Ghost Wanted

by Carolyn Hart

  I’d now completed four successful adventures in Adelaide on behalf of the department. Scratch that. Four missions. Wiggins abhors the idea of ghosts having adventures. Oh, there I go again. He also abhors the use of the term ghost. He equates the noun with the popular picture of ghosts as scary creatures rattling chains. Why chains, I wonder? In any event, I don’t see that saying tomahto makes the fruit any different than tomayto. Emissaries are invisible visitants (except when circumstances arise, as I have indicated) from Heaven to earth. If that doesn’t mean ghosts, I wasn’t standing here in a white linen suit with a delicate gray stripe. As for his stricture against equating a mission with adventure, I firmly believe adventures are good for the spirit. Especially mine.

  “Adelaide.” I beamed at him. “Wiggins, you know I can help.”

  Dot. Dot. Dot.

  True to the early nineteen hundreds, the latest intelligence reaches Wiggins via Teletype.

  Dot. Dot. Dot.

  He whirled at the urgent sound and rushed to the telegraph key fastened to the right side of his desk. A sounder amplified the incoming messages.

  Wiggins dropped into his chair, made rapid notes, his face creased in concentration. Once he drew a sharp breath. The clacks ended. He swung in his chair to me. “You know Adelaide. You could help her.” But he sounded anguished. Clearly he was conflicted. “Precept Two. I have always insisted that Precept Two be observed.”

  Dot. Dot. Dot.

  “Oh, Heavens.” Wiggins took a deep breath and gazed at me with a mixture of hope and shamefacedness.

  Shamefacedness? Wiggins? Whatever could be upsetting him? I hastened to help. “Precept Two,” I repeated firmly. I knew the Precept, of course: “No consorting with other departed spirits.” “Wiggins, don’t worry. That’s the last thing I’d do.” I hoped, of course, he was too distracted to remember that was exactly what I’d done on my last visit to Adelaide.

  Wiggins didn’t appear consoled. If possible, his expression grew even more doleful. “Right.” His tone was hollow. “Absolutely. Definitely, you must observe Precept Two.” He appeared completely demoralized.

  Clack. Clack. Clack.

  He gave the sounder a desperate look, bounded to his feet, and dashed to the ticket box. He pulled down a bright red ticket, stamped the back, and thrust the ticket toward me. “Go. Try. Do what you can. She—oh, Bailey Ruth, she needs help.”

  She? In the past, when Wiggins briefed me on a mission, he explained who I was to help. Last time was an exception, of course. But now as I grabbed my ticket, I knew only that she was in trouble. There was no time for more, because the rumble of iron wheels on the silver track was deafening.

  I rushed out to the platform as the Rescue Express thundered on the rails. The train paused long enough for me to swing aboard a passenger car. I stood in the vestibule, held tight to a hand bar, and leaned out as the Express picked up speed.

  Wiggins’s frantic shout followed me. “Dark dealings being blamed on her. Her portrait . . .” His words were lost in the rumble of the clacking wheels.

  Chapter 2

  I stood in darkness on a wide central landing of wooden stairs. To my right and left, flights led from the landing to the next floor. Golden-globe wall sconces shone at the top of the upper stairways and at the bottom of the central steps. I sensed without seeing much of my surroundings that I was in an old building. Years of use had hollowed the wooden treads. The wooden railings were ornately carved. Should I go up? Left or right? Or possibly down? Wiggins had sent me in such a rush. . . .

  Brisk footsteps sounded below.

  I looked over the handrail.

  A flashlight bobbed. I dimly saw a stocky shape behind the beam. There was no attempt at concealment. Footsteps thumped loudly on the wooden treads.

  I was careful to stay out of the way when he reached the central landing. It startles earthly creatures if they bump into an emissary. The concept of an invisible entity with substance may be as puzzling to the reader as my difficulty with time and Heaven. Take my advice—don’t trouble yourself trying to understand the inexplicable.

  The newcomer stopped on the landing. His arm swung up and the flashlight beam illuminated a portrait in a fine gilt frame. “No problems tonight, Miz Lorraine.” There was a defensive edge to the gruff tone, as if he were making an apology of some sort. “I do my best. I can’t be here and there and everywhere at the same time. I’m sorry as can be I mentioned you to that student reporter. But when there were roses everywhere, I thought maybe you were doing something special. Everybody on campus knows you loved giving out roses. I’m sick about those headlines in the student newspaper—”

  I recognized both the portrait and the name. The beautiful woman in the portrait with sleek blonde hair and gray blue eyes was Lorraine Marlow, and she had been dead long before the Serendipity went down in the Gulf. I’d often admired this regal portrait on the landing of the central staircase in the college library. I felt a prickle of unease. The man with the flashlight addressed the portrait in a familiar way. I was sure this was not the first time he’d spoken to her.

  “—and I’ll keep looking every night ’til I find out who’s behind the trouble. I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off to that reporter. I wish I’d never talked to him. I thought Joe Cooper was a good man, been to Afghanistan and come home to go to school and make something of himself. But he’s disappointed me.”

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark. The speaker was bear-shaped in a dark cotton jacket, dark trousers, and work boots. The left sleeve of the jacket was pinned to the shoulder. I wondered how he had lost that arm. He moved uncomfortably from one foot to another. “Miz Lorraine, I’m doing my best to get to the bottom of it, but there’s so many ways in and out of the library. If only I hadn’t talked about you. I can’t believe what he wrote. I’m going to tell him what I think about him.”

  “Everything will work out. Joe’s a nice young man.” The voice was high and clear with a bell-like tone, a kind voice, yet definitely that of a woman accustomed to deference.

  I looked wildly about. But there was only the man with the flashlight looking up at the portrait.

  “Miz Lorraine, did you see what he wrote? About the rose in his office?”

  “I did leave that particular rose.” The light musical voice sounded happy. “I’m glad. I was there when he talked to that young woman. They are meant for each other. But like so many of the young, they think careers are more important. But I had nothing to do with the other roses.”

  I looked up at the portrait, managed a silent swallow. I had no doubt the woman’s voice belonged to Lorraine Marlow, who had been dead for many years.

  “He didn’t deserve a rose.” The deeper voice was resentful, angry. “Not when he’s acted the way he has, writing you up in the same way he wrote up the gargoyle and that book.”

  “Dear Ben.” There was laughter and affection in her voice. “Everyone deserves a rose. Love is all that matters. Anyway, none of this is your fault.”

  I scarcely breathed as I listened. The beautiful high voice, full of light and grace and kindness, was encouraging. Nonetheless, I was listening to a disembodied voice with no visible speaker and I knew without doubt I was at the right place at the right time. I had found Wiggins’s damsel in distress.

  In my excitement, I blurted out, “You must be she!”

  Wiggins was upset because she was in trouble. He’d let slip that he’d always paid particular attention to Adelaide. Because of Lorraine Marlow? How could he have known her?

  I reached out, touched the edge of the portrait frame. “Lorraine, can you tell me—”

  “Who’s there?” His flashlight beam flipped up the stairs, down, over the railing to the dark rotunda below. “Nobody there. Must be upstairs.” He clattered up the steps, shouting, “Stop! Whoever you are. Trespassing. Stop.” Obviously Ben hadn’t confused my lower husky voice with
Lorraine’s, and he was in full pursuit of an unseen interloper.

  Now the portrait was in darkness, but I remembered Lorraine Marlow’s long, delicate face framed by soft golden hair, her smooth forehead, aristocratic nose, high cheekbones, and delicately pointed chin. There was an elfin quality to her beauty, a haunting sense of gentleness and kindness lost too soon. Her widowed husband endowed the library with much of his fortune after her early death, and the portrait was hung in her memory. At his death, Rose Bower, their fabulous estate that adjoined the far side of the campus, was left to Goddard College and became the site of the college’s most elegant parties and receptions and served as well as guest quarters for distinguished visitors.

  Thoughts tumbled in my mind. Wiggins’s summons. His distress. Precept Two. My bewilderment when my promise to strictly adhere to Precept Two—“No consorting with other departed spirits”—made Wiggins even more miserable. Dastardly deeds in Adelaide. Well, why didn’t he just tell me I was supposed to help Lorraine Marlow and to heck with Precept Two?

  Ben was too far away to hear me, but I kept my voice low. “Wiggins sent me.”

  Silence.

  Words are not always necessary. Emotions communicate without a whisper of sound. I knew Lorraine Marlow listened, breath held, amazed, surprised, shocked. Wiggins meant something to her. Yet I felt resistance. It was as if a door had closed solidly, firmly.

  I plowed ahead. It always amazes me how often everything could be made right if people spoke honestly. However, no one has ever accused me of pussyfooting around. “I’m Bailey Ruth Raeburn. I grew up in Adelaide.” I was trying to remember some of her history. I thought she had come to Adelaide after she married Charles Marlow.

  No response. The only sounds were slamming doors on the second floor and Ben’s gruff shouts. The silence on the landing was sentient, wary.

  Was there sadness in her silence? Or dismay? Or fear?

  I said gently, “How did you know Wiggins?”

  A quick intake of breath.

  Train travel dominated the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Women in long skirts alighted from carriages to enter bustling stations, accompanied by hatted men in dark suits. Wiggins was a product of his times in a stiff white shirt, suspenders, black woolen trousers, and high-topped black shoes. I knew him in his Heavenly station. I didn’t know anything about his life on earth except that he had loved being a stationmaster. “Wiggins has a train station in Heaven. He sends emissaries to earth on the Rescue Express to help people in trouble.”

  “Ooh.” Her voice was soft. “How like Paul. He loved his station. He planned to go back—” She broke off.

  Paul? Go back? Lorraine and I both were making discoveries. Wiggins’s first name was Paul. She hadn’t known him as a stationmaster. “When did you know”—I paused. I scarcely felt it proper to call Wiggins by his first name—“him?”

  “Paul sent you here?” There was a wondering tone in the light, high voice.

  “I just arrived.” I put two and two together. “Wiggins wants you to come to Heaven.”

  Abruptly, the silence was empty. I was alone on the landing. The portrait was only a picture.

  Heavy steps announced the watchman’s return. He was a little breathless from his exertions. He lifted the flashlight, and the lovely portrait was again revealed. “I didn’t find anyone. I don’t know about that voice. Maybe it was the wind and I got it mixed up in my mind. Sorry if I worried you, Miz Lorraine. I guess everything’s okay tonight. But something happened three nights in a row. Why not tonight? Maybe”—hope lifted his voice—“I got ’em too scared to come back.” A pause. “Whoever’s coming knows all about the library and when I make my rounds and, like I said, I can’t be everywhere at once. I’m going to mix things up the next few days, spring some surprises. Now”—he tucked the flashlight under his arm, touched his cap with two fingers in a respectful salute—“you rest easy. I’ll see to everything.”

  He turned and stumped down the steps, flashlight beam flicking from side to side.

  I was sure I’d know if Lorraine Marlow heard him. I had no sense of her presence. I was a bit miffed at Lorraine’s recalcitrance. She needn’t think she was going to keep me from my appointed task. I was here to help her and, by golly, she was going to be helped. Obviously she felt it wasn’t any of my business how she’d known Wiggins. I’d counted on her to explain why Wiggins was so upset, but I was sure I could find out on my own.

  I flowed alongside Ben as he swung his flashlight beam between bookcases. He checked the main stacks, painstakingly opened the doors to the large reading rooms, made sure no one was there, even took time to peek into darkened individual carrels. The clock in the library tower struck eleven as we came out the main door and started down wide marble steps.

  Occasional lampposts, all gleaming a soft gold, were placed every twenty-five yards along the main walk. Ben made a circuit of the library, flashing his light into shrubbery, then up to illuminate arched windows. The gothic redbrick building was topped with a crenelated parapet. He thudded down short steps to check a basement door, swept the beam of his flashlight along a wide loading dock. Finally, apparently confident that everything was secure, he left the sidewalk and took a path that angled through a grove of trees to a nondescript one-story brick building.

  The light above the entrance revealed the legend on a frosted front door panel: Campus Security. He entered, lifted a hand in greeting to a young man lounging behind a counter.

  “Yo, Ben. All quiet tonight?”

  “All secure.” Ben stepped to a side table, punched a time clock.

  “Okay. Woody’s already out in the car. We told him to keep a special watch on the library. Not that any of us can do much about a ghost.” The man behind the counter picked up a magazine with a cover that I thought Wiggins would find shocking.

  Ben bellowed, “Blaming Lorraine Marlow’s a crock!” The cords in his neck tightened and his burly shoulders bunched.

  The magazine lowered. “Hey, cool off, man.”

  Ben shook his head and pushed through the door. Out in the night, Ben turned to his left, followed a sidewalk behind the building to a parking lot.

  I rode in the passenger seat of his pickup. He drove through sleepy residential streets to a modest neighborhood with one-story bungalow-type homes. I noted the street name. He turned into a graveled drive. He swung heavily from the cab and walked slowly, obviously a weary man, to the front porch.

  I didn’t follow him. The address was 522 Willow Street. I now knew enough to find out a great deal more about him.

  Chapter 3

  My first stop was the college’s main administration building. Locked doors, of course, posed no obstacle. I dropped into an office and found a campus directory. I perched on the edge of a desk and made a phone call.

  “Campus Security.” The male voice was alert. It was late to be calling—the round clock on the wall showed twelve minutes after eleven—so I made my voice calm and cheerful. “Sorry to bother you, but I just got off work and wanted to call and leave a thank-you for that nice security officer at the library. I think his name is Ben . . .” I paused expectantly.

  “Yes, ma’am. Ben Douglas.”

  I burbled on. “He found my billfold. I lost it in the parking lot, and he was kind enough to bring it to me. Please tell him”—I hesitated for only an instant—“that Theresa Lisieux sends him her thanks.” It was necessary to give a name, and I decided to honor Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who was always cheerful and happy to be of service no matter how menial the task. In case Wiggins was listening, this clearly indicated that my mind and heart were in the right place. I hung up.

  The personnel files were in a chilly room connected to the Human Resources office on the second floor. Four rows of metal filing cabinets looked daunting. I turned on the lights, humming as I figured out the filing system. I was pleased that paper fil
es existed. No doubt the files were also available digitally. I was no expert, but it appeared to me that current earthly residents take unseemly pride in how everything is online yet continue to create reams of paper that fill filing cabinets in every office.

  I carried Ben Douglas’s slim file to a worktable. I verified his address on Willow Street. I read swiftly. Native of Adelaide. Sixty-eight years old. Graduate of Adelaide High School. Entered the Army as a private. Stationed in Da Nang in Vietnam. Lost an arm in a firefight with the Vietcong. Returned to Adelaide. Entered Goddard College. Degree in business. Worked as an insurance claims adjustor. Widower. Retired three years ago, hired as a part-time security guard.

  I was walking toward the cabinet to return the folder when a deep voice shouted, “Hands up. Security. Hands up.”

  Startled, I looked around.

  A burly young man with a heavy build and a slender brunette, both in Campus Security uniforms, stood just inside the door, walkie-talkies in one hand, the others near holstered guns. They stood frozen, staring at the folder suspended waist-high in the air.

  “Oh my goodness.” I looked down at the folder in my hand. I, of course, wasn’t visible, so the folder appeared to be stationary some four feet from the floor. I hoped Wiggins would understand that I was between the devil and the deep blue sea. I let go of the folder.

  Two sets of eyes followed the green folder’s plunge downward. The folder landed with a light splat, opening to let the contents escape.

  “That folder. How’d it do that?” The man’s voice was perhaps a bit higher in register than normal.

  “I don’t know.” The young woman’s voice was a little uneven. “I guess some woman’s in here and was holding it and somehow we didn’t see her. A woman’s voice said, ‘Oh my goodness.’ She has to be here. Nobody went past us. Hey, Al, you look up and down the rows of cabinets. She’s either hiding somewhere or she’ll have to come this way.” She placed her hand on her holster. “We’ll take her into custody. She’s trespassing and mucking around with files. I’ll be here at the door. No way she can get out.”