The Ghost of Marlow House (Haunting Danielle Book 1) (21 page)

“You hired
that
man to fix the
window?” Walt paced the parlor floor as Danielle lounged casually on the small
sofa watching him with wry amusement.

“Bill Jones. His name is Bill Jones.
After all didn’t you say he was the one who actually broke the window?”

“Yes but…”

“Then it’s only right that he fix it.”
Danielle smiled. Pulling the cellphone from her pocket she looked at the time
and then tucked the phone back in her pocket. “He should be here in about
fifteen minutes. Don’t you think it’s nice of him to fix the window on a
Sunday? Lucky for me he was able to get everything he needed, even the glass
pane.”

“You are paying a man to repair my
window—a window he broke! That is absurd!” Walt boomed.

“Actually, it is my window. And who said
anything about paying him?”

“I don’t understand? He agreed to do it
for free?”

“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I
plan to pay him.”

“Exactly how do you intend to get away
with not paying him?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Danielle
said with a shrug. “Do you happen to remember what he was wearing yesterday?”

“Wearing? Clothes, why?”

“Gee thanks, you’re helpful.” Danielle
rolled her eyes. “Do you remember the color of his shirt, his pants?”

“He was wearing denims. His shirt was
red. Red plaid.”

“Are you certain?” Danielle asked.

“Yes, I’m certain. I remember taking aim
at it when throwing croquet balls at him. Where’s Lily, by the way?” Walt
glanced around.

“She has a migraine. She’s upstairs
lying down, trying to take a nap. When we were at Marie’s, she had an interesting
theory about what happened to the Missing Thorndike.”

At mention of the Missing Thorndike,
Walt stopped pacing and stared at Danielle.

“That is the necklace you stole, isn’t
it?”

“Is that what Marie told you?” he asked
in a quiet voice.

“You know, I heard about the Missing
Thorndike at the museum when I saw Eva Thorndike’s portrait. When Marie first
mentioned her father said you were involved in a jewel heist I had no idea she
was talking about the necklace in the portrait.”

“What was Lily’s theory?” Walt asked.

“She suggested someone killed you for
the necklace, which would mean it is no longer in the house. A new motive for
your killer.”

“No, I wasn’t killed for the necklace—no
one knew I had it.”

“And it is still hidden in this house?”

“Didn’t I tell you it no longer
mattered?”

“Funny thing about that,” Danielle said.
“Maybe no one knew you took the necklace back then—but seems like a whole bunch
of folks know about it now. Me, Lily, Marie, Adam Nichols, Bill Jones, Ian…”

“Ian?” Walt frowned.

“Seems Ian is working on a story about
Eva Thorndike. Apparently he came across some information indicating you took
the necklace.”

“That’s impossible.” Walt shook his
head.

“Apparently not. The thing is, once you
tell just one person, there is no guarantee your secret will remain a secret. I
know you said something to Marie’s father. I’ve always wondered—why?”

“I had too much to drink.”

“Excuse me?” Danielle frowned.

“George and I were having brandy one
evening and I was feeling especially melancholy. I never actually told him I
took the necklace—just that I might have it.”

The doorbell rang, interrupting their
discussion. Danielle jumped off the sofa and snatched a padlock off the coffee
table. “I bet that’s Bill,” Danielle said as she went to answer the front door.

“This is a mistake,” Walt said, walking
alongside Danielle as she made her way from the parlor to the entry hall.

“Whatever. Just behave yourself. And try
not to be too distracting,” she whispered right before opening the front door.

“Ms. Boatman?” Bill greeted. Leaning to
the right, and then the left, he looked over her shoulder into the house.

Danielle couldn’t help but notice his
unease. Forcing a smile, she cheerfully greeted him. “I do so appreciate you
coming over—and on a Sunday!”

“I have everything in the back of my
truck. I was wondering if I could just pull up in the drive.”

“Certainly. The back gate is unlocked.
You’ll find the padlock hanging on the gate. Go on in, and I’ll meet you at the
back door to the kitchen. You can come in that way.”

Bill gave a little nod before turning
around and walking back down the front walkway toward the street. Danielle
stood at the open door. When she heard him start up his truck, she walked to
the gate, padlock in hand. Chuckling to herself, she locked the front gate with
the padlock.

“Why did you ask that man here?” Walt
asked after Danielle returned to the house.

She closed the door and started walking
to the kitchen. “I told you. He broke the damn window, he can fix it.”

• • • •

Bill unlatched the back entrance of
Marlow House before pushing the gate wide open. Returning to his truck, he
turned on the ignition, put the vehicle in drive and slowly turned into the
driveway, parking in front of the broken window. Someone had boarded it up.

Bill chuckled to himself. He found it
amusing that Danielle Boatman had called him to repair the window. He wasn’t
thrilled about going back into the house, and he still didn’t understand what
had happened in the attic, but he felt a measure of comfort knowing Boatman
would be in the house with him. When he’d visited Marlow House the first time,
nothing peculiar had happened, and she had been there then. Maybe when he was
finished fixing the window he could get another look around the house. If
nothing else, he would make some extra cash by fixing the window.
Maybe I
should drum up business by going around breaking windows and leaving my
business card
, Bill told himself.

After the incident in the attic, he and
Adam had run like hell from the house, leaving by the front door and went
straight to the rental to get Adam’s car. At the time they hadn’t considered
someone might have seen them running down the street. It was a small town and
so far he hadn’t heard anything, therefore assumed he was safe. He must be,
after all, Danielle Boatman had even hired him to repair the library window.

When driving away from the rental house
Adam had spoken his first words since leaving Marlow House:
remote control
.
Adam was convinced the croquet set was in some way rigged with a remote control
device. Bill thought it was a logical explanation. The one thing he and Adam
couldn’t agree on—who was operating the remote control?
However,
Bill still couldn’t find an explanation for the television plugging itself back
into the wall.
Perhaps
, he thought
, Adam had not unplugged it. Maybe
it didn’t actually get unplugged as they had initially thought.

Danielle was waiting at the kitchen door
when he parked his truck. She sat outside on a bench and watched as he removed
his toolbox from the back of the truck. He wasn’t used to an audience when he
worked, but he figured that considering what he planned to charge her, she was
more than welcome to watch.

• • • •

Danielle had to admit that Bill did a
good job. She wondered where he’d gotten a windowpane on such short notice, but
didn’t ask. Standing at the kitchen doorway, she watched as he loaded his tools
back into the bed of the pickup truck. He had even agreed to dispose of the
scrap wood used to board up the window. It was already piled up in the back of
his truck. She watched as he wrote out a bill. Danielle smiled as he walked to
her and handed her the slip of paper.

“Could you do me a favor?” Danielle
asked. “While I’m getting your check written, could you pull out of the
driveway, put the padlock back on the gate and lock it for me? I’ll meet you
around by the front gate and give you a check.”

“No problem,” Bill agreed. She stood at
the back doorway, watching as he pulled out of the driveway, locking the gate
behind him.

• • • •

  “The front gate’s locked,” Bill called
out to Danielle, who was walking down the front walkway toward him. He rattled
the gate to illustrate his point. Bill stood on the sidewalk outside the
perimeter of her property.

“Yes, I know,” Danielle said with a
smile when she reached the gate. Bill glanced over the fence and noticed she
wasn’t carrying anything.

“I thought you were bringing me the
check?”

“No. I won’t be paying you,” Danielle
said with a smile.

“Excuse me?” Bill frowned in confusion.

“I figure you broke the window, it is
only right you fix it. This way we are even. I won’t be calling the police on
you,” she said calmly.

“You’re crazy, lady. I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

“I have witnesses. Just be happy I’m not
calling the police on you. Consider this your lucky day.”

“I don’t believe you. If I really broke
into your house and if you had a witness, you would have called the police on
me.”

“I don’t want to upset Marie Nichols.
She’s been very nice to me.”

“What does she have to do with this?”
Bill asked nervously.

“If I have you arrested, I would have to
arrest Marie’s grandson, whom she depends on. I know you broke the window
yesterday. After you broke it, you and Adam climbed through it, and began
searching through my house. At the time you were wearing a red plaid shirt and
denims. You had a little problem in the attic, after which you both ran out the
front door and down the street. You left the front door wide open, by the way.
Now go home, and be grateful I didn’t call the police.”

Speechless, Bill stared at Danielle.
Whatever bluster he’d possessed evaporated.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered.

“You don’t have to understand. Simply do
not break into my house again.”

Shaking his head in confusion, Bill
stumbled back to his truck, glancing over his shoulder at Danielle, who
remained standing inside her gate.  Smiling, she gave him a cheerful little
wave.

• • • •

“She refused to pay you?” Adam asked
when Bill showed up at his house late Sunday afternoon.

“She knows,” Bill said as he pushed his
way through Adam’s front doorway. Adam followed Bill into the house and shut
the door behind them.

“What do you mean she knows?”

“She said she had witnesses. Said she
knows I broke the window, that we climbed in and searched the house. She
described what I was wearing and even knew about what happened in the attic.
Knew how we left the house.”

“Why didn’t she have you arrested?”

“Why didn’t she have
us
arrested,
you mean,” Bill snapped.

“Okay, why didn’t she have us arrested,”
Adam asked.

“She said we were even, now that I fixed
the window. That she wouldn’t call the police because she likes your grandma
and she doesn’t want to hurt her by having you arrested.”

Adam was silent for a moment,
considering everything Bill was telling him. Finally he said, “She must have security
cameras in the house.”

“You mean like nanny cams?”

“Yeah. She probably has them all over
the house. I bet I was also right about the remote control.” Adam began to
laugh. He started walking toward the kitchen and asked, “Want a beer?”

“What is so funny?” Bill asked,
following Adam into the kitchen. He stood by Adam who grabbed two beers from
the refrigerator before handing one to him.

“I bet she was laughing like hell at us,
freaking out over that animated croquet set!” Adam laughed again, and popped
open the beer can before taking a quick swig. “Well played, Ms. Boatman.”

“Easy for you to say. I spent an hour
over there fixing that damn window, and she didn’t even pay for the glass!”

“You did break the window, Bill.” When
Bill scowled, Adam added, “Okay, I’ll pay for half the window. Let me know what
you were going to charge—not the inflated bill, the real one—and I’ll pay
half.”

“You got the window fixed,” Lily said
groggily when she wandered into the library Sunday evening. Yawning, she
tightened the sash around the waist of her robe. She’d removed her clothes
earlier before laying down for a nap, and had slipped on her Hello Kitty pajama
bottoms, which she now wore under the robe.

Danielle tossed the book she was reading
onto the floor and looked up at Lily. “Wow, you had some nap. You feeling okay?
I can never sleep during the day.”

Rubbing her eyes sleepily, Lily stumbled
over to a chair and plopped down, sitting across from Danielle.

“For the first couple months when I go
back to work, while I’m getting back in the groove, I come home every day after
school and crash for about thirty minutes. A power nap. Perks me right up.”
Lily combed her fingers through her tangled red hair.

“You were out for more than thirty minutes.
How is your head? You said something about a migraine.”

“I took some aspirin before I laid down.
It’s fine now. But I think that visit to Marie’s gave me the headache.”

“What do you mean?” Danielle frowned.

“I need to talk to you, Dani. Something
is bugging me. I think that’s what gave me the migraine.”

“What’s wrong?” Danielle studied Lily’s
troubled expression.

“I think Ian was the one who broke into
Marlow House yesterday.”

“No, Lily. Ian didn’t break in here.
Trust me.”

“Would you please hear me out?” Lily
said impatiently.

“Okay Lily, I’ll hear you out, but I’m
certain Ian wasn’t the one who broke in here.”

“I wish I could agree with you,” Lily
said sadly. “I really liked him. I forgave Ian for not telling me what he
really did for a living. And gee, he helped clean up the water leak in the
kitchen and he bought me steak and lobster. He’s really good to Sadie. I
couldn’t like a guy who didn’t love animals.”

“Then why do you think he was the one
who broke in?” Danielle asked gently.

“I didn’t want to say anything to you at
first, but even before we went to Marie’s, I didn’t think kids broke in here.
Whoever was here was looking for something. When I walked through the house
when we came back from Astoria I noticed cupboards left ajar, drawers that had
been closed that morning were partially open, and someone moved my suitcase in
my closet, as if they were looking for something. If it was kids poking around,
I can’t believe they wouldn’t have grabbed the iPad or your computer.”

“Okay, I agree with you, it wasn’t kids.
But why do you think it was Ian?”

“When we went out to dinner I told him
what I thought—that someone had broken in trying to find something. He started
quizzing me, asking me what I thought they were looking for. I’ve given it a
lot of thought, and it was like he already had the answer and wanted to see if
I knew.”

“What do you think he was looking for?”
Danielle asked.

“That stolen necklace, of course. He was
the one who told me about Eva Thorndike, although he never mentioned the
missing necklace. Of course, we now know he knew about it.”

“You think he was here looking for the
Missing Thorndike?” Danielle asked.

“It makes sense to me. It wouldn’t
surprise me if the necklace is what got Walt Marlow murdered and the killer
took off with it years ago. But Ian didn’t know that. He was genuinely
surprised that you uncovered information proving it wasn’t suicide. I think Ian
wanted to find the necklace. That’s why he interviewed Joanne Johnson, to see
if she knew anything about it. After all, it was possible she came across it
years ago and gave it to whoever was managing the estate and it never was made
public. Had she found it and kept it, I doubt she would still be cleaning
houses. And that’s why he interviewed Marie, to see what she knew about the
theft.”

“All good theories, Lily, but you’re
wrong. Ian didn’t break into Marlow House. He might very well be looking for
the necklace, considering he was anxious to see the house and jumped at the
chance to help with the inventory. But he wasn’t the one who broke in here
yesterday.”

“How can you be so sure of that, Dani?”
Lily wanted desperately to believe her friend.

“Because Adam Nichols and Bill Jones
broke in yesterday, and I suspect they were looking for the necklace.”

“Marie’s grandson? No, it can’t be. I
admit I thought he was a little sleazy when I first met him, but he’s been
really helpful. He arranged that meeting with Emma Jackson.”

“Yes, and conveniently got us out of
Frederickport for the morning so he could break in.”

“And Bill Jones? Isn’t he the one who
works for Adam, who you called to fix the window?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think they’re the ones who
broke in?

“I can’t really say—but I’m certain.”

“Why can’t you say?”

“It’s hard to explain, let’s just say I
had a gut feeling—a hunch—and I confirmed it this afternoon.”

“Confirmed it how?”

“After Bill fixed the window I told him
I wasn’t paying him.”

“You didn’t!” Lily gasped.

“I did.” Danielle grinned. “I told him I
knew he and Adam broke in through the window. I told him that for Marie’s sake
I wouldn’t go to the police, and that now that he had fixed the window we were
even.”

“What happened?”

“He quietly left. Not exactly the
response of an innocent man who was stiffed after being hired to make a
repair.”

“Marie did say they were both there when
she and Ian discussed the missing necklace. But are you really sure?”

“Yes Lily, I am. Ian didn’t break into
the house. And you forget, Ian knew the gardener was coming over on Saturday
morning to work in the yard. You told me yourself you mentioned it to him. You
can’t believe he would break the library window knowing the gardener was about
to show up at any minute.”

“Oh…I forgot about that. He did know.”
Lily let out a sigh of relief.

“And Adam and Bill didn’t. They figured
the house was going to be empty.”

“What are you going to do if you see
Adam or Bill again?”

“I have no idea. It will be interesting.
I have no doubt I will see them again. This is a small town and I don’t intend
to end my friendship with Marie. But I would like to do something to get the
Missing Thorndike out of our hair.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked.

“The ideal situation would be to find it
and return it to its rightful owner.”

“You wouldn’t try to keep it?”

“It’s not mine. It was stolen. There has
to be heirs out there somewhere. But in the meantime, I don’t need some
treasure hunting thief breaking into the house.”

“Maybe Ian didn’t break into the house,
but I’m pretty sure I know what story he’s working on,” Lily said.

“The Missing Thorndike?” Danielle asked.

“It must be. Makes sense, considering
the questions he’s been asking and what he obviously knows.”

“I have to say, that actually makes me
feel worse than imagining Ian was the one who broke in here yesterday,”
Danielle said glumly.

“Why is that? I don’t understand,” Lily
said.

“Right now there are only a handful of
people who believe there’s a connection between Walt Marlow and that missing
necklace—people who believe the necklace is hidden somewhere in this house. But
once Ian’s story comes out, the world will know. Who knows what kind of people
will show up on my doorstep? Turning this place into a bed and breakfast makes
it even worse.”

“You know, it could be good for
business,” Lily suggested.

“I don’t need guests who lock themselves
in their rooms so they can pull up the floor boards or open up the walls.”

“You have a point.” Lily pondered the
situation before announcing, “I guess we only have one choice.”

“What’s that?”

“We need to find the necklace.”

“Find it?”

“Well sure, isn’t that the obvious
solution? If it is in this house, we should be able to find it. Unlike Adam and
Bill, we don’t have to break in. We can take our time and methodically go
through this house, room by room.”

“I suppose we don’t have any choice.”
Danielle glanced around the room, wondering where Walt was keeping himself this
evening, and if he was listening.

“Where and when do you want to start?”
Lily asked.

“Let me think about it.” Danielle was
hoping Walt would come to his senses and simply tell her where he had hidden
the stolen necklace. “By the way, where was Ian today? I haven’t seen him since
he picked you up last night.”

“He had to drive back to Portland, and
when he got back he had some work to do on the computer. I guess for his story.
I have to admit, I was rather glad he made himself scarce today, considering
all the conflicting emotions I’ve had regarding him and that damn necklace.”

“Well, it’s been a long day. I’m going
to go take a shower.” Danielle stood up. “If you’re hungry, there’s a little
lunch meat left in the ice chest.”

“Thanks Dani, I’ll figure out
something.”

Lily followed Danielle out of the
library. She turned in the direction of the kitchen when Danielle headed to the
staircase. In the kitchen Lily made herself a ham sandwich and then wandered
outside to eat it.

The sun was setting. If Lily wasn’t
wearing her robe and pajama bottoms she would be tempted to take a stroll down
to the beach. Instead she walked over to the bench and sat down to enjoy her
sandwich. She was halfway through it when Ian and Sadie showed up.

“Hello stranger, we have to stop meeting
this way,” Ian teased as he walked toward her, Sadie trotting by his side.

“Evening Ian. Did you have a productive
day today?”

“It wasn’t bad, but I got back from Portland
later than I intended.” He took a seat next to her on the bench. Sadie greeted
Lily, begging for a bite of sandwich before lying on the ground by Ian’s feet.

“Ian, the story you’re working on—it’s
about the Missing Thorndike, isn’t it?”

Ian didn’t answer immediately, finally
he asked, “How did you know?”

“Things you said to me; things you
didn’t say to me. Questions you asked others. Plus, we spoke to Marie Nichols
this morning, and she told us about your alter ego’s interview.”

 “I can’t really discuss the details of
the story, sorry.” He sounded sincere.

“I think your story is the reason Marlow
House was broken into yesterday.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know. I think you suspected
last night when we discussed my theory that someone was looking for something.
You knew then what they were probably looking for.”

“You can’t be certain.”

“It was Marie Hemming’s grandson and the
guy that works with him. The two that were at the diner and asked me questions
about when the bed and breakfast was going to open—when we first met.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Danielle told me. But the point is,
your article is exposing us to danger.”

“Danger? How can you say that? After
all, only a couple people know what I’m really working on.”

“And two of those people broke into
Marlow House. They were in Marie’s kitchen eavesdropping when you started
asking her questions. What’s going to happen when your story comes out, and
treasure hunters start showing up on Dani’s doorstep?”