“Adrian Johnson and her two stepchildren were arrested on the Garden State Parkway near Exit 100B, maybe a half hour after you called me.” Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone and I were sitting on my front porch, which is as far as McElone will go toward my house unless absolutely necessary. “Once we had an APB out on them, the troopers didn’t need much more. They were heading north, probably to the house in Upper Saddle River and then maybe to skip out of the state.”
“But they only made it to Asbury Park.” I was sipping a lemonade. McElone was being her usual stoic self and drinking nothing. It wasn’t that hot yet, but it was still stubbornness on her part.
“And then they started turning on each other like a bag of snakes,” McElone said. “Everybody blamed everybody else, but it sure wasn’t their fault, that was for certain. The prosecutors will sort it out, but almost everybody’s going to jail, I would bet.”
“I don’t get what Erika and Braden got out of this deal,” I said. “They seemed like the odd, um, couple out.”
“Seems the Ponzi scheme old Keith was running wasn’t something he could do alone,” McElone told me. “He needed some inside help from his son the Wall Street stockbroker.”
“And Erika?”
McElone came very close to smiling. “She was the only one who didn’t just adore her stepmom,” she said. “She didn’t want Adrian to go to jail because that would have jeopardized Erika’s own arrangement with Keith, which included him buying her a boutique in Manhattan with the pyramid money.”
“But she doesn’t have a boutique in Manhattan.” I thought it was important to point that out.
“If you look deep enough, you’ll find a lease signed by Keith Johnson the day before he died. For a place that was going to be called Eriqua. I am not kidding. Once the investors had done enough of an audit after Keith died, it became a Starbucks.”
The past night had included a quick visit from McElone and four of her best blue-uniformed friends, who had taken Cassidy Van Doren away (I was guessing this time without bail) and questioned everyone who had been in the room, yielding what I expected were somewhat confusing results. Half the group thought the whole thing was a swell show. Who was I to tell them otherwise? Evaluation forms would be filled out today, after all.
Mom and Dad, as ever, had witnessed the mayhem without comment and then gone home, Mom driving her Dodge Viper at five miles below the speed limit the whole way. Even if Cassidy Van Doren had been menaced by someone on the road, it would not have been my mother. She’s more of an obstacle than a threat.
Josh had gone to work this morning as usual and Melissa, first vacation day of the summer, was sleeping in. I’d already fielded a phone call from Phyllis, who wasn’t going to write an article about murders that didn’t take place in her coverage area but scolded me for not reporting back to her immediately. I grinned because that’s how you know she’s Phyllis.
McElone had come by to get her last shot at the guests before they all went home, which they would do in a few hours when the Senior Tours Plus van would roll up to my door. They all seemed thrilled with the previous night’s festivities (as they saw it), and I’d noticed Greg Lewis and Abby Lesniak going out for a late bite at an all-night diner (as most of them are in New Jersey) some miles down the road. I’d been in bed long before they got back.
Now with her questioning all done, McElone was taking a moment—rare for her—to discuss the case after the fact. And I could tell it was making her uncomfortable. If there’s one thing McElone can’t stand, it’s not being able to do everything herself.
“How much ghosty stuff was involved in this?” she asked me. “You know I can’t use any of that in my report.”
“Almost everything is on that voice recorder I gave you,” I reminded her. “There’s nothing ghost-adjacent on there, although you’ll hear breaks where I’m talking to someone who isn’t exactly there. I’d think you’d get a lot from the confessions. Has Cassidy talked yet?”
McElone shook her head. “She lawyered up. Apparently it’s gotten to be a habit with her.”
“Just don’t let her near this guy with any ironing instruments,” I said.
McElone grimaced, which is as close to a smile as I’ll ever get out of her. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
She left shortly after, so I went inside to see if any of the guests needed help with packing or moving luggage. The van driver, a lovely guy with enormous arms, usually handles that, but some of the guests—usually the men—feel it’s a sign of weakness to ask someone for help.
Melissa, now awake, was in the den pouring an iced coffee (that is, coffee from the urn over ice I’d left out in a bucket) for herself. She is infinitely more cheerful when she doesn’t have to wake up early, but her face was still telling me not to engage her in conversation just yet. I moved on.
Nobody was in the movie room, but I found Paul and Richard in the library of all places. “Catching up on your reading?” I asked.
Paul gave me a look much like Melissa’s, which indicated he and Richard were acting like close brothers again, and I kept walking. But it made me wonder: Was Paul planning on leaving again? Was he going somewhere with Richard? Would we have to go through that drama one more time?
Penny Desmond was looking out through the French doors at the deck, the beach, and the ocean. A lot of guests do this on the last morning, thinking about how they’ll be back in their homes soon and away from the beauty of the shore. It’s one of the reasons I decided to come back to Harbor Haven and buy the ridiculously large Victorian that became the guesthouse.
“Maybe you’ll come back someday,” I said to Penny when I got close enough to do so without shouting.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “I’ve never been much for the beach. Sand between your toes, having to shower off whenever you come in, salt all over from the ocean. Not for me. I like a nice little town to walk around in. You have a good one here, but I have pretty much the same thing at home without all the sand.”
I had to ask. “Then why did you come here for vacation?”
She looked at me as if it were obvious. “The ghosts,” she said. “They were fantastic.”
My phone buzzed, and when I saw Tony Mandorisi’s name in the caller ID, I picked up immediately. Tony doesn’t call that often; he lets Jeannie be the social liaison. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I’ve got a guy.”
That was a stumper. “Does Jeannie know?” I asked.
“Don’t be hilarious, Alison. A guy. To fix your ceiling and put in a beam.”
“You can have all the guys you want, Tony.” I noticed Penny giving me an amused look. “But I don’t have the money to pay your guys for that big a job, and you and I know I can’t do it myself. We’ve talked about this.”
“This guy works cheap,” Tony said. “He’s my brother.”
And I will tell you, because I know you’ll never mention it to Tony or Jeannie, my first thought was, Oh, please, no. Not another brother.
“How cheap?” I asked. You have to be practical.
“We’ll talk about it, but trust me, you can afford it. I’ll call you later.”
I gave up seeking people out for a while because that wasn’t working well for me today. I didn’t need to clean any of the guest rooms because they were still in them, but then I saw Abby and Greg walking down the stairs without luggage, looking absolutely euphoric. I hadn’t done anything to help them and that had worked like a charm.
“You look very happy,” I told them in case they hadn’t figured that out.
“We are,” Greg Lewis said. “I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to say something.”
Abby patted his arm. “You have plenty of time now,” she said.
“What took you so long?” I asked. “Just shy?” Greg could have saved me a lot of innkeeper angst if he’d approached Abby, say, the day after they’d arrived.
“No, not just shy. I was getting everything together so it would be perfect, and that took time. I had to write the song and record it out on the beach so I could get the sound of the surf, and I was experimenting with my own balloons before I gave up and went to that store you told me about. That worked out well.”
Experimenting with . . . “Were you making a stretching noise in the extra guest room that night?” I asked. Greg looked guilty. “Why did you go in there? How did you go in there? The room was locked.”
“I just needed a little private space, and my room wasn’t big enough,” he explained. “And I got in . . . well, I picked the lock. I’m a locksmith. There’s nothing in the house I couldn’t have opened if I’d wanted to.”
That was sort of creepy. “But you didn’t, right? I mean, open any other doors.”
Greg looked offended. “No! Of course not! Just that one time, and then I never did it again. I just needed the extra space in there.”
I told them I was glad they’d met at my house and wished them well. The van was pulling up, and the guests were starting to drift toward the front door. I’d be needed to host them out (say good-bye) in a minute or two.
Maxie dropped down and looked at me. “You know, Paul’s talking to Richard about leaving again,” she said.
I’d figured that. Richard was still rocked emotionally by the revelations of the night before and would no doubt want to bolt this area as quickly as possible. And since Paul had come back only because his brother needed help, there was no reason for him to stick around either.
“Paul’s a big boy,” I told her. “He can do what he wants to do.” As long as it was stay around my house and be my conscience. He was the Jiminy Cricket of ghosts.
Maxie shrugged. “Whatevs.”
Melissa, aware the guests would be leaving soon, came to the front room to help me see them off. She is comanager of the guesthouse and knows exactly what that means. It means she does a lot of work and doesn’t get paid.
The van arrived exactly on time as it always does, and everybody got their luggage and themselves aboard. Many fond farewells, all of them sincere, were offered. But as always, it was something of a relief when the van pulled away and I knew I’d have two days before it showed up with new guests to entertain again.
I turned back toward the house and saw Richard phasing through the front door. He wasn’t carrying any luggage, of course, but I could tell by his expression and the flow of his movement that he was leaving the guesthouse for parts unknown.
Paul was right behind him.
For all my show about how it was Paul’s decision to stay or go, that moment made me want to yell to him not to leave, that he was my friend and I needed him here. But I didn’t because I’m an adult and because I respect the choices others make even if they don’t match my own.
Besides, Melissa said it. “You’re not leaving, are you, Paul?”
Paul looked at Liss, then at Richard, then at me, and then back at Richard again. “No,” he said. “What gave you that idea?”
It was mostly Maxie. I didn’t say that either, but Liss didn’t pick it up for me this time. “Well, Richard . . .” I began.
Richard turned—he had passed us already—and looked at me. “Yes,” he said. “I am leaving. I don’t know where I’ll be, but I need a break from this place.” He looked at the house. “No offense.”
“We understand,” Melissa told him. “You’ve been through a lot.” That girl has a future in diplomacy. Or any other field.
Richard looked away to avoid eye contact. “I wanted to . . . thank you. For the help you’ve given me these past few days. I realize it was done with the best possible intentions.” The man’s warmest thoughts could have kept the ice in my freezer solid. Of course, it was in a freezer, but you get the idea.
“But I still think Paul should come with me,” Richard went on. He looked at his brother. “You were doing all that traveling, and there’s still a lot of world to see.”
Paul smiled that crooked smile of his. “I have plenty of time,” he said. “Keep me informed about your whereabouts, Richard. I’ll be in contact every night.” He looked up at the sky, which was his sign for the Ghosternet.
“I will do that.” And with that, Richard leapt into the sky and vanished in the distance.
We turned back and moved toward the house. “So you don’t need to see the world anymore?” I asked Paul.
“I still intend to do so, but with all eternity ahead of me, I don’t see a great rush,” he answered. “One thing I’ve learned is that it’s good to have a home base. And it’s nice to have people you see every day.”
“Stop it,” Melissa said. “You’ll make me cry.”
We all laughed at that and went inside. I had every intention of sitting down in a nice soft easy chair for at least two days—after I cleaned the guest rooms, changed all the sheets, and took a look at that beam in the den again. Maybe Tony was right.
You can’t let old wounds stay open forever.