Haunting Danielle 25 The Ghost of a Memory

by Bobbi Holmes

  “What happened to Wilbur?” Walt asked.

  “His sister never saw him again after he took off on his grand adventure. But she always felt he probably lost his fortune and was too ashamed to come home.”

  “Wow. Poor Kimberly,” Danielle said.

  “Don’t feel too sorry for her. Mom told me her grandmother was always happy, loved the bookstore. Her biggest regret wasn’t losing her father’s fortune, it was losing her brother.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Danielle asked.

  “No. Once my grandmother tried to find him. Unfortunately, back then, that was difficult to do. But when DNA testing started being a thing, I had mine done and registered on a genealogy website. I figure if one of old Wilbur’s descendants gets tested, we’ll get a match. Wouldn’t that be neat to find him after all this time?”

  “Betty White will probably get that DNA match any day now, but I don’t think she’ll get any cousins out of it,” Danielle said to Walt after they started back to Frederickport.

  “So that was him in the photograph?” Walt asked.

  “Yeah, I recognized him right away. Unless he’s assuming a younger image of himself, I think he died not long after that photo was taken.”

  “If those are his remains, it would lead one to believe he died here. Perhaps he never left Oregon,” Walt suggested.

  “If that’s true, what happened to all his property?”

  “According to Betty, he sold it all before he left. He must have. I’m sure if he disappeared before he sold the property, his sister would’ve known,” Walt said.

  “Did he stay in Oregon with all that money? I wonder how much it was and what happened to it.”

  “Good question.”

  Danielle opened her purse and retrieved her cellphone. “I should probably call the chief and tell him what we found out. I imagine he’ll be relieved that whoever killed poor Wilbur is no longer a threat.”

  “But there is still another disturbing question,” Walt said.

  Danielle paused a moment, phone in hand, and looked at him. “What question is that?”

  “Why would someone put his remains in a gunnysack and toss them in the ocean?”

  Nineteen

  Both Danielle and Walt rose before daybreak on Wednesday, July 4. Walt wore a three-piece pin-striped suit Danielle had purchased online, similar to the blue one he had worn when in the spirit realm. She thought he looked like a dapper author from an earlier era.

  The red dress Danielle wore came from a local dress shop. While Walt looked as if he had stepped out of the twenties in his suit, she looked as if she had come from the forties in her dress, with its fitted waist, full skirt, white collar, and blue star buttons. When Lily first saw the dress after Danielle tried it on in the dress shop, she had said, “That’s adorable, but I guess this means you won’t be wearing the Missing Thorndike this year.”

  An hour after Danielle and Walt were up and dressed, Lily opened Connor’s bedroom blinds, looked outside and across the street. Her son was in the kitchen with Ian having breakfast. She wanted to tidy the nursery before they left to help Walt and Danielle.

  Standing silently at the window for a moment, she thought about the first time she had set eyes on Marlow House, over four years ago. At the time she never imagined she would move to Frederickport, making it her home. She had expected to just spend the summer here, helping Danielle open the bed-and-breakfast, and then she would return to California, back to her teaching job. While she had returned to California after the summer, fate intervened.

  When she first saw the house, Danielle had told her the Victorian was actually a Second Empire mansard style. Lily had later looked it up online and read French architecture from the Napoleon era had initially inspired the design. Four years earlier, Lily had compared its overgrown grounds to a jungle. Today its many trees no longer branched off wildly in all directions, and the manicured grounds provided a parklike setting.

  There had been no summer showers the night before, and all the decorations they had put up yesterday remained intact, which pleased Lily. Red, white and blue bunting hung from the eaves, a stars and stripes pendant banner wrapped around the top of the fence railing, and a patriotic wreath with bursts of shiny red, white and blue stars hung from the front door.

  She was about to turn from the window when she noticed someone across the street putting up the American flags. It was Walt, and she could see he wore the blue suit Danielle had bought him.

  Lily turned from the window and began straightening the nursery. When she finished, she needed to get dressed for the day. She would wear her new white pedal pushers and a red and blue short sleeveless blouse. She also planned to wear her hair up in a high ponytail.

  Joanne arrived at Marlow House first. The housekeeper wanted to be there when Pearl Cove’s catering department delivered the food. While she waited, she arranged the tables.

  The next to arrive was Melony, who had volunteered to be in charge of ticket sales. While the gate would not open for a couple of hours, she wanted to get there early and see if there was anything Danielle needed her to do before people began arriving.

  “I really appreciate your help today,” Danielle told Melony as she showed her the table at the side gate for admissions. “Everything is under control. We’re just waiting for the food now, and it won’t be here for a couple of hours. I tried to help Joanne set up for the food, but that woman is on a mission, and I think I was in her way.”

  “I suppose Joanne has done several of these already; she has her system,” Melony said.

  “Yeah. If I had prepared most of the food, like I have before, then I would be in helping her. But when I decided to let Pearl Cove cater, I went over the menu with Joanne, and she had some definite ideas, so I’m letting her do her thing,” Danielle explained.

  “She seemed to be enjoying herself in there,” Melony noted.

  “Since we have some time, and everything is under control, why don’t we have a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll on the front swing?” Danielle suggested. “Once this thing gets started, I don’t imagine we’ll have much time for ourselves.”

  Danielle and Melony sat on the front swing, each holding a cup of coffee. They ended up splitting a cinnamon roll, but that quickly disappeared.

  Before taking a sip of her coffee, Danielle said, “Yesterday Adam and I discussed the property Beau Stewart purchased.”

  “The Barr place?” Melony asked.

  “Yeah. Carla said something about it being haunted, and I asked Adam if he ever heard any stories about it. At first, he didn’t remember, but then he said there was something, but he couldn’t recall what it was and said he thought you might know.”

  “That’s because Adam wasn’t there when it happened. He was home sick with the flu. I don’t think he ever believed me when I told him about it.”

  “So something did happen?” Danielle asked.

  Melony shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. She said, “Not sure I believe the place is haunted, but something weird happened back then. When I think about it now, how I remember it probably isn’t what happened. Just scared teenagers and overactive imaginations.”

  “What do you remember?” Danielle asked.

  Melony stopped the gentle rocking of the porch swing with the toe of her right shoe, leaned down, and set her now empty coffee cup on the ground. She resumed rocking before saying, “It was a Friday night. Adam was supposed to go to the party with us, but he got the flu and had to stay home. The party was down the street from the Barr place. Three of us got bored, so we got the bright idea to go TP the house.”

  “Did the place look like it does now?” Danielle asked.

  “It did. That place has always been a dump. Old red barn that needs painting, outbuildings that need bulldozing, and the house, which looks like it does today. Little more weathered. I don’t think they’ve painted it in the last fifty years.”

  “I understand the new owners are tearing everythin
g down,” Danielle said.

  Melony nodded. “That’s what Adam tells me. Did you know the Stewarts were friends of my parents?”

  “I thought they never lived here?” Danielle asked.

  “They never have. Dad used to do some legal work for Beau. The guy owns property everywhere. Apartment buildings, commercial property.”

  “I understand he inherited most of it from his parents,” Danielle noted.

  “That’s what I was told. Family money. And frankly, it surprised me when he started getting involved in politics. I remember my mother always saying they were very private people.”

  “If you want to preserve your privacy, I’d think you’d avoid politics,” Danielle said.

  “No kidding. Also, what I find weird, Beau has been trying to buy that property from his cousin for years.”

  “He has?”

  “Yep. When I was going through my dad’s old files, I remember coming across several copies of old purchase offers for the place. Looked like he made an offer on the property about every year.”

  “Was Adam aware of all this when he made the offer for Beau?” Danielle asked.

  “No. I didn’t realize he was working with Beau until I ran into him in Adam’s office right before escrow closed.”

  “So what was that strange thing you think happened back when you were in high school, but might not have happened?” Danielle asked.

  “Me and two of my friends each swiped a roll of toilet paper from the house that was having the party. We walked over to the Barr place. Everything was dark, and there were no cars around. We didn’t think anyone was home. We were going to TP the house, but right when we started, the rolls of toilet paper flew out of our hands. Each of us was holding a roll, and it happened exactly at the same time.”

  “Was it windy?” Danielle asked.

  Melony looked at her. “For a minute, I guess. It must have been. What else could it be? But it was odd. I remember that night being so still. It was unusually hot for Frederickport in July, and I remember us talking about it while we walked over to the Barr place in the dark, and how a breeze would cool things down. And then this gust of wind comes up out of nowhere, knocks those rolls of TP out of our hands, and blew them all the way to the barn.”

  “Maybe it was one of those little dirt devils?” Danielle suggested.

  “I’m sure it was. But back then, well, it’s not how I remember it. It didn’t feel like wind. It…” Melony looked off in the distance, not finishing her sentence.

  “What did it feel like?”

  “It felt like someone literally ripped that roll out of my hand. And there was the laugh.”

  “Laugh?” Danielle frowned.

  “We all heard it. Laughter. Like someone ripped those rolls from us and then laughed about it. But now, I realize it had to be the wind. But back then, well, it was freaky.”

  “Did you leave?”

  Melony shook her head. “No. But we should have. We almost did, but one of my friends did that nervous laugh, you know the laugh, when someone is afraid of something and feels stupid about it. He convinced us it was just wind, and we were acting like a bunch of chickens. We all laughed along with him and decided to get the TP and finish the job. By the time we got to the barn, its door was wide open, and all three rolls had blown inside. We could see them. The moon had come up, and I remember how it was just at the right angle, the moonlight was like a spotlight shining right inside the open doorway, landing on those three rolls of toilet paper. It was like the moon was telling us, go on, go get them. And being stupid teenagers, we followed them inside.”

  “The way you say stupid teenagers, I assume something else happened.”

  “Yep. The moment we got in the barn the door slammed shut. We couldn’t get it open. Then we heard what sounded like crying. Not sure which was creepier, the sound of laughter or crying. More like sobs, pleading. Scared the crap out of us. We finally got the door open and ran like hell. Left the toilet paper in the barn.”

  “What do you think it was?” Danielle asked.

  “It must have been the wind. Wind blowing through those old buildings can make some weird sounds. I imagine that’s all it was, being on edge, lurking around a creepy place in the dark. Wind knocked the rolls of TP out of our hands, made the creepy sounds, slammed the barn door shut. That’s probably what it was. But honestly, back then it sure as hell didn’t feel like it. And don’t tell Adam, but when I think about that evening, I still get the chills. Silly, huh?”

  Danielle shook her head. “No. It’s not silly.”

  “And you know what else was strange?” Melony asked.

  “What?”

  “Normally, if you throw a roll of toilet paper, it unwinds, leaving a trail of TP,” Melony said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, those three rolls, they made it all the way from the house into the barn. And none of them had unrolled. Not even an inch.”

  Twenty

  They opened the gates at noon. The cars already lined Beach Drive. The volunteers took their positions. Chris moved primarily from the second floor to the attic, while Heather helped Joanne and monitored the first floor and basement. Lily stayed outside, pushing Connor around in a stroller, chatting with the people and looking for anyone suspicious. Ian and Walt led home tours of Marlow House, while Marie watched anyone who might wander off.

  Walt had locked the front walk gate earlier that morning, to prevent anyone from using the front door. They directed all incoming and outgoing traffic for home tours through the side yard and kitchen door. Melony and Adam manned the admission table by the front gate into the side yard.

  Before going to the kitchen to help Joanne with the food, Danielle checked on Melony and Adam, and discovered they had everything under control. She was about to go to the house when she spied Pearl walking down the street toward the gate. Danielle inwardly groaned, preparing herself for Pearl’s inevitable ranting in protest of the charity event. She glanced around for Brian, knowing he was used to handling Pearl, but he stood on the other side of the yard, his back to her.

  When Pearl walked through the open gate a moment later, she handed Adam her ticket—one she had purchased prior to the event, surprising Danielle. Pearl said nothing to Danielle as she walked past her, toward the crowd of people gathering on the back patio.

  “Was that your neighbor?” Melony whispered to Danielle after Pearl was out of earshot.

  “Yes. I can’t believe she came,” Danielle said.

  “Well, it is for a good cause,” Melony reminded her.

  Officer Brian Henderson stood on the back patio of Marlow House, drinking a beer. The chief said he was undercover, so he figured he would blend in better with a beer in hand. At least, that was the excuse he intended to go with. So far, he had seen nothing suspicious, mostly locals and a few tourists.

  About to take a sip of beer, Brian looked toward the road and saw Pearl Huckabee coming his way. Taking a deep breath, he braced for the woman, and once again cursed himself for ever giving her his business card and telling her to call him if she needed his help.

  “Officer Henderson,” Pearl said primly when she reached him.

  “Mrs. Huckabee, I told you before, the Marlows are within their rights to have a fundraiser, and they have a permit, and—”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” Pearl asked. “I’m here to support the Humane Society. A very worthy cause.”

  He frowned. “You are?”

  “Yes. I purchased a ticket at the hardware store. Do you know where I can go for the tour? I’m here anyway; I might as well see what the inside of this place looks like. Everyone is always making such a fuss about it being a historical landmark. I’ve seen the photographs online, of course.”

  Brian pointed to the house and said, “I believe Walt and Ian are giving tours. You can go through that door.”

  She gave him a nod and started for the house. He watched her walk away and shook his head, still not quite believing what he wa
s seeing.

  Joanne had arranged the refreshments on the patio’s picnic table. After leaving Adam and Melony, Danielle headed to the table to see if it needed replenishing. As she stood by it, surveying the spread, a male voice whispered in her ear, “You always win them over, don’t you?”

  Startled at the voice and words, Danielle spun around and looked up into Brian’s eyes, a silly grin on his face.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  He nodded toward the house and said, “Pearl. She’s in there taking a tour. Finally won her over, I see.”

  “I’m not sure about that.” She glanced briefly to the house and back to Brian. “I was shocked to see her come in. I thought for sure she was here to bitch at me. But she had a ticket. She didn’t say hi or anything. And now that I think about it, I didn’t greet her. I was in too much shock.”

  Brian shrugged. “Maybe she’s coming around.”

  “I think it’s that she prefers animals to people. This is a fundraiser for the local Humane Society.”

  “Even pit bulls?” Brian asked, remembering all the times Pearl went apoplectic over Hunny.

  “Especially pit bulls. Apparently, she has become quite fond of Hunny. I suspect it was what happened at Christmas.”

  Brian was about to respond but stopped when four people walked up to Danielle, wanting to say hello.

  Danielle turned from Brian and found Beau Stewart standing there with his wife and a younger couple. She smiled at them and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, glad you could make it.”