The Case of the Sinister Spirit Read online

  Minnie and Sophie were friends of my great-aunts. I hadn’t seen them since I was little, but I was pretty sure Minnie’s house was the red Cape Cod across the street and down a ways from Bud’s. As I approached the house, the two old-lady faces peering out from behind the drapes told me my guess was correct.

  Minnie threw open the door and rushed out to greet me. Sophie followed close on her heels.

  “Little Janie Gallows! How are you, dear? How lovely of you to come and visit.”

  They pulled me into the house past a plastic-covered floral sofa and into the dining room, where a long lace-cloth-covered dining table had been set for ten. I looked around for other guests, but only Minnie and Sophie were in residence. Maybe they were setting up for a party.

  “If you’re expecting guests, I don’t want to bother you,” I said.

  “Oh, no bother, dear. We’re not expecting anyone. Sit. Sit.” Sophie pushed me down into a chair, and Minnie fluttered about the sideboard, pouring from a silver teapot into dainty chintz teacups and putting miniature cupcakes with tiny red plastic hearts sticking out of the top on a tray.

  “To what do we owe this pleasure?” Sophie asked as Minnie put the tea and cupcakes on the table and then took a seat across from me next to Sophie.

  “Well, I was working with Bud before he ...”

  Minnie nodded solemnly, indicating that I didn’t have to spell it out.

  “Anyway, I was wondering if you saw anything unusual around here last night?”

  Their eyes lit up.

  “Of course we’ve been seeing unusual things for weeks,” Sophie said. She leaned across the table conspiratorially. “We’ve been seeing spirits and ghosts.”

  “Really? How do you know they were spirits and ghosts?”

  “Well, it’s obvious. Not only did we see them, but we also heard them.” Minnie took a pair of tiny silver tongs with clawlike ends and pinched a sugar cube from a silver sugar bowl. She poised it over my teacup, raising a brow in question. I nodded, and she let go, dropping it in with a tiny splash.

  “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “I heard it howling,” Sophie said.

  “And I saw ghostly lights on Bud’s property,” Minnie said.

  “And there was all kinds of moaning and groaning coming from over there.”

  Minnie nodded. “And clanking.”

  “What kind of lights? Like car headlights?” I asked.

  Minnie shook her head. “No. Not car headlights. Why would I think that was a ghost? I know what car headlights look like. This was just one light. A ghostly light.”

  Minnie pushed the cupcake tray toward me. No sense in being rude, so I grabbed one and undid the paper around the base. Chocolate with vanilla frosting. My favorite. But I had a hard time focusing on my taste buds, considering what Minnie and Sophie had just told me. If there really was a ghost on Bud’s property, then maybe he really had been killed by it.

  “And last night, remember we heard the most horrible banshee wailing,” Minnie said.

  “That’s right.” Sophie poured some milk into her tea. “I bet that was when the ghost killed Bud. And you know what, that killing must have satisfied it, because we never heard a peep afterwards.”

  I frowned. “Well, Bud was just killed last night, so it’s kind of early to know if the ghost is going to keep quiet or not.”

  “I know, but usually we hear it until at least nine o’clock, but last night we heard the wail around eight-thirty, and then there was nothing.” Both ladies nodded vigorously.

  “How long have you been hearing these noises?” I asked.

  Minnie pursed her lips. “Oh, about a couple of weeks now.”

  “Every night?”

  “Yes, I think so. Not during the day, though, just at night,” Sophie said.

  “Charlie Henderson said he saw an old, beat-up brown Dodge near here. Did you guys happen to see that?”

  Minnie glanced at Sophie, who shook her head. “No. Haven’t seen it.”

  “Was any car here last night?”

  Sophie shook her head again. “No. Definitely not. I would have seen a car, because I looked out the window when I heard that awful wailing. I remember seeing the ghost light though. But the brown car wasn’t there.”

  Now I didn’t know what to think. Was there actually a ghost? It certainly sounded like it. But had the ghost killed Bud, or had this mysterious treasure hunter killed him?

  Minnie and Sophie had said the brown car wasn’t there last night. That didn’t necessarily prove anything though. If a treasure hunter was illegally digging stuff up on Bud’s property, then he certainly wouldn’t park right in front of the house. It made me wonder, how had Charlie seen the car? Or maybe Charlie hadn’t seen it at all. Maybe Charlie knew there was a treasure hunter in town, and he was making it up to frame someone else for killing Bud.

  “Such a terrible thing,” Minnie said.

  Sophie nodded. “Bud was such a nice man.”

  “Yes. Didn’t deserve those awful children.”

  “What was wrong with his children?” I tried to remember if I knew Bud’s kids. He was in his mid-seventies, and I vaguely remembered him having two sons that were about ten years older than me. That would put them in their mid-forties. I couldn’t remember anything much about them.

  Sophie’s expression turned sour. “Ne’er-do-wells.”

  “Could barely even bother to pay Bud a visit.”

  “Never amounted to anything. Always after Bud’s money.”

  I glanced across the street. Judging by the dilapidated farmhouse and rickety barn, Bud didn’t have much money. One never knew with these old coots, though. Some of them liked to live like paupers, then when they died, you found out they had a million bucks stashed away.

  “Now I suppose those kids inherit it. Probably sell it off, and we’ll be living across the street from a Rite Aid,” Minnie said.

  “Oh no, Minnie, don’t you remember? Bud said he was cutting them out of the will,” Sophie added.

  Whoa. Wait a minute. “Bud was cutting his kids out of the will? Did they know that?”

  Sophie and Minnie exchanged a glance. “Who knows. He often said he was going to do it.”

  If Bud was threatening to cut his kids out of the will, then maybe one of them had killed him before he could make good on the threat. Moe would have been proud of the gumshoe work I was doing. I’d come here with only a ghost as a suspect, and now I had a full list.

  “Were any of his kids here last night?” I asked.

  “Nope. No one was here last night,” Minnie said.

  “Well, except for you,” Sophie added.

  Great. The busybodies that watched the house could peg me as the only person here near the time Bud was killed. Perfect. Well, me and the ghost, but I knew O’Hara wasn’t going to be satisfied trying to arrest a ghost.

  I guzzled the rest of my tea, smacked my lips, and patted them with a napkin. “Well, ladies. Thank you very much for the tea. Now I guess I’ll leave you to your party.”

  They pushed up from their chairs, flanking me.

  “Oh, it was lovely for you to come,” Sophie said.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Minnie added.

  “Come back any time,” Sophie piped in as I pulled open the door, stepped out onto the front steps, and skedaddled down the walk.

  “Tell your aunts we said hello,” Minnie called after me.

  I waved and then hurried over to Bud’s property. I wanted the chance to check out his barn and try to conjure the ghost again. And look for another clue. Now that my list of suspects was growing, I had a sinking feeling that I had my work cut out for me.

  Chapter Eight

  Back in the unsettling silence of the barn, I looked for clues. Given what I’d heard from Minnie and Sophie, I was pretty sure there was also a ghost, but if it was here, it wasn’t making its presence known to me.

  I dropped my bag on the nearest bale of hay, pulled out the ghost vanishing cream,
and opened it. Blech! The stench was almost unbearable. If that wouldn’t get rid of a ghost, I didn’t know what would. I made quick work of smearing it on the posts to the stalls and around the door, gagging the whole time.

  After smearing the cream, I shuffled around in the hay, looking for clues. It was fairly obvious from the hay still strewn everywhere that O’Hara hadn’t searched very hard. I still wasn’t sure if Bud had been killed by a human or a ghost, but if it was a human, they might have dropped something. Could it have been Charlie? For all I knew, Charlie was back home right now, making a vignette of Bud’s murder with every detail perfectly the way he remembered it being after spearing Bud with the pitchfork.

  My thoughts turned to the treasure hunter. Was there really someone in town looking for treasure, or had Charlie made that up? If it were true, maybe he or she had come here, and Bud surprised them. Maybe the noises had been made by this treasure hunter all along. But Minnie and Sophie had heard clanking and groaning and seen lights, which couldn’t be the treasure hunter since they would try to be more subtle. Which begged the question, why hadn’t the ghost scared the treasure hunter away?

  I made my way over to the spot where I’d found Bud’s body. Of course, the body and the pitchfork were gone, and red stains on the ground were the only reminders.

  As my eyes scanned the area, something small and red lodged under an old oak barrel caught my eye. I bent down to pick it up. It was only about a quarter inch long and just a sliver wide. It looked like some kind of plastic. Images of Charlie’s murder vignettes bubbled up. This looked like it could be a teeny tiny flower petal or a piece that had broken off from a miniature piece of furniture.

  Could this be from one of Charlie’s miniatures? But if it was, what was it doing in Bud’s barn? Charlie said he never came over here. I couldn’t be sure it was a clue, though, since it might have been here before the murder.

  While I was crouched down debating the validity of my new clue, I heard the crunch of tires outside the barn. Shoot! Someone else was here.

  What should I do? I could cast a no-see-um spell. I had just raced over to where I had put my purse, reaching in for the chocolates, when the squeal of tires announced another car arriving.

  Darn! That meant more than one person, and more than one person meant I’d have to double down on my spell.

  Car doors slammed.

  “What are you doing here?” A man’s voice.

  “Never mind that. What are you doing here?” Another man.

  “I followed you. Didn’t want you getting up to any shenanigans on my property.”

  “Your property? This is going to be my property.”

  Fighting over the property? Must be Bud’s ne’er-do-well sons.

  “Guys. Guys.” This voice was female. “The trespasser. That’s why we’re here, remember? Let’s get this over with. I have an appointment this afternoon, and I need to take the car.”

  Crap. There were three of them, and they were just outside the barn door, and a spell wasn’t going to work. My spells weren’t that strong. I didn’t know if I’d be able to whammy all three of them with it, and what if it only took on one? Then two people would be able to see me, and one person wouldn’t. That would be incredibly awkward.

  I opted to use a more friendly approach and disarm them with congeniality.

  I popped into the doorway of the barn.

  “Oh, hi. You must be Bud’s sons.” I smiled charmingly. “I’m Jane Gallows.”

  The tall one studied me, suspicion darkening his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  This must be the older one. He was balding but beefy, with the look of an ex-jock who had gone a bit soft. His once-handsome looks were fading. The other brother was thinner, with longish hair. Both of them wore stained T-shirts. A glance at the driveway revealed two rusted-out beater cars beside my ancient El Camino, but neither of them was brown.

  “Your dad asked me to look into a few things at the property.” I toned down my smile. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  The woman stepped forward. Like the men, she was in her mid-forties. She was still pretty in an overly-made-up, bleached-blonde way. “I’m Chastity. This is my husband Brent and my brother-in-law Steve.”

  We all shook hands, the men still radiating suspicion.

  “Why are you here now though? My dad’s dead.”

  “I know, but I figured the least I could do was carry through with what he wanted.”

  “What did he want?” Brent asked.

  Hmm. Maybe I should have come up with a story before I had the bright idea of popping out and introducing myself. “Um ... Rats. He thought there were rats in the barn.”

  “Rats!” Chastity’s hands flew up to the sides of her face, and she sidled away from the barn.

  “Yeah, he wanted me to get rid of them.” I looked at the guys, appealing to their greedy side. “Figured I’d still give it a try. It’ll be hard to sell the property if there are rats in the barn.”

  Brent narrowed his eyes. “Did you find any?”

  “I saw some evidence. I spread some rat repellent. You might notice it smells like rotten eggs. I don’t know if that will get rid of them. I may have to come back.” I wanted to keep my options open for future clue scouting.

  “Well, I don’t think it was a rat that killed Dad, unless it was you.” Steve cast narrowed eyes at his brother.

  “That’s a nasty accusation,” Brent said. “Why would I kill him?”

  “Maybe you thought he was going to make good on his threat to cut you out of the will, and you wanted to get rid of him before he could do it,” Steve said.

  “He wasn’t cutting me out. He was cutting you out!”

  “Well, did he?” I cut in. So what Minnie and Sophie had said was true. Bud was cutting his kids out of the will. And judging by what I’d heard, that might be a motive for murder.

  “What?” Brent looked at me.

  “Cut you out of the will.” Apparently he had a short attention span.

  “We don’t know yet,” Chastity offered. “The reading is after the funeral on Friday.”

  “Well, someone killed him, and it wasn’t no rat,” Steve said.

  “Maybe it was an accident,” I said.

  “Or someone who didn’t like him.” Chastity’s gaze drifted off toward Charlie’s place.

  “You mean his neighbor, Charlie?” I asked. “I thought they were friends.”

  Chastity shrugged. “He was always messing around with Dad.”

  “Yeah, but that had been going on forever,” Brent said.

  “How would you know, Brent? You never paid attention to Dad. Chastity was nicer to him than you were.”

  “I heard Charlie might not have been the only one skulking around.” Maybe one of them knew something about this treasure hunter.

  “What do you mean?” Steve asked.

  “Did your dad mention any trespassers? There’s a rumor of a treasure being buried here.”

  Brent’s eyes narrowed at Steve. “Is that why you’re here, because of a treasure rumor?”

  “No. Like I said, I followed you here. I didn’t want you messing with the property,” Steve said. “You never did say why you were here.”

  “None of your business. My buddy Hank drove by and said he saw someone lurking around the barn, so we came up to see what was going on.”

  “How do I know you weren’t here trying to dig up a treasure?” Steve persisted.

  “Do you guys think there is a treasure?” I asked.

  Steve and Brent glanced at each other.

  “I don’t know. This is the first I’ve heard of it. But if there is a treasure, it’s mine.” Steve jabbed his index finger at his chest.

  Brent stepped to within an inch of his brother, pulling himself up to full height. “No, dude. It’s mine. I’m the older brother, and therefore I should inherit everything.”

  “Boys ... Boys ... “ Chastity stepped between them, her palms on their chests, pushing them a
part. “Stop this fighting. Your dad has barely been gone a day, and you’re already fighting over a treasure that doesn’t even exist.”

  Chastity turned to me and shook her head. “These guys. Always fighting. There’s no treasure here. The property’s barely worth fighting over.”

  Brent and Steve stepped apart, obviously steamed.

  “Now you guys shake hands and make up. I need to get back home so I can take the car to my salon appointment. It’s too far to take the scooter,” Chastity said.

  “Fine,” Steve said. “You leave first.”

  Brent glared at him. “No, you leave first.”

  I edged toward my car. “Well, nice to meet you all. I gotta run.”

  I hopped into my car and drove off, leaving the two brothers glaring at each other and Chastity tapping her feet in the gravel. Judging by the murderous looks on their faces, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was soon another death at the Saunders property.

  It was almost noon by the time I got back to my office, and I spent the next couple hours doing some accounting work and filling Moe in about my morning. When I got to the part about Charlie’s murder-scene vignettes, Moe perked up.

  “That’s wacky,” he said.

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “Sign of a disturbed mind. Maybe he’s the killer. Seems like it wouldn’t be much of a step from crafting miniature murder scenes to actually creating a real-life one.”

  “I’ve moved him to the top of my suspect list.”

  Moe turned thoughtful. “I wouldn’t discount those sons, though. Many a time I seen a guy get whacked by family members who wanted the money. We need to find out more about this will.”

  “Yeah, got that on my list.” Did Moe think I was stupid? I knew how to do basic detective work.

  “Right. You know what to do. Follow the clues.”

  Problem was I only had one clue.

  Jinx snored on the couch the whole time we were talking, so I just left him there in the middle of the afternoon when I needed to get some fresh air and resupply my chocolate stash.