A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery)

by Merabeth James

  “No, they wouldn’t, but perhaps with the right connections he had his record expunged," Charlie replied. "At this point, what do we really know about any of this? We know Breanna is probably dead, because her ghost is here."

  "And we know Devon is probably alive because his ghost isn't," Meg continued.

  "We strongly suspect Devon is a murderer of at least three young women," Charlie added, "and we don't know where he is."

  "We're hoping where is someplace far from here, but he could be Zack," Meg said pointedly. "So, we're going to try and get his prints which probably…"

  "Won't prove or disprove a blessed thing," Charlie finished for her.

  “You know this whole thing is probably a wild goose chase.

  "Yes…but let's get the prints and see what we can find out about our new boarder. I rather like chasing this goose…wild and or not!" Charlie told her with a laugh.

  ***

  They waited the next morning until they heard his car start up and head down the drive. If he kept to his usual pattern, he would be gone for more than an hour, which was enough time to do what they had to do.

  Leaving Freddie with Annie, the sisters headed up the stairs towards Zack’s rooms. Feeling like spies in their own house, they were silent as they crept down the hall to the carved panel door at the end. Meg laughed nervously, “Here we are creeping about and he’s long gone with nobody to hear us.”

  “As to that, who knows? Doesn't your skin crawl whenever you pass the Hensley suite?”

  “Yes, but I thought I wouldn’t mention it. It’s been kind of quiet for weeks and I didn’t want to jinx it. Got the key, I hope, the one you said you didn’t have?” Meg asked brightly.

  Charlie fished it from her pocket and waved it under Meg’s nose. “Right here.” She opened the door and they slipped inside. It smelled faintly of an expensive men’s cologne, and pipe smoke. .Books and more books were piled here and there. His laptop sat on the desk in front of the window in the exact same position as Charlie’s own laptop at the opposite end of the house “We’ll need something he won’t miss till we lift the prints. You look around, Meg, while I take a look at his computer. I want to find out what his pseudonym is…the one he wouldn’t tell us… and any other bits of personal stuff I can glean.”

  Meg poked about. He was orderly: she gave him that. Opening the armoire, she looked inside. He liked nice labels…something their sister Rayne would appreciate. She picked up a brandy bottle and studied the label. Probably expensive, too, though she was no judge. “Do you think we could take this glass and get it back here before he comes home?” she asked Charlie, who was swearing under her breath as she tried to crack the laptop's password.

  “If we knew more about him, I would have some chance at this, but as things stand, it’s hopeless. Read me some of his book titles, Meg, maybe that will give me a clue.”

  They both looked up as a too familiar male voice said silkily, “It seems I forgot to mail a letter and what do I find? If you wanted my fingerprints, all you had to do was ask. But, as far as my computer goes, that’s something else entirely. Believe me, Charlie, you will never guess the password in whatever is left of your lifetime.”

  To their dismay, they both colored guiltily like schoolgirls caught in some prank. Charlie was the first to recover a bit of her composure. “I know this looks like snooping.” He quirked one dark brow and she was forced to continue since the ground, despite her fervent wish, refused to swallow her up. “And we are snooping. We aren’t entirely comfortable with what we know about you.” He raised both brows and smiled, then waited for her to go on. “Yes, I checked what you gave me, but it's not unknown for someone to steal someone else’s identity and start a new life.”

  “And I would do that because my own identity ceased to amuse me? What’s your real reason for invading the privacy I so adamantly insisted on?”

  Meg answered for her. “We think you may be Devon?”

  He appeared to be considering that and then he spoke. “You don’t think Devon is dead as previously reported? How very interesting. May I ask why?”

  Charlie smiled despite herself. “If we told you, you would never believe us. Besides, there seems to be more than one mystery, where you are concerned, that you choose not to enlighten us on, so ‘touché’.”

  “Then we appear to be at an impasse. Should you choose to share, you know where to find me. The other key, please!”

  Charlie handed it to him. “You know I could have just picked the lock,” she told him loftily, as she swept out of the room, pulling Meg behind her. They both heard his laugh all the way down the hall.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Charlie tucked into her own writing and Meg tackled the tangle of climbing roses that had invaded a large section of her ‘some day’ garden space. She wasn’t entirely sure it was the best time of year to be pruning, but decided to go for it. Freddie romped beside her, as she wielded the pruning shears with a vengeance. She stopped and took a deep breath, then flexed her shoulders to relieve the strain. This is way more work than she had imagined it would be, she thought, as she brushed back a strand of hair from her eyes with the back of her canvas gloved hand. “And hot!”

  At that moment, Freddie scared up a rabbit that had been hiding under the roses and took off like an arrow. “Not that you’d know what to do with it if you should catch it, Freddie, but, just in case, I don’t want a dead rabbit on your conscience or mine,” she muttered as she gave chase. She cornered him next to the potting shed, eyeing a hole where the rabbit had made good his escape. She scooped him up in her arms. “You are a willful bundle of fur,” she said with a smile, as his pink tongue found the tip of her nose. “Let me just finish that one corner, then we’ll go inside out of the sun and get us both a nice cold drink.”

  She carried him back and sat him in the shade. Squinting up at the sun, she saw it was almost noon and the hottest time of the day. Why hadn’t she thought to wear her hat? Might as well go in now and come back later, she thought. “Freddie, let’s go. Freddie?”

  She stopped and looked around, then spotted him up to his elbows under the roses she’d just pruned. He was digging furiously, dirt flying in all directions…a lot of it landing on top of him.

  “Oh, Freddie. Look at you! You’re a mess.” She bent down next to him and tried brushing some of the dirt out of his long white fur. A flash of something metallic caught her eye. “What have you found?” she asked him. Moving him to one side, she looked into his crater. “What the?” She reached down and pulled out a locket.

  It was yellow gold…old fashioned in design…with the initials ‘BH’ worked in small diamonds. “It’s lovely,” she murmured. Opening the catch, she looked inside. A lock of black hair lay coiled within. “This must have belonged to Breanna, Freddie. Let’s go show Charlie!”

  She took off at a run with Freddie giving chase, barking excitedly. She had forgotten entirely about Freddie’s state of dishevelment, when she charged through the kitchen door and sped past Annie. “May the saints presarve us, what’s all the commotion about and what is that wee beast doin’ trackin’ up me fresh mopped floor?”

  “Can’t stop now, Annie. I’ll explain later,” she called over her shoulder, as she hurried down the hall to the servants’ stairs. Climbing them two at a time, she arrived out of breath at Charlie’s tower room. Without bothering to knock, she burst inside.

  Charlie had been chasing a plot point around in her head, when Freddie and Meg burst in on her. Pivoting in her chair, she turned to face them, her brow creased in irritation, “What the?”

  “Look what we found under the rose bushes,” Meg cried, dangling the locket under Charlie’s astonished nose.

  Charlie took it from her and studied it carefully. “I’d say there’s every chance the ‘BH’ is for Breanna Hensley, but the lock of black hair? It could be Devon’s. If it’s her's, why would she keep a lock of her own hair in her locket? Show me where you found this?”

  Meg and
Charlie hurried downstairs with Freddie racing on ahead. He wouldn’t have been in such a hurry had he known his fate. Annie was waiting for him. “Not a second time you don’t,” she scolded, as she grabbed him by his harness. “I don't know what has put everyone in such a flap, but this wee beastie is going to be getting' a bathing before he puts foot to ground again.”

  But Meg and Charlie weren’t listening. Abandoning Freddie to his fate, they hurried outside and around the house. “It’s right over here,” Meg told her, leading her to Freddie’s hole.

  Kneeling down, Charlie, carefully, brushed the dirt aside. “Look, Meg, there’s a skeleton down here!”

  “Oh my God! Tell me it isn’t Breanna,” Meg cried, her blue eyes rounding in alarm.

  “No, it’s an animal of some kind. Here, help me dig it out. I want to see the whole thing.”

  “Gross!” Meg muttered with a grimace, as she knelt beside her and helped uncover the complete skeleton.

  “Looks like a cat to me. A cat with a nasty dent in its skull,” Charlie told her.

  “You don’t think it’s Cloud, do you?” Meg whispered.

  “I’m afraid that’s exactly who I think it is. We need to visit Sunnyvale again.”

  “Are you going to tell Zack what we found?” Meg asked. “And what do we do with Cloud now that we found him?”

  “No, we won’t tell Zack. He was supposed to share what he found with us, but we never said we would do the same. What have we heard from him, since he caught us in his room?” Charlie asked with one raised brow, as she began scooping the dirt back over the small skeleton.

  “Well, we were snooping and he did leave that box of photos he found in the attic outside your door,” Meg told her, helping refill the small grave.

  Charlie compressed her lips in a tight line. “We still don't know if he's Devon, but it was rather nice of him to share the photos . They did give us a bit of insight into Breanna and Devon’s relationship. At least as small children. They were as close as...”

  “Two peas in a pod, but remember they did come from the same pod?” Meg reminded her with a smile.

  “Old Thumper and the indifferent Mrs. Thumper? Not the kind of ‘pod’ I’d want to come from.”

  “I’m going to make a marker for Cloud. Something nice with his name on it. Do you think Annie’s finished torturing Freddie?” Meg asked.

  Charlie smiled and stood up, drawing her sister with her. “Time to rescue your fur child, or he’ll be so tidy you won’t recognize him.”

  Meg gave an indignant snort. “As if that would ever happen!”

  ***

  Charlie and Meg drove to Sunnyvale the next morning, leaving Freddie in Annie’s care. They had told her as little as possible. Telling her about the ghosts that haunted Hensley Hall was not a good way to hang on to the best thing that had happened to them, since they’d moved there.

  It was a beautiful morning for a drive, but neither sister seemed to notice. They were both lost in their own thoughts until Meg said, “I don’t know what this all means, the locket buried with Cloud, but it creeps me out.”

  “Me, too. Maybe Nell Arnold can shed some light on all this.”

  A short time later they arrived. They were warned, when they signed in, that Nell had taken ‘a turn for the worst’ and they were ‘not to tire her out’. Even so, they were not prepared for the woman they found. Her face was white and drawn and the sparkle in her eyes was gone like a snuffed candle.

  “Good morning, Nell,” Meg said, taking her thin brown speckled hand in hers. “How are you feeling?”

  She smiled then and a bit of color came back to her cheeks. “I’m fine, girls….like an old clock, I’m winding down. I should know you, but I can’t seem to remember?”

  “We’re Charlie and Meg from Hensley Hall. We were here to see you awhile ago,” Meg told her.

  “Yes, I remember now. You brought me chocolates and a sweet little white dog. I don’t remember his name either.”

  “Freddie. And he liked you, too. I’m sorry...we forgot the chocolates this time. Next time we'll remember,” Meg replied.

  “Aren’t you kind. No, I don’t think you need to be worrying about next time. What can I do for you girls today? More questions?”

  “Just a few,” Charlie told her gently, drawing the locket from her pocket. “Meg found this buried in the garden at Hensley Hall along with the skeleton of a cat. Have you ever seen it before?”

  Nell took it from her and turned it about, then traced the initials on top with one finger. “It’s Breanna’s. Her grandmother gave it to her. They had the same name, though her grandmother spelled her name with an ‘i’ instead of an ‘e’. Her grandmother loved her…both the twins…but she didn’t live long enough to be much of an influence. Breanna never took the locket off.”

  “What can you tell us about the cat…the one buried with the locket?”

  “Breanna always loved cats, used to feed the barn cats, her father couldn’t abide them. Called them ‘sneaking, sly things’ and wouldn’t have one in the house. But Breanna and Devon had other ideas. At night, they would sneak in this big, white cat and he would sleep with them…mostly Breanna. She was his favorite. I forget what they named him. Something to do with the weather I think?”

  “Could it have been ’Cloud’?”

  “Yes, I think it was. Long fur. Must have had some Persian in him from somewhere. Polly, the cook, often saw them sneaking him out in the morning and neither of us ever said a word. Their father would have killed him and not blinked an eye. He was the very devil, when anyone disobeyed him.”

  “Do you remember what happened to Cloud?”

  “I heard round about, you understand, after I was sent packing, that he disappeared after Breanna disappeared. Some thought he ran off. Some thought the master may have found him, mooning about looking for Breanna and killed him. Anyway, that was all a long, long time ago. I’m getting a wee bit tired, girls. Was there anything else?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We’ll be going so you can get some rest,” Meg told her, brushing a strand of white feathery hair gently back from her forehead.

  “I was married before I became their nanny, did I tell you that? A good man he was…died young and never left me with a child of my own. Breanna and Devon became my children. I loved them both, though I didn’t know how to help them. They found in each other a kind of love most would label sinful. Even me. But who did they have but each other? Getting close to the other side gives you a different perspective,” she told them with a weary smile, as she brushed the locket, back and forth, against her paper dry cheek.

  “They had you, Nell. And that had to mean a whole lot. We want you to keep the locket,” Charlie told her softly, tucking her blanket under her chin and turning off the bedside light.

  “It will be like having them close by. Thank you more than this old lady can say.”

  As they closed the door behind them, they heard her mutter, “Don’t forget the chocolates next time! If there is one.”

  ***

  “Well, what do we know now that we didn’t know before?” Charlie asked thoughtfully on the drive home.

  “We know it’s Breanna’s locket and she never took it off,” Meg replied, “though she may have when she showered or….”

  “Then it is perfectly reasonable to assume she was wearing it when she disappeared…and was murdered…which is what we believe happened to her,” Charlie broke in before Meg had begun full babble.

  Meg pinched her arm a hard as she dared “I hate when you do that…interrupt me like that! It still might have been an accident. All we know for sure is that her ghost visits me almost every night. Though she does miss a few now and then.”

  “I thought you told me things had quieted down?” Charlie asked, raising one brow.

  “I lied. I didn’t want to worry you, but they…it…she only seem to come out at night, though I do hear rustlings and whispers even during the day. There seems to be a lot of spirits r
oaming around we haven’t even gotten to know yet. I didn’t tell you about those either.”

  “I lied, too. Cloud still comes for at least part of most nights. Let’s see what we do have. Breanna is dead…murdered or an accidental death, who knows? Her locket was buried with her cat, who was alive when she disappeared,” Charlie said, “which adds up to what?”

  “You’re asking me? I don’t even know what I don’t know! I do know that Cloud was killed. That dent in his head wasn’t from falling out of a tree. Then.Devon just walks away and gets himself killed in some convenient train wreck. Or so we are led to believe, but we don’t,” Meg replied with a frown of concentration.

  “Do you think Devon killed Cloud and put his sister’s locket in the grave with him?” Charlie asked.

  “He killed those kittens in the rat traps, remember? Would he stop at killing a cat, if it served some purpose? Even one he seemed fond of if Nell remembers rightly? He cared about Breanna, too, and she’s dead.”

  “We don’t know for sure if that was his doing, Meg.”

  “If what Mrs. Shotz told us was even remotely true, the cops were looking in his direction. Why would he leave town if he was innocent?” Meg asked.

  “Now why would Devon leave town? Maybe, because nobody would believe him? With Breanna and Nell gone, there was no one in his corner. Certainly not his parents. And certainly not all the people who had come to believe the worst of him over the years.”

  Meg was quiet for a long moment. “But why kill Cloud?”

  “Maybe, just maybe, .he knew too much!” Charlie said thoughtfully.

  “And he was going to tell who? He’s a cat, remember?”

  “But what if he knew where Breanna was buried and could lead someone there?” Charlie continued.

  “That’s a motive, but why the locket?” Meg asked.

  “If the cops found the locket on Devon, that would be one more piece of circumstantial evidence added to what they already knew or suspected. Remember, even Nell, who cared about him, came to think the worst. And he had a dead cat to get rid off. Solution? Bury them in one hole and plant a bush over them. A bush that has grown into that prickly jungle you so much admire.”