The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle

by Sharon Buchbinder

  In place of the telephone, over the course of the past six months, Lucius had discovered the Internet, email, and social media. For a man who had no experience with computers, he learned fast. His first email to Tallulah came through her blog on the day she posted about her trip to Montana and the historic Hotel LaBelle—minus the drama.

  Lucius wrote that Will bought the hotel with cash he borrowed from a mobster and put it in his wife’s name. When the mobster threatened to kill his wife if Will didn’t hand over the hotel in lieu of the money owed, he tried to torch it. Bert became Will’s lawyer, and the wife didn’t want the hotel and all the work that went with it. She sold Bert the hotel for a dollar to cover legal costs. All of which avoided lengthy probate court battles. The hotel was back in the family, and Lucius was the manager.

  Tallulah let out a long sigh. All’s well that ends well…except for the little matter of still having pangs in her chest every time she thought about Lucius.

  Emma or somebody else must have helped Lucius with the Hotel LaBelle website. The vision of Lucius hunting and pecking at a keyboard to write and send an email, much less build a website, made her giggle. Once the website went up, his emails became requests for her professional assistance. Nothing personal, all business, she thought with a sour taste in her mouth. Tallulah provided feedback on the website and recommended setting up a page on Facebook, along with other social media sites to drive business to the hotel.

  Facebook.

  She should have never suggested he join that site. Tallulah shook her head. Based on her observations, it appeared he spent hours each day posting photos of the hotel and stalking her.

  It began small. “Thanks for accepting my friend request.”

  The next day, he posted a photo of a mule deer herd drinking from the river on her page. “See any mules you like?” he asked.

  No, she thought, your face isn’t in that crowd.

  Each day for the last three months, he posted photos on the page for the Hotel LaBelle and shared them on her page. Mountains, goats, wild turkeys, the river, trees and foliage, Emma’s horses, and people she assumed were his new family members. Tallulah saw each post as a not so subtle reminder of how much he loved Mourning Dove, not her.

  His posts were cheerful. The hotel was thriving.

  That was a good thing, right? She should be happy for him. So why did she spend so much time crying?

  Each time she clicked on the browser, she told herself she wouldn’t go to Facebook to see if he posted anything new on her page. She didn’t want to be his Facebook buddy, she wanted to be with him, to be the woman in his new life. But, that could never happen. Not with Mourning Dove in bed between them. Never again.

  I should delete him as a friend. Block him. Stop torturing myself with this “friends not lovers” relationship.

  Each time she went to hit the “Unfriend” button, she stopped.

  This being noble stuff hurt.

  Franny yipped and danced at the door. “Time to go out? Okay.”

  Still in her pajamas, her favorite work wardrobe, Tallulah knew she looked like a bag lady. Of course, she didn’t actually need to get dressed since the grocery store and the Chinese restaurant delivered. Plus, no one came near her when she took the dog out, not even the obnoxious, round man with the garlic breath who used to try to force hot dogs onto her pudgy pug.

  Score one for the homeless look.

  She opened the door and nearly fell over Bert.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “When an employee doesn’t answer my voicemails, I get concerned.” He rolled away from the door. “Going somewhere?”

  “Ha! Good one. Just taking Franny out for a walk. Go on in; make yourself at home. We’ll be right back.”

  While Franny examined every cracked piece of concrete, beer can, and disgusting piece of trash within reach of her flat nose, Tallulah ran potential scenarios through her mind.

  He called me his employee, so he must need me for a remote viewing.

  The thugs are being moved to Montana, and he wants me to go there to identify them.

  Lucius sent him to beg me to come back.

  She liked the last scenario the best but would have preferred Lucius to do the begging.

  “Come on, Franny.”

  The bowling ball of a man approached with a hot dog package in his hand.

  “For Heaven’s sake, mister, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, my dog does not need snacks.”

  He looked at her with surprise. “Your dog? These are for me.” Shaking his head, he muttered something about nutty bag ladies and huffed past her leaving a cloud of garlic behind.

  “Time to go inside, Franny.” Still cringing with embarrassment, she pressed the up button and took the elevator to her floor. “We’re back.” She unhooked Franny’s leash, and the pug flew to Bert’s side, jumping up and down at his legs. “Coffee?”

  He nodded. “Sounds good. Come here, little girl, I’ve missed your personality.” He lifted Franny onto his lap.

  “Your clothes will be covered in pug hair.” She poured two mugs of steaming coffee and set a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies down along with an insulated carafe. “I’ll give you a pet roller before you go.”

  After Tallulah moved three piles of unread mail, each mound topped with a sticky note with a receipt date, from the kitchen table, she and Bert dunked their cookies in silence. A raisin plopped into his cup.

  “I suppose you want to know why I’m here.”

  “You wanted to tell me in person about the Crow Fair and how Emma’s horses won all the relays?”

  “It was great. All the relatives got together and met Lucius. He was pretty overwhelmed by the size of his family. At the pow-wow, there must have been over a hundred people who could trace their lines back to Mourning Dove and him. Of course, we didn’t tell them that. Just that he was a long-lost relative. I’m sorry you didn’t stick around to see everything. You would have enjoyed it, especially the day we demolished Otterlegs.” He finished his coffee and reached for the carafe to pour himself another cup. “And, yes, the horses Emma trained did well. Got any other guesses as to why I’m here?”

  “What is this, twenty questions? Well, aside from the fact that you said you were worried about your employee—who, by the way, has received no W-9 forms from Homeland Security—I suspect your visit might be related to Lucius?”

  “He misses you very much. Emma tells me he mopes around half the day, waiting to see when you’re on Facebook.”

  So he was stalking her. It tickled her to hear this, but she kept a poker face.

  “Why doesn’t he call me?”

  His eyes bored a hole in her forehead. “We have been. Your phone keeps rolling to voicemail.”

  “Not you, not Emma. Him. He can talk, and he can call me himself.” She fumed. “What makes him so stubborn? Why won’t he use the phone?”

  “Why don’t you call and ask him?”

  “I’m not the issue. He’s still in love with Mourning Dove.” She flicked tears off her cheek “Besides, I—I’ve been busy.”

  “Doing what? He glanced around the room. “Posting sticky notes and collecting cereal box tops and dust bunnies?”

  Tallulah glanced around the apartment. Dirty cereal bowls teetered in crooked stacks in the kitchen sink, the mail sat in an unopened pile, and her appearance—well, perhaps he had a point.

  “I’m finishing a book, been working on it for three years.” There. She said it. The book of her heart had been dormant, but when she came back to New Jersey, she knew she had to finish it and take a risk.

  He leaned forward. “And letting the world go by?”

  “Yeah, kinda. Franny’s fine, as you can see. I have my priorities straight.”

  “You know what I think? I think you’re hiding from your feelings.” He sipped his coffee and watched her face.

  “Wow. You must be psychic. Of course I’m avoiding them. Just the sound of Emma’s ‘Hiya!�
� forces me into a spasm of tears.”

  “He’s pretty miserable.”

  “So am I, but you don’t hear me whining.”

  He stared at her for one, two, three heartbeats.

  “Okay, maybe I am. But this isn’t about me. It’s not about Mourning Dove, either.” She described the incident on the highway during her retreat from the hotel. “She told me she wanted him to move on. He didn’t get the message.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m pretty sure that when a man calls me by the name of another woman right after making love to me, he’s not quite over her.”

  Bert looked down at the table and bit his lower lip. “Point taken.”

  She wiped her nose with a paper towel. “So you have work for me? Or do I have permission to continue my writing?”

  “Actually, I do. Can you dim the lights, and close your eyes?”

  She turned off the lights and sat in a comfortable chair.

  “I want you to think about the Hotel LaBelle—and go there.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “That’s not fair.”

  “Humor me.”

  She closed her eyes again and thought about the mountains, the sky, and the river near the hotel. In seconds, she was over the hotel, looking down at the big wraparound porch. A man sat in a rocking chair looking at the river. Lucius. In his hand, he held a photograph. Her heart tripped and stumbled. She had to get closer, needed to see the picture. She zoomed in for a better look.

  Choking back tears, she said, “Are you trying to make me hurt more than I already do?”

  Bert’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t understand. What did you see?”

  “Lucius holding a photograph of Mourning Dove—and crying.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  WBOO Radio Station, New York City

  One Month Later

  Tallulah adjusted Franny’s little red vest and made sure the little pug was settled into her bed in the studio before putting on the headphones. Despite the soundproofing in the glass enclosure, the On Air sign in the outside lobby alerted studio visitors a live show was in progress and to minimize the background noise. The “Ghost Radio Hostess with the Mostest,” Brooke Hallows, gave her the thumbs-up and wrapped up a commercial for an electronic voice phenomena recorder preferred by nine out of ten ghost hunters. She cued up her signature wailing violin and spooky music and rolled into her introduction of her new guest.

  “I’m excited to introduce this evening’s guest to you. Please welcome author, ghost hunter, and hotel inspector, Tallulah Thompson. You may have heard about her exploits about a year ago when she removed both a pesky spirit and a fraudulent innkeeper from one of the oldest hotels in Montana, the historic Hotel LaBelle. Tonight, she’s here to tell us about her latest adventures and to talk about her best-selling book, Haunted Hotels Across America. Tallulah, could you tell my listeners a bit about yourself and what prompted you to write this book?”

  “Yes, I’d be delighted to.” The book of her heart, the stories of her life helping spirits move on, had been her top secret project for the last three years. Her grandmother’s admonitions combined with her lack of confidence about putting her book-baby out for the world to see—and criticize—had kept it under wraps. After Lucius and Hotel LaBelle, however, she knew it was time to go public and publish. “First off, I want to thank you for having me on your show, Brooke. I’ve been an avid listener over the past year, so it’s a thrill to be here with you and your wonderful fans. They always ask the best questions!”

  “Yes, they do.” Brooke winked at her. “Never a dull moment.”

  “I’m going to give your audience a bit of background on me. My grandmother was a Choctaw Medicine Woman.”

  “Excuse me,” Brooke interrupted. “Could you elaborate on that?”

  “Yes, of course. The Choctaw Nation is a Native American Tribe that farmed Oklahoma before Americans and Europeans arrived on the scene and forcibly removed them from their lands over the course of the Trail of Tears.”

  Brooke frowned, shook her head, and motioned to move along.

  “My grandmother was a gifted healer and could see the spirits of those who had passed on. In her time, this was considered a great blessing. People from all over came to ask for her help.”

  The phones were starting to light up with calls. The hostess-with-the-mostest smiled and said, “So you’re carrying on her work?”

  “Yes, but it took me a while to accept my gifts.” Tallulah paused. “My mother also saw those without bodies, what we call ghosts or spirits, but that resulted in her being put in a psychiatric hospital and heavily medicated. Modern medicine thought she was hallucinating.”

  “Okay, bring us up to speed.” Brooke rolled her index fingers over each other. “When did you decide it was time to enter the realm of paranormal work?”

  “When I realized that I would never be whole until I embraced my heritage and my talents. I owe a debt of gratitude to an ancient Crow Medicine Woman and a man who died over a century ago. Together, they freed me from my greatest fear—being ridiculed or locked up because, as the cliché goes, I see dead people.”

  “Wow. What an amazing story. We’re going to take a little commercial break, and when we come back, we’ll talk about some of the ghost tales in your book, Haunted Hotels Across America, and take some calls.”

  Tallulah sipped her water while the promo for an upcoming paranormal conference played. “Am I doing okay?”

  “Oh, you’re great, a real natural. Just steer clear of the Debbie Downer stuff like the Trail of Tears and the crazy mother, okay?” She flashed a quick grin. “People listen to my show to be entertained, not educated.”

  Tallulah nodded. “I’ll try to be more entertaining.” Heaven forbid I should educate people.

  The promo ended and Brooke went back into hostess mode. “We’re here with author and ghost hunter, Tallulah Thompson, who is going to share some of her haunted hotel stories with us. Tell us, where are the most hauntings in the United States?”

  “Great question, Brooke. I know New Orleans is right at the top of that list, along with Gettysburg, Baltimore, Galveston, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, DC, Athens, and Ohio, as well as Savannah, Georgia.”

  “A lot of paranormal investigators go to those cities.” The host mouthed, You’re doing great and gave her the thumbs-up.

  “I think the residents of New Orleans are the most open and accepting of their spirit citizens. I was in an art store and the owner asked me what brought me to the city. When I told them I was called in to help the Crescent City Inn with a spirit that had a habit of pulling the sheets and blankets off guests while they slept, he asked me if I’d help them with the dead woman on the third floor where they stored the artwork. Apparently, she’d been murdered on the site and didn’t know she was dead. I was able to help her go to the light, and the gallery owner was so happy, he gifted me with a piece of art.” She laughed. “He had no idea the painting contained a particularly nasty spirit and I eventually had to get rid of it. That was one ghost who did not want to leave!”

  “Let’s take some callers.” Brooke pressed a button, and her assistant gave her the listener’s name and city. “We have Armand from Armonk on the line with us now. Armand, what’s your question?”

  “Yah,” the man wheezed. “I been trying to figure out how you know you can get rid of these spirits?”

  “Great question, Armand,” Tallulah said. “I have a checklist of things I insist the hotel owner or manager do before I go in. First, they have to have the hotel inspected by licensed electricians, plumbers, and HVAC professionals. I can’t tell you how many times it turned out that the lights flickering mysteriously were really a short in the wiring.”

  “Ah, good point,” Brooke interjected. “You’re singing my song. Rule out the normal before you go after the paranormal.”

  “Exactly. Then I ask to stay overnight in the room with the most unusual activity.”

&n
bsp; “Oooh, creepy. Good stuff.” The hostess broke into Tallulah’s explanation, again.

  “The majority of the hauntings are residual. Sort of like a video playing the same scene over and over, these phenomena are not interactive with living people. One of the most famous of these in America is Lincoln’s phantom funeral train. Railroad workers saw the procession traveling nightly up the Hudson River, long after Lincoln was buried. Those can be addressed by putting a lot of electronic equipment, radios, TVs, computers, those sorts of items, into the space to break the infinity loop.”

  Brooke was drinking coffee, unable to interrupt.

  “The ones I work with are people who have not passed on into the light. These spirits are unaware they are dead and will attempt to get the living’s attention because they have unfinished business.”

  “So when ya sprinkle them with holy water, do they sizzle and burn like vampires?” Armand from Armonk queried.

  “I have no experience with vampires. I just deal with earthbound spirits who need help moving on.”

  “What about werewolves? Do you use silver bullets and garlic on them?”

  “Umm…” Tallulah beseeched Brooke with her eyes. The one time the hostess didn’t jump in was when she needed her.

  Get me outta here!

  “Vampires and werewolves are on my other show, ‘Shapeshifters among Us.’ You should save those questions for tomorrow night when we have Mary Rose Wiley, an expert on evil Djinn and Shadow People. Thanks for calling, Armand.”

  Tallulah looked at the digital read out. Only twenty more minutes. She hoped she sold some books. After three years of working on the manuscript, then putting it away for fear of going against her grandmother’s advice, she’d finally finished and self-published. An immediate hit with fans of the paranormal, she’d been booked on blogs, interviewed by websites, and now was being invited to radio. Supposedly, Brooke had over ten million followers. If ten percent bought her book, she’d be richer than the queen of England.

  “Chris from Columbus is with us. Chris, how are you tonight?”