federal agent named Amos Anderson, and one day he set up a meeting with a dealer at one of the Prentice Avenue piers. It was February, and the wind was blowing so bad across the pier the seagulls were flying backward. We stood there waiting, and after a while a big black limo pulled up and four people got out. Three kneebreakers and a suit, and as soon as I saw them I started to sweat. We were out there on this godforsaken pier with no place to go, and my knees were knocking together so bad you could hear them in Hoboken.
“The man in the suit walked right up to us, holding his hat on his head with both hands. ‘Windy,’ he shouted to us. ‘Yeah,’ we answered. ‘Lonely out here on a Sunday.’ ”
Stephanie gave her head a disbelieving shake. “No kidding. Who else but two crazy cops would be standing on a deserted pier in gale-force winds with a chill factor of twenty below?
“So the guy looked at Amos and said, ‘I understand you want to buy.’ Amos was such a pro. He came from Miami, and he’d been through this a hundred times. He just shrugged and said, maybe. They started talking, and in the middle of the transaction, the man turned to me, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ It was the first time I’d ever known absolute, total terror. I heard an overcoat rustle open, and the guy behind me put a gun to my head… right here.”
She pointed to a spot just to the side of her temple and realized her hand was shaking and thought it would probably shake for the rest of her life, every time she told this story. “I swear, my heart was pounding so loud it drowned out all other sounds. I was so scared, I was dizzy, and the next thing I knew, I was flying through the air and sinking like a stone in the river. I came up next to the cement pilings, and by the time I got myself to shore, there must have been forty agents on the pier.
“Thank heaven Amos had been smart enough to pre-position backups. When everything started going wrong, he managed to knock the gun away from my head. People tell me he picked me up and threw me into the river like a Frisbee. I’d be dead if he hadn’t.”
“How’d they find out you were a cop?”
“One of the other women working under-cover was setting up her own retirement plan, compliments of the mob. She’d provided them with photographs of all the narcs and all the undercover people, and this guy suddenly recognized me.”
She was amazed at how easy it had been to retell the story. A few weeks ago she could hardly bear to think about it. She’d crammed a lot of personal growth into a few weeks. Because of Ivan, she thought. It seemed as if she’d known him all her life. He’d given her other things to think about besides death and stupidity.
“I stayed with the case until we wrapped it up, but I’d changed. Somewhere between the pier and the river, my love affair with law enforcement died a quick death. I asked myself, did I want to spend the rest of my life getting tossed into the Hudson River? And the answer was no.
“Looking back, I think I was just burned out. I was tired of being submerged in an adolescent world. I was becoming jaded by the easy access and the acceptance of drugs. It was starting to seem too normal to me. When I was standing on that pier with a gun at my head, I should have been outraged, but I wasn’t. I was just plain scared. Somewhere along the line I’d stopped being a tough idealist.”
Ivan took the empty cup from her and screwed it back onto the thermos. “I don’t think so. If you’d really stopped being a tough idealist, you wouldn’t care that you’d stopped. You just needed a vacation. Maybe your views on life were adjusting to meet more realistic expectations. That happens as we get older,” he said, smiling.
“Did that happen to you?”
“To some extent. I have a better sense of my limitations. That doesn’t mean I always live within them,” he added ruefully.
Stephanie caught a flash of movement at the top of the house and put a silencing hand on Ivan’s arm. “The cupola,” she whispered. Someone was up there, moving onto the widow’s walk. No moon. No stars. Nature wasn’t helping out, Stephanie thought, straining to see. A second form appeared. It stood ramrod straight, and Stephanie shivered. “Tell me that’s not a body bag.”
Ivan only grunted. It was obviously a body bag, and it was filled with a body. A big, stiff, dead body.
The black plastic body bag was lowered by rope down the sloping roof and dangled at the second-story level for a minute before being cut loose. It hit the ground with a sickening thud that made Stephanie and Ivan recoil in horror. They waited a moment while the person on the widow’s walk retreated, then they ran to the inert form lying on the ground. Ivan partially unzipped the bag.
“It’s the old guy in the gray suit.” He zipped the bag back up and pulled Stephanie across the lawn, back to the spruce tree, where they flopped on the ground, panting.
Stephanie gasped for air. “Do you think anyone saw us?”
“Only the guy in the body bag, and he looked as though he could keep a secret.”
The back door opened and a dark figure emerged. It went directly to the bag, covered it with leaves, and scuttled back into the house.
“That’s why I could never find him,” Ivan said. “They’ve been pitching him out windows and off roofs and covering him with leaves. I never thought to look under that huge pile of leaves.”
“This is disgusting. What kind of a person are we dealing with? Someone who throws bodies off roofs?”
There was the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Headlights briefly flashed on the carriage house that had been converted into a garage, then were extinguished. A battered pickup truck crept along in the dark and stopped. Stephanie caught her breath when Melody got out of the pickup, lowered the tail-gate, took a carton from the back of the truck, and carefully carried it into the house.
“This is really strange,” Stephanie said. “I haven’t any idea what’s going on. I can’t even begin to guess.”
“You think we should go in and find out?”
She shook her head. “Let’s stay here a while longer. See what happens next.”
Half an hour later, lights flashed on in all the upstairs rooms. Doors slammed, windows were thrown open. Lights appeared in the downstairs rooms, and people began pouring out. Stephanie and Ivan left their cover to investigate.
Mr. Billings reeled off the front porch. “Man, what a stench. I’ve been at lots of ghost sightings, but I’ve never smelled anything like this.”
“It’s a ghost from hell,” Melody said.
Mr. Billings buttoned his overcoat over his pajamas. “Nothing could get me to go back in there.”
“But Mr. Billings,” Melody said, “your clothes are in there. You’re paid up for the night.”
“I don’t care if I’m paid up for the year. Here’s my address. Send my clothes UPS.”
Two cars pulled out of the side yard parking area and disappeared down the street.
Melody smiled at the departing cars. “Gee, what a shame, everyone’s leaving.”
The heavyset woman in the shawl stood on the sidewalk and looked at the house. “This happen often?”
“Yeah,” Melody said. “Sometimes it smells like this all winter. You get used to it.”
The woman sniffed her shawl. “It’s in my clothes.”
“If you let them air out for a couple weeks, they should be okay,” Melody told her. “It’s the slime stains that don’t come out. You were lucky you weren’t slimed. Well, I think the worst of it’s over. We can all go back to sleep now.”
The woman pressed her lips together. “Are you crazy? I’m not going back in there.”
Melody put her arm around the woman. “Don’t worry about the slime. It almost always comes before the smell.”
“I don’t think this house is haunted. I think it’s possessed. And I think you’re one step away from the funny farm.”
Melody narrowed her eyes. “No need to get personal about this.”
The woman picked up her suitcase and turned on her heel. “I’m leaving. And I’m not paying for my room.”
“Fine,” Melody said. “You don’t like rude ghosts? That’s okay by me. I understand. Sorry this didn’t work out for you.”
Lucy was on the front lawn, fanning the air around her. “Ghost from hell?”
“I couldn’t stand those people a second longer,” Melody said. “They were so boring.”
Stephanie kept her distance from the house. “According to my calculations, we haven’t a single guest left.”
“With friends like Melody, you don’t need enemies,” Ivan whispered.
“So, you think Melody’s responsible for this?”
