Ghost at Work

by Carolyn Hart

  “Why, yes.” She was the all-knowing, competent secretary. “He had a meeting set up at St. Mildred’s.” She frowned. “He was found in the church by the cemetery, wasn’t he? I wonder why he went there?”

  “We don’t know that he did.” The chief’s tone was judicious.

  Clearly, Chief Cobb wanted to know why dust balls with cat fur had been found on Daryl’s suit coat. The chief gave the secretary an encouraging look. “It’s helpful to know he intended to go to the church. Would anyone else have known?”

  Some knowledge flickered in the secretary’s eyes, but her face was smooth and bland as she spoke. “I suppose that’s possible.”

  Not only possible, but, I was sure, quite certain. Her indirect answer was truthful as far as it went. I wished I could tug on Chief Cobb’s sleeve, remind him that truth isn’t always complete, but he was glancing at his watch, moving toward the door.

  I slid my hand away from the rug. Walter’s confession was safe enough where I’d put it. I have no sympathy for swindlers, but I should afford Walter Carey a chance to explain his actions. If I was not very much mistaken, Walter would slip into this office tonight with his stolen keys.

  I intended to be here.

  The cuckoo clock warbled two-thirty. I stood in the middle of the rectory kitchen, hands on my hips. I hadn’t asked Kathleen to await my return and, to be reasonable, she had no idea how long I would be gone, but I couldn’t help feeling thwarted. I felt some urgency in deciding whether the individuals pictured or recorded on Daryl’s cell phone should be revealed to Chief Cobb.

  I retrieved my notebook and jotted down the information about Walter Carey and the Hamilton ranch mineral rights. I felt calmer. After all, I now knew everything but the identities of the Altar Guild member who had stolen from the collection plate and the woman who had begged Daryl to call her.

  “A church member…” I popped to my feet, opened drawers near the telephone, found the church pictorial directory. In a moment I had the Altar Guild member’s name: Irene Chatham. Perhaps it was just as well that Kathleen wasn’t here. She would have been reluctant to tell me. I added Irene Chatham’s name to my list.

  I still faced the challenge of identifying the woman with the desperate voice. But just as someone saw Kathleen enter the young professor’s apartment and repeated that information, I was confident that the Adelaide gossip mill knew all about Daryl’s extramarital adventures. All I had to do was find a source of information.

  I pulled my chair nearer the table. I like making lists. It was time—

  The back door banged open. Bayroo plunged into the kitchen. “Hi.” Her voice was pleased.

  I looked up with delight. It was lovely to feel warm and welcome and that’s how I felt every time Bayroo looked at me. And saw me.

  Her wide grin was as warming as a hug. “I’ve had the swellest day ever. Is Mom here?” She shrugged out of her backpack, tossed it into a wicker rocking chair, pulled off her pink jacket, and tossed it on a rung of the coat tree. “I can’t wait to tell her about our party.”

  “She’s not home—”

  Bayroo’s eager smile faded.

  “—but why don’t you tell me?” It is lonely to come home to an empty house.

  Her freckled face once again glowed. “Okay. I’m starving. Won’t you have a snack with me?”

  “I’d love that.” I flipped my notebook shut.

  She hesitated, then asked quickly, “I don’t know what to call you. I know you are my great-grandmother’s sister, so should I say great-aunt?”

  I laughed. “That sounds like a very distant relative. Why don’t you call me Auntie Grand?”

  “Auntie Grand.” She listened as she spoke, then flashed me a smile. “Yes. You are Auntie Grand.”

  In a moment we had a feast on the table. Mugs with steaming-hot chocolate and graham crackers topped with melted chocolate and marshmallows.

  Bayroo licked away a chocolate mustache. “We had a monster style show and everybody voted. My costume came in third. We had candied apples with black licorice stuck to the sides, dangling like jellyfish tentacles. “She grinned and gave a mock shudder. “Mrs. Gordon showed a vampire movie in social studies and told us all about Bram Stoker. It was the most fun day ever. But tomorrow will be even better!” She wiped a smear of marshmallow from her chin. “The Spook Bash is going to be the most exciting party in the history of Adelaide. You remember how I told you last night that we met Travis Calhoun—”

  When Bayroo had shared her news last night on the rectory back porch, I’d been much more attuned to the proximity of Lucinda to the exposed tip of Daryl Murdoch’s black leather shoe.

  “—and he said he would come. Well, his aunt’s a teacher and she came by homeroom and told me Travis was really excited to be invited. It’s all because I asked him and I was the one who saw him. Lucinda was scared to stay in the preserve. She was a scaredy-cat and went to the other end of the block and watched his aunt’s house from Mrs. Berry’s yard and I had to come and tell her after I actually talked to him. I did it all by myself and we would never have been able to run into him, you know, like it was a real accident, if I hadn’t hidden behind the big cottonwood in the preserve and watched for him.” Bayroo’s eyes shone. A quick frown tugged at her eyebrows. “You won’t tell Mom, will you?”

  “Of course not.” I munched another bite. “It sounds exciting. Who is Travis Calhoun?”

  Her sandy eyebrows shot up. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. “How could you not…Oh, sure. I guess you don’t watch a lot of TV or go to the movies where you are. Anyway, he’s really famous.” She twined a strand of red-gold hair in her fingers. “Travis played Huck Finn on Broadway. He has freckles, too.” She gave an impish smile. “Maybe that’s why he liked me. He made movies when he was a little kid and now he’s fifteen and he’s the star of Show Me the Way on TV. Oh, you’d love his show. He got killed in a car wreck and now he’s an angel and he comes back and he helps kids who are getting in scrapes.”

  I almost explained that in theological terms, Travis’s character was a ghost. Angels are supernatural creatures and messengers of God. But it didn’t really matter.

  “My dad says he’s a ghost, not an angel, and I guess you know that. But it is way cool and when the show starts he wears these big golden wings and I told Dad it’s dramatic license.” She nodded wisely.

  Obviously, I didn’t need to worry about Bayroo’s religious instruction. Or her perception. “Where does he live?”

  “In Hollywood.” She breathed the name in awe. “In Beverly Hills. I saw a story about him in People. He lives in this big mansion that has a red-tiled roof and gardens and a swimming pool, of course. A chauffeur drives him to the studio in a Bentley.” She looked at me. “That’s a really fancy car. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?”

  A mansion in Beverly Hills. “What about his family?”

  Some of the sparkle left her eyes. “His mom died when he was little, like maybe four or five. He lives with his dad, who’s a big Hollywood director, and his stepmother. She’s a movie star. He usually comes here and stays with his aunt on holidays because his dad and stepmom have lots of places to go and things to do. This time he’s here for his birthday. I’ve already talked to the music teacher and she’s going to bring the sixth-grade chorus and we’re going to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him and I want to give him a special present.” Her face fell. “But what could I give somebody like Travis Calhoun?”

  I pointed at the oven. “Do you like to cook?”

  Bayroo nodded.

  “I’ll bet no one ever makes him a homemade birthday cake.” Fancy cakes are fine, but nothing ever tastes as good as homemade. “Why don’t you call his aunt’s house and ask him what his favorite cake is?”

  She looked dubious. “That’s no big deal.”

  “Try it and see.”

  Bayroo looked deep into my eyes. I don’t know what she saw, perhaps a mother’s memory of a child’s face at a family birthday table. Each of
mine had a favorite cake—lemon for Rob, burnt sugar for Dil.

  Bayroo opened the directory, turned the pages until she found a number. She picked up the cordless telephone, shot me an anguished look.

  I nodded firmly. “Courage.”

  She punched numbers. “H’lo.” Her voice was high and quivery. “This is Bayroo Abbott. I invited Travis to the Spook Bash and…Hello. Hi, Travis.” She took a deep breath and the words tumbled out. “I’d like to bake a cake for your birthday and I wondered what your favorite is, you know, the kind of cake you like best, but maybe you’ve already—white? With chocolate icing. That’s my favorite, too. I make it from scratch, the icing, too. I’ll bring it to your aunt’s house in the morning but I can just leave it on the porch…Are you sure? That’d be great!” She hung up and whirled toward me. “He’s really excited.” Her voice was amazed. “I can take it over and he said maybe I’d come in and we’d have a piece together. Gosh, I’d better get to work. I’ll go up and print out my recipe.”

  Print out a recipe?

  Bayroo dashed from the kitchen. I followed as she raced up the stairs.

  She darted through the third door on the right. I scarcely had time to appreciate the fresh brightness of Bayroo’s room—one wall painted blue with a cresting white wave, bookcases crammed with books and hand-painted buffalo and sports trophies and dolls, and movie posters—when she thumped into a swivel chair and turned on a machine the twin of the one in the chief’s office and those at use in the library and in each of the library staff cubicles.

  She turned it on and the screen glowed. I looked over her shoulder. “What is it and what does it have to do with a recipe?”

  “What is what?” She was clicking and moving the oblong on the pad next to the keyboard.

  I reached out and touched the screen. “This! I see them everywhere.”

  “It’s a computer, Auntie Grand.”

  “Computer.” Another new word for me. “How does it work?”

  Bayroo found what she sought, clicked again, and paper oozed from the machine on the floor.

  By the time we reached the kitchen, Bayroo clutching the recipe and explaining computers, I was overborne with information about word processing (a fancy name for typing), e-mails, programs, printers, passwords, files, and mouses.

  At least the next time I visited the chief’s office, I wouldn’t be so confounded. The next time…Should I go there now? But I wasn’t ready to impart the information I’d gained from Daryl’s cell phone. I had yet to talk to Irene Chatham. I sighed.

  “…I use butter. It makes all the difference—” She broke off. “What’s wrong, Auntie Grand?”

  I managed a smile. Dear, empathetic Bayroo. I suppose I looked gloomier than the nature-preserve lake on a January day. “I have a problem, sweetie, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Go ahead with your baking.” I tapped my pen on my notebook. I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t see any way to accomplish my task.

  “Maybe I can help.” She came and stood by me, hands planted on her slender hips. “I know a lot about Adelaide. What do you need to know?”

  I had no idea if she was aware of the senior warden’s demise. In any event, she was much too young to embroil, even peripherally, in a murder investigation. Certainly I couldn’t tell Bayroo why I needed to talk to people. But perhaps if I articulated my difficulty, a solution would occur to me.

  I stood and gave her a hug. “You are a help just being my friend. Let’s get everything out for your cake and I’ll explain.”

  She pulled up a kitchen chair next to a counter. “You sit here, Auntie Grand. I can do it all by myself. I told Travis I’d make it.” She bustled about the kitchen, retrieving a mixing bowl and measuring cups and spoons and cake tins. A moment later, she’d assembled her ingredients. She propped her recipe sheet on a stand.

  I remembered my cooking days. I had a Betty Crocker cookbook that was dog-eared and stained. I settled on the chair. “I have some questions I need to ask some people.”

  She nodded and poured cake flour into the measuring cup.

  “But”—I shook my head—“even if I could go and see them, they can’t see me. And even if they could”—after all, I could appear if it was essential—“I can’t see why they’d talk to me.”

  Bayroo looked thoughtful. “I can see you.”

  “I know. Other people can’t.”

  She cut butter into the flour-and-sugar mixture. “Way cool. But I thought you could do something special and actually be here.”

  “Oh yes, indeed.” Much to Wiggins’s consternation. “I could be here if this were a big city. But in Adelaide, everyone would want to know about that redheaded stranger. You know how small towns are. If someone from the church saw me, they might walk down the corridor outside the parish hall and look at the paintings of the former directresses of the Altar Guild. That would never do.”

  “Oh.” She was thoughtful. “I don’t think they’d recognize you. You’re a lot younger now.” She said it easily, as if it made all the sense in the world. She shook her head, looked solemn. “But if anybody did recognize you, I guess, like Mom always says, the fat would be in the fire.”

  Kathleen had learned that old saying from her grandmother, my sister, Kitty.

  Bayroo waggled the mixing spoon at me. “I know what to do. You can’t be here as yourself, but you can be here as somebody else. You know, a disguise.”

  “A disguise?” I pictured a trilby hat and oversize spectacles.

  “Sure.” She stirred. “Like a nurse or secretary or census taker or social worker.”

  It was an interesting suggestion, but Walter Carey, Irene Chatham, Isaac Franklin, Kirby Murdoch, Kirby’s girlfriend Lily, and the unknown woman wouldn’t be likely to answer questions from a stranger unless they thought I had official status.

  Official status…

  “Bayroo.” I sang her name. “You are brilliant. A disguise!” It was as if a door had opened. “Have fun with your cake. I’ll see you later.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Partitions separated six cubicles. Each held a computer. Voices rose and fell around us. Brisk footsteps and ringing telephones contributed to an atmosphere of intense activity.

  Patrol Officer A. Leland’s desk took up half the space in her cubicle. She hunched in her chair, apparently oblivious to her surroundings, and stared at an open notebook, her expression empty.

  I doubted her eyes saw the writing.

  Today her honey-colored hair was drawn back in a bun. A few curls escaped to soften the severity of the style. If she loosened her hair, let it frame her narrow face, and added a bit more makeup, she would be pretty. Her eyes were deep blue, her features fine—wide-spaced eyes, straight nose, gently rounded chin.

  The police uniform was flattering to her fair skin, the long-sleeved shirt French blue, the trousers French blue with a navy stripe down each leg. The shirt bore an Adelaide police patch on each shoulder and a metal name tag—A. LELAND—and badge over the left breast pocket. The leather shoes were black, as were the socks.

  It had been a sacrifice to shed my elegant pantsuit, but I knew it was necessary. I envisioned my new outfit, found the shirt a bit scratchy. I needed a name for my tag. I couldn’t appear as Officer B. R. Raeburn. Perhaps A. Great for Alexandra the Great? J. Arc for…No. That was not a happy ending and too presumptuous. N. Bly for Nellie Bly? If Wiggins had seen fit to send me to France, that might have been an option. There had to be the perfect name, a woman I’d admired…

  I smiled. I would be M. Loy. I’d always tuned in for her Nick and Nora Charles movies on TV, although it seemed to me that she spent most of her time holding Asta the terrier on her lap and watching as William Powell detected. But Myrna Loy had style and that was enough for me.

  Patrol Officer M. Loy was now ready to embark on her investigation. I debated adding a holster for a gun, decided that wasn’t necessary. After all, I wouldn’t be passing in review to make sure I met department regulations. I simp
ly needed to appear official to those whom I wished to question.

  The phone on Officer Leland’s desk rang.

  She picked up the receiver. “Officer Leland.” She listened, her shoulders tightening. “Yes, Chief.” A quick breath. “I stopped Mr. Murdoch at shortly after five P.M. yesterday. He was making an illegal left turn onto Main Street. Since you’d spoken to me”—she cleared her throat—“I didn’t give him a ticket, just a warning.” She picked up a pencil, rolled it around and around in her fingers. “No, I didn’t follow him. He drove off, heading east. That’s all I know. Yes, sir.” She put down the receiver, looking drained.

  She reached out to pick up a silver picture frame. She placed it on the edge of her desk, stared at the photograph of a young woman with soft brown hair, bright blue eyes, a devil-may-care smile, and a defiant tilt to her head. I saw a resemblance to Officer Leland, but she was a pallid version of the vibrant creature in the photograph.

  Officer Leland’s face crumpled for an instant, her hands gripping the sides of the silver frame. Slowly her face changed, from grief to stern resolve. She grabbed up the receiver, held it for a long moment until a buzz sounded. She replaced the receiver, her hand resting on it, then, with a deep breath, yanked it up, dialed.

  “Chief, may I see you for a moment? There’s something I have to tell you…Thank you.” When she pushed up from her chair, it seemed to take a great effort, slightly built as she was. She walked down the narrow corridor between the partition-separated cubicles. Each foot might have been weighted with chains.

  Whatever difficulty she faced, her problems were far afield from my tasks. I steeled myself against the sense that here, too, was someone in deep trouble. I couldn’t take on everyone’s problems. I was charged with aiding Kathleen and already I’d widened my concern to include Father Bill. I couldn’t add Officer Leland to my list.

  She paused at the doorway, gripped the knob, and opened the door. She squared her shoulders and stepped into the hall as if marching to her doom.