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ABIGAIL WAS SIPPING her coffee and observing the people pass by Stella’s Diner when she saw Myrtle and Glinda coming her way. Frank and she had just had a late breakfast and he’d gone off to the police station to check in. Chief Mearl had a case he wanted Frank’s take on. Amazing how well the two now got along after years of butting heads. She’d been getting ready to leave for the Mexican restaurant for her day’s work but with Myrtle and Glinda seeing her she had to stay a little longer. The mural was coming along beautifully and she was happy with it so far. She was just beginning it but that was often the hardest part.
Glinda and Myrtle flounced in and catching sight of her, waved, and made their way to her table by the window. “I made pancakes but, as Myrtle here says, that was hours ago,” Glinda explained. “And she needed pie. I wasn’t about to bake a pie this soon after breakfast so here we are. In Stella’s at eleven-thirty.”
“I wanted to come to town anyway.” Myrtle shaded her eyes and stared out the window as she dropped in a chair. “That sun sure is bright out there. But it keeps the spirits in hiding; beats the rainstorm we had last night. The woods are all spongy mud. We had to wear rain boots and everything to walk here.”
“So I see.” Abigail took in the old woman’s outfit with a subdued smile. As usual Myrtle was wearing a crazy combination and layers of clothes, a competing psychedelic colored shirt, another shirt on top of that, a sweater covering it all, and ugly weather boots.
Glinda’s clothes were fairly similar except her dress was elegant, color coordinated, of a soft silk, and it swayed gently around her ankles. Her rain boots were a lovely shade of pale pink, yet now covered in wet leaves and muck. Unlike her aunt, she had no floppy hat on her head.
“What are you doing here, Abby? I thought you were working on that mural every day?” Myrtle was gesturing to Stella to come over and take their order. But the waitress was busy with another customer and simply nodded. Be there soon as I can, it silently communicated.
“I am. But I have to eat, too. Mexican food isn’t great for the first meal of the day. So Frank and I had breakfast here. You just missed him. He had to go into his consulting job at the sheriff’s department and I was getting ready to go to the restaurant and work on the mural.”
“Well, stay a little bit longer, Abby,” Myrtle encouraged her. “Glinda had that second dream about our sailor’s ghost and she’ll tell you all about it in more detail. Thanks to Frank, who stopped by last night, as you well know, we now have the sailor’s name, who he was, what happened to him, and we have a better idea what he may want.”
“We do, do we?” She observed Glinda as she sat across from her, and there was a faraway look on the psychic’s face. Perhaps she was communing with the spirits or hearing their voices or perhaps she was merely daydreaming. “Frank did catch me up on the new developments,” she spoke to Glinda who now seemed to be listening but not reacting, “and he’s going to check with Sheriff Mearl on any old police records there might be on Masterson and what else may have occurred after his death at the estate.”
“That’s a good idea.” Enthusiasm lighting up Myrtle’s gaze. “I stayed with Glinda last night, we had a girl’s evening, you know. We had a fine time watching Supernatural and discussing our latest mystery. Glinda believes she’ll hear from Bartholomew Masterson’s ghost again. Wasn’t last night, though. We’re waiting. Could be he’ll even know what happened to those two missing men who were looking for the gold after his death. Ghosts know things about the past and the future we normal alive people aren’t privy to.”
Speaking Glinda’s name must have snapped the psychic’s attention back to the real world and the present. “That would be David Hunter and Jess Compton, right?”
“Right. Them two. Frank also discovered their names yesterday in the old microfiche files.”
Stella had been standing behind them, listening, and Myrtle noticed her.
“Hi Stella,” she said, “come for our orders? I would like coffee and a piece of chocolate pie.”
“Same here,” Glinda seconded, looking up and smiling, fully with them now.
“I couldn’t help but overhear you mentioning the names Bartholomew Masterson, David Hunter and Jess Compton?” Stella had her order pad ready in her hands and was scribbling down the orders she’d been given. “I know who they are. Masterson was the man who was rumored to have buried a treasure of gold and jewels on his land somewhere on the outside of town and the other two are the men who were searching for that treasure and ended up dead, like many others. Nasty situation, that.”
“That land is now my land, my home,” Glinda informed the waitress.
Stella’s sharp eyes went to the psychic. “Yes, it is.”
“You know about Bartholomew Masterson and his treasure?” Abigail sent a glance first towards Glinda and then to the waitress. “You know what happened to Hunter and Compton?”
“I do. If my memory is accurate, I believe their decomposing bodies were eventually found dead in a cemetery, years after they’d gone missing. The cemetery out beyond Evelyn’s, er, I mean Glinda’s, house. Someone cut their throats or they cut each other’s throats. As far as I know, their murderers were never caught. Terrible, terrible thing. Hunter had a family and three kids. He left his wife destitute.”
“They were found dead?” Glinda inquired. “How do you know this? I thought they had only gone missing?”
“They were missing at first and later found dead. And I know about this,” the waitress pulled up a chair and sat down with them, clearly having something juicy to share, “because my Grampa Ernest used to tell me tales of the great gold rush here in Spookie, like the one they had in California in 1849? That’s what he called it because for a while in, oh, around the late nineteen forties or so, give or take a couple years because my memory isn’t as good as it once was and I can’t exactly recall what years he told me, the town went completely bonkers hunting for that hidden gold after Masterson passed into the afterlife. Bonkers. They dug up everything they could on Masterson’s land, tossed and set fire to his house, and still no one ever found it. My Grampa Ernest was a character and he used to tell me eerie tales of those days, the town’s gold rush among other spooky happenings. He should have been a horror writer, he loved the macabre so much. He’d been fascinated with the Masterson debacle, he liked the grisly stories around it, and the murders which came after.”
“More murders than those we are already aware of?” Abigail had to ask.
Stella laughed, her crimson lips curving up and showing white teeth. Her hair was even whiter than when Abigail had first met her. Her face more wrinkled, her back more bent. But she still worked just as hard at the restaurant. The waitress’s gaze went to the door. A group of elderly people had come in and were seating themselves. She rose from the chair. “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” Now it was Glinda’s turn to ask.
“A lot of people died or were murdered, there’s speculation on which one, over that gold. My Grampa Ernest told me at least a half a dozen gold seekers either vanished or their bodies were found on the grounds later shot or knifed to death; some mutilated. It’s one of the reasons the gold rush finally came to an end. It was considered far too dangerous to even go out to that haunted property to look. Eventually the rush subsided and as time passed the whole thing became ancient history and evolved into one of our town’s urban legends. Then Evelyn bought the abandoned property and she wouldn’t let anyone ever trespass. She’d threaten to shoot them. That kept people away all right.”
“Yep, my sister always had a loaded shot gun ready to chase any intruders off her land.” Myrtle chuckled. “She was a wild one in her younger days, believe me.”
“Haunted property?” Glinda had zeroed in on a different part of the conversation, her face now paler than when she’d entered the diner.
Stella’s expression turned somber. “Another one of the prevalent stories of the time was it was Masterson’s ghost who was committing the gruesome murders...protecting his treasure, which he wanted to go to his lost lover and child and not some treasure hunter who had no right to it. A daughter, I think. Story was his paramour had grown angry Masterson was out on the seas treasure hunting for too long and she took their new born daughter and vamoosed. No one ever knew what became of them. The ghost yarns were another reason townsfolk stopped searching. You know how Spookie’s inhabitants fear ghosts.
“Anyway, I’ll fetch your pie and coffee now. I have to take care of my other customers,” she finished and bustled away.
After she’d left Myrtle slapped her thigh. “Darn gone it, we got ourselves a real murder mystery now again. Multiple murders. Imagine that? And I knew ghosts would come into it sooner or later. Every time I’m out near that graveyard beyond Glinda’s house I can feel them skulking around, whispering and moaning.” She visibly shuddered. “They’re everywhere out there.”
“Yes, they are,” the psychic murmured.
“Well, that was interesting.” Abigail peered out at the sunny day but still shivered. “More people have died over that gold than we knew. Wait until I tell Frank what we’ve found out. He’ll probably want to talk to Stella himself. See if he can get more memories out of her.”
Myrtle, reclining in her chair, inhaled deeply. “Glinda, you ever sense Masterson’s ghost out there among all the other ghosts?”
Glinda hesitated a moment too long. “No. Not so far. Only in those two strange dreams.”
“Have you ever seen any other ghosts out there since you moved in?” Myrtle had to press further and Abigail was surprised she hadn’t asked her niece that question before, seeing they both claimed to see ghosts and they spent so much time together.
But Glinda didn’t answer.
The three women lingered at Stella’s for a while longer, chatting about other more normal everyday things. Myrtle and Glinda ate their pie and drank their coffee. Abigail didn’t want to leave, she enjoyed their company, but after about twenty-minutes or so she got up, left them there, and made her way to her job. She had to keep toiling away on the mural. She’d promised Miguel she’d have it done by the end of the month which was now three weeks away. Since she’d begun the project she’d fretted perhaps she’d taken on a little too much. Three walls all to be covered from baseboard to ceiling with a Mexican village full of people, cars, buildings, flowers and animals was proving to be a lot more difficult to create than she’d thought it would be in the beginning. There were just so many facets of it she had to include. It was turning out to be a real challenge and all she could do was to keep moving forward.
The day was warm for April and the sun felt good on her skin. Outside the Mexican restaurant she paused, telephoned Frank and relayed what Stella had said about Masterson and the mysterious murders on his land after Masterson’s passing.
“Ironically,” he said, “Sheriff Mearl also remembered something about those bizarre crimes. We’ve been discussing them and other incidents about the case for the last hour or so. His cop grandfather, he was sheriff here during Masterson’s time, Sheriff Lonnie Brewster, used to regale him with ghost stories about the sailor and afterwards his alleged specter. Seems Sheriff Lonnie actually knew Masterson or knew him as much as anyone of the day could know the man because he was so reclusive. Mearl’s grandfather, like many other townspeople of the time, was basically interested in getting his hands on what was left of the treasure, Mearl believes. He tried befriending him but Masterson was so mistrustful of anyone who wanted to get close to him that that friendship never advanced further than a visit or two. But Sheriff Lonnie never found out where Masterson buried the rest of his plunder. Then Masterson died and Sheriff Lonnie was one of the ones, Mearl has no doubt, who was out there digging for that buried gold. As the others, he never found it.
“Mearl did reveal some things we didn’t know, though you heard a few from Stella. People have died looking for that treasure. A lot of people. Here’s the kicker. Sheriff Lonnie told his grandson he thought Masterson might, at the end of the man’s life after years of illness and pain, have been criminally insane and had murdered an intruder or two, people looking for the gold, and buried the bodies under the basement floor or somewhere in the house. He couldn’t prove it, but Sheriff Lonnie, who spent years trying to find the bodies to no avail, believed it. Too many people had gone missing and most of them had been searching for that gold.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Afraid not. Sheriff Lonnie believed Masterson was a murderer and he might have proven it but Sheriff Lonnie died before he could.”
“Oh my, so if Masterson’s ghost is haunting Glinda’s place, he’s an evil murderous ghost,” she remarked cynically. She didn’t believe in murderous remnants so she was being facetious. The dead couldn’t harm the living or that was what she believed. Glinda saw spirits but spirits held no real power over humans. “Wait until I tell Glinda.”
“If you believe in ghosts.” Frank’s tone was also flippant.
“Or murderous ghosts.”
“Yeah. But I did think what Mearl told me was interesting. Seeing all this, undiscovered buried treasure, murders, and now possibly an evil ghost are connected to Glinda’s new home.”
“I guess. Did you find any actual police reports about Masterson?” she inquired. Frank went overboard when he was researching anything he wanted to put in his novels. And he was becoming obsessed with the Masterson urban legend.
“Mearl claims the police documents that old are stored somewhere else and he’ll let me go through them whenever I want. He did warn me that when his grandfather was sheriff he wasn’t much for thorough documentation. So maybe I’ll find something or maybe I won’t.”
“Did you find out what Sheriff Mearl wanted to consult with you on? Your new case?”
“Uh huh. It’s an unsolved embezzlement case at a local bank he’d like my thoughts on. Early on an arrest was made but it turned out they had the wrong person. The case is still open. I have homework. I’ll be bringing the files home to look over.”
“Good. You and Nick can do your homework together.”
Frank laughed. “Very funny.”
Abigail signed off and went inside the restaurant, her mind relinquishing the Masterson mystery and all its side attractions and concentrating on her job, her art, what to make for dinner and if she and Frank should go see the new Star Wars movie the following weekend. The past’s unsolved mysteries were one thing but she also had to live in the present.
But wait until Myrtle and Glinda learned of the latest news that Masterson might have murdered trespassers. Oh boy. Myrtle was going to have a field day with that information. She’ll probably want to start looking for the victims’ buried remains.