The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

wheels—his ice cream truck. We drove from Larchmont to Primrose and parked in front of Eddie Franzetti’s house, a modest three-bedroom ranch circa 1952, where he lived with his wife and kids.
    “What’s wrong, Pen? Why are you here?” Eddie’s face now replaced the sun; his lean Italian features peered at me through the truck’s passenger-side window.
    I rolled down the glass. “Morning, Eddie.” I stifled a yawn. “We’re here because—”
    An explosive snort-snore interrupted me. I glanced across the seat. Seymour was still sleeping, his body sprawled behind the truck’s steering wheel. I popped my passenger door and stepped down onto the curb.
    Eddie stood barefoot on the sidewalk. His blue jeans looked as if he’d pulled them on quickly since the top button was still undone. He wore a dress shirt, also unbuttoned and hanging half open. Dangling around his neck was an untied tie.
    “I was getting ready for Sunday mass when my youngest asked me for an ice cream cone.”
    He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and I noticed his littlest girl looking curiously at us from behind the house’s screen door. I smiled and waved. She waved back.
    “How long have you two been out here?” Eddie asked.
    I squinted at the cloudless sky. “What time is it?”
    “Seven.”
    “We had a scare a few hours ago. But it was so early, we didn’t want to disturb you or your family.”
    “What was your scare? A burglar?”
    I shook my head. “I spent last night with Seymour in Miss Todd’s mansion.”
    Eddie’s big brown eyes appeared genuinely surprised. He glanced back into the truck at the snoring mailman in Incredible Hulk pajamas. “I didn’t know you two were more than friends. How long have you and Seymour been—”
    “We’re not!” I cried—a little too loudly. I closed my eyes, took a breath. “I just had too much to drink at his wake for Miss Todd. I was in the master bedroom. He was in a guest room. Got it?”
    “Oh, I see. Sorry. Guess I jumped to the wrong—”
    “Anyway! We heard noises. Loud booms—well, technically, I was the only one who heard those—but we both heard the sobbing. We both felt a mysterious mist, a cold spot, and then we even saw—”
    I paused and swallowed, gathered my nerves.
    Eddie was staring at me with a perplexed expression. “Yeah? What did you see?”
    “A fat man. We didn’t recognize him at first—we were both too shocked at the time. But on the drive over here, we remembered he was the man in the portrait over Miss Todd’s mantel. He was transparent, and he floated across her living room.”
    Eddie shook his head, stared down at his bare feet.
    “It happened, Eddie. I’m telling you it was real. Don’t say you don’t believe me.”
    “Pen . . .” He paused. “I believe that you believe you experienced something. But you said it yourself: You had a lot to drink. And the Todd house is pretty creepy.”
    I folded my arms, gritted my teeth. This was exactly why I hadn’t told a soul about Jack. The mixture of doubt and pity on Eddie’s face was almost as hard to take as Seymour “breaking it to me” why he wasn’t going to make a pass.
    “Tell you what. I’ll tell my wife we’ll go to the later mass. Let me grab my gun belt. I’ll follow you two back to the house and check it out, okay?”
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    “It’s not like I don’t owe you, Pen. You’re the reason I got my promotion. I haven’t forgotten.”
    I nodded and pointed at his naked feet. “Better not forget your shoes, either.”
     
    EDDIE FOLLOWED US to the mansion, checked out the living room, the staircase, the bedrooms. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. (Of course.) In the light of day, the house seemed to be nothing more than a quaint old Victorian filled with antiques and moth balls.
    I was beginning to understand what Miss Todd had gone through. Like us, she obviously experienced the manifestations, even reported them to the police. But they didn’t believe her then any more than Eddie believed me now.
    “Dr. Rubino’s explanation for the noises was dementia,” I said, pacing the foyer. “Chief Ciders’s explanation was a prankster or maybe even a killer. But neither man considered another possibility.”
    Eddie put his hands on his lean hips. His QPD gun belt had been hastily buckled on over his jeans. He’d exchanged his Sunday-best dress shirt for a Franzetti Pizza T-shirt and laced a pair of scuffed Nikes onto his bare feet. Unfortunately for