by Mary Bowers
“Who’s there?”
“The whole damn crew. Everybody! Sound tech, videographer – hell, the whole phony bunch is running around with cameras – and Teddy’s here! It’s The Realm of the Shadows gang. They’re all trying to get onto the property, and we can’t hold them off much longer!”
“The reality show people? That ghost-hunter show?” I said, and this time I did get out of the booth and stand up.
“Just get here!” he cried before hanging on up me.
I looked at DeAnn in shock, only because she happened to be standing in front of me holding our lunch plates.
“Right,” she said calmly. “I’ll just get some go-boxes for ya.”
I don’t remember the drive from Tropical Breeze to Cadbury House, but by the time we pulled up to the house, my grilled cheese sandwich was gone and my lips were greasy, so I must’ve eaten. The three-and-a-half mile drive over dirt road from Old King’s Road to the house was agony, and I drove it too fast, bottoming my Ford Escape two or three times. When we finally made the last turn that brought the house into view, I braked and came to a complete stop.
I was used to seeing the dark, elegant house sitting in quiet splendor, its pitched roof covering house, balconies and veranda alike in cool shadows.
Now there were a lot of strange vehicles parked randomly in front – two nondescript sedans, an open Jeep with pink camouflage seat covers, a sleek little black sports car with an oval magnetic logo on the doors that said “RTS” in spooky letters, and a huge van that had been covered in a vehicle wrap depicting the cast of the show, Realm of the Shadows. I had seen it before, but never in person, only on TV. I knew the cargo hold of the van was crammed with technical-looking equipment with lots of cool little blinking lights and dials and stuff, which I was pretty sure were as scientifically useful as a string of Christmas lights. The focus, whenever the cast was shown in the truck, was always a computer and a machine with an oscillary wave going ziggy with what they eventually decided were the moans of a ghost.
I looked at Michael in the passenger seat and he looked back at me. Bless him, he’s not just my lover and a champion of my animal shelter, he’s a lawyer. A retired lawyer, but still. And one of his last remaining long-time clients happened to be my landlord, the owner of Cadbury House. On behalf of his client, he could legally and enthusiastically throw these bums off the property and then hit them with a string of legalese that would have them staggering backward for half a mile before they turned to run.
I was saddled up for action and ready to draw my saber and charge, (figuratively speaking), but Michael put a hand on my arm and held me back.
“Now, Taylor,” he said in the voice of reason, “let me do the talking.”
“Yes sir,” I said. “And then if they don’t move fast enough, can I legally kick their asses over the moon?”
He grinned. “That’s my little girl.”
“Let’s go get ‘em outta there.”
I may be a green-eyed blond, but I’m a tall one, and I’ve had my self-defense classes. Back in Chicago, when I was in my early twenties and the kind of willowy blond who needs fighting skills just to get a drink at the bar, I could throw a man down, step over him and fetch myself a Cuba Libra without messing up the bouffant hairdo. I hadn’t tested my battle skills in a while, but the adrenaline was pumping and I must’ve had my stride on, because all arguing stopped and everybody stood down as Michael and I came into view and advanced upon the yard. Some of them even stepped back.
“Gentlemen,” Michael said, forestalling my battle cry, “I’m Michael Utley, I’m an attorney, and the legal owner of this property is my client. Now. What’s going on here?”
Not the way I would’ve put it, but probably better than the wild screams I was ready to cut loose with.
I was damn proud of Michael. I was used to seeing him eating cheeseburgers at the diner, or tickling the chins of kittens over at the shelter. I didn’t often get to see him being lawyerly. There he was in sandals, cargo shorts and a shirt with parrots all over it, but the inner man outshone the outer clothing: he might as well have been wearing a thousand-dollar suit and carrying a briefcase.
A man I recognized as Teddy Force, lead ghost-hunter of the show, ambled across the stretch of lawn between us, just a tall, friendly guy getting his handsome face assembled into a dimpled smile, sure he was about to charm the starch out of us. We glared.
“Michael, nice to meet you! And you must be Taylor Verone. I must tell you, Taylor, I’ve admired your work for years, the way you built a shelter for animals single-handedly, a woman alone, and the way you’ve run it as a first-class operation ever since. Good job. We’re all big animal lovers at Realm of the Shadows, you know. Big time animal lovers. Dogs and cats and stuff. Love ‘em.”
I was pretty sure he’d never heard of me before his people had briefed him, and I wasn’t impressed.
Teddy Force is a tall man, about six-foot three, and he had come right up to us and tried to shake hands, so he was uncomfortably close to us. He had unusual, frosty green eyes and raven black hair, straight, shiny and slightly too long, which he flipped around a lot on the show. His eyes were such an odd color that I looked closely to see if he was wearing colored contact lenses. He wasn’t, but he misinterpreted my deep gaze for an instant attraction, which irritated me even more. He is good looking, and he must spend hours a day working out, because he has the kind of bulging muscles that make him look like he’s about to pop right out of his clothes. Not my type.
“What are you doing here?” I said, and once again, Michael put a hand on my arm, taking over.
“Now I know you haven’t got the owner’s permission to be here, because he’s out of touch on another continent just now. So by whose authority are you trespassing on private property?”
“This is private property?” he said, all innocent-like. “We didn’t realize. If you’ll just put us in touch with your client –“
“Don’t even try it,” I said. “You know damn well this is private property. Most people just driving down the road don’t even realize this place is here, so you must know all about Cadbury House. I have a rental contract, and even if the owner does give you permission, I won’t.”
“I’ve been telling him that ever since his trucks arrived and they swarmed the place,” Ed said, piping up from somewhere behind Teddy. Big and broad as Teddy Force was, I hadn’t seen Ed coming up.
“You have to understand,” Teddy said, sliding into unctuousness, “that when we hear of a haunting, we have to respond. It’s a duty. And in the short time I’ve been here, I already sense psychic activity. I can feel it. This time it’s for real.” He had turned to gaze into the mystical distance, somewhere in the direction of the river. Then he turned back to us, preening. “You’ve seen the show?”
“Never heard of it,” Michael said.
Teddy was unfazed. “We’re filming in St. Augustine just now. Do you realize that you’re living just down the coast from one of the most haunted cities in the world today? The lighthouse is the single most haunted place in America!”
“You stay away from the lighthouse!” Ed roared before Michael or I could say anything. “You’ve bothered the entities there enough, with all your cameras and your doofus sidekicks and your drinking and messing around with that tramp you drag around –“
“I beg your pardon,” said the tramp, joining the fray.
Still unfazed, Teddy turned to her and said, “This is my costar, Jazz Lee.”
“Your bimbo, you mean,” Ed said, looking right at her.
The bimbo turned and gave Ed an acid smile. She was dressed in a black pencil skirt and spike heels, which I was amused to see were sinking into the sand. Her filmy white blouse was looking droopy and damp, and so was her unnaturally black hair. She had a very small face – cute, if you like the waif look – and was wearing New York red lipstick, which made her nasty smile so much more effective. She was wearing thin, black-framed, naughty-intellectual glasses,
and behind them, her eyeliner was so black and all- around- her-eyes that she might have been a silent film actress.
“On the catwalk!” Ed went on, his voice rising, “Right on the catwalk of the lighthouse, under a full moon. Really, Teddy? Way up high in the air where anybody with a telescope – and there are people with telescopes around here, you know, looking at ships and – stuff – and could see you two hopping around –“
“It was an experiment,” Teddy said with astonishing dignity. “I thought perhaps the primitive energy of –“
“Oh, just stop!” Ed said, and he actually covered his ears, maybe so he couldn’t hear Teddy, maybe so his head wouldn’t explode. “Nobody’s buying it. The presences in the lighthouse – they have dignity! They have rights. They were nice folks and they still are, especially the girls. Then you go stomping around hamming it up for the camera through an infrared filter – and just for your information, infrared does not make your eyes hypnotic –“
“Who told you that?” he shouted.
“That producer who quit when you grabbed her knockers. Oh! Sorry Taylor.”
“I’ll sue her!” Teddy roared.
“Aren’t we straying from the point here?” I interjected. I looked at Michael and saw traces of mirth, which he quickly swallowed when he saw me looking.
Charlie had come up by then, armed with an impressive two-foot wrench. “I swear to God, if they try to get to her . . . .”
I did a double-take, but I had too much else on my mind at the moment to consider his attitude. Just at that stage of things, I was glad to have reinforcements. I peeked around the massive reality show star to see what else was behind him, and there were members of Charlie’s crew holding Teddy’s crew at bay in a line that kept them back from the barn and the cemetery, both.
“Just what are you trying to accomplish here?” I asked.
“I thought I’d explained that,” he said, focusing on me and getting smarmy again. I imagine some women actually fall for him. “We’re in the area investigating a historically haunted site, and we heard about the activity here at Chattsworth Villa.”
“It’s Cadbury House,” I said.
“Right. The Cadburys,” he said, trying to smooth me along and get something out of me. “They had great wealth and influence, didn’t they? Was that because of stolen treasure from an ancient tomb?”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Michael, will you hit him with a habeas corpus or something? Get rid of him!”
“I am ordering you off this property,” Michael intoned, as if he were uttering magic words.
They did the trick. The assembly of stars, groupies and goofballs began to straggle toward their trucks.
“All right,” one of them called, “but you can’t keep this thing under wraps forever. Sooner or later, you’re going to need us. A haunting can’t be denied or ignored.” I noticed that the cameras were rolling.
Teddy was pleased. “When the time comes,” he said to me as if we were alone, “call me. I’m here to help.”
“You’re nothing but a ghost ‘ho’,” Ed snapped. “You’ll do anything to get your face on TV.”
Teddy turned to him as if he’d waited for this moment. “Cute. Just for your information, little fella, do you happen to know what we call you in the real paranormal community? Edson Darby-Deaver, the Unbeliever. Because you never met a ghost you couldn’t deny.”
Laughter erupted around the show’s vehicles.
Ed looked as if he’d been slapped. He turned red. He rose within himself with quiet dignity. “I’ve heard. Just because I’m not a fool for a luminous orb that’s really a shaft of light reflecting off somebody’s earring doesn’t mean I don’t have an open mind.”
“Don’t let your mind get too open,” Teddy said, composing his exit line on the fly. “It might just fall out.”
The cameras caught it, and the videographer looked around the viewfinder at Teddy and gave him a thumb’s up.
As I expected, Teddy got into the sexy sports car with the little logo, and Jazz mounted the pink camouflage driver’s seat of the Jeep. A dumpy little guy got into the company van and the others sorted themselves into their vehicles and they all drove away. We watched the caravan of vehicles until they were out of sight and we were sure they weren’t coming back. Then the tension broke, and I took a look around the yard. I could already see trash they’d left behind: a cup from a fast foot joint, an empty plastic bag, and down at my feet, cigarette butts. Charlie was scrupulous about his crew’s behavior, and I knew it hadn’t been his guys. Nothing like that had been left around during the time they’d been working for us. I was too angry to deal with it then. We retreated to the house and passed out the iced teas, wine and beer. I figured the crew deserved a cold one after defending the property like a tool-belted platoon.
Michael toasted Ed, Charlie and the crew, saying, “Well done, men,” then took a sip of his wine.
“Yes.” I saluted with my iced tea. “Thank you so much. Ed, have you ever met that phony in person before?”
“We’ve run into one another at various conferences. I did a panel on Spirit Photography with him once. But ever since the incident with the poltergeist, we’ve been – um – at odds.”
“What poltergeist?” I asked.
One of the crewmen spoke up over his beer. “Mr. D-D here made a fool of Teddy, and there’s been bad blood between them ever since.”
The men laughed. I was mystified. “What was that all about?” I asked, hiking myself up on a tall chair at the breakfast bar.
“You don’t watch that show?”
I gave him a withering look. “Not voluntarily. They had it on one of the TVs over at The Oasis one time, and I couldn’t believe it.”
“Nobody really watches it, except to laugh,” the man told me. He was one of the electricians – what was his name? – Paul.
“Tell me more, Paul,” I said, since Ed obviously didn’t want to talk about it.
“It was his biggest ‘get’ – the internet blew up, and it looked like ol’ Teddy might even go main stream. They said he was negotiating with one of the big networks for a really big production-type show. Then Mr. D-D, here proved that it was all a hoax by a very-much alive 11-year old girl living in the house, who was just throwing things around and dropping stuff she had hidden in her clothes. She’d be like, ‘What’s that over there?’ and while everybody looked away, a lamp would fall over two feet away from her. Teddy Force got outwitted by an 11-year old. He nearly lost his show.”
“But they’ve got cameras and crew members all over the place when they’re filming,” I said. “Didn’t anybody catch her?”
“They didn’t want to catch her,” Blake said. (He’s one of the carpenters.)
Ed reluctantly spoke up. “I think Teddy’s for real – I mean, I think he thinks it’s all real. As for his crew, I think they just hide their tricks from him, and he’s either fooled by it, or he turns a blind eye. I never wanted to interfere with his show. But the story was so big I had to investigate, and when I found out the truth I had to report it. I never thought his TV contract would be in jeopardy. I just assumed they knew the show was fake and didn’t care, as long as it got ratings.”
“He did this apology show,” Tripp said, picking up the story. “Cried and everything, just like a televangelist, going on and on about his commitment to bringing the restless dead to their eternal sleep, or some bull – some nonsense. He managed to keep his show, but the ratings went away. He’s sort of on probation now, I heard. They might renew the show and they might not. So he needs another big story or he’s toast. That’s probably why he ran over here as soon as word started getting around. He’s desperate.”
“I blame myself,” Ed said, and everybody turned to him. He’d taken a glass of wine, and I could already see that he shouldn’t have. He was getting morose. “When I was a kid, I took up magic. I mean, I started doing magic tricks. You know – just for fun. I started thinking in terms of misdirection, manipulation �
�� fooling people. It became a habit of the mind – analyzing how tricks are done – being skeptical. Now I can’t stop it, and I guess I don’t want to. I don’t want to be fooled. I want to be inspired. I want the real thing. But, it’s been so long. I’m beginning to think –“
He couldn’t go on.
I slid off my barstool and went to him, taking his wineglass. “Let me get you some coffee, Ed.”
“Listen folks,” Charlie said, and everybody settled and gave him their attention. “Those fools aren’t just going to go away. That man is looking for redemption, and if he gets ahold of what’s going on here, he won’t quit. We need to work out a schedule to keep a watch. They’re most likely to come sneaking around at night.”
The men all began to shuffle around and mutter excuses, and I couldn’t blame them. They worked all day, and didn’t want to stay up fending off ghost-hunters all night.
“I’ll be here,” I said, making an instant decision. “I’ll move into the house. I may as well; I’m renting it already.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Michael said.
Some of the men grinned like high-school kids, but most of them behaved like adults.
“Good,” I said. I, too, behaved like an adult. But I felt like a high-school kid.
“And I’ll take the cemetery,” Ed said. “I’ve been staking it out at night anyway.”
“I’ll take the barn,” Charlie said grimly.
“Charlie!” I said. “You can’t work all day and then guard the barn all night. When are you going to sleep? And do you really want to be out there alone at night after – you know – after that thing happened?”
“He won’t be alone,” Tripp piped up. “I’m coming with him. We’ll camp out in the barn. We haven’t gone camping in a while, right Dad?”
Charlie gazed at his son with pride.
As if they’d been shamed into it, some of the men said they’d try to stay some of the nights, and we had our night watch assembled.
They finished their beers and got back to work. The men still wouldn’t go into the barn, but I had asked them to make some modifications to the old servants’ cabins so we could at least start moving the cats. I had a plan for sorting them into groups: adoptables, ferals, and separately, feline AIDS.
