Ghosts Beneath Us: A Third Spookie Town Murder Mystery (Spookie Town Murder Mysteries Book 3) by Kathryn Meyer Griffith Page B

lives on Doris Street in what I’d call a run-down shack with holes for windows–like Beatrice is being haunted by ghosts. He relayed to me this morning when I bumped into him at the IGA that spooks have been knocking at his windows and breaking in, taking and moving stuff, the last week. He’s heard them. I told him to come and talk to you and Frank. That you already are on the case and you’d help him get to the bottom of it.”
    Oh great, what were they now, the town’s new ghost investigators?
    “Truth is,” she leaned over the table and gave Abigail a penetrating look, “that’s the main reason I’m taking off on the cruise. Too damn many spirits floating around for my liking. I’m hoping that by the time I return, things will have calmed down and gotten back to normal. The spooks will be gone. Moved on as they always do. They don’t like staying in one place too long. You know I’m sick of them bothering me and my friends. They need to shove off.” Myrtle made a shooing gesture with her hands.
    “Alfred Loring is being haunted, too?” Abigail couldn’t believe the problem was spreading.
    “So he says. But he hasn’t been right in the head, either, since the early nineteen-seventies. He’s smoked too much of that marijuana weed, you know?” She winked. “I always take everything he says with a grain of salt, a big one, as I believe he’s still smoking it quite regularly. That could be why he thinks he’s seeing apparitions. It’s most likely that crazy smoke.”
    “But you see ghosts all the time?”
    Myrtle gave her a piercing look. “That’s because I’m like one of those mediums, you’d call it. I’ve seen dead souls since I was a child. It’s rare. Now these other two don’t have the calling like I do. You know ghosts just don’t show themselves to anybody. You got to be special to see them.” Myrtle cocked her head and her expression was one of smugness.
    “You and Frank got any leads yet? I haven’t been to see Beatrice lately so I don’t know what’s going on with her.”
    “No, not yet. We’re working on it, though.” Frank was anyway. Abigail had almost forgotten about the incident, what with the new job and everyday life. “Frank and I might drop in on Beatrice and see how she’s doing, though.”
    “Good. She needs looking after. Then go see Alfred.” Myrtle scribbled something down on her napkin with a pencil she pulled from her pocket and pushed it across the table at her. “That’s his address. I already told him you were coming to see him. Soon.”
    “Thanks a lot.” But it did strike Abigail as strange that now a second elderly person was claiming to be haunted. That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? 
    An hour later they parted ways, Abigail paid for both their pie and coffee, and drove home to begin Kate’s sketches.
    *****
    After supper Laura entered the kitchen where, on the table, Abigail was finishing up the last of the sketches and settled in a chair beside her. Nick was in the living room watching one of his favorite shows, Supernatural . Snowball was curled up in his cat bed by the stove, sleeping.
    “Abby, my sister Charlene called me earlier and she wants to know if Nick and I can spend the weekend with her at our cousin Sheila’s? We’re having a family reunion. All my brothers and sisters will be there. I told her, of course, it was okay? Is it? Can you drive Nick and me to Sheila’s house on Friday after school? It’s been weeks since we’ve seen the other kids. I miss them. Even Giles is going to be there. He’s on leave until next week and has been visiting everyone a couple days each. He’ll be at Sheila’s by Friday and if we go there he can spend more time with all of us.”
    The year before Laura and her other siblings had become orphans but none of their other relatives had had room for all six children together, so they had been split up between cousins and aging aunts and uncles across the state. Giles, the oldest, was