©1 March 2025 Levite
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1.
My phone rang early one Tuesday morning, I answered it, "Detective Elaine."
"Hello, this is Aledria," a woman said. And you could almost see her smile even though it wasn't a video call.
"Well, hello Aledria. What can I do for you?"
"Ms Marjorie was supposed to let you know I'd be calling."
"I'm sorry, I don't know a Marjorie."
"You worked with her on the Parsonage case. She manages our rentals. The Historic Trust."
"Oh, yes. I remember her now. I'm sorry. So, what can I do for you?" I repeated the question.
"It'd be easier if we could meet and I could show you."
"That'd be nice, I've been stuck in the office for far too long."
"Are you familiar with the Shippenberg House in Southampton?"
"I've heard of it. I'm pretty sure I can find it."
"I'll meet you there at, say, ten?"
"I'm looking forward to it. That is definitely out of the office."
Since I had been the first officer on the scene at the double murder and a suicide I had been effectively locked in the office. Besides endless reports and questions from everybody from the City Police and the Medical Examiner, there had been a stream of inquiries from the agency the employee had worked for, as well as the owners and the management company of the apartment.
Somehow, my name had become attached to the investigation, and even if I had no direct bearing on whatever aspect of the case was being asked about, I had to be involved.
After several days of that, I was becoming somewhat stir-crazy and needed to get out and do something else.
I did remember that the Historic Property Manager, whose name I had blocked from my memory, said that they already had a list of supposedly haunted properties. But Ms Aledria didn't say what the meeting with her was about. Until I looked up the background information on the Shippenberg House, and found out that there was a prolonged discussion about it on a local forum.
And what they were discussing was whether or not the "presence" in the house was demonic or not.
I read enough of the discussion to pique my curiosity, then I went to several other sites that dealt with the historic properties in the Hamptons. And found information going back well into the eighteen eighties about the building that was then known as the Dickerson House.
There was a note in one of the local papers from the nineteen twenties about how when the new owners of the house, the Shippensbergs, had a reception to celebrate their taking possession of the stately property, and had an unpleasant spirit continually make noise in the cellar, making casual conversation all but impossible. According to the newspaper writer the new owners promised to have the matter seen to by their clergyman.
The article did raise an interesting question as to the name of the family. But it seemed like the article in the paper had added an 's' to their name, when everything from business records to the paperwork that transferred the property to the county as a museum omitted the 's' in the middle. Then I ran across a notice in a business about a merger, and the 's' was back. I saw in an obituary for a family member with the center 's', and several of the surviving members didn't have the it between the 'shippen' and the 'berg'.
I decided that like many others who had come through Ellis Island, the spelling of a name may vary from one day to the next. And once it was on the official documentation, sometimes it stayed there in spite of the family's preferences and efforts to correct it.
As to whether that bit of typographical confusion had any bearing on the 'presence', I couldn't say.
So, it was my considered opinion that Ms Aledria was having me out to the Hamptons to spend some time in a really old house that may have some interesting issues.
Which was better than sitting in the office waiting on another call or email about a double murder and suicide.
2.
The Shippenberg house wasn't the oldest house I'd been in. And it wasn't the largest.
But I'll say it right here and right now. It was the creepiest. Hands down. While I didn't remember seeing that the house had ever hosted a haunted house type event, like the former hotel and convent had, but maybe it should have.
The outside of the place looked intimidating even in broad daylight. I walked into the main entrance and stopped and just took it in the sight. You were greeted by an open foyer with a massive staircase of dark wood and carved banisters and posts. There was a brass and crystal chandelier overhead that wouldn't have been out of place in a castle. And on the walls, which were covered with funeral home style flowered wallpaper, hung portraits of angry looking people in period dress.
Only one of the people in the paintings were smiling. I stopped and looked at her just for some relief for my eyes.
"I see you've noticed Madelyn. Everybody does. She wasn't a Dickerson or a Shippenberg. She was their children's teacher, and they really liked her."
"She looks very pleasant compared to the others. I could see why they liked her." I turned to the lady that had spoken to me, "I'm Detective Elaine. I was to meet Ms. Aledria from the Historic Trust here." Her name tag announced her as Camille, and she was the Hostess.
"Oh, yes, she said you were coming, she's here somewhere. I think I saw her go upstairs."
"I'll follow you."
We met Aledria on the landing between floors.
"Oh, thank you for coming down here." She gestured at the foyer with our elevated view of the bottom of the giant light fixture, "What do you think of it?"
"It's beautiful, but it's a bit overwhelming."
"That's a good way to describe it." Hostess Camille answered.
"Shall we see the rest of it?" Aledria asked me.
I nodded, "Yes, and you can tell me about the angry presence."
Aledria made a face, "I know I have to, but I'll let Camille tell you about what happened to her two weeks ago."
Camille was obviously surprised to suddenly become the center of attention."Oh, you're That Detective Elaine. I saw the thing they did on you. It was very interesting," Camille said.
I thanked her and she continued. As she spoke her face changed from that Greeter Smile to that look of uncertainty, disbelief, and fear that I've seen before.
"It was that Wednesday, I came in early to make sure we were set up for the Lady's Book Club meeting. They come in for lunch once a month. We always use the back door to come in and open up. You know, turn off the alarm, turn the lights on, that sort of thing."
She coasted to a stop, so I encouraged her to just tell me what happened.
"OK. I'll just say it." She took a deep breath and looked down the stairs at the foyer, "I came in here from the back, and there was a man standing right down there. He had been looking toward the front. He looked real, like one of the actors we have come in to play a part during a historic tour. But when he turned and looked at me I could tell that he wasn't an actor, his face was kind of distorted, and when he spoke his lips didn't match the words."
"What did he say?"
Hostess Camille took another deep breath still looking down at the foyer. "He said that the Ambassador would expect the door to be open when he arrived." She looked at me, "Then he just stared at me for a second with a really angry expression. Then he just vanished." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."
I gestured to the portraits on the wall, "Did he look like any of them?"
"Oh, yes, he looked like two of them. The Dickerson Brothers, I can show them to you. They're upstairs."
"Please."
The portraits were in a room dedicated to the first owners of the house. Hostess Camille walked to the far side and stopped next to the painting of a man in a noble pose next to a book stand. The plaque below the portrait said it was Thomas Dickerson Esq. As with the other images, I had to wonder if the man had ever laughed.
The other painting was his younger brother, posing with his family. The plaque said it was Mr. And Mrs. Micheal Dickerson and Children. Even the children, not only looked serious, they looked angry.
You could tell that the two men were brothers. The only difference was that Thomas appeared to be slightly balding, and had an impressive mustache, while Micheal had a full head of hair and a thin mustache.
"The man I saw was wearing a low top hat, so I couldn't tell about his hair, and I don't remember his mustache." The Hostess said.
"But it was him." I asked her. "Well, one of them."
"Yes."
"Had you had any other experiences here before that?"
"Yes, I used to work evenings as well. I quit doing that. Every time I'd go down to the storage room for something I feel like somebody was watching me, and there'd be whisperings, and banging, and the last time I walked through a cold spot that felt like a blizzard was coming."
"I've felt that cold spot too. And not just downstairs." Aledria added.
"I didn't know that," Camille said, "when did that happen to you?"
"The last time was just the other day. That's why I asked if I could call Detective Elaine."
"Show me where you've had things happen, and I'll take a look. Would it be OK if I stayed after hours here a couple of nights?"
"Of course. I'll give you the alarm code and everything." Hostess Camille said, and now, her smile was back.
According to the two ladies, there had been some activity in the daytime, like the Hostess's gentleman in the foyer, but later, things kicked up.
"And it's not just after dark. It starts about five in the afternoon. Like when the business closes and they come home," the Hostess said.
Aledria's experience with the cold spot was on the second floor just outside the room they used as the office for the property.
"I was here working. I was making up the place cards for a dinner, and I heard something in the hallway. I got up and went to the door, and," she gestured down to the floor just outside the door, "it was like I remember it was when you stepped into the walk in freezer at the store I used to work at."
"Anything else?" I asked the two of them.
"Miss Mary says she always hears people laughing and humming from the back bedroom. Back when the Dickerson's lived here, that was the servant's room."
We walked to the back of the house and into the old room with a low ceiling. The small windows along the back wall looked out at the grounds behind the house. It was obviously built over what had been the back porch. But this new addition to the house was well over a hundred years old, and had probably been done while the house was still fairly new.
"Well, if you don't mind, I think I'll go get my bag and start my investigation up here."
Aledria was all for it, "And when you get done, we can talk about the other properties we want you to check in to."
"Other properties?"
"Yes, ma'am. We've got about a dozen other places that either staff or visitors, and usually both, have reported encounters with ... well. Ghosts."
3.
There were no events scheduled for that day at the house, so once Ms Aledria left and the Hostess went home for the day, I had the place to myself until ten the next morning when the Executive Board of a local civic group would be meeting in the library.
One of the things I asked Hostess Camille, who was a local, what her favorite pizza shop in town that would deliver to the house was.
"I'm not a big fan of pizza. But everybody raves about Mikko's. They're not far from here."
And so I ordered from Mikko's.
I was standing in the back hallway after Ms Aledria walked back with me carrying the overnight bag that I now kept in my car. She told me about how I was welcome to catch some sleep on the couch in the office. "And I'm glad it's you and not me."
"Part of my job."
She shook her head, then she made sure I had the alarm code in case I wanted to get out, and she was gone.
The old house got quiet around me as I waited for my late lunch and supper.
The delivery driver spoke just enough English to thank me for the tip I gave him, then he was off again. The two boxes smelled wonderful. One was a small special of the day, the other was a safe bet, sausage and mushroom. I left them on the table in their break room off the kitchen, I reset the alarm, and walked around the house just to make sure I was alone.
I left a recorder in the foyer and took several photos with the various cameras. I walked through the library and the dining room to the left of the entranceway. Then I went downstairs just to check out the storeroom and get my bearings before it got pitch dark.
I put a recorder on a shelf next to a box of tea lights and went back upstairs. I grabbed my kit bag and my overnight case and went up to the office and sat at the desk for a minute. I left a recorder running on the desk and went back downstairs and looked around.
The building was quiet. I mean really quiet. I couldn't hear anything. And the hallway seemed a lot darker than it had been when I came upstairs. Outside, it was still late afternoon. And then I remembered that they said the place seems to come to life after business hours. And 'after business hours' was coming up quickly.
I sat in the break room and looked at the information about the house and tried the special pizza. It wasn't bad, but the sauce was way too sweet for my taste, but I do know people that would swoon over it.
I heard footsteps upstairs.
At first I thought that Hostess Camille or somebody had come in without my hearing them. But then as I walked out of the break room I could see that the building's door alarm was still on. So I slowly and carefully walked toward the back stairs next to the kitchen.
I paused at the base of the steep narrow stairs. It was quiet for a moment, then I heard what sounded like somebody humming to themselves. So I started up the stairs.
Now I could see down the upstairs hallway from next to the servant's room all the way to the front window. I stood still and tried to breathe as quietly as possible.
The humming was in the Dickerson bedroom across from the office. And I had a recorder running in the office.
The humming faded out and the place went quiet. So I went into the office and listened to the last ten minutes of the recording with my earbuds.
"That was a laugh." I said to the recorder, then in a moment I heard the soft singing and humming. I could almost hear the words. I played it again, and thought I heard a line repeated. So I looked it up. And found it. And watched and listened to a video of it.
It was from a stage play from the eighteen eighties. The play contained several songs that became popular and were sung in local theaters and even barrooms, and was even recently made into a movie. And here, now, on the second floor of the Shippenberg House, somebody was happily singing one of the songs from the comic opera. And doing so while it was still daylight, and just before the close of business outside.
I saved the EVP file to my laptop, reset the recorder, and went back down to finish my pizza.
After I finished my now really late lunch it was getting close to when most businesses would have been closing for the day. So I went and checked my recorders, and put the motion sensor in the hallway where I'd heard the footsteps, took pictures in the basement, and spent a lot of time just watching and listening.
I got one photo of a temperature anomaly in the basement. A roughly oval area that was noticeably colder than the surrounding area.
But that was it for that first night. I never heard anything else, I never saw anything else. I had a slightly uncomfortable night's sleep on the couch, but other than some loser blowing their car's horn at about four in the morning out in front of the building next door, nothing happened.
That's happened with other investigations. Whoever, and whatever, is in a place doesn't know me. They've never seen me before, and they get shy around the new girl.
But I decided that based on how remarkable that one EVP was, that I'd come back for one more night. And give the place another shot.
While I was packing up I realized that I'd need another source for pizza that night. Mikko's was OK, and it'd do in a pinch, but I'd rather have something a little less sweet. I don't mind a touch of acidity in the sauce, but overwhelming sweetness just doesn't work for me.
I turned off the alarm and unlocked the door and waited in the break room for whoever was opening the place up for the civic group's meeting that morning.
Miss Aledria came in and was somewhat disappointed when I told her that, on the whole, it was a quiet night. Then I explained that just enough happened to make me curious, and if it was OK, that'd I'd like to come back that night and continue. "They'll be more familiar with me, and might come out to play."
"That's an excellent idea," she smiled.
I stopped at home and repacked my overnight bag, then I got a shower and headed for the office to do some regular mundane work.
Early in the afternoon I went back home and took a good nap, then I headed for the old house in the Hamptons.
Some of the board members were still sitting in the library talking when I walked in.
Camille the Hostess smiled and said that they did that. "For some of them this is the only time they get to see each other, so they'll stay here until it is dinner time, and then go out together."
"They use this place every month?" I asked her.
"Yes, they book it a year in advance."
"Do you think they'd mind if I asked them a few questions?"
The board was delighted to tell me all sorts of stories about their experiances in the place. And they told me about some of what had happened to other board members as well.
"I was down the hall in the restroom that's back by the kitchen. I opened the door and there was a man standing there. He just frowned at me, and then vanished."
"What did he look like?"
"He looked like Thomas Dickerson. They've got a picture of him upstairs."
"I've seen it, thank you."
Some of the others had heard singing, and the occasional laugh.
"When they were redoing these rooms we met upstairs, and we almost couldn't have our meeting because somebody kept laughing at us. It usually sounded like a woman, but sometimes not."
"Did you ever hear any singing?" I asked them.
"Oh, yeah, you'd think somebody had a radio on."
"Could you tell what the song was?"
"Oh, yeah," he paused and hummed for a second, "something about fire in the heart, going away... It's been awhile, but it was something like that."
The other board member nodded, "Yeah, I've heard that too, they'd sing the same line a couple of times, then quit."
I thanked them for their assistance.
I declined an invitation to go out to dinner with them, and spent some time in the library looking through the information about Thomas Dickerson, and who lived in the house from about eighteen eighty through the nineteen teens.
Thomas, who I discovered quickly, never went by anything other than Thomas, and had been very formal and even domineering in the way he did things. Also, Thomas had passed away in the house, although there was no indication as to which room he had been in. It wasn't long after that that the remaining Dickerson family sold the place and moved into the City.
As for domestic servants that enjoyed show tunes, I could only find a couple of names and one description of a coachman who got too heavy to climb up into the driver's seat of the horse-drawn carriage. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Tonight's pizza was from what I had been promised was a good place even though it was part of a national chain. I had told them that if it wasn't, I could always call Mikko's.
It was after business hours when my pizza arrived. I put it back in the break room and walked through the house again and set my equipment up and turned everything on.
"Hello, I'm back. Remember me from last night?"
No response.
The pizza was good. The sauce wasn't too sweet, but they were a little skimpy with the toppings.
I was just wondering whether I wanted another slice of it when I had an idea based on what I'd read about Thomas, and then the song that one of the domestics had been singing upstairs, and when.
Thomas had worked in a law office in Manhattan, coming home for weekends, and later he opened an office here in town, but stayed as a partner in the office in the City. Everything I read about him was that he was a lawyer with his sights set on a judgeship. And it never happened, for various reasons. But he always maintained that air of humorless formality. In his obituary it stated it as: "never was a well known barrister so gravely solemn in and out of the court as Lawyer T. Dickerson."
He was 'gravely solemn' to the point that he probably would not have approved of his upstairs maid singing a slightly naughty tune from a Broadway comedy while she did her chores. So she would sing it while Mister Thomas was out of the house.
I don't like provoking anybody. If you need somebody to play 'good cop - bad cop' during an interview, don't call me. But sometimes you need to be a little forward, maybe even a bit aggressive, to get the information you need. And here and now, I needed whoever was here to confirm who I was dealing with that was being unpleasant.
And I had an idea over my pizza. It could be that I have most of my best ideas over pizza.
I got one of my recorders and went into the foyer area. The two best sightings of Thomas that I had been told about were in this area. Here at the bottom of the main stairs, and just down the hall from them. So if he was here, this is where he would most likely be.
"Hello, Mister Dickerson. You've got a really nice place here."
Nothing.
"Thomas. Would you mind if I called you Tommy? I used to work with a Tommy and he was a really pleasant and friendly guy. He'd tell all sorts of jokes, and would sometimes dance down the hallway where we were working."
I waited a minute. Then I'd just ask 'Tommy' a some sort of question, and I made a few comments about wanting to have a birthday party some evening for another friend of mine that liked things like the Marx Brothers.
"Oh, and Tommy, he really likes to do this scene from Vaudeville, but I was wondering if you'd ever heard the original by Weber and Fields... Hang on, I'll play this one for you."
I put the recorder on a side table, then I got out my phone and tapped on the screen for a minute. Then the Abbot and Costello baseball sketch came on and echoed through the entrance way. The routine had been taped in the nineteen forties for a radio show and including the laughter that sounded real instead of pre-recorded.
I tried not to pay attention to the comedy skit, but instead watched the house around me as it played. I could feel the atmosphere change.
While this part of the house always feels heavy and somewhat unwelcoming, now I got the impression that the house itself would be happier if I shut off the comedy routine and went back and finished my pizza. In a moment there was some band music and applause and the skit was over. So I shut the player on my phone off.
"What do you think Tommy? In your legal opinion was that a remake of the Watt Street bit?"
I took my time putting my phone back in my pocket, then I picked up the recorder and went back to the break room.
I plugged it into my laptop and transferred the entire file to it. Then while the audio program opened the recording I finished my delayed slice of today's special five topping pizza. Then I listened to it with my earbuds.
I could hear me going on about 'Tommy', then in a pause I heard a whisper that sounded close to the recorder.
".... thomas." a soft male voice said.
Then after the baseball sketch when I asked for a legal opinion about the bit I heard something else. This time somewhat louder, and, unless it was just my imagination, a quite stern response.
"... I am. Thomas. ... ... no free... advice..."
I played it a couple of times.
Then I sat back in my chair and nodded to the trace of the audio. "That's a confirmation."
I got a long drink of water and then wondered about who was downstairs in the storeroom. I checked my recorder and camera and headed down.
I stopped at the end of the hallway and looked out into the entrance, "Thomas, and I'll call you Thomas, or Mister Dickerson from now on, thank you, sir, for the confirmation of who was here. That's all I needed. And I'll let Ms Aledria know that's how to address you." I paused and looked around the foyer. "Is that OK? Mister Thomas."
I didn't hear anything, but I had the recorder running so I hoped that if Thomas had answered that it would have caught it. Then I went down to the cellar.
I didn't even make it to the bottom of the stairs before I stopped and backed up and made sure the thermal camera was turned on.
"That was cold. OK. We'll do this." I stood on the stairs and took several pictures with the thermal. Then I continued down the stairs. I walked slowly around, taking photos with the thermal and the full spectrum, then asking questions and waiting.
The cold spot at the stairway dissipated then reformed in a few minutes further down the hallway. I looked in the door and found new laundry equipment in a room that had been a laundry room since the house was new.
"Was this where you worked for the Dickersons, or the Shippenbergs?"
I didn't hear anything, so after a few minutes I went back upstairs, stopping in the entrance way, then continuing up to the second floor.
I waited for a few minutes, then I tried to sing the chorus of the song, "Away, away, my heart.... away." Then I stopped, "I don't remember how the song went," I said honestly, "can you help me with it?"
And that question got a response on the recorder that confirmed something else the staff said they heard. When I replayed the audio, I heard my question, and then the sound of somebody softly laughing at me.
The rest of the night was fairly quiet. I heard some footsteps, and a bit of tapping, but that was it.
In the morning I said hello to Hostess Camille and headed home.
Later I reviewed the evidence I had, and printed out some things about the Dickerson family and got a good presentation together about what I thought was going on based on what happened and set up a meeting at the house the next morning.
The one person I didn't expect to be at the meeting was Manager Marjorie. She nodded and said she had been curious about what I'd find here.
Hostess Camille and Ms Aledria made sure my connection to the big TV screen in the library was working, even though I told her I didn't have that many photos to show, and then we tested their high definition audio connection, which I did need.
"I'm going to play these in the order they happened over the two nights." I said to them and played the first EVP of the laugh, footsteps, and song.
"I heard something that sounded like a laugh and then something soft," Ms Aledria said.
"I'll play it again," I offered.
"And turn it up a little if you can," Manager Marjorie said.
"Yes, ma'am." I said and did so.
"That was somebody singing." The Manager said. "You're sure there was nobody else here, and no radio on or anything?"
"No. And I was on the back stairs and heard the sound coming from the Dickerson room. When it stopped, I came all the way up, and there was nobody in that room, and there's no other way out of that room."
"They could have been hiding in the closet," the Manager said.
"There's no door on the closet, it's a display of the clothing from the period." Hostess Camille said.
"Oh."
In a moment I asked them if they could make out any of the words, then I played it again.
"Away my heart?" One of them guessed.
"Yes, something like that, then they said part of it again."
"I heard it on my ear buds and was able to identify the song." I nodded at the big screen, "since that's hooked up I can play a video of it."
The song ran, and we all chuckled at the comic scene, and then they laughed when they saw the name of the play.
"The Pirates of Penzance was popular in the period when the Dickersons were here. And I did find a journal entry that mentioned that one of the women that kept house for them appeared in some local productions of short versions of Broadway shows." I held up a finger, "Which may explain some of the other things happening here."
I brought up a newspaper photo of Thomas from the time, then I showed them the quote from his obituary.
"Thomas was a very serious and dignified man, and he wanted his household to operate like that. There was no music or laughter, and when they entertained dignitaries, including a the Governor of Massachusetts and the Ambassador from Spain who came to dinner here with the Archbishop of New York, the entertainment was a poetry reading."
"A poetry reading." Ms Aledria said. "I'm sure they had a wonderful time."
I chuckled, "I found a note in a society column that the Ambassador's aide said that they had a very relaxing evening." And speaking of Thomas...."
I played the entire exchange from the foyer.
"That's the voice I heard when I saw him at the bottom of the big stairs." Hostess Camille said.
"I didn't see him, at all. And I didn't hear him in the foyer. But the recorder did."
"I guess he didn't like the Abbot and Costello routine." Ms Aledria said.
"Now I'll tell you why I wanted to come to your reveal," Manager Marjorie said. The rest of us just looked at her. "Year and years ago, I was a Docent here for a summer." She looked around the room, "Not a lot has changed, except there used to be a door on the closet upstairs." She looked over at Hostess Camille, "I want to go up there when we're done and see that."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Anyway. I was up in that room and was showing a family the paintings, and I said the one was Tom Dickerson, and that he was a lawyer, and all that. And I heard a man say 'no. Thomas', clearly. And it was loud enough that the guests heard it." She nodded at the screen, "And that was the voice, I remember it like it was just the other day."
"What did the guests do when he said that?" I asked her.
"They were clearly startled, but there were other people here so I just played it off as somebody saying that from the hall." She shook her head, "Except I was standing by the painting and could see out the door. There was nobody there."
I showed them the images of the cold spot that moved around. And what seemed to be a shadow in the hallway near the servant's room.
Ms Aledria asked a question, "So you had activity on all three floors?"
I thought about it for a second, "Yes. Basement, up here, second floor. Yes."
They looked at each other, then Ms Aledria asked, "So what can the staff here do about it?"
"Nothing. While Thomas seems to be intelligent and protective of both the house, and his reputation. But, while he doesn't like a lot of things, he seems to understand that stuff happens and that it won't last. Just let people know to keep things somewhat calm and respectful. And I think he'll stay fairly harmless. He might startle some people, but that's it."
"No juggling clowns in the dining room?" Hostess Camille asked with a straight face.
I just stared at her.
"No, really, that was on a request a couple of years ago for the entertainment for an anniversary dinner. But they didn't bring one in."
"That's probably a good thing. Treat him, and the house, with dignity and give him the honor he is due, and I think things will be fine. If you bring in a clown, Mister Thomas may react badly."
"How about the laughing and the singing upstairs?"
"Residual. It happens once in awhile like a recording. In the right conditions, time of day, whatever, whether you are here to hear it or not." And then I clicked back to the images of the moving cold spot. "And that, I have no idea what that is, or how it did what it did. Some theories say that some spirits will draw on the energy of the environment to manifest. That might be what's happening here. I can't say, and I don't know anybody that can. It might even be what was reported to have been here when the Shippenbergs were here. It's impossible to say."
The three ladies looked at each other, Ms Aledria spoke for them, "You did more than I expected. And I think you answered questions I didn't even know to ask."
"Exactly." Manager Marjorie answered, she looked at Ms Aledria, "I think you should ask her."
She agreed, "Detective Elaine. Remember I mentioned a list of properties?"
"Yes."
"I've sorted them from the ones with the most reports, or the most serious reports down. We think you should begin with top handful or so. If you agree to do it."
Before I could answer Manager Marjorie added something crucial. "We're not asking you to just work on our list. Just when you don't have another case, or you're on other duties for the Sheriff's Office, and get a chance. You know, as you can."
"Yes, yes. Just whenever you... want to get out of the office." Ms Aledria remembered my line from the other day.
Manager Marjorie said one more thing, "And, if you agree, I'll talk to the Sheriff and let him know this is an official request from one County Agency to another."
I chuckled, "Well. In that case. Yes, if he agrees, I'll take a look at your list."
He agreed. And I took a look at the list.
"Twenty-three properties. Not counting the Shippenberg House, I've got nine more that they regard as serious to work on."
The Sheriff had a copy of the list, "I recognize some of these. Like this one," he pointed at one of the names, "I've been there. You've got your work cut out for you."
"If you want to come out with me and see..."
"I'm good. You do your thing and I'll... stay out of your way."
"Thank you, sir.
-end list-
[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the features of Long Island exist, including a large number of historic properties, the rest of the setting is fictional.
Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]
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