by Becki Willis
***
“No fair!” fifteen-year-old Blake grumbled as he folded his lanky form into the backseat. “I called shotgun.”
“Yes, but you’re all talk,” his sister smiled at him with Saccharine sweetness. “I, on the other hand, am all about action!” She rolled her hands to emphasize her place in the front seat.
“Mo-om! I said it first,” Blake insisted.
“You rode in the front seat this morning, so it’s your sister’s turn.”
“I am so ready to get my own car,” the boy muttered thickly. “Then I won’t have to put up with her smart mouth.” Curling his cute face into an ugly grimace, he mimicked his twin’s words with an exaggerated flair. “Look at me, I’m all about action! They call me Miss Action. I’m like a real-life action figure, only clumsier. My super talent is tripping over my own feet in the cafeteria.”
Bethani whirled around, blond hair flying and blue eyes snapping. “Shut up, you moron! And I only tripped because your friend has, like, size twenty-four feet. He stuck his foot out on purpose, and you let him!”
Ignoring the insults that flew back and forth over the seat, Madison concentrated on pulling out of the school’s circular driveway. She waved at another parent and maneuvered her way around two drivers stopped in the middle of the road for a chat. As she pulled out of the school property, she tuned back in to the argument.
“I can’t wait until we move into the Big House, so that I can have the entire third floor to myself!” Bethani declared, stuffing her arms across her chest as she flounced back around to face the front.
“Yeah, the crazies always live in the attic,” her brother retorted.
“What is wrong with you two?” Madison demanded. “This isn’t like you two to argue. What’s going on?”
They immediately launched into their own animated version of the problem, both talking at once. Madison could only pick out a few words, here and there. Most of their complaints were wide and varied. She finally interrupted with a shrill whistle, a tactic she had not used since they were twelve.
“One at a time,” she insisted. “Ladies first.”
“It’s like we live in a fishbowl, Mom,” Bethani whined. “We can’t even have a good, decent argument at home, because cameras are everywhere. I’m sorry, but I can’t live with a goofball like your son and not let off a little steam now and then. It’s just not natural.”
“At first I thought it would be cool, being on television,” Blake pitched in. “But I didn’t know it would turn all my friends into jerks. They keep asking if they can come over, hoping they’ll wind up on TV. If I let them come, I know they’ll act all uber-cool and sophisticated, which will just come across as stupid. But if I don’t invite them, they accuse me of being stuck-up and hogging all the fame for myself.”
Guilt riddled Madison’s heart. “I’m sorry. I guess this is all my fault. I never realized how hard this would be on all of us, living under the microscope like we are.”
“There’s no privacy,” Bethani lamented. “I can’t walk around in my cute little pajamas without a robe. I have to fix my hair and makeup before I even come out of my room every morning. I —”
“So she won’t wind up on the next Bride of Frankenstein movie,” Blake interjected.
“— have to be careful of what I say while I’m on the phone.” Bethani ignored her brother’s comment as she continued to bemoan the downfalls of fame. “I almost let it slip the other day that Kevin Johnson asked me out, when everyone knows he’s supposed to like Kaci Gill. She’s breaking up with Jeff just so Kevin will ask her to prom.”
“You are not going to prom, young lady. You are only a freshman.” Madison was quick to set the matter straight.
“I would never do that to Kaci. We’re cheerleader sisters. And by the way, I heard the movie comment, moron. They’d never cast me as your bride. That would be sick.”
They bickered again, requiring more interference from their mother. “Do the cameras really make you this tense?” Madison asked. “Maybe I can talk to Amanda, and have her take them down at home. Surely, they can get enough footage from the cameras at the Big House. I’m sorry. I had no idea how miserable you two were with this.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” Blake admitted grudgingly. “We all agreed to this. We all decided this was the best way to get the house remodeled.”
“It was the only way,” Madison corrected softly. “But you’re right, it’s hard to act natural when you know anything you say or do might end up on national television. And whether I like it or not, arguing is a natural part of being brother and sister.”
“So are you saying you’ll pull over on the side of the road and let us duke it out?” Bethani grinned, her blue eyes twinkling. “Because I can totally take him, you know.”
“I didn’t say a thing about fighting, just arguing. But enough of all that. There’s something I need to tell you two. Something happened at the Big House today while we were filming.”
“What? You found another secret passageway?” her son asked.
“Actually, yes. And that led to the discovery of a… well, we discovered a dead body. A skeleton.”
“Another dead body?” Blake all but shrieked. “Are you kidding me? I’ve heard of chick magnets. I mean, you’re looking at one.” He indicated himself, of course. “But you’ve gotta be like some kind of corpse magnet. Seriously, Mom, this is the third time!”
“Yes, dear, I am aware of that.”
Bethani was much more subdued. “A skeleton? Like, a real-live-but-not-anymore people skeleton?”
“Yes, Beth, a people skeleton.”
The teen crossed her arms in front of her again. “If you found it in the attic, I’m switching rooms with Blake. I swear, I’m not staying on the third floor, that close to the attic.”
“We didn’t find it in the attic. We found it in the cellar. In a hidden room, more or less under the cellar, in fact.”
“A hidden room? Cool!” Blake’s blue eyes lit with interest.
“What’s with all the crazy secret passages? Was Miss Juliet like a spy or something?” Bethani asked.
Madison laughed. “No, I don’t think she was a spy.”
“Did it reek? Did it smell like a dead rat?” Blake wanted to know.
“It was a skeleton, Blake. Decades past the reeking stage.”
“So why was there a body down there?” Bethani asked.
“That, my dear, is the million-dollar question.”
“Maybe Granny Bert remembers something.”
“Looks like we can ask her. Her car is home. And it looks like Miss Sybille is here, too.”
“Please, Lord, don’t let them be doing granny aerobics again,” Blake said, pressing his hands together as he issued the brief prayer. “My eyes are still scarred from the last time.”
Bertha Cessna came to the door, watching them pile from the car as she sipped on one of her infamous smoothies. Her shrewd eyes were trained on her granddaughter.
“Is it true?” she asked before Madison even came through the door.
Huffing out a sigh, Maddy nodded. “It’s true. One of the workers found a skeleton, in a secret room accessed from Miss Juliet’s bedroom.”
“Male or female?”
Madison lifted one shoulder. “Who knows?”
“So maybe the old prude wasn’t as prudish as we all thought, eh?”
“She definitely had a thing for secret passages. Blake, don’t leave your backpack in the middle of the floor.”
Technically obeying his mother’s directive, the fifteen-year-old shoved the bag against the edge of the sofa with the toe of his shoe. “I’m starved,” he announced on his way toward the kitchen.
“There’s a little of my smoothie left in the blender, if you want it,” Granny Bert offered.
“Thanks, but I’ll leave that for Beth. By the way, what’s for dinner? All this talk about skeletons has made me hungry for ribs.”
“You are so gross, Blakely Gray
son Reynolds,” his sister declared, following him from the room.
“They’ve been like this since I picked them up from school,” Madison sighed. She dropped wearily into an armchair, lifting her hand in greeting to the elderly woman on the sofa. “Hey, Miss Sybille.”
“And hello to you, Miss Dead Body Collector.” Her grandmother’s best friend half-snickered, half-snorted at her own witty attempt at humor. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with quite such a talent as yours.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Madison moaned. “I didn’t even find this body, a worker did. And it’s not really a body. It’s an old pile of bones.”
“Still, it’s the third time you’ve been at the scene of a discovered body.”
“I think it’s more of a curse than a talent,” she muttered. “Granny, did you know anything about a sub-cellar?”
“Miss Juliet didn’t like us playing down in the basement,” her grandmother recalled. “There was an old cistern down there, and she said it was dangerous. I remember going down there a few times with Mama to gather root vegetables and to store foods for the winter. When I was very young, the maids still did some of the laundry down there, and I got to watch a few times when they boiled sheets. That was before Miss Juliet went high-tech and bought a wringer-type washing machine.”
Boiling sheets? There were times, like now, when Madison forgot that her grandmother had lived through eight decades of modern invention. Back when Bertha Hamilton Cessna was a child, doing the laundry must have been quite the chore. Lucky for Madison, renovation plans called for a state-of-the-art washing machine in not one, but two new laundry rooms, compliments of Valco Incorporated.
“It was at the back of the cellar, behind the cistern and a big area used as storage,” Madison explained. “Hidden behind a wall and apparently dug at a later date. Compared to the rest of the space, this room was very primitive.” Madison shivered, recalling the cold earthen walls and the crude bed, bearing bones.
“Never knew it existed. Apparently few others did, either, or the body would have been discovered long ago.”
“Remember those grand parties Miss Juliet used to throw on Founder’s Day? Wanda and I were talking about them just the other day.” Miss Sybille’s wrinkled face transformed with a smile. “That old house was really something in its day!”
While the two women reminisced over past days of glory at the Big House, Madison all but tuned them out. More relevant matters occupied her mind, namely a pair of bickering teenagers, upcoming jobs she had to prepare for, and what, indeed, was for supper. Ribs did not hold the same appeal to her right now as they did to her ever-starving son.
“So what will you do about it?” Granny Bert asked. When she repeated herself, Madison realized the question was directed at her.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I asked what you were going to do about the skeleton.”
“I-I don’t suppose I will do anything. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a matter for the authorities.”
“No clues to the identity?”
“Not really. It was obviously very old. It looked to be average size, average height. Just bones.” Madison shrugged.
“Sounds like half my friends,” Granny Bert mused.
“Brash said we could resume work, as long as no one disturbed certain areas, the master bedroom included.” She paused to frown. “Of course, given that we discovered the hidden staircase leading down to the room with the bones, I might have to rethink my choice of master. I don’t like the thought of someone being able to access my bedroom from the basement.”
“That is a bit curious,” Granny Bert said. “I wonder what Miss Juliet was thinking when she put in that secret passage…”
“Was she already married when she had the house built?”
“No, Darwin Blakely didn’t come along for another year or so.”
Madison was familiar with the story. Saddled with spoiled and jealous offspring, the only way Bertram Randolph could keep peace within the family was to separate his feuding daughters, giving them each the land and opportunity to develop her very own town. The town of Juliet formed on the south side of the railroad track, Naomi to the north. A strip of common ground remained between the two, designated for a shared water well, train depot, school, and other such municipal necessities. The wealthy cotton baron built identical houses for his daughters, but let each woman develop her namesake town to her own liking. Soon after, Bertram Randolph took gravely ill and called in a specialist from Philadelphia. Both women promptly fell in love with the handsome dandy. In the end, Juliet won his hand in marriage, but Naomi bore his child. The doctor died in an accident before the child was even born, leaving both women to grieve alone. To this day, the two towns were divided by social stigma and bitter rivalries.
“Maybe Miss Juliet had a secret lover?” Madison speculated.
“I don’t know about that,” her grandmother frowned. “Miss Juliet was a bit of a prude. All prim and proper, all about show. I was fond of the ole gal, but to tell you the truth, she was a bit boring. I don’t think she had it in her to do anything as daring as take a lover.”
“There had to be some reason for all the hidden passages.”
“True, but I doubt it was to sneak in a lover.”
“But it was definitely to sneak something, or else there was no need for secrecy.”
“I guess you’ll never know. The men who built that house are long since dead and buried,” Miss Sybille ruminated.
“Or they might be stuffed in some other secret room we haven’t found yet.” Granny Bert’s voice sounded surprisingly hopeful.
“Granny! What a terrible thing to say,” Madison chided.
“Madison, sometimes you are so much like Miss Juliet I could swear you two were blood related. You worry too much about what people think, what looks proper and ‘politically correct.’” Her grandmother’s gnarled and bony fingers made air quotes around the words, before she propped her hands upon her hips. “Admit it. Didn’t finding that skeleton make you feel more alive? Wouldn’t you just love to sink your teeth into another really good mystery?”
Fully exasperated, Madison rolled her eyes. “I have enough going on in my life right now, thank you, without worrying about a death that obviously took place fifty to a hundred years ago. And for the last time, I didn’t find the skeleton!”
“But you have to admit,” her grandmother insisted gleefully, “getting to the bottom of this one is likely to be a doozy!”
Chapter Four
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” Allen Wynn said. “I caught the news. I know you had a rough day yesterday.” He pulled out a chair for Madison, waiting for her to have a seat before taking his own.
They met at New Beginnings, which had become Madison’s unofficial office. Actually, her official unofficial office was normally the back booth, but a man currently occupied that space, forcing her and her client to sit at a nearby table. It lacked the feeling of inclusion, but given that they were, indeed, meeting at a public place of business, Madison knew she could not complain. She looked forward to the day when her office was completed at the Big House and she could meet with clients there.
Ignoring the reference to the day before, she smiled at her former classmate. “I’m happy to help, Allen. What can I do for you?”
“It’s Hank Adams. The man is getting more cantankerous by the day.” Allen shuffled a hand through his light brown hair, reflecting his frustrations. “We’ve been neighbors my entire life. He’s normally a nice enough guy, but the older he gets, the meaner he’s become. He’s being downright unreasonable about this property dispute.”
Allen was a member of the ‘old’ Wynn family, which was as much an institution in Juliet as the Cessna and Hamilton families were. The ‘new’ Ngyens — spelled differently but pronounced the same — had been in the area for less than ten years. Like Bertram Randolph, the Wynn family had settled in River County during the 1
800s. Much of their property edged the eastern boundaries of Juliet, and some butted up to Hank Adams’ land.
“If I remember correctly, it’s just one specific strip of land that’s causing the problem, along the foot of Pine Bluff.” Madison had worked on this very case during her brief and miserable six-day stint for the local surveyor.
“Yes, that’s right,” Allen confirmed. “You know how folks have always done things around here. If they were building a fence in a wooded area, they just attached the barbed wire to the nearest tree. Technically, one or the other of the landowners might lose a foot here, gain another two feet there. The next time the fence was repaired, the line might shift a bit more, but by silent code of ethics, it was always in the opposite direction. That way, no one person repeatedly lost footage. It’s been done that way for years.”
A waitress slid up to the table, offering menus and a friendly smile. “Hey there, Miss Maddy. Mr. Wynn. What can I getcha?”
“I’ll have a glass of water, Shilo Dawne,” Madison smiled.
Allen waved away the menu. “I’d love a glass of Genny’s sweet tea.”
“Can I bring you a couple of Gennydoodle cookies?”
Maddy’s voice sagged with regret. “Not for me, I’m afraid.”
“Not for me, either. Gotta watch my girlish figure.” Allen winked as he patted his generous waistline.
Once the waitress was gone, he turned back to the topic at hand. “Back about fifty years ago, Dad put up a new fence around the back of the property. There’s a gully at the bottom of the bluffs, and Dad remembers that Hank and his son stirred a real to-do, insisting the fence be built around the gully, even though it made it as crooked as a snake.
“Three years ago, Dad divided his land between we three kids, so he had the property surveyed. No real surprise, but it turned out the fence line wasn’t in the exact spot it should have been. In one thicket, Hank’s fence came over onto our side by as much as six feet. In another, we had five feet of his land under our fence. In all, it amounts to less than seven or eight acres, most of it a useless gully and thick woods. I ended up with the section of land that joins Hank, so I tried talking to him about straightening out the fence to make it a bit more uniform.”