Southern Belle

by Stuart Jaffe

  "I was seriously tempted," he said before pointing toward an exit. "Take Peters Creek Parkway up into the city. Stay on it for a bit."

  Max followed the directions even as Drummond dropped back into the heart of his story. He had been standing in Patricia's bedroom, not moving, just thinking. He wanted nothing more than to throw off his clothes, rush into that shower with her, and forget the world. And why shouldn't he? Because he thought she might have been expecting him? Because she might be this witch? It didn't make sense. He had followed Ernest and Leed blindly and now he contemplated a torturous death for the woman he loved.

  He reached up to his shirt and began unbuttoning. She deserved better from him than what he had given. That kiss had said it all.

  The bathroom door opened. Patricia stood in the doorway wearing nothing at all, one arm stretched along the frame, the other behind her back.. She smiled at him and his heart skipped. From behind her back, she pulled out the ivory knife and her smile fell.

  Drummond's hand reached into his coat pocket — a flashlight. She had switched them at some point. He looked up at her. "It's true, then?"

  "Don't do this to me," she said, her voice soothing and at odds with the tension in her grip. "Whatever you think I am, I'm not."

  "Then how do you know what I'm going to do?"

  "Because I love you, and when you love someone, you take an interest in what they do. I know the kind of cases you specialize in. A weapon like this — it can't have any good purpose. You've been hiding it since last night. First time you ever refused to let me take your coat."

  "You're only protecting yourself, then? Is that it?"

  Her throat quivered as she stepped closer to him. Her beautiful body swayed like a snake hypnotizing its prey. He only had to tell her that he didn't care. Give over to her and he could live happily ever after. A fairy tale washed in dark magic.

  But as she took her final step, she turned the blade towards him. Drummond reacted to the threat with muscle memory. He deflected her thrust, grabbed the wrist of the knife hand, and redirected the blade into her soft belly.

  "A witch after all," he muttered.

  She fell over, blood staining the ivory, her breathing the only sound. Though tears blurred his vision, Drummond hurried through the ceremony. His heart broke with each step. He circled her in salt, pulled out the blade, and carved the intricate symbols into her back. Her shock had shut down her reactions. Like an abused wife, she simply took the punishment. It was a small mercy to him, it let him finish the job without pause, but his heart wept with every cut. When he finished the last symbol, he thought he might be able to get through the whole thing. Until he pulled back her head to slit her throat.

  Her eyes shot open, and she peered back at him. "Please, don't do this. I'm no witch. I'll forgive you for all of this. Please, don't kill me."

  Sandra wiped the tears in her eyes. "What did you do?"

  Drummond told Max to pull over. "I killed her. I hated myself for it, but I had to do it. I couldn't be sure what was true, and if I let her go, nothing good could happen. If she was a witch, she would go on and the failed curse would destroy us. If she wasn't, she would go to the police and we'd never have a chance to shut down the coven. Matt and Leed did their best to convince me we had done right. They even stayed around for two months to check up on every lead they could find, to make sure no other witches in the coven could be found. Their assurances plus the fact that no revenge was exacted upon us, led us to the conclusion that we had succeeded.

  "But I didn't believe it. I couldn't have been so wrong about her. So, I've spent all these years since wondering, knowing, I had killed an innocent woman. Except when you showed me that picture of her at the fire — only a powerful witch with access to the magic a coven created could have pulled off the kind of spell that'd let you live so long."

  Max reached over and patted through Drummond's hand. The act caused an icy chill to cover Max's body, but Drummond clearly appreciated the gesture. Then Max's eyes widened. "Wait a second. Since she really was a witch, we have to destroy her body like Leed said. Otherwise, we'll be attacked, too. Right?"

  "About that." Drummond tilted his hat and sat back in the car. "See, after I finished with — after I finished, I had a big problem. Since I had waited until morning to do it, I couldn't easily dispose of her body. Not in broad daylight. So, I wrapped her in the carpet and went back for my car. I stuffed her in the trunk and drove her to the office."

  "Are you saying she's in the office?"

  "She was. But then some people decided to renovate the Zinzendorf Hotel."

  "You mean rebuild. Not much left to renovate."

  "No, they rebuilt it shortly after the big fire. But in my lifetime, they decided to renovate it, and when the time came, I broke in one night and slipped the body into the walls."

  Max clapped his hands once. "Great. Let's go get her."

  "Here's our problem."

  Max sighed, and Sandra shook her head. "You really thought it would be easy?"

  "In 1970, I was a cursed ghost stuck to the office. A squatter had taken up residence — Hal. Real pain in the neck. He had a buddy, Dale, who would stop by to smoke pot from time to time. One day, I'm listening to them talk —"

  "You little eavesdropper."

  "You try being imprisoned to that office. I took whatever entertainment I could get. Anyway, these fellas are talking and Dale mentions that the Zinzendorf Hotel was going out of business. They were going to raze the whole thing. I had maybe a month before things went sour with the coven's curse. So, I started haunting Hal. He had moved enough furniture around, disrupting the full curse on me, that I could make my presence known. Luckily, Hal had a keen fear of the supernatural. I convinced him I was the ghost of Patricia and that he had to move my body or else I'd plague him forever."

  "So where is she now?"

  "He found her the night before they tore down her floor. He brought what was left back to the office. I then had him wait until they poured the foundation for the new building and then when the time was right, Hal put her in the mix." Drummond nodded out the window. "That building across the street is where the hotel used to be. She's in the foundation."

  Max's hope deflated as he looked across the street. The Federal Building. Well, that's what the locals called it. Really, it was the US District Court — courtrooms and holding cells, bursars and chambers, lawyers and police. "You gotta be kidding me."

  Chapter 14

  Max drove up to Fourth Street and headed for the office. Double parking in front of the building, he faced Sandra. "I need that code finished."

  "I will. I'm close, I think. You're not really going to break into the Federal Building, are you?"

  "I have no idea what I'm going to do."

  She gritted her teeth into a ridiculous smile. "Well, at least you know where you stand."

  Max couldn't help himself. He laughed hard as she walked toward the office. "I love you," he shouted after her. In response, she put an extra sway to her hips.

  Once Max pulled back into traffic, Drummond slid through the car into the passenger seat. "So what are we going to do?"

  "I really don't know overall. Right now, though, you and I are going back to Tanglewood Park. We've got some unfinished business out there."

  Drummond tried to pry out a clue as to what Max had in mind, but Max focused on driving. He took it as a good sign when Drummond settled back, tipping his hat over his eyes. Max didn't think ghosts actually slept, but he couldn't be sure.

  When they finally reached the park, Max drove out to the open field where Drummond had taken them earlier. He trudged out to the tree and stared at it.

  "You came all the way out here to see this tree again?"

  Max turned in a circle, his eyes searching all around. "You've taught me a lot about being a detective. I really appreciate that."

  "What does that have to do with being here?"

  "One thing that's really stuck with me is the importance o
f having a partner you can trust. Until this whole thing started, I believed I could trust you."

  "You know you can trust me."

  "Except I'm learning how little I know about you, and then there's the fact that you've been lying to us for quite awhile."

  "You lied, too. Pretended not to know Leed or Matt."

  "I was wrong to do that. That's why we're here. We need to make things right before we go any further. This whole thing is giving me that same feeling I've had before — that we're headed down a dark path. I don't think we can do that and survive, if we don't trust each other."

  Drummond thrust his hands in his coat pocket and tucked his chin down. "I got that feeling, too."

  "Wrong angle," Max muttered and walked several feet beyond the tree, turned around and nodded with satisfaction. "There."

  "What?"

  "From this angle, it's clear that this tree is the one in the picture. There's the weird branch and in the distance is the stables."

  "What picture?"

  "You know what picture. The gal under the tree. It was taken right here. Am I wrong to think that she was Patricia? And that you took the picture?"

  Drummond chuckled. "You really are getting good at this."

  "What I don't understand is why you buried her in that hotel when it made more sense for you to bring her out here. The way you brought us out, the way you look at that tree, the fact that you took the picture — if you felt so strongly about her, and I believe that you did, then why dump her in some anonymous way?"

  "I didn't want to." Drummond stared at the tree as if he could see her still. "My original plan was to bring her here in the middle of the night. But time was against me. It was important for the curse that she die near the same time the others did. At least, I thought it was. I failed that by waiting until morning."

  "And if you wanted to bury her by this tree, you'd have to wait until late that next night."

  "Exactly. I couldn't wait that long. No way would the curse be effective."

  "Okay." Max headed back to the car. "I appreciate your honesty. Now, it's my turn. I have to tell you something, and it may be difficult to hear but you must stay calm."

  Drummond floated next to Max. "I'll try. No promises, though."

  "Do you know anything about ghosts turning?"

  "What does that mean?"

  Leaning against the car, Max explained what little he knew on the subject. "That's the main reason we lied to you. We didn't want to upset you."

  Drummond pursed his lips. "But I've been upset plenty of times. Heck, every other day with you is upsetting."

  "This isn't an everyday kind of case. This involves Patricia." Max gestured toward the tree. "You're already going into this with intense emotions. Add to that the things we've been encountering, that I fear we're going to encounter, and well —"

  "You guys thought I'd pop."

  "Something like that."

  Rubbing his hands together, Drummond said, "Guess I've got to avoid getting too upset. Keep control of my emotions. Right? I can do that. I'm not saying I'll be perfect, but I can do it."

  "Good. Because things aren't adding up right."

  Drummond rubbed his hands faster. "Now we're talking. You're getting a gut feeling. What about? What's not right?"

  "Well, Dr. Ernest and Leed left after that night cursing the witches, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "At some point, years later, they both come back. Presumably, they didn't bother looking you up because they already knew you were dead. Though, considering their interests, you'd think they would have found out you'd been cursed."

  "Maybe they did know. Maybe that's why they came back."

  "Then why didn't they ever try to help you? No, they didn't know about you. Which brings me to the question: Why did they come back? It wasn't to retire here. One of them settling down here, maybe I could believe it — retiring but still wanting to keep an eye on the coven that stuck with him. But both of them? No. They came down here with an agenda."

  Drummond straightened as his face dropped in astonishment. "Patricia. This is about her."

  "How so?"

  "They both had pictures of her. The Zinzendorf fire and the one I took. But they already knew she was a witch, so why would the pictures matter?"

  An uneasy shiver raced along Max's back. "That's a good question." The silence that settled between them broke only when Max's phone rang. He looked at the caller's name and knew right away what had happened. "Sandra's broken the code."

  Chapter 15

  "It wasn't that complicated, really. Just a substitution code but with a little math thrown in to find the right letter. I should've realized earlier but I started out looking for more difficult methods."

  Max kissed Sandra. "I had no idea you were so good at this."

  "Well, I had to do some research. It's not like I'm a code-breaking savant. I just like doing puzzles."

  "That last part, I knew."

  Drummond waved his hand over Dr. Ernest's papers. "Can we dispense with the back-slapping and get on to the actual meaning of all this?"

  "Right." Sandra broke from Max's embrace. "Apparently, Dr. Ernest cursed one witch while you and Leed did two. But his was the High Priestess of the coven."

  "Why did he lie to us about that?"

  "The way he writes, I think he lied about most things. His name wasn't even Matthew Ernest. His real name — Tom Ratzenberg. He seems pretty paranoid in here, so perhaps the lies were an attempt to send witches off on a false trail."

  "How do you know any of that's true then?"

  "We don't. But he places the High Priestess in a church and that sounds like the kind of place one would bury a cursed witch. Don't you think?"

  Max picked up his keys. "Only one way to find out. Thanks for all your hard work, hon. I'll call you the minute we find out anything."

  "Ah, no." Sandra put her hands on her hips, and her mouth shrunk into a tight circle.

  "What's wrong?"

  "You are not leaving me behind. I'm not some fragile little girl you've got to sideline every time you have to go out."

  Max attempted a warm smile, but he saw the way she grew angrier, so he cut it out. "I'm not trying to sideline you. I only meant —"

  "I know exactly what you meant. And I'm telling you that I'm coming along. Besides, how many times have I been an essential help to you? With you only seeing Drummond, you never know when you'll need my talents."

  "That's the problem. I don't like putting the woman I love in danger all the time."

  "Well, when you stop playing hero and realize that I'm the one who knows the code and which church to go to, you'll realize that you're stuck with me."

  Max paused, his brow crinkling and releasing along with a slew of emotions. Then he wrenched open the door. "Can we go?"

  "Of course." Sandra walked out with a perky jaunt to her step.

  Drummond followed behind and shared a commiserating look with Max. "All good women can be a pain in the ass sometimes."

  "I heard that," Sandra called from the stairs.

  * * * *

  In the back of his mind, Max knew Winston-Salem had a lot of churches. All the biggies — Baptist, Protestant, Catholic. Some of the more niche — Korean, Unitarian, Quaker. There was even one synagogue with a fantastic little bagel shop up the block. And, of course, there were the Moravian churches.

  These tended to be smaller, less ostentatious affairs. In some of the rural areas surrounding the city, the churches were straight out of horror movie — a one-room building, low ceiling, peeling white paint on the wooden exterior.

  "So what's the address?" Max said as he pulled the car into traffic.

  Sandra typed away on her laptop. She frowned and typed some more. "It's not showing up on the map. I've tried Google, Bing, Mapquest."

  "What's the name of the place?" Drummond asked from the backseat.

  "The Moravian Hope Church. You ever hear of it?"

  Drummond's casual demeano
r dropped. "Oh, yeah. I know that one."

  "That doesn't sound good."

  "It's not going to be on any map, but I'll get us there. Get on 40 West, like you're going back to Tanglewood, and I'll let you know where to get off."

  The day had slipped away from Max, and as he drove, the sun blinded him. Squinting, he said, "How much longer?"

  "Don't be in such a hurry. This isn't the kind of place you want to go to anyway. Even back in my day, this place had been an old wreck. It's off in the woods. People used it in the early 1800s. For all I know, Tucker Hull prayed there. But for whatever reason, they stopped attending it. Maybe they built a bigger place, maybe it went with Hull when he split, or maybe the rumors are true."

  "Rumors?"

  "It's said to be haunted. Back when I was alive, I didn't give much credence to the idea. The stories about it sounded more like tall tales rather than authentic ghost behavior. Until I met with Ernest and Leed. Then I believed the stories wholesale. But now — I'm not so sure. We best be extra careful."

  "What stories?" Sandra asked.

  Drummond exhaled slowly. "They said a witch coven would sneak in at night and perform their ceremonies. Of course the stories added sensational details — naked dancing, drinking of blood, baby sacrifices, that kind of thing. That's what made me doubt it all to start. But maybe something was going on back then. Maybe with the same coven we're after."

  "With that kind of story, no wonder Ernest buried his witch out here."

  Max followed Drummond's directions off the highway and deeper into the countryside. He turned off the paved roads and proceeded along gravel and then dirt until he reached a yellow, metal bar gate. "Guess we walk from here."

  "It's not far," Drummond said as he passed through the car door.

  Max retrieved two flashlights from the trunk of the car and handed one to Sandra. He then grabbed a shovel and headed out. Though the sun had not quite hit the horizon, under the canopy of trees, blue darkness prevailed. Max shivered. He had grown comfortable at seeing Drummond's pale visage, but watching the ghost float through the woods surrounded by the night and hearing the night's sounds proved eerier than he had expected.