The Icing on the Corpse (9 page)

Jake followed Stan's gaze. The worker stepped over and said something to the guy in the van. He motioned for the guy to get out. The passenger door opened and he hopped out, followed the other guy around the side of the building.

Jake frowned. “That doesn't look like Frank's typical supply van,” he muttered. “Hang on, I want to check this out,” he said to Stan, and started back down the block with Duncan. Stan followed. Something about the van was familiar to her, though she couldn't quite place what.

The van's engine shut off and two other people climbed out. They walked over in the same direction their friend had gone, though one of them lingered in the front of the building, looking up.

Jake reached the lingerer first. “Can I help you with something?”

Stan reached the van. New York plates. She circled it, noted the discreet logo with no accompanying words.

“I'm one of the owners,” she heard Jake say. “And I wasn't expecting anyone.”

Stan walked over to them, Scruffy straining at the leash to meet the new person. Stan kind of felt the same way, but had to hold on to some level of decorum. As she got closer and saw his face up close, her heart pounded with excitement. She was totally right. She couldn't help the smile that escaped onto her lips.

“Hi, Stan Connor,” she broke in. “And you're . . .”

“Adrian Fox. Pleased to meet you,” he said, offering his hand.

Stan shook it, trying to contain her excitement. He bent to pet Scruffy, who preened at him. Henry sniffed his hand, then sat down, disinterested. Fox gave the dogs just enough attention to make Stan swoon, then turned to Jake and held out his hand.

“Adrian Fox,” he said, in case Jake hadn't heard the first time

Jake looked from Stan to Adrian, eyes narrowing. “Jake McGee. Co-owner. Sorry—do you know each other?”

Fox chuckled. Stan reddened. “We don't
know
each other, but I watch the show. I love it,” she said to Fox before she could stop herself.

“Thank you. I love to hear feedback.”

“Wait. Show? What show?” Jake interrupted.

“Sorry.” Fox turned back to Jake. His shockingly white teeth gleamed when he smiled. “I'm a paranormal expert. Stan is referring to my show,
Ghosts in Your Neighborhood.
My team investigates sites around the country with known or suspected paranormal experiences.”

“Okay,” Jake said, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “I don't watch. Why are you looking for me?”

“We came to check out this site.” Fox turned, motioned to Jake and Izzy's building. “Someone sent in a tip that this building might be experiencing some paranormal activity.”

Chapter 12

Despite Jake's obvious and immediate cynicism about the subject matter, Stan's primary thought was that Adrian Fox looked exactly like he did on TV every week. Tall, dark, and bad. Bad in a good way. Like a man who could take a poltergeist and chase it out of your house with a combination of ghostbusting tools and pure physical force. Stan had harbored a secret addiction to his show—and him—for years. It was her one true guilty pleasure, unless you counted coffee and sweets. She'd always been a fan of anything scary. Sometimes living alone with no security system made it hard for the post-scare enjoyment to linger, but it had to be pretty hardcore to cause her a real sleepless night. Fox and his ghost-hunting compadres were the only ones who'd really come close, unless you counted the old
Halloween
movies. One of their recent episodes, about a haunted, abandoned asylum in New York, had sent Stan scurrying to turn on every light in the house. Fox definitely knew how to turn up the creep factor.

Now here he was in all his tattooed, black-garbed glory. In Frog Ledge. At Jake's building.

Jake wasn't as easily impressed. “Activity?” he asked at the same time Stan breathed, “Here? Wow. That is
so
cool.” He raised an eyebrow at her.

She shrugged. “It is.” She wondered why Izzy hadn't mentioned this to her.

He ignored her and focused on Fox. “What exactly do you mean by ‘activity'?”

“Great question,” Fox said, like he was encouraging a new student. “Activity can mean a number of things, like unexplained happenings. Voices, or footsteps. Missing or relocated objects. In some cases, the activity is destructive. But there was no record of blatantly destructive activity in this report.” He pulled out a notebook and flipped through it to confirm.

Inside Stan's pocket, her phone rang. She ignored it and listened to Fox finish his explanation of paranormal activity, her mind racing the entire time. Who phoned in the tip about this building? What kind of ghosts were in there? Didn't Stevie Nicks have a song called “Ghosts”? Her brain searched for the lyrics as all the thoughts tumbled together. She tried to focus, hoping this wasn't bad news for Jake and Izzy's plans—and their construction schedule. From her pocket, chimes sounded. Voice mail.

Jake's skepticism was written all over his face. “Voices and footsteps, huh? I get lots of tips, too, but I only pay attention to the cash ones. How do you weed out the real possibilities from the nuts? And what report are you talking about?”

It was Stan's turn to frown. Jake usually wasn't rude, but he didn't seem enthralled by Fox at all. Maybe he, like Frank, was worried about construction delays. Or ghost enthusiasts breaking in. That happened sometimes after a place was featured on these shows. Especially at the old asylum sites—people seemed fascinated with those places.

Still, he could at least pretend to be excited. Stan had always dreamt of being part of a ghost hunt, and one had just potentially walked into town. If the place was featured and they exorcised a ghost, it would be a total tourist attraction. Which would make Izzy the happiest girl on the planet once the store was open. It might also make a lot of people in town angry.

But Jake shouldn't be one of them.

Fox must've been accustomed to attitude in this line of work. His easygoing, conversational demeanor didn't change. “Another great question,” he said. “Of course we get a lot of fake tips, or what I like to call ‘hopefuls.' But when we think a place really has potential, we make a trip out to get a feel for what may be happening. We do an investigation to determine if there is activity, what kind, and what to do about it, depending on the type of spirit. If we feel we have a strong presence, we've got ourselves a show—if the folks want to sign on.

“Our whole fall lineup this year is going to be New England sites, from October through December. Perfect to kick off the Halloween season. New England is prime for ghosts, if you didn't know. We're in the process of selecting the sites right now, so this was perfect timing.”

Stan's phone rang again. She grabbed it out of her pocket, glanced at the caller ID. Char. Well, she'd have to wait. She switched the phone to silent and shoved it back in her pocket.

“I'm still missing how you have a report. Since this is the first I'm hearing about any of it,” Jake said, crossing his arms.

“We came in and spoke with the workers,” Fox said. “We got to town yesterday and caught up with a few members of the crew. They took us around, told us about tools going missing, lightbulbs blowing out. Typical stuff we see during rehabs. Great place, by the way. Must've been amazing in its heyday. What are you doing with it?”

Uh-oh. Stan recognized the darkening of Jake's eyes, the tightening of his jaw. Little clues to anger she didn't see often in him, but when they appeared, it was for good reason.

“First of all, no one should set foot in here without permission from the owners. There are liability issues. If one of your people got hurt here, we'd be in big—”

“Mr. McGee,” Fox interrupted. “I completely understand all that. We did get permission.”

“From who?” Jake asked; then it dawned on him at the same moment Izzy walked up.

“From me, of course.” Izzy winked at him. “I love me a good ghost story.” She turned to Fox. “Good morning, Adrian. So, what's the verdict?”

“We definitely heard enough from the crew to support conducting an investigation. There's a great possibility, my friends, that you have bought yourself a building with some unsettled spirits. This could do wonders for your future prospects.” Fox grinned.

Jake didn't. “Izzy, we need to talk about this,” he said through gritted teeth. “Why didn't you mention it last night?”

“Don't be a hater.” Izzy flung her scarf over her shoulder, dismissing his words. “I knew you wouldn't want to hear about it. We might have ghosts. Frank's been trying to tell you about the setbacks the workers encountered. Although I'm sure ghosts aren't gonna be easy for Frank to swallow. But the evidence is real. All those things Adrian mentioned, that's why we need some of these change orders. I didn't believe it at first either when Adrian tracked me down yesterday, but it makes total sense now. We need to deal with it.”

I listened, fascinated. Izzy hadn't know either until yesterday. So who had reported ghostly activity?

“And Adrian's right,” Izzy added. “Once a place is featured on this show, people are obsessed—they flock to it. We'll have so much traffic when we open you won't even remember there were ghost hunters here. Or you'll thank them.”

“That's great, but this might not even be for real, Izzy. You're getting ahead of yourself.”

“Hold on a second,” Fox said, stepping forward. “My team doesn't
invent
paranormal activity for the sake of a TV show. We have a TV show because the work demands it. From what the workers are seeing, it sounds like you have some kind of activity you may want to be aware of.” He looked at Stan, who hadn't said a word during the exchange. “Did you know about the murder that happened here back in the late forties?”

“Murder?” Stan looked at Jake. “In this building?”

“Crazy, right?” Izzy said. “I almost died when he told me. No pun intended.”

Jake said nothing.

“Yes, you had a murder here. We researched it after the tip. Another piece of our due diligence,” Fox said with a pointed look at Jake. “If we have a site to consider, we look to see what its past was like. That's usually another indication. And we found that this place had a real story behind it.”

Most older buildings in town had some story or other behind it—after all, many had been here for hundreds of years and been through different iterations. Stan had heard about famous people passing through town who contributed to history books, but she hadn't heard about murder. “Who was killed?” she asked.

“It was a boxer named Felix Constantine.” Fox referred back to his notes. “Back in 1949. He was supposed to fight one of the locals and vanished after a big bash in town the night before the match. His body was found a few days later. In the basement. No one was ever charged, according to my research. Lack of evidence, supposedly. But perhaps Felix thinks it's finally time to set himself free.”

Stan hung on every word. She loved ghost stories. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jake's face turning cloudier and decided to ignore it. She couldn't concentrate thinking about his anger.

“So what does that mean? This ghost wants to tell us who his killer was?” Izzy asked. “Is that . . . dangerous?”

Fox's face turned somber. “There's always the possibility a spirit is demonic. It's actually not common. Spirits like those in
The Amityville Horror
and
The Conjuring
aren't the norm. Sometimes the deceased doesn't actually realize he or she is dead, and they're just trying to get home. But we have to be prepared for anything, and that includes ‘evil' spirits.” He accented the word
evil
with air quotes. “Have you felt or experienced anything while you were in here?”

“I haven't,” Izzy said. “But I'm not here that much. Jake, have you?”

Jake's face remained stony. “No.”

Izzy frowned at him. “He wouldn't tell you anyway. We just started renovations about a month ago,” she said, turning back to Fox. “The building has been vacant for a long time. I wonder if all the work stirred something up?”

Fox nodded. “Could very well be.”

“Wow. This is bananas.” Izzy looked like she wasn't sure if she should be excited, nervous, or both. “I wish we could ask Helga about the murder.” The words left her mouth before she caught them, and she cast a guilty look at Jake. His face didn't change.

“You said someone called and told you about this place,” Stan said. “Who was it?”

“It was an anonymous tip,” Fox said.

Jake looked skeptical. “Shouldn't you be able to tell me who it was, since I'm the owner?”

Fox spread his hands wide and offered an apologetic smile. “I'm sorry. That's part of my protocol. If someone asks to remain anonymous, I respect that.”

Stan thought about that. “Did they tell you about the old murder, or only about weird things happening today?” she asked slowly.

“The tip was about the activity,” Fox said, but there was something in his tone—a tad less confidence? a change of voice inflection?—that told Stan there was more to the story.

“Don't people usually want to be involved in tracking down the alleged ghost if they call in a tip?” Stan asked. “Or at least knowing for sure there was something weird going on?”

“It really depends on the motivation of the person making the call,” Fox said. “No two tipsters are exactly the same.”

No, they certainly weren't. If it had been simply a worker spooked about something, would they have gone to all the trouble of calling Fox and team? Perhaps, if they were big fans of the show. But if it was someone else—someone who knew something about the old murder—they might have a very different reason for calling. And for staying anonymous.