Inspector Specter (9 page)

Ollie gave up on the large, heavy glass balls, which looked pretty but weren't all that interesting to play with. He let himself down onto the rug and crawled toward Ferry, looking up.

Ferry's hand went to his forehead, as if he had a mild headache. He closed his eyes. “Honestly, I don't know. Ask me about the wet handcuffs, and I'll remember. But ask me about today . . .”

“It happened about three days ago,” I told him. Let him get perspective.

“Really?” He stopped and stared forward, stunned by all the information he was getting in one gulp. Meanwhile, I was wondering about those wet handcuffs these two thought were so hugely hilarious. Oliver lay down flat on his back on the floor to get a better view of Ferry. With any luck, he'd be asleep in a few minutes.

“What was three days ago?” McElone asked.

“This'll go a lot faster if you don't ask about everything I say to Detective Ferry,” I told her. “Anything relevant I'm going to say just as he says it or explain it immediately. I promise.”

McElone's face closed up again. “I'd still feel better if I could see him.”

It was harder to feel sympathetic toward her when the person she was mourning was there in the room talking to me. I sort of rolled my eyes. No. I completely rolled my eyes.

“What more do you want me to do?” I said. “Throw a blanket over him so you can see that he's there? It doesn't work like that.” It actually could sometimes sort of work like that, but I was making a point.

She cocked an eyebrow as Ferry folded his arms, seemingly trying to figure out what to do in such a situation. “Every time I question this dippy visit, you tell me that's not the way it works. It sounds like you're trying to dodge the questions.”

“
You
called me in on this,” I reminded her. “I can leave anytime you think I'm lying to you. Why would I do that?” I walked over toward Oliver, who was not at all asleep, but gurgling and waving his arms toward Ferry. “We're out of here, Ollie,” I told him, and went to put my hands under his arms, the most wiggleproof method of lifting a contrary almost-toddler. I didn't look at McElone, but she certainly wasn't trying very hard to stop me.

“Hold it,” Ferry said. “You can't go!”

I looked up at Ferry, not caring what McElone thought. “Why not?” I asked. “Your pal over there thinks I'm lying to her. She doesn't want me involved. I'm doing what she wants me to do; I'm leaving.”

“Pretending to have an argument with Martin and making me the bad guy isn't going to help,” McElone said.

I turned to face her. “Listen, if you don't believe me, why did you ask me to do this?”

She shook her head. “I wasn't thinking straight. I was desperate. I'm sorry. I thought if there was even a chance you could talk to Martin . . .”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Ferry beat me to it. “Tell her I did what I always do with my weapon—I unloaded it and locked it away. I don't know how I got shot.”

But McElone's lip curled when I repeated her ex-partner's message. “I told you all that,” she said. “You already knew it.”

“I didn't know about wet handcuffs,” I pointed out. “In fact, I
still
don't know about wet handcuffs.”

Ollie, having had enough of grown-ups not paying attention to him, started to fuss and sat up. There wasn't anything for him to pull up on so he could stand, so he crawled toward me.

But I couldn't give him my undivided attention at the moment. “That's true,” McElone said. “You couldn't have known about that.”

“So you realize the only way I could have said those words would be if Detective Ferry was here telling me to say them,” I told her.

McElone studied the carpet. “Ask him who was here,” she mumbled.

“Ask him yourself.” I needed her to accept that Ferry was here, to trust that what I told her was from his mouth.

Her eyes glared, but she looked up. “Where is he?” she asked. I pointed in the proper direction, and she made eye contact—sort of; she was actually looking at his neck—with Ferry. “Martin. Tell me who was here the last you can remember. Who can I talk to?”

Ferry looked into McElone's eyes.

“I don't know,” he said sadly.

I waited, thinking there'd be more. But there wasn't, so I passed that along to McElone, and the information didn't help. However, I could see her eyes looking around the room, meaning she was thinking. “What's the last thing you do remember clearly?” she asked, now fully engaged as a detective.

Ferry squinted, trying to look into his past. Hopefully, his very recent past. He took a good few moments, during which Oliver managed to pull himself up by grabbing onto the shorts I was wearing, which would have been really risky if I hadn't been wearing a belt. He stood, shakily, holding on hard to my leg.

“I remember coming home, and putting the gun away,” Ferry started. “And going into the kitchen to get a beer or . . . something . . . when the doorbell rang.”

“Who was at the door?” I asked on my own.

Slowly, he shook his head. “I can't remember. That's when the world changed. There's nothing I remember after that.”

McElone listened to me repeat Ferry's words, then chewed on the inside of her lip. “Were you expecting anybody?” she asked. She had started looking at Oliver, no longer willing to simulate a real conversation with Ferry.

“No,” Ferry answered. “I remember being surprised when the bell rang.”

McElone absorbed that. “The gun was locked in the drawer like always?” she asked.

“I can remember that clearly,” said Ferry. “I'm sure of it.”

“Where was the key?”

“In my jacket pocket. I hadn't had time to change out of my suit yet.”

“Any reason somebody would want you dead?” the lieutenant asked.

“Besides the usual?”

McElone and Ferry shared a chuckle, but she didn't hear any except her own. “It
is
Martin, isn't it?” she sort of asked me.

“What have I been saying?”

The smile dimmed on McElone's face, and she tried to look in Ferry's direction. “Martin,” she said. “Have you heard from Elise lately?”

Ferry, who hadn't exactly looked cheery to begin with, took on an even gloomier expression. “It wasn't Elise,” he said.

McElone waited for my reiteration of the response, then said, “Nonetheless. Have you heard from her?”

Ferry nodded, perhaps forgetting that only I (and apparently Oliver) could see him. “She started calling a couple of months ago,” he told his colleague. “Said I was behind on Natasha's child support.”

“What did you tell her?”

“To read the divorce decree. You know perfectly well I'd give my daughter the shirt off my back, but Elise just wanted me to pay her out of spite, for revenge.”

McElone sighed. “I'm going to have to call her, you know. Just to ask a few things. Unofficially, you understand.”

“Try to keep Nat out of it, will you?” Ferry asked.

“I will if I can, but I'm not promising. Is there anyone else I should be looking at? Who do you like for the murder?” Cops have their own jargon, and they have an interesting attitude: McElone was asking Ferry whom he suspected might have killed him, but they were both treating the question like a consultation on a case, and nothing else. It's a way to cope with what they see on a daily basis: people at their worst.

Ferry considered. He paced a little, a foot off the floor, and actually scratched his head at one point, which made Oliver laugh. Ferry looked down, saw the baby and smiled.

“Who's the kid?” You had to be newly dead to have missed Ollie until now, but Ferry was adjusting rapidly. We had to make allowances for circumstance. He looked at me. “Yours?” Some allowances.

“I'm watching him for my friend until Sunday,” I said. “My daughter's eleven.”

“Watch out for her when she turns twelve,” the dead detective said. “That's when they start getting mean.” He grinned and waggled his finger at Oliver.

“Thanks,” I said. (If you're reading this, Melissa, I said it with a sarcastic tone. I'm not worried about you. Much.)

“Martin.” McElone rotated her hand in a “come on” motion. “Who else should I talk to?”

Ferry stopped trying to get Ollie to laugh, and his eyes unfocused, trying to remember. “You need to see Captain Stella at my department. He's not a bad guy, and didn't have anything to do with . . . this . . . but he knows the mood in the squad room. I know you'll be shocked, Anita, but I wasn't the most popular guy there.”

McElone snorted lightly and shook her head when I relayed that info. “Imagine. Anyone else?”

“There's a drug dealer who works the boardwalk, not as much as before the storm, but he's still there. Calls himself Lay-Z. I was working on a case with him as a confidential informant. He might have gotten the wrong idea.”

McElone took all that in. “Were you about to bust him?” she asked.

“No. But I heard just before . . . you know,
this
 . . . that someone had found out he was my CI. He might have thought I ratted him out.”

“How about the person you were really trying to bust?” McElone asked.

“Buster Hockney. Not a great big kingpin, but a guy doing damage with the locals and a few tourists. I wasn't that close to an arrest, but maybe Buster didn't know that. Buster might do something this crazy, though. He's not exactly what you'd call rational. Likes to hurt people.”

“Where can I find your files on that?” the lieutenant said.

“I don't know what they did with my files,” Ferry told her. “That's something else you'll want to ask the captain about. I can't seem to leave this apartment.”

“That's not unusual for most ghosts,” I told Ferry.

“I'm really a ghost?” The idea takes some getting used to, I'm told.

“You're you,” I said. “Just not the same as you used to be.”

“That sounds like something they'd say in a weight-loss ad,” McElone butted in. “Martin, you tell me if you get any ideas. Get in touch through this one.” She pointed at me. “I'm working your case.”

Ferry's eyes narrowed. “Wait. Anita. I've been telling you all this, but you're not in the department anymore.”

“For the next two weeks, I'm a private eye,” McElone said, looking directly at me. “A
real
one.”

“You're welcome,” I said. “Come on, Ollie, let's go home.”

“Gah,” Ollie said.

“You think Oliver could see Detective Ferry?” Josh Kaplan asked. He looked down at Ollie, who was sitting on the floor with an Ernie bath toy, squeezing it to make it squeak and laughing every time it did. Babies are terrific audiences; they think the same joke is hilarious four thousand times in a row. The rest of us might have differing opinions.

It was good to have Josh there. He comes by a couple of times a week, knowing that I can't go out very often at night because I have guests. Since we'd rediscovered each other—we met as kids—I'd found him to be a calming, understanding presence. Josh accepts the weirdness in my house with a smile, and accepts me as . . . me.

“I'm not sure. Maybe all babies are more sensitive. Ollie has sort of reacted to Paul and Maxie a little bit before, but I've never been sure,” I said. Josh can't see or hear my resident ghosts—or any others—but he trusts me enough to believe they're there when I say they're there.

Josh had arrived just as Mom and Melissa were getting dinner started, no doubt with my father watching. They cook; Josh and I clean up. It works for us.

This might be the only time we'd spend alone all evening, if you consider having two ghosts and an eleven-month-old in the room with you “alone.” At the guesthouse, things are relative.

“Oogie boogie,” Maxie said to Ollie, testing my theory. But Ollie wasn't interested because Ernie was so darn much more fun. Squeeze. Squeak. Laugh. Seriously, how could you top that?

Paul, hovering at the far side of the soon-to-be movie room, looked uncomfortable. “Can we get past the baby talk and discuss the case?” he asked.

“
We
don't have a case,” I reminded Paul. “Lieutenant McElone has a case. We're helping when we can. Right now, since there's nothing we can do to help, we're not doing anything.”

Josh, used to this sort of one-sided (to him) conversation by now, smiled vaguely and tried to look where he thought Paul might be. Paul wasn't within ten feet of there, but I saw no reason to spoil Josh's attempt at camaraderie.

“But there's quite a bit we can do,” Paul argued. “Maxie, what did you discover about Detective Ferry?”

Maxie stopped trying to get Oliver's attention and looked startled. “Huh?” Maxie doesn't cover for herself well.

“We asked you to research the rumors I heard about Detective Ferry. What have you found out?” Paul, because he thinks logically and acts accordingly, believes everyone else does, too, which is not actually a very logical way to think or act. So maybe Paul's not really so logical after all. Don't think about that too long. It'll make your head hurt.

“Roger that,” Maxie said with an edge of “jeez” in her voice, and floated up through the ceiling, presumably to look for my MacBook, which was so old it was probably put together in Steve Jobs's garage.

Paul sputtered a bit at Maxie's behavior. “What is going on with her lately?” he asked.

“You've noticed it, too?” I asked.

“Noticed what?” Josh said. He at least likes to know what the topic of conversation is among the people in the room he can't see.

“Maxie's acting strange,” I explained.

Josh's brow wrinkled a little; it was cute. “How can a ghost
not
act strange?”

Oliver decided that he shouldn't keep the blatant hilarity of his Ernie doll all to himself, so he stood, considered walking, remembered he didn't know how, dropped back down and crawled over to me. He held out the doll, and Josh, probably for want of something to do, took it. Ollie didn't mind getting a substitute when asking for my attention, as long as Ernie continued to make that hilarious noise. Squeeze. Squeak. Laughter.

“A ghost can act the same way any living person can act, emotionally,” Paul said with a slight snippy tone in his voice. Paul has had, let's say, some issues with a few of the men I've dated. He doesn't mind Josh as much as my ex-husband, The Swine, but he still seems to think I'm better off when I'm on my own. My opinion differs from Paul's.

“Maxie is acting
uncharacteristically
strange,” I told Josh.

“Ah,” he answered. Squeeze. Squeak. Laugh. Being a baby seems like so much more fun than it probably is.

“Maxie,” Paul reiterated. “Do you know why she's so flighty?”

“She won't tell me,” I said. “I'll get Liss on the case. If Maxie will talk to anybody, it's her.”

Maxie took that cue to come down through the ceiling dressed in a trench coat and her “work hat,” which is what she calls a green visor she wears in the mistaken belief that it makes her look more professional. She looks like she should be dealing at a poker table with Oscar Madison and Felix Unger.

“Okay. Detective Ferry,” she said to Paul. “What's his first name, again?”

I reminded her of the detective's name to avoid Paul's eyes actually springing out of their sockets with irritation. Josh sat down on the floor next to Oliver and squeezed Ernie again. Same sound, same uproar.

Maxie started clacking away on the keyboard. While she was toiling away, Paul ventured closer despite the presence of what he clearly believed was an infectious baby and looked down to deliver one of his periodic lectures on criminal investigation procedure.

“Alison, just because the lieutenant sees you strictly as a specialist in . . . communication with the victim does not mean that we can only sit idly by until I get another message from Detective Ferry. We can help her in ways that she hasn't thought of yet.”

I looked at him. “Weren't you the one who was saying we should just wait and see what happened?” I asked. Josh, practiced at not looking surprised, didn't look surprised that I was talking to nothing.

“That was before you spoke to the victim,” Paul countered.

“Do you mind if I do this for a minute?” I asked Josh, and gestured up into the air, where he knew the ghosts were.

“Nah. Ollie and I are considering what tint of wood stain to sell you when you're done stripping the paneling. We'll confer.” Josh grinned, which is one of my favorite things for him to do.

I grinned back at him—a down payment on a later promise—and turned back toward Paul. “Look. I trust the lieutenant's judgment. She's taking charge of the investigation. It's not like Ferry's asking us to do anything else. We help when she asks us to. Doing anything else would be overstepping our boundaries.”

Josh smiled. He thinks it's cute when I sound authoritative, as long as I'm not arguing with him. Paul didn't look annoyed or angry; he looked challenged, as if I'd slapped him with a glove and told him to contact my second for choice of weapon.

“We
can
help,” he said. “We are not overstepping anything if we can offer the lieutenant something she could not find otherwise. And the faster we do so, the sooner this matter will be brought to an end.” Now that part was odd; Paul rarely wanted to finish a case quickly.

It's not that I didn't want to help Lieutenant McElone. But even though she had been the one to approach me, she was clearly mortified at dealing with the possibility of ghosts, and I didn't want to seem even sillier than usual in her eyes.

So I decided to push Paul in the hope that he wouldn't be able to answer me. “Help her how?” I asked.

“Like this.” It was Maxie, not Paul, who responded from way up near the ceiling. That probably meant she'd found something. She tends to float pretty high in the room when she's engrossed in computer research. “Here. I had to go into Detective Ferry's arrest records and the cases he was assigned, but you can see there's something there.”

“I can't see anything without a six-foot ladder,” I told her.

Maxie guffawed a little and lowered herself and the computer to an angle that was visible from where I was standing. She gets so cocky when she discovers something that you almost start to wish she wouldn't find anything. Or maybe that's just me.

“Look here,” she began. “Ferry worked for two years on a case involving this guy Harry ‘the Fish' Monroe.”

“Harry ‘
the Fish
' Monroe?” I said. There really were guys with names like that? Josh looked at me and laughed. He saw the laptop floating around in the air and waved to Maxie, who waved back. The difference was, she could see him.

“So what happened with Detective Ferry and the Fish?” Might as well speed this along; dinner would be ready any minute.

“Well, that's what's interesting,” Maxie said, regaining the attention of everyone in the room who could conceivably offer it. (Ollie thought Maxie was hilarious, assuming she was what he was looking at. Then Josh squeezed Ernie. Squeak. Hysterics.) “It seems Harry lives down the Shore, in Brick, at least part of the year. But Ferry thought he was bivouacked in Seaside Heights and dealing some nasty stuff.”

“Bivouacked?” I said. I was roundly ignored. Josh picked up Oliver (and, by extension, Ernie) from the floor and carried him over to the wall I'd been working on earlier in the day. He got fairly close—enough so that Ollie could touch the wall—and examined it, no doubt listening to my end of the conversation but also employing his specialty.

“So Ferry catches the case, and he starts investigating right up to the day he died. He told at least one cop he was close to making the collar.” Maxie tends to talk like she's in a nineteen forties gangster movie when she's doing research on crimes. No one has had the heart to tell her that people haven't actually spoken that way in decades, if they ever did.

“What happened?” Paul said. He seemed in a hurry, like he wanted to get on to some really important stuff he hadn't mentioned as soon as he could get this out of the way.

“That depends on who you talk to,” Maxie said. “Two months ago, Ferry's captain's report says he expects to announce an arrest of the Fish in a few days.”

As Maxie was speaking, there was a sound from the other side of the room, and then a light came on where it had been dark before.

I turned to see Paul floating near a table on which I'd put a lamp. He'd unplugged the lamp, then inserted the plug into his own transparent abdomen. The lightbulb, unattached to any visible source of power, was glowing brightly.

“I knew it!” Paul said. “My energy is increasing.”

Maxie ignored him as I told Paul to put the lamp down and plug it back in. Josh watched the unplugged, lit lamp float around the room and looked very, very puzzled, which was frankly the only way to look under the circumstances.

Just as I was about to grab the lamp out of Paul's hand and return it to the table, Maxie said, “Detective Ferry's savings account went up thirty thousand dollars after the captain said he expected an arrest. There never was an arrest.”

I swiveled to face her, wanting desperately not to believe what I'd just heard. Josh, maybe by reflex now, squeezed Ernie. Squeak.

Oliver started to cry.