Bones Behind the Wheel

by E. J. Copperman

  Chapter 6

  I happened to glance outside while I was filling the coffee urn the next morning. Josh had just left for Madison Paints with a vague assurance that he wasn’t going to do anything dangerous for Paul, something I might not have entirely considered if he hadn’t brought it up. What could be dangerous about a guy (or gal) who’d been buried forty years earlier?

  Sure enough, the hole Jim … somebody had dug in my backyard was still there, but the excavator itself had been moved back about thirty feet and the Lincoln Continental was gone. McElone had been good as her word.

  For all the adversarial banter the lieutenant and I bandy back and forth, we do respect each other’s professionalism, which meant I thought she was a good detective and she thought I owned a hotel for tourists. Respect can have a lot of different permutations. But given that I’d expressed some skepticism at her ability—or willingness—to get the car out of my yard promptly, I thought the fact that she deserved acknowledgement, so I got out my phone and called her.

  “What can I do for you?” McElone has the ability to make any sentence sound like it is uttered in irritation. That might happen only when she talks to me. I should pay more attention when she’s speaking with others.

  “I just wanted to thank you,” I told her.

  “For what?” She seemed to think I was setting her up for a joke.

  “For taking the car out of my backyard,” I said. “I’m not being facetious. I really do appreciate you taking my needs into account and working to get that thing out quickly. Thank you.”

  McElone must not have had her first cup of coffee yet that morning. She sounded confused. “The car in your backyard is gone?” she asked.

  That didn’t sound good. “Sure is,” I answered.

  “I didn’t do that.” I was right; it wasn’t good.

  “Well you can bet your last dollar that I didn’t pull the thing out of the ground,” I said.

  There was a noticeable pause. “I’m on my way,” McElone said.

  She arrived eight minutes later, which indicated to me she’d had the flashing lights working on her car the whole way before she turned onto my block. McElone pulled the car all the way into my driveway, which gave her quicker access to my backyard and effectively blocked in my ancient Volvo wagon until she left. I guessed that didn’t matter. I probably wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

  I met her at the site of the crater, which was just as large and just as deep but had no product of the Ford Motor Company living in it anymore. McElone did not look happy, even more than she usually didn’t look happy. Her eyes were narrow and her lips were pursed. She was trying to figure this one out.

  All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to be much help.

  “You didn’t hear anything last night?” the lieutenant asked by way of greeting.

  I handed her the Styrofoam cup of coffee I’d brought with me and she nodded thanks. “Nope,” I said. “I slept like a log, assuming logs sleep, and nobody said anything to me about it this morning. Of course, not everyone is awake yet, but Josh left for the store and I got to talk to him. He didn’t mention hearing construction equipment moving around in the night.”

  “Your daughter didn’t hear anything?” McElone has been around my family long enough to know who the most reliable member might be.

  “She’s probably just waking up now,” I said. “I can ask her to come down and talk to you.”

  McElone nodded again, this time indicating that was what I should do. She took a sip of the coffee and warmed her hands on the cup. November mornings on the Jersey Shore can be pretty nippy. Or it can be seventy degrees. You just don’t ever know.

  I texted Melissa and she responded almost immediately saying she’d be down in a minute and asking why the lieutenant was here. I didn’t answer, figuring that would get her downstairs faster. Teenage girls can be a trifle listless when they first wake up, which I know because I used to be a teenage girl. There are days I’m not actually certain I woke up from one of those deep sleeps. Maybe this was all a dream.

  The lieutenant walked from the hole to the excavator, which was parked and docile at the moment. She pointed to the sand in between. “It just backed up the one time,” she said. “There wasn’t a bunch of back-and-forth.”

  “What does that tell you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Before I even turned my head I knew Paul had joined us on the beach. Not having to worry about the temperature at all he was dressed in his usual jeans and t-shirt. At the very least he could have pretended to be cold; was that too much to ask?

  “I see the Continental has been removed,” he said. “But I don’t see a tow truck from the county. How did the lieutenant get it out of here so quietly?”

  I really wasn’t interested in scaring McElone by letting her know a ghost was nearby. She does her best to ignore that type of thing when she drops by, which she does at an alarming rate for a police detective. “So how do you think they got the car out of here?” I asked her.

  “They?” Paul said. “The police didn’t tow the car? Interesting.” He dropped down through the sand and stopped at a point where he was visible only from the shoulders up. “Not much in the way of tracks, either by foot or vehicle. This is baffling.” I’d rarely seen his face look so happy.

  McElone shrugged. “My best guess is that whoever did this took the car because they didn’t want us to find something out, and they were able to smooth over the sand after they left. What’s crazy is that nobody saw or heard anything.”

  “Yes.” Paul was agreeing with a woman who couldn’t hear him. “Certainly one of us should have been vigilant on the scene. I’ll check with Maxie to see if she or Everett noticed anything.” And with that he vanished up and into the house in his search for what would be a grumpy Maxie. Ghosts don’t seem to sleep, but she still hates getting up in the morning.

  That is usually true of my daughter, but Melissa appeared at the French doors and came out quickly, not even carrying a cup of coffee with a smaller amount of milk than she used to drink. She approached McElone and me and assessed the situation immediately.

  “Somebody took the car,” she said.

  “We noticed,” I told her. “Did you see or hear anything last night?”

  Liss shook her head. “No. And my room is the closest one to the back of the house.” It was true; the attic ran all the way from the front to the rear, but Liss’s bed is nearest to the beach side of the house because she likes to hear the sound of the waves when she’s trying to sleep. It had been chilly the night before so her window probably hadn’t been open.

  McElone scowled; she hates it when answers don’t supply any new information.

  “I’m going to have to get this area cordoned off,” she mused. “I don’t want the scene being contaminated any more than it already is.” She reached for a cell phone in her pocket.

  I held up a hand, possibly annoyed at the use of the word contaminated. “Hang on, lieutenant,” I said. “You want to section off this area of my property again?”

  “We’ll need some crime scene technicians out here to get as much evidence as they can,” she said, sounding surprised. “You do understand that a crime has been committed here, right?”

  Paul arrived from his foray into the house without Maxie or Everett, which he did not immediately explain. “It makes perfect sense, Alison,” he said. Just for that I didn’t look at him. But Melissa did, and she seemed to be in agreement with the two of them, which irked me more than the contamination.

  “I’m already stuck with all this construction equipment back here,” I, okay, whined. “Yesterday I had a car with a dead person in it sticking out of an enormous hole and people couldn’t walk back here. Then the dead person left, which was better, and this morning—only half an hour ago—I thought you’d taken the car away too, and that was my one moment of relief. Now you want to let a gaggle of cops loose back here for who knows how long and I can’t let my guests
walk on the beach like it says in the brochures. How is that fair?”

  The three of them stared at me and I could tell they were just trying to find a way to stop the crazy lady from talking anymore. Finally McElone said, “Gaggle?”

  I didn’t have a response. I didn’t have an answer to any of it. I had guests—admittedly just a few—and I had to be a hostess at a beach house with, for the moment, no beach. At least there were still ghosts. I turned my back and walked back up to the porch and through the French doors into the house.

  Adam Cosgrove, in a sweatshirt with Oberlin College’s logo on it, was just reaching the landing on the first floor when I made it to the den. “Good morning, Alison,” he said. He looked into the den expectantly. “Is there coffee?”

  Rats! I’d gotten caught up in the drama outside and hadn’t finished taking care of the urns. “Give me just a minute, Adam,” I said. “I’m really sorry. I was dealing with … never mind. It’s not your problem.” I headed for the kitchen.

  Adam was protesting that it wasn’t a problem and he’d just head out to the Stud Muffin for breakfast but I felt I’d let my guests down and that is the worst feeling you can have as an innkeeper. But his forgiveness was more appreciated when I made it into the kitchen again.

  Tony Mandorisi and his brother Vic had already covered my center island with a drop cloth and looked up from the blueprints they had spread out on top of it when I walked in. Their van was visible through the kitchen window. Tony smiled. “Alison.” Tony and I go way back. I actually introduced him to Jeannie, now his wife and the mother of his two children. But he still likes me. “Ready for some inconvenience?”

  Since I felt I already had some inconvenience, it seemed an irrelevant question, but my mind was fixed on making my guests happy. “I was going to get the coffee urns going,” I said. Surveying the kitchen and the obstacle course of tools and equipment the Mandorisis had strewn around it, I added, “Can I do that?”

  Tony looked a little startled at my unusual lack of conviviality, but he looked around. “We brought a Box of Joe from Dunkin Donuts,” he said. “Is that good enough?”

  I looked behind me to the kitchen door. Adam hadn’t followed me in. “Adam,” I called. “Is Dunkin Donuts okay?”

  There was no answer so I walked to the door and opened it. Adam was nowhere to be seen, undoubtedly on his way to the Stud Muffin even as we spoke.

  “I guess,” I said to Tony. Great. I already didn’t serve food at the guesthouse. Now I wouldn’t be able to provide coffee and tea in the morning until Tony and Vic had finished the work I actually wanted them to do. And my guests couldn’t walk on the beach because McElone was in the process of calling in the cast of CSI: Harbor Haven to cordon off my backyard.

  Tony walked over and put a hand on my shoulder, so I turned to face him and saw he looked concerned. “You okay?” he asked gently.

  It was a good question. “I don’t know,” I said. I wasn’t going to cry. That was key. I would not cry. I wasn’t that kind of woman. You know, who cries.

  “What’s the problem?” Tony said. “Can I help?” He’s a sweetheart, really.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” I said, quite noticeably not crying. “It’s just that it’s been a really long day.”

  “It’s only seven-thirty in the morning,” Tony said.

  And that’s when I started crying.

  Chapter 7

  I had managed to get myself back together before Melissa walked into the kitchen and gave Tony a hug. Of course she had remembered the Mandorisis would be here working today even if I hadn’t. Tony, who had tried valiantly to calm me down when all I really needed was the release, was being wary of me and went to work with his brother on their preparations for the beam replacement.

  Liss gave me a look of concern and asked if I was all right. No doubt the puffy red circles around my eyes had given me away. “I’m okay,” I said. “Feeling a little allergic. Is Lester up in your room?”

  Lester is Melissa’s puppy and always will be a puppy because he’s a ghost. Liss adopted him a while back and even though Lester, a happy little dog, is no longer visible to most of humanity, I can not only see and hear him but be affected by his fur as well. I’m allergic to dogs. But this time I knew Lester wasn’t the source of my watery eyes; I was.

  “Yeah, he’s not going anywhere,” Liss assured me. “I don’t think he knows he can walk through walls. You sure you’re all right?”

  “Absolutely. Go get ready for school.” It’s a useful mantra for the parent who’s lying to her daughter.

  Liss scowled at me a little, but not because she didn’t want to go to school. She liked the social interaction even if classes—in which she excelled, thank you—were not at the top of her list of fun things to do. Now she knew I was evading her concern and she didn’t like it, but couldn’t prove anything was up.

  She took a cup of coffee from Tony and Vic’s box (with their permission) and maneuvered her way to the refrigerator where she could find milk to add to it. As she walked to the kitchen door she asked, “Do you want me to tell Josh what’s going on with the car in the hole?”

  That was an odd question. “I can tell him when he gets home,” I said. “Go get ready.”

  “I’m already dressed, Mom. Getting ready will take five minutes.”

  Tony and Vic, possibly anticipating another female emotional moment, leaned over their blueprint a little more intensely.

  “We’re getting out of your hair,” I called to the Mandorisi brothers. “Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  I walked out of the kitchen with Melissa right behind me. And was very surprised to find Paul in the den when I got there, floating almost exactly in the middle of the large room and stroking his goatee enough to indicate to me the mystery of the vanishing car had somehow gotten more baffling while I was having an emotional catharsis.

  Melissa also noticed Paul’s body language (without the benefit of actually having a body) and looked up at him. “Did we miss something, Paul?” she asked.

  Paul’s concentration was jarred; he looked down at Melissa and seemed to notice, suddenly, that he was very close to the ceiling. He lowered himself to a more neck-friendly level for us. “I’m sorry, Melissa; I was thinking about something else. What did you say?”

  “You seemed like you were thinking about a case,” I said. “Is it something with the car in the backyard that isn’t in the backyard anymore?” I had promised myself I’d have no involvement in investigating the questions related to that Continental and here I was initiating a conversation. I should probably have gone down the hallway and straightened the movie room. Adam and Steve had spent the previous evening watching a 1985 Glenn Close movie Maxie especially enjoyed.

  “Yes. The lieutenant found something that appeared to puzzle her when she examined the scene of the digging,” Paul said. “She’s out there now overseeing the crime scene investigators. They’re sealing off the area.” Swell.

  “What did she find?” Melissa asked.

  Again Paul seemed distracted. “What? Oh, yes. She discovered what appeared to be bicycle tracks, although the sand had clearly been smoothed over with a rake or broom after the car had been extracted and removed from the area. But what was truly baffling was a small pouch made of velvet that had been left behind in the excavation crater.”

  * * *

  “You mean there was a pouch in the hole?” I asked. I thought that was what Paul had been saying, but he was saying it in the original Paul and that made things more difficult to understand to us foreigners.

  “Yes, and when the lieutenant examined it she was quite startled, if I was reading her properly,” he answered. “Of course I couldn’t ask her about what she’d found and I wasn’t able to get close enough to see the contents of the pouch for myself before she had placed it in an evidence bag and put it in her pocket.”

  “Did she say anything when the crime scene people showed up?” Melissa asked. “I guess she di
dn’t say what was in the pouch or you would know, right?”

  Paul lowered down a little more to look Liss in the eye. She’s not little like she used to be, but the ghost had started pretty far up in a room with high ceilings. “You’re correct, Melissa. I saw the lieutenant and the bag over to the CS investigator, but she didn’t say anything other than to suggest it be placed into an evidence file. But there was one thing.”

  He was trying his darnedest to make us feed him straight lines. It was my turn, I guessed. “What thing?” Not my wittiest bon mot ever but I still hadn’t had any coffee today.

  “I’m not sure the evidence bag the lieutenant gave the other officer was the same one she had pocketed. I don’t think it had the velvet pouch inside.”

  That was weird. “You think McElone is withholding evidence in an investigation?” I said. “I can’t believe that.”

  Paul shook his head, I think in wonder of befuddlement. “Knowing the lieutenant I would agree it’s extremely uncharacteristic of her. I wasn’t paying very close attention when she reached for the evidence bag but I believe it was from the same pocket in which she’d placed the one with the pouch. Perhaps she just retrieved the wrong bag.”

  “Did the lieutenant bag any other evidence while you were out there?” Melissa asked Paul. “I didn’t see her pick anything up when I was outside.”

  Again Paul shook his head. “I do not believe I saw her tag any other evidence.”

  I was thinking about the movie room again and realized that should be my priority. “Have I mentioned that I’m not involved in this little inquiry you two seem to be doing?” I said. “I’m a guesthouse operator. That’s my job.”

  Melissa’s eyes took on an air of annoyance one sees in a teenager … about every ten minutes. Parents are so inconvenient. But she was usually more tolerant of my obvious stupidity, being a more sensible and reasonable girl than I ever was with my mother, certainly. “You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “I think it’s interesting that this happened in our backyard. Nobody says you have to.” I believe that may be the most harshly my daughter has ever spoken to me.