The Stuffing of Nightmares (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 7) (3 page)

T
he bearded ghost was there
, walking alongside Brian as he stalked from the Bell place. Brian hadn’t seen him at first, but then he heard a scratchy voice emit an eerie chuckle. He was just about to step into his Pontiac when he happened to look up and was treated to a close-up look of the old-timer.

“Do I know you?” he asked. He wasn’t in the mood for entertaining smirking old ghosts.

“You don’t know me, but I know you,” said Graybeard in a singsong voice. He smiled through rotted teeth, and Brian suppressed an urge to shiver in disgust. In life, the guy had probably been a seedy bum who’d lived and expired in the gutter. Even in death, he was a horror to look at.

“What do you want?” he asked, jangling his keys. He wanted to get into his car and on his way, but after having been accused of being a ghost hater, he decided to make it a point to be nice to this old ghost, no matter how nasty he appeared. The stench of rotten eggs suddenly assaulted his nostrils, and he reeled back until he was pressed up against his Pontiac.

“I want you to make things right for my little girl,” said the old ghost, his smile fading away and a look of menace creeping onto his grimy, wrinkly face.

“Little girl? What are you talking about?”

“You’ve caused her harm, and you need to set the record straight.”

He held up his hands. “All right. First things first. Who’s this little girl you’re talking about?”

The man’s lower jaw was working, a couple of yellowed teeth on display. “Mabel Stokely. She’s my daughter, and you’ve wronged her. Think,” said the old man, tapping his smudged brow. “Think hard, Brian Rutherford.”

He did think hard. He knew Mabel, of course. Secretary to the mayor of Happy Bays, member of the neighborhood watch committee Alice Whitehouse was running. He’d even tried to recruit her for the Wraith Wranglers at some point, seeing as how she was able to talk to ghosts.

“And you’re saying I wronged her? How so?”

“You’re having her kicked out of her home, aren’t you?”

Brian gave a startled chuckle. “Me? Having her evicted? You’ve got me confused with someone else, old-timer. I’m not in the business of kicking people out of their homes.”

“Oh yes, you are,” insisted the man. He tapped Brian’s chest with his finger. “You foreclosed on her mortgage, forcing her out of her home.”

This was getting curiouser and curiouser by the minute. “Look, sir. I don’t do foreclosures, all right? I’m not a banker. I simply run…” And then it dawned on him. In its extensive portfolio, the Wardop Group owned quite a number of banks, one of which was Armstrong & Tillich, which had a branch here in Happy Bays. “She doesn’t happen to bank at Armstrong & Tillich?”

The old man displayed the full array of years of dental neglect, and Brian reeled back once more. “She does. And it’s that bank of yours that’s wronged my little girl. Act now before it’s too late, Mr. Rutherford. Or else…”

He snickered wheezily, and his beard waggled with spiteful glee.

“Or else what?” Brian ventured, though he thought he knew the answer.

“Or else my friends and I will make sure you won’t have a moment’s peace. We’ll make your life a living hell!” He pointed to the street, where shadowy figures rose up from the gutters; dark, disheveled creatures, all the spitting image of Mabel’s dear old dad. Staring at him through red-rimmed eyes, and grinning through rotted teeth, they were a corps of malicious dead.

Brian decided not to stick around. “I’ve got the message,” he told the old ghost. “And I’ll see what I can do to make things right, all right?”

“Not good enough!” thundered the old man with surprising vehemence. Once again he tapped Brian’s chest with his bony finger. “You promise me right here, right now, that my daughter will get to keep her house.”

He started to argue that he couldn’t possibly make such a promise but quickly saw that this army of the dead wasn’t going to listen to the finer points of his argument. Ghosts rarely did. They didn’t belong to the world of man anymore, and consequently had no patience with its mores and customs.

So instead, he quickly said, “I promise that she’ll keep her house.”

“You better!” warned the old ghost.

Brian quickly nodded and practically dove into his car. Even though he knew there was no escape from the dead, he slammed the door shut, shoved his finger on the keypad and the car engine roared to life. He tore away from the curb and drove straight past the dozens of ghosts watching him through haunting eyes. He was going to have to do his darndest to help out Mabel, but first he needed to get to the bottom of this Castle Windermere thing.

He had a pretty good idea what had taken place there, and if what he feared was true, things weren’t looking too good. He retched when suddenly the stench of rotten eggs invaded the car and his nostrils. A final reminder from Mabel’s father not to forget about his daughter.

“Oh, all right!” he called out to no one in particular. “Damn ghosts.”

Perhaps being a ghost hater wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

“
W
hat do you think
?”

Felicity wasn’t asking the question to anyone in particular. She was wondering whether Brian had been telling the truth or not.

“I think he was lying through his teeth,” said Reece. “And the way he weaseled out on us? I’m pretty sure we’ll never see his face again.”

Rick was fiddling with the device that had hopefully captured Brian’s lies and deceit, the others all gathered around.

“He struck me as honest,” said Alice, offering the contrarian note.

“Me too,” Felicity said reluctantly. “No, he did,” she said when Rick looked up and eyed her curiously. “He seemed genuinely surprised by the whole story, as if he’d never set foot inside Castle Windermere before.”

“But why would Jack lie about something like that?” Rick asked.

“Rats lie,” Alice pointed out. “It’s a well-known fact.”

“Is it?” asked Rick skeptically. “Is it?”

Felicity had to admit she’d never seen a documentary on lying rats on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic, but if she had to choose between Jack and Brian, she was prepared to give the latter the benefit of the doubt.

“I still think he was lying through his teeth,” said Reece. “And I should know. I’ve been on the receiving end of so much nonsense from studio heads, producers, directors and fellow actors that I can spot a fib a mile away.”

There was something to be said for that, of course. But then Felicity was no stranger to the human condition either. As a member of the Bell family she was used to working at the bakery and it often happened that customers claimed to have paid for an item while it was obvious they hadn’t. From an early age, she’d been trained to tell the liars from the honest customers.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Rick grunted, as he placed a bulky laptop on the coffee table. It looked like the kind that electricians use to check the wiring of a house, and Felicity watched in fascination as an image appeared on the small screen. It was Brian Rutherford, seated on the ‘hot seat’, a thermal image of his body appearing. “Now we’ll be able to see if he was telling the truth or not,” Rick said with a note of triumph in his voice. Usually it was Reece who came up with the cool stuff and the connections, but this time, Rick had trumped the actor.

Reece eyed the contraption with a supercilious eye. “I don’t need this mumbo-jumbo to tell me what I already know, Ricky. Brian is a ghost hater.”

But then Rick hit the play button, and they watched the conversation unfold on the screen, the voices sounding scrambled but still recognizable. The question was posed to Brian if he was indeed a ghost hater, and suddenly a section of his body lit up in blue as he vehemently denied the charge.

“Did you see that?!” Alice cried out, pointing at the screen.

“What does it mean?” Felicity asked, and she saw that Rick’s expression had turned from triumphant to worried.

“Let’s just let the footage roll,” he suggested. The interview drew to a close, and by now a vivid blue was coloring Brian’s entire body. Rick pressed the pause button, and fiddled with some of the dials, spiriting a series of graphs and numbers onto the screen. He studied them intently. Finally, he sat back and raked his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

“Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Felicity chimed in.

Rick gave them a goofy grin. “Looks like our boy is right after all.”

“What do you mean? What boy? You mean Reece is right? Brian is a liar?” Alice asked.

“Of course I’m right,” Reece said complacently.

But Rick gestured to the door. “That boy. Looks like he didn’t do it.”

Reece’s gasp of shock echoed through the room, as Alice and Fee sharply drew in breaths.

“What do you mean he didn’t do it? That’s impossible!” Reece cried.

“According to this machine he was telling the truth about Castle Windermere,” Rick said. “He was never there.”

Felicity didn’t get it. “But then why would Jack tell us that he was?”

Rick spread his arms. “I don’t know, honey. But the machine doesn’t lie.”

“I’ll bet it does,” Reece grumbled. He shifted in his seat and gave the laptop a withering look. “Where did you get this piece of junk? Ebay?”

“I got it from a buddy of mine who works for the CIA. They use it to interrogate terror suspects.”

“Well, that’s your problem right there,” Reece pointed out. “Brian isn’t a terror suspect.”

“They used it to figure out the hiding place of Osama Bin Laden.”

“Oh,” said Reece, then his frown deepened. “Well, Brian may be a lot of things, but he ain’t no Osama Bin Laden. I’ll bet he simply beat the machine.”

But even Reece recognized a lost cause when he saw it. Brian had told them the truth; there was no way around that simple fact.

“So what do we do now?” Felicity asked.

“Now we wait and see what story Brian comes up with,” Alice said. “There must be a logical explanation for what happened at the castle, and it looks like Brian needs some time to trust us enough to share it with us.”

Alice was right. They’d accused Brian of something he didn’t do. Felicity wondered what this would mean for the future of the Wraith Wranglers. There needed to be a relationship of trust between the leader and his team. They’d just shown that they didn’t trust Brian. Would Brian ever trust them again? Enough to send them on a mission? Or was this the end for the team? They could go on without Brian, of course, but Rick seemed reluctant. And without Rick, they had no team. She didn’t feel like doing this without him.

“
I
don’t want
to go!” Grover Calypso said. He was staring at the letter that had just arrived and shaking his head like an irascible child. And a big head it was, bulbous and covered with a mass of frizzy hair, it looked like a moldy old soccer ball left unattended in the back of the garden for years. And then there was the beard he’d recently insisted on growing. Ever since he’d seen a news item on hipsters, he’d insisted he needed a beard like that if he wanted to keep up with the times. Unfortunately, the hirsute appendage only covered parts of his face, leaving other spots bald. It did look pretty funky.

“Well, then don’t,” his wife suggested.

“I won’t,” Grover insisted mulishly.

Mrs. Calypso merely smiled sweetly. As the wife of the well-known billionaire, she was used to her husband making a spectacle of himself each time he was invited to attend some charity event. Even though he wasn’t the least bit interested in attending, he still felt obliged. He argued that when you were as rich as he was, people expected certain things from you, and attending these events was one of them.

She usually encouraged him to go anyway, as, unlike her husband, she was a social animal and always loved to meet new people, but she knew better than to press on when he was in this kind of mood. Emilia Calypso was a strikingly beautiful woman, with long platinum hair and classic features. The only thing that marred perfection were her eyes, which were cold and calculating, a perfect representation of her character.

“Why don’t I call these people and tell them you can’t possibly attend?”

“Would you do that?” he asked gratefully. “I don’t feel so good.”

She gave him a tight smile. “Of course, darling. I’ll do it right now.”

She moved over to her husband and placed a cooling hand on his brow. “Is darling having a bad day today?” she asked with a pout.

“It’s this merger business preying on my mind,” he grumbled.

She gave him a peck on the top of his head. “You leave everything to me.”

“Thanks, darling,” he said. Even though they’d been dubbed the beauty and the beast by their small circle of friends, Grover was devoted to his wife. Granted, he was not an Adonis, and the fact that he’d still managed to snag Emilia, a former beauty queen, still amazed him. It didn’t amaze her, however. Her aim in life had always been to become rich and famous, and marrying Grover Calypso was simply one step on that long ladder.

She strode to the phone, took a seat on the gilded chair, and soon was engaged in lively conversation with the person responsible for the charity.

“No, Mr. Calypso won’t be able to attend,” she said loud enough for Grover’s benefit. She nodded to her husband, who gave her a grateful smile.

“Well, that’s just wonderful,” her correspondent said, well pleased.

“But I will be there, of course,” she added.

“Even better,” the man said, and this time, she smiled to herself.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she whispered.

“Neither would I, my turtledove. Same place, same time?”

“That’s right.”

“See you later.”

She replaced the receiver and felt the usual flutter in the pit of her stomach. Conducting a torrid affair right under her husband’s nose did much to enliven an otherwise pretty dull life. And as usual, Grover hadn’t a clue.

She walked over to where he was staring out the window of their Park Avenue condo. Central Park was an oasis of green in the morning sunlight, and outside on the terrace breakfast was just being served. Black coffee and scrambled Eggs Benedict for him, orange juice and toast for her.

She placed a hand on Grover’s arm. “Ready for breakfast, darling?”

“Yes—yes, of course,” he said, surfacing from his pondering.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked, wondering if he suspected.

He flashed her a quick smile, his new dentures glittering brightly. “Just business, darling,” he said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Then I won’t,” she said pacifically. She never did bother about Grover’s business. That was his department. Her department was to make sure that their social life was in order, and that the household was running smoothly.

She hooked her arm through his, and they stepped through the sliding door onto the terrace. Time for breakfast, and a new and glorious day.