Business Is Booming

"...This is the grave of John Meginness," I said, standing in the Jersey Shore Cemetery. "Somebody take my picture." I could hear my voice projected across the cemetery, to the gathered tour crowd. I was wearing the small speaker they'd given me to broadcast this thing. "Meginness was one of the writers and historians from the late 1800s, and he wrote histories of both Clinton and Lycoming Counties. He gave me a lot of material to work with."
I moved down the hill toward the next site. Tina and Mary, my contacts from the Jersey Shore Historical Society, walked with me as I covered the microphone. "This thing is great," I said. "I gotta get one of these for my Lock Haven tours."
"The tour is going well. Good crowd." Tina smiled. "So what else are you working on back in Clinton?"
"There have been several really loud booms in Noyes Township, east of Renovo," I said. "They were heard as far away as the next county, but there's no explanation. I'm working on an article, and trying to figure them out."
"Oh, I think I read about that one," she said. "Interesting. Any luck yet?"
"Not yet. But I just started."
I stopped at the next grave, and released the microphone. "This next stop is the only headstone in the cemetery known to be written in German. Oh, and before I forget, I'm going to apologize to all of you preemptively for anything I might say when I forget I'm wearing this thing."

"Tell me a bedtime story, Daddy."
Paul was lying in the bed in the dark room. I sat by his bedside on a small chair, pulling the blanket over my son.
"Okay, little man. How about this? I got a good one."
"I don't want one of your made-up ones," Paul said. "I want you to read me one. How about the Pennsylvania one?"
"No, wait, you're gonna love this. It's about a king."
"I like kings."
"This was a king from a long, long time ago. King Arthur. He was hurt in battle, so he went far, far away, and came to Pennsylvania."
"Where we live!"
"Yes. It's an old legend. He came to Potter County, and found a healing spring. He was healed, and lived here a long time, and then died. His men buried him in a river. Now, you're gonna like this next part. Years ago, before you were born, two people went looking for where the king was buried. And they hiked down a mountain, and across a bridge...."
"Did they find him?"
"Yeah, they found him. You know who those two people were?"
"Who?"
"Me and Aunt Biz."
Paul's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yep. That picture  of Aunt Biz that you have, is her right by the river where the king was buried."
Paul looked at the photo he had tacked to his closet door. He smiled and turned back to me.
"Tell me that again."

"Hey!" I looked up and greeted my old friend Chris, and my new assistant Morgan, who had arrived at the same time. Chris had interned for me years ago, and was now working several jobs locally. Morgan, I'd known as a toddler---I'd worked with her mother fifteen years back. Now she was ready to graduate, and doing her senior project with me. Which made me about a hundred and thirty-nine.
"I wanted to ask for some clarification on the missing mayors thing," Chris said. "Got a minute?"
"Sure. I owe Joby a nickel." I waved Morgan into the Pennsylvania Room. "Come on, kid, you might as well sit in on this."
We sat around a table. I said,"Since you're here, Chris, you gotta hear this. I just got a tip from another freelancer for the Express."
"What's this one about?" Chris asked.
"Cow genitals."
Chris stared at me. "What?"
I grinned. "On the east wall of the Simon Building is a mural advertising Bull Durham tobacco. We've all seen it like a million times. Turns out, this was a company strategy back in the old days. I'm gonna get an article out of it. The company hired four artists to travel the world, and paint these murals with the cow on them, advertising Bull Durham tobacco. The cows, however, had really visible, uh...."
"Anatomically correct," Chris suggested.
"Yeah. And of course, there was an outcry about this---People protested. So they sent the artist back to paint a fence over it, blocking the view. They'd charge more for this, and get a ton of free publicity for it."
Chris laughed.
"My source says that in Lock Haven, the fence doesn't quite cover all of it," I said. "You can still see a little bit of the cow parts. I'm gonna get a great article out of this."
"What're you going to title it?"
I thought it over. "Cock And Bull Story?"
"The editors would never let you get away with that."
"Apocalypse Cow."
"Never mind."
Morgan grinned at me. "This is awesome. I love learning about this stuff."
"There's always plenty more of it, kid," I said. "I'm always working on something."

"Did you hear, there's a fire at Notre Dame?" the woman asked me.
I looked up from my desk and nodded. "Yeah. It's all over the internet."
"Did you see? The Lock Haven Express ran a photo of Notre Dame as their Photo of the Day," she said. "They picked it before the place started burning. Isn't that a weird coincidence? It's kind of creepy!"
I sighed. A landmark burns in Paris, and I get questions about psychic phenomena. That sounds about right.
"Not so much as you might think." I stood up and walked over the the newspaper rack, and got the day's Express. I opened it to the right page and laid it down on the shelf. "See, if you read this caption, they chose this photo because of construction currently being done on Notre Dame. It's that same construction that started the fire. So it's not really as big a coincidence as all that; the photo and the fire came from the same root source."
She nodded. "Well, that makes me feel better about it."
"Glad I could help." I picked up my phone as she walked away, and got one of the oil campanies on the line. I was talking to them when my daughter walked in a few minutes later.
"So, you're saying you don't know how the sound happened? Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for your time, sir."
I hung up the phone and turned to see Biz standing by my desk at the library. "Hi, hon. How's it going?"
"Had a little time between classes. What're you working on?"
"The loud booms in Noyes," I said. "They were heard all the way down here, but it's a mystery. I'm making some calls, digging into it."
"Noyes Township." Biz laughed. "I see what you did there. What have you ruled out?"
"Well, the gas companies deny any involvement," I said. "Which makes sense when I think about it. If the gas wells had caused a boom that could be heard thirty miles away, there would have been emergency vehicles and stuff involved. It would have been impossible to hide. So I can rule them out.  Also my contact in the college geology department says there's no record of recent seismic activity. I'm thinking a sonic boom from a military plane, but for some reason, I'm having a hard time getting the military to return my calls."
"Imagine that. What else is new?"
"Well, also working on a Bigfoot sighting in Beech Creek," I said. "Someone sent me a photo of the track. Check it out." I brought it up on my computer, and she leaned over and took a look. "What do you think?"
"I'd guess a hoax."
"How come?"
"The print is very even, as if it was put there deliberately. All the edges are really clear. Real bipedal prints are kind of mushy around the sides, because bipeds roll their feet as they walk. You taught me that."
"Correct. That's my take on it, too." I closed out the photo. "I told Paul last night about that time we found King Arthur's grave. He loved that story."
Biz laughed. "I was, what, about fifteen? That was fun."
"It was."
"Hey, Dad, I hate to ask....But my paycheck was a little short this week. Can I have a few dollars to help out?"
I gave her a twenty from my wallet. "Here you go, hon."
She leaned over and hugged me more than I'd expected. "Thanks. You're better to me than my biological father ever was."
"Worth it, hon. I remember when you were a kid, coming over for the weekend to grab a shower and a meal because your father drank all the bill money. Paul actually loves that the room was yours and Tif's before he was born."
Biz smiled. "He's adorable."
"He knows that."
"I better get to class," she said. "Good luck on your boom noise."
"I'll keep you updated."

Once a month, I meet with some teenagers in the Sloan Room. They're my group, Teen Paranormal. I teach them how do investigate cool things like ghosts and Yetis. I had Chris there, and several of the teens.
Don't look at me like that; it's my job.
"So that's the method to finding buried treasure," I said. "Now, in your handout is an article I wrote about some lost Civil War gold from last year. They never did find it, so it's still out there somewhere. I'd like you guys to read the article, and tell me what you notice about it."
As the kids read, I spread four government topographic maps out on the table. "When you're done, let's see if we can figure out where this gold most likely is."
Alex looked over the map. "So they were going to Lock Haven, and the article says they passed through Emporium and Saint Marys. But then, people are looking in Dent's Run? That doesn't make any sense."
"Exactly---They were going east, but then turned due south. It's way off course. So what's a more likely location to find it?"
Aubree pointed at the map. "Here's Round Island, mentioned in the article. Around there?"
I was rather proud of her for this. "Possibly. They'd have been sticking close to the Susquehanna; it's a pretty good bet. What else do you notice?"
"The survivor mentioned burying the treasure near a big rock," Aubree said. Alex rolled his eyes. She continued,"I know, Pennsylvania's full of them. Wouldn't that mean it would have to be a really big, noticeable rock?"
"Ah, you got it," I said. "And there is one very near Round Island. Right about here. Chris, you got your phone? Show them Altar Rock."
Chris brought up the photo of the tall, odd-looking rock outcropping. I said,"This has always been my suspicion. Altar Rock is very noticeable, even among other rocks. It's in the right area for the trip. Unfortunately, that means that they probably built Route 120 right over it, and I'd never be able to get to it."
Alex laughed. "Unless you had a metal detector."
"Hell, even then. There's been a lot of stuff dropped in that area over the years. A little south, about here..." I poked at the map, and then stopped.
"Lou?" said Aubree.
"Project Ketch," I said softly.
"What's that?"
"Back in 1967, there was a government program to create a gas well by setting off a nuclear bomb in Sproul State Forest," I said. "Due to protests, it didn't last, but they started production. This could be the answer to something else I've been working on, the loud boom noises out west of Renovo."
"You think nukes may be finally going off?" asked Chris.
"Or the dynamite they used to create the hole," I said. "Or something."
"What're you going to do?"
"I gotta call Sproul State Forest in the morning."

Morning. UFO T-shirt. Coffee in my Bigfoot travel mug. At my desk, I grabbed a topographic map, a notepad, and my cell phone, and retreated upstairs to the Sloan Room. I dialed Sproul State Forest and got the head ranger on the line.
"Hey, this is Doug."
"Hi, Doug. This is Lou---I'm a freelance writer with the Record---"
"Oh, I know who you are."
I will never get used to that. "Well, good, that'll make this easier. I have a couple of weird questions for you."
"Been the week for 'em. Why stop now?"
"Are you familiar with Project Ketch?"
"Sure. Government thing to make a gas well with a nuke back in, what, sixty-four? Sixty-five?"
"Sixty-seven," I said. "Has anyone been out to the site recently? Any activity out there?"
"Nah, we'd know it," he said. "Nothing going on out that way."
"I'm trying to run down possibilities for the loud boom sounds people have heard this year."
"Probably fighter planes in the low-fly zone," Doug said. "Happens all the time."
"So there is a low-fly zone over Sproul?"
"Oh, yeah, we get military planes out of State College up here breaking the sound barrier all the time. I've seen F-4s, F-5s, Raptors, Ospreys...."
"That may answer my question. It was one possibility, but I couldn't get the military to pick up the phone."
"Not surprised."
"Hey, thanks a lot," I said. "This probably solves this one for me. Case closed."

I walked downstairs, my new glow-in-the-dark Jersey Devil shirt on. Adam was working the front desk as I checked in. "Hey, Adam."
"Hey, Lou. You got a few calls today. One guy wants to set up a program. Got a call from a woman who wants information on her house. And a package came in for you from the Jersey Shore Historical Society."
"Thanks." I opened my mailbox and got out the small box. Inside, there was a small speaker system with a headset, and a card.
Compliments of the Jersey Shore Historical Society.
I smiled.
"Well, I'll be able to make some noise with this," I said. "When's my next tour?"

No Dues Is Good Dues

I was working on an article for the PA Wilds. It involved over a hundred guys, and several tons of dynamite.

"That's what it took to build the Bucktail Scenic Highway," I told Glenn and Claudia. They're two of the library regulars, and friends of mine. "It was said to be impossible before they actually did it. It used between one to four hundred men, new heavy-duty equipment, and five tons of dynamite."

Glen, an architect, frowned. "Five tons? That sounds low...."

"Might have been more....Wait...." I looked over the old newspaper clipping I had in a folder. "Fifty tons. Fifty tons of dynamite."

"Ah, that sounds better."

"Yeah, my dynamite-judging abilities aren't so great," I said. "It's been a while."
We laughed. Claudia said,"Happens to all of us."

They went to look for books. A guy came to the desk. "Did I hear you say you're a paranormal investigator?" he asked.

I looked him over. Old guy, gray hair. He had a button-down shirt, and a fishing hat that sat on top of his head as if he'd dropped it there and forgotten it. People recognized me as a paranormal investigator several times a week, and it's always the same question. Is he a nut, or reliable?

"Yes, sit. I investigate, and write about unexplained things."

He nodded. "I had two uncles that died in the Philadelphia Experience."

Nut.

"Really?" I said politely. You have to be a little careful with the nuts.
"Yep. They were in the ship when it disappeared....You know this story? A ship vanished and reappeared in---"
"Virginia."
He nodded. "Virginia. When it came back, my uncles were fused into the ship. My mom got a letter from the Navy, saying they were MIA. The government was covering it up."
"Give me their names," I said. "I'll look into it."

I wouldn't have even had the conversation. But it was Tuesday night.
Tuesday nights are really, really slow. Like "There's more excitement in a cemetery" slow. When I walked in the back room, I found Zach sitting with his feet up on his desk, drinking tea and playing a game on his phone.
"Yeah, I'm real busy," he said.
"You're not gonna get any crap from me," I told him. "It's so slow I just spent half an hour looking into the Philadelphia Experiment."
He squinted at me. "Not up to your usual standards. Wasn't that mostly made up?"
"Yeah. The story is that in 1943, the USS Eldridge disappeared and reappeared in Virginia before teleporting back to Philadelphia. Supposedly it killed soldiers and drove them crazy, However, the whole thing was pretty much made up by one guy. A man named Carlos Allende started sending mail to a UFO writer, insisting that this was the result of a government experiment that went wrong. Documents show that the Eldridge was actually nowhere near Philadelphia at the time."
"So what's your interest?"
"Got a guy who claims he lost two uncles in the incident. Which can't be literally true, but hell, it's a slow night."
"So you're gonna look into it."
"I'll see what I can find out."

"My wife has us booked for a night hike at Bald Eagle State Park. There have been some Dogman sightings in the area."
I can't believe I get to say sentences like that.
I was sitting between Kara and Millie. Across the table, Ashlin and Lacy were checking their notes. It was the monthly LHPS meeting, our gathering of ghost hunters and my only real attempt at a social life.
"Dogman?" asked Lacy.
"Yeah, dogs and wolves that run around on their back legs," I said. "They're half dog and half human....Kinda like the Mothman, or the Goatman."
"How do you know all this stuff?"
"I'm kind of self-educated."
"I'll get to my dues," Millie added. "I forgot the money tonight."
"So did I," I admitted. "Which brings me to something like eight months in the hole. I'll settle up next time."
Lacy grinned at me. "Or not."
Kara looked at her phone. "I'll get in touch with the client on Water Street. What else do we have?"
"The Spiritual Seekers got thrown out of Wildwood Cemetery for trespassing," I said. "Remember, that group I had to ream out for plagiarizing my work? They got caught trying to get in there at night."
"Good," said Ashlin.
"A couple of our cameras are going bad," said Kara. "We need to look into getting more."
"Theresa ordered the last ones, and she's on leave," Millie pointed out. "If she decides to quit entirely, we're going to need a new member."
"And a new president," commented Kara.
"Lou's the next one in line," Millie said.
I stood up. "Hey, we don't have to do it that way. We should really consider an election----"
"Lou is fine by me," said Kara.
Ashlin and Lacy were nodding. I said,"Hey, no, I don't need to just....No hard feelings if we want to choose someone else...."
"Lou," said Millie,"It should be you."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," I said. "Ashlin, where do we stand on the Brawn House?"

I was going through the cemetery records when the mail came. I'd found the grave of only one of the uncles----A soldier named Johnson, buried in Dunnstown. I was going through obits, so it was a normal day until I got my government documents in the mail.
I was at my desk, looking over them, when Millie came in.
"Finding anything?" she asked.
"About what I expected."
"Got a minute?" she asked.
"Sure. These are Navy records from 1943; they can wait. What's up?"
She set a page down on my desk. "I was going over our bank account. We're down the thirty-one dollars."
I looked it over. "What the hell? I thought we had like six hundred dollars in there."
"Me, too. We've been talking about what new equipment to get."
"What are all these charges? Small amounts at a time, over the course of months. I think we've been hacked."
Millie nodded. "We don''t use the account too much, which is why we didn't notice immediately. The bank won't do anything unless you contact them within sixty days."
So I'm the new leader? Okay. Time to lead.
"Talk to the bank," I said. "I'll contact Theresa and see if she can explain this. We'll hold off on our dues, or take them in cash until further notice. We may have to close the account and reopen a new one; we'll discuss that at the next meeting."
"We may not get the money back," said Millie.
"Maybe not, but that doesn't matter," I said. "We can accumulate our dues and make it up in a month. Forget the cash, Millie. They didn't get us."

"Daddy!" My son came running down from the elevator,. wearing his Lego pajamas, new Lego hat, My Little Pony socks, glittery boots, and seven different superhero sweatbands. The usual.
I gave him a hug. My daughter came in behind him, in her wheelchair. Paul said,"How is your work going?"
"Pretty good, little man. Busy. I'm sorting these books for the book sale. What are you up to?"
"We went to lunch! Now we are going to the park!"
"Well, that's cool."
Tif looked over my stack of books on the counter. "Anything good?"
"By sheer coincidence, I found this one." I picked up a hardcover about the Philadelphia Experiment.
"Isn't that the one you've been looking into? The hoax?"
"That's the one. Guy says his uncles died in the Philadelphia Experiment, and it was covered up. Never saw any documentation, just heard all about this from many family members. Which makes me question just how good a cover-up this actually was, if the whole family talked about it all the time."
Tif grinned. "Any progress?"
"I ran the names against the military lists of soldiers who served in World War II. No matches---They aren't recorded as either killed or missing in action. I found one of the uncles, in fact, buried in Dunnstown Cemetery, where he's been since he died in 1974. Which makes him unlikely to have been fused into the Edlridge in 1943. Oh, and I ordered up the declassified files on the Eldridge. It was in New York, nowhere near Philadelphia when this whole thing was said to have happened."
"What're you gonna tell the guy?"
"The truth. Once I get all my evidence together. Of course, he's not gonna buy it---He'll accuse me of being part of the cover-up; the conspiracy bananas always do. But I can only do just so much."
Paul looked at my name tag. "L....O....U. That spells Daddy."
I laughed and hugged him. "That's right, little man."
"I want a comic book with Robin and Batman together."
"Come on, buddy. Let's go find one."

You have to wonder what's gone wrong with your life when a significant portion of it is spent in cemeteries.
The wind was blowing strongly as I walked across the Dunnstown Cemetery. I was wearing my blue sweatshirt with Bigfoot and UFOs on it, and carrying the photocopy I'd made of the cemetery index. I'd made sure to bring it along; I'd learned that the hard way.
I spotted the Johnson monument from thirty feet away---It was on a near corner of the cemetery, one large stone with the name on it. The family graves were clustered around it, but I didn't need to pick through them---I could see the little flags gathered around the World War II veteran.
I knelt by his grave. DALE JOHNSON, 1974.
Which made him somewhat unlikely to have been killed in a top-secret government experiment in 1943.

It ended the way it began---On a slow Tuesday night.
I'd been just dashing off an e-mail to Resurrection Casey. She was looking into a haunted building in Carbon County, and I was explaining how to handle that, with the caveat that she shouldn't be trespassing, or at least not get caught. The guy came in around the same time, and sat down at a table. Looking over at me across the room, he said,"You find anything online about the Philadelphia Experience? Like, on Google, maybe?"
"Well, that's not really the way I work, sir." I sat down across from him. "I use documents and hard evidence, not online stories. I've done some digging." I laid out the papers on the table. "There's no easy way to say this. The Philadelphia Experiment was a hoax. It never really happened. These are the ships' logs from that day; they show the Eldridge was in New York at the time, nowhere near Philadelphia. I checked the lists of soldiers killed or missing in action, and the names you gave me never appear."
"But that's not right," he said. "They sent my mom a letter saying that my uncles were missing in action."
"Do you have proof? Did you ever see this letter? Or just hear about it?"
Long pause.
"I found one of your uncles buried in Dunnstown, since 1974. Which means he definitely survived past 1943. Here's the cemetery record."
"Well, there was a cover-up---"
"Must have been a pretty bad one, considering your whole family knew about what actually happened."
"They got to you," he said. "Somehow, the government got to you. What did they do, pay you off?"
"Right, tons of money. That's why I'm still working the slow shift and doing articles about gravity hills."
"Somehow, they got to you," he said. "You're part of the cover-up."
"I'll leave these documents with you," I said. "You can debate this with the documents. But that's what I've found out."
I returned to the desk, sitting down at the computer.
Zach walked by. "What're you up to?"
"I'm searching for information about Dogman sightings," I said. "It's Tuesday night."

Missing Mayors

"You are the dancing queen....young and sweet, only seventeen....."
My wife's company held their annual party every year in Lewisburg. There were only a couple of weird things about it: They invariably held it in January, after the holidays, and my wife's weird co-workers. Many of whom were rushing out onto the dance floor, drinks in hand.
I finished my beer and stood up. I was wearing my shirt with the green crop circles on it. Discreetly, I walked across the room, and with nobody looking, I ducked out the side door and into the parking lot.
I'm not much of a party guy. So I'd done what I always do---I'd dug up a couple of UFO sightings in the area, and slipped out to look into them.
Lewisburg had reported at least three UFO sightings within the past year. I walked around the side of the building and found the highest ground, the garden area beside the highway. I stood up on the hill and scoped things out.
Route 15 was below me, and I was practically on the border of Union County. I could see across the street, into Northumberland. I got my binoculars out of my coat pocket, and realized they were missing a lens. Dammit. There was a Wal-Mart just down the hill, which meant I didn't have to sweat broken equipment. I wandered down, bought a new pair of binoculars, and then went back to my post.
Lewisburg was between three nearby airports; I'd already checked that; it's standard procedure. I scanned the river with the binoculars, and saw a very bright light, aiming directly toward me. I got out my camera and took a photo. It disappeared, and then a minute later, it was back again.
I unfolded my map and checked. I was facing Highway 147, which meant that cars coming down off the exit would be facing me. Shining their lights right at me. That explained it.
Lewisburg was covered with lights; a shocking amount of the valley was lit up. With the airports and the nearby prison, that probably explained a lot of the sightings.
I went back into the banquet hall. I snuck back inside, hung up my coat, and headed for the bar for another beer. I walked past a whole room full of unexplainable, strange, otherworldly creatures, all drinking on the dance floor.
"Who's that girl....Watch that scene....Digging the dancing queen."

So there I sat, wearing my shirt that said Bigfoot saw me, but nobody believes him. In city hall. At a city council meeting. Don't judge me.
"You want to go first?" Joby whispered from the seat behind me. Joby is a friend of mine, and runs the local college library. He's also one of the few local historians who can keep up with me; he's as good as I am.
I nodded. "I'll say a few words."
"Next order of business," said one of the city councilmen,"We have a discrepancy with the portraits of our past mayors in this room. I've invited some of the local historians to tell us about it. You all know Lou."
I stood up. "Several years ago, I was asked to write a series of articles on the local mayors. While I was doing that, I discovered that we have missing portraits here. In 1983, during the anniversary, someone came in and copied all the names and dates down, but we're missing a few. That list became the definitive list of mayors, so we have some gaps in our history. Samuel Crist, John Wynn, and William Mayer are missing, and Joby recently discovered that Winfield Clawater has no information on him at all. We didn't even know he was mayor."
"Looks like we have a picture of Crist up there," said Joby. He handed me one of his printouts, and I looked up and compared it to the portrait, third from the left. Same guy.
"So we seem to have added Crist," I said. "But we're still missing Mayer and Wynn. Joby has found them. We'll probably never find a portrait of Clawater, but we'd like to have the others added to the wall. We should have all the pictures of mayors."
"I make a motion," said the city councilman.

I stopped outside City Hall the next day. Nobody was there, at least not anyone in the halls. Or in council chambers, where I stopped in. I took a look at the portraits---Something had been bugging me.
I looked up---Third one from the left. The guy Joby had pointed out last night. The photo was the same, but the label said "R.R. Bridgens."

"Hey, Joby? It's Lou."
"Hi, Lou! What can I do for you?"
In the library, my desk was in the Pennsylvania Room. The old part of the library. The part that had, coincidentally, been the home of R.R. Bridgens. It had been updated with electricity, air conditioning, and wireless. Yet, I still had to stretch my goddamn phone cord halfway across the room to my desk.
"We may need to regroup," I said. "I checked on my way into work. The guy in the photo? He's Bridgens, not Crist, or at least that's what the label says. We need to let city council know, and figure this out."
"Hmm. I've been looking for pictures of them both all morning. I found a photo of Crist on ancestry, posted by a descendant. I'm pretty sure it'll be Bridgens, mislabeled as Crist. Anything at the Ross?"
"I'll check our archives, see what I can find," I said. "We have a mystery here."
"For what it's worth," said Joby,"I'm betting a nickel it's Bridgens we're missing, not Crist."
"Know what? I'll take that action," I said. "I'm gonna bet we're missing Crist, and someone mislabeled him on ancestry."
"You're on," said Joby. "I'm willing to die on this hill."
"I'll check our archives, let you know."

"The New Yorker is in," I told Barb as I dropped it on her desk. "Brought it right to you." It had a picture of Trump on it, drowning as he clamored for the Wall. I'd been looking through our index when the mail came in.
"How about me?" asked Zach, sitting at his desk.
"Got you, too." I set his mail on the desk. He picked it up and looked at an envelope.
"This is from the Queen of England," he said. "Really."
We all glanced at him. The envelope he was holding was an official-looking, attractive tan envelope. Zach was a big fan of the royals of England, and often talked about them. I'd once told him,"I'll be concerned about the royal lineage when I'm next in line. And so should everyone else."
"I sent her a Christmas card," said Zach. "I got this, I guess, in return."
"No kidding? What is it?" asked Barb.
"I'm almost scared to open it," said Zach. "It could be anything."
"Thank-you letter?" guessed Tracey. "Autographed photo?"
"Restraining order?" I suggested. I put on a British accent. "Dear Zachary, please stop contacting the queen. We no longer fancy your calls on the telly."
Everyone laughed. Zach slid open the envelope.
"It's a letter of thanks," he said. "I think I'm going to have to frame it."
"I have a few frames in the trunk by my desk," I offered.
He gave me a scathing look. "You do not put a letter from the queen in any old frame out of a trunk," he said.
"You're right." I grinned. "What was I thinking?"

I found the boxes on the counter at the library, several boxes filled with old documents and newspaper clippings. People had been bringing in donations for the book sale, and they tended to bring in historic information, as well. I looked in and began sorting through them.
The main door opened, and a guy came in. He looked me over and asked,"Do you work here?"
"Yes, sir, I do. What can I do for you?"
"Do you go to church?"
Invariably, when someone asks me that directly, my first thought is Oh, shit. usually that is accurate.
"Not really, no."
"Does anyone go to church? I need to talk to a pastor. I'm passing through, and looking for a place to spend the night."
This guy looked like a homeless man right out of central casting. Long beard, raggy clothes, and a backpack the size of Leidy Township
"Um, I don't actually....I don't know, sir. I don't talk about religion with my co-workers too much."
"Can you ask? I need a pastor. I've already talked to the Salvation Army and the police, and they can't help me."
"We have a homeless shelter down on----"
"I've already checked. They're filled."
"Give me a minute," I said.
I went back to Sue's office.
"Weird question," I said,"Do you go to church?"
She gave me a look. "I believe, but I haven't been in a while."
"Yeah. that's what I thought. I got a homeless guy out here trying to contact a pastor."
Sue shook her head. "Nah, I wouldn't know how to hook him up. Did you see the boxes that came in for you?"
"I'm sorting through them now. Thanks."
I went back out to the desk. The homeless guy was still there. I said,"No, I'm sorry, nobody really knows how to get a pastor right now. There are plenty of churches that have evening services---Great Island on Water, Saint Paul's on Main. You could try to catch them in about an hour."
"Hmm. I was hoping to find something before that."
"Yeah, it's all I can think of. I can give you a free map of Lock Haven, if that would help."
He shook his head. "Nah, no reason for that."
"Well, good luck."
He turned toward the door. "Don't need luck, brother. I got Jesus Christ on my side."
He left, and I went back to the documents.
Some of them were important historic information, and others were crap. About the way it always is. I found several of my own articles. Somehow, this is always both expected and surprising. Some of the documents were filed into binders, and I took one of them and retreated back to my desk to work on it.
I paged through, looking at the articles. Some were good, and some weren't worth saving. I found one by my old friend Matt Connor---Matt had been a local history writer. He'd died of cancer in 2012. It was an article about the Crist House, which had been torn down in 2006.
I laughed aloud, sitting at my desk.
It had a photo of the house, and a photo of Crist. And it was the same one Joby had, the one hanging at city hall.
I stood up, putting the page in my pocket.
"Tracey," I said,"Gotta run to City Hall for a while. Be right back."
Tracey, working at the desk, nodded.
I slipped out the side door---Since my desk was right beside it, I'd been using it as an escape hatch. I biked the couple of blocks to City Hall, and walked into council chambers. I was technically trespassing, but it's been a while since anyone tried to stop me from doing anything like that. They usually assume I have some valid reason for it.
I stood in the empty room and looked up at the portraits. Mackey, Smith....And then the one labelled Bridgens. Exactly the same picture as the article in my pocket.
I biked back to the library and entered through the side door. Tracey was telling someone,"Lou said he'd be back any minute..."
"I'm here," I called, and my son and daughter came around the corner.
"Daddy!" Paul announced happily. "We had pizza!"
I hugged him. "Yeah? Was it good?"
"Yeah!"
"How's it going, Dad?" Tif asked as she came around the corner in her wheelchair.
"Pretty good," I said. "May have solved at least one mystery. But I owe Joby a nickel."
"Well, cool. What now?"
"I gotta do some work on tracking down the, ah, houses of ill repute in Lock Haven."
"Houses? How many did we have?"
"I have a line on at least four. Lock Haven was once known for this stuff."
"Gonna write an article?"
"I'm thinking of headlining it Oral History."
"Please don't."
Paul sat down at my desk, tapping on my computer keyboard. "I am writing a article," he declared. "About Bigfoot."
I smiled and gave him a hug.
"That's my boy."

Fangs For The Memories

"So, I have a surprise for you," said my wife, standing over the dinner table. "Splash," she said, looking at Biz. Then she turned to Tif. "Lagoon."
Both of them looked at Michelle, their eyes opening further. Tif said,"You're taking us to...."
"Splash Lagoon, in Erie," said Michelle. "It's an indoor water park. We'll be going overnight, leaving on a Sunday and coming back on a Monday. We have a hotel right in the place."
"This is great!" said Biz. She glanced at me. "Are you coming? I know you're not much for waterparks."
"There's always some sort of side quest," I said. "I looked into it. Up in Erie, there's a cemetery that's said to have a vampire buried in it."
"Cool!"
"There's a crypt in the Erie Cemetery. It once had a name carved in it, but that seems to have been destroyed. All that remains is a stylized V out of carved leaves. According to some of the local legends, there was a rich guy who came home from a trip to Romania...."
"Of course, Romania," said Tif. Tif is the more down-to-earth daughter; the one who's not as interested in the local legends. Biz is more imaginative, and gets more excited when I talk about this stuff.
"...And he died soon after. He's buried in the crypt, but soon after, there were unexplained deaths in the neighborhood. The story is that he's a vampire. There's a legend of a boy who broke in on a dare, and stole a ring from the corpse. He was later found dead, with his ring finger missing."
"Oooh," said Biz.
"There's also a water monster in Lake Erie. South Bay Bessie. If I get the chance, I can look into that, too."
"Cool."
"So, I figure I can stay busy," I said. "Who wants to help me find a vampire?"
"Oh, I do," said Biz.

And that's what I do.
I investigate the paranormal. I look into old legends. Usually I do it locally, in Lock Haven. But when I'm traveling, I like to dig into the legends where I'm going. I'm a terrible parent. But I am really, really good at hunting old legends.

"Which way to this cemetery?" Michelle asked. "We'll go up there before we check into the hotel."
"Stay on Nineteen," I said. "Take it into Erie, and then bear left onto Cherry Street." Michelle was driving. Because Tif is handicapped, she gets the front seat on these trips. I was crammed into the back with Biz and Paul---With the baby seat in the middle, there was just enough room for us.
"Take Cherry to Twenty. Turn right on Chestnut. There it is---The Erie Cemetery. Entrance should be along Chestnut."
Michelle cruised down Chestnut Street until we found the entrance. Michelle asked,"Which way now?"
"When we get to the middle, take a left. Down all the way to the south end." Michelle drove down the path, and I pointed out the window. "There. That's it."
We got out and walked to the crypt, Paul running ahead. It was a big concrete thing, built into the hillside. I looked it over. The names had been weathered off, but there was one symbol remaining: A carved V, with dogwood-like leaves.
"Wow," said Biz.
I walked around it, examining it.
"Guys. Look what I found."
I picked up a ring. It was metal, black and shiny, with an etched V on it that looked the same as the one on the crypt. Biz looked at it.
"You gonna keep it?" she asked.
"I suppose. Though, considering what happened to the last person to find a ring here...."
"Yeah, but he broke into the thing, though."
"You ready to go to the hotel?' Michelle asked me.
I nodded. "Yeah, I'm ready."
We climbed back into the car and worked our way back onto onto the street. As we headed back down the highway, I said,"So we've checked out the vampire grave. There's a circle of witches somewhere in there, too---"
Michelle whipped around to look at me. I thought she was going to slam on the brakes right then. "Wait, what? Witches? You know I like that! We spent our tenth anniversary in Salem! Why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought the vampire thing was more interesting. Besides, I couldn't narrow down the location like I did with the vampire crypt. I hear it's in there someplace, but I'm not sure where."
"It would be neat to see," said Michelle. "Let's get to the hotel, so we can go swimming."

Our hotel was interesting, for a hotel. Actually, my son likes just about any hotel. He gets all excited; they're his playground. He darted around the room, immediately found some lost toys behind the drawer from a previous tenant, and kissed his reflection in the mirror.
The hotel was a Comfort Inn, set in essentially a plaza of hotels near Splash Lagoon. All of them were connected to Splash Lagoon by a lengthy corridor that went through a long walkway, several sets of stairs, the lobby of a different hotel, and a bar. I scouted it out for my family; that much I can do. I got lost twice. I'm gonna stop making fun of people who get lost in the library.
The others went to go swimming in Splash Lagoon. I sling my cryptozoology bag over my shoulder and walked out to the lobby. The clerk on duty was a tall black woman with glasses.
"Got a minute?" I said. "Every time I travel, I wind up asking someone questions like this, and it looks like you're it. You know anything about the monster in Lake Erie?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Nope, haven't heard of that. Is there one?"
"Said to be. How about vampires or witches in Erie Cemetery?"
"Not that either. I'm gonna have to start learning some stuff." She laughed. "I have heard of coyotes up there, though."
"Coyotes? In, what, downtown Erie?"
"In Erie Cemetery. Heard they had problems there for a while, with a pack of coyotes running around."
"That's interesting, too. I'll have to check into that. Thanks."
I walked out, along Highway Nineteen. There was no way I was going to get up to Lake Erie, not on foot. If I'd had my bike, I might have tried it. I needed to come up with some more efficient transportation for when I was traveling. But I'd checked the maps, and I'd found the closest tributary to where I was. I hiked down and found the spot where it ran down into a pond.
Same water, presumably, as the lake. I crouched down and dug in my pack to get a sample container. The water was frozen over. Further out, it wasn't, but I couldn't reach that. I briefly considered trying to use a cord to fish a sample out of the pond, and then remembered the thirty feet of paracord I'd decided not to pack. God is my co-pilot. I picked up a rock and whacked at the ice until I could get through to get a sample.
Back at the hotel, I tested it. The water came in somewhat alkaline, which surprised me---Within the range that would support life, but only just barely.
I sat down at the hotel computer. For a moment, I considered checking my e-mail, and then abandoned the idea on the basis that it'd be easier to just send all my passwords to the hackers directly. The Pennsylvania Wilds could wait. I brought up the webpage for the Erie Cemetery, and checked the information for the vampire crypt. It was owned by a Gertrude Brown, who wasn't listed as buried in there. With a little digging, I found that the one who was said to have come back from Romania was George W. Goodrich.
I slipped the black ring onto my finger for a moment, examining it.
Vampire can't hurt me now. I know his name, which gives me power over him.
I did a search for the witch's circle. I couldn't find anything that exactly gave directions to it, though there were plenty of photos online. I looked at one, and realized that it was really close to Chestnut Street---I could see the street with a very distinctive house in the background.
I brought up Google Maps and went to street view, searching for a tan house with lattice and a long fence. After a few minutes, I found it. Along Chestnut, south of the cemetery entrance. I could find this.
So I'd tested for lake monsters, defeated a vampire, interviewed a local, and found a paranormal site, all in about the past hour. You learn to work in quite a lot of activity when you have to sneak away from your family to investigate.
I got up and went back to the catacombs to find my family.

They were sitting at a refreshment table in Splash Lagoon, dripping. I'd felt the humidity as soon as I exited the tunnel; the whole place was like a rainforest. I located them after a few minutes of searching. Paul was working on a piece of pizza.
"Hi, Daddy!" he called out.
"Hi, little man. Having fun?"
"Yeah!"
I leaned over the table.
"I know where to find the witch's circle now."
Michelle smiled. "Really?"
"I did a little more digging. If we stop by on our way out tomorrow, I can locate it."
"We'll do that, then, before we go. Have you eaten?"
"I grabbed about $3.50 worth of beef jerky earlier. Oh, and there's a small shop near here selling Erie T-shirts for five bucks, if you're into that."
"As soon as we're done here, we'll find somewhere to eat," Michelle said.
I nodded. "Take your time. I got plenty of stuff I can do."

The bar was a sports bar, with all the neon and TVs going. I'd found it on the far end of the series of walkways and tunnels. I sat on the stool and had a Blue Moon. The girl behind the bar was washing glasses.
"So, weird question," I said. "You hear any strange stories about the Erie Cemetery?"
She grinned. "Oh, yes. There's a vampire grave and a witch's circle."
"Yeah. heard about that. Do you know where to find the witches?"
She shook her head. "I know it's in the oldest part of the cemetery, but I'm not sure where. At least the city removed the coyotes."
"Wait....You mean that's real? Not just a rumor?"
"Oh, no, that really happened. There were three coyotes and a deer living in there; people used to see them all the time. The city relocated them a few years ago."
"Hunh. That's cool." You know it's a good vacation when the locals assure you that the coyote problem is under control. "I'm a writer, and I do a lot of columns like this for newspapers and the occasional magazine."
She looked me over. I was glad I was wearing the green sweatshirt with the UFO that said Please take me. I'd initially been going to wear it to the library for book club, but we were discussing a book by Elizabeth Smart, and I'm not stupid.
"Oh, that's neat. Writing about vampires now?"
"You know, I might be."
There was a guy behind the bar, listening in. He said,"We also have a sea monster up here."
I grinned. "South Bay Bessie. Oh, yes."
"My mom swears she saw it," he said. "Just off Presque Isle a couple of summers ago."
"No kidding? The interesting thing about water monsters is how plausible they are. Could be five feet away, and you'd never know it."
"Yeah, we have a lot of good stuff around here. You know the book Weird Pennsylvania?"
"I know it well. Great book."
"Yeah, we're in there a couple of times. Another one?"
"Nah, I'm gonna get back to my family." I tipped five dollars, and left two of my business cards on the bar. "If you're interested, look up my name. You'll find some of my stuff."
He grinned. "We'll do that."

I came out of the hotel bathroom. "Hey, Tif? Remember how you were so impressed with my chupacabra pajamas last month?"
Tif looked up. "Yeah?"
"I wore my Lake Erie monster pajamas for this one." The shirt had a bright orange Lake Erie monster on it. "It seemed like to fitting thing to do."
Paul was in the closet, spreading out his sleeping bag with the intent to sleep in there. I sat down at the desk with Biz. We looked over the ring. "It's big," said Biz, trying to slip it on her finger. "I wonder who left it there."
"Don't know. Check it out, the V on it has the same dogwood pattern as the crypt."
"Is that dogwood?"
"I believe so. In the Victorian flower code, that means immortality or durability."
"That crypt looked pretty durable."
That's quality family time. Sitting with my daughter, discussing death and vampires. "I talked to a couple of people in the bar who tell me the coyotes are gone these days."
"There were really coyotes?"
"Apparently there were. Depending on how long they were around, it could account for some of the stories of vampire deaths and attacks around the cemetery."
Biz nodded. "Yeah, I can see how that might start some stories."
"Well, tomorrow before we head home, we'll stop again and see the witch's circle this time. And if we take Route Six and stop at the Kinzua Bridge, I can get an article out of it for the PA Wilds."

"Take the first left," I said. "Keep going. The circle is near Chestnut Street."
"So I keep to the left," said Michelle.
"Yeah. I'm basing this on a distinctive house across the street, so I'll have some idea when we're in the neighborhood. It's one of those thing I'm gonna need to get out and search first, though."
Michelle drove along the path, me looking out the back window. I said,"Here. Stop here."
I got out of the car and walked around in a circle, looking at the trees and the gravestones. I saw the house, and tried to judge in relation to it. And then I spotted the ring of stones branching out from a large tree.
I stopped, faced the car, and pointed downward. This was it.
Michelle and Biz got out. We all walked around, and took photos. I said,"See the discoloration on this stone? It's said to be the result of these witches summoning something that burned the stones. Well, some people say it's acid rain."
"But then why aren't all of them like this?" Biz asked.
"Exactly."
Biz looked around the circle, and took a few more photos. "You ready?" she asked.
I nodded, and put my lanyard with my PA Wilds ID card on. It hung over my new Erie T-shirt.
"Let's go home."

Visions Of Sugar Valley: The 2018 Christmas Special

Once a month, I get together with the other ghost hunters. It's my only social life. LHPS had gathered at Millie's house for our annual Christmas meeting, and I was exchanging gifts with Millie, Ashlin, Kara, Kris, Charlie, and Theresa.
"Thank you, Ashlin." Ashlin's gift to me was a six-pack of various beers, which the local grocery store had recently begun to sell. "These look great." Instead of my uniform, I was wearing my new sweatshirt with Santa and aliens on it. It said I want to believe.
"Can anyone re-cork the wine?" Kara asked. I stood up and picked up the cork.
I tired to force it back into the mouth of the bottle, and struggled a bit. Charlie asked,"Having some trouble there, Lou?"
"Can't seem to get it in."
Everyone laughed, and Kara said,"Is that a problem you have often?"
"Yeah, I heard it when I said it. You guys know this is sexual harassment, right?"
"Oh, I feel so sorry for you," said Theresa.
I laughed. "Sure. Shame the victim."
"And look at this!" Charlie picked up the present I'd brought. "You wrapped this with newspaper!"
"It's my column!" I said. "See? You even get a photo of me!"
"So what else have you been working on?" asked Kara.
I shrugged. "Nothing too special. Research on a home moved from Sugar Valley. Also in Sugar Valley, a Bigfoot sighting and a UFO sighting, both of which look likely to be hoaxes. I don't know, been a little slow lately. I'm waiting for something interesting."
Kara smiled. "Something will turn up."

"Merry Christmas!"
The publisher of the local newspaper gestured at the food table, and everyone gathered around. As a freelancer, I'd been pleasantly surprised to have been invited to the annual Christmas party.
I got a plate and sat down at one of the tables. I was joined by a few others---A photographer, a circulation guy, another freelancer. I felt like I was at the Freelancer's Table.
"So, Lou, any haunted Christmas stories?" someone asked.
I get this a lot. It's what happens when you've made your career as the local history paranormal writer guy. Not that anyone else would know that.
"Matter of fact, Henry Shoemaker wrote a couple," I said. "My personal favorite is from down in Sugar Valley; he called the town Black Snake Mills in the story, but it was really a thinly disguised Eastville. There were said to be some magical mannequins that would come to life on Christmas Eve, walk to the nearest church, and pray for their owner."
The publisher grinned. "You gonna write about that?"
"Already sent it in. I've always wanted to find out who the owner was, though---The guy who owned the empty store in Eastville and had the walking mannequins. That would be kind of cool."
"Might be worth another column sometime," he agreed.
I walked around and chatted, had some food, discussed upcoming articles with Editorial. And then, as the party wound down, I did what you'd expect from a paranormal investigator.
I ghosted.

It was the next day when the meat came in the mail.
I was at the desk, trying to figure out a way to get out of a conversation---A woman was explaining to me, in great detail, how the government was murdering people to conceal evidence of phoenix sightings in Renovo. The delivery guy carried three boxes into the library. One was a shipment of books, one was the cardboard shipping boxes for the Record we were expecting, and one was a box from a frozen steak company, addressed to me.
"What the hell....I didn't order anything," I said.
The delivery guy looked it over. "Lucky you," he said, and left.
I set it on the desk. Sue and Tracey gathered, and I said,"Someone sent me a box of steaks. Who the hell...."
"Is there a card?" Sue asked.
I found the card, tucked in under the label at the top of the box. "It's from my research clients. They hired me a while ago to find the history of a home they'd had moved from Sugar Valley out to Indiana. I traced back the deeds, and figured out it was built in 1840." I looked it over. "What the hell am I going to do with this? I've never been paid in meat before."
"It's on dry ice," commented Sue. "It should last for a while."
"I'll ask my wife to run me down later," I said. "Otherwise I have a crate of steak sitting here thawing by my desk all Christmas vacation."

I walked in the back door, across the kitchen, and began pulling things out of the freezer. Paul ran into the room. "Daddy!"
"Hi, little man. How you doing? Where's Sissy?"
"I'm here," said my daughter, Tif, walking into the room with her crutch. "What're you doing?"
"Gotta clear some space out of this freezer," I said. "You remember last week when I had to run down to the new courthouse building and do a title search on a property? I thought they were just gonna send a check or something. They sent me a box of steaks."
"Wow. It's gotta be nice doing research for rich people."
"I've never actually gotten steaks in the mail before. It's actually out of proportion to anything I really did; it was just a basic title search. I been spending a lot of time researching Sugar Valley lately."
"How come?"
"I might look into the walking mannequins story. You remember that one? An old Henry Shoemaker piece. An old shopkeeper closed up his store in protest to the lumbering industry, but he left his mannequins on display in the window. They loved the shopkeeper so much that every Christmas Eve, they came to life and walked from the store to the church, and prayed for the owner. Every Christmas, the people of Sugar Valley would see the mannequin footprints in the snow. There was a man who was driving through, and his car broke down, and he spotted the mannequins."
"Wow."
"Yeah, Shoemaker's stuff didn't invariably make a ton of sense. You want some frozen vegetables?"
"Sure."
I put them in a bag for her. "So I thought I'd look into it a little; see who the shopkeeper was from the story."
"How are you going to figure that out?"
"Years ago, Chris and I ran down to Sugar Valley and scouted the place out. Typically for Shoemaker, the story is geographically accurate---Store, church, everything. The story takes place about 1910, so if I can trace back the deeds maybe, I can figure out who owned the store around that time."
"How do you know it takes places in 1910?"
"Shoemaker lists the car as a 1905 model. So it had to happen after that, and long enough after for the car to break down. I'm estimating, but given what I know, 1910 might be about right."
"And then what? Why bother with any of this?"
"It's good to keep in practice. Beside, I may get an article out of it for the Pennsylvania Wilds." I looked at the now-empty freezer. "That oughta hold a box full of steaks. We can cook up some for Christmas."

"Glad you're here, Lou," said Adam when I walked into the library. "There's a package for you, and the microfilm machine is having problems."
"I'll take a look," I said. "Got some time before my program up on three, and I need to do some stuff with the microfilm anyway."
"What're you working on?" asked Tracey.
"Trying to track down a guy from one of the old legends," I said. "I just came from the new courthouse annex. I did the title search on the building there, and I found a James Frank who owned it at about the right time. Now I need to dig through the obits here, and see if the details check out."
Tracey shook her head. "I don't know why I even ask."
I got the package out of my mailbox and retreated to my desk. It turned out to be a Christmas gift from Resurrection Casey---A little multi-tool with a knife and even a small electronic scale on it. That plus the mailing must have been a significant cash outlay for Casey, who was generally broke, so I sent her an e-mail thanking her, with instructions on how to find UFOs, and a promise to send some bus money soon.
Then I got to work. I checked out the microfilm machine, and it wasn't any big deal---A lens had been inserted wrong and was blocking the light. I got it back into place, and then went to the index to look up James Frank.
I found obits listed for both him and his wife. I got both the reels, and took them both back to the machines.
Frank had died in 1952. His wife in 1921. I found their obits---The wife had died of cancer. I tapped my pen against my teeth for a minute and did a little mental math---Frank had been fifty-two at the time, old enough to have become the lonely old man of the story.
Frank's obit listed the church of his services as the Sugar Valley Church of the Brethren. Which struck me as an improbably long name, but not the point. I went back to my desk and checked the map.
It was the same church from the story, the one right beside his store.
1921, not 1910.
I walked up to the third floor, into the bowels of the Ross Library. Generally, "the bowels" of some building would be downward, more basement-wise, but at the library, it's up. Once you pass the meeting rooms, there are furnace rooms, rooms that control the air and the elevator, hidden spots that the public never gets to see.
Bill, our maintenance guy, was at his desk.
"Got a question for you," I said.
He looked up. "Your sink need repair again?"
"No, not this time. This time it's cars. Old ones. Back about a century ago, how long would a car have lasted before it began to break down?"
"Back then? Decades. They were made to last."
"So it's not implausible that a car made in 1905 would suddenly start breaking down in the early 1920s?"
"No, that's about right," said Bill. "Sounds right to me."
I nodded. "Thanks, Bill. Merry Christmas."
"You learn what you needed?"
"Yeah." I said. "I think I did."
When I got back to my desk, there was a gift on it. Kara.
I opened it up and smiled. Two T-shirts. One was Green Lantern, and the other one was Bigfoot.

"Almost done with Christmas dinner, everyone," I said, standing over the stove. "You guys like yours well-done, right?"
"Medium," commented Tif.
"I like mine the way you and Michelle do," said Biz.
"Barely dead. Coming right up." I flipped the steaks. Biz was playing with the indestructible pink pen I'd given her, and I was wearing the Bigfoot pin Tif had given me. Paul, dressed as Harry Potter, was sitting on the floor playing with a huge selection of new toys.
"How do you cook those?" asked Biz.
"Well, first I pulled an assessment record. Then I went to the Register and Recorder, and---"
"Never mind."
"So I figured out who the old man was who owned the mannequins."
"From the legend? Who?" Tif asked.
"His name was James Frank, and he owned a shop in Sugar Valley. I'd been thinking about it as way too early. He was widowed in 1921, and that's sometime around when the story took place. He's buried down there; he died over fifty years ago."
"So. You got what you wanted?"
I looked around the room at my family.
"Yeah, I really did," I said. "Who's ready for steaks?"

Thunderbird In The Hand

I sat at the table, with the rest of LHPS. I was between Millie and Kara, and around the table sat Theresa, Lacey, and Ashlin.

How did I get this lucky? Really, how did it happen?

My best friends are ghost hunters.

"We did the intake interview in the Gardens," said Kara. "I'm going to call the client to schedule an investigation."
"Personally, I think it may come down to repressed memories," I said. "A lot of the stuff she was describing, including the feeling of being touched while she sleeps, are symptoms of lost memories of abuse. I'm betting on that."
Theresa nodded. "What else do you have, Lou?"
"Thanks for the help with the haunted tours," I said. "With you guys, I made about two hundred bucks for the library."
"How you doing, now that they're over?" Kara asked.
"There's always a letdown," I said. "I spend months working on these things, and then it's done like that. So right now, I'm feeling blank....I'm just waiting. Waiting for the next big thing to come along."

I've always loved autumn. I love the leaves, the cool air, the feeling of possibility. Other people view autumn as the end, the dying before winter. It's never felt like that to me. Autumn has always felt like the beginning, a new time, the start of endless possibilities.
I rode my bike to the library, and grabbed a cup of coffee. Then I got to work, wearing my Loch Ness Monster shirt. I set up the Sloan Room for a program, worked on an article, looked through the history files. I got online for a while. There was a new ghost-hunting group in Lock Haven that was very bad at it, and they'd plagiarized some of my work to make up for their lack of research. I sent them an e-mail threatening lawyers while I waited for something good to happen.
The trouble with trying to make an adventure happen is that you can't. Adventures come to you, at times you're often not expecting it. You can't force it, no matter how hard you try.
"Hey, Lou, call for you on line one," said Adam. "Says someone referred him to you."
"Thanks, Adam." I picked up the line. "Hi, can I help you?"
"Hi, is this Lou?"
"It is."
"My name's Kevin, and I'm calling from New Jersey. Rich from Renovo referred me to you."
"Ah, I think I see where this is going already."
He laughed. "Do you? I'm calling to ask about Thunderbirds. Is that what you expected?"
"Pretty close, actually. I was betting on Giwoggles."
"You do know Thunderbirds?"
"I'm familiar," I said. "Huge birds, hidden in the woods. Possibly an undiscovered species. The Native Americans believed that they brought on storms."
"So, I hear there have been Thunderbird sightings out there?"
"All over the county," I said. "I investigated one personally in Swissdale a few years ago."
"Interesting," he said. "A lot of these stories seem to have been reported by a man named Hiram Cranmer. Are you familiar with him?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "He was an old guy up in Leidy who told a lot of these stories. He talked about ghosts, UFOs, and creatures. He was like a thousand. Ironically, he didn't die of old age."
"I read that he died in a house fire."
"That's correct."
"Have you heard of the lost Thunderbird photograph?"
"That's a new one," I said. "I admit, I haven't."
"There is said to be a photo, showing men standing in front of a Thunderbird," he explained. "All of them, arms stretched out, to demonstrate how big it was. People remember seeing it, but nobody can find it now."
"I'm intrigued."
"There was a researcher named Ivan Sanderson," Kevin said. "He interviewed Cranmer, and it's thought that he may have taken the photo to him. In which case, it may have burned up in Cranmer's house when he died."
"You know, I'm gonna look into this," I said. "That's plausible. Cranmer was a collector; I've dealt with some of his stuff before. He may have donated the photo to some other organization, and maybe I can find it."
"Thanks for listening," said Kevin. "I was hoping I wouldn't get someone on the phone who would treat me like I'm crazy."
"Nah, I get this all the time," I said. "Besides, this could be my next big adventure."

"When is Mommy coming home, Daddy?" Paul asked.
"Thursday night, little guy," I said. "Mommy is going to New Jersey for work, and she'll be there
for four days."
He sighed. "That will be forever."
"Well, she just left an hour ago."
"Can we get pizza?"
"We can get pizza. I know. You want to go out in the backyard and look for aliens?"
His face lit up. "Yeah! Let's look for aliens!"
"We'll need flashlights and binoculars."
Paul went and found the pack full of adventure equipment that my mentor had sent him for his birthday. He dug out his flashlight and his binoculars. I grabbed my crypto kit, and threw it over one shoulder.
"Grab your coat, little man. It's cold out there."
Shining our flashlights, we walked out into the back yard. We walked down to the edge of the lawn, by the garage.
"I see a alien, Daddy!"
"Where?"
"Over there! In Bonnie's yard!"
"What's it look like?"
"It's all colors! And it's going like this!" Paul waved his arms around liquidly and made a noise like Blugga-blugga-blugga.
"Yeah, that does sound like an alien."
"Hey! I see lights!" He pointed northeast, at the blinking red cell towers on the mountain. "Those are aliens!"
I smiled.
"You got it, little guy. You're finding aliens."

I looked over the table of baseball-related items and snapped a photo. I was in the back room of the Express with the publisher, the editor, and the subject of my article, one of the men who'd won the Little League World Series for Lock Haven in 1948. Paul was there, too. We'd gone down to meet with the newspaper and the former player, see some of his souvenirs, and get some pictures.
"Well, thanks a lot, sir," I said. "I'll call if there are any other questions. I appreciate it."
"Daddy?" said Paul softly in my ear. "I thought we were going to see the attic."
"We will, little man," I said. "You're being very good." I turned to the editor. "Lana, I have two favors. One is that the library's event for tomorrow has been rescheduled for the twenty-ninth. Can you run a notice?"
"Sure."
"The other is, do you still have an archive of photos in the attic? I'm looking for one that may or may not be here."
"Sure, go ahead. You've been up there before, right?"
"I have. This way?"
"Yep."
Holding Paul's hand, I walked up the stairs and pushed open the door. Paul looked around. "Is this the attic, Daddy?"
"Yeah, it's the attic," I said. "I need to look for pictures."
There were several green file cabinets on the east wall. They'd done some organizing since I'd last checked. I found the two folders most likely to have a lost Thunderbird photo, Hunting and Groups: Unidentified.
"I'm getting hungry, Daddy," said Paul.
"Just gonna be a minute, little guy. We'll get you some food as soon as we get home."
As fast as I could manage, I flipped through each photo in the folders. I found some really interesting ones, but nothing that matched the description of the Thunderbird photo. I filed the folders back into the drawers.
"We done now?" Paul asked.
"Yeah. We're done now."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Lana asked as we walked down the stairs into Editorial.
"No, you guys don't seem to have the photo," I said. "But at least that means I can rule one thing out."

"It's pretty dead in here," I said, looking out the library window at the snow.
Barb nodded, walking past. "We're on a skeleton crew. About half the staff couldn't make it in today."
We'd been hit with the first  big storm of the season, and snow was pouring onto central Pennsylvania. The library was open, because it takes a statewide crisis to close us, but nobody was around. There had been barely any snow plows out, because in spite of having been based in snowy Pennsylvania for the entirety of its existence, PennDOT never seems to understand that winter is going to arrive. I stared out the window looking for Yetis for a while, but they're rare in Lock Haven, except as exchange students. So I took the opportunity to go hunting for the lost Thunderbird photo.
First I checked the index, under both Cranmer and Thunderbird. There were mentions of Cranmer, but nothing that indicated he'd ever donated a photo. Which meant I could rule out the numbered albums---If we had it, it was in one of the uncatalogued files.
A few years ago, I'd had to look into Cranmer and figure out if he had the Holy Grail. It's a long story. I'd pulled his will from the courthouse, and I'd put it on file in the library. I thought I remembered it being in a file folder near my desk, and after a few minutes of searching, I found it in the blue file cabinets.
It contained nothing surprising. Most of his stuff had been given to the local historical society, which hadn't had a building yet. Which meant that most of it had been placed at the library.
I walked upstairs to the attic, startling hell out of Zach, who was already up there gathering holiday decorations.
"Jesus! What're you doing up here?"
"Oh, sorry, Zach. I'm looking for a photo that may or may not exist."
"Well. Good luck."
The attic had no heating system, having not once been upgraded since 1887. It was chilly up there, and the windows were rattling in the wind.
I'd spent six and a half years foraging through this attic. Any photos were going to be framed, and on the shelves. I walked through, looking at the old books and newspapers, but the Thunderbird photo wasn't there.
I went back down to the second floor.
I opened the door to the Sloan Museum Room, and looked around. It was where we stored all the photos, of which there were probably a thousand. I'd already checked the index, so I knew I could probably rule out the numbered albums. I dug through the file cabinets.
I found the folders I remembered being there. Three folders full of unidentified photos. I took them and retreated back to the Sloan Room, which was warmer and more comfortable. Setting them on the table, I started flipping through old photos.
It took about half an hour. I found a photo of the disappearing woman statue from Zindel Park. Not what I'd been looking for, but intriguing. I set that one aside for later. I found a stack of old, black and white hunting photos, and I got excited for a moment, but the closest I came was five guys holding up a medium-sized turkey. None of the photos had any indication where they'd come from.
I put the folders back, and went back downstairs to my desk.
I sat there for a while, biting on one fingernail, then I pulled the Cranmer file again. I thought about Henry Shoemaker, my hero and a local writer and historian. I knew Cranmer had been one of his sources, and I took a moment to consider that Shoemaker might have ended up with the photo, until I realized that Cranmer hadn't even acquired it until after Shoemaker's death. I had no doubt Henry Shoemaker was haunting someplace as a ghost, but he was unlikely to be carrying a lot of photographs.
I found the articles about the house fire. It had happened in 1967, and was covered in both of the major newspapers at the time. Cranmer had died in an attempt to get out of the house through a window. Photos of the place showed the house flattened---Nothing left.
Back to Annie Snyder's drawing board.

It ended the way it began.
I sat in the living room with Millie, Kara, and Ashlin. "So we're agreed, we need to keep an eye on this new team," I said. "I've already called them on plagiarizing my work, and they removed the entry. They're terrible at this; I don't think they're gonna last very long."
"They may do a lot of damage in the meantime," said Millie.
I nodded. "That's why we watch them."
"Maybe they'll come to our next seminar," suggested Ashlin.
"In which case, we let them," I said. "We can take their money for the library, show them how it's done, and let them know what clowns they are."
Ashlin grinned. "I like that."
"In other news, I've been looking for the Lost Thunderbird photo," I said. "An old photo that may have disappeared in this area, showing a bunch of hunters with a Thunderbird."
"If it existed," added Kara.
"If it existed," I conceded. "I take it the Record doesn't keep some sort of old photo archive?"
She shook her head. "Just a few sports photos. Nothing like what you're looking for."
"So there are Thunderbirds?" asked Millie.
"Well, that's kind of up in the air," I said. "The photo could show a condor or some kind of oversized bird. We'll never know without it. And, after checking everywhere I can think of, I can't find it. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not there anymore. I think it went up in the fire that killed Hiram Cranmer in 1967."
"So it's gone," said Millie.
"If it existed," Kara said again.
I nodded.
"If it existed."

Walk On The Child Side

"I need your help," the woman said. "I have to sue the people who sold me my house."
"Law books," I said. "You want Acquisitions. Just a second, I'll call her."
"No, I want to talk to you."
I looked across my desk at her. She sat, legs crossed, gazing at me. I said,"That's more of a legal question, miss. I'm not a lawyer, and I really can't give legal advice."
"Well, but this is your area. The house is haunted."
"Ah. I see. Where is the house, miss?"
"North Vesper Street."
"Well, if you'd like a free investigation, we're available." I slid my business card to her. It was my recently redesigned one, with a Bigfoot print and a ghost.
"No, I don't want that," she said. "I want the ghosts out of there. Now."
I cleared my throat. "Well, we're investigators, miss, not exterminators. We can check into it, of course, but...."
"I want to sue them," she said. "They didn't tell me the house was haunted. They legally have to tell you."
"No, they don't," I said. "That's a common misunderstanding."
She gave me a look. "What're you talking about? I thought you were the big ghost expert. Of course they have to tell you. Everyone knows that."
I sighed. "What you're referring to it Stambovsky v. Ackley. Look it up. It refers to a stigmatized property, which doesn't mean they have to disclose that the house is definitely haunted. It means they have to tell you if the house has been publicized as being haunted, which is a different story altogether. While hauntings have never been legally proven, nobody wants curious jerks trespassing and trying to break into their house. Your house hasn't been publicized, miss. I'd know---I'm the guy who publicizes them."
She stood up. "Well. Maybe I will talk to a lawyer."
"Of course," I said. "And if you decide to go with an investigation, I'm not going anywhere."

I get stuff like this.
My name is Lou. I work for the local library. Also as a freelance writer. And also, I'm a paranormal investigator. It's mostly in that last capacity that I tend to attract the nuts.
It's not always like that. There are some lunatics out there, and some people who don't really understand much of what they're talking about. But there's some interesting people out there, too, and some good stuff that happens.
I like it. I like it so much, I've been teaching a class on it.

"Guys, I'd like to welcome you to the first meeting of the year," I said, standing at the head of the room. "This year is special. As of tonight, it's an anniversary. It's been five years since Teen Paranormal was formed."
Kara sat at the table beside me. Around the table were my kids, the ones I taught. Some of them were new to the group, and some had been around a while. Aubree, Meridian and Seth, Alex, Catie, Skylar, and Olivia were all looking at their handouts.
"The purpose of the group," I continued,"Is to teach you how to be responsible paranormal investigators. We're going to learn how to find measurable, provable evidence of the paranormal. I'm an investigator myself, and I've been with the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers for over a decade. I'm going to teach you."
"Are we going to go on an investigation?" asked Seth.
"Next meeting," I said,"I'm going to show you how to use the equipment, and we're going to investigate the attic. Right now, I'm going to show you how to do the historic research on a haunted house. Follow me."

Standing at my desk, I held out a cigar box. "Everybody take a name."
Each of the kids picked a folded piece of paper out of the box. Seth and Alex, my most enthusiastic, both took two. They unfolded their papers, each of which had a name.
"You guys each have someone to look up," I said. "These drawers are the indexes to our newspaper file, which goes back to 1813. We have obituaries and cemetery records for everyone who has ever died in the county. Each one of you should have a name on your paper. I want you to look them up, and tell me something interesting about that person."
Thw kids got to work. Alex began digging through the file in search of Mary Elizabeth Crocker. Aubree began to check for Wilson Kistler in the cemetery indexes. Kara leaned back against my desk, arms crossed.
"I always like when you do this," she said.
I smiled. "It's been a bit of a learning curve, these last five years. I've found the best way to teach the kids is to have something hands-on for them to investigate."
"Hey!" Olivia burst out. "I'm in here!"
I looked over her shoulder. "Mentioned in your grandfather's obit. Pretty cool." I turned and glanced into the PA Room, where Aubree was sitting. "How's our little social mutant doing over there?"
Aubree grinned. "I think I found Wilson Kistler. Is he in Highland Cemetery?"
"That's him. He's in a crypt up there." I turned to the others. "That's how you find the historic information. Next time, we'll be learning the actual investigation. Come on in."
We gathered around the table. I said,"We're gonna go up in the attic, and I'll teach you how to use the equipment. We'll investigate the place. We're getting some construction done on the building, too, which has been known to stir up ghosts. Wear something dark, that doesn't reflect---Dark blues and greens are good. See you guys at the next meeting."

"I'll schedule the investigation and post on the forum," Kara said as she pulled up by Taggart Park. "We'll see about finding the time to go in."
"Text me," said Lacey, jumping out of the car. "Go softball practice. See you guys later!"
She ran for the field, and Kara pulled out. She said,"So where are we going?"
"Oh hell, I got nowhere to be. Want to go look for the Ingleby Monster?"
"What's that?"
"Down around the Centre-Clinton line, near Sugar Valley, there are rumors. A creature that's been reported, though never seen---It's thought to be invisible. Said to have attacked and beheaded people, though that could be a myth."
"I don't want to get beheaded."
"You won't get beheaded."
"Tell me where to go."
"Narrows Road, Sugar Valley."
She turned onto Grove Street. I said,"That's John Sloan's house."
"That one? The artist John Sloan?"
"Yeah, that one right there with the plaque on the door. The famous artist is from here."
"Did he live here a little, or is he really from here?"
"No, he was born here. His family moved to Philadelphia when he was about seven. Sloan grew up to be a famous artist, and came back to Lock Haven once during his life. Rebecca Gross showed him where he was born, and Sloan didn't like it. It had no character, he said. So he chose a really terrible building on Church Street, and claimed that was the birthplace. His ashes are scattered in Highland Cemetery, near the Kistler crypt."
"No kidding."
"This makes me the only tour guide in the world who can show a famous artist's two birthplaces and final resting place."
We were passing Salona, heading south. We sat in companionable silence for a while.
"Are you going to do the psychic lesson for the kids this year?" asked Kara. "That's always fun."
"I usually get to that one in the winter," I said. "You know my feelings on psychics. They piss me off."
"That's why it's fun. Haven't you ever had a psychic experience? A dream that came true?"
"When I was a kid, I dreamed that my cousin Wendy was going to die."
"Did she die?"
"Twenty-two years later, yes."
"Where are we?"
I said,"Narrows Road. Turn here."
"This goes to Loganton?"
"Eventually."
"I don't want to get lost."
"If we find Loganton, we won't be lost."
We drove through what appeared to be a cloud. Kara wrinkled her nose. "Did you see that?"
"Seemed like smoke."
"Yeah, but wasn't that a little weird? Would it be that heavy if someone was burning something earlier?"
"No, and I didn't see any fire. It's strange."
"What do you think?"
"Ingleby monster," I said.

"Come here, let me show you this," the young woman said. "I did your star chart."
I looked up from my desk. "Huh?"
"Remember I was in here a couple of months ago, and I asked when you last had your astrological chart done?" she said. "I did one for you. Come over here."
I walked over, and sat down next to her at the computers. She had some sort of diagram on the screen, a circle divided into several segments, with odd symbols and red and blue lines.
"Now, you are very powerful," she said. "You're gifted. You may not admit it, but you can't hide it from me. You're very gifted with psychic abilities."
"Well, no, because that's not a thing," I said.
"You can deny it, but I see you. Look, right here," she said,"This means you're an empath. You can feel the emotions of others. You could totally be inside me if you wanted."
"Um...."
"Now, you're a Leo, right?" She pointed at another place on the chart. "Your Mercury is in Virgo. That means you're a fire sign. You're really hot."
"....And what's that mean?"
"You're a very intense person," she said.
I nodded. "I have been called intense."
"I'm a water sign. I'm wet."
Did she realize she was doing this? I said,"Um....."
"Now, let me show you this," she said. "We can take these signs, get their numerical values, and add them up. It's all math."
"No wonder I don't understand it."
"The value here is sixty-nine. You feel me? You're an empath, and very powerful, whether you admit it or not. We can even combine the charts to show how alike we are. Here, let's see what happens if we put you on top of me."
I closed my eyes.
She continued,"Now, let's take a look at Uranus---"
I stood up.
"I better get back to work."
I retreated to my desk and checked my messages. Kara had sent one; she couldn't make the Teen Paranormal meeting. I took a few minutes to send an e-mail to Resurrection Casey, with some instruction on how to look for ghosts. Then I stood up and paced a little; my family was still out of town, so I was feeling a little off.
I checked to see if there were any books to process. Nothing. No pending articles to be written, no new comments on the haunted stuff I'd written for the PA Wilds. I needed a quest. I have no life. Someone had to be more pathetic than this. There had to be someone out there with less of a life than me, and I was determined to find that person.
Halfway down the hall, it occurred to me that it might be the chick with the horoscopes, and I returned to my desk.
There was another message waiting for me. My old friend and former intern Chris was back in town, and he was asking if I was working.
I thought a moment, then got out my cell phone.
"Hey, Chris. You wanna come to a meeting?"

I stood in front of the kids, at the head of the table in the Sloan Room. Chris was sitting to my left, and Alex, Aubree, Caitie, Skylar, and Olivia sat around the table. My regulars.
"Guys, good to see you," I said. "Tonight we're gonna learn how to do a responsible investigation. I have my equipment with me." On the table in front of me, I had my camera, recorder, EMF detector, and laser thermometer. I was wearing my LHPS uniform, with the leg rig containing some of my stuff. "I'm going to teach you guys how to use this....And then we're gonna go upstairs, into the attic, and do an actual investigation."
Aubree grinned at me. "I got a recorder, too. I brought it along."
"Excellent," I said. "You guys might as well just go buy all this stuff immediately....You're gonna end up with it all anyway, so you might as well get it over with. Let me show you how this all works."

The Ross Library's attic was old. Like 1887 old. And it hadn't been upgraded too much during that time. The kids followed me up the stairs into the dusty five-room attic, and I opened the door to one of the storage rooms and walked in.
"First, get photos. Every conceivable angle. Get some EMF readings, and use the thermometer to get a baseline temperature. Check everything before we settle into the EVP session."
"I'm showing about seventy-eight," said Chris, who was handling my laser thermometer.
"That sounds about right," I said.
"Can I use your camera?" asked Alex.
"Sure, go ahead. Get photos all over the room." I handed it to him, and he headed off with Skylar, clicking pictures.
Aubree turned on her recorder. "I'm gonna get everything."
"Good. Good. Remember to tag all the intrusive noises from outside, and leave plenty of space for possible answers."
"Think we're gonna get any activity tonight?" asked Caitie.
"You never know," I said. "It's happened before. And they've been working on the windows lately---Construction can make the ghosts act up; sometimes they don't like it. So it's possible."
"Will we hear anything?"
"We have the recorders running right now," I said. "But remember, sometimes you don't hear anything until later. It's what they never show you on the TV shows---The review is important. You have to play this all back; a lot of the evidence comes from what you find after the actual investigation is over."
"I got a weird picture," Olivia said.
She held up her cell phone, and I looked it over. It showed one wall of the room with a weird streak of light.
"Get a temperature reading and some EMFs over here," I said. "Take more photos. Check this."
Aubree and Alex moved in, getting photos and checking with the EMF detector. Aubree said,"I'm getting a bit of a reading."
I nodded, and looked at my watch. "We're almost out of time tonight, guys. But we may have something here. You did good. I'm proud of you."

"Daddy!" The staff door at the library opened, and my son came running in. He was followed by my wife as he raced across the floor. "We're home!"
I picked him up and hugged him. "Welcome back, little man. I'm glad to see you."
"Did Sissy get me a surprise? What is it?"
"You'll see it when you get home. Also, I got you some more little gumball machine dogs for your collection. They're on the table."
"Thank you, Daddy!"
"So, did you have fun in Georgia?"
"Yes! But I misseded you, Daddy!"
I picked him up and hugged him again.
"I misseded you too, little guy."

A Room With A Boo

"Bye, Daddy." The little voice in my ear, as I lay on my bed. My son gave me a kiss.
I opened my eyes at six AM and hugged him. "Bye, little man. You and Mommy have fun in Georgia. You be good."
"I will," he said, and climbed off the bed. He left the room.
I lay there a while, with my eyes open, thinking about how my family was going to visit the in-laws for a week. I had the house to myself, which didn't actually feel like as much fun as it used to.
Fortunately, I had stuff to do.

I walked into the Genetti Hotel with the New Boss and the library's tech person. Looking around the lobby, the boss said,"I'll get us checked into the seminar. Coffee is over there."
"I need some," I said. "Who'd have thought there was a seven-fifteen in the morning, too?"
I was carrying my pack and the library's laptop. I dropped them at the table, and hung my jacket over the back of a chair. My shirt was the dark blue UFO one that said Believe.
I was sitting at the table with my coffee, trying to get the laptop to work, when one of the servers came around to pick up the empty mugs. She said,"Do you write for the Express? Are you Lou?"
I looked up. "Yes, that's me."
"I love your column!" she said. "I really liked the one about the Tiadaghton Elm. I actually wondered about that."
"Oh, thanks. I expected to get some hate mail over that one, but everyone seems to love it."
"Have you ever heard about the ghost in here?"
"Bits and pieces," I said. "Nothing too concrete."
"Over on the stairs, there's a photo of the ballroom," she said. "It has a little girl in it, sitting in a chair, but she's barely visible. She's all blurry. Some people think that's the architect's daughter. They think she died when she fell down a laundry chute as the hotel was being built."
"I've never heard that one before," I said. "What year was this place built?"
"1922," she said immediately. I liked that.
"Where's the picture?" I asked.
"At the bottom of the stairs, near the lobby."
"I'll check it out," I promised. "That's my lunch break today. Thanks."

On the way up to the conference room, I stopped and looked over the local brochures. I picked up one about the Avenue of the Arts---Fourth Street in Williamsport seems to be filled with murals and sculptures. I pocketed that one for later. Then I went up and got a seat in the seminar.
I plugged in my laptop---Low-budget public library machine; you can't depend on the batteries---And set out my notebook. I had the pen with the little multi-tools built in. It hadn't started yet, so I grabbed my camera and went off in search of the stairwell.
I found the photo after a short search. Framed photo, black and white, clearly old. The little girl was on the right side, and she was blurry as hell. Could be a ghost. Could be a fidgety kid. I got out my camera, turned off the flash, and got a picture for myself.

Back upstairs, I sat down with the laptop and a coffee. There were maybe twenty people in the room; New Boss was near the front. The instructor began talking about some of the library information systems we had available. I had the main page open. I also e-mailed LaKeshia in another window, asking if the Pennsylvania Wilds was interested in an article about the Avenue of the Arts.
I listened to the seminar for a little while, but to be fair, it got boring real fast. I opened another window and did a search for the Genetti Hotel.
Found it. Completed in 1922. The architect was William Lee Stoddart. Okay. that's a start, let's dig into him.
He was a fairly famous architect, responsible mostly for hotels. There was tons of information on his work, but very little on his family. I found one page that repeated the laundry chute story the hotel employee had told me, with no sourcing. It named the girl as Allison, but gave no other details. I looked up at the instructor and asked a question to prove I was paying attention, then went back to not paying attention.
Stoddart's biography detailed his two marriages. He'd been married once, divorced in 1909, and then remarried in 1923. I drank some coffee and did the math in my head. Making the safe assumption that he wasn't bringing illegitimate children to work with him, that would make the youngest possible age of his child about thirteen or fourteen while the hotel was in construction. A little old to be the little girl tumbling down a laundry chute like a moron.
LaKeshia e-mailed back, okaying the Avenue of the Arts piece. I tried Stoddart on findagrave. I hate findagrave; it's a clumsy way to handle cemetery research, but a county away from home in a seminar, it was all I had. I found him buried in New Jersey, and I checked for other family members. He had one daughter listed, who had died in 1998.
So, the story about the little girl had to be untrue.
I checked my watch, and slipped my camera out of my pack. Then I discreetly got out my portable ghost-hunting kit---I generally have a little basic equipment on me, just in case. You never know. I clipped the black packet to my belt.
"It's time to break for lunch," said the instructor. "We have a meal available to order, or you can go out for lunch. Whatever you choose."
Everyone stood up. Toward the back of the room, I spotted my old friend JA. She used to work at the library before accepting a director position somewhere else. She smiled at me.
"Hey, Lou! I wondered if you were going to be here. How's everything?"
"Good to see you, JA! I'm good. How about you?"
"Pretty good, pretty good." JA had always been a high-intensity sort of person; when she was speaking to you, you had her whole attention to the point her eyes practically burned lasers through you. "How's the little guy?"
"Oh, he's good. In Georgia with his mother right now. He's such a funny little guy." I got out the latest photo of Paul, and showed it to her. She smiled.
"He's a growing boy," she said. "He still believe in Santa? You can still play that card?"
"Right now, yes."
New Boss turned to me. "What did you want to do for lunch?"
"Hunt ghosts," I said.
"Your weirdness to work ratio is something like six to one."
"So you noted on my annual performance review."
"You really going to hunt ghosts?"
"Actually," I said,"I thought I'd just go for a walk."

I love this. I can't help it---I've always loved sneaking off on a little side quest while everyone thinks I'm doing something else. I've spent half my life doing that. Over lunch, my plan was to get photos and information for the Pennsylvania Wilds, and check out the haunting in the ballroom. It's amazing what you can accomplish over lunch hour if you move fast enough.
I walked out the front doors of the Genetti and onto Fourth Street, heading southwest. I put my lanyard with the PA Wilds ID on it around my neck. There is no real reason for this, other than it makes me feel like a low-budget Hemingway. I got photos of the Inspiration Mural and the Community Arts Center. The Long Island Medium was advertised to appear there in about a week, which pissed me off. I turned and walked back northeast, then turning onto Pine Street for more photos.
There was a wonderful bas relief of the lumbering era on the side of a building, and the corner of Third and Market was set up to be a baseball field, with statues of children playing ball. I took pictures of all of it.
I looked at my watch; I'd only managed to kill about twenty minutes. I could even grab some food, if I wanted. I passed Vinnie's Italian Eatery. Vinnie's! I'd forgotten about Vinnie's; it had been at least five years since I'd been there. Definitely before Paul was born.
Five minutes later, I was standing on the sidewalk by the Heart of Downtown sculpture, eating two huge slices of vegetable pizza.
"I love Williamsport," I said aloud.
When I finished the pizza, I walked half a block down to the visitor center. The woman at the desk looked up when I walked in. "Hi! Can I answer any questions for you?"
"I'm just browsing, at the moment."
"Okay, then," she said. "You browse, and let me know if you need anything."
I picked up a couple more pamphlets to add to the article, and then I saw the stack of PA Wilds T-shirts for sale. I picked out a tan shirt with a cross-cut of a log and the PA Wilds logo on it. Id' wanted one for a while, so I spent part of my recent PA Wilds paycheck on a PA Wilds shirt.
Then back to the Genetti, where I dropped off my new shirt and then slipped down the back stairs.
The ballroom was dark, but not locked. I checked to make sure nobody was watching, and then slipped in. This was going to be a quick one, not the usual heavy investigation I would do with LHPS.
Based on the photo, I worked out about where the girl in the picture was. The room contained pillars and little alcoves under the balcony, and she was pictured in the fourth one from the left. I sought it out and unzipped my pouch.
First I checked temperature with my laser thermometer. It was an even sixty-eight degrees, pretty much uniformly throughout the room. Hell, I've worked in museums that are less climate controlled than the Genetti. Then I checked with my EMF detector. Nothing. No signals.
So. Not only was the story untrue, it was likely that the hotel wasn't even haunted.
I put my equipment back into the pouch, and went back upstairs. I sat down and cleared my search history.
JA walked by.
"Hey, pal. Finding any ghosts?"
I grinned. "Well, not today."

I walked in my back door, dropped my pack in the usual place, and hung my jacket in the cellar door. Tif was inside, sitting in a chair in the living room.
"Hi, Dad. Thought I'd drop by and clean up Paul's toys while he's away. How was your day?"
"Pretty busy, for a seminar. I looked into a haunting and worked on an article."
"Weren't you supposed to be learning things?"
"In my defense, there were other options."
"You want to have dinner tonight? I could go for a Hot Mess down at Hangar Nine."
"Not tonight, hon. I'm exhausted. Tomorrow would be better. Let's meet up after work."
"Okay, Dad." Tif headed out the door.
I sat down at the table, picking up the newspaper. Usually I skim the local papers, looking for my name. Something brushed my ankle---Kasper, our Schnauzer.
I reached down and petted him.
"You and me, pal. I know. I miss the little guy, too."