The Ghost and Mrs. Fletcher (7 page)

Arianna Olynski, née Agnes Pott, followed me down the hall to Cliff's kitchen. “This is perfect,” she said, going to the table and emptying the contents of her handbag, just as I had done earlier with mine. She pulled out a candle, a bundle of herbs wrapped in twine, a feather, what looked like an abalone shell, and a small glass jar with a metal lid that she unscrewed before putting it down. “Sand,” she said. She looped the strap of her now-empty bag over the back of a chair and turned to me. “Do you have a match?” she asked.

I peered into my shoulder bag and shook my head. “It's probably the only thing I don't have in here,” I said. “I don't smoke.”

“No matter. You have a gas stove here. Does it work?”

“Yes. Would you like a cup of tea before you begin?”

“Maybe later. Right now I need to light the sage. Would you please ask Miss Simpson if she would like to join us?”

I found Eve in the library, lecturing Cecil about his manners, and escorted them both back to the kitchen, Cecil's nails making a
tip-tap
sound on the wood floor of the hall as he followed his mistress.

Aggie was standing behind the kitchen table, facing us as if about to give a cooking demonstration. “Are we ready?”

“What are we doing?” Eve asked.

“We are going to sage the house,” said Aggie. She picked up the bundle of herbs. “This is a smudge stick made of sage and lavender. Sometimes sageing is called smudging. They're the same thing. Sageing is an ancient Native American ritual for cleansing ourselves and our homes of any lingering negative energy and harmful influences.”

“Harmful influences?” Eve scooped up Cecil and hugged him to her chest. “Is it dangerous? Do we have to do it right now?”

“Now is as good a time as any,” Aggie said. “Do you have an objection?”

“No, but you haven't even seen the rest of the house.”

“You're going to show me the house as we go room to room with our smudge stick.”

“Will you be able to tell where the negative energy is or . . . um . . . where the spirits are?”

“Eve, is something the matter?” I asked. “It was your idea to bring in a medium to exorcise the ghosts.”

“Exorcise?” Aggie shrieked as though Eve had used an offensive four-letter word. “Oh, no! I don't do exorcisms. No, ma'am. That's a specialty practice. I've been brought here under false pretenses.” Aggie rapidly replaced all the materials she had removed from her bag. “I don't deal with those kinds of spirits. You didn't tell me about them. That's not what you asked for.”

“Wait! Don't leave,” Eve said. “Jessica must have misspoken. She didn't mean anything bad, did you, Jessica?”

Aggie paused in her repacking and looked at me expectantly.

“What kinds of spirits don't you deal with?” I asked.

“Demons! I don't touch those. Too many ramifications.”

I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what those ramifications were, but I also didn't want Eve to have wasted her money.

“I don't think we have any demons here, do we Eve?” I said, successfully keeping mirth from my voice.

Eve shook her head vigorously.

“Perhaps just mischievous spirits who move things,” I said, thinking of my wandering shoulder bag and some errant books falling to the floor when no one was around.

“Those would be poltergeists,” Aggie said. “They're pranksters who make noises or throw things across the room. They're actually fairly low-level spirits, in the sixth class, third order. Not very impressive.”

“Do you deal with poltergeists?” I asked.

Aggie snapped her fingers. “Easy peasy.”

“And other spirits, too, like those of the recently departed?” Eve put in.

“No problem, assuming that they
want
to come through. Some of them don't.”

“I'm sure Cliff Cooper will want to come through,” Eve said. “He was a nice man. Please, go ahead with your sageing. Did I use the right word?”

Aggie pulled herself up, as if attempting to become taller. She gave us each a stern look. “If we are all in agreement, I will sage now.”

She unpacked her materials and had begun her instructional spiel again when we were interrupted by a loud pounding on the back door.

Now what?
I thought, following the clamor into a short hall, which had access to the garden behind the house. I unlocked the door. Mort Metzger pushed a disheveled young man in front of him into the kitchen.

“Here's your ghost, Mrs. F.,” Mort said. “Found him skulking around the house.”

“T
hat's no ghost—that's my cameraman,” Aggie said, disgusted.

“Yeah? What's he doing sneaking around outside, peeking in windows?” Mort asked. “I caught him with his foot up on the sill.”

“I was just trying to get the right angle,” the cameraman said.

I glanced at Eve and raised an eyebrow at Aggie. “Miss Olynski, you promised me there would be no cameras while I was here.”

“He was just exploring the location for later,” she said, giving me an innocent smile. “Isn't that right, Davy?”

“I thought his name was Boris,” I said.

“That's my stage name. It's how I appear in the credits,” the young cameraman said. He turned to Miss Olynski. “Actually, I already got a few good shots, Aunt Aggie, just like you told me. I found an open window.”

“Where's your camera?” I asked him.

“I left it behind in the bushes when the sheriff grabbed me.”

“You mean you didn't want me catching you red-handed peeping through windows and taking pictures,” Mort said. “You ever hear of ‘Peeping Toms'? In this state it's a felony to trespass on private property for the purposes of peeping in on others. You're facing a fine and maybe a little jail time.”

“No way! Look, I gotta return the camera day after tomorrow or I owe 'em more dough. Tell him, Aunt Aggie. I was just shooting for your video program.”

“We'd better get his camera in case it rains,” I said. I turned to Mort. “I'll see if I can find it while you question your—your captive.”

“Sure, Mrs. F.” Mort pulled over a chair for Boris, also known as Davy. “Have a seat, son,” he said. He turned to Eve and Aggie. “So, ladies, what's going on here?”

I walked out the back door and scouted the perimeter of the house until I found the video camera lying on its side in a thicket of bushes on a jacket I presumed belonged to Davy. Several sets of footprints caused a pattern in the damp earth beneath the window where Mort had nabbed him. The window was open as Davy had claimed, and an apple crate sat on the ground below it. I stepped up on the crate to see which room the window looked into. It was the library. I held up Davy's camera and opened the viewfinder. If he had angled his camera just right, he could also have seen into the front hall when we'd come in. So much for the promises of the “psychic sensation” not to film that morning while I was there.

I stepped off the crate, still holding Davy's camera.
But how did he get here?
I don't see any truck.

I retraced my steps to the back door, holding the camera and jacket. The property had a large barn where Cliff had maintained his workshop, and I wondered if Davy had parked behind it, or maybe inside. Aggie had told Eve her truck wouldn't start, but maybe she'd given it to Davy with instructions to park it out of sight.

When I returned to the kitchen, Aggie was explaining the details of using a sage stick to Eve and Mort.

“Hey, Mrs. F.,” Mort said, “Miss Olynski here said I can watch while she—what was it again?”

“While I sage the house,” Aggie supplied.

“That okay with you?”

“Why would I have any objections, Mort? But what about your prisoner here?” I handed Davy his jacket and camera.

“Miss Olynski explained it was all a big mistake. She has an online television show, or I guess you'd call it a video show. Right?” Mort looked to Aggie for confirmation. “She said I could be in it. That'd be fun. You think Maureen would like to see me ghostbusting on YouTube?”

“I'm sure your wife would enjoy it very much,” I said, “but I'm not so sure the Cabot Cove Council would appreciate its chief uniformed police officer chasing after ghosts while on duty.”

Mort nodded, clearly disappointed. “Yeah, you're right,” he said. “Sorry, Davy, but no shooting while I'm on the premises.” He looked at his watch. “I'm due for a break anyway. I can watch this thing called sageing before I get back to the office. Go ahead, Miss Olynski. I'm looking forward to this.”

“You must be quiet while I go about my business,” our medium warned.

“Can I ask a question now and then?” Mort asked.

“Only if you must, but you must keep your voices low, or the spirits will gather around you instead of me.”

Aggie handed me the jar of sand. “You carry that, Jessica, and have it available if I need it.” She turned on a burner on Cliff's stove, lit the end of her smudge stick, and waited until the stick emitted a steady stream of smoke. Then, waving it in front of her body, she used the feather to guide the smoke toward herself, starting with her feet and ending with her head. “I have to cleanse myself first,” she explained.

“Do we all have to be cleansed, too?” Eve asked.

“Shh! No questions now.”

Aggie laid the stick in the shell and picked up her feather, waving it above the smoking stick. “We are standing in the heart of this home, the kitchen.” She traced the outlines of the windows and doors, and directed the smoke toward the ceiling and corners of the room. “Negative energy tends to gather in corners,” she explained as she took up a position in the center of the room. “Watch the smoke. If it moves sideways, the negative influences have not been cleared. It should go straight up.”

The stream of smoke wavered for a moment and then wafted toward the ceiling.

“And we proceed,” Aggie said.

“Cool, huh, Mrs. F?” Mort said, following the medium from the room.

We left the kitchen in single file, Aggie waving her feather over the smoldering smudge stick, Mort right behind, me carrying the jar of sand, Eve hugging Cecil, and Davy bringing up the rear. I wondered briefly if our little parade would set off smoke alarms, if there were any. I hesitated to ask and break Aggie's concentration. The sooner this was over, the better.

We marched in a circle on the main floor. In each room, Aggie studied the movement of the smoke, muttered some incantations, and waved her feather. “I cleanse this room of its negative energy.”
Swish, swish
. “I invite in only positive forces to support whoever lives here.”

Eve began to relax; she even looked amused. “Do Cecil and I have to worry about secondhand smoke?” She giggled at her own remark, but quickly stifled it after Aggie scowled at her and sent a puff of smoke her way.

At the base of the stairs Aggie paused and looked down at the half-consumed smudge stick.

“Is something wrong?” Eve asked.

“I hope I brought enough sage,” Aggie replied. She shrugged her shoulders. “If not, I can always come back tomorrow.”

I looked at Eve, who raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes at me, and I had the distinct impression that she was beginning to question her invitation to Arianna Olynski. I also wondered if it had occurred to her, as it had to me, that the medium might have purposely neglected to bring enough materials so that she'd need to return to finish the job, a clever way for the psychic to increase her fee.

The five of us climbed the stairs to the next floor, the smoke trailing behind despite Aggie's efforts to wave it ahead. “There must be a window open in one of these rooms,” she said.

I felt my eyes stinging from the smoky air and was glad to reach the landing. Aggie seemed to be debating which direction to take when Cecil made the decision for her. He raced down the hallway, barking, and stopped in front of a closed door, where he scratched the wood with his claws.

We followed Cecil, and when Eve opened the door, a gust of wind grabbed it, blowing it back against the wall with a loud bang.

“Well, now we're getting somewhere,” Aggie said, stepping across the threshold and waving the smudge stick overhead. “Spirits, reveal yourselves or be forever gone.”

Cecil yelped, whined, and backed away from the open door, then chased down the hall the way he'd come, his tail tucked tight. He paused at the top of the stairs, looking toward Eve, his tiny body shaking.

“Cecil, sweetie. It's okay. Momma's here. Come back, sweetie.” Eve walked toward him with her arms out and made kissing noises.

“I think I might've stepped on his tail,” Mort said as we followed Aggie into the room while Davy hung out, just outside the door, the camera dangling from his hand.

The room was one of the abandoned bedrooms. It had an acrid odor, which struck me as peculiar since the casement window was ajar and the lacy curtain, which had blown through the opening, was fluttering outside like a large gray bird.

While Aggie saged the room, calling out to its otherworldly residents—if they were present—I looked around. The mattress, instead of being folded over as I'd seen in another bedroom, was flat on the iron bedstead with a rumpled sheet on top as if someone had used it recently. But I knew this wasn't Cliff's bedroom. An overturned cardboard carton sat next to the bed. Someone had placed a lamp with a crooked shade on the box; the weight of the lamp indented the top. I put my hand under the shade to feel the bulb. It was warm. Perhaps the handyman had started earlier than expected and was camping in the house.

I saw a book on the floor and picked it up. It was a noir mystery by Graham P. Hobart. The title was
Buried Sins
, and the cover, a bloody head rising from a grave, made me shiver. I slipped the book in my pocket, intending to add it to the box of noir books downstairs.

Mort looked out the window. “It's going to rain any minute. We'd better wrap this up.”

Eve peeked around the doorjamb on the opposite side from Davy. She held a trembling Cecil in her arms. “Are the spirits gone yet?”

“Not yet,” Aggie said. “I'm working on it.”

“If you don't mind, I think I'll wait in the car with Cecil.”

“Go ahead. I'm almost out of sage anyway,” Aggie told her. “Jessica, you still have my container of sand?”

“Yes,” I said, holding up the jar.

Aggie took the jar, buried what was left of the smudge stick in the sand, and waved the last bits of smoke toward the ceiling. “That's all we can do today,” she announced. “I do hope Cabot Cove has a place to buy smudge sticks. Otherwise, you're in big trouble.”

“Oh?” I said, wondering what her next proclamation would be.

“This place is riddled with negative energy. Did you see the way the smoke wavered?”

I thought the open window might have been a factor in keeping the smoke from rising straight up, but I didn't say anything.

While Aggie and Davy retreated down the hall, whispering to each other, Mort and I gave the room another once-over.

“With a storm coming, we should close this window,” I said. “Eve doesn't need water damage adding to her problems.” I pulled the curtain inside and turned the crank until the casement window shut with a thud. The room became eerily quiet except for the sound of Mort's opening and closing drawers in the bureau.

“Find anything interesting in there?” I asked.

“Mostly ladies' stuff,” he said, holding up a blue and green striped scarf. “And there're some green scrubs.”

“Scrubs? You mean what doctors and nurses wear.”

“Yeah. Did Mrs. Cooper ever work in the hospital?”

“Not that I'm aware of, but I'll ask Lettie Conrad. She'd know.”

“You know, Mrs. F., that kid was trying to take pictures with his camera while we were walking around.”

“I didn't notice.”

“Yeah, he pretended just to be carrying the camera, but I saw him pushing its buttons. I know you didn't want to be videotaped, so I tried to block his view every chance I got.”

“That was thoughtful of you, Mort, but you didn't have to do that.”

“No? You mean you wouldn't mind being on Miss Olynski's show?”

“I definitely don't want to be on her show, but I think Davy will be surprised when he examines the camera later.”

“Why's that?”

I reached into my pocket and held up a black square. “Because I took out the recording disk before I gave him back the camera.”