The Ghost and the Halloween Haunt

by Anna J. McIntyre

  Heather and Chris exchanged quick glances.

  “Dad, have them go to the Crawfords’,” Evan said anxiously.

  MacDonald frowned at Evan, momentarily confused by his unsolicited suggestion.

  “Listen to him, Chief,” Chris said quietly.

  “What was that about?” Joe asked as he and Brian drove down to the Crawfords’.

  “I have no idea. But these days, nothing that happens at Marlow House surprises me. Even an eight-year-old kid telling the police chief what to do.”

  “Where do you think Walt and Danielle are?” Joe asked as he parked along the curb in front of the Crawfords’ house.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Danielle sat on the hard ground by the opening at the end of the tunnel, Max by her side, waiting for Walt. She had refused to cry thus far, but she wasn’t certain she could hold out much longer.

  “I don’t think we’re going to die down here,” Danielle said hopefully when Walt climbed back down off the ladder and sat next to her.

  “That’s good to know.” Walt wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “I mean, well, if the Bellemore brothers were down here, they will probably come again, won’t they? And when they do, we can make them let us out, can’t we?”

  “Even if they don’t come back—”

  “Don’t say that!” she interrupted.

  “I was just going to say, even if they don’t come back, I will figure out some way to open one of those doors. At least we found the keyhole on the other one.”

  “Yeah, but you couldn’t trip the lock.” She glanced up at the opening overhead. “And I’m not sure you’ll be able to open that one.”

  Walt didn’t need to reassure Danielle again, because in the next moment Ginny appeared before them.

  “Ginny!” Danielle squealed. “You found us!”

  Ginny grinned at Danielle. “Everyone is looking for you.”

  “I imagine they are. How did you find us?” Walt asked.

  “I was hanging out at the Crawfords’ house. I used to live there, you know. Not in the house that’s there now, but the house that used to be there. Those two men came. The ones who’ve been ripping off pieces of the Crawfords’ walls.”

  “You mean the Bellemore brothers?” Danielle asked.

  Ginny nodded. “The reason I didn’t show up the other night, I followed them down here.”

  “Did you know about the tunnel?” Danielle asked.

  “Not until I followed them. Funny thing. For a moment I thought one of them could see me. I was hiding behind a stack of boxes, watching them, and one looked straight at me. I was sure he could see me. But he couldn’t. He was looking at some sort of card that had dropped out of his pocket.”

  “What do the Crawfords have to do with the tunnel?” Walt asked.

  Ginny pointed up the narrow chute. “That comes up in their living room. When the Crawfords were in Portland, those men removed the metal panel and went inside. That’s when I followed them in. The passageway goes through that brick corner in the house. It was in the other house too. But I didn’t know it had a secret door. But maybe that explains the strange sounds I’d sometimes hear.”

  “So how do we get out? Have Ginny go tell Chris and Heather where we are?” Danielle asked.

  “Two policemen are on their way over to the Crawfords’. Did you pound on that wooden door?” Ginny again pointed up the chute to indicate what panel she meant.

  “Yes, why?” Walt asked.

  “Because the Crawfords heard you and called the police. Maybe if you pound some more, they’ll let you out,” Ginny suggested.

  Joe and Brian stood in the open front doorway of the Crawfords’ house, while Mia and Austin stood in the entry hall talking to them.

  “We just walked the entire perimeter of your property, and whoever it was, they aren’t there now,” Joe told them just as the pounding started again.

  “There it is!” Mia squealed.

  Both Joe and Brian dashed from the front porch, Joe running to the right while Brian ran to the left. But when they got to the back of the house, no one was there. They could, however, hear the pounding from outside.

  “Did you hear that?” Joe asked, glancing from the brick corner to Brian.

  “It’s coming from the house.”

  Just as Brian and Joe returned to the front porch of the Crawford house, Police Chief MacDonald walked up with Heather, Chris and Ian. Ginny appeared by their side a moment later, her presence only known to the mediums.

  “With Walt and Danielle missing, we thought we’d check the neighborhood again,” MacDonald said. “And we wanted to see what you found.”

  “Did you get him?” Mia asked as she rushed to the open doorway. She stopped suddenly, stunned to see the new arrivals.

  “Are they the ones who were knocking?” Austin asked, stepping outside and looking accusingly at Chris, Heather and Ian.

  “No,” Brian said with a sigh. “But I have to ask, did you or your wife just knock on your wall?”

  “Of course not!” Austin snapped.

  Mia gasped and swung around, her back to the police. She stared into her house. “There it is again!”

  A few moments later they all huddled in front of the brick corner. If Austin and Mia wondered why their neighbors had joined the police, they said nothing, both too preoccupied with the noise coming from the brick corner to wonder. No longer was it random tapping. Now it sounded like a musical tune.

  “Someone is trapped in there,” Heather blurted.

  “What do you mean, trapped in there?” Mia frowned at Heather.

  “You can hear it, can’t you?” Heather asked.

  They then heard a faint voice call out, “Help! We’re trapped.”

  “Damn, someone really is in there!” Austin said.

  Ian was the only one who had the necessary tools nearby to remove the copper paneling. They all sat quietly and watched as he removed each screw.

  “I don’t see how anyone could be in there,” Mia muttered. “It’s too small.”

  “And how would they even get in there?” Austin asked.

  In spite of their disbelief at the possibility of anyone squeezing into their brick corner, neither of the Crawfords objected to Ian’s intervention, and they stood by quietly with the others and watched. To all their surprise, when Ian removed the copper panel, they didn’t find a hole—nor more brick. Instead, it appeared to be a wooden door.

  Mia gasped at the sight. “Where does it go? How can it go anywhere?”

  In the next moment the wooden door swung open, and they found themselves looking into the smiling face of Walt Marlow.

  Danielle sat in the Crawfords’ living room, drinking a glass of brandy Mia had given her. She had brought Max out of the tunnel but immediately released him outside, and Walt told him to go home.

  Several people from the coroner’s office had arrived fifteen minutes earlier, and they were in the tunnel, discussing the best way to remove the remains. Walt suggested going through the Marlow House basement since that would not require climbing ladders.

  Mia was the only one not to take a tour of the tunnel below her home. “I have claustrophobia,” she had told them.

  Danielle and Walt had already filled them in on how they had found the tunnel and managed to get trapped.

  “Any idea who the skeleton was?” Ian asked.

  Walt pulled some papers from his pocket and handed them to the chief. “I found this identification on the body. Well, what is left of it. I believe his name was Abe Fortune.”

  “He worked for Frederick Marlow,” Danielle interjected. When Joe and Brian looked at her, she quickly added, “I remember reading that name when I was researching Marlow House.”

  “This is just too creepy!” Mia shuddered. “First the mold and then this.”

  “I think you might want to get another opinion on that mold,” Danielle
said, pulling the Bellemore business card from her back pocket. She showed it to Mia before handing it to the chief.

  “I don’t understand.” Mia frowned.

  “Someone entered Marlow House from that tunnel the other night. We found this card in there when we were trapped. I’m certain that someone was one of the Bellemore brothers, if not both of them. I suspect they are in some way related to Chester Bellemore, who built Marlow House and who undoubtedly knew about the tunnel.”

  “Chester Bellemore?” Austin asked. “One of them is named Chester.”

  “Perhaps a grandson named after his grandfather?” Danielle suggested.

  “But what does that have to do with our mold?” Mia asked.

  Danielle couldn’t tell them Ginny had witnessed the Bellemore brothers removing sections of the wallboard and spraying a black liquid along the exposed beams. Instead she said, “They obviously got into the tunnel. I think they were looking for something, and they needed you to leave so they could keep looking.”

  “They did want you to move out of the house so they could work here,” Heather reminded them. “Maybe they were faking the mold to get you out of here. I agree with Danielle. You need a second opinion.”

  Thirty-Eight

  “I don’t understand why you asked us to come in,” Chester Bellemore said, glancing nervously around the interrogation room.

  “Why do we have to talk to you in here? Can’t we just go to your office?” Cecil asked the chief. The brothers sat on one side of the table while the chief sat on the other.

  “Normally we would question you separately,” the chief began.

  “Do you think we are guilty of something?” Chester asked. “Is this about that missing little girl? Because I swear we didn’t see her.”

  “No. It’s not about her,” the chief said calmly, pulling a small plastic bag from the file before him. It contained a business card. He slid it across the table. “This was found in a tunnel under Beach Drive. I believe it’s one of yours.”

  Chester picked up the plastic bag and briefly looked at it before tossing it back on the table. “We’ve been handing these out all over town.”

  “Are you saying you haven’t been in the tunnel?” the chief asked.

  The brothers exchanged glances, and then Cecil said, “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you sure? You’re saying you don’t know anything about a tunnel that runs under Beach Drive?”

  Chester shrugged. “We just moved here.”

  “I looked into your background. It seems your grandfather was Chester Bellemore, who built Marlow House.” The chief then turned to Chester and added, “You’re named after him, aren’t you?”

  “So? What does that have to do with anything?” Chester asked.

  “You have been working at the Crawfords’?” the chief said.

  “Yeah. Can you please tell me why you brought us in here?” Cecil said. “Are we under arrest for something?”

  “Not yet. But there is a good chance you could be losing your contractor’s license and facing a civil suit. The Crawfords are debating bringing charges against you for faking their mold.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chester stammered.

  “It is interesting how the sections you told the Crawfords were mold turned out to be ink,” the chief said.

  “I didn’t know the police department handles complaints against contractors,” Chester said.

  “You also left some tools in the Crawfords’ garage. We had them checked, and the residue on the tools match the bricks in the tunnel you know nothing about. You know, the bricks you pried out of the wall. Do you want to tell me what you two are up to now, or should I just bring charges against you for the murder of that body we found in the tunnel next to your business card?”

  “Body? It was a skeleton! It’s obviously been down there for decades!” Chester blurted.

  MacDonald arched a brow at Chester and smiled.

  Defeated, Chester slumped down in the chair. “Our father passed away a couple of months ago. About six months before he died, we had to put him in a nursing home. When we were going through his things, we came across a small engraved box. Inside was a key and a note. The note said ‘key to fortune.’ Curious, we took it to our father and asked him about it.”

  “Key to fortune?” The chief frowned.

  Chester nodded. “That’s when my father told us about the tunnel his grandfather had built. Dad had never been to Oregon—in fact, he didn’t even know about the tunnel until his own father told him about it on his deathbed. Grandfather insisted there was a fortune hidden in the tunnel and he wanted our father to get it. He begged him to get it.”

  “But your father never came to Oregon?” the chief asked.

  “Dad didn’t take his father seriously,” Cecil told the chief. “He knew my grandfather had worked in Oregon when he was a young man, but Dad thought the talk of a tunnel and a hidden treasure was nothing but his medication talking. He was on some pretty heavy meds back then and would ramble.”

  “But you believed him?” the chief asked. “You came here.”

  “We were kids when our grandfather died,” Chester said. “But when we were little, before he got sick, he told us about the tunnel. Described the brick entrance, the copper panel, and how they would hide things behind the stamped bricks.”

  “But he never told our father about the tunnel, not until his death,” Cecil added.

  “Why was that?” the chief asked.

  “Grandpa used to say he was sharing his secrets with us—so they wouldn’t die with him,” Chester said.

  “But he never mentioned the treasure to you?”

  Both Bellemore brothers shook their heads and muttered, “No.”

  “We never heard about the key—or the hidden treasure—until we found that box and showed it to our dad,” Cecil added.

  “After Dad died, we decided to come see for ourselves if what Grandfather said about the treasure was true,” Chester explained.

  “Grandpa had told us about the tunnel that ran from Marlow House to another house across the street. He said he was the only man alive who knew of its existence—until he told us. Of course, we were just boys then,” Cecil said.

  “We weren’t really sure which house it was. In fact, we were surprised it was the Crawford house. It was too new. But then we saw the brick corner and the brass panel covering the hidden door, with our great-grandfather’s name engraved on it. Just like Grandpa told us it would be,” Chester continued.

  “Did you get into the secret staircase at Marlow House?” the chief asked.

  “We were exploring the tunnel. It was just that one night, and we left as soon as we realized where we were,” Chester insisted. “We weren’t going to take anything from the Marlows. We were just treasure hunting. It’s not like anyone would miss it. No one even knew the tunnel was there.”

  Danielle stood silently with Walt and Brian in the office next to the interrogation room, watching the Bellemores through the two-way mirror. It was November first. Officially the Halloween season was over.

  “What are you going to do about the tunnel?” Brian asked.

  “First, we’re going to have an engineer look at it, to see how safe it is before anyone else goes in it,” Walt said. “My first impulse is to figure out some way to fill it in, but most of it isn’t on Marlow property.”

  “And I suspect when the historical society gets wind of it, they’re going to want to preserve it. I have no idea what the Crawfords want to do about it now. The Bellemore brothers made a mess of their house,” Danielle said.

  Brian began to chuckle.

  Walt and Danielle turned to him. “What?” Danielle asked.

  “Last night when we were leaving your house after we got back from the Crawfords’, Pearl Huckabee flagged me down. I guess she had spent most of Halloween night looking out her window at Beach Drive. She wanted to know what had happened—rather convinced yo
u two had caused more trouble.”

  “More trouble?” Danielle scowled.

  Brian shrugged. “You know what I mean. Anyway, I was just wondering how she would feel if she thought you and the Crawfords might successfully pitch to the city an idea to turn your house and theirs into some tourist attraction—you know, haunted tunnel tours. They have them in Portland. Might be a great draw for local tourism.”

  “I imagine she would be as thrilled as Pete Rogers was when the historical society wanted the Eva Aphrodite to stay,” Danielle scoffed.

  “True. But I don’t think that tunnel is going to disappear as easily as that old yacht did,” Brian added.

  When Walt and Danielle left the police station, they headed to the cemetery. There were several spirits they wanted to see.

  “You think they’ll still be here?” Danielle asked as Walt parked the car five minutes later.

  “I have a gut feeling they haven’t moved on yet,” Walt said. He turned off the ignition.

  “I’m also wondering when Marie and Eva will show their faces. Those two have been scarce the last few days,” Danielle grumbled.

  They didn’t know the location of Annabelle’s headstone, and they hadn’t encountered any spirits to ask directions. Yet they headed to the older section of the cemetery, and as it turned out, it didn’t take them long to find Annabelle and Abe. The reunited pair sat side by side on a headstone.

  “We were hoping you would stop by before we left,” Annabelle said brightly when they approached.

  “I see you found her,” Walt told Abe.

  “I had to stick around to see you one more time,” Abe told Walt. “I must say, I was more than confused when I came aboveground and saw the changes. After all, we had just talked in the tunnel, and, well, I assumed I hadn’t been dead that long. But by the time I found Annabelle, I had decided you must have been a ghost. After all, you looked the same—even dressed the same.” He paused a moment and looked Walt up and down. “Although, your clothes look much different today.”