Of Lost and Found (the Kingsborough House): Kingsborough House (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 4)

by catt dahman

  Edith pointed out painting and sculptures, and bric-a-brac in the forms of mice, rabbits, peridot covered frogs, topaz and ruby birds, and more animals. A table for eight was surrounded by soft, rose-colored, cushioned chairs and a full silver tea service set, ready for use,

  “This is my special tea room. The door there goes nowhere at all, that window is false, the floor there slopes for no reason but everything is larger and you feel like a tiny being “It seems a waste.

  A whole room dedicated to a children’s story?

  Why? This is what you do here? Make…gemstone rabbits and toys for children?” Constance looked with scorn at her husband; his face fell.

  Edith glared, “Well, I dare say there is no other house like mine, madam.”

  A huge chair, table, and rug sat in the corner, each twice the size of normal furnishings and it made everyone laugh when trying to sit in the enormous, handmade chair. A bottle and drinking glass were over-sized and made the tableaux compete. Fairalee giggled as she swung her legs like a child as she sat in the huge chair.

  “If you sign up at the desk, on Thursday mornings, we allow ten people to return here, sit in the chair and hold the bottle, and have a photo taken. Prices are ten dollars each or thirty dollars for a family of four or more,” Gina said.

  “Virgil, you better sign up. I want to see that picture hanging in the station,” Tina said.

  “I will do that for you, Tina,” Virgil promised, blushing. He figured Vivian’s father, and two brothers would enjoy the picture tremendously.

  “This is my favorite room,” Vivian told Virgil, as they walked.

  The group went to the second floor and entered Edith’s bedroom, and while most was roped off, they could see all the luxurious furnishings clearly. A spot light centered on a jewelry box.

  Gina told the story.

  Edith walked in to her bedroom one evening when she would normally be preparing for dinner and getting the children prepared to eat. In her bedroom, she found a workman going through a small chest of jewelry, taking a chain and a citrine broach that he slid into a pocket. He had diamond earrings in his hand.

  Edith panicked.

  It was almost dark and John was due home at any minute, but this man was stealing from her. She knew all workmen and all of her staff was fairly paid, and no one was ever mistreated, so to see someone deliberately take something was a personal attack. While she was tiny, she was also furious, and she was able to grab a heavy pewter candlestick that she used to bash with at his head. It was fortuitous that the man wasn’t very big.

  Gina pointed to the heavy pewter candlestick that was also spotlighted.

  The first strikes were lucky because they sent him to the ground, grabbing at his skull, covered in a sudden burst of blood. He would have recovered, but Edith pounded at him, infuriated beyond words or reasonable actions. She had a bad temper when she was crossed.

  “Come quickly,” Edith implored Charles Fontaine Moreau. She explained in a few words what happened.

  Moreau was shocked. He raided the man’s pockets, retrieving the stolen jewelry and handing it back to Edith, “Now go make some tea and wait for me, and don’t say a word about this. Hurry.”

  She followed his instructions.

  After a while, Charles Moreau came to sit with Edith, taking a cup of steaming, strong tea that he gulped appreciatively. He told Edith he sent a maid to clean up the room, claiming someone had been injured and was taken to the doctor.

  “Is he….”

  “Dead? Yes, he is. But we will never speak of this. There is no reason to besmirch my employees or give anyone further ideas. Let us say, he won’t be stealing again. I know it is a shock, but it’s done and can’t be undone, so it’s best forgotten.”

  “Was the thief’s body buried here on the land?” someone asked Gina.

  Gina shrugged, “We don’t know. Edith said only that much in her diary and remarked that she felt no reason to ask details, because she trusted Mr. Moreau fully.”

  “I wonder how he moved a dead body from the house and disposed of it so quickly? There was a large staff, workmen all around, and moving a body would have left blood trails,” Virgil said.

  “Unless he wrapped the body in a rug,” Agent Ed Ripley said, “Still…moving a body….”

  Gina nodded. “And the story get even better,” she said.

  Constance Moreau paid another visit to the house, looking it over with distain while demanding that her husband return to New Orleans. By this time, the house was enormous, jutting out in the H formation and rising in places to three and four stories. Often a new concept was added and rooms had to be demolished, added, and rebuilt. Constance Moreau, at this visit, was alarmed at the size of the house and obsessive work that looked no closer to being finished than years before, and she and the Kingsboroughs traded a few veiled barbs.

  “Edith claimed, in her diary, that Charles Moreau looked humiliated by his wife’s behavior, and several times cautioned her to be quiet. During the visit, Constance vanished, and although there was an extensive search, the local sheriff finally declared that she must have run away,” George added.

  “I bet he killed her,” A man suggested.

  “That’s possible,” Gina said.

  Charles Fontaine Moreau moved his children to live close to his work and brought a house full of help to care for them. He spent his days supervising details and his nights designing new trickery and oddities for the Kingsborough House. Edith wrote that she knew then, that those who the house took, would never be found, and that Mr. Moreau knew that as well as she.

  George and Gina led the group down the hallway. Virgil noticed that both guides carefully counted each of the group to be sure they were there and asked, “Do you do that often? Count the group?”

  “It’s part of the training we go through. We always count and make sure everyone is with us.”

  “Have people vanished?” A man asked, “Recently?”

  Gina nodded soberly, “Yes, they have and the police have always been called at once. Searches are always thorough.”

  “But of those who go missing…how many are then found?”

  Gina had to balance this frequently asked question with her answer. People loved this tour and the house for the dangerous aspect and the creepiness but she also didn’t want anyone to be terrified enough to leave, “At times, there have been hoaxes that were taken very seriously. Those hiding or causing trouble are arrested, actually for falsifying a crime. In addition, more than a few times, people have not stayed with the group, wandered away and been lost; they are always found, scared and embarrassed. However, occasionally, a few people do vanish.”

  George added, “It’s thought that some of those chose to go missing to avoid legal, financial, or marital obligations.”

  “But not all?” Fairalee asked.

  “Not all. Some are just a total mystery. That is why we have so many safety standards in place. Right now, our numbers check out, so we’re all still here,” Gina smiled. She opened a doorway and led everyone inside and George stood outside the doorway.

  Seven of Edith’s and John’s children had been born by 1890.

  Lydia was seven, small like her mother, quick, and energetic. She played by herself in the blue room, chasing her mother’s beloved cat, Isis. The room was designed in shades of blue, from almost whitish-blue to deep navy. Here there were exquisite Chinese panels that one might dress behind, but were used as art, sofas, and a gigantic rosewood armoire. A rosewood bed canopied with light blue silk, covered in a soft silk imprinted with dark blue doves on an azure background, delicately carved tables, and a wall of shelves that were full of books with gold leaf, vases, bowls, and figurines filled the room.

  Gina told them, “This is really chilling but people claim this room is haunted…because furniture sometimes has gone missing from this side of the room and many years ago, it was said a piano was found turned over. We will only look in but not go all the way inside.”


  When her nurse looked for Lydia, she had seemingly vanished from the room. As the household staff and carpenters looked for her, panic increased as they thought she might have been kidnapped, but already the house was so large, the blue room was rarely used, and everyone had a huge area to search. By dinnertime, the grounds had also been combed, and the little pond looked over carefully.

  Edith, John, and Moreau went back to the blue room; they were all haggard from worry and searching for the child. Moreau frowned, “Could she have accessed the faux wall and chimney?”

  Gina acted out what Moreau did was she explained, “The room had already been searched. The armoire was thankfully empty, dispelling fears the child had crawled inside and smothered. Moreau peeled back one of the hand-woven rugs brought from the Middle East. He went to the chimney and ran a hand under the mantle, causing a tiny spring to rise from the floor. Carefully, he lifted the trap door, looked down the short flight of stairs and found nothing in the little cubby hole. He replaced the rug after closing the trapdoor.”

  Everyone on the tour was amazed as they were allowed to file around in a big circle and stare down into an empty stair well.

  Gina and George stayed alert.

  Gina closed the trap door and moved the rug back, “Next, Edith pressed a tiny lever and a wall beside the fireplace popped open.” She demonstrated. The fireplace looked real, was constructed of a bluish stone brought from Scotland, but was faux. She pulled the wall forwards and looked inside the closet. Of the three walls before her, one had a door that opened into another room, but wouldn’t open from that side and seemed a false door unless one opened it from this side.

  Gina said, “Lydia wasn’t in the other room.”

  The second wall slid back to reveal a blank wall. The third opened up to a small spiral staircase that wound upwards to the third floor cupola that rose to a spiral and contained several secret passages to other rooms and floors. “We can’t climb up there for safety reasons, but Edith, John, and Moreau did so. Although they searched the cupola and its other passages, Lydia wasn’t found.”

  “Why were those doorways added?” Tina Rant asked.

  “We think one was to quickly sneak to another room…maybe as a joke or something. The blank one, we don’t understand unless it was a joke about a joke. The spiral staircase was maybe to avoid an intruder, if needed, or to just enjoy…or maybe there was no reason after all. We have found that places like the Rabbit Room are interesting and serve a purpose we can understand, but staircases that end abruptly or serve no purposes, blocked hallways, fake doors, and some of what you’ll see here simply makes no sense at all.”

  “I read once that a theory was that Moreau, Edith, and John often made up silly constructions as almost a way to one-up each other and see who could be more outlandish,” A woman said.

  “Very good. That is indeed one theory. With so much being over-lapped and redone and forgotten, changed, and moved, it’s also possible this place is literally honeycombed with little traps, dead ends, and places where people could easily go missing. They may have forgotten some of the triggers and they sure wrote nothing down, so it’s our best guess we know about five percent of the hidden oddities within the house.”

  Everyone began whispering and were fascinated. Virgil subjected that bit of information to memory.

  Gina went on, “Lydia wasn’t found in the weeks and months afterwards, and it was a painful mystery, just as had been the disappearance of Constance Moreau and several workmen.”

  She and George did another count, and led everyone downstairs again to another room after locking the blue room securely.

  George unlocked the next door, “May we present the beautiful Rose Room”

  A visitor, a friend of Edith’s, went missing from the rose room. It had large windows that looked over the best of the rose gardens, was furnished in soft pink couches, delicate tables, and fancy lamps, all centered around a beautiful fireplace made of white stone. Of the friend, Jane Donner, there were only three signs; left behind: a book of poetry lay open on the sofa, her embroidered handkerchief lay on the walnut floor, and a single gemstone, a large amethyst, lay on the rug from where it was pried from a leaded art work on the wall.

  Spot lights shown on a book on a couch, on a handkerchief on the floor, and on a glass bauble.

  The art was designed and built by Moreau for the room, made of glass, several gems, bits of silver, and stones. It represented a scene of a flower garden, pond, and expansive sky. “Moreau repaired the art, disappointed that someone had tried to take a gem,” George said. He and Gina counted, locked the door, and led the tour to the front hall.

  “I guess she tried to steal the stone? That caused an event?” Vigil asked.

  “It’s very possible,” George agreed.

  Edith’s and John’s eldest son vanished in 1984. He was last seen on the new fourth floor on the west side, exploring the new additions that were added. The H shape was more of an H- including the new parts reaching five-stories and the cupolas and spires that would tower seven stories and have some ceilings of leaded glass. It was a cacophony of lumber, glass, tools, sawdust, tile and other equipment and none of the children were allowed in the area, but Michael braved warnings and went looking.

  “There was a thorough search and Edith cried herself sick; ending up in bed for weeks with grief, but again, he was ruled a runaway. She threw herself onto building more intricate, interesting rooms. Moreau worked at a feverish pace. Some of your rooms are in that very wing,” Gina said.

  The girl who had pouted about not seeing ghosts perked up, “Maybe his ghost is there.”

  “It’s possible,” Gina said.

  “That concludes this tour, “ George said. “You’ve all made it back safe and sound. Tonight, you may partake of some light gambling and a pay bar in the gaming hall or relax at the spa. Please make reservations for the spa. You can retake this tour in one hour if space is available or sign up for a space with tomorrow’s tour. Tomorrow will be a one-hour tour of the kitchens, pantries, morning rooms, and formal dining room. It’s a little less creepy, but very interesting to see how much it took to keep a house of this size running.”

  “Tour 3 will be a two hour tour on Friday and you should sign up as soon as possible because it’s very popular. We’ll be seeing the richest, most costly rooms in the house. Thursday night is séance night and Friday night at midnight is our famous, flashlight, Midnight Tour.”

  “It sounds as fun, almost, as the Beast House tour was,” a man said, grinning, “That was scary as hell.”

  The guests wandered away, but a few remained to ask George a few questions that he patiently answered.

  Virgil got his group in close, “Josie has an office for us to use and the books Vivian and I started with, are there. I’d like Vivian and Fairalee to gather notes and go over details and see if we can find anything uncommon in the research. Ed, I want you and Tina to go back through those rooms with Gina and see if you can find anything that’s been missed. Try to get a feel for what Lydia Kingsborough was doing and seeing the day that she vanished and run over to the addition where the boy went missing as well. Fin, I’d like for you to come with me.”

  Fin nodded, “Where’re we headed?”

  Virgil grinned and said, “To question a suspect.”

  Chapter Four: Suspect

  Terry Bower was a heavily muscled, large man with an almost-shaved head, square jaw, square teeth, and narrowed grey eyes. It wasn’t that he was an ugly man, but that he scowled so hard and frowned so deeply, that it was impossible to look at him for long without feeling uncomfortable. He sat in a room, alone, staring at a wall patiently.

  The local sheriff shook his head, “Bower is a cold one.” For the last month, since Shari Spencer went missing from the Kingsborough House, a few times a week, he brought Bower in for questioning. Each time, he tried everything he could think of, but the man never said more than a few words, never asked for a lawyer, and was turned loose again aft
er a few hours because there was nothing to charge him with.

  “He’s not from here?”

  “No. He’s from the rougher side of Dallas, but he’s made no attempts to go home. He took a room, works as a dishwasher, stays out of trouble, and we keep dancing along,” The Sheriff, Thomas, said. “I have nothing to charge him with and he won’t give me anything, and we’re no further along than we were a month ago.”

  “Do you want to review the case?” Fin Carter asked.

  Virgil frowned a little, “No. If I can have the file? I want to go into this cold and see how it plays out. We know a girl went missing and this man was her boyfriend, and that makes him a suspect. He may have done something, and he may be innocent.”

  Thomas laughed, “Hey, that makes as much sense as anything else does around here. That damned house causes more trouble than it’s worth and I can already feel that this guy…Cromer…is going nowhere. Just hate admitting it.” He opened the door, “Okay, Cromer, you have company. Sheriff McLendon and FBI Agent Fin Carter.” He handed Virgil a slim folder.

  Virgil looked around the small room; it was typically furnished as an interrogation room, with blank walls, three chairs and a table. The coldness and lack of comfort in the room often made suspects nervous and more likely to talk. They wanted to confess or give a statement as a witness and get out of the boring, small room.

  “I won’t keep you longer than I need to, Mr. Cromer,” Virgil said, “I haven’t even had time to look over the information, so bear with us as we do, please. I’ll catch up as we talk. I am working on the general disappearances at the Kingsborough House and your name came up as being the last to be with a girl who vanished a month ago.” He handed the file to Carter, “I’ll ask questions and if Mr. Cromer doesn’t wish to answer, could you supply the answer if we have it there?”