Chapter 31 Why do you care?
That night, I allowed myself a rare luxury for autumn.
Rare since the nights are usually too chilly, and a luxury because I don’t often take time to myself unless there is absolutely no work to be done.
However, I found myself out on my front porch that night, a heavy cardigan was enough to protect me against the slight cold.
I was sitting in one of the chairs, my laptop on my knees, going through my emails.
Instead of locking myself up in the atrium to do all my work, I decided that a nice night on the porch to organize my evening’s summonings would be pleasant.
I’d get all of my thoughts together before making my way out to the atrium to summon the ghosts I’d been requested to contact.
Or maybe I’d summon them right there on the front porch.
It was as safe as the atrium, after all.
However, as it usually goes when I’m trying to have a pleasant evening, I was interrupted.
The sun had just disappeared and nighttime was creeping in when I heard the tires on gravel.
I closed the laptop and set it on the table by my chair and looked down the driveway.
As expected, Danny’s truck came into view, headlights bobbling down the long driveway to the house.
When he finally parked and slid down from his truck, I had my arms crossed over my chest, waiting for him. With his hands in his pockets, and his head down, he approached the porch. He didn’t walk onto the porch, but instead stood there, his hands in his pants pockets, looking contrite.
“Well,” I said, “what do you want?”
Danny looked up and sighed.
“You fired my mom,” he said. “Why?”
“Why do you care?”
He stared at me.
“Your dad wasn’t going to show up,” I said. “It was for the best.”
“But why now?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t like being involved with one ghost for long,” I said. “My business model is I summon, get the information or message needed, report back, and move on with my life. Your dad doesn’t want to show up to talk to her. No point in taking all my time and hers bothering with it any longer.”
I looked away.
“Séances?” Danny snorted.
“It was a compromise,” I said, still looking away.
“I make my money, she can talk to other ghosts, she can show off for her friends, and you can’t be pissed off about me trying to give her hope about your dad any longer.
Though I’m sure you’re pissed that I’m a fraud who still takes money from your mother. ”
“Yeah?”
I shrugged.
“And I don’t care,” I said.
Danny said nothing; didn’t react. He stared at me.
“Is that it?” I asked. “I’ve got work.”
I nodded at the laptop on the table.
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“Not tonight.”
Danny looked down.
“Not tonight?” he asked. “Or never again?”
“Not tonight,” I said immediately. “I have work. Some things I need to take care of.”
He nodded, looking down at the ground.
“Maybe,” I said, thinking about it, “give me a few days. I’m free this weekend mostly. Work, but it doesn’t take all that long, actually.”
Danny looked up, a hopeful gleam in his eye, and nodded.
“Okay.”
“Go on, then,” I said. “If you stick around, people will drive by and see your truck at the fraud’s house.”
Danny shook his head and rolled his eyes. But he turned and headed back to his truck. I watched him as he walked away. When he grabbed the handle, he turned to look at me.
“I don’t actually think you’re a fraud,” Danny said softly. “I’m just not a believer.”
I stared across the distance between us at him.
“I’m too afraid of having hope,” he said with a shrug. “Scares me to think that this is it, you know?”
He gestured vaguely.
“Life’s kind of crap, you know?” he said. “Why trick yourself into thinking that there’s something better? Why have hope? We’re born, we live, we do our best, and we die. I’m afraid to believe anything else. Because hope is sometimes scarier than no hope.”
I cleared my throat.
“I never said there was anything better,” I said. “Just that there is something else.”
Danny watched me for a while.
“No bills for ghosts, though,” he said, chuckling bitterly. “That’s better.”
He shook his head and popped the handle of his door. As it swung open, I coughed. Danny turned to look at me.
“Kenny,” I said.
Danny’s eyes grew wide.
“Your dad called you Kenny sometimes,” I said. “For Kenny Loggins. You thought ‘Danny’s Song’ was about you when you were little. So, Harlan called you Kenny when you were little. Made you laugh.”
Danny’s face was pale when he looked away.
“Kind of a weird song for a small child to be obsessed with,” I mumbled. “But kids are weird. You heard ‘House at Pooh Corner’ on the Loggins and Messina album and—”
“How do you know that?” Danny choked out.
I looked him directly in his eyes.
“As you’ve said,” I replied, “I’m a fraud. Right?”
Danny stared at me for a moment, then began looking around frantically. I stared at him, willing my eyes not to move.
“Is he here now?” Danny asked. “Can you—”
“This weekend?” I stopped him. “We’ll…yeah. Text me or something.”
Danny started to argue, but he saw the look on my face and stopped. His jaw clenched and flexed, his hand balled at his side, but finally, he nodded, leapt into his truck, and closed the door. I gave him a wave as he started it up and turned his truck around, careful to avoid my car on his way.
I watched as he drove down the drive, out of sight. With a sigh, I sat back in my chair and stuck my hands in the pockets of the cardigan. I wasn’t certain that Danny believed me still, but what I’d told him definitely had an effect on him. Either way, he’d stop asking the same old question.
What did my dad used to call me?
I was about to reach for my laptop when the moan stopped me.
“Yoooooou didn’t tellll him my message.”
Frozen in place, unsure how I wanted to handle things, I chewed at my lip.
Finally, I looked up at the ghost that had been following me for months.
He’d been sitting in the chair next to me all evening as I worked on my laptop on the porch.
Harlan Milner was angry with me. But he was always angry with me. I was getting used to it.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“Whyyyyyy?”
I stared at the ghost.
“You came to me months ago,” I said. “Shortly after your funeral. Found me first thing. I guess you figured you may as well give the fraud medium a chance, huh? Worst you’d do is waste some of the infinite time you had on your hands.”
Harlan glared at me.
“I knew something was up with you from the get,” I said. “I knew it. And when your wife called me not even three days after the funeral to summon you, I knew it stronger.”
The shimmering of Harlan Milner increased.
“Why’d you kill Marcella Washington?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“I mean, I assume, rich man, owns an abandoned hotel. Poor homeless gal needing food and shelter and any bit of money a rich sleazebag would throw at her. I can put two and two together,” I said. “But why kill her?”
“I mean,” I shrugged, “who would be all that scandalized that you two were meeting at The Eternity Inn? Girl’s gotta eat.
You were taking advantage of her situation, but it’s not the most scandalous thing that happens in the world today.
Not by far. In fact, it might put you in line for governor.
So…why kill her? Did she threaten to tell Rhonda?
Couldn’t bear to think of what she’d do? What she’d take in a divorce?”
Harlan said nothing.
“Strangled that poor girl to death and left her body in the tub in the bathroom of the room where you’d meet, huh?” I asked.
When he didn’t respond, I nodded, knowing I was right.
“Knew she’d go right to the cupboard you’d set up to trap a fresh ghost,” I said.
“Tricks you could’ve learned anywhere online from any decent medium or spiritualist. Anyone worth their salt.
Maybe you overheard me talking about it with your wife at one of the séances or perused my website.
Then you could seal it shut and her ghost couldn’t wander around, find a medium, and rat you out. ”
Harlan stayed silent.
“I knew there was something up with you,” I said.
“And it’s been confirmed now. So weird that you only sealed up one of your abandoned properties and not the others.
Of course, dying shortly after you killed her might’ve stopped you before you could order the rest shuttered, so I didn’t think it too weird at the time.
At least, not weird enough to be my business.
But now I know. It wasn’t weird. It was simply the only building you didn’t want the folks from the homeless camp to go snooping around in looking for shelter. ”
Harlan stared into my soul.
“But Gary knew what you did,” I said. “He’d followed you that night.
Because Marcella was his friend and he was concerned.
He knew he wouldn’t be believed if he went to the cops.
So, he pulled that old cupboard out of the inn, dragged it downstairs, through the cellar, up those stairs, and across to Max’s place with a note.
At least he knew enough not to open it and let her roam free in her current state. ”
Harland glowered at me, shimmering in the moonlight that was now pouring down.
“You killed Marcella,” I said. “To hell with your message.”
“Danny neeeeeds to knooooooow his mother killed me.” Harlan pleaded.
I snorted.
“I don’t care why Rhonda killed you,” I said.
“Maybe she figured this all out somehow, too. I don’t know.
Possibly, she knew about your dalliances with other women.
Maybe she just hated your guts after so many years of putting up with you.
But when you came to me and told me she killed you, and then she scheduled an appointment with me, I figured enough out to know that she wanted to make sure you were actually gone.
She wanted to know if I could talk to you and find out she murdered you.
She was checking to see if she was safe.
If the cops thought it was a natural death and I couldn’t contact you, she was free.
She didn’t actually care if you were okay in the afterlife. ”
“Tellllll him.”
“As long as your wife isn’t a danger to me,” I said, “I will never tell him. And I’m pretty sure she believes that I can’t contact you for whatever reason. This is done, Harlan. Stop following me. Eye for an eye and all that.”
I grabbed my laptop from the table and stood from my chair, staring down at the ghost in the chair next to mine.
“There’s no Heaven or Hell that I know of, Harlan,” I said.
“This is it for you. Wandering around aimlessly, talking to other ghosts, seeing the people you love most age and rot and die and rot some more. A ghost doesn’t need God to get their punishment.
You can spend all of your time knowing what you did.
Knowing what your wife did. Knowing there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.
One day, Rhonda will die, and she will have never suffered any in life for what she did to you.
And when your wife is dead, this will be over.
You two can antagonize each other in death as you did in life.
That can be her punishment. And Danny not knowing his two parents are murderous jerks is my gift to him. ”
TELLLLLL HIM!
Harlan was suddenly out of the chair, looming over me, his teeth bare, ghostly spittle flying and hitting nothing, black ooze seeping from his eyes and nose.
“Careful, Harlan,” I said. “Or you’ll find yourself in a box. And I can hide a box better than you can hide a body.”
It took a second, but Harlan finally returned to his usual form, stared at me a moment, then floated over to the chair and sat. Ghosts sitting. As if they get tired. I snorted.
“Enjoy eternity,” I said.
Then I went to the door, into the house, and locked Harlan away. Hopefully for good.