The Ghost Who Dream Hopped Read online

  Walt chuckled. He folded the newspaper and tossed it to the empty chair next to him. “Max tells me you fell out of bed last night.”

  Danielle took a chair across the table from Walt and sat down. “He sure is a gabby cat.” She removed the plastic wrap from the plate and wadded it up before tossing it aside.

  “What happened?”

  About to pick up the cinnamon roll from the plate, Danielle paused and looked across the table. “We have a problem.”

  Walt arched his brows. “We do?” He picked up his cup and took a sip, his eyes still on Danielle.

  “I had a dream hop last night.” Danielle picked up the cinnamon roll and tore off a piece.

  Setting his cup back on the table, Walt frowned. “Dream hop? With whom?”

  “Steve Klein.” Danielle popped a piece of cinnamon roll in her mouth and began to chew.

  “You mean the banker? The one who fell off the pier?”

  Danielle nodded and then licked the sugary frosting off her fingertips. “His wife was there too.”

  “I thought she was alive?”

  “Oh, she is alive. It was one of those hops where the spirit brings two people in the dream with him.” Danielle picked up the creamer, poured some into her mug, and then took a sip of her coffee.

  “I can understand him wanting to visit his wife in a dream, but why have you there? A little crowded.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a social call.” Danielle went on to tell Walt about the dream.

  “And you’re sure it was a dream hop? Not a regular dream?” Walt asked when she was finished.

  “Would I be able to recount the dream to you in such detail?”

  Walt considered Danielle’s words a moment. “And you say she killed him?”

  “According to Steve, the death part was accidental. Although, it was no accident that she slipped him the shellfish, nor that she took his EpiPen out of his tackle box. She was definitely punishing him for his affair with Carla. And probably those other affairs too.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m certainly not going to try talking her into turning herself in. The woman shoved me off the freaking roof!”

  Walt chuckled. “It was a dream, Danielle. She didn’t actually push you off the roof.”

  “You know as well as I do she was reacting as she would in real life.”

  “Not necessarily. In dreams—even in dream hops—I think we probably do what we would like to do, but that doesn’t mean when we’re awake we’d actually carry through with the act.”

  Danielle tore off another hunk of cinnamon roll and nodded. “True. But I don’t want to take any chances.”

  Walt picked up his coffee cup. “You’re probably right. It could be dangerous confronting someone like that. And you don’t have any proof.”

  Just about to take another bite of the roll, Danielle paused. “What bums me out, I really liked Beverly.”

  “And now?”

  “She killed her husband. I know she didn’t mean to—but she showed absolutely no remorse or regret for the outcome.”

  “So you aren’t going to do anything?” Walt asked.

  “Just one thing. I’m going to tell the chief.”

  Officer Brian Henderson stood in the hallway just outside Police Chief MacDonald’s office. He had been telling himself for the last few days that he needed to show the chief what he had found—yet he wasn’t exactly sure what he had discovered. All he knew at this point, he needed to share the information with someone, and the chief was the most logical choice.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped up to the open door and peeked in the office. The chief sat at his desk, his attention focused on some paperwork. Knocking along the door frame, Brian called out, “Chief, do you have a minute?”

  MacDonald looked up from his desk and smiled at Brian. “Sure, come on in.”

  Brian nodded, stepped into the office, and closed the door behind him.

  The chief arched his brows and leaned back in his chair, studying the officer. “Ah, this is a closed-door conversation?”

  “I’d rather no one else hear,” Brian explained as he took a chair in front of the desk.

  MacDonald nodded, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on the desk, waiting for Brian to explain.

  “Remember how Clint Marlow’s fingerprints—the ones we took at Marlow House—didn’t match the ones he had on file with the California real estate department?” Brian began.

  “You mean Walt Marlow. That’s what he wants to be called now, and it is his real name. And like I told you, it’s probably just some screw up with the California real estate department, not really our problem. Maybe if Marlow was planning to get back in real estate, I’d let him know about the snafu so he could get it figured out. But I’m fairly certain his career in real estate is behind him.” The chief smiled, pleased at himself for offering what he thought was a logical explanation for what he knew was even more bizarre than Brian could imagine.

  “This is more.” Brian pulled a vintage dog-eared fingerprint card from his shirt pocket. He stood up briefly, handed the card to the chief, and then sat back down again.

  After accepting the card, the chief frowned as he studied it for a moment. He looked up at Brian and asked, “What’s this?”

  “It’s an old fingerprint card I found in one of the closed-case files we have stored in the evidence room.”

  The chief looked at the card again. “It says Walt Marlow on here.”

  “Exactly. The original Walt Marlow. The one who died in the attic at Marlow House.”

  The corners of MacDonald’s mouth twitched into a smirk as he tossed the card on his desk. He looked up at Brian and asked, “So old Walt has an arrest record?”

  “The charges were dropped. They were for moonshining.”

  “I bet they were dropped,” the chief said under his breath with a chuckle. He picked up the card again and looked at it.

  “They match Clint Marlow’s fingerprints—or as he now wants to be called, Walt Marlow’s.”

  The chief frowned and looked from the card to Brian. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “Those fingerprints we took at Marlow House. They don’t match the prints the California real estate department has on file, but they do match the old fingerprints we have on file of Walt Marlow—the Walt Marlow who died almost a century ago.”

  “That’s impossible.” The chief knew it was not impossible. But he certainly couldn’t tell Brian that.

  A few minutes after Brian left, the chief picked up his phone, preparing to call Danielle, when she walked into his office with Walt. More accurately, Danielle walked, Walt did more of a hop, crutches in hand.

  “I was just going to call you,” the chief told them as he stood briefly, motioning for Danielle to close the door behind them.

  “I considered calling myself,” Danielle explained after she closed the door and took the chair next to Walt. “But I figured we were going out anyway. I’m taking Walt out to lunch—first time at a restaurant since, well, you know. And then we’re stopping at the museum. He’s curious to check it out.”

  “We have a situation,” the chief said.

  “Tell me about it,” Danielle muttered.

  Walt reached out and patted Danielle’s hand. “I have a feeling the chief’s situation is something different from what you want to tell him.”

  “Umm, what is it, Chief?” Danielle asked.

  With a heavy sigh, MacDonald recounted what Brian had told him.

  Danielle interrupted the chief mid-explanation and looked at Walt. “Your body really is changing back. I don’t understand. How is that even possible?”

  His expression sober, Walt looked at the chief and asked, “What did you tell Brian?”

  “The first thing that popped into my head. I said it was impossible and then said it had to be a prank of some kind.”

  “Prank? And he bought that?” Danielle asked.

  “It was t
he most logical explanation,” the chief said. “Unfortunately, now Brian wonders if Walt is somehow responsible for what he believes is a fake fingerprint card getting into evidence.”

  “I suppose that explains his weird attitude when we passed him a few minutes ago,” Danielle said. “He was leaving the station as we were walking in. Barely said hello and gave Walt the nastiest look.”

  “Wouldn’t that be illegal? If he really thought I broke into the evidence room, wouldn’t that be grounds to arrest me?” Walt asked.

  “I told him I didn’t believe you had anything to do with the card, especially considering you can’t really get around by yourself these days. I told him it was probably a couple of our guys screwing with each other and he wasn’t the one meant to see it.”

  “How did he happen to compare Walt’s fingerprints?” Danielle asked.

  “According to him, he was returning some items to the evidence room when he decided to look in the old file. I asked him what he was looking for. He said he wasn’t looking for anything in particular, he just wanted to look. Said he didn’t really know why. It was just something that popped into his head at the time—no particular reason. Apparently he had gone through the file months ago, when we were digitalizing the old files. Decided to take another look.”

  “Oh brother,” Danielle groaned. “Why does Brian have to make everything so complicated?”

  “What was it you wanted to tell me?” the chief asked.

  Danielle smiled weakly and asked, “Do you know if Brian is still dating Beverly Klein?”

  “As far as I know. Not sure how serious they are, but he seems pretty interested. Why?”

  “Because Beverly killed her husband. She’s the one who put the crabmeat in the tamales,” Danielle explained.

  Three

  “A dream hop, you say?” the chief muttered after Danielle recounted what Steve’s spirit had told her and how Beverly had reacted.

  Danielle nodded in reply, waiting to hear what the chief planned to do about it. What she didn’t expect was what he did next. His elbows already on the desk, MacDonald’s right hand wrapped around his left wrist as both hands slid to the desktop, followed by his face, which he buried in his arms. He rocked his head from side to side.

  Danielle stood abruptly and looked down at the back of the chief’s head, which continued to rock back and forth as he made pitiful moaning sounds. “Chief? Are you okay?”

  His head stopped rocking, and he lifted it slightly and peered at Danielle over the empty coffee mug sitting on his desk “Don’t you want to move back to California? Maybe take Walt with you? I think Walt would love California.”

  “Oh, stop that, Chief,” Danielle admonished, sitting back down in her chair and crossing one knee over the opposing leg while folding her arms across her chest. She rolled her eyes.

  Seeing Danielle was unmoved by his plea, MacDonald let out a sigh and sat upright again. He glanced over at Walt, who flashed him a smile and a halfhearted shrug.

  “Seriously, Danielle. You might be one of my favorite people, but my life was much simpler before we met,” the chief told her.

  “Oh pooh. Don’t blame this Steve thing on me. Anyway, even if I had never moved here, Beverly would have probably still spiked her husband’s tamales with crabmeat. He’d still be dead. You just wouldn’t know who was responsible. I thought I was helping you. You should be grateful. After all, isn’t that what you do? Solve crimes? And now I have helped you solve a crime.”

  “Yeah, true. But I don’t see how we’ll ever prove Beverly was responsible for her husband’s death. Not now. Any evidence is probably long gone.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Danielle let out a sigh and unfolded her arms. “Funny thing, there once was a time I would have been perversely delighted to know Brian Henderson was courting a husband killer. But now, not so much. He kinda grows on you, in spite of his obsession with Walt’s fingerprints.”

  “I’m sorry about the fingerprints. I had no idea something like that would happen,” Walt told the chief.

  MacDonald leaned back in his desk chair. “I understand, and I don’t blame you. This is uncharted territory for all of us. We’ll get through it somehow. As for Beverly, maybe there is something I’m overlooking. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, so we can always reopen the case. That’s, of course, if I can come up with something to convince the grand jury we have a case—which at this time we don’t. There is some comfort in knowing she didn’t intend to kill him.”

  “It actually makes sense now,” Danielle said.

  “What do you mean?” the chief asked.

  “It’s not that Baron didn’t have a motive to murder Steve, but trying to send him into anaphylactic shock? He didn’t know when and where Steve was going to eat those tamales—or who he was going to be with at the time. It was never a very smart murder plan. I’m not surprised murder wasn’t the motive.”

  MacDonald absently picked up a pen and began tapping its end against the desktop. “Wilson once told me he felt Baron Huxley was trying to send Steve a message with those tamales—not necessarily kill him.” Wilson was actually Special Agent Wilson from the FBI, who had been working on the case involving Baron Huxley, the man who they had believed was responsible for Steve Klein’s death.

  “That would make more sense,” Danielle said.

  The chief tossed the pen aside. “I just wish Brian wasn’t dating Beverly. Makes it all seem more urgent.”

  Danielle flashed him a grin. “Don’t worry, Chief; I don’t think Beverly will do anything to Brian. As long as he doesn’t cheat on her. Of course, you might want to tell him he should avoid sitting on any roofs with Beverly. She does like to push people off.”

  Walt chuckled.

  “One thing I can do is a little digging into Beverly’s past,” the chief said. “Maybe I won’t be able to prove what she did, but I owe it to Brian.”

  “How do you mean?” Danielle asked.

  “When you found out your husband was cheating on you, would you have done something to physically harm him—something that might even kill him?” the chief asked.

  “I didn’t exactly have that opportunity,” Danielle said. “Lucas was already dead when I found out he had cheated on me.”

  “I meant if you had found out earlier. Can you imagine yourself doing something like that?”

  Danielle shook her head. “No. I’d be calling a divorce lawyer. But hurting him physically? No. I can’t imagine doing something like that.”

  “Exactly. Is this a pattern of Beverly’s?” the chief asked.

  “I’ve only heard good things about her. I know Susan Mitchell at the bank said all the employees liked her,” Danielle said.

  “I’m just saying maybe there are things none of us know about Beverly Klein,” the chief suggested.

  “That’s obviously true, since none of us suspected she was responsible for Steve’s death.”

  Walt sat quietly, listening to their conversation.

  “Exactly,” the chief said with a nod.

  “Maybe I’ll have a talk with Marie. See if there is anything about Beverly she knows that she never told me.”

  “Good idea.” The chief nodded.

  “I guess we should get going,” Danielle said as she stood up.

  “Where are you taking Walt for lunch?” the chief asked.

  “I’ve requested Lucy’s Diner,” Walt told him as he reached down to pick his crutches up from the floor.

  “Lucy’s? I would have expected you’d go somewhere more impressive, like Pearl Cove.” The chief stood up.

  “Walt wants to see if Lucy’s has changed since he was last there.” Danielle stood next to Walt’s chair, waiting for him to awkwardly make it to his feet, the crutches now in hand.

  “Don’t tell me Lucy’s Diner was around in the twenties?” the chief asked.

  “Yes. Lucy’s owner also ran a little juice joint on the edge of town,” Walt explained.

  The chief
frowned. “Juice joint?”

  Danielle chuckled. “I guess that’s another term for a speakeasy. Walt told me about it when I asked him where he wanted to go for lunch.”

  “I knew those buildings were old, but I had no idea Lucy’s Diner—the business—had been around that long,” the chief said.

  Danielle walked to the door and started to open it when she suddenly paused a moment and turned back. MacDonald stood by his desk while Walt hopped his way toward her, the crutches tucked under his armpits.

  “Hey, Chief, did you mean what you said?” Danielle asked.

  “What was that?”

  “Am I really one of your favorite people?”

  “I might have to rethink that.”

  After settling Walt into a window booth at Lucy’s Diner, Danielle excused herself to use the bathroom. From the window Walt could see West Portland Shoes across the street. The building it occupied used to house Hayman’s jewelry store. The jewelry store had closed down about a month after Danielle had moved to Frederickport, after its owner had drugged Danielle’s cousin, Cheryl, in an attempt to steal the diamonds and emeralds from the Missing Thorndike. Next to the shoe store was the bank. That building hadn’t been there when Walt had been alive the first time. Another building had occupied the space, and it hadn’t been a bank.

  His eyes now adjusting to the inside lighting, Walt turned his attention to the interior of the diner. While the layout was the same, it had been remodeled since his last visit with different booths, tables, chairs, and decor. However, it had not been a recent remodel, considering the well-worn condition of the booths, and the patching on some of the vinyl upholstery.

  Walt’s focus turned to the customers. About half of the tables and booths were occupied. It was the woman in the table closest to him that caught his attention first. Her back was to him. At first he thought she wore a long-sleeved blouse. Its fabric reminded him a little of the shirt Danielle was wearing today. However, it didn’t take him long to realize her top was sleeveless, and her arms—both of them—were covered with tattoos.