Inspector Specter, page 19
They led us to a spot near the public beach (which, frankly, overlaps my property a little, confusing lifeguards and tourists alike) and started looking around, shading their eyes with their hands.
“Do you see anything?” I asked, because at that moment, I didn’t.
“Hang on.” Stephanie seemed a little peeved, perhaps at herself for losing sight of what they’d concluded was a ghost. “I’m looking.”
She kept looking for some time, and so did Rita. For that matter, Melissa, Wendy and I scouted the location for a while as well, no one saying a word. Finally Rita sighed loudly.
“We’ve lost it,” she said.
I wasn’t sure we’d ever had it, but I refrained from saying so.
“I’m not sure what to make of it,” I said. “But I’ll ask around, okay?” Stephanie nodded, and Rita looked a little less freaked out.
“Alison?” Wendy said.
“What’s the matter, sweetie?” I asked. Wendy’s voice had an edge to it. She was looking back toward my house, which was about two hundred yards away.
“Why is there a ladder up next to Melissa’s room?”
I looked up toward the house and squinted, since the sun was starting to tilt in that direction. I didn’t understand—or believe—what I was seeing.
There was indeed a ladder running up the right side of my house, all the way to the third floor, to Melissa’s attic bedroom. I couldn’t tell if the window was open, but I knew for a fact that I had not put that ladder there.
“That’s my room,” Melissa breathed. She sounded absolutely appalled, as well she might.
Someone had tried—and for all I knew, succeeded—to break into my house. I had no way of knowing if the ladder had been there two minutes or four hours. And my mother and Oliver were in the house.
I started running immediately, hearing vague sounds behind me. The crash of the surf, the wind, tourists on the beach, Rita and Stephanie asking why I wasn’t looking for the hat any more. But Melissa and Wendy were right by my side the whole way.
Until we reached the property line, I wasn’t even aware that I was winded. But once we got there, I saw Paul trying desperately to move his foot past the line he hadn’t been able to cross since “moving in,” and I started taking in long gulps of breath. I hadn’t run that far in a number of years and wasn’t pleased with the shape I was in.
“Your laptop is gone,” Paul reported, watching Wendy pat me on the back like I needed burping.
“My laptop?” Melissa sounded panicked. She probably wasn’t as concerned about the homework she hadn’t deleted since June as the fact that she probably couldn’t remember her Facebook password.
Paul shook his head. “Your mom’s. The one Maxie uses. There is a ladder—”
“We know,” Melissa told him, sighing with relief. “Wendy saw it from the beach.”
Paul, who hadn’t known we were going to the beach but had still managed to find us running back, didn’t ask questions. “I should have been more vigilant.”
I stood up straight again, having reoxygenated my blood. “Don’t worry,” I said. “If we find McElone, she’ll only blame me, anyway. She doesn’t think you exist.”
“There is nothing she can blame you for,” Paul said. “I removed the files from the desktop every time we logged off. It’s all still on the flash drive, and we have that.”
“You’re a genius.” I started to lead Wendy and Liss toward the house, quickly, with Paul backing up without walking. “Are Mom and Ollie okay? My guests?”
“No one saw anything, and nobody’s hurt,” Paul said. “If we’d known someone was in the house, I would have done something about it.”
At least everybody in the house was okay. That slowed my pace a bit. “So you think whoever took the laptop was looking for McElone’s files on Martin Ferry’s murder?”
“They weren’t going after it because of the high technology,” Melissa said. Wendy giggled a little. I considered, and rejected, the idea of giving my daughter a day-old mackerel for her next birthday.
“It’s true,” Paul agreed. He would continue to have birthdays, but wouldn’t get any older, which was a double annoyance for both of us. I suppose I could get him gifts for his birthday, but what do you buy for the man who doesn’t have a pulse? “The only real value that computer has is the data they think is kept on it.”
We walked inside after washing off our feet. Mom, with Oliver sitting on her shoulders, was approaching as we entered. Rita and Stephanie weren’t far behind us.
“You heard what happened?” Mom asked. I acknowledged that we had. “It’s terrible!”
Well, yeah, but that seemed a fairly oversized reaction. “It’s bad, there’s no denying that,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s terrible.”
“Okay.” Mom sounded skeptical. Ollie, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying his unaccustomed height and laughing with delight at how short the rest of us were.
“Am I missing something?” I asked. “Is he hurting your neck?”
“No, he’s fine, but I guess you haven’t considered the implications.” Despite her protestations, Mom handed Oliver off to Melissa, who let him sit on her shoulders to avoid a grumpy mood.
“Of course I have,” I said. “Someone broke into the house and stole my laptop. There are likely to be gangsters involved, and I’m probably going to have to go talk to them even though I’d rather do pretty much anything else. McElone is still missing, which can’t be good, and someone not only knows where we live but where I keep the laptop, and was brazen enough to climb into Melissa’s bedroom window—you’re locking that thing and letting the air-conditioning do its work, young lady—to steal it. How much worse can that get?”
“Well, you’re going to have to tell Maxie that her laptop is missing,” Mom said.
Dad burst through the ceiling. “I followed Maxie. She’ll be here in a couple of seconds.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s worse.”
There wasn’t time for Dad to give us a Maxie report because she filtered in through the kitchen wall to the den immediately after. It was hard to read Maxie’s mood, which was unusual: Lately, especially, she’d been either floating on a cloud of her own construction or breathing fire without a recognizable catalyst. Now, she was just sort of bland, barely paying attention.
That didn’t last long.
“My laptop?” she screamed. “You can’t be serious. Someone stole my laptop?” I refrained, nobly I thought, from pointing out that the article in question was actually my laptop, and let her go on. “How am I going to get by?”
I hadn’t realized she was so taken with her role as Internet research arm for our investigative team. But as usual, I had misinterpreted Maxie.
“I need that thing!” she went on. “How am I going to see my Twitter feed? Check my Facebook page? Watch videos of people falling off things?” She turned toward me, the flames back in her eyes. “How did you let this happen?”
That figured. “Me? How is this my fault?”
“It’s your house, isn’t it?” This was progress, as she usually maintains that it’s still her house. Maxie’s tempo, swirling around the crown molding on the ceiling, picked up. She does laps when she gets agitated.
“This isn’t solving anything,” Dad said. If I’d said it, Maxie would have beaned me with the pasta pot.
“That’s true,” Paul said, “but finding Lieutenant McElone is the priority. Alison, when can you get to her bungalow in Point Pleasant?”
“Maybe tonight, after dinner,” I said. I had to check for any other missing items and call the cops about the break-in. “I’ll drive down after Oliver is asleep. But I need someone to come with me, and Josh is busy with an inventory tonight. Volunteers?” I turned toward the girls. “Over the age of twelve?” They looked crestfallen; a trip to a spooky bungalow! What could’ve been better?
“I’ll go,” Dad said. “When’s the last time I was on a stakeout?” I love the man, but his use of terminology is always just a little left of center.
“You’ve never been on a stakeout,” I told him. “And you’re not going to be on one tonight, either. This is more in the area of a going-to-see-what’s-happening. But thank you. I don’t know what we’ll find.”
Maxie, who had slowed down to a pace that made her at least visible to everyone in the room but Wendy, narrowed her eyes and dropped a foot or so toward the rest of us. “You think she might be dead?” she blurted. That ghost has tact like Jamaica has an Olympic bobsled team: It happened once, and shouldn’t be expected again.
“Mom . . .” Liss began, sounding worried.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything bad,” I told her. “The fact is, I don’t think we’re going to find anything at all. But the first thing I need to do is call Malcolm so I can get the address, or we won’t even find the bungalow.”
“If I had my laptop, I could get her address,” Maxie groused.
“I’ll get mine,” Melissa said, and was headed for the stairs, Wendy in tow, when Stephanie and Rita walked in.
I smiled at them. “Well, the good news is that everyone is all right and the only thing missing is mine,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Rita looked ashen, which isn’t easy to do when you spend your day on a beach in New Jersey in August. “Was it a ghost?” she asked.
“Don’t be silly,” Stephanie told her. “A ghost doesn’t need a ladder.”
“No, it was not a ghost,” I told them. “The police are being brought in.” (I’d called, and they said they’d send someone “soon.” This wasn’t a priority crime in Harbor Haven, apparently.) “And we’re taking precautions to make sure it can’t happen again.”
“This is a very exciting place to spend a week!” Stephanie said. She really seemed to be enjoying the intrigue.
“Yes,” Rita agreed. I wasn’t sure that she thought exciting was such a good thing.
I reassured them, and they went to their room to rest a little. I reached into my pocket for the cell phone to call Malcolm about the bungalow. And that was when Melissa and Wendy came down from the attic, carrying Liss’s laptop, which she handed to Maxie. Wendy’s mouth dropped at the flying computer; you’d think she’d be used to such things by now, but apparently the novelty had not worn off.
“I’m on it,” Maxie shouted. “I’ll find out who took my computer!”
“The bungalow, Maxie.” I waved to get her attention. “Find McElone’s bungalow.”
“Yeah. Right.” She stuck her feet out so she was horizontal and rested the computer on her legs. She dove into the keyboard with more vehemence than she usually exhibited.
I looked at Dad, who shrugged. Apparently his most recent Maxie excursion hadn’t turned up any more than the last one. I decided to call Malcolm even as Maxie worked, since she would no doubt put her interests before everyone else’s and see if she could track down the electronic signature of my pre–Civil War laptop, assuming it actually had such a thing.
Malcolm answered after a few rings; he sounded winded. “Alison?” he asked. He had clearly checked the incoming ID on his phone.
“Yes, Malcolm. I wanted to give you a progress report.” I told him about Ferry’s ex-wife, Elise, and about the burglary in my house, which seemed to worry him.
“Now the people behind this have Anita’s files,” he said. “That’s not good.”
“They don’t,” I pointed out. “The files are safe enough.” Telling him where the flash drive resided was not an option.
“That’s good, anyway. I’ve been searching for Anita in places where I knew she was asking about that Buster Hockney you mentioned. I’ve gotten a lot of grumpy looks, but not much in the way of information.” I asked him about the bungalow, and he told me the address just as Maxie, who apparently had been listening earlier, swooped down with the laptop and showed me the screen. The website, listing real estate transactions, showed a small house, just a little larger than a cabana, listed in Point Pleasant. The transaction was three years old, meaning it had taken place just before the lieutenant left Seaside Heights and came to Harbor Haven. And the buyer’s name was McElone.
I read back the address, and Malcolm confirmed it was the bungalow he and the lieutenant owned for “quick breaks.” “We bought it a few years ago. But why would she go there and not tell me?” he asked. “I think it’s a wild-goose chase, Alison.”
“It probably is,” I agreed. “But I’ll let you know what I find there.” I turned toward my daughter, who was tickling Oliver’s feet as an amusement to at least one of them. “So. What’s for dinner?” I asked.
She looked at her grandmother. “Um . . .”
There is nothing my mother likes better than to be needed, particularly for food. She would have rolled up her sleeves, if she’d been wearing sleeves. “I’m on it,” she said. “Where’s my backpack?” And off she went in search of whatever she keeps in that grade-schooler’s book bag she carries around.
Oliver, having decided that tickled feet were fine but there were places to go, had maneuvered himself toward a dining chair and was, with Melissa offering counterbalance, pulling himself up to a standing position. “I think he’s going to walk really soon,” Liss said.
“Whatever.” Maxie, back in whatever mood she was in before she heard of the theft, drifted off through the ceiling.
“He’d better not until his mom gets back,” I told her. “If Jeannie misses his first steps, it’s highly likely she’ll never speak to us again.” Jeannie had been waiting for her son’s first steps—which would be a little early, but not much at this age—with the kind of anticipation generally reserved for Oscar nominations, the births of royal offspring or the culmination of a tense hostage situation, depending on her mood.
Melissa turned her energy to trying to persuade Ollie not to walk just yet. This was accomplished through pulling him onto her lap, which led to him standing up against the chair again, which led to the lap, then the standing, then the lap. Since babies love nothing more than repetition, Oliver seemed to be having a great time. Melissa, too, would no doubt sleep well tonight.
Paul, for once not trying to use himself as a human(ish) electrical socket, was pacing back and forth two feet off the floor. “There’s something we’re missing, and I can’t figure out what it is,” he said.
I’d had the same feeling, but for a different reason. “I know what we’re not doing, if that’s what you mean.”
Paul stopped, which is not something you see him do often. The ghosts are always sort of in motion, voluntary or not. But now he was still. “What aren’t we doing?” he asked.
“The obvious thing. The thing that has the highest probability of getting us the answers we need.”
The ghost nodded, but he didn’t look happy. “I didn’t think you wanted to do that,” he said.
“I don’t. Have you got a better idea?”
“A better idea than what?” Melissa asked.
“We’re going to have to talk to Buster Hockney,” I said.
But Paul put his thumb and forefinger to his temple and grimaced a little. “Another message from Detective Ferry?” I asked. He looked so uncomfortable.
He shook his head. “No. Everett Sandheim. He wants to talk to you.”
Twenty-four
“Maxie wandered around town for a while, and then stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts and sat on the sign outside for a while,” Dad said.
We were driving to the Fuel Pit after a lovely dinner of baked ziti with ground beef that Mom had cobbled together from the meager ingredients I kept in my kitchen. (“Ziti Bolognese,” she called it.) I wasn’t driving fast because after seeing Everett, we were going to McElone’s bungalow, and I really didn’t want to get where we were going. But this was nothing compared to the idea of going to see a major drug kingpin and asking him if he’d killed one cop and made another one disappear. That I really didn’t want to do, but at least it could wait until tomorrow.
The guests were back at the house, all of them, being entertained with karaoke night in the den (starring my daughter, the ham) and enjoying the air-conditioning. This was an event made possible by the karaoke machine my ex-husband had once given me in an attempt to reconcile. The fact that he’d charged it on my Visa card was an indicator of how well that whole “reconciliation” thing went, if you couldn’t have figured that out already from the fact that he was back in Southern California, I was driving down the Jersey Shore to look into what I hoped would be an empty bungalow and my guests were using it to sing renditions of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.”
“That’s all she did?” I asked. “Maxie just sat on the Dunkin’ Donuts sign?”
Dad snickered. “She had a little fun with the guy putting out the chocolate frosteds. Kept making one disappear then reappear on his tray for a while.”
“That ghost is a menace to the Shore,” I said. “They should call the next hurricane Maxie.”
“I gotta say, she seemed sad up on that sign,” Dad told me. “Like she was waiting for something that didn’t happen.”
“Maybe she wanted Boston cream and they didn’t have any.”
“Don’t be mean, baby girl,” my father said. “Maxie’s not always the easiest person on the planet, but she’s loyal and she’s helped you out when the chips were down.”
“Are chips ever up?” I asked. “How do I know the positioning of the chips?”
“You’re being a wiseass to avoid saying that I’m right,” he said. Dad could always see through me; it seemed logical that now I could literally do the same to him.
“How long did she sit there?” I asked, to show concern for a friend. A friendly acquaintance. A ghost who hangs around my house most of the time.
“About an hour. Always looking around to see if something was there, or at least that’s how it looked. I can’t really say that I understood what was going on.”
