Black Cat Weekly #18

THE GHOST WHO READ THE NEWSPAPER, by Vicki Weisfeld-3

“What about his possessions?” Mr. Dulcey asked.

“Nothing about that.”

I glanced around the attic at the collection of abandoned suitcases, baggage, and odd-shaped parcels that had accumulated for more than a century. “Your guests forget a lot,” I said.

“Most times we know where to forward their belongings. This is just remnants.”

I crouched down to look at the cases, each with a paper label tied to it with date and guest’s name. Working in concentric circles away from the ladder was a trip back in time. When I reached the 1860s, I studied the labels carefully. Mr. Dulcey and Mr. Meese were content to let me do this on my own, to grind dust into the knees of my trousers and scrape the shine off my boots.

I believe they thought the effort would be fruitless, but my exclamation startled them into attention. “C.J. Haekelmann, July 1863.” I picked up the heavy case and carried it to Mr. Dulcey.

“Shall we open it?”

“The owner won’t complain,” Mr. Meese said drily.

Inside were several shirts and sets of underwear, neatly folded, shaving utensils and hair-grooming items, and a leather-bound notebook. It listed appointments with Boston cloth wholesalers for Thursday, July 9, and Friday, July 10—appointments Mr. Haekelmann never kept. The letters confirming those appointments were tucked into the back of the notebook. They discussed the tailor’s work producing uniforms for the Union Army.

“Aha!” said Mr. Dulcey. From the bottom of the bag, he lifted out the Hartford Daily Courant from July 5, 1863. The headlines identified it as the very edition I’d seen in the Old Gentleman’s hands. “Shall we get out of this dust and open it up downstairs? Perhaps we can deduce what the Old Gentleman has been reading all these years.”

I suspect we were all feeling a little gritty and in need of a brushing, so we happily agreed to Mr. Dulcey’s suggestion.

We carefully spread the newspaper on the big dining table, each of us taking a few sheets. It was brittle and yellowed and smelled of age. Unfortunately, it was I who made the awful discovery. A story about the Fourteenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment ended with a list of the regiment’s Hartford men who had died at Gettysburg. Among them were three young men named Haekelmann: Calvin, Jr., James, and William.

We three crowded around to read the story through several times. We silently agreed this was the awful news that killed their father. Finally, Mr. Dulcey quietly folded the paper and carried it to our room.

* * * *

When spring came, Mr. Dulcey proposed a driving trip to Gettysburg, to which I gladly assented. We’d learned a great deal about the Fourteenth Connecticut Volunteers over the winter, including their nickname, “The Nutmeg Regiment.” As we stood on Cemetery Hill. where the Fourteenth helped repulse Pickett’s charge, Mr. Dulcey picked up three small white stones.

A few weeks later, we made a return visit to the Old Blackwood Inn, in much better weather conditions than our previous visit, occupying our old room, #3. Before we went to bed that night, Mr. Dulcey pulled out of his bag one of our books about Gettysburg and a large box. In the box was a set of toy soldiers, outfitted in the blue and gray of the Civil War. We spent some time setting them up according to the maps in our book and using several bunched up green napkins cadged from the dining room for our battlefield.

We went to bed not knowing what to expect, really.

“Could this be risky? Might the ghost think we are baiting him?” I asked.

“I highly doubt that,” Mr. Dulcey said. “Perhaps ‘seeing’ the tragedy in this way will put his mind at ease. We’re demonstrating that we recognize his distress and its cause.”

I struggled to stay awake, but it was a struggle I lost. When morning arrived, Mr. Dulcey stood, fists on hips, scanning our makeshift scene. “It’s just as we left it!” I said, disappointed.

“Not quite.” He pointed. Three blue soldiers lay on their sides, surrounded by men in firing position. “Not quite.”

* * * *

Later that day, Mr. Dulcey persuaded the landlord to accompany us to the town cemetery. It took some looking and the help of one of the gravediggers, but we found Mr. Haekelmann’s unmarked grave, identified only by a number stamped on a tin disc. Mr. Dulcey took the three fallen toy soldiers and the three stones from the battlefield and laid them where he thought Mr. Haekelmann’s heart might be. It was a solemn moment. I recited the Gettysburg Address, an inspiring speech Mr. Haekelmann would never have heard.

During the years I remained in Mr. Dulcey’s employ, we stayed at the Old Blackwood numerous times, always in Room #3. After Mrs. Meese painted it and made fresh curtains, it became a charming room, though its chief charm for me, the nocturnal visits by the Old Gentleman, were no more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vicki Weisfeld’s short stories have appeared in leading mystery magazines and various anthologies, winning awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Public Safety Writers Association. She’s a reviewer for the UK website crimefictionlover.com and blogs at www.vweisfeld.com. “The Ghost Who Read the Newspaper was originally published November 2019 in Level Best Books’ Best New England Crime Stories 2019: Seascape. In April 2022, her first novel, The Architect of Courage, is expected from Black Opal Books.

Would you stay in a haunted hotel room? In real life, a Washington, D.C., hotel has a room that’s never rented out. Too many guests reported waking in the night to see a man in top hat and Lincolnesque attire sitting at the foot of the bed reading a newspaper. In “The Ghost Who Read the Newspaper,” author Vicki Weisfeld brings a similar ghost to a Connecticut inn, adding multiple deaths, as well as heartbreak, to the mix.

MR. CLACKWORTHY AND THE AUTO RIM,

by Christopher B. Booth