An Uninvited Ghost (29 page)

“Not if it was going to make you look bad,” I asserted. “Suppose you had something to do with her disappearance—that wouldn’t be so good for your image, would it?”

H-Bomb made a face that indicated complete and utter disgust with my very existence—I’d try to describe it, but there’s no way I could do it justice. Suffice it to say that for a moment, her face looked like it was made of Silly Putty, a substance with which I have some history. “Oh,
seriously
!” she screamed. “First, what, I helped Tiffney kill the old lady, and now I killed
Tiffney
? Are you migraine nuts?”

“I never said anybody killed Tiffney. I just said she’d disappeared. Do you know something I don’t know?”

H-Bomb said a few more colorful words, made a gesture that my mother would describe as “vulgar” and stomped away. I gave Trent, who was standing just out of earshot, my best smile as I walked back into the house.

It was going to be a great night of filming for him.

I didn’t see much point in questioning the Joneses, since they certainly hadn’t been in the room the night Arlice Crosby died. And Bernice Antwerp hadn’t been near Arlice when she’d collapsed; in fact, Bernice had been all the way across the room, sitting down and making notes of things that were unsatisfactory, her favorite form of recreation.

But now that this long day was winding down, I did want to talk to Thomas Donovan, counselor-at-law, once again, so I called him at home. Donovan, having been properly chastened by my invisible friend with a red bandana, answered my call immediately.

“I think you need to get over here,” I told him once we stopped pretending to be friendly colleagues.

“What’s the problem?” Donovan asked.

I stood in the game room holding my cell phone. Mom had decided to try to teach Melissa how to play pool, having temporarily “repaired” the felt on the table with duct tape. Her theory was that Liss couldn’t do much more damage to the table as she learned, and if she could play under these conditions, she’d be a regular prodigy on a proper table. The woman has such faith in her girls, it’s actually a little unsettling.

“I’m not in the mood to play around anymore,” I told Donovan. Now, just thinking about the lawyer dredged up memories of The Swine, and I didn’t even have to try. “I’m about to arrange a meeting with your accomplice, and I think you need to be here for it.”

Mom’s eyebrows shot up, and Melissa, standing on an egg crate, hit the cue ball completely off the table, opening up a slight new tear in another area of the felt.

“My
accomplice
?” Donovan moaned. “Of what am I being accused?”

“I think it was you who told Arlice Crosby about the pirate ghost at the Ocean Wharf Hotel. Then you tried to cover something up by suggesting to Lieutenant McElone that I was asking about Arlice’s will,” I reminded him. “You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t have something to hide. That something was your involvement in Arlice’s murder.”

Paul, pretending to sit on the low vinyl sofa next to the pool table (very nineteen fifties, red with chrome armrests), looked appalled. “You can’t accuse him of something when you have no evidence,” he tried, but it was too late.

“You’re being absurd,” Donovan answered. “I had nothing to do with Arlice’s death. I had nothing to gain from it. What makes you think that I—”

“You forget I know about the e-mail you sent after you ratted me out. You told
someone
that things had gone as planned. So I’ll say it again: I’m meeting your accomplice in a half hour,” I told him. “Be here, or I’ll be going back to McElone with a story of my own, and you won’t like the way it ends.”

I hung up.

Paul stood up, as if he’d really been resting on the couch to begin with. “Alison!” he said. “What did you just do?”

“It’s late,” Mom told Melissa. “Maybe it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“Are you kidding?” my daughter asked her. “It’s only eight-thirty.”

“You have no evidence,” Paul continued. “You have no reason to think Donovan had anything to do with—”

I was already getting out letters to arrange on the easel. “When Scott was supposed to scare Arlice to death, Donovan was there,” I reminded Paul. “And he really did try to make me look bad with McElone, as a diversion from
something
. And he’s supposedly been looking for Arlice’s missing sister, but hasn’t been able to find her yet. You have to wonder how hard he’s been trying.”

“You think he wants all of Mrs. Crosby’s money for himself?” Melissa asked.

“No, honey. Most of it will go to Arlice’s charities no matter what happens.” Once again, I wondered whether discussing this with her was a good idea, but there was nothing I’d hated more when I was a child than adults who’d talked to me as if I were an unintelligent being just because I was younger than they were. Most of them, I knew even then, were idiots.

“So then I don’t understand,” Melissa went on. “What reason would Mr. Donovan have to hurt Mrs. Crosby?”

“I don’t think it’s his reason that we’re looking for,” I said.

“You think he’s working with the killer, and has been from the beginning,” Paul said, completing my thought. “I concur. But who is his accomplice?”

“We’ll find out in half an hour.” I had completed putting out letters on the easel, spelling out the message: “ATTIC. 9 PM.”

“What makes you think Donovan will come here now?” Mom asked.

“I heard the tone of his voice,” I answered. “He was scared.”

“Still, you can’t be sure,” Paul said.

“Watch him show up.”

 

 

I’d set the “meeting” for the attic because I didn’t want it anywhere near Trent and his TV cameras, opting against the suggestion to tape the meeting—if something happened, I didn’t see how having it appear on
Down the Shore
was going to help. An added advantage was that Maxie was already up in the attic, still fuming at me but able to report if anyone tried to sneak up early and get the jump on me. She wasn’t
that
mad.

I, meanwhile, was busy downstairs, fending off questions from Bernice about the lack of a religious service on Sunday morning, the lack of tea in the evening and the fact that the ghosts had not taken the Sabbath off yesterday. Apparently, she thought I had Paul and Maxie under a contract, and she wanted to act as their agent and renegotiate the terms.

Finally, I managed to break free of her grasp, just as Tom Donovan arrived at the front door. Paul, who had positioned himself just outside the entrance, walked through the wall to announce that I’d been right about Donovan and to give me a few last-minute tips on how to handle the attorney.

“The gruff approach seems to be working well,” he said quickly. “Keep that up, and just keep on concentrating. Don’t give him an opening. Keep right at him the whole time.” I felt like he was telling me to make sure to keep jabbing away with my right and keep my left up to block punches.

There was no time to ask, however, because Donovan was walking through the door even as Paul got the last few words out. I walked over to the attorney and did not offer a hand. I also scowled. Mentally, The Swine was calling to tell me why his child support check would be late. Again.

“I assume you coming here is an admission of guilt,” I began.

“It’s nothing of the sort,” Donovan answered. “You simply didn’t give me another choice. Now, what is this absurd notion that I had anything to do with Arlice Crosby’s death?”

I started walking toward the stairs, and Donovan followed me. So did Paul. I knew Mom was in Melissa’s room keeping her company (and away from the attic, which was where she had lobbied to be), and the guests were winding down for the evening, or in Jim and Warren’s case, still out to dinner.

“How’s the search for Arlice’s sister coming?” I asked Donovan, not responding to his question.

“So far, it’s been difficult,” he admitted. “But it’s only been a few days.”

“Maybe you need an investigator to look into it,” I suggested with what I hoped was an edge to my voice. “Someone you trust to do a professional job.”

“I’ll keep your firm in mind, of course,” he responded. It was probably a reflex; he was a businessman more than a lawyer, and he probably spoke to everyone that way.

“Of course,” I echoed. “I’m assuming that since you tried to cast suspicion on me when you talked to the police, you won’t mind when I double my fee.”

We had reached the second-floor landing. Donovan was huffing a bit, and that last suggestion got him huffing even harder. “Now see here, Ms. Kerby. If you think you can shake me down for more money . . .”

Paul was just over my shoulder, standing in midair over the staircase, and grinning. “Tell him you’re charging extra because you’re closing in on the killer at this very moment,” he said, and I passed the message on to Donovan.

He blanched, but he didn’t have time to react. Instead, from behind Melissa’s door I heard my mother shout her name. The door swung open fast, and my ten-year-old daughter was standing in her doorway, smiling at me and the man I suspected of being, at the very least, an accessory to murder.

“Hi, Mom!” Liss tried very hard to be perky, and it came out sort of frightening, if the truth be known. “I was just heading up to the attic!”

“You most certainly were not, young lady,” Mom told her from inside her bedroom.

“I’ll deal with it, Mom,” I called in. I could feel my aura of intimidation fading by the second. “You know we have a meeting set up in the attic right now, Liss,” I told her. “You can’t come up just now. I’ll come see you after.”

“But I left my English homework up there,” she countered.

“I’ll bring it down for you when I’m through.” Nice try, Liss.

“It’ll just take a second,” she tried, but her tone indicated she knew it was a losing effort.

“Not. Now.” And I ushered Donovan toward the attic stairs, which I pulled down from the ceiling.

Mom appeared behind Melissa, smiling her public smile at Donovan. “The child is so spirited,” she said, nodding faintly at Paul. Then she all but pulled Melissa back into her room and slammed the door. Now,
that
was the Loretta Kerby I remembered from growing up.

“Sorry for the interruption,” I told Donovan, and saw Paul frowning at me. Don’t apologize to a guy you’re trying to intimidate. “I’m sure you’re in a hurry to reunite with your accomplice.” Not much of a stinger, I’ll grant you, but it was something of a recovery.

“Just out of curiosity,” I went on, not giving Donovan a chance to reply, “what happens if you don’t find Arlice’s sister? Who would get the portion of her estate her sister is supposed to inherit?”

“Every effort is being made to locate her,” Donovan answered. I stood by the pull-down stairs and gestured for him to climb up. “After you,” Donovan tried, but I shook my head.

“Please,” I said. “You go first.” I didn’t tell him that the last thing I needed to wonder on my way up to this rendezvous was whether or not he was looking at my butt.

Donovan sighed, but he started up to the attic. I followed him up, leaving the stairs down in case our mystery guest had not yet entered the arena.

Once upstairs, where I had placed a few sheets of plywood on the crossbeams to avoid going straight through the ceiling to one of the guest bedrooms, I checked first with Maxie, who was “sitting” on a part of the floor with no plywood, arms crossed in a pose of disapproval, sneering at me.

“Nobody’s shown up yet,” she said, “not that you care who gets to come up here.”

I refrained from getting involved in an argument with someone who was, to the other person in the room, invisible. I’d already played the ghost card in Donovan’s office, and was not in the mood to pull that particular tactic out again right now. I flattened my mouth out and shook my head a tiny bit, something that I didn’t think Donovan would notice.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. So he had noticed.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” I snarled at him, getting back into character. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who we’re expecting up here.”

He sniffed. “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out,” I told him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Donovan looked around. It was an empty room, only barely floored. There were no walls. There were windows overlooking the
Down the Shore
trailers on one side and a shuttered-up home in the distance on the other.

“How?”

“You’ll think of something,” I said. I don’t know what it meant, either, but it was intended to annoy Donovan, and it appeared to have the desired effect. “Besides, you want to be on your feet when your accomplice arrives.”

Paul must have been lurking in the space behind me, because I felt the familiar warm breeze sensation when he walked through, well,
me
to take a closer look at the attorney.

“He’s not going to be easy to intimidate,” he said. “He’s already annoyed.”

“Ms. Kerby, I don’t know what you think you know, but I can assure you it’s not what you think,” Donovan said. Maxie rolled her eyes.

“I know enough,” I said. “You’ve seen the will, so you know she has a sister named Jane. You and only you know what’s being done to find that sister.”

“That’s not so. I’ve already spoken to the police, and they have an investigator on the case.” I assumed that was a lie; the most casual of investigations would have turned up a death certificate or an obituary. Maxie had been unable to turn up either on her Web searches yet.

“Find out who,” Paul suggested. But I thought he was just scoping out the competition, so I ignored him.

“That’s the other thing,” I said. “You hired me to investigate Arlice’s death.”

Donovan looked amused. “That’s incriminating evidence?” he asked.

“Sure. You know perfectly well that I’m not equipped or experienced in that sort of investigation, and yet you hired me. One of your most important and wealthiest clients is murdered, and you hire
me
to investigate? Does that make sense to you?”