Seeing the Light (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 1) Page 9

  Why there would be a draft in that closet when I couldn’t get one tiny bit of air movement in the front reception area was beyond me, and I tried not to think about that as I flailed around, my heart pounding in my chest. Then I saw it—at least I hoped it was the same hair—floating gently next to a pile of papers under the box.

  I grabbed it and stuck it back on the lock, my hands shaking so badly I almost lost it again. When I was certain that everything was as he’d left it, I carefully relocked Mr. Latterson’s office. I hid the photocopied documents in the bottom of my purse, my hands still quivering. It looked like I had palsy or something. Then, I locked up the office for the night.

  I’d stolen documents from my boss, for the cute caretaker, for Heaven’s sake. What was I trying to prove?

  I was trying to make things right for his soon to be ex-wife and kids. That’s what I was trying to prove. No one should walk out on his wife and kids and leave them destitute. No one.

  Farley:

  The Nightmare Continues

  “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash. “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash. “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash.

  Oh God, Marie, get me out of this. I’m begging you.

  Marie:

  James and his Uncle

  The next day, I came into work a half hour early and went to the furnace room to give James the photocopied bank statements. I opened the door to quiet and dark and almost left, thinking he was cleaning up some other bit of goop somewhere else in the building. Then I heard sobbing.

  My heart jumped, but I walked down the stairs. I thought I was going to find Farley, to be honest. I figured he’d come back and was feeling down in the dumps.

  I was about to whisper “Farley, is that you?” but something stopped me. Thank goodness, because it was James I found, sobbing behind the furnace.

  He had his face in his hands, and it was obvious he didn’t know I was there. When I realized I was dealing with one of the living, I tried to back out before he saw me.

  Of course, I ran into the side of the furnace as I tried to back away, and then I tripped over something—probably my own feet—as the furnace rang like a deep throated bell. James turned around, eyes blood red.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “You’re not supposed to be down here.”

  “The door was unlocked,” I said. “Are you okay?” I wished with all my heart I’d been quieter. He wasn’t okay. Not even close.

  James wiped his eyes hastily and stood up, kicking the chair he had been crouched on against the furnace, causing it to ring out its sombre, funereal tone again. “I got some bad news.”

  “I—oh, I’m sorry.” I glanced around, actually planning a quick escape, then shook myself. He needed a little help here. The least I could do was listen. “What happened?”

  “My uncle.” James took a swipe at his nose with his open hand, like a kid would. “He—died.”

  “Oh, James.” Without knowing how it happened, I was standing beside him, with my hand on his arm. “Are you—what can I do?”

  “Nothing,” he said, pushing past me and playing with some buttons on the furnace. “It’s okay. It just shook me up, you know?”

  “What happened?”

  “They think it was a heart attack.” James tried to smile again. Didn’t pull it off. “He died at a blackjack table in Las Vegas. That would’ve pleased him.” He turned and rammed his hands deep into his pockets. “I have to make some arrangements. Get him home, and stuff. I’m the only family left, now.”

  It didn’t seem like the best time to tell him about the information I’d gathered. I stared down at the papers in my hand, not knowing what to do with them. I didn’t want to take them back up to the office, in case Mr. Latterson was there. I didn’t want to leave them lying around here, either. I took a tentative step toward him, and he slowly focused on my face.

  “I have that information you asked for. If you want.”

  I held out the photocopied pages, and he stared at them.

  “Thanks,” he finally said. “I appreciate this.” He took them from me and rolled them in a tube, then stared at the furnace again, as though he wasn’t sure what else to do.

  “Maybe you should go home.” I tried to speak softly, gently. He didn’t look like he could take anything more. “You know, and make the arrangements.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I should.” He stared down at his hands, turning over the tube of papers as though he didn’t recognize them. “Can you do me a favour?”

  “What?”

  “Call Mr. Carruthers and let him know what happened? Tell him I’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

  “Sure.”

  He shuffled a few steps, then stopped. “He was the only family I had left,” he muttered.

  “I’m really sorry, James.”

  “So am I.” He looked at me with those bloodshot eyes, and I wanted to scoop him into my arms and hold him, but I didn’t. I stood there like some kind of an idiot until he walked slowly to the steps and up, like his shoes each weighed a ton. Then he was gone, and I was down in the furnace room, alone.

  It was creepy down there, and I left, making sure I shut off the lights and locked the door. Then I went back up to Mr. Latterson’s office, getting ready before he arrived for the day.

  When he walked through the door, Mr. Latterson looked like crap. His jacket was wrinkled, and his shirt looked like he’d partied hard in it. I didn’t say a word, simply handed him his coffee and watched as he downed it in two huge swallows. He handed me the cup, indicating another, please. Without the please. As I made it for him, he stood there, staring at the top of my desk.

  “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Latterson?” I handed him the second coffee, and watched him slug half of it back.

  “No,” he said.

  “Do you have Mr. Carruthers’ number?” It seemed like an innocent question. However, he jumped as though I’d shocked him.

  “What do you need that for?” he finally asked, trying to brush off the coffee he’d spilled on his lapel, and managing to work it into the material so he had a big brown spot on the grey.

  “James Lavall, the caretaker, asked me to let him know he wouldn’t be in today. There was a death in his family.”

  “Oh.” Latterson stared at me for a long, calculating moment. “Oh.” The first hint of a smile touched his lips. “Hmm.” He turned to his office, some of the bounce back in his step. “You let me handle that.”

  “Are you sure? It’d only take me a minute.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s absolutely all right.” He smiled, possibly the first real smile I’d ever seen on that man’s face, and walked into his inner sanctum. The door boomed shut, and I was alone.

  Farley:

  The Nightmare Won’t Stop . . .

  “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash. “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash. “That’ll sell on EBay,” flash.

  Marie:

  Helping James

  James came to work the next day. I was surprised to see him, considering how broken up he’d been about his uncle, but when I walked through the front doors, he was cleaning out a garbage can. He smiled as I walked up to him.

  “How are you?” I asked, and then felt instantly angry at myself for staying stuck in inane mode. However, he seemed better, much better, than he had the day before.

  “I feel okay.”

  “I’m glad.” I fumbled around, trying to think of exactly the right words to say, and came up with nothing. James let me off the hook and started the conversation.

  “When I was making the arrangements to get my uncle’s body back I found out I’m the executor of his estate.”

  “Really.” Seemed like the right thing to say, because he acted like he wanted me to keep the conversation going. “Does your uncle have much?”

  “No. Not as far as I know, anyhow.” He looked sheepish. “We weren’t as close as we could have been.”

  “Even though you worked for him?” The question popped
out of my mouth before I could stop it. Luckily he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Yeah. Even though I worked for him. Could be because I worked for him. I hadn’t even seen his new office. For the last few months, we just talked on the phone.” He shuffled his feet, staring down at them as though surprised they were moving. “I guess it’s too late to think about that, now.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I tried to sound sympathetic, but all I felt was a teeny bit of jealousy. He didn’t have to worry about ghosts showing up, causing trouble. He just had to deal with never seeing his uncle again.

  “I have to go clean out his offices and stuff,” he said. “Guess I have a month.”

  “A month?”

  “Yeah. I have one month to finish any of his unfinished work, get his bills paid, stuff like that.”

  “Oh.”

  “Shouldn’t take that long, though. He just had the one case, as far as I know.”

  “Mrs. Latterson?”

  “Yeah.” He looked disconcerted. “I don’t know what to say to her. She thinks Uncle is dealing with this. The information you gave me was good, and I thank you for it, but now I have to put it in a report or something. You know, like he would.” He shook his head. “I’ve never done any of that before.”

  “Do you want some help?” I had enough on the go with two jobs, Mom, and Farley, but the guy just lost his uncle. I couldn’t leave him swinging in the wind like that. “I could type it up, if you show me how it should be formatted.”

  “That’d be great. I have to go to his office tonight. Want to come with me? He had files, I bet we can look them over and figure it out. While you’re doing that, I can start doing some cleaning.” He shook his head. “Uncle wasn’t the best for cleaning.”

  I had the night off. I was planning on doing some laundry, because I was at the desperation section of my closet, but the thought of going back to that completely empty apartment didn’t thrill me, so I thought, What could it hurt? I said yes, I could help him. The smile he gave me was worth it.

  James pulled up to the front of the Palais in an older model Volvo, one of the higher end ones, I guessed.

  “Wow, nice car.” I got in and rubbed my hand appreciatively over the leather seat. “I didn’t think Carruthers paid that well.”

  “He doesn’t,” James said. “This was my uncle’s.” He looked uncomfortable. “Now it’s mine.”

  “Oh. Cool.” I leaned back in the seat, enjoying the luxury of the butter soft leather for a moment. “You get anything else besides the car?”

  “His business.”

  “He left you—?”

  “Yeah. My uncle left me his business.” James shook his head. “I’m still trying to figure out what to do with it. Probably sell it, or something. If I can.”

  “Why couldn’t you sell a business?”

  “Because, well, he was it, really. Now that he’s dead—” He sighed. “He made me the executor of his estate. So now, I am, temporarily, a licensed private investigator.”

  “Temporarily?”

  “For a month.” He shrugged. “It’s so that I can finish up the Latterson case, and whatever else he had going on. If there was anything.”

  “I never knew a private dick before,” I said. Weak joke, I know, but I hoped he’d smile.

  “I’m not a private dick!”

  “Okay.” I grinned and he grinned back. That was close enough to a smile for me. “Where’s the office?”

  “Chinatown. Uncle moved there to cut down on costs, I think.”

  We drove north for a few silent moments.

  “Any idea why he left it all to you?” I asked. Then I looked over at him, and I swear he flinched.

  “Because we have the same name,” he said.

  “You have the same name as your uncle, and that’s the reason he left you his business?”

  “Yeah. He said I wouldn’t have to pay to have the sign changed. It could stay ‘Jimmy Lavall, Private Investigator’.” James’ voice got tight and a little high. He was readying himself for ridicule.

  “Go ahead, laugh,” he said. “I know you want to.”

  “No. No.” I shook my head vigourously. “Honestly. I’m not going to laugh. Really.” Then I laughed, a little. “Sorry. It’s just—”

  “Yeah I know.”

  “He must’ve been doing okay,” I said. “I mean, look at the car.”

  “You’d think so, but he was living in his office. Does a guy that’s doing okay live in his office?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think so. All he had was this car and that ratty little office.”

  “And his name—your name—on the door.”

  “Yeah. My name on the door.”

  James ushered me into the darkened office with an apologetic grin on his face. “It doesn’t look great in here,” he said. “Uncle was always messy.”

  I felt the smile freeze on my face as he turned on the lights.

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” I muttered, but it was. Messy? The place was a wreck.

  I suppose if you cleared away the newspapers and magazines—and the old clothes, the ironing board and iron, the cot in the corner behind the desk, the hot plate and the many dirty and decaying containers of food sitting on and around the desk, it was probably a nice office. But really. It was supposed to be a place of business.

  “No, this is terrible,” James said as he glanced around the office. “Maybe we should forget about this. I don’t even see his file cabinets.” He looked horrified. “How could he let it get this way? This is his business, for heaven’s sake.”

  I was going to say something glib like “my words exactly” and then let him drive me home, but I didn’t. As bad as this place was, I wasn’t ready to face my empty apartment.

  “If I give you a hand, it won’t take long to clean this place, and then I’ll type up the report for you. Really. Won’t take any time at all.”

  “But—” he started, obviously trying to give me a way out. I ignored him, and after a few minutes, we were both hard at work.

  Two hours later, we were still at it. James had found some decent scotch in the bottom drawer of the tiny desk, and we were sipping it as we cleaned, using two chipped glasses I found stuffed in the back of one of the other drawers. We’d packed away most of the garbage, leaving the myriad bags and boxes outside the door of the office, so we didn’t have to look at them anymore.

  I found cleaning supplies stuffed under the cot, and went to town on the place. In a little while, it started to smell better and look less like a hoarder had lived there.

  To be honest, I was beginning to think there was hope for the room. It was actually starting to look like a place of business. Except for the complete lack of office equipment, of course. Since I was the one that had to type up that report, I was the one to notice.

  “Where’s the phone? And a computer? Or a typewriter? Or anything?”

  “I don’t know.” James emerged from the pile of old man clothes he’d been trying to fit into a woefully inadequate box. “Maybe he sold everything. It doesn’t look he was doing much work here.” He rammed a couple more shirts into the box, and folded the lid shut. “What should I do with this stuff?”

  “Put it outside with the rest of the junk.” I spoke without glancing up from the legs of the desk, which I was scrubbing. It felt good to do something, and be able to see the difference I’d made. It was also easier than trying to figure out how I was going to type a report on a nonexistent computer.

  “This is good stuff,” James muttered. “I don’t think we should throw it away.”

  “Hey, do what you want. Only, if it’s outside, we don’t have to look at it anymore.”

  “Well, yeah. How about if I put it in there?” He gestured at the only other door in the room. We’d both avoided even looking at it up to that point. I assumed it was a closet. I know about closets and how much they can hold, and didn’t want to see what an old man, and a pack rat to boot, could do with o
ne.

  “Just put it outside.”

  “No.” James shook his head. “It’ll be a good place to put the stuff we’re not going to throw away.”

  “Hey, if there’s room, knock yourself out.” I went back to work on the desk legs. “If you get buried under a pile of garbage, I’m not helping you. Swear to God.”

  He placed the box on the desk and walked over to the door. I nearly laughed when he squared his shoulders before putting his hand on the doorknob and giving it a quick turn. Nothing. “It’s locked.”

  I lost interest. “Leave it alone then.”

  “Why would he lock a closet?”

  “I dunno. Are you getting hungry? I’m getting hungry. Is there a store around here, maybe we can buy a bag of chips or something?”

  James didn’t say anything, and I could hear the jingle as he fished around in his pockets for the ring of keys that had come with the car.

  “I’m going to check this out, and then we can order a pizza. I want more than chips.”

  “Sounds good. What do you like?”

  “I’m partial to cheese with fresh tomatoes,” he said. He held up the key ring triumphantly. I watched him choose the third key and place it gently in the lock. It was a perfect fit. He turned the key and gingerly pulled the door open.

  “Oh my goodness,” he breathed.

  “What?”

  “Come here. You gotta see this, Marie.”

  Obviously, the second door did not open onto a closet. Not even close to a closet. This was where James’ uncle really worked. Not the pathetic display in the other room. The only thing I can say is, he hid himself very well.

  It was hard to describe the room beyond the outer office, because I had this vision of Dead Uncle Jimmy in my head, and I couldn’t reconcile that vision with anything I was seeing.

  Book cases—not shelves, cases—that looked expensive and went floor to ceiling, held old books that soon had James the Living laughing with delight.