The Mystery in the Mansion - 3. The Hidden Staircase

Brad was on top of Jack, and he rose up to look down in those gorgeous deep blue eyes. "Do you know how much I love you, big guy?" Brad asked.

"Only as much as I love you," Jack replied with a tender smile. "And that is with all my heart and soul."

They kissed some more, the grass feeling cool on their bare skin as they rolled around on it. Soon Brad was sucking Jack's dick. He was totally enjoying giving his man a good servicing right there in the backyard. Jack just stretched back in the grass on his back, hands behind his head, and enjoyed it.

"Uh! Fuck!" Jack groaned, "Baby you are so good at that!"

Brad let his man's hot fat cock flop from his mouth and said, "Thanks, babe! How about we take this inside to the bedroom?"

They jumped up and ran across the back porch and in through the sliding doors to the kitchen. They never made it to the bedroom, however. Jack backed Brad up against the counter, which had the two barstools. They kissed hotly, as Jack picked Brad up and Brad then felt the cool granite top of the counter on his bare ass. Jack gently pushed on Brad's chest, and Brad laid back naked on the countertop. "We'll have to clean this before we eat breakfast on it again!" He thought randomly.

Jack spread his baby's legs wide apart, and soon invaded Brad's pink hole with his hot tongue, causing him to moan. Jack then worked his way up and licked and sucked Brad's balls, taking each of them into his mouth. Brad moaned louder.

Meanwhile, by the shore of Pleasant View Lake, over the hill from their house, Officer Justin Earheart was fucking his partner Eric Jamison hard, on a blanket next to the water. Justin had gotten off duty and arrived at home, and things had quickly heated up. Eric had met him naked at the front door, blanket in hand, and Justin's clothes were now scattered all the way over the hill from their back door to the lakeside.

"OH BABY!" Eric moaned, "HARDER! FUCK ME HARDER!"

Justin obliged, and grunted, "GOD I LOVE YOU! - AH-UH! UH! - AND THAT FUCKIN' - UH! - ASS IS SO TIGHT, BABE!"

"Mmm!" Eric moaned, as Justin's throbbing seven-incher was now pressing his button just right.

Justin's well-muscled, athletic, hairy chest and lean, hard body were covered in sweat now, as was the shorter, chubbier, very furry frame of Eric.

Soon, they were both cumming hard and moaning together in ecstasy, there on the blanket next to the water. "I love you so much," Justin said, as his breathing started to return to normal afterwards.

"I love you too, baby," Eric panted.

Eric and Justin loved having threesomes or foursomes together with another guy or another couple they were close friends with from time to time, and saw doing so as simply a fun way to spice things up sexually in their own committed romantic relationship. They had already talked about the fact that they wouldn’t mind playing with Jack and Brad sometime. Justin had never really looked at his friend and colleague Jack that way before, but lately the glow that Jack was wearing from being with Brad had him thinking about the possibilities that might eventually come about with the other couple. But, for that night, Eric and Justin were contented with their own lovemaking that had just felt so right.

Back at Jack's house, Jack was now sucking Brad's cock, as Brad was still laying on the countertop. "Fuck me!" Brad gasped, sitting up.

Jack dug under the counter and came back with a bottle of vegetable oil, grinning evilly. He opened it, and poured a good amount into his hand, and used it as lube on his fat, throbbing cock. He then pulled Brad forward to the edge of the counter, as he walked up to it, his rock hard cock leading the way. Brad's long legs slipped around Jack's waist, as Jack's arms went around his back. Jack's oiled up cock slid easily right up Brad's tight chute to the hilt, as Brad lowered himself down from the counter onto it, and into Jack's arms.

"UH! YEAH!" Brad gasped. Jack carried him a couple of steps. Brad was now totally impaled on Jack's meaty rock hard cock, his arms around Jack's neck, his legs around Jack's waist, and Jack's arms around his back, as he held him there in the middle of the kitchen floor. Brad pulled himself up and down several times with his hands that were around Jack's neck, moving himself up and down on Jack's hot, throbbing thick cock as they both groaned. "Uh! UH! Oh Jack! FUCK!!! AH-Uh! UH!" Brad grunted and moaned.

Jack then, still carrying Brad with his arms around his back and his fat rock hard cock buried deep in Brad's ass, backed him up against the side of the refrigerator and started thrusting harder into his ass. "Mmm God!" Brad growled, "Oh yeah baby! - UH! Ah-UH! - FUCK ME!!!" Brad felt the cool stainless steel of the refrigerator against his back. He had his arms and legs still wrapped tightly around Jack, as Jack stood there with his cock buried in Brad's ass, thrusting into it over and over again and panting in heat.

"OH FUCK!" Jack growled and grunted, "BABY - UH! UH! - THAT ASS IS SO - AH-UH! UH! - FUCKIN' GREAT!"

He swung Brad around, as he had found that he really loved the total penetration and control that carrying Brad around while fucking him created. They were in the middle of the kitchen floor that way again now, with Brad again moaning and hungrily pulling himself up and down with his arms around Jack's neck. He was helping Jack impale him and pound him over and over again with that wonderful fat cop cock, as Jack stood and held him there, with Brad's legs still wrapped tightly around his waist.

"OH GOD"! Brad groaned again, "Mmm, FUCK! Uh! UH! I love you - AH-UH! - Jack! AH-UH! Uh! YES! FUCK!!! JACK!"

"Mmm, FUCK!" Jack growled again, his knees starting to tremble from the intense pleasure this hot kitchen carry-fucking of his big sexy, stocky, furry-chested, long-legged man was giving him. "I - Uh! FUCK! - love you too - AH-UH! - baby! UH-UH-Oh, GOD! OH, - FUCK! UH! UH! - BRADLEY!!!"

Jack then walked them over toward the kitchen table. As Jack took each of the ten or so steps, Brad continued pulling himself up and down, ramming Jack's throbbing meat up his chute harder and harder, and gasping in pleasure. And then, with his cock still buried in him, Jack lowered Brad down onto his back, onto the edge of the top of the table. Jack started fucking Brad hard again, right there on his kitchen table.

"Umm, yeah!" Brad groaned, loving the spontaneous heat of this kitchen lovemaking. "Fuck me baby!!!"

"Mmm, I am!" Jack growled, panting hard now, "AH-UH! UH! GOD! That ass is so - UH! - fuckin' tight, - Ah-UH! - baby!"

They were both groaning in pleasure, as Jack fucked Brad so hard. Jack was still standing up next to the table. Brad was lying back across the middle of it, with his long legs still wrapped around Jack's waist as Jack pounded him.

"I NEED IT - Ah-UH! - HARDER, BABY!" Brad gasped.

Jack moved Brad's body back on the table, lifted Brad's legs, and got up on top of the table with him. The centerpiece clattered to the floor, and now they were both on top of the kitchen table. Jack had Brad's ankles in both hands, and was fucking him hard right there. They soon moved around into a missionary position, Jack's hairy chest brushing on Brad's as they fucked. Jack was giving him that thick meat so good and deep now in this position. Brad had his legs wrapped around him, the balls of his feet digging into those nice big bubble butt ass cheeks of Jack's. The kitchen table was squeaking and shaking, and both men were moaning loudly.

Brad's thick throbbing cock suddenly spontaneously erupted as Jack's throbbing mushroom head pounded his prostate hard. Brad sprayed buckets of cum up between their bodies, all over both himself and Jack. Jack groaned again and began to fire his own big hot load up his baby's ass. Then the kitchen table just totally collapsed.

They lay there panting and laughing among the overturned chairs and broken table legs, on top of the tabletop, which was now almost on the floor. "FUCK!" Jack gasped, "That was so fuckin' intense, babe!"

Brad laughed, "Hell yes it was," he agreed. "But, we've sure killed your kitchen table!"

"Aww, fuck it!" Jack laughed. "We'll just hit IKEA for a new one sometime soon!"

Brad liked the sound of that "We'll," realizing that this would very soon be his home too!

They cleaned up the kitchen counter, but just left the mess that had been the table figuring they would clean it up after work the next evening, and turned off the lights, and went and showered together. Then they were soon asleep, naked in each other's arms, in Jack's big bed. The next morning was Thursday, and Jack went to work again, and Brad returned again to the farm to work online, and to help with the continuing moving preparations.

That evening Brad was back at Jack's again. He arrived not too long after Jack had gotten in from work. Jack had already showered and changed at the station's locker room, and was now dressed in shorts and a polo. "Miz Vivian home yet?" Brad asked.

"Yeah, they discharged her from the hospital about 2:00 this afternoon, I called and asked her daughter-in-law about it while I was on duty. Juliet said Miz Vivian's already practically good as new again after that scare last night," Jack explained.

Brad replied, "I'm glad to hear that of course, but it doesn't surprise me a bit - you can tell she is one tough ol' bird!"

Jack nodded. "True, but Juliet told me that Miz Vivian just recently turned 67, so she's starting to get to an age where scares like she's had from the 'ghost' are not good at all. It's just lucky she has a strong heart and has stayed in reasonably good shape."

"Lord, forget the ghost, she'd die right now if she knew Juliet had told you her age!" Brad laughed, as Jack nodded.

Jack was about to suggest that they clean up the remains of the kitchen table and then head over to Antonio's Italian Restaurant for dinner, as it was still so miserably hot and humid outside that he didn't want to start the range and tax the AC in the house even more. Just then, as the clock in the living room was chiming 6:30, the doorbell also rang.

Jack went to the door with Brad following him into the living room. Their jaws both dropped, because when Jack opened the front door, there stood Miz Vivian, looking like her usual self. She was clad in a sleeveless emerald green summer dress, with matching dangle earrings that looked like the real thing.

"Well gawdalmighty!" Miz Vivian exclaimed. "Damned if you two don't look like you're the ones that have seen a ghost right now!"

Brad and Jack both laughed, and Jack said, "It's just that we are both so pleasantly surprised to see you lookin' so well already ma'am, and walkin' over here too."

"I ain't hardly ready for Whispering Oaks yet," Miz Vivian retorted with a grin, referring to the local nursing home.

"Would you like something to drink, ma'am?" Brad asked.

"And quit callin' me ma'am ever' other breath!" Miz Vivian demanded. "Makes me feel like I'm old or something!"

Brad and Jack exchanged amused glances at that. "Would you like something to drink, Miz Vivian?" Jack offered.

"Ooh, that does sound heavenly," she purred. "It is just too hot outside today!" She followed the guys into the kitchen. Neither he nor Brad thought of the kitchen table's spintered remains in time. Miz Vivian looked at the mess, then at Jack, then Brad, and back again.

"Um, we had a little, um, accident," Jack tried.

Miz Vivian smiled broadly then, and again looked from one man to the other. "No explanations needed, boys," she cooed. "Believe you me, my Joe, rest his soul, took me right on top of the kitchen table more than once, too!" She smiled a bittersweet smile, remembering, and looked as though she was perhaps about to launch into a chorus of "Precious Memories."

"Oh, LORD!" Jack exclaimed, turning bright red.

Brad was also shocked at the older lady's candid remembrance of that bit of the wilder side of her sex life with her late husband, and at the fact that she had just guessed exactly what had really happened to Jack's kitchen table. But he still found it hilarious too, and so he couldn't help but to just burst out laughing.

Miz Vivian laughed then too, and with a conspiratorial wink at Brad she then said to Jack, "Next time you decide to take him so hard and deep right on top of the kitchen table, big fella, make sure to at least clean the mess up before the damned ol' crazy neighbor lady decides to come and visit!"

Brad was blushing now too, and again Jack groaned, "Oh, LORD!"

"I'm sorry boys," Miz Vivian laughed. "Y'all probably think I'm a dirty ol' woman now – and darlin’s, you are SO right!" She cackled. "But, seriously, I do remember so very well what it is like to be young, and so in love - " she then added breathily, " - and SO in HEAT! And I think y'all are just real sweet!"

"Um, thanks," Jack said, still blushing cutely all the way to the tops of his ears. "You know, Miz Vivian, I think you and my Momma would get along real well!"

Brad laughed at that, knowing exactly what Jack meant, as he remembered how Alice Albertson had embarrassed them both half to death about the buttons Brad had popped off of Jack's uniform shirt!

Jack grabbed them all a Coke, and led the older lady away from the embarrassing remains of last night's kitchen table lovemaking. They all sat together on Jack's couch in the living room.

"So, tell me," Miz Vivian asked Jack seriously. "What did you and that big handsome Justin figure out today? Juliet told me that y'all and that little lady detective were going all over the house, not too long before they sprung me from the hospital today."

"We'd probably have still been there 'til you got home," Jack explained. "But I'm sure you heard about the bank robbery."

Miz Vivian and Brad both nodded. The talk of the town that afternoon had been the 1:30pm robbery that had occurred at the local First Merchants and Farmers Bank branch. Their gaudy little head teller, Avalene Amburgey, who pretty much doubled as Pleasant View's town slut, had made sure to make her way melodramatically onto the 4:00 pm local news on Rosemont's Channel 19. As usual, the thirty-something Avalene looked rather much like she could have been the chubby-assed, buck-toothed, overly made up, bastard lovechild of Liza Minelli and Janet from "Three's Company."

Miz Vivian commented that based on Avalene's overly dramatic version of events on the news, one would practically have thought the James Gang had come back to life and robbed the bank, guns blazing. However, as Jack explained, it had actually been a very quiet and professional hold up, with a note being passed to Avalene by the two masked male suspects. They had arrived just as Avalene was processing a very large amount of cash for a company that serviced vending machines all over the area. That, along with the time of day and time of month, had all greatly increased the amount of cash the robbers had made off with.

Jack related to Brad and Miz Vivian how Avalene had always very blatantly thrown herself at Jack every time he stepped foot in the bank for years now. He had always ignored this while married to Holly, and had continued to do so since. "Hell, she'll even practically knock the other tellers out of the way just to get to wait on me at the drive through window!" He exclaimed, shaking his head.

Jack explained that this had previously included a cute gay teller who Avalene always gave a really hard time, and whom Jack had actually thought about asking out before he had met Brad, since he was the same type. Ironically, that guy, James Price, was now dating a Good Humor ice cream salesman named Bubba Jones, who resembled Jack a great deal but was a little older. Bubba and James were good friends and occasional fuckbuddies with Justin and Eric. According to Justin, James had actually been almost glad when Avalene had finally succeeded in getting him fired from the bank, and he had finally found a new job that paid much better recently.

According to Miz Vivian, word around town had it that Avalene was now regularly fucking Tom Hartford, an older married man who was the bank's head loan officer. Hartford traveled a couple of times a week to work at the bank's branch there in Pleasant View, from the main office over in Smithville. In addition to being the head loan officer and being on the bank's board of directors, Tom Hartford also owned half of Smithville and was filthy rich, which explained Avalene's interest in him.

"I bank there now," Miz Vivian commented. "And I just plain don't like that Avalene. You can tell she is just LOOSE! Sure, I'm the first to admit that I am vivacious, and frankly I would still enjoy a good man myself," Miz Vivian confided. "But, I also have CLASS. That cheap little painted-up two-bit bitch has never even heard the term!"

Brad and Jack couldn't agree more with that wise assessment of the thoroughly cheap Avalene, and agreed as much. "We should all certainly strive to be as classy as you are ma'a - um, Miz Vivian, that is," Jack said with a grin.

"Thank you baby," Miz Vivian purred, reaching over to pat Jack on the leg, both a little higher, and a little more, than was necessary. "Now, back to business - what did y'all find out at my place before the bank robbery?"

"Well, not a lot to be perfectly honest," Jack admitted. "We'll be back tomorrow though, we have to see if we can't figure out how your 'ghost' was able to get in both times."

"I'm going to have an alarm system installed tomorrow too," Miz Vivian told him.

"Good idea," Jack said.

"Y'all eat yet?" She then asked.

"No, not yet, Miz Vivian," Brad replied.

"Well, come on over to the house!" She invited.

"You surely don't feel up to cooking tonight, do you?" Jack asked with concern.

"The hell I don't!" Miz Vivian exclaimed, "Nothin' cheers me up faster!"

A little over an hour later, the three of them were seated at the big mahogany table in Miz Vivian's formal dining room - she'd insisted - candles glowing, as they got ready to eat. Brad and Jack had let her talk them into dining in the big fancy room, but they had insisted on helping her carry the food in, though, and Brad had set the table. The guys were surprised to learn that the only domestic help Miz Vivian had chosen to have in the big old mansion was a maid who came in to clean three times a week. She did everything else, including all of her own cooking, herself. There was also old Amos, the gardener, but she still had a direct hand in that too, especially with the roses.

Brad and Jack sensed that Miz Vivian was a bit irritated at Tony and Juliet, and frankly they didn't blame her. Here it was the next night after she had such a scare, and only a few hours after she had gotten home from the hospital, yet they both were already out and gone. Juliet had a charity function, and Tony had another baby to deliver, she had explained.

The enormous 19th-Century grandfather clock outside in the hall was striking 8:00, when Miz Vivian, who was seated at the head of the big table, reached out a hand to each of them, and bowed her brightly henna-rinsed head. "Jack, say Grace, would you, honey?" She requested.

Jack gave a quick but appropriate and sincere prayer of thanks for the food and friendship, and they all started filling their plates. Her recent scare and hospital stay had certainly done nothing to dim Miz Vivian's formidable cooking talents that evening. She had, however, even let Jack and Brad both into her domain - the kitchen - to help a little in fixing the meal.

"My Momma always said food tasted better when you fixed it yourself," she smiled. "So since you boys helped, this'll be extra special!"

They all ate heartily of the fried salmon croquettes, home-fried potatoes, mustard greens, macaroni and cheese, soup beans with (Vidalia, of course) onions, and yellow corn bread. This very informal and country supper seemed just a touch out of place to the guys here in this big, fancy, candlelit, antique-filled dining room, but it was good, and they sure weren't complaining!

For dessert, while Brad had helped Miz Vivian with the main course, Jack himself had cut up the strawberries and then filled up the little store bought shortcake cups with glaze, berries, and whipped cream. He now went out in the kitchen and brought them in on a tray, along with a pot of coffee.

They all talked awhile longer over dessert. Miz Vivian mentioned that she had talked to Eleanor Barnes on the phone that afternoon after she got out of the hospital, to find out about the Pleasant View Founders Club meeting she had missed that morning. The Founders Club was a popular local charitable and civic organization, and Miz Vivian had been appointed to its board upon moving to town. "Eleanor told me that LeRoy Fawlkes actually showed up at the meeting! He threw a huge fit and started quoting scripture at them when they informed him his club membership had been terminated."

"What an ass," Jack commented.

"Oh, honey, you don't know the half of it!" Miz Vivian exclaimed. "Guess who was here this afternoon, not thirty minutes before I came over to your place earlier?"

"Fawlkes?" Brad asked incredulously.

"You should have called me, I would have run his sorry ass off!" Jack roared.

"Oh, honey, don't worry, I was quite able to do that all by my lil'ol' self!" Miz Vivian drawled with a big grin. "He thought, I suppose, that since I'm on the board and the membership committee of the Founders Club now, I might be able to get them to reconsider, if he came over here and buttered me up enough. But, what he had the nerve to say when I told him 'no' made me so mad that I told him that he had damn well better get his ass off my property right then. Lucky for him, he did."

"What did he say?" Brad asked.

Miz Vivian hesitated, but then replied, "Hell, I guess you boys might as well know. He shouted at me that he didn't understand why his 'regrettable momentary lapse into sin' with Hannity while trespassing in Chief Morganfield's barn 'for which the Lord had already forgiven' him should have been considered cause for us to kick him out the Founders Club. When I told him 'no' again, about making a motion to reinstate his membership, he just totally went off on me and said, 'Well you are nothin' but a faggot lovin' old bitch! You sure don't seem to mind bein' around that queer cop across the road and his queer lover, or that other fag cop Justin Earheart and his! Why should you have a problem with a good Christian man like me, who actually does what is right and struggles daily against the temptation to fall into that depraved lifestyle?'"

Since moving to Pleasant View, Miz Vivian had already become active in the work of the Policeman's Benefit Fund as well, which was another old and established local charity that helped needy children. Through her work for that organization, she had also become acquainted with Justin. Justin and Eric had since also been to Miz Vivian's for dinner, and had already grown close to her, just as had Brad and Jack.

"Why, that sorry mother fucking son of a bitch!" Jack burst out. "I don't give a shit about what he said about us, he can just kiss my big gay ass. And as for him 'struggling', he damn well wasn't struggling to do anything but suck Hannity's stubby little pecker dry while whackin' the hell out of his own, when I caught them in the Chief's old barn! But, for the sorry fucker to have the damn nerve to actually come here to your house and act like that, just hours after you got out of the hospital, that is just too much!" Jack exclaimed, his face red with anger. "Oh, I'm sorry Miz Vivian!" He then added, apologizing for losing his temper and cussing so strongly in front of her.

"No apologies necessary, baby!" She replied with a grin and another grope of Jack's leg. "As I said, I just told him to get the hell off my property, and that his sorry ass would sure as hell never be in the Founders Club again if I have anything to say about it. But, not before also telling him that it was quite true that I had absolutely no problem at all being friends with wonderful gay men like you and Brad, and Justin and Eric. I told him that it was only the sneaky, closeted, hypocritical dickheads like him and Hannity that I had a problem with!"

"Good for you, Miz Vivian!" Brad said with a laugh, and Jack agreed.

"Well, it sure felt good to run his ass off," Miz Vivian grinned. "But, when he left he was going on about how I'd 'be sorry I had crossed him' and that he knew that sooner or later the Lord would provide him with a way to 'take vengeance upon a sinner like me.' He even got all wild-eyed at me, there at the last when he said that."

"That sounds like a threat!" Jack said.

"Aw, hell," Miz Vivian said, waving Jack's concern off. "That big closet queen is just a blowhard, pun intended, and he's not gonna do anything but run that fat mouth of his!"

Jack realized that Miz Vivian was going to be alone when they left. "Is Tony or Juliet coming back tonight?" He asked with concern. He knew there were still extra patrols on Crabtree Street, but he didn't like the idea of the older lady being alone after dark in the big house, with all that had gone on, and her new alarm system not yet installed.

"Probably, but it'll be real late," Miz Vivian said, trying to hide the irritation in her voice. "I'll be fine, though." The guys insisted on staying, and they actually had a very fun evening listening to Miz Vivian's many stories and looking through some old picture albums she had brought with her from Georgia. They even went up to her study on the second floor with her and played a few old 33 and 45 RPM records that she had bought new decades before. She was pleasantly surprised that these men who were thirty-some years younger actually had similar taste in a lot of music.

They were back down in the parlor laughing and talking when the grandfather clock struck midnight, and Tony and Juliet unlocked the front door and came inside. They thanked Brad and Jack for keeping Miz Vivian company, and the guys told them goodnight and started walking towards Jack's house.

"I think she bought that big old place hoping that Dr. Tony and Juliet and their kids would come and live with her," Jack mused, with a frustrated look on his face. "But, now it seems like they aren't even too interested in spending any time with her, unless it is a total emergency like this."

Brad nodded in agreement, then said, "We better be getting to bed before too much longer, you have to work tomorrow," Brad said, as they crossed the street.

"Yes, Mother Hen," Jack laughed.

Brad laughed, "I have to head out to the farm early too, and start finishing up getting everything ready for the move."

They were in Jack's house now, and Jack leaned down and kissed Brad deeply. They went on back to the bedroom and soon were naked and lying in bed in the dark. Brad spooned up close to Jack's big warm back, and they stayed in that position all night, spooned up tightly together. They both slept soundly, feeling so loved and so completely content.

The next day, Friday, Brad returned to the farm to help with the last preparations for moving. He was using a personal day to fulfill the rest of this week's data entry quota. Meanwhile, Jack spent a good part of his shift at Miz Vivian's mansion, along with Justin and Detective Mary Lou Tanner. The alarm company had gotten the new system installed that morning.

The three of them methodically combed every inch of the huge old house, along with its various outbuildings and the grounds. The gardener's shed was the last outbuilding they had checked, finding nothing that looked unusual. Before they headed back inside the old mansion to investigate further, Justin had let Amos Granby, Miz Vivian's gardener, know that they were there investigating. Granby said if he heard or saw anything unusual on the grounds while out working, he would let them know. They had found no fingerprints or other telltale signs of the flesh and blood identity of the mysterious Yankee 'ghost', nor as to how he had been able to gain access to the old house.

"That first time," Mary Lou was saying, "perhaps the old lady was so caught up in her romance novel that the intruder was able to come in through the window without her seeing him at first."

"On the second floor?" Justin asked incredulously. "Not unless he's fuckin' Spiderman in addition to being a ghost."

"Well, he could have used a rope from the roof or even had a ladder outside," Mary Lou reasoned.

"True, but he would have had to have gotten rid of either awfully fast, given the short response time I had on getting here," Jack said.

"And, the second time, Miz Vivian had all the doors and windows locked, and yet the ghost was able to be right there in her bedroom and scare the shit out of her when she came out from changing," Justin added.

"Damn it all," Jack said in frustration about 2:00 pm. "I'm beginning to think it really WAS a fuckin' ghost!"

Mary Lou laughed, "Yeah, for real, Albertson! And y'all may think I've read too many Nancy-fuckin'-Drew books, but I still think we need to keep checking the grounds and outbuildings thoroughly. These old antebellum places really did often have passages to the outside, for use by servants in bad weather, for example. One thing's for sure, this is one hell of a weird case that I've drawn for my first one as a detective!"

"But remember," Jack teased, "you had the shits, I covered your shift, and as a result it was me, not you, that had to see LeRoy Fawlkes giving Hannity head!"

Mary Lou laughed again, "Yeah, I'm surprised seeing that didn't damn near turn you back straight!"

Mary Lou was a good friend of both Justin and Jack, and had absolutely no problem with gay people. She had to tease Jack back about what he had walked in on in the old barn by the lake, though. She was five feet, six inches tall, very fit, and blonde with blue eyes and very considerable assets in the chest department. But, in spite of her appearance, Mary Lou had always been a smart, totally no-nonsense, no-bullshit officer. The same had carried over into her new assignment as a detective.

Jack laughed, "Let's just say that I hope I never have to see either of them with their cock out again!"

Justin said, "I think I'm going to go out and check out that old icehouse one more time."

Jack and Mary Lou both nodded. "We're going to take the pool house and the old smokehouse," Mary Lou explained.

Miz Vivian was gone out to play bridge and drink tea that afternoon with some of her new friends from the Pleasant View Ladies' League. Upon leaving the house, Jack set the new alarm system and locked the door behind them. Miz Vivian had provided them the alarm code, and

Jack still had a key to the front doors. Jack, Justin, and Mary Lou were not about to be even two steps away from the mansion without securing it.

Jack and Mary Lou were prodding around on the ground inside the old smokehouse, and Justin was in the old icehouse, when they all three heard the piercing shriek of the alarm's siren coming from the mansion. A few moments later, as they all three ran towards the house, dispatch was reporting the alarm activation to them over the radio, as it had gone in to the alarm company and been reported to them.

Another thorough search of the house, after shutting off the alarm, revealed nothing to Jack, Justin and Mary Lou. At least they found nothing until they were carefully going over Miz Vivian's bedroom, anyway. There they found a small scrap of material that seemed as though it was their first clue, and potentially their first big break, in the case.

The small tear of dark blue material seemed to have been sprayed with some sort of glow paint. They found it on the floor right in front of Miz Vivian's large antique cherry wardrobe.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Justin asked, looking at the other two.

"Yep, here we have a scrap of Mr. Yankee Ghost's uniform," Mary Lou said with a grin, as with tweezers she was putting the scrap of material into a plastic evidence bag.

"Makes sense," Jack said, taking the bag and examining the material in it. "That looks like some sort of white day-glowish paint, which would explain the ghostly glow he had going on when Miz Vivian first spotted him upstairs in the ballroom that night."

"What does not make sense," Mary Lou reasoned, "was how the hell he got in here, and back out today, and how this scrap of material got into this bedroom."

"Or why he would come in here today at all, with us here," Justin added.

"Well, about the last part," Jack reasoned, "Maybe he knew she was gone and was just waiting for her to get back so he could scare her again. He probably didn't realize we were here, since we parked the cruiser over at my house."

Justin spoke then, and snapped his fingers, just after he had opened the double doors to the big wardrobe and started examining them. He had just noticed that one of the doors had a slightly bent metal piece inside it, near the outside edge of the door, on the old spring-loaded mechanism that held it shut against the opposite door when the wardrobe was closed. He realized this could have easily caught a sleeve of the ghost's uniform and torn off the scrap of material they had just found in the floor in front of it as the doors opened outward - but only if someone had been exiting from inside the wardrobe and caught the sleeve on the bent trim as they got out.

"I think I know how that scrap of blue material got in here!" He pointed out the bent metal piece and explained his theory, and then continued, "Mary Lou, we were aggravating you about Nancy Drew, but by God, this really is like something straight out of one of those books we all read as kids!" Justin exclaimed.

Mary Lou couldn't resist teasing her gay friends a little more, "Mmmhmm, and I guess you two precious little dolls both also had Easy Bake ovens in addition to your Nancy Drew books?"

Justin and Jack rolled their eyes at her, but had to laugh. (And Justin recalled that he really DID have one of those damned ovens as a little boy!)

Jack spoke then, joining Justin in starting to push Miz Vivian's various gaudy, completely age-inappropriate, but oh-so-her, clothes over to either side of the inside of the wardrobe. "Joke all you want, Mary Lou, but I read that one too! 'The Hidden Staircase,'" Jack recalled.

Mary Lou said, "Right, and in that book, their intruder was getting in through a forgotten underground passage to the outside, and then up a hidden staircase."

Soon, it became obvious that the space in back of the old wardrobe was indeed hollow. "Let's move this thing out!" Jack exclaimed.

He and Justin and Mary Lou all three tried to move the heavy piece of antique furniture away from the wall, but it would not budge. "I see now," Mary Lou said. "The damn thing is actually made right into the wall!"

They returned their attentions to the interior of the wardrobe, and eventually, Jack's prodding with a penknife caused some ancient spring to start to move, and the back wooden panel of the interior of the wardrobe started sliding away to the right, going back into the wall just like a pocket door would have.

"I'll be damned," Justin said, as Jack and Mary Lou both also looked on in astonishment. Jack shone his flashlight into the dark space behind the wardrobe. It was now clear that they were looking into a very narrow airlock sort of a passageway, in between the very thick interior and exterior solid brick walls of the old house. Amid the cobwebs, they then saw that directly behind the wardrobe was a small landing on a narrow, rickety-looking old wooden staircase. From this point on the second floor, the stairs led both up and down, inside of the airlock space between the walls.

"Which way?" Justin asked.

"Well, it is now very obvious that if we go up we're going to somehow come out upstairs where the ghost did, in the ballroom where Miz Vivian first saw him. We need to go down and follow this wherever it leads, and see if we can still catch the fucker!" Mary Lou exclaimed.

Jack and Justin exchanged glances, sure that "the fucker" was long gone by now, but they did still need to know more about how he was getting in and out of the old house, though. Jack agreed that it would be best for him to stay there in the bedroom, while Justin and Mary Lou squeezed into the very tight passageway and started down the narrow old staircase.

Mary Lou and Justin had been gone for several minutes, when Miz Vivian walked into the bedroom behind Jack, speaking first to let him know she was back home from playing bridge. He quickly explained to her what had gone on and showed her the passage and hidden staircase in back of the old wardrobe, as she looked on in astonishment. Miz Vivian told Jack she was going to go to the bathroom and change into something more comfortable. Before doing so, she stopped over near her bedside table to take off her earrings. Jack turned his back to the wardrobe momentarily, saying something to Miz Vivian.

At just that moment, Jack felt the unmistakable feeling of a small pistol being rammed between his shoulders. "Don't move, Albertson!" a strangely familiar voice barked.