1 The Ghost in the Basement

by SUE FINEMAN

  “Charity was showing me what her room looked like when the house was built.”

  Donovan looked happy these days. He had his job back, and he was pretty sure he’d be captain next summer, when Captain Rogers retired. With the upheaval in the department and in city government, there were no guarantees of a promotion, but Hannah knew everyone was pulling for him.

  Hannah had given up trying to maintain her independence by making Donovan sleep in his own room most nights. They were sharing her room now, because neither of them could sleep without the other. They didn’t have sex every night. Sometimes they just snuggled and talked, and that felt more intimate, because she could talk to Donovan about anything. She’d held some things in for so many years, they’d been chewing holes in her spirit.

  She still hadn’t told him she loved him. He wouldn’t marry her anyway. Not now. It was no longer about which one of them owned the house, and it wasn’t that he still owed on Maggie’s hospital bill. She and Maggie and Monique shared the same genes. Maybe Donovan thought if they married, she’d spend money like Maggie or turn into a clone of her mother, but Hannah was honest to a fault, and after living with Trevor, she’d learned to be careful with money.

  After they made love that night, Donovan fell asleep. In the dim light from the nightlight bulb, Hannah watched him sleep, so handsome it hurt her heart to look at him. She wondered if this was the way Charity felt about Andrew, loving him and knowing they had no future together.

  A baby cried in Hannah’s dream that night, and then a big, hairy hand closed over the baby’s face. The baby kicked and struggled for a few seconds and then stopped struggling. “He killed it. Oh, God, he killed the baby.”

  She woke with Donovan shaking her. “Hannah, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

  As the fog of sleep left her brain, the dream stayed vivid in her mind, and she realized it wasn’t an ordinary dream. Charity had given her another vision of the past. Was that her baby? Who killed it, and why?

  “Someone killed her baby,” she told Donovan.

  “Whose baby? Charity’s?”

  Hannah closed her eyes. “Was that your baby, Charity?” This time she knew for sure it was a vision. She saw a tiny headstone with Hannah Taylor engraved on it. The year was 1918. A woman dressed in black and a small boy stood at the foot of the grave, and they were both crying.

  “Oh, Charity, I’m so sorry.”

  Snuggling in Donovan’s arms, Hannah realized she must have been named for her grandfather’s baby sister, the baby someone killed. Andrew wouldn’t have done it, and the only other man in Charity’s life was her husband.

  “No more visions tonight, Hannah,” said Donovan. “You’re still shaking from the last one.”

  “The baby couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. That man put his hand over her face and smothered her. He murdered a tiny baby.”

  “Shh. It happened in the past. Close your eyes and go back to sleep. No more visions tonight, Charity. That’s enough.”

  The vision was over, but it took Hannah forever to get back to sleep. This one had shaken her right down to her soul. That wasn’t just the baby’s name on that tombstone.

  It was also hers.

  <>

  The next morning, while she put breakfast on the table, Hannah decided she wanted to put flowers on the baby’s grave. She asked Donovan if he wanted to go with her.

  “Sure. Did you get any landmarks in your vision?”

  “No, but there’s only one cemetery in River Valley. I know it’s not near where Dad and Grandpa and Grandma are buried.”

  “I’ll call the cemetery and ask for the location. We’ll find it. What was the baby’s name?”

  “Hannah Taylor. She died in 1918.” She died at the hand of a brutal man.

  Her own father.

  A light snow was falling when Donovan drove Hannah to the cemetery. Thanks to the directions from the man on the phone, they found Charity’s grave with no problem. Hannah was right. Their graves were in a different spot in the cemetery. Cal probably bought only enough gravesites for the baby, himself, and Charity. The baby’s stone was tiny, with just a name and year.

  Hannah Taylor

  1918

  “She couldn’t have been more than a few days or a few weeks old. She was so tiny Cal’s hand covered her whole face and his fingers wrapped around her head. Why did he kill her?”

  Donovan put his arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “He probably thought the baby was Andrew’s. That’s why he killed Andrew. He thought the builder and his wife were having an affair while he was away on business.”

  “That’s no reason to kill an innocent baby, but I suppose if he’d let her live, he would have made her life a living hell. If I had been in Charity’s shoes, I would have killed Cal. Bad enough he beat her and killed a grown man, but this… ” Tears streamed down her face and fogged in the cold air. “I hope he’s rotting in hell for this.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Let’s go home before the snow gets any deeper.” The flakes had gone from tiny flurries to fat flakes that crowned the stones in the cemetery with fluffy white pillows.

  “Donovan, wait. Where is Cal’s grave? Charity is beside the baby, but—”

  “It’s not here, honey. The man I spoke with on the phone this morning said Calvin Taylor was buried in an unmarked grave on the edge of the cemetery, back by the junkyard. The grave beside Charity is empty.”

  Hannah swiped at her damp face. “Good for you, Charity. He didn’t belong with you and the baby.”

  By the time they got home, the snow was coming down heavily, coating trees and plants, grass, rooftops, and cars, turning the city into a fairyland draped in a soft blanket of white. The lights in the windows and the Christmas lights around the porch sent a welcoming glow over the pristine layer of white outside. A shadow moved across a window upstairs, one of their spirits, no doubt. This was her home, and those spirits were part of her family. How she loved this house and everyone inside it, both the living and the dead.

  The streets were slushy, but not slick. Not yet. If it got bad, Donovan and his men would have to go to work and help the uniforms with traffic accidents, a detail they all hated. If it melted and froze again tonight, the streets would be skating rinks by morning.

  The snow didn’t let up, and the television weatherman predicted it wouldn’t stop anytime soon. Donovan put the chains on and drove to school for Billy. School wasn’t out yet, but he didn’t want Pop and Hannah driving in the ice and snow, and he had to go to work.

  After Donovan brought Billy home and left for work, Hannah made a pot of soup and watched television reports of the storm with Pop and Billy. All local schools had been cancelled for the rest of the week. Power had gone out in parts of the city.

  Hannah turned up the heat in anticipation. Once the heat went off in a house this size, it would take hours to warm it again.

  “Too bad we don’t have a generator,” said Pop.

  “We’ll burn the fireplaces if necessary.”

  “Not a good idea, Hannah. They haven’t been used in so many years, we need to have them inspected first and make sure they’re safe.”

  Pop filled the lantern and put matches beside it on the fireplace mantel. Then he put candles and a package of matches on the kitchen sink. They put all the flashlights out where they could find them, and Pop sent Hannah upstairs to find herself and Billy some warmer clothes, just in case. She laid her heavy sweats out on the bed with her warm socks and heavy coat, and then she did the same for Billy. They didn’t need them yet, and maybe they wouldn’t, but she had to be ready.

  Donovan was out in this mess, and she worried about him. Businesses were letting out early today, so people could get home, and according to the television, people were sliding all over the place. She hoped Trevor stayed at work tonight instead of trying to drive the pickup home. There were no chains for the pickup, and it wasn’t safe to drive in this snow without them.

  Hannah carri
ed a flashlight around with her. It was foolish to be so afraid of the dark, but every time it got really dark, the old childhood trauma returned, the fear of being locked in a small, dark place, barely able to breathe, peeing in her pants when that jerk pounded on the trunk lid, and crying for a mother who didn’t come. Hannah had to fight off a child molester by herself, because Monique was in the bedroom with another man.

  The lights flickered and went out. Hannah lit the candle on the kitchen counter and turned on the gas under the soup. “Billy,” she called. “Go put on your warmer clothes right now, before you get chilled. Pop, you, too. Put on your long johns or whatever while I warm the soup.”

  The phone rang, startling Hannah. It was Donovan. “Everything okay there?”

  “The power went out a few minutes ago. I have a pot of soup on the stove. Are you coming home soon?”

  “In an hour or so. After the plant closes down and those people get off the streets, we should be okay. The sanding trucks are out and they’ll be out all night. Offices downtown are closed or closing, but the malls are staying open until eleven. Christmas shopping season, you know.”

  “But nobody can get there.”

  “There are plenty of people already there, Hannah. If they’re thinking of waiting it out until the snow stops, they could have a long wait.”

  She hoped the power didn’t stay off until the snow stopped. If it did, this big barn of a house would get very cold. She had to get the fireplaces inspected next week and get a supply of firewood, in case this happened again. The fireplaces wouldn’t heat the whole house, but they might keep them from freezing.

  Donovan came home at three and Hannah made him a bowl of soup. He held his hands around the bowl to warm them. “The plows and sanding trucks are out, and schools closed down at noon. I’ll go back out if they need me, but the fewer people out there tonight the better.”

  Pop walked into the kitchen with a portable radio. “They’re saying the crews are out trying to restore power, but it’ll take time to fix all the downed wires.”

  Donovan ate another bite of soup. “I’ll see about getting a generator, Pop.”

  Pop pointed up. “I’ll bet it’s warmer upstairs. Heat rises.”

  Hannah turned on the oven and opened the door to warm the kitchen, then she made hot cocoa.

  Trevor called. “I’m staying at the station tonight. The technicians can’t get into work, so I’m filling in for them.” Trevor was not only good with a hammer and a camera, he had a talent with anything electronic.

  They went to bed early that night. The upstairs was warmer, especially the attic, so Pop slept in Trevor’s bed, Billy slept on the sofa, and Donovan pulled Pop’s mattress down for himself and Hannah to sleep on.

  Hannah woke up once and it was pitch black in the room. She gasped for air and Donovan held her. “It’s okay. Breathe. I’m right here. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

  “Donovan, look.” Four glowing forms lit the room. They knew she was scared, and they were there to comfort her. Lying in Donovan’s loving arms with four spirits using their energy to banish her fear, she’d never felt so cherished and protected.

  When Hannah woke in the morning, the power was back on and the house was slowly warming. Drifts that looked like mounds of whipped cream surrounded the house, closing them in from the outside world. The snow was still coming down, but not as heavily as it had yesterday, and Billy was already making plans to build a snowman with his father.

  They were eating breakfast when the phone rang. Donovan answered.

  Peterson said, “Cordelli was spotted at the mayor’s house last night, but he got away.”

  Donovan rubbed his forehead. “He can’t hide forever.”

  “Nope! I just thought I’d let you know he’s still in town. If it was me, I’d be in Mexico by now.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” But Cordelli wasn’t that smart. He probably thought his family political connections could get him out of trouble, as they had before.

  He was wrong.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A week before Christmas, Donovan and Hannah invited all the detectives and their spouses and significant others for a Christmas brunch. They’d also invited Captain Rogers, Chief Plunkett, and Judge Harvey and their wives.

  Some of their guests hadn’t seen the house, so Donovan took them on a tour. He showed them where the hidden staircase had been and lowered the stairs on the false ceiling in Charity’s room. He also took their guests to the basement and showed them the stairs from the back of the pantry into the secret room in the basement. He pushed the stairs back into the ceiling, where they were all but invisible. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, you wouldn’t know what it was.

  About an hour into the party, Rogers asked the judge if he was going to run for mayor.

  “I’m seriously considering it. I can’t count the number of people who have asked me to run.”

  “You have my support,” said Donovan.

  “And mine,” said Hannah, and their sentiments were echoed around the room.

  It was time for a change, time to put the Porcini-Vittore bunch out of business for good. Judge Harvey was highly respected in River Valley, and his administration wouldn’t be a breeding ground for the kind of corruption that had flourished in this city in past years.

  After everyone left that afternoon, Donovan helped Hannah clean up the kitchen.

  Billy called, “Dad, I found one of those little metal things that opens doors.”

  Hannah nearly dropped one of the good plates. “Where are you, Billy?” she called.

  “In the library.”

  They left the dishes and went to see. The little latch was under the baseboard in front of one of the bookcases. Donovan moved it to one side and a panel behind one of the shelves above it slid open. He reached in and pulled out a little velvet bag.

  “Looks like we have a whole family of detectives. You found the hidden staircase, Pop found the false ceiling, and Billy found this little treasure.” Hannah hugged Billy and poured fifteen coins out on the desk. “You are one smart kid. Tell you what. We’ll put those coins away for my favorite kid, for college. Even a professional baseball player needs a good education.”

  Hannah gazed into Donovan’s eyes and silently dared him to deny her this, but he didn’t say a word. He knew better to argue with her, and this was an incentive for Billy to set goals for the future.

  “Thanks, Hannah,” said Billy. “You’re the best.”

  “She sure is,” said Pop. He scratched his head and glanced around at the other bookcases in the study. “You don’t suppose—”

  “Yeah, I suppose,” said Donovan. “We’d better check them all.”

  Hannah returned to the kitchen to finish washing the dishes, and when she walked into the study ten minutes later, Donovan had the desk piled with diaries and little black velvet bags, and there were books stacked everywhere.

  “You’re definitely going to need a bigger safe deposit box,” he told her. “Every shelf in here has a compartment behind it. The lever at the bottom opens every shelf in that bookcase. We found bags of goodies, letters to Charity from her sister, more coins, more stock, and more diaries.”

  “You found all this stuff piled on the desk?”

  “That’s from two bookcases,” said Pop. “There are eight bookcases in the room.”

  Hannah dropped to her knees beside Donovan on the floor and he filled her lap with goodies. “Apparently, someone in your family didn’t believe in banks.”

  He handed her a bundle of letters tied with a pink ribbon. “These are letters to Charity from her sister.”

  Hannah flipped through the letters. They were addressed to Charity Mullins at a post office box. “Donovan, look at this address.”

  “I saw. I guess she didn’t want Cal to know she’d been writing to her sister.”

  Hannah opened the first letter and scanned it. “She’d been sending her sister money, and her parents, too. I’ll bet
Cal didn’t know.”

  “No, I doubt she told him.”

  She scanned another letter, then another and another. “Her sister’s husband died. The money Charity sent kept them going. It paid for the funeral and her parents’ funerals, too, but she didn’t go. Cal wouldn’t let her go.”

  She read the last two letters in the stack. “Listen to this.

  “We’re getting by all right now, so you don’t need to send any more money. You must be running short since Cal’s accident.”

  Donovan cocked his head. “What accident? What’s the date on that?”

  “January 2nd, 1919, but it probably happened in 1918. We could ask Charity.”

  “You need the diary, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s try it with the letters.” She held the letters in one hand and Donovan’s hand in the other. “Charity, we want to know about Cal’s accident. Would you show us what happened, please?”

  Hannah closed her eyes and let the vision come through. Cal, Charity and Sonny were dressed in black. Cal stood in front of the living room fireplace, Charity across the room. Charity said, “Sonny, go change your clothes.”

  As Sonny walked past his father, Cal backhanded him. Sonny fell back against the settee, his lip bleeding. Charity’s voice was cold and controlled as she lifted her handbag, her hand inside. “You won’t ever hurt anyone again, Cal.” The bullet tore through her bag and hit Cal in the face. Cal screamed and put his hands over his eyes.

  Sonny ran to Charity and clutched her skirt.

  Cal screamed and moaned with pain. “I can’t see. I’ll kill you for this, Charity.” Blood oozed between his fingers and dripped on his white shirt, reminding Hannah of the blood on his shirt after he’d killed Andrew. Only this time it was Cal’s blood.

  “I’ll fetch the doctor,” Charity said calmly. “I’ll tell him there’s been an accident. I reached in my bag for a handkerchief and the gun went off quite by accident.”

  “You’ll go to jail for this,” Cal yelled.

  “No, I won’t. I’ll make your life a living hell, just like you’ve made mine all these years. If you ever touch me or anyone else again, I promise you’ll hang for murder. I know what you did to Andrew and I know where you buried him. I have the clothes you wore that day with Andrew’s blood all over them. You’ll never find them. And you murdered your own daughter.” Charity’s voice was cold and controlled, without emotion.