Page 9 of Ghost Town Boogie

“Maude!” Colt snapped.

She smiled innocently as he turned toward the back of the depot, then walked through a green door. Between the public space of his store and the back door there were four separate storage rooms, a small office, and a bathroom for him and his handful of part time employees. The bathroom was off-limits to customers, but sadly not to ghosts. One of the rooms had been converted to a break room with chairs, a small table, a fridge, and a microwave. Another he used exclusively for cleaning records. It had a table at just the right height so he didn’t have to bend over as he stood there and cleaned, the microfiber towels he preferred, and his own vinyl cleaning solution. An old turntable sat on a shelf near a box where records in need of cleaning were stored.

By the time he exited the back door, Anna had already parked near the dumpster, which was off to the side between the west corner of the building and the rarely used tracks. She opened her trunk; Colt headed toward her.

“Records in any of those?” he asked as he tossed the box with his name on it into the big bin.

“Nope. Decorative plates. Chipped glassware that’s still, according to my mother, mostly good. Magazines, some of them with excellent recipes, I hear. We haven’t even gotten to the records yet.” She sighed, and again he saw the tiredness in her.

She lifted a box from the trunk; he was there to take it from her. “You catch your breath. I’ll get these.”

There was no argument to that offer. Anna seemed content to lean against the car and close her eyes as he tossed boxes into the dumpster. She did thank him. Twice.

When her trunk was empty he closed it and asked, “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

She locked her car with the remote in her hand and they walked into the depot through the rear door. The back section of the depot was a maze, of sorts. Over the years, as the building had been used for other purposes, walls had been added. They made their way down a short hall, then took a sharp turn into a narrower hallway that went past his office and into the main area where Mathis was still playing.

Anna managed a tired smile. “Do you ever play music written after 1970?”

“On occasion.”

“I had no idea you were into the old stuff. Dad was. He and your dad both loved that old music, especially jazz. Everything else was substandard in their eyes.”

Her expression when she mentioned her dad broke his heart. Donnie Miller had been imperfect, as most people were, but he’d loved Anna and she’d loved him. She missed him, she grieved.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Colt said. “He came by now and then, just to say hello. He was a nice guy.” Well, nice enough. To him, at least. He had the good graces to stay gone after death, which was a plus.

“I loved my dad but he was a hard ass who thought his way was the only way, and not just when it came to music.”

He thought again about asking Anna to dinner to catch up, but dismissed the foolish idea. She was busy with family stuff and had no time for distractions. Yeah, that was his excuse, for the moment.

He poured her a cup of coffee, and then one for himself. She cradled her disposable cup as if it were the finest china, and sipped at the hot brew as if it were magic from the gods.

Some days it was.

Colt took a long look at Anna’s face. It wasn’t a bad view, not at all. Not that he should notice. Her mood was different today, off, somehow. What he saw in her wasn’t grief for the loss of her father. It wasn’t annoyance at her brother. This was something else. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She gave him a wan smile. “Do I look that bad?”

Never. “You look tired, that’s all.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night, and Mom is driving me a little crazy. She can’t take everything with her, but she refuses to part with anything she thinks might be worth a quarter at a garage sale.”

“You’re not having a garage sale, are you?” he asked, slightly horrified. Old stuff and ghosts seemed to go together.

“Not if I can talk Mom out of it.”

“We could stop by the antiques store and ask Nicole if she’ll take a look, maybe tell you if anything you’re looking to get rid of has value.” We. Why had he said we?

“That’s a great idea.”

“How long will you be in town?” How long would he have to look her in the eye and lie?

“As long as it takes. I was hoping for a couple of weeks, but it’s looking like I’ll be here a while longer. When we get rid of the all the crap, I mean Mom’s treasures, there are a few repairs to be done before we can put the house up for sale.” She drained her coffee cup and handed it to him. “More, please.”

He obliged. Anna might be here a month or more. That struck him as being both wonderful and terrible. He liked having someone from the past to talk to. An old friend. A reminder of a more innocent time. She hadn’t been a friend in the old days, not really, but her brother had been and she’d been a part of the mix.