The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (7 page)

He caught my eye. Which is a better way of saying it than
he saw me and I was trapped like a dirty rat
.

Trapped like a dirty rat, I told Dimitri and Jacklyn that I’d catch up with them later, and when Levi closed in on me, I forced myself to keep my cool.

“Hey.” It was Levi’s standard greeting, so I didn’t even bother to
hey
back. “I hear you’ve got some TV stars staying at your place.”

“Wannabe stars. They’re looking for ghosts.”

He laughed. Levi is tall and blond and did I mention gorgeous? While Dimitri had the whole Greek islands/dark and dangerous thing going for him, Levi’s good looks seem to rise out of a place where there is a permanent chill in the air. It may have been the icy glint of his incredible blue eyes that made me think that way. Or maybe it was because I never could quite tell what was going on inside his head, and that made me feel left out in the cold.

“Not finding any at your place, are they?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and remembered what we were talking about.

“Ghosts? They haven’t asked to investigate the B and B, thank goodness. But speaking of ghosts . . .”

I shook my head to remind myself that’s exactly what we
weren’t
talking about.

“Sleepy Harlow used to live in your apartment,” I told Levi.

“The gangster?” Thinking, he pursed the lips that were the lips I had dreamt about these last couple months. “Cool. But I can’t say I’ve seen his ghost around.”

“I didn’t think you would have. But I was wondering . . .” I debated about telling him the truth. It was, in fact, the only fair thing to do, especially when I was asking for his help. “You see, Marianne Littlejohn’s writing a book about Sleepy, and . . .”

And what?

And I destroyed it thanks to a little help from my furry friend Jerry?

I swallowed the rest of the explanation and went with, “If I could take a look at the place where he used to live, it would help me out.”

“Sure.” Levi poked his hands into the pockets of the jeans he was wearing with a slate gray sweatshirt. “I can’t see how you looking around my place is going to help Marianne, but if you say it is, it is.” His eyes sparked. “You could stop by for a drink after the party tomorrow.”

“I could, but I think we both know that would be a mistake.”

I could have kicked myself the moment the word was out of my mouth. I didn’t mean to bring up the subject because, let’s face it, Levi didn’t need to know that it meant so much to me that I actually remembered it. Or that it still stung. “What I meant is—”

“I know what you meant.” His shoulders were suddenly rigid.

“Then you can see why it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“You didn’t say it wouldn’t be a good idea. You said it would be a mistake.”

“Because it would be.”

“You’re probably right.”

“So maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”

I’d just turned to walk away when Danny Portman, the man who owned one of the local bars and was chairing this year’s wake committee, called out for help.

Levi darted over to the stage. “Stop by,” he called back over his shoulder to me. “Anytime.”

“Right.” I wasn’t sure why knowing I had a standing invitation to Levi’s made me feel a little like the world had tipped on its axis.

Or maybe I was.

And maybe I didn’t even want to think about it.

Just when I stepped out to the sidewalk, I heard a voice cry out from somewhere over near the stage where Levi, Danny, and two other men had a brightly painted wooden coffin with the word
Summer
written on it in large yellow letters up on their shoulders.

“It’s heavy!” Danny called out. He was shorter than Levi and not nearly as broad, and even as I watched, he lost his grip. Since I’m even shorter than Danny, I wasn’t at all sure what I thought I was going to do, but I darted forward to lend a hand.

“The stupid thing’s just made of plywood!” one of the other men cried out, trying to adjust his stance when his feet slid. “There’s no way it should be this heavy.” He stepped forward, shifting his weight, then stepped back again just as I arrived on the scene, my hands out.

“Better not,” Levi called and, with a look, urged me to keep my distance. “We’re off balance. We’re going to—”

The coffin slipped off Danny’s shoulder, and after that, it was impossible for the others to hold on.

It hit the ground with more of a thump than plywood should make, and when one side of the coffin broke away and fell to the ground, it was easy to see why.

“Holy Toledo!” Like the rest of us, Danny saw the arm that flopped out of the casket, but unlike the rest of us, he apparently didn’t watch the police shows on TV and remember that things like bodies in fake coffins should be left undisturbed. He darted forward and flipped open the lid.

Noreen Turner looked up at us, dressed in her camouflage, eyes wide open, the left side of her skull smashed in.

It didn’t take a ghost getter to see that she was very, very dead.

  6  

I
t took a couple hours for Hank and the other members of the Put-in-Bay police force to take our statements and be done with those of us who witnessed what happened in the park.

And a couple hours after that for me to calm my shattered nerves.

Which didn’t explain why when I raised my hand to knock on the door where Levi had hung a shimmery wreath of silver ghosts, it was shaking.

I knocked anyway.

In the exactly two seconds I gave him to answer, there was no sign of Levi, and I’d just whirled away from the door to go back down the outside stairs that led to the deck off the back of his second-floor apartment when I heard the door click open behind me.

“Going somewhere?”

I paused, one hand on the railing, and tried for casual when I turned to face him. “You said I could stop by. Anytime.”

“And I meant it.” He stepped back and opened the door farther. “Come on in.”

It wasn’t quite dinnertime, but I pretended I didn’t realize that. “If you’re in the middle of eating or something, I can come back another time.”

He waved a hand, indicating his spick-and-span kitchen with its oak cabinets and deep green marble countertops. “Too early for dinner. I could be talked into making coffee. Would you like some?”

What I would have liked was not feeling so darned nervous simply because I was in Levi’s apartment. After all, I was there on business. Sort of. And if I kept that in mind, maybe I could also remember that I wasn’t some kid. I was used to the attention of good-looking guys. I’d gotten plenty of it back in New York.

But never from a guy who told me later that it was all a big ol’ mistake.

I washed away the thought with a drink of better-than-average-but-not-quite-as-good-as-mine coffee and watched over the rim of my cup while Levi settled back against the countertop, his long legs out in front of him.

“You’re not investigating.”

It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “Noreen’s murder? Hank’s taking care of everything.”

He pursed his lips and nodded his approval. “I’m glad to hear it.”

I set my cup on the countertop, and honest, I didn’t mean to plunk it down so hard. Still, the resulting bang punctuated what I had to say. “You’re not going to start that again, are you? You’re not going to pretend it’s any of your business to tell me what’s any of my business.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” His mischievous smile said differently, but it was a smile, after all, and if nothing else, it told me he wasn’t looking to pick a fight. “I just wondered, that’s all. After two murders—”

“Three, technically. I’ve solved three murders since I came to the island.”

He gave in with a tip of his head. “Three. But still, you’re telling me number four doesn’t interest you?”

“I didn’t say it didn’t interest me. I said Hank was taking care of everything. What it does do”—I wrapped my arms around myself—“is it creeps me out. Noreen was difficult, sure, but if everyone who was difficult died, there wouldn’t be many people left in the world. I saw her just last night, and she was alive and well, even if she was nasty and maddening. To think that she’s dead . . . it’s just horrible.”

“And the thought of another murder here on the island . . .” Levi pushed off from where he’d been leaning. “It’s not what I expected when I came here.”

“Me, either,” I admitted. “I thought this was small-town America, and—”

“Small-town America is supposed to be boring and predictable.”

“I’d be perfectly happy with boring and predictable, but I was thinking more like how I always thought a small town would be safe. It is safe, right? You can walk around the island any time of the day or night and not feel the least bit threatened or uncomfortable. But still . . .” I picked up my coffee cup to take another drink, but remembering what we’d seen when the lid of the coffin was pushed back soured my stomach. I set down my cup. “It’s terrible.”

“But you’re not investigating? That’s not why you’re here? Not to ask me if I know who brought that silly coffin to the park? Or who went anywhere near it? Or if I realized something was wrong the minute I hoisted it up on my shoulders?”

Come to think of it, I was dying (poor choice of words) to know the answers to each and every one of those questions. But no, that wasn’t why I was there, and I told myself not to forget it.

“Actually, I’m here because of Sleepy,” I told Levi.

“The ghost.”

“There are no such things as ghosts.” I shouldn’t have had to remind him. Or myself, in spite of the fact that the memory of that odd, headless half shadow flitted through my mind. “I’m here because of Charlie Harlow, the real person. I told you, I’m doing some research. I thought it might . . .” My shrug should have said it all, but I knew it wasn’t enough. I had to explain. “I thought if I kept busy, maybe I could take my mind off what happened today. What we saw over at the park.”

“Yeah.” The way Levi twitched those broad shoulders of his, I could tell he was as uncomfortable with the memory as I was. “Poor woman. It looked as if her head had been—”

“Bashed in. Yeah.” Now for sure I knew I didn’t want any more coffee. To prove it, I pushed the cup farther away. “Rather than think about that,” I told him, “I thought I’d get to work on this project I’m helping Marianne with.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie, so I didn’t feel guilty about this part of my explanation. “This was Sleepy’s apartment.” I glanced around at the sleek countertops, the stainless appliances, the gleaming white ceramic tile floor. “Something tells me it didn’t look like this when he lived here.”

“Believe me, it didn’t look like this when I bought the place last year. Too bad you didn’t stop by then. I bet every bit of crumbling linoleum and every chip of peeling paint went all the way back to Sleepy’s day.”

“That would have been helpful.”

“Really?” Levi grabbed my cup and took it, along with his own, to the sink. He rinsed them, put them in the dishwasher, then turned to face me, his arms folded over his chest. “Why do you care? What are you and Marianne up to?”

I knew it would come to this, and I was prepared with a story. “She’s writing this book about Sleepy, you see. Not about the whole silly ghost thing; about the real person. She’s even got an academic press that’s going to publish it. And I’m sort of helping. With the research. And proofreading.”

“Do you know anything about writing a book?”

I hoped my quick smile was noncommittal. “If I could just look around,” I suggested. “I know I’m being pushy, but—”

“Not pushy at all.” I was grateful when he stepped toward a doorway that led into the living room at the front of the apartment, because for a moment there, I thought he was going to press his point. He led me into the living room, which, like the kitchen, had obviously been redone recently, and by someone whose taste was above average and whose budget could support it. The walls were painted an understated, just-barely-there color that reminded me of the stainless appliances in the kitchen. Except for the doorway in the middle of the wall that opened into a hallway that led to a bathroom and bedrooms beyond, the wall on my right was lined with bookshelves. Always curious about peoples’ reading habits, I headed that way.

A smattering of history: Civil War and World War II. A few books about baseball. A book or two on sailing. A variety of cookbooks that promised interesting things would be happening at Levi’s sometime soon: street-food tacos, Southern cooking, waffles both savory and sweet. A couple novels.

“FX O’Grady.” Levi came up behind me and put a hand against the shelf nearest to where I stood, the circle of his arm only inches from my shoulder. The temperature in the room shot up a degree or two, and I knew if I leaned just a tiny bit to my left . . .

I stopped myself before I could succumb, and concentrated instead on the lurid titles of the novels nearest my nose. They were splashed across the hardcover spines in shades of red, dusty gray, and bilious green, in fonts that looked like blood and smoke and drool:
A Demon’s Wrath, Minions of Misery, Blood Ties.
If ever there was a time for stating the obvious, this was it.

“You like to read horror.”

Since I refused to look Levi’s way, I didn’t know for sure, but I imagined he smiled when he said, “And you don’t like reading scary stories. At least that’s what I’ve heard.” He shifted his stance just a tad, a move that made his hip brush mine when he plucked the nearest book from the shelf. He opened it to the inside back cover. “Look at that. The best selling of all the best-selling authors and the guy doesn’t even get his picture in the book.”

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say about this so I didn’t say anything at all.

“Think he’s shy?” Levi asked.

“Maybe he’s embarrassed that he writes books that scare so many people.”

“So, you and the other Ladies in the League won’t be reading FX O’Grady in honor of Halloween?”

I tried to make it look perfectly natural when I took a step to my right, the better to put some distance between me and the heat generated by his body. Still, it was impossible to ignore the heady smell of his aftershave. It was as bracing as the fall afternoon, and I wondered if I’d simply missed the scent back at the park, or if he’d splashed it on when he got home to get the smell of death out of his nose.

“We’re reading Washington Irving,” I said, and prayed my voice didn’t sound as breathy to him as it did to me. It might have been the memory of what happened at the park that made my lungs feel as if there were a hand inside my chest, squeezing and twisting.

It might have been something else.

“Sleepy Hollow.” Levi chuckled. “A headless horseman and a terrified schoolteacher. At least we don’t have to worry about our Sleepy chasing anyone through the woods at night.”

“Not as far as we know.”

“But I hear your ghost hunters were looking for him, anyway.”

Another side step and I was far enough away to turn to him. “They’re not my ghost hunters.”

“Hank says he thought he was going to have to haul them all into jail last night.”

“Kate showed a great deal of restraint.”

“Except I heard she and Noreen had a rip-roaring fight before that.”

“You’re not saying—?” Of course he wasn’t. Rather than take the bait, I bit my tongue and stepped around him and to the front of the apartment. There, three tall windows looked toward the Orient Express across the street, the now-closed restaurant where Peter Chan had been killed the spring before. I ignored the memory of Peter’s dead eyes staring up at me from behind the front counter where I discovered his body and, instead, forced myself to picture what Sleepy might have seen when he looked out his front windows.

A milk truck, maybe?

A deliveryman bringing blocks of ice?

Swimmers in their knee-length bathing suits made of scratchy wool. Fishermen with their gear. The plume of steam rising out of the funnel of one of the ferries that, back in the day, plied the waters between Detroit and Put-in-Bay, jammed with jaunty day-trippers.

“See anything interesting?” Levi’s voice came from right behind me.

“Just thinking about what Sleepy may have seen when he looked out these windows.”

“Probably visions of money dancing in his head.” Levi chuckled. “From what I heard, the place that used to be the Orient Express—”

“Was a bait and tackle shop before that.”

“And probably a dozen other things between then and back when Sleepy lived here. But back in those days, I hear it was a speakeasy.”

“Really?” This was news to me, and I wondered if Marianne knew it and talked about it in her book. Don’t get me wrong, I know in my head that Prohibition spawned any number of criminal enterprises, and some of them were ruthless and violent. Just ask Sleepy. But like a lot of people, I couldn’t help but be caught up in the romance of the speakeasy, an illegal hideaway where you needed the friends—and the right password—to get by security and into a place where you could purchase and drink liquor.

These days, it all seems so impossible, but in the thirteen years that it was the law of the land, Prohibition—what President Herbert Hoover once called the Noble Experiment—made it impossible to manufacture, sell, or transport beer, wine, and liquor.