Spooked on the Gulf Coast (Gulf Coast Paranormal Trilogy Book 3)

by M. L. Bullock

  “Nobody’s complaining. I’m not really complaining. I’m just concerned about her. About all of us. I want us to be a team again, Midas. I guess I miss the old days.”

  I was with her right up until that last comment. “I hate to tell you, Sierra, but the old days are over. I’m sorry that you feel uncomfortable about the direction this team is going in. I hate that, but I can only see having Cassidy as part of our team as a plus. And to be honest with you, I’m surprised to hear you talk like this. Cassidy considers you her friend.”

  She put her pen down and put her hands on the sides of the leather captain chair. “You’re not hearing me. I like Cassidy. I think what she does is really cool, but in the interest of keeping the team cohesive, I think we ought to limit how much time we spend on her clues.”

  I shook my head, amazed at the direction this conversation was going in. I thought everything was okay. Teach me to think. Just then, the weird doorbell rang again, and Aaron and Cassidy stepped inside. I gave Sierra a look that said we’ll talk more about this later and got up to greet the team members.

  “How’s it going? Aaron, you got a haircut. Looks great.”

  “Nina said I looked like a shaggy bear and that if I was going to be in her wedding, I would have to get it cut. By the way, she’s expecting you to come up soon. Some of the guys at the Lodge want to talk to you. I think it’s a business meeting for GCP.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. I’ll be there. Hey, Cassidy. Did you get any rest?” I touched her cheek, which had a tiny dab of paint on it. Proof that she hadn’t rested much at all. “Something I should know about?”

  “First things first. I’m anxious to hear what Sierra has found.” She smiled at the usually sunny blonde and took a seat across from her.

  “Hold on a second, Sierra. Aaron, please go to the equipment room and ask Joshua and Pete to join us. We need to get this meeting started. Might as well run through all this just once.”

  “Sure will.” Aaron loped down the hall and retrieved the rest of the team.

  As the team settled around the table I asked, “So what are your thoughts on the investigation of Harrington Farm?” Everyone’s eyes turned to Cassidy, and I tried not to read too much into it. Was Sierra right? Did we depend too much on Cassidy’s ability? I didn’t want to believe that.

  “I guess I’ll go first,” Sierra said as she flipped open her folder. “Joshua and I have been going through a lot of footage this morning.”

  Pete scowled at her as he drank his coffee. “What am I? Chopped liver? I was here too.”

  Sierra nodded and smiled. “My apologies, Peter. I didn’t mean to leave you out. As you all know, there were many battles in Patch Town during the Civil War. However, there are no skirmishes on record for that area until after the siege at Jackson. Once the Confederate line had been pierced, the Union pushed down into that area and a significant battle occurred right where Harrington Farm stands. But the incidents in question were a few months before the Patch Town Battle and are probably not related to that at all. Anyway, we’ve grabbed some great evidence, but let’s start with the personal experiences first. I’d say hands down Helen’s encounter with the ghost in the downstairs bathroom was the most unsettling. I’m sorry she can’t be with us today to explain what it was she saw exactly, but we can all agree that she saw something.”

  “Yeah, and we have camera evidence to back that up.” Cassidy smiled proudly.

  “Great,” Sierra said with a bit of an attitude. I saw Cassidy wince at her tone. “Which brings me to you, Cassidy and Midas. Your experience in the guest room downstairs was also unusual, the chair exploding against the wall and the scratches on the floor. But as interesting and frightening as it was, there isn’t any video evidence to back it up. So, I’m not sure we can actually include that.”

  “But I saw the chair moving, and we all saw the word scratched into the wood. How does that not get included?” Cassidy asked in surprise. She looked at me for support.

  Sierra said patiently as if she were speaking to a child, “Because it’s only evidence if we have something to back it up. Like a digital recording or a picture or video footage.”

  “I see,” Cassidy said as she leaned back in the chair.

  “But we have a picture of the scratch marks, which most of us would agree spells out the word Bart,” I added quickly.

  “And there was a Bart there,” Cassidy whispered to me.

  Now, Sierra smiled, and it was a genuine smile. She flipped open her folder and pulled out a couple of papers that were stapled together. “Right. I did find a reference to a Bart Humphries in an old newspaper article. It references the murder of John and Wilmer McCoy, Grady Tolliver and Ben Gaines. The article says that Private Plum Darcy murdered the prisoners of war and attempted to murder his lieutenant, Bart Humphries. Apparently, historians believe that it was Darcy who did the killing up at Patch Town. That it was Darcy who murdered the POWs.”

  “Private Plum Darcy didn’t kill those men. He set them free. You didn’t see him, Sierra. I did. I saw him die. He didn’t do any of that.” Cassidy pointed to the stacks of old newspaper clippings and reports.

  Everyone around the table was silent except the two women. The boyfriend side of me wanted to jump in and rescue Cassidy, but she and Sierra needed to work this out. And so far, they were at least communicating on a friendly level.

  “But that’s the problem, Cassidy. Sometimes I see things too. You know that. But that’s not evidence. Like your dog, the one in the bathroom. I saw him, but he’s not true evidence; that’s a personal experience. We have to have something to show the client, something that can be put in a file and kept for proof of the paranormal. That’s what being a part of this group is about. Gulf Coast Paranormal is a legit paranormal research group. We want to stay legit, and that means we have to follow the evidence.”

  Joshua stared at me as if to say, Do something. What did he expect I could do?

  “It sounds to me like you don’t like working with me, Sierra. Is this how everyone feels? You guys want me off the team?” She stared at me first.

  Sierra answered, “I don’t want you off the team, Cassidy. I recognize your gift as a genuine thing. You are the real deal. But we have to remember that the focus of the Gulf Coast Paranormal team is to find and follow the evidence. I’m not sure we can always call your visions evidence.”

  Pete looked nervous and seemed to want in on this conversation, but I gave him the brow lift. The brow lift that said Stay out of this one, brother.

  To my surprise, Cassidy blew her lips and nodded in agreement. “You are right, Sierra. Even though my gift is real—like yours—it’s not evidence that I can present to anyone outside of our group. But, if you guys don’t believe me, and if you don’t need me, then I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  Right then and there, Sierra got up and went to Cassidy and hugged her. “You’re my friend, Cassidy, and you are one heck of an investigator. Let’s just make sure we’re all working together. And I don’t want you to go anywhere.” Cassidy hugged her back, and neither one of them was crying, thank goodness.

  Sierra went back to her spot, and I touched Cassidy on the shoulder. She squeezed my hand and released it. Peter grinned. I knew he was holding out on us. “If we can move on now, I’ve got the proof you need, Sierra. I’ve got it right here.” He tossed a jump drive up in the air and caught it. “Bart Humphries murdered those men, and I can prove it. Let me pull up this EVP.” Peter popped the jump drive in the USB port and opened his laptop. He selected a series of voice recordings and hit play. “This is from the palmetto field,” he said as he slid off his headphones. “I used the ghost box to catch these voices before we left.”

  I listened intently to the evidence.

  “What is your name?” Pete asked on the recording.

  Tolliver…

  “Why are you here?”

  Dead… murder…

  We could hear the recorder shuffle; obviously, Peter had
stopped to listen. When his voice came back, you could hear the excitement. “Tolliver? Who murdered you?”

  Lieutenant…

  “Wow,” I said in amazement. “That’s definitely evidence. Tolliver? That’s the guy from your artwork, Cassidy?”

  “No, but Tolliver was one of the Confederate prisoners. I thought he had gotten away because Private Darcy set him free, but he apparently did not make it far. That confirms what you found, Sierra. I was hoping that article got it wrong.”

  Peter broke in, his tone serious, “You know how I was feeling like I’d been there before? This is probably just a cosmic coincidence, and I didn’t put two and two together at the time, but my mother is a Tolliver. It’s possible that I am related to the late Grady Tolliver.” Nobody said anything for a full minute. Now that was a mind-bender.

  Sierra said sadly, “I can confirm the murders; none of them got away.” She flipped open her notebook. “Here it is. They were all murdered; Humphries claimed that Darcy also killed a dog.”

  “What? Humphries killed the dog too?”

  “That’s what the report says.” Sierra slid the paper to Cassidy.

  For the next thirty minutes, we went through various EVPs and footage from our recordings that night. Clearly, we saw a shadowy figure outside the house and in the hallway going into the bathroom about the same time that Helen would’ve been in there. We all came to the same conclusion: Rose Goddard was nowhere in that house. The dead Mrs. Anderson was there but only as a residual haunt. For whatever reason, she would probably spend eternity humming away, waiting for her husband to come home and murder her.

  However, the ghosts of the Civil War were still lingering at Harrington Farm too. As in many small towns around the South and probably even in the North, there were many injustices left unrectified and forgotten by the living. Apparently, Private Plum Darcy and Mr. Tolliver did not want to be forgotten. We had to make sure they weren’t.

  “I have a suggestion,” Pete said as he closed his laptop. “It might be a little farfetched, but when has that ever stopped us?” Pete shared his idea, and we all agreed it was a good one. Now, I had to pitch it to the client as well as tell him that Harrington Farm was haunted. But with any luck, the haunting would end soon.

  Chapter Sixteen—Midas

  I pulled into the driveway of the Tiny Diny Restaurant. There were more cars present than I expected. It had been years since I visited this humble Mobile landmark, and I was glad to see that it was still flourishing. If I remembered correctly, they had some of Mobile’s best burgers, and my stomach was rumbling already. I didn’t see Jason Goddard’s vehicle yet, so I waited.

  I parked the vehicle and put the keys in my pocket and reached for my tablet. My email inbox was pretty empty except for the reminder from Nina about this weekend. That was going to be an interesting meeting. I replied to her, deleted a few emails and tried to call Cassidy. Still no answer, but I was hopeful that yesterday’s meeting had not discouraged her too much. It seemed like she and Sierra made up, and it was important for Sierra to be able to speak her mind and remind us all to focus on the evidence. I had to admit, at least to myself, that Cassidy’s gift amazed me and sometimes I did forget that we were all there to find black-and-white, plain-as-day evidence. However, there was no way I was going to allow Cassidy to be pushed out. And yet, I really don’t think that’s what Sierra intended. After all this, I would turn my focus to team building again, making each of us stronger as individuals and as a group. I couldn’t wait to share with them some of the ideas I had in mind.

  About that time, Bruce and Jason pulled into the parking lot of the Tiny Diny. I met them, and we went inside to find an out-of-the-way booth where we could talk about the evidence and hopefully convince Jason to participate in our plan. We told the waitress we were going to hold off on ordering our food for a few minutes, but she brought us some coffee. And we hunkered down to get to the nitty-gritty.

  “Jason, we can’t thank you enough for inviting us into your home. It meant a lot to be included in that history, and all of us left Harrington Farm feeling somewhat somber remembering those who had passed on before. You do them all a great honor, and I hope that whoever comes after you and takes ownership of Harrington Farm remembers that history.”

  “I guess that means my wife…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  “We didn’t find any evidence that Rose was there, Jason. We didn’t hear or see anything that would lead us to believe that Rose remains at Harrington Farm. If I were you, I would take that to mean that she is at peace. Even though we didn’t collect any evidence that Rose was there, we felt a great sense of peace in many areas of the house, and it is a beautiful home. Obviously, you two loved one another very much.”

  Jason dug a blue bandana from his pocket and wiped at his eyes. “My Rose was the love of my life. I am heartbroken to hear that I will never see her again, and at the same time, I am relieved. The place is too much for me to keep up. Bruce has offered to help, but I think it’s time to let go of the past. There is a young man in our historical group, a very responsible young man, who’s interested in purchasing the place. Maybe I’ll talk to him this week and see what we can arrange. I do want to see the reenactments continue.”

  “That doesn’t mean we didn’t capture some things that gave us pause. We did. A number of things. I guess you know about Helen’s encounter?”

  “Yeah. What a shock that was.”

  I removed the tablet from my leather bag and tapped on the screen. “That shadow creature we caught more than once. I’ll let you take a look at the video clips my team put together for you, and then we’ll talk.” I tapped the screen and handed it to Bruce and Jason, who were immediately mesmerized.

  It was Bruce who spoke first. “That’s the shadow man that Helen saw, right?”

  “That’s right. And the one clip. That’s the one where you’ll see her walking in and then that shadow crosses into the hallway like it was going after her. There’s no doubt that she saw something. We all saw those red marks around her neck. I wouldn’t doubt if it was this shadow man that attacked her.”

  Jason confessed, “You know, I can’t count how many times I have seen things out of the corner of my eyes. It gets worse during these bi-annual musters and during reenactment events. Rose would never admit that she saw anything. Maybe she didn’t, but I do, and it’s gotten to the point that I don’t like being in my own house. I can’t live like that. If it’s not her, then I can’t stay.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” I said. “You shouldn’t have to feel that way, but I have to warn you, there is more.” I played Pete’s EVP, and I thought Jason’s mouth was going to hit the floor.

  “Is that voice saying, ‘Tolliver?’”

  I nodded in agreement. “That’s what we believe. And when you hear the whole thing, you realize he’s talking about Bart Humphries. He says he was murdered by the lieutenant.”

  “Wait a minute. That’s not what I heard. I’ve always heard that it was that private gone crazy—what’s his name? Darcy. Yeah, Private Darcy is the one who killed all those guys. Humphries was the lone survivor.”

  “Based on that EVP and some personal experiences, we don’t agree with that account. It’s our belief that Private Darcy was murdered by Lieutenant Humphries and that Humphries also murdered the Confederate POWs. Our chief researcher, Sierra, examined the historical records, and she has found many instances where this Lieutenant Humphries changed his testimony over the years. And there’s one more thing.”

  Jason sipped his coffee and said, “Yes?”

  “We have a member of our group; her name is Cassidy Wright. You met her.”

  “Yes, she’s a nice young lady.”

  “Well, she’s more than that. She’s a painter, an artist, and a sensitive. We’ve used her in several cases because she is able to connect with the past.”

  Bruce piped in, “He means ghosts. She connects with ghosts.”

  “Yes, that’s w
hat I mean. She connects with them and paints them. I know it sounds farfetched, and if I hadn’t seen her in action myself, if I didn’t know how accurate she can be, I wouldn’t believe it either. But it’s true. She’s painted Private Darcy.”

  “Did she paint something about this Darcy related to the farm?”

  “Yes. I took some pictures of her paintings to show you. Some of these are disturbing, Jason, so be warned.”

  I tapped on the screen and showed the men a series of three photos. The first featured Private Darcy with another man standing behind him in a menacing stance. The second one was a picture of a dog, and the third picture was Private Darcy nearly covered with red clay in a pit in the woods.

  “We believe this location is the palmetto field next to your house. That’s where we picked up Tolliver’s EVP. We believe that Private Darcy is buried there. I’m not sure about these other soldiers, the POWs, but it could be possible that they are there too.”

  “My goodness. To have tragedy so close to the house. I mean, a battle is one thing, but to see that…does that mean that young man was buried alive?” Jason’s disturbed expression spoke for the whole group.

  “I think it’s safe to say that, yes, Private Plum Darcy was buried alive, and Bart Humphries was the one who murdered him.”

  Jason rubbed his chin and stared at both Bruce and me hard. “What do we do? I mean, I’m at a loss here. I knew the activity had picked up, but I just assumed it was Rose or maybe Mrs. Anderson. This is worse than I imagined.”

  “I think Tolliver and Darcy knew you were thinking about selling Harrington Farm, and they reached out to you. You were going through a hard time, and they were feeling desperate. They had waited for so long to find someone to help them. They reached out to you, Jason, and you reached out to us. It all worked out.”

  He blinked his eyes and smiled a sad smile.

  “Now, as far as Mrs. Anderson goes, we did catch some interesting sounds. Many of us heard humming coming from that upstairs bedroom, but as far as we know, she doesn’t know anyone is there. We think she is a residual haunt. You don’t have anything to fear from her. Sadly, she’s stuck. One day she may leave. However, it is within our power to make this right for Private Darcy. We can do that with your help.”