The Case of the Abandoned Warehouse (Mystery House #2

by Eva Pohler

  After the tour, Ellen climbed behind the wheel of the rental car and said, “Why don’t we drive by that tree? I’m kind of curious about it.”

  “You want to?” Tanya asked Sue.

  Sue was getting settled in the back seat behind Ellen. “Sure, why not? This has been a fun adventure, hasn’t it? Even if I won’t be able to walk tomorrow, I really enjoyed tonight. Thank you, Ellen.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Ellen,” Tanya chimed in. “I loved learning all the history.”

  “Me, too.” As Ellen pulled away from The Tavern, she didn’t mention how surprised she’d been by the incident in the ladies’ room or by the suffocating feeling she’d experienced each time she walked by the Brady Theater. A year ago, Ellen never would have believed that one day she’d be interested in ghosts and the paranormal, but it had become the most fascinating subject to her, probably due to the immense joy and satisfaction she’d felt after bringing closure to the Gold House.

  Although most of the activity they’d experienced in the Greek revival hadn’t been caused by an actual ghost, Ellen had felt a profound sense of peace and closure when she and her friends helped solve the mystery of the lost gold. Marcia Gold could finally rest. It had been an amazing feeling.

  She wanted more of that feeling, almost as badly as an addict wants his next hit.

  Tanya turned to Ellen. “What do you think about what Carrie said? About you having the gift?”

  Ellen laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve only recently begun to…sense things. And I still wonder if it’s all in my head.”

  “It’s because you’re just now opening yourself up,” Sue said. “The more you practice, the stronger your gift will become. Take it from me.”

  “What about you, Tanya?” Ellen asked as she turned onto Archer Street. “Do you sense things?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything,” Tanya began. “But both times we passed that old theater, I felt something heavy in my chest.”

  “Me, too!” Sue said.

  Ellen couldn’t believe it. “Are y’all serious? I couldn’t breathe. Why didn’t either of you say anything?”

  “Why didn’t you?” Sue challenged.

  “That is so bizarre,” Tanya said.

  “Now I’m going to have to Google that theater,” Sue said, as they pulled up before the enormous old Burr Oak standing majestically in the light of the half moon. It stood behind a tall fence at what looked like an industrial warehouse. The tree wasn’t accessible from the road.

  Ellen shuddered at the sight of it. The thought of the hanging victims made her feel nauseous. “Why do people do such cruel things to one another? Can you imagine dying like that, hanging from a tree?”

  “Maybe they deserved it,” Sue said. “Maybe it was the best way to maintain order.”

  “I don’t believe in capital punishment,” Tanya said. “Everyone deserves a chance at redemption and forgiveness.”

  “I agree,” Ellen said. “With maybe very few exceptions.”

  “If you believe in exceptions, then you are for capital punishment,” Sue said to Ellen.

  “Ellen always takes the middle ground,” Tanya pointed out.

  “Things aren’t usually black or white.” Ellen turned off the engine and opened her car door. “I want to go look at the tree up close.”

  Although they were in the first few days of autumn, the evening was still hot and muggy as Ellen and her friends walked across the gravel toward the fence.

  “Let’s see if we can get a little closer,” Ellen said, following the length of fence.

  “Haven’t we done enough walking?” Sue called from behind.

  “Come on, Sue,” Ellen said, beckoning to her friends. “There’s an alley access back here.

  “Great, an alley,” Tanya said. “At night, in a strange area we know nothing about.”

  “I think we passed a Braum’s Ice Cream Parlor on the way over,” Sue said. “Anyone up for an evening snack?”

  Ellen slipped past another fence and managed to get a little closer.

  “Look at it,” Ellen whispered, mesmerized by the tree.

  “It’s giving me the creeps,” Tanya said. “I vote for the ice cream.”

  “Fine,” Ellen said, “but I want to run an idea by you both first.”

  “Why can’t you run this idea by us at Braum’s?” Sue wanted to know.

  Ellen reached out a hand and touched the thick trunk of the old tree. “Because I don’t want to be overheard.”

  Tanya and Sue exchanged glances before turning their perplexed looks on Ellen.

  “What’s going on, Ellen?” Tanya asked.

  Ellen tried to think how to word the overwhelming and profound feelings churning inside of her. Tears formed in her eyes as she searched for the right words. She took a deep breath.

  “Ellen?” Sue asked. “Your face looks pale. Are you alright?”

  “It’s just that…” Ellen searched for the words, “what we did with the Gold House was so incredible, you know?”

  Her two friends nodded, still waiting for Ellen’s explanation.

  Ellen continued, “And lately I’ve been feeling, I don’t know, blah again.”

  “You mean depressed?” Tanya asked. “I thought you were taking medication for that.”

  “I am, but it’s not exactly depression,” Ellen said. “It’s like I feel a calling, and I’ve been ignoring it. And ignoring it has been making me feel kind of sick inside.”

  Tanya covered her cheeks with both hands. “I’ve actually been feeling the same way, Ellen! This really is bizarre! I’ve been sad and lonely since my mother died, but there’s something else, too. It’s not quite depression, but a sort of let down that began after we finished the Gold House.” Tears flooded Tanya’s eyes. “To tell you the truth, I’m dreading going back to San Antonio.”

  “Well, aren’t you girls a mess,” Sue said, making them both laugh.

  “Very funny,” Tanya said.

  “Y’all are definitely going to laugh at what I say next,” Ellen warned. Her two friends fixed their eyes on her again. “I want to study the paranormal.”

  “Oh my gawd!” Sue practically shouted. “I can’t believe it!”

  “But I’m not going to assume that every little unexplainable thing is a ghost,” she said. “I’m still a skeptic at heart.”

  “Are you serious? You really want to study this?” Tanya asked.

  Ellen nodded. “I think that’s what’s calling me. After bringing peace to Marcia Gold and her family, I guess I realize there’s more work to do.”

  “Like what?” Tanya asked, batting an insect away.

  “I think I want to find other haunted houses and help their ghosts find peace,” Ellen said.

  As Ellen waited for her friends to reply, she heard something in the tree above them. After a beat, she thought it sounded exactly like the strain of a rope pulling against the lowest branch.

  “Oh my gawd!” Sue whispered.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Tanya cried.

  The three friends scrambled down the alley and around the corner to their rental car.

  Once inside, Ellen glanced back at the tree as she turned the ignition. “So y’all heard that too?”

  “Like a rope twisting?” Tanya asked.

  “Yep,” Sue said.

  And even Sue, who always had more to say, said nothing else as they peeled away, wondering if what they’d heard had been real.

  Chapter Four: The Ouija Board

  While they ate their ice cream in a booth at Braum’s, Ellen told Sue and Tanya her secret. For the past three months, she’d been scouring the real estate market in the historic King William District in San Antonio, hoping to find another haunted house to flip.

  “But the market has been dead lately,” Ellen said. “No pun intended.”

  “We won’t make very good ghost busters if every time we hear a noise we run,” Sue said.

  “Not busters,” Ellen said. “Healers. And we ca
n’t expect to become experts right away. We’ll get better at it. Are y’all interested?”

  “Count me in,” Tanya said.

  “Why don’t we buy a house here?” Sue said before taking a bite of her mint chocolate chip.

  Tanya licked at her Rocky Road. “That’s crazy.”

  “No, it’s not,” Sue said. “Tulsa is in the process of revitalizing itself. The market is saturated with historic homes at rock bottom prices, and young urban couples are eating them up.” She took a bite and added, “And that pun was intended.”

  “How do you know all this?” Ellen asked, her interest piqued.

  “People were talking about it at my table at the wedding,” Sue explained. “Tom was thinking about buying a small bed and breakfast here where we could stay whenever we come up to visit Lexi and Stephen. Their apartment is tiny.”

  Tanya frowned. “I don’t want to pay a fortune in hotel bills. It wouldn’t be economically feasible.”

  “Well, that depends on the price of the property versus what we could sell it for after we fix it up,” Sue pointed out. “And if Tom and I find a place, the three of us could stay there while we do our renovations.”

  “I’m only interested if we can find a property known to be haunted,” Ellen said. “For me, that’s the whole point.”

  “Carrie French said there are plenty of haunted places in Tulsa,” Sue said. “We could look around tomorrow and see if anything suits our fancy.”

  “Look, I would love to flip another haunted house, but Tulsa is so far away from home,” Tanya said. “It took us three months to finish the Gold House.”

  “You just said you were dreading going back to San Antonio,” Sue pointed out to Tanya.

  “I know, but…”

  “We don’t have to be up here during the entire renovation,” Ellen said, wiping some of the strawberry ice cream from her chin. “And you liked the train, didn’t you?”

  “I have an idea!” Sue said a little too loudly.

  Tanya and Ellen both shhhed her as they looked around at the others in the ice cream parlor staring back at them.

  “Sorry.” Sue lowered her voice. “Let’s go buy an Ouija Board and ask it what we should do.”

  “What are we, twelve?” Ellen wrinkled her nose.

  “Sounds like fun,” Tanya said. “But I don’t think it will change my mind.”

  “Well, it should,” Sue said. “My mom and I used to ask it questions all the time when I was younger.”

  “What?” Ellen laughed. “Your mom played the Ouija Board with you?”

  “Being an only child wasn’t easy,” Sue replied. “Don’t judge.”

  “What a good mom,” Tanya said.

  “Not really,” Sue said. “She used to make me do it with her, to ask it if she was going to meet a man and fall in love again.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Ellen moaned.

  “And?” Tanya asked.

  “Sometimes it gave her a name, and she would obsess over it for months, though most of the time it went to No,” Sue said. “But let me tell you why I believe in it.”

  Ellen cocked her head to one side. While it was true that she’d had a major change of heart regarding spirits and the paranormal, the Ouija Board was pushing it, in her opinion.

  Sue took off her readers and laid them on the table. “I was fourteen years old. I had begun to suspect that my mom was the one moving the plastic thingamajig around on the board. So, one day after school, I took it to my room to ask it questions alone.”

  “Weren’t you scared?” Tanya asked.

  “No, I really wasn’t. Not at first, anyway. But then, after I asked it my question, it was a long time before I warmed up to it again.”

  “Why?” Ellen asked. “What was your question?”

  “I asked it, ‘Who are you?’ and it answered, ‘Odin.’ So, I got out the World Book Encyclopedia and looked it up. You can imagine how frightened I was when I discovered that Odin was a Norse god.” Sue laughed.

  “That’s strange,” Tanya said with a chuckle. “But it could have been a coincidence.”

  “I know I didn’t move that thingamajig,” Sue said. “You don’t have to believe me, but the whole reason I played it by myself was to make sure my mother hadn’t been moving it. It moved on its own. I swear it.”

  “So did you ever play it again?” Tanya asked.

  “Yes I did. In college. It’s how I met Tom. But that’s a story for another time.” Sue put her readers on and picked up her iPhone. “Just give me one second. Okay. Here we go. There’s a Walmart four miles away that has one. I think we should go buy it and take it back to your hotel room.”

  Less than an hour later, Ellen and her friends sat around the Ouija Board in Ellen and Tanya’s hotel room. Sue sat on the edge of her seat in the one armchair. Ellen sat beside her in the smaller desk chair. And Tanya faced them both from where she sat on the end of her bed with her legs crisscrossed, yoga style. The Ouija Board laid across Tanya’s lap, and all three ladies had their hands held lightly over the plastic indicator—or planchette—with just their fingertips touching it.

  Tanya glanced at each of them with a giddy smile on her face. “What should we ask it first?”

  “I know,” Sue said. And then more loudly, she said, “Is someone there?”

  At first nothing happened, but after a few seconds, the indicator began to move.

  Ellen studied the faces of each of her friends. She had a feeling Sue was moving the planchette as it landed on Yes.

  But Sue looked up with shock and glee and then asked, “What is your name?”

  Ellen watched on skeptically as the planchette slowly spelled V-I-V-I-A-N.

  Tanya’s face paled. “If you’re doing that, Sue…”

  “I promise you I’m not. I don’t even know a Vivian.”

  “That was Tanya’s mother’s cousin,” Ellen told Sue. “Remember? Tanya’s psychic said she saw Vivian beside Tanya at the Gold House.”

  “You’re not moving it, are you, Ellen?” Tanya asked her.

  “Cross my heart,” Ellen said, still suspicious of Sue. She was also worried about how Tanya would take it if Sue was indeed playing a trick. She gave Sue a warning glance, but Sue furrowed her brows innocently.

  Then Tanya surprised her by saying, “Are you my mother’s cousin?”

  The planchette moved to Yes.

  Tears flooded Tanya’s eyes as she asked, “Is my mother at peace?”

  The planchette moved in a circle and returned to Yes.

  Ellen hoped Sue knew what she was doing, if she was indeed the one controlling the game.

  Tanya’s fingers trembled beside Ellen’s, and tears fell down her cheeks.

  “Are you okay, Tanya?” Ellen asked.

  Tanya nodded. “I don’t know what to ask next. Someone else say something.”

  “What do you want to tell us?” Sue said to the Ouija Board. “Do you have a message for us, or for Tanya?”

  Ellen bit her lower lip as the planchette began to move again. Very slowly, it spelled out H-E-L-P-T-U-L-S-A.

  With narrowed eyes, Ellen studied Sue’s face. “Swear to God that you didn’t do that.”

  “Ellen, I swear,” Sue said. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  Then Tanya said to Ouija Board, “Can you give us a sign that you’re really here, Vivian?”

  The three friends sat in silence for what seemed like many minutes, stealing glances at one another, none of them sure how to proceed. Ellen was just about to suggest that they give up when she heard a noise near the balcony.

  “What was that?” Sue whispered.

  The noise came again. It was like the fluttering of wings.

  “It’s the chrysalises!” Tanya jumped from the bed.

  They all three made their way over to the dome net sitting on the floor by the sliding glass doors to the balcony. The net was shaking from the wings of at least a dozen newly hatched butterflies.

  “Oh my gosh,” Tanya said, just above a
whisper. “They never hatch all at once, and it takes a while before they can fly.”

  Ellen slid the balcony doors open as Tanya lifted the net and Sue waved her hands to direct the butterflies outside.

  “They’ve never hatched all at once like this!” Tanya said again between tears.

  Ellen couldn’t tell if Tanya was smiling or frowning as her friend wiped her face with the hem of her blouse.

  “This is incredible,” Sue muttered with a look of shock on her face.

  “Do you think this is Vivian’s sign?” Ellen asked. A year ago, Ellen would have insisted it was a coincidence, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “It must be,” Tanya said.

  Tanya stood between Ellen and Sue on the balcony as they watched the butterflies flutter in circles in the night sky and fly away. Ellen put an arm around Tanya’s waist to comfort her and felt Sue’s already there. At that moment, Ellen was convinced that something extraordinary had just happened to them. Even if Sue had been controlling the planchette, there was no way she could have orchestrated this.

  Chapter Five: An Abandoned Building

  On Monday morning, Ellen and Tanya met Sue downstairs for breakfast. Sue didn’t look like her usual cheerful self. She had dark rings beneath her eyes, and her brown hair wasn’t curled on the ends.

  “Did you sleep okay?” Tanya asked Sue as they joined her with their full plates at a table by the window.

  “No, I didn’t,” Sue admitted. “I guess I was more spooked by Vivian than I realized.”

  “You should have stayed with us, so you wouldn’t have been alone.” Ellen took a sip of her coffee.

  Sue laughed. “If I couldn’t sleep two floors above you, I doubt I would have slept any better in the same room with you and the ghost.”

  “I don’t think she stayed.” Tanya steeped an herbal tea bag in a mug of hot water, dunking the bag repeatedly before adding honey. “I think she flew away with the butterflies.”

  “Well, I guess my snoring wouldn’t have kept you up after all, since I couldn’t sleep,” Sue said before taking a bite of her pancakes.