“Hey,” he said quietly.
“Hey,” Obadiah answered. Kylie smiled. Obadiah did not speak at all as one might expect a Puritan man to talk. He’d told her once that he’d been hanging around as a spirit much longer than he’d hung around in life and that it was easy enough to bring his use of the English language up to contemporary times.
“We need help,” Jon said simply.
“I know. I must start out by telling you that I only learned of the missing women through the television at a pub where I occasionally like to hang out. And while it never occurred to me to watch Brim House, I did see what happened with the woman stuffed into the giant jack-o’-lantern meant to designate stage left for the theater group.”
“Who was it?” Jon asked hopefully.
Obadiah was silent for a minute and then he said, “A werewolf.”
“A what?” Jon and Kylie said together.
“A man dressed up as a werewolf, anyway,” Obadiah said patiently. “I tried to follow him, but he ran through the shops. And while I would think that everyone would notice a werewolf, people have been dressing up here all month. I lost sight of him in the Pedestrian Mall on Essex Street. And since then, I’ve been hoping to find the truth behind the costume. But…I knew you would come.”
“You knew? But until Brenda called…” Jon began.
“Brenda?” Obadiah said. “Ah, the young woman who purchased Brim House?”
“Yes. She loves history. It was a dream come true for her to own the place,” Kylie explained.
“I saw the news today. They found a second victim and think it’s the missing tourist.”
“And some very, very old bones,” Jon said.
“Old bones? Interesting,” Obadiah said. “I’ll speak with some friends. I was dead by 1693…along with Elizabeth Brim and many others. Sarah Osbourne, Ann Foster… Even more died in prison because their debts couldn’t be paid. Elizabeth made it home, but her death is still directly due to the craze that swept through here—along with others, seldom mentioned. History and those who study it agree that twenty were executed—but I doubt anyone living today knows the true death toll because of the jails and the lack of sanitation, disease, and malnutrition.”
“Obadiah, we know what you suffered—”
“I’m not asking for pity. I was just explaining that I don’t know who the bones belong to. But I do have friends on this side of the field, more or less,” he said, grimacing ruefully. “I will do my best to see what I can discover.”
“What I would really appreciate is you making a few stops,” Jon said.
“A few stops?”
Jon smiled. “Places I can’t legally enter.”
“Ah. You have a suspect for me to spy on?” Obadiah asked.
“Several. I could be very wrong, but I think it’s someone who knows not only the house but also the history of it and more. They know what’s going on. When someone is there. When the sale took place. When to slip in and leave the corpse,” Jon said.
“The killer was dressed up as a clown this time,” Kylie said.
“So we’re looking for a clown and a werewolf. Could be one and the same,” Obadiah murmured. “Unless, of course, there is more than one killer.”
“I think the costumes put us in a very difficult position,” Jon said.
“Yes, indeed. Halloween—and a killer who loves dressing up. Hard to find among the hundreds who will be in costume for parties tonight, tomorrow night—and definitely on Halloween itself,” Obadiah said. “I will do what I can and speak with some friends. But is Brim House where you’d like me to start?” Obadiah asked. “I doubt they’ll put another corpse in the same place.”
“As of now—or at least that we know about—no one else is missing. Detective Ben Miller with the local police is working on some information regarding the victims. He feels they may have been targeted and were followed here to be killed in the confusion of Haunted Happenings. I don’t agree. I think they were victims killed while on vacation. Naïve and accepting of the wrong new friend. Or friends,” Jon told him. “And spying on the neighbors, well…that can’t hurt.”
“As you wish. But, remember, the first victim was found at the edge of a makeshift theater,” Obadiah reminded him.
“Something anyone might have seen as a good site to leave a body, and one to draw sensationalism,” Jon said. “But Brim House is different.”
“Different it is.” Obadiah smiled grimly. “I accept the mission. I will spy on those who share the street with Brim House.”
“And,” Kylie said thoughtfully, “maybe see if you can come up with anything that connects any of the people in the area today with those who owned the house in years past.”
Both Jon and Obadiah looked at her curiously. She shrugged. “People get things in their minds. Maybe they’re trying to take revenge for something that happened in the past.”
“Why would someone seeking revenge kill tourists?” Obadiah asked.
Kylie looked at Jon. “Maybe they live someplace else now but had ancestors who lived here?” she said, her words more of a question than a statement.
“Maybe,” Jon said quietly. “We’ll call the office. Ben is looking into the victimology, but Angela is darned good at finding details. Okay, so…”
“I don’t go into bedrooms,” Obadiah said.
Kylie smiled. For a minute, she could see him as a Puritan. He was dressed in the customary black breeches and jacket associated with the period, and his expression was stern.
“Good to know in case we’re fooling around at Brim House,” Jon said.
“Oh! More than you needed to tell me, sir,” Obadiah said.
“Hey! We’re married now,” Kylie said.
“Ah. Well, congratulations!” Obadiah said with pleasure. He lifted a hand in farewell and was off to follow his mission as he saw it. He paused and turned back.
“Still, I do not spy in bedrooms.”
He left them then. As Kylie watched him go, she thought that if others saw him, they’d think him dressed for Halloween and nothing more.
But others did not see him. They moved about the cemetery with guidebooks, seeking the famous—and the infamous.
She heard Jon on the phone and turned to look at him. He’d said that he would call Angela, and he’d wasted no time in doing so. But as he listened, he looked at Kylie with his face knit into something of a frown, his eyes intense.
She waited for him to finish.
“Jon?”
He let out a breath, shaking his head. “You should be an agent,” he told her.
“What? Why?”
“Angela was already checking on the victims—the police department got a positive ID. Ann Chester and Lily Franklin, both here from Indianapolis. They weren’t just friends—they were cousins. And their great-grandparents moved to Indianapolis at the beginning of the 1900s. Their great-grandmother—who moved the family to Indiana—was a descendant of Ezekiel Johnson.”
Kylie arched a brow in surprise. “But wouldn’t that make her a descendant of Mary Johnson, as well?”