A flock of birds scattered across the dark indigo sky. The sun peeked up the long grassy field. Hay bales spotted acres of field. Cotton plants swayed not far from a cotton gin and six servant cabins. Down a dirt road, the back of the Quenby House faced Evelyn. Unlike the mansion’s front, there were no colonnades, but the upstairs porch was more accessible. There was a number of raised flower gardens and chipped Roman-esque statues in the back lawn.
Arms around one another’s shoulder, Evelyn and Terrence dragged their bare feet across dewy grass and toward the mansion. Their only key was inside. Evelyn walked around front. No vehicles. Terrence didn’t say anything, but Evelyn knew they had the same question. Are the killers gone? They peered into the shattered front window. A portion of the red carpet floor was soaked with rain water. The masked killer’s partner that Terrence had beat with a bat no longer rested at the foot of the foyer stairs. Alive or dragged away? Evelyn didn’t like either option. A corpse would’ve been concrete evidence that they defended themselves.
The front door was slightly ajar. Evelyn grabbed the fist-sized metal knob. Before she could twist it, Terrence put his large, calloused hand on her shoulder. He shook his head. Evelyn took a step back as Terrence pull out his cell phone. There was a large black smudge on the back where the circuitry had spontaneously fried last night.
Evelyn withdrew her own cell phone from the small pockets on her cyan boy shorts. After seeing the results of Terrence’s cell phone use and not having service underground, Evelyn hadn’t tried hers. Arm outstretched and body spinning, a little bar appeared on Evelyn’s screen. Good enough for 911. She dialed, half expecting the mobile device to explode. Maybe the night was finally over. Maybe it was all a bad dream. She peered through the shattered window and at the video camera on the floor. Terrence bought it after they had started sleep-walking. Last night, it was used to see the first guest, the woman in the jade green dress. That would be their proof that they were not crazy.
Squad cars and an ambulance rumbled down the red brick road. Their flashing lights illuminated the moss-covered oaks and then the vine-covered house. A duo of officers--Davis, 30s, a short and stout man with an angry mug, and Bailey, a granite-faced woman with fiery red hair and Georgia twang--pressed through the front door, hands on their holstered pistols. Through the open front door, Evelyn watched the officers sweep through the vast foyer. Davis and Bailey stopped at the bloodstain at the base of the curving stairs. They drew their handguns and vanished into the hall of portraits.
It seemed like forever before the duo returned. Evelyn attempted to read their expressions, but like Evelyn, they did well at hiding their demeanor. Truly, the only person Evelyn was transparent with was Terrence.
“It’s secure,” Officer Davis replied. “You said something about bones?”
Evelyn walked them to the shed, recounting the home invasion. She kept the story simple: invaders broke in at 3 a.m., Evelyn and Terrence knocked one out and ran to the private study. That’s where they found the trapdoor and landed in the bone pit. That was the gist of what happened, anyway. The reality was much more complicated.
Davis and Bailey traded looks. Terrence gave Evelyn a worried look of his own.
Evelyn pushed open the shed door. “We’ve only been in town for a few weeks. I inherited this house from my deceased father.”
They descended down the ladder and into the dirt corridor. The officers moved with caution and kept a close eye on Evelyn. She didn’t blame them. This could almost be construed as a trap. They entered the bone room. The candles had died down, so Officer Davis held his huge flashlight. He illuminated the multiple piles of bones organized into different categories next to the dip in the floor. Evelyn felt her heart spike. She forgot to put them back in the pit after looking for a key.
“Did you do that?” Davis inquired about the organized bones.
“Yes,” Evelyn painstakingly admitted. “I was looking for a way out.”
The officers glanced at one another.
This is bad.
“We’ll get Forensics down here,” Davis said. “Y’all wait up top.”
Officer Davis led them back to the front of the house. He didn’t ask any questions and didn’t take his eyes off Evelyn. In her boy shorts and low-cut t-shirt, the officer was getting an eyeful, but something about his gaze hinted that he was looking for a deeper truth. Evelyn felt the hairs on her neck stand. He doesn’t trust us.
Terrence leaned in to ask Evelyn a question. She shook her head. “It can wait.” The reply was curt, but the last thing she wanted was to have their words twisted against them.
Davis’s radio buzzed. He answered.
“Stephen and Catherine Doyle are not at their home,” said the officer on the other end. “We’re putting out an APB.”
Over the next two hours, the forensic photographers, analysts, and more people from the state arrived. Only having a population of twenty thousand, Evelyn assumed Adders didn’t have its own forensics unit. Soon, bones were being carried out in bags and tarps. The officers bombarded Evelyn with questions about her father and the house. She had little information to give.
By the time it was dealt with, it was almost dark. The specialists gave Terrence and Evelyn odd looks. A few chatted quietly about the freshly painted mural across one of the downstairs halls. Days ago, Evelyn had blacked out and painted seven-year-old blonde and freckled Mary Sullivan being stalked by three white masked figures and then being burned alive behind Quenby House. Before the blackouts, she couldn’t draw a stick figure to save her life. The work inside was a disturbing masterpiece. Evelyn found plane tickets that proved her father, Maxwell Quenby, was out of town during the days Mary went missing/was murdered. Nonetheless, she did not know Stephen, Catherine, and Andrew Doyles’ motivation behind the killing or why they chose Maxwell’s property to do it.
Finding missing people, Evelyn could do. Solving murders was a different ball game.
“We advise you to stay in a hotel for the coming days,” Officer Bailey said. “We’ll reach out if there’s any developments.”
“Thank you,” Terrence said with relief.
“Uh huh,” Bailey replied. “Y’all be safe now.”
Evelyn and Terrence hunkered down in a cheap hotel for a few days. They religiously watched the news for Stephen and Catherine Doyle. Both had vanished without a trace. The news only reported the discovery of the bone pit. There were five complete skeletons. Mary Sullivan and the decade-dead phantom in the cotton mask--Andrew Doyle--were not among those, but Evelyn knew they both died on the property, and that was enough to lock them in the house for eternity. As for the twins Stephen and Catherine Doyle, they were gone.
“Do you think they got them?” Terrence sat on the edge of the bed and watched the TV, his shoulders slouched.
Evelyn stared at the screen intently. They hadn’t talked about the encounter in the pit since they got out. “I don’t know, but we need to go back.”
“What?” Terrence protested. “I don’t know if I can stomach that, Evelyn. We don’t know if they're a threat, and even if they aren't, I see no reason to go back.”
“They need our help,” Evelyn said.
“But... they’re dead.”
“They may know about my father.”
“The truth will come out.”
Evelyn glared at him. “We came down here to sell the mansion, but now it’s so much bigger than that. This is my family home. It’s my responsibility.”
Terrence looked in shock. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“I didn’t,” Evelyn admitted. “But seeing them… I don’t know, Terrence. I can’t shake the feeling that I have to do something.”
Terrence took a breath and turned off the TV. He smiled softly at Evelyn. “Whatever you want to do, I’m with you.”
After picking up their minivan from the mechanic and burning through a layer of their dwindling cash bundle, they parked in front of Quenby House. Its shadow grew like the angel o
f death. Evelyn and Terrence slammed their doors in unison and hiked toward the front door. The excitement and awe Evelyn had felt when she first found out this property was her inheritance twisted into uncertainty and fear that crawled beneath her skin.
Terrence and Evelyn took a breath and pushed against the front door covered with zigzagging caution tape. Creaking like a death rattle, the entrance opened into the foyer. Gusts of wind bombarded the plastic sheeting on the nearest window. They stopped at the center of the room. On the painted domed ceiling, trumpeting angels with cracked faces watched Evelyn with lifeless eyes and innocent smiles. For a moment, it almost seemed like they were swirling across with artificial clouds.
“Mary?” Evelyn called out. Her voice bounced off the hall walls.
Outside, wind whistled and Evelyn swore she heard whispering.
“Evelyn,” Terrence said in a shaky voice. His eyes locked onto the interior balcony.
In a yellow dress with a belt, the little girl sat cross-legged behind the wooden bars, staring at Evelyn with dry, unblinking blue eyes. She murmured an indistinguishable chant.
Words lodged in Evelyn’s throat. She took a step forward. The massive crystalline multi-tier chandelier flicked briefly as the little girl cocked her head. At the motion, thin blonde hair flooded down the girl’s freckled cheek.
“What do you want from us?” Evelyn asked, mindful of the chandelier dangling from rust-spotted copper chains above her head.
Mary stood and slowly walked down the curved steps. Her little hand glided down the smooth railing. Terrence went tense. Evelyn fought to keep her composure. The little girl approached, eyes unblinking, and turned into the hall.
Seriously questioning their life choices, Evelyn and Terrence followed the ghostly girl. Every ceiling light Mary passed under flickered, casting a glow across the massive mural Evelyn painted from one side of the hall to the other. The paint failed to dry properly. Inky droplets melted away the featureless white masked strangers. There were three in all. Two male and one female, the Doyle family. From their blotchy eye holes, black tears hardened. Terrence shuddered when he looked at the artwork. Evelyn walked closer to him. Their shoulders scraped. They traded glances and looked back at the little girl a few feet ahead.
As a private investigator, Evelyn could travel to the seediest locations with only her wit and extendable baton to keep her safe. From swapping orphanages for her first eighteen years to couch surfing and hitchhiking across the country, Evelyn had learned to survive. There was no other choice. All that said, it got her nowhere when she got into her car “accident” that etched her body with deep scars. The grooves across her back were reminders of her old life. One of substance abuse, deceit, and more meaningless vices. But the moment Terrence pulled her from the wreckage of her car, everything changed.
Tall, handsome, an all-around blues lover, Terrence came from a line of lower-class musicians and union workers and took up the luthier trade--someone who makes string instruments. Unlike Evelyn, he was always good for a laugh, drank his glass half full, and liked playing the peacemaker even if it compromised his agendas. Also, his parents were the sweetest couple you’d ever meet. His father, a tall man with white curly hair, laugh lines, and a love of suspenders, was poor, but more generous than anyone Evelyn ever knew. His mother, a short plump woman with a welcoming smile, could cook like Betty Crocker and always knew the right thing to say. However, Terrence was not without faults. It wasn’t until after their wedding that he admitted to having an eleven-year-old daughter somewhere in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nonetheless, she couldn’t imagine spending her life with anyone else.
Keeping her eyes ahead, Evelyn interlocked her fingers with Terrence, her last and only anchor in this crazy world.
Getting progressively colder with every step, they tailed Mary into the lounge. The room was devoid of light and consisted of bookshelves packed with dusty books, an unlit fireplace, and an assortment of lounge furniture. Evelyn passed through the threshold.
Suddenly, the fireplace burst to life. Its warm glow lapped against the wall. Lamps flickered on. A wisp of smoke climbed from the Sherlock pipe held in the old man’s chapped lips. He wore a neutral-colored sweater vest and intense gaze. His white hair was trimmed and combed to the side. When he pulled the pipe from his mouth, blood leaked from his lower lip like sap from a tree.
The sexy woman in the glossy jade dress slouched in the loveseat, free of all the cares in the world. Her plump lips curled into a smile on her perfect heart-shaped face. Her lipstick was as red as the blood pumping from her slashed throat.
Sitting cross-legged on a nearby recliner, the goth girl read an old book with stained yellow pages. She wore black jeans with torn-out knees and a zipped-up hoodie decorated with pins that read “Save the Earth” and “Go Green, Idiot!” She glanced up at Evelyn and Terrence with an apathetic expression. Though Evelyn couldn’t see it at the moment, she knew there was a bloody gash on the back of the girl’s head.
In the corner, the naked fat man with an oblong head “watered” withered flowers with an empty watering can. Humming to himself, he paid Evelyn and Terrence no mind.
Lastly, the one-handed jock stood at the center of the room. He wore a varsity jacket with the number thirteen sewn on it. He rubbed his right wrist just below the place where someone cut off his hand. Seeing him, Mary smiled and took off into a sprint. With a dimpled grin, the jock lowered to a knee and allowed the little girl to jump into his arms.
The goth let her gaze linger on the handsome football player before quickly returning to her book. The jock hoisted Mary up with his good hand and faced Evelyn. The whole cast of bloodied strangers turned to Evelyn and Terrence with expectant looks.
Terrence mumbled something.
Trembling, Evelyn bounced her wide eyes between them. With the crackling of fire and wisp of smoke, the room seemed like something out of a lucid dream. How did her life come to this? She traced back the confusion to the moment she had inherited this house.
Silence filled the lounge.
The old man cleared his throat.
Evelyn and Terrence give him their attention.
“I’m Barker.” the old man declared, using the top of his hand to wipe the blood from his lower lip. He gestured to the naked fat man with an oblong head and who was probably in his early forties but looked much younger. “That’s Winslow. He’s a few cards short of a full deck.”
Winslow bared his teeth in what could be interpreted as a smile. His underbite was horrendous.
“That fox is Alannah,” the old man continued.
“A pleasure,” the woman in glossy green said, her voice silky and smooth. The slash in her neck moved as she spoke. Wearing a devious smile, Alannah studied Terrence. Eyes wide, Terrence slowly turned to Evelyn with a look of pure horror.
Barker gestured to the goth girl. “And there’s--”
“I can speak for myself,” the goth replied and, with dismal enthusiasm, said, “My name is Zoey.”
Barker smiled widely at the comment he was about to make. “All you need to know is that she’s angsty, and she has her eyes on Pe--”
“Shut it!” Zoey threw her book at him. Barker sidestepped out of the way, careful to keep his pipe from harm.
“I’m Peter,” the jock introduced himself with a million-dollar grin. “This is Mary, the mastermind of this whole operation.”
The little girl kept a neutral face when looking at Evelyn. Evelyn wondered why she wasn’t gory like the rest of the specters. She had been burned in the cotton fields behind the house. Surely there must be some residual effect. The answer hit Evelyn as she looked at the pattern. Her heart must’ve given out before the fire got her. Perhaps there were rules to the ghostly dimension: the killed kept the wounds that ended them.
Standing in the shadow of the farthest corner, the man in the white cotton mask stepped forward. The black eye holes were the size of buttons. The ear holes were the size of peas.
Terrence cursed
and took a step back. Evelyn familiarized herself with the nearby table lamp.
“That’s Andrew,” Barker declared with disgust. “He keeps to himself.”
Andrew Doyle, Evelyn knew. His body was discovered the day after Mary vanished. Stephen, Catherine, and Andrew must’ve killed Mary, but did they murder the rest?
The masked specter stood firm and followed Evelyn’s movements with his head.
Evelyn struggled with the words. She closed her eyes, trying to think of them as normal people. It didn’t help. “I’m Evelyn,” she finally said. “This is my husband, Terrence.”
“Hi, Terrence,” Alannah said with seduction in her voice.
“Uh… hey.”
Mustering a little courage, Evelyn addressed the room. “You want our help. Tell us what we need to do.”
14
Romance
Mary’s eyes were dry, uncanny and deep blue. In her sweet and tiny voice, she said. “You need to stop the boogieman.”
Evelyn’s spine tingled at the words. Her vision bounced between the massacred victims and their brutal wounds. Bile crawl up the nethers of her throat. She fought it down.
“We’ve been trapped here for so long,” Mary continued.
“So, you possess us?” Evelyn retorted. “Make us sleepwalk? Make us claw on the brick walls or wake up in a cow field?”
“Don’t yell at her,” Barker said. “She’s only a little girl, and she’s much stronger than you think.”
“I needed to talk to you,” Mary said. “I needed to make you understand.”
“Understand what?” Terrence asked feebly, finally finding his voice.
“That we can’t free ourselves,” Mary said seriously. “Only you can. You must stop the boogieman.”
Zoey combed her black hair with long black fingernails. “And then we can leave this crappy world.”
The Haunting of Quenby Mansion Omnibus: A Haunted House Mystery Page 14
