Behind the Boater's Cover-Up Read online

“Worked the first time.”

  I grabbed one of the dishes drying along the side of the sink and somehow resisted the urge to chuck it out the window. I needed privacy around here. I needed to be free from this house agreement and these ghosts. Clutching the dish so hard I almost broke it with my bare hands, I gently placed it into the cabinet where it belonged. One after another. Then, I grabbed Rex’s dog food and plopped it into the microwave. The thermometer to check the food’s temperature was right where it always was. Everything was always right where it should be. Things were too routine. Too strict.

  “No wonder I’m 31 and still dating. Justin’s not going to stick around if he has to put up with weird house rules and ex-husband ghosts.”

  “Now, Carly. If a boy really likes you for you,” Jackson began. “He won’t care.”

  “Oh shut up,” I replied as the microwave beeped. I whistled for Rex then checked another box off the house agreement checklist I kept on the fridge. “I’m going to burn the sage again, a whole truckload this time.”

  As the familiar sound of dog claws along the hardwood sounded, I felt another presence, and I remembered we had a guest. I felt guilty for yelling at my ex in front of her. But then, it wasn’t the first time my ex-husband and I had done that. In fact arguing in front of company and almost demanding they take sides was pretty much our MO back in the day.

  “I’m sorry to intrude,” the timid voice said, making me instantly feel sorry for her.

  “Allow me to introduce our guest,” Jackson said. A woman appeared with dark bobbed hair, full eyebrows, and a cute button nose. She was dressed in a sleek navy blue skirt and a polkadot sleeveless shirt. She was absolutely stunning.

  “Carly, this is Gloria Elenore Thomas, our newest client,” he said.

  The girl smiled softly at me, hands behind her back as she nervously hover-rocked back and forth. She couldn’t have been older than 18, max.

  I searched my brain for something appropriate to say. “Sorry about your accident,” I managed. “I mean, if it was an accident.”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t.”

  “Let’s go into the dining room and you can tell me everything you remember.”

  I knew it wasn’t going to matter much, as far as the story’s accuracy went. Ghosts didn’t always remember things correctly after they died. It was only when we joined forces during a channeling that we relived the memory, exactly as it happened at the time it happened, second by second.

  I pulled open the top drawer of the credenza in the back of the dining room, grabbed my notebook and pencil, then sat down.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” she said.

  “Gloria wasn’t a regular on Landover Lake,” Jackson said. “She’s from California.”

  “Los Angeles,” she chimed in, looking up at the ceiling like she was trying to remember. “We always rented a house on the lake, every summer since I was six, for two weeks with my aunt’s family. My mother and my aunt grew up in Wisconsin, so even though we all lived in California, we always went to the lake to vacation.” She sat on the chair next to me, such a small spirit, one I suspected was pretty easily taken advantage of in her day.

  She continued. “I looked forward to it every year, eating fresh-picked corn while we caught fireflies and fished. I have to say, we were much more successful at catching fireflies than fish.”

  I nodded along, not much to take notes on yet. “So, the night you passed away. You were renting on the lake? What happened?”

  “My cousin Nettie is what happened. Annette, but everyone called her Nettie. We’d both just graduated. Most years we kept to ourselves, just our families on the lake. But that year, Nettie got it in her head she wanted a boyfriend. A summer fling, she’d said. And the boys on the lake were so cute I found myself wanting that too. The boys only liked Nettie, of course. She’d just dyed her hair, like Marilyn Monroe’s.”

  I wrote Nettie’s name into my notebook along with a short description.

  Gloria squinted her eyes up. “Honestly, I don’t remember too much from the night itself. We went to the sock hop at the dance hall. Nettie found a boy and ditched me like always. I’d just turned 18 and this was my first country club dance. But I didn’t really know anyone, so I was happy when the party broke up early. I wanted to go home.”

  “So the party ended early, huh?” I asked, scribbling as I talked. “Why?”

  She looked at the ceiling. “Somebody spiked the punch and some kids were getting out of control, I think. I don’t really remember. Nettie wasn’t ready to go home, though. I do remember that. She convinced me to sneak on a boat with her. Man, it was the largest, most luxurious boat I’d ever been on, with a downstairs and everything. We thought the people on the boat would be cranked to have us along for their after-party. But I only remember their faces when they found us. They went ape, and not in a good way. I woke up in the water with Nettie.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t fall overboard?”

  “Oh no. I don’t remember how we got in the water, but it wasn’t a fall. And when we were there, treading water, another boat showed up and yelled to us over a megaphone or something. I tried to wave my arms to get their attention, but when I looked up, the boat was coming right for us…”

  I wrote as fast as I could at this point. These girls hadn’t been partiers who met with an unfortunate accident. Something else had gone on entirely, and I was going to figure it out.

  “So, will you help me?” she asked. Her voice seemed weaker now, her body almost completely transparent.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Tomorrow morning, I’m going to find out everything I can about this so-called accident. We’ll start gathering evidence, schedule a channeling of that night as soon as you’re up for it. And if there’s anyone left from that boat still alive today, they’re going to wish they were dead. Mark my words.”

  I was feeling especially confident for someone who had no idea where she was going with this.

  Gloria vanished, and I continued writing out our schedule and my plan to help her.

  Jackson hovered by my side, reading over my shoulder in that annoying way he always did, even when we were married. “That’s a lot of channeling you’ve got planned. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

  “Of course,” I said in my most confident voice.

  I knew he was concerned about the effects the channelings were starting to have on me. Truth was, I was concerned too. But I was also starting to feel drawn to them. I needed those channelings, and the ill effects that went with them. Possible hallucinations. White specks impeding my vision. Dizziness. The whole thing was like an intoxicating package that needed me to unwrap it, again and again.

  I pulled the shoe box off the bookshelf in the living room and sat down at the coffee table. It was where I kept all the research I’d done on the crows and the history of Gate House. All the articles from 1954 about skull-crushing birds with thick yellowed beaks. And my notes. If anyone told me anything about Gate House, shapeshifters, curses, the Dead Forest, or birds, I put it in there, along with the things I remembered from every channeling and seance. I didn’t have much so far.

  There seemed to be a curse, all right, and I felt like I was supposed to end it somehow. But that was about as much as I knew, except for the fact I looked exactly like the woman who put the curse on the house in the first place. No idea why, but a coincidence didn’t really seem possible.

  My mother wouldn’t tell me anything about my biological parents or my adoption, except to say the lawyer in the case resembled the lawyer I had now, a man who didn’t seem to age, and kind of looked like he’d just stepped off the field of a Civil War reenactment.

  Every week I’d think of some other thing to research, some other key word that might unlock the mystery behind this curse and my life, so I’d head optimistically over to the library.

  But Parker’s grandmother Mildred had been right. There wasn’t nearly enough coverage in Potter Grove about the things that mattered,
the supernatural things that terrorized this town. And might be back.

  But with Gloria’s help, I was about to do my own firsthand research and see things for myself in real time.

  Chapter 3

  Inconsistencies

  I bumped the library door open with my butt because my hands were full of to-go cups of coffee. Stopping just inside the doorway, I closed my eyes a second, enjoying the warmth from the vent blaring out heat right above me. Giggles, screams, and squeals interrupted my thoughts, so loud they echoed off the walls.

  There were kids in the kids section?

  We had a kids section?

  “You didn’t get me,” a little voice taunted. “Come on, at least try.”

  A toddler screeched.

  “Lil Mil, sit down. Mrs. Nebitt is still reading the story.”

  I recognized the voices immediately. Landover Lake’s newest single dad, Parker Blueberg, and his family. I walked toward the sounds and leaned against one of the book racks to watch the very first story time this library probably ever had. Mrs. Nebitt’s frail, veiny hand shook as she struggled to hold the book out so the pictures would show to her audience as she sat on one of the metal chairs in the children’s section, a section about the size of a small bathroom.

  Parker grabbed Benjamin, his toddler, and secured him on his lap even though he was squirming to break free, while Lil Mil, his five-year-old daughter with wild curls, was spinning around on the floor in front of them. He smiled and waved to me when he noticed me standing there.

  Mrs. Nebitt ignored the interruptions. “Where was I? Oh yes. ‘This must be a home,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve always wanted a home.’” The 80-year-old closed the book with a soft sigh. “Corduroy. One of my favorites. I remember your great grandmother reading it to your dad when he was a baby. You might not know I am very good friends with your great grandmother.”

  Benjamin got up and started spinning with his sister. Mrs. Nebitt was quickly losing her audience, but oddly, not her patience. She picked up another book, seemingly oblivious to the children who were now chasing each other through the stacks in the nonfiction section. That woman used to shush me whenever I’d move a chair too loudly and now she had children screaming through the library and she hardly noticed?

  I handed her the coffee while she carefully put the children’s books back, in their exact right spots along the shelves. She hesitated to take it, glancing over at the “No food or drinks” sign posted along the side wall next to the sign that read, “Quiet Please.” Lil Mil screamed louder from the back, and Mrs. Nebitt snatched the coffee from my grasp, thanking me.

  “I need research on another ghost,” I said. “For my book.” I added that last part so Parker would know I wasn’t crazy. “Someone named Gloria Thomas. She was one of the partiers from 1957 who died in that unfortunate boating accident.”

  Mrs. Nebitt’s smile dropped and she stammered her words a little. “Microfilm section again,” she finally said after a couple seconds.

  Parker leaned against a table, like he didn’t have kids running crazy in a library right now. “I heard you were writing a book,” he said. “I’m very impressed.”

  “Don’t be. So far it’s just a lot of research.”

  Even though I had the first chapter written about the suffragette’s suicide sitting at home on my laptop, I would rather jump into a vat of hepatitis needles with it than have anyone read it yet.

  I caught Parker’s profile as he craned his neck to look for his kids. Beige sweater and jeans, his hair tousled like he hadn’t had time to brush it. He rocked the frazzled, single-dad look; that was for sure. I looked at my phone, pretending not to be looking at Parker. Jackson’s voice echoed in my head, something about wondering if Justin would approve.

  A loud crash came from the back, followed by even louder laughter, and Mrs. Nebitt shot Parker a look.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Nebitt,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He ran after the noise as Mrs. Nebitt and I walked to the periodicals section together. It was a short walk.

  She mumbled to herself, tugging on an ear. “So, let’s see. 1957…” She set her coffee down on top of the cabinet and opened a drawer.

  “You were here in 1957,” I said, thinking about the large black-and-white photo that hung on the wall over the copiers. The library’s ribbon-cutting ceremony had to have been from around that time. “Do you remember the boating accident?”

  She hummed loudly to herself as she sifted through the boxes in the drawer, like she was ignoring me.

  “Did you know the people involved? Were you at the dance?”

  Still nothing.

  Parker came back over, carrying a grinning toddler on his shoulders while holding Lil Mil’s hand. “Tell Mrs. Nebitt thanks for the story time, kids,” he said, heading for the door.

  “Thanks for the story time, kids,” Lil Mil echoed back in a gravelly deep voice that sounded a lot like her great grandmother’s. Benjamin just waved and blew kisses. And I bit my lip, mentally yelling at my uterus to stop being so needy. We would have kids when we were meant to, if we were meant to.

  Mrs. Nebitt pulled on her ear. “What was that?” she asked Parker in a soft, faraway tone. “My hearing aid was down.”

  I knew from helping my mother take care of my grandmother just before she passed away that hearing aids didn’t just turn down on their own. Older people turned them down when they didn’t want to hear you anymore.

  I walked Parker and the kids to the door so I could get a look at the photo of the ribbon-cutting ceremony again. He put his hand on my shoulder before he left. “That accident you’re looking up. That was very hard for Mrs. Nebitt and my grandmother.”

  I looked at him sideways.

  “They were chaperones at the dance and were pretty much blamed for the accident. Someone spiked the punch and kids got out of control. And when some kids drowned because they were drunk… It was a rough time for the family.”

  I gasped. “I had no idea.”

  “Just tread lightly,” he said then left with his kids.

  Mrs. Nebitt waddled over to me as soon as the door closed behind them. “They are driving me nuts, running around like that. Parker asked if we did story time. What was I going to say? Poor guy’s looking for cheap entertainment for those kids. But honestly, I don’t know how to do a story time for toddlers. Run a book club for 90-year-olds, sure. But toddlers…”

  “I can do it next time,” someone said, and I realized it had been me. I immediately tried to back peddle. “I know you would hate that, though, because you would hate for someone else to take over. And there probably won’t even be a next time.”

  Mrs. Nebitt’s face relaxed, so it was only halfway scowling now. “I will take you up on your very kind offer,” she said.

  Why had I made such a very kind offer, anyway?

  “We’ll talk about the details later. I set up the microfilm machine for you,” she said, sashaying off to her humungous desktop computer at the front, leaving me to do my own research for once. Every other time, she’d kept me company.

  I looked up at the photo above the copiers before making my way to the periodicals section again. In it, Mrs. Nebitt stood with a pair of humungous scissors next to four smiling men in dark suits and one young woman in a beauty queen sash, Miss Potter Grove 1950-something. The woman was standing behind one of the men, so I couldn’t really tell the date on her sash. Mrs. Nebitt looked remarkably similar to the way she looked today, except in the picture her hair was dark and her glasses were thick and cat-eye looking as she glared down at the ribbon she was about to cut, like she might want to stab it instead.

  I went back over to the periodicals section and sat in front of the machine. Mrs. Nebitt was humming to herself, causing a very loud distraction. The woman didn’t hum. She hated noise. I could already tell this case was going to be different.

  Young Party Goers Meet Tragic End; Alcohol Suspected

  Gloria Thomas and Annette Jerome, recent high-sch
ool graduates and cousins from Los Angeles, CA, were two of the four victims in the boating accident late Saturday night. Witnesses say alcohol was most certainly involved. After attending what was supposed to be a “sock hop” at the country club’s recreational center, the girls surreptitiously boarded a yacht owned by the Donovan family with Frederick Linder, 18, of Landover and his friends Clyde Bowman, Myles Donovan, and Darren Wittle. Also in attendance were Bill Donovan and Dwight Linder.

  My jaw dropped. There, on the screen, were some of the biggest names in Landover County. Clyde Bowman was the mayor of Potter Grove (and was also Jackson’s uncle) while Darren Wittle was the mayor of Landover. And Myles Donovan was the Myles Donovan, the man in the largest house on the lake, the richest man in Landover. He was also Delilah Scott’s distant cousin. I didn’t recognize the Linders, though, even though there was a photo of them. I read on.

  “I am actually surprised this didn’t happen sooner,” one of the mothers of a young party attender said. “We’ve been warning the country club for years. They need to do a better job chaperoning those dances. The punch was spiked again, and I suspect funny cigarettes were a part of it, too.”

  Witnesses on the boat say the teenagers jumped overboard for a late-night swim, but were too inebriated to make it back and quickly became lost in the water.

  Frederick Linder’s father, Dwight, apparently jumped in to save the kids, but was quickly lost too. A police vessel was summoned to the scene, but in the chaos, accidentally ran over the women who were still struggling to stay afloat. The search for the Linders continues. Ms. Thomas is survived by her parents, Tony and Velma Thomas and her sister, June, of Los Angeles…

  Below the article were all three of the kids’ senior high-school photos. Gloria and Nettie smiled at me in velvet wraps and pearls. And Freddie Linder was a lanky kid in a bow tie and suit, his thinning hair parted neatly to the side.

  “Who’s Frederick Linder?” I called out across the library.