The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks Read online

  He glanced at Foster who was carrying his suitcase out of the bedroom. “Son, do you think I might have a word with you in private?”

  “Uh, sure.” Foster glanced uncertainly at Nick.

  Nick said, “I’ll be down the hall.”

  He was shaking his head as he walked back to his rooms, wondering what the hell he’d let himself in for.

  * * * * *

  Mr. Teagle cleared his throat and said, “Sit down for a minute, son.”

  Perry sat down. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but he didn’t know how to head it off without being rude or hurting the old man’s feelings. Mr. Teagle had always been kind to him, though he was kind of a pain in the butt, checking out Perry’s mail and dropping by to scope out Perry’s visitors — not that Perry had many visitors.

  “Son, you know I don’t like to pry. It’s only…Fox Run is a small town, and despite what some legislators might think, Vermont is a conservative state. You’ve always been discreet about your friends, which is wise. Very wise.”

  “It’s not like you think,” Perry objected stiffly. “Nick’s just offering me a place to stay while I figure out what to do.”

  “You know how these things look, Perry. People will talk, and that kind of talk could do you a lot of harm.”

  Perry said, “Mr. Teagle, Nick isn’t even gay. He’s just…being kind.”

  Mr. Teagle winced at the G word, and said kindly, “Who’s going to believe that, son?”

  “Well, that’s their problem,” Perry said finally, politely.

  “Now I’m not trying to tell you what to do, although I’ve lived a lot longer than you, and I know just how mean and spiteful folks can be. I think you should be very careful about making any decisions right away.”

  “I can’t stay here,” Perry said flatly. “There was a dead body in my apartment.”

  “You’re a sensitive boy,” Mr. Teagle admitted. “Are you sure you’re not letting your imagination run away with you?” His rheumy brown eyes studied Perry.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Of course, it’s up to you.”

  “It is, yeah.”

  Mr. Teagle mopped his suddenly sweaty face with a handkerchief. “I think mebbe I’ll go lie down; this traveling takes it out of me. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  He looked the color of wallpaper glue, and Perry said, “Are you all right? Do you need help getting downstairs?”

  “No, no. Promise me at least you’ll think about what I’ve said. If you need a place to stay, my door is always open.”

  The old man rose and lumbered out. Perry followed him into the hall, locking the door. He waited until Mr. Teagle had disappeared down the staircase before heading straight for Nick’s apartment.

  He knocked on the half-open door, and Nick called from inside, “It’s open.”

  Perry walked in. “Did you mean what you said about staying here, or should I go talk to Mrs. Mac now?”

  Nick’s face twisted. “I figured you didn’t want to be roomies with the old coot. If MacQueen won’t let you take the Watson place, you can bunk here till you figure out what to do. But don’t worry. MacQueen will let you move in there; she’s got a legal obligation to make sure her tenants are safe.”

  Perry concealed his disappointment. He didn’t want to stay in Watson’s apartment surrounded by a dead man’s belongings; he wanted to stay with Nick, who came off so hard and cold, but who was unexpectedly kind.

  They walked down to the lobby, and Perry knocked on MacQueen’s door. From inside came the never-ending accompaniment of TV.

  They waited.

  Nick pounded loudly on the door. Down the hall, Miss Dembecki’s door opened a crack and then closed again hastily.

  “Maybe she’s not here,” Nick said.

  “She’s always here.”

  At the sound of a sliding bolt, Perry stepped back hastily. A gust of cigarette smoke and stale air escaped the vacuum, followed by a little dog so fat it could hardly waddle its frantic escape. Perry coughed nervously and glanced apologetically at Nick.

  “Get that mutt!” Mrs. MacQueen’s voice grated from inside the cloud of cigarette smoke.

  Nick bent and grabbed the dog; its overlong nails skittered on the wood floor. He slid it back into the room like he was sliding a mug down a tap rail.

  Mrs. MacQueen appeared in the mist, cigarette wagging in her pudgy face. “What is it now?”

  Perry explained what it was now.

  Mrs. MacQueen looked from one man to the other. Her expression grew, if possible, more unpleasant.

  “You can’t be serious, Mr. Foster,” she said. She glanced at Nick as though wondering what he had to do with this sudden insurgency. “That room is already rented out.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Nick said. “Your tenant is dead.”

  “His possessions are still there. We haven’t been able to arrange matters with his…er…heirs yet.”

  We? Her and the dogs?

  “I’m not going to mess with his stuff,” Perry said. “I just want to stay someplace where no one can break in any moment. Someone’s been in my apartment twice.”

  Mrs. MacQueen cackled, “Twice! Now it’s twice!” She shook her head. “Sorry, sonny, you can tell Tiny you want the locks changed on your place. I’ll go that far.”

  “I’m not sure they’re coming through the door.” Perry heard himself and turned pink, but he stood his ground.

  Mrs. MacQueen glowered at Nick. “Did you put him up to this?”

  “Look, ma’am,” Nick said, “I’m not the imaginative type, and I saw enough to convince me someone is getting into Foster’s rooms.”

  “That ain’t here nor there,” Mrs. MacQueen said. “The Watson apartment is a bigger place. It costs another hundred dollars a month.”

  Perry’s heart began to pound hard, shaking his thin frame. He said, “There’s such a thing as renter’s rights, Mrs. MacQueen. If you can’t provide adequate security, I can break my lease. Then you’ll be out my rent and Mr. Watson’s rent.”

  “I’ll sue you,” Mrs. MacQueen threatened.

  “I’ll sue you back. And I’ll win. People have been in my rooms. Twice. At least. Mr. Reno is a witness to that. And if you do take me to court, I’ll sue you for damages too.”

  “I’ve seen screwier cases than this win in court,” Nick supplied dryly.

  MacQueen’s eyes darted from one to the other of them as she thought this over. The dogs were scratching at the bottom of the half-closed door, their tiny paws flashing in and out from under the door.

  “Okay, whatever. It’s your choice,” Perry said, turning away.

  “Now wait a minute,” Mrs. MacQueen protested. “Don’t be so hasty. Young folks are always so hasty. I didn’t say you couldn’t rent Watson’s. I said it was more than your rooms, but it’s paid through the end of the month, so you could stay there, and maybe these matters will clear themselves up by then.”

  Battle over. Perry was all riled up and nowhere to go. He felt almost let down as he stared at her.

  “But if there are any problems, if the…er…heirs claim anything’s missing, it’ll be on your head, sonny.”

  “Great,” Nick said. “That’s settled. Come on, Foster.”

  MacQueen’s door slammed shut so hard the chandelier high above them chinked like broken glass. But then like most things around there, it didn’t work anyway and hadn’t for years. Nick strode off toward the grand staircase.

  “I can’t believe it was that easy,” Perry admitted to Nick’s wide shoulders.

  “You amaze me, sonny,” Nick threw back.

  They started up the stairs and he said briskly, “We’ll get you settled in, and then we’ll go talk to Tiny.” He was feeling more cheerful. He could stow the kid in a safe environment, and then get back to his own problems, like the fact he couldn’t get a damn job because he was “overqualified.”

  They rounded the banister on the second landing, and Nick stopped s
hort. Perry reached out to steady himself, touching muscles that felt like rocks beneath Nick’s flannel shirt.

  David Center stood before them, tall and thin in a purple dressing gown. Nick didn’t think highly of men who drifted around in purple dressing gowns, although in that house nothing was surprising.

  “So you’ve seen him,” Center announced.

  Nick was crisp. “Seen who?”

  “The ghost of Witch Hollow.”

  Chapter Four

  “And which hollow would that be?” inquired Nick.

  Center ignored this. “Contact with the supernatural can be an alarming experience if you’re not prepared. The first time I —”

  Nick opened his mouth, but catching his expression, Perry forestalled him by saying apologetically, “I don’t think what I saw was a ghost.”

  In Nick’s opinion, the kid seemed to spend a lot of time making excuses for other people’s lunatic expectations.

  “But of course it was a ghost!” exclaimed Center, turning in the direction of Perry’s voice. “You don’t truly believe one of the living dead appeared and disappeared in your tub?”

  Speaking of one of the living dead…Center looked like the villain in a 1940s movie. Pencil thin mustache and hair black and smooth as a raven’s wing. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Everything about him bugged Nick — and that was just on general principles.

  “When you put it like that, a ghost does make more sense,” he said sardonically. Catching Foster’s gaze, he realized the kid was struggling to keep a straight face.

  Which was a huge relief. For a moment Nick had pictured Foster swallowing this pap the way he ate up the pulp fiction from the library.

  “I suppose you are a nonbeliever,” Center said to Nick’s forehead.

  “I believe in plenty of things,” Nick said. “But spooks aren’t one of them.”

  Center turned away from Nick, groping for Foster’s hand. Nick felt Foster go rigid beside him and wondered why he put up with this kind of crap.

  “Come, you must tell me what you saw,” Center breathed. “Every detail. We must determine why the specter chose to manifest itself to you.”

  “Can it wait?” Perry asked. “Nick is helping me move my stuff.”

  “Move?” Center was horrified. “You’re not leaving?”

  “Only out of the tower room.”

  “But you can’t! That would be a great error. The spirits have chosen to contact you there. You mustn’t reject them. The consequences could be grave.”

  “No pun intended?” Nick’s tone caused the color to rush into Center’s pale face. “Foster, I don’t have all day.”

  As he continued up the staircase, he noticed one of the doors down the hall, Stein’s door, closing. The guy must have been listening to their conversation. Good luck to him if he could make sense of that gobbledygook.

  Perry caught him up on the third landing.

  “Man, that was pretty cold,” he said.

  “The guy’s a screwball.”

  Silence.

  “If you feel like spending the day chatting on the astral plane, be my guest. I’ve got things to do.”

  Foster had no response to that, either.

  There was more silence in Nick’s apartment. He went to check his phone messages, and Roscoe had actually called.

  Nick dialed the number Roscoe had left. His palms felt sweaty and cold, his heart was thumping — all unfamiliar sensations.

  A receptionist put him through to Roscoe without delay.

  “You asshole,” Roscoe greeted him. “You better not have taken a job with somebody else!”

  It was all Nick could do to say calmly, “Why? What have you got?”

  “Lousy pay, lousy benefits, long hours, and a bunch of assholes to work with.”

  “What’s the downside?”

  Roscoe chuckled. “Hey, listen, the job’s yours if you want it. There is a catch, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You need to interview with the partners. It won’t be a problem, I’ve already vouched for you. It’s a formality, that’s all.”

  “When?”

  “That’s the catch. Rick is leaving for South America on the eighth, and he won’t be back for a month. We could wait till then, or if you’re willing, we can get you booked on a flight to the West Coast this evening. We can interview tomorrow morning, do lunch and show you around the town, and you can get a flight out the following morning. Hell, you could stay a few days and hang out, catch up on old times, scope the operation.”

  “I’m just treading water here,” Nick said. “I’ll take the plane ticket.”

  “That’s my boy,” Roscoe crowed. He said to someone offline, “What did I tell you? He’s in.”

  Roscoe gave him the details, and Nick rang off. He realized he was grinning at the receiver, and he headed for the bedroom to throw some things into a bag.

  He’d clean forgotten about Foster who was sitting on the sofa, staring at the rain trickling down the window.

  “Something’s come up,” Nick told him shortly, because — although there was no reason to — he felt guilty. “I’ve got a job interview in Los Angeles, and I have to catch a plane this evening.”

  “I sort of figured,” said Foster. He grinned. He had an attractive grin, wry and sort of sweet. “Congratulations.”

  Nick didn’t like feeling guilty. Especially when there was no reason for it. He said brusquely, “I’ll help you move some things downstairs this afternoon. We can take care of the rest when I get back.”

  “Nah,” said Foster. “I can manage with what I’ve got here.” He nudged his holdall. “It’s not like I can’t get into my apartment if I need anything.”

  Nick didn’t know what to say.

  A heavy knock on the door frame saved him from having to come up with a reply. Tiny stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot in restless unease. He was a big man, simple, as they used to say. He had worked at the Alston Estate for the last thirty years, long before Mrs. MacQueen had bought the isolated farmhouse to turn it into a boarding house.

  Nick narrowly sized up the handyman. Tiny made a hulking figure in baggy overalls over a worn red flannel shirt. His gray head was shaved close, and his left eye had a tendency to twitch. He sort of looked like Curly of the Three Stooges, only he had no visible sense of humor.

  “Mrs. Mac says you want to see Mr. Watson’s room.”

  “Yeah, we want to see the room,” Nick said.

  Tiny made a great scooping motion that was evidently to urge them onward. Nick followed Foster out, and they proceeded back to the second floor.

  Unlocking the door to the late Mr. Watson’s room and standing back so that Foster could enter, Tiny announced, “Mr. Watson is dead.”

  “I know,” Foster said patiently. He seemed to have patience to spare; it encouraged kooks, in Nick’s opinion.

  Foster wandered doubtfully around the room while Nick checked the lights, the thermostat, the hot water. Everything looked like it was in working order. The room smelled stale, of cigars and dust. Hopefully the kid’s asthma wouldn’t kick up.

  Tiny picked up a comic book and tossed it back down nervously. “He died in the village. In the bakery.”

  “I heard that too,” Foster said.

  “He bought a cherry pie, and he dropped dead. His things are still here. This is all his.”

  “I won’t bother his things,” Foster said.

  There were a lot of “things.” A tall wine rack in one corner. Lots of black leather furniture. An expensive home entertainment center took up an entire wall. There were framed pulp art posters on its opposite. Big-breasted women fighting off saber-toothed tigers and one-eyed Nazis. Nice work if you could get it.

  Dead fish floated in an expensive aquarium.

  “Oh no,” Foster said, dismayed by the tiny colored bodies littering the greenish water like flower petals. “They must have starved.”

  Tiny came to stare at the tank with him
. He sniffed and pulled out an enormous handkerchief, blowing his nose mightily. Then he scooped his big hand in the tank and ladled out the dead fish, dropping them in an ashtray. “Nobody told me about them,” he told Foster.

  Tiny was great with animals, always trying to bring stray cats and dogs home, returning baby birds to nests. Gentle giant stuff.

  Nick checked the windows. Watson had invested in his own security measures. No one was getting in that way.

  “It seems secure,” Nick told Foster, who watched him with those big brown eyes.

  Tiny stared at him too. “Locks don’t stop ghosts,” he said.

  “Not you too,” Nick growled. “Is everyone here nuts?”

  “I’ve seen him,” Tiny said. “I saw him. The ghost in the yellow socks.”

  “Where did you see him?” Foster asked with quick interest.

  Tiny’s eyes shifted evasively. He shrugged. “I see him sometimes.”

  “Was he dead when you saw him?” Nick asked, always practical.

  Tiny looked confused. “He’s a ghost,” he explained.

  Foster said with a casualness that would only deceive Simple Simon, “Tiny, I wanted to ask you something. Do you know who has keys to my apartment besides you and Mrs. Mac?”

  “You do,” Tiny said helpfully.

  Shaking his head, Nick turned away to investigate the bedroom.

  “But anyone else?” Foster persisted. “Has anyone ever asked to borrow your keys?”

  Tiny looked scared. “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  His eyes shifted uneasily back and forth.

  “Who borrowed your keys?” Foster pressed.

  More recalibrating of the eyes. Tiny licked his mouth and began to hum.

  “It’s okay, you can tell me,” Foster said. He smiled encouragingly. “I won’t tell.”

  “No one,” Tiny said, and shrugged his big shoulders.

  Nick watched this mild-mannered interrogation with increasing exasperation. It was obvious the big man was lying. He knew his own instinct to shove the guy against a wall was not a good one, but he felt pressured leaving town with this still unresolved.

  “I lost them,” Tiny announced suddenly. “Mrs. MacQueen yelled at me.”