A Wild Ghost Chase

by E. J. Copperman

  I thought I had been dispassionately observing, but perhaps Alison was right. I considered what Antinanco had told us, but also how it was told. “He is a young boy, about eight years old. He does not look a questioner in the eye. He lectures on subjects when he’s not addressed directly. When he thinks he is unobserved, he carries on imaginative games with larger-than-life characters, not unlike most children his age, but more elaborate and perhaps more emotional. He becomes enraged when confronted with facts that do not support his story. If he is contradicted, he will change his story to make it seem more plausible and blame the questioner for not understanding.” I looked up at the gathered group. “Did I leave anything out?”

  “He really wants his arrowhead back,” Melissa added.

  “He cries if you tell him no,” Loretta said.

  “Even though he’s kind of a pain, he’s also sorta sweet,” Maxie said, then turned away so no one could see her expression.

  “I’m no expert,” Alison said, “but it sounds to me like he’s got some kind of developmental disability, maybe.”

  Melissa nodded. “There’s a boy like that in school,” she said. “He has a para who goes with him to every class.” She stopped and shook her head a little. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  “A para?” Loretta asked.

  “Paraprofessional,” Alison told her. “They’re professional aides who help some of the kids get through the school day.” Loretta nodded.

  “Sometimes context makes all the difference,” I said. I turned toward Alison. “You are becoming a very good detective.”

  “Me?” I’m not sure if she was pleased, or merely surprised.

  I floated closer to Loretta. “Can you go back and ask Lieutenant McElone about one more thing?” I asked her.

  Loretta didn’t look excited at the prospect, but she nodded.

  Alison’s eyes narrowed. “What were you talking to McElone about?” she asked her mother.

  “Paul figured this boy wasn’t really two hundred years old, that he had died a lot more recently,” Loretta said. “So he asked me to talk to the lieutenant about records of boys in the area about that age who might have died fairly recently, especially if their mothers were named Jaycee or had the initials J.C.”

  “He could have died of natural causes,” Alison pointed out, looking at me. “Which would mean there’d be no police records.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t have access to hospital records,” I said. “The first step is to check the sources you do have. It was something to eliminate, at least.”

  Alison nodded thoughtfully. “So you didn’t find anyone who fit the description? No mothers with the right initials?” She walked to Loretta and looked over her shoulder to read the notes from the conversation with Lieutenant McElone. “How many eight-year-old boys died in ways the police would notice over the past few years? Do I want to know?”

  “Well, keep in mind that the police file a report anytime someone dies alone, even if natural causes are indicated,” I reminded her. “But there still were not many, were there, Loretta?”

  Loretta was busy scanning the notes, but she shook her head. “Just a few, thank goodness,” she said. “But I don’t see any that fit all the facts, assuming any of the facts are correct.”

  Alison stopped her as she was about to flip a page. “What about this one, Mom?” she asked.

  Loretta stopped, read over the page, and pursed her lips. “I don’t see it, Alison. The mother’s name was . . . oh, I see where you’re going! Maybe!”

  Maxie swooped down from her perch near the ceiling. “Maybe? Maybe what?”

  “Assuming that everything Antinanco told you was maybe a little bit true,” Alison said. “Maybe he thinks it’s true, and that’s why he gets so upset. So something close to ‘Jaci’ would be good, wouldn’t it, Paul?” She tried very hard not to grin and failed.

  “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” I told her. “What have you got?”

  “A woman and her son—he was nine years old—were in a car accident on Route 35, five years ago,” Alison said. “A big SUV with a drunk driver hit them broadside. The boy was killed instantly, but the mother lived another six days in a coma.”

  “Her name was Jaycee?” I asked.

  “Jacqueline,” Alison answered. “And she might have been called . . .”

  “Jackie,” I heard myself say.

  “You’re so smart,” Loretta told her daughter.

  I reached over. “Give me that page of notes,” I said. “I need to go to the basement for a little while.”

  8

  “I think it was because of the helicopter,” Jackie Ransom was saying. “That’s why I wasn’t in the same place as Jeremy when I realized I was . . . like this.”

  Now knowing whom I was seeking, it had not taken long to send a telepathic message to Jackie. She had answered me almost immediately, in fact, and was now hovering, never still, in Alison’s kitchen, where the Kerby women were eating the brisket Loretta had brought with her earlier for dinner. I’m sure it must have smelled delicious.

  Jackie was a pleasant-looking woman of about forty, with red hair. She had arrived only a few minutes earlier, anxious to see if the boy we knew as Antinanco was her son Jeremy, whom she had not seen since moments before the awful traffic accident that claimed both their lives five years before.

  “It’s possible that the difference in time and space kept you apart,” I said. “There’s no rule book for our existence. Nothing seems to happen with any consistency or reason.”

  “You’re just ticked off because unlike all these other folks, you can’t leave the house,” Maxie said, her face and upper body visible through the wall. She must not have been paying attention to her placement; I couldn’t even read the slogan on her inevitable t-shirt. I ignored her comment.

  “When is Jeremy supposed to arrive?” Jackie asked.

  In my defense, I had been very clear in telling her that I was not sure the boy who was our client would come back to 123 Seafront. And I was equally honest in saying that he might not be her son. But Jackie was a mother, and in my experience mothers sometimes act on emotion rather than fact.

  Melissa, who is a very intuitive girl (which I believe is one of the reasons she is so skilled at communicating with people like Maxie and me), sensed my apprehension at Jackie’s question and deflected it with one of her own after she finished chewing. “How did you convince him to come back?” she asked me.

  “I’m not sure I did,” I emphasized, picking up Melissa’s feed. “I sent out the message to him, but I can’t be sure it was received. I told him that if he came back, I would give him his arrowhead.”

  Jackie nodded in recognition. “Jeremy would want that,” she said in an attempt to convince someone—perhaps herself?—that the boy we knew was her son. “His most recent special interest were the Lenni-Lenape Indians.” She chuckled. “Most people say Native Americans, but Jeremy told me they still call themselves Indians.”

  “Special interest?” Alison asked. She was not as delicate as her daughter about the chewing, but she has a general good nature that gets her through such moments amiably.

  “People with Asperger’s Syndrome, like Jeremy, tend to concentrate on a special interest,” Jackie explained. “It doesn’t always stay the same, and Jeremy had just started talking about the Lenni-Lenapes for maybe a week or two before the accident.” She stared off for a moment, regret in her eyes.

  Her description of her son left me with little doubt that we had found Antinanco’s mother. How he would react, however, especially now that I knew he had a disorder linked to autism, was less certain. If he appeared at all.

  “Would that account for why there were some discrepancies in his story?” I asked.

  Jackie nodded. “If he’d had more
time to absorb facts, he never would have given you a name outside the Unami language.”

  “Maybe he was trying to make it easier to find you,” Maxie suggested. “In his own way, he figured he could give us a hint.”

  “Does he really think he’s Antinanco?” Melissa asked Jackie.

  She shook her head. “He’s just pretending, but with Asperger’s kids, ‘pretending’ is much more intense.” She seemed to catch herself. “Everything is more intense.”

  Alison and Melissa were trying to convince Loretta she shouldn’t help clean up when Antinanco appeared, rising through the floor. It made me wonder if he’d been in the house all along, or at least for a while, playing with Melissa’s discarded toys again before entering.

  He materialized looking at his feet, as was his habit. But he wasn’t all the way into the room before he began to speak. “May I have my arrowhead?”

  Everyone else in the room froze in their motions: Alison started water in the sink, unaware of the boy, then noticed everyone else staring and turned it off; Melissa at the dishwasher, loading a plate; Loretta at the refrigerator putting away leftover brisket; Maxie now entirely in the room, arms extended by her sides as if she were about to lean back and float.

  And Jackie.

  I’ve never seen a spirit absolutely immobile. Usually, if we don’t concentrate very hard, we will drift as if in a light breeze. But Jackie was not moving at all, two feet off the floor, partly obscured by one of the kitchen chairs, which was occupying the same space as her left leg.

  “Jeremy,” she whispered.

  The boy we knew as Antinanco looked up with a start. He stared directly into Jackie’s face, something I had never seen him do before with anyone. And then he did something else we had never seen before. He smiled.

  “Mom!” he said, and in a split second, he flew—literally—into her arms. Jackie held her son very close, and if we could cry real tears, I am certain we would have seen them on her cheek.

  I know, because there were tears on the cheeks of all three living people in the room. I even half expected them on my own.

  “I missed you,” Jeremy told his mother. “Where did you go?”

  Jackie smiled and gulped as if for air, although that was not possible. “I spent five years looking for you,” she told her son. “And now these nice people have found you for me.”

  “What nice people?” he asked.

  “Jeremy,” Jackie scolded. “Mr. Harrison and Ms. Malone and their friends here. They found you for me.”

  The boy’s eyebrows knit as if he were puzzled. “No, they didn’t,” he told Jackie. “I found them. They found you.”

  Jackie laughed. “Of course, honey. How could I have gotten that wrong?”

  “I guess you were confused.”

  “I was worried. About you,” his mother told him. Then her eyelids drooped a little, and her smiled dimmed. “And I’m sorry, Jeremy. Really, really sorry.”

  Jeremy’s expression registered confusion. “For what?”

  Jackie sniffled a little. “For the accident. For the car. I was driving the car. I’m so sorry for what I did to you, baby.” She held her son even closer, and he looked slightly irritated.

  “Mom,” he said. But she didn’t let go.

  “Actually,” Loretta broke in, “you weren’t at fault, Jackie. I read the police report. The other driver was drunk, and ran through a red light. You tried to swerve away from Jeremy’s side of the car, but it happened too fast. You did everything you could.”

  Jackie didn’t have a chance to respond, although she looked gratefully at Loretta. Jeremy spoke before she could. “You see, Mom? It wasn’t your fault. And I’m okay.”

  Alison, roused by the sound of Loretta’s voice, put down the glass in her hand and turned toward Jackie and her son. “You’re together again,” she said. “That’s what counts.” Then she looked at me. “They are together again, aren’t they?” I smiled at her and nodded. After that, I heard Melissa quietly relaying the conversation to her mother.

  “Yes, that is the important part,” Jackie agreed. She let Jeremy out of her arms, but held his hands. “And I have a surprise for you. I can take you to grandpa.”

  The boy’s face lit up. “Really?”

  Alison’s face clouded over a bit. While Loretta can and does communicate with her deceased husband, Alison’s father, Alison has only seen him once herself, and even that was fleeting. Melissa, who has told me her grandfather does not communicate with her either, saw her mother’s reaction and looked sad for a moment.

  Jackie nodded. “He would have come here with me, but he isn’t able to travel around the way we can.” Maxie gave me a smug look, but I took it as reassurance that I’m not the only spirit stranded in one place. “He’s not very far from here, but it will take us a while to get there.”

  “You’re leaving?” Melissa asked.

  Jeremy looked at his mother, who nodded. I saw Jackie mouth the words “thank you” to him and then indicate with her eyes that he should speak to me.

  “Thank you,” Jeremy said without turning his head at all.

  “You are quite welcome,” I said. “I’m glad we could help.” I considered saying that they should mention Harrison Investigations to those of us they meet, but I felt that Alison might object to what she calls “advertising on the Ghosternet.”

  I held out a hand for Jeremy to shake. He looked at it, but did not offer his own. Jackie looked at me with an apology, and I nodded, understanding. Quite often, I recalled, people with autism do not care to be touched.

  “Can I have my arrowhead?” he asked instead. I smiled and handed it to him, and he nodded. “Thank you,” he mumbled, remembering what he considered an odd ritual imposed upon him.

  Melissa approached Jeremy timidly, which was unusual for her. She reached into her pocket while saying, “Take this with you, Antinanco.” She pulled the Batman action figure from her jeans pocket and held it out to him.

  Jeremy’s eyes widened, and he actually looked up into Melissa’s face. “Really?” he asked, then looked at Jackie for permission. She nodded.

  “Really,” Melissa said. “I want you to remember us.”

  Jeremy appeared to be finished with his Antinanco persona. He reached over and took the plastic figure, and as he did, the native costume he was wearing became a pair of jeans, sneakers, a Spider-man t-shirt and a New York Yankees baseball cap. He smiled, took off the cap, and put the figure inside before putting it back on his head. “Thank you,” he said without prompting.

  “No,” Melissa corrected. “Anischik.” She grinned. “I saw it in the online Lenni-Lenape glossary.”

  “Anischik,” Jeremy answered. “Anischik a lot.”

  After a few more good-byes, Jackie and Jeremy rose up through the ceiling, holding hands, and were gone. There was a long pause while we all absorbed what had happened, and then the cleanup resumed.

  “That’s as much nice stuff as I can stand,” Maxie proclaimed. “If anybody needs me, I’ll be somewhere else.” She vanished through the outside wall, just to prove once again that she could do it.

  “Figures,” Alison snorted. “Why should she help clean up?”

  “She didn’t eat anything,” Melissa pointed out.

  “You always stick up for her,” Alison protested.

  “You never give her a break,” Melissa countered.

  “Knock it off, both of you,” Loretta said. “I’m going to take off, and I don’t want to leave when you’re fighting.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel and picked up her backpack. “So make up. Right now.” Her eyes were still a little misty.

  “We’re not fighting, Grandma,” Melissa said, walking over to give Loretta a hug. “We’re just bantering.” She had learned the word from her friend Wendy the week before.

 
Loretta kissed her on the forehead, leaving a lipstick mark Melissa immediately started to rub off. “Well, banter nicely,” she said. “I’m outta here.” She gave Alison a kiss on the cheek and headed for the front door.

  Just to show I could, I picked some silverware off the table and put it in the dishwasher. “You don’t have to do that, Paul,” Alison said. “I was kidding about Maxie.”

  “I know. But it’s polite to help.”

  “You don’t have to be polite. We already love you,” Alison said. “Scram, if you want to.”

  I didn’t react because I knew it was a casual remark, but that touched me. Maybe I was a little emotionally open just at the moment. I nodded, and started descending slowly into the basement. I was about to say, “I love you, too,” but Alison had turned her attention to her daughter and her kitchen.

  As I lowered myself through the floor, I heard Alison say to Melissa, “You know, now that the bathroom work is done, maybe that sleepover wouldn’t be such an awful thing . . .”

  Keep reading for a special excerpt from E. J. Copperman’s

  next Haunted Guesthouse Mystery . . .

  CHANCE OF A GHOST

  Available in paperback February 2013 from Berkley Prime Crime!

  The dream is not always the same; there are variables in the setting and the details. But it always begins with me, either in the house where I grew up or in the enormous Victorian I now own as a guesthouse.

  And my father is there.

  Even in the dream, I know he’s been dead for five years and that it doesn’t make sense for him to be completing some home improvement project with me. But that doesn’t seem to matter to him, so I see no need to make it an issue.

  It’s like things used to be—Dad will point out something about the job he’s doing so I’ll remember it. “See, you want to drive the screws in a little bit deeper than flush on wallboard,” he’ll say. “That way when you fill the hole with compound, you can sand it smooth, and you won’t see a screw head shining through the paint.”