An Uninvited Ghost (6 page)

The card read, “Trent Avalon, executive producer:
Down the Shore
.” It bore the logo, in the top left corner, of VidChannel, a cable network that specialized in reality television and game shows aimed at an audience of teenagers and college students.

But apparently it also attracted some senior citizen viewers, because my guests were absolutely agog over Trent, who had apparently been regaling them with tales of his television exploits.

“Mr. Avalon,” I said, “I don’t mean to be insulting, but what does your TV show have to do with me?”

Warren’s eyes widened. “You’re not a fan of
Down the Shore
?” he asked. “I’m absolutely addicted to it!”

“Not everyone is in our target demographic, Warren,” Trent assured him, then turned his attention back to me. “I’m here to discuss the possibility of us doing a little business together, Ms. Kerby.”

That wrinkled my brow, all right. “I’m in the guesthouse business, Mr. Avalon,” I said. “You do television. Do you need to have some people stay here at the house?”

“More or less,” he said. “Is there someplace we can . . .”

“He wants to have the next season take place
here
!” Warren beamed. “Oh Alison, you really have to say yes!”

“They’re going to film a TV show in your house?” My best friend, Jeannie Rogers, four months pregnant and showing just enough that you wouldn’t think she’d just gained a little weight, was still walking faster than me on our trek from Stud Muffin, the local bakery café, to the Harbor Haven police headquarters. Jeannie was determined to gain weight only in her baby area and nowhere else, so she had decided to exercise until her doctor told her to stop. So far, her doctor had not told Jeannie to stop.

“Well, I have Larry going over the paperwork, but they’re in a hurry, so I’ll know by this afternoon,” I said. Larry Morwitz is my lawyer, and even though the only time we’d ever done business before was when he represented me in the divorce from The Swine, I knew he could handle reading a contract.

“What’s it about?” Jeannie asked. The sun shone brightly on her face, and she drank it in. Within six weeks, it would start getting warm, then hot in the afternoons, and neither of us would be walking this quickly, I’d bet. At least Jeannie would have the baby as an excuse.

“It’s something called
Down the Shore
,” I told her. “It’s . . .”

“Omigod! They’re filming
Down the Shore
at your house? I
love
that show!” Jeannie stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me. “How did you manage that?”

I was a couple of steps ahead before I realized she’d stopped. “The house they were going to use burned down,” I said. “A show about a bunch of drunken kids looking for sex in our own backyard? You watch that?”

“Oh, it’s way more than that,” Jeannie answered, waving a hand. She started to walk again, and I fell into step with her, but it was hard to keep up. “These kids put on such an attitude, and they think they’re entitled to, like, everything. It’s a riot!”

“It sounds disgusting.”

“It is. That’s the best part. There was this one show where this guy, he calls himself Mistah Motion, he went to the Stone Pony, where Bruce Springsteen used to play, and tried to get onstage to sing ‘Born in the USA.’ They threw him out the back door into a Dumpster!” She practically doubled over with laughter.

I shook my head. I was getting a tidy sum for me (a pittance in the TV business, no doubt, as VidChannel was sort of MTV’s poorer cousin), and was already beginning to question my decision to take it. The world had gone crazy while I slept one night, and I’d missed it. Now I was living in a house with ghosts and senior citizens, and by this evening it was likely to be invaded by four young people, each hoping for fame by being more obnoxious than the other three.

I used to wonder why people made New Jersey jokes. I don’t anymore.

Jeannie managed to gather herself to the point that she could ask, “How did they pick your house?”

“Well, the producer said there were two factors,” I told her. “First, I, um, had the space available for the next three weeks. They only need one room. And even that is just for show—the ‘boys and girls,’ as he calls them, will really be living in trailers parked behind my house.”

“What was the other factor?” Jeannie asked.

“Well, Trent said he’d asked around town, and people were talking about my house because of . . . you know . . .”

Jeannie looked puzzled. “Because of what?”

“Because of the ghosts.”

Jeannie grinned and punched me on the shoulder. “So you put one over on them, too, huh?” Jeannie, despite the most obvious evidence a person could see, still absolutely refuses to believe in Paul and Maxie. Her husband, Tony Mandorisi, however, has interacted with the ghosts, and is now a true believer, even if he can’t see or hear them.

“Mmm-hmm.” I punted. After a while, there’s no point in arguing with Jeannie—she’s a force of nature.

“How’s it going to work?” she asked. It took me a moment to remember what she was talking about.

“Once the papers are signed, the four ‘cast members’ show up about six tonight. With the full complement of guests from Senior Plus, I had just the one room open, and they’re setting up their operations in there, pretending the kids are living in it all together. The four of them move in after equipment is installed in the room—which the production company insists will cause no damage that they can’t repair when they move out. Then I guess this Trent guy figures out stuff for them to do and films it.”

“And they can shoot it all in three weeks? That seems fast.” Jeannie wasn’t asking any questions I hadn’t asked Trent the night before, but when he gave the answers, they seemed more reasonable.

“He says they want to air the show during the summer, when people would really be here on vacation. So they film hours and hours and hours of stuff, and then they edit it down.”

“Why didn’t they start sooner?” Jeannie asked.

“What temperature was it here two weeks ago?” I reminded her.

“About fifty-five.”

“A little chilly for the bikini scenes they so desperately need on the beach,” I explained.

“These people need to show a little gumption if they want to make it in show business,” Jeannie said.

“Gumption is not what they’ll be showing.”

We walked up the steps to the police station and went inside. At the dispatcher’s station, I asked for Detective Anita McElone (that’s Mac-el-OAN-ee) and was asked to wait. Jeannie lowered herself into one of the molded plastic chairs (orange) in the waiting area, but I chose to stand. McElone was already considerably taller than me, and I didn’t want to give her an added advantage.

Let’s just say our relationship, while not hostile, had hardly been friendly.

After a few minutes she appeared in the doorway, straight and rigid, took a look at Jeannie and me waiting for her and let out an audible groan.

“Whatever it is,” she said, “I don’t want any.”

I reached into the canvas tote bag I substitute for a purse (I carry a lot of stuff, and support my local public radio station) and produced my wallet, which I opened. The private investigator license that had been issued to me by the state of New Jersey was prominently displayed therein.

“I just have a couple of questions,” I said.

“The Dunkin’ Donuts was out of Old Fashioned Cake this morning, so I knew it was going to be a bad day,” McElone deadpanned.

“May we come in?” I asked, all professional and everything.

“We?” the detective asked. “Is your pal a PI, too?”

“I’m an expectant mother,” Jeannie piped up, standing. “You can’t expect me to stay out here with hardened criminals.”

“There’s no one else here,” McElone pointed out.

“There’s no one else here
now
,” Jeannie retorted. Like I said, a force of nature.

McElone waved us into the squad room and led us to her cubicle, which was kept incredibly neat and had only a picture of her family on her desk. A desk like that is the work of an unbalanced mind, in my opinion.

Her entire body seemed to sigh. “What is it you want to know?” she asked. “You do realize I’m not required to share any police information with you at all, right?”

“I was hoping you’d answer one question out of professional courtesy,” I answered.

“Bring in a professional, and we’ll talk,” McElone muttered under her breath.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jeannie asked.

“I said, ‘What is your question?’ ” McElone replied.

“Have there been any mysterious deaths in Harbor Haven recently?” I asked. “Something at the Ocean Wharf or one of the hotels on the shore, maybe?”

McElone looked at me as if I’d asked whether fish could walk upright. “The Ocean Wharf’s been abandoned for six years,” she said. “Who’s going there to die? And what do you want to know about mysterious deaths for? You trying to drum up business? Is that cursed guesthouse you’re running in the red already?” McElone is afraid of my house; she says it gives her “the creeps.”

“I thought I was asking the question,” I said.

“You can ask all you want,” the detective answered. “I don’t have to answer unless I’m satisfied that there’s a good reason for you to know.”

“I have a client who’s concerned that something might have happened—an accident, maybe—and I’m trying to find out whether it did or didn’t. Is that so sinister?” Minus the comment about it being sinister, that’s exactly how I’d explained it to Jeannie. Trying to tell her I was representing a ghost would have been pointless.

“With a mysterious death involved? Yeah, that’s pretty sinister,” McElone said. “Now, what do you know about this supposed incident at the Ocean Wharf?”

“
Did
something happen there?” Jeannie insisted.

McElone looked at Jeannie, then at me, then back at Jeannie. “You sure you don’t have a detective’s license?” she asked Jeannie.

“No, but if you don’t answer Alison, I might have to go and get one.”

The detective considered that, then turned her attention toward me. “When did this thing happen, according to your client?”

“Six days ago. Last Friday, not sure what time.”

“Friday was seven days ago. Today’s Thursday.”

“Do we count today? I’m never sure.” I started counting backward on my fingers. “Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday . . .”

“Never mind. Last Friday.” McElone punched up some information on her desktop computer screen. “No calls to that area at all on Friday.”

“Could a body have been discovered Saturday, or any day since then?”

“A body?” McElone shook her head. “If there was a dead body somewhere, I’d have heard about it.”

“So nobody named Arlice has died mysteriously lately,” I reiterated, just to confirm.

“Arlice! You mean Arlice Crosby?” McElone asked.

“I don’t know. How many Arlices are there in Harbor Haven?”

“Mrs. Crosby is the only one I know about,” she said. “Must be close to eighty.”

“And she hasn’t died recently?” I wanted to report back to Paul without any hesitation and have this whole Scott McFarlane thing behind us as quickly as possible so I could concentrate on the coming onslaught of hard bodies and empty heads about to take over my quiet little guesthouse.

“Not that I’ve heard about,” McElone said. “If she did, it wasn’t considered suspicious.”

“Do you have her address?” Maybe I could swing by and visit Mrs. Crosby to absolutely confirm her aliveness.

“We’re the police,” McElone said. “We have
everybody’s
address.” But she didn’t move to write it down, and she didn’t say anything else.

“Well, can we have it?” Jeannie asked, scratching her belly, which seemed just a little larger than when we’d sat down.

“Hell, no,” McElone answered. “Get it out of the phone book. Google it. Call her up on your cell phone. I’m not going to invade Mrs. Crosby’s privacy by giving her address away to every nut job who walks into the station.”

We pressed (Jeannie even attempted to go into labor), but it did no good. But even as McElone dismissed us and we scurried off into the mid-morning, I felt better about this affair. Scott McFarlane hadn’t killed anyone after all.

Probably.

“Arlice Crosby.” Phyllis Coates, editor and publisher of the
Harbor Haven Chronicle,
sat back in her squeaky chair in her cramped office and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “You’ve lived in this town all these years and you don’t know Arlice Crosby?”

Phyllis and I go back to my days delivering papers on my bike for her when I was thirteen years old. Before that, she was a crime reporter for the
New York Daily News
, and before that, she was probably in kindergarten. Phyllis was born to dig up the dirt and then print it, though always in a classy way.

“I took a few years off when I was married,” I reminded her. “I haven’t lived here
all
this time. Come on. You know everybody. Who’s Arlice Crosby?”

Jeannie had begged off the visit to the
Chronicle
office, or she might have been able to intimidate Phyllis, although I doubt it—Phyllis is pretty tough and usually amused by the goings-on in our town. Besides, Phyllis wasn’t McElone; she was perfectly happy to share information, especially if there was the possibility of a good story coming out of it.

She didn’t disappoint. “Arlice Crosby is the widow of Jermaine Crosby, who died at least thirty years ago. He made a fortune in the amusement piers here, in Seaside Heights, Wildwood Crest and Asbury Park, and then he died young. Ate too much of that boardwalk food and had a series of heart attacks. Today they might have been able to save him, but not back then.

“It was while I was working at the
News
, so I wasn’t around for it, but Arlice grieved, I guess—she holed up in that big house and essentially became a philanthropist, tending to Jermaine’s fortune so she could give plenty away but still keep a lot, too. Turns out she’s some kind of financial whiz, and she’s never lived like a rich lady, just a very comfortable one.”