by J A Whiting
Approaching the corner of Main and Fairview, Viv slipped her hand through her cousin’s arm and pulled her closer.
“I thought you were eager to see spirits.” Lin raised an eyebrow.
“I think I left my courage back at the house.”
“They’re just ghosts. Nothing will happen. It will be okay.” Lin tried to reassure her trembling cousin.
“What if they’re real men doing something illegal and we walk up and they see us? They might try to attack us.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing you brought your weapon,” Lin joked.
The night was overcast and there were fewer streetlamps on Fairview Street, so the cousins turned onto the darker road with some feelings of apprehension. A figure stepped from the shadows causing both girls to jump. Lin gasped in surprise and Viv almost screamed before realizing it was Anton who stood before them.
“Ugh. Don’t do that to us.” Viv wrapped her arms around her body and sucked in a few deep breaths.
“Hello to you, too.” Anton was dressed in black slacks, black shoes, and a black shirt and sweater.
“I see you have your snooping outfit on.” Lin smiled at the ever-prepared historian.
“One can never be too careful.” Anton adjusted his black-rimmed glasses.
“Have you heard anything coming from the lot?” Lin looked down the street to see if she could see anything.
“Nothing. It’s been quiet so far.”
“How should we go about this?” Lin questioned. “Should we just walk down the street like everything’s normal?”
Anton nodded. “I think that’s best. Let’s walk slowly. If we hear or see anything, we can step into someone’s yard so we aren’t visible to whoever is in the back lot.”
“Let’s not speak to each other either.” Viv stepped closer to Lin. “We don’t want anyone to hear us coming.”
The three quietly headed down the dark sidewalk to the inn-restaurant building moving together closely, side by side. Here and there, a light could be seen shining in one of the windows of the houses they passed.
When they were only one building away, Anton held up his index finger to indicate that they should halt. “I don’t hear anything,” he whispered. “Let’s creep up to the lot in case the men suddenly appear.”
Moving a few inches at a time, the three advanced. In addition to the white picket fence, a tall thick hedge separated the lot from the house next to it, so the group of sleuths slipped behind and crouched down to peek through the greenery.
“Nothing,” Lin whispered, gazing at the lot.
Viv swiveled her head around looking in all directions. “Could they just show up at any time, like, just suddenly appear in the empty lot without any warning?”
Lin shrugged, and suspecting that it might be a long evening, she slid down to the ground and sat. Viv did the same, but Anton preferred to stand so that he wouldn’t get dirt or grass on his slacks.
“Can you see any marks in the gravel?” Lin pushed some branches to the side so she could stare through the hedge. “Does it look like any activity already went on here tonight?”
“None that I can see.” Anton scanned the area.
Two security spotlights attached to the back of the restaurant shined into the empty space where Mrs. Perkins claimed to have seen the men working. Lin wondered if the woman might have dreamt the entire thing. She thought of asking Viv’s boyfriend, John, who had a friend at the police station if Mrs. Perkins did indeed make a call to the police reporting the disturbance the other night. The woman might have dreamt that, too.
The cool, damp night air chilled Lin as she sat on the ground with the thought that this might be nothing but a wild goose chase swirling around in her head.
A long hour passed with the three of them sitting, or in Anton’s case, standing, waiting for something to happen. Lin’s eyelids grew heavy and they made several attempts to slam shut. Every time she nearly dozed off, her head would loll to the side and then she’d snap upright.
As Lin took in a deep breath and shifted around on the grass trying to keep alert, Viv, sitting close to her, suddenly snorted and then jolted. Blinking her eyes, Viv looked around disoriented. “I fell asleep,” she whispered.
Viv’s sudden snort made her cousin giggle. The oddness of sitting behind a hedge waiting for ghosts to show up struck Lin as absurd, and that, in combination with Viv’s oinking sound and flailing jolt from slumber, caused Lin to chuckle and then she couldn’t stop.
Anton’s attempt to hush her only made Lin laugh harder.
Viv gave her cousin a playful push. “Stop it.”
Lin’s mirth became contagious and in a few seconds, Viv was howling along with her cousin.
“Hush, you two. For heaven’s sake.” Anton glanced around to see if any lights were coming on inside the nearby houses. “Get up, get up.” He tugged on the young women’s sweaters. “Good grief. Someone will call the police on us.”
In between a few more guffaws, Lin managed to roll to her side and push herself up to standing position. “Sorry,” she gasped as she reached for Viv’s arm and tugged her to her feet.
Viv wiped tears from her cheeks and then moved her hands to her belly. “My stomach hurts from laughing.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Anton put a hand on each girl’s elbow and pushed them away from the lot to head back to Main Street. “Remind me never to join you in a surveillance task ever again.”
Viv released one more hoot of laughter as she stumbled along.
“Laugh, yes,” Anton blustered. “I am an upstanding member of this community. Imagine me getting arrested for disturbing the peace along with the two female hyenas in my company.”
Once they reached Main Street, Viv and Lin were finally able to collect themselves. Standing under a streetlamp, Anton continued to scold them. “That was a waste.” Despite his initial annoyance at the two fools grinning in front of him, the man could not help but smile. “Good Lord, you two are terrible influences, and even worse detectives.”
“Nothing happened. We watched for over an hour.” Lin tried to defend their sudden burst of levity. She then shared her idea that Mrs. Perkins might have dreamt the entire nocturnal episode that she thought she saw from her window.
“It might be a good idea to ask John’s friend at the police station if a disturbance call about the noise came in last week,” Viv said, but then thought of something else. “Although, Mrs. Perkins could have dreamt the whole thing, woke up thinking it was real, and called the police anyway. So I suppose finding out whether she called or not might not be that revealing.”
“Jeff told me that Mrs. Perkins has a friend who lives a few doors down from her on Fairview Street. If we could talk to the friend, we could find out if she heard or saw the men in the lot. If both of the women saw the workmen, then it had to have happened and wasn’t just the woman’s dream.”
“Good idea.” Anton nodded. “Perhaps when you’re working on the landscaping for the house, you’ll run into the friend and you can speak with her about the alleged noise.”
When Anton said the word ‘alleged,’ a zing of anxiety zapped across Lin’s forehead.
The man yawned and turned to head up Main Street. “Now let’s put an end to our evening misadventure.”
Viv started after him. “I’ll second that statement.”
Lin was about to follow when a frigid blast of air engulfed her and kept her from moving forward. Swallowing hard, she turned slowly to look back down Fairview Street.
A man stood in the middle of the road, staring after Lin. Dressed in the clothes of the early 1900’s, he removed his cap and gave the slightest of nods before his whole body began to glimmer brighter and brighter until his form seemed to burn out like a Fourth of July sparkler on a stick.
Lin blinked. The man was gone.
Viv called to her cousin and Lin turned around. When Viv saw the look on Lin’s face, she asked, “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve s
een a….”
It only took a half-second for Viv to realize what was wrong and a look of alarm to spread over her face. “Oh. You did see a ghost.”
5
Lin pulled weeds out of the garden patch at the front of the house that was being renovated on Fairview Street. Nicky sniffed around the small space and then plopped down in the corner to watch his owner work. Lin had been awake for a good part of the night, tossing and turning and thinking about the new ghost who had appeared in the middle of the street as she and Viv and Anton walked away from the restaurant’s back lot. She reported what she’d seen to her companions and on their late-night walk back to their houses, they proposed reasons for the ghost’s sudden materialization and discussed why the workmen didn’t show up in the lot. No good reasons emerged from the conversation and they concluded that more research and investigation would be needed.
Lin thought about the ghost. When he made eye contact with her, ideas and sensations swirled around in her head so quickly that it almost made her dizzy. She knew that it would take time to sort out what the ghost wanted, or needed, from her. The man’s style of clothing suggested the early-nineteen hundreds so Anton was going to look into what was going on in town during that timeframe.
Deep in thought as she weeded the patch of garden, Lin startled when a woman spoke to her.
The woman stood on the sidewalk just outside the fence that enclosed the front garden. She had silver-white hair, cut short, with long bangs hanging over her forehead. Slender, well-dressed and stylish, she looked at Lin with a friendly smile. “Hello. I’m looking for my friend. Have you seen her wandering around down this way?”
Lin stood up and dusted off her soil-covered hands. “Do you mean Mrs. Perkins? I haven’t seen anyone go in or out since I’ve been here.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “She was supposed to meet me. Where has she gotten off to?”
“If I see her,” Lin said, “I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”
“I’m Linda McQueen, Mrs. Perkins’s good friend.” She extended her hand to shake with Lin.
Instead of accepting the hand-shake, Lin gestured a wave “hello” with her hand. “It’s best not to shake with me. I’m a dirty mess.”
“Oh, a bit of dirt doesn’t worry me.” Mrs. McQueen looked up at the front door of the mansion. “The work is coming along nicely. Have you been inside? Have you seen it?”
Lin shook her head. “I’m just doing the landscaping.” Hoping to get the woman talking, she asked, “You live down the street from here?”
“I do. We’ve lived there for ages. Before we owned, we came to the island every summer. We decided that owning instead of renting was the smarter thing to do.” Linda pointed to the house near the lot. “Polly is staying over there in the other place she owns until this house is finished.”
Lin blinked for a second wondering who Polly was and then realized it was Mrs. Perkins. “Mrs. Perkins told me about the recent late-night noise that has been going on in the neighborhood.”
Taking a look over her shoulder to the lot, Mrs. McQueen shook her head and her face clouded. “What on earth could those men be working on so late at night? Polly went to talk to the inn owner about the noise. He said he didn’t know what she was talking about.” The woman put a hand on her hip. “Really? Polly heard and saw those men working in the lot on at least three different occasions. How could the owner not know what was happening back there? I think he was just blowing Polly off. Of course, he must know what’s going on.”
“Were the men there last night?” Lin wondered if the group showed up after she and Viv and Anton had left.
“Thankfully, no. Polly said it was a night of blessed silence.”
“Have you heard the disturbance in the lot?” Lin asked.
Linda brushed at her bangs. “No, I haven’t. My husband hasn’t either. We’re both very sound sleepers. Although, last night, I did wake up to the sound of laughter. We like to sleep with the windows open. It must have been someone passing by or someone having a late-night gathering, but it was very loud.”
Lin’s cheeks turned pink when she realized that Mrs. McQueen had heard her and Viv’s outburst of laughter late last night. Thankfully, the woman had not peered out of her window to see Lin and Viv stumbling up the street roaring with laughter as Anton berated them.
Returning the topic of conversation back to the men, Lin asked, “Did Mrs. Perkins tell you what those men in the lot were doing? Could she see what they were up to?”
“They were moving big containers. Polly said they looked very heavy.”
“Did she say if the men went into the restaurant to get the containers?”
Mrs. McQueen’s forehead creased in thought and she glanced over to the lot. “You know, I don’t recall. That first night, Polly said she watched them for hours, but I just can’t remember if she said the men went inside the building.” She shook her head. “I wonder where Polly is.”
The sound of a door opening caused Lin and Mrs. McQueen to turn towards the front of the house. Mrs. Perkins, dressed in a blue skirt and starched white blouse, came down the steps.
At the sight of her friend, relief spread over Mrs. McQueen’s face. “There you are, Polly. I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”
Mrs. Perkins walked over to her friend and put her hand on her arm. “You look flustered. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no. Lin and I were just discussing those late-night workers and their noise.” Mrs. McQueen patted her friend’s hand. “How are the renovations coming?”
“Everything looks lovely.” Mrs. Perkins nodded at Lin.
“You had a quiet night here?” Lin asked Mrs. Perkins. “No workers last night?”
“None, thank heavens. I slept very soundly.”
“I was wondering if you noticed how the men were dressed when you saw them in the lot?” Lin didn’t want the women to leave just yet.
Mrs. Perkins looked at Lin with a puzzled expression. “Dressed?”
“What were they wearing?”
One of the woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Hmmm. Let me think.”
After a few seconds passed, Lin asked, “Uniforms? Jeans? Did they look like they belonged to a company or maybe were just working on their own?”
“No jeans.” Mrs. Perkins shook her head. “They all had on trousers, most had on white shirts with the sleeves rolled up. A couple had on a jumpsuit, made of cloth, like workers used to wear over their clothes, you know, with a zipper up the front.” She mimed zipping the front of a jumpsuit. “Some had on caps, like a jockey wears, only sort of made of a tweed material.” She nodded. “Oh, and a few had on buttoned-up vests.”
“Vests?” Lin asked. “Like winter vests?”
“No. Vests made of matching material to the trousers.”
“Seems sort of dressed up to be moving heavy boxes, doesn’t it?” Lin noted.
“It does, now that you mention it. I didn’t think of it at the time.”
“You said you called the police about it.”
“I did on the first night.” Mrs. Perkins made a face. “I wasn’t very impressed with them. They got out of their patrol car, glanced around the back of the restaurant for a second, and left. That was it.”
“Where did you say the workers were when the police arrived?”
Frowning, Mrs. Perkins said, “They hid in a little gulley or ditch on the edge of the lot.”
“That seems pretty odd.” Lin looked over to the lot wondering if Mrs. Perkins had dreamt the whole thing. “How did they hide the things they were moving? Weren’t the boxes right out in the open when the police arrived?”
Reaching up to rub her temple, Mrs. Perkins stared blankly at Lin. “I really don’t recall.”
“Why don’t we go inside and you can show me the latest work that’s been done,” Mrs. McQueen suggested.
The two women said goodbye to Lin and went inside the brick mansion to view the renovation work.
Lin watched them go
and then looked down at Nicky sitting near the fence. “Strange doings, huh, Nick?”
The dog let out a woof.
“I think we need to talk this over with Viv.” Lin winked at the small brown creature and smiled. “And with Queenie, too.”
Lin spent another hour working on the front garden, pulling out weeds, inspecting the perennials that were there, and making some notes about what new plants should be put in. Busy with her sketchbook, she didn’t hear Jeff come up behind her. As he wrapped her in a bear hug, she let out a yip of surprise and Nicky woke up from his nap on the grass to greet Jeff with a happy jig around the man’s legs.
Bending to scratch the dog’s ears, Jeff looked around the garden. “You’re making progress.”
Lin smiled brightly at the good-looking carpenter. “A very small bit of progress.”
Jeff put his arm around Lin’s waist.
Lin pointed at the old garden beds. “I have to assess what’s here and what should be done to enhance the look of the property. Leonard is coming by tomorrow to give his opinion. We were thinking of adding some heirloom plants to the landscape.”
“I’m sure it will look great.” Jeff looked up to the front door of the house. “Is Mrs. Perkins inside?”
Lin nodded. “She went in with a friend of hers about an hour or so ago.”
Jeff lowered his voice. “Mrs. Perkins had a meeting scheduled with the project manager. There’s a big glitch. The electrical wiring isn’t up to code and when they were making the necessary changes, they found a major plumbing issue that’s going to add a ton of money to the original estimate. Mrs. Perkins will not be pleased.”
“What if she doesn’t want to pay? Is there a workaround that can be done?”
“She has to do it. The place is old and isn’t up to code.” Jeff frowned. “I decided to go to another job this morning to avoid being here when they broke the news to her.”