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“Sure we have a basement. But it’s full of all kinds of junk. Everything Wilbur doesn’t know what to do with, he stores down there. He’s one of those hoarders, you know. Never likes to throw anything away, figuring it might be useful one day.”

“So maybe we should take a look?” Dooley suggested. “Maybe the ghost will show us the way, and we’ll find a big pot of gold.”

“Presumably at the end of a rainbow,” I said with a slight grin. But when my grin wasn’t reciprocated, I decided to let it go. Clearly I was dealing with two real believers, and in my experience true believers usually lack the one ingredient that makes life so much more agreeable: a sense of humor.

And since we didn’t have much else to do right then, apart from waiting for Odelia to pick us up for our next interview, we followed Kingman down the stairs and into the basement, where he proceeded to slowly move down a set of rickety wooden stairs, inch by inch, presumably hoping the ghost would lead the way tothat elusive pot of gold.

We arrived on a stone floor that felt cold and damp to the touch. In fact the entire basement had a cold and damp atmosphere and smelled a little musty, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if instead of gold we’d find plenty of fungi and perhaps even a mouse infestation. Not that I could be certain, for the light was off, and not much illumination was granted apart from the little bit of light trickling down the stairs from the doorway.

It was still enough for us to make out that Kingman had indeed been correct in his statement that Wilbur was an amateur hoarder: the place was stacked full of stuff, though in Wilbur’s defense it was all neatly stacked, not simply piled up indiscriminately. There were plenty of wooden racks, and all of them were loaded to capacity. I could detect car tires, an old bicycle, the remnants of a Christmas tree, boxes filled with bottles, bottles filled with strange and mysterioussubstances, and things I didn’t even want to know what they were. In other words, the remnants of a long life as a small-town storeowner.

“So where is this pot of gold?” I asked finally when I’d been following along in Kingman and Dooley’s wake. “And more importantly: where is your ghost, Kingman?”

“Shhh!” both Kingman and Dooley hissed. They were right, of course. Obviously this gold-dispensing ghost of the former owner of the General Store was a very shy individual.

We’d arrived at the back wall of the basement, which was a lot bigger than I’d imagined, and presumably ran the entire length and width of the store, which was pretty big to begin with, and maybe even partly extended underneath Wilbur’s backyard, too.

And that’s when we saw him: a man was seated on a sort of throne, and as we all gasped in shock, the man moaned, and now seemed to sort of uncurl and finally reach the ceiling. He was dressed in a long black overcoat, and it was impossible to see his face. Besides, even though cat eyes are a lot better at detecting things in the semi-darkness than human eyes, we can’t exactly see in the dark, in spite of the popular myth. We still need light, even though only a little bit of it, and since we were now deep into the basement, far removed from a source of light, it was hard to make out the man’s features.

“It’s the ghost!” Dooley whispered. “It’s the ghost of the old woman!”

“I think you’re right, Dooley,” Kingman whispered back. “Ask her about the gold.”

“Why me?” said Dooley. “She’s your ghost, Kingman. You ask her about the gold.”

“Can’t you guys see that it’s a man, not a woman?” I said, but they ignored me.

Kingman cleared his throat.“Um, lady? Can you tell us where the gold is, please?”

No response came apart from a Bob Dylanesque mumble, then the person descended from his throne and strode over in our direction—gliding along the floor like an actual ghost.

“She’s going to show us the gold!” Kingman hissed. “It’s happening, you guys!”

But then suddenly the light in the basement flashed on, and a loud voice called out,“Rudolph? Are you down there?”

It was Wilbur, and as our eyes adjusted to the light, the ghost of the old lady suddenly morphed into that of an unkempt man in a long overcoat, clutching a bottle, and sort of swaying on his feet, clearly not very stable in his footing. And as we watched, he took a swig from the bottle, then bellowed,“How many times do I have to tell you not to disturb me when I’m composing, little brother!”

“Have you been drinking again?”

“No, I haven’t.” He now settled an unfocused gaze on us, and frowned. “Say, Wilbur, how many cats you got?”

“Just the one,” Wilbur called back.

“There’s three down here.”

“That’s because you’re drunk. Stop drinking my stock, you boozer!”

“One… two… three,” said Rudolph as he carefully counted us. “I see a fat one, an even fatter one, and a small one.” He then awarded the bottle in his hand a look of disappointment, placed it on the shelf with meticulous care, and proceeded in the direction of the exit with ginger step, supporting himself on the myriad shelves.