3 The Ghost at the Farm

by SUE FINEMAN

  Andy sat up straighter. The road he’d turned onto looked familiar. He’d seen this road in the dream last night, only in the dream it was a rutted dirt road that shook the wagon. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly they turned white. “Up here on the right?”

  “Yeah. How did you know? There’s no sign.”

  “I was here before, in a dream. The house had a big front porch with a swing and the porch rail was wide enough to hold a hot pie.”

  She shivered. “You’re freaking me out.”

  “Yeah, I’m freaking me out, too,” he said as he pulled into the driveway and got his first wide-awake look at the farmhouse he’d seen in his dream. The porch roof sagged, the roof had so many patches it looked like a haphazard patchwork quilt, and the outside hadn’t seen paint in probably fifty years. The house looked like it wouldn’t last through another winter.

  He sat quietly while Julie read the information on the listing. “In addition to the house and barn, there are a hundred and sixty acres of land—a quarter section—mostly in corn. The house was built around 1895 and doesn’t have much value as is, but the barn is only fifty or sixty years old. The river flows along one side of the property, so as the city grows, it could be quite valuable someday. But, the land is split by the county road that runs along the bluff overlooking the river, so the acreage on the river side isn’t farmed.”

  He nodded. “This is only a few miles past Billy’s house.” There were a bunch of million-dollar homes along that section of the river.

  She unsnapped her seatbelt. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Andy took a deep breath and stepped from the car. And into the past.

  Julie watched Andy walk toward the front porch of the house. He had a little hitch in his walk that wasn’t there before. “Andy, did you hurt your foot?”

  Instead of answering, he walked with single-minded purpose up the steps to the porch and opened the front door as if he had a right to be there. As if he already lived here. She shivered and hugged her arms, cold not from the weather but from something she couldn’t put a name to.

  She followed him into the house. The wide-plank floors in the living room felt soft. The finish—if there’d ever been a finish—had long since worn off. Something tickled her nose and she sneezed. The dark streak in the corner from ceiling to floor explained why. There were stains around the windows, too. Mold. The house was filled with mold.

  The wallpaper was old, faded, and as ugly as the worn furniture. There were other homes in the city that were as old as this one, but they’d been maintained. This house suffered from a bad case of neglect.

  Andy had wandered past the narrow stairs into the kitchen, and she followed him. His hand reached up to take a hat off his head and hang it on the peg by the back door, but there was no hat to hang there. He shrugged off a coat he wasn’t wearing and hung it on another peg. Julie realized Andy wasn’t pretending to do these things. He actually thought he was doing them.

  “Andy,” she called softly. “Andy, where are you?”

  “Home. I’m home in the kitchen. Can you smell the beans cooking on the stove?”

  She glanced at the cold stove. “What else do you smell cooking?”

  “Cornbread. Ma makes the best cornbread in the county.”

  “Andy, what year is it?”

  “Why, it’s nineteen and twelve.”

  “Dear God,” she whispered. “What’s your name?”

  “Andrew Jefferson.”

  “Andy, look at me.” He turned to face her. “Who am I? And who are you?”

  For a second, he looked confused, and then he smiled like the Andy she knew. “What’s going on, Julie?”

  She blew out a sigh of relief. “Please stay with me.”

  “Did I go somewhere?”

  “You could say that. What do you think of the house?”

  “Is this the farmhouse?”

  He didn’t know where he was or where he’d been. Or who he’d been. Julie felt like shaking some sense into him. Was he losing his mind?

  She took his hand. “Andy, hold onto me. Don’t leave me again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  An emaciated old man opened the kitchen door and walked into the room, cap in hand. He had to be at least seventy, with black eyes and steel gray hair.

  Looking straight at Andy, the man said, “Andrew? I’ve been expecting you.”

  Chills raced down Julie’s spine. She’d told the other agent she wanted to show the farm, but she didn’t tell him her buyer’s name.

  How did he know?

  Chapter Five

  Andy stood frozen to the spot. He’d never met this man, yet the man knew him. How could that be?

  “Otis Bedford,” the man said, shaking Andy’s hand. “I own the farm now.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Mr. Bedford.”

  “When you disappeared in 1918, your family lost the place. Your brother, Matthew, was killed in the war and his wife moved back with her people. Only had the one little girl, and she died. Influenza.”

  Andy realized the old man was talking about Andrew Jefferson. “How do you know all this?”

  “Ma told me. She said you’d be by, that you’d buy the farm and try to put things right.”

  “Your mother?”

  Otis cocked his head. “Ain’t you the Andrew who had his fortune told at the county fair two weeks ago?”

  “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “My mother was the gypsy who told fortunes there. You were her last customer. I buried her last week.”

  Andy remembered the old woman at the fair. She must have been at least ninety years old, probably much older. At the time, he thought she was crazy, spouting all that mumbo-jumbo about past lives. Now he wasn’t sure what to believe. “Are you telling me I lived here in a previous life?”

  “Yep.” The old man tossed his cap at the pegs by the back door and it caught on one of them. “There’s a bunch of stuff about your family in the attic. Ma said not to give it to you unless you bought the farm.” He folded his arms in front of him. “So, you buying or what?”

  “How much?”

  “I’m asking a million, but I’ll take what’s fair, whatever you can afford. I won’t need money where I’m going.”

  This conversation was getting stranger by the minute. “Where are you going?”

  “I got the cancer inside me, in my bones. Doc said I wouldn’t make it much past Christmas.” He waved toward the door. “The house ain’t fit to live in. I got me a little trailer house out behind the barn. I’d like to stay until the end, if that’s all right with you.”

  The old man assumed Andy would buy the farm, and he was right. The price wasn’t important now. He’d been trying to learn more about Andrew Jefferson, and the past was sitting right here in this house, on the land the Jefferson family had once owned.

  “If we can come to an agreement on the price, you’re welcome to stay, Mr. Bedford.”

  “What about the corn?” Julie asked. “Isn’t it time to harvest?”

  “Yes, it is. I hate to see good food rotting in the field, and I don’t think I can manage it on my own. Not this year.”

  “I’ll help with the harvest, if you’ll show me what to do,” Andy said. He could take a week off work. The Hinkley design was finished and the Morris design wasn’t due until mid-October.

  The old man nodded his thanks, and Andy felt himself being sucked in deeper. He had to buy this place and learn more about Andrew Jefferson. He didn’t want to end up murdered and buried in someone’s basement like Andrew.

  Julie sneezed. “Mold. I’m allergic to mold.”

  They walked onto the kitchen porch, which served as a laundry, and on out to the barn, where a beautiful collie lay nursing five fat puppies. “Cassie’s a good farm dog,” said Otis. He glanced at Andy. “You’ll be keeping her?”

  The old man knew him better than he knew himself. Maybe he was psychic like his mother. “Yes, sir, I’ll be keep
ing her. And I’ll see about finding homes for some of the puppies.” Billy had promised his kids a puppy for Christmas, and he loved collies.

  A puppy toddled over to Julie and she scooped it up to snuggle it. “How old is the tractor? Does it still run?”

  “It’s as old as me, and yeah, it still runs. I put in a new engine a couple years ago. I bought the combine used five years ago. I thought about selling the equipment off separately, but hell, I don’t have the time or energy, and I thought Andrew would need it.”

  Andy watched the man’s slow movements and realized he was in pain. “Do you have a family, Mr. Bedford?”

  “I had a son, but he went off years ago. Virgil wanted to live someplace warm. Ma said he had the Gypsy wanderlust, said his future wasn’t on the farm, to let him go. Broke my wife’s heart. She never was the same after the boy left. I got a letter from somebody with the state of Florida back in ’95, said he’d died in a prison fight. My wife was gone by then. She never knew what happened to him.” He looked down. “Just as well.”

  The barn grew quiet except for the scurry of tiny feet in the hayloft. Mice, no doubt. As soon as the sale went through, Andy would have to hire an exterminator to take care of the rodents and termites. The old house wasn’t worth saving, but if he didn’t take care of the termite problem, they’d eat the barn, too.

  If he paid what the farm was worth, he wouldn’t have enough money left to have someone build the house, so he’d have to do it himself. Maybe Charlie would help. And Dad, when he had time. Uncle Trevor liked to build things, and he’d just retired from the television station. Billy would help, too. The five of them could do most of the carpentry work on the new house, but they couldn’t build until spring, which would give Andy time to design a house and figure out the best place to build it.

  While his mind teemed with ideas for house plans, his hands itched to dig in the attic of the old farmhouse, to learn about the Jefferson family. To resolve the issues from the past, whatever they were. If that was possible. He wasn’t any too sure it could be done in this lifetime.

  Julie stood aside, quietly watching him interact with Otis. She didn’t say much, but she looked worried. Otis seemed worn out. Time to leave.

  Andy shook his hand. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Bedford. Thanks for showing us around.”

  Otis nodded a reply, and Andy walked back to the car with Julie. After they settled inside, he asked, “How much do you think the farm is worth?”

  “My business is mostly residential real estate, so I can only guess at the value. We’ll need an appraisal, and I assume you’ll want a survey.”

  “Definitely. What’s your best guess on value?”

  “The house has no value, and the land on this side of the county road is probably worth three or four hundred thousand. The strip on the river side could be worth a lot more than that. I don’t think he’s far off on the asking price.” She sighed. “I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

  “It’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” Or what he needed to hear. She was the real estate expert, not him.

  Andy drove back to the county road and pulled to the side to see the strip of land by the river. There was a little knoll in the middle, so he walked out to get a better look at the land and the river flowing below. Beautiful view from here. This strip alone would be worth investing in the farm. The city was growing out this way, and as the city spread, this land would become more valuable.

  A picture popped into his head of a three-story building with a stone turret in front and dormers in the roof. Andrew’s inn. Perfect spot for it, overlooking the river.

  He walked back to the car, where Julie talked on her cell phone.

  She ended her call. “I was just talking with the seller’s agent. He said there’d been several offers for the riverfront property and two for the entire farm, but Mr. Bedford wouldn’t negotiate with any of the buyers.”

  “He was waiting for Andrew to come home.”

  Julie gave him a funny look. “The Andrew from nineteen-twelve, the one who smelled beans and cornbread cooking in the kitchen of the farmhouse?”

  He twisted to face her. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Yeah. I lost you back there for maybe five minutes. It was as if you were someone else. You walked into that house and into the kitchen as if you lived there. And then you didn’t remember anything about it. You scared me, Andy.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.” She probably thought he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. It was like waking in the middle of a dream only to find himself not in bed, but still in the dream. After seeing the farm and talking to Otis Bedford, he wasn’t sure what was real.

  They sat quietly for a minute, and then she asked, “What do you want to do about the farm? Do you want to buy it?”

  “Yes, I do.” As he said the words, he knew it was the right thing to do. “I’ll talk to Billy. If he doesn’t have enough cash available, I’ll go to the bank and see what they’ll loan me.” The price was steep for land with no house, but Andy felt compelled to buy the farm, to take possession before someone else came along, burned the house down, and chopped the land into little pieces.

  He had to get into the attic of that house.

  Julie tucked her phone in her purse. “We don’t have a lot of time with Mr. Bedford as sick as he is. If we make an offer and it’s accepted this weekend, I’ll get the survey and appraisal process started first thing Monday.”

  Andy started the car. “Who pays for that?”

  “You do. It’s usually included in the buyer’s closing costs.”

  Julie mentally calculated her portion of the commission on the sale of the farm. If the sale went through. She could pay her father back, find another apartment, and get by for a few months, if she was careful. Aside from the Collins home, she didn’t have anything else in the pipeline, no buyers except Andy, and her listings had all expired. Sellers wanted to wait to sell until market conditions improved, not that she could blame them. It wasn’t a good time to sell real estate in River Valley, Ohio.

  Watching Andy drive home, her mind replayed his strange behavior at the farm. Brent had gone wacko on her, and after today, she was afraid Andy wasn’t mentally stable either.

  <>

  Sunday afternoon, Julie presented Andy’s offer to Otis Bedford through his agent, Paul Spokes, another agent in Julie’s office. Andy had spoken with his brother, who’d agreed to loan him eight hundred thousand to purchase the farm. Andy and Billy seemed to think it was a fair offer, but she wasn’t sure the seller would accept twenty percent below the asking price.

  Mr. Bedford scanned the papers and leaned back in his chair. “I want the Jefferson Homestead to go back to the Jefferson family, and Andrew here is the last link to that family. I need enough to pay the bank and the back taxes, and I need money for medical bills. Already paid my burial expenses. I figure half a million will cover it and then some.” He shifted around in his chair, obviously uncomfortable. “Besides, the boy here said he’d help me get the corn in. That’s gotta be worth something.”

  The seller’s agent nearly came out of his chair. Julie knew Paul wanted the commission on the full listing price or close to it. He’d try to talk Mr. Bedford into countering Andy’s offer at full price, one million dollars. The property was worth the money, and they all knew it. The amount Mr. Bedford talked about would cut deeply into their sales commissions.

  Paul turned to Julie. “I need to speak with my client in private, please.”

  “Of course.” She and Andy walked out of the conference room where they’d presented the offer. She closed the door quietly behind them. There were people sitting in the lobby of the office, so she and Andy walked outside and stood talking on the sidewalk.

  This had to be the strangest sale she’d ever been involved in, the only time a seller had ever cut his price in half when the buyer was willing to pay more.

  Minutes later, Paul motioned them back. “Otis is adamant abou
t the price. He’ll settle for five hundred thousand and other considerations, like getting his crop in and letting him stay in the trailer on the property. He agreed to increase the commission to a straight seven percent, and he wants to close in two weeks or as soon as we can get the survey and title search done. If that’s satisfactory with you, I’ll make the changes and we’ll get this wrapped up.”

  “The man is dying,” said Andy. “He doesn’t want or need the extra money, and he’s not interested in selling to another buyer. He wants me to have the farm.”

  “The farm is a steal at this price,” said Paul.

  Andy nodded. “Yes, sir, I’m aware of that, but it’s his choice, isn’t it? He’s the seller.”

  Paul’s eyes narrowed, then he went into the back to make the changes to the contract. He clearly wasn’t happy about the sale price, but he couldn’t talk his client into taking more.

  Julie took a cup of coffee in to Otis. “Do you need pain medication?”

  “I ’spect I do, but I don’t want to fall asleep in the truck on the way home. Might run somebody over.”

  Andy sat beside him. “I’ll be out tomorrow morning with my brothers. We’ll get the corn in.”

  Otis, a man of few words, nodded his thanks.

  Paul came in with the revised papers fresh off the printer. As soon as the papers were signed off by both parties, Otis shook Andy’s hand, tipped his hat to Julie, and left.

  Andy took a deep breath and blew it out. He was buying a farm, and not just any farm, but the one the Jefferson family had once owned. The place he’d lived and worked in a former life. He walked outside and called Billy. “I only need five hundred thousand and closing costs, whatever that comes to.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I also need help getting the corn in this week.”

  Billy laughed. “I’m a teacher, not a farmer, and I have classes in the morning. Take Charlie.”

  “If he’ll go.”

  “He’ll go. The family has been supporting him. It’s payback time.”

  Billy was right. Charlie had his hand in everyone’s pocket since he came home from Iraq. Mom and Dad let him live in the apartment rent-free, and he was always borrowing money, mostly from Billy. Nobody complained. Charlie wasn’t a bad guy, just a little lost right now. One of these days, he’d figure out what he wanted to do with his life, and the borrowing would stop.