“I’m really sorry,” I repeated.
“Do you think you’re convincing me?” Kerin asked. “You think I believe you found the ghost of a dead homeless man in the men’s room?”
Everett backed up in midair and put his hand to his mouth. It was sinking in, and it was a terrible reality, as bad as a man can get. His eyes were staring straight ahead, but I got the impression he couldn’t see anything. Ghosts don’t breathe, of course, but there was a rumbling coming from his chest that seemed to simulate hyperventilating.
“It’s okay, Everett,” I told him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Oh, really,” Kerin said. “You’re not impressing me, you know.”
I focused on the ghost and refrained from telling Kerin that impressing her was currently four-thousandth on my priority list, just beneath “look into laundry detergent alternatives.” Everett blinked, trying to absorb his new existence in a moment. But it was, I knew, going to take a long time for him to adjust.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of time. “Listen to me,” I said to him. “I understand you’re really freaking out right now, and I don’t blame you. But I need you to focus. I need you to tell me what happened, and how you got here. Can you do that?”
Everett shook his head. I’m not sure whether he was telling me he couldn’t help or simply rejecting what had happened to him.
“You can talk to the air all day,” Kerin said. “I’m going back outside.” She turned and left. Can’t say I was all that upset. In retrospect, it would have been better if she hadn’t shown up at all. My bad.
There wasn’t much time; the one thing Kerin was right about was that I couldn’t stay in here forever. I had to take a chance.
“Lieutenant Sandheim,” I said in a stern voice. “Report.”
The gambit seemed to work. Everett didn’t salute—I was clearly not a superior officer—but he straightened up as if he were at attention and stuck his chin out. He was a good soldier.
“The last thing I remember clearly is seeing you at the Stud Muffin and asking for help,” he said.
So much for simple. I would have to go with that. “I’m told you’d heard the voices of two ghosts,” I said. “Do you know who they were?”
Everett closed his eyes; it was obvious he needed to concentrate hard, and his emotional state was not helping. “I remember saying it,” he answered. “But my mind was not right. I was not rational.”
“Just saying you heard ghosts is not a sign that you weren’t rational,” I told him, as gently as I could. “I see ghosts, and I hear them.” I didn’t mention that he was one of the ghosts I saw and heard.
Everett got the message, though. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Is this the way I’m always going to be?” he asked. “I’ll spend eternity in a gas station men’s room?”
I wasn’t sure how the afterlife worked—even the ghosts I knew had no idea—but I tried to reassure the poor guy. “Don’t worry,” I said. “After a while, you’ll be able to travel outside. But please, tell me about the ghosts you heard.”
That, of course, is when my phone rang. And honestly, it was simply a reflex that made me take it out of my pocket and look at the incoming number, having every intention of ignoring the call so I could talk to Everett.
But the call was coming from Helen Boffice.
“I’m really sorry,” I said to Everett. “I really have to take this call.” Never did it sound lamer.
“What have you been doing?” Helen demanded before I could say a word. “Are you any closer to proving who killed Joyce Kinsler?”
Everett reacted to her question, staring at me a moment, then shaking his head. He must have been able to hear her from where he was situated.
“I don’t think you’re the one who should be asking questions,” I responded. “I’m wondering why you moved out of your house today.”
“You’re faster than I thought,” Helen answered. “I might have underestimated you.”
“How about coming clean?” I suggested. “It’s either you or your husband who killed Joyce. Nobody else had a motive except you two. Which one of you killed her?”
“We didn’t kill Joyce Kinsler,” Helen answered with a cold laugh. “You can believe that.”
“How many people are dead?” Everett asked. “Did one of these people . . .” His voice trailed off. I shook my head; no, Helen and Dave didn’t kill him.
“Why should I believe you?” I asked. “Convince me.”
There was some jostling on Helen’s side of the phone and then another voice came on. A man’s voice. Dave Boffice’s voice.
“She’s telling the truth,” he said. “We didn’t kill Joyce. Joyce . . . well, Joyce had no quarrel with either of us. That’s true.”
Everett’s eyes widened enormously at the sound of Dave’s voice, and before I could say anything, he was pointing at the phone. “That’s the voice,” he said, agitated.
I put my phone on mute and said to Everett, “What do you mean? You recognize Dave Boffice’s voice?”
“I know that voice; there’s no way I could ever forget it. But I never knew anybody named Dave Boffice.” Everett started to pace in midair the way Paul does with a perplexing problem. Only Everett didn’t have a goatee to stroke, and in his case it was more of a march.
“Okay, so you don’t know Dave,” I allowed him. “Whose voice do you think it is?”
Over the phone, Dave was shouting, “Hello? Hello?”
“That’s my son, Randy,” Everett said, his voice a gasp. “But he died in a motorcycle crash years ago.”
Twenty-seven
I was going to have a huge amount of information to relay to Paul when I got home, but right now, I had to act to keep Dave and Helen (or Randy and Helen) from hanging up and vanishing into the night. I took the mute button off the phone without taking my eyes off of Everett. “I’m still here,” I told Dave.
“Who’s there with you?” he demanded. “You’re taking too long to answer. Is that cop Sprayne there listening in?”
“No, he’s not here. There’s not a living soul in the room besides me.” That was accurate.
“Well, you can’t stand there and accuse me—”
“How do you know I’m standing?” It threw him for a second.
I looked at Everett to confirm; he nodded. And in a flash I decided on a course of action that I was certain was going to make Paul either elated or, if it were possible for a ghost, suicidal.
“Tell you what—I’m going to be having a little gathering tomorrow night at my guesthouse,” I said. “Helen can tell you where that is, and you’re both invited.”
“If you think you can simply invite us and then have the police show up, you’re mistaken.” That was nowhere near what I had in mind.
“No police. Believe me, I won’t call Sprayne because I want you to be there. The only cop in town I would call refuses to set foot in my house.” I looked at Everett again, then at the bathroom door, wondering if Kerin was listening in. “I am going to tell everyone there exactly who killed Joyce Kinsler. And there’s another murder that’s involved—you might want to hear about that, too.”
There was a long pause on Dave’s end of the line. Then Helen’s voice cut in. “Another murder?” She sounded shaky.
“Oh, yeah. Didn’t Dave tell you? Somebody killed his dad. See you tomorrow. Around eight.” I disconnected the call and resolved not to answer again if (If? Ha!) they called back.
Did Helen know Dave was really Randy? Did she know about Everett’s murder? Did she know about Everett? All good questions. I’d have to ask Paul.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Everett asked me.
“How much do you remember about what happened to you?” I countered. Mostly because I was fairly sure I didn’t know what I was doing.
“Nothing about what . . . about that. Ghost Lady, what did happen to me?”
“I’ll explain it all to you in a little while,” I answered (mentally add
ing “as soon as I know”). “But first we have to make plans. I have to invite a lot more people to my house tomorrow night. I’m not going to be in a room with those two by myself, especially since I don’t know which one to be afraid of.”
“And me? What are my orders, Ghost Lady?” Everett pulled himself up to full height, which almost brought his head to the ceiling. He was making himself stronger by drawing from his military experience, probably the time in his life he felt most in charge of his actions.
“First thing, you have to stop calling me Ghost Lady,” I said. “My name is Alison. And we have to figure out if there’s a way to get you out of this bathroom.”
“How are we going to do that?” he asked.
“I’ll consult with the experts.”
• • •
“I can’t teach him how to get out of the bathroom,” Maxie complained. “I can’t even teach him,” she pointed at Paul, “so how would I be able to teach the homeless guy?”
Paul might’ve been less than tickled about the way he was being brought into the conversation, but his Sherlock Holmes sense was too engaged for him to take offense. He looked positively thrilled.
We were meeting in Melissa’s room, along with Melissa and Mom. Maxie had brought a box of crackers, some cheese and a couple of glasses with water for Liss and wine for Mom. Anything for Liss and Mom. I’d have gotten a surly glance and a snarl of “Why not do it yourself?”
Mom reported that Dad was at Josh’s store and would be by later.
I’d seen to the guests, who were in a high state of anticipation over tomorrow night’s performance. Okay, Cybill was in a high state of anticipation. The others were talking about it as if it were an odd obligation, although I’d told them explicitly that they didn’t have to attend. But all of them had indicated they’d be part of the festivities.
So had Jeannie and Tony (and Oliver); Phyllis, who saw it as an interesting crime story; Marv, because I’d asked him to; and Josh, who had said it was progress that I’d called to ask. That was promising. Sort of.
I’d also invited Katrina Holm, who wanted to see Joyce Kinsler’s killer brought to justice, and Brenda Leskanik, who had been a little more problematic because she said she wanted to put her life with Everett behind her and saw no reason to enter that mind space again. But I needed Brenda to be there, especially if Dave Boffice really was her supposedly deceased son, Randy. The problem was, Brenda saw no reason to show up, and I didn’t want to spill the beans about her son unnecessarily. I couldn’t be sure about Randy and didn’t want to raise her hopes only to dash them again. I decided to go visit Brenda again the next day to convince her in person.
Kerin Murphy had agreed to come with her entire posse. When we’d talked about it in the car on the way back from the Fuel Pit, she’d seemed eerily eager to attend, which made me think she expected something humiliating to occur. To me. Kerin wouldn’t show up if she thought anyone else was going to be humiliated; that wouldn’t have any entertainment value.
“I’m just asking you to try,” I told Maxie. “We’ll go over there tomorrow, and you can talk to Everett. You don’t even have to go in—he can stick his head up through the roof. I got him to try it after he realized he’s a ghost. He can do it, but he can’t move beyond that. If it doesn’t work, fine, but it would be a big help to have him here.”
“You sure I don’t have to go inside?” Maxie demanded.
“I promise.”
She didn’t say she would do it, but she pulled out the laptop and started typing again. As far as I was concerned, that was as good as agreeing.
I had not called Detective Sprayne with an invitation, because Dave and Helen would recognize him and flee as soon as they saw he was there. I trusted McElone but knew she wouldn’t set foot inside the house if she could avoid it. I’d call her later and figure out a way she could be nearby, but not on site.
“Let me see if I understand this plan,” Paul said, trying once again to organize this ragtag group into what he preferred to view as a wildly efficient detective agency. “You’re going to let Cybill do her ceremony to keep evil spirits away from the house, and then tell the suspects that you know who killed both Joyce and Everett. What are you going to say?”
“I’m not going to have to say anything,” I told him boldly, although I felt the opposite of bold. “They’re going to say it all. Because you two and my dad—and Everett if he can show up—are going to scare the truth out of them. And I’m not worried about Cybill, because I don’t believe she can do any of what she says she can do. I’m only letting her put on the show because I didn’t want her bad-mouthing me to Senior Plus Tours.”
Paul waited a moment, clearly expecting there to be more to what I was saying. But it was Melissa who broke the silence. “Is that it?” she asked.
Everybody’s a critic. “Why?” I asked. “Do you have a better idea?”
She pondered for a moment. “Not really.”
“Hang on,” Maxie said. “I just figured out Joyce Kinsler’s password, and I think I can get some more information.”
We all stared at Maxie and waited. I’d never seen her look so focused. “You really should get a new laptop,” she said without looking up.
“Get me a chunk of Helen’s millions and we’ll talk,” I answered. Then I thought about it and added, “You know I was kidding, right?”
She didn’t respond to that but said, “Paul.” He rose up to look. “See here? And here?”
“What?” I asked. “I can’t stand on a ladder to look. What?”
“It looks like there were large deposits and then withdrawals made to and from Joyce Kinsler’s account. Four . . . no, five times in the past few months,” Paul said.
Maxie couldn’t let him take the credit. “I found the records. It looks like right around the time Joyce wanted to qualify for a mortgage on the town house, and then when she decided to buy a car, tens of thousands of dollars showed up in her account, and it’s not from the direct deposit she got from her company instead of a paycheck.”
“Where did the money come from?” Melissa asked.
“That’s a good question,” Maxie answered, talking over Paul. “It looks like they were made in cash deposits. Not traceable.”
“Can you check the most likely source?” Paul asked. “I think we all know where the money came from.”
Maxie looked unsure. “Helen’s money was in a lot of places,” she said. “I’ll have to do some looking.”
“Do,” Paul said. Maxie stuffed the laptop inside her trench coat and rose up through the ceiling.
I looked at Paul. He said, “That’s a real lead, but we still don’t know how or why, or if it relates to whether Randy Sandheim became Dave Boffice. We don’t know how the murderer got into the men’s room and then out, with the door locked from the inside. The window measurements you gave me are inconclusive; I really wish you’d tried to squeeze through. A small percentage of people might be able to get through. We don’t know what happened to the knife that was used to kill Everett. We don’t know how someone forced Joyce Kinsler to hang herself, or hanged her, and we don’t know why they would. We don’t know why all the photographs are missing from Joyce’s town house. And we don’t know who left the threatening messages painted on this house, or if those are related to the murders.”
“That’s a long list of what we don’t know this late in the game,” I said. “What can we do? Everyone associated with both murders will be here tomorrow night.”
“Do Dave and Helen know about the reputation of this guesthouse?” Paul asked me.
I shook my head. “Helen wasn’t one of the Senior Plus tourists even before she rented a room to not stay in it,” I told him. “I didn’t get the impression she was hanging around town talking to people about the place; she just wanted a private investigator to follow her husband around and a sneaky way to pay for it.”
“That is interesting,” Paul said. “We can assume now that the reason she told you she wan
ted you to do that was a lie. So why did she really want a report on Dave’s movements, and why not just write a check? And why give all that money to the woman she thought was her husband’s lover?”
“Maybe you should ask his mother-in-law, the one he visited that day you were following him,” Melissa said to me.
Paul’s eyebrows raised. “You know, I’d forgotten about that,” he said. I had, too, but I just patted Melissa on the head affectionately and she smiled. “It looks like tomorrow is going to be a very busy day.”
Twenty-eight
It took a little doing, but after I’d seen to the guests and the morning spook show (including a ghost duet on guitar and frying pan), I convinced Maxie to meet Everett on the roof of the men’s room structure at the Fuel Pit. (She hadn’t been able to hack into Helen Boffice’s bank accounts yet and was pessimistic about her chances after working on it all night—in short, she needed the break.) I had Marv fill up my Volvo while we were there, to give him a plausible excuse for my being at the station—New Jersey and Oregon are the only states where it’s illegal to pump your own gas—and he lobbied to fix the latch on my wagon, but I demurred since I couldn’t afford to leave the car there for the rest of the day. I had places to go.
While he was filling the car, a question occurred to me.
“Marv,” I asked, “where’s the trap for your sewer line?”
Marv, who probably had not been expecting that question, thought for a moment. “Around back,” he said. “Behind the trees. Why?”
I ignored the question. “Have you had any backups lately? Since Everett died?”
“Funny you ask that, Alison. We had a sewer backup about three days later.” Marv squinted at me as if I were a bright midday sun. “What are you getting at?”
I did some quick calculations. “What happened with the sewer?”
“I had Mickey Cochrane come up and clean it out,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad, and it didn’t back up into the restrooms, so we didn’t have to shut down or anything. Alison—”
The Thrill of the Haunt Page 23
