The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street

by Karen White

  Jack threw his glasses onto the bed beside him. “Marc’s looked everywhere at the plantation for those jewels. I’m beginning to think they’re in the cistern. Maybe hidden inside one of the bricks. I’m so tired of being sick, I’ve half a mind to get out of bed tonight and start digging myself.”

  I placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, sensing his renewed desperation and frustration. The New York publishing world virtually shut down in the month of December, so Jack was back in limbo land, stuck with stewing and mulling over the fate of his career. “Don’t be silly, Jack. It’s freezing outside and you’re sick. And don’t worry—I’m working on things while you’re down for the count. I might be able to give you a nice Christmas surprise.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Remember what I said, Mellie. Don’t do anything rash.”

  “How can I?” I said flippantly. “I’ve got twenty-four couples coming to our house for dinner tonight. The only thing rash I can picture is me raiding Mrs. Houlihan’s party bags so I can finally get a cookie.”

  Jack smiled, but he didn’t look completely convinced. I wondered if he’d always been able to see through me, or if this was what marriage did to couples.

  “Lawrence followed me one day, according to Jolly,” Jack said. “Did I mention that to you? I might not have. That was around the time I was starting to feel sick, and I don’t think I was thinking straight. And she’s not the most reliable of psychics, you know? I might not have wanted to scare you. You’ve had a tough month.”

  “We both have,” I said, taking his hand. “I think I’m getting really close to solving this, Jack.”

  “‘I’m’?”

  “We are,” I corrected.

  The doorbell rang downstairs. I glanced at my watch and stood. “It’s the caterers. I’ve got to go and let them know where everything goes. Mother and Jayne left to get dressed, and Nola went to your mother’s to help with bath time for the twins, and then she’ll get changed and come here to help. I let Mrs. Houlihan go home an hour ago since the caterers can take over now, but someone still needs to be in charge.”

  “And you’re so good at being in charge,” Jack said, almost looking like his old self. “But what were you about to say? Earlier, before I interrupted.”

  The doorbell rang again. I leaned down and kissed him on his forehead. “I’ve got to get that. We’ll talk later.”

  I put the TV remote in his hand and ran out of the room, pausing at the top of the stairs to text Anthony, asking him if he’d had any luck with the drawings and the photo of the gate panel. I had to do it twice because autocorrect kept translating it into something that looked like Swahili.

  When I opened the door to let in the caterers, Jayne came in behind them. Her coat was open and we both stopped in the foyer to stare at each other. Finally, Jayne laughed out loud. “People are going to think we called each other to coordinate our outfits.”

  We both wore dark green velvet dresses with low V-necks and slightly flared skirts. “I saw this one in the window at the Finicky Filly and had to have it,” I explained.

  “Me, too,” Jayne said, holding in a giggle. “It’s my favorite store.”

  I didn’t bother telling her that it was my favorite store, too. “I guess I’ll go change,” I said, heading for the stairs. “Tell the caterers not to do anything until I get back.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Jayne said. “I always wanted a sister so we could wear matching outfits.”

  I almost admitted out loud that I had, too, but stopped just in time. I looked behind her. “Where’s Anthony?”

  “I’m assuming he’s on his way, because I’ve been trying to reach him, but I haven’t heard back. Last time I spoke with him, he said to come on over without him because he was running late and had gone home to get dressed. He knows you’ve assigned him to hang up coats instead of going to the first house for appetizers, and he seemed okay with that.”

  I frowned. “I could have assigned him to toilet-paper-refill duty, but I didn’t. I can still change the spreadsheet—I’ve got it open on my computer screen.”

  She grabbed my hands. “Did he call you? He said he would.”

  I looked down at my phone. No recent texts or phone calls from Anthony. “Nothing from him at all. What is it?”

  “He finished the puzzle. Sometime last night. His bedroom door was closed when I got up, so I have no idea when. Let’s go tell Jack—this will make him feel better.”

  “No. I mean, wait,” I said, holding her back. “He’s probably sleeping. But tell me—what does it look like? Does it tell us anything?”

  She shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. But it must mean something, right?”

  “Hopefully. Let’s wait until we talk to Anthony—maybe he’ll have more to tell Jack.”

  She looked at me dubiously, then down at her dress. “I have time to run home and change. Will you be okay without me for a little bit? I promise I’ll hurry.”

  I looked at my watch, then back at Jayne. “I’m coming with you. Let me get the caterers situated, then text Mother and ask her to get here a little earlier than planned. I have to see the puzzle and I don’t really think I can wait.”

  “Really, Melanie, I think it can—”

  “I’ve got an hour and a half before the first guests arrive, and I’m dressed, and the house is ready, and Mother will be here. It will be fine.”

  Without waiting for her to respond, I ran to the kitchen to talk with the caterers, then texted both Nola and my mother to let them know where Jayne and I were and that we would be back in half an hour at the most. I grabbed my coat and purse, then ran out the door, stopping at the bottom of the piazza as I watched the freezing rain give way to small snowflakes that lazily glided their way between the streetlamps before settling on the ground below.

  “It’s not melting,” Jayne said. “That’s not good.”

  “At least it’s not heavy. Maybe that means it’ll stop.”

  She glanced at me, but I just shrugged before heading toward her car. “We have to take yours—mine’s been blocked in by the caterer’s van.”

  Jayne drove like an old woman, leaning close to her steering wheel as if that might help her see better.

  “It’s not even sticking to your windshield, Jayne, so you can definitely drive faster. Or I’ll get out and walk and meet you there.”

  She pushed her foot just a little harder, creeping up to twenty miles per hour. If it hadn’t been so cold out, I would have made good on my threat and hopped out.

  I tapped my foot from cold and anticipation as I waited for her to unlock her front door, doing my best not to push her out of my way as I ran to the dining room. Jayne flicked on the wall switch to light up the chandelier, and we stood in the doorway looking at the table with awe.

  “It’s exactly how I thought it would look,” I said. “When I said it reminded me of one of those puzzle squares. It’s still a bunch of random designs, but look at how they all connect to each other.”

  “So this was intentional,” Jayne said. “Whoever designed this wanted it to look haphazard.”

  I nodded. “Jack thinks it must have all been designed by Carrollton Vanderhorst, Lawrence’s father. He fought alongside George Washington in the French and Indian War and Washington himself called him his ‘great strategist.’ He designed the cemetery and must have left clues as to where the treasure was hidden.”

  “But who was he hiding it from? Was he the patriot, since he was friends with Washington? And what about Lawrence and Eliza? What side were they working on?”

  I began walking around the dining room table. “I’m not sure—and I don’t know if we’ll ever find out the whole story. But I think Lawrence was in love with Eliza, but Eliza was in love with Alexander, the British soldier.” I told her about Greco being dressed in his reenactor’s uniform, and the kiss he’d received when h
e’d slipped on the peacock signet ring. “Mother said the owner of the ring was a woman, and I’m fairly confident that was Eliza.”

  “And she wore the brooch, remember? She must have known what it was.” Jayne was silent for a moment, thinking. “So—she was the spy,” Jayne said slowly. “And she and the British soldier had a thing. Maybe that’s why he ended up buried in the mausoleum, too.”

  “Maybe, because Carrollton would have been the one to decide that. And the interment of the soldier. Even with his patriot beliefs, he must have known that Eliza would want to be buried with her beloved.”

  “And Lawrence, too. Or maybe he felt that Lawrence belonged there because he was Carrollton’s son.”

  I leaned over the table, mesmerized by swirls and lines. “Jolly told me something interesting. That when she sensed the man following Jack—the man from the cistern holding the brooch, who I suspect is Lawrence—she sensed his heart was deeply wounded.”

  Jayne nodded. “I imagine if his fiancée was in love with another man, that would hurt. And that she was betraying him by being a spy for the other side would be a double betrayal.”

  I nodded. “Which is why I don’t think she killed herself. That’s why she keeps repeating the word lies. She wants people to know the truth.”

  “But what is the truth? That Lawrence killed her?”

  I shrugged. “He’s the spirit with the evil vibes, remember? The one who spoke through our mother saying that traitors deserve to die and rot in hell. I mean, there’s a possibility that Alexander killed Eliza when he found out that she was using information she got from him to pass on to the patriots, but that’s not the feeling I get from him at all.”

  Jayne nodded. “I agree. But whether Alexander was aware of what was going on and either helping Eliza or turned the other way is something lost to history.”

  I continued to walk around the table, studying the completed puzzle, occasionally reaching over to make an alignment of edges straighter. I slid my finger around the lip of the table, thinking out loud. “Since Eliza and Alexander died before Lawrence, it’s entirely possible that he killed them both.”

  I stopped walking, feeling Jayne’s wide-eyed gaze on me. “And that brings us back to the question of who killed Lawrence.”

  “I suspect someone on the American side—maybe they thought he had the rubies.”

  “Or maybe they knew he had the rubies. Eliza had the brooch. Remember the door on the hidden compartment in her jewelry cabinet, how it had been ripped off its hinges as if in a hurry. Or in anger. And only the brooch was found in the cistern, discarded with the garbage. The one scenario that makes sense is that Lawrence found out about the jewels and somehow found out where she’d hidden them. Maybe he killed her out of anger, or revenge.”

  “Or a broken heart,” Jayne added.

  “And then he was killed trying to make his escape, and the rubies were saved. By whom, I don’t know for sure. Everything’s conjecture at this point. All I do know for sure is that Eliza didn’t kill herself, and she wants the record to be set straight.”

  I returned to studying the maze, the lines and curves simple, like in an artist’s original sketch before it’s filled in with color. I could almost hear Jack speaking in my head about Carrollton Vanderhorst. So he figures a cunning way to hide the jewels and uses clues to lead the way just in case he dies before he can find out what to do with the rubies. A top and bottom of the puzzle were clearly identified now, the top two corners curved in opposite directions, like an arch. Just like the arch over the gate leading into the cemetery.

  I jerked my head up, almost laughing at Carrollton Vanderhorst’s cleverness. “Jayne, I really need to talk with Anthony.”

  Jayne looked down at her phone, then began dialing. She waited a moment before ending the call. “It went straight to voice mail.”

  I looked around the dining room, then walked quickly out to the foyer, toward the stairs. “Where’s his room?”

  “Melanie, that would be an invasion of privacy. . . .”

  I didn’t stop. “This is your house, Jayne, and he is a guest. I’m looking for something specific—a couple of drawings I gave him earlier. They belong to me, so technically I’m only trying to recover my property.”

  “Fine,” she said, walking past me down the hall. She stopped outside one of the bedroom doors and tapped. “Anthony?” After waiting a respectful moment, she pushed the door open and waited for me on the threshold.

  The room was elegantly appointed with the furnishings of the late owner, Button Pinckney, Jayne’s aunt. The bed was neatly made and the draperies open. The only thing missing was any sign of occupancy. “Didn’t he bring a suitcase or anything?”

  “Sure, but I don’t know what was in it. I assumed it was full of clothes. I haven’t been in here, Melanie, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Did he bring a laptop or printer or anything so he could work while he was here?”

  She nodded, her gaze traveling around the room. “He had both—I know that because I saw the laptop a few times and could hear the printer from this room.” She walked to the closet and opened it. “Empty,” she said, her voice hollow. “No printer, laptop. Or clothes. Maybe he just decided he’d already overstayed his welcome and, with the puzzle finished, figured it was time to head home.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Let me try to reach him again.” I dialed his number, but the call went straight to voice mail. “Maybe his battery died. Doesn’t matter—we’ll see him when we get back to my house.”

  Avoiding her gaze, I knelt on the floor and lifted the bed skirt, then moved around the room, opening every drawer, finally stopping at the trash can tucked next to the chest of drawers. I eagerly plucked up the can and poured the balled-up papers out on top of the bedspread.

  “What are these?” Jayne asked.

  “These are multiple copies of the same thing—Anthony was just trying to get them all to be the same size.” I opened a ball of paper and smoothed it on the bed, then began opening another, starting two different piles. “One is the copy of the drawing Joseph Longo made from a paper he found on Robert Vanderhorst’s desk back in the twenties. The other is a page from the Vanderhorst family archives at the Charleston Museum—the ones Marc tried to throw out and Anthony found. And the third . . .” I held up a black-and-white copy on my phone.

  “Is the little panel from the mausoleum door,” Jayne finished, her eyes widening in understanding. She reached for one of the balled-up papers and began flattening it. “So these three pictures belong together and are some kind of clue?”

  I nodded quickly, adding another paper to one of the piles. “The old cemetery fence was brick and was destroyed when the old mausoleum was rebuilt. Anyway, Samuel Vanderhorst designed the new wrought-iron fence and gates, as well as the mausoleum door. But the two gates were destroyed or lost around the time of Hurricane Hugo, so all that remains of them are these drawings.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” Jayne said as she moved more quickly. “So if we get these all to fit together, they should show us something,” she said excitedly.

  “That’s my theory, anyway,” I said, my own excitement at having someone who understood the way I thought almost masking the unexpected twinge of annoyance that the person was Jayne.

  When we’d divvied up all the wrinkled pages into their own piles, I spread them out into fans and began to sort through them, comparing those that seemed to match up best with ones from the other two. Catching on to what I was doing, Jayne pulled one from the third pile and held it up to the two I held. “I think this one works.”

  I nodded my thanks and took it, then held the three of them together up toward the light. “These aren’t exact—I imagine Anthony would have the ones that are—but they will work.”

  I ran out of the room and toward the stairs. “Where are you going?” Jayne called from ri
ght behind me.

  I didn’t answer but led her to the dining room table. “Hold these.” I shoved the three pages into her hand, then pulled out a dining room chair to stand on. Holding my phone as high as it would go over the puzzle, I took a photo. “You have a printer, right?”

  Before she’d finished nodding, I’d e-mailed the photo to her. “Go pull the photo up in the scrapbooking software you’re always talking about, and make it fit in an eight-by-eight square so it matches the other three. And please make it black-and-white. While you’re doing that, I’m going to try Anthony again. Failing that, I’ll call Mother to see if she’s at the house yet and if she’s seen Anthony.”

  She was already running up the stairs by the time I’d finished speaking. I used the initials, S.V., to orient each picture, then pulled out my phone again. When Jayne returned fifteen minutes later, I shook my head in answer to her unasked question, then took the page she handed to me. “Perfect,” I said, smiling at her. I placed the picture of the completed puzzle behind the other three sheets and then, after a shared look of anticipation with Jayne, held them up to the light as I remembered Anthony had done.

  I wasn’t sure who gasped louder, but I was suddenly very glad that someone was with me to share my discovery. With the three pictures held together, four distinct dark circles were clearly visible from the layering of the lines of each page. And each dark circle was now projected onto the puzzle made from the bricks.

  “I’ll go get a marker,” Jayne said. She raced out of the room, and returned quickly with a black Sharpie.

  “Good thinking.” I continued to hold the pages up to the light while Jayne marked the back side of the last page with black marker. When she was done, I lowered them to the table and slid out the last page, using the marker to darken the spots that had bled through to the front of the puzzle page.

  “It’s a map of the cemetery, isn’t it?” Jayne asked.