by H. P. Bayne
This man you wrote about—this Dunstan Craik—worries me. I know Thomas has placed his faith in him, and there may be little you can do to change his mind, but please try, Beth. It will do you little good if, in seeking to be rid of the spirits, you invite something even more hideous inside. He strikes me as a great danger to you both. How do you know his presence won’t do the opposite of what he promises? What if he doesn’t rid you of these souls but rather invites more in? What if he’s the most dangerous soul of all?
I’m sorry to be going on about this. Perhaps my worries are for nothing. But you’ve sent me his photo (please, find it enclosed. I do not want it in my possession). I have known enough in this life to recognize evil when I see it.
Please, dearest Beth, send him away. I know you aren’t fond of religion, but I implore you. Just this once, seek the help of a church. And please, if you love me as I do you, take care.
All my love to you and Thomas,
Edna
Sully and Dez found only one further letter in the box postdating that one. Also written by Edna, it created an even greater wave of anxiety.
Thomas,
Forgive me for writing you directly, but I beg of you, please tell me what has befallen Beth. We have written each other every week for more than twenty years. To not hear from her is extremely worrisome to me.
If she no longer wishes to hear from me, please tell me. And if the truth is something worse, I wish to know. Knowing is better than wondering.
Love,
Edna
Sully wasn’t certain whether knowing was indeed better than wondering but found he too was curious about what had happened to Beth.
Given the history of the place, it was unlikely to be anything good.
Dez’s phone came in handy, a search of an online news archive providing the result they went looking for, despite it not being the result they wanted.
“Elizabeth Montrose died in August nineteen twenty-seven,” Dez read. “According to this story, it was regarded by police as suspicious.”
They were still in the basement, the items from the box returned to their original placement inside the bureau. Despite the surroundings, Sully felt more settled here, on the opposite side of the house from the portal and several floors away from the soul of Dunstan Craik.
“What happened to her?” Sully asked.
The movement of Dez’s eyes suggested reading. “Uh … says here she was … crap.” He stopped reading and met Sully’s eye. “Found drowned in the lake.” His face scrunched with disgust. “We used to fish there.”
“But it was considered suspicious, you said. Why?”
Dez shrugged. “Doesn’t mention injuries or anything. But it was suspected to have happened sometime overnight. She was in her nightdress when they found her, apparently.”
“Was anyone ever arrested?”
Dez tapped at his screen a few more times, but ended the search with a frown. “I can’t find anything else in the archives. I’m guessing that means no.”
“I wonder if Thomas ever wrote back to Edna?”
“There were no further letters from Edna in the box. I checked twice. If he’d written to say Beth had died, surely Edna would have sent a letter or a card in response.”
“She might have. Maybe he didn’t keep it.”
“He kept every other letter,” Dez said. “What does that tell us?”
“Maybe it means he didn’t do it. If he had, he’d be more likely to get rid of his wife’s things, right? For sure the last letter. Why keep it?”
Dez stared at the now-sealed box containing the letters and photos. “Maybe. But I’ve also dealt with people who’ve killed someone they loved and regretted it after. Maybe he didn’t want to get rid of her stuff.”
Sully nodded. “If Thomas Montrose killed his wife, he didn’t act alone. Dunstan Craik was involved in it somewhere—if he wasn’t directly responsible.”
14
More than an hour had passed since they’d entered the basement. They had yet to find property belonging to Bill Garver.
Dez’s thoughts continued to play between wanting to glean what information they could and getting the hell out of here. Ultimately, he tamped down his dread. He had a job to do. A little girl was depending on them.
It was impossible not to draw connections between Miriam and Aiden. They were the same age when they were killed—and both by people who lived in this house. Both had been prevented from crossing over as they searched for safety and help while doing what they could for the people they loved. It broke Dez’s heart to think about all the years Aiden had spent around him without Dez’s knowing, how alone his baby brother must have felt at times.
Sully hoped to learn if Lilian Garver was safe for her daughter to be with. For Dez’s part, there was no way in hell he would play a role in a situation where Miriam was handed over to a woman who was anything less than the loving mother the little girl deserved.
As far as Dez was aware, there was only one way to do it, and it involved Sully communicating directly with Lilian’s ghost. She had wanted to show him something. Had she simply intended to lead him to the third-floor room to set him up for an attack by the entity up there? Or was there something else, something which made her far less guilty than she appeared?
Sully had made himself comfortable back in the main room, seated cross-legged atop an old dresser he’d dusted off, flashlight next to him to provide better lighting. Dez hopped up next to him, counting on the sturdy-looking piece of furniture to hold. They built things well back then, and it didn’t so much as creak.
Sully had opened a box, one of those old and elaborate things Dez thought he’d heard called despatch boxes. He reached over Sully to grab a handful of items from it.
“Whatcha got?”
Sully didn’t answer immediately, busy as he was thumbing through the papers in his hand. “I don’t know yet. But I saw Bill Garver’s name on the box so I figured I’d check it out. So far, all I’m seeing are really old receipts. Maybe he kept his stuff in here for tax time.”
Dez picked through the papers he’d grabbed. Near as he could tell, they were all bills. A thought occurred to him. “If this is all stuff for taxes, he should have details in here about his staff, right? He’d claim them as expenses.”
“Good point.” Sully dropped his current pile in his lap and grabbed another handful from the box.
Dez cast him a glance. “You still doing okay? Not dizzy or anything?”
“A little but not as bad as before. It’s like bad stuff takes off out of the basement as soon as it leaves the vortex or whatever it is. I don’t think anything wants to be within a mile of it. I’ll bet most of them leave the house.”
“But not the dude upstairs.”
“He has a connection to the place,” Sully said. “I think he’ll stay here as long as he has someone to corrupt. I don’t know. Maybe he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. It could be he’s become trapped in the house.”
“You ever consider maybe the bad things that come out of the gateway get sucked in by him? Maybe none of them leave. They just get absorbed, the same way you said he gets energy from the crappy people who’ve lived here.”
Sully met Dez’s eye and raised a brow. “Damn, D, sometimes you’re smarter at this ghost stuff than I am.”
“Not a compliment I ever wanted to receive.”
With that newest thought now sitting heavily in his brain, Dez turned his attention back to the papers in his hands. He’d flipped through a few more when an elbow nudge from Sully drew his attention.
“Hey, Dez, look.”
Dez peered over to see what Sully was pointing at. It was a name: Abel Mansfield.
“Who’s that?”
Sully’s turned over the small sheet of folded paper. It was a receipt of a pay stub. The services-rendered portion read “groundskeeping.”
“The date on this is nineteen fifty-eight. Around the time Lilian is supposed to have run off with the gr
oundskeeper, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, man, I think you’ve got it!” Dez pulled out his phone and ran a quick internet search on the name. A number of Abel Mansfields came up, and it was impossible to tell at first glance whether any were the right one. It took about ten minutes with Sully peering over his shoulder before they found something on an ancestry site.
“Born in nineteen twenty-four,” Sully noted. “The right age to have been working here at the time.”
Dez dug further. Someone—a niece according to the site—had been working on compiling a family tree. The branch for Abel didn’t contain a wife or children, and there was no listed date of death.
Dez tried tapping on the name, but nothing came up. “No link,” he said.
“How about the niece?” Sully asked. “Can we try to call her?”
“Already on it.” Dez tapped on her name and was rewarded with enough info to help him figure out his next steps in tracking her. She’d included her husband’s name and, within details about her family, had even said which town she lived in.
Dez switched to his main search engine. Abby Olafson wasn’t listed in the town of Peter’s Springs, but her husband, Clark, was.
Dez checked the time on his phone’s screen. “It’s nearly ten. Too late to call?”
“If we can sort out what happened to her uncle? Maybe she’ll appreciate hearing from us.”
Dez dialled and put the phone on speaker.
The woman who answered didn’t sound as if she’d been woken up, which Dez took as a small blessing. Annoyed was the wrong way to start a conversation about a possibly missing relative.
“Is this Abby Olafson?” Dez asked.
“It is. Who is this, please?”
“My name is Dez Braddock. I’m here with my brother Sully Gray and I’ve got you on speaker. We’re private investigators working in Kimotan Rapids with Fields Investigations.”
“Oh, yes?” Interested. A very good sign.
Dez continued with his explanation. “We were looking into an old missing persons case pertaining to a mansion near KR.”
“Thornview Hall?” she asked.
A very, very good sign.
“That’s the one,” Dez said. “We came across a name on a pay stub from nineteen fifty-eight and did a little digging. That’s how we found you, through a family tree you compiled.”
“My uncle Abel! Yes, he was groundskeeper there.”
Dez grinned at Sully, but tamped down his expression before speaking again. “Do you know what happened to him, ma’am?”
“Call me Abby. And by the way, in case you’re wondering, yes, I was named for him. He disappeared before I was born. We never learned what happened. My father was Abel’s brother, and he went to his grave not knowing. Is he the missing person you’re investigating?”
“No,” Dez said. “But we’ll add him now for sure. There was a child.”
“Miriam Garver. I know.”
“You seem to know a lot about the place,” Dez said.
“I spent years playing detective for my dad. I wanted so badly to find out what happened to Abel, as a way to help Dad. But I never got there.”
“I’m guessing you tried talking to Bill Garver?”
“Oh, yes.” Abby’s pleasant tone had disappeared, replaced by the sound of someone who’d been forced to suck on a lemon. “I tried, all right. He wasn’t exactly what I’d call helpful.”
“What did he say?”
“He called my uncle all sorts of awful things, said he’d stolen from him and left. And he said if I shared his blood, I wasn’t worth the skin I’d been born into.”
He should talk, Dez thought. “From what I can gather, Garver wasn’t exactly a nice man. Do you know if Abel ever talked to your dad about his experience at Thornview?”
“He did. He didn’t write my dad often or say a whole lot. But he said he loved the grounds around the house, and he got on well with the family. He went on about what a lovely lady Mrs. Garver was. Mrs. Garver, he called her. I think her name was Lilian.”
“That’s right. He didn’t speak more about her?”
“He said he considered her a friend. She had taken great interest in his work and helped him pick out the flowers to plant in the spring. She was a ballet dancer, apparently, and he had seen her practice. He said she was very good.”
“Nothing else?” Dez asked. He decided he’d have to be more explicit. “Did he ever mention anything about a romantic relationship with her?”
“No, nothing like that. Was there a romance?” Her tone was the sound of a smile and a raised eyebrow.
“We understood as much from talking to Bill Garver’s son. He said he was told his mother ran off with the groundskeeper. They both disappeared at the same time.”
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t dare approach anyone else in the Garver family after Bill ran me off with my questions. I confess, I was a little intimidated after that confrontation.”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot. He actually left me quite frightened.”
Dez flashed his eyes at Sully. Big surprise Bill Garver coming across frightening.
“You know, I could certainly see my way to a scenario where Abel ran off with Lilian,” Abby said. “A man like Bill Garver, I don’t doubt he was violent at home. It could be my uncle wanted to rescue her. But the kids. They were left behind, obviously?”
“Yes, and Miriam went missing within a couple of years.”
“Do you think she maybe went to look for her mother? She was only five. Kids do crazy things sometimes. All the woods around there, maybe she got lost.”
Dez guessed Abby hadn’t been watching the news lately. “Actually, there’s reason to believe she was the victim of a homicide. That’s what we’re trying to solve.”
Abby fell silent a moment before responding. “You don’t think my uncle was involved, surely?”
Dez spoke quickly. “No, nothing like that at all. We had just discovered Miriam wasn’t the only missing person at the hall, and we wanted to learn what we could about the others.”
“How about Bill? Oh, lord, I hate to suggest it, but what if he killed Miriam? He was so hateful, so angry. I don’t want to think it, but what if …?” She trailed off, leaving Dez to think through what to reply.
“It’s one avenue we’re exploring,” he said, falling back on his old cop speak. “That’s all I can say for certain.”
“All right,” she said. “Well, if there’s anything else I can do, please let me know. And if you ever learn what happened to any of them, I’d very much love to know. It’s too late to tell my father, but I’ve become rather invested in this mystery myself.”
Sully had yet to speak, but he did so now. “It’s never too late, Abby. Once we figure this out, your dad will have his answers too.”
The result was more silence on the other end, broken after a few seconds by the sound of emotion being cleared from a throat. “Thank you. Thank you for saying that and for doing what you’re doing. It means more than you know.”
They disconnected, leaving Dez to turn a smile on Sully. “It’s nice being appreciated sometimes, huh?”
“Yeah. Now if only we can give her answers to appreciate.”
They went through a few more things in the box but didn’t uncover much else of use. It wasn’t probable they’d stumble upon Garver’s diary, even less probable he’d left a signed confession behind.
“I don’t know what else we’ll find down here, really,” Sully said. “If you want to go back out to the SUV for a while, I wouldn’t argue.”
Dez grinned and hopped off the dresser, leaving Sully to follow. They were halfway up the stairs when Dez’s phone rang.
“It’s Jacob,” Dez told Sully before answering and putting the call on speaker. “Dez Braddock here.”
“It’s Leo. Listen, the jury’s all tucked in for the night, so I’m free to give you a hand.”
“We’re making good progress here actually, but thanks
for the offer.”
“No, I’d really like to help. I think it could help put some ghosts to rest.” He paused. “So to speak.”
“What are you suggesting?” Dez asked.
“The blizzard’s stopped and road crews are out. I’ve checked the highway hotline, and they’ve opened the roads immediately around the city. That suggests to me they’ve got crews out. I can leave now and hopefully be at Thornview Hall within the hour.”
Sully stepped closer to the phone. “Leo, listen to me, don’t—” The screen on Dez’s phone went dead, and the sounds of Jacob on the other end ceased.
“Leo?” Sully said.
Nothing.
“Damn it.”
Dez glanced at Sully before returning his gaze to the blank screen. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want him here. Not yet. He’s got Miriam with him. I don’t want her coming in here, not while I’m dealing with the situation upstairs and sealing off this doorway. She’ll be in massive danger.”
Dez turned wide eyes on Sully. “Shit. Okay, we need to get to the car and charge this thing.”
He again led the way, talking as they jogged through the house. “The phone had half its battery life left when we went down there. It can’t be dead already.”
“It can in my world,” Sully said.
Dez kept a charger at the ready in his SUV, and he plugged in once they were back inside, engine running.
Nothing happened.
“What the hell, man?” Dez said.
Sully said nothing as Dez toyed with his phone.
“Okay,” Dez said at last. “Sometimes it takes a minute of charging from a fully drained battery before I can turn it on again. Let’s give it a minute.”
He turned to Sully, having received no reply. He appeared edgy, sitting straight up in the seat, eyes fixed on the lights they’d left on inside the house.
“Sully, what?”
“I don’t think it’s the battery. Not exactly. I think it’s the house.”
“How?”
Sully shrugged. “Spirits feed off electronics. You keep juicing it up, they’ll keep sucking it dry.”