Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “But you need to pass over to the other side,” Granny insisted.

  “Granny’s right, Tessa. I’m not sure what’s on the other side. Maybe God, maybe angels, maybe nothing but peace and bright light, but there does seem to be an orderly way of going about it. You can always come back here to visit, just as Granny does.”

  “But I can’t go anywhere. I have to stay here and wait.”

  “Wait for what, Tessa?” As Emma asked the question, she noticed Phil become more alert, trying to fill in the blanks between her conversation and what he couldn’t hear.

  Granny drifted closer to Tessa North. “What are you waiting for, child?”

  “For Curtis.” Tessa said it as if it explained everything. When she received only blank looks, she added, “He told me he’d come back.” She looked worried. “If I go somewhere, he might not be able to find me.”

  “Who’s Curtis, Tessa?” Emma kept her voice in mother mode, speaking to Tessa as if speaking to her own daughter.

  The ghost cast her eyes downward. Her blush was evidenced by her manner rather than by her colorless and hazy cheeks. She looked up and beamed. “He told me he loved me. He told me he’d come back.”

  Emma moved over and sat down in one of the chairs. “Let’s talk about this, Tessa.”

  Following Emma’s example, Tessa sat in the chair closest to the balcony. Granny stood near her. Phil watched Emma, noting that she was as comfortable talking to the air as she was speaking with him. When they’d first met, he’d called her psychotic; now he thought her amazing.

  “Tessa,” Emma began, keeping her voice kind and soothing. “What do you last remember? About being alive, I mean, and about Curtis?”

  Tessa gave off a big sigh and scrunched her pretty face as she tried to remember. “We were on the boat.” A frown materialized across Tessa’s brow. “Everyone was upset by the news and wanted to get away to relax.”

  “What news, Tessa? Do you remember that?”

  “Of course I do. Everyone was upset about it.”

  “Who’s everyone?”

  Turning her face to Emma, Tessa looked at her in surprise. “Why, just everyone. Don’t you read or listen to the news?”

  Emma tried not to smile too much lest Tessa interpret it as mockery. She’d learned that spirits often have no sense of time or history. It could be that Tessa had no concept of how many years had passed since her death. She was still pretty sure Tessa was from the sixties, so she dug deep into her brain to unearth major news events of that decade. Since Emma wasn’t born until the sixties, all the information at her disposal would have been learned from history books and stories told by people like her parents. She recalled that the sixties had been turbulent years—the Vietnam War, protest marches, the assassinations of both President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Cuban Missile Crisis—with any number of things that could have made big news.

  “What specifically upset Curtis, Tessa?”

  When Tessa spoke, her eyes were wide. “They were there, you know—at the Ambassador Hotel—when it happened.”

  The Ambassador Hotel. That definitely struck a chord in Emma’s memory bank. She rooted around to grasp it clearly before speaking. “The Ambassador Hotel? You mean Curtis was there when Robert Kennedy was shot?”

  When Phil and Emma reached the botanical gardens, Emma dug a water bottle out of the small backpack she was wearing and handed it to Phil. She dug out another for herself.

  Phil took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So now we know about when this Tessa died.”

  Emma nodded while she took her own drink.

  “Kennedy was shot in June of 1968.” Phil took another drink of water before continuing. “I was in junior high at the time. School was almost out for the summer. I remember it well.”

  “According to Tessa, this Curtis was at the Ambassador, attending the party for Kennedy. Said he was very upset for days after and came to Catalina on his boat to relax.”

  “Curtis who? Did she give you a last name?”

  “Nope. Every time I asked, she dodged the question—and not very skillfully. It was almost like she was afraid to tell me.”

  “It might have been Curtis who killed her.”

  “Could very well be. She doesn’t remember much right now, but she might regain bits and pieces of what happened as we talk. The last she remembers is that Curtis told her he’d come back for her.”

  Instead of his usual cowboy hat, Phil was wearing a ball cap to protect his scalp from the sun. He took it off and wiped the top of his bald head with a bandana from his pocket. “Hmm, she could have been hurt, and he went to get help but never made it back.”

  The sun was high in the sky now, and the morning haze was a memory. “That’s a good possibility.” Emma put on her sunglasses and studied the rugged terrain around the gardens. “I’m with Milo on the theory that Tessa died here on the island. And since she’s wearing a bathing suit, it’s probably a safe guess that she died in or near the water. I can’t really see her up here or somewhere else away from the beach, can you?”

  “Not if she’s wearing a bikini.”

  Emma watched as Phil tipped his water bottle back again. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked him.

  “Loving it. Catalina’s a great place.”

  “I don’t mean that. You’re getting into the whole thing with Tessa, aren’t you?”

  He pointed a finger at himself. “Who, me? Nah.” But his grin told the truth.

  “Come on, Bowers,” Emma teased, poking a short polished nail into his chest. “Admit it. You wouldn’t be asking questions if you weren’t interested.”

  “I’d be more interested if I could actually see the little hottie.”

  Emma shook her head in mock disgust and headed for the entrance of the botanical gardens. “Men. Even death doesn’t slow you down.”

  Phil trotted after her. “Hey, hey, hey—in case you haven’t noticed, I’m far from dead.”

  Emma and Phil spent the next couple of hours walking the gardens, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, enjoying their time together. There were many other visitors besides them, including whole families enjoying the long Thanksgiving holiday away from the bustle of city life. It made the two of them think of their own children.

  “How about we all get together for Christmas in Julian?” Phil suggested. “Kelly, my boys, your parents, everyone. Aunt Susan would love it as much as we would.”

  Emma flashed him a big smile. “Ah, you read my mind. It can be the official launch of my cabin.”

  Shortly after Phil and Emma had met—and after she’d proven that Granny had not murdered her husband—Phil and his family had deeded the property once belonging to Ish and Jacob Reynolds to Emma. It was a small parcel directly across from the Bowers ranch. Emma had elected to build a vacation home on what was once Granny’s homestead. Except for interior touches, the “cabin”—a three bedroom, two-story mountain retreat with two fireplaces—was nearly finished. She’d already spent some time there, and her mother had come down to help with the decorating, but Emma had never had her entire family down to Julian. Christmas would be the perfect time. Her mother and Phil’s aunt had become friends, and she had no doubt her father, a retired heart surgeon, would fit right in with Phil’s uncle Glen. And Kelly might enjoy the getaway before returning to her studies.

  “Christmas in Julian? Hotdog!”

  With a start, Emma turned to find the ghost of Granny Apples standing just behind her. She scowled. “‘Hotdog’? Where in the world did you pick up a phrase like that?”

  As Emma talked to thin air, Phil noticed a few folks stare at her as they passed by. He gallantly shifted his position so that they would think she was talking to him. Emma talked so naturally to Granny that she often forgot about the living taking notice. It amused him to be her cover when it came to the spirits, though often the topic of conversation didn’t suit how he wanted strangers to perceive him.
r />   “I heard it on TV—that show your father watches.”

  Emma knew what show Granny was referring to. It was an old sitcom from the late fifties. Her father loved the show and watched reruns of it almost every afternoon. Granny often watched television in the den with him. She was especially fond of NFL games.

  Although Paul Miller believed in Granny’s existence, he wasn’t keen on the idea of a ghost hanging around his wife and daughter. At first, Emma and her mother, Elizabeth, tried to keep Granny’s presence a secret, but Dr. Miller was not a stupid man, and it wasn’t long before he realized that the ghost of Granny Apples had returned and set up part-time residence in his home. He finally accepted her presence as he might an annoying mother-in-law. In the past year, he and Phil Bowers had had several conversations about it over beers, deciding it was part of loving the women in their lives.

  “You are watching entirely too much TV, Granny.” Emma kept her voice low and looked up at Phil as she spoke, grateful for his willingness to play along.

  “I have a lot of history to catch up on. Seems to be the best way to do it.”

  “Hotdog is not history. It’s slang, and outdated slang at that.”

  “Whatever.” The ghost drifted off.

  Phil knitted his brows in curiosity. “Hotdog ?”

  Emma waved a hand at him. “I’ll tell you later.” She followed the image of the ghost.

  “Granny,” Emma hissed at the spirit. “Have you talked anymore with Tessa?” Phil sidled up to Emma and linked an arm through hers, creating an image of the two of them sharing a tête-à-tête.

  Granny drifted over to a nearby bench and sat down in the middle of it. Emma and Phil followed.

  “Scoot over, Granny, or Phil will sit right down on top of you.”

  “Humph.” The ghost crossed her arms across her chest but moved to the end of the bench. Phil and Emma sat down, with Emma in the middle.

  “So, Granny, did you learn anything?”

  “The girl’s still saying nothing about this Curtis fellow. I think he’s the one who done her in.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I get the feeling he’s the last one to see her alive. He told her to wait until he came back—said he was going to fetch help.”

  “So she was hurt?”

  “Seems so. She doesn’t remember much about it, except that there was a lot of blood and her head hurt. She remembers that. And that Curtis said he was going for help.”

  Emma leaned in toward Phil while she talked to Granny. “That doesn’t sound like he killed her. He was going for help.”

  The ghost got up and moved within Emma’s line of vision, her arms crossed in front of her to emphasize her point. “But he never came back, did he?”

  As they walked back toward Avalon Bay, Emma relayed to Phil the little information Granny had gleaned from Tessa. Granny had disappeared shortly after they’d left the gardens.

  “Okay, let’s review what we know so far.”

  “Spoken like a true lawyer.”

  Phil grunted. “What can I say, an occupational hazard.”

  Emma ticked off the facts in her head as she said them out loud. “First, we’re pretty sure Tessa died here on Catalina, close to the water. We know she came here in June of 1968 on the boat of a man named Curtis. Somehow she was hurt, and Curtis went for help. He never returned.”

  “Correction,” Phil interrupted. “We don’t know that he never returned. He could have returned and it was too late. She might have already died from whatever injuries she’d received.”

  “You have a good point there.”

  “Counselor.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Counselor. You have a good point there, counselor.”

  Emma shook her head and tried to suppress a laugh. “Have you ever noticed that when it suits you, you’re an attorney, but any other time, you prefer to be thought of as a rancher?”

  “I was a rancher long before I was an attorney. I only put the attorney hat on when it’s needed.”

  “Like now?”

  “Now seems as good a time as any to put all that analytical thought processes to work, doesn’t it?”

  “Correct…counselor.”

  Phil put an arm across Emma’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Now you’re catching on.”

  “Okay,” Emma continued. “To our knowledge, or from what Tessa told us, Curtis never came back, or she doesn’t think he ever came back. And her ghost has lingered here all these years waiting for him.”

  Emma pulled her cell phone from her backpack and started dialing. Phil watched her with a raised eyebrow. She threw him a coy smile. “What’s the use of having a research assistant if you don’t use her?” He touched the side of his head with an index finger, letting Emma know that was smart thinking.

  When Emma’s call was answered by a voicemail recording, she said, “Jackie, it’s me, Emma. When you get back into the office, can you do some research on a Tessa North? She would have been born sometime in the late forties. Probably lived in the Los Angeles area in the sixties, died June of 1968. I’m afraid that’s all I have right now. Thanks a lot. Hope you’re having a great holiday.”

  Jackie Houchin had been assigned to Emma by the studio. When her show was first being put together, Jackie divided her time between The Whitecastle Report and a weekly travel show. She was young, smart, and committed to a future in television, but Jackie had wanted no part of The Whitecastle Report when she’d first come onboard. Convinced that Emma was no different than her famous, hyped-up ex-husband, Jackie had been sure Emma’s show would be nothing more than an hour of quackery. It had taken many months of patience and perseverance on Emma’s part to prove to the young, serious woman that she was dedicated to producing a quality show with an objective view of people’s beliefs in the paranormal. Jackie was still a skeptic when it came to such things, but she eventually became a fan of Emma’s and threw herself into her work, wrangling guests and researching ideas she and Emma had for future shows. Together they made a formidable team, although Emma still had not enlightened Jackie about Granny’s presence or her own talents.

  Emma turned her attention back to her conversation with Phil. “Granny believes this Curtis killed Tessa. That he hurt her and left her to die.”

  “That’s another possibility. In which case, it would explain why he might not have returned with help. It will be interesting to see what Jackie finds out. There might be some old obituary or even news about her death.”

  “And there would be a death record. Catalina is in the county of Los Angeles. I’m sure Jackie will turn something up like that.” They were almost back to town when another idea stopped Emma in her tracks. “You know, Phil, on an island of this size, it can’t be that common for people to die without notice, especially a tourist. I wonder if the police would have records on it.”

  Phil consulted the map. “The island is policed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. There’s a station here in town.” He studied the town map again. “Looks like it’s right across from where we caught that tour bus yesterday.” They had reached an intersection. Phil looked up and studied the street signs. “If we turn left here, then right at Sumner, it should bring us right to it.”

  “Who knew?”

  Phil looked up from the map. “Who knew what?”

  “That a man would actually consult a map.”

  Phil folded the small map and gently slapped Emma on the behind with it. “Get going, Fancy Pants. There’s a ghost waiting to go wherever it is ghosts need to go.”

  The police station looked like any typical municipal building in any other town, except that it was unusually compact. Stepping up to the counter, they were greeted by a small woman with very short dark blond hair. She wore the crisp uniform of the LA County Sheriff’s Department. The name tag above her pocket read Weaver.

  From her wallet, Emma extracted a business card. “Hello,” she said to the woman, handing her the card. “I’m E
mma Whitecastle. I host a TV show called The Whitecastle Report. I’m doing research for a new show on ghosts of Catalina Island and was wondering if you could help me.”

  If Deputy Weaver thought the request odd, she never showed it, keeping her face as blank as a clean slate. “If I can.”

  “I understand a woman by the name of Tessa North died on Catalina about forty years ago. Would you have any records on that?”

  “Deaths are recorded with the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” Emma explained. “We’re in the process of obtaining those records. But if Ms. North’s death was suspicious in any way, or if the sheriff’s department was called in about it, would you have any records?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Deputy Weaver said with a slight shake of her head. “The sheriff’s department came to the island in 1962, and our early records are not accessible. Anything prior to 1962 would have been handled by the former city police department, and I’m not sure they kept those records or where they would be kept if they did.”

  “We believe Tessa North died in 1968.”

  The young officer shook her head again, but her face remained unmoved. “I’m afraid records going back that far would not be readily available. But you might try the newspaper.”

  Phil moved closer. “Catalina has its own newspaper?”

  “Yes, sir. The Catalina Islander. Comes out every Friday. It’s been around almost a hundred years. If someone died on the island, even forty years ago, they would have noted it.”

  Deputy Weaver consulted a sheet near her desk and jotted something down on a sticky note. She handed it to Emma. “Here’s the address and phone number for the paper. The office is over on Marilla, not far from here, but you should probably call first. I’m not sure how they’ve archived old issues, but they might be the best place to start. Another place you might try is the hospital, although I’m sure their records would be confidential.”

  After thanking the officer, Emma and Phil stepped out into the sunshine. “That was a good idea,” Phil said, “sending us to the newspaper.”