Hauntings of the Heart

by Joselyn Vaughn

  The knocking continued and someone hissed, “Minnie!”

  Edith. Minnie sighed and disconnected the phone. Edith was always late. Flipping the lever for the footrest, she pushed herself out of the chair and over to the back door. Movement hurt. Muscles that went unused even during exercise class screamed about being overworked. As much as she hated to, she limped to the door and found Edith with her face plastered against the glass.

  Minnie twisted the deadbolt and pulled the door open. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? You made me miss my cats again.”

  Edith scurried in and unwrapped a scarf from around her head. Pink rollers lined her gray hair. “I tried to call.”

  “What?” Minnie closed the door behind her and crossed her arms against the chilly night creeping in.

  “I totally forgot to come earlier, and then you didn’t answer when I called and I thought that was strange, so I had to come over. Is everything all right?” Edith wrung her hands.

  Minnie guffawed. “Is anything right?” was the better question. She explained about the leak in Gordon’s room.

  “Oh dear! You had probably just crawled into bed and here I’m waking you up.” Edith smacked her hand against her forehead.

  “No. I couldn’t sleep. Too much running through my head.” Minnie waved Edith into her private living room, where her pillow and blanket still adorned the couch. Too late, she realized she’d given Edith an opening. Would Edith take it?

  “What have you got to drink around here? It sounds like you could use something, and I need something for my nerves.” Edith settled on the couch and worked her filmy gray scarf around her fingers.

  “A splendid idea.” Why hadn’t she thought of it earlier? Surely a sip of brandy would have put her right to sleep. She went over to her liquor cabinet and extracted a bottle and two snifters. She filled Edith’s to an inch, then hers the same. On second thought, she gave herself another generous splash. After this night, she deserved it.

  “Well, I got talking to Maybelle at Bart’s tonight and she kept going on and on,” Edith said as Minnie handed her a glass. “I couldn’t get away. I really suspected she’d been body-snatched, because you know her, she never yaks your ear off.”

  Minnie took a swallow and let the liquid burn on its way down. Another swallow or two and she’d be feeling fine. She sank into her chair. Her eyes must have started to glaze over, because Edith jumped ahead. “She got to talking about work, and so I casually mentioned how Gordon Anderson was in town and she said she’d seen him. Well, I knew that. I saw him in her office, you know. But then she said he was looking to move back here.”

  “Here?” Minnie gasped. Her mouthful of brandy shot up her nose, stinging and making her eyes water. She rubbed at them with the cuff of her pajamas. Gordon couldn’t live at the Lilac Bower. Guests couldn’t stay more than five weeks unless they married her nephew, and Mark was already hitched. It was in her rental agreement. Okay, it wasn’t really, but she was darn well putting it in tomorrow morning, and Gordon would sign it if she had to threaten him with bananas for breakfast every morning.

  “She didn’t say here as in the Lilac Bower specifically, but she did say in town. I tried to find out if he’d researched the title history of the Bower, but she got all close-lipped then.” Edith rolled her eyes. “Started spouting all her ‘customer confidentiality’ baloney again.”

  Gordon was moving back to Carterville? Minnie didn’t think she could take running into him on the street every now and then for the rest of her life. She was only surviving this because there had been an assumed end. Served her right for assuming anything about Gordon. “We need to get rid of him.”

  Edith’s face went white. “Minnie, you’re my best friend, and I’d help you hide the body, but that hunky new detective, he’d get the location out of me in two shakes.”

  “I didn’t say kill him.” Although… She shook her head. There had been enough death in their relationship. She wouldn’t add more.

  “Of course, of course.” Edith downed her brandy. “What happened between you two, anyway?”

  Minnie sniffed and checked her glass. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol in it for this conversation. She squirmed out of her chair, hobbled to the liquor cabinet, and refilled her glass. “He never wrote.” She picked up her glass, then grabbed the bottle and took them both back to her chair.

  “Minnie, you didn’t get half the letters I sent you. Maybe his letters got lost in the mail.”

  “If he had wanted to get one to me, he would have.” The Peace Corps had channels for emergency communication. He could have gotten word to her somehow, at least sent a forwarding address.

  “Maybe he didn’t think you wanted to keep in touch.” Edith held out her glass and Minnie poured.

  “I wrote him every week until…” She trailed off. She hadn’t told anyone the whole story. She still wouldn’t. She changed direction. “He asked me to marry him.”

  Now it was Edith’s turn to choke on her drink. “He did? And you refused? What were you thinking?”

  “I didn’t refuse. We were engaged, but he didn’t have the ring. He wanted to wait to get married until we got back. I wanted to do it right away.”

  “I can’t believe he didn’t write.” Edith shook her head. “Well, they did move right away. He probably forgot. Although I never heard why they moved.”

  “Didn’t his father have a heart attack?” She lifted her glass. It was empty.

  “I heard it was a stroke.” Edith scratched her head. “It was so long ago, but it seemed like they moved away overnight. Still, he should have written.”

  “You know what I think,” Minnie said, finishing her drink. She clunked the glass against the side table. “I think he was just stringing me along until I left the country. Then he moved on to someone else.” It sounded good, but even within her alcohol-addled head, she couldn’t find the truth in it. If it was true, she hadn’t known Gordon at all.

  “That jerk. Well, at least you didn’t…” She demonstrated something with her hands, but Minnie could guess what she was thinking without the incomprehensible visual aid.

  Minnie grimaced. She had been completely hoodwinked. He was the consummate con artist. Emphasis on consummate.

  “Ohh!” Edith drew her own conclusions. “He simply can’t stay here. Who does he think he is?” She jumped to her feet and headed for the door leading to the common area of the bed and breakfast. She twisted her scarf around her hands in such a way Minnie worried she’d be the one to help hide the body. She jumped from her chair. The room tilted. Too much brandy? No, she could hold her liquor most of the time. Edith, on the other hand…

  Edith yanked the door open. “What room is he in?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “He’s going to pay for this!” Edith started off down the hall, making enough noise to wake the entire block. She swayed with each step, fluttering her scarf like a magician.

  “Edith!” Minnie hissed. “Get back here. I can’t have you murdering my guests in their beds. I’ll never get another person to stay here. People like ghosts, not psychotic murderers.”

  Edith came tromping back. “I am not psychotic.” Her toe caught the rug and she flailed forward, barely managing to right herself and avoid smashing into the rest of Minnie’s porcelain cat collection. She stuffed her scarf into her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Minnie closed the door behind her and slumped against it. “Let’s give him a good fright. If he thinks the ghosts of his ancestors are after him, maybe he’ll change his mind about moving here.”

  “And how do you expect to do that?” Edith asked, flopping on the couch, then bouncing forward. “Could the ghost hunters perform a séance?”

  Her friend’s determination worried her. When Edith got that look in her eye, there was no telling what kind of trouble they might get into. Luckily, the one time the police had come, Minnie had been able to sweet talk the officer into letting them
go on their own recognizance, although she was sure it had been against his better judgment.

  “I’ll sneak into his room and whisper I’m his great-grandmother and he needs to go home to his children,” Edith said.

  “He’ll know it’s you.” Minnie jabbed her finger at Edith, but her hand swirled like she was trying to feed a baby strained peas. Perhaps she’d had a touch more brandy than she’d thought.

  “I’ll talk through wax paper or something.” Edith headed for the kitchen and returned with a square of wax paper. She put the paper up to her mouth and whined, “Gorrrrrr-dooooon.” The paper added a hum to the sound.

  “He’ll still know it’s you,” Minnie said dryly.

  “Well, I don’t hear any ingenious ideas coming from you.” Edith tossed her scarf over her head. It covered one eye and part of her nose. “It’s dark. He’ll never recognize me like this.” She waved her hands in front of her. Minnie had to wonder if Edith thought she was entirely invisible. If she was lucky, Gordon would think she had released a nut into the house and flee. Now there’s an idea.

  “We should use the blocked-off staircase! Then he won’t hear us going up the front stairs.” Minnie led Edith into her bedroom and together they shoved a dresser to the side. She had placed the two-drawer dresser in front of the door because she never used these stairs. They had been the servants’ stairs at one time, but the owner who’d converted the Bower to a bed and breakfast had blocked them off and run pipes through them. The pipes further decreased the width of the narrow stairs, making navigation treacherous.

  Edith tugged on the door handle. It stuck. She gripped the knob with both hands and jerked. When it didn’t move, Minnie wrapped her hands around Edith’s. “On three.” She counted and they yanked together. The door screeched open. Edith landed on her backside and Minnie tumbled on top of her.

  “Whoo-ee!” Edith hooted and waved the doorknob.

  Minnie snatched the doorknob away from her. “What did you do?” She fumbled with the knob to get it back on the door, but each attempt left the crystal globe loose in her palm. “Dang it!”

  Edith snorted, then covered her mouth. A moment later, she guffawed.

  Laughter gurgled inside of Minnie too, but she tried to suppress it. “Shh!” she hissed at Edith. “We’re supposed to be stealthy.” She pointed upstairs, and Edith clamped her mouth shut. An occasional snigger leaked out, but eventually she managed to contain them.

  Minnie held her breath and listened for activity to erupt upstairs. Surely that would have awakened at least one of her guests. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she started to feel faint. She allowed a little oxygen to slide into her lungs. After a moment with no reaction from upstairs, she sighed and gestured for Edith to head up.

  Edith shook her head. “I’m not going up there in the dark.”

  “Are you afraid of ghosts or something?” Minnie asked, searching the drawer of her nightstand for a flashlight.

  “Not ghosts, spiders. There are a lot of cobwebs in here.” Edith batted her hand into the opening. “Bah. Yuck.”

  Minnie found a flashlight and tossed it to her. Edith shone the flashlight into the stairwell, then started climbing. Minnie followed behind her. The staircase was hardly wider than her shoulders. She was glad Mark had been able to patch the pipe that burst over her living room quickly, so she hadn’t had to sneak up these stairs to take a shower. The passage was dirty and dusty, and she would have tripped a dozen times going up and down.

  What am I doing? She allowed the thought briefly, then shooed it away. She was supposed to have a haunted house here. Since the ghost hunters’ equipment was all turned off right now, this was the perfect time to put on their act. They could make enough noise to make them think they’d heard something. Maybe they’d stay longer and invite their friends. Though Gordon probably wouldn’t be frightened away by Edith’s feigned ghost, she did like the idea of jolting him out of his sleep. He had mentioned he thought some of his family might haunt the place.

  Here comes dear old dad. Let that simmer in his brain.

  Edith had arrived at the panel leading into the second-floor room. Minnie squeezed up next to her and found the hooks locking the panel in place. After unhooking them, she was able to inch the panel to the side. It bumped open in jerks and starts, finally spreading wide enough for them to sidle through.

  They stumbled into the fresh air of the bedroom. Edith swirled the flashlight around the room until she found the door out to the hall. “Which room is his?” she asked.

  “Second on the right.” Minnie brushed a thick cobweb from her sleeve.

  Edith flashed her wax paper, flipped her scarf over her curlers and ducked into the hallway. The scarf was barely large enough to drape over her head like Bassett hound ears. Minnie peered after her through the cracked door. Edith was goose-stepping, her tennis shoes squeaking against the wood floor. Minnie had forgotten they’d had to remove the runner.

  Her gaze darted between the room doors, waiting for a head to pop out to see who was making all the noise. The baseboard lights cast garish shadows as Edith made her way to Gordon’s door. She veered to the left and grabbed the doorknob of Barbara and Elmer’s room.

  “Edith!” Minnie hissed, but Edith didn’t hear. She ducked into their room and eased the door closed. Minnie wondered what she should do. If she ran into the hall, her socks wouldn’t make a sound and she might startle Edith. She didn’t want to risk waking her guests with Edith screaming, and having to come up with an explanation for why Edith had a scarf draped on her head like a lampshade. She heard something that sounded like Edith tripping over one of the equipment cases Elmer had lugged up the stairs.

  Minnie started to push open her door.

  A moment later, Edith slipped out of the room and carefully closed the door. She mouthed “oops!” to Minnie.

  Minnie rolled her eyes and stayed put as Edith tiptoed across the hall. Her heart pounded in her chest and her palms grew clammy. Minnie might as well have been about to open Gordon’s door herself. She wished she had another brandy. The effects of her earlier—how many?—had already worn off.

  Edith started to open Gordon’s door, then stopped. She cocked her head, dashed for the main stairs, and disappeared.

  What is she doing now? Minnie eased the door shut and scrambled through the access panel. She jerked it closed and returned to her room where she found Edith leaning against the door to the living room, panting. The scarf had slipped forward and dangled in front of her nose. She snatched it off and swished the sweat off her forehead.

  “What happened?” Minnie asked, wiping a smear of dust from her sleeve.

  Edith laid her arm across her forehead in a mock swoon. “I started to open Gordon’s door and thought I heard something inside. I suddenly had a vision of what Gordon might not be sleeping in. I was afraid he might jump right out of bed. I didn’t want to see his ‘little friend.’”

  An image flashed through Minnie’s mind at Edith’s prompting. Now she’d never get to sleep tonight. “You were making enough noise to wake the dead. No wonder he was moving about.”

  “Do I look like a ninja?” Edith gestured to her dust-smudged clothes and the scrap of wax paper in her hand. She handed it to Minnie. “You can have this back.”

  11

  Minnie awoke at her usual time and peeled herself out of the recliner. From all the pops and crackles her joints made, she might have been sitting on a piece of bubble wrap. The tragedy of getting older. It’d take more than her usual thirty minutes of stretching to limber up this morning. She worked through her yoga routine, then took a shower and headed for the kitchen. The aches had lessened to an occasional twinge, and she thought the day might not be so painful after all.

  After the clarity from her shower, their middle-of-the-night adventure seemed even more ridiculous. Using wax paper to sound like a ghost. She rolled her eyes. An idea that only sounded good with too much brandy. They’d been lucky everyone had slept
through it. At least she wouldn’t have to explain it.

  She started coffee, then mixed the batter for her famous pancakes. Unless the ghost hunters had left, they’d be looking for some breakfast soon.

  “Quite a night, huh?” His voice came from the doorway.

  Minnie dropped her spoon into the bowl. Dang it. She used a fork to pick it out of the batter, reminding herself Gordon was referring to the water leak, and not her and Edith’s little escapade.

  She turned to greet him. He leaned against the jamb, looking like he’d just walked off a movie set, glowing and larger than life. Her heart trembled. She shoved the bowl of batter onto the counter and wiped her hands on her apron to hide their shaking. How could he still do that to her?

  She shook her head. “Coffee’s just about ready.”

  “You’ve been up for a while.” He entered the kitchen and removed a mug from one of the hooks below the cabinet.

  She slid a glance toward him as he settled the cup on the counter. He had made himself right at home. It should have bothered her more, especially after last night, but it felt right. He belonged here. For the first time, she was sad to think that when he purchased a property of his own, he would no longer be under her roof.

  “The usual time.” Minnie picked up her spatula and eased up the edge of one of the pancakes. Almost done. She gave it a pat with the spatula and placed the utensil on the counter beside the griddle. The coffee maker poured its brew and Gordon helped himself to a cup. She’d been a little lazy this morning, using the coffee maker instead of the percolator. After last night she figured she deserved a little break.

  “How many years have you been running this place?”

  Minnie picked up the spatula again and slipped it under the pancakes and scooted them over to the platter. “Close to six years now.”

  “You’ve done a lot of renovations.”