The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks Read online

  Then he heard it. A strange sound, like…brushing. No, more like someone dragging a heavy weight down the hallway.

  Throwing back the covers, he stumbled through the dark to the front door and peered out the peephole. He had a bird’s-eye view of discolored carpet, somber paneling, light that had a bleached, aged quality. Even the dust motes looked old.

  The hall was empty.

  He listened tensely. The sound seemed to have stopped.

  Perry stood shivering a few minutes longer, then gave it up and returned to his still-warm sheets.

  Slowly the adrenaline drained and he sank into a velvety darkness — only to start awake as something bumped against the wall of the bedroom.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  Silence. That listening silence he was coming to recognize.

  Perry turned on the bedside lamp.

  The room seemed all deep corners and dark shadows.

  His glance fell on the detective novels he had brought down from his room. A snarling man in a fedora faced down a trio of goons. The man in the fedora looked vaguely like Nick. Don’t be a dweeb, Perry told himself. What would Nick do in this situation?

  Nick would go check it out.

  Perry considered this glumly. He cheered up when it occurred to him that more likely Nick would tell him the noise was all in his imagination and to go back to sleep.

  He turned off the lamp and listened.

  Nothing.

  Maybe he had dreamed it.

  He turned on his side. Slowly he drifted out on the tide.

  When the dragging noises began again, Perry was too deeply asleep to hear.

  * * * * *

  Monday afternoon found Perry sitting in a small room at the Fox Run Gazette studying the projected images from pages of back issues as they appeared and disappeared on the dingy walls.

  NEGRO STUDENTS SIT AT WOOLWORTH LUNCH COUNTER read the headline for the February 2, 1960 issue of the Gazette.

  Perry sighed. He clicked the projector. He had nothing else to do. He was officially on vacation with nowhere to go. The dream he had centered his life around for the past months was over. The memory of those imagined Sunday brunches and walks along the beach, the anticipated trips to museums and art galleries…recalling those treasured fantasies was even more painful than the humiliating reality.

  Which was saying something.

  In fact, he had never felt less like a holiday. He couldn’t even work up enthusiasm for painting — the one refuge that had never before failed him. He was too anxious to work. Too uneasy. Between Marcel and his overstrained finances…he needed something to occupy his mind, and in a weird way, the eerie occurrences at the estate provided a useful distraction.

  Jane had dropped by his room for breakfast that morning. Ostensibly, she was there to borrow a cup of milk, but he suspected she thought he needed cheering up. Actually, maybe Jane was the one who needed cheering up, because once settled on his sofa she had seemed to have nothing to say, restlessly surfing the TV channels with the remote control.

  “Aren’t you going to work today?” he asked, surprised. He’d never known Jane to call in sick to the realtor’s office where she worked.

  She lifted a negligent shoulder. “They can do without me for a day or two. I don’t like the look of those clouds. I’d hate to get stranded on the other side of the bridge. In fact, if I were you, I’d think twice about going into town if you don’t have to.”

  She did have a point. The bridge occasionally flooded out, but the idea of sitting around in Watson’s rooms all day…no thanks. He’d prefer sleeping in his car.

  Watching Jane impatiently clicking buttons on the remote, he asked on impulse, “Did you ever hear of the ghost of Witch Hollow?”

  Jane tore her gaze away from truTV. “Ghosts before lunchtime? Oh, sweetie!”

  “But didn’t you tell me something about this place being haunted?”

  “How irresponsible of me,” Jane murmured. “You don’t believe everything I tell you, do you?”

  “About a third.”

  Jane laughed. “Smart kid.” She pressed the remote control again, and a channel blasted Christmas gift ideas as it flashed by. She glanced at Perry. “I seem to recall reading something in the newspaper last year. One of those local color articles,” she admitted.

  “It specifically mentioned the Alston Estate?”

  Jane squinted as though she were looking into the distant past. Or perhaps she had a hangover. She didn’t look well, now that he noticed. Maybe she was ill but just couldn’t admit to needing a sick day. There were people like that; tiresome people who made a crusade out of never calling in sick and then infecting all their coworkers with the plague. Perry was sensitive to this, being one of those people who always caught whatever plague was circulating.

  “I want to say yes,” Jane mused. “It was back in the twenties. Or maybe it was the forties. There was a murder or something. But it’s an old house; naturally, there’s history.”

  “I never heard about any murder,” Perry said doubtfully.

  “MacQueen’s hush-hush about it. Afraid it will scare prospective tenants, I guess. You know the older generation.”

  If Mrs. Mac was anything to go by, the older generation was capable of licking the younger generation blindfolded and with one arm tied behind its back.

  “It’s different for people of her generation,” Jane clarified. “Murder was a big scandal then.”

  “Right,” said Perry, puzzling over the idea that murder was no longer a big scandal. “And so this ghost was the victim of a murder?”

  Jane pressed the remote control again. “You’d have to check that out, sweetie. My memory’s a little vague.”

  So that’s what Perry had decided to do. Check it out. After all, he’d read enough detective novels to know nobody ever solved a mystery sitting on his butt watching the rain strip the leaves off the trees.

  He pressed the projector button and another slightly fuzzy page flashed on the wall. It could take hours or even days to find what he was looking for; if it even existed. Jane’s memory was notoriously faulty. He scanned the enlarged image for any mention of the Alston Estate, or any other historical homes in the area, and then squeezed the button once more.

  This was dull work, but it gave him something to do. Something to think about besides Marcel.

  He wondered how Nick was doing in Los Angeles. He wondered if he’d had his interview yet. He wondered if Nick would get the job and move to California.

  Reaching the end of the reel, Perry rose, threaded the next strip of microfilm into the projector. Sitting down, he refocused the print on the wall and scowled at it. Detective work was a lot more interesting in the pages of authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Granted, he was just as glad that he didn’t have to deal with lantern-jawed tough guys beating him to a pulp, or sloe-eyed dames trying to slip him Mickey Finns.

  He pressed the button.

  It was starting to look like the last event of real interest at Fox Run had been the Revolutionary War. He clicked again.

  And then, just as he was getting fed up, Perry came across an article concerning the local Preservation Society’s efforts to renovate homes in the area. In the same issue was a story about yuppies moving into the valley and purchasing older homes. The newspaper was about five years old.

  Perry leaned forward on his elbows, reading eagerly.

  Vermont’s long and colorful history can be found in the microcosm of Fox Run located in the Northeast Kingdom. Some of the area’s oldest buildings are preserved for posterity on the property formerly known as the Hennesey Farm. Now part of the Alston Estate, the 18th-century farmhouse boasts an icehouse, a dovecote, and a sun porch.

  Bingo, thought Perry. He began to jot down notes.

  The house was built in 1780 by Colonel Geoffrey Hennesey as a wedding present for his new bride. Hennesey, a commander in the Continental Army, died a month after the house was completed. His widow l
ived there alone until her own death in 1800. The lonely spirit of the lovely young widow is said to confine her nocturnal ramblings to the original structure.

  Which part of the house is the original structure? wondered Perry.

  During Prohibition the house sold to the investment banker Henry Alston, who extensively renovated the structure. The house was the setting for many gala society gatherings. In 1923, Alston married one of Ziegfeld’s Glorified Girls, silver-screen legend Verity Lane, and old money met new in a clash of Titans. Typically, most evenings’ amusements included hot jazz, bootlegged alcohol, and illegal gambling for the Alstons’ wealthy and celebrity friends. The house gained notoriety during the winter of 1932, when the infamous gangster Shane Moran and his gang descended on a private party, stealing over a million dollars worth of jewels and valuables from the wealthy partygoers.

  Perry whistled soundlessly. Hard to believe the dusty, dark halls of the old house had ever been alive with laughter and music.

  Moran was killed by G-men in a shoot-out less than a week following the robbery. The whereabouts of the loot remains a mystery to this day.

  Perry thought of Miss Dembecki prowling around in the gazebo. Surely not? Moran had escaped with his loot and had not met his violent fate till a few days later. And yet…? She had surely been searching for something — and searching in such a way that seemed to indicate she didn’t want anyone to know she was hunting.

  Unsurprisingly, the ghost of Shane Moran has also been said to prowl the dusty corridors of the Alston Estate. For information on these and other ghosts, check out New England’s High Spirits and Gay Ghosts.

  Perry jotted down the dates in his notebook and read the article again.

  So…the house was supposedly haunted? But regardless of what David Center thought, that had been no ectoplasmic manifestation in Perry’s bathtub. Center. Perry gave a little shiver as he thought of the other man’s clammy, cold hands reaching for his.

  Leaving the stuffy little room, he went out for cocoa and a quick bite at a coffee shop down the street.

  He was finishing up a grilled cheese sandwich and French fries at the counter, when he noticed a big man in a blue jacket showing a photo to the waitress. The woman shook her head, and Perry glanced at the photo with casual interest. He was too far away to see anything.

  The man in the blue sports coat stared idly around the diner and noticed Perry’s interested gaze. His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening.

  You got a problem?

  He didn’t need to say the words aloud. His look said it all. Perry’s gaze dropped to his plate. He carefully selected a French fry as though planning to award a prize to the perfect potato wedge.

  Was he a cop? Perry considered this possibility and then dismissed it. The man didn’t look like a cop. He looked like an ex-football player. Nobody’s nose started out in that mashed shape, and his narrow-set eyes had a mean does-not-play-well-with-others cast to them. Never mind football player, he looked like a thug — a thug with a severely underdeveloped fashion sense. His coat was as ugly as the one worn by the dead man in Perry’s tub.

  A light bulb went on. Maybe he was a P.I.

  Then again, perhaps that was just a short in Perry’s thought process. Though the man looked like the down-on-their-luck private eyes in the pulp novels that he loved, it was doubtful that real P.I.s looked so stereotypical. All the same, could there be a connection between the men in the ugly sports coats? Could this guy maybe be looking for the dead man who had disappeared out of Perry’s bathtub?

  Somebody must be looking for him.

  Or was this all getting a little too Walter Mitty? There was no reason to believe the dead guy was either a cop or a crook. And as for the bruiser in the blue sports coat, the most likely explanation was he was a prospective buyer looking for a particular house in the area.

  Anything else was pretty farfetched, right? Not everyone with criminally bad taste was a career crook. Perry turned the idea of a possible connection over in his mind while he continued to stare at his plate as though counting the remaining French fries.

  At last the bruiser in the blue sports coat finished paying for his meal and let himself out the glass door with a jangle of bells. Perry turned to look through the window at the back of the out-of-towner disappearing down the tree-lined street.

  “He’s a long way from home,” the waitress remarked to no one in particular.

  “Where’s he from?” Perry asked.

  She shrugged. “Sounded like New York to me. Buffalo maybe?”

  “What was he looking for?”

  “Who,” the waitress corrected. “Some girl who ran out on her husband. No one from around here, that’s for sure.”

  Chapter Six

  Returning to the newspaper office, Perry requested microfilm dating from 1930 from the bored Asian youth behind the desk.

  The kid said, as though Perry should have known this before he wasted time asking, “He’s already using it.”

  “He who?”

  With a sigh, the kid shoved the clipboard Perry’s way. He read the tall, sloping letters: R. Stein.

  The day was getting weirder and weirder. Mr. Stein had never struck Perry as a history buff — let alone a believer in the supernatural. The fact that he was checking out microfilm from the 1930s had to be more than a coincidence.

  So maybe Perry’s line of inquiry wasn’t so far off?

  He asked the kid, who had returned to his Game Boy, “Do you know if the hard copies of this stuff still exist?”

  “You mean the old newspapers?”

  “Yeah.”

  The kid shrugged. “Not here they don’t.” With a weary patience he pointed out, “That’s the point of the microfilm.”

  “Do you know if the original copies were donated to the library? Or maybe one of the colleges?”

  “Nope. No idea.”

  Perry thought it over. “Could you ask someone?”

  “There’s no one here to ask. Everyone is busy.” Shaking his head at the insensitivity of some people, he returned to the rescue of the heroes of Golden Sun.

  Perry muttered thanks and departed. Walking across the half-empty parking lot, he tried to make sense of what he had learned. Rudy Stein was an ex-cop, so maybe there would be reason for him to check out a crime-related story, but surely the time frame put his inquiry in the more-than-suspicious-coincidence category.

  But more-than-suspicious how exactly? Maybe Stein was a history buff. Maybe he was writing a book about the history of Fox Run. The truth was, Perry knew very little about his fellow tenants. Since he’d arrived at the Alston Estate a little over a year ago, his life had revolved around his painting and then his Internet romance with Marcel.

  Stein could be writing a book about the colorful history of the area. Miss Dembecki could have been searching for a lost earring. Or perhaps they were both hunting for Shane Moran’s missing loot.

  Or maybe Perry had read too many detective novels. Maybe Stein was taking a night school course. Maybe he was curious about the ghost stories too? Maybe, being an ex-cop, his instincts were aroused? Because sure as anything, something screwy was going on at the Alston Estate.

  He stopped in his tracks as he realized that Stein would have seen Perry’s name on the clipboard when he went to sign out the microfilm.

  Not that there was any logical reason for Perry hiding his interest in the history of the house. After his own experience he had every reason to be curious about any ghost stories concerning his current home.

  All the same, Perry sort of wished no one at the estate knew he was checking into the house’s past.

  Since Stein’s presence stymied his own investigation for the moment, he climbed back into his car and drove around the block to the library.

  As he was supposed to be enjoying his preciously hoarded vacation time in San Francisco, his sudden appearance was met with universal surprise. Perry felt obliged to make up a story about sudden illness in his friend’s family
, and his coworkers were suitably sympathetic for a couple of minutes before being distracted by the demands of the workday. Perry was glad he hadn’t confided the true romantic purpose of his trip. It was painful enough without everyone knowing he’d been dumped.

  He declined the offer of rescheduling vacation for a later date and went into the back office to check his e-mail. He logged onto the staff computer with a feeling of nervous nausea.

  Sure enough, there was an e-mail from Marcel.

  Perry read it on the computer monitor, heart pounding, cold sweat breaking out all over his body like he was coming down with flu.

  I’m sorry, Marcel had written. I don’t know what else to say. I thought it was over between Gerry and me — maybe it is, but I have to give it one last chance. I hope we can still be friends. You are a special person in my life, and I know you will soon find someone as special as you.

  Perry sat there breathing slowly and quietly, oblivious to the hushed business conducted around him.

  It was over. He already knew that, but somehow seeing it in black-and-white ten-point Times New Roman made it more real. He had hoped that once they recovered from the make-up sex, Marcel and Gerry would quickly see how very wrong for each other they were. But clearly this was not the case. Even now they were probably having brunch before going for a long walk on the beach and then heading over to SFMOMA.

  Amazing how much pain you could feel and still keep breathing…

  And suddenly Perry had had all he could take for one day. He logged off the computer, told his indifferent coworkers good-bye, and got into his car.

  Twilight was falling as he drove through the woods. Usually he loved this time of the evening, the gloaming. Trees towered in inky silhouette against a sky that was coolly and mysteriously absent of color. The lineament of fiery foliage was black and ragged in the failing light.

  For the first time, Perry realized just how isolated the Alston Estate was. Witch Hollow Wood separated the mansion and grounds from the nearest farm, and the village of Fox Run was twenty miles away.