“You didn’t forget about him though, did you?”
“No,” she said quietly. “And look where I am now.”
“I don’t think you’re cursed, Keisha,” he said, and she wondered what someone like him could possibly know about it. He was a heavy-set man, old enough that the skin of his jaw hung in jowls, dragging him downward toward his grave. His aftershave was clean, not suffocating and floral like Billy’s. His accent was gruff and London, the words clipped and hard next to the sweet Savannah drawl, but oh, how she’d missed it. He was steady and sturdy and she doubted he dreamed. His name was Detective Sergeant Dexter.
“Tell us when you first saw him,” he said.
“He was a ghost in the night,” she said quietly, withdrawing back into her past, growing smaller as she remembered, the room around her fading. “I had just turned six. I remember because I didn’t have a birthday party. Uncle Yahuba’s cousin had come to visit and Auntie Ayo said I had to stay in my room and be quiet. I didn’t mind. I didn’t like him. He never smiled and he and Uncle Yahuba would get drunk on rum and talk until late. They sounded like tigers to me. One night I woke up upset. I’d been dreaming about my mother and it was the first time her face had been blurred and half-forgotten, and when I woke up I couldn’t picture her at all. It was the worst thing. I wanted to go to the sitting room and look at one of the old photos taken when they were all young that Auntie Ayo had on the wall. It wasn’t my mother’s face as I knew it, but it would be at least an image of her.”
It was strange how the memory she’d tried to repress for all these years came back so vividly. The damp smell of the house from having no central heating, only storage heaters that didn’t work well. The feel of the flock wallpaper under her fingers. The carpet beneath her bare feet swirling in garish patterns. “I was nervous—Auntie Ayo said I wasn’t allowed out of my room at night—she worked her best juju in the dark she said, and clients often came at midnight or later and wanted their privacy—and if I needed to pee there was a bucket in the corner of the room.” A black bucket that had stayed in Keisha’s room until she was thirteen and got her period. But by then, she would be fetching rum for the late-night visitors and taking their money while they waited; the bucket was no longer needed. She remembered how she’d felt when that had gone. Trusted. At last part of the family, even if there was no real love there.
“The house was silent and dark so I crept out, holding my breath until I was past the bedrooms and at the top of the stairs. I could hear Uncle Yahuba’s cousin snoring as I passed his door, but still I didn’t relax. I knew they’d beat me if I broke the rules. Uncle Yahuba liked to beat the devil out of me when I was wicked. Especially after the boy. I was halfway down the stairs when it happened.” Her breath caught with the clarity of the memory. The release of it.
“He just appeared in the corner of the downstairs hallway, stepping out of the deep shadows there. As if he’d walked through the wall. I nearly screamed but clutched my hand to my mouth and dropped to a crouch. He was small, I guess maybe my age, but not so tall as me, and he was so pale he glowed in the darkness. A ghost. He was a ghost, a spirit like Auntie Ayo would talk about. His skin was like a dead white man’s and even his tight curly hair was a snowy frosting on his head. He wore a white T-shirt and shorts even though it wasn’t warm and he had a burn scar up one arm. I stared at him, and he stared at me, and then he turned around and disappeared into the wall again.”
Dexter was scribbling notes down, although Keisha couldn’t see why any of it was important. “So this was the year 2004?” he asked, and Keisha nodded. “I guess so, if I was six.”
“And when is your birthday?”
“April fourth.”
Dexter paused. Another scribble. “How many times did you see the boy?”
“Seven. Over about a month, I guess. Not every night. Just now and then. I started to creep out to look for him when everyone was asleep. He never spoke and he never came up close, but we would just look at each other for a few moments before I’d run back to my room. The ghost boy in the walls, that’s what I thought of him as. I wondered why he always looked so sad. Sadder than me.” She paused. “I promised myself that I’d speak to him next time, but I never did. There was never a next time. And when I finally asked Auntie Ayo if she’d ever seen the ghost, she told me I was cursed.”
It made her want to cry. Cursed. Forever. And all because she saw a ghost.
62.
Marcie had put the ball back in the trunk, not knowing what else to do with it, and as she stared out at the hospital entrance through the pouring rain, she was sure that under the steady thrum of the purring engine she could hear it thumping against the trunk, demanding its release. It was a stupid thought. The ball was nothing, and she didn’t believe in voodoo, but still she shivered, remembering the feel of matted fur and blood and God only knew what else. It was disgusting.
She felt desolate and alone. She didn’t know why she’d come here. William couldn’t give her answers. William was simply another piece of the puzzle. Her, Keisha, Jason, and him, locked together in someone else’s game. Who was this actually about? All of them equally, or were some just disposable pawns around one main target? William, Keisha, and Jason were in some kind of torturous limbo, and Marcie was pretty sure that she was soon to join them. Someone had laid a bread-crumb trail for Anderson that led to her and she had no idea where the next blow would come from. Maybe she should run. She’d told Jason not to, and that hadn’t worked out so well for him. But how far would she get?
She was about to turn the car around and head home when a figure emerged through the hospital doors, head down against the steady rain. Marcie frowned as the person lifted her face for a second to see where she was going. She recognized that girl. But who was— Suddenly she had it. Of course! She leapt out of the car and ran, her drying clothes getting soaked again as she raced to catch up to the woman.
“Michelle!” She grabbed the young woman’s arm as she panted her name. Michelle from Michigan. The waitress at the club that William had taken a shine to and who’d then moved away. “I thought it was you.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed and she frowned for a moment before recognition dawned on her too. “Are you going to tell me I’m not allowed in too?”
“What? No, I was just surprised to see you. I didn’t know you were still close with William.”
“I’m not. She took care of that. But I heard what happened. I wanted to see him.” Her mouth tightened. “But apparently I can’t.”
“Who said you can’t?” And who took care of what?
“The nurse on reception wouldn’t let me in. She had instructions apparently. God, you’d think they’d have all gotten over our little fling now she’s dead.”
Marcie pulled the young woman into the shadow of the building, protecting them slightly from the rain. “What are you talking about? Now who’s dead?”
“The wife. The one who made me end it.” She stared at Marcie. “Wow, you really thought I went back to Michigan of my own accord? When I had a rich old guy who was sweet to me on a hook? Eleanor paid me to leave. She didn’t give me much choice, it was that or get fired from the club and be unemployable in the city.” Michelle shook her head.
“Eleanor knew about you and William?”
“She summoned me to the Browning room in the club to tell me she knew everything and she wouldn’t have me making a fool of her husband. Like some dying queen in her wheelchair, all powdered and perfect. She looked dead already. No wonder William was so repulsed by her.”
“Did William know she’d paid you off?” Marcie was starting to think that Michelle from Michigan and William would have made a delightful couple, each as mean as the other.
“Of course not. That was the other condition. I couldn’t say anything.” Michelle reached in her bag for a cigarette, taking three attempts to light it in the wet air. “I pitied her, so I took her money and went.”
No doubt planning to come back
after Eleanor had died and pick up where she’d left off, Marcie thought. But William headed off to Europe, probably because he’d forgotten Michelle already, and then came back married.
“But it seems you people bear grudges. All I wanted was to know he was okay.”
And to get your foot back in that door. “Well, he’s not,” Marcie said. “He’s blind and locked in and his organs have massively failed. So even if you’d snuck into his room you wouldn’t have gotten any conversation out of him.”
“I’m done with all of you,” Michelle said, smoking hard, barely listening. “Y’all think you’re so much better than everyone else.”
“Sounds like in your case, most people are.” Marcie turned and walked away, ignoring the muttered bitch that followed her. She didn’t care what the girl thought of her. She didn’t care that the rain was soaking her to her skin again. Things were finally slotting into place.
Eleanor.
Everything came back to Eleanor. William had cheated on her when she was dying, and now he was half-dead. Jason had tried to steal from her, and she’d suspected that he’d been involved in the death of his father, Eleanor’s friend. Now he was going to prison for one crime and might be charged with murder yet. Keisha was William’s new wife. Married him for money, and now she was in a cell with nothing. But what about Marcie herself? Where did she fit in?
One thought overrode all her questions as she raced her car back out onto the street. Eleanor was dead and buried. She couldn’t be doing this. Someone else was doing it on her behalf. But who?
Eleanor. Sweet, elegant Eleanor. Ghosts would always have their vengeance.
63.
The main gates had been left open this time and Marcie parked beside Iris’s Mercedes before getting out and darting up the front steps before the rain could fully soak her all over again. Her heart was racing. Once again she was back at William Radford’s house. This time she wanted answers.
“I wondered if you might need some food,” Marcie said, holding up the deli bag as Iris opened the door. “I brought a bottle of wine too.”
“How thoughtful of you, dear.” After a moment Iris’s surprise faded and she stepped aside and let Marcie in. There was no sign of Zelda. The main lights were off, only two table lamps glowing in the vast hallway, and Marcie shivered as she glanced up at the portrait of Eleanor still up on the wall, watching them in the gloom. “Must be strange being here alone,” she said.
“Actually I find it quite comforting. And Eleanor’s things are a treasure trove of memories to me. So much old history half-forgotten.” She gave Marcie an odd smile and started up the stairs. “Why don’t you go put that food in the kitchen and come and see if you’d like.” She didn’t look back as she glided up the sweeping staircase, and with a racing heart, Marcie did as she was told. She put the bag of cold cuts and cheese in the fridge—no coconut waters in there now—and left the French bread on the side.
She poured two glasses of wine and took a sip from one to steady her nerves. Iris was Eleanor’s oldest friend, everyone knew that. She’d cared for her throughout her illness. They’d been side by side since childhood. If anyone was taking revenge for Eleanor it had to be Iris.
Marcie crept up the stairs, as if afraid of waking the ghosts, and followed the pale-yellow beam that led to Eleanor’s bedroom. Iris was sitting on the bed, a small valise tipped out empty beside her—a collection of old photos.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the glass.
“You should put more lights on,” Marcie said. “Don’t you think it’s creepy?”
“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Iris said. “As you get older you have to make your peace with it.”
Marcie thought of the disgusting black ball in the trunk of the car. “I meant to ask.” She perched on the mattress. “Did Midge ever show up?” Iris’s missing cat, all black fur and yellow eyes.
“No,” Iris said, distracted, sifting through pictures. “Sadly not. He was old. Noah says he probably crawled away to die somewhere.”
Marcie could still feel the cold rough fur under her fingertips, matted in the earth and blood. Had Iris strangled Midge before skinning him? Marcie shivered. Here in the house, it felt as if she and Iris were the last people alive. Anything could happen and no one would hear them.
“Look at this.” Iris held up a photo. “How young we were. I must have been maybe sixteen and Eleanor thirteen. Those three years made such a difference back then.” She laughed gently. “Now three years is simply the bat of an eyelid.”
“She must have been like a sister to you.”
“I suppose yes, she was.”
Marcie scanned the photos. Iris had been organizing them into groups according to age: childhood to glorious youth, and then family and friends, and then just family. The last two sections weren’t spread out but stacked up. They weren’t such treasure, too recent to hold any surprises.
“I miss her every day,” Iris continued. “Getting old is no fun, Marcie. Whatever your problems now, at least you have youth.”
Iris was still looking at the pictures. Whatever her problems? What was happening here? Was Iris playing innocent and waiting for the police to follow whatever trail she’d laid to Marcie? Didn’t she want her to know she was responsible for it all?
“Oh my, look at these short trousers,” Iris said, passing one old photo over. It was from the childhood spread. “Emmett was such a funny-looking boy.”
“Emmett?” Marcie took the photo and looked more closely. Even as a boy, he was wearing glasses, perched high up on his nose.
“He grew up with us as well. You know how close this community is. It was a lot tighter back then. Our parents were far more conservative than we are. Society mattered more to them. Your name. Your money. Your history.”
Marcie frowned, moving through several of the pictures. The same faces came up in all of them. History rewriting itself in her head. Ghosts of people they used to be. Eleanor, Iris, Emmett, and another girl. Marcie looked more closely. She was stocky with mad dark curls. Not quite filled with the confidence the others had and her clothes didn’t quite fit right. Marcie knew that look from her own childhood. Hand-me-downs.
Sometimes the girl was playing with Eleanor, in one she was laughing on a swing with Emmett. All of them aging through the glossy paper, from children to awkward teens, Eleanor blossoming into a beauty, each taking turns in front of the camera. In each image, somewhere in the background, a tall black woman was watching over them. A very tall black woman. Marcie’s breath caught.
“Who’s that?” she asked, pointing at her.
Iris’s face broke into a grin. “Oh, that was Eleanor’s nanny. Well, nanny and maid, really. Mama L we called her.” She smiled. “Elizabeth’s mother. That’s why Elizabeth was always with us. She lived there, with Mama L. My, we all loved Mama L. She came from New Orleans and seemed so fascinating. Dyed her hair orange once and, well, Eleanor’s mother nearly died at the shock of it. She’d teach us girls love spells and charms. Told us that she was a voodoo queen.” Iris laughed softly as if it had been a fairy tale. “My, how we missed her when they had to leave. I do believe that Eleanor loved Mama L more than her own mother.”
“Mama L was Elizabeth’s mother?” Marcie’s throat had dried. The little girl in the hand-me-downs. Elizabeth.
“Now, Elizabeth really was like Eleanor’s little sister. They adored each other. And poor Emmett of course, well, he was the reason Elizabeth and her mother had to leave.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was very taken with Elizabeth. To be fair, she was very taken with him too. They were only children really, and it was harmless, but they were inseparable and it was enough to worry his parents. Not only because she had colored blood in her, although that would have been reason enough—as I said they were different times—but his parents already had their eyes on Virginia for Emmett and they shared their concerns with Eleanor’s father, and so Mama L was let go. She moved back to New Orleans
, I believe. But Eleanor refused to be separated from Elizabeth for long, and as soon as she could, she called Elizabeth back and hired her as her assistant. I’m pretty sure she sent money to Mama L from time to time too.” She sighed. “They were such halcyon days when we were young and free.”
Marcie’s head was spinning and the world once again flipped and presented itself from a new angle. She pulled out her cell phone and tapped at the screen as if there were a message there. “Oh shoot,” she said. “I have to run. Something’s come up.” Iris already forgotten, she hurried out of the house and back to the car.
She sat inside for a moment, before googling for the last pieces of the puzzle, and then after collecting her thoughts, she started to drive. Her phone rang as she turned toward the hospital. Anderson. She canceled the call and turned off her cell. That could wait. If she was going to prison, she wanted to understand why.
64.
Keisha was so tired. They’d been talking all day and all she wanted to do was sleep.
“I don’t understand why you came all the way here to ask me about a ghost I saw as a child. A boy who was never there,” she said. Billy was half-dead, the American police thought she was part of it, and yet here they were still talking about something that was just her madness, asking for detail after detail until she was exhausted. As if she could remember it all, when she’d spent so long trying to forget. The questions about Auntie Ayo and Uncle Yahuba and his cousin were easier and she’d answered them as well as she could, but they’d been talking all day and she just wanted to sleep.
She’d been back in her cell for only an hour and now Dexter was here again. More questions no doubt. She didn’t care. She was too tired to be afraid anymore.
“I think the boy was there, Keisha.” Dexter reached down into his battered briefcase and pulled out a file. “In May of 2004, a boy’s torso was pulled from the Thames. Approximately six years of age, he’d been mutilated and his organs were missing. A day later an arm was also recovered. That arm had a burn scar running up it.” He opened the file and pushed a photograph across the table. It was a close-up, and Keisha almost gasped. It was the same scar, she knew it.
Dead to Her Page 31
