Crypt Suzette

by Maya Corrigan

  Granddad emerged from the dark driveway into the light cast by the streetlamp. He resembled a professor in a pullover sweater with patched elbows, wire-rimmed bifocals, and the beard he’d started growing for his Santa Claus role in December. “If you folks are looking for the ghost, you’re wasting your time. It’s gone. As a qualified ghost hunter, I got rid of it.”

  Val stifled a laugh. First a food guru, then a senior sleuth, and now a ghost hunter. It had bothered her when Granddad claimed cooking expertise to snag a job as the newspaper’s recipe columnist. It had bothered her even more when he touted his skills as a detective after taking an online investigation course. But reinventing himself as a ghost hunter struck her as a fair response to the tour guide’s invention of a ghost.

  A man in the crowd laughed. “If there’s no ghost, you’d better take this house off the tour.”

  A breeze ruffled the white curls over Granddad ears. “Yup. This is officially a ghost-free zone.”

  An older woman sidled up to the tour leader. “My neighbor says she has a ghost. Things keep disappearing from her house. You can substitute her place for this one.”

  Granddad waggled his finger back and forth. “Just ’cause stuff go missing doesn’t mean you have a ghost. Ghosts have no use for material objects.” He reached under his V-neck sweater, pulled business cards from his shirt pocket, and handed one to the woman. “I help people find missing things in my sleuth service. Tell your friend to call me. Anyone else want one?” He fanned out business cards in his hand.

  “I’m not promoting this man’s service,” the tour leader said. “Let’s move on to our next stop . . . the old graveyard.”

  Granddad’s tactics made Val cringe, but she couldn’t argue with success. He’d gotten rid of this group and possibly even kept his house from being on the next ghost tour.

  A third of the people in the group took Granddad’s card before following their leader. The last to take a card was a young black woman. She stayed behind as the others disappeared in the direction of the historic district.

  She squinted at Granddad’s card under the streetlamp and approached him. “You’re the same Don Myer who writes the Codger Cook column for the Treadwell Gazette?” At his nod, she introduced herself and added, “I have an internship as a reporter at the Gazette.”

  Though Val didn’t catch the young woman’s name, the word reporter made her wary. Would Granddad’s nonsense about ghost hunting make it into the newspaper? Val moved closer to him.

  The would-be reporter glanced at her and then turned back to him. “My assignment is to write about Eastern Shore ghost walks. Can I ask you a few questions about your ghost-hunting experience?”

  Val answered for him. “We haven’t had dinner yet. Maybe some other time.” She tried to nudge Granddad toward the house. Proclaiming himself a ghost hunter to get rid of gawkers wasn’t bad, but making the same claim in print would open him up to ridicule.

  “I’ll answer your questions, young lady, but only if you agree to my terms. You can’t print anything about the death of the young woman the tour guide said haunted this place.”

  The reporter’s brow knit. “Why not?”

  “Every other person whose afterlife is part of a ghost walk died long ago. All the folks who knew those people are also dead. But the family and friends of the young woman killed in our backyard are still alive. They still grieve for her. They don’t want to read that she’s a stop on a Halloween ghost tour.”

  The reporter took a moment to respond. “I understand. If I leave the ghost out of my article, I can’t write about how you got rid of the ghost here.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you that anyway. Magicians don’t reveal how they do tricks. They have a code of secrecy, and so do ghost hunters. They wouldn’t want any ghosts to find out their methods, and you never know when one of them might be listening in.”

  Val forced herself to laugh. “My grandfather has a great sense of humor.” She tugged on his arm.

  The reporter’s pen was poised over her small spiral notebook. “Where did you get your training, Mr. Myer? Did you intern or apprentice with an experienced ghost hunter?”

  Val couldn’t tell from the young woman’s face if she really believed in spirits or was just humoring an old man. Would she write a tongue-in-cheek piece about ghosts and those who believed in them? Or would she use her column inches to expose charlatans who ran ghost tours or claimed to get rid of ghosts?

  “I might be a self-taught ghost hunter, but I’m a trained investigator,” Granddad said. “Believe me, ghosts are easier to identify and get rid of than your average criminal.”

  The reporter stopped jotting in her notebook. “Even though ghosts aren’t always visible?”

  “But you know where to find them. They don’t move from town to town or even from house to house like the living do. Ghosts are tied to their locations.”

  The young woman nodded. “The place where they died.”

  “Yup. Ghosts return to earth in search of justice. Once you show them justice was done, they can rest easy.”

  “And stop haunting.” The reporter put her notebook away.

  “Nice talking to you, young lady. I’m looking forward to your article.” He shook hands with her and walked back to the house.

  Val pulled her car into the driveway, and Granddad helped her take the grocery bags to the kitchen.

  They were surprised to see Suzette at the stove.

  She was melting butter in a frying pan. “Sorry if I’m in your way. I thought you two had eaten already.”

  “You won’t be in our way,” Val said. “We have groceries to unload before starting dinner.” By seven thirty on most evenings, she and Granddad had already eaten and cleared out of the kitchen. Only then did Suzette come down and use the stove. As often as not, she had no use for the kitchen, making do with the small fridge and the microwave in a niche near her room.

  “I’m just making an omelet. I’ll be out of here before long.” Suzette poured beaten eggs into the pan.

  With her long dark hair in a high ponytail, she resembled a high schooler from the 1960s. Val had seen Suzette’s hair fixed in myriad ways—hanging straight, in a low bun, entwined in French braids, piled high in a topknot, cascading down in loose waves, held back by barrettes, and woven with ribbons, to name a few. Each styling made her look like a different person, at least from a distance. Val’s hair also varied from day to day, not because she fixed it differently, but because it had a mind of its own. The shape of its curls depended on whim and weather, and its cinnamon color tended toward brown or red depending on the light. She envied Suzette’s ability to impose her will on her hair.

  Granddad took a beer out of the fridge. “Take your time cooking, Suzette. How did it go at the bookshop, Val?”

  “Okay.” Except for having to listen to Bram question her competence. “I’m going to cater the grand opening party in the evening. I think they’ll have a good crowd, especially for the costume contest at seven. The winner will get a gift certificate to buy books.”

  Suzette looked up from the omelet pan. “I’d really like to win that.”

  Granddad exchanged a look with Val. They both knew how much the certificate would mean to Suzette. Working her way through community college, she had barely enough to make ends meet. Last month he’d heard through his church that a college student needed a place to stay close to the Harbor Inn, where she’d just gotten a job. After meeting Suzette, he’d offered her the small spare bedroom upstairs for nominal rent. In return for her room and kitchen privileges, Suzette typed the recipes for his Codger Cook newspaper columns, kept the house spotless, and made herself as invisible as possible.

  Val wanted to make sure Suzette knew the costume contest details early, to give her time to prepare. “You have to go dressed as a fictional character and give a short speech as the character.”

  Granddad grinned. “That sounds like something Dorothy dreamed up. She’s the bookshop owner,” he said for
Suzette’s benefit. “She used to be a teacher and now she’s turning a costume contest into a learning experience.”

  “What fun. Even if I don’t win, I’ll enjoy the show.” Suzette plated her omelet, took the pan to the sink, and washed it. “I’ll eat upstairs. I have a salad waiting there. You all have a good night.”

  She took the back staircase that led from the kitchen to the hall just outside her room.

  As soon as the stairs stopped creaking, Granddad said in an undertone, “I’m worried about her. She spends hours in that tiny room.”

  “It’s a cozy room with a good view of the backyard.” Val had slept there whenever she stayed with her grandparents as a child and when she first came to live with Granddad. After a few months, she’d moved into the larger front bedroom upstairs. With him in a bedroom on the main floor, and her and Suzette at opposite ends of the upper floor, everyone had private space.

  “What’s for dinner?” Granddad said.

  “Pork and parsnips.” She opened the refrigerator. “Could you chop the parsnips and a medium onion? I’ll slice the pork tenderloin and make the salad.”

  Granddad set out his tools on the counter—a peeler, a knife, and the swimming goggles he always wore when he chopped onions, to keep his eyes from watering. “Suzette has been here six weeks and she hardly ever goes out except to jog in the morning. She never seems to party with friends like most young people do.”

  “She’s on her feet at a hotel desk five days a week, taking classes the other two days, and studying when she can. That doesn’t leave her much free time.” Since she didn’t own a car, she had a long bus ride to the college. Val took the pork and leftover rice pilaf from the fridge. “When Suzette worked as a nanny, she lived near the college, so she probably has friends there. And she occasionally goes out in the evening. I wouldn’t worry about her being isolated.”

  “I wasn’t, until yesterday.” Granddad peeled a parsnip. “When Harvey came over to complain about the ghost tour stopping here, he told me Suzette takes different routes when she walks here from the Harbor Inn after her shift. Sometimes she goes out of her way and comes from the direction of Main Street. Other times she slips through the backyards of houses, the ones across the street and the ones behind us.”

  Val shrugged. “I wouldn’t pay much attention to Harvey. As you’ve said before, he has nothing to do since he retired but spy on his neighbors and let his imagination run wild.”

  “And grouch about ghost tourists.”

  Val kept herself from saying that Granddad was no slouch as a grouch either. She had to give him credit for grumbling less than he used to, now that he had outside interests like his newspaper column and his sleuthing service. “Maybe Suzette just likes variety on her walks.”

  “Or she’s trying to dodge someone from the inn who’s following her.” As Granddad cut through the thick parsnip, his knife thumped against the cutting board. “Yesterday she asked me to teach her what I’d learned in my investigator course about finding information online about people. I showed her some databases that are either free or inexpensive to use. She zeroed in on the one listing people who have criminal warrants against them.”

  Surprised, Val looked up from slicing the meat. “Maybe she met someone she doesn’t trust.” That wasn’t the only option. “Or she wants to find out if she’s on that database.”

  “I checked. She doesn’t have criminal charges against her. For a young person, she keeps a low profile online. She doesn’t even have a Facebook page. I tell you, Val, something’s wrong.”

  Val heated the oil in the skillet. She could explain away Suzette’s roundabout routes to the house, but interest in criminal data and avoidance of social media suggested Granddad might have a reason for concern. Everyone Val knew in her own age group or younger was on two or three social sites. “You’ve roused my curiosity, Granddad. I’ll try to talk to her. I can’t knock on her door, demanding answers, but I’ll waylay her when she’s slipping in or out of the house.”

  “Good.” Granddad donned his goggles and started peeling the onion. “She might be more willing to talk to you about a problem than to me.”

  “You spend time with her when she’s typing your column. Has she ever said anything that suggests she’s worried or scared?”

  Granddad shook his head. “She doesn’t talk about herself much. She told me she moved to the Eastern Shore three years ago and originally came from western Maryland, but she didn’t say exactly where. When I asked about her family, she said she has contact only with a cousin. It’s hard for young people not to have family around.”

  Val agreed. After working in New York City for ten years with no relatives nearby, she was thrilled to be in Bayport with Granddad. Her parents visited every few months from Florida, and her cousin, Monique, lived nearby. Val felt at home in Bayport because of family ties and the new friends she’d made here.

  Wielding his knife like a pro, Granddad chopped the onions quickly. “I’m glad you got a chance to meet Dorothy today. How did you like her?”

  “Very much. She was friendly and full of energy.” And she didn’t let her son talk her out of having the kind of grand opening she wanted. “Have you met her son, Bram?”

  Granddad shook his head. “He was here for a weekend last month, when I went to Baltimore for the Orioles games. He came here to advise her on business practices and marketing. She said he’d been working seventy hours a week in a start-up company. He just sold it, and now he’s treating the bookshop as another start-up. She says he needs to relax.”

  Val would second that. “Does she have other children?”

  “Nope.”

  The phone in the front hall rang. “I’ll answer it.” Val moved the skillet off the heat.

  Though Granddad had a cell phone, he liked his landline too much to give it up, yet not enough to add extensions to it.

  The woman calling asked to speak to him. When Val went back to the kitchen and told him, he dumped the onions he’d chopped into a bowl, took off his goggles, and washed his hands before going to take the call.

  Val continued to cook and thought about what Granddad had said about Suzette. He might be right about her trying to dodge someone. Could her hairstyle changes have less to do with fashion than with fear?

  By the time he returned to the kitchen, Val was ready to put dinner on the table. “That was a long call,” she said as they sat down.

  “Congratulate me. I have my first ghost-hunting gig.”

  Val winced. “Please tell me you’re not going to take that woman’s money for getting rid of ghosts.”

  “I’ll only charge her if I locate what she’s missing. I’m pretty good at finding things.”

  Yes, he’d traced lost cats, missing keys and eyeglasses, and even a purloined garden gnome. “What has this woman lost?”

  “Jewelry, but I can’t look for it right away. I promised Dorothy I’d help her get ready for the bookshop’s grand opening, and I want to finish the Harry Potter books before Halloween. Ghost hunting’s on hold for at least a week.”

  Good. Maybe the missing jewelry would turn up before then, and the woman wouldn’t require ghost hunting.

  * * *

  A few days later, when the Treadwell Gazette article about local ghost tours came out, Granddad called Val at the café, pleased about the publicity it gave him.

  He read her the section of the article that mentioned him. “ ‘One house on the Bayport Ghost Tour lacked a ghost, but it had a ghost hunter—the Treadwell Gazette’s Codger Cook, Don Myer. A woman taking the tour said her neighbor had a ghost who’d made things disappear from the house. Mr. Myer explained that ghosts have no use for tangible objects. Rather than assuming a house has ghosts, he suggested people contact him for assistance if they’re plagued by mysterious disappearances. ’ ”

  And contact him they did. Instead of losing a client whose missing jewelry turned up, as Val had expected, he got two additional requests for his services.

 
Chapter 3

  On Saturday Val arrived at the bookshop at four thirty, toting coolers with apple pastries and the crêpes she’d spent the afternoon making. She now had a stack of fifty crêpes and enough batter to make more if she ran out.

  The Title Wave’s grand opening had attracted customers of all ages. Some teens and children wore Halloween costumes. People with stacks of books lined up at the counter, where Dorothy stood at the cash register. In a floppy black witch hat, a green velvet robe, and an ornate brooch at her neck, she resembled Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, the headmistress at Harry Potter’s school.

  Val waved to her and headed for the back of the shop, where her friend Bethany was closing the curtains over the entrance to the CAT Corner. The heavy curtains hadn’t been there the last time Val visited the shop. The fabric with its bookshelf pattern blended with the real shelves on either side and camouflaged the entrance to the backroom.

  Bethany hung up a closed sign outside the CAT Corner. “Good timing, Val. The final bunch of kids left a minute ago.” She pulled the curtains aside just enough so that the two of them could slip into the room.

  Val put the coolers in the food prep area and surveyed the room. The shelves around the windows, bare when Val last saw them, held books and decorations like skulls and pumpkins. The long table where the children had sat was covered with an orange paper tablecloth and the remnants of cookie decorating. Isis the black cat added to the holiday atmosphere by sitting on the windowsill, apparently keeping watch over the graveyard.

  “How do you like my costume?” Bethany twirled in an electric-blue dress decorated with foam stickers of stars, planets, and rocket ships. The outfit was similar to the kind of clothes she often wore—bright, bold, and appealing to the first-graders she taught.

  Val wouldn’t have even realized her friend was in costume if it weren’t for the eight-inch stuffed lizard pinned to her shoulder—a dead giveaway. “Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus books. Your hair is perfect for the part.” Aside from the bun on top, a concession to the character, Bethany’s ginger ringlets cascaded down as usual.