THE VENABLE MANSION MURDERS

Forward

Of course it was a haunted house. It had to be a haunted house; it was an old, abandoned, ramshackle two story Queen Anne Victorian at the edge of the small college town. The walls were faded red brick with weathered, grey shutters flanking the windows. It had a round three story tower at the front left corner and a wraparound porch with bleached and mottled white pillars that extended from the tower past the front double doors and down the side of the building. The roof was grey slate, mostly but not completely intact. The dilapidated estate sat forlornly in an overgrown courtyard surrounded by an eight foot tall decaying brick wall with broken lanterns spaced along the top. The gate was iron, rusted and partially ajar enough so that a person could squeeze through if thin enough. Surprisingly, the windows all appeared intact and the twin oaken doors with brass knockers also appeared solid and shut. 

  Naturally, the old mansion had acquired the usual collection of myths and fables in the forty or so years it had been abandoned. The most common of the lurid tales concerned the last residents of the place, a family called the Venables and how the wife had murdered her husband, hidden his body somewhere in the home and ran off with the gardener. She had been so panic stricken that in her haste to escape she reportedly left behind a fortune hidden somewhere inside the broken down old manor house.

The possibility of untold riches led to years of treasure hunters scavenging the place, which did nothing but add to the disrepair of the interior. The treasure remained untold and unfound.

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It was Halloween weekend and four women of the Sigma Psi Xi sorority were taking one of the pledges to the haunted house. It was part of the (officially banned) hazing process for new members. The house was the perfect place for trying to strike terror into a pledge that these members really did not like or want to become one of their sisters.

Chapter One

Abby was beside herself with excitement. The four most influential women of the sorority had invited her to go on an exploration of the local "haunted house". This was a surprise.

She had thought they didn't like her. They had acted coldly and with apparent distain when the membership committee had recommended her. But today, the day before the Halloween party, all four had cornered her in the hallway and told her to be ready that evening at 7:30. She could hardly wait.

She met them at the gate leading into the old wreck of a house. Even though it was the evening before Halloween none of them were wearing costumes. Instead they were dressed in “adventuring gear”; that is a flashlight, old jeans, sneakers and their sorority sweat shirts. 

The leader of the group was Barb. She was a senior, the oldest and the most athletic of the four. She played on the school’s lacrosse and basketball teams as a sub. She was tall, five feet and ten inches tall, slender with brown eyes and long brown hair with a couple of purple highlight streaks on her right. Her major was business, specifically sports administration.

“Now, be careful,” she said, “everybody knows there’s a treasure hidden somewhere in there but it’s guarded by the ghost. It’s quiet at the moment but stay alert and we’ll find a fortune and get out alive!”

“Oh, I will be,” said Abby. Privately, she seriously doubted the stories of treasure and ghosts. If there really was treasure surely someone in the past forty years or so would have found it. She also knew there were no such things as ghosts.

“So, let’s go,” added Susie as she squeezed through the dilapidated gate and waved the rest of the group through. She was a junior accounting major and not as athletic as Barb. Shorter than the others at five feet two inches and tending to plumpness she had short brown hair and bangs. Her eyes were grey. With a GPA of 3.8 she was the most studious of the group.

Denise and Constance quickly followed, since they weren’t quite as rotund as Susie. 

Denise was also a junior with no clear idea of what she wanted to do after graduation. She’d tried several courses and currently was taking an archaeology class. At five foot five inches she had a normal build but wasn’t very athletic (she never took phys ed classes or went to the gym). She had shoulder length black hair with a blond highlight streak and grey eyes.

Constance, the third junior of the group, was often mistaken as Denise’s sister. They looked almost identical except her eyes were hazel and, to make her seem different from Denise, had a red highlight streak in her hair. Equally uncertain about her future, her interest was for airplanes and flying. How she was to use that passion left her “up in the air” so to speak.

Last through the gate was Abby, short for Abigail. As a freshman she was by far the youngest of the five, and the only one not to come from families with money. She was the oldest of three children from a working class family. Her dad supervised a construction crew and her mom was the lead cook in an upscale restaurant. Her two younger brothers were still in school. She was also the only scholarship student of the group and she desperately wanted to become a member of an influential group at the college or at least at the sorority.

She was tall (five feet nine inches) but only moderately athletic although she followed fútball and béisball passionately. Her hair was also long, down her back, and straight. Her eyes were brown. Her classes were just general entry level but she was a devoted fan of history.

The five of them crept up the walkway; the going was slow even though the moon was nearly full since the pavement was crumbling even as they trod on it. There was apparently a mild breeze that reverberated through the house since they could hear sounds like a low moan or gasp that was seemingly coming from the upper story. “That’s odd,” said Abby. “The windows all look intact. How could the wind be getting inside?”

“Must be a couple of broken windows upstairs in the back,” opined Susie. 

“Of course there are,” stated Barb. “What else could cause such a racket?” Thusly contradicting her earlier statement, which no one appeared to notice. It really wasn’t a racket anyway, just a whisper of a sound.

The stairs leading to the porch appeared solid until Barb put her weight on the lowest step. It creaked and sagged a few millimeters but held firm, so she climbed up to the porch, carefully.

Not to be outdone, the others joined her at the doors which she carefully pushed open. Surprisingly, both doors swung inward easily and silently which elicited a gasp of astonishment from all of them. Not even a slight creak. They all inched inside and stood in a  entryway with a faded Persian-style worn carpet. There was a grand staircase in front of them leading to a second floor landing with bannisters and hand rails, in seemingly good condition, meant to keep someone from falling from the landing onto the ground floor. Beyond the stairway was another set of oaken doors leading into what the dim light from the windows and their flashlights appeared to be some sort of ballroom or reception hall. It’s doors matched the entry doors, but these were already wide open but hanging precariously from the topmost hinges,  presumably from the years of depredations by previous treasure seekers. On both sides of the foyer were hallways leading to the left and to the right wings of the house. There appeared to be doors to rooms on the second floor landing. Those doors were shut.

While assessing the situation Abby noticed that the low sound, whatever it had been, had ceased. She turned to see if the wind coming through the front doors might be related to that but had to let out a squeak of alarm; the front doors had quietly and secretly closed behind them.

“Girls, look! The doors shut by themselves! We’re trapped in here!” She gasped.

They all turned to look.

Once again Barb answered with disdain, “You’re just being silly. That’s what well-made doors do.”

“Well-made doors,” said Denise, “this house is a wreck. How could they be in that good shape?”

“Obviously they are,” replied Barb, “now let’s get on with it.  Susie, you and Denise take the left hallway, Constance and I will take the right hallway. Abby, as the newest one of us you get to explore the upstairs. We can all meet back here later and check out the big room together.”

As the four older women made to start their search Abby crept up the stairs, slowly and carefully. The treads creaked even worse than the outside steps but held firm, the handrail felt worn and rough but solid and secure. The wallpaper exuded a musty, damp odor. Her attention was so focused on the climb ahead of her and the landing above she failed to noice the smirk the others gave themselves.

When she reached the upper landing the hallway extended to her left and right, like the lower floor. Glancing back she noticed that her companions were gone and the front doors were once again ajar. “Hmm,” she thought, “what’s with them?”

She tried the nearest door. It was not locked or even completely closed. It swung open easily with but with a slight grinding of the hinges. The interior was a small bedroom with a wardrobe, bed, nightstand and several easy chairs. The air seemed surprisingly clear for such an old home. Also, there wasn't the musty scent often associated with unused rooms. The furniture looked old but in remarkably good condition. A quick run of her hands along the surfaces felt surprisingly smooth and finished. There were blank spots on the walls where pictures had once hung, presumably taken by looters hopeful they were worth something. A back window let in the moonlight; it appeared intact and complete like the downstairs windows. That was all.

Suddenly she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as a chill ran down her back.  Someone or something was watching her! Abby spun on her heels and dodged to the side as quickly as she could. But there was nobody or nothing in the doorway or anywhere to be seen or heard. The sensation of being watched went away. It was, to say the least, unnerving.

Two additional rooms yielded the same result. They appeared similar to the first; again with some old but remarkably well preserved furniture, missing artwork, and an intact window. There were no more spooky sensations of being watched. Nothing to get excited about. Abby was coming to the conclusion that this entire expedition was a hazing prank and nothing more.

  “Well, I’ll try one more room and call it a night,” she said aloud to nobody but herself. Initially the fourth room appeared and felt just like the others. Even the furniture was the same. As before, it just looked newer than the rest of the houses’s furnishings. That is until she turned to leave and this time actually saw an old man standing in the doorway. He looked awful. In fact, he looked spectral; his face and hands were sunken and pale grey. His body  appeared almost skeletal. He had almost no hair, and what he had was shoulder length, scraggly and white. His clothes were badly out of date, threadbare, faded and seemingly very old. He glared at her with his pale grey dead and angry eyes.

“No! I won’t allow this!” He screamed in a thin, reedy and surprisingly high pitched voice. “This is my place and you living creatures have no business here. All any of you care about is the cursed treasure. Even when your kind find my body they don’t have the decency to bury me properly. All that does is make it so much harder for me to scare them away. You have to leave. You have to leave now. I’m tired of chasing and scaring your kind out of here.” He paused for a few seconds. “No, I’ve changed my mind. In fact, I’m going to just finish you now! That’ll teach the rest of you to violate this home.” With that he rushed at her and put his hands around her throat.

Abby stood frozen to her spot, it felt like fear and dread filled her veins with ice. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t make a sound, she couldn’t do anything but stare at what could only be a ghost. When she felt him actually put his withered cold hands around her neck it was with astonishingly little force, he exerted almost no pressure on her throat. She could still breathe with only moderate difficulty. This realization broke her spell of inaction. She recovered and pushed back against him as hard as she could. He felt almost but not quite substantial and solid. He actually fell back several feet, let go of her, moaned, turned and disappeared through the wall. She was free and brushed past him easily and fled from the room, finally finding her voice.

“He’s real, he’s real,” she screamed as she ran along the balcony. “It’s a ghost, a real live ghost.” (The irony of saying a ghost was real and live of course did not occur to her at the time). She continued to scream but more and more incoherently as she reached the top of the stairs, looked back but saw nobody and nothing. As she turned and started to race down the staircase she felt a sudden, violent shove in her back. It was so forceful that she completely lost her balance, stumbled, and began to tumble headfirst down the flight of stairs. 

Abby fell, rolling head over heels down and down. It was dizzying, her head hurt, she could feel and hear her bones breaking. She grunted a few times. Finally, she reached the bottom of the stairway, stopped somersaulting and just stayed put for what seemed like forever. It was probably just a few minutes but could have been much longer. The pain had subsided and she was no longer dizzy. So, she stood up and looked for whoever or whatever must have pushed her. The top of the stairs was empty, no ghost or anything stood there. Next she hurried toward the front to look out the partially open door and saw her four companions standing outside the broken gate talking to a policeman. She started to cry out to them but the officer turned and walked away as if to get into his squad car. Her sorority “sisters” simply walked down the old street away from the house, laughing and giggling the whole way. She couldn’t believe it; they were abandoning her! Her yelling after them had no effect, they didn’t even turn around to look back for her. Disappointment and anger filled her with a rage that she’d never experienced before. Just wait until her parents heard about this! She started to run out the doors to follow and confront them but as she did so she spied something dreadful in her peripheral vision.

Puzzled, she turned to see what it was. She stopped, once again frozen in horror. Lying at the base of the stairs was a crumpled, misshapen body. It was her body.

Chapter Two

Abby was dumbstruck. She stared at her body for at least several minutes while letting the unthinkable sink in. She was dead! She was a ghost, something she’d never really believed in; not even during el día de los Muertos. What was she to do? Absolutely nothing came to mind. Her world came to a crashing halt.

  From behind her came a familiar, unpleasant and unwanted voice. It was that of the ghost who’d chased her down the hallway and —killed— her.

“Ha! I finally did it! I did it! I created another ghost just like me. Now maybe all those living idiots will stay away from here and leave me in my misery.”

She turned to face the apparition. “Why did you do that? What will become of me? What can I do, what should I do? What happens now? Why me?”

He started to caper around her like a madman, which she was beginning to suspect was the truth. As he pranced around and around her her began to speak in a singsong, annoying, voice, “I’ve been here for forty or more years with nothing to do but harbor hate for my wife who poisoned me and ran away. The only hobby I’ve had was to scare away the fortune hunters who scavenged my haunt. Sometimes I could randomly appear and scream and they’d run away, but apparently never told anyone about me because more would come. Sometimes I could do a little poltergeist and push a few little things around and moan and screech and that would frighten them away. But sometimes the bastards would actually find my body but just leave it there. Then it was no fun since once a living sees my body they were no longer able to see or hear me except for the hint of a moan or groan. A living person seeing my body somehow cancels my ghostly abilities.”

“You haven’t answered my questions,” replied Abby. His antics were beginning to annoy her, which at least was an improvement from her previous state of despair. “What has any of that have to do with me?”

“Oh, you’ll have to learn how to be a ghost just like I did,” he replied still in the manic mode. “You’ll have to learn how to pass through walls but still be ‘solid’ when you want to be. You’ll learn how to scare people so they’ll leave this place alone. You‘’ll find out that you’re restricted to this house, the place you died. You’ll learn a lot of things, but not from me. I had to learn on my own and so will you. So there, ha!”

Now Abby was really mad and frustrated. This was getting nowhere. She needed to know how she could become an “unghost” and what that would take. She decided that she had to wheedle some information out of him somehow. Perhaps if she played nice he might be forthcoming.

“Please, kind sir,” she tried her best to sound forlorn and temper her tendency toward sarcasm. “I don’t even know your name and if I have to be here we should at least be civil. What’s your name, how did you come to be here and what can we do to “pass on” or whatever ghosts finally do? You are so experienced and I am new, please take a little time to talk to me, something you haven’t had a chance to do for such a long time. Isn’t it nice to be able to converse with someone else and not have to worry about how to frighten them? You seem like such a nice person surely you can take a few minutes to educate me?”

The old ghost stopped his prancing and chanting and stood for a moment, first looking  in the distance and finally at her. “Well, you may be right.  This really is a lot to take in. The first thing I think might be useful is that I have always had a notion, where it came from I have no idea, that we cannot “pass on” if we have been murdered and do not know why, how and by whom. Then we need to be properly interred. I know that my wife poisoned me, but I’m not sure why. I was such a pleasant fellow, just like I am now.”

Abby had to try very hard to keep a straight face or not roll her eyes.

“My name is, or was, Edmund Frank Venable. My wife and I lived here after our children  left for college or careers. We were happy, and then suddenly I was standing by my sofa in the sun room on the third floor of the tower looking at my body just laying there with a spilt glass of whiskey on the floor. She was nowhere to be found in the house, and I could not exit the place, as you have learned.”

“Since then, which was about forty years ago, as I said, I’ve had to stay here guarding that stupid treasure and scaring away those insipid living.”

“There really is a treasure?” She asked.

“Oh, yes, but not what you think. I’m going to let you figure that out for yourself.”

She thought for a moment and realized what the treasure probably was. She didn’t tell him, though. “Let him think I’m not that smart as yet. I may need an advantage later,” she thought.

“You said that sometimes you are solid and sometimes not. How do you do that?”

“You just think ‘solid’ and you can walk on floors, touch things and even move them a little. But you will not be anywhere as strong as you were before. Other times you think ‘ghost’ and walls and floors are like a mist you can pass through. Also, when you are ‘solid’ you are visible, living ones can see you. When you are ‘ghost’ are are nearly invisible; you’re like a fine vapor, it depends on what’s behind you if you can be seen at all.”

Abby was finding all this useful. Mr Venable (she decided to call him that in hopes he’d continue to be forthcoming) was actually helping.

“You mean all I have to do is think ‘ghost’ and I’ll…” With that idea in her head she suddenly fell right through the floor and landed on the concrete in the cellar. It took several seconds for her to realize what had happened; she’d done what Mr. Venable had said and the floor became a mist to her. But why was she standing on the cellar floor?

  He appeared next to her and started to cackle again.

“Stop that, what just happened?” She demanded.

He became a little more rational. “I told you that some walls and floors could just cease to block you when you are ‘ghost’. But you are down here now because you are tied, restricted, to this home. You cannot leave. The exterior walls, floors, doors and windows you cannot pass through, only the interior ones.”

“Now let’s see if you can figure out how to get back upstairs.”

“I just need to float in the air, like every other ghost,” she answered. In the back of her mind it occurred to her that she was beginning to realize that she was really a ghost, which scared her a little bit.

“No, I cannot float in the air, or soar around the home. You’ll have to figure it out yourself. Ha!” With that he crossed his spindly arms, stood back, and smirked at her. He was becoming annoying again.

So, Abby tried walking around the cellar for a while. No problem. She decided to try to float anyway, to no avail. Much to Mr. Venable’s delight.

The obvious answer was to think ‘solid’ and try the stairs. They were even worse than the stairs on the upper floor. They creaked under her, presumably, reduced weight. But when she got to the door she was stumped. She tried to go ‘ghost’ to get through but instantly fell to the floor once more. Several attempts yielded no better results. After about six tries she remembered the old adage about the definition of stupidity. So she sat ‘solid’ on the bottom step and thought for several moments.

  “Not so easy is it,” he teased. “It took me months to figure it out.”

That made it even more of a challenge to her. Finally she had an idea. It would take some careful mental coordination.

  Staying ‘solid’ she once again climbed the stairs. When she got to the door she tried to jump up and through it at the same time thinking ‘ghost’. She hoped that after she left the solidity of the step and went ephemeral she could pass through the door and land on the other side, once again ‘solid’. It almost worked. She actually jumped in the air, went ‘ghost’ through the door, but didn’t go ‘solid’ again at the right time. Back on the cellar floor.

Mr. Venable stopped his chortling and looked both impressed and annoyed. “You shouldn’t have been able to learn that so quickly.” He strode to the stairs, clearly irritated, climbed them and hopped through the door just like she’d tried to do.

“Well, I’m on the right track,” she thought. After a minute or so she started to try again. But the old man (ghost) suddenly dropped right beside her.

“Your body is gone. I went the the entry and it’s no longer there. Some living intruder must have come back and moved it. Why I have no idea. It must have been one of the other living women you were with earlier. I saw them leave right after you came upstairs and went into a room. I started to haunt you but decided to wait for a better time, I went to the last room to wait and better ambush you there so I didn’t see anyone after that. One or more of them must have returned to hide you while we were in the cellar. Better come see for yourself.” He seemed so puzzled that he was forgetting to be annoying.

This spurred Abby to greater effort and this time she timed it correctly and landed on the other side of the cellar door.  Sure enough, when she got to the entryway her body was no longer at the foot of the stairs. It was as if it had never been there. Even the rug at the bottom of the staircase had been straightened. Several desperate minutes were spent searching wildly all through the first floor.  Abby couldn’t conceptualize why the need to find where her physical remains were located bothered her so much, but it did.

Finally she found it. Her body had been stuffed into an old dumb waiter in the kitchen and then the crate had been jimmied so it was stuck between floors. It took her quite a while to figure out where it had to be and then for her to play around with ‘solid’ and ‘ghost’ to actually see the evidence. Mr. Venable was right, she hadn’t the physical strength to move the dumb waiter or her body. It had to stay where it was.

That effort gave her a realization. Mr. Venable had implied that he’d been the one to push her down the stairs. But she remembered how little force he had when he tried to strangle her, and how easily she’d broken free and ran along the balcony. Then she remembered the force of the shove that actually sent her tumbling down the stairs. “It had to have been someone else. It couldn’t have been Mr. Venable, or a ghost at all. It had to have been one or more of my ‘sisters’ from the sorority”, she thought. Once again a rage rose inside her. It took a moment but it occurred to her just how easily a ghost could become vengeful and spiteful. It also occurred to her that she was quickly becoming too accustomed to being a ghost.

Mr. Venable was nowhere to be found. She surmised he’d gone back to his lair in the tower. That was just fine, she’d had enough of him for the time being. It was time to think, to try to come up with a plan, but not a single idea or notion presented itself. She felt lonely, and afraid.

Abby was confined to the old mansion, which continued to sit undisturbed. Obviously no one had any concept of doing something with the place. Occasionally some greedy fortune hunter would barge in (just like she’d done) and she would go ‘solid’ and pretend to be another searcher so she could convince them they were wasting their time. She’d decided not to become one of those vengeful ghosts, it just wasn’t her nature despite her history.

  However, she had long since decided to keep the secret of the treasure to herself (and Mr. Venable). She had no desire for her “home” to be further despoiled.

The old ghost would sometimes show himself but mostly avoided her since he couldn’t scare people the way he used to before she interfered with the treasure seekers.

Years passed. Twelve years, in fact.

Chapter Three

James Collins sat behind his new desk at his personal investigative agency, the Pinkertown Detective Service (a deliberate slight misspelling and misdirection on his part). The new office in the local business park looked great. The desk was oak with double file drawers on each side and sat in the middle of the room, a computer on one of it's corners and two armchairs in front for clients. Located on the wall behind him were two file cabinets that matched the desk. There was a small refrigerator next to the cabinets with water for clients and a little something for Jim on occasion. The walls of the office were painted a neutral beige and furnished with what he considered tasteful artwork and there were some fake plants in the corners for garnish. He'd added a floral scent dispenser in one of the wall outlets to give the area a homey feel. The door even had the obligatory glass window with his agency’s and his name stenciled on it in bold, gold lettering. 

He had opened his business just two years ago after failing to pass the physical for the police academy. He’d done well on the psych and intelligence part of the application process, but was over the weight limit. No matter, his private enterprise was now doing just fine. He’d even lost the excess weight and was in top physical condition at the moment. He was about six two with dirty blond hair and athletic, he spent many down afternoons at the gym. Today he was dressed in his usual attire, pressed shirt and slacks. 

Although the work wasn’t exciting most of the time, it was lucrative. It usually consisted of background checks for the parents of the local university students, needlessly worrying about what their kids were up to or who they were dating. Or, he was doing the dirty divorce investigations. The first job was actually sort of boring. He just had to check social media and question the friends and acquaintances (he was only twenty four and young enough to be able to interact favorably with the students). The second usual job was a lot more work and not as enjoyable. It consisted mostly of sitting in a car waiting for some incriminating pictures.

But today promised to be different. He’d received a call two days previously from a certain Charles van Buren. He was a real estate developer from the capital and had an unusual investigative project for Jim. It was all mysterious but definitely sounded more exciting and rewarding than his usual fare.

Jim came to the office a little earlier than usual. He had no office assistant as yet, business wasn’t quite that good. So he sat by himself and waited. Ten o’clock came and his new client knocked on the door. At least he was prompt.

“Come on in,” yelled Jim. He was overly excited and not sure just how sound proof the new door was.

“Thank you,” replied Mr van Buren in a normal voice. Obviously the door was not sound proof at all. He entered and sat down in one of the chairs without being invited. “I have a job for you that may be out of your comfort zone. If so, please let me know so I can find someone else.”

Mr van Buren was tall, at least six feet six and rather thin. He didn’t look emancipated but he didn’t look physically fit either. He was pale with carefully groomed white hair and watery blue eyes. His appearance, as well as his imperious manner, were rather off putting.

“I assure you, sir, that I am quite capable in any manner of investigations,” replied Jim, trying to keep his voice under control. The man might be difficult to deal with, but the job sounded too curious to decline, at least for the moment. “Would you like some water or some coffee from the café next door?”

“Thank you, but no. Let’s get on with it. I represent some investors who have purchased an old, somewhat run-down house on the edge of town. It is a mansion inherited by the nieces and nephews of a man named Edmund Frank Venable. He disappeared many years ago after his wife left him and the descendants, who do not get along with each other at all, have finally had him declared legally dead. With that detail of title out of the way my investors and myself purchased the place for a satisfactorily small sum. The house is in a state of disrepair, the heirs did nothing to it, but we have plans for it. We think it could be refurbished at a reasonable price into a haunted house amusement venue, much like the attractions at the large amusement parks. It won’t cost much since we want to keep it looking somewhat dilapidated.”

“Of course we need to evaluate the property. But first there is a rumor of a vast treasure hidden in the place, which has led to years of people ransacking it. You job will be to search the home thoroughly and determine if there really is such a thing, however unlikely, and then design a security system to keep out further invaders. Once you’ve done that we can start our project.”

“Um,’ said Jim, “I can do that without any problems. But you do realize that the home, if it is the one I’m thinking of, already is rumored to have a resident ghost? Everyone in town has heard about it. Parents use it to scare their kids. How does that figure into your plans?”

“Of course ghosts don’t exist. Don’t be foolish. But that tale just adds to the mystique of the project. It’ll make the attraction even more interesting. We are willing to pay up to $10,000 if you can install adequate security. Are you interested?”

Jim took a moment or so to pretend he was mulling the offer over. “Yes, I can do it. Rather easily I think. Let me get started on some background work: house plans, site evaluation, history of the place then I can do the on site evaluations. I’ll even get a contractor friend to look it over.”

“Don’t bother with that, we have our own people for reconstruction. Good people. Just do what we ask and we’ll pay.”

“Very well,” responded Jim, again rather annoyed but keeping his displeasure from his voice, “do we have a deal?”

“Yes, I’ll have the contract to you by the day after tomorrow. Thank you.” With that he rose and left the office without further conversation.

“Well, he’s a piece of work,” thought Jim. “It’s not going to be fun working with someone like that, but the job sounds easy enough, I get to use that training I took on security design, and the money is good. I’d better get started.”

Chapter Four

First on the list of things to do was look up the property records, just to make sure the developer was honest in his story. Sure enough, the estate had recently been sold to the Haunted House Ventures Group. But, some considerable digging through corporate papers revealed a slightly different story. The group was owned by a shell corporation, which was owned by another, and so forth. It took most of the rest of the day to find the true owner of the property. They were a shady cabal from Central America heavily into online gambling.

“Seems as if they have a slightly different agenda than the van Buren fellow said,” Jim mused. “Perhaps I need to get the local police involved, or maybe even the FBI.”

He put a call into the local police department and briefed the desk sergeant on the situation. “Wait a minute,” replied the officer, “I remember something about that place from a few years back. Let me put in touch with the detective who was there that night, although he was a patrol officer then. He has a cold case from there, you need to know about that. It might make your buyers a little squeamish buying a real haunted house. Maybe that’ll scare them off—joke intended—and solve your potential mob problem.” 

“Sounds good, thanks. Have him call me.”

By that time it was getting late and Jim decided not to physically inspect the house that night. “I’m not afraid of a stupid haunted house,” he told himself, “it’s just better to see things in the daytime.” Nonetheless he was real skittish on his way to his apartment that evening. “Doesn’t hurt to be cautious,” he thought.

The next morning was bright, sunny and pleasant. It was a good day to look the place over. He arrived at the partially ajar gate around 9:30 and looked the estate over. He’d never bothered to go there in the two years he’d been in town and he didn’t regret that decision. It looked worse than he imagined. There did not seem to be any way that the group, whatever their true intentions were, could turn it into a venue people would want to visit. Nonetheless, he gingerly went up the stairs and tried the double entry doors. They swung open easily, almost too easy to be believed. Once inside he saw the grand staircase, the damaged doors leading the grand dining room and the hallways leading left and right. He went forward toward the grand hall but wasn’t sure where to start from there when he heard a low moaning sound from the upper hallway.

“Don’t pay any attention to that,” said a woman’s voice behind him. “It‘s just the wind blowing through some of the windows upstairs. But I bet you’re here looking for the rumored treasure. Well, you won’t find any.”

Startled, he spun around a saw a young woman, she looked about eighteen or twenty, standing there dressed in a local sorority sweatshirt. He hadn’t noticed her when he entered the foyer and was puzzled how she got there without his knowledge.

“Um,” he stammered, “who are you and just exactly why are you here? How did you get in here?” He tried to sound demanding and forceful, but was afraid it came off a little weak.

“My name is Abby. I come here frequently just to hang out in a neat old wreck of a house. It’s fun. I’ve spent a lot of time in here and I can tell you that you’re wasting your time looking for riches. You have no idea how many people have come here and went away empty handed. Why I myself must have chased over a hundred or so out of here. You might as well be on your way.”

For reasons Jim couldn’t understand, he decided he trusted this ‘caretaker’ of the house, at least for the moment. “Well, to be honest, the treasure is one of the reasons I’m here, but not the only one.” He told her of the plan to turn the home into a haunted house resort and his concern about the gambling potential, and also to find if there really was a treasure. 

Abby became visibly upset and looked like she might cry. “They can’t do that to this house. It’s awful. It’ll ruin everything. You can’t let them. Make them stop!” She turned and ran down one of the hallways. Jim went to follow her but she was gone. She must have found another exit somewhere in her wanderings around the place. Why she was so attached to her ‘playhouse’ was beyond his comprehension. He took her advice, however, and left.

Back at his office later that day he received a phone call from police detective Adam Stevens. “Hello, I hear you’ve been hired to check out the old Venable estate. That place has a long and sordid history. I even know a little of it first hand. What do you need to know?”

Jim gave him the story he got from van Buren, and then his background work.

“I can’t say I’m glad to hear about the gambling, but if they get the permits there’s little we can do about it. The legislature is hurting for money and they’ll probably see this as a cash cow. But you should know the history of the place.”

He told Jim of the tale of the Venables and how the old man is supposed to haunt the place. (Jim had heard some of the tale.) He then went on to his cold case of twelve years prior.

“I was patrolling in the area on the night before Halloween and as I was walking back to my car I ran across four sorority girls running out of the old place right around dusk. So I stopped and corralled them to ascertain just what vandalism they were up to. They refused to admit that, but they did admit that they were there to scare one of the pledges to the sorority and they planned to leave her alone in the home to scare her. They were pleased with their plan, but there was nothing I could do but send them on their way, laughing and giggling like it’s a good thing to frighten a newbie. I went to my car to call in. Dispatch sent me on a run a few blocks away to check on a domestic disturbance. When I finished with that I went back to look for the girl they’d abandoned. There was no sign of her anywhere. I looked inside and outside. She was gone, and she never reappeared. There was no sign of her that night or the next few days. She is still a missing person. I figured being stranded in that place scared her so much she ran away and nobody knows what happened to her after that.”

It was a sad story and Jim wondered why more hadn’t been made of it. Something about the details nagged at his mind, but didn’t quite make a complete picture. Maybe he needed to return to the mansion tomorrow to get a better feel of what didn’t seem right.

Chapter Five

The next morning the contract from the Haunted House Ventures Group arrived by special delivery just as he was preparing to leave the office. It was an amazing ten pages, full of legalize, and confusing. Jim took a couple of hours in an attempt to decipher the verbiage and finally decided that the basic agreement was as they’d decided previously. Why it had to be so convoluted wasn’t as clear. He suspected that there was some sort of escape clause buried somewhere in the text but he couldn’t find it. Perhaps he should put off signing it for a day or so and try to find a lawyer he could afford to look it over.  Something about the whole deal felt as off as the van Buren fellow.

So he threw it in the top drawer of the file cabinet, gathered some of his surveillance equipment and headed back to the “project” as he was starting to call it. Once there he started to place some sensors at the double doors and attach the battery pack. 

As he was finishing he heard Abby’s voice behind him, “What are you doing? What is all that stuff? Are you really going to let them turn my old home into a carnival attraction? How could you?” 

This time Jim wasn’t quite as surprised to hear her, but still wondered how she could get behind him so easily without making any sound or being seen. He stood and turned to face her. As he did so he realized she’d called this dilapidated place “my old home”. That was a very strange choice of words.

“Nothing is finalized as yet,” he replied, “but I’m setting up some equipment to keep out intruders. Isn’t that something you’d want? And what did you mean by ‘my old home’? You surely don’t actually live here, do you? And here you are again sneaking around behind me, two days in a row. Just exactly is going on with you? I think you need to do some explaining!”

“I don’t need to explain myself to you. You’re as much an intruder as the people you say you’re trying to keep out,” Abby retorted. “Go away and leave this house alone.” She actually stomped her foot, although with surprisingly little sound.

“Look, I’m actually on your side. There is something odd about this entire idea but I have to play along, at least for a while, until I can figure out what this group is really after. Maybe they’re more just well-funded treasure hunters. Maybe they want to set up an illicit gambling venue since their funding comes from well hidden sources. Maybe they’re being honest about the project, just stupid. There’s lots of stupid money out there. I don’t know what’s up yet and I won’t know until I investigate some more. But there is something about this mansion,” he deliberately tried to make the house sound more appealing to her, “that makes you passionate. If you want my support, you have to let me in on the secret. Also, how do you move around here so quietly?”

Abby stood silent for several minutes. She was wringing her hands as if she was wrestling with a serious dilemma and her eyes stared off into the distance, deep in thought. Then she looked around, searching for someone or something and apparently decided nothing was there.

“Are you being honest with me? Do you really want to help me? Can I trust you?” The last question was more to herself than to Jim. “I have a terrible secret, and a mystery I need solved. You won’t believe me at first, I didn’t believe it myself when it happened, but it did. Do you truly want to know? You will not like what I have to say.”

“Of course I want to know,” he responded. “You’ve made it clear there’s something going on here and I want, I need, to find out what it is otherwise I can’t do my job, either for the group or for you.”

Abby paused for a few seconds, probably to collect her thoughts. “Alright. I am going to take a risk that I have put off for a very long time. Here goes…. I assume you did some research on the history of this place. In the course of that did you learn about something that happened here twelve years ago?”

“Yes, I spoke with the detective who still has an open case about…” Suddenly Jim remembered the description of the missing girl and compared that to Abby’s appearance. The similarities were unsettling. “Are you saying you’re modeling yourself after the missing person? Why? Are you trying to involve yourself in her disappearance? Are you related to her or something? Is that obsession why you live here? Have you found any clues about her?”

“Oh, it’s much worse than that.” She said, “You see, I’m the missing woman.” Abby paused to let her statement sink in.  The room became deathly silent except for Jim’s sudden gasp of surprise.

She continued, “Twelve years ago I was on an escapade with some sorority sisters and someone, I assume one of them, pushed me down those stairs.” She pointed to the staircase behind them. “I died!!! Yes, you heard me. I died!!! I am not trying to fool you. This is not a prank or a set-up.”

“I am the ghost of Abigail Carlotta Rodriguez and I need you to help me learn who killed me and why. Otherwise I am stuck here in this house. I cannot leave, I am bound to this area and cannot “pass on” until my case is solved and I’m properly buried. You’re a detective, so do your job. I even have an incentive for you. There really is a treasure of sorts here. If you help me so I can finally leave here I’ll tell you how to claim it. See, you’ll be solving a case and getting paid as well.” 

Her face, in fact her entire aspect, took on a relieved, satisfied and hopeful appearance. 

Jim was astounded. What a story, what an imagination. The poor girl was delusional. He wondered what he could do to get her some help. “Are you sure you’re alright? Why don’t you sit down and take it easy and I’ll go get someone.”

“I see you don’t believe me. Well, in your place I wouldn’t either. What if I prove it…. See you.”

With that she gave a brief wave and just vanished. She was there and then, instantly, she wasn’t. No sound, no warning, no flash of light, no puff of smoke, just no Abby. A few seconds later she reappeared as she hopped through one of the doors leading into the great hall. She actually passed through the door. “Hello, again.”

Jim was in shock. His knees gave way and he collapsed onto the floor. He’d always prided himself on his presumed courage and grasp of reality but this revelation was too much. Ghosts weren’t real. Every rational person knew that. But he’d been talking to one for two days.

“I’d offer you a glass of water, but my strength is somewhat limited and there’s no water in the house anyway,” she said. “You don’t look well, what can I do to help?”

“You can tell me that this isn’t real.”

“Sorry, that’s the one thing I can’t do.”

He began to recover his sanity a bit. The truth, if he could call it that, started to sink in. “You want me to solve your murder,” he couldn’t believe he actually said that, “and you’ll be able to go wherever and I’ll ‘find’ the treasure. Do I really understand correctly?”

“Yes.”

It was his turn to sit and think for several minutes. He looked around the run-down room and finally faced the apparition. No, her name was Abby. The situation was impossible and incredible. It simply could not be. He came to the only possible conclusion.

“Well, fill me in on the details and we’ll get started.”

Chapter Six

Relief and elation filled Abby. She hadn’t been this excited or hopeful in, well, twelve years. This detective was going to help her. She had to think where to begin. “Perhaps I should tell you what being a ghost is like so you’ll know what I can and cannot do to help your investigation. But even before that, I don’t even know your name. I apologize, how rude of me.”

“You’re the most polite ghost I’ve ever met,” answered Jim. “Actually, you’re the only ghost I’ve ever met. But my name is James Collins, Jim for short. I’ve been a private detective for two years, so I have some experience in finding backgrounds on people. It seems likely I can help track down your sorority pals and find out who did that, as he also pointed it the stairway, (he deliberately did not say ‘killed’) to you.”

  But before she could go further Mr Venable materialized into existence to her left, Jim’s right, and began his screeching and dancing routine. “What a terrible time for him to show up, this isn’t going to make my explanation to the detective any easier.” 

Mr Venable then began shouting (as loud he was able, which wasn’t much) at Abby, “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to talk to them, you’re supposed to do your usual routine and shoo them off or let me frighten them away from here. You haven’t let me do that for a long time. Let me have my turn. What is wrong with you today? Get out of the way and let me do my job.” He glared at her and restarted his manic song and dance.

“What, what is going on?” Yelled a panic stricken Jim. “Who is that? You mean there’s another ghost in here?” He started to get up.

“Please, please don’t go,” pleaded Abby to Jim. “This is the ghost of Mr Edmund Frank Venable. Yes, he is a ghost also inhabiting this house. He’s been here longer than I have, for more than fifty years, and I think the time has played havoc on his mind. That,” she pointed to the frantically gyrating and caterwauling ghost, “is all he can do anymore except for some poltergeist-style moaning and groaning.”

Jim sat back down, albeit certainly not at ease and gave Abby a long, questioning stare.

“First, let me reassure you that Mr Venable is no threat or concern to you. He actually tried to throttle me on our first meeting and failed miserably. He is annoying but harmless.

“Annoying? That’s an understatement,” replied Jim.

She continued, “His situation is similar to mine. He was murdered in his sun room upstairs and he needs to learn his true fate, just like me, so he can stop this nonsense.” 

She glared back at the old ghost, “Now stop that and leave us alone. This man may be able to help us.”

Mr Venable obviously heard her explanation and stopped his antics. “You are a…a killjoy. It’s no fun with you around.” Like Abby had done a few moments ago, he vanished.

“See, you can ignore him.”

Jim nodded in a manner that implied he wasn’t so sure.

“Now, where was I?” Abby proceeded to tell Jim the details, as she knew them, of the night she died, her first meeting with the mercurial Mr Venable, and learning the ins and outs of being a ghost. There was a little more that she’d learned on her own over the years. Mr Venable, for all his time there, hadn’t learned everything.

First, it didn’t seem to be the house that confined her. It was how close or far she was from her body. There were one or two places where she could actually pass through an exterior wall for a few feet before being unable to proceed farther. She was even able to pass through the front doors and go as far as the entryway steps, but no further. From that fact she surmised that if her body was moved, the locations of her appearances would also move.

Secondly, the ground was the ground. If it was solid ground beneath her that is where she stood or walked, either as ‘solid’ or as ‘ghost’. If a cave or tunnel was under her, she had no idea what would happen. 

“That doesn’t seem to make sense,” interjected Jim. “Ground is ground but floors aren’t?”

“That’s just what I’ve learned. I don’t try to make sense out of being a ghost.”

Lastly, and most importantly, Mr Venable was wrong about being only two phases of existence for a ghost. After much mental gymnastics and practice Abby learned she could be ‘solid’ enough to interact with small, light objects or floors but still be an almost invisible mist. She could be a poltergeist.

“That could prove to be useful,” said Jim. “I’m not sure how or when it will be, but be sure to remind me of that ability.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Now, let’s get down to your situation. Tell me about the women who lured you to this place to scare you. I’ll need as much as you remember about them so I can track them down. Confronting them may be difficult since it seems at least one of them knows that a crime, a murder, was committed. They’ll want their involvement to be concealed, but I’ll figure that out. You won’t be able to be with me on the interviews, but I can report back to you as I learn things.”

“I have an idea about that last point. As I said, I can only go so far away from my body. But what it you could take it, or just a little part of it, with you. Say a clipping of hair or something. That’s part of me and I if you carry it with you I may be able to follow that around.”

“But we have to be careful. Mr Venable does have his usefulness. He learned early on that if someone views his actual body he becomes unable to confront them as he he did to you a few moments ago. It’s as if they don’t really know he’s dead and a ghost until they personally see his remains. Until then his status is still uncertain and he can haunt them. Once they’ve seen it, all he can do, all I could do, would be to make creepy sounds and appear like a mist to them. So, if we are to work together you cannot see my body. That poses a problem.”

Both of them sat facing each other for several minutes. Finally, Jim had an idea.

“How about this? I should not, and I do not want to, see your body. But what if you could cut a shank of hair from it, put it in a sealed envelope, and hand to to me so I can carry it with me? That way a part of you would be near me but I never see it. Could you do that? Your theory seems far-fetched to me, but If you are correct, that’s all I’d need to carry around with me and you could be nearby, either ‘solid’, ‘ghost’ or ‘in-between’.

“Well, it’s as good an idea as I can think of. We can give it a try,” Abby agreed after a moment or two of consideration. “It’s going to be more difficult than you imagine since I’ll have to be ‘solid’ to do the trim and the location for that is less than ideal, but I’ll give it an attempt. I’ll need a small pair of scissors to cut my hair and an envelope to put the hair in.”

“Wait here, if you would for a while,” said Jim, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He got up and went out the double doors.

Abby sat patiently, hoping he would actually return, for about an hour. Much to her relief he returned with a pair of barber shears and the required envelope. “Try these, “as he handed them to her, “fortunately my barber is a friend and I persuaded him to loan me his scissors. They’re light but very sharp, be careful and don’t cut yourself.”

“Really,” said Abby as she took the items and weighed them in her hands. She appeared to be able to wield them adequately, “be careful and don’t cut myself? Are you serious?”

“Sorry, force of habit around scissors.”

“As I said this may be difficult for me to get a sample. Please wait for me.”  She did her disappearing act.

Abby knew where her body was, of course. The problem was locating herself as ‘solid’ on the crate while manipulating the shears. She tried standing on the roof and reaching  through a gap to her body. She couldn’t get close enough to be able to cut any hair. Next, she tried to brace herself between the side of the dumb waiter shaft and the crate. She still couldn’t reach her hair because of the way she was contorted inside. Frustrated, she tried to stand on the top as ‘solid’, go ‘in-between’ and try to clip some hair as she fell through. It was a total failure. She fell to the basement and had to climb the stairs to get back to the dumb waiter again. The scissors were still on top of the crate, where they’d landed as she ‘ghosted’ through. Finally, after studying her situation for a while, she crawled into the crate above her body. Being crammed into the same space with her remains was, to say the least, extremely disconcerting. But she was able to cut off several inches of hair. Even that was difficult, it took all her physical effort to simply use a sharp pair of shears. Satisfied, she stuffed the hair into the envelope, folded the flap and tossed it and the shears down the shaft, went ‘ghost’, fell to the cellar, went ‘solid’, retrieved her items and climbed the stairs yet again, shoved them through the crack in the doorway and was able to walk back to the entry hall as ‘solid’.

Jim was still waiting when she returned to him.  “I did it. I’ve got it!” She proclaimed proudly. “Here, seal the envelope and put it in your pocket.” She handed him the precious packet as well as the shears.

  “That took a while,” he said as he carefully secured the flap without looking inside and slipped the envelope and shears into his pants pockets.

“I told you it wouldn’t be easy. Physical manipulation can be troublesome for a ghost. But there it is,” she pointed to his pocket with the envelope in it. “Now let’s see if my idea works.”

“OK,” said Jim, “you wait here and I’ll go out of the house, past the entry gate and stand on the sidewalk by the road. Let’s see what happens.”

He went out through the oaken doors, trudged down the walkway and stood just outside the gate next to the road.

Immediately, Abby found herself facing him on the sidewalk, still ‘solid’.  

They both looked at each other for a few seconds and started to laugh. 

“It worked, it worked!” They cheered simultaneously. 

“Now for the hard part,” said Jim, “let me show you my office so we can start getting some background information on your ‘sisters’ and begin solving your mystery.” He turned and walked toward his car with Abby following.

A couple seated across the street in front of a run-down café stared at them suspiciously and hurried away.