Haunted Tales (7 page)

Mary sat back in her chair and stretched. Looking around her
desk, she could see the remains of the morning’s snacks: string cheese
wrappers, an empty yogurt carton, and, she wasn’t proud of it, a still
half-filled snack-sized bag of Oreos.
 
She’d been in the office for about an hour and a half, had finished her
correspondence, and was now going to start doing some research on Kristen
Banks. She typed her name into the search engine and paused.
Nope. First I’m going to the bathroom,
she decided,
and then I’ll look for Miss
Banks
.

A few minutes later, as she returned from the bathroom
towards her desk, she was more than a little surprised to see Kristen Banks
peering into her computer screen on her desk. “Hello?” Mary asked softly. “Were
you looking for me?”

Kristen
turned,
her face still
blood-stained and battered, her expression one of confusion and interest.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the computer.

“That’s my laptop,” Mary replied.

“No,” Kristen said, slapping her hands to her thighs. “This
is a laptop.
 
That looks like a miniature
television.”

Mary smiled and walked back to her chair, slipping around
Kristen and sitting down. “Actually, things have changed a little since you
died,” she explained to the ghost. “Do you remember hearing about computers?”

Kristen thought for a moment. “Yes,” she said. “The
government used them for the space program, and some corporations use them.”

“Well, this is one of them,” Mary said. “Actually, this one
has more power than the ones that NASA used to run the Apollo mission.”

Kristen looked at the small laptop and then back at Mary.
“That can’t be true,” she said. “It’s so tiny.”

“It’s amazing how technology has grown over the years,” she
said. “I have a phone that can text, answer emails and search the internet.”

Kristen stared at Mary. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

Mary opened her mouth to explain but decided against it. “It
does a lot of cool stuff,” she improvised. “But, let’s get back to you.
 
I’m so glad you came to see me.”

“I actually hadn’t planned to come,” Kristen admitted. “But
I thought about what happened last night
and ,poof
, I
ended up here. So, who are you?”

“Well, I guess the best way to describe it is that I’m a
private investigator who works with ghosts,” Mary said.
 

“Like the Rockford Files?” Kristen asked.

Mary quickly typed ‘Rockford Files’ in her search engine and
saw the description of the 1970s private investigator show. “Yes, exactly,” she
said. She looked at the photos. “And James Garner was a hunk.”

Kristen smiled. “I always thought so,” she said. “So, what
was that you did?
 
Typing in the
information?”

“That’s called a search engine,” she said. “You can type in
a name or a question and get information about it from all around the world.”

“Does it find people? I mean real people, not just
celebrities?” she asked, leaning closer.

“It can,” Mary replied.

“Could you find my fiancé? Danny, I mean Daniel Toba?” she
said.

“I can try,” Mary said, typing the name into the search
engine and adding Polo, Illinois.
 
She
clicked enter, and the top result was a social networking page. “I think I
found him.”

She clicked on the page, and immediately a photo of a fairly
portly, bald-headed man in his sixties showed up.

“He’s old,” Kristen exclaimed, staring at the photo. “And
he’s fat.”

“Well, it been forty years since you last saw him,” Mary
replied.

“How could he let himself go like that?” she asked her face
filled with disgust.
 
Then she turned to
Mary and, placing her hands on her hips, shook her head slowly. “It was
probably the grief, wasn’t it?
 
He came
home and found out I was dead, and he just…he just went to hell.”
 

Mary clicked on his information. “Well, he eventually did
get married,” she said.

“What?” Kristen exclaimed. “He got married?”

Mary skimmed over the information and then bit her lower
lip.

“What?” Kristen demanded. “I taught school for enough time
to know when someone’s hiding the truth.”

“He got married about a year after you died,” Mary admitted.

“A year?
Well, obviously he meant
more to me than I did to him,” she snapped.

“Maybe it was a rebound kind of thing,” Mary suggested.

Kristen wasn’t buying it. “Who did he marry?” she asked.

Mary clicked on his photos and found his spouse. “It looks
like he married Janice.”

“Janice?” she cried, backing away from Mary’s desk. “He knew
I hated Janice. How could he marry Janice?”

“It looks like they had three lovely children,” Mary
inserted.

Kristen walked back to the desk and peered over Mary’s
shoulder. “Well, did they at least name one of them Kristen?” she asked.

Mary shook her head. “No, it doesn’t…”

“Wait a minute,” Kristen cried, reading over Mary’s
shoulder.
“Their dog?
Their dog!”
 
She walked to the middle of the room and
screamed, the haunting sound echoing off the walls. “They named their damned
dog after me!”

She disappeared in a puff, and Mary just stared at the empty
space for a few minutes.
 
Then she turned
back to look at the computer screen, picked up the bag of Oreos and stuffed one
in her mouth.
 
“Well, it’s a cute dog,”
she murmured.

“So, I guess we got ourselves a celebrity visiting our
little town,” Dale Epperly said as he walked into the small café in the
downtown area.

“What’s that you say?” George
Willingford
called out from across the room.

“I said we got ourselves a celebrity,” Dale shouted back,
knowing that George was not only hard-of-hearing but also always seemed to
forget his hearing aid when he left his home.

“You need some celery?” George asked. “Why don’t you go down
to the market?”

“He said we have a celebrity in town,” Vivian
Kutchens
, the owner of the restaurant, said.
 
There was something about the tenor of Viv’s
voice that somehow penetrated George’s hearing problem, and he heard her right
away.

“Well, you don’t say,” he said.
“Some kind
of movie star?”

Dale walked over to the counter and slipped into a seat. “
Naw
, nothing
like
that,” he said,
reaching for the cup of coffee Viv poured him.
“Just that gal
who was in the paper the other day.
 
The one that says she can see ghosts.”

Viv nodded slowly. “Don’t you make fun of that, Dale
Epperly,” she said as she wiped down the counter in front of Dale. “I’ve seen
things that would make you shake in your boots.”

“Yeah, Dale and she
ain’t
just
talking about your wife without makeup on,” George teased.

“Oh, really, George?” she asked. “Seems I remember a story
you used to tell about seeing a ghost back by your barn a couple of summers
ago.”

George paused and shrugged. “Guess you’re right,” he said.
“Somehow I forgot it.”

“Forgot what?” another voice asked as the door to the café
opened. “George, you forget your hearing aid again?”

“Hey, Mitch,” Viv said. “Have a seat.
 
No, George just remembered he shouldn’t be
making fun of the lady in town who says she sees ghosts.”

Mitchell
Howse
slid his large
frame into the corner chair at the counter, giving himself a little more room.
“What lady?” he asked, absently picking up the menu.

“That lady in the paper a while back,” Dale
said,
his voice heavy with skepticism. “The one that solves
mysteries ‘
cause
she can talk to dead people.
I
seen
her out at the old school
last night.”

Mitchell slowly put the menu back in the holder and turned
to Dale. “What the hell is she doing out at the old school?” he asked, keeping
his voice low.

Dale shrugged. “Well, my guess would be, seeing that it was
night time and the place is empty, that she’s on a ghost hunt,” he laughed.

“That place is dangerous,” Mitch growled, “Should have been
torn down a long time ago. Who the hell let her go in?”

He looked accusingly around the room and scowled.
 
“I thought the city council voted to condemn
that place,” Mitch continued. “I’m sure they voted on it months ago.”

“Yeah, they did,” George replied. “I read it in the paper.
But now they got to go to a judge and get things all worked out.”

“How long does that take?” Mitch asked.

George shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. “The wheels of
justice never seem to hurry themselves around.
 
Could be another year before they get around to it.”

“Besides,” Dale said. “
it
ain’t
like she’s going to find anything in there.
 
The only person who died in that school was
that young teacher. What was her name?”

“Christine,” George said. “It was Christine.”

“No, it was Kristen,” Viv inserted, pushing a cup of coffee
to Mitch. “Kristen Banks.
 
As I recall,
she tripped down the stairs.”

“I don’t suppose ghosts haunt a place because they were
clumsy,” Dale said. “That would be almost embarrassing for them.”

Mitch slid out of the chair. “Sorry, Viv,” he said, pushing
the coffee cup away and putting down a couple of dollars. “I just remembered
something I had to do.”

“Mrs. Spangler?” Clarissa asked, looking up at her fourth
grade teacher.

“Yes, Clarissa,” Mrs. Spangler replied, placing her hand
softly on Clarissa’s shoulder.

Clarissa loved the way Mrs. Spangler answered
questions.
 
She put her hand on your
shoulder and looked right into your eyes, like your question was the most
important thing in the world.
 

Clarissa smiled up at her. “Do you know if anyone ever died
in our classroom?”

Mrs. Spangler’s smile faltered just a bit, but then she
regained it. “Why no, Clarissa,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t have any
information about that. Why did you want to know?”

Clarissa shrugged. “I was just wondering,” she replied.

Knowing about some of the frightening circumstances when
Clarissa was younger, the concerned teacher pressed a bit further. “Are you
afraid of something?” she asked. “Are you worried someone might die?”

Shocked, Clarissa shook her head. “No, I’m not,” she
replied, her voice hesitant. “Are you?”

“No. No, of course not,” Mrs. Spangler assured her. “I just
thought you were worried.”

“No,” Clarissa said casually. “I was just wondering. That’s
all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s fine then,” the teacher said, patting
Clarissa’s shoulder gently. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

“That’s okay,” the child replied frankly. “If I find out
about any, I’ll let you know.”

Mrs. Spangler watched the little girl walk out of the classroom
accompanied by her best friend, Maggie Brennan, and shook her head. It was
funny how the slightly peculiar children seemed to be drawn to each other. And
those two were certainly peas from the same pod.

“What did you ask Mrs. Spangler?” Maggie asked Clarissa as
they walked towards the curb where Kate’s minivan was waiting.

Clarissa shrugged.
“Oh, nothing.
I
just asked her if anyone had ever died in the classroom.”

Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, Maggie shook her
head at her friend. “You know, you’re not supposed to do that,” she said.
“It kind of freaks people out.”

“I didn’t know that,” Clarissa said. “Why?”

Maggie sighed. “Clarissa, most people don’t believe in
ghosts,” she said. “It makes them uncomfortable to talk about dead people.”

Eyes widening in understanding, Clarissa nodded to her
friend. “Well no wonder she looked so surprised,” she said. “So, is this like a
secret?”

“It’s kind of like a family secret,” she explained. “Like
you can tell your mom and dad, ‘
cause
they get it. But
everyone else probably thinks you’re nuts.”

“But Mrs. Spangler just read us a bunch of ghost stories,”
Clarissa argued.

“But she thinks they’re just
stories
,” Maggie replied.

“
Ohhhhhh
,” Clarissa said. “She
doesn’t know they’re real? But I thought she was real smart.”

“Nope,” Maggie said. “My mom says she’s not stupid or
anything. She’s just ignorant.”

“
Ohhh
,” Clarissa replied,
nodding.
 
Then she paused for a moment.
“Um, Maggie?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said as they continued toward the minivan.

“What does ignorant mean?”

Maggie paused again and then turned to her friend. “I think
it means stupid, but it’s nicer. Kind of like shut up and be quiet.”

“Oh, okay,” Clarissa replied easily. “Come on, I’ll race you
the rest of the way.”

The girls took off, laughing and screaming, as they raced to
the curb.
 

“Whoa, slow down there,” Kate Brennan said, catching the
girls in a hug. “How was your day?”

“Great,” Maggie said. “Rusty threw up again in school.”

Clarissa nodded. “Right after lunch, so it was huge.”

“Is he okay?” Kate asked.

The girls nodded casually. “Yeah, he throws up whenever
there’s a math test,” Maggie explained. “His mother told the teacher that he
has math ‘
xiety
.”

“You mean anxiety?” Kate asked.

“Does anxiety make you throw up?” Clarissa asked.

Kate smiled.
“Sometimes.”

“Then that must be it,” Clarissa said, climbing into the
van.

“So, Clarissa, how’s your mom doing today?” Kate asked.

“She’s fine,” Clarissa answered absently.

“Was she happy this morning?” Kate continued, worried she
had hurt her friend’s feelings the night before.

“Yes, she was really happy,” Clarissa said, “because we were
talking about ghosts and she’s not ignorant.”

“Well,
good
,” Kate replied,
slightly confused. “That’s really good to hear.”