Gem of a Ghost: A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  After Jackie left her office, Emma opened her laptop and started poking around on Google. She hadn’t had time to research what she’d learned from her dream the night before and was eager give it a try. Maybe if she started on the puzzle now, she might jiggle enough memory loose to finish it up later at home. She still couldn’t remember the words on the sign at the train station, and it poked at her like a sharp stone in a shoe. She had more now than just an m. It was two words—two short, choppy-sounding words, the first of which started with an m.

  Sitting back in her desk chair, she closed her eyes and tried to piece together the dream from the night before.

  “Emma, wake up.”

  Emma opened her eyes to find Granny staring at her. “I am awake, Granny. I was just trying to remember my dream from last night.”

  “For a minute I thought you’d put that darn ring on again.”

  “The ring is at home, in my parents’ safe.”

  “Good,” Granny proclaimed with a downward jerk of her head.

  “I still can’t remember the name of the town posted on the train station. It’s really bothering me.”

  “How about other landmarks?”

  Emma gave it more thought. “The town looked more East Coast in design—and historical, like it was being preserved. There were mountains or large hills all around, covered with trees.” She paused a moment to filter through her memory. “And a river, I think. Just past the train station, I’m sure I saw a river.”

  “That could be most anywhere.”

  “That’s what’s so frustrating.” Emma set her fingers lightly on the laptop’s keyboard as if it were an Ouija board that would lead her to the answer. “And a library. I know I saw a brick library with a sign giving its name. Remembering that name should give me a start.” She looked again at Granny. “Argh! I have nothing to go on except that, and it’s so frustrating. I can’t research it if I don’t have a starting point.”

  Emma’s fingers stayed on the keys, itching to move and bring to life the memory caught in her head. Again she closed her eyes. Once more she pictured herself walking down the street of the town and passing the library. Her fingers started moving—d-o-m-m. Then they stopped.

  “You got it?” asked Granny.

  Emma opened her eyes. “It started with a d. Dommick, Dommenic, or something like that.”

  “A d library in an m town.” Granny pointed to the laptop. “Try putting that into that there Google thingy.”

  “I still need more to go on.” Emma took a deep breath and rubbed her temples, hoping it would come into her thoughts if she emptied them of stress. “A d with two m’s.”

  “Try going down the alphabet and sounding it out.”

  “That’s a great idea, Granny.”

  Emma swiveled her head around, trying to relax even more. The movement created faint snaps and pops. “I need a massage.”

  Pushing thoughts of a relaxing massage out of her head for the moment, Emma got to work by closing her eyes again. “Dammick. Demmick. Dimmick. Dommick. Dummick.” None of them held up a hand to get her attention. She tried again, reciting each more slowly. “Dammick. Demmick. Dimmick. Dommick. Dummick.”

  “Should I come back when you’re not doing voice exercises?”

  Startled, Emma popped her eyes open and sat up straight, snapping her head in the direction of the voice. At her office door stood Dr. Quinn Keenan, one of the guests on her show that day.

  “Look,” said Granny with enthusiasm, “it’s Indiana Jones.”

  Emma was about to remind Granny that Indiana Jones was not a real person but stopped herself. She spoke so naturally to Granny that sometimes she forgot others could not see or hear her, much less believe in her existence. Instead, she smiled in the direction of Dr. Keenan, noting to herself that he did have an Indiana Jones appeal about him.

  Dressed in jeans and a khaki shirt with a tweed sports jacket, Dr. Keenan positioned his tall, fit body in the doorway, one hand raised and posted against the frame. It was a confident, cocky pose. Emma had read his bio. He was forty-eight years old and from Philadelphia, with a PhD in archeology from Columbia and a master’s degree in ancient civilizations. He’d worked with the Stonehenge Riverside Project for a number of years before recently returning to the States.

  “Dr. Keenan,” she began, instinctively pushing her bobbed hair away from her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you there. I thought all the guests had left.”

  “I did leave—then a phone call brought me back.”

  Granny cleared her throat. “Ask him in, you little fool.”

  Resisting the urge to frown at the ghost, Emma indicated a chair across from her desk. “Please come in.”

  Dr. Keenan smiled and settled into the chair. “Thank you.” He looked around her office, his eyes coming to rest on a photo of Kelly taken in Europe the summer she graduated high school. “That your daughter?”

  “Yes, that’s Kelly. She’s just finishing up her sophomore year at Harvard.” Emma’s voice tinkled with pride.

  “She looks a lot like you. Same color hair and Wedgwood-blue eyes.”

  “Uh-huh.” Emma liked his flirtation but wasn’t about to appear easily taken in. “She also has her father’s sharpness of tongue, though she’s better disciplined with it.”

  “Ah, yes. Your ex is the infamous Grant Whitecastle, is he not?” Dr. Keenan stifled a chuckle.

  Grant wasn’t a topic Emma enjoyed visiting with strangers, or even with friends. “Do you have children?”

  “Yes, a son named Peter. He lives in New York. I’m heading there tomorrow morning for a visit.”

  “Sounds lovely.” Emma decided to move along the small talk. “What did we forget, Dr. Keenan?”

  “Forget?” His voice was slightly on the husky side and easy, like warm slippers for the ears.

  “You said we called you back.”

  “Oh, that. No. The call wasn’t from your studio. It was from a friend of mine who lives here in LA. We had dinner plans, but something came up. So now I have reservations at Craft and no dinner companion. I was hoping you might let me take you to dinner as a thank you for having me on your show.”

  “A date,” Granny gushed. “Hot diggity! Indiana Jones is asking us out on a date.”

  Once again, Emma wanted to snap at Granny but held her tongue, something that was getting more difficult to do as Granny danced around like a fairy with a hot foot.

  “Boy.” Granny circled Dr. Keenan. “I thought that Max Naiman was a hunk, but this guy takes the cake.”

  Emma had to agree with the giggling spirit. Dr. Keenan’s easy good looks were something she’d noticed before—the first time when reviewing the photo attached to his bio. His tanned face played host to rugged features, including a slightly askew nose and eyes the color of faded emeralds. Surrounding his eyes and quick-to-smile mouth were deep sun lines. His hair was streaked with gray and sun bleached to a dusty brick. He wore it longer on top, swept back away from his face, except for one wayward lock that flopped close to his left eye. Emma fought the urge to reach out and push it aside, as she’d done with her own a moment before.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Keenan,” Emma began.

  “Quinn or QC, please.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please call me either Quinn or QC,” he told her.

  “QC, as in quality control?”

  He flashed her a sexy smile of small, even teeth. “Exactly. It stands for Quinn Charles, but in college pals started calling me QC because I was so fussy about details. The name stuck. My son is Peter Charles, or PC.”

  Emma laughed. “I don’t know if you’re kidding or not.”

  “It’s true. Everyone but his mother calls him that.”

  “And is he politically correct?”

  “PC is of mixed race, gay, and works for Jon Stewart. You decide.”

  It brought out another laugh. “Your invitation is lovely, but I’m afraid after I do some research here, I’m heading home. Fighti
ng traffic into Century City isn’t exactly on my list of fun things to do on a Tuesday night, no matter how charming the invitation.”

  Granny was exasperated. “You’re not turning him down, are you?”

  “We don’t have to go to Craft,” he told Emma. “That was the request of my prior dinner partner, who works in that part of town.”

  From the way Quinn referred to his now-defunct dinner companion, Emma was sure it had been a woman.

  “Tell me where you’d prefer to go,” he offered.

  “Seriously?” Emma leaned forward, her hands clasped together and resting on her desk. “Right now I’d like to go deep into my memory and retrieve a piece of forgotten information.”

  “Is it for a future show?”

  It wasn’t, but Emma wasn’t about to tell a man called QC about Addy and the ring. “It might be; I’m not sure yet. It’s a place.”

  “Places are my specialty.” The archeologist leaned back and stretched out his long legs. “Come on,” he challenged. “Tell me what you have so far. If I help you remember, you go to dinner with me.”

  Granny hopped up and down. “Oh boy, a game! I hope he wins.”

  Emma pursed her lips and twitched them back and forth as she surveyed Quinn. There was no way he was going to be able to find Addy’s town any more than she could. She glanced over at Kelly’s photo and let her eyes wander to the frame next to it. It was a photo of her with Phil. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and they were laughing. Quinn noticed her diverted attention.

  “That your current husband?” The way he said current made it sound like there might be a succession of husbands in Emma’s life down the road.

  She turned her attention back to him, her face serious. “No, but he is a man I’m involved with.”

  “Are you thinking he wouldn’t like it if you went to dinner with me?”

  “You’re a guest of my show, Dr. Keenan. He would understand.”

  “So it’s a yes?”

  “You are persistent, but you haven’t won our bet yet.” She looked at him, trying to decide how to handle the situation. “Tell you what: you help me find my missing library, and I’ll go to linner with you.”

  Quinn leaned forward. “Linner?”

  “That’s what my friend Tracy calls it when you dine too late for lunch and too early for dinner.”

  “Doesn’t exactly sound like fine-dining hours.”

  “There’s a very good café right down the street from here that serves all day.”

  “Denny’s?”

  In spite of her resolve to remain unmoved by Quinn’s charm, Emma let out a short laugh that came close to a snort. “You’ll find out if you get that far.”

  Quinn got up and shrugged off his jacket, tossing it across the back of another chair. “Bring it on,” he challenged.

  For a brief moment, Emma latched her eyes onto his. They were deep and wide, warmth mixed with impish intelligence. She wondered what she was getting herself into.

  “The names you heard me reciting are close to the name of a library I’m trying to remember,” she told him. “I was about to start plugging them into Google to see if I could get a hit. I think the library is also made of red brick.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No, it’s just something … something I once read about and want to research.”

  He studied her with curiosity as he gestured toward the keyboard. “Let’s see what comes up.”

  Emma tapped in the first possibility—Dammick. Nothing, although it did suggest an Arden-Dimick Library in Sacramento, California. She clicked on the link for that library.

  “That’s a brick library,” noted Quinn as he looked over her shoulder. Hovering over her other shoulder was Granny.

  Emma shook her head. “It’s too modern. The place I’m looking for looks Victorian.”

  “The building?”

  “The whole town. Victorian and in a valley surrounded by hills and trees.”

  Quinn gave her an odd look but said nothing.

  Emma tried the next one—Demmick. Nothing again, but the search gave her a couple of other suggestions. The first was a library called Booth and Dimock Library in Connecticut. The link brought them to the home page for the library and a photo of a large red brick building.

  “How about that?” asked Quinn. “It’s not Victorian, but it’s definitely old.”

  The building in the photo was large and beautiful, with a white steeple and tall white pillars. “Too grand.”

  “Where exactly did you first learn of this library you’re seeking?”

  Emma ignored his question and went back to the search page to investigate the other suggestion—a Dimmick Library in Pennsylvania. The home page was green and offered up a lot of information, such as hours and services. She scrolled down until she found a photo of the building.

  “That’s it!” Emma squealed. “That’s the building I saw in my dream.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Granny.

  “I’m positive.”

  Quinn backed away and moved around the desk. He took his seat and stared at Emma, his eyes brimming with curiosity, his mouth pursed. “A dream? You saw that library in a dream? You said you’d read about it somewhere.”

  Emma looked down at her hands. The cat was out of the bag. Would he think her nuts? Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and met his stare. “It was a dream, Dr. Keenan. I saw this place in a dream, a rather disturbing one. Considering what my show is about, you shouldn’t be surprised.”

  He leaned back, crossing one leg over the other in amused relaxation. “On the contrary, I’m not. I’m curious. Tell me what else you saw.”

  Emma didn’t answer. Instead, she studied the photo on the web page. “It says here it’s located in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania. Mr. Sachman had said his friend had purchased the original ring from somewhere back east. The dots were beginning to connect.

  She looked across the desk at Quinn. “If memory serves me, Jim Thorpe was from Oklahoma. Why would a town in Pennsylvania be named after him?”

  “After he died, his remains were sold to the town,” Quinn explained. “They constructed a memorial to him and renamed the town. Probably some sort of bid to bring in tourists.”

  “You know this place?” Her surprise was short-lived as she remembered he was originally from Pennsylvania.

  “I’ve been there. It’s a charming historical town near the Poconos. It was called Mauch Chunk long before it became Jim Thorpe, and it has a very interesting history.”

  Mauch Chunk—the two words flashed before Emma’s memory like a neon sign. They were the words she had seen on the sign at the train station.

  Like sparrows fleeing a hawk, Emma’s fingers flew over the keyboard of her computer until they located the website for the town. A menu of links was listed on the left-hand side. One link was for a photo gallery. A quick click and she was face to face with photos of the town. She scrolled through them, stopping at one in particular. It was the street she’d walked down in her dream. A few photos later, she saw the hotel with the iron grill work, then the train station and the clock tower.

  She let the slide show of Jim Thorpe photos play, one after the other, while Quinn and Granny watched her in silence. Something inside Emma stirred with each photo. She’d been here before—maybe not physically, but she’d seen this town in the depths of Addy’s ring.

  When the slide show was done, Emma clicked back several photos until she saw the one for the Old Jail Museum. She hadn’t seen the outside of the jail in her dream, only the inside. Going back to the town’s website, she navigated the link to historic attractions. From there she found the website for the Old Jail Museum. As soon as she viewed the photos, she let out a gasp.

  Quinn shot forward. “You okay?”

  Granny put her face close to Emma’s. “Emma, what is it?”

  “Granny,” she said, tapping the computer screen and totally forgetting about Quinn, “I mus
t go here.”

  “Are you all right, Emma?” Quinn asked again as he came around to her side of the desk and stood next to her. His eyes scanned the computer screen, taking in the photos of the dank, dirty prison. “This is the old jail in Jim Thorpe. It’s a museum now.”

  Goose bumps the size of small green peas broke out on Emma’s arms as she navigated through the website, finding even more chilling photos of the prison. One showed a wooden gallows, another a hangman’s noose. She started shivering.

  “Are you alone, Granny?” she asked, still not caring if Quinn heard her or not.

  “Yes, I am, Emma. Whatever is making you shiver is coming from those photos. Is that the jail from your dream?”

  “Yes, it is.” She pointed to one of the cell photos. “I was inside one of these cells.”

  Quinn looked around Emma’s small office. He saw nothing outside of generic furniture. “Who are you speaking to, Emma?”

  Dragging her attention away from the screen to Quinn, she said with the bluntness of a karate chop, “The ghost of my great-great-great-grandmother.”

  She waited for him to challenge her, to show disbelief or mockery, but instead Quinn studied her face again, then reached out and touched it. It was a light touch, just the tip of two fingers against her smooth left cheek, as if she’d disappear before his eyes if he dared to press harder. She didn’t move away, but she didn’t encourage him. Sensing he was trespassing, he removed his hand.

  “But you said you’ve never been to Jim Thorpe.”

  “I haven’t,” she affirmed. “I saw it in a dream just last night.”

  Quinn squatted down in front of Emma. After a brief hesitation, he took one of her hands in one of his and held it like a fragile egg. She didn’t pull away. “Tell me about it, Emma. Tell me about the dream.”

  When she hesitated, he gave her a smile of encouragement. “In my line of work, I’ve seen many strange and bizarre things. I’ve met many people like yourself all around the world—people who have connections to other worlds and beings.”

  He pointed to the computer screen with his free hand. “That prison has a very specific history. In the late 1870s, unjustly accused and convicted men were hanged there, railroaded by the wealthy owners of the mines in which they worked. They were called the Molly Maguires. Ever hear of them?”