Zoe Donovan Mystery: Haunted Hamlet Part 4

"Zak and I have our party on Halloween night or I'd go along. Can you stop by the house with the babies so I can get a photo?"

"I'm sure we could work that out. We plan to go early-probably around five o'clock-and then Mom and I are going to watch Morgan and Rosalie so Jeremy and Jessica can go to your s.h.i.+ndig for a while."

"I can't wait to see the three girls dressed up for their first Halloween." I grinned. "Do you remember my first Halloween?"

"Actually, I do. Grandma made you an adorable Raggedy Ann costume and Grandma, Pappy, and I took you around to a few of our closest friends and neighbors. I have a photo in that alb.u.m I kept of your first year. I really should dig it out and show Mom. She really wants to find out as much as she can about the years she missed."

"What's Harper going to be dressed as this year?" I asked.

"I have no idea. Mom is taking care of the costumes."

"Costumes? As in more than one?"

"Mom a.s.sured me that she needs a different costume for each of the various events. She mentioned something warm for the Hamlet and then something cute that you can put a coat over for trick-or-treating. Personally, I think the whole thing will be lost on a six-month-old."

"The costumes aren't for Harper; they're for Mom. She missed a lot with me and wants to be sure she experiences everything she can this time around."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Ha!" I heard Nick yell in victory from across the store. "Looks like I have checkmate again."

"Everyone gets lucky now and again," Ethan countered. The men, although good friends, engaged in a lively rivalry.

"When did you get here?" Nick asked as he looked up from the game and noticed me for the first time.

"Hours ago," I teased. Talk about tunnel vision.

"Any news about the ghost hunter?" Ethan asked.

Apparently, he hadn't heard any part of the conversation Dad and I had just shared.

"Not really. You worked in academia for most of your life: have you ever heard of an accredited college providing a degree in consciousness studies?"

"I have. The University of Edinburgh is one of the top universities in the world, and they have a whole unit dedicated to the subject. It's named the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, after the late Arthur Koestler, a student in the field."

"And the students actually hunt for ghosts?" I asked.

"I think the department focuses more on an understanding of parapsychology and the existence of psychic ability than ghost busting, but it's an interesting field of study."

"So this Davenport guy was the real deal?"

"It would appear so."

"Trenton told me that he had lunch with the man last week. Perhaps you should talk to him if you're interested in what Professor Davenport was doing at the Henderson house," Ethan offered.

Trenton Field was a psychologist and the newest member of our book club.

"Thanks. I'll call him today. It would be interesting to find out exactly what it was Mr. Davenport hoped to find-or possibly did find-before he died."

"I didn't speak to Trenton in depth about it, but he indicated that Davenport seemed to have gathered some credible data that he hoped to publish in a trade magazine. It's a shame we may never know what exactly it was he discovered."

"Maybe he took good notes that can be pulled together by someone else," I suggested.

"Maybe. So how are things looking for the hayride?" Nick asked.

"Really good, considering we just started working on it," I said. "Willa has already tracked down six wagons for a total seating capacity of sixty pa.s.sengers. We figure the route should take forty minutes, with an additional ten minutes on either end to load and unload, so we're planning to run five tours on Friday night and five on Sat.u.r.day, plus a kiddie tour each evening before dark. We may not net quite as much revenue as we did with the haunted house, which accommodated several thousand guests over the long weekend, but the event should go a long way toward making up the deficit created by not being able to do the house this year."

"I gave Willa the name of a man I know in the valley who has a twenty-pa.s.senger wagon. If she can arrange to have it brought up the mountain, you'll be able to carry eighty people per tour."

"That's great; thanks, Nick." I looked at the clock. "Having to come up with an alternate event to the haunted barn may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. It seems like everyone is really excited about it. Maybe we should add it to the Haunted Hamlet on a permanent basis."

"Except for the weather factor," Pappy pointed out. "It's unseasonably warm and dry this year, but I can think of quite a few Halloweens when we've had snow. At times, a lot of it."

"I see your point. We've had to cancel the haunted maze a few times, and I remember when I was six or seven, the s...o...b..nks were as tall as I was. It was freezing outside, but Dad bundled me up and took me out anyway."

"I think we might want to stay away from adding another outdoor event," Nick agreed.

"Gilda seemed interested in doing a Halloween play, so maybe we can add that to the menu next year."

"A play would be fun," Ethan joined in. "Maybe a comedic spoof of a horror favorite like Young Frankenstein or Scary Movie."

"Or maybe a cla.s.sic whodunit," Nick countered.

"I've always thought one of those audience-partic.i.p.ation murder mysteries would be fun," Pappy added.

"Gilda is good at coming up with entertaining scripts. I'm sure we'll find just the right production." I looked at my watch. "I really should get going. We're expecting the arrival of a mountain lion from up north later this morning, so I should head over to the Zoo to make sure Jeremy has everything ready. I'll see you both at book club?"

"Definitely. The s.h.i.+ning is one of my favorite seasonal reads," Nick offered.

So far I hadn't had the time to read page one, little alone get caught up in the story. "If I don't get some free time, I may have to just watch the movie."

"That'd be cheating." Pappy chuckled.

"Yeah, well, I hate to admit it, but it wouldn't be the first time I watched the movie rather than reading the book. Unlike the three of you, I'm not retired with unlimited amounts of time on my hands."

"Hazel works and she manages to get the books read," Pappy reminded me.

"Hazel is a librarian. It's her job to read. I'm always running around, which makes it difficult to set aside time to read. I do love attending the book-club meetings and hanging out with all of you, so one way or the other, I plan to show up and partic.i.p.ate. I'll see you on Thursday."

"Actually, we changed to Wednesday this week due to the Hamlet," Ethan reminded us.

"Okay, then, I'll see you on Wednesday."

I kissed Dad and Pappy good-bye, then headed back through town toward the Zoo. It looked like it was going to be a feline sort of week. Not only were we expecting the mountain lion but we had eight black kittens that had been dropped off from two different litters. What were the odds? I guess the Halloween spirit was alive in more ways than one.

Chapter 5.

Tuesday, October 21

When Ellie didn't show up for the events committee meeting Tuesday morning, I decided to go over to the Beach Hut, the lakeside sandwich shop she owns, to check in on her before I headed to the Zoo. Although she'd had moments of what seemed like happiness over the weekend, overall she'd been in a funk for more than a week, and I was beginning to get concerned. I hadn't spoken to her since Sat.u.r.day, which in and of itself wasn't all that odd, though normally, with everything that was going on, she'd be right there next to me in the thick of things.

"Is Ellie around?" I asked her a.s.sistant, Kelly Arlington. Ellie had hired Kelly as a waitress shortly after she opened the lakeside restaurant but had quickly promoted her to a.s.sistant once she realized how efficient she was. Kelly seemed to enjoy her job and had proved to be more than capable of running things in Ellie's absence.

"No, she called in sick. In fact, I haven't seen her for several days. She didn't even show up for our regularly scheduled weekly meeting yesterday."

I frowned. "Did she say what was wrong?"

"No, but she's been acting odd since her doctor's appointment last week," Kelly informed me. "She seemed fine before she went, but she never came back to the Beach Hut afterward. She called and said she was taking the day off and really hasn't seemed at all like herself ever since. I'm really getting worried about her. I even thought about calling you if she didn't come in today, but here you are, saving me the trouble."

"I'm going to head over to the boathouse," I decided.

"Call me after you talk to her."

"I will." I could see Kelly was really concerned and now, suddenly, I was as well. It wasn't like her to blow off the business she cared about simply because her life wasn't perfectly on track. Maybe she really was sick.

I was glad to see that Ellie's car was parked in its usual spot in front of the boathouse. Charlie began wagging his tail as he recognized his old home. I let him out the side door and waited for him to sniff around, rediscovering familiar scents, before heading toward the street- side deck and the front door.

Ellie opened the door before I had a chance to knock.

"I was wondering if you'd be by," Ellie greeted me with a lack of enthusiasm.

"Kelly said you were sick. I was concerned and wanted to check on you."

"I'm fine," Ellie offered.

I looked at the dark circles under her eyes and the stringy hair that framed her face. She looked like she had been crying. A lot. Normally, Ellie took care with her appearance, but it looked like she'd slept in the sweatpants, T-s.h.i.+rt, and cardigan sweater she was wearing.

"It's a nice day. Do you want to sit out here on the deck and chat?" I asked.

I looked behind Ellie to see that the living area of the boathouse was a mess, which really worried me since Ellie was obsessively clean.

She looked like she might refuse my suggestion but then shrugged and stepped out onto the deck, closing the door behind her. She pulled her sweater around her shoulders as she took a seat in the sun. Charlie-sensing her distress, I imagine-curled up at her feet, placing one furry paw on the tip of her tennis shoe.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" I asked.

Ellie didn't say anything.

"Is it a guy?" I fished.

"No, it's not a guy."

"Lack of a guy?"

"No, it's not that either."

"Then what is it?" I asked. "Kelly said you went to the doctor. Are you sick?"

Ellie took a deep breath and looked directly at me. "I didn't go to a regular doctor. I went to a clinic to look into the process of obtaining a sperm donor."

"I thought you were going to wait."

"I did wait."

Ellie had a point. She'd only promised to wait ninety days, and it had been more than that since she'd first broached the subject.

"Yeah, you did. I'm sorry I interrupted. Go on."

"Part of the process of taking advantage of the services the clinic offers is having a physical to a.s.sess your overall health and the likelihood of a successful impregnation."

Uh-oh. I think I could see where this was going.

"I won't bore you with the details, but the end result was that my tests indicate that I have less than a ten-percent chance of becoming pregnant by any means. Ever."

"Oh, El." I got up from my chair, knelt down in front of her, and hugged her. "I'm so sorry."

"I cannot accept," she sobbed, "the fact that I may never have children of my own."

"I know." I hugged her tighter, my own tears streaming down my face.

"I've spent the past week trying to gain some perspective, but it's been so hard to let go of everything I've dreamed of."

I have many fine qualities, but I'm afraid one of them isn't the ability to find the right thing to say at critical times like this. Ellie is a born comforter. If our roles were reversed, she'd know exactly what to say to make things better, but I'm not Ellie, and I know that the likelihood of saying something that will make things worse is actually pretty high, so I kept quiet and hugged her as tight as I could as my best friend and I wept out her pain.

After her tears had subsided, I went into the house in search of a tissue. "Is there anything you can do?" I asked after I'd returned to the deck and she'd pulled herself together.

"There are treatments, all expensive, none covered by insurance. None are guaranteed and most provide only a slightly better chance at a successful pregnancy than I already have. I thought about looking into surgical options, which give me the best chance I'm likely to have, but given the fact that I'm unmarried, I don't present a high priority as far as most doctors are concerned. The few doctors I spoke to encouraged me to wait. They said that new treatments are being developed every day, and perhaps by the time I'm ready . . ."

"But you feel ready now."

"I did." Ellie looked at me. "But, like I mentioned, I've agonized over this since I first found out and I think I'm beginning to get a little perspective. I don't want to go through all of that alone. If and when I fall in love and get married, then maybe."

I hugged Ellie one final time and then sat back down next to her.

She bent over to scratch Charlie behind the ears. "I think I might be ready to consider a puppy, as you suggested earlier. A puppy isn't a baby, and I'm sure a puppy won't fix everything, but now that you and Charlie are living with Zak, I find that I do get lonely at times. It would be nice to have someone to come home to."

"Now would be a good time," I affirmed. "Things have slowed down at the Beach Hut and are likely to remain slow over the winter. Puppies need a lot of attention the first few months, so it's important that you're around to provide the guidance the little guy or gal will need."