The Haunted Valentine (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 7)

by J A Whiting

  Lin sat back on the grass and watched the man walk across the yard … and Nicky got up and trotted after Leonard wagging his little tail.

  All was forgiven.

  12

  It was early evening and Viv and Anton sat at a small table in the bookstore café listening to Lin talk about her day with Leonard. “I was really annoyed with him because he has never once let me into his house, not even for a minute. He told me to go wait in the truck. I felt terribly hurt, like I thought we were friends, but maybe he didn’t feel the same way. I almost cried.”

  “What happened?” Viv asked. “Did he let you inside?”

  “No, he didn’t. He kept making up stupid excuses about why I couldn’t go in.”

  “Perhaps, the man is simply private.” Anton came to Leonard’s defense. “Some people don’t like to entertain. Some people feel their home is a safe place where they can be themselves. Leonard lost his wife. He struggled for years to cope. The man could barely keep a job and went off the deep end every year around the anniversary of his wife’s accident. It could be that Leonard’s home is his sanctuary, a sentimental place he has trouble sharing with others.” Anton sipped from his tea cup. “He’s only recently been able to pull himself together. I don’t see him often and I don’t know him well, but I don’t believe I have ever seen the man in better spirits.”

  Anton looked over his glasses at Lin. “I believe your friendship and belief in Leonard has pulled him out of a pit of despair and placed him back in the land of the living.”

  Lin swallowed. She’d never considered she’d done anything important for Leonard.

  “Give the man time,” Anton clucked. “His late wife, Marguerite, loved that cottage of theirs. I knew her, a lovely person.” The historian sighed.

  “So did you stay angry with him?” Viv asked.

  “Most of the morning I did. Nicky was acting stand-offish with Leonard, too.” Lin thought back on the morning. “Leonard tried to start up a conversation. I answered kind of cooly. I was drowning in my own hurt feelings. Later, he asked me about our bike ride. I told him about the shells and said they made me uneasy.” Lin looked across the room, thinking. “He got really quiet. Then he said that one day, he would tell me why I was never asked into his home.”

  Viv sat up. “Really? He’ll tell you someday? Wow.”

  Lin’s eyes got misty. “He told me he never wanted to hurt me.”

  Viv put her hand on her heart. “Gosh. Leonard. He is a very kind man.”

  “It got me thinking,” Lin said. “I was almost ready to toss our friendship aside. I know it was a dumb way to think, but I was hurt and I didn’t think our friendship meant anything to him. I felt like it was only me who cared about him. I’m glad I didn’t say anything stupid. I’m glad I didn’t ruin our relationship because I could only see how things were impacting me. I didn’t take the time to consider that Leonard had some sort of personal reason for keeping me out of his house. I took it as a slight when I should have been thinking about Leonard.”

  “I think we all do that at times.” Viv rubbed her forehead. “I wonder how many relationships get ruined because of perceived slights.”

  “Plenty.” Anton looked miserable.

  “Is something wrong, Anton?” Viv asked.

  Anton’s shoulders stooped and his facial muscles drooped. “The conversation has reminded me of something. Long ago, I lost a very good friend over my own selfish behavior.”

  “What happened?” Lin questioned.

  Anton shook his head. “Oh, it was a lifetime ago. I was a young professor. This other man was an academic, as well. I let my ego get the best of me. I thought this man stole an idea from me. It was utter nonsense on my part. If I’d taken the time to have a rational conversation with him about it, things wouldn’t have gone as they did.” Anton batted at the air with his hand. “I lost a good friend because I let my hurt and arrogance lead the way. Oh, how wonderful it would be, if we could take back angry words.” Looking down at his empty cup, he said softly, “I still miss the man’s friendship, even to this day.”

  The three sat in silence for a few minutes, until Viv gave herself a shake. “Enough of gloomy topics. Let us take a valuable lesson from all of this … to treat our friendships with the care they deserve.” She winked at her cousin and smiled. “Even our friendships with family members.”

  Lin chuckled, and kidded, “Those being the most difficult friendships of all.”

  Viv reached over and playfully batted her cousin’s arm. “I need to help Mallory clean up.” She looked at Anton. “Stay until we lock up, if you like.” Viv stood and then turned back to Lin. “Could you do me favor? Could you make a deposit at the ATM for me?”

  “Now?” Lin asked.

  “Could you? I have some cash I’d like to get into the account as soon as possible.”

  “Of course.” Lin reached for her wallet and phone and glanced over to the dog and cat sleeping in the easy chair together. “I’ll leave the snooze-hound here while I run the errand.”

  The streets of town bustled with tourists and locals strolling the brick sidewalks and cobblestone roads to restaurants and shops, and down to the docks to ogle the boats and yachts. The old-fashioned streetlamps started to glimmer over the town and it was easy to imagine living in early nineteenth-century Nantucket.

  Lin took a short-cut to the bank and approached the shop where she’d purchased the sailor’s valentine. Passing by, she peered in the windows and, distracted, almost plowed into a man standing on the sidewalk outside of the neighboring store.

  “I’m sorry.” Lin apologized for almost walking into the man.

  In his mid-to-late forties with dark brown hair and a short beard, the man chuckled. “I should also apologize. I was so busy looking into my shop’s window display that I didn’t notice you approaching.”

  Lin took a look. The window contained artfully arranged paintings and mirrors and tide clocks and weathervanes. “It looks great. Very inviting. Did you do the window yourself?”

  “I did.” The man gave Lin an impish smile. “Saves money.”

  “Have you owned the store long?” Lin asked.

  “A few years.”

  “Have you always worked in retail?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve held many different jobs. I bought the store because it seemed like a good occupation for someone as they grow older. Being a shopkeeper isn’t very physically demanding. One must think about such things as they age.”

  Lin smiled, thinking the man shouldn’t be worried about that sort of thing. “You’re too young to be concerned about that.”

  The man’s face clouded. “The hand of fate can be quite cruel. My wife died only several years ago.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Lin told the shop owner.

  The man sighed. “I lost a good friend not long after my wife passed away.” He shook his head and said thoughtfully, “We think we have all the time in the world, don’t we? We think our own personal concerns are the most pressing and important. Sometimes, we don’t value enough the ones dear to us until we’ve lost them.”

  Lin’s eyes widened in surprise. The man’s words were very similar in feeling to what she, Viv, and Anton had been talking about only an hour ago. “You’re right. I’ve recently been thinking about the same thing.”

  “Have you?” The shopkeeper tilted his head and his face looked sad. “Well. It’s something to ponder, isn’t it? I think it’s important to think about how we live our lives, how we treat others. It’s important to consider … before it becomes too late.”

  A searing sadness came from the man and his words made Lin’s heart heavy.

  “I must get back to work.” The store owner gave Lin a wistful half-smile and disappeared inside his shop.

  As Lin continued down the street to complete the errand for Viv, the man’s comments repeated in her mind about not making your own wants and needs your only priority and treasuring the people who are important to you.

 
Lin felt the need to speak to Leonard. She took out her phone and sent a text to him.

  I’m sorry I fussed today.

  In a few minutes, she received a reply text that made her laugh out loud.

  Don’t worry about it, Coffin. I’m used to it by now.

  13

  Lin arrived at Anton’s house to mow the lawn and weed the flower beds and as soon as she removed her tools from the truck and went around back, the island historian hurried out from his kitchen door to the deck and down to the grass. Nicky greeted Anton by squirming around him and dog-smiling up at the man.

  Anton said, “Lin. I was going to call you. I forgot it was mowing day.”

  Anton could never remember which days Lin came to his home to take care of the landscaping. “I talked to Libby this morning,” he said. “She won’t be back for another week. I was telling her about your new ghost and the reports of a spirit in the antique Cape, and surprisingly … well, I suppose it’s not surprising at all considering its Libby, she knew someone who used to rent that house.”

  He held out a piece of paper to Lin. “Libby said it might be worth getting in touch with her. Here’s the information. Libby said she’d talk to the woman so she’d be expecting your call.”

  Lin took the paper from Anton and looked at the name written on it. Grace Hand. “That’s great. I’d like to hear about the woman’s experiences living in the house.” Thinking about the owner of the Cape telling her there was no ghostly presence in the home, Lin said, “There seem to be conflicting opinions about whether a ghost inhabits that house or not.”

  Anton suggested, “It’s possible that the spirit only shows itself to certain people.”

  “That could be.” Lin couldn’t put together the separate pieces of information she’d gathered … the old ghost hadn’t shown up for days … some people claimed there was a ghost in the Cape next to Neil’s place, but the owner said there wasn’t a ghost at all… when she and Viv were in that house, Lin sensed anger and danger near the back staircase … and right before leaving the Cape house, the sailor’s valentine showed up for several moments on the bookshelf in the living room. Lin took that as a sign that the old ghost was definitely linked to the antique home.

  “I need to get back to the library to look up the names I found on the deeds to the old Cape,” Lin told Anton. “I’ve narrowed it down to two people who owned it in the early 1800s and I’m leaning towards G.W. Weeks as being my latest ghost. There must be some other information available about him.”

  “This ghost is a puzzle,” Anton said. “He stays hidden and isn’t providing any clues to assist you with understanding what he wants. If I have some time, I’ll try and help by doing a little research on G. W. Weeks.”

  Thanking the historian, Lin started her work on the yard and Nicky and Anton went into the house.

  Early in the evening, Lin arrived at Grace Hand’s home in Cisco, a sprawling farmhouse on a hill surrounded by several acres of low brush. The area around the house was beautifully landscaped and tended. An older woman with silvery-gray hair sat in a chair on the covered porch and when she saw Lin’s truck arrive, she stood and waved, and stepped down to the driveway to meet her.

  “You have a lovely home,” Lin told the woman after introducing herself.

  Grace thanked Lin. “My husband and I do all the gardening. It’s quite a lot of work, as you know being a landscaper, but we enjoy doing it and it’s very rewarding. We’ve lived here for over twenty years so we’ve had a long time to make it what it is.”

  Grace walked Lin through the gardens providing information about what worked and what didn’t and how their ideas about what they wanted the spaces to look like had changed over time.

  “Gardens are never static,” Lin agreed. “Things are always changing.”

  Grace brought out some refreshments and she and Lin sat on the porch where a light breeze helped to cool down the hot temperatures of the day.

  “Libby tells me you’d like to hear about the time I lived in the old Cape house out by the Polpis Road.” Grace poured from a pitcher of lemonade mixed with iced tea.

  “I’ve talked to someone who lived there a few years ago.” Lin reported the woman’s experiences while renting the house.

  “That is very similar to what my husband and I went through while living in the place.” Grace lifted her glass and leaned back in the white, wicker rocker. “We rented the house about twenty-five years ago when we moved to the island to take jobs at the hospital. For many years, we vacationed on-island and loved it so much that when the opportunity came along to move permanently, we jumped on it.”

  “You rented the house while you looked for something to buy?” Lin asked.

  Grace nodded. “We did. We took a six-month lease thinking that would be plenty of time to find our own house.” She paused and then said, “It was more than enough time to live in that place.”

  “You experienced a ghost?”

  “We experienced a lot of things. At first, my husband and I didn’t mention the odd little things that were going on, thinking we must be mistaken that we’d put something away or locked a door or left a light on. Things slowly escalated though and when they did, Bill confided in me that he worried something was wrong with him.” Grace chuckled. “He was so relieved when I told him I experienced all the same things he did and had been worrying about my own sanity. My feelings of relief matched Bill’s.”

  “What were some of the things that went on?” Lin asked.

  “Like I said, it started with little things. A cool breeze would come into the room even when there weren’t any doors or windows open, a latch would jiggle, a lock wouldn’t stay locked, things we put down were moved somewhere else. They were all things you could rationalize were caused by something else, like the house was old so there were drafts, or I must have forgotten that I moved an object, or the lock was worn and sticky and needed to be changed.”

  “But that’s not what it was?” Lin leaned forward.

  “It wasn’t. Those things were just the beginning. Libby told me you’ve been inside the house?”

  “Only once, for less than an hour,” Lin told her.

  “You saw the back staircase?” Grace asked.

  “I did.” The feeling of anger she’d felt near the staircase washed over Lin.

  “Bill and I always got the willies near that staircase. We even stopped using it because it made us feel so creepy.” Grace gave a shudder. “It was an indistinct feeling, a mix of danger, of harsh feelings, anger, like something dark had happened there.”

  Lin had experienced the very same impressions.

  “Talking with other people about things like this can be very difficult. Back then, my husband and I brought up the odd happenings with some new friends and they didn’t take it well. They looked at us like we were crazy. Someone else we mentioned it to told us there were lots of haunted houses on Nantucket. Bill and I were careful about who we discussed things with, we still are. We work in professional occupations. We don’t want to get the reputation that we’re unstable or gullible people.”

  Lin gave the woman a look of understanding. “I’ve had similar experiences with people. I’m very careful who I share information with.” She asked Grace to describe how things in the house had escalated.

  “Bill and I began to feel a presence. The cold air would envelope us and we would sense someone was there. The person we sensed always made us feel so very sad.” Grace looked down at her hands as she recalled the things that had happened in the house. “Other times we would feel incredible anger around us. It was frightening.”

  “Did you ever see a spirit?”

  “No. Neither one of us saw anything. We did hear things though.”

  Lin leaned forward, eager for Grace to go on.

  “We’d be in bed. It would be late at night. We’d wake up to hear men’s voices down the hall. The conversation would become heated. The men would start yelling at one another. Bill would get up and step ou
t of the bedroom and shout at them to stop fighting.”

  “Would they stop?” Lin’s eyes were wide.

  “Yes, the voices always stopped as soon as Bill yelled at them.” Grace fiddled with a gold band on her finger and rolled her eyes. “Try telling about that experience to your family and friends.”

  Lin knew first-hand that revealing things about ghosts could only be shared with people who would be accepting of the stories.

  “How often did the arguing happen?” Lin asked.

  “Three or four times a week.” Grace frowned. “After a while, it became commonplace. It was our nightly routine. Go to bed, fall asleep, wake up to the fighting, yell at the men to stop, they stop, go back to sleep. You can see why we were happy we didn’t sign a year-long lease.”

  Lin agreed, “Six months of all that would certainly be long enough.”

  “There was more.” Grace sighed. “Not very often, but on occasion, we’d hear fighting down the hall from our room, near the back staircase. Things would smash against our bedroom door, a candlestick, a book, a paperweight. We assumed it was a ghost or a spirit throwing things in anger. We never felt like it was directed at us personally.”

  Grace seemed to be thinking about something for several moments, then she said, “Once, we heard what sounded like someone falling down the back stairs. There was the shouting, a thud, a man’s scream, and then the falling noises … and then a terrible piercing wail, like a cry of grief. It was horribly unnerving. The incident happened two nights before we moved out. My husband and I have never forgotten it.”

  Lin said, “It was lucky that you were about to leave the house. Once was more than enough to hear something like that.”

  “Yes, it was a huge relief to move away. We’d bought this house. When we moved in, it was such a stark contrast to the rental place. We immediately felt serene, peaceful.” Grace smiled. “A month later, we found out I was two months pregnant with our first child. I’m very thankful our children didn’t have to live a single day amongst the sadness and grief that permeated that poor Cape house.”