“Not in a million years,” agreed Kelly.
Kelly went over to an area with a sewing machine. Hanging from a makeshift clothesline were several tubes of fabric stuffed with batting. “Are these arms and legs?” she asked.
“They will be,” answered Chris with a chuckle. “This is my contribution. I can’t do the artsy stuff so I sew up the limbs and stuff them and add the feet and hands. We even cast the hands ourselves right here.”
“How did you get into doing this, Edgar?” asked Emma.
He shrugged. “Kind of by accident. I was always drawing and sculpting, even as a kid with crayons and Silly Putty.”
“Most of the illustrations hanging in the house are his work,” Chris said with pride.
“Yes, I enjoy painting, too,” Edgar told them. “Most any art, really. Shortly after I moved to LA from Chicago, I was staying with a friend who worked for one of the studios making models of stuff. I got interested in it. One of the guys he worked with had made a few dummies and I asked him to teach me, but he didn’t have a knack for making distinct heads and faces. I helped him with that, then got a few orders on my own and started doing it to make extra money. I didn’t think it could be a real business until I met Chris.”
“And there’s enough call for ventriloquist dummies to support a full-time business?” asked Emma.
“Right now there is,” answered Edgar. “Plus I do some freelance illustrating for graphic novels.” He walked over to the far end of the garage, which seemed kept separate from the rest. “This is something I’m working on right now.” He uncovered a large easel to show drawings of some kind of sci-fi creature.
“You’re very talented, Edgar,” Emma said. She gave both of them a warm smile. “You both are.”
Chapter 7
Chris and Edgar, arms around each other, stood at their front door with Pugsley and waved good-bye as Kelly and Emma headed to their vehicle. The ghosts hadn’t made another appearance before they left.
As they walked to the Lexus, Kelly looked over at the house across the street. It was a white house, the shade of a dingy T-shirt, with overgrown shrubs between it and the house next to it. A ramp ran from the driveway up to the porch. An old woman was watching them from the porch. She sat in a wheelchair, a set of binoculars up to her eyes. The binoculars were black and so big they nearly hid her entire face.
Kelly said in a loud whisper to Emma, “Psst, Mom, don’t look now but we’re being Snoop Dogged.”
Emma glanced over at the house in question, staring at it almost a full minute. The woman on the porch never wavered in her surveillance, even under Emma’s returned scrutiny. They stared at each other across the asphalt as Kelly waited for one of them to blink first. Without a word, Emma started across the road in a determined long-legged gait, barely glancing to see if there was any oncoming traffic. Kelly followed in an uneven jog to catch up.
“Mrs. Doxson?” Emma asked as she got close.
The old woman put down the binoculars and stared at Emma with suspicion. “It’s Ms. Doxson.”
“Pardon me,” Emma said with a smile, “Ms. Doxson. My name is Emma Whitecastle, and this is my daughter, Kelly. We’re friends of Chris and Edgar’s—the young men across the street. In fact, my daughter went to high school with Chris.”
The old woman studied Emma, taking in her short blond hair, her stylish flats, her slim jeans and sweater, and her designer handbag. Then she turned her rheumy eyes on Kelly, looking her up and down in the same manner. “You two look almost like sisters instead of mother and daughter.”
“We’ve heard that before,” Emma said with a bigger smile. The two Whitecastle women did look a lot alike. “Chris and Edgar were telling us today that you believe their house is haunted.”
The old woman nodded. “It’s true.” She stared harder at Emma, then pointed a knobby finger at her. “I know who you are. You’re that woman on TV with the show about ghosts and all that other weird stuff, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Ms. Doxson, I am,” Emma replied, “and I’m particularly interested in why you think the house across the street is haunted.”
Snoop Dog turned to Kelly again. “And your girl there, is she into that mumbo jumbo, too?”
“No,” Emma lied. “She’s in college. She just came along with me today to see Chris and Edgar.”
From the corner of her eye, Kelly watched her mother. She’d never known her to lie about anything, except when it came to the ghosts. And she knew for Emma the lies in those cases were to protect herself and the spirits. In this case, Emma was protecting Kelly.
The old woman, as round and spongy as rising bread dough, bent forward in her wheelchair and pointed at the house across the street. “There was a murder over there. And everyone knows murdered folks are doomed to walk the earth until they’re avenged.”
“Where did she get that malarkey?” said Granny, who popped up so unexpectedly Kelly reacted with a small gasp and a hop.
Misreading Kelly’s reaction, the gnome of a woman said, “Sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to startle you with the truth, but there you have it.” She looked up at Emma, who’d gotten a few steps closer. “I’m surprised she doesn’t know that, considering you’re her mother.”
“Kelly’s never shown much interest in the topic,” Emma fibbed with a shrug. “You know how kids are today.”
“Yes, I certainly do,” she said with disgust. “It’s all computers and Facebook and texting to them.” She squinted her eyes at Kelly. “You don’t do any of that sexting, do you?”
Astonished, Kelly pointed a finger at herself. “Who, me?”
“Not our Kelly,” snapped Granny. “She’s a good girl. Well, at least most of the time.”
Kelly snapped her head around to Granny. “What?”
“Your girl seems awfully jumpy.”
Emma got the situation back in hand before Sylvia Doxson got too curious about Kelly’s reactions. “Ms. Doxson, do you have any idea who was murdered in that house?”
Using her feet against the boards of the porch, the old woman propelled her wheelchair closer to Emma. “I know it was a man … a white man with light hair. I saw him dragged from a car in the driveway. He tried to get away and that’s when someone shot him, more than once, and dragged him into the house.”
“No one else heard the shots?” asked Emma.
“They were muffled, like with one of those silencer things.”
“That woman watches way too much TV,” said Granny with a short sniff. “Way too much.”
Emma hid the smile creeping across her face at Granny’s remark by looking from the Doxson porch toward the home of Mayfair Puppetry. “You said it happened at night? How did you see all that from over here? I don’t see many streetlights along this road.”
“I’ve some night vision binoculars,” she answered as simply as if she’d said she had Earl Grey tea. She tapped the binoculars in her lap. “These are my day ones.”
“Good Lord,” said Granny, “this poor woman thinks she’s CIA.”
Kelly stepped forward. “Don’t any of your neighbors ever complain about you spying on them?”
Emma glanced over at Kelly, sending her a warning signal, but Snoop Dog didn’t seem to mind the question. “They used to all the time,” she answered. “Called me all kinds of names, but after the meth lab thing, they stopped. Seems now they consider me useful. Although they still don’t let their kids trick-or-treat at my house and they aren’t very neighborly.”
“Did you tell the police about the man who was shot?” Emma asked.
“Of course I did,” the old woman answered in a bark. “But they didn’t want to listen to the ramblings of an old woman with too much time on her hands.” She picked up a handkerchief she had in her lap, cleared her throat, and spat into it. “Did you know that was a drug den over there?”
“Yes,” answered Kelly, finding her voice and coming closer. “A meth lab.”
“That it was. I kept telling the neighbors somethin
g was funny over there, but no one would listen. A young couple lived there. Not homos like those boys there now, but a seemingly nice regular couple with two little kids. But I knew better. Too many people came and went at night, quiet-like, you know. And they never had any of their curtains open. That house was shut up tighter than a maximum security prison. They even had a nasty dog in the front yard that the kids never played with. What kids don’t play with their dog, unless the dog is only meant to be a mean watchdog?”
“Do you know how the place finally got closed down?” asked Emma.
“What I heard was someone who worked for them got caught selling and turned them in in exchange for a deal. The cops raided the place and everyone and everything got carted off, including those poor children. When that happened, I told the police again about the man I saw killed and dragged into the house. It happened just a week or two before the place got raided, but they told me there was no sign of a murder or anyone fitting that description involved with the place. That house remained empty for a long time after that, until those boys bought it.” She fixed Emma with a laser stare. “They’re not up to anything fishy, are they? I see one of them packing suitcases in and out all the time. The same cases, too.”
“Wow,” said Granny, “she doesn’t miss a trick.”
Kelly laughed. When Snoop Dog turned her old but sharp eyes on her, she stopped, but said, “Chris is a ventriloquist. Those suitcases contain his puppets.”
Snoop Dog looked to Emma. “It’s true,” Emma confirmed. “Chris is an entertainer and quite good. Edgar, his partner, is an artist, also quite talented.”
“What was with the paramedics today?” Snoop Dog asked. “Was that for you or for the white boy?”
“It was for Chris,” Emma answered. “He’d fallen and bumped his head quite badly. Kelly and I found him.” She hesitated, then asked, “Ms. Doxson, did you by any chance see anyone unusual over there today?”
“You mean besides you and your girl?”
“Yes, besides us. Maybe a man just before we got here?”
“No, never saw anything like that. I saw the black one leave. That’s Edgar, correct?” she asked. Emma nodded. “Then a bit later you two showed up,” Snoop Dog continued.
“Thank you for your time, Ms. Doxson,” Emma told her.
“You interested in the man who came by last week or not? I called the police on that one.”
Emma and Kelly fixed their attention on Sylvia Doxson. “When was this?” asked Kelly.
“Just last week. Both of the boys were gone, left in separate cars. As soon as the last one left, this guy walked up to the place. Didn’t drive, just walked up to the house quick-like. It was easy to see he was up to no good because he didn’t go to the front door like a friend would. He went around back, like you did,” she said to Kelly. “And hopped the fence. That’s when I called the police.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?” asked Emma.
“Tall and skinny,” Snoop Dog answered. “That’s about all I could tell.”
Kelly held out a hand to the woman. “Would you mind, Ms. Doxson, if I borrowed your binoculars a moment?”
Snoop Dog hesitated, then handed them over. Kelly put them up to her eyes and trained them on the house across the street. With them, she had a clear view of the driveway leading to the back of the house, the front of the garage, and a large section of the wall she’d scaled earlier. She could also see Edgar and Chris at the window watching them. She was tempted to wave to them, but didn’t.
She handed the binoculars back to Snoop Dog. “Thanks. You really can see everything with those.”
“What happened when you called the police on the man last week?” Emma asked.
“They came and investigated, but said they didn’t find anything. The suspect probably hopped the back fence and went through the back neighbor’s yard when the cops arrived. Later, Chris and Edgar came over. They said there wasn’t any sign of a break-in but thanked me for my diligence. That’s what they called it—diligence. First time they’d ever spoken to me except to wave once in a while. That’s when I told them about the house being haunted.”
“Did they believe you?” Kelly asked.
“Didn’t seem to. They were very polite, though. Mostly they just humored me and went on their way.” She looked at Emma. “You going to put this on your show?” she asked. “I’ll bet the ghost haunting that place is the man who was murdered.”
“Have you actually seen the ghost?” asked Kelly.
“I thought you weren’t interested in things like that?” Snoop Dog asked her in return.
Kelly shrugged. “Just asking a question.”
“No,” the old woman answered. “I haven’t. It’s more of a feeling I get. Like now, around you two. I keep feeling a chill, but there’s no breeze. That’s how I feel sometimes when I look over at that house.”
“Again, Ms. Doxson, I want to thank you for your time.” Emma reached into her bag and produced a business card. “If you notice anything else, please give me a call.” She held the card out and Snoop Dog took it. “That’s my office number,” Emma told her. After giving it a glance, the old woman stuck the card into the pocket of her sweater.
Emma started back across the street. Kelly said good-bye and followed behind her mother like an obedient duckling to the SUV. Granny stayed behind, disappearing into the woman’s house.
They waved good-bye to Sylvia Doxson, then turned and waved at Edgar and Chris, who were still peeking out their front window like a couple of owls.
“What’s Granny doing?” Kelly asked.
Emma buckled her seat belt. “Snooping on Snoop Dog, I hope.”
Chapter 8
“So,” said Emma once they were on their way home. “We still on for dinner? We can compare notes. I’ll tell you what Shirley told me and you can share what Doug told you.”
“Actually, Granny questioned Doug and I listened while trying to keep up my end of the conversation with Chris and Edgar.” Kelly glanced at her mother. “How in the world do you do this?”
“Do what?” Emma asked.
“Juggle the dead and the undead. I felt like I was between two cars backing up with me caught in the middle.”
“I’m used to it, I guess, but today was an unusual situation. Usually, there aren’t this many people talking at the same time. And if there are, the living usually know the dead are in the room.”
“And you handled that nutty woman like a pro.”
Emma smiled. “My guess is that Ms. Doxson is crazy like a fox. She’s probably a lonely old woman without friends or family. Spying on her neighbors might be one way she stays connected with people.”
“It’s still creepy.”
“True, but people almost always have their reasons for being who they are or doing what they do.”
“It sounded like she could sense spirits, at least Granny,” Kelly said as she watched the houses fly by along the streets on their way to the freeway.
“She definitely senses them to some degree,” answered Emma, “but I don’t think it’s much beyond sensing the change in temperature and realizing what it might be. Otherwise, she would have seen Granny, who was doing everything but waving a flag in the woman’s face. Most people can sense spirits, they just don’t know it for what it is.”
Kelly’s cell phone chimed. “It’s a text from Nate,” she told her mother. “He’s picking me up at seven-thirty tonight, so an early dinner would be great, Mom. We have plenty of time. How about that new vegan place on Colorado Boulevard?”
“Sounds good,” Emma agreed. “We can get in and out before the dinner rush.”
Kelly texted a response to Nate before putting her phone back into her purse.
“How are you and Nate doing?” Emma asked.
“Okay,” Kelly responded with some hesitation. “Every time we see each other it’s like we’ve never been apart.”
“I hear a but in there,” Emma prodded.
Kelly shrugg
ed. “But I don’t know where it’s heading or if I even want it to go someplace more serious. We never talk about what might happen after college, except that he’s staying on at Stanford for his MBA and I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet.”
“Does Nate know about you and spirits?”
Kelly looked straight ahead and answered with a chopped, “No.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She flicked her long blond hair over her shoulder. “He thinks what you do is cool, especially the science part of your show, but I don’t think he realizes that you can communicate with spirits yourself. I’m not sure if he’d believe me if I told him about Granny, and unless we get super serious, does he need to know?”
Emma thought about that a moment. “I think that’s going to be your call, sweetie. But I would advise you not to tell him unless you feel it’s right and he’s ready.”
Kelly nodded while she mulled over her mother’s advice. “Nate’s all facts and bottom lines and plans to go into his father’s investment firm after grad school.” She looked over at Emma. “I’m not sure he’d ever be ready.”
Emma laughed. “Look at how far Phil has come, and he’s a lawyer. He even communicates with Granny in his own way when I’m not around.”
Kelly laughed. “I know. I’ve seen him do it. It’s so funny.”
They rode along the 101 freeway. Traffic was moderate and the day bright yet cooling now that evening was fast approaching. Overhead, rain clouds gathered, threatening a March shower.
“I’ve been thinking,” Kelly said to Emma, “about those broken puppet heads you found and the fact that the workshop was so clean. Even though the police said they didn’t find any evidence to prove Snoop Dog’s complaint last week, do you think maybe there was a break-in and the guys are hiding it for some reason? They did seem kind of nervous when you asked about the broken stuff. Maybe there was a burglar and he went through the workshop and not the house, looking for something to steal.”
Dummy of a Ghost (Novella) (Ghost of Granny Apples) Page 5