An excerpt from Woman in Blue

By Madison Nichols

--

Chapter One

Norma Anne Beaumont, age 27. I stared at the newspaper caption and into the eyes of the woman above them, wondering, as we all did, what had happened to her. She was cropped from a family photo, her blonde hair laid against her collarbones in perfect pin curls and she had a kind, familiar smile. Her dress was a beautiful shade of blue, though you couldn’t tell it from the black and white newspaper. I pulled my eyes away from her and out to the window. It was a cold and gray day in early November, we were racing past rotting pumpkin fields, sad scarecrows and Jack-o-lanterns were pushed to the side as farms prepared room for the Christmas trees. We slowed and Bradley, our driver and camera man, pulled off to a sandy look out over the cliff where most of the sightings were reported. “We have about forty five minutes here then a five minute drive up to the inn, right Lottie?”

“Yup!” She confirmed from the back of the Jeep, glancing down at the pale pink notebook in her lap. We all hopped out and surveyed the cliffs. Grass faded into jagged rocks below us and churning gray sea spanned out to the horizon. None of us were really sure what to look for, ghosts seemed like something you only see at night and in the dark but it was the middle of the day and quite bright despite the clouds. I peered over an old wooden fence at the cliffs edge down to the beach where she was seen most often. I saw Michael staring out towards the bluff down the way from us, wind whipped his straight black hair and rippled his dark clothes but he never took his eyes off that one point, never even blinking like he thought she’d flicker into existence any second. The other three walked around looking as aimless as I felt. Angel and Lottie sat on an old log flipping through their notes and Bradley paced along the road messing with his camera. Michael eventually gave up and turned to me with a smile.

“I think we should head down that trail,” He pointed over to a small, steep and winding trail down to the caves. I carefully followed him to the trailhead with the others behind us and we made it down to a lower lookout, beyond that the trail became too overgrown and Lottie already had a few twigs poking out her frizzy blonde hair and I could tell Michael was getting dizzy again from the steepness of of our path. Out on the very edge was a bench facing out towards the Pacific with a golden plaque which read, For my Beloved, Paul Clarke. Michael traced the edge of the plaque with his forefinger, it was a memorial for another victim of the Cliffside Killer, as they called him. Believed to be the fourth, his body was found in these rocks and it was the most they found of any victim. All the others returned in pieces, never whole– even Paul was missing his heart. And some, like Norma, merely vanished with no part of them ever to be seen again. We stayed out looking around aimlessly until we were nearly late for the inn. We found no evidence, not a single sign of Norma’s ghost which made the first part of our filming a complete bust.

Coastal Ranch Inn was a small, quaint Victorian style mansion overlooking a beach below the rocky cliffs. It was shockingly cheap, perhaps due to its closeness to past crimes, so we were able to rent out the suite and cram in the five of us. The girl at the front desk checked us in and rambled on about all sorts of supernatural stories from other guests. I didn’t pay her much attention, I distractedly inspected every inch in the lobby, the ornate mirrors and old paintings hung on intricate wallpaper, the chandelier above me and the blue carpet underneath my feet. I heard her claim it wasn’t just ghosts the “professionals” investigated but vampires, werewolves, banshees, and something that sounded a lot like a zombie. I wasn’t too sure about all of that, a sales pitch for paranormal investigators is what it sounded like to me. Maybe she thought we’d stay another day if we thought we could find a werewolf. She pointed us to a man over at the dark shabby bar off to our left that could tell us a lot more if we wanted, but with our hands all full we headed upstairs.

If it wasn’t for the crime and paranormal that seemed to seep from the walls it would have been the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter whether I believed in the paranormal or not, it was the kind of place that made you feel like anything could jump out at you from around a corner. The walls of our suite, The Seashell Room, were covered with floral wallpaper, all furniture was a muted baby blue and white lace curtains framed a perfect view of waves behind the evergreen branches of a giant tree just outside our window. Despite the bright and inviting decor, there was an unsettling feeling all around like you could feel the weight of its history hanging in the air. We started setting up for the night, Angel sorted out our scripts for introduction, Bradley set up the camera while Lottie went over our plans making sure we had everything while me and Michael organized piles and piles of our research. Mr. Nikolov, our film professor at Sea Ridge, was strict when it came to research and luckily Michael was more than willing to do twice of what he wanted. “Hey, Heather?” he spoke suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you really believe in ghosts?” I wasn’t sure how to answer. I always wanted to, the idea brought me comfort in thinking maybe we don’t have to leave earth when we die, but I don’t know that I actually, truly believed in anything paranormal back then. I felt bad saying so to his face though, I knew some part of him needed all this to be real so I lied. We went back to sorting papers and at the top of our evidence pile sat the picture of an alleged apparition of Norma's spirit. The major paranormal investigators called her the Woman in Blue, she stood out on the cliffside dangerously close to the edge looking out at the sea in the same dress from the family photo. It was the biggest evidence we had and the one thing that almost made me believe.

After setting up and filming our introductions we found the old man at the bar to question while we waited for the sun to go down. The old man, Carl, was more than happy to have us interview. He had paranormal notes of his own spread out on the table, all in messy piles and tattered notebooks. Michael went to order food while we set up to film in his corner of the bar and then we started the interview. “Have you ever seen a ghost?” Bradley asked from behind the camera.

“Oh, yes. Seen ‘em here once or twice, and you can hear ‘em. They like to whisper things, usually about how they died and whatnot.”

“So you believe this place is haunted then?” I asked him while Michael chewed his burger aggressively in my ear, he had had such an appetite recently.

“No doubt about it, the question is whether or not it’s just ghosts,” Carl told us ominously.

“What do you mean by that?” Lottie asked, her brows furrowed.

“The paranormal ain’t just ghosts,” he said. “There’s all sorts of things out there. I’ve seen vampires, werewolves, ghouls. Those myths didn’t come from nothing.” At this point, I started to think the old man was losing it a little. Ghosts made some sense but monsters seemed a step too far. I could tell the others felt the same, even Michael had an uncertain look on his face. “You don’t believe me, I can tell. I don’t blame ya but I promise you I’ve seen it all. I’ve got the evidence!” He motioned towards the papers strewn across the table. We paused recording and sifted through them on his request. It would have been compelling if it wasn’t so insane. He had extremely detailed information on every kind of paranormal creature you could think of and many of them had photographic evidence, which must have all been doctored, I had thought to myself. I flipped through a notebook filled with all sorts of theories on lycanthropy, supposed werewolves sightings and lore going back to the Greeks and Romans. It disturbed me how real it made it all feel, drawings of claws and fangs, and ripped out hearts and other awful things. We politely nodded our heads at everything he gave and switched topics as soon as we could. “So, Carl, you mentioned living through the murders. If it's not too much can you expand on that for us?” Angel asked kindly with a sympathetic smile.

“Of course I can. It was back in 1958, as I'm sure you know, and all six killings happened within about seven months. Came outta nowhere and scared us all by the end. Didn’t quite seem to matter your age or if you were a man or woman, felt as if anyone could disappear. But you know it took a few months to realize something was up and by then he was almost done so the panic was quick. Put a shock through all of us nonetheless.”

“Do you have any idea who it was? The killer?” Bradley asked.

“Well it wasn’t Jimmy, that's for sure. A shame they ever brought him in for it, a shame.”

“We figured. What about Roy, Norma's husband?” Michael asked. He’d been quiet and I was surprised to hear him ask this, out of everything.

“Well now if I’m honest that's who I think did it. Bet you his wife found out and got the kids out of there then he killed her before she could tell the police. I met him once, before everything, and even then something about him seemed off.” Michael didn’t respond. My heart broke to imagine what it must feel like for him to hear those words. Desperate to move on quickly I asked,

“But there was another suspect, wasn’t there?” Carl nodded,

“The old owner of the hotel, John Harding. His son, Francis,  just took over, you know?”

“Do you think there's any chance it was him?” Angel asked.

“I mean I guess this place has its connections to the crimes. Mary was found not too far, last seen alive here… could be,” He didn’t seem to really believe it. John was our main guess and a major reason behind picking the inn for filming. If we were wrong it looked like we might be in for a pretty boring documentary. We wrapped up the interview and returned to the suite for the main investigation.

The suite felt a lot more eerie in the dark, even more likely to have ghosts hiding in a dark corner than before. We left just enough lights on for the camera to see and set up a seance. We had the stereotypical seance set up like you see in the movies. We all giggled, even Michael, while we locked hands around lit candles on the floor. We politely asked for any spirits present to join us, show us a sign, all that sort of thing. Nothing happened immediately. The candles flickered in our silence as we waited and eventually Bradley's voice rang out into the quiet, “Is there anybody with us?” About ten seconds passed before Lottie gasped  and pointed over to the window. I turned just in time to see the last fluttering of the lace curtain.

“Was that-?”

“Is there a breeze?” I asked.

“Is the window open?” Angel added. Micahel ran over to the window and pulled back the curtain to reveal a fully closed window.

“Is- is there anybody with us?” Bradley asked again with his camera now pointed to the window. “Did somebody move the curtain?” It was quiet again and nothing happened again for a while. We kept on questioning,

“Can you show us a sign?” Michael asked for probably the fifth time that night. We waited in the silence as we did after every question. I had just opened my mouth to ask another when I heard it. Mary, a whisper broke our silence. Our heads twisted around, looking for the source. “Was that any of you?” Michael asked with a trembling voice. We all confirmed it wasn’t. We asked more questions out to her and got no other reply until the end of our filming.

“You’ve got one last chance to give us something, please. Can you tell us anything, show us anything?” Bradley asked. All five of us jumped and someone screamed as a paper at the top of a pile on the dresser dropped to the floor as if blown off by a gust of wind. Angel was closest and grabbed it off the rug, it was the picture of Norma on the cliff. I turned to Michael, his face was unreadable and I wondered what he thought it could mean.

“Michael?” I asked as I walked slowly over to him. “Do you think-?”

“She’s saying he did it.” Michael wouldn’t look at me. I wasn’t sure where his head was at.

“You think that was Mary. That this is her way of saying Roy killed her?” I asked for confirmation. He nodded. I pushed, “What if it wasn’t Mary? I wonder if maybe it was-”

“That it was her? No.” He shook his head and kept his eyes on the ground.

“But how could you know? Both Mary and Norma have been sighted here.” I wanted this for him, to find some good answers.

“The voice said Mary and… I don’t know, I just think I’d be able to feel it if my own grandmother's ghost was in the room, don’t you?”