I went back to the Chronicle, where I began to write an article about the two recent burglaries. I was nearly finished when the phone rang.
“More cancellations?” I asked Cassie as she gestured for me to pick up my extension.
“Nope. It's that strange lady from Gettysburg.”
“Moonbeam,” I said into the receiver. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not at all. In fact the news is great. Dad's doing so well, he may be out of the hospital by the end of this week.”
“Super! I'm delighted.”
“Tori, I told him you saved his life, and he's anxious to thank you. Can you come today? He's allowed to have visitors between two and four.”
“I'll be there,” I promised. To keep myself awake until then, I threw myself into the task of changing the farmers’ advice column from Lickin Creek lingo to English.
“Is you'uns singular or plural?” I asked.
“Usually plural, but it is often incorrectly applied to a single person.” That rasping voice certainly didn't come from Cassie. I looked up, startled, to find Helga Van Brackle standing in the doorway, holding a small cardboard box.
“Come in,” I said. Where the heck was Cassie? My unspoken question was answered when the rest room door opened.
“Please sit down.” I moved a pile of books from the guest chair.
Helga frowned and sat on the edge as if she feared something would rub off on her tailored black suit. She placed the box on my desk. “Home-made sticky buns,” she said. “My thanks for your part in finding Mack's killer.” She opened her purse and pulled out an envelope. “This check is from the college-a small thank-you.”
“I already told Doctor Godlove I wouldn't accept a check. If you insist, I'll donate it to the Salvation Army in the name of the Chronicle.”
She dropped it on top of the box of sticky buns. “I really don't care what you do with it, Tori. I'm only the messenger. I'm afraid we've had a few more difficulties, and I'm here on behalf of the college to ask for your participation in another event.”
I sat back as if confronted by a cobra. “The last time I participated in an event at the college, it turned out to be a disaster, Helga, as you well know. I don't want to get involved with anything there, again, ever.”
She waited without saying anything, and after a minute my curiosity got the better of me. “What kind of difficulties?”
“As I'm sure you know, this is the week we hold our annual fund-raising tour. It begins on Tuesday night and runs through Saturday.”
“I didn't know.”
“Silly me, I forgot you're not local.” She gave a little deprecating laugh, which made me want to slug her.
Cassie piped in with an explanation. “People pay five dollars to have students dressed in costume take them through the oldest buildings on campus and tell them ghost stories. It's all done by candlelight and very spooky. It's an ‘old’ tradition that started about ten years ago. I think the college is trying to capitalize on the popular ghost tours of Gettysburg.”
Helga took exception to that last statement. “Our campus has been haunted as long as the battlefield. We just haven't made a big deal out of it.”
“I was mistaken for the ghost of a nun once,” I said.
“I can't imagine why.” Helga stared pointedly at my jaunty red, white, and blue outfit with the nautical theme that had looked really cute in a Provincetown secondhand store window two summers ago.
“So you're telling me that the college does a Halloween ghost tour to raise money, and…”
Helga gasped. “Not Halloween! Lickin Creek does not, I repeat, does not celebrate that Satanic ritual.
And, of course, we at the college respect that. We call it the Harvest Time Legend Tour.”
Impatiently, I asked again, “What kind of difficulties?”
“Lizzie Borden quit last Friday.”
“You mean you now have no PR department?”
“Not until Janet returns from maternity leave. And she says she's not coming back one day early! President Godlove suggested you might take over Lizzie's duties during the tour.”
“Isn't it a little late to be organizing something that's taking place this week?”
“Everything is ready to go. But we need someone in the administration building to supervise the students, make sure the ticket taker is on the job, keep things moving smoothly.”
“So get a faculty member to do it,” I said, turning back to my desk.
“We're spread as thin as butter on hot toast right now. There are no faculty members available.” She paused. “That does give me an idea. We like to have someone well known play a ghost every year. I suppose we could switch the head of the music department over to supervisor, and you could take her part. She wasn't keen on being in costume, anyway.”
“Now you're talking. I was once the lead in Blithe Spirit in high school.”
Helga stood up and brushed more imaginary dust from her skirt. “Then that's settled. I'll see you there Tuesday evening at six.”
She'd outwitted me, I realized, and had gotten exactly what she'd come for. Flattery gets me every time, and I liked the idea of being “well known.”
“I'll send a student over to your house with your costume. You'll probably have to shorten it.” She strode to the door, then paused and said, By the way, have you turned up anything new about Mack's death?”
“No. President Godlove told me the investigation was over and I should stop looking into it.”
“He doesn't really believe it was an accident, does he?”
“I don't know what he really believes. All I know is what he told me, and that was he was satisfied with the coroner's report and Woody Woodruff's arrest.”
“He's an idiot.”
Cassie started to laugh, then covered her mouth.
“He certainly is. I should have been named president. I'm far better at fund-raising than he will ever be. Besides, I'm a woman, and it's a women's college. The position should have been mine. Everybody knows that. I was next in line, and I was better qualified to run the college than the outsider they brought in.”
“What happened?”
“The trustees didn't show good judgment. That's what happened. I'll see you on Tuesday.”
A few minutes after she left, I turned to Cassie and asked, “What's the real story?”
“According to the Grapevine, Helga and Mack had a longtime relationship that ended abruptly when he went off to learn sign language and came back married to his teacher, Charlotte. In anger, Helga said some nasty things about his new wife, and they got back to him.”
“Like what?”
“She called Charlotte a gold digger. Said the only reason a young, attractive woman would marry an ‘old fart like him,’ her words, was to get her hands on his money.”
“If Helga thought Mack was an old fart, why did she want him?”
Cassie grinned. “Who knows? Besides, time has definitely proved her wrong. Charlotte has always been a devoted wife to Mack, even after he lost most of his money in that shopping center deal gone wrong last year. To me, that proves she married for love.
“Anyway, when Helga's name came up as the perfect candidate for college president, Mack persuaded the board of trustees to look elsewhere. He said a lot of things about her that later proved not to be true, but it was too late. Godlove was already on the job.”
“Do you think Helga was angry enough to want him dead?” I mused.
“It happened a while back. I doubt she'd hold a grudge that long.”
“From the way she talked, it sounded like more than a grudge, Cassie. I wonder what Helga knows about firearms.”
“Really, Tori. You're beginning to sound obsessed. The college has moved on, Mack's family has moved on. Don't you think you should too?”