by Josie Belle
“Ugh, I guess not,” Maggie said, but it was grudging.
“Long night, huh?” Dot asked.
“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m being cranky. Nice score on the boots,” Maggie said. Dot nodded in acknowledgment. “Has the medical examiner said anything?”
“No, they’re down in the basement, taking pictures and trying to find evidence,” Dot said. “The first thing they’ll have to do is get an ID on the vic.”
“Vic?” Maggie asked. “So they think it was a murder?”
“Seems so, I mean the guy is in a root cellar,” Dot said. “No one winds up a skeleton in a root cellar by choice.”
Chapter 9
“Agreed,” Maggie said. “I was thinking I’d pop in over at the historical society and see what information they have about the house. Blue Dixon said I should talk to Ruth Crenshaw about, well, if there could be a ghost here.”
“Ruth would know,” Dot agreed. “And there’s definitely a ghost here.”
“Deputy Wilson, do not go putting ideas into my fiancée’s head,” Sam said as he joined them on the porch.
“The idea was already there as well you know,” Maggie said. “Dot just confirmed it.”
“He doesn’t believe?” Dot asked Maggie. Maggie shook her head. Dot waved her hand dismissively. “It’s on account of he’s a man and they don’t have a woman’s intuition.”
“See?” Maggie said. “Dot feels it, too.”
Sam rolled his eyes.
“There is nothing to feel in this house except a draft,” he said.
Dot rose to her feet, clucked her tongue and shook her head at Sam. Then she turned to Maggie and said, “You’d better keep a close eye on him so he doesn’t piss off our visitor from the other realm. You don’t want a mad ghost on your hands. My cousin had a ghost and her husband didn’t believe it and he disrespected the spirit and, oh, did he pay.”
Maggie knew better than to ask and yet the words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “What happened?”
“My cousin says she’s not sure because she was upstairs sleeping, but when she got up she found her husband, who was known for mocking their specter, face down in his Corn Flakes. He died of a heart attack right in his breakfast cereal.”
“How can you blame a ghost for a man’s heart attack?” Sam asked. “Heart disease is the reason most people die. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Sure it does,” Dot protested. “My cousin swears that the ghost must have manifested in front of her husband and scared him to death, because he’d just had a physical and he was perfectly fine.”
“Doctors miss things,” Sam said. But he sounded as if he knew he’d lost the argument, or at least any hope for swaying Dot and Maggie to his side.
“Forty-three years old and in the prime of his life,” Dot said. “They didn’t miss anything. There were all sorts of blood tests and stress tests, the whole shebang. Say, aren’t you forty-three?”
“Don’t you have some place to be?” Sam asked. “Like helping the ME down in the basement?”
“No need to get testy,” Dot said. “Just be nice to your ghost and you won’t have to worry about keeling over into your Wheaties.”
“I don’t eat cereal,” Sam said. “I’m a donut man.”
“When you’re taking a permanent nap on the jellies, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Dot said. She wagged her finger at Sam for good measure and Maggie could tell he was hanging onto his temper by a hair.
Dot gave him a look and left to go back into the house. Sam heaved a sigh, took the seat beside Maggie and put his arm around her and pulled her close.
“What’s your plan for today?” he asked.
“Mom and Sissy are arriving,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “In fact, they’re probably arriving right now.”
“Shouldn’t you go and meet them?” Sam asked.
“Nah, they’ll go straight to Sandy’s house to see Josh,” Maggie said. Then she grinned. “Even as a bride I can’t hold a candle to that boy.”
“He is pretty spectacular,” Sam said.
“And he’s the only great-grandchild so my mother is completely besotted with him,” Maggie said.
“Do me a favor?” Sam asked.
“Sure,” Maggie said.
“Don’t tell your mother about your ghost theory, because then she’ll call my mother,” he said. “And my mother is very superstitious, and I do mean very.”
“Will she think we should unload the house?” Maggie asked.
“More like we should burn it to the ground,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, she’s a teensy bit freaked out by the idea of the supernatural,” he said.
“See? This is why we need to emancipate our ghost by solving its murder,” Maggie said. “I’m going to go to the historical society and see Ruth Crenshaw. I’ll bet she knows who our soldier might be.”
Sam nodded. “Good idea. You might want to give her a heads-up that I’ll be over later to talk to her. We can compare notes. Hey, maybe she’ll help us wrap up this case in no time.”
“That would be very considerate of her,” Maggie said. “We do have a wedding to plan after all.”
“Oh no,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “The wedding comes before figuring out the ghost thing.”
“But how can we live here with a ghost?” Maggie asked. “We have to solve the ghost issue before we move in.”
“Darling, you need to seriously rethink your priorities,” Sam said. Then he kissed her. It was not the chaste peck of a man on duty, either.
When he pulled away, Maggie’s ears were ringing and she was pretty sure she’d gone cross-eyed.
“You’re right.” She cleared her throat. “Wedding first.”
“That’s my girl.” Sam grinned. “Come on, I’ll walk you out. Be sure to give your mother my best. Is she warming up to me at all?”
“No,” Maggie said. “She’s still worried that you’ll break my heart again.”
“Seems as though she should be worried about me,” Sam said.
“How do you figure?”
“We both know you’re the flight risk in this relationship,” he said.
“No, we don’t,” Maggie argued. “I completely disagree. If either of us is apt to walk, it’s you.”
“Me?” Sam asked. “I’m as faithful as a dog.”
Maggie frowned at him. “Maybe not the best example with all of the butt sniffing they do.”
“Point taken,” Sam said with a laugh.
Maggie led the way back into the house. Marshall Dillon was curled up on Sam’s sleeping bag, and she scooped him and held him close.
“Call me if you find out anything about Captain Bones,” she said.
“Likewise,” Sam said.
Maggie climbed into her Volvo station wagon, putting Marshall Dillon in his carrier in the back seat. She backed out of the driveway, pausing at the end to look up at her new home. What would they do if identifying the skeleton and figuring out how he died didn’t take care of their ghost problem?
She shook her head. One problem at a time, and right now it was her mother.
* * *
“You really need to talk to Shelby at the VFW if you want to rent their hall for the reception,” Maggie’s mother said. “It’s probably already booked but you might get lucky.”
“Hello to you, too,” Maggie said as she hugged her mother close.
“The entire drive up from Florida she talked about your wedding,” Sissy said in her ear as she hugged Maggie next. “You owe me, Magpie.”
“Fifty percent off any one buying spree at the shop,” she said.
“Make it seventy-five and all is forgiven,” Sissy haggled. They were not sisters for nothing.
“Sixty-five,” Maggie countered.
“Seventy,” Sissy said. She stepped out of the hug and turned to their mother and said, “Maggie is eloping to Vegas.”
“No! What? When did you decide this?” Mrs. O’Brien put her hand over her heart as if she couldn’t bear the news.
“Fine, 70%,” Maggie said to her sister. “Mom, relax. Sissy is kidding. We’re not eloping.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” her mother sighed. Then she frowned at Sissy. “That was not nice.”
Sissy winked at Maggie, and Maggie couldn’t help but smile. Sissy was always the prankster. It was good to have her here for the wedding.
“When is Laura arriving?” Maggie’s mother asked.
“A few days before the wedding,” Maggie said.
“Does she have her maid of honor dress?”
“I think so,” Maggie said. “She was deciding between two different ones.”
“What did they look like? What colors are they?” Mrs. O’Brien asked.
“Uh.” Maggie turned to Sissy for help but Sissy held up her hands.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I was your maid of honor last time. Since you’re just having Laura, I am out of the informational loop.”
“I think one was green and one was blue,” Maggie said.
“Well, that narrows it,” Mrs. O’Brien said. “I’m going to call Laura and get more specifics. Gracious, it’s a good thing we got here a few weeks early. Clearly, you need all the help you can get.”
She left the room, waving her hands in the air like she was about to call in a fire.
“Oh my god,” Maggie said.
“Did I mention your wedding was all she talked about for the whole ride?” Sissy asked. “You’d think it was your first wedding.”
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said and bit her lip.
“Forget about it,” Sissy said.
“Where are the kids?” Maggie asked.
“Josh and Sandy went for a walk to the park,” Sissy said. “And Jake is at work.”
“Oh,” Maggie said.
Sissy grinned. “You’re sorry you missed seeing the boy.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said. “My house is so quiet since they bought this place.”
Maggie glanced around the modest home that was so like her own. Her niece Sandy had done an amazing job of decorating it. She and Jake had waited a long time to be able to have a home of their own, since he had been away on a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Maggie was happy for them even though she missed the commotion of having Josh and Sandy living with her.
“I’m just glad Sandy had you while she finished nursing school and waited for Jake to come home,” Sissy said. “I owe you for that.”
“Nah, that’s what family is for,” Maggie said. “Besides you took Mom to live with you in Florida. I’d say I got the better end of the bargain.”
Sissy nodded. “There are days. Want some lemonade? I want to hear more about this house you and Sam have bought.”
“Oh, I wish I could, but I have to go and open up the shop,” Maggie said as she backed to the door. “And I have some errands to run. I will tell you about the house later, though, I promise.”
“You do not fool me one little bit, Magpie,” Sissy chided her. “You’re avoiding Mom and her wedding talk.”
“Me?” Maggie asked as she slipped through the screen door. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”
She heard Sissy laugh as the door swung shut behind her. With a wave, she climbed into her car and headed into town. She had dropped off Marshall Dillon at Sam’s house before she’d headed home to shower and change. The quick pop in at Sandy’s to see her mother had gone more smoothly than she’d anticipated, mostly because she had thrown her daughter’s dress dilemma at her like a bone to a dog. But she could live with that.
She glanced at the clock on her dashboard: She had just enough time to stop by the historical society before opening her shop for the day. She wasn’t really sure of what she was looking for but anything about the Dixons or the house seemed like a good place to start.
The St. Stanley Historical Society was housed in an old wooden building in the center of town. The small structure had once been a telegraph office but had been abandoned and stayed empty for a decade before someone on the ladies’ auxiliary got the bright idea to turn it into the town’s historical society. It sat on the corner of the town green tucked behind the new addition to the library.
The historical society kept bankers’ hours, open from nine to five during the week and nine to noon on Saturdays. Maggie generally opened her store at ten, so she had just enough time to pop in and get some books about the Dixon house and any other information she could find before she had to hustle over to her store.
Maggie pulled open the green door with the large glass pane in its center. The smell of aged paper and peaches scented the air with a pleasant bouquet that reminded her of summer afternoons spent in her grandmother’s attic with Sissy, playing dress up in their grandmother’s old clothes. It was one of those happy memories that filled her up on the inside and made her smile.
She glanced at the desk in the center of the room. It was vacant. The building consisted of two small rooms on the first floor and an upstairs office. The wooden floorboards creaked when she stepped across them and Maggie thought someone must have heard her come in. No one came out front, however.
She cleared her throat and called, “Hello! Is anyone here?”
She waited a moment and then heard the sound of footsteps lightly moving across the floor above. Maggie glanced up, wondering if whoever was up there had heard her.
A tiny woman with the fragile build of a sparrow peeked around the doorframe at the top of the stairs. Seeing Maggie, her eyes went wide behind her large-framed glasses and she hurried down the steps.
“I wondered when you’d stop by,” Ruth Crenshaw said.
Ruth Crenshaw, self-appointed town historian, was an original. She wore her long gray hair in a braid that hung halfway down her back. Her fashion sense was sensible brown shoes, thick stockings, flouncy skirts with big, bold flowers on them and puffy-sleeved blouses that she wore buttoned up to her throat. Her makeup consisted of two dots of blush on her gaunt cheeks and a brightly painted mouth. Occasionally she busted out the blue eye shadow but that was mostly for special occasions.
“Hi, Ruth,” Maggie said. “What made you think I would be stopping in?”
Maggie wondered if Sam had already spoken to Ruth and, if so, how much he had told her.
“Well, you bought the Dixon house, so I knew it was just a matter of time.”
“‘Matter of time’?” Maggie repeated her, feeling as if she had walked into the middle of the conversation.
“Yes,” Ruth said. She sucked on her teeth and studied Maggie from behind the big lenses of her glasses. “You know, until you learned the house’s secret.”
Chapter 10
Maggie felt her eyebrows shoot up. Did Ruth know about the skeleton? Or did she know about the ghost and, if so, how?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Ruth chided her. “All houses have secrets.”
“I suppose,” Maggie said. “Mostly, I was just looking for any history about the residents of the house. You know, the Dixon family.”
“Why?” Ruth asked. She stared at Maggie with the unnerving unblinking stare of an owl watching a fat rat in a wood pile. It was not a pleasant look to be receiving, especially after a night of little sleep and lots of worry.
“Since we’re buying it, I thought I’d like to know more about the family who lived there before.”
Ruth blinked.
Maggie had an urge to keep talking to fill in the awkward silence that was as uncomfortable as a cramp but she kept her mouth shut, knowing that babbling was only going to make Ruth’s gaze sharpen.
The silence stretched uncomfortably to the point where it was another presence in the room. Maggie dug in her heels, however. She was not going to crack. The silence could pull up a chair and have a seat for all she cared. She was not going to speak first.
Ruth blinked at her again from behind her spectacles. “If it’s the people you’re interested in, y
ou might want to talk to Blue Dixon since he is the owner of the house and the last living Dixon.”
“I did,” Maggie said. “He recommended that I talk to you.”
Ruth considered her for a long moment, and Maggie had a new appreciation for the term pregnant pause. She half expected Ruth to have a litter of kittens with the way her face was twitching.
Maggie felt as if Ruth were trying to see way down deep into her soul, and she didn’t think she was up for that sort of scrutiny before noon. She had no idea how to convince Ruth to help her. She tried smiling but Ruth just stared unblinking.
“My interest is more in the Dixon house itself,” Ruth said. “I don’t much care about the family, but the house is one of the original homes in St. Stanley and maintaining it should be a top priority for the owners.”
“I agree,” Maggie said. She knew Ruth had something on her mind but she was darned if she could figure it out. She decided her best recourse was to just agree with her.
“What’s your plan for it?” Ruth asked.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Maggie stalled.
“You’re not going to renovate it, are you? You know, knock down walls and change the layout.”
“We haven’t talked about that, no.”
“Because you can’t,” Ruth said. She crossed her skinny little arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at Maggie.
“Excuse me?” Maggie felt herself getting irritated.
Maggie had known Ruth Crenshaw her entire life. No, not closely, but in a town the size of St. Stanley everyone knew everyone else even if they rarely spoke to one another.
Ruth was from one of the original families. She prided herself on that. It was undoubtedly why she was the head of the historical society. She even lived in her family’s original home, which was coincidentally right down the street from the Dixon house. But perhaps that was why she was concerned that Maggie and Sam planned to change the Dixon house. It would affect her home’s value.
Ruth was one of the town eccentrics and was known for being a bit socially defective. At the moment, she was being overly bossy, and Maggie found it was scraping on her last nerve.
