The Ghost and Mrs. McClure

this terrible problem was started by an unfortunate event at one of the town’s businesses, I’d appreciate the owners of that particular business seeing to it that the cars of their customers stay out of the church lot.”

Rev. Waterman’s ice-blue eyes were staring directly at me and Sadie while he delivered his postsermon sermon. Other members of the congregation nervously peeked in our direction—with the exception of the Knitters for Charity Club, who openly glared—just to make sure we got the message.

Loud and clear, ladies!

(Apparently the Knitters had arrived at the church for their Saturday afternoon meeting to find the lot completely full. They were ready to kill—and a dozen pissed-off Presbyterian matrons armed with knitting needles can be as dangerous as your average weapon of mass destruction.)

By the time the service ended, I wanted to run for cover. Sadie, of course, was loaded for bear. Naturally, I was grateful to Fiona Finch for the distraction.

Despite my earlier misgivings, I was glad Spencer wasn’t with us today. Before I left for church, he was chauffeured to his cousin’s birthday party in Newport.

I knew from past experience that such an event would include a catered lunch; a series of children’s games organized and run by the McClure nannies; a hired magician; live music; a rented carousel; hot air balloon rides; three flavors of cake; and, once twilight descended, twenty minutes of fireworks that culminated in the birthday boy’s name written in lights across the sky.

I frankly wasn’t thrilled about Spencer going anywhere near his father’s family, but he wanted to go, and I really did feel guilty saying no. I still didn’t like the McClures. And I didn’t trust them. But they were Spencer’s relatives, and he had a right to see his cousins and spend a day playing with children his own age.

The weather was glorious, too. Except for the whistling wind, all evidence of last night’s storm was gone. The sun felt warm and pleasant as we strolled along Cranberry Street. Families and couples were drifting toward the common, already taking up benches for the free concert this afternoon in the band shell.

I’d heard some honking in the direction of the empty old Embry lot. The reason why would be apparent within the hour, but at that moment I was walking swiftly in the other direction, and my mind was elsewhere.

“What’s going on?” I asked Fiona.

Fiona shushed me. “Not yet,” she said with a hiss, her eyes darting suspiciously. “The wrong people might overhear us.”

So we continued our journey in silence until we heard a man calling: “Stop! Wait!”

We turned to find our fortysomething mailman, Seymour Tarnish, running toward us, gesturing wildly. By the time he got to our side, Seymour could hardly speak.

“I . . . was looking . . . for you.” His round face was flushed and covered with a sheen of perspiration. Bending at his thick waist, he leaned on his knees, gasping for air.

I was more than a little intrigued to discover what had gotten slow-moving Seymour excited enough to gallop like Seabiscuit down Cranberry Street.

“Simmer down, Seymour,” Aunt Sadie insisted. “You look like you’re having a heart attack.”

“We have to . . . get to . . . a television,” Seymour wheezed between gulps of air. “Pronto!”

“What’s this about?” Fiona demanded. She displayed little patience for Seymour’s antics—especially when they threatened to steal her own gossipy thunder.

“Rather not try . . . to explain,” Seymour replied, mop-ping the sweat from his receding hairline with the sleeve of his flannel shirt, “you . . . have to see for yourselves.”

“We can use the television in the common room,” Fiona said.

“Can you make it, Seymour?” Aunt Sadie asked.

“I’m fine,” Seymour said between gasps.

SITUATED AT THE end of a drive lined with hundred-year-old weeping willows, Finch’s Inn was a classic Queen Anne-style Victorian era mansion. And, as Fiona liked to point out, the Queen Anne style itself made its debut just next door, in Newport (the William Watts Sherman House circa 1874).

Four floors of rooms boasted breathtaking views of Quindicott Pond, a good-sized body of salt water fed by a narrow, streamlike inlet that raced in and out with the tides from the Atlantic shoreline miles away.

A nature trail, one of the favorites of birders in the region, circled the pond and stretched into the backwoods, following the inlet for about eight miles. The inn rented bicycles for the trail and rowboats for the pond, which was usually pretty well stocked with fish.

Although Fiona and her husband, Barney, had not yet found the resources to fulfill their dream of opening a gourmet restaurant, they ran a respectable inn with thirteen guest rooms, all boasting fireplaces and decorated with their own unique character.

The four of us climbed the six long steps and thundered across the wide, wraparound wooden porch, which sat upon a sturdy gray fieldstone foundation. Fiona and Barney had even repainted the place in its original, dark, rich, high Victorian colors: reddish-brown on the clapboards of the main body, and a combination of olive green and old gold on the moldings and the spindlelike ornaments that served as a porch railing.

Brick chimneys, bay windows, steep shingle-covered gables, and a corner turret completed the picture—and a pretty picture it was. I just loved the place.

“You know how to find the common room,” Fiona said as we walked through the stained-glass front door, the grand oak staircase greeting us like a solemn butler. “I’ll fetch the things I wanted to show you,” she tossed to me.

As Fiona headed for the carved mahogany reception desk just off the entryway, Sadie and Seymour rushed along the hall and into the great parlor, which occupied most of the left side of the mansion. I followed more leisurely, soaking up the turn-of-the-century touches: the striped gold wallpaper, dark wood moldings, and the required Victorian clutter, from colorful vases and dried flowers to various glass-fronted collector’s cabinets of tiny porcelain birds.

Then I came upon the portraits. Two large rectangular renderings in dark wood frames, surrounded by five oval-shaped gilt-edged miniatures. All of the oil paintings depicted the same woman—the enigmatic “Harriet,” the Finch Inn’s version of Beatrice, the solitary painter who’d occupied Newport’s Cliffside Inn at the turn of the century and left a thousand self-portraits upon her death.

Harriet McClure didn’t leave nearly so many paintings, more like a hundred, but it had, nevertheless, disturbed the McClure relatives enough to sell her mansion to the Finch family—though the McClures kept ownership of most of the grounds, along with their holdings in town and around the pond.

I’d never heard the whole story about Harriet. I just knew she’d lived alone for years, save for the housekeeper and caretaker, Barney Finch’s grandmother and grandfather. She was occasionally seen taking lone strolls around the pond, but other than that, she seldom mixed with any townsfolk.

Upon her mysterious death at age forty-five, a hundred self-portraits were found among her things in the upstairs rooms. The Finches hung a dozen throughout the house—the best of the lot, so the story goes. The rest they’d tossed onto the fire during a particularly hard winter.

“The pool of fire . . .” I murmured, suddenly remembering Rev. Waterman’s sermon.

I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne, and the scrolls were opened. Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged according to their deeds. . . . Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the pool of fire. . . .

As I stared at poor, dead Harriet’s brown eyes and upswept hair, her high white Victorian collar encircling her throat, I felt a shiver go through me—not unlike the shivers I’d felt in the bookstore—and I began to wonder. . . .

Given my strange experiences with the ghost of Jack Shepard, could there be more spirits hanging around Quindicott? And if there were, what were they hanging around for?

“The pool of fire is the second death,” I murmured. “The second death.” I stared hard at the portrait. I felt a little shiver go through me once more, but I heard no voice, saw no vision . . . and so I joined the others.

None of the inn guests were in the great parlor when I got there, which wasn’t a surprise on such a beautiful day. I sat on the smooth floral upholstery of the carved rose-wood and mahogany sofa, admiring the gilded ballroom