“How’s that?”
“Heavy on the guilt.”
“Really? I thought I was talking truth.”
“Sucker punching me with it.” Gavin rolled the apple onto the counter.
“Aren’t you going to finish that?” she asked when he turned to walk out.
“Nah. I’ve lost my appetite.”
“May I ask why?” she said to his back.
He stopped at the door and turned halfway back. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s poisoned?”
It took her a second to answer. “Athames are on the left when you walk up the stairs. Good luck not tripping.”
He chuckled, then wondered over the sound. Okay, that was twice now she’d made him laugh. Tapping his fingers against the jamb, he said, “Tell me something, Freckles. Why did you get into the paranormal racket?”
“When you stop thinking of it as a racket,” she replied, “I’ll tell you. Maybe. Anything else?”
“When’s the naked séance? I might need to see that.”
“You won’t.”
He cursed. “Are you really here working or are you keeping tabs on me for the folks?”
“Well, now’s a good a time as any to make an entrance,” Zelda said as she breezed past him. She patted him on the biceps. Her sleeve brushed his arm. It was long and silky. She raised herself to her toes so he could hear her mutter, “For God’s sake, handsome, stop while you’re ahead.”
“When was I ahead?” he wondered out loud.
“Mavis thinks well of you,” she pointed out. “She rarely thinks highly of anyone. Be a good soldier. Keep to her good side.” She spoke briskly. The arm pat became a squeeze before she moved on, and Gavin found himself murmuring a quick, “Yes ma’am.”
He’d already decided that he liked the mistress...er, matron of the manor. Meeting her in person, he’d had difficulty assimilating the keen woman with old age despite her pixie mop of silver-tinged hair. She was tall—like Harmony, nearly as tall as him—narrow as an arrow, and shrewd. Like Mavis, she smelled great. Herbal, refreshing. He saw the bright streak of her head scarf as she moved to the counter. She made him think of jewel-colored birds in the tropics.
The river house was everything Mavis had promised. Clean lines. Open space. In the daytime, there was the added benefit of a flood of natural light with the outside literally coming in, as he’d discovered in the shower. The furniture was sparse and, oddly, close to ground. The low-level effect from the dining room to the bedroom brought to mind an Oriental theme. Judging by some Mandarin words he’d traced on the wall of his bathroom, he didn’t think he was far off there.
Zelda lived in the bedroom downstairs facing the river. My wing, as she called it in her deep silky voice. Rules are, I don’t enter your space, you don’t enter mine.
That’s fair, he’d said.
He was told to expect an odd assortment of visitors on weekdays and weekends and phones ringing late into the night. He’d thought that was due to Zelda’s so-called yoga school, which also operated out of the river-facing first floor. Now he knew to attribute it more to her and Mavis’s side business. Thankfully he’d found the soundproofing in his wing of the house to be impressive, despite the warning.
“Stunning rhododendrons!” Zelda said, approaching a tall spray of bright flowers in the corner. “Carlton Nurseries. Must be. The Bracken family trade always comes up with the best.”
Mavis made an assenting noise. “Dad picked it out. The Leightons sent it, as a thank-you for Saturday.”
“I’ll have Errol plant it in the front bed, in front of the office window,” Zelda announced. “That is, if he doesn’t mind working in the rain. We’re going to have a wet week. How’s the research coming for the Muculney case? Find anything?”
“It’s more in what I’m not finding,” Mavis said, her head low over her book again. “I can trace the girl’s Acadian line to Canada, but it stops expanding after the Civil War. No records that I can find of a child born of the Isnard estate after fighting broke out. Nothing at all under her name anywhere in Louisiana.”
“Did you try the internet?” Zelda asked as she fussed over the stovetop. Pots rang with the sound of silver as she removed a lid. The scent of soup filled the air. “Censuses? Area cemetery records?”
“I spent most of the afternoon at the computer.”
“Omissions can be telling. How hungry are you, Gavin?” Zelda asked him. “Soup’s been simmering since the a.m. and there’s more than Mavis and I can eat.”
Gavin lifted a hand. “I don’t expect you to cook for me. I can find my way around the kitchen.”
“Yes, I see you’ve been at the apples. Errol brought these from his backyard.”
“Who’s Errol again?” Gavin wondered aloud.
Zelda’s tone warmed over a purr. “Mon choupinou.”
Gavin frowned. “Is that code for boyfriend?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s French for ‘cabbage,’” Mavis said.
Gavin leaned into Zelda. “You sayin’ there’s another man around here?”
“Don’t you worry, toots.” She dug her elbow into his side. “There’s plenty of Miss Zelda to go around.”
Gavin felt a grin cracking across his face. “I like her,” he said, pinpointing Mavis over Zelda’s bright head scarf.
“Peas in a pod,” Mavis decided for herself.
Zelda used the ladle in her hand to tap him on the rear. “Have a seat at the counter, sugar loaf. There’s nothing heartier than minestrone soup at the day’s end. And you look like you could use some soul food.”
Gavin thought about going up to the solitude of his room. They were talking business and he couldn’t pretend not to be weirded out by the ghost-hunting side of it. However, the fragrance of minestrone hit him in the gut.
He crossed the room and rounded the counter, following the edge of it with his hand around the elevated bar. He tripped over something and looked down to see the prone dark lump on the floor. There were sounds coming out of it. Gavin realized it was Prometheus. “Is he okay?”
“Just sleeping,” Mavis informed him. “Why?”
Gavin waited for the noise to rise from the beast again. “When a helo makes that noise, it’s time to bail.”
“You know this from experience?” she inquired.
“Among other things.” From his previous, adrenaline-loaded life.
“The only thing he’s suffering from is exhaustion,” Mavis said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s shadowed your every move since you got here.”
“I noticed,” Gavin said. He skimmed the side of his foot along what felt to be the dog’s ruff in a quick rub before grabbling for the back edge of the stool next to Mavis’s and pulling it out from under the ledge.
“If he bothers you, all you have to do is say so,” she said while he took his seat.
“He doesn’t.” Gavin had forgotten how companionable the silent presence of a canine could be, though he’d felt a clench when the shaded form of Prometheus had blurred into another dog’s as the late-afternoon light failed.
Gavin turned his attention to the stacks of books on the countertop. The rubbed scent of lignin stirred memories of libraries and secondhand bookshops. They were old books, he assumed. Big, from the sound of her closing and stacking them. He squinted at the spine of one. When the letters blurred, he scowled. He’d never been a big reader, but there had been freedom in knowing, should he choose, it could serve as a distraction.
A bowl clacked onto the granite in front of him. The steam wafted up his nose and his stomach grappled for the contents. Sustenance. “Mmm,” he said, unable to help it. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“No ma’am,” Zelda insisted, waving a napkin in front of her face before she set it down next to his bowl with a spoon on top. “It makes me feel retro.”
“Are you?”
he asked experimentally, picking up the utensil.
“You’re a rascal,” Zelda realized. “I like that in a man.”
“Is Errol a rascal?” Gavin muttered in an aside to Mavis.
“He’s been known to listen to metal on occasion...”
“All men are rascals in some vein,” Zelda chimed in. “Even the deeply repressed type.” Zelda stopped in front of Gavin. “I doubt you’re the repressed type.”
The corner of his mouth curved upward and kept tugging. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, for starters, look at our girl. Does she look like she’d go for that?”
Mavis looked up as she became the center of attention.
“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “I always thought deep down Mavis was kind of a tight-ass.” The snug grin dug in further when her oval face slowly revolved his way under the light. His smile pulled at the scars on his face.
“Pat my head and call me Freckles,” she said. “I dare you.”
Zelda chuckled. “Here’s your soup, dear. Stop and eat.”
“Thank you,” Mavis said, taking the bowl in both hands. She took the spoon and napkin, then began to stir. Her elbow nudged his. Then again. “This isn’t going to work, lefty,” she told him. “You should sit on my other side.”
He nudged her elbow again. “You’re wearing wool,” he said as her sweater grazed his arm.
“Yeah, why not?” she asked.
“It’s ninety degrees out,” he pointed out.
“I’m cold,” she said, her shoulder lifting close to his. Muttering, she went back to her reading. “I’m always cold.”
“What would you like to wet your whistle, Gavin?” Zelda asked him. “There’s water. We have herbal tea. There should be some organic orange juice. No liquor. Neither Mavis nor I drink much, particularly during working hours.”
“Water for me, thanks. And some working hours, by the way. You don’t drink?” he asked, turning to Mavis.
“Only once in a blue moon,” she admitted. “Dad’s a recovering alcoholic. Mom never kept liquor in the house. Some of us had better things to do in high school and college than binge drink.”
“Not me,” he remembered fondly.
“No, I never said anything about you, did I?” she said drolly.
“So you don’t drink when you go out?” he asked.
“Out where?” she asked, mouth full of soup.
“Out,” he said. “That place people tend to go when they leave the house. Particularly single people on Friday and Saturday nights.” He peered at her when she turned her face to his without answering. “You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Freckles?”
“Do I look like an idiot?”
“You look like a blur,” he said. “A sweet, spotted blur.”
He could tell she was frowning. “I work three jobs. One fielding customers at Flora for Mom. Another doing bookkeeping for Dad at the garage. And another on nights and weekends here with Miss Zelda. My social agenda is pretty limited. Not that I mind. And not that it’s relevant.”
“I think it’s relevant,” he claimed.
“Why?”
He shrugged, scarfing another bite. He stopped for a second to enjoy its impact before spooning another. “Because you are a tight-ass.” She scoffed at him and he added, “And in another life, you might’ve been a cheap date.”
Mavis made a choking noise, then coughed. Gavin dropped his spoon into his bowl, lifted his arm over the back of her chair. He gave her several raps on the back.
“Another life?” Zelda spoke with all the nonchalance of an innocent bystander. “Why not this one? Gavin, I assume you’re single. That Leighton boy was the last one to tickle Mavis’s fancy. And that was back when he was still a man-baby.”
Gavin demanded, “Which Leighton?”
Mavis choked again.
Zelda called his bluff. “So you are interested. Hot dog!”
When Mavis reached desperately for his glass of water, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Mmph.”
He heard the water going down her throat. He thought about it—her throat.
Stop being weird, Savitt, he chided himself.
She was talking again, to Miss Zelda. She sounded husky. Vital. He felt an odd stir, the same one she’d cranked to life in the bougainvillea. Something told him to reel it in, but he kept his arm across her back, cupping her slender shoulder blade through the thin wool of her sweater. He’d never been good at listening to sense, especially when it came to warm, smart women of the unconventional variety.
This one happened to be his best buddy’s sister. But Kyle was training hard somewhere out in California. Helicopter rappelling. The bastard. And Mavis. She was in arm’s reach. The threat of Kyle was lessened by the miles between them and conversation with Mavis... Her proximity had kept the lingering threat of that afternoon’s headache at bay.
“The meal’s put color in your face,” Zelda observed as she ate from the other side of the counter. Her tone slid homily into something sly. “Or is it the company?”
Gavin felt Mavis go rigid and circled the spot of her shoulder blade beneath his hand before removing it, going back to his meal. “Both are unrivaled,” he granted. Zelda’s low laugh was one of approval. The knuckles of his drinking hand knocked into something hard. Another book, he surmised. Cautiously, he asked, “What about this genealogy thing? How does that factor into...whatever it is you do?”
“Cases are confidential,” Mavis informed him shrewdly.
“He’s living here,” Zelda reminded her. “There’re things he’s bound to overhear. Such as, Vincent and Phyllis Muculney out of southern Louisiana are investigating the family lore of an alleged presence in her family’s planation homeplace. Vincent and Phyllis are friends of mine from the eighties so I knew a drive there wouldn’t be a waste. They’ve drawn attention to the property over the last year because of its rich landscape. Phyllis is very into conservation; Vincent is very into history. Local media have drawn widespread interest in the family lore and reports of paranormal activity. We got some interesting EMF readings off what’s left of the Isnard Plantation, didn’t we, Mavis?”
“Sure,” Mavis said mildly. Pages flipped. She was back to her research, multitasking as she spooned more minestrone into her mouth.
“Excuse me,” Gavin said, holding up a hand. “EMF?”
It was Mavis who answered. “Electromagnet fields. The theory is that ghosts are able to manipulate them. Our EMF meters can detect this.”
“And this is how you find Casper? Beetlejuice? Bruce Willis?”
She stared at him a second or two before answering with amusement. “If you will.”
“The audio was most revealing,” Zelda said, excitement growing. “Tell him about the audio.”
Mavis spared a weary glance for Miss Zelda before continuing. “We often take voice recordings, particularly in areas of EMF anomalies,” Mavis told him, adjusting her glasses. “While playing back the Isnard tapes, we found something.”
“You heard voices?” he asked, back to skeptic.
“Just one,” she said, nonchalant. As if they were discussing the ingredients of minestrone soup.
“What did it tell you?” he asked. “Have you unlocked the mysteries of the universe? Should we call Stephen Hawking or—”
“No,” she replied. “After passing what we heard on to Vincent and Phyllis, they told us about twin brothers who owned the planation jointly before being called off to service in 1862.”
“Here’s where it gets intriguing,” Zelda said conversationally.
Mavis paused. “Neither Josiah nor Daniel returned from battle,” she said finally. “Those who remained were convinced that the family line ended there. Until, of course, a kitchen girl revealed that she was pregnant with an Isnard heir.”
&
nbsp; “So?” Gavin said.
Zelda smiled. “She didn’t know which twin was the father.”
“Which means either one of them cornered her in one of the secret passages under the cover of night,” Mavis said admonishingly.
“Or she was having an affair with both,” Zelda finished.
“The first theory’s more likely,” Mavis murmured. “I don’t see a ménage à trois happening in the grand master suite.”
“People back then were no different from people today,” Zelda informed her. “There was scandal. And secrets aplenty. Besides, I like the idea of the servant girl getting her own.”
“Was this voice you heard on the tapes by chance female?” Gavin asked.
“Why, yes,” Zelda said, glad he was catching on.
“So you think it was the kitchen girl,” he surmised.
“It’s a sound theory,” Zelda said. “One Mavis, Phyllis and I are in agreeance on. But what’s most interesting is that she spoke two names. The first in what remained of the living quarters above stairs. Josiah.”
“And the second in the chamber Phyllis told us about behind the servants’ stairwell. Daniel,” Mavis added. “That’s where the family claims most activity has occurred throughout the years.”
Gavin scraped what remained of his soup from the sides of his bowl, mulling the information. “Did this baby and its mother wind up reaping the estate benefits and carrying on the line?”
Zelda laughed. For once, it didn’t ring true. “Hell, no, she didn’t. Cousins came in, Phyllis’s ancestors, and turned the place over. The servants were dismissed and nothing was heard of the girl or her baby. The place wasn’t fit for living for another whole generation. The cousins eventually gave it up cold turkey.”
“Phyllis’s grandfather eventually inherited the mess and decided to rebuild most everything from the ground up,” Mavis told him. “It took years because workmen kept walking off, claiming they felt a tap on the shoulder or they could hear whispering when they were alone.”
“Phyllis’s first encounter herself was in the chamber behind the servants’ stairs,” Zelda divulged. “She was playing hide-and-seek with friends from grammar school. She was alone in the dark, but someone brushed the hair from her face. She lit outta there like someone had planted live firecrackers in her saddle shoes.”
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