Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) (5 page)

He took the hint and moved off, picking up his abandoned rake. “Next time I’ll bring the sandwich,” he said.

“It’s a—” Good heavens, I’d almost said, “it’s a date.”

“That sounds good,” I said. And then I pointedly turned away from him, and began to punch the numbers in to connect with my mother.

I heard him move to the other side of the evergreen tree, and then the
skritch skritch
of his rake started. I knew if I could hear him, he was going to be able to hear me.

He wasn’t trying to listen to my phone call, was he?

I walked away from the bench, and James, and only when I could no longer hear his rake did I push “enter.” I realized I was probably being paranoid. However, sometimes being paranoid is a good thing.

The phone rang once, and then I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Mr. Latterson’s voice behind me.

“Jenner,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

I turned and he was standing by the front door. He tapped his wrist, like he was pointing at a wrist watch. When I mouthed the words “Lunch hour,” he frowned.

“It’s over,” he said, and disappeared inside the Palais.

The phone rang in my ear a second time, so I quickly disconnected and ran for the door. Even though I’d managed to make myself late back from lunch, and Mr. Latterson had caught me at it, I felt nothing but relief. I hadn’t had to talk to Mom about Farley. I’d tried, and it hadn’t worked out.

Telling myself I’d figure it out on my own, I hit the stairs running.

Farley:
Marie Learns Something

I left Marie alone for a couple of days after that. I wanted to give her time to figure out what was going on with me. Not that I didn’t want to help, but I figured I’d leave it to a professional. Besides, all that crap she said about moving me on hadn’t made me feel too great.

I enjoying hanging around, watching everybody. It was like living my life, without all the aggravation. When I wasn’t on one of my bloody crying jags, that is. Those, I could do without.

Here’s the thing. I knew where I’d be going, if I let Marie move me on. No way in the world there would be the wings and clouds and shit for me. I’d been an asshole most of my life, and I knew I wasn’t sidestepping hell. However, if I just hung around, there was no sidestepping involved.

The fact that people actually believed my death was an accident really bugged me, though. I couldn’t stand anyone thinking I’d screwed up. I wanted to clear my name. So, I tried to come up with a way to talk Marie into helping me do that, without all the “moving on” business.

The owner of the building, George Carruthers, had hired someone else to do my work, so I spent some time following him around. I could tell from the moment I saw him that he was an idiot. A young, good looking idiot.

He spent a lot of time making to-do lists and things like that. And he nosed around in my stuff. Arranging my tools. Throwing out my magazines. Cleaning up my piles of perfectly good wood and putting it all in a corner. Saying—out loud—that he was going to throw it all away. I spent some of my time cursing a blue streak and trying to figure out how to get rid of him.

Mostly, I stared at the furnace, and the black streak on the cement in front of it, as if I was somehow going to understand everything that had happened to me.

Marie:
Researching Farley’s Death

Farley did as I asked, and left me alone. So, for the next couple of days, I did what I could to find out if there really was anything odd about his death. I started by interviewing people who had offices in the Palais. I hoped that something I found would jog his memory. Luckily, Mr. Latterson went out every morning with Raymond, so I had time.

Too much time, if I was going to be honest about it. I was definitely not working hard for all the money he was paying me. Hey, whatever. It’s his money. He could give me as much as he wanted.

Everyone I chatted with from the building seemed to have an opinion about Farley’s death, but all I really learned was, none of them—except the miserable blonde from 310 who called him a lech and was certain he drank at work—remembered anything else about him at all. Pretty sad.

Mr. Latterson finally gave me the password to my computer, warning me that the computer was just for business. Nothing personal. Ever.

Bosses always say that, so I decided that I just wouldn’t let him catch me. After I’d talked to most of the people from the building, I tried a little online research the next time he left with Raymond.

I actually Googled “ghost trapped in a building.” Of course I found nothing but hours of mind numbing garbage. After I read as much as I could stand, I shut my computer down and stepped out for a breath of fresh air.

I was only gone five minutes, I swear. When I came back, Mr. Latterson was sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen.

“You don’t actually believe in this crap, do you, Jenner?” he asked. I recognized one of the websites I’d checked out earlier that day.

“No sir.” Why hadn’t I cleared the computer’s history cache? Why why why?

“I catch you wasting my time again and you’re gone,” he said, conversationally. He closed the offending website and pulled himself out of my chair.

“I understand,” I whispered.

“Clear this off. Now.”

“Yes sir.”

I kept my head down for the rest of the day, promising myself I’d never do anything that stupid again.

I would have to continue to do research at work, because I don’t own a computer. The way my finances were, I didn’t think I’d ever get one. However, I’d make darn sure that I remembered to clear the history, after I researched. Every time.

As I was leaving the Palais that evening, I realized I hadn’t seen James, the cute caretaker. I decided I’d find him and talk to him the next day. For research, of course.

After all, he had taken over Farley’s position, so maybe he’d seen something when he was cleaning up the furnace room where Farley had died.

All right, so maybe that’s not the only reason I wanted to see him.

Mostly, I wanted to share another sandwich with him. He was funny, and had given me the bigger half of his chocolate bar, which quite possibly meant he was a nice guy. There was nothing wrong with wanting to hang around with a nice guy, was there?

Of course there was. I knew that better than anyone. But, I could dream.

The next day, after Mr. Latterson left, I found James cleaning some gunk off the third floor stairs. He was whistling tunelessly as he scraped the goop into a dustpan and tapped it into a garbage bin.

“What is that?” I asked.

“No clue,” he said, attacking whatever it was with vigour. “I try not to think about it.”

“Probably your best bet,” I said. And then I stood there like an idiot while he continued to clean.

“Is everything all right?” he finally asked.

“All right?” I stammered, confused and then embarrassed. Here I was, standing and staring like a love struck teenager. “Oh yeah, everything’s fine. I wanted to ask you about Farley Hewitt.”

“Farley who?”

“Hewitt. The guy who did this job before you. You know, the one who—died.”

“Oh. Oh. Yeah.” He wiped up the last of the mess with a cloth, and dumped everything into the dust bin. “I don’t know anything about him.”

“What about the way he died? Do you know anything about that?”

He stared at me. “Why do you want to know about that?” he finally asked.

“I heard he might have been murdered,” I said. “Just wondered if you saw anything—I don’t know—suspicious down in the furnace room. That’s where it happened, you know. In the furnace room.” I realized I was babbling and snapped my mouth shut.

James didn’t look amused. “I heard it was an accident,” he said shortly. “I didn’t find anything ‘suspicious’ down there.” He frowned. “Who told you he was murdered?”

There was no way in the world I was telling him a ghost told me.

“Just the talk around the building,” I said. “You know.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to it,” he said. His smile returned. “If you want to come down and check it out, be my guest.”

“Thanks. Maybe I will.” I smiled back, feeling way too much relief. I turned, ready to head up the stairs to my office, when he spoke again.

“Maybe after, we can have lunch.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

And then, I escaped. Yes, that’s exactly the way it felt. Like I was escaping.

I can have dreams, and I can pretend that I can eat lunch and laugh and do all that normal stuff, but I knew I couldn’t. There were no dates in my future, no matter how nice James was. Not until Farley moved on.

Even though James hadn’t given me anything to work with, I hoped the rumours I’d gathered from the other Palais renters would be enough to jog Farley’s memory and give him the push he needed to move on. I quickly typed up everything everyone had said to me—except for the “lech” comment from the blonde in 310—and after I saved it on a small flash drive, I headed out to see if I could find Farley.

Obviously, he was in the building somewhere, but where? On the roof, enjoying the sunshine? I doubted that. Spying on people in their offices? Maybe. I headed down to the basement, deciding I would start with the furnace room. Farley had spent a lot of time in that room while he was alive. With any luck, he’d continued the habit.

I tried the door to the furnace room, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t, and I slowly turned the handle, feeling like I was breaking and entering, which I guess I was.

A reddish light from somewhere below let me see the stairs. I grabbed the handrail and tiptoed down into the furnace room proper.

I was right. Farley was there, staring at the furnace as though mesmerized by the gun metal grey of it all.

“Farley?” I called. “Whatcha doing?”

“Jesus!” He grabbed his chest, feigning a heart attack. Well, maybe not really feigning. He wrapped his arms around his chest, as though he was trying to hold himself together.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I said, then laughed, nervously, when all he did was stare at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

His eyebrows raised. “I’d half-expected you to take off. I mean, dealing with Macho Don and me. Doesn’t make for the best work environment in the world.”

“The pay’s good,” I said. “What can I say? Besides, you’re beginning to intrigue me.”

He smiled at that. “How do you find me intriguing?”

“Well, the fact that you can’t remember much about your death intrigues me,” I said. That was more or less the truth. “And the fact that you got miffed with me—”

“Miffed? What kind of word is . . .”

“Don’t get pissy, let me finish.”

“PISSY! What are you trying to do, girl, cut the heart right out of my chest?”

“Good grief, relax!” I said. “I’ll try to use better words to describe your moods. More manly words. Would that help?”

“I was mad,” he sniffed. “Not miffed or pissy. I was
mad
. Different thing entirely.”

“Yes, of course it is. Now, do you want to hear why I came looking for you?”

“Okay.” He tried to act like I hadn’t stung him with the “miffed” thing, but couldn’t pull it off. “Tell me.”

“Well, I’ve been talking to people in the building. Just to see if anyone had heard anything about your death. You know?”

“And?”

“Everybody has a theory,” I said. “Some of them think the cops got it right and it was an accident.” He snorted derisively. I ignored him. “And there was an old lady who was convinced you were a spy.”

“Matilda Jamison, from the second floor.” Farley shook his head. “She’s on her computer all the time, checking out conspiracy theory sites. She told me once it was for research. She said she was going to write a book. I don’t think she ever will. Personally, I think she believes everything she reads.”

“So we’re agreed,” I said. “Seemed kind of far-fetched. Besides, you don’t look like a spy.”

“Oh?” He laughed. “Not Double O Seven enough for you?”

“Not really.”

There was something wrong with the way he looked, and it had nothing to do with him not looking like a spy. He seemed thinner, somehow. Like if I tried hard enough, I’d be able to see through him. And his colour wasn’t good—meaning he didn’t have as much of it. He looked faded, like an old photograph left too long in the sun.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“What do you mean, how do I feel?” he snapped. “I’m dead, for Christ’s sake. How should I feel?”

He regained some colour and density as he spoke. Maybe I was seeing things.