Page 31 of Ghostridden
“Maybe? It’s possible my mother had some contact with him. But my folks were committed to their nomadic lifestyle by then, so there probably wasn’t a lot of chance for a reunion before their accident.”
“Accident?”
I swallowed against the threat of tears. “Their RV went off the road someplace in the Rockies.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. Almost ten years, when I was still in college.”
“About the time Oren lost Avi. That might be why he made you his heir. He knew what it was like to be alone.”
I couldn’t help the flare of indignation and, yes, anger, because seriously? My hand tightened on my pen, the clip cutting into my palm. “If that’s so, why didn’t he contact me then?”
Saul reached out, but the desk was too wide for him to get anywhere close to me. He sighed and let his hand drop to the blotter. “Grief is an odd thing, son. We all handle it differently. From what I’ve heard, Oren turned into a virtual recluse after that. Our only communication was via email or snail mail. He never spoke to anyone in town again, and although he still worked for his Portland firm, he withdrew as a partner and never met with clients again.”
I rubbed my chest, trying to ease that twinge of pain at being ignored, abandoned. I knew it wasn’t fair—Oren had never met me, and he’d provided for me the best he could, as my parents had been unable to do. And I understood how funky grief could be—I dropped out of school for two years and worked a series of short-term retail gigs while I processed the loss of my parents. Come to think of it, that might be why Oren couldn’t find me, even if he’d looked. I’d moved arounda lot.
“Could your husband determine anything else about Avi’s accident?” I asked. Saul hesitated and I frowned. “Itwasan accident, wasn’t it?”
Again, he spread his hands. “Avi was mostly alone in the house all the time by then. He was trying to finish a book—”
“The one that’s still subject to a lawsuit?”
“Yes. That one. So, he was busy, working against a deadline while trying to get the house ready for Oren’s arrival and the big reveal. I think Ricky, Sofia, and Patrice were the only people he’d let inside. Sofia because she cooked for him, Ricky because he was doing odd jobs and helping with the finishing details on the house.”
“And Patrice?”
“She was his beta reader. He’d leave pages for her in the library for her review, but she told me later that he hadn’t passed anything along for several weeks. She’d seen nothing of the latest book.”
I had a very weird feeling about this. Didn’t Marguerite say that ghosts tended to be motivated by significant life events? That they could carry grudges? I’d think somebody coshing you on the head would be a pretty strong incentive to stick around and, well, stick it to them. Although so far, Avi had seemed more sad than angry or vindictive—as long as you didn’t count the first library tornado.
“Do you think… That is, would your husband be willing to talk to me about Avi’s death?”
“I expect he can do better than that. Let me call and have him pull his folio for you.”
“Folio?”
“He’s the volunteer librarian and the library doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic. He spends his time collating materials on anything that interests him. And Avi’s death definitely interested him.” He peered at me from under his eyebrows. “He had some concerns about it, too.” He picked up the handset on his desk phone. “Go on over to the library now. Thaddeus’s papers will still be here when you get back.”
“But it’s not a Tuesday or Saturday.”
Saul chuckled as he punched in the number. “Ah, but you forget. It’s open by appointment too. Trust me. He’ll be happyto meet with you.” He flapped his free hand. “Go. Shoo. We live around the corner from the library, so he’ll probably beat you there.”
Who was I to argue? I shooed.
Jerry McHale was about as different from Saul Pasternak as he could be. He was at least three inches shy of six feet, carried a comfortable amount of padding around his middle—although it was somewhat disguised by his colorful Hawaiian shirt—and his dark hair still had more pepper than steel-gray salt. Where Saul’s face was long and angular, Jerry’s was full and round. One thing they had in common though—the kindness in their eyes, although Jerry’s were sky blue to Saul’s deep brown.
He met me on the library’s front steps and shook my hand warmly. “You must be Maz. Taryn told me all about you.”
I smiled crookedly. “About how many margaritas it takes before I’m under the table?”
He chuckled, a warm, welcoming sound, and I felt a pang of envy for his former patients. His bedside manner must have been epic. “Not a bit.” He pulled a set of keys out of his dad-jeans pocket and unlocked the door. “I understand you’re interested in the man who lived in your house.”
“Both of them, actually.” I followed him into an airlock-type vestibule, a pair of glass doors separating us from the library proper, with big bulletin boards on the walls to either side, although the one on the left was completely bare and the one on the right only sported a notice for somebody selling a mountain bike, a signup sheet for a book club with no takers, and a faded poster for the Ghost Halloween parade, dated over three years in the past. Jerry noticed me looking at it and sighed.
“I probably should take that down, but it’s from the last time we staged the parade. A bit of nostalgia if you like.”
“Why was it the last?” I asked as he led me through the doors and into the library. It wasn’t a large building, but it was a decent size. Wide rather than deep, with alcoves clearly labeled for children’s and YA books, as well as tables and padded chairs arranged to break up the rows of shelves. I inhaled deeply.Damn, I loved the smell of books.
