Dark Homecoming

by William Patterson

  She felt sad about Rita. She had been so young, so pretty. She’d never really felt she could trust Rita, but the young woman had been kind to her last night. Still, as Liz thought about it, Rita’s kindness to her had possibly been a ruse, a way to get her upstairs. There, Rita had hoped, she’d surprise David’s latest girlfriend by introducing her to his wife. Did Rita see it as some form of revenge for having been dumped by David?

  But if that scenario was true, then where had the woman gone? Was Rita wrong about which room she’d entered? Had the woman slipped out somehow before they got there? But the door was locked from the inside. None of this made any sense at all.

  Liz supposed the easiest thing to believe was that Rita was unstable—hysterical. There was never any woman who snuck upstairs. And Rita’s killer was some stranger at the bar, with whom she’d flirted, and who followed her out to her car and killed her for whatever psychotic motivations drove him to do such things. None of this had anything to do with David, or with her. On reflection, that seemed the easiest to believe—the theory that made the most sense.

  So why didn’t Liz believe it?

  Because there were two other dead employees of Huntington House, and a third one just made the likelihood of all of them being coincidences very low indeed.

  She had no one she could talk to about any of this here at the house. Mrs. Hoffman had merely said tersely that it was best they said as little as possible to the police and to anyone until David returned; we wouldn’t want to make the scandal any worse, she asked, would we? Then the housekeeper had disappeared somewhere in the house. Liz had thought about talking with Variola; the chef had offered a sympathetic ear in the past, and Liz thought Variola might be able to help her feel better again now. But in the end, she’d agreed that Mrs. Hoffman was right: until they heard from David, the best thing was to say nothing to anybody.

  She was conflicted over the fact that Nicki was coming to see her. It was a sweet, lovely gesture, of course, and certainly Liz would be glad to have a real friend to lean on, someone unconnected to this house and its secrets, someone who would be there for her and for her only. But Liz also knew Nicki’s tendency to stir the pot. Nicki wasn’t known for her discretion; Liz was going to have to insist that her friend not go around telling off Mrs. Hoffman—or worse, snapping at detectives Foley and McFarland when they asked questions that seemed too tough on Liz. Nicki was likely to start shouting at the reporters in the street, and no doubt she’d confront David, too, when he came home, badgering him to tell what he knew.

  Liz sighed. She was going to have to keep Nicki on a short leash or she just might set a match to this powder keg, making everything much, much worse.

  If only there was one person she could trust . . .

  At that very moment, a hand gently gripped her shoulder.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” came a familiar male voice.

  Liz looked up. Roger stood above her, looking down at her. The sun reflected the quiet concern in his eyes.

  She sprang up and was immediately in his arms. “Roger!” she cried.

  “There, there, Liz,” he said softly in her ear.

  “Oh, Roger, it’s all so terrible.”

  “I know. I heard it all on the news. The police are publicly asking David to return from Europe as soon as possible.”

  She looked up at him. “They’re calling him a ‘person of interest.’ ”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean suspect.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  He placed his hand gently against her cheek. “You can’t possibly think he had anything to do with Rita’s death, do you?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what to think. He acted so strange before he suddenly left . . .”

  “David often acts strange when it comes to business matters.”

  Liz nodded, breaking free of Roger’s embrace and taking a few steps away from him. She had let herself forget for a moment that there were eyes everywhere in this house.

  “I just worry . . .” Liz couldn’t finish. “Oh, Roger, she had a private number for David on her phone. An international mobile number.”

  Roger nodded.

  “You knew this?” Liz asked.

  “I never knew for certain, but . . .” He hesitated, then spoke. “Liz, during the last couple months of Dominique’s life, we all noticed how . . . how close David and Rita had become.”

  “So he was having an affair with her!”

  “I don’t know how close.” He hesitated again. “But Dominique suspected as much.”

  “Did she confront Rita?”

  “Not that I know of. There wasn’t really all that much time. Rita hadn’t been here very long before Dominique died.”

  Liz’s brain was processing this new information. “So then . . . possibly . . . when David and I returned here, Rita was hoping their romance might continue.”

  “Do you think it did?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought about it some more. “Actually, no, I don’t think it did. David was only here such a short time, and we were always together. Unless he was sneaking off to see Rita in the middle of the night after I was asleep . . .”

  Even as she spoke the words, she recalled last night, how she had fallen asleep expecting David at any moment, only to wake up and realize he hadn’t come back . . .

  “Oh, Roger, I don’t know what to think,” Liz said, and she started to cry.

  Once again Roger wrapped his arms around her. How good his arms felt.

  “You don’t deserve this, Liz. You deserve to be treated like a queen.”

  He reached down and kissed her on the forehead.

  She looked up.

  Their eyes held.

  He bent down to kiss her on the lips.

  But at the last moment, Liz pulled away.

  “They’re watching us,” she whispered.

  “Who’s watching us?”

  “This house! Everyone!”

  “Liz, maybe you need to get away for a while.”

  She stared at him. “That’s what they want. They want to drive me out of here.”

  “Who wants that?”

  “Mrs. Hoffman.” She paused. “Dominique.”

  “Dominique is dead.”

  “I’ve been smelling gardenias all morning. All through the house. Even out here.”

  Roger sighed. “Are you being serious, Liz? Are you trying to tell me you think her ghost is responsible for all this? Have the servants’ stories finally gotten to you?”

  “I just know that something very strange is going on in this house. And while yes, it looks bad for David, I think Rita’s death is part of something much larger, much more sinister.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Because Jamison was killed after telling me that he believed Dominique’s ghost had killed Audra, and because Rita was killed after she tried to tell me something about a woman who had snuck into the house.”

  “A woman tried to sneak into the house?”

  Liz nodded. “Rita said she saw her come in the back door and go upstairs to the servants’ quarters.”

  “And where did this woman go in the servants’ quarters?”

  “The last room on the left.”

  Liz noticed what could have been a slight flicker of recognition in Roger’s eyes.

  “I suspect that’s where David and Rita used to meet to carry on their affair,” Liz continued. “Rita assumed the woman was there for a similar rendezvous with David. But she wasn’t there when we went inside, Roger. There was no woman in the room!”

  He smiled kindly. “So Rita was mistaken. Or deliberately lying.”

  “The door was locked from the inside, Roger. Someone had gone into that room! And then promptly disappeared!”

  He took a step toward her, attempting to take her hand. Liz resisted him.

  “Liz,” Roger said. “Listen to yourself. You’re not making sense.”

  “I didn’t claim any of it made sense,�
�� she replied.

  “So you think the woman was a ghost. Dominique’s ghost, most likely.”

  She looked away. “I don’t know what to think.”

  Roger laughed gently. “But if so, Rita knew Dominique. She would have recognized her.”

  “Maybe she did. Maybe she thought seeing Dominique back from the dead would scare me to death. I don’t know, Roger. All I know is that both Jamison and Rita tried to give me some information, tried to warn me in some way, and immediately thereafter, both of them were murdered. There has to be something in all of that.”

  “So are you going to give the police this information?”

  “I’m waiting until I speak with David. I owe him that much.”

  Roger was nodding. “Of course.” He let out a long breath. “Oh, Liz, I wish I could help you. I just don’t know what to say to all of this.”

  She smiled, and this time took his hand on her own initiative. “Your friendship means the world to me.”

  His face tightened. “David has no idea how lucky he is.”

  “You’re sweet, Roger.”

  “If I were him, I would never leave you. I’d always be by your side.”

  He lifted Liz’s hands to his lips and kissed her palm.

  “Have your parents heard the news?” she asked.

  “If they have, they wouldn’t call me,” Roger replied. “But I’m sure they know. This won’t be very helpful for Huntington Enterprises stock.”

  “I have to believe that David is innocent,” Liz said.

  “And therefore, these murders are the work of some avenging ghost.”

  “David wasn’t here when Audra was killed,” Liz reminded him. “He was on a cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, with me.”

  “That’s a pretty solid alibi.”

  “So whoever killed these three people—”

  “You don’t believe the three deaths could be unrelated?” Roger interrupted.

  Liz shook her head emphatically. “No. That’s just impossible to believe. The same killer murdered Audra, Jamison, and Rita—and for similar reasons, I believe. And whether human or something else, something we can’t explain, there is some connection to this house.” She paused and looked over at him. “To Dominique.”

  “What do you intend to do now, Liz?” Roger asked.

  “I’m not sure. I need to speak with David before I do anything. But then . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m certainly not just going to sit around here and wait for the next knife to swing through the air. Because I’m pretty sure the next target will be me.”

  “Liz,” Roger said, troubled by her words. He squeezed her hands in his. “You know I’m here for you. I will do everything I can.”

  “Thank you, Roger.” She carefully extricated her hands from his. “But the first step is to wait for David to get home, presuming he responds to the police’s call that he return.”

  “It wouldn’t be like David to ignore the law. He’ll come if he’s ordered to do so.” Roger sighed. “But the weather might be a problem. Have you heard about the hurricane off Cuba?”

  “No,” Liz admitted. “I switched off the television after hearing the news about Rita, and I have studiously avoided being online.”

  “The fear is that it’s going to slam right into the Florida coast, a direct hit, on Wednesday. It’s a pretty powerful storm, too. Could be a category five. If David doesn’t get back in the next twenty-four hours, that could delay him another few days at least.”

  “Well, whenever he gets here,” Liz said, “that’s when I start asking questions.” She looked at Roger with hard eyes. “And if I don’t like the answers, then I’m going to see Detective Foley. I hope David will go with me. But if he doesn’t . . .”

  Liz didn’t finish the sentence. But it was very clear that one way or another, she would eventually tell the police everything she knew and suspected.

  “May I at least take you to dinner tonight?” Roger asked.

  “Thank you, but I don’t want to be seen in public. Too many reporters asking too many questions.”

  “Then I’ll have dinner sent in to the gallery. I’ll send my car around. What do you say?”

  “All right,” Liz agreed.

  His face lit up. “Excellent. Expect the car around seven.”

  “Thank you, Roger.”

  He kissed her hand again and left.

  She was, perhaps, playing with fire. She couldn’t deny her attraction to Roger, and he clearly felt the same way about her. But she needed a friend. And right now Liz could think of nothing she would like more than a quiet dinner alone with Roger.

  53

  The dark narrow hallway was strung with cobwebs. Every few minutes Variola had to stop and peel the sticky strings from her face. Her way was lit only by a series of bare bulbs that hung from the ceiling, casting a dim, pinkish light along the narrow corridor. The odor of musty rooms and damp wood was everywhere.

  She steeled herself. What she intended to do was not going to be easy. But she had to do it. There was no longer any other way. Things were spiraling out of control.

  At the end of the hallway was a door. It was a small door, unlike any other in the house, barely large enough to fit through. Each time Variola had passed through that door in the past, she’d needed to lower her head and pull in her shoulders. On the other side of the door, the room was equally as small. How it stank inside that room. Variola shuddered to think of it.

  She reached the door and paused.

  Do it, Variola, she told herself.

  In the deep pocket of her jacket, she felt the knife, wrapped in soft fabric.

  The taking of a life was repugnant to Variola. But this thing behind the door . . . that was no life. It was a mockery of life.

  She placed her hand on the doorknob.

  But at that very moment the door opened, and Mrs. Hoffman stood in the doorway, the white mask of her face staring at Variola. In her hands she held the tray that Variola had given to Mrs. Martinez earlier.

  “What are you doing here?” Mrs. Hoffman hissed.

  Variola took a step back. She quelled the sudden thumping of her heart and projected an outward calm. “What I always do when I come here,” she said.

  “You never come this time of day.”

  “Maybe I need to come more often.”

  Mrs. Hoffman stepped out of the room, bending her head so that she could fit, and closed the door behind her.

  “You said it wasn’t working.”

  Variola eyed her cagily. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  “You don’t think you were wrong.” Hoffman eyed her just as cagily in return. “You came here to do something else.”

  “What else would I come here to do?”

  “After what you said to me the other day,” the housekeeper told her, “about shifting responsibilities and changing allegiances, I don’t think you need to come here at all anymore.”

  Variola’s large eyes opened wide. “At all? What would you do then?”

  Mrs. Hoffman smiled. “I think we would do just fine.”

  Variola laughed, the sound echoing in the narrow corridor. “You really do think you have become that powerful, that you no longer need me. Well, you are mad, Hoffman. I’ve always thought so, but now I know for sure.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Mrs. Hoffman asked. “There’s a hurricane headed this way.”

  Variola was momentarily at a loss for words. “You can’t think that you can do such a thing on your own . . .”

  “But I can! I would like you to help me, but if you refuse, I will do it on my own.”

  “Impossible,” Variola said.

  “It’s hard accepting the fact that you’re not needed anymore, isn’t it, Variola? Did you think we had learned nothing from you? You’ve been a very good instructor, I’ll grant you that much. How very much we’ve learned from you.”

  Variola’s dark eyes flashed. She pushed past Mrs. Hoffman and took hold of the
doorknob again. It was locked. But locked doors couldn’t stop Variola.

  Yet—it would not yield to her will.

  “What have you done?” Variola spun around to face the housekeeper. “You have no idea of what you are playing around with. Papa Ghede will not allow—”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about Papa Ghede. He’s your god, not mine.” Hoffman gave her that strange approximation of a smile. “Besides, it is not what I have done, but what she has done. The power flows through her. I am merely her handmaiden.” Her eyes glowed. “Did you really think you might replace her as head of this coven? That I might serve you?”

  “Without Variola, you are playing a very dangerous game.”

  Mrs. Hoffman smiled. “If I were you, Variola, I’d pack my bags and leave this house at once. I can’t fire you myself—I’ll have to wait until Mr. Huntington returns, of course—but wouldn’t it be a pity to end your glorious career convicted of murder?”

  Variola glared at her.

  “I think the death penalty in this state is lethal injection,” Mrs. Hoffman went on. “But they ought to burn you. Isn’t that the only way to kill a witch? By fire?”

  “The only one who will burn is you, Hoffman. In hell.”

  What passed for a smile crossed the housekeeper’s face. “You see, you don’t frighten me anymore, Variola. She and I—we have found ways to protect ourselves.”

  “You’re deceiving yourself,” Variola told her.

  “You couldn’t open that door, could you? You no longer have power here, Variola. Your reign is ended.”

  “I’m going to stop you,” Variola promised.

  “I don’t matter,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “I never have. It’s always been her. And she has passed out of the realm of your control, Variola. There is no way you can stop the dead.”

  She turned and made her way down the dark corridor, leaving Variola standing alone outside the door.

  Yet try as she might, Variola could not get inside the room. She tried the knob, she tried summoning every ounce of her power and strength—but the door was truly closed to her. Her way was barred. How had Hoffman done it?