The Murder of Shakespeare's Ghost

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “I don’t think it’s the golf cart.” I paused and looked over my shoulder as Charly was doing. The colored, blinking lights were unmistakable. Members of the local constabulary had arrived.

  “If the guys are putting us on, it serves them right if they get carted off by the police.”

  “I don’t believe they’d go to such elaborate means to play a joke in the middle of the night. Those guys are early risers like we are, and this is way past their bedtime. Call Robyn and tell her we’re here, will you? I’d like to speak to her and look around before the police join us.”

  “At this hour, at least we won’t have to deal with Deputy Devers.” With my phone in one hand and Domino’s leash in the other, I dialed the number on my cellphone for Robyn. Her phone rang half a dozen times. I ended the call and reentered the numbers just in case I’d made a mistake when I’d entered them previously. “She’s not answering. I was afraid I couldn’t get through to her in her closet.” I fiddled with the latch on the gate in front of the Shakespeare Cottage until Charly stopped me.

  “Call her again,” Charly said as she held the gate open for Domino and me. I walked toward the front door growing more anxious when Robyn still didn’t respond. Built in the same style as my home, Shakespeare’s Cottage is more California Bungalow than cottage per se. A large columned porch ran along the front, although this one also wrapped around the sides of the large structure. In the clear light of day, it’s a comfortable, inviting place. Right now, it was pitch dark and my stomach fluttered at the possibility that danger lurked in the darkness.

  I motioned for Charly to wait as I swept the porch with the beam from my flashlight. I could see the steps as Domino, and I worked our way, slowly from one step to the next. Charly and Emily were on our heels. When we reached the top step, Domino growled. I stopped and scanned the porch from one end to the other. Two things made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  “It’s open,” I whispered to Charly. “That’s blood, isn’t it?”

  “Is the phone still ringing?” Charly asked in a whisper.

  “Yes, but she hasn’t answered it,” I said.

  “Then let’s go find her. Now!”

  “Won’t the police object if we don’t wait for them?” I asked. To be honest my expression of concern about violating police protocol was an attempt to buy a little time. A wave of nauseating cowardice had engulfed me. A bloody hand print on the door frame and drops of blood on the porch had me paralyzed on the top step.

  “She’ll take cold comfort from our desire to be law abiding citizens if she’s in there injured, and we let her bleed to death.”

  “That can’t be her blood we’re looking at. The open door means any intruder has fled, don’t you think?” The creepy vision of Shakespeare’s ghost as he’d held us in his gaze gave me the shivers.

  “That’s about the best reason I can come up with for the front door to be wide open in the middle of the night. The hand print appears to be left by someone on the way out. Let’s hope that means Robyn is still in her closet and too afraid to even answer her phone.”

  Charly picked up Emily and stepped in front of me as I held the flashlight on the open doorway. I followed, guiding Domino around a couple of blood drops as we entered the foyer. I searched the darkness with the beam from my flashlight.

  “Give me another second, Charly. If there’s more blood, I don’t want us to step in it.” I didn’t want to break any laws or trash evidence that might be useful to the police. Dread had come back to haunt me. I hate the sight of blood—mine especially—but I’d prefer not to see anyone else’s either.

  “I don’t see any more blood, do you?” Charly forced my hand to sweep the foyer and hallway again before responding to my anxious query.

  “No. Whatever happened must have taken place as the intruder fled.” Then another worry struck me.

  “If Robyn is still hiding in her closet, scared out of her wits, how did the intruder get injured?”

  “Good question. Robyn!” Charly called out.

  I could hear the faint sound of Robyn’s phone ringing from the back of the house where I knew her master bedroom was located. Domino whined as I took another step in the direction of the ringing. Then she woofed and Emily followed suit.

  “Robyn’s got to be able to hear that.” Before Charly could comment, I heard a groan. I ended the phone call, hoping I could figure out where the groaning had originated. Shuffling footsteps came from Robyn’s study to our right. I raised my flashlight prepared to stop the fiend from getting any closer. As I did that, the beam of my flashlight caught a figure in the outer edges of the glow it cast.

  “Don’t hit me. I’m already sore all over.”

  “Neely?” I asked as I lowered my flashlight. Charly reached over and flipped on the lights in the foyer and then rushed to Neely’s side. The dogs were delighted and almost knocked Neely over in their enthusiasm.

  “What happened? Who did this?” Charly asked as she guided Neely to a chair in the den that opened to a spacious great room beyond. I searched that area as well as I could in the dim light cast by the overhead light in the foyer. When Neely was seated, Charly turned on a table lamp, dropped Emily’s leash, and leaned over to examine Neely. Neely held her glasses in one hand and rubbed the back of her head with the other. I didn’t see a wound anywhere, but there was blood on the shoulder of the gauzy, long-sleeved tunic she wore. One sleeve was ripped at the shoulder seam.

  “I’m not quite sure. Robyn called me in a state of absolute terror. She told me she was going to call you and Charly, but she thought I might still be up and could get here quicker. Shakespeare’s ghost was cursing at someone and she was afraid he was coming for her.”

  Distracted by Neely’s story, I wasn’t holding on tightly to Domino’s leash. When Emily suddenly bolted toward the back of the house, Domino followed before I could tighten my grip. They were yipping and woofing and their leashes made clanking sounds as they ran. I took a step toward the hallway and heard scratching at what I figured had to be the door to Robyn’s master suite. They must have heard her moving about in there. I hit redial and called Robyn again.

  “Didn’t she tell you any of this when she called you?” Neely asked as she examined her glasses. One of the hinges was loose, but she put them on anyway.

  “Some of it, which is why we came running, too. She didn’t say anything about anyone cursing or raise the possibility that there was a second intruder. You got here fast since your cottage isn’t much closer than ours.”

  “Robyn was right that I was still up and dressed, so I took off. I got here faster than I ever dreamed I could. I’m in no condition for sprinting or wrestling, for that matter. I let myself in with the spare key Robyn gave us after we did our walk through. It was completely dark and before I could turn on a light, someone jumped out. I hadn’t shut the front door and some jerk shoved me from behind trying to get out. When I grabbed onto the sleeve of a windbreaker, I could tell it was a man.”

  “You grabbed him?” I gasped. Neely nodded.

  “It was a desperate move. I wasn’t trying to stop the dirtbag from getting away. I just didn’t want to hit the floor, face first, at the rate of speed I was traveling. I’ve got plenty of padding, but not on my nose. When he couldn’t shake me loose, he grabbed me by the shirt and yanked. That’s when I heard my blouse rip. He pulled me close and tried to get me in a choke hold with his other arm. That’s when I reared back and head-butted him.” Neely rubbed her head again. “I must have made contact since I’ve got his blood on me. His nose wasn’t any better padded than mine.”

  “Did he knock you out?” Charly asked.

  “No, but I must have come close to knocking myself out because I don’t remember much after head-butting him until I heard you call Robyn’s name.”

  “Were there two intruders in the house like Robyn told you?” Neely frowned as she pondered Charly’s question. Then her eyes widened.

  “There had to be. Before t
he guy shoved me, I heard footsteps in the hallway. I’d taken a step inside from the porch into the foyer and had just turned toward the study, when I stopped to see if someone was running down the hall. That’s when the big galoot shoved me, and I held onto him for dear life.” Charly made eye contact with me.

  “I don’t believe her attacker was Shakespeare’s ghost, do you?”

  “The guy’s arm you grabbed wasn’t glowing was it?” I asked Neely who stared at me and then Charly in bewilderment before replying.

  “No glow—just that funky windbreaker fabric in a dark color. I doubt it was a ghost running down the hallway either. Unless I’ve missed something, in the stories I’ve read ghosts glide or float, dragging chains maybe. By the sound of the pounding on the hallway floor, the guy was no lightweight nor was he fleet of foot, so I’d say he wasn’t a ghost either.” I think she was about to say something when we all startled at the sound of a disembodied voice.

  3 Windy Side of the Law

  “Still you keep o’ the windy side of the law: good.” – Twelfth Night

  ∞

  “Miriam,” the voice called out plaintively. If I was being contacted from the other side by Shakespeare’s ghost, he had a surprisingly high-pitched voice. When I heard the voice again, I snapped to, and pressed the phone to my ear!

  “Robyn, it’s me. I’m here. Neely and Charly are here, too. You can come out now.” I strode down the hallway, turning on lights as I went. When I reached the kitchen I paused, puzzled to see that Domino and Emily were in there. The digging I’d heard continued. Not at the door to Robyn’s bedroom, but the one to her walk-in pantry. I froze. Was someone hiding in there?

  “What is it you guys?” I asked trying to sound nonchalant as I ambled toward them. “Are you hungry?” The dogs grunted but kept pawing at the door. I dashed to Robyn’s kitchen table, grabbed one of the wooden chairs, and wedged it under the door knob. Once I’d done that, the dogs stopped scratching, and watched me. They were quiet as little mice as I leaned against the door and listened. I’m not sure what I expected to hear. Heavy breathing, maybe, if a beastly culprit was leaning in the same way against the other side of the door.

  “What are you doing?” A voice bellowed not more than a few inches behind me. I shrieked, spun around, and struck out. A man’s hand grabbed my arm at the last second or Deputy Devers would have taken a blow to the side of his head from my flashlight. He blanched when he realized what had almost happened, then turned a deep red color as fear turned to anger. “How dare you! I have half a mind to arrest you for assaulting an officer of the law.”

  Half a mind sounded about right to me. I was tempted to yank my arm free and finish the job if I was going to go to jail anyway. So much for my earlier concerns about whether I’d be able to use the flashlight as a weapon. In less than five minutes I’d nearly felled two people. I felt the grip on my arm tighten.

  “No harm, no foul, Darnell. I’m not sure what all has gone on here, but I gather it’s been a rough night.” I nodded and heaved a huge sigh of relief. Hank Miller took the flashlight away from me before he let go of my arm.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. Detective Hank Miller is with the the County Sheriff’s Department. It had never occurred to me when I’d told Robyn to call 911 that the detective would respond to a call about a break in.

  “That ought to be my line, don’t you think?” He asked with no twinkle in his eye. I tried not to smile at his exasperation. Even in the middle of the night, weary and annoyed, he was a fine-looking man I guessed to be in his fifties.

  “We should stop meeting like this, if that’s what you’re driving at,” I quipped. He hung his head, as if in despair, but the twinkle in his eyes was back.

  “Rough night! That’s an understatement,” Robyn wailed interrupting our exchange. “Look at this disaster!”

  I’d been so focused on keeping whoever was in the pantry locked up, and shocked by the unexpected encounter with our police pals that I’d hardly noticed the disarray in Robyn’s usually tidy kitchen. A side table near the door to Robyn’s garage was overturned. A lovely watercolor of sunflowers that had been hanging above it had fallen to the floor, scattering shards of glass around it. The backing had been pulled off and the frame was bent. Coins, papers, and other items that must have been on the table were all over the floor, too. A clear liquid oozed from beneath the door to Robyn’s pantry.

  “Your friends in the study told us the door was open and the intruders had fled. Is somebody in there?” Deputy Devers asked in an annoyed tone.

  “I didn’t see or hear anyone, but the dogs were digging at the door, so I didn’t want to take a chance on an intruder getting away.”

  “Police!” Hank called out, pounding on the door. Domino whined, and Emily spun around as if we were all playing a new game. “If you’ve got a weapon, put it down and come out with your hands up.”

  “Get these dogs under control!” Devers demanded as Emily and Domino barked out orders of their own. As far as I could tell by their reactions, the closest thing to a bad guy anywhere near us was the cranky deputy. Emily bared her tiny teeth at the surly deputy. Charly, who’d been examining the kitchen, stepped closer, bent down, and scooped up Emily in her arms. I grabbed Domino’s leash.

  “Heel!” I commanded as I stepped back next to Charly several feet away from the pantry door.

  “You shouldn’t call him that to his face. Devers will have you hauled off to the hoosegow for disturbing his peace,” Neely whispered as she joined us from where she’d been standing in the arched entryway leading into Robyn’s kitchen.

  “Sit!” I commanded, trying to suppress a nervous giggle in response to Neely’s snide remark. Deputy Devers must not have heard her, but Hank did. He shook his head “no” at Neely.

  “Let’s see what we’ve got,” the deputy said. He hoisted his pants up a tad, and then placed one hand on his holstered gun as he used the other to remove the chair from in front of the pantry door. Hank turned the door handle, eased it open a crack, and waited. It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Then, the detective slipped the toe of his shoe into the door opening and slung it wide. We gasped. No intruder came barreling out of there, but the pantry was a disgusting sight.

  “Oh, no!” Robyn cried. “I told you someone was in my house. Now do you believe me?”

  “Do you keep anything of value in there?” Hank asked.

  “Besides a few hundred dollars’ worth of groceries you mean? I’m a firm believer in disaster preparedness, and you’re looking at several months’ food on the floor—beans, rice, flour, cooking oil. Why would Shakespeare’s ghost do such a thing?” Robyn asked. Devers shook his head.

  “How bad is your cooking if they’re sending messengers from the dead to stop you?” he asked, smirking.

  “Hank’s already told you to cool it, Devers.” Charly spoke with such authority that the deputy’s mouth popped open, but he shut up.

  “What Hank is getting at, Robyn, is that some people hide their mad money in a cookie jar or an ordinary-looking item, stashed in a place like the pantry. You don’t have jewelry secreted in a fake backing powder can or a cereal box safe, or anything like that, do you?” Robyn appeared mystified by the question.

  “I’ve never had much worth hiding. Why would it have occurred to me to do that? When I tried to convince you that someone had been in my cottage moving things around, I could have added that they were wasting their time if they were hoping I have valuables to steal. Of course, the ghost has never done anything this bad before, so maybe he’s angry because I don’t have anything worth stealing. I bet you won’t call me a daffy old dame anymore, will you, Deputy?”

  “Not if I can believe you didn’t do this yourself.”

  “Why would I?”

  “For the attention, maybe. Or as part of some scheme you and your pals in the golf cart have cooked up. Wrapping themselves around a tree in the middle of the night chasing ghosts ought to be a lesson learne
d. Not just any ghost either but Shakespeare’s ghost, no less. How do you all come up with this bunk?”

  “I can assure you, Devers, that even Shakespeare would agree we’ve all stayed on the ‘windy side of the law’ tonight.” Devers cocked his head to one side.

  “The windy side is the right side of the law, Darnell,” Hank added interpreting for the deputy. Then Hank addressed Charly. “You and your friend cut it close, staying on the windy side of the law by a hair’s width. I can’t say the same for the ghost patrol who are going to get ticketed at the very least.”

  “Where are Joe and Carl? Are they all right?” I asked.

  “They’re okay, but the golf cart has seen better days,” Hank replied. “It appears they were driving without their headlights in pursuit of Shakespeare’s ghost and didn’t see the tree until too late. Driving without the use of their headlights is only one of their misdeeds.” If he’d intended to describe a litany of misdeeds, I cut him off.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Who? The ghost?” Hank asked. I wobbled my head not sure whether a yes or no was the correct answer.

  “For want of a better understanding of what we witnessed tonight, ghost will do for now.” Charly and I gave Hank and the deputy the best rendition of what we’d seen during our brief encounter with a glowing apparition bearing a remarkable resemblance to Shakespeare. Robyn gasped when she heard what we had to say.

  “Where did Shakespeare go?” I asked again. “Did you send anyone after him?”

  “No, we didn’t. When we examined the pedestrian walkway which your friends claim the ghost used as an exit route, there was no one around to pursue.”

  “I told you The Bard walks again!” Robyn wailed.

  “It’s more like he’s running, at this point. Even before Joe and Carl were chasing him.” Then, Neely filled them in on her misadventure that occurred before Charly and I arrived.

  “I already told you there were two of them. I heard them quarreling! Maybe Shakespeare wasn’t mad at me and two warring ghostly entities fought it out in my pantry.” Robyn’s remark was followed by a resounding silence before Neely picked up the conversation. I was grateful because I couldn’t figure out how to respond to Robyn’s warring entities remark.