“Yes, I’m fine.” She stood upright. “Just a small cramp. Maybe something about breakfast didn’t agree with me.”
“You had oatmeal and fruit. Sure it’s not something else?”
“Seriously, I’m fine.” Never taking her eyes off the building, she continued walking toward it as if taking her last steps on earth.
Even though she’d only seen a photo of it until now, she wasn’t prepared for the emotional impact of seeing the Old Jail in person. It was an imposing gray stone edifice located on upper Broadway, just a short walk up from the hotel. It commanded a large piece of property like a sullen and brooding bully. To the right of the building was a high chainlink fence surrounding a small prison yard. To the left, a parking lot contained one car. Quinn led the way to a short set of steps to a small door that faced the parking lot. The door was unlatched.
“Betty Lou,” he called as he stuck his head inside. “We’re here.”
“Come on in,” called out a female voice. “I’m in the parlor.”
Quinn stepped aside to let Emma enter first. Just inside the door to the left was a huge kitchen. Straight ahead was a hallway. To the right was a room that had been converted into a gift shop. Glass display counters were lined up on two sides and bookcases on another. On the walls were various prints and posters, including one for a movie called The Molly Maguires starring Sean Connery. The floor was scarred wood, clean but left rustic.
A petite woman in her late sixties with fluffy silver hair entered from the next room. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that sported a logo for the town. On her hands were pink rubber gloves, one of them holding a worn cloth.
“I’m just doing a little cleaning,” she explained as she pulled off the gloves and set them down on one of the nearby counters. She looked at Emma. “We’re getting ready to open for the season in a few weeks.”
Quinn stepped forward and gave the woman a quick hug and a kiss on her cheek. “Betty Lou, thanks for seeing us. This is Emma Whitecastle.”
Emma stepped forward and extended her right hand. Betty Lou took it and smiled. “You’re even prettier than on TV.”
“You watch my show?” Emma was always amazed at the number of people she met who had seen The Whitecastle Report.
“Not regularly,” Betty Lou admitted, “but I’ve seen it a few times. Ever since we bought this old place, I’ve been fascinated by ghosts and the paranormal. I was delighted when Quinn here called to say you wanted to see the jail.”
“Wait until you catch the segment of her show I’m on,” said Quinn. He turned to Emma. “It airs next week, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s on this coming Wednesday,” Emma told them.
Betty Lou motioned toward the room she’d just left. “Come on in here and sit a bit before I give you the tour.”
The room just off the gift shop was a lovely Victorian sitting room with a fireplace. “The warden and his family lived here at the jail,” Betty Lou explained. “This was their parlor. The gift shop was their dining room.”
Emma took a deep breath, half expecting to sense spirits right away, but she felt nothing. She took a seat and looked around.
“Would you like something to drink?” Betty Lou offered. “We have juices and sodas and bottled water.”
“No, thank you, Betty Lou,” Emma said, turning to the cordial woman. “We just had breakfast.”
“Then let’s get to it,” announced Betty Lou, obviously excited about the topic. “How much do you know about the history of the Molly Maguires?”
“I admit I knew nothing until Quinn told me about them a few days ago, but since then I’ve done considerable reading on the topic and the town.”
“So you know that one of the convicted men cursed this place?”
“You mean the handprint on the wall?”
“Yes. Before he was hanged, he placed his hand on the wall and declared his innocence. The handprint is still there. No matter what anyone does, it remains. It’s been scrubbed, painted over, and even the plaster has been redone, yet it keeps coming back. You’ll see it today. There is some discussion as to whether it was Alexander Campbell or Thomas Fisher who did it, but most believe it was Campbell.”
Quinn stood by the doorway. “Emma had a dream about this place, Betty Lou, even before she knew it existed.”
“Really?” An eager closed-mouth smile crossed Betty Lou’s face and her eyes lit up. “How fascinating.”
“Yes, I was in one of the cells and a group of men came through the walls at me. One of them, the youngest, was wearing a noose around his neck.”
“I think in her dream,” Quinn added, “Emma was in one of the cells in the basement.”
“My, this is exciting,” exclaimed Betty Lou. “It will be interesting to see if you pick up on any ghosts today.”
“Do your visitors ever see spirits?” asked Emma.
“Oh my, yes, but none that I know of have ever seen actual people like that, just shadows. You know, like someone just flitted by before you can get a good look. I get the sensation I’m not alone or am being watched quite often. Many visitors have felt the presence of ghosts when they’ve visited.”
It was then Emma saw her first ghost in the jail. It wasn’t one of the miners she’d seen in her dream; it was Granny. She materialized next to Quinn and was looking him up and down, feasting on his rugged good looks. “I didn’t know Indiana was going to be here,” the spirit said with a grin.
Emma wanted to fill Granny in but couldn’t in front of Quinn and Betty Lou.
“Betty Lou,” Emma began, taking her eyes from Granny, “is there a restroom I could use before we start?”
“Of course. Right this way.”
With a slight tilt of her head, Emma directed Granny to follow them.
Betty Lou showed Emma out of the parlor and across the hall to another large room with storage cabinets and cupboards. It looked like a roomy kitchen but without appliances. Under a small window to the right, the ghost of a small child, a young girl in an old-fashioned nightgown, sat playing on the floor. She looked up at Emma, her cherub face blooming with giggles like a flowerbed of spring daffodils. Not expecting to see children in a place like this, Emma was startled. She turned her attention to Betty Lou.
“Did a young child ever die within these walls? It would have been many years ago.”
Betty Lou looked just as startled by the question. She stared at Emma, her answer slow and stammering. “Yes, I believe so.” She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she repeated as she searched her memory. “One of the wardens lost a daughter to influenza. I don’t think she was more than four or five years old.”
Betty Lou stopped and indicated a small door. Emma opened it to find a small, cheery restroom.
“Just come back to the parlor when you’re done, Emma, and we’ll start the tour.” Instead of leaving, Betty Lou stood looking at Emma until Emma entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
After shutting the bathroom door, Emma waited until she heard Betty Lou’s footsteps walking away before turning to Granny. “Where have you been?” she asked in a barely audible whisper.
The ghost looked around the small room, examining the framed pictures of flowers on the wall. “Oh, here and there. Nothing exciting about you taking a plane trip, so I thought I’d wait until you got here to pop in.” Granny jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. “Though I would have been here sooner if I’d known he was tagging along. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know myself. He just showed up yesterday. He was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived.”
“Uh-huh.” Granny looked at the door, then back at Emma. “I wish Phil were here.”
“Why? I thought you liked Quinn.”
“I do. He’s a tall drink of water in the middle of a scorched desert. But I’d like him a might better if Phil were here.”
“Don’t be silly. He’s just here to help me with this research. He knows a lot about the town.”
“I saw the way he was watching you, Emma. If he’s researching anything, it’s you. He’s sweet on you, I tell ya.”
Emma flushed the toilet and washed her hands at the sink to make it seem like she’d used the facilities. “Just behave yourself, Granny. Let’s not lose sight of why we’re here.”
“Where’s Addy? Did you bring her?”
Emma was wearing a heather gray V-neck sweater over a white tee shirt. Reaching down into her neckline, she pulled out the chain and showed the ring to Granny. “I’m keeping it close but not wearing it. Seems to be working so far.”
Emma noticed the ring was warm, and it wasn’t from her body heat. Instead of tucking it back into its nest next to her skin, she left it to dangle between her tee shirt and bra.
Just before leaving the bathroom, Emma said, “Granny, I’d like for you to wander around this place and see if any of the resident ghosts know anything about Addy. I haven’t seen any adult ghosts yet, but I’m sure they’re here.”
“Aye, plenty of them in a creepy place like this.” Granny shivered.
“But first, could you see why that child’s spirit is hanging about? Maybe she needs help reaching the other side.”
“I already talked to her. She and I are going for a little walk right after I leave here.”
After Granny left, Emma decided she did need to use the bathroom. After a second wash at the sink, she touched the ring under her sweater and took a deep breath. “Okay, Addy, let’s find the connection between you and this jail.”
Yanking open the bathroom door, Emma came face to face with a ghost. He was tall and slim, with dark hair and a long moustache that drooped down both sides of his mouth like two bushy caterpillars in an embrace. Dark, thick eyebrows hung like awnings over small, intense eyes. It was one of the ghosts she’d seen in her dream. She let out a short, static scream before squelching it.
The ghost stepped closer, almost nose to nose with her. She shivered but didn’t move.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his voice neither menacing nor kind.
“You came to me in a dream. You and several other prisoners.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Quinn and Betty Lou watching her from the doorway. Quinn took a cautious step forward, but she held up a hand, signaling him to stay where he was.
The ghost kept his eyes latched on to hers. If Emma wanted to leave the bathroom, she would have to walk through him, and she knew ghosts didn’t like that. She’d learned early on that if she wanted answers from spirits, the best way to get them was to be respectful.
She leaned her head closer to the ghost. If he were alive, they would have been touching cheek to cheek. “Who’s Addy?”
The ghost disappeared.
Emma slumped back against the doorjamb. Quinn rushed to her side. “Who were you talking to, Emma?”
“Not a six-foot rabbit, that’s for sure.” She stood straight and shook herself slightly to get her bearings.
“Was it the child you saw earlier?” asked Betty Lou with excitement. “I know you saw her. How else would you have known about her?”
“No, it wasn’t the girl, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back. She needed help getting to the other side. Granny is escorting her.”
“Who’s Granny?”
Quinn bent down to Betty Lou and whispered, “I’ll fill you in later.”
“I was just visited by one of the men from my dream.” Emma described him.
Without a word, Betty Lou left them, her rubber-soled shoes hitting the floor with steps that sounded like a series of soft thumps and squeaks. She returned a few seconds later with a pamphlet on the Old Jail Museum and the Molly Maguires. She thumbed through it until she came to the page she was seeking. “Was it him?” She offered the booklet to Emma.
The left side of the booklet contained text; the right side, reproductions of drawings. The top drawing was of a man. Emma sucked in her breath and held it.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” asked Betty Lou with excitement. “I always felt he was haunting the place.”
Emma read the caption out loud: “Alexander Campbell.”
Betty Lou tapped the picture. “He’s the one most believe left his handprint on the wall.”
Emma looked up from the booklet. “May I see the jail now?”
twenty-four
In the middle of the hallway that connected the back door, kitchen, gift shop, and other downstairs rooms was a small anteroom. Betty Lou explained the double entry system to them—how the outside door, with its double sturdy bar locks, was secured after a prisoner entered the small holding room and before the iron gate to the cell block was unlocked for him and the prison guard to enter.
Emma stood at the threshold of the imposing iron gates and looked into the main cell block. The whitewashed walls were thicker than in the rest of the building. Betty Lou further explained how the jail was built in 1871 and had been in continuous use until as late at 1995.
As she stepped from the outer room through the metal gates into the cell block, Emma’s body grew heavy, like she’d gained a hundred pounds in an instant. An odor tickled her nostrils. It was an underlying scent as fleeting as the ghosts who inhabited the jail, and not one noticeable to others—a fetid smell of accumulated hopelessness and anger, of defiance and defeat, even of guilt and innocence. Men and women had been rightfully incarcerated here for crimes they had committed, but others had been imprisoned wrongfully, just as some were in modern times.
Emma looked up, taking in the vaulted ceiling and the filigreed iron railing that surrounded the second-floor walkway. It was similar to the iron railings decorating the outside balconies of the inn and seemed too ornate and fine to be in such a place. Even the supports that held the second-floor walkway were decorated with cutout work. Along each wall, cells were lined up, some with iron gates for doors, some with both an iron gate and a thick wooden door. Running the length of the cell block above the doors on each side were large pipes painted black.
“The original cells had both wooden doors and gates,” Betty Lou told Emma. “The gates allowed the men in the cells to see into the cell block and to socialize to some degree. The wooden doors were shut at night or when there was an execution, or if the prison needed stiffer security.”
Emma took a few steps forward and noted a wide slit cut into the thick wall on the left side. Something sat on the ledge of the slit. Going closer, Emma saw it was a metal tray and a cup.
“That small pass-through goes into the kitchen,” Betty Lou explained. “The prisoners would go there to retrieve their food trays, then sit at a table in the center to eat.” She indicated the long tables with benches positioned in the middle of the cell block.
Betty Lou pointed upward. “Women prisoners were kept on the second floor.”
There were definitely spirits milling about. Emma could feel them in the damp coolness of the air, but they hadn’t materialized. Nor did she see Granny. She didn’t know if Granny had returned from her errand with the child or not, but felt she hadn’t. The spirits in the jail were swirling around her, coming close, then backing away. She didn’t sense many of them, just a handful. Emma knew they were watching her and understood she was different, that she would be able to see them if they chose to be seen. Their curiosity was as thick as the walls and mixed with hesitation. Quinn was behind her, and she knew he was watching her with the same look.
Emma took in the walls, the ceiling, the cells lined up like so many hungry mouths. She ran a hand along the rough texture of the wall. She’d never had such an intense experience with spirits like this before. It was nearly intimate, as if she were seeing into the soul of the structure that housed them. She wondered if it was because of Addy or because of the seriousness of the place. The one spot she couldn’t bring herself to focus on was the far end of the cell block. She didn’t want to look, afraid of what she might see, but knew she couldn’t put it off.
Shutting her eyes, she turned her head toward t
he end of the cell block where the wooden gallows stood like a fearsome master. She opened her eyes quickly, ready to take in whatever was there, unpleasant or not.
“Are those the original gallows?” she asked, relieved to see that the side-by-side nooses of yellow rope were empty.
Betty Lou walked forward, leading them farther into the cell block and closer to the gallows. “No, but it is a replica of the original gallows. It was built using the same plans. Over here,” she said, leading them to one of the cells, “is cell 17, the one with the handprint.”
The iron gate on this cell was closed, and there was a sign posted saying photographs of the handprint were not permitted. Emma peered into the cell through the open squares of the gate and wasn’t surprised to see the ghost of Alexander Campbell sitting on the small bed that was its only furnishing. On the wall across from the bed was indeed the image of a handprint. It wasn’t sharply defined but was clear enough that the viewer knew immediately what it was. Campbell said nothing but looked at Emma with his head held high and straight. She gave him a courtesy nod and moved on.
All the cells were depressing and dark. Some had beds in them, some chairs and beds, some were empty. There was one horizontal, narrow window set high near the ceiling. Some had toilets. She stepped inside one of the cells but felt nothing except the closeness of the walls. She entered several, one after the other, but none was the cell Emma visited in her dream.
Something touched her elbow as she stood in the middle of the last cell. Emma jumped slightly and turned to see Quinn at her side.
“You okay?” he asked.
An odd bit of humor struck her as Emma realized Quinn had asked her that several times since they’d met.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just taking it all in.”
“Any ghosts yet, besides Campbell?”
“No, at least not that I can see, but there are several here right now. Not sure who they are, though.” Emma pointed to cell 17. “Campbell was just there, sitting on the bed. I’m pretty sure that handprint is his.”
Betty Lou’s eyes went wide. “I just got goose bumps.” She rubbed her arms. “Would you like to see downstairs? That’s where the dungeon cells are.”
Gem of a Ghost: A Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery Page 20