The Perfect Haunted House

I'm an author of fiction (as well as a couple of memoirs) so I'm always looking for the perfect place to murder someone and stuff the body, right? You and I both know I'm talking through my pen, or my keyboard, I have no intention of really hurting someone. I don't actually, as the author, have to be the one to do the killing either, I was thinking about writing about someone, or a few someones who had already been killed -- say in a house, and then the main characters in my book moves in to the house and has to deal with the ghosts living there. That to me makes more romantic sense -- the forensic loving, cop-show-watching side of me says it's best I don't try to get too involved with the actual event of death as I'd just screw it up. I'd be thinking too much about it in the 21st century terms and end up bumbling a perfectly good 19th century killing!

So, I was online today looking at houses I may want to buy for myself when I move out to an area that's a bit more rural, but still close enough to Target and Starbucks. There's a city called Kokomo in Indiana that fits the bill. No, I'm not making that up, it really is called Kokomo, and it has TWO Starbucks! I like Kokomo! Just west of the city is an area with more corn, more farms, more nothing, and in the late 1800's farmhouses were popping up everywhere out that way -- some of them are still there, have great barns, land, horse property; and for me the author, it has a great bunch of forests, woods, streams, and gullies to kill someone on paper and stuff their bodies somewhere between Chapters 2 and 3.

I found a house that fits me. Two-story with a creepy creepy basement. It was built after the Civil War, but I want to think it was build on land that was fought over. It was the homestead of someone interesting and I'm going to find out who. It's a flat-faced colonial house with pocket windows, wide plank hardwood floors and it has great heavy wooded banisters and baseboards. I bet if I looked, it would have one of those awesome little closets under the stairway to store your vacuum and old papers in. I love those little closets, you can hide in wait for hours and scare anyone who comes in to visit -- WHY don't people check there first when they hear spooky sounds? I do!

So, I'm hoping the place is available for a lease purchase, and I'm hoping it has a nice ghost or two hanging out either in the barn or the house itself. I'm not opposed to living with those in the past as long as they don't try to force me to join them too soon. I may want to write about murder but I don't think I want to participate or volunteer too soon. When I think about it, the basement has a fireplace in it; that would be an awesome place to hide too -- say on Halloween when the kids come by for a party or something...no, I'd get stuck and the video to get me out would show up on YouTube. Never mind!