Chapter 11

 

There is something special about night time. The colors of the day have faded and left only gray phantoms, and the air has cooled with even a slight chill. Summer nights in Maine give one a sense of well-being. My sense of well-being was being severely compromised as I was presently standing in the middle of an art gallery holding an EMF meter in my hand watching the meter jump up and down.

“What’s going on with that thing?” asked Tim.

“The needle is jumping. There is energy coming from somewhere,” I answered.

“Is it a ghost?” asked Jessica in an excited voice.

“There’s no such thing!” replied Derek in a stage whisper from across the room.

“Wait until you’ve been a police officer for a while. You’ll see some strange things,” said Tim. Tim was a skeptic, but since hooking up with me, he had seen some stuff he couldn’t explain.

I continued to walk around the gallery, noting where the energy spikes appeared to be. It was clear that it was all coming from one direction.

“It seems to be coming from this wall,” I said as I moved around with the meter. “Derek, would you go into the utility room and turn off the main power switch. Leave it off for about two minutes and then turn it on again.”

“Sure thing Jesse,” he said as he left the gallery. A few minutes later we were plunged into darkness. Just as I suspected, the meter, which had been showing high EMF readings, settled down to nothing. Tim took advantage of the darkness and maneuvered over to where I was standing and started to grope me in the dark. It was a bold move considering his daughter was only a few feet away. In a few minutes the lights went back on and the EMF’s increased. Tim had moved back to his original position.

“I have very good night vision, by the way dad,” said Jessica

“Okay,” I said to rapidly change the subject. “We’ve debunked the ghosts in this gallery. There must be a main power line running behind the wall in this room. Anyone who is susceptible to electrical fields is going to feel spooked here. I suggest that we encourage the museum to call in an electrician and have the wires shielded.”

“Got it!” said Jessica as she wrote in her notebook. Derek returned to the gallery shortly.

“It’s getting late,” said Tim. “Let’s call it a night.”

“Amen to that,” replied Jessica, glancing at her father. “Too much testosterone in this place.”

 

……………………….

 

I was in the break room of the Big Boys’ Detective Agency taking blueberry muffins out of the oven and pouring coffee for Jessica and Tim and refreshing my own cup. In the weeks since we had taken over the agency, I hadn’t done much cooking. I hadn’t quite figured out how to balance my time. Argus had taken a place in the corner and was keeping an eye on me. I reached for a dog treat and he came flying across the room.

“Smells great,” observed Jessica as she and Tim came into the break room.

“Is Derek working today?” I asked.

“Yes, he has a double shift today. He left early this morning.”

“I never wanted you to get mixed up with a cop,” said Tim.

“Give it up old man,” replied Jessica. “I’m a grown woman.”

“So I’ve noticed. And you’re a stubborn one at that.” Jessica just rolled her eyes and grabbed a muffin.

“How are your cookbook sales?” asked Jessica in an attempt to change the subject.

“Slow and steady. I’ve been getting good reviews,” I answered. I had written two cookbooks based on simple recipes I had gleaned from years of researching Maine cooking. The first was a book based on what I called “white trash cooking.” It was simple and tasty rural Maine dishes. The second was a vegetarian version of simple to prepare dishes. Rhonda’s sister Janet was my book agent. “My agent is encouraging me to come up with a third book, but I have no ideas for a new one.”

“You’ve been using the slow cooker more often since we started the agency. Maybe you could turn that into a cookbook,” suggested Tim.

“Not a bad idea actually!” I answered. “I never would have thought of that.”

“Glad to help out.”

“So what are we doing today?” I asked.

“We have a new client coming in at noon today,” said Jessica. “It’s a domestic issue of some kind.”

“Probably a divorce case,” sighed Tim. “But a case is a case.”

“I’ll be in my office researching the Turner Museum and checking personnel files,” I said. I grabbed my coffee cup and headed to my office. Argus came with me trailing behind.

………………………………….

 

The Turner Museum of Art was founded in 1912 by William and Mary Turner. They had spent a lifetime traveling throughout Europe and collecting art of various types. Both of the Turners took the big water bath when the Titanic sank. They were worth millions and left their art collection and mansion for the creation of an art museum. They also left a sizable fortune to help establish and maintain it for the citizens of Maine.

Over the years the museum had been infused with donations and bequests and had grown to be one of the best small museums in New England. A write-up in the Portland Press Herald in August 1985 reported that the museum was thought to be haunted. There was no other mention of it in subsequent articles. A Halloween article in Yankee Magazine in 1990 listed the Turner Gallery among one of the twenty-five most haunted places in New England. Again there were very few specific details. It was starting to look to me like a publicity stunt. I picked up the phone and called Monica.

“Are you free for lunch?” I asked when she answered the phone.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I need a psychic detective.”

“I’m in,” she answered.”

“I have a noon appointment, so how around one o’clock at Ruby’s?”

“Okay, see you then,” and she rang off.

 

Mrs. Jayne P. Durbin was blonde, slim, and dim. She was well-dressed and sported some expensive jewelry. I guessed her age to be between thirty-five and forty. She sat with her legs crossed and her skirt hiked up as far as it could without actually showing her lady parts. I was tempted to tell her to save the effort, but I wasn’t sure she would get it.

“I think my husband is cheating on me,” she said as she batted her eyelashes at Tim.

“What makes you think that?” I asked. She looked at me like she had just found half a worm in her apple.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” she stated somewhat slowly. “He works late one or two times a week. I know he must have a girlfriend. I want you to investigate and catch him.”

“We can investigate, but we can’t catch him if he isn’t doing anything,” replied Tim.

“I have money,” she said.

I pulled out a contract with our investigation rates. She looked it over and didn’t flinch. She pulled out her checkbook and wrote a check and passed it to me.

“Will this be enough for a retainer?” she asked.

I looked at the amount. “That should be fine. Sign here.” She signed the contract and left.

“Not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” I said.

“We’ll be doing her a service by putting her pretty little mind at ease.”

“It’s a humanitarian move,” I replied as I looked at the check.

 

When I got to Ruby’s, Monica was already waiting for me. She had snagged one of the outside tables with a view of the river. Off in the distance we could see the traffic racing over the bridge.

“What a beautiful day,” said Monica as I sat down.

“Winter is long and cold, but the payoffs are days like this.”

The waiter came over and gave us menus. We both ordered without looking at it. The waiter skipped off to the kitchen.

“They always have unusual people working here,” observed Monica as she watched the waiter head off with our orders.

“His name is Jason and he is a friend of Viola’s.”

“That explains it all! So what’s up?”

I explained to her about the museum’s reputation as being haunted and gave her a quick rundown about our investigation.

“So you want me to tell you if the museum is really haunted?” she asked.

“Well.” I hesitated. “More or less.”

“You know as much about haunting and spirits as I do.” We had both grown up around people who regularly held séances. We had both become skeptics as we grew up, but we had seen a lot of things that couldn’t be explained away.

“Two psychics are better than one,” I replied.

“It might be fun. I haven’t been to a séance since I was sixteen.”

“I remember that one. It was grandma’s last one.”

 

“It was quite a show, if I remember correctly!”

“Let’s hope this one is a bust. I’d hate to have my skepticism challenged.”

“I know what you mean.”