Fugue Macabre: Ghost Dance (Fugue Macabre Trilogy Book 1)

by C. J. Parker

  Derek shrugged. “Enjoy it while you can. The power company will be out soon to turn it off at the pole. Just make sure we throw the switch when we leave. Don’t want to risk finishing what someone started.”

  As much as Tabatha loved the old mansion, she thought maybe it might have been a blessing if the house had burned down. She thought it would be simpler to start from scratch than having to clean up this mess.

  They made their way through the dining room into the kitchen. The arsonist had trailed a stream of kerosene to the back door leaving a blackened streak of cracked tile, soot-covered cabinets and appliances.

  Tabatha laid her hand in the small of Bertha’s back. “Well, I guess you get a new kitchen. Any requests?”

  Bertha’s face brightened in a wide grin. “Anything but white.” “Or green,” Derek muttered. “I hate green.”

  Tabatha smiled. “Maybe Italian country—decorated, tiled backsplash, Italian floor tiles and marble countertops.”

  “And turn that servant’s quarters into a butler’s pantry,” Bertha said getting into the game.

  “Out of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first?” Tabatha smiled. “I think it’s time to gut the place and start over. The ghosts of Grays past have had their say long enough.”

  “Now you’re talking, baby girl. You know my son, Jacob, has his own construction company, right? I bet he’d be proud as a gator sunning on the levee to do the job for you. And he would do an honest job of it. He knows I’d tan his hide and use it for a rug if he didn’t.”

  Tabatha loved Bertha’s earthy way of making a point. “I’d like that, but, Bertha, ask if he has the time. Don’t insist that he stop in the middle of a project.”

  Bertha waved her hand as if to dismiss her comment. “I’ll just tell him the size of the job and see what he says.”

  “I know a good architect.” Derek grinned. “He lives in Houston, but I bet he’d come if I gave him a yell.”

  Tabatha remembered Derek mentioning a brother. “Your brother?” Derek nodded.

  “Ask him to come see what he has to work with and we’ll talk money. I want it to be grand again, Derek.” Tabatha ran her gaze over the soot- blackened walls one more time. This would break her grandfather’s heart. He’d built this home with his own hands. “Something Paw-Paw would be proud of.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do his best.” Derek yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, let’s go get some rest. We can come back later.”

  Tabatha turned away. “No. I’m going upstairs. I want to see what Mom was talking about. She said I’d find everything I was looking for.”

  Bertha took Tabatha’s hand in hers. “What are you looking for, baby girl?”

  “Answers.”

  The stairs groaned with Tabatha and Derek’s combined weight. A mixture of water and the remains of kerosene seeped over the tops of Tabatha’s shoes, the caustic mixture burning her skin. Her eyes began to water and her breathing became labored as she neared the second floor landing.

  Derek glanced around the darkened hallway. “We need to get some air circulating and get these fumes out of here before we asphyxiate.” He leaned over the railing, careful not to push against it, and yelled, “Bertha, open all the windows down there.”

  Tabatha walked into the unoccupied bedroom first and flung the widows open and drew in a deep breath. She exited into the hallway as Derek entered Rhonda and Bobbie’s bedrooms.

  Tabatha stood at the entryway to Carla’s suite but paused with her hand on the doorknob. Carla’s voice echoed inside her head, “Stay out of my room, Tabatha. This is the only place I have to myself. You don’t belong in here. Get out! Stay out!”

  Tabatha swallowed hard and turned the knob. She was greeted with a scented cloud of her mother’s perfume mixed with the acrid odor from the fire. Her father’s eyes stared down at her from the portrait above the mantel. She pulled her gaze from his and scanned the room.

  The area rug was saturated and squished under her footsteps. A broken cup and saucer cluttered the floor in front of the easy chair, and a basket of crocheting sat to the side, a colorful stack of granny squares waiting assembly. On the nightstand stood the framed cross-stitched family tree, seven-year-old Tabatha had made as a birthday gift for her mother. Her chest squeezed painfully. Her mother had kept it.

  The doors leading to the other two rooms of the suite were closed. Tabatha made her way to the one on her left, turned the knob, but paused. She wasn’t sure what she was frightened of. The childhood monster she’d feared as a child? Or maybe it was ghosts of the Gray family past? She opened the door.

  Where the bedroom was neat and orderly, this room was in disarray, but free of water and smoke damage. Paintings filled every inch of one wall—an Albrecht Durer print Paw-Paw had given Tabatha centered the cluster of ornately framed art.

  More paintings and etchings leaned against a sidewall below a large tapestry of an English foxhunt. At one time it had hung in the dining room over the eighteenth century dry sink. A set of antique Louis XV-style seating furniture sat to one side, her father’s ivory chess set perched on an ornate walnut game table in front of the couch.

  Three Persian rugs rolled and tied reclined in the center of the room. Everything looked well cared for. No dust had gathered. No cobwebs laced the corners. Her mother had taken great care of these things herself. No one was allowed into her sanctuary. She returned to her mother’s bedroom, but the memories followed her.

  The door to the third room was locked. Tabatha ran her fingertips over the doorframe, checked the dresser drawers and nightstand then checked the mantel. Nearly hidden from sight behind a stack of books she found what she was looking for. With trepidation, she unlocked the door and entered.

  The room was so perfectly preserved, she half expected her father to be sitting at his desk, cigar clenched between his teeth, eyes squinted against the smoke. Her father’s library had been kept as it had been on the day he’d died. Ceiling to floor books, interrupted only by an impressive marbled fireplace topped with an ornate carved walnut mantel. An old grandfather clock filled the room with soft ticking, its time correct. In the far left corner sat an oxblood-hued, leather Early American style sofa and chair.

  She lifted the desk’s roll top to look at the contents beyond its perfectly polished cherry wood patina. She opened the lids to three inkwells, each was filled with fresh ink, three pens lined up evenly in front of them, and unopened letters lay waiting for reply. Running her fingers over the intricately carved cover of her father’s humidor, she remembered the time she’d snuck into his library and smoked one of his cigars. Her stomach lurched at the memory. She raised the lid to find it, too, had been filled with fresh cigars.

  The large side drawer was jammed to capacity with manila envelopes. She removed one and looked at the typed address label: Mrs. Dunnock Gray. Return label: Dan Langton. Inside was every bank draft Dan had dutifully sent to her mother, never cashed.

  Tabatha sighed and slowly shook her head. What purpose did her mother have? Why didn’t she cash them or deposit them into a private savings or checking account? “Oh, Momma.”

  “Tabatha?”

  Derek’s voice shattered the silence of her reverie. “You can come in. It’s okay.” She leaned into his embrace when he came up behind her. “Welcome to Dunnock Gray’s sanctuary.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Derek held Tabatha close as he glanced around the room. “What did you find?”

  “Momma’s bank drafts.” She held the envelope up for him to see. “I’m pretty sure they’re all here. She didn’t cash one of them.”

  He took the envelope and pulled the check out. “Why? What could she possibly gain by keeping them?”

  Tabatha gave the only answer she could come up with. “Security if Nyssa took everything and evicted her. Nyssa told her I was going to leave her in charge of the money. She had Mom convinced I was cutting her out of my will. If she saved all the checks, she’d have money to sur
vive.”

  Nyssa had it all planned out down to the point of defrauding Carla of her home. “Didn’t you tell me she was missing some?” He withdrew another envelope in the back of the bottom drawer. “This one’s postmarked fourteen months ago.” He glanced inside before replacing the envelope.

  “That’s when she said they stopped.” She closed the drawer and turned into his arms. “Remind me to call my lawyer later.”

  He nodded. “You seen enough? I’m dead on my feet. My leg is throbbing like a bad tooth. I need some sleep, and you look like you’re about to drop.”

  “Yeah.” She took one last look around then left the room, Derek close behind.

  Bertha met them at the base of the stairs. “I’m going to run home and fix Oscar breakfast and take a little nap. You children gonna to be okay? You need a place to stay?”

  Tabatha walked toward the door, but stopped in front of Bertha and took her into her arms. “You know I love you, don’t you, Bertha?”

  The old woman’s eyes glistened with tears. “Yes, baby girl, I know. And you know I love you right back.” She slapped her on the butt. “Now, where you gonna stay?”

  “At Derek’s until I can find a place. Get some sleep, then call Jacob and see when he can get started on the house.” She paused on the porch and drew a fresh breath. “We’ll need a place to store the things worth saving and a crew to load it up. Derek, call your brother and see when he can fly down here. Let’s not waste time. Let’s do this.”

  Her eyes roamed the property. She saw Nyssa pacing back and forth in front of her cottage, pausing every few steps to look over at Tabatha before pacing again. “I bet Nyssa’s waiting for us to leave so she can get into the garage.” Tabatha placed her fists on her hips. It was time to turn the tables. That damned garage was hers, not Nyssa’s. If she wanted to go in there, than by damned she would.

  Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Tabatha, what are you thinking? I’m too tired to pick a fight with that crazy woman. She pisses me off right now, and I’m liable to just shoot her and get it over with.”

  Tabatha knew the way to a cop’s heart. “Aren’t you the least bit curious what’s in the garage? What’s she hiding in there?”

  Bertha clicked her tongue. “Baby girl, there ain’t nothin’ in there but old garden tools, though I have no idea what she wants with ‘em. She’s got a bunch of Mexicans that come do the yard work. She just stands around in her fancy duds and bosses ‘em around.”

  “Wait.” Tabatha’s temper shot a gush of heat to her cheeks. “You’re saying she doesn’t do the grounds work herself?”

  Bertha made a rude noise and rolled her eyes. “That woman never did much work. ‘Fraid she’d break one of those fake fingernails of hers.” She held her hand out and prissed around oohing and ahhing. A mental picture of Nyssa playing the part of Mistress of the Manor came clearly to Tabatha’s mind. “When your grandpa was alive, he used to work in the yard, and Nyssa would be by his side actin’ like she was workin’, but it was your grandpa that did all the real work.”

  Tabatha glanced back as Nyssa stomped her foot then ran into her cottage. Tabatha kissed Bertha on the cheek. “Go home, Bertha. Take care of Oscar.” Tabatha hooked her arm into the crook of Derek’s. “Come on. Let’s go check out the garage while Nyssa’s in the cottage.”

  Derek glanced at Bertha and grimaced. “I guess I’d better go with her so she doesn’t get in any trouble.”

  Bertha laughed. “Good luck, baby boy.”

  New padlocks, one about a third of the way down another about a foot from the base of the door, made entering nearly impossible. Derek examined the latch. “It might destroy the door, but I’ve got a tire iron in the truck.”

  Tabatha couldn’t care less about the door. “Go for it. If Nyssa doesn’t like it, she can take it up with me.”

  He popped the back of the SUV open and came out with a small crowbar- like tool. He wedged it behind one latch then the next, ripping the screws out of the wood. The old wood groaned in its struggle against the crowbar. Little taps sounded as the screws and small pieces of wood hit the concrete porch. Once the padlocks were gone, Derek tried the doorknob. “Locked. Maybe she has gold hidden in there.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  Tabatha shrugged. “Pop it, too.”

  With a mighty push the lock ripped from the frame and the door cracked in half. They were in.

  Tabatha nearly clapped her hands in delight. “Call me Belle Star, but that felt good.” She found the light switch and flicked it on, flooding the space with light. She ran her gaze over the clutter filling the room. Several hoes and shovels leaned against a wall lined with snips, rakes, a sickle and a water hose.

  Derek shrugged. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  What the hell was she doing? Derek was running empty, and she wanted to play “I can do anything you can do, better than you.”

  “You’re exhausted. Let’s go. We can come back later.”

  “What’s this?” Derek squatted beside an old deep-freeze sitting against the back wall. “Why’s this freezer fastened to the wall?” He leaned closer. “With hinges?”

  They rushed to clear two riding mowers out of the way and tugged on the freezer. It swung to the side revealing a dark maw big enough for them to pass through. A blast of cold air rushed past Derek and Tabatha, assaulting them with the retched stench of rotting meat, the coppery scent of blood and the lingering hint of death.

  Tabatha wanted to run. Too many possibilities ran rampant through her imagination.

  Derek gripped her upper arms. “Stay here. I’m going in.”

  Tabatha stood back as he entered the dark cavern. The blackness swallowed him whole as he walked into the darkness vanishing from sight for what felt like an eternity. “Derek?”

  A light came on. Derek dropped his hand away from the pull cord. The bulb hanging from the ceiling swung back and forth sending the shadows into a macabre dance.

  She looked back at the door to daylight and freedom. Tabatha refused to let Derek think her a coward. She stepped into the room. The combination of stench and the wavering shadows made her stomach roll in distress. The roof and back wall were a tangled mass of tree roots, the soil that once fed them, no longer visible. Several tap roots stretched from ceiling to floor like stately columns. Metal shelves jutted out from the wall, filled with jars and bottles---some filled, some empty.

  Derek walked to the closest end of the long corridor to find a desk surrounded with old books. “The titles of these things would give a practicing warlock nightmares.”

  The last time Tabatha remembered seeing the books they were in her grandfather’s study. He’d caught her reading one of the tomes and had taken it away, promising to explain it all to her when she was old enough. “PawPaw’s.” She took one off the shelf and opened it to the middle. It looked like an ancient cookbook of some kind. “Mom wouldn’t put up with them being in the house. He said he’d gotten rid of them. Guess he didn’t.”

  She turned away and strolled toward the shelves and picked up an old canning jar filled with what looked like Marbles in dirty dishwater. “What is this?” She carried it to the light. She rolled it in her hands and looked closely. They were yellow-white with small colored dots on one side. She shook the jar to see if they were all the same color. “It looks like—oh, my God!” She gasped and dropped the jar.

  Derek snapped his hand out in time to stop the jar from smashing on the rock-hard soil floor. “Whatever it is, it can’t hurt...” His eyes grew large and his breathing quickened. “For the love of God. It’s eyeballs.” He set them on the table by the door and wiped his hands on his jeans. Tabatha gagged.

  Tabatha ran for the doorway. Her stomach heaved. Her throat burned with bile. She vomited. Tabatha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let her gaze wander the room once more. The other end still stood in darkness. She forced herself to take a step forward, then another. When she could no longer see, she waved her hand in front of her searching for
another light cord. Within seconds she felt the slight brush of its frayed end against her fingertips. She pulled the cord, flooding the second half of the room in light. Taking several deep breaths she braced herself for what she might see next, but she wasn’t prepared for what she found. A gurney sat in the back corner. A naked child lay in the center of the stainless steel slap. No. This was all wrong. She slammed her shield down so quickly a sharp pain sliced through the center of her head. “Missy?”

  Tabatha. You found me. I knew you would.

  She fell to her knees. “No. Oh, God, no.”

  Derek raced toward her. “Tabatha.” He came to a staggering halt beside her.

  Stretched out on a steel gurney lay Missy, naked, feeding lines in both arms. Gathered around her were tubes and empty containers, dirty scalpels and retractors.

  “When Elizabeth said the killer was doing it right in her own back yard, I didn’t know she meant it literally.” Derek rubbed his hand over his face, stopping with his palm over his mouth.

  Tabatha had to pull herself together. She pushed herself to her feet, placed her fingers on the pulse point in the child’s neck. She detected a thready pulse. “Please tell me I’m not too late, Missy. Please.” She inspected the labels on the bags of liquids attached to the tubes trailing into Missy’s arms, and disconnected all but one IV line, leaving the saline drip going. “Pulse is weak. She’s malnourished, pale, but alive. Call for an ambulance, Derek. Tell them to hurry.” Tabatha searched franticly through the cabinets until she found a tattered blanket and tucked it around the naked child.

  Derek retrieved his cell from his back pocket and tried to connect. “Can’t get service in here. I’m going outside.” The phone beeped into the silence. “Oh, hell.”

  Tabatha looked up from Missy to find Nyssa standing in the doorway wearing a long, flowing Irish-lace wedding gown, its veil trailed from her hair to the dirt floor, which soiled the scalloped edge. In one hand Nyssa held a bouquet of dead roses and baby’s breath surrounded by yellowed and frayed lace, in the other hand a gun trained on Derek.