Steve slept until around ten the next morning. Part of it was that he’d been up late trying to work out what the deal was on Hansen-Baldwynn, since there was something there that didn’t quite make sense. But he also wasted a little time trying to deduce what possible motivation Stinky Antonelli could have had for burying what had to be a small truckload of nickels on the property; talk about not making sense . . .

The house was quiet when he got up, and for once there was no sign of Ann when he came downstairs, even though the sound of the toilet flushing upstairs must have been as ear-shattering as ever. There was, however, a note on the kitchen table: Mr. Taylor, I decided to get some sleep. Please do what you will about your breakfast. I will see you later. – Ann.

That didn’t take any thought. In only a couple minutes, he was headed for Wychbold. At this hour, Becky’s was even emptier than it usually was – the friendly couple with the motor home wasn’t even present. “So how are you this morning?” Becky asked when she saw him.

“Oh, doing fine.”

“Do you still have something against breakfasts? I’m going to have chicken-fried steak with cream gravy on special today.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Like yesterday, it’s going to take me a little longer than normal. Would you like some coffee while you wait?”

“Sure.”

It took about fifteen minutes for the fiftyish, heavy-set blonde to get the meal ready; while she worked at it Steve sipped at his coffee, trying to get his thoughts in order. The big thing he needed to do today would be to call Phil Crocker and give him the good news, then work on Hansen-Baldwynn some more. Some pieces were beginning to fall into place on it, but he still didn’t understand what was going on. It was becoming clear that there was going to be a visit to Arkansas in the near future.

In the middle of his morning musings, Becky reappeared from the kitchen, carrying a coffee pot. “You need a refill on that?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

She refilled his cup – it had been getting low – and asked, “So what’s this thing you’ve got against breakfasts?”

Steve didn’t know exactly what to say. He knew Uncle Homer didn’t care to let people know what he was up to so he figured it would be best to be a little circumspect. “I’m doing some work for some people who have their days and nights mixed up,” he explained. “They usually have breakfast around sunset and supper around sunrise. I’m pretty much working days so if I didn’t watch myself it’d be breakfast all the time.”

“You’re talking about Homer Taylor, right?” she grinned. “He used to come in here once in a while and do the same thing. I haven’t seen him in years, though.”

“I guess he doesn’t get out of the house much,” Steve conceded he’d have to tell the truth. “Maybe to see a doctor, but that must be about it.”

“I see that girl of his, oh, once in a while, mostly at the grocery store. She’s been with him for years. The two of them used to come in here every now and then. She’s a little spooky, isn’t she?”

“I can’t say spooky,” Steve shook his head thoughtfully. “A little different, I have to give her that.”

“I’ll stick with spooky. There’s something about her that makes me think she belongs living in a haunted house like Homer’s.”

“He says he doesn’t think it’s haunted.”

“He might be right, and I’m not sure I believe in ghosts, anyway, but when I look at her it makes me wonder. That whole deal strikes me as a little bit strange.”

“How’s that?”

“Homer, well, he’d come in for a while, and then he wouldn’t for a while. One day he showed up with her without a word of explanation. That must have been fifteen years or so ago. She was just a kid at the time.”

“A kid? I knew she’d been with him for a while.”

“Well, not a little kid. A young teenager, maybe. She wouldn’t say much of anything, just ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, ma’am.’ It struck me as funny. You don’t often see kids that quiet and polite any more. Hey, I guess I’d better head back and finish up your order.”

Steve may have been thinking about Hansen-Baldwynn when Becky refilled his coffee, but when she headed back to the kitchen he was deep in the mystery of Ann again. He knew he’d just been handed another piece of the puzzle, but as usual he had no idea where it fit. After what Uncle Homer had said last night, and now with what Becky had told him, Ann had been with Homer for about fifteen years. Back on the first day he’d met Ann she’d told him she was a high school graduate. If that had been about the normal age of eighteen or so, that would mean she was in her early thirties, which was about the top end of the age range he’d guessed, maybe a little beyond it.

But Becky had come right out and said that Ann had to have been younger than high school graduation age when she’d joined Uncle Homer, maybe five years younger – right about the late-twenties age he had guessed Ann as being.

Something in there didn’t quite add up, and it just hinted at deeper mysteries. He ought to be used to that out of her, by now, he thought.

And spooky? Knowing about being an albino, with her light sensitivity and red eyes, he didn’t think of her that way – but he could see how others could believe it. What was it that Uncle Homer had said about his ghostly maid? No wonder those kinds of stories got around!

From somewhere an interesting vision crossed his mind – Uncle Homer’s place would make one hell of a Halloween haunted house. There seemed little chance it would ever happen, but that big old mansion, all those rooms . . . even that toilet flushing would scare the hell out of someone if they weren’t ready for it. It was fun to contemplate, but that was all. At least it was something to think about, rather than picking at the Ann mystery even more than he already did.

The house was still quiet when Steve got back; presumably Uncle Homer and Ann were still sleeping. He went up to his office, closed the door, opened the drapes to let a little light into the room, then called Phil Crocker.

“OK, Phil,” Steve started right off. “I’ve got your money lined up.”

“Steve, are you shitting me? I was about to give up hope.”

“No, it’s real. I mean, there’s going to be paperwork to deal with, but up to half a million if you need it.”

“Half a million? How did you do that? I mean, a quarter would have been enough if I’d cut all the corners I could and squeezed every penny until Lincoln farts.”

“It’s more like squeezing nickels until Jefferson farts,” Steve laughed, “but let’s not get into that. Let’s just say that I figured you could use a little breathing room to do the job right.”

“Well, Jesus, yes. I never figured this would turn into anything. What strings are attached? I mean, my first-born child is a little too old to be selling. Her husband wouldn’t like it very much.”

“Ten years at six percent. I realize that’s a little over the market, but I don’t think it’s out of line given the circumstances. On top of that, they’re going to want to see contracts signed, pending financing, of course, and a lien on the machinery.”

“That sounds better than the deal I was talking over with a bank until they turned me down. Steve, where did you come up with that?”

“Let’s just say I know somebody who knows somebody. The loan is going to be coming out of a private venture capital outfit called Macomber-Calligan Ventures. They represent a group of investors who like to play around with this kind of thing.”

“Never heard of them.”

“I didn’t until last night, myself. Look, Phil, what it comes down to is that they’re taking my word on this. I know you, I trust you, and I think you can bring this deal off or I wouldn’t have even tried to sell it to them, so my ass is on the line on this as much as yours.”

“God, I don’t know what to say. If you’re going to stick your neck out like that for me there’s not much I can do but to do my best to make it work. So what do I do next?”

“I’ll have my contact person fax you a letter of intent that you can wave in front of whoever it is you impress to get those contracts, although you probably won’t get it until this evening,” Steve told him. “There’ll probably be a hard copy put in the mail in the morning. Once you have that, you can get the contracts tied down, and you can go from there.”

“Who do I have to talk to at this Macomber-Calligan place?”

“Your contact will be a woman by the name of Ann Rutledge, and I’ll give you her number. This is a little goofy. Phil, this venture capital business is a small sideline for these people, and they don’t keep normal office hours. It’s best to try her in the early evening. Failing that, call me, although I’m just the one greasing the skids on this deal.”

“I’ll get rolling on it, although I probably won’t be able to do much until tomorrow. Now, are you going to be able to help me get production rolling? I can see I’m going to need some help with production management and quality control.”

“I can’t give you a straight answer on that one, Phil. Right at the moment I’m up to my neck in other things, but it could be I might blow through them quickly. Unless things change, about the best I can promise is that I’ll be available as a very low-paid consultant on an irregular basis to help get you going. But if you need someone, well, Craig Markham was the one who told me you were looking for money, so he ought to get his back scratched a little, and he can probably do what you need.”

“Good thought. I’ll get hold of him and get him helping. Steve, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Thank me by paying that loan back on or ahead of schedule, Phil. That’s all I’m asking.”

Steve ended the call with the warm feeling that he’d really made Phil’s day. It wouldn’t put things back the way they had been before Shawtex had gutted RELI, but at least it was a step in the right direction. Phil deserved a break if anyone did, and Steve didn’t think Phil was likely to let him down.

He turned back to the Hansen-Baldwynn Buick-Cadillac business and examined another couple of angles. There seemed to be little doubt that the books had been cooked, audit or no audit. There was only so much an auditor could do; it could be a case of “garbage in, garbage out,” but there wasn’t any way of telling more than that at this distance.

He’d only worked at it for a few minutes when the phone buzzed. Got to get a decent ring tone on that he thought as he picked it up. “Steve Taylor,” he answered.

“Hey, Steve, it’s Phil,” he heard. “I just Googled this Macomber-Calligan Ventures, just to see who they are, and I can’t find shit. Just a listing of a Delaware corporation, no officers or anything. Are they real, or what?”

“They’re real, but they want to be a little anonymous,” Steve told him. “Like I said, it’s a private corporation that’s a cutout for the real investors. The money is real, and that’s the important part.”

“This isn’t anything shady, is it?”

“Maybe a little fast and loose with the IRS, but it’s legit,” Steve told him. “The deal is just what I told you, with nothing out of school, no unwritten agreements or anything like that.”

“But who are these people?”

“They don’t want anyone to know,” Steve smiled, and thought of a little diversion. “But look, if I was to tell you I’m sitting at a desk that used to belong to a Chicago mobster, would you understand a little?”

“Someone trying to go legit? I get it. No strings other than the ones on paper, right? I don’t have to stroke anyone?”

“I’ll do any stroking needed,” Steve replied, although in one corner of his mind he thought that it probably wouldn’t be a lot of fun to do much stroking with Ann. She probably wouldn’t appreciate that kind of stroking, and besides his fingers might get cold in the process. “Other than that, well, it’s hard to cut up a body with a CNC machine or hide it in a bin of small parts. Believe me, Phil, this is on the up-and-up.”

“Well, if you think it’s all right, I don’t have a hell of a lot of choice if I want to do this while I can. I’ll get hold of Craig and we’ll get busy. At least this way we can salvage something out of the Shawtex disaster.”

“Right, get rolling and keep me posted.”

“You have to give him credit for doing a little due diligence,” Uncle Homer said after breakfast that evening.

“Well, yes. He’s been burned badly enough that he wants to make sure he’s on solid ground,” Steve replied.

“It’s not all bad,” the old man smiled. “If he thinks he’s playing with mob money he might be real careful about paying it back on time. I mean cement overshoes careful. He must want it pretty bad.”

“Like I said, he got burned and he’s mad about it. I really think he’s going to come through. He all but offered me his first-born daughter, but I didn’t want to go that far. I mean, I met the gal once. She’s the kind of woman who got a ring on her finger and quit trying. I’ll bet she put on a hundred pounds in her first year of marriage, and turned meaner than a junkyard dog on the way there.”

“That was probably a good one to pass up,” Uncle Homer laughed. “But I have to admit, it’s not the first time Stinky has been of use around here, and he’s been dead almost ninety years. So where are we at on the Hansen-Baldwynn situation?”

“I know more about it than I did this time yesterday, but I’m beginning to think that the answer is something I’m not going to find out here. I think maybe I’d better plan on making a trip down to Pendersburg, unless there’s something coming up that’s more important.”

“There’s nothing in the very near future, at least at this point. This looks more like an aggravation than it is a crisis, but it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to take a run down there and nose around. This is one of those deals I wouldn’t mind getting out of my hair, just for the sake of simplifying my life a little more.”

“All right, I’ll get some reservations made and get going tomorrow,” Steve replied.

“I guess all I can say is to find out what you can and report back. Ann, do you have any thoughts on it?”

“Not really, sir. I agree with Steve, something is going on there we’re not seeing, and it’s probably worth looking to find out what it is.”

“All right, do either of you have anything else we need to think about at this time?”

“Nothing from me,” Steve replied.

“Not right now, sir,” Ann said. “In fact, things are so slow I thought I might like to get out of the house for a while. It’s a warm evening, and there’s a nearly full moon, so I thought I might like to take a walk down to the pond for the sake of getting a little fresh air.”

“That sounds nice,” Uncle Homer replied. “I almost wish I was up for going with you, but I’m afraid I’m not up to that any more. You might ask Steve to go with you.”

“That’s a good idea, sir. We discussed that at one point.” She turned to Steve and asked, “Would you like to go along, sir?”

“Sure, I’ve been in the house all day myself, except when I went out this morning,” he replied. “I could stand a little fresh air myself.”

“Then Mr. Taylor, if you don’t mind we’ll leave you for a while. I don’t think we’ll be gone long.”

“Take your time and have fun, you two.”

A few minutes later Steve and Ann were walking down the darkened path toward the pond. Well, not terribly dark since there was a nearly full moon, but the shadows were deep. That didn’t bother Ann, of course. “It’s nice and quiet out here tonight,” he said softly, not wanting to disturb the silence very much. “That moon sure is bright, though.”

“It’s very bright for me, sir,” she replied. “I almost wish I’d brought my sunglasses. I can’t look directly at the moon without them.”

“Too bright?”

“Much too bright, sir,” she sighed. “I enjoy my walks out here, even though I don’t take them as often as I should. I don’t like to leave Mr. Taylor alone for very long, but I get out here when I can. Actually, I’ve walked through much of the woods around this place at night and I probably know them better than Bob and Ray, but for obvious reasons I hardly ever get out here in the daylight.”

“I can’t imagine what it must be like to see in the dark the way you do. When I was in the Army I occasionally got to use night-vision gear, but from your description I don’t think it’s quite the same experience.”

“Probably not, sir. My understanding is that the view with those optics is rather artificial, but of course I really don’t know and wouldn’t know how to compare them.” She let out a little snicker and continued. “I suppose you know about the reputation this place has for being haunted.”

There was no point in mentioning Becky. “Uncle Homer mentioned that once or twice.”

“I suppose I’ve added to that reputation a time or two with my midnight meandering out here, sir,” she laughed. “I understand Mr. Taylor told you the story about the people looking for Mr. Antonelli’s treasure?”

“He did, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he was doing by burying all those nickels out here.”

“I have no idea of what Mr. Antonelli had in mind in burying them there either, sir. In fact, it was right over there,” she pointed off into the darkness. “I watched the treasure hunters from up on the hill to our left. I was dressed all in black, with a black hood, so I had to be the next thing to invisible to them, although they were as bright as could be to me.”

“I guess we’ll never know. Have there been any more treasure hunters?”

“Not that we are aware of, sir, but occasionally we’ll get a ghost hunter poking their nose in where they don’t belong. Sometimes they even think they’ve found something, too, and I suppose that might have something to do with the haunted reputation of this place.”

That one didn’t take a great deal for Steve to put two and two together. “They saw you, I’ll bet.”

“There has been a time or two, sir” she laughed. “It was purely accidental, mind you. One of the best times I happened to be dressed all in white, and of course my abilities in the dark seemed freakish to them. That encounter showed up on a number of websites, and is still recounted even now.”

“And I’ll bet you helped it along with a few low moans, or something.”

“Well, of course, sir. And of course I didn’t let them get close enough to get a good look at me. I should have just avoided them altogether as it added significantly to the reputation of this place, but I was younger then and thought it was fun. The part I find amusing is that this so-called ghost hunter somehow came to the conclusion that I was an apparition of the ghost of Mr. Antonelli’s girlfriend who was still waiting for him.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. “People will believe just about anything, won’t they?”

“I believe you’re correct, sir. That’s especially true if they’re primed to believe something in the first place. In any case, we had a little run of ghost hunters here for a while, and the sheriff had to be called several times. Fortunately it’s long died out, and I’ve been a little more careful about avoiding contact if I should happen to find someone out here looking for ghosts.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Not for some time now, sir. I have come across some people who have sneaked on here to hunt deer, but a call to the sheriff usually deals adequately with them as well. I still think it amusing that my main claim to fame is being Molly Carrillo’s ghost.”

“Was that her name?”

“That was what was said on the website, sir. It’s probably correct, but I have not investigated it.”

“You know,” Steve snickered. “It’s really hard to believe.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“A few days ago I would never have dreamed that I’d be walking in the dark through a haunted woods with Molly Carrillo’s ghost by my side.”

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