Lady Justice and the Ghostly Treasure Read Online Free PDF

for.”
        “I get that a lot,” he replied. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re calling?”
        “Okay, here goes.”
        I ended my tale with the statement, “So it looks like we’ve got a ghost at the Three Trails.”
        “Actually,” he replied, “I prefer to refer to them as spirits, and they’re a lot more common than you might think. It sounds like yours might be disturbed by something.”
        “So what do we do? Can you get rid of it?”
        “That’s certainly a possibility, but we might want to see why he’s chosen to manifest himself at this time.”
        “You can do that?”
        “I would certainly like to try.”
        “Well, I hope you can do it today. I have a lawn full of tenants who won’t go back in the building while this apparition is running loose.”
        “Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.”
     

     
        The psychic and I arrived just as the tenants were finishing off the last of the pizza.
        They gathered around and I introduced our guest.
        “This is Christopher Wheeler. He’s --- uhhh --- an expert in dealing with what you’ve encountered during the past two nights.”
        “Pleased to meet you all. How about you tell me what you’ve seen?”
        After Feeney and Barnes recounted their experience with the spirit, Wheeler said, “This shouldn’t be a problem. Let me see what I can do.”
        He climbed the porch steps and disappeared inside.
        An hour later, he returned.
        “I’m pleased to report that I met your resident spirit, Brother Cyrus, and we had a very enlightening conversation.”
        “You --- you actually talked to him?” Mr. Feeney asked, obviously bewildered.
        “We didn’t actually talk,” he replied. “We communicated.”
        “So who is this guy?” Greely asked. “And why is he scaring the crap out of us?”
        “Extremely interesting story,” Wheeler said. “Brother Cyrus is a Franciscan Monk. In the 1908 presidential election, William Jennings Bryan was running against William Howard Taft.” He pointed to the front steps of the hotel. “Bryan was to give a speech right here on these very steps. Brother Cyrus came to the hotel to hear his speech, and as fate would have it, he suffered a heart attack and died the same day, October 10 th , 1908. His spirit has remained in the hotel since that day.”
        Naturally, we were all stunned by this revelation.
        Mr. Barnes recovered first. “So this dude has been hanging around this old hotel for over a hundred years?”
        Wheeler nodded.
        “But why?”
        “Well, it seems that even back then, many of the hotel’s residents were, shall we say, among the poorest and most needy. No offense intended. Brother Cyrus could have moved on, but felt he should stay and continue his ministry. He quoted a scripture that sums up his life’s work. ‘In as much as you’ve done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”
        Mr. Feeney asked what we were all wondering. “So this Brother Cyrus is actually a good ghost? He’s been here all along helpin’ the people who live here?”
        “Again, I would prefer the term, ‘sprit,’ but yes, he has remained to minister to the needs of those who call the Three Trails their home.”
        “I can see that now,” said Billy Banks from #4. “Sometimes I come home to that tiny room and get depressed. Then I go to the toilet right after Feeney has stunk up the place. I start to get mad, then something comes over me and I remember what it was like living under the Paseo Bridge or in one of the homeless camps, and then things don’t seem so bad. You think that could be Brother Cyrus?”
        “It’s certainly a possibility.”
        “Me too,” chimed in Roy Gleason from #2. “More than once I’ve come home from a crappy job I got at the day labor pool. I just want