It's a Ghost's Life

by Erin McCarthy

  “Hello, Bailey, sweetie,” she said as we finally hit the bottom of the basement steps and could spread out a little. She reached out and gave me a hug. “What brings you here?”

  “Hi,” I said, hugging her back. “I brought my grandmother to mass this morning.” I pointed in the direction of Grandma Burke, who had made a beeline for the crawlers. She could move fast with the right motivation. “A friend of hers passed away last night and she wanted company today.”

  “Oh, no, how sad. But how sweet of you.” Her look was one of genuine concern. Jake’s mom has good genes, which I admit has crossed my mind more than once. Good genetics to pass on, right? But at sixty-two she looked a decade younger. She rode her bike, did Pilates, and baked giant Italian pasta meals with an enviable balance.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m going to brunch with my best friend from high school, Susan. We went to St. Augustine’s together so I just decided to go to mass with her.” She gave me a wink. “Then mimosas.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “Mrs. M, what’s up?”

  The male voice made me jump. Dang it. That was Ryan. It took everything I had not to turn around and acknowledge him. Let’s just all admit that espionage is not in my future.

  “Gotta dash, sweetie. Let’s make plans for dinner. I haven’t seen Jake since the New Year. Bad son.” She laughed. “Oh, and call me so we can make plans for Jake’s thirtieth.”

  That also startled me. Were we doing that? Planning parties for him together? Apparently, we were. I didn’t even know what kind of party Jake would want, if any, to be totally honest. Bad girlfriend.

  We hugged again and said goodbye and then she went to find her friend. I ignored Ryan and went to find coffee. It tasted stale and slightly like cardboard, but I needed it. Coffee junkie, I totally admit it. I sucked down half of it before turning around to face the room at large. I was in the corner by the garbage can. The only people near me where random children who came running up with empty cups and tossed them in the can.

  I got splashed with orange juice when a toddler misjudged distance but I didn’t even care. I felt morose. Grandma had gone off to chat with her friends, double-fisting doughnuts.

  “Are you ignoring me?” Ryan asked. “Rude.”

  He leaned against the back wall next to me and crossed his ankles.

  “No, I’m not ignoring you. It’s just hard to talk with a hundred people around.” I glanced at him. “Are you supposed to be here? I thought you were in trouble and this is holy ground.”

  “This is a bingo parlor and doughnut hall. This is not holy ground. But I don’t know if I could go upstairs in the sanctuary or not. I haven’t tried. I spent enough time in church as a kid and we all know there’s no saving my soul now.”

  “There isn’t?” That was disturbing. I eyed him. “I thought that was the whole point. Of you being back here, I mean.”

  “I don’t actually know what the point of me being back here is. Haven’t figured that out yet. I just know I got showed the door in heaven and found myself back in your kitchen.”

  Lucky for both of us.

  “So you and Mrs. M planning a big surprise party for Marner, huh? You know he hates that kind of shit.”

  Ryan had a way of making me feel completely insecure without even intending to. Or maybe he did intend to. Huh. Interesting thought.

  “No one said surprise party. And yes, I am aware that is not his type of thing.” He was far too even-tempered to get any sort of enjoyment out of an over-the-top reveal. “I know you hate it, but I do know Jake pretty well.”

  “Gross,” was Ryan’s opinion.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Listen, do you have any intel on Grandma’s friend, Vera? She died last night and I think she was murdered.” Ryan tended to hear through the grapevine whether someone was classified as murdered or natural death.

  “I’m kind of on the outs right now. I’m not getting a lot of information from the higher-ups.”

  That was disappointing. “Shoot. I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Why do you think it was homicide?”

  I explained my reasoning.

  Ryan nodded. “I could see that. But it’s more likely she just locked herself out. We can take a look at it though if you want.”

  That felt like a dismissal. A bit of a pat on the head even if he didn’t mean that.

  “Thanks.” My throat closed. I felt like I should say something about the date. “Hey, um, don’t think I’ve forgotten what day it is. I’m just not sure what to say. Hallmark doesn’t make a card for this, you know?”

  Ryan pushed off the wall and gave me a closed-lip smile. “Don’t worry about it, Bai. It is what it is.”

  That was what Jake had said.

  “Maybe I don’t want it to be what it is,” I said, softly.

  A little girl with brown curls appeared, ready to toss her doughnut wax paper into the trash. “Who are you talking about?” she asked.

  Startled, I panicked, which is very me. “Jesus,” I said.

  Ryan burst out laughing.

  “I was praying,” I clarified to the girl. That wasn’t far off the truth.

  She nodded. “Do you need a hug?”

  She couldn’t be more than five years old. She was wearing striped leggings and a navy blue dress over them. There was a red bow in her hair.

  I reached down and opened my arms. “I would love a hug.”

  She smelled like shampoo and sugar and her hug was sweet and steady.

  My ovaries might have fluttered, just a little.

  There might be something to this mom thing. Later, much later.

  When I stood back up and waved as she skipped back to her family, Ryan was gone.

  Since I missed all the doughnuts (those kids and seniors move fast), I talked Grandma into going to brunch with me close to my parents’ house. After we were settled at a table and I had ordered a mimosa, I eyed my grandmother.

  “Do you think Vera got confused? Does that seem possible to you?”

  “Heck no. Vera hadn’t lost her marbles. At all. Sure, I could see getting locked outside by accident but why would she go out there in the first place? Plus she has a cell phone and neighbors close by on either side.”

  My thoughts exactly. “I wonder if her phone was found on her. I think we need to call her niece and suggest an autopsy.”

  But Grandma shook her head. “I’m not calling her. You call her.”

  “Why? They don’t even know me.”

  “They don’t know me either! I’m sorry for your loss, and by the way, you should have your aunt cut open like a fish at the market? No, missy. I’m not doing it.” She shook her head rapidly.

  I have to admit, I was a little surprised. Grandma was not usually one to shy away from an awkward situation. But she did have a healthy dose of superstition about death, so maybe that was it.

  “Fine. Give me her niece’s number.”

  Okay, so Grandma wasn’t wrong. It was very awkward. But once we got past the initial condolences and the niece’s confusion as to who I was and why I cared, tension eased. Vera’s niece’s name was Eva, and she sounded like she was in her fifties or sixties.

  “I tried to get Vera to move down here to Ft. Lauderdale,” Eva said, “but she refused. I didn’t understand it because it’s freezing in Cleveland half the year and we don’t have any family there anymore at all, but you know Vera. No one was going to tell her what to do.”

  For all her reticence, Grandma was now listening with an eagle ear. “What’s she saying?”

  I waved her off. “It’s my understanding Vera wanted to stay independent.”

  “That is very true. Listen, this is uncomfortable,” Eva said. “But Vera had a lot of really valuable items in her possession and I’m not suggesting anything, honestly I’m not, but she has that housekeeper who has a key, and who knows where everything is… since I can’t get there until Tuesday, is there any way you and your grandm
other could ask her for the key back? Or change the locks?”

  Not suggesting anything, huh?

  I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t sure why she trusted us over a housekeeper Vera trusted, but in this case, it worked to my advantage. I would have access to search the townhome. “We’d be happy to help any way we can.”

  “Great. I’ll send you the housekeeper’s number. I really need to do an inventory of everything and I want to make sure nothing is… disturbed in the meantime.”

  I got it. Vera had expensive jewelry, clothes, furs. Probably antiques and china. But Eva seemed more than a little concerned about securing it. Interesting. Mercenary niece has Vera bumped up? Plausible, but risky because she’d have to hire a thug to carry out the dirty deed.

  “The police don’t seem to find the circumstances of her death suspicious. Do you?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked sharply. “Do you think she was being robbed?”

  “It crossed my mind. I haven’t seen the townhome, and the police don’t seem to think it was tossed like a burglary scene would be, but I find it very odd for Vera to step into two feet of snow in her Saint Laurent cheetah print boots.”

  Eva gasped. “She was wearing the Saint Laurent boots? No.” She followed that with a groan.

  I wasn’t sure if she was upset because she agreed with me it was odd, or if she was lamenting they had gone to the morgue with Vera, ruined. “With just a thin summer nightgown. It doesn’t add up to me. Do you think maybe you should ask for an autopsy?”

  “I hadn’t thought…” Eva sounded confused and concerned, easing my suspicions of her. “I mean, do you think it’s necessary? She was ninety-five years old. What would be the point?”

  “If something happened to her and it was a robbery situation you would want recourse,” I said vaguely. I just wanted to get her thinking.

  “Oh good Lord. This is a mess. Let me call my brother. I’ll text you the housekeeper’s information.”

  After we said goodbye and I ended the call, Grandma Burke shook her head. “Margaret, I think you’re stirring up trouble.”

  I hated the idea that even my grandmother thought I was a nutjob.

  “But I love it,” Grandma added. “Someone’s got to do something. If Vera was pushed outside, someone needs to be strung up by their toenails.” She reached over the table and grabbed my mimosa and took a hefty swallow. “Only yellow-livered bastards hurt kids and old ladies.”

  “I agree. That’s why I can’t let this go until we know it was truly an accident. Did you know Vera had a housekeeper?”

  “Sure. Her name is Pam.”

  “Then I think it’s time we had a little chat with Pam.”

  Good God, I was starting to sound like Colombo.

  Three

  “When are you bringing Grandma home?” my mother demanded.

  “Uh…” I glanced over at Grandma in the passenger seat of my car as we pulled into Vera’s townhome to wait for Pam. We were a good thirty minutes from my parents’ house at this point and we still needed to poke around inside Vera’s. “A bit later.”

  “Bailey, what on earth? You know you can’t keep her out all day. She’ll be cranky as hell when you bring her back here.”

  My mother’s voice was so loud Grandma heard her and gave a snort. “She’s the cranky one, not me.”

  “Mom, we’re having fun.” Or something like that.

  “That’s morbid,” she said, and hung up on me.

  “We’re morbid,” I told Grandma.

  “Better than what I’d call her.”

  That made me laugh. “Right?”

  I saw a car pull up. “Oh, I think this is Pam, the housekeeper.”

  Grandma and I got out of the car and met Pam in the driveway.

  Pam didn’t look like a thief who would kill an old lady to steal her jewelry. She looked like a preschool teacher. All wide-eyed concern and hand over her heart. “I can’t believe it. When Eva called me, I was just in shock. Vera was so full of life. It didn’t seem like her time.”

  It was possible Pam was a crackerjack actress. It was also more likely she was genuinely caught off guard.

  “I know,” I said, tone sympathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Wasn’t her time?” Grandma said, pulling her coat tighter around her. “She was ninety-five. When would be her time?”

  Pam gave a startled laugh. “Well, that’s true. It’s just Vera seemed so strong and fiery.” She held up the house key. “Eva said to give the key to you. I guess that’s okay. She didn’t have any other family and if that’s what Eva wants… I told her I could still keep my cleaning schedule so things don’t get too dusty but she wasn’t interested.”

  I felt bad for Pam losing her job. She probably came to Vera’s once a week. “Would you mind coming in with us and seeing if anything seems… disturbed? Not to be suspicious but none of us would know if an EMT lifted a Rolex.” I felt guilty slurring the first responders but I needed something of an inventory and Pam was my best shot.

  She also might get nervous if I was poking around Vera’s drawers and give herself away if she had been the one to give Vera a heave-ho then snagged a bunch of expensive jewelry on her way out.

  “Oh, sure. I can do that.” Pam glanced toward her car. “I do have plans this afternoon.”

  “We won’t be long,” I assured her. I had to cook fried chicken for Ryan to smell. Or, realistically, stop at a chicken joint on the way home.

  “Okay, then. I guess I can take a peek.”

  Vera’s townhome was hushed and still. I hated that feeling inside a house… it’s like the air hangs, waiting for something. Or someone. Like the house already knows no one is returning to it. I shivered. My mother was right. I was morbid.

  The décor was exactly as I would have expected it—eclectic and expensive. There were antiques mixed with mid-century modern furnishings and black-and-white photography. It was done the way Vera had lived. Without rules.

  “Everything in here looks fine,” Pam said. “Nothing is disturbed or anything. The back patio is off the kitchen.”

  Grandma had picked up a vase and glanced at the bottom of it. She set it back down and followed us into the kitchen. The cabinets were Brazilian cherry and the countertops a very flashy granite with lots of sparkles in it. Nothing was noteworthy about the kitchen except for the bistro table in the corner. It was littered with pill bottles. Some were spilled onto the glass top.

  “Does she always keep her pills on the kitchen table?” I asked, gesturing.

  Pam shook her head. “No. She has a little dispenser in her bedroom. On Sundays she counts them out for the week and puts them in a compartment for each day so she doesn’t get confused. But I’m not here regularly, now that I say that. I only know what she’s told me. I really don’t know how she lives day to day.”

  “Vera was no pill popper,” Grandma said, defending her friend. “This looks fishy to me. What are all of these?”

  Since the police had no intention of investigating, I figured it didn’t matter if I took a look at the bottles. I read the labels without touching them though, just in case there were prints from the killer on them. “Vicodin. Ambien. Acebutolol. So pain killers, sleeping pills, and… I don’t know that last one.”

  “High blood pressure,” Grandma said.

  Would that stuff be deadly taken together? I had no clue. I guess too much of anything can kill you. “Hmm,” I said, noncommittal. I didn’t want to speculate too much in front of Pam anyway.

  I went over to the patio door. It was a French door that swung out. It was weird to me that she would have a lock that locked automatically going to her backyard. Then I realized that she, or someone else, would have had to push the little button on the doorknob in in order for it to be locked. The deadbolt didn’t lock. Without that button pushed in it wouldn’t lock. I tested it. Yep. When you turned the knob it didn’t move. There was no way Vera would intentionally do that and step outside. Unless it was pure habit, which se
emed unlikely for a patio door.

  The only possible way it could have been her was if she truly did it without thinking, and closed the door. Or left the door open and it blew shut. But neither of those explanations gave any reason for her to be outside at night in January anyway.

  The patio hadn’t been shoveled at all and she didn’t have winter boots by the back door, which indicated to me she never used it in winter.

  Aware that Pam was going to think I was a freak, I told her, “Would you mind taking a peek at Vera’s jewelry and making sure it’s all there? Then we can head out.”

  “Sure. I’ll do that real quick.”

  As soon as she left the kitchen and we heard her going upstairs, I leaned out of the patio door and studied the snow. “Grandma, look at this. This isn’t footsteps in the snow. It looks really disturbed.”

  Snow in January tends to be a little crunchy, not powdery or fluffy. When you walk on it a distinct impression is left behind. So if a little old lady were walking out into snow in high-heel boots, you would see a footprint and tiny holes for the heel. This was a huge swath of snow disturbed, like someone had been dragged across it. Or thrown.

  “It looks like she tripped going out the door and tumbled right there. Maybe she broke a hip and couldn’t reach the door in time before it swung shut.”

  It sounded like my grandmother was starting to swing to the accidental death side. Maybe being here was just upsetting her. She looked agitated and pensive. Mortality is not a nebulous concept when you’re well into your eighties. I felt contrite. I shouldn’t have brought her to Vera’s so soon.

  “Well, that could be,” I conceded. “Come on, we should go before Mom freaks out.”

  Grandma snorted but she didn’t protest.

  I took pictures of the patio snow and then the pills on the table. By the time I had grabbed a few shots, Pam was coming back down the stairs.

  “Everything looks fine,” she said. “It doesn’t look to me like anything has been touched.”

  “Great, thank you. We’re ready to leave.”

  “Good.” Pam handed the key over to me. “If Eva has any questions she knows how to get a hold of me. I guess she and her brother will want to sell this place.”