by Alexie Aaron
Kiki circled her copy quickly. “Does this guy look familiar?” she asked, pointing to the footless man.
Faye squinted and smiled when Jesse held the magnifying glass for her. “Wee doggies, it looks like Grumpy Pants on the stairs.”
“We think it is. What do you see here?”
“Three lights. Wait…” she angled her head. “I followed them up out of the well,” Faye realized. “They are always together. If you listen, sometimes you can hear them singing.”
“Have you seen them recently?”
“Not for a while.”
Kiki frowned. “You did say you followed them up from the well. Could they be in the well? I mean, their bodies?”
“Nothing was on top of me, but there were lots of bones underneath me. But I don’t know who,” she said honestly. “They aren’t sad. They’re always happy. It gets annoying. A half hour with them and you’ll seek out Grumpy Pants.”
Kiki sat back. She opened the door and pulled the bag out that contained the broach.
Faye watched as she pulled it out. “If I give this to you, where are you going to keep it?”
“Dunno.”
“Think about it. It’s very valuable. My jeweler in San Francisco believes that, if the jewels are real, this is worth a small fortune.”
“How small?” Faye asked.
“It’s from the eighteenth century. At auction it would bring close to a million dollars.”
“My granny’s cane!” Faye exclaimed.
“So you can see why I can’t leave it lying around,” Kiki stated.
“Yes, I do. I apologize for calling you a crook. But you do look like a crook.”
Cid and Jesse laughed.
“What about crybaby’s box? What’s in it?” Faye asked.
Kiki walked over to the small bookcase where she had six electrical catalogs stacked. She lifted them up and pulled out a plastic document cover. “I haven’t had time to look at it yet. I put it in the freezer and cracked off the wax. Unfortunately, the oil from the dyes stained the paper.” She handed it to Cid. “Hold it to the light,” she suggested.
Cid read, “My dearest, I am sorry that I did not follow you out the window when you came for me. My husband had me by the gown, and the nurse stuck a needle in my arm. They said you died in the war, that it is your spirit that calls to me. But I have seen you with my own eyes! If I took them out, I would still see you. My heart knows it is you. I will come as soon as they are asleep. Your lover, Gwen.”
“No wonder she cries all the time. She doesn’t have any eyes.”
“I know,” Cid said.
“I think she gouged out her own eyeballs.”
“I think you’re right,” Cid said. “She was sick.”
“She was crazy,” Faye insisted.
“I found this in the box too,” Kiki said, putting it on the desk top. “From what I can tell, it’s a marriage certificate, and this is a birth certificate for a little girl named Anne.” Kiki added to the pile. “It looks like Gwen was pregnant when her husband married her.”
“Where is the baby?” Faye asked.
“I don’t know. There isn’t an Anne associated with this house,” Kiki told her.
“She would have been given up for adoption in those days,” Faye reasoned. “They took her baby away. Probably told her it was stillborn.”
“That would be enough to push her over the edge,” Jesse said.
“So sad,” Kiki said. “Here is the last of her keepsakes.” Kiki opened up a cheap little locket. Inside, Gwen had scratched a picture of a man and a picture of a baby.
Cid grabbed a bible off the stack of books. He thumbed through the first couple of pages. “Here she is. Gwen Anne Archer, wife of Timothy Oster.”
“Did they list Anne?” Faye asked. “No, don’t look. They wouldn’t have. Why didn’t he institutionalize her?”
“Maybe he hoped she’d come out of it,” Cid suggested. “Rich people didn’t advertise that they had crazy relatives, especially not wives. He probably married her for money and, after her breakdown, kept her locked up for her own protection.”
“But why tell everyone she ran away?”
“I don’t know,” Cid said honestly.
“This house has seen its share of tragedy,” Kiki acknowledged.
“But they had so many parties. Surely there are better stories,” Faye insisted.
Kiki smiled. She lifted a few journals and placed two books in front of the ghost. Kip’s House and Fond Memories. “Read these, and I think you’ll find the essence of this place. It’s this house we’re trying to bring back,” Kiki said.
Faye smiled and disappeared.
“Do they have a timer?” Jesse asked, annoyed.
“Each ghost is different,” Cid said.
Kiki picked up the broach. “I get the feeling that Faye’s story is going to be a hard one to find.”
“She’s not acting. She really doesn’t know who she is, where she came from or who killed her, but she was murdered for something she saw…” Cid mused.
The three were quiet a moment.
“Well, I hate to break up this think tank, but I’ve got to send this information to Jake and get back to work. I’m having Virgil and his men work on the patio for the west wing. I told them to wait until we had a road in before they brought in the pavers. But they might as well prep the place.”
“We’ll dig a grave and relevel it. No one will know that we buried Gwen Archer there,” Cid said.
“I’m going to have a paver added with her name carved in. I don’t want her to be laid to rest without a marker of some kind,” Kiki insisted.
“Boss, you better watch it or someone is going to figure out you have a heart where we all assumed a balance sheet was,” Jesse teased.
“Scrub, you know the upcoming Brewster Mill renovation next spring?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got roof duty.”
“When will I learn to keep my mouth shut?” Jesse asked himself, getting up.
Kiki winked at Cid and handed him the journals. “Take a look through these. I just skipped around and read the things that pertained to décor. Maybe our Grumpy Pants is mentioned.
Cid took the books and left the office. He stopped and stared up the stairs. He had asked Ted to FedEx him another pair of glasses and a few mini cameras. He had a feeling that he was going to need them.
Cid had just finished cleaning his area of the garage when heard singing. It was beautiful. The girls were singing a hymn that he had heard when he was young. Were they calling to the light, or had the light not come for them? He wanted to have Mia down here to help, but Ted had warned him that the size of the baby Mia was carrying was giving her problems. She was ordered to take it easy. Mia Martin would not be traveling down to sort out Hidden Meadow’s ghosts any time soon. But he could call her.
“Hello, Cid!”
“Mia, you sound happy.”
“I may or may not be planning to tie Ted’s penis in a knot.”
Cid coughed in surprise. “Why?”
“I’m so big I’m going to explode, and I have months to go. What did he do to me?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said and was rewarded with Mia’s laughter.
“Tell me everything is going to be alright, and if I do away with Ted, you’ll hide me until the coast is clear.”
“You know I have your back, Mia.”
“That’s the Cid I love. I miss you so much.”
“I miss all of you too. Mia, do you mind if I run a few things by you?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
It took a while for Cid to catch her up, and she was silent for a while. “Whoa, okay. You’ve got a house full of ghosts, it seems. Only one appears to be dangerous.”
“Why isn’t the light coming for the others?”
“They may need to figure a few things out. Faye definitely needs to do some soul searching. What a brat.”
“She’s annoying.
”
“Maybe she’s a Murphy,” Mia said and laughed at her own joke. “K. Here’s how I’d handle it. Take care of the petulant child first.”
“But I have to work with Jesse.”
“Cute. I was talking about the dangerous critter on the stairs. I’ll see if I can help direct Jake on his search. I’ll try to make some calls for him. Sometimes people respond better to a female voice. In the meanwhile, get your cronies together and make sure your boss isn’t alone in that house.”
“I agree. The trio of singers?”
“This may be their heaven. Poor girls raised in poverty, now spending eternity in a mansion…”
“It’s a nice house. It’s got its own demon.”
“We could send Dieter down and round them up.”
“Let’s wait. If it is their heaven, then I would feel bad sending them into the unknown. Okay, Mia, get me as much information on the stair crawler as you and Jake can come up with.”
“No problem. It will keep me busy. Oh, if you get in a bind, Santos is in Spain visiting Constantino, but Father Simon is available.”
“Good to know. Say hello to the family for me.”
“I will. Bye, Cid.”
Cid smiled. Mia had a way of making him feel better. Cid picked up his toolbox and headed for his truck.
Jesse ran over. “Are you going into town?”
“I may have a package to pick up at Highway Ranches, and I’ve got some cedar for Gwen’s coffin to purchase and sneak in here.”
“Okay, I’ll stay here until you get back. When are you planning on moving in?”
“I’m paid up through Friday. I am, however, worried about her being up here alone.”
“I’ve been thinking hard on this, and I’ll move in tonight. Why don’t you do the same? She and I up here alone isn’t going to do much for her reputation.”
“So you think having Saint Cid around will diffuse the gossips?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Okay, I’ll pack and settle up. I may be late, so don’t lock me out,” Cid said.
“Call when you’re coming up the drive, and I’ll let you in.”
“Keep an eye out. I have a bad feeling we haven’t seen the last of the footless man,” Cid said, climbing in his truck.
He got halfway down the drive when he saw Faye waving her arms for him to stop.
“I remembered something!” she said, getting in the truck.
“What did you remember?”
“My uncle brought me here when my parents were killed. I met a boy named Dickon, and I discovered a hidden garden. But I can’t seem to find it. Did they take down the hidden garden?”
Cid slowed to a stop at the end of the drive. “Do you mean the secret garden?”
“Yes the…”
“The Secret Garden? Honey, you’re not Mary, and no, you can’t have a bit of earth.”
Faye sighed in frustration. It was so clear up here,” she said, touching her forehead. “I was looking at a robin, and it sort of came together.”
“Plus, I doubt you were ever a sour-faced child,” Cid said.
Faye drifted out of the car and watched Cid drive away. “Did he just give me a compliment?” she asked herself. She smiled, answering herself.
Chapter Eighteen
Cid had cut the cedar and walked through the silent house with the boards. The coffin would be narrower than normal, but the withered body would fit in it just fine. The reason for the tight fit was because it had to get through the window. Further conversations with Mia confirmed this. If the spirit was hell-bent on jumping out the fourth floor window, then her body must leave the same way. Cid secured the hardware needed to the head of the coffin to lower it safely. He would lay a quilt inside so the body would remain in place. Kiki had come up with the beautiful blanket.
“Are you sure you want to use this here?” Cid had asked.
“I saw it at a flea market and had the overwhelming compulsion to buy it. This must be the reason,” she said offhandedly.
Jesse had watched the landscaping team do their work. He knew what he had to do to match what they had done so no one would know that the underlayment of the patio had been touched or that a grave had been dug.
Faye watched Cid work in the attic. She was amazed by the care he took to sand the rough spots. It was going into the ground, and only two other living people would see it. Why all the fuss?
Cid sensed the little ghost in the room, but he had little time to complete his task, and the prior hours of work had tired him. Jesse walked in with a strange L-shaped bracket. He opened up the window and leaned out. He took some measurements and returned to his gizmo.
“I found this pulley in the garage,” he told Cid. “I thought that we could control the weight better with this.”
“Smart man. How come you’re not running this renovation?” Cid asked.
“I like working with Kiki, and I don’t like dealing with clients. I don’t need the extra headaches that would go with the extra money. It’s a win-win as far as I see it.”
“If you like working for her, then why did you pick out such a horrendous outfit for her to wear out of the hospital?”
“As I explained, I don’t want to be the go-to guy when Kiki has run out of clothes. I think it’s creepy to buy women clothing.”
“That you’re going to have to explain,” Cid said, his eyes never leaving his project.
“First you have to determine their size, and then you need to imagine them in the clothes. If you’re not in a romantic relationship, then it just seems wrong.”
“Never pegged you for a prude.”
“Not prudish, respectful. Have you ever bought clothes for someone you’re not dating?”
“Do shoes count?”
“Depends on the shoes…”
“Boots, work boots. They had four inches of hard rubber between Mia and the earth. She asked if I bought them in the tire store, but I could tell she was impressed.”
“So how does this living with the Martins work exactly?”
“I have my own place over the PEEPs office in the renovated barn. It has a little kitchenette. Mia told me to feel free to use the kitchen in the farmhouse when I wanted to make something that the tiny kitchen couldn’t handle. I kind of took over cooking.”
Jesse noticed the guilty look on Cid’s face.
“Mia is an excellent baker but a horrible cook. I’ve been trying to teach her, but she hasn’t progressed too far.”
“Why try when she has a built-in chef?” Jesse observed.
“I really like cooking. If I wanted a high-pressure lifestyle, I think I would have trained to be a chef.”
“You’re a ghost hunter; it doesn’t get any higher pressure than that.”
“I’m a paranormal investigator, and it’s a different kind of stress. And it’s fun.”
“Do you ever feel left out, being the third wheel?”
“I’m not exactly a third wheel. There are others there. I think of myself as part of the family.”
“You said you were dating?”
“I met this bright happy woman at the Barnes & Noble. Her name is Patty, and other than teasing me horribly, she’s fun to be with. She was raised with a handful of brothers. They all went into the Marine Corps.”
“Intimidating.”
“Yes. We’ve only had a few dates. She didn’t want to be exclusive, and I knew I would be out of town all summer, so we’ve placed whatever is going on on hold.”
“She’s not the one,” Jesse said. “If she were the one, then no job, no distance, would keep you apart.”
“I’m with you there, but it’s still nice to date from time to time.”
“You sound like Kiki. I think the two of you aren’t ready for a serious relationship yet. You hide out with the Martins, and she’s dating a ghost.”
“What about you?”
“I need a team of mental health professionals to help me figure out what’s going on up he
re,” Jesse admitted.
“Maybe we’re all late bloomers,” Cid said.
Jesse thought a moment and nodded. “I think you, Mr. Carpenter Extraordinaire, hit the nail squarely on the head.”
~
Kiki placed her cell phone in her shirt pocket so the camera faced outwards. She was connected to Jake and was using the earcom Cid had handed her.
“This is what we use when we’re investigating. Although, instead of being connected to the PEEPs computer, you’ll be connected to your iPhone. If you tap it three times, Jesse and I will get sent an SOS with your coordinates.”
“Who figured this out?”
“Ted.”
“He’s some kind of genius, isn’t he?” Kiki commented.
“Oh yeah, and he knows it. Although, I scored higher than him on all our school tests,” Cid said proudly.
“Can you do this?” Kiki asked, holding up the earcom.
“I understand it. I can build it, but the original concept is beyond me. I’m more of a universal smart ass.”
Kiki laughed. “I bet you guys are great friends.”
“I think so.”
“What happened when your best friend got married?”
“He finally got laid,” Cid said and walked away laughing.
“This is the gentleman’s lounge. We’re going to turn it into Hal’s office space. I know it’s large, but Hal’s a pacer. He needs lots of open space, a computer, and several phones at his fingertips. He’s going to come in and install all his toys himself. My job is to clear the room of all this wonderful dark cabinetry.”
“Where are you going to put it?” Jake asked.
“The thing is, I have no place. The designer turned his nose up at it. The other areas of the house have built-ins that fit the design. I’m going to offer them to Jesse. I understand he’s going to be building his own house. If he doesn’t want them, I’ll ask Cid and so on, down the helpful train.”
“When are you going to have them pulled out?” Jake asked.
“I was hoping that the guys would work on it when the road is being put in. We’ll store them in the pod I had delivered.”
“Explain pod.”
“Look up house movers. You’ll see these steel containers that are dropped off. I originally had one brought here that had my renovation furniture in it. When you work on places as remote as this, sometimes you have to live in them. I don’t want my contractors using the client’s furniture, so I bring my own. I store it when it’s not in use. Sometimes, we pull the client’s furniture out and store it in pods so it doesn’t get damaged. Other times, the client will donate the contents of a house. I will send the pod to whatever charity group is local and donate the contents.”