"How did she die?" I asked. Boston traffic gave us plenty of time to talk on the way to the site. 

 

Jimmy had taken the initial call from Ms. Marjorie O'Malley, our client and the daughter of the deceased. He flipped open his notebook. A former police detective, he had an excellent memory, but always checked his notes anyway. On paper, of course. Electronics are too fickle for this line of work.

 

"Peacefully, in her sleep. Old age, really."

 

"Any unfinished business?"

 

"Nope. All her affairs in order, all her relatives reconciled with. Last Rites and everything." 

 

"And yet her daughter says there's a wailing around the door that was never there before?"

 

"Like a howling winter storm even on calm nights. The door rattles and the windows rattle and the cat yowls at nothing," he read.

 

"Ms. O'Malley seemed pretty down-to-earth, too. Not the sort who would think of spirits first."

 

"All the classic signs. Where is she buried? Buried or cremated?" 

 

"Buried at Holy Cross, in Malden. I went up there to check."

 

Of course he did. Jimmy was born to track down details. 

 

"A proper coffin in a proper cemetery," he said. "Consecrated by a priest, surrounded by an iron fence. Built back when they knew how to do it right."

 

I nodded approvingly. "Good. All this scattering of ashes these days is just asking for trouble."

 

Jimmy agreed. "But if they did everything right, she shouldn't be able to walk, even if she wanted to."

 

That was the mystery. Why hadn't the deceased simply gone on to her reward?

 

"Anything irregular about the funeral?"

 

"Nope. Committed Catholic her whole life. Last Rites as I said. Proper funeral Mass, in Latin. The Bishop himself threw the first dirt in the grave." 

 

"In Latin? They still do that?" Despite my profession, my knowledge of modern religions is rudimentary.

 

"At the family's request. Her daughter said she never did get used to the new service."

 

"I guess we're going to have to ask her what's wrong, then." 

 

Some ghosts play hard to get. My mother taught me all the tricks, though. We came prepared. Chalk circle, white candles, incense, the works. Impressive to the client, maybe, but completely unnecessary this time. She was eager to talk. 

 

 

And so on, with a lot of wailing and window rattling thrown in for good measure. Ms. O'Malley confirmed she'd been seeing similar manifestations. 

 

We held the seance in the upstairs bedroom where she died. It was a big old house, with a grand staircase complete with a coffin niche. Extra wide front door. Built when people died at home. I pointed the niche out to Jimmy. 

 

"Back in the day, families took care of their own dead. She would have been carried out in a box, not on a gurney." 

 

Ms. O'Malley was pretty unhappy when we asked to tear up the front porch. It had just been restored, at great expense and after endless battles with the Town Historian. Beautiful work. Every detail was correct, down to the period-authentic lumber. There was no chance that the insurance company would cover demolition and reconstruction to "free a ghost." She'd had other plans for her inheritance. 

 

In the end, I guess she figured the house wasn't worth much if no one could sleep there. If that meant the porch had to go, so be it. 

 

We took it all the way down to the foundation. At first I was afraid we might have to tear that up, too. Fortunately the builders had been practical people. We only had to sift three or four shovelfuls of dirt. I held the bits of rusted iron out for Jimmy to inspect. 

 

"There you go. Three iron coffin nails."

 

He looked at me blankly. He learns fast, but I've been studying the old ways since birth. Survival knowledge.

 

I walked out to the sidewalk with the nails. A gust of wind blew through the space where the porch had been. A voice in my ear said Thank you, and she was gone. 

 

"Placed to keep out things that go bump in the night, but they kept her in, too."

 

"Doors swing both ways," Jimmy said.