“Okay, got the wine,” Leigh Ann declared. “Now I need a corkscrew.”
“Try the drawer next to the refrigerator,” Monique suggested.
Any effects the alcohol had had on Jennifer were now totally gone. Nothing like death to sober one up fast or to make one intolerant of other drinkers. “Do you know why Juliet killed herself?”
Monique shook her head. “She always seemed happy enough to me. Whatever she felt toward Mary, she adored her father and would have done anything for him. That fall she’d gone away to Auburn. She was back on break when it happened. Like I said, from where I stood, she seemed to have everything anybody could want: a loving father, a boyfriend who worshiped her, and more allowance a week than I could expect to see in a year.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“About the money? A little.”
The phone rang. Monique excused herself and picked up the kitchen phone, said a few words, and turned to look at April, who was now dancing with Teri. They looked like they were doing some kind of cross between the Twist and the Running Man.
“Crisis on the home front,” Monique announced. “Craig says if you’re not home in ten minutes, he’s bringing the baby here. I can barely hear him over the screaming in the background.” She closed off one ear and listened intently. “He says she’s been howling for the last forty minutes, barely coming up for air. He’s threatening to divorce you and give you custody of both kids as soon as he gets over the operation for the damage done to his eardrums.”
Again she listened. “Now I can hear Jonathan. He’s hungry, too. Craig is telling him the water is boiling for the macaroni and cheese. Wait a minute. He’s dropped the phone...Hi, Jon. I know, sweetie. No, it’s all right...Daddy will get the water up off the floor. It only boiled over...You stay back out of the way. He doesn’t need your help. Your mommy will be home soon, and your dad will stop crying, I promise.”
April already had her bag and was halfway out the door. She paused for a moment and turned. “You’d think a soon-to-be-published author would get more respect.”
Monique sniffed. “Welcome to the real world, my friend.”
Chapter 11
“Where have you been?” Mary demanded of Jennifer at the front door of the Ashton mansion. “I had no idea you’d be out half the night.” She stood dressed in a pale green floral silk nightgown and robe, obviously ready for bed.
Jennifer checked her watch. It wasn’t quite ten o’clock, hardly late by her standards. Besides, twenty-four-hour duty for seven days put $1,000 at just about minimum wage. Did she really expect Jennifer’s full attention, every hour of every day?
The woman’s expression assured her that she did.
She could, she supposed, blame her tardiness on Monique. After April left, she’d insisted they each drink three cups of coffee and walk heel-to-toe along one of the stripes on her linoleum floor before she’d let them drive home. As if Jennifer could ever do that.
“I’m sorry. Has something happened?” Jennifer asked.
“No, but Melba left over an hour ago. I had her take your dog out before she went, so you wouldn’t have to go out again once you got home.”
Locking the bedroom door, it seemed, hadn’t made any difference at all. But then the key she’d found in her lock would most likely fit all of those old locks in the house.
Mrs. Ashton shut the front door and bolted it. Jennifer watched as she punched in the security code and then checked to make sure all the alarms were set.
“I want all the evidence in your hands before another moment passes. I’ll sleep much better knowing you have it. Come. Follow me.”
Every light in the house seemed to be on. She led Jennifer up the stairs to her room on the second floor and pulled her inside, shutting the door behind them.
Did she actually think someone was somewhere in the house watching them? Jennifer caught herself checking behind her back, even with the door closed.
Mary’s bed was covered in a natural-colored cotton comforter, and a matching lace canopy stretched between the bedposts. The room was elegantly in period, like something out of a museum, only without the burgundy ropes to keep visitors at a respectful distance.
Mrs. Ashton drew open one of the drawers of a massive old mahogany bureau, dug under her undies, and pulled out a manila envelope. “Take this,” she ordered, thrusting it into Jennifer’s hands. “Put it somewhere in your room. I’ve made a list of when and where I received each threat. It’s in there with them. Now go.”
Then Mary shoved her out the door, shutting it behind her without even a good-night. Jennifer listened as she heard the door lock click home. So much for all that glad-you’re-here business.
Jennifer turned and faced the landing like a child put out of a car in a strange, unfamiliar place. Indeed, the ceilings seemed to rise even higher than they had in the daytime. There were too many doors, too many shadows, even with the lights on. She could almost feel the house heave, as though it had a life of its own, and it didn’t seem to like her being there one bit.
Cautiously, she made her way around the landing and then started up the stairs, holding tight to the banister. At the first creak, she took off running, straight for Juliet’s room. How could she ever have left Muffy alone in that place?
Muffy seemed none the worse for her outing with Melba. She greeted Jennifer with slobbery enthusiasm, then, wagging her tail, led her over to the bag with her treats in it. Oh, for the simplicity of a dog’s world. Right now it’d take more than a liver treat to make Jennifer feel better.
She gave Muffy two, rubbed her roughly under her chin, and then carried the notes to the bed and carefully shook them out. She took a comb from her purse and moved them around, so she could examine and read each one without disturbing any fingerprints that might have been left by the sender. Although the way Mrs. Ashton had toted the latest one around in her pocket led her to believe any prints that might have been on them were now long gone. All were on scraps of square paper of varying sizes, patterns, and shades of eggshell.
Laid out like that, they looked almost silly, like something a child had done. Each had big square block letters, all in red, spelling out trite phrases such as “DIE!” “EVIL BEGETS EVIL,” “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT,” and “NOW IT’S YOUR TURN.” But their juvenile simplicity made them even more unsettling. This was primitive emotion, not something that reason was likely to touch.
Why would anyone harass someone like that? she wondered.
To make them uncomfortable, afraid in their own home.
Well, if that was the intent, it was working and not just on Mrs. Ashton.
Still using the comb, she scooted the papers into a pile and then awkwardly managed to get them back into the envelope. Where could she put them? she thought, not that she really believed anyone would try to take them from her. But she was, after all, being paid to act as their guardian.
She took the small notebook that Mrs. Ashton had insisted she carry out of her pocket, opened it, and made a notation with the day’s date: 10:17 p.m. Received from Mary Ashton the envelope containing threats. Took them to Juliet’s room and hid them ...
Her pajama pockets simply weren’t big enough to hold the envelope without folding it. Besides, if she put the notebook in one and then added something in the other, she’d feel like she was sleeping with saddle bags.
...in the pillowcase with my pillow.
She’d seen that done in some movie or other. At least if someone tried to take them, they’d have to wake her. She closed the notebook and put it away. Then she slipped the envelope inside the crisp white cotton case, replaced the pillow on the bed and patted it. What kind of dreams would sleeping on threats give her?
She walked over to the chest of drawers and picked up the photo and addressed it. “So, Juliet, what do you think is going on here? Did you ever hate Mary enough to threaten her?”
Juliet’s smiling image insisted that all she wanted was peace and love, man.
; Jennifer set the frame back in its place and drew open the top dresser drawer. All of Juliet’s things were there, seemingly undisturbed, as though Juliet had simply stepped out to take her bath— a bath from which she never returned, Jennifer reminded herself.
In the second drawer, she found several pairs of cut-offs. She pulled out a pair and held it up to her waist. Juliet had been small, thinner than she. Next she inspected the legs. Jennifer’s mother had been a flower child, too. But seams had been run along the fringe of these cut-offs as though they had been professionally done, not simply snipped with a pair of scissors. And the tie-dyed T-shirt that also lay in the drawer was too evenly colored to have been done by hand. Seems Juliet had gone down the flower child path only as far as her taste for expensive clothes allowed her. She was rebelling all right, but in style.
Jennifer returned the items, shut the drawer, and opened the inlaid jewelry box on top of the dresser. Love beads. Isn’t that what her mom had called them? Jennifer pulled out one of the strands of brightly colored glass. The clasp had a brand name stamped on it. Why had Juliet adopted the trappings, if she hadn’t bought into the philosophy, at least not far enough to give up shopping?
She tugged at another strand but it seemed caught. One more yank and the drawer slipped out of the jewelry box. In the hollow where the drawer fit was a slip of paper and a photo. Written on lined paper, its edges ripped to fit the space, were two columns of names, four down each side. On the left were Andrew, Darren, Matthew, and Stephen. On the right were Caroline, Kelly, Mandy, and Tiffany. Darren and Tiffany were circled. Who were these people and why would Juliet have written their names and saved them in her jewelry box?
She set the paper aside and looked at the photo. It made her heart ache. The colors were faded but it was clearly of Juliet, her hair long, either naturally stick-straight or ironed, and a blonde, long-haired, pony-tailed young man wearing John Lennon glasses with his arms possessively around her. They looked utterly happy, as though caught in one precious moment of joy.
On the back was written “Forever, Malcolm.” Could this be the adoring boyfriend Monique had alluded to?
Lightly, Jennifer touched the photo. Dreams are so fragile, she thought. They never could have smiled that way if they had known her fate.
She’d invaded Juliet’s privacy, and, dead or not, Juliet still had a right to it. She started to slip the photo and paper back into their places and then stopped, pulling the picture back out and looking intently at it. The hair, the chin—they all seemed familiar, but how?
Malcolm. Malcolm Reed? Surely not. That scroungy scruff of a man who wrote “From the Other Side,” a column for one of the city’s free papers? But it would fit. The aging hippie still spouting his philosophy that the poor are victims of the state, that all injustice goes back to greed, that the government is the enemy.
The fire that had driven the hearts of so many of that generation had changed as the young rebels of the Sixtis had settled down, had families, found their niche in society, and learned to work with the system rather than criticizing it, just as Jennifer’s mother had.
But not Malcolm Reed. He’d become a lone, anachronistic voice, blind to how the world had changed around him. His passion still on fire. His indignation still driven by hatred.
Could he be Juliet’s Malcolm?
Chapter 12
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Jennifer reminded herself, pulling the crocheted coverlet tight under her chin and squeezing her eyes shut.
She really didn’t. So why had it become an issue now?
Because the place was creepy, no matter what Leigh Ann said, and ghosts sometimes seemed more real than flesh-and-blood bad guys. Hearing about Gor-roc and his calling up the dead hadn’t helped either. Monique’s scene of him lying next to a campfire and being joined by his father’s shade was so effective that just thinking about it made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She could understand why some clairvoyants cursed their gift. If she had it, she’d want to give it back, especially now.
The envelope Mrs. Ashton had given her crinkled every time she turned her head, reminding her, just in case she’d forgotten, that something terrible was going on, and it had nothing to do with who or what might be haunting the house.
She’d left the bedside lamp on, but it offered no more than a three-foot radius of light, only adding a second layer of shadow to the one already there and making it even harder to get to sleep, if that were possible. She could get up and flip on the overhead light, but that would mean getting out of bed. And giving up all chance of rest.
The whole house moaned as if shifting and creaking not only with age but with anticipation.
Muffy must have felt it, too. She lay in the center of the small pool of light, as close to the bed as she could manage, whimpering lightly in her sleep.
Jennifer would have let her in the bed with her, an absolute “no” rule in her own apartment, if the dang thing hadn’t been so high off the floor. Well, they could both go home in the morning. She didn’t need any of this: threats, ghosts, lost love, clammy sweats, sleepless nights. Mrs. Ashton must have someone in her life who could help her. She shouldn’t be hiring strangers.
Jennifer buried her head deep in the fluff of the pillow and willed herself to sleep. Somewhere between the fear and the dark, she lost consciousness. She must have. Because when the screaming started, it brought her wide awake.
Chapter 13
The first scream was a high pitched sigh, like wind whistling through a canyon. It was followed by a blood curdling screech. That one had her kicking her way out of the covers. No ghost had made that noise. It was a human, a human in pain.
Muffy, on her hind feet, whined and pawed at the side of the bed. Jennifer shoved her away, tumbled out of the high bed, and stumbled toward the door, not even taking time to get her slippers. She shoved back the lock, twisted the knob, and pushed. But the door didn’t budge.
Another scream. This one followed by a low moan and then a “No, no, God help me, no.” It was Mary’s voice. Muffled and distant, but definitely Mary. It seemed to be coming up through the floorboards.
Jennifer rattled and turned the knob again, but the door stuck fast. She had to get out there. Why wouldn’t it open? She made a fist and pounded desperately on the door. “What’s going on out there? Someone help her!”
Muffy, in full courageous form, barked fiercely and frantically scratched at the bottom of the door, attempting to tunnel under it.
Jennifer put both hands on the knob and threw her shoulder against it. She bounced back and a piercing pain shot down her arm to her elbow. Nothing moved.
She ran her hand up the side of the door, just to make sure. The door did, indeed open outward onto the hall just as she remembered. There were no hinges to slip the pins from on the inside.
Abandoning the door, she threw on the overhead lights and gazed about, searching the room. No telephone. Why would there be? No one had lived in that room for many years.
But her cell phone was in her purse, which lay on the chair next to the writing desk.
She grabbed the purse and dumped it open on top of the bed, scattering its contents. She took up the phone and flipped it on, frantically punching in 911.
“911 emergency. How may I help you?” a woman’s voice asked.
“I think someone’s being murdered,” Jennifer gasped out.
“What make’s you think that?”
“I can hear screaming coming from the room beneath me.”
“All right. Now I want you to stay calm. Where exactly are you?”
“At the Ashton mansion in the historic district.”
“Okay. I’m sending someone out there right away. You need to—”
But Jennifer didn’t wait to hear the rest. She dropped the phone on the bed.
She could hear sounds of movement in the room below.
She dashed to a window, climbed onto the seat, and peered into the dark. Muffy egged her on with little
nips at her ankles as the curtains wrapped themselves about her shoulders. Frantically, she tugged at the lock. It probably hadn’t been moved in years, and even if she managed to get it open, what could she do? She was a full three stories up from the ground with no convenient ledge or fire escape to crawl out on.
Finally the lock released and she pushed with all of her might, raising the lower half of the paned window about a foot. She shoved hard against the screen, which tore loose and tumbled to the ground. It was a futile effort, but at least it was something. She put her head through the small opening and leaned out as far as she could.
Mary’s room lay directly beneath. Looking down, she could see that a light was on, but little else.
“Mary,” she screamed twice into the night, the cool air chilling her. Then she stopped, grabbed Muffy’s muzzle to shush her, listened, and heard nothing. The house had reclaimed its brooding silence. She found it more terrifying than the screams.
Somehow she had to get out of that room, and short of bashing a hole in the wall, the door was her only bet. Again, she scanned the room, her eyes coming to rest on the items on the bed. A slender flashlight attached to her key ring, lay under her billfold. She took it up and twisted it on. Good. At least the batteries weren’t dead.
She flew back to the door and shone the beam to inspect the lock. It wasn’t locked, so why wouldn’t the dang thing open?
Dropping down on all fours, she flicked the light back and forth under the door. There it was. A shadow, about two inches wide, all the way on the left side, directly below the doorknob. Someone or something had put some kind of wedge under the door. What the heck was going on?
But she couldn’t let herself think about that right now. She had to get out. God only knew what was happening to Mary in the room below.
What she needed was something strong and small that would slip within the half inch of space between the door and the floor. Maybe a ballpoint pen would do. She always carried a steel one that had belonged to her father.
Dying to Be Murdererd Page 5
