The stone had an unhealthy mottling of black mildew and a jagged crack severed it from its base. Time or vandals had broken it off at ground level. Doug pulled some moss from the center and could read the inscription. The neat hand-carved block letters had thin serifs on each edge.
Rutherford Hutchington
1865-1928
Beloved Father and Husband
It took Doug a second to place the name. It was the man who built Galaxy Farm, the candy baron. It must be a family plot. He thought Realtor Dale should have mentioned that in the listing somewhere. A few of the older farm houses near by had small plots on them, though none were in this state of disrepair. Doug scraped away leaves inside the tiny battlement protecting the Hutchington clan. Four more gravestones emerged, each toppled from its proud vertical position. Two of the smaller ones were facedown. He pulled them back up to the vertical position to see the inscriptions. The headstones read:
William A. Hutchington , 1895-1931, first son of Rutherford
Sarah Hutchington, 1900-1931, his wife
Constance and Elizabeth Hutchington, 1925-1930, daughters.
And at the end lay Mabron Hutchington 1900-1959, second son of Rutherford
How sad to see a whole family laid to rest together, especially such a tragic cluster of deaths; the patriarch, followed within two years by the twin girls then their parents. How much grief could one family stand? Worse, they were tucked into this corner of the property and forgotten by family and friends. Even the woods worked to obscure these permanent residents, snaking burrowing roots and shedding faded leaves to subsume the remains of these mortals and their markers.
Notable by his absence was Vernon Pugh’s father, Alexander. Did he abhor joining the family in eternal repose, or did the legal wrangling over the estate keep his wish from being executed? Or did Vernon bury him elsewhere out of spite for his mercurial commitment to fatherhood?
There are the seeds of a story in there, Doug thought. For the first time since deciding to write, he had an inspiration. Even when he drove home from St. Luke’s after Laura’s shooting and knew that the time had come to write the Great American Novel, he had no idea what that novel would be about. He had no concept, no characters, no plot. Now he did. It roiled around in his subconscious, dammed water rising toward the spillway. He’d need to rush to be ready to catch it all on paper when it started to flow.
His pulse quickened and he shed the macabre mantle the family plot had draped over him. He had writing to do. He hopped over the cemetery wall and ran back to the house.
Inside the plot, a few leaves shuffled at the base of Mabron’s tombstone. A swath of blackened mold peeled away from across the name, as if an invisible hand brushed the surface clean.
Chapter Fourteen
Doug turned on the laptop in the turret room but couldn’t abide the wait for it to boot up. He grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. He started to write.
The story swirled inside him, bits of ideas caught up in a tornado that only showed him glimpses of each piece. He couldn’t slow them down, couldn’t get them in order. He jotted down the snippets he could extract from the maelstrom.
Slaveholder family.
Pre-Civil War.
Crazy son. Murder.
He already knew the setting of the story. It sprang up in his mind full grown in exquisite detail. A plantation. The immense main house, two stories tall with a dual level porch and a central, pillared portico. Snow-white paint gleamed in the sun and the shutters and metal roof were a brilliant red. Blooming magnolias lined the driveway. Chirping birds flitted from branch to branch.
Doug’s whole body pulsed with excitement. This minor epiphany was the reason he moved out here. He hadn’t felt that rush of creativity since his college days. Nothing he wrote for the New York Dispatch ever gave him this reaction. He felt ten years younger.
His lack of faith last night embarrassed him. How could he doubt that he had a story inside him? He just needed to jar it loose.
His untouched laptop rolled over to a screensaver as his pen flew over the paper. Notes and ideas flashed faster than he could transcribe them. Sentences came out as fragments, words became abbreviations. He’d backtrack and add detail to previous thoughts. The tip of his pen became a bottleneck for a torrential creative flow.
He scrawled page upon page of notes. Some of it looked like it was in the same convoluted format favored by the Unabomber’s manifesto. No matter. Doug would clean it up and make it coherent later. The point was to channel as much of the inspirational lightning bolt as possible as it struck. He could adjust the amps and voltage later.
He hunched closer to the paper. This was what he quit his job for, the chance to surrender to creativity. No better way to make a living.
Chapter Fifteen
Laura’s first day could not have gone better so far. From the moment she stepped into the classroom, she felt complete. She slipped into the teacher role like a pair of well-worn slippers. Mrs. Matthews had been her kind of teacher. Her students were disciplined and behaved. They figured out in the first twenty minutes that Laura was no pushover substitute and toed the line. Laura beamed as she entered the teacher’s lounge after fourth period.
Austere would be a kind word for the teacher’s lounge. The district must have funded the room as an afterthought. Two mismatched castoff couches sagged against the wall. One was gold and one red, but their faded colors didn’t add a glow of festivity. A male and a female teacher sat around a central table borrowed from the cafeteria, sipping coffee and eating out of Tupperware. They chopped their conversation as Laura entered. Their heads swiveled to face her like the rifles of a firing squad.
Laura’s face went red. She could see their eyes passing judgment. By seven thirty this morning she realized that by wearing a long skirt and heels she was overdressed by a factor of five compared to the rest of the jeans-clad staff. She had so hoped that fitting in would not be an issue. Based on the looks she saw now, it was going to be a struggle.
Best defense is a good offense, she thought. She looked for the face with the most contempt. The woman on the left was in her mid-forties with too much makeup and artificially black hair in a short wedge cut. Reading glasses perched on the edge of her nose like a hawk on the hunt. She’d be the leader. She had the air of a bully. Laura went straight for her and stuck out her hand.
“Hi there,” she said. “I’m Laura Locke, filling in for…”
“Sherri Matthews,” the woman said. “We know.” She gave Laura’s hand a look of bemusement and than offered a limp shake. “I’m Patrice, sixth grade. This is Danny, fifth grade.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Laura lied.
“So where you from?” Danny asked. Danny had a middle-age spread barely restrained within a blue-checked button-down shirt. He had the world’s most obvious comb-over. Laura sensed the onset of an Inquisitional interrogation.
“We just moved from outside New York City,” Laura said. “I taught there for three years.” She hoped describing her experience might garner some points. No luck. From the looks on their faces, she could have just announced she spent a year at a leper colony. She struggled for a local connection that might help. “My husband and I just moved into Galaxy Farm.” Their looks moved from disdain to disbelief.
“That was you?” Danny said. “You got some courage.”
“Courage?”
“That house has a history,” Patrice said. “Nothing but death and bad luck on that property since the Hutchingtons bought it. Don’t tell me Dale Mabry left that out of his listing?”
Laura flashed back to the feeling she had when she stepped into the turret room. That foreboding, heavy, dark sensation that set her fear center firing.
“Oh, yes,” Patrice said, relishing being the bringer of bad news. “From the time the house was built it has been one awful event after another. The owners who didn’t die ended up certifiable.”
“Buried ’em right there on the property,” Danny added. “
Hutchingtons were too good for the county cemetery, not that anyone was extending any invitations anyhow.”
Laura worked hard to keep a fake smile on her face. People had died in her house and were buried in her yard. What the hell was all this? Did Doug know any of this, the king of the “I feel this house” method of internet real estate purchases? Whether Doug knew it or not, Lauren wasn’t about to give these two the satisfaction of knowing she didn’t.
“Well, if you buy into that kind of stuff,” Laura said. “We’re not big believers in curses and bad luck.”
Laura needed an excuse to get out of there without having it look like a retreat. She shoved change into the soda machine and punched the first button she could reach. A cream soda rolled out at the bottom and she forced herself not to cringe. She would rather dehydrate than drink cream soda. She picked up the can and headed for the door.
“Not staying?” Patrice asked, peering over her reading glasses.
“I’m still finding everything in the classroom,” Laura said over her shoulder. “I’ll see you both later. Nice meeting you.”
As the door closed behind her, she could just hear Danny’s voice saying, “Don’t think she’s a gonna make it.”
Laura gripped the soda can hard enough to dent it. She didn’t need this crap. She was a good teacher. No, she was a damn good teacher. Those two didn’t have the right to judge her. “Not gonna make it?” She’d show that paunchy know-nothing who would make it.
And don’t think Doug wasn’t getting a special prize when she got home. Move her into a house with such a history. No wonder she felt creepy last night making lesson plans. Her Student Sixth Sense was never wrong. There would be an earful waiting for him.
She missed Rosa Elizondo, her mentor and defensive line at Idlewild Elementary. It was a long shot, but she had hoped to find someone like her at Moultrie. If Patrice and Danny were a representative sample, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.
Chapter Sixteen
Downtown Moultrie was postcard perfect. It had a classic small town design with a central square for the county courthouse, a domed turn-of-the-century sandstone masterpiece. A weathered bronze statue of a Civil War soldier stood at attention on a pedestal in front of the main entrance. Retirees in seed company caps and thick glasses sat on the green benches along the perimeter, commenting to each other on the events of the day.
Two- and three-story brick buildings lined the streets around the courthouse. Relentless advances in transportation and technology had long stripped away the businesses that once made the downtown a microcosm of big-city commerce. Each shop carried a bit of its history on it façade, like campaign medals on an old soldier’s uniform. The vertical sign that once advertised the Rialto Theatre in neon letters still jutted over the entrance to Bumby’s Furniture, though now it was just pained a solid blue. The marble cornice over the flower shop still had Union Bank 1912 carved into it in block letters. The ghostly white letters on the side of Mabry Realty read Harrison’s Dry Goods and Livery if the sunlight was just right. Only two businesses had history on the square. The Moultrie Luncheonette was an honest-to-goodness soda and sandwich shop kept on nostalgic life support by the fifth generation of family owners. The other was Randolph’s Hardware, where you still walked on a hardwood floor and brought a half pound of nails home in a brown paper sack.
After work, Laura entered Randolph’s. The narrow aisles were crammed with building supplies and farm implements she could not identify. The place smelled of polished wood and had a hint of light machine oil mixed in. She went straight to the back counter. An older gentleman with half-moon reading glasses on his nose stood by the register. He wore an apron with Lon and Randolph’s Hardware stitched on the front. Laura put on her biggest smile.
“Hi, I see you sell and install water treatment systems?”
“Sure do,” Lon said. He looked her over top to bottom. “You must be the new substitute at the elementary school.”
Laura was stunned. “How could you…?”
“Word travels,” Lon said.
Laura imagined the hardware store as the gossip nexus of the town.
“So you need a home system?” Lon continued.
Laura explained the situation, the sulfur in the hard water.
“We got a standard system that uses salt as the catalyst,” Lon said. “But we also got a newer, smaller one that doesn’t need salt. It’s a lot easier to use.”
Laura felt an imperative come over her, an overriding need to instantly decide the system to take, and which one to choose.
“We’ll go with the standard system.”
Lon gave her a bemused look. Apparently the salt-based systems didn’t sell as well as they used to. He filled out a purchase order and showed Laura the price.
“Now that includes installation and the one-year warrantee,” Lon said.
The price was immaterial. Laura needed the system. She needed that system. “How soon can we get it put in?”
“I guess we could do it tomorrow,” Lon said. “Happen to have one in stock.”
“Fantastic,” Laura said. “We’re at 2143 Hwy 41 North.”
Lon took a half step back from the counter.
“So you bought the Hutchington place?”
All the anger about the house’s history came flooding back. She held it back. “So what time can we expect you in the morning?”
“About eight, I’d say,” Lon said. “Wait. Make it eight thirty so my boy has time to load the truck.”
“My husband will see you then,” Laura said. She turned to leave the store, ready to avoid any discussion about her supposedly haunted house. A box of matchbooks sat on the countertop, giveaway books embossed with Randolph’s Hardware.
Laura didn’t smoke and didn’t need matches. But she had an instant craving for these. Before she knew what she did, she had of book of them in her pocket and was out the door.
The “Are-you-nuts?” look from the owner when she told him her address got her mad at Doug all over again. Even the good news of the promised morning installation didn’t quell her anger at Doug for buying a house with so much backstory. Her fury ran in an amplifying feedback loop on the drive home. Only the need to talk to him face to face kept her from calling him immediately.
Unaware of the coming storm, Doug was pacing the kitchen, dying to tell Laura about his novel’s progress.
Laura yelled Doug’s name as she blew in through the front door. He wandered in to the living room, smiling with a blueberry muffin in his hand.
“Welcome home, teacher,” he said. “I got these muffins at the Piggly Wiggly. You’ve got to try—”
The fury in Laura’s eyes froze him mid-sentence, muffin in his outstretched hand. He’d seen that look before, the time he inadvertently bought Yankees tickets on their wedding anniversary. He braced for impact.
“When were you going to tell me we bought a cursed house?” Laura said.
Doug nearly dropped the muffin. “What do you mean?”
“The people who built this place, the Huntingtons—”
“Hutchingtons,” Doug corrected.
“Whoever!” Laura snapped. “A busybody at work told me that the whole family died here. The whole county knows the place is cursed, choked full of bad mojo.”
Doug’s jaw went slack. “I have no idea what you mean. I told you everything I knew about the house when we bought it. No one said anything about people dying here.”
“What about the onsite graveyard?” she said. “I suppose you didn’t know about that either?”
“Not when we bought the place,” he said. He couldn’t conceal the “oh shit” look on his face.
“‘Not when we bought it?’” She was flabbergasted. “When did you know we owned a graveyard?”
“Not until today,” he said. “I stumbled across it, literally, when I was posting the no trespassing signs…”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d overr
eact.” He was losing ground fast.
“Overreact? I have corpses buried near my home. Who lives like that? How normal is that?”
She yanked the muffin out of his hand, stomped into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She went straight to the nursery. As she disappeared, she called back.
“I’ve got prep to do for tomorrow. We’re going to have to finish this later when I’m not so furious.” The door to her study slammed shut.
Doug waited over an hour before launching his apology. He nudged open the door and crept into Laura’s study. A plate of shrimp primavera steamed in his hands. Laura sat on the floor facing the door, lesson plans laid out in front of her.
“Hey, babe,” he said.
Laura looked up. Doug put on a penitent look. Delivering one of her favorite dishes had to be a good start. She looked like she had cooled off a bit.
“How about a little dinner?” he said.
“Bribing yourself back into my good graces?”
“For a start,” Doug said.
“Luckily for you I’m famished,” she said.
Doug sat down next to her and handed her the plate of shrimp. She took a bite.
“Well, it’s good. One point for you.”
“I had no idea about the history of this house,” Doug said. “It didn’t even occur to me to ask. As long as it was structurally sound, that was good enough.”
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