Charity Shop Haunted Mysteries

by Katherine Hayton

“If her body was buried, and the police had closed the case, I’m calling it.”

  Emily poked at her salad, spearing a cherry tomato on her fork. “Are you sure people won’t just laugh at us?”

  “Not at all. They laugh at me all the time, and I’ve survived so far. Besides, there’s a bloke down the road at Pinetar Beach who's hung out his shingle as a wizard for hire. If he can do that, I’m sure we’ll be fine to get our operation off the ground.”

  They continued to talk as they finished off their meals. By the time Emily walked back into the charity shop, she was flushed with excitement at the possibilities.

  Walking up the path to her front door that evening, she wondered how it would be the first time somebody openly laughed at what she was doing. A jolt of anxiety spiked up her back, then Emily shook her head.

  “It can’t be any worse than when the police laughed in my face,” she whispered.

  True enough. Her smile was back in place as she walked through to the lounge… and stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Peanut?”

  The cat lay curled on the cushion where Emily most liked to sit. His sides moved up and down with the rhythm of his breathing. At first glance, he appeared so much like his live self that she clutched a hand to her chest. Then, she saw the way his tail disappeared into the throw cushion.

  Ghost cat.

  The perfect pet for somebody who might soon struggle to look after herself, let alone another living being.

  With cautious movements, Emily sat on the sofa and reached out to stroke Peanut’s head. The faintest sensation of touch—a ghostly echo of the real thing—ran through her hand. After a moment, the cat yawned and looked sleepily at his new mistress.

  “Thank you,” Emily whispered.

  Chances were that Cynthia had been and gone long ago, but if she was still close enough to hear, Emily wanted her to know she was grateful.

  “Thank you for everything, Mrs Pettigrew.”

  Chapter One

  Emily Curtis stood up, her knees popping like firecrackers, then lost her balance and collapsed. She broke into giggles as Maude, a white English Bulldog with questionable hygiene, launched at her and covered her face with long licks of her rough tongue.

  “Enough,” she called out, her nose full of dog. She snorted as Maude then bumped her snout into the crease between her shoulder and ear. With her pug nose, the bulldog’s breathing was loud at the best of times. Close up to Emily’s ear, it sounded like a pair of bellows wet from the rain.

  “Do you need a hand?” Gregory asked, towering above her. His right eyebrow launched upwards but given its speed, the conversation would have moved on before it quite got where it was going.

  “No. Just back up a little, Maude, and I’ll try that again.”

  This time, when Emily stood, her knees offered the same sound effect, but momentum won the fight against gravity. “Remind me not to kneel again,” she said, stretching out one leg, then the other, to get them working. “All the physio in the world won’t compete with age.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Agnes Myrtle said as she came into the room holding an old filigree lamp. “I’ve got twenty years on you, and I can still kneel just fine when I’m gardening.”

  “It’s not the kneeling. It’s the getting back up.”

  The two women smiled at each other, then Agnes gave a sigh and extended the light to Emily. “Is this worth anything? My father was obsessed with gold filigree and this is one of the better examples he bought home from overseas.”

  Overseas meant the second world war. Although Emily had only met the woman for the first time that day, she’d already heard many tales of Agnes’s dad’s adventures fighting in Africa. Although the woman hadn’t been born until a few years after he returned, the conflict had featured large in her childhood home life.

  “It’s in beautiful shape,” Emily said, taking the lamp and examining it from all angles. “No cracks or discolouration.”

  “Is that the nice way of saying it’s worthless?”

  “Valueless, not worthless.” Emily handed it back. “If it means something to you, I’d recommend you keep it. If not, we’ll be able to get a small sum at auction.”

  Agnes stroked the old fabric of the shade and turned the body of the object toward the window to catch the sun. “I’ll leave it in the maybe pile. Until I get all the definitely going stuff moved into the unit, I won’t know if I’ve got room spare or not.”

  Gregory and Emily were packing up Agnes’s life worth of possessions, preparatory to moving her into the local retirement home and hospital complex, Stoneybrook Acres. The charity shop offered the service in return for the donation of goods not able to fit into the smaller space.

  Although their help was warranted, the back of Emily’s neck tingled as she examined treasured objects and offered a verdict under the gaze of the owner. She might be an avid watcher of Antique’s Roadshow, but it hadn’t prepared her for the emotional turmoil of delivering her appraisal, knowing it might hurt.

  Opening boxes and examining their contents in the airless room above the charity shop was relaxing in comparison.

  “I’ll take these out to the car,” Gregory announced, pulling a box off the kitchen bench. “The first test will be fitting them into your little hatchback. If we can squeeze in all these and fit a driver, it’ll be a miracle.”

  Emily wrinkled her nose as the young man sloped out to her vehicle. She wanted to retort her little vehicle was much roomier than his non-existent one but was wary of discussing cars. Being unable to afford one while at university had led Gregory onto a path decidedly not straight and narrow.

  One more jibe from him, and she couldn’t be held responsible though. Even a nice old woman like herself had a limit.

  “Maude, get your nose out of there,” Agnes scolded from the kitchen. “How’s it going to look when your new family gets here if you’ve coated your muzzle in icing sugar?”

  The dog sneezed and Emily resisted the urge to poke her head around the corner and view the unfolding drama. The woman might hide it well, but there was a catch in Agnes’s voice as she spoke to her beloved pet. The retirement community didn’t allow the residents to have dogs. After eight years of keeping her mistress company, Maude was about to be rehoused.

  “One down,” Gregory said as he walked back inside the house. He flicked his blond fringe back from his hazel eyes and scanned the room as though entering for the first time.

  Over the months Emily had worked with him, she’d grown used to the faint air of puzzlement that accompanied the young man into every situation. The slowest moving person she’d ever met, it had taken her a while to realise Gregory wasn’t lazy. He just moved to a different rhythm.

  The confused expression lifted, as it always did, and he sauntered toward the next box in line.

  “Be extra careful with that one,” Emily said with a frown. “It’s got Agnes’s best treasures.”

  Treasure was the word Agnes had been using and Emily had adopted it over the last few hours. It fitted much better than possessions or goods. The emotional attachment the woman had to the different objects in her house exposed a sentimentality far higher than Emily was used to.

  She didn’t want to imagine how it must feel to the woman to give up such belongings but couldn’t stop herself. The pain written across Agnes’s face appeared akin to stripping skin from flesh.

  Every item had been a gift or a hand-me-down, an inheritance from every relative and friend who’d loomed large in the woman’s life. To tear her apart from these items stuffed full of emotional memories was cruel.

  Emily shivered, though she stood in a patch of warm sunlight.

  Soon it might be her turn to lose her home and her possessions. She didn’t want to feel the loss any sooner than necessary, but her empathy kept bubbling up to the surface, wanting to take part.

  At least a retirement facility couldn’t object to her cat, Peanut. A ghost pet flew under the radar of
even the most intense scrutiny.

  “There you go,” Agnes told Maude. “All clean again. Now, don’t you go getting into any more trouble before your new family arrives. I’ve got enough to do without chasing after you every minute.”

  Emily listened as the dog paced the length of the kitchen, her nails clicking off the tiled surface. Perhaps she should transport the first load of boxes to the retirement village with Gregory now and let Agnes have alone-time with her dog.

  As though her thought had triggered the question, Agnes walked into the lounge with a worried expression. “I wonder if I should give Maude’s new family a call. They’re running a few minutes late.”

  “They might be stuck in traffic somewhere,” Emily said. “Did you say they had children?”

  Agnes nodded. “Two daughters. Maude is going to love having children to run around with after years of being stuck with a slowcoach.” She bent and wrinkled her nose at the dog who stared back with an adoring expression. To Emily, it didn’t appear Maude wanted any changes.

  “If they’ve got children, you can expect them to run late.” Emily smiled as she thought of the multitude of families who’d missed appointments in her old diary.

  As an accountant, she’d billed by the minute whether the client turned up for their appointment or not. To give back to the community, though, she’d volunteered time and budget advice at the local citizen’s advice bureau.

  A lot of those scheduled meetings had been pushed back as the realities of organising a family into a car for the journey took a toll. Harried parents spending every last cent on their beloved progeny were a common sight.

  At the start of Emily’s career, two full-time jobs had always supplied an adequate lifestyle. By the end, the ridiculous housing market had squeezed even those couples down a bracket.

  “I hope she forgives me,” Agnes said, her voice so thick with tears it took Emily a moment to untangle the words.

  “Maude?”

  The older woman nodded. “When I picked her up from the dog pound, I said I’d take care of her for as long as I had breath in my body. And now…”

  Emily turned away. Her stomach was already a tight knot of tension. She didn’t want to watch Agnes cry. “Now, she’s moving into a new place with a loving family and she’ll still remember you and be grateful every day of her life.”

  Maude pulled away from Agnes and trotted into the kitchen, displaying the tight swirl of her tail. Again, her toenails clacked on the tiles as she paced back and forth in the room.

  Emily followed the dog and when Maude passed by on one of her patrol circuits, gave her a pat. A quiver ran through her hand—the dog shaking. The poor thing must know something was happening. Like a baby fussing when their mother is upset, the dog paced and shook while her owner cried.

  She wanted to be anywhere but inside the household. Gregory stood out by her car, chatting on his phone to somebody. He was either oblivious to the situation indoors or escaping it.

  Lucky thing.

  Pain arced through Emily’s body. Not the physical kind, she was used to that. Following a car accident the year before, she’d found her limits of endurance were far higher than she’d ever imagined. This was an emotional pain, tied up with fear.

  Fear that in a year’s time, or two, it might be her sorting through her possessions and making hard choices. Downsizing her life because of need, not want.

  “What else do you know about the family?” Emily asked, wanting to fill the silence to stop her thoughts spiralling. “How d’you meet them?”

  Agnes moved closer to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. “I haven’t met them, not in person. The vet recommended I put an ad up on TradeMe and see if anyone responded. The Murchison’s seemed the keenest of all the enquiries I got.”

  Emily nodded. TradeMe was the New Zealand equivalent of eBay or Craigslist. Although mostly used to sell second-hand goods, services or specialised goods could also be negotiated.

  “Did you have a lot of responses?”

  “A dozen emails on the first day and a few came through in the week following.” Agnes sighed and clicked her fingers. Maude came running over to sit obediently by her side. “I like the idea of them having children for her to play with. And they had a really big back yard.”

  She glanced out the kitchen window at the small contained area at the back of her section. The house was part of a subdivided section where the original quarter acre now supported four houses with varying amounts of land.

  From what Emily had seen from peering up the driveway, Agnes had the smallest parcel of the lot.

  “It sounds ideal. I wonder if they’ll let you visit when you’re settled in your place.”

  Agnes gave a derisive snort. “Not likely. I’m shifting into the home because I can’t take care of everything myself, anymore. They took my driver’s license off me at the last test, and I doubt the buses will run very close.”

  Emily was about to suggest the family might bring Maude to visit her, then closed her mouth with the thought trapped on the inside of her lips. It wasn’t her place to negotiate and to suggest such a thing might just bring hope where there was none.

  “Did you finish up in the bedroom?” she asked instead. “Gregory’s pretending very hard to be busy outside, but he’s not. I can call him in if you still need a hand.”

  “No, I’m done. It’s just all the old bedding in there now to be got rid of.” Agnes shook her head. “I tried calling the Sallies about the bed since it’s too big for your store, but they wouldn’t take it.”

  “Yeah.” Emily had heard the same report a few times, lately. “People just like to buy some things brand new.”

  Agnes clicked her tongue. “When I was a girl, you saved money where you could. I understand about the mattress”—she screwed her nose up—“that’s just nasty, but I don’t know what folks think they’re going to catch off the frame. It’s just wood.”

  “We’re packed to go whenever you’re ready,” Gregory said as he walked inside. “I’ve loaded the boxes to go to the home, into the car.”

  “I might give the family a call,” Agnes said, wetting her lips and glancing at her watch. “If they were just running late, I’d expect they’d have texted or phoned by now.”

  “Is that for Maude?” Gregory asked, patting his thighs to encourage the dog to jump up on him.

  Emily winced. His jeans were dark indigo. Maude’s white hairs would stand out like small beacons.

  “There’s somebody now,” she said, hearing the unmistakable sound of a car slowing. She crossed into the lounge and lifted the net curtain. “It’s a blue Kia Carnival.”

  “That’ll be them.” Agnes’s voice sounded relieved but when Emily turned back, the sheen of tears was in her eyes.

  She jerked her attention back to the road, not wanting to add to the lady’s distress. “There’s only the mother, by the looks of it.”

  The woman had got out of the car, the lock double beeping, but now just stood by the car. As a frown blossomed on Emily’s face, the lady smoothed the front of her jeans and hooked her chestnut bob behind her right ear. After pulling her cream T-shirt down by the hem, she straightened her back and headed for the front door.

  A twinge of unease curled in Emily’s chest, moving up to tighten her throat as she turned to stare at Maude. The dog looked back at her sad eyes, the downturn of her mouth adding to the forlorn expression.

  “Welcome,” Agnes said from the entrance. “I was beginning to give up hope.”

  The woman answered. Something stiff and polite and so quiet Emily couldn’t catch the words. Even Gregory appeared worried.

  “But I can’t—” Agnes said after a moment of the woman talking. “It’s not possible. We had an agreement.”

  A minute later, and the woman returned to her car, adjusted the rear-view mirror and accelerated away.

  Agnes walked into the lounge, wringing her hands together. “She told me her husband got a job opportunity up in Auckland and they c
an’t possibly take the dog now.”

  Gregory winced and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Emily took a few steps toward Agnes, then Maude barrelled in front of her, leaping up on her mistress’s legs with such force, she fell back a step.

  “What am I going to do?” Agnes said in a plaintive wail. “The home won’t allow her to stay and I don’t know anybody else who’ll take her. I can’t have her put down!”

  Chapter Two

  Already knowing she’d regret the decision, Emily stepped forward and tugged on Maude’s collar until she fell back level. Agnes was in enough of a state without the added weight of her dog trying to throw her off balance.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Emily said in a firm voice. “I can look after Maude until we find a new family.” She tried not to shiver as she imagined the reception this decision would have from her ghost cat.

  “Can you really do that?”

  “Of course.” Emily gave Maude another pat, careful not to wipe her hand on her trouser leg afterwards. “There’s enough room in my house for the two of us, and it won’t be forever. I’m sure we’ll find another family with children in no time flat.”

  Agnes gave a sob of relief and pressed her hand to her chest. “Thank goodness. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. This day’s hard enough without those wretched people changing their mind.”

  “Let’s get into the car and take you over to the village now, then,” Emily said with a nod to Gregory. “Since we no longer need to wait around for someone to show.”

  A look of uncertainty crossed Agnes’s face again, but she gave a nod. “Okay. Should we drop Maude off at your home first?”

  “How about we take her along with us, so she knows you’re okay in your new room? That way, if she’s pining for you, I can bring her along for a visit without causing her further distress.”

  And I don’t want to leave her alone in my house for the afternoon.

  The journey to Stoneybrook Acres didn’t take long. A discreet sign advertised the residence, complete with an elderly couple hand-in-hand, laughing. As they got out of the car, Emily stood on tiptoe. She could see her two-storey neighbour’s house from there.