Ghouls Just Want to Have Fun (5 page)

"Joe Townsend," she said, and slammed the refrigerator door shut. "Every night for the past two weeks. Except for the nights she doesn't come home at all. Frankly, I don't see where the woman gets the energy." She shook her head. "I told your father he needed to have a talk with her. Her behavior seems a bit... obsessive."

Obsessed was more like it. And with Ranger Rick's grandpappy, of all people.

"You know Gram and her phases," I said, trying to comfort my mother, who, with my father at work all day, inherited the dubious honor of being my grandmother's keeper much of the time. "Remember the time she was bent on joining that commune?"

"Nudist colony, you mean," my mother said.

"Or how she had her heart set on auditioning for
American Idol?
"

My mother shook her head. "How could I forget? It was just last season."

"And the time she swore she'd contacted Clark Gable on her Ouija board and sat for two days straight in a turban and beads, trying to reestablish the connection?"

"Lord help us," my mother said, and sat down at the kitchen table.

"So maybe her spending time with Joe Townsend isn't such a bad thing after all." I patted my mother on the shoulder, deciding I probably shouldn't mention the K-Y lubricating oil. "At least Joe is living and breathing--and wears clothes." If neon-colored sweat suits that could blind you in the sunlight counted positively, that is. "Besides, I think it's kind of cute--the two of them--in a blech sort of way."

"Who's cute? That Ranger Rick fella you wouldn't know what to do with even if he came with an instruction manual, step-by-step directions and a CD tutorial?"

My gramma tromped into the dining room, wearing short black boots with two-inch heels that would have crippled most women her age. You gotta hand it to her. Despite having fallen a half-dozen times in the past few years, Gram insists on wearing heels. She's hoping to hide the fact that she's lost several inches in height due to osteoporosis. My mom calls it foolhardy. I call it classic Hellion Hannah.

"We were talking about Joe," I said.

Gram pulled a chair out and sat down. "Joe? Joe Townsend?" She snorted. "He's not cute. He's macho."

I had to grin. The idea of calling bony Joe Townsend macho was akin to calling me Trump
Apprentice
material.

"Are we talking about the same Joe Townsend?" I asked. "Pale, skinny guy with Polident breath and superhero fantasies? A legend in his own mind?"

"A legend like John Wayne, you mean," Gram said, pulling out her compact and checking lips outlined with dark black lip color that brought Kelly Osbourne to mind. "You remember how he rode shotgun with you on that Palmer case? Tailing suspects and flushing out the bad guys? How he helped you discover that dead body? The second one, wasn't it? How he backed you up the night you about bought the farm? The first time, that is. Or was it the second?"

I could sense the escalating tension in my mother's shoulders. I gave them an awkward squeeze, wishing as always that I had inherited a natural ability to offer comfort.

I'm not the most affectionate person in the world. With people, that is. But my critters? I lavish attention on them like a twenty-year-old starlet does on a rich but ancient and ailing husband. I cringe to think what Dr. Phil would say about this behavior. Probably something along the lines of my overcompensating with my pets to make up for a lack of physical closeness with people. Like I need a TV shrink to tell me that.

"So how is Grandville's number-one nosy neighbor doing?" I asked. "Still packing unregistered heat?"

My mother jumped to her feet, mumbling something about husbands who were in serious denial, and left the room. I sat down in her chair and found myself staring at the collection of rings that adorned my gramma's arthritic fingers. Her faux nails were painted an ominous black, to match her lips. She opened her purse--which looked more like an overnight bag, I thought--and brought out a zippered mauve-colored cosmetic bag. She removed some makeup and refurbished herself in her compact mirror.

"Not bad for a woman of a certain age," she said, patting her blue hair. "I think it's that daily fiber therapy I'm on. Food moves through me quicker than beer through a pimply-faced teen boy taking his first drink. Last time they shoved an endoscope up me, I was clean as a whistle. Said I had the colon of a fifty-year-old."

I wrinkled my nose. Way too much information.

"Mom says you're going out again tonight," I said.

Gram gave her reflection a sour look. "Tattletale," she hissed.

"Now, Gram, she's only concerned that you might be overdoing it a bit," I told her. "She's just looking out for you."

"More like looking to cramp my style," she snapped. "I can't help it if she prefers to spend her time in front of a big illuminated electronic square. Me? I prefer human contact."

I rolled my eyes. Gram's favorite chair had a permanent imprint of her butt cheeks from hours spent in front of the tube, watching her TV heartthrob, Bob Barker, plus a seemingly endless selection of daytime soaps and Court TV.

"Mom's computer is her workplace," I reminded my gramma. "Besides, it's getting darker earlier, and the folks just want to know you are in for the night, safe and sound."

"I don't need a warden," Gram said. "As a matter of fact, I've been getting along so well, I've been thinking about moving back into my place. You wouldn't mind a roommate, would you, Tressa? Two single gals sharing digs?"

I suddenly knew what it felt like to be thrown into the middle of one of your worst nightmares, lock, stock and serial killer. I'd taken up residence in my grandmother's double-wide mobile home after several tumbles there necessitated Gram's full-time supervision. My grandma's double-wide is not your typical extra-long trailer on wheels; it's more like two really big trailers stuck together. With two bedrooms, two baths, and the requisite eat-in kitchen, as well as a respectable sized living room, the domicile is large but homey. Like a ranch-style house. The switcharoo was a win-win situation for all of us. Well, except for my mother, Warden Jean Turner, her mother-in-law's keeper. I was out of my folks' house and on my own. (Okay, so I was just a short walk across the driveway from them.) And my grandmother had help available at all times. The idea of sharing even a hotel room with my gramma for one night--let alone a domicile, forever--left me reaching for a handful of Excedrin with a Pepto chaser.

"You want to move back into the double-wide?" I asked, hoping the somebody-kill-me-or-wake-me-up edge to my voice wasn't apparent. Gramma sat across from me, reapplying dark lavender lipstick to her upper lip with generous strokes.

"I'm thinking about it," she said. "It's certain I won't be cramping your style," she went on. "All you ever do is work, eat, sleep, feed critters and pick up their droppings."

I felt the noose tighten.
Kill me. Kill me now.

"But what if you take another spill? The last time, you were on the floor so long that the linoleum pattern was imprinted on your face," I reminded her.

"Yes, but they have those gizmos you can wear to alert people when you take a tumble. Elvis shoulda had one of those. It mighta saved his life. He keeled over in the bathroom."

I raised an eyebrow. "You swore you'd never wear one of those. You said you'd feel like you were on electronic monitoring like some pervert or two-bit thug," I pointed out.

Gram shrugged and replaced her compact. "I may have been hasty. I've got me a full-time jailer now, so what's the difference? Besides, I was thinking maybe we could do some double-dating: the Townsend men and the Turner women out on the town."

Why did the sound of that bring to mind images of King Kong in New York City or Godzilla wreaking havoc on Tokyo?

"I just don't want to see you make a decision I--you--may live to regret," I said. "There are some perks to staying here, you know."

"Yeah, and Frau Kommandant doesn't let me forget it," Gram said, casting an eye at the door that led to my mother's basement office. "So, what are your plans for this evening, my dear? Work, as usual, I suppose. Cones to dip and sundaes to drizzle. Did you mention my offer of help to Frank? He's never contacted me."

Imagine that.

"It's our slow time at the Dairee Freeze, Gram," I said, sidetracking her. "Things won't pick up till spring. And I'm off tonight for a change. But I'm working on a story for the
Gazette
."

I had Gram's full attention now. Damn. Me and my big fat trap.

"What kind of story? Not more fluff and stuff on homecoming queens, I hope."

I rolled my eyes. Everyone was a critic.

"Actually, it is a seasonal piece," I said, suddenly realizing that I had one of the best sources in the tricounty area for information sitting right across the table from me. "Uh, I'm trying to put together something, uh, appropriate for the Halloween season that has some local flavor. Someone suggested doing a story on the history of the Holloway house." I was making it up as I went--in the best tradition of journalism, some might add.

"Haunted Holloway Hall!"

Oh, buddy. Another country heard from.

"I don't have fond memories of that place," Gram said. "Almost soiled my bloomers there once. Your grandpa Will, God rest his soul, didn't have as much control over his bodily functions, poor dear."

"Huh?" I said, beginning to think I should've kept the zipper shut on my mouth. Like they make a zipper strong enough for that job.

Gram took out a tissue and blotted her lipstick with a pronounced smack of the lips. "It was that damned lady in white, Loralie Holloway," she said. "Flitting about, pale as a ghost. That mournful cry. It really spoiled the mood."

"Huh?"

"The romantic mood, Tressa. You know. Lovers' Lane. Parking. Making out." Another wrinkle joined the legion on her forehead. "You are familiar with the concept, aren't you, girl? Or do I have to get out the Magna Doodle and draw a picture?"

Clearly one of those "I'll pass" moments.

"Romance. Parking. Making out. I gotcha," I said, wondering how the heck the talk I was supposed to be having with my grandma about sex and the single senior had turned into a lecture on sex and the sex-starved single girl. "Go on."

"Well, we were sitting in the car at the end of the Holloway lane and, at a rather inconvenient moment, we heard this sniffling sound."

I frowned. "Sniffling?"

"Like Frankie gets when he's around mold. Or mildew. Or dog hair. Or cats. Or horses. Or soap. Or dust."

"I get the picture, Gram." My cousin, Frank Barlow, Jr.--or Frankfurter, as I like to call him--is basically allergic to life. "Go on," I said again.

"Well, naturally, we stopped to listen, and it was then we saw her."

"Her?"

"Loralie, dear. Try and follow along, Tressa. Well, your Paw-Paw Will and I raised right up and, once we wiped the steam from the car windows, we spotted Loralie garbed in a hideous wedding dress I wouldn't have been caught dead in, sobbing up a storm and dribbling red rose petals in her wake. Your grandfather was startled, and, well, the rest as they say is history. By the time we got ourselves righted, Loralie had am-scrayed, leaving behind a few rose petals and two lovers badly in need of new tighty whities."

I closed my eyes, trying to get a picture of a young Paw-Paw Will and his gal, Hellion Hannah, parked on a dark country road only to be interrupted by a dead wannabe-bride in search of a runaway groom. I did one of those fake laugh numbers that folks use to discount information that is presented to them. "Yeah. I can see it now. You and Paw-Paw Will out on a hot date in his souped-up hot rod. Parked on Lovers' Lane late at night in front of the most notorious house in the county. Whooooo! Spooky!" I said.

My gramma gave me a confused look. "Hot rod?" she said, with a lift of her eyebrows. "Hardly. It was Paw-Paw Will's Buick."

I stared at her. Paw-Paw Will had bought the Buick just three years before he died. At the ripe old age of sixty-eight. I put my head in my hands. Way, way too much information.

Gram stood. "You know, if you want to learn more about the old Holloway place, you should ask Joe. His family was pretty tight with the Holloways years ago. And the family ordered some roof repair materials from Joe's lumber company back in 'ninety-three when we had that doozy of a windstorm."

I resisted the temptation to pull out a hank of my hair or rip some clothing. The last time I'd partnered up with the self-styled Neon Green Hornet, I'd ended up a murder suspect and on a certain ranger's short list of people who should never be allowed within spitting distance of his granddad.

"Joe knew the Holloway family?" I asked.

Gram's brow crinkled. "I seem to remember he had a couple of dates one summer with someone connected to Haunted Holloway Hall. Some gal who went on to become famous or something. An actress. Or maybe a writer. Nothing came of it, of course. Joe is hardly the artsy-fartsy type."

I looked at Gram through my fingers. "Joe dated Elizabeth Courtney Howard?" I said.

"Who?" Gram asked.

I began to rub my temples. "So, where did you say you were meeting Joltin' Joe?" I asked.

Gram looked at me. "Oh, Tressa! How wonderful! You've decided to double-date!"

I looked down at my feet to make certain I wasn't bleeding all over my mother's dining room floor from shooting myself in the foot. "Double-date?"

"With Rick. Oh, Tressa, Joe will be tickled to death. I'll call him and tell him to pick up Rick on his way over!" Gram got up and clomped into the living room like she was leading the Charge of the Light Brigade.

"You do that, Gram," I yelled out to her. "You just do that."

I smiled. One of those naughty Natasha Fatale smiles. Rick had a Texas-sized soft spot for his grand-pappy, which made it almost impossible for him to tell Joe no. Of course, it was difficult for anyone to tell Joe Townsend no. However, with the ranger's concern over the amount of time the two seniors were spending together, it was a safe bet he wouldn't turn down the opportunity to play chaperone.

I grinned again. I would have loved to be there to see the audacious ranger's face when Joe picked him up for our double date.