Phony Ghost Stories

By Dennis Ford

Dare if you will to accompany the Ghost Righter, Desmond St. John, his rational collaborator, Duff Cooper, and Ella Nostrova, their Belorussian trance medium, as they free the drear departed trapped in the Forever Purgatory of the Bardo realm.

In five shocking encounters, The Ghost Righter rescues—

~ The groping ghost in the Lincroft Inn

~ Atheist ghosts who left this world while unblessing a road in Deland

~ A chain-smoking ghost who haunts the children of Dumberton

~ A narcissist ghost who, out of loyalty to the boss, topples a Mafia family

~ Moldy Girl, a vengeful ghost intent on slaying the men of Downer’s Grove

Readers, be warned—“God’s other door” opens in both directions. The Cosmic Veil that separates this world from the otherworld is crossable. The afterlife is not Summerland. There is no joy in being dead. If the dead remain in the earth’s plane for too long, they become malevolent has-beings. Even the righteous dead turn into hateful things.

Say your prayers. Confess your sins. Carry cloves of garlic. Clutch jars of Holy Water. Clutch the jars tightly. Keep the lights on when you encounter these ghosts. All the lights. All the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663257727

Dennis Ford

Dennis Ford is the author of twenty-one books, including seven novels and three books of lectures on psychology. He lives on the New Jersey Shore, where he walks the beaches and thinks about everything.

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PHONY GHOST STORIES

Copyright © 2023 Dennis Ford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5771-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5773-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5772-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023921732

iUniverse rev. date: 12/04/2023

CONTENTS

The Groping Ghost in the Lincroft Inn

The Atheist Ghosts of Deland

The Tea Bag Lady of Dumberton

The Ghost that Broke a Mafia Family

Moldy Girl

for

hunters of ghosts, everywhere

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,

and let the perpetual light shine upon them.

May their souls and the souls of the faithful departed,

through the mercy of God,

rest in peace.

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In the ordinary, the goose gets cooked. In the Lincroft Inn the cook got goosed. That’s how it started, the series of strange events that brought the Ghost Righter to the Pinelands of New Jersey.

It was an ordinary Thursday evening. The dinner crowd was at their tables. The regulars were at their places at the bar. The wait-staff was running at their usual patron-pleasing proficiency. Head-chef Henri Frouchard (born Alan Prendergast) was at his station in the kitchen. He was dripping breadcrumbs on squares of veal when he felt a firm grip on his derriere.

He didn’t know what to make of the sensation. He thought at first that he was having a muscle spasm. He had been on his feet for four hours and, at fifty years of age, it wasn’t getting easier to stand the entire shift. Guests were jawing away at the masterpieces he prepared with exquisite diligence. They didn’t appreciate the effort involved. He was run down physically. He was run down psychologically. His arthritic hands were twisted from years of chopping and kneading. Maybe the cramps in his knuckles spread to other places on his body. The sensation was a kind of carpal tunnel syndrome in the gluteal region.

A salacious explanation entered his mind. He couldn’t help thinking of the possibility. He had the hots for Emile Seyess, the sous-chef and salad-meister. Maybe Emile dropped the bourgeois inhibitions that kept him from relishing what the ill-informed and petty classes considered decadent motives. It was the modern era. There no longer was a need for whispers and double-entendres when it came to the love between men. He turned and looked. Emile was on the opposite side of the kitchen. His slender frame was bent over a counter of green platters. He was busy decorating mats of shredded lettuce with artfully placed cherry tomatoes. To Henri’s disappointment, Emile was not the source of the unusual sensation. It was impossible for Emile to have crossed the kitchen so rapidly and noiselessly. Besides, if Emile chose to return an affection that long went unrequited, he wouldn’t have crossed the kitchen. Sadly, the heart remained an ill-fed hunter.

Henri returned to breading the cuts of veal and thought nothing of the event—until the next evening when it happened again. He felt another grip on the derriere. This grip was firmer than the first. The kitchen was empty. His gangly underling was nowhere in sight. Henri worried that there was something the matter with him. Or that there was something the matter with the kitchen. He decided it wasn’t him—it was the kitchen.

He started to notice odd things he previously failed to see. Kitchen items went missing. They later reappeared in places they shouldn’t be. He had a set way of sorting the tools of his craft at his work station. The knives and spoons and ladles he arranged on the counter were never in the order he preferred. Cabinet doors he was sure he closed were open when he arrived in the morning. Doors he left open were closed. Similarly, lights he was sure he shut off when leaving were on when he returned. Lights he left on were off. Spice jars were overturned. Sometimes their contents were spilled on the counter. Foodstuffs spoiled before the expiration dates. Bananas went black. Oils and cooking wines coagulated. Green spots grew on bread. Bacterial freckles dotted cheese. A yellowish froth covered containers of red peppers and olives. Flies floated in the maple syrup.

Henri suspected he was dealing with something preternatural. He was, thus far, an observer of events. He decided to perform an experiment and challenge whoever or whatever was behind the disturbances. He was, after all, master of the kitchen. The room was his. He couldn’t permit a competitor, whether of this world or the otherworld, to wreck the culinary order he established.

When he left one night he placed three red snappers so that their heads pointed toward the refrigerator door. He wrote their placement on a menu so he wouldn’t forget. The next morning he stared not at glassy dead eyes but at caudal fins spread like fans on the ice tray.

Emile, get over here, he snapped. Did you change the location of anything in the refrigerator?

I did not, Emile replied.

Did you touch the fish?

Emile peeled the net that kept strands of black hair from sullying the crudités. Dude, he said in an exasperated tone of voice, why would I touch your fish?

It was at that moment that Henri knew he had to inform the owner of the Inn of his suspicions.

A ghost! Are you crazy?

When Hugh Blackmon first heard the account of the odd events in the kitchen he assumed that Henri had started to gulp the house wines again. Henri had problems with liquor in the past and it was a well-known fact that relapsing is an integral part of the recovery process. Things had gone along so well for so long he nearly forgot that Henri had been a lush. Henri claimed that he attended the weekly meetings at the Lutheran church. Henri proudly showed him the pin he earned for being sober for six months. Henri said he looked forward to the twelve-month pin. The meat in the kitchen was cured. Hugh assumed the head-chef was. He was disappointed to learn that Henri reverted to his addiction while wearing the Lincroft Inn toque. He hated to have to fire Henri.

Henri’s vice was another in the interminable series of problems encountered in the two years he owned the Inn. He had been an accountant in an investment firm in his previous career. His skill set amounted to calculating deductions and interpreting the incomprehensible tax code. He wasn’t used to solving people problems.

When he reached middle age, a lifelong dream of owning a restaurant became an obsession. In its way, his obsession was as bedeviling as Henri’s desire to crack open the next bottle of eighty-proof whiskey. Owning a restaurant was his self-actualization in the terminology of Abraham Maslow. Some men take up musical instruments as they reach retirement age. Some men paint or write fiction. Some men travel the globe. Some men, used to watching detective series on television, set out to solve cold cases. He bought a restaurant.

The Lincroft Inn was the perfect place—or so it was in the neuronal parchment of pipe dreams. The cuisine was a menument to good taste—healthy American foods prepared at reasonable prices. The previous owners needed to sell the business, liquor license included, at a reduced cost. They had run into trouble with the wrong crowd in Atlantic City and needed cash on the quick. The Inn was strategically located. It was close to an exit on the Garden State Parkway. It sat on a well-traveled county road. A state park was nearby. So were boat ramps on the Mullica River.

It was among the joys of his life to purchase the Inn. The Inn was going to be the crust on the casserole of his career. Only his two marriages and the birth of his children compared. He immediately stepped into a world of aggravation. There were guests who complained about every morsal on every plate. There were guests who, out of spite, wrote rotten reviews on websites. There were guests who were unable to pay their bills—it was only in movies that they were put to work in the kitchen. There were bar regulars who got messy drunk. There were bar regulars who passed out on the stools. There were barkeeps who didn’t ring the orders properly and pocketed the difference between five-star cognac and lite beer. There were members of the wait-staff who stole from the till to inflate the pittances they earned in tips. There were chefs who took dinner home—these chefs didn’t restrict themselves to leftovers. There were salespeople who regularly shorted him. There were delivery men who purposely misplaced perishable product. There were health inspectors with mortgages to pay and luxury cars to finance.

And now Henri told him about another problem. It wasn’t a people problem. It was a former people problem. Finding out about a ghost in the Inn was like Harry Truman finding out about the bomb—By the way, Mr. President, there’s this little thing you didn’t know about called an atomic bomb in the stockpile. It was a problem he didn’t expect. It was a problem he didn’t know how to resolve.

At first, Hugh was delighted to have a ghost in the Inn. Ghosts are good for business—this ghost was going to lay the golden egg. Guests like to think something paranormal is about to happen while they dine. Guests want to sit in the dining room the ghost frequented. Guests like to sit at the table the ghost inhabited. The restaurant gets written up in the newspapers and guidebooks. People from across the state visit. The curious gawk at the exterior of the Inn, hoping that a transparent face peeks from a window. While they gawk, they might inspect the laminated menu posted on the front door. They might be inspired to come inside and order a full-course meal.

Ghosts can help boost a flat profit margin, but the haunting in the Inn turned provocative. It just wasn’t what Henri said. Or what Emile said. Or what Melinda, the cashier-girl, said. It was what guests said. The ghost left the kitchen for the dining room. Events started with the usual minor inexplicable occurrences. Condiments went missing. So did silverware. Napkin holders were emptied, the napkins spread on the floor. The index cards on which the daily specials were handwritten were smeared and torn. Orders got confused. Hot dishes were served at room temperature. Cold dishes were served piping hot. The air conditioning failed to work. So did the heater. So did the towel dispensers in the restrooms.

And then the haunting turned personal. Chairs were pulled out from under guests. Guests tripped for no apparent reason. Guests were struck on the back. Guests were punched on the arms. Drinks were poured over laps. So were meals, cold and hot. Female guests were pinched on their fannies and bosoms. Male guests were slapped on their jaws and poked in their guts. Red-tipped canes vanished. White-tipped canes vanished. Tennis balls were stripped from the legs of walkers. Wheelchairs broke down in the aisles. Guests left in a panic without paying for their meals—some screamed jibbies as they bolted out the door. It was one thing seeing a face in a window. It was another thing to watch as a bowl of pea soup with croutons floated over the tablecloth. The Inn started to acquire an evil reputation. It became a place to avoid, even with the generous Happy Hour specials. This ghost was laying a rotten egg. Hugh had enough. It was time to summon the Ghost Righter.

Desmond St. John had no aversion to most of the categories of nature. Mountains, valleys, pastures, beaches, oceans, deserts, glaciers, tundra—he had nothing against such places. When it came to woodlands—he loathed woodlands. He loathed being in woods. He loathed looking at woods. And woods was all he viewed for the past twenty minutes. Trees interminable. Trees without end. Trees in the foreground. Trees in the background. Trees packed so tightly it was impossible to fit between them walking sideways. He was in the passenger seat and the sedan was somewhere in the New Jersey Pinelands. He didn’t know if they were in the middle of the pine forest or at the terminus of the pine forest. He hoped they weren’t at the entrance.

The trees that lined the county road weren’t stately like the California redwoods. They weren’t uniquely weird like the California Joshua trees. The trees in New Jersey were plain and unremarkable. None of the trees were particularly tall. The branches on the sides of the road were mostly bare. The trunks were tilted and thin. The bark wasn’t brown or white. Rather, the bark was an indefinable gray. A mousy gray, at that.

The wall of trees on the driver’s side was the same dreary shade as the trees on his side of the car. The only difference was that the Mullica River occasionally showed through breaks in the aisles. The Mullica flowed parallel with the road. It wasn’t much of a river, but it was different than the rest of what passed for scenery. To its credit, the river was blue and it wasn’t made of wood.

Almost there, Duff Cooper said when he noticed Desmond looking past him.

Duff was Desmond’s driver and research assistant. To his disappointment, Duff took no pride in his self-presentation. His shaggy brown hair was uncombed. The Van Dyke on his chin merged at cheek level with a growth of facial hair unshaved for a week. He was not a fashionista. His clothes were unpressed. His clothes didn’t match. A canary yellow blazer clashed with green trousers. Obviously, his clothes were purchased in thrift stores. He wore sneakers rather than dress shoes. He didn’t wear socks.

Desmond dressed to the nines on every project—Duff was in negative numbers on the scale of couture. He wore tailored Brooks Brothers suits. Blue was the color of choice. Blue was a soothing shade. Blue put witnesses at ease. Blue also put the specters at ease. Red and orange fabrics were not good choices. Red excited the dead. Orange brought out the latent psychoses in witnesses. Black was an inappropriate choice. Dealing with the dead was sufficiently doleful than to dress in black.

He wore cufflinks and a blue tie kept in place with a silver clasp. He wore a pin of the American flag on a lapel to show his solidarity with patriotic witnesses. A Movado watch barely fit under the cuff of his left hand. He wore patent leather shoes with laces. Velcro was out of the question.

He always stopped at a salon before