The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion Page 2

  Jack looked away. "Gunning men down doesn't make you a hero, kid. Not in my book."

  "I got money to pay, Mr. Shepard. It's not dirty or nothing, neither."

  The kid gaped at Jack then, his big, brown eyes all puppy-dog expectant. Jack exhaled long and hard, drained his coffee cup, and set it down.

  "Listen, son, I'm not in the business of finding lost poodles. Tack up some posters, maybe you'll get lucky."

  "I didn't lose a dog, mister. What I lost was a person. She walked right out the door two weeks ago and never came back."

  "Oh, yeah? And who would that be?" "My mother."

  CHAPTER 1

  Final Destination

  In the long run, we are all dead.

  —John Maynard Keynes

  Quindicott, Rhode Island June 9, present day

  "OH, NO. DON'T tell me ..."

  Since I'd crawled out of bed at seven this morning, I'd encountered setbacks galore: a stubbed toe, a misplaced wallet, a malfunctioning toaster, no milk for my son's cereal, and a kitty litter shortage. That was only the first hour.

  Spencer was leaving for summer camp tomorrow and after I'd stuffed his clothes into our old washer, he told me about a list of things he was supposed to pack and didn't have. So I was off, shopping for a second pair of swim trunks, rubber flip-flops for the shared camp showers, and sunscreen with an SPF high enough to block a nuclear winter—not to mention the milk and kitty litter we'd just run short on.

  (Until I got back, Bookmark had to make due with piddling on this week's Quindicott Bulletin, which was actually a pretty good use for it, considering the rumor-as-journalism philosophy of the town paper.)

  Then Aunt Sadie called my cell to inform me the store just got saddled with a triple shipment of stripper-turned-television-actress Zara Underwood's debut crime novel, Bang, Bang, Baby.

  I knew the book was sailing on celebrity for most of the country. She received a huge advance, and there was a big, expensive publicity campaign with print and radio ads, but the review galley was written on the level of "See spot run." And since my customers actually liked to read the books they purchased, I figured we'd be lucky to sell five of the woman's books, let alone the eighty-four copies the publisher had shipped us mistakenly.

  I raced back to the shop, and while Aunt Sadie rang up customers, I put together the cardboard dump (with the life-size standee of grinning "stripper-turned-actress-turned-writer" Underwood, who was practically wearing nothing but underwear), and then the store phone rang.

  Soft-spoken shut-in Miss Timothea Todd was calling to politely inquire about her June 1 book delivery. It was now June 9, and my aunt felt so badly about the oversight that I'd agreed to do a quick, there-and-back run after our lunchtime business had died down.

  Quick was the operative word until I'd hit the funeral cortege. Now I was trapped in my car watching a long parade of tiny black flags flutter on radio antennas behind a fully loaded hearse. Its final destination (pardon the pun) was the "Old Farm"—what we locals called Quindicott's nondenominational town cemetery, a manicured area of gentle Rhode Island hills situated between the central district and the secluded mansions of Larchmont Avenue.

  The vast graveyard used to be part of the Montague family farm until the city forefathers bought the land one spring when a terrible fever ripped through the region and there were far too many dead for any one church to handle. (Seymour Tarnish, our shop's mailman and the local repository for all manner of trivia, insisted the phrase bought the farm actually originated in our little town with that plot purchase.)

  Anyway, since Miss Todd lived on Larchmont, it was my destination—at the moment. I was well aware my final destination would be the Old Farm, too, since Quindicott's dead had been planted there for going on three centuries now.

  I shifted in my car seat, watching the funeral party wind its way around a bend. All of the vehicles' headlights were on, a typical funeral procession tradition, but I hadn't noticed that fact until the caravan rolled under the dappled gray shadows of overhanging dogwoods. Funny, I thought, how something as bright as a headlight can be made to appear invisible by the glare of a sunny day ...

  As I contemplated tricks of light, beads of sweat formed on my neck and began trickling beneath my blouse. My black-framed glasses slipped down my slick nose. I pushed them back up. My Saturn was more than ten years old. Its air conditioner had sputtered into dysfunction last September, and I had yet to get it fixed.

  I powered down the car's windows and tied my shoulder-length auburn hair into a ponytail. I was dressed for summer in flat leather sandals, beige capri pants, and a white sleeveless blouse, but now I was really beginning to bake. Sticking my head out the window, I longed for that fresh glass of Del's frozen lemonade Miss Todd would likely be whipping up for me, and considered passing the slow-mo procession.

  Dogwood was a narrow route with the dark density of Montague's Woods on its left and the old graveyard's rustic, gray fieldstone fence on its right. There wasn't much of a shoulder on either side; and, unfortunately, the painted line running down the middle of the road's black tarred surface was solid yellow. This area was a no-passing zone.

  But no one was coming toward me in the other lane (at least that I could see), and a quick glance in my rearview mirror told me there wasn't a police car around, either. In fact, there was no one behind me.

  "Should I risk it?" I turned the wheel a fraction, ready to veer into the oncoming lane and put the hammer down. "Why not?"

  ARE YOU INSANE!

  The explosive masculine voice in my head was accompanied with a sudden decrease in the temperature of the warm car. The double whammy jolted me backward.

  "Jack?" I called to the chilly blast of air. "Is that you?!"

  What do you think?

  "Where've you been all day?"

  With you, baby. Every step of the way. You've been blowing around Cornpone-cott at full speed so long you didn't notice.

  "It's Quindicott, Jack, not Cornpone-cott—and I was beginning to think you'd abandoned me ..."

  I once seriously considered therapy to sort out whether Jack was an actual ghost (i.e. spook, specter, spirit of a dead guy). I mean, a private detective named Jack Shepard was actually gunned down sixty years ago inside the bookshop my aunt Sadie and I now owned. Not long ago, a major mystery writer had revealed Jack's fate as a true-crime fact.

  Still... I was the only one who ever heard the ghost, which sometimes made me question my sanity. I mean, add it up: I'd always been an admirer of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. So Jack could be the equivalent of an "imaginary friend," created by my subconscious to help me (say) cope with life's relentless stresses. In that case, any shrink would probably just reduce Jack down to an alter ego with a fedora, ready to coach me through things my vulnerable self didn't think it could handle.

  On the other hand, I had to wonder why my vulnerable self would use off-color language and slang so outdated I couldn't follow it. And if I really was a candidate for (as Jack once put it) "the cackle factory," would I even be able to rationally consider psychological options?

  Tired of debating myself, I threw in the skeptical towel. There was, however, another key reason why I was determined to keep the dead gumshoe all to myself: my late husband's wealthy, well-connected family. Ever since my chronically depressed young husband had decided to stop taking his meds and instead take a stroll out the window of our New York high-rise, any hint of crazy from me was going to be enough for the McClures to put me away and ship Spencer off to boarding school (their original "suggestion" for me the summer after my husband killed himself).

  That infuriating advice (more of a threat, really, if you knew the McClures) had been quite enough motivation for me to move Spence up here to my small Rhode Island hometown so we could both start over again. It was also more than enough reason to keep my mouth shut about Jack the PI ghost.

  By now, I'd become quite fond of the ghost. We'd been through a lot together. His police
and PI experience on the mean streets of New York had come in handy more than once. Even his supernatural chills turned out to be handy— particularly when riding around in a hot car with a broken air conditioner.

  There was a downside to Jack, too, of course. His 1940s sensibilities weren't always, shall we say ... enlightened!

  "I'm glad to have you on board," I told the ghost. "I was beginning to think you'd stayed in the store to hang out in our new occult book section. I mean, given your own state, you might find some interesting reading."

  That hocus-pocus aisle is the last place I’d haunt Have you seen some of the clientele it's bringing in? They've got more tattoos than a brace of Malay sailors. Some of them have pins sticking out of their ears, noses, lips, and a few other places your prim little eardrums wouldn't relish hearing about—

  "Excuse me, but—"

  For a second, I thought a tribe of New Guinea cannibals had come calling.

  "Oh, for goodness' sake! They're just college students, Jack! In a few years, their piercings will be gone and their tattoos will be covered up with button-downs and blazers. Some of them might even be scribbling PhD beside their names."

  In my experience, a few fancy letters behind some Alvin's name is like a vaccine against common sense.

  I shook my head and Jack fell silent for a few minutes.

  The deep freeze had lessened into a pleasant coolness and the car's interior was much more comfortable now. Still, I frowned at the SUV bumper in front of me and checked my watch again. The funeral procession was moving with all the speed of maple tree sap.

  A big, bronze vintage Harley blew by me in the opposite lane. Before I'd even caught a glimpse of Leo Rollins's shiny gold helmet, I would have recognized his uniquely customized engine by its odd high-low-pitched sound. Other than Leo, however, there was no one else. No other traffic was traveling back from Larchmont Avenue.

  "If I floor the accelerator" I murmured, "I could pass this grim parade in about thirty seconds—"

  DON'T DO IT, SISTER!

  The ghost's angry blast of icy air had me shivering again. Now my goose bumps had goose bumps. "Jack! You're going to give me a heart attack!" I told the ghost. "Which means your little frights may just kill me quicker than an oncoming pickup!"

  There's nothing wrong with your heart, baby. But you'll flirt with a head-on collision over my dead body,

  "Very funny."

  What?

  "You're the first person I've ever heard say, 'Over my dead body,' who actually has a dead body."

  Listen, honey, you 've been burning rubber all day. Until now, you haven't slowed down long enough to hear one word from me. So take a breather already.

  "But this is like watching paint dry. Can't you say something to the guest of honor in this parade to maybe get things moving a little faster?"

  You mean Mr. Room Temperature in the hearse up there? I've told you a hundred times, dollface, I can't talk to the dead. I'm just one of 'em.

  I sighed.

  Who is this Barney in a box anyway? You know him? "No. But I think this is the funeral announcement I read about in this week's Bulletin?' The Wolfe Construction bumper sticker on the last car in line had reminded me of the article.

  "I'm pretty sure this is the guy who was electrocuted on a construction job. He was young, too, still in his twenties. A real tragedy."

  I took a closer look at the SUV in front of me, more specifically at the back of the blond man behind the wheel, and realized it was Jim Wolfe himself driving. Just thirty-five years old and running his own construction company, Wolfe had won a number of bids on construction projects around our region. He wasn't a resident of Quindicott and he wasn't a reader, so Sadie and I never saw him in our bookstore, but he always said hello to us on the street. (It wasn't exactly a chore saying hello to James Wolfe. Aunt Sadie said he had the good looks of Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly. I thought he looked more like Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past, or even the Vikings—including the dimpled chin and the build to go with it.)

  So what's your big hurry, anyway?

  "I left Sadie alone at the store. And I'm trying to get Spencer off to summer camp, and..." I paused. "To be frank with you, Jack, I don't much want to stop and think today. I'm worried about Spencer going. He'll be gone for three whole weeks. And the last time I sent him to camp, well, you know how badly it went..."

  Relax, honey. The kid can take care of himself He ain't the head case you sent off the last time.

  "I know he's better. He's been so happy this year at school. And he's been looking forward to this ..."

  So it's all coming up roses, right?

  "Wrong. He's not even gone and I miss him already."

  Jack went quiet a minute. Then across my cheek I felt a gentle wisp of cool air. You 're not alone, Penelope, the ghost said softly. You got Sadie. And you got me. I'll always be here when you need me.

  I smiled. "Thanks, Jack."

  Anyway, you're looking at this whole thing through a gloomy eye, instead of through a nice happy glass of cheap rye, as Curly the Bookie used to say.

  "You're going to have to translate that one." It's a good thing. Spencer going off to boot camp— "It's not the army, Jack, just cabins by a lake—" The boy needs a seventh-inning stretch is all I'm saying. And you do, too. A nice break from nagging the junior slugger about homework, taxiing the kid to and from Little League practice, and laundering his smelly gym shorts. No more of the kid sneaking out of bed to watch the all-night Shield of Justice marathon on the Intrigue Channel— "What?!"

  Uh... how about you strike that last comment from the record—

  "Wait until I get home—"

  Look, doll. All I'm saying is that you could use a break from the dull routine, too. Why don't you take me to the picture show, or better yet the races? I haven't seen the ponies trot in sixty years.

  I grunted, staring sullenly through the windshield. The scenery was passing by at a glacial pace.

  Where are we headed, anyway?

  "I have books to deliver to Miss Todd."

  That crazy old dame in the big house on Larchmont?

  "The same."

  Doesn't your auntie usually make that run?

  "She broke her glasses this morning and her spare pair has gone missing. Sadie doesn't feel confident enough to drive, even though she can see well enough without them."

  You're on the level there. Red bird's a real hawk-eye when it comes to spotting low-life grifters trying to snatch a tome—

  "Anyway, that's why I'm doing it. Miss Todd's a good customer and her delivery is over a week late."

  Why can't the old dame come down to the store and pick up her own books?

  "She never leaves her house. Hasn't for years, as far as I know. Except for Sadie's monthly visits to talk books, she has very little contact with the outside world. There's a cleaning service, and I understand most of her business is conducted through some law firm."

  Sounds like she's a little light in the head.

  "No, she's very sharp. She can be a little formal, but for someone with a reputation as a hermit, she's been awfully gracious to me and Sadie."

  Except for the wild hair, the nine-inch fingernails, and the fact that she hasn't bathed in years, she's a sweet old broad—

  I laughed. "Jack, you're terrible! She's not like that at all! In fact, she dresses better than me, always has her hair nicely done. She wears a lot of jewelry, too. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings. Once she greeted Aunt Sadie wearing an elaborate silver crown. Sadie told me Miss Todd must have a thing for silver, because that's the only metal she'll wear."

  So what's this rich broad read then? I'll bet you even money it's little old lady mysteries: Miss Petunia Finds a Body. Colonel Ketchup Kicks the Bucket. Right?

  "Wrong. Miss Todd's a true-crime enthusiast. No murder is too grisly, no chain of events too disturbing."

  Sounds like she 'd make a good morgue attendant.

  "Well, lately, she's widened her interest
. After Aunt Sadie mentioned our new occult titles, the old woman began ordering books by the dozen. In fact, most of the titles Aunt Sadie boxed up for her today deal with psychic phenomenon, extrasensory perception, and a study on cross-cultural beliefs about the afterlife. Of course, I could save her the trouble of all that reading and just introduce her to you."

  Is that supposed to be a joke, dollface?

  We'd finally reached the entrance to the Quindicott Cemetery and the funeral procession veered off the main road.

  "Thank goodness!"

  The last of the vehicles rolled through the graveyard's open gates and I hit the gas. Feeling the breeze on my face again, I accelerated up Dogwood's long, slow grade until I was going nearly sixty.

  I crested the high plateau and turned onto Larchmont. Unfortunately, I swerved straight into the sun's glare. For a few seconds, I was totally blinded. As I raised my hand to shield my eyes, a man's silhouette appeared framed by the brilliant light—right in front of my windshield.