Ghost Story

frozen hand in the pocket of his overcoat, and gaped at Don with rubber-faced confusion.

Then, finally, a sign of welcome, a contrast to this guarded examination: one of the beauties, the younger one (a daughter?), wafted toward him a small genuine smile.

The man with silver-white hair who looked to Don as though he should have been in the movies left the other two and sauntered toward Don. 'Are you a friend of John's?' he whispered.

'My name is Don Wanderley,' he whispered back. 'I got a letter from a man named Sears James, and the receptionist in his office said I could find him out here.'

'Hell, you even look a little like Edward.' Lewis grabbed his bicep and squeezed. 'Look, kid, we're having a rough time here, just hang in there and don't say anything until it's all over. You got a place to stay tonight?'

So I joined them, half-meeting, half-avoiding their glances. The woman in the pale blue coat sagged against the challenging-looking woman holding her up: her face worked and she wailed oh no oh no oh no. Crumpled colored tissues lay at her feet, lifting and scampering in the wind that cut into the hollow. Every now and then one of them shot away like a small pastel pheasant and caught in the mesh of the fence. By the time we left there were dozens of them there, flattened out against the wire.

Frederick Hawthorne

4

Ricky had been pleased with Stella. While the three remaining members of the Society had been trying to adjust to the shock of John's death, only Stella had thought of the plight of Milly Sheehan. Sears and Lewis, he supposed, had thought as he had-that Milly would simply live on in John's house. Or that, if the house was too empty for her, she would put up at the Archer Hotel until she decided where to go and what to do. He and Sears knew that she had no financial troubles; they had drawn up the will which left Milly John Jaffrey's house and the contents of his bank accounts. If you added it all together, she had been willed assets of somewhere around two hundred thousand dollars: and if she chose to stay in Milburn, there was more than enough in the bank to pay the real estate taxes and give her a comfortable living. We're lawyers, he said to himself, we think like that. We can't help it; we put the pettifogging first and the people second.

Of course they were thinking of John Jaffrey. The news had come near noon of the day following that in which Ricky's premonitions had reached their height: he had known that something dreadful had happened the moment he recognized the shaky voice on the other end of the line as Milly Sheehan's. 'It's, it's,' she said, her voice trembling and cloudy. 'Mr. Hawthorne…?'

'Yes, it's me, Milly,' he said. 'What's happened?' He pushed the buzzer that communicated to Sears's office and told him to switch on the telephone speaker for his extension. 'What is it, Milly?' he asked, knowing that his voice would be much too loud for Sears, but momentarily unable to speak softly-the speakers, while reproducing the client's voice at a normal volume, tripled the noise made by anyone at the other office extension. 'You're breaking my eardrums,' Sears complained over the line.

'Sorry,' Ricky said. 'Milly, are you there? It's Milly, Sears.'

'So I gathered. Milly, can we help you?'

'Oooo,' she wailed and the back of his neck went cold.

The phone went dead. 'Milly?'

'Pipe down,' Sears commanded.

'Are you there, Milly?'

Ricky heard the telephone clattering against some hard surface.

The next voice was Walt Hardesty's. 'Hey, this is the sheriff. Is this Mr. Hawthorne?'

'Yes. Mr. James is on the other line. What's going on, Walt? Is Milly all right?'

'She's standin' lookin' out the window. What is she anyhow, his wife? I thought she was his wife.'

Sears burst in impatiently, his voice loud as a cannon in Ricky's office. 'She is his housekeeper. Now tell us what is happening out there.'

'Well, she's fallin' apart like a wife. You two are Dr. Jaffrey's lawyers?'

'Yes,' Ricky said.

'Do you know about him yet?'

Both partners were silent. If Sears felt the way Ricky did, his throat was too tight for speech.

'Well, he was a leaper,' Hardesty said. 'Hey, hang on, lady. Sit down or something.'

'HE WAS A WHAT?' Sears bellowed, his voice booming through Ricky's office.

'Well, he took a dive off the bridge this morning. He was a leaper. Lady, calm down and let me talk.'

'The lady's name is Mrs. Sheehan,' Sears said in a more normal voice. 'She might respond better if you called her that. Now since Mrs. Sheehan evidently wished to communicate with us and is unable to do so, please tell us what happened to John Jaffrey.'

'He took a dive off…'

'Be careful. He fell off the bridge? Which bridge?'

'Hell, the bridge over the river, what do you think?'

'What's his condition?'

'Dead as a doornail. What do you think it would be? Say, who's gonna take care of the arrangements and all that? This lady's in no shape…'

'We will,' Ricky said.

'And we might take care of more than that,' Sears uttered furiously. 'Your manner is disgraceful. Your diction is shameful. You are a ninny, Hardesty.'

'Just wait a damned-'

'AND! If you are assuming that Dr. Jaffrey committed suicide, then you are on shaky ground indeed, my friend, and you'd be well advised to keep that assumption to yourself.'

'Omar Norris saw the whole thing,' Hardesty said. 'We need ID before we can get set for the autopsy, so why don't you get over here so we can get off the phone?'

Five seconds after Ricky put down his phone Sears appeared in the doorway, already thrusting his arms into his coat. 'It's not true,' Sears said, pulling on the coat. 'It's some mistake, but let's get over there anyway.'

The telephone buzzed again. 'Don't answer it,' Sears said, but Ricky picked it up. 'Yes?'

'There's a young woman in reception who wants to see you and Mr. James,' said the receptionist.

'Tell her to come back tomorrow, Mrs. Quast. Dr. Jaffrey died this morning, and Mr. James and I are going to his home to meet Walt Hardesty.'

'Why…' Mrs. Quast, who had been on the verge of indiscretion, changed subjects. 'I'm so sorry, Mr. Hawthorne. Do you want me to call Mrs. Hawthorne?'

'Yes, and say I'll be in touch as soon as I can.' By now, Sears was in a rage of impatience, and when Ricky moved around his desk, his partner was already in the hallway, twirling his hat. Ricky grabbed his coat and hurried to catch up.

Together they went down the paneled hall. 'That ponderous, unthinkable oaf,' Sears rumbled. 'As if you could believe Omar Norris on any subject except bourbon and snowplows.'

Ricky stopped short and put his hand on Sears's arm. 'We have to think about this, Sears. John might actually have killed himself.' It still hadn't sunk into him, and he could see that Sears was determined not to let it sink into him. 'He'd never have any reason to go walking on the bridge, and especially not in this weather.'

Sears's face suffused with blood. 'If you think that, you're a ninny too. I don't care if John was birdwatching, he was doing something.' His eyes avoided Ricky's. 'I don't know and can't imagine what, but something. Did he seem suicidal to you last night?'

'No, but…'

'Therefore, let's not wrangle. Let's get over to his house.' He sped down the hall ahead of Ricky and banged open the reception room door with his shoulders. Ricky Hawthorne, hurrying after, came out into the reception room