Thicker than Water (11 page)

“Steph, there are no such things as ghosts,” I said.

“I know that,” she said, “but you might want to tell that to the ghost in that house.”

I took my cell phone out of my purse, dialed the sheriff's station, and got Deputy Duran. “This is Torie O'Shea.”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. O'Shea.”

Mrs. O'Shea? Nobody calls me Mrs. O'Shea. Everybody in this town has known me forever and a day. “Uh … yeah, listen, we've got a problem at the Gaheimer House,” I said. “I think there's an intruder or a prowler or something. Can you send somebody to check it out?”

“Newsome is a few blocks over. I'll send him.”

“All right,” I said and hung up. “Newsome's coming. We stay outside until he gets here.”

“You don't have to convince me,” she said and crossed her arms.

While we were waiting, the buildings on the opposite side of the street began to glow with the orange of the setting sun, and I couldn't help but think how brave this prowler was. This was two or three times now that somebody had heard something in the Gaheimer House in broad daylight.

Mayor Castlereagh pulled up then but didn't turn off his engine—which was good, because that meant I only had to tolerate him for a few minutes. “Whatsa matter, Torie? You get locked out of your new mansion?” he asked from the window of his car. He was a short, pudgy man with a shiny head and a burning hatred for little old me.

“No,” I said. “Thanks for your concern.”

“Hear you're moving,” he said. “Finally get rid of those damn chickens.”

“You're moving?” Stephanie asked me.

“No, I'm not moving,” I said. “In fact, if I were, I wouldn't now just because he wants me to.”

“I told you,” he said. “I told you I'd get rid of those chickens one way or another. You know, your mother-in-law agrees with me.”

“Oh, well, then that settles it, doesn't it?” I said. “When two great minds get together and pass judgment on a bunch of chickens, they must be right.”

“Don't push me, Torie.”

“You know, your term's gonna end soon,” I said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That means you won't be mayor forever.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, I'm telling you that maybe somebody worthy will run against you next year and you can finally retire and bowl all day. Oops, you do that
now,
” I said and covered my mouth.

He was about to say something more when Deputy Newsome pulled up in his patrol car and stepped out. The mayor drove away, and Stephanie looked at me as if seeing a new person. “Sorry, I'm in a really bad mood,” I said.

“Does everybody hate you?” she asked.

“No, just the mayor and my mother-in-law. Well, and maybe Eleanore, but only sometimes. No, actually, now that I think about it, I think it's just the mayor and my mother-in-law,” I said.

“And your stepfather,” she said.

“No, Colin doesn't hate me. He hates some of the things that I do. There's a difference,” I said. “Which I've learned in the past few years.”

“Ahh,” she said as if she totally understood. Maybe she did.

“Oh, and by the way, don't ever tell a reporter where I am,” I said.

“Oh, it didn't go well?”

“No. The guy was a total jerk.”

“I'll remember that,” she said.

Deputy Newsome walked up next to us on the sidewalk. “What's the problem?” he said.

“I think the house is haunted,” Stephanie said.

“Well, I ain't no Ghostbuster,” he said and laughed at his own joke.

“I think she heard a prowler,” I said.

“That I can check out,” he said. “You ladies stay out here.”

“I heard it upstairs!” Stephanie called out after him. That's exactly where I had heard it, too. In Sylvia's room.

Stephanie and I talked a few minutes about some of the things she had found during my day of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. After about ten minutes, Deputy Newsome stepped out and onto the sidewalk. “I didn't find anything,” he said.

“How can that be?” Stephanie asked.

“He or she could have easily left while you ran to get me,” I said.

“What's more, I see no evidence that anybody was even in the house,” Newsome said. “I mean, nothing was out of place upstairs at all. Not like anybody was looking for anything.”

“This makes no sense,” Stephanie said. “This isn't the first time I've heard something.”

“Look, I heard something upstairs the other day, too. And Sylvia, well, we know Sylvia heard something the night before she died,” I said. “What can we do about this?”

Newsome shrugged.

“Have you noticed anything missing?” Deputy Newsome asked.

“No,” Stephanie said. Looking to me she raised her eyebrows. “Have you? You'd know better than I.”

I thought for a moment. I had given some things away already, and the place was certainly in disarray what with all the boxes and everything. “Maybe a few things, but nothing of any value.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I don't know. I'm not even sure now that I've said it. I mean, look at the place,” I said.

He glanced around and wrote something down on his notepad.

“Um … a ring,” I said. “It was my favorite of her rings and I haven't seen it in awhile. But really, it's not worth anything. So, it's probably here somewhere.”

Newsome wrote a few words again. Finally, I waved my hand in the air. “No, now that I think of it, I really don't think anything is missing. I'm sure it's here somewhere.”

“You need to make sure you're locking the doors once you're inside and set the alarm. I know it's a pain in the butt to mess with the alarm every time you go in and out, but you're just going to have to remember to set it when you're inside. That's all I can tell you,” he said. “Or maybe I can get the sheriff to post a watch for a couple of days. We're not busy. Not until the weekend for the second half of the festival.”

“All right,” I said. I worked my lower lip between my teeth, wondering, although what I was wondering wasn't quite fully formed yet. It was just this vague ghost of an image swimming around in my head. Whatever it was, it made me uncomfortable.

“At any rate, I don't think he'll be back tonight,” Newsome said.

“I'm not going back in there,” Stephanie said. “Not tonight.”

“That's fine,” I said. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “You go on home.”

“I'll be back tomorrow. Will you be here?” she said.

“Yeah, I'll be here,” I said.

“I'll walk her to her car,” Newsome said to me, which I was relieved to hear.

The two left me standing on the sidewalk trying to decide what to do next. I looked up at the redbrick building and thought,
I can't let it scare me
. The Gaheimer House was mine now, and I had to make sure that it was treated with respect and taken care of, just as Sylvia had, or all of Sylvia's hard work and dreams would come crashing down. There was no such thing as a ghost, and Newsome had said the prowler—if there had been one—was gone. I placed my hand on the doorknob and opened the door. When I stepped up the high front step my back seized, and I took a deep breath to try to quell the pain.

Then it hit me. The incoherent mix of thoughts I'd had earlier suddenly jelled. What if the person who attacked me at the Strawberry Festival had picked me on purpose? What if it hadn't been a random assault? What if it had been the same person who kept appearing and making ghost noises in Sylvia's bedroom? And what if Sylvia's attack in 1972 was somehow connected? I was probably reaching on that last one.

I looked back over my shoulder as the river slipped into the dark purple glove of dusk. Was the attacker watching right now? Was he hiding across the street behind the shops?

I shut the door and set the alarm.

Then I made my way to my office, looking over my shoulder the whole way. I rifled through my desk until I found the name of the private investigator Sylvia had hired. Michael J. Walker. I picked up the phone and dialed the number. I got a recording. I left my name and all my phone numbers and told him to call me right away, that it was urgent.

Then I decided that I wouldn't get any work done in this house this evening, so I grabbed a few boxes of things and headed out. By the time I made it to the front door, I had to stop to catch my breath. It felt like somebody had pulled all my tendons out of my joints, and all I had done was carry a few boxes a few dozen feet. My cell phone rang just as I picked up the boxes again. I set the boxes down and answered it. It was Rudy.

“Is everything all right? Was there a break-in?” he asked.

“Not sure,” I said. “We think somebody's been in the house, but everything seems to be in order. Are you still at Velasco's?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Can you come by and give me a ride home? I've got some boxes of pictures I want to work on, and I don't want to carry them all the way home.”

“Sure,” he said. “I'll be right there.”

Fourteen

At home, I read Matthew a bedtime story—one with dinosaurs, of course—and helped Mary with her math homework, which was sort of like the blind leading the blind. Rachel flung history questions at me the whole time I was helping Mary with her math. “What prince of England died on board the
White Ship
in 1120?”

“Oh, um…” I snapped my fingers. “William. Son of Henry the First.”

“Oh, you answered my second question, too,” she said. “And who did Henry the First kill—it is rumored—to get the crown of England?” Rachel read aloud from her history book.

“His brother. Also a William. You know, these answers are probably in your book,” I said.

“He killed his own brother and got to become king?” she asked, ignoring me. “So, like, I could kill Mary and become president?”

“No,” I said. “And they can't prove that he killed his brother. It's just awfully mysterious that his brother was hunting and was shot by a stray arrow and Henry just happened to be hunting in the same forest at the same time and oops! Now Henry is king of England. But, you know, Henry lost his only male heir later when the
White Ship
went down, so you have to wonder.”

“Wonder what?” she asked.

“Well, all bad deeds eventually get punished, in some form or other. If King Henry did kill his brother to steal the crown of England, then you have to wonder if Henry sort of got his payback when his son went down with the
White Ship
. If he had never become king, his son would probably have never been in that position. So you could say he set his own son's fate by taking what wasn't his to take.”

Rachel stared at me. “Mom, your mind is wicked.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“No, Mom,” Rachel said and wrote furiously. “I mean you're brilliant.”

“Oh,” I said. “Wicked as in good. I gotcha.”

“Of course, that's just one way of looking at it. But you know what they say: Whatever we do comes back to us twofold.”

“Mom,” said Mary, “just who is ‘they' when people say ‘you know what they say'?”

“I'm not sure,” I said and scratched my head.

“Mom,” Mary said, “what is eight times seven?”

I counted on my fingers. “Fifty-four.”

“Fifty-six!” Rachel said.

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

“Okay, so who inherited the title from Henry the First, and how did this affect England?” Rachel asked.

“Well, his daughter, Matilda, actually inherited the title, but not for very long. The king's nephew Stephen—who was also supposed to sail on the
White Ship
but got off at the last minute—made a claim on the throne, and this was bad for England because total anarchy ensued. Most of the nobility weren't ready to follow a woman, but some were, so you had this big disagreement and so forth.”

“You know all of that without even looking at my book?” she said.

“History is my thing,” I said and shrugged. It's totally useless in the everyday world, by the way.

“Mom,” Mary asked, “what is forty-three divided by four?”

“Uh … where's that calculator?”

“What nationality by blood was King Henry the First?”

“French.”

“So the king of England was French?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Long story. Later the kings of England would be German.”

Rachel rolled her eyes.

“Mom, what is forty-three divided by four?”

“I'm working on it,” I said, punching numbers on the calculator. “Oh, you figure it out. It's your homework.”

When homework was finished, I retired to my bedroom upstairs while Rudy and his mother watched some sitcom reruns. I had to laugh, because she had refused to let the television land on ESPN since she'd been here. Maybe Rudy was having to suffer after all.

Safe in my blue-gingham bedroom, I tore into the boxes that I'd brought from the Gaheimer House. I tried to make piles as I went through the photographs. One pile was for photographs of places: buildings, businesses, etc. Those could be used in the future for special displays and even publications with historical content. I found an excellent photograph of the Murdoch Inn back before it was the Murdoch Inn, when it was owned by the Queen family. In another pile I put photographs of people I knew, like Sylvia and Wilma, or even people who had died before I was ever born, if I knew of them or knew their families. Another pile was for people about whom I didn't have a clue.

I was extremely excited by the pile of “places” pictures. There were some absolute gems in that pile. In fact, I was getting ideas for their use with every photograph I picked up. It was the pile of “unknowns” that interested me the most, though. All the pictures had been written on, but I still didn't know who they were. I believed one was Sylvia's mother, since she looked just like Sylvia had when she was a young woman and it was taken around the 1890s, but I'd have to check Sylvia's family tree to match up the name. Some people in the pictures had the last name Pershing, so obviously they were Sylvia's paternal relatives.