Popcorn and Poltergeists

Home > Romance > Popcorn and Poltergeists > Page 11
Popcorn and Poltergeists Page 11

by Nancy Warren


  “Sit down, please. Let me get you some water.”

  She had a water cooler in the corner of her office and I took it upon myself to get cups of water for each of us. The way Susanna’s hand was gripping and ungripping, I suspected she was dying for another cigarette.

  “It’s my daughter, you see.”

  Chapter 12

  “Your daughter?” Professor Cartwright and I said at the very same time.

  She nodded. Sipped some water. Went to reach for her cigarettes and then put her hand on her lap. “I never told him she was here. He hadn’t seen her in years. At first he never wanted to see her, and then I think he was ashamed. Graham Morgan is her father as far as she’s concerned. He’s all she’s ever known.” She spoke in a monotonous, stream-of-consciousness manner, as though she were thinking aloud.

  I thought of that nice girl who’d showed me around the library, who’d experienced the poltergeist. Her name was Judith Morgan, but Morgan was a common enough name. I hadn’t put two and two together and come up with Susanna Morgan being her mother and, if I’d understood her rambling speech, it sounded like Wilfred Eels had been the girl’s father.

  I wanted to be absolutely sure I had this right. “Are you saying that Wilfred Eels was Judith Morgan’s father?”

  She turned to me. “You know Judith?”

  So now I’d stepped in it. I merely said, “I’ve met her. I run a local knitting shop, and I was encouraging her to start knitting. I think she finds school quite stressful.” Let the woman think I’d met her at my knitting store. Hopefully her daughter wouldn’t say any different. I couldn’t think of a reason why my name would even come up between them. I really didn’t want Susanna Morgan to know I’d been pumping her daughter about ghostly encounters.

  “I need to see my daughter. I need to see my Judy.”

  Amelia Cartwright was a little less blunt than I. “And her father?” She just left the question mark hovering at the end of the sentence and raised her eyebrows.

  If ever a woman looked as though she’d just received shocking news, it was Susanna Morgan. “Yes. Wilfred Eels was her father.”

  “Did she know?” asked Professor Cartwright.

  Susanna shook her head. “She knows my husband is her stepfather, of course. But Willie, and I always called him Willie, he left when she was very young. I took a restraining order out against him, but he never tried to get in touch. He meant well, but he had such a terrible temper, you see. Anger management issues, the therapist called it. He never hit either of us, but I used to be afraid that one day he would. When he got angry, he used to punch holes in walls and throw things. He couldn’t keep a job, so we never had any money. I just couldn’t put up with it anymore.”

  “Did your ex-husband know that Judith was his daughter?”

  Susanna nodded. “Willie, he called me up last year. Said he was sorry he’d been so hopeless and would I meet him. I didn’t see the harm. We met in a Costa coffee shop outside Coventry. I didn’t want him knowing where I lived, so I wouldn’t have him at the house. Over coffee, he asked about her. Said how sorry he was that he’d missed her growing up. It was his fault he never saw her, and he certainly never sent any support money. But I suppose I’m an old softy. I pulled out my phone and showed him a few photos of her. I couldn’t resist telling him she got into Oxford. Our little girl. I suppose I was boasting, really. I was that proud.” She shook her head. “He got tears in his eyes, he did. Said he’d try and do something for her.” She sipped more water. “I thought he meant he’d send her some money. Course, he never did.”

  “Did he tell you that he was going to get a job here?”

  “Of course not. I’d have told him not to. Or at least warned the poor girl. I definitely didn’t mention what college she was going to.”

  Professor Cartwright said, “It wouldn’t take a great deal of difficulty to track her down. Clearly he knew her last name.”

  “But why?” Susanna Morgan looked at both of us. “Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps your daughter can best answer that. I’ll send someone to fetch her.”

  She got up and went out of her office, no doubt to set her assistant the task of finding Judith and bringing her here. Poor Susanna Morgan looked increasingly upset. “I would’ve told her. Warned her. She hadn’t asked about her dad in so long, we all just went along as though Graham was her real dad. And he’s been a much better father to her than Willie ever could have been.”

  Had Judith somehow found out that he was her father? Maybe he told her.

  Once more I offered to leave, feeling that I really had no business in the middle of this family drama, and once again Susanna begged me to stay. “I don’t know what it is about you, but it makes me feel better, having you around.”

  I couldn’t think of a spell that would ease a very difficult discovery for Judith. Especially if she hadn’t known that Wilfred Eels was her dad.

  Professor Cartwright returned and sat behind her desk again. She looked very much like a busy woman who didn’t really have time for this unexpected intrusion into her day. However, she appeared to accept that she was stuck with us.

  To pass the time and I suppose to make herself feel better, Susanna pulled out her mobile and showed me pictures of Judith, herself, and Graham Morgan, Judith’s stepfather. They did indeed look like a happy family, and I could imagine it would be easier on a little girl who never saw her real father to simply let him fade away from her memory. But for some reason, Wilfred Eels had wanted a connection with his daughter. Why?

  It took about ten or fifteen minutes before Cassandra Telford returned with Judith in tow. The young woman wore an understandably puzzled expression, which turned to alarm when she saw her mother. “Mum? Is everything all right? What are you doing here?”

  Susanna Morgan stood up and put out her arms and then went forward and wrapped her daughter in a hug. “Oh, my baby. Oh, my poor baby,” she crooned, but which of them she was trying to soothe, I wasn’t certain.

  Judith patted her mother’s shoulder awkwardly. “Is it Dad? Has something happened to Granny? Mum, what’s going on?” Then she caught sight of me. Honestly, I wished I had an invisibility spell. If ever a person didn’t fit, it was me in that office at that moment.

  “Come and sit down, dear. I’ve got something I have to tell you.”

  Her daughter looked even more worried now. She looked up at the principal. “I’m not being sent down, am I? Are my marks not good enough? I try so hard, I really do, but I never went to the right schools.”

  Professor Cartwright assured her, “Your schoolwork’s fine. This is a private matter.”

  She looked marginally relieved by that and then turned back to her mother, who was reaching into her handbag, no doubt hanging on to that package of cigarettes as though it were her lifeline. “You remember how your dad, your birth dad, left when you were little?”

  “Yes.” She waited for her mother to go on. She waited a fair amount of time. No doubt Susanna was trying to find the right words. “He wasn’t a bad man, Willie. I’ve always told you that.”

  Her daughter’s lips thinned into a hard line. “But he wasn’t a very good one, was he? Where was he all the time I was growing up? Other kids who had real dads and stepdads used to see their real dads. They got birthday presents and cards, maybe spent every other weekend. He never bothered with me at all.” There was old bitterness there. I wondered if Susanna Morgan had even known it. She certainly looked surprised by the outburst.

  “But you had Dad. I mean Graham Morgan. I always thought he was all the dad you needed.”

  Judith heaved a great sigh. “He was. And is. But I guess it’s like being adopted. You always wonder about the people who made you.”

  “He did ask about you, your real dad. He wasn’t any good with gifts and cards; you’re right. I don’t think he ever had any money. But every few years, he’d get hold of me and ask how you were doing.”

  Judith looked offended. Furious.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me? Maybe I’d have liked to have seen him.”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I thought it was best.”

  “You had no right to make that decision. I had a right to know my own father.”

  I suspected the good news that she had known her father was rapidly going to turn into bad news when she learned his identity.

  Once more I could see Susanna struggle with the words, and finally she said, “Darling, your father, without telling me anything about it, got a job here as a caretaker.”

  “Here? In Oxford?”

  “Here at St. Mary’s. Judith, Wilfred Eels was your father.”

  I’d been watching her face carefully, hoping I’d be able to tell whether she had, in fact, known him. Her look of shock and disbelief seemed much too authentic to have been faked.

  “Wilfred Eels? The one who fell down the stairs and died?” She looked at all of us as though we were playing some kind of joke on her. And then she shook her head. “Impossible. He’d have said something.”

  Professor Cartwright said, “So you didn’t know?”

  “How could I? My mother certainly didn’t tell me.” She pulled away and sat in the corner of the sofa, putting a good foot of space between her and her wretched-looking mom.

  “Wilfred Eels didn’t tell you himself?” the principal asked. She did not look happy.

  She shook her head. “No. I wish he had.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And now it’s too late. My dad’s dead, and I never even knew him.”

  As the tears began to stream down her face, I said as gently as I could, “You did say that you’d have a chat when you saw him. In his way, he was obviously trying to get to know you. Didn’t you tell me he used to give you advice?”

  She nodded. “He was always telling me to stand up for myself. Not let them push me around. How I was worth ten of the other students because I’d had to work so much harder to make it to Oxford.”

  Professor Cartwright nodded. “That’s true. You should be proud.”

  “He was furious with Professor McAdam for being so hard on me.”

  Professor Cartwright’s benevolent expression creased with a frown at this news. “She’s your tutor, isn’t she?”

  Judith nodded. “I just feel like whatever I do isn’t good enough for her. I used to tell Wilfred, and he’d make me laugh. He just made me feel better, that’s all.”

  I felt so very sorry for her, discovering that her dad was her dad after he was already gone. He’d obviously been trying to get close to her, and in his own way, maybe he believed he was honoring his ex-wife’s request that he should stay away from his daughter. If she didn’t know they were related, then how could talking to him hurt her? Except, of course, now it did.

  Susanna said, “He must’ve got the job here so he could be close to you. Find out what you were doing.”

  He sounded to me like the ultimate helicopter parent.

  The daughter looked less than impressed at this news. And at her mother for sharing it. “Why are you even here?”

  “The police needed me to identify Willie’s body formally. He had me down as his next of kin.”

  “You weren’t though, were you?” Judith said through her tears. “That would be me. I was his next of kin.”

  There was a knock on the door, and the professor’s assistant opened it and put her head round the door. “There’s a Mr. Graham Morgan here. Shall I send him in?”

  Judith didn’t look too sure, but Susanna jumped to her feet and went toward the door. “Oh, thank goodness.” She opened the door wide. A pleasant-looking, bald, middle-aged man stood there. He wore a tweed jacket, gray slacks, white shirt and a tie. Presumably he’d been called away from some kind of business. When his wife threw herself into his arms, he reflexively wrapped his around her.

  Graham Morgan patted his wife’s back while looking around the office at the rest of us. His eyes paused on me, obviously wondering who I was and what my connection to his daughter and the college might be. He nodded at Professor Cartwright as though they had met before and then said to his daughter, currently wiping her wet eyes with the back of her hand, “Judy, what’s wrong?”

  I liked that he had asked her first. It showed good parenting in my eyes. I remembered during my own college years how much I’d wanted to be treated like an adult. However, Judith was struggling emotionally and sounded more like a sulky teen than any kind of grownup. “Ask Mum.”

  However, Susanna was currently burying her face in his shoulder. It was Professor Cartwright who explained why we were here and very succinctly. Wilfred Eels had died in a fall down the library stairs. Susanna Morgan had been contacted as his next of kin and had now informed us all that Wilfred Eels was Judith’s birth father.

  He turned to Judith, disengaging his wife so he could go over and take the spot she’d lately occupied, on the sofa beside Judith. He left a space between them but turned so his body was facing her. “I’m so sorry, Judy. That’s got to be a blow.”

  From his pocket, he drew out a clean white handkerchief. I was impressed. Not many men carried handkerchiefs anymore, and it looked as though it hadn’t been used. Did he always have a clean hanky in his pocket? Or had he known he was going to enter the tearful zone?

  She took the offered hankie and wiped her face, then blew her nose. That seemed to calm her down a bit. “I always think of you as my dad, but he was my real dad. Why didn’t he say? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I don’t understand any of this.”

  Graham Morgan’s cheek bulged and then relaxed as though he’d clenched his jaw and then deliberately let it go. “I don’t understand it, either.” He looked at Professor Cartwright as though this was somehow her fault. “Are you saying that Susanna Morgan’s estranged husband, with anger management issues, was employed by the college where his vulnerable daughter’s a student?”

  Professor Cartwright immediately launched into defense mode. She sat very straight in her chair and leveled a steely gaze. “How could the school have had any knowledge that Wilfred Eels was Judith Morgan’s father? There’s nothing in her file warning us, no other name than yours listed as parents.” She flicked a quick glance at Susanna Morgan, who was standing in the middle of the office with her hands clutched tightly, watching her husband and daughter.

  I could see he wanted to argue. No doubt he was anxious to blame someone, when clearly the one at fault was Wilfred Eels, who was now dead.

  Judith was pleating and unpleating the handkerchief in her lap when she suddenly looked up. “Didn’t you recognize him?”

  We all turned to stare at her. Her stepfather said, “Recognize who?”

  “Wilfred Eels. You came to visit me that day. Remember? You were driving through on your way home and wanted to take me for dinner. I was chatting with Wilfred when you came up to me in the hallway. I mean, I was chatting with my father.”

  Graham Morgan shook his head. “I don’t remember you talking to anyone.”

  “I was. I remember, because I was going to introduce you. But after we said our hellos and you’d explained why you were there, when I turned to introduce you, he’d already walked off down the hall.”

  The toe of Graham Morgan’s black loafer began moving up and down as though preparing for a tap dance. “I’m sorry, Judy. I don’t remember seeing anyone. I wouldn’t know Wilfred Eels if I saw him.”

  Was that true? Or had Judith’s adopted father indeed recognized her birth father? Had he tracked down the man later? In the library?

  I didn’t know, but I’d be passing this lead to the Oxford CID.

  Chapter 13

  That evening, Rafe searched Georgiana Quales’s office, which now belonged to Amelia Cartwright, while I agreed to spend another exciting evening in the library. In my bag I had a few items to help encourage the spirit to reveal itself. I’d also asked Margaret Twigg to put a powerful protection spell on me. On the off chance that the poltergeist had somehow caused Wilfred Eels’ death, I decided to play it safe. Although
my instinct told me it wasn’t a ghost that had caused Wilfred Eels to die. Something else had happened.

  Susanna Morgan’s daughter had mentioned seeing her stepfather at school while she was speaking with the caretaker. Had he recognized Wilfred Eels? Perhaps they’d had an argument and that’s when Wilfred Eels had fallen down the stairs.

  Or been pushed.

  Graham Morgan hadn’t looked like the violent type, but if he felt his adopted daughter was in danger? What might he have done?

  Rafe had also gotten the principal to agree to us taking some of the handicraft manuscripts back to his place, ostensibly so he could evaluate them, but really so that Silence could read them. It was a stretch to think they were worth anything, but I knew he was going to do his best to squeeze as much value as he could from every book or manuscript the college owned.

  Reluctantly, I returned to the alcove, but I could not face another book of Victorian ramblings about preserving flowers or how to make the perfect buttonhole. I stacked the leather-bound manuscripts on the table for us to take home. Then I went into the Brontë alcove where Fiona liked to work. I could catch up on my classics and read some Brontë. There was a book lying on the floor. It was Jane Eyre. Perfect. I walked over, reached down, and as I did, the book slid out of my reach. I gasped with shock, but instead of turning and running, which my heart, lungs, and feet urged me to do, I grasped the book and then stood up again. My heart was banging so hard against my ribs, I worried it would get bruised.

  I glanced around, but there was no sign of anyone or anything. While I was staring around me, the book was being tugged out of my grasp as though it were a book puppet on a string. Now it was bobbing in front of my face. I felt nervous but also oddly excited. I’d had a little bit of experience with ghosts, but I’d never actively tried to engage one before. Margaret Twigg had warned me not to antagonize it, which seemed like common sense. The book hovered, and I felt that we were both waiting for the other one to make a move. Finally I said, “I’m here as a friend. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.”

 

‹ Prev