by Carolyn Hart
Carrie was still looking at the bracelet, not at her. Leah knew her face must have revealed something of her shock and despair because Merrick was watching her with a thoughtful frown.
Carrie took the bracelet back and held it tightly. “Mary Ellen’s gone, and now Old Jason.” She sighed tiredly. “Merrick, will you see to everything?”
“Of course.”
She pushed aside the writing board and the sheets of paper covered with her small, fine handwriting. “I’ll rest now,” she said.
They left her there, still holding the silver bracelet and looking at a past they couldn’t see.
As they came out into the hall, Henry was turning away from the telephone alcove.
Leah could see the grief and pain in his face. “Henry, I’m so sorry . . .”
“Miss Leah, Mr. Merrick.” Henry’s voice was high with shock. “The sheriff just called me. He said . . .”
Leah knew without even hearing Henry’s words. She thought of the tumbling wall and the cut anchor rope, the sabotaged ladder and the falling urn, and she knew.
“. . . with a pillow.” Henry stopped speaking, and tears brimmed from his eyes. “Smothered him with a pillow.” He turned and stumbled away from them, his grief for an aging father turned to horror.
It was cool and quiet, eerily quiet, in the upper hallway, cool and dark and somber as the rain pelted against the windows.
“It’s my fault,” Leah said faintly. “Oh, my God, it’s my fault.”
Merrick gripped her arms. “Your fault? What are you talking about?”
“I called the hospital,” she said dully. “I called and said I was going to visit Jason this morning.”
His hands fell away from her, but his frown remained. “Why should someone kill Jason because you were going to see him?”
“Jason knew what really happened to my mother and father. He helped get rid of their bodies.”
Merrick stood so still he might have been carved from stone. Then he asked, his voice harsh, “Leah, what are you talking about?”
She told him then of Cissy’s story.
“Cissy told you that she and Jason helped your grandmother Shaw dispose of Mary Ellen and Tom?” There was a horrified incredulity in his voice.
“You didn’t know?”
“Of course not! And I can’t imagine Cissy . . .”
Cissy was so elegant and aloof and dignified. It was hard to picture her running through the rain, struggling to hide a scandal to protect Leah.
“Cissy never gave enough of a damn about anybody to go to that kind of trouble. Nobody but Hal, that is. And she wasn’t married to him then.” He paused, his eyes narrowed. “Oh. Hal. Of course. That’s why she helped Louisa.”
“What did Hal have to do with any of it?”
“Cissy and Hal.” There was an odd tone in Merrick’s voice. “God knows, a lot of marriages aren’t made in heaven.” His mouth twisted a little. “That I can testify to. But Cissy and Hal . . . They’re so damned unlikely for a great love match, yet that’s what it is. Cissy had an almost unholy passion for that guy, wet fish that he is. She always did. And that was just about the time he must have been ready to propose. She wouldn’t have wanted any nasty scandals marring his picture of the Devereaux. Hal was probably going to some lengths to overlook the ancient trouble about Marthe. He’s as nutty about family stuff as anybody in the county. It would have meant everything to Cissy to keep it all quiet.
“So I suppose,” he said slowly, “that what she told you could be true.”
Leah shook her head violently. “No, it wasn’t right! Not the part about my mother killing my father.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Don’t you see? Jason’s murder proves that someone did kill my parents. Jason knew it—and the murderer couldn’t take the chance that he’d tell me.”
The murderer.
It could have been Cissy. Or she might be an innocent party, knowing only what she saw and becoming part of a conspiracy to protect her future with Hal.
It could have been John Edward, angry over his loss of Mary Ellen.
Merrick could have known and helped keep it quiet; he could be willing now to go to any length to keep it that way.
Leah stepped back from him, her hand going up to her throat.
The silence expanded between them.
Finally, icily, he said, “You’re very transparent, Leah.” He looked at her a moment longer, then walked away. At the top of the stairs he paused to look back at her. “And very dramatic. But a little hysterical. It’s odd, having someone think you are a maniac. It’s certainly not very flattering.”
Leah watched him leave and still she stood there, her hand at her throat. Was she hysterical?
Old Jason was dead, murdered.
The night before, an urn had fallen from the second-story veranda to crash on the spot she’d just vacated.
Leah went back to her room. Once again, she locked both doors. The house seemed to emanate danger. Murder walked at Devereaux Plantation.
Was the killer Merrick?
She didn’t want to believe that. He’d only been a boy when her parents had died. But greed knew no age. Was his passion for Ashwood evidence of a reverence of things old and lovely? Or was it the fruit of an overweening greed to possess?
Not Merrick. Please, not Merrick.
But she remembered his eyes, cold and hostile now, eyes in which she’d once seen—or imagined—a flame of love.
Would Cissy protect him?
Yes, if it were to her benefit. She would do anything to protect the Devereaux name from scandal and keep safe her romance with Hal. Equally, of course, she would have protected John Edward, and for the same reasons. The story she’d told could have been the truth—twisted about. Perhaps John Edward had continued to want Mary Ellen and tried to persuade her to leave Tom. Then, when he’d been rebuffed, he’d killed her in a surge of rage. Then he’d killed Tom to cover up his crime and called on Cissy to help him. She could have taken that truth and twisted it to make Mary Ellen the pursuer and so convince a distraught Louisa Shaw. After all, Louisa barely knew her daughter-in-law, and to have Mary Ellen’s own cousins describe her as fickle and dangerous . . .
Leah nodded. She could see how it might have happened that way. But, despite her fear and uncertainty, she felt the beginning of a great exultation. Her mother had not killed her father. The rain could spatter against her windows, the lowering skies could press darkly down, death could walk in the night—but nothing daunted her now. Mary Ellen’s image moved in her mind, small and slight, lively, clever and loving; not a driven, twisted creature doomed to reenact Marthe’s deadly role.
Louisa Shaw had been right. There was great evil at Devereaux Plantation.
Leah paced up and down, stopping occasionally to listen to the storm. The rain was coming down even harder now. If only she had gone into Mefford yesterday afternoon and talked to Old Jason. Kent Ellis had talked to Lilac and come away certain she knew more than she would admit.
Lilac. She, too, had been at Devereaux Plantation when the murders took place. What did she know?
Leah went out into the hall and used the phone to call the kitchen.
“No, ma’am,” a subdued voice told her. “Lilac, she got sick and went to her room.”
Leah replaced the receiver and returned to her room. Lilac would have heard of Jason’s murder. Could fear have driven her to her bed?
Lightning split the rain-riven sky, bathing the landscape in a sulfurish light. In the brief flash, Leah saw the servants’ quarters. She whirled around to the closet and yanked out her raincoat, then stepped out onto the veranda and paused, momentarily dismayed by the force of the storm. She pulled a scarf out of her pocket and tucked it around her head. Then, turning up the collar of her coat, she hurried to the back steps and paused once more before plunging into the rain.
She ran, head down, splashing through pools dotting on the oyster-shell path. The wind rattled the palms
while the rain battered the roses. The rain seeped through her coat, plastering her scarf to her head.
Leah felt a wave of relief when she reached the servants’ quarters. The violence of the storm frightened her more than she wanted to admit. She knocked on the door and saw a light glowing behind closed white curtains. She knocked louder, thinking she couldn’t be heard over the roar of the storm. Finally, the door was opened a narrow space. Leah pulled at the screen door, but it was latched.
“What is it?”
“Lilac, I have to talk to you.”
Leah heard her breathing quickly behind the nearly closed door. The woman said nothing at all.
“Lilac, you’ve got to tell me what happened to my parents. You know—”
“I don’t know nothin’. Not nothing Miss Leah, and don’t you go ‘round sayin’ I do. And I don’t want to talk to you.” She paused, then whispered, “Get you back to Texas, miss,” and slammed the door.
Leah shivered, but the cold that touched her bones came from within, not from the rain. Lilac knew, but she would never admit it.
Fear gripped Leah. She was alone with no one to trust. And death moved under cover of the Carolina nights.
She turned and started back up the path. Gusts of rain swept in silvery sheets against the house. Somehow the building looked insubstantial and ghostlike—and frightening. Abruptly, she swerved around and headed down the path.
The water overflowed the banks of the pond, lapping close to the footbridge. If the storm continued, the bridge would soon be awash. Leah hurried across and pushed her way through the whipping fronds of the willows. She followed the path and welcomed the protection of the huge pines. It was almost calm in the thick wood, though it was hard to see through the dank green gloom. At the top of the hill, as she left the protection of the trees and moved into the full force of the storm, it occurred to her to wonder whether she would find Kent Ellis. Surely he would have taken shelter somewhere. But she was so near that she continued on and found Kent snug in his tent.
He folded up his low camp table, making room for her, gave her a blanket to wrap herself up in and poured her a cup of coffee from his thermos.
As she drank, she told him about Old Jason.
“I’ll be damned.” Kent looked at her soberly. “You’d better be careful.”
She shivered, though the blanket was warm. Rain slapped against the tent sides. “I will.” Then she told him how she’d tried to talk to Lilac.
“I didn’t get anything definite out of her, either,” he said. “The only thing I’m certain about is that she does know something—and she’s scared to death of it. Which shows she isn’t stupid. All she did was mutter about Miss Marthe.”
Marthe. Everything seemed to go back to her and to the ghost named after her. Everything . . . Leah felt a tingle of excitement. Everything went back to the appearances of the ghost. The Whispering Lady had appeared, and Carrie had almost died. The ghost had come back this summer, and Kent . . .
Why Kent?
Leah leaned forward. “What did you do the week before the chimney fell on you?”
Kent looked at her blankly.
“Here on the plantation,” she said impatiently. “What were you doing?”
“Oh. Yeah. Just a minute.” He reached beneath his cot and dragged out a metal filing box, opened it, searched for a minute, then took out a yellow spiral notebook. “That would be the first week in June,” he muttered to himself. He flipped some pages over and handed the notebook to her. “Here.”
He had kept a daily record of his work. She began to read; the only sounds were the rustle of the pages and the steady beat of the rain against the canvas tent. One entry she read and reread: “June 3. Circled tower. Door locked. Looks sturdy. Interesting to see interior, but not likely. J.E.D. found me shaking the lock and told me to keep away from the place, said it was dangerous. Doesn’t look dangerous. Well site looks . . .”
J.E.D. John Edward Devereaux. He’d warned Kent to keep away from the tower, and a few days later the ghost had appeared and Kent’s accidents had begun.
Old Jason had told Carrie he’d found Mary Ellen’s bracelet near the tower.
The tower was the only place on Devereaux Plantation that was closed and locked.
Leah shivered.
“Still cold? Want some more coffee?” Kent asked.
She drank another cup, looked a little further in the notebook, then handed it back.
“You didn’t find anything?”
She almost told him. But she had called Mefford Hospital, and an old man had died. If she told Kent, he would want to force their way into the tower now, to see what was there. She wasn’t going to put anyone else in danger.
After thanking him for the coffee, Leah started back and was drenched again before she’d taken more than a dozen steps. She struggled through the garden; then, halfway back to the house, took the path leading to the stables and the garage.
The wind was blowing harder. Leah leaned into it, the rain enveloping her. She was almost to the garage when she heard the low, throaty roar of a sports car. She stepped off the path and pressed close to the rough-edged trunk of a palmetto.
John Edward’s yellow Porsche swept up the driveway.
She waited until John Edward had got out of the car and disappeared in the rain before she cautiously approached the garage. Slipping inside, she checked the cars. She knew them now—John Edward’s Porsche, Merrick’s battered station wagon, Cissy’s Mercedes, Carrie’s Cadillac and, of course, her own rented Vega.
Leah peered through a dusty side window. The tower stood just past the garage, dark and menacing. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the windows at the top.
If she could find a flashlight and something to break the chain . . .
The tack room held tools and several flashlights. She grabbed up a wire cutter, a hatchet and a crowbar. Then she saw the oil lanterns in the corner. They would be needed, of course, when storms downed the electrical lines. Leah found a can of kerosene and poured some into a lantern.
She ducked her head against the swirling rain as she hurried up the path, clutching her awkward load. At the tower door she paused, feeling a sweep of revulsion. She didn’t really want to probe the old building, because she was almost certain she knew what it hid. Jason told her grandmother that he’d found Mary Ellen’s bracelet near the tower. Years later, he babbled that Mary Ellen haunted him because she was buried in unhallowed ground. He hadn’t made a mistake. He hadn’t meant Marthe. He’d meant Mary Ellen, just as he’d said.
Grim-faced, she took the wire cutters, clamped them on the chain and pressed. With a sharp clank, the chain gave way and clattered against the door.
Leah looked nervously around. Rain still swept down in a thin gray sheet, almost obscuring the stables and the garage. Palmettos rattled. Live oak limbs swayed and creaked. But no one moved in the wild wetness.
Leah pulled the loose chain out of the hasp and turned the door handle. The door moved easily, and that surprised her. It had been closed for so many years, yet it swung open smoothly and quietly.
Stepping inside, she closed the door behind her, then used the flashlight to illuminate the lantern. She knelt and lit it, and a sharp smell of kerosene overlay the dank odor of the tower. The flame danced up the wick, throwing a bright circle of orange light. She set the lamp carefully to one side and glanced around.
Her first thought was that the place was very small. Then she looked up, following the spiral of steps that disappeared into the darkness above. Light from the lantern flickered unevenly, throwing her shadow against the angled walls, and she realized with a start that this was how the tower would have looked many years ago to anyone entering after nightfall.
PAST MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY, MAY 10,1863
Marthe ran along the edge of the path, keeping clear of the shells. If Randolph heard her, if he found her dressed for travel, carrying a valise . . . Was Timothy there yet? An owl hooted, and her heart thudded even hard
er. She reached the tower and opened the door. It was so dark and silent inside. She pulled the door to and took a candle from the valise. After lighting it, she put it in a wall sconce and huddled beside the door. Timothy would come soon and . . . The door opened, and he came in, and she flew thankfully into his arms. She felt the prickle of his beard against her face; then there was nothing in the world but her and Timothy. They never heard the door open. For one last instant, she was in the circle of his arms. Then she heard Randolph’s shout as he pulled her away. He raised the dueling pistol and aimed it at Timothy’s heart. With a desperate sob, she threw herself between them.
Chapter Fifteen
The wind moaned through crevices in the old tower. Irregular splotches of damp marked the walls where boards had warped and fingers of rain had poked through. The wooden floor was uneven, buckled with age. A smell of decay, wood rot and dust hung heavily in the dank, close air.
Leah studied the flooring, then crossed to the curving stairway. A gigantic curtain of cobwebs floated mistily across the stairs. No one had climbed these steps in years. She turned back to the octagonal room. She found nothing until she looked on the underside of the stairs and saw a closet door. A chain and a padlock barred access to it.
She jammed the crowbar behind the staple, and the metal piece fell away. Slowly, she opened the closet door. A trunk sat inside, and she pried up its lid. When she saw the contents, a prickle of coldness moved down her back. She lifted out shimmering white folds of silk that were tacked to a box kite.
Seen from a distance the cleverly crafted object certainly looked like the wavering, milky-white gleam of a ghostly figure. The Whispering Lady had been found. Close at hand, the silk was bedraggled, worn at the edges, stained with dirt.
She sighed and bent to replace the silk-bedecked kite. As she did, she saw the outlines of a trapdoor. Shoving the trunk out of the way, she knelt and searched for a finger hole.
