The Summoning

by Heather Graham

Apparently, the McLane family at the turn of the twentieth century didn’t want to suggest their ancestor had been a good man—but that, maybe, under the circumstances, anyone could have understood his turmoil and passion.

  “Doesn’t excuse murder,” Dallas said softly. “Whatever did happen.”

  “There really is no mystery,” a voice said.

  He was surprised to be answered—even more surprised anyone had come upon him out here without his immediately having realized it.

  Dallas turned, and was somewhat taken anew by the woman who stood before him—Kristi Stewart. Now in jeans and a casual knit shirt, she was every bit as striking as she had appeared in her wild-eyed state and bedroom attire.

  “You think not? There’s a saying—‘history is written by the victors.’ Who knows what really went down here that fateful day in 1864? Maybe McLane has been maligned by those with something to hide.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I don’t see a mystery there, either—personally, I think that Monty McLane was innocent. Get furious with your wife for supposed infidelity? Sure. But why kill your father for that? Monty was known to have been a kind husband, loyal son and loving father. I can find no suggestion that Trinity McLane was slipping in or out of the city to meet with anyone—much less becoming a traitor to her husband’s cause—and cheating on him. The only witnesses to what happened were the victors. Doesn’t make them bad men, but if something bad happened, they might have no choice but to cover it up. My opinion on events, that’s all. But sorry, that’s not actually what I was talking about,” she told him.

  “Oh?”

  “Your friend...the man whose death you’re investigating. I knew him, and we were all here the day it happened.”

  “You saw what happened?”

  “No, no one saw him fall. But he was right by Johnson Square—it’s the oldest square and first in the city, you know. Which means there’s always someone around. I mean, someone called 911, and an ambulance came and...”

  She broke off, letting her words end with a whispered sigh.

  “I didn’t know him well. I did see him now and then at the gym, and if I was asked, yes, I’d say he was a friend. He was a nice guy, always smiling, ready to help, opening doors—especially thoughtful when people were disabled in any way, doing rehab at the gym from an accident or surgery.”

  “And he just fell—and died.”

  “I know!” she said, shaking her head as if it was unfathomable to her, too. “They say he must have tripped and fallen in just the right way to hit his head the wrong way. That’s what the papers said.”

  “Right. I know. I’m sure you can understand how his friends just can’t accept that explanation without having more information—more from people who knew him here, who saw what happened.”

  “Yes, I just...” She paused. “I just don’t know what you can find out that will help or...or change anything.”

  “I don’t either, honestly. I just want to be able to assure the people who weren’t here.”

  People? Adam Harrison, the one person determined to know the truth. Then again, Adam believed that there was more to the death than met the eye—or the investigation thus far.

  “What about Mr. Murphy?” he asked her, smiling and shrugging apologetically.

  “Ian Murphy?” she asked him, frowning. “Ian—was nearly ninety and suffering from cancer. He—he died from a fall, too, but...he was suffering. He was a good guy—friends with my great-uncle. He used to tell us that he wasn’t going to be a vegetable, and we’d try to tell him all the reassuring things...a nice man, and a sad end, but...he always said that the end would be his own choice when the time came.”

  “A long life, well-lived, is the best that any of us gets,” he murmured, feeling awkward—and a great deal like an interloper.

  But what if Ian Murphy hadn’t chosen his time to die?

  And then again, what the hell could they all have in common: a politician, a businesswoman, a personal trainer—and an old man who had died of cancer?

  He smiled at her. “So, you’re a descendent of the McLane who first owned the property?”

  “Yes, although the family tree swirled around a bit. Well, I just thought to tell you...your room is ready now. You met Jonah, who really runs the place, and Genie—truly, all-powerful for anything you may need—and Sydney, who is just a doll. You may see another man tinkering around the place and he’s Marvin Falk, who keeps up the grounds and does minor repairs and is our magnificent jack-of-all-trades. You can ask any one of us if you need anything. There are other guests, and I’m sure you’ll meet them around the breakfast tables and...well, I wish you the best in your endeavors. And...I apologize again for...colliding into you this morning.”

  He smiled. “It was a lovely collision,” he assured her.

  She flushed and quickly turned and headed back to the house. He watched her go, and thought again that she had a compelling beauty. He was intrigued.

  Professionally, he was on something of a wild goose chase...but his stay here might not be so bad. He knew that Kristi McLane was not married: the extensive files he had didn’t mention a fiancé, or a significant other of any kind. Then again, paper files never could fully explain what was going on in someone’s heart or mind.

  He smiled at himself; she was definitely distracting. And, yet, maybe distracting would be good, because it might well come with helpful.

  Kristi Stewart knew Savannah; she had even known Ian Murphy and Lachlan Plant.

  He glanced at his watch. Time to leave his things in his room, and then get to the riverfront to meet with Detective Joseph Dunhill.

  He took another look at the beautiful garden. The yard was deeper than most that ringed the square. An old stone wall surrounded the property, but it wasn’t high—most men would scale it easily.

  It was hard to believe that once, there’d been nothing here, and a man had been hanged for his loyalty to a cause.

  “Are you here, Justin?” he asked softly.

  There was no reply.

  But even as he turned to the house, he was certain something was there...someone? Watching, perhaps?

  3

  Kristi was certain she had finally begun to concentrate when she heard a soft knock at her door.

  She tried to tell herself it was an irritating interruption—but she realized she was kidding herself.

  She wasn’t focused at all.

  Not even on the fact that now she could speak to the dead.

  She couldn’t think about anything other than Dallas Wicker...it simply wasn’t every day someone like him appeared at her door—flush against her, as she’d plowed right into him.

  But he was here because he considered Lachlan’s death to be suspicious. Or maybe not—just to know the truth about it. Dying because you tripped on a sidewalk did sound either completely unlucky or suspicious as hell.

  She opened her door; for just a moment, she thought no one was there.

  She gasped.

  The ghost was back. She stared at him.

  “I knocked,” he said, looking at her hopefully.

  “So,” she whispered, “if I say you should go away, you’ll do so?”

  He appeared to be a very disconcerted ghost. “It would, of course, be the courteous and polite thing to do. But,” he added cheerfully, “I would only come back when I wasn’t asking entry to your private space, and...well, you don’t seem to react very well. There are lots of people who would be delighted to have a conversation with me.”

  “Shelley conjured you—can’t you go haunt her?”

  He sighed deeply, looking downward, as if striving for patience.

  “Shelley did not conjure me.” He paused, then started humming music from the old Twilight Zone television series. “You know...doors, portals, time travel, whatever.”

  She blinked in disbelief. />
  “You’ve been here since the Civil War—but you talk about the Twilight Zone?”

  “Saw the original. The owner back in the sixties—1960s, that is—loved the show. Now I like to catch up on Netflix.”

  A ghost...joking? And yet, he seemed so real, and serious as well.

  He went on, “I have been here—near the house, walking the streets of Savannah—since 1864, searching, praying...hoping...”

  “Hoping for what?” Kristi asked.

  “Never you mind—that part of life and death are my cross to bear. I must speak with you—I fear for your life now.”

  “My life!” she said, stunned.

  She heard a noise from the next room—number seven. The tall, blond, well-built private investigator just had to be next to her.

  She reached out as if she could draw the ghost into her room, realized she’d touch nothing but air, and stepped back. “You’re invited—come in!” she told him.

  He stepped through the doorway; she quickly closed her door and strode deeply into the room, over to the onetime dressing area where she kept her desk, computer and work boards.

  “Why would my life be in danger?” she asked the ghost of Monty McLane.

  “You loved your great-uncle Jedidiah—you listened to him. And you would go with him to see Mr. Murphy, and you were the one with them when the two old men talked and compared their notes.”

  “I loved Uncle Jed,” she said simply, confused, and wondering if she was having a psychotic break of some kind. “Ian was his friend—they were of an era, comparing their notes—and then arguing history, military maneuvers and more. Of course, I cared deeply for both of them, but...they were old, and sick... Death happens. All men who live are born to die,” she said softly.

  “You really are a sweet creature,” Monty said. “Sadly naive. Like Trinity.”

  “I’m not naive,” she countered quickly. “I am busy. You’re welcome to haunt the house, taunt the guests...thrill Shelley to no end when she does her séances. But guess what? This house is expensive to maintain. We can’t count on the income from renting rooms to keep it all up. I really have to work!”

  “You won’t need to work—and the house will fall out of the hands of the family and none of it will matter anyway, if you don’t listen to me.”

  “If I listen, will you go away?”

  “As much as possible.”

  There was another tap at her door. She cast an evil glare at Monty McLane, warning him. “Please do not make me look like a fool. That might be the private investigator and—”

  “It’s not. But you’re not going to start screaming again, or passing out on me or anything, are you?” Monty asked.

  “I don’t know what—”

  She broke off as she opened the door.

  And then she understood.

  It wasn’t Dallas Wicker—or any other living guest, for that matter—who had come to the door. It was another ghost. She knew him, of course, from his portrait on the wall by the stairs, and, in his case, from many a local history book.

  This ghost was Justin McLane—revered from his part as being Lieutenant McLane, one of George Washington’s handpicked spies. He had given his Patriotic cause an incredible amount of information about troop movements and other particular details during the American Revolution—before being caught and hanged. He hadn’t left behind a declaration like Nathan Hale with his statement before his execution of “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Justin’s words had been far more personal and quite simple: “Tell my wife I love her, and tell my son that this world will be for him.”

  She stared at him. And, as she did so, she suddenly found herself frozen, torn between wondering if her psychosis was becoming very deep—or if there hadn’t always been something there. Something that made her feel the history of a place, the death of a place, and even something beautiful and safe about life. She had denied that ghosts could exist, of course. That’s what sane and rational people did.

  She didn’t let out a scream and she didn’t pass out.

  She took a steadying breath, then stepped back to welcome him in. “Lieutenant, join the um...party. Please.” Then she moved aside, let him in and closed the door. Looking over at Monty, she asked, “Just how many of you are there?”

  * * *

  “I think that the death of Lachlan Plant was the one that clinched it for me,” Detective Joe Dunhill told Dallas. “Don’t get me wrong—people do die in bizarre ways. Really bizarre, some of them. Back in the nineties, a golfer died when he got pissed off and struck a bench with his club—club broke and ricocheted back, right into his heart. Well, there’s a lesson in sportsmanship, I guess. Oh, Lord, and the truly disgusting...a woman died of an allergic reaction to having sex with a German shepherd, and in New Jersey, a guy died trying to steal clothing out of a donation bin right before Christmas—got himself stuck in it and suffocated. Ah, there’s more, plenty more—a little kid was killed at a zoo in Morocco when an elephant tossed a rock out of an enclosure. I looked up bizarre deaths—and there are plenty, I assure you. But still—a healthy dude dies from falling off a curb?”

  “I agree—it sounds farfetched,” Dallas told him. He liked Joe Dunhill—the guy was young, maybe in his late twenties. He’d probably just earned his detective stripes. He was tall and lanky, with short-cropped brown hair and a lean face, gray eyes and a passionate manner. “But what did the medical examiner say? What about witnesses?”

  “Go figure on this—the way his head was struck, yes, it could have happened on the curb. I don’t understand that much about the head, but the blow fell right where it caused an instant hemorrhage in the brain. Amazing, when you think about it—football players, boxers, others...they take massive blows to the head. The skull protects what’s inside. But hit the head just right? You’re gone in an instant.”

  “So it could have happened that way. Accidental death.”

  “It could have.”

  Dallas curled his hands around his coffee mug. They were at an outside restaurant right on the Savannah River. It was a beautiful day. Tourists were wandering along the riverfront, boats were out on the water and, in the distance, there was the shore of South Carolina.

  He looked at Dunhill. “How could there have been no witnesses? You’re talking the heart of the old town—there are always people walking around.”

  “It happened at the crack of dawn. He was found at about 7:00 a.m. by a dog walker, who hysterically called the police. She tried to wake him—she thought that maybe he was a drunk who had one too many.”

  “She moved the body.”

  “You’ve read the reports.”

  “I’ve read the reports—but I didn’t interview the witnesses,” Dallas told him.

  “You said that plural—there was only one, and she wasn’t a witness to the man’s death. She found him, said that she tried to shake him awake—and realized he was dead. The medical examiner estimated that he hadn’t been dead long—he’d probably died about an hour before being found.”

  “And no one was out—no other dog walkers, bus drivers, school kids...no one?”

  “No one we could find. We know that he worked late. The gym stays open until midnight—he was the closer for the gym that night. But what happened to him when he left the gym—which is right near us now, off the river—we have no idea. There were no toxins in his body. He hadn’t been drinking,” Joe said.

  “What would make you think, though, that his death might be associated with the death of an old man—an old man suffering from cancer, one who had said he was going to choose his own time of death?”

  “Yeah, we were told that Ian Murphy didn’t want to go through the pain at the end. But he went out his second-floor balcony. But in his medicine cabinet, he had enough morphine to do himself in a dozen times over. Why would he jump—I mean, there
was no guarantee that a fall would kill him.”

  “I agree with the logic, but...what did the men have in common? And what did they have in common with the businesswoman—Eliza Malone—who disappeared two years ago, or the politician who just went missing now?” Dallas asked.

  Dunhill sat back, frustrated. “I don’t know. Apparently, no one around here sees it, but...when I was a kid, my mom was friends with Adam Harrison. He was a hell of a man—donating to the church where she went, and the group there that helped out those with illnesses. My mom had Parkinson’s—Adam Harrison was big on giving. Anyway, I heard that he was with a special unit, so... I gave up on telling people that I believed something was going on. And I wrote to Adam.”

  Dallas was quiet.

  “You think I’m seeing things that aren’t there, too, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you’re thinking it.”

  Dallas smiled. “It’s way too early to find out. This man, Ian Murphy...if I’ve read everything right, he left no heirs—and in his will, stated that he wanted his home and belongings to go to a private historical society.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have tons of paperwork to read, but...what are my chances of getting in to this historical society? I’d like to find out what Mr. Murphy was doing before his death.”

  “Shaving. He still had shave lotion on his face.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean immediately. I meant, I wonder if he was working on something, if he knew something, if he was researching something. Both the businesswoman, Eliza Malone, and the politician, Simon Drake, were big on cracking down on crime, right?”

  “It was definitely part of Simon Drake’s campaign. And Eliza... She was loved in the community. She wanted the drug pushers away from the schools. She could have been on to something. As in, I was thinking that someone supposedly big in business—a respectable citizen—was actually the head of a group of pushers. The one making the big money. But... I could be wrong.”

  “Was Lachlan Plant into drugs in any way?”

  “Not at all—he was against steroids, except, of course, when absolutely necessary medically. He was always talking against the use of steroids in the gym—he gave classes on what they could do to the human body. The guy loved vitamins—and the concept of every man treating his body like the soul temple it should be.”