The Ghosts of Misty Hollow

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  A gray SUV was parked by the back door. The two of them listened, but heard nothing. Phil peeked in through one of the kitchen windows. “Granny’s right, Emma,” Phil told her. “Call nine-one-one.”

  Phil started to grab the back doorknob, then hesitated.

  “What are you waiting for?” Emma asked as she yanked her phone from the pocket of her running jacket and dialed the emergency number.

  “I don’t want to smudge any prints that might be there,” he said.

  “Good thinking,” Granny said, tapping the side of her head with a fingertip.

  Remembering how flimsy the lock was, Phil leaned down and gave the door several hard pushes near the knob with his shoulder. It popped open as easy as a paper lunch bag.

  “The cowboy’s got skills,” Granny said with pride.

  Phil entered first, followed by Emma, who was on the phone with the emergency dispatcher giving the location of the farmhouse. On the floor in a pool of blood was a man dressed in jeans and a short black leather jacket. His head was facing the door. It looked like he’d been shot in the back a couple of times as he was leaving. Phil stepped carefully around the body and crouched down next to him. He pressed fingers against the man’s neck. Emma held her breath and waited. A few seconds later, he looked up at Emma and shook his head. Emma told the operator that the man was dead.

  While they waited for the police, Emma called Gino and told him what had happened. Then she called Fran and told her so she wouldn’t be waiting for them at the donut shop. Gino and the police made it to the old farmhouse about the same time, Gino on foot.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Gino asked, rushing up to the front of the house where Phil and Emma were sitting on the porch steps, waiting.

  “We don’t know,” Phil answered.

  A local police officer got out of his vehicle and approached them. “Are you the folks who called nine-one-one?” he asked. The officer introduced himself as Officer John Cadbury. He was slim and very young, probably only in his early twenties.

  “Like the candy,” Emma noted automatically. It had just popped out.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Officer Cadbury responded without an expression, “but no relation.”

  “Yes, we called,” Phil answered, getting to his feet. “There’s a dead man in the kitchen of this old house. I’m Phil Bowers, an attorney from San Diego, and this is my fiancée, Emma Whitecastle, and our friend Gino Costello. We’re staying with Gino at Misty Hollow. We were out jogging this morning when we noticed a strange vehicle parked here so we checked it out and found the guy.”

  “It looks like he was shot in the back,” Emma added, remaining on the steps.

  The officer looked at Gino. “You Gino Costello, the murder-mystery guy?”

  “Yes,” Gino answered. “I’m leasing Misty Hollow for a few weeks.”

  The officer nodded. “Heard you were in town.” He turned back to Phil. “You want to show me what you found, Mr. Bowers?”

  “Of course. We’ll have to go around the back. The front door’s locked. But don’t worry, we didn’t touch anything,” Phil quickly added, “except for me checking to see if he was alive. I also popped the back door lock using my shoulder against the door.”

  Gino started to follow, then glanced back with concern at Emma.

  “Go,” she told him. “I’ll be fine here. I’m sure more police will be coming.”

  After they left, Emma pulled the sleeves of her jacket down over her hands and wrapped her arms around herself. Cold was starting to creep into her bit by bit, like a cat stalking a mouse. She started to shiver. They were supposed to be looking for long-dead children, not finding fresh bodies. Her mind roared into overdrive considering the possibilities. Maybe that’s why the door had been unlocked yesterday when they were here. Maybe people were using the old farmhouse as some sort of a meeting place and this meeting went sour. Drugs and serious crimes certainly weren’t limited to urban areas. And local people might know that the old house was used only for storage.

  Granny floated into view. “You okay, Emma? You look kind of pasty.”

  “I’m okay, Granny. I just wasn’t expecting this.”

  “Who was?” the ghost shot back.

  Emma looked around, trying to focus on the area around the porch. She didn’t see any spirits but Granny. “Have you seen anyone from the Brown family, Granny? Maybe they saw what happened here.”

  “I haven’t, but I think they’re around. It feels kind of odd, you know what I mean? Like the energy of this place has been disturbed.”

  “Yes, I do know what you mean. I felt something off just before Phil and I got here.” Emma closed her eyes, but except for the off-kilter feeling, she couldn’t get a bead on the Browns. She opened her eyes. Granny looked concerned. “I’m okay, Granny. Really. Why don’t you go see what the men are doing? I know you want to.” She gave Granny a tiny smile.

  “Nah,” Granny said. “I’ll stay here with you. They’re just gabbing and going over Phil’s story and waiting for other cops. When the coroner or forensics people get here, then you’re on your own.”

  “Did you see the spirit of the dead man at all, Granny?”

  “Not so much as a whisker. He might have already crossed or is confused. You know how newbie spirits are.”

  A deeper shiver went through Emma. She hugged herself tighter and closed her eyes again. “I’m freezing, Granny. Are you sure the Browns aren’t here? Like all around me?”

  Granny hesitated, her attention caught by something. “Someone is, Emma, but it’s not one of the Browns as far as I can tell. He’s right behind you. Maybe it’s the dead guy.”

  Emma jumped to her feet and spun around. On the porch was the hazy outline of a tall man with thick, dark wavy hair. Emma didn’t see the face of the man lying dead on the kitchen floor, but she did notice his clothing. Like the corpse inside, the ghost was wearing jeans and a nice leather jacket. Under the jacket was a Henley jersey with three buttons open at the neckline.

  “What’s your name?” Emma asked him, but he didn’t answer. As Granny suggested, he seemed confused, and kept holding his hands up and looking at them, noticing their transparency. He had a rugged face, lean and slightly lined around his eyes, like he’d spent a lot of time in the sun while alive. He appeared to be in his mid to late thirties.

  “Who did you meet here?” she asked, hoping to get him talking. “Who did this to you?”

  Finally, the ghost looked up at Emma. “Can you see me?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “I can.”

  “Am I alive or dead?” he asked. “I saw someone in the house that looked like me, but here I am.”

  “Buddy,” Granny said, floating closer, “you’re dead as a doornail, like me.”

  “Granny,” Emma scolded in a low voice. “Be nice. Can’t you see he’s in shock?”

  “So?” snapped Granny. “What’s it gonna do, kill him? The sooner he understands his predicament, the sooner he can help us figure out what happened.” Emma had to admit that Granny had a good point.

  The spirit wavered for a moment, as if he was going to faint, then righted himself. “But I can’t be. I can’t.”

  “But you are,” Emma confirmed, much more gently than Granny had broken the news. “And you need to cross over to the other side. But before you go, can you tell me your name?”

  “Um . . . I’m . . . I’m not sure,” the spirit floundered, and ran a hazy hand through his equally hazy hair. He floated off the porch and turned around, looking at the house. “Why am I here? I can’t remember anything.”

  “Oh boy,” Granny quipped. “It looks like death gave him amnesia.”

  “You probably came here to see someone,” Emma prompted, getting off the porch and moving closer to him. “Who did you come here to meet?”

  Before the ghost could concentrate any furth
er, the sound of heavy tires and moving vehicles could be heard. They were coming from the direction of the big house. In seconds another Whitefield police SUV pulled into the driveway, followed by an ambulance.

  The new ghost’s eyes widened at the site of the authorities and he took off into the nearby woods.

  “Follow him, Granny,” Emma said. “Try to find out what happened to him.”

  “On it, Chief.”

  From the police vehicle stepped a man in his forties in uniform. Two people, a man and a woman, both on the young side, got out of the ambulance. The cop approached Emma. “I’m Sergeant Colby Johnson. Where is everyone?”

  “You have to go around to the back. The body’s in the kitchen,” Emma told him.

  “And who are you?” he asked, giving her the once-over with an experienced eye. He was a bit heftier than Cadbury, with a slight paunch spilling over his thick belt.

  “Emma Whitecastle, one of the people who found the body.”

  “Officer Cadbury back there?”

  She nodded. “He’s talking to my fiancé. We were together when we found the body. I made the call to nine-one-one.” Her teeth started chattering.

  Johnson went back to his car, returning with a small blanket. He handed it to Emma. She gratefully accepted it and immediately wrapped it around herself.

  “One of you check her for shock,” he said to the EMTs. “The other come with me around back to see what’s going on.”

  The woman EMT stayed with Emma and started checking her vitals. “I’m fine,” Emma protested. “We were jogging and I got cold from being all sweaty.” It was the truth, but only partially. The newly minted ghost had chilled her to the bone.

  “It’s just a precaution,” the woman told her as she worked. She was Asian with long, dark straight hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her name tag said A. Chen.

  Once she was pronounced okay, Emma, still wrapped in the warm blanket, walked around the back to see for herself what was happening. Phil was giving his statement to Cadbury, while Johnson, wearing gloves, was going through the gray SUV. Gino was watching everything with interest, observing and filing each bit of information away in his mental filing cabinet. Emma went over to him. “Anything new, like an ID?” she asked.

  “Nothing that I’ve heard,” Gino reported. “They did call the medical examiner’s office. Someone’s on their way from Worcester.”

  They heard another car approach and soon another officer arrived. This one was African-American and carried a camera. He started taking photos of the crime scene and the surrounding area, inside and outside of the house.

  Johnson approached them. “You feeling better, Mrs. Whitecastle?”

  “Yes, thank you, Sergeant. I was chilled to the bone.” She started to remove the blanket, but he stopped her.

  “Keep it until you leave. We still need to get your statement before we can let you go.”

  Cadbury walked up to them. “I’m ready to take your statement, Mrs. Whitecastle.”

  Johnson gave her a peculiar look, then said, “Hmmm, Whitecastle? As in the burgers?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “but no relation.” She caught the slightest trace of a smile start across Cadbury’s face before it disappeared.

  • CHAPTER SEVENTEEN •

  “WELL, that certainly put a crimp in our day’s plans, didn’t it?” Gino noted as he put a bowl of steaming scrambled eggs down on the kitchen table.

  While Emma and Phil took quick showers, taking advantage of the many bathrooms in the house to get it done faster, Gino had gotten breakfast going. He’d made scrambled eggs and bacon and had warmed up Marta’s muffins from the day before.

  “Sorry there’s no oatmeal today, Emma,” Gino told her. “Mine would be inedible. But I do know my way around a basic egg breakfast.”

  “No apologies, Gino,” Emma said as she scooped a small portion of eggs onto her plate and grabbed a warm muffin. “This is fine. I’m not sure I have much of an appetite after this morning.”

  Phil brought the coffee carafe over and filled each of their mugs. “This coffee should perk you up, Emma.” As he filled her mug, he kissed the top of her freshly shampooed head, taking a deep appreciative sniff that never got old to him. He put the carafe down on the table, took a seat next to her, and started filling a plate.

  They fell upon their food in silence, all of them having a better appetite than they’d expected. When the food was all gone, Emma grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl on the table. “So who do you think William Otis was?” she asked as she started peeling it.

  William Otis was the dead guy. The police found his name on his vehicle registration and confirmed it against the driver’s license found in his wallet in his jeans. He lived in Portland, Maine. After taking all their statements, Sergeant Johnson had let them go, but asked that they stay close to their phones for a few days.

  Both men shrugged at her question and sipped their coffee while thinking. “Could be anyone,” Phil said, answering first. “Johnson said he wasn’t robbed. Looks more like a meeting that went bad. Possibly drugs or something like that.”

  “Yeah,” Gino agreed. “They’re dusting the place to see if his fingerprints show up. They want to see if maybe he’s been there before. If he was local, he might even be one of the guys who moves equipment around for the owner. But with a Maine address, who knows.”

  Gino’s phone rang. He looked down at it. “Speaking of the owner of Misty Hollow, there he is now. I expected him to be calling once the police reached him.” He picked up his phone and walked out of the room to take the call.

  Phil and Emma cleaned up the breakfast dishes then rinsed off their muddy running shoes and set them on the back deck to dry. When they were done with their short chores, Phil retrieved their jackets from the hall and they took their coffee out to the back as they had the morning before.

  “Gino’s in the library, still on the phone,” Phil reported. “But it sounds like he’s talking to Vanessa, not the owner of this place.”

  Emma hugged her mug tightly between her hands and stared out at the lake, which was peaceful today after last night’s storm. “I’m glad she called, no matter what the news. At least he knows she’s okay.”

  Granny materialized near the railing. “Sorry, Emma, but that dead guy got away from me. He crossed over before I could interrogate him. And I can’t find even a disembodied wisp of any of the Brown clan.”

  “William Otis, Granny,” Emma said to the spirit. “That was his name, and that’s about all we know. And don’t worry. I’m sure the Browns will eventually show up.”

  Emma turned to Phil, not bothering to whisper now that Gino knew about Granny. “Granny says that Otis crossed over.”

  “Does that mean we can’t talk to him?” he asked with concern.

  “Pretty much,” Emma answered, “unless he crosses back to this side for some reason and returns here. She’s also trying to find the Browns to see if they know anything about what happened at the house, but they aren’t communicating right now.”

  They were silently considering the lost opportunity when Gino came out from the kitchen.

  “Here,” Emma said, handing him a fresh mug of hot coffee. “We made another pot and brought a clean mug out for you.”

  He took the steaming mug and thanked her, but his face looked more haggard than before he took the call. He turned and looked out at the lake, ignoring his coffee.

  “Boy,” Granny said after looking him over, “Gino looks like he’s ridden a few hundred miles of hard road today.”

  “Everything okay?” Phil asked. “With the owner of Misty Hollow, that is.”

  “Huh?” Gino shook himself out of his stupor and turned back to his guests. “Oh yeah, that.” He leaned against the railing and took a drink of coffee before continuing. “The police called him. He doesn’t have a clue who William Otis was
or why someone from Maine might be in the old farmhouse, let alone dead in its kitchen.” He took a sip of his coffee. “He lives near D.C., but has a local guy who takes care of this place, like a handyman. His name’s Malcolm. I’ve seen him twice. The first day we arrived and another time when he cut the lawn. He’s with the police now.” Gino took another sip of coffee. “The owner also wanted to know if I still wanted to stay for the rest of my lease. He said he understands if I want to leave.” Gino chuckled softly. “It amuses me that he thinks a murder would scare off the likes of me.”

  “So you’re staying as originally planned?” Emma asked.

  “Actually, I’ve decided to stay longer,” he announced. “With Vanessa gone, I can stay as long as I want. I told the owner to plan on me renting the place at least through Thanksgiving, possibly through the end of the year, if he and his family don’t need it for Christmas. He said it was okay and to let him know, but that Leroy should move into the house since Malcolm will be closing up the guest cottage soon for the winter. I don’t think Leroy will mind. He can take the suite you’re in. He likes that room. Marta should be okay with it, too, since she doesn’t have any family. I’ll hire the people who clean it for the owner to help Marta out. If he wants to see his friends, Leroy can go back and forth to Chicago once in a while.” He smiled for the first time. “Who knows, maybe T will decide to spend Thanksgiving here with her old man and visit more often since it’s just a short drive from her place.”

  He turned back toward the lake and sipped his coffee. “I like this place. Really like it. I think I can bang out a book here in no time, especially without all the distractions of Chicago.”

  “Wow, this is a change of events, isn’t it?” said Granny.

  “And what if Vanessa comes back?” Emma asked.

  Gino sighed deeply, his shoulders raising and lowering. “She’s not coming back.” He turned around. “I got another notice from my bank. Vanessa bought a one-way ticket to Rome. She’s leaving me for him.”

  “Him?” Phil asked.