Dead Of Winter

"Cold out there," said Tif, coming in the house.

"We're going to get some bad days," I said. "It's gonna drop into the twenties the next couple of days."

"Bundle up going to work," she said, dropping onto the couch.

I pulled my new coat on. It was very dark grey, with an alien patch, and several pins displaying Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. "Don't worry. Just got this new coat for winter. Remember last summer, when I changed my ghost-hunting outfit to avoid looking too paramilitary? I'm really glad I did that."

"Yeah?"

"Well, those assholes who raided the capitol on Trump's encouragement," I said. "My god. The guy with the zip ties dressed almost exactly like I used to for an investigation. Tactical vest, pants with all the pockets....That's why the new coat with all the buttons. I don't want to look like a terrorist. I'll go back to the original look eventually, but it's gonna be a while. Right now I want to look as hippie-dip as I possibly can. Plus it's getting cold. Maybe I'll find the Minnesota Iceman."

"The Minnesota---"

"A sort of Bigfoot, dead and frozen in a block of ice. I'm hoping to stumble on him in the shed."

Tif laughed. "So aside from speculative cryptozoology, what's the plan at work today?"

"The boss asked me to review two genealogy sites. We already have HeritageQuest, but Ancestry has a library service and they sent us a free trail. She wants to know which is better. Personally I'd say we should just get rid of both of them, because real research isn't done on a screen, but that's not the question she asked. So I need to test-drive them both."

"Well. Have fun."

"Oh, yeah, it's gonna be a ball testing out websites I disapprove of," I said. "Have fun with the kid today, hon. See you later."

I sat down at my desk and opened my e-mail. The Boss had sent me the links to Ancestry and HeritageQuest, and I opened them both. I was wearing my mask with a little alien on it, and my sweatshirt that said "Yeti For Action."

I checked through the services offered on each. Both seemed heavy on the census, but by playing around with it, I discovered I could get obits, newspaper articles, cemetery records, and a few other things. I decided to run a few searches and see how each stacked up.

I started with the founder of Lock Haven, Jerry Church. At first, I got a whole slew of people with that name, but by narrowing down the parameters, I found the right one. The information looked accurate enough, but Jerry had been prominent. I wanted to see how this thing worked for average people, too.

I ran a few records on both of my grandfathers. Some good information came up, though I might have to double-check with my father to see how accurate it was. I don't memorize the stats on my own family---Get back to me when we're talking about Henry Shoemaker. Then I decided to check an average person from the past. I chose Lydia Yost, the mother of Ida, the ghost who haunts my house.

I ran the name, and then filled in some of the dates, and let it search. Bored, I got up and walked to the back of the room, gathering up old newspaper articles and opening a large scrapbook. Tracey came in.

"You mind if I join you for a bit?" she asked. "I have to look up something on the microfilm, but if it bothers you to have me this close...."

"No, you're fine," I said. "Go ahead." If there's anyone I work with who's safe to be around, it's Tracey.

She started looking through the microfilm drawers. "What's that you're working on?" she asked.

"This? I found this old scrapbook on a shelf. It's about the dike. Someone started compiling it back in the eighties, and never finished. I don't know if they got fired, or died, or what. So I'm finding old articles about the dike, and the controversy beforehand, and finishing this up."
"Oh, that's interesting," she said. "Where's it going when you're done?"
"On the shelf under the card file, I think, with the other scrapbooks. I also recently compiled a book of all the Labor Day Regattas since it started in 1971."

"I'll make a note in the catalogue."

I went back to my desk to check on how the search for Lydia had gone. I had a stack of information on her. I pulled up one of the obits.

"Hunh," I said.

"You find something interesting?" asked Tracey.

"Yeah, I did. Turns out, the anniversary of a death is coming up."

"My room is haunted," said my six-year-old son.

"The whole house is haunted," I said matter-of-factly.

"Well, yeah," said Paul,"But Ida threw my clothes all over my bedroom floor."

Sitting on his bed, I looked around the room. I was pretty sure Ida wasn't the one who'd done that, but I let it slide. He used to blame this stuff on his rocking horse.

"Over the next week, kid, you and me are gonna do two ghost hunts in here," I said.

"Oh, yeah? How come?"

"For one thing, I need a little practice with my new digital recorder. But we have some anniversaries coming up. I just discovered that next Wednesday is the day Ida's mom died---Lydia Yost died in the house a hundred and twenty years ago. And February first is Ida's birthday, so we're gonna check around a little."

"Sounds good," said Paul.

I'd barely done any real ghost hunting in the past year. Aside from one small investigation with SaraLee in the fall, the team hadn't met, I hadn't really been out. But it's good to keep in practice. Paul and I had been investigating our own home, which was at least verifiably haunted.

"You ready to do some ghost hunting, little man?" I asked.

Paul jumped off the couch. "Yeah! Let's go!"

We went upstairs. I got some of my stuff---I keep my outfits and equipment hanging on a rack on the back of the office door. You wouldn't notice it if you walked in; you'd have to close the door and check. I got my laser thermometer, EMF detector, camera, and the new digital recorder.

Paul emerged from his bedroom carrying a flashlight, his compass, and his Nerf gun.

"You gotta be prepared," he said.

We went into my bedroom. "I've learned that Ida's mom definitely died in the house, and it was probably in here," I said. "So this is a good place to start."

"I'll check around," said Paul, walking around shining his flashlight in the room with the lights on.

I thumbed the switch on my new recorder. My old one had gone to hell---Most of them aren't made for the kind of abuse I put them through---And this one was cheap, and I'd liked the fact that it was rechargeable. It came on, and I started figuring out how to record a file.

We decided to stick with HeritageQuest.

I heard the phone ringing as I entered the Pennsylvania Room, but it wasn't my problem. Someone else was picking up. I headed for the west wall.

The Roos Library's Pennsylvania Room is the most useful place in Clinton County for historic and genealogical information. One entire wall was covered with shelves of genealogies, including the one for Ida's family.

I picked it up. I'd known about it for years now, and looked up Ida so many times the book tended to fall open to that page automatically. I walked back out to my desk and slipped it into my pack. Mel looked over from the desk.

"The phone call should be you, Lou," she said. "Something about a painting?"

"I'll take it," I said.

I picked up the phone. "Lou. May I help you?"
"Hi, yes. I'm doing a catalogue on the works on Marianna Sloan, John Sloan's sister. You have one of her paintings?"

"....We do?"

"Well, your library is listed as the owner of one. But it's an old listing."

"Could be we owned it once. I know we had a bunch of Sloan paintings, and sold them years ago."

"Would there be a record of that?"

"Ehhh. Maybe. Take some digging, though. I know a lot of them went to Lock Haven University; have you checked there?"

"No, but I'll give them a call."

"I'll check on my end, and see if maybe it's in storage someplace. I'll get back to you."

"Thank you."

Any excuse to take a walk through the building. I went up to the Sloan Museum Room on the second floor and looked through it. There were Sloan's paintings and sketches, but nothing from his sister that I could see. I walked down the twisty hall, and upstairs to the Gross Room. Zach was cleaning up there.

"What're you looking for?" he asked.

"Painting by John Sloan's sister. You never know...." I stopped and focused on a painting on the wall---In shades of dark browns and tans, it showed trees hanging over a river. I squinted at the signature. "That's it."

Zach is uses to this kind of thing from me. "That's from John Sloan's sister?"

The signature clearly read Marianna Sloan. I said,"All these years, I've been looking at this thing and never realized. I always thought it was a Paul Welch! Now I gotta call the client back."

And I sprinted from the room.

On February 1---Ida's birthday---The weather dumped about a foot of snow on us. Paul and I went out and cleared off our sidewalk, shoveled for a couple of our elderly neighbors, and walked around the block and cleared the fire hydrants. Somebody's gotta be a good citizen.

That evening, Paul and I were wresting, as we did. We'd been doing it for a couple of years---Every night around seven, we went upstairs and roughhoused on the bed. Worked off some extra energy---More his issue than mine these days.

"Do I have to do schoolwork tomorrow, Daddy?" Paul asked as we lay on our backs.

"Gotta get some done, yeah. We'll work on some math in the morning."

Paul began to cry. "I miss my friends. I miss school. I don't get to go to first grade! It's not fair!"

I hugged him. "You're right," I said. "It's not. You should have been going to first grade right now, but it's not safe. We're hoping to be able to send you back next fall for second grade."

"I don't want you to die!"

"Hey, hey, hey." I hugged him, rocking him. "I'm not going to die. Where did you get that idea?"
"I'm scared!"

"What would make you feel better, little man?"

He sniffed. "If I wasn't alone all night. I want some company."

"It's gonna be allright," I said. "Things are scary right now, but they'll get better. It's not always like this. I'm not going anywhere. I've stopped curses and discovered at least four healing springs. I'm basically indestructible. I'll be fine."

Slowly, he stopped crying. "Okay."
"Feeling any better?"

He nodded. "You want to ghost hunt now, Daddy?"

"Yeah. Let's get my stuff."

"And I'll get my stuff."

In the kitchen, I gathered a camera, my new digital recorder, and a laser thermometer. I picked up the book I'd borrowed from the library---It normally was unavailable for circulation, but I'd authorized it. You can get away with that when you're staff. It was a genealogy of the Yost family, including Ida and her mother.

Michelle was knitting a hat in the living room. I said,"You able to finish the patches on my new coat?"

"I'm going to try," she said.

Paul walked in with an armload of dolls. "We'll put these around," he announced. "Ida and her sisters liked dolls."

Michelle looked up at me. "They did?"

"I'm sure they did. In the only known photo of them, all the sisters are holding dolls. Ida isn't, mainly because she's holding her sister." I flipped the book open to the group picture of Ida and her siblings, sitting in a cluster. Michelle looked it over---Three of the girls were indeed holding dolls. Ida had her little sister on her lap.

"Which one's Ida? This one?"

"This one. The photo had to have been taken in late 1900 or early 1901---Most likely, just after Lydia died. Her older sister Blanch is in it, and she left the house within two weeks of her mother's death. It was probably taken right here in this room."

"Let's get started, Daddy!" said Paul.

"You remember back in August, the day Ida died? We went out on the porch. Well, you fell asleep, but we tried out there where she died."

"Yeah."

"I think our best shot is upstairs, in my office. I'm pretty sure that was Ida's bedroom."

Carrying all our stuff, we trooped upstairs.

I snapped a couple of photos of my office. I said,"I'm going to get some temperature readings, see if anything stands out."
"Do we have Ida's favorite book?" Paul asked.

I picked up a copy of Black Beauty from my shelf. "Yeah, someone found this in a book sale years ago and sent it to me. It has Ida's signature in it. Be careful with it; it's really old."

"I'll put it in my room so she sees it. Then if I see it move, I'll throw a blanket over her."

"For chrissake, Paul, we're not trying to trap her. We just want a little evidence."

He took the book and headed for his room. I used my laser thermometer until he got back.

"I think I had her," he said,"But it turned out to my one of my stuffed animals."

"How about an EVP session?"
"Okay."

I turned on the recorder---I was getting more used to it. It was a slick little shiny black thing, and I was really beginning to like it. "February 1, 7:11 PM. North room of the house; we believe this to be the room where Ida lived. Daddy."

"And Paul! Is anyone here?"

We ran the recorder a few minutes, and then I clicked it off. I said,"Okay, little man. Almost bedtime. We'll review the tapes and photos later, see if we got anything."

"Okay," said Paul. "I love you, Daddy."
"Love you, too, little guy," I said. I hugged him.

He said,"Happy birthday, Ida!"

I suspect that very few people have a home office dedicated entirely to paranormal investigation, but you drop my my house and there's one of the second floor. A couple of weeks after Ida's birthday,  I unscrewed the plain white light switch pate that had come with the house, and replaced it with a black one showing a ghost. It had never occurred to me to replace a light switch plate before, but I was feeling the urge to redecorate.

I closed my Swiss Army knife and put it back in my pocket, then walked across the room. I picked up one of my black tactical vests.

I held it and looked it over. I'd ordered this one before COVID, and hadn't even had the chance to wear it on an investigation yet. I liked the new look, but I missed the vests. I missed LHPS, and being invited into homes to investigate. I missed giving tours, and going out to explore just because I felt like it.

Paul was right. It wasn't fair.

Paul came into the room. "Do you want to do some ghost-hunting tonight, Daddy?" he asked. "I'm wearing my ghost-hunting outfit."

He had gotten a new outfit of a dark gray sweatshirt and black jeans. They both had sequins on them, but it was a start.

"Sure," I said. "What did you have in mind?"

"I want to walk up to where Ida had her funeral."

"The old church? Sure. The weather's warming up tonight. We can take some readings from outside."

"Can we bring Rosie?"

"Sure. Rosie!" I called, and whistled. A tiny black Lab puppy cam bounding into the room, wagging her tail. Paul scooped her up.

"I love Rosie," he said. "I'm glad we got her for me to sleep with."

"Me, too," I said. I pulled on my jacket with all the badges and patches. "Let's get the equipment, kid, and we'll find some ghosts."