The Haunting of Bechdel Mansion: A Haunted House Mystery- Book 2

by Roger Hayden

  “Just a precaution,” he said. “It’s been a little difficult to pinpoint your current trimester with this pregnancy because… your fetus. It belongs to…”

  “The fetus?” she said. “What are you talking about?.”

  He paused again and then spoke in a low hissing tone Mary had yet to hear from him. “It belongs to us.”

  Mary lowered her phone and looked around the kitchen as the lights flickered, chilling her to the bone. “Julie,” she whispered, closing her eyes and balling her fists. “Where are you? How did you know about this? Tell me what’s going on.”

  There was nothing there—no apparition or visions. She felt strangely alone even with Curtis and Theo in the next room. There was a pause in her thoughts when suddenly, the cabinets above her blew open again without warning, launching plates and dishes into the air, inches from Mary’s face.

  She frantically ducked, falling to the ground just as the dishes smashed into the wall behind her, a cacophonous riot of sound jolting her sensibilities. She heard Curtis call out to her and rush toward the kitchen, but the door slammed shut in his face, locking him out.

  “Mary!” he shouted, banging on the door to no avail. “Mary!”

  She slowly rose to her feet, shielding her face from projectiles. The cabinet doors slowly swayed as dishes settled on the floor around her in pieces. Mary stared forward, defiant and without fear. Both Curtis and Theo were still at the door, pounding and yelling, trying to break in, but the barrier was impenetrable.

  “Where’s Julie?” Mary demanded. She felt a slight chill, a presence, brushing against her shoulders. She stared ahead and saw a faint orb-like glow that formed into the image of a woman. At least half of a woman. Her pupils were completely black, and there was anger across her sunken face as her features contorted into a demonic look.

  “You’ll not see Julie,” the figure hissed. “You will talk to me.”

  “Mrs. Bechdel…?” Mary said, gripping the counter behind her.

  “Quiet!” the figure said as coldness consumed the room, causing Mary to shiver. “Enough of your stalling. You have one day or we’ll claim the child as our own.”

  Mary stepped forward, incensed. “How dare you threaten me!”

  Suddenly, a gust of hot air flew into her face, followed by a deafening roar. For a moment, everything went black, and Mary found herself sitting on the floor, dazed, just as Curtis kicked the kitchen door open and rushed inside. With Theo following, they found Mary on the floor next to the sink with dishes surrounding her.

  “What in the hell just happened?” Curtis asked, helping her up.

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “But we need to figure this thing out or escape before it’s too late.”

  Investigation

  They fled the house, shaken and disturbed, with the weeks blurring together. Julie’s diary, the spirits, the Bechdels, the Taylors, Pastor Phil, Bob Deckers, and the town of Redwood—everything, it seemed, was connected. Mary was eager to discover the patterns that existed, buried within decades of deceit. The plan was clear enough for the time being. Mary and Theo would go to Pastor Phil’s house. Curtis would handle Bob Deckers. In the interim, they weren’t sure what hung in the balance.

  There was no telling how close they were going to get with so much on the line. Mary was confident, however, that the conspiracy came down to a political hit job against a family considered a threat to the powers that be.

  They drove into town that morning, surprised to see Main Street full of celebration as cars and residents clogged the streets. It was the day of the much-heralded Redwood Annual Autumn Festival. Mary had forgotten all about it.

  A large banner hung over the street reading: 50th Annual Redwood Autumn Festival. There were vendor booths along the sidewalks, offering homemade pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin-scented candles, and handicrafts.

  Stacks of hay and carved pumpkins and stuffed scarecrows marked all corners of the street. In the town square, a large stage had been erected, with a bluegrass band entertaining an enthusiastic crowd. Families were everywhere, strolling through the park and along the storefronts. Children with painted faces carried balloons as couples walked hand-in-hand under a vibrant blue sky with just enough puffy clouds to shield the sun.

  Festival-goers looked too preoccupied to care what Mary, Curtis, and Theo were up to. Curtis slowed the car, frustrated with the traffic, as they neared the business district where Bob Deckers’s real estate office awaited. He turned left at an intersection, taking another detour to avoid the blocked-off roads. Mary looked out her window and caught a glimpse of several police officers patrolling the streets on foot. The town’s chief of police, Chief Riley, and his partner, Deputy Ramirez, were the only police Mary had seen since moving there. Apparently on that day, a bigger presence had been employed.

  Mary envied the townspeople who seemed content in their obliviousness. But she was on an important mission. Peace would come soon enough…she hoped. As they turned right onto an empty side street, Mary’s eyes were peeled, keeping watch for the mayor or his brothers. She believed that, for the most part, the mayor’s sons were not involved in his criminal enterprise.

  They never entered her mind. His brothers, however, were another story. They were dangerous, deadly people. She gripped the armrest as their SUV approached Deckers Realty on the corner at the end of the block. His bottom-floor office was housed with several others in the vintage five-story brick building. It was only a couple of days ago that Mary and Curtis had been in his office, receiving assurances from Bob that nothing was wrong with the house. Mary believed him to be a liar and a snake.

  Curtis pulled to the side and parked next to a meter. He sat for a moment as the vehicle idled, gathering his thoughts. Mary looked out her window, trying to see inside the office through the glass-door entrance, but it was tinted too dark. The building looked ominous, and a change of plans suddenly came to her. She turned to Curtis as he pulled the black glove from the middle console, still sealed in its Ziploc bag.

  “Why don’t we just stick together?” she said. “We’d be a lot safer that way.”

  Curtis shrugged. “Relax. I can handle Bob.”

  Theo placed his hand on the back of Curtis’s seat and leaned forward. “I think Mary has a point there, Curtis. I wouldn’t trust that guy as far as you could throw him.”

  Curtis sighed. “You don’t think that I know that?”

  “Of course we do,” Mary said as air from the dashboard vents cooled her face. “I just don’t want anything to happen.”

  Curtis opened his door. “Okay,” he said sarcastically. “Let’s all go and talk to him. I’m sure that won’t make him suspicious or anything.”

  Mary turned to Theo, searching for the answers. Curtis was right. If they were all to approach Deckers at once, he would probably be more reluctant to talk. Bob and Curtis knew each other, had had drinks together, and at the outset had appeared to be friends. Perhaps it was better for Curtis to go alone after all. Mary opened her door and stepped out of the car as Curtis met her on the sidewalk.

  “We could wait for you here,” she said. “How about that?”

  Curtis slipped the glove into his front jacket pocket and then touched her shoulders. “I don’t even know if he’s here. I called his office and told him that I was going to swing by but didn’t say when.”

  Mary felt uneasy about the call. She had wanted to surprise Deckers, not give him notice of their visit. Sensing her worry, Curtis kissed her lightly on the cheek and backed away. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure whatever he’s into, he’s not going to get away with it.”

  “Thanks for doing this,” she said, offering a parting hug. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Curtis asked, surprised.

  “For getting you wrapped up in this.”

  Curtis looked at her with a steady, dignified expression. He wouldn’t have it. “Someone has played us, Mary, and I’m going to find out who and why.” He paused, with a reassuring hand on her
arm. “But I’m not going to announce anything to Bob, or make any accusations. I just want to read him, see how he comes off. Just like in a courtroom.”

  Mary told him to be careful as he waved and walked toward the building. She looked around, feeling as though she was being watched, but the street was mainly empty. Curtis went to the door and pulled on it, but it was locked. He cupped his hands and tried to look through the glass and then knocked. He turned back to Mary with his hands out.

  “Not here yet,” he said. He knocked again, waiting patiently, but no one came. He backed away from the door and walked toward Mary while pointing across the street. “Think I’ll just hang out in the coffee shop until he gets here.”

  Despite not wanting to split up, Mary knew that she and Theo couldn’t wait around much longer. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll head out to Phil’s then, while the festival is still going on.”

  She walked around to the driver’s side as Curtis followed. The street was strangely quiet, except for the faint echo of bluegrass music and random cheering echoing in the air. It was more than likely that Bob himself was at the festival, but something told Mary that he would be returning soon. She climbed into the SUV as Theo opened the rear-passenger door, stepped out, and got into the front seat. Mary brought her window down and Curtis leaned in, looking at them through the shade of his sunglasses.

  “You two be careful, okay?” he said.

  “We’ll do our best,” Mary said, “and hopefully not come back empty-handed.”

  Curtis tapped his fingers above the door. “I’ll call you when Bob shows up. Certainly don’t want to spend all day waiting in a coffee shop.” He gave her a quick kiss and told them good luck. Mary rolled her window up as Curtis headed toward the modest coffee shop across the street. Its sign above the door read “Ben’s Roasted Coffee House” in big green letters.

  “Well, we’ve accomplished nothing so far,” Theo said, pulling his fedora off his head and tossing it in the back seat.

  Mary watched Curtis entering the coffee shop and turned to Bob’s building. Where was he? Maybe he got the hint and fled town, an option Mary was seriously considering.

  Pastor Phil’s words came back to haunt her. “They will follow you wherever you go,” he had once said. She wondered if he was referring to the living or the dead.

  They drove to the next stop light, leaving Curtis at the coffee shop. Pastor Phil’s house wasn’t too far, but they didn’t have much time. Mary felt trapped, but she wasn’t afraid. She pushed all her doubts aside with a singular focus on finding out the truth. “We can do this,” she said to Theo. “We have to.”

  Theo nodded without reply and then about halfway down the street, he laughed to himself.

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You’re so into this. It’s inspiring.”

  Mary smiled. It was a compliment, she supposed. Perhaps she was more confident than before. If that was the case, she’d need every last ounce.

  ***

  Phil’s farmhouse looked empty, and that was good news. Mary parked in the front alongside the wooden fence surrounding the property. Phil’s blue station wagon was still parked in the driveway leading to the front porch. The lonely sight filled her with sadness. The two-story house already looked deserted. She was still concerned about the livestock—chickens, pigs, and cows—Phil had in backyard pens. What would become of them and Phil’s garden and his modest crops? What would happen to the house itself?

  She recalled that on the day of Phil’s death, Chief Riley had mentioned a will and ownership of the farm tied up in legal proceedings. Phil had children, a son and a daughter, but she had never met them. They hadn’t even attended their father’s funeral. Mary wondered if they even knew that he had passed. If they did, she found it unconscionable that they wouldn’t have gone to his memorial, but she tried not to judge.

  Mary turned the ignition off, and Theo urged her to wait. He then held up a small pair of binoculars, then slowly scanned the house and adjacent barn. Just because it looked as if no one was there didn’t make it so. Mary surveyed the house herself, on alert for anything out of the ordinary.

  “I suppose we better have a look around,” Theo said, lowering his binoculars.

  Mary held her hand on the door handle, hesitant. “I have to admit, I don’t really like the idea of breaking into his house. It feels so… disrespectful.”

  Theo reached back and grabbed his fedora, putting it on. “Phil would understand, I’m sure. We are, after all, trying to solve his murder.”

  For the first time, the prospect that Phil might not have been murdered entered Mary’s mind. She had seen Bob Deckers suffocating Phil in her mind and then saw him searching the house for something of apparent value. The vision had left her short of breath and dizzy during Phil’s memorial service. She had nearly collapsed, but the vision was clear enough.

  Deckers had walked away empty handed, but not before leaving Phil’s corpse in the bedroom. Whatever he was looking for, Bob Deckers didn’t find it. Mary suspected that the Taylors were somehow linked and was certain that she’d find evidence of their presence in the house.

  She stepped out of the SUV and onto the pebbled path leading to the front yard. The quiet stillness, broken only by a cool breeze rustling the trees, was comforting in some ways, ominous in others. She continued past the fence and up the dirt driveway with Theo at her side.

  Brown leaves were strewn across the lawn, many already covering the roof of Phil’s old station wagon. Two empty chairs sat on the front porch, rocking faintly. Instead of trying the front door, Theo veered off to the side of the house, and Mary followed. Her mind raced, baffled by the whereabouts of Phil’s mystery item, something so important that he had lost his life over it. Mary’s visions of Phil’s murder were one piece; she now needed her abilities to lead her one step further to find whatever Deckers was after.

  They reached the open backyard, and Mary was stunned to see a multitude of empty pens, their doors flung open, swaying on their hinges. All the animals were gone. She stopped and looked around, mystified.

  Theo halted near some steps that led to an elevated cedar deck and turned to Mary, noticing the troubled expression on her face. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Phil’s livestock,” she said. “They’re all gone…”

  Theo looked out into the backyard from over Mary’s shoulder. “Well. That’s good. Someone came and got them. Moved them to another farm maybe. Better than them starving to death.”

  Strangely enough, Mary felt more troubled than relieved. Something wasn’t right.

  “Come on,” Theo said, walking up the steps. “Help me find a way in.”

  Mary turned and followed, her eyes on the barn next to them. She could smell the hay stored inside and watched as a black cat scurried inside between the double doors. She reached the top of the deck as Theo pulled at the sliding glass door to no avail.

  “Damn,” he said, moving to a nearby kitchen window.

  Mary peered inside, looking beyond the glass’s glare, and what she saw shocked her. Phil’s furniture had been flipped and his living room ransacked. A bookshelf lay collapsed on the floor, books everywhere and papers lying in an alarming disarray, scattered and in small heaps. A sofa and love seat lay on their sides, torn open and gutted, with foam hanging out like innards. The entire scene was reminiscent of Mary and Curtis’s apartment in Chicago. Their break-in had been one of the primary reasons for their moving to Redwood in the first place.

  Mary stared into the living room in disbelief. She then turned to Theo, who had just removed the screen over the kitchen window, opening it. It looked as though he hadn’t even noticed anything yet. They were certainly not the first people to have visited Phil’s place in the past few hours. That much she was sure of. Whoever had broken inside had been looking for something as well.

  “Theo, come here,” she said with a whisper. Theo set the screen down, walked over to Mary, and glanced through the
sliding glass door, freezing in place.

  “Holy shit. How did I miss that?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Mary said. “Someone beat us here.”

  Theo pressed his face against the glass, looking in. “This is insane.”

  “Whatever they were looking for, I don’t think they found it,” Mary said with confidence.

  Theo backed away and turned to her, thinking. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because the job looks so disorganized and hasty, almost like they took their frustration out on the furniture.” Mary took a deep breath while pressing her hands against the glass. “We need to get in there and start looking.”

  “I’m on it,” Theo said, moving back toward the open kitchen window. He climbed in as Mary waited, casting nervous glances behind and around her. She heard the clinking of dishes and silverware hitting the floor as Theo hopped off the kitchen counter. He then entered the living room, carefully moving around the hazards in his path.

  Mary wondered how the intruders before them had gotten in. The search and subsequent trashing of the house looked disrupted, as though something had alerted the culprits to flee. Mary could feel the lingering presence of more than one individual. Theo unlocked the sliding glass door and pulled it open for Mary as she walked inside, thanking him with a pat on the arm.

  “So what do you think?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “We need to check the entire house.”

  Theo leaned closer, his tone confidential. “What about that woman we saw here the morning of Phil’s death, Grace? Think she had anything to do with this? She did have a key to the house, remember?”

  Mary laughed softly. “I don’t think so. I have the feeling we’re dealing with three men,” she said.

  “The Taylor brothers?”

  Mary nodded while carefully examining the room.