The Ghost and the Leprechaun (Haunting Danielle Book 12)

by Bobbi Holmes

  “What exactly?” Wilson asked.

  “My husband’s grandmother left him this bracelet. It’s supposed to be worth something like twenty thousand bucks. He kept it in the safe deposit box. When things started going in the toilet, he tried selling it. He took it out of the bank a couple months ago, but he hasn’t been able to find a buyer. Not someone who is willing to pay what he believes it’s worth.”

  “So he lied about it being in the safe deposit box?” Wilson asked.

  She nodded. “The bracelet is insured. We had it appraised back when he inherited it. When he couldn’t sell it, he knew if he reported it stolen and tried to collect the insurance, someone would look into our current finances and the insurance company might investigate him for insurance fraud. But when he heard Danielle Boatman’s coins were stolen from a safe deposit box at the bank, he figured this was his chance. I mean, if someone took her gold, who’s to say they didn’t take the bracelet? We already had a safe deposit box there.”

  “That’s cold.” Thomas grimaced after Wilson recounted the interview with Abby Dawson. “She threw her husband under the bus.” The two agents sat at a booth in Lucy’s Diner, drinking coffee.

  “I suspect that marriage had more than just money problems.” Wilson dumped sugar in his coffee.

  “But still, that’s pretty harsh.”

  Wilson stirred his coffee with a knife. “Oh, come on. Are you telling me if your wife was committing insurance fraud, you would just sit back and do nothing?”

  “I’d hope I would be able to talk her out of it. And if not, give her an ultimatum, let her know I wasn’t going to be party to something like that.” Thomas picked up his coffee cup.

  “According to Dawson, she had no clue what her husband was up to. He came home, told her someone had stolen the bracelet, and when she questioned him—because she knew it wasn’t at the bank—he insisted he had put it back without her knowledge and that it had been stolen.”

  “That sounds like he knew she wasn’t going to go along with it.” Thomas sipped his coffee.

  “Unfortunately for him, she found where he had stashed it.”

  “In that case, I don’t blame her. It was too late to reason with him. She could have gotten hurt.”

  “She was obviously worried about that, considering she requested a police escort to get her things.”

  Thomas shook his head. “Okay, not cold. She was in survival mode.”

  “Which brings me to another matter,” Wilson announced.

  “What’s that?”

  “Danielle Boatman. I was always skeptical of Ron Dawson’s claim. But now we know he was lying. I’m more and more convinced Danielle Boatman never put those coins in her safe deposit box.”

  “You don’t think the coins were stolen?” Thomas asked.

  “No. There is nothing on any of those surveillance cameras we reviewed, aside from that one lens moving. And that could have occurred because of some seismic shift. Or maybe it’s just an old building, or a wobbly camera and draft from the heating vent. One thing we do know, none of those cameras caught someone taking the coins from the building.”

  “So what is Boatman’s motive?” Thomas asked.

  “Money, of course.”

  “But they weren’t insured,” Thomas reminded him. “Even if Boatman intends to shake down the bank, why not insure the coins before pulling something like this off?”

  “What, and have the insurance company take a closer look? They aren’t going to simply pay off a claim like this—not just because a bank employee claims the box was heavier before.”

  “Then why?”

  “A million-dollar tax write-off. Pretty sweet deduction, and she gets to keep her coins. And not having insurance makes her look all the more innocent.” Wilson picked up his coffee cup. Before taking a drink, he added, “I think we need to keep a closer eye on Ms. Boatman. Maybe she’ll lead us to her coins.”

  Thirty-One

  Later Friday morning, Danielle reluctantly returned to the Marymoor site. This time, she went alone. Parked near the section of chain-link fence boasting the no-trespassing sign, she sat in her car, hands still on the steering wheel, ignition turned off, staring out the window. She didn’t see any spirits, but she knew they were there—she could feel them.

  Danielle wanted to find Sean Sullivan. She would try his grave site when she was done here, but since this was the street where she had last seen him, this was where she decided to begin. Taking a deep breath and steeling her courage, she exited the car. Just as she slammed her car door shut, an apparition appeared behind the fence—it was the nurse she had talked to the last time she had been here.

  “You again,” Molly said.

  “Hello, Molly, I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

  Molly stared at Danielle a moment and then nodded. “What did you want to ask?”

  “What did you mean when you said Sean Sullivan had moved on?”

  Molly stepped closer to the fence. “He didn’t like it here, so he left. But sometimes he comes back. He came back yesterday after you were here.”

  “Molly, do you believe Sean is a leprechaun?”

  Molly shrugged. “Sean believes it.”

  “Is it because Paddy told him he was?”

  Molly smiled. “How did you know that?”

  “I heard Paddy was a jokester. He liked to tell people he was a leprechaun.”

  “Paddy left to be with his wife. He told Sean it was now his responsibility to take over the duties of a leprechaun. That he had to stand guard over their gold.”

  “Gold? What gold?” Danielle asked.

  “I don’t know. You’ll need to ask Sean.” Molly disappeared.

  “Molly!” Danielle shouted, looking around for any signs of the spirit.

  “Drat,” Danielle muttered as she abruptly turned from the fence to her car—and almost ran into the spirit of Sean Sullivan. Startled, Danielle let out a gasp, but quickly regained her composure.

  “What are you doing here?” Sean asked angrily.

  “I’m looking for you.”

  He narrowed his eyes and took one step back. “You want three wishes, don’t you?”

  “No, Sean, I don’t want three wishes. I just want to talk to you.”

  He took another step back. “You’re trying to trick me!”

  “Sean, can I please show you a picture?”

  He frowned. “What picture?”

  “It’s in my shirt pocket.” Moving slowly so as not to startle the confused spirit, Danielle slipped a photograph from her pocket. It was a picture of Katherine O’Malley, one she had found in the box Melony had brought her. Holding the picture up, she showed it to Sean.

  “Who is that?” Sean asked.

  “Take a closer look.”

  Hesitantly, Sean stepped closer to Danielle and looked at the photograph.

  “It’s Katherine O’Malley. Do you remember Katherine? You were close once. You knew each other as children.”

  Sean leaned toward the photograph. When his eyes widened and he let out a gasp, Danielle knew he recognized the woman in the picture.

  “Katherine,” he said in a hushed whisper, his gaze still focused on the photograph. The picture floated from Danielle’s hand to Sean’s as he continued to stare at it. He whispered, “You never visited me. I thought you would come. But you never did.”

  “She couldn’t, Sean. She couldn’t come to see you while you were at Marymoor,” Danielle said in a soft voice.

  He looked up to Danielle and frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “She died, Sean. I’m sorry to have to tell you that. But Katherine died not long after you went into Marymoor.”

  Sean looked at the photograph again and shook his head. “He told me she wasn’t real. But there she is. I knew it.”

  “Who told you Katherine wasn’t real?”

  “Paddy. I waited for her. Each day I waited. Paddy told me I’d made her up, that Katherine was a figment of my imagination
…but here she is.”

  “Was Paddy with you at Marymoor?” Danielle asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. He told me that someday he would get me out. And he did.”

  “You got sick first, didn’t you, Sean?”

  Looking up from the photograph again, Sean frowned. “How did you know?”

  “You got sick at Marymoor, so sick, and then you weren’t sick anymore, and you left with Paddy.”

  “He said leprechauns had to stay together.”

  “He told you, you were a leprechaun, didn’t he?”

  The photograph, now hanging in midair in front of Sean, suddenly dropped, falling to the ground. Rubbing his temple, Sean shook his head in denial. “You’re confusing me.”

  “Sean, I want you to listen very carefully to me. Listen, and deep down you’ll recognize the words as the truth. Your name is Sean Sullivan, and from the time you were a small child, you saw things other people couldn’t. You saw your grandmother after she died.”

  Rubbing his temple harder, he frantically shook his head. “No…no…”

  “You weren’t crazy. You and I are the same. I can see spirits too. Paddy Fitzpatrick was not a leprechaun. He was a spirit of a man who followed his family to this town. He liked to play jokes on people, and since you could see him, he attached himself to you.”

  “No…no…” Sean turned away from Danielle, his back now to her.

  “I’m pretty sure Paddy has finally moved on. I imagine he moved on a long time ago, after his wife died. But he left you here, confused.”

  It could have been her words, or perhaps it was the photograph of Katherine O’Malley, or maybe it was the combination of the two, but Sean Sullivan’s perception was beginning to shift, and just as with Walt and the other spirits Danielle had helped along the way, reality was coming into focus, and he was able to see what had been hidden to him for almost eighty years.

  Danielle sat with Sean at his grave site in the Marymoor section of the Frederickport Cemetery. It was almost noon, and the sun was shining brightly overhead. Danielle was glad she had said her final goodbyes to the Hortons before leaving that morning. Otherwise, she would be feeling guilty about staying away so long. But she couldn’t leave Sean yet.

  He was no longer dressed as a leprechaun. His choice of clothes reminded her of what a laborer might have worn in the twenties. In his hand he fiddled with what looked like a vintage newsboy’s hat. The beard he had worn when she had first seen him had also disappeared.

  “I had gone over to talk to Katherine,” Sean explained, looking down at the hat in his hands. “She just couldn’t see Roger for what he really was. He showed up, we argued, and I slugged him right in the chin. He went down. Katherine was screaming at me, and I left.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Roger’s buddy Hal Tucker showed up, arrested me. Next thing I know, I’m committed to Marymoor. I suppose it didn’t help that I admitted to seeing Paddy.”

  “You never saw Katherine after the day you hit Roger?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I figured she had to know what had happened to me. We’d been friends since we were kids. I couldn’t imagine she would abandon me. I thought for sure she would come to see me, at least.” Sean looked up at Danielle. “What happened to her?”

  “She married Roger not long after you were committed. But before they left on their honeymoon, something happened. She shot and killed Roger, and she fell down the stairs. She died several days later.”

  “Why did she shoot him?”

  Danielle shook her head. “I have no idea. I can only speculate. I suppose she may have realized her mistake.”

  “What happened to little Bri?”

  “The court appointed an attorney to oversee her estate. She was sent to a private boarding school, and when she came of age, she came into her inheritance—the money and property her mother had inherited from Walt Marlow.”

  “I recognized Walt Marlow; I knew him, but I didn’t know from where—or exactly who he was. He’s like me; he’s a ghost now, isn’t he?”

  Danielle nodded. “Yes. But unlike you, he’s trapped in Marlow House. At least, until he decides to move on.”

  “Move on?”

  “Something you’ll be able to do now. But I hope you’ll wait until I ask you a few more questions.”

  “Can I ask you a question first?”

  Danielle smiled. “Yes.”

  “Why are you at Marlow House?”

  “When Brianna grew up, she married my grandfather’s brother. They traveled all over the world. They didn’t have kids, but I believe she was happy. When she died, she left me her estate.”

  Sean smiled. “I’m glad it worked out for Brianna. But I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to save Katherine.”

  “Sean, you never came here before, have you?”

  “The cemetery? No. I told you this was the first time I’d seen my grave.”

  “Had you come here, you might have seen Katherine’s spirit. She refused to move on until Brianna could go with her. Her spirit lingered here at the cemetery. But she moved on not long after Aunt Brianna passed.”

  “You mean I missed her?”

  “You’ll see her again, and soon, if you choose to go. But like I said, I’d like you to answer a few questions for me first.”

  Sean flipped the hat up, tossing it atop his mop of strawberry blond hair. Grabbing its bill, he tilted it to and fro, fitting it to his head. “I owe you a debt of gratitude for helping me see clearly again. What do you want to ask me?”

  “First, I would like to know who Brianna’s father was. Walt told me he thought you knew.”

  “Yes, I knew. She worked for his family; he was a married man. Very influential, very wealthy. He seduced her. But she refused to go to him and demand he help take care of Brianna. She made me promise to never tell him the baby was his.”

  “He didn’t know?”

  Sean shook his head. “No. She left his employment after she realized she was pregnant. And she made me promise that if he ever found out she had had a child, she didn’t want him to know it was his.”

  “Did he find out she had a baby?”

  “I’d be surprised if he didn’t know. But they ran in different circles, and if he did find out, he never showed any interest in Brianna or finding out if he was the father.”

  “I assumed he knew about the baby. Walt overheard you and Katherine arguing once about the father. You were angry that he wouldn’t take responsibility.”

  Sean sighed. “Katherine and I argued a lot about it. But Walt Marlow misunderstood. I wanted her to go to him, demand he help her. The fact was, Katherine always said he didn’t know, but I wasn’t certain that was true.”

  “What was the man’s name?”

  When Sean gave the man’s name, Danielle’s eyes widened. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, why? Do you know who that is?”

  “Well, I know who he was. Holy crap.”

  “What else did you want to ask me?”

  “First, I need to find some way to process what you just told me.” She looked at Sean. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. He was the father. What else did you want to know?”

  After a moment, Danielle said, “About the gold. Why did you think it was yours? Do you know where it is?”

  Sean smiled. “It’s interesting how everything is so crystal clear now. Had you asked me that question yesterday, the answer would be all muddled in my brain.”

  “Then tell me, please, what you know about the gold.”

  “After I died—funny how I remember that now, being so sick in my bed at Marymoor and then waking up and no longer feeling pain. Paddy was waiting for me; he said we had to leave. But I just wanted to find Katherine.”

  “You hadn’t bought into being a leprechaun yet, had you?”

  He shook his head. “No. Paddy followed me to Marlow House; I wanted to find Katherine. I went through all the rooms, and it was like no one lived there anymore.
”

  “Walt was dead by then. No one was living at the house.”

  Sean nodded. “I saw Walt when I was there. I knew he was dead. But I didn’t understand that I was dead. So I left quickly so he wouldn’t see me. Paddy was waiting for me outside and convinced me to go into the Hemming house and look around. No one was living there either.”

  “That was after George Hemming and his family moved out. I remember Marie saying it was difficult for her father to stay in the house, since he was the one who had found Walt hanging in the attic.”

  “Paddy and I stayed at the Hemming house. We found the gold coins hidden there. It convinced me Paddy was right, we were leprechauns, and I had to protect my gold. Paddy eventually left. Over time new people moved in. It was never a problem until the man with the dog moved in. The dog could see me.”

  “Ian and Sadie,” Danielle said.

  “I left, returned to Marymoor. I would come and go and occasionally returned to the Hemming house to check on the gold.”

  “Do you know where the gold is now?”

  Sean smiled up at Danielle. “Yes. Would you like me to take you to it?”

  Thirty-Two

  From the passenger seat of the parked black sedan, Special Agent Thomas peered through the binoculars.

  “What is she doing?” Wilson asked from the driver’s seat.

  “She’s just sitting there next to the grave. It looks like she’s talking.”

  “I wonder whose grave it is. Not unusual for people to visit a grave site and talk to whoever is buried there.”

  “It looks like the older section of the cemetery,” Thomas explained, still looking through the binoculars.

  “The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced Boatman has that gold.”

  Thomas lowered the binoculars and turned to his partner. “Maybe. But the chances of her actually leading us to the gold today are slim to none.”

  Determined, Wilson shook his head. “I just have this gut feeling we need to stick with her today.”