Curious Mist

Short story about a woman needing an investigator to figure out what is causing curious happenings in her home.

She winced as he leaned back in his antique wooden office chair; the squeak reverberating in her ears.

"So, what can I do for ya, doll?" The man, a grey suit hanging on his thin frame asked.

She watched warily as he placed the heels of his size eleven wingtips on the edge of the scratched desk, crossed his ankles and lit a cigarette.

"I hear you're the best," Yvonne Hyland stated. Plucking a silver nameplate from atop a stack of books, the young woman ran a manicured fingernail along its engraving.

SEBASTIAN KELLEY, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

A ring of smoke encircled the man's greasy black locks and slowly dissipated throughout the small, dimly-lit room.

"Don't wanna toot my own horn ..." Sebastian grinned and shrugged lazily.

Yvonne crossed her long legs nervously, rubbing her moist palms on her tight black skirt.

"So's your husband or boyfriend carousing with another dame?" The P.I. leaned forward, crushed his cigarette butt into an ash-laden tray and licked his chapped lips. "Or ya got an enemy you wanna get some dirt on and get sweet revenge?"

Shuffling coffee-stained papers, Sebastian Kelley discreetly ogled his potential new client's cleavage. The woman had to be at least twenty years his junior and quite stunning.

Yvonne noticed the man's roaming eyes and batted dark lashes seductively. "No, no, nothing like that, Mr. Kelley. I have no boyfriend, no husband either." She opened her pocketbook, extracting a thick wad of hundred dollar bills. "And, I have no enemies, at least not to my knowledge."

The man's mouth began to salivate at the smell of the cash that was being pushed across his desk. His stubbled chin quivered. "So, why ya here, toots?" Sebastain tapped his wrist watch. "Time is money."

"I need to have, well, an investigation done."

Loosening his tie, the investigator laughed; an awkward, false and forced sound. "You've come to the right place, babe. Gimme details. I'll give you a price."

Rising from her cracked leather chair, Yvonne walked to the smudged window and looked out upon the city of Hannity Falls. She had never wanted to move to this place. She had never wanted the house, the memories; the hassles.

"I've inherited a home from my grandmother who recently passed away, Mr. Kelley." She touched the pane with her forehead as she watched a teenage boy and his hound dog cross the street and amble down the sidewalk. "Something is going on inside the house and I'm terribly frightened."

Sebastian's thick brows connected curiously and he lit another cigarette. "What kind of 'something'? Like a Peeping Tom?" He wouldn't have blamed any man for coveting the woman's hour-glass figure.

"Inside the house, Mr. Kelley." Yvonne's inflection was shrill as she turned back in Sebastian's direction. "It's happening mainly at night but is beginning during the day as well. I would sell the house and move on but my grandmother's will stipulated that I must live in the house until I marry or forfeit the one million dollars she also left in my name."

Sebastian placed his feet firmly on the floor and stood up quickly; clumsily. "You tellin' me you got a house and a million bucks and you get the million bucks when you get married?" He looked up and down the length of Yvonne's body, lingering for brief moments at each curve; imagination running rampant. "Piece of cake. So, what's the problem?"

"You don't understand, Mr. Kelley. I'm well, not the marrying kind." Yvonne crossed the room, returning to the leather chair.

"So, you're...?"

"Yes," Yvonne interrupted the investigator with an affirmative nod. "My grandmother never approved of my lifestyle and this, in a way, is her last attempt to convince me to be, in her words, 'society normal'." Digging through her pocketbook, she extracted a wadded Kleenex and dabbed at her ocean-blue eyes. "But I can't stay in that house."

"Explain what's goin' on that's creepin' you out." Sebastian grabbed a notebook and leaned on the desk's edge.

Shredding the Kleenex in her long fingers, Yvonne Hyland described items that had been moved in the Victorian-style home on the outskirts of the city. Books that she was certain she had left on the kitchen counter, wet laundry strewn throughout the house and an old handmade quilt tucked between tree limbs in the backyard had her mental state on edge.

Sebastian laughed hoarsely and began to cough. "Sounds like ya got a ghost."

Yvonne sat, stoic; non-responsive.

"You think you gotta ghost?"

"Do you investigate things of that nature?" she asked hopefully.

Brown eyes flitted over the cash near his fingertips and he hesitated for just a moment. "Umm, yeah, sure, all the time," Sebastian lied. Flipping pages in his appointment book, the pair decided to pursue the elusive entity the following morning.

***

The two-story home was gorgeous. The gardens had been meticulously kept and the light yellow paint caught the sunlight causing Sebastian's mood to lighten even further. He couldn't imagine a mischievous ghost invading such a cheery space. Not that he believed in such things.

She came to the door in a short cotton robe loosely tied around her tiny waist, blonde hair tousled.

"Morning, sunshine," he announced.

Refusing the coffee she offered, Sebastian began removing homemade gadgets and gizmos from a black duffle bag. He was eager to begin this ruse, pretend to rid the home of unwelcome guests and collect easy money.

Opening his laptop and hitting a few keys, he grinned. "Oh, yes, yes, there's a definite presence here." The glint in his eyes began to dance and Sebastian turned his head to the side to avoid Yvonne's attention.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, very," the investigator announced, "but with all this sophisticated equipment we'll have it out of here in no time."

Over the course of the next several days, Sebastian Kelley witnessed many odd, unexplainable events. Eerie noises in the night, the television turning off and on, lights flickering. Nothing major. Nothing too ominous. Nothing that would propel him to become a believer.

"Mr. Kelley!" Yvonne screamed. "Mr. Kelley, come quick!"

Bounding up the stairs, two at a time, Sebastian found his client clad in nothing but a towel, trembling like a scared kitten. She was standing at the balcony doorway overlooking the treeline beyond the garden.

"I was going to take a shower when I saw something through the window," she explained. "It was a woman, all dressed in white, some sort of mist swirling around her."

"Where?" Sebastian opened the double-doors and walked out onto the balcony.

"Down there. She was coming out of the woods." Yvonne pointed. "I think it was my grandmother."

"Your grandmother?" he questioned. "Sweetheart, she's dead."

"That's what you think!" Myra Farrell, Yvonne's seventy-seven-year-old grandmother, very much alive, ran full-force, slamming into the thin, greasy-haired, chain-smoker and watched him tumble from the balcony to his death.

High fives ensued.

"Thanks, Grammy," Yvonne kissed the older woman on the cheek. "How many is that now?"

"Three."

"No one's going to foreclose on this house. Nobody. If it's haunted, no one will dare. It's ours and always will be. That dead P.I. is our ticket. An investigation will prove a ghost killed him. Piece of cake." Yvonne threw back her blonde head and laughed manically.

"Speaking of cake, get dressed. We'll go down to Hattie's coffee shop to celebrate. She's got a new worker there. I believe his name is Simon."

"Cut!" The director rose from his chair. "That's a wrap!" He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Very well done. Very well done."

As the actors dispersed and the movie sets were disassembled, a woman in white, a foggy mist swirling about her transparent frame, hovered silently in the corner.

Author's Note

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