The Empty Desk (5 page)

Saturday passed with little out of the ordinary happening. Melinda opened the shop for a few hours but by early afternoon the gray skies that had hung over the town since the day before decided that the time was right to release the rain they were carrying. The streets were soon awash, and people could be seen running to and fro to finish their business before heading home. Melinda looked out of the rain-streaked window of the store and watched the headlights of cars driving away out of town. The chances were that she had already seen her last customer of the day. Ned had already collected Delia from her premises next door and the closed sign had been flipped into place. It was barely three o'clock but there was little point in staying any longer.

“Did you tell her?”

Melinda didn't turn around immediately when she heard the voice. She saw the reflection of the engineer's hat and the overalls in the window and knew that the ghost of Mr. Lowe had joined her again. At least this time he had chosen a good moment to put in his appearance. She just hoped that he didn't slip away again before she had finished talking with him.

“I'm really not sure what I should be telling her, Mr. Lowe. She's taken her car in to be looked at, but your son doesn't seem to be able to find the problem. Either that, or he doesn't really care.”

“Tell her that she needs to be careful.”

“I've told her that. Your son is looking after her automobile right now. Well, not right now, because he's closed for the weekend without having fixed it, and the car he gave her to use while hers is in the shop has let her down.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said.

“What do you mean?” She turned suddenly to look at him directly. “Haven't you been to see him since . . . ? Well, since, you know . . .”

“You mean since I died?” he asked.

“Well, yes,” she said.

“Oh, I have many times. But I haven't been in the repair shop. My son made it quite clear that he didn't want me in there anymore.”

“Well, he can't exactly stop you, can he? Not now. You can go anywhere you like.”

“Oh no, it wouldn't feel right. Not anymore. The place is his now to do what he pleases. He was fed up with me looking over his shoulder at everything he was doing. He didn't understand that I wasn't trying to tell him that he wasn't good enough; I was just making sure that he did everything right. I wanted to make sure that I had taught him everything he needed to know.”

“But that isn't how he saw it, I guess?”

“Nope. He thought I was sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted. He said that if I wanted him to take over the shop, I had to let him do it. That way I could spend time being a grandpa. If I'd rather keep on working, then maybe there wasn't time to do that.”

“That sounds like blackmail to me,” Melinda said. “He made you choose between the business and your grandchildren.”

“I don't think he would have gone through with it, but I couldn't take the chance. He let me use the place on weekends when he wasn't using it just so I could look after a few people like Delia. Now he's having to do it all on his own, though, and he's still relying on that dang computer of his too much. He needs to learn to listen to the sounds that an automobile makes, not just look at a row of numbers that you then have to decipher. The older the car, the more you have to rely on the sound it makes. Those babies talk to you with every little hum and click. If you understand the language, they'll tell you if there's something wrong. He has to learn to listen, or he might miss something that the computer can't tell him about.”

“So why are you still here?” she asked.

“I thought it was you that wanted to talk to me,” he said.

“Not here,” she said, waving out her arms to indicate the shop. “I mean
here.
Why haven't you gone into the light and crossed over? What are you hanging around for?”

Sometimes she would ask that question, and the expression she received in return was blank. Too many times a ghost was stranded and unable to move on because they had no idea of how they could find their way out of there. Sometimes that was all her job was: to show them the way. Usually there was a reason why ghosts hung around far longer than they needed to. In cases like that she had to give them her help, if they wanted it. In some cases they just didn't want to leave, and there was little she could do. That was certainly the case as far as the parents of her friend Eli were concerned. They were determined to stay and keep watch over him. Was that the case with Jez as well?

“I can't leave him until he's able to deal with whatever comes through those doors,” Jez said. “Or at least if he can't do it, then he has to be a big enough man to tell the owners that he can't do it. But he won't do that. He's too stubborn, just as he was too stubborn to listen to me. If he tries to fix something without really knowing what he's doing, he could cause an accident, and that's what I'm worried about. Someone could get hurt.”

“And that's why you're worried about Delia.”

“She's a fine lady, but I'd hate for anything bad to happen to that car of hers.”

“The car? Do you mean that you're more worried about the car being damaged than her?”

“Of course. It's a classic car and it's been well maintained. It needs to be cared for by someone who knows what they are doing. What did you think?”

Melinda tried not to laugh. “I thought you were hanging around for Delia.”

“That's right,” he said. “I am.” But then he paused for a moment as a smile spread across his face.

“What's so funny?” Melinda asked.

“You're right, I stayed for Delia. That's what I called the car. I called all the cars after their owners. But you thought it was your friend that was keeping me here.”

He let out a laugh, a deep old-man laugh that said so much about him. It showed the heart of him more than his attitude toward his son did. In a way it was something of a disappointment that it was the car that he was most concerned about, and not Delia.

“So what can I do to help?” she asked.

“You have to make him understand that he has limitations, that his computer won't do everything for him. Maybe then I'll be able to rest easy. Maybe I'll be able to just let him get on with it.”

“How do I do that?” she asked, but before the words had even left her lips, the old man had disappeared. It was starting to become more than a little frustrating.

The repair shop was almost on her way home, so Melinda took a slight detour in case there should be anyone there. If she had the opportunity to talk to Jez's son, she could at least let him know that his father's spirit was still watching over him. Delia had said that he was going to be closed for the weekend, but he might have told her that to keep her off his back until Monday. It was worth a try. She had no idea if that would make the slightest difference but it would at least give her the chance to find out a little more about the man, whether he was there or not.

She drove slowly as the wipers splashed the rain from the windshield, only for it to be streaked again just as quickly as it cleared away. The streetlights picked out the sign to show that she had arrived at Lowe's Autos, though it did not appear to have been changed or repaired for a long time. There was nothing to show that the son had taken over from the father. This had all the signs of a business that had been built up over a generation and had been passed on seamlessly without the new owner needing to plant his own mark on the enterprise—or without caring enough to.

There were no lights on anywhere she could see, but Melinda sat in her car for a few minutes as the rain began to ease. Gradually her wipers began to slow, needing to clear less water as the minutes went by. She had been reluctant to get out if there was no one around, but now that the rain had almost stopped, she decided that it would only take a couple of minutes to make sure that there was no one there.

As she walked toward the building she saw that it was not just the sign that had not received any attention recently. The paint on the walls was peeling; they were in need of a fresh coat. It made the place look like it was falling into disrepair, like it was uncared for. Grass grew in cracks in the concrete driveway and there was a crack in the single pane of glass of the window beside the reception door. If she had been a prospective new client she would have turned around and headed back the way she had come. Even a personal recommendation might not be enough to get her beyond the idea that whoever worked in this place cared as much about the cars they worked on as they did their premises. And that didn't look like very much.

She tried the bell fixed to the frame of the door but she couldn't hear any sound coming from inside. She tried banging on the door but there was still no response. There was no one there. She turned and headed back toward the street with her head down. She almost didn't see the ghost of old Mr. Lowe standing in front of her.

“Thank you for trying,” he said. “I didn't know if you would.”

“I didn't think there would be anyone here, but it was worth a try. I'll call by again on Monday. It might be better if your son gets to deal with me rather than Delia. There's the chance that she might not be in the mood to be reasonable.”

“I can't believe how much mess there is. There's junk out back that he should have gotten rid of before now. He'll be in hot water with the other business people around here if he keeps this up.”

“It wasn't like this when you were running the place then, I take it?” she asked.

“Nope, it was always neat and tidy. I haven't been here for at least a couple of months. Once I fell ill I hardly left the house. And afterward . . . there wasn't any point. It breaks my heart to see that it's come to this.”

“Leave it to me,” she said softly, feeling his pain for the first time. “I'll be sure to talk to him. I don't know if it will make any difference, but I'll try.”

He was still standing in front of the building looking at what must have been his life's work slowly falling apart as she climbed back behind the wheel. Part of her wondered if he regretted coming to take a look at it at all, or if he would have done better to have walked away and into the light when his time had come.

Rain started to splatter the windshield again as she slipped the key into the ignition, and by the time the wipers had swished back into action again to clear it away, the ghost had gone. She was sure that he had not found the light yet. He would come back soon enough, and she hoped that she would have an answer for him by the time he did.

The house felt full by the time they sat down for dinner on Sunday. Aiden had helped as much as he could, but it had reached the point when Melinda was glad to see him disappear to watch cartoons with Jim while she had finished all the preparations. There had been a moment of peace while she brought everything together. When Delia and Ned had arrived, she was ready for someone to lend a hand again, and Delia had been only too happy to help while Ned joined the guys to watch reruns of
Tom and Jerry,
which somehow never seemed to lose its timeless appeal. They had just about done everything that needed to be done when the doorbell sounded to herald Dana's arrival.

Introductions were made, wineglasses filled, and the house echoed with voices as people carried serving bowls through into the dining room until finally everyone was gathered around the table. Melinda was soon fussing to make sure that everyone had enough to eat, despite their assurances that it was quite a spread and that they all had more than enough, before she sat down herself and they could finally eat.

“So how does it feel to be back?” Delia asked.

“Like I've hardly been away,” Dana replied. “It really does feel like I've come home.”

“Where are you living?”

“Delia!” Melinda said. She would have given her a kick under the table had she been close enough but she was just out of reach. All eyes were turned in her direction, even if not everyone knew what she was being admonished for.

“I was only making conversation!” Delia protested, but Melinda knew better than that.

“Delia owns the real-estate agency next door to my shop,” she said, knowing that would explain everything.

“Ah,” said Dana. “I'm afraid I've already taken a lease on an apartment for six months. I thought that would give me time to look around when I've got a better idea of which part of town I want to live in. This area is lovely, but I suspect it's out of my price range at the moment. I'll certainly have a chat with you when I've got a little more headspace and can start thinking about my next move.”

“That's a very wise move,” Delia said. “Too many people move into the area and rush into a decision that they later come to regret.”

“Any haunted houses on your books?” Dana asked.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of cutlery against china.

“It's okay,” Melinda said. “She knows.”

She heard the collective sigh of relief. She knew how uncomfortable it could be to share her secret beyond her immediate circle, and each of the others around the table apart from Dana had been caught up in one of those uncomfortable silences at one time or another.

“You all know?” Dana asked, clearly surprised.

“Of course they all know,” Melinda said. “It's not really something I could keep from my family and closest friends. You're one of the few people who managed to work it out for themselves.”

“So can you all see ghosts?” Dana asked.

“Not everyone,” Melinda said. “So don't worry, you're not the odd one out here.”

“Are you going to talk to the ghost in my class when you come in tomorrow, Mom?” Aiden asked.

“There's a ghost in the school?” Delia said. “What's the world coming to? Please don't tell me that it's a teacher who can't bear to give it up. I'm not sure that the world is ready for that.”

“It's not a teacher—it's a little girl,” Aiden said.

Clearly he felt that if the conversation had turned in that direction he was free to talk about it himself. He was among friends and he should be able to say what he thought. The fact that Dana was now his teacher at school shouldn't make any difference. If anything, it should make it easier now that she had told Melinda she had known about the gift for a long time.

“A little girl?” Delia said, her fork slipping in her grip and falling to her plate. “Do you know her name?”

Aiden shrugged.

“I think her name might be Alice,” said Dana. “I took a closer look at the desk after everyone had left on Friday. There's a name carved into it.”

“Do you know anyone called Alice, Aiden?” Melinda asked, but the boy only shook his head.

“There's an Anna and an Adele,” he said. “And there's an Amelia, but there's no Alice.”

“How old did the mark look?” Ned asked. “Do you think it had been there a long time?”

“I don't know. It looked like all of the desks had been scrubbed over the summer, but it's still there.”

“Or maybe it was done after it was cleaned?” Ned suggested.

“But no one has been using that desk, as far as I know.”

“Josh sat there on the first day, but he was sick afterward. He said he wouldn't come back if he had to sit there again.”

“I could do some research,” Ned said.

“What kind of research?” Dana asked, but Melinda already knew what he was talking about. The child must have been a pupil at the school. If he could find out who she was, then maybe they would have more of a chance of being able to help her. Maybe she would be able to talk to her in the morning, maybe she would find out what was keeping her there. A lot of maybes, but at least that meant there was also hope.

“Sorry,” Ned said, apologizing to Dana. “I didn't mean to stick my nose in. I'm studying at the university and sometimes I try to help out where I can.”

“Help out?”

“Ned is studying the anthropology of the occult at Rockland University,” Melinda said. “Quite a mouthful, isn't it?”

“They do courses in it now?” Dana asked, the surprise evident in her voice. “Clearly I've been away too long.”

“It's all fascinating stuff,” he said. “Last semester we were looking at—”

“Ned!” Delia interrupted. “I'm sure that Dana doesn't want to sit here listening to you and your tales of ghosts and ghouls. Let her enjoy her dinner.”

“No, please, it's fascinating. You said that you could do some research. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, the first thing would be to try to find out who this ghost was when she was alive. If her name really is Alice, then we have at least a starting point. I would guess that if this ghost is attached to the school somehow, then she must have died in this area. Maybe she even died in the school.”

“Died in the school?” Delia said in disbelief. “I'm sure we would all have heard about that, no matter how long ago it had happened.”

“There's no point in jumping to conclusions,” Melinda said. “You could waste a lot of time looking for a needle when you don't even know which haystack it's in. Just because Dana has seen the name Alice on the desk where this ghost has been sitting, that doesn't even mean that's her name.”

“But it is her name,” said Aiden. “She told me.”

“So you've spoken to her, honey? You didn't say. What else did she tell you?”

“Nothing,” Aiden said.

“Well, it can't be that easy to track someone down just by knowing her first name,” Jim suggested. “It would be almost impossible to search for that kind of information through the hospital records. I'd need at least a last name or a date of birth to have any chance of tracking someone down. At the moment we don't even know when she died.”

Melinda knew that he was right. She had to hope that she could learn a little more when she went into the school. Too often she felt that Jim was left out of conversations because no matter how supportive he wanted to be, there was often very little he could actually do to help. It was very easy to neglect him if she was deep in discussions with others who were linked to her work in some way. He gave her the space she needed, even though there were times when they saw little of each other. His work at the hospital could be even more demanding than hers, but she knew that there was nothing she could do to help him with that, no matter how much she wanted to. All she could do was to be around when he needed to unburden, when he needed someone to hold him and tell him that everything was going to be all right, even when things weren't going well.

“You should just try to talk to her, Mom. She might want to talk to you more than she does to me. Everyone likes to talk to you.”

“Thank you, sweetie. That's very nice of you,” Melinda said, delighted that he thought that of her. She couldn't imagine that a little girl would be happier talking to her than to someone of her own age, but maybe she might talk to her like she would to her mother. It had come as a surprise that Aiden had been able to have a conversation with her, no matter how brief, without telling her about it. She hoped that he was not going to keep things from her in the way that he must do with some of the other children in class.

“What have you got to lose?” Delia said.

“Nothing at all, and I'll do what I can. It just seems like there are a few ghosts who need my attention at the moment.”

“Oh, yes?” said Ned. “You haven't said.”

“Ah, well, this is one that your mother seems to have brought to my door.”

“Don't go blaming me,” Delia protested. “It's hardly my fault if some old man is following me around even after he died.”

“I'm not sure that it's you that he's following,” Melinda said. She hadn't had the chance to talk to her about her last encounter with Jez. She had found herself too busy to find a moment to give Delia a call when she arrived home, and before long it had slipped her mind. Other things had taken its place, though she would not have failed to make another call to the son's business when Monday came around.

“Of course it's me. You said that he wanted to warn me to make sure that my car was being looked after. Why else would he be hanging around, if it wasn't because he was worried about me?”

“I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Delia, but from what he said yesterday . . .”

“Yesterday? You've see him again? Why didn't you tell me?”

“Sometimes I think that some of these ghosts get to see more of my wife than I do,” laughed Jim. It wasn't the first time that he had made the joke, and Melinda hoped that it never proved to be any more than a joke. She would hate to think that he might ever really feel like that.

“Sorry, it slipped my mind. He came to the store again just before I closed up for the day. Ned had already picked you up.”

“I'm surprised that even ghosts would go out in weather like that if they had a choice,” Delia said. “It was a horrible afternoon. So what did he have to say?”

“He said that he was worried about Delia,” Melinda said, being very careful with her words.

“See? I told you so. I'm being stalked from beyond the grave.”

“Isn't that what haunting is?” Dana asked.

“He was worried about
Delia.
That's what he called your car.”

“My car?”

“Yep. It seemed that it was your car that he was concerned about. Not you.”

The room erupted with laughter, but Delia folded her arms indignantly. Melinda hadn't wanted to tease her but somehow she couldn't stop herself.

“So who is the mystery man?” Ned asked.

“Jez Lowe,” Delia answered.

“Hah! Old Mr. Lowe? You thought the old guy had the hots for you?” Ned's laughter increased until he had to wipe the tears from his eyes. “And you're disappointed that he didn't?”

“I don't see what's so funny about it,” Delia said. “So has he gone now? Now that you've made sure that I'm taking care of the car that he had obviously been so concerned about, I don't suppose that there's anything keeping him here.”

“No, he still hasn't crossed over,” Melinda said. She caught sight of Dana's questioning eyebrow. “That's what we call it when a spirit leaves this world and moves on to the next.”

Dana nodded her understanding but didn't ask any more. It was a relief. Melinda didn't want to have to answer a stream of questions if they could be avoided for now.

“So why's he still hanging around?” Delia asked again.

“He's worried about his son.”

“Well, given the treatment he gave me, I'm not surprised he's worried. I've started to think I should be giving him a piece of my mind and taking my car somewhere else.”

“Well,” said Melinda. “Judging by the state of the place when I called around, I wouldn't be surprised if a few more did the same.”

“Sounds like this is almost a full-time job,” Dana said. “I hope I'm not adding to your burden.”

“Not at all,” Melinda said. “I was given my gift for a reason, and I have to make sure that I use it to help those who need it.”