Die Job (9 page)

“What are you doing here?”

I jumped. The voice came from above me and I looked up to see Glen Spaatz peering over the railing, dark hair flopping across his forehead. “What are
you
doing here?” I countered.

“Same as you probably.” A slight smile banished the sternness from his face. “Come on up.”

I didn’t need his invitation. The rope that normally barred access to the stairs hung limply against the newel post, so I marched up the stairs until I was level with Spaatz on the landing. “Find anything?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not really. I cast around up here, but I didn’t find anything out of place. Not that I know what I was looking for. Something to explain what happened, I guess. My ass is on the line here. My principal is
not
happy with, and I quote, ‘an incident so full of negative energy’ happening on a school outing.”

I felt a pang of sympathy for him. If I felt somehow responsible for Braden’s situation, how much worse must it be for him?

“I was just about to check that bedroom where Lonnie went out the window.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Has Lonnie turned up yet?”

“I don’t know.” He pushed open the door to the room and it squeaked. “If he has, no one’s told me. I did hear that they’re moving Braden out of the ICU, though. That’s got to be good news.” With a sweeping gesture, he invited me to precede him over the threshold.

“Yeah.” And it would be even better news if he woke up. I swiveled slowly two hundred seventy degrees to take in the room. It hadn’t made any impression on me when I was trying to catch Lonnie.

A ten by ten square, the room had the same wood floors as
the rest of the house. A rag rug added a splotch of color by a single bed with a threadbare quilt on it, and wallpaper featuring overblown roses covered the walls. A stuffed doll with button eyes and yarn hair slumped against an embroidered pillow. A walnut armoire took up most of one wall, and the window filled most of another. It didn’t look like this room had been restored to its pre–Civil War origins. Rothmere descendants had lived in the house until old Phineas Rothmere willed it to the city upon his death in the 1950s, and some of the rooms were a confusing mix of Victorian, Art Deco, and other design sensibilities. Lucy Mortimer burned to restore it all to its original splendor, but that took money. Spaatz moved to the window and threw up the sash easily. The movement sparked a memory.

“The window was already open when Lonnie came in here,” I said. “He jumped right through it.” I thought for a moment. “Is Lonnie a good student?”

Spaatz looked over his shoulder at me. “He’s very bright, but he’s . . . shall we say ‘unmotivated’? I don’t think his home situation is good.”

“Bright enough to come check this place out before last night? How long has the field trip been planned?”

“You think he cased the joint?” Spaatz turned and half sat on the windowsill, stroking his chin. “Could be. It’s been on the calendar for over a month. Had to give enough time for the kids to get their permission slips filled out and ante up five bucks each so we could pay for the bus.” Sarcasm tinged the words.

“You know, he went out that window like a shot. Never even looked to see if the roof sloped or if there was something to hang on to or anything. I think he and his cohort—”

“Tyler Orey. Not as bright as Lonnie—more of a follower, I’d say.”

“I think they had this all planned out, the fog machine, the sheet, the escape route—everything.”

Spaatz straightened. “Could well be, but where does that get us relative to Braden’s fall? Nowhere. Tyler and Lonnie were out of the picture long before Braden’s accident.”

I deflated a little. “True enough.” I scanned the room and crossed to the armoire. It towered over me, easily eight feet tall. I tugged on one of the metal pulls and the door swung toward me, emitting a faint scent of camphor. A few wire hangers rattled on the metal pole that stretched across half the opening. Drawers marched down the left side of the cabinet and I opened them idly. Liner paper with a faint gold stripe and a few rodent pellets were all I found until I got to the last drawer. It didn’t open as easily as the others and I gave it a sharp jerk, nearly falling on my fanny when it slid toward me to reveal white fabric crammed into the drawer.

Spaatz and I exchanged a glance and I scooped my arms under the material and pulled it out in a crumpled ball. I found an end and flapped it, unfolding a white sheet. I arched my brows and poked a finger through one of two perfectly round holes, golf ball sized, in the middle of the cloth.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume?” Spaatz said dryly.

“Boo.”

We stared at the sheet draped over my arms for a moment.

“It must be Lonnie’s costume,” Spaatz said, rubbing a corner of the cloth between his thumb and two fingers.

I was shaking my head before he finished. “Uh-uh. Lonnie was still wearing his ghostie disguise when he went through the window. He got rid of it out there somewhere.” I
tilted my head toward the gardens and the cemetery beyond.

“So who left that in there?”

I bit my lower lip. “I don’t know, but it seems to me that more than one of your students wanted to make sure you would find ‘spirits’ on your ghost-debunking field trip.”

A troubled look settled on Spaatz’s face. “This might explain why Braden came upstairs.”

I nodded. “If someone was playing ghost on the landing, with or without special effects like Lonnie’s, Braden might have come up to investigate. Trouble is, even though this explains why he came upstairs, it doesn’t explain how or why he fell.”

Spaatz widened his ice-blue eyes. A faint, half-moon scar curved from the outside corner of his right eye. “It must have been an accident, like the police said. He ran up to catch the ghost, caught his shoe on a tread, and fell.”

“So why didn’t the ghost get help, instead of stuffing his costume in this armoire and disappearing?” I asked quietly.

“Scared?”

“Maybe.” The situation made me uneasy. I hadn’t liked it when there was no obvious reason for Braden to have come upstairs. I liked it less now that we knew someone else had been up here, someone who hadn’t bothered to get help for a critically injured teen.

Spaatz and I descended the stairs and walked to the now-deserted parking lot.

“What should we do with that?” he asked, nodding at the sheet I still carried.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, undecided. “I guess we should take it to the police,” I said finally, “and tell them what we figured out about someone playing ghost on the landing.” I dumped the sheet into the trunk.

“It probably won’t change their minds about it being an accident,” Spaatz warned, pushing the trunk lid down so it closed with a clang.

“I know.” I sighed. “But we can’t just leave it here. I’ll take it by the station first thing in the morning. Then it will be the police’s problem.”

DUSK HAD FALLEN BY THE TIME I PULLED UP TO THE curb in front of my apartment, the remodeled carriage house offset from my landlady’s Victorian home. Clumps of trick-or-treaters carrying flashlights and pumpkin-shaped plastic containers for collecting candy ran excitedly down the sidewalks. Parents trailed behind, assuring the safety of the tiniest princesses and ninja warriors. A huge jack-o’-lantern with a goofy grin on its face glowed from the bottom step of Mrs. Jones’s veranda.

“Yoo-hoo! Grace!” Mrs. Jones called. She waved a broom to attract my attention and I saw she was dressed as a witch, complete with pointy hat on her head. “Come help me hand out candy.”

I obediently climbed the steps to the veranda and helped myself to a Snickers bar from the basket at her feet. “Had many customers yet?” I asked.

She nodded happily. “Oh, my, yes. Quite a few. I do so enjoy Halloween!”

In her mid-eighties, Genevieve Jones was still a go-getter, taking Meals on Wheels to shut-ins, practicing tai chi in the park, and generally meddling in the lives of her numerous nieces and nephews and their children. Tall and skinny and with a frill of white hair standing up from her head, she reminded me of a crowned crane.

“Such a shame about the McCullers boy,” she said.

I wasn’t surprised that she’d heard; Mrs. Jones’s network of family and friends kept her posted on all the good gossip.

“He wasn’t really possessed by a spirit, was he?” she asked, leaning forward.

I sighed. Mrs. Jones might get all the good gossip, but the rumor mill had usually distorted it beyond recognition by the time she repeated it. “Of course not. He tripped and fell on the stairs at Rothmere,” I said.

“Twick or tweat,” a tiny bumblebee with blond curls said, holding out a pillow case. Two other youngsters stood behind her, a skeleton and a diva with a feather boa, oversized sunglasses, and chunky jewelry.

“Aren’t you all so sweet?” Mrs. Jones said as I plunked a couple of pieces of candy into the bee’s bag.

“Are you really a witch?” the skeleton asked apprehensively, his words muffled by his mask.

“Just like you’re really a skeleton,” Mrs. Jones replied with a twinkle.

The boy thought about it for a moment and then gave a satisfied nod before scampering after the bee and the diva.

“They moved him out of ICU this afternoon.” I picked up our conversation.

“I had a friend whose son was in a coma for twenty-four years,” Mrs. Jones said sadly. “Such a tragedy.”

“And then he came out of it?”

She shook her head as a posse of teens—way too old to be trick-or-treating—came up the walk. “Then he died.”

“Hand over a treat or I’ll make you walk the plank,” a female pirate said. She had a red bandanna tied around her head and a lot of leg showed under her skimpy skirt with its ragged hem.

A costume was no excuse for her rude tone. I skipped over the chocolate bars and gave her a packet of candy corn. She backed down the stairs and a Frankenstein’s monster, complete with green face and penciled-on stitches, replaced her. He looked a bit familiar . . . Recognition dawned in his eyes at the same time I realized who he was. I half stood, spilling some candy onto the veranda. “Lonnie!”

He turned, like he might run off, but then I could see him decide to brazen it out. “The name’s Frank. Frank N. Stein,” he said as his buddies scooped up the spilled candy and put it in their bags.

Mrs. Jones said, “Aren’t you a bit old for trick-or-treating, young man?”

“I’m a kid at heart,” he said, getting a laugh out of her. “I still believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy . . . and ghosts.” He shot a sidelong glance at me on the last word.

“Where’d you disappear to last night? The police are looking for you.” Should I call the police, try to detain him? I gave the thought up almost immediately. No way could I keep the six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound Lonnie here if he didn’t want to stay.

“Let ’em look.” Lonnie gave me a slow, lazy smile, green makeup caking in his smile creases.

“Ooooh, the po-po,” the pirate girl said with a mock shudder.

“C’mon, Lon,” said a short Obama. Tyler Orey. “Let’s split, dude. The party starts in an hour.”

“Happy Halloween,” Lonnie told me and Mrs. Jones. He poked a green finger at me. “You. Don’t go messing with stuff that ain’t any of your business. You hear what I’m saying?” He sauntered back down the stairs and followed his friends across the street.

I stared after him in disbelief. Had he just threatened me?

“There goes a bunch of kids who’re going to get into mischief before the night is over,” Mrs. Jones said, shaking her head so the witch hat tilted rakishly over one eyebrow. “Just you mark my words. They’ll be TPing houses or knocking over mailboxes or worse.”

I dialed the police number on my cell phone and asked for Officer Parker. Not that I wanted to talk to Hank, but he and his partner were working the case.

“There’s no point in calling the police on them yet, dear,” Mrs. Jones said. “I don’t think the police will take action until those kids
do
something. And maybe not even then,” she ended.

“Hi, darlin’,” Hank said loudly into my right ear. “Did you want to pick up where we left off last night?”

The smirk in his voice slimed my ear. I sighed and moved the phone an inch from my head. I quickly told him about Franken-Lonnie.

“Now, Grace,” he said, a
tsk-tsk
note in his voice, “you shouldn’t be trying to do our job for us.”

I’d heard that before, from Special Agent Dillon, and it stung. “I’m not—”

“We interviewed Alonso Farber this morning at his home in that trailer park south of the old cemetery. He ’fessed
up to setting off the fireworks without a permit and we ticketed him. Case closed.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good,” I said, feeling a bit foolish. I remembered the sheet. Before Hank could hang up or, worse, ask me out, I told him about Spaatz and me finding the sheet. “I can bring it by in the morning,” I said.

“You know I always enjoy seeing you,” he said, “but we don’t need that sheet. That boy’s fall was an accident, pure and simple.”

I hung up with a growl.

“You sound quite ferocious, dear. What is it?” Mrs. Jones asked.

“Nothing,” I gritted between my teeth.