by Etta Faire
After about ten minutes of Paula spewing out upcoming events at the “historical Landover Bed and Breakfast” and the 20% off coupon you could grab in the back on your way out for locals, she finally dimmed the lights and put the spotlight on the black-clothed table in the middle of the living room, just like last time.
Rosalie, Paula and I all clipped our mics onto our collars, and I began the show, thanking everyone for coming and introducing myself. I explained the items on the table. The spirit bell, the EMF meter, and the crystal ball that was “just for show because I actually didn’t know how to use that.” The audience only laughed awkwardly at my jokes.
“Tough crowd,” Jackson said, as he plunked the spirit bell. Nobody even gasped.
Most of them knew the story I was about to tell and the people who were about to be involved in it — the mayors, the Gazette, and Myles Donovan— and they liked them. Or, they were scared of them. There was very little difference when it came to this town.
“You see, not everyone comes back to the physical world after they die. Only if they are clinging to a person, a place, or an event. Maybe they have something they want to tell you or maybe you have a need to connect with them and they sense that, and come back to tell you they’re okay.” I looked around at the audience, but spoke to no one in particular. “So at the end, if there’s time, we’ll see if there are other ghosts here that would like to make their presence known to someone too. But right now, we have a story to tell.”
Lynette had been able to check out a projector, so I turned it on.
The senior photos of Nettie and Gloria took up most of the large screen in the dining area of the bed and breakfast.
“More than a hundred dollars a ticket for a powerpoint presentation,” Mayor Bowman chuckled loudly from his seat at the table, like he actually paid for stuff.
Jackson shook his head. “Don’t mind him, Carly doll. He obviously doesn’t know you have an Excel sheet and bar graphs coming up.”
I took a deep breath and ignored them both. “As you all know, we’re here to tell the real story of the boating accident on July twentieth, 1957 on Partiers Loop, otherwise known as Accident Loop. Only, those girls weren’t partiers and this was no accident.”
The audience didn’t even stir, except for the lawyer next to Myles, who sat forward, obviously letting me know I needed to tread cautiously.
“First, I’m going to let the ghosts tell their story, and then I’m going to back that up with evidence from today, so it won’t at all be libelous.” I looked right at Lynette and her camera when I said it then over at the bald lawyers.
That’s when I noticed a gorgeous, Marilyn Monroe-looking blonde hovering by an older woman sitting by herself in the back of the room. Nettie was here, and she was right next to a woman I was guessing was June.
The blonde girl looked exactly the same as I remembered her looking from the channeling with the same tight-fitting black dress as the night she died, hair in a high ponytail. She and Gloria both hovered by June, chattering away to one another, probably reconnecting.
“I… I just noticed Annette Jerome is here,” I said, to no applause. “Gloria Thomas too.”
Myles looked at his Rolex and yawned. The jerk. He was trying to look bored and so were the rest of his gang. They wanted this seance to bomb and for the news of my massacre to make it to the Gazette, the Daily Bear, and the gossip around town.
They could control a lot of narratives in life, but not this one. “I won’t bore you with the details, Myles. You know them already, seeing how you and your father beat the girls to a pulp when you discovered them on your yacht then tossed them overboard to die.”
The audience gasped. The lawyers sat forward.
“Libel!” A few voices yelled from the crowd.
“How dare you,” someone else screamed.
“I see that got your attention,” I said, my voice echoing through the mic. “Good. These girls deserve at least that.”
Chapter 32
The Optional Murders
Myles and Lila stood up to leave, and I casually flipped to my next slide. “Don’t go yet. You’ll miss the best part. The proof I have. Plus, the whole seance thing with ghosts and stuff. But then, you might just have come tonight to pretend to be offended by it all.”
“We’ve seen enough, thank you,” Myles said, taking his granddaughter’s hand. Shelby handed them their coats and Myles opened the front door, only to have it flung closed again, straight from his grasp. Myles grabbed the knob, but couldn’t get the door to open. Gloria appeared in front of it.
Dan from the paper stood up. “Let the man go.”
A chorus of angry yells from the audience followed.
I looked over at Paula Henkel. She glared back, shaking her head like I was somehow controlling this, probably wondering what her own liability was if the old, rich man didn’t get his way.
My voice barely rose above the yelling and I had a mic. “Gloria Thomas is holding the door.” I shrugged. “I guess these ghosts have a lot to say to Myles Donovan tonight.”
Myles leaned casually against the back wall, coat draped over his arm, and waved to me to go on, probably because at this point, he didn’t really have a choice.
The next slide was already on the screen. The ten grainy photos from that night.
“Then, when those 18-year-old girls didn’t die fast enough, the Donovan boat located them in the water and purposely ran them over. The police stood by and did nothing.”
“Lies from an out-of-towner,” I heard from more than one person mumbling in the crowd. “Everybody knows the police ran them over.”
“And here’s how we know it wasn’t the police boat.” I showed them the photo of the Knobby Creek logo being reflected in Mason Bowman’s glasses. Then, a photo of the dummies in the front of the boating company. “Same hat,” I said, explaining that the Knobby Creek didn’t service government vessels.
Mayor Wittle wiped the sweat from his brow as he whispered something to Mayor Bowman. Mayor Bowman shot him an angry look.
“And now, we’ll talk about why.”
I then invited Nettie and Gloria to tell their version of events, relaying everything to the audience as they spoke.
Nettie’s voice didn’t have that youthful lilt anymore like it did in 1957 as she hovered around the room talking about how she met Freddie and how they snuck onboard the yacht.
“I thought he was the cutest,” Nettie said. “I was also thrilled that one of the richest boys on the lake was interested in me.”
“Like many people,” I said, knowing full well what most of this crowd thought of girls who went out with rich boys. “She was impressed by dumb things like wealth. I was, too, back when I was her age. None of us are the same people we were as teenagers, and I think most of us are pretty thankful we were given the chance to grow out of our dumb phases.”
Nettie was a fierce sight to see in her powerful black dress, the rest of her a ghostly white contrast. “We were introduced by that man,” she pointed to Myles. “He’s older now but I still recognize his spirit. Freddie and I were the reason the chaperone ended the dance early. We made out in a closet, and she said we were drunk…”
“I am wondering if you see Freddie Linder in this room,” I said. This was the part I was guessing at.
She looked around, doing a double take. “Why there’s Freddie now,” she said. She touched Mayor Wittle’s cheek, and I could tell he felt her, the cold slicing sensation people receive when brushing up against a powerful ghost.
His face shook and he fell over in his chair a little.
“She is pointing to Mayor Darren Wittle,” I said, watching as the mayor’s already pale face lost so much color I thought he might pass out.
I put the two images of Mayor Wittle and Freddie Linder’s senior pictures side by side on the screen. Both were lanky, dark-haired boys with a penchant for bow ties and side-parts.
“P-lease,” one of the lawyers sitting with Myles Dono
van yelled to the crowd. “Everyone knows that just because the photos of two men look similar does not mean anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is not a courtroom, so any and all objections will have to shut the hell up.”
A few college kids laughed when I said that.
I was playing to my new customer base, and I was loving it. Jeans-and-t-shirt outsiders were my kind of people. “Leave if you want. We’ll see if Gloria and Nettie let you. Ghosts can get pretty angry. They’ve been known to throw things. Break windows.”
I looked over at Paula. She had her head in her hands.
Mildred was sitting with her son, Benny, toward the back, and I motioned to her to come forward.
She adjusted her thick cardigan as she took the handheld mic and introduced herself. She held up a small yellow book with flowers on the cover. “My diary,” she said, like that would make sense to the crowd. She coughed. “I have been asked to corroborate this story, so I looked over my diary to make sure I got everything right. I was a chaperone at that party in 1957, and I did not see Freddie Linder there.” She opened her book. “Let me read straight from a passage…”
“Don’t bother,” Clyde Bowman yelled from his seat. He stood up, voice so loud he didn’t need a mic. “This is nothing new. This has always been Mildred Blueberg’s version. It’s exactly what she said when she begged the country club not to fire her father. It was a weak argument then and it still is. It’s sad how she worries more about her family’s reputation than the truth about that night.”
“Maybe,” I replied, standing so the squatty man would see me clearly from across the table. “She, for one, will fight for her family’s reputation. Or did you think that was a trait only admirable in Bowmans?”
He sat back down, swallowing hard to hear his own words used against him.
One of the lawyers took over. “I’m sorry, but it was under Ms. Blueberg’s supervision that Frederick Linder got drunk and out of control, went swimming in the dark, and drowned. End of story. To suddenly say he wasn’t there is crazy. Plenty of people saw him at that dance, including the other chaperone who walked in on him and Ms. Jerome making out in a closet.” He sifted through his notes. “What was her name?”
A voice from the back of the room yelled. “Deborah Ford. Deborah Nebitt now.”
I looked over, trying to focus on the parts of the bed and breakfast that were dark. A tuft of white hair bobbed through the crowd. Lynette followed her every step with the camera as she took the handheld mic from Mildred.
Thank goodness that woman really did love a freebie.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Nebitt said. Her voice was shaky but loud. “My name is Deborah Nebitt. I was the chaperone who walked in on Darren and Annette.”
The crowd gasped.
“Yes, I said that correctly. It was not Freddie. When I opened that closet, I got a good look at the young man guzzling punch in the letterman sweater Freddie always wore, his arm around a gorgeous blonde. He turned and tried to pretend to be too drunk to look at me, sneezing and coughing, looking as if he was going to throw up. I knew it was Darren Wittle all along. Even when Myles’s father scolded Mildred and me for letting Freddie Linder get too drunk.”
Mrs. Nebitt’s voice cracked and shook as she looked around the dark room. “Mr. Donovan offered to find a generous donor for the library while also suggesting that it had been dark and chaotic the night of the party, so no one would blame me if I didn’t remember things correctly.”
She turned to Mildred. “I’m very sorry. I should have corroborated your version of events back then.”
“My father would’ve been fired anyway,” Mildred said as the two hugged.
Gloria hovered near me and I gestured toward her. “I don’t believe it was a coincidence these girls were involved. I think they were targeted. Because they were out-of-towners. Darren Wittle was supposed to wear Freddie’s clothes, find the only two girls at the party who would believe he was Freddie, drink enough punch to pretend to get drunk, and then leave on the Donovan boat. Isn’t that right, Mayor Wittle?”
He didn’t answer. He only shook.
“But you didn’t expect the girls to follow you onboard. And we all know what happened then.”
I went on. “You see everyone on the boat was in the middle of staging the deaths of Dwight and Frederick Linder. Dwight was involved in swindling the town out of millions with his bogus investment and was about to be investigated for securities fraud. Bill was helping his good friend out of the mess by helping him out of the country.”
I paused long enough to see my new customer base playing on their phones by the buffet. Great.
I continued like they were still interested. I needed to get back to ghosts breaking windows and fast. “And when Nettie and Gloria witnessed these men staging the Linders’ deaths on the boat, they were killed. And everyone else covered it up because Bill Donovan wanted them to.” I turned toward the lawyer. “That’s the end of the story.”
The room was silent, until the lawyer stood up. “Well then, I guess we will see you in court.”
“Lies. Lies. Lies,” Mayor Bowman yelled, loosening the tie that seemed to be strangling his thick neck. “I will sue you for everything you have.”
I knew that man already thought he deserved everything I had: the house, the inheritance, probably not the curse, though.
Mayor Wittle staggered through the crowd, smacking chairs on his way from the back of the room, knocking the empty ones over. His face was as vacant as a stuffed fisherman. When he reached me, I backed away and scanned the room for some sort of a weapon.
With shaky hands, he reached for my neck, and I screamed, then realized he was actually reaching for my mic. I breathed a sigh of relief and gave it to him.
“Is Nettie really here? I… I felt her. If she’s here, I want her to know I’m sorry,” he said, his voice quivering worse than Mildred’s had been.
“Sit down, Darren,” his wife yelled from her seat. “And for God’s sake, shut the hell up.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “I know she only made out with me that night ‘cause she thought I was the richest kid on the lake…”
My face dropped. I wasn’t expecting a confession.
He went on, sputtering each syllable. “I had no idea that… stuff on the boat was going to happen. She knows that, right?”
“Get a hold of yourself, Darren,” Myles yelled from across the room.
Darren shot back. “Shut up, Myles. I trusted you. You said nothing was gonna happen. We would all be okay… Then you and your dad beat up the girls, threw them overboard… ran them over with the boat. And then Mr. Linder was actually murdered. Who knew that?”
“No one tells Myles Donovan to shut up,” Dan from the paper said. He picked up a chair and lifted it over his head. Caleb got up, arms folded over his police uniform, and Dan put the chair back down again.
Mayor Wittle continued. “We were supposed to be staging deaths. That’s it. Freddie’s and Mr. Linder’s… I didn’t know there was a real murder…” His voice cracked as he talked. “I never knew…”
I leaned over Rosalie so my voice would pick up through her mic since I wasn’t wearing one anymore. “Actually,” I said. “I think you did know, Mayor Wittle.”
The college kids at the buffet stopped eating and playing on their phones and looked over.
Rosalie yanked her mic off her seance dress and handed it to me so fast part of a moon pulled off of its seam. “Damn,” she said, her voice ringing out before I took over. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”
Chapter 33
A murder so quaint
The room seemed extra quiet to me now. I had no idea what libel entailed or how to defend myself against it in court, but I knew I had to do what was right.
I put the mic up to my mouth and continued. “At least one person onboard the Donovan yacht that night knew there was more than staging going on, and I think that person was you.”
The crowd gasped
.
Mayor Wittle went on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did your ghosts tell you that?” He chuckled to the crowd like they were suddenly going to be on his side.
“They didn’t need to. But I will take some ghostly help to cue up Mildred’s diary entry to the day the shed burned down.”
I waited. Nothing happened, but everybody’s heads turned this way and that to see if I was off my rocker.
I covered my mic and yelled for Jackson under my breath.
He was rolling his eyes when he appeared. “Honestly, the things I do for you. Mildred’s right there with her diary. She could easily read it herself…”
I sent the lazy ghost mental daggers until he picked up the recorder and hovered on the table with it, half-heartedly moving it this way and that in front of him, kind of like a sign spinner five minutes before quitting time. “Oooooh,” he said like anyone could hear him. “No strings.”
It was enough to get the college kids’ attention, though. One dropped his plate of garlic shrimp when he looked up and saw the recorder dancing across the table over to the mic stand.
Jackson pushed “play” once he got there, and Mildred’s voice shot out through the mic, the same entry about the shed as before.
“He denied getting moonshine and even had the nerve to say no one else was in that shed, but I could hear Myles sneezing on the other side of the door. Freddie must think I’m stupid.
“And this time, they’ve gone too far. Apparently, those two killed a deer off-season. Freddie admitted it. He didn’t even care. He said it was an accident, that he was just shooting at cans and trees, but who knows? I told him he doesn’t own this country club so he needed to stop acting like it, just because he’s rich and his family was one of the founders. I told him I’d had enough. I was going to tell on him.
“And then the shed burned down. I guess he showed me.”