Patricia Rockwell - Essie Cobb 04 - Ghosted (6 page)

CHAPTER NINE

“Just like a ghost, you’ve been a-hauntin’ my dreams,

So I’ll propose on Halloween.

Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you.”

                                         
––Classics IV

Essie slept blissfully.  She dreamt about her husband, specifically the night he was made Vice President.  All of that closet cleaning had probably joggled her memory, she mused, and those long dormant memories just came rushing back. 
Oh, blathering boomerangs!
  She certainly didn’t mind having such pleasant dreams about John.  Nightmares were common enough and to wake up feeling happy and refreshed was fine with her.  John was an appreciative husband, she recalled.  She could almost feel his arms around her, hear his voice, and smell his breath on her neck…

“Essie!  Miss Essie!” cried a voice disturbing her pleasant dream.  “I can’t believe you’re still asleep!”  Essie’s eyes popped open to find her morning aide DeeDee staring down at her from above.

“Oh, DeeDee!” said Essie sleepily.  “I was having such a nice dream.”

“It must be,” said DeeDee, “for you to be still in bed after seven!”

“Seven!” cried Essie, sitting up abruptly.  “It can’t be that late!”

“It is, Miss
Essie,” replied DeeDee, lifting the coverlet like a big sail from Essie’s bed, and pulling the little woman’s feet over to the edge of the bed in a graceful, much practiced movement.

“We’d better hurry!” said Essie with alarm.  “I don’t want to be late for breakfast.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Essie,” replied DeeDee.  “You know I’d never let that happen!”  She smiled warmly and gave Essie a little hug and then quickly exchanged Essie’s bed clothes for underwear.

“Oh, my!” said DeeDee as she opened the top drawer.  “Where are all your bras?”

“My daughters threw out most of them!” replied Essie.  “I only have the beige one I had on yesterday and the white one.”

“I guess that’s okay,” said DeeDee, helping Essie stand, leaning
her over and carefully fitting her breasts into Essie’s favorite bra from the chair.  “Since you only really wear these two anyway.”

“That’s not true, DeeDee!” cried Essie, standing as DeeDee snapped the bra shut behind her back.  “I wore that black one once.”

“When?  On Halloween?”  DeeDee had wandered off into the closet to select an outfit for Essie to wear.   “Oh, My Lord!  Essie, where are all your clothes?”

“I told you, DeeDee,”
said Essie as DeeDee returned looking aghast.  “My daughters gave almost everything in my closet to charity.”

“
There are only a few tops and pants left,” said DeeDee, her brow furrowed.  “Your closet looks like it’s been burglarized.  They took everything!”

“They say they’re going to get me some new things.”

“They’d better do it soon, because that closet is bare as a baby’s bottom!” 

“Oh, I think I’ll manage, DeeDee,” said Essie reassuringly.  “I can wear the brown trousers I had on
yesterday.  And maybe that blue flowered top?”  DeeDee shook her head and headed back into the closet.    She soon returned with the items of clothing that Essie requested and helped her dress. 

“One thing I can say about your daughter’s cleaning spree,” noted DeeDee as she helped Essie head to the living room
, “at least it will simplify getting you ready every morning.  Not much to decide.”  Essie ignored her aide and rolled over to her recliner and eased into the seat.  She reached over for her clipboard and began working on an incomplete puzzle while DeeDee busied herself in Essie’s kitchenette fixing her morning medications.  

“Oh, I see they’re leaving this new vitamin supplement just sitting here on the sink.  I wonder if that’s wise.”

“I hardly think anyone’s going to steal it,” replied Essie.  “It’s the most foul tasting goop I’ve ever swallowed.”

“That’s too bad,” said DeeDee.  “You’d think they’d make these things taste better if they want people to take them regularly.”  She mixed the powder into Essie’s morning juice and brought it over to her along with a handful of five or six pills.

Essie downed both pills and juice and gave DeeDee a smile and an open mouth to indicate that she had indeed consumed her required meds for the morning.  DeeDee smiled and returned to the kitchen to clean up.

“You want me to roll you out to the dining hall, Essie?” asked DeeDee.  “They’re p
robably lining up for breakfast.”

“No,” replied Essie.  “I’m fine.  I want to finish this puzzle first and then I’ll head out.”

“Okay, Essie!” said DeeDee.  “Suit yourself!”  With a cheerful wave, DeeDee headed out the door.

Essie scratched her head, ignoring DeeDee’s exit.  She stared at the puzzle on her clipboard.  She thumbed through some of her other puzzles and attempted to finish some
of the others that remained unsolved.  After a few minutes of annoyance, she picked up her TV remote and flipped on a channel where she knew she’d get a morning news show.   The announcer was talking about some financial bill awaiting passage in Congress.  He droned on about the details of said bill and Essie tried to focus on his words but soon found them boring and difficult to follow.  She drifted back to sleep and the pleasant dream she’d had earlier about her husband and the night she’d worn the beautiful black cocktail dress came roaring back.  She could see John so vividly, almost hear him speak, see his face and his eyes.  He had such beautiful blue eyes, she remembered.  And when he looked at her, it was almost as if he saw a part of her that she herself was not aware of.  Time floated by. 

Essie was jarred awake by a loud commercial on the television.  She glanced down at her watch when she realized that she had fallen asleep.  Luckily, only a few minutes had passed and she was absolutely not late for breakfast.  She picked up her clipboard and stared back at the clue that had been bothering her.  As she stared at it, her eyes seemed to play tricks on her
—or at least that’s what she thought. 

It almost seemed as if she saw her husband’s face in
one of the puzzle squares, as if all of the little squares were swimming around and trying to join together to form into a different configuration—her husband’s face.  Essie blinked.  She sat upright and looked around.  She stared at the TV.  The news anchor on the morning show was staring straight into the camera delivering the news.  Everything seemed just fine.  She must have just been dreaming.   

“Stupid eyes!” she said to herself, and punched the side of her head slightly with the palm of her hand.  “Come on, Essie!  Get it together!”  She squeezed her eyes
tightly almost as if she was exercising them.  Squeezing her pencil with renewed vigor, she squinted at the puzzle squares again, looking from one small square to another.  She attempted to connect one line of squares going across to those going up and down so that she could figure out by default what the remaining word might be, but to no avail.  She stared and stared. 
If I stare at it long enough, I’ll surely figure it out!
 

The puzzle squares again suddenly
morphed into the face of her dead husband.  Essie froze.  She slammed the clipboard back on her end table. 

This is weird
, she thought. 
I don’t think I’m dreaming.  Maybe I should put some water on my face.
  Carefully, Essie extracted herself from her recliner and used her walker to rise from the cushion.  She rolled cautiously into her small bathroom where she stared at her face in the mirror.  Everything seemed fine.  She removed her glasses and bent over and turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on her face, giving herself a nice brisk shiver.

“
Now, what?” she asked out loud.  “Should I go on to breakfast?  Or dare I take one more try at my puzzle?”  As she continued to stare at her round, pink face in the mirror, she contemplated the possibilities.  People did “see” things from time to time.  They had daydreams—just like real dreams.  It might just be that simple.  Of course, it could be something bad.  She might be going crazy—something she dreaded. 

She’d often thought that if she started to lose her faculties, she’d rather just not go on.  And so far, she was sharp as a tack.  She had her puzzles to prove that.  And all of the many mysteries that she’d solved at Happy Haven.  If she got physically sick but was still able to think properly,
she reasoned, she would be all right. 
But
, she thought,
if I lose my mind, if I start imagining things that aren’t really there, they’d put me in a facility where I wouldn’t have the independence that I do here at Happy Haven.  I just couldn’t stand that
.

She dried off her face and replaced her glasses.  Heading back to the living room,
she sat back in the recliner.  Grabbing the clipboard, she carefully lifted her pen and placed it on the unfinished segment of the puzzle.  Checking the clue which said ‘meek’ she suddenly was struck by an answer that fit perfectly into the appropriate squares. 
Humble!
She quickly wrote the word into the puzzle.  “It’s done!” she said, smiling to herself.  She continued to stare at the completed puzzle.  None of the squares morphed into John’s face.

It was probably just a fluke
, she mused. 
I was worried over nothing.  And I completed another puzzle.  Hardly an indication of someone losing her mind!
  She rocked back in her recliner and smiled.  Then, glancing down at her watch, she realized that the breakfast hour was passing quickly. 
Oh, my!  I’d better get going if I want to get any waffles today!
  She pushed down on her footrest and scooted herself out of the chair.  Taking her walker, she drove herself through her front door and down the hallway to the dining hall.

Seeing other residents, Essie greeted each
by name as she usually did every day.  She prided herself on knowing all of the residents and when a new person moved into Happy Haven, Essie would make it her duty to meet them.  Before heading into the dining hall, she stopped at her mailbox.  There were no items in her box on the lower level, but as she was standing up and turning around toward the dining hall, she saw someone heading down the side hall behind the mailboxes towards the kitchen.  She didn’t know the man’s name but she did recognize him as the new resident who had told the wonderful war story at Fright Night. 

“Now, what’s he doing going back there?” she asked herself.

CHAPTER TEN

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

                                          ––Albert Einstein

Quickly, Essie rolled her walker down the side hallway following the new resident as he slipped quietly past the kitchen entrance and out the back entrance to Happy Haven.  Essie stopped her sturdy vehicle mid-hallway and leaned against her handlebars.  That man could move!  He was surely at least in his mid-seventies, if not eighties, and he didn’t even use a cane and he had zipped through the hall like some youngster.  Now, Essie could see him in the distance outside through the round glass windows on the double doors that led to the back of Happy Haven.  He was pacing around on the concrete driveway, hands in back pockets, looking up and down the lightly traveled residential street behind their facility.

“What in the whole wobbly world?” she mumbled softly.  Why would a resident wait for someone at the back entrance?  And why outside in this nippy fall weather? 

The man looked around and frequently back at the entrance door as if he expected someone to follow him outside.  He checked his watch.

Essie didn’t know what to do.  Should she remain standing in the hallway watching the new man outside, risking the chance that he might suddenly return inside and catch her spying on him?  Or should she forget that she’d even tracked him way behind the kitchen and return back to the dining hall and meet her pals for breakfast?

She didn’t need to wait long.

A nondescript sedan slowly rolled into the driveway and stopped.  Mark Twain (for that was what Essie
called him in her mind) opened the passenger door and got inside.  Essie was about to turn and go because she assumed the car would drive away, but as she remained to see, it soon became apparent that the driver of the car was not going to leave.  She could see the back of Twain’s head in the car.  He appeared to be speaking in an animated fashion to the driver.  Essie couldn’t even tell if the driver was a man or a woman, but she could see that the person was responding similarly with lots of hand gestures. 

Abruptly,
Mark Twain got out of the car and the driver whizzed away.  Twain headed back towards the double door entrance and Essie could see him getting closer, so she quickly turned her walker and headed back down the hallway.  If he saw her in the hallway, he would surely become suspicious as there was absolutely no reason to be in this hallway except to go into the kitchen or out the rear entrance, and, as a resident, Essie had no reason to go either place.  Residents were expected to use the front entrance.  And they were expected to sign out when they left the building—even just for a walk.  Mark Twain was definitely breaking several HH rules.  Of course, as long as no one saw him, he wouldn’t get in trouble.  And Essie, under normal circumstances, was not one to get her fellow residents in trouble.  But she was curious—and maybe a bit worried.

Essie managed to get to the end of the hallway and out into the mailbox area before Mark Twain re-entered the building.  She busied herself at her mailbox, pretending that she was collecting her mail
, and waited for Twain to return.  In a few seconds, the man appeared.  Essie noticed through her peripheral vision (which was amazing for a woman her age, according to her ophthalmologist) that Twain was carrying a small box.  As he hadn’t been carrying the box when he left the building, Essie reasoned that the driver of the car had given it to him.  The box was rectangular in shape and brown cardboard.  It had no markings but it did seem to have a lid that was affixed with clear tape.

Oh, goblins to Gertrude!
she thought. 
What if it’s a bomb?  What if he’s a terrorist planning to blow up Happy Haven?
  Essie knew that she had a vivid imagination and she rejected this scenario almost as soon as the thought appeared in her mind.  The box was surely far too small to contain any kind of bomb.

Even so, the fact that the man was new and that he had an obvious military background (even though that background occurred during World War II),
and that he was scurrying around the back ways of Happy Haven in a very secretive fashion, and—well, his rather striking good looks—made Essie think of him as some hero in an adventure movie.  As she glanced sideways, she saw the man was now retreating into the lobby.  He was even wearing one of those leather bomber jackets, she realized, as he strode off into the family room and around the corner.  Essie moved her walker after him and when she rounded the corner, she saw that he was standing in front of the elevator. 

Using my deductive reasoning
, she said to herself,
I’d guess he lives on the second floor
.  As Happy Haven only had two floors, and most residents who lived on the second floor took the elevator to get to the second floor, it wasn’t a strained deduction.  Of course, that only cut in half the possible apartments where Mark Twain might reside. 
Even so,
she mused,
it is more information than I had before
.  She continued to peer at the man from the far reaches of the lobby as he waited for the elevator.  Soon the elevator door opened, releasing a half-dozen ladies directly into Mark’s hands.  He beamed at them politely and they—to a one—all giggled. 
Women!
thought Essie.

After the man had disappeared into the elevator, Essie turned and started towards the dining hall where she had originally been headed.  Her pals
, Marjorie, Opal, and Fay would surely be wondering where she was.  Essie was typically the first person at their table.  Passing the front desk by the lobby entrance, she greeted Phyllis, Happy Haven’s front desk clerk.

“Good morning, Essie,” replied the cheerful middle
-aged woman with a smile.  “You’re late for breakfast!”  Essie was more than a little annoyed that Phyllis seemed to know her schedule so well.  Of course, she reasoned, Phyllis probably knew all the residents’ schedules. 

“I am a little slow today, Phyllis,” replied Essie.  “Must be the weather!”

“I hear you, girlfriend!” said Phyllis with a jaunty wave. 

Essie smiled, although she never really thought of Phyllis as her girlfriend.  She was certainly a nice person, but Opal, Marjorie, and Fay were her girlfriends.  She’d heard Phyllis use this term with other residents and wondered if she was just trying to be extremely welcoming.  She was definitely one of Happy Haven’s most outgoing and pleasant
—
Wait a minute!
thought Essie.  She stopped her walker and rolled around back to the front desk.  Parking her walker to the side, she ambled up to the counter and plopped her arms on top.

“Phyllis,” she said sweetly.

“Yes, Essie,” said the clerk, stopping her paperwork and giving Essie her undivided attention.

“I was wondering
…” began Essie.  She wasn’t quite certain how to go about extracting information from Phyllis about Mark Twain, the new resident.  Maybe she knew something that might explain his strange behavior this morning.

“Oh, Essie,” interrupted Phyllis, grabbing a clipboard from down the counter.  “I bet you want to sign up for the Haunted House, don’t you?”

“What?” mumbled Essie.  “I…I…I hadn’t really thought about it.  I…uh, might, but I will have to talk to Opal and Marjorie first.”

“Oh, all right,” said Phyllis, seemingly disappointed, although Essie couldn’t understand why she would care one way or another whether or not Essie
—or any of the residents—went on a field trip.  “But there are only a few slots left and if you and your friends don’t sign up soon you’ll miss out on all the fun!”

Right,
thought Essie. 
Fun.  Getting your pants scared off and your pee scared out.
  That was not Essie’s idea of fun.  Oh, well.  She knew she’d be talking to Opal and Marjorie about the Haunted House because they would be talking to her about the Haunted House.  That seemed to be a major topic of conversation recently and she’d probably be bombarded again at breakfast with more requests to join them on the field trip.  Ick!  How she hated field trips.  Essie shook her head.  She had apparently been daydreaming while she was standing at the front desk and Phyllis was trying to get her attention.

“Essie!”
whispered Phyllis, giving her a gentle poke.  “Essie, are you there?”

Essie focused on Phyllis’s sweet but plump face. 

“What? Oh, yes.  Phyllis, I wanted to ask you something.”

“What, dear?”  Again, Essie found Phyllis’s manner of constantly using
terms of endearment off-putting.  She was not her “dear.”  But then, she reminded herself that Phyllis did that with all the residents.  Indeed, Phyllis did that with all the staff and all of the visitors too.

“Do you know that new resident?” she asked.

“What new resident, Essie?” replied the clerk.  “We have lots of new residents.  Maybe twenty or more in just the last few months!”

“Believe me, Phyllis,” continued Essie, reaching her small body up and over the counter so she could speak more confidentially, “you’d remember this one.  He’s a man
—”

“That helps a lot,” said Phylli
s seriously, nodding.  “After all, women outnumber men at Happy Haven eight to one—”

“I know that, Phyllis!” cried Essie.  “Everyone knows that!  But this man is special
…”

“How?”

“He looks like…well, he looks like Mark Twain,” said Essie conspiratorially, pulling on Phyllis’s arm so she could draw her down and whisper directly in her ear.

“Who?”

“You know, Mark Twain, the author,” continued Essie, whispering, almost hissing in the clerk’s ear.  “A big full head of white hair.  A beautiful bushy white mustache.  Very lean and muscular—”

“Oh!” said Phyllis, standing upright suddenly, “you mean Edward!  Edward Troy!”

“You know who I’m talking about?”

“Of course,” replied Phyllis.  “He always wears that leather bomber jacket around.  All the ladies drool over him
.  Truth be told, I might drool a little too.”  She blushed and looked down at the papers on her clipboard as if she realized she had just said something inappropriate.

Essie ignored the woman’s admission.

“Edward Troy,” she said, mulling over the name.  “Edward Troy.  Hmmm.  What do you know about him, Phyllis?”

“Oh, dear,” said Phyllis.  “Why don’t you just ask him?  He seems very open.”

“Really?” asked Essie.  “Not a little bit secretive?”

“What are you getting at, Essie?” asked the clerk, now placing her hands on the counter and eyeballing Essie with more than curiosity.

“I mean, you don’t notice any sort of unusual behavior?”

“From Mr. Troy?” asked Phyllis.  “Such as what?”

“You know,” continued Essie.  “Such as going places he shouldn’t…”

“Like where?” demanded Phyllis
, her cheeks reddening.

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Essie. 

“Essie,” said Phyllis, “Mr. Troy seems to me like a very nice man.  I haven’t noticed anything unusual about him at all.  I think maybe, Essie, that you’re just getting in one of your…uh, detective modes.  What do you think?”

“Oh, maybe,” replied Essie.  She realized that she had pushed the clerk too far.  One of Phyllis’s jobs was to protect each resident’s privacy.  Indeed, she had done just that in the past
, and Essie had personally witnessed how seriously Phyllis took her duties when it came to protecting the residents.  She decided to back off.  “That’s okay, Phyllis.  I was just curious.  Just as you said, he is very attractive!”  She smiled pitifully at the clerk.

“Oh, Essie,” said Phyllis, giving Essie a hug.  “We’re never too old to appreciate an attractive man, are we?”  Essie smiled up at Phyllis as the clerk continued to squeeze her affectionately.