Dead Bolt

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Wow. Four ghosts. Reminds me of that Sartre play No Exit. Imagine being trapped in eternity with people you despise. What a drag.”

  “You can say that again. But if I make this work, maybe they’ll all find their way to their respective exits.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “Mel, thank goodness you’re here,” said Elena the minute I walked into Cheshire House. Graham stood behind her, his arms full of child-sized costumes. “We have to stop all that work upstairs. The dust is getting everywhere.”

  Elena hadn’t wasted any time—I had to give her that. In the front parlor of Cheshire House stood a beautiful eight-foot Christmas tree covered with bright paper decorations and multicolored lights. Giant Russian nesting dolls sat in the corners of the parlor, surrounded by presents wrapped in layers of colored tissue. Dozens of sparkling snowflakes hung from the ceilings, and the usual construction-site smells of wood and plaster had given way to the aromas of scented candles, roast meat, and honey.

  The baby monitor crackled, and I could have sworn I heard whispers. “Are Katenka and Jim downstairs with the baby?”

  Elena nodded. “Katenka says they won’t come out of the basement until they’re fully dressed. Not like I couldn’t use another pair of hands around here . . .”

  “I thought the party wasn’t until six,” I said.

  “It’s not, but there’s so much to do. Everything has to be perfect. Graham, you can arrange those things right there in that chest.”

  He dumped the costumes into the brightly painted “dress-up” chest decorated in Russian-style toile, then gestured to me with what I’m sure he thought was a subtle nod. Elena zeroed in on it immediately and glared first at him, then at me.

  “Um, Graham, could I show you that weatherstripping thing? Upstairs?” My improvisational skills could use a little work.

  “Sure. Elena, why don’t you run and pick up the adult costumes you rented? Once we check out the weather stripping we’ll come give you a hand.”

  She checked her watch. “Oh, good heavens, you’re right. I’m late. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oh, and can you be sure that cat woman leaves before the party? Last thing we need is cats running around.”

  “What cat woman?”

  “Katenka hired someone to catch a cat stuck in the walls.”

  “Oh. Will do.” Graham and I mounted the stairs to the second floor. “What costumes is Elena renting?”

  “The newly reunited Daleys will be playing the roles of the Snow Maiden and Father Frost. Apparently it’s a Russian tradition. According to what Elena tells me, though, the Snow Maiden is supposed to be Father Frost’s granddaughter, which makes it kind of creepy that they can’t keep their hands off each other. Good job with the couples counseling, Mel.”

  “Thanks. It’s my strong suit.”

  I had hoped to rid the attic of ghosts before the party, so I was carrying my so-called ghost-busting equipment in a canvas bag. But I wondered: If I tried to banish them now, would they mess up the parlor, throw things around as they had with the newspapers in the attic?

  That seemed like exactly the sort of peevish thing Luvitica would do.

  On the other hand, could I risk waiting until after the party? What if they sensed that I had learned the truth about them? Would they make an appearance? Turn over the punch bowl? Crumble the gingerbread? Reanimate the roast goose? Or something much worse . . . something truly sinister? I believed Andre and Luvitica had tried mightily to keep their history hidden. Knowing who they were was key to ridding the house of them. Why, I wasn’t sure, but I would use the information.

  Once out of earshot, Graham turned to me. “Do me a favor and cut Elena a little slack, will you? She hasn’t actually put together many events since she’s gone out on her own. She used to work for a big party planner who called all the shots. And Katenka’s disappearing act hasn’t made things easy.”

  “What did I say? I’m the one who made Katenka call her last night. How about a little credit?”

  He smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime. Now, want to return the favor?”

  He looked doubtful. “Depends.”

  “Are you feeling resolute?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I was planning to go up to the attic and rid this place of ghosts,” I said. No use beating around the bush. “I tried it before by myself, but I think I need you with me.”

  “Graham?” Elena’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Would you come help me move these boxes into the car before I go?”

  “Be right there,” Graham called to her, then turned back to me. “I thought your French guy told you the ghosts were influencing us the last time we were up there, picking up on ‘latent emotions.’”

  “That’s why I need you to come. Two of the ghosts were in love, or at least strongly attracted to one another. When you and I are up there . . .” I trailed off when I realized what this sounded like.

  “They pick up on our attraction to each other?”

  “Something like that,” I mumbled, embarrassed.

  “You’re attracted to me?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So they’re sort of ghostly lie detectors?”

  “Look, Graham, I am not having this conversation. Are you going up with me . . . or are you chicken?”

  “What, are you going to double-dog dare me next?”

  I laughed despite myself. “Are you coming or not?”

  I decided I didn’t want to wait. If the ghosts made a mess, there was still time to clean up before the guests arrived. I couldn’t guarantee Elena would survive the shock, but that was a chance I was willing to take.

  “Whatever you say, boss. Just let me go help Elena, and I’ll be right there.”

  “Great,” I said, feeling relieved at the prospect of getting these spirits taken care of, once and for all. “I’ll go tell the workers to knock off early, keep down the dust. Meet you at the attic door in ten minutes?”

  He nodded and left.

  I checked in with Steve Gilman, the temporary foreman, and asked him to shut things down for the day. I answered a couple of questions regarding the built-in cabinets in what was to be Quinn’s room, and crossed a few “done” items off the punch list. Finally, I asked if anyone had seen the “cat woman,” and was waved upstairs to the third floor.

  As I walked up the final flight of stairs, I could see the attic hatch door was open. The ladder had been pulled down.

  Was someone up there . . . or was I being invited?

  I heard the clomping of heavy boots and a jingle of keys overhead. It sounded more like a construction worker than a ghost. I was happy to note I heard no whispering, no voices at all.

  “Hello?” I called, stepping up a couple of rungs and sticking my head into the attic.

  The boots belonged to none other than Janet Banks. The large key ring I had noticed hanging from the ignition on the bus now hung from a chain around her waist, and she wore a pair of heavy leather gloves that reached nearly to her elbows.

  “Janet? What are you doing here?”

  “Whoa . . . Mel.” She reared back, as though I startled her. “That Russian lady hired me to come back and search for cats. She thinks we might o’ left one here. Says she hears it in the walls sometimes.” Janet crouched down and looked under the eaves with a flashlight. “Thing about felines is, they’re tricky. Real smart. Gotta hand it to ’em.”

  Her pale eyes flickered over me. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

  “You’re right; neither of us should. This isn’t a good time to search the place. They’re getting ready for a party downstairs.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. The Russian lady and her husband told me they’re gonna be the Snow Maiden and Father Frost, whatever that means. But that diced potato-carrot dish looked great. Nice and gloppy. Gotta love a culture that puts mayo in their salads, am I right?”

  “Right,” I said. I wanted Janet out of here, now. I was finally putting a few things together,
and they added up to keeping Janet out of the attic. “Actually, I’m hungry. Aren’t you? Let’s go check out the salads, shall we? The favorite traditional one is called ‘salad Olivier,’ just like the ghost buster. Funny, huh?”

  “Ghost buster?” Janet demanded. “What ghost buster?”

  “Olivier Galopin. He helped us to rid the house of ghosts.”

  “I . . . You’re saying they’re gone?” Her eyes started to dart around the attic. “No way.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Right. I don’t. I believe in what’s real.” And just like that, she pulled out a gun. “You might as well come the rest of the way up. You’ve meddled your way in this far.”

  My heart leapt to my throat. I wondered whether I could just drop down off the ladder before she had a chance to shoot, but she held the gun with confidence, like someone who knew her way around firearms. I recognized the signs, thanks to plenty of shooting-range bonding with my dad.

  “Janet, listen to me. The ghosts are able to influence people, that’s what hap—”

  “Shut up.” She gestured toward the closet door with her head. “And go open that closet for me.”

  “I can’t. I’ve tried. And when I tried to take the hinges off, the tools broke.”

  “Get up here now.”

  I climbed the last few steps of the ladder, wondering when Graham would arrive.

  “Try this.” She handed me a metal piece stamped with a design: semicircles of acanthus leaves cupping a winged skull.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “It’s mine. Emile had it. He stole it from me, way back when he lived here. I looked everywhere for it, even dug up the cats in the yard thinking maybe Mom buried it.”

  “I think he was trying to keep you safe by hiding it.”

  “All this time it was on that stupid collar on the stupid stuffed cat in Emile’s shop. I went to speak to him that night, talk to him about why my mother would have given away this house. . . . It was his fault she gave it all to those damned cats.”

  I calculated my chances of wrestling Janet to the ground. She was no waif, but Graham should be here soon. If I could keep her talking . . .

  “You shot Emile?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t really mean to, but I’m not all that sorry, gotta tell ya. He refused to admit it was all his fault, kept going on about how the ghosts weren’t good for anybody. They were more friends to me than anyone else in this house. And then I saw the key that I’d been looking for, for so long . . . and I just went nuts. Anyway”—she caught her breath, eyes shining with excitement—“open the door.”

  The strange key felt almost as though it was guiding itself into the dead bolt. It slid in, and I heard the tumblers fall. The rusty hinges scraped and squeaked as the door swung open. I peered inside the dim space. Janet’s flashlight beam shone in from behind me.

  There was no rum barrel. But it looked more like the inside of a crypt than a closet. Three cobweb-strewn coffins were stacked on shelves along the interior wall.

  The small bronze plaques adorning them read: CHARLES CARTER, LUVITICA CARTER, ANDRE CARTER.

  Behind me, Janet started laughing, an eerie kind of laughter that reminded me of Luvitica’s. Organ music began to play, far-off and ghostly.

  “Janet, listen to me. Don’t let the ghosts influence you. Think about what you’re doing.”

  “You think I haven’t given it a lot of thought? Driving that Shellmound loop over and over, round and round, I’ve had a lot of time to think. That old man Emile took my happiness from me, and then the cats and this whole house took the rest. Round and round I go, all day, every day. . . . But it doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters.”

  She started to sway, her arms up in front of her as though embracing a ghostly dance partner. Then I saw it. Barely there, a shadow figure hovering near her. Janet seemed like someone else, outside of herself, pleasure written all over her face. But she still had the gun in her hand.

  I felt waves of desperate yearning, desire, anger, and jealousy. The energy of the spirits reached out to me and tried to overwhelm my resistance. I stroked my grandmother’s ring around my neck, concentrating on it, keeping myself grounded in the here and now. Reminding myself who I was, pushing away the rage and desire.

  “Andre, Luvitica, you don’t belong here,” I said loudly, focusing on not giving in to the fear. “This house belongs to the living. We are alive, and you are not. Leave this place.”

  Janet laughed again, her tone malicious. Luvitica-like.

  “Mel?” I heard Graham yell to me from below.

  “Stay away, Graham!” I cried out, no longer wanting him here, at risk. The situation felt out of control, unpredictable.

  Ignoring me, Graham hurried up the ladder. He took in the scene, his stance cautious but ready to fight. His gaze held mine: searching, questioning. If only I knew what to tell him.

  As he stepped forward into the attic, the black cloud shifted, faded into the shadows. Janet faltered, falling to the floor.

  The black cloud surged forward once more, and a new look came over Graham’s face. Remote, angry . . . cold.

  “It’s me, Graham. We are alive, you and me; this is not Andre’s world. Do you understand me? Graham, stay with me.”

  The shadow hovered just over his shoulder.

  Desperate to make him connect with me, I flung myself into his arms and kissed him. Hard. I didn’t let go, willing myself—and Graham—to remain in the present, centered, bound to the here and now.

  After what seemed like forever, I could feel Graham coming back to me. He deepened the kiss.

  I saw flickering lights in my peripheral vision, sensed a black shadow over my shoulder, along with feelings of rage and jealousy and shame washing over me. But I wouldn’t let them in. They would not influence us. I forgot about them, losing myself in the kiss.

  Unfortunately, in that moment I had the ghosts under control . . . but I hadn’t considered the living.

  “No!” Janet shouted. “He’s mine!”

  Graham shoved me to the floor just as the gun went off. He followed me down, then turned and tackled Janet’s legs, bringing her to the floor before she had a chance to aim again.

  I scrambled up and jumped on her. She was vicious, large, and angry. But I’m no waif. She pulled my hair and shoved me, reaching for the gun, but I kicked it away. Together, Graham and I finally managed to wrestle her to the floor.

  We flipped her over and I used a bundle of old twine to truss her up tighter than Katenka’s roast goose.

  “Let me go!” she yelled, squirming. Then she started to cry while she raged. “You don’t understand! This is real!”

  Now instead of organ music I could hear a commotion downstairs, raised voices, loud footsteps on the stairs. They had heard the gunshot.

  Tying the last knot in our twine, I met Graham’s eyes.

  “You okay?” he said, his voice low with concern.

  I nodded. “You?”

  “A little off my game. But I’ll live. Let’s get the hell out of this attic.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  An hour later Graham and I were sitting at the top of the stairs as the flurry of police activity died down. Inspector Crawford had taken our statements, put Janet under arrest, and told us she’d be in touch.

  “Help me understand what happened,” Graham said.

  I gave him the abbreviated version of what I’d figured out with Luz earlier.

  “And the part where you kissed me?”

  “It’s sort of hard to explain. . . . I think it focused our minds on the present reality, denied Andre his influence over you.”

  “Interesting ghost-busting technique.”

  “I’m still a novice.” I shrugged. “I sort of fly by the seat of my pants.”

  He gave me a half smile, then reached out and touched my cheek, stroking the still-livid bruise softly. “Did you figure out who gave you this shiner?”


  “Janet had an admirer on the bus she drove—a sweet fellow, but he probably would have done whatever she asked. I bet it was him,” I said. My nervousness made me talkative. “As for these ghosts . . . I think Dominga, feeling the family had been disgraced enough, covered up Andre’s death and entombed him in the attic. And Charles was already there as well. Maybe she planned to move their bodies somewhere more permanent later . . . Who knows?”

  “And Janet got the idea of cutting the banister, hoping to kill her own mother, Hettie Banks?”

  “It’s important to remember that Janet wasn’t entirely in her own head. She was a miserable child, an adolescent when she first started associating with the ghosts. That’s a very volatile time, often correlated with paranormal activity. I think she was influenced by them so strongly that she wasn’t completely in control of her actions.”

  “That will be a tough sell when she’s talking to the judge. So who’s in the third casket?”

  “Luvitica. She probably wanted to be with Andre. I’m guessing Junior didn’t adhere to the full disclosure rules when he sold the house. He told Hettie to stay out of the attic, and she did.”

  “But Janet didn’t.”

  I shook my head. “Janet must have found the key to that closet and stirred up the ghosts. Emile took the key from her, and maybe he or Hettie tried to seal up the closet, make it hard to find. Hettie sent Janet away to live with her father, but she returned to help chase down all the cats after her mother was arrested.”

  “Why did she kill Emile? Just for that key?”

  “I think she was angry at him for many things, including hiding the key from her. She was also angry at her mother for leaving the money from the sale of Cheshire House to the animal shelter, so she set up her own mother to take the fall for Emile’s death. Janet probably thought she would inherit the place from her mother if Hettie went off to prison.”

  “I think I need a drink. Suppose there’s any good vodka to be had at a Russian Tree party?”

  The Snow Maiden, Snegurochka, hurried over to us as we descended the stairs. Her hazel eyes were huge with worry—and with hope.