The Ghost and the Mystery Writer

by Anna J. McIntyre

  Sitting up in bed, Melony leaned back against the mattress’s elevated end. “Well, even if I was clueless about what happened with his wife’s estate, I imagine once you claimed the will was forged, Pete probably started wondering what damning information you’d find in the files that were put into storage after Clarence went to prison. They’re still there, you know. With Mother gone, I have access to them.”

  “So it’s possible, even if the chief hadn’t bluffed, he could’ve found the evidence he needed in those files to prove Pete had a motive to kill your mother?” Lily asked.

  “Very possible. And considering I’m now the only one standing between those files and a search warrant, I don’t imagine Pete will expect me to do much to keep them from the police.” Melony smiled.

  Adam reached out and patted Melony’s shoulder. “Then he shouldn’t have knocked you over the head.”

  Chief MacDonald was just getting into his police car in the hospital parking lot when he heard someone calling his name. It was Danielle. She hurried in his direction.

  “Where’s Chris?” he asked, now sitting in his car, its door open.

  “We came in separate cars. He went home to get some sleep. I guess Joe hauling him down to the police station sort of messed up his night.”

  MacDonald chuckled. “Yeah. I’m still not sure how to explain why I believed Chris’s claim. Or how Chris knew in the first place.”

  Leaning back against the inside of the open car door, Danielle crossed her arms over her chest and smiled down at him. “Sometimes there is no rational explanation.”

  “You’ve taught me that.”

  “But I do have a question for you. I didn’t want to ask back there because I know you told me to keep it to myself.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “In Pete’s letter, how did he know about Jolene blackmailing Steve over his affair with Carla? Or even about the loan she was trying to get? Had she put something in the day planner?”

  MacDonald chuckled. “It’s really that day planner that brought Pete down. If he never took it, he might have gotten away with murder. He was afraid Jolene left some incriminating evidence behind that would implicate him. So after he killed her, he went through her car and then her house. The only thing he found at her house was the day planner, which he took with him so he could go through it.”

  “So she did write about blackmailing Steve in the day planner?” Danielle asked.

  “No. In fact, according to Pete, there was nothing in there about Steve or Pete, at least nothing that would make someone assume she was blackmailing anyone.”

  “Then how did he know about Steve?”

  “Apparently, when Carla and Steve first hooked up, it was in one of their cars in the Pier Café parking lot. Pete was fishing that night and saw them when he went back to his car to get something. They, well…were getting busy.”

  Danielle wrinkled her nose. “Eww…gross.”

  “Pete knew Jolene was trying to get a loan from Steve and had been turned down. He didn’t know she knew about Steve’s affair or if she was blackmailing him.”

  “That creep. He was just throwing Steve under the bus—not that Steve doesn’t belong under a bus.”

  “Exactly. He figured it wouldn’t take long for us to verify Steve was having an affair with Carla and that Steve was on the pier that night. He was supplying us with a motive.”

  Danielle shook her head. “I wonder what will happen to Pete’s money. Is there some statute of limitations on that? Could his estate go back to his sister-in-law, assuming she’s still alive?”

  “I really don’t know. Plus, there may not be anything in Renton’s old files to prove anything. Frankly, I’d be surprised if there was.”

  Danielle stepped away from the car door so MacDonald could shut it. After he did, he rolled his window down and looked up at Danielle. “By the way, Evan enjoyed his time at Marlow House last night.”

  Danielle grinned. “Yeah, Walt told me about it. Says you have a great kid there.”

  “Tell Walt thanks for being so nice to Evan. It means a lot to me. This gift of his, well, I’m not really sure how to proceed. They don’t actually address this type of issue in any of the parenting books I’ve come across.”

  “No, no, they don’t. But Walt and I are here for you and Evan. Chris too.”

  Chapter Forty

  No one noticed Hillary lingering in the waiting area on Melony’s floor. Of course, Hillary did not make an effort to be seen. She discreetly hid behind a tattered edition of Good Housekeeping Magazine. When she was confident Melony was finally alone in her hospital room, she tossed the magazine back onto the coffee table and picked up her purse.

  A few minutes later, Hillary stood nervously at Melony’s open doorway and lightly rapped on the wall.

  Melony looked up from the book she was reading. Her blond hair pulled up into a ponytail and her face free of makeup made her appear much younger than her years.

  “Hillary?” Melony greeted her, closing the book and setting it on her lap. Wearing the hospital gown, she reclined on the hospital bed under a blanket while the elevated head portion of the bed kept her in a sitting position.

  “I didn’t bring flowers,” Hillary said as she walked into the room and glanced around at the abundance of floral arrangements.

  Melony smiled. “I don’t think I need any more flowers.”

  “I wanted to see if you’re okay. You look good.” Hillary nervously stepped to the side of the bed.

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” Melony told her.

  Hillary looked surprised. “You are?”

  “Yes,” Melony said with a nod. “I wanted to apologize to you for how I behaved. I really should never have said those things. Said you were…well, you know…crazy. I can’t believe how unprofessional I was. You deserve more than that from your attorney.”

  “I understand,” Hillary said quietly. “You’re going through a lot, with your mother’s violent death…and considering the murder scene I wrote…I would probably feel the same way if I was you…oh, who am I kidding? I do.”

  Melony frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I think maybe you’re right. I am crazy. There has to be something wrong with me for this to keep happening.”

  Melony pointed to a chair. “Sit down, Hillary.”

  Pulling a chair closer to the bed, Hillary sat down.

  “When Danielle was here earlier, she suggested something—the reason for your dreams. I think she may be right.”

  Hillary frowned. “What’s that?”

  “She suspects you may be clairvoyant.”

  “Clairvoyant?”

  “I never really believed in that stuff before, but it makes sense. Before…because none of the murders that were so similar to your stories were never solved…I always wondered…”

  “If I was involved?”

  Melony nodded. “Yes. I hate to admit that. I did wonder. But the fact that we know who killed my mother proves you weren’t involved.”

  “True. But that doesn’t mean I’m not some sort of horrible person who witnesses people getting murdered and doesn’t do the right thing and come forward. I can understand why you might wonder that, since in the scene I wrote the killer threw the victim’s jewelry off the pier, just as the real killer did. I understand if you’d wonder if I saw him do that and never came forward.”

  “No. I talked to Eddy—Chief MacDonald—according to one of the fisherman on the pier that night, he saw you leave the restaurant and head for the beach. You never went back on the pier that night. You couldn’t have seen Pete get rid of Mother’s rings.”

  Clasping her hands together on her lap, Hillary stared down at her fidgeting fingers. “Clairvoyant,” she murmured. “Perhaps that explains…”

  When Hillary didn’t finish her sentence, Melony asked her, “Explains what?”

  Looking back up into Melony’s face, Hillary took a deep breath and then continued. “When Danielle took me to Ch
ris’s house, I met his neighbor, that man, Pete Rogers. I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “When I heard that he was the one who killed your mother, it suddenly came to me. The man in my dream, the man who killed the woman under the pier, he looked like Pete Rogers.”

  Walt reclined on the library sofa and kicked off his shoes. They disappeared before they hit the floor. He watched as Danielle poured Chris a glass of merlot. The three were alone in the room, its door shut.

  “I thought you’d be home sleeping,” Walt asked Chris as he fidgeted with the cigar he held between two of his fingers.

  “I tried to sleep.” Chris took the glass from Danielle. “But I gave up.”

  Danielle poured herself a glass of wine and then set the bottle on the library desk. She walked to the empty chair next to Chris and sat down. Just as she was about to take a sip of her wine, she looked over to Walt and noticed that while he held a lit cigar in one hand, he now held a glass of wine in the other.

  Danielle watched as he took a sip. “You’re drinking wine?”

  Walt shrugged. “Not really—but I felt left out. You could have offered me a glass.”

  Danielle extended her hand, holding the wineglass to Walt. “Did you want some wine, Walt?”

  “Why thank you,” he said with a cheeky grin and then watched as the wineglass floated across the room, from Danielle’s hand to his. Just as it arrived in his hand, the glass he had appeared to be holding vanished.

  Danielle frowned. “I didn’t think you’d really take it.”

  Walt shrugged and took a sip. But instead of the wine disappearing into his mouth, as had the wine from the first glass he held, the red wine spilled onto the sofa cushion. Seeing what he had just done, Walt righted the glass and cringed.

  “Seriously, Walt, did you just spill wine all over my sofa?”

  Chris chuckled. “Appears that way.”

  “I forgot for a moment how this all works.” Walt sighed and released the glass; it floated—now half full—back into Danielle’s hand.

  Chris and Danielle watched as Walt got up from the sofa. If they thought he was preparing to clean up the wine, they would have been mistaken. Instead, the stained cushion seemingly moved on its own volition, flipping over, and fitting back onto the sofa, but now upside down, concealing the wine stain. Walt took a seat on the cushion.

  Danielle shrugged. “I suppose that works.” She sipped what remained of her wine.

  “I heard what you said to Melony in the hospital room, about Hillary being clairvoyant,” Chris told Danielle.

  “I couldn’t very well tell her a ghost was probably jumping into Hillary’s dreams, sharing real-life grizzly murder scenes with her.”

  “I wonder who this dream-hopping spirit is…or was?” Chris leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles.

  “I wondered if I should try to contact him—”

  “No!” Walt and Chris chorused.

  Danielle flashed them each a scowl. “I didn’t say I was going to. But I did wonder, what kind of spirit manages to witness one murder after another?”

  “Over a dozen murders,” Chris interjected.

  “Exactly. What kind of spirit does that? And if he’s going to share information with someone, wouldn’t it be nice if it helped the police solve the crime?”

  “Not every spirit is as accommodating as Walt,” Chris said as he raised his glass to Walt, giving him a brief salute before taking another sip.

  Narrowing his eyes, Walt studied Chris. “Why do I get the feeling you’re mocking me?”

  “I’d never do that, Walt.” Chris shrugged and then mumbled, “Okay, perhaps a little.”

  “Well, maybe Hillary’s dream-hopping ghost didn’t help her solve any crimes, but thankfully we know who killed Jolene.” Danielle downed the rest of her glass and then stood up. She walked to the desk.

  “But it would be nice if Hillary could use her gift for something more than story fodder,” Chris said.

  Danielle lifted the bottle of wine from the desk and refilled her glass. “Not really sure I’d call it a gift exactly.”

  Walt sighed. “Whatever you want to call it, I have to confess, I’m curious. Rules of the afterlife are confusing at best—and I’ve been dead for almost a hundred years! You’d think I would’ve figured it out by now.”

  “I imagine whatever you haven’t figured out will become clear to you when you eventually move on,” Chris suggested.

  Walt let out a snort. “I imagine you’ll be thrilled when I do.”

  Chris shrugged. “I’m just saying, we’re probably not supposed to have all the answers when we’re here—on this plane. At least, that’s what Danielle’s always saying.”

  Danielle sat back down in her chair. “Whoever the muse is, he’s still lingering on this plane. If he wasn’t, I don’t believe he would have witnessed the murders.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Chris reminded her.

  Walt stared at the cigar in his hand, rolling it gently between his fingertips as its smoke curled upward. “Who makes the rules? I’m confined to Marlow House until I’m ready to move on. Isabella was able to take a road trip with Lily’s attackers. My dear wife is under house arrest at the cemetery for trying to kill me, and that annoying little Harvey was able to visit Presley House each Halloween.”

  “They are pretty random,” Danielle said. “But I suppose there’s some sense in it somewhere.”

  “How is this spirit able to find himself at all these different murder scenes?” Walt wondered.

  After a few moments of silence, Chris said, “Perhaps the muse makes them murder scenes.”

  Danielle and Walt turned to Chris. “What do you mean?” Danielle asked with a frown.

  Chris stood up, taking his now empty glass to the desk. “Maybe he wanders around, watching for conflict, and then does something—provokes the situation. Take Jolene, for example. If Pete Rogers hadn’t found that empty wine bottle—in the middle of the night under the dark pier—in that heated moment, would he have killed Jolene?”

  Exhausted, Hillary took a shower and was heading back to her room when she ran into Danielle in the hallway.

  “You working anymore tonight?” Danielle asked.

  “No. I didn’t get much written today, anyway. Too much going on.”

  “Well, sounds like Melony will be back in the morning. They’re just keeping her overnight for observation,” Danielle said.

  “Yes, I know. I stopped by the hospital this afternoon and saw her.”

  “You did?”

  Hillary nodded. “Yes. She told me what you said—about maybe me being clairvoyant.”

  Danielle smiled. “It is a possibility.”

  “I told Melony something after she told me what you’d suggested…I saw Pete Rogers in my dream.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. He was the one who killed—well, Jolene—in my dream. I knew I recognized him, but I just couldn’t place him. If I am clairvoyant—then maybe I can help solve those other murders.”

  “Do you remember what the other killers looked like?”

  “Yes. That’s the strange thing about my muse dreams—why they’re so different from my other dreams. If I try to remember, I can distinctly recall every detail.”

  “Any of the killers from the other dreams, do you recognize any of them?”

  “Only one. In the first dream like this I ever had.”

  “You’re saying you know who the killer was?”

  Hillary let out a sigh. “Only that I recognized him. It was my muse.”

  Danielle frowned. “Your muse?”

  “Yes. The very first muse dream—where I witnessed a murder, he took me to it. But he was also there. He was the one who killed the first victim.”

  “Your muse was the killer?”

  Hillary nodded. “Yes. I told you he made me uncomfortable in the first dream. He was h
andsome, yet there was something unsettling about him. He wore this black suit and a red bow tie.”

  Danielle climbed into bed and crawled under the sheets and blankets. Max slept soundly at her feet—she could hear him snoring. Glancing down to the foot of the bed, she smiled at the noisy sleeper and then rolled over and closed her eyes.

  When Danielle opened her eyes again, she was sitting on a blanket in a field of wildflowers. Hummingbirds buzzed nearby while chipmunks scampered over the blanket’s edge. Overhead, white clouds dotted the blue sky.

  “Do you know what is nice about this?” Walt asked.

  Danielle turned to her right and found Walt sitting on the blanket with her. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes, but do you know what’s especially nice about visiting a place like this in a dream hop?” he asked.

  Danielle reached out and plucked a flower and then looked at Walt while taking a sniff of the blossom. “What?”

  “No bugs.” Walt smiled.

  “Bugs?”

  “Certainly. You go find a field of flowers in Oregon and pitch your blanket. I guarantee you’ll be covered with mosquitos, flies, and other annoying insects before you have a chance to sit down.”

  Danielle laughed. “I suppose you have a point.”

  Walt reclined on the blanket, propping himself on an elbow, and watched Danielle as she gently brushed the soft petals of the blossom against her cheek.

  Danielle glanced up at Walt. “I’ve missed our dream hops.”

  He smiled softly. “Me too.”

  In the next moment the space behind Walt began to blur and grow hazy. When Walt noticed Danielle staring behind him, he frowned and turned to see what she was looking at. “What the…” Walt began, only to be silenced when a man appeared, standing amongst the flowers. He was a handsome man wearing a black suit and red bow tie.

  Walt stood. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Ignoring Walt, the man looked down at Danielle and smiled. Although handsome, his smile—his expression—gave Danielle a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.