Maggie Boyler had a well-known bizarre sense of humor. She had to. She grew up with dead bodies in her home since early childhood. Her father was a highly recognized funeral director and mortician in the town of Palliston. Maggie Boyler hid the fact of her father's chosen career from childhood friends as best she could.
How much a secret could having a mortician father really be, when his funeral home sat on Parsonage Avenue in the famed Irish Third Ward of Palliston?
She was glad her parents chose to send her to St. Mary's Catholic girls school. At least, it was in another town and she could live in the school dorms. The benefit there was Maggie's school chums had no idea where her father's business was located or...what it was.
John and Bette Boyler, mortician and nursing professional had a marriage made in heaven, six children within a decade began with their eldest, Maggie and included, Daniel, Billy, Ian, Neve and Kathleen. Maggie was closest to her brother Daniel. Although "close" applied to all of the Boyler children, since they were each no more than two years apart in age. Two, Billy and Ian, were only nine months apart, owing to John's passion and ardor for his attractive wife.
Maggie was known in Palliston for her flame red hair, freckled face and near six foot height. She and Billy managed to inherit John Boyler's red hair. The others were Black Irish with dark hair and green eyes like their mother Bette...features Maggie envied. Not a single freckle on the other five.
Maggie attended the university in Holsford, rather than the college in Palliston. Again, she felt it was an escape from the ridicule of her friends, if ever they discovered she lived on the second floor of a Victorian mansion turned funeral home.
It mattered not that the mansion in which she lived had a rich history. Built in the late 1700s, it was a two-story, with a second floor widow's walk, although that was a rather pretentious addition since the mansion was miles from the nearest sailing ships from which widows watched for their loved ones to return home rom the sea.
The Boyler mansion had always been painted white. It had five foot long windows with long black shutters. The wide wrap-around veranda set it apart from other Palliston mansions built with front porches. The Boyler mansion had three large Greek columns over the portico above the first floor. Maggie would have preferred a more modern home.
John Boyler bought the mansion knowing its shadowy history.
It was originally owned by Hubert Langford, a trader and investor in New York City. Langford supposedly kept homes in Palliston, the city and New Bedford.
"Homes" to the wealthy of the late 1700s, came to mean mansions with great accessions and acquisitions from shopping trips in Europe and the Orient for valuables to add to the collections of magnates.
Langford, it was rumored, had been a bit of a womanizer, even though he married one of the wealthiest debutantes, Lydia Frontenier, one of the daughters of Jacques Frontenier, an importer and exporter of object d'art.
It was said Lydia tired of living alone in the mansion for decades while Hubert found feminine "attractions" elsewhere. Their two sons were horrified when Lydia threw herself from the roof of the portico to her death, dressed in her white negligee and dripping with jewels on her neck, arms and ears. Her broken body slowly seeped blood onto the slate sidewalk beneath her.
The mansion was sold again in the mid 1880s to the governor wannabee of the state, Lydon Turner. Turner, unlike the former owner of the mansion, added an ostentatious gazebo to the property, at the expense of taxpayers, of course.
Turner and his wife, Gertrude, were childless at the time Turner became Palliston's mayor. City Hall, under Turner's tutelage, became a cesspool of partisan antics that always remained under the radar of state and federal investigators.
Had they dug deeply enough, they'd have found bribery and political influence rampant among under Turner's mayoralty. When shadows of wrongdoing hovered over the Palliston mayor, Gertrude, like her predecessor, chose death by hanging. Her body was found swinging from the crystal chandelier in the opulent opalescent glass gazebo. Turner left the state quietly. The town had the gazebo torn down.
The next owner was a fifty-eight year old art dealer, Bernard Littleton, from the city. He purchased the mansion in 1918, with the intent of turning it into a Victorian art gallery. He began to load the front rooms of the mansion with various pieces of traditional and modern art.
One evening, Littleton was awakened by a sound that seemed to come from the front room. He hurried down the stairs with his walking stick in his hand, assuming a burglar broke into the mansion. What he saw next stunned him.
Several of the art work on display were turned upside down or tossed, face down, onto the Oriental carpet. Bernard was sure this was the work of a burglar.
He quickly lit a candle and checked the front door. It was locked! Next, he checked all of the windows. They were all locked. He went from room to room on the first floor of the mansion. All of the windows and doors were locked.
When he reached the central staircase, he heard another sound coming from the gallery's front room. He hurried to catch the crook. What he saw scared him so, his heart pounded so furiously, he fell to the floor dead.
The mansion remained empty for more than forty years. Most Palliston people believed it was haunted by its ugly history.
John Boyler grew up in Palliston. Bette didn't. They met at a dance in their college days. John never mentioned the mansion's history when he and his new bride moved in, back in 1957. They spent the first half decade renovating it into a funeral home on the first floor and full living quarters on the second floor, for the large family they planned to have. Bette's nursing career grew until soon she was promoted to Chief Nursing Administrator at St. Paul's Hospital in Palliston.
John's business needed no promotions to grow. People died all the time. He was the only mortician and funeral director in Palliston. He joked with Bette that he had a captive clientele.
The couple decided to start their family in 1962. They both felt the time was right to fill the mansion with the patter of little feet. Bette had a little more freedom to care for a family, as did John, now that both of their careers settled into a solid routine and continued growth.
Then, tragedy struck when John's beloved wife, Bette was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at age forty-two. Within months of the diagnosis, Bette succumbed to the ravages of the disease, leaving John with half grown children to care for.
It was left to Maggie to return home from her Catholic girls high school to care for her siblings. By this time, Maggie struggled to finish high school in Palliston's public high school, while doling out a weekly schedule for her siblings to maintain the household.
John insisted all of his children must attend college. Maggie was an average high school student who worried her grades would make her ineligible for college. John paid for a tutor to help her pass the college entrance exams.
When his youngest, Kathleen reached age fifteen, Maggie graduated from college with a degree in Business Administration. She started her first job as a bank clerk. She hated it. She wanted to use her degree for a Wall Street job, not a Palliston bank clerk job.
She met Roger Tallman, a young, all American boy who planned to be professional footballer. He got sidelined when he tore his ACL so seriously, he still walked with a barely perceptible limp. Maggie and Roger were perfect for each other. Maggie loved a good joke and Roger loved to laugh.
"He's not exactly the brightest bulb in the pack," is how Maggie described Roger.
"She's this huge red head always trying to get one over on me," was the way Roger described Maggie.
There was some truth to both of their assessments.
Roger developed a huge addiction to playing golf. A small ray of sunshine was all he needed to get him to leave his warehousing job and head off to the links. This always irked Maggie no end.
To placate Maggie's annoyance with him, he patiently endured her endless shopping trips. After dating for two years, Maggie used subtle operatives to get Roger to pop the question so far out of the realm of his thinking, it was nearly in the Black Hole of space: marriage.
One afternoon, a week before Maggie's twenty-second birthday, she inveigled Roger to go shopping with her. Strategically, she rerouted their shopping spree so they'd pass the Palliston Jewelers.
"Oh, Roger, look! That's the most beautiful ring I've ever seen," Maggie said, delicately.
Roger glanced at it quickly and wrinkled his nose. He missed completely the gold and diamond ring being an "engagement ring."
He moved fast to the glass display case in the furniture store next door to Palliston Jewelers.
"Hey Mags! Look! Isn't this table neat?" Roger said, hoping to distract her.
Maggie glanced at the table.
"Yes, it's "neat."
That was all Roger needed to play a birthday gift joke on Maggie. He returned to the furniture store the next day and purchased the table, sans one of its legs, which he asked to have "gift wrapped."
On her birthday, Roger handed her only one table leg. Maggie didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I'll get even with him for this, she thought.
John Boyler's brother, Frank Boyler, was a cop and well known around Palliston. One night, he was out on patrol when he noticed a young female kneeling beside a beat up, red sports car. He pulled his cruiser up to find his niece, Maggie stabbing the car's tires with an ice pick.
"Maggie! What on earth are you doing?"
"Don't worry, Uncle Frank. It's okay. It's my boyfriend Roger's car."
"And just why shouldn't I worry or run you in? Frank Boyler asked.
"You don't understand. Roger gave me a lousy table leg for my birthday."
"What? Why just one leg?" Frank asked.
"Because he's a real jerk. He was supposed to take me out to an expensive restaurant. He ran off to the links instead. Then, he shows up hours later, after I'm in a lather with one stupid table leg," she said.
"Maggie, I'll pretend I didn't see what you did. But, you do have to get out of here before another patrol car finds you," Frank said.
"Are you going to tell my father?" she asked.
"I should. But, I won't. Now, be off with you," Frank added.
Roger chalked up the flattened tires to some kids vandalizing the neighborhood. Maggie found it difficult to stifle her amusement.
"Yes. That's probably it," she agreed, forcing solemnity in her expression.
Halloween was just a few days away. Maggie loved parties. Her father was out of town on business for a week. It was the perfect opportunity to have a Halloween party to end all Halloween parties.
She sent out invitations, ordered catered food and had her father's cousin, the owner of Bell's Liquors, deliver two ice cold beer kegs, soda pop, rye, scotch and rum. The invitations invited ten of her and Roger's friends. Costumes were mandatory. She planned a scavenger hunt and a costume parade on the front lawn.
Maggie slipped downstairs to the funeral rooms for the first time in her life. She needed a place to hold her party. She steeled her fears of the first floor. She never did know what it was about the thought of these rooms that made the hair on her neck stand on end.
She knew her father would be absolutely displeased if he knew she planned to hold the party here. As she busied herself, her fears abated.
She loaded one empty casket with two beer kegs and the other with a plastic sheet. Then, she set up the food inside the second casket. She heard her father say caskets were always set up as displays for the bereaved.
Maggie figured it was time to make good on all the years she avoided telling her friends where she lived or what her father did for a living. In a way, it was sweet revenge for all the years she endured of jokes about living over a funeral home.
Halloween night arrived brooding, starless and full of heavy clouds. Maggie donned a long, long black wig and a black, silky slip gown she bought in a costume store. She planned to be a female vampire. She painted her face with blood red lipstick, black eye shadow and liner and powdered her face with white makeup. She looked at herself in the full length mirror, pleased with her results.
Her siblings were all warned to make themselves scarce for the entire night. This wasn't a problem since Daniel, Billy and Ian were finishing college out of state, Neve was planning to go to a Halloween party across town and Kathleen was staying at a Halloween hen party for the night.
Maggie turned off the lights that usually illuminated the front of the mansion in floodlight fashion. The place looked pitch dark to the first guests who arrived.
"This can't be the right place," Jenny Newton, Maggie's college friend said.
"I'm sure I have the right address," Tim Warren said to Jenny.
Maggie opened the front door as the rest of the guests promptly began to stride up the sidewalk.
Then, she flipped on the lights.
"Oh my God! This is a funeral home!" Alicia Patrick said.
"Maggie, your father is going to murder you when he finds out what you've done," Roger said.
"He's out of town for the next five days. I'll have everything back in order by tomorrow afternoon," she answered.
The guests had a great time parading and prancing around on the front lawn of the funeral home in their costumes to taped marching band music.
After the parade, it was time for the scavenger hunt. Maggie separated the group into two teams. She handed each a list of five things the team had to find and bring back to be the winning team. Maggie prepared a gift basket of wines, cheeses and crackers for the winning team. The teams scoured the neighborhood for the items, most of which were located in St. Agnes Cemetery a few blocks from Maggie's home. It was Maggie's personal joke on her guests.
As the Halloween party began to wind down, one guest, Alicia Patrick, accidentally wandered into the third funeral display room thinking it was a closet where her coat was hanging. Maggie left Room Three empty with only a bier and empty casket. She kept the door to the room closed.
Alicia let out a piercing scream and fainted.
"What on earth?" Maggie said.
All of the guests hurried to Room Three, an unoccupied, they thought, room. Maggie struggled nervously to open the door. She flipped on the light switch and found Alicia sprawled out on the floor.
"Alicia? Are you alright?" Maggie asked.
"I uh...Where did "she" go?" Alicia asked.
"Where did who go?" Maggie said.
"The woman who was standing by the empty casket," Alicia said.
"What on earth are you talking about?" Roger said.
"I saw her as plain as day. She was here, I tell you. I'm not making this up," Alicia insisted.
Maggie stared at Roger who shrugged his shoulders.
"Come on, let's get you up and out of here," Maggie said, helping her friend to her feet.
After all the guests finally left, Roger helped Maggie clear away the trash.
"Alicia might have had one too many. It's easy to imagine you see a ghost when you've had too much to drink," Roger said.
"Roger, she was frightened out of her wits," Maggie said.
"Still, you've never seen any ghosts here, have you?" he asked.
"I never came down here before. I hated the sight of this part of the house," Maggie said.
"You mean you have never ever been in any of these rooms," Roger asked.
"No."
Maggie felt uneasy being alone in the house with everyone gone for the night.
"Can I come and stay with you tonight?" she asked.
"Sure, but why? You aren't afraid the ghost will return are you?" Roger laughed.
"I...well..I'd rather not be left all alone," she insisted.
Maggie spent the next two days returning the rooms to their original state, hoping her father wouldn't know about the Halloween party.
When John Boyler returned, he sensed Maggie was on edge. He wasn't sure why.
He resumed his business as usual. Two bodies needed to be prepared for funerals. He inspected the rooms. He planned to use Room Two and Room Three.
Room One had a peculiar odor. He opened the drapes and windows to air it out.
When he entered Room Three, he had the odd feeling he was being watched. He flipped on the light switch. This was the room were Alicia Patrick fainted. John flipped the light switch off again quickly. Something was amiss and he was hard put to figure out what it was.
He saw something in the darkness that glowed. It moved slowly across the room like a vaporous white film. When he switched on the light again, he saw something sparkly on the floor beside the empty casket.
He never, before this moment, felt spooked in his life. He strode over to the sparkly object. Embedded in the oriental carpet beneath the bier was a woman's earring. Someone had been in this room.
"Maggie! Can you please come down here?" he called up the stairs.
"What is it, Dad?" she asked, hurrying down the stairs.
"Who was in this room?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I found this on the floor embedded in the carpet, just beneath the casket," John said.
"It's an earring!" Maggie said.
"Who's earring might this be and what's it doing in that room?" John demanded.
"Dad, I can explain. I should have told you. I was afraid you'd say "No." I, that is, we, Roger and I had a party with about ten of our friends on Halloween night, while you were away," Maggie confessed, contritely.
"I see. But, the other rooms are immaculate. Where did you have the party then?" John asked.
"In Rooms One and Two. This room was kept dark and we didn't need it. We stashed the food and drinks in the other two rooms," Maggie explained.
"So, how did this earring get in there?" John asked.
"Alicia Patrick wandered in here. She thought it was the closet where I'd hung the guests' coats. We heard a scream and found she'd fainted on the floor. She kept insisting she saw a woman in white in here. Roger thought she had too much to drink," Maggie said.
"Was she that drunk?" John asked.
"That's the odd thing, she was the dedicated driver. She wasn't drinking. I called her the next day to ask after her, what with her being so frightened and all. She told me she didn't have anything stronger to drink than soda pop," Maggie said.
"I'll call her and tell her we found her earring," Maggie added.
Maggie dialed Alicia's home phone number.
"Alicia? I blew it. My Dad knows about the Halloween party we had," Maggie said.
"How'd he find out?" Alicia asked.
"He found your earring in Room Three...where we found you lying on the floor in a heap," Maggie said.
"Maggie? Uh...I wasn't wearing any earrings. I couldn't because of the mask I was wearing. The earrings kept getting tangled in the elastic that was attached to the mask. Maybe, one of the other guests lost it. What did it look like so I can describe it to the others," Alicia said.
"It looks old. You know? Like one of those heirloom earrings grandmothers wear. It's a round, domed stud covered in small crusted diamonds," Maggie said.
"That doesn't sound like anything any of the other girls would wear. It sounds old fashioned," Alicia said.
"Well, let me know if you figure out who dropped it," Maggie said.
About five days later, Alicia called Maggie. She sounded strangely vacant.
"Maggie? It's Alicia. I wanted to let you know I spoke to all the girls at your party. The earring doesn't belong to any of them. Maybe, it was in there from a prior funeral," Alicia said before ringing off.
Maggie knocked on the door to her father's office on the second floor of the mansion.
"Dad, do you still have that earring?" Maggie asked.
"Maggie, it's the darnedest thing. I thought I put it right here in my desk organizer. It's gone. I've searched this entire room on my hands and knees. It's no where to be found. Now, what was it you wanted with the earring?" he asked.
"Alicia just called. None of the girls who were here the night of the Halloween party wore an earring like that one," Maggie said.
"You say Alicia insisted she saw an woman in Room Three?"
"Yes."
John and Maggie shuddered.
"For some peculiar reason, I just felt a chill as if someone walked over my grave," John said.
"Me too," Maggie responded.
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