“What happened to her?”
Bartleby grew tired and was struggling with talking to me. “No one ever knew about Constance. The family kept her hidden away, and she spent most of her life being taken care of by psychiatrists and therapists to thwart her supposedly wretched ways. My understanding is that her parents deemed her a danger to others because of her idle threats and how she tried to frighten people all the time.”
“Was she ever released?” I couldn't understand what Bartleby had meant but was concerned about pushing him too much in his current state.
“No, I found her death record. You need to talk to Hiram. He handled the Garibaldi estate when Constance and Prudence's parents died. Someone helped him do something with the inheritance and court documents.” He paused for a drink of water. “Constance perished weeks after her parents had in the ship accident off the coast of Africa. That's how Prudence inherited everything as the last in the Garibaldi line. Then, it all went to Hiram when Prudence was falsely declared dead in absentia.”
Brad stepped back inside the room. “Bartleby has had enough for now. His injuries aren't serious. Although we only want to monitor him for a few hours, the man needs to rest.”
“She's been using the tunnels to operate without being noticed.” Bartleby tossed and turned in the bed. “Tell Madam Zenya that I believe her visions. I have so much more to reveal, Kellan.”
“Is he okay?” I queried Brad, stumped at why Bartleby had brought up the psychic's name.
“I need to keep him awake for a while. You better leave. I'll call you if there's any change, but he should recover in the next six to eight hours.” Brad focused on his challenging patient.
“Got it. Is there a padded room I can spend a few hours in?” Although I was joking, part of me wanted to lock myself somewhere quiet to assemble all the pieces of this mystery. If someone had helped Hiram with legal paperwork, it was likely Raelynn Trudeau Lawson. Hope must've discovered copies of the documentation in her mother's attic. Could those have been included in the email she'd sent to me? As I paced the hallways in the hospital, waiting for my phone to download her email, I suddenly remembered that Hope had said she was meeting someone for a horse-drawn carriage hayride earlier that evening. I'd forgotten about it. Were all the pieces of the puzzle beginning to fall into place?
I considered texting April with the update but realized it wouldn't be fair to Raelynn if she were uninvolved and innocent. I needed to read Hope's email, and if the documents provided any evidence of Raelynn's wrong-doing, I'd turn over the materials to the sheriff's office. I returned to the waiting room, pondering everything Bartleby had just revealed. Prudence had a sister in an institution for years, but no one had known about her. Except Hiram Grey. I needed to talk to the judge to disentangle what was going on with this convoluted puzzle, but he was still being checked out by the ER doctors. “Will you ever wake up, Hiram? How serious are your injuries?” I lifted my head to find Connor standing in front of me. “Hey, when did you get here?”
“Do you always talk to yourself out loud, Kellan?”
“I hadn't realized. Something makes little sense.” I relayed what I'd learned about Bartleby believing Prudence was the one to knock him out in my basement. If she'd just been killed at the Fall Festival, it couldn't have been possible. “It also means that he doesn't know she's dead.”
“Agreed on both counts, but I can't sort it out right now. I learned more about the tunnels from the head of the tax assessor's office.” Connor updated me on everything they'd discussed.
During the Civil War, underground caves had been dug while my house was being built. The Garibaldis expected that the battles would worsen between the North and the South, so they wanted to provide options for escaping and protecting any slaves who sought their assistance. By the time the final plans for the Underground Railroad had moved westward, they'd stopped excavating the local tunnels; however, they'd become useful again during the 1920s when Prohibition occurred. The Garibaldi family had owned and managed several distilleries and alcohol distribution facilities. They finished the tunnels to ensure they could sneak liquor out of the state and to other parts of the country for easier resale.
“Where do they lead to?”
“Any plans the county had have disappeared. The town employee only knew because his grandfather had worked on the tunnels during last century's expansion. He's certain there were two separate exits. One leads to the Finnulia River, where the bridge lets you cross over to Woodland.”
“And the other?” I realized Nana D was right. All the current Garibaldi info was missing from the library. It was as if someone wanted them to completely disappear.
“Went to the original two-story schoolhouse that became Memorial Library. The demolition destroyed any access last week.”
“That's how Prudence escaped the day of the fire. She must've gotten out of the room Lloyd had locked her in, then ran all the way through the tunnels back to her house. She'd grown up there and known everything about them.”
Connor tapped my back repeatedly. “What we don't know is why Ian O'Malley showed up at the library. Was he a Good Samaritan who helped release Prudence from the locked room and got caught in the fire? Or did she kill him because he tried to further seal her in there?”
“I'm willing to bet Father Elijah knows more than he's admitting.” He'd been acting strangely ever since he'd heard about the skeleton's discovery and Minnie's breakdown.
“Good point. I need to confer with April about a few things before we approach him.”
I acknowledged Connor's intentions but planned to confront the man myself. “What are we going to do about those tunnels?”
“I will have a team search for the two exits. The one by the bridge should be easier to unearth, but perhaps we'll find traces of the path between Memorial Library and your basement.” He'd already asked his colleagues to locate a crew to explore the underground passageways at my house.
“We need to pressure Hiram about Constance and Prudence Garibaldi. There's something funny about that situation. Two sisters both disappearing and having a psychotic breakdown?”
Brad walked over from Bartleby's room to interrupt us. “Did you see her too?”
I shrugged. “What are you talking about?”
“Madam Zenya. She was visiting Bartleby, yet the television report said she was killed in a hayride incident earlier.”
“Huh?” I conveyed my concern to Connor with squinted eyes. “Bartleby mentioned her name. I thought he was hallucinating. What's their connection?”
“Is she still around?” Connor asked Brad.
“Nope. One nurse said the psychic scurried off when he mandated Bartleby couldn't have any visitors.” Brad exited to check on another patient but promised to update me.
Although Connor raced to the parking lot, he couldn't pick up any trace of Madam Zenya. “She's disappeared again, but at least we know she's alive. Prudence might have stolen one of her outfits to attend Ian's memorial service and the haunted hayride. Or she and the psychic are scheming together on something.” Connor promised to call with any next steps regarding a team exploring my basement.
I boarded the SUV and flipped through the Bible, certain it held an important clue. When finished, I read the email from Hope containing the research she'd completed on the Grey family. Someone's secrets were overdue to come out, and I was hot on the trail to solve this mystery.
The Grey family had been traders who eventually controlled all traffic paralleling the Finnulia River. During the Industrial Revolution, they'd amassed great wealth in shipping and manufacturing. After the other affluent families lost their money during the Great Depression, the Greys implemented a new rule regarding inheritances. Parents would leave a standard share of the Grey fortune to each child when they turned forty-years-old. Prior to that age, it was up to each individual to earn his or her own way. While parents would pay for their children's college education, it excluded everything else. At the time of on
e's death, any remaining funds could be distributed however the deceased wanted.
Hiram had two older brothers. Their generation was the first one post the Great Depression to be subjected to the inheritance rule. Hiram's older brothers fulfilled their parents' wishes and did well for themselves. As a reward, they earned their shares earlier than their fortieth birthdays. Hiram had languished as a child and had to be prodded to accomplish his goals. When his parents realized he wasn't proactive, they stuck to the family policy and withheld his shares until his fortieth birthday. Hiram could do nothing to convince them otherwise, and then they both died from natural causes shortly after he finished school. The last thing they'd done was to donate money to rebuild the library after the fire had decimated it in 1968. Hiram couldn't contest the will or family policies and had to wait until his fortieth birthday. His brothers had also refused to approve his request for early dispersal.
Hiram was angry and wormed his way into the Garibaldi family's graces while he was in college, ensuring he could borrow money from them to start his career and attend law school. After several discussions, he'd agreed to marry their daughter, Prudence, which provided an immediate source of wealth. Before Prudence's parents died, Hiram had become the executor of their will, as he had proven himself to be a loyal son-in-law. From the research Hope compiled, it appeared as if Hiram had also known about the existence of the other Garibaldi sister. It wasn't clear how familiar he was with Constance, but there were definite links between Constance's death and Hiram's inheritance of the entire Garibaldi estate.
From everything I read, Hiram had a vested interest in his wife's disappearance and subsequent death. While he might not have been guilty of murder, he had something to do with Prudence's last trip to the library and lack of communication with anyone else. Perhaps the county's magistrate had done something unethical in the past, and now he had to cover it up. What was Hiram Grey hiding, and would he survive the accident, so I could persuade him to share the details of his past?
By the time I arrived home, Ulan was reading a story to Emma, who'd already changed into Casper the Friendly Ghost pajamas and crawled into bed. “The fresh air made me sleepy, Daddy.”
I kissed my daughter goodnight and reminded Ulan that we had to meet with Principal Belinda Grey the following morning for a follow-up discussion on the status of his punishment. “We're in good shape, Kellan. I finished the service hours, and I made friends with one guy who instigated the trouble.”
Once he dozed off to sleep, I called April to inquire about any updates on the hayride incident. “What a day. I can't believe this has gotten so far out of control.”
“You're telling me. I've got witnesses who claim they saw a witch on a broom flying through the sky, then telling me she spooked the horses with a cauldron of hot tar.”
“Is that for real or just a hoax?” I poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed into a recliner in the living room. I'd packed most of our stuff up the previous week, believing the move to the new house was imminent. Now, I was living out of boxes and had utter chaos all around me.
“It's just some kids being foolish. The best lead I have right now is from Chip, the apprentice who was working at the horse-drawn carriage hayride.” April didn't offer to share what she'd learned.
“I ran into him on the way back earlier. He told me what he knew.”
“Well, ain't that helpful? I told that whackadoodle bird freak to keep his mouth shut.” April growled, then apologized. “I'm frustrated. What do you think of his explanation?”
I conveyed my belief that Chip had only told me because I was technically his boss, since I oversaw the Fall Festival at Danby Landing. April agreed the guy wasn't trying to cause trouble. I walked her through my theory about a third person versus Hiram being the potential killer. “What I don't understand is why Hiram called out for his son moments before he went unconscious.”
“Dr. Betscha placed him in a medically induced coma. They were afraid of the extent of the damage and wanted to give his body time to heal. I don't expect to hear from the judge for a few days.”
“Are you going to release the news that Prudence Grey, not Madam Zenya, was stabbed with the pitchfork?” Images bombarded my head of what I'd seen scattered among the straw, things I couldn't undo no matter how hard I tried.
“Definitely not. The news is already all over the place. As hard as we tried, someone leaked a cell phone picture of the headdress.” April wasn't certain how anyone had gotten close enough but knew that they'd have a stronger chance to trap the culprit if everyone believed the victim was Madam Zenya. “We got lucky. There were fingerprints on the pitchfork. They might not belong to the killer, but at least it's a starting point.”
“Is Damien aware his biological mother returned to Braxton? Or that someone killed her?”
“Negative.” April stipulated since Hiram had whispered his son's name in my presence, Damien was one of two prime suspects they were considering. “We haven't been able to get hold of Damien. The real Madam Zenya, our other suspect, disappeared after her mysterious trip to the hospital too.”
“Is Bartleby awake? I don't think he knows that Prudence is dead, unless the real Madam Zenya told him. Connor would interview the man when I left the hospital.”
“Connor and I haven't connected about that yet. We've posted a second security guard at your house, one outside and one in the basement. They'll notify us if anyone shows up. But you're right,” she lamented, then confirmed the labyrinth of tunnels was too complex to instantaneously map out. “By the morning, we'll have the results of the fingerprint tests from the pitchfork, a trace on Madam Zenya's cell phone and recent calls, and news on Hiram's and Bartleby's conditions.”
April and I hung up, agreeing to meet for dinner the following evening. I didn't tell her everything I'd learned from Hope's email about Raelynn's connection to Hiram and Prudence Grey, as I wanted to confront the woman myself before muddying the waters. I swallowed the remnants of my wine and headed to the bedroom.
In between classes the following day, I would find time to research the nuances and complexities of the case on my own. Now that there was a second body, locating the dastardly villain couldn't sit on the back burner. Addressing a fifty-year-old murder case and house haunting was one thing, but the killer had struck again and was worried we were getting close. Could Prudence have discovered who murdered Ian, and tried to confront the person on the carriage ride with Hiram, only to have the tables turned on her?
Chapter 13
Early the next morning, biting fresh air turned our cheeks a rosy shade of bright red as Ulan and I walked down our front path across layers of crunchy leaves. It was the kind of piercing autumn awakener that kicked off the day with a punch. I'd thankfully grabbed a cashmere cardigan out of the bedroom closet before we left, layering my clothes to keep warm for the day. It had been the right decision, as the frost beginning to appear on the windshield also nipped at us while waiting for the heater to kick in.
We were holding a follow-up review with the high school principal to ensure Ulan had learned his lesson and was on the road to improvement. Belinda greeted us as soon as we arrived, then escorted us to her office and offered me a cup of coffee. I declined, as I had plans to bring breakfast to someone else that morning.
At the end of the check-in, Belinda smiled and handed my young cousin a hall pass. “Ulan has been a model citizen in our little community at Braxton High. He's free to leave, with a reminder that should anything else happen, he'll receive immediate suspension.”
I cast a sideways glance, intended as a curt but demonstrative warning, to Ulan. He waved his hands at us, promising to engage in more effective ways of expressing his anger or frustration. “Thanks for sending me back in time for an algebra quiz. You two are the best.” He rolled his eyes and dashed out of the office. If our well-defined bone structure and similar gait hadn't been obvious enough, the adorable gestures we shared clearly proved we were related.
B
elinda motioned for me to remain seated. “I need to discuss something else with you, if you can spare a few minutes.”
I checked my watch, verifying morning Mass at St Mary's wouldn't end for another fifteen minutes. Father Elijah wouldn't be available to see me until then, anyway. “Sure, what's on your mind?”
Belinda shut the door to her office. “I'm worried about the press surrounding last night's incident at the Fall Festival. People are afraid there's a killer loose around town.”
Our morning paper, The Wharton Register, hadn't been kind, referring to the entire situation as “The Galloping Getaway.” Lara Bouvier at least had the decency to tone down the drama and sarcasm in her WCLN news report. She'd also articulately clarified that the police were still investigating and that it might have only been a spooked horse that caused the runaway carriage.
“I know. I'm expecting low turnout. The sheriff won't let us operate the haunted hayrides today, but everything else is still set to go.” I considered asking Belinda why she thought Hiram had whispered Damien's name right before he'd passed out. After weeks of arguing and debating the woman over every miniscule aspect of the festival, we were oddly getting along now. I didn't push the issue.
“Hiram is still in a coma. I checked this morning, and they wouldn't give me a lot of details, since we're no longer married. Damien is planning to visit later today.” Belinda sighed, likely torn between her anger over Hiram's attack on her the prior day and the torch she supposedly still carried for the man.
“Damien must be worried.” I turned to the side to address Belinda, who'd begun pacing the room and staring out the window.
“Yes. Apparently, he's a suspect. You know my son couldn't have done this to his own father,” she emitted through clenched teeth. “They might be in the middle of one of their infamous battles, but Damien respects the man. He's not prone to violence either.”
Haunted House Ghost: Death At The Fall Festival (Braxton Campus Mysteries Book 5) Page 19