AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Which was about what I’d thought. Of course, as I’d pointed out not even a half hour earlier, a history of hauntings didn’t mean bupkis if we were dealing with demons here and not ghosts.
“What else can you tell me about the place?” I asked.
Josie pursed her lips. I could tell her mind was working away, pulling up everything she’d seen and heard about the Bigelow place. When it came to local history, the internet didn’t have a thing on Josie Woodrow.
“It was built in 1897,” she said. “Jack Bigelow struck it rich with his mines here, and he had the house built and brought a fancy bride from New York who helped furnish and decorate the place, add some finishing touches, that kind of thing. They had two children, both boys. One of them moved away to San Francisco, but the other one — Sam Bigelow — stayed in Globe and raised a family here. His son died fairly young — tuberculosis, I think — but his daughter had children. The grandchildren decided to move out of state and put the house on the market. That was when Hank and Nora bought it back in the early 1970s. And they lived there for decades without a single problem. They always seemed amused by their ghost, since it was harmless.”
Her story filled in some details, but the basic information was pretty much the same. The Bigelow mansion was a big, beautiful house that might have seen some tragedy over the years, and yet there was no reason to believe anything dark lurked there.
And I had to admit it was bothering me more than I wanted to admit that I hadn’t been able to feel a darn thing in the place. The accounts I’d read of demonic infestations had made it pretty obvious that anyone with any kind of psychic powers — even if they were more of an empath and not a true psychic — could still sense something terribly wrong in a home that was being attacked by demonic spirits.
But here I was, falling down on the job. It wasn’t as though I’d lost all my abilities or anything, because I still saw people’s auras from time to time, and I definitely was able to pick up on the vibes of other places I’d visited. No, there had to be something else going on here.
I just couldn’t figure out what that might be.
“Did Sam Bigelow’s son die in the house?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Josie replied, brow furrowing slightly as she dredged up another factoid from the database. “Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but I’m fairly sure they sent him to a sanatorium to treat his tuberculosis, and he passed away there.”
So much for that idea.
“Do you know who else might have passed away in the mansion?”
Her mouth pursed. “I think Jack Bigelow did, but he went peacefully in his sleep at eighty-something.” A pause as she sent me a questioning look. “That doesn’t make him a very good candidate to be a ghost, right?”
“Right,” I said. True, there were some hauntings that involved people remaining in places they’d loved and didn’t want to leave behind, and not because they’d suffered a violent or painful death, but those cases were very rare.
When I didn’t say anything else, Josie inquired, “How are your parents? Are they holding up okay? I feel just awful that something so terrible happened there so soon after they moved in.”
“They’re doing all right,” I said. “I know they were a little shaken up, but really, it was just a terrible accident.”
“An accident that happened because you think the house is possessed by demons.”
Should I point out to her that demons possessed people and infested houses?
Probably, that fine distinction wasn’t something Josie needed to worry about. “It seems the most likely explanation for the phenomena that are happening there,” I said.
“I know. Al Loomis told my friend Betsy — he keeps trying to ask her out, even though she’s not interested in marrying again — and she told me.”
There really weren’t any secrets in Globe. Good thing that Calvin and I had decided from the beginning to be open about our relationship. If we’d tried to hide it, we probably would have been doomed to failure from the get-go.
Something about the way Josie’s mouth twisted as she mentioned Al Loomis made my spider sense start tingling, though.
“You don’t like Al?” I asked.
Josie fidgeted with the strap of her oversized purse. It was bright blue, picking up one of the colors in the blouse she wore. “I’m not one to go telling tales out of school,” she said.
I planted my hands on my hips and lifted an eyebrow. That comment was just a bit disingenuous, considering she was Globe’s biggest gossip.
“Oh, all right,” she said, then put her purse on the counter, as if she wanted to make sure she had full use of both hands while she was talking. “I always advise my clients to work with Ted Jenkins when they need a home inspection, just because he’s much more reliable. Al has slipped up too many times for my taste.”
“Like the leak in the roof?”
Her mouth compressed in annoyance. “Exactly. But Hank and Nora recommended Al to your parents, and so they decided to work with him. I think they were just trying to have the process go as smoothly as possible, but it bothers me because I can’t help but think there may be other issues with the house he may have missed.”
That sounded like my mother and Tom. Both of them were all about not making waves, so I could see why they would have gone with the owners’ recommendation for the home inspection.
“Well, let’s hope not,” I said lightly. “Still, it’s not Al’s fault that something supernatural may be going on with the house.”
