Friday Flash Fiction: Haunted House

This one was sparked by a Wendig Challenge from a few weeks back.  Because I'm traveling, I couldn't do it on schedule.  But I'll shared it anyway.  It's supposed to be a sub-genre mash-up of a haunted house and a cozy mystery--not really much of a stretch, and an obvious chance for JJ MacGregor and the Pismawallops PTA.  If you enjoy the story, please consider checking out JJ's book!

I apologize for any weirdness.  I am publishing from my iPad and from a B&B in Peru. . . Neither is guaranteed to work.

Haunted House

"Kitty, have you heard the rumors about the LeMoine house?" I asked my best friend the question over our weekly binge at the Have-a-Bite bakery.

"Rumors like what?"  Kitty's response was not so much an inquiry as a caution.  I wasn't sure just how to answer, now I'd brought the matter up. The kids hadn't known I was listening.  Maybe that was all the more reason to share what I'd heard.

"I gathered from something Brian and Kat were saying that kids are daring one another to spend the night there.  That something might get them if they do."  Presumably the ghost of Letitia LeMoine, I didn't need to add. "In any case, they expect something scary to happen."

"As a parent," Kitty said with a dryness I would have been proud to own, "it sounds like something scary all right."

We considered teens for a moment while consuming espresso brownies a nibble at a time.  I only allow myself one a month, so I wasn't going to miss any taste of this one.

The LeMoine house had stood empty since Kat's daughter and my son and their best friends had found the owner strangled where the Pismawallops PTA usually stored ice cream bars. To the best of my knowledge, the house was empty because the ownership was under dispute, not because no one would live there. Letitia's daughter had gone to the mainland to live with her mother's aunt,and she couldn't even rent it out because no one knew if it a was hers.

"You don't suppose someone is squatting there?" Kitty finally suggested. "That might lead to lights in the windows or whatever started the stories.  And once they get started, you know how stories like that grow."

"And getting a story like that going might allow someone to stay a long time, if they make it convincing enough," I agreed.

"You should tell Ron." To my annoyance, Kitty winked when she said it.  As if I needed reminding that I had--something--going with the Pismawallops Island chief of police. I refused to rise to the bait or satisfy her curiosity about how things were with us.

"I'm sure he already knows."

In the end, we shrugged it off. Kids like a scary story, and an empty house belonging to a murdered woman offered good material.  Our job was to make sure Brian and Kat were not among those who tested the ghost story. I wasn't too worried.

A week later I was less sanguine.  Not about the kids, who were behaving well, but about the LeMoine house.

"I drove by there again, and someone is definitely changing the curtains around and stuff."

"Maybe a real estate agent, trying to keep it from looking empty?"

"Nice try, Kitty. But everyone on the Island knows about it, so what's the point?" I took another bite of my low-fat blueberry scone and tried to convince myself it was as good as the brownie had been the week before.

Kitty shrugged. "Then we're back to squatters."

"Do you think we should have a look? If someone's broken in, we should do something.  Chantal LeMoine may be a piece of work, but the house may be her only inheritance."

"The police, JJ.  Talk to Ron."
***
I'm not an idiot  despite some evidence to the contrary, and I was on good terms with Ron that week, so I did what Kitty suggested. I did it at the Station, though. Neither of us could be trusted in private just then, and I didn't know what I wanted from the relationship. Ron knew all too well what he wanted. At the Station he couldn't very well make a play for it.

"I've heard the rumors, JJ, but when one of us drives by, there's no sign of anything."

His department consisted of himself and a worse-than-useless deputy.  Leave it to a pair of guys to miss the changes in the curtains.

"So can't I take you to dinner?"

That was the trouble with Ron. He didn't care if the world knew how he felt about me. He'd have kissed me in front of the whole Island, so long as he wasn't in uniform.

"No." Until I resolved some of my existing issues, I wasn't taking on any more.
***
Really, Ron left me only one option. I'd have to investigate the LeMoine ghost myself.  Or rather, with Kitty, because I wasn't going there alone.

"Oh, come on, Kitty," I wheedled.  "It'll be a lark."

She reminded me of a couple of other things I'd talked her into that hadn't worked so well, and I winced.  "We won't go at night.  We can just stop in for a minute, look in the windows, and see if it looks like anyone is living there."

Kitty was still reluctant.  "Your ideas always sound good," she began.

"Because they are," I insisted.  We exchanged looks, her dubious, mine stubborn.  At last she gave in.

"Oh, fine. I'll go."

"After dinner tonight."

"That's not broad daylight."

"It's light until late, this time of year. It won't be later than 7:30."

"Fine." Odd. She sounded a lot like Brian at his most teenaged.
**
In fact it was a little later than 7:30, and a little duskier than I'd expected, when we approached the "haunted house." We hadn't told anyone--my son or her family--where we were going for fear of being laughed at. Suddenly, I wished we had. I ignored the unworthy thought.

I parked boldly in front of the house, and we stepped up on the porch with pointless caution.  I peered in the front window and let slip a word I don't let Brian use.

"What?" Kitty squeaked.  She seemed oddly jumpy.

"I can't see anything. Too dark." I moved to the door before she could say "I told you so," and laid a hand on the knob. The door swung open with a small squeak, just like in the horror movies.

We exchanged looks. Then I went in, before Kitty could get reasonable and drag me away.

The front room was neat, and what I could see of it looked much as I'd last seen it.

Too much so. I realized that once again someone was sitting on the couch in he dusk  just as they had that day. . . I screamed. I'm not proud of it, but the memory was too strong, and I'd nearly died that day.

The figure on the couch jumped up and turned into a teenaged girl. "Oh, god,I'm sorry!"

I thought I knew who it was, and reached for the light, but of course the power was off.

"Hang on," said Chantal LeMoine, and a moment later a flashlight came on.

I glared at the dead woman's daughter. "You have some explaining to do."

Flash Fiction Friday: The Baffling Case of the Missing Socks

I'm linking this one to the Chuck Wendig Flash Fiction Challenge of the week, though it's rather stretching to point.  The challenge was to write about a bad dad who is maybe also a good dad.  I wasn't really starting out to go there, but since the dad does matter, what the heck.  This is a little peek at the main character from the murder mystery I'm working on, Murder Stalks the PTA.

 

The Baffling Case of the Missing Socks

A Minor Domestic Mystery

“Mom!  I can’t find my socks!”

There are few words more chilling to the heart of a mother on a schedule.  No use ignoring him, though.  I’ve known Brian almost 16 years, and he doesn’t give up.

With a sigh, I hit “save” and turned from the computer to call up the stairs, “There were a dozen pairs in your sock drawer yesterday.”

“I mean my new running socks.  The ones Coach brought me from Seattle.”

I began the standard litany.  “Are they in your gym bag?”

“No!”

“Did you leave them in your locker?”

“No!  Mom, this is important.  We have a meet today in Sedro-Woolly!”

Brian runs the 1500 meter race for the Orcaville High track team.  His socks bear a life-and-death importance to him on meet days.  This was serious.

I stood up, preparing myself for a desperate search for the truth even as I made one last effort to avoid the crisis.  “Don’t you have any others?”

“Not like these.  I need the new ones for the meet!”

I hauled myself up the stairs, muttering to myself about useless males.  Brian stood in the middle of his room, gym bag in one hand and book bag in the other, looking frantically about him.

I looked at my watch.  We had about three minutes before we had to leave for school.  I’d meant to spend those minutes finishing an article I was writing for the new “Rural Urbanites” magazine, but this took precedence.

“Finish getting ready.  I’ll look.”

Brian dropped both bags and jumped.  “What?”

“Hair.” I pointed.  “And teeth.  And shoes would probably be good.”

He clutched at his head and disappeared into the bathroom.

A few years ago I’d have wasted my time quizzing him about where he’d last seen the socks.  I’m wiser now.  It’s one of the mercifully few ways Brian resembles his father: Allen can’t find things either, but he’s not my problem anymore.  Brian is.

I began with the sock drawer, rummaging hastily through the jumble of socks and underwear to see if Brian had really looked, or just glanced in.  The new socks were neon green, which made it unlikely that even a guy could miss them.  Still, it was the most reasonable place to find a pair of socks.  Ninety percent of the time, when a male can’t find something, it is right where it should be, only under something else.

I made that up, but it’s true.

From the sock drawer I turned to the other drawers.  Nothing.  Then the desk.  I was starting to feel the pressure of time slipping away, and I left an even worse mess than I’d found there, and still no socks.

Moving to the bed as the clocked ticked down to doom, I vowed Brian would clean his room that very day.  Or maybe the next.  He’d be late coming home from the track meet.  Any time the team ran anywhere but at home, it was a major expedition for the same reason I couldn’t just run out and buy Brian new socks: tiny Pissmawallops Island is a 40-minute ferry ride from everything.

No, the honor of Orcaville hung on the keen detective abilities of JJ MacGregor, and I wasn’t going to let the team down.

I grabbed the bedcovers, yanked them back to expose the interior, and shook.  Brian needed clean sheets, but he wasn’t sleeping with the new socks.  A few garments fell to the floor as I shook out the covers, but not the socks.

I swept the bedding back into place as I heard the bathroom door open.  It was crunch time, and I had to come through.

As Brian’s footsteps sounded in the hall, I dropped to my stomach on the hardwood floor and stuck my head under the bed.

“Mom!  Have you found them?  We’ve got to go!”

I jerked when he yelled, banging my head on the underside of the bed, so hard the bed moved.  “Unspeakable excrescence of a cursed hunk of furniture,” I began, then stopped.

 I reached out an arm, grabbed the glowing bundle that dropped from behind the bed, and back out from under before accepting Brian’s hand up.

Of course, when he saw the socks, he dropped my hand and grabbed them like a drowning man clutching a life ring.  Or a lover clutching his true love.  For a moment I saw red, which went well with the stars I was still seeing from cracking my head.  Self-centered little beast, just like his father!

While Brian stowed the socks and gathered his belongings, I climbed more slowly to my feet.

Then he turned again.  “You’re the greatest, Mom!  A real Sherlock Holmes.”  And not a hint of irony in his tone.

I could almost feel my deerstalker hat and Inverness Cape as I followed him down the stairs.  Not so much like his dad, after all.  Brian had an actual sense of gratitude, and a sense of humor.  Allen had done better for Brian than he knew when he left us.

“Come on, Mom!”  Brian called again.  He already had the car keys and was leading the way out the door.

The last misty hints of the deerstalker faded away as I climbed into the passenger seat, and the greatest sleuth on Pissmawallops Island became once again a driver training instructor.  I tightened my seat belt and crossed myself, muttered three “om manis” and followed it up with “Now I lay me.”  A real sleuth can face any danger.

Happy New Year!

Okay, this day snuck up on me.  I just posted yesterday and here I am needing to say something pithy and profound and summative about the year that is rapidly heading toward extinction.  And I need to say it quickly, because I went for a lovely ride on this cold, crisp afternoon and now I can't stay awake.  I'll be lucky to make it to midnight East Coast time, and I live several times zones west of that one. . . (Guaranteed insomnia cure: exercise until you're frozen, come in and thaw out and eat a large dinner and then just TRY to stay awake!).

Okay, wise cracks out of the way, I do want to look back over the year.  At the beginning of 2012, my writing was just about where it is now. . . except it was the first Ninja Librarian book I was trying to polish up, and now it's the second.  Over the course of the year, I've seen my book in print, done author readings, and been recognized in the grocery store as a writer. 

I have developed as a writer, doing a much better job of believing that it's a real job, and therefore should take precedent over many other things, including sweeping the floor.  Not always there, but getting better.  I've learned more about marketing than I ever guessed I would ever need to, and just enough to tell me that I've only scratched the surface.  I've also learned that nothing about my new published status has made me any more eager to sit down with a flawed MS and do the hard work of turning it into a publishable book, but that having people waiting for the new book can inspire me to do even that.  I think that's part of what it means to be a professional.

I have also learned that I can write short stories just for fun, and share them so that others can have fun too.

In my personal life, I have watched my boys get another year older, and seen my Eldest Son putting me to shame for his ability to write under nearly any conditions.  While I want to crawl off alone, he sat in the middle of the family Xmas bash with his computer in front of him, and added page after page to his first novel.  It's pretty good, too.  I don't know whether to be a proud parent, or just chagrined that he manages to write, and well, under circumstances that made me give up (twelve people in our dinky house over the holidays, for example).

I have also done some great trips, including my first visit to Hawaii and a seven-day backpack trip in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming (here and here).  That was one of the most scenic I've done, and the longest single backpack since I was 27 and hiked 200 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.  It was a lot more fun doing it with my family than alone, as I did back then.  

What do I wish for 2013?  Aside, that is, from peace and love and general good stuff for all humanity.  Let's stick with the personal here.  Mostly, let's stick with what the writer wants.

1.  Make writing a featured part of every day.  Write like a professional.  Except on Zero days.
2.  Bring out the sequel to the Ninja Librarian (still mostly on track for Feb., though we are looking at the end of the month, not the beginning).
3.  Either finish and publish my "PTA Murder" novel, or decide it has no future and start a new one.
4.  Sell more books each month, find more followers for this blog, and discover more great reads for myself.  Which I'll share if you are good.
5.  Go for another backpack trip as glorious as last summer's.  Swim even more, ride even more, and--the gods willing--become a runner again when my about-to-be-operated-on toe heals.