by Terri Reid
“That’s brilliant,” Bradley said. “I just have to run to the hardware store and get clothesline and clothespins.”
“But we don’t have enough time,” Rosie cried. “Kate and Mary will be back with the girls in less than an hour. Oh, she’s going to see everything.”
“I’ve an idea,” Margaret said. “But it means that Mary might be even a little later getting home.”
“That would actually be a wonderful idea,” Bradley said. “I haven’t even begun to decorate the front porch yet.”
“Well, why don’t I go over to the school and volunteer to take the girls trick-or-treating with Kate so Mary can get back to the office, put her feet up for a bit and finish up on any paperwork or calls she might have?” Margaret suggested.
“Oh, Margaret, that would be perfect,” Rosie said.
“And then you, my dear,” Margaret said to Timothy, “can give Bradley a hand here.”
Timothy nodded. “I’ll drop Margaret off at the school and then run to the hardware store,” he said. “I’ll be back as quick as a flash, so you can start on your porch decorations right away.”
“Really?” Bradley asked, excitement glowing in his eyes.
“Aye, but I get to help once I’m home,” he stipulated.
“Of course,” Bradley said. “I have a feeling I’m going to need you.”
“Then it’s a deal,” Timothy said. “Come along, Margaret my love, let’s be on our way.”
Chapter Forty-seven
The parade lasted thirty-five minutes as the little ghosts, ghouls and princesses made their way around the school several times so neighbors and relatives could take photos. “Why do I always forget my camera on days like today?” Mary muttered.
“Um, you have a smart phone in your pocket,” Mike said as he appeared next to her. “It has a camera.”
She smiled at him and then quickly looked around to see if anyone noticed her smiling at an empty space. No one noticed as far as she could see. “Thanks,” she whispered. “You’re a genius.”
She reached into the pocket of the gypsy skirt and pulled out her phone. Swiping on the camera icon, the screen opened up, and she focused on Clarissa and Maggie, smiling at the crowd and waving their hands like the princesses they were. “Perfect,” Mary said, taking a few more shots just to be sure.
“So, how did you like the presentation?” he asked.
“It was amazing,” she replied softly. “I couldn’t believe it when Abraham Lincoln came strolling into the classroom. I have never been so star-struck before in my life.”
“Did you tell him how the play ended?” Mike asked.
“What?” Mary asked, forgetting to keep her voice soft and getting strange glances from the people around her. She quickly held her phone up to her ear. “Sorry, I guess my speaker wasn’t working. Is this better?”
She smiled at the people around her who nodded in understanding. Then, keeping her phone to her ear, she turned back to Mike. “That wasn’t funny,” she said.
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to be funny,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “I just figured maybe his unfinished business had something to do with not seeing the end. It would bug me forever if I had to walk out before the end of a movie.”
She stared at him. “You know, for an angel, you have an awfully weird sense of humor,” she said.
He grinned. “Yeah, I know.” He paused and looked around at the children, his eyes resting on Clarissa and Maggie as they laughed together. “You’re doing a good job, Mary,” he said. “Never doubt that.”
“Thanks, Mike,” she replied. “After her teacher suggesting that I’m raising Wednesday Adams, it’s nice to hear some positive reinforcement.”
He laughed. “If her teacher only knew,” he said.
Mary chuckled, too. “I think she’d be a little shocked.”
“So the reason I stopped by, other than to check out the parade, was to let you know that your parents have arrived in town,” he said. “They’re on their way here, to the school.”
Mary looked around, still keeping her phone to her ear. “Oh, really?” she asked. “Where are they?”
Suddenly her phone started to ring, and the people around her looked confused. She smiled brightly and moved away from the crowd. “Hello?” she answered.
“Mary-Mary,” her father’s voice boomed over the phone. “We’re here at Clarissa’s school, but there are a lot of other people here, too. Where can we find you?”
“Well, the parade is ending, and we’re going to be bringing the kids back to the classrooms now,” she explained. “But if you go to the front door and down to the office, they’ll give you a pass to the classroom. Just let them know you’re Clarissa’s grandparents.”
“We’ll do that,” Timothy said. “See you in a couple of minutes, darling.”
Mary helped herd the children back into the classroom, and then she and Kate passed out the treat bags to each student. The teacher played a CD of Halloween songs, and the children were allowed to visit with each other while the adults put the room back in order. Mary’s parents joined them and pitched in.
“I’m glad Halloween only happens once a year,” Mrs. Spangler said. “It’s more exhausting than Christmas.”
A few minutes before the children were to be dismissed, the volunteers went to the back of the room to relax for a few moments. Mary slouched into a metal folding chair, stretching her feet out in front of her.
“Mary, you look tired,” Margaret said.
“Well, my feet are a little sore,” she admitted. “But I’m so glad I came. I had a great time.”
“Well, I have a suggestion for you,” Margaret said. “And Bradley seconded it.”
“Oh?” Mary said, sitting up. “What’s that?”
“Well, I volunteered to go trick-or-treating with Clarissa, and your da volunteered to help Bradley put the front porch in order,” she said. “So, you can go back to your office for a couple of hours, wrap up anything you need to and then come back to the house for dinner.”
“Oh, I couldn’t let you do that,” Mary said.
“Darling, you wouldn’t make it down the first block of trick-or-treating, the way you look,” she said. “Besides, Kate will show me the ropes, won’t you Kate?”
“Certainly,” Kate said. “Besides, the girls had already planned to go together.”
“But, I should…” Mary started.
“You should be at your office with the shades pulled down, your feet up on your desk and soft music playing,” her mother insisted. “And you should try to relax, because, heaven knows, once your brothers get here, there will be no relaxing for you.”
Mary paused. Going back to her office and just relaxing sounded wonderful. Besides, she justified, she could file away all the papers from the Kristen Banks case. She looked up and smiled at her parents and Kate. “I would love to do that,” she said.
“Well, good,” Margaret said.
“I’ll just drive home and change first,” Mary said.
“No!” Margaret cried, and then she clapped her hand over her mouth. “I mean, darling, once you go home, you know there’s no way you’ll get back out. Bradley will have you helping him decorate the front porch in no time.”
“But look what I’m wearing,” Mary said.
“It’s Halloween,” Kate inserted. “All of the owners of the stores in downtown Freeport are dressed up for Halloween today. You’ll fit right in.”
Mary sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “Okay, I’m going to escape for a few hours. And I’ll try not to feel too guilty.”
Margaret laughed. “Oh, yes, do feel guilty about allowing me to take my granddaughter trick-or-treating,” she said. “Go, relax. You deserve a little downtime.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Mary opened a mini-box of chocolate-covered caramels and popped one into her mouth as she entered her office.
“Are you really sure you should be eating those?”
Ma
ry froze and turned to find Kristen sitting at her desk and Andrew standing behind her.
“What?” Mary asked. “What are you doing here?”
“See, that’s the problem,” Kristen said. “We don’t know, and we figured you were supposed to know. But if you don’t know, we’re all screwed.”
Shaking her head, Mary closed the blinds at the front of her office and walked over to her chair. “Sorry, but if I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to have to sit down,” she said.
“Fine,” Kristen said, getting out of the chair.
Andrew glided over next to Mary and leaned down near her. “Um, Mary,” Andrew stuttered, “Mary, I can see Miss Banks now, and she doesn’t look all that great.”
“I can hear you,” Kristen said, turning to Andrew with her hands on her hips. “And quite frankly, you don’t look too hot yourself.”
“You two can see each other?” Mary asked, looking from one ghost to the other.
“Duh,” Kristen said. “We’ve got this whole weird, dead alumni thing going on.”
“But Mitch confessed,” Mary said. “You both should be ready to move on.”
Kristen glided next to Andrew and shook her head. “Mitch did it?” Kristen asked. “It really doesn’t seem like something Mitch would do.”
Mary shrugged. “Well, he confessed, and he was pretty aggressive when Bradley and I were going back into the school to find Andrew.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have?” Kristen asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Well, you know, once someone confesses, you kind of stop looking for more clues,” Mary replied, feeling a little defensive.
“Well, something’s going on,” Kristen said. “Because I think if this is resolved, I shouldn’t be here anymore.”
“Maybe it’s something between the two of you,” Mary suggested. “Maybe Andrew needed to say goodbye to you or thank you for being the motivation in his life.”
Andrew shrugged. “Or the reason I got murdered,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and turning away from Kristen.
“Hey, listen, I didn’t ask you to investigate my death,” she replied, poking him in his shoulder.
He spun around and faced her. “But you said you believed in me,” he argued. “How could I not try to find out the truth? It was like a message from the grave.”
She sighed. “Well, when I was writing it, I didn’t mean it to be life-changing,” she said. “I just wanted you to apply yourself to your spelling words. That’s all. I didn’t know I was going to die.”
The anger left his face, and he nodded. “It was life-changing,” Andrew admitted. “So, thank you for that. I accomplished a lot of things I never would have without that note. It meant a lot.”
Kristen smiled at him. “You’re welcome,” she said. “You were my favorite in that class.”
“Really?” he asked with a wide smile.
“Yeah, really,” she said, pausing for a moment and then turning to Mary. “Okay, we’ve done the nicey, nicey. Can we move on now?”
Mary looked around and waited for a few moments. “No, it doesn’t look like it’s happening,” she said. “There has to be something else.”
Mary picked up the file that held all of the information about the case. She put the journal to the side and started sorting through the letters. “So, you got letters from Danny and Mitch,” Mary said.
“And Vic,” Kristen said. “Let’s not forget Vic.”
“Yeah,” Mary said, picking up the report Bradley brought about Mitch’s service. “But Vic died in Vietnam.”
“What? Vic didn’t die,” Kristen said.
“Yes, he did,” Mary said, picking up the report. “He died saving Mitch’s life.”
“But, that’s impossible. I got a letter from Vic the same day I got my last letter from Danny,” she said.
Mary shook her head. “Well, it must have been delayed,” Mary said, “because the report said that Mitch was at the hospital in Germany for six weeks before he was transferred home two weeks before you died. So, Vic had been dead for almost two months when you got that letter.”
“Find the letter,” Kristen said.
Mary sorted quickly and then found the one from Vic. She opened it and gasped softly. “It’s dated on the inside,” Mary said, “only two weeks earlier than the postmark date.”
“So, is Vic still alive?” Kristen asked. “Has he been alive all this time?”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Mary said, sorting through the letters for more correspondence from Vic.
Finding a dozen more letters, Mary laid them out on the table next to each other and compared them. “The handwriting is very similar in all of them,” she said, slowly shaking her head. She looked up at Kristen and Andrew. “I’m not sure where all of this is going to lead, but it looks like there’s a good reason for both of you to still be here.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call Bradley and let him know what I’ve found.”
Chapter Forty-nine
The sound effect machine was turned up to full volume as Bradley, Stanley, Timothy and Clifford worked on the Halloween display on the front porch. The life-sized coffin was on one side of the porch with its animatronics plugged into an extension cord that ran under the porch and into the basement. The speaker system was currently being attached to the rafters of the porch.
“Okay, try it again,” Bradley called down from the top of the ladder.
Timothy walked past the coffin and tripped the sensor. Suddenly, the coffin lid started to lift, and a skeletal hand began to slip out of the darkness toward the unsuspecting trick-or-treater. “Good evening,” the voice from inside the coffin called out.
“I think you need a little more bass on the voice,” Clifford called, adjusting the sound through his tablet. “Yeah, this is going to be great.”
Bradley’s cell phone was in the pocket of his jacket that was currently hanging over a witch’s brewing pot on the other side of the porch. It rang and rang, the tone drowned out by the sound effects all around them.
“This is awesome,” Bradley called. “Just a couple more tries, and then we can hang up the screaming banshee.”
“I almost got the lights working,” Stanley called from the yard in front of the porch. He plugged a thick cord into a power strip that also held the sound and the animatronics. Suddenly, there was a loud pop, and everything went dark and quiet.
“Dagnabbit,” Stanley cursed. “That’s what you get fer buying cheap power strips.”
“Or that’s what you get for overloading a circuit,” Bradley said. “Stanley, unplug the lights, and I’ll go down to the basement and flip the fuse back on. And, I’ll bring you your very own extension cord.”
He closed the door just as his cell starting ringing again.
“Hey, Timothy,” Clifford yelled. “Do you want to grab Bradley’s cell phone?”
Timothy started across the porch but halted when the phone stopped ringing. “Oh well, if it was important, they’ll call back,” he said.
Mary hung up the phone and exhaled loudly. “He’s not answering, and I already left him a message,” she said to Kristen and Andrew. “So, the next best thing is to go home and talk to him in person.”
“Shouldn’t you call the police?” Andrew asked. “Let them know?”
“I don’t know what I’d tell them,” she said. “All I have is a forty-year-old letter that really could have been sent by another soldier who found it in Vic’s belongings and decided to forward it on.” She sighed in frustration. “We know that things aren’t as wrapped up as the police believe, because the two of you haven’t crossed over yet. But, they tend not to believe in paranormal evidence.”
Kristen glided to the front of the office and stared at the window. Then she turned around and looked at Mary. “You need to be careful, Mary,” she said. “You need to worry about you and your baby before you concern yourself with Andrew and me.”
&n
bsp; Andrew nodded. “Yeah, we don’t want you to get hurt.”
Kristen looked over at Andrew. “Hurt? This guy plays for keeps. Mary, we don’t want you to be killed.”
“I don’t plan on getting myself killed,” Mary said. “But I’d appreciate it if you two stayed close tonight so all of us can keep an eye on things.”
“No problem,” Andrew said.
“Yeah, we know how well that worked the last time there was danger,” Kristen said to him. “You ran away.”
“Actually, Kristen, I asked him to leave,” Mary said. “Andrew didn’t know he was dead yet. So without a body holding him back, once he thought about leaving, he just went to the place he was thinking about.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have deserted Mary. I promise,” Andrew said. “I just was gone.”
“Well, don’t just go this time,” Kristen said. “We need to all work together to keep Mary safe and to find out who killed us.”
Mary packed up the journal, letters and everything else from the case and put them in her briefcase. She slipped her phone back in her pocket and then went to the door. The sun had gone down, and the street lights were glowing down over the scarecrows. Her car was only a few yards away, but suddenly her heart seemed to catch in her throat.
“Wait!” Kristen called out before Mary could open the door. “Let me check and make sure it’s clear.”
Kristen slipped through the wall, and then both Mary and Andrew heard her gasp in shock.
“What?” Mary asked as Kristen slipped back inside. “What’s out there?”
“It’s disgusting. Some of the things women were wearing,” Kristen said, her face screwed up in disgust. “Don’t people have mirrors? Don’t they look in them before they leave their homes?”
Mary sighed. “Kristen, was there anything threatening outside?” she asked.
“Only if you count the threat to good taste,” Kristen sniffed.
“Okay, then,” Mary said. “I’m going out to my car. I’ll meet both of you back at my house.”
