This was the happiest day in Abner’s life. Just when he thought he was doomed to be alone, he married Annie, beautiful, smart and tough as nails. They walked into the cavernous lobby of the San Augustine Hotel, noted for its Gothic architecture. As he registered at the desk, Abner looked up at the calendar, October 3, 1948. His hand shook so badly the pen fell from his fingers. He forgot this was the anniversary of the tragedy that made the hotel infamous.
“What’s wrong, Abner?” Annie asked, a tone of impatience in her voice. She shifted her large handbag from one shoulder to the other.
He looked at her with a frown. “I didn’t realize. This is the tenth anniversary of the murder.”
On October, 3, 1938, a young woman, rumored to be the mistress of a Jacksonville banker, entered the elevator at 1 p.m. As the doors closed, an old man limped in at the last minute. He wore a plaid shirt. Witnesses later told police they didn’t think it was an old man, only a younger man—about the age of the banker—who entered the elevator. When the doors closed, the witnesses said they heard a commotion and then a scream. They rushed up the stairs but when the doors opened on the second floor, all they saw was the young woman collapsed in a pool of blood on the worn carpet, a liberty head dime clutched in her fist and no sign of the old man.
At the very moment of the murder, the Jacksonville banker was found in his office, dead of asphyxiation. When they felt inside his mouth they found a liberty head dime. In his hand was a brochure for Niagara Falls. When police went to his home to inform his wife of his death, they found her in bed, dead. On her night table was glass of wine laced with arsenic and a dime. Friends of the young woman testified at the inquest she was meeting the banker that night at the hotel to plan their elopement to Niagara Falls after his divorce became final.
Every October third since that horrible occurrence, a beautiful young woman had entered the elevator exactly at 1 p.m. and a mysterious old man in a plaid shirt limped in before the doors closed. When they opened, the young woman was on the floor, the carpet stained with blood, a coin in her hand and the old man had vanished.
“That’s why we chose this hotel for our honeymoon,” Annie said. “It’s haunted. We wanted to see a ghost, remember?”
Abner smiled weakly and finished signing in. He took the room key, picked up the suitcases and followed Annie to the elevator. She entered first but before he could join her, an old man in a plaid shirt limped in front of him. As the doors closed the lobby clock struck one.
Dropping his bags, he ran up the stairs. As he jogged he heard the commotion from the elevator car, like bodies being thrown against the walls. He heard no scream. When the doors opened on the second floor, Abner could not believe his eyes.
The old man was gone, but there was no blood on the carpet. Annie held up her huge purse in one hand and the liberty head dime in her other. She smiled knowingly.
“And this is why I lug a big purse around with me.”