Stolen Dreams (7 page)

Mary tiptoed down the stairs and crept into the
kitchen.
 
The house lights were off and
the hands on the clock showed that it was after midnight.
 
She moved through the house easily from
memory, not needing to turn on the lights as she wound her way around the
furniture into the kitchen.
 
The first
stop was the silverware drawer.
 
She
slowly slid it open, careful not to let the contents rattle, felt around inside
and pulled out a spoon.
 
After closing it
just as carefully, she slipped across the room to the refrigerator and opened
the freezer section. Light spilled from the inside of the freezer and illuminated
a small area of the kitchen, barely reaching the shadowy figure cowering in the
corner.

Mary reached into the freezer and pulled out a small carton
of dark chocolate ice cream. She pulled the lid off, inserted her spoon, and then
immediately put the spoonful of the delicious, icy confection into her mouth.

“Mary.”

She squealed and nearly choked on the ice cream.

“Mike,” she whispered harshly. “You just about scared me to
death.”

“You have company,” was his quick reply.

“What?” she cried, and as she spun around she caught a flash
of movement in the corner of the room. “Who’s there?”

“No one,” the figure whispered.

“That doesn’t work very well,” Mike commented. “She’s
smarter than that.”

Mary bit back a chuckle. “Can I help you?” she asked,
placing the spoon and the ice cream on the counter.

“I don’t know,”
came
the sorrowful
reply.

Mary reached over and flipped on the light over the sink,
bathing the room in soft light.
 
She
could now see the shadowy figure more clearly.
 
He looked to have been a middle-aged businessman with a receding
hairline and an increasing waistline.
 
He
was cowering, his back bent over and his head hidden.
 
He was one of the least frightening ghosts
she had ever met. “Why don’t you tell me what brought you here?” she suggested,
climbing onto a stool. “And then I can tell you if I can help you.”

He turned towards her and Mary gasped.
 
His head was twisted grotesquely to one side
and was hanging limply on his shoulder.
 
And in order to see Mary, he had to turn to one side to speak with her.
“I think I might be dead,” he began.

Nodding slowly, Mary sent him a sympathetic smile. “I think
you might be right,” she replied. “Do you remember when you died?”

His eyes rolled up as he searched his memory and then popped
back to focus and widened. “Yes, I remember,” he said. “We were at the
house.
 
The haunted
house.
 
Sol and I were there,
looking for ghosts.
 
Then…” He paused for
another moment, allowing his eyes to roll up again.
 
But this time there was no popping or
widening.
 
This time there was just
grief. “That’s the problem. I can’t remember.
 
But I suppose I just died.”

“You were at a haunted house?” Mary asked.
“Mr.?”

“Cannon.
Marty Cannon,” the ghost
replied. “Yes, we were at our haunted house. Well, we were pretty sure it was
haunted.
 
But the ghost would simply not
cooperate with us.”

“You wanted a ghost to cooperate with you?” she asked.

He nodded his head, which actually caused his cheek to rub
against his own shoulder. “Yes, that was the plan,” he explained. “We were
going to have the most haunted house in the Midwest and people would pay good
money to spend the night and experience the supernatural.”

“Ah,” Mary replied, understanding the situation. “And the
ghost refused to play along with the scheme.”

“Exactly,” he said with a wide smile. “And
me
and Sol needed a ghost to show up pretty soon or we were
going to lose our investment.”

“How long ago did you die?”

“What month is it?” he asked.

“October,” she answered.

His eyes widened again. “Wow, I died in the summer. It was
June,” he said. “What have I been doing for all those months?”

“That’s a good question,” Mary said. “And why did you
suddenly decide to come and see me?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he replied. “My business partner, Sol
Atkinson, came by to see you at your office. I tagged along with him.”

“Mr. Atkinson,” Mary said slowly. “Oh, the man who wanted me
to verify he had a haunted house.
That Mr. Atkinson?”

Marty nodded again. “Yeah, he’s still trying to get his
investment back,” he said.

“But, if you died at that house and you’re a ghost, why
aren’t you haunting it?” she asked.

Marty started to speak, then stopped and shook his head.
“Why, I never even thought of that,” he said. Then he started to laugh. “Isn’t
that the damnedest thing? Here I could have been haunting the house all along,
but all I ever do is just
hang
around with Sol.”

Mary studied Marty for a few moments before she spoke
again.
 
“Marty, do you remember your
funeral?” she asked.

He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin with his hand. “No,
I can’t say I do,” he finally replied. “I don’t remember anything like that at
all.”

“Would you mind if I did a little checking on your death?”
she asked.

He shrugged, which caused his head to bounce on his shoulder
for a moment. Lifting one hand, he set it back in place. “No, I don’t mind at
all,” he said. “Do you think that’s my problem?
 
That I don’t remember my funeral and that’s why I’m still here?”

She smiled at him and nodded. “Well, I think that might be
one of them,” she answered evasively. “But once I know about your funeral, I’ll
be able to fill in some of the other pieces of the puzzle.”

“Yes. This is a puzzle,” he admitted. “And I’d really
appreciate any help you can offer.”

She slipped from the stool and walked across the room to
him. “I’d be very happy to help you,” she said sincerely. “And I promise I’ll
do all I can to make sure we get you home.”

“Thank you,” Marty said, a tear rolling out of his eye,
across the bridge of his nose and across his cheek to land on his shoulder. “I
think I’d like going home.”

“Yes, I think you’d like it, too,” she said.

With a bright smile, he slowly faded away until he was no
longer in the room.
 
“Well, that took a
lot less time than I had expected,” Mike said.

“What took a lot less time?” Mary asked, walking back across
the kitchen and picking up the ice cream and spoon.

“Finding out the reason,” he said.

She scooped a spoonful into her mouth. “The reason for what?”
she asked around a mouthful of ice cream.

“The reason you had to have the article printed in the
paper,” he said.

She put the ice cream down and stared at him, astonished.
“Wow, you’re right,” she said. “That is amazing. I guess everything is on the
right track after all.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?”

Mary absently took another bite of the ice cream while she
considered Marty and his situation.
 
Sol
had given her the creeps the moment she met him, and now she wondered if that
was her years of law enforcement training kicking in, rather than her ghostly
abilities.
 
She pictured the tall,
well-groomed, assertive man and wondered if he would be capable of murder.

“Sharing?”

She nearly jumped off the kitchen stool when Bradley’s voice
interrupted her thoughts.
 
She looked up through
the dim lights to see him standing next to the silverware drawer, reaching for
his own spoon.
 
With a relieved smile,
she slid the carton of ice cream over to him as he took a seat on the stool
next to hers.
 
He stuck his spoon in,
scooped out the ice cream and took a bite. “Actually,” he said, his mouth
filled. “I was referring to your thoughts.
 
But this stuff is really good.”

He slid it back so it was between the two of them. “So,
what’s going on?”

“I had a visitor tonight,” she said.
“A
middle-aged fellow who died during the summer.
 
And I have a feeling he’s connected to a man
that stopped by my office yesterday.”

“And by yesterday, you mean two days ago, right?” Bradley
said, glancing over at the clock than now read 1:00
a.m
.

Following his glance, she smiled and nodded. “Yes, right,
two days ago,” she repeated. “Stanley and Rosie were at my office and we were
talking about the barrage of calls I received because of the article—“

“You didn’t tell me about that,” he interrupted.

“Well, I was going to before we were interrupted by the
street brawl,” she said. And then in a lighter tone she added, “Oh, Bradley, by
the way, I was barraged by calls yesterday at the office because people read
the article about me.”

Grinning, he nodded. “Well, thanks for telling me, Mary,” he
replied before he scooped up another spoonful. “Now you may continue.”

“Thank you,” she teased. “So, while I was telling them, this
business man, Sol Atkinson, walked into the office, totally ignored both of
them and then proceeded to tell me that he was going to allow me to increase my
exposure and publicity by verifying that his house was haunted.”

“Well, how nice of him,” he replied sarcastically.

“That’s exactly what I thought,” she said with a nod. “So I
politely told him, as Ian would say, to piss off.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t too happy about it,” he said with a
smile.

“No, he wasn’t,” she said. “So he slapped a check for five
thousand dollars on my desk and told me he’d be in touch at the end of the week
because he was sure I’d change my mind.”

Bradley dropped his spoon. “Five thousand dollars?” he
asked. “That’s a lot of money just for someone to say you’ve got ghosts in your
house.”

“Yes, I thought so, too,” she said, digging into the carton
again. “And then tonight I met Marty.”

“And you think Marty is connected to Sol?”

She nodded. “Yes, Marty told me the way he found me is that
he is tagging along with Sol and saw him speaking with me,” she explained.
“Marty was Sol’s partner in this haunted house venture.
 
They bought this old house and wanted to
advertise it as haunted so people would pay money to spend the night and
experience paranormal events.”

“How did they know the house was haunted?” Bradley asked.

“It looks like they didn’t,” Mary said. “And they figured
because it was old, it was haunted.”

Bradley popped another spoonful in his mouth. “And what are
the odds?” he asked.

She shrugged and touched the edge of the spoon to her chin.
“Well, actually, not that great,” she said. “People who lived in old farmhouses
in the Midwest were generally hard-working, farming families.
 
They worked a lot. They helped their
neighbors. They went to church on Sunday, and they minded their own
business.
 
Really, most of them did not
have any unfinished business left here on the earth.
 
They just died and went straight to the
light.”

“So, he might have bought a dud?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s what Marty believes,” Mary said. “They didn’t
have a ghost, and in order to make money they needed a ghost.”

“And now Marty is a ghost,” Bradley finished.

“Yes!” Mary said, pointing her spoon at him.
“Exactly.
 
And I have
a feeling his good buddy Sol might have had a little to do with his transition
from this life to the next.”

Bradley nodded silently and studied Mary for a moment. “So
what you are really telling me is that you are dropping this one and calling
the police?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m telling you,”
she said. “It’s been four months or so since Marty’s death and no one has
questioned it.
 
How in the world will I
get anyone to believe he was murdered?”

“Especially after the article,” Bradley added.

She sighed. “Yes, especially after the article,” she
admitted. “So I have to get Sol to confess or I need to find proof.”

“When do we start?” he asked.

She looked down at her empty spoon for a moment and then
looked up at him. “You can’t,” she said. “You’re too well known.
 
Having the chief of police help with
a ghost
verification will send Sol running.”

“You’re not doing this on your own,” he stated. “It’s too
dangerous.”

“I could call Amelia,” Mary suggested. “She could certainly
play the part as ghost verifier.”

“Does Amelia have a black belt?” Bradley asked.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, sighing heavily. “But she
carries a really heavy purse.”

“Yeah, let me think about that for a moment,” Bradley said.
“No.”

Frustrated, Mary dug her spoon into the melting chocolate
and scooped up a large amount and stuffed it into her mouth. “Fine,” she
garbled around the ice cream. “You find me someone who has a black belt, can
pass as a ghost verifier and you would trust going with me.”

Bradley slid his spoon around the container and gathered the
last bit of ice cream. “Fine,” he repeated, popping it into his mouth. “I’ll
call Ian first thing in the morning.”

Armed with a new to-do list, Mary drove downtown the next
morning ready to get a lot accomplished.
 
After her late night conversation and ice cream with Bradley, she had
slept better than she had in months and she was raring to go.
 
She pulled up in front of a small store that
was a city block away from her office.
 
The store, Celia’s, was filled with antiques and home decorations that
suited the homespun country look Mary preferred.
 
But today she wasn’t looking for something
for her house; today she was all about decorating her office.

She pushed the door and looked around, happy to hear that her
office was not the only place in the downtown with a bell that rang when
someone entered.
 
The store was a
cornucopia of autumn decorations, from ceramic pumpkins to spicy potpourri to
vintage Halloween cards. Mary knew she had come to the right place.

“Hi, Mary,” Celia, a middle-aged woman with short, brown
hair and a welcoming smile, called as she walked from the back room. “I’m just
finishing up helping Paul hang a few more items in the back room.
 
What can I help you with?”

“I need to decorate my front window for Chili Friday and I
don’t have anything at all,” Mary said. “So, how can you help me?”
 

Celia’s husband, Paul, came out of the back room carrying
his tool box and sporting his white, walrus-like moustache and grinned at her.
“After the article in the paper, you would think you’d win for scariest place
of business hands down,” he teased.

Mary shook her head. “Don’t remind me,” she said. “I really
wish I hadn’t done that article.”

“Well, really, if they wanted an article about scary places
in the downtown, all they would have to do is visit Paul’s workshop in the
basement,” Celia said. “Now that’s what I would call scary.”

“It’s not scary,” Paul corrected. “It’s artistic and
creative.”

Celia rolled her eyes. “It’s a creative mess,” she said.
“Now, Mary, what are you looking for?”

“Wait,” Paul inserted, hurrying towards the back of the
store. “I’ve got the perfect thing.”

The women waited while Paul went into one of the small,
display rooms in the back of the store.
 
A moment later he was carrying out a huge, vintage looking, burnt orange
ceramic pumpkin that had one eye closed in a saucy wink. “You just get a black
chair, some Halloween material to drape, and put the pumpkin on the chair,”
Paul said.
“Instant display.”

“You could surround it with some small bales of hay,” Celia
added, “and maybe some of these smaller items.”
 
She pointed to a display of tin buckets that were painted in various
autumn motifs from scattered candy corn to a black cat with an arched back.

“That would be perfect,” Mary said.

Celia slowly gazed around the room. “And then you could add
a scattering of these silk, fall leaves,” she suggested.

“And these electric candles,” Paul suggested, picking up an
electric candle that looked like an old, wax candle in a pewter candlestick.
“To give the illusion of flickering lights.”

Mary looked around the room and smiled. “Sold,” she said
with a grin.
“Now what?”

“Oh, we’ll gather everything together and Paul can bring it
over later this morning and help you set it up,” Celia suggested. “And he’ll
bring the invoice with him, too. And if there’s anything you don’t like once
you get it there, he can bring it back.”

“Wow. Perfect,” Mary said, digging in her purse. “I have to
run a couple more errands, so why don’t I give you the extra keys to my
office.
 
So, if I’m not there, you can
just let yourself in.”

“Great,” Paul replied, taking the keys from her. “I’ll
probably head over there in about ten minutes and set all this up for you.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you two,” Mary said
gratefully. “You solved all my decorating problems.
 
If there’s ever anything I can do for you,
just ask.”

“Well, if things get too scary down in Paul’s workshop, I
might have to give you a call,” Celia laughed.

“Just call and I’ll come right over,” Mary promised. “But I
might have to shop a little before I chase away the ghosts.”

“That’s not a problem at all,” Paul chuckled as he carried
the giant jack o’lantern to the counter. “We love people who shop.”