Karma Moon—Ghost Hunter

by Melissa Savage

  “Yes, ma’am,” he tells her, giving Mags a white-toothed smile and running out the double doors.

  “Bye, Jack,” Mags hollers after him in a voice far too loud.

  “Isn’t Jack just marvelous?” Ms. Lettie says.

  “He’s mad marvelous,” Mags agrees.

  I roll my eyes and whisper to Mags, “You need to reel it in.”

  She gives me a smack on my arm.

  “He’s technically the busboy here,” Ms. Lettie goes on, “but he also does backup. Any chores that need doing, Jack’s your man.”

  Dad nods. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss…um…Mrs.—”

  “Ms. Lettie,” the woman says, turning toward the glass door of the gift shop. “If you need anything, you know where you can find me.”

  “Ah, excuse me, ma’am?” Dad calls after her. “We’d like to interview you for the series at some point as well, since you’ve been here so long. I’m guessing you have some wonderful stories to share. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  She turns to face him again and takes a long, deep breath before speaking.

  “Did you know that some cultures believe that when you photograph someone, you steal a little bit of their soul?” she asks.

  “Ahhh…no,” he says. “I d-didn’t know that.”

  “I believe there is a lot of validity to that notion,” she tells him. “But I’d be happy to speak with you off-camera and answer any questions you may have.”

  Dad nods. “Yes, ma’am, understood. Whatever you prefer.”

  “Thank you,” she says.

  That’s when I see a tall man with messy black hair and a matching bushy beard glaring at us from behind the glass door of the gift shop.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Lettie.” I hold up my hand. “But there’s a strange man in a gray jumpsuit holding a plunger and staring at us.”

  She tilts her head to the side and smiles. “That’s Ubbe Amblebee,” she tells me. “He’s the maintenance man here. He’s a little skittish around new people.”

  When we all turn to look at him, his eyes widen and he darts away from the door.

  “Well, good day, then,” Ms. Lettie says.

  “Good day, ma’am,” Dad tells her.

  Then we all stand in a line watching her tuck her mini-self away in the corner gift shop with another tiny ting of the bell. But not before she gives us one more peek from behind the glass door, where a hand-painted OPEN sign hangs from hooks suction-cupped to the glass.

  I give Mags another poke. “What’s with that?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “The filming-of-souls thing,” I say.

  She looks up at me. “So?” she asks.

  I wide-eye her and lean in closer. “So?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re not thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask her.

  She stares at me. “I seriously doubt it.”

  “Vampires,” I whisper.

  “Now you”—she points at me—“need to reel it in.”

  “No, you need to reel it out,” I tell her.

  “Thaaaat’s not a saying.”

  “Vampires can’t see their images, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Not in the mirror or on film, either,” I go on.

  “Except she’s not pale or wearing a cape,” Mags says. “And she’s up in the daytime. Not undead. Just a plain little old lady with a mile-high hairdo.”

  “Capes are not standard issue for vampires anymore,” I tell her. “Plus, the no-image thing totally supersedes the no-sun or the daytime-hours deal. Vampires have evolved, you know—plug in, why don’t you.”

  Mags rolls her eyes in slow motion across the ceiling and back to me again. “It took you five minutes,” she says.

  I put my hands on my hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means your job is to do the research,” she says.

  “This is research.”

  “Vampires aren’t research,” she informs me.

  That’s when Dad says, “I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the first interesting character we come across while we’re here.”

  “You got that right,” I tell him. “Do you want to know what your horoscope said today?”

  “Nope—”

  “Virgo,” I recite by heart. “New people are introduced into your life who will bring new adventures. And you want to know what else?”

  “Crystal Mystic confirmed it?” he asks.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Hello!” A short, round, sweaty man with red cheeks and a too-tight blazer calls out to us as he hurries down the grand staircase separating the two lobby fireplaces. “I’m Mr. Plum, the manager. You must be the Netflix folks.”

  Standing next to him is a taller, skinnier man in cowboy boots with long white hair tied in a ponytail and the largest, whitest mustache I’ve ever seen grow under a nose.

  Dad tried to grow a mustache once, and he looked more wolfman than man because it was wispy in places and bald in others. Thankfully, he finally shaved it off altogether and it’s never made another appearance.

  “Hello,” Dad says, reaching out a hand for the man to shake. “I’m Vince Vallenari with Totally Rad Productions.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Plum says. “I was made aware of your arrival by the owners of the property when I took over this week. However, I didn’t realize you were coming today. I was up on the fourth floor, and as you can see, it’s hit or miss with the elevator. I’m so sorry to make you wait.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Plum. Is hit or miss a ghost reference or a guts-splattered-all-over-the-basement-floor reference?” I ask him, my pen poised over my ghost logbook.

  “This is my daughter, Karma,” Dad tells him.

  “Ahhhh…well, let’s just say, it’s safer to take the stairs,” Mr. Plum tells me.

  “Noted.” I nod once and scribble it down.

  “This is Arlo Lozano.” Mr. Plum waves a hand toward White Ponytail. “He’s our new front desk clerk. Arlo, these folks will be checking in.”

  “Overnight?” Mr. Lozano asks.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Plum says.

  Mr. Lozano gives Dad the once-over. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  Mr. Plum laughs off his questions with a loud, booming chuckle. “People make far too big a deal of this haunted-hotel business,” he says to Dad, and then turns back to Mr. Lozano. “Please just radio Ruby Red to make sure the rooms are cleaned and ready. Rooms 332 to 335. We are going to need four, right?”

  Mr. Lozano gives Dad one more good look and heads to the front desk.

  “Ah, five, please,” Dad calls after him. “We need one additional room for the paranormal consultants who are joining us later this afternoon. Actually”—he glances at his phone—“T. S. Phoenix and his wife, Tally, are on their way up the mountain now. They got lost outside Boulder.”

  “Ahhhh.” Mr. Plum chuckles. “I see how it is…enough ESP for the ghosts but not so much for the directions, huh?”

  Dad gives him a polite smile. “The last I heard, they had stopped for a piece of pie at the Colorado Cherry Company in Lyons, but like I said, they’ll be here soon.”

  “Well, until then and while Ruby Red gets your rooms ready, let me show you around the grounds of the hotel.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Dad says, securing a strap from the camera bag holding his fancy new Nikon D5600 inside it.

  The one he bought using the money from the rent envelope in the kitchen drawer that he stuffed with the payment he got from the Rubensteins’ bat mitzvah.

  I’m not supposed to know the money is gone.

  But I do.

  Mr. Plum leads us out the double doors of the lobby and onto the crisp white wraparound porch.
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  “Mr. Plum,” I call. “Are those old-fashioned portraits along the stairs of all the managers?”

  “Ah, no,” he says. “All these pictures show the different owners over time. The Jewel family opened the Stanley in 1909. Each of those portraits is a member of the Jewel family who has owned the hotel since that time. The current owners are Birdie and Happy Jewel. They live down in Denver.”

  “Oh,” I say. “But what about the managers?”

  “What about them?” he asks.

  “Ms. Lettie told us there have been three managers since we made plans to come here.”

  Mr. Plum nods. “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that. Scared off, I suppose,” he tells me. “But it’s hard to get anyone to talk about their experiences. You’ll find that here. People stay pretty close to the vest about it. No offense to you and all that you, ah…do in your work, but I don’t believe in the supernatural. It’s all hooey, if you ask me. But I digress. My beliefs don’t really make for very interesting television, now, do they?”

  I look at Dad and Dad looks at me and I know exactly what he’s thinking because he’s gnawing on his bottom lip.

  He has his own what-ifs. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

  I know what his worries are just by looking at him.

  No house.

  No strip of grass.

  No barbecue.

  And worst of all…no Mom.

  But this is Dad’s big break, no matter what Mr. Plum thinks. The fortune cookie even said so.

  And one thing I know, the universe never gets it wrong.

  Only people do.

  By the time we make it to our room, a whole new missing manager theory is running through my brain.

  WHAT-IFS

  Murrrrrder.

  One deranged hotel manager or Jewel family member serial killer, to be exact.

  I eye Mr. Plum as he stands in front of room 332. On Dateline, they always say it’s the ones you never expect.

  “And finally, ladies, this will be your room,” he says, slipping a key card in the slot and opening the door.

  Inside the room is a tall, thin woman in a gray-and-white uniform with perfectly painted, bright red lips. She’s wearing earbuds and fluffing up a pillow on the bed. Her black hair is pulled tight to one side and tied into a twisted knot under her right ear.

  “Oh!” She jumps, pulling out the earbuds. “I’m just finishing up your room now.”

  “This is Ruby Red, our new housekeeper,” Mr. Plum tells us, propping the door for her.

  “Good afternoon,” the woman says, her eyes on the floor. “Please let me know if there’s anything else you need to make your stay more comfortable.”

  “Thank you so much,” Dad tells her, handing her a folded bill.

  She takes it and quickly scurries past us, pushing her large, squeaky-wheeled cart down the long hall.

  Mr. Plum hands us all tiny envelopes with key cards inside.

  “Here are your room keys. I will leave you all to unpack and get settled in,” he tells us. “We will all meet promptly at six for dinner in the MacGregor Dining Hall downstairs for one of Chef Raphaël’s French masterpiece dinners. Tonight is coq au vin. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  From the floor up above, we hear racing footsteps.

  Mr. Plum’s cheeks redden, and he shakes his head and huffs, “Dag gum hooligans.”

  “Hooligans?” I ask.

  “Oh, those local kids sneaking in here and racing up and down the fourth-floor hallway,” he mutters. “But I’m never fast enough to catch them. Please…if you’ll all excuse me.”

  We watch Mr. Plum hurry down the hall in the opposite direction, back toward the grand staircase, his blazer making a swishing sound as his arms rub against his round sides.

  On our official tour of the grounds, we found out that there are exactly four buildings total. Two of them are permanently closed because of the lack of guests. That leaves two buildings still open—the main building, where we checked in and are staying, and the staff quarters across the flowered courtyard out back.

  “I’m going in,” Mags says, wheeling her suitcase through the doorway of our room to check things out.

  “See you all at dinner,” Big John tells us, unlocking a door across the hall.

  “What time did he say?” The Faz asks, pushing his key card into the door next to Big John’s.

  “Six,” Big John tells him.

  Me and Dad watch them wheel their suitcases inside their rooms, and the doors close.

  “You okay?” Dad asks me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  I swallow and let my head fall back against the doorframe.

  “This place is mad creepy,” I tell him.

  “Sick!” Mags shouts from inside 332. “I can see the Rocky Mountains from our window! The only thing I can see from my window in the West Village is Mrs. Pickle’s kitchen.”

  “This mad creepy business is what is going to put us on the map,” Dad reminds me, his hand on my shoulder.

  I nod.

  “Right?” he says.

  “Right,” I say.

  “We can put up with it for ten days, can’t we?” He gives my shoulder a squeeze.

  This time I don’t say anything.

  “I promise you, Snooks, that you can order as many egg rolls as you want once we get a ghost on film.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  I slip my hand in his. “Tell me again why you call me Snooks.”

  “We will make it out of here just fine,” he says. “I promise you.”

  I shrug. “Okay,” I say. “But I still want to hear it.”

  He smiles. “The minute I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the best thing that ever happened to me. And I still know it.”

  “As sweet as a frosty snow cone on the hottest July day and a home-baked cookie fresh hot out of the oven all in one?” I ask.

  He nods. “Absolutely.”

  I sigh and he squeezes my hand.

  “I’m right next door if you need me,” he says.

  “Oh, man! I can still see snow on the mountaintops!” Mags hollers from inside, and then I hear her body land on the mattress with a loud thud and she’s all, “Dibs on the bed by the window!”

  “You’ll be fine,” Dad tells me. “I’ll see you in the dining hall at six?”

  I sigh. “I sure hope so,” I say.

  “Hey,” he says. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  I give him a weak smile.

  He gives me a kiss on the top of my head and I watch him fiddle with his own key card and disappear inside the room next to ours, letting the door swing closed behind him.

  When I pick up my suitcase, I see Ruby Red with her cart stopped at the end of the hall watching me. She jumps when our eyes meet and lurches forward with her squeaky-wheeled cart again.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  * * *

  Mags is doing invisible snow angels on the brick-red velvet bedspread closest to the window when I finally wheel my suitcase inside our room.

  There are two velvet-covered double beds, and the floor is covered in a dark green carpet with tiny white-flowered vines, and there’s an ancient wooden wardrobe with large drawers in the corner of the room. The television is mounted on the wall. Near the door is a small desk with an old-fashioned typewriter with white paper wound inside, just waiting for someone to press the keys for an important message. I place my ghost logbook and Crystal Mystic next to the short, small glass vase filled with fresh-cut pink roses on the edge of the desk.

  My what-ifs are kicked into overdrive and my jumping beans are set on high-velocity wiggle.

  I lug my suitcase up on the bed closer to the bathroom
and start to count and tap each finger to my thumb.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  I sit down next to my suitcase and lean toward Mags. “Don’t you think it’s majorly weird that there have been three managers since my dad even got the contract?”

  She’s too busy taking pictures of the snowy mountaintops outside our window.

  “I wonder if that Chef Raphaël does room service, too,” she’s rambling on, holding her phone out and snapping another shot. “I feel so grown-up. It’s like this is our very own apartment, just like our plan for when we’re adults. What do you think coq au vin is anyway? It sounds gross, whatever it is. I hope there’s nothing green in it; you know how I feel about green foods. I mean, why not serve plain old chicken, right?”

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  “What if all the managers were whacked one by one by some deranged hotel manager serial killer?” I swallow. “Each one of them…dead. And like he hid the corpses—”

  She’s still not listening.

  “I suppose vegans don’t like chicken.” She takes another shot of the mountains.

  “All of them taken in the dead of night,” I go on. “And cut into small pieces.”

  “Or vegetarians in general,” she says. “But you and I aren’t vegan or vegetarian, so I’m just saying chicken would be good.”

  “And what if the body parts are stored in this very closet?” I say, standing in front of the wardrobe.

  She stops then and her head snaps in my direction. “Wait…what are you talking about?”

  I turn back to face her with wide eyes. “Ahh, only a triple homicide?”

  “I thought we were talking about chicken.”

  “You were talking about chicken.” I point a thumb at her. “I was talking about a deranged serial killer knocking off hotel managers in the dead of night. And now maybe the bloody demise of an entire docuseries film crew.”

  “That,” she says, tossing her phone on the bed, “is messed up.”

  “Exactly what I’m saying,” I tell her. “A bloody crime scene would be messy.”

  “Don’t even,” she warns me.