The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

ghouls.
    —Raymond Chandler, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot,” Black Mask , December 1933 (Chandler’s debut short story)
     
     
     
     
    AFTER LEAVING MISS Todd’s mansion, I’d watched clouds roll in all afternoon. Now it was twilight and darkness descended with more murk than usual for a warm June night.
    Heeding Mr. Stoddard’s official request to appear in his Millstone office at eight P.M., Aunt Sadie and I closed the bookshop early, leaving the Community Events room in the trustworthy hands of the Yarn Spinners reading group as well as our young part-timer, Bonnie.
    Seymour Tarnish picked us up in his pristine, vintage 1975 lime green “breadloaf” Volkswagen bus. We piled in, dropped off my son, Spencer, at the home of his best buddy, Danny Keenan (the son of Seymour’s old friend, “Bottle Rocket Keith” Kennan), and then headed for the highway.
    Seymour didn’t say much as he drove us to Millstone, which was unusual for the loquacious mailman. Wearing a slightly wrinkled blue suit, white shirt, and Mighty Mouse tie wide enough to double as a lobster bib, he stared at the road ahead, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
    Your postal pal looks nervous, Jack said.
    “Can you blame him?” I whispered in my head. “Given the day he’s had?”
    Back at Miss Todd’s mansion, Chief Ciders had wanted to continue detaining and questioning Seymour, but with Dr. Rubino refusing to rule the scene a homicide and Eddie calmly suggesting that they wait for autopsy and forensic results, and Seymour threatening to hire Emory Stoddard on the spot to represent him, Ciders finally backed off.
    Seymour stormed out of the mansion, and I followed, eager to smooth things over. He let me drive him over to Cooper Family Bakery, where I treated him to coffee and a few of Milner Logan’s lighter-than-air doughnuts. Once he calmed down, Seymour assured me (through gulps of Mocha Java and soothing mouthfuls of glazed fried dough) that I was forgiven for my part in the ugly incident, though he refused to give Chief Ciders and Bull McCoy, “the Boy Moron,” a pass for the nasty way they’d treated him.
    “There’s the turnoff for Millstone,” I gently told Seymour, pointing to the ramp ahead.
    “Oh, yeah . . . Thanks, Pen.”
    Seymour was more than familiar with the way to Millstone, but he was looking so spaced-out I thought he could use the reminder. He drove his VW Bus up the steep ramp and turned at the top of the high hill. Skirting the back end of Prescott Woods, we continued to ascend the two-mile grade that led to the town’s center. Millstone’s main street was called Buckeye Lane, but it projected a substantially different atmosphere than Quindicott’s Cranberry Street.
    The grand reopening and expansion of our Buy the Book shop a few years back had sparked a real boom in our little town. The new customers we’d attracted with reading groups, author signings, and book events came from all over the region, and before or after their visit with us, they began patronizing stores close by. Soon Napp Hardware, Cooper Family Bakery, Franzetti’s Pizza, Mr. Koh’s Grocery, Donovan’s Pub, the Seafood Shack, and a half dozen other shops were able to invest in new awnings, improved interiors, and local advertising, which helped spur even more commerce.
    The Finches became successful enough to convert the condemned Charity Point Lighthouse into an extension of their bed-and-breakfast business. They’d even fulfilled a longtime dream of opening the town’s first and only gourmet French restaurant, Chez Finch, next to Quindicott Pond.
    Our town’s latest story of commercial resurrection involved the (formerly) broken-down, boarded-up Movie Town Theater. Its grand reopening was just last month. Not only did the restoration of the old theater’s Art Deco façade and plush interior earn it landmark status from the local historical society, but its weekend film-and-lecture series were also drawing huge crowds of students from nearby St. Francis College.
    The increased sales taxes had allowed the city government to upgrade the public commons, paint and repair the band-shell, and reinstitute Sunday summer concerts.
    Sadly, however, all of this burgeoning new capitalist life had yet to benefit the dead little burg of Millstone—“the Hinterlands,” as some in Q had dubbed it. More than a decade ago, Millstone’s major employer, a textile plant, had shut its doors. A handful of politicians had attempted to