. What happened?”

  “It was a great plan, Steven,” Bobby said. Then I was pretty sure he just faded back into transparency, which was something I’d only seen ghosts do before. Bobby could manage it just by being Bobby.

  “I don’t have to answer to you, either,” Richie said. “I’m done being everybody’s stooge.” That didn’t sound good. It sounded too final. “Now you’re going to tell me where I can find those papers that say Maurice DuBois owns the patent to SafT, and I’m going to go on being Maurice DuBois.”

  “You can’t do that.” My mother, the voice of all that is fair and equitable in the world. “The police know Maurice DuBois is dead. You can’t just assume his identity. They found him shot and killed. They’re looking for you.” That’s it, Mom. Get the guy with the gun even more nervous.