Who Killed the Ghost in the Library: A Ghost writer Mystery (25 page)

Chapter 42 - Monday

We did the whole waking up every hour thing during the night, but thankfully, I didn’t have the nightmare again.
I felt better when I got up around nine. When I went into the living room, Mike was on the phone, talking to Danny. “When did she get the car? I see. Any luck with the local hotels? No, don’t expand the search any further than the local area. I’ll take care of searching the surrounding area. When do you want your truck back? Uh huh…well, swing by and pick up the keys. If I need to go anywhere, I’ll borrow Cam’s car.” He looked at me. “Then again, maybe you better bring me a squad car. And don’t forget the other thing we talked about. Thirty minutes? That’s fine. Alright, Danny, thanks.”

“You’ll borrow my car?” I said as he hung up. “Says who?”

“I could confiscate it under the guise of official police business.”

“More like an official joy ride,” I snorted. “I’ve seen you
looking my car. You’re just dying to take it for a spin.”

“I cannot tell a lie,” he laughed. “You’re right.”

“Hm, I’ll think about it. What did Danny have to say?”

“Somewhere between the Marriott and the Ashton house, Amelia had the driver pull over at a rental car place. He had patrol cars drive out to the house every two hours last night, but there is no sign of a car.
He also checked the local hotels, but she didn’t check into any of them.”

“So she’s disappeared?”

“Or she’s hiding out.”

“From what? From who?”

Mike looked at his watch. “No clue. I going to try for a search warrant to check her credit card records.” He stood up. “I’ve got to take a shower. Danny’s going to be here in thirty minutes to pick up his truck and leave me a patrol car. I’ve got a couple of things I need to do.”

“You mean I’m going to be here unsupervised?” I gasped in mock horror.

“Fat chance, toots,” he laughed. “Someone will be here to relieve me. You’re going to stay here and rest today, no ifs, ands or buts.”

“Who’s coming for this shift?”

“You’ll see,” he said, coming over and giving me a quick kiss. He disappeared down the hall before I could ask any more questions.

Spying
his phone on the coffee table, I slowly leaned over and picked it up. I sent Randy a quick message and asked him to come over in an hour. When Mike came back out, I was reading the L.A. Times on my iPad. “Do you plan to be here for lunch?” I said as he put his black bag by the door.

“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know. Do you want me to bring something over?”

“Oh no, there’s plenty of casserole and guacamole from last night. I’m going to go over our notes, see if there are any clues we missed.”

“I think that’s a good idea. Too many questions and not a lot of answers. We may have the answers and just don’t know,” he said as someone rang the doorbell. Walking over, he opened the door. “It’s so good to see you! Thanks for coming over.”

He stepped back, and Grandma Alma walked in the door with a beautiful new cane. It had butterflies that had been carved and painted. “What are you doing here?” I said as she sat down heavily in my recliner.

“Mike called
me this morning, and asked me to come babysit a very stubborn patient,” she said. “How are you doing?” She looked at the bruises on my arms, which were a lovely dark blue, purple and black, then at the cast on my left arm. “He says you’re covered with bruises all over.”

“I went a few rounds with some rocks and lost,” I told
her.

“Mike said you fell down a well,” Grandma Alma said.

I looked at him, and he shrugged. “Yes, ma’am, I did, but not that far.”

“What were you doing down a well in the first place?” she asked.

“It’s a long story, Grandma.”

“I’ve got plenty of time.
Get your phone and call Walt so we can talk on that speaker doohickey thing.”

I looked helplessly at Mike again, and he just smiled as he picked up his black bag. “Well, it looks like you’re in good hands. I should be back in a couple of hours or so. Now you do what
she tells you to, and don’t give her a hard time.” He was laughing as he left.

“What exactly is going on, Cam?” Walt said
as soon as I called him on the house phone, putting it on speaker. For some reason, whenever Randy says he can’t get a hold of me, he forgets that I have a landline. “Mike wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Amelia Ashton is in town.”

“That’s not surprising,” Grandma said. “She’s always here this time of the year for that board meeting.”

“We saw her at the Ashton house.”

“What was she doing out there?

“Visiting Stanley.”

“Visiting Stanley?” Walt said. “Girl, did you knock a few marbles loose yesterday when you fell? Stanley’s been dead sixty years.”

“But his ghost has been living
, so to speak, in that house all these years,” I replied.

“Everybody always said that house was haunted,” Grandma said, slapping her hand on the arm of the recliner. “I’ll be danged if they weren’t right. How does he look?”

“Pretty good for a dead man,” I admitted, “but he’s an arrogant jerk.”

“Eh, he was that way when he was alive,” she said. “Being dead ain’t gonna change that.”

“Amelia said it was Stanley IV who killed his father.”

“She didn’t,” Grandma said. Walt said nothing.

“Oh yes, she did,” I said. “But he didn’t do it, did he, Walt?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Grandma, Stanley III wasn’t the only one having an affair back then, was he? Amelia was having an affair with Cliff Scott, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, she was. But how did you know?”

“Because someone has been putting money into Cliff’s bank account for the last sixty years, and there’s no way he could’ve afforded the house he was living in on his salary. What happened, Walt?”

“Unlike her husband, Amelia was very discreet. No one knew about her affair with Cliff. After Stanley was killed, Cliff rarely left her side. It made her father suspicious, so he asked her about it just before the funeral. She admitted it
and he went through the roof. But it wasn’t until after Stanley was buried that she told him Stanley IV had killed his father. He knew the publicity would ruin the bank, so he pressured me to say it had been a suicide. I was planning to run for re-election, and Mr. Underwood said he would make sure I never won another election as long as he lived.”

“So Cliff destroyed evidence?”

“Yes.”

“And the Underwoods paid him off.”

“Yes.”

“Did you have definitive proof that it was the son who did it?”

“Amelia said that he confessed to her he did it. He had been searching through his father’s desk for something, and he came across the birth certificate. She said when he confronted his father about it, Stanley III was rather dismissive of his hurt feelings. You know what happened after that.”

“We don’t think he did it, Walt.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s just a theory we’re tossing around. I do have some other news for you, though. Stanley IV is alive and well.”

“Really?” Grandma Alma said.

“And he’s living here in town.”

“You’re joking,” she said.

The doorbell rang, interrupting us. I got up and opened the door. It was Randy and Jo. “Grandma Alma, what are you doing here?” he said, going over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m babysitting Cam,” she said. “I’m supposed to make sure she stays out of trouble.”

“That’s a full-time job. I hope you’re getting paid good money.”

“And who is the nice young lady with you?”

“This is Jolanda Williams,” Randy said. “This is Cam’s Grandma Alma.”

“Pleased to meet you. Most people call me Jo.”

“What brings you two over here?” Grandma Alma said.

“Cam asked us to come over,” Randy said. “She said we had some work to do.”

“Work?” Grandma Alma said, giving me the evil eye. “You’re supposed to be resting, not working.”

“Mike already knows I plan to do some work, Grandma. We’re trying to sort out all the information we have about the case. I just get the feeling that we have the answers, but we’re overlooking them.”

“You mean they’re getting lost in the shuffle, so to speak,”
she said.

“Exactly.”

“I want to go back to what you were saying before they came in,” Grandma Alma interrupted. “You said Stanley IV is living here in town. You were joking about that, right?”

“No, ma’am, I wasn’t. It’s Artie Shatton.”

“The mechanic?” Walt said incredulously. “Holy cow. I didn’t even recognize him.”

I told them about the accident in 1968 that killed Cecilia and severely injured Artie.
As Jo pulled out her laptop and got to work, I mentioned the trust fund and the withdrawals that had happened over the years, including the $500,000. “I think that Artie paid Jake Yarborough to kill Cliff, and now that we know he was involved in a cover-up, I’d say we have the reason why.”

“You need to talk to that little witch that tried to kill me,” Walt said.

“I have a feeling that is on Mike’s list of things to do today,” I assured him. “But there is something that I want to do.”

Randy looked at me. “Oh, no you don’t.”

“What?”

“You’ve got that look on your face that says you’re going to do something stupid.”

“Do I have a look like that?”

“Yes!” he and Grandma Alma said together.

“Amelia’s missing. I just want to find out if Stanley’s seen her in the last twenty-four hours. A quick drive out there and back.”

“Need I remind you of the last quick drive you took out there? You almost died!” Randy said. “No way, no how, ain’t happening, girl. Forget it.”

“You can come with me, Randy,” I replied. “We’ll take my car.”

“You can’t drive with a concussion,” Grandma Alma said.

“Randy can drive my car, and we can leave his car here in case you guys need it. Hand me my bag,” I said to Jo.

She shot a quick look at Randy before she grabbed my bag and gave it to me. I reached into the side pocket where I usually kept my keys, but all I found was a piece of paper.
“Nice try, Cam. You’re staying home whether you like it or not! Mike.”

Randy laughed. “He’s a very smart man.
And don’t ask me again to take you. He called me before we came over here to make sure I wouldn’t let you talk me into anything stupid.”

I dropped the bag on the floor and sat back, pouting.
“Jo, have you had any luck with what I asked you about earlier?”

“I’m working on it right now,” she replied.

“What’s she doing?” Walt said.

“Um, something you probably should deny knowing anything about,” I told him
and hung up.

“Is she hacking into something?” Grandma Alma said excitedly. “Ooh, I want to see how she does it. I need to learn some new skills.”

“You don’t need to learn those kinds of skills, Grandma. Mother would kill me if you were arrested for hacking into some bank.”

“You know how to do that, Jo?” she said.

“No, she doesn’t, do you, Jo?”

“Of course not,” Jo said adamantly. “That’s highly illegal.”

Grandma Alma shook her head at me. “You’re turning into a big old party pooper like your mother.”

I decided the best thing to do was to distract Grandma Alma, so I suggested a poker game, and
she jumped at the chance. We moved into the kitchen to play while Randy and Jo continued their work. “By the way, what did Mom say when you told her you were coming over here?” Grandma muttered something. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said she doesn’t know I’m here.”

“How does she not know? She would’ve had to give her permission for you to leave.”

“
I sort of…snuck out.”

I shook my head. “And Mike arranged all this?”

“I told him I would ask your mother about it, and to have someone pick me up out front.”

“And how did you get past Big Bertha at the front desk?”

“Godiva chocolate,” she replied. “Walt won a big box of it at a bingo game the other night.”

“Oh my god, you are incorrigible! Randy, get in here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Take the geriatric jail breaker back to the nursing home.
She bribed Bertha and went AWOL. If Mother finds out, she’ll have a cow.”

“Way to go, Grandma Alma,” Randy said, giving her a high five. I glared at him. “Well, it was pretty cool, Cam.
She’ll become a legend at the nursing home.”

“You really think so, Randy?” Grandma Alma said as Randy helped her to her feet.

“Shoot, yeah. But they’re probably going to watch you like a hawk after this,” he replied, leading her into the living room. I followed behind them. “I’ll be back in a little while, Jo. I’ve got to take the lawbreaker here back to the hoosegow.”