EXCERPT of Ghosts Beneath Us- 3rd Spookie Town Murder Mystery by Kathryn Meyer Griffith  ALL THREE HERE-FIRST ONE FREE:

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“Okay Myrtle, I know you too well. I recognize that look on your face. There’s a reason you’re here so early, besides the donuts, that is. How about telling me what it is?”

The woman grinned. She had nice even white teeth for her age. “I promised Beatrice–she’s an old friend of mine who lives down the road from me and I’m sure I’ve spoken about her before–I’d talk to you on her behalf about a sort of, er, trouble she’s been having. Beatrice Utley?”

“No, I don’t recall you mentioning her before, but then you talk so much about so many people, I tend to forget some of what you say.” A quick teasing smile. “We live in a small town, but it’s not that small. There are plenty of people I haven’t met yet.”

Myrtle threw her an exasperated look. “Very funny about me talking too much. I don’t think I do. I just have a lot to say that needs saying. That’s all.”

“Uh, huh. If you say so.”

“I do.” Myrtle’s face was pouting.

“So this Beatrice friend of yours has a problem?” Her eyes on her swing mate, Abigail ate one of the donuts as crumbs and white powder drifted down the front of her robe. She brushed them off. “Why are you bringing it to me?”

Myrtle had gobbled up both her donuts and was gulping down her coffee. Then she’d ask for another cup. She was so predictable. “Because you and Frank did so well on the last couple problems we had in town I thought you’d two be just the ones to fix this one, too. If there’s a mystery to be solved, a wrong to be righted, a murderer to catch, you two are the ones to do it. Him being an ex-cop and a mystery novelist and all and you…being you.”

“Being me?”

“Because, you know? You’ve got the magic gene that helps you find missing people and murderers. You care. You having had a missing husband who turned out murdered and all. It’s your special gift.”

Abigail sighed softly. She could almost sense this was something she didn’t want to become involved with, but Myrtle could be extremely persuasive. She wondered if she jumped up right now, ran into the house and locked the door, told Myrtle to go home because she wasn’t going to help, if she could escape Myrtle’s request? Nah, the old woman would probably only return and keep bugging her until she agreed to help. That was her way. “What does all that have to do with Beatrice Utley’s problem?”

Myrtle fixed her eyes on her and they were suddenly dead serious. “Because Beatrice’s house is haunted. Or so she says. She has this great big monstrosity of a place down near that cul-de-sac at the end of my road. You know the house…the white one with metal Americana stars on the front and a flagpole in the yard with daffodils around it? Her grandmother left her the house so it’s real run down and full of old threadbare furniture, too. That woman never cleans or dusts and the house needs a paint job and a roof bad, if you ask me.”

“I know the house.” No one in town could miss it, as large as it was, and with those silver stars on the front gleaming in the sunlight, it was distinctive. Abigail had driven by it a couple of times and thought: Such a curious looking old house…it’d make a magnificent painting. It’s so full of character. It’s like a worn and aged aristocratic lady who’s seen better days. Scary looking trees encircling it as if they’re guarding and protecting it. It truly looks like a haunted house. I wonder who lives there? But she’d never found out until now.

“Well, she’s got ghosts in the basement that are making such an ungodly racket and doing so many mean tricks on her it’s driving her nuts. Her words, not mine.” Myrtle snickered. “As far as I see it, Beatrice is nuts without the spooks. She always has been. I mean with her cuckoo obsession with collecting stuff, especially dolls. She’s got rooms of the creepy things with their pale faces and staring glass eyes. Their tiny hands and feet.”

Myrtle visibly shivered, shaking her head. “Not to mention the other weird stuff she’s crammed into that place. Needless stuff, I say, in every room to the roofs. The whole house is like a messy storage shed. You can hardly move about in it. It’s a wonder she doesn’t trip over some of it and break her neck or some of it doesn’t fall on her head and squash her flat. Good grief.”

“Ghosts in the basement?” Abigail suppressed a giggle. “Really?”

EXCERPT 2:

They listened as Beatrice unfolded her story.

“I guess it started about two weeks ago. At night,” the old woman began. She had a husky voice with a soft expressive edge. She was huddled in her chair like a frightened child, holding the Raggedy Ann, and she looked so small. She almost could have been one of her dolls. “I heard strange noises somewhere in the house but I couldn’t pinpoint where they were. I’d be sleeping upstairs in my bed and be awakened by a loud thumping. Like someone had dropped something real heavy somewhere in the house. I’d get up and take a look and there’d be nothing. No one.”

She met Abigail’s eyes with nervous ones of her own. Her aged hands were holding the doll, her back was stiff. “Since Arthur died I sometimes get a little frightened being alone here, especially during storms. You know?”

“I know,” Abigail replied in a sympathetic voice. “I hate storms, too.”

“I used to have a dog. Freddie. A big black lab. But he died a few weeks ago. Suddenly. Another odd occurrence if you ask me. One day he was as normal and healthy as could be and the next I found him dead in the kitchen. It broke my heart. He was a good dog and good company.

“Anyway, the weird noises went on like that for a couple of nights. I’d hear something and get up to see what was making it. It was always nothing and no one. Then, oh, starting about a week past, I’d get up in the morning and notice things down here had been moved or had simply been taken. Small items at first: a vase, a book or a magazine, some curio or other. My salt and pepper shakers–and they were real silver, too. My dolls were even being moved around. One morning when I got up I discovered some of my food in the fridge was scattered all across the floor. What a mess.

“That’s when the noises–in the basement this time–really got loud. But every time I went down there the basement was empty and nothing was touched as far as I could tell. It mystified me to what was making the commotion. Then last night was the worst. I woke up about two in the morning and the ruckus was so awful I was too scared to even go down there.”

“What sort of noises?” Frank inquired. He was leaning forward, taking in every word. His cop senses on high alert.

“They sounded to me as if someone was in the basement knocking over and smashing things and it frightened me so much I called Myrtle down the street to come over and keep me company for the remainder of the night. I was a basket case. But she wouldn’t come until right before dawn. The ghosts, you know?”

Frank smiled. “I know. Did you go down to see about it?”

“When Myrtle got here we did. But again…nothing was down there. Nothing was disturbed. Have I finally become senile? Gone round the bend? I’m terrified now of night coming again.”

Abigail felt sorry for the old lady, and reaching over, touched her shoulder in a gesture of sympathetic comfort. “Myrtle said that you thought you saw your husband’s ghost?”

Beatrice avoided her gaze, turned her head away, and her voice was soft when she responded, “I’ve seen him in the house before, yes, or I think it’s him. It’s hard to tell, he’s so wispy. I feel his presence more than I see him, though. You know what I mean?”

Abigail nodded.

“But he’s not the one making all the commotion or causing me trouble, I know it. He wouldn’t frighten me like that. He loves me.” The woman looked at them again and met Frank’s eyes. “This haunting isn’t Arthur. It’s something else. And I’m scared. Really scared.”

Frank came to his feet. “Can we go down there now? I’d like to take a look around.”

For a moment Beatrice’s expression reminded Abigail of a bird facing a cat. Then, to the woman’s credit, she straightened up and stood, too. “All righty. If you two are with me I don’t suppose anything could hurt me.”

“Then let’s go,” Frank said.

They followed her down thirteen rickety stairs into a dank and dark basement. Even when Beatrice turned the lights on it still gave Abigail a shiver of uneasiness. The first thing she noticed when they hit the bottom step was the basement, too, was full to the rafters with a life’s collection of stuff. Thank goodness though, no dolls. Perhaps the basement was too dirty for them, or Beatrice liked them upstairs with her. The second thing she noticed was that, even for Beatrice, the basement appeared especially messy. Then she realized it was much more than that.

The basement looked as if a tornado had gone through it. It wasn’t only the untidiness but things were broken and tossed in piles everywhere. Glass glittered over everything from broken windows and the shelves along the cement walls were now laying in pieces on top of everything else. The mess wasn’t a normal mess.

“Whoa! Someone’s been down here and done some real damage.” Frank was trolling through the wreckage inspecting things. “I thought you said nothing had been touched?”

“It wasn’t like this last time I was down here!” Beatrice had one hand touching the side of her face, her eyes shocked, mouth open. “I swear it. When Myrtle and I came down here it looked as it always did. A bit cluttered, but an ordinary basement. But this–I don’t know what to make of this. Why would ghosts destroy my basement? Why? What do they want?” Her eyes were a mirror of alarm. She’d brought the Raggedy Ann doll downstairs, holding it tightly, and she was trembling. Abigail moved down a step and put her arms around her, again feeling sorry for her. How upsetting this must be to an old woman who lived alone.

“Why would ghosts do this?” Beatrice repeated.

Abigail exchanged a caustic look with Frank. This wasn’t the work of ghosts and they both knew it. Someone solid and human had done this. Thing was, as Beatrice had asked, why?

“I’m sure it wasn’t ghosts,” Frank stated firmly. “There are no such things as ghosts–and anyway I doubt if this was done by any poltergeist–if this happened after you and Myrtle were down here, why didn’t you hear anything? This should have woken up half the neighborhood.”

Beatrice shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. But then,” she confessed hesitantly, “sometimes I don’t hear so well. My left ear goes out sometimes. Wax or something clogs it up.” The fingers of one hand caressed the offending ear.

Abigail didn’t think that’d be enough to not hear the basement being trashed, but she didn’t say anything. Beatrice and Myrtle might have heard something and had been too afraid to say so.

“Does someone have a grudge against you?” Frank inquired. “Can you think of anyone who would do this?”

“No! As far as I know I don’t have any enemies. I’m only an old lady living out the few years I have left. I can’t understand why the ghost would do this, but I know it’s not Arthur.”

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