by Ann Self
“As if they were puppets,” Madeline finished his sentence.
Jane drew her knees up under her chin in the chair, trying to ignore the moaning wind that was attempting to take apart the arena. She felt Brian’s very warm, very comforting hand on her back, and turned her face towards him.
“How did you get here so fast?” she questioned.
He smiled. “It was easy—I just drove like a maniac. The poor Mercedes took a beating, but it did me proud. I nearly put the thing in a ditch twice, driving so fast, but the tires held the road. Almost rolled her, fishtailed all over the place and just missed getting taken out by a falling tree and wires. I had a phone stuck in my ear half the time, too, trying to call the Southbrook Police, but Westy tells me a tree had fallen on the main trunkline for the phone service in Southbrook, a cell-phone and radio tower went down and no one could get through.”
He paused for a gulp of coffee. “I had to make a few detours here in town. Definitely didn’t take the crow-flying route—but I knew I was going to get here. When I finally drove onto the estate, I couldn’t go more than a hundred feet on the road before I ran into fallen trees. The lane to the house and down to the barn was completely impassable. I put the Mercedes into four-wheel-drive, and since it has a grille-guard I was able to easily crash through the fence and drive over the pasture. Then I crashed back out on this end, drove right up to the indoor arena, opened the door and parked the vehicle inside. I grabbed my flashlight and ran to Sam’s office looking for you,” he gazed at Jane.
Madeline smiled into her coffee cup, and then nodded at Brian and said: “I followed your tire tracks through the fence and drove over the pasture too, but my car didn’t do quite as well—in fact it’s going to need some major work now.”
“The cruiser is limping too,” Westy stated.
Brian smiled and shook his head. Then he continued: “I found Sam’s office empty, so I checked Reggie’s room and found him all wrapped up in duct tape. I ripped through the tape with a pocket knife and helped him onto his bed. He said he didn’t know who hit him, and he didn’t know where Jane was, but that Sam went down to the front office to try and break down the door.”
Brian took a big swallow of coffee and then went on with his story: “I ran down and tried to break in the office door—but the thing is monstrously thick and wouldn’t budge an inch. So I zipped down to the cellar with my flashlight and found a nice little room full of tools. The sledgehammer worked effectively on the wall beside the heavy door. Doesn’t do any good to have a door more rugged than the plywood and drywall that surrounds it.”
Sam nodded and laughed, “Such a simple solution.”
“I found Sam in the same condition—all wrapped up in duct tape on the office floor. The two dogs shot out when I broke through the wall, and raced away. I ripped some of Sam’s duct tape off to get him started, and then ran after the dogs.”
Sam saluted him with his coffee cup and said, “Let me say thanks, if I forgot.”
Brian nodded and smiled, recalling the sight of Sam on the floor, gleaming with a hundred winds of silver tape in the beam of his flashlight. Then he leaned forward in his chair to continue the story. “I raced up to the second floor when I heard the dogs barking up there, but then they vanished. I was trying to decide which way to go when I heard them barking way up at the door to that tower room.”
“So Cecily’s own dogs helped lead you to Jane,” Sam reflected. It’s probably the only time in their lives they acted like real dogs.”
“It’s true,” Brian agreed. “Without those barking dogs it might have taken me a lot longer to get up to the tower floor, and then I might not have been in time to know she was out on the roof.” He paused, remembering the scene. “I raced up the tower stairs to check things out and I saw the dogs barking by the closed door to the observation room, and heard Cecily scream at them to be quiet. She was yapping away in an angry tone, and I also thought I heard Lucinda, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I couldn’t imagine what she’d be doing up there—and in fact, turns out she wasn’t in the tower...I must have just imagined it.”
Hair rose off the back of Jane’s neck, and the blood drained from her face, but Brian rose to fill his coffee mug, and no one noticed.
He began pouring for everyone else. Detective Russell waved him away, making Brian sniff with amusement. Then he sobered as he continued his story: “There was a power tool and an old bolt on the floor, and the door was blocked by a tool chest, so I had to shove it open. I rushed into the room just in time to see Cecily lunge at Jane with an axe, and to see Jane leap backwards out a window. They were illuminated in a flash of lightning and Jane’s spotlight, which she dropped over the roof. Cecily swung so viciously with the axe that she ended up striking herself...and then just tumbled out the window and down the roof to her death.”
Jane gasped and snapped out of her spell. “That was the scream I heard! I thought she was just pumping herself up to come after me.”
“The woman died in a screaming rage—she screamed all the way down to the ground, but she was probably dead before you got ten feet from the tower,” Brian said, retaking his seat. “I had to rip off my jacket and then wrestle with the dogs to get them out of my way so I could go after you. I saw you latch on to the peak as I pulled a dog away from the window. Lightning illuminated you for a split second when you were scrambling away.”
He paused and smiled. “I thought it would be easy to catch you.”
“I was fueled by stark raving terror,” she answered, trying to throw off the fear that clutched her when he mentioned Lucinda.
“Who would’ve ever thought it was Cecily,” Sam mused. Then he said, ‘’Does this mean that Elliot is just your normal everyday pain in the ass?”
Reggie howled as he struggled to sit up. “Ha ha—damnit Sam, ha ha, stop! Stop making me laugh! It hurts my head!”
Westerlund chuckled at Reggie, and then glanced at Sam. “After speaking with my mother this morning, I was sure it was Cecily we were after.”
“Your mother?” Sam asked, his yellow eyebrows almost meeting the bump on his head. Brian and Jane watched the detective incredulously, hanging on every word.
Westy got up and paced around to work off nervous energy as the hurricane roared over their heads and another bolt of lightning lit up the arena. He shot a look at the ceiling as they heard a few moans and shrieks of metal that sounded a little like the sinking of the Titanic. The lights still flickered weakly, making shadows dance over their interested faces. Reggie propped himself up on one elbow to hear. Madeline knew some of the story, but listened intently.
“Yes my mother...” Westerlund repeated. My elderly mother has quite a sharp memory. She recalled to me an old scandal involving Edward Barrett—Gladys’s husband and Cecily’s father.”
“What did he do?” Jane questioned.
“Edward Barrett was a monster; in business and in his personal life. He ruthlessly gobbled up other businesses, and was a cold, cruel man to live with. He beat his wife and daughter regularly...even put Gladys in the hospital once, although she wouldn’t press charges.”
“Typical,” Madeline commented.
“Edward ran an import and distribution business with a partner and owned several warehouses. When his business didn’t quite generate the income he thought it should, he burned the midnight oil going over the books to see what he was missing.”
Everyone jumped when another flying branch smashed against the roof of the indoor ring. They heard a ripping squeal, indicating that a metal roof panel might’ve parted company with the building. Westy paused and glanced at the ceiling again, but then continued: “When Edward Barrett discovered that his partner had been diverting and embezzling huge sums of money, he called him into his warehouse office in the middle of the night. The partner thought it had something to do with an overseas shipment. Barrett had the man sit facing his desk, and calmly walked behind him and hacked him to pieces with an axe.”
“Oh my God…” Jane responded. “He killed his partner with an axe!?”
“Right,” Westy answered. “He did just that. Then he burned the warehouse to the ground to hide the crime, and collect insurance. Unfortunately for Barrett, the night watchman he’d sent home much earlier had come back to check for a wallet he’d left on his desk, and was attracted to the lights on the second floor. The watchman arrived on the floor just in time to see Edward disposing of his larcenous partner, a la Lizzie Borden.”
Several bolts of lightning lit the arena brighter than the mercury lamps ever did, showing them rain trickling down from a Plexiglas panel on the roof, pooling in the middle of the ring. The following clap of thunder made them all jump, as they huddled inside the skybox.
“Good God, it’s raining in the arena,” Sam said, as he paced by the window wall with his coffee, noting the shine of water also flowing in from under the large doorway on the side, and racing around the tires of the cars and trailers.
“Look at that!” Madeline said, on her feet now. “Good thing we’re high off the floor.” Jane and Brian twisted in their seats to look out at the arena.
Madeline turned back to Westy. “So, what happened after that?”
Westy drifted down closer to the window wall to look over the arena, his eyes lingering on the swirling water infiltrating the riding ring. He took a swallow of coffee, then turned back to continue on with the story: “The night watchman took off and escaped before the fire was set, and his eyewitness account put Edward in the StateMental Hospital for evaluation. He was judged to be a homicidal psychotic shortly before he managed to hang himself in his cell.”
“Wow! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Sam exclaimed, thinking of Cecily, as he walked back to his chair.
“Since the murdered partner had no family and left no will,” the detective continued, “Gladys inherited the business, and with the help of a clever lawyer got back all the embezzled funds. She hired a manager, and the two of them brought Edward’s business back to fine form. Later, when her daughter Cecily married Elliot Whitbeck, Gladys sold her late husband’s distributing business and invested heavily in Elliot’s construction company. Probably heavier than she knew.”
“And now Gladys is probably broke,” Sam said.
“Undoubtedly,” Westerlund agreed “ But, back to Cecily. If I put all that together with the fact that she flew back on Wednesday, not Thursday, and the fact that I have a cabby who says he delivered a woman to the indoor arena on Wednesday night.”
“Did he describe her?” Jane asked.
“She was wearing a large scarf, sunglasses, and he thinks a brown wig, but the cabby said she was short and stocky.”
“Cecily!” They all chimed in.
“So she was there all the time, wandering around up in the lofts and passageways while Bill fell to his death,” Sam mused.
“Except it wasn’t Bill she was hoping to see fall,” Reggie said.
“You know,” Sam decided, “this almost explains Lucinda’s personality! She’s the daughter and granddaughter of axe murderers.” He suddenly looked up from his coffee mug. “Does anyone know where she is at the moment?”
Everyone looked around nervously and listened as wind and rain scoured the building’s exterior with a nasty whine. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Hopefully stuck in the mansion,” Westy said. “She’d blow to Cleveland if she tried to go out in this storm.”
Jane watched Madeline still pacing around, and took a deep breath before she spoke: “Cecily even thought she was Lucinda, off and on, when she was ranting at me. Her voice actually changed to Lucinda’s—which is probably why you thought you heard her.” Jane looked back at Brian, who returned her gaze with astonishment.
“I could’ve sworn I heard Lucinda’s voice,” he said quietly.
“You’re kidding!” Madeline cried, standing still. “I’ve never actually witnessed this—a psychopath with a dissociative identity disorder.”
“No I’m not kidding. She talked to me as if she were Lucinda, even told me that only Cecily would have to pay for killing me.”
“Creeeepy,” Sam commented.
Madeline agreed. “The woman must have been almost totally subjugated by her nasty daughter. She probably was Lucinda when she tried to kill you.”
“Yes she was,” Jane confirmed. “She screamed at me in Lucinda’s voice when she lunged at me with the axe.”
“How about that!” Sam yelled. “Lucinda killed Cecily. Killed her own mother with an axe. Definitely runs in the family, doesn’t it?”
“That’d be tough to prosecute,” Westy retorted. “The only thing we could get her for is being an accessory before the fact in the vet’s murder and Jane’s attempted murder—if she really did conspire with her mother and it wasn’t all in Cecily’s imagination.”
“They both have those weird metallic looking eyes,” Sam said. “Like the hubcaps of an old Buick. Do you think everyone in the Barrett family with the weird eyes is a psychopath?”
“You mean genetically color-linked to madness,” Madeline stated. “That would be interesting. I wonder what color the grandfather’s eyes were?”
“There’s a photo of him on Lucinda’s dresser,” Reggie offered. “I saw it when I was repairing a clock in there. Asked Lucinda who the heck the weird looking guy with the dead stare was. The photo was black and white, but I could tell his eyes were very silvery and glinty. Now I know why Lucinda got all huffy about me asking.”
“So Cecily is still out there on the ground,” Jane uttered quietly.
“Right where she fell,” Westerlund confirmed.
Trees next to the barn sway and twist in the dark storm as the wind roars. Down on the soaked ground, a broken body lies—metallic gray eyes fixed and staring lifelessly into the rain through blowing twigs and leaves. Strings of silver hair flail in the wind like dancing ghosts. Back at the mansion entrance, a fallen tree strikes one of the stone dogs and the head breaks free, rolling crazily down the drive. It comes to rest with stone eyes looking into the raging night sky with the
same
dead
stare...
Read the sequel:SOMETHING VERY GHOSTLY
Coming soon: SOMETHING MOST EVIL
AnnSelfMysteries.com
In memory of
RUTH HELEN COOK
Former foster child with beautiful blue/black
hair chopped up to her ears.
And my mother.
CONTACT AUTHOR AT
[email protected]
