High Spirits

Book 2: Haunted Haven Mystery

by Carol J. Perry

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Ghost; Mystery

Synopsis

Christmas lights on palm trees and Santa hats on plastic pink flamingoes are far from the snowy landscape Maureen and her beloved golden retriever, Finn, are used to. But Maureen is determined to make this a holiday to remember—which means finding a way to promote Haven House on a shoestring. Fortunately, Haven's vintage movie theater, the Paramount, has come up with a great "Twelve Days of Christmas" idea. They'll feature an impressive list of the best classic Christmas movies ever made—shown by one-time movie actor-turned-projectionist Decklin Monroe . . .



But nobody bothered to tell Maureen that the Paramount is haunted by the ghost of a man who was murdered a few years back. Haven's top cop Frank Hubbard doesn't believe in ghosts but, believing that Decklin Monroe was somehow involved, he wants a reluctant Maureen's help.



That plan is derailed when, on the first day of the festival, a fresh murder victim is found at the theater. Now Maureen has to defend her staff and guests, while trying to keep her high-spirited resident ghosts out of the picture—before they have company for the holidays . . .

Release date: October 25, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Maureen Doherty knelt on soft gray carpet and carefully lifted the corner of a large plastic storage box marked “Christmas Ornaments.” It was the first of several similar containers lined up on the living room floor of Maureen’s top-floor suite at the Haven House Inn in Haven, Florida. Her golden retriever, Finn, nudged her hand, giving an impatient “woof.”

“Take it easy, boy,” she told him. “These decorations are old. They might be breakable. We have to be gentle.” She lifted a rounded, paper-wrapped article from the box, stripping away blue tissue.

“See? Look. It’s a snow globe. Isn’t it pretty? There’s a polar bear inside.” She shook the globe, watching tiny white flakes drift in the miniature winter world, placed it on the coffee table, and reached into the box for another parcel. She unwrapped a square metal box, with colorfully rendered Santa pictures on four sides, along with a red-knobbed handle. When she turned the crank the music box began to play “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

“Cute,” she said. “I love it. This will make a great centerpiece for one of the tables in the dining room.”

“Woof,” Finn agreed.

Presenting the Haven House Inn at its festive best for the oncoming holidays was important to Maureen. This would be her first Christmas as owner-manager of the century-old hotel on the gulf coast of Florida. It was, in fact, Maureen’s own first Christmas away from her native New England, and the sight of colored lights strung among palm tree fronds and Santa hats perched on the heads of pink plastic front-lawn flamingoes provided a source of some culture shock. She returned to the task of selecting appropriate decorations from the containers that had been so painstakingly packed by her predecessor and recent benefactor, Penelope Josephine Gray.

A red-nosed Rudolph and a plump Frosty the Snowman joined the other figures on the coffee table and Maureen dug more deeply into the plastic box. “Ms. Gray’s habit of saving everything helps us out on the decoration budget,” she told Finn, as she unwrapped a delicate clear-glass angel with a golden halo. An oblong package, tissue-wrapped as were the rest of the articles but tied with a narrow blue ribbon, seemed too small and too flat to contain anything centerpiece-worthy, She put it on the coffee table with the intention of opening it later, when the plastic boxes had been emptied.

The late Penelope Josephine Gray had been more than a saver of everything. She’d been a downright, out-and-out, absolute hoarder—and Maureen had inherited not just a vintage inn, but a king-sized storage locker full of things the old woman had deemed “too good to throw away.” Some of those things, like the collection of Christmas décor, provided a delightful surprise.

Actually, the ownership of Haven House Inn had been a total surprise too. Maureen, recently unemployed with the closing of Bartlett’s of Boston department store where she’d enjoyed a ten-year career as a sportwear buyer, had never before heard of Ms. Gray when the lawyer’s letter arrived, informing her that she’d inherited the place, lock, stock, hoard—and ghosts.

It took a while for Maureen to grasp the fact that she was suddenly a property owner.

It had taken a little longer to accept the part about the ghosts. After all, tales of hauntings of old hotels are not uncommon in Florida. Or in Boston. Or just about anywhere. But until a couple of months ago, Maureen had not been a believer in spirits or specters or apparitions or ghosts by any other name.

Things change. People adapt to their surroundings—even when those surroundings include some undeniably otherworldly beings.

Maureen reached into the box, this time finding a dainty silver bell. She turned it over in her hands. “Sterling silver,” she announced to the dog, then gave the bell a gentle shake, enjoying the tinkling tones. “Very nice.” She placed it on the table with the other finds, frowning when a jingling ding-dong sounded in the room even though the silver bell now lay absolutely still. Finn gave a soft “woof.”

“It’s just Lorna.” Maureen glanced across the room toward her desk where the push button on an old-fashioned brass counter bell moved rapidly up and down. At Maureen’s request, Lorna Dubois, a long-deceased movie starlet, now preceded her startling sudden appearances in the suite with a courtesy warning jingle.

The room seemed to shimmer for a moment as the blond Jean Harlow look-alike began to take shape. As usual, Lorna appeared in black and white, just as she had in long-ago films.

She surveyed the articles lined up on the coffee table. “Christmas shopping?” she asked. “I like the Rudolph.”

“Shopping in Ms. Gray’s collection,” Maureen said. “I’m looking for things to use as centerpieces on the tables in the restaurant—to give it a festive look for the holidays.”

“Huh,” the ghost scoffed. “The best thing you can do for that old room is demolish it—like they do on those house-and-garden shows you watch.”

I know it’s pretty much outdated,” Maureen admitted, “but hey, some of the tourists think it’s charming the way it is.”

“They’re just being polite,” Lorna insisted. “It needs a whole re-do. Maybe you could get Gordon Ramsey to stop by and fix it up for you. New paint and carpet and everything. Maybe a beach theme.”

Maureen closed her eyes, picturing the big room in soft blues and grays. That would take care of the windows, walls, and floor. She’d definitely keep the round tables and the real linen white tablecloths. The rewired player piano would stay too. The bar could use some work, though. She’d ask Ted about updating that part of the room. He’d been a bartender before she’d promoted him to “executive chef.” The man knew food, for sure, and between his menu ideas and her promotional abilities, in the short time she’d been in Haven, they’d nearly doubled the lunch business.

“I don’t think Gordon Ramsey is going to stop by anytime soon,” she said. “But I like the beach theme idea. It makes sense with us being right down the street from the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe a Tiki bar would be fun too. I’ll bet there’s probably enough stuff in Penelope’s hoard to decorate the place. I know I’ve seen a couple of old round life preservers and some bleached-out wooden oars in the storage locker. I’ll think about it. Maybe after the holidays we’ll do something.”

“Too bad they ran through all of Penelope’s money before you got here. You could have just written a check for it all.” Lorna sighed a long, dramatic, movie-actress sigh. “I’ve always liked money.”

Lorna was right about Penelope’s money being gone. The lawyer handling the estate, Larry Jackson, had explained that the old woman had inherited the inn a long time ago, much the same way Maureen had acquired it—from an unknown benefactor. The major difference was the fact that when Penelope got it, it had come with a great deal of money. The inn was still standing, such as it was, but sadly, all of the money had disappeared—the result of decades of wasteful management.

“No sense crying over spilt milk—or long-gone money,” Maureen said. “I’m not going to give up and sell the place, no matter what anyone else thinks. Naming the suites after the famous people who’ve slept in them is beginning to get some attention. How about the nice photo feature about the Babe Ruth Suite in the Orlando Sentinel?”

“I liked it a lot,” Lorna said. “So did the Babe.”

Maureen nodded, not surprised by the ghost’s reference to the late baseball great. According to Lorna, Babe Ruth was in the habit of visiting the L&M Lounge on Haven’s Beach Boulevard whenever the Rays and the Yankees played in St. Petersburg. “Glad he approved. The Humphrey Bogart Suite is nearly ready. According to an old guest register he spent a weekend here when they were shooting Key Largo back in 1948. We’ve got some great publicity photos of him with Lauren Bacall for the suite décor.”

“Well, every little bit helps,” Lorna acknowledged. “Mind if I wear your halter-topped white silk dress tonight?” Maureen wasn’t surprised by the request. Lorna often “borrowed” clothes—or rather what she called “the essence” of the clothes. The actual garments remained in Maureen’s closet, while Lorna appeared in the same outfit, perfectly fitted to her slim starlet body.

“Help yourself,” Maureen said. “Something special going on?”

“Waltz night over in St. Augustine at the Casa Monica Hotel,” Lorna said.

Maureen wasn’t surprised. The beautiful 1887 Mediterranean Revival hotel was famous among ghost hunters for the late-night waltz music that seemed to play out of nowhere while a roomful of ghosts waltzed gracefully in the lobby. “Got a date?” she asked.

“Kind of. I ran into an old flame recently. Can I wear your white shoes with the rhinestone heels?”

“Sure. Have fun.” Maureen had learned shortly after her arrival in Haven that, although many of the Sunshine State’s older attractions, like the Casa Monica, didn’t object to the publicity that accompanied hauntings, most of the residents of Haven were adamantly opposed to the “ghost hunters,” fearing that attention from television shows and magazine articles would spoil the peaceful, pleasant life they enjoyed in their quiet gulf-side small town. The amusement parks and major highways had long ago bypassed Haven and folks there preferred to keep their city—and their ghosts—to themselves.

It took a couple of hours for Maureen to sort through the boxes, but when she’d finished, the coffee table, the top of the matching blond wood sideboard, and the seat of one beige armchair were covered with the festive results of her search. She’d rewrapped the remaining objects and carefully repacked them for future use. It must have taken Penelope Josephine years to accumulate the excellent assortment—and Maureen was confident that it would take years to properly display all of them in the inn.

Carrying the decorations she’d chosen for the first-floor restaurant dining room would take more than one trip in the Haven House’s elegant, brass, glass and polished wood elevator. She packed her selection into three canvas bags—also part of her predecessor’s hoard of things “too good to throw away.” The unopened oblong package remained on the coffee table. She picked it up, balanced it on one hand. “It’s light,” she told the golden. “Looks like it might be letters. Do you suppose old Penelope had a lover? And that these might be her love letters?”

The idea of the old woman having a lover was too tantalizing to resist. Maureen, with just the tiniest bit of discomfort, untied the ribbon and pulled apart the tissue on one end of the small bundle. Finn woofed and looked away. “What? She left everything to me. I have a right to look at her letters.” Finn lay on the carpet, covering his eyes with his front paws.

“Stop that,” she told the dog, and removed the first envelope, yellowed with age. She opened it carefully, inspected it, then laughed out loud. “Christmas cards,” she said, returning the package to the tabletop. “It figures. She saved Christmas cards along with everything else. I’ll check them out later. Old cards might be valuable to a collector. We need all the money we can get.”

Maureen picked up one of the canvas bags. “I’ll take the first two down, Finn,” she told the golden. “You stand guard over the other one, then I’ll take you for a walk. Okay?”

Finn woofed agreement. “If the cats come home, try to keep them out of the decoration bag,” she said. Along with the inn and all its financial troubles, Maureen had also inherited Ms. Gray’s two cats, Bogie and Bacall. She unlocked the white paneled door with the round cat door at its base and stepped out into the long corridor. Hers was the only apartment on the inn’s top floor. Elizabeth Mack, the former manager of the place, had called it, with a dismissive sniff, “the penthouse.” It had been Elizabeth who’d run the place darned near out of money, and was now in jail, facing several charges—including the murder of a previous ghost-hunter guest. Elizabeth would get what she deserved and Maureen was left with the biggest challenge of her life: to bring the neglected old hotel property back to the vibrant place it had once been—a place where movie stars and sports heroes had come to vacation.

She pressed the DOWN button and the shiny brass accordion-style doors slid open. She watched with pleasure through etched-glass windows as the cage descended two stories within the brick-walled enclosure. I love my elevator, she thought, lifting the canvas bags, one with each hand, and stepped out into the reception area with its white wicker furniture and bright yellow walls. How much prettier will this room be with beachy blues and greens, grays, and tans? It would take time and a lot of work but her confidence grew almost daily. We can do this, she told herself, and pushed open the louvred doors leading to the restaurant.

Leo, the backup bartender, waved from across the room. Several of the large round tables were already full with the early lunch crowd. Maureen had considered getting smaller tables but had decided to encourage diners to eat together with others instead of sitting by themselves. The idea had worked out nicely. Now people from the various Beach Boulevard businesses lunched together regularly. Some had started referring to the Haven House restaurant as the “Lunchtime Chamber of Commerce.” When Maureen had first arrived in Haven to collect her inheritance, the dining room restaurant had been called “Elizabeth’s.” Even though Penelope Josephine Gray had named it after the queen of England, deleting the name from the menus and removing the sign from the door had been done soon after Elizabeth Mack, the disgraced former manager, had been arrested.

Smiling, nodding to customers, replying to cheerful greetings, she crossed the room. “Is Ted in the kitchen?” she asked Leo as she approached another louvred door.

“Sure is. Need help with those bags?” he offered.

“Nope. I’ve got it. It’s some of Ms. Gray’s Christmas decorations for the dining room. There’s a nice Rudolph in here too, for the bar,” she called over her shoulder, and pushed open the door to the kitchen.

The Haven House kitchen was a model of efficiency—and had been ever since bartender Ted Carr had taken over as executive chef. As soon as Maureen arrived she’d found that several of the inn’s employees were also “guests.” That is, Penelope Josephine Gray had permitted certain employees to exchange their labor for rent. Ted was one of these. Elizabeth had been one too. Perhaps the most surprising of the work-for-board staff were Molly, Gert, George, and Sam. Although the four senior citizen residents spent much of their time in rocking chairs on the inn’s big wraparound porch, they served as an always-willing household staff. Softhearted Ms. Gray had never raised the rent on any of them and, so far, neither had Maureen.

“Got a minute, Ted?” Maureen asked. The brown-eyed, brown-haired chef looked up from a bowl of fresh salad greens he was tossing, and smiled.

“Of course. What’s up?” He glanced at the bags she carried. A stuffed Frosty the Snowman peeked over the top of one. “Are you playing Santa Claus a little bit early?”

“Not exactly. I found all of these wonderful old Christmas decorations in Ms. Gray’s stash. I’ve picked out a dozen for centerpieces for the round tables in the dining room. I think we’ll need to work them into flower arrangements.” She placed the bags on a long butcher-block table. “Can you recommend a florist?”

Walking toward her, Ted wiped his hands on his apron. “Sure can. Petals and Kettles. It’s a combination florist and tea shop. It’s not far from here. One street over from the boulevard.”

“That sounds like fun. I’ve seen their ads in the paper but haven’t met the owner yet.”

“Owners,” he corrected. “Leslie and Warren Brown. Nice young couple with some original ideas about promotion.”

“That’s something we could use around here,” she said. “I’ll call them. Can I put these things in one of your cabinets until we figure out how to display them? There’s one more bagful upstairs.”

He flashed his fresh-faced, honest smile. No wonder he’d made big tips when he was tending bar. “Sure. Use whatever space you need,” he offered. “I was just about to take a break. I’ll help you bring them down.”

“Okay,” she agreed. She’d almost refused the offer. After all, she was perfectly capable of carrying a canvas bag full of light decorations down a short elevator ride. She valued Ted’s opinion, though, and her conversation with Lorna had started thoughts about improving the inn’s décor spinning through her head. Ted would surely have some ideas on updating the look of the place. He might even have some suggestions on how to pay for it.

Ted washed his hands and turned the salad-making chore over to Molly, who often helped out in the kitchen. He followed Maureen through the dining room and out into the reception area. “Sooner or later, these yellow walls have got to go,” he said, making a face.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “I’ve been daydreaming lately about some new concepts for the overall look of the place. What do you think about a beach theme? Lots of blues and greens and grays—with maybe some sun-bleached flotsam and jetsam to hang on the walls in the public areas. Do you like it?” The pair stepped into the elevator and Maureen pushed the button for the top floor.

“I do,” he said as the cage moved upward. “I’d like to see it start in the restaurant dining room. The pale green draperies you bought to replace those old dark ones was a good start.” He was right. She’d used up a good chunk of her severance pay from Bartlett’s of Boston on the much more attractive pastels and the improvement was obvious.

“The new drapes let in more light, but it shows how much the walls need paint,” she said. It could be expensive, repairing dings in the walls and woodwork and buying paint. “We’re just barely keeping up with expenses as it is. Any bright ideas on how to round up some more money?” They’d reached the third floor and heard Finn’s welcoming woof from behind the door.

Maureen unlocked the door. “Oh look, Ted. Your favorite cats are in here too.” Ms. Gray’s rescue cats, Bogie and Bacall, looked down from their perches on the cat tower in front of the big picture window. Bogie was a big tiger-striped gentleman cat who looked as though he’d experienced some tough times. Bacall, on the other hand, was a princess. Purebred French Chartreux, all gray with copper-colored eyes. Both cats were fond of Ted, who’d fed them outside the back kitchen door when they’d refused to come back inside during the long time between Ms. Gray’s death until several weeks after Maureen had come to live at the inn.

“Do you have time to come into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee with me? We could maybe crunch some numbers and figure out how to paint those walls and still pay the bills and buy groceries.”

With a glance at the third canvas bag on the floor beside the door, Ted headed to the kitchen and eased his slim frame into one of the blond-wood chairs at either end of the red-and-white enamel-topped table while Maureen slipped a coffee pod into the Keurig machine. In minutes, with two mugs of coffee between them, she sat facing Ted. Maureen was good at figures. She’d had to be for her job at Bartlett’s.

“Maybe we can figure out some kind of tie-in with those Christmas movies they’ll be running at the Paramount Theater. Did you know that Penelope Josephine Gray was a member of the Paramount’s original board of directors? Dinner and a Movie. We’ll buy a block of tickets and give one with each dinner,” she said. “I think Penelope Josephine would like the idea and the new owner won’t mind. He’s planning to sell the old place.”

“How much do the movie tickets cost?”

“Around ten bucks, I think, for the evening showings, less for the matinees,” he said. “Maybe we could pair that with one or two of our regular twenty-dollar dinner and offer a twenty-nine ninety-five special. The first movie starts in a couple of days.” There was enthusiasm in his voice.

“Sounds good. We can promote it with flyers all over town,” she said. “Maybe we can get the movie critic at the Tampa Bay Times to do a feature on the old movies and mention us in it.”

“It would be good if we can set up an interview with the old guy who’s the projectionist. Used to be in the movies himself.”

At her questioning look, he added “Decklin Monroe. He checked in last night. Met him in the bar. Drinks vodka martinis. Not too many people these days know how to operate the old two-reel projectors. But he does.”

“I saw his name on the guest register this morning, and looked around to welcome him, but Gert told me he’d already left for the theater. I had no idea he’d been in movies himself.”

“Long time ago, but hey, the inn is starting to attract some really interesting guests. We’ve got no place to go but up.” Again, that endearing smile. Maureen was happy to have him on her side.. . .