The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks (12 page)

Bridger retreated huffily to her own quarters.

Shortly afterward, Nick’s name was called.

He found the sheriff in Watson’s quarters. Sheriff Butler was a short, lean man with a neat silver mustache and piercing green eyes. Nick put him in the fifty-five to sixty-five range; he was the type who aged well.

“Ex-Navy SEAL, huh? That’s a pretty tough outfit.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. This could go a couple of ways. Some guys admired the

dedication and discipline required to be a SEAL. Some guys were intimidated by it and tried to prove otherwise.

Indicating that Nick should sit, Butler proceeded to ask his name, age, occupation, flight details, and purpose of his recent trip before really getting down to it.

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“So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Reno, you’ve been out of town since” -- he didn’t have to check his notes -- “Sunday the eighth.”

Nick said crisply, “You understand correctly.”

“When was the last time you saw Jasper Bryant?”

“Who?”

“The handyman. Tiny.”

“Sunday morning. He let us, Perry Foster and me, into these rooms.”

“And?”

“And what? He took some dead fish out of the fish tank and he left. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Where did he go when he left this apartment?”

Nick said shortly, “You must have me confused with the psychic next door.” He glanced at the sheriff’s notes -- Butler kept track in tiny, dark script that could have been printed by a machine. “I have no idea what he did after he left here. I take it he didn’t die from natural causes?”

“He was shot to death.”

Nick thought of the .45 caliber pistol taped -- hopefully still taped -- to the wall in the cupboard beneath his kitchen sink “He wasn’t shot to death in this apartment, I’ll tell you that right now. He sure as hell wasn’t in the closet when I left here.”

“You know that for a fact, do you?”

“Yeah, I do. I helped the kid carry some things down from his rooms. He hung a couple of shirts in the bedroom closet. I watched him. There was nothing in that closet but clothes and shoes and comic books.”

“How’d you know the deceased was found in the bedroom closet?”

“The Bridger woman mentioned it.” Nick met the sheriff’s bright gaze. He said dryly,

“No way do you think that kid knowingly spent the night in this apartment with a corpse in the closet.”

The sheriff’s thin mouth pursed in something that might have been sour humor. “It doesn’t seem likely.”

Nick was silent, thinking about Tiny’s comments about the ghost with yellow socks --

thinking about those lost keys. The sheriff was watching him carefully.

“You got a theory?” he asked.

Nick said, “I’m sure Foster told you about the body he found in the bathtub.”

“We all heard about the body in the bathtub,” the sheriff said grimly.

“Maybe now you’ll believe it.”

68 Josh Lanyon

Butler grimaced. “I don’t see that there’s automatically a connection between this homicide and the kid’s story.”

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “But your victim was blabbing about the ghost with yellow socks shortly before someone decided to take him out.”

The sheriff inspected him with those gleaming eyes. “You don’t say so,” he said finally.

“The kid must have told you this.”

The sheriff sighed. “Yeah, he said something along those lines and offered some garbled story about missing sets of keys. But I don’t know how reliable a witness he is.” He raised his eyebrows. “He’s a little light in the loafers, if you know what I mean.”

“You’re kidding,” Nick drawled. “What I noticed is he’s got a good eye for detail. He’s a painter. He notices things.”

“Maybe,” Sheriff Butler said, unconvinced. “The thing is, it’s the handyman who turned up dead. There’s still no sign of this body from the bathtub.”

When Nick didn’t respond, the sheriff added, “Thanks, Reno. If we have more

questions we’ll contact you. Meantime, do me a favor and don’t leave town without letting us know.”

* * * * *

“Nick?”

“You expecting someone else?”

Perry gave a little chuckle and rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t think they’d keep you that long.”

Nick headed for the kitchen. “Want a drink?”

“Oh. I already brushed my teeth…”

Nick rolled his eyes and took a beer from the fridge. He was staring out over the sink, drinking, when Perry’s reflection appeared in the black window -- a slightly rumpled ghost drifting up behind him.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Perry said. “And not just because I’d rather sleep in the gazebo than my own apartment.”

Nick jerked his head in the direction of the fridge. “Help yourself.”

Perry padded barefoot over to the fridge -- and Nick resisted the temptation to tell him to put socks on his feet. He’d never considered himself the paternal type, but…someone needed to look after this boy. Once again he wondered what had gone wrong with the friend in San Francisco.

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Perry got a beer, found the opener, and uncapped the bottle. He studied the design on the cap, frowning, then took a swig of beer.

“So what happened?” Nick questioned. “You found Tiny in Watson’s closet?”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah. I heard this weird sound. And then kind of a thump. I opened the closet and…he fell out.”

Nick glanced over. Perry’s fingers were white on the bottle cap, his eyes focused on whatever he had seen in Watson’s closet. It had to have taken a hell of a lot of courage to open that door. Against his will, Nick was impressed. Of course, the sensible thing to do would have been run for help.

Not that there were many places to find it in this lunatic asylum.

“We both saw him leave the apartment Sunday,” Nick said. “And you had the locks changed, so he couldn’t have got back in.”

“Somehow he did. We saw him leave, but no one saw him after that, remember? Jane was looking for him. He never came downstairs.”

Nick swallowed beer, considering this.

“But he wasn’t there the night before last,” Perry said, “because I checked the closet. I mean, the door was ajar, so I shut it -- but before I shut it, I glanced inside.”

“Why?”

Delicate color rose in Perry’s face. “Oh, you know,” he said vaguely.

And Nick did know. He bit back a grin. Hopefully Foster didn’t watch a lot of scary movies. “So he disappeared Sunday morning and showed up again, dead, in Watson’s closet on Tuesday night?”

“Right.”

“So someone murdered him and somehow -- and for some unknown reason -- dragged his body into Watson’s apartment.”

Perry said, “He wasn’t dead.”

Nick’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean he wasn’t dead?”

“When I found him he was still alive,” Perry said unsteadily. “He…died while I was waiting for the ambulance.”

Nick set aside the inappropriate desire to offer comfort and focused on the business at hand. “Did he say anything? Did he say who did it?”

Perry shook his head. “He said, ‘We’re the good guys.’”

“We’re the good guys? You and me? Or him and someone else?”

“He didn’t specify.”

“But what the hell does that mean?”

Perry shrugged.

70 Josh Lanyon

“Sounds like a line from a bad movie.”

Perry gave a tired laugh. “I know. But that’s what he said. At least, that was the only thing I could make out. He said something else, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

“None of them? What did it sound like?”

Perry made a violent gurgling sound, and Nick nearly choked on his beer. “You’re shitting me.”

Perry gave that funny little smile, but said seriously, “It didn’t sound like words. It was just…dying sounds.”

“Yeah. Well…” Once again Nick had that totally out-of-character desire to offer comfort. If he didn’t know it would be a fatal mistake to encourage the kid, he’d have…

But it would be a mistake -- so he didn’t.

Foster rubbed his eyes with his fist. “Gosh, I’m beat. I haven’t slept in two nights.”

Nick listened to this without hearing. He said slowly, “What I still don’t understand is how someone managed to lug Tiny inside Watson’s place after the locks were changed.”

“Maybe there’s a secret passage,” Perry offered.

“Yeah, right.” But as Nick considered it, his brows drew together. “Is that possible?”

“I don’t know. I never heard of any hidden passages.” Perry yawned, belatedly covering an inspiring glimpse of filling-free teeth and healthy tonsils.

“Are there blueprints of the house somewhere?”

Perry blinked at him like the question didn’t compute.

“Go back to bed,” Nick advised. “You look ready to keel over.”

Perry said, “Night, then,” and stumbled off to the sofa.

He was drifting off when a thought occurred. He pushed up on elbow calling, “How did your interview go?”

“Great,” Nick said. “I got the job.”

“Wow, that is great,” Perry said hollowly and buried his head in the pillow.

Nick finished his beer, tossed the bottle, and headed for his own bed.

* * * * *

Another day in Paradise, as his pop used to say.

He stretched, and the blankets drew up, leaving his bare feet exposed to the cold.

Shivering, he curled up once more. Nick kept his thermostat too low; Perry felt chilled and cramped after a night on the sofa.

Actually he couldn’t remember when he’d last had a good night’s sleep. Before Frisco.

Before Marcel turned out to be mostly a figment of his imagination.

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Rising, he found a saucepan in Nick’s cupboard, filled it with water, and left it heating on the stove while he hurried across to his own apartment for a change of clothes and a tin of hot chocolate.

A glance over the banister showed him a deputy sheriff walking upstairs. He

recognized him as one of the two who had shown up the night he had discovered the body in the bathtub. This was the younger man. “Abe” the senior partner had called him.

“Morning,” Deputy Abe said laconically. His expression indicated he remembered Perry quite well too -- and was equally unimpressed.

“Morning,” returned Perry, drawing back. He’d had a vague idea of grabbing some of his things out of Watson’s apartment, but that would have to wait.

Letting himself into his own rooms, he used his peak flow meter and noted the results on the asthma chart pinned to the fridge -- pleased to note that despite the stress and strains of the past week, he was still safely in the green zone -- grabbed clean clothes and the tin of Nestlé’s Quik and dashed back to Nick’s.

Nick’s bedroom door was closed, Nick apparently still fathoms under after the long, nearly back-to-back trip to and from Los Angeles. Perry showered, shaved, and changed into clean Levi’s and a forest green thermal Henley. He knew the color suited him; he had bought it for the vacation with Marcel. He examined himself in the mirror. Despite the uneasy night’s sleep, he looked better than he had recently. But then he felt better -- mostly because Nick was back.

Last night he’d been too tired to tell him what he’d learned about the house’s history --

last night none of it had seemed relevant -- but this morning he couldn’t wait to hear Nick’s thoughts.

Pouring himself a cup of cocoa, he sat down at the table and glanced over the notes he’d made at the library the day before. He was still reading when Nick padded in.

Unshaven, bleary eyed, he stalked over to the gas range. “’Morning,” he growled.

“Good morning,” Perry said cheerfully. “There’s hot water.”

“I see that. I take coffee with my hot water.” He scowled at Perry’s mug. “Tell me those are not bunny-shaped marshmallows.”

Perry blushed.

“Don’t you drink coffee?” Nick sounded disbelieving. “Couldn’t you at least make coffee for those of us who don’t like bunnies in our morning beverage.”

“I don’t know how to make coffee,” Perry admitted.

Nick turned that red-rimmed gaze on Perry. “You’re not kidding,” he said at last.

“No. I don’t drink it, so I never learned.”

Nick shuddered. He turned on the taps and filled the stainless coffeepot. “How’d you sleep?” he asked over the rush of water.

72 Josh Lanyon

“Okay,” Perry said, trying to repress a grin. He enjoyed Nick’s company -- even when Nick was feeling grouchy.

Nick finished filling the coffeepot and sat down at the table. He nodded at Perry’s notes. “What are you doing?”

“I was at the newspaper morgue yesterday. I learned some things about the house.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it is supposed to be haunted…” At Nick’s expression he added hastily, “But that’s not the interesting part.”

Nick scrubbed his face with his hands. “Give me the interesting part.”

He had square, capable hands. They were tanned -- Nick was tanned everywhere as far as Perry could see even though it was late autumn now. He’d have liked to see if Nick was brown under those flannel shirts and jeans; he’d have liked to feel those square, capable hands on his body. He brought his thoughts up short, a little shocked at his own shallowness.

Here he was, just two days after losing the love of his life, and he was fantasizing about another man.

A straight man at that.

Although…sometimes the way Nick looked at him made him wonder. Perry wasn’t

vastly experienced, but he did know what that certain alertness, that awareness, meant in another person’s stare. It started in kindergarten and never stopped as far as he could tell.

He realized that Nick was now looking at him, waiting to be brought up to speed, and said hastily, “Back in the thirties there was a big robbery on the estate, and a bunch of jewels and money were stolen from guests by a gangster by the name of Shane Moran. No one ever found the loot.”

“So what…the ghosts of the robbed guests are haunting the halls of Alston Manor?”