Elaine Investigates, Four: The House

©1 January 2025 Levite
http://themediadesk

1.
      I had been spending most of my days doing mundane investigations for several weeks. Everything from a payment processing outfit that had been double billing transaction fees that were supposed to be only paid by the customer to both the county and the customer. Then as I checked the reports I noticed that several citizens also had charges for various state permits and fees. So I got the account numbers and IDs from the citizens and checked with Albany. And found that some of the transaction fees had been billed to both as well.
      And with that, I turned the whole matter over to the State, so they could find out if other agencies, and even perhaps private businesses had been paying the transaction fee as well.
      At first the payment processing house claimed that there was no double billing, then they said it was a computer error, then they said that it had been a programming error and they had already corrected it. Then, after much doubletalk and finger pointing, they began refunding the fees going back to when the first double charges had been documented.

      In the mean time I was still looking into claims that somebody was illegally living in a county park (the answer was yes, part time, they agreed to find an actual camp ground), whether an employee was working at an outside job at the same time they were supposed to be working for the county (they weren't, but they were working evenings and weekends at the other job, verified by the security cameras and multiple witnesses at the greenhouse in question), and a check on the use of a county owned vehicle by a department manager (who did take some questionable trips in the car, but nothing spectacular).
      And then another case showed up in the office in the form of one Mister Trembelie Olsen, of Broadway and Shaftesbury Avenue, at least according to his rather overly embellished business card, that declared he was a producer and impresario of world class entertainments. Yes, on the card, the word was plural. The gentleman was also as over embellished as his card.
      The Sheriff was leading him through the office and mentioned my name.
      "Oh, Yes, I think she will do Wonderfully. You said her name is Detective Elaine? A most charming woman indeed. Excellent, to meet you." He said as if on stage. There was no doubt that he was used to not only an audience, but cameras as well as he stopped and actually struck a pose next to my desk as he presented me with his card.
      "Thank you, I always make an effort to do my best." Then I looked at my boss. "Sir?"
      "Mister Olsen has an issue with a property in the county."
      "And I would assume that it is a problem that the County Clerk's Office can't clear up."
      "Yes. It gets complicated. There's a real estate agent, or two, involved, a developer, perhaps another land owner, it is adjacent to county property and there is a right of way issue."
      "And, don't forget the ghost that isn't there." Mister Olsen added.
      "The one that isn't there." I repeated.
      "No, ma'am, detective. My family estate is NOT haunted." He replied with suitable dramatic form and volume.
      "I see."
      The Sheriff nodded at me and smiled, "I'll leave you to discuss the case with Mister Olsen." Before I could say anything else he was on his way out.
      "Take a seat and tell me about what's going on," I said after a long breath.
      He even posed while seated.

      The case was complicated.
      Two years ago a developer had made an unsolicited offer on the Olsen family estate near Jayne's Hill near Melville. Their property bordered part of the West Hills Park, which was enough of an association with a county owned facility for the Sheriff to decide it was something I needed to look into.\

      The information Mister Olsen had, which had been printed out by his sister who lived on the estate with their mother and a handful of other family members, included the unsolicited offer, an appraisal that was done several years ago after one of the outbuildings had been renovated, and a page covering the history of the property going back to when the old house was built in the 1890s.
      The folder of information was much less dramatic than the narration by Mr. Olsen, and a great deal more helpful.
      I listened to Mr. Olsen, then he shook my hand, gave me another business card. Made a speech about how he was entrusting me with his family's home, and, after striking yet another pose, he left.

      But I had to go look up the history of the property before the section now owned by the Olsens had been sold by the original landowners. It had been part of a grant to one of the original families. Later, the grant had been divided and part of it sold as what was to become the Olsen estate.
      Of course I'd read about the legends of the Jayne's Hill area during my early research into Long Island. Everybody from Theodore Roosevelt to Walt Whitman had spent time in and around this area in the various inns and taverns in, what was then, a much more remote and rustic part of the Island than it is now.
      Because the area around the Hill was rocky and had several steep valleys in between the low hills it was never good farmland. But it was ideal for small country cottages and getaways for people that wanted to be very nearly as far from salt water as you could be and still be on the island.

      One of the notes in the documentation was that if I had any questions I could contact his sister, Samantha, with her name and number. So I called her.
      "Hello, I'm Detective Elaine from the Sheriff's office."
      "Oh, yes, Detective, thank you for looking into this. Mike said you'd be calling."
      "Mike?"
      "Oh, yes, he goes by his stage name..."
      "Trembelie"
      "Yes, but to family he's still Mike. Or Michael if you are Aunt Anita."
      I made arrangements to meet with her at her home on the estate in a couple of hours.

      As it turned out, Samantha and I had known each other years ago. She laughed and said it hadn't been THAT long ago, but it was high school all the same. When we had both been part of our school's speech and debate clubs.
      "I remember your presentation about women in the legal profession," Samantha said as we figured out how we knew each other. "It seems you took your own advice."
      "Was that what it was about? I barely remember going to the event." I said honestly. "I do remember sitting with you at lunch. And supper too wasn't it?"
      "Yes. Our teams sat opposite each other and you were right there both days." She put her hand out right in front of her.
      "You were great to talk to while we were eating."
      "Thank you."
      "But I also don't remember anybody else's presentation."
      "I don't remember what I talked about, and I don't know what anybody else on my team said. But I do remember some of the others. There was a guy from Queens who talked about nude theater, and then said he'd never been to one."
      "I do remember that," I said laughing.

      Then we talked about the three houses on what amounted to a family compound on a cul de sac off the road next to the park.
      "Let's go for a walk and I'll give you a tour," Samantha said

      Her house was the newest of the three main houses, built to the left of the drive in the 1950s. "We don't live here all the time, the kids are in school and my husband works in a financial office in Manhattan, so we come out here for weekends and holidays, and we spend most of the summer out here and he commutes to work, or works from home. I came out here to meet with you with mom."

      The house on the right had been built during the early nineteen teens and had an interesting history as a getaway for some interesting individuals from the city in the "Roaring Twenties". Their other sister and her family lived there now.
      Samantha led me up the drive and stopped, "Mom lives in the old house. It's the original here, and the main part of the house is the original and it's over a hundred years old." Then we continued on into the old house.
      It was a stately old place, with a new garage on one side and a wing on the other side and a sun room on the back facing the park. Which was where we ended up for tea with their mother.

      "Oh, Mike knows better than that." Mrs. Olsen said when I mentioned what her son had said about the property not being haunted. "He doesn't like the idea. He thinks it makes us look bad in some way."
      "But there's nothing he can do about it," Samantha said, "which is another thing he doesn't like."
      "What about the offer?" I asked. "They mention a possible residual paranormal presence in two of the houses in the compound."
      Mrs. Olsen nodded, "Sammie's house was the only one that didn't have somebody left over from before." Then she shook her head. "That's when everything else started, over there, and everywhere else. Even in the new house where it had been quiet."
      "OK, I need to understand this. You already had a ghost here, and the other house, before the offer?"
      "Yes. The kitchen lady here, and the carriage man in Sylvia's house. That was it."
      "And now?"
      Samantha laughed, "something happens almost every night. In every house, out in the gardens," she pointed to the flower and vegetable gardens that were accented with small sculptures and other features. "Even in Sylvia's garage. She had a angry spirit tell her to keep her foreign car out of their garage."
      I had to have her repeat that one.
      "He didn't like the fact that she drove a European car and told her to keep it out of his garage. And he said it in a really loud angry voice."

      Then I asked a couple of questions about why they'd brought the matter to the county's attention.
      "Because I want to split off that back section and sell it to the park," Mrs. Olsen said. "It's really no good to us, and the people that ride their horses on that one trail use it as a shortcut anyway."
      "And that's when the offer came in?"
      "Yes. Within a month or so. I'd just asked the commissioner if they'd be interested in the section, it's only a couple of acres and it has the park on three sides, and that one lot that used to be part of this land at the corner. It's just a really odd section that I have to pay to have mowed."
      "I'd like to walk out there just to see it so I know what we're talking about."
      Samantha said she'd take me out there when we finished."
      Then Mrs. Olsen talked about the new haunting of the main house. "Noises and more noises, all night long, and sometimes in the daytime, and sometimes they're really loud."
      "And they only started after the offer from the real estate company?"
      "Yes. And we thought the same thing you are thinking now. I had Mike come in and search for things like speakers and vibrating machines. He didn't find anything. But he still said the place isn't haunted because it doesn't happen when he's here."
      "Where does he live?"
      "In the City, on Forty Fourth Street. He shares an apartment with a couple of other theater types." Samantha said.
      "Does he have a show running?" I asked.
      "Not right now," he mother answered, "but he was working on one."
      "Mike hasn't had a show on Broadway in several years. A while back he produced one that was running in Boston and then moved to Philly, but it was never picked up for a run in New York."
      Mrs. Olsen came to her son's defense. "That's how the business works. There will be a cold spell, then he'll come into a good one that'll be a hit, and he'll have a run there. Like when he produced..." She named a major show that won a major theater award and went on to be something less than a major movie.
      "But that's been what, ten years?" Samantha said softly.
      "And that's how it works. And when he gets another big one, you'll want tickets to the show."
      I tried to change the subject. "What does the, I guess, ghost, do in your house?" I asked Samantha.
      "There's be flashes of light in a room with nobody in there. And I've looked for things that will do that, but I haven't found anything. And noises. There's noises in all three houses, and in the sheds, and even out by the fountain. You'd think somebody was beating on a metal trash can with a ball bat, but when you get out there, there's nothing there."
      "And do you still see the kitchen woman here?" I asked Mrs. Olsen.
      "Yes. She comes in and looks around and then just goes away."
      "How about at the other house with the original ghost?"
      Samantha smiled, "He's a bit different, I've seen him a couple of times. He's always moving like he's going somewhere. We call him the coachman but we don't know who he is. Or was. We call him that because we started seeing him next to that house where the old carriage house was back in the day. Then he kinda moved into the house itself. But he still does the same thing, wandering around like he's getting ready to leave."
      "Maybe he is." I said, "but did you hear any of the sounds that you hear now before?"
      The ladies looked at each other and I could see them thinking about it.
      "No. Not really. Once in awhile we'd hear, you know, somebody whispering."
      "And sometimes a light tapping or knocking. But nothing like now."
      "So either something has changed to really upset whoever is here. Or somebody is pulling a fast one."
      Mrs. Olsen looked at me with genuine concern in her eyes, "Can you figure it out detective?"
      "I will do my very best."
      "Thank you."

2.
      Of course I spent my next few days going over the rest of the history of the property. And I spent a few nights as a guest of Mrs. Olsen in the big house, and a night or two in Samantha's house, and, yes, it was sometimes hard to get any sleep at all.
      But for some reason, I didn't think it was the Kitchen Woman making all the racket.
      It didn't look or sound "ghostly".....

      ..... ... ... it sounded theatrical.

      So I thanked her for her hospitality and went and started digging around on another topic in the office.
      Which gave me a chance to do something that I had been doing less and less as my special investigations became more and more of what I did every day, and more than a few nights, over the last few months.
      I got to make a lunch and pack it in the morning, and then either eat lunch at my desk or in the office break room. It may sound odd, but I actually found that I missed doing that.
      And I enjoyed it for a couple of days.

      And I found the topic of my inquiry interesting as well.
      More interesting than the history of the property going back to when it was still called the Mannetto Hills.
      Micheal Trembelie Olsen was financially in way over his head.
      A theatrical production last year closed after three less than stellar nights in Hartford, the last night was reported as having more people in the cast than in the audience, and left him holding a large empty sack in one hand and a stack of unpaid bills in the other. He was also facing several bank actions on various other outstanding debts, and his current road show, while promising, was apparently barely showing a profit and operating on decidedly mixed reviews, and there wasn't even rumors about it booking dates on Broadway.
      As for his business card's statement of him being a fixture on the London theater scene, he hadn't had a working production there in over five years. When his last show there went dark, the local office he worked out of took him off their staff rosters. The only note I could find in the trade journals over there said that he had parted on unfavorable terms with the principal partner in the office.
      I went looking at his past productions and contracts. He had agreed to something that even I didn't like the sound of and I seldom even bought a movie ticket. When his one hit show had been turned into a movie he had been forced to agree to something called a "decreasing residual contract" to get it picked up by the studio. Apparently those payments had now decreased a lot.

      Then I thought about something else he had said about wanting to try to get back into acting.
      So I chased that lead for a couple of hours.
      I came across a video of him reading for a part from about six months ago on a talent share website.

      You know, sometimes the Sheriff's Office Administrator will come and ask about certain expenses occurred during an investigation. She has a sense of humor, she has to, and sometimes the things we do to pursue a lead can lead us into some rather strange rabbit holes. And I just know that when this site membership fee comes across our 'plainclothes' credit account she is going to come around with that look on her face and that half smile and say to me "really?"

      He was working as Mike O.
      Well, he apparently wanted to work as Mike O on stage or big screen, or small screen live or taped.
      He was listed as being available for one time character roles, voice work, including various accents, and recurring roles as needed.
      I found that he had made a few commercials, and been in an episode or two of a handful of TV shows that were still filmed in the New York area. But if he was looking for a big payday, being "customer three" for a convenience store ad probably wasn't it.

      Then I came across something else and this had been listed in the last few days. This time he was back to being Trembelie, and he was working on a stage show in Atlantic City. He was casting for singers and dancers for "a musical review of show tunes set in a science fiction slash fantasy arena".
      Except he wasn't listed as the producer, he was listed as talent manager and casting director.
      That didn't shout "major payday" either.
      That show was currently in pre-production and call backs for the leads.

      But that made me think of something and I went back on his documentation on a couple of the stage and screen sites and looked for related show themes.
      Two years ago, about the time of the offer on the property, he had worked as a stage manager in a "just off" Broadway production of a thriller type show. According to the reviews, some of the stage magic and effects were worthy a major Hollywood release.

      I smelled a rat.

      I just had to prove it was a live rat and not the ghost of one.
      Just being a theatrically flamboyant yet bankrupt producer didn't mean one was also trying to perpetuate what amounted to real estate fraud.... but it was a motivation to do so.
      Then I wondered something else.
      Trembelie always worked with at least one partner. Some of them were now suing him for everything including his makeup case from one of the shows.
      No, really, that was one of the items mentioned in the court filing for the settlement of a debt.

      So I went looking to see who he might be linked to in the offer on the estate.
      But that was an instant dead end.
      The real estate company on the offer didn't exist. The mailing address was a cluster mail box in a retail space in Queens that had evidently expired last year. The contact name was fictitious, but did have some online history attached to it, so I kept poking at it.
      I looked for business notices with every version of his name that I had, but nothing floated to the surface.

3.
      When I was taking college classes to further my career, I spent a lot of time at Suffolk County Community College.
      While there I even managed to get tangled up in one of the on campus groups that was building fighting robots that were operated by remote control. And because they were experts at controlling things with, in some cases, amazingly complicated remote control units, some of which they had to build or modify to get to do what they wanted to do, they were called in to do other things. Like to control the dancing snowmen that lit up and started moving when people would walk by during the winter holiday tour.
      I was still in occasional contact with several members of the group, and now I needed their expertise to flush out a rat. After a brief exchange of messages on the social media platform we picked a Wednesday to meet. That morning I drove over to the main campus and tried to remember my way around to the technology building. Then I had to find someplace to park.
      Fortunately, as this was official business, and I was in a department car with police plates, I didn't have to park all the way out where I used to when I was a student. We always joked that that was one reason our sports teams did so well, because all the student athletes stayed in shape walking to class.... or, when they did badly, it was because the athletes were so tired from walking to class.

      Jesse was waiting for me and acted like he was really happy to see me again.
      "It's been a long time since you sprayed ketchup on me," he said.
      I laughed at the embarrassing memory, "You want to go out to lunch?"
      He shook his head, "Maybe next time."

      What had happened was that the red bottle of ketchup on the table at the lunch place nearby didn't want to dispense ketchup for my fries. So I shook it. That's when it came unclogged and a good amount of the condiment ended up on Jesse.
      That was several years ago, I don't want to think about exactly how long ago, and he still won't let me forget it.

      We went up to the small old office that was still being used as the club room for the robot builders, and the computer builders, and the two guys that were trying to invent a different type of laser, and all the other unofficial activities that the staff not only encouraged, but participated in.
      "So, tell me about what's going on," Jess said after he showed me their latest ultra-small attack robot that could chew its way through a solid piece of lumber faster than you could cut it with a hand saw or an ax.

      Then he gathered some equipment, and picked up a astonishingly pretty young woman named Faith who he said had worked with the theater, and agreed to meet me at the family compound.
      "I work with them, you know, making it rain and thunder without drenching everybody, that kind of thing," Faith said with her smile making her seriously dark eyes sparkle.
      "Don't let her be modest. When they did the scenes from Shakespeare she had people getting up and moving back from the first three rows because they were worried about the tempest, and when that one ghost appeared to, whoever it was, it scared me, and I knew it was coming."
      "That was Banquo, from Macbeth."
      "OK. Yeah."
      "She sounds like just the girl I need for this case."
      "Good, can she ride with you, my front seat is full of junk."
      "It always was."

      The trip from the campus in Selden to the houses near Melville was perhaps the most enjoyable half hour car ride I've been on in years as Faith was delightful company. But as the trip progressed the conversation turned from how the campus had changed since I was a regular there to the case and how whoever was the cause was doing it.

      Finally as we turned up the narrow road with thick trees on both sides Faith said something that confirmed one of the things that had happened the night I spent in Samantha's house.
      "It isn't that hard to do those things. But what would be hard out here is getting in range with the controller. If it is an IR controller, like your TV remote, it has to be line of sight, so they're going to be using radio waves, and those we can detect."
      "I thought maybe some of the things would be on a timer."
      "You can do that too, even set the timer for random occurrence."
      "You mean have it go off after something like twenty minutes, but vary it just a little?"
      "Oh, yes. I've used those in the displays at school."
      I nodded and slowed down to turn into the driveway to the houses.

      Jesse had been right behind us, but he had turned off into a store. So we waited a few minutes, then got out and started looking around.
      I'm not a short woman, but standing next to Faith I suddenly felt short. And I was wearing my work shoes with medium heels. She was in flats, and to talk to her I had to look up.
      I had been afraid that Trembelie would be there, but I didn't see his car anywhere. I called Mrs. Olsen and let her know I would be looking around the property with an assistant or two.
      "Oh, that's fine dear. If you need to come into the house I'll leave the patio door open for you."
      "Thank you, ma'am. I think we will look in the house as well once we finish out here."

      Jesse had stopped for some necessities. In his case, junk food, soft drinks, and a couple of spare packages of batteries.
      "If I've got them, I seldom need them." He said checking a large awkward looking device that he carried on a strap around his neck and shoulder like a guitar.
      "What is that thing?" I asked him.
      "I use it to check the warrior robots. It detects controller frequencies. If there's two robots in the ring, there should only be two sets of signals. Most use a separate frequency for drive and steering, and then another for weapons control. So if I see a competing signal, I know somebody may be cheating and trying to jam one of the competitors. Even if they just confuse it for a second, that can give somebody else an unfair advantage. But if they do it a couple of times, I can get direction and range, and maybe even ID the type of controller broadcasting the rogue RF signal."
      "They'll do that for amateur robot fights?" I asked.
      "When it comes tournament time, they get really competitive."
      I nodded, "I guess." Then I gestured around us, "So if you were going to control something, say a noise maker, or some odd lights or something. Where would you have to be with your controller?"
      "The problem is going to be range, and knowing whether or not it is working. My guess is from what you told me, they've got some mics and cameras set up somewhere around each house, and are using wireless to monitor their effects, and then using some sort of controller to activate them." Then he really smiled, "and that is why I brought this." He patted his technological wonder. "I can run through all the usual frequencies and see what responds. It'll make their garage door go up, and turn on whatever audio player is in there as well."
      "Well."
      "If he can make it work, I can find it and let you know how it works, and maybe where they got it," Faith said.
      I looked from one to the other, "We'll start in the garden."

      We walked through the large and well tended vegetable garden until we got to the shed.
      "The sound was coming from around here the night I stayed out here. But it seemed to move from over there by the trellis to over here. And then I thought it came from back that way." I pointed off to the left toward the park.
      "Did you hear anything like a drone? You know, that whirring noise?" Jesse asked.
      "No, since it was moving that's the first thing I thought of."
      "Then I bet it was on the ground."
      "RC car with loudspeaker?" Faith said.
      Jesse nodded. "And I'll bet it's back, concealed wherever they put it to come back out and do it again. From there," he pointed at the trellis, "to around the shed, and then out is a pretty straight shot. At night, a low fast chassis, flat black, you'd never see it from the house." He powered up his device.
      I don't know what else to call it, it was larger than a controller, with readouts and even knobs all over it, and the left end had two small screens where he could even receive video signal from whatever his... device... was talking to.
      "OK, let's see what responds. I'll run through the low range first, down around 26 megahertz, then work my way up. RC cars usually run just above...." He started muttering numbers and sequences of numbers. "And then forty - - - nine..."
      In about a minute we heard the banging sound.
      "That's it!" I said.
      Faith followed me over to where the sound was coming from and, there it was, a medium sized remote controlled car body that had been stripped of all cosmetic car body stuff, and instead had two small all weather speakers mounted to it. It had been concealed in a small den under the overgrown tomato vines.
      Jesse was understandably proud of his device.

      It did make Sylvia's garage door go up. And in a couple of minutes it made a very angry sounding man remind us that he had said to keep that foreign car out of his garage.
      Faith found the very small MP3 player that was connected to a small control receiver and a concealed wireless speaker.
      "This is like the speakers on the car. You can get them almost anywhere. We need to find something more specialized."
      "How about lighting?"
      She pursed her lips and thought about it, then nodded.
      "Do the garage door across the road," I said to Jesse.

      I led Faith up the stairs to the bedroom I had used. "I heard some thumping, then there were several flashes of light that I thought could have been a car turning around in the road, but it's on the wrong side of the house." I looked out the windows of what Samantha said used to be a sewing room and was now a bedroom for the kids when they were here, you could see the old house, but not the road.
      "Let me look around first, then we'll have Jesse run the spectrum."
      "You've got it."

      She spent several minutes combing the room, then she came out and seemed confident in her verdict. "I think I found one of them. It was exactly where I'd put it to do what you said happened. But I want to confirm it."
      "We'll see what happens." I said to her, "OK Jesse, work your magic."
      "Starting with the twenty seven group."
      The light came on immediately.
      "Got it!" I shouted to him, but the light went off just as quickly. "Do it again."
      Faith was in the room when the light came on a second time and came out with the unit that had been mounted over a picture frame.
      "Not only do I know where they got this. I've bought the same unit. They work well for what they are and what you pay for them."
      I had her put it back for now.

      Then we moved to the big house.

      There was another lighting device in the downstairs hall hiding in the curve below the main stairs.
      "This one is different," Faith said inspecting it. "It is both a receiver and relay, it is controlling several other lights or other things. You can program it to run them in sequence." She looked at the light, "These are a dime a dozen. But this controller is something special, and they're not cheap."
      "So it's a professional unit."
      "Oh yes, it takes some time to learn how to work it. And you have to have a good controller to program it. That takes some experience to use as well."

      Mrs. Olsen couldn't believe it when Jesse made the pan rattling sound in the cupboard work on command.
      "But who would do this?" She asked after I dug out another of the MP3 players and a set of speakers that would make the sound appear to come from different parts of the cabinet.
      "I've got an idea, but I don't want you to say anything until I can be sure of it."

      After a bit more looking around, and the finding of a couple of other devices, I had Samantha call Trembelie and asked if he could come down to their mother's place over the weekend.
      "You think he did it?" Samantha asked.
      "Maybe not, but somebody with a connection to him did. How else could they get access to all three houses to do this."
      "He has worked with some shady characters in the past."

      In the mean time, I had one more lead I wanted to explore. So I talked to Mrs. Olsen and made preparations to spend another night in the old house.

      But I didn't get much sleep that Thursday night either.
      Besides the lights that flashed and pans that banged. I went down to the kitchen to bake some bread at about one in the morning.
      I'd brought everything I needed, including some friendship bread dough that one of the department's office ladies was forever offering to everybody, and putting in the break room fridge with giveaway signs on it. She'd also bring it in as a freshly baked and sliced loaf, which was a lot more popular than the raw dough.
      And I spent some time talking to myself. "I need to bake a loaf of bread for Mrs. Olsen for breakfast, and it's been a long time since I baked bread."
      I was still alone. Only the trick light in the hallway blinked once in awhile, I'd taken the batteries out of the two speakers in the cabinet because I didn't need to hear pan banging sound effects. I was banging my own pans.
      The oven was preheating and I had let the dough rise again for a few minutes like the office lady's instructions said.
      "Oh, I don't know, am I supposed to grease and flour the baking pan or just grease it?" I said. And it was a real comment. I didn't remember seeing which it was in the instructions, and I really didn't want to do it wrong.
      I heard something to my left.

      She was standing there.

      And it wasn't Mrs. Olsen, or Samantha. Or for that matter, anybody I'd ever seen before.

      And she was just standing there.

      And my full spectrum, high definition, motion capture and still image camera was sitting on the table across the room.

      It wasn't some sort of special effect trick with light. I could see through her, then in other places, she was more substantial. The best I could place her outfit would be a housekeeper from maybe the nineteen teens or so. An apron over a long dress with about three-quarter length sleeves.

      I felt my eyes begin to water, but I didn't panic. "Grease and flour?"

      She shook her head. Once.

      "Just grease?"

      She nodded. Then she was gone. Just like that. She didn't fade away, she didn't turn and vanish, she was just instantly gone.

      "Thank you." I said, and then I realized I hadn't taken a breath in a couple of minutes.

      The bread came out fine, and Mrs. Olsen found my encounter with her Kitchen Woman fascinating as we ate breakfast in the smaller end of the kitchen that she called her 'breakfast nook'.

      "One time she stood right where you said you saw her and pointed at the stove. I looked over and realized I had the burner on under an empty pan." Mrs. Olsen said,
      "And you only see her in the kitchen."
      "Not only that, she's always on that end of the kitchen, right inside that door."
      I looked around and noticed the architecture of the house. "That is the old section of the house, and that part of the kitchen is in it, and this is the newer section, starting where the fridge is."
      "I think it is, yes."
      "So she probably stays in the old part. But knows this is here and watches over it because it is still the kitchen."
      "Makes sense."

4.
      I spent that Friday driving around the roads near the Olsen estate. And sitting in in a picnic parking area of the county park. And occasionally wandering down the trail where the shortcut across their back property was. And so on.

      Samantha confirmed that her brother would be coming in Saturday morning to meet with me and their mother in the old house.
      I thought that was odd because I was sure I had seen his car not far from the compound the day before. His car, while a reasonably common luxury brand, had been painted a custom color that was unusual.
      There's not a lot of two tone bright metallic gold over gold Japanese luxury cars on Long Island.

      An idea occurred to me and I called Jesse and Faith.
      "What are you doing tonight?" I asked Jesse.
      "Nothing special, why?"
      "How do you feel about sitting in a haunted house watching for stray RF frequencies from outside?"
      "Sounds like fun."

      Faith was even more in favor of it. "I'll even bring my RF detector to watch that relay in the hallway. If it is programmed to go off, I'll know it was it instead of an outside command."
      "How would you know?"
      "I've got the same model, I've got the spec sheet on the channels it uses for different functions."
      "Sounds good, tell me about your RF detector."

      I even managed to have them smuggled onto the property in a food delivery car so if, as I thought, Trembelie was somewhere watching he wouldn't get overly suspicious.

      Then I checked my thermos of coffee and that I had a roll of paper to use in the potty in the picnic area if needed.
      And we waited.

      It had been dark for an hour or so when my radio chirped in my earbud.
      "Go ahead," I answered.
      "Elaine. I just got a hit on the monitor. Somebody just turned on the light in the new house. On and off. I got the frequency, but it was too quick to get a range, but it looked close by the signal strength."
      "Got it. I'll take a walk and see what I can see."

      I got out of the car and began walking along the road, then through the yard, heading toward that back corner where the trail ran across.
      Then I stood in a clump of trees and watched.
      I couldn't really see who it was, but I could see them. They were sitting on a fallen log just around the corner of the fence that marked the edge of the neighbor's property with the Olsen panhandle that ran toward the park and its horse trail.

      Then I got a message from Faith.
      "The relay in the hallway just triggered the player in the basement, it was a programmed event."
      "Got it. Our friend out here hasn't moved. I'm going to go back to my car and pull around."
      "Do you want one of us to come out?"
      "No, I notified some friends to stand by if I needed them. Let me know if they send another live signal in to make something else happen."
      "Yes, ma'am."

      I drove through the parking area and saw Trembelie's car next to another car with New Jersey plates on the end of the lot closest to the horse trail through the Olsen property.
      So I called my other friends to stop by when they had a chance.

      "Elaine, I got it. No doubt. Good steady control signal, forty nine and fifty three megahertz. Range, about two hundred meters out, maybe a bit closer."
      "That'd put them on the trail."
      Then Faith cut in, "the car outside just took off, and I've got lights in the hallway. And I see a light at Sam's."
      "OK, stay there, we'll take care of it on this end."

      I got out of my car and greeted the responding uniformed officers from the County Police and the City of Melville.
      "We're on," I said trying to sound theatrical.

      To say that Trembelie and his friend with the control unit were surprised when I walked up behind them with four uniformed police as backup would be the understatement of the day.

      We convinced them to not resist and walk with us over toward the old house where Trembelie's mother and the others were waiting for us. One of the county officers went back to pull their car around while the rest of us escorted them over to face the music.
      Mrs. Olsen had turned on the back lights and we could see her standing there in disbelief.

      The County Police Officer ran the ID of the controller operator and found out that while he was on probation on a couple of minor charges, he wasn't otherwise wanted.
      Trembelie had a few outstanding parking tickets from the City, but, around here, that was almost normal.

      For his part, Trembelie didn't say anything for a long time, but he did spend a considerable amount of time staring at Faith.
      Then, as I explained the charges, including attempted real estate fraud, the County Officer took him into custody, he broke his silence.
      "I just can't believe it. Two of the most beautiful women I've seen in years are causing me to get arrested."
      His sister laughed at him, "That's not bad, you should write it down."
      "I'll do that."
      "And you'll have plenty of time to do it," the officer said and took both of them out front to be put in the back seat to be run up to the precinct in Huntington.

      Then I had to go in and document and collect the devices in the houses. Jesse had walked over and picked up the RC car by one wheel and dropped it in a trash bag which he gave to the Melville officer.
      "Evidence." Jesse said.
      "Thank you, sir."

      Now the real investigation began.
      Trembelie was in so deep that even if he had managed to get the lion's share of the value of the property, by dividing the existing single tract into as many as five smaller lots, he'd still be looking for another gig to pay his rent next month.
      The State's Attorney waded through possible charges and came up with a good handful that could be successfully prosecuted.
      Of course I had to testify, as did Jesse and Faith. Mrs. Olsen was allowed to give a statement and not actively take the stand against her son. His sisters were a bit more vindictive, and Sylvia even used words like "terrified", and "very angry" when she was talking about what she felt and what the voice sounded like in her garage.

      Trembelie's defense lawyer tried to discredit my testimony by mentioning that I had told Mrs. Olsen about the Kitchen Woman ghost. I played it right back at him by stating that I did see something. Something that I can not explain, but that that was exactly what the defendant and his accomplice were trying to convince Mrs Olsen was there.
      For his part, Trembelie said "I just wanted her to sell the place," exactly seven times during his testimony.

      In the end Trembelie, now just plain Mike, took a plea to some reduced charges, and still got to spend some time where he could focus on writing a new play, perhaps based on the shattered dreams of somebody whose reach exceeded both their grasp and their talent.

      And both Jesse and Faith talked me into coming back and speaking to the technology club about other uses for the equipment besides just destroying each other in the ring.
      In the mean time, I bought and learned to use an EMF detector and some other technology that I'd never needed investigating somebody making questionable charges to a county credit card.

-end house-

The Elaine Investigates index page.

[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the geographical features of Suffolk County exist, including Jayne's Hill, the highest point on the Island, the rest of the setting is fictional.
      Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]

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