The Ghostly Hideaway

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the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in
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written permission of the above-named publisher is forbidden.

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to
actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

It’s my fault; I should have suspected
something.
The trouble was he had known Norman Jones since they
were both children. The two of them had graduated from Fairmont
High together and had subsequently gone into business as partners.
And it was a most lucrative enterprise, too. The town of Fairmont,
North Carolina had a lot of new construction going on as well as a
great deal of remodeling work, too. Edward had been extremely proud
of Wroe and Jones Contractors and equally proud of the work they
did. They had even been written up in the local trade journal and
some of their work had been photographed and praised in glowing
terms.

That sure had ended with a bang, the bang of a
judge’s gavel. He was totally flabbergasted when the police came
for him. He had known the police officers, all three of them; had
gone to school with one of them and to church with the other
two.

“Come on, Hank. What kind of joke is this?" Edward
had asked in an almost teasing voice.

“I’m afraid it’s no joke, Ed. You’re accused of
grand theft; the unlawful taking of articles valued in excess of
one thousand dollars." Hank sounded as if he hated to be
confronting him.

“Who am I accused of stealing from?”

“The customer whose home you were remodeling: Joe
Mills." Officer Bill Jenkins slipped on the handcuffs and began to
hustle him out to the car.

“But Bill, you know I wouldn’t do that. What makes
them think
I
did it, anyway?”

“Because they found your fingerprint on the key that
was left in the door. Now I shouldn’t even have told you that; just
forget that I did.”

They had gone as far as the front sidewalk when
Penny saw the police car out front with the lights flashing. She
thought there might have been an accident or something. When she
saw the four men heading for the police car, she called out to
them.

“Hey, where are you going? Eddie, dinner’s almost
ready. You can’t run off right now." When the officers turned
around, she saw that her husband was in handcuffs.

“Penny, call Frank Niles and ask him to meet me at
the police station. There’s been a big misunderstanding
somewhere.”

Penny couldn’t believe her eyes. What could they
possibly have arrested Eddie for? She called their attorney and
Frank assured her he was on his way out the door. After that,
things had got out of hand in a hurry. They had executed a search
warrant and when they looked through his work truck, they found a
silver coffee urn wrapped up in a towel and stashed in his
toolbox.

Even though Edward screamed “frame-up” to high
heaven, (didn’t everybody?) the grand jury took only thirty-five
minutes to indict him. Edward kept trying to decide who might have
wanted to frame him for this. He couldn’t figure who in the world
would want him to be blamed for theft. Was it remotely possible
that one of the other local contractors had needed that job badly
enough to try to discredit him? Of course, any whisper of
dishonesty on his part would ruin his reputation, maybe
permanently. Whoever was making him look guilty could do
irrevocable damage to his and Norman’s business. He didn’t know
what in the world to do. He just knew he was innocent; but how on
earth would he prove it?

They let him out on bail but he still had no idea
what to do to start to clear his name. Then his attorney told him
the prosecution claimed to have an eyewitness—someone who saw
Edward stealing the items from the house. That certainly had him
puzzled. Only the person who framed him could claim to have seen
him doing something he knew he hadn’t done. When the trial began,
they called the fingerprint expert who swore the print on the key
left in the door did indeed belong to the defendant. The police
sergeant told how the search warrant had turned up the silver
coffee urn belonging to Joe Mills hidden in his work van. Joe Mills
swore that the item belonged to him and that numerous other items
were also missing from his house, at least twenty thousand dollars
worth.

“Call your next witness, Counselor,” the Judge
instructed.

“The prosecution calls Norman Jones, Your
Honor.”

Edward had expected that the defense might call
Norman as a character witness, but why would the prosecution call
him to the stand?

“Mr. Jones, can you tell us what happened on the
evening of March 14?”

“Well, I had decided to go to the Mills residence
where we had been working and see if the owner was home. Edward and
me, we had a couple of questions that needed answering about the
work we were doing. We needed to know if he wanted new trim put up
in the room we were remodeling or if he wanted us to try to piece
together the trim that was there and put it back up.

“When I got there, I was surprised to see Edward’s
work van parked about half way down the block under some trees.
Then I noticed someone coming out of the house carrying a large bag
that looked quite heavy and heading toward Edward’s truck. I stood
there with my mouth hanging open and watched as Edward carefully
placed the bag in the back of the truck and pulled away from the
curb.”

Speaking of mouths hanging open, Edward’s was at
this point. This was his friend, his partner, his long-time buddy
telling lies about him and it would probably be enough to get him
convicted of the crime.

“What happened next?”

“I simply couldn’t believe what I was seeing. So I
followed him. I thought maybe somebody had stolen Ed’s truck and
his keys and, well—I didn’t know what to think. As I said, I
followed him. I saw him go to the bus station and while I watched,
he rented a locker and put the bag in the locker. But before he put
it in the locker, I saw him rummage around inside the bag and take
something from it and put it under his coat. After he locked up the
storage compartment, he went back to his truck. I continued to
follow him. I still couldn’t believe it was actually Ed and he had
a baseball cap on that pretty well hid his face.

“I followed him back to his house and he was in the
back of the van for a few minutes and then he went into the house.
I could see him through the front picture window when he got to the
living room and took off his cap. I’m sorry, Ed, but it was
definitely you." Norman looked at the defense table and sadly shook
his head.

Well, he knew now
who
was framing him but he
sure didn’t know
why.
Edward could tell them why his
thumbprint was on the key. Norman had claimed to have lost his key
and asked to borrow Ed’s key to have a duplicate made. This was no
spur-of-the-moment thing; Norman had planned it. It sure looked as
if it would work, too. How could he discredit his ex-friend? Penny
knew when he went to bed the night of the incident; but he had no
way he to prove that he didn’t get up later and do what Norman said
he did. Norman had to have planted the coffee urn in his truck,
too, but he could think of no way to prove that, either. Ed was
flat-out screwed unless he thought of something fast.

“Ask him what time he is supposed to have seen me
doing these things,” he whispered to Frank when it was time for
cross-examination.

“Mr. Jones, during what period of time is my client
supposed to have done these things you claim you witnessed?”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly. It was sometime between
nine o’clock and midnight." Norman looked somewhat unsure and
Attorney Niles jumped on it.

“Can’t you be a little more specific than that, Mr.
Jones?”

“Well, it may have been closer to ten o’clock.”

“Is that when you first saw him or when he was
supposedly renting a locker at the bus station?”

“I guess that’s when I first saw him.”

“You’re sure about that, now? Ten o’clock when you
saw his truck on Center Street and you saw him coming out of the
Mills house? That’s your statement, now?”

“Yeah, ten o’clock. That’s when it was. I’m sure,
now. Positive.”

“And that would have made it ten-fifteen or maybe
ten-thirty when he got to the bus station to rent the locker.”

“Yeah, it would have taken fifteen or twenty minutes
to get from Center Street to Elm Street where the bus station
is.”

“He went home after that according to you and went
into the living room and the lights were on in that part of the
house. Is that your statement?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see anybody else in the living room when
Mr. Wroe got home?”

“Yeah. His wife was in there and they talked a few
minutes, turned out the lights and, I suppose, they went to
bed.”

“Okay, according to you, Mrs. Wroe was still up with
lights on in the living room at around eleven or a little after. Is
that correct?”

“Yeah, I suppose. I’m not completely sure of the
time, though.”

“Very well. Let’s review your testimony. You saw him
coming out of the Mills house at ten o’clock and you saw him rent a
locker at the bus station at around ten-thirty. You were positive,
you said, about that. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Now Mr. Wroe lives on Second Street. How long
would you say it would take to get from Elm Street to Second
Street?”

“Well, it’s about twenty-three blocks. I’d say
probably thirty to thirty-five minutes, taking traffic and traffic
lights into consideration.”

“Okay. That would mean, counting the time you said
he spent poking around in the back of the van, it had to be after
eleven when he got in the house. And you said they talked a few
minutes before they turned out the lights. That would mean, would
it not, that Mrs. Wroe was still up in the living room after eleven
and probably closer to eleven-thirty? Is that not a logical
conclusion, Mr. Jones?”

“I suppose so.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. No further questions, Your
Honor.”

“The prosecution rests, Your Honor”

“Very well. Court is in recess until nine o’clock on
Monday morning. We’re adjourned." Judge Carwile banged his
gavel.

When the clerk called court into session on Monday,
Ed was feeling considerably better.

“Is the defense ready to proceed?” the Judge
asked.

“We are, Your Honor. I call Joe Mills to the
stand.”

“Remember, Mr. Mills, you’re still under oath.”

“Are you the owner of the property from which the
items were stolen, Mr. Mills?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Can you tell me where you were and what you were
doing at fifteen minutes before ten o’clock the night of the
robbery?”

“Yes, I was on the telephone talking to Edward Wroe
about the trim in the new sun room. There had been some trim in
that room and Mr. Wroe was asking if I wanted to re-use it or if
they should buy new trim.”

“How long were you on the phone with Mr. Wroe?”

“We talked for about forty minutes. I remember
thinking I was going to miss the eleven o’clock news if we didn’t
finish soon. I told him I didn’t want them to try to reuse the old
trim. After that, it was necessary to decide what kind of trim I
wanted them to put up in the room. He had a list of widths,
finishes, styles and the prices on each. It required quite some
time to go through all that.”