Biggie and the Quincy Ghost

by Nancy Bell

  “This is all we have left of Diamond Lucy,” he said.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “You said you had a picture of her.”

  “That’s right, son. And I promised to show it to you.” He removed some papers and pulled out an envelope. Out of it, he took a tiny, dark little picture. “This is a tintype,” he said. “They used these before photographic paper was invented. Hold it in your hand.”

  The picture was heavy and cool like metal. I peered at the face. “It’s hard to see.”

  “I know. Bring it under the lamp. If you look carefully, you will see the true face of Diamond Lucy, the most beautiful woman ever to grace our fair city.”

  “Prettier than Annabeth?” I asked.

  Lucas smiled. “Well, son, for my money, poor little Miss Baugh was the spitting image of our own Diamond Lucy.”

  After staring at the picture for a few minutes, I was able to make out a face. She had blond curls and was wearing a high lace collar with a brooch pinned to it. The face, what I could see of it, was pretty, all right, but I didn’t think she held a candle to Annabeth. Still, I thought, they could have been sisters. Or was I letting my imagination run away from me? I wasn’t sure. I shoved the tintype back toward Lucas, who put it back into the envelope and closed the box.

  Lucas was watching me. “See what I mean? Doesn’t she look like the dead girl?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “You can’t hardly tell much from that old tintype.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “What say we work for another thirty minutes then call it a day?”

  I nodded, and we went back to plowing through papers.

  I was almost to the bottom of my box when I picked up a little brown leather book small enough to fit into a man’s shirt pocket. I opened it and immediately lost interest when I saw it had been used to jot down expenditures. I was about to close it and put it in the miscellaneous pile when something caught my eye. 1 Jan. 1901. Augustus Baugh. $200.00. I turned the book over and glanced at the cover. It was almost worn away, but if I held the book at a certain angle to the light, I saw engraved in gold on the front, Elijah P. Fitzgerald, Esq. I flipped through the pages of the book. Every month had an entry showing a payment of $200 to someone named Augustus Baugh. When I had gone through the whole book, I set it to the side of my other piles until I decided what to do. I had a feeling Biggie might be interested in seeing it, but wasn’t sure how I could get it out of the museum without Lucas catching me.

  I went on working on the contents of the box until I felt eyes on me. I looked up and saw Lucas looking at me. “Son, I want you to tell me what Lew Masters was saying about me back at the hotel.”

  His eyes seemed to be boring a hole through me. I couldn’t have lied to save my life. “Uh, not too much. Something about you getting some milk from the kitchen on the night Annabeth was killed.”

  Lucas nodded and went back to work. We never spoke again until he pulled out his pocket watch and announced that it was time for supper. I waited until he got up to put a stack of papers on a shelf then slipped the little ledger in my pocket.

  When I got back to the hotel, Biggie was talking to Emily Faye in the lobby. I sat down to listen.

  Emily Faye twisted her hands in her lap. “I didn’t have any feelings about her, one way or the other.”

  “Honey, I have a hard time believing that,” Biggie said. “I saw the way you looked at her.”

  “How? How did I look at her?” Emily’s voice rose.

  Biggie smiled. “Like you’d like to claw her eyes out. She was your rival, wasn’t she?”

  “Miss Biggie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I have to compete with some old country girl that can’t even speak good English?”

  “Because, honey, you’re in love with Brian. Isn’t that right? Tell Biggie all about it. I might even be able to help you.”

  Some girls can cry and it makes you feel sorry for them. You want to try and make them feel better, like—giving them a hug or something. When Emily Faye cried, you wanted to look the other way. Her eyes got all red, she snorted like a pig, and snot ran out of her nose.

  Biggie dug into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief, which she put in Emily Faye’s hand. Then she waited until Emily Faye stopped snorting and began hiccuping, and dabbing at her nose and eyes with the handkerchief.

  Finally, Emily Faye spoke. “You’re right. I do love him, but it’s not going to do me one bit of good to have her out of the way. Brian Quincy would never look at me if I was the last girl on earth!”

  “Sweetie, why do you say that? You’re a pretty girl, and you could be even prettier, if you’d fix yourself up a little.”

  “He’ll never look at me. No boy will. Miss Biggie, you just don’t know …”

  “What? What don’t I know?”

  Emily Faye stood up and smoothed her skirt. “I’ve got to go home. Mama will be expecting me.” She turned toward the door.

  “Oh, honey,” Biggie said. “Just one more thing. Would you mind signing my little address book? Just put your name and phone number on this line here.” Biggie was holding the book open in front of her.

  Emily Faye wrote in the book, and went out. We watched as she ran down the sidewalk like a scalded cat.

  Just as she disappeared from view, the supper bell rang. We had fried fish that Brian and his friends had caught that day at Lake O’ The Pines along with slaw, potato salad, hush puppies, and Caddo Lake green tomato relish. I like the perch best. I like to bite off their little crispy tails and then strip the white meat in one piece off the backbone. I ate so many so fast that Biggie worried that I might choke on a bone.

  After supper, Biggie, Lew Masters, Lucas, and Miss Mary Ann got up a game of Scrabble in the lobby. I went up to my room to play video games and forgot all about the little book in my pocket. About nine, I decided to take a nice long soak in my big claw-foot tub. The tub was deep, and I figured I could fill it with water up to my chin. While the water was running, I pulled the latest Harry Potter book out of my duffel bag and stripped off my clothes before climbing into the tub for a good read. Sure enough, the water came to my chin. I propped Harry Potter between the hot- and cold-water faucets and was soon lost in the wizard world. Biggie says I ruin all the nice books she buys because I like to read in the bathtub, but she doesn’t really care because at least I’m learning to be a reader. Biggie respects people who read on account of she never does. Biggie is what you might call an active person. She’s too busy doing things to take the time to just sit around reading. Personally, I think she’s missing a lot, but I doubt whether she’s going to change, her being so old and all.

  I must have read for a pretty long time because all of a sudden I noticed that my water had gotten cold as pond water. I took the book off the faucets and carefully laid it down on the bathmat so I could add some more hot water, but before I could get the water turned on, I heard a soft scraping sound in the room next door. My hand froze on the faucet as I sat very still to listen, wishing Rosebud were here with me. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of being all alone with a ghost in the next room. Next, I heard voices, at least I thought they must be voices, although the sounds could have been the wind whooshing through the crepe myrtle tree just outside my window. If they were voices, they spoke too low for me to understand the words. I eased myself out of the tub, being careful not to make any noise, and pulled my pants back on without even drying myself off. I tiptoed to the door and pressed my eye against the big old-fashioned keyhole. All I could see was a faint light, probably from the moon outside. The voices got louder. Now I was sure they were voices, two people, a man and a woman. I strained to listen, but the words wouldn’t come clear. Then something happened that pretty near scared the wits out of me. It was the sound of a door slamming—hard. I lost my balance and fell over backward on the cold tile floor, bumping my head on the side of the tub. I sat real still, holding my head and feeling a lump rise up underneath my fingers. I was wondering if I should go and tell Big
gie, when I heard another sound coming from next door. It was a woman sobbing. Sad sobs, just like the ones I’d heard that first night. Forgetting my head, I inched back to the door and tried again to look inside. Again, I couldn’t see a thing. But the sobs kept on, only now their sound was growing fainter and fainter, like whoever it was was moving away from me. Finally, they faded away to—silence. I pressed my ear to the door and listened for a long time, until finally I was convinced that whoever, or whatever, it was had gone.

  I stood alone in my bathroom thinking. Should I go for Rosebud? No, I couldn’t do that because Rosebud had gone to take the others back to Job’s Crossing. So I asked myself what Rosebud would do if he were in my shoes, and the answer came immediately. Rosebud would go and investigate. But Rosebud was a man, and strong; I was just a kid. Just then, my eye fell on a long-handled plunger near the wall behind the toilet. I picked it up and, pretending it was Harry Potter’s wand, I slowly turned the dead bolt, flinching when it clicked, and inched the door open. I stood for a moment inside the room until my eyes adjusted to the dark, then took a few steps inside. The room was completely quiet and, I could feel it, it was completely empty as well. Gripping my plunger, I tiptoed to the side wall and flipped on the light switch. The room was just as it had been. The high canopy bed stood out from the wall facing me. French doors with lacy curtains opened onto the balcony, just as they did in our room. An old-style marble-topped dresser with a tall mirror was set at an angle in the corner and, along the wall next to the hall, the tall wardrobe still stood. It was the same, but different. I scanned the room again and my eyes lit on the wardrobe. That was it. The doors to the wardrobe were ajar. I walked over to take a peep inside, expecting to find it full of old clothes, or maybe boxes. Instead, it was completely empty. I was about to close the doors when my eye fell on something strange. Inside the wardrobe I saw a footprint in the dust, small, like a lady or a kid. When I bent over to get a better look, I spotted a square door in the bottom of that wardrobe, exactly like the one Biggie has to get into her attic. In the middle of the door was a hole just big enough for one finger.

  Now what? I thought. Should I try to open that door with my finger? What if I did and a ghost was down there just waiting to come whooshing up into my face? Or, worse, what if the murderer was hiding down there? What would Biggie do? Then I had my answer. Biggie wasn’t afraid of any old ghost. Biggie wasn’t afraid of anything.

  I put my finger in the hole and was surprised at how easily the door lifted up. A blast of cold air came up out of the darkness and slapped me in the face. No ghost, just cold air. Suddenly, I remembered the cold spot I had noticed the first time I’d been in this room.

  I stepped into the wardrobe, being careful not to disturb the footprint, and peered down into the hole. I could see steps going down. Wishing I had a flashlight, I slowly put one foot on the first step. I looked down into total blackness. I stepped back out of the wardrobe. No way I’m going down there, I thought. Then I remembered something. I stepped back out of the wardrobe and went back through the bathroom to my bedroom. I looked on the old washstand that held my television. Sure enough, there was the little scented votive candle and next to it, the china ashtray with its book of matches still unused. The candle was small and wouldn’t give out much light, but it would have to do.

  I picked up the tee shirt I’d worn that day and pulled it over my head and put on my shoes without socks. I took the candle and matches and started back to the wardrobe. I got as far as the bathroom before I lost my nerve. I put the lid down on the toilet thinking I’d just sit down a minute to calm myself. Leaning back, I closed my eyes and tried to think brave thoughts. I thought of my friend, Monica, who is the bravest person I know outside of Biggie and Rosebud.

  My mind went back to one day last summer when Monica had decided to show me a cave she’d discovered down on the banks of Wooten Creek.

  “It’s the scariest place I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I ’spect you’ll be too chicken to go in there, J.R.”

  We were stepping high through the tall grass in Monica’s daddy’s pasture. Monica’s dog, Buster, was running ahead with his nose to the ground.

  “Me?” I said. “Me, scared? You must have me mixed up with somebody else. I’m not scared of any old cave.”

  “Well, you better be scared of this one,” she said. “On account of they tell that a really mean black man named Amos Durley’s got a still in there and if he finds anybody messing with it, he cuts them up in little pieces and uses their bodies for catfish bait.” Monica climbed through a bob wire fence then held the wires up for me to crawl through.

  After that, we cut through the woods until we came to the banks of the creek. Monica pointed to the opposite bank. “See that clump of sumac?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s behind that. Come on!”

  I looked at the sky. The sun was getting low. “It’s getting late. You reckon we ought to wait until tomorrow?”

  “Naw. Come on.” Monica was already walking across a sandbar in the creek. “Follow me, and you won’t get your feet wet.”

  Buster swam across and was already rooting around in the sumac bushes when we got there. Suddenly, there was a rustling noise, and three armadillos came scuttling out of the bushes. I like to jumped out of my skin.

  Naturally, Monica laughed her head off. “Come on,” she said. “A little old armadillo can’t hurt you.”

  “I know it,” I said, miffed.

  I followed Monica until we came to the entrance of the cave. The air coming out felt cool but smelled to high heaven.”

  “Pee-yew!” I said.

  Monica turned around and grinned at me.

  We hadn’t gotten far into the cave when Buster came trotting back out with something in his mouth.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Oh, Buster’s probably caught a mole. Ain’t he smart?”

  I didn’t answer, because I don’t have as high an opinion of Buster as Monica does.

  Now, we turned a corner and suddenly it was pitch-black in the cave. The smell was getting worse. “Okay,” Monica said. “Now, let’s just set down and rest. In a minute, you’re going to get the surprise of your life.”

  “Probably Amos Durley coming to cut us up into fish bait,” I said. But I sat down on a rock next to Monica. “I don’t know why you got the bright idea to show me this old cave anyway. We could be fishing.”

  “Just wait,” Monica said.

  It wasn’t long before I knew what she meant. At first it was just a faint rustling sound. Then I began to hear some tweeting noises. “Birds?” I asked.

  Monica grabbed my arm. “Just sit still and be quiet.”

  I tried, but seconds later, I felt something soft brush the top of my head.

  “What was that?” I started to stand up, but Monica held me back.

  “Now, duck!” she said.

  I put my head between my knees just before I felt a rush of air as thousands of tiny wings fluttered over our heads and the tweeting sound became a roar. Bats! Monica had brought me to a bat cave.

  “Keep your head down,” she said, giggling, “if you don’t want to get a face full of bat poop. Ain’t this fun?”

  “Yeah, fun,” I said, covering my head with my hands.

  After what seemed like a long time but was probably just a few minutes, the sounds stopped. Monica grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the mouth of the cave. “Look!” she shouted, pointing to the sky.

  What looked like a cigar-shaped black cloud was shooting toward the setting sun. Bats, thousands of them, were flying off for a night of hunting bugs.

  Sitting on that toilet in the hotel, I suddenly saw Monica’s face in front of me, laughing and calling me chicken because I was too scared to investigate a little trap door. I got up and started toward the wardrobe room.

  13

  An hour later, I was standing in the hall pounding on Biggie’s door as loud as I could.

  Biggie, wearing he
r little short-tailed nightie, opened the door a crack and peered out, then swung it open as soon as she saw it was me. “Honey, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” She pulled me into the room.

  I stood just inside her door panting on account of I’d run all the way back upstairs.

  “J.R., are you all right?” Biggie put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye.

  “Yes’m,” I said, “but I found out something really important, Biggie.” I flopped down on her bed and started in telling her all about the voices in the next room and about the little door in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  “My soul.” Biggie, who had climbed back in bed and wrapped the covers around her knees, leaned forward. “Did you look down there?”

  “Better’n that. I went down there. See, Biggie, there were these stairs leading down. Oo-wee, was it dark! But I’d taken a candle, see, so I could see just a little bit. The steps led down a pretty long way and, Biggie, there were spiders as big as your hand in there.”

  “Did you see one?” Biggie asked, and I thought I saw a twinkle in her eye.

  “Um, I didn’t exactly what you’d call see one, but I saw their webs—and they were huge!”

  “Okay,” Biggie said, “go on.”

  “Well, when I came to the end of the stairs, I came to this, like room thing, you know?”

  Biggie nodded.

  “And it was like a cellar, or something, dirt floor and brick walls, all musty and kind of damp.”

  “Was anything in there?” Biggie poured a glass of water from the pitcher by her bed and took a sip, then handed it to me.

  I drank some water and went on. “Yes’m, but that comes later. See, it was pitch dark in there except for my candle which was about to go out and a little square of light that was coming in from one wall. I walked over to that light and, guess what, it was the same little door me and Rosebud had found out in the courtyard. Remember, Biggie? Where we found Annabeth’s purse?”

  “I remember.”

  “So, anyway, I went over and pushed open the little door (It ain‘t—isn’t—much taller than I am.) and poked my head out to make sure there wasn’t anybody hanging around out in the courtyard. When I saw the coast was clear, I left the door open so I could see a little better by the moonlight.”