Haunted to Death

Book 3: Domestic Partners in Crime Mystery

by Frank Anthony Polito

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

This All Hallows’ Eve, partners and home renovation hosts Peter Penwell and JP Broadway try not to flip when their newest fixer-upper is rumored to be a haunted house . . .

Kicking off season three of their hit reality TV show Domestic Partners is a home renovation project with an irresistible hook. Woods Hall is a lavish 1913 manor home in the Detroit suburb of Pleasant Woods, once belonging to the town’s founding family. It also comes with its own ghost.

Twenty-five years ago during a Halloween night party, automotive heiress and beauty queen Emma Wheeler-Woods, wearing a white Princess Diana wedding gown as a costume, fell from a third-floor balcony to her death. Or was she pushed?

Fiona Forrest recently inherited the home after learning she was Emma’s daughter, and she and her fiancé have hired the Domestic Partners to restore the family property to its original splendor. But ghostly sightings, injured crew, secret passageways, locked rooms, and sabotage beg the question: Is the place actually haunted? And perhaps more practically, was Fiona’s mother murdered?

Hustling to have work finished in time to shoot the finale on Halloween—the anniversary of Emma’s mysterious death—do Peter and JP have a ghost of a chance of also solving a cold case from a quarter of a century ago before someone else takes a fall?

Release date: August 20, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

No one really knew if the old house was haunted.

According to local legend, the stately Arts and Crafts–inspired manor was cursed from day one. Built in 1913 by lumber baron William Royce Woods, the home’s original owner had made a deal with a powerful Native American shaman. The shaman warned that if Woods disturbed the spirits of the land, a curse would be placed upon his family for generations to come. William, a man of science and reason, dismissed the shaman’s warnings as mere superstition. The lumber baron laughed off the hex, believing it to be nothing more than the tales of some old Indian. Woods proceeded clearing the 1.3-acre plot of land on the outskirts of town and constructing his grand mansion, Woods Hall, ignoring the consequences of his actions.

But as the years passed, the curse seemed to only intensify. Visitors to the manor reported an overwhelming sense of unease, and many refused to spend the night when invited.

All around, strange things started happening. Woods’s once loyal employees deserted him, and the market crash of 1929 decimated much of the fortune amassed by his company, Woods Lumber. The unfortunate events of Black Tuesday, some believed, led to poor William’s untimely demise. Or was the hex of the Native American shaman responsible for the lumber baron’s downfall?

Convinced of his failure—and fearing he’d let down his family—the elder Woods believed he no longer had reason to live. In the early hours of a cold winter morning, the once wealthy and powerful man hung himself. He was just shy of forty-two.

This was only the beginning of the effects felt by the shaman’s inescapable curse.

Fortunately, for the Woods family, the lumber business bounced back after the Great Depression. Nearly thirty years passed without incident. William’s wife, Fern Elizabeth Woods, née Ridge, had long ago been made aware of the wicked spell cast upon her husband. Having already reached her seventieth birthday, Fern was certain that her privileged world would forever remain untarnished. However, in the fall of ’58, the woman’s relatively long life was cut short by a deadly virus. The pandemic caused by the H2N2 strain of influenza had already killed thousands across the globe, and soon it found its way to the tiny historic town of Pleasant Woods, Michigan.

A series of unfortunate deaths followed.

First, there was William and Fern’s son, William Royce II, and his wife, Dorothy, who died on the same February evening after their luxury car became stranded in four feet of snow during the Great Blizzard of 1978. The couple, both in their middle fifties, preferred wintering in a warmer climate. That season, however, they chose a ski trip to Boyne Mountain instead of their usual Caribbean Island vacation.

Less than two decades later, Barbara Woods, the spouse of William III, lost her battle with liver cancer. She’d never drunk a drop of alcohol.

Shortly thereafter, William Royce III himself perished, claimed by a massive coronary that took him kicking and screaming into the hereafter while enjoying his morning coffee.

William Royce IV, aka Bill, died later the same year, along with his brand-new bride and former housekeeper, a single mother named Kathleen. Tragically, the private plane carrying the newlyweds to their Mackinac Island honeymoon went down over Lake Huron. They left behind a pair of orphans, a two-year-old girl belonging to Bill, and Kathleen’s eleven-year-old son.

But perhaps the most questionable passing occurred a quarter century ago. Bill’s first wife, Emma Wheeler, a beauty-queen-turned-model—and the mother of Bill’s orphaned daughter—fell from the third-floor balcony of Woods Hall during her own twenty-fifth birthday–Halloween celebration.

Or did she jump . . . ?

Or was she pushed . . . ?

No one quite knew for sure.

It was this mystery—and the alleged haunting by Emma Woods of the home she and her family once shared—that we Domestic Partners in Crime would soon be tasked to solve.

JP held open the door as we entered the Top Dog brewery in downtown Royal Heights. At close to nine o’clock on Labor Day weekend, the bar was full of patrons ranging in age from Gen X through Z. My partner and I fell smack-dab in the middle, both millennials in our mid-thirties.

Well, at thirty-four I considered myself early mid-thirties. JP, however, turned thirty-six this past June 27th, so he was definitely just plain mid. Me, I had almost three full months till my next birthday on November 21st, making me a Scorpio to his Cancer.

As per my preferred astrologer, Miss Zelda—I read her horoscopes every night before bed, as soon as they were posted—our coupling made for one of the best in the Zodiac, so long as the couple in question was willing to put in the effort to support each other.

That last part, I totally felt in terms of my current stress level.

Growing paranoid, I craned my neck like an anxious ostrich. Or whatever bird or animal might crane their neck to get a better view of his or her surroundings. As a pocket gay, I had a hard time looking past anyone taller than my five-foot-seven inches. Thankfully, at six-two, JP could serve as my personal guide dog.

“You see them anywhere?”

JP surveyed the jam-packed room with its high tin ceilings draped with Edison bulbs and strands of twinkling white lights. “Not sure.”

The air practically pulsated, thick with the scent of hops and the sound of lively chatter and upbeat music. People gathered in every corner, soaking in the vibrant atmosphere at one of the hippest spots in Metro Detroit. All were dressed in a mix of vintage and contemporary fashion, their outfits carefully curated to create the perfect Instagram-worthy look.

A visual feast for the eyes, giant murals and framed artwork adorned every inch of available space on the exposed brick walls. At long communal tables groups of friends laughed and chatted excitedly over shared small plates and charcuterie boards. They munched on street tacos of al pastor topped with cilantro and pineapple, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, and beer-battered fried pickles.

A sense of FOMO seized me . . . and suddenly I was super hungry. Once we found the other couple, I definitely needed a beer and some fried brussels sprouts.

“I sent you the link to their latest video,” I reminded JP, mildly annoyed. “Midnight Musings” off their sophomore album, Hazy Days and Lazy Afternoons. Clearly, he didn’t know who, exactly, we were looking for. “Did you watch it?”

JP stared down his broad nose, a slight bump across the bridge caused by a sucker punch he got one time leaving a college sports bar back in Pittsburgh, long before we met. His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.

I knew just what he was going to say: For Pete’s sake, Pete! Even though most everyone else called me Peter, he always dropped the R. Especially whenever he got defensive. I couldn’t help noticing, in that tension-filled moment, the hotness factor of the man standing with me.

“I did watch it! But how am I supposed to remember what they look like? These Zoomers are all the same. You can’t tell them apart.”

I heaved a heavy sigh at his indignant attitude. Still, after almost six years, I counted myself lucky to have found him.

John Paul Broadway was by far the most beautiful man I’d ever set eyes on. Tall, dark, and sexy didn’t begin to describe the star of screens both big and small. Dressed in a pale blue polo that hugged his baseball biceps and made his bright eyes pop, he looked gorgeous as always. His pecs still had the pump from a trip to our local community Wellness Center earlier that afternoon, a free perk paid for by our property taxes. I felt it too. My Tigers T-shirt always clung a little tighter after a good workout.

Pulling my phone from my shorts pocket, I took a quick peek at my texts. The thread we exchanged earlier that day assured me they’d be there.

Hey! We still on for tonight?

Fer sure!

OK. 9PM @TD in RH?

Perfect. C U then! XO



I considered sending another message. But I didn’t want to come off as being too eager or annoying. Having access to her personal number was a privilege. It would only make things weird if I overused it. No need to give her a reason to block me on day one.

But what if they were delayed? Or, God forbid, something went wrong, and they couldn’t make it after all? Though in that case, wouldn’t she have texted again to tell me? Or took the time to put the phone to her ear and actually call? The one thing I couldn’t stand was a lack of communication. If I said I was going to be somewhere, I showed up. And if I was ever running behind schedule, I made it a point to let the person I was supposed to be meeting know I’d be there ASAP.

Still, this was a pair of twenty-five-year-old, semi-famous musicians we were dealing with. Compared to me and JP, they were children. Maybe their mothers never instilled in them a sense of responsibility? I hated to be all heck, yeah. But come on, kids. Get it together!

Before I could work myself into a frenzy, ruminating over the rules of proper etiquette and decorum, JP piped up. “Is that them?”

“Where?”

“The cute couple with the entourage.”

Sure enough, it was the members of my new favorite band, Low-Fi. The moniker not only indicated the type of music they made, but it also combined the duo’s names: Fiona Forrest and Finn Lowenstein.

Near a high-topped table in the corner, a diverse crowd of a dozen adoring followers congregated, all clamoring to take a selfie or score a signature on a crumpled napkin.

My pulse quickened in expectation of the event about to befall us. Were my palms sweating? Talk about a total cliché! But . . . I’d been looking forward to this appointment for months, ever since Ursula picked Woods Hall as the next project we’d tackle on Domestic Partners.

The fact that the house—an historic manor located at 13 Woods Way in our hometown of Pleasant Woods—was rumored to be haunted only sealed the deal when it came down to her final decision.

JP acted all casual.

“Shall we?” He took my hand and led us across the concrete floor, gently clearing a path through the sea of bodies. The sound of chatter and clinking glasses filled the brew pub. But I could hardly hear a thing over my own beating heart.

“Excuse us?” I waited a second before interrupting.

“Yes?” Fiona Forrest looked at me with piercing blue eyes. Her honey-blond hair fell in waves across a pair of delicate shoulders. She wore a vintage crop top the color of sunshine, paired with high-waisted jeans—cut off at the knees and folded, à la 1991—and well-worn leather sandals. She blinked in recognition. “Hey, PJ Penwell!”

The J stood for James, after my father.

I breathed in the scent of patchouli as Fiona pulled me close. She was shorter, I’d guesstimate around five-three, so she rose up on her tiptoes to embrace me.

We exchanged a round of pleasant introductions, then headed to a semi-private booth off the back bar. Before we departed, Fiona took the time to thank her followers for stopping by to say hello. Her fiancé, on the contrary, couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t even say goodbye.

Finn Lowenstein was a tall guy with a lean and lanky build and perpetual scruff. Not quite JP’s height, he stood about six-one, maybe? His dark hair hung into his even darker eyes. His style was a mix of edgy and everyman. He sported a plaid flannel button-down atop corduroy jeans, his feet clad in Carhartt brown work boots. A trail of tattooed musical notes floated up the inside of his right forearm. On his left, a Star of David signaled his Jewish heritage, as did the yarmulke covering the back of his head. When we first arranged our get-together, we had to make sure to wait till sundown, on account of Shabbos.

“Finally! I’m meeting my favorite author,” Fiona gushed once we were seated.

My neck growing hot, I blushed with embarrassment. Sure, I enjoyed hearing the praise. What author didn’t want to be labeled as someone’s most beloved? But, while I enjoyed my own writing style, I found it hard to imagine anyone else would feel the same way.

“I’ve read all of your novels. More times than I can count. Death of a Drama Club Diva is the best.”

“You just made Pete’s day,” said JP, patting me on the shoulder.

Fiona touched my hand across the tabletop. A hand-inked hummingbird flew about in the soft crook between her thumb and first finger. “Please! I’m only telling the truth.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” I humbly told Fiona regarding her devotion to my literary endeavors.

Over the finest in Michigan craft beers, we toasted to the success of Domestic Partners’ third season. Fiona took a group selfie and posted it to Low-Fi’s official socials for all the world to see. #lowfimeetsdomesticpartners #business #topdog

She tucked away her mobile device. “I love your doggies! I follow TheDailyClydeandJack. The reel you posted of them chasing each other around the tree in your backyard . . . So cute! They’re not twins, are they?”

“Not biologically. They just look a lot alike,” JP said. “We say they’re brothers-from-another-mother. Clyde’s a beagle–pit bull mix and Jack’s a Parson Russell terrier.”

We adopted both of our boys from a dog rescue called Home FurEver. Clyde, I found on the Adopt-a-Pet app early last summer. In the posted photo, a tiny white doggie with brown brindle markings on the right side of his face, and a half-moon-shaped patch over his left almond-shaped eye, peered sadly at the camera. His head tilted to one side, ever so slightly. He had the stubbiest little legs and the tiniest pink toenails. At first sight, JP and I both fell madly in puppy love with Mr. Clyde Barker, as we christened him on his official adoption papers.

Clydie Boy was the sweetest pup. Thirty-two pounds of pure muscle! Sure, he had his moments. Like when another dog passed by our house, walking with its owner up the alley right off our driveway. Clyde would leap onto the window seat cushion and pound the pillow with his big front paws, barking ferociously. We couldn’t fault him for protecting his domain, could we?

Lord Jack Strohein, as per the name on his pedigree, joined the Broadway-Penwell family this past spring. We called him Jack or sometimes Jackson. Fortune smiled on us while having Sunday dinner with my parents, Jim and Patsy, at their home in nearby Madison Park. Over cake and coffee, Mom shared the story of how the poor little dog’s dog-daddy up and died, leaving him an orphan. The resemblance to our Clydie was uncanny: same brown-and-white color; about the same size. He even had the same half-moon patch over his left eye. That night, I reached out to Home FurEver, informing them of our desire to bring Jack into our family . . . and then we did.

Jackson, aka Mr. Fuzzy Face, was a total charmer. While he weighed a good ten pounds less than his big brother, his long limbs gave him a slight advantage in the height department. He did this thing where he’d lie down, flat on his belly, with his two front legs crossed one over the other in a jaunty fashion. We called it fancy paws.

“Thought pits are illegal around here,” Finn scoffed.

I hated how pit bulls got such a bad rap. “Not in PW. And he’s only part pit.”

Pleasant Woods was an accepting and tolerant town, a part of the reason JP and I chose to make it our home. According to the most recent census, the neighborhood boasted the seventh-highest rate of same-sex couples in the nation and received top marks, annually, from the Human Rights Campaign.

Situated between upscale Royal Heights to the north and modest Fernridge to the south, a mere fifteen hundred residents counted the Detroit suburb as their home. On the west side of Woodward Avenue, the main thoroughfare bisecting the community, spacious dwellings rested on oversized lots belonging to the upper middle class. The east side—affectionately dubbed Peasant Woods—gave way to smaller properties whose owners, while still well-off, earned far smaller incomes.

It was here that JP and I made our lives, after roughly five years together in Brooklyn. Back then, we never dreamed we’d ever own our own house. As an actor and a playwright, respectively, we resigned ourselves to being life-long renters.

Then, one day, our luck changed.

JP booked a supporting role on the highly rated TV cop show Brooklyn Beat as openly queer detective Sam Hardy. Meanwhile, my young adult mystery series Murder High, featuring queer teen detective TJ Inkster, hit the New York Times bestseller list. Soon, we stopped eating canned tuna and ramen for dinner. We saved up some money and moved to my native Michigan. Thanks to my best friend, Campbell Sellers, Realtor Extraordinaire (his descriptor, not mine), we purchased a 1924 Craftsman Colonial with a mortgage payment equaling two hundred dollars less than what we paid in Williamsburg . . . and with double the space.

For the better part of the first year, we fixed up the sixteen-hundred square foot, four-bedroom home, located at 1 Fairway Lane, for all the world to see. As cohosts of a hit home renovation show called Domestic Partners, we became household names—at least in the world of Home Design Television, aka HDTV.

“What do they got good here?” Finn scanned the QR code with his smartphone and pulled up the Top Dog menu.

“Everything’s good. They’ve got a great arugula salad. Comes with toasted walnuts, goat cheese, and sliced apples,” JP answered.

I chimed in. “The burger’s huge! I always end up taking half of it home for the boys.”

Finn’s nostrils flared as he glanced up. “Meat is murder, bro! We can’t eat either of those. We’re vegan.”

“I knew that,” I said, in reference to our dining companions’ dietary restrictions.

Because I did.

I knew all about the band, which Analog Ear called (quote) a refreshing departure from the polished and overproduced sound that dominates much of the mainstream music scene today (unquote).

An Aquarius born in mid-February, Fiona Forrest grew up on a small farm in a small Northern Michigan town, outside of Traverse City. After being home-schooled, she attended the Motown Music Academy, where she met Finn Lowenstein, born on the Ides of March, making him a Pisces.

“The salad sounds yummy! We can always get it sans the goat cheese,” said Fiona sweetly.

At nineteen, F and F formed the aptly named, Low-Fi. Finn played keyboards, upright bass, and harmonica. Fiona sang, played acoustic guitar and ukulele, accompanied by her beau. They began their ascent to fame by posting songs and videos online. Before the crazy kids knew it, indie label Blank Canvas signed them to an exclusive recording deal, launching the lovebirds’ music careers.

But it was Fiona’s twenty-fifth birthday, this past February 14th, that would forever change both their worlds.

After celebrating back in Brooklyn, where she and Finn also lived for a time, they returned home to Greenpoint for some post-dinner dessert. Her parents shipped the birthday girl a frozen Sanders Bumpy cake, a delicacy rarely found outside Michigan, along with a case of Vernors pop. Fiona called to thank her folks. The generous gifts reminded her of home, a place she hadn’t visited since Low-Fi’s debut album Static Dreams scored them a Grammy nod as Best New Artist.

On speaker, her mother and father told Fiona she should probably sit. The news they needed to share would surely come as a shock. Soon, the young woman learned the truth of a long-held family secret.

As a twist of fate would have it, she was not Fiona Forrest, daughter of Gregg and Gina, a humble farmer and his wife. Her given name at birth was Fiona Woods, as in William Royce Woods, the cursed lumber baron who died by his own hand after losing much of his fortune. Fiona’s birth parents were none other than William Woods IV, aka Bill, and first wife Emma, the former Miss Great Lakes and Wheeler Automotive heiress, who on Halloween night 1997 fell from a third-floor balcony during her own birthday celebration.

After her biological father’s death two years later, while on honeymoon with his new bride and former housekeeper, custody of two-year-old Fiona was granted to the girl’s nanny and her groundskeeper husband.

In his will, Bill Woods left the married couple enough money to comfortably raise his only child, far away from the tiny historic town of Pleasant Woods and the curse that had befallen his people for generations. A clause in their contract specified that neither Gregg nor Gina would utter a word pertaining to Fiona’s true identity. The girl was to be raised—and to live—as a Forrest, until she reached her twenty-fifth year. On that St.. . .