Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost

by Hope McIntyre

  “Yeah, I heard he died. I’m sorry. But you know”—he looked at me helplessly—“I really do have to see my mom.”

  2 2 3

  2 2 4 P

  Hope McIntyre

  “Where have you been?” I asked him. “She told me you just took off.”

  “I had to get where he wouldn’t find me.”

  “He?”

  “Detective Morrison. He’s got me all tied up in knots so I can’t move. He wants me to retract what I said at Shotgun’s arraignment. To say that I wasn’t with Shotgun the night Bettina was killed. He’s going to make my life hell—and he’s going to make my mom’s life even worse—until I go along with what he wants.”

  “Well, were you there or not?”

  “Not really.”

  “Dumpster!”

  “Okay, okay. I was there, I was at Mallaby but I wasn’t at the house. I was out in the woods with my bow and arrow, I had plans to hunt deer.”

  “So Shotgun doesn’t really have an alibi?”

  “Not as far as I know. But he does have me. I’m not going to change my story again.Then I’d get done for lying at the arraignment. And I’d get my mom in trouble because she changed her story for me. But it was my bow and arrow they found, I know it. I left them in my truck at the end of the dirt road round about eight thirty that night, I had to go meet someone, and when I got back they were gone.”

  “You went to meet Bettina at the beach?”

  He looked astonished. “How in the world did you know that?”

  “Listen,” I said to him, “I’ll go and get your mother but in return I want a guarantee that you’ll answer a few questions for me. Like how come Bettina Pleshette had an assignation with you the night she was killed? Maybe you’re saying you were with Shotgun not only to give him an alibi but to give yourself one as well. Maybe Shotgun’s your alibi instead of the other way around.”

  How to Marry a Ghost

  P

  2 2 5

  “I thought you were my mom’s friend,” he said, backing away from me. “That’s why I came to you. I thought I could trust you to bring her to me without anyone seeing me. But now you’re pointing the finger at me. Okay, that was my bow and arrow in the pit but I swear to God, I don’t know how they got there. I’m backing up Shotgun because I like the guy. I want to help him. It’s that simple. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Except lie all over the place. Dumpster,” I said gently, “I know what the deal is with Evan Morrison.Your mother told me all about it, how you have this arrangement with him and—”

  He broke in. “That’s why I took off. That’s why I’m on the loose. I can’t handle that anymore. So far I’ve been making stuff up but I’m running out of stories to give him and I don’t want to have to rat on my friends. Plus the guy won’t leave me alone. He keeps putting the pressure on me to say I wasn’t with Shotgun.

  It’s like he knows I’m lying. He wants to nail Shotgun so bad, it’s scary and I don’t want to be a part of that.”

  “And you think running away is going to make it any better?”

  “No!” He was yelling at me now, totally distraught. I hated provoking him like this but I wanted to scare him into telling me the truth. “No,” he quieted down a little, “but I just can’t handle it anymore.”

  “You know Evan Morrison thinks you might have been Shotgun’s accomplice?”

  I stood back, ready for the outburst that I felt was sure to come, but he just looked sad.

  “Well, then I don’t have a prayer, do I?” Now he looked totally helpless.

  “But what was the meeting you had with Bettina all about?”

  “The meeting I didn’t have with Bettina, you mean. She was killed before I saw her. I asked her to meet up with me down at the beach by Mallaby, told her I had some stuff to tell her.”

  2 2 6 P

  Hope McIntyre

  “Which was?” M saw something.

  “Oh, it was just a way of getting her to meet me.”

  “Why did you want her down at the beach—alone—at nine o’clock at night?”

  “I wasn’t going to kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Although I might have come close.”

  “You didn’t like her?”

  “I didn’t really know her but I hated what she was doing to my mom. She was always trying to talk to me because she knew I worked for Shotgun. But I knew he didn’t want to deal with her so I kept out of her way as much as I could. But there was one time when she cornered me as I was coming out of the Old Stone Market. She started asking me about the life Mom and I had led back in the city.”

  So I’d been right about Bettina knowing about Franny’s past.

  “She asked me who my father was,” he went on, “and when I didn’t answer, she started making these insinuations—like my mom had had way too many men in her life and maybe—I mean, she was making slurs on my mom’s character that I just did not care to hear. And I sort of knew I wasn’t the only one she was talking to.” He shook his head. “I got the feeling it was only a matter of time before she started telling my mom’s customers at the market about her life in the city. So I felt I had to do something to shut her up. I thought if I made her think I had some information about Shotgun, I could hold it over her until she promised to stop bad-mouthing my mom.”

  “You gave her information about Shotgun?”

  “That’s why I called her and told her to meet me at the beach.”

  “What did you have to tell her?”

  But he was eyeing me suspiciously. “What does it matter?” he said evasively. “I never saw her.”

  He was standing right in front of me, blocking the door, his fin-

  How to Marry a Ghost

  P

  2 2 7

  gers drumming against his thigh, but I wasn’t remotely threatened by him. He was just a boy acting big, protective of his mother, protective of Shotgun, and utterly, utterly confused.

  “Did you see anything out there in the woods, Dumpster?” I stepped forward and stared straight into his face.

  “Oh man!”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “Well, did you?”

  “So what if I did see something the night Bettina died? Or the night Sean died for that matter. I’m not going to say a word.

  Whatever I say it’s going to get me in trouble with someone.

  Shotgun, Detective Morrison, Mom. That’s why I’m going to keep quiet. That’s why I need Mom to give me some money so I can get out of here. If I don’t tell anybody, they won’t know, and believe me, it’s better that way.”

  “Dumpster, we’re talking about murder here. Two murders.

  You have to tell what you saw. I’ll go and get your mother and leave you here together while I go to the funeral on the beach.

  No one’s going to come near here while that’s taking place.Then I’ll come back and you and I will talk. And you’ll tell me everything and then we’ll find a way to make sure nothing will happen to you.”

  Even as I spoke I wondered if I would be able to guarantee this. I had no idea what he was going to tell me. If he agreed to tell me anything.

  “You’re scared, Dumpster,” I said, “and I can see why.The real problem here is that we don’t want to talk to the very person we ought to be helping, the person who’s supposed to be clearing everything up. I can understand why you need to get free from Evan Morrison’s power and I’m going to help you do that.”

  Exactly how, I had absolutely no idea and I knew what I really

  2 2 8 P

  Hope McIntyre

  ought to do was go straight to Evan Morrison and tell him what Dumpster had told me.

  But I knew I would never rat on Dumpster. I couldn’t do that to Franny.

  “But my mom?” he said. “I keep saying I’m not going to say what he wants me to say but then what’s he going to do to my mom?”

  “I know. But she’s safe over there. Do you like Rufus?”


  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Well, he’ll take care of your mom.We’ll just have to let him in on the whole story so he knows it has to be extra special care from now on. He’s a pretty good guy and you can trust him. But are you quite sure getting away from here is the best thing?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “I need to clear my head.”

  “And you don’t think you ought to tell your mother everything when she comes over?”

  “I don’t want her involved. I said that already. She’s had enough going on, she needs a break.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. He could get it all out of his system with me, whatever he had been carrying around that had got him in such a terrible state. This was one way I could help Franny. But what would I do with whatever he told me? Would I go to Detective Morrison? Because the only thing I could tell him and walk away unscathed was that Shotgun was the killer—and that was the last thing I wanted to hear.

  But in the end I heard nothing because Franny wasn’t at the Stucco House when I raced over to get her, having told Dumpster to wait at the cabin. My mother opened the door and when I saw her I realized she was desperately in need of moral support.

  I think up to now she had been in shock and it was starting to hit her what had happened to Phil, just when she needed to find the strength to get through the funeral.

  How to Marry a Ghost

  P

  2 2 9

  Lucia came rushing up and began to dab at us with a clothes brush, flicking away imaginary fluff from our dark clothes. I knew she was trying to be helpful, to offer some kind of consolation, but it felt intrusive. And when we stepped outside we found a long black funeral car had drawn up to the Stucco House ready to drive us down to the beach.

  “Oh no, this is all wrong. It’ll get stuck in the sand. We’ll walk,” my mother told the driver.

  She took two steps off the porch and her heels sank into the sand and then to my amazement she stopped and kicked off her shoes.

  “Let’s go barefoot,” she said, “you know, like the last time.”

  So I slipped my arm through hers and together we set off barefoot down the sandy trail to the beach. I sensed someone behind us and turned to see Evan Morrison.

  “I’m sorry to intrude at this time,” he said, “but I understand Franny Cook is living here. I need to see her and ask her where her son is. And of course I want to pay my respects—”

  I was speechless. My mother was smiling uncertainly. She had no idea who he was. And then the most surprising person came to our rescue. Scott was running down the trail toward us and when he reached Evan Morrison, he placed his palm flat against the detective’s chest and pushed him away.

  “You should go,” he said, “and you should leave my stepmother alone. This is family only.”

  Evan Morrison looked at me but Scott was still backing him firmly away and unless he wanted to fall flat on his back into the dunes, he had no option but to turn and leave. Scott took my mother’s other arm and the three of us continued slowly on down to the beach. I had noted the reference to his “stepmother”

  and I wondered what my mother had made of that. And my mind

  2 3 0 P

  Hope McIntyre

  was racing about Evan Morrison. Please God, do not let him walk over to the cabin and find Dumpster.

  It was a glorious day and tiny dots of sunshine were dancing all over the bay. I didn’t know whether to be glad about this—the sun was shining as a mark of respect for the Phillionaire—or resentful because it appeared to be taunting the gloom that pervaded a funeral.

  Rufus and his surfer gang were standing around the coffin although this time they had their surfboards pointed down away from them.The tears started in my eyes and the service passed in a blur. I barely registered what was being said. I just gripped my mother’s arm, ostensibly to stop her from falling but in actual fact I know I was hanging on to her partly to hold myself up. Scott read something in a flat monotone and Rufus talked about what his father had told him of his surfing days. Louis Nichols spoke quickly about Scott and Rufus’s mother, glancing at mine from time to time, but then he went on to describe how the last few months of the Phillionaire’s life had been blessed with the joy of being with Vanessa.

  “What happens now?” I whispered to my mother as the short service came to an end. “Where is he going to be buried? Is it far from here?”

  “He’s not,” she whispered back. “He’s going straight to a crematorium—they wanted us to have the service there but I couldn’t face it. And then we’ll be given an urn and Rufus is going to take Scott and me out in his boat and we’ll scatter his ashes over the bay. Darling, I’m sorry”—she gripped my arm a little tighter—“there won’t be room for you in the boat. I’d rather it were you and me and Rufus but Scott has to come.”

  “I understand,” I said. But I was miserable. I wanted to be there, to be part of the family, a stepsister—even though I wasn’t.

  How to Marry a Ghost

  P

  2 3 1

  Midway through the ceremony I had noticed a tiny dot of a figure approaching along the water line from far up the beach.

  After a while I realized with a shudder that it was Martha. Was she going to jinx the funeral too? Or was she just stalking Louis Nichols? She materialized now at my side as I began what I had anticipated being a lonely walk back to the cabin from the Stucco House.

  “Not going with them?” She put her arm around my shoulders as I shook my head and explained why. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ll take you out in my boat another time and you can take something from his cabin and throw it in. Same thing. Do you want company now or shall I leave you alone?”

  “No, please come back with me.” I didn’t want to wallow in my grief all alone. I really needed her.

  “Thank you for your support,” I said. “I tend to find it awkward showing people how much I appreciate the things they do for me. I like to think I don’t need anyone but every now and then I really do and you seemed to know that without my telling you. I think that’s what I’m really grateful for.”

  “Oh stop!” she said. “Just remember it’s a two-way street if it makes you feel any better. I need your help with my writing.”

  “Oh,” I said, when we walked into the cabin and there was no one there. Had Dumpster got fed up with waiting and left or had Evan Morrison found him here and taken him?

  “What’s up?” said Martha. “Were you expecting someone?”

  I explained about Dumpster, expecting her to share my concern but to my surprise she just nodded.

  “Oh, I expect Evan’s got him.”

  “I don’t feel I can trust him for some reason.”

  “You can’t?” She was surprised. “Because he’s new around here? Why would that bother you? You are too. But you haven’t come from the South Bronx like he did. He must think he’s died

  2 3 2 P

  Hope McIntyre

  and gone to heaven working out here in the Hamptons. It’s a far cry from patrolling the public housing projects he started out with, all those dealers lurking in stairwells, watching the action in the streets for hours on end, crouched on a tar rooftop till he could barely move, finding dead junkies in burned-out houses.”

  “He was a narc? Sounds like you’ve talked to him quite a bit.”

  “He was a narc. I talked to him quite a bit,” she repeated. “Last night, as a matter of fact. He came by the trailers and we walked on the beach.”

  “Why did he come to see you? He’d questioned you before now, surely?”

  “Of course he had. With me living so close to where the killings took place, he wanted to know if I’d seen or heard anything.”

  “And had you?”

  “Well no, but then I remembered that I’d seen something the night before Sean Marriott was killed. I saw him walking through the woods with a shotgun.”

  M saw Sean w/shotgun in woods night before Sean killed. Bettina had meant S
ean was with the Purdey shotgun, not with his father, Shotgun, as I had assumed. And this “M” wasn’t Martin, it was Martha.

  “And you told Bettina this?”

  She looked at me as if I were crazy. “Bettina? I didn’t know Bettina. No, I followed Sean because it was such a strange sight.

  He was the least likely person to use a shotgun. I wanted to see where he was going with it and he went straight to this little blind Dumpster’s got set up in the woods, the place he goes when he hunts deer. Sean left the shotgun inside—for Dumpster, I guess.”

  “Shotgun told me they were friends,” I said. “In fact he said that when he saw the Purdey was missing from Sean’s room, he

  How to Marry a Ghost

  P

  2 3 3

  figured Sean must have loaned it to Dumpster. But surely you’re not suggesting that Dumpster killed Sean?”

  “Actually, I am. By accident,” said Martha. “And the real tragedy is that he probably did it with Sean’s own gun. He saw a shadow in the woods and he thought it was Bettina.”

  “But he knew Bettina wasn’t coming. He told me he overheard Shotgun talking to her on the phone, telling her not to come.”

  “But he told you that afterwards, right? He could have been lying. Maybe he didn’t know Bettina wasn’t coming and he was waiting in the woods for her.”

  “But why would he be waiting for her?”

  “To kill her, for Shotgun. Evan Morrison and I worked it all out as we were walking along the beach. Here’s what happened.

  Are you okay, by the way? I didn’t plan on coming over here and getting into this. I’m supposed to be consoling you and—”

  I nodded yes, I was fine—although I was a little shocked to realize I hadn’t thought of the Phillionaire for several minutes.

  “Shotgun Marriott wants to get rid of Bettina because she knows something about what happened to that groupie in London. Sean’s mother as good as told him that his father killed the girl. Shotgun is scared Bettina either knows what happened or she’ll uncover the truth as she digs into his past for the book. But he doesn’t want another murder on his hands so he talks Dumpster into killing her for him. Sean left the first murder weapon in Dumpster’s blind and the second, Dumpster’s bow and arrow, were found in that construction pit. It doesn’t look good for the kid.”