Seven Turns: A Ghost Story/A Love Story

“That damn cat!” Joan was shouting. “That damn cat! Ian, when I get home, it had better be gone! Ow, my ankle! Watch it, you idiots!”

On the porch, Nell picked up Cyndi Lauper and clutched her to her breast, casting a pleading look toward Foster, who returned a look of distaste. He and Ian stood beside the stretcher: Ian was patting Joan’s hand, saying “Everything will be alright,” over and over in his calm, quiet voice.

The G. A. A. S. P. S. team was also walking in and out the door, bumping into the paramedics and adding to the confusion. They were carrying gear out and loading it hastily into their van. Cally guessed they wouldn’t be spending the night in the Wisteria Room after all.

“Everything is ruined!” Joan was lamenting. “That damn cat. Ow! Do you really have to do that?” The paramedics were tightening safety belts around her on the stretcher. As they did, they had to tuck a voluminous white garment around her. It took Cally a minute to realize it was not some hospital gown they had put over her, but that she was wearing a rather shabby looking old white ball gown which did not become her at all.

“The White Lady...” Cally murmured.

“Sure,” said a voice behind her. It was the leader of the paranormal team. “And we’re considering suing that old bat. Maybe this entire hokey establishment. We work hard to get the scientific community to take our work seriously. Charlatans like this, trying to make a fast buck by faking a haunting, just destroy our credibility.” He snorted and threw several loops of hastily wound extension cord into the van.

Cally left him and went toward the porch, where Sheriff Mahon was waving for everyone to gather. Nell stopped her at the bottom of the steps and wrapped her in a shaking hug that included an increasingly annoyed little calico cat.

“Please don’t let them hurt Cyndi!” she pleaded.

“Helen, I am sure your father would never let anyone hurt Cyndi, no matter what Joan says.”

“And anyway,” Nell said in a whisper, “it wasn’t Cyndi Lauper’s fault. It was Boo who tripped Joan.”

“And I thought Doctor Boojums died a long time ago.”

“Sure. He did. But you know. Um. Cats have nine lives...” She trailed off, glancing around nervously.

“I know.” Cally glanced, also, to make sure neither Foster nor Ian were listening. “I know Boo is a ghost. But how could a ghost trip a person?”

Nell shrugged. “He’s a cat,” she said matter-of-factly. “Cats can do whatever they want.”

Somehow, Cally didn’t doubt that. As the ambulance moved off across the lawn, followed closely by the G. A. A. S. P. S. van, she encouraged Nell to bring Cyndi Lauper up onto the porch with everyone else.

“She says she tripped over a cat at the bottom of the spiral staircase in her office,” Sheriff Mahon was saying. “Did any of you see this happen?”

Ian, the Captain, and Foster took turns trying to describe to Sheriff Mahon how the paranormal crew had spotted the White Lady on the Gallery, looking down at them from above while they ate, and how everyone had run upstairs in pursuit of her only to find her gone. They had checked all unlocked guest rooms and found nothing. Then they had heard Joan screaming in her office. “I had to get the key from the drawer to get in,” Katarina explained. “The door was locked.” They had burst in to find Joan, tangled in her white gown, at the bottom of the spiral staircase, cursing about the cat.

“It wasn’t Cyndi Lauper’s fault!” Nell pleaded to the sheriff, clutching the cat as if she expected him to clap handcuffs on its paws right then and there.

“Nobody blames the kitty,” Ian assured her. “Why don’t you let little Cyndi go, now?”

Nell reluctantly opened her arms and the little calico seized the opportunity to streak down the steps into the shrubbery. She ran, Cally noted, right past an old gray tomcat who sat cleaning his whiskers on the bottom step.

“If only cats could talk,” she muttered under her breath, earning a baleful glare from Doctor Boojums. Then she turned back to the sheriff and said “I imagine that oversized skirt contributed to her fall.”

“Possibly she was overmedicated as well,” Foster put in.

“What? No,” said Cally. “She wasn’t using it for herself, she was using it to drug Bethany.”

“Well, all that is still to be determined,” the Sheriff said, putting away his notepad. “Nobody is being accused of anything right now. I am on my way to the hospital to ask Joan some questions, so I’ll call you, Ian, as soon as I can and let you know how she’s doing.” He seemed about to say his goodbyes but Cally put a hand on his arm and said, “May I show you something first?”

He nodded and she led him into the house, then down the back hall into the kitchen. There, she headed for the drain board beside the sink where she had put the cup of suspicious tea, but it was nowhere to be found. “Damn! Kat must have washed it already. Why would she do that?”

“Not I,” said Katarina, coming into the kitchen closely followed by Ignacio and Foster. She asked them if they had done anything with the tainted tea cup, but they claimed no knowledge of it. In fact, Ignacio pointed out, the cup was missing altogether, and was not in the cupboard where it would have been returned after being washed.

“We’ll find it in Joan’s office, I’d be willing to bet,” Cally said.

“And why are you so sure Joan is up to no good?” asked the sheriff.

“Oh, she’s had it in for Bethany from the very beginning!” Katarina interjected. “She sees her as competition for Ian’s affections. As if Mr. May would ever take up with Joan!”

“But to drug her tea? That seems a little extreme.”

Even Cally had to admit this was true. “But Bethany did say the White Lady had been in her room, and this was just before I found that cup. Now that I think about it, I saw her – the so-called White Lady – myself a few times.” She told them about having seen a white skirt retreating up the stairway when Bethany had her accident. “I thought it really was that stupid ghost, at the time.”

“We should avoid jumping to conclusions,” said Sheriff Mahon, “until we know more. And I think I should talk to Bethany myself, as well.”

“Oh, please don’t upset her,” Cally said. “I don’t want to make her worry about someone being out to get her, while she’s helpless in bed.”

The sheriff assured her he would be the very model of discretion, and left the kitchen.

“Well,” Foster observed, “at least we know Joan won’t be able to be a danger to anyone now. Not for quite a while, anyway!” Everyone agreed that there was at least that.