Lily stood at the kitchen counter grating cheddar cheese while Sadie napped in the parlor and Max snoozed in one of the upstairs bedrooms. She looked up when Walt and Danielle walked in the back door.
“I’m making tacos for dinner,” Lily announced as a greeting.
“Sounds good,” Walt said, snatching a bit of the cheese as he headed for the door leading to the hallway. “Wait until I get back before you start telling Lily.”
“Telling me what?” Lily asked as Walt walked out of the room.
“Something freaky happened at the funeral home.”
“Did you see a ghost?” Lily asked.
Before Danielle could answer, the landline rang. Both women looked at the ringing phone.
“Another person you have to disappoint?” Lily asked. Since the landline had been used for primarily bed and breakfast business, calls these days tended to be people trying to make reservations, who ended up disappointed when they learned Marlow House B and B was no longer open for business.
Danielle answered the phone. “Hello?…Oh, hi…I did?…Let me check…” Danielle set the handset on the counter and then picked up her purse, opening it. She looked inside while Lily silently watched. A moment later Danielle put her purse down and picked up the handset again.
“Yeah, I did. How long are you going to be there? Okay. I’ll leave right now. You’ll wait? Thanks!” Danielle hung up the phone and picked up her purse.
“Who was that?” Lily asked.
“Norman Bateman, from the funeral home. My cellphone must have fallen out of my purse in his office. He just found it. But I need to leave right now to get it. He was on his way out, but he promised to wait for me, because all his employees have already left. Tell Walt where I went. Save me some tacos!”
Norman Bateman expected Danielle to walk through the front door, not his mother.
“What are you doing here?” Norman asked in surprise. “I told you I would be there as soon as Danielle picks up her phone.”
Faye sat down in one of the chairs in the front waiting area of the funeral home and let out a weary sigh. “I needed to get out of that place. The new owner plays the most gawd-awful music. I hate to say this, but I’m going to find a new hairdresser.”
“Who brought you?” Norman asked.
“I ran into Susan Mitchell from the bank. She had just finished getting her hair done and offered to take me home. I asked her if she would bring me here instead.”
“You should’ve had her take you home.” Norman glanced at his watch.
“Why? You’re here. And I was hoping we could stop at the grocery store on our way home. Now tell me about your little visit with the Marlows. What was that all about?”
Norman recounted his visit with Danielle and Walt while Faye sat quietly, digesting all that he was telling her.
“Is something wrong, Mother?” Norman asked.
“It just seems Danielle was overly curious about my sister.”
“To be honest, I was probably the one who brought up the subject, not her.”
Faye glared at her son. “You know I don’t like discussing my relationship with Daisy.”
“Yes, I know, Mother.”
A smile suddenly replaced Faye’s glare. “Why don’t you run to the store now, and I’ll wait for Danielle and give her the phone. Then when you come back, we can go straight home.” Faye smiled brightly.
The parking lot was empty when Danielle arrived at the funeral home. She wondered if Norman had changed his mind and had left to pick up his mother without waiting for her to get there. After parking her car, she reached for her purse, intending to retrieve her cellphone so she could call Norman and see if he was inside or had left, before getting out of the car. The moment she grabbed her purse, she realized the absurdity of her actions.
“Real smart, Danielle,” she grumbled aloud. Tossing the purse back on the passenger seat, she unhooked her seatbelt. If Norman wasn’t here, she would have to go home and call him to make other arrangements to pick up her phone.
A short time later Danielle tried the front door of the funeral home and was relieved to find it unlocked. But when she walked inside, it was Faye Bateman sitting in the front waiting area, not Norman.
“Faye?” Danielle said in surprise.
“Hello, Danielle,” Faye said with a smile, making no attempt to stand up. “So nice to see you again. Norman will be back in a moment; he had to step out. Why don’t you come tell me about that museum project my son mentioned?”
“I would love to, but I really need to get going. I came to pick up my cellphone. It must have fallen out of my purse when I was here. Your son found it. Do you know where he put it?”
“I’m sorry, dear. Norman didn’t say anything about a cellphone. But he will be right back.” Faye’s hand clutched Danielle’s cellphone hidden under the jacket draped over her lap.
“Oh…okay…” Danielle started to take a seat and then paused. “Umm…can you tell me where the restroom is?”
Faye smiled at Danielle and pointed down to the hallway. “First door to the right. But hurry back, dear. I’d love to hear all about our exhibit.”
Just as Danielle reached the hallway leading to the bathroom, the ball of light she had seen earlier appeared again. She stopped abruptly and watched wide-eyed as it whirled up and down the hallway. With a gulp she moved hastily to the door leading to the bathroom. Entering the room quickly, she closed the door behind her and locked it.
“I just need to get out of here,” Danielle mumbled aloud.
The next moment the ball of light came through the wall. Danielle stood frozen, making no attempt to use the facilities, but instead watched as the light swirled around the room a few moments before it landed before her, and then in a matter of seconds the light transformed into what appeared to be a man. But she knew it wasn’t a man. It was a ghost.
“Who are you?” Danielle asked. By his manner of dress, she guessed he had died decades earlier—perhaps in the 1930s or ’40s.
The man smiled. “You can see me! I thought earlier you did. Marvelous!”
“Who are you?” she repeated.
“No one of significance, just someone who has no desire to move on. And why should I? This is such a busy place, always someone new to chat with. Of course, none of them are ever someone like you.”
“Like me?” she asked.
“Alive,” he explained. “I’ve heard about people like you, who can talk to folks like us. But I have never met one before. Are you a friend of naughty Daisy?”
“Naughty Daisy?” Danielle frowned.
“Oh, the stories I could tell!” He laughed. “You know I was here when old man Morton kicked the bucket. It was about a month after I got here. But I’m not too good at time anymore. So maybe it was a year after they brought me here. I’d been fishing on the pier, fell in. I tell you what, never a good idea to drink alone while fishing on the pier late at night. I guess I was lucky; my body washed up on shore not far from here. My wife was pretty angry with me. But that’s another story.”
“Why did you stay?” Danielle asked.
“So much going on. My life was pretty boring. Get up every day. Go to work. Come home. Get nagged by the wife, kids whining. Day after day the same thing. But here, so much action! Right after I arrived, I met naughty Daisy, woohoo, a hot little thing. You should see what she was doing with that Leo character. Her dad had a fit! Fired him on the spot when he caught them doing what only a bride and groom should be doing on their wedding night. But I guess it was more than a fling. Leo came back after the old man kicked off and married her.”
“Wait a minute—Leo married Maisy,” Danielle argued. “Not Daisy.”
The ghost stubbornly shook his head. “Nope. It was Daisy, but everyone seems to think she’s her sister. That’s Daisy sitting out there, waiting for you. She was also here when her pop fell down the stairs. Woohoo, was he angry when he heard what she said to him after he died. Cold girl. Looking down at her father’s dead body, only regretting he hadn’t died sooner. Of course, she didn’t know he could hear what she was saying—or maybe she did.” He shrugged.
“Are you saying Daisy had something to do with her father’s death?”
He shook his head. “No. He fell down those stairs on his own. She just wasn’t particularly sorry to see him go. Now that other guy, both she and Leo helped him drive off Pilgrim’s Point.”
“Are you saying Lewis Samson was murdered?”
“Oh yeah. At least that’s what Lewis told me when they brought him in here. You know, they don’t always come in here with their bodies, so I don’t get to meet everyone who goes through this place. But Lewis followed his body here. He was pretty angry.”
“Why did they kill him?”
“Lewis knew it was really Daisy, not her sister. I don’t know what happened to Maisy, I just know Daisy is pretending to be her, and Lewis knew it. I guess when you really love someone, you can tell them from their twin sister. But what a schmuck. Falling in love with some broad who’ll snuff you out without blinking an eye. That’s naughty Daisy for you.”
Danielle glanced nervously to the closed bathroom door and back to the ghost. “I need to get out of here.”
“I don’t blame you. Someday I’ll move on too, but I keep waiting for naughty Daisy to kick off so I can ask her a couple of questions I have been dying to ask.” He laughed and then repeated, “Dying to ask!” He laughed again. “Get it? Dying to ask. I should have been a comedian!”
He disappeared.
“Is everything alright?” Faye asked when Danielle walked back into the waiting area several minutes later.
“Umm…yeah…” Danielle muttered.
“Norman called; he said he got tied up and will be another fifteen minutes. That will give us time for you to tell me all about the museum exhibit and our display.”
“I can’t stay. I’ll have to get my phone later,” Danielle said.
“Oh, please don’t go,” Faye begged, smiling sweetly.
Danielle silently studied Faye for a moment. The elderly woman seemed so feeble and old. No longer a physical threat—but if the spirit was to be believed, she had once been deadly.
If Danielle had thought for a moment Faye’s son would be walking in the door at any moment, she would not have uttered the next words. Instead, she would have quickly left and headed straight to the police station.
“Do you like chocolate?” Danielle asked impulsively.
Faye stared at Danielle, confused by the question. Finally, she said, “No, actually, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“You are Daisy Faye. You killed your sister and Kenneth, didn’t you? You also killed Lewis Samson. He knew your secret.”
“Oh my. You really have figured it all out, haven’t you?” Faye seemed unfazed by Danielle’s declaration.
“Those remains they found buried at your old house, it’s your sister and Kenneth, isn’t it? Kenneth wasn’t involved with you. He was involved with Maisy. The real Maisy.”
Faye shrugged. “I had no idea my sister had sold our house. Especially after she told me I could stay with her until I could afford my own place. Leo and I had it all worked out. We were going to move the bodies and dispose of them so no one would ever know, but then I found out the house had been sold and the new owner was moving in, in just a few days. It didn’t give us any time. We had to leave them there. And for all these years no one found them. Until now.”
“I guess you almost got away with murder.” Danielle turned to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Danielle turned back to Faye and was surprised to find the elderly woman pointing a small revolver at her. Her eyes widened.
“You need to stay here until my son returns,” Faye said sweetly.