Mixed Messages (A Malone Mystery)

by Gligor, Patricia

  At exactly two-thirty, her secretary, Marcia, opened the door and escorted Ann Kern, a new client, into the office. Susan pushed her desk chair back and stood up, feeling too tall and awkward as she looked down at the petite, young woman standing before her. The woman was about five foot three or four and naturally pretty. She wore little or no makeup and yet her face had a healthy, rosy glow. She had soft, warm brown eyes, a creamy complexion and near perfect features.

  Susan could hardly believe her eyes. The resemblance of this woman to her husband’s “girlfriend” was unnerving. At that moment, all her years of professional training slipped away. Struggling to regain her composure, she walked across the room and sat down in one of the two upholstered armchairs that faced each other. She motioned for Ann to follow her.

  “Please have a seat,” she said, indicating the other chair. “So, Ann, what brings you here today?” she asked, managing a feeble smile.

  Ann looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. “Lately, I’ve been feeling, well, overwhelmed. There’s so much, so many things on my mind. I … well, it’s my marriage mostly, I guess. Things are really a mess. I’m not happy. I haven’t been happy for a long time and I … I don’t know what to do to make things better.”

  “You’ll have to be more specific, Ann. Exactly why are you unhappy?”

  Ann cleared her throat. “David, my husband, well, he’s changed. When we were first married and for the first few years, everything was so good between us and I really do love him but, well, I guess it happened gradually. I didn’t realize. I don’t know. He … drinks a lot and I feel like I’m living with a stranger most of the time. He has a terrible temper and sometimes he throws things and breaks things and, well, we don’t … have sex anymore,” she said, looking down at the floor, “well, hardly ever anyway.”

  “What I’m hearing you say, Ann, is that David’s changed through the years and you haven’t. Change is inevitable in a relationship. It’s healthy.”

  “But, Dr. Thatcher, this can’t be healthy. I feel like I’m living in a world of mixed messages,” Ann said. “Sometimes I know David loves me. He’s kind and sweet like he always used to be and then, other times, the way his face and eyes change, it’s almost as if he hates me. It’s like he has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I never know which one . …” A tear slid down Ann’s cheek.

  “Can I ask you what you do for a living?” Susan asked, completely disregarding Ann’s statement and her obvious emotional distress.

  Ann fidgeted in her chair. “I haven’t worked in years but, before we had the kids, I was a secretary/receptionist in an insurance office. Actually, that’s where I met David. But I, well, I’ve been a homemaker ever since. Tomorrow I do start a new part-time job though. I’ll be the secretary at our church.”

  “Well, I think that’s certainly a step in the right direction, Ann. I see cases like this all the time. Try, for a moment, to put yourself in David’s shoes. He meets an attractive young woman, falls in love with her and marries her. They have children and a good life together but, as the years go by, while he’s out in the world, meeting interesting people, exchanging ideas with them, learning new things, she stays home, watching cartoons on TV with her kids and reading children’s storybooks. He changes and grows while she stays the same. Do you see the problem, Ann?”

  “I guess, but David’s changed for the worse. His drinking … .”

  “Is almost certainly a way,” the therapist interrupted, “of escaping. You need to take away his need to escape. Why don’t we focus on how you can do that?”

  Ann sat up straight in her chair and looked directly at Susan. “I love my husband, Dr. Thatcher. I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said, “to fix my marriage.”

  Chapter 19

  AS ANN HURRIED HOME from her visit with Dr. Thatcher, she thought about the suggestions the counselor had given her. “Go home, clean the house, fix a nice dinner and, this evening while your husband is at work, take a long, hot bath. Then, rub lotion all over your body and put on the sexiest nightgown you own. Be seductive and daring. Try something different. Be his lover, not his wife.”

  Something about the counselor’s advice bothered her. It didn’t seem fair that both her mother-in-law and the therapist had put the responsibility for the success or failure of her marriage on her. Why was it all up to her? What about David’s responsibility? Wasn’t marriage supposed to be a fifty-fifty proposition? But she dismissed her feelings. Taking advice from Louise, who was, after all, David’s mother, was one thing but Dr. Thatcher was a trained professional. She must know what she’s doing, she thought. I went to her because I desperately needed help; I would be a fool not to take it.

  When she went into the kitchen, she saw the kids’ backpacks lying on the table. Danielle had left her a note, “Mom, we’re upstairs. Come get us when you get home.”

  She smiled. Danielle had read her note and done what she’d instructed her to do: take Davey upstairs and stay there until she got home. I can always count on Olivia to be there when I need her, she thought. She’s like a surrogate grandmother to the kids. She hung up her coat in the living room closet, went out into the hallway and headed upstairs.

  When she reached the top of the stairs, she saw that, once again, the door to the Berger’s apartment was open. She stood in the doorway, looking in. Danielle and Davey were sitting on the floor in front of Olivia’s wheelchair, gazing up at her and listening intently to what she was saying.

  “When I was a little girl,” Olivia said, “we used to have peddlers who would come down our street driving horse drawn buggies and … .”

  “What’s a peddler?” Davey asked.

  “A peddler is like a salesman. He would peddle, or sell, things. He drove a horse and buggy because most people didn’t have cars back then.”

  “What kinds of things did peddlers sell?” Danielle asked.

  “Why, all kinds of things. We had the milkman who brought milk to our door every day and we had the iceman who delivered big blocks of ice to us from the icehouse. We didn’t have a refrigerator yet so we had an icebox to keep our food cold and fresh.”

  “Wow” Davey exclaimed. “There was a house made out of ice!”

  Olivia laughed. “No, Honey. The icehouse was made out of stone. They called it an icehouse because that’s where they stored the ice to put in people’s iceboxes.”

  “So your icebox was made out of ice, right?” Davey asked.

  Olivia reached down and gently patted the top of his head. “No, it was kind of like the coolers we have today. You put ice in them and then whatever food or drinks you put in them stays cold. Does that make sense?”

  “I guess so,” he said, still looking confused. “But … .”

  “What else did the peddlers sell?” Danielle asked, shaking her head and rolling her eyes, as if to say she’d had enough of that subject.

  Olivia smiled. “Well, there was a man who sold fruits and vegetables out of his truck and a man who knocked on doors, asking if he could repair any of our umbrellas. But, my favorite was the junk man. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the clop clop of the horse’s hooves, pulling the wagon, and the junk man yelling, ‘Any old rags? Old iron?’”

  Ann cleared her throat and stepped into the room.

  “Hi, Mom!” the kids’ voices echoed.

  “It looks like you’re having a good time,” Ann said.

  “Mommy, we don’t have to leave now, do we?” Davey asked.

  “I’m afraid so. It’s almost dinnertime. Get your stuff together.”

  “But, Mom, we want to hear more stories,” Danielle pleaded.

  “I thought maybe you two would like to go to the Haunted House after dinner,” Ann said smiling. “I heard about it on the radio today but, if you’d rather stay here … .”

  “Wow, can we really go?” Davey asked. “To a real haunted house?”

  “Well, only if we get going.”

  “I want to go,” Da
nielle said, “but I want to hear more stories too.”

  Olivia winked at Ann. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, “You go to the Haunted House tonight. That sounds like a lot of fun. In the meantime, I’ll think of some more stories and you two can come back soon. How’s that?”

  “Promise?” Davey asked.

  “I promise,” Olivia said, crossing her heart.

  * * * *

  It was dark outside by the time Ann and the kids finished dinner and walked out the door.

  “Mommy, look at the man in the moon!” Davey exclaimed, pointing toward the sky. “I can see his eyes and his mouth. I think he’s smiling at me.”

  “Yeah, Goofo, he’s smiling just at you,” Danielle said, giving her brother a slight nudge on the arm.

  “Come on, you two. We have to hurry. The presentation is going to start soon and we don’t want to be late,” Ann said, suppressing a giggle.

  When they got to the corner of Harrison and Montana avenues, they saw a crowd of people congregated outside the front door of the old town hall, an imposing three-story brick building. A man dressed all in black stepped up to the podium and grasped a microphone.

  “Testing. Testing,” he said. At first, his voice came out full of high pitched hissing and static but, after he adjusted the volume, it cleared up. “Welcome to Westwood Town Hall.” He looked out over the crowd and smiled. “I’m happy to see that so many of you have come out tonight for our tour. Westwood Town Hall,” he said, pointing to the building behind him, “was built in 1889 and served as the seat of government for the village. It housed the fire department and jail. It has served many purposes since then. But,” he said in a more somber tone, “we are here tonight to talk about Wesley.

  “Wesley was the caretaker of Westwood Town Hall for many years. He took great pride in his work and, because he lived in a tiny basement apartment in the building, he considered Westwood Town Hall his home. Unfortunately, in 1896, when Westwood was annexed to the city of Cincinnati, Wesley was fired and told to move out. His job and his home had been taken away from him. In deep despair, he hung himself in the back stairway leading to his living quarters. When we go inside for our tour of a truly haunted house, you will see the small alcove near the cafeteria that was his apartment.” He paused to clear his throat.

  “Through the years, many people have reported having strange feelings when they were in the building. Some experienced feelings of being watched while others felt what they described as‘dryness,’ like dust was being poured over them. Some people said that, at times, they had the feeling that it would be ‘unwise,’” he said, making imaginary quotation marks in the air, “to enter a certain room at a certain time.

  “There have been many unexplained occurrences in the building since Wesley took his own life. As most of you know, the town hall has been a center for recreation and community theatre for some time. In 1985, the Cincinnati Young People’s Theatre was working on a production of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians and the costumes and props for the play were all stored here. After each show, the people in charge of those items would carefully put them away. However, when they returned the next day, the costumes were always in disarray and the props totally rearranged – in a building that was unoccupied and locked all night.

  “The most frightening of all, however, were the actual sightings of Wesley. One such sighting occurred in 1988, after a performance of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, when two members of the cast locked up the building and walked across the street to go to a Christmas party that was being held for members of the production and the staff. When they came back to the parking lot to pick up their car after the party, the building and parking lot were dark except for a single spotlight in the parking lot and a small security light visible through the ground floor windows.

  “As they drove away, one of the cast members glanced in his rear view mirror and clearly saw the figure of a man holding the curtains aside and watching them. He told his friend to turn around and tell him what he saw. He described the same thing his friend had seen. They were terrified because they had locked up the building themselves and knew there was no one inside. They sat in the car for several minutes and eventually the man, presumed to be the ghost of Wesley, vanished.”

  The narrator paused for a moment and looked out at the crowd. “Many people believe that Wesley loved his job and he loved the town hall so much that he simply couldn’t leave it. So, even in death, he walks the halls and stairways, still looking out for and taking care of Westwood Town Hall. We will now enter the building and I will let you judge for yourself whether or not there is any truth to the story. If you suddenly feel cold or hear a sound and nobody’s there….”

  Ann shivered. Had she done the right thing, bringing the kids here or would they have nightmares for weeks? Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  “Come on, Mom,” Danielle said, nudging her toward the door. “This is gonna be so cool!”

  “Yeah, Mommy, come on!” Davey pleaded, tugging on her coat sleeve.

  Well, Ann thought as they inched toward the door, I guess it’s time to see a ghost.

  Chapter 20

  THAT NIGHT, IN SPITE OF THEIR TOUR of the haunted house and all the talk about the ghost of Wesley, Danielle and Davey went right to bed with no problem. After they were asleep, Ann decided to straighten up the apartment. As she walked through the living room, she spotted Danielle’s school report on the coffee table. With everything going on, she’d almost forgotten about it.

  She picked it up and smiled. Dani had pasted all sorts of Halloween images on the cover, creating a colorful collage. The title of the report was “The Customs of Halloween.” She sat down on the sofa, turned the page and began to read the two page handwritten report.

  “When you think of Halloween, what do you think of? Most people think of candy, costumes, scary stuff, witches, ghosts and pumpkins. The holiday we call Halloween started with the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany.”

  She cringed as she went on to read about the festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead, when the Celts believed that the souls of the dead, including ghosts, goblins and witches, returned to be with the living. In order to scare away the evil spirits, people would wear masks and light bonfires. She read that our custom of trick-or-treating began in Ireland and, when the Irish immigrated to the United States in the 1800s, they brought the custom with them. “Groups of farmers would go door-to-door collecting food and materials for a village feast bonfire. Those who gave were promised a good year; those who did not give got threats of bad luck.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she said aloud as she read the last paragraph of Dani’s report, “The custom of carving a pumpkin for Halloween also came from the Irish. The custom began with carving a turnip. People would hollow out the turnips and place lighted candles inside to scare off the evil spirits. When the Irish came to America, they discovered the pumpkin and, because it was bigger, we now carve pumpkins instead of turnips for Halloween.”

  She smiled as she closed the report and placed it back on her nightstand. She was so proud of her daughter. As always, Dani had done an excellent job of both researching and writing the report. I can’t wait to tell her how much I enjoyed it, she thought.

  She was heading toward the bathroom for a long, hot soak in the tub when the phone rang. She hurried to answer it because she didn’t want it to wake the children.

  She picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear her sister’s voice.

  “I was worried about you, Ann. First, you leave me a message that sounded urgent and then, this afternoon, when I finally get through to you after calling I don’t know how many times, you’re in a hurry and can’t talk.”

  “I’m sorry. I was going to call you in a little while.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense any longer. What’s going on? By the way, what happened to your answering machine? When I called, the phone rang and rang.”r />
  “It broke.”

  “Did he break it?”

  “Marnie, why would you say that? No, David didn’t break it. Well, not on purpose. It was an accident.”

  “Like when he broke our mother’s dishes?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know,” Ann replied. “Can we change the subject?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you. It’s just that I worry about you so much. Your loyalty to David, well, sometimes I wonder why you stay with him.”

  “Because I love him,” Ann said. “Now, do you want to hear my news or not?”

  “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right but I do wish you’d get voicemail so I could at least leave you a message.”

  “I’ll think about that but, really, I’m fine,” Ann said, thinking to herself, ‘if only she knew’ but knowing she wouldn’t say a word to her sister about any of her problems and the fact that they were barely scraping by now and couldn’t afford any extra calling features on their phone. “I got a job,” she said.

  The minute Ann hung up the phone from talking to her sister, it rang. She smiled to herself, wondering what Marnie had forgotten to tell her. “Hello,” she answered.“Bitch! Harlot! Whore!” the caller screamed.

  Ann held the receiver away from her ear, staring at it for a few seconds. Her hand shook as she slammed it back into the cradle. What’s going on? she wondered. This morning I got that weird note and now this? She took the phone off the hook. I’ve had enough drama for one day.