Ghost House (4 page)

Cooper was just a little puppy and had a very
sweet temperament. He was black with white paws and white on his
chest. Riley and Julia were in the backyard when the vet called
Sarah and said that Cooper was ready to be picked up. The dog pound
where they got Cooper had already given him the shots he needed to
have at his age, but Sarah wanted to make sure he was healthy. He
had a full checkup and had been microchipped in case he ever got
lost, he could be identified as their dog.

“Girls” Sarah called to Julia and Riley. “The
vet called, they are closing in ten minutes and we need to go pick
up Cooper.”

“My mom is on her way to get me right now,
Mrs. Gaunter.” Sarah could not wait until Victoria got there if she
wanted to bring Cooper home that night and Suzanne was already
pulling at her slacks telling her “let’s go mommy!”

Sarah looked at her daughter Riley and her
friend sitting on the picnic table in the backyard and thought
maybe it would be O.K. to leave them for just a couple of minutes.
The vet was only a half mile down the road. She told the girls
where she was going and that she would be right back and suggested
they go into the house until she got back. Both girls looked at her
as if she had grown two heads.

“Ma! We are not babies, you can leave us
alone for five minutes!” Riley said. “It’ll be fine, Mrs. Gaunter,
my mom runs to the store all the time and leaves me home.”

“If you are sure, I will be right back.”
Sarah said. “Go already!” the two teenagers laughed.

Sarah and Suzanne picked up the newest member
of their family and Suzanne held him on her lap as they drove home.
She was glad to see Jim was already home from work as she pulled
up.

“Where were you?” Jim asked, sounding
worried. “Look daddy! We picked up Cooper!” Susanne told her
father. Jim opened the sliding door and took the puppy out of his
daughter’s hands until she could get her seatbelt off. Cooper had a
leash on already, so Jim told his daughter to take him into the
backyard and let him get used to his new home. He then shut the
sliding door and sat next to Sarah in the front seat.

Sarah knew her husband well. “Jim, what is
it? Did something happen? Are Riley and Julia O.K.?”

“I haven’t seen Julia. Her mom must have
picked her up before I got home. How long have you been gone,
Sarah?”

Sarah looked at her watch. “Just about
twenty-two minutes exactly, the vet closed at five and Suzanne and
I made it in the door with only six minutes to spare. Why? Jim,
what is going on?”

Jim handed his wife a business card with the
name and phone number of a State Police Officer on it. “When I got
home, Riley handed me this card. She said that a car, not a police
car, just a regular one, stopped at the curb and asked if she lived
here and if her parents were home.”

Sarah’s heart started to beat faster. “Jim,
tell me, is Riley in the house? Is she O.K.?”

“Riley is fine.” Jim said. “I wish you would
have led off with that!” Sarah said, sounding sharper that she
meant to.

“They wanted to come in the house and said
they needed to speak with the owner and also anyone who might have
done any renovations or repair work here. They asked Riley how old
she was and that is when they told her that they would appreciate
her mother or father calling them to set up an appointment with
them. They stuck this card in the gate.”

“Why stick it in the gate?”

“Probably did not want to freak Riley out,
her being so young. I for one would not have liked her walking up
to the fence to take a card from some strange man’s hand.”

“Good point.” So now what? Sarah asked as she
looked over to see Riley and Suzanne playing with Cooper in the
yard.

“I first called the State Police, not the
number on the card, but their main number, just to make sure that
this guy does work for them. It’s legit alright. Then I called and
gave the information to the management company. I told them to let
us know what day they were coming out and that we would make the
house available to them.”

“What are they searching for, Jim? Do you
know?” “They never said.”

Suzanne and Riley were having fun with
Cooper. He was running all over the backyard and seemed to love his
new home as much as the girls loved him already.

They were standing by the back door watching
their new puppy play when they heard a very loud crash. Jim
immediately ran into the house and did a quick look into each room
and then went into the basement. He then came back outside.

“What was that? What fell?” Sarah asked.
“Nothing, nothing fell, nothing looks out of place. Don’t know what
that was.”

“This State Police business card has me
spooked, Jim. Girls, come in now.” Sarah and Suzanne had already
purchased a bed for Cooper after they picked him out at the
shelter. Suzanne put it at the foot of her bed and then laid on the
floor talking to her new pet, telling him all about their move from
Tennessee.

“Who did you talk to at the management
company, Jim?” Sarah asked her husband. “I forget her name,
why?”

“I need to talk to someone over there about
Mr. Witters. I am so sick of looking outside and seeing him in the
bushes or watering the flowers. He is here almost every single
day!”

“That is not right, we need to complain about
him.”

“Oh I will, but let’s let it slide for a
little bit. At least until we find out what this business about the
police searching the house is all about. Mr. Witters will have to
be there then and I would rather not get into a confrontation
then.”

“Sarah, if he makes you that uncomfortable,
I’ll make sure I talk to him personally.”

“It’s just that he is such a pest. He is
always here. I’ve seen him going into that garage. I know we don’t
use it, it’s so small it had to have been more for a motorcycle
than a car. But I don’t think he has a legal right to get into that
garage as long as we are renting the house from him, does he?”

“No, not without asking us first, or at least
giving notice that he wants to go in there. Come to think of it,
were we ever given a garage door opener for it? “Sarah thought
about it for a moment. “No, you are right, we weren’t.” “Another
thing for your list.” Jim said.

The sound of Cooper barking woke Jim and
Sarah up just past one a.m. Jim jumped out of bed to check the
house and Sarah went to Suzanne’s bedroom, which was directly
across the hall from hers and Jim’s. Suzanne turned over and
clutched Mr. Pickles to her, but she did not wake up.

Cooper continued to bark. Not the type of
sound that a dog might make when he is hungry or wants to be let
out. This was a ferrous sound, as if he were protecting the
household from imminent danger.

“Come here, boy, Cooper, come on.” Jim said.
Cooper stopped barking and walked over to Jim, turning his head
once to look behind him. Jim walked down the basement stairs to
make sure that Riley was in no danger. She appeared to be sound
asleep. Jim picked up their newest family member and carried him
back upstairs.

“What was it, Jim? Did you see anything?”
Sarah asked.

“No. Cooper was barking at the wall.” Jim
answered. “The wall? Do you think he heard a cat or some other
animal?” Sarah asked her husband, giving Suzanne a quick kiss on
the forehead and walking into the hallway.

“That’s the thing, it wasn’t an outside wall
that he was barking at. It was the wall between the living room and
the kitchen.” Jim said, petting Cooper’s head.

“I wonder what caused him to do that.” Sarah
said, taking Cooper and putting him back into his doggy bed.

“New home, new family, maybe he saw a spider
or something, who knows. Let’s get some sleep, it’s after
midnight.”

Jim called the number on the card for the
Michigan State Police and asked for the person’s name who was on
the card. They arranged for an inspection of the house the
following day. “Is there anything you can tell me about why you
need to get into the house?” Jim asked.

“We need to check a few things out. Have you
done any renovations to the house in the last couple of years?” The
office asked.

“We only moved in a couple of weeks ago, we
are renting the property.” Jim gave him the name of the management
company that they had gone through and also Joe Witters name.

“Do you have any heavy boxes in the closet or
anything else that we would have to move to do a complete
inspection?”

“No, just the furniture. Are my wife and
daughters expected to leave the house when you get here?”

“No, they can stay on the porch, it won’t
take us long. We will be there about 10am tomorrow morning.”

Sarah wasn’t happy when her husband called to
tell her about the conversation. “So we know nothing?” “No, but
maybe I can find something out. I have an old friend who used to be
on the Police Force downriver somewhere. Let me give Bob a call and
see if he can find anything about this for us.”

The Gaunter family spent a quiet evening. Jim
was reading, Riley was on the computer, Sarah and Suzanne were
making Freddie a new pair of pants. Suzanne reached down to pat
Cooper’s head. “It’s O.K. Cooper, you didn’t mean to rip Freddie’s
pants.”

Riley looked over at the new clothes her
mother was making for the doll. “Stripes? I didn’t know Freddie was
a clown.” She laughed. Suzanne yelled “You’re a clown, Riley!”

“Come on girls, no fighting. This is all the
material I could find around here. It’s a good thing Cooper didn’t
carry off Mr. Pickles, we wouldn’t have enough material to make him
new clothes.”

“Do you think I should take time off work
tomorrow when they come look at the house?” Jim asked his wife.

“Not really necessary, I thought you said
that they wanted us to stay outside then anyway. I will make sure
that they have a search warrant.”

“I would normally ask for one, but since we
just moved in and do not own the house. I thought it wasn’t really
necessary.”

“What is a search warrant?” Suzanne
asked.

“It’s a paper saying that a judge has O.K.’d
the police officers to come in and search someone’s house, store,
land, whatever they might own, because they are looking for
something or someone who is connected with a crime.” Jim told his
daughter.

Sarah explained further, “It’s for both their
protection and yours. If they come in and find something and do not
have a search warrant, then they cannot use it against you in
court. If you give them permission then they do not have to go
through the process of getting the warrant. But the main thing is
that they have to list exactly what they are looking for and are
supposed to only look for places that item could be.”

“Huh?” This from Riley.

“Say the police are looking for a person.
Then they open the drawers in your bedroom dresser and find
something illegal. Anything, drugs, guns, whatever. By law they
cannot use that against you or arrest you for having it.” Sarah
continued. “Because there is no way a person could have been hiding
in a dresser drawer, so under the rights of that search warrant,
they had no business looking into the drawer in the first place. Of
course, if you have something illegal just sitting around in plain
sight, then it is fair game. A lot of people ask the police if they
have a search warrant, but I don’t believe many people actually
read it as to what it allows them to search, but they should.”

“I guess they won’t have one then.” Jim said
to his wife. “Because I already gave them permission to search and
they haven’t even told us what they are looking for.”

“I wonder if they would have to have our
permission as renters, or just the owner’s permission. I guess it
does not matter now.”

Throughout her parent’s explanation Suzanne
had been sitting there deep in thought. “Freddie is a person and he
can fit in a drawer.” Then another thought came to her. “Wait, you
mean a bad man is hiding somewhere in our house?” Suzanne asked,
her eyes wide.

“Oh no, honey, no.” Her mother assured
her.

“I heard the lady next door say that that
Potter guy was in this house.”

“Potter guy? What are you talking about, when
did you hear someone say that?”

“I heard her when I was playing with Freddie
by my window. Is Harry Potter really somewhere in our house? I bet
that is who the police are going to look for!”

“You are so dumb, Suzanne. Maybe the clown
police are coming to take Freddie away for impersonating a clown!”
Riley said.

“Freddie is not a clown! Mommy, make Riley
shut up!”

Jim gave his older daughter a stern look.
“That is enough now. Go let Cooper out, he’s been good so far, but
you girls have to remember to let him outside to run around and do
his business more often than you have been.”

Riley and Suzanne both jumped up and ran out
the back door with Cooper happily following.

“Jim, I didn’t want to ask in front of the
girls, but were you able to get a hold of your friend Bob? Could he
tell you anything about this business?”

“Oh, yeah, I did. Bob said that he spoke with
someone and apparently they think that someone was killed in this
house, or killed somewhere else and was in this house for a while
after the murder.”

“And you didn’t think that was necessary to
tell me?” Sarah said, picking up her sewing and cleaning off the
table.

“Well, not like someone’s body is still
here.”

“Oh right, because THAT would be weird. I
don’t like this, Jim. I don’t like this one bit! That Joe Witters
guy always coming around and now this!”

“He still bothering you?”

“He does not knock on the door, he will just
appear in the backyard or in the front. Looking at something or
watering or weeding out something.”

“I’ll put a stop to it.” Jim promised. “I am
assuming he will be here tomorrow when the police do their
search.”