The Ghost and the Dead Deb

bookstore, I never heard you outside the bookstore—you said you couldn’t leave the bookstore!?”

Ya got me, doll. All I know is I was back there, bored to tears with Ciders’s less than ingenious questioning of freckle-face, thinking about what you’d have to say about it, and suddenly I’m in your head again . . . but this isn’t exactly like the store . . . something’s different . . . I can’t explain it worth a plugged nickel.

“Nickel . . . Jack . . . the buffalo nickel from your files.” I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the dull silver coin, running my thumb along the grooves of the engraved bison. “You must be attached to it somehow . . . either that or you’re still trapped in the store and you’re . . . I don’t know, transmitting through it, like some kind of cosmic cell phone.”

Your chatter sounds crazy to my ears, doll: but then I used to think this whole life-after-death thing was a coffee-and-doughnuts grift. I’d always trucked with Harry Houdini on that score: ghosts were just a carnival racket. I’d say this whole spirit thing was a buffalo, too . . . if it weren’t me who ended up the spirit . . .

I gathered my wits and pulled back on the highway, then quickly turned off again into the paved parking area of the newly built Comfy-Time Motel. The place was part of a national chain of budget lodgings that provided clean, affordable rooms for travelers—just the sort of place you’d find on a highway outside of Anytown, U.S.A., its design and decor exactly the same whether you were standing under the blistering sun of Albuquerque, New Mexico, or the threatening snow clouds of Erie, Pennsylvania.

The white-and-orange-trimmed structure was basically U-shaped with an office at the bottom of the U, breaking the wings in half. There was parking on the outsides of the U, and a large swimming pool tucked between the wings. The model of stark, modern efficiency, the Comfy-Time was the antithesis of the charming and eccentric Queen Anne Victorian that was the Finch Inn, which is why I hoped its existence wouldn’t hurt Fiona and Barney’s business.

I coasted slowly around the lot, squinting at the parked cars in the bright afternoon sun. I counted only seven. That was good news for Fiona and Barney—not many guests—but bad news for me. Most of the cars were American made: a red Buick; two Ford pickups, one green and one blue; a beige Chevy van; and two SUVs, both white. No black Jaguar. The only black car in the lot was an Audi.

“Dead end,” I muttered.

Hey, baby, watch your language.

“No offense. I’m just disappointed there’s no black Jag.”

Doesn’t matter. You’re not done here. That postal worker character, Seymour, said he’d seen Victoria Banks and her friends drive away in a black sedan after last night’s reading. You’ve got a black sedan right in front of you, and now that I’m here, I’m curious. Victoria’s friends might still be checked in.

“But that black Audi might not be their car,” I pointed out.

Only one way to find out, said Jack. Park and ask.

I was a little nervous about doing just that, but I found myself cutting the engine nonetheless. As I swung open the door and stepped onto the hot, gray pavement, I tried to reassure myself that with Jack in my head advising me, I could handle a little snooping.

Don’t worry, baby, cooed Jack. Bracing a couple of coeds will be a piece o’ cake.

“Are you crazy? I’m just going to the office to ask if Victoria Banks and her friends are still checked in. I’m not about to brace anybody.”

We’ll see.

The motel had two stories, with second-floor access via a second-floor walkway that ran completely around the entire structure. The rooms lined both the top and ground floor, and each had an outside door, painted orange, and a tiny window with a white shade. Rooms on the outside of the U faced the paved parking lot and the thick woods beyond. Inside, guests looked out at the pool.

I was about to head for the office when I recognized one of the young women who’d escorted Victoria out of my store last night. The pale woman was obviously coming back from the pool, her flip-flops clip-clapping along the concrete sidewalk under the eaves on the ground floor of the motel. Her curly red hair was wet and slicked back, and a big white motel bath towel modestly circled her hips—though the powder-blue string-bikini top she was wearing left little to the imagination.

You can say that again!

“Be quiet, Jack.”

That legal, what she’s wearing?

“Yes. And I hope she keeps that towel around her hips because I’m betting that bikini has a thong bottom.”

And a thong is?

“Uh . . . let’s just say you’d think it was indecent.”

You don’t say? Well, it looks like I’ve finally come across something I like about your century.

“Excuse me,” I called, hurrying to catch up to the young woman. “Aren’t you a friend of Victoria Banks?”

The girl stopped, key in one hand, the other one grasping a doorknob to room 18. At the sound of my voice, she turned and squinted in my direction.

“Are you . . . calling me?” she asked, eyes unfocused. “I’m not wearing my glasses.”

By then I was at her side. “Yes,” I replied. “I’d like to ask you some questions . . . about Victoria.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can answer them,” was her suddenly guarded reply.

Just then the door to the motel room opened from the inside, and I saw angry dark eyes peering out from the gloomy interior. It was the raven-haired woman with the pierced lip, the one who practically threw me against the wall and called both me and Angel Stark a bitch last night at Buy the Book.

“Who are you and what do you want?” the young woman demanded.

I was glad she didn’t recognize me. But I wasn’t surprised. She’d only glimpsed me for a second the day before, and I had looked much different in my businesslike pantsuit and contact lenses and with my hair in a tight French twist. Today my green eyes were behind black-framed glasses, my shoulder-length auburn hair was down, and my attire of khaki pants and white cotton blouse was much more casual.

“The police were already here, and we told them everything we know,” continued the raven-haired girl.

Come down fast and hard, Jack barked in my head. She’s pushing. You push back. Wedge your body into the room so she can’t shut you out—

“No.” I silently told Jack. “I’ve got an angle. Let’s try it my way.” Then, in a gentle voice, I told the two coeds, “I’m not from the police. I just want to ask a few questions—”

The raven-haired girl cut me off. “Then you must be a reporter. Go away!” She grabbed her friend’s arm, dragged the girl into the motel room, and slammed the door in my face.

I stood there, dumbfounded.

Say, baby . . . your way didn’t exactly work like a charm, did it?

I sighed.

Want some pointers?

I sighed again.

Make like you’re leaving. Get in your car and drive toward the exit.

I did. The end of the motel drive and entrance to the highway was just ahead. “Now what? Forget the interrogation and go for the Spider-Man sheets?”

No. Turn around and drive all the way around the motel, pull up close enough to spy on their door but not so close that they can spot your car.

I followed Jack’s directions. Now what?

Now wait.

“For what?”

For the door to open . . .

I waited five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. It wasn’t all that bad actually. Jack kept me entertained with a long story about a bookie and a call girl. After about twenty minutes of suppressing blushes, I noticed the girls’ motel room door open. The raven-haired coed with the pierced lip strode out in denim shorts and a black tank top. She walked