by Edie Claire
Leigh prayed for patience. “The police think someone beat him up. But ghosts had nothing to do with it.”
“You don’t know that!” Scotty spit back. “I’m telling you, that place is crawling with ghosts!”
Leigh opened her mouth to issue her standard disclaimer about the supernatural, but something stopped her. “How recently have you seen ghosts out there?”
“I just saw the headless one again last night!” he crowed.
Last night? The same night that someone chiseled out most of the mortar from around the biggest stone in the cellar wall… after smashing her Aunt Bess’s camera to bits. How had they known the camera was there? Had they seen it hidden in the dark? Or—the thought chilled her—had they watched Warren and Ethan set it up?
The camera had been placed in plain view, at least potentially, of everyone at the Brown’s house. And if even one person had witnessed the event, the word was sure to travel. Anyone in the neighborhood could have heard about it.
Anyone in the neighborhood.
Leigh gave her shoulders a shake. She was getting paranoid. The camera had been hidden, yes, but only so well. The lens could have reflected in anyone’s flashlight—the camera was probably easier to spot at night, in fact. And it did make the slightest of buzzing noises when it turned on.
“I see the headless one the most,” Scotty continued. “It’s the scariest, because it’s got no head. The soldier ghost is more normal-like.”
Leigh studied the boy’s face. She believed that he saw what he said he saw. And why shouldn’t she? Despite her attempt to believe otherwise, she had seen the headless “ghost” herself. Someone had been skulking around Archie’s place both before and after he was abducted, and they were covering their tracks with a disguise designed to make sure any reported sightings were dismissed as nonsense.
And what of the “soldier” ghost? Leigh’s mouth twisted with chagrin as she realized how easily Archie could have created that illusion himself. There were legends of hauntings at the farm already… who better than a Civil War reenactor to reach into his coat closet and play the part? If he dug at night, he most likely wouldn’t be seen; but if he was, viewers were sure to doubt their own eyes. No harm, no foul.
Except now, they had both.
“What time did you see the headless ghost last night?” she demanded.
Scotty shrugged. “Don’t know. Wasn’t paying attention. Everybody was in bed already, but I remembered I left my phone by the crick. I ran down to get it and saw the ghost and ran straight back. It was, like, traumatizing!”
Leigh felt a little traumatized herself. “Where exactly did you see this ghost?”
Scotty pointed vaguely toward the creek between his house and the Brown’s. “I don’t know, somewhere around the woods on the other side. I didn’t stick around. Ghosts can disembowel you if they stare you in the eyes, did you know that?”
“I did not,” Leigh said charitably. “But thanks for the warning.”
“Blood and guts everywhere!” he said with enthusiasm. Then his face turned wistful. “Wish I could see that.”
Leigh turned away toward the Brown’s house. “Be sure you stay in your own yard, Scotty,” she warned. “Poking around Mr. Pratt’s farm could be really dangerous right now.”
He nodded his head sharply as he ran alongside her. “Oh, I know. My mom won’t let me out of the house!”
Leigh stopped and looked at him. “And yet… here you are.”
The boy smirked. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Admonishing Scotty once again to go home and stay there, Leigh reached the Brown’s front door and rang the bell. To her relief, the boy scarpered off just as the door swung open.
Leigh looked into the scowling face of Pauline. “So,” the older woman said accusingly. “You going to make noise, too? Might as well. Can’t hear my damned show anyway.” With that, Pauline turned her back, tapped her bamboo cane on the floor, and shuffled off toward the sitting room.
Leigh followed. “Now, Adith,” she heard Emma say with frustration. “You know what the doctor said. He said—”
Adith made a rude sound. “The doctor! That man couldn’t pick me out of a lineup if I had my name tattooed across my face! He probably just prescribed whatever the last salesman in the door gave him a free beach towel to peddle! My old medicine was just fine. I don’t like this new stuff, and I’m not taking it anymore. Period!”
“It’s always best to follow your doctor’s orders,” Nora insisted, sounding like one of those welcome videos that hospitals loop endlessly on their in-house cable channels. “They have the training and they know what’s best.”
“And how exactly is falling asleep face down in my oatmeal what’s best?” Adith railed. “I’m missing every halfway exciting thing that happens around here, and I’m sick of it. I’m allowed to make my own medical decisions, and I’m making this one. No more nod-off pills!”
Leigh poked her head into the sitting room just in time to see Adith cross her arms over her chest and stamp her foot.
“All right, all right, then,” Emma soothed. “Of course it’s your decision. But we’ll have to call the office and tell them what you’re doing. They may want you to try something else.”
Adith’s chin rose in triumph. “I got no problem with that.”
“I can’t hear my show!” Pauline roared.
“Excuse me,” Leigh said tentatively. “I have some news for everyone.”
Four faces turned toward her instantly. After a moment’s pause, a fifth listener slipped through the partway open door to the screened porch and joined them. Derrick had a burp rag the size of a toga thrown over his shoulder, and despite the ambient noise, baby Cory was squirming contentedly within its folds.
“Is Harvey back yet?” Leigh asked, hearing no sound from the direction of his room.
Emma shook her head. “He’s still at the library. I was just headed up to the hospital to see about Lester’s discharge… what’s happened?”
“The police have located Archie in a hospital in Ohio,” Leigh announced. “He’s been in a coma, but he’s awake now.”
Adith’s eyes bugged with disbelief. Emma, Nora, and Derrick all looked horrified. Pauline seemed bored.
“A coma?” Emma repeated. “But why? How did he end up in Ohio?”
“That’s all still being investigated,” Leigh answered. “Archie can’t talk because his jaw is broken, so he hasn’t been able to communicate much yet. But apparently he was found in a field in a rural area. They think he was beaten up and left there.”
The room went deathly quiet. Leigh hated being the bearer of such grim tidings, even if they did contain the good news that Archie was, at least, still alive.
“Well,” Adith said hoarsely, breaking the silence. “Call me a buck-naked lizard. That poor, poor man. Who would have expected something like that?”
Pauline harrumphed. “I’d hate to see his hospital bill. Highway robbery!”
“But what—” Nora broke in with distress, “I don’t understand. Why would he go to Ohio in the first place?”
“We don’t know that he went voluntarily,” Leigh responded.
“Kidnapped from his home!” Emma exclaimed, her apple cheeks suffused with red. “Lord have mercy!”
“Is that really what happened?” Nora implored, her own complexion ghostly white.
“We don’t know,” Leigh repeated.
“I’ve got to tell Lester,” Emma cried.
“He’s already heard,” Leigh explained. “I was visiting with him when Detective Polanski told us both. She was still talking to him when I left.”
“You mean your friend? Why is she talking to Lester?” Emma asked with alarm.
Leigh took a breath. “It’s a new investigation now. Attempted homicide.”
Emma drew in a breath like a hiccup, her hand covering her mouth. Nora and Adith stood still as statues. Derrick, who looked every bit as pale as his wife, folded softly into the nearest chair
. Pauline belched.
“They have to treat the case that way because of the seriousness of Archie’s injuries,” Leigh placated, hating to frighten them all. “They don’t know what happened. It’s just the routine.” Then, remembering the role of a healthy fear in keeping them all safe, she amended. “Still, we all need to be careful, living so close, until it’s resolved.”
“Don’t make no sense,” Adith muttered. “Poor man wasn’t bothering nobody. At least not nobody living.”
“Derrick,” Nora ordered, “You’d better take Cory on home, now that he’s settled. I’ll be there in an hour or so—as soon as Emma gets back with Lester.”
Derrick rose obligingly, and Nora kissed her baby on the head and tucked the ends of the blanket around him. Derrick headed for the front door. “And don’t forget his medicine!” she admonished, just before the door closed behind them.
Nora sighed. “He’s going to forget the medicine.”
Emma patted her absently on the shoulder. “Derrick’s going to be a wonderful father, dear. Cory seems to feel quite safe with him—that’s all that matters to a little one.” Her gaze cast around for her keys or purse, or something. “I’ve got to get going now,” she murmured, clearly flustered.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Leigh asked.
“Oh, of course,” Emma answered quickly. “I’ll be fine, dear. I’d better be, because if I know Lester, I’ll be driving him to Ohio first thing tomorrow morning.” Her eyes misted. “Poor Archie. I just can’t believe anyone would want to hurt that sweet man!”
“Don’t make no sense!” Adith said again.
“Damn hippies don’t care who you are,” Pauline grunted. “Only a fool would trust a stranger!”
Leigh made no comment. She bid a sober farewell to the group and let herself out the front door. She wondered what Harvey had been doing at the library all this time. She wondered if Lester was finally confessing the whole truth to Maura. She wondered if the mother dog would get hungry before Leigh could get Maura—or someone else equally well equipped to scare off bad guys—to accompany her back to the tool shed to put out more food.
And she wondered, with every shaky step she took back to her van, whether Archie’s assailants had been strangers at all.
Chapter 19
“Why don’t you and the kids stay and eat with us?” Cara suggested as she dug into her refrigerator and began pulling out an assortment of organic vegetables. “Gil’s got a business dinner, but Mom’s staying. I can make that fabulous vegetarian casserole the men hate so much!”
With grateful assent, Leigh picked up a knife, washed a zucchini, and began to make her usual contribution to dinner at Cara’s: chopping things. The women had a longtime understanding about the March’s kitchen. Once any actual cooking commenced, Leigh got out of the way.
She was anxious. Cara, Lydie, and Warren all knew about Archie’s being located; but none of them knew exactly how to feel about it. She had been looking forward to talking the situation through with her husband, but his meeting had run late and now he had a long drive back. The delay clearly perturbed him; he was anxious to get home, no doubt because he wanted to make her stay home. But of course he worried too much. She had sworn up and down that she would not go back to Archie’s place to feed the dog with any escort short of an armed police officer, and she didn’t want to go back, even then.
“Where is your mom?” Leigh asked, looking around. She had seen Lydie’s car in the driveway, but the only voices she heard around the house were those of Mathias and Ethan hooting over a video game upstairs.
“She and the girls are in Lenna’s room,” Cara answered. “I’m pretty sure Allison is pumping Mom for more input on the map.”
Leigh exhaled loudly. “I was hoping she’d given up on that.”
Cara’s eyebrows rose. “We are talking about your daughter, aren’t we?”
“I know, I know,” Leigh acknowledged. “She’s a Morton woman.”
Cara smiled. “In spades. Which reminds me…” she stepped to the doorway, cast a glance down the hall, then returned. “Something is definitely up with my mother. I’m telling you—she’s seeing somebody.”
Leigh remembered the “prior commitment” her aunt had claimed the afternoon before, yet refused to discuss. “You think so?”
“I know the signs,” Cara insisted. “You can always tell when she’s lying. Her mouth tightens and it stretches out her upper lip. She did that my entire childhood whenever I asked anything about my father. She did it when we were in college and she was seeing that dentist down the street in West View. She did it when Gil and I first started dating, and again right after Mathias was born—and I never even found out who it was those times. I’ve been suspicious on a few occasions since, but never anything definite, until now. And this time’s different, because she’s got this funny glow in her eyes. Whoever he is, I think this time she likes him back!”
“Wouldn’t that be fabulous?” Leigh mused. “But why the secrecy?”
Cara shook her head with a sigh. “I think it’s all wrapped up with her having spent so many years flaying herself for making a bad marriage. She’s worried we’d all think less of her if she wasn’t totally independent. Which is insane, but there’s no talking to her about it. She will not discuss the subject. Period. Ever. It drives me bonkers.”
Leigh’s phone buzzed with a text. She pulled it out and looked at the number. The blood drained from her face.
“What is it?” Cara demanded.
“It’s a text,” Leigh said weakly. “From my mother.”
“Your mother doesn’t text!”
“Not when the gods were merciful,” Leigh said morosely, sinking onto a stool. She turned her phone toward Cara. “Check it out.”
This is your mother. I can text now!
“Oh, my,” Cara exclaimed.
Leigh drew in a cleansing breath. Frances’s well-meaning sisters had been trying for years to teach her the art of texting, but Frances had staunchly resisted all instruction. Leigh had secretly applauded her mother’s refusal to join the millennium, but now, the worst had happened. Unsolicited household tips and cleaning advice would arrive with a ding, every two minutes, for the rest of her natural life.
Or until she got rid of her own phone.
Desperate situations…
“Act like you didn’t get it,” Cara suggested. “She’ll think she didn’t do it right or that it’s not reliable, and she’ll poo-poo the whole thing again.”
Leigh smiled. “You are a brilliant and devious woman.”
Cara grinned back. “I try.”
Allison, Lenna, and Lydie appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. Allison’s small face shone with excitement. “Mom!” she said proudly. “We figured it out. We know where ‘The Guide’ is!”
***
Leigh and Cara sat at the kitchen table. Allison stood between them, the map spread out before her.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about Theodore’s being buried on the farm,” Allison explained ruefully. “That’s what threw me off. That, and not understanding why the farmhouse was the only building at Frog Hill that the mapmaker drew in. But we should have figured that out the morning you found Lester, Mom.”
“We should have?”
“Of course!” Allison argued. “Everyone else was focused on the cellar under the tool shed, weren’t they? It seemed like maybe Archie had found ‘The Guide’ already and it was leading him there. But what Archie found out from Dora, right before all this started happening, was that Theodore had been living in a cabin above that cellar when he died!”
Leigh was not enlightened. “True, but didn’t Tom Carr make the map?”
Allison frowned. “That was my fault. I wanted Theodore’s grave to be marked on the map, so I found something that looked like a gravestone and made it fit. That’s what screwed everything up so badly.”
She smoothed the map with her hands. “Theodore’s grave isn’t marked anywhere on h
ere, because Theodore wasn’t dead yet! He’s the one who drew it. And the building he drew as its focus wasn’t the big farmhouse at all. It was the house he was living in at the time. The old cabin!”
Leigh and Cara both leaned in, their eyes focusing on the scribbled square to which the arrow pointed. “The tool shed,” Leigh said, pondering. “Of course. If you start the map there, every other building on the farm is in the cut-off area. No wonder there’s only one square.”
“I’m not certain,” Lydie added quietly. “But my guess is that the man’s idea was to hide his treasure somewhere on the farm, but leave a way for his heirs—someone besides his son, evidently—to find it someday. He must have assumed that the farm would continue to be handed down through the family. He made it a two-step process because he wanted somebody to work for it. He was intent on keeping it out of the wrong hands.”
“That’s where ‘The Guide’ comes in,” Allison finished. “The spokes and Xs don’t make sense without it. But if we had it, we would know which spoke is the right one, and which X is the right one. And that X will point out the exact spot where the real treasure is buried!”
“But there have been holes all over the neighborhood for years now,” Cara said. “Even some in my yard! What were those people doing?”
Allison shrugged. “Probably trying to dig up every X on the map. But anybody who was trying to center the spokes on the farmhouse would be off by a mile.”
“If the old cabin was leveled in the fifties,” Lydie added, “it would be only natural for anyone seeing the farm after that to assume the map referred to the farmhouse.”
“Including Archie,” Leigh murmured, thinking of the ripped out drywall.
“What people forget,” Lydie continued, “is the effect of time on the landscape. In Theodore’s day the only woods left were on hillsides too steep to plow. But when the farming stopped, the forests began to expand again. The landscape looked different in the twenties, when he died, than it did in the fifties, when Dora saw it. And it looks very different now.”
