Chance of a Ghost (32 page)

Uh-oh. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?” I asked.

“Heart,” Jerry sighed. “He’d been frail for a long time. I don’t think he appeared in a production for more than a year.” Well before Lawrence died.

“One other thing,” I moved on. “Can you think of a reason someone would want to be rid of Mr. Laurentz?”

“I can think of thousands.” Droll.

“Do you know if he left a large estate? Money, property, anything like that?”

“You haven’t checked on such things?” he asked, unimpressed with me.

“An investigator asks the same questions sometimes to see what answers she’ll get,” I explained, parroting something Paul had told me. “So, Mr. Laurentz’s estate?”

“You’d have to ask his accountant,” Jerry sniffed. “The
man was a ticket seller at a regional theater. I doubt he was sitting on the Hope Diamond and waiting for the right moment to cash in.”

As apologies went, it left me just a little unsatisfied.

“I don’t see how this is getting us closer to Grampa,”
Melissa argued. I was driving her to a bowling party for one of her friends from school, and gift in hand, she was still complaining about not doing any investigating today. Meanwhile, my new “official” assistant, Jeannie, had begged off for the day, saying she didn’t work weekends, which was not making her husband, Tony, happy. “You and Jeannie talked to a bunch of people yesterday, I talked to Lieutenant McElone, but even if we find out what happened to Mr. Laurentz, how does that help us get Grampa to come back?”

“That is a good question,” I admitted. “But I don’t have an answer for you now.”

“I don’t see why I have to sit in the backseat,” Maxie interjected. This time, I’d actually asked her to come along, as per Paul’s suggestion. She’d have work to do.

“I’m going to see if Phyllis gets anywhere with the theater troupe arrest angle,” I told Liss, doing my best to ignore the dead woman in the car with us. “There’s nowhere to go with the medical examiner’s report. I can go back and question some of the people I’ve already questioned—especially Penny Fields, now that I know she found Lawrence’s body—but I don’t know if I’m going to do that today. So that’s where we stand in the investigation.”

“So why am I going bowling for Justin Krenshaw’s birthday?” Melissa moaned.

“You like bowling.”

“I don’t like Justin Krenshaw.”

“Then why are you going to his birthday party?” Maxie asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Liss answered.

“You were invited,” I reminded her.

“Hmmph.” That was Maxie, not Melissa. Occasionally I wonder which one is more mature. The rest of the time, I’m positive it’s Melissa.

I chose not to listen to the rest of the conversation (Maxie has a way of convincing Melissa that everything is my fault) and pondered Liss’s original question: How
was
this getting me any closer to finding Dad or figuring out exactly what was going on with him? And when I searched my heart, the fact was, I cared more about that than I did about what happened to Lawrence Laurentz. I know; I’m a bad person and a lousy private investigator. I have never suspected otherwise.

After I dropped Melissa off at the bowling alley (where her mood immediately brightened when she saw Wendy and a couple of her other friends and went giddily inside), Maxie slithered up into the front seat and sighed contentedly.

“So,” she said. “Where are we going now?”

Before I could answer her or even move the car out of park, my cell phone rang, with a number I didn’t recognize in the caller ID. I hesitated, but put the call on speaker to be hands-free. And got an earful of an angry Tyra Carter.

“What are you doing talking to Penny Fields about me?” she demanded. “How am I supposed to get my job back if I’m being bad-mouthed behind my back?”

“Since when do you want your job back?” I asked.

“I don’t make enough money. I need that job back. So how come you’re bad-mouthing me to Penny?”

“I’m not.” I thought back over the sequence of events. “Wait. I never even
mentioned
your name to Penny Fields—she gave your name to
me
! What are you talking about? How did you get my number?”

Maxie seemed amused, which was not at all unusual when I was made uncomfortable.

“You gave me a business card,” Tyra shot back. “The point is, how come you were talking to Penny Fields about me?”

I took a deep breath and thanked myself for not putting the car in gear. “Listen carefully, Tyra. The only time your name came up in my conversation with Penny was when
she
brought it up. I’d never heard of you before then, and I haven’t talked to Penny since I met you. So what makes you think that I’m talking about you behind your back?”

“All I know is that before you talked to Penny, she said I had a chance to come back and work at the theater, and now she says they’re full up and there are no jobs available. Does she think I don’t talk to the people on staff there? She has a job available—she just doesn’t want to give it to me! It’s got to be because of something you said.”

“Look,” I said. “Do you want me to call Penny and ask her? Because I’m telling you, I never…”

“No, I don’t want you calling Penny!” I pictured Tyra, all six feet of her, standing up with that headset on, looking angry. It was not a comforting image. “Lord knows what you’ll tell her this time. But mark my words: If I have to spend the rest of my life trying to tell people how to inflate their tires, you had better start looking over your shoulder, because one day, I’ll be behind you.” She hung up.

I looked at Maxie, who was not attempting to conceal her glee. “Shut up,” I said.

“I’m not saying anything.”

I decided while I was parked there to take Frances Walters up on her offer and called her. She knew the people involved better than I did, after all. I told her about Tyra’s call and asked her what she thought it meant.

Frances was silent for a long moment, and I didn’t get the sense it was because she didn’t have an opinion, but because she wasn’t sure exactly how she wanted to express it. “I think it means that you should be very careful,” she said. “Tyra has something of a temper, and she can still be extremely physical.” That didn’t sound good.

“Still?” I asked. “What do you mean, still?”

This time I got the impression the pause was because
Frances was trying to determine exactly how stupid I might be. “You know about Tyra, don’t you?” she asked. Sort of asked. More like insisted.

“I’m guessing I don’t. What do I need to know?”

“You’re not driving, are you?” Frances could tell I was calling on a cell phone. I assured her I was parked (we still hadn’t had a chance to leave the bowling alley parking lot) and able to withstand any shock. “Well, the fact is, until about a year ago, Tyra Carter was Tyrone Carter.”

“She’s a transsexual?” If it was true, I had to admit her doctors had done admirable work. You’d only know because of her size and to some extent her voice, if you were more observant about those kinds of things than I was, clearly.

“Yes. And before she managed to come to terms with her gender, Tyra told me that she was a rather, well, excitable man who would occasionally act out his emotional frustration physically.”

“Tyrone was violent?”

“Yes, according to Tyra. She never did any jail time or anything like that, but there were arrests after the occasional bar fight. Tyra says it stopped when she learned to go to different bars and says she hasn’t had any violent feelings since she finally decided to go for gender reassignment.”

I moaned. Now I had to actually worry about Tyra’s threats that she’d dog my tracks. I thanked Frances for her help and disconnected the call. “Let’s go somewhere safe,” I said, more to myself than to Maxie.

“Like where?” she asked.

“The only logical place to go,” I said. “A paint store in Asbury Park. Time to put you to work.”

Madison Paint had not altered much since I’d last been
there, and yet it had changed, or I had; it was like going to your childhood home and realizing it’s much smaller than you remembered. The colorful sign hanging on the front
of the store was a little shabbier now, illuminated a touch less completely. But the primary colors behind the letters
P-A-I-N-T
were still clean and joyful, inviting the customer in to bring a little variety of color into his life.

Inside, the place was a paint store like most others that weren’t part of huge home improvement superstores (and I would know, since I used to work at one of those). It smelled slightly of, well, paint, a smell some people don’t like but I do. Whenever Dad was painting a room in our house, even before I was old enough to help, I had a sense of anticipation—that things were going to look new and different. The smell was part of that excitement. I’ve always loved it.

Inside, the shelves were stacked, though not with gallons of different colors anymore. As Josh Kaplan—grandson of Sy Kaplan, the owner—was telling me, the procedure now was to stock various kinds of primer (essentially a colorless paint), find out exactly what hue the customer wanted and then add the color with a precise formula and mix it on what Josh called “the shaker,” a machine that did exactly that to a can of paint.

“Got into the family business,” Josh, a tall, curly-haired guy with an ingratiating smile, told me with a light laugh, “after an MBA from Drexel. You can imagine how thrilled my parents are.”

I was afraid to ask, but it was sort of central to the reason I was there. “But your grandfather. He’s…”

Josh grinned. “Oh, he’s very much alive,” he assured me. “He’s ninety-one years old now, so doesn’t come into the store on Saturday or Sunday. Says he’s semiretired.” He shook his head. “He’s quite a guy.”

Maxie, who had followed me inside, was eyeing Josh with something uncomfortably resembling hunger. She muttered, “He’s not the only one.” I shot her a scolding look, and she stuck her tongue out at me. This is the level of maturity I live with on a daily basis.

Paul had instructed Maxie to fly through the store, looking for signs Dad had been there. This had been one of his favorite places on earth; he might be using it as a refuge. She materialized through a shelf of spackling just as I was introducing myself to Josh and shook her head.

“I’m betting you’re not here to talk about my grandfather,” Josh said.

“Actually, I sort of am,” I answered.

It was possible Dad was hiding in a part of his life that Mom wouldn’t know well. I needed to talk to someone who would have those insights. Sy Kaplan was that guy, but he wasn’t here today.

Neither was Dad, at least not visibly. And it seemed Maxie was saying he wasn’t here invisibly, either.

There were, however, two other ghosts hanging around: One was a woman in overalls who wasn’t even looking at us, but was reading a newspaper that appeared to be vintage about 1955 or so; the other had the look of someone who had never had a good day in his life and was extending that streak into eternity. He was a man in his seventies or eighties, dressed in dark clothing that was of recent, if not current, vintage. If I hadn’t been looking for my dad, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed, either—it’s gotten to a point where I expect to see spirits whenever I go out, so I didn’t really pay much attention to these two.

“You see,” I continued, giving Josh my hastily constructed cover story as Maxie seemed to size him up for some lascivious purpose, “I’m writing a memoir about my father, and this was one of his favorite places to hang out. So I was hoping to run into your grandfather for a few reminiscences, you know what I mean?”

He squinted at me, as if I were a long distance away or standing directly in the path of the sun. “Oh, Alison Kerby! Of course! You used to come here with your dad! I remember you from when we were kids.”

Maxie got a really nasty grin on her face; she was trying
to figure out how this connection could best be used to humiliate me. But I was busy trying to think back. And I’m sure my face took on the same squint-through-time expression Josh’s had just exhibited.

When it finally hit me, I actually went so far as to point at him, as if he wasn’t sure he was there. “Joshie!” I shouted. “I remember! You used to crawl your way out of the bottom bins when Sy was stocking Spackle!”

Josh smiled. “You mean when
I
was stocking Spackle. It’s so good to see you again.” He reached out and took my hand, and Maxie’s face went from gleeful anticipation to sour disappointment. “But no one’s called me ‘Joshie’ for about twenty years.”

“Sorry about that.” Neither of us had let go of the other’s hand yet. I wasn’t rushing.

“It’s okay.” Josh finally let go, which wasn’t as awkward as it should have been. “I could get Gramp on the phone for you if it’s important.”

Maxie seemed distracted now by the two other ghosts in the room, specifically by the grumpy-looking one. She tried to get between the grumpy ghost and me, but he simply shifted position to continue glaring at me as if I’d insulted him, badly, at some recent moment. “What are you looking at?” she demanded of him, but Grumpy simply glared and remained silent.

“No, that won’t…be necessary,” I said to Josh, remembering he’d just offered to call Sy for me. “I can come back sometime when he’s here.”

“That would be nice,” Josh answered. “I mean, I’m sure he’d enjoy that. Your dad was a favorite of his. We were sorry to hear about his passing.”

“Thank you,” I said, because that’s what you say when people tell you something like that. “Dad loved nothing better than hanging around here with Sy and the other painters. I never heard him laugh so much.”

Maxie, waving her hands in front of Grumpy’s face,
yelled, “Hey! Grim Reaper! What is your
problem
?” But the dour man never broke eye contact and never said a word.

“I remember a few things,” Josh offered. “Maybe I could tell you a few stories about your dad from back then. Would that help your memoir?”

“My…”
Oh, yeah!
“Yes, oh yes, absolutely, that would be great! What can you tell me?”

The bells on the front door of the store jingled, indicating a customer was entering the place. Josh looked up and excused himself for a moment, then walked to the front of the store, where I saw a woman perusing the color sample cards for the shade she wanted.