The House on Hallowed Ground

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “I don’t think,” Zoey said. “I know. I’m sure of it, but nobody believes me.” Zoey put her tea down. “The thing is, I haven’t lived there very long. I just bought the place. The Pink Mansion? The old Mediterranean-style ranch house off Fryman Canyon? You must know it.”

  I nodded. Locals called the salmon-colored, red-tiled-roofed home “The Pink Mansion.” It was a historic home, built in the early 1900s, and nestled atop the hills in Fryman Canyon. The area was popular with the Hollywood set, and backed up to hiking trails that offered views of the city and valley below.

  “It needed a lot of work. Both inside and out. I did a big remodel before I moved in. At first, when I started to hear things, I thought maybe I had just imagined it or that maybe the house was settling. You know, like older houses do. Creaking floors. But then I started to hear other things…”

  “What kind of other things?”

  “Footsteps. Music. And always in the middle of the night. Sometimes I’d even think I heard someone playing the piano. I have a large baby grand, and I swear I’d hear someone playing ‘Clair de Lune.’ My mother used to play it late at night after I’d go to bed. But when I get up and check, the house is silent. Later, when I’d go back to bed, I’d hear footsteps. Like someone was tiptoeing up and down the hall. Chad, my fiancé, he thinks I’m imaging things.”

  “Your fiancé doesn’t hear them?” I put my cup down and leaned a little closer.

  “No, but Chad’s not always home. He has a band and when he’s in town he works late. Maybe you’ve heard them? Echo Chamber?”

  I shook my head. Modern music wasn’t my forte, particularly tunes that appealed to the younger set with a loud, ruckus beat and tone to it.

  “Yeah, well, you’re not alone. But it’s what he does, and when he’s not writing music, recording or rehearsing he’s either chasing some gig in town or he’s got one on the road.” Zoey picked her cup up again and took another sip of her tea. “Actually, so am I. On the road that is, but right now, I’m home—at least for the next couple weeks anyway. I’ve been working on a movie, and most days I have to get up early to be on the set. But it’s a ghost. I’m sure of it. It’s not only the piano and footsteps, it’s other things, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like things from my jewelry drawer have disappeared. Not expensive stuff, but stuff my mother gave me before she died. Pop beads and mood rings. Trinkets from when we used to visit Venice Pier when I was a kid. It was her favorite place, and I like to keep some of the mementoes she bought around me. They remind me of her.”

  I remembered pictures of Zoey and her mother together before her mother had died. They were on every tabloid in every supermarket in the country. Cara Chamberlain, the beautiful, successful blonde actress with her adorable daughter. Cara had passed far too young, as had Zoey’s famous father. Their untimely deaths left Zoey heir to the family fortune, and her fans wondering if rumors of a Chamberlain family curse might be true.

  “Are you telling me you believe this ghost has taken things of yours?” I asked.

  “Yes, but only temporarily. It’s more like whoever’s doing the taking is really borrowing my things. Moving them around.”

  “Because you find them later? In another location?” My eyes went quickly to Wilson then back to Zoey. Wilson and I had played this game ourselves.

  “Yes! In fact, I found a whole stash of things under the stairwell in the kitchen. It’s as though whoever took them had hidden them there.” Zoey put her teacup down. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen this before. It’s not entirely unusual. Some ghosts consider it entertaining.” I glanced back at Wilson, my eyes narrowed.

  “Is that wrong?” He raised his palms up and shrugged.

  My eyes clicked back to Zoey. “It may be nothing more than just a game of wits.”

  “I’m right then? There is a ghost in my house, and you can help me?”

  “I can’t promise anything—”

  “For God’s Sake, Misty, you’re not going to turn her down.” Wilson towered over me. The thought that I might not accept this assignment clearly agitated him. “The girl needs your help, Old Gal. What else are your talents for if not to help her?”

  Old Gal? Where did that come from?

  Zoey stood. “Please, Misty, I need your help. I don’t know where else to turn. Whoever or whatever it is, it’s got to stop. I can’t sleep, and it’s affecting me on the set. I can’t remember my lines and Chad’s growing irritated with me. You’ve got to help me.”

  Wilson stepped closer to me and whispered in my ear. “Look at her, Misty. The poor, bereft, little thing. No mother. No father. She needs your help. You can’t turn her down.”

  “I don’t know, Zoey,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Please.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them between her own. “I really need you. Chad and I are planning to get married. We want to be married in the house when I return from Italy next month. I’m shooting the final scenes there, and when I return I want everything to be perfect. Please tell me you’ll do it.”

  “Misty!” Wilson put his arm around me. “What’s there to think about? Tell her you’ll do it. If you will, I’ll...” Wilson raised his eyes to the ceiling and shook his head. “Well, I’ll help you.”

  I paused long enough for Wilson to realize he had pledged himself to the effort, then bowed my head, and bit back my smile. I had Wilson exactly where I wanted him.

  “I’d be happy to help, Zoey. Jot down your address on a piece of paper, I’ll be over tomorrow. What time’s good for you?”

  “Any time after one. I have a quick shoot mid-morning, but the afternoon should be fine.”

  “One it is, then.” I showed Zoey to the door, bid her goodbye, and turned back to Wilson. “I hope you’re up for this. Things are never as easy as they may seem.”

  Wilson didn’t answer. Instead, he sneezed and disappeared back into the study.

  “Gesundheit,” I said.

  Chapter 4

  Zoey hadn’t been gone thirty minutes before the front bell rang again. It was Denise, and the minute I opened the door, I knew this would be no quick visit. She barged through with a large bag over her shoulder and waved a deck of tarot cards above her head.

  “I know you don’t read cards, Misty, but I can’t help myself. This is just too big.” Denise went straight to the living room and dropped her bag on the floor in front of the fireplace. “I’ve just come from another reader. Don’t be angry with me, but it’s important. I need you to verify something she’s told me.”

  I picked Denise’s bag up off the floor and dropped it on the end of the couch. A bag on the floor invited bad luck. I’d told her that numerous times, but Denise, despite her obsessive-compulsive disorder, never seemed to remember.

  “You know I won’t do that,” I said.

  “You have to. She told me she saw me meeting a man. That he’s an important person. Someone I might not ordinarily cross paths with, but that the stars have aligned. And because of that, we’ll meet under unusual circumstances.” Denise slapped the cards on the coffee table. “It’s all here in the cards. She said he’s working on something to do with Hollywood, and that we would have a lot in common. In fact, she said he could be my soul mate. Misty, you know what that means?”

  “No, Denise, I’ve no idea what it means. And even if I did, I wouldn’t comment on another psychic’s reading. It’s just not done.”

  “But this is it, Misty. Don‘t you see?” Denise took my hands and shook them, forcing me to look her in the eye. “It’s Hugh Jackman, I’m sure of it. He’s in town for the Golden Globes, and this is my chance. I just need to know if you see it, too. Please, look at the cards and tell me.” Still holding onto my hands as though she were afraid I might run away, Denise leaned down over the table, and, with one free hand, fanned the car
ds. “Please, look at the cards and tell me.”

  Before I could pick them up and stuff them back in her bag, Wilson slipped back into the room and swept the cards from the table, dashing them helter-skelter to the floor.

  “Tell her to go,” Wilson said. “I can’t have that woman in my house.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said.

  Denise and Wilson hollered back at me in unison. “Why not?”

  “Because, Denise,” I turned my back to Wilson, and leaned over to pick up the cards off the floor. “I don’t read cards, and I won’t be party to your stalking this man.”

  “I’m not stalking him. I’m not some crazy fan following him around and harassing him. That would be beneath me.”

  “Oh, right.” Wilson put his foot on top of the cards and slyly pushed several beneath the couch. “Here it comes, my sister’s belief she’s God’s gift to the stage. Wait for it.”

  “You know I’m not just some groupie, I’m an actor.” With an accent on the last syllable, Denise put her hand to her throat and raised her head to the ceiling, as though she expected some shining light to come bursting forth to confirm her affirmation.

  Wilson rolled his eyes.

  “Just last year I played Maggie in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Pasadena Play House. The critics are still talking about it.”

  Wrrrao! Wilson screeched, like a cat.

  Denise continued. “You of all people, Misty, know how difficult it can be for a mature woman to find a leading man who can be a match for someone like myself.” Denise did have a point. At six feet tall, she was bigger than most leading men on stage today. And in an industry that considered any actress over the age of thirty or bigger than a size two as both a has-been and obese, she was fighting an uphill battle. “If Hugh and I were to meet, things would be different.”

  “That’s it, I’m out of here.” Wilson threw his hands above his head, retreated back to the study, and slammed the door behind him.

  Denise startled. “Really, Misty, you have to do something about the draft in this house. That door banging would drive me crazy.”

  “Believe me, I’m working on it.”

  Chapter 5

  Zoey’s house, the “Pink Mansion” as it was popularly known, was less than a mile and a half from Wilson’s cottage, but getting there was more of a to-do than I had anticipated.

  “Do you mind telling me how it is you expect for us to get there? Were you planning to fly us over on your broomstick? Or did you think we’d take that rattled old hippie van of yours, which, by the way, I wouldn’t be caught dead in.” Wilson stopped me at the front door.

  “You are dead.” I pushed past him. I didn’t appreciate the implication I might travel by broomstick nor the knock on my hippie van. “And no,” I snapped back, “I don’t plan on driving myself. I plan to Uber. Broomsticks are so yesterday.”

  Wilson put his hand on the door, blocking my exit. “Cancel it. I’ll drive.”

  “You?” I took a step back. Not that ghosts can’t drive or operate machinery, but I hadn’t considered Wilson as a chauffeur.

  “I have two cars in the garage. A ’54 silver Jaguar XK-120 in mint condition, and a vintage Rolls Royce. Both right-hand drive. Which, under the circumstances, Old Gal, works in your favor.”

  “Old Gal?” I winced. This was the second time Wilson had referred to me as Old Gal. Was this some new pet name, a subtle indicator our relationship had advanced from adversarial to more of a partnership, or was he mocking me?

  Wilson gave me no chance to ask. With his hands on my shoulders, he hustled me out the back door to the garage where he pointed to the two cars.

  “Which do you prefer? The windows on the Rolls are blacked out. The roadster has a canvas top. If you sit on the left-hand side, like most American drivers, people would assume you were driving, and nobody would notice. Dead or alive, Misty, I’d wager I’m a better driver than you are.”

  Wilson had a point. My driving skills, like my eyesight, were less than stellar, and my patience with LA’s busy streets and inattentive drivers had grown weary over the years. I had to admit, his offer had a certain appeal. Which was how Wilson came to be not only my roommate and limboed-spirit guide, but my driver.

  For our first trip, Wilson insisted we take the Jag. He said he hadn’t had it out for a spin in quite some time and the old roadster needed a little road work. Once behind the wheel, he revved the engine until the car hummed like a caged cat, then, with his foot on the accelerator, released the brake. Showing little regard for the speed limit or red lights—or me!—he whizzed in and out of traffic like a madman.

  I held onto the grab bar until I couldn’t feel the circulation in the tips of my fingers. “What are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?”

  “Relax, Ol’ Gal. This is exactly what you need.” Wilson pressed his foot to the floorboard and with little or no warning, took a hard right onto Zoey’s street. My body slammed against the Jag’s door. “Gets the ol’ heart pumping. Not to mention clears the fuel lines. Gets the kinks out.”

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  Ahead of us, the street was blocked. Two black-and-white police cruisers were parked with their lights flashing in front of the Pink Mansion, along with an ambulance and several large television news vans. On every level it spelled trouble.

  Wilson pulled the Jag onto the side of the road and parked beneath a large pine tree. Far enough away that no one would notice the car’s British configuration and me getting out on the passenger side.

  “Wait here. I’ll check the house.” With my bag over my shoulder, I took a deep breath and began to hike up the street.

  I was no more than five feet from the car when I heard Wilson holler to me. “Hold on there. We’re a team, remember? Where you go, I go.”

  I turned around and exhaled. The care and training of a ghost in limbo is no easy task. Wilson had slipped out the window on the driver’s side of the car so as to not open the door and stood waiting for me like a soldier at arms.

  I marched back to the car.

  “Okay, Wilson. As long as you remember the rules.” I resisted the urge to point a finger at him, lest anyone see me and think I was talking to myself. “You’re to be neither seen nor heard. And more importantly you can look, but you cannot touch. We’re here in search of a ghost. You got that?” I realized Wilson had agreed to come along because of his interest in the Chamberlain clan and whatever historical memorabilia he might find inside the house. I reminded him, sternly, he was here to assist me, to stay close by my side, and resist whatever urges he might have to wander off.

  “At your service, Old Gal.” With a salute, Wilson smiled and fell in behind me. I felt as though I was about to accompany a minor through a candy store.

  The Pink Mansion stood elevated from the street by a slight slope, surrounded at its base, by six-foot fencing with an elaborate wrought iron security gate. In front of the gate, yellow crime scene tape had been strung. Looky-loos and paparazzi had already started to arrive. Behind the yellow tape, the gate was open, and up the hill I spotted Zoey dressed in a long robe, standing huddled beneath a huge white California Oak with branches the size of tree trunks. The arms of the tree spread like a giant octopus from one side of the property to the other and crowned the front of the Pink Mansion like an umbrella. Standing next to Zoey were three people I didn’t recognize. Combined with the natural shade the tree provided, and the reflection from the flashing red and blue lights of the patrol cars, the light beneath the tree cast an unusual aura. A kind of dusty, mustard glow I had encountered in the past when dealing with the FBI on criminal investigations. I glanced back at Wilson. I had an uneasy sense of foreboding in the pit of my stomach. Something terrible had happened here.

  “Misty?” Zoey came running down the drive toward me, her eye makeup smeared, her face red and blotchy. “I forgot you were coming tod
ay. Thank God you’re here. Lacey’s dead.”

  “Lacey?” Zoey lifted the crime scene tape that separated us and hugged me to her as though I was a security blanket. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her and allowed her to bury her head on my shoulder. “Who’s Lacey?” I asked.

  “My best friend. Lacey Adams. The actress? We look alike. Some people think we’re sisters.”

  I hadn’t followed Who’s Who in Hollywood since I’d stopped reading for Liz Taylor. The younger generation had come along so fast, and with such fury, it was more of a bother than a necessity to keep up. But I did remember one of Zoey’s movies where she appeared with a similar looking curly-headed toddler who had been cast as her sister.

  “What happened?”

  “She drowned.” Zoey grabbed my hand and walked me up the hill toward the house. “I don’t know how it happened. Lacey came by last night to go over lines with me for a scene I’m working on. We were sitting in the kitchen, the windows were open, and Lacey thought she heard a sound outside. There have been feral cats around. I had seen kittens hiding beneath the spa decking earlier and she wanted to go check. It was getting late, and I needed to go to bed. She told me not to worry. She’d let herself out like she usually does, so I took a sleeping pill and went to sleep. That’s the last I remember. I just assumed she had gone home.”

  Zoey and I reached the front patio, an atrium entrance with a walled water fountain that fed into a small koi pond. Zoey paused, and with her back to the house, looked back down the drive to the street.

  “When did you find the body?” I asked.

  “This morning, about seven thirty. Jose, my gardener, found her. Chad and I were still in bed. I didn’t have to be at the studio until nine and Chad got home late last night from a recording session. We were sleeping in.” Zoey glanced back over her shoulder at the house and shuddered. “Jose said it looked like Lacey’s long hair got caught on the drain and she was pulled under.” Zoey closed her eyes and shook her head. I could see she was trying to shake the dark vision that surrounded her.