The bartender motioned me in. “What can I get for you?” he asked.
“The owner, actually. I have an appointment to talk to Louise Haymer.”
“Oh right, you’re from the ghost-busting company?” he asked, looking hopeful.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m from Conjure Ink. We’re a paranormal investigations agency.”
“Have a seat in one of the booths and I’ll get Louise for you.” He headed toward the door warning people to stay out.
I sat down in a booth center to the bar. While I waited, I closed my eyes, seeking out any disruptive energy I could find, an action I quickly regretted because something took the opportunity to slam through my stomach with the force of an elephant.
“What the…” My eyes flew open as I grabbed the edge of the booth, wincing. Not only did my stomach hurt, but a headache knifed my temple. Both hit so quickly and so hard that at first, I thought I was going to throw up. But I managed to ride the wave as both pains lessened.
“Oh, dear.”
I hadn’t even noticed the woman walking up to the booth, but by the look on her face, she could tell something had happened.
“Are you all right?” she asked, sliding into the booth and extending her hand. “I’m Louise Haymer. Thank you for coming today.”
I shook her hand. “May I have a glass of water?”
“Of course. Would you like coffee? A muffin?”
“Just some sparkling water and…a muffin would probably help.” Often, simple carbs helped my stomach—or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
After the bartender brought over a bottle of Terina Sparkling Water and a blueberry muffin, I gave Louise my full attention.
“So, tell me, how long have you owned the Spit & Whistle Pub?”
“Two years now. I sank every penny I had into it, and I can’t afford to go under. I’d be ruined. We do run a good crowd, but when we started renovations, things began to happen. Then two weeks ago, they took a dramatic turn for the worse.”
I frowned, looking around. “Why don’t you tell me about what you’ve noticed? Start from the beginning. Was there anything out of the ordinary when you bought the bar?”
She shrugged. “The owner was anxious to sell. He said that his family didn’t like the restaurant business and his wife was threatening to leave if he didn’t sell. I asked why, but he would only say that she didn’t want to live her life taking care of other people. It sounded forced, though, but I wanted the bar enough to brush off any doubts. And the inspector said that, although work would be necessary to bring the restaurant up to code, it was basically in good shape and a good deal for the money. So I bought it. I’ve got a background in restaurant management and I know the vagaries of the business.”
I was taking down notes, even though I had set up the digital recorder, keeping mindful of Hank’s warning. “When did you first notice things happening?”
“They started just a few weeks after I took possession. They were small things at first. My keys would disappear and then show up somewhere else in the bar. Down here in the bar, we’d hear footsteps from upstairs when nobody was supposed to be up there. Shadows would appear where there shouldn’t be any. But nothing felt dangerous, just a little spooky.”
“When did that change?”
“Near the end of last year, we had renovation work done. The city had given me a grace period in which to get the business established, but I needed to re-do some of the plumbing and some retrofitting down in the basement. We had to break into one of the basement walls for the plumbing and when we did that, we found a secret room. There was nothing in there, but the room felt…weird. After that, the manifestations picked up, and became more aggressive.”
A secret room? That almost always led to trouble. There was always a reason the room was hidden away and most often, it wasn’t good.
“What kind of manifestations?” I asked.
Louise shrugged. “The shadows began to take form. At least four of us have seen a shadow man creeping around—myself, Jim—the bartender—and Rony and Sandra—two of our waitresses. Whenever he appears, the temperature drops at least fifteen to twenty degrees and I get a tight feeling in my gut. I know he’s evil. I can feel it.”
“What else has happened?”
“One of our other waitresses, Merry, developed a severe ulcer but the doctors couldn’t figure out why. She also has developed heart pains.”
“Was she sick before she came to work here?”
“No, she’s always been the picture of health. Then last week, she was headed down to the basement for a new bottle of scotch for Jim, when something shoved her. She was only a few steps from the bottom, but she still faceplanted on the concrete floor. She scraped her face and broke her wrist when she landed.”
This was shaping up to be bad. I could feel the energy Louise was talking about while just sitting there in the booth. “About the ulcer—does Merry have any underlying issues? High stress at home, perhaps?”
Louise shook her head. “No, she’s newly married and happy about it. Oh, another thing—the glasses have started flying off the shelves. Chairs slide across the floor when nobody’s near them. A few customers have witnessed apparitions, and one of my regulars said that something goosed him in the restroom. There was nobody else there. And one of the things that has scared me most—in the kitchen, last week, a knife flew off the counter and barely missed me. It landed in the wall next to me, and stuck there.”
“And nobody could have thrown it?”
“No,” she said. “It was early morning, before anyone else was here. Sal—the first-shift cook—says that burners have turned on by themselves. I noticed that as well. A week ago I came down in the middle of the night because I thought I heard something. All the lights were on in the kitchen, and every burner was on. The place was locked up tight. Since then, I’ve been coming down twice a night to check the kitchen. I’m terrified the place is going to go up in flames.”
I stared at my notes, thinking this wasn’t going to be easy. What happened at the asylum seemed like a piece of cake compared to what Louise had going on.
“Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. I’ve heard someone calling my name several times, but nobody’s around. And last week, I went to my doctor and he took an x-ray. I don’t smoke, I don’t hang around smokers, I have no family history of lung cancer, but he was worried that I might have the beginnings of lung cancer. The x-ray was clear, but I seem to have developed asthma over the past month.” She stared down at her hands as she worried a napkin. “I’m afraid that somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“Right,” I said. “Well, why don’t you show me around? We’ll do our best to take care of this, but first we have to figure out what it is we’re up against.”
Louise led me toward the kitchen first. As we entered the room, the smells of lunch hung heavy in the air, making my mouth water. I looked around. The cook was sitting on a chair to one side, reading. A young man whom I assumed was the busboy was busy rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher.
As I looked around, I became aware of a looming cloud that seemed to hang over the room. Something was watching us and their presence became more apparent the longer I stood there.