Chapter 3
Taking a deep breath, I turned around to see a man standing there. I had no idea how he had managed to sneak into the library. There was only one door in or out of the room, and Aggie and I had been the only ones in the room. I took a couple of steps back.
He had short brown hair, parted on the left side. He wore a tailored white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a black tie with thin white pinstripes crisscrossing the length of the tie, black dress pants, green and black pinstriped suspenders, and black Oxford shoes. He reminded me a little of Colin Firth in “The English Patient”.
“I do hope you aren’t one of those women prone to fainting,” the man said.
I realized I was standing there with my mouth hanging open, and I snapped it shut. “Of course not.”
“Thank God for that,” he replied. “I hate hysterical women.”
“I’m not hysterical.”
“I suppose I’m assuming that because you look like you’re ready to run away.”
“I’m still standing here, aren’t I?”
“If I say ‘boo’, you’ll probably run out the door, screaming your head off.”
“If I leave, it will be because you are a jerk.”
“Do I look like someone who stands behind a counter and dispenses drinks?”
I looked at Aggie, who just shook her head. “Stop being so rude to the young lady,” she admonished him.
“She’s the one who called me a soda jerk.”
“No, I called you a jerk, as in a rude, crude, socially unacceptable person.”
He looked down his nose at me. “Hmphf, people like you aren’t normally invited here.”
“People like me? And just what do you mean by that?”
“You’re just some…writer. Whoever heard of a woman writer? Shouldn’t you be at home…”
“Don’t say it,” I interrupted him.
“…taking care of your husband and having babies?” he finished.
“He said it,” I replied, looking at Aggie, who shrugged. “We haven’t even been formally introduced to each other, and you’re already insulting me. And you expect me to work with you?”
“No, you’re going to work for me, not with me.”
I turned to Aggie. “Thank you for an interesting evening. I’m pretty sure I can find my own way out.” I glared at the man before walking around him, out the library door and into the hallway.
“Miss Camille, wait,” Aggie said, following me into the hallway.
“Let her go,” he said.
Aggie turned and looked at him. “If she walks out that door, you will never be able to find out the truth.”
“Perhaps it is better if I don’t know. I’ve lived this long without knowing. What difference does it make?”
“It makes a lot of difference,” she snapped. I stood quietly by the closet door, listening.
“Why should it matter to you?”
She walked over to him and looked up. “I gave up my entire adult life to stay here and take care of you. I had plenty of opportunities to leave, but I turned them all down to help you find out what happened that night. Don’t call what you’ve been doing ‘living’. You’ve been dead almost sixty years!”
“Excuse me? Did you say dead?” I said.
“Yes ma’am, that’s what I said.”
I looked at the man. “Who are you?”
“My name is Stanley Ashton III.”
“You’re dead.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
I’m sure, by this point, a normally sane person would have run out the front door screaming. It’s not every day you meet a ghost, and I’ll freely admit that my first instinct was to bolt. But I have this terminal affliction called curiosity, which makes me question everything I don’t understand. Obviously, a sixty-year-old ghost standing in front of me called for some answers, and I wasn’t going to leave until I got them.
“But you’re standing here in front of me, so obviously you’re not dead.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m dead. I mean, the bullet that went through my heart was a killer, no pun intended.”
“Nice of you to put the bullet through your heart and not your head.” Wait a minute; was I really having a conversation with a dead man? This was getting too weird, even for me. I reached into the closet, pulled out my jacket and closed the door.
“I beg your pardon?” he said. “I didn’t put a bullet through my heart.”
“But you just said you did.”
“No, I didn’t. I said ‘the bullet went through my heart’. I never said I shot myself.”
“I told you he wouldn’t shoot himself,” Aggie reminded me. “He’s a God-fearing man.”
“Then what are you trying to say?”
“I was murdered.”
Chapter 4
A few minutes later, my jacket was hanging in the closet again, and we were sitting in the library. Aggie had gotten me a glass of ice water, and I was in a high back chair, waiting for Stanley to tell me his story.
“It was March 23, 1954…”
“How can you be so sure about the date?”
He sighed. “Look on my desk over there. You’ll find a small desk calendar.” I got up, walked over to the desk, and found the calendar sitting top center. It was open to the date he mentioned. “Satisfied? May I continue now?” I nodded. “I had come home late from the office because I had been stuck in a meeting with some government bureaucrat. Amelia and the children weren’t here when I arrived. Just as well; I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the whining.”
“Children whine,” I pointed out.
“Not theirs, hers. She was upset with me about cancelled vacation plans. She wanted to go to Los Angeles, but I was too busy at work to go.”
“Where were you, Aggie?”
“My husband and I were in the guest house. Mrs. Ashton had sent me away right after supper. She said she was going to put the children to bed early and wait for Mr. Stanley to come home.”
“But I thought you said that they were gone when you got here.”
“They were,” he replied. “I looked all over the house for them, but couldn’t find them anywhere. I assumed that she had taken them to her parents’ house for a visit.”
“You didn’t check with Aggie to see where they were?”
“There was no need. I wasn’t overly concerned. I was relieved that they weren’t here, for the reason previously stated.”
“So what happened after that?”
“I took the plate Aggie had left for me in the oven, turned the oven off, picked up a fork and brought the plate in here to eat. I sat at my desk and worked for a while. When I finished my dinner, I took the plate to the kitchen, put it in the sink and came back in here. Shortly after that, someone shot me. I fell out of my chair onto the floor.”
“We heard the shot from the guest house and came rushing up here,” Aggie said. “Found him on the floor by his desk. He had this surprised look on his face.”
“Was he still alive?”
She shook her head. “Like I said, it went right through his heart. Killed him instantly. There wasn’t anything anyone could do for him. The gun was in his right hand.”
“You didn’t see who it was?” He shook his head. “What did you do then, Aggie?”
“Called the police, of course, and then called around trying to find Mrs. Ashton.”
“She wasn’t at her parents’ house?”
“No,” Aggie replied. “I have no idea where she was that night. She never told me. But she was here about an hour after Mr. Stanley died, crying her eyes out. I didn’t buy her phony act for a minute.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced at Stanley before continuing. “Everyone knew she was fooling around behind his back, but no one had the guts to tell him.”
“I knew.” I looked at him, surprised. “I may have been occupied with work, but I wasn’t a fool. I had her followed.”
“What self
-respecting millionaire doesn’t have their wife followed? I’m sure it was all the craze back then,” I said sarcastically.
“You women think men are so stupid, that we don’t see what goes on in our own homes. We know more than you think we do. I’m sure your husband knows…”
“I’m not married.”
“I’m not surprised. What man would marry a woman who works?”
“This isn’t the 1950s anymore, Mr. Ashton. It’s the 21st century. Women do a lot of things they probably didn’t do back then.” He started to comment, but I held up my hand. “This is not the time to have a discussion about women’s lib. Please continue with your story.”
“The medical examiner and the police determined that it was a suicide, even though I told them that Mr. Stanley would never do something like that,” Aggie said. “But they wouldn’t listen to me. Mrs. Ashton told me to mind my own business. She played the part of the grieving widow at the funeral, but the day after he was buried, she was on the phone talking to some man. I won’t repeat what she said.”
“Why did she suddenly leave the house?” I said. “The story is that she took the kids and left town two months after the funeral. Why would she leave all this?”
“Because I made her leave,” he replied smugly.
“How?”
“By appearing in front of her at random times, moving things around, things like that.”
“In other words, you scared her to death.”
“Alas, I was not that lucky. She was very much alive when she left this house.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive. I watched them get into a taxi out there in the driveway.”
“And none of them ever came back?”
Aggie shook her head. “Not once.”
I turned to look at the desk chair. There was a bullet hole on the left side of the chair. “How many shots were fired that night?”
Stanley thought about it a moment. “One for sure, obviously.”
Spinning the chair around, I noticed the hole on the backside. “I wonder if there was a second shot. Aggie, how many shots did you hear?”
“One, maybe two. I’m not totally for sure.”
I turned the chair around and sat down. “What exactly is it that you want me to do?”
Stanley looked at Aggie before answering. “I want you to help me figure out who killed me.”
“Why?”
“Your ad in the paper said you were a ghost writer. I assume this means you specialize in dealing with…well, people like me,” he replied.
“A ghost writer is someone who writes someone else’s stories. For example, say some big shot wants to write their autobiography, but they can’t write very well. They would hire someone like me to write their story, but it would be published under their name.”
“So you do all the work and they get all the money?” he said.
“Pretty much.”
“So you’ve never dealt with…”
“A ghost,” I finished for him. “No.”
“I am surprised that you are not upset about sitting here talking to me.”
“You’re not the only one,” I assured him. “I’m sure I’ll freak out later. Why haven’t you tried to find out who killed you before now?”
“I tried that once. We discovered that I can’t leave this house.”
“You mean you’re stuck here? I thought ghosts could go wherever they wanted.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about ghosts,” he said.
“I don’t. Just what I’ve seen in movies or read in books. What about you, Aggie? Didn’t you try?”
“No one would talk to me,” Aggie said. “They told me it was none of my business, and that I should just leave things alone.”
“I’m not sure that I would be much help, either. I mean, this happened sixty years ago. I wasn’t even born then.”
“I told you this was a waste of time, Aggie,” Stanley said, standing up.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I just don’t know how much help I’ll be to you. Why does it matter now after all these years?”
“Because I don’t like unfinished business, and someone killing me is unfinished business. And I want to know what happened to my children.”
I leaned forward, put my elbows on the desk, interlaced my fingers and looked at Aggie and Stanley. Was I really having a conversation with a ghost? I closed my eyes and shook my head. This was crazy. I looked over at Aggie. She didn’t seem like a crazy old lady. I glanced at Stanley. He was an arrogant, cocky jerk. No wonder someone had shot him. Oh good grief, I had just called a ghost arrogant and cocky. That’s it. I’ve gone crazy. Snapped, off my rocker, ready for the funny farm, book a rubber room for me and get a straitjacket.
“Are you going to help me or not, Miss Shaw?” Stanley said impatiently.
“Mr. Ashton,” I said, standing up and walking to the couch, “I would like to do a little research before I agree to help you.”
“But…”
“No buts. I have every right to ask for some time before I make a decision. A sane person would have been gone after the trick you pulled with the front door. Yes, I figured it out; it just took a little while.”
“My apologies, Miss Shaw. Things get a bit boring around here, so I like to amuse myself once in a while.”
“Well, if, and that’s a big if, I do agree to help you, don’t do anything like that again. Is that understood? And for the record, that was a rhetorical question. It’s not open for debate. Aggie, do you have a number where I can reach you?”
“Yes, Miss Camille, I have a cell phone. My daughter gave it to me in case I had an emergency or something.” She went over to the desk, pulled a piece of paper from a drawer, grabbed a pen and jotted down the number. “I’ll make sure it stays with me at all times.”
We walked back to the hallway, and Aggie got my jacket from the closet. I put it on, picked up my bag, which I had left by the end table, and opened the front door. “One more thing, Aggie. Why are you so sure that Mr. Ashton was murdered?”
“The gun was in his right hand.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Because I’m left handed, Miss Shaw. If I had shot myself, the gun would have been in my left hand, not my right.”
Chapter 5 - Tuesday
I sat in the coffeehouse the next morning, drinking my morning Dr Pepper and making notes on a purple legal pad. I was still struggling with the whole ghost thing, wondering if what happened last night was real or not. As the daughter of a Methodist minister, the only ghost I was raised to believe in was the Holy Ghost, and I was pretty sure that Stanley Ashton III was not that particular ghost.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
I looked up to see my father, Jim Shaw, standing next to my table with a pot of coffee in one hand and two banana nut muffins on a plate in the other. He put the plate down in front of me. “Your mother thought you might be hungry, so she asked me to bring them to you.”
“Thanks.”
“Everything alright?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘alright’, Dad.”
“Sounds serious.”
Personally, I thought the question of my sanity was pretty serious, but I didn’t say that out loud. “Could I ask you a question?”
“Hold on a minute,” he said. He took the coffee pot back to the front counter, picked up a mug, poured some for himself, added some hazelnut cream, grabbed a spoon and came back to the table. Sitting down, he took one of the muffins for himself. “Ok, shoot.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Is this a theological question? I thought you didn’t discuss theology or religion anymore.”
“I don’t, and it isn’t. It’s metaphysical.”
“You’re asking me if I believe that ghosts exist.”
“Right.”
“I know that there are people who do believe in them. Personally, I don’t.”
“So once a p
erson dies, their soul moves on and that’s it?”
“Right. Why are you asking?”
“Just doing some research for a story.”
“What kind of story?”
“It’s about the Ashtons.”
“There haven’t been any Ashtons around here for years, honey. Why are you writing about them?”
“Just trying to keep busy until a paying job comes along,” I said, not wanting to tell him the truth.
“Jim!” my mother, Charlotte, called from the front counter. “There’s a phone call for you.”
My dad put his hand over mine and squeezed. “You’ll get a job soon, hon. Just have a little faith.” He stood up. “Are you coming to church on Sunday?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good. Have a good day…”
“…and a joy-filled forever with the Lord,” I finished for him. He smiled and walked off. Our family had been saying that to each other ever since I was in high school. It never got old.
Five minutes later, Randy sat down across from me and swiped my last muffin. “I love your mother’s muffins,” he said as he took a bite.
“She sent that out here for me, not you.”
“You should have eaten it then.” He reached for my Dr Pepper, but I yanked it out of his way. Frowning, he got up and bought his own. “Now, tell me what happened last night,” he said, sitting back down. “What is the job? What did the house look like? Is there really a ghost?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, there is really a ghost.”
“Wait…what?!”
“Would you keep it down? The whole world doesn’t need to hear this!”
He leaned in closer. “Are you telling me you saw an actual ghost last night?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he said, crossing himself.
“Stop it, you aren’t Catholic. You’re Methodist like I am.”
“I’ll convert.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re crazy if you truly believe you saw a ghost last night, woman.”
Sighing, I ran my fingers through my short, thick auburn hair. In the Texas heat, it’s better to keep my hair short so I don’t get too hot. As for the rest of me, well, I’m average. Five foot four, hazel eyes, average weight (never ask a woman her age or her weight!), and I prefer to wear jeans and t-shirts over slacks, blouses, dresses and heels. Trust me, there are only one pair of heels in my closet, and they are for emergencies only. And by emergencies, I mean some fancy business dinner or important meetings where jeans and tennis shoes weren’t allowed. “You think I haven’t been struggling with that all night? As sure as I’m sitting here talking to you, I sat in that house last night and talked to a ghost.”
Who Killed the Ghost in the Library: A Ghost writer Mystery Page 2
