Murder, Werewolves, and Ghosts

by Phil Cross

name of Walter Stephan, but since was transferred to Anna Green. It’s now a little less than seven hundred fifty thousand.”

  “So,” said Maryann, “if it’s in her name and not her second husband’s it’s not a motive for murdering him.”

  “Wait,” Regan said, as he continued to key into Green’s computer, then said, “The Greens have a joint account for two hundred thousand.”

  “Again no motive for Mrs. Green to do him in,” Maryann said.

  “Yes—but suppose she’s romantically involved with someone else, there was a seventeen year age difference between them.”

  “Why wouldn’t she just divorce him?” Maryann annoyed, said. “She still would have the three quarters of a mil in her account and not risk getting charged with murder.”

  “Greed. That’s why,” Skolski replied.

  “Alright,” Regan cut in. “We’ll see what we can learn in that regard. But let’s now get on with Green’s journal.”

  Maryann picked up where she had left off. “Stephan worked at a law firm. Green does not say what Stephan did there other than that he hated it—preferring to be outdoors. Green encouraged him to purchase a cabin in the mountains where he would go at least one weekend a month, and often for a week at time without taking Anna or Morgana with him.”

  Maryann paused, then said, “Now comes the weird part. It’s the last journal entry in what I have.”

  “Weird? In what way?” Regan asked.

  “Judge for yourself. Do either of you want a coffee refill before I go on?”

  Both men, anxious to hear her out, said they were fine and she should go on.

  “Two years after signing up with Green an envelop addressed to Walter, marked ‘urgent’ arrived at the Stephan’s. Walter had just left for a week get-away at his cabin in the mountains. Anna, nervous about the envelop being marked urgent, called Green. I think it best you read Green’s entry yourselves,” she said, as she plugged the flash drive into Green’s computer and displayed where she had book marked.

  Both detectives read:

  Thursday 1:45 a.m.

  I never had an experience like this and must put it down while it is so vivid. Where to start? At the beginning, or afterward? Yes, of course, as it happened, or I’ll get it all jumbled up and confused so’s not to make any sense.

  Anna Stephan called me just as I was preparing for bed, apologizing for bothering me at such a late hour. A special delivery letter marked urgent had arrived for Walter from England. She said Walter had already left for a week long stay at his cabin where she couldn’t get in touch with him. She called me because she thought the letter might have financial implications. Anna seems sensible, so I thought it had to be important.

  I picked up the envelop from her and she told me how to get to Walter’s cabin. It was a fifty mile ride, and turned out to be much farther up a dirt road than Anna led me to believe. Understandable, since she had been there only twice because of its gloominess. The cabin was constructed from logs and looked to be three rooms at most. There was a faint glow through a small front window. Walter’s car was parked out front. I parked beside it and went and knocked on the front door. There was no answer, so I knocked again. When I still didn’t get an answer I turned to walk around to the back, intending to see if there was another door, or even to tap on a window to arouse Walter should he be asleep. He had to be in there.

  As I turned away from the door I heard a click as though it had been unlocked. I pressed down on the latch, pushed the door open, and entered the dark interior. I could see what appeared to be a person, I could not see the face, but assumed it was Walter, seated, back toward me, in a high back chair, facing the glow from the fireplace. I admit being frightened. I dreaded going there to begin with, but gave in to Anna’s plea. How could she have married this man whose eyes seemed to look right through you.

  He didn’t say a word of greeting, but sat immobile in front of the fire, not turning to face me. I managed to stammer that I had been asked by Anna to bring him an urgent document from England. Still without turning to look at me, he reached back over a shoulder with an open hand.

  I placed the envelop in it, while remaining as far back as I could. He took it and tore it open, then crumpled and threw it into the fire. Still without turning he raised the same hand and flicked his fingers at me as though telling me to leave. I stammered again, this time asking about what I should tell Anna. He didn’t reply. I became even more frightened, turned and left.

  A few miles down the road I regretted being such a coward and looked for a place to turn around and go back. When I did, I saw a red glow in the sky. By the time I got back to the cabin it was enveloped in flame, but I managed to get close enough to look through a window to see Walter sitting in front of the fireplace as when I left him, but now consumed in flames. I drove back down the main road, to the nearest house, and a woman there called the fire department.

  I will wait until the morning to tell Anna.

  Thursday 11:00 a.m.

  Anna took the news of Walter’s death rather calmly. When I asked her if she wanted me to handle funeral arrangements, she said there would not be any, that Walter’s ashes would remain where they are, in his mountain retreat. I will continue to manage her investments.

  “I see what you mean,” Skolski said to Maryann, “it’s weird alright.”

  “Is that the first time Green mentions Anna?” Regan asked Maryann.

  “No, there’s an entry months before about getting her signature on something or other, but that’s it.”

  “So they weren’t playing beddy-bye together,” Skolski said.

  “It seems not,” Maryann replied, scowling.

  “How about your flash drive?” Regan asked Skolski. Are there any entries about them having an affair?”

  “No,” Skolski replied. “It’s boring as Hell—sickening—He falls for her and writes about her like a love sick calf. They get married, have sex, and from his entries live in happy bliss.”

  “Anything about Morgana?” Regan asked.

  “Only that she didn’t want to be adopted by Green and have to replace her surname with ‘Green.’”

  “How did Green take it?”

  “He seemed disappointed, but that was it. Nothing more.”

  Regan said, “The part of the journal I have is much the same. Green buys his step daughter a new car and they seem to be the all-American family. There’s no mention of the special delivery from England to Walter five years earlier. That’s the only thing we have left. I admit it isn’t much, but it bears looking in to.”

  “You mean when Stephan died,” Skolski said.

  “Yes, when he died—suicide, accident, murder?”

  “How about act of God?” Skolski said.

  “Let’s not stretch it,” Maryann said, as she and Skolski left Regan alone in his office, contemplating.

  It was not until two weeks later that Regan told them he had placed a series of calls to England and learned that Walter’s father, Letvic Stephan, had come to England from Romania with an infant son and purchased a remote castle in northern England. The castle had a ghostly reputation as the scene of murder and torture going back to the Scottish and English conflicts during the sixteen century. Nearby towns people steered clear of it—even more so after Stephan moved in—regarding him to be a devil that mutilated people and livestock. His son had married a local girl, they had a child, then the son left for America. The father died years later—just about the time of Green’s entry about Walter’s death—and the estate was liquidated, him being so far in debt.

  Regan questioned Anna again. She corroborated that Walter had come to England as a boy with his father, that she had married him, and they lived on the estate with Walter’s father—whom she rarely got to see—living in separate wings of the castle and dining apart from one another. Although she spent a great deal of time in the garden she would only catch glimpses of her father-in-law looking out a window, or standing distantly in the fields or at th
e edge of the woods. Morgana was born and they had gone through three nannies, none staying for more than a few weeks, resulting in her having to home-school Morgana. When Morgana was ten, Walter and his father had a terrible argument she could hear echoing throughout the great rooms. The following morning her, Walter, and Morgana left for America. She said there had always been stories devised and circulated by the superstitious villagers, about witches and gypsies, but nothing more than something to spice up their boring lives.

  Regan told Skolski and Maryann what he had learned from Anna. They decided to go back to the entry in Green’s journal when he had delivered the envelop to Walter at his cabin. Stretching it a bit, Maryann looked up the dates of full moons and found there was a full moon that night. On checking the night Green was murdered, she said, “Good lord, Yes, there was one that night too.”

  Skolski exclaimed, “I’ll be dammed!”

  Regan abruptly picked up the phone and called the school Principle, Mr. Wybol, asking him if attendees to games had to sign in. Wybol told him of course not, and put him in contact with the assistant principal who attended all the games and might remember who came. On speaking to him, Regan learned he didn’t remember seeing Anna at that game, but she could have been.

  Skolski said, “So you suspect the mother prowls around on nights of a full moon?”

  Maryann said, “That’s insane.”

  Skolski said, “This whole thing is