The House on Foster Hill

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Panic gripped her. The emotion that boiled inside needed sorting out, and she couldn’t do that when he was too close, too intimate. Ivy pulled away and Joel let her go. She’d find an escort home. Someone, anyone other than Joel. Ivy twisted the doorknob and pulled, but the door slammed shut just as fast. Joel’s hand spread on the door above her head, his arm stretching alongside her shoulder.

  “Let me out,” Ivy said.

  Joel’s breath moved a tendril of hair by her ear. She stiffened and stared at the door.

  “Why do you do this to me, Ivy?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You assume the worst of me. Ever since Andrew died.”

  Ivy spoke at the door, her words ricocheting off the wood. “It’s not an assumption when it’s the truth.” The quiver in her voice was evident.

  Joel moved closer, the warmth from his body against her back, his hand still splayed across the door.

  “But truth isn’t based on theories. You must have all the facts, Ivy.”

  She stilled.

  Joel’s lips pressed against the back of her jaw just below her ear. Ivy shivered.

  He whispered, “And assumptions can kill more than friendship.” He kissed her jawline. Firm, brief, impactful. “I don’t want to bury you too.”

  Chapter 18

  Sunshine made the spring day even brighter. The day of a funeral should not be shrouded in beauty. At least Ivy didn’t think so. Three onlookers gathered in addition to her father, the reverend, and Joel. The sheriff was one, Mr. Foggerty the other, and the third a curiosity seeker. There to gawk at the wooden casket of a murdered woman. Worst of all, the deep pit of earth that had no marker. Eventually, there would be a simple cross, but no name or specifics to remember Gabriella by.

  Ivy glanced at Joel. His expression was indecipherable, although she noted him studying Mr. Foggerty from time to time. Andrew’s gravestone stood three rows behind him and to the right. Her vision fell on it and caressed her brother’s name. She didn’t miss how Joel avoided looking at it. As well he should. He didn’t deserve to mourn Andrew, not after he put the exclamation point on the tragedy by proving his loyalty did not run deep.

  “Ashes to ashes . . .” The reverend’s rote was unemotional. The young woman had felt the life squeezed from her, she’d been hidden in a rotting tree trunk, and no one was sincere in their grief over her. It was tradition to lay a soul to rest in peace, but how did that happen when her killer still ran free, she was nameless, and her infant had vanished?

  The reverend bowed his head in prayer. Ivy closed her eyes. She should pray, but she couldn’t. Ivy hadn’t been able to since Andrew died. She wasn’t angry with God. She had simply come to terms with the idea that God would do what He pleased, when He pleased, and she would be there when it happened. It saddened her father, whose faith was steady. But Ivy had a difficult time justifying why God, who supposedly loved His creations, would allow tragedy to strike. Andrew was her brother and, outside of Joel, her best friend.

  She didn’t have friends anymore.

  Joel edged her way after the prayer ended. A robin chirruped from a tree above them, reminding them of spring, while the sun’s rays cast a warm, comforting embrace over Gabriella’s casket.

  “I hope you can find closure today.” He was distant, his tone impersonal.

  Ivy didn’t blink. The lace at her throat choked her. Closure? For whom? Gabriella? There was no closure, only a litany of unanswered questions. She stared down at the casket, then bent and placed a dried rose on the top of it. It reminded her of the dried roses on Andrew’s casket, that cold, wintry day. The snowflakes had been large, soft, but as freezing as the ground into which they buried him. Joel’s hand was the only thing that kept her warm, and later, even that slipped away. She had been cold ever since.

  “Did you grieve Andrew’s death?” Ivy whispered. Her question hung between them, hovering in the warmth of the sun but the starkness of death.

  Joel took a deep breath through his nose. “Of course I did.”

  “You never came, Joel.” Maybe she should listen, ask, and just listen. But it was so hard to hear Joel’s version of those days. It meant reliving them, and she’d lived in her own interpretation for so long—it felt safer there, if not happier.

  “Ivy . . .” Joel shifted his feet. “I was an orphan. I didn’t have a family.”

  “We were your family. Andrew and I.” Ivy stepped backward as Joel’s hand extended toward her. To take hers? To touch her arm? Regardless, he couldn’t touch her. She couldn’t let him. Her shoe sank into a soft, mossy patch of earth. She pulled it out.

  What if she and Andrew had begged their father to adopt Joel? Would he have? With their mother’s death at Ivy’s birth, he’d fathered them well. But it was so much to care for two, let alone three children. They’d never asked. Their father had never offered.

  Still, it was years ago. One couldn’t change the past. Even if Joel gave her a more palatable explanation, it still wouldn’t change the fact that Andrew had died, Joel had gone away, and she had been left behind.

  Ivy sniffed back tears she refused with every ounce of her will. She gave Joel a sideways glance, but he was staring back down at the grave.

  “We cannot let her go unremembered.” Ivy’s whisper covered the distance between them.

  She didn’t miss Joel’s subtle nod of agreement. In this one small thing, they were unified. For now, it was enough.

  The water poured from the pitcher into the washbasin, the sound a promise of refreshing and cleansing. Ivy plunged her hands into it and splashed it over her face. She allowed the drips to trail like tears down her cheeks as she lifted her face to the mirror. Her green eyes reflected back, filled with memories. Gabriella’s funeral had sapped her of energy but not determination. The search party had not turned up a baby, nor had Joel or Sheriff Dunst found anyone who knew Gabriella. Sleep would be difficult to come by tonight, and now, with so much time passed, she could only pray someone had Gabriella’s baby, or else it was most assuredly dead.

  Drying her face, Ivy tied the ribbon at the neckline of her nightgown. She wandered across her room to a small desk and eased onto the chair, running her hand over a leather-covered journal. Her “death journal,” as the town of Oakwood preferred to call it. They only knew of it because Ivy would take it with her to the examination room of her father’s office or to the deathbed of the person who’d passed. They saw her writing in it, her pencil gliding across the page, and assumptions were made.

  She opened it, flipping through the pages. Mrs. Templeton, her schoolteacher, died of consumption. Ivy had written her three favorite memories of the woman. Then there was George Clayborne, the town drunk. She’d been the only person at his funeral outside of her father and the reverend. It was more difficult to find pleasant memories of the crotchety man, but eventually she did. Widow Bairns had supplied Ivy with tales of when she and George were younger and he’d been charming, flirtatious, even debonair, only changing after he lost his wife and newborn son in childbirth. Ivy turned the pages to a blank one. She picked up her pencil and in a fine script sketched Gabriella across the top. Her pencil moved to write and child, and then laid it down. No. She could not accept that. Not yet.

  The ping of a stone against the upper panes of her open window captured Ivy’s attention. Visions from years before invaded her mind. Joel, truant from the orphanage, sneaking to her window where he’d beckon her to come down. Nighttime jaunts in the moonlit woods, happy and soulful. Innocent and adventurous. So long ago.

  Ivy pushed off the bed and lifted her heavy hair over her shoulder.

  The shadows from the woods beyond the house were dark against the moonlit sky. The chill of the wind was more striking here, and Ivy grabbed a shawl from the back of the rocking chair in the corner.

  Poking her head out the window, she peered into the night.

  Joel. Just like old times. He stood below, only now, instead of the lithe body of a sixteen-year-old bo
y, was the broad-shouldered version of a man. His hand was poised to toss another stone.

  “Please don’t. I’d prefer not to drop dead like Goliath.” Ivy swallowed back the yearning for happier times. He’d caught her in the wake of her sentiment. When her guard was down.

  “But I only wield my hand, not a slingshot.” A hint of a smile touched Joel’s mouth, then faded. “We need to have a chat.”

  Ivy tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “I believe we’ve chatted quite enough.”

  Joel crossed his arms, and his black coat stretched over his shoulders. He chose to ignore her admonition. “I need to gain your promise that you will not put yourself in any further danger while we are investigating the murder.”

  A small thrill ran through Ivy as she allowed herself to read the protection written across Joel’s face. “And you insist on chatting about this in the dead of night on the lawn below my window?”

  “I don’t trust you not to do something addlebrained in the middle of the night.”

  “I rarely do anything without deep thought and contemplation.” Ivy rested her elbows on the windowsill.

  “Oh, really?” Joel’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Recent events suggest otherwise. Come down and we’ll talk.”

  “I politely decline.” Ivy ducked inside and reached up to push the window shut.

  “Ivy . . .” Joel’s voice sounded hoarse, as if he were a beau trying to avoid a father’s discovery. “Please, don’t close that window,” he insisted.

  She brought it down a few more inches.

  “I’ve said it before. You cannot insert yourself into this investigation.”

  Two more inches.

  Joel grew agitated enough to make Ivy pause.

  “Gabriella was murdered, Ivy. I don’t want to see you end up in the same state.”

  Ivy’s smile waned. She knew that in spite of her angst over Joel’s return, he was wise in what he said. “I have no compulsion to wind up stuffed into a tree, if that’s what concerns you.”

  “So you promise not to return to Foster Hill House?”

  “Not alone, no.”

  “Not at all,” Joel tried again.

  “If you offer companionship, I will certainly oblige.” She was feeling somewhat giddy, the emotion of the last week catching up with her.

  “Don’t be coy with me,” Joel said, his tone adamant.

  He was right, she knew, but his words stung all the same. Against his protests, Ivy slid the window closed, loosening the tiebacks on the white curtains. She let them fall into place, concealing Joel, and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. There was a time when she believed Joel Cunningham would have done anything to protect her. But now he was only inspired because he was a duty-driven detective whose protectiveness was born out of his position.

  Ivy had no desire to be the recipient of obligation.

  Chapter 19

  Kaine

  The Oakwood Museum was about as inviting as a biker bar on a stretch of deserted highway. Kaine shot Grant a sideways look. No wonder Great-Great-Grandmother Ivy’s quilt had been so easily stolen. If the museum was as ramshackle in 1963 as it was today, a toddler could break into the place. The old granary had been converted into a secured building only by the installation of basic stormproof windows and a front door lock that Kaine could break into with a credit card. Either the museum held little of monetary value or the crime rate in Oakwood, Wisconsin, had plummeted after Ivy’s quilt was stolen.

  A thud drew Kaine’s attention back to the elderly man in faded blue overalls and a green plaid shirt. His wispy gray hair formed a sparse crown on his balding head. Mr. Mason, Grant had called him. The curator. Curator of what? Some old photographs on the wall featuring a farmstead, a plow, three vintage people in Edwardian garb, and a dog? Oh, and the framed sequences of Foster Hill House at different stages of its hundred-plus years. Because it wasn’t disturbing enough today, she had to see it back in the 1800s when it was even spookier-looking.

  “This here is about all we have now.” Mr. Mason handed Kaine an old leather journal. “The town calls it Ivy’s ‘death journal.’ Would’ve probably been stolen back when the quilt was stolen, but it was locked up in a safe. Don’t know why. It’s not like it had monetary value.”

  “Death journal?” Kaine echoed. Could it get any weirder? Ivy’s locket with hair in it lay in Kaine’s purse, making her squirm. A book of death and potentially the hair of a dead person reminded her of a Gothic black-and-white movie.

  Mr. Mason smiled, wrinkles reaching the corners of his eyes. He really was a sweet old man. “She was a self-appointed grave keeper of sorts. Made sure everyone who died had a memorial in her journal. Like an obituary, only more.”

  “A brief memoir,” Grant offered.

  “That’s it.” Mr. Mason nodded. “Stories say the town didn’t know her too well and all in all thought she was a bit crazy or maybe toyed with the otherworld.”

  “Doubtful.” Kaine felt the need to defend her dead ancestor.

  Mr. Mason tapped the book in her hand. “I tend to agree. It’s really a nice collection of mem’ries.”

  Kaine opened the old book. Its pages were crumbling on the edges, and the script inside was small, cursive, and loopy.

  “Look at this.” Kaine motioned to the page, and Grant leaned over her shoulder. “She chronicles people who passed away under her father’s medical care.”

  Grant tipped his head to look closer.

  “It’s touching.” Kaine ran her finger along the script.

  Marigold Farnsworth passed away at only twenty-two years of age. She has been married only one year, and the infant born to her this night will grow without the warmth of his mother’s embrace. I remember Marigold as a gentle spirit. She was beautiful in life, and even in death a smile touches her lips. What I recall the most about Marigold is . . .

  The entry continued, but Kaine stopped and acknowledged Mr. Mason, who waited patiently for her to finish with the artifact. “This is amazing. It’s a treasure. Think of the lives Ivy chronicled.”

  The wonder of the concept filtered into Kaine’s voice, and Mr. Mason nodded in agreement. “She was just tryin’ to keep the dead alive.”

  Kaine blinked against the sudden moisture in her eyes, and Mr. Mason swiped a Kleenex from its box on the counter. He handed it to her without comment about her tears.

  “Other’n that journal,” he continued, “there wasn’t much else for memorabilia. Just her quilt stolen back in ’63. I think we have a few doilies in the back storage that belonged to her. No one really cares anymore.”

  She cared. Now, especially, since she held the same book her great-great-grandmother held so many years before. Foster Hill House, the place where Ivy had been attacked, became suddenly more important. Kaine turned a page in the journal, its binding loose and fragile. She wanted to understand the details of what happened to Ivy, why she had been there and how the dead girl named Gabriella fit into the story.

  “What do you have on record about the murder that happened there?” Grant’s blunt question sliced the nostalgia out of the air.

  Murder. It was a shocking word that played in her memory on repeat since Danny’s death. Tragic that both she and Ivy were linked by violence toward individuals they cared about.

  Mr. Mason scratched behind his ear and shuffled into the back room. “Not much anymore.” The open doorway allowed them to watch him as he dug around in a crate, then shoved it aside and opened a metal filing cabinet. Apparently, the museum was more of a hobby now than a place of historical archive.

  “Patti?” His voice wobbled with age as he called. Kaine startled at the sound of footsteps coming down the back stairs. She glanced at Grant, who smiled.

  “She’s the town librarian who volunteers here sometimes,” he explained.

  Patti rounded the corner. Oh my. Kaine tried to steel herself. The librarian’s shrewish expression skewered her with a dark gaze. “Yes, Mason?” she answered while k
eeping her stare locked on Kaine.

  “Do you remember where you put those files on the murder at Foster Hill?”

  Kaine tried not to flinch. Cataloguing historical archives digitally must not be top of the list here at the Oakwood Museum. Patti’s lips pressed together. Still staring at Kaine, she said to Mr. Mason, “In the bottom filing cabinet.”

  “Ah!”

  Patti crossed her arms. “So you’re the one who bought Foster Hill House.”

  Kaine cast Grant a cautious glance. His eyes twinkled. She looked back to Patti. “Yes.”

  “Good luck with that.” It wasn’t nice sounding, not at all sincere, and almost sinister. Patti’s pinched expression never wavered, and she spun on her loafer-clad heel and disappeared back to where she’d been.

  Wow. Kaine mouthed the word to Grant.

  He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Rumor has it Patti always wanted to buy Foster Hill House.”

  “I’d be glad to sell it to her!” Kaine whispered back.

  “She’s as poor as a church mouse. She gambles every weekend at the casino just north of here.” Grant shrugged.

  Bewildered by the unexpected interlude, Kaine’s attention shifted as Mr. Mason shuffled back into the main room with the speed of a tortoise.

  “Ooookay. I found some newspaper clippings from back then. Pretty crumbly, though. I should probably have Patti put them in plastic sleeves.” Mr. Mason laid the folder on a wooden tabletop and opened it. He began thumbing through the browned sheaves of clippings, then stopped to lift one up to read it in the light. “Let’s see here . . . 1906. That’s the right year.” He laid it down and thumbed some more.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kaine could see Grant wince at Mr. Mason’s roughness with the material.

  Finally, Mr. Mason cleared his throat, sounding like he was in the early stages of emphysema. “Okey-dokey. Here we go.”