by Mary Bowers
* * * * *
She talked to me the whole way to Santorini.
Bastet is not normally much of a vocalizer. In my experience, that’s usually the Siamese. They’re very conversational, and they yammer at you at the oddest times, as if they’ve suddenly got something on their minds, but Bastet is regally demure most of the time. When she does speak, it’s usually to blat a little criticism at you.
But on the road to Santorini, skimming along the shore of the ocean under the wide blue sky, Bastet gave me the business until I nearly pulled over to see what was wrong. At one point I fussed back at her.
“Well, I don’t want to go either, but I have to. Gretel says Willa is next, whatever that means, and the poor woman is seeing things. I can’t just leave her alone and hope for the best, can I? Not that Gretel knows what she’s talking about, but if anything happens to Willa, I’ll never forgive myself. Would you?”
She piped down for a bit after that, but I got a few more irritated yowls before we got where we were going, like she just couldn’t let it go.
She was so distracting that when we got to Santorini, out of force of habit, I parked in Ed’s driveway instead of Willa’s.
“I hope you’re finished, now. If you yowl all night and get on Willa’s nerves, I’m giving you a bath, and I mean it.” I stared fiercely into the back of the SUV. From that vantage point I couldn’t see her, but I looked anyway.
To my surprise, Ed came out of his house as I got out of my car. I had expected the meeting at Dan’s to still be going on, or at least for him to be sitting by Willa over there, since I’d told her to stay put until I came back.
He was saying something as he walked up to the SUV, but he froze and went slack in the face as he saw what was in my cargo bay.
He looked at Bastet, he looked at me, he looked at her, then he looked up at the sky.
I got closer to him and looked up too.
“Getting help from above?” I asked quietly as we stared upwards together.
He stepped away, indignant that I was being jocular in this holy moment.
“She came!” he said, and if he’d had a Bible, he would have thumped it.
“Animals are very comforting,” I said as I got the carrier out and set it down. I glibly tossed off a whopper: “I figured Willa might accept her as a therapy animal. We’ll see. If the two of them don’t hit it off, I’ll leave her here with you tonight.”
“She’ll want to be at Willa’s house, I’m quite sure,” he said, staring at the cat carrier and fooling with his glasses.
“Yeah, that’s where the action is, all right. Speaking of which, where is she? Still at Dan’s?”
“No, she’s with me. In the house. After you left, she started worrying about ‘entertaining’ you tonight, making exaggerated statements about having nothing in the house to feed a vegetarian (you), and finally she stood up and declared that she had to go to Publix. Immediately. So she could feed you. Completely unnecessary, I assured her. I could have lent her a jar of peanut butter. Even in the absence of bread, all one really needs is a spoon. I assured her you would not be a demanding guest, but still, she was insistent, and I didn’t want her going off alone in her abstracted state, so I took her.”
I felt a smile spreading over the stern look I’d been trying to maintain. “You two are . . . .”
“Yes. We are going steady.”
“I see.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but geez. Going steady. My warm smile started feeling goofy. Like those two.
“Afterwards, I helped her put her groceries away – there is no way in the world you will consume the quantity of food she bought – then she began to seem uneasy in her house and I brought her here. A clever pretext. Post-episodic interview.”
“Ed! You haven’t been prodding her about the people she says she’s been seeing at night, have you?”
“Ah, um, well, she seems to want to talk about them, and –
“Oh, Ed!”
“Yes, well, be that as it may, come in, come in, and bring . . . her,” he said, going a little slack in the face again as he looked at Bastet.
I closed up my SUV, hauled up the pet carrier and we all went inside. I’d take my overnight bag down to Willa’s later.
She was sitting in Ed’s office, in one of the chairs facing his desk. Nobody goes into Ed’s office voluntarily except for Ed, and occasionally, me.
That requires a little explanation.
Ed’s office is painted a color known in the Southern U.S. as “Haint Blue,” haint meaning haunt. It’s supposed to have the same effect on a ghost as running water: it forms a barrier no spirit will cross. Then, perhaps absent-mindedly, perhaps on purpose, he hung some supposedly haunted portraits on the walls, thus trapping at least one ghost in his office with him. The story has had its practical use: Ed doesn’t really like people invading his office. Instead of trying to reassure people, he generally tells them all about it and does his best to give them the creeps so they’ll stay out.
But the reason I was surprised at Willa’s presence was that the specific ghost who was supposed to be trapped, or at least able to use the portraits as portals into Ed’s office, was Frieda Strawbridge. Willa’s aunt.
Willa supposedly refused to enter Frieda’s old house because she believed her aunt was still there. So why was she in Ed’s office? Not for the post-episodic interview. They could have done that anywhere.
She hadn’t stopped believing in ghosts; in fact, she seemed to think her house was suddenly full of them.
“Hey, Willa,” I said.
I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t going to bring Frieda up in any way, shape or form, but my eyes strayed to the filmy portrait of Frieda’s ghost hanging on the far wall of the office.
She turned to look at the same painting. “Yes,” she said. “She’s with me all the time now.”
Ed and I looked at one another. Then I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Ed, honey, do you really think this is a good time to interview her about her experiences?” I tried not to sound angry, but really, what was wrong with him?
“He’s been very helpful in making me understand,” Willa said. “It’s me that’s haunted. Not the house. Nobody else has ever lived in my house except for my mother, and it’s not her. I’d know if it was her. It’s the others. The Strawbridges. Not just Frieda. All of them. So it doesn’t matter where I go. They’re with me wherever I go. On the beach, in other people’s houses, out shopping. It doesn’t matter. And in a way – I know this is going to sound crazy, but it’s true – it’s comforting. I want them around me. I just wish they’d tell me what they want.”
Ed, conscious of the fact that if he pushed her too far I was going to jump over the desk and strangle him, couldn’t resist asking, “Harriet? Is she with you, too?”
For the first time I noticed that Ed had his voice recorder on the desktop and the red indicator light was glowing. I was furious.
“Harriet’s gone,” Willa said sadly. “She was never happy here. She’s gone. She doesn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“Well there’s that to be grateful for,” Ed said. If he was trying to placate me, he failed.
“Willa,” I said brightly, “I hope you’re not allergic to cats? At the last minute, my cat Bastet decided to come along, and I thought you might like having a pet for a little while. Maybe she can stay with you even during the day when I’m not here.”
“Is that the cat?” she asked, looking to the carrier which I’d set down just outside the office door.
“That’s Bastet,” I said. “Would you like to meet her?”
“Yes. Yes, I would.”
I went to the carrier and let her out.
She’d been in Ed’s office before and had never taken any interest in the paintings or Ed or anything else. She liked the ledge of the window overlooking Santorini Drive, and after a tentative nose-bump against Willa’s leg, she leapt onto the windowsill and gazed outside.
“She’s be
autiful. I’d love to have her for company.”
“Good. She’s very adaptable. I’ve had her at other people’s houses before, and she always settles in and behaves herself. I’m sure she won’t be any trouble.” As I spoke, I stabbed Ed’s eyes with my own, willing him to shut the heck up about hauntings.
He was looking from me to Willa to Bastet to the voice recorder and harrumphing a little, obviously trying to gather his thoughts into words.
“What’s on your mind, Ed?” I asked in a suppressive tone of voice, unnerving him.
He sputtered and waffled a bit, but finally came out with, “I had considered it unwise to offer my own presence during this time, Willa, since we are not affianced or married, and one doesn’t want to set tongues wagging, but I begin to see the situation in a different light, as matters have developed. Since Trixie and Taylor will be in the house to act as chaperones, I’d like to suggest that I also be present in my professional capacity.”
“Ed,” I said as calmly as I could, “Willa is your friend. You don’t want to treat her like a customer, do you?”
He gaped at me, unable to deny it.
“I’d appreciate it, Ed,” Willa said, “but you wouldn’t be setting up cameras and recording every word we say and following us around all night long, would you? Putting cameras on us as we sleep, posting information on your website?”
“That’s exactly what he’d like to do,” I said, staring daggers at him.
“Well, yes,” he said weakly, “that is generally how an investigation is conducted. Still, I see your point. It would be an intrusion, and perhaps things have not progressed to the point where professional intervention is indicated. In short, I meant no harm. I only wanted to help. You do believe me, don’t you, Willa?”
She smiled graciously. “I believe you can’t help yourself,” she said. “You have a one-track mind. And I appreciate the offer, but all I want now is to have my friends around me. I can face anything with my friends around me.”
I hoped he was ashamed of himself, and he did look it.
“I’m your friend too, Willa,” he said. “If you want me to come, I’ll come – just me, no research equipment, just Edson Darby-Deaver, private citizen and friend of Willa Garden.”
“Taylor and Trixie will be enough,” she said gently. “I won’t be afraid if they are there.”
“Nobody’s going to be afraid,” I said. “We’re going to get a little tipsy and cheat one another at cards and tell funny stories all night. Fear’s got nothing to do with it.”
She tried to agree, but I could see she was still struggling with something.
“Well,” she said finally. “Let’s get you settled in and think about dinner, shall we? It’s getting to be about that time.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“By the way, you did deposit that check I gave you, didn’t you?” she asked suddenly.
“I haven’t had the time. I usually go into town on Monday to help add up the week’s receipts from the resale store and make up the bank deposit. I’ll just put it in the bank along with the rest of the money, but I still say it isn’t your responsibility to pay Harriet’s debts.”
“I believe it is. It’s a lot of money to a small organization like yours, and if you make a claim against her estate, they might refuse it.”
“According to Sherman, Harriet didn’t leave any scraps for anybody to fight over,” I said. “And anyway, I’d never dream of trying to sue her estate for the money. We didn’t have a written contract. She didn’t even book it through the website; she called me about it directly, and there’s only my word for it that she offered to pay $2,000.”
“Well, you and I both know she did, and Ed was there when we talked about it with her after dinner, too, weren’t you, Ed? She didn’t deny it. He’s a witness. I’m sure you’d be able to prove your claim, but these things take so much time to make their way through the courts, it’s ridiculous. When Aunt Frieda died, all of her accounts were frozen for a while because the Strawbridge Foundation tried to claim that some money from a trust her father set up a long time ago should have reverted to them. They failed, but the lawsuit kept things in limbo for a while. This is so much simpler. You will cash the check, won’t you?”
“If it matters that much to you, I will. Now stop thinking about it. Of all things to be worrying about!”
Ed got analytical, as always. “In times of stress, we sometimes find ourselves sidetracked by odd little things. It’s normal.”
“It’s not an odd little thing to me,” Willa said.
“Come on, Willa,” I said, “let’s grab my cat and get settled in for the sleep-over. I feel like a walk on the beach before dinner. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Just us girls,” I said pointedly, looking at Ed behind Willa’s back.
Chapter 19
Ed tried to tag along with us by offering to carry my bag, but between my stuff, my cat’s stuff and my cat, I decided I’d better move the car down to Willa’s. So he walked behind the car down Santorini Drive and actually did make himself useful, helping us carry everything inside.
Willa’s house was the perfect beachfront home, in my opinion. While having generous views, two balconies big enough for chairs and nice-sized tables, and plenty of square footage, it wasn’t over-the-top in any way. It was comfy. The kitchen was box-shaped, with a cooking island and plenty of workspace on the countertops, but the appliances didn’t look like they belonged in a 5-star restaurant. They were for normal folks. The floorplan was kind of open, but not like the main hall of a museum. The guest and master bedrooms were a discreet distance apart, and there were enough bathrooms to be practical without showing off. No bidets or anything. It was altogether satisfactory.
Anybody else would have done a little updating, but for Willa, it was perfect.
We went through the garage on the ground floor and then up the stairs into the kitchen. The main living in beachfront homes is always on the second or third floors, to take advantage of the view over the dune.
Willa led me into the guest bedroom and I put my things down and let Bastet out of her crate. She accompanied us around the house after that, as interested as any human visitor.
Ed had hosted Bastet at his house for a few days once, and acting like an expert, he set Bastet’s necessities around in the right places and filled her water bowl at the kitchen sink, bestowing it upon the floor before her. She gave it a sniff and walked away.
The guest bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from Willa’s bedroom, but I hadn’t exactly come expecting a good night’s sleep, and I decided I wasn’t going to be spending much time in the guest bedroom anyway.
“Trixie said she’d be over sometime this evening,” Willa said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you two being here tonight. I feel a little foolish now, making such a fuss. I should be telling you not to worry and to go on home, but I just can’t. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“It’s easy to be brave in the sunlight,” Ed said, leveling an intense look at her. “When night comes and terror arrives with it, it will be a different story.”
“Thank you so much for helping me move my stuff in!” I said, moving toward Ed with a fierce grin on my face. I took him by the arm and steered him toward the stairs, but didn’t actually pitch him down them. “We’ll be sure to let you know how it all went in the morning. Probably nothing’s going to happen. Bye for now.”
“Thank you, Ed,” Willa called after him.
He left without a struggle.
I waited until I heard the side door to the garage shutting behind him, then took a deep breath. We’d have a few hours of peace before Trixie came over.
“Now,” I said, “how about that walk on the beach. Or would you rather just get some cold drinks and sit on the balcony for a while?”
She took hold of her elbows, as if the visions of the night before were coming over her again. I realized she’d been keeping a calm deme
anor for Ed’s sake. Now that we were alone, she began to look haunted.
“I think I’d like to take a walk,” she said. “Let’s get out of the house. I want to be out in the sunshine. I’m so cold.”
“Okay, let’s go. I even remembered to bring a shade hat.”
“Will your cat be all right by herself?”
“Oh, sure, she’ll be fine. She likes to sniff around a bit whenever she’s in a new place. I could leave her in the pet carrier if you’d like.”
“Oh, heavens no. Let her have the run of the place. I’m sure she’s a perfect lady.”
I gave Bastet a stern look, and Willa and I got ready to go.
* * * * *
I half expected Ed to be hovering around outside with his EMF meter in the air, sweeping the area for paranormal electrical activity. Instead, we found Sherman and Carr coming down Santorini Drive toward the walkover, going in the same direction at the same time we were, and not very happy to see us.
At first it looked as if they were going to snub us, but at the last moment, Sherman gave a shudder and turned on me, as if he just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Well?” he demanded, so wrought up that Willa took a step back. “Excuse me for startling you, Willa, but I don’t think you should be spending so much time with this woman. She has an agenda of her own.” He went off on me again. “Have you decided who the guilty one is? It’s me, isn’t it? After all, I was there, and I’m sure you’ve got some ridiculous motive worked out. WELL? What were you all gathered together talking about today? It was me, right? You think I killed her, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” Willa said soothingly.
“You don’t, but what about them?”
“Nobody really thinks you killed her.”
“Well, then you must think Kip did it, because you didn’t invite him, either. Or do you think Carr did it?”
“We don’t know who did it,” Willa said, and she instantly paired herself off with the half-hysterical man. She even seemed relieved, somehow. I could see her brittleness melt away as she let go of her own worries and prepared to sympathize with Sherman’s, even taking his arm and guiding him toward the walkover, leaving me with his nephew, Carr, the basket case.