Laying Ghosts (Dolly Games)

by Derek Murphy

  Growing exasperated with him, she asked, “What makes you think she’s alive?”

  For answer, he leaned back and made a long arm to the kitchen counter where he had left the phone records the telephone company had sent him. He laid them on the table between them.

  Staring at him, Julie put a hand on the papers without looking at them for a moment. Once she lowered her eyes to them, she began reading them and she gritted her teeth as she saw the import.

  “This doesn’t mean anything, Carl. These could be wrong numbers. They could be mis-routed calls. Hell! They could be her family messing with you! You can’t pin your hopes on these!”

  He reached across the table and slid the papers back to his side and stubbornly said, “Yes, I can. If she’s still alive, I have a chance to find her. I can’t do anything just right now, but if an opportunity comes up to help her, I’ll have to move fast.”

  She took another tack and asked, “What about the business? If you run off looking for a dead woman, what happens to the case you’re working on?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think Nelson is cheating on his wife. If that’s the case; she’s no worse off than she was. It’ll just take longer for her to find out what he’s up to.”

  “What do you think he’s doing?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know. It could be corporate espionage or, something as innocent as trying to invent something for the business. If he can get a few patents in his name, he can become a rich man in his own right. Especially in the aerospace field; fortunes are being made every day with advances in aerospace technology.”

  Before Julie could say anything more to take his mind off of Marta, his phone rang and he rose to answer it.

  “Hello? Yes. Okay, I’ll get moving.”

  Hanging up the phone, he said, “That was Erica Nelson. She says her husband is on his way to the yacht now. Once he logs onto his laptop, I’ll have access to whatever he’s working on. I’ll have to stake out the yacht and wait for him to leave.”

  Unfamiliar with the steps Carl had taken to gain access to Nelson’s laptop, Julie asked, “What have you done so far?”

  Settling back into his seat, he answered, “Put a ‘snooper’ in his laptop with a receiver on the dock. The ‘snooper’, as you know, will upload a copy of all his files to the receiver when he logs into his laptop, and once I retrieve it, I’ll have everything he’s done on his laptop since he got the thing.”

  Nodding, she said, “Okay. Once you have that, you’ll know pretty much if he’s cheating or not. So, this case might be wrapped up as early as tomorrow.”

  His seldom seen smile flashed across the table at her and he nodded.

  “See? I’m not as preoccupied as you thought.”

  Desultorily dragging a fry through ketchup, realizing that his outlook regarding Marta, coupled with the news that he had to go to work, Julie understood that there would be no romantic breakthroughs tonight. Understanding that, she rose, having suddenly lost her appetite and, closing the Styrofoam container, carried it to the cabinet where he kept his trash can. Stuffing it in, she turned back to him and tried one last time to take his mind off of Marta.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go out for a drink tonight? You can always pick up the receiver in the morning. My treat?”

  He shook his head as he finished chewing a mouthful of burger. Taking a drink, he swallowed and said, “I’d like to get this over and done with. Then I’ll be free to take off if I get a line on Marta. Or, start a new case if nothing comes up.”

  After a short pause in which the silence seemed to drag on and on, Julie picked up her purse and moved to the door, where she stopped.

  “If you change your mind, just call me.”

  He shook his head and continued eating his burger and fries. Around a mouthful, he said, “Thanks for the food, Julie. It’s been a while since I ate something I really liked, or even realized what I was eating. I guess I’ve kind of been running on autopilot, y’know?”

  Thinking that Carl must be especially obtuse tonight to miss the signals she was sending out, Julie muttered, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  She opened the door and exited, hearing his cheerful “Goodbye” as she closed it behind her. The short ride in the old elevator did nothing to improve her mood as she mentally beat herself up.

  What a pathetic figure she must have been. All but begging him to take her up on her needy offer of a drink. Sure, it was the kind of thing that co-workers did all the time, but she was sure that she was all but stripping in front of him; almost begging him to take her to bed. Why did she feel the need to gain Carl as an admirer? When he and Ike had worked on her ‘stalker’ case in LA, he had been an exotic figure for her and since the stalking had begun, she had lived the life of a nun in order to stay out of the man’s crosshairs. Even Jinx had told her she was going off-base in pursuing Carl, yummy as he was with that thick, black hair, big, athletic body and penetrating, black eyes. She had even fantasized about being a plainswoman captured by the big, Indian hunk and bent to his will. Those fantasies hadn’t let up in all the time since she had met him. It was as though wanting him consumed her being and she would never be free of that compulsion until she was able to exorcize that particular devil by bedding him.

  Angry with herself, she slammed her car door and started the engine, revving it needlessly before jerking it into gear and backing out of her parking space. A car horn blared behind her as she heard the screeching of tires on the pavement. Glancing in the mirror, she returned the irate driver’s upraised single-finger-salute and burned rubber as she took off for the downtown area. If she couldn’t have Carl, there were plenty of nice-looking men in this town who would do for a one-night-stand.

  Chapter Six

  The parking lot at the marina was nearly deserted due to the storm that had been forecast for the past three days. The boat owners who worried about their costly investments had already been out and either seen to storing their boats for the season early or had tied them as securely as possible and left them to the mercies of wind and wave. A very few owners sat in their ‘home away from home’ and waited for the storm to arrive, determined to move their boats if it became necessary. Such foolhardy souls might be commended for bravery, but not for good sense. If the storm was as powerful as the weather service claimed, none of these boats had the power necessary to avoid being smashed against each other or the rocks at the outer entrance to the bay.

  His pickup rocked as the wind picked up a little and he had to push against the door get it open. Letting the wind blow it shut, he looked off across the parking lot to the spaces reserved for owners and saw no sign of Nelson’s Porsche. That the man might have driven his classic Camaro didn’t even occur to Carl; it was worth too much to chance in the storm.

  Moving against the wind, he stopped at the gate leading to the docks and surveyed the boat. The crewman kept onboard could be seen moving about the boat through the windows of the salon behind the bridge and in just a few minutes, exited the cabin with a duffel on his shoulder. Hurrying, the man descended to the dock and walked swiftly toward the gate where Carl stood.

  When he was in speaking distance, Carl asked, “Going ashore because of the storm?”

  Surprised, the man looked up and grinned at him.

  “You bet! Nelson doesn’t pay me enough to ride this thing out! I told him I was leaving the boat and he argued with me for a while, but said it was okay.”

  “Nelson…is that the guy who started that big aerospace company?”

  Swinging the gate open, the crewman said, “Nah! That was his old man! Chip’s poor as a church-mouse compared to his dad. I’ve worked for both of them and the old man had a full crew onboard at all times. Whenever a storm moved in, he’d come out and move the ‘Lady’ over to Goodnight Bay; it’s sheltered better than this one. Chip is too poor to keep more than one crewman onboard when it’s docked and he certainly can’t afford to spend money for the fuel it takes to move the bo
at every time there’s a storm.”

  Feigning a surprised expression, Carl asked, “So, he’s riding out the storm by himself? That takes guts!”

  Snorting, the crewman said, “Not him! If I know him, he’s up in the hills hoping the storm wrecks the ‘Lady’ so he can collect on the insurance.”

  Knitting his brow, Carl asked, “If he’s that hard up for money, why doesn’t he just sell it? It’s probably worth a million or two.”

  “He probably thinks that would look like he was giving up. Chip’s concerned with appearances. Hell! Look at his wife; she’s a real looker, but he spends a night or two out here on the ‘Lady’ every week. Alone. If things aren’t going so well at home, he should just divorce her and sell the ‘Lady’. Mrs. Nelson, his mother, comes out on nights when he’s not here and spends nearly all night in the lounge. I tell you, he’s let a lot of things go because he can’t afford them. He should ask his mother for a little help in keeping the old girl up.”

  As though realizing he had just given out a lot of information about his employer to a total stranger, the crewman said, “Look, I’ve got to get moving. My ex is expecting me to pick up my kid for the weekend. If the storm hadn’t come along, I would have missed my weekend with her.”

  Carl watched as the man moved quickly toward the parking lot and once he was out of sight, turned to look at the yacht. He thought, “What are you doing tonight, Chip? Your wife thinks you’re on the yacht, but you’re not here.”

  Since there was no sense in retrieving the receiver, Carl walked back to his pickup and was a good hundred feet from it when the gust front blew in, causing his jacket and pant-legs to flap like sails in the wind. Before he reached the truck, the rain had started; first a scattered spatter, then a deluge that came down in sheets. As he closed the door of his pickup, the wind all but blew it shut and he set about wiping the rain from his face. The pickup rocked in the wind as he started it and turned toward the access road leading back to town.

  * * *

  As the wind buffeted and rattled the windows and doors, Martin Webster sat in his library, the half-finished bottle of single-malt sitting on the desk before him. He knew he should go to bed, but couldn’t’ bring himself to do so; it was the bed he had shared with Sophie and it seemed so empty now. Since the weekend was starting, he had no meetings to prepare for and no duties to see to at the office. The weekend was his to do with as he wished. And what he wished was to simply drink himself into oblivion.

  Some would think that in view of what had happened to Decker in Webster’s home, the man would be loathe to spend another night there until whatever was going on had been solved. Not Webster. He had gotten all the locks changed and watched the locksmith like a hawk to make sure there were no extra keys. In retrospect, he felt that he had been a fool to keep the original locks on the doors from the time when Old Quint Nelson had owned it. He didn’t trust Chip, the man’s son, and felt that changing the locks had been long overdue. He supposed that having his old man’s replacement living in his childhood home had probably been galling to the young man. If Chip had been a more capable man, Webster would have suspected him of making the house appear to be haunted. But Webster didn’t think Chip was especially talented; he had kept him on with the company after replacing the old man because he felt sorry for him.

  His hand wavering a little, he picked up his glass and drained the last of the whiskey from it, letting the glass slip the last inch or so from his fingers as he set it back down. Sighing, he leaned back in the desk chair and pushed the button on his desk that would turn off the lights in the library. With the room lit only by the fireplace, he slouched down in his chair, sighed again and closed his eyes. Better to sleep down here than to go to his room. Even if Sophie’s ghost roamed the room, he was ready to meet it head-on and find out what the Hell it was that she wanted.

  In just a minute, he began to snore lightly and a section of the bookcase across the room from the desk moved infinitesimally outward. As it moved silently open, revealing a doorway lit dimly from behind, a figure moved out into the room. The figure moved soundlessly on bare feet toward the sleeping man until it stood over him. Pausing a few seconds to make sure he was asleep, the figure removed a bulb syringe from a small bottle and held it over Webster’s lips, letting a few drops fall between them. Webster’s tongue unconsciously darted forward, removing the liquid from his lips and they smacked as he became only slightly aware of the liquid.

  Stoppering the bottle, the figure’s hands moved to the waistband of Webster’s pants and were busy there a few seconds until they had him free of encumbrances and held his member. The smooth warmth of the hands coupled with the sensation of being handled caused it to stiffen of its own accord and once he was fully erect, the figure, naked, hiked one leg over Webster’s lap and sank down on him with a sigh and a shudder.

  The figure was unworried that Webster would be able to move when he awoke; the light, paralytic agent contained in the syringe would take care of that for several hours. The man might wake, but his mind would be so mazed with drink and the drug that he would be unable to move. Sliding up and down on him, the figure began to breathe heavily, its breath blowing against the black silk that shrouded its face and head. Naked otherwise, the figure was soon moving energetically on the sleeping man’s body.

  Webster’s eyes fluttered open, his mind lost in the drunken dream in which he was making love to Sophie. It had to be a dream; he couldn’t move a muscle, but the pleasant sensations just kept going on and on. Once he was able to focus his eyes, they nearly started from his head as he saw the figure astride him with the black scarf over its head. He tried in vain to move his hands to push the thing away from him, but couldn’t move. His understanding that it was all a dream caused him to relax and go with the sensations until he erupted and felt the figure shuddering to a climax atop him. As the figure leaned forward, kissing him lightly through the veiling silk, he managed to find his voice.

  “S-Sophie?”

  “Shhhh…”

  The figure backed off of his lap and moved a few feet away, picking something up from the desktop. It swiveled his chair around until the only view he had was that of the fireplace. Its hand trailed along his arm, raising goosebumps and then it was gone, leaving him wondering what the Hell was happening. Given the whiskey he had put away, he was soon asleep again, thinking that it had all been a dream.

  That belief would be shattered when he awoke early the next morning to find his pants undone and the evidence of sexual activity dried on his flesh. Then he would be more shaken than before.

  * * *

  Tree limbs littered the road in front of his apartment building and he drove slowly around them until he entered the parking garage attached to one side of the building. With the cessation of the rain striking the roof of the pickup, he was able to hear again. The radio hissed with static and there weren’t even any recognizable words coming through. To point up the fact that this was one hell of an electrical storm, there was a flash of lightning, with a simultaneous crash of thunder that rolled on and on for fifteen or twenty seconds. The flash had half blinded him and he had tromped on the brake pedal to avoid driving blindly through the parking garage. When his vision cleared, he saw ahead of him, through the open wall of the parking structure, a thirty or forty-year-old oak tree that smoked in the relentless rain. One side of the tree looked as though someone had taken a sledge hammer to its side, leaving splintered strips of wood several feet long lying on the ground beside it. He clucked his tongue at the waste; Carl had always liked trees, having grown up in an area without many of them.

  Carl found his way to his assigned parking space and spied Ike’s car parked in a visitor’s slot. After parking, he exited the truck and walked quickly to the elevator core. The elevator car was open and he stepped inside, punching the button for his floor. It was a short ride since he lived on the third floor and as he stepped out; he was greeted by Ike’s grinning face.

  “I see you
been doing a rain-dance! Over did it a little, didn’t you?”

  Shaking his head, Carl unlocked the door of his apartment and moved inside, motioning Ike to the fridge. Ike took the hint and opened them both a beer. Handing one to his friend, he walked to the divan in the living room and sat down, lifting his feet to prop them up on the coffee table. Carl walked past him, pushing his feet off onto the floor with the hand that wasn’t holding the beer. He sat down.

  “Shouldn’t you be mother-henning DeeDee?”

  “She ran me off while she took a bubble-bath. Said she didn’t want me around making jokes about Moby Dick having a tan. Now, I ask you; would I do that to my own wife?”

  Leaning back in the easy chair he had taken, Carl sipped of the beer, jerked slightly as another bolt of lightning struck just outside and smacked his lips at the taste of the brew.

  “Yeah, you would. I can see why she would want you out of the house. She probably wants to have a few minutes of peace and quiet without you underfoot all the time. Since she got pregnant, you’ve been over-solicitous, Ike.”

  “Well, look at me, Carl! Thirty-three years old and never been married, ain’t got no kids and Father Time is sneaking up on me! Can you blame me for worrying about her?”

  Carl snorted and sipped of his beer again.

  “Who are you trying to kid with this Father Time bit? I’m two years older than you are and I don’t feel like I’m getting old. What’s really bothering you?”

  Ike glared at his friend for a moment and Carl wondered what he’d done to piss his friend off, then Ike said, “After seeing what can happen if a person doesn’t get medical treatment for a serious injury; like what happened with Marta Vandivort, then getting bonked on the konk, I’m worrying what’ll happen to DeeDee and the kid if anything happens to me.”

  “So? Someone tried to bust your melon with something heavy. Get over it. That kind of thing happens to us sometimes in this line of business.”

  Ike was silent for a few moments, turning his attention to peeling the label from his bottle of beer. Then he said, “I want you to promise me you’ll look after DeeDee and the kid if anything happens to me.”