Lin put her hand on her cousin’s arm.  “You’re innocent.  They can’t arrest you for this.  There’s no evidence.”

Tears gathered in Viv’s eyes.  “I hate this whole mess.  What are the connections?  Are any of these things connected?  Hammond’s desire to buy my house, his murder, the ghosts.”  She looked at her cousin.  “Have you seen any more ghosts?”

“Only the times I’ve told you about.”  Lin was glad that she hadn’t had more visits from spirits.  She changed the subject.  “Did you get the wall fixed near the fireplace yet?”

Viv gave a long sigh. “It turns out there are boards and plaster over a hollow section in the wall.  The workman thinks there’s an old cupboard there that somebody closed up long ago.  He called it a parson’s cupboard, or something like that.”

A cold breeze washed over Lin’s skin and she gave herself a little shake.

        “He’s coming back to work on it.  Of course, it’s more involved than what was originally thought, which means more money than I originally thought.”

Lin nodded sympathetically and joked.  “Ah, the beauty of owning an antique home.”

They both chuckled.

The two girls sat in silence for several minutes, and then Lin said, “I guess I’ll head home and get cleaned up.  I think we need to go down to the docks and ask around about Greg Hammond.  See what we can find out.  Tomorrow morning before I start work, I’m going to drive out to Hammond’s landscape business and see if there’s anyone there I can talk to.”

“Be careful.  Text me and let me know what’s going on.”

The girls walked to the front of Viv’s house.  Lin gave her cousin a hug and then she and the dog walked up the sidewalk for home.

Chapter 10

The early morning sun peeking over the tall trees hit Lin right in the eyes as she drove toward Greg Hammond’s landscape business.  She pulled her sunglasses off the console and slipped them on.  As she predicted, her muscles were killing her from yesterday’s gardening.  She hoped they’d loosen up as she worked once she headed to her first client.  If her muscles stayed tight and sore, she was in for a very long day.

Nicky was in the passenger seat.  He had his paws resting on the armrest so he could move his nose up closer to the crack in the window.  Lin was afraid the dog would lose his balance and fall out if the window was down all the way, so she only opened it a couple of inches.

A sign on the left side of the road indicated Hammond Landscaping, so Lin turned her truck into the gravel lot and parked next to a small cottage that was used as the office.  Before getting out, she looked around the property.  Behind the office, there were several trucks parked beside four large greenhouses and a section of the space contained potted trees and plants lined up in rows.

No one was in sight so Lin and Nicky got out of the truck and walked to the office.  Expecting the door to be locked, she was surprised when she turned the knob and the door opened.  It was a small space with a couple of orange plastic chairs pushed against the wall near the entrance and a waist-high counter stood at the other side of the room.

“Hello?” Lin looked around the space.  There was a door to a back office with a sign on it that said, “Bookkeeping – Employees Only.”

No one answered.

An old wooden desk was placed against the wall behind the counter.  A calendar hung from a loose screw on the wall.  Next to a rusty metal lamp on the desk stood a gold metal nameplate with the words Greg Hammond, Proprietor engraved onto it and attached to a wooden holder.  Papers and folders were strewn over the desk’s surface with a stray pen and pencil and a few paper clips scattered here and there.

The door behind Lin opened with a thud causing her to jump.

“You need something?”  A tall skinny man with a dark tan and a scruffy beard stood just inside the open door.  His jeans and T-shirt had smudges of soil on them.  “The place is closed today.”

“Oh.”  Lin blinked.  “I didn’t see a sign.”

“That’s ‘cuz there isn’t one.  You a customer?”

“I wanted to buy some plants.”

“You can’t.  The place is closed.”  The guy narrowed his eyes at Lin and his creepy gaze gave her a shiver.

Nicky stepped around and stood in front of his owner to block the man from getting closer.

“Is Mr. Hammond around?”  Lin pretended she didn’t know anything about the events of the past few days.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.”  Lin feigned surprise.  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Greg is, too.”  The guy chuckled.  His open mouth showed missing teeth and the few he did have were broken, yellow, and crooked.

Sweat dribbled down Lin’s back.  She wanted to recoil from the awful man, but she kept her face neutral.  “Are you the manager?”

“I’m the worker.”

      Lin decided that this guy would be the first to go if she ran this landscaping business.  “Is the business being sold?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s handling the sale?”

“How do I know?”  The man’s voice was gruff.  “The lawyer, I suppose.  You need to go.  I got work to do.”

Lin started for the exit giving the rude employee wide berth.  “Come on, Nick.”  When she glanced down expecting the dog to be at her feet, Nicky wasn’t there.  She heard rustling behind the counter and hurried over to look.  The dog was snuffling under the desk and ignored Lin when she called a second time.

Walking around the counter, she bent to fish the dog out from under the wooden workspace.  Just as she lifted Nicky, her gaze spotted a book on the floor that must have slipped from the desktop.  When she read the title and author, she narrowed her eyes.

GhostMysteries of Nantucket by Anton Wilson.

A little shiver of unease washed over the young woman as she was about to carry her dog out of the office.  In her hurry, she almost bumped into a husky man who was entering the building.  The guy looked familiar to Lin.  He had a patch sewn onto his blue work shirt with the words Bill Ward, Manager - Hammond Landscaping embroidered on the oval.

“You need some help?”  The man looked at Lin with heavy-lidded, dark brown eyes.  His light brown hair was tinged with streaks of gray and his face was lined from years of outside work.  The manager eyed the guy standing just behind Lin.  “You got some work to do, Leonard?”

Leonard, the creep, slunk away to the back room of the office.

The manager kept his voice low.  “Leonard doesn’t have much in the way of social graces.  Can I answer any questions for you?”

Lin gestured to the retreating Leonard.  “He said the business is closed.”

“Just for today.  We’re doing inventory.  The business is in the process of being sold, hopefully to me.  Right now, we’re reorganizing and finishing up the contracts we already have.  In a couple of weeks, I’ll be able to start taking new business.”

“I’m interested in having some stonework done in my yard.  A walkway and some stonewalls.”  Lin made this up and she had no intention of hiring Hammond Landscaping.  “I’ve heard good things about your work.  I wondered if I might get a few customer names so I could speak with them about the work that was done for them.”

“Sure.”  The manager led Lin back inside the office.  He moved to the desk and the toe of his boot hit Anton Wilson’s book that was resting on the floor.  He bent and picked up it, placing the book facedown on the desk.  He pulled open a file cabinet that stood to the left of the desk and he rummaged through some files.  When the manager found what he was looking for, he wrote three names, addresses, and phone numbers on a piece of paper which he handed to Lin.  “These folks don’t mind being contacted for testimonials.”