The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher (6 page)

“Well, your assistant wrote to me asking for my help in getting rid of a ghost for
you
.” She knocked her cane against the door frame for emphasis.

“You must be Arianna Olynski.”

She straightened and gave a brief nod. “I see you know who I am. You certainly called me in the nick of time, Jessica Fletcher.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint you.” I stepped outside, forcing her to move away from the door, which I quickly locked. I turned back to the diminutive medium and said, “Eve Simpson is not my assistant. I did not ask for you to come. I apologize for her if she gave you the wrong impression. Now that you know the truth, I would appreciate it if you would leave.”

“But what about the ghost?”

“I don't know anything about a ghost, and if there is one, I have yet to encounter it.”

“I think you're wrong, Mrs. Fletcher,” she said, waving the cane at me. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

“Just what do you feel?”

“There's definitely an unhappy spirit here, a
very
unhappy spirit.”

“I don't know anything about unhappy spirits. You'll have to excuse me. I'm in a bit of a hurry. The sun is going down, and I'm late getting home.”

“Be that as it may, here's my business card,” she said, stuffing it into my shoulder bag. “I'll still expect my fee. I get paid by the day.”

“You'll have to talk with Eve Simpson about that.”

I went down the path to where I'd parked my bicycle, leaving Arianna Olynski and her cameraman standing in front of the Spencer Percy House. I put my shoulder bag in the bike basket and glanced back. The cameraman's light was on again, his lens aimed at the little woman who had positioned herself in front of the closed door. As I pedaled away, I heard her voice addressing the camera: “As a professional medium, I'm trained to detect postdeath life forces. . . .”

I only hoped that as a
predeath
life force, I would make it home before dark.

E
ve and I had had a heated conversation that evening.

“Jessica, think about what great publicity it would be—for both of us.”

“It isn't that I don't appreciate your consideration in wanting to include me, but please leave me out of your publicity campaign. I'm not willing to appear in front of television cameras to help you sell Cliff's house.”

“Why not? I thought any publicity was
good
publicity for a writer.”

“Somehow, Eve, I don't see you doing this to support my writing career. The only reason I got involved was to help raise money for the library.”

“But wouldn't Arianna Olynski's show be a great way to promote that?”

“I don't know anything about her show, except that it's not about books. Please, Eve, try to understand. I don't want to sound selfish or conceited, but I have a reputation to protect, and it is not one that would be enhanced by seeming to endorse someone who chases after ghosts and goblins in haunted houses.”

“Well, it isn't as if it's a big network production, Jessica. It's probably not even seen by a lot of people. Besides, I have a reputation to protect, too, you know.”

“My point exactly. Do you really want to be associated with a con artist?”

“You don't know that she's a con artist. Maybe she's providing a public service as someone with a special gift who only wants to help people connect with their departed loved ones.”

“And who just happens to arrive with a television cameraman in tow. That's not exactly how I would expect a Good Samaritan to behave.”

Eve had promised to make sure there would be no cameras present if I would accompany her to the house when the medium returned, rationalizing it by saying that she didn't want to be alone with the lady if a ghost actually materialized.

Reluctantly, I'd agreed.

•   •   •

Seth called the next morning.

“You requested an autopsy? I thought you'd decided to wait for Elliot.”

“Well, the boy is taking his time in getting here, and I haven't slept, thinking about what I might have missed that caused Cliff's death.”

I shifted the phone from one ear to the other while I sorted through items in my shoulder bag.

“Seth, you're an excellent physician. You said he wasn't helping in his own recovery. Cliff had convinced himself he was dying, and he'd given up trying to live. I'm sure you didn't ‘miss' anything. And even if you did, it probably wouldn't have been caught by any other doctor either.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence from the esteemed Mrs. Fletcher, but I can't relax until I know the true cause of Cliff Cooper's death.”

“Then I hope the results of the autopsy will resolve those misgivings. When will it take place?”

I pulled out my wallet and placed it on the kitchen table along with my cell phone, a packet of tissues, address book, reading glasses, a retractable measuring tape, keys, and an unopened package of black markers.

“The medical examiner said he may not get to it today. Depends on when the funeral home sends the body back to the morgue.”

“Can you do an autopsy after the body has already been embalmed?”

“It isn't the most favorable condition—I should have acted faster—but yes, it can be done. The embalming fluids replace bodily fluids, but the basic structures can still be seen.”

“I hope you're not doing this because Mort Metzger goaded you into it.”

“That know-it-all in a police uniform gets under my skin, it's true. In this case, however, I think he's right. Hate to say it—and I'll deny it if you tell him I said so. Truth is, I'm the proper one to order the autopsy, and I've pounded sand long enough.”

“It's barely a week since Cliff died,” I said, responding to Seth's use of a Maine term for wasting time.

“Mebbe so, but it's time the facts came out.”

I felt around the bottom of my bag, my fingers connecting with a paper clip, nail file, and notebook, and three pens. I pulled out the skeleton key to my back porch door, which reminded me I'd been meaning to replace the lock. What I was looking for didn't seem to be there. I dropped the key back in my bag and said to Seth, “Will you let me know the results when you learn them?”

“Ayuh, if I haven't put my head in an oven.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Seth,” I said, stopping the forensic search of my bag, “I never knew you to be so insecure.”

“I don't mind losing a patient to old age or disease if it's expected. Well, I do mind, but I don't take it personally. But if Cliff died of some stupidity on my part, I want to know.”

“And if you accidentally missed something, will you take to your bed and hide under the covers?”

“Doesn't sound like a bad idea.”

“This isn't like you, Seth. Will you call me when you get the results?”

“Where are you off to now?”

“The medium has arrived, and Eve talked me into meeting with her at Cliff's house in an hour.”

“You agreed to do that?” Seth asked, his tone incredulous. “Does Jessica Fletcher suddenly believe in ghosts?”

“Don't be silly,” I replied. “I just want to placate Eve. If she thinks that this medium can put to rest the rumor that Cliff Cooper's house is haunted, then I'm willing to go along with it.”

“I'll certainly want to hear the report on
that
visit.”

“Then we're agreed. One exchange of information for another. I'll call you later.”

“Take an umbrella. It's threatening to rain.”

I hung up the phone and upended my pocketbook to let everything inside fall to the tabletop.
Aha! I knew it was in there.
I took the business card Arianna Olynski had dropped into my bag and went to my computer.

I still had time to peruse the medium's website before Eve was due to pick me up. I was also curious about what others might have posted about this “psychic sensation,” as she described herself on her business card.

Her website was designed in varying shades of gray, lending a dramatic backdrop to glamorous photographs of a heavily made-up Arianna Olynski posing with people she called “celebrity endorsers.” Her beehive hairdo added almost a foot to her height and suggested a certain television cartoon character.

There were also pictures of the petite medium leaning on her cane in doorways of decrepit—and presumably haunted—mansions, as well as those of abandoned mental facilities and long-closed jails, along with a trailer for her television show, which turned out not to be on television at all but online as a series of YouTube videos. She also had a page of quotes supplied by “satisfied customers,” including one from me that purported to be a review of her book,
Our Supernatural Neighbors
. It read, “Vivid writing! Great work! Future bestseller!” I didn't recall the book but had a feeling I wasn't being quoted completely. In my past classes on creative writing, I urged my students to resist sprinkling their copy with exclamation marks. For that reason, I suspected that there might have been several words omitted before, after, and in between these shouts of praise.

I heard two toots of a horn and looked out the window to see Eve's car. I turned off the computer, hastily gathered up the items I'd dumped out of my shoulder bag, put them back, grabbed my umbrella, and joined her.

To my surprise, Arianna Olynski was perched in the passenger seat, so I climbed in the back, pushing aside several real estate binders and making certain not to jog a tan and red checked tote bag containing one small dog.

“Good morning, ladies. Miss Olynski, I thought we were meeting you at the house.”

“Miss Olynski asked me to pick her up at the motel,” Eve said. “Her truck wouldn't start this morning, and she had to have it towed to a garage.”

Clearly, foretelling the future is not a skill possessed by the “psychic sensation,” or she might have predicted that would happen,
I thought uncharitably.

“I have accommodated your request for no cameras for my initial visit to the haunted location, Mrs. Fletcher, but I must tell you that my cameraman will be shooting there later today.”

“I have no interest in preventing you from conducting your business, Miss Olynski. I simply don't care to be part of it.”

“Your loss. My program will soon be being picked up by a national syndicate. You could have increased the public's awareness of your books in the eighteen to forty-nine key age demographic. Those people are the influentials, and I would expect you as a writer to be aware of your marketing audience and act accordingly. I certainly am.”

I saw Eve nod in agreement, and I sighed inwardly. Rather than debate the promotional value of the medium's online program, I changed the subject. “I understand that we may have met in the past, Miss Olynski. My apologies, but I don't recall the circumstances. When did we know each other?”

“I took your writing course, Mrs. Fletcher. Of course, I was a brunette then, and it was many years ago, so I'm not surprised that you don't remember me.”

“Yes, it's true that we've both gotten older and my memory is not what it was. Still, I'm usually pretty good with names. Were you registered for the course as Arianna Olynski?”

“Oh, no. I was Agnes Pott then. But when I went into the medium trade as a psychic, I needed a more exotic name. Pott doesn't sound like a psychic expert.”

“Ah, that's why I didn't recognize your name. Yes, Agnes Pott does sound familiar.” I pictured an adult student, a bit older than I was, dark hair scraped back in a bun, wearing thick eyeglasses and a too-large purple sweater to class every day. “You were writing a book on vampires if I remember correctly.”

“You do remember correctly. There's nothing wrong with your memory, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Thank you, and please call me Jessica.”

“I'll be honored. You're welcome to call me Aggie. My friends still do. You, too, Eve.”

“Aggie, it is,” I said. “If you don't mind my asking, how did you get into the ‘medium trade' as you call it?”

Aggie straightened and warmed to the subject. “It all started right about the time that Anne Rice's vampire books were being made into movies. I started writing about vampires, wanting to catch the popular wave as it were, but then more and more books were being written about vampires and no one wanted mine. A couple of years later, Charlaine Harris wrote about Sookie Stackhouse's boyfriend being a vampire. Well, it was too much. I didn't stand a chance against such big names. I figured that there was a glut in the vampire market, so I switched and made my book about ghosts—didn't even have to change the title—and discovered that I have the skill.”

“And what skill is that?”

“I can connect. I can see them. I never did see a vampire, not that I looked very hard. Of course, vampires are back in the news now, but that's okay. Ghosts are all the rage, and there are far more of them, so my business is picking up.”

“Do you actually see the ghosts?” Eve asked with a shudder.

“Not the way I see you, but I get visions. Sometimes it's in the form of a photograph or a locket or something else they possessed. Or I get a meaningful message that they send to my subconscious. I don't know how it gets there, but all of a sudden I'm thinking about Amato's pickles.”

I stifled a smile. “Amato's pickles?” I said. “How is that a meaningful message?”

“Well, in this case, it was a message from a man whose family asked me to contact him. He died in front of the television, eating an Italian sandwich from Amato's, with sour pickles on the side. So that was proof that I communicated with the right man.”

“Did he have anything to tell his family?” Eve asked.

“Not really. He said he was at peace. Wanted to know how the Red Sox were doing. I told him they lost the last game to the Yankees. He wasn't too pleased. Used language I'd rather not repeat.”

“That was quite a conversation,” I said.

“Yes.” She sighed. “Some of them are like that.”

“But you don't actually see a gauzy figure floating over the stairs, or shadows where they shouldn't be, anything like that?” Eve asked as she pulled into the driveway of the Spencer Percy House.

“I've seen those, too.”

“You have?”

“Of course. It's part of my gift.”

Eve pulled up to the door of the house, and the three of us trooped into the front hall of the home that Cliff Cooper once occupied. Eve put down her tote bag, and Cecil jumped out. He shook his little body and pranced into the library, nose sniffing the carpet.

“Let's not have any funny business in here,” Eve said, following the tiny dog.

Aggie raised her head, seeming to listen for something. Then she hooked her gold-topped cane on the front doorknob and dusted off her hands. “Where do we start?”

“Don't you need that?” I asked, indicating the cane.

“Not really. I carry it for effect. It's my signature piece—sets me apart from the competition.”

“How did you happen to choose a cane as a signature piece?”

“I found it while browsing in a secondhand shop. It called to me. When I got it home and cleaned it up, I discovered that the top was gold. I considered it a good sign. Now it's my lucky charm. I don't go anywhere without it.”

I started to say something, but Aggie put up a hand to stop me. She cocked her head, her gaze focused at the top of the stairs.

“Are you getting a message?” I asked.

“Not yet, but there's definitely something here. I'd like to sage the house first if you don't mind.”

“Be my guest,” I said. “What do you need?”

“Just a place to put down my things and get ready.”

“Let's use the kitchen. It's the only room on this floor not chockablock with boxes of books.”