Haunted Homicide

by Constance Barker

  “Back?” Josie asked, sensing a story there.

  “We broke in when we were in high school,” Cookie admitted without chagrin.

  “You broke in?” Josie asked, always surprised by the past hijinks of her employees (and most trusted friends). “Of course you did.”

  “It was on a dare,” Verny defended them both.

  “We were out with a group of other kids and as kids do, we got to playing truth or dare and eventually they dared us to go into the Charleston House,” Cookie continued. “We couldn’t not do it.” She shrugged.

  “I knew some kids who did the same thing when I was in high school,” Josie said. They all attended the same high school, but at different times. Josie was nearly five years behind them in school, so they had missed each other completely. “It was a popular challenge – break into the haunted mansion on the edge of town.”

  “It’s not haunted,” Lightning argued. “But kids even broke in when I was young. I never did,” he said in response to the three women looking at him.

  “Right,” Verny said sounding skeptic. “Seems like you were a little too ready with that denial,” she teased him. “You sure you didn't sneak to take a peek?”

  “I never did,” He assured them. “The Charleston House is not haunted, but terrible tragic things happened there. It shouldn’t be treated like a highway attraction.” More than a love for the past and for the history of their town, Lightning had a respect for it as well.

  “What happened when you broke in?” Josie asked. The kids that broke in when she was in school had gotten caught by security only getting a slap on the wrist. She couldn’t imagine breaking into a place like that. It wasn’t simply an abandoned house – it was a legitimate historic building.

  “We spent about five minutes inside and then had to run,” Verny said. “You could barely call it breaking in.”

  “We didn’t really make it inside,” Cookie admitted. “We were out in the grounds trying to figure out how to get in when we hear Gideon scare off the kids we were with.”

  “Cookie and I waited a few minutes, hiding in the bushes, until we were sure that Gideon was gone and then we ran all the way home,” Verny sneered. “The rest of our so-called friends abandoned us.”

  “I don’t think Gideon ever knew,” Cookie said. “One of the few things that we actually got away with,” she giggled.

  “I wonder if we can get Cici added to the list?” Verny wondered aloud. “I’d love for her to come, and she loves all that paranormal stuff.”

  “She can take my place!” Josie offered enthusiastically.

  “You’re going,” Cookie said glaring at Josie. “I don’t think we can add anyone to the group,” she added regretfully.

  “I don’t want to,” Josie whined. She wasn’t far off from stamping her foot and crossing her arms in defiance. “You both illustrated the reasons why perfectly already.”

  “It’s not a haunted house or anything scary. It’s all just stories,” Verny said trying to comfort Josie, as well as talk her into going.

  “Stories originate somewhere,” Josie argued stubbornly. “Something had to have happened for people to think that the place is haunted.” She knew she was more than likely going to the house. Usually when Cookie and Verny roped her into something she went regardless of how little she actually wanted to. Josie wasn’t going to go down without a fight though.

  “More than just one something,” Lightning replied.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,” Cookie challenged. She fervently believed that the Charleston House was haunted. On the other hand, she wanted Josie to come with them, so she’d pretend it was just a historic mansion if that’s what she had to do.

  “I don’t, but I understand why people came to the conclusion that it’s haunted or cursed or what have you,” he said with a gruff shrug.

  “I’m not super familiar with the history of the house,” Josie admitted. “I always avoided learning about it because it gave me the heebie-jeebies.” She shivered to illustrate her point. “What happened there to make people think that it was haunted?”

  “It’s got quite a history,” Lightning started. He was excited to tell the history, as he’d been waiting since the subject was first brought up.

  “I’m sure we’d love to hear the bullet point version,” Verny said before Lightning could launch into an hour or two of regaling the entire history of the house from everything significant to insignificant that occurred there. If asked he could tell you not only the names of everyone who lived in the house, but of everyone who ever walked past the threshold.

  “I can keep it brief,” he said seemingly slightly offended by the comment. He knew of his tendencies to ramble, but he didn’t appreciate when people told him about it. “It’s a long story regardless though,” he warned thinking of the twisted history of the Charleston House. He might not believe in ghosts, but he did believe in curses and if there was ever a place that was cursed, it would be that house.

  “We have time,” Josie shrugged. Cookie and Very groaned, they had been told the history of the house more than once by Lightning already. They weren’t sure how Josie escaped the story and couldn’t believe that she was actually requesting that he tell her about it.

  “Do we?” Cookie asked, though she didn’t have anything to back her up. They had finished clearing the table, the courtyard was empty, and it was unlikely they would get more customers before the end of the day which was fast approaching. Cookie sighed. “I guess I’ll get the coffee,” she conceded.

  “Thank you,” Josie said as she sat down with Lightning. Verny was already sitting at the table, her arms crossed and her legs on another chair...she looked as if she could fall asleep. She very much might but that would depend on how long the story lasted.

  “Don’t make it too scary,” Verny said with her eyes closed. “Wouldn’t want to make Josie too scared.” Verny’s eyes opened in surprise as Buttercup, Cookie’s dog, jumped into her lap. “OH! You scared me girl!” She shouted, nudging the dog.

  “Just let her sit there,” Cookie said with a sigh. She figured she might as well let Buttercup out as long as they were essentially closed for the night.

  “Fine,” Verny grumbled, though she'd already stopped trying to push the pup off and hadn’t put that much effort into it in the first place. Her feigned annoyance with the dog wasn’t the most convincing act.

  “If you’re all finished?” Lightning asked rhetorically. Suddenly, to the three women, he looked as he had when he taught them in school. Lightning was a grouch more often than not, but he lit up when he had the chance to tell a story.

  “We’re finished,” Josie assured him.

  “I will be in a moment,” Cookie replied. She was holding five mugs by their handles, three in one hand and two in the other and still managing to bring the coffee pot over simultaneously. She was the queen of juggling dishes and mugs of coffee. Verny swore she had a third arm. “Here,” she said putting everything down.

  “Now we’re ready,” Josie said nodding to Lightning. She poured everyone a cup of coffee as they waited for the old history teacher to begin.

  “Good,” he said with a pounding of his cane as they all jumped. “The Charleston house has had more than a few owners in its time, but it’s named for the original owner, architect and builder – Nathaniel Charleston. He came from a wealthy plantation family in the South but didn’t want to be a part of the family business. He was progressive, ahead of his time and very well educated. All these qualities made for an incredibly profitable inventor. Nathaniel Charleston was not the kind of inventor who created big, new or even very exciting things. What he did invent were simple things that made everyday life easier for everyone. The kinds of things that you might take for granted, but if they were gone then you would miss them sorely.”

  “Like what?” Josie asked, breaking one of Lightning’s biggest rules. Never interrupt him when he is telling a history.

  “Safety pins, paper
clips, buttons, that sort of thing,” Verny answered for Lightning. None of those things were invented by Nathaniel Charleston, but it illustrated the point well enough. Lightning was smart enough to know that he would derail the entire conversation if he tried to correct her, and he wouldn’t get the chance to finish the rest of the story.

  “That sort of thing, yes,” he said looking between the women as though he was challenging one of them to start talking again. “He was and still is an under appreciated genius, though his inventions made him a very wealthy man. He went to school in the north and fell in love with a woman there...her name was Elise Jackson. Not to mention he fell in love with the culture and the scenery, so he decided to build his home here. He designed his own home with some input from his wife who was also a well-educated woman – rare for that time – and an inventor – even rarer still. The home’s construction took years, and in that time, Nathaniel and Elise were married and had a baby boy.

  “He and Elise planned to leave the home to their son, also called Nathaniel. They wanted the Charleston House to be their legacy and hoped that it would remain in their family for generations to come. They were proud of the work they put into it and felt it would one day become a historic landmark being the largest house within a hundred miles. They provided income for nearly half the town from servants and cooks who worked in the house to bringing visitors and business to the local merchants and farmers.

  “All of Elise and Nathaniel’s hopes were dashed when Nathaniel’s brother, Edward came to stay with them. He and Nathaniel had never been close and grew up in competition with one another – Nathaniel always pulling ahead of his younger brother. Nathaniel’s family had not been happy when he chose to start a life in the North and leave behind the family business of cotton. Nathaniel was always meant to inherit the plantation, but with him gone, it would go to Edward. He wrote to Nathaniel asking if he could come and stay with them for a short period of time under the guise of mending their relationship and moving forward with their lives. Unbeknownst to Nathaniel, Edward had been expelled from school and their father had disinherited him as a result. The plantation would still go to Nathaniel when their father passed, regardless of whether he was there to run it or not.

  “This threw Edward into a rage; his brother had always beaten him at everything and now he had nothing. He could no longer see reason and hated his brother, blamed him for everything. Edward even blamed Nathaniel for getting expelled though his brother wasn’t even aware that it happened. When he visited, he got back into his brother’s good graces and convinced him that he needed a plan in place in case he and Elise were to die before his son became of age. Believing that his brother had changed he amended his will making Edward the sole guardian of Nathaniel

  II if something were to happen to both Nathaniel and Elise.

  “It wasn’t long after that when Nathaniel and Elise were both found dead. Edward made it look like an accident, that Elise had fallen at the top of the stairs hitting her head which killed her and Nathaniel in distress over his wife’s death, threw himself from the banister killing himself. Edward became Nathaniel II’s guardian and lived peacefully in the Charleston house for years. He sent Nathaniel II to boarding schools and barely even saw the boy. It wasn’t until Nathaniel II turned eighteen that the truth came out. In a similar struggle, Edward tried to kill him to keep him from inheriting the house. But Edward was older now, and Nathaniel II was strong and over powered him. He put the pieces together and was able to force a confession from his uncle which put him into prison until he was sent for the noose.”

  “That’s terrible,” Josie said with a shiver. “I can’t believe people’s greed. I’m sure that if Edward had really changed his way, Nathaniel would have kept him comfortable.” She had no way of knowing if that were true of not, but she liked to believe that Nathaniel was good enough that he would have done that. “Poor young Nathaniel. To lose both your parents at such a young age, that had to be hard.” Josie would know better than most, having lost her father when she was a child.

  “Then to find out that your own uncle murdered both of your parents,” Verny shook her head. “I don’t know how someone gets past that.” Despite having heard the story before and complaining about it beforehand, she and Cookie were aptly listening and hanging on to Lightning’s every word. Josie thought, and not for the first time, that he should write a book about the town’s history. He’d make it interesting.

  “That’s not all though, is it?” Cookie asked, knowing that the story wasn’t over. The Charleston House had a winding history that read like a complex horror film.

  “No, that’s not all,” Lightning agreed. “Nathaniel II couldn’t bring himself to live in the house where his parents were murdered. He had spent little time there since their deaths and didn’t think of the house as his home. Still he didn’t want to disrespect his parent’s wishes and just board up the house leaving it to rot. At this time, tuberculosis was sweeping through the country and it was extremely contagious and they needed places to treat the infected without getting others sick. Nathaniel offered the Charleston House as one such place. The death count during this time is unknown, but hundreds of patients went through that house over the course of just a few years.”

  “Don’t forget about Nurse Jane,” Cookie said in a spooky voice.

  “That’s a ghost story, not history,” Lightning replied.

  “Who was Nurse Jane?” Josie asked, already regretting it.

  “She wasn’t anybody, she was just a made-up story to spook kids,” Lightning said.

  “Kids and apparently Josie,” Verny teased.

  “Nurse Jane was real,” Cookie said decidedly looking at Lightning.

  “There’s no record of her or proof that she existed,” he retorted.

  “Regardless, she was real. Nurse Jane was a sweet girl, but she was hardened by all the suffering she saw innocent people go through. All the things she saw twisted her up inside and she came to the conclusion that death was the only release from suffering. So that’s what she gave her patients,” Cookie said slamming her hand on the table which made Josie jump. “Nurse Jane killed her patients – giving them the best cure for suffering that she could. She thought she was being merciful, but then a patient’s family caught her in the act and she was put into a mental institution for the rest of her life. Anytime anyone interviewed her or asked her why she did it she claimed that it was God’s will and she was an angel of mercy.”

  “But none of that is true,” Lightning said throwing his hands up in frustration.

  “You don’t know that,” Cookie replied with a shrug. Josie felt that if Cookie was trying to get her to come with them, then she had gone with the wrong story.

  “I do know that,” Lightning countered. “There is no record of a Nurse Jane, nor is there any record of any nurse working in the Charleston House that was committed to an asylum. Plus, there is no evidence or record that a nurse mercy killed any patients in the Charleston House.” Josie felt easier with that reassurance. “It’s an urban legend, a myth created by someone who only knew that the house was once a TB hospital. They took that and ran with it.”

  “I for one am glad that that particular story isn’t true,” Josie said.

  “As far as we know,” Cookie insisted.

  “So, that’s the history then?” Josie asked.

  “It closed down after the outbreak died out and was that way for decades until a descendant of the Charleston’s realized that Nathaniel had written his will to include all future generations of his bloodline as the rightful heirs to the house. They took it upon themselves to restore the house to its former glory based on the original designs from Elise and Nathaniel. Since then they have opened it up a couple times a year for visitors, I’d guess mostly paranormal investigators and other crackpots plus the odd history buff,” he said with a wink. “It’s only opened a few times a year because the family actually lives there.”

  “That’s very cool of them to do,
” Josie said. “Open their house like that. I don’t think I’d want to do it.”

  “They sure make a pretty penny by doing it,” Verny said. Her eyes were still closed, but she was absentmindedly petting Buttercup who had fallen asleep in her lap.

  “They don’t make it cheap,” Cookie agreed.

  “How much did you spend?” Josie asked in horror. She hadn’t even thought of the cost, and since she didn’t want to go in the first place, she didn’t want Cookie to have wasted her money.

  “It’s nothing,” Cookie said, her lips sealed. “Don’t worry about it. This is my treat for everyone.” Josie scoffed...she wouldn’t exactly call it a treat.

  Chapter Three

  “You could go in my place,” Josie offered Cici the next day. She was sitting in Verny’s living room with Cici waiting for Cookie to arrive and Verny to finish getting ready. Verny was a notorious over packer and would likely end up with a full suitcase for the one night they would be there. Josie on the other hand brought pajamas and a clean change of clothes and called that good enough.

  “I’m already going,” Cici said pointing to the large overnight bag resting by the front door.

  “How?” Josie asked. “Don’t tell me you put your name on the list when you were like five?”

  “No, at the beginning of the year they gave us all the field trips for the year and the permission slips for the one’s we wanted to go to. This was one of the one’s I chose to go on,” Cici explained. Josie and Cookie were like aunts to Cici, so it never felt forced or uncomfortable when they were together. What Cici lacked in a father figure was made up for by them being ever present.

  “You mom didn’t remember that then,” Josie said with a sigh. She had hoped that Cici would beg to go and give her a real way out of the haunted escapade. She had a nightmare the previous night from all the information that Lightning, and Cookie had given her about the Charleston House.