[Note from Steve: I usually don’t write about the paranormal.  But those of you who’ve read “The Town Hall Gang” and “The Bridge,” short stories in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, my anthology of tales of speculative fiction, know I CAN write them.  You also might be familiar with hard-boiled Detective Rolando Castilblanco, of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” though, so here’s one of his most unusual cases, a cross-genre short story, if you will.  Enjoy.  And, don’t miss the intrepid detectives in my new novel, Aristocrats and Assassins, or The Collector, which is coming soon.  More of the detectives’ cases can be found in the short story collection, Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java.]

 

Singing Ghosts

Steven M. Moore

                I hate old houses.  Creaks and groans.  Radiators wheezing strange country’s national anthems.  Windows painted tightly shut with old lead paint.  Damp basements, dark attics, and cubbyholes.  The East Coast has old houses in abundance, some dating back to the early 19^th century.  And people still live in them and sleep in them alone at night.

Ghost?  I put down my sandwich and stared at Tia Lucia who sat at the end of the long dining room table.  Heard Stuart try to stifle a chuckle so my aunt wouldn’t hear.

Lucia Castilblanco had married Samuel Lloyd and lived in that Long Island house for more than forty years.  Uncle Sam was police chief; Tia Lucia ran a bakery.  They’d enjoyed a long and happy marriage, but she was a widow now, retired from the bakery, and living all alone in that house that was already old when they bought it.

Through lunch, we had chatted about police work while we munched on ham and Swiss cheese on rye with spicy mustard, taco chips, and drank lemonade.  Because Stuart was a crime reporter for a local TV station and I was a cop, we were interested, but Lucia knew more about forensics than either one of us.  I’d long suspected Tio Sam had tested ideas about cases with her.

My father was only slightly shorter than I am, but Lucia is tiny.  Genetics plays tricks in all families, I suppose.  She was well-proportioned, although barely five feet tall, but she had a big personality.  She still but infrequently drove her lime-green Caddy with the huge fins on the back, using a couple of old Yellow Pages to see over the huge steering wheel.  She’d picked us up at the train station.  I had put Stuart on the front bench seat with my aunt because I didn’t fit; I sprawled in the back amidst grocery bags that she obviously had picked up on her way.  Tia Lucia was organized.

But my father had always said his sister was crazy.  As a kid, I thought she was crazy like a fox, and always enjoyed my visits with my Long Island relatives.  Did I say she ran a bakery?

Long Island has seen better times.  It was still a rich person’s playground, especially in the Hamptons, with huge estates reminiscent of Gatsby’s.  But other parts were becoming run down.  The cops had closed down a meth lab less than a mile away from my aunt’s house, and parts of the island were having heroin-addiction problems, including a few deaths by overdoses.  I didn’t like that Tia Lucia lived alone in that environment in a house that was too big for one person, especially an elderly one.

“Aren’t you just hearing old house noises?” I said.

“Oh, no, this was humming.  Sometimes there are songs with lyrics in some foreign language, but I could tell they were words.  They’re a little sad, like those songs I like so much in the Village.  Someone’s in the house at night, Rollie.”

I smiled.  I knew Tia Lucia was talking about the folk revolution that took the Village by storm back in the sixties, notably on Bleecker Street.  My aunt had attended NYU but fell in love with my uncle, a student from John Jay, whom she met in a Village bar.  Lovers who had almost been flower children had become one of the longest married couples in my family.  Go figure.

“You want us to take a look around the house?” asked my wife.

I groaned.  Imagined the cluttered basement and attic, empty and dusty bedrooms, narrow and steep stairs, and years of old stuff all around.

“That would make me feel better,” said Lucia.

Stuart looked at me.  I nodded.  “OK, we’ll do it, but not until I’ve had my apple pie.  Lucia always makes one for me when I visit.”

Lucia brightened.  “Actually, I made two.  You can take one home with you.  I’ll go put on the java.”

I popped a Tums in prep.  Lucia made her coffee strong.  We soon heard her grinding the beans.  We also could smell the pies.  Stuart just shook her head.  She didn’t nag much, but my weight was an occasional topic of concern.

***

                “You have a boarder, a non-paying one.”  I showed Lucia the empty Jim Beam bottle.  “Made himself at home in the basement.  There’s an old mattress from a single bed that’s minus some cotton stuffing.  It’s now between stacks of old newspapers and boxes of books.  Lock on a basement window’s broken.”

“Can you fix the lock?”

“How ‘bout arresting the vagrant?  He’s a drunk, maybe a druggie, sleeping in your basement.  That’s not exactly safe.”

Lucia thought a few beats.  “Well, fix the lock and he’ll go away.  I suppose I have to report your discovery to the police.  I don’t think they believed me before when I said I had a ghost.”

“Suppose you’re right.  Did they come and inspect the house?”

“No.  They told me to call 9-1-1 if I saw someone.”

“You would think they’d at least come and take a look,” said Stuart, hugging my aunt.  “Lucia’s all alone here.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” said Lucia.  “I have all my memories still.  Sam’s still up here.”  She pointed to her forehead.

“What should we do?” said Stuart.

“We is one too many people,” I said.  “You have to be up early tomorrow, so I’ll send you back on the train.  I’ll stay tonight and see if I can nab the napper.”

“You don’t have to do that.”  Lucia raised an eyebrow at me, an expression of annoyance I’d learned about years ago.  “I’m sure that fixing the lock on the window is enough.”

“I don’t know how to fix it—the frame’s all twisted,” I admitted.  “And we can’t call anyone because it’s a weekend.  I’m camping out in the basement tonight.”

“Well, I should make you up a thermo of hot chocolate, then, to go with your pie.”

***

                My first tour of the damp basement had disturbed the footprints on the dusty floor, but I remembered they looked like old, large hiking boots.  The size didn’t mean much.  You can put small feet into big boots by stuffing them with old newspapers.  I’d done that once to trap a serial killer who was murdering homeless men.  Our ghost was homeless.

He also had at least an alcohol problem.  As I snooped around his nest some more, I discovered other empty bottles, including cough syrup bottles.  They’re usually not sold openly anymore because their contents can be used in home drug labs, so I wondered how he was able to buy them.

There was also a collection of old paperbacks.  Maybe some were Lucia’s, but I’d never seen her read erotica or paranormal romance.  Sam and Lucia had been childless, something I regretted, because I’d bet their kids would have been smart and a lot of fun.  Made my decision to adopt with Stuart bitter-sweet too, but old Putin had nixed that by cancelling all adoptions from the Soviet Union—pardon, Russia.  Moreover, their kids would have been useful in emptying the basement and attic from time to time.

As it was, the basement wasn’t quite a hoarder’s—it was just filled with crap accumulated over the years.  Unless you have a partially finished basement, yours probably looks the same.  But the magazines and newspaper weren’t consecutive; that told me that Sam or Lucia had some reason to keep them, maybe long forgotten.  I found an NY Times containing the description about the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics, for example.  Probably Sam’s.

I supposed much of the crap was comprised of mementos.  There were probably stories in that basement that some enterprising writer could make sense of, but whether a jilted public would find them interesting was another question.  People were into zombies, vampire romances, fairy-tale fantasies, and erotica now.  Ordinary people aren’t interesting anymore.

And ghosts.  I smiled.  One of the reasons I wanted to be there when the perp showed was that I was interested in hearing his songs.  Could I make out the language?  Knew it wasn’t Spanish.  Lucia spoke that language well in all its nuances, from Puerto Rican slang to the language of Cervantes.  She had been a baker, but she was still an educated woman with a lot more culture than I had.

***

Picked out my place to huddle catty-corner from the basement window and the old mattress.  Wouldn’t see the perp enter, but I’d hear him.  Hunkered down as comfortable as possible, with my pie and thermos of hot chocolate, and waited.  Heard the drain water swishing as Lucia brushed her teeth and used the toilet.  Knew she’d crawl into bed under her electric blanket and watch late-night TV until she fell asleep.

Some might say the old lady was waiting to die, but Lucia and Sam had been like that all their lives.  They were basically country folk, although they lived only miles from the biggest city in the U.S.  Lucia had grown up there; her parents had lived in Spanish Harlem.  Sam had grown up in Newark, New Jersey.  They were both from the city and had returned to the countryside.

Didn’t know if I could ever do that.  It all depended on whether Pam and I could find another alternative for adopting a kid.  She wanted two.  I was worried about just getting one.  We weren’t getting any younger.  There was also the thorny problem that we both had dangerous professions.

My thoughts were interrupted by the perp entering.  Wasn’t quiet about it either, but all the junk around muffled sounds, so Lucia probably only heard a reduced-volume version.  Thought it might be frequency dependent too, because the humming came through better.  Sounded like a happy drunk.  Smelled more like a skunk.  Wondered where he did his business.

Waited until he made himself comfortable.  No snores yet.  The bourbon bottle had been empty, though, so, unless he carried a new supply, he was just going to sleep.

Quiet returned, but with the sounds of the house.  Heard the furnace cycle on, and the radiators start singing.  A structure that had settled a bit with lowering temperature now awoke to join the chorus.  The humming turned to singing.

Not bad.  Lucia was right.  It sounded like some of those Appalachian songs that folksingers had rediscovered back in the sixties.  I still had those first Joan Baez records, for example, I’d inherited from my father.  Had Phil Ochs, Leonard Cohen, and others I’d inherited from other relatives.  Needed to get one of those USB LP turntables in order to put it all on CDs, but when would I have time to do that?  Wondered if Tia Lucia had some old LPs.

I tiptoed over to our nighttime crooner-intruder.

“Sounds like Gaelic,” I said.

He jumped up, broke a bottle, and poked it at me.  Reminded me of the circus guy warding off a big cat.  I held out my hands flat.

“I’m carrying a gun, so I could just shoot you, you know.  But I’m a nice guy who feels for you, buddy.  However, you’re scaring my aunt.  Right now, I care more about her than you.  Put the damn bottle down.”

He looked around the rest of the basement with wild eyes.  “Where are the rest of you?”

“Rest?  I’m here alone.  It’s just you and me.”  I showed him my cuffs.  “Do I need to use these?”

“The SWAT team.  Don’t you always have a SWAT team?  I’m considered dangerous.”

“Who the hell are you, if you don’t mind saying?”

“I’m the Highwayman.  I ride about the countryside robbing people.  Killing them too.”

“You been drinking?”

The bottle was at his side by then.  He sat on the mattress.

“Couldn’t find anything today.  And no handouts.  Couldn’t find my horse, either, so I couldn’t rob no one.”

“What’s your real name?”

“John Locke.  I’m a famous philosopher.  But I have a secret identity.  I’m really the Highwayman.  I ride the Scottish moors.”

Clearly deranged.  I waved the cuffs again and repeated, “Do I need these?”

“Pauline hasn’t arrived yet.  I kidnapped her, or so her father says.  He’s very strict with her.  She loves me, though, so to hell with him.”  He held out his arms.  “I’m sorry.  We wouldn’t hurt the old bitch.  She seems nice.”

“Yeah, she is.  But don’t worry.  We’ll find you another place to stay.”  I put the cuffs on, stood him up, and poked him in the chest with a finger.  “Hey, John, you’re not having sex here with someone, are you?”

He smiled at me, dull eyes coming alive.  “With Pauline.  She’s an apparition.  Hasn’t arrived yet.”

***

                The local cops picked up the vagrant.  One patrol car pulled out with him.  I talked to the driver and his partner of the second car.

“Name’s Arthur Williams.  He used to be a professor of languages at CUNY.  Speaks Scottish Gaelic and a bunch of other weird languages.  He was in an institution farther out on the island.”

“We’ve been looking for him,” said the other officer.  “Thanks for helping out, Detective.  Guess that solves your aunt’s ghost problem.”

“Yeah, could one of you come out sometime tomorrow and let her know about someone who can clean up that basement, including the mess old Arthur made?  I’d really appreciate it.”

“Sure thing.”  We shook hands.  “It’s the least we can do.”

***

                 A month later, Stuart and I were visiting Tia Lucia once again.  It was Friday and during Lent, so she had fish—breaded flounder, rice pilaf, and enough broccoli to satisfy Stuart for a while.  I filled up on bread from Lucia’s old bakery—it still sold many of her old bread and pastry recipes.

After dinner, we were enjoying a dessert sherry and my aunt’s rice and raisin pudding with whipped cream.  I was almost ready for seconds when the singing began.

It sounded like French sung in a high, lilting soprano voice.  Made my skin crawl because it sounded so sad, something like early Baez.

“Sounds like you have another homeless person in your basement,” said Stuart.

“And this one has a stronger voice,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said Lucia.  “Listen closely.”

Humans’ sense of direction for sound isn’t very good, but by concentrating, I was able to determine that the singing was coming from above, not below.

“How the hell did she get in the attic?  Climb a chimney?”

“A real ghost,” said Lucia.  “Her name’s Pauline.  She’s always been there I think, but Arthur woke her from her slumbers.  She probably misses him.”

I looked at Stuart with raised eyebrows.  She only smiled at me.  I asked my aunt for the old iron key and dashed up two flights of stairs to the attic.  Singing stopped when I entered, and there was no one inside.  Stomped around a bit and sneezed.  Found an old cardboard file box with sheet music.  Picked up a loose sheet on top.  It was yellow with age.  Read a bit—looked like an old folk song.  Creeped me out.

***

Was stretched out in the recliner one night last week when Stuart walked into our Brooklyn abode.

“Bad day?” I said.

“Long.”  Left her coat on the sofa, took some sheets out of her purse, and handed them to me.  “A gift, my Prince Charming.”

Read the sheets.  It was a PDF from some website.  Pauline Fontblanc had lived in my aunt’s house in the 1890s.  She turned up missing one November night there was a snow storm and was never found.

“Maybe she’s the ghost who still lives in Tia Lucia’s house,” said Stuart.  “You heard her singing.  Maybe she and old Arthur were an item after all.”

I shook my head.  Like I said, I hate old houses.

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