A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery)

by Merabeth James

  Meg nodded. “Why would anyone want to do that to a butterfly! And hundreds of them to boot! What will we do with them?”

  “How about donating them to the public library,” Moe said from the doorway, his long length taking up all the space. “Not the thing I’d want hanging around either, but Mrs. Shotz might be interested. She’d be the one to talk to and, if you have them with you, it might be harder to say ‘no’. By the way, the plumber wants to get in your bathrooms. The one in the pink room has a leak around the toilet, needs a new wax seal, and the one in here has a busted faucet. Meanwhile, I’ll get these taken down and hauled to your truck. And I’ll get those carpets out of the hall. What do you want me to do with them?”

  Meg replied, “It needs a good cleaning, but I want to keep the pink and white one. The other can go in the dumpster, unless you want to keep it, Charlie?”

  “No, there’s not much in here I want to keep. Thanks for helping with the cases, Moe, they do look awfully heavy,” Charlie said with the first hint of feminine helplessness Meg had ever heard her big sister utter. Despite Charlie’s pointed scowls, she was still laughing, after Moe had loaded the truck and they were headed towards town.

  ***

  As it turned out, Mrs. Shotz was more than happy to accept their ‘donation’ and she was even happier to have cornered the pair who’d won Hensley Hall and taken it off the town’s hands.

  “Would have been there to greet you, when you first came to town, but some of us have to work for a living, don’t we? I know the real reason you’re here, girls. You want to find out about that house of yours, right?” she asked with a glint in her close set eyes, then continued without waiting for a reply. “Now what would you like to hear about first, the suicides, the disappearance, or the murders?”

  With a smorgasbord of horrors like that to choose from, where to begin, Charlie thought dryly, then said. “The murders…that was probably forty years ago? What happened?”

  Mrs. Shotz paused for a long moment strictly for dramatic effect, Charlie thought, then began. “Of course, I was barely a child myself back then, so I do hope you’ll understand if my memory is a bit spotty. Anyway, Merritsville had three girls dead and one missing. Breanna…the missing one…was one of the Hensleys. The Hensleys of Hensley Hall. Your place now.

  "They found the others. Dead as door nails…all beautiful girls still in their teens. Went to high school with Breanna. Were friends of hers. It was monstrous. Simply monstrous! All found naked as the day they were born and…you know…molested. Brutally, like some wild animal! It was shocking…just shocking! They called him the ‘Stoneman’.” She paused again savoring the anticipation.

  “The ’Stoneman’?” Charlie prompted her.

  Mrs. Shotz used the well practiced stare of the seasoned librarian…one that was meant to shoot down the most hardened offender and Charlie had just trod on Mrs Shotz story. “Sh-h-h-hh! If you want to hear the rest you will need to be quiet. Now where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yes! He was called the ‘Stoneman’ because of the way he left his victims.” Another long pause that had Charlie opening her mouth again, just as Meg pinched her underarm. Hard! “He put a stone in their mouths and taped it shut….their mouths, can you believe it?. Then he taped their eyes shut, .though I don’t know if it was the eyes or the mouth he taped up first. Neat job of it from what I heard!

  “It was really horrible. Nobody slept sound around here for months. The police had several persons of interest in mind.”

  “Who were they?” Charlie asked, risking another ‘shushing’.

  Mrs. Shotz smiled thinly and without humor. “A couple of outsiders, at first, but they didn’t amount to much. After Bea’s autopsy, she was the second victim, they thought her boyfriend was the killer. Can’t remember his name. Wild as the devil, he was, and just as mean from all I heard. The papers said that Bea was in a family way and he didn’t want to be saddled with a wife and kids. Ended up hanging himself before they arrested him, which was kind of strange. Didn’t seem the kind to take that way out. More the bolt and run type. Then there was a third murder and he was dead, so they looked elsewhere.”

  “If he was ‘the bolt and run type’ why didn’t he do just that? And why kill the first victim?” Charlie asked.

  “Red herring! He knew he’d be the first one the police came after and he wanted to make it look like a serial killer was responsible,” Mrs. Shotz told her smugly and with a twitch of irritation.

  “That seems a little extreme to me. So there was another killing after he committed suicide, who was the next suspect?”

  “That brother of Breanna’s. Always thought he was a weird duck. Fraternal twins they were, but looked almost identical except for the gender difference, of course. He went crazy as a two-headed loon, though, when she disappeared right after the third girl was murdered. Went around looking for her and then he just walked off, before the police could collar him. His parents didn’t seem sorry to see him gone in this woman’s opinion, but they missed Breanna. He died in a train wreck up north some place…they shipped his body back here and buried him in the family mauseleum.”

  “About the twins, could you tell us…?” Charlie began to ask.

  “As I said. I’m busy. If you want to know more about the twins you ought to visit Nell Arnold up at Sunnyvale Nursing Home. She was their nanny. Could tell you all you need to know and then some, if she still has her wits about her. Though I never did think she was holding on to much in that department, if you ask me.”

  “Thank you for the information, Mrs. Shotz. We won’t take up any more of your valuable time,” Charlie told her wryly.

  Her sarcasm was wasted on Mrs. Shotz. "Thank you for your lovely donation. I have just the place for them," she said with her thin-lipped smile, and both sisters were very sure she had!

  ***

  Both sisters were thoughtful on the drive back. To say that their house had a ‘bad luck’ history was an understatement and a half! No wonder the spirits that haunted it were restless!

  “Maybe the 'weird duck’ twin was responsible for the murders,” Meg said, studying her sister’s reaction.

  “You mean the butterfly collector and the former occupant of the bedroom I’m supposed to sleep in? Who knows? Maybe, he was, but it wouldn’t be the first time the cops got it wrong. We just don’t know enough,” Charlie told her.

  “A trip to the nanny should tell us a lot more. Whatever is in that house needs us. It’s up to us to find out what that is and help if we can. This Nell Arnold, .if she’s still lucid, sounds like a pretty good place to start,” Meg replied.

  “Or the police. It’s a closed case now, but they’ll still have all the investigative evidence. But will they let us take a look?” Charlie asked with one raised brow, a trick her sister envied and never mastered.

  “Bat your eyes at them. You were doing a great job of fluttering those long lashes at Moe just before we left,” Meg told her sister. Seeing her blush…something Charlie rarely did…triggered a bout of laughter, until Charlie pulled off the road and faced her. “I wasn’t batting anything, but, if you keep laughing like a lunatic, I may consider batting you!”

  But that only made Meg laugh harder. When she had finally wound to a stop, Charlie sighed and said, “Let’s take the rest of the day off. Clearly, we’re starting to get a little punchy…bad choice of words…a little hysterical and I suggest we spend the rest of the day shopping. Something I know you like to do.”

  “We need sheets, blankets, towels, dishes, pots and pans…”

  Charlie let Meg rattle on, as she pulled back on the road and headed to the closest thing to a mall in Merritsville. Several hours later and well past dark, they headed back to the motel. Pulling in front of their room, Charlie leaned back and sighed, “We’re going to leave everything in the back. We’re both too pooped to be unloading all that. I don’t care if every sheet and towel thief in Merritsville shows up here tonight.”

  “And the po
ts and pans thief”

  “Right! How could I forget them? Tomorrow, we’ll stock the fridge, finish cleaning the bedrooms and baths, then come back here for Freddie. If we can pry him away from Hannah. I think she’d like to keep him. ”

  “As though that will ever happen! Just think. Tomorrow we can spend our first night in our new home...all three of us together. Won’t that be great?”

  Charlie sighed, which was getting to be a habit with her and not a good one, she thought. “I sure hope so,” she managed to reply.

  ***

  The next day was Sunday and the place deserted when they pulled up in front of the house. Already, it looked so different! With much of the ivy pulled away, it seemed kind of naked, Meg thought, smaller and vulnerable, like an old woman caught in just her bloomers. “Okay, first day, and night, in our new home. Feels like we ought to have someone carry us both over the threshold, don’t you think? Someone like Moe?”

  “You just won’t quit, will you?” Charlie asked with exaggerated patience. “Might as well drive around to the back door. It will be a lot easier to unload everything from there.”

  “We can do that later. I want to open the front door first and walk in like we own this place!” Meg said with a huge smile. “Imagine us, the mistresses of Hensley Hall! We’ll have to change that of course…maybe Ravynne’s Roost? Anyway, that’s what I want to do!”

  “Well, come on then. The front hall’s not been cleaned yet, but the railing has been fixed, so we don’t have to look at that reminder dangling over our heads.”

  Meg opened the Ford’s door and slid out. Freddie jumped down and sniffed the air, then the ground, and finally the porch, where he lifted one leg and peed. Charlie raised an eyebrow and Meg laughed. “He’s just marking his territory. I think that’s a good sign.”

  “As long as he confines his ‘marking’ to the outside. Here goes, Meg. The moment we have been waiting for. Drum roll please,” Charlie said, as she turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

  Meg sighed, dramatically, and stepped inside. Charlie followed on her heels, but Freddie didn’t. In fact, Freddie sat on his haunches just outside the threshold and howled. Something neither sister knew he was capable of. As howls went it was almost wolf-like and Freddie seemed rather proud and perhaps a little surprised that it had emanated from him.

  “Well, here’s a problem we hadn’t anticipated. What do we do now?” Meg asked.

  “I suppose we could drape one of your new sheets over his head and carry him inside,” mused Charlie.

  “Don’t even say that out loud! He can hear you, you know. He would be terrified!”

  “More than he is now? Well, yard dog isn’t a possibility, so what is your brilliant plan?”

  “Bribe him with food. I have jelly doughnuts in the truck that were meant for us, but whatever it takes. He loves doughnuts!”

  But it didn’t work. Freddie sniffed the air, eyed the jelly doughnut with real longing, and then looked at Meg. If a dog could sigh, she swore that was what she heard, but he didn’t budge from the porch. “Freddie, please. No one is going to hurt you. I wouldn’t let them. Please!” she begged. Freddie whined, wriggled his bottom and plunked down, resting his chin on his crossed front legs.

  “Any other brilliant ideas?” Charlie asked, trying not to laugh at her clearly frustrated sister.

  “I suppose I could lie on the cleanest part of this floor, though I really don’t want to, and moan,” Meg told her thoughtfully.

  “And moan?

  “He’ll try to rescue me! In case you haven’t noticed, he’s very protective of me,” Meg told her with a touch of pride.

  “That’s not the way I heard it from your very lips not that long ago. And how are you going to keep him inside, moan indefinitely? I for one won’t be able to handle that.”

  Meg shot her a squelching look. “I’m hoping that once he’s inside, he’ll want to stay. And, of course, you’ll close the door behind him.”

  “There’s a blanket behind the seat in the truck. I’ll go get it. I don’t want to miss a minute of this,” Charlie replied.

  She was back in moments. With Freddie watching from the porch, his shaggy white head cocked quizzically, Meg caught the blanket Charlie threw her and spread it out on the black and white marble floor.

  Lying on her back she looked up at the deeply shadowed ceiling some distance above her head. She had a pretty good idea of how ridiculous she looked and found herself repressing a giggle. Something Charlie didn’t bother to hide. In fact, she was laughing quite loudly in a really irritating way.

  Clearing her throat, Meg experimented with a variety of moans settling on one that sounded like a strangled cat. She was well into her third one…her best so far…when Freddie had had enough. In three bounds, he cleared the threshold and landed on top of her.

  Laughing, Meg held her wriggling dog and wiped his spit from her well-licked face. “See! A mother knows her fur child!” she said just as Freddie bristled and took off at a run, chasing something down the hall towards the back of the house. “I’ve only seen him do that when he’s had a squirrel or a cat in his sights. But at least he’s headed in the right direction. I’ll follow him, while you can drive around to the back. We can toss a coin to see who fixes lunch?”

  Charlie was still laughing too hard to reply

  ***

  It was nice to have a real fridge again even an avocado green one. The ‘mini’ they’d suffered with at the motel could barely hold the doggie bags and leftovers from every restaurant in Merritsville. Charlie lost the coin toss and made lunch, while Meg made a gallon of ‘sun’ tea. When Charlie shot her an inquiring look, she explained, “It makes me feel homey. Remember the great sun tea Sage made for all of us?”

  They took their time over lunch, cracking open a bottle of wine, and the hours flew past, as they shared mutual memories, some good and some they could have done without. “But if we’re happy where we are, it doesn’t matter how many roads it took to get here,” Meg reminded her. Charlie watched her sister babble on, as she often did, and smiled to herself. It was so good to see her happy and excited again. That made everything worth it. At least everything so far!

  The dishes were a mutual effort and then Charlie told her, “Time we unloaded the rest of our stuff and finished upstairs before it gets too late.”

  Meg looked around. It was already late afternoon and the night would follow close on its heels. Already she could feel the atmosphere in the house shift and change. It was beginning to exude a waiting hushed expectancy. Meg hoped, rather desperately, that it wasn’t going to be the “got you now’ kind!

  Bit by bit and bag by bag, they carried their purchases through the kitchen and up the servants stairs that opened on the second floor right outside their doors. Together they dragged up the new area rug for Charlie’s ‘Blue Room’. Spreading it out on the floor, they stepped back to admire it, while Freddie plunked down in the middle and rolled around, making funny little noises in his throat that Meg interpreted as ‘expressions of delight’. “As long as he doesn’t pee on it, I’m happy to share, ” Charlie told her dryly.

  “Just wait. This is only the beginning. Some paint, a few pictures on the walls…. Look at your little balcony and the fireplace is exquisite, not as exquisite as mine, but that’s to be expected. This was a boy’s room after all.”

  “And you needed to remind me of that, didn’t you? Here,” Charlie said, tossing her sister a plastic wrapped mattress cover.

  “You don’t really think this is the bed of a murderer, do you?” Meg asked her, as she ripped off the wrapping.

  “Maybe. ”

  “I never like it when you use that tone and scowl like that at the same time. Maybe? What does that mean?”

  “After Devon left town, the killings stopped, remember?”

  “So you do think that Devon is the murderer?” Meg asked.

  “We’re back to ‘maybe’. I’ve seen ‘police evidence’ before. That’s
why Rayne was charged with murder. Never mind, let’s finish up here and then do yours. That was all a very long time ago, anyway,” Charlie told her.

  Freddie watched from his rug, as they made the bed and moved on to the bathroom, where a new bath rug and bright turquoise towels made quite a difference. When they opened the door to Meg’s room, they were both surprised to see a tail wagging Freddie push past them and bound into the middle of the four-poster bed.

  “Get down, Freddie!” His tail thumped even harder. “All right. Have it your way. I don’t think you’ll like being a bed lump,” Meg threatened.

  But, apparently he did! Burrowing like a mole under the mattress cover they laughingly tossed over him, he seemed to be enjoying himself way too much. When they had had enough, even if he didn't, they peeled back the cover. He blinked, owlishly, up at them, then uttered a single ‘woof’, which could have meant anything.

  Meg lifted him down and they finished with the bed, pulling a rose chintz duvet over the top and stuffing the matching shams with their newly purchased pillows. Neither noticed Freddie’s interest in a spot just left of the fireplace, or the way his eyes tracked something, or someone, across the room and out the door.

  After their rooms were ready, they headed down to the kitchen , where Meg made supper…a warmed up rotisserie chicken from the deli and a tub of potato salad from the same place. Plans were discussed. They decided they would take it room by room, as they could afford it, once Moe and his men were finished with all the ’necessaries“.

  ”I’m glad my DSL line will be in tomorrow,“ Charlie said. ”The tower room will be a perfect place to write. And I’m going to have to do a lot of it, if we’re going to be able to keep up with what this house sucks in!“

  “There will still be a lot on hammering and sawing going on till Moe’s finished. You could try using that ‘sound machine’ I bought for you back in the apartment, when you told me I made too much noise even breathing.”