Ghost Gone Wild (A Bailey Ruth Ghost Novel) (8 page)

“I am a private investigator.” I loved the sound of the words.

He appeared to process the thought. “A redheaded private eye. So you and the jerk aren’t a twosome. That means Jan’s still the chick he’s chasing.” His tone was thoughtful. He looked toward the screen door. Was he staring at the door or at the property that stretched beyond the B and B grounds?

Cole wanted access to the Arnold place. Nick had thwarted him. Last night, someone shot at Nick and someone trampled grass near the site of the original trading post. Maybe it was a leap too far, but I decided to push my chips into the pot.

My tone was casual. “Did you find what you were looking for at the Arnold place last night?”

He swung toward me, looking like he’d been sucker punched—eyes wide, mouth open, face slack. He moved toward me, stopped a scant foot away, glared down. “What are you talking about?”

I described my adventure at length, finishing, “. . . somebody covered me with a plastic bag and threw me in the pond.” If Cole had tossed me from the bridge, I would have expected his bland con-man expression.

Instead, his face was grim. He asked sharply, “What time did this happen?”

“Late. After midnight.”

He took a step toward me, his face intent. “What did you hear?”

I couldn’t know if he was clever enough to pelt me with questions, thereby underlining his lack of knowledge, or if he was desperately interested in what I knew. Whichever, it wasn’t my intent to placate him. “Mine to know, yours to wonder. Unless you were there.”

“If somebody was over there last night, it wasn’t me.” His flat voice had an ugly sound. “Why were you nosing around?” His gaze was sharp and suspicious.

“I saw lights. I was curious.”

“Maybe you’d better not be so curious.”

I folded my arms, returned stare for stare. “I’ll do what I want to do.”

Antagonism flickered between us.

Jan pushed through the door from the dining room. She stopped and stared at Cole. “You aren’t welcome here, Cole. Please leave.”

Cole took his time turning away from me. His face was cold and hard. “I want to see your mom. She’s on the committee. I need to put up the trading post over here now.”

Jan folded her arms. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? Do you think she’ll have anything to do with you and that stupid celebration now?”

Cole slammed his hand on the kitchen counter. “She’s got to help me out.” The door from the back porch banged open.

Nick stepped inside. “I thought I heard your loud, obnoxious voice.” Nick, as usual, was unshaven. He looked seriously poor in a ratty red polo and worn jeans with one knee shredded and the other grass-stained. His eyes moved from Cole to Jan. “Is he bothering you?”

“Cole, please leave.” Jan’s voice shook.

Nick’s chin jutted. He stepped toward Cole, lifted a hand with fingers curled and thumb stiff and gestured toward the door. “Get out.”

Cole’s shoulders tightened. “Since when do you own this place?”

“Jan wants you out of here.” Nick’s voice was dangerously soft.

“So you want to keep Jan happy.” Cole’s tone was considering. “You’ll do anything to make her happy, right?”

Nick glared. “What’s it to you?”

Oddly, Cole gave a short bark of laughter. “I think that’s nice. I like romance. You screwed everything up for me with Arlene, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish you luck with Jan. I guess you’d do a lot to keep her happy.”

Nick stiffened, sensing a threat, uncertain what might be coming. “If you bother Jan, I’ll beat the hell out of you.”

Cole’s laugh was derisive. “Sure, you and those furry little spiders you hang out with. Gee, I’m scared.” His amusement slipped away, replaced by a combative look. “I got some business to see to, then I’ll be in touch, Phidippus.” He swung around and strode toward the door.

Nick’s hands balled into fists and he lunged after Cole.

I moved fast and grabbed Nick’s arm. “Don’t be dumb. He’s goading you.”

Nick skidded to a stop, glared down at me. “You’re always in the way.”

I didn’t take his criticism personally. I was too worried about Cole’s triumphant expression as he slammed through the door, his thin lips curved in a cruel smile.

I
swung aboard the yellow scooter. I’d warned Cole Clanton that he faced a police investigation if anything happened to Nick, but there were others who found Nick unlovable: the voluptuous Lisa Sanford; her husband, Brian; Albert Harris, who thought he deserved to share in the riches cascading into Phidippus’s pocket; and Nick’s bum cousin Bill Magruder, who would be a very rich young man if anything happened to Nick. I wouldn’t relax until each and every one realized they would be suspect in another attack.

Seriously rich . . . As a motive for murder, it was hard to pick between sex and money, but money might win by a nose.

• • •

Head-high sunflowers, their bright yellow petals brilliant in the October sun, were bunched on either side of the worn front steps. The stately flowers added charm to the shabby old apartment house. I checked the mail slots. More than half were nameless. Bill Magruder was in apartment 6.

The front door opened readily. Midway down the dim hallway, I skirted a cooler outside of one door. My nose wrinkled at the scent of old fishing bait. At apartment 6, I punched a buzzer, held it for several seconds. On the fourth try, the door opened a few inches. “Hey, what’s the racket? How the hell can I sleep?”

“Bill Magruder?”

His face screwed up in disgust, a young man peered out. Also unshaven, blond hair matted and uncombed, he was a bleary version of Nick, the same bony face and sharp features. “Didn’t you see the sign? No soliciting.” He blinked, rubbed his eyes. “Oh yeah.” There was a change in tone. “You looking for me?”

Bobby Mac always says redheads have an edge. Perhaps that’s true. I smiled, but carefully made my smile simply friendly. I wasn’t going to encourage false hopes. “I’m here for your cousin, Nick.”

Bill frowned. “What’s he want? Is he broke, in jail, bad ass against the wall?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Bad ass against the wall?”

“Sorry if that offends you.” There was no apology in his voice. “Nick’s put everybody’s backs up since he hit town.”

“Including yours?”

He gave a little whoop of laughter, though he didn’t sound amused. “Babe, he isn’t my favorite cuz these days. More moola than a mogul and tight as a tick. If you know him, he’s probably told you I’ve hit him up for a stake. All I want is enough cash to get to LA. I got a friend who’s working in the William Morris mail room, and she thinks I can get a spot. I can apply online, but I got to be able to get there. What’s a thousand bucks to Nick?”

“He turned you down.”

Full lips curved lower than a downward parabola. “Yeah.” Bill’s nose wrinkled. “Just because I didn’t give him some bucks when he was in school and he had to lay out a semester.”

“You had money then?”

He shifted from one foot to another. “My mom died and left me some.”

“Why don’t you use that money to go to LA?”

“I tried to win big at the casino. Some people do.”

I forbore to point out that most people don’t. Maybe Bill had learned that lesson.

He gazed at me with admiring eyes, then glanced over his shoulder at the disheveled room. “You got a minute, I’ll throw on some clothes, straighten things up.”

“I’m simply a messenger. Somebody tried to shoot Nick last night—”

Bill’s eyes widened in surprise. Of course he would appear surprised if his finger had pulled the trigger.

“—but the shooter missed. If Nick had died last night, you would be rich. However, Nick made his will this morning. His estate had been left to the Oklahoma Humane Society.” Bill Magruder would have no reason to doubt my statement, and that removed the motive of murder for an inheritance.

Bill rubbed his head again. “I didn’t get in until three. Had to help wash up. A couple of sorry no-shows at the restaurant. Didn’t sleep worth a damn. The doorbell made my head feel like a gigged catfish. Now I find a good-looking chick in the hallway who tells me somebody shot at Nick and his money is going to the dogs. Have I got that right?”

“Essentially.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe he needs to improve his overall personality. But I sure as hell didn’t take a shot at him.”

I thought I detected the slightest emphasis on the first person singular pronoun.

“Who did?”

“How would I know?” His expression was suddenly disingenuous.

“If you have information that could lead to Nick’s attacker, remaining silent makes you an accessory after the fact.”

“Lady, I don’t know from nothing. Anyway, it sounds like no harm done.” He gave me a wry smile. “Give Nick my regards. And tell the bowwows they’re gonna be rich.” The door started to close.

“One thing more.” I spoke swiftly. “Can you prove you were at the restaurant from nine to eleven last night?”

He kneaded one cheek with his knuckles. “I had a late shift, ten to two. I was here”—he gestured with one hand—“until about a quarter to ten. I wasn’t anywhere near Nick. Where did it happen?”

I didn’t bother to answer. I looked past him into a dingy, small living room that appeared littered with pop cans, DVDs, and fishing tackle. “Where’s your rifle?”

He gave me an odd look. “I am fresh out of rifles. And that’s my quota on weird questions for the day.” The door slammed in my face.

• • •

Reporters’ fingers flashed over laptop keyboards on the gray metal desks that rimmed the
Gazette
newsroom. A balding man with a hypertension flush and an unhealthy paunch sat at a desk in the middle of the room. “Crandall”—his yell was weakened by a wheeze—“where’s the copy on that hit-and-run?”

A thin woman in her fifties with huge eyes, a mop of straggly brown hair, and an aura of toughness barked in a raspy voice, “Almost done, Ralph.” A long strip of red licorice hung from the corner of her mouth, impeding her speech. She chewed, and an inch of the strand disappeared.

I scanned the room’s occupants. A blue-haired woman in her seventies in a navy silk dress flipped pages in a notepad. A mid-thirties man wearing a ball cap backward talked to himself in an indistinguishable mutter as he wrote. My gaze stopped on a mid-twenties man with wiry brown hair, a round face, and an absorbed expression. He typed, paused, typed, gave a satisfied nod. His hand moved to his mouse. He was the right age to have been Nick’s high school friend.

I walked swiftly to his desk. “Albert Harris?”

He glanced up. His brown eyes flicked up and down as he computed my age and social class and tabbed me as a stranger in town. I decided Nick’s former classmate was a young man who thought fast and would not be easy to fool. His crown of tight curls and chunky build gave him a slightly teddy-bearish appearance, but his gaze was penetrating. “I’m Albert. And you?”

“Hilda Whitby. I’m here about the shooting attack last night on Nick Magruder.”

He jerked his head toward the desk opposite his. “Joan Crandall has the crime beat. She covered it, but she’s on deadline about a liquor-store heist. If you want to see the story about Nick’s peril”—his tone was sarcastic—“I can pull it up. It’s short and sweet.” He clicked several keys and text filled his screen. I sat in the chair next to his desk and read:

Adelaide police responded at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday to a 911 call reporting a shooting at the residence of Nicholas Magruder, 819 Mulberry Lane. The police report stated a screen was ripped in a front window of the residence and a bullet was found embedded in the wall opposite the window. The report said no one was injured and Magruder, 24, was unable to describe the purported assailant. No witnesses were at the home when police arrived.

According to the police report, Magruder insisted he had no knowledge of who ripped the screen or fired the shot. According to police, no similar attacks have been reported in Adelaide or in Pontotoc County. However, the police took the slug in the wall into evidence.

• • •

It seemed to me that the police report had clearly implied the attack was phony.

“Anything else you need?” He reached out and clicked and the text disappeared.

“I understand you resent Nick’s success with his video game.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s obvious from the police report that Nick trumped up a fake shooting. What’s your game? Are you trying to pin the so-called crime on one of Nick’s old friends? Like he had any.”

“You don’t count yourself as a friend.”

“I sure don’t. He took our idea and sold it out from under me. Did he cut me in? Not a penny.” His brown eyes glittered with anger. “He lied and said it was all his idea, but it wasn’t. We talked all about the spiders and how they could be a killer game. He owes me.”

“You didn’t do the programming.”

“So?” He shrugged. “We talked about the idea. It was the idea that counts. I read about his sale in a trade magazine. Nine million dollars. He could have spared at least a half million.”

“Where were you last night?”

He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms. “So, why are you asking all these questions?”

“I’m a private investigator hired by Mr. Magruder. Last night?”

He grinned. “Eat your heart out. I was at the Blue Note from nine o’clock to eleven, and I had a babe with me. So tell Nick his ploy is a bust. Now”—he glanced at the wall clock—“I got work to do.” He turned back to the laptop.

I stood. I could check out his alibi, but it had been offered with utter confidence. Still . . . “If anything happens to Nick Magruder, expect a call from the police.”

He shot me a taunting look, widened his eyes in mock alarm. “You scare me, lady.”

• • •

Lisa Sanford pushed a book cart in the main reading room at the Goddard College Library. Her blouse was too tight and her jeans too small. Unaware she was being observed, her face drooped in discontent. She was near the wall in a corridor between shelves.

My steps clicked on the tile floor.

She paid no attention until I stopped beside the cart. She looked up. Her eyes widened in surprise. “You.” Her voice was startled. “You told Brian I was trying to make him jealous.” Her tone was sad. “He was real nice. It was the first time in a long time we ever talked. I told him I didn’t care anything about Nick.”

There was no suggestion of returning happiness in the drooping lines of her face.

My voice was gentle. “Brian loves you.”

“I kind of wish he didn’t.” Her gaze was weary. “It’s too late. Me and him. See, he was real handsome when we were in school. A big football player. I was a cheerleader. We got married right after we graduated. He was fun then. He got a good job with Murray Construction. But he lost his job a couple of years ago. He tried and tried to find something, but there’s no jobs out there. Now he mows lawns. We don’t have any money. We had to move out of our house. We’re living in a dumpy trailer outside of town. Brian’s mad at everything. All he does now is mow lawns and drink beer and watch TV. It’s kind of funny”—there was a sob in her voice—“you told him I went after Nick to make him jealous. I don’t care about Nick.”

Brian loved Lisa. Lisa didn’t care about him. Or Nick. She’d been linked to Cole Clanton. “You wanted to make Cole jealous.” It wasn’t much of a leap to reach that conclusion.

She reached down, picked up a book, turned toward the shelf, but not before I saw tears in her eyes. “Cole dumped me for that old woman. How could he do that? He told me not to call him anymore.” She shoved the book onto the shelf.

“So you had no reason to shoot at Nick last night?”

She swung back to face me, a hand at her throat. “Shoot at Nick?”

I described the rifle barrel poked through the screen and the shot that had almost hit Nick.

“Gee, that’s awful.” She sounded shocked. “Listen, I came to his house because I got that text. And so did Brian. Brian acts big and tough, but he’d never hurt anybody. You tell Nick it wasn’t us.” She plunged past the cart and hurried up the aisle.

As the sound of her steps faded, I wondered about Lisa. Did she really care about Nick? If so, she might have been angry enough to shoot him. But if her heartbreak over Cole was genuine, she hadn’t pulled the trigger last night.

Brian Sanford’s furious arrival in Nick’s front yard indicated at that point in time he was violently jealous of Nick. However, if he had shot at Nick, surely he would never have revealed his anger.

I couldn’t be sure about either Lisa or Brian. Lisa could be distraught over Nick’s careless treatment of her. She might not care at all about Cole. Was Brian clever enough to pretend anger to indicate he had no reason to worry about an accusation of attempted murder?

Hard fingers gripped my arm.

I was alone in the aisle. I looked frantically about and tried to pull away.

“You are worse than useless. Get to City Hall. Immediately!” The crisp, cultivated voice was sharp and irritated.

I was struggling to breathe. No one was . . .

Oh.

I planted myself firmly and yanked my arm. “Let go.” I wished my voice weren’t wobbly. A voice from someone unseen is certainly unsettling and a reminder to me to avoid similarly discomfiting those on earth when I was invisible.

Would I ever be invisible again?

“You are derelict in your duty.” The deep contralto reverberated with contempt, but the pressure on my arm eased.

“You are a great one to talk about duty! You shanghaied me, Delilah Delahunt Duvall. Wiggins doesn’t know I’m here.” Possibly my voice rose in a near shout.

Brisk footsteps sounded. A tall woman with long, straight black hair and a vampire face swung around the bookcase. “Ladies, please. We can’t have . . .” Her words trailed off. She stared at me. “Has the other lady left?”

“Other lady?” I looked about me. “I’m alone here.” I kept my voice soft and offered a bemused smile. “Perhaps another aisle?”

The librarian backed away. When she was out of sight, I whispered, “Keep your voice down.”

A hiss in my ear made me jump. “I had no choice but to corral you if I hoped to protect Nick. I thought you’d be perfect to send back to Adelaide. There was no chance that Wiggins would dispatch you. Nick’s folder doesn’t have a star.”

Nick’s aunt Dee obviously knew a good deal more about the inner workings of the Department of Good Intentions than I did. I’d never been privy to how earthly beings were selected to receive support. “How did you know that?”