Granny Apples 05 - Ghost in the Guacamole (6 page)

He looked to Rikki for confirmation and she nodded. “Yes,” she told him. “He hit the rear right corner. It was quite sharp and struck him hard on his left temple and must have knocked him unconscious.” She took a deep breath. “The coroner said he died from the blow, not the heart attack.”

“Do you know if he was standing or sitting when he fell?” Phil asked.

Rikki gave it some thought before answering. “The police thought that when he started feeling unwell, he stood up and tried to go for help. That's when he fell and hit his head.” She turned to Emma. “Why all the questions?”

“When connecting with a spirit,” Emma explained, stretching the truth a bit, “it helps if we know more about the person's death.” She turned to Phil and gave him a discreet look of warning, knowing he was playing detective. Emma didn't want to make Rikki uncomfortable before they had a chance to approach the subject of Felix's ghost.

“And no one heard his fall or came upstairs, not even any of the staff?” Phil continued, even though he gave Emma a nod of acknowledgment. “Even with the staff locker room right down the hall?”

“Like I said,” Rikki answered, “we were inundated with customers. It was between shift changes and everyone was downstairs pitching in.”

“Except for Felix?” Emma asked.

“Dad was downstairs earlier helping, then he got a call on his cell and took it upstairs, where it was quieter. That's the last anyone noticed him.”

“Do you know who the call was from?” Emma asked, then added, “I'm sorry to pry, but I'm curious.”

“No problem,” said Rikki. “It was from my mother, but she said the call only lasted about ten to fifteen minutes. Dad was gone close to two hours before I went looking for him.”

“Tell her,” came a voice that was more like a sound carried on a breeze.

Emma slowly turned her heard toward the sound but saw nothing.

“Tell her what I told you yesterday,” the ghost of Felix Ricardo insisted. “Tell her to sell and let's be done with this.”

T
HE
spirit finally started coming into view. No, not one spirit, but two. Emma's first thought was that Felix had brought his father, Paco Ricardo, with him. But as the images of the two ghosts came more into view, she realized Granny was the second image.

“Look who I found floating about,” Granny said with a pleased grin. “He was wandering around outside and seemed a bit confused.”

Felix looked around the room, taking in each living person in turn, his eyes resting the longest on his daughter, who was watching Emma with interest.

“I was not confused,” Felix told Granny, nearly snapping at her.

“All right. All right,” snapped Granny back. “Don't get your
pantalones
in a bunch.”

Felix did not take his eyes from Rikki's face as he explained, “Almost every morning before we opened, I would stroll Olvera Street greeting longtime friends and wishing them a good day.” He turned to look at Emma, twitching his mustache before speaking. “I still do it most mornings. I will continue to do it long after this place is sold, even if they cannot see or hear me. I grew up with many of these people and have known their families for years. Like this restaurant, many of the businesses on this street have been here for generations.”

“What are you looking at?” Rikki asked Emma. She turned to look at the doorway, but saw nothing.

“I thought I heard something,” Emma semi-lied, not quite ready to tell Rikki the truth.

Phil was also looking toward the doorway. He couldn't see Felix or Granny, but knew from being with Emma and from the cool breeze coming from that direction that at least one spirit had entered the room. He moved back against the wall, by one of the windows, and leaned against it to watch. The windows were open, letting in the early morning breeze before the heat of the day took over and they were closed to allow for the use of the AC. Granny floated up to him. “Look, Phil, Felix has a mustache just like yours, but he's got a lot more hair on his head.” Sensing a spirit near him, Phil looked to Emma for some sign of explanation.

Emma suppressed a smile but moved her gaze back to Felix. She'd tell Phil what Granny said later when they were alone. Or maybe not.

“My father's here, isn't he?” asked Rikki, getting up from her chair. She pointed to the doorway. “And he's there, where you're looking.”

“Sit down, Rikki,” Emma told her gently. When Rikki hesitated, Emma added, “Please.”

Seeing Rikki's hesitation, Phil added, “Listen to Emma if you want to communicate with your father, Rikki. Ghosts can be skittish. She knows what she's doing.”

Looking back and forth between Emma and Phil, Rikki finally relented and sat back down, but she swiveled her chair so that it faced the doorway. She pointed at it. “He's there, isn't he?”

Emma took a deep breath, then admitted, “Yes, he is.”

Rikki leaned forward, trying hard to see what she could not. “Daddy,” she said to the doorway. “Is that really you?”

“Sí, mi hija
.
”
Felix's face softened and he came closer. Like the day before, he tried to touch her head and face but his hand only went through her.
“Aiiii,”
he said to Emma, his face drooping with sadness. “It is so frustrating to not be able to touch my baby girl.” Emma smiled at him with understanding, knowing how much Granny often wanted to hug family members and couldn't.

Rikki turned to Emma. “I feel like he's right here.” She gestured close to herself with her hands. “I mean, like right
here
next to me.”

“That's because he is, Rikki,” Emma told her. “He's to your right.”

Rikki reached out a hand and touched the air to her right, then pulled her hand back as if she'd touched something hot. She swiveled to face Emma. “Wait a minute,” she said, her face turning hard in a flash. “You're not playing me, are you?”

Emma shook her head slowly from side to side. “No, Rikki, I'm not.”

“T.J. told me last night to stay away from you. He said you're a sleazy fake who's been paid off by my sister.”

Granny moved forward, her face pinched with anger, her hands on her hips. “Don't you go calling my Emma a fake or sleazy.”

Phil straightened and stepped forward, too, standing next to Granny, although he didn't realize it. “I can assure you that Emma is neither a fake nor sleazy,” he said to Rikki in a firm tone.

Emma held up a hand toward Phil and Granny to stop them, then said to Rikki in a calm even voice, “T.J. is wrong. I have not been paid off or in any way compensated or bribed to be here today or to tell you certain things. You asked for my help and I'm here to give it.”

“If this T.J. is so concerned,” asked Phil, “why isn't he here today for this meeting?”

Rikki grasped the arms of her chair hard with her hands and looked down at the floor. “Because I didn't tell him about it.” She looked up, first at Phil, then at Emma. “I knew he was upset after meeting you but we didn't discuss it after you left because we both had work to do. He told me at dinner that he thought you'd been paid off by Lucy to convince me to sell. He even confronted her about it when he got back to the office.”

“After witnessing your sister's temper yesterday,” Emma said, “I'm sure that didn't go over well.”

Rikki shook her head. “To say the least. Isabel called me to say they were fighting about it right in the office, yelling and everything.”

“Isabel is the secretary at Roble Foods?” Emma asked, remembering the name from the day before.

“Yes,” Rikki confirmed with a nod. “She said even with the door of Lucy's office closed, people could hear the fight. She said T.J. then stormed out. At first Isabel thought he might have quit or Lucy fired him. She wasn't sure, but thought I should know.” A pause, then a confused smile. “It felt almost like Isabel was relishing telling me this. She usually doesn't even acknowledge my existence.”

“Did either of those things happen?” asked Phil.

“No, but after Isabel's call I half expected Lucy to call me and give me an earful, but she didn't. A bit later I called her both at the office and on her cell, but never reached her. I left several voice mails for her to call me, but she never did. I couldn't reach T.J. either until almost dinnertime. He said he left the office and went for a drive to cool down.”

“You didn't work the dinner shift here?” Phil asked.

“Olvera Street isn't open late so neither are we except on Friday and Saturday nights, which is nice. It gives us and our staff a reasonable family life. Still, I left earlier than usual and went home to wait for T.J. Hector was here to cover things until closing.” Rikki looked at Emma and gave her a sad half smile. “T.J. and Lucy haven't agreed on this sale thing, but there is one thing they do agree on and that's that I'm a stupid idiot for bringing you into it.”

“Aren't we getting way off track here?” asked Granny, moving to stand near Emma. Granny cocked a thumb in the direction of Felix Ricardo. “He's looking kind of hazy again. He might have used up all his juice taking that stroll down memory lane this morning.”

One look at the other ghost and Emma knew Granny was right about Felix starting to fade. His shoulders sagged and his mustache drooped. His authoritative posture of before had dissolved into sadness. Maybe it was from low energy, as Granny suggested, or maybe it was despair upon hearing how his daughters were battling. Next Emma looked at Phil. He shrugged, letting her know the next step was her call.

“Rikki,” Emma began as she turned to face her. “The last thing I want is to be caught in the middle of a family drama, but forgetting for a minute about Lucy and T.J., tell me, what do you believe?”

Rikki turned her face toward the spot where Emma had said the spirit of Felix stood. She stared at it almost a full minute before saying, “I don't know what I believe, but I know what I want to believe.” She held out a hand, palm outward, to the empty space. Felix placed his palm against hers and smiled, although neither could feel the other. “But I have no way to prove it,” Rikki said with sadness.

Emma shifted in her seat, then said, “Every morning your father walked up and down Olvera Street greeting his friends and neighbors, isn't that true?”

With knitted brows, Rikki turned to Emma. “That's right, but how would you know that?” Before Emma could say, Rikki added, “But that's something Lucy could have told you. Anyone who knew my father knew he did that.”

“He still does it, Rikki,” Emma told her. “Even in death, he still checks on his friends on the street.”

Rikki brightened considerably, then her face fell just as fast. “It is something he might do, but you saying it doesn't mean anything.” She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned forward until her hands held her chin. The position made her look like a young girl instead of an adult business owner responsible for employees.

“She always sat like that when she was trying to figure something out,” Felix told Emma with a small smile, even as he started to fade more.

“You father just said you always sit like that when you need to think deeply about something,” Emma told Rikki.

Rikki snapped her head up and stared at Emma, then turned away. “Easy guess about a habit.”

Felix floated closer to Emma. “Ask her about the time she ran away,” he said. “She was about eight and had a big fight with Lucy over something.”

“Felix just told me that you had a fight with Lucy when you were eight and ran away,” Emma relayed.

Rikki's gaze returned to Emma's face, eyes large with wonder.

“Mrs. Chan who ran the dry cleaners in Chinatown just a few blocks from here,” continued Felix, “found her hiding in the back of her store, soaked and cold from the rain. We took our cleaning there for years, so she knew Rikki and called me.”

Emma relayed the story. Rikki's brown eyes got rounder and larger with each word.

“I took her for sweet and sour soup to warm her up and to talk.” Felix moved closer to his daughter. “Ricarda loved sweet and sour soup, even as a child. She begged me not to tell her mother or Lucy, and I never did. I never told anyone.”

Emma nodded to the ghost, then looked at Rikki. “After picking you up from Mrs. Chan's, your father took you out for sweet and sour soup and promised he'd never tell anyone. He says he never has.”

Rikki broke down and began sobbing softly. “Oh, Daddy. You are here.”

Granny sniffed and wiped a hand across her tearless face. “Poor child.”

“I must go,” Felix said to Rikki. “But I'll come back. I promise.”

Just before fading into nothing, the ghost turned to Emma and pointed a filmy finger at her. “This doesn't change anything,” he said with determination. “Tell her to sell. Tell her to take the money and start a newer and better restaurant somewhere else.”

“Your father had to go,” Emma told Rikki as soon as Felix was gone.

“No!” Rikki looked up, her face puffy.

“Don't worry,” Emma told her. “He may be back, though I don't know when. Ghosts can only materialize a short time before they need to go away and recharge their energy.”

“Some ghosts,” clarified Granny. “I've got this sticking around thing down pretty good, if I say so myself.”

Emma smiled inwardly at Granny's comment. Over time, Granny had learned to stick her earthly presence longer. Sometimes it was a good thing and sometimes annoying. Returning her focus to Rikki, Emma said something that was weighing on her mind more than ghosts and their energy. “Rikki, I have a serious question I need you to consider and answer truthfully.”

Rikki got up from her chair and covered the distance to her desk in just a couple of steps. She grabbed a couple of tissues from a box on the corner and mopped her face with them. After blowing her nose, she moved behind the desk and tossed the used tissues in a small wastepaper basket. Several minutes of silence passed before she turned back to Emma, leaned against the edge of her desk, and said with a determined nod, “Fire away. I'll be truthful, even if it kills me.”

Emma looked at Phil. He gave her a look of encouragement. Granny floated over to stand next to Rikki. Looking at Emma, Granny said, “Give it to her straight, Emma. Candy coating it won't help her or her father.”

Emma took a deep breath and smoothed the summer shift she was wearing over her legs. On her feet were the huaraches she'd bought the day before. She and Granny were almost always of the same mind when it came to giving people the straight-up truth in these situations, whether people had trouble believing it or not, but Emma wasn't totally sure how Rikki would respond to Felix's request. “Rikki,” she began after clearing her throat and looking up, “your father came to me yesterday while I was here having lunch with you.”