Who Killed the Ghost in the Library: A Ghost writer Mystery (13 page)

“For you and the children.”

“We didn’t want those things, Stanley! We wanted you. You never seemed to understand that. The material things didn’t matter to us. All we wanted was for you to spend time with us.”

“I…I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We tried, so many different times, so many different ways. The children left notes for you on your desk and in your briefcase. Cecilia drew pictures for you all the time.”

“I never got any of them.”

My guess was Aggie saw them first and took them. From the look on Amelia’s face, I believe she came to the same conclusion, but wisely didn’t say anything. “Do you have any proof that you were at your hotel all night?”

“What are you trying to say? Are you accusing me of killing that woman?”

“I’m sure Chief Penhall will ask you the same question, Mrs. Ashton. He’ll probably ask you where you were a few days ago when Clifford Scott was killed, too. And for your alibi the next morning when someone blew up Mr. Scott’s house.”

Stanley glared at me. “Perhaps it would be best if you left us alone for a while,
Miss Shaw. My wife and I have many things to discuss.”

I stood up, put the folders in my messenger bag, slung the bag over my shoulder and walked toward the library doorway. “It would be in your best interest to talk to Chief
Penhall as soon as possible, Mrs. Ashton, before he has to come looking for you.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,
Miss Shaw.”

“I’d like to talk to you again before you leave.” I pulled my business card out of a side pocket of my bag and handed it to her. “Give me a call tomorrow.”

“I’ll think about it. Good night.”

“Good night, ma’am, Stanley.” He nodded at me but never took his eyes off Amelia.

As I walked down the sidewalk toward my car, I pulled out my phone and called Mike. “You need to get over to the Ashton house right now,” I told him.

“Why?”

“Because Amelia Ashton just showed up at the house. She’s been in the area for five days, and she hated Aggie Foley more than anything in the whole world.”

“What are you doing at the Ashton place? Have you been sticking your nose into police business?”

“I had some personal business...”

“What kind of personal business?”

“Nothing I care to discuss with you at this time.”

“Stay there. I’ll be at the house in twenty minutes.” He hung up before I could say no.

If he thought I was sticking around, he was out of his mind.

Chapter 24

Apparently Mike knew I was going to make a run for it, because he had the end of the driveway blocked by another officer. I had no choice but to turn around and go back to the house.

Twenty minutes later, he showed up. I had spent the time stewing in my car, ready to chew him out. As we both got out of our cars, he held up his hands. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“You have no clue what I want to say. You’ve got a lot of nerve telling me I can’t leave, and then having a cop block me in! What gives you the right to do that?”

“Well, for starters, I’m the chief of police. I can do whatever I want. And two, I thought Mrs. Ashton would be more comfortable if there was a woman around.”

“And you couldn’t tell me that on the phone? I’m pretty sure I would be more cooperative. Why do you always have to do things the hard way?”

“You bring out the worst in me, what can I say?
” he replied as he walked toward the front door.

I reached out and grabbed his arm. “Before you go in there, you need to remember to keep an open mind.”

“About what?”

I wasn’t sure how to explain he was about to see a ghost. I mean, is there really any way to prepare someone for that? “Just trust me. Remain calm and open minded.”

He shook his head. “You are acting very weird. And why do I suddenly have the urge to get in my car and drive away?”

“Sounds great to me. Let’s go,” I said, turning toward my car.

Mike grabbed my arm and dragged me to the front door. “Nice try.” He knocked on the door and waited. When no one answered after a couple of minutes, he tried again. Nothing. “Are you sure she’s still here?”

“They’re in there.”

“They? Who else is in there?”

Whoops, did I say “they”? Ignoring him, I opened the door and walked in.

“You can’t do that. It’s breaking and entering.”

“So arrest me,” I retorted as I walked into the foyer. I could hear Amelia talking. They were still in the library. “Mrs. Ashton? It’s me, Camille Shaw. I have someone with me who wants to talk to you.”

We walked into the library to find Stanley and Amelia sitting next to each other on the couch. “Miss Shaw,” Stanley said, rising to his feet, “it is considered bad manners to enter a person’s home uninvited.”

“We did knock, Stanley.”

“My apologies then. I’m afraid we were rather engrossed in our conversation. I’m sure you understand. And who is this young man with you?”

“Chief Michael
Penhall, may I introduce Stanley Ashton III and his wife Amelia?”

Mike’s eyes darted back and forth from me to Stanley. “Did I hear you correctly? Stanley Ashton III?”

“Nice to meet you, Chief Penhall,” Stanley said.

“Would you excuse us
for just a moment, please?” Mike said. Turning me around, he led me back into the hallway. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he supposed to be dead?”

“He is.”

“He’s standing in the other room! He doesn’t look dead to me!”

“Trust me, he’s dead. I told you to keep an open mind.”

“This is some sort of joke, right? You’re trying to get back at me for trying to keep you out of my investigation.”

“No, I’m not. That is Stanley Ashton III, and he’s really as dead as a doornail.”

He shook his head. “You and I are going to have a very long talk about this later.” We returned to the library. “I have a few questions for you, Mrs. Ashton,” Mike said, pointedly ignoring Stanley, “regarding your whereabouts when Agatha Foley was killed.”

“Are you accusing my wife of murder, Chief
Penhall?” Stanley said.

“I’m sure Chief
Penhall is just trying to exclude her as a suspect, isn’t that correct, Mike?

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Um…yeah, sure. Where were you last night, Mrs. Ashton?”

“I was at my hotel all night. You can check with the concierge; he will verify my story.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Mrs. Foley.”

“Relationship? I never had any ‘relationship’ with her. She was merely our housekeeper.”

“What about Mr.
Ashtons relationship with her?”

I noticed she stiffened slightly and moved away from Stanley. “
That is something you would have to discuss with him.”

Mike looked extremely uncomfortable. He silently begged me to help him out of this situation, but I decided not to. It was his investigation, so he could be the one to ask the questions.
“Yes, Chief Penhall, perhaps you should be asking Mr. Ashton these questions.”

Sighing, he said, “Mr. Ashton…”

“This is ridiculous,” Stanley said. “What does my relationship with Aggie over sixty years ago have to do with her death today?” He looked at Amelia. “Maybe we should call our lawyer.”

“You mean Charles Prufrock? He died ten years ago,” she replied. “But I believe his son, Charles Jr., practices law.”

“What do you need a lawyer for?” Mike said. “You’re a ghost, for crying out loud! It’s not like I can slap the cuffs on you and haul you off to jail.” He stopped talking and looked shocked at what he said. I did my best not to snicker, but a snort slipped out, and he glared at me.

“Be that as it may, I think it would be in my wife’s best interests if we continue this discussion in the presence of our lawyer,” Stanley said.

“If you were a living, breathing human being, Mr. Ashton, I’d think you had something to hide. Unless you’re covering for your wife. Are you?”

“I suggest you leave, Chief
Penhall. Wait a minute, Penhall…I seem to remember a Walter Penhall who was the police chief when I was still alive.”

“He’s my grandfather.”

“Really?” Stanley said. “He wouldn’t treat us this way if he were in charge.”

“I’m not as easily impressed by your money as he was back then, Mr. Ashton,” Mike said as he stood up. “Mrs. Ashton, I formally request that you not leave the area until this situation has been resolved. I would like to see you and your attorney at the police station at your earliest convenience. Let’s go, Cam.”

I really wanted to stay and talk to them a little longer, but Stanley looked pretty ticked off, so I decided to come back tomorrow. Picking up my bag, I said good night to the Ashtons and led the way out. “Really, Mike?” I said as we walked toward our cars. “You had to be a jerk about the whole thing?”

“
I
had to be a jerk?!” he said, turning on me. “I just spent fifteen minutes talking to a ghost.
A ghost!
I should have my head examined. Did that really just happen in there?”

“Yes, that really just happened.”

“Unbelievable. Unflippin’ believable. What am I supposed to tell them down at the station? ‘Listen up, men. I’ve got a new suspect. His name is Stanley Ashton III, but don’t bother arresting him. He’s a ghost.’ They’ll take away my badge and ship me off to the funny farm!”

“Mike.”

“What?”

“You’re ranting.”

“Well, excuse me, Ms. Shaw. I’m not as experienced in these matters as you are. I don’t know how to act.”

“I’m not experienced, either. This is my first, an
d hopefully my last ghost.”

“How did you get mixed up in this in the first place?”

“By mistake.” I explained about the newspaper ad, and how things had played out from there. “With everything that has happened, I don’t think I can just walk away, you know?”

“Maybe you should. First Cliff Scott, now Aggie Foley.”

“You don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you?”

He shook his head. “I think the two deaths are connected.”

“We need to talk to the man in the hospital.”

“No,
we
don’t have to do anything. Do I have to go over this with you again?”

I got in his face. “Look, you can either take me with you, or I will go by myself. Either way, I’m going to talk to him. Wouldn’t it be better if we work together?”

Mike stared at me with those hazel eyes before he pulled me close and kissed me. It was an intense kiss, and I felt the heat passing between us. When he pulled back, I gasped for air and looked at him. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he said as he opened my car door for me. “You’re a seriously infuriating woman, you know that? I’ll follow you home, then we’ll go to the hospital from there.”

Wordlessly, I got into my car. He closed the door, walked over and got in his car. I was still sitting there, mouth slightly hanging open as he drove off. What the heck was that all about?

Chapter 25

Thirty minutes later, we were walking through the hospital front door.
We hadn’t really talked much since we left my house. I was still reeling from that kiss. I followed him to the nurses’ station on the second floor, where he received an update on the man’s condition before we walked down the hall. There was a policeman sitting outside a room near the end of the hall. He and Mike talked for a minute, and then the policeman walked off, I guess to take a break since we were there.

“Did Artie finish going over the Cadillac yet?” I whispered as we entered the room.

“He went over it with one of my bomb squad guys to make sure there weren’t any explosives or booby traps anywhere. They didn’t find any, but they did find some C4 in the trunk.”

“Holy…” I shook my head in disbelief, unable to finish the sentence. “Do you know who he is yet?”

“I took a set of fingerprints the last time I was here. He’s a mercenary from North Carolina named Jake Yarborough. He served in the Marines for thirteen years, honorably discharged. Bronze star, three Purple Hearts. He’s a real hero.”

“Then why is he renting himself out to the highest bidder? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“People like him have different reasons for doing what they do. They may not make sense to us, but it all makes perfect sense to him.” I stood by the man’s bed and looked down at him. There were bandages on his chest and upper arms. His right leg was in a cast and elevated slightly by a sling. “The nurse said it looks worse than it really is. He’s going to have a long recovery time, though.”

“I can hear you. You don’t have to whisper,” Jake said, slowly opening his eyes. He looked at me, then at Mike and scowled. “What do you want, cop?”

“I’m Chief Mike Penhall, and this is Camille Shaw. I want to ask you some questions about Clifford Scott.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s funny, considering you blew up his house yesterday,” Mike replied. “And the car we found not far from his house was the same one used to run him over two days ago. Now, you want to try this again?”

Jake said nothing.

“Mr. Yarborough,” I said, “could you tell us how you know Mr. Scott?”

“Never saw him before until a week ago.”

“Where did you meet?”

“We didn’t. I staked out his place, followed him around. He didn’t have much of a routine, wasn’t one to leave the house,” he said, pausing to cough.

I saw a pitcher and a cup on the hospital tray. Pouring him some water, I handed it to him. “Why were you following him?” I asked, glancing over at Mike. He nodded his head slightly, which I took to mean I should keep going.

“Because my client wanted me to retrieve some information from him,” he replied, finishing the water. He handed me the cup. “A little more, please?”

I poured some more and handed the cup back. “What kind of information?”

“Scott used to be a cop. My client was interested in an old case of his, and he wanted to see the file.”

“Could you tell me which case?”

“Some rich dude named Ashton.”

“Did your client tell you what he wanted with the file?” Mike said.

Jake shook his head. “He didn’t tell, and I didn’t ask. That kind of stuff isn’t important for me to know. I was just supposed to retrieve the file by any means necessary.”

“Did your client tell you to run him over in the middle of the road?” I said. Jake glanced over at me, and then stared straight ahead. “What about blowing up his house? Why did you do that?”

“I couldn’t find the file, and I wanted to make sure that no one else did, either.”

“You did a poor job of it, didn’t you?” Mike replied. “Got yourself hurt.”

Jake shrugged. “I’ll live.”

“So who hired you?”

“Privileged information.”

“You aren’t a shrink, you idiot. You can’t hide behind privilege.”

“Lawyer.”

Even I knew what that meant. Jake Yarborough wasn’t going to tell us anything else. I was surprised he told us as much as he did. The policeman was outside the door again as we left. “No one in or out except the doctor and the nurses, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

We made our way down to the cafeteria on the first floor. “I need some coffee,” Mike said. “How about you?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be up all night if I drink it now.”
I waited while he paid for a large cup of coffee. “What happens now?” I asked him as we walked to the lobby.

“In the morning, I’ll get one of my computer geeks to go through Jake Yarborough’s bank transactions, emails, and anything else I can think of to find the name of his client.”

“Why don’t you ask Jo?” I said.

“I don’t want to involve any more civilians in this case.”

“She already knows about Stanley. So does Randy. They’ve both seen and talked to him.”

He stopped in the middle of the hall and looked at me. “When were you going to tell me?”

“And end up in the room next to you at the funny farm?”

“Good point. Does anyone else know?”

“Only one other person, and you don’t have to worry about him.”

“Who?”

“David.”

“Oh,” he said, as if he suddenly remembered that David and I had been dating.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. He dumped me a couple of days ago.”

“I’m sorry. May I ask why?”

“There’s no reason to be sorry. He checked out of our relationship a long time ago. I guess it just took me a while to realize it. Let’s just say I didn’t want to be a Stepford wife, and leave it at that. So what can I do to help you?”

“Any information you have on the Ashtons and the Foleys would be helpful.”

“I still have some things I want to look into, but I do have some stuff I can share with you.”

Mike’s cell phone rang. “
Penhall. What? I’m already there,” he said as he ran for the elevator and pushed the up button.

“What’s going on?” I said, rushing to catch up to him.

The doors slid open and we hurried inside. “An emergency call came into the switchboard from the second floor nurse’s station.”

“What kind of emergency?”

The elevator stopped on the second floor and we hurried toward the nurses’ station. “Down there,” a young redheaded nurse said, pointing down the hall toward Jake’s room.

Running down the hall, I saw the policeman who had been guarding the door on the floor, and another nurse kneeling over him. “What happened?” Mike asked.

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I heard yelling, and by the time I got down here, he was out cold. The worst of it is in there.” She had grabbed some towels from somewhere, and was applying pressure to his upper leg. Blood pooled on the floor underneath him.

“Stay here,” Mike said, drawing his gun and slowly opening the door.

Of course I didn’t listen. Sticking close to him, I quietly entered the room. Jake Yarborough was lying on the bed with a hospital pillow over his face. There was a small black burn pattern in the middle of the pillow. I stopped short of the bed as a chill went down my spine.

Mike looked in the bathroom, the closet and under the bed, but didn’t find anyone. There were some latex gl
oves by the small bathroom sink, so Mike holstered his gun and put a pair on before moving the pillow aside. I gasped when I saw Jake’s face. There was a hole in the center of his forehead. “Damn it,” Mike said. “Did you see anyone in the hallway when we left?”

“No, just the policeman outside. What about you?”

“The same,” he replied, putting the pillow over Jake’s face again. I was very grateful he did that. I really didn’t want to look at that hole any more than I had to.

We went back to the hallway to check on the young policeman. Mike told me his name was Brad Spooner, six months out of the Academy. “Is he going to be ok?” I asked the nurse as two orderlies came around the corner with a gurney.

“He was shot in the leg and chest. His bulletproof vest stopped the second bullet from doing any damage, although he’s going to have a nice bruise, I’m sure. The one in the leg might require surgery. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I stepped back out of the way so they could get him on the gurney, then stood next to him for a minute and squeezed his hand. “Hang in there,” I said, giving him a smile. “You did good.”

He smiled back at me before they wheeled him down the hall. Mike was on the phone, calling in the troops. “Are you alright?” he asked me when he got off the phone.

I nodded. “All good.”

“How’s your arm?”

“A bit
sore, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“I’m going to be tied up here for a while, so I won’t be able to take you home. I can get one of my officers to do it.”

“No, that’s ok. I’ll call Randy.”

“Are you sure?” I nodded. “If he can’t, tell me, and I’ll make sure you get home.”

It didn’t take much to persuade Randy to pick me up. All I had to do was promise to give him all the details of the evening, which I would have done eventually anyway. He promised to call me as soon as he pulled up downstairs. “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” I told Mike. “Are you ok?”

“I’m ticked off at the moment. How did someone slip past us?”

“We were downstairs at least ten minutes before this happened, and four to five minutes of those ten were spent in the cafeteria. Anyone could have come in during that time,” I pointed out.

Mike wandered down the hall. “There’s a stairwell right here.” He pushed it opened with a gloved hand. “Anyone could have come up these stairs and jumped Spooner from behind if they were quiet enough about it.”

“I thought these doors had alarms.”

“Apparently not,” Mike muttered.
“What good does it do to pay for all these safety measures if people aren’t going to use them?”

I wasn’t sure that now was the time for that debate,
so I wisely kept my mouth shut. “Surveillance tapes?”

We looked around for cameras. I spotted one in the corner to our left, and another one down the hall on the right. Mike went over to one of the nurses, obviously asking her about the
cameras. She nodded and picked up the phone to make a call. “She is going to ask them to get me a copy of the tapes.”

“What happened to that little redheaded nurse we talked to when we got back up here?” I said. “Shouldn’t we ask her what she saw?”

Mike went back down the hall again and talked to the nurse. She shook her head, and he frowned. He made some height gesture with his left hand, but she shook her head again. Mike was grumbling when he came back. “She said there is no one like that on duty tonight.”

“What? That can’t be right. We both saw her. She talked to us.”

“Do you remember what she was wearing?”

I thought about it a moment. “Green scrub pants, a white scrub shirt with little designs on it. Maybe flowers or some kind of animal, I’m not sure.” I looked at the other nurses, and they were wearing blue scrubs.

“Someone could have bought them at Wal-Mart or Target, some place like that. Easier to blend in that way,” Mike said. “Great, just great.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s the killer,” I pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean she isn’t, either,” he replied. “She could be his partner.” I heard the ding of the elevator, and three of Mike’s people stepped out. “I’ve got to get to work. But we need to talk tomorrow morning. I want you to get with a sketch artist and give her a description of that nurse.”

“No problem,” I said as my phone rang. “It’s Randy. He’s downstairs.”

“Go home, lock the doors and windows. If you hear anything strange during the night, I don’t care what time it is, you call me.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “Someone is getting rid of people involved in Stanley Ashtons murder. If they know that you are associated with that family in any way, they could come after you. So call me if something happens. Otherwise, I will see you in the morning.”

Wow, what comforting thoughts to send me on my way. Oh yeah, I was going to sleep good tonight. Not!