The Ghost and Little Marie Read online

  “Yes. A lullaby my mother used to sing to me. And right away, her little face unpuckered, and she made this adorable cooing sound. It became something of a ritual—for me and little Marie. Yet, until you just mentioned it, I had forgotten that was her name. I was rarely around when her parents were in the room, so I only heard them say it maybe once or twice.”

  “So you did know little Marie?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I’d sing lullabies to her during nap time. And then she moved away, and I didn’t see her again.”

  “They moved after I died. Her father is the one who found me hanging in the attic.”

  Eva cringed. “Not a pleasant sight.”

  “I wonder if Marie has moved on?” Walt murmured.

  “Danielle is out looking for her?” Eva asked.

  “The impression I got from Lily was that she’d like to find her, at least to say goodbye.”

  “I remember Marie’s father, George Hemming. He was rather shy, as I recall. Sweet man. He would come with you to the theater sometimes, but I don’t think he ever said two words to me.”

  “After George was married, his bride moved into his parents’ house with him. Marie was their only child. She was just a baby when I died.”

  Eva stood up. “I think I’ll go help Danielle look for her. I’d like to see how she turned out.”

  Walt chuckled. “The last time I saw her, she was a ninety-one-year-old woman.”

  Seven

  “They’re not coming,” Adam told Danielle when he stepped out of Sunny’s office.

  “Why not?” Danielle asked.

  “Dad said there was no reason to come down here, since they’ve already taken Grandma’s body.”

  Danielle frowned. “He didn’t have any questions? I mean, doesn’t he want to talk to someone and find out more about what happened?”

  Adam shrugged and started down the hall, toward Marie’s room. “I guess not.”

  Danielle trailed alongside Adam. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Dad told me to stop by her room and pick up Grandma’s purse. I asked him about her other things—like her clothes she has here. He told me the home could just clean out her room, get rid of her other stuff. Said we’d just get rid of it anyway.” Adam stared blankly ahead as he walked with Danielle down the corridor.

  “You’re just going to leave her stuff here?” Danielle asked incredulously.

  Adam let out a harsh laugh. “Hardly. Grandma would haunt me if I left her things here. She’d expect me to pack up her stuff, take it back to her house, and then decide what to do with it there.”

  “Want some help?” Danielle asked softly.

  “I’d appreciate it. I imagine Grandma would rather you go through her personal things than anyone else.”

  “I’d be happy to help.”

  “Sunny said they’d pack up Grandma’s stuff for me, and we could pick it up later. But I’d rather do it now.”

  They walked for a few moments in silence.

  Finally, Danielle asked, “Did you call Melony yet?”

  Adam shook his head. “No. I just called my dad. Did you call Lily?”

  “Yes. Oh…and the chief called me, I told him.”

  “The chief called you? This early?” Adam glanced at Danielle.

  She shrugged.

  Adam chuckled. “Ahh, so it’s you and the chief now.”

  Danielle rolled her eyes at Adam. “No. There is nothing between the chief and me. We’re just friends.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, seriously. We’re just good friends.” Danielle looked at Adam and smiled. She wrapped her arm around his. “Kinda like us.”

  Not pulling his arm from Danielle, Adam glanced down to her as he continued to walk down the hallway. “We’re good friends?”

  Danielle let out a sigh and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  “I thought you used to hate me,” Adam said, only half teasing.

  “Well, you did break into my house.”

  “God, that again? Are you going to be throwing that up in my face forever?”

  “Probably,” Danielle said with a grin.

  “I just thought you were a ditzy broad.” Adam chuckled.

  Danielle squeezed his arm and gave it a little pinch. “Ditzy?”

  “Ouch!”

  “You just called me ditzy!”

  “It was all that feng shui crap. And not wanting to offend Walt Marlow’s ghost,” he said with a snort.

  “Says the man who is cleaning out his grandmother’s room so she doesn’t haunt him.”

  “True. I just figure if there was anyone who could come over from the other side and give me a smack for not doing what she wants, it’s Grandma.”

  “I’m going to miss her,” Danielle whispered, giving Adam’s arm a gentle squeeze.

  Adam patted Danielle’s hand. “You and me both…so, I guess we must be friends now.”

  “We weren’t before?” Danielle asked.

  Adam shrugged. “Never was completely sure if you were just playing nice for Grandma’s sake.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course we’re friends.” Danielle gave his arm another little squeeze and said, “Adam, it’s kind of hard to dislike a guy who was so good to his grandmother. And you were good to Marie. She adored you, you know.”

  Adam smiled sadly. “I never doubted her love.”

  “And I figured, if Marie liked you so much, you really couldn’t be all that bad.”

  Adam pulled his grandmother’s suitcase from the closet and tossed it on the sheet-less bed. He took a seat on the lone chair in the room and watched as Danielle packed the suitcase. She opened one dresser drawer after another, emptying the contents before neatly stacking the items in the suitcase. Adam didn’t offer to help. Instead, he sat quietly, lost in his own private thoughts.

  Danielle had just finished emptying the last drawer when Adam noticed the way in which she kept glancing around the room.

  “Are you looking for something?” Adam asked.

  Danielle paused and looked over to Adam. “What?”

  “The way you keep looking around the room, as if you’re looking for something.”

  “Umm…no…I was just seeing what else we need to pack.”

  “According to Sunny, they probably have some laundry of Grandma’s. I’ll have to pick that up later. But I don’t even know if I’ll bother. Her clothes will probably go to the thrift store anyway.” Adam glanced upward. “Would that be okay, Grandma?”

  “I don’t think she’ll have a problem with that.” Danielle closed the suitcase and latched it.

  With a heavy sigh, Adam stood up and walked to the washbasin. He began gathering up Marie’s toiletry items.

  “Adam, I really don’t think Marie would get upset with you if you threw that stuff in the trash.”

  “I suspect you’re right,” Adam said as he tossed Marie’s toothbrush in the trash can.

  Danielle sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Adam. “I had to do this with my parents. It was awful. I couldn’t bring myself to just shove their clothes into bags for the thrift store. I kept remembering how my mother always folded anything she donated, stacking them neatly in a box. I used to tell her they probably just dumped the stuff out anyway after we dropped them off. But when I had to do it after they died, I ended up folding everything—just like Mom used to do.”

  “That’s right, you lost both of your parents. It must have been hard.” Adam stood by the basin, emptying the drawers. He kept some items and tossed others.

  “Yeah. But it’s been a long time now.” Danielle sighed.

  “So you got used to it?”

  Danielle continued to watch Adam. “I still miss them. Sometimes even more than right after it happened.”

  “Because now you realize how permanent that loss is?” Adam suggested.

  “Probably.”

  “I’m not very close to my parents,” Adam told her.

  “Yeah, I sort of
got that. Marie mentioned once there was some sort of falling-out, and she took your side.”

  “Did she tell you what it was about?” Adam turned from the basin and faced Danielle.

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t ask. I figured it was none of my business.”

  “My dad owns a machine shop,” Adam began.

  “I believe Marie mentioned that once.”

  “Back in high school I was sort of a screwup. There was that little thing about me and Melony running away.” Adam walked over to a chair and sat down. He leaned back, stretching his legs and crossing them at the ankle.

  “Is that what the falling-out was about?” Danielle asked.

  “I thought you said it was none of your business?” Adam teased.

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t curious.”

  Adam smiled. “Nah, that was just one of the many ways I disappointed my folks. I admit, I liked to party. My grades were mediocre, and my younger brother had the patent on brownnosing.”

  “He was the good son?”

  “Ohhhh yes. Always on the honor roll. Never got in trouble. Anyway, I worked after school at my dad’s machine shop. I hated it. Seriously. I hated it.”

  “Did your brother work there, too?”

  Adam shook his head. “No. He never had a job in high school. Dad said as long as he got straight As, he didn’t have to work. I suppose I could have gotten the same deal, but I was having too much fun and wasn’t willing to settle down at school.”

  “So what happened?”

  “After high school graduation I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. My grades sucked, so anything more than the community college was out of the question. And since I didn’t know what I wanted to do, it seemed like a waste to go to school at that point. I started working full time for my dad and hated it. Just doing it because I didn’t know what else to do. I was also taking care of my grandma’s rental properties. You know, fixing things that broke, keeping up the yards, that sort of stuff.”

  “Sounds like you were a hard worker.”

  Adam shrugged. “Well, Dad got an opportunity to move his machine shop down to California. He was approached by a large company to relocate the business. He thought he was going to make a fortune. Dad expected me to go with him and work in his shop. But I refused.”

  “Was that the falling-out?”

  Adam nodded. “Yes. I was living at home at the time. Dad asked me what I thought I was going to do since they’d be selling the house, and I wouldn’t have a job. That’s when Grandma stepped in. She told me I could live with her, keep taking care of her properties, until I figured out what I wanted to do.”

  “Was your dad mad?”

  “Both my parents were. It’s not like Dad was sorry to lose his oldest son, but I was a cheap, underpaid employee that knew the business. I screwed up his plans. Now he would need to hire someone to replace me. Someone who would expect to get paid more than what my dad was paying me. Dad used to tell me that as long as I was living at home, I couldn’t expect to get paid as much as a regular employee. I suppose he was right. But the one time I decided to move out and rent a room with a friend, he told me not to expect a raise. He said it was my choice to leave home. And that as long as he was willing to let me stay there, I shouldn’t expect to get paid more if I decided to move out.”

  “Wow. Kind of reminds me of the old company store.”

  Adam frowned. “Company store?”

  “Yeah, where the only store the laborers had access to was owned by their boss.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So you stayed here and went into real estate?”

  “I didn’t go into real estate right away. I worked a little bit with Bill, doing some repairs for people. But then I decided there were better ways to make a living, and I eventually got my real estate license, opened the vacation rental business, and got a place of my own.”

  “I would think your parents would be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  Eight

  After Danielle helped Adam pack up the rest of his grandmother’s room, she walked with him to the back parking lot. They each carried a portion of Marie’s belongings—her suitcase, pillow, purse, and a plastic bag full of miscellaneous items.

  Overhead, dark clouds blocked much of the morning sun. Danielle glanced over to her locked car, momentarily regretting leaving her jacket inside the vehicle. She stood between her car and Adam’s while he tossed Marie’s suitcase and pillow into his trunk.

  It started to drizzle. Quickly taking the remainder of the items from Danielle, Adam shoved them into his trunk and slammed it shut before the rain started falling in full force. Danielle reached up and gave Adam a quick kiss on the cheek, telling him she would call later. He gave her a little nod and hurried into his car as she got into hers.

  Danielle sat in her red Ford Flex a moment and watched as Adam pulled out of the parking lot. Yet, instead of turning on her ignition, she grabbed her jacket off the passenger seat, slipped it on, and then exited the vehicle as soon as Adam’s car disappeared from sight.

  Rushing to the rear door of the care facility—the rain still just a light drizzle—Danielle hurriedly entered the password to open the back door, hoping they hadn’t changed it since she had last visited Marie. When Adam had entered the password earlier that morning, she hadn’t watched to see if it was the one she knew. The door unlocked.

  The rear door of the facility opened to a lounge area consisting of a leather couch facing a coffee table and two easy chairs, and several side tables. It was in this area where Danielle had spent most of her care home visits with Marie. There was a similar lounge at the front of the facility, yet that was normally occupied by the permanent residents and their visitors.

  During Danielle’s visits, she rarely found the rear lounge occupied save for an occasional permanent-care resident who had wandered to the area, attempting to escape out the back door. Since some residents weren’t privy to the password, the chance of escape was minimal unless a visitor allowed one of the patients to slip out the door while it was opening or closing.

  “If Marie was at the police station earlier, then she probably isn’t at the funeral home. It’s possible she’ll come back here first before moving on,” Danielle muttered to herself.

  She walked across the lounge. Straight ahead led down the long hallway to the front entrance and the main nurses’ station. Midway, from the rear of the building to its front entrance, was the kitchen and dining room, its doorway situated to the right of the hallway. Closed doors leading to other patient rooms lined the hall.

  A second hallway ran perpendicular to the main one. Stepping out of the lounge and turning left would take Danielle down the corridor leading to the room Marie had died in. It was in this rear section of the complex that the temporary rehab patients resided. However, since first coming to visit Marie, Danielle had never noticed any of the other rooms in this area being occupied.

  Danielle stood along the edge of the rear lounge for a moment, wondering if she should continue down to the main nurses’ station and look for Marie’s spirit there, or perhaps take a left and see if her spirit had returned to her room.

  Deciding to check Marie’s room first, Danielle turned left and started down the empty corridor. She was reminded of the times Marie had commented on the eeriness of her hallway during the evenings, which had always seemed vacant. Even the rear nurses’ station remained unmanned.

  Just as Danielle passed the first doorway along the rear hallway, she heard a female voice call out, “Your friend’s no longer here.”

  Pausing a moment, Danielle turned around, looking back from where she had just come. There, standing by an open doorway, was an elderly woman wearing a blue-rose-patterned nightgown. When Danielle had walked by that room earlier—twice with Adam, and now just by herself, she had noticed the open door, yet she assumed the room was unoccupied.

  Danielle recognized the woman. She ha
d seen her several times when she had visited Marie. Those times the woman had been walking down the main hallway, yet the two had never spoken.

  With a frown, Danielle glanced from the woman to the open doorway. “Is that your room?”

  The woman smiled. “Yes.”

  “I’ve seen you here before, but I didn’t realize you were staying in this section. I thought all the rooms were empty along this corridor.”

  “Please, I certainly don’t belong on the other side!” The woman gasped. “Most of those poor souls can’t even remember their names.”

  Danielle smiled weakly and then glanced down the hallway to Marie’s room. She wondered what she would do if Marie’s spirit suddenly appeared. If she called out to Marie while the woman was in earshot, Danielle wondered if the elderly patient would rush to get a nurse and have her committed. She smiled at the idea.

  “Was she your grandmother?” the woman asked.

  Danielle frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “I called her your friend, but I just realized she might have been your grandmother.”

  “No, she was a dear friend,” Danielle explained. “We weren’t related.”

  “The way she rushed out of here, I don’t think she’s coming back,” the woman said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ms. Boatman!” came a second voice.

  Danielle turned to where she had just come from and spied Sunny Hartman rushing in her direction. When Danielle glanced back to the elderly woman, she was gone.

  “Ms. Boatman, I thought that was you!” Sunny said, slightly out of breath when she reached her. “I saw you leave with Mr. Nichols, and then a few minutes later I noticed you going down this hall.”

  “I thought I left something in Marie’s room,” Danielle lied.

  “You didn’t leave it in Marie’s room. It’s in my office.” Sunny smiled.

  Confused, Danielle stared at Sunny.

  “Your sack? I assumed that’s what you were talking about.”

  The cinnamon rolls! Danielle told herself. She had forgotten all about the cinnamon rolls she had brought to share with Marie. She must have left them in Sunny’s office when she and Adam had gone in there earlier.