Town Haunts (27 page)

“Tell us about
Henry,” Erna coaxed.

“After Henry
threatened Frank at The Diner, he ran across the street to his old
store, still angry about the cleansing ritual. Tiernay wasn’t there
‒ she told Steve that she never knew Greg was helping Henry ‒ but
Greg was. Henry told Greg that if he didn’t help, he would tell the
police about meeting him through his jailbird friend. It might not
seem very incriminating to us, but Greg didn’t want any attention
from the local police. Flying under the radar was critical to his
operation. So he agreed to hide Henry in his basement until he
could smuggle him out of town and into Calgary. Remember, the
police were searching for Henry after he attacked Frank. But then
Henry found out about the counterfeiting business and made things
worse by wanting to be cut in. Greg kept him happy showing him how
to counterfeit ten-dollar bills, but they were unusable, so Greg
salted a couple of them at the store to incriminate Sherman. He
figured that the police were already suspicious of Sherman with his
old trouble at the bank, so if Sherman got arrested, well, that
would keep him away from the cemetery permanently.”

“Let me get
this straight,” May said. “Greg was on my stairs hoping to scare
Sherman?”

“That’s
right.”

“And on your
front lawn?”

“Yes, that was
Greg and his computerized special effects. That, and the recorded
music from Evelyn’s box.” Anna shivered, remembering how effective
Greg’s ghostly show had been. “You see, Greg and I had just spoken
that day concerning how worried Tiernay was over not holding
another séance. Stupidly, I told him that I thought the key to the
ghost mystery was in the cemetery, that maybe someone was using it
to sell drugs and keeping Sherman away by frightening him. Greg
offered to talk to Steve about it, but of course he never did.
Instead, he decided to keep me away from the cemetery by giving me
a healthy fear of ghosts.”

“Diabolical,”
Erna said.

Anna nodded.
“By then, Henry had abandoned his car outside of Calgary, and Greg
had driven him to Cabrero’s house. Cabrero bailed Henry out of jail
after he turned himself in, and brought Henry back to Crane in time
to help with the summoning ritual in the cemetery.”

“That was Henry
dressed up as Evelyn’s ghost?” May asked.

“Partly. The
ghost’s appearance on Evelyn’s grave was more of Greg’s special
effects, but the ghost who ran after me was Henry. He was hiding
nearby and took off after me when I ran. Everyone was so
distracted, they didn’t realize that they hadn’t seen Evelyn’s
ghost actually leave the circle.”

“How did Henry
stop Steve?” May asked.

“Taser. It
brought him down when Steve was getting too close, but the blow to
his head from falling into the tree was the icing on the cake. It
affected Steve’s memory enough that he didn’t realize he’d been
tasered.”

“Did Henry
taser Greg, too?” Erna asked.

“No, Greg faked
his reaction. All he had to do was fall down when Henry pointed at
him and pretend to be unconscious. When the doctor couldn’t find a
medical reason for Greg’s condition, we were supposed to chalk it
up to Evelyn’s evil powers.”

“And Tiernay
didn’t know anything about this?” Erna asked.

Anna shook her
head. “No, she thought it was all real. That’s why this is so
difficult for her to take in. She truly believed that Evelyn’s
ghost talked to her at the séance, although Greg had her convinced
beforehand that Evelyn had been murdered, and that her ghost was
looking for revenge. It was all part of his scheme.”

Erna shook her
head and sighed. “His own sister.”

“Hey, what
about the attack on Judy?” May asked.

“That was Henry
again,” Anna replied. “And that was the beginning of the end for
him. He enjoyed playing the ghost in the cemetery so much that he
took it upon himself to frighten Judy to take his revenge upon
Frank. But Cabrero thought Henry had gone too far. Up until then,
the ghostly scares could pass as Halloween pranks, but going after
someone with an axe draws police attention. Plus, Cabrero thought
Henry was emotionally unstable and worthless as a counterfeiter, so
he decided to get rid of him. Henry came along with Greg for a
meeting with Cabrero on Friday night, and Cabrero garrotted him.
Greg swore that he didn’t know Cabrero’s intentions ahead of time,
but who can say?” She shrugged. “But it was Greg’s idea to hang the
‘murderer’ sign on Henry’s body afterward to further confuse
things. It was all smoke and mirrors with Greg. He saw himself as a
gentlemen thief, and counterfeiting as just another art form, but
being an accessory to Henry’s murder was too real for him. He
realized how dangerous Cabrero was, and when things came to a head
last night in the cemetery, he decided it was time to get out. But
Tiernay wouldn’t go with him, so he had to risk her going to the
police.”

“And Greg left
you there to be murdered,” Erna said with a forbidding look in her
eyes. “Gentleman thief or not, he dammed himself to eternal
hellfire when he left you there to die.”

Anna looked at
her friend and knew that Erna truly believed what she had just
said. Erna had a fundamental faith in right versus wrong, good
versus evil, and justice for justice’s sake, and she was passionate
about her values.

The ridiculous
thing in all of this was that part of Anna felt sorry for Greg.
Greg had some grandiose illusion about himself that didn’t include
anyone getting hurt, but Cabrero had forced him to leave her in the
graveyard to die. On the other hand, Anna vividly remembered her
absolute terror as the wire had slipped around her neck and
tightened. If it hadn’t been for Sherman, she knew that she would
not have survived her encounter with Cabrero. Aside from that,
there was a callous indifference in Greg’s treatment of Sherman,
terrifying the poor, tormented soul just so that he wouldn’t
witness Greg’s criminal activities, that was difficult to
forgive.

But, maybe
Sherman wasn’t such an innocent victim after all? Was it true that
he had he murdered Evelyn? Since he had been in the middle of a
heart attack, his admission in the cemetery was the equivalent of a
death-bed confession, wasn’t it? She would have to find out the
truth before she could close the book on this ordeal.

“What are you
thinking, Anna?” Erna asked, studying her friend. “You have the
most peculiar expression on your face.”

Anna smiled and
turned to Erna. “Probably just a trick of the firelight. I’m
starving. When will supper be ready?”

It was Wednesday,
Halloween night. Anna welcomed the trick-or-treaters who arrived at
her door at six and handed out candy for a half-hour after that,
but she turned out the lights and locked the door at six-thirty.
She was going to the hospital for visiting hours. It was time for a
talk with Sherman.

After parking
her car in the visitor’s lot, she hurried down the hospital
corridor to his room, wondering what she would do if May were
there. Erna had told her that May had visited Sherman every day for
the four days he had been in the hospital, but she usually came
during the day and was back at Erna’s house in time for supper, so
it probably wouldn’t be a problem. All the same, when Anna rounded
the corner and peeked into Sherman’s double room, she sighed with
relief. Sherman’s roommate was engrossed with two little girls in
fairy costumes while a young woman, probably their mother, smiled
from her chair. The chair beside Sherman’s bed was vacant, and he
was smiling at his roommate’s adorable visitors. The smile faltered
when Anna stepped through the door.

“Hi, Sherman,”
she said, walking up to his bed. “I thought a chrysanthemum might
brighten up your room.”

“Thanks, Anna.
Good of you to come,” he responded, taking the yellow-and-orange
potted plant from her hand and setting it on his tray. “Have a
seat.”

Anna set her
coat on the back of the chair, dropped her purse onto the floor,
and sat down.

“How are you
feeling?” she asked with a bright smile.

“Good. I’m
going to be discharged on Friday.”

“Great. Glad to
hear it. What are your plans for after that?”

“I’m going back
to my house. May said that she and Erna would look in on me every
day.”

“Oh, that’s
good,” Anna said, her head bobbing up and down. She glanced at the
young family at the next bed, wondering how she was going to
introduce the topic she so wanted to discuss. Sherman was watching
her warily when she looked back, and she decided that now was as
good a time as any to broach it.

“Listen,” she
said, leaning toward him, “I wanted to tell you how beholden I am
for what you did for me in the cemetery. I wouldn’t be here if you
hadn’t saved me.” Sherman nodded, a smile of relief flickering
across his face. “By the way,” she added, “what were you doing in
the cemetery that night?

Sherman didn’t
answer for a long time. Finally, he said, “Look, Anna, would you
mind drawing the curtain around the bed? We need to talk in
private.”

“Sure,” Anna
said, getting up to do as he requested, but knowing that the flimsy
curtain gave only the illusion of privacy.

Sherman waited
until she was reseated before he started talking. “I was in the
cemetery that night because I knew something was up when they found
Henry on my front lawn,” he said in a low voice. Anna drew her
chair closer, not wanting to miss a single word.

“See, Father
Winfield was keeping me up to date with the town news while I was
hiding out at the parish house. It made no sense to me. I could
understand Evie’s ghost looking for me at May’s apartment, but why
would she come after you at your house? She didn’t even know you
when she was alive. And taking an axe after Judy? Evie would never
have done that ‒ she was too much of a lady. Plus, I knew someone
was trying to frame me for the counterfeit money at the store.”
Sherman shook his head. “Something was up, and it wasn’t a ghost. I
might have my bad moments, but I’m not stupid.”

“How long were
you in the cemetery before you found me?”

“Not long. I’d
walked the ring road, watching for anything unusual. When I got to
the back gate, I found it open with a car parked just inside. I
knew someone was up to no good, so I went to the tool shed to get
my shovel. I thought I’d better have something with me, just in
case. I went to Evie’s grave because that’s where I’d seen the
lights the first night, and then I heard you scream. I ran toward
you as fast as I could. That Cabrero fellow was trying to strangle
you. It was lucky for me that you broke away from him. Gave me a
better shot at hitting him without hurting you.”

“Lucky for me,
you mean,” Anna said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “But
Sherman, I’ve got to ask. What you said to me after your heart
attack.” She bent down and whispered, “When you said that you’d
murdered your wife ‒ was it true?” She tried to look into his eyes,
but he turned his face away.

“Yes, it was
true,” he said, the words dragged from him.

“But how did it
happen?” Anna asked, still holding his hand. “You seemed to love
your wife so much.”

“I did,”
Sherman said, gazing back at Anna. “I didn’t mean to kill her. Evie
and I didn’t always get along, that was true, but I’d never hurt
her. First, there was the trouble at the bank. Things had never
been easy for her parents, but Evie thought they could make
improvements to the farm and turn it around enough to sell it.
Problem was, they didn’t have the money. They’d applied for a loan,
but the farm already had two mortgages on it. That’s when Evie
convinced me to falsify their assets and approve the loan. As the
manager, I was able to get away with it. But then her parents
started missing payments, the loan came due, and they couldn’t pay.
I changed the term date on the papers, but I was found out. I
cashed in all our personal investments to pay off the loan so that
her parents wouldn’t lose the farm, but the bank still fired me.
Evie was so angry when I lost my job, but she couldn’t blame it on
me.” He shrugged. “I started drinking, we lost our house, the kids
got upset, and . . .”

Sherman paused,
looking away until he could master his emotions. Anna patted his
hand and waited.

“We hit rock
bottom when we moved into the house next to the cemetery. Evie
wanted us to move to Calgary instead, but I just didn’t have it in
me to start over again. I was in pretty rough shape back then.
Anyway, I came home that day to get a sweater, and when I went up
to the bedroom, I saw that Evie had cleared her things out of the
closet. There was a note taped to the door saying that she couldn’t
stand it anymore, and that she was leaving me. I went down to the
kitchen and had a drink or two to steady myself, and then I decided
to try to talk her out of it as soon as she got off work. It was
getting late, and I was afraid that Evie might have already left by
the time I got there, but the door to the town office was unlocked.
I went inside. She wasn’t at her desk, but the light was on in the
basement, so I went to the top of the stairs to see what was
happening. She was coming up, carrying her old suitcase. I asked
her what she was doing down there. She said she’d hidden her
suitcase in the basement because she didn’t want the other ladies
to know that she was leaving me. I begged her to give me one last
chance, but she said she wouldn’t. She tried to push past me, I
grabbed her suitcase, we struggled, and she fell.”

Sherman paused,
covering his face with his hands. Anna heard him sob. She waited a
long time for him to regain control, the broken man’s breath coming
in and out in gasps. Finally, he took a deep breath and laid his
hands on top of the bedclothes.

“I ran down to
have a look at her, but I knew that she was gone. Her neck . . .”
His voice caught, and he hesitated a few more seconds. “I sat there
on the steps for a long time. I realized how it would look when the
police arrived. My Evie was gone, and there was nothing anyone
could do for her. So I took her suitcase and left her lying there.
I locked the office door and went home. I hung her things back up
in the closet, tore up her goodbye note, and flushed the pieces
down the toilet. And then I got well and truly drunk.”