Ghosts Beneath Us: A Third Spookie Town Murder Mystery (Spookie Town Murder Mysteries Book 3) (24 page)

She put her arm around him. “I’m sorry, Frank, that Alfred’s dead.”

He let her hug him. “I know you are. I need to solve these deaths. Not only for Alfred and the others but because I think it isn’t over yet and they’re tied to something bigger. I’m afraid more could die.

“Also, I’m going to see to it that Alfred has a decent veteran’s burial with all the ceremony it entails. Even if I have to pay for it myself. He proudly served our country once so he deserves it.”

Abigail smiled at him. “I think he deserves it, as well.”

They were walking to the truck, hand in hand, when she thought of something else. “Did you ever hear back from your NIS friend–Charlie was his name right?–about what the Lansing Corporation is and their supposed involvement in all this?”

“Oh, I meant to tell you. I did hear from him. Last night. It’s pretty much what I thought. Lansing is a front for a group of powerful and surreptitious government facilities. It’s actually part of a massive world-wide conglomerate. They’ve been buying up the land out around Myrtle’s place now for months. This, by the way, is about the time the strange happenings in her neighborhood began. Charlie isn’t sure what the government facility’s purpose is but he suspects it will be building something like a psychological, chemical or biological research center; extremely top classified stuff and, as all high-level government business, shrouded in deep secrecy. Charlie’s going to try to get more information and will let me know what he discovers as he does.”

“All right, I’ll ask what you’ve probably already asked yourself. What research facility could be so important they’d kill people to get land for it?”

“I don’t know. Charlie didn’t know the answer to that, either. Yet. He did say whoever was behind this appears ruthless and he’s informed his superiors of what’s going on. There’s going to be an investigation.”

“Thank goodness. I feel better knowing someone with the right government authority is also looking into it. With Alfred’s death I’m really concerned. Myrtle still lives out here. Kate will eventually be living full time out here. I hate to think they could still be in danger.”

“I feel the same way. And I’m worried about what is going to be constructed on this land and for what intention. Why all this secrecy? We need to find out.”

“Yes, we do.” She got into the passenger’s side of the truck and Frank drove her home, both of them silent with their glum thoughts.

Abigail wondered what would come next. She prayed someone else didn’t mysteriously come up missing or die. Things had been going so well in Spookie before this, it’d been so peaceful, and that’s the way she liked it. Apparently fate didn’t.

But stealing a glance at Frank, she also had the impression he was enjoying it. Just a little.

*****

A night later, the children already asleep, Abigail sat in the living room and tried to watch television. She’d recorded a marathon of The Game of Thrones the weekend before when her cable service had offered three free days of the HBO channel. Tonight she was going to watch some of them. If she could stay awake, that is.

The last week had been difficult. The weekend with the grand opening, Alfred’s death and traipsing around in the woods had worn her out, and…the bad feeling hadn’t left her. It’d grown.

The show was fascinating, exciting, and for a while she was lost in the stories and stayed up past two o’clock in the morning. Which was way too late. But tomorrow was Monday and she didn’t have any early plans, no place she had to be. She had a lead or two on more free-lance jobs and would follow up on them later in the day. So she could go back to sleep after she sent the children off to school. She always made them breakfast, even if it was only cold cereal, and saw them off.

Finally her exhaustion won out. She shut off the television, the lights, and checking the front door to be sure it was locked, she was moving away when she caught something in the glass panel on the other side of the door. The something moved.

There was someone outside on the porch staring in at her.

Through the glass her eyes met the shadowy shape’s eyes or she thought they did. Its eyes were empty sockets in a misty silhouette. The features of its face settled into one that became familiar. The man outside her door looked like Alfred.

But Alfred was dead. They’d found his body days before. No it couldn’t be Alfred, could it?

She wrenched open the door and was about to ask the person, whoever it was, to come in but when she did it dematerialized before her eyes. There was no one there. It was so unexpected she cried out.

Rushing onto the porch she looked around in the dark. If someone had been there they no longer were. No one was. What the hell?

Then at the end of the yard where it was the gloomiest she spotted the figure again. It was floating there, just watching her. Then its eerily haunting voice came drifting across the grass. “
Warn my friend Myrtle she’s next. Warn her not to stay out at her house. Warn her…
”

“Alfred, is that you? Alfred? What are you trying to tell me? Why is Myrtle next? Next what?” She walked towards him across the yard, the light from inside the house spilling out behind her. But with each step she took the man in the shadows seemed to move farther away until she lost him among the trees at the fringe of her property. He’d merged into the night woods. There was no way she was going to follow him there. That’s where the ghosts all lived, Myrtle always said.

Warn my friend Myrtle she’s next.

Slowly she turned around and reentered the house. It was late but she’d call Frank and tell him what she’d seen, middle of the night or not, if she’d even seen what she thought she had; heard what she thought she’d heard and what it might have meant. She wasn’t sure where Myrtle was right now. The old lady, gypsy that she was, was camped out on her land somewhere waiting for her new home to be delivered and set up. It was scheduled for Monday, she’d said when Abigail had spoken to her last. That was tomorrow. So she was probably out there now. Alone. No telephone. There was no way to get a hold of her except to go out there and find her.

Warn my friend Myrtle she’s next.
The message had sounded urgent.

She telephoned Frank, waking him up, of course, and explained why she was calling.

“I know you don’t believe in manifestations and such, Frank, but the visitation was a warning. I’m sure of it. We need to find Myrtle.”

“Now? In the middle of the night? It’d be hard in the dark to find her. I know she spent a night or two on your couch and in between she was staying at Tina’s house. But she called me the other night saying Tina’s ghost had finally showed up and wouldn’t leave her alone; that she had to get out.” Abigail could hear the skepticism in his words, but it wasn’t as strong as usual and she wondered why. She’d have to ask him when she saw him next.

“Then she said something about going to protect her land because her modular was due to arrive soon. Protect what? They hauled the burned trailer away days ago. It’s a parcel of flattened dirt right now.”

“She told me she was going to camp out,” Abigail offered what she knew. “She’d gotten some of Tina’s old camping things from Tina’s basement, a bedroll and a tent, and she was determined to spend the night there.”

“I thought Myrtle was afraid of the ghosts?”

“Apparently they aren’t on her actual piece of land, just in the woods around it.”

“Oh,” Frank sighed over the line, “that old woman confuses me to no end sometimes. She has so many idiosyncrasies. Not only does she see ghosts, she’s so bloody independent I often think it borders on some sort of mental illness.”

“She baffles me, too. But she’s our friend for better or for worse.”

“That she is. So I’ll go over there at first light and persuade her to come back to my cabin and stay in one of the guest rooms until her new house is ready to occupy–even if I have to hog tie her and drag her back; although I question her safety even when she’d behind the locked doors and walls again of her own place. Living in a house hasn’t saved the others. After Alfred I wouldn’t put anything past whoever is behind this.”

“I know. But your cabin is a heck of a lot safer than living out somewhere alone in a flimsy tent.”

She and Frank made plans for meeting later Monday and the call ended.

Abigail went to bed, though it took her a long time to capture sleep because she kept seeing Alfred’s ghost, if it had been his ghost and not her imagination, and hearing his warning.

She had some odd thoughts before sleep came. Frank had said he’d also seen a shadowlike figure in a store’s window and it had spoken to him, too. What was going on? Were both of them becoming as batty as Myrtle? In the store window in town last week and now this. It was almost funny. If what she’d seen tonight was real, that’d make Myrtle not nearly as crazy as they’d always believed. Now that was a frightening thought.

Chapter 11

Myrtle

It sure as hell was dark out, Myrtle mused, as she crawled into the tent and, by the faint light of a tiny flashlight she’d also snatched from Tina’s basement, wiggled into the brand new sleeping bag. It was big and fluffy and like the canvas shelter above her and the flashlight it still had the sales tags on it. Tina had liked to buy things she’d never use, whether she had the money or not. Like the tent…Tina never went camping, or not that she’d ever known of, so why had she needed a tent? The woman’s house was full of new but unopened things stuffed, crammed and stacked everywhere. Her basement was like a department store. Shelves and shelves of merchandise barely used if at all. Myrtle had gone down there that morning and loaded up on everything she’d need.

She had to leave that house. Tina’s spirit, once she’d come home from the sea, kept bugging her. Two days past the shade had suddenly appeared and hadn’t left her side for a moment since. She’d stalked her everywhere in the house and jabbered at her like live Tina never had. Evidently death had made her friend really talkative. Imagine that, even the dead could change.

The thing was the phantom never said anything that made much sense. She’d prattled on about long ago meals and long dead friends or other trivial subjects like why did people have to wear clothes or why did cats lick themselves clean when a dunk in the water would do it much more efficiently. The endless talking had driven Myrtle nuts. Then again, perhaps that was her punishment for not going back to the cabin with Tina that night. Tina’s ghost was going to try to talk her to death.

Funny thing was, the ghost wouldn’t tell Myrtle what had happened to her on the boat, how she had died or who had killed her. And Myrtle tried to ask her those questions all the time at first. It hadn’t done any good. As an answer Tina chattered about how she liked the pattern in her kitchen tile, how much she’d spent on bathroom towels and when she bought the bed upstairs and how the salesman had kept flirting with her. Yeah, sure.

Shades. They sure were squirrely. Why they had to bother her all the time she’d never understood, yet they had since she was a child. Sometimes were worse than others and lately it’d been truly bad again. It made Myrtle wonder if something peculiar was going on in the spirit world. It could be something was or could be the full moon made the spirits extra crazy. She had no freaking idea and she didn’t really care…as long as they left her alone.

So she had to get out of that house and the idea to camp out on her piece of land that night came to her. It had turned warm suddenly as it often did in May and she’d be fine in a sleeping bag. She could have squatted at Frank’s or Abigail’s place but she was sick of mooching off people and sleeping in other people’s beds. She wanted her own home back and wanted to be there when the big truck brought in the halves of her modular so she could direct the workmen precisely where to put it. Otherwise they’d plunk it down somewhere totally inappropriate. She wanted it beneath the towering oak tree. The one her husband had first kissed her under so many years ago.

Oh, she was aware old people were being picked off like diseased bison trailing the herd, but she’d be careful. Her tent was behind the oak tree and in the middle of a bunch of bushes. No one could see it. It was a small tent big enough for one person. She’d be quiet and only use the flashlight when she had to. Besides, who would think an old woman would be camping out on her empty plot of land anyway? No one. So she reckoned she was safe. And tomorrow bright and early they’d bring out her new home and she’d be there to welcome it. It worked for her.

Unwrapping a candy bar, she munched on it, ate an orange and a chocolate pudding cup; drank a carton of milk. That was a fine enough supper.

Giggling at how she had tricked Frank and Abigail by coming out there alone she switched off the flashlight, snuggled into the sleeping bag and shut her eyes. They’d never find her there. It felt so good to be back on her land. It was where she belonged. There’d been a time when she’d enjoyed sleeping at other peoples’ houses and being waited on, but those days were over. Her trailer being burned to cinders had done that to her. As of late all she wanted to do was be back here with all her memories. For some reason, the ghosts, other than her dead husband’s every so often, never bothered her on this piece of earth. She felt safe there.

She must have fallen asleep. One minute the sounds of crickets and frogs making their nightly racket filled her head and the next she was startled awake by an unfamiliar noise somewhere outside the tent. Voices. Two of them. It was still dark outside, yet it was that glowing dark right before dawn. She’d slept the night away in the blink of an eye.

Now the voices were closer. There were people whispering and feet crunching through the grass. A pair of light dots bounced around the earth around her. Flashlights. Myrtle was instantly awake. There were people on
her
property skulking around like common thieves or mischief makers.
Please don’t let them see my tent.
Good thing before she’d climbed inside she’d laid loose branches over it to hide it from any ghosts that could be lurking about. Leaves and stuff were great camouflage. They’d never know she was there unless she darted out and waved her arms at them in their flashlights’ glare. And, of course, she wouldn’t do that.