Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts

by E. J. Copperman

  “What’s wrong, Alison?” Luther said. He stood up behind me. “Are you okay?”

  I kept walking and made it to the archway between the two rooms. “Yeah, I’m all right,” I said. “I just felt the need for some more air.”

  “Alison.” There was something in his voice.

  I turned around. Luther’s eyes were cold and narrow, but his grin remained friendly and flirtatious.

  “What gave me away?” he asked.

  Thirty

  I retreated quickly into the den, where I’d expected to see Don and Lucy, if no one else, but the room was empty, probably for the first time in a week. My luck.

  So I reached for the number-one source of security and access in the twenty-first century, my cell phone, before realizing I’d left it on the dresser in my bedroom before going up to see Paul in the attic.

  So far, this was not turning out to be my evening.

  Luther didn’t rush to follow me; he seemed preternaturally calm as he walked into the den. “Seriously, what was it that tipped you off?” he asked, his voice as casual as if asking for a glass of water.

  But he was holding a tire iron in his right hand. And I wasn’t sure where that had come from.

  “You mentioned the cocaine deal. Twice,” I said. “You didn’t know about that.”

  He knit his brow. “Sure I did. You told me about it at least a couple of times.”

  I shook my head, still backing up and hoping to make it to the French doors, or at least to stall until somebody—anybody—walked into the room. Except Melissa. “No. I said ‘drug deal.’ You went straight to cocaine. You couldn’t have known that from what I’d told you. It could have been meth; it could have been weed. What happened with that deal? Why didn’t you deliver the drugs?”

  Luther’s face twisted at the mention of his former accomplice. “I wasn’t ever going to give that stuff to someone else to sell,” he sneered. “He came up with buyers for three million, and I sold the drugs—sorry, the cocaine—all by myself for five.”

  “And that’s how you got the money for your little ‘bike shop,’ wasn’t it, Luther? You didn’t inherit any money from your mother.” Under my breath, as quietly as I could, I started saying Paul’s name. Sometimes, he responds to that. Depending on where he might be on the property and what kind of mood he’s in. Now I’d annoyed him to the point that he was probably at the far end of the backyard and unable to hear me unless I screamed. Even Paul couldn’t get back fast enough to stop Luther from getting violent at that distance.

  There was, of course, no response. And all I could think was, Even if I get out of this alive, I’ll bet Steven sues for custody of our daughter.

  The Swine.

  “My mother died when I was fifteen,” he said, walking forward just as slowly as I was backing up. “She left me no source of income and bills totaling thirteen hundred dollars.”

  Someone had to be around to hear my cries, if I screamed. But the guests were generally not physically equipped to take on Luther—I was probably a better bet than any of them—and both ghosts appeared to have evacuated for the time being.

  Wait, though: Tony was upstairs, all contractor muscle and sinew, working on his secret attic-access project. He was a floor up and all the way on the other side of the house, but if I made enough noise, it might be possible to attract his attention. Again, speed was going to be a problem. Any help was at least six rooms away, while Luther was only a few strides from tire-iron distance.

  And it was so damn quiet.

  “How did you become a killer?” I asked Luther. Keep him talking, and he might not remember to kill me. “Big Bob didn’t care if he got the money or not.”

  “What Big Bob cared about was irrelevant,” Luther said. “Wilson cared. He needed the money, but Big Bob was all broody about the whole thing for days, telling me we should give back the coke—can you imagine? I come across this huge stash of cocaine from a friend who stole it, sold a big chunk of it, and skipped to Argentina. I’m sitting on dynamite, ready to change everybody’s life forever, and there’s Big Bob actually suggesting we should call the cops! Then I realized I could have all the money from the drugs for myself. Why have partners who can talk?” He hefted the tire iron and picked up his pace a little.

  I froze for a moment. If only I could alert someone…

  Just a few feet away, to one side of the sofa, there was a chance. But I had to distract Luther. “There were other things that gave you away, you know,” I said. That seemed to matter to him.

  He looked genuinely surprised, and stopped. Good. “What?” he asked, all innocence.

  “The time you came to pick me up on your bike,” I said. “When I came out of the house, you were working on those bolts with a pair of pliers.”

  I inched my way toward the sofa as Luther said, “I told you those were custom bolts. That was true. No regular wrench would accommodate them.”

  “No, but an adjustable wrench would,” I pointed out as I reached behind me in a move I hoped was subtle and unnoticeable. “And I now realize that it was weird you didn’t have one in your kit. But of course, you had already used your adjustable wrench to kill Big Bob, and now it was sitting in Kitty Malone’s basement to better frame her. You went to see Kitty just before you came to Harbor Haven and met me. Did you call the cops from a pay phone on the way to the Chronicle office?”

  My hand found its target, and hit a switch. It would take a moment or two to warm up, but if I lasted that long, I might have a chance.

  Luther sneered a little and shook his head. “This is the information age, Alison,” he said. “I sent them a text from a prepaid phone before I came here the day you and I had our picnic. And they bought it—hook, line and sinker.”

  “But you went to the Seaside Heights cops and talked to Detective Ferry about nobody doing anything with the Big Bob investigation,” I pointed out. “And you bailed Kitty out of jail. That seems counterproductive.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Luther answered. “Nobody was going to suspect me after I did that, were they?” He grinned. It wasn’t that attractive anymore. “Even if I lost the hundred grand, she’d just look even guiltier, and it wouldn’t occur to the cops to look at me as the killer. A good business investment,” he said.

  Oops. “Why Kitty?” I asked him. “Why frame her? What did you have against her?”

  “She was convenient. Once the police ID’d the remains as Big Bob and said he was murdered, someone had to take the rap, and she’d been vocal about not liking Big Bob. I just had to move the wrench out of my toolkit and into her basement.”

  “And all the time you were the murderer,” I said.

  “You make it sound so dramatic. It’s not a profession you pick up. I hit a guy with a heavy wrench, and I killed him. I’m glad I did it, but I’d never done it before, or since. Until now.”

  He made a quick move forward, and I had to take my chance whether enough time had gone by or not. With my left hand, I grabbed the microphone from a stool next to the sofa and gave full voice to the power of the karaoke machine amplifier.

  As “Time in a Bottle” began to play, I substituted my own lyrics: “Help! Anybody! I’m in trouble! In the den! Help me! Luther Mason killed a man! He’s trying to kill me!” Okay, so it didn’t rhyme, but I hoped I’d gotten the point across.

  And for a second, I thought it had worked: I saw the outline of a transparent face poke through the ceiling, but it pulled back as quickly as it had materialized, if it had really been there at all.

  “That was stupid!” Luther growled, and he lunged forward to grab the hand that held the mic. Even as he yanked it away and turned it off, I kept shouting for help. But it didn’t seem like anyone would get there in time.

  Well, he wasn’t getting me without a fight. I ducked down to avoid any blow from the tire iron (which was not yet coming), and kicked at his shins with as much power as my sandaled feet could muster, which wasn’t much. Luther stumbled, but otherwise there didn’t
seem to be much effect. Still, at this point, I was all about keeping him at bay for as long as possible until someone could walk in. Anyone except Melissa.

  I saw a face at the entrance to the den, and for a second held out hope again. Until I recognized the face as Francie Weston’s. Francie was in her seventies and not going to win any track meets or boxing matches anytime soon. Though she could dial a cell phone.

  “Call nine-one-one!” I yelled.

  “He’s not a ghost,” Francie sniffed. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  Some people are impossible even when you’re trying to get them to save your life.

  “I’m not pretending he’s a ghost!” I yelled as Luther turned to regard Francie. I saw his eyes estimate the distance between them. He was trying to figure out if he could reach her after I was dead. “He’s a killer! He killed Big Bob! Run!”

  Luther got a funny smile on his face. It wasn’t attractive.

  “Who’s Big Bob?” Francie wanted to know.

  Luther turned his attention back toward me, and grabbed my flailing arms and held them. I knew he’d have to let go with at least one to hit me, so I relaxed, trying to distract him from his task.

  “Why did you even bother getting me involved?” I asked him.

  “I dropped the wrench off in Kitty Malone’s basement when she was going to get us some lemonade and sandwiches in her kitchen. And I talked to the cops in Seaside Heights. But I needed eyes and ears. I came to Harbor Haven because Maxie used to live here. Figured she might have had a friend or two I could exploit, get someone to go to the cops so I could find out how much they knew. Kitty didn’t have any names, but she mentioned you lived in the house now. So I went to the newspaper office to see the story about her murder, see if any friends were quoted. Somebody not associated with me or the biker bar. The office wasn’t open when I got there, but then I got really lucky, heard you talking about being a PI and how you were interested in Big Bob—it was perfect,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d actually figure it out.” And for a moment, his expression softened. “I’m really sorry, Alison.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. Really. Just don’t do this.” Was that movement I saw behind him?

  “I have to,” Luther said. And he let go of my left arm with his right hand, and raised the tire iron. But he held me so tightly with his left that I couldn’t duck. I tried to block with my arm, but it wasn’t going to work. There just wasn’t time.

  I was about to close my eyes so I wouldn’t see it coming, but before I could, I saw something swing through the air behind Luther, and suddenly he fell backward as his legs gave out from under him. In his place was a pool cue, which seemed to dance in the air by itself until I saw Maxie’s hand turn into the light. She brought the cue down on the prone Luther three more times.

  “You killed Big Bob!” she screamed. “And you’re trying to kill my friend!”

  By that point, however, I don’t think Luther could hear her anymore. To be fair, he never really could.

  “My goodness,” Francie said. “There really is a ghost.” She turned toward the front room, shouting, “Arthur! A ghost!”

  I looked at Maxie, holding the now-broken pool cue in her hand. She wasn’t breathing hard, for obvious reasons, but she still looked like she had exerted herself pretty mightily.

  “ ‘Your friend’?” I asked.

  Her attention turned to me. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she said.

  “I wish I could give you a hug,” I told her.

  Maxie grinned. “You’re running on adrenaline. In a few minutes, you’ll go back to hating me.”

  “I’ve never hated you.”

  She took her eyes away in an apparent determined effort to avoid any sticky sentiment. “What are we going to do with him?” she asked.

  “If you wouldn’t mind going to my bedroom for my cell phone, we’re going to hand him over to the police,” I said.

  “You want this?” Maxie asked, extending the cue. “In case he wakes up.”

  “I doubt that’ll happen, but thanks,” I said, taking it. Regarding Luther, I told her, “We should tell the cops that it was your mom and not mine who was in Pennsylvania with me today.”

  She had already turned to go, but looked back. “Why?”

  I pointed to Luther, lying on the floor. “He’ll lose the money he put up for bail.” Maxie was still laughing when she disappeared into the ceiling.

  Thirty-one

  Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone arrived even ahead of my mother, which is a real feat if you know my mother. Of course I hadn’t called Mom (although you’d think her “Mom Radar” would have kicked in, but no), so McElone had time to cuff Luther behind his back before he completely regained consciousness, and had taken my statement, which indicated that I had knocked him out with a pool cue after he’d tried to kill me with a tire iron.

  Tony had gotten there first, of course, apologizing because he’d been listening to his iPod and had headphones on when I was executing my brilliant karaoke gambit that had almost gotten me killed.

  “Something pulled off my headphones and pushed me really hard, a couple of times, toward the stairs,” he reported. “Must have been one of your…friends.”

  He was standing quietly to one side now as McElone and two uniformed officers had taken charge. He looked downright embarrassed that he hadn’t been there to rescue me “like a man should.” Please.

  “Exactly why did you have a pool cue in this room when the pool table is all the way on the other side of the house?” McElone asked. She had actually seen the game room a few months earlier, so I was impressed she remembered where it was located in my floor plan.

  “I guess someone just left it there,” I told her. “Lucky for me, I guess, huh?”

  McElone’s eyes indicated that she didn’t believe me. “I guess.”

  From the entrance, though, Francie Westen was still braying, “It was a ghost! She didn’t hit him with the pool stick! The ghost did it!”

  Maxie and Paul both appeared near the ceiling, but said nothing. Maxie was intent on Luther, and looked like she wanted to hit him again. Paul, at about a 45-degree angle, was more cerebral, staring at the detective to see how she would handle the moment. Tony was on his cell phone, no doubt informing Jeannie of the developments.

  McElone, who is not fond of my house or the unusual things she’s seen happen in it, shuddered a little and looked at me. “A ghost?” she asked.

  “Some of the guests take the brochures a little too literally,” I whispered.

  Two uniformed officers were leading an understandably groggy Luther out of the house. He was alert enough to murmur, “You can’t prove anything. You don’t have any proof.”

  “He confessed,” Francie argued. “I heard him.”

  “He can be charged with attempted murder and assault, if nothing else,” McElone said. “I assume you’ll testify?”

  “Try and stop me,” I said.

  “There’s something else,” came a voice from the front room. Detective Martin Ferry of the Seaside Heights police walked in wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a pocket and a tie that was very undone. He regarded Luther for a moment, and gestured to the uniformed officers to stop for a moment, so they stood there while Ferry regarded some more.

  “See, we never really suspected Katherine Malone in this homicide,” Ferry said, looking at Luther but talking to McElone and me. “Mr. Mason here was way too clumsy in his frame job. I mean seriously, Luther. Did you really think we’d believe that Mrs. Malone held onto that wrench for two years and then left it out for us to find? That all those anonymous tips were from a concerned citizen with no ax of his own to grind? And a gentleman biker coming to the cops to complain we weren’t doing enough? Please. We could smell this one a mile away. We suspected you the whole time.”

  “How does that become another piece of evidence against our pal here?” McElone asked him. I assumed she had called Ferry as a courtesy, since Luther’s arrest
was for a crime (trying to kill me) that took place in Harbor Haven.

  “Did you think we didn’t know about the drug deal, Luther?” Ferry went on. “We knew. The FBI had a guy on the inside, and we knew every move you were going to make, but we didn’t have your name. And then you changed the plan at the last minute. Bad move, Luther. You got the Feds mad at you. And if you think they haven’t been looking into this case the whole time, you are dead wrong.”

  “You’ve got no evidence,” Luther mumbled. I’m not sure Ferry heard him. “I didn’t kill Big Bob.”

  “We have enough,” Ferry told him. Then he turned toward McElone. “The real kicker came when he bailed out a woman he didn’t even know with a hundred grand he just happened to have lying around. So we did some research into Mr. Mason’s financial records, and waddaya know, he managed to buy his business, knock it to the ground and rebuild it to the tune of two million bucks right after the coke deal went down and Bob Benicio got killed. Pretty big coincidence, huh, Luther?”

  “I didn’t kill Big Bob,” Luther repeated, a little more fervently.

  “Well, how about this,” Ferry countered, turning to me. “You wanted to find someone to take the fall for the crime after the bones were found. But you’d only met Mrs. Malone a couple of times. How could you make her the perfect patsy?” He turned toward me. “Who did you tell about Mrs. Malone saying she’d like to have killed Benicio?” he asked.

  “I didn’t tell any…Wait! I told Luther,” I said. “The night we went to the Sprocket for the first time, because I was so shaken by what Kitty had said. You’re right—but he’s the only one I told. And Kitty didn’t say she wanted to kill Big Bob. She said she wished she could have done it herself.”

  Luther’s eyes got meaner, as he must have seen the trap springing around him. And he was looking at me when he spoke, slowly.

  “I. Didn’t. Kill. Big. Bob.”

  Ferry, meanwhile, was going on with his taunting, circling around Luther as he spoke. “So the night the drug deal was supposed to go down, the two of you went to Seaside Heights. At first, we thought you made him dig his own grave, but that wasn’t it, was it? Under the boardwalk was where you had buried the cocaine. That’s what the two of you dug up, right?”