The Ghost and the Christmas Spirit

by Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

  “I was hoping you would say that.”

  Mathew and Bud continued their negotiations while Colin looked back out the front window. He spied a middle-aged couple scurrying across the street from a parked car that hadn’t been there a few minutes earlier. As they got closer, recognition dawned.

  “Oh…this is going to be interesting,” Colin muttered. He walked back over to the second aisle, losing himself amongst the crystal and china, listening to what was going to happen next.

  Bud glanced up when the bell over the front door jingled again, and a couple he recognized walked in—Forrest and Marcella Hooper. The couple glanced around the shop as if just browsing. A moment later Marcella spied the Winterborne antique trunk. She gave her husband a little shove with her elbow and then nodded toward it.

  “I’ll send someone to pick it up in the morning,” Bud told Mathew a few minutes later. The two men shook hands again in a parting gesture. It wasn’t until Mathew had left the shop that the Hoopers stepped closer to the counter.

  “Nice seeing you both again,” Bud greeted the Hoopers.

  “After all the rain we’ve had the last few weeks, we thought we’d take advantage of this morning’s sunshine. Who knows how long it will last,” Forrest told him. “Seemed like a good morning to take a walk through town.”

  “I see it arrived,” Marcella said, reaching out and running a hand over the Winterborne trunk.

  “It came in last night, right after closing,” Bud said.

  Forrest glanced at the items littering the counter. “I see you’ve been going through the trunk.”

  Marcella grinned sheepishly at the shop owner. “It was kind of disappointing, wasn’t it?”

  “You mean what was inside?” Bud asked with a laugh.

  “I imagine you’re just going to send the stuff over to the thrift shop,” Forrest said.

  “I was going to when I first unloaded it, but I’ve already sold two items from the trunk.”

  The smile vanished from Marcella’s face. Her eyes quickly surveyed the cluttered counter, taking a silent inventory.

  Forrest stepped up next to Marcella and began frantically sorting through the items.

  Bud frowned. “Is there a problem? Are you looking for something?”

  “It’s not here,” Forrest muttered.

  “What did you sell?” Marcella demanded.

  Confused, Bud looked from Marcella to Forrest. “I don’t understand. What is the problem?”

  “What did you sell?” Marcella repeated.

  “Umm…some ugly shoe with a bunch of flowers glued on it and an old picture frame with a black-and-white photograph. Did you want those for some reason?” he asked.

  Forrest patted his wife’s shoulder and was greeted by her glare. He looked to Bud and said, “We were just a little sentimental about a couple of the things they put in the trunk. We were hoping to buy them from you. I suppose I’m shocked anyone else was interested in them. They are only worth something to us, for sentimental reasons.”

  Bud frowned. “I don’t understand. If you wanted any of those things, why did they add them to the trunk?”

  “They didn’t belong to us,” Marcella reminded him. “It’s not like they would let us just keep them.”

  “Considering what they’re worth, I’m sure you could have just asked the estate lawyer if you could have them. Or at the very least, offer to buy them. We’re not talking any significant money here,” Bud said. “Typically those types of items never make it to auction, they get sent to the thrift shop or tossed out.

  Forrest shook his head. “No. Mrs. Winterborne made very explicit instructions regarding the distribution of her estate. She wanted everything inventoried and sold. Nothing was to be thrown out.”

  “We were told if we wanted anything, we would have to bid on it at auction, like everyone else,” Marcella added.

  “Can I ask who bought the items?” Forrest inquired.

  Bud picked up the business card Danielle had given him. He handed it to Forrest. “Have you ever heard of Marlow House?”

  “Isn’t it that bed and breakfast in Frederickport?” Marcella asked, snatching the card from her husband’s hand.

  “It used to be,” Bud explained.

  Marcella studied the card. It said Marlow House, established 1871, Walt and Danielle Marlow, with an address on Beach Drive and phone number. She glanced up from the card. “This is who bought it? Why in the world were they interested in that junk?”

  Bud shrugged. “They said something about a Christmas gift exchange.”

  “They’re giving those things as Christmas gifts?” Marcella asked in surprise.

  “They said something about it being a white elephant gift exchange. You know, sort of like gag gifts,” Bud explained.

  “What did they pay for them?” Forrest asked.

  After Bud told them the price, he said, “I have all the other stuff they put in the trunk. If you want to look through that, you’re welcome to any of it, considering all that you’ve done.”

  Marcella looked down at the scattered items and shook her head. “No. We have to go.” Still clutching Danielle’s business card in her hand, she headed for the door. When she reached it, she paused and looked back at Forrest, who continued to stand by the counter, looking somewhat confused.

  “Forrest!” she snapped. “Are you coming?”

  Forrest jumped slightly as if jerked from a trance. He said a quick goodbye to the shop owner and hurried to his wife. After they walked out the front door, Colin once again moved out from aisle two and made his way back to the window. He looked outside and watched as the couple stood on the sidewalk in front of the store. Whatever Marcella was saying to her husband, she was doing it while making wild hand gestures and waving her arms, while Forrest stood quietly.

  Bud walked over to the window and joined Colin. The two men silently watched the Hoopers.

  “I wonder what that is all about,” Bud asked. “She seems pretty upset.”

  “Yes…she does…” Colin agreed.

  “I told you, didn’t I tell you?” Marcella repeated, this time punctuating the words with a quick sock to her husband’s shoulder.

  “Ouch! That hurt! Settle down!” He rubbed his injured shoulder and took a step back from his wife.

  “Didn’t I tell you we needed to get over here before the store opened this morning? We should have been the first customers through that door!” Marcella ranted.

  “I had no idea someone would buy those ugly things,” Forrest explained. “And I thought if we rushed over here right when he opened, it would look suspicious. We both agreed we needed to act casual about the whole thing.”

  “Yeah, well, and what good did that do us?”

  “All is not lost. We know who has them,” Forrest reminded her. “I’m sure we can convince the Marlows to sell it to us.”

  “And if they refuse?” Marcella asked.

  “Everything has a price,” he reminded her.

  Marcella rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. And just how would that look? It would look suspicious, that’s how it would look.”

  “Then we appeal to their generosity. We can tell them what we told Bud, that it’s sentimental. Who knows, maybe they’ll just give it to us. From what I hear, those Marlows are loaded.”

  “And rich people aren’t rich from generosity,” Marcella snapped. “If they refuse to let us buy it back, we’re not going to be able to entice them with money—considering who they are.”

  “Then we break in and take it,” Forrest declared.

  Marcella paused and asked in a calmer voice, “Are you serious?”

  “Certainly. I didn’t come all this way to give up now. If they don’t accept our offer, then we come back and figure out some way to take it.”

  Marcella shook her head. “No. Don’t be foolish. If they refuse to sell it to us and then it goes missing, they’ll know who took it. I say we steal it and don’t even ask them if they will sell it to us.”

>   “You don’t even want to try asking them if we can buy it?” he asked. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t just give it to us if we explained we wanted it for sentimental reasons. They just bought it to use as some punchline in a joke.”

  “Tell me, Forrest, if we had asked Eloise to give us something that she had picked up at a yard sale, because we had some sentimental attachment to it, would she have given it—or even sold it to us for the same price that she bought it for?”

  “No.”

  Marcella nodded stubbornly. “Exactly. I think we should go over to Frederickport, stake out the place. We need to get in there and out—before they give the items away.”

  Three

  Marcella absently twisted a long strand of her gray hair as she looked out the passenger window and watched the ocean scenery roll by. They drove down the highway, heading for Frederickport. She hadn’t exchanged a single word with her husband since leaving Astoria, lost in her own private thoughts.

  Glancing briefly over her shoulder into the back seat, Marcella noted the suitcases and then looked back out the side window. Their bags had been packed and in the car even before going to the Mermaid Curio that morning. They had checked out of the room they had been renting for the past week—renting since they had been forced to move out of the Winterborne estate. Of course, they could not very well stay there now, it was up for sale and the executor felt it would show better without the Hoopers underfoot. The Winterborne estate had sucked all it needed from them and had practically kicked them to the curb. So much for loyalty, Marcella thought.

  Forrest broke the silence. “We need a plan.”

  Marcella released her lock of hair. It fell to her shoulder and began to untwist. She looked at her husband and frowned. “I thought we had a plan. Steal what we want.”

  “Have you ever broken into a house before?” Forrest asked.

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Exactly. Which is why we can’t rush this. It sounds like we have a few days. Which means we have time to come up with a plan. I don’t want to find myself in jail.”

  “Even if we get caught, I seriously doubt we will actually get thrown into jail. For one thing, neither of us has a record. And as far as anyone knows, it’s practically worthless—five dollars at best. After all, isn’t that what Bud said he got for it? The most we would get is a slap on the wrist.”

  “Maybe that is true, but if we get arrested, it also means we failed to get it back. We need to succeed and then leave Oregon, like we initially planned.”

  Marcella silently studied Forrest as he looked down the highway, his hands firmly on the steering wheel. After a moment she nodded and said, “Yeah, you’re right. Do you have any ideas?”

  “First, I say we find Marlow House, get the lay of the land—figure out the best way to get in and out,” Forrest began. “Then we should probably find someplace to stay for a few days.”

  “It’s really too bad Marlow House is no longer a bed and breakfast. We could just check in there. It would make everything so much easier.”

  With the help of the GPS on Marcella’s cellphone, they were able to drive straight to Marlow House. Forrest pulled up in front of the property and parked a moment, the motor still running. They looked up to the impressive Second Empire–style Victorian house with its mansard roofline. No blinds were drawn on the dormer windows on what appeared to be the attic or third floor. A black cat sat on the windowsill, looking down at the street. Blinds were also open on one of the windows on the first floor, revealing a towering Christmas tree, its limbs heavy with shiny red and gold balls. An old-fashioned red-bowed Christmas wreath hung on the front door, while Christmas lights draped festively below the roofline.

  “That’s obviously it,” Marcella said, nodding to the large sign in front of the house saying Marlow House, along with the date it was founded.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone is home,” Forrest said.

  “They probably aren’t back from Astoria yet,” Marcella suggested. “But then again, according to the map, an alley runs behind the house, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a garage back there. Just because there are no cars parked out front or in that side driveway doesn’t mean no one is in the house.”

  Forrest put the car in gear. “Let’s go park at the pier and walk back.” He pulled out in the street and turned the car around, heading south.

  “Why the pier?” Marcella asked.

  “Time to play tourist. Park down at the pier, walk back up to Marlow House, look around.”

  “Okay. But I want to lock our suitcases in the trunk. Everything we own is in them,” Marcella said.

  Pearl Huckabee stood in front of her house, looking up at the Christmas lights she’d hired a handyman to hang several weeks earlier. She pulled the brim of her cloche hat outward to screen out some of the sun while she looked up to one section of her roofline, where some of the hooks appeared to have come out, leaving a section of the strand dangling.

  She cursed under her breath. “He’s just going to have to come back and fix it,” she muttered. “And he’d better not think I’m going to pay him another dime!”

  If she were a younger woman, she would have hung the lights herself, but considering she was past middle age, she couldn’t afford to break something; after all, she lived alone. While she was in fairly good shape for a woman her age, trim and fit, she didn’t want to be careless. But fixing a few hooks was not the same as hanging the entire strand, and if he expected to be paid for coming back, then she would just fix it herself, Pearl thought.

  She readjusted the hat on her head of gray hair and walked up to her front porch and sat down on a patio chair. Leaning back, she glanced up and down her street. She knew many of her neighbors on Beach Drive considered her a newcomer. Her next-door neighbor on the north side was Danielle Marlow, who Pearl believed was treated like Frederickport royalty. But Danielle Marlow hadn’t even lived on Beach Drive for four years—or even in Oregon for that matter. She was only a Marlow due to the fact she had married a distant cousin of Walt Marlow, whose grandfather had founded the town in 1870.

  According to what Pearl had heard around town, Walt Marlow didn’t have two nickels to rub together when he had married Danielle. Perhaps the two strutted around the neighborhood like theirs was some great romance, but Pearl knew the truth. Walt Marlow married Danielle for the money—as a way to get his hands on some of the family fortune she had managed to cheat from its rightful heirs. At least, that was what Pearl believed.

  Of course, Pearl suspected Walt had some money now, although she didn’t believe he had as much as people claimed. Sure, he had written a book and it made it to the New York Times bestseller list. But it was only one book. While people talked about how it was being made into a movie, she certainly hadn’t heard anything of the movie actually getting made. Pearl was fairly certain the only reason Walt Marlow managed to get the book published in the first place was due to the friendship his wife had with Jon Altar. It was probably another reason Walt married the woman.

  Jon Altar was actually the pen name for Ian Bartley. Ian and his wife, Lily, lived in the house across the street. From what Pearl knew, Ian had moved into the house around the same time Danielle had moved to town. When Danielle moved to Frederickport, she had brought along her best friend, Lily, who eventually married Ian. The pair had recently had a baby, and Pearl did not look forward to the child causing mischief in the neighborhood when it got older, as children tended to do.

  The neighbor to the south of Pearl was Heather Donovan, a snotty little thirtysomething who reminded Pearl of Wednesday from The Addams Family. She was thick as thieves with the Marlow and Bartley bunch, along with that other fellow, Chris Johnson, who lived up the street and had that vicious pit bull. As far as Pearl was concerned, pit bulls should be outlawed. Pearl didn’t know when Chris and Heather had moved to Frederickport, but she had heard it was sometime after Danielle had moved to town.

  Pearl believ
ed this place of the world belonged more to her than any of the others. Years before she bought her house, it had belonged to her grandmother. She had spent her childhood visiting her grandmother at the beach house, and for her it had always been home. As far as she was concerned, all the others were outsiders—interlopers.

  She sat quietly on the porch, letting her mind wander, when she realized she had forgotten to latch her front gate. With a sigh, she reluctantly stood up and started down her walkway toward the street. Just as she reached the sidewalk, she spied a couple coming from the direction of the pier.

  They appeared to be about her age. Pearl thought the woman wore her hair entirely too long for someone her age. Not that Pearl felt old, but she was no teenager. The man by her side wore glasses, a mustache and a baseball cap on his head. He was a slender man and Pearl wondered if the hat concealed a bald or balding head. She believed most men who wore hats did so to conceal a lack of hair. Of course, Walt Marlow was the exception. He had a healthy head of dark hair, but always seemed to be wearing a fedora when out and about.

  “Good day,” the man said cheerfully as they approached.

  “Hello,” Pearl returned. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”

  The man and woman stopped in front of Pearl’s gate.

  “No, we’re just visiting for the holidays,” the woman said. “You have such a lovely street.”

  “Thank you. I think so.” Pearl smiled broadly.

  The woman motioned to the house next door. “I read that house used to be a bed and breakfast.”

  “Well, it’s not anymore,” Pearl snapped.

  “That’s too bad,” the man said. “It looks like a nice place to stay.”

  Pearl shook her head. “You can’t be running a business in a residential area.”

  “I guess not,” the woman muttered.

  “My wife was reading a little about the local history on our drive this morning. Is it really true there’s a tunnel that runs under your street?”