Ghost of a Gamble (Granny Apples Mystery)

by Jaffarian, Sue Ann

  “The talent does seem to be genetic, at least in my family,” Emma admitted. “And you give readings, Milo, so maybe Dolly being a fortune-teller isn’t that far off the mark. She might be more accurate than you think.” She thought about something else. “What about your father?”

  “I have no idea who he is. Dolly was barely twenty when she had me. I always figured it was some guy who’d passed through Vegas. She’s never spoken about him and refused to answer my questions.” Milo’s face darkened like sunlight turning to dusk as he spoke. “I’ve never met any of my mother’s family either. I only know what Dolly has told me, that she’s originally from somewhere in New York and that her family disowned her when she came to Las Vegas to be a dancer. Apparently, they were quite religious.”

  Aching with curiosity, Emma asked, “How did she get from dancer to fortune-teller?” It was one of the many questions on her mental list she could now cross off.

  Milo gave a weary shrug. “She danced until they felt she was too old to be attractive. From there she got a job in a casino as a cocktail waitress, then as a dealer. She didn’t start up with The Raven’s Craft until she was in her late fifties and standing at the tables all day started to bother her. She doesn’t make as much money as in the casino, but it’s her own business and seems to make her happy. Like I said, she claims she got the idea from my readings.”

  “Which came first,” Emma asked Milo. “The Raven’s Craft or Ravenscroft?”

  Milo chuckled. “My last name actually. When I was fifteen, Dolly asked me if I wanted a different last name. She said I could keep Milo Meskiel if I wanted, but that it sounded like a bug-eyed accountant instead of someone who would one day be famous and important.” He laughed again.

  “See,” said Tracy, pointing a finger at him, “your mother might very well be clairvoyant. You are famous and important.”

  Milo snorted and pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. “And still bug-eyed, my love.”

  Turning his attention back to Emma, he continued, “Dolly said to take my time and find a name I’d be happy with for the rest of my life. During my senior year in high school, I came across Ravenscroft in a book and instantly glommed on to it. Dolly liked it, too, so she had my last name legally changed to it. I entered high school as Milo Meskiel and graduated as Milo Ravenscroft. When she started her shop, she asked if I’d mind her using a version of it. Which I didn’t, of course.”

  Tracy leaned forward with eagerness. “So do you think Dolly really knows there’s a spirit in her house?”

  Emma took a drink of water. “I think there is a good possibility she senses something.”

  Remembering the comment she’d heard just before she left Dolly’s, Emma asked, “Tell me, what does the name Nemo mean to you?”

  Tracy piped up first. “That cute fish in Finding Nemo?”

  Emma turned to Milo. “And what about you?”

  Tracy leaned toward Emma and said in a loud whisper, “I’ll bet five dollars he says Captain Nemo from Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

  Milo got up from the sofa and paced, his hands jammed into the pockets of his slacks, as he gave the question consideration. “Normally,” he said to Tracy, “you would be right. That was one of my favorite books as a youth. However, given we’re in Vegas, another thought came to mind.”

  He sat again on the arm of the sofa and focused all his attention on Emma. “Tell me, Emma, why are you asking?”

  “Shortly before I left Dolly’s, I could have sworn I heard someone say, ’Did Nemo’s boys send you?’” She paused to let the words sink in. “I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard.” Emma ran a hand through her cropped blond hair. “I wish Granny hadn’t left before that.”

  “I wish I hadn’t, too.” The ghost left the window and floated over to the sofa. “Sounds like something Edward G. Robinson would say.”

  Milo nodded. “Granny’s right.” Quickly, he passed along to Tracy what the ghost had said.

  Tracy looked at the empty air by Emma. “How do you know about Edward G. Robinson, Granny?”

  “You forget,” Emma answered instead, “she watches a lot of TV.” She glanced at the ghost. “Too much, in my opinion.”

  “And that’s all it is,” Granny snapped, “your opinion, not the law.”

  “She’s now hooked on old movies,” continued Emma, “especially black-and-white crime films. She and my father have been watching them together.”

  “Yeah, but when Dr. Miller snores, I can’t hear.” Granny crossed her arms. “I gotta figure out a way to work the clicker on my own.”

  Emma sighed, thinking that if Granny could work the TV remote and the DVD player on her own, the TV would be going day and night.

  “Granny might not be too far off,” Milo said, returning to the subject at hand. “Back when I was a kid here in Vegas, there was a well-known hood named Nemo.”

  The two live women and the dead one turned their attention fully on Milo. “Really?” asked Emma, the first to find her voice.

  “Yes. He was a local guy named Nelson Morehouse, but everyone called him Nemo. I don’t think he was officially Mob, but he had connections to them. He was in the news a lot. As I recall, he was suspected of running drugs from Mexico and operating gambling scams. I think he was even connected once to a casino robbery.”

  “So if there is a spirit in the light, it might be him?” Tracy put a hand on Milo’s knee. He covered it with one of his own hands.

  “The voice asked if Nemo’s boys sent me,” Emma said, “so whoever was speaking was probably not Nemo.”

  “What about the light fixture?” asked Milo. “Do you really think there’s a spirit inhabiting it, and that’s who spoke to you? Or could it have been another spirit lingering nearby?”

  Tracy snorted in laughter. “Lenny the Lightbulb. How funny would that be for a gangster name?”

  “I kind of like it,” said Granny with enthusiasm.

  Emma played with her water bottle as she dug through her memory for exactly what she’d felt at Dolly’s. “At first I wasn’t sure there was a ghost haunting the light, but it was obvious that Nicholas could see Granny, and he is fixated on that particular light.”

  “Isn’t it odd,” asked Tracy, “that the baby could see Lenny the Lightbulb and you couldn’t?”

  “Not really,” Milo answered. “If the ghost specifically didn’t want Emma to see him, she wouldn’t.”

  “But he definitely wanted me to hear him,” Emma pointed out. “At least at the end of my visit.”

  Remembering the way Dolly had glanced at the light, Emma asked Milo, “Do you recall if Dolly had any friends named Lenny?”

  Milo looked surprised. “Do you think my mother knows the ghost in the light?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma admitted. “It’s just that when I asked how she came to give him the name Lenny, she seemed a bit nervous when she answered. And when I mentioned the name Nemo, I caught her glancing up at the light in an odd way.”

  Milo tapped his left foot on the carpet as he tried to think. “I really don’t recall her having any friends named Lenny. Then again, she did her best to keep our life together separate from her life at the casinos, especially after I was old enough to be left alone.”

  “Could have been nothing,” Emma said with a shrug. “She just might have been nervous about the light.”

  Putting her water bottle down on the coffee table, Emma got up and went to the desk in front of the large window. On the desk was her iPad. She turned it on and brought it back to the sofa and sat down.

  “Milo,” she asked as she waited for the iPad to connect to the hotel’s Wi-Fi, “how about the Nemo guy? Do you remember if Dolly knew him?”

  He shook his head. “I just remember him from the news.”

  “What did you say his name was again?” Emma pulled up a search engine.

  Milo and Tracy settled in on either side of Emma so they could see what she was searching. “Nelson M
orehouse,” replied Milo. Granny hovered nearby.

  Emma typed the name into the search engine. Up popped many references. Scanning down the list, Emma saw entries that had nothing to do with a Vegas criminal. There was a doctor in Des Moines and an artist in Florida with the same name. Another, a lawyer from Seattle, wrote novels on the side.

  “There.” Milo tapped the screen at a listing. “I’ll bet that’s him.”

  She clicked on the link and found herself reading a Wikipedia entry on a Nelson Morehouse, a Las Vegas gangster also known as Nemo. Emma scanned the information.

  “According to this,” Emma told them, “Nemo was purported to be a local front man for some Mafia activities in Las Vegas. In 1979 he was caught up in the sweep the FBI conducted on the Tropicana on Valentine’s Day. He was charged with fraud and conspiracy, but never convicted.”

  “Look at this.” With excitement, Tracy pointed to an entry in Nemo’s bio. “It says here that Nelson Morehouse was a prime suspect in the Lucky Buck Casino robbery in the sixties, along with someone named Leonard Speidel.”

  Emma read the rest of the entry aloud. “‘Speidel disappeared shortly after the robbery and the money, thought to be in excess of a million dollars, was never recovered. Charges against Morehouse were eventually dropped for lack of evidence.’”

  “Could Lenny the Lightbulb be Leonard Speidel?” asked Tracy. “Lenny is a nickname for Leonard.”

  “If they are the same, we know he’s dead,” said Granny. “How about that Nemo guy?”

  “He must still be alive,” answered Milo. “It says here he was born in 1928, but it doesn’t give a date of death.”

  A small grainy photo showed a man in a suit, with a round face, almost pug nose, and little hair. The scowl he wore made him look like a piglet with an attitude. Emma studied it, wondering what the man might look like today. “That would put him in his eighties,” she noted. “I wonder if he’s still involved with criminal activities or even in the area?”

  “Hard to say.” Milo took a deep breath. “But I’m dying to know what my mother has to do with this, if anything. Or if it is Nicholas who’s the draw. That’s my first concern. Secondly, I want to know why this Lenny guy popped up suddenly. There’s often a specific reason why spirits return when they do.”

  “Oh, I hope that Nemo guy’s alive,” Granny said, clapping her hands together in excitement. “Then we can interrogate him. Bet I could make him talk.”

  In unison, Milo and Emma turned to look at the ghost. Milo looked worried. Emma shook her head slowly.

  “What?” asked Tracy, looking to the spot where they had their eyes trained. “What did Granny say? I just know it was something good.”

  • CHAPTER FOUR •

  EMMA took off her sweater and placed it and her purse on the passenger’s side of her Lexus hybrid SUV. Before going to lunch with Milo and Tracy, she’d changed from the heavy jeans and shirt she’d worn during the drive to crisp navy slacks and a pale green and white lightweight silk sweater worn over a white tank top. It was early May. The weather was warm, but not yet oppressive like it would become in another month. The sweater had been needed to fend off the air-conditioning in the restaurant.

  “Nice duds,” Granny commented, joining Emma next to the car. “That sweater new?”

  “Yes, Mother bought it for me.”

  Granny looked down at her long, homespun skirt and long-sleeved blouse. “Wish I could wear something like that. It gets tiring wearing the same old thing for a hundred years.” With a sigh, the ghost looked up. “At least Kelly lets me tag along when she goes shopping. I don’t think you shop enough.”

  Emma looked over at Tracy and Milo. They were on the phone with Dolly. She turned her attention back to Granny. “Is that where you’ve been lately, Granny? Visiting Kelly?”

  The ghost nodded. “I wanted to make sure she was settled in after her recent visit home.”

  “Thank you for looking in on her. I spoke to her yesterday and she sounded fine, but she still went through a difficult time trying to help that friend of hers when she was home.” Emma sighed, thinking about how her grown daughter made her feel both proud and older. “Hard to believe she’ll be starting her last year at Harvard soon.” She turned to Granny. “How’s that new boyfriend of hers? What’s he really like?”

  Granny scowled and crossed her arms. “I don’t visit Kelly to spy on her for you. You’ll have to ask her about him yourself.”

  “I do ask, but she doesn’t say much. That worries me. Besides, you just told me about her shopping.”

  “Shopping is one thing. Boyfriend’s another.” Granny gave Emma a wise wink. “What happens in Boston stays in Boston. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

  Emma narrowed her eyes at Granny. “That’s supposed to be what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and you know that. Boston and my daughter are entirely different.”

  Granny put her hands on her narrow hips, facing off with Emma. “And what about what happens in Pennsylvania stays in Pennsylvania?”

  Emma flinched at the words. While investigating a ghost in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, at the beginning of last summer, Emma had encountered mixed romantic feelings for Dr. Quinn Keenan, a dashing archeologist and Pennsylvania native who had been helping her.

  “I told Phil all about Quinn.”

  “Even about kissing him?” Granny challenged.

  “Yes. Even about that. Satisfied?”

  Granny pursed her lips to think about it. “How’d the cowboy take it?”

  “You mean you didn’t eavesdrop?” Emma hated the defensive tone in her voice, but couldn’t help herself. Telling Phil about Quinn had not been easy for either of them and had nearly broken them apart. She also knew Granny hadn’t been present during the discussion. Quinn had been a topic Emma hadn’t discussed with anyone but Phil and briefly with Tracy, and had discussed with no one since.

  “No need to get all snippy on me.” Granny moved closer to Emma. “This was one time I kept my nose out of things. And it was difficult, I can tell ya that.”

  “Phil wasn’t happy, to say the least,” Emma told the ghost, who had become a close, albeit an often annoying, companion. “But we got through it. I told him it was over, and it is. I haven’t spoken to or heard from Quinn since I returned from that trip to Australia in the fall. Last I heard, he’d gone to South America to check out a new dig.”

  What Emma left out was that Quinn had asked her to go with him to South America to meet some tribal spiritual leaders. It had been a difficult decision. She’d wanted to go and do research for her show. When he’d asked her to Australia, it had been to spend time at a dig and to learn about the Aborigines. In spite of her attraction to Quinn, the trip had been offered and accepted only on a professional level. Partway through it, Phil had flown down to join her. There had been definite tension between the two men. It wasn’t obvious but ran like an underground current whenever the three of them were together until Quinn left for another assignment near the end of Emma’s stay. Emma was attracted to Quinn, but it wasn’t the same thing as the deep love she felt for Phil. By the end of the trip, she was sure Phil finally understood that Quinn was just a friend, and as a globe-trotting archeologist, he was a wonderful resource for information about ghosts and spiritual beliefs of other cultures.

  Granny, sensing the downturn in Emma’s mood, tried to put a hand on her great-great-great-granddaughter’s shoulder, but it just fell through Emma’s solid presence like a warm knife through butter. “Kelly’s new boyfriend seems to be a nice young man,” she offered in place of physical comfort. “He’s polite and smart and quite smitten with her.”

  When Emma looked up with a mother’s eager eyes, Granny pointed a hazy finger in her face. “But that’s all I’m telling you, you hear?”

  “It’s enough.” Emma gave the ghost a smile. “For now.”

  “I’m guessing you’re chatting with Granny.” Tracy had stepped over to join Emma. Milo was still on the phone. “Or else
you’re impersonating a crazy person.”

  Emma shot a look at the ghost. “Granny makes me crazy.”

  Granny stuck her tongue out at Emma like a petulant child. Although Granny appeared older, in truth the tiny ghost had been a few years younger than Emma when she’d been wrongly accused of killing her husband and murdered by vigilantes. Emma liked to tease Granny about being her elder.

  “So what’s the verdict with Dolly?” asked Emma, ignoring Granny.

  “Milo has convinced her to attend his lecture this afternoon before she goes down to her shop.” Tracy held out a key on a simple leather fob to Emma. “Here’s Milo’s key to the townhouse.”

  Emma took the key. “Don’t you think Dolly would be upset if she found out I’d been snooping around while she was gone?”

  Tracy shrugged. “I think she’d be okay with you checking out the ghost while she’s not there, and it’s not like you’re ransacking her house. If anyone sees you and asks who you are, just say you’re picking up something for us while we’re at the university.” Tracy paused. “What exactly are you hoping to find?”

  “I’m not sure,” Emma answered honestly. “If Lenny is only visiting Nicholas, he’s probably not there now. Even if it’s Dolly he’s interested in, he may not be there if she’s gone. I just want to see if I can coax him out while we’re alone. Ghosts often have a favorite spot they like to hover around. I’m hoping Lenny’s spot is that light. It’s encouraging that he spoke to me once.”

  Tracy laughed. “Too bad he wasn’t a dog. You could use a treat to do it.”

  Emma grinned. “If it were only that easy.”

  Tracy waved to Milo and pointed at her watch, letting him know it was time for them to get moving. He ended the call and joined them at Emma’s car. “Dolly is going to meet us there a little before three,” he told them. “After my lecture and the meet and greet after, we’ll take her out for an early dinner, then she’ll go on down to her shop. She said since it’s Tuesday, it should be very quiet so there’s no need for her to rush to Fremont Street.”