Haunting Danielle 27 The Ghost and the Mountain Man

by Bobbi Holmes

  Walt tightened his hold on Danielle’s hand and pulled her closer as they continued to walk through the cemetery. Several minutes later they encountered a cemetery groundskeeper. Danielle asked him which part of the cemetery they might find graves from the early 1900s. He pointed out the direction; they thanked him and walked that way.

  “Aside from the groundskeeper, I haven’t seen anyone,” Walt whispered as they read the headstones.

  “I assume you’re referring to someone from the spirit realm,” Danielle said.

  “I thought that’s why we came. Not sure how finding her grave is going to help us much. Isn’t the point to find a spirit who might have been around during her burial, who knows something? But it looks rather dead around here.”

  Danielle giggled.

  Walt rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  Still walking with Walt, Danielle glanced to the right and then froze. Her abrupt stop brought Walt to a halt. “Bingo. I found one.”

  Walt looked over to where Danielle stared. At first glance, one might mistake the spirit for a living woman. What gave her away, she stood in the middle of an upright headstone, her upper body protruding from its top while her feet stuck out of its face.

  “Shall we go introduce ourselves?” Walt asked in a whisper.

  “I hope she doesn’t disappear on us,” Danielle whispered back.

  Plastering a smile on her face, Danielle took a deep breath and, with Walt, turned to the ghost staring at them and began walking in her direction.

  “Hello, please don’t disappear,” Danielle called out.

  The ghost frowned and glanced around for a moment and then looked back to Walt and Danielle. “Surely you aren’t talking to me?”

  “Yes, I am. I have a question I need to ask you,” Danielle said cheerfully.

  “You can see me?” The spirit frowned.

  “Yes, we both can.”

  “Interesting,” the ghost muttered. “I don’t think you’re ghosts. You arrived in a car. I never saw a ghost arrive in a car before. Only in a hearse.”

  “No, we’re not ghosts,” Danielle said, now standing about six feet from the spirit. She would have walked closer but didn’t want to walk on the grave.

  “I’ve met a few like you before,” the ghost said.

  “My name is Danielle, and this is my husband, Walt.” Danielle felt it best not to share her last name, for fear the ghost might recognize Walt’s full name, and it would just confuse matters.

  “We’re looking for the grave of Josephine Piller Newsome,” Walt explained. “Would you know where it is?”

  “Josephine? Why in the world would you want to talk to her?” the ghost asked.

  “She’s here?” Danielle asked.

  “I assumed you already knew that since you asked where her grave was,” the ghost said.

  “Yes, but we were looking for her grave. Are you saying her ghost is here?” Danielle asked.

  “Yes, and I wish it weren’t!” the ghost ranted.

  Twenty-Three

  “You are…” Danielle began, glancing at the inscription on the headstone; she read off the name.

  “Oh, this isn’t mine,” the ghost scoffed, stepping out of the headstone and onto the grave, fully revealing herself.

  If the apparition’s appearance reflected her body when last alive, Danielle guessed the woman had been in her thirties when she had died. Considering her style of clothing, the death had occurred in the 1960s. She wore a hot pink miniskirt paired with an orange and pink blouse. Her short pixy haircut sported an orange beanie sitting at a cocky angle. Taller than Danielle by a good three inches, Danielle briefly wondered if the woman had died of starvation considering skinny might be a more accurate description than thin. Yet Danielle determined that wasn’t likely considering the fitted clothes.

  “Although, I rather wish it were mine,” the ghost said, glancing back briefly at the headstone. “That cheapskate husband of mine picked out one of those boring flat things. I guess it makes it easier to mow.”

  “Can I ask who you are?” Danielle inquired. “Your name?”

  “Darcy Browning,” the ghost said with a grin. “I can’t believe you can actually see and hear me!”

  “Nice to meet you, Darcy. You said Josephine was here, not just her grave. Her ghost?” Danielle asked.

  “Oh, she’s been here forever,” Darcy explained. “I can’t imagine why you’re looking for her.”

  “Can you tell us where we might find her, please?” Danielle asked.

  Darcy pointed in the same direction the groundskeeper had pointed earlier, the same direction Walt and Danielle had been walking before they saw Darcy. “You’ll find her over there, under some big trees, next to her grave. Unless she’s in one of her snits and doesn’t want to talk to anyone, then I’m not sure where she goes. When not pouting, she stays by her grave most of the time, waiting for someone to visit. Of course, no one ever does. But if you are planning to visit her, I imagine you’ll make her day.”

  “Thank you,” Walt and Danielle chorused.

  “She’s so annoying and has been here forever. Long before I ever arrived.”

  “Do you know why she’s here?” Danielle asked.

  “Of course I do. She won’t stop blabbering about it. That’s why I avoid her side of the cemetery,” Darcy said. “She’s being punished.”

  “Punished?” Danielle asked, remembering Angela.

  Darcy nodded vigorously. “She doesn’t feel it’s fair, of course, since her husband shoved her down the stairs, and it was all his fault, or so she claims.”

  Danielle frowned. “What was his fault?”

  “That whole thing with his first wife.”

  Walt and Danielle exchanged quick glances before Danielle asked, “What about his first wife?”

  “She claims she knew nothing about it. But she lied for him, told everyone he had been in Astoria that day. She was just happy to get rid of the wife so they could get married. Of course, once married, I guess he decided it wasn’t such a bargain. Frankly, had I been married to Josephine, I would probably have shoved her down some stairs too. Maybe she’s right, and he didn’t mean to kill her. They were in an argument, I guess they did that a lot, when it got a little heated, and he gave her a shove to shut her up.”

  “Her husband killed her?” Walt asked.

  “According to her, he didn’t mean to do it because he cried like a baby when he realized she was dead. I thought, I bet he cried like a baby because he figured he wasn’t going to get away with bumping off wife number two like he had his first wife,” Darcy said.

  “He murdered his first wife?” Danielle asked.

  Darcy frowned at Danielle. “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “What do you know about the first wife’s murder?” Walt asked.

  Darcy shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

  “Do you know what happened to Josephine’s husband?” Walt asked.

  “No clue. According to Josephine, she hasn’t seen him since she followed her body back to the morgue and then ended up here. Which makes me think he missed her funeral. But you’ll have to ask her about that.”

  “Um, can I ask… why are you here? You obviously know you’re dead,” Danielle said.

  Darcy laughed. “Of course I’m dead. You’d have to be dead to hang out at a cemetery as much as I do.”

  “Don’t you want to move on?” Walt asked.

  “Not especially. And it’s not because I’m being punished like Josephine, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Then why?” Walt asked.

  “It’s because of that cheapskate husband of mine. He certainly didn’t seem like a cheapskate before I married him, with all his money and how he loved to spend it on me. But once we walked down the aisle, he goes tighter than Fort Knox. But then he had to up and die just as I was just getting ready to move on. My death came as a surprise; that’s why I stuck around so long, getting used to the idea. I never saw that truck c
oming.”

  “A truck hit you?” Danielle asked.

  “And in a crosswalk too!” Darcy shook her head in disgust.

  “Well, you look pretty good for being hit by a truck,” Danielle noted.

  “I didn’t always,” Darcy said. The next moment her vision morphed into a bloodier version of her former self, this one of her body after being hit by a truck. It remained that way for just a few moments before changing back. “It took me a while to figure out how to put myself back together again.”

  “You said your husband showed up. Is he here now?” Danielle asked, glancing around.

  “No way! If he were, I certainly wouldn’t be. But the moment he saw me at his funeral, he gets all sentimental and assumes I stuck around for him. I told him to go first, and when he did, I stayed.”

  “You didn’t want to spend eternity with your husband?” Walt asked.

  Darcy turned her attention to Walt, looking him up and down. “Maybe if he had looked like you. But I didn’t marry someone old enough to be my grandpa because I wanted to spend eternity with him. He was supposed to go first, not me.”

  “If you don’t want to spend eternity with your husband, you don’t have to,” Danielle said.

  Hand on hip, Darcy glared at Danielle. “You know that for sure?”

  “Well… no… but…” Danielle stammered.

  “Not this ghost. I’m giving him time to forget about me before I move on. I figure a century or two should do it.” The next moment Darcy vanished.

  Danielle looked at Walt and said, “She was charming. And I think she liked you.”

  “What she said about Josephine lying for Teddy has me wondering,” Walt began.

  “Was Teddy being unfaithful with Josephine while Maddie was still alive, or did Josephine have a thing for her boss, which was why she lied for him, and then she ended up with the object of her affection?” Danielle suggested.

  “Which didn’t turn out for her. But yes, that was what I was wondering,” Walt said.

  “Let’s go find Josephine and see what she says.”

  Together Walt and Danielle walked toward the trees Darcy had pointed to. Before they reached the spot, they spied a woman standing under the branches, her pale blue gingham skirt fluttering around her bare ankles, with her white-blond hair falling in soft curls around the shoulders of her fitted blouse.

  Danielle was fairly certain they weren’t looking at a living woman. It wasn’t just the fact the woman stood barefoot in the cemetery, but her head appeared to be sitting lopsided on her neck.

  “Is that Josephine?” Walt whispered when they both came to a stop.

  “If so, my guess, she broke her neck in the fall,” Danielle whispered back. “And she hasn’t figured out how to put herself back together again.” They resumed walking toward the apparition.

  “You can see me,” the woman said when Walt and Danielle were about ten feet from her.

  “Are you Josephine Newsome?” Danielle asked.

  The ghost ignored Danielle’s question and stared at Walt. “You’re Alex Marlow, aren’t you? You’re a ghost, too. I thought you were alive for a minute there. But you can’t be alive. I know you’re dead,” the ghost said.

  “He’s not Alex Marlow; he’s a distant relative,” Danielle explained. “And he’s not a ghost, neither am I. We’re very much alive.”

  The spirit turned her attention from Walt to Danielle “Is that what I am, a ghost?”

  “What do you think?” Danielle asked.

  The ghost shrugged. “A spirit.”

  Danielle flashed Walt a look and mumbled under her breath, “Another one like you.”

  Ignoring Danielle’s comment, Walt looked at the ghost and asked, “Are you Josephine Newsome?”

  The ghost shrugged and said, “Yes. I was hoping you were Alex Marlow, thinking they had sent you to tell me it was okay for me to move on now, and I didn’t have to go to that other place. It wasn’t my fault, you know. I didn’t know he was going to do it.”

  “Do what?” Danielle asked.

  Josephine looked at Danielle. “He told me he had to do it. Alex was going to ruin everything.”

  “Teddy killed them, didn’t he?” Walt asked.

  She looked at Walt and smiled softly. “He didn’t want to. Bud told Ted what Alex intended to do, and Ted went right to Marlow House to confront Alex. He figured he could talk him out of it. But Alex wasn’t there, and by the time Ted got home, Alex had already told Maddie, and she had agreed to go back to Marlow House with him and Anna. Maddie was going to leave her husband and live with the Marlows. They really should not have interfered with a husband and wife.”

  “Why did Teddy have to kill them?” Walt asked. “If you were seeing him then, why didn’t he just let Maddie go back to Marlow House?”

  She stared at Walt a moment and then said, “You don’t understand. No one understands!” The next moment she vanished.

  Walt and Danielle had more questions, so they waited around Josephine’s grave, hoping she would return. But after a few hours, they realized the spirit of Josephine Newsome did not want to talk to them anymore.

  “She’s avoiding us,” Walt said.

  “Yeah, I get that feeling too. But we’ve learned a lot. Let’s go home. I’m hungry. And I don’t want to hang around here until dark. Now that we know where she is, we can always ask Marie or Eva to come talk to her. They can get here quicker than we can.”

  “Agreed,” Walt said, taking Danielle’s hand as they headed toward the parking lot.

  Once back on the highway and comfortable in the passenger seat, Danielle asked Walt, who had been relatively quiet since Josephine’s abrupt departure, “Are you okay?”

  Hands firmly on the steering wheel, his eyes down the highway, Walt said, “What did my father tell Maddie to get her to leave Teddy? Was it about his infidelity? Assuming he and Josephine got together when Maddie was still alive. If so, I just don’t understand why he felt he had to kill them. Why? It makes little sense. They were friends for years.”

  “Money can do that to people. You told me Maddie brought significant money into the marriage.”

  “Yes, money that would have stayed with Teddy,” Walt said.

  “What do you mean?” Danielle asked.

  “You forget how different laws were back then. Even if my parents took Maddie to Marlow House to live, Maddie still couldn’t touch the money she brought into the marriage, at least not without Teddy’s approval.”

  “Couldn’t she have sued him?” Danielle asked.

  “Danielle, most men back then would not have a problem with Teddy having a girlfriend, considering his wife was bedridden. And knowing how sickly Maddie was, I find it hard to imagine she would consider suing him for divorce. There has to be more to this.”

  Danielle did not respond. Instead, she considered Bud’s spirit and how he had insisted Alex had killed him. But then another thought popped into her head. Abruptly she turned in the seat to Walt and said, “Wait a minute. She said Bud told Teddy something, which was why Teddy wanted to confront your father. Was that right before Teddy went to find your father, when you saw him at Marlow House? Before he went to his house, before the fire? If so, that means that Bud was still alive when your father died.”

  “Which means my father had nothing to do with Bud’s death,” Walt said.

  Twenty-Four

  While Walt and Danielle visited the cemetery in Astoria, Heather sat at work, thinking about Caitlin’s lingering spirit and how the girl’s mother had moved on to the next realm, expecting to find her daughter waiting for her. Heather understood some spirits, like Marie and Eva, chose to stick around. But Caitlin, a spirit of a teenager who had died tragically, still haunting her family home, worried Heather. She wanted to help the girl come to terms with her reality and move on in her journey.

  When lunch hour rolled around, instead of getting something to eat, Heather drove to the museum to see if the new docent was on duty. She decided her vis
it would not appear spontaneous if she called first, inquiring about docents.

  To Heather’s delight, the docent who greeted her when she walked into the museum was an unfamiliar face, and one who appeared to be the right gender and age of Ginny Thomas. A quick glance at the docent’s name tag confirmed her suspicion.

  So this is who Kelly thinks would be perfect for Brian, Heather thought. I don’t see it. Ginny, unaware of Heather’s scrutiny, explained the museum’s admission price and the benefit of membership to the Frederickport Historical Society.

  “I’m already a member of the historical society,” Heather said, interrupting Ginny in the middle of her spiel. One perk of membership of the historical society was free admission to the museum. “My name’s Heather Donovan.”

  “The Heather Donovan?” Ginny asked.

  “No one ever called me a the before,” Heather muttered.

  Ginny grinned. “I meant the one I read about in the paper last week.”

  Heather let out a sigh. “Yes, that one.”

  “I’m so happy to hear you all made it safely home,” Ginny said.

  “Me too.”

  “My name’s Ginny Thomas,” Ginny said, pointing to her name tag. “I’m a new docent at the museum. I heard you used to be a docent here.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You don’t docent anymore?” Ginny asked.

  Heather shrugged. “I don’t have as much time as I used to, with my job and all.”

  Ginny nodded. “I understand. I’m retired, so I have lots of free time.”

  You look awful young to be retired, Heather thought. But then she remembered the woman was a widow and assumed the husband must have left his wife with enough money so she didn’t have to work.

  “I met your fellow—not sure what to call them—captives? Walt Marlow and Brian Henderson.”

  “You can just call them my friends,” Heather suggested.

  “Such a harrowing experience!” Ginny gushed. “What brings you to the museum today?”

  “Um… I was wondering if the museum had a collection of vintage magazines. I heard they’ve gotten some new things in.”