The Ghost Who Was Says I Do

by Anna J. McIntyre

  “Shot?” she squeaked. “Who would shoot her?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you might be able to tell me—who would want to hurt your sister?”

  Licking her lips, she furrowed her brows and considered the question. “Maybe I was right.”

  “Right about what?”

  Rachel glanced to the closed door and then back to the chief. “Maybe it was Walt. He was the last one to see her alive.”

  “Why do you think Walt would want to hurt your sister?”

  “My sister was—she was—umm—I don’t know. They had a past, she and Clint. I just know she was trying to get him to take responsibility for it.”

  “You’re being a little vague.”

  Claudia shrugged. She glanced back to the closed door. “And then there’s Dirk.”

  “Dirk?” he asked.

  “Dirk Thorpe. He’s staying here too. My sister knew him from back home, and she was upset when he showed up. Something went on between them, but she wouldn’t tell me what.” Closing her eyes, Rachel shook her head. “Why is all this happening?”

  “Why did you and your sister come to Frederickport?”

  Opening her eyes, she looked at the chief. “My sister saw an interview with Clint on television about Moon Runners. Until then, she had no idea he had supposedly written the book. The last time she heard anything about him was after his accident. We heard Stephanie had been killed and he had amnesia. She didn’t believe he had written the book and was convinced he was pulling some sort of scam. That’s why we came. Which was obviously foolish, because now she’s dead.”

  Joanne brought Rachel a plate of food and stayed with her in the library while the chief went into the parlor with Walt and Danielle. MacDonald spent the next fifteen minutes listening to them update him on what had been going on since the Dane sisters and the Thorpes had arrived on Friday. He already knew some of it from a few phone calls he’d had with Danielle, but this was the first time he was getting the complete story. He sat in one of the chairs facing the sofa, a small pad of paper in hand as he jotted down notes.

  “I find it interesting she didn’t once mention you and Claudia were married,” the chief said.

  “You mean Clint and Claudia,” Walt corrected.

  “Sorry—Clint and Claudia,” the chief conceded.

  “Obviously from what she told you—or what she didn’t tell you—she didn’t want to come out and say her sister had been blackmailing Walt,” Danielle said. “Although technically speaking, I don’t really think a wife demanding a large settlement before agreeing to divorce is legally considered blackmail.”

  “I thought you had Eva or Marie keeping an eye on Claudia?” the chief asked.

  “We did. But after spending the last four days eavesdropping, even spirits get restless,” Danielle said. “And frankly, we didn’t see the point in constantly monitoring Claudia; we figured we already knew everything she wanted from Clint. That was, at least, until she started alluding to crimes Clint supposedly committed. And frankly, I did expect Eva and Marie to come back last night at the very latest.”

  “You haven’t seen them?” the chief asked.

  Danielle shook her head. “No.”

  “Maybe when they come back, they’ll tell you they saw something that might help figure this out,” the chief suggested.

  “Or maybe Claudia will come back and tell us what happened,” Walt interjected.

  “You said Heather hasn’t seen her, so it’s always possible her spirit passed over already,” Danielle said.

  Walt shook his head. “Wishful thinking on your part, Danielle.”

  The chief glanced at the notes he had just written and then scratched something out. “I really need to pay more attention,” he muttered under his breath.

  Looking curiously at the pad of paper in the chief’s hand, Danielle asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I was talking to myself,” the chief explained.

  “And?” Danielle asked.

  “My notes. I don’t need anyone looking at them and asking me who Marie or Eva are.”

  “Shouldn’t my wife be in here too?” Dirk took a seat on the sofa. The police chief sat in a chair facing him, notepad in hand.

  “I’d prefer to speak to you alone. Can you please tell me about your day yesterday—and when you might have seen Claudia Dane.”

  Dirk shook his head and said, “I can’t believe she’s dead. I mean—I just saw her yesterday at breakfast.”

  “Please tell me about yesterday.”

  Dirk shrugged. “Got up, had breakfast here. I saw Claudia then. Everyone was there. Afterwards, my wife decided to drive to Astoria to do some shopping. I stayed here, and then I got a little bored and decided to walk to town.”

  “Did you see Claudia on your walk?”

  Dirk shook his head. “No. I didn’t see her. I ended up at a bar. I had too much to drink. Called my wife, and she picked me up on her way back to town, and the two of us went to get something to eat. We got back here, and everyone was in bed already. I noticed Claudia’s car out front, so I assumed she was asleep upstairs with her sister.”

  “I understand you and Claudia didn’t get along.”

  “We weren’t exactly friends. But we weren’t enemies. I barely knew her.”

  “You also work at the real estate office Clint once worked at, is that correct?”

  Dirk nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Were you and Clint friends?”

  “Friends?” Dirk smiled. “No, not really. Business associates.”

  “So why did you come to Marlow House? In January?”

  “Don’t people come in January? I’m not the only one staying here.”

  “True. But why did you decide to stay at a bed and breakfast where someone you didn’t really get along with was now living?”

  “I never said I didn’t get along with Clint,” Dirk argued.

  “What do you know about Jay Larson?” the chief asked.

  Startled by the question, Dirk frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Jay Larson. I understand you brought him up at breakfast yesterday morning, and Claudia seemed a little upset about it.”

  Licking his lips, Dirk shrugged and said, “Jay was an appraiser. Clint used him a lot. I just thought if I brought up people he used to know, it would help with his memory issues. I was just trying to be helpful.”

  An hour later, Dirk was up in his bedroom with his wife, comparing notes on what questions the police chief had asked each of them.

  “I can’t believe Rachel didn’t tell that cop about Claudia and me.” Absently combing his fingers through his hair, he sat down on the edge of the mattress and faced his wife, who sat at the dressing table.

  “Just because she hasn’t said anything doesn’t mean she won’t,” Tanya said.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know,” he suggested.

  “You think that’s possible?”

  “It must be the reason.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tanya said. “It just meant Claudia had a motive to kill you, not that you had a motive to kill her.”

  “Last I heard, blackmail is against the law.”

  Thirty-One

  About the same time that Police Chief MacDonald was talking to Rachel, Eva and Marie appeared on Chris’s back porch. Heather barely flinched at the sight of the two women—an elderly gray-haired one, wearing a spring dress, straw hat and sneakers, and a second much younger woman, who looked like a dead ringer for Charles Gibson’s Gibson Girl from an earlier century—as they floated down from above, each holding umbrellas like a pair of Mary Poppins wannabes.

  Sitting at Chris’s patio table, her chin propped on a balled fist, Heather didn’t budge an inch as she glanced up and watched the pair come in for a landing. Hunny was not so nonchalant in greeting the new arrivals, with her butt in full tail wag.

  “Really?” Heather said dryly after the pair landed before her and the umbrellas disappeared.

  “We were just heading bac
k to Marlow House, and we noticed all the commotion. What’s going on with all the police cars?” Marie asked.

  Heather nodded toward the beach. “A dead body. A woman.”

  Marie turned to Eva. “Oh, you were right! Something was going on!”

  Eva glanced out to the beach, where the police officers and other responders gathered. “I can always sense when someone has moved on to this side in Frederickport.”

  “What are you doing here?” Marie asked.

  “What do you think?” Heather lifted her chin off her balled fist and folded her hands on the tabletop. “I found the body, of course.”

  Marie glanced briefly to the police officers down on the beach and then back to Heather. “Oh my. You are rather good at that.”

  “It’s a gift.” Heather shrugged.

  “Have you seen her spirit?” Marie asked.

  “That’s pretty much why I’m sticking around. If I see her, I was hoping she would tell me what happened. According to the chief, she was shot.”

  “Shot?” Marie gasped.

  “Yep. And then dumped in the ocean. It would be nice to find out who did it. I’m not too keen on living in a neighborhood with a killer on the loose.”

  “Is she anyone you know?” Eva asked.

  Heather shook her head. “No. But from what the chief said, it’s someone who was staying at Marlow House. He’s over there now.”

  Eva and Marie looked at each other, and the next moment they were no longer standing on the patio, but were on the beach standing amongst the officers, looking down at the body.

  Hunny began to bark.

  “Quiet already! Let’s go home. I’ll let Eva and Marie take it from here. I’m tired of waiting for a new ghost to show up.” Heather stood up, removed the leash from her pocket, and hooked it on Hunny’s collar.

  Eva looked down at Claudia’s lifeless body. “It’s the one who claimed to be Clint’s wife.”

  “Oh my, I should have stayed with her. Maybe I could have saved her.” Marie glanced around. “Do you see her anywhere?”

  “No. But I have a horrible feeling this could cause some problems for Walt and Danielle. Let’s see if we can find her.”

  The two spirits floated up into the air and then each began moving in opposite directions—Eva traveling south while Marie ventured north, on the lookout for Claudia’s newly departed spirit.

  Pearl stood on her front porch looking up the street, wondering why all the police cars were parked up the road. Curious, she slipped back in her house for a moment and grabbed her jacket. After putting it on, she headed down to the sidewalk.

  A few moments later she was just passing Marlow House when she came face-to-face with her neighbor to her south—Heather Donovan—the one with the long black braids and straight-cut bangs. Pearl knew she had a cat, but she had no idea she had a dog.

  Pearl froze. “You have a pit bull!”

  Heather paused a moment and looked Pearl up and down. “So? What’s it to you? She’s on a leash.”

  Pearl looked down at the dog, seeing only beady eyes, ignoring their kindness and not noticing the wagging tail or goofy dog grin. “Don’t let her near me!”

  “Then I guess you’re going to have to cross the street because I’m walking down the sidewalk to go home.”

  “You don’t have to be so snotty!” Pearl huffed.

  “Aren’t you the one who threatened to shoot my cat?” Heather countered.

  “I have a right to keep cats out of my yard so they don’t turn my flower garden into a litter box.”

  “And I have the right to walk down the sidewalk with my dog on a leash.” Without another word Heather continued on her way, the dog by her side.

  Seeing the pit bull coming in her direction, Pearl quickly made her way across the street, practically running to where she saw the police cars parked.

  A few moments later, Pearl stepped onto the sidewalk across the street just as the responders from the coroner’s office were bringing what appeared to be a body up from the beach to their van. A sheet concealed its identity. They were about six feet away. She stopped and watched as they started to load the body in the vehicle, when a gust of wind came up and blew the top portion of the sheet to one side, revealing the dead woman’s face.

  Pearl’s eyes widened. “Oh my!”

  “Mrs. Huckabee, you should probably go home,” Brian Henderson said when he spied her watching. He had just come up from the beach. Joe Morelli trailed after him.

  “What happened?” Pearl asked Brian. “That’s the woman staying at Marlow House.”

  “Do you know her?” Brian asked.

  Pearl turned away from the van; the body was already inside and they were closing the doors. She looked at Brian. “She was staying at Marlow House. That’s Walt Marlow’s wife.”

  “Excuse me? You’re mistaken. Walt Marlow is not married,” Brian told her. “In fact, he’s engaged to your neighbor Danielle Boatman.”

  “No.” Pearl shook her head emphatically. “I heard them arguing. In fact, more than once.”

  “You heard her arguing with who?” Joe asked.

  Pearl looked from Brian to Joe. “With Walt Marlow. He’s a tenant at Marlow House.”

  “Yes, I know who Walt Marlow is. Why were they arguing?” Joe asked.

  “She wanted to know if he wanted a divorce, and he said he preferred an annulment. But then she told him she wanted half of all his money. He didn’t seem happy about that. But who would be?”

  Brian and Joe exchanged glances.

  “Are you sure you heard that correctly?” Brian asked.

  “The last time I heard them arguing, they were standing right in front of my house. It was hard not to hear them. They were both screaming at each other—although her voice was the loudest. They both seemed pretty upset. But I definitely heard them right. She asked him if he wanted a divorce. He said he preferred an annulment. But I suspect she didn’t want either one.”

  “Why do you say that?” Brian asked.

  “I’ve always felt that if someone wants out of a marriage, you certainly aren’t going to make angry demands of your spouse before you agree to sign the divorce papers. What happens if he doesn’t agree? You might get stuck in the marriage—but maybe that’s what she wanted. Plus, she seemed pretty upset that he was going to call his attorney. How much can you want out of the marriage if you don’t want to contact an attorney? No, I think ending their marriage was all his idea—not hers. And considering he has been running around with another woman, it’s not surprising. The poor thing. I felt sorry for her. He seemed rather callous about it all.”

  “When was this last argument?” Joe asked.

  “Yesterday, early afternoon. They walked down to the pier together. I went upstairs, and when I looked out my window, I could see they were all the way up the street, not far from the pier.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Huckabee, we might be stopping by your house later to ask you some more questions,” Brian told her.

  “That’s fine. You didn’t tell me what happened to her.”

  Brian and Joe exchanged glances again. Brian then looked at Pearl and said, “It appears she was shot.”

  “She was murdered?” Pearl gasped.

  “It might have been an accident or perhaps self-inflicted. We’ll know more after the coroner finishes with her,” Brian explained.

  “He killed her! I know he did!” Pearl insisted.

  “Who killed her?” Joe asked.

  “Walt Marlow, of course. You should see how he carries on with that Danielle Boatman. I live right next door, and I see what those two are up to! And to think he was a married man all this time. No wonder he got rid of his wife.”

  “Mrs. Huckabee, this is an open investigation, and at the moment Walt Marlow has not been charged with anything—nor is he currently a suspect. So please, I would appreciate it if you do not spread that rumor.”

  “I am not spreading rumors! I’m simply telling you what I saw. I would think th
e police would want the help of witnesses in a matter like this!”

  “Yes, of course,” Brian said patiently.

  “Plus, I think Walt Marlow is crazy.”

  “Crazy?” Joe frowned. “Why do you think he’s crazy?”

  “I heard him tell that other woman that Marlow House is haunted. What a crazy thing to say! And the way he talks to that cat. It’s like he believes it understands him.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Huckabee, but I do think you should probably go home now,” Brian urged.

  With a huff, Pearl turned and marched down the street, back toward her house.

  Joe and Brian watched her walk away. Finally, when she was out of earshot, Joe asked, “Could she be right? Was she Marlow’s wife?”

  Brian shrugged. “I find that highly unlikely. But considering he has amnesia, I imagine she came as quite a shock to him if she was.”

  “Enough of a shock to want to get rid of her?” Joe asked.

  “But kill her? I had a couple of wives I got rid of. It was called divorce, not murder.”

  “I wonder what she really overheard regarding Marlow claiming the house is haunted,” Joe asked.

  Brian shrugged. “Who knows what Mrs. Huckabee really overheard.”

  “Is she the one who locked Sadie in the toolshed?” Joe asked.

  Brian nodded. “Yes. It’s not that I’m ignoring what she just told us, and we’ll need to go back and get an official statement from her, but she does tend to jump to conclusions.”

  “You think she misunderstood what they were arguing about?” Joe asked.

  “We both checked out Clint Marlow, and we never came across a wife. We know he had a fiancée; however there was nothing about a wife or previous marriage. But Huckabee did say she heard them arguing. And the fact Walt Marlow was seen in a heated argument with the murder victim within hours of her death—then maybe I spoke too soon when I told Mrs. Huckabee he wasn’t a suspect.”

  Thirty-Two