“Drinking, driving, destruction of property,” I rattle off to the bunch. “Sit down on the ground. Hands over your head. Don’t move.”
“Aren’t you going to ask if we’re hurt?” Dillon grouses loudly. “I wasn’t driving.”
“I’m running late,” Justin protests. “Al was giving me a ride to an interview. I wasn’t driving, either.”
The driver is Al Norman, one of the guys I grew up with who never seemed to catch a break. He was cut from the football team, failed to graduate from high school because he missed the last semester, and is somewhat of a loner. He has a drinking problem, and his once-muscular build has gotten flabby.
“Down on the ground. Hands where I can see you,” I roar, rattling out the cuffs.
Dillon and Justin stop protesting and get down on the ground, but Al remains on his butt with his head in his hands.
I lift his face to see if he’s hurt. Nothing looks too serious. He has a cut over his eyebrow and a fat lip, probably from hitting the airbag.
“We’ll get that looked at once I book you.” I yank his arm and shove him to the ground. “What are you doing drinking so early in the morning? You should know better than to drink and drive.”
No reply. That’s Al for you. Played deaf and mute back in school and was bullied for being poor. I have a soft spot for him because of all the beatings he took. He could have fought back—was always large for his age, but for some reason, his strategy was to be unresponsive until the kids got tired of picking on him.
“Al Norman, I’m going to read you your rights.” I cuff his heavy hands.
“Can’t you let him go?” Dillon asks. “Nothing’s damaged but his car.”
“Yeah, we’re buds, aren’t we?” Justin adds. “You don’t have to be such a hard-ass. He didn’t hurt anyone.”
He never hurts anyone, but that’s not the point. I can’t have people drinking and driving in my town. I wonder what’s gotten into Al. Maybe I should reach out to him and understand him better. He doesn’t have family—only an aunt who lives in the Sierra Valley, and he works at one of the old mines hauling out rocks and debris.
I read Al his rights and demand Justin and Dillon to accompany us to the station.
After I record their breathalyzer test results, I write up the report, impound the car for evidence, and call the judge. I can’t let anyone off just because they’re good guys or I knew them in high school.
Equal justice under the law. This is what our country is all about. All are created equal and must be treated equally.
~ Tami ~
“You still have specks in your hair,” my new assistant, Molly Sutter, points out when I enter my office the next morning.
I felt sorry for Molly getting fired because she was meeting me, so I officially hired her to do administrative work, as well as research my guest list to create personalized haunts. She’s also going to be running the holographic projectors and haunt effect schedule, because Evan’s too expensive to keep on my staff full time.
“I know, it’s impossible.” I flick up a handful of my hair and stare at the tips. “I soaked so long in the tub my skin was like a shrunken prune. How’re you doing on the research?”
She x’s out of a window on the computer. “Viola Graham called. She says you’ve been ignoring her.”
I roll my eyes and heft my heavy body onto my office chair, causing it to squeak. Viola Graham is the town librarian who insists I’m not being historically accurate to portray ghosts at my boarding house.
“What does she want?” I ball up the note and toss it in the wastebasket.
“Says you’re ignoring her and that she’s going to the city council to stop your defamation of this town’s history.”
“Then I’ll keep ignoring her.” I settle in front of my computer and open my email. “I’m way too busy with the grand opening to worry about her.”
“Maybe you can win her over by having her read a ghost story,” Molly suggests. “You know, the old flies with honey and vinegar thing?”
“Wow, you are so right! What a swell idea.”
“That’s what you hired me for.” She points to her noggin. “My quick wit and light bulb moments.”
We giggle for a bit, and I don’t feel sorry one bit for Todd losing Molly at dispatch. She’s much more creative than sitting at a desk answering phones.
“I ran your idea about personalized haunt effects for each guest by Evan, and he says it’s possible, but it will add to the cost. He’ll set up separate audio feeds to each of the rooms for you to pre-record your greetings for each guest.”
“Oh, this is going to be so swell.” Molly rubs her hands. “I’ve got dirt on Mayor Colson already. He’s the one you’re putting in Pickaxe Polly’s Parlor?”
“What do you have on him?” I inquire, since that old drunk lost his Sixty Miners Saloon a year ago under dubious circumstances. I was never able to get a straight answer, since every person I spoke to told me something different.
“It’ll be a private embarrassment for him,” Molly says. “I’ve also got the four-one-one on Bonnie Winchester, your sorority president and her boyfriend, Clifton Hayes.”
“Great. I have them in the Baja Angel Studio.”
“That Clifton’s quite creepy.” Molly’s voice drops. “Didn’t you say Bonnie’s pregnant?”
Chills skitter across my spine, but I shrug them aside. “They’re good sports. I’m sure they’re not superstitious.”
Baja Angel was a prostitute who’d gotten pregnant and refused to seek a miscarriage. Instead, she laid a curse on every man she slept with, promising that her son would avenge her if they didn’t pay up. Some were fearful and paid her in gold; others told her where to go.
She flew the coop before her baby was born, and no one heard head or tail from either her or her baby. However, on dark and moonless nights, the sound of a crying baby was said to be heard in the basement of the Bee Sting. No one dared investigate, and the sounds went away after the old, coal-powered boiler was replaced with a new heating system.
“Sure they are.” Molly chuckles, no doubt with a nefarious sound effect in mind. “They’d better get used to being woke up for night feedings.”
“Don’t do anything in the Goldilocks Suite,” I remind her. “That’s the room my parents are staying in.”
“Boring. I’ll make it not too hot and not too cold. Just right for them.” She flicks to the floor plan of the hotel. “I have your three sorority friends in Ma Belle’s Tearoom.”
Of all the rooms and stories, Ma Belle’s is my least favorite. Her real name was Belle Marie Andre, and she was either French or pretended to be French. Back in the mining days, the French were looked up to and charged extra for anything Frenchified, including French prostitutes who got the top billing.
Belle Marie, apparently, served tea to her johns, and well, let’s just say, I don’t particularly like tea parties, especially haunted ones.
“That leaves the Weeping Widow’s Walkway for me, unless someone books it last minute.” I twirl the mouse wheel to scroll through my reservation list. “I was hoping the Jewells would come grand opening night, but they said they’d show up later. Guess I can test the widow’s walk haunt effects and see how it feels.”
The Jewells, Dave and Jen, were hugely successful tech entrepreneurs who owned the online shopping giant, Mississippi.com. Getting them to invest in my ventures is the big buzzing bee in my bonnet.
“The widow’s weeping is super creepy.” Molly’s smile is sly. “Let me know who your date is, so the widow can call him by name.”
“Sorry, no date for me.” My phone rings, saving me from being probed on my nonexistent love life. “Hello? This is Tami King. How may I help you?”
“It’s Ms. Van Dirk,” a rough, female voice rasps through my eardrum. “The Bee Sting Bordello belongs to me, and I can prove it.”
Diana Van Dirk lives by herself next to the old sawmill her family used to run, quite lucratively in the heyday
of the gold rush.
Lumber was used to build the flumes that redirected water to wash gold out of the veins in the mountains. Wood was burned in the forges to temper the steel used to make the drills and more wood burned to power the drilling, crushing, and extraction of gold ore. Soon, the rich forests were denuded, streams diverted, and waste gravel and rock piled up in the gulches.
Most of the miners moved on to the Comstock Lode in Nevada, leaving a few Van Dirks scrabbling for a living in these hills. The only ones I know are Diana, a physical education teacher, and her nephew, Dillon, a mechanic who works at the gas station.
“We’ve been through this before.” I firm up my voice. “The title was clear, and I bought the property fair and square.”
“I can prove it once I get the original deed. My grandmother had it in her trunk, but I’m betting it’s in the walls of the Bee Sting somewhere. Did your workers find it?”
“It doesn’t matter if they did. Your grandmother failed to pay property taxes, and she mortgaged it to the hilt.”
“But it was always mine!” Diana’s voice hisses through her teeth. “Grandma promised it to me.”
“Judge Stevens already explained it to you.” My voice seethes, but I try to remain patient. “When your grandma passed, she owed so much on the property, which had fallen into disrepair and was condemned, I might add, that the bank ended up owning it.”
“It’s still mine, and I’m going to get it back from you land thieves. You Kings think if you own the bank, you get to take everything.”
“We buy it in the bankruptcy auction fair and square, pay the back taxes and liens. If you wanted it so much, why didn’t you bid in the auction? Everyone had a shot at it. You only want it now because I put money into it and fixed it up.”
“Why should I pay for what is mine?” The woman is like a looping earworm, or as my mom would say, a broken record. “Your efforts are doomed to fail without my blessing.”
Like any small town, we have our share of characters, and Diana Van Dirk is always inserting herself and her pronouncements of doom and gloom over every new development. She never lifted a finger to improve Colson’s Corner through the recession years, and now that we have a mini-boom in business, she throws ice water over every new venture.
“Ms. Van Dirk, you could have gotten the bordello ruins for a song before I was ever born, but no one wanted to take on the property until I got the zoning laws changed, the permits approved, and put in the money to renovate. However you feel about this, the hotel is legally mine, and I’m the one who invested to make it a going concern.”
“This is your last warning.” Diana Van Dirk lowers her voice into a rough whisper. “There’s blood in the Bee Sting, and only a Van Dirk can keep tragedy from boiling over.”
“What are you suggesting?” I quell the rising of my heart rate. She’s only trying to scare me, as if I don’t have enough jitters already. “Is it a job you want?”
“Heavens no. Why should I work at the Bee Sting when it belongs to my blood? I can be a reasonable woman,” Diana intones in a solemn tone, the kind a soothsayer would use to add gravity to a spell.
My hackles rise, knowing she’s going to make another one of her unreasonable demands. She once asked me to sell her the property for a literal song—one Madame Goldilocks used to sing to keep her soiled doves from flying the coop.
“I’m very busy right now. Have tons of things to do to get ready for the grand opening.” My finger pauses on top of the phone cradle.
“You need me to sprinkle ashes over the threshold and scatter rose petals over the beds to keep the ghosts quiet. I’m warning you, when the bordello opens, I need to be staying in Madam Goldilocks’s Boudoir, or tragedy will sting everyone under my roof.”
“Are you saying you want a free stay during the grand opening?” I wonder if she can be so easily mollified. Maybe all she wants is attention.
“Not only the grand opening, Miss King, but forever. The Bee Sting is mine, and I will rule all the spirits again from my boudoir.” Diana Van Dirk’s voice is so loud Molly looks up from her mouse-clicking.
“I’m afraid the room is already booked,” I stammer, knowing my parents will be disappointed. My mother’s favorite bedtime story is The Three Bears, and I had specially commissioned a painting of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Little Girl Bear to vaguely resemble the three of us.
“I guarantee you whoever dares stay in my room will be sorry,” Diana says in a creepy voice. “I am the one who is the true Goldilocks, not you.”
I don’t have time for games, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the last I’ll see of Diana Van Dirk. She cuts a mean figure, dressed in black ninja clothes over the muscular body she gets from working out with weights. She’s hard to the bone, doesn’t smile, and resembles a Nordic harbinger of doom with her golden hair and slate-blue eyes.
“You’re aware the Goldilocks room is on the first floor and no way as nice as Weeping Widow’s Walkway,” I suggest. “She has a balcony, and she was the most expensive courtesan to ever work the entire Sierra County. It’s said she has a set of wire-frame wings, with a gold nugget in each segment placed there by her many admirers.”
“Do not trifle with me,” Diana roars like a female bear. “Make sure my bed is not too hard and not too soft.”
Molly taps my shoulder and whispers, “Put your parents in the Weeping Widow and let Diana have Goldilocks. I have the perfect haunt for Diana Van Dirk, and you won’t have to worry about her after she runs screaming like Goldilocks from The Three Bears.”
I nod and put on my best sales voice. “Why, of course, Miss Van Dirk, I’ll be sure everything is just right for you. See you opening night.”
Fifteen
~ Todd ~
I exit the courthouse, fuming so much I could explode. A hefty hand drags my shoulder down, and the cloying reek of an expensive Cuban cigar identifies the heavy hand’s owner.
“I knew the judge would be compassionate,” George King says. “Those are good boys, and it won’t do any good to hang a record on their names.”
“Al was driving drunk and caused property damage,” I retort.
“Have a heart.” Tami’s father blows smoke my direction and lets a trail of ash drop on the soggy lawn. It’s been raining, and the fire danger is low—thank God.
“What does heart have to do with enforcing the law? He could have run over a child.”
“But he didn’t,” George says. “And it’s his first offense.”
“Not so. Weaver let him get off with a warning a few years back.”
“Just like you’re always warning Tami,” George says, chuckling. He squeezes my shoulder and bows his head closer to my ear. “Look, we mountain folk have to look after each other. We’re family here. We don’t send our own down to state prison.”
“Maybe not, but I’m still revoking Al’s license. He shouldn’t be driving until he’s completed an alcohol course. Speeding’s one thing, but drunk driving is over the line.”
“Legally, he wasn’t drunk,” George says. “His blood alcohol was below the limit.”
“He had an open container, and his passengers were drunk,” I argue, but it’s a losing fight. The way our town fathers act, the laws are for the tourists, and speeding tickets are a source of revenue and a way of transferring wealth from the coastal city visitors to our mountain folk coffers.
“They paid their fines for the infraction,” George says. “And they’re doing community service. You need deputies. Tell you what.”
“What?” I say unnecessarily, because George is always telling me this or that.
“I’ll pay for the deputies, and you assign them to Tami’s grand opening party. With Al, Dillon, and Justin added to the Vice Squad, you should have plenty to cover the additional traffic and people needing first aid.”
“I’m not sure Tami’s property is prepared for an onslaught of campers. She doesn’t have hookups and her parking lot is not an approved campground.”
“They’re only parking there for trick or treating, not overnight.” George tells me something I didn’t know. “All they’ll need are food trucks and porta-potties.”
“Liquor won’t be allowed outside,” I warn. “And we don’t have the budget for more than one porta-potty.”
“I’ll spring for more if you approve her permit.” He grabs my hand and shakes it, squeezing hard.
I crunch his beefy hand. I don’t reply until he winces and let’s go, shaking out his limp hand.
“Approved, as long as the campers leave before midnight.” I walk away with a strong stride, even though my gut is roiling and I have to fight the urge to shove my fist through George’s smarmy face.
~ Tami ~
The week before Spooky Fest is crazier than ever. Not only am I behind on the promotional materials, but we hit another construction snag when heavy rains thundered through the mountains and knocked down a power line.
Evan was called out of town by his agent to do a special ghost-hunting segment for a Halloween TV special, but he should be back today.
I’ve gone over my checklists a dozen times. The kitchen is in good shape, and food has been delivered. The decorators are finished, and the housekeeping staff has everything clean and ready once the generator kicked in.
I have a million things to do, including a test run of the haunt effects Evan prepared for the hotel common areas and the specially named rooms. Other numbered rooms will have generic sound effects like dragging chains, creepy organ music, dry ice mists, and spooky holographic projections. We even have mechanisms to turn on and off the bathroom taps and flicker the nightlights.
Which is why I’m rushing to my hotel with half a ham and pickle sandwich in my mouth and my other hand on the steering wheel.
My wiper blades need changing, and one headlight is out, so I’m having a hard time seeing in the slashing rain. No worries. I know this road like the back of my hand.
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