The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

What if I were wrong, and it wasn’t some cute, furry squirrel making all that racket? What if it was a raving mad, rabid raccoon—with sharp claws and ripping teeth! Or worse, what if the noise was caused by an intruder? A burglar, or worse? And here I was, confronting him alone, without even a weapon.

By this time I spied a sliver of light shining out from under a lavatory door, which didn’t alarm me at first because the switches for those lights weren’t controlled by the master.

Then I heard the sound again. Hearing it in context, this time, I knew what it was. In fact, I heard it twice a week when I removed the aluminum covers from the paper towel dispensers to refill them.

Before I could puzzle out why a squirrel would jump four feet in the air to mess with a paper towel dispenser, the door to the women’s room burst open, blinding me with the explosive glare of fluorescent light.

I yelped, and someone grunted. The dark silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway. The figure lurched forward, and the door closed behind it. Once again the world was plunged into darkness—only now my night vision was a blurry mess of fluorescent afterglow.

A body crashed into me. Fingers gripped my shoulders and held on. With a scream, I tore free of the intruder’s grasp and ran across the darkened room.

“Wait!” a voice cried.

But I wasn’t stopping. Despite my impaired vision, I crossed the room in record time, arms outstretched like Frankenstein’s monster. Finally I stumbled over my own feet and smacked into the wall. Reaching out, my fingers closed on the light switches and I flipped every last one.

The room brightened, and with my vision restored, I turned to face the intruder. “Don’t you come near me or—”

Or what I didn’t know. Fortunately, it didn’t matter.

“Mrs. McClure! It’s me. Josh! Josh Bernstein from Salient House. Shelby Cabot’s assistant!”

“Josh?”

“I’m so embarrassed,” Josh Bernstein said. “I came to the store a little before closing time, just to say hello and see how things were going. But suddenly I felt a little sick . . .”

He rubbed his stomach as if to emphasize the problem.

“I went to the rest room, and I guess I was there a long time. I didn’t realize you had closed the store . . . I guess I’m lucky I wasn’t locked in all night!”

Needless to say, I felt like an idiot. I apologized for reacting so hysterically, and politely offered to make him some tea. He refused, saying he just wanted to return to Finch’s Inn and go to bed.

Privately relieved, I unlocked the door, and he departed.

My heart was still beating fast from the fright as Josh stopped to look at me through the window. When he saw me looking back, he offered a forced sort of half smile before vanishing into the night.

The Salient House publicity assistant seemed just as shaken up as I, and I wanted to dismiss it on face value.

But I couldn’t. “Because his story didn’t explain why he’d come out of the women’s room,” I murmured.

You said it, doll!

My Jack delusion was back. And I was pissed. “Where have you been?” I demanded. “I could have used some company a few minutes ago.”

I was here, baby! Watching the whole time.

“Well, that proves you’re not a real ghost. You can’t be. You didn’t even warn me Josh was in there, and you had to know I was heading his way.”

A gumshoe gets his facts from watching and keeping his mouth shut, not from crying wolf. Anyway, you were in no danger.

“What do you mean? He just used the women’s room mistakenly?”

He didn’t “use” it. He was looking for something.

“Looking for what? Tampax tampons?”

Jack laughed. Thought you didn’t like vulgarity.

“Just spill it!”

Now you’re talking my language, baby. Joshy was tearing the ladies’ can apart on a search. And he found what he was looking for, too—

“What?”

A syringe—hidden right inside the paper towel dispenser. He pocketed it and took off. Seemed to me, he couldn’t get out of here fast enough after he grabbed that needle.

“What was a syringe doing buried in the paper towel dispenser of our women’s room?!”

I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’ll give ya dollars to doughnuts it’s got something to do with murder.

“Brennan’s?”

Who else you know died in this joint—besides me?

“There could be a perfectly innocent reason why the syringe was hidden in there,” I argued.

You don’t say? How many hopheads you got in this burg?

“It could have been used for insulin. One of our customers could have been a diabetic.”

And the reason he or she shoved it deep inside the towel dispenser instead of into the garbage can?

“I don’t know, but—”

No buts. Josh knew what he’d come for. When he’d spotted that syringe, he got the thrills, all right. You’d think he found Veronica Lake naked in his bedroom.

“Please stop with the sexual analogies.”

Why, baby? Too much to handle? Am I giving YOU the thrills? That’s a nice thought.

“What did you say?”

You know what I said. And you know how you feel, hearing my voice in your head.

“Let’s stay on the subject at hand. If you’re really some all-knowing ghost of a private eye, then what happened to Brennan exactly? Was that syringe involved? And what was it doing in my store’s women’s room? Who put it there? And what does Josh want with it?”

Whoa. Put the brakes on, baby, I didn’t witness who gave Brennan the big chill because I happened to be tailing you that night. And I didn’t witness who hid the syringe for the same reason. And as for what Joshy boy wants with it, I can’t tail him beyond your front door, so I don’t know. I can read your thoughts, but in almost all other ways, my powers of observation are about on your level—with the exception that I can remain invisible, of course, and take in a lot more than you, like that tail I ran on Josh when he was searching the little girls’ can. But I can only be one place at a time.

“Forgive me if I remain skeptical.”

I don’t blame you. But I do need you to pay attention to what I’m telling you now. I have a theory—and a lead for you to follow—

“Oh, no you don’t. I’m not doing anything you direct me to until I get a handle on exactly what you are.”

Suit yourself, baby. When I was alive, I was one skeptic Joe myself. “Concrete Jack”—that’s what they used to call me. So if you wanna run your own version of a background check, who am I to complain? Go to it, babe, you have my blessing.

With a dead author, a suspicious State Police investigator, and a hidden syringe in my store over the past twenty-four hours, I was now fairly sure I had a bona fide murder mystery on my hands. And the only one who seemed capable of helping me was a ghost.

Either that or a delusion.

Okay, so the whole “Jack Shepard” matter was a mystery in itself—one I knew I’d better resolve. And fast.

I myself knew next to nothing about ghosts, which meant I needed to consult with experts on the matter— and I needed to do it anonymously. That narrowed my investigative options down to one: