1 The Ghost in the Basement

by SUE FINEMAN

  Had he gotten to her? Did she care enough about Billy to pay her share?

  No, Eleanor was just like Maggie.

  The only person she cared about was herself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hannah took the mail from the postman, or postwoman in this case, and brought it inside. One envelope for Donovan was from the hospital. It had a window, so she assumed it was a bill or statement.

  “Pop, the mail is here.”

  Pop opened the bill from the hospital. “They added interest again. Donovan complained a few months ago, and they left the interest off for all of three months. Now they’ve added over three hundred dollars in interest, and he can’t pay anything without a job.”

  Hannah called up the stairs. “Trevor, mail.”

  He galloped down the stairs, took the envelope from the television station, and ripped it open. “It’s a confirmation of the job offer.”

  “What job offer?”

  “At the television station, building sets and whatever. I start next week. Don’t worry. I’ll still work on the house.” He looked at Hannah and Pop and back to Hannah. “It is all right to stay here if I’m working somewhere else, isn’t it? I’ll help out with the bills.”

  Stunned that Trevor would look for work without someone pushing him, Hannah said, “I’m proud of you, Trevor, and yes, you can stay. Donovan… I think he lost his job this morning.”

  “That’s what I figured. As soon as I start getting paid, I’ll take care of the utility bills and give you money for groceries.”

  He seemed proud to be able to do his share. Was Trevor finally growing up?

  <>

  Donovan came home looking glum, and the gun he’d strapped on this morning was gone. “Judge Harvey has all the evidence against Cordelli. If he can’t take care of the problem, we’ll go to the press and I’ll look for another job. If he hadn’t fired me, I would have quit anyway. I won’t work for a man like Constantine Cordelli. Every detective at the station turned in their badge and gun today. The only one left is Vickers.”

  “It’ll work itself out,” said Pop. “Judge Harvey won’t buckle under to the Porcini-Vittore bunch. Maybe he’ll force Porcini out. If we could get rid of Tony Porcini, we could get a new police chief, since it’s an appointed position.”

  “We’re meeting here Sunday afternoon to talk about our options. If we don’t get this settled right away, the men will go elsewhere to find work, and I don’t want to see that happen. Experienced detectives would be hard to replace.”

  Hannah gave him a big hug. “I’ll find a job after the holidays, and Trevor found a job. We’ll get by.”

  Donovan’s deep breath sounded a little shaky, and Hannah could see how this situation tore at him. She hurt right along with him, and so did Pop. So much of his identity as a man had to do with his work. He was a cop, a detective, and his men respected him. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have walked out in protest when Cordelli fired him.

  “Hannah, what kind of work do you do?” asked Pop.

  “I have a degree in communications, so after Trevor and I married, I applied for a job at a radio station. The job description sounded terrific, but I ended up working as the station manager’s admin assistant, and the job I’d applied for went to the owner’s nephew. I wanted to quit, but the rent was due and we were broke. Trevor wasn’t working, as usual.” His job at the television station probably wouldn’t last either. Nothing ever lasted with Trevor.

  “Okay,” said Hannah. “Let’s finish fixing up the house. If necessary, we can rent out rooms. There’s more than one way to pay the bills.”

  Pop’s face creased into a smile. “I wonder how your ghosts would like that.”

  Hannah walked into the hallway and called into the house. “If you don’t want this turned into a boarding house, we need money to live on. Do you have more things hidden in this house?”

  A faint tap on the bedroom floor drew her upstairs, with Donovan and Pop right behind her. She stopped in the upstairs hallway and listened again. It was coming from her bedroom, and it wasn’t a tap on wood. It sounded like stone or brick. “The fireplace?”

  The tapping stopped, and they walked into her bedroom. The fireplace was directly above the one in the living room, on the outside wall of the house. It wasn’t as big as the one in the living room, and the bricks on the face of the fireplace were in a herringbone pattern. The hearth was raised a foot off the floor, and the mantel wasn’t as thick as the one downstairs. Bigger bricks anchored the corners and went all the way to the ceiling, which had to be at least nine feet tall.

  Donovan took Hannah’s flashlight from her nightstand and peered up the flue. “Nothing up here.”

  “What about the cornerstones?” asked Pop.

  While the men checked the cornerstones, Hannah examined the raised hearth. The bricks on top were in that same herringbone pattern as the face of the fireplace, and the hearth looked solid all the way down to the floor. On her hands and knees, she felt around until she found a little latch under the baseboard on the right side of the fireplace. “I found a latch.”

  Donovan bent over to look. “For what? What does it open?” He fiddled with it until a brick on the side of the hearth pushed out slightly, just enough to grab onto. He pulled it out. The two bricks under it were loose, too, and the one under that. He looked up and grinned.

  “Ask and ye shall receive,” said Pop.

  Donovan pulled out one little black bag after another, until there were eleven piled on the hearth. He peered inside with the flashlight and reached in for two more. “That’s it. There’s a tube inside that looks like it goes all the way to the other side.”

  “Cal’s business must have been good for Charity to squirrel away this much loot,” said Hannah. “Let’s open them.”

  Pop sat on the side of the bed and Hannah handed him a bag. “You first, Pop.”

  He poured out a dozen gold twenty-dollar coins.

  “That should buy groceries for a week or two.” She looked at Donovan. “Your turn.”

  He poured out twenty coins. “Looks like Charity cornered the market in gold coins.”

  Pop shrugged. “With the two world wars and the big depression, gold was probably the only safe investment back then. My parents didn’t trust banks, and after the stock market crashed, that wasn’t safe either.”

  By the time they finished opening all the little bags, they had a hundred and fifty-five coins, all in mint condition. The coins had to be worth at least ninety thousand dollars, and she had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last stash they’d find in this old house.

  Donovan was on his knees checking the baseboard on the other side of the fireplace when Hannah called into the room. “Thank you, Charity. Thank you for sharing your house and your treasures with us.”

  “Nothing on the left side.” Donovan went back to the right side and put the bricks back in place. The last brick clicked in place, and unless you got down on your knees to inspect it closely, you’d never know the bricks would come out.

  “Andrew, you’re a genius,” said Donovan. “You could teach builders today a thing or two about quality and workmanship and creativity.”

  Pop chuckled. “I never thought I’d see the day when we’d talk to the dead as if they were right here with us.”

  “They may be dead, but they are right here with us.” Donovan sat on the bed beside Pop. “We know who killed Andrew, but we have no tangible proof except those clothes from the fireplace. I assume the spirits are hanging around until Hannah finishes that diary and we find solid proof of the killer’s identity.”

  Pop stood and pointed to the pile of coins on the hearth. “I suggest you take these to the bank before they close.” He walked out of the room, leaving Hannah and Donovan alone.

  Donovan stared at the coins. “Hannah, we need a bigger safe deposit box.”

  She giggled like a little girl.

  A slow smile pulled at his lips. “We could spread them on the bed and
—”

  “Donovan! Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable? I mean, paper money is one thing, but these things are hard.” She whispered, “You don’t suppose they watch us in bed.”

  His face opened in a full-fledged lopsided smile and she smacked his arm. “It’s not funny.”

  “Shall we try it now?”

  “In the daylight, when they can watch?”

  “Honey, if they want to watch, I doubt they’d let a little thing like darkness get in the way.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Can you wait until tonight?”

  He laughed.

  “Let’s go Christmas shopping. We’ll get a book on coins, so we know which ones are worth what, and we’ll stop at the bank on the way.”

  The smile left his face and she knew he was thinking of Maggie. “I don’t intend to charge anything, Donovan, and I can afford to buy a Christmas present for Billy.”

  “What kind of Christmas present?”

  “A computer. We’ll get some educational software to go with it. When you guys get the old bathroom torn out, we’ll turn it into a computer room, maybe put glass French doors on it.”

  “Hannah, this is your money, and—”

  “And I should hoard it? Is that what you mean, or is this about your tender male ego? Grandpa sent us both to live in this house, and I didn’t find these things by myself. Without you, the ones in the fireplace downstairs would have stayed there forever. I can afford to buy my favorite kid a computer for Christmas, and I can afford to support us until you get back to work.” She pulled on her jacket and grabbed her purse. “If you don’t want to help pick it out, I’ll do it by myself.”

  Before he could stop her, Hannah was gone. And she’d forgotten to take the coins to the bank. Muttering to himself, he loaded the coins in a briefcase and drove to the bank. Billy didn’t need a computer for Christmas, but he’d love it, and he’d learn from it.

  He should be buying these things for his son himself. Times like this, he hated Eleanor and Maggie for what they’d done to him and his family. They’d not only taken everything from him except Billy, they made sure he stayed broke. Maggie’s uncontrolled spending had put him in a hole, and Eleanor’s insistence on an expensive experimental treatment nobody thought would work kept him there.

  They were punishing him, but by doing so, they were also punishing Pop and Billy. Maybe it was time to find a job in another city and move away from River Valley, away from the memories and that damn pink marble stone in the cemetery.

  On the way home from the bank, he stopped at an antique store. Broke or not, he intended to buy Christmas presents. The store didn’t have what he wanted, so he drove downtown to another antique store. And another, until he found a green velvet settee like the one Hannah saw in the living room the night she walked through the house in the past. He paid a deposit and arranged to pick it up the day before Christmas.

  He called Pop and said he’d pick Billy up after school. They’d buy a Christmas tree and put it in the round alcove off the living room, the same place Sonny and Virginia put their tree every year. Pop was right. To hell with the bills. After the holidays, he’d file for bankruptcy and get it over with. He should have done it years ago.

  Billy slid into the car and slammed the door. “Where’s Pop?”

  “At home. I thought you’d like to pick out a Christmas tree. We’ll surprise Hannah.”

  “Is that why you’re driving her pickup?”

  She’d taken Pop’s car shopping, and they all drove the little pickup. She drove Pop’s car so much he was thinking about putting her on his car insurance policy.

  Maggie would never drive an old car, and she wouldn’t even ride in a pickup. Eleanor bought her a new car for her birthday every year, a little two-seater with no room for a child seat. When Maggie died, Eleanor kept Maggie’s car. Donovan got stuck with the bills. He should have divorced her right after Billy was born and filed for sole custody of his son. If he had, he’d be out of debt by now. Maggie wouldn’t have fought for Billy. She couldn’t even stand to look at him.

  The first Christmas tree lot was picked over, so they went on to the second lot, the one run by the Boy Scouts. Billy found a sad little tree, the cheapest one on the lot. Donovan shook his head. “We need a big tree this year, the prettiest one you can find.” For Hannah.

  Interesting that he hadn’t filed for bankruptcy because he didn’t want to lose his job, and now the job was gone anyway. If Judge Harvey couldn’t get rid of Cordelli and Vittore, he didn’t want to work there anymore. He had a degree in criminal justice. At one time, he’d considered going to law school, but he didn’t want to sit in some office or courtroom all day and half the night. His carpenter skills weren’t good enough for a paying job. The only thing he’d worked at since college was police work, and he loved it. He’d find something else to do until next October, and then he’d find a job in another city if necessary, somewhere politics didn’t run the police department.

  “Dad, how about this one?” Billy stood by a huge blue spruce.

  Donovan looked it over from all angles and declared it perfect. Billy grinned. So did Donovan until he looked at the price tag.

  “Does it cost too much?”

  It would take everything he had in his pocket, but the hopeful look on Billy’s face made him say, “No, it doesn’t cost too much.”

  “Hannah’s gonna love it, huh, Dad.”

  “Yeah, she’ll love it.” He handed his money to the kid in the booth. Job or no job, this Christmas was going to be better than last year.

  <>

  Hannah picked out a computer for Billy and had it loaded in her car. Trevor was a whiz with computers. He could set it up himself. She had to have a place to put it, and until the new bathroom was in, they couldn’t tear out the old one and turn it into a computer room. Maybe they could use Charity’s room until the new computer room was ready to use.

  Without Donovan here, she wasn’t sure which educational programs to get for Billy, so she’d have to come back for those. She signed up for high-speed Internet service with the phone company, but Billy would have to be monitored while he was on-line.

  She drove home, hoping to get the computer unloaded before Billy came home from school. He wasn’t there, and neither was Donovan, so she called, “Trevor, I need your help, please.”

  He galloped down the stairs and unloaded the computer. They carried it all up to the attic and put it behind the stack of boxes with Hannah’s doll collection. They’d just carried the last two boxes upstairs when Hannah heard Billy downstairs yelling, “Hannah, we bought a Christmas tree.”

  She looked at the huge tree and gasped. “You picked out the prettiest tree in town.”

  From the warm smile on Donovan’s face, she knew she’d said the right thing. “This must have cost a small fortune.”

  “You’re worth it.” His voice, deep and soft and sexy, crept into her soul.

  Hannah sorted through Grandpa and Grandma’s Christmas decorations. Some of them were old when she was a child. The beautiful porcelain decorations had belonged to her grandmother’s family.

  She arranged the nativity scene on the fireplace and hung the wreath on the front door. Trevor and Billy strung garlands and lights around the porch rails, and more lights outlined the porch and door. When Hannah’s father was alive, he used to put them around the roof, and the whole house was aglow. She didn’t even mention it, because she knew Donovan would be on a ladder, hanging lights.

  Pop sat in Grandpa’s recliner and supervised. “Connie used to hang little stockings on the tree, one for each member of the family.”

  Hannah pulled out a string of blinking lights for the tree. “We’ll hang stockings for everyone on the fireplace this year. Santa can fill them.”

  Donovan nodded toward the front porch, where Billy was helping Trevor hang another garland. “What do you think? Does he still believe in Santa?”

  “Of course not, but he’s not about to tell you that. If you kn
ow he knows, you won’t get him a present from Santa.”

  Pop chuckled. “Donovan strung us along for two years after he found out.”

  “Monique told me before I started school, but I never told Dad or my grandparents I knew. Christmas was one of my favorite childhood memories. Grandpa had as much fun as I did, and my stocking was always stuffed full of wonderful goodies – chocolates, money, little toys and jewelry, and there was always a candy cane and a tiny stuffed toy poking out the top.”

  Hannah knew she should get back to reading Charity’s diary, but there was so much to do before Christmas. For the first time since her father died, she looked forward to Christmas. Grandpa was the one who’d infected everyone with excitement. He used to put the biggest tree he could find in the round alcove at the corner of the living room. The windows were all lit and lights outlined the front porch.

  Christmas in this house wouldn’t be the same without Grandpa and Grandma.

  And Dad.

  <>

  Late that evening, while Hannah was in her room reading the diary, Donovan walked into her bedroom. “I just got a call from the station.” He sat beside her on the bed. “Your mother has been arrested for trying to pull a scam on an elderly couple. The man she was working with was wanted by the FBI on more serious charges, and she’s wanted in three other states. When Ohio is finished with her, I expect she’ll be sent to Oregon to face charges there. She should choose her victims more carefully. The couple she tried to scam are the parents of a circuit court judge. She’ll also be charged with forging your power of attorney and trying to sell this house.”

  Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. She wasn’t surprised Monique had done this. The only family she had left had no consideration for anyone but herself. She didn’t care about that couple she’d tried to scam, and she didn’t care that Hannah wanted to keep her grandparents’ home. All that mattered was what she could get for herself. Monique Maxwell belonged in jail, where she couldn’t harm anyone else.