Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) (5 page)

Mary climbed the stairs to the second floor and found Dale
sitting in the middle of the master bedroom sobbing.
 
He looked up when Mary entered the room.

“Is my Greta dead too?” he asked.

Mary sat down on the wood floor next to him. “No, she’s
still alive. She’s older now and needed a little more help, so she’s living in
an assisted living home.”

“How’s she doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t met her yet. But I
would be happy to go to her and bring her a message from you.”

He didn’t answer, just looked around the room. “So, is this
hell?” he asked. “Being stuck in a place that holds all your memories, but you
sit here without the people you love?”

“It probably seems like hell,” Mary agreed. “But, no,
actually you’re still on earth.”

“I’m dead, but I’m still on earth. What am I, a ghost?” he
scoffed.

“For lack of a better word, yes, that’s exactly what you
are.”

He rose to his feet and stared down at her, affronted. “I
don’t believe in ghosts, young lady,” he said. “And I was a good Christian man.
If I died, I should have been sent to heaven.”

Mary suddenly felt nauseous and took a deep shaky breath.

Dale stopped his tirade and knelt down next to her. “Are you
okay?” he asked. “You looked a bit peaked.”

She nodded slowly. “I think it has something to do with being
pregnant,” she said. “I just found out.”

He smiled kindly. “This
your
first?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, stroking her stomach. “I’m a real novice.”

“Well, my Greta got sick as a dog for the first three
months,” he said. “And after that, it was smooth sailing.”

“What did she do for the sickness?” Mary asked.

“Seems to me, she always carried soda crackers around with
her, everywhere she went,” he said.

Mary felt her stomach twisting. “And if she didn’t have soda
crackers?”

“She made a beeline to the toilet and didn’t hold back,” he
replied.
“Said she always felt better once she got it out of
her system.”

Mary took another deep breath. “Bathroom?” she asked.

Dale moved out of the way and pointed.
 
“Last door on the left at
the end of the hall.”

He was right,
Mary
thought a few minutes later as she splashed cold water on her face over the
bathroom sink.
I do feel better.

She pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket, blotted her
face, opened the bathroom door and met a concerned Rosie in the hallway. “Are
you okay?” Rosie said. “I thought I heard…”

“Morning sickness,” Mary supplied. “Yeah, I feel much better
now. Thanks.”

“I have some crackers in my purse,” Rosie volunteered. “It’s
in the car, but I’ll only be a moment.”

Thinking that crackers actually sounded good, Mary nodded. “
Thanks, that
would be nice.
 
I’ll be in the master bedroom talking with Dale.”

Looking down the hall, she could see Dale standing in the
doorway watching her.
 
“I’m feeling much
better,” she admitted, as she got closer. “Thanks for the advice.”

Chuckling, he moved away from the door as she entered.
“Always worked for Greta,” he said. “Every morning, like clockwork, she’d dash
down the hall to the bathroom.
 
Got to give her credit for doing it three times.
 
I wouldn’t have lasted through one.”

He glided to the window and looked down at Rosie opening her
car door. “So, can your friend see me too?” he asked.

Shaking her head, Mary followed him to the window. “No, she
can’t.
 
But she could feel your
presence.
 
That’s why she asked me to
come by.”

“You’re an expert?”

Laughing, she shrugged. “Well, I guess you could call me
that,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for a couple of years.”

“What do you mean by doing this?”

“I find people who have died, ghosts, and help them figure
out why they’re still here,” she said. “So they can continue on to heaven.”

He turned to her. “What’s holding me back?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “What do you think it is?”

He glided away from her to a side window that overlooked the
old grain silo.
 
Vines and brush had
grown up around it and the barn had fallen into a state of disrepair.
 
The pens that had housed the calves were now
gone; only broken slabs of concrete with grass growing up between them
remained.

“What happened to my farm?” he asked.

“Rosie, my friend, told me that all of it was sold off,”
Mary explained, “except for the house and five acres.
 
Your wife lived here since your death.”

“But, we talked about selling it off,” he said, shaking his
head in confusion. “We all decided that we needed to keep it.
 
We didn’t want some big corporate farm to get
the land.”

“You all decided?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, well, Josh, my oldest son wanted to sell the farm,”
Dale said. “He said we could get enough money for all of us to do whatever we
wanted to do. I told him I wanted to farm.
 
Told him that if farming was good enough for his
grandfather and his great-grandfather, it ought to be good enough for him.”

“What did the other children think?” Mary asked.

“Abe, my youngest boy, was a farmer, just like me,” he said.
“He wanted to hold on to the land.”

“And your daughter?”

“Jessie was siding with Josh,” he said. “She wanted to move
away from Freeport.
 
She wanted to live
in the big city.
 
She even had a
boyfriend from Chicago.”

“So you voted?” Mary asked.

“Hell no,” he replied. “The land was mine. The boys worked
it and Jessie did the books. I paid them well.
 
But the land was mine. And no one was going to sell it.
Over my dead body.”

Mary didn’t say a word and watched as Dale realized the
meaning of his words. “My dead body,” he repeated slowly, turning and looking
at Mary. “I got hit in the back of the head. I didn’t bump my head.
 
When I woke up, someone had locked the
door.
 
I pounded on it and I screamed,
but no one opened the door. It was a trap.”

He slowly sunk to the floor and laid his head in his hands.
“Damn it all to hell,” he whispered. “I was murdered.”

Rosie locked the door and they both started to walk down the
porch stairs when a pickup truck pulled into the gravel driveway.
 
They both waited on the porch until the truck
stopped and the passenger got out.
 
He
was a short and wiry older man with a John Deere cap resting on his head.
 
He looked at the two women and tipped the
brim of his hat in their direction.

“Afternoon,” he said, walking around the front of the truck
and coming to the porch.

“Hello,” Rosie replied, taking a protective step in front of
Mary. “Can I help you?”

“Well, that’s
kinda
what I wanted
to ask you,” he replied. “This here house is empty and I know the owners and,
quite frankly, you
ain’t
them.”

Rosie smiled, pulled a card out of her pocket and handed it
to him. “I’m Rosie Wagner,” she explained, “a real estate broker. I’m handling
the sale of Greta Johnson’s home. And this is
Mary,
she’s interested in the home.”

“Oh, I see,” he said as he studied the card. “I’m afraid I
have to apologize, ladies. I’m Greta’s neighbor, Sawyer Gartner.
 
I own the property next door.
There’s
been some break-ins out here in the country,
especially when folks aren’t home during the day. So I always keep my eyes
open.”

“Yes, actually Jessie mentioned the break-ins which is why
we didn’t put a For Sale sign out in front of the house, we didn’t want to
advertise that it was empty,” Rosie said. “But it’s nice to know they also have
a concerned neighbor.”

“Well, the Johnson’s are good people, always have been,” he
said. “And that’s what farmers do; we look out for each other.”

Mary stepped forward. “Have you always lived next door?” she
asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, the Johnsons and the
Gartners
have farmed next to each other for generations. I grew up with Dale.”

“I agree with Rosie, it’s nice to know there are nice
neighbors around,” Mary said.

“You won’t find a nicer place to raise a family,” Sawyer
said.
“Nothing like room to run.”

Mary nodded. “You’re right, this place seems ideal.”

****

A little while later, the two women were back in Rosie’s SUV
driving back towards town. “If he really was murdered, then someone in his
family is a murderer,” Rosie exclaimed, as she turned onto Highway 20. “And
they seemed to be such lovely people.”

“Just because he believes he was murdered, doesn’t necessarily
make it true,” Mary said. “It still could have been just a farming
accident.
 
There still could be another
reason. But, in order for him to move on, we need to solve the mystery.”

“A murderer,” Rosie said. “I signed a house contract with a
murderer.
 
Why they could have killed me
right there on the spot.
 
Signed the contract and ‘poof’ just off the real estate broker.”
She paused for a moment. “They still do say ‘off’ don’t they?”

Rolling her eyes, Mary replied. “Yes, they do still say
‘off’ but generally only in the movies. And, Rosie, why would they kill
you?
 
They want you to sell their house.”

Exhaling deeply, Rosie nodded. “That’s right,” she
exclaimed. “I’m not a threat. I’m just an innocent real estate broker.”

She turned and grinned at Mary. “Well, maybe not that
innocent,” she inserted with a snicker. “But I’m not a threat.
 
I don’t know anything…Wait, I do know
something now.
 
I know they killed their
father.”

“Rosie, you don’t know they killed their father because
their father is a ghost and people don’t believe in ghosts,” Mary said.

“That’s right,” Rosie agreed, nodding her head
purposefully.
 
Then she paused and turned
to Mary. “But, really, we do believe in ghosts, right?”

“Yes,
we
do. But
they
don’t. So we can’t tell them or
they will think you’re a kook and they will cancel the contract.”

“And we can’t solve the murder case if we don’t have a
contract,” Rosie added.

“Exactly,” Mary said.

“So, should I be carrying when I show the house?” she asked.

“Not unless you’re going to be showing it to gangsters,”
Mary answered.

“Gangsters are interested in the house?” Rosie cried.

Mary couldn’t help herself; she threw her head back and
laughed. “Oh, Rosie, I just adore you,” she said, then after a moment to pull
herself together she turned to her friend. “This is how we’re going to handle
this case.
 
You pretend like nothing is
wrong.
 
Continue to show the house and
keep the client updated, but don’t meet with them in person for now.”

Mary knew her dear friend would have a hard time not giving everything
away.

“Then, it would be very helpful if you could search back in
the real estate records to see how quickly the other parts of the farm were
sold off and who bought them,” Mary continued. “And if you happen to know the
broker who handled the sale, it would be great if we could get copies of the
sale.”

“I’m sure I can find it,” Rosie said. “I’ll start looking
this afternoon.”

“Great,” Mary said. “Let’s meet tomorrow morning at my
office and go through what you’ve found.”

Rosie pulled her car into the parking spot next to her
office. “Thank you so much, Mary,” she said. “I had no idea it would turn out
this way.”

Mary leaned over and gave Rosie a hug. “You were right, it’s
a wonderful home,” Mary said. “And it’s mostly filled with happy memories.
 
We just need to help Dale move on, and then
some lucky family can make it their own.”

“You know, you and Bradley should consider it,” Rosie said
with a smile as she opened her door. “It would be wonderful for a growing
family.”

“I don’t think we need to add buying a new house to our list
of things to do,” Mary said, joining Rosie on the sidewalk. “I think we have
enough on our plates for now.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” Rosie called as she
unlocked her office door.

“Sure, just don’t hold your breath,” Mary replied with a
smile, turning and walking back to her office.

The red button on her answering machine was frantically
blinking when she opened the door.
 
She
dropped her coat and purse on the chair next to her desk and pressed the
messages button.

“Hi Mary, this is Jodi from Union Dairy Ice Cream Parlor,”
the machine repeated. “I have
an…
issue here at the
store.
 
Something I need your help
with.
 
Could you come by today or
tomorrow so we could talk?”

Union Dairy Ice Cream Parlor had been a Freeport
establishment since the early 1900s when Stephenson County was the dairy farm
capitol of Illinois.
 
Recently renovated,
the building sported a fifties theme with a bright red linoleum counter,
matching red plastic and stainless steel revolving stools and intimate red and
white booths.
 
The restaurant’s menu was
extensive including: sundaes, sodas, shakes, malts and an assortment of
burgers. And, with the jukebox playing in the background, you could almost
believe you had traveled back in time.

Mary glanced at the clock on the wall.
 
She only had fifteen minutes to make it to
her doctor’s appointment, so Jodi was going to have to wait until tomorrow.
Ice cream
, she suddenly thought.
Ice cream sounds really good.
Maybe I’ll swing by after the appointment if
I have time.