The Deed in the Attic

by K. D. McCrite

  “Hey!” Alice said, a look of mock-annoyance on her face. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

  Peggy laughed, and Alice shrugged, grinning.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “I’ll take compliments when I can get them, even the backhanded ones.”

  After a bit of chuckling and twittering died down, Mary Beth said, “I take it then that we are all still on board with the slipper campaign?”

  “Yes!”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Why not?”

  “You betcha.”

  Satisfied, Mary Beth sat down in the chair closest to the counter with the telephone and picked up part of a slipper she had been crocheting. Hers was a simple single crochet stitch pattern with dark red yarn, tightly worked and sturdy.

  “So, Annie, what did you do with all your yarn and thread?” the store owner asked after a bit.

  All the women looked at Annie, waiting for her reply, but their hands never stopped moving. Stella’s and Gwen’s knitting needles clicked, catching the glint of the store’s lights. Peggy made careful, tiny stitches in the quilted top for one of a colorful pair of slippers. Alice’s needle seemed to fly through the yellow gingham picture frame, eager to get it finished before her cousin’s baby arrived. She had decided to make a series of three frames: an oval, an oblong, and a heart-shaped, and the project was almost finished.

  “I found a lovely old cedar chest in the attic,” Annie told the group.

  Gwen stopped knitting to sigh and say wistfully, “Oh, I do so love cedar chests! I had one when I was girl … goodness, I wonder where it is now? I have not seen that lovely old chest in years.”

  “It’s probably somewhere in Annie’s attic,” Alice said drily. There was the briefest of silences as this comment sunk in, and then the women broke into loud laughter.

  “Good one, Alice!” Peggy said, clapping her hands.

  “Betsy always was a pack rat,” Gwen said. “If you gave her anything, no matter how small, years later she would dig it out of box or a drawer, if it was not already on display somewhere. I doubt that woman ever threw anything away.”

  Annie smiled, nodding.

  “I think you’re one hundred percent right, Gwen. I do believe I have found every Christmas and birthday card Hallmark ever made.”

  Again the women laughed.

  “Everyone loved Betsy, and they loved to give her gifts,” Alice said. “She was always so appreciative and gracious.”

  “That’s true,” Mary Beth murmured.

  The group worked in companionable silence for a while before Kate, who usually stayed behind the counter during the meetings, carried her current project to the center of the group and held it up. It was a beautiful lacy dress of the palest lavender shade.

  The women gasped in admiration, and Annie felt the tiniest twinge of envy. She loved her own style of crochet, but Kate possessed a rare gift: She was able to translate an image in her head to a material object for everyone to enjoy.

  “I made this for Vanessa,” Kate said softly. “I hope she likes it.”

  “How could she not?” Annie asked, leaning forward to examine the dress with her fingertips. The tiny scallops and shells, and the delicate picot stitches gave texture and grace to the entire garment. “Oh, Kate,” she sighed. “I just love your work.”

  “Thank you, Annie,” Kate said. “I consider that high praise. You do such lovely work yourself.”

  They put their heads together, each studying the other’s work-in-progress.

  Peggy cleared her throat loudly. “If you two are through founding Stony Point’s first Mutual Admiration Society, I have a question.” Peggy looked pointedly at Annie. “I think I speak for all of us when I ask, what intriguing thing did you find in that old cedar chest?”

  “Yes, what?” Mary Beth and Gwen said in unison. Stella merely smiled and waited for the answer.

  “Oh, just what you’d expect,” she replied as she busied herself with her hook and yarn and refused to meet anyone’s eyes. “Letters, cards, an old book or two. An old Bible with no inscription. There were some lovely silk scarves, though. Alice is going to use them for her Princessa parties.”

  In the chair next to Annie, Alice squirmed and gave her a meaningful glance, but Annie pretended not to see.

  Instead she held up her piece, examined a few stitches and asked, in what she hoped was an offhand way, “Please excuse me for changing the subject, but has anyone here ever heard of Joseph and Alta Harper?”

  “Didn’t he sell insurance door-to-door for a while?” Kate said.

  “No,” Mary Beth said, “that was John Hartley. Whatever happened to him, I wonder? I never did think he was much of a salesman. He sort of approached his potential customers with ‘you wouldn’t happen to need any insurance, would you?’ Well, that attitude will not sell snowballs on a hot day.”

  “Who are these Harper people you’re asking about?” Stella said, looking sharply at Annie.

  “I was hoping someone could tell me.”

  “I’ve never heard of them,” Gwen said.

  “Ah ha!” Peggy said loudly, dropping her quilt piece into her lap to point at Annie. A gleam shone in her eyes. “You did find something in the attic, didn’t you? Something that has to do with this Joseph and Alma Harper.”

  Annie crimped her mouth. She had hoped no one would notice her too clumsy segue from attic treasures to the identities of the Harpers.

  “It’s Alta, not Alma. And I just saw their names on something, that’s all.”

  Peggy never took her eyes off Annie. Neither did Stella or Alice. Even Kate stared at her with open curiosity.

  “Well you know, now that I think about it, I’m like you, Mary Beth. I wonder whatever did happen to John Hartley,” Gwen said, her gaze focused on the project in her hands. She didn’t see the others gawking at Annie. But her statement effectively, if temporarily, took the spotlight off of the younger woman.

  From the look on Alice’s face, though, Annie knew her good friend and neighbor would be unable to keep the Fairview deed a secret much longer. Annie sent her a pleading look, but Alice smiled blandly, as if she did not pick up on the clue.

  For a while the women speculated about John Hartley, his whereabouts and his success, and any family he might have had, but Alice was a bulldog that morning, not easily distracted.

  “Do you guys know anything about Fairview?” she asked, nonchalantly running floss through the yellow fabric of her frame-cover.

  “That old place?” Kate said. “As Vanessa would say, ewww!”

  Alice and Annie exchanged glances. That’s exactly what they had exclaimed when they opened the front door to the old house.

  “I drove by there, oh, it must have been around Christmas time on my way Down East to see an old friend in Hancock County,” Mary Beth said. “That place just looks awful. I don’t know why someone doesn’t just tear it down.”

  “It’s sad to see what was once a beautiful old home just go to ruin that way.” Gwen put down her work and gazed at nothing.

  Annie carefully put her toe in the water of this discussion.

  “You remember it then, Gwen? I mean before it became so run down?”

  “Oh, sure I do! And you, too, don’t you Mary Beth? And Alice?”

  The women nodded, but Alice added, “Just barely. I hardly ever go out on Doss Road.”

  “Well, it is off the beaten track,” Stella said.

  “Do you know anything about it … I mean, the people who owned it … or lived in it?” Annie asked the group in general. “Or even why it’s been left empty for so long? I mean, it just seems so sad … .” She let her voice trail because somehow that observation seemed disloyal to Gram.

  “Stony Point’s Nancy Drew,” laughed Peggy. “Trust Annie to want to know the wherefores and the whys.”

  Stella fixed a sharp gaze on Annie for so long that, Annie fidgeted.

  “I think there’s more to her interest than she’s letting on,�
� the older woman said at last. “And maybe it has something to do with these people she was asking about earlier.”

  Annie stared at Stella in dismay. Oh, how could she have been so transparent! She should know by now the women of the Hook and Needle Club were sharp-eyed and sharp-witted … and stubborn.

  “You might as well tell them,” Alice said.

  Annie gave her a frown, but Alice waved it off.

  “Annie, they are going to find out sooner or later.”

  “What?” Mary Beth said, her curiosity so keen it was nearly visible. Her reputation for inquisitiveness—some even said she was nosy—was well-earned.

  “Yes, for goodness sake!” Kate put in. “Tell us this new secret. Don’t make us drag it out of you, word by word.”

  Six pairs of bright eyes fixed on Annie, eagerly waiting.

  “Alice, I swear—,” she scolded her friend. She and Alice had already talked about this, and she thought the other woman understood her desire to keep the mystery surrounding Fairview under wraps for a while. Obviously not.

  Annie had to admit that her friend had a point. Maybe one of the Hook and Needle Club members could help her learn why Gram owned that old place, and why she had allowed it to fall into such disrepair. She sighed in resignation.

  “I found a deed in the cedar chest.”

  “A deed?” said Kate.

  “Not a deed to Foulview, by any chance?” Peggy all but squealed.

  “Yes. And please don’t call it that. That name makes it sound so … disgusting. The thing is … .” She paused, and then blurted out, “The thing is, that deed is in Gram’s name.”

  A stunned, short silence fell over the group.

  “Are you telling us that Elizabeth Holden, my dearest girlhood friend, owned that piece of real estate and simply let it go to rack and ruin?” Stella was all but glaring at Annie.

  “I’m sorry, but yes. That’s what it looks like.”

  “Impossible!” Stella announced, as if that one word could put everything right. “Betsy was too conscientious to let that happen.”

  “Yes, I agree! And well, that’s just a part of the mystery. The other part is, who are Joseph and Alta Harper? They owned Fairview before she did and signed it over to her. But who are they? Where are they? Why doesn’t anyone remember them? Stony Point is not big enough for people to live here and suddenly go missing, or at least remain totally unknown.”

  “You have a curiosity there, for sure,” Mary Beth said.

  “So have you been out there to Fairview and seen the place?” Kate asked, wide-eyed.

  “Up close and personal,” Alice answered, “and believe me, it was no picnic.”

  “Maybe not,” Annie said stoutly, “but I’m going back. There’s something about it that—”

  “Stay away from that old house!” Stella said, her voice like the sharp report of a rifle.

  8

  Everyone looked at Stella in surprise. She had leaned forward, eyes flashing, her gaze pinned on Annie. Usually when the woman spoke, it was quietly, in cultivated tones meant to convey class and decorum. Snapping loudly at anyone seemed unnatural.

  “Why, Stella!” Annie said. “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s right,” Mary Beth said. “No one should be snooping around that old place.”

  Annie drew herself poker straight and looked at the store owner. “Why not? Especially as it seems Fairview is mine now.”

  “Because it will fall in on your head, you silly girl,” Stella said. “Any old building left to itself is going to deteriorate to the point of being a danger.”

  “If the roof doesn’t collapse, the floor might,” Mary Beth said, “or that old chimney could give way. There is a multitude of things that could happen.”

  “Or not,” Annie said, a little put out by all the cautionary predictions. “It looked sound enough to me the other day. Just dirty and deserted for far too long.”

  “Humph!” Peggy said. “Give me an old floor, or an old roof, or an old chimney any day. I do not like ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Annie stared at her. “What do you mean ‘ghosts’?”

  “You know. Ghosts. People without bodies. Everyone knows Fairview is haunted. That’s why no one has set foot in there for so long. In fact, that is probably why the Harpers gave it to Betsy, and why she left it alone and never mentioned it to you.”

  “Oh, Peggy,” Annie laughed, shaking her head.

  “You mean, real ghosts?” Kate asked, eyes wide. “With chains and everything?”

  “Of course, real ghosts,” Peggy said.

  “You don’t believe that nonsense, surely!” Annie said. She looked from one to the other.

  Kate met Annie’s disbelieving eyes a moment longer, and then blinked. “No. No, of course not! But it sounds, you know—” She shuddered. “Creepy!”

  “Ghosts, my foot!” Stella said, “More like hoboes and tramps.”

  “Are there such things as hoboes these days?” Alice said, and then wistfully added, “I always thought it would be fun to be a hobo. You know, ride the rails, go from town to town, see new things every day—”

  “Eat out of garbage bins and drink from old tin cans? Beg for food, never take a bath? That’s your idea of fun?” Mary Beth shook her head. “You have crazy notions, sometimes, Alice.”

  “Yeah,” added Peggy. “If you were a hobo, how would you be able to keep up with your cross-stitch?”

  They all broke into laughter at that. Gwen gathered her knitting needles and yarn and put them in her tote.

  “This is a fascinating subject,” she said, “and I hate to leave you ladies, but I have a dental appointment in Portland. I asked his office staff to schedule me for any day but Tuesday, but wouldn’t you know, this is the only day free, unless I wanted to wait until late June. I would prefer to get it over with, thank you very much!”

  She gave a little wave as they said their goodbyes and left the meeting.

  “Well, I for one do not believe in ghosts,” Annie said after the door closed behind Gwen, “and I’ve been inside Fairview. It needs work. A lot of work. But it isn’t falling in. I’m not afraid to go back out there, and I plan on doing so. But I also want to find out who the Harpers are, and why Gram owned that place.”

  “Betsy never told you about it?” Peggy asked. “Not even a hint?”

  “Never. Not the least little hint. Alice had to tell me where Fairview was located. And another thing: Gram never mentioned Joseph and Alta Harper, either.”

  Stella examined her last row of stitches, and then said, “Could be there was a good reason for that.” She looked up. “Betsy was not the type to do things for no good reason.”

  “I agree,” Annie told her. “And this is why I’ve been so reluctant to share this bit of news with you.”

  Mary Beth narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you think Betsy did something … underhanded?”

  “Why, no! Of course not. Gram was not that kind of person.”

  “And yet you have been so secretive about this. You found the deed when?”

  “Several days ago.”

  “Odd to me that you didn’t even want to tell your friends,” Stella said, exchanging a glance with Mary Beth.

  “Yes. Almost like you don’t trust us,” Mary Beth said, then added, “Or your grandmother.”

  “Why, no! That’s not true at all. I just wanted to wait a bit, until I knew more.”

  This line of conversation made Annie uncomfortable, twining confusion, guilt, and defensiveness around her until she wanted to leave the meeting. She looked at Alice who placidly continued to work on her cross-stitch. Annie wished with all her heart her friend had seen fit to keep quiet about the deed for a little longer.

  Suddenly all Annie’s earlier homesickness sprang up anew. She knew Wayne would have recognized her need to understand this enigmatic side of Gram that was so mysterious. LeeAnn, in her youthful wisdom, would have been able to discuss the facets of this latest bit of knowledge. It se
emed no one who surrounded Annie right then had the least inkling of how the discovery of this latest mystery had affected her.

  Annie looked at every member of the group, one by one. She wanted to get away from those curious stares and those expressions that seemed almost accusatory in their intent.

  Early on, when she had first moved to Stony Point, Annie had not had the easiest time fitting in. Sure, most of the club members had been friendly and welcoming, but some of them—especially Stella—had held her at arm’s length, as if she had had any other agenda than wanting to be a part of the circle they’d formed. She thought she had overcome all that. And now … .

  She had fought homesickness and loneliness for her family so much the last few weeks, that her mood had often bordered miserable. Now that she had finally made some progress, was she willing to give any of it up? No way! She was not about to let anyone or anything else defeat her today.

  She swallowed hard, straightened her shoulders.

  “I am going back out to Doss Road, and I am going to look through Fairview again. Do any of you want to go with me?”

  There was the briefest of silences.

  “Pfft!” said Mary Beth, flicking one hand. “Not me. That place is dangerous.”

  “Nor I.” Stella knitted energetically, a deep furrow between her brows. “I’m not about to break my neck prowling around some old wreck of a house.”

  “I might not like them, but I want to look for ghosts.” Peggy said emphatically.

  “There aren’t any ghosts,” Annie told her.

  Peggy met her eyes. “Listen. You’ll probably want to sell Foulview—I mean, Fairview. Believe me when I say that no one will want to buy it if they think it’s haunted. Right?”

  Annie thought about it. She did not want to keep the place, of course. And she acknowledged very few buyers, if any, would show interest in the house if they believed ghosts ran amuck through the rooms.

  “This way, if we go and see or hear any spirits lurking around,” Peggy continued with increasing enthusiasm, “we can call in specialists to run them out, or send them on their way, or show them the light, or whatever it is those people do.”