The Ghost and the Bride

by Anna J. McIntyre

“Adam stopped by this morning,” MacDonald explained.

  “Yeah, he called me after he left your office. Said you were going to bring Shane in. Did you arrest him?” Danielle asked.

  “At the moment, he’s under psychological observation.”

  Curious to hear more, Danielle suggested they take the conversation somewhere more comfortable. Five minutes later, they were seated in the parlor while MacDonald told Danielle and Walt of his interview with Shane.

  “So he did kill his grandmother,” Danielle murmured when the chief finished his telling.

  The chief shrugged. “If one can believe ramblings of a madman. And Shane is clearly unhinged. I wondered, any chance you’ve seen Agatha’s spirit around?”

  Danielle shook her head. “No. And when I did press her about her death, she kept insisting her grandson had nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t think that’s entirely accurate,” Walt interrupted.

  Danielle looked to Walt curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “You need to consider Agatha’s age. It’s not unusual for someone of her generation to reject any outside intervention. It reminds me a bit of those ads I keep seeing on television for Las Vegas,” Walt explained.

  Danielle frowned. “Las Vegas?”

  Looking from Danielle to where he imagined Walt stood, MacDonald couldn’t help but wonder what Las Vegas had to do with any of this.

  “You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But in this case, what happens in the family stays in the family.”

  Danielle chuckled and muttered, “I think maybe Chris is right. You really are watching way too much TV.”

  “What is he saying?” MacDonald asked.

  After Danielle recounted Walt’s sentiments, MacDonald nodded. “I think Walt’s right.”

  Danielle glanced over to Walt, who gave her a smug smile.

  Chuckling again, Danielle turned to the chief. “Well, if Shane was responsible for shoving her down those stairs, then I guess that explains why she never told me. But why did you want to know if we’d seen Agatha’s spirit?”

  “I suppose I’d like to know if she really has been haunting him,” MacDonald explained.

  “And if she has, will she stop if he goes to prison?” Danielle wondered aloud.

  “I suspect she will,” Walt said.

  “Will stop or continue?” Danielle asked.

  “Stop,” Walt clarified. “I remember my grandfather always telling me a man needed to step up and admit when he had done something wrong. Perhaps that’s what Agatha was trying to get him to do.”

  Danielle glanced to MacDonald. “Walt thinks she’ll stop. But I think it’s a twisted thing for a grandmother to do to her grandson. Even one who shoved her down the stairs. But considering Agatha’s behavior when she was alive, it’s not like she would win grandmother of the year.”

  “If your insurance company hadn’t already paid Joyce, I imagine they would rethink that settlement,” MacDonald said.

  “This entire insurance thing reminds me of gambling,” Danielle said.

  “Back to another Vegas analogy?” The chief arched his brow. “How so?”

  “Joyce didn’t sue me, but the insurance company was afraid she might, so they approached her with an offer.”

  “So how was it a gamble?” MacDonald asked.

  “They gambled she would probably sue them anyway, so they would give her a settlement now so she couldn’t sue later for a larger amount. Yet now that we know her son caused the accident, I suspect Marlow House would not be found liable. But they already settled, and unless Joyce was in on it with Shane, I don’t see how they could take back the money now.”

  “If you do see Agatha, see if she’ll admit to the haunting. I’m just curious,” the chief said.

  “Hate to say this, Chief, but I hope I won’t be able to help you. Agatha is one of the last spirits I want to run into again.” Danielle visibly shivered. “Anyway, I need to get back to the basement.”

  The chief and Danielle stood.

  “What are you doing in the basement anyway?” the chief asked.

  “I’ve been helping Lily plan her wedding. Walt reminded me this house has been host to two weddings—his parents and his own. There were pictures taken, and I would love to see them. It might give us some ideas.”

  “You’re looking in the basement? Wouldn’t photographs get all moldy down there?” the chief asked.

  “I’ve looked this house up and down. And Walt doesn’t know what happened to them. I plan to see if the museum might have them, but first, I thought I better look through the boxes in the basement. It’s possible they’re there.”

  When Danielle returned to the basement, she started sorting through the boxes Walt had removed from the shelves and placed in the center of the room.

  Standing over the now open boxes, Danielle looked down and shook her head. “I’m not even sure why Aunt Brianna kept this junk.”

  “I doubt she ever saw any of it. I don’t recall her ever visiting Marlow House, even when she visited Frederickport after she came into her inheritance,” Walt reminded her.

  “I suppose you’re right.” Danielle glanced up at Walt. “Are you sure you didn’t put these boxes down here? I mean, when you were still alive?”

  “I recognize some of the items, but I don’t believe I filled any of these boxes.” Walt focused his energy on the boxes remaining on the shelf. A moment later they drifted to the center of the room and settled amongst the other ones on the basement floor.

  Dragging an aged folding chair to the center of the room, Danielle sat down. Leaning over, she pulled a lid off one of the boxes. Reaching into it, she pulled out a yellowed shaving brush. Holding it up, she turned it to and fro, showing it to Walt.

  “Look familiar?” Danielle asked.

  Walt stepped closer and took the shaving brush from Danielle. “Actually it does. This was mine.” He glanced down. “What else is in here?”

  After reaching back into the box, Danielle pulled out what appeared to be yellowed muslin fabric. It unfolded as she held it up, revealing a man’s underwear garment—undershirt and underwear in one piece.

  “Oh, put that away!” Walt snapped, attempting to grab it from Danielle.

  Jerking the vintage garment away from Walt, Danielle giggled. “Oh my gosh, was this your underwear?”

  “Please, Danielle, show a little respect. You would not appreciate me sorting through your lingerie,” he scolded.

  Dropping the garment on the basement floor, Danielle grinned at Walt. “Well, you did ask me what else was in the box.” Glancing briefly at the underwear on the floor, she asked, “Did men really wear that kind of thing back in your day? It kind of reminds me of long johns, but with the sleeves and arms cut off.”

  “Maybe I should be the one going through the boxes. After all, the contents once belonged to me.”

  “Aw, come on, Walt. This is fun. Sorta like going through boxes at a museum.”

  Walt let out a grunt in protest, but stood idly by while Danielle sorted through the rest of the box. She removed a lid from another one and quickly sorted through it—and then another. When she was done, she let out a sigh and looked at Walt.

  “I suppose this answers one question I’ve always had,” she said.

  Tossing the shaving brush into one of the open boxes, Walt summoned a lit cigar. After taking a puff, he asked, “What was that?”

  “I always wondered what happened to your clothes and other personal items. After you were killed, your estate went to Aunt Brianna’s mother, but she never came into the house again, and both her and Roger were killed not long after that. Brianna was just a child, whisked off to boarding school. Either someone who managed her estate decided to clean out the closets and dressers—or she had someone do it later. What they didn’t throw out, they obviously put down here. But where are your photograph albums? Why save your old underwear and shaving stuff, but toss family albums?”

  “And there were th
e wedding dresses,” Walt murmured.

  “Wedding dresses? What wedding dresses?” Danielle asked.

  “After what Lily said about wanting a vintage wedding dress, I was rather hoping the wedding dresses might be down here. I thought perhaps one would fit Lily—with a little alteration. I didn’t mention them earlier because I didn’t want to get her hopes up if the dresses were gone. Which they obviously are.”

  Danielle eyed Walt curiously. “What wedding dresses?”

  “Three of them, actually. My grandmother’s, my mother’s, and Angela’s. I knew the trunk they were originally packed in was missing, but I thought maybe they had been re-boxed and put down here. I’d already gone through all the boxes in the attic, so I knew they weren’t there. Frankly, I hadn’t thought about them since—well, since Angela instructed Katherine to put hers in the trunk with the other two wedding dresses.”

  Danielle let out a sigh. “I would have loved to have seen them. I suppose I could ask Joanne about it. I asked her if she knew what happened to your family photos—but she had no idea. But maybe she knows something about the dresses.”

  “I do have a brief recollection of seeing that trunk—since I died. Unfortunately, the memory is foggy and I can’t recall a time when I realized it was no longer there—not until Lily mentioned wanting a vintage dress.”

  “I suppose it’s possible they ended up at the museum. But I’ve never seen anything like that down there. And I would think, considering the donations I’ve made to the historical society, that someone would have told me about anything that had been removed from Marlow House over the years and donated.”

  “Didn’t you mention the historical society is fairly new?” he asked.

  Danielle nodded. “True. Which would mean any donations to the museum would have been made within the last six years.”

  “Which would mean Joanne would have had to be aware of them. If Brianna instructed someone to donate my old photo albums or even the wedding dresses to the historical society, she would have to know,” Walt insisted. “And to be honest, the only thing I can remember being removed from the house since my death were the beds.”

  “If Joanne doesn’t know anything, I know who might have some answers, Ben Smith.”

  “The older gentleman from the museum? The one who was in the upstairs bathroom when Agatha fell?” Walt asked.

  Danielle nodded. “His father was Brianna’s court-appointed attorney. Maybe he had something to do with cleaning Marlow House and moving some of the items.”

  Danielle found Joanne in the laundry room, folding bath towels. The older woman, dressed in clean blue jeans and a crisply pressed white cotton blouse, greeted Danielle with a smile as she continued to fold the linens.

  “How’s the basement coming? My offer is still open. I’ll be happy to help you get those boxes down,” Joanne told her.

  “Thanks, Joanne. I’m actually finished looking through them; now I have to figure out what I want to do with all that junk!”

  “It’s a bit rude to call my personal belongings junk,” Walt scolded.

  Sneaking Walt an apologetic smile, Danielle turned her attention back to Joanne—who not only couldn’t see or hear Walt, she had no idea he haunted Marlow House.

  “Any luck finding the pictures you were looking for?” Joanne neatly placed a folded towel on a stack of clean ones.

  “No. And I figure, considering how damp it is down there, they would probably have been ruined anyway. But it did make me wonder…when you first started working for my aunt, was there anything in the closets, dressers, and cupboards aside from the stuff that was here when I moved in?”

  Joanne shook her head. “No.”

  “I found what I assume were things that once belonged to Walt Marlow—clothes, toiletry items. I always assumed someone had simply gotten rid of all his things, but it looks like they just cleared out the closets and dressers, and shoved the stuff in boxes and put them in the basement.”

  “I do remember every year Mr. Renton would take an inventory of the house. He’d send someone over here to go through all the rooms.”

  “Ah, could that be the woman with the clipboard?” Walt muttered, recalling one of the inventories.

  “They never went through the boxes—I remember that. They’d just count how many there were on the shelves. If there were the right number of boxes, they would move on to another room. I used to think that was rather careless. Goodness, if there had been something of value in any of the boxes, I could have easily walked off with it. They would never notice. As long as the box was still on the shelf.” Joanne shook her head in disgust at the idea.

  “Well, we both know Mr. Renton never had my aunt’s best interest in mind.”

  “She’s right,” Walt told Danielle. “I remember a woman going through the house. She carried a clipboard where she would write things down as she went through each room. Yet she never looked into any of the boxes—those in the attic or basement. And all those years I followed Joanne around the house as she did her weekly cleaning, I can’t recall her ever touching the boxes other than brushing a feather duster over the tops.”

  “When I was in the basement and came across Walt Marlow’s clothes, I remembered my aunt once mentioning wedding dresses,” Danielle lied. “Something about three wedding dresses stored in the house. Do you know anything about them?”

  Joanne shook her head. “No. I’ve never heard about any wedding dresses. I suppose one of those dresses was the one worn by Angela Marlow?”

  Danielle nodded. “Yes. The two other dresses belonged to Walt Marlow’s mother and grandmother. Umm…at least that’s what my aunt once told me.”

  “I suppose with Lily’s wedding coming up on us so quick, she would love to get her hands on one of those vintage dresses—providing one fit, of course. Except for that dress worn by Angela Marlow. Considering what that wicked woman did to poor Walt Marlow, if you ever find the dress, you should burn it!”

  Walt chuckled. “I’ve always been partial to Joanne. Such a loyal housekeeper.”

  Five

  It felt like summer at Marlow House in spite of the fact summer vacation was coming to an end for many school children. The bed and breakfast clientele tended to be couples—not families or young children. Families seeking a summer retreat typically called on Adam Nichols for a beach house, not a room and a gourmet breakfast with Danielle Boatman.

  What summer did for Marlow House was extend the stay of the customers. Instead of coming for just the weekend, many of the rooms had been booked for a week at a time. By September those weeklong reservations tapered off. However, since it was mid-August, all the rooms at Marlow House were currently occupied in spite of the fact it was Wednesday.

  Breakfast was over, and Joanne was in the kitchen, doing dishes. The guests staying at the B and B had already taken off to spend time on the beach or to explore the local sights.

  “What are you two up to this morning?” Joanne asked when Danielle and Lily walked into the kitchen. The fact they were each carrying a purse made it clear to Joanne they were going somewhere.

  Danielle, her dark hair pulled back into a fishtail braid, wore an aqua blue summer dress—one that Walt had complimented her on earlier that morning. Lily wore her hair down, pulled loosely into a low-hanging ponytail, its wild curls struggling to escape its lace ribbon. Instead of a summer dress, Lily wore mint green pedal pushers and a floral blouse, the color scheme complementing her red hair.

  “I’m off to the museum and then Lily’s meeting me at Old Salts,” Danielle explained as she fumbled in her purse, searching for car keys.

  “Ahh, you’re ordering the wedding cake,” Joanne guessed.

  “I need to at least cross off one item from my wedding to-do list,” Lily said with a sigh. “Maybe two. Ian is meeting me over at the florist’s while Danielle’s at the museum.”

  Joanne looked up from her sink full of dirty pots and pans and smiled at Lily. “How did you get Ian to agree to that?”r />
  Lily grinned. “I reminded him it was his idea to get married, so he needed to help with some of the preparations.”

  Now holding her keys in one hand and purse in the other, Danielle chuckled and said, “Makes it sound like you’ve begrudgingly agreed to the marriage.”

  Lily shrugged. “Well, it sounded funnier when I told him. Ian laughed. I guess you would’ve had to of been there.”

  Millie Samson greeted Danielle when she entered the museum later that morning.

  “I was hoping to talk to Ben. Do you know when he’s going to be here?” Danielle asked Millie as she followed her to the museum gift shop.

  “Ben’s here,” Millie told her. “He’s not on docent duty today, but he’s in the back in the office, catching up on some paperwork for the historical society.”

  Danielle glanced to the doorway leading to the main section of the museum. “Is it okay if I go back?”

  “Certainly,” Millie said with a smile before returning to her own paperwork scattered on the museum store counter.

  As Danielle made her way through the museum, she could see there were no visitors, unless Ben had someone with him in the back office. Of course, that didn’t mean there might not be a spirit lurking nearby—specifically the spirit of silent screen star Eva Thorndike.

  When Danielle reached Eva’s display, she paused a moment and glanced around.

  “Eva,” Danielle whispered, “are you here?”

  There was no response.

  With a shrug, Danielle continued on her way. It wasn’t as if Eva exclusively haunted the museum. A restless spirit, Eva preferred moving from one favorite haunt to another. Her list of favorites did not include Marlow House. In spite of the fact she and Walt had been close friends during their lifetime, Eva thought it best to avoid Walt, should he still harbor deep feelings for her.

  Walt insisted the feelings he now had for Eva were platonic—friendship—nothing more. Although, technically speaking, a ghost was only capable of platonic relationships. Danielle sometimes wondered if perhaps Eva’s reason for staying away wasn’t necessarily because she wanted to spare his feelings, but would rather remember Walt as he had once been—hopelessly in love with her.