A Ghost of a Chance Read online

  “Not for the college,” I add. “This is the kind of thing that can ruin an educational institution. Maybe there was a concerted effort by the townspeople and the school to keep this quiet. The college was a way to keep this old building going in the off-season. On our tour, they said the hotel was having a hard time staying open. Maybe the town didn’t want to see their cash cow going away.”

  “Cow?” TB asks.

  I pat his knee. “It’s an expression, dear.”

  “But why would a cow have cash…?”

  “I wonder if the cops know about this?” Merrill thankfully interrupts.

  “I may see Maddox tonight,” I tell them. “I can show him these and see what he knows.”

  Merrill laughs. “The local cops aren’t too keen on psychics and our visions. They have labeled me crazy on more than one occasion.”

  I recall our little tête-a-tête at the Basin Park Hotel elevator. “Yeah, Maddox said he doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

  Then I remember the photos. “Wait here,” I tell them as I hurry back to the room and grab my camera. When I return, I flip through the photos until the ones at the lake appear. TB and Merrill are impressed with the mist images although Merrill points out that these could easily be chalked up to a natural mist occurring over the water. I hit the zoom button like Joe did at the restaurant and focus on the individual mists and lo and behold, the faces emerge.

  “Holy shit,” Merrill exclaims.

  TB says nothing, just stares. Finally, he takes the camera from my hands and studies the photos intensely for what seems like hours. Again, I’m not the patient type. “TB, you can play with this later.”

  “I’ve seen these girls.”

  “What?” Merrill and I say simultaneously.

  TB hands the camera back to me. “The library closes in an hour. Got to go.”

  “But what did you see?” I ask his back as he rushes from the room.

  He’s already to the door, but he pauses and looks back. “I think those were the scholarship girls.”

  And with those words, my ex-husband who’s suddenly become an expert in research — or at least is thrilled with the assignment — disappears out of sight.

  “He’s a keeper,” Merrill says and my heart sinks. I want to agree so badly, heard this statement so many times before, but my heart never follows suit.

  “He’s an awesome guy.” Despite that I don’t want to be married to TB anymore, I mean every word.

  Merrill and I look over the pile of papers TB has left behind, discovering more information about our English teacher and Lori. According to the yearbook, James hailed from Illinois but it doesn’t say where and was educated at a small liberal arts college “in the Midwest,” again not specifying, all vague information Merrill has heard over the years.

  “We never knew the particulars,” she offers.

  Apparently, Lori is quite the gifted writer, a girl after my own heart, and an actress, a member of the Shakespeare Club. At the bottom of the club’s page, however, is a note about Twelfth Night being postponed due to a family tragedy of one of the players.

  “I wonder if that was about Blair,” I muse out loud, although I can’t imagine boy-crazy, flippant Blair being interested in Shakespeare. Perhaps if James was directing….

  Dinnertime arrives and Merrill takes the pages home to show her mom, see if anything about the college jogs her memory. We agree to reconnect in the morning and Merrill gives me her cell phone number.

  I head back to the room to change, Lori’s happy face in those pictures emblazoned in my mind. As I slip on evening clothes, I sense movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn ever so slowly and there she is, my homely sad coed.

  “What is it, Lori? What do you want from me?”

  She doesn’t speak, stares at me forlorn. Again, I’m sensing the loss of a child but I wonder if it’s not a similar emotion in her, an intense loss that’s triggering the same pain deep within me.

  “Is it James?” I ask, hoping that might provoke a reaction. Nothing. “Is it Blair? Did she hurt you in any way? Did James?”

  There’s so much pain in those eyes haunting me that even if she were to respond, how would I differentiate between who caused her grief. She’s the victim here, though, of that I am sure.

  “Did you jump off that balcony? Or did someone push you?”

  Again, nothing, but this time she gazes back toward the bathroom.

  “I’m going to help you, Lori.” Even though I’m not sure how, I long to solve this mystery and witness this sweet girl pass on to something akin of heaven. I think of my own angel on the other side, who would be wonderful company. I couldn’t imagine Lillye trapped in some alternate reality like this old Victorian hotel with its ghost-gaping tourists, hoping for a SCANC like me to show up and save her. “I will do everything in my power to see you through this.”

  Lori offers a semblance of a smile and it brightens my heart, but she crosses her arms about her chest, as if she’s holding a baby and gazes back at me. Is she offering me solace now?

  A loud knock comes at the door and I jump, placing a hand over my heart to still the heavy beating. As if I imagined everything in the past few seconds, Lori has completely disappeared. I swallow the grief that has risen thinking of Lillye and open the door to find Holly, my travel writing neighbor who writes for my favorite magazine. She’s an inch above me now due to her high heels and wears a tight-fitting dress that shows off her attributes. She says “Hey” as she puts on the last earring, tossing her long hair over a shoulder when she’s done. “I couldn’t remember if it was five-thirty we were supposed to be downstairs or six.”

  If it was five-thirty we’d be very late, I think to myself, but instead smile and welcome her in. “Six. We have about five minutes.”

  “Great.” She strolls in and glances about my room. “Wow, yours is so much bigger. I wonder why I didn’t get the corner room.” She peeks into the bathroom. “Oh my, your bathroom is much bigger too.”

  I have no idea why we get the rooms we do but I am a bit insulted that she would feel entitled to get mine over whatever room she has. But like the self-conscious woman I am, I mutter, “Sorry.”

  Holly shrugs. “It’s just that I have to have the best for the magazine, you know.”

  Don’t we all? Again, I say nothing but, “Shall we go downstairs?” and we head for the lobby, Holly talking non-stop about the elaborate private gardens she witnessed that morning.

  I’m thrilled to find Winnie by the hotel’s massive fireplace, another ordinary soul like me in comfortable clothes and flat shoes. I don’t know why I consistently compare myself with other women. Maybe because my wild curly hair, large feet and somewhat dumpy shape always put me at odds with modern fashion, or perhaps it was my mother’s voice all those years telling me I wasn’t ladylike enough.

  My mother. She’s been calling non-stop ever since New Orleans and apparently been bugging TB as well. Something about a family gathering the day I return, although TB assured me it was nothing urgent. I make a mental note to call her back when I return from dinner. Might as well get it over with.

  “You look nice,” Winnie says, and I’m about to discount the complement by telling her the clothes were on sale and the shoes came from Goodwill when the memory of my mother’s words stops me cold.

  “Thank you,” I say instead, and mentally pat myself on the back.

  We sit together in the van and I bring her up to date on what TB found at the library. I leave out the part about Lori reappearing — or appearing at all since Winnie doesn’t know about my SCANCy abilities — and concentrate instead on hard facts. The journalist in me still can’t wrap my mind around seeing intangible people who have died decades before but my heart tells me to stay on track. I can’t stop imagining my baby girl going through a similar situation and that drives me on.

  In every group conversation, there’s an occasional lull that descends. Some people claim that angels are floating overhead interruptin
g conversation, others call it a pregnant pause. After we’re all through discussing various topics in small groups in the van on the way to DeVito’s, that break in conversation happens. Richard notices and laughs. “Did someone fart?”

  It might have been funny if someone else had said it in a different situation, but Henry is driving and there is a certain professionalism to what we’re doing. None of us knows how to respond and this irks Richard to no end. “It’s a joke,” he says a bit too loudly.

  Henry smiles but I can tell he’s not happy, although his temperament could be the result of one of his writers finding several crime scenes and maybe participating in a protest against the town’s mayor, the woman who may be writing his check. He can’t be having a good trip, considering.

  We arrive at the restaurant and unload, but Richard’s now got a chip on his shoulder. When he spots me entering DeVito’s, I sense I will be the victim of his irritation.

  “Must be nice for you being able to come on this trip,” he tells me as I pass him at the door. Is he holding the door open for us women?

  “Yes, it is. Been wanting to be a full-time travel writer all my life.”

  “Well it’s more than getting free trips, you know?”

  This stops me cold and Winnie almost runs into the back of me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Richard drops the door and it almost hits Irene in the face. “It means, sweetheart, that some of us worked to get here and not because anyone felt sorry for us.”

  At this point, even Winnie has paused to stare in his direction. “We’ve all worked hard to get here, Richard.”

  He throws up his hands and says walking past us, “Some of us got a nice hand-up because of a certain disaster.”

  My bloods boils quick and hot and I aim to follow him into the private room they have saved for us and tear up his ass, but Winnie holds me back. “He’s an asshole. It’s not worth it.”

  I know she’s right but I want to punch that man silly.

  As if that’s not infuriating enough, Richard plants himself next to the tourism folks and starts a rampage about government handouts to people who didn’t have the sense to move out of flood zones and how the rest of the country foots the bill. I try my best to ignore him and focus on the conversation around me, even though Holly to my right is now telling everyone else about those local gardens, details she planted on me in the elevator, pun intended. I’m bored to tears listening to the importance of soil testing so I can’t help but hear Richard at the other end of the table.

  Winnie leans toward me from my left. “Screw him.”

  I want to laugh it off and agree but the pain and anger seething within me burns so intense I can’t form the words. I’ve heard it before, why do people live in a city below sea level, as if the nation’s produce belt in California doesn’t exist in a desert on top of a fault line or most American cities aren’t located next to a vulnerable water source. Even New York City is prone to hurricanes. Like New Orleans, they have been warned of a super storm for years but never take it seriously. I would never wish the likes of Katrina on anyone, even Richard, but I can’t help thinking how nice it would be to say, “Why do you live there?” when disaster strikes somewhere else.

  Winnie, thankfully, asks me about TB and the research he’s uncovered and I explain how he found the scholarship girls and Blair Marcus in the school yearbook but I can’t get Richard’s comments from seeping into my ears.

  Dinner stretches on forever, painfully so, while Holly drones on about the advantages of drought-tolerant Knock-Out roses and Irene, again, has issues with the food. Richard’s still going on about entitlements, now picking on poor people and the welfare system, while Henry stares at his plate, no doubt thinking how happy he will be to get away from this group. As if he senses me staring at him, Henry looks up and offers me a nice smile. I grin cautiously, hoping upon hope that he still considers me valuable enough to invite back.

  As if things couldn’t get worse, Madman shows up, standing in the shadow of the threshold of our private room, tilting his chin up at me and nodding his head in the direction of the restaurant lobby. Like an obedient puppy, I follow, heading to the entrance where a couple of chairs are arranged for those waiting for a table. We sit and Maddox pulls out his little black book from his back pocket, again like those guys on TV. Now that I think about it, I don’t recall him writing much of anything in it, which makes me laugh.

  “Something funny?”

  I shake my head, regaining my composure. “Sorry, been a long day and there’s a guy in there bashing New Orleans so my emotions are on edge.”

  “What guy?” There’s a tone emerging in that deep, masculine voice and I know what lingers behind those words. New Orleans is like a mother figure; you don’t mess with our city. I so want to relate everything that Richard said and sic Maddox on his sorry ass — how wonderful it would be to watch that man be arrested — but we have bigger fish to fry, sorry to use another pun.

  “My husband….” I can’t believe I called TB that, especially in front of Maddox, but a logical voice deep within me, not even audible, explains how this insensitive, clueless man is not worth my time. “He went to the library today and did some research. I suspected the identity of the girl in the cave but now I’m pretty sure.”

  Maddox leans back and eyes me suspiciously. “Blair Marcus.”

  I nod. “I believe she was a rich college student from Dallas, attending the Crescent College when it was part of the Crescent Hotel.”

  Thunder racks the building, which makes me jump; still haven’t managed to calm my fear about storms.

  “And how do you know this?” He’s not buying it; Maddox’s eyes are the size of penny slits.

  I shrug. “I saw her in the cave. Yes, as a ghost, but there you have it.” The words sound empty and his accusing gaze makes me feel like that puppy again, one that just peed all over the couch. “I wish I could explain how I’m seeing these dead women but I can’t.”

  Maddox says nothing, stares at me and I grind my teeth in annoyance waiting for him to comment on something. Anything.

  He stands, appearing like he’s ready to go.

  “Is that it?”

  He doesn’t look at me, slips the neglected black book back in his pants. “We found an old case file on a Blair Marcus from Dallas who went missing in the 1920s. We thought it might be her.”

  “It is.”

  When he looks at me now, those eyes are still black pricks inside that manly face. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  He doesn’t believe in me either, I think, but I’ve done my duty here. I also stand, ready to return to my group. “If you saw what I’ve been seeing these last two days you would, but I’m not asking you to. Just use the information I gave you and see if it matches up. As for the others, you might want to check if there had been any other girls missing from the college. Perhaps three orphans from Little Rock who were there on a scholarship.”

  He laughs, shakes his head and looks at the ceiling. “What?”

  I slide my hand through my unruly curls, a sudden exhaustion spreading over me. “My husband did some research at the Carnegie Library, said there were girls on scholarship, orphans. Seems to me that if someone wanted to abuse young women, they would be the perfect target. Who would miss them? Doesn’t explain Blair, since she doesn’t fit that MO, but perhaps the perp made a grave mistake with her and left town right afterwards. Maybe there was an employee at the college who left around the same time as Blair’s disappearance.”

  Now that I’m on a logical path and away from ghosts, speaking police lingo, Maddox studies this scenario and nods his head. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Great.” And with that one word, I’m ready to be rid of the man. Imagine that? “You can double check all this with the librarian. She’s been helping my husband with the research.”

  Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, Maddox puts his hat on and heads off into the pouring rain. I can’t help thinki
ng he watches too many cop movies.

  When I return to the private room where my colleagues are still enjoying dinner that hard rain pelts the building and everyone begins discussing the rain. I’ve never understood the need to comment on weather. Water falls from the sky on a regular basis, yet every time it happens we all exclaim, “Oh my god, is it raining?” My favorite is those incredibly steamy days of August when people say, “Is it hot enough for you?” Well, yes, because it’s August in New Orleans.

  I close my eyes, trying to will away the negativity. Suddenly, whether it’s Richard, the continued lack of sleep or the fact that I unearthed several murder victims in the last two days, but I’m exhausted and feeling out of sorts. Always my hero, Henry rises and announces that we will be taking our dessert to go because the storm has arrived and things are reported to get nasty through the night. Richard makes a comment about how silly it is to be scared of a little rain and I mentally picture him standing on my street at the moment of the levee break, when the rain was as horizontal as the trees. I’m standing on my porch watching him float away and as he yells for help I answer over the thunderous deluge, “It’s just a little rain.”

  “What are you grinning about?” Winnie asks me, and I realize I’m sitting there having a great private laugh.

  “Nothing but a little fantasy involving a man from Arizona.” She gives me a knowing look and I don’t have to explain. Gawd love Winnie, as we’d say in New Orleans.

  The restaurant staff hands us each a plastic container with slices of tiramisu inside and Irene remarks about how she would prefer the cheesecake and can she see a menu, but I move past her to the van because I’m so done with her type. Apparently, she doesn’t get her choice of dessert for as I take my seat in the back with Winnie I spot her close behind, holding the same dessert as mine.

  “Is it just me or are you tired of these people?” Winnie whispers.

  “I never thought I’d say this but I’m ready to go home,” I whisper back.

  The pregnant pause has birthed into a silent baby and no one says a word on the drive up the mountain to our hotel. We exit the van equally quiet and make our way to our rooms, desserts in hand. I’m dreaming of my luxurious bed and a solid night’s sleep after I devour this Italian slice of heaven when I open the door and find TB pacing the room, papers sprawled all over the place.