Ghost in the Wind Page 22

  I looked at the lieutenant. “He’s suggesting we use an arbitrary method to find Claudia that would involve something you definitely couldn’t use in court and I absolutely couldn’t confirm for you.”

  “Of course you could confirm it, love,” Vance insisted. “I’d tell you the very first. You could just pass the information along.”

  “You don’t think this . . . guy is a reliable source of information?” McElone asked me, perhaps forgetting that Vance was present.

  Now, you have to understand. I’ve said that Vance McTiernan and the Jingles had gotten me through some rough times when I was an adolescent, and I mean rough times. I’d had some problems with rebellion then, my parents were at their wits’ end and I had not handled it well. I sat in my room and listened to the Jingles instead of doing something really, really stupid. So it hurt—badly—when I had to look at Vance, then turn to McElone.

  “No,” I said. “He’s not reliable.”

  Vance’s look was absolutely devastated, and devastating. “Okay,” he said softly. He evaporated quickly into the air.

  McElone must have read my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “He didn’t care to be seen as unreliable,” I said. “He left.”

  “Oh.” She walked out of the room and I followed. “Why isn’t that one reliable?”

  “His story’s been changing every hour on the hour,” I said as we walked down the stairs. “I think his heart’s in the right place, so to speak, but ‘reliable’ would be a stretch.”

  McElone’s eyes were still scanning the ceiling. “This place is so weird.”

  “Tell me about it.” I hadn’t even told her that Morrie Chrichton had made his first appearance since the murder just over her head when we reached the landing. McElone spotted Maureen sitting, walker to one side, at the entrance to the den, and headed that way. I went to the front door and out to the porch to wait for the cleaning crew, ostensibly. Morrie followed me, which I had expected him to do.

  “Where have you been?” I said casually as I stepped onto the porch. It was still a nice warm September day, the incredible heat having abated (for the time being) and the chill that announced winter not yet arrived.

  “Trying to make sense of what happened in your house last night,” Morrie answered. “I mean, I’ve seen some freaky stuff in my time. I’m dead, after all. But that took it.”

  “There’s talk Bill Mastrovy was killed over an album Vanessa had recorded. You were alive around here until six months ago. Had you heard anything about that?” I asked him.

  “After what went on during the Jingles tour, I stayed away from Vanessa,” Morrie said. “But I did catch the odd bit of information. Her brother was definitely talking it up, and from what I hear, Vanessa was just as big a goniff as her old man.”

  I looked sideways at Morrie, whose big cheesy grin indicated he thought he knew something juicy. “What would that mean if it were in English?” I asked him.

  “It means Vanessa was stealing copyrights just like Vance did to me. Other people wrote her songs and she took the credit.”

  Twenty-two

  Paul was not convinced. “Just because Morrie says so doesn’t make it factual,” he said, sounding just like McElone. He floated above the railing on my front porch while I pretended to watch a couple of tourists go by and not acknowledge anything at all incredibly confusing going on. Paul looked at Morrie. “No offense meant.”

  “Oh, none taken, guv. I love it when people tell me I’m a liar and say I shouldn’t be offended.” Morrie, enjoying the spotlight—this was the closest he’d ever come to being a front man—was stretched out on his side in the same pose Maxie likes to take.

  She, nonplused by Morrie’s copping her attitude, folded her arms across the part of her T-shirt that read, “Hulk Smash,” and “stood” to one side, frowning at Morrie like he was a bad piece of whitefish.

  “I didn’t mean that you are a liar,” Paul explained. “I was only saying that your information might not be accurate. I have no doubt that you believe it.”

  “So I’m either a liar or a moron.” Morrie actually smiled. He seemed to enjoy making people uncomfortable, and he was having that effect on Paul.

  “Neither. But that’s not the issue right now,” Paul hurried on. “If Vanessa didn’t write the music on an album that was never released, does it really matter?” Paul was watching Morrie’s face intently, which was a trial for me because he was sort of blending in with the tree behind him, whose leaves were beginning to think about changing. I’ve never asked whether ghosts can see each other better than we can see them. It hadn’t occurred to me before now.

  “As I understood it,” Morrie said, “Bill Mastrovy wrote some of the songs and her brother wrote the others. But the buzz was big. Vinyl Records was buying it, and even if they weren’t the biggest in the business, they could make a splash. You don’t make money on records anymore, anyway, because the kids all steal the music. It’s touring that makes you a pile.”

  The tourists were out of sight, so it was easier for me to talk now. “So then why would anybody care about the credit on the songs?” I asked Morrie.

  Morrie gave me a look that indicated I was one of the things he’d felt accused of being, and it wasn’t a liar. “Credit always matters, dear,” he said. “If that song gets played on the radio, that’s money. If someone downloads it, that’s money. If they use it in a movie, money. I heard the record was hot enough that a decent amount could be had. And besides, it’s your work.” His gaze bore a hole into my forehead. “A person should be given proper recognition.”

  “But Vanessa wasn’t a household name,” Maxie said, trying hard to point out a flaw in Morrie’s tale. “Why would her music be worth that much?”

  “I’m just guessing,” Morrie said, looking like someone should peel him a grape and feed it to him from above. “But think about it. The music was getting buzz. Even in this terrible business climate, a recording company was going to pay cash money for it.”

  That was the first shoe, so I waited for the second to drop. “And?”

  Morrie did an innocent face that was the opposite of innocent. “Think. What happens to a painting’s value when the artist dies?”

  “It goes up,” Maxie answered. She probably didn’t consider that Morrie’s question might have been rhetorical.

  Paul, stunned enough to forget his goatee for once, gave Morrie a look from head to toe, which in his horizontal state was more like end-to-end. “You think someone killed Vanessa to make the value of the recording go up?”

  “I wouldn’t know, guv. I’m just a washed-up old bass player.” Morrie wanted our pity and our respect. He was really just getting me annoyed.

  “We can’t be sure,” Paul said quickly. “Mastrovy told you he was in Vanessa’s apartment the day she died. That could mean he killed her or it could be motive for Sammi to have killed him.”

  “Then why would Sammi have killed Vanessa?” I asked.

  Paul tilted an eyebrow. “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe there are two killers.”

  I sneezed.

  “You people seem to have a problem to work out,” Morrie said with a nasty grin. “I wouldn’t want to hold you up.” He vanished before we could question him further.

  “So do I tell the lieutenant?” I said.

  “Tell the lieutenant what?” McElone was standing in my front entrance, straight as a pine tree and while not nearly as tall, bearing herself as if she were a giant redwood.

  Well, the cat was out of the bag anyway (not that we had a cat, or I’d really be sneezing!). “Apparently there are rumors Vanessa was cheating other people out of songwriting credit on her album,” I told McElone.

  “Uh-huh. And you got this information from one of the people I can’t see?” It was clearly a feat of incredible self-control for McElone to keep from rolling her eyes, but the
lieutenant was a professional and a good one. Her gaze held steady.

  “That’s about the size of it,” I said.

  “Okay. I’ll keep it under advisement.” She said nothing else as she walked out to the curb, got into her car and drove away without so much as a furtive glance back toward me and my deceased posse.

  “What do we do now?” I asked Paul.

  “Some of this seems to center on Vanessa’s coming album,” he answered. “The person who knows the most about that is Jeremy Bensinger. I think we need to talk to him again.”

  That actually turned out to be a little bit more complicated than I would have expected. First, Melissa walked in about ten minutes after our spectral conference, gave me a cursory hello, didn’t stop to hear the news about our case and headed up to her room as if it gave her the life force she needed to survive. I began to worry that she might really be turning into an adolescent right before my eyes.

  But I had to go see Jeremy and I made Melissa come with me because there was no responsible (i.e., living) adult in the house, but she wasn’t happy about it, nor was she pleased when I sniffled and coughed my way out of Harbor Haven. The open window in the car seemed to help. I couldn’t say the same at the moment about the allergy pills.

  On the way out of town I saw the ghost with the wagon. I almost stopped, but I doubted that she’d be able to tell me anything more about Lester and I didn’t have time to talk to her and Jeremy and get back in time to keep my guests—who were already a little shaky—entertained for the evening.

  Once away from her room, Liss was pretty much her usual self and listened as she always did with interest and consideration. She asked a couple of good questions and gave a nod when the answers confirmed what she’d already thought.

  I had to get that girl to law school before she decided to become a detective. I had only ten years before she’d be out of college.

  “Did you believe Morrie?” Liss asked finally. “He’s not really the nicest ghost I’ve ever met.”

  “Nice and reliable don’t always go together,” I said. “Sometimes even if a person is not very nice, they still tell you the truth. Sometimes they do it because they want to be mean and the truth isn’t very easy to hear.”

  “You think Morrie wants us not to like Vance, right?”

  “I do think he holds a grudge, and yes, he wants us to stop liking Vance. But to answer your question, I don’t know if I believed Morrie. He was enjoying it just a little too much, but that doesn’t mean he was lying.”

  “Do you think Vance stole Morrie’s songs?” Liss asked. She was clearly trying to determine whose side we were on.

  “I think it was a really confusing time and things were happening fast and maybe which idea was whose got mixed up a little,” I said. I’d come to realize that all the interviews I’d read when I was a little older than Liss was now were probably stage-managed and sanitized; the truth was in between what was said and when it was said.

  We pulled up to Ace Equipment Rentals just after four in the afternoon. I expected that they’d be getting ready to quit for the day, but it appeared to be bustling. Men in hard hats (which were probably mandated by state law) were walking in and out. It took a minute to find a parking space.

  The building wasn’t much, but the lot behind it was enormous, with tractors, cranes and other construction equipment parked in neat rows, ready for rental. Melissa and I walked up to the entrance and let ourselves in to find what I guess you’d call a reception area, with a window behind a makeshift counter. I got the impression this wasn’t a place that got a lot of walk-in business.

  There was no one in the window (really a cutout through a false wall, paneled over in about 1978) but there was a bell on the counter, so I rang it. A young man in a nicely tailored suit appeared from the office area behind, which was visible, and smiled as he approached.

  “May I help you?”

  I didn’t dare steal a glance at Melissa or we both would have broken out in laughter. The man hadn’t done one thing to make us react that way, but his elegant appearance was the exact opposite of what I’m sure both of us were expecting, and surprises tend to make us both guffaw. It’s a family thing.

  “Yes, please,” I said. “We’re looking for Jeremy Bensinger.”

  The young man immediately looked concerned. “Yes,” he said. “So are we.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He didn’t come in to work today and didn’t call,” the man said. “We’re all very worried about him.”

  Melissa’s eyebrows dropped about three inches, which indicated she was fairly concerned as well. She’d already seen one man die during this case (well, she’d been there; I don’t think she really saw anything) and now another was not where he was supposed to be.

  “Is that unusual?” I asked.

  The young man nodded. He still hadn’t asked me who we were or why we were asking after Jeremy. “He’s never called in sick before, let alone simply not shown up.”

  That wasn’t good.

  “You’ve tried his cell phone?” I asked the young man. I had, but I figured he was just ducking me.

  “Oh, sure. A number of times. That’s the scary part.” He shook his head, banishing the evil thoughts. “I hope everything is all right.”

  “So do we,” I said, and turned away to leave. There was nothing else he could tell me.

  “Are you his sister?” the young man asked.

  That was odd; if Jeremy was the big cheese around here, wouldn’t Vanessa have dropped by occasionally? Wouldn’t everyone have heard when she died? Maybe the young man hadn’t been working here very long.

  “No. I’m a private investigator, but Jeremy isn’t in any trouble. Does he talk about his sister a lot?”

  “Just about her record. She’s supposed to be some kind of great singer.”

  Jeremy never told his coworkers Vanessa had died? “I just want to ask him something.”

  “You’re a detective? What’s going on?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not authorized to talk about it.”

  Melissa suppressed a laugh. I didn’t have the opportunity to scowl at her.

  “I understand,” the man said.

  Now I felt bad—here this guy was trying to help us, and seemed genuinely concerned about Jeremy, and I was treating him like a functionary. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What is your name?”

  He didn’t so much as blink. “I’m not authorized to talk about it,” he said.

  Twenty-three

  I called Paul from the car. He could hear but not respond, so I did all the talking (ghosts can’t be heard on the phone, seen in photographs or reflected in mirrors; I’m pretty sure they can e-mail). Then he texted to Melissa (it saved time to talk to him and then have him text), since I was driving, and told her Vance was back in the house and we should come home.

  Which was just as well, since I hadn’t planned on going anywhere else.

  When we got there we found Mom and Dad had arrived unexpectedly. Mom said they’d just been in the neighborhood but I knew she wanted to see how Melissa and I were reacting to the events of the night before. We were fine—or at least Melissa was—and that satisfied her enough to stay for the Chinese food I was ordering in for dinner. After greeting her grandparents, Liss of course hightailed it for her room and would no doubt hibernate there until called for feeding.

  Vance was indeed back, looking sad and disappointed. He hovered over my currently unused stove like a depressed basset hound, sighing and not saying much. Mom was poring over the menu like she’d never seen one before. Paul floated up from the floorboards and noted Vance, who was doing his forlorn vulture impression and not speaking. Paul stopped rising for a second, considered and shook his head slightly.

  “Now can we talk about the case?” he asked. Once he’d been back on the job, he’d become jus
t as zealous and overbearing as before. Why had I missed this?

  “Jeremy,” I reminded myself.

  “Exactly.” Paul hovered, not really moving around the room, which was an indication he was thinking hard. If he started tilting to the left I’d know the problem was a real stumper.

  “What about Jeremy?” Vance asked.

  We all started at the sound of his voice; he hadn’t spoken a word since materializing in the room. I wanted to repair our relationship, so I made my voice very tender when I answered, “Jeremy is missing. You heard me tell Paul that before.”

  Paul shook his head. “You told me on the phone. Vance wasn’t here then.”

  “Missing?” Vance said. He seemed to be in a fog. Not literally, although I’d seen that before.

  “Yes. Alison tried to find him on his cell phone and at his job, and he wasn’t there.” Mom was talking to Vance like she talked to me when I was six and wanted to know why there were no GO signs.

  “Who cares where Jeremy is?” Vance wanted to know. “Why aren’t you looking for Claudia?”

  “You heard the lieutenant,” I reminded him. “Claudia disappeared in Iowa after she left the construction house.”

  “And then she turned up in Vanessa’s apartment the day she died,” Vance shot back. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “It’s true,” Paul said, although his face looked like it hurt to agree with Vance. “Claudia’s disappearance is ominous and her presence so close to Vanessa’s death . . .”

  “We don’t know about that part for sure,” I argued. “We know that Sammi said she heard from Bill that Claudia was in town and wanted to see Vanessa. That’s like fourth-hand information. I agree we should be looking for her.” I looked at Maxie, who rolled her eyes but went upstairs for the laptop. “But we shouldn’t forget about Jeremy, or Sammi, for that matter. She was pretty mad at Bill and resented Vanessa.”

  “You’re correct,” Paul said. “We shouldn’t eliminate any possibility until we have facts that support a theory.”