Talitha

by Rachael Rawlings

  The cleaning did little to improve the quality and the subjects stared flatly out at them from the warped canvas. But at the bottom of the frame they struck pay dirt. A small plaque, blackened with age, had been engraved with their names; Beatrice Ann Hagen and Henry Maximillian Hagen.

  “Do you think?” Noel asked.

  “I’m pretty sure. This has got to be them. He built this place for his wife. And she’s definitely attractive enough to acquire a lover.”

  “What was his name, the lover, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know. The letters were signed Gemini, but that could be anything, his birthday or just a nickname.”

  “Not a huge surprise he wouldn’t want to put his own name on something. If her husband did get his hands on him, at least the pen name gave him some anonymity.”

  “Didn’t seem to help them, though. If we’re right and she is the victim, I guess her husband knew what had happened. Doesn’t bode well for the lover, does it?”

  Noel sighed and propped up the portraits. “Okay, so we know who we are dealing with, but how do we prove it?”

  “We have to find her.”

  “Gross,” Noel said, drawing back. “You mean her body?”

  “Yes, or whatever we can find. Everyone thinks she ran away. We’ve got to prove she didn’t. I bet a hundred bucks she never left this house.”

  “You mean he buried her here. I bet in the basement.” Noel’s eyes widened and she grinned wickedly. “This is just like a movie. We’ll find her molding bones in a shallow grave in the cellar...”

  “No. Cole told John they had done some major excavating down there because of water leaks. If she was there, I think they would have found her.”

  “What’s the other choices? The garden. The yards. There are acres around here. There’s no way we could ever find her.”

  Claire felt an odd prickle along her arms and her head felt almost light, the sensation familiar and unsettling. But no figures appeared, no shadows formed in the harsh afternoon light.

  “She’s here. In this house and close by. That’s why he’s holding her. She wanted to leave, so he killed her and kept her close, even in death.”

  Noel looked at her curiously, then with alarm. “Let’s get outside. Now.”

  Pulling Claire by the hand she led her out the front door. The afternoon sun was slipping behind the trees, casting foreshortened shadows against the shorn grass. The handyman, Eddie, was still at work, the sound of his mower leaving a droning buzz in his wake. The air smelled of fresh grass and fallen leaves. A hint of burning was in the air, stale since the bonfire had been extinguished.

  Claire sat on the lowest step, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Her breathing seemed odd, like she couldn’t get enough oxygen, but she didn’t feel afraid. She found herself frowning as she examined her stained fingertips, her mind strangely empty. She felt a little light headed then. Her eyes scanned the scene around her. The porch had leaves gathered in the corners, rustling against the steps and stirring lazily in the breeze. Orange, red, yellow-green; the early foreshadowing of the chill yet to come. The leaves were lovely in their rustic way. The colors, the colors were…

  Clair was surprised at Noel’s tone of voice when she spoke, “Claire!”

  She jolted a little. “What?”

  “That was friggin’ scary. Are you all right?”

  “What do you mean?” Claire asked, distracted, her mind still grasping at what seemed to be a shadow of a dream.

  “That trance, or whatever you were doing. Didn’t you hear yourself? Like something from a séance.”

  Claire rubbed fingers over her eyes. She had a vague feeling of vertigo still. “What do you mean, what I said?”

  “You were saying something. Like ‘find me, find me’”.

  Claire felt a little shock. “Oh, my God,” she said softly. “We’ve got to finish this and soon. I don’t want to lose what little mind I have left.” She turned to her friend and looked into Noel’s imploring visage. “You don’t think I’m going crazy, do you? I know I should leave now, get out of this place, but I really feel the need to see this through.”

  “This can’t be good.” Noel looked a little sick.

  “I know. I know this has gone far beyond normal. But it’s not going away either.” At Noel’s silence, she stood slowly and dusted off her jeans. “I think we should go back in. I need to find her. To know what happened to her.”

  Noel shook her head. “I’m not so sure. What if they come back, the spirits? Claire, I’m scared for you. For you and for me.”

  “Noel, I have to know. I just have to.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two frustrating hours later, they were almost ready to give up. The walls were sound, no hidden doors or tunnels, no passages in the library or hollow panels behind the bed. Even the fireplaces were sound.

  “Let’s go back to the master bedroom.” Claire suggested as they left the parlor. “It was John’s room so…” she left the rest unsaid.

  Noel looked at her with curious expression. “Is this a hunch or some vibe you’re getting from the house?” she asked sharply.

  “I’m not even sure. I just feel like we’ve missed something. I know it sounds strange. I’m not hearing voices or anything, I just feel something, you know?”

  Noel nodded slowly. “Okay, we’ll go up but let’s get Cole. It’s his house and his ghost. If we find something I think he should be there.”

  Claire nodded her agreement, but worry lined her face. Her hands were icy cold and damp and a headache was beginning to edge into her temples. She remained on the steps, head in her hands as Noel went to get Cole. She felt alone and vulnerable in her knowledge. It was as though the inhabitants of the house spoke to her in different voices, and she couldn’t find the right response. She could almost be certain the urge that made her realize the body was close by had nothing to do with the presence in the foyer or the parlor. Spirits, like the people they once were, all seemed to have their own agenda, each working toward their own purpose. The maid, the woman in the portrait, the twisted spirits, they all seemed to have their own message.

  Her eyes skimmed up the heavy front doors to the plaster walls, now stripped of wallpaper. She turned to look up the staircase, her eyes lingering on the carved railing, vines creeping like carved snakes twisting around the posts. The place was a mixture of fine workmanship fronting a darker, more macabre heart.

  She heard footsteps and watched as Noel approached, Cole following behind. He looked skeptical, his eyes dark with concern, but said nothing and silently went up the steps behind them and into the old master bedroom, the room John had so recently inhabited.

  The late afternoon light was weaker here, the sun moving to radiate its brilliance on the rear of the house. The windows were curtained partially, and Noel swept them back briskly.

  “Lousy lighting. Well, what are we looking for?” she asked, moving to the fireplace.

  Claire looked over the room again. The room had been stripped of all personality; John’s belongings had been carefully packed up by Charles to be sent to his family. The computer and its accessories had been sent back to some corporate warehouse to be divvied out to other workers while the desks, tables and bookcases had been moved into other bedrooms. The two pieces of furniture left since the move were the bed, bare of a mattress or any linens, and the wardrobe, its doors already open. The walls were devoid of any pictures or decoration, the fireplace swept clean of any offending ash. It was lonely and empty and so very wrong. They stood in the doorway in silence, missing John’s laughter and life.

  “I haven’t been in here since he left,” Noel said softly.

  “Me neither. Charles did all the packing. I guess he cleaned it out too.” Claire felt a strong surge of sorrow. “I should have been here to help.”

  “He didn’t want any help,” Cole said from behind them, and shifted to slip between them and into the room. “Charles wanted to do this. He felt like it was somethi
ng he could do for the family.” He sighed and looked out the window, out into the sprawling yard and woods beyond.

  Noel blew her nose noisily, wiping her eyes in quick angry strokes. “Ok, so we need to do this. What are we looking for?” she asked Claire, her voice resolute.

  “We left this room out earlier, so I guess we’ll first just search as we did before.” In their explorations of the other rooms, they had checked out the wardrobes, tapped walls, tugged on carvings, and checked for loose floorboards. Again, after their search of John’s room they found all were solid with no hidden panels or passages.

  “If you were going to stow a body, where would it be?” Claire asked idly. Her eyes were dark with her thoughts turned inward, trying to follow the pattern of an unfamiliar mind.

  “I’d put it outside,” Cole responded with dry humor, his brows creased over tired eyes.

  “No, you don’t understand. You want to know that nothing gets to it, ever. You want to be sure it’s never moved; keep it close to you. You want to be sure...” Claire’s revere was broken when her eyes landed on the bed again. “Maybe you want to sleep with it.”

  Cole looked at the bed, then back to her with an expression of distaste. “Keep a body in your bedroom. Or are you saying he kept her in the bed...”

  “Or under it,” Noel breathed.

  Cole slowly looked to the bed, its height increased by the huge platform. Noel walked slowly; her eyes riveted on the wooden boards beneath the empty bed frame.

  “It’s the right size for a body,” she said, kneeling to peer under the frame.

  “You don’t think he murdered his wife and put her down there! Good Lord, you can’t be serious. Think of the stench.”

  “Maybe he moved out for a while. He became a hermit afterwards, no one even saw him. He could have been sleeping in the attic for all anyone knew.” Noel seemed to warm to the subject. “If you’re crazy enough to kill someone, maybe you don’t have any qualms about sleeping with the body. I’ve heard of it before. Keeping a loved one’s body after they die...”

  “That’s grotesque.”

  “That’s real. People have periods of grief that are so severe they can’t let go. Maybe he killed her and in a fit of remorse, put her there.”

  Claire turned, watching as they debated the subject, each looking at the bed as though unable to look away. “There’s no resolving this unless we look,” she said flatly.

  Both turned to her, surprised.

  Cole sighed. “You’re right. I think it is a bizarre idea, but if this settles something, it will be worth it. Wait a minute while I get some help.”

  He disappeared, leaving the girls in silence.

  “Claire, what if we find something? It’s easy to discuss in theory, but to find something or someone, that’s another matter entirely.”

  “But maybe it will solve some of the mystery of the place. If she really is here, maybe a proper burial is what she wants.”

  They waited in silence until Cole returned, a man following slowly behind with reluctance evident in his hesitant steps. Both carried tools, and they had matching grim expressions.

  Claire wondered how much Cole had told his companion. It took her a few minutes to recognize him as Eddie, the gardener. Time and the exposure to the wind and sun lined his weathered face. His eyes were blue slits under bristly gray brows, permanently squinted from working in the harsh sun. Claire knew the man had worked here for a very long time, had known Cole and his father before him. But he had never spoken to Claire, content to work in silence in the great lawns and tangled gardens.

  “Let’s get this bed frame out of the way and start. I don’t want this to last past nightfall. The lighting is bad enough already.” Cole rolled up his pristine shirtsleeves. His long-fingered hands, graceful and quick, looked more at home at a piano than completing manual labor. But he bent to the task willingly, using the tools with familiarity bred from experience.

  The gardener stood at the front of the platform, rubbing his neck in an agitated manner as Cole took apart and removed the pieces of the bed frame. As he carried them across the room and out of the way, the gardener began to dig at the nails on the platform with the slender claws of a hammer. The hard wood came up with a protesting creak. Despite the care he was taking to leave the boards undamaged, scuffs and gouges marred the surface. He pried the wood up, one piece at a time, revealing the dark floor beneath. After the first five boards were removed, he stopped with a muffled exclamation.

  Noel surged forward, but Claire hung back, knowing she had been right.

  “Hot damn. You were right. There’s somebody down here,” he said softly, something like fear clouding his eyes.

  Claire approached slowly, breathing in the dry scent of decay. Lying on the floor, looking much like a figure in a casket, the body was stiffly positioned. Sparse hair clung to the skull; the clothes were rotting but intact. Empty eye sockets glared up from a mummified face, the skin stretched like old leather over heavy bone. A tattered shirt of indiscriminate color was overlaid with a dark blue box coat with notched lapels trimmed with braid. Matching pants and a crumpled bowler placed conspicuously close to the fisted hand completed the clothing. No boots or shoes covered the skeletal feet.

  “That is no woman,” Noel breathed, stepping back to catch Claire’s arm.

  “It’s him,” Claire said tightly, turning anguished eyes on Cole. “It’s Henry, the man who built this place.”

  The silence was unbroken until Cole moved with swift efficiency to force them all out of the suddenly suffocating room.

  “Go downstairs, wait for me in the music room. I have some calls to make, and for God’s sake, get a drink or something. Lord knows I will.”

  It was hours later before they left, the investigators and the coroner, a black bag encasing the fragile flesh and bones. Nothing remained in the cavern beneath the bed, and Cole left it open, unconcerned now that it was empty.

  Claire and Noel ate a late dinner in the kitchen, the bright lights illuminating the smooth surfaces and gleaming floors. The smell of roasted chicken and fresh oranges warmed the room, making it seem fresh and inviting. The stark contrast between the slick efficiency of this room, and the almost brutal abandonment of the upper floors struck Claire anew as she lingered over her coffee, well spiked with amaretto liquor.

  “Do you think it’s over now?”

  Claire shook her head absently. “I don’t know, but I doubt it. This changes everything. I mean, I can see why he would be haunting the place, he was murdered here...”

  “I guess that’s for sure. You don’t just conceal the body of a person who died naturally beneath the bed.”

  Claire nodded. “But what happened to her? Was she the one who killed him, or maybe her lover did it for her.”

  Noel looked indignant. “Wait a minute. Who says she didn’t do it herself? She could have easily offed him and put him there.”

  “Yeah, but do you picture her nailing those boards down? That’s a pretty radical change to go from embroidery to burying a guy in your bedroom.”

  “Entombing him, you mean,” Noel said gravely. She took out her necklace from beneath her tee shirt and unconsciously caressed the cross. “How could you do that? Kill someone and then shove him under your bed. And this wasn’t just a stranger, this was her husband.”

  “I wonder how he died,” Claire said slowly. No outward damage had been seen on the body, no bloody stains on the clothing or the floor, but the state of decay would make it difficult to determine much without a formal investigation. Since the crime was so old and the perpetrators long gone, the coroner expected a swift identification, if possible, and immediate burial.

  “Well, where do we go from here? We can’t just leave it this way. What happened to the widow? Why did they do what they did, assuming some stranger didn’t come along after they were long gone and do this. I can’t stand not knowing more.”

  Claire looked up from her own grim thoughts. “Let’s get out the l
etters. See if we can find any more clues to their plans. And maybe we can visit the library tomorrow. See if any mention of them was made in the press. Maybe they attended formal functions or something.”

  Noel visibly brightened. “Sure, we can see if they have any more pictures. Maybe we can find some information about their friends. I wonder if there’s anyone alive that would know more of the story.”

  Claire shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair. “I think I’m ready to turn in. I have some homework I need to get done before tomorrow afternoon, and if we’re going to the library, I need to be up extra early.”

  Noel nodded. “I’ll be up in a little while.”

  After Claire completed her shower she sat on her bed, attempting to read a novel to get her mind off the events during the day. It was tempting to just leave. Their suspicions, although off in accuracy, had revealed some truth. There was a violent death, and Henry was probably trying to keep his cheating wife from escaping. The feeling of revenge was almost palpable, and Claire shuddered, thinking of how close the body had lain.

  To sooth herself, she got out her sketchpad and a couple of sharpened charcoals. Her drawing quickly developed, a harsh and angry face, Henry’s face, contorted in anger. It was better than her usual cartoons, but still looked stiff and childish. Frowning, she ripped the page out and crumpled it into a tight ball.

  She went and stood at the French doors, finally pulling the curtains open and flipping the latch to let the door swing in. She didn’t see the dove outside, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t come. She had been leaving an occasional heap of seed out on the balcony to feed both Leta and some of the other birds in the neighborhood. It made her feel better that something alive was visiting her room.

  She had seen the little dove a few times in the evenings before full dark and was reassured by her solidity. She didn’t know when the bird was leaving on the nights when she stayed in Claire’s room, and she certainly didn’t know who was closing the door after her, but now with Etta’s visits, she thought perhaps she had an idea. It amused her that Etta would help her care for her little feathered friend. Perhaps Etta was an animal lover?