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Obviously Attitude thought he was someone important. I looked at his rainbow
hues and wondered who he was. Did I dare ask? If I did, he d think I was going to help
him.
As I was thinking all this, Attitude leaned toward me and whispered, Lester
McGinley.
Another ghost reading my mind!
It wasn t that he could read my mind which blew me away, though, it was his
name.  The Lester McGinley? I looked at him in surprise, making no effort to hide the
effect of hearing his name.
The same. Now you see why I need help?
Lester McGinley, nearly one hundred years earlier, had been the president of his
own bank and one of the largest land-titleholders in the area. His biggest claim to fame
was the brewery still operating in the heart of downtown Seattle. At the time he d only
been in his mid-thirties. There were numerous things named after him a stadium, a
park, an old office building downtown and a street. He had been considered the bright
and shining star of Seattle s rich and famous.
Then he d decided to back Louise Walters, a dancer-singer on the vaudeville stage.
His family had been certain he d taken leave of his senses and tried to have him
committed to an asylum but it hadn t worked. He d been one step ahead of them all the
way. When he finally proved to everyone he knew what he was doing and turned a tidy
profit on the shows he bankrolled, it was too late. By then he was considered the
nefarious Mr. McGinley, the person every mother of the day used as an example of
what they didn t want their sons to become.
Idle gossip and jealousy reared their ugly heads and it was soon spread all over
Seattle that Lester and Louise were an item. A pair. A couple.
In other words, they were having an affair.
Lester McGinley was said to have denied the affair until his death in a suspicious
fall from one of his office buildings top floor windows. It had been ruled a suicide, but
there had been quite a few at the time who d thought it might have been a murder.
 Yeah, I d say you needed help. But I don t think there s anything anyone can do
for you. At least not here.
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Deja You
The proof I wasn t having an affair with the woman, that I was murdered, is in a book
hidden in this building.
I looked in his direction and wanted nothing more than to get up and walk away.
But I knew I wouldn t.
I was going to help him.
Why?
Because the story of Lester McGinley and Louise Walters had been made into a film
for a local film festival and I d been one of many who d paid good money to see what
all the fuss was about. It was said to be based on her diary, but the film s writer and
producer had never proved to anyone s satisfaction they did indeed have the infamous
volume.
 What makes you think it s here? I frowned at him, wondering. Louise Walters
was supposed to have lived the last two years of her life here, but there had never been
any rumors about things such as her diary.
Because she would have had it with her to the end. And her end came here.
It wasn t much of an argument, but then it didn t seem to take much effort on the
part of these ghosts and spirits to get me to agree with whatever they wanted me to do.
It was almost as if they thought of me as one of them.
 Lester, I don t know. How am I supposed to find this book? Do you know which
apartment she lived in? Do you know where it was hidden?
I waited for his reply and could see by his slowing motion and the blue tinge of his
color he couldn t answer my question.
No. I don t. I guess I don t have much hope of clearing my name, do I? I couldn t even begin
to tell you where to look.
You couldn t, but I could.
The woman s voice coming from above and behind me was cultured, melodic yet
sultry. I turned and nearly fell down the stairs from where I sat.
There was another one of these damned ghosts right behind me.
Only this one had such a strong character I could see her her face, her clothes, the
way she held herself.
Louise? Obviously I wasn t the only one surprised by her appearance.
Hello, Lester. How ve you been? The voice must have seduced hundreds in her day.
The grand dame of vaudeville stars hadn t changed much from the photographs I d
seen of her. She wore her long auburn hair up in fat curls, with ringlets falling over her
shoulder. Her gown seemed to be covered in some kind of beadwork, reflecting
rainbows of her own ghostly hues back at the viewer. It was an off-the-shoulder, low-
cut number with a deep v-shape to the bodice, showing off the body that had made her
famous.
The only problem was the face belonging to this goddess appeared to be about a
hundred years old and the breasts which should have been swelling above the top of
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Kelsy George
her tight-fitting gown were wrinkled and flat. The affect was garish, gaudy and
tasteless.
I had never heard anyone describe Louise Walters as any of those things, so I
thought maybe there was some mistake here. I turned to ask Lester what this was all
about but he was already above me, standing next to Louise. I looked across at Mikey
and noticed he no longer seemed to be worried about the ghosts who kept popping into
his life. For a dog I d only had for three weeks, he was doing pretty well.
Louise, what are you doing here? I thought you d passed over.
I did, but I had to return. I had such a guilty conscience I wasn t happy in the other world so
they told me to come back and make things right. But I didn t know how. I ve been listening to
you and the solid, and I think you have a very good idea. I want to help, Lester, since it was my
fault you ended up in so much trouble.
Well, wasn t that just peachy keen!
I was a  solid . And at the moment I was the odd man out, the minority in this little
crowd.
 Okay, Louise, so how do you plan to help? I thought it a fair question. I might
have to help them with some of the plan, but if it was their own, and they could do
most of it, I was in total agreement.
I m going to tell you where to find the book. As long as no one has ripped up the floor in my
old place, it should still be there.
 Which apartment was yours, Louise? I know you lived here, but I don t think I
ever heard anyone say.
I had 304.
Great. She had been in 3D, now the apartment of Denise and Gary Lawless. They
were the couple who worked all day. I didn t know them very well, so how would I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]