5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

by Valerie S. Malmont

  The back third of the store was devoted to the sale of used bicycles and antiques, mostly furniture from the Victorian era that badly needed repairs. Three-legged chairs were stacked on top of cracked oak tables. Sideboards competed with each other for the Most-hideous-piece-of-furniture-ever-made award. Boxes overflowed with chipped dishes, moldy books, and rusty kitchen tools.

  Overhead fans stirred the stale air but did nothing to cool the room. Each new arrival added more body heat to the already sweltering building. The cavernous room was soon filled to capacity and people were still pouring in. Every woman on the house tour committee, every person who'd been assigned to guard a room at a house, every man who'd helped direct parking, showed up. And all of them brought their spouses, their kids, and probably their neighbors, too, judging from the size of the throng. Many carried folding lawn chairs, some grabbed antique chairs, and the rest perched on barrels of nails, the counter, and anything else with a flat surface, while the children sprawled on the floor.

  Some antiques had been shoved to the side and were stacked in precarious piles to create a small open area in the back of the room, where four metal folding chairs, four microphones, and a sound system from the early days of electronics waited for tonight's performers to arrive.

  The musicians showed up and were greeted by a flurry of enthusiastic applause and whistling as people scurried to their seats. Our barrels were so close to the band, I could smell the corn liquor.

  "Ah-one-ah-two-ah-three," said a portly man with a bushy gray beard who was dressed as a common soldier of the Union Army, and all at once the banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and guitar began to produce the most amazing music I've ever heard. The sound seemed to bypass my ears and go directly into my bloodstream, where it became a pulsing part of my body.

  "It's glorious," I whispered to Alice-Ann. Both my feet were tapping, my fingers were snapping, and it was all I could do to keep from jumping up and joining the uninhibited children who were dancing with enthusiasm in any empty spaces they could find.

  People clapped, pounded the floor with their feet, and sang along with their favorite songs. "Rocky Top," "Turkey in the Straw," "Cumberland Gap."

  After a dozen numbers, the Union soldier announced, "I'm Billy Boy Barnes and these guys here are the Barn Door Swingers. We're sure glad to see you'uns here tonight. We're gonna take a little break right now, but we'll be back with some more good old country music in about fifteen minutes. You'uns come back now, hear?"

  "Amazing," I said to Alice-Ann, as I bent over to wipe the sweat from my brow with the edge of my T-shirt. "I've never experienced anything like it. I actually felt as if I was a part of the music, not just a spectator."

  Alice-Ann nodded knowingly. "We should come more often. There's a show every Saturday night, and you never know who's going to show up and play with them. Let's get something to drink. I'm dying."

  I willingly followed her through the crowd to where cans of soda were cooling in tin tubs full of ice. We helped ourselves to Diet Cokes and went out onto the sidewalk in search of a cooling breeze.

  I put the icy can to one cheek then the other and felt my body temperature drop to almost normal.

  "It's time," I said to Alice-Ann.

  She glanced at her watch. "Uh-uh, we've got almost ten minutes, and they never start on time anyway."

  "I'm not talking about the show, and you know it. What I'm saying is, it's time to report the missing... you know."

  "Shhh." Alice-Ann looked around furtively. "Someone might be listening."

  "What difference does that make now? I promised you I wouldn't tell anybody until the house tour was over. And the house tour is now over, Alice-Ann."

  "But since the... you know ...is missing, do we really need to report it was there in the first place? Why don't we just wait until it turns up somewhere, then we can..."

  I stared sternly at her. "I kept my promise. I'm not going to cover up a crime any longer. I plan to see Luscious first thing in the morning. You can come with me if you choose to."

  "He won't be there, Tori. His mother makes sure he goes to church on Sunday mornings."

  "Very well, then it will be the first thing I do on Monday morning. Can I count on you to show up and go with me?"

  "I don't know. Maybe we should wait and..."

  "It's time," I said. And now what I said had a double meaning. It was time to tell the truth as well as time to go inside for the second half of the show

  Another folding chair had been added to the circle, and I was amazed to see Big Bad Bob sitting on it, grinning at me, with a stringed instrument in his lap.

  "Hammered dulcimer," Alice-Ann whispered in my ear.

  "Welcome back, folks," shouted the jovial host, Billy Boy Barnes. "We'uns had a little nip of refreshments out back, and now we're ready to rock and roll. Ah-one-ah-two-ah-three."

  The five men played "Tavern in the Town," and the hardware store really did rock, as people stomped their feet, clapped their hands, whistled through two fingers, and shouted out encouragements. Who'd ever have thought that Lickin Creek's most proper matrons could get so carried away by anything? I was seeing a new, human side to women like Missy Bumbaugh, Adelle Ashkettle, and Ramona Houdeyshell.

  The enthusiasm mounted as the pounding music became more insistent. I began to worry that the swaying ceiling fans were going to crash down upon us.

  After a particularly boisterous rendition of "Sailor's Hornpipe," Billy Boy announced the Swingers would now perform a medley of songs popular during the war. I'd been in Lickin Creek long enough to know "the war" was the Civil War, which was still being fought in parlors throughout the county. And not only by reenactors, either.

  "So you'uns jest lay back, relax, and imagine you're sitting 'round the campfire after a day of slaughter. You done seen boys you went to school with die, and now's the time to reflect on your own mortality and the folks back home. It's the time to ponder on how your mother will weep when she hears you died, and of that sweet little gal you left behind, and then someone begins to sing a love song, and one by one your companions pick it up, and eventually you join in. Here's a ballad that was popular with the boys on both sides."

  He began to sing in a sweet tenor voice, accompanied by Big Bad Bob on a battered recorder. "The years creep slowly by, Lorena, the snow is on the grass again...."

  Hankies and tissues fluttered as the ladies in the audience sniffed and patted their eyes. When the last chord faded, the audience waited for a moment in respectful silence, then erupted with cheers, applause, and cries for more.

  Billy Boy held up one hand asking for silence, and at that moment, from somewhere off to my left came a crash followed by a piercing, high-pitched scream.

  Heads swivelled, and barrels and chairs tipped over as men and women jumped to their feet trying to see what had happened. The word "mouse" was repeated until several women ran from the building, squealing in terror.

  The screaming continued unabated.

  "I'll handle this," Billy Boy announced, rising. The audience parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses, revealing a hysterical Ramona Houdeyshell sprawled on the floor amidst the ruins of an antique wooden trunk and something else. Something white and filmy and frothy.

  "Oh my God, Alice-Ann," I screamed. "It's a veil. A bridal veil."

  I reached Mrs. Houdeyshell's side just as two of the Barn Door Swingers pulled her to her feet. She fell, sobbing, into Billy Boy's arms, giving us all a clear view of what she'd been lying in. Not only a bridal veil with a crown of silk roses, but shreds of shattered ivory silk, decorated with seed pearls and crystal beads. And we also saw the real reason for Ramona Houdeyshell's screams: a skull grinning up at us from the tattered bridal finery.

  Emily Rakestraw had come home.

  Fourteen

  Luscious played his flashlight over the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and every nook and cranny of the little cave.

  "Don't see nothing nowhere," was his comment.

  Wh
ile I was still struggling to figure out the real meaning of his triple-negative statement, he said, "Might as well go," and climbed over the rock pile. I was so stunned by his lack of interest that I didn't follow him. But through the hole in the wall, I could see him studying the UV filter. "Looks like it's running good," he announced. "We had to replace ours about a year ago, but I think that's'cause we bought it secondhand."

  "Luscious. Shut up."

  He dropped his flashlight in surprise, and of course when it hit the limestone floor of the springhouse the lens shattered and the batteries popped out, leaving us in the dark.

  After a few minutes of screwing and unscrewing the back of the flashlight and shaking it furiously, the light bulb came on again. "Glass is broke," Luscious said. "Council's gonna ask questions about this."

  "I'll buy you a new flashlight." I had climbed out of the cave while he was fiddling with the flashlight and now stood next to him. "Why don't you tell me what you're going to do about this?"

  Luscious smoothed his stringy blond hair back and said, "Do about what, Tori? There's nothing here."

  "I know there isn't anything here. Not now. But there was. There was a body here. It was Rodney Mellott. And someone took him away. We have to find him."

  Luscious picked at a pimple on his cheek. "I'll play along with you for a minute. Let's say there was a hypo ...hypothete..."

  "Hypothetical," I offered.

  "Right. If there was a body here, how do you know for sure it was Rodney Mellott?"

  I told him the skeleton had been dressed in Rodney's famous tuxedo and ruffled shirt. "The very same tuxedo he'd planned to wear to his wedding, which he didn't show up for. Who else could it be?"

  "I dunno."

  "It has to be Rodney Mellott, Luscious. That's even more obvious, now that Emily Rakestraw's body has turned up, too."

  "We don't know for sure that it was Emily."

  "How can you be so damn stubborn? How many brides and grooms have disappeared from Lickin Creek?"

  "Well, there was that Hissong boy. His folks was Plain and didn't want him to marry an English girl, so they ran away together. Moved to Biglerville. Mom says they bought an orchard there and raised apples, peaches, and kids. That was back in'76, I think. And my cousin's girl got PG about ten years ago and eloped with her boyfriend instead of waiting for the big church wedding my cousin had planned. And in'93, or maybe it was'94..."

  "Stop it." It took all my moral strength to refrain from strangling him.

  "We better go," was all he said. "Flashlight's flickering. Don't want to get caught down here in the dark."

  "Aren't you going to dust for fingerprints or do something?"

  "Wouldn't be any use on this rough limestone. Besides... there's no crime if there's no body."

  "You do have a body. Emily Rakestraw's bones are in a cardboard box over in Henry Hoopengartner's examining room right now" I knew this to be so, because Henry Hoopengartner, the very same man who owned the gas station that also served as the police station, was also the county's elected coroner, and he'd arrived at the hardware store last night, pronounced the body to be dead at "nine-thirty-two P.M.," had bundled the shattered pieces of the trunk, the bones, and the bridal dress up and placed the whole thing in a large cardboard packing case. He'd announced he was taking it to his lab "for later examination." I could have done as much myself, and I haven't even been to coroner's school.

  "We don't really know there's been a murder, Tori. We got to wait for Henry's report. He'll tell us."

  "I've got Rodney Mellott's diary, Luscious. The man was a pervert. He seduced young boys."

  "I don't see what that's got to do with anything that's happening today."

  "Do you want to see it?"

  "Maybe after I get Henry's report."

  I'd had it with him. How could Garnet have gone to Costa Rica and left this idiot in charge of the public's safety? And to think, only a few months ago, I'd thought he was growing in the job.

  "If there really was two people murdered, I'll find out. It's my job."

  I flashed back to Afton Finkey advising me that Luscious had grown resentful of me. Perhaps I had overstepped my boundaries a few times. Perhaps I should give him a few days to work on this alone before I came down hard on him.

  "Okay, Luscious," I said meekly. "I'll stay out of it. However, I am going to write something about the missing couple for the Chronicle. And I'm going to put in it that Rodney Mellott was found, then lost again."

  "Do you have to?"

  "It's what I do," I said, full of self-righteousness.

  "Suit yourself," Luscious shrugged. "Now, let's get out of here. I might still have time to meet Mom at church."

  I'd been trying not to worry about my missing family, but Ethelind's kitchen was a reminder, full of casseroles and pies, gifts that kept arriving courtesy of Lickin Creekers who showed concern by pro viding food. There were several plates of sugar cakes from the Trinity Church fund-raiser. Sugar cakes, I discovered, were really big, chewy cookies. I took a plate of them upstairs to my bedroom, where I worked diligently for the rest of the day on my articles for the Chronicle. The one about the anthills didn't take very long, thanks to the information Brunhilda, the environmentalist, had given me. That left me free to write my feature article about the tragic story of Rodney and Emily. I was determined not to make it the Lickin Creek version of Romeo and Juliet, because Romeo, as I remembered, was not perverted but only horny.

  I began,

  The Legend of the Bride's House has long been a piece of Lickin Creek's charming folklore. The story of Emily Rakestraw, the lovely debutante who became an art teacher at the very high school from which she'd graduated, and the popular high school music teacher, Rodney Mellott, was as romantic as any story found in a book. And it had as many twists and turns as one would expect from a good romance novel.

  Despite her family's opposition to the match, Emily was determined to marry her true love. When she was deserted at the altar by her fiance, the jilted bride threw herself into good works and was admired by everyone for her bravery in the face of such humiliation.

  In the tradition of the world's great love stories, there was a happy ending. Emily eloped with Rodney. The couple left town for afresh start in Texas, keeping in touch with friends and family through occasional postcards, sent from various vacation spots in the United States and Europe.

  But this week, Lichin Creek learned that the fairytale ending to this story was a lie. The body of Emily Rakestraw, dressed in her bridal gown and stuffed into an antique trunk, was discovered Saturday night at Handshew's Hardware Store by Ramona Houdeyshell. The trunk, it now turns out, was found by Charlie Handshew during Bulky Trash Pickup Day in front of the Bride's House itself, now Ridgelys' Bride's House Bed-and-Breakfast. Mr. Handshew had planned to restore the trunk and sell it in his hardware store.

  Now Lickin Creek knows the couple hadn't eloped after all. So where, you might ask, is Rodney Mellott? Did he commit this terrible crime? Did he come back after an absence of several weeks and murder the woman who loved and trusted him?

  The answer is no. For Rodney Mellott himself was murdered. In his ruffled shirt and tuxedo, still recognizable after all these years, he lay alone in a walled-up natural cave beneath the Morgan Manor springhouse until this reporter found his body two weeks ago. Because he was dressed for his wedding and disappeared on that day, one can assume that what was supposed to have been his wedding day instead became the day of his death.

  What was the cause of death? Certainly Rodney Mellott did not commit suicide by walling himself up inside the cave. He was murdered, and his body hidden for almost forty years.

  By whom? No one can answer this question, for Rodney Mellott's body has recently been moved from the very spot where it has rested for four decades.

  Where is the body now? That is an excellent question, to which there is no obvious answer. In fact, there are many questions that need to be answered, and the Lickin Creek Police De
partment is now seeking the answers to those questions.

  The Legend of the Bride's House has changed from a romance into a tragedy. It has transformed from An Affair to Remember to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat."

  Just as in Poe's story, the bricks, or stones in this case, were displaced, the corpse was inserted, and the murderer walled "the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. "

  Someone murdered the happy couple, not together, but separately, then hid the bodies and deceived Emily's family into thinking they were traveling and living happily in another state.

  And why should someone murder this charming couple? A diary recently came to the attention of this reporter, that chronicled Rodney Mellott's first months in Lickin Creek. And the beloved music teacher was not the man he appeared to be. In his own words, he was a reptile, a disgusting pedophile who preyed on the young boys who came to him for private music lessons.

  Did Rodney Mellott's disgusting perversions have anything to do with his and Emily's murders? Did the person or persons unknown who moved his body last week have something to do with Rodney's death? At the present time, there is no way of knowing, but this reporter and the Lichin Creek Police Department will find out. Even though it all happened nearly forty years ago, murder is still the worst crime imaginable, and justice will prevail.

  I ate the last sugar cake, stretched, and read over what I'd written. A little too dramatic? Was I guilty of pontificating? Had I broken all the rules of journalism by inserting myself and my personal prejudices into it?