The Ghost and Mrs. McClure Page 11

  The light from the computer screen reflected in her eyes, burnishing the copper irises with tiny flecks of buried gold and making her pale skin appear smooth as cream. With her lips slightly swollen from her nervous gnawing, and her reddish-brown hair mussed, Jack thought she looked as though she’d just risen from a night of lovemaking.

  What he wouldn’t give to occupy a body again for just a few hours. He’d pull her up, out of that chair, into his arms. What he wouldn’t give to feel his hardness against her softness . . .

  “This is a self-assessment test presented by mental-health. com,” Penelope murmured. “Please click the boxes that apply to you: Feelings of sadness and/or irritability. Check. Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed. Check. Difficulty getting out of bed. Check. Inability to concentrate, work, or make decisions. Definitely a check—”

  Waste of time, doll, Jack interrupted. You’re not depressed.

  Penelope’s fingers stilled over the keyboard. Her body stiffened the way it always did when he penetrated her mind.

  Well? Jack asked. Didn’t your chat room friend . . . RUNE . . . didn’t RUNE advise you to “dialogue” with me?

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to take psychological advice from a person who professes to believe in ghosts.”

  Aw, shucks, doll, said Jack. You don’t believe in me? You want me to provide you a mental projection again, like I did last night?

  “Is that what I saw?” Penelope whispered. “A mental projection?”

  Don’t know what else to call it, said Jack.

  “How about a hallucination?”

  What a pill, Jack thought to himself. Okay, baby. Time to play hardball.

  Turn off the lights again, he told her with the equivalent of a low rasp in her ear. He swirled himself silently around her, taking pleasure in the way goose bumps formed on the surface of her skin, and her ample breasts rose and fell with quickening breaths. I dare you . . .

  “No!” Penelope said, even as shivers ran through her, giving her the startling revelation that he could manifest signs of his physical presence. “I can’t feel you. I can’t.”

  You can. It’s me. He breezed by her again, and again she shivered, shutting her pretty copper eyes, the dark lashes brushing her pale cheeks in a way that made Jack even more restless.

  “You go away now,” she said.

  Jack laughed.

  “I mean it.”

  He laughed again.

  Penelope stood up, her small hands balling into fists. She released a breath, then opened her eyes and grabbed up her clunky black glasses, shoving them on her face like armor.

  “Get out of my head!” she cried. “Get out of my store!”

  Calm down, baby. You’re in no danger. At least not yet—and I’m only bothering you now because I’d like to keep it that way for you and yours. Get me?

  Jack backed away, letting the air around her warm again. Penelope took a deep breath. “You’re trying to protect me? And my family?”

  Ready to open an eardrum now?

  “Fine,” she said, sinking slowly back into her chair. “Proceed.”

  First let’s get some things out of the way. I can’t stand it when broads pretend I’m not wise to things. It’s time to put the cards on the table. I want you to know what I know about you.

  “What do you know about me?”

  Everything. You’re a widow, that’s easy, but you haven’t let a living soul know how you really felt about your husband. Maybe not even yourself.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How do I feel?”

  You didn’t love him.

  “How dare you—”

  Save the energy, doll. Hubby leaped from an Upper East Side high-rise. You even glimpsed the guy taking the big plunge when you opened the bedroom door unexpectedly. And, after the initial shock over the man’s sad end, you felt mainly one thing: worry for your son’s well-being. And that was it. You’re sorry for the way he died, but you don’t miss him in the least.

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer.”

  Don’t. We both know it’s true. And we both know why.

  “Oh, WE both know, do we?”

  You were trying to raise a little boy with dragon-hearted in-laws breathing down your neck, and your mealy-mouthed man giving you a manifesto that read something like he found fatherhood a bore. How’m I doing?

  Penelope sat very still.

  He stopped sleeping with you, too, Jack continued. And no matter what you did, what you said to try to help him, or get him help, the sap refused to make the least bit of effort to find a way out of the well. That is, until he took the coward’s way out. Or should I say down. All the way to the bottom and six feet under. That about cover it?

  After a long pause, Penelope whispered, “It’s all true. Yes.”

  So that clinical depression checklist you’re going through isn’t for you, is it?

  “No.”

  It’s for Calvin, right?

  “I should have done it when it mattered. For a solid month he told me he was looking for a better therapist, that his old one was a quack. He kept telling me he was taking his medicine.”

  But he wasn’t. On either count.

  “That’s right. And he was—”

  Get it out, sister.

  “Weak. Calvin was weak, which meant he could also be mean. He never struck me, but when he didn’t get his way, he could be abusive . . . verbally abusive.”

  So you distanced yourself.

  “That’s a nice way of putting it. What I did was give up on him . . . and the truth is I was close to leaving him.”

  But he left you first.

  “Yes.”

  So you blame yourself.

  “Of course I blame myself. I was his wife.”

  Listen, I got a story for you, one of my cases. A wife comes in one day to hire me as a tail for her husband. Pretty little thing. Had a baby at home. Said her husband was an alkie. He’d have a bad week, get bombed on Friday, sleep with whatever had a pulse, then drag home again about Sunday. Swear he’d never do it again. Promised he’d get help to kick the booze. The week would go by. Come Friday, he was in the bar, knocking them back. So . . . what do you think?

  “What do I think? Of what?”

  Of the wife? How many years should the authorities have put her in prison for . . . I mean for the terrible crime of not getting her husband to sober up and stop treating her like dirt?

  “It wasn’t the wife’s fault.”

  My point exactly, doll.

  “No. My situation was not the same as hers. Calvin was sick. He was depressed. I know back in your time, society didn’t recognize depression as a disease—alcoholism, either, for that matter. But these things are sicknesses. People can’t kick them on their own. They need help.”

  Which you tell me you tried to get him. But he refused.

  “I could have committed him.”

  Would his family have let you?

  “Probably not. They didn’t see Calvin the way I did. He showed them a different face, and he’d never said anything about suicide—not to me, anyway. He’d even rallied the week before. Started organizing things, seemed more upbeat.”

  You didn’t PUSH him out the window, did you?

  “No, of course not. Although sometimes the way his family looks at me—I think they wonder if I did.”

  Screw them. Him, too. And I don’t mean maybe, baby, he’s the one that bailed. All that counts now is you and your son. You’re in it together. Isn’t that what you told the kid this morning?

  There was a long pause. “You were there this morning? With us? In Spencer’s room? You heard me say that?”

  So anyway, sugar, let’s get back to that syringe in your ladies’—

  “Oh, no you don’t. I want you to answer my question. Were you spying on us? On me? Upstairs in our private rooms?”

  I like to think of it as surveillance.

  “Well, I forbid you to go up there again.”

 
; Lady, you can’t lay down house rules to a man with no body.

  “I can so! I can ask you to promise not to haunt the second floor, on your honor as a . . . as a spirit.”

  Forget it.

  “You know you’re being unreasonable, Jack.”

  Another long pause ensued.

  “Jack?”

  That’s the first time you called me by my name.

  Penelope bit her lip. “Sorry.”

  No, no, it’s all right by me. Jack breezed close again. I liked hearing you say it.

  Penelope gave a little shiver. “Let’s get back to that business of Josh,” she said. “What would he want with a hidden syringe?”

  Here’s my theory: That syringe was used to poison Brennan in some way last night. Now, the killer would have been crazy to keep it on her because she couldn’t bet the police wouldn’t search the people in attendance in some way. And she wouldn’t throw it in the trash because that’s exactly where the cops would look first—and the State Police did cart last night’s trash away, didn’t they?

  “Yes, they did. But why do you keep saying ‘her’ and ‘she’? How can you be sure the killer was a woman?”

  Because a man going into the ladies’ can on the night Brennan keeled would have raised immediate alarms. A man would have hidden it in the men’s room. The person you’re looking for has to be a woman—at least as far as hiding the syringe goes. Doesn’t necessarily mean she’s the actual killer. She could simply be an accomplice, working with a man or another woman.

  “I’m with you. Go on.”

  The woman would have hid it in your ladies’ john, hoping to return for it another day.

  “Or she might have paid someone to retrieve it for her. Someone like Josh.”

  It’s possible. But wouldn’t she have told Josh exactly where to find the syringe, instead of making him search for it and risk getting caught?

  “Well, if Josh wasn’t hired to find the syringe, then why was he looking for it in the first place?”

  Don’t know.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you read his thoughts?”

  Couldn’t.

  “But you’ve been reading mine.”

  Told you before, I can only read yours. Get it through your head, babe, I’m not some kind of all-knowing divine spirit. I’m just a dead dick.

  “All right. I get it. So what should I do now?”

  Narrow down your suspect list. Josh is suspect number one. But he had to search for that syringe, which means he wasn’t the one to plant it—so who did?

  “Deirdre?”

  Possibly. She has the best motive. You yourself heard her say she had no love for Daddy dearest. And she’s inheriting all his loot.

  “I’m sure that’s what Lieutenant Marsh will conclude.”

  Who else?

  “Her husband, Kenneth Franken?”

  They could be in it together. Who else?

  “Deirdre said Brennan was about to divorce his third wife. Maybe she tried something.”

  Wouldn’t Deirdre or Brennan have recognized Brennan’s wife at the event last night?

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. They would have.”

  She could have hired someone, though—a doll willing to do the dirty deed. And there could be other suspects with motives we just haven’t uncovered yet.

  “What about Shelby Cabot? Josh reports to her. So it makes sense he’d do a favor for her like retrieve the syringe. But what motive could she have? Unless she was hired by Brennan’s wife.”

  It’s a long shot. So far Deirdre and you look like the prime suspects.

  “Me?!”

  Don’t act so shocked, doll; you said it yourself earlier. You’re benefiting from the murder, aren’t you? You and Sadie.

  “The police haven’t called it a murder yet.”

  But you know they think there’s foul play. They’re just waiting for the medical examiner to give them the toxicology evidence before they make their arrest.

  Penelope took a deep breath. “Then what do I do next?”

  Suddenly a tap, tap, tapping sounded on the store’s arched front window, and Penelope nearly jumped out of her skin. Jack didn’t have any skin, but the vibrations startled him, too.

  Looks like you’ve got a visitor, said Jack. And a late one at that. So here’s my professional, expert opinion about what to do next—

  “What?”

  Answer the door.

  CHAPTER 14

  Strangers in the Night

  Somebody was nuts. I was nuts. Everybody was nuts.

  None of it fitted together worth a nickel.

  —Philip Marlowe, “Trouble Is My Business” by Raymond Chandler, Dime Detective magazine, August 1939.

  OUTSIDE IN THE darkness, a trench-coated figure stood beyond the bookstore’s rain-splattered window. An open umbrella, tilted at an angle, masked the face.

  “Who is it?” I whispered to Jack.

  How should I know? I’m a spirit, not a psychic.

  Tap, tap, tap went the person at the window once more. I stepped around the counter and into a cone of light cast by the ceiling fixtures. The big black umbrella moved, and I recognized the pretty pert face and short, shiny, raven hair of Shelby Cabot, the publicist from Salient House. She caught sight of me and waved.

  “What should I say to her?” I whispered to Jack. “I mean, to get her to say what she might know about Josh and Deirdre and Kenneth?”

  Just get her talking. About anything. Then turn the conversation where you want it, so she doesn’t get wise to being grilled.

  “Okay,” I murmured, “wish me luck.”

  Baby, you don’t need luck in this profession. What you need is brains, and you got plenty, so go to it.

  I unbolted the door, and Shelby stepped in. “I know it’s late, Mrs. McClure,” she said as she shook the large umbrella, dripping water all over my newly restored plank floor. “I was strolling by the store and saw the lights on and, well—”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied, frankly dubious that anyone would be “strolling by” on a night like this one.

  Shelby pulled off her sopping raincoat and draped it over a nearby Shaker-style rocker. Dribbling water puddled in the cross-hatched seat.

  “I heard sales were brisk today,” she said.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How wonderful!” she exclaimed, though her forced grin gave me the impression she didn’t care in the least.

  I turned to bolt the door, but something caught my attention: a man was loitering across the street, just beyond the dull beams of the streetlight on the corner. In my head, I whispered to Jack, “Who is that standing across the street?”

  How should I know? he said.

  “What kind of response is that?! You’re supposed to be a private eye. Go on over and find out!”

  Can’t leave the premises, doll. Don’t ask me why.

  “Why?”

  Because I don’t have an answer.

  Frustrated with Jack’s double-talk, I stared harder beyond the door’s pane, trying to make out the details of the dark silhouette, but I didn’t recognize the rain slicker, and the big hood was pulled up and around the man’s face.

  I’d been peering through the window so intensely, I nearly jumped when Shelby spoke up behind me: “I don’t suppose you received that special order yet? The one I had sent directly from our warehouse?”

  I turned to face her, noticing the woman’s gaze was not on me at all. She’d been looking at the figure across the street, too. When I answered, however, she immediately shifted her eyes to me.

  “Actually, five hundred hardcovers arrived this morning,” I said.

  “Isn’t it convenient the Salient House warehouse is just an hour away,” said Shelby. “Normally, an order like that would take much longer to fulfill.”

  “Yes, I was surprised by the speed—but I was absolutely shocked by the amount of books in the order. I mean, last night, you said ‘a few’ more books would be charged to
our account number. I can’t figure where ‘a few’ translates into twenty cartons.”

  “Of course, Salient House will accept any returns—”

  “To tell you the truth, when the delivery man rolled all of those boxes in this morning, I feared we’d never move so many copies. But we’ve already sold more than half the shipment. It turns out you were right to order so many.”

  “I’m so glad,” Shelby replied. “I could see from the way you’d mismanaged the event room setup last night that you wouldn’t be on top of your inventory needs, either.”

  Did she just take a shot at me? I wondered.

  She aimed and fired, all right, Jack said in my head.

  “Well, as new releases go, I can’t say that I have any experience managing inventory for a circumstance like this one,” I said politely, evading an accusation that her large order did force us into a position where we appeared to be exploiting an author’s sudden death.

  The implication didn’t seem to bother Shelby in the least. “Of course, it’s understandable how the whole thing was just beyond your abilities to handle,” she answered breezily. “Isn’t it fortuitous the way it all turned out—that I was able to do the right thing for you and your store? At Salient House, we’re often exasperated by the provincial attitudes of our unsophisticated vendors, especially those independent booksellers not based in major urban areas. So many such booksellers just aren’t willing to take full advantage of a situation.”

  In typical “corporate speak”—polite, evasive, and nonspecific—I guess the tragedy of Timothy Brennan’s death could be called a “situation.”

  “This store is impressive,” Shelby said, moving suddenly from insulting to ingratiating. “And such a responsibility.”

  “We try,” I said.

  “Well, don’t feel bad about not knowing quite enough about the publishing business yet.” Shelby Cabot’s eyes locked on mine. “Just as long as you rely on the help of people like me.”

  Was this woman actually trying to provoke me? I wondered.

  If you’re gonna imitate a doormat, Jack barked in my head, the least you could do is stretch out on the floor so she can wipe her feet.

  “I admit, Mr. Brennan’s signing was this store’s very first,” I said. “But I have had plenty of experience in the publishing business.”