Free Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts by E. J. Copperman Page B

Steven asked. “How do you make a living?”
    “I work at a bike shop,” Luther told him. “It’s what I know best.”
    Maxie was unusually silent, watching Luther from her perch near the cereal cabinet. She was wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend “More Than You Think” and an expression of something very much resembling wistful sadness.
    She never took her eyes off Luther.
    We ate in relative silence for a while, asking for items to be passed and discussing the food itself. Then Luther asked me what the next step in the investigation might be. I looked toward the oven, where Paul was “sitting.”
    “You need to make contact with the Seaside Heights police or the county unit,” Paul said. “And see if you can get a copy of the medical examiner’s report.”
    I passed that on to Luther as if it was my own idea, adding that I might be able to get some of the ME’s information through Phyllis at the Chronicle , who had a special “friend” in that office from whom she got certain news leaks in exchange for…activities it was better for me not to think about.
    “What do you think you’ll find out?” Melissa asked.
    I shrugged. “Can’t say. You ask questions. When you get the answers, then you know what you’ll find out.” Paul nodded proudly—I was an apt pupil.
    The Swine shook his head as if to wake up from a bad dream. “A private detective,” he mumbled. I ignored him, something I was very good at doing.
    “So tell me about this Big Bob,” Mom said. She believes in understanding the essence of a person if you’re going to be involved in his life (or death, as it were). “What was he like, Luther?” But she was looking at Maxie when she said it.
    Luther sat back from his dinner, which he had eaten politely but without gusto. He got a faraway look in his eye and smiled a little. “Bob was a funny guy,” he said.
    “He would always do the opposite of what you expected,” Maxie said.
    “He didn’t tell jokes or anything,” Luther continued, “but you just laughed a lot when he was around.”
    “I almost never saw him in a bad mood,” Maxie put in. “I didn’t know him for long, but he always seemed to be happy. He liked his life.”
    Luther, not hearing his friend’s ex-wife, overlapped her a bit. “Big Bob. It was a funny name for him. He probably didn’t stand taller than five eight. But he had a larger-than-life personality. I’ll bet he gave himself the nickname just to make people smile.”
    “Did he work at the bike shop, too?” Steven wanted to know. He was apparently fixated on everyone’s profession. Maybe he wanted to decide what to be when he grew up and was looking for choices.
    Luther shook his head. “Big Bob was a short-order cook at a stand on the boardwalk. Took pride in it, too. You asked for your burger well done, and you got it well done.”
    “He had really nice eyes,” Maxie said, her voice sounding even more distant than usual. “I mean, seriously, even when I married him, I was never in love with Big Bob, but I first noticed his eyes. Big, brown, with lots of emotion in them. There was always something going on behind them that he’d only tell you if he knew you well enough.”
    “It sounds like he was a really nice man,” Melissa said. A ten-year-old can cut through the babbling of adults to get to the heart of the matter.
    At the exact same moment, Maxie and Luther said, “He was.”
    Damn. Now I was actually starting to care about finding out what had happened to Big Bob Benicio (and try saying that three times fast). I hadn’t planned on that.
    Luther left not long after that, and Mom left not long after Luther. I could tell Steven was desperate for whatever bogus family burlesque he’d decided would melt my heart, and, naturally, I was intent on not letting him have it. But before I could deal with that, I had to talk privately with Paul. I gave him a special look as we left the kitchen, as The Swine was saying, “Let’s just sit in the