The Thrill of the Haunt

by E. J. Copperman

  “Hi. I’m a private investigator working on a case, and I need to know where one of your vans took some things today,” I said. There was no point making up a cover story, I figured. He’d either tell me or he wouldn’t.

  “What?” the guy asked. I reiterated my mission. “You’re not the cops?” he said.

  “No, I’m a private investigator,” I told him. I noticed Paul’s hand covering his eyes (sort of—both are transparent—did that mean he could see through his eyelids? I probably didn’t want to know); clearly I’d done something stupid.

  The guy hung up.

  I stared at the phone like it had done that on its own. Paul looked down at me with something approaching pity in his eyes. “You never tell them you’re a PI,” he said. “They don’t have to talk to you.” He might have mentioned that earlier.

  “Well, I’m not the cops. I can’t tell him I am. I’m pretty sure that’s against the law.”

  “There are ways to imply it without saying it,” he reminded me. “But it’s too late now.”

  Melissa walked back in. “Cybill wanted your opinion on what gown to wear for tomorrow night’s performance or whatever,” she said. “I told her blue.”

  “Nice choice,” Maxie chipped in.

  “Liss,” I said, suddenly inspired, “can you do your grown-up-lady voice? The one I always tell you to use when someone calls and I’m in the shower?”

  Melissa dropped her voice half an octave and said, “Sure. Why?”

  I looked up at Paul, who gave me a “why not?” expression. “It’s pretty convincing,” he said.

  I told Melissa what I wanted her to do, and she really seemed to enjoy the idea. She used the prepaid cell phone I had bought for Paul (I wasn’t going to let the moving guy see Melissa’s phone number) so that the Koban’s guy wouldn’t recognize the number I’d just called from.

  “Koban’s,” I could hear him say through her phone. “How can I help you?”

  “Hello,” Melissa said. If I’d closed my eyes, I would have thought . . . it was my daughter doing an adult voice. I know her pretty well. “This is Helen Boffice. Your company moved me from my home today.”

  She held the phone a little from her ear so we could hear the man say, “Ms. Boffice? Right. The emergency job. What can I do for you?”

  “There’s a vase missing,” Melissa answered. She even pronounced it “vahse,” an ad lib on her part. “I’m wondering if you’d found anything in the van.”

  “We didn’t take your vase,” the guy said defensively (and using the traditional New Jersey pronunciation with the long A). “Our guys are honest, lady.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they are,” Liss assured him. “I thought perhaps it had been left on the truck by accident. Do you have my new address?”

  There was an ominous pause on the other end of the line. “Okay, who is this?”

  I don’t know what a jig is, but if we had one in the house, it was definitely up.

  Melissa, however, is cooler under pressure than Dairy Queen soft-serve. “I told you, this is Helen Boffice,” she said, adding a hint of irritation to her voice. “Do I need to speak to your supervisor? I’m asking you to confirm the address so you can deliver the vahse if you find it.”

  When he spoke again, the suspicion in the man’s voice had been replaced by concern that he had insulted a paying customer, a feeling I know fairly well. “I’m sorry, Ms. Boffice, but you know from both your moves that we have a very strict policy of not giving out that information on the phone. I can’t break it, even for you, honest.” The poor guy was actually worried that my eleven-year-old was going to have his employment revoked.

  “Sir, I have no desire to cause trouble at your place of work,” my daughter told him. “But that is a valuable family heirloom (I didn’t even know she knew the word heirloom), and I want to ensure that you have the correct address so that it can be returned.” Sometimes that child scares me more than living with two ghosts.

  “Well, why don’t you give me the address, and I’ll just write it down here?” the man offered.

  Melissa didn’t miss a beat. “I want to make sure that you had the right address before, so there was no chance of a mistake.”

  The suspicion came back into the van man’s voice. “Didn’t the moving men show up at your house with everything else you own?” he asked.

  That got Melissa, finally. She gasped a little and stammered, “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

  Paul slashed his finger across his throat and Liss hit the End button on the phone. “I’m sorry,” she said to me as soon as the call was disconnected.

  I gave her a hug. “Oh, baby, don’t be,” I said. “You were terrific.” Liss broke into a wide smile; she loves to get praise and likes to hear it from adults the best. She is an adult waiting to happen, when she’s not a little tiny girl. I so love that kid.

  “Didn’t either of you hear that?” Paul asked. “The man said she should know about their efficiency from both her moves. Helen moved twice, probably recently, or he wouldn’t have had it on the screen in front of him.”

  “What does that mean?” Melissa asked.

  Maxie intently clacked some keys. “You’re right,” she told Paul. “Helen contracted the movers two weeks ago, and they moved some stuff of hers.”

  “To where?” I asked.

  “I don’t have that, or I could tell you where they moved this time,” Maxie said.

  “So we still don’t know where the van went,” Liss pointed out.

  “Let me work on that,” Maxie said. “I might be able to trace it if I can find the license number of the van on a video camera from the security system at the Boffices’ old house.”

  “Good,” Paul said. Then he turned to me. “In the meantime, you have an old piece of business to settle.”

  I felt my brow wrinkle up, faster than usual. “I do?”

  “Yes. We still need the dimensions from that men’s room window.”

  “Will you get off that?” I asked. “It’s small, okay? I wouldn’t be able to fit through it. I eyeballed it.”

  He just gave me his patented Paul admonition face.

  “Okay, I’ll get my tape measure. But I’m not going there alone.” I turned to Liss. “And no, you’re not going. There’s a ghost we don’t know in that bathroom.”

  She thought about arguing but saw my expression and realized she didn’t have a chance. “Who’s going to pretend to babysit me?” she asked.

  “I’ll call your grandmother.”

  “So who will go with you to the Fuel Pit?” Melissa asked.

  “The one person I would actually like to take with me to a men’s room at a gas station,” I said confidently.

  Twenty-six

  “I don’t understand why I’m here,” Kerin Murphy said.

  I didn’t admit it, but I could understand her confusion. Kerin had probably just made it back to her house when I called and said I wanted her to come with me on an “errand” related to Everett’s murder. I hadn’t mentioned that it involved a visit to the bathroom where he died, and I hadn’t said anything about our standing in the mud looking through a window that Marv had repaired. (This time I’d informed Marv I’d be out there doing some snooping so he wouldn’t be upset to find the two of us behind his restroom structure, and in return he’d assured me that no one was inside, which would have been a deal breaker.)

  “You wanted to see action in the investigation of Everett’s death,” I reminded her. “This is action. You’re here so you can see it.”

  “You could just report back to me on your progress,” Kerin suggested, her nose wrinkling despite no discernible hint of an unusually unpleasant odor. This was the kind of place that you felt should smell bad, even if it really didn’t.

  “Since you’ve been so concerned,” I explained, “this way you know I’m not slacking off on the case.” And maybe I could figure out why Kerin was pretending to be so concerned about Everett and his murder.

  Kerin kept quie
t, mostly because the obvious thing to say would’ve been that she knew I wasn’t slacking off, but she wouldn’t give me that modicum of respect. We had an interesting relationship.

  I approached the window with my tape measure. I measured horizontally, vertically and diagonally and wrote the dimensions on my arm in ink. Kerin looked disgusted, so maybe this wasn’t a pointless exercise after all.

  Then I took a deep breath and looked through the window.

  The brand-new window was pretty clean, so there was no difficulty seeing in. More accurately, there wouldn’t have been any difficulty, if there hadn’t been a cheap slat blind hanging in front of the windowpane.

  “What are you doing?” Kerin asked. “You got the measurements. Let’s go.”

  “Just a second. There might be a ghost in there. After all, you’re the one who wanted to see me catch a ghost for killing Everett.” She asked for the ghost lady; she was getting the ghost lady.

  “Oh, seriously,” Kerin said. There wasn’t anyone around for her to show off to, so she was revealing her true colors. “There isn’t any ghost. Must we play that game now?”

  “It’s all part of the service,” I answered cheerfully. “I’m going inside.”

  Her tone was flat. “What?”

  “You heard me. Marv said there’s nobody inside. I’m going to look.”

  “It’s the men’s room,” Kerin pointed out unnecessarily. Her reluctance to enter overcame my general unease at the prospect. If Kerin didn’t want to do it, it must be worth doing, right?

  “You can report me to the restroom-etiquette police whenever you like,” I told her, walking around the side of the structure to get to the front door.

  Of course, I did stop at the door to compose myself. If there was someone not-so-alive inside, it might not be someone very friendly. We were working with the potential of a killer ghost, after all. I didn’t relish the prospect.

  Kerin came up a pace or two behind me, as if to allay any thoughts I might have that she’d possibly have my back if there was trouble. “Well?” she asked.

  “Keep your earrings on,” I said, given she was wearing some dangling models that were actually quite nice. “I’m getting prepared.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t need to put on a show for me,” she groused.

  “It’s all I can do.” I didn’t turn around to see her face; I’m sure the picture I had of it in my mind was fairly accurate. Just before I reached for the doorknob, which Marv had told me would be unlocked, I added, “By the way, there’s a ghost of a man in a tuxedo right behind you.” Which was true. (Who dies wearing a tuxedo in a gas station? He must have traveled from elsewhere.) “He has a kitchen knife sticking out of his chest.” Which wasn’t.

  Kerin turned to look, gasping, and I turned the door handle. Before she could react any further, I had the door open and was taking a tentative step inside the restroom.

  It was, as one might expect, small, with all the requisite equipment, including a stall with a metal door that showed remarkably little sign of rust. Marv didn’t run the most luxurious ocean liner, but it was a tight ship, and it was clean enough, contrary to Maxie’s horrified descriptions. The mirror was free of graffiti and cracks, and the floor had been mopped in recent memory.

  There was no one visible in the room.

  I turned to look in every direction, performing almost a complete 360-degree spin, and had satisfied myself to the point that I was about to exhale and head for the door again. Mission accomplished, nothing to report.

  Except then there was a sound from inside the stall. Not my worst nightmare, but definitely in the top twenty.

  It was a low sound, one that at first I thought was mechanical. But it was not; it was the sound of a person . . . or an animal. Something with deep tones, for sure, and not necessarily happy ones. I reached into my tote bag for something to defend myself with, but a pack of spearmint gum (sugar-free) and a small change purse didn’t really seem very threatening at the moment. Neither did the map of Ocean County, the tape measure, the lipstick case, the small bottle of Snapple I hadn’t even opened two days ago—should have put that in the fridge—or the voice recorder. I made a mental note to get a roll of nickels the next time I was at the bank. You can wrap your hand around it and hit someone, and it hurts more, or something.

  Besides, how often do you need a nickel these days?

  I called myself a few choice names mentally and moved carefully toward the stall door, doing my best to make as little noise as possible in case this really was a hostile spirit; no sense making it mad. Every step sounded like the rap of a snare drum to me, but the person—living or dead—inside the stall didn’t seem to hear me. The rumbling sound continued. And just as I got to the door and slowly reached out my arm, I recognized it from my married nights with The Swine.

  No, not that. Someone was snoring in there.

  Ghosts don’t really sleep, but they do become sort of incapacitated sometimes. I know Paul has to recharge his batteries and usually does so at night when it’s quiet; Maxie seems to be on a permanent charge, but she’s always grumpy in the morning. So it could still be a ghost inside. I moved my hand slowly to the door and was just about in contact with it . . .

  “Alison!” Kerin yelled from outside the men’s room door. “Come on! Is there someone in there, or not?”

  The snoring stopped. I made a mental note not to take Kerin on any more stakeouts and pushed the stall door open.

  There was indeed a ghost inside, floating in a sitting position, legs straight out as if he were stretching them. He wore a crisp Army uniform, and a cap with the number and name of his outfit on it, though the light was bad and I couldn’t read it. His hair was short and neat, his skin clear, his face shaved. It took me a long moment to recognize him.

  “Everett?” I attempted.

  “Ghost Lady,” he answered. His voice was clear and steady, free of the rasp I remembered. His eyes had lost the film I knew.

  “You look . . . really good,” I said.

  Everett hovered out from the stall, presumably to give us more room and provide some sense of decorum in a decorum-free zone. “I know,” he said. “I appear to have cleaned up a little.”

  “A little?”

  He laughed. “Okay, more than a little. But I remember you. You always treated me well, and I never really got to say I appreciate that.”

  “Nothing special,” I said.

  Everett regarded me with a look that said otherwise. “You’d be surprised.”

  I had so many questions. I’d spoken to murder victims before, but the ghosts had never been so conscious so soon after their deaths, and none of the others I’d spoken to had known who killed them. This was great! There would be no detective work necessary on this one—Everett could just tell me what happened, and I’d find a way to prove it. Simple.

  But first I had to figure him generally. “Why do you look so different?” I asked. Usually when I saw ghosts, they appeared pretty much the way they looked at the moment they’d died. Dad was a little less wan and thin than during those awful last days, but he still didn’t appear to be decades younger. Everett was clearly in a pre-homeless state.

  He looked at me funny and asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re all neat, your hair is cut, your beard is shaved. How come you don’t look the way I remember you?”

  “I’ve cleaned up,” he said, his tone indicating that should have been obvious. “I did not present the way a member of the United States military should. It was unfortunate.”

  Uh-oh. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so simple. I was starting to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Then it got worse. Everett went on, “The only thing I can’t understand is why I’m not able to leave this restroom. There’s nothing stopping me from walking out the door, and yet I can’t seem to make it outside.” He stopped and looked at me. “Believe me, this isn’t the kind of place you want to spend a lot of time.”


  Oh, boy. Everett didn’t know.

  Then it got even worse than that. Kerin opened the restroom door a crack and shouted in. “Alison! Are you coming out? Did you find a ghost, or not?”

  You can always count on Kerin Murphy to make things more uncomfortable.

  Everett didn’t react immediately. He looked away, silent, clearly digesting the question Kerin had asked. After a moment, his voice sounded a little more brittle, even after he cleared his throat. “Were you expecting to find a ghost in here, Ghost Lady?” he asked.

  “My name’s Alison,” I said, which managed both to make our conversation more normal and also allowed me to sidestep his question.

  Everett nodded, brows down and serious. “Alison,” he said. “Am I . . . did you think . . . why are you here, Alison?”

  Kerin opened the door a bit wider. “Alison?” she said.

  “Come on in,” I told her. Why shoulder this one by myself when I could make Kerin feel bad, too?

  Kerin inched her way into the room. “Um . . . is there someone in here?” She looked, as most people who don’t deal with ghosts regularly do, at the ceiling. She could see the ceiling perfectly well, so I didn’t see the point, but that’s what they do.

  “I’m in here,” I pointed out.

  “Not you.” Kerin might be a little freaked out, but she was still Kerin.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “She can’t see me?” Everett asked. That really seemed to hit him hard. I’d been right. He didn’t know he was dead, and now the knowledge was coming down on his head like a ton of Bruce Willis.

  “No, she can’t, Everett,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Everett?” Kerin asked. “Everett is in here?” She was staring almost directly at him, and started swinging her arms, as if trying to hit the being she couldn’t see to prove there was someone there.

  Everett started to rise, something I’ve seen happen to Paul and Maxie when they’re really taken aback by something. “Then I’m . . . Ghost Lady. I’m dead, aren’t I?”