Ghost on the Case Read online

  Her head jerked up. Her gaze swung all around the room. Panic flared in her eyes.

  I didn’t hesitate. Susan needed help. It was time to join her. I swirled into being. Appearing and disappearing are as easy as thinking Here and Gone or Visible and Invisible or Appear or— But you get the point. When I wish to be, I am. That isn’t to say the process can’t be disconcerting for the uninitiated. Lights swirl, rose and gold and ivory. The soft bands coalesce and here I am.

  Susan shrank back against the sofa, her face slack.

  I spoke rapidly. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help you.”

  “How did you get in?” She barely managed a whisper.

  My smile was a bit chiding, but I hope kindly. “You strike me as a woman who knows what she sees. What did you see?”

  “Colors swirling. Rose and gold and ivory and you were here.”

  I nodded approvingly. “I’m from Heaven’s Department of Good Intentions. My mission is to assist you.”

  She sat as if chipped from ice. Her face was starkly white.

  I hurried to the sofa, sat down beside her, and put my hand on her arm. “Don’t be frightened.”

  She jerked away. “This is crazy. I’m breaking down. Everything’s crazy. That call and now you. I don’t know who you are, but please leave. Right now. I have to— I have things I have to do.” She rose, a hostess ready to speed a departing guest.

  I remained on the sofa. “Tell me about the call.” I used my firm voice, which quelled football players in the back of the class as we discussed Silas Marner.

  She slowly sank down on the cushion. “A voice said fast, very fast: Don’t hang up if you want to see your sister alive. I felt like I was frozen and it hurt to breathe. The voice was kind of inhuman, high and thin and metallic.”

  In my past missions, I’ve learned a bit from Adelaide’s police, especially Chief Sam Cobb and his stalwart second-in-command, Hal Price. I know a thing or two that would surprise Mike Shayne, including how voices on a phone can be electronically altered so the caller is unrecognizable.

  “The voice said Sylvie was in a safe place but bad things could happen to her. If I wanted her to come home, I had to get a hundred thousand dollars. I said I didn’t have that kind of money. The voice said, You can get it out of the safe. I said I didn’t have a key, and the voice said the garden door will be open. The deadline to have the money was twelve o’clock. I had to get the money, and then I’d get a call about where to bring it, and if I did, Sylvie would be safe.” She looked at the clock and pressed her lips tightly together.

  Susan followed instructions, but no call came at midnight. She turned to me with haunted eyes. “They didn’t call. Maybe nothing matters now. Maybe she’s—” She lifted her hands, pressed them against her cheeks. “She’s silly and wild and kind of goofy and sweet, and I never know what she’s going to do next, and now someone has her and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Call the police.”

  Susan grabbed my arm. “The caller said she’ll die if I tell anyone, she’ll bleed to death. I can’t call the police.”

  “You won’t save her by sitting here doing nothing.”

  “Maybe”—her voice was wobbly—“there’s been a delay. Maybe I’ll get a call in a minute or two. I’ll take the money wherever they say, and they’ll let Sylvie go. I have to wait. There’s nothing else I can do.”

  She was too distraught for me to point out that everything has a beginning. Someone knew Susan Gilbert could open a safe and take a box full of money. Someone unlocked the door to that large, masculine room. “How did the kidnapper know you could open that safe?”

  “I work for Wilbur Fitch.” She spoke as if that simple answer was all I needed to know.

  “Wilbur Fitch?”

  She looked surprised. “Don’t you know Wilbur Fitch?” She blinked when I shook my head. “Everyone in Adelaide—” She broke off, swallowed. “I know you said something about Heaven, but you don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  I looked into her eyes, nodded decisively.

  She lifted a hand to her face, fingers touching a cheek. “All right. If that’s how you want to play it. You’re from Heaven”—clearly she didn’t believe me, had no idea how I’d arrived, knew only that I didn’t seem bent on notifying the police about the box from the safe—“so here’s the truth. Funny, I have a feeling I’m supposed to tell you the truth. And maybe the phone will ring in a minute and I can take that money wherever it has to go and Sylvie will come home. Right now I might as well talk to you. My name is Susan Gilbert. I work for a really, really rich man. Wilbur Fitch owns a lot of Adelaide, what isn’t owned by the Chickasaws. He’s a self-made man. Never went to college. I don’t think he finished high school. But he hung around a computer shop, and that’s when computers were just getting started and they cost a lot. He worked in the back, and he must have spent all his time figuring out about whatever’s inside the console or whatever they call it.” She waved a hand as if the inner workings of computers didn’t matter to her. I felt the same way about light bulbs and television sets. They worked and I couldn’t care less why. “Anyway, the store owner let Wilbur haul off all the useless pieces, but Wilbur figured out he could salvage this and that, and he started selling the stuff all over the country. From that he made a contact in China, and the first thing you know, he’s buying up old shacks and warehouses all over town and filling them with discarded computers from everywhere and hiring kids with horn rims and baseball caps to sort through the stuff and package it up and off it goes. Long story short, he’s worth maybe fifty million dollars.”

  “Why those bundles of fifties in his safe?”

  She glanced at the table with the chess set and gloves and shoe box. When she looked back at me, her face was furrowed and her gaze uncertain. “How do you know what kind of bills are in the box?”

  “I’ve been beside you ever since you received the call telling you to get the money. You didn’t use your lights when you backed out of the drive. You turned them on after you drove around the corner. You drove to this huge mansion, but you went in a back way, parked by a pav—”

  She scarcely breathed. Her eyes were huge. “How did you see all of that?”

  For an answer, I disappeared.

  She pressed the back of one hand against her lips.

  “I’m still here.” I made my voice cheery. “Think of me as your unseen companion.” Colors swirled and I was back beside her. This time I chose a pink turtleneck, gray slacks, and pink leather ankle boots. I like to lighten up the fall, though I’m fond of russets and oranges as well. I smoothed my hair and beamed at her. Possibly I looked a bit windblown, but that’s always the norm in Oklahoma.

  She reached out, gripped my arm. “Okay. You’re here now. You weren’t a minute ago. Maybe you can come and go. Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe I’m making you up because I’m scared to pieces and that damn phone doesn’t ring and Sylvie’s gone. If I’m making you up, then sure, you know everything I did because I know what I did so my imaginary person knows what I know. But if you aren’t some kind of figment of my imagination and you can go anywhere, go find Sylvie.”

  This wasn’t the moment to discuss my limitations. Although I could easily picture Wilbur Fitch’s house and be there in a heartbeat, I had to have a physical destination in mind. Although perhaps— “What kind of car does Sylvie drive?”

  “A 2007 Camry. Tan.”

  “I’ll be back.” I disappeared.

  I stood beside a 2007 tan Camry parked in a lot across from one of the girls’ dorms at our local college. Streetlamps provided ample visibility in front of the dorms and in the parking lot. Locked car doors are no hindrance. I flowed inside. A backpack rested in the passenger seat. In case anyone was near, I became visible. I flipped on an interior light, pulled the backpack close, lifted the flap. It took only a moment to empty the contents. A
laptop. Four textbooks. Colonial American history. Psychology. American lit. French. I would have expected a welter of crumpled sheets in keeping with the disorderliness of Sylvie’s room. I glanced at the laptop. Likely she made notes on her device and paper wasn’t a part of her world. I turned it on, checked her calendar. Three classes MWF, a single eight o’clock class TTh. In Notes three assignments were listed. And, at the end of the page, a cryptic: I Can Do It!

  I replaced the textbooks and laptop in the backpack. Outside the car, I studied the quiet scene. An almost full bike rack at the end of the sidewalk was illuminated beneath a streetlamp. Across the street there were only two lighted windows in the three-story dormitory. No pedestrians were visible. I looked back at the car, but there was nothing to give me any hint as to its owner’s actions after she parked, locked the doors, and walked away.

  I glanced again at the row of dorms. Was it possible Sylvie lived in one of the dorms? I gave it a try, thought Sylvie’s room.

  I stood in the center of the room with the lop-eared bear and the casually dispersed clothes. I walked into the hall. The bedroom door made a slight squeak.

  Running steps sounded. Susan plunged into the hall. “Sylvie? Are you home?’

  “It’s me. I’m back.” I appeared.

  “I heard her door. I hoped it was Sylvie. When you left, you said something about Sylvie’s car.” She stood with her hands balled into tight fists.

  “Her car is parked across from a dorm on the campus. Her backpack is in the passenger seat.”

  “That’s where she parks when she goes to class. That means she was on the campus today. If she didn’t take her car after class, she must have left the campus with someone.” Susan looked sick. “If she knows who kidnapped her, they can’t let her go.”

  I very much feared that would be true, but as my mama always told us, “Don’t borrow trouble.”

  I was crisp. “A smart kidnapper will be certain she never gets a glimpse of him. Or her. Sylvie won’t know anything to reveal their identity. Now tell me why Mr. Fitch keeps a box filled with cash in his safe. Is he engaged in nefarious activities?”

  For an instant, her wide mouth quirked in amusement. “He’d love the way you talk. Maybe if everything ever gets sorted out and Sylvie is okay and I can explain to him and promise to pay back the money, maybe he’ll think the whole thing’s a hoot. He’s like that. Nefarious? He’ll boom, Hell, no. I’m not anybody’s crook. Every penny I have is a penny I earned. But I remember when a five-dollar bill was big money to me. Now I’ve got stacks of fifty-dollar bills right where I can get to them anytime I want. If I take it in my mind to buy a new car, I can walk right in and slap the money down on the counter. He’ll roar with laughter. He knows he’s over the top, but he’s proud of what he’s done. It makes me mad when people act like anybody who’s rich is somehow bad and the government should take all their money and pass it out. Nobody does more for people in trouble than Wilbur. He doesn’t tell everybody about his generosity. You know how they list donors for charities and a bunch of them are Anonymous. He’s Anonymous behind the soup kitchen and the Salvation Army and the fund for homeless schoolkids and the dog and cat rescue society and lots of other things. I know because I’m his secretary and I put the checks in the mail.”

  “Does he work out of his home?”

  “He has an office at the main building, but mostly he works from home. He knows everything that’s going on. He gets reports and spreadsheets and has me keep up with the markets around the world and how the yuan is doing. He’s very big in China.”

  “Why do you know the combination to his safe?”

  “Wilbur likes to sit at his huge desk or in the big leather chair on the other side of the room and have things brought to him. He trusts me.” Her lips quivered. “He’s always trusted me. Now I’m a thief. But”—her voice was forlorn—“if we get Sylvie back, he’ll understand. I’ll pay him back no matter how long it takes. I can sell the house for maybe sixty thousand and then—oh, I don’t know how I’ll get the rest, but I will. But that doesn’t matter now.” She whirled, hurried back to the living room. She stopped and stared at the clock. Almost twenty after twelve. She yanked her cell from her pocket, tapped numbers again. She listened and listened, finally swiped to end the call. “Why haven’t they called me?”

  Susan found the failure of the cell to ring terrifying. “Perhaps you misunderstood. Perhaps the call will come at twelve noon tomorrow. Did the caller say midnight or twelve o’clock?”

  I felt the prick of tears behind my eyes at the spurt of hope in her face.

  She spoke rapidly. “The voice said twelve o’clock. Not midnight. Maybe”—and her tone was feverish—“maybe they wanted to give me plenty of time to get the money. Maybe they’re trying to decide where I should leave the box and how they can let Sylvie go.”

  Whether this was fool’s gold or not, she now had hope. I would work fast, learn what I could while she was able to focus on something beyond her fear. I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you will hear by noon tomorrow, and that gives us time to figure out what happened. Let’s go to the kitchen, fix some coffee, have something to eat.”

  • • •

  Susan served a crisp waffle to each plate along with three slices of thick-cut well-cooked bacon. I poured steaming coffee into her mug and mine. I was pleased that she tucked into our post-midnight repast with alacrity.

  I drizzled strawberry syrup—earth does have its pleasures—on my waffle. “Tell me about you and Sylvie.” I was quite certain Sylvie’s abduction was not a matter of chance, because the caller knew Susan could obtain a hundred thousand dollars that very night. That revealed several hugely important facts: The caller knew the cash was in Wilbur Fitch’s safe. The caller knew Susan had a younger sister she would do anything to protect. Therefore the caller was someone who intersected the lives of both the wealthy businessman and Susan Gilbert. My task was simple. Discover that link.

  Comfortable in her belief that a call would come at noon tomorrow and she could pay the ransom and Sylvie would be freed, Susan managed a quirky smile. “They say all families are dysfunctional no matter how they look from outside. For all anyone knew for years, our family was ordinary. Like they say, move along, nothing to see here, just a postman and his lovely wife with two little girls. Kind of a cottage-in-the-trees perfect life. It sounds bland and boring, but there was a lot of longing and dreams and foolishness.”

  I murmured, “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, / Went home and put a bullet through his head.” Edward Arlington Robinson’s poem was a cameo of outward appearances and inward despair.

  She put down her fork. Her long face held a mixture of melancholy and ruefulness and understanding. “Sylvie and me. We’re as different as our mom and dad were. Dad was a postman. Never missed a day of work. Not ever. Ice storm. Tornado. Blizzard. Hot enough to blister your feet on the sidewalk. He did his route. A dogged man. Serious. Read history. Loved ancient Greece. Liked to quote Edith Hamilton. A favorite: None so good that he has no faults, / None so wicked that he is worth naught. I guess that’s why no matter what Mom did, he was kind. Mom—well, she must have been gorgeous when she was young. Masses of blonde curls. Just like Sylvie. And a heart-shaped face and huge blue eyes. But she lived in an imaginary world. She waited tables at the Rendezvous, a bar on the outskirts of town, and she was sure in her heart that someday someone would come in and see her and take her to Hollywood. She ran off with a guy when I was twelve and Sylvie was six. We didn’t know where she was for a couple of years, and then we got a call from Reno. She was broke, sick. Dad went out and brought her home, and she died from cancer. After she was gone, he sat us down and said, Your mama did the best she could. Remember how pretty she was and how kind. She was always proud of you girls. So you keep on making her proud. Whenever something happened that was really nice, he’d say, Mama is smiling for you. He never said a
bad thing about her, but when he was in the hospital and knew he didn’t have much time left, he asked Sylvie to go down to the little shop and get him a Baby Ruth. When she left the room, he moved his hand, wanted me to come close, and he whispered, Take care of Sylvie. She’s like her mama, doesn’t have the sense God gave a sparrow, but she can fly mighty high if someone takes good care of her.” A deep breath. “And he died. I was holding his hand and suddenly it went slack. So”—she looked at me with luminous eyes—“I have to take care of Sylvie. And she is like Mom. She’s sweet and silly and credulous, but she sees the world in bright colors and she has a gift. Maybe her paintings won’t ever sell. I don’t know how any artist makes a living, but she’s good and the watercolors make her happy. She’s majoring in education so she can get a teaching job.” A rueful smile. “She did that to please me. She wants to please people. I think she’ll make a happy life, because she can paint and she won’t be like Mama, who was sure something magical would happen to her one day. Sylvie lives magic with her paintbrush. I’ve tried so hard to take care of her and now this happens. It will break my heart if Sylvie is frightened, if she comes home scared to go out. She’s never been scared. I’d tell her not to be out past midnight because that’s when the drunks are driving, that bad people do bad things in the dark, and she laughs and says I’m an old stick-in-the-mud. When we were little and Mama wanted to do something on the spur of the moment, maybe run up to the City and eat at Spaghetti Warehouse, Dad would hem and haw and say, Takes a lot of gas to drive up to the City. We can go to the park and the girls can ride the merry-go-round. The merry-go-round is free. And Mama would say, Albert, don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.” Tears slipped down Susan’s cheeks.

  She cried for her mom and dad as well as for Sylvie and for long-ago days when two little girls were loved by a rock-solid father and a mercurial well-meaning mother.

  She swiped at her face with a handful of tissues. “Anyway, I promised Daddy.”

  “You’ve kept your promise and”—I was emphatic—“you will keep your promise. We will find Sylvie. In fact, we may be able to find her right now if you can answer two questions.”