Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

  “He has a reason to be, I suppose.” Millie swallows, wiping her mouth. “I hope it doesn’t affect your friendship, though. That would be a shame.”

  “It’s going to take a toll, I’m afraid.” It surprises me how the idea of Leo taking a few steps back from my life ties my stomach into knots. I have so few real friends in Heron Creek, and even fewer who I’d trust with every last one of my secrets.

  I swipe the last bite of tomato into my mouth and crunch it into oblivion while my thoughts drift. Amelia’s quiet for a while, too, and we watch the sky darken and the stars come out, the sounds of the market closing up for the night underscoring the laughter of people wandering the busy street.

  Once our drinks are replenished and our food arrives, she asks the question I expected three days ago. “How are the two of you doing? Really?”

  My throat burns so hot at her question that a drink of strawberry moonshine actually cools it instead of the other way around. “I don’t know. It’s not … I don’t expect to be a priority right now, but I don’t like it that he doesn’t trust me enough to share how he’s feeling. Maybe my expectations are way off.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case. You still have instincts, and there’s no rule book for this kind of situation.” She sits back in her chair. “You’re going to have to give it time. He needs to come out the other side of this before you’ll be able to tell.”

  The syrupy smell of my dinner reminds me of Beau’s scent, the way it wraps around me as he leans in for a kiss, and I push my plate away, a little sick to my stomach. “It’s funny. I came back to Heron Creek thinking the last thing I needed was a relationship, maybe ever again. And now I’ve got a job and a boyfriend and you’re back in my life. Aside from the ghosts, things are almost too good. Were almost too good.”

  “And you don’t trust it.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe it’s that I’m not ready to have so much to lose. Or it’s that I’m not sure I’ve had enough time to really figure out who I am on my own before I had to start figuring out who I am in relation to Heron Creek, and Will and Mel, and without Gramps.”

  Maybe it’s dumb to throw my long, long ago ex-boyfriend’s name into the mix, especially since he’s married to Mel. There’s still blood under that scab, though. I’m not dumb enough to think it’s not going to rip clean off sooner or later.

  “And alongside Beau.”

  I nod, trying in vain to swallow the damn stubborn lump in my throat. “I’m screwed up.”

  “Join the club.”

  The two of us share a long look and a short, wobbly burst of laughter. The rest of dinner feels a little lighter, even as my stomach grows heavy with the rich, delicious food, as though the moment between us, the release of humor, somehow relieved the building storm of tension hovering above me.

  It lasts for the rest of the meal, mostly since Amelia doesn’t ask any more questions and I don’t bring up any of my concerns about her life, the two of us choosing instead to reminisce about our grandparents and some of our first ghost tours together in this city.

  It’s fully dark by the time we each polish off our third beverage. It doesn’t escape me that the Firefly moonshine might taste sweet but packs a punch—a pleasant buzz takes up residence in the back of my head, and there’s no way I’m making it through this tour without needing to pee at least three times. At least I won’t be alone since Amelia’s pregnant and she just swallowed a gallon of iced tea.

  We use the bathroom at the restaurant and grab some mints from the hostess stand. I pick up a couple of matchbooks, too, even though smoking is gross. They’re just fun little souvenirs.

  A hiccup escapes me as we exit back onto Market Street, heading toward the Bulldog Tours office. Then a giggle. “We need a bathroom.”

  Another hiccup.

  “Grace, for heaven’s sake. Are you even going to remember anything this guy tells us?”

  I give her a solemn nod, crossing my heart. “Yes. I’m just saying, in New Orleans they do proper ghost tours, with proper bathroom breaks at haunted bars halfway through.”

  “There is absolutely nothing proper about New Orleans, and they’d be insulted that you think so,” my cousin murmurs, making a left into Rainbow Market and then into a bathroom.

  All I can think about is getting rid of my hiccups, which makes peeing while crouching over the dirty public toilet more than a small feat. It gives me the giggles again and I get pee on my hand.

  While I’m washing it off, facing Amelia in the mirror, something delightful occurs to me. “Aunt Karen is going to wrinkle her nose into nothing if I show up at your house drunk. We’ll have to get me another drink afterward.”

  “Yeah, well, strictly speaking, you don’t need any extra quirks to piss off my mother, Grace. Let’s see how things go.”

  I stick out my tongue at her, wondering when she stopped being fun and how I missed it. That thought spurs me to launch myself at her, throwing my arms around her neck and pulling her into a hug. She smells like sunshine and something sweet—berries, maybe. Like my childhood. Like home. “I missed you, Amelia Bedelia.”

  “God, you’re such a sappy drunk,” Millie mumbles against my shoulder. She doesn’t let go for a good ten seconds, though. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Oh crap! Ryan’s not going to like us if we hold up his tour.”

  “Brian.”

  “Right, Brian. Isn’t that what I said?”

  That makes Millie laugh for real, and for a moment I feel like the most powerful person on earth.

  Chapter Six

  Ryan Brian does, in fact, give us a look when we join his group late in the alley behind the Bulldog offices, even though he literally just greeted everyone.

  Great. I make a mental note that he’s not going to be one of those guides who enjoys swapping historical knowledge or smart-ass remarks from the back of the crowd.

  Ryan Brian likes to be the only game in town.

  My cousin gives him one of her sweet-as-pie, fake-as-shit smiles that she must have spent hours perfecting for cotillion and he seems to relax. Millie’s always good for something, and you can never predict exactly what from the get-go.

  Our guide, the one who supposedly holds the key to cracking the Case of the Mysterious Moping Ghost, makes a few attempts at humor that go over surprisingly well with our tour group of families, couples, and the requisite single weirdo or two.

  They’re not weird because they’re single, mind you. One looks like he might be the actual Unabomber, and the other is a woman dressed in all black who reeks of patchouli and keeps fingering the crystals around her neck—a wannabe medium, no doubt.

  The guide finally finishes his spiel about his qualifications, the rules for the tour, and what exactly we can and can’t expect and leads us down the aptly named Church Street to St. Phillip’s. It’s an expected stop and a place I’ve wandered through on my own many times. It’s one of the more regulated cemeteries in the city, and the one least appreciative of the nightly tours that ramble past its gates, as evidenced by the posted sign informing passersby that the only ghost in st. philip’s is the holy ghost.

  Brian—I’m pretty sure that’s right now that the fresh air and the hiking have dulled my buzz—asks the group if they know the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard. I start to open my mouth, but Amelia pinches my arm. “Ow.”

  “Everything okay back there?” Brian asks as half the group stops paying attention to him and turns around to check on me.

  “Fine,” I tell him, rubbing my arm and glaring at my cousin.

  He glowers but takes the spotlight back without hesitation. “A graveyard is located on church grounds, a cemetery is not. Saint Philip’s has both.”

  Brian motions across the street to the less glorified “stranger” side of the internment grounds, the lot that hosts the grave of John C. Calhoun, one of Charleston’s best known nonnative heroes. The story of the decades-long argument about whether he belonged in the “friend” gra
veyard or the “stranger” cemetery is hilarious, and also paints probably the most accurate and telling story of this city I’ve ever come across.

  Our guide pulls the most famous photo taken in the graveyard from his binder—it shows what appears to be a ghostly young woman bent over a headstone, one that holds the remains of a young woman and her infant—and shines his flashlight on the image for the group to see. It’s arguably the best photographic evidence of a ghost any of these tour guides are ever going to see, but in my recent experience, ghosts are more substantial—not see-through or shimmery. Not that seeing three of them makes me an expert.

  I glance around, eyes probing the shadows as Brian moves on to the Calhoun story, guiding us across Cumberland Street. It hadn’t occurred to me that coming on a tour like this and creeping through graveyards and cemeteries might be a bad idea, that spirits might attach to me like pieces of lint to a staticky skirt, but maybe it should have. The ghost man in my room is more than enough for me to deal with right now, with everything else going on in my life.

  I keep glancing behind me and into the shadows but so far, no ghosts.

  “What?” Amelia whispers, not paying attention to Brian. Either of us could lead this tour without a single scrap of help from Master Brian up there.

  “Nothing. I’m just nervous that more of them might … find me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I don’t know if that’s how it works.”

  “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” I hiss back. “No one knows how it works.”

  We shut up before we piss Brian off so badly he’ll refuse to help us when this is over, and we trail behind the group as he walks us to the circular church that has, hands down, the weirdest graves in the city, and around to the gate at the front of the Unitarian graveyard, the one place in this city that legit always gives me shivers.

  After a few more mildly interesting stops, we’re headed back toward Washington Square Park, where the tour ends, when Brian detours into Philadelphia Alley. A faint smile touches my lips at the hesitance of so many in the group to duck into the narrow, foliage-covered walkway. Uneven bricks and dusty earth serve as the path, with a brick wall rising up on one side, covered in ivy and overrun by bushes and stunted trees. Back entrances to several residences, businesses, and a small local theater are situated on the other side of the alley, and the mostly on-key singing coming from the latter seems to point to an upcoming performance of Annie. The alley has always seemed more peaceful than creepy to me, despite the recorded and suspected deaths that took place on the bricks under our feet.

  Brian, being the showman that he is, chooses to call the spot by its much older name, Dueler’s Alley. That lets me know he’s going with the traditional tale for this place, which makes me happy. The other story involves dead slaves and Gullah curses, and the unconfirmed, gossipy nature of that option makes the historian in me itchy in all the wrong places.

  “Have you ever thought you might have really bad luck?” Brian starts out, meeting the gazes of his rapt group of followers one by one. “If so, I bet you won’t think that after you hear the sad story of Doctor Joseph Ladd. He was a young man from Rhode Island—well educated, but in need of a fresh start. Young Joseph, you see, had made a mistake some of you might be familiar with … he fell in love with the wrong woman.”

  Amelia nudges me but doesn’t look away from Brian. Her lips struggle to fight a smile at his cheesiness and I’m just tipsy enough to snort. I cover it with a cough when Brian’s eyes snap straight to us. I pull a water bottle out of my purse.

  He chooses not to confront us. This time. “The woman was young—her name was Amanda—and she was an orphan who stood to come into a decent fortune upon her marriage. The relatives in charge of that fortune, however, thought it better she remain unmarried and under their care, so they published some very unsavory rumors about Doctor Ladd that forced him to leave town. He had planned to establish himself here in Charleston, and when he had enough money, send for his love so they could be married.”

  He’s not a bad storyteller, but his tone could use a little work. No one is going to be surprised when he drops the bomb that Dr. Ladd and the mysterious Amanda never saw each other again.

  The faint sound of someone whistling floats through the deepening evening from behind me. I turn, expecting to see an actor coming late to rehearsals or a waiter cutting through the alley on his way home from work, but the alley behind us is empty. I bite my bottom lip, listening, but hear only the sound of Brian’s voice and the bated breath of my fellow tour-goers.

  Could he have paid someone?

  Millie gives me an exasperated look, one that says “stop looking behind you before I rethink having you locked up,” before turning back to Brian and his story.

  “As you might have guessed, since you’re hearing this story on a ghost tour, things did not go as planned here in Charleston. Doctor Ladd made a friend early on, a Mister Isaacs, who quickly became jealous when the doctor’s social status started to rise while his remained stagnant. Doctor Ladd, for his part, had little interest in attending society parties or making small talk with the city’s elite. He only wanted to do well enough to send for Amanda, but the truth didn’t stop Isaacs from beginning a smear campaign here similar to the one that drove his new friend from New England.”

  The whistling again, closer this time. A little louder, the tune happy and accompanied by the sound of shuffling feet. This time when I whip around, Amelia heaves a quiet sigh.

  “Do you hear that?” I ask, trying to pretend my heart isn’t pounding.

  She gives me a worried look and a tight shake of her head, glancing into the dark alley behind us. Gas lamps burn on the sides of the building, casting deep shadows that are more than big enough for someone to hide in. The back of my neck prickles with the sense of being watched, and even though Amelia doesn’t hear the now-faded whistling, she rubs her hands over her goose-pimpled arms.

  “At any rate, Isaacs and Ladd eventually ended up agreeing to a duel in this alley, and since it was the gentlemanly custom of the time, the doctor accepted. The morning of the duel was foggy, and it was hard to see through the mist. Doctor Ladd, it is reported, could not go through with the event and fired his pistol into the air, hoping that it would signal the end of his feud with his friend. Sadly, Mister Isaacs either didn’t see the gesture or didn’t care, firing straight and true. He struck Doctor Ladd in the knee, who died from gangrene a short time after.”

  “And he’s said to haunt the alley?” a teenage girl asks, her blue eyes big and round.

  “Yes, and the Thomas Rose House, where he died. He was known as the Whistling Doctor because he whistled while he worked and strolled, almost as though he couldn’t help it. Often he did it during times of great stress. People hear it, sometimes. Maybe you will tonight.” He ends the story with a smile and clasped hands, turning to lead the group out the other end of the alley.

  My muscles go rigid at the reminder that the doctor’s ghost is said to whistle. It takes all of my self-control—which, let’s face it, isn’t that strong to start with—to turn around one last time.

  And that’s when I see him.

  He’s certainly a ghost. This one isn’t solid like Anne Bonny or Glinda, or even the man currently in residence in my bedroom. There’s something insubstantial about him, as though he’s not sure he wants to be here at all. Our eyes meet and he startles, as though my seeing him is as unexpected for him as for me, which sends a shiver up my spine.

  The other ghosts have come looking for me. Even the guy in my bedroom, presumably. This one just happens to be here when I am. The period and station of his dress—nice trousers, shined shoes, loose-fitting shirt and vest—it’d definitely put him in the same century as Dr. Joseph Ladd, who died in 1783. His lips are still puckered in that whistle, frozen in place by his surprise, but it’s the gaping, bloody hole in his right knee that convinces me it’s really him.

  The Whistling Doctor.

  I don�
�t make a sound. Don’t acknowledge him or ask Amelia if she can see the figure standing in the middle of the alley, paused mid-stroll. I just turn back around, slowly, hoping against hope that he doesn’t follow.

  The damn dead doctor whistles at my heels all the way to Washington Park. I refuse to look at him again or even tell Amelia about our tail in case he’ll give up and go away.

  Please, please let him think he imagined my seeing him.

  Mediums and ghost hunters are a dime a dozen in this town; they can’t all be fakes. I can’t seriously be the first person who can actually see ghosts to walk down that damn alley, but Dr. Joseph Ladd is certainly acting as though I am.

  The rest of the tour group wanders off a few at a time, sticking folded bills into Brian’s outstretched hands as they thank him for a wonderful time. I’ll grudgingly admit that, as tour guides go, he’s very good—engaging, knowledgeable, gives a good presentation without straying too far from the facts. He knows what he’s doing, that’s for sure, but he’s a little pissy when he breaks character. We can’t have been the most annoying group members he’s handled.

  I study him while my cousin and I loiter, waiting for our chance to talk to him alone before he heads back to the office. He’s pushing middle age, probably in his forties, but he wears it well. No gray streaks his thick brown hair, and his glasses sport a thick, trendy frame. He dresses like a history professor, of which I have known more than my fair share, but he doesn’t smell like old glue and mothballs so I doubt he is one.

  “Thank you for coming, ladies,” he says a little stiffly as we step closer. He glances down at our hands and, not finding any cash at the ready, frowns. “Can I help you with something else?”

  Joseph Ladd’s story still swirls in my mind, little pieces of lit embers lifting on a heated breeze. It’s hard to remember why we came here to begin with, why Amelia’s giving me one of her exasperated looks as I stand here like the cat’s got my tongue. And I don’t even have a cat. I keep meaning to grab a black one from the shelter, just to really solidify my image.