Paranormal in Manhattan Mystery Box Set

by Lotta Smith

  “What?” Rick looked in Clara’s direction. “Did you visit me last year? If you did, Mandy should’ve noticed you, right?”

  “Well, I didn’t visit you or Dan last year,” Clara said sheepishly. “I wasn’t around the neighborhood, you know. Last year was one of those very rare years that I had no obligation in this community. Also, I won a trip to Maui out of something equivalent to a lottery in the world of the living, so I went there to spend the holiday seasons in the sun.”

  “What? You chose a Hawaiian vacation over visiting me?” Rick’s jaw tightened as he crossed his arms disapprovingly.

  “Ooh… someone’s getting so jealous,” Jackie chimed in, grinning. I was glad Rick didn’t hear ghosts.

  “I visited you on Halloween two years ago, but you didn’t see me, so I figured I was okay to go to Maui.” Clara chuckled innocently, wrapping her arms around Rick’s. Of course, she wasn’t physically touching him, and he couldn’t feel her gesture.

  “Clara says she’s sorry,” I interpreted with a little modification on my part. “And she’s holding your arm now.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, his lips quirking up into a smile.

  Then…

  “Nikki, Jennie!” Fynn’s cry escalated into a full-blown scream, prompting Clara to cover her ears with her ghostly hands.

  “Hmm… he’s not just noisy but quite bothersome as well,” Jackie commented.

  “I’m… so sorry… but I can’t help myself. My life! My family! Waahhh!” The volume of Fynn’s bawling grew louder, as in, off the charts.

  I covered my ears with both hands. However, unlike the noise in the land of the living, attempting to block the sound physically didn’t work at all.

  Fynn had shed so many tears and excessive nasal discharge that, had he been a living human being, he might’ve become dehydrated.

  “So, Fynn, can you tell us how your death was ruled as a suicide?” Rick asked. “When you die of drowning, it’s customary for the police to consider a suicide, murder, and accident as its cause. I don’t see why your death has been ruled a suicide in merely a week.”

  Fynn’s shoulders slumped. “That’s because they seemed to have mistaken the note in my pants pocket.”

  When I mentioned this to Rick, he glared in the direction of the ghost. “What note? Besides, if it were in your pants pocket, wouldn’t the water have ruined it and made it unreadable?” Taking up the questioning, Rick handed me his phone. “Mandy, it’s your turn to take notes, okay?”

  “Okay.” As I took his phone, I recalled that, according to research, female brains are better fit for multitasking than those of the male version. Besides, note-taking was easier for me as I could use the help of the recording app as I passed on Fynn’s words to Rick.

  “I’m talking about a handwritten note that said ‘I’m awfully sorry. This is all my fault. Fynn’ coming out of my pants pocket. It was neatly held in a plastic baggie that I used to carry around small parts, keeping the memo from being destroyed by the water. To make things worse, the bag had my prints all over on it because it was mine.” He let out a deep sigh. “They concluded it was my handwriting, because… I wrote it myself.”

  According to him, the note was written in July following a huge loss at an amateur basketball match. Johnny made him write that memo to the entire team. However, what was considered to be his suicide note wasn’t the full version. In the original note, Fynn had written “Due to my lack of practice and my poor decision to throw over-the-court passes, not just once but seven times, our team ended up suffering from a pathetic loss” before admitting his fault with his signature. However, the part indicating the note to be a statement of regret had been cut off.

  “Johnny would’ve had the statement, as I had given it to him months ago.” Fynn went on. “I have no idea how it came to be in my pocket. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

  “Seriously?” Rick raised an eyebrow after I relayed Fynn’s explanation. “Apparently, Johnny cut off the beginning of your statement so it looked like a suicide note. Conveniently, you were drunk as a skunk, which made it easier for him to slip it into your pocket. You know what I mean?”

  “I guess.” Fynn nodded between hiccups, looking sad.

  “Did you voluntarily write the original note?” I asked.

  “No.” Fynn shook his head. “Johnny suggested I write it. As the captain of the team, he couldn’t leave that matter without making some sort of a settlement. And when he said I’d be all good with submitting a letter of regret, I…” Fynn stopped talking and I filled Rick in.

  “Gotcha.” Rick shrugged. “When he made you write that, Johnny was getting ready to kill you.”

  “Oh my God… so he killed me on purpose? How come I didn’t realize he hated me that much?” Fynn muttered and resumed his weeping again.

  Clara shrugged and Jackie rolled her eyes. In my opinion, Jackie herself was quite an emotional ghost; however, this guy was over the top.

  Rick went on. “Okay, so the police found what appeared to be your suicide note, but that alone shouldn’t be enough to rule your death a suicide. Don’t tell me your alleged suicide note was found in a sealed envelope that said ‘suicide note.’”

  “No. But I had a little debt, which was considered to be the reason for my suicide,” Fynn said sheepishly.

  “Oh really?” I said. “How much debt did you have?”

  “Twenty thousand,” he said. “I borrowed that money from a consumer financial service provider without telling Nikki, and when the police found out about it, they ruled my death a suicide. Isn’t that terrible? What kind of an idiot kills himself for just twenty grand?”

  “I heard about this guy who killed himself for seven thousand dollars,” Jackie whispered.

  “What was the money for?” Rick asked following my interpretation, as Jackie, Clara, and I exchanged glances.

  “I booked a wedding without telling Nikki,” Fynn answered proudly. “We were blessed to have our beautiful daughter, Jennie, but she came somewhat unexpectedly. So when we decided to tie the knot, we didn’t have time or money for a dream wedding. She never said anything about wanting a dream wedding of her own, but I know she’s been longing for a nice wedding reception. Whenever we attended our friends’ and relatives’ weddings, she said, ‘How beautiful…’ with her dreamy eyes. So I decided to go with my plan to throw a surprise party. I was fortunate enough to make more money after two years in our marriage, so…”

  “Excuse me?” Rick blurted as I relayed Fynn’s words. “Don’t tell me you booked the wedding venue without consulting Nikki.”

  “Of course I didn’t consult Nikki about it. If I told her, my plan wouldn’t be a surprise anymore.” Fynn cocked his head to the side, as if he didn’t understand why Rick was saying that.

  “Come on, do you have any idea how annoyed your better half would be if she had little to no say in the planning of her own wedding?” Rick went on, holding my shoulders. “My biological mother attempted to overtake our wedding and turn it into a freak show, annoying the hell out of Mandy. My old man ended up spending a small fortune after making a ton of phone calls to movie producers in California so he could have his ex-wife occupied with her long-lost career and stop her from meddling in our wedding.”

  I rolled my eyes. “For your information, I wasn’t annoyed like hell.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you were stress-free, right?” He winked.

  While we were chatting, Clara’s eyes widened. “Oh, did they have such drama?”

  “Yes, they did,” Jackie replied. “Alice is a bit… well, a handful.”

  “Oh my goodness! I should’ve started tagging along with you earlier. What else did I miss?”

  “Many things!” Jackie beamed. “Oh, Clara, if only you were visiting them when Mandy and Rick started living together! Rick hurt his ankle while rescuing Mandy from a vengeful ghost. He couldn’t walk around, so she moved in and looked after him. And the chemistry—you know, I practically saw lov
e floating in the air.”

  “Ooh… I’m already feeling the romance!” Clara cooed, blushing and cupping her face in her hands.

  Fynn cleared his throat as we two humans and two ghosts chatted. “Anyway, I was planning our reception secretly, and I borrowed the money. But it wasn’t such a huge debt as to make me want to kill myself. I booked everything at a specially discounted price, but this plan required paying in full in cash a month in advance. So in order to proceed with everything under my wife’s radar, I borrowed the money at the right time so the statement wouldn’t reach our home before the actual wedding reception took place, but I was sure to pay the money back in a month as I’d already stashed enough away to cover most of it. The only reason I borrowed that money was to prevent Nikki from finding out about the party. The bank sends a monthly statement to the house and Nikki is in charge of household finance, so she opens it immediately, but the financial service I used offered to send the statement after the reception date. And of course, I made an arrangement to make sure the guests would bring cash instead of setting up a wedding registry—in order to cover the expenses. Anyway, I was expecting to pay the minimal interest and everything should’ve been fine. So I booked for November twentieth, and I made the payment with the borrowed money on October twentieth.”

  “Okay.” I nodded, and then I muttered, “So what day of the week will November twentieth fall on this year?”

  “Thursday,” Fynn and Rick said in unison, except Rick didn’t hear the ghost’s voice.

  “Was he going to have his wedding on that day?” Rick said.

  “It looks like it.” I nodded.

  Fynn flashed a wide grin. “Yes. It’s our special day, as it’s our third wedding anniversary.”

  “So all of your guests are from this neighborhood, I presume?” Clara interjected.

  “No. Actually, some of the invitations were heading for California and Florida,” Fynn said nonchalantly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I just thought a weekday wedding might make it difficult for some people to attend. For people coming from far away, they’d need to take at least two days off,” Clara said.

  “Oh, I don’t see any problems with that. I’m fine to just have people who can make it to the wedding. Also, I see true friendship in people rushing to my wedding no matter how busy they are.” Fynn winked. “Besides that, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days to fly, as the ticket prices tend to drop.”

  After I relayed the ghost’s words, which bordered on gibberish, Rick chimed in. “So, did you send out your invitation to your wedding guests?”

  “No way. No thanks to having a lot of blabbermouths as my friends and relatives, the part about the invitations has been the biggest risk of my plan getting unexpectedly revealed to Nikki. In order to keep a low profile, I’d arranged to have the invitations sent out about two weeks prior to the wedding day. The venue has it all covered. I’m assuming they’ll be receiving invitations soon,” Fynn explained proudly.

  “He can be such a sweet guy, but he’s forgotten about his own death,” Clara whispered in my ear, as if she’d read my thoughts. “Mandy, darling, you don’t want to ask him about the bride’s dress though, because he was so going to go without letting Nikki try the dress on.”

  “Oh,” I gasped.

  “What?” Rick asked, smoothing my wrinkled forehead.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head before planting a kiss on his jaw. “It’s just… I feel so blessed about marrying you.”

  “Of course you are.” A corner of his lips lifted into a smile. “Don’t tell me you didn’t realize how lucky you are until now,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

  “Look, Clara, you’re witnessing one of their intimate moments,” Jackie said, fanning herself with a sparkling pink boa fan that appeared from out of nowhere.

  “How nice. You know, I died when Rick was eighteen, but who could’ve imagined him morphing into such a sweet gentleman?” Clara cooed. Then she whispered into my ear again. “Mandy, you have to tell him exactly what I said.”

  “Really?” I looked at her, and she nodded. So I did what I was told, prompting Rick to throw his head back and laugh.

  “All right, let’s get back to the murder.” He turned back at Fynn. “Did you tell Johnny about your surprise wedding reception?”

  “No. I haven’t told anyone.” Fynn shook his head. “Johnny shouldn’t know it.”

  “So it was pure bad luck that you got murdered just a few days after borrowing the money,” Rick said.

  “Yes.” Fynn grimaced. “On top of all that, Nikki is seriously considering paying the loan using my life insurance, without knowing the purpose of the money I borrowed. Hell, I totally hate to see the money going that way. I want Nikki to spend that money on her and Jennie.”

  He seemed to have totally forgotten about the fact that the money had to be paid back some way or other.

  “So, Rick, what do you think?” Clara asked. “Do you think we’ll be able to prove that Fynn didn’t kill himself?”

  “We? Did she really say we?” Rick frowned as I relayed her words to him.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “Okay.” He massaged his temple as if he’d suddenly developed a headache. “Perhaps by confirming his booking of the wedding venue, we can challenge the ruling of his death as a suicide. As for proving the murderer’s identity as Johnny, it won’t be that easy, I guess.”

  “Still, you can talk to NYPD officers, right?” Clara tilted her head to the side.

  “Of course we can,” I said, then turned to Rick. “Clara wants us to talk to NYPD officers. I said yes, because we can always talk to Captain DeLaurentis.”

  Rick’s frown deepened. “I know. I was just thinking about Johnny’s fingerprints, or lack thereof, on Fynn’s alleged suicide note. If Johnny made Fynn write the note and planted it on him as part of his murder plot, Johnny wouldn’t have left his fingerprints on it. It seems like Johnny had been plotting to kill Fynn for months.”

  “I see.” Clara nodded. “Besides, the police shouldn’t have ruled his death a suicide if they detected fingerprints not belonging to Fynn.”

  As I relayed her words, Rick rolled his eyes. “Since when does she care about fingerprints?”

  “Hello? I’ve been an avid watcher of cop shows since I was still alive.” Clara tsked.

  Before I passed on her words to Rick, Fynn cleared his throat.

  “Well, actually, you can put off prosecuting Johnny,” he said. “I’d appreciate it very much if you could tell Nikki that I didn’t kill myself.”

  “Rick, Fynn wants us to meet Nikki and tell her that her husband didn’t kill himself,” I said. “When will you be finishing working today?”

  “Well…” Rick glanced at his phone for his schedule. “If I get lucky, I’ll be finished by seven in the evening. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “Okay.” I nodded, but Fynn had a different opinion.

  “That’s not necessary,” the ghost of the drowned mechanic interjected. “Nikki will be coming in a few minutes.”

  “Excuse me?” I glanced at Rick’s phone in my hands. When I looked at the time, I saw it was 4:36 a.m.

  CHAPTER 4

  Following Fynn’s offer bordering on a demand, Rick, Jackie, Clara, and I stayed in the cemetery. Unlike Fynn had assumed, Nikki didn’t arrive in minutes. About half an hour later, the sky was still dark with some stars twinkling, and I was getting really sleepy, as the lack of sleep from the previous night seemed to have finally taken a toll on my alertness.

  Yawning for the umpteenth time, I moved the flashlight around the pond where Fynn drowned. Along the bank closest to where Fynn was standing, the lotus leaves had been cut off. Perhaps that area had been searched for any residual items. The grass around the pond had been trimmed short as well. Additionally, bouquets of flowers were scattered around the pond. Some were large, some were small, and some were dead.

  When I shut my eyes and started dozing off, Ri
ck held me closer to him. “Don’t even think about falling asleep here. I have a hunch you might stumble into the water. It’s chilly, and we didn’t bring extra clothes. Oh, don’t forget that it’s deep enough to kill an adult man.”

  “Come on, I won’t fall into the pond. Guess what? I’m not a five-year-old with too much interest in aquatic life,” I pointed out. “Hey, when did water hazards stop being a problem for you?”

  “What are you talking about?” He brushed the stray locks away from his forehead.

  “You know, little kids tend to fall into whatever water hazards are nearby, such as fountains at shopping malls, parks with little artificial streams running across the property, and so on. Whenever we went out to such places on weekends and vacations, either Alicia or I, or both, fell into the water.” I chuckled fondly. “When we were little, we really liked little aquatic critters like tadpoles, frogs, newts, goldfish and koi, so we always looked for them in the water until one of us came too close and fell in. Still, such faux pas weren’t always bad, as we got new clothes whenever we accidentally wet ourselves. Ah… memories…”

  “You girls just wanted new clothes, I presume?” He snorted. “I was a clever kid, and I never fell into water.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” Clara chimed in. “He literally walked into the water whenever he found it at malls, hotels, or wherever.”

  “Kids are kids. They can’t help falling into water at wrong places and wrong times,” Jackie concluded.

  “Hey, Rick, Clara says you’re lying.” I nudged his elbow.

  “Mom, don’t tell my wife about my life as a kid, okay?” he grumbled. “In case you might not have noticed, I’m a grown man now, and some things are better untold.”

  “Oh really?” Clara let out a hearty laugh and winked at me. “Mandy, I’ll tell you all the juicy details about his childhood, but you can’t tell him I told you.”

  I suppressed my urge to chuckle.

  “What?” Rick asked, illuminating my face with the flashlight.

  “Nothing,” I replied, pushing the light away. “Hey, did you hear that? I just caught something that sounded like a car approaching.”