The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (4 page)

“It wasn’t a headless ghost, was it?” I asked her.

“It wasn’t anything.” To put an end to the thought, she turned and headed toward her house, and I walked along at her side. “I just heard a noise and I got spooked, that’s all.”

“So you’ve never actually seen this ghost that Noreen says she has video of.”

Kate glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “There are people who say they have. But I’m not one of them.”

“So you let EGG come in last year and film. But not this year.”

“You got that right, sister. You know, because of what they did.” Kate grumbled under her breath. “But of course, you don’t know what they did. I keep forgetting you weren’t here last fall. It feels like you’ve lived here forever.”

I took it as a compliment. Like in most isolated communities, the folks of South Bass are a close-knit bunch, and though I’d lived there less than a year, I was honored to be considered one of the old-timers.

Unlike my front porch—a riot of wicker furniture, floral cushions, and those flower pots Jerry Garcia found oh-so-irresistible—Kate’s porch was as clean and as sparse as an operating room. There was a white Adirondack chair on either side of the front door, and though she motioned me into one, Kate didn’t sit down. Her arms crossed over her chest, she paced the length of the porch and back again.

“Last fall when those ghost idiots were here, they filmed at the winery, all right,” she said when she got back to where I sat. “And while they were at it, they trampled my entire crop of Lambrusco grapes.”

Pretty much the extent of my knowledge about wine is that I enjoy drinking it. Still, even I knew . . .

“Lambrusco grapes are only grown in Italy,” I said, looking up at Kate. “In Lombardy. I’ve been there. I’ve seen the vineyards. Are you telling me you’re growing them here in Ohio?”

“It’s just an experiment,” she said. Kate hugged her arms around herself and started pacing again, the fingers of her right hand beating out a frantic rhythm against her left arm. “Lombardy is in the north of Italy; our climates are similar. I know other winery owners who thought I was nuts when I mentioned giving it a go, but hey, I figured we’d never know if we didn’t try. So I planted a crop.”

“And EGG destroyed them.”

She froze and stared out at the lake, her rusty brows low over her eyes. “They claim they were so overcome by the excitement of the ghost hunt, they didn’t notice the newly planted vines. They cost me a lot of money.”

“You’ve replanted?”

Kate nodded. “And the money I used to buy a new crop of Lambrusco vines was money I’d earmarked for a faster bottling system. So technically, those idiots affected my production capabilities, too. And that means they’ve messed with my bottom line. They’re rude, they’re inconsiderate, and that Noreen is the worst of the bunch.”

Suddenly, Chandra’s reaction to seeing the EGG logo on Fiona’s T-shirt made perfect sense. Chandra and Kate might have their differences—how loud Kate plays opera, how Chandra builds bonfires at the full moon—but deep down inside, they were friends, and loyal to a fault.

“Honestly, Bea.” Kate’s laser look banished my thoughts. “If I knew they were staying at your place, I would have told you to toss them out on their ghostly tushies.”

I slapped the arms of my chair and stood. “After what they did, I don’t blame you for not wanting them to come back. I’ll tell Noreen I talked to you and that you explained what happened, and while I’m at it, I’ll tell them that they don’t have to keep their reservations for the rest of the week if they want to go back to the mainland.”

“The mainland, yeah.” Kate’s top lip curled. “The rest of them can go back to the mainland. That pushy Noreen, I’d like to see her go somewhere else. Like right to the bottom of Lake Erie.”

I couldn’t blame her, but rather than encourage Kate’s murderous thoughts, I told her I’d see her later in the week at the big party planned for Friday. It was a yearly tradition, I’d learned, a good-natured and boisterous wake—complete with a funeral procession and a coffin painted in garish colors—to mark the passing of summer and the beginning of a few long, quiet months on the island free from all visitors but a few hearty ice fishermen who braved the weather after Christmas. Like everyone else who lived here and the flocks of tourists who’d be arriving for the event, I was looking forward to it.

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised when Kate didn’t answer. With her gaze still fastened to the lake and her expression thunderous, I was pretty sure she’d forgotten I was even there.

No such luck with Noreen.

She was waiting for me on my front porch when I got back to the house.

“So?” Noreen looked across the street toward Kate’s, and I looked that way, too, only to see that Kate had gone into the house. “Did you get her to agree? You did, right? You talked some sense into that uppity little snob. She’s going to let us—”

One hand out like a traffic cop, I stopped her before she could annoy me even more. “Kate’s not going to change her mind.”

“But you said—”

“I said I’d talk to her. I did. And she told me what happened last fall. She lost an entire crop of grapes because of you.”

“Oh, like that was our fault!” Noreen could sneer with the best of them. “Like we were supposed to know that those grapes were there. Those plants were small and it was dark and—”

“And it doesn’t matter.” I pulled open the front door and stepped into the house. “Once Kate makes up her mind about something, she doesn’t change it. And she’s made up her mind. There’s no way you’re going to get near that winery to film.”

“Well, that’s just great!” Dimitri said, stepping out of the parlor. He had a magazine in his hand, something called
Dead Time,
and one look at Noreen and he flung it back over his shoulder. The magazine skidded across the Oriental rug and landed with a slap against a stack of ghost-hunting equipment. “I’ve been waiting for you, Noreen. We need to talk.”

Noreen clamped her lips shut and marched into the parlor, where she snatched up the magazine, smoothed its pages and set it—precisely—in the center of the coffee table in front of the couch.

“I doubt we have anything much to say to each other.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He shot me a look. “Maybe not here. Maybe not now. But we do need to talk. The new issue of
Dead Time
—”

“I have an article in the issue,” Noreen cooed, and since Dimitri had apparently already seen it, she added, for my benefit, “It’s about the way entities attach themselves to cabinets of curiosities. You know, the collections people used to make of rocks and gems or art or artifacts. They were like mini-museums, and it’s a well-known fact, isn’t it, Dimitri, that if you find one of those old collections, you’ll find evidence of the paranormal?”

I could just about hear Dimitri’s teeth grind together. He breathed hard when he growled, “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Such a sweetie!” I swear, Noreen nearly pinched his cheek. Good thing she stopped herself just in time; I wouldn’t have liked to see what would have happened if she took the chance. “I’ll handle it,” she purred, her voice low. “Just like I handle everything else.”

“Yeah, like you handled our chance to get back to the winery?” He backed away from her and grabbed the smart phone that was on top of one of the equipment cases. “While you were wasting your time, Noreen . . .” He coughed. “While you were wasting your time, I was doing some research,” he said, and tapped his way through various screens.

“The lighthouse . . .” He flipped the phone around so that both Noreen and I could see the picture on the screen. I’d been to the lighthouse since I’d moved to the island, so I recognized it right away, of course. It was built at a place known as Parker Point on the southwest corner of the island, a two-story brick house with a three-story square light tower attached. The lighthouse hadn’t been in service for years and these days, it was used to house the scientists who visited a university aquatic research station that wasn’t far away.

Dimitri’s dark eyes lit and he gave the phone a little waggle. “There were some weird things that happened when the first lighthouse keeper moved in, and now it’s haunted. So is”—he flipped through more pictures—“the hotel over near the park. And this bar.” He found that picture and flashed it our way. “There’s plenty here for us to investigate,” he said, his eyes on Noreen. “We don’t need the winery.”

Noreen crinkled her nose. “Are you that stupid, Dimitri? Of course we need the winery if we’re going to deliver what we promised. And we need the winery”—when she stomped her foot, the Waterford vase on the fireplace mantel protested with a high-pitched ring—“we need the winery because I don’t care about the lighthouse or the bar or the hotel. I don’t care about anything, not anything except the ghost of Sleepy Harlow.”

  3  

I
like to think that I am nothing if not true to my word.

That didn’t make it any easier for me to talk myself into going to see Marianne Littlejohn the next day.

What I had to tell her, I hoped, would be easier to say in person than it would be on the phone, where the full impact of those infamous words, “peed on by a nasty cat,” might not have been conveyed with all the solemnity—or all the contrition—I felt they deserved.

Thus armed with nothing but my good intentions and a box of really expensive chocolates I’d gone all the way over to the mainland to get the evening before, I headed out in the direction of downtown, toward the school that housed our local library. Since it was another warm and glorious fall afternoon, I decided to walk. Talk about symbolism! Yes, I was dragging my feet when it came to seeing Marianne, and I knew it.

I’d gotten exactly as far as Kate’s house when I stopped cold. It was that or get flattened by Kate’s BMW when she raced out of her driveway.

“Sorry!” She slammed on the brakes and stopped long enough to roll down her window. “I didn’t see you.”

“Good thing I saw you, or I’d be roadkill!”

She didn’t take this personally, which was a good thing, because I didn’t, either. Kate was usually a good driver, so in addition to this aberration, what struck me as odd was that it was four in the afternoon.

“Why aren’t you working?” I asked her.

“I am working.” Kate checked the time on her phone, then tossed the phone down on the front seat next to her. “I’m on my way to the ferry right now. Jayce is holding it for me.”

“You don’t work on the ferry.”

I was going for funny; Kate didn’t laugh. She tilted the rearview mirror and checked her lipstick. “I need to get to the mainland. ASAP. I got a call, Bea. From Deidra Mannington, you know, the reporter for
Wine
! It’s the hottest new magazine about the business. She’s over on the mainland in Vermilion, doing an article about some of the wineries there, and she wants to have dinner at six and talk about Wilder’s. She’s going to feature us in an upcoming issue. I zipped home to change.” She glanced down and I saw that Kate was wearing a black dress with a nipped waist and short sleeves. It was just chichi enough for a special occasion and still businesslike enough that the reporter was bound to take her seriously. “But now I’ve got to go. I’ve got to hurry. I don’t want to be late.”

It really was terrific, and Kate might actually have heard me say so if she didn’t burn rubber, race down the street, and disappear in the direction of the ferry dock.

Truth be told, I was glad for this distraction and thrilled that Wilder’s—and Kate—was finally getting the recognition it deserved. For too long, Ohio wineries were pooh-poohed by the snooty oenophiles of the world. From what Kate told me, that perception was finally changing, and having Wilder’s featured in a prominent magazine was bound to help. Besides, thinking about Kate’s good fortune kept me from thinking about what I had to say to Marianne.

Fifteen minutes later, my speech (mostly) prepared and the box of chocolates at the ready, I walked into the library and stopped short.

Marianne wasn’t behind the front desk. Her husband, Alvin, was.

I’d met Alvin Littlejohn soon after I first moved to the island at a potluck dinner; and later, I’d appeared before him in magistrate’s court more than just a couple times. Believe me when I say I no longer hold this against Kate or Chandra, the ones who’d dragged me into court in the first place with their petty complaints about the construction traffic at the B and B. They were just as guilty as I was of letting our neighborhood squabbles escalate, and they were just as outraged as I was (and I was plenty outraged) when Alvin told us we needed to stop fighting and start talking. He’s the one who sentenced us to attend a year’s worth of book discussion groups.

Don’t tell Alvin, but the way things turned out, we were all grateful.

Even if it did mean reading this month’s selection,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
, and even if thinking about that Sleepy made me think about the other Sleepy, and—

When I gulped, Alvin didn’t look up. He was a tall, skinny guy whose thinning hair was the color of a field mouse, and like a mouse, he was busy rooting through a desk drawer and making a little pile of things nearby: an address book, a lipstick, a desk calendar.

“Hey, Alvin. I was hoping to see your better half.”

Startled, he stood and blinked at me for a couple moments while he tugged at his left earlobe. “Oh, Bea. It’s you. You haven’t heard.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Marianne? Something’s happened to–”

“In Cleveland. In the hospital. She’s got a detached retina, Bea. She’s having surgery first thing tomorrow morning. She asked me to stop in and pick up some things for her before I head over to the mainland this evening.”

“I’m so sorry.” I handed the box of chocolates across the desk to him. “When you go to see her, give her this.”

“Well, it looks like you did know about Marianne!” He took the chocolates out of my hands. “How else would you have known to bring candy?!”

“Actually . . .” I pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The candy is sort of an apology.”

“Because you haven’t finished reading that book of hers yet!” Alvin had prominent ears and a long, thin mouth. When he smiled, he reminded me of a ventriloquist’s dummy. “It was so nice of you to agree to do that for her, Bea! Marianne, she’s just as proud as punch of that little book of hers. Imagine, her being a published author! I swear, knowing you had the book and were giving it a last look, that’s the only thing that’s made these few days bearable for her, because what with her eye problems, there’s no way she could read it herself. She’s so excited to see her book in print, she can’t wait to get through the surgery and get the manuscript to her publisher.”

“Well, that’s just it, Alvin, see—”

“That’s the only thing that kept me from telling her, of course.” Alvin’s expression fell like the soufflé I’d once been foolish enough to try and serve at a dinner party back in New York. “I mean, about the computer.”

My stomach swooped. “Computer?”

We were the only ones in the library: one small room with a children’s section along the windows to my right and the rest of the books—fiction and nonfiction—in two rows of shelves on my left. Still, Alvin leaned closer and lowered his voice as if, even though she was all the way across the lake and in Cleveland, Marianne might catch wind of our conversation.

“Crashed,” he said.

My swooping stomach froze somewhere right between where it was supposed to be and my heart. I pressed a fist to the painful lump. “You’re not talking about Marianne’s computer?”

He nodded. “Last night. I came back from Cleveland to wrap up some work today and collect these things for her and I promised her I’d be back at the hospital this evening. She said as long as I was coming home . . . she said she knew it was silly of her to be nervous, that it was foolish and superstitious . . . but she asked if I’d please make a backup of her manuscript. And then—”

“No backup?” The words were sand in my mouth.

“I can’t worry her. Not before the surgery. I’ll tell her once it’s all over and she’s on the road to recovering. For now, it’s our little secret, Bea.” He emphasized this with a wink. “But you know . . .” Alvin’s smile blossomed. “I guess as it turns out, with everything that’s happened, Marianne will be really grateful. She’ll see how lucky it was that she gave you a copy of that manuscript of hers! Otherwise, it would be completely lost!” He slipped the box of chocolates in a plastic grocery bag along with the other things he’d collected. “So, what was it you wanted me to tell her?” Alvin asked.

My smile wasn’t nearly as bright as his. Or as genuine. In fact, it was so wide and so stiff, the corners of my mouth hurt. “I just had a couple questions. About the manuscript. Tell her not to worry. In fact, don’t tell her anything at all. Whatever I have to ask her, it can wait until she’s feeling better again.”

“Thanks, Bea. You’re a lifesaver.” Alvin slipped out from behind the desk and headed for the door. “If it wasn’t for the fact that you have the only copy of that book of hers . . . Well, I don’t even want to think how poor Marianne would be feeling right about now.”

*   *   *

By six that evening, I had a roaring fire going in the parlor and I’d taken it upon myself to restack (alphabet be damned!) the ghost getters’ equipment out in the hallway to get it out of the way. The painters and plasterers, wood finishers and roofers who’d refurbished the house the year before and returned it to its full Victorian glory had left tarps neatly stacked in the basement, and I’d retrieved them and lined the floor near the table I’d set within arm’s reach of the fire. I adjusted the screen on my laptop until it was just right, took a deep breath, and reached down to the floor near my feet and the white kitchen garbage bag where, the day before, Luella had tossed Marianne’s manuscript. Thank goodness it wasn’t garbage day or I would have already thrown out the bag! I undid the twist tie and held my breath, but of course, that plan was doomed right from the start. The coughing wasn’t too bad. Nor was the wheezing. The face I made . . . well, there was nobody around to see it, so I didn’t care.

With thumb and forefingers, I plucked the first soggy page of the manuscript off the even soggier pile and held it up to the light to read it, then started typing.

By the time I was done with the page and consigned it to the fire, the computer screen in front of me read:

Charles Sleep_ Har___

The Stud_ of an Island Leg____

by

Mari____ ______john

This method of decoding was obviously not going to work.

My shoulders drooped, but I refused to be discouraged. It was like a game, wasn’t it? Like playing hangman. All I needed to do was fill in the blanks. Lucky for me, it wasn’t too tough; not for that first page, anyway. But by the time I’d transcribed what I could and thrown the next three pages of Marianne’s soggy tome into the flames, my eyes were spinning and my head was woozy.

Then again, breathing in ammonia will do that to you.

I yanked off my glasses and scrubbed my eyes with my fists, looking back over those first four pages and what I’d been able to decipher.

It was pitifully little.

A word here, a word there.

A full sentence on page two. Hallelujah! Except that it didn’t make the least bit of sense with what I could read of the sentences before and after it.

I considered the possibility that Marianne was simply a really bad writer, but honestly, that theory just didn’t hold water. As Luella had mentioned the day of the latest unfortunate incident with Jerry, Marianne wasn’t exactly the most imaginative person in the world. What she was, though, was thorough. And capable. Like most librarians I’d met, Marianne could rule the world if she chose to. She was that organized, that energetic. She might not be a ball of innovative fire, but she was plenty intelligent and dedicated to both her job and this book about Sleepy. She saw the book as her contribution to island history, her legacy, and I knew she’d never allow herself to be sloppy. She was too proud of what she’d produced.

I owed it to Marianne to give it my best. I needed to try and read the sodden words more carefully and (hopefully) fill in the blanks, and I’d just picked another wet page from the garbage bag when I heard the bang of footsteps on the hallway stairs.

“What the hell?”

Noreen’s high-pitched keening preceded her into the parlor.

“You messed with our equipment.”

I was in the middle of trying to determine if a word smeared across the middle of page five was
robust
or
rosebush
and I didn’t spare her a look. “It’s all there,” I said, typing out
rosebush
and immediately deciding it should have been
robust
. I glanced over my shoulder at Noreen. “I needed the fireplace. And your equipment was in the way. It’s an emergency.”

She sniffed the air. “I’ll say. No! Not that case, Fiona!” she yelled when she caught sight of something in the hallway and whirled around that way. “Take that other one first. It’s bigger.”