The Ghost and the Mystery Writer (2 page)

D
anielle had left
the parlor window open for Walt. In the late evening hours, he enjoyed listening to the sound of the breakers beyond the row of houses separating Marlow House from the ocean. Waves hitting the shoreline were not the only sounds filtering in through the screen. Limbs from a tree outside the parlor window brushed angrily against the house, telling Walt—had he been listening—the evening breeze was approaching gale level. However, Walt was not listening. His attention was focused on the television.

Lounging on the parlor sofa, Walt watched the late night thriller. Danielle had gone to bed several hours earlier, and Lily was in Portland with Ian for the night. Snoozing on the floor by his feet was Ian's golden retriever, Sadie. Danielle was dog sitting, but Sadie preferred to hang out with him. Walt assumed Max was roaming through Marlow House, on rodent patrol. He hadn't seen the feline for several hours.

Their only guest, Hillary Hemmingway, had gone out for the evening and hadn't yet returned. Walt told himself he needed to turn the television off as soon as he heard her enter the house.

Twenty minutes later, so enthralled in the movie, Walt failed to hear Hillary enter the front door and was surprised when she walked into the parlor.

“Danielle?” Hillary said, glancing around the room. It appeared to be empty except for Sadie.

Walt watched her from the sofa, wishing she would simply go upstairs so he could continue to watch his movie. Sadie lifted her head and looked at Hillary. The dog's tail began to wag.

“Hello, Sadie, where's Danielle?”

Not expecting an answer, Hillary peeked her head out the doorway back to the hallway. There were no lights on downstairs, only a few random nightlights breaking up the darkness. Turning back to the parlor, Hillary looked at the television and let out a sigh.

“I guess Danielle couldn't sleep and must have come back downstairs to watch TV. But she forgot to turn it off.” Hillary headed toward the table where Danielle kept the remote.

Panicked, Walt sat up straighter on the sofa. The movie was coming to a crucial part; he was about to find out the killer's identity. “No! Don't turn it off!”

Unable to hear or see Walt, Hillary snatched the remote from the table and pushed the off button. The television remained on.

“The batteries must be dead,” Hillary mumbled. Setting the remote back on the table, she headed for the television.

The killer still had not been identified, and Walt briefly considered interfering with Hillary's attempt to turn off the television, as he had with the remote, but he preferred discretion with his ghostly powers when in the presence of Marlow House guests.

He let Hillary turn off the television and anxiously waited for her to leave the room and go upstairs so he could turn the television back on and watch the rest of his movie. But now she turned her attention to the open window, its curtains fluttering inward as the tree limbs hit the side of the house, making a steady rapping sound.

“Danielle certainly didn't do a very good job of locking up tonight,” Hillary muttered.

Walt watched as Hillary walked to the open window and then tried closing it. She wrestled with it a moment, but it refused to budge. Danielle had been talking about having Bill Jones adjust the window, but she hadn't gotten around to it. Anxious for Hillary to be on her way so he could turn the television back on, Walt focused his energy on the stubborn window. It slammed shut.

Hillary lurched back, startled at the abrupt closure. She stared at the window for a moment; the curtains now hung motionless. The room seemed eerily still, with the wind no longer blowing in and the sound of the trees hitting the house muted.

Walt assumed she would now go up to her room. Much to his annoyance, she took a seat on the sofa. To make it worse, she sat on him. He leapt from his seat, and Hillary, who was now in his place, reached down to pet Sadie, who rewarded her attention with an accelerated tail thump.

“You are a fickle dog,” Walt grumbled.

Sadie glanced over at Walt, silently asking him,
Who am I to turn down a good ear scratch?

When Hillary left the parlor fifteen minutes later, she tried to get Sadie to go with her, to sleep upstairs, but Sadie stubbornly refused to budge, now feeling a little guilty over Walt, who had been impatiently pacing the room, waiting to turn the television back on.

Finally alone with Sadie again, Walt turned on the television, only to discover the movie had ended, and he still had no idea as to the killer's identity. He spent the next hour channel surfing until he finally got bored and decided to head back upstairs to the attic. First, he would make his nightly rounds, inspecting each room in the house to make sure all was well, beginning with the first floor.

Sadie trotted along by his side until they reached the library. There, she jumped up on the sofa, ceremoniously pawed the upholstery, circled the seat a half a dozen rounds, nudged the throw pillows to the floor with her nose, and finally settled down, sprawling across the length of the sofa.

“You know you aren't supposed to get on the furniture,” Walt reminded her.

Sadie looked up at him.
Are you going to tell on me?

“Don't be ridiculous. But why don't you come upstairs with me, there's a sofa up there.”

Because you never sleep, and I'm tired. Plus, this is the most comfortable spot in the house
. Sadie rested her chin on her front paws and closed her eyes.

“Okay. But you better get off there before Joanne comes in for work in the morning.”

Several minutes later, Walt found Max coming through the pet door in the kitchen.

“Where've you been? I thought you were upstairs.”

The black cat, now standing by the kitchen door, stretched lazily and yawned. His golden eyes looked up at Walt.

“Ahhh, you were out prowling,” Walt said.

Max swished his tail.

“You followed our guest? Hillary?” Walt asked.

The black cat dropped to the floor and stretched out on his side, pawing the air; he looked up at Walt.

“What was she doing at the pier?”

Max pawed the air again and then rolled over onto his back and looked up at Walt, who noticed the cat had gained a few pounds since moving in with Danielle. His belly was rather impressive.

“She's back now. I wish she would have stayed away fifteen more minutes.”

Max blinked his eyes at Walt.

“You wouldn't understand.”

Walt left Max in the kitchen and headed upstairs. On the second floor, he was surprised to discover light coming from under Hillary's bedroom door.

“You're keeping late hours,” he mumbled. He then turned his attention to Danielle's room. Its door was shut; the room appeared to be dark. He stood by her door a moment, debating if he would go in or not, until finally he moved effortlessly through the closed door. He found Danielle sleeping peacefully on her bed, curled up in a fetal position, her arms clutching the quilt. Moonlight streamed in through the window, lighting her delicate features.

Walt stood by her bedside and watched her sleep. It had been days since their last dream hop—and what a dream hop it had been. Danielle had kissed him. Walt smiled at the thought.

He reached out to brush his fingertips over her brow, but they moved through her forehead, cruelly reminding him he was not of her world. Snatching back his hand, he continued to watch her sleep while he thought about their kiss.

He had taken her to see what his yacht, the
Eva Aphrodite
, had been like before it was lost to the sea. Danielle had only seen its rusty and battered hull, destroyed after sitting under the ocean for almost a hundred years. He also wanted to give her an opportunity to say her final goodbyes to Emma Jackson.

What Walt hadn't counted on was how he would feel seeing her on his yacht's deck—making him believe for a brief moment that he was still alive—with a woman he had been waiting a lifetime for. Impulsively, he had cupped her face in his palms, preparing to claim a kiss, when he had suddenly remembered—
my
lifetime
is no longer
.

He intended to pull away, but then Danielle had seized the moment and kissed him—
she kissed him
. While he knew it was all wrong, he still couldn't help but smile at the thought. Perhaps he was no longer alive—yet that one kiss made him feel more than he had ever felt when he was a living, breathing man.

The next morning, after the dream hop on the
Eva Aphrodite
, neither he nor Danielle had mentioned the kiss. However, it was obvious she was embarrassed. Because of her apparent embarrassment, Walt was reluctant to initiate another dream hop. He would give her time—give them both time—to consider what had happened and what it meant, if it meant anything. Chris would be returning in a few days, and Walt couldn't help but wonder if Danielle would tell Chris what had happened. He hoped not.

Turning from the bed, Walt made his way back to the hall. Walking toward the stairs leading to the attic, he paused by Hillary's closed door. By the light coming from under the door, he assumed she was still awake.

“I wonder if she's working?”

Hillary Hemmingway, bestselling mystery author, claimed to have come to Marlow House to write her next book.
I need some inspiration
, she had told Danielle.
My muse has been silent, and I need something to wake him up
.

As far as Walt knew, Hillary's muse was still snoozing. He hadn't seen her write a single word since her arrival. He didn't doubt she was really a writer—Ian was a huge fan of the woman's work. Considering Ian was a well-known author himself, one with a series of award-winning documentaries to his credit, Walt assumed she must be good.

Curious, Walt moved through Hillary's closed door. Danielle hated it when he went into a guest's room, but he didn't plan on telling her about his snooping.

Once in the room, Walt glanced around. Hillary's overhead light was on, as was the lamp on her nightstand. Clad in a long flannel nightgown, her gray hair in rollers and covered with a pink netted cap, she sat in the center of her bed, with sheets of yellow paper scattered around her on the mattress and on the floor. Clutching a yellow legal pad in one hand and an ink pen in the other, Hillary frantically scribbled across the pad of paper, writing one sentence after another.

Standing between the bed and the door, Walt frowned as he noted the sheets of paper strewn all over the floor. Cursive writing covered each line of each sheet of paper. It was impossible to read what she was writing, at least not from where he stood.

The sound of paper being ripped from the pad caught Walt's attention, and he looked over to Hillary, who flung a sheet of paper—one freshly ripped from the pad—onto the floor and then started writing on a new sheet.

“Does this mean your muse has woken?” He took a seat on the edge of the mattress to have a closer look at some of the pages. He began to read one.

A woman meets a man under the pier. They argue. She is blackmailing him. While she yells at him, he finds an empty wine bottle in the sand. He picks it up and hits her over the head. It kills her. He removes all her rings. She has a ring on every finger, even her thumbs. Diamonds and gold. He covers her body with sand and leaves her there. He doesn't want the rings. He throws the dead woman's jewelry off the pier. When he puts his hand back into his pocket, he finds one of her rings he missed. He throws it in the ocean with the others and hears a splash.

E
ach day
, Heather Donovan started her morning jog by first walking down to the Frederickport Pier by way of the sidewalks running along the road leading from her house to the pier. She did this in lieu of stretching to prepare herself for the jog.

She had fashioned her raven hair into two braids. They weren't fancy fishtail or French braids like Danielle Boatman normally wore. Heather liked to think of it as her Indian princess look, in honor of her native American great-grandmother on her father's side of the family. Ancestors on her mother's side of the family tree carried too much karma baggage—those she would rather forget.

When she reached the pier, she walked past it and then stepped onto the beach to start her morning jog, which would take her under the pier, past Ian Bartley's house and just beyond Chris Johnson's, where she would then cut back onto the sidewalk, cross the street and walk back to her house—her way of cooling off after the run.

It was a quiet, chilly morning, and so far she hadn't passed anyone on her walk, not even a car driving down the street. But the moment she stepped from the sidewalk onto the sand, she had the overwhelming sensation someone was watching her. Heather paused and looked around. To her surprise, she spied Jolene Carmichael standing some twenty feet from her, staring in her direction.

Instead of offering a greeting, Jolene turned from her and raced from the beach to the pier. Heather assumed the woman was headed to the Pier Café for breakfast.

“Wow, Jolene can sure run for an old lady,” Heather mumbled.
Not very friendly. I guess she's still pissed I told the world the truth about her grandfather.

Heather continued on her way. A few moments later, she stood under the pier, fitting earphones into her ears, when she noticed a mound of sand under the pier. It hadn't been there yesterday. Remembering the wind the night before, she wondered if it were possible the wind had created a mini sand dune, yet found it implausible, considering it was tucked under the protection of the wooden structure.

With a shrug she said, “Wind tunnel maybe? Dumped all the sand in one place?” Turning on the music, she walked to the mound to have a closer look before starting on her run.

The first thing she noticed was the shoe poking out the end of the sand dune. Her initial thought was that the wind had gathered up debris from the beach—like an abandoned shoe—along with sand and had dumped it all in one place. But then she spied the leg attached to the shoe.

Without thought, Heather leapt down and shoved what she now assumed to be a person trapped under the sand. She rolled the corpse over onto its back. Horrified to discover the body was dead, Heather jumped up and stared down. There, looking up at her, was Jolene Carmichael, sand affixed to her dead eyeballs.

Heather began to scream.

H
ands on hips
, Police Chief MacDonald watched as they moved the body onto the stretcher. Standing next to him was Officer Brian Henderson, who had just arrived.

Absently removing his cap and refitting it back on his head, Brian asked, “Any idea what happened?”

“Appears to be a mugging. Looks like someone bashed in her head and then took her jewelry and rummaged through her purse. I think we found the murder weapon. There was a wine bottle near the body, had blood and hair on it.”

Brian shook his head in disbelief. “In Frederickport? Someone would kill a little old lady over jewelry and some pocket change?”

“You probably didn't notice, but Jolene liked to wear every diamond ring she owned, all the time. That woman loved diamonds.”

“I forgot, you knew her well, didn't you?”

“We weren't close. But her daughter and my wife were good friends.”

“Who found her?” Brian asked.

“Heather Donovan came across the body when she was jogging this morning. At first she thought it was some sort of sand dune, but then she noticed the shoe. Freaked her out; kept yammering on about karma.”

“Karma?” Brian frowned.

“Yeah, all that about Jolene's grandfather and Heather's great-grandfather being responsible for the
Eva Aphrodite
massacre,” MacDonald reminded him.

Brian frowned. “I don't know about karma, but how is Jolene Carmichael responsible for something that happened before she was born? I don't see how any of that has to do with her death.”

“Not saying it does. But Heather tends to read more into these types of coincidences—the fact she found the body and what she and Jolene have in common. Think about it; Heather has made it her mission to make amends for her ancestor's crimes while Jolene would rather pretend hers did nothing wrong. And now Jolene is dead, murdered.”

“Yeah, well, Heather Donovan is an odd one.” Brian shook his head. “So what do you think happened? Why would Jolene Carmichael be under the pier alone at night? Assuming it happened last night.”

“My guess, Jolene stopped to have something to eat at the diner. Her car is still in their parking lot. Maybe someone was passing through and noticed those diamond rings she liked to flash around and the fact she was an older woman, alone and vulnerable. Maybe she decided to take a late walk on the beach, and the killer followed her. Joe is up at the diner now, seeing who was working last night.”

“I still can't believe something like this would happen in Frederickport. We just don't have muggers, and not someone willing to kill. Is it possible this wasn't about the rings?”

The chief glanced briefly to Brian. “You think someone wanted Jolene dead and just took her rings for good measure?”

“She wasn't the most pleasant person after she conned herself into Ian's house. Adam Nichols wanted to strangle her.”

“Jolene wouldn't win any popularity contests. I know she and her daughter had a turbulent relationship.” The chief cringed. “Damn, I'm going to have to call Melony and tell her about her mom. I know they had issues, but she was still her mom.”

“So what do you think? Could it be something more than just a mugging?”

MacDonald shrugged. “I guess we'll have to see, find out if anyone had a motive. Adam was understandably angry at the time, but considering Danielle's probably going to end up with the gold coins Jolene found in Ian's house, I think we can confidently cross him off our suspect list.”

“Maybe it is just a mugging.”

F
ifteen minutes later
, Police Chief MacDonald sat with Brian Henderson in the Pier Café, waiting for Carla to show up for work. When Joe had come into the café earlier that morning, he had been informed Carla had closed up the night before and would be in within the hour. Jolene's body had been removed, and Joe remained at the beach with several other officers, still processing the crime scene.

By the time Carla arrived, the chief and Brian were already eating breakfast. Without asking permission, she took a seat at their table.

“Is it true what they said, Jolene Carmichael was murdered last night?” Carla asked.

“How did you know the victim's identity?” MacDonald asked.

“So she really was killed!” Carla gasped.

“Yes, but we would prefer to keep the identity of the victim quiet until we can contact her daughter.”

“Oh, I won't say anything,” Carla solemnly vowed.

“But how did you know?” Brian asked.

“They were talking about it at the gas station this morning when I stopped by to fill up my car.”

The chief let out a weary sigh. He then set his coffee cup on the table and looked at Carla. “They told us you were working last night?”

She nodded. “I've been working double shifts lately. Trying to earn some extra money. My side job at Pearl Cove didn't work out. So is she really dead?”

“Yes. Her body was found this morning under the pier,” MacDonald explained.

Carla cringed. “Oh, my god! To think I closed up last night, and a killer was lurking around!”

“Did you see her last night?” Brian asked.

“Yeah. She came in here late last night. Said something about being on her way home from the movies, ordered a piece of pie.”

“Was she with anyone?” Brian asked.

Carla shook her head. “No. Came in alone, left alone. She wasn't here long, didn't even finish her pie.”

“Were there any strangers in last night?” Brian asked.

“Not that I can remember. It was kind of slow last night, mostly locals. I never saw anyone suspicious looking.”

“You say locals, who was here last night around the same time as Jolene?” the chief asked.

Carla considered the question a moment. “There was Adam Nichols and Bill Jones. They came in late, had some burgers. Bill left around the time Mrs. Carmichael arrived.”

“Adam didn't leave with Bill?” Brian asked.

“No. He decided to have some dessert. Adam has a sweet tooth. And then there was that author lady who's staying at Marlow House.”

“Hillary Hemmingway?” Brian asked.

“Yeah! That's her name!” Carla smiled. “Isn't that funny her name is Hemmingway like that other writer?”

“Was she alone?” MacDonald asked.

“Yes, she sat over there.” Carla pointed to a booth across the diner. “She wasn't very friendly last night, spent most of her time reading. She's been in here before and was always pretty friendly, but last night she made it clear she didn't want to be disturbed. Just bring her the food, and get out of her face. Mrs. Carmichael stopped by her table, and I could tell Ms. Hemmingway wasn't thrilled with the interruption.”

“Do they know each other?” Brian asked.

Carla shrugged. “I guess so. Seemed to anyway. But it was pretty clear Ms. Hemmingway didn't want to talk to her.”

“Did they argue?” Brian asked.

“Argue? I don't think so. It was more Mrs. Carmichael stopping by her table to say hi and Ms. Hemmingway giving her the brush-off. But Mrs. Carmichael stopped by everyone's table and said hello. She seemed to know everyone who was in here last night. To be honest, it was the friendliest I've seen her.”

“What do you mean?” MacDonald asked.

Carla considered the question a moment. “I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but well, she always acted like she had a stick up her…well, you know. But last night, she comes in here and is all Miss Social Butterfly, stopping at everyone's table, saying hello. It just didn't seem like her.”

“Who else was in here besides the people you've mentioned?” MacDonald asked.

“There was Steve Klein, the bank manager. Pete Rogers, he lives over by Marlow House. The kid that works at the gas station by the grocery store; can't remember his name. He was in here with his girlfriend. Don't remember her name either.”

“Were Rogers and Klein together?” Brian asked.

“No. They each came in alone. Pete comes in a lot; he likes to fish off the pier.”

“Anyone else?” Brian asked.

“Sam, who works over at the Seahorse Motel. He often stops in after his shift ends and has a piece of pie. I think that's about it.”