Dallas looked over at them and frowned. “You’re going out now?”
Kristi went over to where Dallas was laying out a string along the ground, dividing the yard into an organized grid for searching. “It’s our only chance to talk to Hollis today,” she said quietly.
He glanced at Angela, who had followed her over.
“I guess it doesn’t matter much—this is a project that could go on a long time.” He looked at Kristi, and then at Angela. “Be careful,” he said.
Angela lifted a brow.
“Yes, you have seniority over me!” Dallas said, grinning. “I still say, be careful.”
“We’ll be very careful,” Angela assured him.
“I’ll drive—I know where I’m going,” Kristi said as they walked to the car.
“That’s fine with me—maybe you could circle the square for me, too, and on the way there and back, show me a bit of what getting around here is like.”
The traffic seemed unusually heavy, and it made the short distance to the Ardsley Park area seem long. But Angela was a good companion, and explained a bit more about Dallas, and her own position, and Adam Harrison, as they drove.
“This was an interesting case. A few things coincided—we’ve actually been asked to look into haunted houses.”
“Officially?”
“Oh, yes, there are many houses or buildings out there that are—one way or another—considered to be officially haunted. There’s a place in New York that was declared haunted in a lawsuit—it went to court. The buyer felt that he’d been victimized, since the owner hadn’t told him about the ghosts. And there are others. Your house is on the record as haunted. Adam had been given a list—and then he was approached by Joe Dunhill.”
Kristi groaned. “I don’t want to own an officially haunted house!”
Angela laughed. “You might as well embrace it—after that séance.”
Kristi shook her head. “I never liked the idea of a séance—maybe because I’ve always been annoyed with Shelley and her theatrics.”
“Her truth is in her perception—or in what makes for good séance material,” Angela said.
“I can’t tell her the truth,” Kristi said. “Or, maybe I can! Maybe I should just tell her that Monty talks to me all the time now—and that he didn’t do it!”
“You could,” Angela said. “She might even believe you.”
Kristi turned a corner and saw Keith Hollis’s large work van parked up ahead.
She quickly pulled over to the side of the road.
“That’s him?” Angela asked.
“Looks like he’s getting ready to start on this yard,” Kristi said.
Keith Hollis was a big man, solid rather than heavy, with massive forearms, a crinkled, weather-worn face and a smile that made up for it. He had just been going around to the back of the van, but he saw her park and hurried toward the women instead. “Kristi, you’re looking fine. You doing okay?” He glanced at Angela, offering her his hand. Like the rest of him, it was powerful and solid.
“Keith Hollis, ma’am, at your service.”
“Angela Hawkins, sir, a pleasure to meet you.”
He frowned, looking at Kristi. “So, you’ve got them staying at the Murphy place?”
“I was full, and they need just a few nights. I mean, not that there aren’t a lot of beautiful places they could be staying, but...they’re friends and I wanted to offer them a spot,” Kristi said.
“You doing all right there?” Keith asked Angela.
“Oh, we’re fine, thank you,” Angela said.
“I’m the one who was a little concerned, Keith,” Kristi said. “I’m not really sure how to explain it, but I keep thinking that someone has been in there.”
“I’ve been in there,” he said, and then he shrugged. “You know, oddest thing—naw, never mind, I’m just being odd.”
“Honestly, you know when I first went over to Ian’s place the other day I felt something odd, too,” Kristi agreed. “I didn’t see anything out of place, and it didn’t look as if anyone had pulled the house apart or anything, but I had the feeling that someone had been in there.”
“That’s it!” Keith exclaimed. “Yeah, nothing you could pinpoint, and his affairs were all in order long before he died—collections moved right to a museum. There’s all the books, but—not that I’m much of a reader, sorry, I just like my hands in the soil—I didn’t see any gaps in the bookcases or anything like that. Didn’t notice anything moved or missing. So, really, I think it’s just me being suspicious. Checked the locks, and the locks are all good.”
“I didn’t see anything out of place, either, and I don’t understand, but it is just a creepy, eerie kind of feeling,” Kristi said.
Keith’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that’s it. Creepy. Hey, I’m a big dude, and I did my time in the Middle East, and I shouldn’t feel creeped out, but...yeah, that’s the feeling.” He shrugged, and grinned at Angela. “Told you, we are an odd lot. Maybe those of us from the historic district most of all.”
“Oh, I don’t think that you’re odd at all, Mr. Hollis—maybe someone has been in the house, and your intuition is letting you know,” Angela told him.
He shrugged. “I keep my keys close, ma’am. And I don’t imagine Kristi goes handing out her keys either—well, other than that she runs a bed-and-breakfast. But she wouldn’t go giving out the key to Ian’s old place.”
Kristi smiled weakly. “I didn’t even know I had a key to Ian’s until recently.”
“But you don’t hang it in the hall and tell guests to go drop in on the Murphy place, do you?” Keith asked her.
She shook her head, smiling. “But honestly, I didn’t know about it. It was just there in a drawer in a kitchen. Just to be on the safe side, I might call Jamie and suggest that we get the locks changed.”
“That would be fine by me,” Keith said.
“You never saw anyone in there, right?” Angela asked.
“No,” Keith said. “I never did. But to be honest, I haven’t just been hanging around there. I go and do the yard, and I look through the house, just check the pipes—all the stuff that goes on old houses. And then I get out. I’ve only been inside twice since Jamie left...hasn’t been that long that we lost Ian, you know.”
“No, not that long,” Kristi agreed.
“Well, still, you think that those locks need to be changed, you just call Jamie, and then let me know, and one of us can take care of it,” Keith told Kristi. He touched his hand to his forehead, nodding to Angela. “A true pleasure to meet you, ma’am, a true pleasure.”
“Thank you, Keith—thank you for talking to us,” Kristi said.
“Anytime, Miss Kristi, anytime.”
Kristi and Angela headed back to Kristi’s car, and Keith moved on to get his equipment out of the van. As they walked to the car, Kristi told Angela, “It’s the same—there’s some kind of feeling in the house. I mean, it’s not like they left a lingering scent of cologne, or anything like that, but when you know a place, and someone has been in it, there’s just a sense of it, but it feels like there might be something real, and something underlying. I really don’t know how to explain it.”
Angela smiled at her as they reached the car. “Don’t worry—you don’t have to explain it. I think changing the locks might be a good idea, although it may be like closing the barn door once the horse has gotten out.”
Kristi was still a minute.
“I don’t know. You and Jackson are there now, but I even felt as if someone had been there—or was still there—just a few nights back when Dallas and I went to the house, when we started going through the library,” she said.
“Then maybe we need a locksmith today,” Angela told her. “Before tonight.”
“Before night,” Kristi agreed. “Because you think that if someone is getting in, the
y’re coming by night?”
“Well, that, and I don’t particularly like the darkness,” Angela said, grinning. “And, I especially don’t like surprise visits by darkness!”
Kristi smiled, then got in the car. She felt torn in so many directions—she wanted to get back into Ian’s library. And she wanted to be at her house, to see what was going on, to see if...
If Eliza Malone had come to her because, somehow, the woman’s body had wound up buried in her yard.
* * *
“This could take a very long time and not give us anything,” Jackson had said when they’d started out.
But he’d been proved wrong.
The ground-penetrating radar tool looked a bit like a lawnmower, with a wheeled base that he pushed slowly over the search area. A small screen on the handlebars showed an image of what lay beneath.
They’d been at it no more than forty minutes or so when Jackson stopped.
He had been working about ten feet to the left of the monument to Justin McLane when he stopped and turned and looked at Dallas.
“There’s something here,” he said.
“Really? Already?”
Jonah jumped up from the table where he had been sitting and walked back to them—pausing suddenly as if walking over earth he’d walked over a dozen times might change things.
“You found...something?”
Jackson studied the readings on the screen before him.
“I think that we need to call in the local authorities, and some experts in forensic anthropology, since this may not be a recent grave. But you can even see...”
He moved away; Dallas moved forward. Friends had shown him sonograms done when they had discovered they were expecting a baby.
This seemed similar—and completely different.
There was a shape; awkward and indistinct. And, yet, there was clearly something that wasn’t just soil under the ground there.
He looked at Jackson. Then he shook his head. “They missed...when they were creating this little memorial area out here. They had to have dug for that monument, and they missed what—what’s here.”
“It’s not a surprise—we always thought maybe the bodies were back here,” Jonah said. “But whose body is it?”
“That, I can’t tell you. I’m not an expert, and we only recently bought this equipment for the unit,” Jackson said. He looked at Dallas. “From here, we need to let Kristi know, get her permission and then...”
“Then we start digging,” Dallas said.
“You’re going to dig?” Jonah asked. “Dig them up?”
Dallas looked over at him, surprised. “Jonah, if a McLane is down there, don’t you want to be able to give them a proper burial? They can go to the family plot.”
“They’ve been here this long. I don’t know,” Jonah said.
He seemed disturbed by the idea. Why?
Unless it wasn’t a long-dead McLane who was down there. It might be a fresh grave, or one just two years there...dug in the night in the far rear of the house, when no one knew.
He kept his smile in place. “I take it there’s a shovel in the toolshed?”
“Of course there’s a shovel,” Jonah said. “I’m not sure you should be shoveling. I mean, you could crack into the bones. Don’t people do this more carefully?”
“We’re just going to go down and make sure we’ve found human bones,” Jackson said. “Then we’ll cover it over and get an anthropologist to supervise, if the bones are old.”
“If? What the hell else would they be?” Jonah demanded. He seemed agitated.
It made Dallas all the more eager to work quickly. Kristi knew everyone there, but he did not. His natural sense of logic made a possible suspect group larger—and that included Jonah.
Jackson paced out the area that would need to be excavated, outlining it with strings tied taut to small stakes in the ground. Kristi and Angela came out the back door just as Jonah—unhappily—went to the old outbuilding that now held storage and lawn equipment.
“You found something?” Kristi said, walking toward them. Her features were tense, and she looked as if she was hoping it was so—and dreading such a thing as well.
“There’s definitely a skeleton down there.”
“A skeleton?”
She looked as if she might fall over. He was ready to rush over to her; she steadied herself.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked.
“If you’re okay with it, we’re going to dig deep enough to ascertain what we have, and then call Joe Dunhill, and bring in an expert if we think we’ve found an old grave,” Jackson explained.
“Do it,” Kristi told them.
Jonah appeared with a shovel; Dallas started digging, following the directions Jackson gave him. It wasn’t an easy task; he had to go several feet down.
“The dead should just lie buried, resting in peace,” Jonah said. “Hell, what are you going down, six or seven feet?”
Dallas was already standing knee-deep in the pit he was digging. “Maybe,” he told Jonah cheerfully.
“Dead should rest in peace,” Jonah said again.
“Jonah, it’s my family. If they’re down there... I want to know.”
“I can dig for a while,” Jackson said.
“I’m fine,” Dallas said, but he paused to wipe his brow. By that point, he was pretty sure they’d discovered an old burial.
A hastily dug grave, just a few feet deep, would be more in line with a clandestine burial at night.
But this grave was deep.
“Careful, you’re almost there,” Jackson said.
“I’ll quit with the shovel. I can use a little whisk broom or something,” he said, looking up at Jonah.
Jonah was just staring at him, deeply disturbed.
“I’ll get it,” Kristi said. She dashed to the outbuilding and reappeared almost immediately, bearing a small broom.
Dallas went back to work. A few minutes later, he cleared dirt off what was obviously a piece of bone. Careful to crouch at the outside edges of the pit he’d made, he kept moving the broom carefully, exposing, bit by bit, a skeleton.
“It’s—it’s not...” He looked at her, not wanting to speak suspicions aloud with Jonah there.
“I think it’s a McLane,” he said.
“Justin... Monty?” Kristi asked.
He hesitated, glancing at Jackson first. “I’m not... I’m not any kind of an expert. But the skeleton is small, and I think it’s a woman.”
“Trinity?” Kristi asked.
“Trinity!” She heard the name whispered from behind her, and she swung around. She hadn’t seen Monty in the yard before, but he was there now, staring past her at the grave. The ghost fell to his knees, bowing his head, and sobbed.
“Should have let her rest,” Jonah said.
“My Trinity,” Monty whispered again.
Dallas looked at Jackson. “I’ll call Joe Dunhill. And...” He paused, looking over at Kristi—and the bowed and sobbing spirit of Monty. “Kristi, the medical examiner seems like a good fellow. We’ll let him disinter this lady, and...verify her identity the best we can. And, then, if you wish, whoever she is, we can see that she has a place in your family plot, and receives a funeral, too.”
He knew that Kristi was waiting for Jonah to leave.
She wanted to comfort Monty.
Dallas pulled out his phone while the others waited patiently. “We found bones in the backyard. I’d like to see that they’re properly attended to—and reverently treated,” he told Joe.
“Bones—old bones, new bones?” Joe asked tensely.
“Old, we believe,” Dallas told him.
“I’ll be right out there,” Joe promised. “You’re sure—they’re old?”
“Pretty sure—there’s nothing left but bone
,” he said.
Finally, Jonah made a disapproving tsk sound, and headed for the house. When he was gone, Kristi quickly knelt down by Monty.
“I’m so sorry, but you knew she was here, Monty, you knew she was here,” she told him.
“They threw her in the ground, like trash,” Monty said.
“Monty, you and Justin are here, too,” she reminded him.
Monty glanced up at Justin, and Justin told her, “There’s something different about it. We were soldiers, fighters. Trinity...was nothing but light and goodness. She didn’t deserve this.”
“None of you deserved it,” Kristi said. “No one should be treated as trash. But, Monty, I swear, we’ll see to it that she is buried properly. We’ll find you, and Justin and Samuel McLane, and we’ll do our best to make it right.”
Monty nodded, and stood; Kristi stood, as well. As she did so, a curious frown touched her brow.
Dallas was still standing in the hole he’d dug. She reached out to him and said, “Dallas, there is something else there.”
She was going to jump down by his side and he quickly reached for her, lifting her down into the pit. She knelt.
How she’d seen the object, he would never know. It was completely encrusted in dirt, and there was barely a glint of anything.
But she carefully reached down, using her fingers to push away the dark earth covering the object, and then she pulled it out very carefully.
She held a locket.
“It was hers. Open it,” Monty said.
Kristi did so, and then after a moment, gave the locket to Dallas.
He looked down at a tiny picture of Monty on one side of locket, and a picture of Trinity on the other. The tiny old photographs were faded and barely discernible, and yet, it was clear—Trinity had worn the locket, keeping her beloved close to her heart.
“It’s yours now, Kristi,” Monty said.
“We’ll bury it with her,” Kristi said.
Monty shook his head. “No. She would want you to have it. And don’t worry. I will be here, I will be here day and night, until they come. They will treat her gently, oh, I will see to it that they treat her gently!”
* * *
The Summoning Page 23
