The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks (3 page)

Perry was trying to work out a timetable. There was no way anyone could have

entered the house from the outside, or if already inside, use the main staircase without coming into view of the tenants crowded in the lobby. That meant that whoever had moved the body must have still been on the third floor during the time between Perry’s flight and Nick’s trip upstairs. Maybe the intruder had been in Perry’s rooms when Perry found the body. Maybe he had been watching from behind the door the whole time.

It was an unsettling idea. “The body must be hidden somewhere on the third floor,”

Perry told them.

Jane quit tapping her carmine nails on her cup and stared.

“Where? My rooms?” Reno suggested dryly.

Perry’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the notion. That was the most obvious explanation: there was no body because Reno had carted it off to his own rooms. He had been outside when Perry came downstairs. Could that mean anything?

The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

11

Watching him add it up, Reno commented, “You’ve got a hell of an imagination, kid.”

And strangely enough, Perry was reassured.

“Maybe it went down the laundry chute. The corpse, I mean.” Jane handed round the plate of wreath-shaped cement cookies.

Nick declined cookies with a shake of his head. “Describe this dead man to me,” he ordered.

Perry thought hard. “He was about fifty, heavy-set. He needed a shave. His hair was reddish, like he dyed it. He was wearing a yellow and brown checked sports coat and mustard-colored socks. He had a hole in his left shoe.”

Nick went on alert. “What kind of shoe?”

“A brown loafer.”

“You’re sure there was a hole in the left sole?”

Perry nodded, then gripped by sudden memory said, “He had bushy hair in his nostrils and a mole on his chin.”

“More than I needed to know,” Jane murmured.

A heavy hand pounded on the front door and she jumped. Perry faded to the color of one of the corpses in his tough guy novels. “It’s the police,” he got out.

“No kidding. We called them, remember?” Since the other two seemed paralyzed, Nick rose and opened the door to the deputies.

Tired and grim, the two officers of the law regarded them.

“I feel I gotta ask. Were you folks drinking this evening?” questioned the senior partner. In his rain slicker and hat, he strongly resembled the Gorton Fisherman -- after hauling up an empty net.

“We had a little snort for medicinal purposes,” Jane volunteered over Perry’s indignant protest. “We weren’t together all evening, so I can’t say beyond that.” She stretched comfortably, and the deputies’ gazes trained on her gaping neckline.

The Gorton Fisherman harrumphed. “There’s nobody upstairs. No body.”

“I told you that much,” Nick said. “What about the blood?”

“Who says it was blood? Could have been…mud.”

“You seen a lot of blood?” the second deputy sheriff queried. He was younger and seemed a little more pugnacious about being dragged out on a wild-goose chase.

“Enough.”

Perry said, “What about the scuff marks?”

“Scuff marks don’t mean diddly,” said the deputy. “And I didn’t see any mud.” He glanced at his partner. “Did you see any mud?”

“Nope. That tub was clean as a whistle. Like someone just scrubbed it down.”

12 Josh Lanyon

“What does that tell you?” Jane put in.

The older man eyed her calmly. “That someone just scrubbed it down.” His dark eyes rested for a moment on the brandy bottle in the midst of the coffee table clutter.

Perry insisted, “There was a dead man in my bathtub. He didn’t get there by accident.”

“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” the sheriff said. “Maybe he was a vagrant, and he left after you found him.”

There were so many holes in that theory, Perry didn’t know where to start. He protested, “My apartment was locked. How could he have got in?”

“How would a dead man get in? A vagrant would have a better chance of breaking in than a dead man.”

Inescapable logic. Still Perry persisted. “But he was dead. Someone brought him in and took him away again so you wouldn’t believe me.”

“It didn’t take that,” the deputy said. The older officer gave him a reproving look.

“Listen,” Reno said. “I didn’t believe in that dead body myself, but I saw a streak of something in that tub that sure as hell appeared to be blood to me. And there were black marks, probably scuff marks, on the floor tiles. Also, Foster said the dead man was wearing a shoe with a hole in the sole. I found that shoe. I left it on the windowsill.”

“We didn’t see any shoe with a hole in it.”

“Did you check the bedroom?”

“Sure. We weren’t looking for footwear specifically.”

“Did you see the shoe on the windowsill?”

The deputies exchanged doubtful looks.

“I didn’t see any shoe,” said the Gorton Fisherman. “You want to check for yourself,”

he added, “be my guest.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jane said. She smothered a yawn and said to no one in particular, “Gentlemen, I hate to be a party pooper, but I need my beauty sleep.” She made a lazy shooing motion, and the minions of the law obediently retreated further into the hall.

“You’re damn right I’ll see for myself,” Perry said, rising. But he couldn’t help checking to see if Nick was along for the ride.

Nick was on board all right. He marched up the stairs, kid and cops trailing, and let himself into the Foster boy’s apartment for the second time that evening.

Perry followed him in, staring around the rooms like he’d never seen them before. The night was taking on a hallucinatory quality. Granted, he was somewhat sleep deprived. He stared at his suitcase in the middle of the floor. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had walked out of Marcel’s wood-framed Victorian and caught the plane back to Vermont.

He trailed Nick into the bathroom. Sure enough, the tub was empty -- and sparkling clean.

The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

13

Nick ran his fingers along the rim. “Damp,” he commented. Perry stared at him. The deputies crowding the doorway also stared at him.

Pushing through them Nick headed toward the bedroom, zeroing in on the windowsill.

A shoe stood in plain sight on the ledge. It was black, small -- maybe a size 9 -- in good shape.

A muscle clenched in Nick’s jaw as he examined the loafer. “This isn’t the shoe.”

“See for yourself, buddy. It’s the only shoe here.”

Nick tossed the shoe to Perry, who caught it and swallowed. “This is my shoe,” he said as though he feared his shoe was guilty of some misdemeanor.

“Yep, that’s what we figured.”

“I thought you didn’t notice any shoes?” Reno retorted.

“We didn’t notice any suspicious shoes.”

“Shut up, Abe,” the older deputy muttered.

Nick started to speak, then bit it back. This was a losing proposition. The cops had made up their minds about twenty minutes earlier; that was plain.

He glanced at the kid, and it was obvious that Foster knew it was all over, although he was gazing at Nick expectantly. Why? What did he imagine Nick could do about this? Even if Nick wanted to do something about it.

He stared back, and the kid looked away, gritting his jaw. His hands were shaking and he shoved them into his pockets.

The deputies took their leave.

“We’ll say good night, folks. Keep safe.” The senior officer, last out the door, tipped the brim of his rain-spattered hat.

Nick caught the door before it closed on their heels. He glanced back at Perry Foster.

The kid was focused on the tub framed in the bathroom doorway.

The underbreath comments of the deputies died away with the sound of their boots on the staircase.

Situation defused, Nick thought. Rack time at last. “I guess that’s it,” he said. “I guess I’ll say good night too.”

Foster’s head jerked his way. “You’re going?”

“Yeah.” Nick was elaborately casual in response to the note he didn’t want to hear in Foster’s voice. “It’s all clear here.”

Foster was a frail-looking kid. He lived on his own and presumably held a job, so he couldn’t be fourteen, though that’s how old he looked. His wrists were thin, and bony knees poked out of the holes of his fashionably ripped Levi’s. There were blue veins beneath the pale skin of his hands. Nick thought of the Froot Loops cereal and the asthma chart on the refrigerator.

14 Josh Lanyon

Hell.

“Thanks,” Foster managed huskily. “I know you probably think I’m psycho too, so I appreciate your helping me.”

“I don’t think you’re psycho.” Actually he had no idea if the kid was psycho or not. “I think you saw something. But whatever it was, it’s gone now. It’s over.”

Nick thought of the shoe with the hole in it; he should have noticed right away it was too big for a pup the size of Foster. Someone had switched that shoe after Nick left. Someone had swabbed down the tub and the floor. Someone had balls of steel. But it was not Nick’s problem. It was not his job to save the world. Not anymore.

“Yeah, well…” The kid managed one unconvincing smile. “Maybe I can get a hotel room in town.” He picked up his suitcase. “I don’t want to stay here tonight.”

Nick’s nod was curt. Great idea. Best idea yet. Except… A gust of wind shook the house. The lights flickered. From across the room, Reno heard Foster give a soft gasp. His eyes looked enormous. Like Bambi after his mom bought it in the woods.

It was a dark and lousy night. Not a night to be out driving if you didn’t have to. The radio crackled with weather advisories. Anyway, what kind of bastard would send an asthmatic kid out in a rainstorm?

“Hell,” he growled. “You can stay with me tonight.”

There was that wash of color in the pointed face. “I don’t want to be any trouble,”

Foster said hopefully.

Nick snorted.

The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks

15

“You were a marine?” Perry tried to make polite conversation while sizing up Nick Reno’s apartment.

The tower apartments were small and secluded and mirrored each other. In both, the main room stepped up into a round dining alcove with two diamond-paned windows. From outside, the rounded rooms looked like small towers. They gave the rambling old house a vaguely gothic look. Otherwise, the place was unremarkable, especially now that most of the internal architecture had been gutted to accommodate apartments. Nick’s place had a long, narrow kitchen facing the woods. Perry’s overlooked the overgrown and mostly dead garden.

It didn’t matter because his rooms were just a place to paint. It didn’t look like Nick spent a lot more time in his. He had two bedrooms (the one Perry could see into had been turned into a weight room) and a bathroom. There was little furniture and few personal effects.

Reno slid the deadbolt home and answered shortly, “Navy SEAL.”

“Let the journey begin.”

Nick gave him that hard look that Perry was beginning to recognize, and Perry explained, “On the TV commercials. Let the journey begin. Like, It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure. The marines slogan, you know.”

Apparently Nick did not know. He disappeared into the kitchen.

Feeling rebuffed, Perry turned back to the front room. The walls were bare except for one painting, a giant seascape. It hung over the fireplace. Gray-blue waves beneath lowering skies. Perry liked it. There were no other pictures. None. The walls were institutional white.

There was a short blue couch, where he’d be spending the night. A standing light was positioned over the sofa. A small coffee table stood before it. That was it for the furniture.

None of it revealed anything of Reno’s personality unless absence of furniture revealed something.

16 Josh Lanyon

“You want a beer?”

Perry set down his suitcase and followed Nick’s voice to the kitchen. The kitchen was immaculate. An old-fashioned fridge hummed senilely to itself. The gas range looked like an antique. The clock on the wall indicated that it was after midnight, and Perry realized just how tired he was.

Nick stood at the sink chugging down a beer. Coming up for air, he said, “Help yourself.”

Perry opened his mouth to decline, but he saw the glint in Nick’s eyes, the look that said he expected Perry to be a finicky little candy-ass who didn’t drink beer at midnight.

“Thanks,” he said and opened the fridge. He expected it to be empty of anything but alcoholic beverages and health supplements. Wrong. The metal racks were stuffed with food.

Milk, eggs, bread, and meat wrapped in white butcher’s paper. Vegetables pressed up against the crisper pans like damp noses.

Perry found a beer -- good imported ale -- and tried to twist off the top.

Nick inhaled his own beer and spit it out coughing over the sink. He was laughing, not very kindly. Perry rubbed his hand on his jeans.

“You need a bottle opener,” Nick informed him, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

Defensively, Perry muttered, “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Nick passed the bottle opener. “How old are you? You’re over twenty-one, right?”

“I’m twenty-three.”

The dark eyebrows rose skeptically. Nick looked about thirty. He had smooth olive skin and short, dark hair. And those navy blue eyes. He was very good-looking in a stern no trespassing way. About the same height as Perry, but built for action. Key word: muscles.

Perry swallowed a mouthful of beer, the faint skunky taste marking it an import.

He couldn’t decide if he liked Nick Reno, but he felt safe with him. He couldn’t imagine anything happening that Nick Reno couldn’t handle.

Nick left the kitchen and disappeared down the hall. Perry drank some more beer.

Pinpricks of rain against the ink black windows had a mournful sound. He remembered that just a few hours ago he had been in San Francisco. He couldn’t handle that memory now. Not with dead men appearing and disappearing like the middle reel of a slasher movie.

He swallowed another musky mouthful of beer.

“How long have you lived here?” Nick’s voice inquired from the other room.

“A year next month.”