The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

“Why, Jack,” I whispered in my thoughts, “I didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word ‘existential.’ ”

Don’t crack wise with me, doll, I can scare this room into next week.

“Rule number one: Don’t haunt the customers.”

Nix to your rules. And anyway, what’s the scoop on Peanut Girl these days?

“The last I’d read of her, she’d hired a high-priced New York City criminal defense attorney. And according to Gossip magazine, the attorney is planning a lovesick twist on the infamous “Twinkie defense” that got off Harvey Milk’s killer—”

Back up, babe. What’s a Twinkie? And who the hell’s Harvey Milk?

“I’ll tell you later. Just trust me that it’s a stretch. The attorney wants to argue that Shelby couldn’t help killing Brennan because she’d been driven temporarily insane by loss of love.”

You buy that?

“Which part?”

The defense’s strategy.

“I don’t know. Sounds like a cheap rumor to me. Then again, I’ve certainly heard of stranger things under the sun. Namely you.”

Gee, thanks.

“But the bottom line is, although juries in this country sometimes do deliberate irrationally—they seldom do it in the commonsense state of Rhode Island. So, frankly, I’m glad I’m not in her shoes.”

Close call, that one. You almost were. But Shelby made a mistake—the kind of mistake only an uptown girl would make.

“What’s that?”

Shelby thought she was in a town packed with hicks and rubes. A bunch of bumpkins not sophisticated enough to catch on to her slick act. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Small-town folks are just like big-city slickers—some are dumb and some are smart. What’s different about the big city and the tiny town ain’t the size of the burg, it’s the anonymity. No one knows anybody in Big-town, so anything goes. In Sticksville, folks know the lay of the land and they know their neighbors. Not much gets past them.

“Well, it wasn’t fun times for this hick, I can tell you. I got the impression you rather liked the excitement, though. Remind you of the old days, did it?”

There was no answer to that, and I sensed Jack receding. He did that from time to time, on a whim. What was I going to do about it, search the databases for a book on teaching your ghost manners?

Frankly, I’d take on all the ghosts in Rhode Island before I’d want to see Shelby Cabot’s stone-cold eyes again. What really sent the shivers through me was the realization that Shelby never thought what she’d done was wrong. She’d gotten so used to rationalizing unethical behavior in the name of big-time business for the “biggest publishing company of fiction in the English-speaking world” that murder just became one more tool in her box of tactical tricks.

It was that realization more than anything that made me feel differently about leaving those hard-nosed city offices behind. I used to feel bad—like I’d failed somehow. But now that I’d faced down the monster that environment had helped produce, I realized how lucky I was to escape. I mean, this woman didn’t think twice about committing murder—while I drew the line at being rude to people. Sorry, but one of these things is just not like the other.

Hey, dollface.

“What, Jack?”

What the hell were you thinking, letting this riffraff in, anyway? Take a good look, would you? What a pack of lowlifes, skirt-chasers, and miscreants—reminds me of reform school.

“Rule number two: Don’t insult the customers. They’re what’s keeping this life raft afloat. And you know very well that it wouldn’t be half as much fun to haunt a vacant building. Or worse, a hardware store.”

Sometimes I wonder why the hell I’m haunting anything at all.

That was a subject I had actually taken seriously over the past four weeks: finding the reason Jack was trapped here in the first place. I’d been reading books, hitting the Wendell University chat room, visiting the library. In the process, I’d made a few deductions.

“Your own murder is still unsolved,” I silently told him. “That’s my best guess. But whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re here. You know that, Jack. Don’t you?”

The moment passed with no response.

“Listen,” I silently continued, “since I have one murder case under my belt, maybe I can take on another— yours. We worked so well together—”

You listen to me, doll. You were good, but you were lucky. Getting yourself out of trouble with detective work is one thing. Getting yourself into it for no good reason is something different.

“It’s not no good reason. You could be trapped here because of it.”

The men who murdered me weren’t playing. And I won’t have you getting anywhere near that case. As far as detective work goes, you’re still a rank amateur. I can solve the mystery of my own demise solo.

“But in your current condition, don’t you think there might be a distinct advantage to having a partner who’s actually alive? One who can leave the building?”

Jack was quiet for so long I wondered if he finally did leave the building.

“Come on, Jack,” I mentally pleaded, “don’t give me the brush. I’m on the level here. With your brains and my—”

Legs, sweetheart. What you’ve got and I don’t is legs.

“Okay, with your brains and my . . . gams, I think we can go far.”

The silence felt long and empty as I waited for his reply.

All right, he said at last. But only because you ain’t hard to look at, and you’re learning the lingo, too. But get wise to one thing, kid—you’re working the charm school stuff. Leave the hard thinking to me.

My smile was so wide even Brainert noticed.

“Pen, whatever are you grinning about?” he asked.

“Nothing really,” I answered with a shrug. “The ghost of a thought . . .”

JACK NEVER DID like crowds, or blowhard scribblers, so with one last tantalizing breeze around Penelope’s perfumed skin and copper curls, he rose up through the first-floor ceiling and into the second-floor air.

Near the window in Penelope’s bedroom, the night wind brought him the scent of salt. He could almost see the gale whipping up waves, lashing boats and rocks. The sweet summer air was gone, replaced with the stink of dying leaves, the acrid smell of fires burning all over town.

Life, then death, thought Jack. Death, then life. And the wheel keeps turning.

Laughter and applause leaked up from downstairs. Jack was surprised to find he could actually take some pleasure from it—only because he knew Penelope was part of it, too. Yeah, thought Jack, maybe this cornball town wasn’t so bad after all.

“I’ll see you in your dreams, baby,” whispered the ghost. Then he faded temporarily away, back into the old fieldstone wall that had become his tomb.

Don’t miss the second charming mystery in the Haunted Bookshop series.

Coming in December 2004!

Rule number one: don’t haunt the customers. Buy the Book’s owner Penelope Thornton-McClure has laid down the law for her resident ghost—a hard-boiled private eye named Jack Shepard, who was shot dead in her store fifty years ago. “Don’t scare away the customers!” But Jack’s not resting in peace when a parade of angst-ridden teens in cut-off t-shirts and baggy jeans flock to Pen’s store to meet their latest poster child for Prozac. Angel Stark had been best friends with a young murdered heiress, and she’s written an instant book billed as “true crime.” Her story recounts the night debutante Bethany Banks disappeared from a charity ball,