He clutched the crook of his cane in one hand, the beer can in the other, and limped over to the director’s chair, still trailing water on the floor. He used the cane to lower himself into the chair, on top of the towel. He always sat in this chair when he was finished swimming, and didn’t mind if the canvas seat and back got wet. He took another swallow of beer and waited for Ghostly to continue.
“She’s missing,” Ghostly said.
Carver thought, How original. Said nothing.
Ghostly gnawed his lower lip, letting Carver know how concerned he was. “Last week I woke up and she was gone. Left a note saying she wouldn’t be back.”
“That what it said exactly?” Carver asked.
“Yeah, it was to the point. ‘Bob, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving and won’t be back.’ I remember it word for word.”
“Still got the note?”
“No, I threw it away. Saw no reason to keep it.”
That didn’t ring true to Carver. It was his experience that jilted spouses usually held on to such notes. A last message from someone they might never see again. Or, if the parting was bitter, tangible proof of betrayal. “She sign it?”
“Sure. Not her last name, just Elizabeth.”
Carver looked at his half-empty beer can. “Like that? Her entire first name?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’d you usually call her?”
“Beth. Her friends called-call-her that, too.”
“But she signed the note Elizabeth. Kinda formal. Her handwriting?”
“Yeah, I’m sure it was.”
“Any reason she’d bolt?”
“Must have been. She’s gone.”
Mr. Wise-ass again. “I mean, that you know of. You two have an argument just before she left? Anything like that?”
For the first time Ghostly looked uneasy. He was staring at Carver with appraising dark eyes, gnawing his lower lip again but meaning it this time. “If I hire you, is what I say confidential?”
“Even if you don’t,” Carver assured him.
“Still. . ” Ghostly partially unwound the towel he was carrying. A leather wallet and a pair of sunglasses were cradled inside. He opened the wallet, an expensive eelskin one, and peeled out a bill. He held it out for Carver. It was a thousand-dollar bill. “I wanna make sure nothing I say gets beyond you. Want you to have some ethical obligation. Take the money. Let me be your client officially before I finish what I have to say, then you either accept the case or not, but either way you keep the thousand.”
Carver was getting interested. He decided to play along. People did less for more money on TV quiz shows, didn’t they? He took the bill from Ghostly’s hand, folded it in quarters, and tucked it beneath the damp elastic band of his swimming trunks. He said, “You can trust me.”
Ghostly said, “I know. I checked on you before I came here. You’re a lot of things, Carver. Honest is one of them.”
Carver didn’t want to hear about the others. Better to stop with honest, while he was ahead. Settling back in the wood-and-canvas chair, hearing it creak beneath his weight, he laid his cane across his lap and stretched out his good leg alongside his bad one, the result of a bullet. Such a world.
He said, “Let’s hear about Elizabeth.”
2
Ghostly stood with his muscular arms crossed, his feet spread wide. He seemed more irritated than worried about his wife’s disappearance. “Beth and I’ve been married five years,” he began. Then he paused. “We’re from New York originally, been living down here in Florida the past three years. Tell you the truth, both of us liked New York better. . ”
“Almost everyone in Florida’s from someplace else,” Carver said, seeing Ghostly had hit a snag and didn’t know what to say next. Words failed when you woke up and found a note instead of your wife. It wasn’t a unique situation in the marital wars, but one that always carried impact. “If you like New York, why’d you move here?”
“My job. I was transferred. I’m a salesman for a medical supply firm, and we do business with a number of hospitals in the central and south Florida area.”
“Any kids?”
Ghostly seemed oddly surprised by the question. His asymmetrical dark brows danced wildly for a moment above wide eyes, making him look almost comical. Then he calmed down. Said, “No kids. There’s only me and Beth.”
“You live here in Del Moray?”
“No. In Orlando.”
“Think Beth went back to New York?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. It’s possible.”
Carver leaned back in the director’s chair and studied Ghostly, whose arrogant stance didn’t fit his contrite and desperate words. A medical salesman, he’d said. Salesmen came in a lot of models, but not many were openly arrogant. Obsequiousness sold, obvious arrogance didn’t. Not medical supplies, anyway. He said, “You think she disliked Florida enough to leave the state?”
Ghostly shrugged, as if to say, “You’re the detective.”
Well, that was true. Carver said, “I’ll ask again: You two have an argument before she left?”
“No, we got along.”
“All the time?”
“Almost.”
“She behave oddly at all in the time leading up to her leaving?”
“Oddly? No, I don’t think so. That’s what’s puzzling me. And worrying me. Maybe she was abducted or something.”
“Something?”
“Well, you know.”
Carver didn’t. Not exactly. But he let it pass. “So everything was going on greased rails and suddenly she jumped the tracks?”
Ghostly nodded. He uncrossed his arms and raked fingers through his thick dark hair, absently scratched his crotch. “Yeah, you could put it that way. And I’m concerned.”
Carver looked out the window for a while at the blue-green, undulating ocean beyond the dead potted plants. There were a few clouds in the sky now, lying low near the horizon and riding the wind toward land. A large bird flapped past, parallel to the shore. Maybe an albatross. Carver wouldn’t know; he couldn’t remember ever actually seeing an albatross and wasn’t sure what they looked like. Big birds, though.
“How ’bout it?” Ghostly said. “Gonna take this on and find my wife? I’d appreciate it, and I’m willing to pay generously. I’ve got money saved, and I can’t think of a better use for it.”
“Why don’t you let your tax dollars work for you, contact the police and tell them what you told me?”
Ghostly placed his fists on his hips and looked distraught. “I told you, she left a note. To the police, she’s not a missing person. They wouldn’t be interested. But I’m her husband, and I don’t think Beth’d just up and leave that way. And even if she did, I wanna find her, talk to her.”
Easy enough to understand. And what was Carver going to do with his days if he didn’t take on the task of searching for Elizabeth Ghostly? Swim in the mornings-then what? His lady love, Edwina Talbot, was away at a real-estate convention in Atlanta. Which was one reason why Carver was here at his beach cottage, instead of at her home up the coast, where he usually stayed. The other reason was that Edwina had been acting oddly herself lately. They’d had an intimate but strangely independent relationship for the past several years, with space to breathe for each of them. No commitment.
Last week Edwina had asked for that commitment, and Carver had waffled. Since then she’d kept her distance from him, both physically and emotionally. He wasn’t ready for another marriage.
He said, “I’ll look for your wife, Mr. Ghostly. I’ll need some more facts. And her photograph, the most recent you have.”
Ghostly grinned and said, “I watch TV detective shows, so I know how it works. I brought a photo with me.” He reached into the still-folded towel he’d set on the floor, came up with a plastic-coated snapshot, and handed it to Carver.
Carver laid the photograph on his bare thigh and stared down at it, surprised to see that Elizabeth Ghostly was a black woman. A beautiful black woman. She had high, wide cheekbones, lively dark eyes, a sculpted nose, and full, pouty lips. She was wearing what looked like a cocktail dress that allowed for more than a glimpse of cleavage, had pearl earrings, and wore around her neck a string of pearls that contrasted with her dark skin. Behind her were a wall and an ornate door, and several men in tuxedos. They looked more like bouncers than headwaiters.