by Terri Reid
“Thank you, Stanley,” she replied. “That’s good advice. I appreciate your information.”
“No problem, girlie,” Stanley said with a slight shrug. “That’s what friends do for each other.”
A few minutes later, Stanley and Rosie had left for their own home and Mary, Bradley, Ian and Mike were sitting around in the living room, a fire softly crackling in the fireplace.
Sipping on a cup of tea, her feet tucked underneath her, Mary leaned back on the couch and stretched. “This has been a great evening,” she said turning to Ian. “I’m so glad you escaped from Chicago to be with us.”
“Aye, it was a grand time,” he agreed. “And not just because I won a tidy bit playing the game.”
“It was because you beat the pants off Stanley,” Mike said with a chuckle. “Admit it.”
“Yes, I admit it,” Ian laughed. “I love to get him all worked up.”
“And he loves getting all worked up, too,” Bradley said. “I don’t think I’ve seen him happier in weeks.”
“And how’s our Rosie?” Ian asked.
“I think she’s happy,” Mary said. “She loves the feeling of family she has with all of us.”
“Well, she is family,” Mike said. “Family isn’t about bloodlines. It’s about love and shared experiences.”
“I agree,” Bradley said. “Rosie and Stanley are just as much Clarissa’s grandparents as her blood grandparents are.”
A log snapped in the fire, causing a small explosion of sparks against the grate. They all watched the fire in silence for a moment, enjoying the peace of the night.
“Well now,” Ian finally said, interrupting the quiet and glancing over into the kitchen. “I believe it’s time for phase two of the evening’s festivities because I believe you might have a visitor, Mary.”
Mary glanced over and saw a shadow dart back into hiding. She reached over and took hold of Bradley’s hand. “Ready to meet another guest?” she asked him.
He nodded. “Sure, it’s always interesting to meet your new friends,” he replied.
“Marty?” she called. “Marty, it’s all right, you can come out.”
Hesitating slightly, Marty glided out of the kitchen towards the living room, his head still bent over parallel to his shoulder. “I hope I’m not disturbing your evening,” he stammered.
“No, actually, I asked everyone to stay so they could meet you,” Mary replied. “I was hoping you’d come by.”
“Really? They wanted to meet me?” he asked, a slight smile playing on his face. “How nice.”
“Marty, this is Ian,” Mary said. “He is a professor in Paranormal Research.”
“They have professorships for crap like that?” Marty asked.
Mike snorted and then coughed to try and cover his laughter.
“Evidently, yes they do,” Ian replied curtly.
“Oh my gosh, he can hear me?” Marty exclaimed. “I’ve been spending so much time with folks that can’t hear me, I guess I just blurt stuff out.”
Hiding her amusement poorly, Mary grinned in Marty’s direction. “Yes, Ian can hear you,” she said. “Actually, everyone in the room can see you and hear you. And we all want to help you.”
Marty looked from face to face and stopped when he reached Bradley. “You look familiar,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Bradley Alden,” he said, not sure how much he should tell the ghost. “I’m Mary’s husband.”
“So, you got a kind of husband and wife thing going on here,” he said, nodding his head. “That’s okay. I wish my wife had worked with me. Looks like she didn’t even come to my funeral.”
“Marty, I need to talk to you about that,” Mary said. “I checked with the county today and there is no record of your death.”
“But I died,” he replied. “I’m sure of it.”
“I’m sure of it, too, Marty,” she replied. “But your body was never recovered and no one ever reported your death.”
He shook his head slowly. “That can’t be right,” he said. “Sol was right with me when I died. He would have told someone. He would have called an ambulance.”
Mary glanced at Ian. She didn’t want to accuse Sol and upset Marty. She needed him to come to the conclusion on his own that Sol might have committed his murder. But in order to do that, Ian needed to put into play the plan they had devised earlier that afternoon.
“I’m sorry,” Ian said, nodding slightly in Mary’s direction. “But since I’m new to the story, can you fill me in on who this Sol fellow is?”
“Sure, sure,” Marty said. “Sol is my business partner.”
Ian nodded slowly. “Well, excellent,” he said. “And what business were the both of you involved in?”
“We bought a haunted house,” Marty said with an excited smile. “We bought the house, updated it so we could use it like a bed and breakfast and then we spent the rest of our money marketing it.”
“Well, how exciting,” Ian remarked. “And the ghost. What was it like?”
The smile faded away. “Well, yeah, that was the problem,” he explained. “After the first couple of bookings, people started figuring out that the place wasn’t haunted at all. We did everything to get ghosts, séances, Ouija boards, stealing…er, I mean, borrowing stuff from other haunted houses. But nothing worked.”
“So, you had a haunted house that was losing money because it wasn’t haunted,” Ian repeated. “What were you going to do?”
“Well, Sol had a plan,” Marty said. “That’s why we went to the house on the day I died. He was going to do something about the whole haunted thing.”
“What?” Ian asked.
Marty lifted up his hand and rubbed the top of his head. “Well, see, I don’t really know because I died before he told me.”
“So, what you’re telling me is that your partner had a plan to get a ghost. He met you at the house. You ended up dead and he never reported your death to anyone,” Ian said.
“Yeah,” Marty said slowly. “Yeah, that’s right. Why?”
Ian shot a frustrated look at Mary, took a deep breath and then looked back to Marty. “Well, I don’t know your partner and I hate to cast doubt on a good man,” Ian said. “But it seems to me that your death could have been the answer Sol was looking for.”
“What?” Marty asked, still confused.
“If you died, then the house would be haunted,” Ian carefully pointed out.
Marty’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you think that Sol killed me?” he asked.
Ian shrugged. “As I said, I don’t know the man, so I hate to cast any doubts,” he said. “But you have to admit, it sounds like a good plan.”
Marty nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does,” he said softly. “It sounds just like the kind of plan Sol would concoct.”
He looked at Mary. “Do you think he killed me?”
She nodded. “Well, I have some suspicions,” she said. “I think he might have buried your body in the house so you would be stuck there and have to haunt it. That’s why there was no funeral.”
“What did he tell my wife?” Marty cried. “Does she think I just deserted her?”
“We won’t know until we discover the truth,” Mary said. “And in order to discover the truth, we need your help.”
“You just tell me what you need me to do,” he said decidedly. “Now I’m angry.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Well, that went well I think,” Mary said once Marty had disappeared.
“The poor bloke,” Ian said. “He had no idea what Sol had done. But I think his anger is going to work to our benefit.”
“So, what’s your plan?” Mary asked.
Ian moved up to the edge of his chair and leaned forward, drawing closer to the other three. “First step is we put my equipment all around the house,” Ian explained. “And we make it obvious to Sol where the equipment is located.”
He paused for a moment as he weighed his idea in his own mind. “Then we do some read
ings in the house, for Sol’s benefit,” he said. “And we play up whatever we find.”
“Okay, I’m not seeing how this is going to work yet,” Mary admitted.
Ian grinned at her. “Not so fast, darling,” he said. “This is just the set up. Then, with the help of either Marty or Mike, we let him ‘discover’ activity outside the house.”
“Like his ghost is haunting the wrong residence?” Bradley asked.
“Exactly,” Ian replied. “I have the feeling, from meeting Marty, that he was never the senior partner in the deal. If Sol thinks that Marty is haunting the wrong place, he’s going to have that conversation with Marty that we need to record and offer to the police.”
“But is that conversation going to be enough to convict him?” Mary asked. “Not just convince the judge the guy’s nuts?”
“Well, somehow we have to convince him to check the gravesite,” Ian said. “And record him digging up the body or something equally incriminating.”
“But isn’t that entrapment because he doesn’t know he’s being videotaped?” Mike asked.
“Aye, unless he signs a waiver stating that he knows that the house is wired and there are video machines throughout the residence,” Ian said, leaning back in his chair and placing his hands behind his head. “Then he has no legal redress.”
“How are you going to find out where to put the camera in order to videotape the gravesite?” Bradley asked. “Marty doesn’t remember being buried.”
“There’s been some recent research about residual energy and ghosts,” Ian said. “Researchers are finding that often in cases where a person was murdered and their body dumped in a location, even though the ghost might travel a little, there is a residual energy that is connected with that location. We should be able to pick up the energy with some of my meters. At least it will give us a general idea of where the body might be hidden.”
“But won’t Sol notice you walking around the house with a meter?” Bradley asked.
“Well, actually, no,” Ian said. “One of the newest applications can actually be downloaded to a smart phone. All I have to do is mention that the equipment calibration is on an app on my phone, and then I’ll plug in the ear plugs and switch apps.”
“But won’t Sol be hesitant to do anything or say anything if he sees recording equipment?” Mary asked.
“Yes, I think he will be,” Ian confessed. “But, I think that if we make all of the recording equipment very obvious, wires and cables in clear sight, he’ll think he knows where his actions could be recorded. Then we’ll use a tiny, hidden camera near the gravesite, so he won’t think we are recording in that area.”
“Won’t he be suspicious?” Bradley asked.
“Well, there’s really no reason for him to be suspicious of us,” Mary said. “He has no idea we know about Marty. And he wants us to find paranormal entities.”
Ian shook his head. “From what I perceive, Sol has no idea how this all works,” he said. “He just wanted a haunted house so it would pay off for him. He doesn’t understand that he’s really dealing with ghosts and that they are real entities. He thinks he’s offering a ride at a theme park.”
Mary nodded. “And he thinks the rest of us are as phony as he and his house are,” she agreed. “I think a glimpse into the unseen world is going to shake him up more than a little.”
Mike hovered across the room, pacing back and forth for a few moments, and then he turned to the group. “I haven’t said much about this whole scheme,” he said. “Because I really think it’s got merit and could possible free Marty. But I feel like I have to bring up the risks you are both taking.”
“What risks?” Bradley asked immediately.
“Well, when you have negative energies you attract negative entities,” Mike said. “So between the Ouija board, the séances, the anger and frustration over the house not working out for them, and, finally, the murder, there is a lot of negative energy coming from that house. When you guys step in there, you might be stepping into a lot more than you bargained for.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Mary slowly climbed the stairs up to her bedroom. Bradley, Ian and Mike were still discussing the potential pitfalls of Ian’s plan, but she was just too exhausted to listen any longer. She needed to get some sleep or she knew she would pay for it the next day. She slipped out of her clothes, pulled on her pajamas and padded into the bathroom to wash up.
Turning on the dim, overhead light over the sink, she turned on the water and waited until it reached the right temperature. Then she splashed warm water on her face, poured a small amount of facial cleanser on her hands and then spread it over her face. She closed her eyes as she gently massaged her skin, cleaning the makeup off her face and around her eyes. “Ouch,” she exclaimed as she felt her right eye sting as some of the suds slipped beneath her eyelid. Reaching under the running faucet, she cupped her hands and splashed water onto her face until the stinging subsided. “Well, that’s better,” she said with her eyes still shut just in case another bit of soap was in the vicinity.
Still working blind, she stretched her hands, turned off the faucet and felt around for the face towel. Finally, after a lot of patting around, she felt the texture of the soft, cotton, terry cloth and brought the towel to her face, taking the time to make sure she blotted all the excess moisture from around her eyes.
She finally straightened up and looked into the mirror. A frightened gasp escaped her when she saw the hooded figure standing in a shadowed corner directly behind her in the bathroom. She dropped the towel as she spun around to face the phantom. The dark apparition, in a move reminiscent of Scrooge’s Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, lifted its arm slowly and then pointed down at the floor. Mary swallowed audibly, waiting for its next words.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness. Pick up the towel please!” the hooded figure demanded, pointing a finger at the towel.
The ghost stepped forward into the dim pool of light around the sink, and Mary took a deep, shuddering breath of relief before she spoke. “Yes, Sister,” she breathed, bending down to pick it up. “I’ll be happy to pick it up.”
Stuffing the towel around the metal rack, Mary then turned her attention to the ghost of the Sister Bernadette she had met earlier in the day. “How can I help you?” she asked.
“You were searching for a baby today,” Sister Bernadette replied. “Was it your child?”
Shaking her head, she met the old, translucent eyes. “No, it was the child of a woman who, like you, is trapped between this life and the next because she needs to discover what happened to her little girl,” Mary explained. “She can’t rest until she knows she was well cared for.”
“What good will it do her now?” the nun spat. “She’s dead. She should just move on and leave what’s in the past in the past.”
Leaning against the sink, Mary slowly shook her head. “Perhaps you don’t understand the connection mothers have with their children,” she replied. “It’s a bond that doesn’t lessen with age or distance.” She placed her hands on her belly. “And it’s a bond that something as inconsequential as death will never overcome.”
Sister Bernadette’s face contorted in anger. “And do you believe that because I chose another way, I don’t understand the sensibilities of motherhood?” she demanded.
Mary studied the woman before her for a moment, noting the pain in her expression and the sorrow in her eyes. Her eyes widened a little in understanding. “You were one of them,” she said softly. “You lost your own child.”
The quick shake of denial didn’t convince Mary. “There was something there,” Mary insisted, meeting the nun’s eyes.
A nearly indiscernible nod confirmed Mary’s feelings. “My sister,” Sister Bernadette admitted. “My younger sister was one.”
“And how did she do when they took away her child?” Mary asked.
Sister Bernadette stepped back into the shadows, hiding her face in the darkness. “They didn’t take away her child
,” she whispered sadly. “They both died in childbirth.”
The darkness and the ghost melded into shadow, and the old nun was no longer there.
“I still need your help,” Mary called after her. “I still need to find the daughter of Alison Robinson Grandee. And your sister would want you to help me.”
She waited a moment, but there was no response. The old nun was not coming back that night.
“You really do need to help me!” she called out in frustration. “Dammit, someone needs to help me on this one.”
Chapter Thirty
“Well, good morning, darling,” Ian said to Clarissa when she came down the stairs the next morning. “And how did you sleep?”
Clarissa hurried into the kitchen, hung her backpack over the back of the chair and climbed up onto a stool next to the counter. “I slept like a log,” she announced, leaning over the counter. “What are you doing?”
“I’m letting your parents sleep in a bit,” Ian said as he mixed a large bowl of batter. “And I’m making waffles for the two of us. How does that sound?”
“That sounds amazing,” Clarissa replied enthusiastically.
Ian smiled at her and nodded. “Well, then, we have a plan.”
He studied the smiling child with a critical eye. It was because of his training in psychology that Mary had asked him the day before to have a private conversation with Clarissa just to see if any of the backlash from the article had affected her.
“So, how is school?” he asked as he poured batter into the hot, waffle iron.
“It’s great,” she said. “Me and Maggie are in the same class again. Our teacher is really cool. She lets us have snacks in class and everything.”
“And how about Andy Brennan, eh?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at her. “A bit of a ladies man I’d say. Are you a little sweet on him?”
Blushing brightly, Clarissa ducked her head and giggled. “A little,” she admitted. “He’s cute.”
