Ghost in the Wind (2 page)

Of course, I knew of several, and was about to give her the name of one that would accommodate her needs (and perhaps get me a small percentage in accordance with an agreement I have with a few local businesses that I know are reputable).

But suddenly I found myself unable to speak.

“Um . . . um . . . um . . .”

Melissa, immediately keen to such things, looked up at me with a perplexed expression on her face. “Mom?”

I wanted to tell her it was okay, because it
was
okay, but the words weren't coming. “Ahhhh . . .” I said instead. At least it was a variation.

Josh came to my side. “What's going on?” he whispered in my ear. “Is it a ghost thing?”

“I'll just check the phone book,” Maureen said, shaking her head a bit and heading out of the room, walker clacking as she moved. There went my commission.

My mother looked at me, then followed my line of sight and chuckled a little. “Oh,
that's
it,” she said.

“What?” Josh wanted to know. “What's it?”

Maxie, her face even more sardonic than usual (mouth curled to one side, one eye narrowed), lowered down to look me directly in the eye. “What got in your drawers?” she asked. Maxie is the very picture of restraint and demeanor.

I was staring at the new ghost and my mouth was moving. That much I knew. But nothing coherent was happening.

Have you ever met an idol of yours, face-to-face? I mean someone you absolutely adored from the time you first saw them, someone whose every work you collected religiously, someone who seemed to absolutely understand your nature and communicate directly with you although you'd never actually met?

I was currently staring upward at mine: Vance McTiernan, lead singer and songwriter of the Jingles, maybe the least appropriately named band to come out of England in the 1960s. I first became aware of them more than twenty years after the band split up, but once I'd been introduced to the Jingles, and Vance especially, I was devoted for life. There was a time I would have gladly sued for my independence from my own parents if Vance McTiernan had expressed an interest in adopting me.

“Mom?” Now Melissa was starting to sound worried. “What's wrong?”

I have evidence of my strength of mind, because I forced myself to relearn the entire English language in one second. But what I was thinking came out as one word, as a thirteen-year-old girl (something Melissa will be in two years, and if you don't think I'm dreading that, you are incredibly wrong) would say it: “OhMyGodThat'sVanceMcTiernan!”

Vance himself looked surprised. “You know me?” he asked, just as Josh was saying, “Where?” and Maxie was saying, “Who?” Josh's expression indicated he remembered the name but couldn't place it, and Maxie's indicated she was Maxie.

“Yes,” I answered to the only one I was listening to. “I'm a big fan. It's an honor, Mr. McTiernan.”

He was a great physical specimen (before the heart disease had weakened him) for someone who had died at least one president ago: he looked lean and somewhat better defined than he had been late in his life. This must have been a slightly younger version than the final Vance, but certainly not the one I'd seen in magazines and concert footage from before I was born. He'd abused drugs and alcohol in an attempt to prove he was a real rock star (according to the biography I'd read) because his deep, intelligent lyrics had moved some critics to argue that he actually wasn't crude enough for the Jingles music to be considered rock 'n' roll. The fact that they'd jokingly called themselves the Jingles hadn't helped his case.

Now he smiled the most charming smile since Cary Grant gave up smiling, and floated down toward me. “But you're much too young,” the charming accent said, making the words that much more endearing. “You couldn't have even been born when I was working.”

My mind was still operating on something lower than its usual level, so although I grinned foolishly back at him, I couldn't get it together enough to respond. Mom picked up the slack. “She got the records from me, Mr. McTiernan,” she said.

He diverted every ounce of his attention to her, reached for her hand with both of his and said, “You call me Vance. All of you.” His arm swept the room, including us all, living and . . . otherwise.

“Swell,” Maxie mumbled. Maxie truly hates it when attention is on anyone but her.

Josh touched my arm gently and asked, “Where should I be looking?” Josh is a very understanding man who is fascinated with all the ghostly goings-on at my house but knows it's best to ask about them after the fact, when I can explain
everything at once rather than fielding questions as events unfold.

I pointed, and Vance (what the hell, we were on a first-name basis now) looked down at him.

“Nice to meet you, sport,” he said to Josh.

“He can't actually see or hear you,” I explained to Vance when Josh didn't react.

Vance blinked and looked around the room. “Oh. I thought it was the house that was special.” He focused those laser eyes in my direction, and something odd happened inside my stomach. “Turns out it was you, love.”

It was my definite and deliberate plan to bask in that moment for about two weeks, but I was wrested out of my reverie by, of all people, my daughter.

“No, Mr. McTiernan. My grandma and I can see you, too,” Melissa said.

I did not feel resentment toward Melissa for refocusing Vance's attention away from me. I didn't. Not even a little.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Vance swooped over and looked Liss in the eye. “Of course you can, my dear,” he cooed at her. “You are all very special ladies indeed.”

Paul, with a concerned look on his face I didn't understand, coughed theatrically (which is the only way he can cough. I don't think it's possible for him to catch a cold anymore, which he would no doubt say was one of the few advantages to being dead).

“Mr. McTiernan—” He checked the singer's look in his direction and began again. “
Vance
says he came here following a message I sent out some time back.” I knew that Paul sometimes sent out mental advertisements about what he truly sees as our detective agency, since he can communicate sort of telepathically with other spirits, a system we call the Ghosternet. (Okay,
I
call it the Ghosternet. Paul just isn't as hilarious as I am.)

“I understand you offer investigative services,” Vance said. “I am in need of such a professional, alas.”

This was the first time I'd ever been glad to be a PI. “What can we do for you, Vance?” I asked. For once, here was a client I'd happily take on.

“Mr. . . . Vance said he wants us to investigate a murder,” Paul said and, very uncharacteristically, shook his head
no
just slightly.

“Of course we will,” I said, looking at Vance. “Let's have a seat.”

Those of us who weren't floating led the way to the area where I'd collected some sofas, armchairs and other furniture gotten from garage sales and thrift shops to serve as unusually comfortable theater seats. Mom, Melissa, Josh and I sat down while Paul, Maxie and Dad (who seemed distracted by the ceiling fan, at one point taking an adjustable wrench out of his back pocket and tightening something) floated within earshot. Vance brought up the rear, seemingly taking in the atmosphere.

Josh did a quick double take at seeing a wrench repairing the fan on its own, then nodded and turned back toward the front of the room, despite his not being able to see or hear what was going on. Josh seemed less than amazed at Vance's presence. He was leaning a little heavily on me and staring up, pretending to look in the direction of the ghost, but his gaze lacked focus. Then I realized he'd been up since five
this morning and probably wasn't as much of a Jingles fan as I was, because nobody is.

Vance McTiernan took center stage, directly over the flat screen.

“I'm a brokenhearted man, that's for sure,” he began. A true showman, he knew how to get a crowd's attention. “It's a murder, pure and simple, and I'm powerless to do anything about it.”

I did some quick math in my head. “Surely not you,” I said to Vance. “You've been . . . that is, it's been eight years since . . .”

Maxie rolled her eyes at my insensitivity. Most ghosts balk at words like
dead
. They're such babies.

“It's true, I've been gone quite a while, and it was my own excesses did me in,” Vance admitted. “No, I'm here begging for some closure, some clarity in the death of my only child, my little girl, Vanessa.”

I knew the name. Vance had been involved in some intrigue in the seventies when a woman brought a paternity suit against him and it was determined the child, a daughter named Vanessa, was indeed Vance's.

Maxie vanished into the ceiling. I figured she was heading up to Melissa's room in the attic, the one Maxie sort of shares with my daughter, to get her laptop. Maxie is in charge of online research for our investigations and she's a whiz at it.

“As Vance was explaining, apparently his daughter passed away about four months ago,” Paul said, seeming anxious to get to the gist of the matter. His abruptness was somehow unsettling because it was so unlike him. “He believes she was a victim of foul play.”

“There's no ‘he believes' about it,” Vance said, a tiny suggestion of anger in his voice. “It was definitely murder, and I want the bastard found and punished.”

I looked at Paul, who was hovering above Vance, as if being higher would make him right. “I think the question
is open to debate. Before you ask, Alison, no, I have not been able to contact Vanessa. Either she is deliberately not responding or she is one of those souls who didn't land on this spot in the continuum.”

Paul tells me that there's no rule book for the afterlife, and often notes that while some people die and become ghosts, others seem to move directly to whatever the next thing might be. Paul and Maxie have seen other ghosts evolve past this point, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the process.

Paul is convinced there are other stages of existence past the one he and Maxie have found themselves occupying. We have seen other ghosts vanish into what appears to be some sort of metamorphosis, although we don't know what type of dimension that might be. And Paul is envious of those who, as he puts it, “don't have to spend eternity in one place.” Toward that end (moving on to whatever the next thing is), he had been experimenting with the energy that seems to make up his and Maxie's bodies. He thinks it's the key, but so far all he can do is run appliances that aren't plugged in, which came in handy for a little while when the power went out during a thunderstorm during the summer. The ice cream in my freezer never melted, but Paul needed to rest in the basement for six hours afterward.

“Maybe she just doesn't recognize your voice and doesn't think she should answer,” Mom said to Paul.

He cocked an eyebrow. “It's possible, but what harm could come from responding? She can't get any more dead now.” He caught himself and looked at Vance. “My apologies.”

“No worries, mate,” Vance said in a fake Australian accent. He was a performer, all right.

“How did your daughter pass away?” Mom asked Vance, trying to defuse the situation.

“They said she had an allergic reaction,” he spat out, as if the words tasted bad. “They said she had eaten Chinese food
with soy sauce, but she was terribly allergic to soy and she knew it. She was careful.” His voice trailed off and his lower lip flattened out. Ghosts can't cry, at least not real tears, but the impulse is still there, Paul tells me. Vance burst out, “So it can't be true. Somebody poisoned her, as sure as I'm standing here!”

He wasn't actually standing there, but the point was made. Before anyone could react, Maxie dropped down through the ceiling wearing a bulky trench coat. When the ghosts hide objects in their clothing, said objects have the ability to pass through walls and ceilings. Cuts down on the guests asking about books walking up the stairs and such. Of course, most of my guests come specifically to see the ghosts but this way Maxie's route was more direct.

As soon as she got through the ceiling and into the room, the trench coat disappeared and Maxie returned to her usual uniform of tight jeans and a black T-shirt with white lettering. This one read, “Unexpected.” She was holding her laptop computer and clacking away at the keys.

“Poisoned?” I said. “Are you sure? How do you know?” Clearly Vance had some inside information. Maybe he'd been there watching helplessly as it happened.

“I know,” he said. Well, that was helpful.

“Where did this take place, Vance?” Paul asked. Paul is all about gathering information and putting the puzzle together. Sometimes he also notices that people have feelings. He's a very nice guy with a good heart—okay, he
used
to have a good heart—but he gets so caught up in the hunt that he occasionally overlooks the emotions that surround it.

“Here, in Harbor Haven,” Vance said, with a tone of
how-could-you-not-know-that
in his voice. “Nessa had just moved here before . . . it happened. That's why I came here. It's why I responded when I got your message, mate. Because you were here.”

That must have nicked Paul a little bit. He likes to think
we have a reputation as the go-to sleuths of the ghost world. He did not show the wound, though. He plowed on through.

“So we can check with the Harbor Haven police and they'll have records,” he said, not necessarily to Vance. “But if the medical examiner found that there was no foul play . . .”

“Oh, there was foul play,” Vance intoned, his accent taking on a slightly threatening tinge. “And I know who played it foul, too.”

Maxie looked up from the computer screen. “You know who killed your daughter?” she asked.

“If I knew, I wouldn't need you.” Vance floated back and forth, like pacing but without moving his feet at all. “Whoever did it would be dealing with me at this very moment, no doubt.”

Maxie, having clacked away a while longer, shouted, “Aha!” before Paul could respond to Vance's pronouncement. “I've got it here.” She pointed at the screen. “Vanessa McTiernan, daughter of the front man for the Jingles—”

“Front man?” Vance interrupted. “I
was
the Jingles. The other three played what I told 'em to play.”

“But Phil Leeds was a genius on the bass and Louie Calhern never missed a beat, even when your rhythms got complicated. Morrie Chrichton's name is even listed on a bunch of the songs as a cowriter.” I hadn't intended to challenge Vance, but the music geek in me emerged when I wasn't looking.

Vance's lips took on a sneer and his eyes cooled down considerably. “Morrie Chrichton.” He said the name with what could only be described as contempt. “Phil and Louie were basically session guys, but Morrie! That untalented old tin-pot couldn't have written his own name if I hadn't shown him how. He got credit on the songs because we made a stupid deal when we were twelve years old and I was too much a gentleman to dissolve it when we started making money. Don't talk to me about Morrie Chrichton.”

I decided not to talk to Vance about Morrie Chrichton, possibly ever again.

“Anyway,” Maxie went on, “it says here that police responded to an anonymous 911 call about loud music in the apartment. Vanessa McTiernan was found dead in her home four-and-a-half months ago, in April. Initial reports indicate natural causes, probably a severe allergic reaction.”

Vance McTiernan's daughter died in Harbor Haven less than five months ago and
I didn't know about it
? I was a disgrace to obsessive fans everywhere.

“It's
not true
,” Vance interrupted.

“We know,” my mother assured him. She's a champ at getting people back under control. She learned to do it when I was about Melissa's age. “But Maxie isn't responsible for what was written in the newspaper.”

I knew who
was
responsible for that, and she was going to be my first phone call.

Vance eyed Maxie up and down. “I can tell you what she could be responsible for,” he said. It's part of the rock star persona to be a ladies' man. He probably couldn't help it. But it would have been nice if he'd had better taste.

Maxie ignored him and went back to reading. “Vanessa, forty years old, had been a singer and keyboardist for the local band Once Again until two years ago. She was currently employed as a coding specialist for a medical records firm in Asbury Park. Survivors include her mother, Claudia Rabinowitz, and a half brother, Jeremy Bensinger. The brother's in Marlboro but there's no address for Claudia.” She looked up at Vance.

“Claudia,” he said almost wistfully. “I met her on tour. We played the Garden State Arts Center and she was backstage. We hit it off.” (Just to be accurate, the venue is now called the PNC Bank Arts Center. The name change hasn't made any difference to the music.)

One of the later Jingles albums included a song called
“Claudia” that I'd especially loved in my early teens. It sang of new love, possibilities and devotion that would never die.

“How long were you married?” Mom asked.

“Married?” Vance said. “We were only together that one night. I didn't see her again until she filed the paternity suit.”

“What's a paternity suit?” Melissa asked.

“Something fathers wear for special occasions,” my own father said, coming down from the ceiling to shelter his granddaughter, who clearly knew he was lying. “Come with me into the kitchen, peanut. I want to talk to you about what you're making for dinner tonight.” Melissa has been taking cooking lessons from Mom, who has finally realized I'm a lost cause in the kitchen and moved directly on to the next generation.

Liss, who is a very intelligent girl, gave her grandfather a suspicious look. “You're just trying to get me out of the room, aren't you?” she asked Dad.

“That's right,” my father said.

Melissa thought that over. “Okay,” she said. She loves her grandfather and finds it hard to say no to him, especially since he is deceased. Besides, we both knew that no matter what inappropriate subject matter might arise after she left the room, Maxie would clue her in later.

I looked up at Vance as soon as Liss and Dad went into the hallway, presumably to go to the kitchen. “Vanessa,” I said. “She used your name? Not her mother's?”

“Only professionally. Her mother's name wasn't going to open any doors in the world of music, love,” Vance said. “Her mother was a girl from New Jersey and I was the Jingles.”

That was the second time he'd chosen to say it that way. There's a certain braggadocio among performers and artists, but in this case Vance wasn't just being an egotist. It was common knowledge among those of us who loved the Jingles that he was not only the heart and soul but the brains of the outfit. He wrote (until two minutes ago I would have said cowrote) all the songs, arranged and sang them, and
although Martin Wellspring got credit for producing the band's recordings, all the interviews in later years—even with Wellspring himself—admitted that while Vance might not have been physically turning the knobs, he was charting out exactly when and how far they should be turned.

“Okay, so, please, explain what you think happened and what you want us to do.”

“Indeed,” Paul chipped in. “I don't see how we can help you much in this case.” Paul and I had apparently undergone one of those mind-switching things that happens in some of the cheaper live-action Disney movies—I'm usually the one trying to get out of an investigation, and he's the one being patient and polite with our (usually ghostly) potential clients, in the hopes of getting the case.