-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
The hotel we were staying at had a nice restaurant, so we all went down there for breakfast, instead of going to some other restaurant where we were much more likely to meet the second Pierre. I really didn’t want to meet him again right now. Trapper and his four friends showed up shortly after we sat down, so they joined Jennifer, Sky and myself at our table.
“Steve, my friends and I have been doing some serious talking lately,” said Trapper, “ever since Miss Kat took us to see her grave, and the graves of Jennifer and Sky, um, and a few others. We don’t understand a lot of what Miss Kat told us. Was she really killed?” “Yes, she certainly was killed, and buried, where her body remains to this day,” I said, “as far as I know anyway, unless someone came along and stole their bodies. Jennifer and Sky’s bodies are there too, they also were killed.
Jennifer was poisoned by the same man who killed Kat. Sky was shot in the heart by a different man. How are they still alive? That is a good question which I can’t answer. They claim to be ghosts and I am not going to question them on that because they can do some extraordinary things, such as disappearing.” Jennifer and Sky disappeared at that moment, but came back right away.
“That part is a bit scary,” admitted Trapper, “and Sky picking up Pierre and throwing him 10 feet through the air, with one hand. I mean, that was just not normal.” Sky giggled. “Anyway, it got us thinking more about what Miss Kat keeps saying,” he continued, “about us getting on the right side and joining your team. We want to change Steve, and join your team, if we can.” “Sounds real good Trapper,” I said, “but you would have to pass our tests for joining the team. I can’t make it easy just because you’re friends.”
“Hey, no problem there Steve,” he said, “we want to do things the same as everyone else.” We kept talking, had our breakfast and then we all went back to that old stone Ghost House. Matt and his Knight Riders had been there already and did some digging, finding a skeleton at the marked spot. Undoubtedly that was the remains of Alice, Giselle’s mother. Then they had decided to dig at the other locations as well and at the south facing urn they discovered another skeleton.
Both looked about the same age, which made it even more interesting. Did Maralina decide to kill her helper to make sure that he, or she, didn’t tell anyone? That is probably something we will never know, unless we can identify that other skeleton. I think we will leave that up to the police anyway, it would probably be better for them to investigate. “Did you look through the dirt in that big urn?” I asked Matt. “What dirt?” he asked, “There is just cement in there.”
“Hmm, there was originally soil,” I told him, “the sketch in that old book showed flowers growing in there.” “It is poor quality,” said Rock, “someone just used cement instead of concrete, likely because they were in a hurry, or they just didn’t understand the difference between the two.” I asked him to try and break it out of there, so he took a large hammer and smashed it apart quickly. It was only about 3 inches thick and underneath was soil. But why put the cement on the top?
Quite likely for protection of something. John got in there next and began to dig. This urn was 4 feet high and six feet wide, but soon we heard him hit something that sounded like metal. Rock climbed in and lifted a large metal box out of the urn and handed it to Bear who set it on the ground and smashed the lock off. He then opened it and it was full of bricks, just regular bricks. And a smaller box. Inside that box were diamonds, and two large rubies.
“Those rubies are likely worth more than the diamonds,” said Alfred, as he looked at them, “these diamonds didn’t come from one place either, they are likely from several thefts, perhaps over a few years time. The rubies came from the same owner though, and I can tell you who owned them and when they were stolen. I can even tell you who stole these beauties, probably the nicest rubies I have ever seen.” We called the police about what we had found and they came out to the Ghost House right away.
They asked me to take the gems back to our chateau with us until they could contact the proper authorities about this find. Oddly, none of the diamonds had ever been reported missing, except for 3 beautifully cut blue diamonds. They were returned to the owners and they gave us a nice reward for finding them. The rubies were also returned to the owners and we were given quite a sizable reward for finding them.
The skeleton was that of Alice, the other one was a man who lived in a village about half way between Paris and that old Ghost House and went missing at about that time. Perhaps he was a friend of Maralina and she must have convinced him to help her get rid of the body. Then she killed him so he wouldn’t talk. He must have dug both graves, otherwise why would Maralina need his help if she was able to dig his grave? Well, I guess we mostly solved things in this mixed up case, perhaps with one or two loose ends.
There is still the second Pierre. Finding that treasure might make him angry and want to kill Giselle even more now. There are more cousins as well, though none of them seem to be connected to this present case. However, they could still be dangerous for Giselle. She will be getting a new identity to help protect her. Trapper asked us to look after Giselle, and she does want to stay with us, so I said that would be okay.
For now she will not be joining our team, she still has her traumatic past to deal with first, and that is something we can help her with. Trapper and his four friends have started our testing to join our team. So far they are doing quite well, let’s see if it continues. Well, I hope we get some time to relax before the next case arrives, but I doubt that will happen.
The End. A new case will begin soon.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
That night Giselle woke up screaming again because of another nightmare. I had sensed trouble just as we were going to bed so I asked Jennifer to stay with Angel and Giselle that night. Amerie, Dawn and Suzette stayed with me, along with several of the cats. Once the three of them calmed down enough so I could sleep, I then said, “Sky.” “I almost thought you were not going to call me,” she said smiling. “I’m learning,” I replied. “I hope so,” she said as she laid down beside me.
“Shouldn’t you be staying awake?” I asked. “Why?” she asked in return. “In case something happens,” I said. “I can hear in my sleep just fine,” she replied, “it’s one of my abilities.” Amerie decided to test her on that and slowly, quietly started to get out of bed. “Stay in bed Amerie,” said Sky, “it won’t work.” “But how did you know it was me and not Dawn?” she asked. “Dawn weighs more than you,” said Sky. “Hey!” said Dawn, “I’m only 6lbs more than Amerie.”
“That means you make more noise than Amerie when you get up,” said Sky, “now go to sleep, all of you.” Amerie and Suzette giggled. “I’m losing weight,” said Dawn quietly. “No you won’t,” I said, “you’re a perfect weight for your height.” “How did you hear that?” she asked. “Nothing wrong with my hearing,” I said. “Too bad you can’t say that about your judgement,” said Sky. I sighed and the girls giggled. Anyway, back to Giselle and her latest nightmare.
It was quite a bad one this time and it took Jennifer and Angel quite some time to calm her down. This nightmare was a bit different. In it she saw her parents drive off in the car and she followed on her bicycle. She kept going until she was just out of town and she spotted her parents car parked at the side of the road, so she stopped. Then everything went misty and another car came along, stopped behind her parents car and someone got out and was carrying something.
Then that person began hitting her mom with whatever he was carrying. There was a lot of screaming, then silence. Giselle was lying face down on the wet grass now but lifted her head when the screaming stopped. Her Dad and this other person were putting her Mom’s limp body in the back of the second car, along with something else. Then she saw the face of the second man, every other time the face was blurred, but this time it was clear. But it wasn’t a man, it was a woman, the woman her Dad married 6 months later.
Giselle put her head down again, hoping she had not been seen. When she looked up again both cars were gone. She walked back to where she had left her bicycle, but it wasn’t there. She looked all over, but it was gone. She was terribly afraid now so she began to run and she ran nearly all the way home, which wasn’t really too far, at least in the dream anyway. She made it home before her Dad, then she remembers her Dad waking her up for school. She told her Dad she was sick, so he let her stay home.
Later that morning she had looked outside and her bicycle was back where she usually kept it. Her Dad said he found it outside of town beside the road and brought it back. He told her someone probably stole it and left it out there. She didn’t ask what he was doing out there, she was too afraid. She was also afraid that he had seen her out there but didn’t say anything. That is why she never told anyone what she had seen, but those dreams, those nightmares, stayed with her.
She told Jennifer and Angel that the dream made more sense this time than usual, but it was still terrifying. Then she mentioned something interesting. “I, I, just remembered something else,” she told Jennifer and Angel, “Uncle Claude came to visit one day and said he would track down anyone that was involved in killing Alice. That terrified me even more and I’m still terrified he will find out that I knew something and didn’t tell him. Then he will kill me too!”
She began to cry uncontrollably at that point and it took Jennifer and Angel quite some time to calm her down again. They waited until morning to tell me about it since we could do nothing that night anyway. Now things made more sense. The garden in that diagram could very well be the old garden at the Ghost House. But something else really hit me, Uncle Claude. I called Trapper and asked about the fifth brother that had disappeared and was presumed dead. “What was his name?” I asked him.
“I will check that out for you Steve.” It only took him a couple of minutes. “It was Claude,” he said, “say, you don’t think that Hank’s butler was Uncle Claude, do you?” “Yes, I think there is a good possibility,” I said, “and I think he helped bury Alice at that old stone house.” I then asked Matt to look for her grave, and he took his Knight Riders out to the Ghost House, since they were much closer than us. Our concern before was in the house, not looking for skeletons, but for other things.
And there was no way that Horace could get out there and back in just 4 hours. But he didn’t need to, his girlfriend, who he later married, did that for him. Giselle only knew her Dad’s new wife by the name Lina and we could find no one by that name, nor could we find anything to prove that Horace ever got married. We then went back to the house and the head officer in charge of the investigation was there at the time. He was very friendly and I asked him if he had found a marriage certificate.
“We found some kind of certificate for something,” he said, “but we do not know what it is.” He let me take a picture of it and I sent it to Annelie. It didn’t take her long to identify it as a marriage certificate from India. “Yes, they went to India after getting married,” said Giselle, somewhat confused, “it was their honeymoon. But I don’t understand why they got married twice.” Then she told us that no one was invited to their wedding here, so I figured they never did get married, they just pretended to, until going to India where they officially got married.
His wife’s name was Maralina, which is where the Lina comes from. And it turns out she was the girlfriend of Uncle Claude and he was quite upset that she married his brother Horace. He had disappeared earlier because the police were chasing him for murdering the girlfriend he had back then, and her new boyfriend. So, this time he decided to murder the whole family, but doing it while working for Hank Wood, who also wanted the whole family killed. Quite the family.
It is good to know that Giselle had nothing to do with any of this crime and murdering, except that she withheld evidence. I talked with the police officer about Giselle and he said they would not bring any charges against her. “It happened a long time ago anyway,” he told me, “she has suffered enough.” Suzette was doing the actual talking with the officer since he couldn’t speak English.
He also said that Giselle should receive a new identity for her own protection, since other members of the family are still alive. Yes, such as the second Pierre who was very much interested in Giselle. I also think that Maralina had help burying Alice and that person may, or may not, be still alive too. Trapper called again, he and his friends would like to talk with me…
To Be Continued.
©2025 Steve McLeod.
