by Noel Hynd
“The press keeps badgering me. I get offers to sell my story. I don’t even know what my story is.”
“Well, let’s see,” he said. “There’s the official version. Your husband was into assorted criminal deeds. He had your children hidden somewhere. They were released. He’s a fugitive.” Van Allen shrugged. “A nice, neat, unclear, wide open ending to an otherwise thoroughly unlikely story.”
She smiled.
“The tabloids should be pumping it for a week or two, till something better comes along,” he said.
“Are you going to have the coffin raised?” she asked. She chose her words carefully. “The ‘Billy Carlton’ coffin?”
He shook his head. “Whatever’s down there stays down there,” he said. “At least as long as I have anything to do with it.”
“Let the dead stay dead?” she asked with irony. “Is that it?” He appreciated her phraseology.
“I’m not sure that’s what I mean,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s what always happens.”
For a moment she had a faraway look in her eyes. Her gaze traveled the surface of the water then returned to the detective.
“What do you think we’d discover if we opened the coffin now?” she asked.
“I think we’d discover more questions than we would ever be able to answer,” he said. “That’s why that box stays down there. Those questions are not for us to answer.”
She nodded.
“Delicately put,” she said.
“It’s the best I can do.”
“Your best,” she said, “is pretty good. Thanks for everything.”
“Some weeks I earn my check,” he said. “These past few were among them.”
“Stop over sometime,” she suggested. He nodded.
“I’ll do that.” He knew he wouldn’t. She leaned to him and kissed him on the right cheek. In response, he wrapped an arm around her and gave her a hug of friendship.
Rebecca got to her feet.
She glanced to an area down the promenade about fifty feet away. She indicated the figure of a man. From the distance, all Van Allen could see was that the man had sandy brown hair. He wore a white shirt and dark slacks. The man waved to Van Allen. Van Allen looked back to Rebecca, without acknowledging the wave.
“Do you see that man down there?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“No one else does,” she said. “Just you and me.”
“Curious,” Van Allen said. “I guess we’re both crazy.”
“Or not,” she said.
She bade him goodbye. She turned on the walkway and started back toward the pier. She raised one hand and signaled to her two children, who had been playing on the beach. They ran to her and joined her, one on each side.
Van Allen watched her go, walking slowly a hundred, two-hundred feet down the promenade. Thereupon, she was joined by the man who had been waiting for her. He walked to her side, back a few steps from her.
Van Allen squinted. Even with glasses, his eyesight wasn’t as sharp as it used to be. He would have liked a closer look at Rebecca’s companion. Van Allen glanced away for a moment and then looked back. He couldn’t pick them out of the crowd anymore.
They were gone.
Never again would Van Allen pass by 2136 Topango Gardens and never again would he run into Rebecca Moore. He would never hear that piano music, either. Nor was there ever another poltergeist manifestation in his home.
Except for one.
Van Allen had kept the broken pieces of the Mont Blanc pen, the family heirloom. He had packed them in a small oblong box and stashed them in a drawer in his desk. Several months after the Moore case had faded from public view, Van Allen came to his desk one morning and found the top drawer wide open.
He did not remember leaving it that way. On further inspection, he found that the wooden box containing the pen had been disturbed.
Opening the box, he was shocked to discover the Mont Blanc restored completely. It was intact and in perfect working order, as if an expert craftsman had put the writing utensil back together with the greatest care.
Or as if a friend had come by during the night to say he was sorry and to set matters right. The mystery surrounding the pen was only the last of several events which Van Allen would never understand.
What he did know, however, was that with the repair of the pen, he could finally emotionally accept that the Moore case was closed, as much as it would ever be. And if somewhere out there an angel might be watching over his own interest in ways large or small, so it would have to be.
Not that this was anything he could ever share with anyone. With the exception of Rebecca, and possibly old Martinez, there were few souls in the world who would have believed any bit of it.
But he made a mental note to always carry the pen. It would serve as a reminder of what in the world was real, what wasn’t, and of the vast magical uncharted universe of spirits that lay in between.
About the Author
Noel Hynd is the author of 24 published books and three produced screenplays. His work has been translated into ten languages in all parts of the world. He can be reached by readers at: [email protected] and, surprisingly enough, will write back to you. In the meantime, his three cats say hello.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
About the Author