by Etta Faire
“When am I getting my laptop back,” I asked.
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," he added, to me before turning back around. The "meet and greet" music stopped and Julie handed him his hymnbook.
I leaned across the knees and purses in my aisle. “Please let him know he’d better giveth back my laptop soon,” I replied in his ear. “Or you will heareth from my lawyer.”
As soon as I got home, I was going to do as much research as I could, on my crummy phone, about the mayor and his family in the only place at Gate House Brock said the internet connection would be the strongest. Up in that weird turret.
Chapter 15
Unstable
I pulled the dog treats down from the cupboard and shook the box. The house agreement said Rex was allowed to have up to three a day, perfect amount for a bribe. He came running just like I'd hoped.
"Good boy," I said, handing him a treat. He gobbled it from my palm, licking my hand, snuggling into it.
"You get one here and two more up in the library," I said, raising my voice up a little at the end like I was selling it, or like he understood. He shook his head "no" and walked away. He had understood. The coward.
My spine tingled and my heart raced just thinking about going up in that turret.
Before I could change my mind, I flung open the small cabinet in the pantry and grabbed the key to the tower from off a nail. There were several keys on nails in that cabinet: ones to each of the three turrets, one to the basement, one to the library, a mysterious one I had no idea what it unlocked. I grabbed the library one too, then headed out the kitchen door.
The veranda circled most of the way around the house and I checked in every direction around me as I made my way over to the turret's entrance at the back of the deck. I was the only one in Potter Grove who still suspected there was a murderer on the loose, but that wasn’t the reason I was jumpy.
This creepy house was at its creepiest up in the turret.
I checked over my shoulder for the fifth time, reassuring myself nothing was actually behind me.
The lock was old and so was the key. I knew either one could break off at any moment as I struggled to get them to work together. The door shot from my hand like a gust of wind had sent it flying as soon as the lock was turned. And I was instantly greeted by the musty smell of closed-up, hot, dusty death. Mrs. Harpton obviously didn’t clean this part of the house as much as the others. I couldn't blame her. I would refuse to do it too. I don't do windows or death traps.
Somehow I got my feet to move forward into the death trap. The bottom floor of the tower was just a sitting area with a ton of old black-and-white framed photos and vintage paintings of Jackson's family propped along the walls like a gallery. I patted myself on the back for that one when I passed them on my way over to the winding staircase. I was the reason they were no longer in the main house. Now I felt like they resented me for it.
Jackson always knew the creepy family photos were the things I despised most about Gate House. So when we got married, he finally agreed to move them all to the lower level of the turret. It took years for this to be implemented. But I'd done it. And I guess Destiny hadn't undone it because most the photos were still here.
All the gilded oval frames with what looked like dead babies wearing billowy white Christening gowns -- banished to the turret.
The extra-large paintings of women in black lace shawls with scornful eyes that followed you -- see ya later.
All the children with short school uniforms and lifeless expressions standing in front of gardens -- good-bye, creepy-patch kids.
They all had to go, moved to the tower. I'd suggested the basement, but Jackson scoffed at such a thought. His family heirlooms were not going to be hidden away in storage. I didn't care. Hidden away was hidden away.
My footsteps echoed on the hollow planks and off the stone walls as I made my way to the second level of the turret. This was the part that seemed to sway a little in large gusts of wind.
"This tower has stood for more than one-hundred years," the logical part of me reminded myself when I felt it swaying under my feet. "It's past due to fall then," the other part replied back.
I peeked in on the room at this level even though every brain cell I had said not to. It was by far the creepiest room in the creepiest house, so I felt it was my duty to give it one last quick peek to make sure my opinion hadn't changed about it. It hadn't.
A taxidermist's dream. Stuffed birds of all different families behind glass cabinets and display cases, and a few stuffed bears in the corners for good measure.
I had no idea who would put this room together and I didn't care. I kept moving on to the top level, the library. This level had a locked door. I'd heard it was Henry Bowman's secret room. The room where all his master plans were hatched, no doubt, like where to add another strange turret or stuffed bird.
I fumbled with the key to open it, fully expecting to see a stuffed Henry Bowman sitting behind the desk, but thankfully, didn't.
It was a circular room of wall-to-ceiling books with a large mahogany desk sitting squarely in the middle, fountain pen still off to one corner probably exactly where the old man had left it back in 19-whatever. A moveable ladder was attached to the bookcases and if I stood on my toes, I could see the trap door at the ceiling that led out to the balcony at the top of the turret, where Henry would look for cars coming up his hill, no doubt.
There were also stained glass windows at normal height, but they were just for decoration. The sunrise scenes in the various stained-glass colors gave the turret a church-like quality that didn't sit right with me, probably because money from a brothel paid for them.
I gently placed my phone on the center of the desk (because I still didn’t have my laptop) and sat down in the old man's chair. Jackson told me, generally speaking, women were not allowed in this library way back when, not without an escort and a good reason, probably written and signed by at least five men.
I put my feet up and leaned back, then took them back down again. I was pretty sure Rosalie was right when she said there were more than one ghost in this house and I didn't need to piss them all off at once. On top of the desk in a frame, instead of a photo, was a yellowed article about Gate House that was dated March 22, 1900.
Mr. Henry Bowman of New York; his wife, Margaret, and their four children are in the process of building what has been described as the most magnificent Victorian house in all of Potter Grove, the newly establishing township just north of Landover. Mr. Bowman, a prominent businessman from New York, New York told the builders to "Spare no expense. This will be a house of luxury that will stand the test of time in beauty and durability. It will establish Potter Grove as a thriving metropolis."
I took a picture of the article with my phone including the grainy photo that accompanied it. Henry, Margaret, their three daughters and their baby son stood in front of the Victorian, blurry workers in the background.
A businessman? I giggled to myself, thinking about how easy it must have been back then to reinvent yourself. No internet to keep track of you. No easy way for information to travel from one state to the next. You could make your millions off the backs of prostitutes and young children and still be called a "prominent businessman" in a newspaper if you told people that's what you were.
I started by looking up poisons that could mimic a heart attack. There were more than I thought. Pretty much any poison could cause the heart to fail, making the death seem natural, but there were even a few that wouldn't show up if I paid to have Jackson’s body exhumed. I jotted some down into the notes app of my phone to look up at the library later. Then, I googled the Bowman names, starting with the oldest living relative. Mayor Clyde Bowman.
I clicked on his re-election webpage and almost gagged looking at the promotional pictures of him and his wife, standing in front of the church along with Caleb (in full police uniform), Julie, and the two grandkids. There were other pictures of him shaking hands with M
ayor Wittle, the mayor of Landover. According to Jackson, those two had been friends since they were kids, growing up on Landover Lake.
I clicked on his re-election promises. Education. Infrastructure. Nepotism. That last one wasn't official, but it was obvious. His daughter was the medical examiner. His son was the chief of police. Probably every worker and every contract on this website involved friends or family members. And they say all the good ole boys networks were gone. It was pretty blatant, but no one seemed to care. The mayor was lining everyone’s pockets, including his own.
One article jumped out at me during my google searches, when I combined both Caleb's and Julie's names. Another dead woman had been found in Potter Grove, four years ago, right around the time I moved away. Strange how nobody talked about her.
Dumped Body Identified
as Missing Prostitute
The mutilated body discovered on the side of the road in Potter Grove on July 14 has been identified as 24-year-old Jasmine Truopp, a prostitute from Chicago, Illinois. Truopp's boyfriend, a known drug offender and gang member, reported her missing two weeks earlier in Chicago.
Police believe she was murdered in another location and dumped in the bushes near the Shop-Quik just off the highway.
"Likely someone in a hurry to get north saw his chance to get rid of the body and make an escape," Sheriff Bowman said.
When asked about the mutilation of the body, which was found naked and in pieces, Coroner Julie Terris attributed it to post-mortem wounds sustained by an animal. “The cause of death was likely strangulation, but further tests are needed,” Terris said.
Further tests are needed. Julie was very thorough for everyone other than her cousin, I noticed.
But were these cases related? This one happened four years ago, and its only similarity to the others was the fact Jasmine Truopp had been a possibly strangled woman.
I shook it off. The FBI, the police, or whoever was in charge of finding out who killed these women had probably already looked to see if the cases were related. I tried to find more articles about Jasmine, but nothing turned up. Maybe Mrs. Nebitt could help me out there.
The turret swayed a little in the wind, causing a creaking noise to rise up along the ceiling above me. I stood up and grabbed my phone, checking various desk drawers before I left. All locked. Sometime soon, I would come back to Henry Bowman's library, and I would bring that mysterious key with me.
Chapter 16
Contact
Basically, the only good thing to happen to me those next few days was Brock. We were spending a lot of time together, and since Jackson was resting his energy, I didn't even have to feel guilty about it. Except I did. I knew I should find out from Mrs. Carmichael where Tina was staying. I needed to talk to my old best friend, tell her I was seeing her ex. But every time I picked up the phone to call the Spoony River Cafe, I clicked the phone off again.
I somehow justified everything by deciding I wasn't going to make my relationship with Brock official until I'd told Tina about it. No Facebook announcements. Nothing.
And I knew I'd get my chance that Wednesday. Rosalie said she invited Mrs. Carmichael and Shelby to the seance.
"I'm pretty sure I could've sold tickets," she said, as she set a box of stuff onto the dining room table that Wednesday night. This one was a cardboard box with black moons painted on it. ”Everybody wants to come here. The murder house. You are the talk of a very talkative town."
She said this like it was a good thing.
I pulled a black table cloth and some long white candles from the box while I told her about the Bowmans and how they were moving to freeze my ghost's assets. I didn't even know what that meant. "Mrs. Bowman kept saying it wasn't official, so maybe they have to wait until Jackson's actually been declared the murderer. Still, I'm thinking about trying to contact Jackson's lawyer," I said, but I could tell by her face she wasn't sure that was going to help or even be possible.
She pulled her crystal ball out and examined it. "Everybody wants to make contact with the strippers."
"I thought you could only make contact with dead relatives and things. Do you think we could actually contact the murdered women?" Goosebumps shot along my arm thinking about it, mostly because I was worried the women might tell me my ex-husband did them in.
She shrugged. "Spirits sometimes hang around the place they died. Either that, or someplace they have connections to, people or things. They also could just show up. You never know with spirits. I wrote down the names of the ladies so we could call out to them." She pulled a pink post-it note from her pocket with the four names of the deceased women scribbled on it.
Names. That's what we were all reduced to after we died. A name etched into a headstone, written on the back of a photo, or posted on a bright pink sticky note. It seemed like there should be more. I remembered what Jackson had said about death. Nothing mattered anymore. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
I helped Rosalie spread the cloth over the dark wood of my dining room table smoothing out the wrinkles before we set her crystal ball on top of it. "I could sure use some help at the Purple Pony if you're interested. Part time, of course."
I wasn't sure if she was feeling sorry for me or if she wanted to capitalize on my new-found fame as the owner of the murder house while I was still the talk of the town. It didn't matter either way. "Done. Just let me know when to start."
"And don't worry," she whispered, craning her neck toward the back door like someone might overhear her. "I didn't tell anyone anything about you being able to talk to ghosts, or that you hang out all day with your ex-husband, the ghost and murderer."
"Alleged, on that last part," I found myself saying. I wasn't convinced at all yet.
Shelby's pink Cadillac pulled into the driveway. I could tell because the bumping base of rap music suddenly interrupted the cricket sounds of the night. I could also hear Mrs. Carmichael's voice over the top of it, yelling for Shelby to turn that racket down.
Rosalie practically hissed under her breath before the others came in. "We're gonna try to conjure up the doll lady about the curse too, find out who she was. Eliza."
I was just about to ask her what she knew about the woman when I heard Shelby and Mrs. Carmichael on the veranda.
"No. I'm done. I told ya I'm driving next time," Mrs. Carmichael said, practically coughing up a lung onto my porch. "I don't like any music that loud, but especially not that rap music. For cryin' out loud, you know that."
Shelby patted her pregnancy. "You're just mad 'cause I wouldn't let you smoke."
"I wouldn't smoke around a baby, but he's gonna pop out deaf. You know that, right? That's what you should be worried about."
I was already at the door, opening it for them. They hugged me "hello," and came in, staring all around like they were in a museum. I hadn't expected Shelby's fiancee, Bobby Franklin, to make his way onto my porch too. He grunted his greeting to me, barely even nodding, staggering in like he was drunk. Bobby was a large man with thick curly dark hair and caterpillar eyebrows, like a muppet on the wrong side of the law.
"We brought Bobby for protection," Mrs. Carmichael said, winking.
"It was either this or watch the kids," he mumbled. I backed away from the smell of alcohol coming off the man. I was glad for the kids that he chose this.
"Oh don't listen to him," Shelby said. She batted her spider-like eyelashes at her drunk. "He's been going to every single seance Rosalie's thrown lately. He's more into this than any of us, especially when I mentioned we were having the seance at your house."
I always got the impression Bobby never liked me, and I was still getting that same impression tonight. It was no secret he hated rich people. It was also no secret he drank, but when you combined the two, you were in for a night of complaining about how rich people were ruining his life. Funny how he always considered me "rich,"even though it was only ever Jackson.
He scowled when he walked by, giving me a once over before he moved on to my d
ining room where Rosalie was waiting for everyone. "You and Jackson sure had an easy life. You live up here all by yourself now? Like high falutin royalty, huh?"
If royalty were sitting ducks on a creepy hill, sure.
Dusk was just turning to the dark shades of night. And judging by the fact Mrs. Carmichael and Shelby were both still in their Spoony River pink uniforms, they probably drove straight here.
Shelby swung a basket full of cute little make-up containers as she looked around my house. "Just some samples for later. A little blush and lipstick I know everyone's just gonna love. Y'all look good in pink, right?"
"I've always been told my seance color's red," Bobby joked, making Shelby laugh a little too hard.
"I haven't been to your house since I helped you move four years ago," she said. Shelby told me at the time she knew I'd return to Potter Grove, but I don't think either one of us ever dreamed I'd return as the owner of this house.
"I'd forgotten how straight-out-of-a-horror-movie it is," she said.
Bobby sat down on one of the dining room chairs. "Yeah, nobody would ever hear you scream way out here in the middle of nowhere. You should be careful."
I knew Bobby was joking, just trying to get under my skin. But he was also creeping me out.
Mrs. Carmichael unpinned her 50's hat and scratched her blonde hair into a bushy mess. "Okay. Let's get this started already. I told Tina I'd visit her early tomorrow. Her roommate's bothering her again," she said, looking around, probably expecting sympathetic nods or people to ask how Tina was doing.
Nobody did, so she went on. "Yeah, her roommate’s one of those hypochondriac Mooreheads so, of course, that means she thinks she's dying. I told them to move her. This is a halfway house not hospice. I mean, I feel for the girl, don't get me wrong, but she's always got to have the doctors in there for something that she doesn’t have like heart murmurs or mineral deficiencies. You name it, that girl has it. I think it sets Tina off. It's disturbing. It's what's been setting her off lately; I know it."