Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead

by Morgan James

  “I don’t know, I assumed she knew, though…” his voice trailed off, “as I’ve said, we don’t really talk.”

  I scanned the deed again. Something was missing. Then it came to me. “Paul, your deed has not been recorded at the Fulton County Courthouse.”

  A panic waved over his face. “What do you mean? Why does that matter? Does it mean it’s not really mine? Can she take the house away from me?”

  “Wait, wait, calm down. I’m not an attorney and don’t know a lot about real estate. I’ve just bought and sold several properties and know the deeds always get recorded with the clerk of court in the county where the property is located. When that happens, the clerk stamps the deed with the recording information. The stamp is missing on your deed. I think the public recording of the deed makes the transference official. Who else knows your grandfather deeded you the house?”

  He sat back down and thought for a moment. “Nobody, I guess. Soon after I moved into the house, Papa just showed up early one Sunday morning and gave me the deed. I remember I made breakfast for us. He chatted on about how he might need to go through the house once more to make sure he’d gotten all his things out, and about the crumbling gristmill wall down by the creek. He seemed preoccupied, said he didn’t feel well and left before I even cleared away the dishes. I thanked him for the house, of course, and we didn’t speak of the deed again. It was about a month later that he had the stroke and passed away. I guess it is possible Papa didn’t tell my mother he gave me the house. He was a very private man. I didn’t even know there was a trust until he died and the attorney read us the will. I assumed my house was not part of the trust, though I don’t know what my mother thinks. The trust attorney sends me small monthly checks from the trust account for upkeep and taxes on the house. I would think my mother knows about that. Although, now that you ask, I’m not sure what Becca knows.” Then he said more to himself, than to me, “Does she hate me so much she would take my house? If she gets the trust, why would the house even matter to her? She has the Columbia house from his will. And her businesses. Not to mention, with five million dollars she can have any house she wants. She doesn’t need mine. This house is all the family I have.”

  “Paul, listen to me. I didn’t say your mother is trying to take the house from you. Please don’t jump to conclusions.”

  I could hear anger seeping into his voice. “No? Well if she thinks the house is still part of the trust, and she wants all of the trust, then she thinks she gets the house as part of the deal!” He slapped both hands, palms down, on the table. “In that case, forget what I said. I’m not giving up the trust until I know my house is my house. She can have the money only if I keep my house. You can take that message back to Garland Wang!”

  I decided it was time to deal with the doll and retrieved the shoebox from the sofa. “I’ll tell Mr. Wang what you said. Of course you know, Paul, you can go downtown and record your deed today. Just go do it. Then talk to an attorney yourself to see what all this means. You owe that to yourself and your grandfather. Okay?” Paul seemed calmer, having made a stand against her mother, and nodded his assent. “Could I change the subject, just for a moment? Please look at this. It has something to do with you and the trust; I’m just not sure what. I put the box down on the table in front of him and removed the top. His sharp intake of breath seemed genuine.

  “Good Lord, what is that?”

  I began slowly, “Someone sent this doll to your mother this morning at her hotel.” I gave him a moment to let the information sink in. “Have you ever seen it before? Does it look familiar?”

  He peered into the box without touching it. “Familiar? No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the doll, if that is what you mean. But,” he hesitated, “look at the blond hair and the pink suit. Mother always wears suits like that. It looks like her. Did she smash the head?”

  “She says not. She says the head was smashed when it was delivered to her. According to your mother, the doll is meant to frighten her. Maybe as a threat. Who would do such a thing?”

  Paul sat back, as far away from the box as possible. “Who knows? My mother is known to be a ruthless businesswoman. She would smash a lot of live heads if she could get away with it. There are probably hundreds of people left devastated, and financially ruined, in her wake. Believe me. If Becca wants something, she gets it.”

  I had no trouble believing him on that observation. Becca had impressed me as the kind of woman who embraced the idea that winning is all that matters, no matter the cost. “Do you see the white card at the side of the box?” I pointed to the card, not wanting to touch it. “Yes, there. It says, ‘Your Choice.’ The threat seems to be that if she doesn’t make the right choice she will end up like the doll. She believes the person who sent the doll wants her to stop trying to get control of the trust.”

  Paul studied me as though he was trying to make sense of my statement, and then said sadly, “Oh, my God. You mean she thinks I sent the doll. Is that why Garland Wang sent you over here?”

  I liked this man and he deserved the truth. “My job is to facilitate your mother getting the trust. I don’t understand how this awful doll is connected to the trust; though I have a strong sense it is most certainly connected. That being said, I don’t believe you sent the doll.”

  “My mother does?”

  I nodded yes.

  “Well, I didn’t,” he replied firmly. “She is not my favorite person and I have to say I would not choose her for a friend, or a mother for that matter, but not this.” He pushed the box away and towards me, “No, not this, this is sick. I may be a little twisted, and who wouldn’t be with Becca for a mother, but I don’t send murdered dolls to people.”

  “I believe you, Paul. I really do. Help me think this through. Is there anyone else associated with the trust that would want her to stop making waves? Anyone else who would benefit if you kept control of the trust?”

  He narrowed his eyes in concentration and thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t have any children, and with my lifestyle, I’m not apt to have. Who else could benefit? I can’t imagine. As I told you, I didn’t know about the trust until Grandfather died and I still know very little about it. Mitchell must have asked me a thousand times about it, how much it was worth and all that. I told him I didn’t know, and I really didn’t until you told me.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “Mitchell?”

  “Yes, Mitchell. He of the Troy Donahue good looks. I met him when we did The Fantastics at the theater. He was wonderful, good voice, the audience loved him, and he did dye his hair for that, by the way. He moved in with me shortly after the show finished. I thought the relationship was going to be THE one, well it wasn’t. Almost from the start it was one thing after another, a little lie here and a big lie there. As you saw, we fight a lot. He’s left before, several times, and we’ve made up—not this time. I’m not taking him back this time. This time the lie is just too big to forgive.”

  I waited and let the silence grow, hoping Paul would fill in details about Mitchell’s lie. He didn’t. Finally I moved on. “I understand Paul. I’ve kissed enough frogs to know the princes are few and far between.” His smile was sad and resigned. “Let me ask you something else, if I can,” I continued. “Not that it has anything to do with the trust; it’s just that as a person who is interested in the paranormal, I am curious.”

  He eyes brightened. “Oh, you mean Grandmother’s ghost. Isn’t that wild? I thought I saw her several times during the months after I moved here. In fact I told Mitchell about it. Shortly after he moved in with me, whatever it was went away. I realize now it was probably just this old house, and the play of shadows through the oak trees.”

  “Where did you see her?”

  Paul stood up and waved me to follow. “Come on back to the bedroom and I’ll show you. Though, mind you, now I don’t think I saw anything except shadows.”

  We went back to the foyer, and then up three st
eps to the left, turned down a hall and then into a large master bedroom on the rear of the house. He stood before three nearly floor to ceiling windows facing the rear yard and pointed. “Down there, towards the creek. Do you see the crumbling stonewall, the old gristmill parapet I told you about? See where the wall comes across the creek and almost touches the side of the house? All three times I thought I saw her, she was walking on the wall, headed away from the house, and then disappeared across the creek.”

  I followed his direction, looking out to the yard, beyond a stand of low-armed oak trees, to an old wall, a narrow expanse of eroded stone and concrete, pockmarked and spongy from the relentless assault of upstream water and sand. It seemed a punctuation point drawn from the house outward. The sight of it drew a shiver from the base of my spine to my hairline. I could see it did, indeed, extend out into Howell Creek, the creek Paul’s grandmother was left hanging over, and the creek of my dream. “When you say she disappeared across the creek, does the wall go all the way to the other side?”

  “I think it does. At least when I was a kid it did. I haven’t been down there in some time. Years ago, when the creek was low it used to be possible to walk across and not get your feet wet.”

  “What was it about the figure that made you think it was your grandmother?” I asked, seeing in my mind a clear black and white image of the cloaked figure moving slowly across the wall. It was a woman, a tall woman. She doesn’t look back at the house; she wants to get away. She has a purpose, a clear purpose. I felt my face flush hot and sweat bead on my forehead. Paul’s voice interrupted.

  “I told you, Dr. McNeal. Now, I don’t think I saw her at all. It was all just a play on shadows and my imagination. Mitchell and I stayed up many nights looking for her again; it was like a game for us. Exciting, you know, at first; of course I would usually fall asleep before him, but anyway, nothing else happened.”

  “When you thought you saw her, what do you remember about her?”

  He paused for a moment, hands pressed together and against his lips much like a child offering a prayer. “As I recall, she was tall, long hair, and possibly thin like Grandmother. It was hard to tell really because she was wearing some sort of cape thing around her shoulders. I had the distinct feeling the figure was a woman; no, it was more than a feeling. I’m sure it was a woman. I’ve been an actor long enough to know the difference in the gait of a woman and a man. And she moved carefully, controlled, like a dancer, like grandmother.”

  “Paul, you saw a lot of details in just a shadow.”

  “Well, she was very real to me at the time. In fact, I was pretty upset and called Papa. I’m sorry I called him; that was stupid. He got more upset than I did. It was immature of me to bring up his pain; I really wish I hadn’t. Oh, the conversation was awful. He rattled on and on in French. My French is pretty basic, and he was talking pretty fast, so I ‘m not sure what he was saying. I was glad to call him back later when Mitchell and I decided it was the limbs of the oak trees playing tricks with my imagination. I remember Papa said to me, ’you are a good boy, Paulie. Leave the dead; their debts are always paid.’ What ever that meant. We didn’t talk about the ghost thing again.”

  “What a strange thing to say, ‘their debts are always paid.’ What do you suppose he meant?”

  “I have no idea. He just seemed to feel better knowing I was not seeing ghosts, that was all I cared about.”

  “Umm, so it was Mitchell who helped convince you there was no ghost, just shadows?”

  “Well, him and my good sense. You don’t believe in ghosts, do you Dr. McNeal?”

  I wasn’t sure how I wanted to answer that question. Fortunately, the skinny gray cat took that opportunity to skidder out from under the bed and run towards the main part of the house. “You see how sneaky she is,” Paul called, as he ran after her, with me a step behind, “she’s inside again and she’ll disappear down the basement stairs before I can catch her. That’s what she does. When I catch her upstairs, she runs for the basement and somehow finds her way back outside.” As he reached the kitchen, Paul screeched and his arms shot upwards like Moses railing against the heathens. “And look, the evil animal has been in here eating the leftover chicken salad.”

  He was right, chicken scraps littered the counter top where the cat had picked through our plates. No doubt she was raiding the kitchen while we were eating our yummy chocolate dessert. I had to smile. “Perhaps you don’t feed her enough.”

  “Feed her enough?” Paul’s nostrils flared with anger. “She isn’t even my cat. She’s some scruffy stray who managed to have kittens out by the side of the house and I can’t catch her to take her to the county animal shelter. After this, you better believe I will get animal control out here now and she and her mangy babies will be history.”

  My warmth and compassion for Paul was dissipating as he ranted about the poor mamma cat with babies to feed and no warm home, or assurance of food. What did he expect? Should she phone for fish takeout! “So you’d send her and her family to the pound? That’s like a death sentence with no chance for appeal.”

  He exhaled heavily, “I know, I know, but what else can I do? I don’t like cats. The fact is they scare me. They never do as they are told and are just as likely to scratch you as purr. They are always ‘pet me, don’t pet me, pet me.’ My God, that sounds just like my mother! I do not want to be a murderer, for pity sake. I’ve even asked some of the guys at the theater to take them; no one is interested. Nobody has enough room for a mother cat and kittens.”

  At that moment I was struck with a momentary lighting bolt of insanity and someone else’s voice inside me chirped up. “I have five acres and a small barn. Help me gather the cat family up and I’ll take them home with me.”

  Paul grinned as though I had given him a new Porsche to replace the old Jag in his driveway. “Fabulous idea. I’ll donate a laundry basket and a soft blanket to the deal. Come with me and I’ll show you where she has hidden the kittens.”

  Securing the cats was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Paul led us outside to the far right of the house to what seemed to be a closely pruned pyracantha bush, all thorns, waxy green leaves, and hard red berries. At closer look the bush’s almost solid growth was trained to camouflage a chain link enclosure on the side of the house. As he easily lifted the front panel of the enclosure, which was hinged along one side, I realized the logic of the enclosure: it screened a concrete stairwell leading down into the basement of the house, and sure enough, snug and dry among leaves and pine straw at the basement door was our skinny mother cat nursing two equally skinny kittens. I was amazed at her resourcefulness. “How did she get out here from the inside of the house?”

  Paul pointed to the sagging basement door. “Look, see that wide crack along the casing where the wood has rotted? I think that’s where she gets from the basement back outside. The hole is just wide enough for her skinny body to pass through. I wanted to fix the door because God knows what else can crawl through, but I refuse to ramble around in that dank basement long enough to hang a new door. I hate dark basements. Besides, replacing the door might cut Mamma off from her babies.”

  “So, you’re not as mean as you pretend to be. Good man.”

  He gave me a sheepish look and held the basket while I coaxed Mamma into it with the last of the luncheon chicken. While she chewed, I lifted the two frail babies in beside her and we secured the basket in the rear of my Subaru. As I closed the door, I saw Mamma curling herself around her babies and nudging them to nurse again. Mission accomplished.

  Paul extended his hand. “Thank you for taking the cats, and for being so understanding. I know you are working for my mother and are technically the enemy, but I’ve enjoyed our visit. And please tell Garland Wang, diplomatically, if you can, what I said about the trust and my house. So long as I get the house she can have the rest. Maybe that will finally make my mother happy, for once in her life.”

  I took Paul’s hand to say goodbye, then he impulsivel
y drew me into a hug. I liked this young man. Sliding into my Subaru, I started the car, and then lowered my window. “Don’t forget to go to the courthouse and record that deed.”

  Paul waved. “I’m on my way.”

  “Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s question.”

  …Edgar Cayce

  5.

  Retracing my route, I drank in the tree-shaded beauty of the Buckhead neighborhoods leading me back to Howell Mill Road, West Wesley, and then to Peachtree Road. Buckhead was once an outpost settlement far from Atlanta proper, known only for a crossroads tavern with a buck deer’s head mounted above the bar. Today Buckhead is acknowledged as the “Beverly Hills” of the South. It’s the place where new money and old forged easy, and sometimes not so uneasy, alliances; a neighborhood like no other that is the embodiment of Atlanta’s coronation of queen of the New South. Steep gabled Tudor mansions, Neal Reid designed English cottages and Hollywood hued Italian villas, punctuated streets of antebellum red brick mansions. Buckhead breathed a bittersweet reminder of how much I loved, and missed, this city. Atlanta is like a relative who sometimes behaves badly, and may disappoint and even embarrass me, yet she is family nevertheless, and inextricably part of my blood.

  I crept along with the north bound traffic, and somewhere between the 1930’s pink stucco Alhambra apartments on Peachtree Road, and my favorite Italian restaurant at the corner of Paces Ferry Road, a pang of loss in the pit of my stomach reminded me that I had abandoned the queen of the South, left her for another town, another state. Gone were the days when I could pleasure ride through Buckhead anytime I felt the need to dream myself into one of her grand homes. How could I do that? What was I thinking? I watched the familiar places pass and feared I’d always be homesick.