Who Invited the Ghost to Dinner: A Ghost Writer Mystery (21 page)

“Joey Ingram.”

“Do you think she knows where he’s at?”

“I don’t know. But I wanted you to know what was going on, just in case. My dad knows as well. He said if he doesn’t hear from me by noon, he’ll give you a call.”

“Give me just a minute,” Mike said, getting up and leaving the office.

A few minutes later, he came back with two small boxes, which he put on his desk. Opening the first one, he took out a small electronic device. “This is a tracking device,” he said, taking my messenger bag from me. “I’m going to put this in your bag.”

“It won’t make any noise or anything like that, will it?”

“Oh no, not on your end,” he said, handing me back the bag.

“So you’ll know where I’m at all the time?”

“Exactly.” He opened the second box and took out a pen. “This is a recording device.”

“Like James Bond?”

He laughed. “Maybe old school James Bond, the Sean Connery era.”

“My favorite Bond movies.”

“Turn this on before you get out of the car. It will last a couple of hours or so. I’m not exactly sure on the length of time.”

I checked the time. “I need to go,” I said, standing up.

He walked me out to my car. “Be careful.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Contact me as soon as you leave.”

“I will.”

Ten minutes later, I parked in front of the pie shop. I reached into my bag and turned on the recording device. Taking a deep breath, I got out and started for the door. I didn’t get very far, though. A man stopped me, saying, “Cam Shaw?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Joseph Ingram.”

Chapter 27

“I
need you to come with me,” Joseph said, reaching for my arm.

“I don’t think so,” I said, starting to back away from him. I bumped into something big and hard. I turned to see a very large chest, and when I looked up, there was a bald man staring down at me. “On the other hand,” I said, turning back around, “I suppose we could have a little chat for a few minutes. Why don’t we go inside?”

“Not here,” he said, grabbing my arm and leading me toward a white stretch limo.

“I let people know I was coming here,” I told him as he shoved me inside.

“Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to you.”

I sat on one of the benches, while he sat across from me on the other one. “What is it you want, Mr. Ingram?”

“Call me Joey. Dad is Mr. Ingram.”

“Fine. What do you want,
Joey
?”

“I want to find out what you know about my wife’s murder.”

“Nothing. You could have asked me that in the parking lot, and saved us both a lot of time.”

“Do you expect me to believe that the girlfriend of the chief of police doesn’t know what’s going on in his investigation?”

“Being his girlfriend doesn’t give me access to everything in an investigation,” I snapped. “There are rules he has to follow, you know. And part of those rules are not talking about open cases with significant others.”

“Crap!” he said.

“Since we’re sitting here, in such close quarters, let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Did you kill Susan?”

“As much as I hated the woman, I could never kill her. She’s the mother of my children. And murder is not only against the laws of man, but the laws of God, too.”

“Not the answer I was expecting, to tell you the truth.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“If you didn’t kill your wife, then who did?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to your father lately?

“Not since the afternoon of the dinner. He called and asked me to come by. When I got there, he was working in his office. He said that something had come up, and he wouldn’t be able to attend the dinner, and told me that I needed to go in his place to represent the family and the company.”

“I saw you there that night,” I told him. “You were talking to Stephen Showalter.”

“Yes, I was. So?”

“I’m curious what you two were talking about. You were trying to convince him of something awful hard.”

“It was personal.”

“I was given the impression that you wanted him to produce a show in Dallas, so that Susan wouldn’t leave you.”

“Who told you that? Showalter? Did Showalter tell you that?”

“I cannot reveal my sources.”

“You’re not a reporter. You don’t have ‘sources’.”

“Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that it was Showalter. Is it true?”

“Let’s just say, hypothetically, it was.”

“If you hated her so much, then why did you want to keep her close?”

“Because she would have taken half of everything I owned. And I can’t afford to lose anything at this critical juncture.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing I can discuss with you. It’s business.”

“Look, Joey, you’re the one who got me to come to the pie shop under false pretenses, kidnapped me in broad daylight, and demanded that I spill my guts to you. If you don’t want me to press charges against you once I get home, you’re going to tell me what I want to know.”

“Fine, what does it matter? Until Susan’s murderer is brought to justice, I can’t go through with my original plan. I’ve been working with some new partners to take over my father’s company.”

“A hostile takeover? After everything that your father gave up for that company? You’d do that to him?”

“He’s driving the business into the ground. Building houses for poor people. He’s paid more attention to his charity work than he has the business. Something needs to be done to save it.”

I shook my head as I slid forward and banged on the glass. “Back to the parking lot, now!”

The window rolled down. “Mr. Ingram?” his bodyguard said.

“Do it.”

I didn’t say another word until we were back at the pie shop. Joey opened the door, got out, and helped me out. I started to walk away, but turned around and went back. “There’s one thing I think you should know,” I said. “Your father was found dead in his living room thirty-six hours after your wife was murdered.”

“What?” Joey said, grabbing my arms and shaking me. “You’re lying. Why are you lying to me?”

I heard the click of a gun. “Let her go,” Mike said quietly, “right now, Ingram.”

Joey dropped his hands. Reynolds came up behind him, pulled Joey’s arms back, and put some handcuffs on him. “What the hell is this?” Joey said, glaring at us.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Susan Ingram and Clinton Ingram,” Mike told him as he holstered his weapon. “Read him his rights, Reynolds, and take him back to the station. Take the bodyguard, too.”

“You can’t arrest me here,” Joey sneered. “You’re out of your jurisdiction.”

“He’s absolutely right, you know,” Mike said. “Uncuff him, Reynolds.”

Reynolds nodded, and removed the cuffs.

“I’ll see you in court, Penhall.”

A man wearing a Red Oak police uniform stepped in front of Joey. “Joseph Ingram, I’m placing you under arrest for unlawful detention,” he said, turning Joey around and placing a new pair of handcuffs on him.

“What? That’s crazy! Who did I detain? Her? She came voluntarily, didn’t you, Ms. Shaw?”

“Well, all we did was talk,” I admitted reluctantly.

“Officer Munoz, I do have a warrant from Waxahachie on murder charges for Mr. Ingram. Would you be willing to drop your charges and transfer custody over to me?”

Munoz looked at me. “Ms. Shaw? Do you want to press charges?”

I looked at Mike, who shook his head at me. “No, I don’t think so,” I told him.

“Then he’s all yours, Chief Penhall,” Munoz replied, handing him over to Reynolds, who handed Munoz his handcuffs before leading Joey to his patrol car.

Mike shook hands with Munoz. “Appreciate the help.”

“Anytime. See you next week at the basketball game?”

“You know it,” Mike said. “Hope you guys are ready to lose.”

“Dream on, Penhall,” he laughed as he walked away.

“What just happened here?” I asked Mike.

“Pamela Dimwitty called about ten minutes after you left my office. She told me that Joey had forced her to place the call to you. She said all he wanted was to talk to you for a little while, and that he would bring you back to the parking lot eventually. We decided to wait for him to come back.”

“You used me as bait?”

“No, I wasn’t using you as bait. That would mean I had prior knowledge, which I didn’t. I just took advantage of the opportunity and arrested him.”

I slugged him in the arm. “How did you know he wouldn’t hurt me?”

“I didn’t. Look, I don’t blame you for being upset, but I knew where you were the entire time, okay? If that limo had stayed in one place longer than two minutes, I would have been all over it.”

I reached into the bag, pulled out the pen, and handed it to him. “You’ll want this, and take that tracking device out of my bag.”

“Did he confess to killing his wife and father?” Mike asked as he dug around in my bag until he found it.

“No, and from what he said, he didn’t know that his father was dead. You saw how he reacted. I don’t think he did it.”

Chapter 28

M
ike and I went inside, where we each ordered a piece of pie and a drink. After we sat down, he said, “Why do you think he’s innocent?”

“You’ll hear it on the recording,” I replied, “but he seemed totally surprised to hear about his father’s death.”

“He could be a very good actor.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.

“What did he say about his wife?”

“He couldn’t afford to divorce her.”

“What does that mean? Did his wife control the money?”

“No, I’m pretty sure he handles that,” I said, before taking a bite of apple pie. “He said he was involved in a serious business deal right now, and because of that, he couldn’t afford to divorce his wife.”

“So he was thinking about it?”

“No, he’s a firm believer in ‘til death do us part. Even if he was able to divorce her, he wouldn’t do it.”

“Did he give you an idea of what type of business deal he was involved in?”

“Oh yes, he told me, and I couldn’t believe it,” I replied, reaching over to take a bite of his cherry pie.

“Eat your own pie,” he said.

I shoved my plate toward him. “Fair is fair. You can have a bite of mine.”

Mike took me up on my offer, taking a generous bite from my pie. “What was the business deal?” he asked me.

“A hostile takeover of his father’s construction company.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. He said his father was driving the business into the ground because of all the low-income housing the company has been building.”

“That gives him a very good motive for killing Clinton,” Mike pointed out.

I had to admit it did, but I still didn’t think he did it. “This whole thing is one giant mess.”

“No arguments from me,” he said.

“Backstabbing, lies, and too many secrets. Just when we think we’ve figured one thing out, three more pop up to complicate things even more.”

Mike leaned over the table. “Maybe you need to talk to Clinton again.”

I looked at him, shocked. “Are you asking me to question a ghost to help with your investigation?”

“Not officially,” Mike said, sitting back in his chair. “It’s not like I can put anything that I learn from any of your ‘friends’ in my official reports. They’d laugh me out of office.”

“I still want to talk to my grandmother. I’m sure Walt, Pete, and a few others can tell me about the good old days.”

“Grandpa will be able to fill in some of the police activity, if there were any problems with the Ingrams back then.”

“See, there are plenty of sources that we can use that you can put in the official reports.”

“I want you to promise me one thing, though,” Mike said, placing his hand over mine. “I don’t want you talking to anyone who might be pertinent to my current investigation, including Joey Ingram. Stay away from him. He’s going to be plenty mad because of his arrest, and he might blame you.”

“Me?” I said. “Why? I had nothing to do with it.”

“But he might not see it that way, Cam. He might see the whole thing as a set up.”

“I don’t see how. Neither one of us had any idea that he was involved until after the meeting was arranged.”

“I doubt he’s going to be very happy when he finds out that Ms. Dimwitty called me.”

“Good point. But if you’ve arrested him for murder, then surely he won’t make bail?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said, shaking his head. “The Ingrams have connections all over the place. If he stays in jail until morning, I will be surprised.”

Not what I had expected to hear. I looked at the time on my phone. “Let’s get out of here. I need to check in with Dad, and let him know I’m all right.”

“I’ll follow you there and then go on to the station. Do you want to have dinner tonight?”

“Sure, that sounds good,” I said as I stood up.

“Great. I’ll pick you up around six.”

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into a spot in front of the coffeehouse. Mike honked and waved as he drove by. When I got out of the car, I heard someone call my name from across the street, and I saw Randy waving at me from the doorway of the bookstore. I held up a finger, indicating I’d be there in a minute, then turned and went inside the coffeehouse. Mother was talking to a dark-haired woman at the counter, and when she saw me, she waved me over.

“We heard about Joey Ingram,” Mother said, giving me a hug. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. He was arrested a little while ago. Mike’s on his way to the police station to interrogate him right now. But how did you find out?”

“This is Pamela Dimwitty,” she said, putting her hand on the woman’s arm. “Pamela, this is my daughter, Cam.”

We shook hands. “So you’re the one who called Mike?” I said.

Her eyes welled up with tears. “I am so sorry that I tricked you,” she stammered. “Joey told me if I didn’t, he’d fire me. I need my job.”

I shook my head. “Joey shouldn’t have put you in that position. I appreciate what you did. I thought you were Clinton’s secretary.”

“I was, but since he died, Joey has made me work for him.”

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Mother asked, worry in her brown eyes.

“No, he didn’t. He just wanted to talk.”

Both of them sighed in relief. “So then this whole thing is over?” Mother said.

I really wanted to tell her yes, but those nagging doubts wouldn’t let me. “To be honest, I don’t know. For me, there are still some unanswered questions, and I don’t think he did it.”

Pamela gasped. “How can you say that? He must have done it! For the last four months, he has been pressuring Mr. Clinton to sell him the company, but Mr. Clinton flat out refused. Joey was furious, and he told his father he would take the company from him, even if he had to kill him to do it.”

“But that doesn’t mean he would actually do it,” I replied. “When I told him his father was dead, he seemed genuinely surprised. No one could fake that.”

“I’m sure he did it,” Pamela insisted. “You didn’t hear him say it. The venom, the hate I heard in his voice…he meant it.”

“Then you should talk to Mike, tell him about it, and anything else that you think would bolster the case against Joey. Do you know what happens to the company now?”

“Well, the board of directors has had a meeting, and they have chosen an interim president to make sure that our current contracts are fulfilled.”

“Who did they pick?”

“Someone else. I’m not sure why. Mr. Clinton made his wishes very clear that I was to become president.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “No offense, ma’am, but I thought you were the secretary.”

“Hmphf, that’s what Joey believes. Truth be told, I’m more involved in the business than he’s been the last five years. Mr. Clinton had some health issues, his heart mostly, and so he sent me to meetings in his place. Many of the contracts we have right now are because of negotiations I’ve had with people and companies.”

Well, wasn’t she full of surprises? “So why do you still continue to work as a secretary?”

She shrugged. “It’s what I’ve always done. I’m still able to handle all the work and responsibilities.”

“What do you know about building costs, materials, permits, and all that kind of stuff?” I asked her.

“I grew up in a house full of brothers, Ms. Shaw. My father worked construction his whole life. It was pretty easy to learn when you’re around it all the time.”

I still couldn’t believe that Clinton Ingram would let someone who wasn’t family have so much control of his company, but before I could voice my opinion, the coffeehouse phone rang. My dad stuck his head around the corner. “Cam, Randy says he needs you over at the bookstore immediately. Something about a missing order.”

“I haven’t ordered anything over there lately, Dad.”

“He’s being pretty insistent.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. It sounded like Randy was being melodramatic, and just wanted me over there so he could find out what was going on. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

Dad nodded and put the phone to his ear as he went into the back room.

“Thank you again for letting Mike know what was really going on, Ms. Dimwitty,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

“I’m just glad it worked out for the best,” she said. “I really need to get going myself. Thank you for the coffee, Charlotte. I’ll see you at church on Sunday.”

I watched her leave. “How well do you know her, Mother?”

“I’ve mostly seen her at church and a few social functions, that’s about it. Why?”

“Something about her story just sounds off,” I replied. “Maybe it’s just me.” I gave her a hug and a kiss. “I better go calm down Randy. He’s upset about being left out of the loop.”

“Probably,” Mother agreed. “Be careful. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hurried across the street, and walked into the bookstore to find Randy standing behind the counter, looking upset. “I thought you were coming right over after you talked to your parents,” he said as I put my bag down on the counter.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Sally told me that you were in to see Mike this morning, and that shortly after you left, a woman came in, said something to him that upset him, and he was out the door with two other officers like they were going to stop a murder. Somehow, those two things are connected, and I want to know what’s going on right now.”

“My goodness, you’re in a snit.”

“Never mind my mood, spill the beans.”

“Yeah, toots, start talking.” I spun around, and there was Mac, standing by the bookrack.

“Oh, good grief,” I muttered. “Why are you here?”

“I work here,” Randy said.

“Not you. Mac.”

“He’s here?”

Mac made the bookrack spin fast, sending paperbacks flying all over the place.

“Does that answer your question?” I said to Randy.

“Hey, knock that off!” Randy ran around the counter and started picking up the books. “If you damage them, I can’t charge full price.”

“That’s enough, Mac.”

“Bunch of party poopers,” Mac said. “Tell us what happened this morning. I was with Mike when that raven haired beauty came into his office all upset.”

“What were you doing with Mike?”

“I wasn’t doing anything with Mike,” Randy said as he started putting the books back on the rack.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know that? I can’t hear that evil ghost of yours.”

Mac gave the rack another spin, and the books went flying again.

“I don’t think he likes to be called evil,” I pointed out to Randy.

“You got that right,” the ghost said.

“Just answer the question, Mac. What were you doing with Mike?”

“I was hoping to get a look at his files on the Ingram case. I thought it might help us out if we knew what he knew.”

I had to give him credit. It was a good idea. Wish I had thought of it. “Did you find anything out?”

“No,” he said, looking disappointed. “The Raven came in, and we were both distracted by her. She barely finished telling Mike about your meeting being a set up before he was out the door.”

“Did you go with him?” I asked. I didn’t remember seeing him there, but that didn’t mean anything.

He shook his head. “I decided to stick with her.”

“And?”

“What’s he saying?” Randy wanted to know.

I gave him a general run down before Mac continued. “She peeked out the door, then went over to the desk and looked through the files.”

“She what?”

“What, what?” Randy said. “She what?”

I waved my hand at him to get him to shut up. “Did anyone see her do it?”

“Besides me, you mean?” Mac said.

“Obviously that’s what I mean.”

“Nope, she didn’t get caught. She read through the notes pretty fast, then she pulled one of the pages out, stuffed it in her purse, and left.”

I felt a sharp pain over my left eye, and I rubbed it. “Any idea what the piece of paper said?”

“Not a clue.”

“What piece of paper?” Randy said. “I really hate getting one side of this conversation, you know.”

“Trust me, I’m not thrilled hearing all of it,” I told him. “It seems Ms. Dimwitty had an ulterior motive for telling Mike about the meeting being a set up by Joey Ingram. She needed to look at Mike’s case notes. Mac says she took a page out of the file.”

“Whoa,” Randy said. “Right there in the police station? She’s got ice water in her veins.”

I agreed with him. “Did you know that she’s been helping Clinton with some of the company’s business deals the last few years?”

“A friend who is a waitress at the country club mentioned that she had seen her with Clinton at a business lunch one day. It was with a couple of gentlemen from some big company in Dallas. Pamela did most of the talking, from what my friend could tell. But Clinton seemed to agree with everything that was being said.”