by Krista Walsh
“Have a seat. He’ll see you when he’s free,” was all she said, with barely a glance in Daphne’s direction. Then she returned to the papers on her desk, shuffling them around and moving them to the table behind her.
Daphne dropped into a padded black chair against the wall, crossed one gray-clad knee over the other, and reached into her purse for a stick of gum. She rarely chewed gum, but always made sure to keep some on hand for situations such as her current one. She champed down and waited until the gum was soft before blowing out a large pink bubble. When it grew to a sufficient size, she popped it and drew the remains back into her mouth. The woman behind the desk flinched, but never lifted her eyes from her work.
In spite of the lack of outward reaction, Daphne’s strategy paid off. Two bubbles later, the woman picked up her phone and whispered something.
A minute afterward, the door to the office opened, and a large man in a dark gray tailored suit with a bright red tie stepped into the reception area. By the soft creases on his face and the sag under his chin, Daphne would have placed him around sixty years old if his public records hadn’t noted him as eighty-two. A close-trimmed beard — dark brown, almost black, with no trace of gray — lined his square jaw, shaved into sharp angles around the lips. He reminded Daphne of an animated villain.
A wave of red-tinted magic struck against the shield wrapped around hers from ten feet away, and a chill tightened the skin between her shoulderblades. She clung to her shield and tried to place the source of his magic, but the energy was unfamiliar.
“Ms. Heartstone?” he asked.
In a practiced gesture, Daphne sneaked her gum into a tissue and stood up with her hand extended and a bright smile on her face. “Daphne, please. Mr. Ancowitz?”
“That’s right,” he replied with no hint of a smile in return. He and his assistant were clearly a perfect match. “Come this way.”
As she followed him into his office, he said, “I only have a few moments to spare, so if we could get straight to the matter, I would appreciate it.”
“Of course,” she replied, and sank into a chair that matched the others in the reception area.
A frown passed over Charles’s stern features, and she guessed he’d hoped she didn’t intend to stay long enough to sit down. She waited until he settled in his larger leather chair before continuing.
“I’m gathering information on the history of Peony House,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard about last night’s events.”
“My lawyers have advised me not to speak on the subject with anyone other than the police,” Charles replied.
Daphne nodded. “I understand that. Fortunately for me, I’m not looking to speak with you about the murder. Until the police release more information to the press, there’s not much of a story for me to write, so I thought I’d put together an exposé on the history of the hospital. Something to keep the readers interested while we wait for more information.”
The man huffed and reclined in his chair, resting his folded hands on the desk. “That house has been a burden on my family for decades. I’ve been on the board of directors for sixty years, and not one day has passed that I haven’t recommended tearing down the building and selling the property.”
“Why the urgency?” she asked. “Is there something wrong with the building?”
He shifted in his seat, his small black eyes narrowing. “Wrong? Everything is wrong. The damned place was built in eighteen-ten with only a string of caretakers to keep it standing. They made sure the surface looked nice and that the day-to-day went smoothly, but the foundation is cracked and is slowly sinking, and God only knows how much damage the squatters are doing. The whole place is a lawsuit waiting to happen if the roof falls in on them.”
Daphne inclined her head. “Then perhaps a story about Peony House is exactly what you need. An article about the difficulty of maintaining a heritage building, and the tragedy of a once-great house falling into disrepair. It could raise the estate’s profile, bring it back onto the city council’s agenda if you wanted.”
Charles tapped his thumb against the back of his hand and his gaze slipped over her shoulder as he lost himself in thought.
Seeing the opportunity, she pressed the point. “If you had the name of the architect, or still have any old maintenance records on file, I could figure out an assessment of what it would cost the city to repair the house against the cost of tearing it down.”
A slight glimmer of interest rose from the depths of Charles’s dark eyes, and he shifted his attention back to Daphne. “I don’t have much love for the media, Ms. Heartstone. I would hate for the reputation of my family to be tarnished in any way.”
She held up her hands in defense. “From everything I’ve heard about Peony House, it was a benefit to society in its time, and I wouldn’t want to take away from that. If anything, your desire to keep people safe with its removal would be seen as continued care and interest in your community.”
She drew in a quick breath and held it as she waited for Charles to respond. He continued to stare at her with an impassive face, giving her no idea on which side he would fall.
If she could get her hands on the maintenance records, she could dig into whether something in the foundation or the construction of the building itself had been part of the nasty energy she’d felt. But it wouldn’t do to appear too anxious, so she forced herself to relax and offered a small smile — one that suggested his agreement would make them co-conspirators in having one of his greatest burdens taken off his hands.
Charles hmphed. He picked up his phone, and Daphne’s heart thudded against her ribs in anticipation. He met her gaze with a hard stare. “I will hold you to that agreement.” She nodded, releasing the breath she’d taken, and he pressed his cheek into the phone. “Eliza, put together copies of the Peony House maintenance records, will you? Ms. Heartstone requires them on her way out.” He hung up and crossed his hands on the table. “If this story of yours works, it would be a great weight off my mind.”
“Of course,” said Daphne. With her tone sympathetic, she conveyed her understanding of the busy businessman stuck with an asset that was more trouble than it was worth. She was his ally in a mutually beneficial arrangement. “It would be great to make sure no other lives are lost under that roof. Either by criminal or more mysterious means.”
And once the rapport is created, pitch the hardball and see how he swings.
In reaction to her comment, the tension that had faded a few degrees over the course of their conversation returned, and the lines around his eyes tightened.
“What do you mean, ‘mysterious’?”
Daphne kept her smile light. “Just a few items I picked up in reading the public history of Peony House. Over twenty-one patients died by unknown causes in the sixty years the hospital was open.”
The beefy hands on the desk squeezed in on each other, turning the thick knuckles white, but Charles’ face remained calm.
“I have no idea what you mean. Peony House was a hospital, Ms. Heartstone. Undoubtedly, there will have been some errors made over the years and some tragic accidents, but nothing like a Doctor Death, as you seem to be suggesting.”
Daphne widened her smile and shrugged her shoulders dismissively. It wouldn’t do to set him against her now that she’d made some progress. His response told her more than he’d likely intended it to. This mention of the twenty-one patients wasn’t the first time he’d heard of it. “It’s probably just an urban legend, but a compelling one. Don’t worry, I don’t intend for the ‘curse’ to feature in the article.”
She made air quotes with her index fingers to demonstrate her scorn for the theory, and once more Charles’s tension ebbed, although he looked none the pleasanter for the change.
The phone rang, and Charles snatched it up. “What? Of course. I’ll be out in a minute.”
He hung up, and Daphne took the hint. She rose to her feet and extended her hand. “Thanks for taking the time. I know you’r
e a busy man.”
He took her offered hand and his red-tinted magic buzzed over her skin. She clung to him as long as social dictates allowed, wanting to remember the sensation so she could dig through her mental filing system later. It tingled through her in a way she couldn’t remember encountering before.
His projection of a confident businessman made his inhuman side difficult to spot, but the shield around his otherness was too defined for Daphne to believe it to be accidental. He knew what he was.
And his humanity wasn’t the only thing he was lying about. She wished she had more time to ask him deeper questions, but she already knew the closing of the hospital had nothing to do with the cost of renovations. Charles Ancowitz knew something about those prior deaths, and she was determined to find out what.
***
After finishing with Charles, Daphne took the thick cream-colored folders off Eliza’s hands and drove home. As she made her way upstairs, the sound of her mother belting out a classic rock song in the living room drew her back down, and she knocked on the door with her elbow.
Cheryl answered a few moments later, her blond pixie cut wrapped up in a bandanna and a broom in her hand. Her green sweater hugged the pudge of her fifty-one years.
“Oh, hello, dear,” she said, and stepped aside. “I was just doing the sweeping. What on earth are you carrying around?”
Daphne dumped the file folders on the coffee table. Benji, the Maine Coon her mother had brought in from the streets, stood on his massive back paws at the edge of the table and batted at the papers. She shooed him away and he disappeared into the kitchen, his tail held high.
“They’re supposed to be maintenance records of Peony House. I haven’t gone through them yet.”
“What do you need those for?” Cheryl asked. She sat down and flipped a file open. The first page showed a picture of the house when it was first converted. “Beautiful place.”
Daphne filled her in on what Harold had told her, and Cheryl’s mouth turned down in sadness. “How heartbreaking. So many lives lost, and at what cost? What do you think did it?”
Daphne frowned. “I haven’t the faintest. It sounds like the house itself had an effect on the minds of the people who stayed there. I thought if I looked through the architectural and maintenance reports, I might find something behind it.”
“You’re thinking the architect might have cast a spell on the foundation?”
“It’s one theory.” She sighed and threw herself into the couch. “Not a very good one, because cursed or not, I don’t see how a house could glue someone’s mouth shut.”
Cheryl shuddered. “No, but if it drives people mad, someone else might have.”
Daphne pressed her palms into her eye sockets. “If a human being killed that boy, the police will figure it out. I need to focus on what’s causing the real damage. I need to go back to the house.”
“To do what?” Cheryl asked, and the sudden suspicion in her voice told Daphne she had already guessed what her daughter intended to do.
“I need to see if I can talk to the ghosts.”
Her mother crossed her arms. “You know how I feel about that.”
Cheryl had witnessed Daphne at her worst, when necromancy had been her focus. Daphne was ashamed to remember the fights they’d had, but that shame wouldn’t deter her from doing what was right.
“My intentions are good this time, Mom. I just want to talk to them. To find out what they know. If they know how they died, I could wrap up this story tonight. I promise, that’s all I plan to do. I got the feeling they need to talk. They didn’t seem settled.”
“What if they’re hostile, Daphne?” Cheryl asked. “You said yourself the house’s energy was negative. If they’re the cause, they might come after you. You’ll have to protect yourself.”
“And I will. I’ll test the air, and if I sense any threat, I’ll bind my mind, all right? I’m not running into this headlong.”
Cheryl sniffed. “That’s a better answer than the ones you used to give me. But it might not be enough. What did you sense from them when you were there?”
Daphne frowned and rubbed the back of her neck before looking at her mother. “Fear.”
Her mother eyed her, then her shoulders drooped with a sigh as she leaned forward on her knees. “Fine. So the real question is — what could they be afraid of?”
Daphne shook her head and chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. “I don’t know. But what if the house’s negative energy isn’t theirs? What if it’s caused by whatever killed them or whatever’s keeping them there? What if the energy I’m picking up is the curse of the house itself?”
Cheryl released a groan of frustration. “All right, I understand why you need to check it out. But you’re not going until after you have some ziti.”
Daphne checked her watch. “It’s only three-thirty. Way too early for ziti.”
“If you leave now, I won’t see you again until tomorrow. At least if you eat early, I’ll know you ate something.”
She rose to her feet and Daphne followed, taking her file folders with her. “I’m really not hungry right now, Mom. I’ll be back later. I promise.”
Cheryl sniffed and reached for her broom. “We’ll see.”
Daphne kissed her cheek and went upstairs to her apartment to dive into the maintenance records.
***
After hours of reading, Daphne had learned nothing except that the architect was likely not involved. One of the most highly reputable architects of his time, he’d built half the estates around New Haven. Unless all of the houses were cursed and were better at hiding their secrets, Daphne guessed he’d had nothing to do with Peony House either.
Another dead lead.
She skimmed through page after page, and each new item of non-information disheartened her. She was about to flip through the final handful of papers when the title of one page caught her attention.
The ownership history.
Her heart leapt in her chest, and her eyes traveled faster across the page than her brain could process, so she forced herself to start at the top and go through it slowly.
“Built in 1810 by the wealthy banking Ancowitz patriarch, Simon, on his arrival in New Haven,” she read aloud. “Wife Margaret, two daughters, Julia and Katherine, and one son, Thomas. Julia married a rich oil baron in Texas, and Thomas the daughter of a logging baron in Ontario, Canada. Katherine was declared insane and died at thirty-six years old, a spinster.”
She stood up and paced the length of the room to stretch out her back. If Hunter never let her go back to the hospital, she suspected she’d find a few great stories in these pages alone. Most of it, dates of birth and death of every member of every generation, were useless, but thanks to her conversation with Harold, a trend emerged that tickled Daphne’s excitement. In almost every generation, the madness Harold mentioned made an appearance.
“House passed to Thomas Ancowitz in 1842. Wife Sarah, two sons, Brian and Albert, and one daughter, Sophia. Brian died in the Civil War in 1862; Albert never married, died at forty-five of a psychological malady.”
She snorted. “‘Psychological malady.’ Now there’s one I haven’t heard before.”
She wished the old records hadn’t been so sensitive to scandal. She’d have a much better idea of what was going on if they’d said straight out, “He turned into a wolf under the full moon,” or even more conveniently, “He was known to strangle people in their sleep and glue their mouths shut.”
By the time the family had signed the estate over as a hospital in the early nineteen hundreds, there had been at least four documented cases and eight other hinted-at victims of this same “malady.”
“It could be a coincidence, Daph,” she told herself, scrawling her pencil in random patterns on her notepad. “Mental illness runs in families all the time.”
But the theory didn’t sit right with her, especially considering what Harold had told her about patients going insane while in care at the hospital.
“It has to be the house,” she said. “But if it’s not an issue with the building itself, where is the problem coming from?”
She flipped to the next page and her excitement grew. The ownership report had been a pleasant surprise, but at some point during the years when the Peony House file had been sitting around gathering dust, someone had misfiled the minutes from one of the last board meetings before the hospital closed.
She couldn’t think of what she’d done to deserve it, but the gods were smiling on her tonight.
Once the hospital opened, the family moved to a smaller, though still fashionable home on the other side of town, closer to the harbor. They continued to manage the day-to-day running of the hospital and ensured the condition of Peony House remained up to the family’s standards. According to the records, they brought in the most highly reputable managers and available doctors, kept a full complement of nursing staff, and ensured their operating room was considered one of the most technically advanced on the Eastern Seaboard.
In spite of the hospital’s acclaim, the death records at Peony House indicated an extraordinarily high number of unexplained deaths. The board attributed them to some of the more experimental surgeries — they had done more good than harm and all new trials carried risks, after all — but Daphne knew better, thanks to Harold. They’d had no more idea about what killed those patients than the medical examiner probably knew about the young man she’d found.
She flipped over the last page, half-hoping she’d find something else buried at the bottom, but was met with the blank file folder.
The only open avenue she saw was to stick with her original plan: go back to the hospital and try to speak with the victims directly. She didn’t want to stop for dinner while she was still on the high of her research, so she hurried to her car and drove to the edge of town.
Remembering Meg’s whispered theory about the service road, Daphne followed the country highway behind the string of farm houses. “Road” was a generous term for the two worn ruts in the overgrown path, and Daphne accompanied each mile she passed with another prayer to the gods that her little Honda would survive the trip. She imagined her vehicle leaving a trail of broken parts torn off by weeds and potholes.
