What's a Ghoul to Do? (3 page)

She'd said that last bit with a wink, knowing full well that I was the sort of kid who would not limit my pet's vocabulary if I could get away with it.

I'd named my bird after an old relative of mine, the infamous Dr. John Henry Holliday, who had survived the gunfight at the OK Corral, and called Wyatt Earp his best friend. Doc Holliday was my great-great-granduncle, and I liked to think that I'd inherited all my rebellious genes from him.

That had been an important year for me, as not only had I lost my mother and gained Doc, I'd met Gilley Gillespie, my best friend and business partner. On the first day of school I'd been wandering around on the playground when I'd noticed a little boy was playing with two G.I. Joe figures. Something about the way he was making them interact fascinated me. I'd stared at him as he played with the dolls, and the moment he'd crashed them together and mimicked kissing noises I knew I had to meet him.

We'd been best friends within five minutes, and it had been Gilley who had convinced me to flee my high school graduation party and the Georgia backwater where we'd grown up for the bright lights of Boston, where he had a full scholarship to MIT and I'd had far fewer prospects.

We'd shared a tiny apartment on Cambridge Street, and while Gilley went to school majoring in computer science, I'd waitressed and worked odd jobs. Then one fateful night Gilley had come home and announced, "I got you a gig."

"What kind of gig?" I'd said.

"There's this girl in my HTML study group. Her father just died, and she can't concentrate. We have finals in three days, and I need her to help me through this exam. I told her you could make sure her dad was okay. She's coming over in an hour."

Ever since I was a very little girl I'd been able to communicate with people who were no longer living. In the beginning I'd called them spookers, as most of them were slightly spooky to a little tyke like me, but a few I recognized, like my grandfather and my aunt Carol. Gilley knew about my talent, and had never even batted an eye when I'd make general comments to him like, "I was sitting on the subway today and this woman's dead husband told me he'd suspected all along she was really a lesbian. Now he knows for sure."

And as irritated as I was at Gilley for setting me up like that, when the girl arrived I knew I had to help her. I connected her to her father, both her grandparents, and a friend who'd died in a car accident. As the very grateful girl got up to leave, she asked me how much I charged.

Now, I'm not dense, but for whatever reason it had never even occurred to me to charge money for this, so I think I charged her some paltry sum, like twenty dollars. And after her session I'd had six more phone calls, all from people excited to hear from their deceased relatives.

The rest was history—I'd had a booming practice going by the time Gilley graduated, and he'd graciously taken over managing my appointments while doing some computer hacking on the side. Our business changed forever after we'd gotten an unusual request from a woman who was afraid to stay in her own home. A former roommate had hanged himself there, and since then things had been weird.

It was my first bust, and the high I got from it made me quit the medium business and dive headfirst into ghostbusting, which I've been doing ever since.

* * * *

My cell rang, shaking me out of my musings. "Holliday," I said as I moved Doc from the steering wheel to my shoulder.

"Where
are you?" Gilley demanded.

"I'm on my way, Gil. Take a chill pill."

"M.J.," he began—Gilley's big on lectures. "You have an appointment in, like … twenty minutes!"

"And I'm a mere fifteen away, my friend. Besides, you should be proud of me. I've already collected on the Kettleman case."

"The one in the Back Bay?"

"Yep. And before you remind me that you were right, let me just congratulate you on your business acumen."

"Told you so," he said, sounding smug. It had been Gilley's idea to start advertising to the real estate community. He'd been actively soliciting brokers for a few weeks now.

"You just can't resist saying it, can you?" I answered with a chuckle.

"It's my nature; what can I say? So about this next case. I have the scoop on this Dr. Sable."

"Cyberspying again?"

"If the information exists, I might as well look at it. Anyhoo, this guy is worth big—and I do mean
big
—bucks. Dr. Steven Sable is the son of Andrew Jackson Sable…."

"That tycoon who offed himself?" I asked, remembering the news article I'd read a few weeks ago.

"That's the one," Gilley sang. "And he has major connections. M.J., if we pull this one off, we could be sitting pretty. We could become a fad for rich people all over New England. You know, folks at cocktail parties could ask one another if their home has been busted or not. We could be the next big thing!"

I rolled my eyes and stifled the laugh that wanted to burble up from my throat. Gilley was always predicting our imminent success. "Sure, sure. So what else can you tell me about him?"

"Oh, nothing interesting …" Gilley said quickly. I knew he was hiding something.

"Gil," I said, my voice dropping an octave, " 'fess up. What'd he do?"

"Nothing horrible," Gilley said. "He's just had a little trouble with the IRS recently."

"Tax evasion?"

"Nothing proven yet. I mean, no indictments have come down… so far."

I groaned. "I don't want to take work from a criminal, Gil."

"M.J., he's innocent until proven guilty. Let's just hear him out, okay?"

"Fine," I said, sighing at the traffic. I was stuck behind a shiny black Aston Martin, a car that had the ability to go from zero to sixty in, like, three heartbeats, but the guy driving this one was plodding along doing ten under the posted speed limit. "Crap," I said into the cell phone.

"What's the matter?" Gilley asked.

"I'm stuck behind the Batmobile, and I can't move around this guy." I noticed with irritation that the driver had his head cocked to one side, talking on his cell phone. "Man, I hate people who talk on their phones and drive at the same time."

"Good point. Let me let you go," Gil said.

"Uh … right. See you in fifteen," I said, and hung up. Groaning, I waited for a hole in traffic that would allow me to scoot around the moron, but things just weren't going my way today. My eyes kept inching back and forth to the clock on the dash. "Come on, dude," I muttered. "Just move over a little so I can get around you."

After four more blocks, an opportunity came up for me to shoot past the Aston. As I stomped on the gas, I rolled down my window and yelled, "Get off the friggin' phone!"

The man in the car next to me glanced over, and his blank expression seemed to ask,
What?

I gave him a quick snarl while Doc squawked, "Get off the friggin' phone! I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!"

* * * *

We arrived with barely a minute to spare, and I wasted no time as I burst through the door. "You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days," said a man about my height, with thick brown wavy hair, a strong jaw, and a Roman nose, as he pointed to a clock and handed me a folder.

"I know, Gil, I know," I said, hurrying into my office. Just as I had put Doc on his perch I heard the front door of our suite open and Gilley announce jovially, "Good morning! You must be Dr. Sable. So nice to meet you."

Discreetly I shut my door and tossed my jacket on the coatrack in the corner, sat down behind my desk, and pulled open the file. A picture of a handsome man who looked to be in his mid- to late fifties stared back at me, and I scowled as I read the headline of the article:
Wealthy Family Heir Questioned for Tax Evasion.
"Great," I said with a heavy sigh.

Before I'd had a chance to read through the file, my door opened and in hustled Gilley with a look of absolute glee on his face. "Ohmigod! M.J., this guy is gorgeous!"

"The doctor?" I asked, taken aback, because Gilley's tastes never ventured north of his own age.

"Yes, he's beautiful, delicious … he's
Dr. Delicious!"

"Dr. Delicious! Dr. Delicious!" Doc called from his perch.

"Great," I said, looking over at my parrot. "That's all I need."

"Anyway, he's filling out the paperwork, and I'll send him right in. Remember, be polite, M.J. We could use this job."

"Yeah, yeah …" I said, waving him away.

I skimmed the rest of the article and moved on to another one that documented Andrew Sable's death. The article was heavy on Andrew's background as a shipping tycoon and light on details of his demise. The official cause was listed as suicide, and no further investigation was planned. I switched my attention over to the other side of the folder, where Gilley had jotted his notes from the telephone call he'd received from Dr. Sable three days earlier.

Sable was interested in talking to the ghost of Andrew, which he was convinced was currently haunting the family's hunting lodge in upstate Massachusetts. I finished scanning the notes as my door opened again and in stepped Gilley. With a huge smile and a grand sweep of his hand he announced, "M. J. Holliday, this is Dr. Steven Sable."

I stood up and came around my desk as a very tall, broad-shouldered man with black hair and ebony eyes moved through the doorway. He held little resemblance to the man in the article, as this was clearly someone much younger and more ethnic-looking. "Hello, Dr. Sable," I said, extending my hand to shake his. "I'm sorry, but I thought you were older," I said, shooting a look at Gilley.

Gilley glanced at the file on my desk and quickly explained. "This is Dr. Steven Sable, the Second."

"Ah," I said, nodding my head and gesturing for him to sit down.

Taking his seat, Dr. Sable said, "Thank you for seeing me, Miss Holliday." His deep baritone was laced with an accent I couldn't quite place.

Gilley excused himself, giving me a wink as he shut the door, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, since I could clearly see his feet in front of the crack at the bottom of the door. My partner thought nothing of eavesdropping.

"Please call me M.J., Dr. Sable," I offered.

"Then please call me Steven," he said easily, with a hint of a smile that further accentuated his good looks.

Uh-oh,
I thought.
The last thing I need is a client this attractive… .
"So, tell me what brings you here?" I said, getting right to the point.

"I may need your assistance. My grandfather has passed away, and I would like to employ you to talk with him and find out the truth of what happened the day he died."

As I listened to Steven talk, I couldn't help but focus on the sound of his voice mixed with that unusual accent. It seemed to be a cross between Latin and European, and the sound was silky, as if he were melting a bite of chocolate on the back of his tongue. And there was also a measured cadence to his speech, as if he were thinking of the words in his native language first, then doing the translation before speaking. "I'm sorry for your loss. I had heard your grandfather's death was ruled a suicide."

"Incorrectly," Steven said, his features tensing.

"I see," I said, studying him. "And why do you suspect he didn't commit suicide?"

"His … how do you say it, this woman who cleans the residence?"

"His housekeeper?"

"Yes, that's it. She said my grandfather asked for oatmeal the morning he died."

Now I figure, given the stuff I do for a living, that I've seen and heard it all. But I'll have to admit when Steven made that statement it was really hard not to look surprised. "Come again?" I asked when he offered no further explanation.

"The night before his death my grandfather telephoned me and said that he'd been to his physician, who suggested his cholesterol level was elevator."

"Elevator?" I asked, working hard to hide my smirk. "I think you mean elevated."

Steven waved his hand. "Yes, yes. It was elevated. As I was saying, my grandfather didn't like to take pills, so he asked if I had any advice for him. I told him to begin with his diet, and try oatmeal instead of his usual bacon and eggs."

"Uh-huh…" I said, trying to connect the dots. "So because he took your advice and had oatmeal for breakfast you think he wasn't suicidal."

"Correct," Steven said, nodding gravely. "My grandfather was not depressed. He enjoyed his life and was in excellent health. He wasn't in pain, and his mental state was very good. So you can see there was no reason for him to turn to suicide."

"How exactly did your grandfather die?" I asked. The article I'd read had been light on the grim details.

"It is my belief that he was forced off the roof of his hunting lodge."

"Long way down?" I asked, picturing a log cabin in the woods somewhere.

"Three floors."

"Ouch," I said, wincing. "Are you sure he didn't just fall out a window or something?"

"The windows on the third story are all… how do you say, pushed back?"

"Recessed," I offered.

"Yes, recessed above the roof of the second floor, which comes out over the west side of the lodge. My grandfather's slipper was found on the roof."

I nodded. "Which means he would have had to climb through the window and lower himself onto the roof, then walk several feet to the edge."

"Correct," Steven said.

"So who would gain from your grandfather's passing?"

"It would be easier to tell you who wouldn't," Steven replied with a frown.

"And Gilley tells me that you've witnessed your grandfather's ghost walking the lodge's property?"

"Yes, last weekend. I inherited the lodge from my grandfather, and I decided to spend the weekend there. I arrived late at night and went straight to bed. In the middle of the night I heard my grandfather's voice. He called to me."

"Could have been a dream," I commented. I didn't really think it was a dream, but decided it might be wise to play devil's advocate and see just how serious this young doctor was.

"It was not a dream. I was awake. And then, when I went to the hallway where I heard his voice, he whispered my name in my ear, and I felt his touch on my back, but when I turned around he was not there."