by Eva Pohler
“We’re at the back porch,” Ellen whispered into her phone.
Both of the windows from the back porch were open a few inches. Ellen and Tanya exchanged glances before Ellen wrapped her fingers around the edge of one of the windows and lifted. It opened another ten inches and was now wide enough for her to fit through.
Tanya shook her head and pointed to the shed that was out toward the dry creek bed on the edge of the woods.
Ellen nodded and followed Tanya toward the shed. It made sense to check this first. Less risky.
The twelve by twelve metal building was about eight feet tall and faced the house. When Ellen tried the door, she found it locked. Tanya pointed around the side, where there was a small square window up high. Ellen followed her to it. Six-foot Tanya could easily see inside, but Ellen had to get on her tip-toes and crane her neck to get the slightest peek.
Something moved inside.
Ellen and Tanya both saw it at the same time. Ellen knew this because she heard Tanya suck in a surprised gulp of air. It was too dark to tell what it was that had moved, but, as the windows were closed, it couldn’t have been caused by the wind.
Tanya turned on the torch app of her phone and shined it through the window.
Just then, Ellen heard Sue’s voice come over her phone. “Abort! Abort! A truck is pulling into the driveway!”
Ellen turned in time to see two headlights shining toward her. She and Tanya ran for the woods.
Once they were scrambling behind the trees, Ellen said, “There’s a café on the other side of the creek bed. Keep going.”
Tanya led the way past the trees toward the creek, which was full of rocks and leaves and dirt. Even with both of their phones shining on the ground, navigation wasn’t easy. It seemed to take forever to get down the hill of one side of the creek and up the other side. Ellen’s heart was beating fast, and she felt a little delirious, giggling despite her fear. They hurried through another line of trees before they spotted pavement and the backs of buildings. But between them and the line of buildings was a chain-link fence.
“Just great,” Ellen said.
“Come on.” Tanya put her hands along the top rod of the fence. “We can do this.” She pressed the toe of one sneaker against the chain-link and brought the other foot all the way up to the top, pushed off with her foot and hands, and made it to the other side.
Ellen felt abandoned. She laughed and cried at the same time. “I can’t climb that stupid fence.”
“Come on, Ziva David,” Tanya said.
“I really don’t think I can do it.” Ellen put her hands on the fence the way Tanya had, but getting her feet high enough to leap over seemed impossible. “Maybe it doesn’t go all the way down the block. Maybe there’s an opening further up the way.”
Tanya walked with her in the direction of the Gold House—Tanya on one side of the fence and Ellen on the other—when suddenly, behind them, they saw a beam of light heading toward them. Someone had followed them into the woods.
“Oh, shit!” Ellen whispered frantically.
“You can do it. I’ll help you. But hurry!”
Ellen put her elbows on the top of the fence and leaned her body over it. She pulled up one leg as high as she could, but the only way over was to fall. She rolled over, head first, landing on hard pavement on the other side. Tanya did her best to help her, dragging Ellen’s body over the fence, but Ellen took her down with her.
“Oh!” Ellen cried.
“You okay?” Tanya asked as she climbed to her feet and leaned over Ellen.
“Who’s there?” came a voice from the woods.
It sounded like Mitchell Clark.
Tanya helped Ellen from the ground before they ran—pathetically, but as fast as they could—around the back of the building to the street on the other side.
“That was close!” Ellen said with a laugh of relief under the safety of the street light and near other people and cars. She was badly bruised on her elbow and knees and stinging from where the fence had scraped against her but was glad to be alive.
“Too close!” Tanya agreed, giggling.
Into her phone, Ellen said, “Sue, drive around the block. There’s a Kwik Laundry, a gas station, and a little Italian café called Nona’s. We’ll be waiting inside the café.”
Tanya and Ellen went inside and grabbed a booth. They ordered cups of coffee for themselves and for Sue, who arrived about five minutes later.
“There was something in the shed,” Tanya said to Sue as she slid in the booth beside her.
“But we couldn’t tell what it was,” Ellen added.
“Well, as long as we’re here, we may as well try the cheesecake,” Sue said.
“I’ll share one with you.” Tanya took a sip of her coffee.
“No, I want my own,” Sue said. “All this detective work has built up my appetite.”
So they ordered three slices of cheesecake with their coffee, and then Sue, after hearing more about what they saw in the shed, said, “I have an idea.”
Tuesday after work, Ellen met Tanya at the Gold House to carry out Sue’s plan. Sue was in position at the meeting of the San Antonio Conservation Society. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the plans for the Gold House. Sue had created a Power Point presentation about the hope of converting the building into a museum honoring the women who had suffered under the rest cure treatment originally created by Weir Mitchell and made even more horrific by Jonathon Piers. She’d included photos of their renovations, too. The real purpose of the meeting was to keep Mitchell Clark occupied for a couple of hours while Tanya and Ellen investigated his storage shed in the light of day.
First, Ellen and Tanya went inside the Gold House to talk with Ed and to check on the progress of the bathrooms. As anxious as they were to find Amy, they didn’t want anyone on the construction crew wondering why their cars were parked in front of the house. So they did a quick run through first.
The energy had been turned on, and it felt amazing to flip a switch and have light.
“That light over the mantle really highlights your painting of Marcia,” Tanya said.
“I still need to get a frame for it.”
“It’s beautiful. You did a nice job.”
Ellen held back tears, feeling a little choked up over the fact that, even though she hadn’t painted in years, she’d been able to pull off such an important piece. The painting was important to her, but it was also important to her friends, and—this was a feeling, but an undeniable one to Ellen—it was important to this house.
Ellen followed Tanya to each of the bathrooms to check out the installation of the new fixtures. It was fun to turn on and off the light in each room as they went. And Ellen turned on and off the faucets in each of the bathrooms to make sure they worked properly. The house was really close now to being complete.
All that was left to deal with was the attic and the dead tree.
They told Ed how happy they were. They would call him when they had the attic ready. Right now, they said, they were going for a walk to check out the rest of the neighborhood.
Ed shook each of their hands and said he would be out of the house within the hour. He just needed to clean up and pack his tools.
“We better get started,” Tanya said to Ellen.
Ellen followed Tanya from the back door, down the back steps, and out into the woods. They followed the dry creek past the Robertson’s Victorian toward Mitchell Clark’s Italianate.
“What if she’s dead?” Ellen hadn’t meant to sound so pessimistic, but she was full of dread. “How in the hell can I go back to Cynthia and say, ‘Oops. I made a mistake. Your daughter isn’t really alive after all. Sorry.’”
“We can’t think like that,” Tanya said.
“I’m scared,” Ellen said.
“Me, too.”
“At the first sign of foul play, we call the cops. Agreed?”
Tanya nodded.
Mitchell’s metal building came into view.
Ellen and Tanya glanced nervously at one another as they made their way to the side window. Tanya looked through the pane first. Ellen pushed up on her tip-toes and craned her neck to see inside.
Ellen wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Were those…
“Cats?” Tanya whispered. “Are those cats?”
“That’s what it looks like. Maybe six or seven of them.”
“Why do you think he has cats locked up in his storage shed?”
“That’s a good question. Can you see anything else?”
“No sign of Amy.”
“Should we check the house?” Ellen asked. As soon as she’d suggested it, adrenaline pumped through her body. She’d really believed she’d find Amy in the shed. Disappointment and fear coursed through her.
Tanya let out a deep breath. “I guess we should.”
As they picked their way across the lawn to the back porch, Ellen said, “If nothing else, we need to call the humane society. I wonder if those cats have food and water.”
“I couldn’t tell.”
When they reached the porch, they found the windows were closed, and there was nothing to grab onto on the outside to lift them open. Ellen tried pressing against the glass and lifting but had no luck.
“Oh, hell,” Ellen moaned. “Now what do we do.”
Tanya pulled open the back screen door and tried the knob on the old wooden door. It opened.
“That was easy,” Ellen said.
“I don’t think a kidnapper would keep his house unlocked,” Tanya added.
“Well, he might not be keeping her here. But maybe we can find some clues. Let’s go in.”
Ellen led the way. They walked into a sunroom with a sofa and coffee table. Although the plaid sofa was old and worn, the room was surprisingly neat and tidy for a man obsessed with finding gold. Ellen had imagined muddy shovels and a careless attitude toward anything else.
They stepped up from the sunroom into the kitchen. There were a few bowls in the sink, but, otherwise, it was also neat—not immaculate by any means, but neat. From the kitchen, they could see into the dining room and living areas. The stairs to the second story were near the front door.
“I feel weird being in someone else’s house,” Tanya whispered. “What if a neighbor saw us come inside? What if we get caught?”
“Let’s make it quick,” Ellen said. Then she called out, “Amy? Amy, are you here?”
“What are you doing?” Tanya said in a panic. “Someone’s going to hear you.”
“Who’s going to hear me?”
“A neighbor out walking or something. I don’t know. Just keep it down.”
“All right, all right.” Ellen grabbed the bannister. “I’m going upstairs. Coming?”
Ellen took the carpeted stairs to the second floor, where there were a series of closed doors along a hallway. The worn shaggy brown carpeting from the stairs continued up here. Ellen wondered if hardwood floors were preserved beneath it. The HGTV addict in her came out at the most inopportune moments.
The first door opened to the master bedroom.
“Wow. He makes his bed,” Ellen whispered.
“This feels so wrong—being in this house. Hurry up.”
“Amy?” Ellen called out, wondering if they should check the closet and beneath the bed.
“She’s not in there, come on.”
Ellen closed the door and opened the second door. It led to a spare bedroom with a twin bed, a gun cabinet, and a collection of hunting magazines. It was dusty but neat.
“I don’t think she’s here,” Tanya said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re almost done,” Ellen said. “Come on.”
Ellen opened the door at the end of the hall. There was a big wooden desk in the middle of the room with bookshelves on one wall and a bulletin board on another. Stretched out over the expanse of the big desk was a huge hand-drawn map. Ellen had only to study the old parchment paper for a moment to recognize the Gold House and its surrounding property. A one-inch grid had been penciled over the map with penciled x’s filling nearly every one.
“This is a map of our property,” Tanya said.
“It’s his record, I bet,” Ellen said. “His way of keeping track of all the places he’s already searched for the gold.”
“It looks like he’s searched every possible square inch.”
“It sure does,” Ellen agreed. “Maybe the gold isn’t there anymore. Maybe Marcia did something with it.”
“Maybe so.”
“This is so sad,” Ellen whispered. “He’s spent so much time and energy searching for something that isn’t there. I wonder why he’s so obsessed.”
“Who knows?” Tanya said. “We should go now.”
“What the hell’s going on in here?”
Ellen and Tanya turned to find Mitchell Clark in the doorway pointing a revolver directly at them.
“What are you doing in my house?” he demanded.
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Ghost of Marcia Gold
With his free hand, Mitchell Clark pulled a cell phone from his trouser pocket. “I’m calling the police. You two don’t move, and I won’t shoot.”
“Fine,” Ellen said boldly. “I wanted to call them myself, to tell them about all those cats you’ve got locked up in your shed.”
Mitchell stopped dialing and returned his phone to his pocket. “You’ve been snooping around back there, have you?”
“Please don’t shoot us.” Tanya put her hands in the air. “We’re sorry.”
“We’re just trying to find Amy,” Ellen explained, lifting her hands, too. She may have even peed a little.
“Who’s Amy?” He continued to point the revolver at them.
“The ghost girl,” Tanya said. “At the Gold House.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Ellen accused as hopelessness washed over her.
“Of course the ghost is dead,” he said. “She’s been dead for over a hundred years.”
Ellen and Tanya exchanged glances.
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same person,” Tanya said.
“I’m talking about the ghost of Marcia Gold,” Mitchell said. “My great-grandmother.”
“Your great-grandmother?” Tanya repeated.
“You’re a descendant of Marcia Gold?” Ellen asked with surprise.
“Not that it’s helped me claim her house over the years,” he complained. “About ten years ago, I fought for it in the courts and lost.”
“Then why didn’t you just buy it?” Tanya asked.
“Why should I buy something that’s rightfully mine?”
“Look, could you just lower your gun and talk to us?” Ellen said. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
“You two need to get off my property,” he demanded angrily. “You won the battle over the Gold House, but this place is mine. And if I ever find the gold, that’s mine, too!”
“What makes you think it’s still there?” Ellen’s heart was about to burst from her chest. Why on earth did she think she could be so brave?
“Because that damn ghost won’t let me rest until I find it,” he said. “I would have given up years ago if she didn’t torment me in my dreams. Now you two get out of here.”
“Okay,” Tanya started to leave, but Ellen pulled her back.
“What the heck, Ellen?” Tanya whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait a minute.” Ellen was confused. “The ghost isn’t really a ghost. Her name is Amy. We think she’s a descendant of Marcia’s, too.”
“I think I know a ghost when I see one,” he said. “Now, do I need to put a bullet through your head to get you out of here?”
“Nope,” Tanya dashed from the room and down the stairs.
Ellen stood there with her hands in the air, totally conflicted. The need to understand the truth was greater than her fear. “Shoot me if you want,” she said. “But I have a diary you might be interested in. It was written by Marcia Gold in the summer o
f 1881. And in it, she talks about the gold.”
Mitchell’s mouth dropped open. “Where is it? Where did you find it? Give it to me, now!” He put the gun a few inches from her face.
She may have peed a little more.
“I don’t have it on me. And if you want it, you better lower that gun and talk to me like a normal human being.”
He lowered the gun. “How can I trust you’ll give it to me? And how do I know you aren’t bluffing?” He raised the gun again.
“I’m not bluffing. I swear there’s a diary. Marcia wrote about her love for Joseph Clark in it. Was that your great-grandfather?”
Mitchell lowered the gun. “Yes.”
“She wrote fondly of him. You should read it, since they’re your ancestors.”
“Ellen?” Tanya called from downstairs.
“I’m okay!” Ellen called back. Then to Mitchell, she said, “So, can we go downstairs and talk like civilized people?”
He stuffed his gun in the back of his waistband and stepped away from the door. “After you.”
Ellen led the way down the stairs, where Tanya was waiting by the front door.
“Ellen, let’s get out of here,” Tanya said.
“I told Mitchell about the diary,” Ellen said. “I told him I’d give it to him, but I have a few conditions.”
“What conditions?” Mitchell asked as they reached the ground level.
Tanya opened the front door. “Why don’t we discuss this outside?”
Ellen followed Tanya through the door. Mitchell was right behind her.
A few houses away, Sue was parked in front of the Gold House. When she saw them coming out of Mitchell’s Italianate, she drove her car in front of it and rolled down her window.
“Everything okay over there?” Sue called out.
“I’m not sure,” Tanya called back from the front porch as she stepped down onto the sidewalk.
“Where’s the diary?” Mitchell asked again. “I’m not fooling around with you ladies all evening.”
Evening? Ellen looked up to the sky. From where the sun was positioned, she imagined it must be around four o’clock. Time had gone by quickly this afternoon. She glanced over at Tanya, who stood on the curb next to Sue’s car, probably telling Sue what they had found and what had happened.