Questions buzzed around my head like mosquitoes on a warm summer night, so I did what I do best when I'm stuck.  I let them bug other people.  First stop was the church down the street from Wylie House.  The graveyard sat between the two buildings, but I figured it was just possible that someone saw something through the windows.  No dice.  The old timer there, a caretaker of some sort, hadn't even been in the building during our poltergeist's afternoon romp.  He mentioned that he's recently been staying in the church at nights to discourage some dumb palookas who've been messing with the gravestones.  I made a mental note to check the names on the headstones.  Maybe one of the spooks was getting some revenge for a disturbed burial site.

I made my way back to Madame Z's hulking brute of a house.  Z answered the door right away. She was obviously still upset, and who wouldn't be after being threatened by a houseguest?  I wondered what she expected me to do once I fingered the culprit.  How do you get rid of an evil spook?

I'm not sure it would help her to know who the culprit is, but I kept my lips zipped. I do what I can, but justice isn't always part of my fee, and I wasn't done yet. Earlier, one of the spooks told me that Z's server had been unplugged for several hours last week.  That might have been an accident, but I don't believe in coincidence.

Sure enough, Z told me her website had gone down early on Tuesday. Z had called KH.  It took him several hours to come out, plug the servers back in, and do whatever computer voodoo it took to bring it back to life.

Was it two crimes now or just one? I decided to give the place another look. I'd only given the place a quick look before, because there'd been so many people trampling over the place, it was unlikely that there was any cherry evidence left. With two possible crime scenes though, it was worth a shot

Sure enough, the bulls had missed something when they ran through the joint… if Z had even called them. There was a paper bag with a broken plate in it under one of the chairs in the parlor. Said chair was on the south side of the room, as far as possible from Z's bedroom and the message.  Looks like the Duchess was wrong, the crash wasn't an accident. But why had the culprit carted the dish all the way into another room to break it?  Why toss it under a chair afterwards?

Z was aghast and started to mist up when I showed her the damage. I calmed her down and had her brew up some joe while I searched the rest of the first floor.  Z's room was about what you'd expect. Scarves and mystical symbols hung on all the walls.  In deference to her status as my client, I didn't take more than a cursory glance through her things.  Stuffed animals.  Figures.

The server room doubled as a storage room.  The windows were closed and everything was dusty.  No hope for footprints, though.  Even if ghosts left 'em, KH, Madame Z, and Jack had mucked the place up. Amateurs.

The server itself sat on a metal shelving unit, blinking away like a mad traffic light.   Its plug was tucked under the shelves and hard to reach.  It definitely wasn't an accident that it was unplugged. I shoved the thing a couple times. That's one heavy rack, but once I got it moving it wasn't too hard to swing it around. It left grooves in the hardwood floors, though. I hope Z doesn't notice. Something about the grooves nagged at me, so I took a closer look.  There were some older marks right next to the grooves I'd just made.   Somebody had already moved that cage around. 

I looked around on the hallway floor between Jack's room and the server room. What do you know? More grooves! It looks like that metal cage used to block the spiral staircase from Jack's room and the kitchen. 

Z bustled in with the joe and I asked her about the server but she didn't know much.   Obviously, those contraptions are as much magic to her as her voodoo is magic to me.  She thought that KH had set it up near the stairs but that he must have moved it to plug the server back in.  I had my doubts but no firm theories, so I let it slide.

With her permission, I headed upstairs.  Apparently, the second floor is usually off limits to us mere mortals, but she said they knew how important my work was.  Heh.  That wouldn't make 'em friendly if they were anything like the living folks I know.

I met Emerson at the top of the stairs. His eyes bored into me like a drill through paper, but there was a twinge of fear in them as well.  I don't know what a spook has to fear from a gumshoe, but he must have known that he was my prime suspect.

I asked him about the server and where he'd been the day it had gone down.  He grumbled a bit and reminded me that there was no way he could have moved it.  Ghosts aren't that strong.  Besides, he'd been playing poker with Samuel and Nick all that day.  They can't go outside during the day, so they make their entertainment as they can.

I thanked him for his 'help' and strolled away, determined not to let that palooka see how much those scary eyes disturbed me. He hesitated and then called after me to invite me to their Monday night poker game.  Poker with spooks! Not even Ripley would believe it!  Sure, why not? It could prove enlightening. Even spooks must loosen up around the poker table.

I confirmed Emerson's story with Samuel and Nick before heading outside. I wandered around the grounds a little, deep in thought. After a while I found myself on Emma's side of the building, staring up at the tower that kept scaring her with those faces.

I have to admit, I felt myself banging right up against a dead end street.  My prime suspect couldn’t have moved the server and coincidence just didn't sound right to me.  Samuel and Nick could be in on it, but they hadn't covered for each other the night of the threat. This whole thing stank like unwanted in-laws and I was no closer to figuring out what was going. 


Number one rule in this business: sometimes you should just stand around like a rube. 
As I stood there wallowing in my thoughts, Stanley came bobbing out of the woods behind Wylie House. Suddenly, my cloudy mind opened up and the sun shone the truth down on me. Hallelujah!  It wasn't the whole kaboodle, but it was a start. 

Stanley had carried Madame Z into the parlor, but Emerson had just pointed out that ghosts can't lift heavy things. He also said that ghosts can't go out in daylight and yet there he was, bold as brass. One of my "wakeful" confederates also passed on some Civil War stories.  I don't know my history much but I do know weapons and I know there were no Lee-Ensfield rifles during the Civil War.  What kind of Union spook would get that wrong?

I snuck up behind Stanley and yanked off his sheet.  Underneath was the least ghostly kid I'd ever seen.  He was maybe 24 and all ears and elbows.  When he jumped around and saw me, he started shaking like he was the one who had seen a ghost.

"A… A… Anton.  I can… I can explain."

"Shut it, kid.  You're not a spook, and you don't hang out in the Wylie House.  I guess you just put on a sheet and come over when you need to use the website so they don't catch on too quick. Not that clever, but it seems to work. The only think I can't figure out is why." 

Poor kid looked like he was going to faint, but I wasn't going to go easy on him. I needed to know the truth. "Out with it!"

When that kid gulped his Adam's apple jumped around like it was doing the fox trot. He looked down and the words all came out all in a rush. "Look, mister, I know KH from when we were kids.  He visited a couple of months ago and I poured out my heart and soul.  You see, I… I love Madame Z.  She's so mysterious and beautiful.  I could never attract her attention, though. I'm not connected to the spirit world. What could a woman like her see in a guy like me?

"She came in to the restaurant while we were talking, so I introduced her to KH.  He mentioned that he does web design and she pitched the perfect friends forever idea to him.  KH thought it was a great gimmick, so he said sure and they got down to business.  A month or two later, they were gathering ghosts.  KH said that this would be my big chance.  He'd tell her he had a volunteer and dress me up in a sheet.  That way, I'd be near her all the time and could win her over eventually.  That sounded great, but these other ghosts, I couldn't compare to them… so I… well I just kept trying. I thought she needed me.  Please, don't tell her.  I couldn't bear to disappoint her…"

I was one floored gumshoe. What does a guy say to that? This kid was trying to compete with the dead for the heart of Madame Z!

All I could think of to say was, "You weren't very good at it. My associates and I noticed that you picked Z up after the excitement."

The poor kid just shrugged. "She needed help. I couldn't just stand there."

I looked him up and down.  Poor kid.  He was old enough to know better but young enough to try it anyway.  He just stood there waiting for me to knock him down like life always did.  "All right, kid," I told him gruffly, "I won't spill the beans yet.  I'm gonna keep my eye on you, though, and you'd better level with me about everything."

Stanley nodded mutely and then told me everything he knew about the ghosts.  Not much and nothing new, but he did mention that the antique dealer in town might know more about them.  Seems she's also the town historian and has a little knick-knack portion of the shop with local goodies.  I gave Stanley back his sheet, told him he should level with Madame Z, and headed downtown to find out some more about the actual ghosts.

--

The antique dealer was set up in another big, hulking house.  Every surface was covered in junk.  Maybe it would have been treasure to Jack, but I don't have much use for the past.  I found her in the back room, which was set up as Bay Horse museum.  There were pictures of the original plats hanging on the walls along with pictures of Bay Horse throughout the ages.  The antique dealer came over as I was looking at the wall and introduced herself as Sarah.

I told her I was a friend of Madame Z and the dame opened right up .  If she and the Duchess ever got into a gossip contest they'd be at it 'til Judgement Day.  The gist of it was that she was glad Z had come back to Bay Horse and that she hoped all this trouble wouldn't drive her away again.  Why she couldn't just say that straight, I don't know.

I steered the conversation to the spooks.  She'd heard of the Marshals, said she thought their obituaries would probably be in the town archives.  From what she recalled, they'd come out on vacation and died together in a car wreck.  Tragic, but it doesn't really explain why they hung around.  Are they just looking for the rest of the vacation that they missed?

Sarah also knew a little about Samuel Buckwell.  He'd been the pastor when the old church burned down.  After that, he'd retired and moved to a small house in the area and eventually died of old.

Mention of the church fire got her started on the Wylie House.  Turns out the guy who did most of the renovations died the night of the church fire.  When they found him the next morning, he was clutching a piece of paper.  Rumor had it that he'd been extremely wealthy, so some people thought it was a treasure map.  Sarah showed me a print she had of it.  It didn't look like any treasure map I'd ever seen, but I'll let my compatriots see for themselves. Sarah had a bunch of copies in the back and seemed desperate for business, so I grabbed the lot of them.  I'll pass them on to Lane and he can send them on out to you. (yeah, I know you're reading this.  Sue me).

Sarah didn't know the guy's name.  I dropped 'Emerson' and she thought that sounded familiar.  If Emerson had been a rich guy who'd hidden his money, maybe he was hanging around trying to scare everyone else away from it.  But why scare Madame Z?  Was she getting too close somehow?  And of course, it could be another ghost entirely.  Can ghosts go entirely invisible?  Is that old man stuck as a poltergeist with nothing to do but make threats?

When I asked about the Duchess, Sarah was sure she'd never heard of a Duchess, and a description didn't help either. She also couldn't recall any famous actresses from the area. I took my leave, promising to say hi to Jack for her when I got back to Z's place.

--

So that's where I am.  There are even more questions now than there were before.  If I'm going to unravel this, I think I'm going to need help.  If anyone can figure out what questions to ask the spooks during our poker game, that'd be a kindness.  Until then, I'll just keep plodding away.