The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion (3 page)

“If I floor the accelerator,” I murmured, “I could pass this grim parade in about thirty seconds—”

The ghost’s angry blast of icy air had me shivering again. Now my goose bumps had goose bumps. “Jack! You’re going to give me a heart attack!” I told the ghost. “Which means your little frights may just kill me quicker than an oncoming pickup!”

“Very funny.”

“You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say, ‘Over my dead body,’ who actually has a dead body.”

“But this is like watching paint dry. Can’t you say something to the guest of honor in this parade to maybe get things moving a little faster?”

I sighed.

“No. But I think this is the funeral announcement I read about in this week’s
Bulletin
.” The Wolfe Construction bumper sticker on the last car in line had reminded me of the article.

“I’m pretty sure this is the guy who was electrocuted on a construction job. He was young, too, still in his twenties. A real tragedy.”

I took a closer look at the SUV in front of me, more specifically at the back of the blond man behind the wheel, and realized it was Jim Wolfe himself driving. Just thirty-five years old and running his own construction company, Wolfe had won a number of bids on construction projects around our region. He wasn’t a resident of Quindicott and he wasn’t a reader, so Sadie and I never saw him in our bookstore, but he always said hello to us on the street. (It wasn’t exactly a chore saying hello to James Wolfe. Aunt Sadie said he had the good looks of Ralph Meeker in
Kiss Me Deadly
. I thought he looked more like Kirk Douglas in
Out of the Past
, or even the
Vikings
—including the dimpled chin and the build to go with it.)

“I left Sadie alone at the store. And I’m trying to get Spencer off to summer camp, and . . .” I paused. “To be frank with you, Jack, I don’t much
want
to stop and think today. I’m worried about Spencer going. He’ll be gone for three whole weeks. And the last time I sent him to camp, well, you know how badly it went . . .”

“I know he’s better. He’s been so happy this year at school. And he’s been looking forward to this . . .”

“Wrong. He’s not even gone and I miss him already.”

Jack went quiet a minute. Then across my cheek I felt a gentle wisp of cool air.
You’re not alone, Penelope,
the ghost said softly.
You got Sadie. And you got me. I’ll always be here when you need me.

I smiled. “Thanks, Jack.”

“You’re going to have to translate that one.”

“It’s not the army, Jack, just cabins by a lake—”

The boy needs a seventh-inning stretch is all I’m saying. And you do, too. A nice break from nagging the junior slugger about homework, taxiing the kid to and from Little League practice, and laundering his smelly gym shorts. No more of the kid sneaking out of bed to watch the all-night
Shield of Justice
marathon on the Intrigue Channel—

“What?!”

“Wait until I get home—”

I grunted, staring sullenly through the windshield. The scenery was passing by at a glacial pace.

“I have books to deliver to Miss Todd.”

“The same.”

“She broke her glasses this morning and her spare pair has gone missing. Sadie doesn’t feel confident enough to drive, even though she can see well enough without them.”

“Anyway, that’s why I’m doing it. Miss Todd’s a good customer and her delivery is over a week late.”

“She never leaves her house. Hasn’t for years, as far as I know. Except for Sadie’s monthly visits to talk books, she has very little contact with the outside world. There’s a cleaning service, and I understand most of her business is conducted through some law firm.”

“No, she’s very sharp. She can be a little formal, but for someone with a reputation as a hermit, she’s been awfully gracious to me and Sadie.”

I laughed. “Jack, you’re terrible! She’s not like that at all! In fact, she dresses better than me, always has her hair nicely done. She wears a lot of jewelry, too. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings. Once she greeted Aunt Sadie wearing an elaborate silver crown. Sadie told me Miss Todd must have a thing for silver, because that’s the only metal she’ll wear.”

So what’s this rich broad read then? I’ll bet you even money it’s little old lady mysteries:
Miss Petunia Finds a Body. Colonel Ketchup Kicks the Bucket.
Right?

“Wrong. Miss Todd’s a true-crime enthusiast. No murder is too grisly, no chain of events too disturbing.”

“Well, lately, she’s widened her interest. After Aunt Sadie mentioned our new occult titles, the old woman began ordering books by the dozen. In fact, most of the titles Aunt Sadie boxed up for her today deal with psychic phenomenon, extrasensory perception, and a study on cross-cultural beliefs about the afterlife. Of course, I could save her the trouble of all that reading and just introduce her to you.”

We’d finally reached the entrance to the Quindicott Cemetery and the funeral procession veered off the main road.

“Thank goodness!”

The last of the vehicles rolled through the graveyard’s open gates and I hit the gas. Feeling the breeze on my face again, I accelerated up Dogwood’s long, slow grade until I was going nearly sixty.

I crested the high plateau and turned onto Larchmont. Unfortunately, I swerved straight into the sun’s glare. For a few seconds, I was totally blinded. As I raised my hand to shield my eyes, a man’s silhouette appeared framed by the brilliant light—right in front of my windshield.

“Oh, my God, I’m going to hit that man—”

I slammed the brakes and cut the wheel at the same time. Both of my actions were too fast. I was thrown forward and my car began to fishtail on the pavement.

CHAPTER 2

I looked at my face in the flawed mirror. It was me all right. I had a strained look. I’d been living too fast.

—Philip Marlowe in
The Little Sister
, Raymond Chandler, 1949

 

 

 

MOMENTUM PITCHED ME against the shoulder harness. My nose stopped short of merging with the steering wheel and my vehicle simultaneously rotated, spinning me around like a little girl on the Mad Hatter’s teacups. I swung left, then right, and back against the seat. Finally I heard a disturbing
THUMP!
The car shuddered and came to a halt.

In the eerie stillness that followed, I lifted a shaky hand to shield my eyes from the sun. That awful
thump
was still echoing through my system. Had I actually hit the man who’d dashed out in front of me? Through the glare, I made out a large figure rushing away. This time I saw the man for more than a split second—and I recognized him.

“That’s Seymour Tarnish!”

I was about to call out, but the mailman was already halfway through a gap in a low stone fence. A second later, he melted into a thicket of trees. Before I lost sight of him, however, I’d spied a large, red blot on the back of his uniform’s light blue shirt.

“A bloodstain,” I whispered. “My God, I must have hit him!”

In the quiet, my engine’s purr sounded more like a menacing growl. I pushed up my black-framed glasses, unlocked my shoulder harness, popped the car door, and stepped out onto Larchmont Avenue.

This area of the town was situated at a higher elevation than the shopping district, allowing it to catch strong breezes, which often escaped Cranberry Street. Apart from the hot wind now whipping at my clothes and hair, however, there was no other movement or sound.

Thinking maybe a dog
had
chased my friend, I glanced around the neighborhood, but all I saw beneath the riotously swaying tree limbs were deserted streets and sidewalks. Not one resident even bothered to stick a head out a door or window at the sound of my screeching tires. Seymour was the only person I’d seen.

“So where was he going in such a hurry? And
why
was he going in such a hurry?”

“That can’t be it, Jack. Ice cream’s his fix. Seymour seldom drinks alcohol. I’ve certainly never seen him drunk.”

I didn’t know if it was the heat or the adrenaline, but I was beginning to feel queasy. The close call had shaken me. I checked the front bumper and tires. I found no dents, no scratches, no damage of any kind—and, thankfully, no blood, either. When I circled the car, I discovered the rear tire had skidded up against the concrete curb. That explained the thump I’d felt.

“I guess when the car fishtailed, I hit the sidewalk. Doesn’t look like any damage was done . . .” I opened the door and sat back down, clutching the steering wheel to steady my hand.

“So far . . .”

“Okay, Jack. Okay . . .”

That’s when my cell phone went off. I fished it out of my handbag. “Hello?”

“Pen. It’s Bud—”

Bud Napp was the lanky widower currently dating my aunt. He also owned and operated Napp Hardware, and just the sound of his local twang made me feel better. Whatever he’d said
after
his name, however, was drowned out by the loud noise of heavy machinery.

“You’ll have to speak up, Bud! Or turn off the machine you’re using!”

The roar of a motor was the only reply. Suddenly the line went silent, and for a moment I thought I’d lost my connection.

“Pen! Can you hear me now?”

Actually, what Bud said was: “Can you
hee-ah
me
nowr
?”

(Having lived in
“N’yawk”
for years, I’d lost my Rhode Island accent some time ago. But a number of Quindicott’s older residents still turned their
Rs
into
Ahs
: “Pahk the
cah
.” Replaced
W
with
R
: “
lahr
school.” And generally pronounced certain phrases their own unique way: “Give me a
regla cawfee
.” Of course not everyone in my home state could be heard using the local slang. Larchmont Avenue’s tony residents, for instance, turned
Rs
into
Ahs
about as often as they drove to Newport in dented, ten-year-old compacts with broken air conditioners.)

Anyway, I could finally hear Bud again. “You’re coming through loud and clear,” I assured him over my cell phone.

“I had to go in the john and shut the door to get some quiet!” he shouted.

“You don’t have to yell anymore. What’s going on? Where are you?”

“In my store. There’s a (expletive deleted) of construction equipment parked on my sidewalk, blocking my loading dock, and even my front door. They’re part of Jim Wolfe’s crew working on the new sewage system.”

“Tell them to move, for goodness’ sake! Jim’s a nice guy. Why would he do that to you?”

“I talked to Wolfe himself first thing this morning,” Bud replied. “He apologized, but he said his hands are tied. He has to park some of his equipment on Cranberry to do the sewage job, and the town council gave him permission to park one place and one place only—in front of my hardware store!”

I sighed, rubbed my eyes. “By ‘town council’ I take it you really mean Marjorie Binder-Smith?”

“It’s retaliation, Pen, pure and simple. That witch is trying to ruin my business because I’m running for her seat this November.”

I couldn’t disagree with Bud’s assessment. The councilwoman Binder-Smith had done her level best to take the widower down, ever since he declared his intention to defend the small-business owners of Quindicott instead of sticking it to them with draconian parking regulations, littering fines, and ill-considered taxes. She began by targeting Bud’s business through a legislative proposal called the “Binder-Smith Green Initiative.”