My parents had set up the den as an office and had already spent a couple of hours working. Once everyone sat down at the table for lunch mom and dad told us a little about the story.
"The main point is that the ghost of the murdered woman is trying to come back in order to identify the person who killed her to the people who are now living in the house she was killed in ten years ago. They, of course, have no idea that the murder had ever taken place," mom explained to us as I spooned potato salad onto my plate.
"Cool," said Cory. "I like it.".
"Yeah mom," I agreed. "What happens next?".
Mom leaned over the table as if about to share a secret with us. "The spirit leads one of the main characters, probably the daughter, to the murder weapon that has been hidden in the house all that time.".
Dad helped himself to some potato chips from a large bowl on the table. "More important, the phantom will then lead somebody to her very own corpse," he added, with a twinkle in his eye. "The police think that the dead woman jumped off a cliff and the body was washed out to sea," he said dramatically. "What they don't know is that she was really murdered by her cousin, who hid the body in the old well.".
"That's a great idea dad," I said. "Did you guys think up the whole plot this morning?".
Mom smiled. "Well, we haven't exactly worked the whole plot out yet, but, yes, most of the idea just seemed to flow onto the computer.".
"It's this old house," dad declared as he toyed with his turkey on rye. "I feel almost like it's focusing our creative energies magnifying them.".
Cory rolled his eyes at me as if to say oh brother writers!.
"What made you think of using a well to hide the body?" I asked, trying not to laugh at Cory's antics.
"There's an old well near the laurel hedge," mom answered. "It gave us the idea.".
"I didn't see a well," Cory commented, raising his eyebrow. "And I walked all the why around that hedge this morning.