There were six of them gathered around the table—Gary and Alice Frampton, Liza Harcourt, Jon Skye, Vickie and Griffin.
Jon looked straight at Griffin as he spoke, as if it was his approval he was seeking.
Jon wasn’t seated. He was serving. Besides his meat loaf, he had a nice-looking Caesar salad on the table, too.
“I’m sure it’s going to be great,” Griffin said. “Not to mention, it’s just so nice to have you do this, and serve us.”
“Hey, well, ask my boss. I’m good at the serving kind of thing,” Jon said lightly.
Griffin looked over at Gary Frampton, still curious. Gary wasn’t happy about Alice seeing Jon, he thought, and yet, Gary didn’t really seem to be any kind of an elitist. But he barely acknowledged Jon’s comment.
Maybe he just disliked the idea that something had apparently been going on beneath his nose that he hadn’t seen—until he’d been forced to.
And it might have been more. Did Gary suspect Jon of illegal activity—something more than a father’s suspicion regarding anyone seeing his daughter?
“Food! What does food matter?” Liza murmured, looking around the table.
There were two extra place settings.
“Where is Alistair?” Liza asked. “And that woman from the shop?”
“They’ve both been invited, Liza,” Gary said.
“I thought they both said that they were coming!” she said.
“They will come. Liza—there were no time limits on people arriving,” Gary said.
“How can we have the séance?” Liza asked.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have a séance!” Alice exploded. “My dad is here to escape. Very bad things happened. Maybe we don’t all want to be reminded of them over and over. Jon worked hard, if you don’t mind...”
“The meat loaf really is delicious,” Vickie said brightly. “Excellent. Thank you, Jon. And Liza, think about it—don’t you really prefer the nighttime for your séances, anyway?”
Liza shrugged, still looking unhappy. Griffin wondered just what it was the woman must have over Gary; he’d invited her out to his place when he had supposedly come here to escape, just as Alice had suggested.
Money? Influence in the city?
Or was he afraid that she did know something, have some kind of connection with the dead? And if something was going to come out—some piece of information, a clue, anything that had to do with the two dead men... Did he want to make sure he was there for it?
“Really?” Jon asked Vickie anxiously. “You’re not just saying that?”
“Nope. And I understand what you were saying. There is nothing wrong with trying fresh new things, but sometimes traditional is awfully darned good. This is wonderful, as far as my taste buds are concerned. The honey gives it just a touch of sweetness, and I think that the oatmeal makes it richer than just bread crumbs... Well, I’m not sure what does what, but it’s excellent, Jon.”
“It is almost...good,” Gary said. He looked at Jon, nodding slowly.
“Thank you!” Jon said drily, his tone not quite sarcastic.
A very tall and handsome blonde woman strode into the room, waving cheerfully to all the guests. “Hello! Do you need some help at all?” She had a broad face and a wide smile, and seemed delighted to see all the people in the dining room. She walked over to Vickie and Griffin and offered them handshakes. “I’m Hallie. Sven is right behind me. We’re so happy to have you. It’s great out here, but lonely sometimes, too. Don’t tell Sven I said that.”
Griffin had stood as soon as she’d come in. Vickie had done the same, and told Hallie what a pleasure it was to meet her.
“And here is Sven,” Hallie said, pointing as a very tall and attractive blond man walked into the room.
“Hello, all,” he said, only a trace of accent in his voice.
“Sven, I’m Griffin, and this is Vickie.”
Sven beamed as well. “Yes! You are from the FBI. How very nice. Welcome. So happy to meet you. We’ve never met a government man before. G-man, right? Like Elliot Ness, the Untouchables and all?”
“Kind of—and not really at all,” Griffin assured him. “Norway?”
“Exactly! You nailed it. Most people say Sweden. But I have been here, in the United States, since I was a boy of about fifteen.”
“I just look Scandinavian,” Hallie said. “Born and raised in DC. A city girl, but I love it out here.”
“And they do wonders with the little we give them to keep the place up,” Alice said.
“Yes, really, Gary, it’s disgraceful,” Liza said.
“There are more guests coming, too, right?” Hallie asked, looking around. “We’ve been in town—picking up some groceries—but I thought that there were a few more people coming.”
“They’re expected soon,” Gary said.
“I hope you guys are hungry,” Jon Skye said. “There’s a lot of meat loaf.”
“May we join you?” Hallie asked, pulling out a chair.
“Of course!” Jon said, enthused. “Hang on, I’ll—”
“You sit, we’ll help ourselves,” Hallie said. “And then you must relax. Cooks do not pick up after themselves, not when we’re around, right, Sven?”
“Right!”
Apparently, there was just too much cheer going around for Liza Harcourt. She stood suddenly. “I’ll be in my room, if the others ever show up.”
“Hallie and Sven are here now,” Jon said, “If you need eight people...”
“I need the right eight people!” Liza snapped. “And really, Mr. Skye, you’re not among the right eight yourself, not fully in our Poe society, so, please, if you will, don’t make suggestions!”
There was silence as she left the room.
Hallie cleared her throat and portioned out some meat loaf for Sven.
“Bitch,” Alice muttered.
“Alice,” Gary said.
“Well, she really is one of the most unpleasant people, Gary,” Hallie said quietly. “I’m not sure why you let her come, but...hey. It’s your place.”
Hallie was certainly no ordinary housekeeper. But she wasn’t really a housekeeper, per se. She was a property manager more or less, and she evidently had no problem telling Gary what she thought of things.
“Bitch!” Alice repeated. “Honestly, Dad, you should tell her. She just has no right to speak to Jon that way.”
“Or anyone,” Sven said quietly.
Everyone looked over at him and he looked up with a flush. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place. But it’s true, she’s just not a very pleasant woman.”
“She’s just...” Gary began, and then he shook his head. “I’ve known Liza forever. We were in a book club together before I had any idea of opening the restaurant—before the building became available. And when I knew that I wanted to open it, I really, truly, shamefully used Liza Harcourt. I got her to form the Blackbird Society. She promoted the restaurant—she put us on the map.”
“Hey, Gary, it’s okay,” Jon said. “Some people are rude. That’s their problem. She doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, it is a problem,” Gary said.
“The meat loaf! It’s wonderful!” Hallie said.
“Isn’t it?” Vickie agreed enthusiastically. “Really nice.”
“So wonderful!” Sven agreed. He smiled. “So, what will you do now?” His question was addressed to Vickie and Griffin.
Vickie answered.
Griffin, however, knew exactly what she would say.
“Oh, the family graveyard,” she said. “That’s a wonderful old graveyard out there. Gary, I was hoping you’d give us a tour.”
“A tour sounds great,” Griffin said.
“There’s no underground crypt or anything, is there?” Vickie asked. “
Sorry, I was thinking ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and the like.”
Alice laughed. “No! God help us, at least all our old family corpses are outside. Ugh! I don’t think I could stay here, no matter what, if they were downstairs.”
“I wouldn’t mind a tour, either,” Jon said. He added, explaining to the others, “This is my first trip to Franklin Manor. I’ve had a great time seeing the house, but I haven’t been out to the graveyard myself. I’d love to go.”
Alice groaned.
“And Dad loves to give tours. You guys go ahead. Hallie and Sven and I will pick up.”
“Oh, we can all help,” Vickie said.
“No, no. Out. Make my dad happy,” Alice said. “Please.”
“Okay,” Vickie said, rising. “Jon, thank you for a great meal.”
“Come on, I’ll tell you about the statue trail and then the cemetery. We can head out the back door,” Gary told them. “Just go back out to the hall and to the end. The original house was a little shotgun cottage, front door, back door—you could shoot straight and go right through the place. I guess you know more than I do about Colonial times, though, Vickie. It’s my understanding that you are respected in your field.”
“She’s very, very good,” Griffin couldn’t help but say.
“But I’m sure you’re the expert when it comes to your family home on the outskirts of Baltimore,” Vickie said.
Gary grinned, pleased. “Okay, so the statues!”
The path was badly overgrown. Vines covered the handsomely crafted marble statues of Shakespearean and other literary characters. A rusting gate and broken brick wall surrounded the family cemetery.
“These are real marble. Very cool!” Jon said, admiring a life-sized statue of Shakespeare’s Juliet.
“Beautiful,” Vickie agreed.
“I think I like the Ophelia at the end best,” Griffin commented.
“Ophelia, yes—pointing the way to the end!” Jon said. “So sad—that statue is even more amazing. I’m assuming one of your ancestors commissioned these, right, Gary?”
“Yeah, a great-great-great...something. The artist was an Italian immigrant. You’ll see his work other places in the area. I think it is really worth something now. Poor bastard, worked his ass off during his lifetime. He just made a living, so I’ve heard. Antonio Baldi—that was his name. Oh, and he’s in one of the mausoleums, by the way.”
“Cool,” Jon applauded. “And here...the cemetery!” he said.
The name Frampton was worked into the metal of the arch that sat high above the gate.
“I probably should take that down one day. It disturbs Alice,” Gary said.
“In this day and age, most last names have been around—and they’ll be found on a tombstone somewhere,” Griffin noted.
“True,” Gary agreed.
“It’s really not as overgrown as it could be,” Vickie noted.
Griffin glanced over at her. “No?” In his mind, it was heavily overgrown. He was a Bostonian by birth, and he was accustomed to visiting very old graveyards and cemeteries. Of course, in the city of Boston, they were pretty well kept up. Yet there were dozens of really old towns in Massachusetts. Dozens of towns where Mother Nature wanted to reclaim her dead.
“Hallie has a lawn guy come now and then. I think he rips out the worst of the weeds,” Gary offered. “It’s not that bad, is it?”
“Very atmospheric,” Vickie assured him.
“There are, of course, more than Frampton family members in here. Friends... A few dead Southerners and a few dead Northerners. Servants. And pets! That section over there is dedicated to our four-legged friends. Cats and dogs, mainly, though I believe there are a few raccoons the family became attached to as well,” Gary told them. “But for you, I guess, some of our earliest graves are the most significant. The oldest stones are from the 1760s. The oldest family vault is back there—looks like a medieval castle, doesn’t it? A small one, but a medieval castle.”
The oldest Frampton vault had been built in the Gothic style, and it resembled a miniature Notre Dame. Vines crawled around it and it was surrounded by slanted, ancient tombstones, broken-winged cherubs and more.
“Antonio Baldi, the sculptor, is in there!” Gary said.
“How many burials and interments are there here?” Griffin asked Gary.
“Oh, I think around eight or nine hundred, if I remember right,” Gary said. “They first settled here right around the Revolution, so generations, friends during the generations. Slaves,” he added unhappily. Then he said, “See that building over there? That’s a little chapel. I guess, at one time, they held services for the dead right on the property and in the graveyard. Anyway, there’s an old Bible there with all the inhabitants of our estate listed. Don’t worry, it’s not just rotting away. I did get a reinforced glass case for it. And the key is up in my study. No one knows where it is,” he assured them. He waved a hand in the air. “I just never thought to be that paranoid. I mean, I had an alarm system at the restaurant. Who would have ever thought that I needed to be worried that some psycho wanted to murder people there?”
There was no answer for him.
They walked along a path with broken flagstones leading the way and Gary pointed out another of the haphazard mausoleums that dotted the graveyard.
“That mausoleum isn’t the oldest in the cemetery, but to me, it holds one of my most important ancestors—General David Frampton. He was one of the leaders when the colony went against the British during the War of 1812. The Battle of Baltimore was won on September 13, 1814—and my ancestor was key in repulsing the attack by land and sea. Francis Scott Key wrote ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ right after that battle. Anyway, General Frampton died in 1850 and, as you can see, his name is etched into this mausoleum, even though there are about a dozen people in there—great-aunts, uncles...they did a lot of propagating back then. Me, I just have Alice. When my wife, Elyssa, died, I just never...” Gary Frampton broke off and shrugged. “She’s here, Elyssa is here, buried in the newer vault my grandfather put up in the 1920s,” he added.
He pointed across the graveyard. Vickie nodded and smiled at him. “Very art nouveau!” she told him.
Griffin studied the mausoleum. He wasn’t sure that he could have pegged it as art nouveau, but it was a very handsome building with a clean style to the marble facade and stained-glass windows that looked as if they had come from Tiffany’s.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Vickie told him.
“It has been a long time now. Over a decade,” he said, flashing her a smile. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I’m very sorry, too,” Jon Skye said.
Gary didn’t seem to hear him. But then they were all suddenly aware of another sound.
A distant roll of thunder growled, and a jagged flash of yellow lit up the sky.
A breeze suddenly picked up, and the sky seemed to slip into darkness after the slash of light.
“I guess it’s going to rain,” Griffin said.
“We should get back to the house,” Gary said.
“A sound plan, I’d say!” Jon agreed, and started on the return trek.
Gary followed him.
Vickie had paused. The breeze lifted her dark hair and it swirled around her; for a moment, she looked like an extremely beautiful Ophelia or Juliet herself.
“Vickie, you coming?”
She nodded.
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Just thinking what?”
She smiled at him.
“It was a dark and stormy night!” she whispered.
And then she hurried ahead of him, and he rushed as well, wanting to get back before the promised rain began to fall with a vengeance.
11
They were just back in the house when it seemed that the sky split open; a truly brilliant flash of lightning lit up the heavens, a massive crash boomed and the rain began.
“Now, that’s a storm,” Jon announced, panting slightly as he stared out the back door; they’d all done a bit of running to get in before the deluge.
As he spoke, lightning flashed across the sky again.
There was another tremendous clap of thunder.
And the lights inside the house went out.
For a moment, it was very dark—Vickie couldn’t see the people around her. Then what was left of the light of day managed to trickle in. They stood in the storm shadow of the afternoon, near the back door. When she turned, the main hall of the old house seemed like something out of a movie—light tried to make its way in the front windows; it could only manage a few weak streaks.
“Oh, ouch!” Alice said, meeting up with them in the back hall. She shivered and hurried over to Jon and slipped her arm around him. “Great, just great. Good thinking, Dad. We’re not just out in the nowhere ’burbs, we’re out in the nowhere ’burbs without cable or Wi-Fi!”
“Oh, we’ll survive,” Gary said.
“No lights, no television...with the Queen of Mean upstairs!” Alice said.
“Shh!” her father warned.
“Hey, it’s not even full dark yet. It will be pitch-black later,” Alice said. She looked around at them all. “This place used to terrify me when I was little, when we lost power because of a storm. Even when it’s at its best, the furniture is older than sin and the spiders around here seem to work double-time.”
“The power could come back on by tonight,” Griffin said. “That’s possible, right?”
“Sure. They rush to get the power back up where there’s only one house,” Alice said bleakly.
“You’ve never gotten a generator?” Griffin asked.
“No, we’re just not here that much these days,” Gary said.
Vickie thought that even Griffin was startled when they heard a massive slam and then a banging against the door.
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