Haunting Danielle 27 The Ghost and the Mountain Man

by Bobbi Holmes

  “Odd greeting,” MacDonald said as he walked up to Danielle, Evan by his side.

  “Did you get a good look at his face?” Danielle asked when the chief reached her.

  “Who was he?” Evan asked.

  “That’s what I would like to find out,” Danielle said.

  “Who was who?” the chief asked.

  “The man who just rushed by you,” Danielle said.

  “What man?” the chief asked.

  “The guy with the funny hat and beard,” Evan told his father.

  The chief frowned. “What are you two talking about?”

  Danielle paused and looked from the chief to the street. Without saying a word, she rushed past Evan and his father, down the walkway. When she reached the sidewalk, she looked north and then south. The man was nowhere in sight.

  “What’s going on, Danielle?” the chief asked, following her down the walkway, Evan trailing behind him.

  “Was that a ghost?” Evan asked Danielle.

  Danielle looked to the chief. “You didn’t see him, did you?”

  MacDonald shook his head. “If there was a man here when I walked up, I didn’t see him.”

  “I did!” Evan said. “Was he a ghost?”

  Danielle looked back down the street again and then to Evan and his father. “I think he was.”

  “Whose ghost was he?” the chief asked.

  “Not a clue. He said he was looking for someone named Alex and Anna. And someone he called the old man. He thought they lived at Marlow House.”

  “I love coming over here,” Evan said. “You always have exciting stuff going on.”

  Danielle looked at Evan and chuckled, rustling his hair with one hand. She noticed how tall he had grown. Soon he would be taller than her.

  “Let’s go tell Walt about our visitor. According to the ghost, he plans to return, so hopefully we’ll find out who he is then.”

  “Never boring here,” MacDonald muttered.

  “Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” Danielle asked the chief.

  “Sure, coffee and a ghost story,” MacDonald said, following Danielle back to the house. On his way there, he leaned down and picked up the newspaper, reaching it before Danielle.

  “Walt’s in the parlor,” Danielle said as the three walked in the open doorway. “I’ll go get you that coffee, and I have a feeling Evan would like a cinnamon roll.”

  “Hey, what about me? I like cinnamon rolls too,” MacDonald said, still holding the newspaper.

  Evan rushed in the parlor door before his father and announced excitedly, “There was a ghost out front!”

  Walt glanced up from the sofa. “Morning, Evan, Edward. Ghost, you say?”

  MacDonald tossed the newspaper to Walt, who effortlessly caught it. He took a seat on a chair facing the sofa. “Obviously I didn’t see it. I believe Danielle was talking to him when we walked up. I don’t think she knew he was a ghost until he ran off and realized I hadn’t seen him.”

  “But I did,” Evan said. “He had a gray beard and funny jeans. And a faded old flannel shirt. Kinda like the ones my grandpa likes. But it was dirty, like the jeans. And he had a floppy hat.”

  Walt narrowed his eyes at Evan. “How do you mean, funny jeans?”

  Evan shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t look like regular jeans.”

  “Do you know who it was?” MacDonald asked.

  “He does sound familiar. But why would he be here?” Walt asked.

  “Who do you think he is?” Evan asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s the same ghost,” Walt said.

  MacDonald arched his brows. “You have been seeing lots of ghosts lately? Getting more and more like your wife?”

  “The ghost I’m thinking about is the one we ran into in the mountains. Evan’s description is a match. But how did he get from there to here, and why?”

  “Are you talking about the ghost who shot at you?” MacDonald asked.

  Evan’s brown eyes widened. “A ghost shot at you?”

  Walt flashed the boy a smile. “Yes, but fortunately, ghost bullets aren’t especially lethal. He was there one minute and then just vanished. Heather saw him too.”

  “You think he’s the same ghost?” MacDonald asked.

  Danielle walked into the parlor, carrying a platter with a coffee pot, a clean mug, a glass of milk, a plate of cinnamon rolls, and a stack of paper napkins. “You know who our visitor was?” she asked Walt after hearing MacDonald’s question.

  “Evan described him. Sounds like the one we ran into in the mountains.”

  “Did he follow you here?” Danielle asked as she set the platter on the desk.

  “If he was the same one, I’d have to assume so. But why?” Walt asked.

  Danielle filled the empty mug with coffee. “I don’t know if he was the same one, but my ghost was asking for Anna and Alex.” She handed the coffee mug to the chief.

  “Anna and Alex?” Walt frowned.

  Danielle returned to the desk and set a cinnamon roll on a napkin. She handed it and the glass of milk to Evan, who now sat on the sofa with Walt. “Yes. First he asked for Alex. Claimed he lived here.” She returned to the desk and placed a second cinnamon roll on a clean napkin and handed it to the chief.

  “Did he know where he was?” Walt asked.

  Danielle paused a moment and looked at her husband. “What do you mean, did he know where he was?”

  “Did he know whose house this was?” Walt asked.

  “I suppose. He pointed to the sign out front and said something about this being Marlow House. So yes, if that’s what you mean. Why, do you know who he is?”

  “No, I don’t,” Walt muttered.

  Danielle shrugged and then picked up a roll, tore it in half, and handed one side to Walt. She took the second half with her to the empty chair next to the chief and sat down. “First, he demands to see this Alex, insisted this was his home. And then he asks for Anna and…” Danielle paused a moment and looked over to Walt. She had just torn off a piece of cinnamon roll and was about to put it in her mouth but stopped and considered her words for a minute while meeting Walt’s gaze.

  “What is it?” the chief asked.

  Danielle glanced briefly to the chief and then looked back to her husband. “Your parents, they were Alexander and Anna.”

  Walt nodded. “Yes. My father went by Alex.”

  “Are you suggesting this ghost was looking for Walt’s parents?” MacDonald asked.

  Danielle shrugged. “All I know, he insisted they lived here. But he was pretty angry. If it was your father he was looking for, I don’t think they were friends. He seemed upset.”

  “And this is the same ghost you encountered in the mountains?” the chief said.

  Walt shook his head. “I don’t know. The description matches.”

  “That picture of your parents we found, you look a lot like your father. Is it possible this ghost thought you were your father, and that’s why he shot at you?” Danielle asked.

  “Why would he shoot at my father?”

  Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know, but he seemed awful upset with this Alex.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Walt said. “Everyone loved my father.”

  “I suppose we can always ask him,” Danielle said, popping the piece of cinnamon roll in her mouth.

  Walt frowned. “Ask him how?”

  Danielle looked at Walt. “He said he was coming back.”

  Three

  He kept his promise and returned to Marlow House. When he arrived, the car that had been parked out front during his prior visit was no longer there. Determined to confront Alex, he marched back up to the front door. What he didn’t know, fifteen minutes earlier the occupants had gone to the house across the street. Even the cat who lived at Marlow House was not home.

  Standing at the front door, he gave it a vigorous knock, and to his surprise, he found himself no longer standing outside, but in the entry of Marlow House.
Confused, he glanced around and wondered how he had gotten inside. He noted the closed front door. But he didn’t waste time trying to understand; instead he saw this as divine intervention, his opportunity to confront Alex.

  Momentarily tempted to shout out for the man, he resisted and began quietly searching the house, starting with the parlor. One reason not to call out for Alex, it might actually be better to find Anna instead, and if he did, he would tell her everything.

  Afternoon sunshine replaced morning rain clouds. Danielle and Evan had joined Lily and Connor on the beach behind Lily’s house. The two women sat in beach chairs, each clad in leggings, with Lily wearing a lightweight hoody over her shirt, and Danielle wearing an extra-long sweater blouse. Evan and Connor sat on a blanket nearby, playing in the sand with trucks, shovels and buckets. Inside the house, Walt visited with Ian.

  Danielle’s cat, Max, sat in the middle of the blanket with the boys, watching their every move, his black tail swishing back and forth. Sadie crouched nearby on the beach, her eye on a neglected tennis ball at the blanket’s edge, waiting for one of the boys to discover it and give it a toss.

  Lily watched as Evan helped Connor fill a bucket with sand. With a sigh she said, “I can’t believe he’s going to be a year next month.”

  “And before we know it, Evan will be a teenager,” Danielle said.

  “Or as my mom called it, a stinking teenager.” Lily snickered. “I feel so cliche saying how fast they grow up. But it’s true.”

  “That’s why it’s a cliche,” Danielle reminded her.

  Lily let out another sigh. “According to all the baby books, Connor should start talking any time now, and I’m just hoping his first word isn’t Marie.”

  Danielle laughed. “If it is, I want to be there when you explain that to Kelly. But I hate to be the one to tell you, it won’t be Marie. More likely Grandma Marie.”

  Lily frowned at Danielle. “Why do you say that?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard Marie call herself to Connor.”

  Lily groaned.

  “If you’re lucky, it will be just Grandma. That’ll be easier to explain. You can always say you taught him that for when he sees his grandparents again,” Danielle suggested.

  “Perhaps.” Lily shrugged.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the boys. Finally, Lily asked, “The ghost this morning, you say he was looking for Walt’s parents?”

  “That’s what it sounded like. Walt’s dad was Alexander, and his mother was Anna. The ghost was looking for Alex and Anna and insisted they lived at Marlow House. It has to be who he meant.”

  “Do you have any idea why the ghost is angry with Walt’s dad? And what did he need to tell Walt’s mom?” Lily asked.

  Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know; neither does Walt. He doesn’t really talk about his parents, but it’s probably because he doesn’t remember much about them. From what I understand, his grandparents rarely discussed them. Walt thinks because it was too painful.”

  “Maybe, but dang, that seems so wrong. But it happens. I had a friend who was about Evan’s age when his father died. His mother remarried a few years later. And she never discussed his father. She never talked about what kind of person he was, what he liked to do, nothing. I can’t imagine doing that if—God forbid—something happened to Ian.” Lily shivered at the thought.

  “I suppose everyone handles grief differently.”

  “How did his parents die?” Lily asked.

  “A house fire, Walt was five years old,” Danielle told her.

  “House fire? So they weren’t living at Marlow House at the time? I assumed they all lived at Marlow House.”

  “You were right, they were living at Marlow House,” Danielle said. “That’s where Walt was born.”

  With a frown Lily asked, “Where was the fire? How did it happen?”

  “It was at a friend’s house. In fact, the friend died too, the wife, anyway. The husband wasn’t home. A heater exploded. Sounded horrific,” Danielle said.

  “That’s awful! Walt wasn’t there, was he?”

  “No. He was at Marlow House when it happened.” As Danielle explained, Sadie gave up waiting for someone to throw the ball. She walked over to Lily and Danielle, sitting between them in the sand.

  “And this ghost, you said Walt thinks he might be the same one from the mountains?” Lily asked.

  Danielle reached out and absently stroked Sadie’s back while saying, “When we described him to Walt, he sounded like the same ghost. But after we discussed it a little more, Walt’s convinced it’s a coincidence and not the same one.”

  “Why does he think that?” Lily asked.

  “The ghost in the mountains had a rifle. The one Evan and I saw wasn’t armed. Plus, it seems a little farfetched that the ghost they ran into would show up just days later at Marlow House, looking for Walt’s parents.”

  “The fact your husband used to be a ghost is a little farfetched too.” Lily snickered.

  Before heading outside to work in her yard, Pearl Huckabee traded her favorite cloche hat for a white sailor’s cap, its brim turned down. It seemed more sensible considering it had been raining earlier. Unfortunately, she had gotten little work done, distracted by the police car she’d seen driving down the street, slowing in front of her neighbor Heather Donovan’s house, and then racing off again.

  From what she had read in the newspaper several days earlier, someone had kidnapped Heather and Pearl’s other neighbor, Walt Marlow, along with Officer Brian Henderson. They had been left up in the mountains to die. The article made little sense. It said something about witches being responsible. Witches? Pearl couldn’t fathom such a thing.

  Yet, considering Donovan’s appearance, Pearl did not doubt the young woman had gotten involved in some cultish witches’ coven and had brought the trouble on herself. Donovan seemed just the type to go exploring in the Devil’s playground. Perhaps poor Officer Henderson had been investigating Heather’s shenanigans, and it almost got him killed. She hadn’t figured out Walt Marlow’s involvement, nor had the newspaper article adequately explained what had happened and why.

  By the way the police car slowed down in front of Heather’s house, she wondered if her neighbor was under surveillance because of the incident. While pondering the possibilities, she glanced to the rear of her yard and spied the same police car moving down the alley, passing Marlow House and then hers.

  Pearl dropped the rake she had been holding and scurried toward the back of the yard to have a closer look. When she neared the bushes along the fence separating her property from Donovan’s, she heard voices. Taking care not to make a sound, she crept closer to the bushes and looked next door.

  The police car parked behind Heather’s house, its motor still running. Heather stood by the car, talking to the driver. It looked like Officer Henderson.

  “Are you stalking me?” Heather asked while leaning against Brian’s open car window. She wore gray sweatpants, a red T-shirt and red jogging shoes, with her black hair pulled up in a high ponytail. She hadn’t put on any makeup, yet her nails sported fresh black polish.

  “I’m just patrolling the neighborhood, keeping the citizens of Frederickport safe,” Brian said with a grin. He reached out the window and gave the hem of her shirt a gentle tug. “Going jogging?”

  “Yes. I normally go in the morning, but the rain stopped me.”

  He chuckled. “Was that all that kept you home?”

  She grinned. “I can’t even imagine what Joe would think if he knew.”

  “How do you know I haven’t told him?” he asked.

  She leaned into the window and gave his lips a quick kiss. Pulling back, she said, “Because neither of us needs that kind of BS right now.”

  “They are eventually going to find out,” Brian told her.

  “Well, yeah, if you keep cruising by my house,” Heather said with a snort.

  “You just like the sneaking around,” Brian teased.

&
nbsp; Heather giggled. “Admit, it is sorta fun.”

  Brian flashed her a grin and gave her hem another tug. “You go do your jog. But try not to fall over any dead bodies.”

  “If I find one, I know who I’ll call.”

  Heather hummed as she sprinted down Beach Drive to the pier. Brian showing up unexpectedly had thrown her off her routine, making her forget her earbuds. So instead of listening to music, she hummed a tune while thinking how everything had changed since those crazy witches had barged into her life.

  When she reached the pier, she turned west, and instead of walking onto the pier, she headed down under it, to the beach for her jog north, intending to run by Ian and Lily’s, then Chris’s house and beyond.

  Since she had already warmed up, she broke into a jog once she reached the beach, greeting those along her path as she passed by, her ponytail flopping up and down behind her.

  It wasn’t a dead body that brought her to a complete stop a few minutes later. But it was close. Directly in front of her, watching her approach, was the ghost of the trigger-happy mountain man she had encountered with Brian and Walt the week before. But unlike the last time, he wasn’t toting a rifle. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t conjure one up at a moment’s notice. After all, he was a ghost.

  “Are you going to shoot at me again?” Heather asked, slightly out of breath after the quick sprint and jog.

  “Do you see a rifle?” he asked.

  “Why are you here?” she countered.

  “I’m here for Alex. Where is he?” he demanded.

  “Who’s Alex?” Heather frowned.

  “Don’t play dumb,” he snapped.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “You mean Alex didn’t tell you?”

  “Why are you here? Why aren’t you still in the mountains?”

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d rather you move on, like you’re supposed to do.”

  “Move on?” He frowned.

  “If you don’t intend to move on, at least tell me who you are,” Heather said.