by Lee Hollis
Gemma had been the first one to scoff at the notion of Mary Garber claiming to have seen Trudy Lancaster’s apparition. But now, here she was, swearing she had seen her too.
“Wow, this is becoming an epidemic,” Bruce noted.
Hayley spun around and gaped at him. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s nothing, really, just something Sal casually mentioned earlier today at the office,” Bruce said, trying to brush it off.
“Tell me, Bruce, what did Sal say?”
Bruce sighed. “Okay, I wasn’t going to mention it because I know how you get.”
“Okay, I’m going to let that one fly by without further comment, but keep going...” Hayley insisted.
“Last night, Sal accidentally left the door open when he went to take out the garbage and their cat, Silas, got out. Well, he and Rosana split up to go look for him, and Rosana claims that she saw—”
“She saw Trudy too?” Hayley gasped.
“I said she claimed to have seen Trudy! But you know how Rosana hates being left out of anything, and always tries to get her fair share of attention. Sal laughed the whole thing off and said Rosana was probably just jealous that Mary Garber saw Trudy’s ghost and so she had to get in on the action too!”
Maybe Sal was right.
Maybe his busybody wife was just trying to horn her way into someone else’s drama in order to make herself feel more important.
And maybe Mary had just been smashed that night like her husband had confided to Sergio, and through her blurred eyes just saw someone who happened to resemble Trudy poking around her property outside the bedroom window.
Hayley was inclined to believe both likely scenarios.
But she trusted her daughter implicitly. Even as a little girl, Gemma had never suffered from an overactive imagination. That was her brother and budding animator Dustin’s department. Gemma had always been the practical and honest one. So if Gemma said she saw Trudy, then Hayley was pretty sure that Gemma saw Trudy.
Which, of course, could only mean one thing.
Trudy Lancaster’s ghost was haunting Bar Harbor.
Island Food & Spirits
BY
HAYLEY POWELL
Every year, just a few days before Halloween, I get together with my besties Liddy and Mona at my house and we have a big sandwich supper and prepare all of our homemade Halloween goodies to share with friends and family. It’s always a rollicking good time, especially since Mona has made it a Halloween tradition to always try and scare the life out of poor Liddy, who makes no secret of the fact that she hates scary movies, scary books, and trick-or-treating, especially the tricking part. It’s something she has in common with my husband, Bruce. Mona, on the other hand, loves the holiday and takes great pride in finding new and creative ways to torture an unsuspecting Liddy. There was the year Liddy arrived at my house and was confronted by a creepy scarecrow sitting lifelessly on my deck. Except it wasn’t made of straw, it was Mona dressed as a scarecrow, and when she jumped up and waved her arms at Liddy, the poor thing ran off terrified and hysterical. We had to get in Mona’s truck and chase her down.
She was still running, three blocks away, as we drove up alongside her. Then, last year, Mona pretended to slice off her thumb peeling apples. There was a lot of fake blood and a rubber thumb that rolled across my kitchen floor. Liddy nearly fainted dead on the spot.
Every year Liddy swore she would never fall for any more of Mona’s childish antics, but of course every year she did.
Until this year.
Mona was supremely disappointed that Liddy couldn’t join us for our big sandwich supper this year because of a real estate conference in Portland that she had decided to attend at the last minute. Mona had gone all out this year too, finding a fake horse head and bringing another jar of her fake blood and a set of her own sheets to drench in it. She was all set to “dress up” my bedroom, and couldn’t wait to casually ask me to show Liddy the new wallpaper in my room, setting the scene for all of us to walk into my bedroom and stumble upon the grisly scene. But alas, now that Liddy was a no-show, her plan was kaput.
Mona was sulking in my kitchen so I quickly cleared the table after we finished our sandwiches and set up a fun cookie decorating station in order to cheer her up. That’s when my cell phone rang. I answered with a cheery “Hello” but all I could hear on the other end of the call was soft spooky music, like the eerie piano score from the Halloween movies.
“Hello?” I asked again.
No one said anything so I hung up.
Mona and I started scooping out white frosting for our little ghost cookies when my phone rang again.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
Just the same soft scary piano music playing on the other end.
I hung up again.
A few minutes later, the phone rang yet again. This time, an annoyed Mona snatched the phone away from me and yelled, “Who the hell is this?”
I could hear someone chattering on the other end before Mona huffed and hung up.
“Who was that?” I asked Mona.
“Liddy, calling from her conference.”
“Well, what did she say?”
Mona shrugged. “Beats me. You know I get bored listening to her go on and on...”
My phone rang again.
This time I answered the call. “Hello?”
“Why on earth would you allow that lunatic Mona to answer your phone?” Liddy screamed.
I calmly explained that we had received a couple of crank calls from someone playing that creepy music from the Halloween movies and Mona had become frustrated and grabbed the phone. I chuckled, adding, “She’s also a bit miffed you’re not here for her to play a trick on.”
“Tell her she should grow up!” Liddy snapped and then hung up.
A half hour later we finished decorating the ghosts and witches and had moved on to the larger haunted house cookies. We had forgotten all about the crank calls when my cell phone rang yet again. When I answered, I heard the soft, spine-chilling music playing except this time it was accompanied by heavy breathing.
“Who is this?” I demanded to know.
I handed the phone to Mona, who slowly put it to her ear, her eyes widening at the sound of the heavy breathing.
Spooked, Mona immediately hung up.
“Maybe it’s one of your kids,” Mona suggested.
“They’re a little old for this kind of stuff,” I said.
“Maybe it’s one of my kids, then.”
The phone rang one more time. Mona grabbed it and answered it. “Chet, if this is you, I swear I’m going to wring your neck when I get home! You’re supposed to be watching your brothers and sisters to make sure they don’t burn the house down!” Mona listened to the music and heavy breathing a bit more and hung up. “I know how to get to the bottom of this!”
Mona punched *69 on the key pad, which would ring back the number calling us so we could finally put this nonsense to rest once and for all. My kitchen landline phone started ringing. Mona and I exchanged horrified glances. The call was coming from inside the house! Just like in that old 1970s horror movie!
Then we heard a bang upstairs that made us both scream.
“Is Bruce home?” Mona cried.
“No! He’s having a beer with Sergio at Randy’s bar!”
“Let’s get out of here!” Mona screeched.
Before Mona could run out, I grabbed her sweatshirt and dragged her toward the staircase. I was not going to be run out of my own home. Quietly creeping up the steps, I could hear the same piano music from the calls playing in my bedroom. The door was closed. I was certain I had left it open earlier because Leroy had been napping at the foot of my bed and I didn’t want to trap him inside.
Mona was shaking at this point. She put a finger to her lips and disappeared inside Dustin’s bedroom only to emerge a few seconds later with her weapon of choice: a plastic light-up Star Wars sword! I almost laughed out loud bu
t clamped a hand over my mouth before any sound could come out.
Finally, Mona steeled herself, raised the plastic sword over her head, and charged into the bedroom, screaming like a banshee. I heard Mona cry, “Good God, it’s some kind of monster!”
There was a bright flash from inside the bedroom and then Mona started screaming incoherently. I poked my head inside the bedroom, flipping on the overhead light. There was Mona, sword at her side, staring at her own reflection in a full-length mirror that had been moved in front of the door. Then I saw Liddy, howling with laughter, off to the side holding a camera. She had rolled the mirror in front of the door so Mona would see herself when she flew into the bedroom. She had also gotten the perfect shot of Mona frightened out of her mind, wielding a plastic sword!
“That picture is going to be the cover of this year’s Christmas card!” Liddy cooed.
The theme from Halloween was coming from her iPhone.
Mona was still a bit confused until Liddy, with a big grin on her face, yelled, “Gotcha!”
Liddy had never gone to the real estate conference. It was all a ruse in order to convince me and Mona she was out of town. Then, she enlisted Bruce’s aid in sneaking her in the house when I was busy preparing our sandwiches in the kitchen and before Mona had even arrived.
Ah, sweet revenge.
As for Mona, she vowed to up her game next year.
It was on!
I led everyone back downstairs for more Big Sandwiches, and after a fright like that one, a Frozen Mudslide. There is nothing like a cocktail that tastes like a milkshake to end the evening on a good note.
THE FROZEN MUDSLIDE
INGREDIENTS
1 ounce Kahlua
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce Irish cream liqueur
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
Crushed ice
Mix all your ingredients, including ice, in a blender until well blended. Pour your mixture into a large glass. Pop in an environmentally friendly straw and enjoy. But please don’t drink too fast! No one wants to get a brain freeze!
THE BIG SANDWICH
INGREDIENTS
1 pound sliced ham
1 pound sliced roast beef
1 cup sliced green onion
12 thinly sliced long dill pickles
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room
temperature
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 loaves French bread (whole not sliced)
Slice the bread lengthwise and hollow out the top and bottom leaving about a half an inch of bread on both halves.
In a bowl combine the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, onions, mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce well and spread over both sides of the bread. Layer the bottom and top halves with ham and roast beef, place the pickles on the bottom, and carefully place your top halves on and gently press down. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in your refrigerator for at least two hours. However, they can be kept overnight for the next day if making ahead.
Cut into serving slices, serve and enjoy!
Chapter 27
“He’s going to do what?” Mary Garber squealed, as she clutched her glass of lemonade, which Hayley was reasonably sure also had a shot or two of vodka in it.
“Reclassify Trudy’s death as a homicide,” Hayley explained calmly.
“Well, now it all makes sense!” Mary barked, chugging down the rest of her “lemonade” and slamming the glass down on the plastic table on the deck outside their house.
“What makes sense, dear?” her dutiful husband, Mark, asked calmly.
“Trudy coming back! Don’t you see what’s happening?” Mary cried.
Mark looked at Hayley and Bruce quizzically. They had unexpectedly shown up at the Garber house a few minutes earlier under the guise of discussing the strange, inexplicable Trudy sightings, but Bruce, the hard-line, facts-are-facts crime reporter, wanted to know exactly where the Garbers were when Trudy was inside her food truck getting gassed to death.
After a brief pause, Mark timidly cleared his throat and asked his near hysterical wife, “Um, what is happening, Mary?”
“It’s so obvious, Mark! The police think someone murdered Trudy! That’s why her restless spirit has come back to haunt us! She’ll never be able to cross over to the other side until she knows her killer has been brought to justice!”
Another pause as they all digested Mary’s otherworldly premise.
“No, I’m sure of it,” Mary exclaimed, more confident in her theory now. “I know Mark is a skeptic, and I can’t speak for Bruce, but you have to agree with me, don’t you, Hayley?”
Not wanting to upset Mary any more than she already was, Hayley hesitantly nodded. “I guess anything is possible.”
Bruce, in order not to say anything that might offend Mary, picked up his glass of lemonade and took a big swig and nearly choked on the heavy amount of alcohol in it.
Mary sighed. “I’m just grateful I’m not the only one in town who has seen her. Otherwise people might think I’m some kind of unhinged kook!”
One more awkward pause as everyone silently took a long sip of their spiked lemonade.
Mary turned to Mark. “Remember, this happened to us before about five years ago when my Aunt Reba died in that skiing accident?”
Hayley could tell Mark was wishing his wife was not going to tell this story, but he couldn’t do anything to stop her. Mary whipped her head back around to face Hayley and Bruce. “Reba was a beginner and had only taken a few ski lessons when she wiped out and hit her head and died of a traumatic brain injury. Well, for weeks after, I would wake up in the middle of the night and see her standing at the foot of our bed waving at me. I’d scream and wake up Mark and—”
“I never saw a thing,” Mark mumbled.
“Well, I did! And guess what? Months later, her awful, rude, arrogant husband, my Uncle Carl whom nobody likes, finally admitted under intense questioning from the family that he had pressured Reba to go down a slope reserved for expert skiers called the Black Diamond. She obviously wasn’t advanced enough for something like that, so Uncle Carl basically killed poor Reba! Of course we couldn’t have him arrested because Reba had agreed to go down the slope on her own, but she needed me to know it was Carl’s fault she died!”
“Poor Reba . . .”
That was all Hayley could think of to say.
“And then Carl got remarried right away, which also was highly suspicious,” Mary snorted.
“Seven years later, Mary,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I think he grieved a socially acceptable amount of time.”
“Well, I’m curious to see just how long Ted Lancaster waits until he gets hitched again,” Mary said, picking up her glass of lemonade to drink more and realizing it was empty. “Anyone else ready for a refill?”
“No, thanks,” Bruce said. “So you think it was Ted?”
“Who else could it be?” Mary asked, standing up and heading inside to make herself another cocktail. “It’s always the husband. Just ask my Aunt Reba!”
Once she was gone, Mark shifted uncomfortably in his deck chair. “You’ll have to excuse Mary. She’s been a little on edge lately, especially after what happened at our Witches Ball.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Hayley said.
Bruce leaned forward with a raised eyebrow. “Now that the police are treating Trudy’s death as a homicide, I’m sure Sergio will be calling us all to come down to the station for an interview.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to bother with me and Mary,” Mark said, almost too quickly. “We’re both officially in the clear.”
Hayley and Bruce exchanged surprised looks.
“Why is that?” Hayley asked.
“We never left the house for the entire duration of the party, at least until Hayley discovered Trudy’s body in the truck. We were too busy entertaining our guests. The chief can ask anyone who was here. Or better
yet, he can just see for himself on everybody’s Facebook pages. A couple of people even live-streamed the event and you can see us in plain view the whole time.”
“I guess it would be hard to miss Mary in that purple muumuu with all those moons and stars, running around waving a wand, or you as Michael Myers from the Halloween movies,” Hayley said.
But that still left nearly a hundred and fifty guests, more than half of whom were dressed as witches, who did have the opportunity to slip outside the house unnoticed and eliminate the sandwich lady with a rigged propane tank.
Chapter 28
“Either we’ve all gone mad, or Trudy Lancaster is indeed haunting Bar Harbor!” Gemma cried as she sat with Hayley and Bruce in the living room having coffee after dinner.
Bruce couldn’t help but chortle at the dramatic pronouncement, and Hayley, not wanting to offend Gemma, shot him a look of warning to be a little more sensitive, something he wasn’t always used to being.
Bruce nodded slightly in Hayley’s direction, acknowledging her message had been received, and said, “Or there is another explanation.”
“Well, then what is it?” Gemma asked, folding her arms, waiting impatiently.
Bruce shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“But you do have to admit, something weird is going on, and it is entirely possible that the explanation could be, I’m just saying, could be supernatural,” Gemma said.
Bruce smiled and looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Gemma, I’m just not there yet.”
“Poor Mary Garber, now I see how frustrating it must be for everyone to think you’re crazy!” Gemma huffed.
Hayley finally spoke up. “Nobody is calling anyone crazy.”
“Conner basically did,” Gemma said, sighing. “He thinks I’m letting work stress get to me and that I should perhaps see someone, like a therapist, when we get back to New York. Can you believe that? The only thing stressing me out right now is the fact that he has asked me to marry him!”