Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls: A Ghost Hunter Mystery

by Victoria Laurie

  “What happened to it then?”

  “It went to the oldest daughter, Cleona Dunnyvale Mulholland, and then in the late 1930s to her son, Carney Mulholland, who lost it about ten years after the war.”

  The name Mulholland was swirling around in my head. I knew I’d heard it before, but where? “How did he lose it?” Heath asked.

  “Carney Mulholland was as nice an Irish gentleman as you’d ever want to meet,” Mary said. “But the poor man had a terrible gambling problem, and lost the entire family fortune. He then sold off his properties one by one to pay his creditors, but he tried to hold on to Dunlow, you know, because he believed the legend of the hidden gold, and just needed time to do a proper search for it—or so he tried to tell the tax man when he came round to collect. The collector gave him a month, but Carney died in a terrible motorcar accident just a few days shy of the deadline. He never did find the treasure—and truthfully I don’t believe it ever really existed. The castle fell to the government after that. It was made into a historic landmark shortly thereafter, but a few years ago when the whole world began struggling financially, it came up for sale and has been on the market since two thousand eight. There’ve been no offers made, though, as no one wants a haunted castle so far away from shore.”

  “You said there were seven generations of Dunnyvales that lived at the castle,” I said. “Do any of them stand out in your mind—either for good or bad?”

  Mary tapped a finger to her lower lip as she considered my question. “A few,” she said. “There were Ranald’s twin sons, born to his second wife not long after his first wife passed. His first son, Malachi, died some years before too. It’s said that Ranald was truly a broken man after his first wife died. He’d adored their son, and when Malachi died at the tender age of twelve, and then his beloved wife just a few years later, Ranald had no heart left to share with the next two boys born to him, nor was he much of a husband to his second wife, Josephine, even though by all accounts she loved him dearly. He all but ignored his family, and with no guidance or interest from their father, the twin lads grew up to be quite dreadful. They were said to be simply wretched young men, always drinking and fighting and carrying on.

  “In later years, as Ranald’s health began to decline, he grew so tired of their behavior that he bequeathed his castle to the winner of a joust between the pair to be held the day of his funeral, which took place in fifteen ninety-nine.”

  “Who won the joust?”

  Mary chuckled. “Neither really. The brothers killed each other on the battlefield, and both had sons, but Carrack died before Keevan, so, technically, Keevan was declared the winner and heir, and the castle fell to his son Aidan.”

  I remembered then the angry male ghost I’d met in the kitchen on our first day in the castle and how his name had sounded like Caron to my intuitive ear. I’d have bet dollars to doughnuts that Caron had actually been Carrack.

  “When did rumors of the treasure start circulating?” I asked next.

  “Oh, those rumors were quietly whispered about well before Ranald died, but no one had the nerve to voice them while the great lord of Dunlow lived. At the joust, however, Carrack publicly announced that he’d learned his father had whispered the location of the gold to Josephine while on his deathbed, and that right after Carrack won the joust, he would make haste to force his mother to reveal it. As you can see from that story,” Mary chuckled, “Keevan was obviously his mother’s favorite.

  “That declaration is what likely led to Carrack’s death, as the overt disrespect to their mother inflamed his brother’s anger, sending him into a mad rage. Carrack was cut down by his twin, but not before he managed to inflict a mortal wound to Keevan. After both her sons lay dead, and all because of that cursed gold, their mother, Josephine, was so distraught that she returned to France, her birthplace, joined a nunnery, and took a vow of silence. She never again uttered another word to her dying day.”

  “But she wrote,” I said, remembering the letter that Bouvet claimed to find.

  “Wrote?” asked Mary.

  “She wrote letters, right?”

  “Oh,” said Mary. “Are you perhaps thinking of the letter said to have been written to Josephine’s dear friend? The one that Monsieur Bouvet discovered?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I’m sure that she did, Miss Holliday. But that letter is long since lost, I’m afraid.”

  “What happened to it?” Heath asked.

  “No one knows. When Monsieur Bouvet was killed, no one thought to look for it until much later, and by then, it was far too late. He’d been long buried and his personal items sent back to his family in France.”

  I wondered if anyone realized that Bouvet had been in the tunnel leading to the family crypts when he’d first encountered the phantom, and that was likely where Ranald’s treasure was buried. But now that we were talking about Bouvet, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to ask her about his companion. “Do you remember the name of the man that Monsieur Bouvet brought with him from France?”

  Mary’s forehead creased with wrinkles as she thought back. “I believe his first name was Jeffrey. I remember sitting in a café one day for lunch and watching Monsieur and his friend come in and order at the counter. Bouvet was always the gentleman, and insisted that his friend Jeffrey order first.”

  “Do you recall a last name?” I asked.

  Mary sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t,” she said, and then something across the library caught her attention. “Oh! Those naughty young lads are at it again!” Getting up quickly, she excused herself and we watched her shuffle across the floor with a determined look on her face as she approached three boys who appeared no older than twelve or thirteen. They each wore the same innocent look on their faces, which was a sure sign that they were up to no good, and Mary stepped right up to them and held out her hand as if she expected them to hand something over. One of the boys shuffled his feet before pulling out a paperback from under his shirt and handing it to her. Mary glared hard at them, and shook her finger at each of them before pointing sternly to the door. All three boys hung their heads and moved quickly out the exit.

  When our librarian came back, she set the paperback on the table and I noticed it had a rather steamy-looking cover with a half-naked woman and a shirtless man curled around each other. “Those three are always scuttling in here trying to nick a book out of the adult section,” she said angrily. “One more time and I’ll turn them over to their mother, and won’t they be sorry for it then!”

  I pressed my lips together to hold in a laugh, and I noticed that Heath ducked his chin. After he’d had a moment to compose himself, Heath asked, “Did any of the other Dunnyvale heirs ever try and find the location of the gold?”

  “Oh, aye,” Mary said. “They all did, I believe. Even our very own Mr. Mulholland tried before the accident.”

  I nodded. She’d mentioned that Carney had searched for the treasure right up to his death. “Do any of the old legends contain stories of the phantom?”

  Mary made the sign of the cross and shifted uncomfortably. “No,” she whispered. “There was no mention of that wretched creature until Monsieur Bouvet arrived in our village. We’d never even heard that such a thing could exist—except perhaps in our nightmares.”

  “Have you lived in this village all your life?” I asked, looking at the old woman’s creased face and wispy white hair.

  “Aye,” she said.

  “And there was no mention of any kind about a curse being placed on Dunnyvale’s gold?”

  Mary shook her head. “A curse? Why, no,” she insisted. “There’s been no such talk of curses, why?”

  I scratched my head, and the look on Heath’s face made me realize neither of them understood what I was getting at. “If our theory is correct, and the phantom was something Ranald or one of his heirs hid in the castle to watch over the family gold, then the phantom only serves as truly adequate protection if the world knows about its existence. It’s
a bit like having an alarm on your house without a sign posted outside saying that you have an alarm. It can only act as a deterrent if people know about it beforehand.”

  “Oh,” Mary said with a vigorous nod. “I see what you mean and that makes perfect sense when you put it like that. But I can assure you that no one in our little village knew anything about this phantom until that poor Monsieur Bouvet fell to his death some twenty years ago.”

  Mary appeared to be very well-informed, and I wondered suddenly if Kincaid had ever approached her about some background on the castle. “Speaking of tragedies at the castle, Mary, did you ever happen to meet Jordan Kincaid?”

  Mary’s eyes remained sad. “Oh, aye,” she said. “And a lovely lad he was.”

  “Did he maybe come to you for some background on the castle?”

  Mary nodded again. “He did. And so did Monsieur Bouvet. I met both of them, and liked each of them very much. Of course, they were both very similar in personality. Both a bit of fearlessness in them, and a thirst for knowledge and history.”

  I eyed Heath, who was looking as surprised as I felt. “What kinds of questions did they ask?” I wanted to know.

  “Much the same sorts of questions you’ve been asking me,” she said. “And they also each asked for a copy of the blueprints to the castle.”

  Heath leaned forward. “There are blueprints to the castle?”

  “Oh, aye,” she said. “The original blueprint was designed by Ranald himself for the stonemasons that built his castle. He was a masterful engineer and an architect with great vision. A true Renaissance man.”

  “We’d like a copy of those blueprints too, please,” I said.

  Mary frowned. “I’m so sorry, but that artifact and all its copies were stolen from the library, oh, some four years ago. Right after Mr. Kincaid’s death, I’m afraid.”

  Heath’s leg nudged me under the table. “The map was stolen?” I repeated.

  Mary nodded.

  “Who would have stolen an old blueprint?”

  “Someone who wanted to try to go for the treasure,” said Heath.

  “But how could they get past the phantom?”

  “Same way we initially did,” he reasoned. “With magnets.”

  “But we didn’t get past it—” I started to argue.

  “We did until it came after you,” he said, cutting me off.

  “So if someone used the blueprint, and has already stolen the treasure, what the heck is that thing still guarding?”

  “Something else, I’d wager,” said Mary.

  I thought about that for a bit before I asked, “Do you know what happened to the copy of the blueprint that Kincaid was carrying?”

  “Oh, my!” Mary said, leaning back in her seat. “I suspect his fiancée took it with her when she packed up his things.”

  My eyes got wide. “His fiancée?”

  “A lovely young lass,” she went on. “Alexandra something. She was Russian, you know.”

  “You met her?”

  “Why, yes, of course I did,” Mary said. “Although she preferred to be called Alex. She’d been all over the world, which is why, I believe, Jordan adored her. She’d traveled even more extensively than he had.”

  “What did she do, exactly? Professionally speaking,” I asked carefully.

  “Oh, she was an expert in ancient artifacts. Jordan told me that he’d gone looking for an expert in ancient relics, and instead, he’d found that and his heart in South America when he interviewed her for his team. Alexandra had been living in Peru for a year before she came with him here.”

  My heart was thundering in my chest. Finally, we were hitting real clues! “Do you remember her last name or even what it sounded like?”

  Mary tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It began with an N. N-A-R, I think, were the first few letters. Something like Naratova, I believe. I’m so sorry, dear. I only heard her last name once.”

  “And how old did you think she was?”

  “Oh, my,” she said. “Perhaps only twenty-eight or twenty-nine at the time, but very mature for her age. She was a smart young woman. Spoke several languages, as I recall, and beautiful English at that.”

  Heath had pulled out a notebook and was scribbling furiously. I was so anxious to get back to Gilley with the information that I thanked Mary quickly, and begged her to excuse us.

  He and I then dashed back to the B&B, but when we got there, John greeted us at the door, and he didn’t look happy.

  “What?” I asked when I saw him.

  He held up his cell phone. “I just got off the horn with the network brass,” he said. “They’re furious that we’ve been here six days and have nothing to show for it.”

  I scowled. “Oh, screw them,” I snapped. “We have bigger fish to fry than worrying about getting their stupid footage, like finding our missing producer.”

  “That’s the point, M. J.,” John insisted. “They don’t believe that Gopher’s really missing. And they aren’t buying the whole phantom thing either.”

  Heath cocked his head. “Wait—what?”

  “They think that we’re covering for Gopher.”

  “I’m not following,” I said with a sigh.

  John collected his thoughts for a minute. “Before we came here, Gopher told me that he and the network brass had an argument about production times, which escalated into an argument over where we’ll fit into the weekly TV schedule. We were given Friday night at ten.”

  I frowned. “Friday night? That’s a sucky time slot.”

  “Exactly,” John agreed. “Which is why Gopher threatened to take us to a competing network if they didn’t give us either Tuesday or Thursday night at nine.”

  “What does that have to do with any of this?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately for us, it has everything to do with it. They think we’re covering for Gopher by inventing the story that he’s MIA when he’s really gone back to the States to negotiate a new deal with A&E or the Travel Channel.”

  “Bottom line it for me,” I said, feeling a bit of dread in the pit of my stomach.

  “They’ve pulled the plug. Our show’s been canceled.”

  Heath and I just stood there dumbstruck for several moments while I tried to work through the implications of all that. “Okay,” I said with a sigh. “We’ll wrap up this bust, find Gopher, and head home.”

  John shifted on his feet uncomfortably.

  “What?” Heath asked him.

  “See, that’s where we really have a problem. I’ve got student loans, man. And rent. And bills to pay.”

  I closed my eyes and let my shoulders sag. “You have to go home and look for another job.”

  “Yeah. And so do Meg and Kim.”

  I opened my eyes again, and did my best to withhold any judgment that might creep into them as I looked at John. “I understand,” I told him, reaching for his arm. “Really.”

  John’s face registered all the guilt I’m sure he felt. “I’d stay if I could.”

  “We know,” Heath said. “It’s okay, dude. We got this.”

  Something occurred to me then and I asked, “Does Gilley know?”

  “Nope. He’s been upstairs on his computer since you guys left, and I didn’t want to interrupt him.”

  And that was when I had an idea. “Hey!” I brightened. “Maybe we can send the network brass the footage we took the other night. Maybe that’ll be enough to convince them that we weren’t up to anything sneaky.”

  But both Heath and John looked skeptically at me. “There are only maybe three minutes of footage, M. J.,” Heath said. “By showing them that, you’d risk them thinking we staged it after hearing they’d pulled the plug, or making them even angrier that we’ve been here six whole days and only have three minutes of footage to show for it.”

  I felt my spirits sag. “In other words, we’re screwed.”

  “Pretty much,” said Heath.

  “Totally,” John agreed.

  Oh, boy.<
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  I found Gil stretched out on his bed, eyes closed, listening to something through his headphones. He looked like he might be sleeping, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him with bad news, so I went to the other bed and switched on the television, turning the sound down low, and was soon fast asleep myself.

  “Hello, lass,” said a familiar voice.

  “Lord Dunnyvale,” I replied. “Nice to see you again.”

  There was a chuckle, and then Ranald said, “You haven’t seen me yet.”

  I looked around. I was sitting under the large tree again on the rock, but this time, Dunlow Castle was looking marvelously new and glorious. There was also a lovely cool breeze whistling through the branches of the tree as the sun warmed the air around me, but there was no sign of Dunnyvale. “Good point,” I conceded. “Why don’t you join me, though, and we can talk?”

  Dunnyvale appeared from behind the tree and sat with a flourish. “ ’Tis a lovely day, now, don’t you agree?”

  “I do. Too bad there aren’t more days like this at the Dunlow I’ve visited. It’s always raining or windy and cold.”

  “You must come back in the summer,” Ranald told me. “We’ve beautiful weather then.”

  “I’ll consider it,” I told him, right before getting to the heart of the matter. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this time?”

  Dunnyvale picked a long blade of grass and nibbled at the ends. “You’re a very lovely lass, Miss Holliday, but you’re not nearly as clever as I’d hoped.”

  Even in my dream I was shocked, but I decided to play it cool. “Oh?” I said coyly. “Why’s that?”

  “Because you should have been much further along in this by now.”

  “Finding Alex, you mean?”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, pardon me, Lord Dunnyvale, but I believe you gave me precious little to go on. After all, we only know Alexandra’s first name.”

  But Dunnyvale was unmoved. “Oh, I expect you know a wee bit more than that.”

  I tilted my chin toward the breeze. There was the strong smell of brine mixed with a sweeter flower scent. “We know that she’s Russian, and her last name begins with an N, and that she has red hair. Even in your day, my lord, that was not a lot to go on.”