Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(26)

“I think you should start over here,” the ghost said from the far corner of the room.

“I’m not climbing across that mountain of crap,” Alex said, shaking out an industrial garbage bag.

“But the stuff I want to look at is at the back.”

“I’ll work my way over there eventually.”

“But if you—”

“Don’t push it,” Alex said. “I’m not taking orders from a spook.” He plugged his phone into a pair of portable speakers by the door. The app played songs from an Internet radio service, based on selections previously entered. Because of the ghost’s nonstop complaints, Alex had added some big band music to his playlist. And he had secretly found himself starting to like a couple of pieces by Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller, although nothing would have induced him to admit it.

Sheryl Crow’s smooth, smoky voice filled the air with a slow rendition of “Begin the Beguine.” The ghost wandered over to the speakers. “I know this one,” he said in pleasure, and began to hum along.

Alex opened a ragged cardboard box and found it packed with old VHS tapes of B movies. He shoved the box aside and pulled out a faded plaster owl statue. “Where do people get this junk?” he asked aloud. “Or a better question is why?”

The ghost was listening intently to the song. “Used to dance to this one,” he said distantly. “I remember a woman in my arms. She had blond hair.”

“Can you see her face?” Alex asked, intrigued.

The ghost shook his head in frustration. “It’s like the memories are hidden behind a curtain. All I can see are shadows.”

“Have you ever seen anyone else … like you?”

“You mean other spooks? No.” The ghost smiled without humor as he saw Alex’s expression. “Don’t bother asking about the afterlife. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

The ghost met his gaze directly. “Yeah, I’d tell you.”

Alex bent back to his work. He unearthed a bag filled with bottles and broken glass. Carefully he placed it inside the box filled with old tapes. The ghost softly sang a few lyrics.

“I wonder what you did, to end up like this,” Alex said.

The ghost looked wary. “You think it’s a punishment?”

“It sure as hell doesn’t look like a reward.”

The ghost grinned briefly, then sobered. “Maybe it’s something I didn’t do,” he said after a moment. “Maybe I let someone down, or wasted some chance I should have taken.”

“Then why are you stuck here with me? What does that solve?”

“Maybe I’m supposed to keep you from making the same mistake I did.” The ghost cocked his head slightly, studying him.

“If I want to waste my life, that’s my business. And there ain’t crap you can do about it, buddy.”

“Be my guest,” came the sour reply.

Alex pulled out a box filled with folders.

“What’s in there?” the ghost asked.

“Nothing.” Alex riffled through the dusty heap of paper. “Looks like notes on college courses from the seventies.” He tossed them into the garbage bag.

The ghost went back to the speakers and hummed along to a U2 cover of “Night and Day.”

As the hours passed, Alex moved boxes and filled garbage bags, finding nothing of value except a few rolls of wallpaper printed with a wildly mod design of brown stripes and lime green circles, and an antique L. C. Smith and Corona typewriter in a tweed case.

“That could be worth something,” the ghost commented, coming to look over Alex’s shoulder.

“Maybe fifty bucks,” Alex said, annoyed by the ghost’s proximity. “Hey … personal space here.”

The ghost retreated a few inches, but continued to stare at the typewriter. “Look inside the case,” he said. “Is there anything in it?”

Alex lifted the typewriter and looked beneath the chassis. “Nope.” He flexed his sore shoulders and stood to ease his cramped thighs. “I’m going to call it a day.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. I have to work on the designs for Zoë. And I’ve got to find a place to live before Darcy has me forcibly ejected from the house.”

The ghost stared morosely at the boxes they hadn’t touched yet. “But there’s so much more to look at.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow.”

The ghost’s outrage was nearly palpable, filling the air like a cloud of angry hornets. “A few more minutes,” he said stubbornly.

“No. I just spent the better part of a day sorting through garbage on your behalf. I have other stuff to do. Paid work. Unlike you, I can’t survive on air.”

The ghost responded with a baleful glance.

In the silence, Alex organized the clutter, detached his phone from the speakers, picked up the massive plastic bag, and began to lug it out of the attic. Amid the rattling and clanking and rustling of trash, he heard the ghost began to sing the song he knew Alex hated more than any other.

Down Hawaii way, where I chanced to stray, on an evening I heard a Hula maiden play … Yaaka hula hickey dula, Yaaka hula hickey doou …

“Quit singing that shit,” Alex said. “I mean it.” But as he descended to the second floor, the obnoxious tune continued.