One Big Bat

by Risner, Fay

  “Paul, maybe you better come look at what I've found.”

  “What is it? I can't leave the grill for too long,” he said.

  “Do you own a pair of cowboy boots?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you have some man come check out your plants like a gardener?” I questioned.

  “No, Diane and I take care of the plants,” Paul said.

  “Some guy stood behind these bushes, and he wore cowboy boots like a Texan like Jacob Longfellow might. The fellow spent some time back there before he climbed over the railing. You ever stood on the table to get to the attic door?”

  Paul shook his head. “No way! Diane would skin me alive if she caught me with my feet on her table. I got the ladder I keep in the garage when I worked on the attic door.”

  “Just the same, if a man was tall enough, he might be able to lift himself up into the attic by standing on the table, don't you think?” I pointed up.

  I suppose so,” Paul agreed.

  “Does that door latch on the outside and inside?”

  “Just on the outside.” Paul studied the door. “It's hooked. If someone climbed in that way, the hook would be dangling.”

  “Well, that's good to know. Maybe Longfellow just thought about entering through that door and changed his mind.”

  “So we still don't know how he got inside to use the phone,” Paul said.

  “That's about the size of it,” I said. “Just make sure Diane and you have the doors locked when you leave the house from now on.”

  It was then I finally had a chance to bring up Jacob Longfellow to Paul while Diane was in the kitchen out of hearing. I said in a library voice, “There is something else you should know about Longfellow.”

  “What about him?” Paul asked.

  “I don't want to make you nervous or anything, but I found out he worked for a turkey confinement operation west of town for a while. So I went out to the farm to talk to the owner. The man had been murdered that morning, and he fired Longfellow recently. We've got out eyes peeled for him in town, and the sheriff's office is hunting in the country for him.”

  “You don't have to keep anything form me. I want to know what's going on. Do they have a description of him?” Diane asked through the sliding glass screen where she'd been listening.

  “No, but since he is from Texas, he'd have a southern accent and was probably wearing cowboy boots that most likely match those prints by the deck,” I said.

  That night I dozed off, hoping for a better night's sleep, but it wasn't to be. When a bright bobbing light flashed against the blind and hit me in the face, I was startled awake.

  I sat up in bed and watched the light bob across the window. What stupid peeping Tom uses a flashlight to peek in a house he knows has sleeping people in it?

  With a lurch, I was on my feet and ran to the window. I rubbed my hand along the end of the venetian blind, searching for the cord. My fingers connected. I gave it a quick jerk. The blind came loose from the window. The top framework on the blind clattered down on me and conked me in the head.

  I must have jerked too hard on the cord. You think? The blind folded over my head in a clatter. I thrashed my arms around, trying to get a hold to peel the blind off me as quick as I could which made plenty of noise.

  Finally, I had my face uncovered with the blind draped over my shoulders like a cape. At least I could see out the window, but there wasn't any light bouncing around out there now. Only darkness. With as much noise as I made the guy was bound to get away as fast as he could run.

  Now the hall was a different story. It lit up. I heard the patter of Paul and Diane's bare feet as they raced toward the bedroom. Paul burst in the door first and then Diane right behind him.

  Paul flipped on the light and gave me one of those strange looks I was becoming used to from him. Like anything weird that happened might be my fault. I must admit this time it was. I had to look strange standing there with the blind draped around my shoulders.

  “What did you do?” Diane asked, coming around Paul to me.

  “Someone was outside the window with a flashlight, shining the light in here. When I pulled on the cord to open the blind it fell on me,” I explained clumsily.

  “I see. Are you all right,” Diane said as though she didn't see at all.

  I rubbed my head. “Just a little headache where the blind hit me.”

  Paul rubbed his forehead like he was getting a headache. “I guess I forgot to tell you the street light acts up once in a while and blinks off and on.”

  “I guess you did forget that information,” I replied, wondering if I had gotten excited over a malfunctioning street light.

  Diane helped get the blind off me, and we piled the slats in a heap on the floor. “Maybe you and me can put the blind back up tomorrow.”

  “Sure, I'd be glad to,” I said. “If it's broke, I'll buy you a new blind. Guess we better get some sleep now.”

  When Paul and Diane trudged down the hall, I heard Paul say, “Letting your sister stay with us is getting to be rather costly.”

  “Paul,” Renee said. “She said she'd buy us a new blind. Do you know how old that venetian blind is? I don't. It was here when we moved in.”

  Hearing the blind was old made me feel not so bad about the mess I'd made of it. As I laid down I was positive I wasn't going back to sleep with no blinds on the window, but I was wrong.

  Later, whirring noises coming from the attic right above me woke me up. Could a bat flap his wings fast enough to make that kind of noise like a plane propeller winding up for take off? I doubted it.

  Creak - quiet – creak – quiet – creak sounded like the rafters giving under someone's weight. A bat couldn't be heavy enough to put stress on a rafter.

  These noises had gone on long enough. Maybe Paul and Diane could put up with it a few more days, but I needed my sleep. I threw back the sheet and stood up on the bed. I stretched my arm up, but I couldn't reach the ceiling.

  My bag was on the floor by the bed. I stooped over and grabbed it. By holding it on one end the other end touched the ceiling. I tapped with it, making soft knocking sounds. I stopped and listened. All was quiet above me. Maybe I'd made a believer out of the bats.

  As I drifted off to sleep in my quiet bedroom, I smelled smoke. Cigarette smoke to be exact.

  I crawled out of bed and peeked out the window. I thought there might be that peeking Tom having a gratification smoke below my bedroom window.

  As far as I could tell there wasn't anything but a cat prowling across the lawn. I went back to bed and waited for daylight.

  Chapter 8

  Saturday morning, Paul left early for his golf outing. He planned to be gone all day which was fine with Diane. She surprised me with plans for our day by inviting our mother to go shopping and to have lunch with us. I wasn't too keen on the idea of spending my day off shopping with my particular mother, but since Diane didn't consult me first it was too late to complain. If I had groused about it, I'd have been outnumbered by the two women.

  Turned out Diane didn't have such a bad idea. Mom enjoyed spending the day with us, going shopping and eating lunch together. When she saw how well Diane and I got along that kind of took away her hard feelings about my not staying at her house.

  After we got home later that afternoon, Doc called me. He wanted to take me to the movie at the Barker Theater. I asked him what was playing. He said he didn't know. I paused on my end. He took that as I might not say yes so he added a meal at the Wagon Wheel Diner before the movie. Now how could I turn that down? I'd save Diane some work by not having to cook supper for me. Besides, my being out of the house for the evening would give her and Paul some time alone. Maybe they would iron out who took what and didn't tell the other.

  After I showered and changed into my new jeans and blouse I bought on the shopping spree, I sat down at the kitchen counter while Diane worked on her supper.

  Diane quit stirring a kettle and leaned against the counte
r. “Mom had a good time with us today. Don't you think?”

  “Yeah, it was good that you asked her. She liked being included,” I agreed.

  The doorbell rang. Diane started to go.

  “Might as well let me. That will be Doc,” I said, hopping off the stool to beat her to the door.

  Diane grabbed my arm and smiled at my weak ploy to keep her away from my date. “Well, don't mind me, but I'm going to trail along and say hi.”

  I could tell my sister was impressed that Doc came to the door like a regular gentleman. I introduced him to Diane. They visited a few minutes, and we left.

  During supper, Doc said, “I checked on the movie. It's a Tom Cruise one. You all right with that?”

  “Sure, I like Tom Cruise. Don't know how much attention I'll pay to the movie though. I may fall asleep in the middle of it. The three of us haven't had much sleep lately. It's about like working twenty-four hour police shifts for me.”

  Doc grunted. “Sounds like you needed a night away from your sister. What's been going on?”

  “It's not my sister or her husband that are the problem. We keep hearing noises in the attic. Paul insists it is bats.

  Doc didn't seem to think the situation was all that serious. “You know bats are harmless. In fact, they're good for the environment. They eat insects,” Doc defended.

  “When one of those ugly little creatures is flying at me, I'm not too interested in all the good they do in nature. I just want to get away from them as fast as I can,” I complained. “You've not seen the hoard of them that lives on the bluff behind my sister's house.”

  “All right,” Doc conceded.

  Sure enough, my attention span on the movie didn't hold long after it started. When I woke up I had my head on Doc's shoulder, and big black letters on the screen stated The End.

  “Well, that was a good movie,” I bluffed.

  “Yeah, sure was. I really held my breath when Tom rode outside on the wing of that airplane. He sure is a daredevil to do those stunts,” Doc said.

  “That was scary,” I agreed.

  Doc smiled. “Yeah, that's what I thought when I saw that movie a year ago. This movie was just as exciting, but if you want to know what happened, you're going to have to rent a DVD and stay awake to watch it.”

  “Ross, that's not nice. You tricked me,” I complained peevishly.

  Paul had just shut the television off when I came in the front door and twisted the knob on the lock. “How was the movie?”

  “Frankly, I don't know. I slept through it. Doc just wasted his money on entertaining me,” I said.

  “Let's hope all three of us get a good night's sleep tonight. I want to sleep all night for once,” Paul said.

  Diane grinned. “That means he's hinting that he doesn't want you taking down any venetian blinds in the night or wandering down the hall to peek in the other bedroom.”

  “I'll do my best to stay in bed tonight,” I vowed.

  I had a feeling Paul thought most of his nightly noise problem was my fault. I didn't appreciate him thinking that way since they had the bats in the attic before I moved in.

  He didn't have to worry about me. I was so tired I managed to sleep through the night.

  Sunday, I went to church with Paul and Diane. I don't go real often, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do or so I've heard.

  We ate a fried chicken lunch at the Wagon Wheel Diner and went home for a do nothing afternoon.

  By Monday morning, none of us woke up in a good mood. The house was hot, and my stingy brother-in-law had opted to go without the air conditioner on.

  Not a good sign for the day when the morning starts out in the seventies. Right after I started jogging, I was wet with sweat and decided to power walk back home.

  In the next block, a thin, elderly woman, walking with a cane, hobbled down the sidewalk toward me. “Good morning. I'm Florence Johansen. I've been watching you jog by every morning this week. Did you just move into the neighborhood?”

  “No, I'm visiting my sister, Diane Logan for a couple of weeks,” I said. As soon as my apartment has been repainted, I'll be moving back home.”

  Florence paused to think. “Oh sure, the Logans live in that pretty yellow house with all the flowers in the yard on the next street over.”

  “That's the one,” I said.

  “It's a good thing after they bought it they fixed it up and like living there. I had my doubts anyone would buy it after what happened,” she said.

  “What happened?”

  The woman put her hand to her throat. “A couple years before the Logans moved in, the previous owner hung himself in the living room.”

  I found myself racking my brain to remember the incident. Something like that would have been big news in our small town. It must have happened while I was away at the police academy, and Mom forgot to tell me about it. “That's too bad, but that happens sometimes.”

  “I know, but for a long time after he died, the neighbors were sure they saw that old man walking around inside the house, peeking out the windows. Sometimes, they saw what looked like him in the yard at night, staring across the street. It sure kept all of us scared. Then the Logans moved in, and that took care of the problem. The man just vanished.”

  “What was the man's name?” I asked.

  Florence thought for a moment. “Let me see. It's been such a long time ago. George something. George Hubka. That was it.”

  “Did anyone report someone prowling around the house during that time to the police?”

  “No, there wasn't a one of us had the nerve to tell the police to come investigate the ghost,” she said.

  I wasn't sure I'd heard her right. “Ghost!”

  “Sure, that house was haunted, pure and simple,” Florence assured me. “No other explanation for a dead man scowling out the windows at us.”

  I thanked her for the information and hurried home. I could hardly wait to tell Diane. She was sitting the steaming cups on the table when I walked in.

  “Good morning, You have a good run?” she asked.

  “It was too hot to run for long. I wound up walking back. One of your neighbors on the next block stopped me to talk, or I'd been here sooner,” I said.

  “Which one?”

  “Her name was Florence Johansen. She told me a very interesting tale,” I said.

  “What did Florence have to say this time? She knows lots of gossip and loves to spread it around. I don't waste my time standing still long enough to hear it all.”

  “Did you know a man hung himself in this house in the living room before you bought it?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, Florence did,” I said.

  “We bought the house from an estate sale, but I didn't know how the owner died. The abstract said his name was George Hubka,” Diane said. “So what?”

  “Florence thinks the place was haunted before you bought it. She said some of the neighbors saw the dead man looking out the windows. Others saw him roaming around the house after dark. She didn't think the realtor would ever find a buyer with all that going on,” I exclaimed.

  “Oh for Pete sakes! You believe that addled old woman?” Diane scoffed.

  “Don't shoot the messenger. She sounded serious, and you said you didn't want me to keep anything from you. I think Florence really believes the tale,” I said.

  “Great! We really will sleep well tonight, won't we? Now that we know it's a ghost you've been seeing in the night, and I've been feeding him,” Diane said, looking worried. “Surely, there has to be some logical explanation for all the strange things that happened here besides a ghost.”

  That afternoon at work, I hunted through the old files for police details from ten years ago about a hanging in the housing development. Sure enough, George Hubka did hang himself in Diane's house.

  At least, the police could find no evidence that it was foul play. As Florence told me, no one reported seeing the old man haunting the house as a ghost.

 
; I decided to call Doc to see if he remembered anything usual about George Hubka's death. “Hi Ross.”

  Doc got right to the point. “You sound tired. Things going any better for you at your sister's?”

  “No, noises are still waking us up at night. One of the neighbors says it's a ghost.”

  “The ghost have a name?” I could hear humor in Doc's voice.

  “A man that hung himself in the house. Did you have to go to that call for a George Hubka in my sister's house? It was old George's house before they bought it.”

  Doc paused. “Yes, seems to me I did. An elderly man and from what I remember not too well liked by the neighbors, but I ruled it was a suicide and not foul play. As for the ghost of old George, I don't know what to tell you. I'd say if you run into him you should be careful around him. I hear he was a cranky curmudgeon.”

  “Very funny, Ross,” I snapped. “Since that hired hand of the turkey farmer is still on the loose, he might be more of a problem than the ghost.”

  “How so?”

  “We know the guy figured out a way to get in my sister's house while it's locked and used the phone. Now food is missing and some loose change, too. He may be coming in and out of the house when ever he feels like it.”

  “Renee, I don't like the sound of this. Why don't you come over and stay at my place until the landlord is finished painting?”

  “That's nice of you to offer, Ross, but I'd just wind up worrying about my sister and her husband and get on your nerves,” I said.

  Diane had all day to fret over the ghost theory. That evening, she decided to talk to Paul about what I found out. As usual by the time she started the conversation, he was very close to being in a catatonic state, staring at the television and not getting a thing out of the Blue Blood rerun.

  “Paul, do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Not unless I’d see one,” he quipped. Then he looked over at Diane’s worried face. “You haven’t seen one, have you?” The corners of his mouth twitched.