Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini: A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery (23 page)

“You tell them, Emma.” Granny bounced from one booted foot to the other like a prize fighter.

“No one killed her intentionally!” Manning shouted, quickly getting to his feet.

Bijou emitted a low growl at the sudden elevation of emotion. Emma communicated to Granny with her eyes to handle animal control. The ghost knelt beside Bijou and cooed, and the animal quieted.

“There was an argument on the boat,” Manning started to explain. He turned down the volume on his voice after glancing at the old dog. “A very heated argument. Someone took a swing at someone else with a gaff—you know, the hooked poles used to pull fish into the boat. The gaff hook caught Tessa, who was trying to stop the fight, in the side of the head. As she fell, she struck her skull hard on the railing.” Emotionally drained, he dropped into his chair and took a long drink. “You happy now?”

To Emma, the story wasn’t complete. “So who swung the gaff?”

The two old friends looked at each other, but neither offered up a name.

“Was it Tony Keller?” asked Emma. “Was that why he committed suicide several months later?”

George answered, “Tony’s suicide had nothing to do with this. He was in the hospital when Tessa died, drying out.”

“He was an alcoholic?”

“Booze, drugs, even gambling,” Manning added. “Studios wouldn’t work with him anymore. He’d tanked his entire career.”

Eyeing Manning with suspicion, Emma tried another avenue. “Boats moored in Avalon Bay are pretty close together. Are you saying no one saw or heard all this?”

“We had taken the boat out for the day on the far side of the island. It was pretty deserted.”

“And you couldn’t find your way to a doctor?” Emma’s eyes popped in disbelief at what she was hearing.

“She died quickly, Emma. By the time we got the anchor up to go get help, she was gone.”

Emma stood in front of the former senator, her hands on her hips. “I don’t believe you.”

“Neither do I, Emma,” offered Granny, still at her post by Bijou.

“Were you there?” Manning shot back.

“No, but Tessa North was.” Emma looked from Manning to George Whitecastle. “According to her, she was left. Someone told her they were going for help, but they never came back.” She turned back to the senator. “You left her there to die, didn’t you?”

The two men looked at each other, locking eyes briefly before George cast his down toward his lap.

Worth cut his eyes to Emma. “You don’t understand anything, Emma, or else you wouldn’t be hurting innocent people to chase a ghost story.”

Emma moved back over to the wet bar. She walked back and forth in front of it like a caged animal, wanting to tear the two old men into bits.

“Which one of you scumbags told her you loved her, then left her to die?” Emma shouted, refusing to be intimidated.

Without warning, Emma ran her arms down the short length of the wet bar, clearing it of crystal glasses and the ice bucket. The room filled with the music of fine glass breaking. The ice bucket crashed to the floor, coming to rest on its side, ice strewn across the luxurious carpet. The Scotch bottle hit the floor, too, but remained intact, its cap on tight. Bijou went behind George’s chair, where Granny continued to comfort him.

“Emma!” George yelled in a strained voice. “What’s gotten into you?”

But Emma didn’t answer. For a long time, she stared down at the ice bucket. Finally, she bent over and picked it up. Turning it upside down, she spilled the remaining ice to the floor.

“Emma,” George said again. “What the hell?”

Emma took the bucket to George and showed it to him, pointing to the small object stuck to its bottom. “We’re being bugged,” she mouthed.

After handing the bucket to George, Emma dashed out of the room and flew down the staircase to the main floor of the Whitecastle home. Bijou was on her heels, following her without knowing why. Granny was following the dog. Behind them, moving much slower but with the same intent, was Worth Manning. Emma entered the kitchen, but it was empty. Turning down a hallway off the kitchen, she headed for the maid’s quarters. That room, too, was empty, looking like it had been recently and quickly vacated.

Dashing to the front door, Emma checked the large circular driveway. Earlier there had been an older Toyota in the driveway. It was gone now.

“Nothing?” Worth Manning asked, catching up to her.

Emma shook her head and started back up the stairs to George’s study. Manning followed. Taking the ice bucket back from George, she plucked the bug from the bottom, put it in a glass, and added water.

“I don’t know if that will work or not,” she said. Then, to be on the safe side, she stuck the glass inside the bar refrigerator.

“Where’s Bijou?” asked George.

Granny answered. “I sent him outside through his doggie door. Ordered him to stay there.”

“He went outside,” Emma told George with a satisfied nod to Granny.

“Good,” George said. “This is upsetting him.”

Emma turned to George. “Where does Helen live, George?”

“Why, here, of course.”

“All the time? She doesn’t have a real home?”

“No, not all the time—mostly she stays just during the week. Celeste would have that information.”

Emma walked back and forth. “Did Helen know I was coming? Or the senator?”

“Yes. I told her you were all coming by this morning.”

“Why would your maid want to bug us, George?” The question came from Worth.

“I have no idea. Do you think she’s been listening to me the whole time? She’s only been here a few months.”

“The last time I visited, there wasn’t an ice bucket on the counter,” Emma said, going back and studying the wet bar. “I took a bottled water from the mini fridge and poured it into a glass. But there wasn’t any ice.” She looked at George. “Did you ask her to bring up fresh ice today?”

“No. She just brought it up, shortly before you arrived.”

Plopping down in a side chair, Emma ran a hand through her short hair. “Gentlemen, your secret just hemorrhaged. And it serves you right.”

“Celeste,” Emma said into
her phone, “it’s me, Emma.”

She was standing in the upstairs hallway, just outside George Whitecastle’s study, calling Celeste Whitecastle on her cell phone.

“Hello, dear. What can I do for you?”

“Domestic question for you.” She said the words with forced casualness. “My mother and I are thinking of adding to our household staff; can you recommend a good agency? I remember meeting Helen last time I was at your house, and she seemed efficient.”

Emma was lying to her mother-in-law and didn’t care one whit. She’d learn the truth soon enough without getting riled up before they knew anything concrete.

“She’s better than the last few, though no one will ever replace Ivy.”

“Do you remember which agency you hired her from?”

“It was a place I’d never used before, but Linda Manning referred them to me shortly before she died. Said their people are very discreet.”

So discreet
, Emma thought,
they’re trained to use bugging devices
.

“Let’s see,” Celeste continued. “I have the name and number right here in my book.” Emma could hear pages being flipped, then Celeste said, “Helen came from Hyland Staffing.”

For some reason, it didn’t surprise Emma. She was becoming desensitized to surprises. The next call she made was to Jackie Houchin, hoping Jackie was around on a Sunday and wouldn’t mind being bothered.

“Jackie, I’m sorry to bother you on a day off, but it’s an emergency. I’m at the Whitecastles’ and need you to look up the home address for Fran Hyland.”

“The Hyland Staffing woman?”

“Yes. She’s out of the office for a few days, and I need to contact her, preferably face to face. Her married name is Kilgore.”

“Kilgore? You sure about that?”

“She told me herself. Why?”

“Remember how you asked me to try and find out the name of that skank who took and sold the video? Well, his name is Mike Kilgore.”

“You’re kidding!” Emma leaned against a papered wall and realized that she could still be surprised.

“Hang on, I’m running a search right now to see if such a couple comes up.” From Jackie’s end of the phone came the clack of a keyboard in use.

Considering the bugging, Fran’s husband being the creep who’d taken the video and sold it to TV made sick sense.

“You there?” Jackie said from the other end.

“Yes.”

“We got a hit. There’s a Frances and Michael Kilgore listed in Sherman Oaks. The wife’s middle initial is
H
.”

“Could stand for Hyland.”

“Very likely. I just found a photo of them on Google images. Let me send it to your phone.”

After a few moments, Emma was staring at a photo of Fran Hyland and her husband, Mike Kilgore. Kilgore looked familiar. It took her a minute, but Emma finally placed him. He’d been the man she’d bumped into leaving Bing’s the day she first met Denise Dowd. No doubt Fran had sent him there in case Emma showed up. He was probably following her out the door when she’d suddenly turned around when Denise called her name. Emma was also ready to bet he was the man in the car parked across from her home the day of the fight with Grant.

“What’s a bug?” Granny asked when Emma got off the phone.

“A tiny listening device,” Emma explained in a whisper. “People use them to eavesdrop on other people. Our entire conversation in there today was probably being recorded by someone.”

“Seems like a handy thing—not very honest, but handy.” Granny looked at Emma. “You ever use them bugs?”

Emma gave Granny a small smile. “I don’t need to. I have you.”

Emma walked the hallway, thinking. “I want you to go back to Catalina, Granny, and talk to Tessa. Convince her that Curtis is never returning. Let her know that you know Curtis is a boat and that the boat is long gone. I imagine that Senator Manning got rid of it shortly after the incident—at least, that would have been the smart thing to do.”

“Snakes are smart.”

“Yes, he’s a very smart snake,” Emma agreed. “Talk first to Milo. Tell him everything you learned here today. Maybe the two of you together can convince Tessa to cross over.”

After Granny left, Emma went back into the study. George looked weaker. The day’s events were obviously taking their toll.

“Should I call a nurse or someone, George?” she asked. “Someone needs to be here with you.”

“Thank you, Emma, but I just called Grant. He’ll be here soon.”

“Then let’s make this quick,” she said, “because I don’t want to be here when he arrives. No telling what I’d do if he gets in a snit again.” Emma sat back down in the side chair.

The two men, both used to giving orders, must have agreed, because for a change they sat and listened, albeit reluctantly, waiting to hear Emma’s plan of action.

“Helen came from Fran Hyland’s agency, Hyland Staffing,” she announced. “I doubt Helen acted on her own. Is there any reason why Fran would want to do something like this?”

From the way the two men looked at each other, Emma surmised that they could think of at least one reason. She directed her next question at Manning. “Was Fran Hyland with you when Tessa died?”

“No,” Manning answered with bluntness. “She was not.”

“And, by the way,” Emma added. “It seems that Celeste was referred to Hyland Staffing by your wife, Linda. So, if I were you, Senator, I’d make sure Fran doesn’t have any bugs or spies in
your
home. In fact, I just found out that it was Fran’s husband who shot that video of Grant and me fighting.”

The two men looked shocked. George broke the silence. “I do recall that Fran married a photographer years ago. She met him on a publicity shoot, I believe.”

Emma paused and took a breath. “Which leads me to my next question. What does Fran Hyland have to do with all this?”

Again the two men looked at each other, this time making eye contact for a long time, discussing without words whether or not they should talk. Emma could feel her frustration headed for another meltdown.

“No more playing games,” she demanded, her deep voice threaded with disgust. “Or I swear I’ll hand you two over to the police right now and let them sort it out.”

George broke eye contact with Worth Manning and turned toward Emma. “Fran Hyland has been blackmailing us for years. All of us.” He looked over at his friend, signaling him to continue the story he’d opened.

Senator Manning rubbed his hands over his face several times before speaking. “Fran was supposed to go over with Tessa and join Paul and me on the boat, but she came down with a cold. Soon after we returned from Catalina and the story circulated that Tessa had returned home to Nebraska, Fran approached me and said she knew what happened on the island. No details, just a general statement that she knew Tessa was dead. Of course, I didn’t believe her. There was no way she could have known such a thing. But she persisted. Said she knew Tessa would never have returned home to Nebraska under any circumstances. Fran threatened to go to the police if we didn’t pay her.” Manning got up and started pacing again. “Of course, we couldn’t take the chance, so we started paying her and have been since.”

“Fran Hyland was right,” Emma told them, growing more disgusted with the men by the minute. “If you had taken the time to get to know Tessa instead of spending that time pawing at her, you might have learned that she ran away from an abusive family. There was no way she would ever have gone back to Nebraska. Fran knew that. That’s how she knew your story about Tessa returning home was a fraud.”

Emma leaned forward in her chair, ready to return to the real meat of the matter. “Somehow, Senator, I can’t see Paul Feldman wielding a gaff at you, even in a heated argument. And if it had been you aiming at him, I doubt you would have missed and hit Tessa. The question still remains, who are you all protecting? And this time I want a straight answer.”

“Noooooooooo!” came a disembodied voice, followed by the ghost of the first Mrs. Manning manifesting itself in an instant. The ghost flew up to Worth Manning and starting pounding her transparent fists on his chest. “Don’t you dare tell her!”

A noticeable shiver ran throgh the senator’s long, lean body. He batted at the air in front of him as he might have done at an unseen fly.

Emma was going to tell the men the ghost was present but decided not to, thinking she might be able to use it to her advantage. “Your first wife, Senator—Margaret, wasn’t that her name? She knew what had happened, didn’t she?”

As he nodded in her direction, the once-powerful politician looked beaten, as if the unfelt blows of his dead wife were having an effect. “Yes. I had to tell Margaret. She agreed that we needed to cover it up at all costs.”

Emma’s mind was turning to mush with all the details of the past few days smashing up against each other. In the chaos, some of them started to solidify. Fran Hyland had been blackmailing the three men for years based on her guess that something horrible had happened to Tessa on the island. Now Fran was staffing their households and listening in on their lives. Emma wondered when the bugging had started. Had it been going on all the time or just since she’d started nosing around about Tessa?

“But none of the other wives knew, did they?” she asked the men. “Not Celeste, not Mrs. Feldman? And certainly not the second Mrs. Manning.”

“No,” answered George. “There was no reason for them to know.”

“Damn you, Worth,” the overwrought ghost screamed at him. “You’re to blame for this. You and your whoring around.”

The ghost started moving around the room, causing a noticeable draft. George pulled his throw blanket closer to him.

Emma watched the ghost of Margaret Manning bounce around the room like an agitated pinball until the barrier in her mind shattered, giving Emma a plausible answer to her question—a solid reason for so much cover-up and concern, especially on the side of Margaret Manning.

Emma looked at Worth Manning, her face for once filled with compassion for the arrogant man. “Your son Stuart was on the boat with you, wasn’t he, Senator? He was with you at the Ambassador Hotel, and he went with you to Catalina.” Emma paused to let her words sink in. “He’s the one who accidentally hit Tessa with the gaff, isn’t he?” It was a guess, but a guess based on solid observance.

Manning froze in his tracks, his face pale and gaunt. “You can’t prove that. No one, not even the police can prove that.”

“Please, Worth,” began George, his voice tired and strained. “It’s time for the truth. We can’t hide it any longer.” When Manning said nothing, George turned to Emma. “It was an accident. And the boy had no part in the cover-up.”

The ‘boy,’ Emma noted to herself, was now around sixty years old, with a big political career behind him and even more ahead of him. Even two of his children were in high-stakes politics in the East. Worth Manning had created a political dynasty. A scandal years ago could have destroyed his growing career and any plans he may have had for his son. The reason for the cover-up was becoming apparent but still did not excuse it.

Manning sank deep into his chair and drained his Scotch. He held his glass out to Emma. Though tempted to tell him to put his glass where the sun didn’t shine, she cut him some slack and grabbed the Scotch bottle from the floor. After filling his glass, she started for the wet bar.

“No,” Manning ordered. “Leave it.”

Emma put the bottle on the coffee table and took a seat once again in the side chair, afraid the sofa would make her too comfortable and take the edge off her indignation. After all, they were not discussing sports scores but the death of an unfortunate young woman and a criminal cover-up.

After another big gulp of alcohol, Worth Manning started. “Stu came along at the last minute. He’d recently come home on break from Princeton and wanted to tag along. Seeing how upset he was over the Kennedy killing, I agreed. When Tessa showed up, Stu seemed okay with it. She was just a few years older than him. Maybe he thought she was there to keep him company—who knows.”

“I can’t allow this.” The ghost of Margaret Manning shouted as she continued to whirl about the room in a rage, creating a forceful, cold air current even the men couldn’t ignore.

“Is Denise back?” George asked Emma, his voice full of hope.