Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts Page 8

  “I was thinking I’d go to Monmouth University, spread my alumna status around, and see if I could find some student records.”

  Phyllis applauded quietly. “I have taught you well.”

  “You haven’t taught me at all.”

  “That’s what you think,” she said. “But keep in mind that the university will probably consider all student records confidential, since they are, and won’t want to tell you anything. What’s your recourse then?” She had the temerity to look amused.

  “Um…I can flash my private-investigator’s license?”

  Phyllis’s mouth flattened out in disappointment. “Yeah, that and a couple of bucks will get you on a bus to Atlantic Highlands. What else ya got?”

  “I could turn on the charm. Flirt a little.”

  She looked me up and down. “When did you become Angelina Jolie? Besides, suppose the clerk you encounter is a heterosexual woman or a gay man?”

  “All right, Master Yoda. What’s your best strategy for such situations?”

  Phyllis took a moment to consider. “I think maybe you need to figure this one out for yourself,” she said.

  I had never considered frustration a physical sensation before. “Phyllis! This is no time for an object lesson! Help me! I can’t ask—”

  “You can’t ask whom?” Phyllis said.

  “I can’t ask you any nicer than that,” I said by way of recovery. To have told Phyllis that I couldn’t ask Paul this time would have raised questions about my house, my ghosts and my sanity. Phyllis and I have not discussed the ghost issue at 123 Seafront. She doesn’t like taking things on faith, and I don’t like her thinking I’m completely out of my mind. It’s a win-win.

  She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “I’ll tell you this: People always like to help when they think it’s about them.”

  When they think it’s about them? How could I make finding Julia MacKenzie’s student records about the person in charge of student records? Had Phyllis been taking classes in how to be inscrutable?

  “That doesn’t help,” I told her.

  “Yes, it does. Think about it.”

  “That does it. Cancel my subscription to the Chronicle.” I headed for the door.

  “No,” she said as I walked out.

  The clerk at the provost’s office of Monmouth University was, in fact, a petite African American woman in her late twenties, who looked like she had received her baccalaureate degree from that institution roughly a half hour before I showed up to ask about Julia MacKenzie.

  “May I see some ID, please?” she asked when I requested Julia’s student records.

  I produced my PI license from the tote bag I use as a purse, and handed it over to the clerk. She looked at it very closely.

  “Are you Ms. MacKenzie?” she asked. The woman was wearing a name tag that read “Miss Sharp,” which I could only assume was an ironic comment. I momentarily considered telling her I was in fact Julia MacKenzie, but I couldn’t imagine she’d believe I changed my name to Alison Kerby for professional reasons.

  “No, I’m not. I’m conducting an investigation, and I need to contact Ms. MacKenzie. She’s not in any trouble, or anything; I promise.” I widened my eyes just a bit to look more innocent and trustworthy.

  Miss Sharp did her best to look sad. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m not allowed to give out that kind of information except to the person herself.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to do, so I didn’t do anything. I just stood there. It was sad, to tell the truth. I’d had the whole trip over here to come up with a strategy, and I had nothing.

  “I really need that address,” I said. Yeah, that was going to work.

  “I’m so sorry,” Miss Sharp repeated.

  I stood there for a while longer.

  “Really,” I urged.

  “Sorry,” she answered.

  I had to think of something before we got down to the single syllables “re” and “sor,” but nothing was coming to mind. Finally, I considered what Phyllis had said—make this about Miss Sharp, not about me. Hey, at this point, I’d have given bribery some serious thought if I had any money.

  “Miss Sharp,” I began.

  “Megan,” she offered. That was good. It personalized the exchange.

  “Megan,” I said. “How long have you been out of college?”

  “Me? Six years.” Wow. She looked younger.

  “Did you go to Monmouth?” I asked her.

  Megan smiled and shook her head. “No. I went to Brookdale.” The community college of Monmouth County.

  “No kidding! So did I!” Okay, so that was an out-and-out lie, but this wasn’t about me—it was about Megan. “I know what that’s like,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you were probably, like, twenty years ahead of me,” she said. More like ten, but I wasn’t in a position to press the point right now.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said, ignoring the fact that what I had just said was in fact a question itself. I leaned a little over the counter in an attempt to make Megan feel I was sharing something confidential. “Have you ever done something stupid because of a guy?”

  Her lips sputtered. “Have I!” she said. “There was this one time I shoplifted a pack of Twinkies just because my boyfriend forgot his wallet in the car. Then I look up, and there’s this security video camera right over my head! I almost had a heart attack!”

  “Oh, I know that one,” I concurred, despite the fact that I had never so much as considered stealing anything in my life. “I smuggled a Swiss Army knife onto a plane once for my husband, just so he could open a can of beer with the opener.” Okay, so that was a complete fabrication, but The Swine had once asked me to sneak an extra large bottle of conditioner in my carry-on, and it had been confiscated by TSA guards.

  “Wow. Guys can be real jerks.” I was pretty sure I had Megan where I wanted her.

  “So, listen,” I said, practically whispering, despite there being no one else in the room. “I took this job just because my husband—ex-husband now—got himself into trouble and needs to find this Julia MacKenzie because she’s a perfect match for his bone marrow. And if I don’t find her right away…”

  “No kidding!” Megan, despite the holes in that story through which one could fly the starship Enterprise, seemed genuinely concerned. “You’re doing this even though he’s not your husband anymore?”

  “I wouldn’t want my little son to lose his daddy,” I said, changing Melissa’s gender out of a strong sense of superstition. “What happened between us wasn’t Timmy’s fault, was it?”

  “Of course not!” Megan gushed. “But the rules say I can’t give you that information.”

  Bureaucratic functionaries are exasperating, but predictable because they always tell you the rules have to be followed, no matter how stupid those rules might be. Luckily, they are generally so bound to the letter of the law that you can get around them with just a quick flick of civil disobedience so long as it appears to fall inside the lines. Or did that metaphor just get tangled up?

  Observe: “Well, suppose you don’t give me the information,” I suggested. “Suppose you call up the information on your screen, and then you take, let’s say, a two-minute break.”

  “A break?” Miss Sharp was slower on the uptake than a one-armed drummer.

  “Sure. Go in the back and get yourself a cup of coffee. Powder your nose. Find your purse and take a piece of chewing gum out of it. Just for a minute, no longer than that.”

  Had there been an independently powered lightbulb in the area, it would have illuminated over her head at that moment. “Oh!” she squealed. “I get it!” She punched a few keys on her computer keyboard, with the screen facing away from me, and waited for the proper data to appear. Then she looked back at me, winked, and in a voice too exaggerated for a third-grade pageant about Patrick Henry, said, “Well, I think I’ll just get myself a cup of coffee. Don’t look at that screen, now!”

  “Oh, I won’t,” I
promised.

  Megan Sharp leaned over the counter and hissed at me, “I really meant that you should, you know.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  She smiled and exited through the door behind her, stopping to wink one more time.

  Sighing heavily, I pulled myself up onto the counter and into a sitting position. From there, I could reach Megan’s computer screen, and turn it so it could be read. It took me perhaps thirty seconds to copy down the contact information for Julia MacKenzie on a notepad I had in my tote bag, turn the screen back, and hop down off the counter.

  I left the office before Megan returned, and only on the way out did I notice the security video camera over the door.

  It appeared to be unplugged. If only the place had sold Twinkies.

  Nine

  I tried the phone number listed for Julia MacKenzie immediately, and found that it had been disconnected. This was not terribly surprising, seeing as how it was obtained through records that were at least two years old. But the residence address in Gilford Park would take me about forty minutes to reach, so would have to be left until the next day. I had to be back at the house for the pre-lunch spook show (Paul was adding a guitar played by an invisible ghost today, in addition to the usual flying objects and “spooky” noises made by Maxie with an old hacksaw I’d found in the basement). I knew I could count on Paul to perform for the guests in my absence, but Maxie was somewhat more…mercurial in her moods.

  Besides, I had to form a plan to investigate Big Bob’s murder, and on that, at least, I could consult the other licensed (if somewhat deceased) private detective in the house.

  I got back to the guesthouse at about ten. That left roughly an hour before the next “performance,” which was enough time to talk to Paul about a Big Bob plan and perhaps visit with my daughter, whom I had not seen outside the company of her father for days now, except when she was working at her “summer job,” which was cleaning some of the guest rooms and sweeping off the front porch, for which she was paid ten dollars an hour, far too high a price. But I was the idiot who’d negotiated the deal, so I couldn’t complain.

  As if she knew my wishes, Melissa was on the front porch when I pulled up in my prehistoric Volvo wagon, cranky in the summer weather so alien to its native Sweden. That was one reason it had no air conditioner, so I was fairly well drenched in sweat by the time I stopped the car and extricated myself from the driver’s seat.

  I had hung a glider on the front porch, because that’s what you do in front of an enormous Victorian built to look especially inviting during the warm-weather months. I had never seen one of the guests so much as consider sitting on the glider, but in theory, it was a good idea. Melissa sat on it now, not exactly swinging but making sure it stayed vaguely in motion.

  “What’s up, cookie?” I said by way of greeting. Okay, so I was being more chipper than usual, but I was locked in a battle for the soul of my child, and all bets were off.

  “Hi, Mom.” A voice that could race molasses and lose. The ten-year-old version of a subtle signal she was feeling sort of down.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, sitting next to her on the glider but keeping my feet off the floor so it could continue to glide. “Did you just remember that school is a mere seven weeks away?”

  “No, but thanks for the reminder.”

  “Come on, spill. It’s the middle of the summer, you have your friends around and time on your hands, yet you’re sitting here looking like someone ran over your pet wildebeest. So what’s the problem?”

  It was going to be something Swine-related, I knew. And I would have to take great pains to react without anger. Melissa was testing me—Steven was the magical parent who would grant all wishes and never disagree, casting me as the evil witch who forced people to eat broccoli (I would have to do something with that broccoli tonight!) and refused to make things exactly the way they used to be, mostly because I actually remembered the way things used to be.

  “Why did you marry Dad?” she asked me.

  That caught me a little off balance. I’d expected something more on the order of, “Why don’t you love Daddy anymore?” Maybe this was going to lead up to that, because I had a really good answer all ready to go.

  I had to improvise a bit on this one, though. “I loved him,” I said. “And he seemed to love me. I was sort of knocking around in my life, I couldn’t decide what I wanted, and he seemed like the only thing that was making me happy.”

  But Melissa was already shaking her head; no, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “What was it about him that made you want to marry him?” she asked.

  “What’s this about really?” I countered.

  “Answer the question.” The world will be deprived of a great prosecuting attorney if this child decides to forgo law school.

  “What made me fall in love with your dad? Is that what you’re asking?” Melissa nodded, so I went on. “Well, when he wants to, he can be awfully charming. And in those days, he wanted to. Funny, concerned, interested, warm—he was all that. And he was going to work to help people do better in life. He was going to set up really inexpensive investments for people who didn’t have much money, so maybe they could have it a little easier. He used to believe in stuff like that.”

  Melissa nodded, small movements of her head, as if taking an inventory of what I’d said. Maybe she was having a hard time picturing her parents as a couple of idealistic kids just starting out in life.

  “Why don’t you feel like that now?” she asked. Ah, the question I’d been waiting for.

  “Things changed,” I said. “Your dad changed. So did I. I wanted to come here and start this guesthouse, and he—”

  “He wanted to go to California with Amee,” my daughter said, her eyes daring me to treat her like a little child who wouldn’t understand such things.

  “Yes,” I said, biting my lip just a little. “That was the end of it, but it wasn’t the whole reason. He started getting caught up in making money, and that made him different. I had you, and that made me different. I wasn’t interested in the life he wanted, and he didn’t have time for the one I wanted. Before we got to the point where we hated each other, we figured it was best to split up.”

  Again, there was the little nod of her head. She was absorbing. Maybe she’d think it over later and come back with more questions. I couldn’t decide whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

  “That’s very interesting,” Melissa said. She stood up and started toward the front door. I grabbed hold of her arm as she passed me, and gave her a hug.

  “Very interesting?” I asked. “Are you studying us for anthropology class?”

  “What’s anthropology?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll find out in college.”

  She walked back into the house, her eyes a little dreamy. This injection of her father into her life again might have been exciting, but it couldn’t be easy for her, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. On the one hand, I felt like things had been a good deal simpler for both of us before Steven had come back. On the other…Well, it had been a long time since Liss had a dad. I couldn’t deny her that.

  And as for any prospect of Steven becoming a permanent fixture in our lives again, he was going to have to do it from somewhere else within a week. Today was Monday. A week from today this crew of guests was going to be gone, and a new Senior Plus Tour was scheduled two days later, with every bed in every room of the house booked. My ex-husband would have to find himself somewhere else to live if he wanted to stay in New Jersey.

  Added to my list of things to do: Talk to Steven about his residency plans.

  But first there was the spook show, along with strategizing about the Big Bob case. I’d decided to call it “the Big Bob case” to sound more private-eye-like. And it required my attention, which meant it required Paul’s attention. I went inside to find him, and to enjoy my very expensive air-conditioning.

  Before I could get to Paul, though, I decided
to check in on the guests. I didn’t want to think—whether it was true or not—that I was neglecting them to concentrate on the investigations.

  I toured the house briefly: Nobody was in the game room, which made me wonder why I’d bothered to get the pool table a new felt top. Very few guests ever used it, although my daughter was threatening to become the next Minnesota Fats. Maybe the space would be better suited to something else. I didn’t have a license to serve alcoholic beverages; otherwise, the oak-paneled, Tiffany-lamped room would have made a lovely bar, but that was far too expensive to even consider. Yes, I had cold beer and chilled wine in the room, but I did not charge for the drinks, and I made sure no one under twenty-one (not that I ever got a guest that young) could have access to them. Melissa and best-friend Wendy or anyone else who dropped by after school would never have access. Liss knew that Paul and Maxie were watching when I wasn’t around, and she wasn’t interested, anyway.

  I already had a construction project upstairs to worry about, so the game room would remain a game room for the foreseeable future. I walked into the hallway and toward the library, a former walk-in pantry that had been turned into a sitting room by the family who lived here for decades before Maxie bought the place. I’d lined the walls with bookshelves and filled them with more than two thousand volumes, ranging from classics to the latest mass-market paperback mysteries.

  Lucy Simone was sitting there now, reading a book of Emily Dickinson poetry. She looked up and smiled when I appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Not out enjoying the heat?”

  “I’m waiting for my friends to pick me up—they’re out renting jet skis,” she answered. “They have this idea for the afternoon. You know how you could always do something when you’re home and you never do, but once you’re on vacation, it becomes a priority? It’s sort of like that.” Wow—Lucy really was a lot younger than my usual guests. She looked tentative, suddenly, as if she wanted to ask me something but didn’t know how.

  “Something I can help you with?” I asked.