The Ghost and the Mystery Writer (12 page)

W
hen had
it stopped being fun?
Carla asked herself that question for what seemed like the hundredth time. Sitting on a stool at her breakfast bar, she watched Steve hastily comb his hair and straighten his clothing as he prepared to leave her apartment.

“We can't do this again,” Steve said as he checked his pockets to make sure he had his wallet and keys.

“You seemed fine with everything a few minutes ago,” Carla reminded him.

Steve turned and looked at her. Carla, no longer dressed in street clothes, wore a floor-length satin robe over her nude body. Her bare feet rested on the barstool's lower rung.

“My wife's coming home. I have to drive to Portland in the morning and pick her up at the airport.”

Carla frowned. “You never said anything about that. I thought she was going to be gone for another week at least.”

Steve shrugged. “Plans change. She sent me an itinerary in my email this morning, with her flight schedule and when I have to pick her up.”

“When will I see you?”

“I just said we can't do this again,” Steve reminded her.

“You mean…never?”

Combing his fingers through his hair, he inched toward the front door, his eyes darting anxiously from Carla to his impending exit route.

Carla stepped down off the stool, her balled hands now resting on her hips. “I don't get it. Fifteen minutes ago you were all over me. Couldn't keep your hands off me. And now, now you say it's over?”

“I'm married, Carla.”

“That didn't stop you from coming here today,” Carla snapped.

Taking a step toward the door, he said, “I like you, but this is just a bad idea. I told you before, I've no intention of leaving my wife.”

“I know you said that, but I can't believe you're willing to walk away from what we have. I make you happy.”

“I can't leave my wife.”

“She doesn't make you happy. I do,” Carla insisted.

“I don't want to talk about this anymore, Carla. It's over.” Without another word, Steve turned and hurried out the door.

Instead of tears, Carla picked up the closest thing she could find—which happened to be a mug of coffee—and hurled it at the front door. Her aim fell short, and the mug landed unbroken on the carpet, leaving behind a trail of coffee.

Snatching a dishtowel off the breakfast bar, she tossed it on the coffee now soaking into her carpet. Using her foot, she pressed the towel over the wet surface and haphazardly wiped the area. Instead of picking up the towel, she turned and made her way to the bathroom.

Once in the bathroom she stood before the mirror and looked at her reflection. “I'm going to be one of those old ladies waiting tables at some truck stop.”

Leaning toward the mirror, she inspected the fine lines starting to show around her eyes. Pressing a finger against one line, attempting to flatten it out, she said, “Bankers' wives don't have to wait tables.”

Letting out a sigh, she stood up straight, narrowed her eyes, and stared intently into the mirror. “Okay, be honest, Carla, you don't love the guy. But it would make things a hell of a lot easier if he left his wife.”

Slipping off her robe, she let it fall to the floor in a silky heap. Her hand reached into the shower and turned on the water. While she waited for the water to reach the desired temperature, she considered her options.

“I could swear off married men—if there were more single guys in Frederickport.” Reaching out, she put her hand under the showerhead to check the water's temperature. She then remembered what Steve had said about the email. Quickly, she turned off the water, snatched her robe up off the floor, and slipped it back on.

“What do you mean she emailed you her itinerary?” Carla said aloud as she hurried from the bathroom, fastening the robe's belt along the way. “You told me once your wife doesn't know how to use a computer.”

Several minutes later, Carla sat at her kitchen table and turned on her laptop.

“I bet your wife isn't even coming home tomorrow,” Carla mumbled as she logged on to the computer and opened the page for Yahoo Mail. She knew Steve's personal email address—yet she didn't know his password.

“Considering your lack of imagination in the bedroom, I bet your password is something lame like your pet's name.”

Carla was correct. She managed to log into Steve's email account on the first try.

As she suspected, she couldn't find an email from Mrs. Klein to her husband, regarding her trip home. By the size of his trash folder, Carla figured if Mrs. Klein had sent that email and her husband had deleted it, it would still be sitting in the trash bin.

Carla opened the trash file and glanced through the emails. “I knew it. You liar. Your wife isn't coming home early. Fine. You have stupid-looking hair anyway.”

Just as she was about to log out of Steve's email account, a name on one of the trashed emails jumped out at her—Jolene Carmichael. According to the date associated with the email, it was sent the same day Jolene was murdered.

Carla shivered. “That's just too strange.” Curious, she opened the email.

I
hope
your wife is enjoying her visit with her sister.

So nice of Carla to keep you company.

Please call me when I can come in and sign the loan papers.

We need to have it wrapped up this week.

Have a nice day.

Jolene

“
T
hat's weird
…” Carla mumbled, rereading the email.

O
n her way
to the parlor from the kitchen, Danielle noticed someone had left the light on in the downstairs powder room. The door was ajar, so she slipped her hand inside and flipped the wall switch, sending the small room into total darkness.

“Hey!” came Lily's shout from inside the powder room.

Hastily, Danielle turned the light back on. “I'm sorry,” she said with a laugh as she opened the door wider. Lily stood at the mirror, the sleeve on her tattooed arm rolled up. “I thought everyone was upstairs.”

Lily resumed what she had been doing before Danielle plunged her into darkness—inspecting her tattooed arm.

Now standing in the bathroom with Lily, Danielle leaned against the door jamb and watched her friend. “It looks red. Does it hurt?”

Lily shrugged. “Not really. A little tender.”

“I'm curious to see what it'll look like when they add the colors.”

Turning from the mirror, Lily showed Danielle her arm and pointed to the new addition to her tattoo. “I think he did a pretty good job.” Two figures had been added—one an angel and the other a woman riding the dragon. When Lily had shown Danielle the tattoo when she had first returned home from Portland, Danielle knew without being told who the two figures represented. The one riding the dragon was Lily, and the angel was Isabella.

When they finished examining Lily's new tattoo, they left the bathroom and walked to the parlor.

“You still haven't heard from Chris?” Lily asked as they stepped into the room.

“No. And it's kind of late there now. But I talked to him yesterday morning. It's not like we have to talk every day.” Danielle flopped down on the sofa and leaned against one armrest. She kicked off her shoes before propping her feet on the opposing arm.

Lily sat in a chair facing the sofa. “But you have talked every day.”

Danielle shrugged. “I checked on his house this afternoon.”

“Was everything okay?”

“Yeah…” Danielle chuckled and then said, “but right before I left to go up there, Walt told me to be careful. Reminded me it would be a good place for a killer to be hiding out. Kinda freaked me out.”

“We're not that far from where Jolene was murdered. It probably wasn't wise to be checking out vacant houses alone.”

“I wasn't alone. Hillary went with me. We ran into Pete Rogers when we were on Chris's patio. He's kind of a nosey busy body.”

“Speaking of Hillary…” Lily glanced from Danielle to the closed door leading to the hallway and then back to Danielle. “I can't believe the chief isn't doing something with what you told him.”

“I'm not sure what he can do. Hearsay from a ghost doesn't seem to carry a lot of weight.”

“What if we could find the notes Jolene wrote—the ones Walt read,” Lily asked.

Danielle looked to Lily. “We can't go through her room. Even if I let Walt do it, whatever we find won't help the chief. It will just put us all in an awkward position.” Danielle glanced up to the ceiling, thinking of Walt, who was probably in the attic. “And maybe the chief was right. Maybe it is all a coincidence, and Walt read more into it.”

“But maybe Walt didn't—and the only way we'll know for sure is to read those notes,” Lily insisted.

“We can't rummage through a guest's things.”

“I'm not suggesting that.”

Danielle sat up in the sofa and put her feet on the floor. “What are you suggesting?”

“Tomorrow is trash day.” Lily smiled.

Danielle frowned. “So?”

“The day before trash day, Joanne goes through the house and rounds up all the trash—from all the rooms. What if Hillary threw those notes away?”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she's been writing on that typewriter for hours. All I know, when Ian is working on one of his projects, he starts jotting down ideas—sort of like what Walt said Hillary seemed to be doing, judging by her notes. But Ian doesn't keep the notes forever. Some he does, but I've seen him toss out notes not long after he's written them. Sometimes it's just a way to get ideas flowing.”

“That's sort of what Hillary told me when I asked her about them.”

“It's possible the notes Walt read are sitting outside in the trash cans.”

Danielle groaned. “Wouldn't it have been easier to go through the trash if you had thought of this before Joanne dumped it all in the outside cans?”

“I suppose that's true.” Lily shrugged. “If we would've thought of it earlier. But the fact is, if they're out there in the trash, this is our last chance to see what she really wrote.”

“If they're out there.”

“They might be, Dani.”

Danielle glanced to the parlor window. It was dark outside. “We're going to need a couple of flashlights.”

“Or we could wait until the morning,” Lily suggested.

“They pick up the trash early. Even if we wait until the morning, it'll still be dark out if we want to go through the cans before the trash man shows up.”

Lily stood up. “So we're going to do this?”

Danielle groaned again and reluctantly stood. “I suppose so. You think we have any rubber gloves around here?”

W
alt Marlow
, Danielle Boatman, Lily Miller, Ian Bartley, Chris Glandon aka Chris Johnson, Heather Donovan, and Pete Rogers all had one thing in common. They resided on Beach Drive in Frederickport, Oregon. Beach Drive had no streetlights. A few of the houses on the street had installed their own security lighting, which helped illuminate the area on a moonless night.

Every Thursday evening the residents of Beach Drive dragged their trash cans to the curb in preparation for Friday morning's trash pickup. Those who forgot to remove their trash can lids before taking them to the curb the night before often discovered in the morning that the lids had rolled down the street, been run over by a vehicle and flattened, or sometimes they simply vanished.

Each week Joanne hauled lidless trash cans to the curb in front of Marlow House. While this saved Danielle from having to buy new trash can lids, the exposed trash was occasionally pilfered by roaming animals, resulting in garbage strewn along the street. At one time, Max had been a dumpster-diving feline, yet he had changed his way since moving into Marlow House and getting regularly fed.

Danielle stood by her trash cans, fidgeting with the flashlight she had brought with her. It had worked when she had left the house, yet died a few minutes after coming outside. Fortunately, there was a full moon overhead, and she wasn't standing in total darkness. She waited for Lily, who was inside tracking down rubber gloves and another flashlight.

T
he brief flickering
light from the sidewalk in front of Marlow House caught Walt's attention. When he stepped to the attic window and looked outside, the light was gone, but he could see a shadow standing not far from the gate.

“Is that Danielle out there?” Walt asked.

Max, who had been inspecting the attic's perimeter for possible rodent infestation, paused and looked over at Walt. Curious, he meowed and then leapt onto the windowsill. With his tail swishing, he looked outside.

D
anielle didn't see Lily coming
, but she could hear the approach by the crunching sound of Lily's shoes making their way across the yard.

“Here, put these on,” Lily ordered as she handed Danielle two large plastic storage bags.

“Put these on where?” Danielle asked, reluctantly taking the bags from Lily while holding her nonfunctioning flashlight in the other hand. She looked at the bags.

“On your hands, of course,” Lily told her as she shook out a large empty trash bag she had also been carrying.

“You expect me to use these as gloves?” Danielle asked, dropping the flashlight to the ground.

“I suppose you don't have to if you don't mind going through the trash barehanded.”

“I thought you were going to get some gloves?”

“I couldn't find any. But those should work.” Lily gave the trash bag she was holding another shake, clutching it by its opening, waiting for Danielle to fill it. “I figure you can empty the trash from the can and put it in here. Hopefully, Hillary's notes aren't at the very bottom.”

“If they're even in here.”

“I bet they are,” Lily said.

“We should have had Walt just keep an eye on the notes and then tell us when she tossed them,” Danielle said with a groan.

“Great, now you think of that!”

“Why do I have to do it?” Danielle asked, begrudgingly slipping the gallon-sized storage bags on her hands.

“They're your trash cans.”

“But it was your idea,” Danielle reminded her.

“Hey, if I came up with the idea, you can do your share and sort through the trash.”

Digging into the can and awkwardly pulling out garbage with her now covered hands, she said, “You know, I'm rich. I shouldn't have to do stuff like this. I should be able to pay someone to dig through my trash.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lily said as she watched Danielle dump a handful of garbage into her bag. “Where's your flashlight?”

“I thought you were going to bring one?” Danielle asked, taking another handful.

“I couldn't find one. Where's yours?” Lily glanced around, but it was difficult to see what was on the ground.

“It doesn't work. But I think we have enough moonlight. I should be able to tell when…if…I get to Hillary's notes.”

S
adie stood
at the living room window and started barking.

“What is it, girl?” Ian asked, stepping from the kitchen into the dark living room. Without turning on the overhead light, he walked across the dark room and looked out the window. He could see the silhouettes of two people in front of Marlow House. They were doing something—what exactly, he couldn't tell.

Ian pulled out his cellphone and dialed Lily. There was no answer. Then he dialed Danielle. Still no answer. Glancing to the windows of Marlow House, he could see the lights were all off.

“Sadie, it looks like someone is trying to break into the side gate at Marlow House, and I think they're all in bed over there.”

Without hesitation, Ian dialed the Frederickport Police Department.

“
W
hy don't
you see what those two are up to,” Walt told Max. The cat didn't move, but continued to stare out the window.

“Come on, Max, be a sport. I want to know what they're doing out there.”

Max meowed, jumped off the windowsill, and headed for the door.

U
nder the first
heap of garbage Danielle removed from the can, she found a number of smaller trash bags, each stuffed full and shoved tightly into the can. One by one, she pulled out a bag and ripped it open, transporting its contents to the bag Lily held.

“Oh dang, this stinks,” Danielle groaned as she leaned into the can, trying to retrieve the last bag. As she did, it tore apart, scattering its contents on the bottom of the can and forcing Danielle to reach down into its depths.

It was impossible for Danielle to grab hold of whatever remained on the bottom of the can, so she slipped the bags off her hands and gingerly touched whatever it was with her fingertips.

“It's sheets of paper!” Danielle said excitedly.

Lily had been just about to suggest picking up the almost empty can and dumping its remaining contents into the bag she held, instead of practically climbing in, but she withheld comment, believing they might have found what they were looking for, and Danielle almost had it in her grasp.

What neither Lily or Danielle noticed was Max slinking out from the side yard after exiting Marlow House via the pet door in the kitchen. The black cat focused his attention on the trash cans, wondering what tasty treats they held. Danielle and Lily also did not notice the vehicle driving down their street, which had turned its headlights off and approached slowly.

Just as Danielle took hold of a piece of paper on the bottom of the can, Max leapt into the receptacle, landing soundly on Danielle's back. She let out a scream and jumped up, tipping over the can, sending Max charging off under Lily's feet—which in turn frightened Lily, who took off in a run in the opposite direction.

J
oe Morelli watched
the shadowy pair as his squad car moved slowly down Beach Drive. He was about ten feet from the drive into Marlow House when one of them took off in a run, charging away from him. He immediately turned on his headlights and siren.