“Supposed to be.” Abbey caught the disdain in Boo’s voice.
“Excuse me, Eleanor.” The four women spun toward Fred, who either didn’t see Boo’s nakedness or ignored it. “Abbey has a visitor. Ms.
Lynn Swanson. She’s in the sitting room.”
Eleanor nodded to the man. “Thank you, Fred.”
Fred smiled and winked at Abbey. Abbey felt a flutter in her chest as the man’s kind eyes took in her injury and frowned. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. His gaze continued to bore into her and she realized she liked it. This was a man she could trust. She didn’t know why she could, but she could. It must be something about the different colored eyes.
“Abbey!” Eleanor brought Abbey out of her reverie.
“Dear, we are in such a hurry!” Ruth began to sob as she stepped behind Eleanor. “Less than two weeks until Solstice!” The frail woman collapsed against Eleanor.
Abbey nodded as Fred reached for her. He grasped her arm tightly and Abbey pulled on him. His arm wrapped around her waist and Abbey felt his strong arm muscles lifting her as if she were weightless. They turned and slowly made their way towards the front of the house. This was the third time Aunt Ruth mentioned the solstice. What happens at the Summer Solstice?
28
Just under thirty minutes ago, Lynn had pulled up to the entry kiosk and poked buttons randomly, causing a voice to erupt from the speaker asking her name, business, and if she had an appointment. She must have answered with the magic word, for the gate swung open and she inched onto the Bastille’s property. As she crawled down the tree-lined driveway, Lynn found herself mesmerized by the castle-like abode and acres of flowers. Still enticed by the fragrances, she pulled up to the mini-drawbridge and saw a slim man wearing a tux point toward a parking spot marked VISITORS. She managed to avoid falling on her face as she followed the butler over the decorative bridge, through a foyer that was bigger than her apartment, and into a vast room loaded with finely crafted cherry wood furniture. Now, here she was, inside the fabled ‘Bastille.’ She wandered around the sitting room, marveling at the porcelain dolls, collection of antique nutcrackers and furnishings, which must have amounted to five years of her salary. Apparently, joining a lesbian commune was lucrative.
“Lynn.”
She turned toward the voice, but she was alone in the immense room. Then her eyes fell upon the wooden chest in the corner. The hairs on her neck stood up as gooseflesh spread over her arms. Shit! It felt like the thing was staring at her. She glanced around the room, making sure she was alone before tiptoeing over to the ornately carved trunk. The metal hinges and the intricate designs practically screamed Louis XIV. She reached out and fondled the latch. It felt smooth and polished under her fingertips and she had to stifle a giggle as she reached out to heave open the lid. She didn’t know what she expected to see, but torture devices were definitely not on the list.
Her undergrad degree was a double major in Art History and Medieval History and in all her studies she had never seen a collection like this. Her sense of curiosity about the Women of the Bastille kicked up a notch. These devices were priceless. Damn! She always regretted getting into Social Work. She only did so because that asshole guy she dated—what’s his name?—convinced her that there would always be a future in working with crazy people. She felt an odd sense of giddy smuttiness when her fingers touched the thumb screws. The ethics committee would call this a ‘violation of privacy,’ but they didn’t know how little self-control she had. As she caressed the manacles, she noticed something that made her skin crawl. All the pieces were polished and oiled. They looked new. Jesus Christ! A lesbian commune of sado-masochists right here in Vermont! Who would have thought? A commotion arose from the opposite end of the foyer and she heard hushed voices whispering in a heated exchange. She carefully closed the lid of the chest and scurried to the couch.
Eleanor led the pack of women, followed by Abbey leaning on the handsome butler, Ruth, and a woman wearing blue. She did a double take. The woman wasn’t wearing blue, she was painted blue. She was also naked.
“Ah, sorry to keep you waiting, my dear.” Eleanor’s voice sounded rushed and lacked the crispness of their previous meetings. Her eyes darted around the room nervously as she tapped her fingertips on the arm of the couch.
“It’s…it’s all right. No problem.” Lynn hoped her voice didn’t belie her sense of unease. Lynn watched as a single bead of sweat rolled down Eleanor’s usually perfect forehead. Something was wrong. “Abbey, how are you doing? You look injured.”
Abbey stared at her blankly before responding in a distant voice. “It is nothing.”
Lynn noted this disconnection and the red flags in the back of her mind unfurled.
“Thank you, Fred,” Eleanor said with a dismissive tone. “If you would help Abbey onto the couch, you may be excused.”
Lynn noticed Abbey’s eyes followed the man as he walked. Obviously something was brewing between those two. She turned her attention back to Aunt Eleanor. “How is everything?”
Eleanor uttered a forced, high-pitched squeal. “Delightful!” Her eyes fell upon Boo. “Boo, dear, please dress.”
Without a word, Boo spun on her heels and stormed out.
“Abbey, how are your dreams?” Lynn scrutinized Abbey’s face.
“What? Oh. Not as vivid.”
“Nor as often,” Ruth piped up with a voice that was too cheery.
Lynn glanced at the eager faces of the women and took a different tactic. “Abbey, why don’t you show me your room?” “Great idea!” Ruth said, clapping.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend time with Abbey alone.”
The women’s faces faltered for a brief second, but Lynn registered their disappointment. What didn’t they want her to know?
Abbey stood up with the energy of a zombie and shuffled out of the room. Lynn made a mental note: dirty clothes, irregular step, and a slight limp. Hell! This visit was not going to be a cakewalk.
29
Stabbing? Decapitation? Robert pondered how he would murder Joshua.
“Are you okay, boss?” Joshua’s voice filtered through the door of the bedroom, as Robert contended with the horrendous noise the lad called music. It sounded to Robert as if a suffering voice screamed, “Hey, you, get off of my clod.” What was a ‘clod’ and why did the suffering voice want someone off of it?
“I am well,” he said to the closed door. “Go away.”
“Damn, that boy is irritating.” The Doctor laughed. “I must remember that trick.”
“What trick? I should think you knew how to irritate me.”
“No,” the Doctor answered as he searched the drawers of the dresser. “Hiring irritating assistants. They are so much more fun to kill.” Finding nothing of interest, the Doctor moved onto the armoire.
“Decapitation, I think.” Robert stormed to the closet and threw open the doors. He motioned for the Doctor to join him. “The Summer Solstice is almost upon us and with it the women’s gathering at the
Bastille for the Ritual.”
“Thirteen days. Do you have any brandy in there?”
“No. It seeped into the carpet of the sitting room.”
“What a waste.”
“We have thirteen days to apprehend Abbey, impregnate her, and kill the witches.”
The Doctor nodded. “Good times lie ahead, eh, my friend?”
The blaring music from the other side of the door faded. “Hey, boss!” Joshua said through the closed door. “I’m leaving for the store. I changed the music for you, boss. You said you didn’t like the Stones.”
The Doctor chuckled quietly. “I see you arranged for privacy.”
“I always have a plan.” Robert winked. “Thank you, Joshua. That will be all.”
Robert gestured to the closet. Several suits hung inside plastic dry cleaning bags. Next to these hung several uniforms, a variety of sports jerseys, trench coats, a simple brown woven dress, a lon
g black cloak, and several polished broadswords. “You asked how I managed to steal the piece of the Tapestry?”
The Doctor eyed the collection. “Ah, yes, your penchant for disguises.” He clapped Robert on the back and squeezed his shoulder.
“Good to know some things never change.”
“It truly amazes me how gullible the plebeians remain after six hundred years.”
“That is why killing mortals never kept me awake at night.” The Doctor lit another cigar. “Immortals are naturally smarter than Humans. It is our nature.”
The music crescendo from the other room silenced them. The two listened for a moment, trying to decipher the words. The Doctor blew a huge cloud of smoke into the room before shrugging in resignation.
“Joshua calls this one ‘Billie Jean.’ It is by a singer of ambiguous gender and race.”
“Sounds to me as if it’s singing, ‘Billy G fucked my dog.’”
30
By the time she and Abbey finished talking, Lynn knew she had a major problem on her hands. Throughout the afternoon, Abbey became increasingly disoriented and distracted. The domineering, regal aura she displayed in The Meadows had vanished, leaving in its place a weak, confused young woman. When asked about her nutrition, Abbey replied that what she ate most of the time was baked sweets. Lynn had never heard of a baking fetish, but she could easily conceive of the sweet, mild-mannered ‘Aunt Ruth’ feeding brownies to the thin Abbey, then forcing the girl to vomit. Who would have guessed the Bastille harbored a sado-masochistic, lesbian co-op with a baking fetish?
Desperate to linger a bit more with Abbey, Lynn wandered over to the Tapestry on her way out of Abbey’s room. “What are these?”
“Embroidered scenes from my family’s past.”
Lynn thought she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. At the far end of the hallway, the Tapestry billowed. Someone was watching them.
“This looks like you.” Lynn scrutinized the scene. “It looks like you tied to that pole.” Was that a fire beneath the figure? Could this be the germ of Abbey’s torturous nightmares? A simple embroidered picture on an enormous wall hanging? If she had walked by an embroidered picture of herself burning at the stake every day, it would be enough to send her over the edge.
Just then, a low, guttural scream echoed through the hallway. A rhythmic monotone chanting began somewhere to Lynn’s left, deep in the heart of the mansion.
Abbey clutched Lynn’s arm, “We must go now.” Abbey practically dragged Lynn down the corridor, heading for the sitting room. As they maneuvered the sharp turn into the foyer, Lynn gazed back over her shoulder and saw ‘Aunt Boo,’ still naked and still painted blue, rushing at the Tapestry and brandishing a huge broadsword over her head.
“Thanks for visiting, dear, good-bye.” Ruth nodded as she rushed past Lynn and down the hallway towards Aunt Boo. “GRAB SOME BAGELS ON YOUR WAY OUT!”
31
“Oh goody, you’re back.”
“How did you know it was me?” Mathers asked
“Your cologne,” Helen whined over her shoulder. Mathers noticed she was playing solitaire. “Smells like dog shit. What is it?”
“Doesn’t matter. I won’t buy it anymore.”
“Good idea.” Helen lost her game and swore under her breath. She spun her chair around to face him and sighed. “Let me guess. The recent find on the back forty of the Bastille.” When Mathers shrugged, Helen continued. “The CSI team was quick to respond. Not much excitement around this town, I suppose.” Helen fumbled through a chart and extracted a report. “Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning.” Mathers said, opening his notepad.
She sighed again. “No wonder you’re single.” She took a deep breath. “The dental work on the bicuspids in the mandible is incongruent with the time period that the rest of the skeletal remains…what?” She rolled her eyes at Mathers’ raised hand.
“English translation, please?”
“Old age.”
“Again?” Mathers raised his eyebrow. “How about…what?”
“May I finish?” He nodded. “No evidence of foul play. No evidence of trauma of any kind. Once again, No on any sign of sexual violation, struggle, No on naturally developing distinguishing marks such as bone discoloration or toxicology. No blunt traumas, broken bones, crushed bones, or tattered bones. Perfect specimen of an elderly person who happens to be dead.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Want to hear the really interesting part?”
“There is an interesting part?”
She nodded. “Initial scan of the clothing and artifacts found on and around the body. Bodice, jewelry and various paraphernalia look medieval in orientation.”
“That’s the same M.O. as our first Jane Doe.”
“From initial scans, yes. I’ve already requested further investigation.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mathers said, playing with the keys in his pocket, “two dead bodies in one week. Both female. Both old. Both died of natural causes. Both dressed in medieval garb.”
“Don’t forget: both with incongruities.” Helen shuffled through her papers. “In Jane Doe Number One, we had the tattoos and, lest we forget…”
“…the pierced labia.”
“Exactly. On Jane Doe Number Two, we have something strange with her teeth and bones.”
I thought you said the bones were…what now?”
Helen glared at him. “Can I finish, Detective?” Mathers stood still and folded his arms. “I said strange. What I think is strange is this: if the bones were hundreds of years old, there would be more evidence of malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, and other physical problems people had back then.”
“Thank you for the plain English.”
“No problem, Detective. But if she died in the 1940’s, why was she dressed in medieval garb? Renaissance Faires, King Richard’s Faires, and other period festivals weren’t popular until...what? 1970?”
“What makes you think she was from the ’40s?”
“I’m not an expert…” She caught Mathers’ smirk and added quickly, “…in the dental field, but I’m sure her dental work is not contemporary. It looks to be the mouth of a woman from pre-1950. I’ve called in our forensic dentist. In addition, judging by the decay, I would say they’ve been parked in that spot for about sixty years.”
“So you suspect the skeletal remains are from the ’40s.”
Helen nodded. “Want me to call in DNA people? We can investigate further into the clothing and bits of hair and nails we have from Jane
Doe Number Two and compare them to what we have for Jane Doe Number One.”
Mathers didn’t answer. He walked in small circles clutching and releasing his keys. Helen watched him for a few moments before he stopped and looked at her. “Let us assume both women died of old age. Playing that hypothesis, doesn’t it seem an unlikely coincidence that both females died of old age, both were found in medieval garb, both were found on the land owned by a group of elderly women who host a medieval party every year?”
“I thought they called it a ‘faire.’”
“Whatever,” Mathers waved her off. “And the only person under the age of forty on those grounds is a young woman who just spent an awful long time in a mental hospital due to amnesia.”
Helen whistled. “You’re screwed. She’s...what? Twenty-five? How in the hell would she do it? You think Abbey knows who did kill these women?”
“Jealous husbands?”
“They’re lesbians.”
“Jealous lovers, then.” Mathers began pacing again. After a few moments of silence, he stopped. “Let me know when the DNA specialists finish their investigation. Also the dental expert. While we’re at it, how about getting a confirmed fix on the date of the clothing and other artifacts found on the bodies. Would hair samples help?” Helen rolled her eyes and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. You going back to the Bastille?”
Mathers’ response dripped with sarcasm. “I have a stran
ge feeling that ‘poor, confused Abbey’ is not quite as ‘poor’ or ‘confused’ as she seems. My gut is telling me that she’s mixed up in something damn serious and the aunts are making sure family skeletons remain in the closet.”
“So to speak.”
“So to speak.” Mathers grinned.
32
Lynn fumbled, accidentally slid the Focus into third, and stalled in the middle of the intersection. As the Ford shuddered to a stop, she breathed a sigh of relief that she was alone on the private road. “Damn the fucking, shitting, pissing piss!” she screamed.
Why was she such an idiot for letting Abbey go back? The distant look in Abbey’s eyes, the injured foot, her resistance to answering questions, were only compounded by the strange way those women had of following Abbey around. They couldn’t bear to leave her alone for a single minute.
Damn, she thought, as a new vision erupted in her head: She was going to be hacked to death by the red-headed blue naked woman. The cops would probably find pieces of her strewn from here to Montpelier. Then, that adorable detective would have another murder to solve. Just her luck, the one time in a year that a handsome man sees her naked and she’ll be shark chum.
In a flash of insight, the pieces of the puzzle clicked in place. During some violent, sick game involving medieval torture devices (probably sexual games. Aren’t all games involving sex and torture linked to sex? Maybe she was reading too much into it, though. Damn! She had to get laid), one of the aunts murdered those two women, whose corpses Detective Adorable-Eyes had found. Abbey, no doubt strapped to a wall, witnessed the murders and went over the deep end. In a desperate attempt to conceal their behavior, the aunts shoved Abbey into a loony bin to shut her up and make anything she said look like the rantings of a nut-case. Now, Abbey is remembering the aunts’ murderous carnage and now the women want her dead. Shit. They were going to kill Abbey. She needed to do something.
She needed proof. What kind of evidence would convince the authorities that one of the oldest and most altruistic families in New England were crazed lesbian pastry-baking psycho-killers? How would she get such proof? Detective Adorable-Eyes! He was on the case, right? Two dead bodies, both found on the grounds of the Bastille, and Mathers was down from the city to check them out. If she could convince Mathers that the aunts were worth investigating, he would surely come to the same conclusion she did. He’s a cop and that’s what they do—suspect everyone of doing something illegal. It’s not their fault, really, it’s probably genetic. She couldn’t very well walk up to him and tell him the details of Abbey’s case, though. She’d be fired for sure.
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