Inspector Specter (21 page)

“I don't think we're going to find anything bad,” I told her. “The fact is, I don't think we're going to find anything at all. But the first thing I need to do is call Malcolm so I can get the address, or we won't even find the bungalow.”

“If I had my laptop, I could get her address,” Maxie groused.

“I'll get mine,” Melissa said, and was headed for the stairs, Wendy in tow, when Stephanie and Rita walked in.

I smiled at them. “Well, the good news is that everyone is all right and the only thing missing is mine,” I said. “There's nothing to worry about.”

Rita looked ashen, which isn't easy to do when you spend your day on a beach in New Jersey in August. “Was it a ghost?” she asked.

“Don't be silly,” Stephanie told her. “A ghost doesn't need a ladder.”

“No, it was not a ghost,” I told them. “The police are being brought in.” (I'd called, and they said they'd send someone “soon.” This wasn't a priority crime in Harbor Haven, apparently.) “And we're taking precautions to make sure it can't happen again.”

“This is a very exciting place to spend a week!” Stephanie said. She really seemed to be enjoying the intrigue.

“Yes,” Rita agreed. I wasn't sure that she thought
exciting
was such a good thing.

I reassured them, and they went to their room to rest a little. I reached into my pocket for the cell phone to call Malcolm about the bungalow. And that was when Melissa and Wendy came down from the attic, carrying Liss's laptop, which she handed to Maxie. Wendy's mouth dropped at the flying computer; you'd think she'd be used to such things by now, but apparently the novelty had not worn off.

“I'm on it,” Maxie shouted. “I'll find out who took my computer!”

“The bungalow, Maxie.” I waved to get her attention. “Find McElone's bungalow.”

“Yeah. Right.” She stuck her feet out so she was horizontal and rested the computer on her legs. She dove into the keyboard with more vehemence than she usually exhibited.

I looked at Dad, who shrugged. Apparently his most recent Maxie excursion hadn't turned up any more than the last one. I decided to call Malcolm even as Maxie worked, since she would no doubt put her interests before everyone else's and see if she could track down the electronic signature of my pre–Civil War laptop, assuming it actually had such a thing.

Malcolm answered after a few rings; he sounded winded. “Alison?” he asked. He had clearly checked the incoming ID on his phone.

“Yes, Malcolm. I wanted to give you a progress report.” I told him about Ferry's ex-wife, Elise, and about the burglary in my house, which seemed to worry him.

“Now the people behind this have Anita's files,” he said. “That's not good.”

“They don't,” I pointed out. “The files are safe enough.” Telling him where the flash drive resided was not an option.

“That's good, anyway. I've been searching for Anita in places where I knew she was asking about that Buster Hockney you mentioned. I've gotten a lot of grumpy looks, but not much in the way of information.” I asked him about the bungalow, and he told me the address just as Maxie, who apparently
had
been listening earlier, swooped down with the laptop and showed me the screen. The website, listing real estate transactions, showed a small house, just a little larger than a cabana, listed in Point Pleasant. The transaction was three years old, meaning it had taken place just before the lieutenant left Seaside Heights and came to Harbor Haven. And the buyer's name was McElone.

I read back the address, and Malcolm confirmed it was the bungalow he and the lieutenant owned for “quick breaks.” “We bought it a few years ago. But why would she go there and not tell me?” he asked. “I think it's a wild-goose chase, Alison.”

“It probably is,” I agreed. “But I'll let you know what I find there.” I turned toward my daughter, who was tickling Oliver's feet as an amusement to at least one of them. “So. What's for dinner?” I asked.

She looked at her grandmother. “Um . . .”

There is nothing my mother likes better than to be needed, particularly for food. She would have rolled up her sleeves, if she'd been wearing sleeves. “I'm on it,” she said. “Where's my backpack?” And off she went in search of whatever she keeps in that grade-schooler's book bag she carries around.

Oliver, having decided that tickled feet were fine but there were places to go, had maneuvered himself toward a dining chair and was, with Melissa offering counterbalance, pulling himself up to a standing position. “I think he's going to walk really soon,” Liss said.

“Whatever.” Maxie, back in whatever mood she was in before she heard of the theft, drifted off through the ceiling.

“He'd better not until his mom gets back,” I told her. “If Jeannie misses his first steps, it's highly likely she'll never speak to us again.” Jeannie had been waiting for her son's first steps—which would be a little early, but not much at this age—with the kind of anticipation generally reserved for Oscar nominations, the births of royal offspring or the culmination of a tense hostage situation, depending on her mood.

Melissa turned her energy to trying to persuade Ollie
not
to walk just yet. This was accomplished through pulling him onto her lap, which led to him standing up against the chair again, which led to the lap, then the standing, then the lap. Since babies love nothing more than repetition, Oliver seemed to be having a great time. Melissa, too, would no doubt sleep well tonight.

Paul, for once not trying to use himself as a human(ish) electrical socket, was pacing back and forth two feet off the floor. “There's something we're missing, and I can't figure out what it is,” he said.

I'd had the same feeling, but for a different reason. “I know what we're not doing, if that's what you mean.”

Paul stopped, which is not something you see him do often. The ghosts are always sort of in motion, voluntary or not. But now he was still. “What aren't we doing?” he asked.

“The obvious thing. The thing that has the highest probability of getting us the answers we need.”

The ghost nodded, but he didn't look happy. “I didn't think you wanted to do that,” he said.

“I don't. Have you got a better idea?”

“A better idea than what?” Melissa asked.

“We're going to have to talk to Buster Hockney,” I said.

But Paul put his thumb and forefinger to his temple and grimaced a little. “Another message from Detective Ferry?” I asked. He looked so uncomfortable.

He shook his head. “No. Everett Sandheim. He wants to talk to you.”

“Maxie wandered around town for a while, and then stopped at the Dunkin' Donuts and sat on the sign outside for a while,” Dad said.

We were driving to the Fuel Pit after a lovely dinner of baked ziti with ground beef that Mom had cobbled together from the meager ingredients I kept in my kitchen. (“Ziti Bolognese,” she called it.) I wasn't driving fast because after seeing Everett, we were going to McElone's bungalow, and I really didn't want to get where we were going. But this was nothing compared to the idea of going to see a major drug kingpin and asking him if he'd killed one cop and made another one disappear. That I
really
didn't want to do, but at least it could wait until tomorrow.

The guests were back at the house, all of them, being entertained with karaoke night in the den (starring my daughter, the ham) and enjoying the air-conditioning. This was an event made possible by the karaoke machine my ex-husband had once given me in an attempt to reconcile. The fact that he'd charged it on my Visa card was an indicator of how well that whole “reconciliation” thing went, if you couldn't have figured that out already from the fact that he was back in Southern California, I was driving down the Jersey Shore to look into what I hoped would be an empty bungalow and my guests were using it to sing renditions of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.”

“That's all she did?” I asked. “Maxie just sat on the Dunkin' Donuts sign?”

Dad snickered. “She had a little fun with the guy putting out the chocolate frosteds. Kept making one disappear then reappear on his tray for a while.”

“That ghost is a menace to the Shore,” I said. “They should call the next hurricane Maxie.”

“I gotta say, she seemed sad up on that sign,” Dad told me. “Like she was waiting for something that didn't happen.”

“Maybe she wanted Boston cream and they didn't have any.”

“Don't be mean, baby girl,” my father said. “Maxie's not always the easiest person on the planet, but she's loyal and she's helped you out when the chips were down.”

“Are chips ever up?” I asked. “How do I know the positioning of the chips?”

“You're being a wiseass to avoid saying that I'm right,” he said. Dad could always see through me; it seemed logical that now I could literally do the same to him.

“How long did she sit there?” I asked, to show concern for a friend. A friendly acquaintance. A ghost who hangs around my house most of the time.

“About an hour. Always looking around to see if something was there, or at least that's how it looked. I can't really say that I understood what was going on.”

*   *   *

Everett, in fatigues, was already waiting when we reached the Fuel Pit, which had closed for the evening. In fact, he was a little farther away from the gas pumps (and the restroom) than I'd ever seen him before. I commented on that when I got out of the car—and Dad just sort of floated out—to talk.

“A little bit more each day,” Everett confirmed. “I've gotten quite far lately.” He stood tall and straight, not at all like he had when he was homeless and mentally ill. “As I said, I am no longer confined just to this property. This afternoon, I got as far as the Stud Muffin, where, as you'll recall, we first met.”

“You don't mind being there?” Dad asked. “It's not a painful memory?” Dad doesn't always know when he's picking at a scab, but he always wants to help.

“It is barely a memory at all,” Everett told him. “Much of my time . . . in that state . . . is a blur to me now. I remember myself in this form, which might be why I appear this way now.” He turned to me. “I wanted to let you know I've seen Buster Hockney. At the bakery this morning, I noted a man about six feet three inches tall, with a narrow build and a shaved head. The man was complaining because they would not take his credit card to pay for one cup of coffee. The card bore the name Barnett Hockney. I can only assume his nickname is Buster.” In fact, that was true: Paul had noted it when reading McElone's files on Buster.

You'd think this all would be good news. I had asked Everett for information on Buster, and here he was with a description. That should have been a positive. But one of my best defenses against having to meet Buster was that I had no idea how to find him and didn't even know what he looked like. Apparently, that was about to change.

“That's . . . great, Everett,” I said. “You've been a very big help.”

“Thank you, ma'am. But let me finish my description: The man has a goatee, which he dyes blond, clearly not his original hair color. Is that helpful?”

“Very,” I said, resignedly. “You're an excellent reconnaissance officer, Everett.”

“One last thing: He did not seem like a gentleman, Ghost Lady. Be careful of him.”

“She will,” Dad said.

*   *   *

“It's that one,” Dad said, pointing. It's possible his arm went directly through my head, because I didn't see his hand. I prefer not to think about it. “The blue one on the left.” He pointed at the house, which he was saying bore the number of Lieutenant McElone's bungalow. I already had a knot in my stomach.

There was a space three houses down, so I parked. “Okay,” I told Dad. “If you could go inside and unlock the front door, I'd appreciate it.” He nodded and turned toward the car door to slip out. “Dad.” He stopped and looked at me. The words tumbled out. “If it's really bad in there, don't let me in, okay?”

He gave me his best reassuring look and would have hugged me if he could, I'm sure. “I won't, baby girl.” He was out of the car before I could think about it.

In fact, Dad moved so quickly—something he really couldn't do his last few years alive—he was almost inside the house before I'd even motivated myself out of the car and started down the street. All I could see of him were his feet entering through the side of the building. Of course, it was almost dark by this point, and Dad wasn't exactly easy to see under the best of circumstances.

I'll admit that I didn't rush to the door; I wanted to give my father plenty of time to peruse the situation inside and decide, as he did when I was little, if it was appropriate fare for me to view. It's funny how in times of stress you fall back on the things that you really resented when you were a child.

So when I got to the front door, I waited. A click in the lock would mean there was nothing to fear and I could walk in. No click would, in theory, mean that something had gone horribly wrong and Dad would be floating out shortly to alert me, and then we'd call the police.

There was no click.

In that second, I contemplated my relationship with Lieutenant McElone. I had great respect for her, believed her to be a very good detective and felt that no matter what, she would have my back if I needed her to do so. Were we friends? Despite what Malcolm seemed to think, I couldn't say I felt that we were; she always seemed annoyed whenever she saw me approaching. And yes, some of that was a game we played with each other—I took the role of the irritating amateur trying to keep up, and she was the crusty veteran who had better things to do with her time than school some pretender playing over her head. But the game was an exaggeration of the way we operated, not a substitute.

So why was I so devastated not to hear a click in the lock?

Dad startled me almost into convulsions when he stuck his head through the door and said, “What are you waiting for? I unlocked the door two minutes ago.”

Heaving a sigh of relief (and struggling successfully to keep it from becoming a tearful sob), I turned the knob on the door. Sure enough, it opened. “So there's nothing gruesome awaiting me in there?”

“Nothing
gruesome
,” Dad answered. “But it's worth a look.”

I walked inside with a little trepidation, but no longer a sense of dread. “Thanks for coming, Dad,” I said as soon as the door closed behind me. “You have no idea how much help that was just now.”

“No charge, baby girl.”

“You did a quick search,” I said. I turned on the light in the main room, which was most of the bungalow. They're meant to be little more than cabanas, small structures to use when spending some time at the beach. This one had a main room with a large easy chair that had obviously come from someone's college apartment and a small galley kitchen (just a mini fridge and a microwave, along with a sink). Off to the right side was the door to a small bathroom. There was a futon to the left, against the wall. The back wall was dominated by glass doors that led to a tiny deck, and no doubt access to the beach beyond that. It was too dark to tell right now. “Is there somewhere in particular I should be looking?”

“I'm not sure,” my father told me. “But there is something I think might be important.”

“Where?”

“The kitchen. Look in the refrigerator.”

That made as much sense as anything that had happened to me in the past few years, so I asked no questions and walked into the kitchen, which was only a couple of steps away. The fridge was tiny, mounted under the countertop, so I reached down and opened it.

“There's nothing in here but a quart of milk,” I told Dad.

“Exactly. Take it out.”

Hey, if he wanted to play a fun game, I could play a fun game. I removed the quart of milk—2%, in case you were wondering—and looked at it. “Yeah?”

“Smell it,” Dad said.

Well,
that
didn't bode well. “Do I have to?” I asked my father.

“Go ahead.”

I'd never had a reason not to trust Dad, so I did as he instructed, but I wasn't happy about it. I sniffed. “It doesn't smell like anything,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said again.

“Okay, Buddha, let's have it. What are you getting at?”

“Baby girl. The milk is in the fridge. It's cold and it's fresh. What does that tell you?”

It took a second, but I actually did catch up with the rest of humanity then. “She was here, and not very long ago,” I said. “Wait. How did you know? Can you smell it?” Ghosts can't detect odors, as far as I know.

“No, but the sell-by date hasn't passed yet. I took a shot it wasn't from last year.”

I decided to walk around the main room very slowly and examine everything. I started at the door and turned right immediately; the idea was to walk the perimeter. I had already seen the center of the room, and it wasn't much to look at. This wouldn't take very long; it was a fairly large room, but a sparsely furnished one.

“We're not far from where Harry the Fish is,” I said to Dad. “Maybe you should go out and ask him if he's remembered anything else.”

It wasn't that I didn't want my father around while I looked over the house. It was more that I wasn't afraid of being in the house anymore, because I hadn't found anything there that was upsetting and was unlikely to now. But Harry the Fish scared me even when he was dead. Dad could talk to anybody; he'd been a self-employed handyman.

“How will I know him?” Dad asked.

“He's the ghost in the business suit who's out at the end of the pier in the ocean with fish swimming through him,” I said. “He's hard to miss.”

Dad looked uncertain, but he almost never turns down a request I make (and
never
turns down a request Melissa makes; it's like he was born to be a grandfather and, thanks to the miracle of ghost technology, is finally getting the chance to fulfill his true destiny). He headed out through the back wall, saying that he'd be back shortly.

The walls in the room were wood-paneled veneer, like the ones in my movie room back at the guesthouse. But these were dark and uninteresting. The floor was the same, but real wood planks instead of veneer. There was a picture on the right wall, just before the kitchen entrance, of a marlin rising out of the ocean with a line running out of its mouth. The fisherman and the boat that must have been involved were not in the photo. I felt bad for the fish; he should have at least gotten the chance to face his attacker.

The kitchen, aside from the valuable information contained in the milk carton, was unrevealing. There was a box of Special K in the cabinet, for which the milk had no doubt been intended. It was open, and there was a clip on the bag inside the box. McElone might have had a problem with insects in the cabinets. That wasn't terribly revealing either, but it was sort of gross. There was also a large pot in a dish drainer inhabiting almost all the counter space next to the sink.

I inched my way around the main room, stopping to look into the very small bathroom, really a powder room with a shower. The basics in a house not meant to be a home. There was nothing in the medicine chest but sunblock and first-aid items.

The back wall was mostly made of the glass sliding doors that led out to the darkness. A light switch on the left side of the doors turned on the outside light, and I could see a small yard with a chain-link fence around it; beyond that, judging from the sound of the surf, was the beach. The house had sustained no damage from Sandy that I could see. It was probably on blocks, raised above the level of the beach, and there might have been man-made dunes protecting it, as my house had been protected.