“I’d like to understand that myself,” Danielle muttered.
When Walt reached the second-floor landing, he hopped to Danielle’s room. Stopping at the closed door, he moved to one side and opened it, motioning for Danielle to enter first.
She flashed him a smile and said, “Always the gentleman,” before walking into the bedroom. Walt followed her in and hopped to the closet. He inspected its exterior while Danielle stood nearby and watched. A few moments later the closet doors seemingly opened of their own accord. Her clothes floated out into the room, landing a moment later on the bed.
“I hope you intend to put all that back,” Danielle muttered under her breath as Walt hopped into the closet.
“Do you have a flashlight?” Walt asked as he inspected the closet’s back wall.
“Just a minute.” Danielle went to her nightstand and retrieved a flashlight from its drawer. After turning it on, she walked to the closet and handed it to Walt. He immediately flipped it around in his hand and began tapping on the wall with the end of the flashlight.
“Hey, you didn’t say you wanted a hammer.”
“Do you have a hammer?” Walt asked as he continued to tap.
She shrugged. “Somewhere.”
Still focused on the closet wall, his back to Danielle, he handed the flashlight to her. “Would you hold this?”
“You want me to hit anything with it?” she teased.
“Not at the moment. Point the light here. I think this panel slides.”
With a shrug, Danielle stepped all the way into the dimly lit closet and took the flashlight from Walt. She pointed its beam at the section of wall he was attempting to slide.
“I got it!” he shouted excitedly as the large piece of paneling began moving to the right, making a squeaking sound as it did.
Danielle pointed the light at the slowly emerging dark cavern tucked behind her closet. But in the next moment, to her horror, a shape emerged from the darkness—a head—eyes. Danielle let out a scream and dropped the flashlight as she leapt backwards from the closet, tripping in her hasty exit and landing on her backside at the foot of her bed.
“Really, Danielle, was that necessary?” Marie asked as she came floating out from the closet.
“Marie! What were you doing in there?” Danielle demanded as she stumbled to her feet.
Walt, who seemed unfazed by Marie’s sudden appearance, shouted, “Where’s the flashlight? I think there are stairs in here!”
Grumbling, Danielle picked the flashlight up off the floor and handed it to Walt, who was now halfway in the hidden stairwell. Moving the beam of light along the length of the inner cavity, Walt said, “Hot dawg, it’s really here!”
Danielle peeked inside and saw a narrow staircase leading to the attic. “Wow.”
Walt handed Danielle the flashlight so she could get a better look while he stepped out of the closet. He found Marie sitting on the foot of Danielle’s bed.
“What were you doing in there?” Walt asked.
“I stopped by to see Danielle and saw you two poking around in the closet. I wondered what you were looking at, so I went around to the other room and came in from that side. Did you know you have a hidden staircase?”
“Walt, how is it you didn’t know about that?” Danielle asked when she stepped out from the closet the next moment.
“I told you I knew it might be somewhere in the house.” He shrugged.
“But you’ve been here for almost a hundred years—walking through walls!”
Walt frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I would have thought you’d have stumbled across it by now. Heck, Marie hasn’t been haunting this place for six months and she found the stairs already.”
“In all fairness,” Marie said, “the only reason I walked through that section of wall is because you two seemed so interested in whatever was behind it.”
Danielle turned to Walt. “And why didn’t you scream?”
Walt smiled. “Why would I scream?”
“This big ol’ scary face jumps out from the closet and you don’t even bat an eye!”
“Big ol’ scary face? That’s not very nice, dear,” Marie said with a pout.
Danielle let out a sigh and plopped down on the end of the bed next to Marie.
“Trust me, Marie, if I had jumped out of your closet like that, you would think I had a big ol’ scary face,” Danielle insisted.
Marie tried patting Danielle’s knee, but her hand moved through it. “I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to scare you. Although I have to admit, I had the strongest urge to shout boo when Walt slid that panel open.”
“I still don’t understand why he didn’t scream,” Danielle grumbled.
Walt shrugged. “Sorry. I recognized Marie immediately. Although, I did wonder what she was doing in there. Now if you ladies will excuse me.” Walt disappeared back into the closet with the flashlight. Marie and Danielle could hear him going up the hidden staircase.
“Should he be walking around like that with a broken leg?” Marie asked.
“That’s what I told him. Typical man, just won’t listen!”
Marie chuckled. “I suppose they can say that about us too, dear.”
Danielle flashed Marie a grin. “I guess you’re right. I can be pretty stubborn myself.”
“It’s official,” Walt said as he stepped out of the closet a moment later. “Marlow House has a fully functioning hidden staircase. It not only leads to the attic, but there’s a panel up there that moves and opens to one of the built-in cabinets in the attic.”
After they each inspected the hidden staircase, Walt closed the panels and returned Danielle’s clothes to where they had been hanging in the closet. On the way out of the bedroom, Danielle grabbed the floor plans from her dresser and took them with her. Danielle and Walt discussed their plans for remodeling the attic, while Marie listened.
Halfway down the staircase leading to the first floor, Marie stopped abruptly and said, “If Walt is going to be using the attic as his bedroom, don’t you think you should board up the hidden staircase more adequately during the renovations?”
Danielle paused on the stairs and looked back at Marie with a smile. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The way it is now, it would be easy for either one of you to…”
Danielle continued to smile at Marie, waiting for her to finish her sentence, while Walt chuckled and made his way down the stairs.
After a moment, Marie let out a huff and said, “I don’t know about you two!”
To take Marie’s mind off whatever she was conjuring up regarding the secret staircase between what would eventually be Walt’s and Danielle’s bedrooms, Danielle told her of the ledger they had discovered, and what they had learned regarding Katherine’s marriage.
“I suppose it’s really not much different from what we imagined. Yet I would like to know why she killed her husband. Did you ever ask Angela about it? After all, Roger was her brother,” Marie asked.
Angela, who was Walt’s late wife, haunted the Frederickport Cemetery. Until Katherine’s daughter, Brianna, had died, she too had haunted the local cemetery. Unlike Katherine’s haunting, Angela’s was not voluntary. Angela was forced to stay at the cemetery as penance for her part in Walt’s murder.
“From what Angela has told me, she really didn’t see Roger again after he killed Walt,” Danielle explained. “Although, she did see Katherine’s spirit. But, according to her, Katherine only talked about her daughter.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Angela knows more than she told you,” Marie said. “From what I’ve heard about that woman.”
The three reached the first-floor landing. Marie and Danielle waited while Walt leaned down to pick up the crutches.
“I don’t even know why you bother with those,” Danielle told him.
“I have to keep up appearances,” Walt said with a grin as he tucked the crutches under his arms.
As they sta
rted to the parlor, Marie said, “When Walt sees Angela, he might want to ask her about Katherine.”
Walt paused and looked back at Marie. “Who says I’m going to see Angela?”
“You really need to,” Marie told him. “She wants to move on, and you two need to come to terms. I thought Danielle told you.”
Walt glanced at Danielle. “She mentioned something about it.”
“And this might be the last chance to learn the truth about why Katherine killed Roger. According to Eva, Katherine remained at the cemetery until her daughter moved on, so I would be surprised if she didn’t say something to Angela,” Marie said.
Twenty-Five
When the chief walked into the break room on Saturday afternoon, he found Brian and Joe sitting at a table eating their lunch.
Joe looked up from his burger and asked, “What are you doing in here today?”
“The boys are with their grandparents this weekend, thought I’d stop in and get a few things done.” He walked to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee and then joined the two officers at the table.
“I spoke to Beverly this morning, she told me you stopped by yesterday,” Brian said.
“Yeah, that’s one of the things I wanted to check out. According to one of Beverly’s neighbors, Sam from the Seahorse Motel stopped over at Beverly’s around sunset. I thought maybe he saw something, but he claimed it wasn’t him.”
“Beverly would have been home at that time,” Brian said. “Did she say who it was?”
“Actually, the neighbor claimed she saw two people over there that afternoon, after you helped Beverly move the boxes. I think the first one was Ben Smith, but I called over to the museum, and they said he and his wife went somewhere this weekend. So I didn’t talk to him. If he did stop by, Beverly thinks it was when she was at Marlow House, so I doubt he saw anything. She seemed a little surprised it would be Sam, said they weren’t really friends.”
“You said the neighbor claimed to see Sam?” Brian asked.
“Yes. She said it was Sam from the motel. She admitted she doesn’t know him personally, but said she recognized him from the motel. I stopped over to talk to her again on my way over here, since Sam claimed it wasn’t him. She said she might have been wrong, but she described the truck. It sounded like the one Sam drives.”
“Remember, Danielle almost went on trial for murder because someone saw a car just like hers near the crime scene, not to mention the driver matched Danielle’s description,” Joe reminded him.
“True.” The chief sipped his coffee.
Brian was about to take another bite of his burger when he paused and looked over to the chief. “You know what’s really odd? I haven’t seen Bill, Sam or Pastor Chad for…well, I don’t know for how long. But I saw them all at the museum on Wednesday after work—an hour or so after I helped Beverly. Which, I guess, isn’t surprising since they’re Historical Society board members. What’s odd is that now someone claims to have seen two of them at Beverly’s later that day, and Beverly told me Pastor Chad visited her at the hospital on Thursday.”
“What were you doing at the museum?” Joe asked.
Brian glanced to Joe and shrugged. “Just stopped over there after work. I haven’t been there for a while.”
“Beverly goes to Pastor Chad’s church, so I’d expect him to visit one of his parishioners who is in the hospital,” the chief pointed out.
“I didn’t mean it was anything odd like suspicious. Just a peculiar coincidence,” Brian said. “But now that I think about it, if it was Ben, I think I know why he might have been stopping by to talk to Beverly.”
“Why is that?” the chief asked.
“When I helped Beverly take the boxes down from the rafters, I noticed she had three old wooden Marymoor apple boxes.”
“Marymoor apple boxes?” The chief frowned.
“That’s before your time. Actually, before mine too,” Brian told him. “The Marymoor Orchard was located outside of town. It was sold off for residential lots years ago. I used to see their old boxes around town. Haven’t seen one for years.”
“What does this have to do with Ben’s reason for going over there?” Joe asked.
“I mentioned the boxes when I was at the museum. I thought it might be something they’d want for a display,” Brian explained. “Maybe that’s why Ben stopped over there, to ask her about the apple boxes. But Beverly had already given them to Danielle.”
“What’s Danielle going to do with them?” Joe asked.
“The boxes were filled with old historical documents about Marlow House and Danielle’s aunt,” Brian explained.
“I think Danielle is a little too wrapped up with the history of Marlow House,” Joe snarked. “And now with that Walt Marlow look-alike staying there, it’s just creepy.”
“I guess he’s a charmer,” Brian said. “I ran into Joanne the other day, and she sure changed her tune about the guy. Last time I talked to her, she couldn’t stand him. Now she seems quite taken with him.”
“You guys only saw him a couple of times before the accident. It’s unfair to judge someone based on that,” the chief said.
“Maybe.” Brian wiped his mouth with a napkin, crumpled it, and shoved it in the paper sack the burgers had come in. “According to Joanne, Marlow is something of a magician.”
“Magician?” Joe asked with a snort.
“Joanne claimed she saw a box floating at Marlow House.”
“What do you mean floating?” Joe asked.
“Just that. Floating in the air. No one touching it. But she said it was some magic trick of Marlow’s.”
“Are you sure Joanne wasn’t just imagining things?” Joe suggested.
“If she was, so was I.” Brian picked up his cup of soda and downed what was left.
“What are you talking about?” Joe asked.
Brian then told them about what he had seen in the grocery store.
“Are you serious?” Joe asked when Brian finished.
“I’ve been to magic shows before,” the chief said. “It’s surprising what they can make us believe we’ve seen.”
Before Joe could make another comment, he was called to the front desk, leaving the chief alone with Brian.
“Chief, I need to tell you why I really went to the museum,” Brian said.
“Does this have something to do with Walt Marlow?” the chief asked.
“How did you know?”
The chief shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
Brian told him about finding Walt Marlow’s signature in the church ledger at the museum.
“So what do you think this means?” the chief asked.
“Magicians like to make you believe you’ve seen something that isn’t there.”
“Are you saying you didn’t see Walt’s signatures…his fingerprints?”
“No. I saw them. Marlow made sure someone saw them. I’ve no idea what his motive is, but he’s involved somehow. I know you believe this was probably some in-department prank, but I disagree.”
“What do you think should be done about it?” the chief asked.
“At this point, I don’t know what we can do. I’m not even sure what laws have been broken—and why. And if I come out and publicly expose the oddities of the signatures, am I just playing into his hand?”
“What do you mean?”
“If this is nothing but some publicity stunt.”
The chief frowned. “Publicity stunt?”
“Joanne says he’s studying to be a magician. Who knows, maybe it’s always been some secret dream of his. Something he’s wanted for his entire life, and now he’s going to make us all look like fools so he can have his big break!”
The chief stared speechless at Brian for a moment. He blinked his eyes several times. “And what…what are you going to do now?”
“Me? I’m going to keep a close eye on this new Walt Marlow.”
“You have totally ruined one of my best officers,” the chief told Walt and
Danielle after he arrived at Marlow House on Saturday afternoon.
“What did I do now?” Danielle asked as she sat down on the sofa next to Walt.
The chief started to sit down in one of the chairs, but Danielle motioned him to the other one. “Marie is sitting there.”
The chief paused and looked at the seemingly empty chair. “Marie?”
“Yes. She’s sitting right there. I thought I told you she was here when you arrived?”
The chief shook his head and then walked to the other chair and sat down while mumbling, “Nice to see you, Marie.”
“Not the best choice of words.” Marie chuckled. “Although, I am curious which officer Danielle ruined.”
“So who did I ruin and how?” Danielle asked.
“Brian Henderson.” The chief looked to Walt. “But it’s Walt that has made the poor guy crack.”
“Those fingerprints again?” Walt asked.
“And the signatures.” The chief then recounted his conversation with Brian.
“Magician?” Danielle frowned.
“Brian has come up with this cockamamie theory. It’s ridiculous!” the chief said.
Walt let out a sigh and said, “It’s really no different from Joanne accepting my explanation for the floating boxes. It’s easier to accept a lie like that than imagine something else—something more frightening—might be going on. As for Brian, he was suspicious of me anyway—or of Clint. This explanation he’s come up with just fits into his reality. It’s a more comfortable fit.”
“I just wish he’d be more suspicious of the woman he’s dating,” the chief said under his breath.
“What about Beverly? Anything new on her attacker?” Danielle asked.
“Maybe I can find something out!” Marie said before vanishing.
“Umm…goodbye, Marie,” Danielle muttered while glancing around.
“Marie left?” the chief asked.
“I think she’s off to play a game of ghost detective,” Danielle explained. “So nothing new on the case?”
The chief told them about his interview with Beverly, what the neighbor had said, and his discussion with Joe and Brian on the matter.
The Ghost Who Dream Hopped Page 16