Chance of a Ghost (10 page)

I almost jumped up to Paul and Maxie altitudes when the kitchen door swung open again. But instead of an irate guest or a ghost demanding I find out who murdered someone else, the presence in the doorway was that of my daughter.

“What?” Melissa asked. I must have looked like I was expecting Hannibal Lecter to stop on by.

“Nothing,” I said. “Pizza or Chinese?” I stood up to get back to the menu drawer.

“Pizza,” she declared definitively. “Can we have ice cream for dessert? That’s what you should have in a blizzard.”

That’s my girl.

Five

That had been a lot to absorb, and I wasn’t feeling very
absorbent at the moment. So I reminded Mom that we were expecting a great deal of snow and encouraged her to head back to her town house. I told her Paul and I would confer on the Laurentz matter and I’d get back to her after the oncoming blizzard was shoveled off my front walk and my driveway. It was already starting to get dark outside.

Unfortunately, Paul had heard me tell her about the “conferring” and thought I actually wanted to do so as soon as Mom had left. I’d really just been trying to stall, forgetting Paul’s weakness for unsolved crimes.

I asked Melissa to call Murray Feldner about the plowing (partly to get her to go elsewhere in the house and partly because I figured she’d guilt Murray into it) and Paul followed me into the kitchen, staying directly behind—and a little bit above—me.

“An invisible person throwing an electric toaster into a
bathtub!” he marveled. “It seems impossible, but we’ve seen stranger things happen, haven’t we, Alison?”

I ignored him in pursuit of dinner, figuring I should probably feed myself and my daughter sometime soon. The refrigerator, more fully stocked than usual, contained a loaf of bread, some eggs, milk, an actual bag of lettuce, orange juice, English muffins and one Red Delicious apple. There was some meat in the separate freezer downstairs and bacon in the meat compartment here in the fridge. In other words, I was completely ready to make breakfast. And a salad with lettuce and an apple.

It was, as I said, better than usual. Yeah. I know. Would Sun Star Chinese Noodle deliver once the snow started falling?

“I really didn’t think we were going to talk about this now, Paul,” I told him. “I’ve got to plan for my first major snowstorm with guests in the house. I have to deal with possible meals cooked here and activities for them if we can’t go outside tomorrow.” (Actually, I wasn’t that worried because I know how quickly this area digs out from even heavy snow and was fairly sure I wouldn’t have to do more than maybe cook breakfast, turning the place into a B and B for all of one morning.) “Can’t the crazy ghost who thinks he got fried by a toaster wait?”

I wasn’t looking directly at Paul, but I got the impression—don’t ask me how; sometimes it’s an intuitive thing with the ghosts—that he stopped in what would be, for a living person, his tracks. “You don’t want to investigate this case?” he asked. “Your mother is concerned. She thinks your father is being held somewhere against his will.”

“And I think she’s being a nut,” I countered, walking into the kitchen and heading directly for the refrigerator. “My father doesn’t show up to one of their clandestine little rendezvous and right away she buys the story of some mentally disturbed spirit—no offense—who tells her a goofy
story. Give my dad a few days to come back, and you’ll see there’s nothing wrong.”

“I don’t understand your attitude,” Paul said. “You don’t seem concerned about your father at all.”

“I’m not,” I answered. “I’m sure he’s fine, wherever he is.”

I walked to the silverware drawer, where we keep the take-out menus. I pulled out the one for Harbor Pizza, deciding that Chinese food wasn’t good blizzard fare. Calzones. Now
that’s
what you eat during a blizzard. I’d have to check the freezer for ice cream, too. You’re supposed to be cold in a blizzard, right?

“This is about his not visiting you, isn’t it?” Paul asked.

I slammed the drawer closed. “
No
,” I said with a little too much emphasis. “It’s not about my father’s not visiting me.” Definitely ice cream. With hot fudge. But no cherries. Maraschino cherries are an abomination.

“I think it is. I think you’re angry at him for coming to see your mother once a week but never coming to see you. And I think that’s why you don’t want to discuss this case we’ve been hired to—”

I pivoted to face Paul directly but had to crane my neck upward to do it. “We haven’t been
hired
to do anything!” I shouted. “
We
can’t be hired to do anything! You’re dead, and I’m an innkeeper, not a private eye! This is a ridiculous pretend game we’re playing, and it’s almost gotten me killed more than once. I’m not doing it again; is that understood?”

Paul’s eyes had widened at my first howl. “Alison,” he began.

I cut him off. “Is. That. Understood?” I repeated.

He pointed his finger at a spot behind me and then vanished. I spun to see where he’d been pointing, which, as it turned out, was the kitchen door.

There stood Nan and Morgan Henderson. And they were not looking like they had complete confidence in the woman whose house they’d be sharing for the next several days,
possibly with a great deal of snow prohibiting travel in the area.

In fact, they looked downright alarmed. Nan had her hands gripping Morgan’s left arm, and her knuckles were a little whiter than I would have preferred. Morgan, for his part, had involuntarily bared his upper teeth in a snarl meant, I think, to keep the crazy lady at bay until reinforcements could be summoned.

“I’m so sorry,” was the only thing I could think to say. The three of us stood there for a long moment. No doubt they were expecting a more detailed explanation for my behavior. I would have been happy to provide one. But let’s face it—I had nothing. I thanked my good luck I hadn’t been holding a carving knife when they’d walked in.

“Is something…wrong?” Nan asked. “You sounded upset.”

“I was just…I had…” Was I going to tell them that one of the household ghosts had been annoying me with his insistence that we investigate the death of a man in a bathtub so I could find my deceased father, who was apparently being held against his will in some sort of bizarre posthumous blackmail scheme? Somehow that seemed like a bad strategy. “I’ve had some family difficulties,” I finally managed. “I guess I was just venting. I’m sorry. I thought you’d left for dinner, or I wouldn’t have made so much noise.”

Nan had pasted a frozen smile on her face, similar to the sort typically seen on the terrified girl when confronting the serial killer in slasher movies. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “It’s fine.” It was a wonder she didn’t start backing toward the door, but she held her ground.

“Fine,” Morgan parroted.

“No, seriously,” I argued. “I don’t want you to think I do that all the time. Please, I want you to feel comfortable here.”

“We’re comfortable,” Nan’s mouth said, though her eyes
screamed, “We’re calling the police as soon as we make it outside.” Morgan, at least, didn’t echo her words.

“Would you like a recommendation for dinner?” I tried.

“Sure!” she answered, much too quickly and too loudly. I gave them the names of two nice restaurants within walking distance and one that was a ten-minute drive from the house. I was willing to bet they’d ignore all my suggestions and head for the nearest place they could find to plot their escape. But the oncoming snow would probably keep them in my clutches at least another day or two.

Exhaling, I tried to lighten the tension before they could leave. “I’m really very sorry about before,” I said with a soothing tone. “It wasn’t my best moment, and I promise you, it won’t happen again.”

Nan seemed to relax a little this time. “I understand,” she said. “I’ve—
we’ve—
had some trying times ourselves lately. It’s why we were so looking forward to this vacation.” She couldn’t help but give Morgan a sideways glance.

They turned to leave. Morgan mumbled something, and once they were out the door, I almost collapsed into a kitchen chair. I had to remember that my current guests didn’t know the place was, for lack of a better word, “haunted.” I’d gotten so used to the Senior Plus Tours guests, who
wanted
there to be ghosts, that I’d dropped my defenses. Couldn’t let that happen again.

I almost jumped up to Paul and Maxie altitudes when the kitchen door swung open again. But instead of an irate guest or a ghost demanding I find out who murdered someone else, the presence in the doorway was that of my daughter.

“What?” Melissa asked. I must have looked like I was expecting Hannibal Lecter to stop on by.

“Nothing,” I said. “Pizza or Chinese?” I stood up to get back to the menu drawer.

“Pizza,” she declared definitively. “Can we have ice cream for dessert? That’s what you should have in a blizzard.”

That’s my girl.

Six

Wednesday

In the history of modern meteorology (which really begins
in the eighteenth century), weather forecasts have been correct a larger percentage of the time than most people would believe. But it’s easy to blame the weather reporter on TV when you’re told it will be a lovely day and instead find yourself having to brave a raging monsoon, sans umbrella, from the parking lot to your office.

So it wasn’t difficult for me to forgive the blizzard hysteria of last night when I woke up this morning to find what could charitably be called a “dusting” on my front porch. Despite having loaded up on ice melt and bought a new, ergonomically designed shovel, I removed what had accumulated on the porch, sidewalk and driveway with an old broom in roughly four minutes.

As I was putting the broom away, I saw Murray Feldner drive up with the plow attached to the front of his pickup truck and start to position himself at the mouth of my
driveway. I walked over and tapped on his driver’s side window. He lowered it.

“What’s up, Murray?” I asked. It’s always best to pretend you’re friends with the people who charge you for stuff. It makes it more difficult for them to gouge you. Not impossible but more difficult.

“Here to plow the driveway,” he answered. Murray, a guy from my high school football team who might have taken a few too many shots to the helmet, gave me a look that indicated I must be somehow mentally deficient for having asked the question.

“Plow it of what?” I asked. “We got a flurry. There’s nothing there.”

“Big snow north of here,” Murray said, as if that justified his action. “Belleville, Montclair, Bergen County. Foot and a half, I hear. South of here, too. Cape May got a lot.” He started to raise the window, clearly having declared the conversation ended.

I had to hurry to be heard. “But nothing
here
,” I noted. “There’s nothing to plow on my driveway or anywhere else. See?” I pointed to the nothing.

Murray’s mouth moved to one side. This might have indicated thought. It was hard to know. “Your daughter called last night. Said to make sure I was here first thing today. Said you had guests.”

It was becoming obvious that “obvious” was lost on Murray. “That was when we thought we were getting a lot of snow,” I told him. “We didn’t get any. You’ll scrape your plow. You might damage it.”

His eyes narrowed. “Hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “You don’t want it plowed?”

“Not today. Be ready if it
really
snows at some point.”

“Okay.” Murray nodded and tugged on the Phillies cap he wore all the time except during baseball season, when he wore a cap with the logo of the New York Knicks. “No plowing today. Send you a bill.”

It wasn’t until he was halfway up the street that I realized he’d just said he was charging me for
not
plowing. I clenched my teeth. We’d have to talk before the next snowstorm.

I checked to make sure Nan and Morgan Henderson didn’t need anything, but they hadn’t come down from their room yet. (They had, however, returned to the guesthouse after dinner the night before, which was a relief.) This made things somewhat difficult, since I had a few errands to run in town—I didn’t want to leave before showing my face to my guests. They already thought I was a raving lunatic; it would be worse if they thought I was an unaccommodating raving lunatic.