2 A Reason for Murder

by Morgana Best

  "I'm making notes."

  "What for?"

  "I'm a journalist and I'm doing a story on Morpeth ghosts. I won't mention the Widow Palmer of course, but I would like to write about Baxter Morgan. Would I mind if I phoned you early this week and asked you more questions?"

  "No, you cannot, lassie. You can ask me now." Scotty clutched at my hand and dug his fingers into my wrist. "You need to solve the murder of Baxter Morgan."

  I pulled my hand free and jumped away. "I thought he was hanged by the police, not murdered."

  Scotty loomed over me. My statement appeared to have angered him. "Murder it was, lassie. Whoever falsely accused Baxter Morgan as good as murdered him. It was murder, for sure."

  I nodded. "Yes," I said in a small voice.

  Scotty rubbed his chin. "And, if you find out who murdered poor old Baxter Morgan, you will find the treasure."

  I mulled that over, which was difficult as I was freezing. The mist was damp. It didn't make sense to me, but then again, if I'd been sitting in front of a fire with a glass of red in my hand, it might have made perfect sense. "How will that help find the treasure? Wouldn't the false accuser have spent it?"

  Scotty laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. Tingling passed through me and at the same time I fancied I saw his eyes glow red, then caught myself for being so fanciful. "The treasure is still there. The ghost of poor old Baxter Morgan will find the treasure when his accuser is named."

  Okay, that was weird. I knew I shouldn't ask. "And how do you know this? Do you talk to Baxter Morgan's ghost?"

  Scotty's tone was serious. "Aye. I speak to him all the time."

  Everyone just stood there, dumbstruck. Nothing stirred in the chill night.

  "If animals could speak the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."

  (Mark Twain)

  Chapter Seven.

  Who was Baxter Morgan and why was it necessary to solve a murder from well over one hundred and fifty years ago? I had no idea, so I gave up for the moment and sat in my office researching the Morpeth ghosts. I'd already handed in my story to Skinny Troll, but was now looking up some facts. After all, Skinny was not too interested in facts.

  I'd been to the Rare Books and Special Collections Library in the Fisher Library at the University of Sydney and had come across A Geographical Gazetteer of the Australian Colonies dated to 1848 and written by a W. H. Wells. It said there were five pubs in Morpeth at the time whereas Gavin King had said there were eighteen.

  Hardly earth shattering research, but I can't help myself. I just have to uncover all the facts. When I was at university, the professors even gave me a Footnoting Award as a joke. I can't even resist the urge to say that the gazette's full name is A geographical dictionary, or, Gazetteer of the Australian colonies: their physical and political geography, together with a brief notice of all the capitals, principal towns, and villages, also of rivers, bays, gulfs, mountains, population, and general statistics, or that the author's full name was catalogued as Wells, William Henry, 1817?-1860. At least I didn't mention the call number. Oh okay, here it is: elkin 207 in the Special Collections Database. Research is my addiction, on an equal basis with coffee.

  I had called Gavin and pointed this out, but he didn't seem to care. I had told him that Scotty's tour disagreed with his on many points, and he had said that Scotty was a silly old man with a good imagination.

  I was glued to the computer when Skinny opened my office door hard and hit my chair. My office is a converted storeroom, and the door is directly behind my back. The storeroom hasn't exactly been converted; there is just a computer with desk and chair up one corner, and the rest is still a storeroom.

  "Not too bad, Misty, apart from all your usual typos."

  I was taken aback; this was high praise indeed.

  "You do have too much filler, so you'll have to fix that." Skinny snorted rudely. "Our readers won't care that Henry Wells said there was a large government wharf, a customs house and officer, a coal mine, five inns, a soap and candle factory, a butter factory, a metal factory, five large stores, a flour mill and one hundred and seventeen buildings in 1848. Facts, Misty, you always have too many facts - too many facts and too many typos."

  Skinny slapped the article down on top of a box of printing paper and scratched out a section with a red pen that she'd just taken off the shelf.

  "However, this bit about the treasure is good," she continued. "Write two more paragraphs on the treasure, and then resubmit. Don't get Gavin King offside by saying his information could be wrong. His photos were excellent, especially the one of him with the big orb."

  After Skinny left, I rewrote the two paragraphs rather quickly. I was a bit cross about the fact that the orb photo would appear with my article, but kept reminding myself that this was a paranormal magazine and not a research paper.

  I was just reading the fascinating story of Mortimer William Lewis Junior, the architect of the Morpeth Courthouse, (it was so sad that his daughter and his mother-in-law died from scarlet fever two days apart in November 1854,) when Skinny again opened the door hard onto the back of my chair. "Misty, this will do. I've edited it of course to make it more suitable, to take it to the next level. The readers will be interested in the treasure. Head back to Morpeth for the week. I've booked your accommodation at a cheap motel in nearby Maitland. This is not a holiday. We're going to run your article, with my heavy editing of course, as a teaser, and then in an upcoming issue we'll do a feature on the Morpeth ghosts. Leave now and drive there. There's no time to buy new clothes."

  I was confused. "Why would I want to buy new clothes?"

  Skinny hesitated. "Oh, sorry, Misty. I haven't seen you in any new clothes lately and I thought as you'd put on weight, you couldn't fit into your old ones."

  With that, Skinny closed the door to my storeroom. I pinched my love handles between my fingers, testing them for size. Everyone has those, right? I felt quite upset. I had not uncovered a shred of information about Baxter Morgan, much less his murder, and I was also worried about Diva. I'd have to find a cat babysitter at short notice.

  "People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life."

  (Faith Resnick)

  Chapter Eight.

  I was tired and stressed by the time I arrived at the cheap Maitland motel. It looked nice from the outside, and the lady at reception was friendly, but my room was a disappointment. The room was tiny, and the bathroom was decidedly Spartan.

  I threw my duffel bag on the decaying yellow bedspread, pulled some teabags out of a zipped section and boiled the jug. I had developed a weird liking for Lapsang Souchong tea during my recent visit to England. After I made a cup of tea and devoured the motel's sole cookie offering, I called Gavin King, expecting to get his Voicemail, but he answered.

  "Hi Gavin, Misty Sales. I'm actually back in Morpeth. Thanks for the photos; the editor loves them. The magazine wants to do a big feature on Morpeth, so could we set up a time for me to interview you please?"

  To my surprise, he didn't seem at all pleased. "Look, Misty, I'm a bit concerned. I've gone through some back issues of your magazine and saw you did a big article debunking ghost photos. How do I know you're not going to do something like that to me? I have a big book contract coming up and it's worth a lot of money to me."

  I groaned inwardly. "Gavin, seriously, we're not that type of magazine. In that article you mentioned I simply pointed out some of the outrageously faked photos. Our magazine isn't into debunking; our magazine is about the paranormal. Our readers believe in the paranormal."

  I hoped I had convinced him. I was wrong.

  "You made comments to me about orbs on the tour the other night. You said they were not paranormal. I tell you, some of us have seen faces in the orbs."

  It would have proven wise for me to keep my mouth shut at that point. Alas, I did not. The researcher in me just has to spew forth facts. "I'm sure you thought
you could see faces in the orbs, but that is what's known as matrixing, the ability of the brain to attach familiar shapes to unusual objects, such as seeing familiar shapes in clouds or seeing a face on the moon. Just go to any paranormal website by actual paranormal investigators, and you will find that orbs have been debunked for well over a decade now. If a particle of dust or water is near the camera lens and outside the depth of field, that is, out of focus, it'll appear on a photo as a solid orb. If the dust particle is seen at a certain distance, the distance from the camera to the object being photographed where the object is in focus as accurately as possible, grows into a blur spot with increasing distance from it. Chromatic aberrations also come into play and modify the blur spot. Would you like me to explain chromatic aberrations?"

  "No!" Gavin almost yelled. "No, please don't. I didn’t understand a word you said! This is a strange way to reassure me that you're not doing an exposé, sensationalist piece on me."

  I mentally slapped myself. "No, I'm not, and the editor was very taken with the photo of you and the orb. She's always refused to let me write against orbs. It's a paranormal magazine. I'm just a journalist there, and my instructions are to do a feature on the ghosts of Morpeth. No exposé at all, seriously."

  "Okay. I can meet you anytime tomorrow morning." Gavin still sounded a little wary.

  One ghost tour guide down, one to go. I had no phone number for Scotty, so decided to do some research on the net to check out his story. I set up my laptop and again googled Baxter Morgan, but still uncovered not much at all and certainly no mention of any treasure.

  After some digging, I hit the jackpot - finally, some information on Baxter Morgan. I discovered that Mr. Morgan had been friends with the Catholic Priest Fr. John Joseph Therry who'd arrived in Australia on the ship Janus on May 3, 1820. Fr. Therry had been the first to celebrate mass in Morpeth. Baxter Morgan also had a business relationship with the Anglican Edward Close and leased land from him.

  From all accounts, Baxter Morgan had been a very wealthy man, so a treasure was not out of the question. I couldn't find a thing about his execution. It did seem strange that he was executed, given his wealth and position, and the little I could find spoke highly of him.

  I tried the death records on the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages website and searched early church records 1788-1945. Luckily it was a free search, as I couldn't find a record of his death. I searched for members of the Jewboy Gang, all of whom were executed on March 18, 1841, but could only find the death records of the gang members Edward Davis (spelled Davies in some newspaper accounts) and John Marshall.

  I googled until I fell asleep.

  I awoke just before dawn, and realized my predicament. No coffee machine was in sight. The coffee shops in Morpeth would not open until nine, and I wouldn't last that long. Then it hit me. There would have to be a McCafe in Maitland. In fact I knew there was one just off the New England Highway. I hurriedly showered and dressed, and then drove south for my first caffeine hit. In Australia we call McDonald's Maccas. Every Maccas in Australia has a McCafe, which in Oz is an actual, full coffee shop. In fact, the first worldwide McCafe was in Melbourne, Australia, in 1993. Years later, McCafe extended to the USA, but not as a fully fledged, separate coffee shop like we have over here.

  After a leisurely breakfast of three cups of coffee and three berry friands, followed by nearly getting wiped out by a car in the confusing exit from Maccas, I made my way to Morpeth.

  The Tea Leaf reading lady Jennifer was friendly and welcoming. It was intriguing to see inside Eliza Cantwell's cottage, now a New Age gift shop filled with crystals, incense, various religious figurines, and the most amazing array of singing bowls. I selected a beautiful indigo one on a gorgeous blue cushion and Jennifer showed me how to make it ring, and booked me in for a reading in just over an hour.

  I decided to fill in the time by going on the history tour in the covered, horse-drawn carriage drawn by the Clydesdale mare, Juliet, quite a hit with the tourists.

  One of the pick up points was the Morpeth Trading Post, run by Christine, the wife of Dieter who runs the horse-drawn, the Juliet-drawn that is, history tours. Never in all my life have I seen so much second hand stuff packed into one spot. Antiques, pre-loved stuff, old tools, you name it, it was all here and piled up high. They could do a whole episode, well, even a whole season, of Bargain Hunt just out of this one store.

  I could hear Juliet clip-clopping down the street when Gavin drove up. He got out of his car and signaled to me. I crossed the road.

  "Misty, something's come up. Can you interview me now? Would that be okay?"

  There went my carriage ride. "Where?"

  "The Morpeth Pie Man? I haven't had breakfast. Hop in."

  "That's okay, I'll meet you there. I know where that is, in Green Street, right?"

  Gavin nodded and drove off. That was nicely convenient for me, as the Pie Man was next door to the Tea Leaf Reading lady.

  Gavin was talkative, telling me of his alleged ghost sightings in between mouthfuls of two Beef and Burgundy Mash and Pea Pies which he scoffed in double quick time. I averted my eyes on more than one occasion. I made copious notes despite being sure it was all a load of trash, and boring to boot, but it suddenly got interesting after I made an aside about mistranslations in the Bible.

  Gavin jumped on my idle remark. "Yes, do you know that most English Bible versions mistranslate Lilith as owl?"

  No, I didn't, and shook my head.

  "Isaiah 34:15."

  I made a note.

  Gavin continued. "It says, 'The wild animals of the desert will meet with the howlers, and the hairy goat demon will cry to its fellow. Lilith will settle there and find a resting place for herself.' Most of the English Bibles change Lilith to a screech owl or a night creature."

  I was a little surprised that Gavin would know a Bible reference, let alone be able to recite it. "Do you know Hebrew? Do you mean Lilith as in the dark goddess?"

  Gavin ignored my first question but pounced on my second. "Lilith has had a lot of bad press. She's the wife of Sammael."

  I tried to recall some ancient history. "Sammael? Isn't he like, some evil dude or something?"

  Gavin wiped some pie from his mouth before replying. "Sammael's had bad press too. He's not to be confused with Satan either." Gavin leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "There are Satanic rituals all over the Hunter Valley." He looked around theatrically, and then produced his expensive camera, and showed me an image of people in dark cloaks with hoods around a fire.

  "How did you get that?" I tried to sound impressed but it was obvious to me that he'd bought it from a royalty free photo library. "Is that going in your book, too?"

  "Yes." He beamed from ear to ear, which was unfortunate as bits of pie were stuck to his teeth. "I might be able to give you one of the photos for your article."

  "Great." I hoped that I sounded convincing. I failed.

  "I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, Misty."

  "No, not at all." I tried my best to sound believable.

  Gavin carefully placed his napkin on his plate, and placed his elbows on the table. His voice took on a somber quality. "Do you believe spirits can kill people?"

  I was taken aback. "I don't know."

  "There is no hope for some. If they cross the wrong person, a deadly power targets them. There is no escape."

  I feared I was being threatened, and wondered if I should simply ask. Instead, I said, "Oh, look at the time. I'm booked in for a tea leaf reading next door."

  I felt uneasy when I walked past Gavin to get to the door, but then the impression went away.

  I've had a few readings in my time, but Jennifer the Tea Leaf Lady proved spine chillingly accurate.

  "Hmm. I can see here that you're clairvoyant-medium, and that recently you've started to see spirits."

  "Exactly!" I was impressed.

  "There's a spirit trying to get through to you but he's been warded somehow,"
she continued. "He needs your help. There's a lot of deception around him; things are not as they seem. Be very careful with this. Evil arts are involved. I'm getting a connection to Africa."

  Jennifer turned the cup around and peered inside. "There are lots of secrets around you. I also see clumps of change coming up for you. Change is all around you. I'm seeing a lot of deception, deception everywhere. People are not what they seem."

  I nodded. "Yes, that's exactly right." I took copious notes. Jennifer was very detailed, giving dates and specific information.

  Jennifer looked up at me. "I can see two men coming in and out of your life, all very secret. One is significant to you personally. He's a good looking man, and you're attracted to him. You will -"

  I rudely interrupted her. "No, I'm not attracted to him!"

  Jennifer appeared startled by my outburst.

  "I suppose he's good looking, but I've never really noticed."

  Jennifer looked at me in disbelief. She looked down at the tea leaves, and then back at me, frowning.

  With that the reading came to an end. I wished I had kept my mouth shut and found out more of what Jennifer had to say.

  When I left the Tea Leaf Reading Lady, I turned my phone back on and saw eight missed messages from Skinny. I walked across Green Street and sat down on the seat outside the Teddy Bear store. I called her with apprehension. Her screeching voice always sank my stomach and put me on edge.

  "Misty, where have you been?" she shrieked. Her voice was like fingernails down a chalkboard. I shuddered.

  "I've been interviewing people today so I've had my phone turned off."

  "Whatever. Misty, you need to keep me updated at all times. This is not a holiday. I called to say I want you to focus on the treasure. Our readers will like it, and it's a little different from the usual. Interview that tour guide about the treasure, and tie it into ghosts. Take it to the next level."

  Without waiting to say goodbye, Skinny hung up. Now I was horribly tense.