Page 42 of A Dark and Stormy Night

Mrs. Golobovitch's elderly good nature hid a wealth of insight. "Kateri got the project rolling. I think she likes the conviviality of the group more than the work."

Kateri smiled and confessed nothing, but dangled her fingers close to the floor.

Lacey arrived at once, let Kateri scratch her head, and flopped at her feet.

Areila looked meaningfully at Kateri. "I came to ask a question. A weird question."

"Must be a woo-woo question." Rainbow sounded as serious as a funeral.

The women tittered.

Kateri bent a stern look at all of them. "It is. Areila is researching the ghost in the park."

Rainbow paused, her quilting needle held high above the fabric. "I thought she was a geology intern?"

Following Kateri's lead, Areila improvised, "I am, but at this time of the year, there's a limited amount of field work available and a lot of keyboard input. I have to do something to keep my mind entertained."

"Have a seat, dearie." Margaret Smith scooted to one side; Elizabeth scooted to the other. "We can help. We know all the stories."

Areila pulled a chair over into the gap. "Does the ghost ever do anyone harm?"

Her question startled Kateri, and she looked more closely at Areila.

Areila's cheeks were flushed, her gray eyes were wide and she looked as if she'd run all the way from the park.

Maybe she had.

Margaret said, "I never heard of the park ghost doing anything but floating around looking sad. And I ought to know — I'm the oldest one here. "

Kateri was concerned. "Areila, why would you ask that?"

"In my research, I came across a story that he . . . warns people to leave the park in a rather forceful manner. Like with howling and bugged out eyes." Areila clasped her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I was wondering if he has crazy episodes and does poltergeist-type stuff."

"I've never heard that." Emma continued to stitch as she talked. "I know when people start having sightings, that's an omen."

"What kind of omen?" Areila asked.

Rainbow leaned back and folded her arms. "Bad things are happening around town."

"Like disappearances?" Bette looked significantly at the place where Mary Lees usually sat.

"Her husband killed her." Lillie spoke with absolute certainty.

"Now, Lillie, we don't know that," her sister said.

"No one's seen her for over a week," Lillie answered.

"Her books are overdue," Kateri told them. "Her books are never overdue."

"Garik said that this morning Donald Lees reported that Mary was missing." Elizabeth rubbed her back. "He told Garik she went out grocery shopping one evening and never came home."

"He's lying," Lillie said. She and Mary had been best friends in high school and she was fierce in her anger at Mary's abusive husband. "He beat her all the time. All you have to do is find where he buried the body."

"Donald told Garik he thought she'd run away. He said he waited for her every night for a week with the belt." Margaret's Irish eyes flashed as she gave her report.

"Donald told Garik when he went looking for her, he found her grocery pull cart in the woods half buried under pine needles," Elizabeth said.

"Oh, right. You know why she had that thing? 'Cause he wouldn't let her drive 'cause he was afraid she'd leave him. Leaving him was more than he deserved." Lillie kept talking, fast and fierce, but she blinked away tears. "She should have taken a baseball bat to him. Before he killed her. That bastard killed her."

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