by Mary Bowers
Without acknowledging that the last time she’d seen us we’d all been acting out a scene from a slapstick movie, she began to ask polite questions about our paranormal “experiment.” She actually seemed to be interested, and I knew she couldn’t be. But she conversed with a perfect, well-bred gravity that made me wonder how many dull conversations about things she couldn’t care less about she’d had to endure at political cocktail parties. She’d become well-versed in the job of congressman’s wife, but in her own gentle way, she was so world-weary it made me want to kid her out of the role of the dutiful wife and back into being the young woman Fawn Moon had been before she’d become Fawn Hixon. Maybe she couldn’t remember how to be that person anymore.
When we’d answered a few questions about Ed’s research, I changed the subject.
“So,” I said brightly, “is everybody ready for the big day?”
“Oh, yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Fawn said in her half-tone voice. “It’s Grandfather’s birthday. Charlotte is preparing a roast for us, I believe. Or is it a turkey? It’s going to be lovely, I’m sure. We normally celebrate the birthday with dinner at 2:00.”
“Well, that’ll be just fine, I’m sure,” I said. I know. It sounds like something my mother would have said in 1955. I don’t talk like that, but Fawn’s artificial manner was beginning to rub off on me.
“We’ll be honored,” Ed said. Much better. Why couldn’t I have said that? I was beginning to even feel like Fawn.
“And I hope you don’t mind very much, but I’ll be making an announcement of interest to the family, and perhaps to you as well. I hope it won’t make you uncomfortable. It’s something rather important to me, though rather trivial in the grand scheme of things.”
“What are you babbling about, Fawn?” Oliver asked mildly, picking up his coffee cup and taking a sip.
“You’ll see.” She twinkled in an artificial way. Then she became earnest. “Though if you think as the head of the family I should tell you first, I certainly will.”
”How can I tell, if I don’t know what it is?”
“Yes, you’re quite right. I’ll come to your office before dinner. I think you’ll be rather surprised.”
He yawned. “Do what you like.”
She turned back to us. “And I do hope you and Mr. Darby-Deaver won’t mind. It’s rather personal, but not in an embarrassing way.”
“You need to watch your ‘rathers’ Fawn. You’re using the word in every other sentence.”
“Oh, dear, am I? I’ll certainly try not to. Thank you, Oliver.”
He looked at her. “Rather.”
She gave a tinkly laugh.
When Maxine popped her head over the balcony and barked, “Come up here. I want to talk to you,” it was startling, but also a welcome interruption.
“What, me?” Oliver said, turning heavily. “Hell no. You come down here if you’ve got something to say.”
“Not you, you fathead. Fawn.” She withdrew.
“Oh, my,” Fawn said, turning back and staring with her lovely turquoise eyes. “Well, I’d better go see what she wants. Please enjoy this lovely morning, Ms. Taylor, Mr. Darby-Deaver.”
She even got Ed’s last name right. Nobody ever does, not even people who’ve known him for years. Congressman’s wife, all right.
She walked across the terrace to the side door, then came right back.
“Oh, dear, I forgot we were short-staffed.”
She had left her cup and plate on the table, and she picked them up, smiled graciously, and went back to the door.
Oliver sat back and stared past me at the ocean again. “That woman is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
Ed turned to him, shocked, but I just set my lips and nodded.
* * * * *
Oliver left us soon after that. I didn’t know just how the day was going to go, and I wasn’t sure how much time Ed and I would have to talk privately, so I leaned in and got right to it.
“How did the surveillance go last night?”
He shrugged. “Uneventfully.”
“Does he know you were there?”
“Yes. He found me asleep in the chair just outside his door this morning. He made some remark about security guards sleeping on the job, but I think he appreciated the gesture. If he’d cried out, I was there to hear him, and nobody could get into the room past me.”
“Nobody physical,” I said. “Is that what you’re thinking now? Somebody’s itching to inherit, and Oliver’s too stubborn to go ahead and die? That could actually make sense, Ed. That man may have a reputation as an eccentric, and he’s not somebody you want to hold hands with and skip down the garden path, but he’s not stupid. He senses something.” I sat back. “It’ll be kind of disappointing if it turns out to be just an ugly little affair after all.”
He shrugged. “I’m keeping an open mind. I did want to discuss one thing with you, though, but we’ll have to retire to my room, where we can have some privacy.”
I looked up at the balcony. “I think she’s back in her room. She slammed the door, remember? And then we heard her yelling at Fawn, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying. She must have the doors and windows shut.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean Maxine. I meant Horace.”
For a moment I thought he was teasing me about the statue. Then I remembered the sneaky little snot that was the great man’s namesake.
“You can come out now,” Ed said without looking around or raising his voice.
“I wasn’t listening,” young Horace said, stepping out of the doorway and walking toward us with a breakfast tray.
“And I wasn’t born yesterday,” Ed said smoothly, rising at the same time that Horace sat down. “Taylor?”
“Hey, come on,” he whined. “I wanna know what was going on last night. Was that a ghost you were holding?”
He knew darn well it wasn’t, and he knew darn well exactly what had been going on. Thirteen-year olds know a naked lady when they see one. Well, almost naked.
Ed paused to give him a cynical look, then walked away without a word.
I was looking at Horace, and without breaking eye contact I stood up and said, “Later, dude.”
It surprised him, and he cracked a smile, a real one. For the first time he looked like a nice kid.
We brought our dishes in with us. The casseroles had been put away and the kitchen was tidy. Nobody was there any more, so we put our dirty plates and cups directly into the dishwasher and left, feeling proud of ourselves.
We took the stairs from the servants’ dining room and went up to Ed’s room without seeing or hearing anybody at all. There was no yelling going on on the second floor, so apparently Maxine was done mopping the floor with Fawn.
Once on the landing outside our rooms, I said, “That was excellent.”
“What was?”
“The way you handled the kid. I’m gonna go sort out what I’m wearing for the big dinner this afternoon.”
“Come into my room first. You need to hear this.”
“Oh? Can’t you tell me here? I think we shook him off, at least for the time being.”
“I told you I had something you needed to hear. It’s on the recording you made last night.”
I cringed. “Something’s on the recording? I thought you were just saying that so Horace would think he’d be missing out on something. You actually got something?”
“No, Taylor. You did,” he said, opening his door and motioning me inside.
I went in, heart sinking ever lower.
* * * * *
It had happened just after Oliver brushed by me in the gallery. On the recording, his voice is clear, saying, “That damn woman!” Then there should have been a bit of silence as he went forward to help Ed, who was wrestling with Julie. After that, Ed’s voice asked me if I was all right. I remembered the moment. I had myself half-convinced that it had been an optical illusion. Now, there were sound effects to go along with it.
Like all purporte
d recordings of ghost’s voices, you had to use your imagination. Then, once you’d decided what had been said, you replayed it and heard it more clearly. The recording hadn’t changed; you had. You were now hoping for something specific, and the mind, ever helpful, supplied it.
And like all purported ghost recordings, it was short and to the point. It simply said, “Stop her.”
Two single syllables. They were full of static, and lasted longer than they should have. The sound hitched and thickened and thinned. And as Ed was calling my name, it said something else. There was no way of knowing precisely what. Just something. Something like, “There,” or “Not there,” or “Down there,” or even, “Hot air.” In fact, it could have been anything. Me, breathing hard. A grunt from Julie. Anything.
Ed will probably put a button for it on the “Absolute Proof!” page of his website, but personally, I never want to hear it again.
When he’d replayed the thing fifteen times he looked at me hard. “What do you hear?”
“I don’t know. My left elbow swiping over the recorder. Old Horace Moon trying to horn in on the ghost hunt. You tell me. You’re the expert.”
“Horace Moon? I was trying to hold onto That Woman, but I did see you staring down into the great hall as if you’d . . . well, as if you’d seen a ghost, not to put too fine a point on it. Why do I always have to drag everything out of you, Taylor? Just tell me. What did you see?”
“He seemed to be moving. He was . . . like something cut out and pasted in. Herky-jerky. Black-and-white over color. And then he was just a bust made of alabaster sitting on a mantel. And then he seemed to . . . fade into the background. Dark, like everything else.”
“Thank you.” He took his journal from on top of the Sensitainer and made a few notes. Then he thought hard for a moment, set the journal back down and said, “I know this isn’t easy for you, for some reason.” He nodded pensively a few times. “We need to refocus the investigation. I believe we should abandon Cousin Clarice and go after Horace the elder.”
“No,” I said, without thinking. Then I stopped, startled. “Why did I say that?”
He picked up the journal again. “All I care about is that you did say it. Clarice, you say? Why? And don’t tell me you don’t know. Stop thinking. Just talk.”
“Oh, automatic talking? Sort of like automatic writing? I just start to babble and secrets come out?”
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, Ed!”
“Just try it. Cousin Clarice. Clarice Ford. A member of a prominent family, without the honor of bearing their name. Angry, frustrated, desiring so much but spending her life as a poor relation. Poor pitiful Clarice. No lover. No property. Orphaned –“
“Stop it!” I looked down, my eyes swimming. “She wants me to say she wasn’t like that, but she was, she was, she was. She was everything Oliver told us and more, and she wants revenge, she hates him, she hurts him, she’ll kill him. He has her castle – her only desire – and he doesn’t even want it. He lets that black beetle live here, as if it’s her own, and it’s not her own, it’s mine.”
“Black beetle?” he said in a subdued voice, changing his longhand into shorthand and writing more quickly.
“Maxine. A crawling insect. Ugly and old. I should have been the heir. I am of the blood. I was so much more worthy. I’m the one who took care of him. He loved me.” The voice began to dissolve in self-pity. “It was all mine. I knew it. And then it wasn’t. That bitch let me live here, live on and die here, treating me like a peasant and reminding me every day that I was the poor cousin and nobody loved me, nobody loved me. I don’t think,” the voice added, suddenly steady but thin, “that anybody ever loved me.”
And with that, my mouth stopped.
Ed continued to write, glancing up at me nervously. When he had it all down, he stopped, put his pencil down and said, “I’m sorry. I know that was hard.”
I got up on wobbly legs and went out of his room.
* * * * *
He gave me about half an hour. I was lying down on top of the covers again, and when I heard him tapping on the door, I said, “Come in,” without lifting my head.
“I do apologize,” he said, hesitating in the doorway. “We have to go downstairs. It’s time to meet with Oliver. We have a job to do.”
“I know,” I said. I sat up. “I’m ready.”
Chapter 11
My legs were steady again, and we walked silently down the spiral staircase to the servants’ dining room. On the second floor landing, Ed stopped me, holding his finger in front of his lips for silence.
We were still inside the stairwell, but once I cleared my fuzzy mind, I heard voices. Well, at least one voice. A restrained, uncertain voice, trying to sound authoritative and failing. Fawn. And another voice punctuating hers with an occasional disinterested syllable.
I shook my head at Ed, but he stepped out of the stairwell anyway.
How dreary this was getting, I thought as I followed him. As nice as she was – and she had been the only Moon to be polite to us – I was beginning to be repulsed by Fawn. Women who spoke with repressed, girly little voices have always irritated me.
They were sitting in a little suite of furniture near the gallery railing. It was similar to the one on the other end of the gallery, where we’d been running around the night before, only this one was set out in front of steps down to a little orchestra balcony over the great hall. When we appeared out of the stairwell, first Fawn and then Julie stopped and turned to look at us.
Nobody said anything, not even hello, and Ed and I turned back and continued down the stairs. It was weird.
When we got to the billiard room we found Oliver walking toward us.
“There you are,” he said. “I was just coming up to get you. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“Are we late?” Ed said, glancing at his precision watch. “It’s 11:07. The dinner is not served until 2:00. We have several hours to confer.”
After a pause, Oliver unaccountably smiled. A real, true smile. “’Confer.’ I like you, Ed. Didn’t think I would. Actually, we didn’t set a time, but we may as well confer. We missed the murder room yesterday when Taylor became indisposed. I think we should go have a look. I pried the key out of Maxine this morning, but she wants to be notified when we go, so she can be there.”
“She keeps it locked?” I asked.
“The thing is full of weapons,” he told me. “And I have an inquisitive grand-nephew.”
“Ah, yes, Horace,” Ed said, giving his glasses a twiddle. “I wouldn’t trust him with a chainsaw.”
I got the feeling Oliver wanted to laugh out loud, but he kept himself in check and just stared at Ed with bright black eyes. “You know he eavesdrops.”
“Certainly.”
“Is he given to blackmail?” I said, since we were gossiping freely.
“Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put it past him. This way.” He led us back to the spiral staircase we’d just come out of.
“Should we notify your sister?” Ed asked.
“No need,” Oliver told us, after specifically telling us she’d wanted to be present. “I’ve got the key.”
It wasn’t a problem for me.
We came down into a long hallway with stone walls, ceiling and floor, stretching the width of the castle. There was only one door in it. Down at the other end, there seemed to be a right-angle turning, but we didn’t go anywhere near it. Oliver went to the door, slid the key smoothly into the deadbolt lock and opened the door.
We stepped into darkness. Oliver left the door to the hall open behind us and turned a switch, suddenly flooding us with fluorescent light. Then he walked deeper into the room, turning the lights on in individual cabinets and displays.
The room was huge: wide, but not excessively deep. From what Charlotte had said, this chamber was a combination of the old kitchen and wine cellar, and it was vast. The walls were lined with display cabinets, all custom-made and glass-fronted. Inside were ar
tsy little round-bellied jars with different-colored liquids in them, careful arrangements of knives, long and short, and the inevitable chainsaw department. There were about ten of them.
I began to roam.
Each cabinet held one specific type of weapon. There was a glass-topped table displaying an even dozen bludgeons of various design, with a printed legend defining the difference between a blackjack and a sap, a nightstick and a plain old axe handle, just the thing for those impromptu head-bashings. The weapons were displayed prettily, in a kind of fan formation, with a nice old-fashioned wooden police baton underlining the rest. The next table held a small formation of lead pipes, along with a sharpened length of rebar. Very nasty. I even found the razor-sharp potato peeler. It must have been made to order by a craftsman. Most potato peelers don’t look possessed.
As a decorative touch, there was a row of real human skulls lined up across a shelf at about eye level, the better to stare at you, my dear. Near the middle of the row, hiding in plain sight, was a trick Halloween skull, realistic enough to hide itself among the real ones. I had to grin. I had one just like it myself, packed away with the Halloween Haunted House stuff, back at home.
All the exhibits were either engraved or labeled with a reference to the book in which they’d been used. Some seven of the bludgeons had been used in one book alone, (The Collector). There were two stuffed creatures, one a raven and the other some kind of gargoyle, staring down fiercely from the tops of cabinets.
The smell of old, waxed wood, dust and taxidermy reminded me of the small, private museums I’d visited: the old cabinets of curiosity. I’d always loved them. Maybe that’s why the smell of old things preserved was pleasant to me. I wasn’t nervous at all.
Ed caught up to me, lowered his voice, and said, “Anything?”
“Huh?”
“Any vibes?”
Oliver came closer and watched me.
“Well?” the old man said. “What do you feel? I suppose we’re just going to have to rely on you, because the cat has decided it’s more interested in love gone wrong than homicidal ghosts. She’s still clinging to my secretary?”
