by Joanne Pence
“She got you shot!” Carmela waggled her forefinger at him. “Don’t you forget it!”
“She did no such thing.” He shoved aside the coffee as if about to leave. “Ma, I can’t take this!”
She stood and put her hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “You’ll be happier if you’re married, Richie, to some sweet girl.”
“I’m happy now,” he bellowed, then slumped back in his seat. She sat down again. “Besides,” he added, “before I get married, I do want to be in love—at least a little.”
“Love? You’ve had love. True love. May Isabella rest in peace.” Carmela quickly crossed herself. “Now, you just need security.”
“Don’t talk about Isabella, okay?”
Carmela folded her arms. “Look, Dora Petalucchio’s daughter just broke off her engagement because her father caught her fiancé with another woman.” She nodded the way she always did when she had a good story to tell. “Not just with her, but with her, if you know what I’m saying—in the men’s room at the Sons of Italy hall, no less. They thought no one would try to use a stall, only the urinals, but her old man ate a bad cannoli and what’re you gonna do? Anyway, the daughter, Kathy, Kaylie—one of those American ‘k’ names—is already thirty. So she doesn’t have time to start over—to go out and date and do all that stuff to find someone to love. But she’d make a good wife for you.”
“I heard about that,” Richie admitted. “But I’m not taking Joey Hands’ cast off.”
“Joey Hands? I thought he was Italian?”
“He was. Is. The guys call him that because he’s … Just forget it, Ma. Believe me, if she’s not attractive enough for Joey Hands to marry, forget it.”
“But you need—”
“No. I don’t.” He stood. “I’m leaving, and when you want to have a normal conversation about séances and ghosts, you call me.”
The reference to Sandy Geller didn’t faze her. He headed for the door with Carmela following, her words ringing in his ears. “I’ll say no more, Richie. But I want you to be happy; right now, you’re a mess. I pray so much for you, my knees are getting blisters!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rebecca sat alone back at her desk and fumed.
Mr. Stick-Up-His-Butt FBI Agent had told her that Richie was a fixer. She knew what a “fixer” was, although there were fixers … and then there were fixers. Most of the time, it meant someone who could mend a bad situation for a client, someone who knew their way around the law, or the system, or enough important people to get a client out of a jam, legal or otherwise.
She understood, now, exactly why Richie didn’t broadcast his job.
Was she surprised when Agent Seymour had told her that? She had to admit, she’d suspected it. Richie knew too many important people, and had too many people reporting to him about topics of the hush-hush variety. Did it mean he was a criminal? No, but it could mean he was walking a fine line. When a person helps enough big shots with money and influence, soon, that person learns enough secrets that he ends up with money and influence as well. That’s when it’s easy to cross over to the dark side.
She was going to have to find out if he had or not. No more coyness; no more hints. He needed to be straight with her.
Richie weighed heavy on her mind when she met with Sandy Geller. Geller picked her up outside Homicide in a Mercedes two-seat roadster.
“I hope we didn’t have too much demon talk last night,” he said with a sly grin.
“No. Not at all. Actually, I’d like to hear more about demons.”
“I should think there are a lot of them in your line of work.”
“Perhaps too many,” she murmured as she forced her thoughts away from Richie to study Sandy a moment. His light brown hair was naturally lank, and without mascara and other make-up his eyes were faint. His nose was straight and small, and his lips cupid-bow shaped, which she never particularly liked on a man. “I take it you believe in demons.”
Sandy’s lips upturned. “Some people are good, some are bad. Why should spirits be any different? Demons are simply spirits who want to do us harm. And yes, they do exist. A lot of mediums will go into a trance state and allow a spirit to take over control of his or her body. I don’t do that because it can lead to permanent possession by demonic forces.”
“Oh? I thought mediums were supposed to allow spirits to take over their bodies,” Rebecca said. “Isn’t that what you do in your show?”
He smiled stiffly. “It’s not exactly a ‘show.’ And I channel the spirit, not let it take over.”
“What about the kind of séance where the medium asks the spirit to do strange things like blow out candles and ring bells?”
“Ah, yes!” he said. “It’s actually quite interesting. That type of séance became wildly popular in the mid-eighteen hundreds, because of an incident that took place near Rochester, New York,” Sandy said with a smile.
“Really?”
“Oh, yes, the infamous Fox sisters. Maggie and Kate Fox were only fifteen and eleven years old when they claimed to have made contact with the spirit of a murdered peddler.”
Sandy proceeded to tell her the story of the Fox family and how unexplained noises began to afflict the family home. At some point, the younger girl, Kate, started asking whoever was making the noise some questions. The questions soon led to a system using a number of raps as an answer. From the answers, the family realized the dead peddler was the one causing the noises.
“Neighbors were brought in to see what was happening,” Sandy said, “and the girls became famous practically overnight. Soon, people rushed to the Fox house to watch the girls interact with the spirit. The girls soon began conducting séances with their older sister, Leah, working as their manager.”
“So it was a scam from the beginning,” Rebecca said.
“We don’t know that,” Sandy offered. “But we do know that as the girls’ fame and popularity grew, so did skepticism. They were accused of tricks, including concealing of lead balls beneath their dresses to make noise. People formed committees to test them, but couldn’t find any evidence of fraud. Things changed for the better after the girls held a séance for the famous author James Fenimore Cooper. He came away convinced of their authenticity, and wrote news articles about his experience with them. Those writings help spread their fame.
“By the 1850’s, you could find spiritualist groups in many major American cities, as well as England and Europe. But soon, mediums vied with each other for attention, and did increasingly outrageous stunts to entertain their audiences. Levitation was a huge one. Such things pushed the ‘Rochester Rappers’ as the Fox sisters were known, out of the spotlight. In fact, the girls tried to recant and regain popularity by saying they had been instructed by their older sister on how to fake their connections with the dead, but few people cared about them at that point. Eventually, both died as penniless alcoholics.”
“What a story,” Rebecca said, surprised she had never heard it before.
Sandy nodded. “It is, and it’s also what gives psychics a bad name. Tables levitating, pendulums swinging, candles going out or coming on all by themselves, automatic writing, Ouija boards, planchettes—they’re all easily faked. It’s ludicrous for anyone to ask a spirit to answer questions with a ‘rap once for yes, twice for no.’ Do people really think spirits are here to play a game of twenty questions?”
o0o
Richie wanted nothing as much as to meet Rebecca after her work day ended and to talk to her. He managed to convince himself he’d been wrong about her reasons for spending last evening with Sandy Geller. She couldn’t possibly have any romantic interest in the guy. It was intellectual, that’s all. And she was investigating.
He hoped.
But before he could contact Rebecca, Claire Baxter had contacted him. She was scared and said she needed to see him right away. He believed she was innocent of the FBI’s accusation that she consorted with known smugglers of stolen Middle Eastern artifacts. He drove over to
her condo near the crest of Nob Hill.
Her front door was at ground level, and stairs led up to her living area which was a testament to her success. Filled with paintings, sculptures, and antique furniture, it was beautiful. Even the clocks on her walls were works of art. When he reached the top of the staircase, he gawked at her in shock.
One side of her face was swollen and bruised. Her wrists were also black and blue, and her usually perfect manicure had several “fake” fingernails missing. She had clearly been crying. As he studied her, she threw her arms around him.
“What happened?” he asked, holding her. She was in her fifties, although no one would ever know it by looking at her. She had a great figure, and usually hid any wrinkles she might have had with Botox, a hairstyle of thick bangs down to her eyelashes, turtlenecks and neck scarves. Right now, though, she looked her age and more.
“Those men, those horrible men!” She began to sob.
He guided her to the living room. Chairs had been knocked over. He lifted two spindly ones, but after looking at them, decided they’d better sit on the small chaise lounge. The antique furniture filling her house might be pricey, but it was also stiff, undersized, and uncomfortable. Once they were settled, he said, “Now, tell me what happened.”
“Two men were in my house when I got home. They’re going to kill me.” Her hands shook as she grabbed his lapels. “You’ve got to get me a new identity. I need to run.”
“Why would they want to kill you?”
“Because the FBI came back here again—to my house! Those men said if I tell the FBI who they are …” She started breathing too hard to speak.
“But the FBI has no proof that you have the Nimrud gold jewelry, right? Only hearsay that you were selling some of it?”
She swallowed hard. “They somehow found out that I had three pieces here.”
Now it was his turn to stop breathing. She had lied to him, swearing she had nothing to do with any jewelry that even resembled the Nimrud gold. “You had smuggled artifacts here?”
“I didn’t know they were contraband. Only that they were Middle Eastern and old and valuable. I had to have them to show my buyers. No sight-unseen sales—ever—in antiquities. But now”—she burst into more tears—“the FBI confiscated them, and told me to either give them the name of the seller or go to jail. That horrible Agent Seymour claims he’s watching me constantly.”
Richie ran his fingers through his hair. So now, by showing up here, he would also be on the FBI’s radar—if he wasn’t already simply because of associating with her. This was getting better by the minute. “Let’s think about this. If the FBI is watching, they must have seen the two men who attacked you.”
She shook her head. “Maybe not. They disarmed my alarm system from the back door and used it to come in and to leave. I doubt the FBI is out there.”
“But aren’t all those back yards small with no street access? How could they get out?”
“Who knows?” She shrugged.
He took a deep breath. He really hated this kind of garbage. “Did they say anything else?”
“They sure did. They want their money. The three pieces the FBI took are worth a hundred-fifty thousand dollars. They want that much from me. And if they don’t get it, I’m dead. I don’t have that much cash. I’ve got to run.”
“What about your art pieces? Do you have any that are worth that kind of money?”
“Sure, but it takes time to sell valuable art and antiquities, Richie.”
“Look, come up with at least two-hundred grand worth of whatever antiquities and art that you can, plus appraisals to prove the value. Tell me how to reach the people you’re dealing with and I’ll see if legitimate artifacts will interest them enough to leave you alone. Sound good?”
“Two hundred grand?” she asked, incredulously.
“You need to convince them to take the deal. Less than two hundred would be an insult. Or would you prefer they kill you and steal everything you own? You said they’ve broken in here once already, right?”
Her tears again overflowed and once more she wrapped her arms around him. “Can you lend me some money Richie?”
“Not on your life.”
She drew back, pouting. “By the way, when the FBI was questioning me, I said you could vouch for my story that the art dealers I’m working with have reputations for dealing with legitimate merchandise—as do I.”
He felt as if his hair was on fire. “You know that’s not true,” he shouted. “I warned you—”
“So what,” she yelled back. “I need help! Your help!”
Richie was beyond furious at her. “Get the piece you want to give the Iraqis, the paperwork, and let me know how to contact them. I’ll handle it. And stop your goddamn talking to the FBI.”
CHAPTER NINE
Half Moon Bay was on the ocean a half-hour or so south of San Francisco, but it could have been on a different planet. The small coastal town seemed to be a forgotten throwback to the mid-twentieth century.
Sandy drove three miles past the town center, and then turned down a road heading westward towards a small peninsula. The road ended at a padlocked wrought iron fence. He had the key.
The estate was twenty acres in size, and Rebecca was surprised at how far Sandy drove along the private road before she saw, atop a rise, a two-story white clapboard farmhouse facing the ocean. The parking area was on lower land on the house’s south side.
After parking, they walked up a narrow footpath to the front door. Sandy unlocked it and disarmed the security system. “I’m paying for access to this house to do a TV special. The owner won’t sell, sure that the more publicity the place gets, the more valuable it’ll become. I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s haunted.”
He gave her a quick tour. A parlor, dining room, kitchen, and pantry were on the first floor, and three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second. The rooms were quite small, but charmingly decorated and furnished with antiques. Old family portraits lined the walls. Sandy explained that every so often the owner opened it up for the public, charging twenty dollars each for the opportunity. Only by having it furnished to look the way it did back in the 1920’s when the tragedy occurred was he able to make his visitors happy.
They might not see the ghost, but they could see how she lived, ate, and slept.
“I’m still waiting to hear the ghost’s story,” Rebecca said.
Sandy didn’t get a chance to relate it because just then the photographer and a make-up artist arrived. Rebecca found it interesting to watch the photographer and Sandy work. Sandy wore one of the same romantic-looking shirts as at his performance, and the make-up artist fluffed his long hair and then applied a blend of dark creams and eye make-up so that his cheeks appeared more hollow, and his eyes larger and deeper set than they were on their own.
The photographer and Sandy worked with the home’s lighting, and used old clothes to give a sense that a woman who wore dark Victorian clothing was lurking just beyond the shadows. At one point, Sandy put a dress on a hanger and attached it to a light fixture dangling from the ceiling. He turned off most of the lights, and then had the photographer take the picture through a mirror. The light from the flash against the mirror blurred out almost everything except the nearly black dress. It looked as if it were being worn by a woman floating across the room.
An hour or so later, when the shoot was done and the photographer and make-up artist had departed, Sandy showed Rebecca a Coleman cooler containing a bottle of blush wine and half a dozen sandwiches neatly bundled in Saran Wrap.
“Want to have a picnic on the beach?” he said.
Rebecca smiled. “Only if you promise to finally tell me the ghost’s back story.” She realized that she had chosen her words carefully. Somehow saying it like that didn’t admit to the idea that she might actually believe that this house was haunted.
“Ah,” he said. “That’s a tale that needs much strong wine to hear.”
The land on which t
he house sat was like a finger jutting into the ocean. On its south side, cliffs dropped sharply down to rough, rock-laden water, with scarcely any beach available. North of the house, however, the landscape was much less steep and rugged. There, Sandy led her to an an easy-to-traverse path down to the beach.
As they sat and spread out the light feast—the wine and the sandwiches had remained nicely chilled in the cooler—Rebecca remembered how much she had always loved the smell of sand and sea. She couldn’t resist digging her fingers into the dry sand and watching it slide through as she pulled her hand back up. The waves were high and crashed loudly on the shore, and a chilly sea breeze nipped at her face. She zipped up her leather jacket.
As they ate, Sandy told the tale of the ghost of Falls Meadow—the name given to the land back in the days when a creek ran through the property and created a small waterfall that dropped down to a lovely well-tended meadow.
o0o
Wilhelm Bruckman left Germany in 1849 when he heard about the California gold rush. He was one of the lucky ones. Not only did he find gold, he had the sense not to spend it on high living.
Instead, he bought a large piece of property on the coast south of San Francisco, as well as a number of dairy cows and a bull to support himself the way his family had done in Germany. He built a home and eventually sent for a German woman to became his wife.
Only one son, Johan, survived to adulthood. When Wilhelm was dying, he told Johan where on the property he had hidden his remaining gold, but warned him to never use it unless absolutely necessary.
By 1925, Johan, by then an old man and a widower, lived on the property with his son, Gunter, the son’s wife, Astrid, and their young daughter, Inga. Their dairy business supported the family, and at times to augment their income, Gunter would do some bass fishing in the Pacific. They lived well, secure in the fact that if anything happened, they had Wilhelm’s gold to fall back on. But things were not happy in the house. Gunter was restless, and unhappy living on a dreary, remote peninsula and working the land the way his father and grandfather had done. He wanted more from life.
