Inspector Specter Read Free Page B

as I carried the tray back into the blast furnace.
    I put the tray down on a wicker table next to the glider where McElone was still sitting, looking uncomfortable but amazingly not sweaty. I poured the two glasses and handed her one as I leaned on the railing facing her.
    â€œI’m really sorry for your loss, Lieutenant,” I said, and meant it. “I know Detective Ferry was a friend, and this must hurt. I wish there were something I could do.”
    â€œThere is,” Lieutenant McElone said. “You can help me find out who killed Martin.”
    Paul’s grin was so wide I swear I could see his rear molars.
    I concentrated my attention not on my usual terrible luck in gambling—I lose money driving
past
Atlantic City—but on the woman inhabiting my glider. “I don’t understand,” I told McElone.
    Her face showed no emotion; her voice was not the least bit wavery. She looked at me with her un-sweat-stained face and said, without hesitation, “I’m asking you to help solve my ex-partner’s murder. Will you do that for me?”
    Now, the fact of the matter is that bet or no bet, Paul or no Paul, I owed Anita McElone my life at least once and probably more times than that. She had been there for me at times when I most needed someone. She deserved to get what she wanted from me in her time of great need.
    But what she really needed was a good detective, which I wasn’t. “Are you sure you want me?” I asked her. “Don’t you want a more . . . experienced investigator?”
    McElone looked at me for a long time, so long that I started to think maybe she was staring into space, thinking of her lost friend. Maybe she was trying to bore a hole in my face with her eyes.
    Then she did the oddest thing I could have imagined: She laughed. Not long, not uproariously—she laughed like she’d been taken by surprise by something so unbearably absurd that there was no other logical response.
    â€œI’m not asking you to
investigate
,” McElone said. “Believe me. I’ve
seen
you investigate. No offense.”
    â€œNone taken,” I said. I am very objective about my (lack of) detecting skills. But Paul looked a little put off. “But then, how can I help solve Detective Ferry’s murder?”
    McElone’s face lost any hint of amusement, not that there had been much to begin with. She broke eye contact and looked off toward the street. She bit her lip, but not like she was trying to fend off tears; it was more like she really didn’t want to have to say what was about to come out of her mouth.
    She was embarrassed, and I’d never seen her embarrassed before.
    â€œI want you . . . that is, I’m wondering if you would . . . please . . .”
    Paul broke the silence, but only I could tell. “She thinks there might be something you can do with people like me,” he said. “She wants you to get in touch with ghosts.”
    I almost shook my head to deny it, and then remembered my track record today betting against Paul. I turned toward McElone and tried out his theory instead. “You think a . . . ghost can help?” I asked gently.
    McElone closed her eyes quickly, as if I’d said something dreadfully painful. And she nodded, an almost imperceptible gesture, and let out her breath. Make that Paul two, me zero, for the day.
    â€œBut you don’t believe in ghosts,” I reminded her, though she probably didn’t need the help. “You’ve always made fun of me when I say something about them.”
    â€œShe’s afraid of us, and you know that,” Paul admonished me. “She’s lost a friend. Let her up off the mat.”
    McElone turned back to face me, something like the usual fire back in her eyes. “I have seen stuff go down in this house that I can’t explain away,” she said. “I have watched things fly