The Stubborn Schoolhouse Spirit (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series) (13 page)

“All children have imaginary friends, don’t they? I had a leprechaun named Charley.”

Penelope giggled. “Not really.”

“Sure. He went everywhere with me until I got to second grade. Then he was murdered by my friends.”

“They laughed at you.”

“Yeah, I felt bad about old Charley, but that’s just the way it was.”

“I had elves. Mavis and Marcia. Those were Mum’s cousins’ names. But listen, Sam, it’s different with Tabby. She even told her father that Jessie Ruth had long braids and wore funny shoes that buttoned up the sides. I found a picture of her standing outside the school, and that’s exactly how she looked.”

“So Tabby saw the picture.”

“She couldn’t have. She’s never been in this house. She’d never been in Amaryllis until Peter brought her last Thursday. By the way, Chief Malone released the information about the unfortunate Mr. Ives. The
Bugle
will run the story on Wednesday.”

“You keep referring to him as the unfortunate Mr. Ives. Maybe he was better off under the boiler than under Daisy Bowden’s thumb.”

“From all accounts she was a paragon.”

“I wouldn’t want to be married to a paragon.”

“Why not?”

“Paragons are no fun. Listen, I’ve got a friend who’s a psychologist. Want me to ask him if a kid could really play with a ghost?”

“As long as you don’t use names or locations.”

“You know how good I am at dissembling.”

“Lying is more like it. Are you coming back anytime soon?”

“Next week maybe. What’s new at The Swan?”

“Marlo and I had coffee this morning while I was waiting for Mary Lynn. She was actually friendly. I asked her about antique photography equipment, and I told her about our troubles at the school. Then, you know, when I said we couldn’t work out there until spring because of the boiler, she actually seemed pleased, and the next thing I knew, she was saying she had to dash to an estate sale out on the highway to Little Rock. The thing is, I can’t think of a single old house out that way that isn’t occupied.”

“On the highway. That would be the interstate.”

“Unless she meant 270, which I don’t think she did.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Yes, there is. When I was on my way home for lunch, I saw her car stop at the intersection of Rosewood and Cemetery Road, and Chuck Runyon got out. His pickup was parked nearby.”

“The new manager at Pembroke Point?”
Sam’s voice seemed suddenly energized.

“That’s the one.”

“Interesting.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why.”

“No, but I will tell you to keep it to yourself.”

“I haven’t mentioned it to anyone.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“Do I get a paycheck for all this?”

He chuckled. “I’ll see that you’re rewarded accordingly.”

“Uh-huh, well, no thanks.”

“Goodnight, Nell.” The connection ended.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Vincent Ives’ bones had the whole town buzzing. A smaller article detailed the missing photography equipment. “That’s no story,” Penelope said to Jake when he brought the paper home. “It’s probably been gone since Mr. Ragsdale died.”

“When I was at the cemetery the other day, I found out he died in 1935.”

“Why were you at the cemetery?”

Jake looked at Penelope without seeing her. “Just got a hankering to go,” he said. “I think Sam has a hankering for somebody somewhere, too.”

“Did he say something?”

“No, but we got to talking about Wynne, and I had the feeling he understood.”

“Sometimes I think there’s a sadness about him, Daddy.”

“Could be. But back to Mr. Ragsdale. Aaron Shakley, the caretaker out there, helped me find Ragsdale’s grave. He doesn’t even have a marker except for one of those metal ones the funeral home puts up, and the information is so faded I couldn’t read it, but Aaron said it was him.”

“That’s kind of sad that there wasn’t anyone to put up a marker for him, especially when he knew so many people in town.”

“Those were depression days, Nellie. People didn’t have money to spare for unnecessary things.”

“I wonder if he had an obituary in the
Democrat-Gazette
? Those are on file in the archives.”

“I bet he did. He was pretty well known in the state.”

“Maybe I’ll go look sometime. Maybe something in the obituary will give us a clue as to what happened to his cameras. Harry sure was disappointed about them. He’s dead serious about starting a museum.”

“Harry’s done a lot of good things in this town, and I think he’ll get people behind him to start the museum.”

“It could even be in the old school if we could ever finish getting it fixed up.”

“I felt
kinda down after being out there, you know. Oh, I know things change, but I had a lot of good memories tied up in the years I spent in that building.”

“I know, Daddy.”

“And I’m real sure where that door was.”

“It’s just been walled over, that’s all.”
Marlo’s expression at the mention of the second basement flashed into Penelope’s mind, but she caught herself before she said so to Jake.

“Shame.” Jake wagged his head and looked sad.

“Yes, it’s a shame.”

****

“This is more than a coincidence,” Penelope said, holding out the copy of Edgar Ragsdale’s will so Mary Lynn could see it. “He left everything to Jessie Ruth Ives.”

“And she never even put up a marker for him?”

“Daddy says people didn’t have money for things like that in 1935, but she came back here and spent a ton of money on the library soon after that. Maybe it was an oversight on her part.”

“Maybe not. Listen, Parnell Garrett stopped by last night and said somebody reported lights at the school. He didn’t find anything though.”

Penelope snickered. “Maybe Vincent is looking for his buttons.”

“Better to be missing a few buttons than a head.” Mary Lynn bent over the table laughing. “Graveyard humor is awful.”

“It keeps the creeps away. What did Parnell think was going on?”

“Either it was a hoax, or some folks were out there with flashlights.”

“How’d they get in?”

Mary Lynn shook her head. “Parnell said the outside trap door to the boiler room doesn’t have a lock. I guess I should put one on there.”

“The last thing we need in there is a bunch of kids scrawling graffiti on the walls we just painted.”

“What’s the latest from Shana?” Mary Lynn asked.

“Peter’s called a couple of times. He told Tabby not to talk about Jessie Ruth anymore.”

“How do you tell a four-year-old something like that?”

Penelope put up her hands. “He just did.”

“Back to the will, it says everything went to Jessie Ruth Ives. She’d have been almost forty by then. When did she get married?”

“Her obituary doesn’t say, just that she married Collier, and it didn’t happen here, because there’s no marriage license in the courthouse.”

“Maybe there was a little hanky-panky going on between the two of them,” Mary Lynn suggested. “Jessie Ruth and Ragsdale.”

“He was old enough to be her father.”

The two women looked at each other as Penelope’s observation sank in.

“Maybe the hanky-panky was between Ragsdale and Daisy Bowden, which might explain not only why he left everything to Jessie Ruth but also why Vincent Ives ended up under the boiler.” Penelope narrowed her eyes. “It just might explain that.”

Mary Lynn shook her head. “I don’t want to go ther
e right now. Do you realize Cupid Convention is only two weeks off? Do you have your ticket to the ball?”

“Yes and
pulled my red dress out of mothballs.”

“I bought a new one. Purple.”
             

“Purple?”

“Harry saw it in a store window in Little Rock and told me to go get it. He likes to see me dressed up.”

“And you like to please him.”

“I do, Pen. He doesn’t ask much from me. He’s even let me off the hook as Mrs. Mayor lately. He knows how much fixing up the old school means to me.”

“The B&B is full through that weekend.”

“So where’s your secret visitor going to stay?”

“What secret visitor?”

Mary Lynn rolled her eyes. “The Gray Ghost, of course.”

“You’ve been talking to Shana!”

“Of course.  Also, I saw him coming out of here one morning last month. Carrying an overnight bag.”

Penelope slumped in her chair. “The Gray Ghost. That’s what Shana calls him all right.”

“Who is he anyway, Pen?”

“No clue. I don’t even know his last name. He says Sam will do. Actually, I decided he was one of the bad guys in last year’s mess and was doing time somewhere, but then he turned up the night of the Christmas party and…”

Mary Lynn leaned across the table. “Put the moves on you?”

Penelope nodded.

“So you and he…”

“Absolutely not.”

“Darn.”

“Mary Lynn, you know me better than that.”

“I do, and I still say darn. You need a man, Pen.”

“I don’t need to make another mistake.”

“Are you sure he’d be a mistake?”

Penelope’s eyes filled with tears, and a longing for Sam’s arms filled her body. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right. You need some help getting your cupid decorations out of the storeroom?”

“Sure. It’s time they were up anyway. Tomor
row is the first of February.”

****

Penelope reported everything to Sam when he called the next night. He seemed disinterested in her theories, and he didn’t say he’d be in touch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“You’re a real sight, Nellie,” Jake said as he held her black velvet evening wrap. “You look more and more like your mother.”

“Thank you, Daddy. That’s high praise, coming from you.”

“She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I met her at a dance, you know. At the serviceman’s club in
London right at the end of the war.”

“When you finally got up enough courage to ask her dance, she waltzed right into your heart.”

“That’s what she did.” He kissed her cheek. “Have a good time, darlin’. Wish Sam was here to escort you.”

“I don’t need an escort. I’m one of the hostesses.” She hesitated. “You’re sure you won’t change your mind and go with me?”

“You wouldn’t get me into one of those monkey suits for love nor money.”

“Tuxedos, Daddy.”

“Whatever it’s called, I won’t wear one.” He patted her shoulder. “Have a good time.”

****

The grandfather clock chimed midnight as Penelope came through the kitchen door. She paused by the table to take off her shoes. Carrying them in her hand, with her wrap over her arm, she pushed through the swinging door to the dining room and into the foyer. In the dim light from the lamp she always left burning on a table near the grandfather clock, she saw Sam sitting halfway up the stairs.

“Hello, Nell.”

She felt her heart catapult into her mouth. At the same time, a wave of resentment washed over her. He hadn’t been in touch for almost two weeks. “When did you get here?”

“Just before you walked in.” He rose and came down the stairs with a grace uncharacteristic to his

muscular bulk. “Happy Valentine Day.” He held out a crystal vase of red and white carnations and a heart-shaped box of candy. “Candy and flowers. The proper gift from a man to his girl.”

“Am I your girl?”

He turned up the lamp and stepped back to look at her. “You’re beautiful, Nell. I’ll bet you were the belle of the ball.”

“I danced with every member of the Town Council and Harry Hargrove, Chief Malone, Parnell Garrett, my son, and a few others I don’t even remember. All obligatory.”

“For whom?”

“It was mutual.”

“Have one more dance in you?”

“A dance, Sam, not a two-step around the furniture.”

He took her arm and led her into the parlor where the crystal carafe and two wine glasses from the china cabinet sat on a silver tray in the middle of the marble coffee table. When he switched on the record player, the strains of Glenn Miller’s
Moonlight Serenade
filled the air.

“I thought you said you just got here.”

“I got here with enough time to fix things up.” He held out his arms. “May I have this dance?”

He held her close to him, her hand folded u
nder his chin which rested on her hair.
Oh, Sam, why do you do this to me? We’re going nowhere, at least not in the foreseeable future.  You said so yourself, and I’m not sure how long I can wait.

When the music ended, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. “Thanks, Nell.”

He led her to the sofa and filled the two glasses. “You know I don’t drink, Sam,” she said, sniffing the contents of the glass he handed her.

“White grape juice,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right.”

He lifted his glass which somehow, despite its delicate design, looked at home in his large hands. “To the night and music. To us.”

“To the night and music,” she said.

They clinked the glasses gently and drank.

“Sorry I’ve been out of touch,” he said. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“Is everything going along all right?”

“It’s going along.” He tucked her hair behind her ears. “Someday I’m going to take you to a dance in the finest ballroom in New York City.”

“Someday.” She sighed and set down her glass. “When is someday, Sam?”

“I wish I could tell you.”

“I know you can’t. I try to understand.”

“I know you try.”

“By the way,
Marlo Howard was at the dance.”

“Alone?”

“No, with someone I never saw before. He’s not from around here.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Louie, I think. Sounds like a gangster name, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily.”

“They left early. Together. But they didn’t come together.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Marlo was there at least half an hour before he walked in.”

“How about the Runyon fellow? Was he there?”

“He came in after Louie. I saw him talking to Marlo for a few minutes, but he disappeared right after that.”

“Did Shana come?”

“Not with Peter Taliaferro.”

“Speaking of which, I talked to the psychologist I mentioned. He said it was normal for children to have
imaginary friends, especially children without siblings. On the other hand, he said a name and a description of a real child a hundred years ago is very strange.”

“So he didn’t have any answers?”

“He said sometimes children are more attuned to the universe. They see between the layers of life, sort of like people read between the lines.”

“Does she need professional help?”

“He thinks it will all go away if no one makes a big deal of it.”

“Peter told her not to talk about it anymore.”

“Has she?”

“Shana hasn’t mentioned it. Peter still calls her, but they’re not dating.”

“Because of his in-laws?”

“They sound like jerks to me.”

“There are a lot of jerks out there, Nell. Before I forget, does your friend Mary Lynn lock up the boiler room trap door?”

“It’s padlocked now. No more reports of late-night lights at the school.”

“You haven’t been back out there, I take it.”

“Not for a while. Sam, if a door got walled over, how much trouble would it be to find it?”

“You’re talking about the door to the second basement. You said Jake knew exactly where it was.”

“He says so.”

“You’d have to take down the wall. At least part of it.”

“How?”

“With a sledgehammer, I suppose. What’s it made of?”

“The wall? Planks.”

“Not plaster or sheet rock?”

“All the walls are planks.”

“Well, get yourself a drill and a saw.”

“Then we’d have to rebuild
the wall.”

“Yep.”

“Did I tell you about Edgar Ragsdale’s will? He left everything to Jessie Ruth Ives, who apparently wasn’t married yet.”

“Yes. Jessie Ruth married money, you said.”

“Her husband was an art dealer back east.”

“You don’t say.” Sam sat forward.

“Actually, I just did.”

“So she came back here when he died and funded the library.”

“I’m not sure he was dead, but it doesn’t make any difference. They stayed married.”

“Her family owned the land the school is on.”

“Right, and she left it to the town…”

“Which can’t sell it. You told me.”

“Her uncle built the first two rooms and expanded it. I guess it belonged to the family, too. I guess the town never put any money into it, no more than they had to anyway.”

“That’s odd.”

“I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re right. So if she owned it, she paid for the upkeep and remodeling and maybe even walling up the second basement.”

“No outside door?”

“Daddy says not.”

“Have you looked? It could be covered over.”

“I wouldn’t know what to look for.”

“I would. Go change into something made for midnight prowling, and let’s go.”

“I think not. The last time you took me prowling, I almost got killed.”
And maybe I even killed someone myself.

“You’re safe with me.”

“Ha. Blessed ha-ha.”

“Come on, Nell, be a sport.”

“I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life, which could be considerably shortened if I go with you.”

“Not this time.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Go get changed.”

****

“Just what is your interest in the old school anyway, and why did you advise Mary Lynn not to start the community center project right now?”

“You’re not on the need-to-know list.” Sam parked Penelope’s SUV behind the school.

“The police d
epartment put out the word they’re providing extra security out here since the story about Mr. Bones broke. They don’t want curiosity seekers trying to break in.”

“So we could get caught red-handed, huh?”

“It would look pretty bad for the mother of the department’s chief and only detective to get caught in a compromising situation.”

“I guess that’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

“Give me one good reason I should.”

“You came along, didn’t you? We could always go into a passionate clinch if we got caught.”

Penelope opened the door and slid out. “Then just make sure we don’t get caught.”

****

Sam squatted down and pointed the beam of his narrow flashlight at an indentation near the back of the building’s east side. “I’m betting that’s it.”

“So somebody didn’t just cover over the door, they covered over this entrance, too.”

“And somebody found it before we did.” He brushed away a few inches of soil, revealing the edge of a metal door like the outside entrance of the boiler room. He scraped the dirt back in place and stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Already?”

“I found what I was looking for. Get in the car.”

He drove to the end of the block with no lights, switching them on only when he turned the corner. “Don’t mention this to your fri
end Mary Lynn or anyone else for that matter, and don’t under any circumstances try to go down there.”

“Why?”

“Just for once don’t ask questions and do what I say.”

“I’m beginning to think that place is haunted by more than the ghost of Jeremiah Bowden.”

He chuckled. “Jessie Ruth could still be around.”

“I went to her funeral.”

“I didn’t mean that literally, Nell.”

Penelope shivered. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

“Good. Just pretend it isn’t even there.”

****

On the landing, he held her head against his chest and stroked her hair. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

“You got what you wanted, so now you’re gone.”

“Not everything I wanted.”

She breathed in his scent, making the tingling in her stomach worse than ever. “You have a one-track mind.”

“Unfortunately, I do, but not about what you think.”

“Your work.”

“Right. That has to come before anything else.”

“Why?”

“I think you know why.”

“If I knew who you were, it would help.”

“I don’t think so. But you can trust me, Nell.”

“I’m trying.”

“Good enough.” He kissed her several times, but his hands didn’t go where they’d tried to go before. “I’ll be in touch.”

In her room, she leaned against her door and gave way to tears.
I wish I could hate you, Sam, but all I can do is want you and cry over you. I think I’m going crazy. Maybe I’m just going through the change. I want my safe little world back. It’s like Amaryllis is a magnet for problems all of a sudden. I don’t understand. I don’t

understand
myself. I don’t understand anything. I wish…I wish…