Ghost in the Wind (18 page)

As soon as I followed Mom's voice to the hallway outside the movie room (where the lights were also off) and saw from the glow of my flashlight app what was on the floor in front of me, I said loudly to Mom, “Get Melissa out of here.” Mom didn't respond but I heard Liss say, “Grandma . . .” and heard footsteps walking away.

Once I figured they were out of the room, I said, “Paul,” in a conversational tone and didn't so much see as feel him by my side.

“Oh my,” he said.

“Tell my mother to get Josh and keep Liss out of here,” I told him.

“I should observe . . .”

“Now.”
Paul was gone in an instant. I knew he'd be back quickly, but I couldn't wait for him.

There was no choice—I had to turn on the lights. Patrick Swayze had his own problems but they weren't a concern of mine anymore. I had much more to deal with right at the moment.

Of course everyone looked back to see what had happened when the lights switched on but most people stayed
in their seats, except Josh who reached my side, a look of intense concern on his face. Behind him I could hear Liz saying to A.J., “In the middle of the movie?”

Josh's eyes were now the size of quarters (yeah, they're bigger than you think) and he started breathing through his mouth. “Call the police,” I said. “Ask for Lieutenant McElone.” He nodded and pulled out his phone.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he dialed.

“Better than him,” I said.

There were mumbles and confused looks from the crowd. Maxie, floating overhead, let Everett take the lead. He swooped to the hallway, then back, and when he returned his eyes were dark. “It's not good,” he said. Like I didn't already know that.

“What's going on?” Jesse wanted to know.

What was “going on” was that lying facedown and bleeding all over my pristine hardwood floor, which I'd sanded, stained and urethaned within the past year, was a man with a very large knife in his back, just below his neck. I looked to the side where his face was turned and said to Paul, who had materialized at my side, “It's Bill Mastrovy.”

I had to tell the crowd something, mostly because I was afraid someone would use the wrong exit from the movie room. “Please stay in this room,” I told them. “Something very bad has happened, and we're waiting for the police to arrive.”

“What happened?” Berthe asked.

“I'm afraid a man has been badly hurt in the hallway. So please stay here. The police will be here very soon.”

Jeannie was standing, looking at me, trying to determine if this was some hilarious prank I'd devised. But she saw my face. “Watch Oliver,” she told Tony, and rushed to my side.

Maureen, leaning on her walker a few feet away, strained to see past Josh, who was doing his best to block the doorway. “If this is part of the show, it's in very bad taste,” she said.

Jesse, of all people, had the good sense to reach for the
remote and pause the frame on the screen. “I can't hear the movie,” he complained without looking to the back of the room.

“The ambulance is on its way,” Josh said as he put his phone away.

I nodded, grateful for the news, but I knew it wasn't going to do any good. There wasn't even any reason to feel like I should be doing something for Bill Mastrovy.

He was dead.

“This wouldn't have happened with
Lawrence of Arabia
,” I said to no one in particular.

“This is not going to sound good,” said Lieutenant Anita McElone. “How do I report that the chief suspects are ghosts?”

True to her word, McElone had sent an ambulance, which had arrived within minutes of our discovering Bill Mastrovy's body in my hallway. In that time, A.J. had seen the stab wound and fallen back on his chair, the Senior Plus guests (especially the Levines) had freaked out just a little—except Berthe, who said very calmly that we should wait for the police, and Jesse, who had suggested we put the movie back on until the cops came. Tony had thrown a blanket over Oliver's head, presumably to block his view (despite the fact that he was fast asleep and stayed that way), and I had attempted to keep everyone calm—a losing proposition—while Paul had observed everything there was to observe in the hallway, Everett had taken on a security mission, blocking the door with a drill rifle he just happened to have with him (not that he could have stopped anyone and the rifle
wasn't loaded), Maxie had changed into a trench coat and a green visor, which she thinks makes her look like a detective, and Dad had suggested three different ways to get the blood stains out of the floor.

Vance and Morrie were not visible once the lights had come back up. I asked the other ghosts and nobody had seen them leave.

Melissa was now standing in the front of movie room, telling the uniformed officer that she certainly had almost seen the body and might be needed to help with the investigation later on, despite her grandmother, steadfastly by her side, determined not to let her within ten feet of the hallway until the paramedics had done what very little they could do for Bill Mastrovy.

“What was the deceased doing here tonight?” McElone asked me. “Was he invited for the movie?” There wasn't the usual tone of sarcasm in her voice; this was her business and she was a professional.

“No,” I told her. “I have no idea what he was doing here, and I don't even know when he came in. It must have been when the movie was on and the lights were out. It got pretty dark in here.”

McElone was taking notes on a small yellow pad she carried with her. “That's stupid enough to be true.”

So we were back to our old routine again. There was something comforting in that. I was grateful for it.

“I met him last night at a club in Asbury Park,” I told the lieutenant. “He was playing in his band. Josh and I went to see him and I talked to him after the set, but I have no idea even how he knew where I lived, let alone what he was doing here.”

“What were you talking to him about yesterday?” McElone asked. “His name came up with that allergy victim you were asking me about, didn't it?” Nothing gets by the lieutenant; she remembers everything. Why she was taking notes at all was beyond me, but maybe the Harbor Haven PD required it.

“That's right,” I said. Tony had lain Oliver down across two chairs where Tessa and Jesse had been sitting, and he (Ollie) was as asleep as someone can be in a room with four cops, twelve living people (plus four ghosts) and all the lights on. I wished I could sleep like that. Instead, I was noticing my eyes itching and my throat closing up again. And I'd actually taken an allergy pill before dinner. “He was Vanessa McTiernan's boyfriend at the time she died and he told me last night that he'd been with her the day it happened.”

An eyebrow went up. “Really,” she said, her tone not betraying anything. Although the eyebrow was practically a scream of surprise itself. “What did he say happened?”

“That's the problem. He didn't. He just said he'd been there, then pushed his way out of the room, saying he'd talk to me today.” I told McElone the whole story, including Sammi the girlfriend's reaction, which the lieutenant seemed to find interesting.

“I'm going to ask you something I wouldn't ask anybody else on this planet.” The lieutenant's voice dropped to something that would have been a whisper if it had more oomph to it. “Was Vanessa's daddy the vengeful ghost here when our pal Bill bit the dust?”

I didn't want to rat out Vance, but there was no chance I would lie to McElone on something like this. Or anything else, for that matter. “He was here,” I said. “He's not here now, but he was here then. But I don't think he did it.”

“Why not?”

“I'm pretty sure he was busy talking with one of his old bandmates at the time. He was when the lights went down, anyway.” I hadn't actually
seen
Vance and Morrie arguing; in fact, they'd seemed to have been getting along all right just when Morrie had come in. But once the movie started, I couldn't even vouch for their location or say they were still in the room, and I said that to McElone.

She looked around the room, paying more attention to
the ceiling than she would in most other crime scenes, I guessed. “I'm never getting used to this place,” she said.

The interrogations took some hours and we never did get to see the rest of
Ghost
, although I don't think anyone was much in the mood to do so by then. Roberta and Stan Levine, despite my best efforts, packed up their stuff and called Senior Plus to send a van, heeding McElone's warning that they not leave the state; they lived in Maplewood after all. The other guests opted to stay in the house, particularly Berthe and Jesse, who had not seen much of anything. Tessa said she didn't think it was my fault and since she'd been saving for this vacation all year, she'd just spend most of her time outside for the next couple of days.

Maureen, who had been closest to the hallway entrance and might have caught a glimpse of the body, just looked grumpy. She didn't say it, but she certainly looked like she felt this was an inconvenience aimed directly at her and she wanted to find the killer just to give him a piece of her mind. The four of them went to bed after the police dismissed them.

All of us had our turn with McElone or the other officer, and I got the impression which cop you got hinged on how seriously McElone saw you as a witness or a suspect. Mom, Liss, Maureen, Tessa, Jeannie, Tony and the Levines got the officer. Josh, Jesse, Berthe, A.J., Liz and I got the lieutenant.

Nobody questioned Oliver.

Meanwhile, I continued to look for signs of Vance or Morrie. I found none. I didn't see Lester, either, but I probably wouldn't have known if I had.

But finally we were all completely debriefed, the lieutenant and her crew—who had long before removed Bill from my previously pristine floor—left, and I sat, exhausted, on one of the folding chairs. Josh sat next to me, arm casually draped over my shoulder, while Jeannie and Tony let Oliver sleep for another few minutes and sat in the row in front of me.

A.J. and Liz appeared to be uncomfortable but for some
reason didn't make a move to leave, yet didn't come close enough to be in the group. Maybe I was supposed to invite them?

Despite Mom's best efforts, Melissa forced her way into the hallway as soon as the last flashing light disappeared from my windows. She saw a lot of police crime scene tape, a stain on the floor that I'd asked McElone to cover and was denied (“in case we need more samples”) and a number of depleted adults, dead and alive, sitting around wondering what had happened here tonight.

“Who was closest to him when it happened?” Liss asked as soon as she took in the scene.

“You were there,” I said. “It was dark. There was no way to know.”

Mom appeared behind my daughter and shook her head. “You shouldn't have been in there, Melissa,” she tried, but I waved a hand.

“It's okay, Mom,” I told her, knowing it was a useless battle. “Liss is a big girl.”

“
I'm
a big girl, and I wish I hadn't seen what I saw,” Jeannie contributed.

“I can't figure it,” Josh said. “What was Bill even doing here?”

“He did say that he wanted to talk to me today, but Liz told him I'd be too busy,” I said, loudly enough that Liz, who must truly have been the embodiment of the adage that the sound people most respond to is someone saying their name, looked up and tentatively walked over, trying not to look in the direction of the hallway. “Maybe he came here because he needed to tell me something about Vanessa.”

“This is a weird place,” Liz said, apropos of nothing. I'm not saying it isn't true but there really wasn't a context at the moment.

“If Mastrovy had a message, he could have gotten in touch another way,” Paul said, floating where he could best
see into the crime scene, as if the position of Bill's fall would break the case wide open. “He knew your name. Did you give him a business card?”

“I think so.”

“You think so what?” Liz asked. She looked in the direction I was looking, except I saw Paul and she didn't.

“She just does that,” Jeannie told Liz. “You have to go with it.”

“If you gave him a card, he could have just called you,” Paul went on. He's gotten used to these conversations, too. “He didn't have to come here. There has to be another reason.”

“Someone killed Mr. Mastrovy here,” Melissa said. “We don't know who it was. Maybe whoever killed him also sent a message telling him to come.”

I put an arm around her shoulders. “You're a smart girl, you know that?”

Liss rolled her eyes. “Mom.” And I saw my own mother giving me a familiar look.

Oliver made a waking noise that indicated he was awake, and the next thing I knew, Jeannie (giving me a look that indicated I should stay silent about her news) and Tony had picked him up and whisked him out to their car. Death, murder, ghosts, whatever: You don't mess with a sleepy one-year-old.

Liz told A.J. it might be time for them to follow suit. He hadn't said much since what I was now processing as the Incident. I had not provided a great evening for Josh's friends to get to know me. Not that I could have anticipated what was going to happen, but that didn't seem to matter much at the moment.

Once all the civilians (Josh does not fall into that category) had left, which felt like it had taken a very long time, Paul floated down a little and was stroking that goatee like he's never noticed it on his chin before.

“The problem has multiplied,” he said. He says stuff like
that and nobody blinks. If I ever tried to say, “The problem has multiplied,” I'd get laughed out of the room.

“Before we were investigating a four-month-old death,” Paul went on, oblivious to my resentment of his ability to project authority, “one that we weren't even sure was a murder. What happened tonight definitely is one.”

My concerns were elsewhere. Now that everyone except her grandmother and the ghosts had left, I could ask Melissa, “Are you okay?”

She thought about it. “Yes. I didn't really see anything, even though I tried. I'm glad you didn't let me. Sort of.”

Paul went on as if I had not spoken, which is his habit. “We don't know why Mr. Mastrovy was here tonight, and we can't be sure who knew he would be here. But it seems logical that whoever killed him certainly had prepared for it and had probably been in touch with him, arranging for him to come to this house.”

“How does that help?” I asked. “The only people in the room were my guests, who couldn't have known Mastrovy, Jeannie and Tony, who certainly didn't kill him, A.J. and Liz . . .”

Josh, who had been understandably quiet since the lights had come back on, looked at me. “Please. They didn't kill him.”

“Right, and us. And I'm pretty sure none of us decided to stick a knife into Bill Mastrovy's back. I, for one, had no idea he was even in the house until he was dead.”

“You're overlooking someone,” Paul said.

“Yes,” Mom said. “Vance McTiernan was here, and so was his friend Morrie Chrichton.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Vance and Morrie? They had barely shown up when the movie started. Besides, they were all the way at the front of the room and Mastrovy got killed out in the hallway, all the way in the back.”

Maxie gave me a look that had some pity in it. “Right,” she said. “They couldn't have done this.” She swooshed back
and forth from the movie room to the hallway through the walls three times before I could so much as raise a finger.

Not that I wanted to raise a finger. Well, maybe one finger.

“You've made your point,” I said when she finally stayed in one place long enough to make eye contact. Her smug grin was not a welcome touch.

Everett moved over from the entrance and put an arm around Maxie. “Stand down,” he said to her. “Ghost Lady is trying to work it out.” (Everett is the only person I allow to call me that.)

“Party pooper,” Maxie answered, but she snuggled into his shoulder.

“What we're missing,” Paul said, trying to regain control of the meeting, “is that we have no physical clues; it's all conjecture. We can guess motives for Vance or for Morrie, but we don't know about anyone else.”

“Who else?” I said.