Ghost in Trouble (2010) Read online

“Oh, come on, Kay. We’re in this together.” I tapped the desk next to the tray. “Surely you don’t mind sharing.”

  She stiffened. Without a word, she pushed the tray nearer the edge of the desk.

  I took her action as an affirmative. I picked up a half. Only a half, mind you.

  “Mmm. This is almost Heavenly.” I made the modification in the interests of accuracy. Though not divine, Oklahoma beef is by far the best in the world. “I especially like the mustard.”

  “Colman’s,” she muttered, her dark eyes huge as she watched the sandwich disappear.

  “May I have some Fritos?”

  “Whatever.” She averted her eyes as I scooped up a handful.

  “Thank you. Now.” I daintily used a paper napkin to brush my fingers, dropped it into the wastebasket by the desk.

  Abruptly, Kay pushed back her chair, which thudded to the floor as she stood. She turned away and paced toward the windows.

  I reached down, righted the chair. “Kay, please. Look, if it makes you feel better, here I am.” I swirled into being. I saw my reflection in a mirror framed by ceramic parrots studded with turquoise. Perhaps the scarlet tunic and gold trousers were a bit much. The tunic swirled into ivory and the trousers into turquoise.

  Kay placed her fingers over her eyes, then slowly dropped her hands. “My psychologist probably won’t even charge for my next session, not after I tell her about you. Go away.”

  I folded my arms. “Not until you’re safe.”

  Her face creased in thought. She strolled back to the desk, settled in the chair. She picked up the other half of the sandwich, took a bite. “I don’t remember eating the rest of it.” Her tone was uneasy.

  “I ate it.” I’m afraid I was impatient.

  “Sure. Next thing you know, I’ll be tap-dancing with a frog.” She looked warily about. “If I see a frog, I’ll know I’m nuts.” Not spotting any stray amphibians, she finished the sandwich, slumped back against the seat. “But I keep seeing you.” The pronoun wasn’t said with affection. Her gaze slid toward me, swerved away. “I guess I am nuts. Maybe I should go to bed. But I have to think.” She drew a notebook near, began to write.

  I moved the tray out of the way, perched on the edge of the desk. “What happened to Jack?”

  Her head snapped up. “I’m not only nuts, I’ve got amnesia. That weird figment of my imagination, Bailey Ruth Raeburn”—her tone was brittle with indignation—“doesn’t even know what’s happened!” She shook her head forcefully. “Okay, my subconscious is telling me something. Maybe I need to look again at what I know about Jack’s fall. Maybe my subconscious is onto something. Maybe I missed something.” She flipped to a fresh page, muttered aloud as she wrote.

  I disappeared.

  Kay took no notice. I suppose if she didn’t believe what she was seeing, she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see it.

  I read her notations with interest.

  Jack’s body was found at the base of the balcony steps on Sunday morning, June 7. Although there was multiple trauma, the medical examiner said death resulted from a broken neck.

  Time of death was estimated at some time after nine P.M. the previous evening. At the end of a dinner party, he had announced his intention of taking a stroll on the balcony to smoke a cigar. Since his arrival from Kenya three weeks earlier for his father’s funeral, it had been his custom to end each evening on the balcony with a cigar and a glass of brandy.

  A postmortem offered no explanation of the fall. The physician noted that he was in his early sixties and in excellent health, but sudden dizziness could not be ruled out.

  A police investigation concluded the death was an accident. The balcony was dimly lighted and possibly he had misjudged a step and fallen.

  I tapped on her shoulder. “Why not an accident?”

  Kay quivered, but refused to glance behind her. She wrote in her distinctive script:

  5. Why not an accident?

  A. Jack was an accomplished athlete in excellent condition. Why would he fall down steps?

  B. He had jogged Saturday afternoon, returned to The Castle shortly before six P.M., showered, dressed.

  C. Dinner was at seven. In addition to family members and Ronald and Laverne Phillips, dinner guests included Alison Gregory and Gwen and Clint Dunham.

  D. Jack drank one glass of wine at dinner and carried a glass of brandy to the balcony. He was sober when he died. This was confirmed by the autopsy.

  E. Jack had excellent night vision. The possibility of an accident or sudden illness is remote.

  6. Why murder?

  A. Jack had returned to The Castle for his father’s funeral. It was his first visit from Kenya since the death of his brother, James, five years earlier.

  B. During the earlier visit, he stayed for only a few days. This time he had spent several weeks in Adelaide. His e-mails indicated concern about what he had discovered since his return.

  Kay’s face suddenly crumpled. She wiped away tears and took a deep breath. She pulled out the desk drawer and picked up an ebony case. Game animals in mother-of-pearl designs made the lid exquisite. Kay opened the box and picked up several sheets of paper.

  I read over her shoulder. The e-mails were addressed to her. I noted the dates and subject lines. “Why did he print out his e-mails to you?”

  She shook her head. “I think I am completely losing it. Why doesn’t one part of my mind know what I know in the rest of my mind? He didn’t. FYI, I brought these e-mails with me, but I’m keeping them in a box with Jack’s papers that I found in the room when I arrived.”

  I scanned the sheets.

  Sent: May 30, 11:05 P.M.

  Subject: Déjà vu all over again

  Just like time travel. The Castle hasn’t changed since I was here in ’86 for James’s wedding. Or for his funeral five years ago. Poor old James. He died too young. I wasn’t back long enough then to get much of a glimpse of the old place. At the wedding, I was still young enough to think I could see someone across a crowded room and everything would change. You were married to Bob. I hadn’t met Helen yet. Anyway, I didn’t have eyes to see much on that trip. This time it’s different.

  Dad’s funeral was kind of fun. He was an engaging old reprobate. I guess my years in Kenya have made me mellow.

  I visited Sallie’s grave. She’s been gone so long. Virginia never meant for her to die, but she took my princess with her.

  Wish you were here. J

  P.S. You used to like adventure. Come home to Kenya with me.

  Sent: June 3, 4:03 P.M.

  Subject: The Castle

  Placid on the surface, nasty things bubbling beneath. I may need to stay for a couple of weeks. I guess the old man must have lost his grip to let things get to this state.

  I’d take a tangle with a rogue elephant anytime. Instead, there’s Diane and her leeches; Evelyn, who can’t see and may be blind in other ways as well; Margo, who’d like my head on a platter; Shannon, who’s flattering the hell out of me; and Jimmy, who wants to break my neck. Maybe a little competition will make him realize what a neat girl Shannon is. She and I have had a swell time together. She’s made me feel like a kid again. However, she’s starting to be too interested in me. I’m going to have to tell her she’s great and I want to be good friends. But there’s no good way to say you don’t love someone. She’s still young enough to believe in love at first sight. She’s a gorgeous, sweet girl, but I’m old enough to be her father.

  The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing I’ll get back to Kenya. Come with me, Kay. I promise you a good time. Lake Nakuru in moonlight. Flamingos massed in a tapestry of pink against blue-green water. Every time I see them, I know God has a sense of humor. Nobody wants brackish water, but it’s the slimy algae that draws the flamingos. I’ll take you out to see a leopard munch on a carcass he’s pulled up into a tree and gazelles more graceful than ballerinas. Bougainvillea. Flamboyant trees. Rocky hills. Open grasslands. Yellow-barked fever trees. And you and
me, far, far from cities and crowds. I know you loved Bob and I’ll never forget Helen, but we’re fated, Kay. You and me finally together. You’ve got to write the book.

  Sent: June 5, 5 A.M.

  Subject: Shock of my life…

  Someone slipped a photograph underneath my bedroom door last night. I have to find out what it means. If it turns out to be true…God, the lost years.

  I’ll find out.

  What will I do? I’d like to smash heads. And this, on top of all the rest. When they say you can’t go home again, maybe they mean you damn well better not. But I’m here and I intend to set everything straight. I’ll see if Paul Fisher can help.

  J

  “What do the e-mails mean?”

  Kay didn’t look toward the sound of my voice. After all, if she was talking to herself, what would be the need? She stared at her list.

  7. In the space of three weeks, Jack learned something that meant he had to die. His acquaintances in Adelaide were limited to those living at The Castle and a handful of other people.

  A. Evelyn, his older sister. She never married and has always lived at The Castle. Evelyn is legally blind. Perhaps because of her poor eyesight, she tries to dominate every gathering, every situation. I sense that she resented Jack’s years in Africa and her role as caregiver to their father.

  B. Diane Hume, his brother’s widow. In her late forties, Diane is nervous, anxious, and easily upset. James lacked his sister’s strong personality and his brother’s daring nature. Shy and reclusive, he taught biology at Goddard College and spent most of his time painting birds. His hero was George Sutton, the University of Oklahoma naturalist famous for his bird paintings.

  C. Jimmy Hume. He reminds me of Jack when he was young. Jimmy finished high school a year early and attends OU. He’s a geology major and will likely go to work for Hume Oil when he graduates. He rock-climbs, surfs, spelunks, and never met a dare he wouldn’t take. He visited Jack several times in Africa. He’s crazy about Shannon Taylor.

  D. Shannon Taylor. The daughter of The Castle housekeeper, Margo Taylor, Shannon will be a freshman at Oklahoma State this fall. She helps out at The Castle in the summer. Evelyn’s companion is the wife of a Goddard professor and they usually spend the summer in France. While the companion is gone, Shannon drives Evelyn. Shannon and Jimmy have been dating on and off since middle school, but when Jack arrived at The Castle, Shannon was dazzled by him.

  A smile transformed Kay’s face. Despite the traces of tears, she looked rueful and amused and understanding, a woman with a long view and a generous heart. “I could have told Shannon.” In the margin of her notepad, she sketched a heart with an arrow. Across the heart, she wrote: Women. She tagged the arrow: Jack. Kay leaned back in the chair still smiling. “He couldn’t help it. The man was magic.”

  Kay pulled a laptop toward her, flipped up the lid. In only a moment, a striking picture filled the screen. The background was mesmerizing, falls tumbling behind him in a feathery spray of white, but despite the magnificence of thundering water, the man in the foreground dominated the photograph, thick silver hair, broad forehead, strong nose, high cheekbones, chiseled chin, full, sensuous lips. He was in safari garb, topee hat, khaki shirt and shorts, boots. A patch covered his right eye. An angry red scar curled down one cheek. Whether it was his expression of barely leashed intensity or the way he stood, or something more, the image radiated vigor and recklessness and the make-me-any-bid challenge of a gambler. Beneath the vitality, there was also an underlying gravity, suggesting he had been tested in many arenas and was sadder and wiser for his experiences.

  I’m not sure I would have recognized him. After his wife and daughter’s death, Jack had left Adelaide as a very young man with coal black hair and smooth features. He’d returned as an older man whose scarred face and confident bearing reflected adventures in a dangerous environment.

  “While he’s asking me to leave my world behind and move to Africa, he’s breaking a college girl’s heart. Like he wrote, there’s no good way to say thanks, but no thanks.” Kay’s smile fled. She picked up her pen, added to the note on Shannon.

  8. Was Shannon distraught enough over Jack to have wanted him dead?

  E. Margo Taylor. The housekeeper’s face looks hard as granite at any mention of Jack. Was she angered by her daughter’s pursuit of him? Or did she think he was taking advantage of Shannon?

  F. Laverne and Ronald Phillips. Laverne claims to be clairvoyant. Diane consulted her several years ago in Dallas. Laverne insists she is in contact with James Hume. Diane begged her to come to Adelaide and live at The Castle. Every Wednesday night, they hold a séance. It’s all nonsense, of course, but Diane believes every word. Neither Laverne nor Ronald is likable. Laverne tries to be a grande dame, but she’s all theater and no substance. Ronald is like a fancy lapdog, always deferring to her, talking about her “gift.”

  “Oooh.” I knew I sounded appalled. “Heaven doesn’t approve.”

  Kay’s expression was a mixture of disdain and perplexity. “What is with my subconscious? Séances may be stupid, but I doubt they rank as immoral. I had no idea I was such a prig.”

  Prig! I reached out and gave her arm a sharp pinch.

  “Ouch.” Kay looked at her arm. “Maybe I need a nightcap.” She popped from the chair, walked to a wet bar. As she filled a tumbler with ice, I put another glass next to hers. With scarcely a pause, she scooped more ice. “Sure. The more the merrier. Me and my little helper.” A line of single-serving bottles included Scotch, bourbon, and gin. She poured Scotch and added club soda.

  I opened a little gin bottle.

  She watched as a bottle of tonic water was lifted and poured. “I loathe gin and tonic.”

  “I don’t,” I answered sweetly. I carried the drink across the room.

  Determinedly ignoring the moving glass, Kay stalked back to the desk. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to take a break. In fact, I don’t need a drink.” She turned, marched to the sink, dumped the contents of the glass, and returned to the desk. “I freaking hope when I figure out what happened to Jack, my mind gets its groove back.” She slammed into the chair.

  I took a sip. The glass tipped.

  She covered her eyes with one hand.

  “If it makes you feel better…” I swirled back into being.

  She dropped her hand and swept me with a hostile glance. “At least you’re better-looking than Poe’s phantasms.”

  “Faint praise is worse than no praise at all.” I took another sip. “Excellent gin.”

  She tapped her fingers irritably on the desktop. “Okay. I get the message. I’m missing something. Obviously, I won’t be rid of you until I figure out whatever it is I haven’t figured out.”

  “I’ll help.” I pushed a hassock near the desk, settled on it. “How did you manage to be invited to stay here?”

  “I didn’t know Jack had died. I kept e-mailing to no answer. I knew something was wrong. I called. It was the day of Jack’s funeral.” Her lovely face was stricken. “I ended up speaking to Diane. She told me he’d fallen down the balcony steps. I kept pressing her. I suppose I sounded incredulous. She kept talking about an accident. I remembered his e-mails. I knew he’d been murdered.” She snapped her fingers. “I knew it like that. It didn’t take five minutes on the phone with Diane to know she was a patsy. I told her Jack had asked me to come this week and make plans for a book I was writing about him. I asked her if I could go ahead and come, that I’d promised him about the book. She agreed.” She looked around the lovely room. “I’m in the room where he stayed on his visit. It’s as near to him now as I’ll ever be. What happened tonight proves I was right. Someone pushed him, and someone’s going to pay.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police someone tried to kill you tonight?” My tone was both sharp and puzzled. She knew and I knew she had been lured to the cul-de-sac and the vase had been pushed. Yet she’d done everything in her power to prevent an investigation. Now that I realized she suspected Ja
ck Hume was a murder victim, I felt bewildered. “What were you thinking? What’s to keep the murderer from trying again?”

  Her combative, on-top-of-everything pose slipped. She lifted a shaky hand, as if to push away my words, but fear glimmered in her eyes. She knew she’d missed death by an instant. “Don’t you understand? If the police questioned people, everybody would be scared. Some of them might not be willing to say anything about Jack. He blew into town and started upsetting applecarts. Nobody would admit they’d quarreled with him or were angry with him. As long as no one knows he was murdered, they’ll answer my questions. I can find out everything that’s been going on.”

  I was exasperated. “The murderer won’t be fooled.”

  She brushed back a tangle of dark hair. “That’s the gamble I have to take. But it may not be a gamble now. When no investigation is begun, it will be obvious I haven’t told the police anything about Jack’s death. The murderer will know I don’t have any idea who killed him.”

  “There’s a small problem with that.”

  She massaged one temple. “Okay, subconscious, give me a hint.”

  I didn’t mind telling her and she could take my appraisal as an internal warning if she wished. “You plan to ask a lot of questions. If you start to find out what led the murderer to push Jack, you’ll be at risk again. This murderer seems to like accidents. If you discover too much, there may be another ‘accident’ and this time you may not survive.”

  “I won’t tip my hand. But someone knows something that will lead to the murderer.”

  I looked at her with growing admiration. She was exposing herself to danger. She was gambling with her life. But I understood. “You must have loved him very much.”

  Tears filmed her dark eyes. “For so long. And yet I always knew that we were better apart.”

  “However”—I was crisp—“Heaven doesn’t want you to be at risk. I have a proposition.”

  Her smile was crooked. “A message from one corner of my mind to another? Damn laborious.” She clamped fingers to her temples. “Come on, mind. All together now.”

  I persevered. “Go home. Leave the detecting to me. If you stay here, you will be in danger if you get too close to the murderer.”