I stepped into the dark dining room, where the windows were all boarded up now as Alison had moved around the house to work on the game room. I turned on the lights and called the Harbor Haven police, and after a lengthy delay—the storm was causing a lot of panicky calls to the police headquarters—was informed by the dispatcher that they were aware of the enclave of homeless people living in town, and had taken them to shelters in the area for the duration of the “weather event.”

Paul and Robert had clearly been talking during my conversation, because when I returned to the kitchen, they were hovering next to each other by the center island. Paul turned to me with a look on his face I recognized—he had a case to solve.

“Loretta,” he said with great enthusiasm, “Robert has asked us to conduct a search on his behalf.”

“You want us to find your fiancée?” I asked Robert.

He shook his head. “No. She was informed of my status and married another man in 1978. But there was something that . . . belonged to her, something that was linked to me, and it seems to have vanished when Barbara sold the house.”

“What is it we’re looking for?” I asked.

Robert’s eyes were clearer and more substantial than I’d seen them before. He looked right at me and asked, “Do you know what a POW bracelet is?”

Chapter 3

“What’s a POW bracelet?” Paul asked.

We were situated around the center island in the kitchen—Paul, Maxine, and myself. Alison was still battening down the hatches for the storm, and Melissa was finishing her homework. Paul was hovering over the stove, giving the (false) impression of a man who needed the warmth to keep himself aloft. Maxine was lying on her side in a horizontal position, floating by the refrigerator, which made it more uncomfortable to get out salad dressing than it might normally be. Maxine didn’t seem to notice.

Paul stroked his goatee, which made him look professorial. He’s such a nice boy; now that I’ve known him for a while, it’s even more upsetting to me that he died so young. His case with Maxine had been the first he’d undertaken himself—Paul told me he’d apprenticed at a detective agency and had just started on his own. If the attack hadn’t happened so soon, he undoubtedly would have anticipated and foiled it, but it was just bad luck. Since then, he and Alison have proven to be a very good investigative team, and I like to watch them work together. It makes Paul happy to be useful, and it makes Alison . . . well, she underestimates her talents.

Paul had conducted a fairly thorough interview of the spirit he was now calling “our client,” Sergeant Elliot. The lost item in question was a POW bracelet—I explained to Paul that various student groups during the Vietnam War used to make these simple metal bands with the names of missing soldiers on them and sell them for a few dollars to raise funds protesting the war or just to focus attention on military personnel who had been listed as missing or taken prisoner. Usually, people just got bracelets with random names, but this one was special.

“Barbara had specifically asked for one with my name, and the families of those lost overseas usually got at least one,” Sergeant Elliot had told us.

“So what happened to this one, the one Barbara had with your name?” I asked.

The soldier looked irritated. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But I know she still had it after I made it back here to the States. They found our remains, some of us, and shipped them home for a group burial, but they weren’t able to identify mine, so I was still listed as missing. All I know is she wore it until she sold this house, and then it was gone. I think it might still be here.”

I decided to keep working on getting dinner ready as I listened to the interview, but I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d been doing when the chicken had started walking. Oh yes: I’d been rendering pan drippings to make gravy. Now, where had I put that measuring cup?

“Here?” Paul said. “I’ve been here for a couple of years, and I don’t believe I’ve seen anything like that.”

“I believe it’s here,” Sergeant Elliot repeated. “I don’t know the place well; I didn’t live here long, only a few months before I shipped out. I’ve done a little searching, but I don’t know the idiosyncrasies of the house. You might have better luck.”

“Why do you need it?” I asked. After all these years, and after knowing his fiancée had married another man, what kind of significance could it still hold?

“It’s very important I get it,” he said. “If I hold it in my hand, I believe I can end this half existence.”

Paul looked intrigued; the idea of other levels of an afterlife was always a fascinating concept for him. “You think the bracelet is the key?” he asked.

“I don’t know for certain, but I feel it has a hold on me,” the sergeant answered. “I think that if I can gain possession of it, its restrictive power will vanish.”

“Really!” Paul stroked his goatee harder, a sure sign he was thinking deeply.

“What’s this all got to do with the chicken?” I asked. The question had been bothering me the whole conversation. And my inability to find the measuring cup was just as annoying.

I didn’t get an answer. Sergeant Elliot vanished.

• • •

“What’s a POW bracelet?” Melissa asked.

“It was a special thing,” I answered my granddaughter. “It was a metal bracelet people wore during and after the Vietnam War. Each one had the name of a solider who had been captured or was missing, and the date he had last been seen.”

Melissa thought about it as she chewed a bite of chicken and then asked (after swallowing, like a good girl does), “So it’s like those ribbons or rubber bracelets people wear now to raise awareness for a disease or something?”

I nodded. The wind was starting to howl around the house, but the rain hadn’t started yet.

Alison was looking up at the ceiling, where Maxine was stretching as if she were going to—or could—sleep. “So this ghost wants us to find the bracelet with his name on it? Why does he think it’s here?”

“He says he ‘dropped in’ on his ex-fiancée and overheard a conversation about it, years ago,” I reported, based on what Robert had told me. “She thought she’d packed it with her, and then when she got to her new apartment, she couldn’t find it. Apparently that was very troubling to her, and even after she was informed that he was listed as missing, and then as killed in action, she wasn’t able to let it go.”

Paul was clearly thinking ahead to the search. “Maxie and I can search inside walls and in places you can’t look. If we all begin looking after dinner, it shouldn’t take very long at all.”

“If the ghost looked himself and couldn’t find it, why does he think we can?” Melissa asked.

Alison answered for Paul. “We don’t have another plan, so we might as well go with this one. But I want to point out that nobody still breathing is going outside tonight, is that clear? From all reports, this is a really dangerous storm, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone.” She looked at Melissa. “Especially you.”

“You worry too much,” Maxine told her. “If anyone has to go outside, I’ll do it. Nothing’s going to happen to me out there.”

“I thought that was what I just said,” Alison muttered.

Paul knows when to nip their arguments in the bud. He also focuses on his “cases” very acutely; he’s very responsible. “While we’re looking for the bracelet, Maxie, I think you should run some computer searches.” Maxine does the research on the investigations, and even though she likes to grumble about it, she’s very talented at what she does. It makes me proud that it was originally my suggestion she take up that part of the job.