Inspector Specter (14 page)

“How did you leave it with Malcolm?” Josh asked. He turned Oliver upside down, holding him by his ankles, facing out. Ollie couldn't possibly have been more delighted. Note to the babysitter (that's me, officially): Oliver enjoys being dangled upside down. Useful tip.

“He said that if he didn't hear from Anita—that's what we call her now, Anita—tonight, maybe we could get together tomorrow and brainstorm.” Josh looked at me a little quizzically. “I know. He seems to think we are much closer friends and colleagues than McElone has ever let on.”

“Maybe she's the kind of person who doesn't like to show her feelings,” he answered. Climbing up a dune carrying an eleven-month-old by his ankles while dressed in a T-shirt, khakis and sneakers can't be easy, but Josh wasn't complaining, or even breathing hard. I guess lugging paint cans around all day keeps a guy in shape.

“I have to wonder if maybe Malcolm isn't playing it up a little more than it deserves,” I answered. “I'll do whatever I can, but unless McElone answers her cell phone, how am I supposed to find her?”

We were about a hundred yards from my French doors, and Oliver still hadn't gotten tired of the inverted view of life; he was laughing and pointing at upside-down things. “Didn't the lieutenant give you some file she was working on for safekeeping?” Josh asked. “That might have—”

I was already running toward the house to find Paul. “You're a genius!” I yelled back at my boyfriend.

Oliver laughed. I look funny enough running when I'm right side up, so I can just imagine.

“I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier,” Paul said.

“It was Josh's idea,” I pointed out.

Josh, who was as usual standing by, fascinated by the invisible people moving things around the room, smiled indulgently at me. “I got lucky,” he said.

“Save it to the hard drive,” Paul said to Maxie. Intent on the task at hand, he was all attention and not listening to Josh and me banter. Paul was so absorbed, in fact, that he hadn't even tried to power the laptop all by himself.

Discovering this ability of his to transfer energy to electric devices would have really come in handy during Hurricane Sandy, but that was the way things went.

Maxie was punching keys with great intensity. “It's not a big file, but this thing is probably going to take some time to download it,” she said. She shot me a look. Like the age of the laptop was my fault. Sue me for not taking money out of the college fund to buy a new laptop for a resident ghost.

“Do it anyway. The lieutenant wants me to keep this drive safe, and I don't intend to lose it.” Paul is always ethical, so I took him at his word. “When we're done looking at the download, we'll delete it.” Mostly ethical.

Melissa was giving Oliver some puréed . . . something, sitting on the island and looking very responsible, while Oliver was attempting to feed himself and managing to still get some of his food in his mouth, although a higher percentage than just a month or two earlier—he was enough of a “big boy” now that he could sit in a high chair next to the center island in my kitchen and pick things up with his fingers, a task he appeared to find hilarious.

“How is the information organized?” Paul asked.

“Very carefully,” Maxie told him. “The lady cop has a really disciplined mind. It's a little scary.”

“Let me see.” Paul maneuvered himself around Maxie, his body horizontal, his feet high in the air (in fact, partially sticking through the ceiling) to best see what was on the screen without getting in the way of Maxie's typing. The ghosts have some physical substance when in contact with each other. If I tried to touch them, my hand would go straight through.

There was a lot of technical gobbledygook that they shot back and forth at each other for a few minutes. If I could've funneled it to Josh, he probably would have understood it, but I wasn't picking up a word. Then Paul just floated there and looked for a while, and suddenly, he came out with an awed “Wow.”

My head broke speed records snapping up. “What, wow?”

“The lieutenant is very thorough,” he said.

“Yeah, newsflash.”

“But there is one item that bears interest.”

Maxie squinted at the screen as if it weren't right in front of her face. “You mean this?” she asked, pointing.

“Precisely.”

“Okay, the two of you have to either come down here or bring me up there, because I have no idea what you're talking about,” I told them.

Josh walked over to Melissa, who slid down off the island, picked Ollie out of the high chair after toweling him off (which he did not find delightful) and lowered him to the floor. He (Ollie) immediately grabbed for the bar stool nearest to him and steadied himself, looking stupefied, amazed that he could accomplish such a tremendous feat. Once he was sure he wouldn't fall, Ollie grinned. “Gah,” he said.

“Gah,” Josh agreed.

“What do you see that's so interesting?” I asked again.

Maxie deigned to lower herself and the laptop just barely to eye level, meaning if Josh stood up, he'd see it plainly, while I had to stand on tiptoe a little. “This here,” she said, pointing. Josh
didn't
stand up, because he lets me be in charge when we're talking investigations.

“I can't see it.”

Maxie curled her lip a little. “Well, I'm conserving power by turning down the brightness,” she huffed. “I mean, this thing can barely hold a charge as it is.”

“Enough with the technological complaints; I'm sorry that I can't afford to buy a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop for a dead person,” I said. She scowled, but now I was irritated. “What is it I'm looking at?”

Paul, always the peacemaker, rappelled down from the chandelier and brought the laptop—under a slight protest from Maxie—down to where I could see it. “There is one file that's encrypted,” he said. “Out of all the files on the hard drive, it's the only one. It requires a password to get in. That sticks out as unusual and therefore worthy of examination.”

“I can't see the name of the folder,” I told him.

“H. Monroe,” Paul read off to me.

“Harry ‘the Fish' Monroe,” Melissa said.

“Gah,” Oliver answered.

I looked up at Maxie. “So . . . ?”

“So? So, what?” she said.

“So, how do you get into the folder? It might have some idea of where McElone was going in her investigation, and that might give us an idea of where she is now.”

Oliver was cruising from one bar stool to the next, so Josh was busy keeping them from falling over if the baby (toddler?) yanked too strenuously. Oliver, apparently under the impression he was walking, looked quite pleased with his progress.

“It's password protected,” Maxie reminded me. “I'm not saying I can't get in, but it'll take some time. You know the lady cop. Have any guesses what her password might be?”

That was a stumper. “Me? Until he called today, I had no idea what her husband's name was. I had no idea she even had a husband.”

“Well, according to him, you two are besties,” Maxie teased. “You must know
something
.”

Ollie's foot slipped a little, and he fell on his diaper and started to cry. Liss was immediately on the floor next to him, but as the responsible adult in the room (after Josh), I walked over and picked him up. “It's okay, baby,” I said. “It's okay.”

He cried a little bit more, but his heart wasn't in it; what he really wanted was to be on the floor and try standing again. I held him close for a minute or two, and then he wriggled to be set back on his mission, gurgling with anticipation. Oliver pointed ahead like Columbus's navigator spotting land after weeks of desperate search. There were territories to conquer.

“I have no idea what McElone's password might be,” I told Maxie. “Knowing her, it's a perfect blend of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols, all in a code that makes sense only to her. The woman is more efficient than is possible in normal humans.”

“What's left for you to do?” Josh asked as he stabilized another bar stool for Ollie. “The lieutenant is missing, and you can't get into the encrypted file on her thumb drive yet. Is there anything else on there that might point you in a direction?”

I turned to face up toward Maxie, and Josh, seeing that, instinctively did the same. “It's going to take a long time, and Paul's going to have to read most of this stuff,” she said. “It's Lithuanian to me.”

“Okay, get to work,” I said, feeling very in charge and pleased that there was nothing that I personally had to do. “I'll continue to try contacting McElone, and if I hear from Malcolm again, I'll meet with him tomorrow.”

Realizing that dinner would be arriving fairly soon, along with my parents, who had consented (well, Mom consented; Dad's not capable of doing much more than going along for the ride these days) to pick up from Zorba the Restaurant, which luckily makes better food than business names, I got some kitchen wipes and began sanitizing any areas—particularly the high chair's food tray—that Ollie might have come in contact with, or that he might later. If that kid had even a sniffle when Jeannie got back, I'd be hearing about it for the rest of my life.

“There is something else you can do,” Paul said without looking up from the screen. “Given the latest developments, I think there is a witness you need to interview.”

I didn't like the sound of that. “I said I'd talk to McElone's husband tomorrow,” I reminded him. “I'm not sure if we can find Martin Ferry anymore. Who else is there to ask?”

“Harry ‘the Fish' Monroe,” Paul answered. “He just sent me another message. I know where he is now.”

*   *   *

For a guy nicknamed “the Fish,” it turned out that Harry Monroe was not terribly fond of the water. “All that ever happens in the ocean is you get wet and jellyfish bite you,” he said. He said his buddies had saddled him with the “Fish” name because they thought a gangster working the Jersey Shore who didn't like the water was funny. Given that he was sitting just past the pier Josh and I were standing on, his body half submerged in the waves, his claim seemed incongruous. The fact that jellyfish couldn't even know he was there, and that there was nothing left of him to bite, didn't add to his credibility.

“Something else must have happened to you,” I pointed out. “You're stuck out here in the ocean, yet you died in your car on land. How do you figure that?”

It was just before dusk, and Josh had driven me to the spot in Point Pleasant where Harry had apparently gone to sleep with his nickname (ghosts begin where they died), although his body had been found in his car. It hadn't been terribly difficult for me to spot Harry, who was unable to get himself to shore despite being within walking distance for most living people. In his dark suit, even transparent, Harry mostly looked ridiculous.

Josh had insisted on coming. He is fascinated by the investigation work I do, for one thing, and had been noodging me for a while to let him come along when the task was not being undertaken during his business hours. Also, he had made noises about “not letting you go see a mafioso—even a dead one—without someone along if you . . . want to make accusations.” He had been standing within Melissa's earshot at the time and didn't want to emphasize the possible danger in visiting Harry.

Maxie, my first choice for a wing ghost on this mission, had begged off, saying she wanted to stay close to Liss and Oliver, but she had probably already found an excuse to go “visit her mom.”
My
mom and dad agreed to help Liss watch Oliver and pass along any concerns from the guests. Given that Mom was the only visible adult in the equation, it had been impossible to ask her to come.

Right now, the only danger seemed to be that Harry was a little farther from the edge of the pier than I cared for, it was starting to get dark and slipping on the rocks was a very plausible threat. I had made sure to take off my shoes before we had ventured out this far. I wasn't bothering to record the exchange because ghost voices don't register on the recorder. I wasn't taking notes, because the sea spray would have pretty much obliterated them as I wrote. This was sort of like talking to a ghost on the
Will o' the Wisp
in Niagara Falls, which perhaps I should give a try someday.

“The memories are coming back in dribs and drabs,” Harry the Fish said as his namesakes were no doubt swimming through his calves. “I don't have it all yet, but I don't remember anything after being in my car on the way to a meeting—and no, I'm not telling you with who. I sure as hell wasn't coming here.”

“So tell me about Detective Ferry,” I said. Best to get right to the point of the conversation.

“Listen, cutie, I am not going to tell you
anything
about my business, you understand? There's a code.” A seagull flew through Harry's face, and he instinctively tried to brush it away.

“A code?” I repeated back, to give Josh some context. “I don't see where that code is really useful to you anymore.”

“A code's a code. There are people I worked with—you know the phrase ‘a fate worse than death'? They take it literally.”

“Harry,” I said, “Detective Martin Ferry was shot. You ended up out here somehow. Don't you want to know what happened to the two of you?”

“You bet your butt I do,” Harry said. The guy was as charming as someone nicknamed “the Fish” should be (and keep in mind that I hate fish). “I don't care so much about the cop, but if I find out that somebody whacked me, there's gonna be some retribution from beyond the grave.”

I edited the comment while passing it on to Josh. “Mr. Monroe,” Josh said when I was done, “the detective's death and yours must be linked. Finding out what happened to him will help in finding out what happened to you.”

“Who is this guy?” Harry asked me. “Why is he looking six feet over my head? There's nothing up there but sky.”

“You're ducking the question, Harry,” I said, without explaining to Josh. “If we can find out what happened to Martin Ferry, it could help figure out how you ended up here. What was your relationship with the detective like, anyway?”

“
Relationship?
” Harry parroted back. “You think we were dating?”

“I think that whatever it is, you don't want to talk about it,” I answered. In “person,” Harry the Fish wasn't quite as intimidating as you might think, especially since I knew he couldn't make it back to shore, so I was going for it. “And given that he was a cop and you were . . . in the business you were in, that leads to questions. You don't want to discuss how you knew Detective Ferry? What conclusions should I draw from that?”