Authors: Kathryn Meyer Griffith
They listened as Beatrice unfolded her story.
“I guess it started about two weeks ago. At night,” the old woman began. She had a husky voice with a soft expressive edge. She was huddled in her chair like a frightened child, holding the Raggedy Ann, and she looked so small. She almost could have been one of her dolls. “I heard strange noises somewhere in the house but I couldn’t pinpoint where they were. I’d be sleeping upstairs in my bed and be awakened by a loud thumping. Like someone had dropped something real heavy somewhere in the house. I’d get up and take a look and there’d be nothing. No one.”
She met Abigail’s eyes with nervous ones of her own. Her aged hands were holding the doll, her back was stiff. “Since Arthur died I sometimes get a little frightened being alone here, especially during storms. You know?”
“I know,” Abigail replied in a sympathetic voice. “I hate storms, too.”
“I used to have a dog. Freddie. A big black lab. But he died a few weeks ago. Suddenly. Another odd occurrence if you ask me. One day he was as normal and healthy as could be and the next I found him dead in the kitchen. It broke my heart. He was a good dog and good company.
“Anyway, the weird noises went on like that for a couple of nights. I’d hear something and get up to see what was making it. It was always nothing and no one. Then, oh, starting about a week past, I’d get up in the morning and notice things down here had been moved or had simply been taken. Small items at first: a vase, a book or a magazine, some curio or other. My salt and pepper shakers–and they were real silver, too. My dolls were even being moved around. One morning when I got up I discovered some of my food in the fridge was scattered all across the floor. What a mess.
“That’s when the noises–in the basement this time–really got loud. But every time I went down there the basement was empty and nothing was touched as far as I could tell. It mystified me to what was making the commotion. Then last night was the worst. I woke up about two in the morning and the ruckus was so awful I was too scared to even go down there.”
“What sort of noises?” Frank inquired. He was leaning forward, taking in every word. His cop senses on high alert.
“They sounded to me as if someone was in the basement knocking over and smashing things and it frightened me so much I called Myrtle down the street to come over and keep me company for the remainder of the night. I was a basket case. But she wouldn’t come until right before dawn. The ghosts, you know?”
Frank smiled. “I know. Did you go down to see about it?”
“When Myrtle got here we did. But again…nothing was down there. Nothing was disturbed. Have I finally become senile? Gone round the bend? I’m terrified now of night coming again.”
Abigail felt sorry for the old lady, and reaching over, touched her shoulder in a gesture of sympathetic comfort. “Myrtle said that you thought you saw your husband’s ghost?”
Beatrice avoided her gaze, turned her head away, and her voice was soft when she responded, “I’ve seen him in the house before, yes, or I think it’s him. It’s hard to tell, he’s so wispy. I feel his presence more than I see him, though. You know what I mean?”
Abigail nodded.
“But he’s not the one making all the commotion or causing me trouble, I know it. He wouldn’t frighten me like that. He loves me.” The woman looked at them again and met Frank’s eyes. “This haunting isn’t Arthur. It’s something else. And I’m scared. Really scared.”
Frank came to his feet. “Can we go down there now? I’d like to take a look around.”
For a moment Beatrice’s expression reminded Abigail of a bird facing a cat. Then, to the woman’s credit, she straightened up and stood, too. “All righty. If you two are with me I don’t suppose anything could hurt me.”
“Then let’s go,” Frank said.
They followed her down thirteen rickety stairs into a dank and dark basement. Even when Beatrice turned the lights on it still gave Abigail a shiver of uneasiness. The first thing she noticed when they hit the bottom step was the basement, too, was full to the rafters with a life’s collection of stuff. Thank goodness though, no dolls. Perhaps the basement was too dirty for them, or Beatrice liked them upstairs with her. The second thing she noticed was that, even for Beatrice, the basement appeared especially messy. Then she realized it was much more than that.
The basement looked as if a tornado had gone through it. It wasn’t only the untidiness but things were broken and tossed in piles everywhere. Glass glittered over everything from broken windows and the shelves along the cement walls were now laying in pieces on top of everything else. The mess wasn’t a normal mess.
“Whoa! Someone’s been down here and done some real damage.” Frank was trolling through the wreckage inspecting things. “I thought you said nothing had been touched?”
“It wasn’t like this last time I was down here!” Beatrice had one hand touching the side of her face, her eyes shocked, mouth open. “I swear it. When Myrtle and I came down here it looked as it always did. A bit cluttered, but an ordinary basement. But this–I don’t know what to make of this. Why would ghosts destroy my basement? Why? What do they want?” Her eyes were a mirror of alarm. She’d brought the Raggedy Ann doll downstairs, holding it tightly, and she was trembling. Abigail moved down a step and put her arms around her, again feeling sorry for her. How upsetting this must be to an old woman who lived alone.
“Why would ghosts do this?” Beatrice repeated.
Abigail exchanged a caustic look with Frank. This wasn’t the work of ghosts and they both knew it. Someone solid and human had done this. Thing was, as Beatrice had asked, why?
“I’m sure it wasn’t ghosts,” Frank stated firmly. “There are no such things as ghosts–and anyway I doubt if this was done by any poltergeist–if this happened after you and Myrtle were down here, why didn’t you hear anything? This should have woken up half the neighborhood.”
Beatrice shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. But then,” she confessed hesitantly, “sometimes I don’t hear so well. My left ear goes out sometimes. Wax or something clogs it up.” The fingers of one hand caressed the offending ear.
Abigail didn’t think that’d be enough to not hear the basement being trashed, but she didn’t say anything. Beatrice and Myrtle might have heard something and had been too afraid to say so.
“Does someone have a grudge against you?” Frank inquired. “Can you think of anyone who would do this?”
“No! As far as I know I don’t have any enemies. I’m only an old lady living out the few years I have left. I can’t understand why the ghost would do this, but I know it’s not Arthur.”
Frank sighed, “There are no such things as ghosts, Beatrice,” and kept poking around in the wreckage.
“That’s what you think. Are you in for a surprise if one decides to show himself to you. You just wait.” The old woman went back up the stairs. She didn’t appear too worried about the chaos on the lower floor; considering what the rest of her house looked like, Abigail thought,
well, one mess was as good as another
.
Abigail went with her upstairs and the two women waited for Frank to return to the kitchen. When he did, he posed three or four more questions to Beatrice, told her they’d look into it for her best they could but she also needed to call the sheriff’s department, report the harassment and the damage and have them come out to see it themselves, make it official, and she and Frank left.
The old lady stood in the doorway, doll cradled in her arms, her lined face confused, as they drove away.
*****
In the truck once they left the driveway Frank looked at her. “Oh my God, those dolls!” He slowly shook his head. “Those things gave me the creeps. I don’t know why but I could have sworn some of them appeared demonic. I had the urge to sprinkle holy water on them and watch my back with every step. As if when I wasn’t looking they’d lunge after me with a knife.”
Abigail laughed. “Some of them certainly did look menacing. You know I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that many dolls in one place anywhere before. That woman sure loves her dolls.”
“That she does.” The steering wheel in Frank’s hands rotated a notch or two. They were on the highway and the day’s light was fading around them. There were crickets and frogs humming on the air, and the scent of spring was everywhere. The normalcy of it made what they’d left behind harder to accept.
“I think I’ll put a call into the sheriff’s department myself about this. I don’t think we can count on Beatrice to do it, do you?”
“No I don’t. She seemed so sure it was supernatural she won’t call the sheriff. What do you think about that destruction in the basement? We both know unhappy spirits didn’t do that.” Abigail had her eyes on the windshield as a tiny rock pinged the window. Fortunately the glass didn’t crack.
“I think she needs to clean it up, for one thing, but I don’t expect she will. I told her to at least get the windows fixed. Told her Luke at the hardware store would come out and put in new windows for a fair price. She said she’d call him.”
“No, I meant, who or what do you think did it? And why?”
Frank shrugged. “As you said, not spooks. When we first got there I sort of believed Beatrice had lost a few more of her marbles since I’d seen her last, with the dolls and the hoarding and all, but after seeing that basement,” he paused, “I think someone’s trying to scare her or worse. But for what reason I can’t fathom. Not yet anyway. I’m working on a motive. Got a couple possibilities but nothing that makes any sense at the moment.”
“Hmm, I also think someone’s trying to scare her and I don’t buy the ghost explanation, either. So what do we do now?”
“That’s a valid question. All we can do is wait and see what else happens. I gave Beatrice my cellphone number and asked her to call me immediately next time she hears anything weird in her house–anytime–and I’ll zip over and check it out. In the meantime, after further thinking about it, I’m going to visit Sheriff Mearl in person, not just call him; have a chat with him and see if he’ll provide an extra police patrol in Beatrice’s neighborhood, particularly at night. There should be some surveillance on her house for a while.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“What do you make of Beatrice’s story about seeing her husband the ghost?” He drove up in front of her house.
“I don’t know. Beatrice believes she’s seen a ghost. She isn’t sure it’s her husband. She just wants it to be. It’s not so frightening to her if she knows the ghost. But someone is tricking her.”
“So you think the haunting is part of the game that’s being played on her?”
“It could be.” The truck had come to a full stop in her driveway and Abigail had her hand on the door handle ready to get out. She sent a smile Frank’s way. “If you don’t have anything else scheduled for the evening, would you want to come in and have supper with me? I defrosted a container of homemade chili earlier and we’re having it tonight. The kids will eat later when they get home.”
“Sure. I’ll take you up on that. I can’t pass up your chili. But let me go have that talk with the sheriff first and I’ll be back here as soon as I get done.”
“I’ll wait for you. I might even make corn muffins to go with the chili.”
“Yum. I love corn muffins, too. See you in a bit then.” He drove away and Abigail went inside.
As she baked in the kitchen, put supper on the table, and Frank returned from seeing the sheriff, darkness fell over the town.
And she couldn’t help but wonder what that darkness would be hiding.
Chapter 2
Abigail
Abigail didn’t see or hear from Frank for days after that because they were both busy. He was working on his new novel; she with the kids and searching for more freelance jobs. She’d had a lead from Samantha her reporter friend at The Weekly Journal that a new bakery had been asking around for an artist or a painter to do some work. All she had to do was go talk to the proprietor and Samantha gave her the address.
So that morning she was headed towards the address for a meeting with its owner, Kate Greenway. Now Spookie would have not one bakery, but two, and she was delighted. Variety was good, especially since she was as addicted to bakery goods as she was.
The operating bakery in town, called appropriately The Bakery, had the best cakes and pies in the county, but she’d grown tired of their donut selection, which hadn’t changed in years. And it’d be great to have another job so soon after she’d ended the last one. With two children in the house she needed to keep a steady income coming in. As a foster mother, she did get a state stipend every month but it wasn’t near enough to give the kids all she wanted them to have. She had to make money to do that.
The location the new bakery was going to occupy was where a previous mom and pop barbeque place had once been. It’d been closed before she had come to Spookie and the building had been empty a long time. In the heart of town, it was squeezed in between the ice cream shop and the Tattered Corners bookstore and not far from Stella’s Diner. It was close to everything, which made it a perfect location.
As she parked and strolled up to the storefront she could see someone behind the dirty windows working inside. Abigail knocked on the door and waited until the person noticed her and came over to open it. It was a woman.
“Hello. Are you Kate?”
“That’s me. Kate Greenway.” The woman smiled and laid the broom she’d been using against the wall. “You must be Abigail Sutton. Come on in.” She was a little thing with long dark hair, a delicate face and green eyes, wearing a T shirt and faded jeans. She could have been in her late-forties, maybe fifty. She must have been working hard because her clothes were grimy and her face was sweaty. There was a yellow bandana tied over and covering her hair. She put her hand out and Abigail shook it. “I know it’s a mess in here but you should have seen it before I started clearing and cleaning it out. It was an absolute disaster.”
Kate led her into the shop and she looked around at the dirty walls, remnants of left behind tables and chairs, and filthy floors. Everything was covered with a thick layer of grime. “Uh, it looks like you’re just starting the renovations. I was under the impression you wanted to commission some artwork from me?”