The Franklin Castle - Chapter 10

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Chapter 10

Jennifer Penland, of NBC affiliate WKYC TV Channel 3 Cleveland, looked into her compact mirror and touched up her make-up and lipstick. She teased her dark hair and raised the curls higher from her head.

She angled the small mirror and looked around the room at the cast of odd characters the station assigned her to interview this evening. Two groups of people who detested each other made for fun drama if she played them off each other properly. If she managed to get the leaders of the two groups on camera together, maybe fireworks would erupt.

Jennifer planned her interview techniques in her mind as she studied the people. A make-up artist motioned for Dr. Fran to sit at her stool. He sat with his back to Sir Nolan, the corners of his mouth turned down in a prominent inverted U, and his arms across his chest in a defiant pose. Sir Nolan remained upbeat after his make-up was finished. He moved around the room, his cape swiped in the air with each sharp turn as he conversed with each crewmember. When Jennifer announced her plan to give Dr. Fran and Sir Nolan equal time on camera, Dr. Fran argued the point with red-faced fury and Sir Nolan accepted the news with upbeat positivity.

“Just act natural,” she said. “This will be a fun piece for the viewers. So, we want you to be lighthearted. People love scary stuff. Have fun. We’ll probably air this during Halloween. Ditch the t-shirts, wear something warm, and make it look like its fall. I’d like to get different perspectives here. I want to talk to the homeowner so viewers understand why he called two teams of experts.”

Dr. Fran rolled his eyes.

“I want to talk to both teams,” she said. “Not just the leaders, but also various members. I’m fascinated by the skills they all bring, and so will the audiences.”

Jennifer turned and looked at Ashley. “I would love to talk to you on the air, young lady. I’d love to know what you are doing here this weekend.”

Dr. Dunbar answered. “She’s not part of the team. She’s just along because I couldn’t leave her at home.”

Jennifer ignored him. “I would like to talk to you anyway. It might be a nice angle on the piece to get the insights of a teenager. You know, ask if you believe in ghosts. Have you ever seen one? Do you accept psychics as real? And other things like that. And it doesn’t hurt you’re very pretty.”

“She doesn’t have any qualifications to talk about this,” Dr. Dunbar said.

“Have you ever seen a ghost?” Jennifer asked him.

“No,” Dr. Dunbar said.

“Then she can’t be less qualified than you in the television viewers minds,” Jennifer snipped. She turned back to Ashley. “What do you say?”

“I’d love to,” Ashley said. Her father scowled and approached Jennifer, who turned and left the room.

***

The interviews took several hours. Dr. Fran taped his interview first. Jennifer used her interrogation skills with questions designed to stroke Dr. Fran’s ego. The strategy worked as he relaxed and started to enjoy himself. Next, she brought Sir Nolan together with Dr. Fran. Jennifer knew Sir Nolan posed an easy interview regardless of the time, and since Dr. Fran’s mood improved during her interview, Jennifer discerned it was the best time to conduct the joint interview.

The joint interview went as well as expected. Dr. Fran’s good mood allowed some good-natured ribbing between the two initially, and then fireworks erupted. The two men agreed on nothing other than the fact that Archer Ryan invited both teams to the house for the weekend to research without the others knowledge. Dr. Fran viewed the situation as an insult and an affront to his reputation. Sir Nolan viewed it as an opportunity to substantiate the worth of his team.

The discussion eroded into shouts on the topic of photographs of orbs. The cameras stopped several times to calm down the two men. The interview ended after a heated debate about the validity of EVP recordings when Dr. Fran peeled off his microphone and threw it to the ground.

Jennifer calmed Dr. Fran as they strolled down the hallway out of the dining room. She asked him about his team and the best order to interview them. They walked into the parlor where Terry sat with Ashley and Keith in front of the fire.

“Ah, Terry, there you are,” Dr. Fran said as he walked over and clapped his hands on Terry’s shoulder. Jennifer followed him to the fire. Dr. Fran turned to her. “Terry here works for an agency of the federal government, but he won’t reveal the name to anyone. His agency is a cross between the FBI and the CIA. Very top secret.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened at the mention of all the initials. She smelled a story beyond silly ghost hunters. She noticed the subtle reaction in Terry as his jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed.

“I have to interview you for this,” Jennifer said. She touched Terry on the arm and felt a thrill at the touch of his skin. She detected an air of electricity about him, the sense of invincibility. “Does the government’s involvement in this investigation add merit to the existence of ghosts? And does your presence here confirm the rumors about secret research by the CIA involving the paranormal?”

Terry slowly rotated his head to look up at Jennifer. He locked eyes with her. She tried to read his eyes. The green pools contained no menace, humor, nor contempt; they were simply devoid of emotion. A silent pall held the room before Terry’s voice sliced through.

“I’m not here.”

Jennifer blinked twice. “Pardon me?”

“I said I’m not here,” Terry said in a level voice. “And the government has no interest in this investigation. Dr. Fran should not have spoken about my profession.” his gaze shifted to Dr. Fran, and Terry’s eyes narrowed and appeared angry.

“Then why are you here? Do you believe in this?” Jennifer asked.

Terry turned his head back to Jennifer. The right side of Terry’s mouth curled up in a hint of a smile. “I’m not here, and you can’t claim I am here. You can’t even hint. You can’t run the cameras while I’m in the room just in case someone might recognize the sound of my breathing.”

“Is your identity secret?” Jennifer asked. “We can distort your face and voice. No one would know it was you.”

“You could do that if I was here, but since I’m not, you can’t.”

“But—“ Jennifer stammered. “You are here.”

“Look, I’m going to try to expound on this to make this clearer,” Terry said. “I am on vacation. If you refer to my involvement or the government’s, you will put innocent people in danger. Active projects will be in jeopardy,”

Terry paused and said the final words slower. “Maybe even worse," Terry leaned his head forward.

Jennifer also inclined forward in anticipation at the pause. “What would happen?”

Terry sighed and dropped his head back against the chair.

“Okay, let’s try it this way. If you mention any of this, on screen or off, then men dressed in black suits will come to your home in the middle of the night and take you away, and do terrible things to you, and you may never be seen again,” Terry said. “Do you want that to happen?”

Jennifer squinted at Terry for a moment. Images and ideas swirled through her head; she deliberated if she believed the man or not. She looked into his green eyes and came to a decision. Her face smoothed, and she stood up. “Maybe you should make sure to stay in this room while we film.”

“I think that sounds like a good idea,” Terry said.

“Because clearly, you’re not here,” she finished.

“Obviously.”

Jennifer walked out of the parlor.

Dr. Fran looked at Terry, and turned and exited the room.

***

“Would all that really happen to her?” Ashley asked when they were alone.

“No,” Terry said. “We are discouraged from being the subjects of television shows. Mostly, I just didn’t want to be on her show.”

“Why not?” Ashley asked

“Because they’re going to make everyone involved in this look ridiculous,” Terry said. He paused and looked at Ashley. “Except you. I think you would be the only one to come out of this looking good.”

“Really?” I asked. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, Archer will be portrayed as a spineless coward because he’s afraid of ghosts and won’t sleep in the house. Sir Nolan is, well, he is what he is, goofy. They’ll portray him as a loony who will believe anything put in front of him, including all sorts of conspiracy theories. Dr. Fran will be the stodgy academic who will not accept anything without hard scientific proof. You have the ability to offer a middle ground to both of their extremes.”


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The Franklin Castle - Chapter 9c

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Chapter 9c

Other than the deposition, which did not surface for many years, the public did not hear tales of the house until the American Socialist Party sold the house in 1968. James Romano, his wife, and six children moved into the house. Mrs. Romano loved the gothic ambiance of the house a perfect draw for a restaurant. She admired the house her whole life and jumped at the chance to purchase the house when available.

The admiration for the mansion was short lived, and it did not cool due to the scope of the restoration effort.
Their first day in the house, Mrs. Romano gave her children milk and cookies and sent them up to their room on the third floor to play while she worked. Soon, the children came back downstairs and asked her for another glass of milk, as their new friend, the little girl in the long white dress, cried in the upstairs bedroom.

A curious Mrs. Romano followed her children upstairs but found no mysterious new friend. She found the children very sincere, not just on this occasion, but on many other instances when their friend came to play.

Many other events unnerved Mrs. Romano. She often woke in the middle of the night to pipe organ music in the house. I found no records that showed a pipe organ ever existed in the house, not to say one did not exist at some point.

When Mrs. Romano walked onto the second floor landing to the ballroom, she heard the soft sound of voices and the clink of glasses. When she walked through the doors to the ballroom balcony, the sound stopped.

Heavy footsteps stomped through the halls at night and stopped when they opened their bedroom door. She noticed the sound at its loudest on the second floor, where her two grown sons resided. At first, she thought her sons made the noise to trick her. However, even when out of the house the event continued.

A friend visited for dinner one night. After the meal, the women sat in the circular section of the parlor. Through the open doors to the foyer, they witnessed a wisp of smoke on the first landing of the stairs. A strange thing, it was summer and the fireplace closed and unused for the season. Neither the Romano’s nor their guests smoked. They ascended the stairs towards the cloud, just before Mrs. Romano reached it, the mist moved up the stairs to the second floor. With her confidence buoyed by her friend’s curiosity, they followed the apparition up the stairs and down the hall towards the rear of the house before the independent stroll through the house ended. The incident amazed Mrs. Romano. The incident also planted a firm notion in her mind; this was an intelligent entity and not random knocks. She wondered if she there was anything to be concerned about, perhaps this was simply a harmless spirit.

Mrs. Romano’s resolution appeared short-lived. The mist began to move again, passed through her friend’s body, and disappeared into the wall behind her. Her friend’s face turned a grey color and she fainted and fell to the ground.

The feeling as the entity passed through her body so frightened her friend, not only would she not visit the house again, she also never spoke to Mrs. Romano again either.

A practical family, the Romano’s could no longer ignore the signs. They believed their house possessed by an evil spirit. A Catholic priest visited to bless and exorcise the house. The priest spent a half hour on premises unaccompanied and emerged from the house after he completed only a partial exorcism. He claimed the spirits were too powerful and evil, and he was not strong enough to vanquish them. He advised the Romano family to leave the house and never return.

The two grown sons wasted no time and left right away. Mrs. Romano learned later the ghosts tormented her sons every night, and left them exhausted. Each night something pulled the covers from their beds while they slept and violently threw them to the ground.

The family attempted to rid the house of the terrors a last time. They contacted the Northeast Ohio Psychical Research Society. NOPRS agreed to research the house, just as we are doing tonight, except without the fancy equipment and the high attitude. Before the first night ended, half of the research team left the house. Before one of the psychics left, she told the Romano family she connected with the spirits who slammed the doors on the third floor. She identified the ghosts as the mother, Luisa, and the youngest daughter, little Emma.

The Romanos lived in fear of the house. Towards the end, Mrs. Romano refused to step foot on the second and third floors. She forbade the children to play up upstairs, and they were not to associate with their spectral friend anymore. The clan began to sleep downstairs in the ballroom.

The house mystified her in other ways. Mrs. Romano, a certified electrician, found the house needed constant re-wiring. She fixed one electrical problem, merely to find the same issues resurface a day later. Light bulbs burned out in a few days and fixtures caught fire.

The final Halloween in the house, Mrs. Romano received a call at midnight. The voice shook her to the bone. She described the voice as “other worldly” and froze her in a grip of fear. The chilling gravel voice asked her if he could sleep with her tonight. Keep in mind, the public still had no knowledge about the events that happened in the house. The call may have been a prank. Afterwards, she refused to answer the phone again.

A few nights later, Mrs. Romano awoke in the middle of the night on the floor in another part of the master bedroom. As she started to get up, she heard a mumble close to her ear. She recognized the voice as the same voice from the telephone call.

Prior to their move to the Franklin Castle, Mrs. Romano’s health never concerned her. However, during her stay, she her health declined with symptoms of lethargy, headaches, and ulcers.

After six years in the house, the family gave up.

The Romano family sold the house to Sam Muscatello. He intended to turn the house into the Universal Christian Church. It did not take long before he experienced things first hand; the earliest was the sight of a woman in a long black dress on the stairs. He claimed he heard constant chatter of strange voices in the house. Objects moved often. He set his keys down in one spot, only to find them in a different part of the house later.

Sam Muscatello researched the history of the house. He concluded Hannes and his dead family haunted the house, based on the alleged crimes perpetrated in the house. As he needed to raise money for his church, Muscatello began to publicize the history of the house and conducted tours. People suggest he enhanced the legends to increase profits.

To increase the foot traffic of his tours, Muscatello brought in a local radio and television stations to broadcast a live Halloween show in the house. The live portion of the show lasted ten minutes before all the transmission equipment mysteriously fell off the table and smashed to the ground in front of their eyes. The crew filmed the movement of a chandelier that twirled on its own, stopped, and turned the other direction.

During the evening, the radio personality walked up to the second and third floors alone. After several minutes, he returned, visibly shaken. He said he heard a woman’s voice, and she called his name. When he reached the top of the stairs, he found no one. He climbed to the third floor, where something happened to him. He refused to talk about specifics to what happened.

In 1978, Muscatello sold the house to the Cleveland Chief of Police, Richard Hongisto. I have little information about his stint in the house. He sold the house a year later to George Mirceta.

Mirceta lived alone. Because of the all the publicity Muscatello received, Mirceta subjected himself to many interviews about this home. He claimed nothing paranormal every occurred in his house. However, Mirceta offered tours of the mansion. At the end of each tour, he asked the patrons to write down anything that happened during the visit. Many people wrote they saw a woman in black in the turret room, others wrote of a woman in white. Some heard the sound of children, others felt breezes, and some were unable to move. Many accounts detailed the how the chandelier swayed and doors slammed.

The house has changed hands several times over the next twenty-five years, with no one living in the house for more than two years before they vacated or sold. The stories continued to exaggerate as the years pass.

Most recent, the house remained vacant for several years before Mr. Archer’s purchase. I spoke with a friend of mine on the Cleveland police force. He said Cleveland is like many other large cities and have problems with empty rundown buildings. These husks become crack houses or a haven for homeless to live.

My friend on the force posed a fact that interested me. In all the time, the house sat empty, the homeless never took up residence and the drug dealers never used the house for business. A few homeless people told him they tried to squat, but no one stayed.

Not even the homeless could live with the spirits in the Franklin Castle.




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The Franklin Castle - Chapter 9b

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Chapter 9b

I could spend hours discussing the many rumors. Most ridiculous, some true. I heard a rumor how Hannes tortured and hanged a servant in a secret room. Authorities never found a body. A convenient story and without proof and over a hundred years old, that is hard to resist.
Coincidentally, documented accounts of missing children in the late 1800’s began to pop up in this section of Cleveland. I found no evidence to connect Hannes to any of these disappearances. Nevertheless, the point pauses for notice. These stories, passed down over the years, fuel the urban legends.

In 1895, Luise died. The official cause of death listed as liver failure. I have no reason to dispute this fact. After all, the premature death of so many of her children cannot be a positive impact on one’s health. They held Luise’s funeral in this parlor, right where we now sit. The coffin sat in front of the fireplace.

Creepy, right?

People continued to point a suspicious finger at Hannes. Too many deaths in the house and far too little accountability make the conjecture less ridiculous. Even if the incidents did not involve foul play, the people in this neighborhood did not welcome this sort of bad juju. Remember these were the blue bloods of Northeast Ohio.

Many stories suggested Hannes killed his wife, children, and even some of the servants in the house. I heard a story how a housekeeper attempted to steal jewelry, and Hannes strangled the servant and hid her body in a secret room somewhere in the house.

But, no one knows. Indentured help in those days disappeared often and went unnoticed.

A solitary man, Hannes ran Euclid Avenue Savings and Trust from his home. Even in the early days of the bank, he spent little time at the office. He managed the bank from a distance. After he moved into the Franklin Castle, his visits to the office became so rare, soon all his management of the business happened in writing and by courier.

Not long after Luise’s death, Hannes sold the house and moved into an even larger home on Lake Road. He lived in the house for 33 years, and some say he came back here to live after he passed on. After he left the home, he married a servant from the Franklin Castle. This raised several eyebrows in the community. The standard practice for a man in mourning was to wait a certain amount of time before courtship. Moreover, he fraternized with a common servant. How shameful.

Hannes had no family, his siblings, wife, and children all died. When he left the castle, there were not any close friends with whom to keep in touch. His managers at the bank never saw him as his involvement in the bank dropped dramatically when he moved into the house on Franklin Boulevard. Even his neighbors on Franklin Boulevard saw him so seldom, they would not recognize him if they passed him on the street.

Hannes died in 1908. The stories of Hannes’ atrocities did not end with his death. In fact, the stories increased in scope. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Hannes killed his own niece in a secret room under the house. This room served as a torture chamber. Supposedly, Hannes killed his insane niece in the room to avoid shame to the family.
Now, legend suggests Hannes returned to the Franklin Castle after he died.

Not many people know this, but when Hannes was a young man, he suffered an accident and doctors removed one leg at the knee. Hannes wore a false leg made of metal. The leg made a horrible hollow sound when he walked, and forced him to walk with a distinctive limp. There are documented accounts through the years of people who heard the sound of a hollow limp move up and down the main hallway, and then something pounded on the door. The story evolved to suggest he walked up and down the hall every night and looked for more children to kill. Many parents used the story of old Hannes to coax their children into bed.

Hannes sold the house to a family named Mullhauser. I found very little information regarding the Mullhauser’s stay in the Franklin Castle. We know in 1913, the Mullhauser’s sold the house to the American Socialist Party. According to all records, no one lived-in the house over the next fifty-five years they owned the house. The Socialists only used the house for parties, rallies, and meetings.

The minimal amount of information regarding this period is unfortunate. Officially, the American Socialist Party affiliated with their Bolshevik cousins in Russia. During this period in our history, Socialism was relatively unknown here. The group purchased the house four years before the Bolshevik Revolution, which saw the advent of the Soviet Union and communism in Russia. However, in this state of anonymity and ignorance by the American public, the organization began to flourish. Prior to World War I, the ASP elected two party members to Congress. The year before the ASP purchased the house, their presidential candidate even received over a million votes. However, the group’s ideology proved a mixed set. They differed from their cousins in Russia, and caused the party’s political agenda to split in a myriad of directions. In 1919, a rift formed in the organization and many of the Bolshevik supporters left to form their own group.

As the ASP weakened in the years before World War II, their ideology continued to shift and they adopted an identity of a similar new organization in another country. This new cousin organization: the Nazi Party in Germany.

Conjecture has it the American Socialist Party became domestic Nazi spies before and throughout the Second World War. As with anything connected with the Nazi’s, we love nasty rumors of bad things, the eternal bad guys, blamed for nearly every twentieth century malady.

I uncovered some chatter in old FBI documents about an execution of twenty people in the basement of the Franklin Castle. A lot of talk, however, no bodies or secret rooms corroborated this story.

Officially, the house remained empty all through that span of years. With a little research on my part, I found some evidence that suggested someone otherwise.

In the 1930’s, the Florence Nightingale Agency, a company that provided home care nurses, assigned a nurse to visit the castle three times a day to care for an aging attorney. The nurse made statements in a separate court deposition twenty years later regarding her employment at the house. After four months, she refused to set foot in the house again. In her words, the old man was evil as well as the people associated with the house. She heard the sounds of a child crying in the house. The deposition said nothing about ghosts, instead she feared terrible things current occurred to children in the house, and that is why she left.
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The Franklin Castle - Chapter 9a

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Chapter 9a

Terry spoke in a steady voice.

They called this the Franklin Castle. By far the largest home on Franklin Boulevard when finished in 1864, the residence looked like a gothic castle. Residents of Cleveland referred to this neighborhood as Millionaire’s Row. Hannes Tiedemann and his wife Luise designed their dream home based on a twisted vision.

Hannes and Luise emigrated from Germany. A hard working but feared tyrant, Hannes worked his way up and became a millionaire. Back then, a million dollars was Bill Gates-type of money, so this achievement carried with it power. As his wealth increased, he lost whatever values and humility he once possessed. He did anything he wanted because of the resources at his disposal. Hannes built his fortune as the owner of a grocery store and liquor store, the business venture turned into a chain. After he acquired his initial wealth, he changed his business model and founded The Euclid Avenue Savings and Trust Company. From there, his wealth increased at an exponential manner. This mansion served as the exclamation point of Hannes’ success in life. He was, in his own mind, master of the universe and could do no wrong.

Hannes built the Franklin Castle during the great industrial boom in Cleveland, and the distinction as one of the first homes on Franklin Boulevard. The choice of architecture firm to design and build the home seemed odd. This architect had little experience in building homes and they specialized in bridges and industrial structures. Luise handed the architects the specifications and they designed the monstrosity. The result was a truly unique home, perhaps the most notable home in the neighborhood. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the standard design was a large boxy home. The Franklin Castle has a unique front façade. This house features turrets and carved stonework. And no gothic mansion is complete without stone gargoyles.

The Franklin Castle consists of forty-eight rooms, more or less. The number depends on what you consider a room. The house includes a large two-story ballroom addition on the west side of the house added in the 1880’s, stained glass windows, and fresco paintings on the walls and ceilings. The grounds include a large carriage house on the back of the property, which can hold four cars, as well as a fully furnished apartment on the second floor, which added another six rooms to the estate. Archer Ryan lives in the carriage house, and not in the main house.

The original owners, the Tiedemann family, consisted of Hannes and Luisa, his mother Wiebeka, and least six children, though the number is possibly larger. A full service staff lived in the house, their residents in the basement.

To this point in the story, these are the only public facts known about Hannes Tiedemann. At this point, the urban legends kick in. I can’t say how much of any of these are true. Most legends are based on some granular of truth, but who can say what. What I heard paints Hannes as a hated tyrant with his family and employees, a strict and cruel man with a fierce temper.

And according to legend, a murderer.

However, this is just speculation, at this point.

In 1881, misfortune struck the family. Hannes’ mother Wiebeka and his fifteen-year-old daughter Emma died within weeks of each other. The coroner’s report lists Wiebeka’s death as heart failure and Emma’s as diabetes. Speculation has the cause of death much more sinister.

I’ve read the official reports on the two deaths and details are sketchy, even by the standards of the late 1800’s. However, hindsight is perfect, and who am I to dispute a report over one hundred years old?

Questions arose about the fate of three other children, all of whom died in 1883. No death certificates or hospital records exist regarding the three. In statements Hannes made, he claimed the children died of ailments. Of course, interviews with neighbors suggest something more.

All quite strange.

But, not enough evidence for the police to step in.

After these deaths, a distraught Luise began to exhibit strange behavior in the house. The rumors suggest Luise went a little mad. I found records she spent time institutionalized at Fallsview psychiatric hospital. She worked on the house during the final years of her life, she changed many features. She hired a firm to add many special features. At this time, they installed secret passages, trapdoors, hidden rooms, and tunnels.

Such a nice little gothic mansion.

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Chapter 8

The fire popped as it fired a spark that landed on the sofa. Keith dropped his Orson Scott Card book on the ottoman to extinguish the red ember to his right. Ashley turned off her Kindle and stood up. She walked to the fireplace and closed the gate.

Terry strode into the room and dropped his computer bag next to love seat. He walked towards Keith and Ashley and sat on the cushioned footrest next to their feet.

“I met Keith earlier, but I didn’t catch your name,” Terry said. He offered his hand to Ashley.

Ashley looked at him with a furrowed brow. “Me?”

“I noticed Dr. Fran failed to introduce you,” Terry said.

“My name is Ashley,” she said and shook his hand.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Terry stood up from the ottoman and backed into the love seat. He propped his feet up and crossed his hands behind his neck. “I guess I have one thing going for me this afternoon,” Terry said. “It appears the members of your parent’s team dislike the members of PRETA much more than they dislike me.”

Keith and Ashley giggled.

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Ashley smiled. “You tripped them up with their own theories. PRETA isn’t capable of doing that. No, I think Dr. Fran and his team dislike you much more right now because they are afraid of you. So, don’t feel so bad.”

“I think they are planning to get even,” Keith said.
“Well, thank you,” Terry said. “I appreciate that. You know, I don’t feel like I’ve been successful unless I manage to tick off everyone I possibly can in the process.”

“Then you’re off to a good start,” Keith laughed.

The laughing ceased abruptly as Ashley’s father, Dr. Dunbar, strolled into the room. Dunbar read from his journal while he walked and did not acknowledge the others in the room. Dr. Dunbar knelt down and removed a book from his leather satchel on the coffee table.

“How’s it going, Dad?” Ashley asked.

Her father continued to read.

“Dad,” Ashley said louder. She shifted to the edge of the sofa and stiffened.

His head jerked up from his text. He looked at Ashley with little expression on his face.

“What?” He asked.

“I asked how it was going,” she said.

“Oh, fine,” he said, He returned his gaze to his book as he finished the response.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” she asked.

He held up a finger and continued to read. When he turned the page, his eyes raised to look at Ashley. He looked at his daughter, his face revealed that he had not listened to his daughter. “No, nothing. Just have a good time,” he said and left the room without a look back at her.

Ashley sighed. She turned her gaze back to Terry. He looked at her and rubbed his chin.

“Are you all right,” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” she said.

“Is he always like this?”

Ashley leaned back in the sofa. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “You might as well know,” she said. “When he’s working he acts this way towards me. This is pretty much how he acts all the time.”

“He made nice before in the driveway,” Terry said.

“Yeah, he wasn’t working yet,” she said. “Soon as he starts, I don’t exist.”

“Most unfortunate,” Terry said. “Are you involved in all this? Or are you just along for the ride?”

“We don’t have anything to do except sit around,” Keith said.

“Everyone else gets to participate,” Ashley said. “They take notes every fifteen minutes, whether anything happens or not. I tried to do one last time on my own, and gave them my notebook at the end. Dr. Fran didn’t care and left the notebook on the table when they left.”

“I haven’t spent much time with Dr. Rogers, so I’m not certain what I’m supposed to write down if nothing happens,” Terry said. “Good thing he gave me permission to do my own investigation.”

“First, don’t call him Dr. Rogers. You have to call him Dr. Fran. He gets really irritated if you don’t.”

“We’ve pretty much established I’m going to irritate him no matter what,” Terry said. “So, I think I’ll stick with Dr. Rogers.”

Keith and Ashley laughed.

“As for the notes, if nothing happens, you’re supposed to write down nothing happened,” Ashley said. She leaned forward in her seat. “But, Dr. Fran wants you to write down any sounds you hear. For example, you may write down that during a fifteen-minute period you heard a pounding on the floor above you. Now, if one of the other people wrote they stomped on the second floor during the same period, Dr. Fran can put two and two together and rule out the sound.”

“Pretty clever. However, it’s not going to work or produce anything. It seems the whole concept behind how they investigate slants to discount instead of discovering,” Terry said. “The PRETA people have a better chance than Dr. Fran. They’re at least excited about what they’re doing. However, in a way they are just as bad as Dr. Fran, just the other extreme. Will Dr. Fran ever relay the story behind this house to everyone?”

“Usually, the group doesn’t know anything about the place until after the experiment,” she said. “He says they won’t be expecting to see something.”

“It’s kind of like investigating a murder when you’re not sure if there’s been a murder,” Terry said. “And what about you? Do you subscribe to this theory?”

“Keith and I are not really a part of this,” Ashley said. “We just come with our parents. As long as we don’t make any problem and keep our thoughts to ourselves, we can do anything we want. We’re not good enough to help.”

“Too bad,” Terry said.

“Why?” Keith asked.

Terry leaned forward. “I’ve found younger people to be the best detectives. They are observant, but not egotistical enough to let what they think they know get in the way of what they really see.”

“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.

“I’m not saying you don’t know anything. I am saying your mindset assumes you have to learn everything. You don’t have degrees on your wall to give you an excuse to think you know everything. You observe and take things in because you want to learn more, and you don't have the preconceived notion you know everything. Even though you’ll argue you do, deep inside, you know you don’t. That is why your outlook is objective.”

Norma strolled into the room, her large flowered dress swayed back and forth. She walked with her hands behind her back, as if on a walk in the park. She wandered the perimeter of the parlor and sniffed the air.

“Norma, this is going to sound like a stupid question,” Terry said. “But, what exactly are you doing?”

She turned to Terry and walked to him. She knelt beside his chair, held his hand in hers, and studied him in silence.

“You are sincere,” she said. A broad smile developed on her face. “Too many people view my kind as a joke. You actually seem to respect me.” Terry nodded his head. Norma continued. “I’m walking through each of the rooms in the house and taking a perception.”

“A perception?” Terry asked.

She stroked his hand with affectionate. “I’m sorry, I’m talking in lingo. I’m allowing my senses to take in each of the rooms. I gain a good deal of information by my sense of smell and I feel air and particles touch my skin. By smelling the room, I can feel emotions. I can feel movement in the air against my skin.”

“You can smell emotions?” Terry asked.

“Yes, anyone can.”

“Another stupid question coming, what do they smell like?”

“Difficult to say, since we do not have common experiences,” Norma said. She hummed as she thought of her next words. “Hatred and anger have a bitter smell to me, though you might not even notice a difference.”

“Okay,” Terry said.

“It’s hard to explain,” Norma said. She stood up. “I would love to talk to you more about this, young man. But, I need to get back to work. Maybe Ashley can explain better. She’s psychic, as well. She just hasn’t broken through yet.”

Norma sashayed down the hall and walked through the kitchen door.

Terry smiled at Ashley. “Did you know you’re psychic?”

“That’s what she tells me,” Ashley said. Her cheeks colored red. “Don’t hold it against me. I don’t know how you feel about psychics, and I don’t want to set myself up to be grilled by you like you did to them.”

Terry laughed. “I would never do that to you. Does any of what she says make sense to you?” Terry asked.

“A little bit,” Ashley said. “What you said before to the group makes a lot of sense to me. I picture thoughts as if they float in the air and I seem to be able to understand them and hear them. It seems to be different for a lot of us. For John, it’s easy for him to read thoughts. He says things just pop into his head as if he is listening to someone in the room. With Norma, she has to feel the spirit. She doesn’t hear thoughts as easily, she feels the emotion in the air and really has to try.”

“So, it’s kind of like one person is good at basketball and another is good at baseball,” Terry said. “They’re both athletes, but gifted in different ways.”

“That’s a good way of explaining it,” Keith said.

“It is,” Ashley said. She raised her finger in the air. “Okay, John specializes in active thought. I mean he can listen to thoughts in the air.”

“While it’s still fresh and hasn’t lost any form,” Terry said. “After it gets stale, he can no longer sense it? He doesn’t receive historical thoughts, right?”

“Right,” Ashley said. “Norma perceives something different. She can sense a presence better than John can, but has to make an effort, but can sense old thoughts.”

“Which is why she has to operate in a different manner,” Terry said.

“What do you mean?” Keith asked.

“Let’s just say she can sense the presence of a ghost,” Terry said. “A ghost’s energy would not be active and fresh, so John does not see ghosts well. A ghost is partially dissipated and old. Norma receives older information better, and that is why she has to feel them. She uses her skin and nose, which are two of the most powerful senses, although we don’t realize it and depend on sight and sound.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Ashley said. “Once she feels the spirit, she starts to hear the thoughts. She says it’s patchy, she can’t often get complete thoughts.”

“If they are old thoughts, there may be gaps in them,” Terry said. “Imagine an old video tape that’s been played too many times, or stretched and damaged. The result is the playback is not as good. Could be the same thing here.”

“And Yvette is completely different from everyone,” Ashley said. “That’s why all three of them worked well together because they received different information.”

“Yvette was the one who could not come in, right?” Terry asked.

“Yes,” Ashley said. She shuddered as she remembered the incident in front of the house. “Yvette was probably the most powerful of them. However, she was afraid of what she could do, so she held back. I think she takes Prozac to deaden the senses.”

“What is her power?”

“She’s a Talker,” Ashley said. “She not only can sense their presences and read active and stale thoughts, but she can communicate with spirits. She used to tell me ghosts came to seek her out, and scared her, because she was one of the few who could talk to them.”

“Really? That’s spooky,” Terry said.

“Norma said Talkers are powerful. They usually don’t develop their skills because the experience scares them too much,” Ashley said. “She said if Yvette would sharpen her skills, she could become a Walker.”

“And what’s a Walker,” Terry said.

“The strongest psychic. That’s someone who not only can talk to the dead, but also go into their world and interact,” Ashley said. She ran her hand over goose bumps on her arm.

“So, which are you?” Terry asked.

Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able make anything happen. I just get images and thoughts on occasion.”

“You don’t try to do more, because you’re scared to, right?” Terry stated.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” I said.

“So, you’re not like Norma, she has to try,” he said.

“I guess that’s right.”

“Do you see things current or past?”

Ashley averted her eyes to her hands. She twisted the ring on her finger. “I think I’ve heard current thoughts, but I know I’ve heard older ones as well,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said. “So you can see the past and the present, and you don’t make an effort to do so. So, you can do what both John and Norma do, and you may not have their limitations. You are much more than they are.”

“I don’t know,” she said in a throaty low voice.

The crackling of the fire punctuated the silence.

“Well then, let’s go,” Terry said.

“Where?” Keith asked.

“Since you two don’t have anything to do with either of the other two investigations,” Terry said. “How would you like to join my misfit investigation?”

“Really?” Ashley said. “You want us to help you?”

“Sure, I’d love some help,” Terry said.

“Cool,” Keith said.

“I’ll do it,” Ashley said. “You’re not going to make me do all the dirty work, are you?”

“Depends on what your definition of dirty work is,” Terry said. “But, like anything worth while, once you’ve proven yourself, the amount of dirty work goes down.”

“So, I have to prove myself,” Ashley said.

“Of course you do,” Terry said. “But, I promise I’ll pay more attention to what you do than your father does and your efforts will be valued.”

“Then, I guess, we have a deal,” Ashley said. Keith nodded his head.

“Now, what I will need you to do the first day here is to familiarize yourself with the house,” Terry said. “I don’t care how you do it, whether you walk through the house or sniff the air. Just pay close attention to details. Make a map of the house. Measure the rooms. Look for holes and areas that don’t add up, nulls in the house.”

“What are you going to do?” Keith asked.

“I have some additional research I will need to do,” Terry said. “But it’s important we have this preliminary information before we start.”

“Okay, you got it,” Ashley said.

“So, would you like me to violate Dr. Fran’s rules and tell you about this house?” Terry asked.

“You know about this house?” Ashley asked him. Her eyes widened in excitement.

“Sure, I do,” Terry said. “I did a little research before coming here.”

“How did you know where we were going?” Ashley asked. “None of us knew anything about this.”

“When Dr. Rogers asked me to come along this weekend, he told me I couldn’t know where we going or what we were doing. So, naturally I couldn’t accept that. I took it upon myself to find out all I could.”

“How?”

“I did a little hacking on Dr. Fran’s phone bills, and found the numbers he called often. Since he was flying out of Atlanta, I assumed it was on Delta Air Lines. I mean, what else flies from Atlanta? I hacked into Delta’s reservation system and found the travel arrangements he made, tracked the addresses of the calls, and I took the next step. How many haunted houses can there be in Cleveland? The answer surprised me, as there are more than I thought. I did a little research on the Internet, checking folklore and ghost websites. I looked at websites such as Ghosts of the Prairie, Obi-Wan’s UFO-free Paranormal Page, and Haunted Ohio.”

“I found the Franklin Castle and one Archer Ryan; founder of SearchNet.com and one of the few dot-com entrepreneurs smart enough to get out while they were still a millionaire. And he recently purchased said Franklin Castle,” Terry said. “What did you think of him? You think someone would have pulled him aside in school and taught him how to dress?”

Ashley and Keith laughed aloud.

“So, what’s the story?” Keith asked.

Terry leaned back in the chair, and brushed away some of the dust on the arms of the chair. His voice steady, he began to tell the story.

Go to Chapter 9a
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Table of Contents

The Franklin Castle - Chapter 7

Table of Contents
Floor Plan 

Chapter 7

“Mr. Ryan,” Sir Nolan said. He waved his hands in a flourish and bowed. He rolled the R’s in Archer’s name, his English accent slipped off his tongue as smooth as silk. “How grand to finally meet you in person. I’d like to thank you for inviting my team into your home for the weekend. I am so excited to participate in this weekend’s paranormal investigation in this legendary house. We can’t wait to get started.” The silver-haired man walked through the door, his cape fluttered behind him in the face of a woman and two men.

“Nolan Knight,” Dr. Fran said. His face contorted with a scowl of distaste.

“That would be Sir Nolan Knight, Dr. Rogers. It seems the Queen holds me in higher regard than you.”

“So it would seem,” Dr. Fran said. He turned to Archer. “Mr. Ryan, I’m confused. What are Knight and his people doing here?”

“Well, as Terry said, your team concentrates on one aspect of a haunting, and I am interested in your results. But, I am also very interested in what Sir Nolan and his team has to offer on this, as they concentrate on a different aspect altogether,” Archer said. “Given the amount of history and notoriety associated with this house, I couldn’t leave the investigation to just one team to investigate in a skewed way. His team will investigate alongside you this weekend.”

“But, Mr. Ryan, I must protest,” Dr. Fran said. “I have a hard enough time stomaching that a team such as Knight’s even exist in the same industry, let alone the ridiculous amount of press and credibility they get. But, to force me to put up with their infernal tactics and trite theories for an entire weekend are out of the question.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Fran, but they’re in. If you are not happy with it, the only solution I can offer you is to leave,” Archer said.

Sir Nolan walked towards Dr. Fran. “Really, Fran. This is not a civilized way to behave. We have worked in the same area before. We last worked together in Minnesota in that haunted farmhouse, right?”

“That farmhouse was not haunted,” Dr. Fran said.

“So you say, but we found tremendous evidence to the contrary,” Sir Nolan said. “Even your psychics told you something was going on. Of course, you do not listen to them. That’s not your modus operandi, is it?”

“You leave our techniques out of this, they work just fine,” Dr. Fran said.

“For someone like you, I suppose they are adequate,” Sir Nolan said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dr. Fran bellowed.

“Well, you have to admit we are more successful and respected in this field than you,” Sir Nolan said.

“By what standards? Because you agree with every nut that sees a ghost in their basement?”

“Every nut, eh?” Nolan said. “Your former President Reagan made a statement once about the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House. Is he a nut?”

Dr. Fran cleared his throat.

“Quite right,” Nolan said. He turned his back to Dr. Fran. “Mr. Ryan, may I introduce my team. As you know, I call my organization PRETA, the Paranormal Research Evaluation and Termination Association.”

Sir Nolan pointed to a tall woman with dark red hair and a light complexion. “This is Larissa Schoenborn,” Sir Nolan said. He looked at Dr. Fran with a smirk. “Dr. Larissa Schoenborn, full professor of Sociology at Hofstra University in New York. A published author on the subject of the paranormal, she specializes in haunted locations.”

Larissa smiled a side smile and shook Archer’s hand. “A pleasure to be here this weekend.”

“I remember you,” Dr. Lyman said. “You wrote a book on theories on how the dead live and organize themselves. I believe it had something to do with an alternate plane of existence in another universe, or something like that.”

“No, no,” Larissa said. “They live on this earth, but in another dimension invisible to anyone without sixth sense perception.”

“And where does Elvis live?” Dr. Baer said. A few stifled laughs around the room broke the silence.

Larissa forced a smile. “The scientific community greeted Einstein with the same sarcasm at first as well.”

“Next, I’d like to introduce Clifton Stefani,” Nolan said as he pointed to a rugged man with light brown hair and a long smooth face stepped up. He wore a green flannel lumberjack shirt, dirty blue jeans, and hiking boots with dried mud on the sides.

“Nice to meet you,” he said with a strong Tennessee accent.

“Clifton is our adventurer, and spends a great deal of his own time in the Pacific Northwest where he studies Bigfoot,” Nolan said.

John Silver covered his mouth as he giggled. “Bigfoot?” He asked. “Does anyone still believe in that?”

Clifton stepped over to John and leaned down nose to nose. “Yes, someone does, Pencil-Neck. And I’d ask you to mind your Yankee manners before I mind them for you.”

John sunk in his chair. “Okay, sure,” he said.

“And lastly, we have Vivek Rushdan,” Nolan said. “He is our electronics expert. He has designed and built all our equipment.”

“Awesome, good to meet you,” Vivek said. He looked around the table, his smile wide. “Don’t worry, I get that all the time. I surprise people when I talk like a surfer. My parents are from India but I’m from Silicon Valley.”

“I remember some of your gadgets,” Dr. Fran said. “You were working with one up in Minnesota that flashed and beeped every time you approached water. What exactly did it do?”

“Let’s just say I’ve perfected it since then,” Vivek said. “And as to what it does, well, if I have to explain it to you, then you just wouldn’t understand.”

The people in the room remained silent. The palpable silence filled the room.

Dr. Fran cleared his throat. “Nolan, I don’t know whether we have room for you. We’ve taken up the Ballroom.”

“We prefer the basemen, Dr. Fran,” Nolan said. “And we’re already setup.”

Dr. Fran sighed. “Then it looks like we’re ready to go,” he said.

“The game’s afoot,” Nolan said.

Go to Chapter 8Return to Chapter 6


Table of Contents

The Franklin Castle - Chapter 6

Table of Contents
Floor Plan 

Chapter 6

 “Thank you, Dr. Rogers. I appreciate you coming here this weekend,” Archer said. “As you said, I grew up in Cleveland. As a child, the Franklin Castle fascinated me. I wanted to live here. Everyone thought I was crazy. A few months ago, I worked in Silicon Valley, and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I saw a real estate listing about this house. I jumped at the chance to purchase the house,” he said with a sigh. “And now, everyone is certain I’m crazy, after recent events, so do I.”

“Mr. Ryan, here is our process,” Dr. Fran said. “As I’ve alluded, this is a scientific study, along with our psychologists and observers. Team members will have little contact with each another. Every fifteen minutes, members write in their journals with precision everything they did and experienced during a fifteen minute period.”

“What will that accomplish?” Archer asked.

“One person may hear tapping on the ceiling. They will write their actions in a journal. A garden-variety ghost investigation will claim this as proof of the existence of ghosts. However, in the case of our investigation, another person writes in their journal during this same period of time they were bouncing a tennis ball on the floor. We read about this following the investigation, and discover the person who heard the noise was in the room beneath the person who bounced the tennis ball, and voila. We have just proven the noise was not a ghost. That is scientific, and validates what we believe.”

Terry propped his feet on the table and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “So, what happens if you can’t connect the noise with an incident in a journal?”

“That’s a good question, Terry,” Dr. Fran said. “Dr. Baer, would you elaborate?”

“Certainly, Dr. Rogers,” Dr. Baer said, as he stood up and stroked his grey beard. “The second set of proof is in our equipment. In the lab we will set up in the ballroom, we have a tremendous array of tools. In the case of this example, we have motion detectors and sensitive digital sound capturing devices. We will be able to pick up any sound made in this entire house.”

“And if the machine does not pick up the sound?” Terry asked.

“Then nothing happened,” Dr. Baer said in a terse manner.

“I see,” Terry said.

“It’s as simple as that,” Dr. Fran said.

“Let me pose this question, Dr. Baer,” Terry said. “Can your equipment see or hear what I’m thinking?”

Dr. Baer wrinkled his forehead. “Well, no,” he said.

“Then according to your theorem, since the machines did not detect my thoughts, we can conclude I’m not thinking, correct?”

“Terry, I believe you’re oversimplifying this,” Dr. Fran said.

“No, I believe you are oversimplifying,” Terry retorted.

Terry held eye contact. After several moments, Dr. Fran lowered his eyes.

“How long have you owned the house, Mr. Ryan?” Terry asked.

“Two months,” he said. “After what happened on the first day, I don’t even sleep in the main house. I know the legends. I heard them for years growing up here. Something terrible happened the first day I lived here, I don’t even like to talk about the incident. Now that I’ve bought this house, I’d like to know what is going on.”

 “Let’s not go into too much detail about the legends, as we agreed Mr. Ryan,” Dr. Fran said. “We do not want to bias our research.”

“A good investigator should be able to be objective enough to hear all the evidence without worrying about being compromised by it,” Terry said.

“This is a scientific investigation, Terry, not a criminal investigation,” Dr. Fran said. “I don’t expect you to fully understand.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t truly a scientific study, is it? You’re not studying particle acceleration in a vacuum or molecular nanotechnology in a lab where the readings are everything,” Terry said. “I know you think you’re studying a phenomenon here, but in reality this investigation is about the study of people. It’s like investigating a murder and not interviewing a single person because their perspective on the matter may not be objective.”

“But, this is not a murder case,” Dr. Fran said. “Besides, I can think of many cases in which science alone convicted someone of murder, without interviewing a single person.”

“I won’t disagree science can be very powerful and an important aspect to an investigation. But, it is only a single aspect of a good investigation. Prosecutors presented overwhelming scientific evidence against OJ Simpson, but still not sufficient to convict him,” Terry said. “A popular conception of police investigation and a public trial is to identify and punish the criminal. To an extent that is true. However, a deeper necessity of the system is to gain a clearer understanding of events. Why did Person A kill Person B? What was going through Person A’s mind at the time? How can we predict this behavior? How can the crime be prevented? How can we learn and grow as a society about these events. An investigation is about knowledge and understanding. Is this investigation about finding ghosts?”

“Hmmph,” Dr. Lyman mumbled. “There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Is that the attitude of the whole team?” Terry asked. “With this preconception about the existence of ghosts, I would think the focus would be even more on the victim. If the preconceived notion were ghosts do not exist, then I would surmise this investigation is entirely about the human aspects of the incident. Why else would are psychology professionals here? And well respected at that.”

The room was silent.

“Okay. Then just what is the goal for this weekend?” Terry asked.

“We’ve found our cultural wastes so much time on the topic of the supernatural,” Dr. Fran raised his voice. “I want to show unequivocally there is not any proof of the validity of the supernatural. I want people to stop believing the charade.”

“Why does that upset you so?” Terry asked.

“What?” Dr. Fran stammered.

“We’ve just seen you get upset and raise your voice to me,” Terry said. “This is very out of character. Why are you upset? It is not because of my questions. You and I have engaged wonderful discussions about our opposing viewpoints, and you never raised your voice to me. Are you bothered by how the media treats paranormal experts with more respect than scientists?”

Dr. Fran looked down.

Terry nodded. “You don’t have to answer. I can understand, Dr. Fran. And I can say, for the most part, I agree with you,” Terry said. “I understand why it’s upsetting to see Yuri Geller on the Today show, and how they treat him like a celebrity. I’m just worried you’re becoming the opposite extreme of him.”

Terry walked around the table.

“I find it interesting there are psychics on the team,” Terry said. “But, you don’t believe their powers exist.”

“I do believe they are more perceptive than most people,” Dr. Fran said. “And that is important to me on this team.”

“But, you don’t really believe Mr. Silver can see the future or Ms. Maeder can read my mind, do you?” Terry said.

Dr. Fran exhaled. “No, I don’t.”

“Well, help me understand here,” Terry said. “In a simplistic statement, we can agree the human brain transfers thoughts and feeling by way of electrical impulses. Is that correct?”

“Agreed,” Dr. Fran answered.

“Many materials have the potential to contain electrical currents,” Terry said. ”And electric passes through some material as if they are not substantial. For example, a piece of metal does not stop electric. If I touched a golf club without a rubber handle, and you attached an electrical charge to the other end of the club, I would get electrocuted, correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Dr. Fran said, knitting his eyebrows together.

“Can we agree the human skull, skin, and muscle will not stop electrical currents from escaping from the human brain?”

“I don’t understand?” Dr. Fran said.

“Does bone, muscle, and skin stop electrical impulses or will they pass through?” Terry asked.

“They pass through,” Dr. Fran said in slow terse words.

“So, I’m sitting next to you at the table. Some of the electrical impulses created in my head, which hold my feelings and thoughts, are floating in air around us both…potentially,” Terry stated.

“Sure, I suppose they are,” Dr. Fran said.

“So, if we can receive these electrical impulses in the air, and if I learn to interpret them, I may be able to understand them.”

“Hmmm,” Dr. Fran stammered. “Perhaps my brain views your impulses as a foreign object and does not see them as thoughts at all. Therefore, they would be gibberish to my brain.”

“Excellent,” Terry said as he slapped his palm on the table.

“What?” Dr. Fran said. “I’m not certain what point I just proved.”

“You have just explained why everyone can’t do it,” Terry said. “Another person’s thoughts in the air would either be undecipherable or simply ignored. But, is it possible a very perceptive brain, like Ms. Maeder’s or Mr. Silver’s, could receive those impulses and understand them?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Fran said. “Wait, no, it is impossible.”

“That flicker of doubt tells me otherwise,” Terry said.

“Ah, someone who believes in what we do,” John Silver said. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Terry turned to John. “Your ability has quite a reputation, Mr. Silver. You are legendary.”

“Thank you, sir,” John said.

“Your run in predicting the stock market is unparalleled. Truly amazing.”

“And you’re theory hit the nail on the head,” John said. “I’ve never heard a better explanation.”

“Is that right?” Terry asked. “However, my theory doesn’t explain your success.”

“What?” John asked.

“Your success doesn’t fit the mold of traditional reading of minds. Tell me, whose mind do you read to predict the stock market? The experts barely understand the market enough to predict it, so you are not reading their minds. And I know quite a bit about your success in Vegas. In viewing the surveillance tapes, casino security had fewer problems with your success and more issues with your obvious use of accomplices warming the tables and signaling you.”

“You know about that?” John said.

“It’s my line of work to know about things,” Terry said. “You made your winnings at Black Jack. If we believe your ability, you did not read the dealer’s mind, because the dealer doesn’t look at his cards until after you’ve played. You had accomplices, so you could have been counting cards, but your background and profile does not show enough proficiency in math to do this. You may have used a different ability I don’t know about, so I can’t refute your claims.”

“Thank you,” John said.

“But, your stock market picks are something else amazing. Naturally, the SEC investigated you. They don’t believe in ESP,” Terry said. “Their job is to be suspicious. Your last huge gain was with Invesco Corporation, right?”

“That’s right,” John said. He swallowed hard.

“You had the foresight to sell their stock for a massive profit the day before their earnings conference call,” Terry said. “At that meeting, Invesco announced huge losses for the quarter and the potential fraud indictment of several key sales reps.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Two days before you exercised the stock, you had dinner with Steve Trammel, the President of Invesco.”

“How did you know?”

“It’s my job to know things,” Terry said. “You got close to him, because he was fascinated by what you can do.”

“He didn’t tell me anything about his company,” John said with a defiant tone.

“No, I don’t suspect he did,” Terry said. “I know Steve fairly well. He’s an honest man. He would not reveal inside information to you or anyone. The charges of fraud upset him considerably, he decided to do the honorable thing and take responsibility. You see, in the months prior to the allegations, Steve received weekly chemotherapy that made him sick as a dog. He found himself unable to run the company during that time. Things quickly got out of hand. He did a very honorable thing, even if that meant a drop in the stock price and diminished credibility of the company.”

“You see, even you agree with me,” John said.

Terry paused. “But you did read his mind, didn’t you?”

John fingers stroked his goatee beard. “I told the SEC I used my psychic ability to pick the stock. And technically, I did. Yes, I did read his mind. I was on the up and up.”

Terry winced for a moment. “Except--“

All eyes looked up at him.

“You used your ability to find out information you were not allowed to see. That’s the same as if you broke into Invesco’s headquarters and rummaged through their files and stole the information.”

“But--" John stammered.

“In using your ability to read his mind, you committed a crime,” Terry said. “Plain and simple.”

“I didn’t hurt anybody,” John said as he bowed his head.

“Only the investor’s who bought the stock from you,” Terry said.

“Are you going to turn me in?” John said.

“No,” Terry said. “Like I said, the SEC doesn’t believe in ESP and they would never accept that as an explanation. In many ways, they are very much like this investigation team. They have one way of investigating something, and they aren’t open to alternate avenues.”

Terry sat down next to John. “It’s funny,” Terry said.

“What is?” John asked.

“You have an amazing ability, you can read a CEO’s mind and invest or divest in his company,” Terry said. “However, I surprised you. That means you couldn’t read my mind or know what I was going to say, could you?”

John shook his head. “No, you felt foggy to me.”

“Interesting term,” Terry said. “Twenty-five years ago the CIA funded Project Yuri. This was a project to explore using psychics in espionage. The results on the espionage front turned out to be very sketchy. The psychics had to be too close in proximity to the subject in order to work. When the subject was the head of state, they found getting close surprisingly difficult. The project produced some interesting side results. We learned how to protect ourselves from psychic attacks and espionage. I just had a little time to research the results in preparation of coming here, so I’m just scratching the surface. I would love to spend time with you all later to test this further. A defensive strategy against psychic intrusion is to lower the waking brain activity to a beta state. The studies found psychics experienced a lower rate of success reading the minds of people in lowered state of consciousness. I’ve spent the last few weeks reading and practicing their research. And apparently it works.”

“Interesting, something I never thought of,” Dr. Fran said.

“Back to the topic of investigation tools,” Terry said. “How do you feel after your interrogation, Dr. Fran and Mr. Silver?”

“What interrogation?” Dr. Fran said.

“I’ve been interrogating you for the last ten minutes,” Terry said.

“You’ve just been talking with us, and being something of an argumentative pest, I must add. But not interrogation,” Dr. Fran said.

“But it was,” Terry said. “And I learned a great deal about both of you. I know what buttons to push on both of you. After I found your anger buttons, I found the keys to take you back down and engage you into cooperation. You didn’t even know I was doing it. That just shows an investigation doesn’t have to look and feel like a standard investigation to produce results.”

“I’ll give you points, Terry,” Dr. Fran said. “You sure know how to be convincing. I propose we do something a little different. I would like Terry to conduct his own investigation, using whatever means he wants to, while we proceed with ours. At the end, we’ll compare the results. Does that sound fair?”

“That works for me,” Terry said.

“I honestly don’t think you’ll succeed,” Dr. Fran said. “But, good luck anyway.”

“Well then, I had better pick my team and get cracking,” Terry said.

 “Okay, everyone,” Dr. Fran said. “Let’s get setup, and you know the drill.”

“I have a last question,” Terry said. “This has bothering me for the last few minutes.”

“What is it now?” Dr. Fran asked.

“If I were Mr. Ryan here, I would be a little upset regarding the course our conversation has taken over the last half hour,” Terry said. “Dr. Fran, you and Dr. Lyman have all but said that anyone who sees a ghost or believes in them is deluded. I would take offense to that if I was you, but you seem to be taking your opinions in stride. Why is that? Did Dr. Fran tell you about his hidden agenda on this matter ahead of time? I would be surprised if he did.”

Archer cleared his throat. “No, he didn’t tell me about ahead of time.”

“So, the turn of events of this conversation is not a surprise to you?” Terry said.

Archer smiled. “No, it’s not. Like you, I like to know a little bit about people before I invite them into my home. I did some research of my own, and discovered this is how they do business.”

“Then why invite them?” Terry asked. “I doubt they are going to return a ghost to you. And they aren’t the least bit interested in why you have a ghost here.”

Archer looked up at Dr. Fran and smiled.

“I’m curious as well,” Dr. Fran said.

“Mr. Ryan, I think you let us all know the bad news,” Terry said.

Archer stood up, before he spoke, a knock came to the door into the dining room. Archer opened the door.

A man walked into the door with a flourish. His long silver hair flowed with his motion. With gloved hands, he removed his long black cape revealing a black suit.

“Welcome to my home, Sir Nolan,” Archer said.

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