Mary Anne and the Haunted Bookstore

by Ann M. Martin

  All of the birds in the back of the store were parakeets, with the exception of one small yellow bird that might have been a canary. There wasn’t a raven in sight.

  “Now, what can I do for you?” the man asked.

  “Do you sell ravens?” I asked.

  He managed to look surprised and irritated at the same time, his eyes growing bigger, but frowning. “What’s with the sudden interest in ravens? They aren’t very attractive and they’re awfully big.”

  “You mean you’ve sold someone a raven recently?”

  “You’re the second person to come asking that question. Not to mention the woman who bought a bird.”

  “Can you remember who bought it?” I asked. “And who else wanted to know about ravens?”

  “It was a fellow, a young guy, who was in here asking about the birds. But I sold the bird to a woman. I didn’t have one in stock. I had to arrange with another store to send me one. She wouldn’t have any other kind of bird. It had to be one of those big black things,” he said.

  The young guy could be Alex, I thought.

  “Now, why are you so interested in ravens?” the man asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “We … we found one. And it seemed awfully tame, so we thought it must be a pet. I’m, um, looking for the owner.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, it was a cash sale, the raven. I don’t have any records with the address or phone number, but I sort of remember the woman’s name. It was Lenore, or something like that.”

  My heart almost leaped through my throat. Lenore again. Either Professor Kingsolver or Ms. Spark could have used that name. “Do you remember what the woman looked like?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Sorry,” he said with a shrug. “Could I interest you in a cage or some feed?”

  “No, thanks anyway. We’re all set. Thanks for your help too.” I started to leave.

  “Hey! I could take your name. If she comes back, I could tell her you have the bird.”

  Quickly, I scribbled a name and number on a paper he handed me. Marie Rogêt was the name I wrote, alongside the number for Poe and Co.

  When I arrived at the store, I was amazed. It actually looked like a store. The shelves were all in place, and Stacey and Mal were arranging books on them.

  “I can’t believe it!” I marveled, walking around the room.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” said Stacey. “They plan to open Sunday, although the grand opening won’t be until next Friday. You should see the invitations that Claudia came up with. There’s a raven —”

  “Where’s Lenore?” I asked, interrupting Stacey.

  “You didn’t see her?” asked Mal, pointing toward the back corner of the room.

  Lenore was perched in her cage, which was now hanging from a hook in the wall. Pluto was directly underneath the cage, staring at the bird.

  “The cat hasn’t moved since we came in,” said Stacey. “Mr. Cates said that the newspaper reporter is going to do another story about the bird finding its way here. Then, if Lenore is somebody’s pet, maybe her owners will call.”

  “And if nobody calls?” I asked.

  “Lenore will ‘join the bookstore family,’ in the words of Mr. Cates,” said Mal.

  “Where are Ms. Spark and Mr. Cates?”

  “Mr. Cates took Tom and Gillian shopping. Ms. Spark had to go to the post office to mail something.”

  “And are the workmen finished?” I asked.

  “A couple of them are still here.” Stacey looked at Mal, and they giggled. “In the basement. They’re working on the wiring. Neither of them would go down alone.”

  “You should see them looking over their shoulders and jumping at every little sound,” said Mal.

  “And speaking of the basement,” said Stacey, “we want to see the gravestone.”

  “No one is supposed to go down there,” I reminded her.

  “The workmen are down there now.”

  “Well, anyway, it may not be a ‘gravestone.’ ”

  “You’re right,” said Stacey. “Mal and I have been talking and we don’t believe there’s a dead body or a ghost behind everything that’s happened.”

  “But we haven’t come up with anything that points to any of our suspects, either,” Mal said.

  “So we may as well take a look at the gravestone, in case it will give us new information,” said Stacey.

  “I don’t know….” I could understand why they wanted to see it, but the thought of going in that cellar again made me shiver.

  “It isn’t as if we’d be there alone,” Mal pointed out.

  “We’ll run down and come right back,” Stacey promised.

  “Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. I knew we wouldn’t get a bit of work done until I showed them the stone.

  When I opened the door to the basement, cold air surrounded us. I shivered again, from a combination of cold and fear. I stepped onto the wooden stair and it creaked. As Stacey and Mal followed, the creaking became magnified. At the bottom, I paused, summoning my nerve before I looked at the corner where the gray stone lay.

  Andy and another workman were across the room from the “grave.” They looked up as we entered the cellar, looked at one another, then turned back to the wires hanging out of the wall.

  “Over there.” I pointed.

  Stacey stepped around me and stood staring at the stone in the floor. Mal joined her, and I brought up the rear.

  “Cool,” said Stacey.

  “It does look sort of like a headstone,” said Mal. “And think about it. There’s a stone floor down here. It would be easy to pry up the stones and then dig in the dirt underneath.”

  “Stop it, Mal,” I said. I looked over my shoulder. The workmen’s bright lights were burning in their corner, but the area where we stood was in shadows. It had the musty smell that basements often have, and the walls, also stone, were damp. I doubted that it ever completely dried out down here. “Seen enough? Ready to go back to work?” I asked.

  But Stacey wandered around the basement. “I wonder if anyone has searched for the missing Gable papers down here?” she asked.

  “It seems like the perfect place to hide something,” said Mal.

  “Then I’m sure they’ve already looked down here,” I said. I moved to the bottom step and rested my foot on it. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Stacey, stopping in front of what looked like two large black boxes. “Why is a stereo system set up down here? That’s really weird.”

  Mal joined her. “Someone has been playing it,” she said. “There’s a tape in it.”

  This was enough to make me step down and have a look.

  “Does this belong to one of you?” I asked the workmen.

  “Nope. We thought it was kind of strange too,” Andy answered. “It won’t last long down here.”

  I punched the PLAY button to see what was on the cassette. In a moment the sound of a beating heart surrounded us.

  “The tell-tale heart,” whispered Mal.

  “Play some real music,” Andy said. “That’ll put me to sleep.” He laughed.

  It was the sound Logan and I had heard. It wasn’t dripping water — or a living, beating heart. It was a tape. “Where would you find something like this?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

  “It’s probably one of those tapes that parents use to make their baby feel like she’s still in the womb,” said Mal. “We have one someplace. Mom played it for Claire when she first came home from the hospital.”

  “You know what this means?” I asked. “This is proof that what’s going on here at the store — the raven, the carving, the black cat trapped behind the wall — is a hoax.”

  “But why?” Stacey asked.

  “And who’s behind it?” said Mal.

  “Too bad we don’t have a fingerprint kit,” Stacey said in a low voice. “We could dust for prints and find out who’s handled the tape.”

  “My brothers have a detective kit,” said Mal. “Remember when they were ‘se
cret agents’? The fingerprint powder makes an awful mess, but it sort of works. I don’t think it would be enough to convict someone, but you can usually see the prints.”

  “How would we know whose fingerprints they are?” Stacey asked.

  “We’ll take samples from everybody,” I said, a plan coming together in my mind. “At least, everybody who’s here.”

  “Nobody’s here now,” Stacey reminded me. “Besides, what are you going to do? Say ‘We’re playing detective, can we take your fingerprints?’ ” She giggled. “Then roll their fingers in black ink and put them on a card? Maybe Claudia will take mug shots too.”

  I laughed. Already I had a better idea. “By the time Mal returns with the fingerprint powder, Ms. Spark and Mr. Cates will probably be back. And the workmen are here now,” I said quietly. “I’ll make some coffee and serve it. We’ll lift the prints off the cups.”

  “It might work,” said Stacey, but she sounded skeptical.

  “I’ll go home and bring back the fingerprint powder right now,” said Mal.

  “And I’ll make coffee,” I said.

  “I guess I’ll just shelve some more books,” said Stacey.

  We ran upstairs. I stayed in the kitchen, Mal headed for home, and Stacey headed for the shelves.

  “Hi, Mr. Cates, Ms. Spark!” I heard Stacey say. I could tell she was speaking extra loudly, to make sure I could hear.

  I heard other voices and stepped into the hall. I couldn’t believe my luck. Alex and Mr. Gable! Now we had a chance to check their prints too.

  “Someone moved it in here, so there must be a way to move it out,” Mr. Gable was saying.

  “Hi, Mary Anne,” Alex called out.

  “Hi. What are you doing?” I asked from the office doorway.

  “We want to move this desk out. It wasn’t part of the deal when we sold the house,” said Mr. Gable. “But we’re having a little trouble figuring out how to fit it through the door. I’m thinking it must come apart, because someone had to have moved it in here.”

  “Maybe they built the house around it,” I joked.

  “Maybe,” mumbled Mr. Gable, measuring the desk with a metal tape measure.

  “I’m making coffee,” I said. “I’ll bring you some.”

  I returned to the kitchen. A coffeemaker sat on the counter near the sink. I filled the carafe with water and poured it into the reservoir, then opened cabinets until I found coffee filters and coffee. I measured the coffee carefully. While it brewed, I found mugs, choosing six different colors and designs. I wanted to be able to know whose prints were whose when it was all over.

  I found a sugar bowl and a creamer that I filled with milk from the refrigerator. I added spoons to the tray I’d dug up, and arranged the cups carefully around the edges.

  “Mary Anne! What are you up to?” Ms. Spark asked.

  I hadn’t heard her coming, and she almost scared me to death. “Making coffee,” I replied. “The weather’s so cold and gloomy, it seemed like a good idea.”

  “You drink coffee?” she asked.

  “No, but I thought you might like some.”

  “Well … sure,” Ms. Spark said.

  “Can I help you, Mary Anne?” Stacey joined us.

  “It’s almost finished. You can help me serve,” I said.

  I poured coffee into six cups. “Help yourself,” I said to Ms. Spark. “And there’s milk and sugar if you need it.”

  “I’ll take it black.” She chose a red cup and sipped. “That’s good,” Ms. Spark said.

  Carefully, I carried the tray down the hall. “Mr. Gable, Alex. Coffee?” I offered the tray.

  “Just what I need,” said Mr. Gable. He took a navy blue cup.

  “None for me, thanks,” said Alex.

  “You’ve been working so hard,” said Stacey. “Come on, we made it special.”

  “A little, I guess.” Alex picked up a cup with flowers on it.

  I made a mental note of who’d taken which cup. I hoped I would remember. I also hoped Stacey was noticing too.

  Mr. Cates added sugar and milk to his coffee. He drank out of a mug with a New York Yankees logo on it.

  I retraced my steps and met the workmen at the top of the basement steps. “Done,” they announced.

  “Then have a cup of coffee to celebrate,” I said, offering the tray.

  “Thanks.” They took the two remaining cups.

  “That hits the spot,” Andy said, setting his empty mug on the counter.

  The other workman nodded and set his cup beside Andy’s, then they left through the back door.

  We were alone in the kitchen again. “Professor Kingsolver is the only one who isn’t here,” I said to Stacey. “If the prints on the tape don’t match anyone else’s, we’ll have to find a way to take hers.”

  “I’m back,” said Mal, coming through the back door.

  “Do you know how to take the prints?” I asked.

  “I had to ask Adam, then promise that I’d do dishes for him, but yes, I know how,” said Mal.

  “We’ll keep Mr. Cates and Ms. Spark busy while you lift the prints off the cassette tape. Those mugs belong to the construction guys. The black one with gold trim was Andy’s. The one with the train was the other guy’s,” I said.

  “I have cards for mounting the prints,” said Mal.

  “We’ll have to make sure we’re the ones who collect them too,” Stacey said. “It won’t be much help if there are several sets of prints on each cup.”

  I carried the tray with me when we went back to the main room. Along the way I collected Mr. Gable’s and Alex’s cups.

  “Is there any more coffee?” Mr. Cates asked.

  “Sorry. I gave the last of it to the construction workers,” I said.

  “Want me to make some more?” Ms. Spark asked.

  No! Please don’t say yes, I thought. If Ms. Spark came into the kitchen now she’d find Mal and the fingerprint kit.

  “Not right now. Thanks, Mary Anne, that was very sweet of you to think of coffee,” said Mr. Cates.

  I only felt a little guilty as I placed his cup on the tray and returned to the kitchen with it.

  Mal was hard at work, spreading powder and lifting the prints with some Scotch tape, then placing them on cards. “We’ll have to wash the cups right away, or they’ll see the powder and wonder what’s going on,” she said.

  “Did you lift a good print off the cassette?” I asked. That was very important. Without it, we wouldn’t have anything to compare the other prints to.

  “A very good one,” said Mal. “It’s clearer than any of the ones from the cups.”

  “We can compare the prints at the BSC meeting this afternoon,” I said.

  “And we’re going to have to go soon or risk the wrath of Kristy for being late,” said Mal.

  “We don’t want to do that!” I said, laughing. I’d run some soapy water in the sink and as Mal lifted the prints, I washed and rinsed each coffee mug, then put it in the dish drainer to dry.

  “Finished!” Mal announced, pulling the last print, which was from the Yankees mug. She hadn’t even taken off her raincoat. And no one had tried to come into the kitchen.

  “Where are Tom and Gillian?” I asked when we rejoined Mr. Cates, Ms. Spark, and Stacey in the store.

  “They went upstairs to watch television. Cillia is going to cook supper soon. The kids are pretty excited about eating here and not having to go to a restaurant,” said Mr. Cates.

  “I’d better start if we want to eat at a decent hour,” said Ms. Spark.

  “Tom and Gillian are also excited about the Sunny Day Festival,” said Mr. Cates. “You know, I was pretty lucky to find you guys. You’ve been great for Tom and Gillian and the store. Now, if Dupin will only figure out what’s going on here with the ghost and the raven and the beating heart …”

  “I’m working on it,” I said. And if he only knew what Mal had in her pockets, he might not be so happy about the direction our investigation was taking.
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  “Time for our BSC meeting,” I said to Stacey. “Do you think you’ll need us tomorrow?” I asked Mr. Cates.

  “If you have time, you might stop by after the festival. We’ll probably still be shelving the books.”

  “See you tomorrow!” I said.

  While the rest of the BSC members were passing the mystery notebook around and writing in it, I noticed that Claudia had cut out The Stoneybrook News story about Poe and Co. and stuck it on her bulletin board. The object of newspapers is to create a sensation, I thought. And that’s exactly what happened when the story appeared. Everybody was talking about Poe and Co.! That sounded like a good enough reason to “haunt” your own bookstore, especially if you’d sunk your entire life savings into it and wanted to make sure there were enough customers.

  “Mr. Cates does have a reason to haunt the store,” I burst out. “Think of all the attention he received after the newspaper story appeared. So much that he’s doubled his efforts to open the store on time,” I reminded them. “Publicity — free publicity — is a very good reason to do something. Add that to the similarity in the fingerprints and voilà! We have ourselves a ghost.”

  “But who cares if he’s haunting his own store?” said Abby.

  “I don’t like the way he’s used us,” I said.

  “Me neither,” said Kristy.

  “Maybe it’s time for another ghost to visit Mr. Cates,” I said, busily planning how we could make that happen.

  Kristy’s mom and Watson had cleared out their garage and moved the cars to the street.

  “Good start to a Sunny Day Festival,” Stacey said to Kristy and me when she arrived.

  “You sound almost disappointed,” said Kristy.

  “Not really. But if this is all it took to end the rain, we should have planned the festival two weeks ago.”

  Mr. Cates pulled up in the Poe and Co. van. Tom and Gillian climbed out of the backseat, Gillian carrying a tray.

  Stacey met them at the end of the driveway.

  “Where are your sunglasses?” asked Gillian. She wore a pair of hot pink shades and Tom wore aviator-style sunglasses.

  “Right here. What’s on the tray?” Stacey asked, pulling her white plastic sunglasses with turquoise polka dots out of her pocket and putting them on. They matched her turquoise sundress — which was covered by a denim jacket. Even though it was sunny, it wasn’t exactly warm.