The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Hank shrugged. He hefted the toolbox off the table as though it were made of lightweight foam. His hands were large and corded, his fingers strong.

  “Someone had been inside before we got there.” He gave her a look that clearly communicated he knew more of something than she did. That he had a mission of some unspoken sort and that getting it out of him—short of a waterboarding interrogation—was going to take skill.

  Chandler bit the inside of her lip. He took a few steps toward her, and the closer he came the more imposing he was. Intimidating. His bulk towered over her five-foot-seven frame, and she vividly recalled the strength of his arm as he’d trapped her against him. It wasn’t romantic or comforting or even intriguing. It was just shy of utterly frightening.

  “N-no one could have been inside. I unlocked the padlock and unchained the door. That’s the only entrance.”

  Hank’s lips thinned, and he raised his brows as if to insinuate he’d let her believe whatever she wanted but that she was also wrong.

  “I never saw a light inside either. That came from Lottie. Lottie is the one who called me.” Now she was chattering. Peppering Hank Titus with all the information she had and receiving none in return.

  “Not everyone uses doors to enter an abandoned building.” His growl was ominous. His hair waved around his shoulders like a Neanderthal’s, or a Viking’s, or . . . no. She’d stick with Sasquatch.

  Chandler squeezed her eyes shut against the image of otherworldly trespassers and against the vision of Hank Titus in her kitchen. She drew in a slow, stabilizing breath, but still reached out and grasped the back of the kitchen table chair to steady herself.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.” She might as well declare it now for herself as much as for Hank and Lottie and the rest of Bluff River.

  A tiny smile toyed at the corner of Hank’s mouth. Chandler was finished with his brooding mockery and cocky confidence.

  She pointed at the front door. “Thanks for taking care of the sink. Good night.”

  A sideways, taunting smile tipped his carved lips. “Getting rid of me?”

  “Gladly.” Chandler winced. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  He chuckled, and his craggy features softened. Only for a moment, though. “Be careful.”

  Hank brushed by her, and Chandler made a concerted effort to close her open mouth as his shoulder touched her still-extended hand.

  “Be careful?” The thought of Peter asleep upstairs and waiting for his momma to crawl in and snuggle beside him fluttered through her overprotective imagination. “Be careful of what?”

  Hank turned and locked eyes with her. “Haven’t looked up Bluff River history, have you?”

  “I know enough.” The murdered prostitute of the 1920s. It was gory.

  He tipped his head but continued staring down his nose at her.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” She wanted to convince herself of that, yet she was becoming increasingly aware that the train depot could not be purchased without bringing its baggage with it.

  He assessed her as though she should know, or simply conclude, based on his miniscule explanation. Hank shrugged. “Sure, it does. You just bought the epicenter of a serial killer’s string of crimes.”

  Chandler sensed the color had left her face. “No. No, Lottie said there was a woman who may have been murdered there years ago. She didn’t say a word about a serial killer.” It would be just her luck to learn something like Bluff River was the old stomping grounds of Ed Gein. She’d heard Gein had been from Wisconsin, after all.

  A twinkle of satisfaction glimmered in Hank’s eyes. He nodded. “See? Even a hundred years later, the Watchman haunts us.”

  “The Watchman,” Chandler parroted, feeling like an idiot. That was a killer she’d not heard of—ever.

  Hank smiled wryly, crow’s-feet deepening at the edges of his eyes. “Careful he doesn’t come after you. Some say they fried the wrong man for the crimes.”

  He opened the door and exited. The sound of the door shutting behind him resounded through the entryway, and Chandler stood dumbfounded, every nerve tingling. She hurried to the door and twisted the door lock, hooked the chain, and slid it through the bolt. For good measure and with probably little-to-no lasting effect, she pulled over the small table by the door and positioned it in front of it. Not to deter anyone so much as to make noise if an intruder attempted a forced entry. Of course, that wouldn’t help with a dead spirit.

  Her breaths short, a chill ran through her, covering her skin with goose bumps. Hank was gone. She was alone on the first floor of the small rental cottage. But she didn’t feel alone. She could almost feel a presence. She’d heard once that the sensation of cold and the resulting evidence of bumps on one’s arms was the result of a spirit passing through a person to make its presence known. The idea was ludicrous.

  The idea was all too real at eleven o’clock at night.

  Sleep had been restless, breakfast a quick protein shake with almond milk, followed by some fast paper work to take care of all the necessaries to enable her to homeschool Peter while on assignment for her job. Not that they would be doing a lot of regular schooling. Not this first month, anyway. Chandler tried not to think about it. Another failure. She could envision Mom either rolling her eyes or offering to teach Peter for her. Both were unwelcome visions. But, call her overprotective, she hadn’t the heart to enroll him in public school only to yank him when the project was completed.

  After Margie’s arrival, Chandler gathered her thoughts and her laptop to head to the other portion of property Uncle Neal had bought that she’d hardly had time to consider yet. She’d spent most of the week getting Peter settled. Now the real work would start. Lottie had insisted she meet Chandler this morning at the two-story white house that had once been the costume house for the circus. Whirring machines, bolts of vivid materials, girls who sewed and beaded and sequined skimpy leotards and ringmasters’ coats. While empty for now, Chandler had agreed with Lottie’s original real-estate assessment of the property. A little fixing up with vintage circus décor, and when the depot project was finished, she could either flip the house with it having bed-and-breakfast potential or maybe just pitch it as office space for a law or accounting firm.

  Now Chandler greeted the agent—or small-town medium—outside the costume house. Lottie opened the wood-framed screen door and unlocked the inner front door.

  “I’m so sorry if I overreacted the other night in calling you. I saw a light, and I’m the first to admit a ghost can be frightening or it can be intriguing.” Lottie’s voice rang with sincerity, as though she were chatting about something normal and routine. “But it’s the trespassers I’m more concerned about. Ghosts don’t graffiti walls and damage woodwork. Ghosts don’t need a light.”

  Lottie wore capris, even though it was in the fifties outside. There was nothing about the older woman to indicate she was, well, off her rocker, and really her normality made Chandler want to relax, even while the topic at hand made her nerve endings spike.

  Lottie led her through the front room with familiarity. Chandler noticed the desk and chair she’d bought online had been delivered and even set up. Probably thanks to Lottie’s son, Cru, whom she had yet to meet. Chandler followed Lottie to a door that opened to a stairwell leading to the second floor.

  “A ghost suspended between worlds is a lost soul, begging for freedom, but somehow that suspension affects their emotional state.” Lottie’s voice and her footsteps echoed as she climbed. “Some souls apparently don’t like being in limbo, and they transform from wandering haunters into torturous poltergeists that seek to destroy. Which”—Lottie swung open another door at the top of the stairs and shot Chandler a wince—“is why I asked to meet you here. You can’t be angry at a ghost—it won’t accomplish anything.”

  Chandler frowned, then stepped past Lottie to look beyond her into the upstairs room. It opened to an expanse that ran the length of the building. The far end of t
he second floor was cluttered with cardboard boxes, old trunks and crates, their tops frosted like a cake with years of dust. They looked to have been tossed about haphazardly, like a tornado had ripped through the room. Some were tipped over, others ripped into shreds. Unexplainably.

  “Spirits can be temperamental,” Lottie finished as if her explanation would excuse a misbehaving ghost who acted like a child and pitched a tantrum in the upstairs room. Lottie positioned her manicured fingers in a steeple over her wrinkled lips and watched Chandler closely, waiting for her reaction.

  Chandler took a few steps toward one of the demolished boxes. “What happened?” Ignoring Lottie’s opinion, Chandler scowled. There wasn’t anything of value. Old magazines and books were in most of the boxes. Now even they were strewn about. “This is vandalism without a purpose. Blatant vandalism.” She bit her bottom lip to stifle her temper.

  “She’s temperamental.” Lottie’s eyes were the color of aquamarine, and they widened with apology.

  “Who’s temperamental?” Chandler didn’t want to know. Well, she did and she didn’t.

  “Patty,” Lottie supplied.

  “Patty?” Chandler raised a brow and bent over to pick up one of the larger pieces of torn cardboard.

  “Patty Luchent,” Lottie reaffirmed. “You know, the woman found murdered?”

  “The one in the depot?” Chandler struggled to piece everything together in a way that would yield a more reasonable explanation.

  Lottie nodded and moved to right a box. “She was a seamstress, but also a frequenter of the Bluff River Inn—if you know what I mean.” Lottie cleared her throat meaningfully, a veiled reference to a bordello. She continued, “They found her dead, and most say it was at the depot. However, some say it was right here in the costume house.”

  Chandler didn’t honor the spirit with acknowledgment. Instead she took out her phone to call the police. “I need to report this.”

  Lottie glanced at the window and the depot beyond. “You can, but the police won’t do much. Patty’s always been unsettled. I’ve seen her. So has Cru. She will do things like this—upend objects, even break glass—when she’s disturbed. Although I didn’t imagine she would be so upset at the sale of the depot and this place.”

  Chandler paused on dialing. Since the urgency was nowhere near pressing, instead she picked her way through the wreckage. Patty Luchent. The name resonated in her mind and collided with Hank’s mention of the Bluff River Killer.

  “Was she murdered by the Watchman?” Chandler asked as she squatted to pick up an old circus pamphlet that was warped from water damage. The animal tamer on the front was dressed in 1970s bell-bottoms with sequins racing down the legs.

  Lottie gave a tiny snort of surprise. “You’ve heard of him?”

  Chandler nodded. “Briefly.”

  “The story goes that she may have been. But that’s up for debate as well.”

  “So, no one really knows anything for a fact about Patty Luchent’s murder?” Chandler tossed the pamphlet into an open box. She decided to test Lottie’s theory. “Why would her spirit be so unsettled? Especially to do this to the room.” She glanced around at the jumbled mess before them.

  “Because you’re here, dear.” Lottie patted Chandler’s arm absently as she brushed past her to peer through one of the front windows to the street below. “This place has been unused for months. This upstairs uninhabited for decades, really. Now you’re here and planning to use it regularly. Well, she won’t be having any of that. This is her place.”

  “I thought the depot was her place,” Chandler said, crossing her arms and wishing she were anywhere but here.

  Lottie twisted and gave Chandler an earnest nod. “Oh, it is. She’s a wanderer.” Lottie batted a manicured hand at Chandler in dismissal and moved away from the window, walking back toward the stairs they’d used to get to the second story. “Patty Luchent isn’t anything to worry about. She’ll toss a plate or a pillow, a box or maybe a picture frame, but she’s never hurt anyone.”

  “No?” Chandler pictured a snarling white-faced ghoul bending over her while she worked. She wasn’t impressed by the self-proclaimed medium’s comfort with the supernatural. A supernatural Chandler never believed in.

  She gave the room another scan and shivered.

  At least not until now.

  Chapter Ten

  PIPPA

  She watched him from her vantage point on the front porch of the costume house. It was as close to the circus as Pippa could get without completely disregarding her father’s instructions. Considering Forrest had allowed her to come along with him, she needed to show respect to her intended as well, even though every ounce of her spirit rebelled against the constraints.

  Forrest had parked his Ford in front of the two-story white house where the circus costumes were mended, sewn, and created over the fall and winter months. Assuming a visit to the place filled with bolts of vibrantly colored materials, bins of sequins and faux jewels, and the whirring of sewing machines would somehow satiate Pippa’s restless nature that had attached itself to the circus, Forrest had left her here. She was diminished to an accessory with predetermined dispositions not entirely her own. Although, Pippa did admit to appreciating the bright colors. They tugged at her spirit, at a place inside her no one could touch. Wild but imprisoned.

  Pippa watched Forrest as he strode down the hard-packed dirt street toward the elephant house. The bright yellow octagonal building shone brilliant in today’s sunlight. Brilliant and ominous both.

  “Your fella is a sheik, if ever I saw one.”

  The silky voice drifted over Pippa’s shoulder, and she spun, immediately sensing warmth in her cheeks. A woman, not much older than she, had come up the porch steps. In contrast to Pippa’s deep-green cloche hat pulled down over a delicately rolled bun at the nape of her neck, this woman’s hair was bobbed to her chin in the reckless, insubordinate way of women who were shunning a conservative upbringing. Her dress hung straight and shapeless, with a deep V that plunged down her flat chest. She probably bound her chest tightly, as so many of the fashionable set were wont to do.

  “Anyone in there?” The woman waved her ungloved hand in front of Pippa’s face.

  Pippa blinked. “Oh. Forrest?”

  “That his first name, huh?” Pippa’s companion lifted a cigarette to her lips and took a long drag, staring past Pippa to Forrest. A smile tipped the corner of her mouth. “Like I said. A sheik. He’s handsome, ya follow?”

  Pippa glanced back at the tailored form of Forrest. She supposed he was handsome. Maybe she was simply too used to him. But in comparison to Jake Chapman, he was . . . Pippa halted her wayward and unexpected thought. She’d never really considered Jake Chapman before—at least not consciously.

  “I’m Patty.” The stranger’s blue eyes sparkled.

  She seemed nice. Lovely, actually. Pippa smiled.

  A train whistle sounded in the distance, announcing the arrival of a locomotive at the depot blocks away. Patty shot a look westward, where the brick building tucked into the side of the bluff.

  “Train’s early,” Patty observed. “Ever want to jump on and just get away from this place?”

  Another long drag and then a spiral of smoke blown gently between red puckered lips.

  Pippa bit hers. She nodded. It probably wasn’t wise to admit that, especially to a stranger and a circus gypsy at that.

  Patty dropped the cigarette to the porch and ground it with the heel of her pump. “Me too. Of course, I ride it all spring and summer, so you’d think I’d be tired of it. But I’m not.” A faraway look washed over her eyes. “Funny how no one’s ever happy where they’re meant to be.”

  “Meant to be?” Pippa raised a brow and fingered her lace collar tucked so modestly against her neck.

  Patty offered up a tinkling laugh. “Aw, honey. We were all meant to be. My momma taught me that when I was a wee thing. But, I ain’t never met a soul who liked where they landed. ‘Providence,’
Momma always said. Providence places you there. Who’m I to argue with Providence?” Patty shrugged. “Still, that don’t mean I gotta like it.”

  “You don’t like being part of the circus?” Pippa could almost taste her surprise. Surprise that Patty was discontent with the very place that drew Pippa like a magnet to metal.

  Patty smiled again and tipped her head in the direction Forrest had gone. “When men like him show up, I don’t mind. But a girl can get tired of the circus, same as she can get tired of—makin’ a livin’.” A knowing eye swept Pippa from head to foot.

  A blush crept up Pippa’s neck, warming her skin. “Do you ride the horses?” Pippa diverted, not completely sure as to what Patty had alluded to. She imagined Patty standing on the back of a white Lipizzan, wearing a tiny shining outfit, feathers arranged in a fan attached to the back of a headband that embraced her short dark hair.

  “Me?” Patty’s voice rose a bit. “No, honey. I just sew things, and I . . . I sew.”

  Pippa had been sure she was a performer. Sure that the glamour radiating from the beautiful face was honed by a profession of being in the circle. The lights, the booming voice of the ringmaster, the trumpet of an elephant and roar of a lion.

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  Patty gave Pippa a searching look, then a little smile. “You’re cute.” She tilted her head toward the door of the sewing house and rolled her baby blues. “I sew till my fingers drop off. It’s a job. Better than a lot of girls have, I guess. At least I’m independent and fancy-free. In my spare time, I like to have a little fun.” She winked playfully and tugged open the screen door. A saucy smile was tossed Pippa’s way. “Guess I was meant to be a costume artist. Who knew God had one of me up His sleeve!”

  The door closed on Patty’s laughter, and Pippa stared after her, a bit in awe and a bit in shame. Awed by Patty’s flamboyant challenge for her life, and shamed that she suddenly wished she were like Patty. That she had the gumption to wear short hair, to bind her chest, to fling a strand of pearls around her neck and smoke a cigarette.