The Siren and the Specter

by Jonathan Janz

  Jessica was watching him closely. “Any of these look familiar?”

  Rather than answering – he didn’t trust himself to – he paced over to one of the less disturbing portraits, but the closer he drew to this one, the more he regretted choosing it. Though the Anna in this oil painting was the young woman he’d known back in college, the sight of her unnerved him more than the ferocious images did. She was sitting at the base of a tree, gazing up at the artist from over her left shoulder. Her bare arm and shoulder were dappled with pools of sunlight, the rest of her shadowed by the tree. She wore a mauve baseball cap backward, her tank top the same color; her khaki shorts revealed glorious, coltish legs; she’d applied lampblack under her eyes in thick stripes. Her big brown eyes watched him with profoundest melancholy.

  “It’s from one of my softball games,” Jessica said from beside him. “Our school colors were burgundy and gold, like Gryffindor.” A small laugh. “Anna used to put that black grease under her eyes to support us.”

  David couldn’t have looked away from the painted Anna had he wanted to. Held by that gaze, he said in a soft voice, “I never deserved her.”

  Jessica said nothing.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. He realized with some amazement he was on the verge of tears. “She didn’t…. I never should have left. You must hate me.”

  “Hearing you beat yourself up helps.”

  He frowned at her, but she shook her head, said, “I mean it. Words are just words, but…sometimes they’re better than nothing.”

  “Wish I could give you more than that.” He looked at the painting. “I wish I could give you your sister back.”

  “David?”

  He looked down at her. She moved to stand in front of him, took his hands in hers. She leaned up on tiptoes, kissed him on the side of the mouth. Drawing away, she said, “There’s something you can do.”

  He waited.

  “Help me solve the mystery.”

  “We know why she took her own life.”

  Jessica lowered her chin. “I don’t believe my sister committed suicide. I think she was murdered.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They spent the day together, focusing on Weir’s diary, his disappearance, and what bearing it might have on the events of the past week. They talked little of Anna. Jessica claimed she’d discuss her theory about her sister’s death when David showed more willingness to believe.

  After a lousy supper at a Mexican restaurant, they rode to the Alexander House in uneasy silence. The day had been sunny until midafternoon, but now early evening clouds had appeared, throwing the road and the surrounding woods into a basalt-colored gloom.

  “You know,” David said as they motored down Governor’s Road, “you can’t just say you believe Anna was….”

  “Murdered.”

  “You can’t announce something like that and just clam up.” He turned onto the peninsula lane.

  “It’s hard enough to talk about, but knowing how you are about the supernatural….”

  “How am I gonna grow more enlightened if you don’t help me?”

  The look she shot him made his balls shrink. “Don’t tease me, David. Not about this.”

  Chastened, he returned his gaze to the rutted lane. They’d just passed Ralph’s property when Jessica sat up and leaned toward the windshield. “That’s Alicia’s car.”

  David saw a white Nissan Sentra parked outside the Alexander House. “She said she was bringing me Dots, right?”

  “Five hours ago,” Jessica said. “Why’s her car still here?”

  David had no answer for that.

  They pulled up next to the Sentra. Jessica climbed out and peered inside. “Keys are in the ignition.”

  “Maybe she locked them in by accident.”

  Jessica tested the door. It opened.

  Seeing the look on Jessica’s face, he said, “Hey, there’s nothing to worry about. She probably….”

  “Probably what?”

  He realized he had no answer. He went up the walk and was starting to use the key when, on a whim, he tried the front knob. The door opened freely.

  Jessica’s voice was tight. “Did you lock it?”

  “Maybe I forgot.”

  “Did you forget?”

  He thought about it. “No. Not since Honey barged into my shower.”

  They stared into the sludgy foyer.

  “Alicia would have a key, right?” he asked. “From her dad?”

  “Why would he loan her the key?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  He went in, called Alicia’s name, but got no reply. Jessica went immediately up the stairs. To escape from the mental chill the long bedroom brought on, David checked the master suite, the den and bathroom. Empty. As were the dining room, screened-in porch, and kitchen. He returned to the entryway and nearly plowed into Jessica.

  “Jesus,” she said, a hand on her chest. “You scared me.”

  His heart was whamming too. “I should’ve gone up there with you.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “You should have.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You think she’s somewhere outside?” she asked.

  “It’s possible. We can— Hold on.”

  “What?”

  Wordlessly, he went out the front door, down the porch steps, around the front of the house to the western side. To the basement door.

  Which stood ajar.

  Jessica’s voice was thin. “Why would she go down there?”

  David shook his head faintly, stepped down the grassy incline to the door. It wasn’t wide open, but the gap was large enough to accommodate Alicia. He forced it open another few inches and squeezed through.

  Jessica entered behind him, asked, “Flashlight?”

  He reached into his cargo shorts, took out his iPhone, and activated the flashlight. She did the same with her phone. He scanned the walls, strafed the junk heaps with silvery light. Nothing different than it had been the first time he’d been down here. He was about to say so when Jessica said, “Look, David. The floor.”

  He followed her gaze. Saw tiny footprints – Ivy, from last night, presumably – and beside those….

  “Please tell me those are yours,” Jessica said.

  He shook his head, moved forward and placed his shoe in one of the prints. The print on the dank cellar floor dwarfed David’s shoe easily.

  “I wear thirteens,” he said. “Fourteens when I want to wiggle my toes.” He regarded the gigantic prints, of which there were several.

  A furtive scuttling sound from the rear of the cellar. David gasped, swung his iPhone in that direction but could make out nothing save old chairs and deflated rafts.

  “What if something happened to Alicia?” Jessica asked.

  David opened his mouth to answer, but the sight of the footprints stopped him. The tiny ones and the giant ones. He kept looking from one to the other, some thought, inchoate yet urgent, slowly crystallizing.

  Then he had it.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He went out, mounted the steps, and hastened through the front door. He didn’t give himself time to think, simply clattered up the stairs. He passed into the long bedroom and barely spared the four single beds a glance. Instead, he crossed to the trapdoor, reached up, and tugged on the rope. Some primitive region in his brain recoiled at the thought of ascending the ladder, but before he could lose his nerve, he gripped the handrail and climbed the ladder.

  He realized Alicia had been here.

  A canary-yellow box nested on the windowsill. Dots candy, the box open, with a blood smear on the flaps.

  There were other objects up here. A globe, a throne-like chair. Stacks of books and a rope dangling from a rafter.

  Jessica was calling his name from below, but D
avid didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. He could only pivot slowly toward the corner of the unfinished dormer, where he spotted an antique birch cane, upside down and resting on its curved handle.

  On the floor a few feet away, eyes and mouth sewn shut with black thread, was Alicia Templeton’s severed head.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Their flight to Ralph’s house was a dimly glimpsed nightmare. David had a foggy memory of encountering Jessica in the long bedroom, of convincing her they had to get out of the house, of her repeated questions and furrowed brow. He experienced a curious lack of sensory input as they moved down the lane. Jessica’s voice came through, but it was wrapped in cotton. There was no birdsong or river noise. He couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste, couldn’t even feel his feet. It was as though his body, besieged as it was by the horror of what he’d seen, had staged a strategic withdrawal, his essential self now holed up within some deep and protected enclave.

  Ralph, thank God, was pulling in just as they staggered into his drive, and seeing his cheerful expression morph into one of confusion helped rouse David from his stupor. Jessica did the talking, but then again, Jessica didn’t know what was in the third story of the Alexander House, and David wasn’t yet able to articulate it. It wasn’t until David called Harkless on Ralph’s landline and explained the abomination he’d encountered that Jessica and Ralph learned why he was so whey-faced.

  Harkless, a deputy, and two state cops showed up within ten minutes. The coroner arrived shortly after, and more official-looking men and women trickled in as evening encroached. To David’s dismay, he and Jessica were brought back to the Alexander House, but were at least spared reentering. Maybe they wanted to see David’s reaction as he was grilled about his activities that day. Maybe Harkless and the lead detective simply didn’t feel like tramping up and down the lane each time they had a question.

  The detective, whose hair was graying and receding, wore a half smile most of the time, but after the first twenty seconds of their interaction, David realized the smile conveyed nothing but suspicion.

  Q: What was your relationship with the deceased?

  A: I met her once at The Crawdad.

  Q: Were you attracted to her?

  A: Anyone would have been. She was gorgeous.

  Q: Were you jealous of her boyfriend?

  A: I didn’t know she had a boyfriend. But if I’d have known, I’d have envied him. Even if she was too young for me.

  Q: Did that make you mad? That she was too young for you?

  A: It made me feel old.

  Q: She rejected your overtures.

  A: There were no overtures. Sheriff Harkless was there most of the time.

  Q: What’d you talk about before Harkless showed up?

  A: Tombstone pizzas? Her father being caretaker of the Alexander House.

  Q: Ah, yes. The Alexander House. Why’d she show up here?

  A: Didn’t the message she sent Jessica explain that?

  Q: About the candy.

  A: Right.

  Q: I’m sorry, Mr. Caine, but why the hell would a luscious, nubile girl like Alicia drive all the way out here to bring you a box of candy?

  A: I don’t like the way you said that.

  Q: Hurt your pride, Mr. Caine?

  A: It isn’t that. You’re talking about her looks.

  Q: You found her sexy, didn’t you?

  A: Maybe you’re projecting.

  It went downhill from there. Harkless stepped in when it became apparent that David and the detective, whose name turned out to be Baldwin, despised each other.

  Harkless accompanied David to the southern shore, where they stood facing the Rappahannock. In the dying light, the water carried an unnatural purple hue.

  “I know you had nothing to do with this,” Harkless said in a toneless voice.

  David realized she’d been crying.

  “Good to hear,” he said.

  “But it doesn’t look promising. First, Ivy goes missing and turns out to have been hiding in your house…”

  “When I wasn’t there.”

  “…then Alicia is found dead in your house.”

  David stared at her. “It’s not my house. I’m only here a month.”

  “Don’t make any travel plans.”

  “I’m a suspect?”

  She waved him off, sighed. “How am I gonna tell her dad?”

  He looked at her. She was short to begin with, but tonight she looked even smaller than normal.

  “When does the notification usually happen?”

  She grunted. “An hour ago.”

  He regarded his sandals. He didn’t want to ask it, but he had to know.

  “You find her body yet?”

  “Hell, you’re gonna bring that up now?”

  “Sorry.”

  “No trace of it.”

  They turned at the sound of raised voices.

  To the east of the house, where the lawn began to merge with the weed-strewn vacant lot, Ralph Hooper was shouting at Baldwin, the detective. Jessica stood between the two men, uttering calming words to Ralph, but whatever they were, they weren’t working.

  Harkless and David hurried over and heard Baldwin saying, “…reaction is interesting, Hooper. I only asked you—”

  “—if I found the dead woman pretty,” Ralph interrupted. “Uh-huh, I know what you said, and I know what you mean. Am I some kind of depraved, dirty old man is what you’re really asking.”

  “Not at all,” Baldwin said in that same maddeningly reasonable tone. “But I do find your anger interesting.”

  “Of course you do,” Ralph barked. “You find the fact that I live alone interesting. The fact that I don’t have an alibi interesting.” His voice rose to a shout. “You’re just interested as shit, aren’t you?”

  Baldwin saw Harkless and David approaching and grinned his cheerless grin. “Come on over, Sheriff. We’re almost to the part where Mr. Hooper here lawyers up. That about right, Hooper?”

  “You can fuck right off,” Ralph growled.

  “Go home, Ralph,” Harkless said.

  Baldwin gaped at her. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

  “He’s not gonna run, and you know it,” Harkless said. She glanced at Ralph. “Are you?”

  Ralph blinked at Harkless, ran a shaking hand through his white hair. “Search my house if you need to. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “We’ll let you know,” Harkless said.

  Baldwin folded his arms. “Why are you protecting him, Sheriff? And why wasn’t I notified when the Shelby girl went missing?”

  “Another detective was closer,” she said. “Guess I didn’t realize how brokenhearted you’d be about the snub.”

  They continued bickering as Jessica led Ralph away, David following. He heard Baldwin ask, “Where are they going?”, but Harkless told him to chill out, and the rest was lost as another vehicle rumbled up the lane. A red GMC Jimmy, old but well maintained.

  Oh hell, David thought when he saw the driver. Alicia’s dad.

  By tacit agreement, the trio walked faster. David had no desire to witness Mr. Templeton’s reaction to his daughter’s murder.

  They reached Ralph’s yard and without discussing it, they ambled around the thicket so they’d be screened from the Alexander House. Once there, however, something occurred to David.

  “I can’t stay in that house tonight,” he said.

  “Georgia says forty-eight hours minimum,” Jessica agreed.

  David rasped a hand over his stubbly jaw. “All my stuff’s there. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”

  “I got a couple extra,” Ralph said.

  David glanced at him.

  “They’re still in the package,” Ralph added, looking a little insulted.

  * * *

&n
bsp; They dropped Jessica off, and when they returned to the highway, David remembered to check his iPhone. His email was choked with messages – nothing urgent – and there were seven missed calls, three of which were from Chris and Katherine.

  To hell with ’em, he decided.

  It was nearly 11:00. The Alexander House, they saw before they turned into Ralph’s drive, was lit up, the driveway resembling a used car lot during an end-of-summer sale.

  “They’re combing every inch of it,” Ralph said, his truck idling in the lane.

  “What time are we going over there?”

  Ralph turned in his seat to face David. “Come again?”

  “They’ll be there until well past midnight,” David said. “Maybe later.” He nodded. “We’ll get some sleep and head over there at four, before first light.”

  Ralph had drained of color. “Are you out of your goddamned mind? Of all the places on earth I least want to be, the Alexander House is number one by a sizeable margin.”

  “We need to set up my equipment.”

  Ralph squinted at him. “What equipment?”

  “My ghost-hunting stuff.”

  “I thought you believed all that was bunk.”

  “Part of me still does.”

  “But….”

  “But there comes a point when disbelief turns into stupidity.”

  “I’d say we got there quite a while ago.”

  For the first time since the gruesome discovery, David smiled.

  * * *

  David was consigned to the couch and dubious about his sleep prospects. Ralph emerged from the bathroom with a pair of white pills and a Dixie cup of water.

  “Ambien,” Ralph explained.

  David hesitated. “I hear this stuff makes people hallucinate. I don’t want to wake up sewing your mouth shut.”

  Ralph winced. “Jesus. Has anyone ever told you that you have a sick sense of humor?”

  “Every day,” David said and knocked back the pills.

  They didn’t give him hallucinations, but he did have a bad dream. In it, he was making love to Jessica, which should have been delightful, but before they reached climax, Jessica’s face became Anna’s. When he discovered this and attempted to apologize for the way he’d treated her, he found there wasn’t a body beneath him. He was addressing Anna’s severed head.