Ghost in the Wind Read online

  “My recommendation is we tell Vance we’ve looked into his case but it’s too tough and we can’t help him,” Paul was saying now. “He really can’t argue with that. We’ll just seem slightly incompetent rather than dishonest. He’ll move on.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with Paul Harrison?” I asked. “‘We’ll just seem slightly incompetent’? Isn’t that, like, your worst nightmare, ruining your reputation on the Ghosternet? What is it about this case that scares you so badly, Paul?”

  He stopped pacing and put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I have a bad feeling about it,” he said.

  “Really, Obi-Wan? You have a bad feeling? You know how many bad feelings I’ve had about cases you were all gung ho about us taking on?”

  Dad, who had been back in the movie room contemplating last-minute touches, floated in through the wall just as Mom stood up and went to the fridge to refill her orange juice. Orange juice with pizza. No, I can’t explain her, either.

  “Sometimes a detective has to go on a gut instinct,” Paul said. “Sometimes that’s all we have. And my gut instinct about Vance McTiernan is that he’s hiding something, and it’s something we don’t want to see.”

  “He’s Vance McTiernan,” I said for approximately the ninety-seventh time. “His every emotion is in his work. Hiding something? The man’s incapable of hiding anything. Besides, he’s a ghost. He’s transparent by definition.”

  Paul ignored my last comment entirely. “His music is not the issue. It’s a mistake to take on a case when you can’t trust your client. And Vance is clearly lying to us about something, which could be a simple matter of ego or could hide his desire, not for justice but for revenge. That can be a very big problem. I don’t want to see you in danger, Alison.”

  “Oh man! That’s a laugh coming from you. How many times have I been in danger on cases you found interesting, and my safety never seemed to be a problem then!” I stopped eating and handed my crust to Melissa; that’s how upset I was. Paul was trying to ruin the Jingles for me and in the process was even putting a damper on pizza. “What about my instincts, Paul? I think Vance is an artist and a poet and he’s asking for help with his broken heart over the death of his daughter. My instincts say we should do everything we can to help him. Why isn’t that as important as your gut instinct?”

  Melissa is eleven. She’s starting to see signs of the woman she’ll be someday and it occasionally freaks her out. So I know she’s looking at me and measuring exactly how much of her mom’s personality she’s going to want to emulate. She was watching me intently at this moment, and I think she looked proud. It made me bolder.

  “This is about an investigation,” Paul said. “That’s why my instincts are more pertinent to the discussion.”

  “Why? Because you don’t think I’m a detective, right? Well, the state of New Jersey disagrees. You want to see my license?”

  Paul is a gracious and gentle man at heart. Despite evidence that in life he’d had enough muscle to have torn me in half like a piece of pumpernickel, he is polite and he is sensitive. In many ways, he could have passed for a singer-songwriter like Vance McTiernan.

  That’s what made it so much more devastating when he bluntly stated, “You only have your license because I told you the answers.”

  I stopped dead in mid-motion (getting another slice of pizza because my confidence had returned). “So you’re saying you don’t trust me on an investigation?” I asked.

  “Don’t make me say it, Alison.”

  Melissa’s eyes widened but she said nothing.

  Mom held up a hand, but Dad spoke first. “Let’s not cross any lines here,” he said. “You two are good friends. You don’t want to change that. Okay, so you disagree on a case; it’s not like that’s never happened before. You’ll probably disagree again. Don’t start saying things you can’t ever take back.”

  Mom reached over and patted Dad on the arm. Sort of. She can touch the ghosts, while I get more of a feeling from them—Paul is like a warm breeze, Maxie like a refreshing one, at least when she’s in a good mood.

  I heard what he was saying. I processed it and I agreed with it intellectually. Dad was right. Paul and I should not let emotions rule our actions and we should not do anything that might jeopardize our friendship.

  But then Paul said, “This is not about friendship, Jack. It’s about business. And I know this business better than your daughter does.”

  So he really did see me as a poor investigator. I’d always been self-deprecating about my detective skills, and with a good deal of reason. But the truth was, I have actually solved a couple of cases practically all by myself. Sometimes the self-deprecation is just for show. I may have gotten my private investigator license under duress, and it’s true that I wasn’t as proud of it as the day I got my innkeeper’s license, but that was because I had never considered being an investigator before I met Paul. I had always wanted to own a guesthouse.

  I take pride in doing everything I do well. I care about doing a job right, whether it’s restaining the paneling in the movie room, making sure my guests feel comfortable during their vacations or doing the inevitable legwork on one of Paul’s investigations. His attitude now was hurting me.

  “If you don’t want to help me on this case, Paul, you don’t have to,” I said. “I’m sorry you don’t believe in me, but I wouldn’t want to make you do something that you feel is wrong. Just as I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m taking this investigation on by myself.”

  I saw Paul’s astonished expression briefly as I stood and turned away. Mom’s jaw dropped, Dad looked puzzled and Melissa looked back and forth between Paul and me as if trying to see which one would break first. But there was no time for that. I walked out of the kitchen before anyone could try to talk me out of it.

  I took my slice of pizza with me, though. I’m not crazy.

  Four

  Friday

  “Do you smell something?” I asked Melissa the next morning. Then I sniffed.

  I was getting dressed while Liss, almost ready for school (something she was just now getting used to again after summer break), was sprawled faceup on my bed, watching the ceiling fan and doing her best not to mention what had happened the evening before.

  Mom and Dad had left for Mom’s place roughly five minutes after my dramatic exit from the kitchen. Luckily, cleanup from dinner was remarkably easy and quick, consisting mostly of throwing things away. Melissa had wrapped up the leftover pizza in aluminum foil and put it in the fridge, where it was undoubtedly feeling very lonely. I think all we had was milk (for cereal and coffee), some baby carrots and two bottles of beer. In a former life, I was undoubtedly a frat boy.

  Melissa had come out of the kitchen as soon as it was under control, but Paul had remained out of sight, so I couldn’t have apologized to him even if I had wanted to.

  But to be honest, I didn’t want to. It wasn’t just that I was hurt by Paul’s lack of confidence in me—I more or less understood that. It was more that Paul didn’t believe in Vance, the man who had helped me get through such difficult years with his sensitivity, his understanding and his adorable smile (on the album covers and in magazines). His music had been out for decades before I discovered it, but it had spoken to me in a way that few other artists had ever managed, even to this day.

  It occurred to me to explain to my daughter, early in her sixth-grade year, why I had been so quick to fly off the handle the night before, but she had never really embraced the Jingles and might not understand. Melissa is open to all kinds of music and loves some of my favorite bands—she has three Beatles T-shirts—but had never really warmed to Vance and his less-direct poetry. It was okay; she could still be my daughter. I was magnanimous about such things as long as she didn’t play any serious rap when I was around. I’ve never warmed to it and usually take refuge in my oldies. I’m a throwback.

&n
bsp; I love a lot of oldies bands, but to me the Jingles were just as up-to-date as anything on your radio this morning. (Not everyone feels this way—approximately one in every six thousand people appears to have heard of the band, which confuses me. How could they not recognize the genius?) Nobody’s adolescence is easy, and mine was not worse than most, but there were nights when I turned off the lights, closed my window and let the glow from the cassette player (Mom wouldn’t let me keep the albums in my room, so I recorded all of them) be the only thing I could see and Vance McTiernan’s voice the only thing I could hear. To this day I get a warm feeling in my chest when “Claudia” or “Misspent Youth” or the Jingles masterpiece “Never Again” plays on my radio or my iPod. Some things just don’t die.

  Which brings me back to Paul.

  Of course I had been impulsive about kicking him off the case and stomping out of the kitchen in a huff. He’d attacked my idol and my pride at the same time and I hadn’t had a moment to sift through my feelings. But he also wasn’t allowing for the idea that I might be right or that Vance might actually need me—us—so much that turning him down would be an act of cruelty. Sure, he was dead, but that didn’t mean he was without feelings.

  “Smell what?” Melissa asked. She closed her eyes and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe my nose is playing tricks on me.” This is the kind of thing you say when you don’t want to discuss something else.

  On cue, Maxie descended through the ceiling, even though she knows I prefer she knock before entering my bedroom. “What’s with Paul?” she asked as she floated down. Maxie’s sensitivity extends only to all things Maxie, so it was a surprise to hear that she had actually noticed her fellow spirit acting strangely. “He hasn’t said a word all morning.”

  “Mom’s mad at him because he won’t take Vance’s case,” Melissa informed her “roommate.” Whatever issues I have with Maxie, I know she adores my daughter and I think Liss looks at her as the rebellious older sister she never had.

  “I’m not mad at Paul,” I said, and it was mostly true. I wasn’t mad at him anymore. Now I was mostly feeling a little hurt and a little worried about how I’d impulsively taken a case on my own, but I wasn’t mad.

  “Oh,” Maxie said. That was odd. Maxie, not questioning something that could potentially be a source of irritation for me? The small hairs on the back of my neck didn’t stand up, but they were definitely crouching at least.

  “Do you have an opinion?” I asked. It was the first time I had asked Maxie that question, mostly because it was the first time she hadn’t offered one without being asked.

  “I dunno. I was more into the punk scene, so I don’t know anything about this guy. I’ve never heard his music.”

  I felt my brow crinkle. “That’s your criteria? If his music is to your liking, we should find out who killed this poor man’s daughter, but if it’s not, we should just ignore his pain?”

  “Chillax, Mom,” my daughter said. She’s a lovely girl, but she is still rather seriously eleven. “You were the one who said we should take the case because Vance is such a sensitive songwriter.”

  As usual, she was right, but what was different this time was how annoyed it made me. “Don’t you have to get to school?” I asked.

  Maxie and Liss exchanged a look I wish I hadn’t noticed before my daughter got off the bed and headed downstairs to make herself a rudimentary breakfast, which would undoubtedly have exceeded my cooking skills. I can’t properly toast an English muffin.

  Maxie did not follow Melissa downstairs, which I found curious. She waited, then pulled a pencil from behind her ear and picked up a pad of paper I had on my dresser. “So what’s the assignment?” she asked.

  “Assignment?”

  “Yeah. When Paul makes you take a case, I always get some research stuff to do. I figured even without him, you were going to give me some stuff to find out.”

  This was serious. Maxie was the sensible person in this conversation.

  “Okay. Yeah. Um . . . find out whatever you can about Vance’s daughter, Vanessa.”

  There was a long pause. Maxie said, “That’s it?”

  Right—I should have more for her to do! “No. No, I also want you to find out where and when she died, who she was with, anything about this band she was in and who survives her.” That sounded pretty good. Thorough. Professional.

  What Paul would say.

  “I told you most of that last night, remember? She died four-and–a-half months ago, she played in a band called Once Again, worked at a medical records firm, she had a mother and a half brother.” Maxie floated directly over my head to the point that I lay down on the bed to avoid neck strain looking at her.

  “Well, find out more about the band. If she was following in her father’s footsteps, that might have caused some rifts, maybe with her mom. There were lawsuits over her when she was a child. See if you can find out where Claudia Rabinowitz is now.” I closed my eyes. I’d gotten up at five to clean before the guests got up, something I do most days. But having my eyes closed seemed such a good idea now because of that early hour.

  Some might say I should go to bed earlier. Some wouldn’t know that I can’t sleep until all the guests are in their rooms. It’s a rule I established for myself when I opened the guesthouse.

  “Okay, but Paul would have told me to find out more stuff.” Maxie rose up into the ceiling and vanished before I could tell her how much I cared what Paul would have told her. Because the fact is, I really was starting to care what Paul would have told her.

  I sniffed again and sneezed. I hadn’t bothered to ask Maxie if she’d smelled anything because ghosts can’t smell or taste. They can see and hear, and I know they can interact with things, but whether or not they feel is something I’m still a little fuzzy on.

  I smelled something, or at least was reacting to it. I felt allergic, the inside of my nose and the back of my throat itching. I wondered if a stray cat had wandered onto the property; I’m allergic to cat dander and dog fur. That was one of the main reasons I don’t have pets in the house (the other being that it would be awful for business if we had to turn away anyone who was afraid or allergic). But I hadn’t seen any unfamiliar animals around the place lately. Was I allergic to something else?

  There wasn’t time to think about that because Vance McTiernan floated in through my bedroom mirror and boomed out, “Good morning, love! Any news on the investigation yet?”

  It still stunned me to be talking to Vance McTiernan. I was a little in awe of him—you don’t get used to seeing one of your idols in the . . . ectoplasm . . . right before your eyes very quickly. It was like looking at an album cover and having it talk to you.

  But I was a little thrown by his unannounced appearance in my bedroom, so I played it casual. “Not yet, Vance. Besides, I do have to sleep. For a few hours a night, anyway.”

  “Of course. It’s just very hard for a parent to wait. I’m sure you understand, don’t you?” He moved into a sitting position that was probably more for my benefit than his. It looks natural, but the ghosts aren’t actually sitting; they’re just floating in a different configuration.

  I didn’t want to think about what a parent might feel under such circumstances, so I decided to change the conversation.

  “Vance,” I said, “from now on, don’t come in here unless you ask first, okay? It’s one thing in the rest of the house, but this is my bedroom.”

  He grinned impishly. “There was a time when I was a welcome presence in some ladies’ boudoirs, you know.”

  “I know. That’s how you got Vanessa. But this is now and I’m me, and I’m asking to please be careful about coming in here, okay?” I stood up. “I have to get ready to drive my daughter to school, and then I promise I’ll be right on your case.”

  “Of course, love. Pardon me for not knocking, but it’s hard
to do when you don’t have real knuckles, isn’t it?” He was still smiling as he floated down through the floor. I was somewhat relieved he hadn’t risen, because Melissa’s attic bedroom is right above mine. I was in awe of Vance McTiernan, but that didn’t mean he didn’t worry me a little, too.

  I went downstairs and checked on Melissa, who was having a cup of coffee (she’s a little too advanced sometimes, but puts lots of milk in it) with a few minutes to spare before we had to leave.

  After checking on the guests, two of whom were already heading to the Stud Muffin for breakfast (the Levines, a lovely couple in their sixties from Maplewood), I did a quick scan of the downstairs, making sure the movie room looked ready for the grand opening in two days, the library had all its books shelved neatly (or close to neatly) and the den, my largest room (probably once a dining room), looked homey, welcoming and clean.

  Who am I kidding? I was really looking for Paul so I could apologize, and he wasn’t around.

  He’d undoubtedly be present a little after ten, when we did the first spook show of the day. Paul never misses one, although Maxie does occasionally “forget” to show up and is then outraged when I scold her for it. Lately, she’d been more reliable. I wondered if it was due to Everett, with his military training, having a positive influence on Maxie.

  But that didn’t solve the Paul question for right now.

  “Gotta go, Mom.” Melissa appeared at my left elbow (okay, my left shoulder—she’d grown a decent amount in the past year) checking her cell phone. “I see there’s an accident on Ocean Avenue; we’ll have to take the long way today.” My daughter is so responsible it’s a little bit frightening. I know she didn’t get it from me, and as responsible is not a word one would ever dredge up when thinking about The Swine (something I try not to do whenever possible). I’m guessing she got it from my mother, and it skipped a generation. Like cooking and being able to see ghosts without suffering a concussion first.