The Ghost Who Dream Hopped

by Anna J. McIntyre

  “How so?” Danielle licked frosting from her fork.

  “They led me to believe women these days stayed out of the kitchen—they no longer cooked.”

  “I suppose the real difference between my baking and the women who spent hours in the kitchen back then, I’m doing it because I want to, not because it’s something society thinks I should be doing.”

  “My grandmother loved to cook,” Walt told her. “She took great pride in it. Sometimes you remind me of her.”

  Not sure how I like being compared to your grandmother, she thought. “I wasn’t saying women back then all disliked cooking. I’m just saying it was something that was expected of them. Plus, you’ll find more men in the kitchen these days. In fact, Ian’s a pretty good cook.”

  “By the number of cooking shows on television that feature men, I can see that.” He took another bite of his cake.

  “Do I really remind you of your grandmother?”

  The corners of Walt’s mouth turned up with a hint of a smile as he looked over to her. “I was talking about your cooking. The similarity ends there. It was a compliment.”

  Danielle flashed Walt a grin. “So tell me, find anything interesting in that drawer?” She took her plate of cake and glass of milk and went to the sofa.

  “I looked at those fishing pictures again. It finally came to me.” Walt set his fork on his plate and then reached for his glass of milk.

  “What came to you?” Danielle leaned back on the sofa, her eyes on Walt.

  “I was trying to remember the names of the other men in the large photograph. They were familiar, but I just kept drawing a blank.”

  “I hate when I can’t remember someone’s name. Of course, it’s typically not someone I haven’t seen in ninety years.” She took another bite of cake.

  “The two men standing left of Roger are Billy Forest and Teddy Shafer. Shafer used to work for my grandfather. Forest, his father was the minister of one of the churches in town.”

  Danielle set her fork on her plate and looked at Walt. “Forest and Shafer?”

  “Yes. Do you recognize the names?”

  “When I went to Marie’s funeral, I remember reading a plaque in the front lobby of the church. The land the church was built on was donated by two men with the last names Forest and Shafer. I can’t recall their first names. But I remember their last names because I wondered if Herman Shafer was any relation to the one guy.”

  “Who is Herman Shafer?” Walt asked.

  “When we were hijacked, the plane landed on land in Arizona that belonged to Herman Shafer; he lives in Frederickport. Actually, it belonged to his son, but he inherited it after the son died.”

  “I remember now. Not his name, but how he inherited the land from his son,” Walt said.

  “We should probably start a box for the museum. I can’t imagine you want to keep the photo album.”

  Walt shook his head. “No. I’ve no use for my brother-in-law’s fishing pictures.”

  “But if Teddy Shafer is related to Herman, he might be interested in those photos. Not to mention Ben. I imagine he would love to have those old fishing pictures of his father.”

  “Fine with me.”

  When they finished their cake, Danielle cleaned up the dirty dishes and took them on the tray back to the kitchen while Walt started sorting through more photographs. As Danielle made her way back to the parlor ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. She assumed it was one of her guests who had forgotten their key. But when she opened the door, she found Police Chief MacDonald standing on her front porch.

  “Hi, Chief,” Danielle greeted him as she opened the door wider, motioning for him to come in.

  “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” He walked in the entry and glanced around. “I know you have guests, but I was—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Danielle said, “Don’t worry, none of them are here right now.” She closed the front door.

  “I hate to bug you on a Saturday night.”

  “No problem. You want to go into the parlor? Walt’s in there.”

  “That would be fine.” He followed her down the hall.

  “Where are the boys?”

  “With their grandparents for the weekend,” he said as he entered the parlor.

  Walt glanced up from a stack of photographs he was shuffling through. “Hello, Chief.”

  “Evening, Walt.” With a heavy sigh, MacDonald removed his hat, tossed it on a chair, and then sat down on a chair next to it.

  “So why aren’t you out on some hot date?” Danielle asked. “It’s Saturday night. Your boys are with their grandparents.”

  “Yeah, right.” He snickered. “My membership expired on Match.com.”

  “Isn’t that the dating site I see advertised on television?” Walt asked.

  The chief nodded.

  “I asked Danielle to explain it to me. So you’re a member? I’d like to ask you some questions about it,” Walt said.

  The chief chuckled. “I was joking. No, I’m not a member. It’s just there’s no one I can think of whom I want to go out with.”

  Danielle frowned at Walt. “Why do you want to know about Match.com?”

  Walt shrugged. “Just curious. I find it fascinating that people these days actually use the computer to find a date.”

  “These days I’m more interested in finding a criminal. Actually, I found one, just trying to figure out what to do with her,” MacDonald said.

  “You mean Beverly?” Danielle asked.

  “There is one thing I can say about her attack, it’s given me more insight into her.”

  “How so?” Danielle asked.

  “We wondered if her spiking Steve’s tamale was an anomaly. Was it totally out of character for her?”

  “What do you think now?” Walt asked.

  The chief looked over to Walt. “After Danielle mentioned what the bank employee said about her, I interviewed a number of other bank employees. It was more along the line—do you have any idea why anyone would want to hurt Beverly?”

  “And?” Danielle asked.

  “It seems she wasn’t as well liked as Susan Mitchell believed. I suppose with Steve gone—now that Beverly’s no longer their boss’s wife—they feel more comfortable opening up. I didn’t get any leads on her attacker, but a couple of people I talked to didn’t feel particularly bad about what happened to her. A couple used the word karma.”

  “So basically, you’re at square one with both cases?” Danielle asked. “Nothing to prove Beverly was responsible for her husband’s death—only that she might be capable of doing something like that again? And no idea who attacked her?”

  “Just more questions. Something peculiar came up. That’s why I stopped by.” MacDonald looked at Danielle.

  “What is it?”

  “You know those apple boxes Beverly gave you?” the chief asked.

  “Sure. In fact, that’s what Walt and I are doing now. Going through what was in them.”

  “I spoke to Pastor Chad, and he claimed they took the boxes by mistake when he picked up the paintings.”

  Danielle shrugged. “Yeah. No big deal. I can understand why. They were sitting right by the closet, and a couple of them were marked museum. So they probably figured they were to go too.”

  “According to Chad, the boys grabbed the boxes. He claimed he didn’t realize they had them until they got back to the museum,” the chief said.

  “That’s right.” Danielle nodded. “Walt and I weren’t here when they came to get the portraits. We had just pulled up when Ben called. Told me they grabbed the boxes by mistake and offered to bring them back. So what is this all about?”

  “I spoke to the teenage boys who helped Chad pick up the portraits. They claimed Chad told them to get the boxes.”

  Danielle shrugged. “Maybe he did. So?”

  “Chad expressly told me he didn’t know the boys had grabbed the boxes until they were back at the museum. Plus, according to Beverly, she h
ad told Chad about the Marymoor apple boxes she found when he visited her in the hospital, before he came over here. So he knew about them. In fact, according to Beverly, he showed interest in the boxes. He knew they weren’t to go to the museum.”

  Danielle shook her head. “I have no clue. But not sure why it really matters.”

  Walt let out a low long whistle and muttered, “Well, this is interesting.”

  The chief and Danielle turned to Walt and found him holding a large black-and-white photograph he had pulled from the stack he was sorting.

  “What is it?” Danielle asked.

  “It’s Roger’s fishing buddies. Roger’s not in the picture, but the other guys are.” Walt handed Danielle the photograph.

  With the chief peeking over her shoulder, Danielle looked at the tattered black-and-white photo and let out a gasp. It showed six men proudly dressed in white robes and white pointed caps, smiling into the camera lens.

  “Klansmen?” MacDonald asked. “Who are they?”

  Danielle pointed to the man on the far right. “That’s Ben Smith’s father.”

  “You’re not serious?” he asked.

  Danielle glanced to Walt. “That’s him, isn’t it? It looks just like the guy in the fishing photo.”

  “Yes. That’s him.”

  “Ben’s father was in the KKK?” MacDonald muttered.

  Twenty-Eight

  Olivia Nash couldn’t wait until graduation so she could be out of high school and get away from her helicopter parents. But first, she needed to finish her senior project. If her parents had allowed her to have a computer, then she wouldn’t have to go over to her older sister’s house and borrow hers. Normally she went to the library, but it was closed on Sunday.

  “Did you walk over?” Barbara asked when she opened her front door, glancing over her younger sister’s shoulder.

  “Mom dropped me off,” Olivia told her as she walked into the house, her backpack slung over her right shoulder. “Why does she have to be on my case all the time?”

  “Because she loves you?” Barbara suggested as she closed the door.

  “Is that why she won’t let me have a computer? Everyone has a computer. I even offered to pay for it from money I saved,” Olivia said as she walked to the study, her sister trailing behind her.

  “I thought you didn’t buy the computer because Mom and Dad wouldn’t sign up for the internet?”

  “It’s practically the same thing. What good is a computer if you can’t go online? I even offered to pay for that, but they said no.”

  “They’re just afraid to have you go online. They hear all sorts of stories about how teenagers get in trouble on the computer.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and dropped her backpack on the sofa. “That’s what happens when your parents are computer illiterate. They are freaking clueless about anything that involves a computer.”

  “At least they let you use mine,” Barbara said brightly. “And they let you use the one at the library.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s just because they think you’re monitoring me, and they think the library doesn’t let me go to those sites—whatever those sites are.” Olivia unzipped her backpack and removed her digital camera from inside.

  “Luckily for you I’m not working today, and I was home so you can use my computer.”

  “Lucky me,” Olivia grumbled. She removed a cord from her backpack and attached it to her camera. “Do you mind if I use your computer to upload some photos to BeachFastPrint first? I want to have some prints made.”

  “Are they for your project?” Barbara asked.

  “No. Just some pictures I took of friends at school. After all, school is going to be out pretty soon, and high school wasn’t all bad.”

  “As long as they aren’t X-rated,” Barbara teased.

  “Ha-ha.” Olivia sat down at the computer table with her camera.

  “Do you mind if I stay in here with you? I was sorting through my file drawers. But if you want some privacy…”

  “I don’t care. Anyway, it would probably make Mom feel better if you stayed.” Olivia snickered.

  “I know they can be suffocating,” Barbara said as she walked to her file cabinet; its second drawer was already open. “They still giving you a hard time about dating that guy?”

  “As far as they’re concerned, we’re no longer dating,” Olivia said.

  “But you still are?” Barbara asked.

  “Better you don’t know,” Olivia half teased. She turned on the computer.

  “I keep telling them you’re going to be eighteen soon, and they need to lighten up.”

  “I don’t know how they ever allowed you to go off to nursing school,” Olivia said.

  “It’ll get better, I promise.”

  The two sisters then turned their attention to what they were each doing. Barbara organized the documents in her file cabinet while Olivia downloaded images from her camera onto Barbara’s computer and then began looking through them.

  “Beverly Klein went home Friday,” Barbara called out, her back to Olivia as she shuffled through one of her files.

  Olivia glanced over to her sister. “What?”

  Barbara looked up from the file drawer. “You called me the other day, asking how Beverly was. I wanted to tell you they sent her home.”

  Olivia looked back to the computer monitor. “I had a dream about Beverly last night.”

  Barbara let out a sigh. “Not surprising, considering what happened to her.”

  “But it wasn’t about her attack, it was about her husband’s death.”

  Barbara shut the file drawer and shook her head. “You know, she really has had a horrible year. First her husband is murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Olivia frowned. “I thought he had some allergic reaction and fell off the pier and drowned. I didn’t hear he was murdered.”

  “No one was ever charged. The man they suspect was responsible died before they could bring any charges.”

  “How did he kill him?” Olivia asked.

  “From what I heard, through one of my friends at the lab, they found crabmeat in his stomach.”

  “Crabmeat?” Olivia frowned. She never read the newspaper, and while she had heard the man had died after falling off the pier, she had never heard anything about crabmeat until the dream. I must have, but just forgot, she told herself.

  Barbara nodded. “Mr. Klein was allergic to shellfish. I remember Roxane once telling me her father could eat some fish, but never shellfish. Her mom would never buy shrimp or crabmeat. She wouldn’t even keep it in the house. The killer put crabmeat in the tamales he was eating. He went into anaphylactic shock and fell off the pier.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Do you remember the dream?” Barbara asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I never remember my dreams.”

  “Actually, Beverly wasn’t in the dream,” Olivia said. “I was sitting on the roof with Mr. Klein.”

  Barbara started to laugh. “Dreams are so weird sometimes. What would make you dream something like that? Whose roof was it?”

  Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a roof.”

  “You said it was about his death. What happened? Did he fall off the roof?”

  “No.”

  Barbara glanced to Olivia and asked, “So what happened?”

  “I don’t remember,” Olivia lied.

  “I’m going to go make myself a sandwich. You want one?”

  “No, thanks, I already ate.”

  Barbara started for the door but paused a moment and looked back at her sister. “Can I trust you to stay off the porn sites?”

  “Ha-ha. Actually, I was going to go to a chat room and see if I can pick up some old guy.”

  “Now that is not funny,” Barbara said, only half teasing.

  After Olivia was alone in the room, she checked the computer. All the images had finished downloading from her camera. With a few mouse clicks she searched for the pictures she h
ad taken that day. It had been such a good day—until everything went wrong.

  She found the picture she was looking for. He was being so silly, holding the dirty old can in his hand and pretending to eat the dirt packed inside. At the time she never bothered to look at what kind of can it was. It didn’t seem important. Closing her eyes, she could almost hear the voice—the voice from the dream—Steve Klein’s voice. Take a closer look at that can. It’s crabmeat. You have all the proof needed that she killed me. Take it to the police. Tell them where you found it.

  It was just a dream, she told herself. The fact her sister said Steve died after eating crabmeat was just a coincidence. She probably heard someone talking about the crabmeat before, and she just forgot about it. The can was probably cat food.

  Preparing to prove to herself she was being silly, Olivia zoomed in on the image. Her heart practically stopped when she read the can’s label: crabmeat.

  “Just like he told me…” Olivia muttered. She then clicked through the other images taken that day, focusing more on the pile of debris he had unearthed. He always told her she took too many pictures of the same thing. But she liked to snap as many pictures as possible from many different angles.

  Her great-uncle, who had taught photography back before digital cameras, had once told her that he might take an entire roll of film and then consider that a good shoot if he ended up with one good image. He went on to explain how that was especially costly for amateur photographers who didn’t have a darkroom. Not only did they have to pay for the film, but for the photo developing.

  The moral of his story was to convince her to take as many images as possible in hopes of getting that one great shot. After all, she wouldn’t have the cost of the film or developing using a digital camera.

  What she found when looking at the images were countless ones showing not only Beverly’s backyard, but the lone crabmeat can, from all angles. In one close-up she was able to see the date stamp. It had faded significantly, but a little tweaking in her sister’s editing software made the date legible. Had that can not been empty, its contents would still be in code—at least according to what was stamped on the can.