Ghost in the Wind (9 page)

“I get what's on sale,” Mom said. “Don't be a wise guy.”

“I'm not criticizing what you bought. It's how much of it you bought.”

“How do I know how hungry Josh will be?” Mom still acts like it's a novelty when Josh shows up for dinner. She pretends this hasn't happened at least twice a week for the past year. “He works hard all day.”

I would like to explain right here that my mother was not taking a dig at me, not implying that I
don't
work hard all day. My mother believes everything I do is astonishingly wonderful. Yeah, you think it sounds good, but believe me it gets to be a real pain after thirty years or so.

My father, who was removing an uncooked beef brisket the size of the Battleship Missouri from Mom's backpack, floated over to the fridge and put it inside by hiding it in his
jacket (which was a very large jacket), walking into the fridge, and then emerging sans brisket. It's a system, and it works for him. “Hey, baby girl,” he said.

To this day I get the urge to hug Dad when he calls me that, but since that wasn't going to be a rewarding experience, I gave him my best grin and said, “Hi, Daddy.” He loves it when I call him that. “I'm glad you're here.”

My father looked over, eyebrow raised. “What needs fixing?” He knows about six times more about home maintenance than I do.

“Nothing, for a change.” Dad looked disappointed, so I added, “But the handle on the toilet upstairs is a little wobbly.”

He gave me a satisfied nod. “I'm on the job.” And off to the basement—where I keep my tools—he sank.

Mom and I finished unpacking the ingredients for our dinner. My mother can take something the size of a backpack and pretty much fit an entire restaurant kitchen's cooking equipment into it. The woman can pack.

“Is Mr. McTiernan still here?” she asked casually.

“Yeah, and I'm really sort of conflicted about it.” I updated Mom on the situation and told her how Vance had lied to my face only minutes ago under circumstances I didn't especially love.

Mom listened carefully, wiping down a counter I thought was already clean, and sort of puckered her face, which indicated that she was thinking. “You're reacting differently to this than to anything before,” she said finally. “You really want to help this man because of the music you listened to when you were young.”

“Well, yeah, but also because it really does seem like something crazy happened to his daughter, Vanessa, and nobody's done anything about it,” I said. “Isn't that a good reason?”

Mom's face twitched the way someone's does when they're worried that what they're about to say will offend or
anger the other person. “Yes it is, but that's never really driven you before. Anytime one of these investigations came up, you did all you could to get out of it.” Then she actually took a step back as if I was in danger of exploding and she wanted to shield herself from the fallout.

“This is different,” I said, doing my very best to exude calm because I didn't want Mom to think she'd crossed a line she shouldn't. “This is one I took on myself, and, yes, it was because of the Jingles and what they mean to me. But now . . . now I don't know.”

“The way you talked to Paul last night,” Mom said. “That wasn't like you.”

That again.
“I have to apologize to him. I just got unnerved when he told me not to trust Vance, and then I thought he was telling me I was a bad detective and I got mad.”

“I
was
telling you that,” came the voice from behind me. “I think you're in over your head and you should stop investigating immediately.”

I turned around to see Paul, his goatee looking more unkempt than usual and his hair mussed, which frankly shouldn't be possible, hovering near the kitchen door. It took me a moment to digest what I'd just heard.

“Don't pull your punches,” I told him. “Tell me what you
really
think.”

“I just did.” Paul is from Canada. Sarcasm just doesn't come naturally to him. It's more of a Jersey thing.

“Alison.” He floated over and tried to soften his expression. “I have been concerned about you since Vance showed up yesterday. You are not thinking rationally. You are acting like an overenthusiastic teenager when he is around. Whatever this connection is that you have to Vance, it clouds your judgment. You're getting yourself into a situation you would never allow under normal circumstances.”

“The part I can't get past is where you're saying I'm a bad investigator,” I told him. “That's what's hurting me.”

Paul looked away. That isn't ever a good sign, in case you're wondering.

“So deep down that really is what you think,” I said. “Even when you told me I was improving, you meant that I was marginally less awful than before, is that it?”

“No.” But he still wouldn't look at me. “I really do think you have potential, and that you are progressing.” Then his eyes narrowed and he did face me. “I thought you never cared about this before. I thought it was a question of commitment.”

So that was it. Paul had been harboring resentment because I hadn't been taking his “detective agency” seriously enough. Well, I do believe that he tends to see it as something more than it is—namely, a real detective agency—and that tends to lead to some less than reverential remarks on my part. That, too, is a Jersey thing.

“I'm sorry if I made you feel that way,” I said. From the corner of my eye I could see Mom beaming at me. She loves it when I'm reasonable, if only because she doesn't get to see it very often. “I act like that because I'm insecure about it.” Jeez, I hadn't opened up this much to the therapist I saw when The Swine left for sunnier climes. “I didn't mean to give you that impression.”

Naturally, the next thing I'd hear would be Paul apologizing for the way he had made me feel and I could be incredibly gracious about it. Then we'd be back on equal footing, he could tell me what the heck to do about Vance and the Vanessa investigation and I could breathe out for the first time today.

“Very well, then,” he said.

I waited.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi . . .
Nothing.

“That's it?” I said. “I apologize for something and open up like that and all I get back is, ‘very well, then'?”

Paul looked surprised. “I don't understand. What were you expecting?”

“Don't you want to apologize for making me feel like
you thought I was a bad detective? And then help me figure out Vanessa's death?”

I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law, but I'm pretty sure I saw Mom wince.

Paul gave me the same look he would undoubtedly give someone who told him the aliens were coming for her and she knew because of the signals coming from her tinfoil hat. “I'm sorry,” he said in a tone so unconvincing I doubted Melissa would have believed him. When she was two.

“No, I can tell you aren't.”

He spread his hands and looked toward the ceiling, no doubt for guidance in dealing with someone irrational. Which would be the place to look, because Maxie was probably up there somewhere. “I honestly don't know what you want,” he said. “I warned you from the very first that I thought taking on Vance McTiernan's investigation was a mistake, yet you decided to go ahead. That's your prerogative, but I don't see why my opinion on the subject should change.”

Mom was filling the teapot with water. It was much too early to start cooking dinner and she's uncomfortable in a kitchen unless she's making
something
. “I think Alison is trying to ask you for help,” she said to Paul. Then she glanced toward me. “Isn't that right, honey?”

I didn't know how to answer. Paul clearly wanted to make some kind of nutty point about how he was right and I should have listened to him all along, and I wanted him to validate my efforts and help me with something I thought was becoming too difficult for me to handle alone.

If I'd wanted to have this kind of problem, I could have stayed married to The Swine.

It didn't matter anyway, because Paul looked at Mom and answered, “I don't see how I can help with an investigation that is based on the statement of an unreliable client.”

There were sixteen different ways I could have argued with that. I could have pointed out that we'd had clients who
had been less than completely truthful before and Paul hadn't minded. I could say there was evidence—Paul's favorite thing—beyond just what Vance had told us. That there was some strange data in the medical examiner's report. That it was weird Vance had ordered me off the case as soon as I'd found something to investigate. Four or five other tactics might have come to mind.

Instead I said, “This is because I asked him to play during the spook shows, isn't it?”

Paul stared at me, opened his mouth, made no sound, and sunk down through the kitchen floor.

“That didn't go so well, did it,” I said to Mom.

“No dear, it didn't,” she answered. “Would you like some cocoa?”

The ghost with the wagon was outside the house when I went to pick up the newspapers from the curb the next morning.

“Have you seen Lester?” she demanded as soon as I walked out the front door.

“Not yet,” I said. I don't have many neighbors but I do usually wear an unconnected Bluetooth device in my ear when I'm outside, just to cover any talking I might do to people who “aren't there.” I didn't have it on now, just to retrieve the papers, but on the other hand, my building does have a sign on it that says
Haunted Guesthouse
. Passersby would just have to cope.

“I've been asking around, but I haven't gotten much response. Can you give me a more detailed description?” I asked as I bent to pick up the
New York Times
. We are a classy establishment.

“Not very big. Light hair. Big brown eyes. Not too bright.” This was essentially a reiteration of her last description.

I also picked up the
Asbury Park Press
. Got to have the local news and Phyllis only puts out the
Chronicle
once a week. “How did you two get separated?” I asked the ghost.

She had clearly not been very lucky when she was alive; her clothes were a tick or two short of ragged and her hair was straggly and unwashed. She had not regenerated, as Everett had done, into a younger, happier, stronger version of herself when she'd died.

“He just wandered off,” she said. “Lester does that.”

Finally, I picked up the
New York Post
. Not all my guests are that classy. “It would help if I knew Lester's last name,” I told the woman.

“He doesn't have one,” she said with a why-don't-you-know-that tone, and vanished, wagon and all.

Well, that was helpful. Now I had to deal with a prickly Paul and a quest for Lester with no road map for either. That didn't even include Vanessa and Vance McTiernan and what I was supposedly doing for them, with even less help than usual.

Given all that, it still would have been so much better if Paul had not shown up for the Saturday afternoon spook show.

All of the guests were present for this one except Roberta and Stan Levine, who'd told me that they were taking a day trip to Atlantic City (while there still is an Atlantic City) and expected to be home quite late. With Melissa here to do her “flying girl” extravaganza, it should have been a rousing performance, giving the assemblage their money's worth for choosing to stay in an establishment that proudly displayed said “Haunted Guesthouse” sign to the left of its front door.

But Paul, although gamely going through the motions (even though only Liss, Mom and I could see them) was barely entertaining enough to get a kid to hand over a quarter. And the more the guests asked if “that musical ghost” was going to come and play for them again (a question for which I had no answer), the more Paul seemed disinterested and tired. He didn't even try to pull the tablecloth out from
under the extremely cheap (and hopefully unbreakable) knickknacks I had especially displayed on the den's side table, something that always presented a welcome challenge to Paul. He had never successfully accomplished the feat but had always seemed determined to improve to the point where he would do it.

Until now.

Maxie, rustling the curtains and “flying” an apple around the room, looked at her partner and demanded, “Are you going to pull your weight, or what?”

Paul, brows low, turned toward her and put down the orange he'd been . . . holding. “I don't understand,” he said.

“You're making me work too hard,” Maxie said, shaking the light fixture in the center of the room (I hesitate to call it a chandelier for fear of making it sound too grand). “Get in the game.”

“I'm doing what I always do,” he answered. Except he had forgotten to “fly” Melissa down the stairs and she was no doubt waiting on the second floor as we spoke for her cue.

I was trying not to get involved in the argument because the guests were present and needed to feel that the “entertainment” going on was wholehearted and enthusiastic, for their benefit. Mom was off in the kitchen doing something, as she prefers not to attend the spook shows. She always worries that something's going to get broken.

“Are there any questions for the spirits?” I asked. If the guests feel like they're in contact with Paul and Maxie, they can tell their friends at home about the direct interaction they had with ghosts. You can laugh if you want to, but I've gotten guests on referral this way.

“Yes,” Berthe Englund piped up, raising her hand like a second-grader. “Can they communicate with my late husband?”

This is not an unusual question. Paul can do his Ghosternet thing and try to find some dead people but since the
system is so random—some people (like Vanessa) don't show up as ghosts, others don't communicate the way Paul does and there is a percentage that legitimately don't want to talk to the living anymore—we don't advertise that fact. Not to mention it would tie up all of Paul's time and he considers the Ghosternet stuff personal.

“It doesn't really work that way,” I told Berthe. “Otherwise, I would have checked in on Abraham Lincoln by now.” That's my prepared answer for such questions and it got the chuckle it often does. Truth be told, I had once asked Paul to see if he could link minds with the Great Emancipator but Paul apparently didn't have Abe's area code because there was no answer. The president was probably trying to find a revival of
Our American Cousin
so he could see how the play ended.

“Oh,” Berthe looked disappointed. Some people sign up for a trip to the guesthouse just for such purposes, although I've asked Senior Plus Tours to be clear that I'm not a medium, so much as I mainly just communicate with the two ghosts already not-living in the house.

“I'm sorry about that, Berthe. Any other questions?” Got to keep the show moving. Maxie picked up a pair of scissors from the table and pretended to cut Tessa's hair without actually doing so. But she was glaring at Paul, who simply watched the whole time. Tessa didn't seem to notice, but the other guests had a chuckle when it was clear no hair was being removed.

“Yeah.” Jesse Renfield stood up, apparently believing he wouldn't be heard if he were sitting. “Is it scary being dead? I mean, should we be afraid of it?” It was a reasonable question, and would have been a better indicator of Jesse's deep thinking if he hadn't been wearing a Speedo and a T-shirt that read, “Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas.” I mean, we don't—gas stations in New Jersey are all full-service by law—but why would a man wear that shirt?

“Answer number twelve,” Maxie said after waiting for Paul to reply and seeing him stare, glassy-eyed, toward the kitchen door.

“Maxie says it's not something she's glad happened, but it's not the terrifying existential void some believe it to be.” That was close to the standard answer Paul traditionally gave, which was, “We're not happy about it but we like being here for you.” I embellish a little.

“Is there a heaven?” Maureen Beckman asked as Maxie threw an orange at Paul, who reflexively caught it.

I pretended to wait for an answer. “Paul says he doesn't know,” I told Maureen. “Since he died, he's only been here.”

“I didn't say that,” Paul informed me, as if I wasn't aware. “And I do hope to move on someday.” I knew that, and hadn't intended the comment as a dig at his inability to leave the premises, which Paul's touchy about.

“How about a hell?”

Maxie and I turned to see Vance McTiernan, acoustic guitar in hand, hovering in the kitchen doorway.

Paul didn't have to turn. Vance was right where Paul had been staring all along. He'd been waiting for Vance.

Seeing me turn, Tessa followed my eyes and saw the guitar suspended in midair. “Oh, the musician is back!” she said, and actually clapped her hands.

Berthe and Maureen joined her. Jesse, who had not been at the first performance Vance had delivered, held back his adulation. He was a show-me kind of guy. Or he had no idea why they were clapping. Either way.

“Vance,” I said under my breath. “Thank goodness.”

Paul's eyes darkened. He didn't evaporate, but he folded his arms defensively and faded—literally—back into the wall. Only his face remained in the den.

I stepped forward. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced, “Vance McTiernan!” There was not a flicker of recognition in the crowd, but they did offer light applause.

Vance began to play, quietly at first and then with more conviction. I immediately recognized the tune, from the Jingles first album. It was
Sunflower
, a simple, heartbreaking remembrance of first love. Again, Vance was aware that most of his audience couldn't hear his vocal, so he concentrated on the acoustic guitar. But for Maxie, Paul and me (well, maybe not for Paul), he sang:

Sunflower

You gave a lonely boy

a taste of power

Then you took it away . . .

It was an adolescent's point of view but when I'd first heard it, I
was
an adolescent, so it continued to resonate and evoke nostalgia in me. While he was singing, I forgave Vance for manipulating me, for confusing me, for making me question my friendship with Paul. Music is not a benign tool—it can save your sensibility or talk you into some terrible mistakes. I didn't know which it was doing now.

Vance finished the song and got the rousing round of applause—even from Jesse—that he'd known he would. He even bowed, probably out of habit.

Then he turned toward me. “That was my way of apologizing,” he said. I didn't have to ask what he thought he'd done to warrant an apology.

“Accepted,” I said, quietly so the guests couldn't hear. It wasn't that they needed to be left out of the conversation so much as the time it would take to explain it.

Paul rolled his eyes at the scene. His mind is tuned to logic and fact. He makes his decisions based on things he can prove. Music is a pleasant distraction to Paul, but actually letting it dictate one's actions is absolutely unimaginable to him. I understood, and did not take him to task for his obvious distaste at what I'd thought was a tender moment.

Maxie put her fingers in her teeth and whistled. Maxie is the very embodiment (if she had a body) of class.

The guests, assuming Vance's performance was the finale for the afternoon show, started to gather what few things they had brought and stood to leave. Paul was at least not so delusional to think he could top what had just gone on but he did look somewhat offended by their total indifference to him as he waved a napkin in the air. Nobody looked.

He gave a glance toward the side table, considering the tablecloth trick, then probably remembered the times it hadn't worked (all of them) and sighed a bit. He sunk through the floor to go lick his wounds, I assumed.

Vance stashed his guitar behind the sofa and watched Paul leave without comment. Maxie, who usually clocked out like an hourly employee after the spook show, floated down and “sat” on an armchair, watching Vance with a kind of interest I couldn't read from her face.

“You always played music?” she asked. I had to squint to make sure it
was
Maxie, since I'd never heard her evince interest in anyone who wasn't her or, lately, Everett. But mostly her.

“Saved me,” Vance said. “Me mates and I, well, we heard the records coming over from America and we wanted to be those guys. Otherwise, I probably would have ended up a hooligan, you know, kicking people's heads in after a bucket of beer for absolutely no reason at all. I wasn't any good at school, but I could play me some guitar.” I got the feeling this was a rehearsed response, something he'd used in the countless interviews he'd done during his life. Parts of it—the phrase “bucket of beer” especially—I thought I remembered from an article in
Rolling Stone
.

Now,
this
was the sort of exclusive interview Phyllis would die for, except that she'd actually have to be dead to get it. So I gave up the idea.

“I wish I'd been good at something,” Maxie said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked as Maxie frowned.
“You were an up-and-coming interior designer before you got poisoned.” All right, so I should have stopped before the part about the poison. I admit it. I had gotten Maxie annoyed now, and that was not a good idea.

“Do you think you could teach me guitar?” she asked Vance, completely ignoring what I'd said.

“I would be tickled to try,” he said.

Maxie giggled. No, really. “You can't play guitar while you're being tickled,” she crooned.

His face brightened; he'd seen this before. I had, too, but never from Maxie—she was
flirting
. I didn't think such a thing was possible. It was disgusting.

“So how's Everett?” I asked her. “Are you seeing your
boyfriend
tonight?”