Perry thought of Miss Dembecki prowling around in the gazebo. Surely not? Moran had escaped with his loot and had not met his violent fate till a few days later. And yet…? She had surely been searching for something -- and searching in such a way that seemed to indicate she didn’t want anyone to know she was hunting.

Unsurprisingly, the ghost of Shane Moran has also been said to prowl the dusty corridors of the Alston Estate. For information on these and other ghosts, check out New England’s High Spirits and Gay Ghosts.

Perry jotted down the dates in his notebook and read the article again.

So…the house was supposedly haunted? But regardless of what David Center thought, that had been no ectoplasmic manifestation in Perry’s bathtub. Center. Perry gave a little shiver as he thought of the other man’s clammy, cold hands reaching for his.

Leaving the stuffy little room, he went out for cocoa and a quick bite at a coffee shop down the street.

He was finishing up a grilled cheese sandwich and French fries at the counter, when he noticed a big man in a blue jacket showing a photo to the waitress. The woman shook her head, and Perry glanced at the photo with casual interest. He was too far away to see anything.

The man in the blue sports coat stared idly around the diner and noticed Perry’s interested gaze. His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening.

You got a problem?

He didn’t need to say the words aloud. His look said it all. Perry’s gaze dropped to his plate. He carefully selected a French fry as though planning to award a prize to the perfect potato wedge.

Was he a cop? Perry considered this possibility and then dismissed it. The man didn’t look like a cop. He looked like an ex-football player. Nobody’s nose started out in that mashed shape, and his narrow-set eyes had a mean does-not-play-well-with-others cast to them. Never mind football player, he looked like a thug -- a thug with a severely underdeveloped fashion sense. His coat was as ugly as the one worn by the dead man in Perry’s tub.

A light bulb went on. Maybe he was a P.I.

Then again, perhaps that was just a short in Perry’s thought process. Though the man looked like the down-on-their-luck private eyes in the pulp novels that he loved, it was doubtful that real P.I.s looked so stereotypical. All the same, could there be a connection between the men in the ugly sports coats? Could this guy maybe be looking for the dead man who had disappeared out of Perry’s bathtub?

Somebody must be looking for him.

Or was this all getting a little too Walter Mitty? There was no reason to believe the dead guy was either a cop or a crook. And as for the bruiser in the blue sports coat, the most likely explanation was he was a prospective buyer looking for a particular house in the area.

Anything else was pretty farfetched, right? Not everyone with criminally bad taste was a career crook. Perry turned the idea of a possible connection over in his mind while he continued to stare at his plate as though counting the remaining French fries.

At last the bruiser in the blue sports coat finished paying for his meal and let himself out the glass door with a jangle of bells. Perry turned to look through the window at the back of the out-of-towner disappearing down the tree-lined street.

“He’s a long way from home,” the waitress remarked to no one in particular.

“Where’s he from?” Perry asked.

She shrugged. “Sounded like New York to me. Buffalo maybe?”

“What was he looking for?”

“Who,” the waitress corrected. “Some girl who ran out on her husband. No one from around here, that’s for sure.”

Chapter Six

Returning to the newspaper office, Perry requested microfilm dating from 1930 from the bored Asian youth behind the desk.

The kid said, as though Perry should have known this before he wasted time asking, “He’s already using it.”

“He who?”

With a sigh, the kid shoved the clipboard Perry’s way. He read the tall, sloping letters: R. Stein.

The day was getting weirder and weirder. Mr. Stein had never struck Perry as a history buff -- let alone a believer in the supernatural. The fact that he was checking out microfilm from the 1930s had to be more than a coincidence.

So maybe Perry’s line of inquiry wasn’t so far off?

He asked the kid, who had returned to his Game Boy, “Do you know if the hard copies of this stuff still exist?”

“You mean the old newspapers?”

“Yeah.”

The kid shrugged. “Not here they don’t.” With a weary patience he pointed out, “That’s the point of the microfilm.”

“Do you know if the original copies were donated to the library? Or maybe one of the colleges?”

“Nope. No idea.”

Perry thought it over. “Could you ask someone?”

“There’s no one here to ask. Everyone is busy.” Shaking his head at the insensitivity of some people, he returned to the rescue of the heroes of Golden Sun.

Perry muttered thanks and departed. Walking across the half-empty parking lot, he tried to make sense of what he had learned. Rudy Stein was an ex-cop, so maybe there would be reason for him to check out a crime-related story, but surely the time frame put his inquiry in the more-than-suspicious-coincidence category.

But more-than-suspicious how exactly? Maybe Stein was a history buff. Maybe he was writing a book about the history of Fox Run. The truth was, Perry knew very little about his fellow tenants. Since he’d arrived at the Alston Estate a little over a year ago, his life had revolved around his painting and then his Internet romance with Marcel.

Stein could be writing a book about the colorful history of the area. Miss Dembecki could have been searching for a lost earring. Or perhaps they were both hunting for Shane Moran’s missing loot.

Or maybe Perry had read too many detective novels. Maybe Stein was taking a night school course. Maybe he was curious about the ghost stories too? Maybe, being an ex-cop, his instincts were aroused? Because sure as anything, something screwy was going on at the Alston Estate.

He stopped in his tracks as he realized that Stein would have seen Perry’s name on the clipboard when he went to sign out the microfilm.

Not that there was any logical reason for Perry hiding his interest in the history of the house. After his own experience he had every reason to be curious about any ghost stories concerning his current home.

All the same, Perry sort of wished no one at the estate knew he was checking into the house’s past.

Since Stein’s presence stymied his own investigation for the moment, he climbed back into his car and drove around the block to the library.

As he was supposed to be enjoying his preciously hoarded vacation time in San Francisco, his sudden appearance was met with universal surprise. Perry felt obliged to make up a story about sudden illness in his friend’s family, and his coworkers were suitably sympathetic for a couple of minutes before being distracted by the demands of the workday. Perry was glad he hadn’t confided the true romantic purpose of his trip. It was painful enough without everyone knowing he’d been dumped.

He declined the offer of rescheduling vacation for a later date and went into the back office to check his e-mail. He logged onto the staff computer with a feeling of nervous nausea.

Sure enough, there was an e-mail from Marcel.