The Curse Of Ivy

by Josephine Aubrey

  There were lookouts on the hillside at Grayson Manor, and there were officers posted on each side of the cave taking cover in the brush covering the hillside around the cave. Later, the same day, a boat was spotted moving downriver. It was the same boat that had led Rand to the cave in the first place. Despite the rising water and the pouring down rain, the boat pulled into shore below the cave and dropped anchor. There was no place to tie up, and the current was relentless. Two men climbed out of the boat, and wadded the short distance to the shore with the boat between them, and the current. When the two men entered the cave, the authorities were right behind them. It was necessary to catch them red-handed, package in-hand, in order to have a solid case against them. Two detectives waited outside of the cave, weapons drawn, for the two men to reappear at the mouth of the cave. The arrest was easy and clean. The perpetrators were handcuffed and read their rights.

  At the same time, while the man at the helm of the boat waited for his partners, two policemen boarded the boat and arrested him. When Rand saw that Justin was the man at the helm of the boat, he was not surprised. All three men were taken off to jail to await trial. It had been easy. The rain had provided the criminals with a false sense of safety while the detectives lay in wait.

  When they got to the precinct, the criminals were told to empty their pockets. Rand noticed that Justin had a letter that was addressed to Patricia Grayson. At first, Rand thought that it was a letter that Justin had yet to mail to Patricia. When he opened the letter, he saw that the letter was to Patricia from her mother.

  After reading part of the letter, he realized that not only was Patricia Flannel Grayson’s daughter, not his niece as everyone believed, but that she had lost her mother a short time ago. He felt compassion for the girl, imagining how she must have felt when she had read the letter. He had some idea how this would play out if this letter fell into the wrong hands, so he put the letter in his pocket, although that was not procedure. The letter was not relevant to the case, and if it turned out that it somehow was, he knew where to find it. Later, he would return it to its owner.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Patricia slept late and awoke to the rain and desolate weather. She recalled the kiss she had shared with the handsome Rand Cameron, a man she hardly knew. He was an old Grayson family friend and, she was desperate to see him again.

  She wondered about the conversation she had overheard in the rose garden between Justin and the mystery lady. What did it mean, and did Rand also overhear them? Today was the eighteenth, and she wondered what was the significance surrounding this date. What did it all mean? She would keep her eyes open, and try to keep an eye on Justin. She had just about had it with him. She was convinced that it was her cousin who had tried to kill Flannel Grayson. The strange things that had happened to her in the last few weeks could probably, also, be laid at his door.

  It had occurred to her that the surprise proposal, if you could even call it that, was obviously an effort to hold onto his uncle’s fortune by attaching himself to Patricia. His determination to acquire the Grayson fortune by hook, or crook was maddening and caused cold fear to grip her as she wondered where he would stop in his manic grab for his uncle’s money. Imagine him thinking that she would marry him. For all he knew, they were cousins.

  All day Patricia had watched the flooding of the Ohio River from the windows of the old manor glad to be inside in the dry. Justin’s place at the table had been empty tonight. The young girl welcomed the peace and quiet and the chance to avoid her aggressive cousin. She felt safer appearing passive for the moment. She would set him straight as soon as she felt safe again.

  The wind blew the rain against the windows in sheets, and brought with it a chill that was more than just the inclement weather. The chill penetrated the thick walls of the manor where Patricia and her father huddled for comfort in front of the fire in the library, their unofficial favorite place to be. Hannah had shuffled off to her room after dinner to the comfort of her own fire.

  Patricia sat reading. The gloomy day left her feeling forlorn. She looked over to her father, who was napping. The reading light left most of the room in shadow; a log fell gently in the fireplace causing sparks to fly, while the light from the fire danced over the room. Patricia considered waking her father so they could retire for the night. As if her thoughts were conveyed to him, he opened his eyes and smiled at her sleepily’ “I love you Father.” She said as she returned his smile. “Yes, I love you too daughter.” Together they left the library and climbed the stairs, saying goodnight at the second floor landing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Justin sat in jail reflecting on what had gone wrong with his plans. He had met Clare at a club, and they had hit it off immediately. They were a lot alike. Both were ambitious and would do anything to accomplish their goals. It was Clare who had come up with using insulin to take out the old man. Insulin was a natural substance produced by the body. Only with an autopsy could they be discovered, but then wasn’t it the families decision to have an autopsy, or not?

  Clare entered the Grayson household as a special care nurse, Millie Finney. Justin had slipped his uncle two sleeping pills, and then had given him an injection of insulin while he was out, and then Clare, as his nurse, kept Flannel drugged in amounts that would eventually kill him right under the very noses of the family who believed that she was there to nurse him back to health. Ironic. Then there was the mystical, Dr. Phillips, who, of course, didn’t exist. Justin made sure there was no one around when he made his imaginary visits. In a short time they would have been in control.

  Then Patricia appeared on the scene. His plans to remove her had failed, and then while she was there, she took the old man to the hospital. The game plan had to change. Clare did a disappearing act and left Justin to take the heat. Now Justin was under investigation by the police as a suspect in the insulin poisoning of his Uncle Flannel, but Clare had been the one to acquire the insulin and to administer it to him. Justin was secure in knowing they had nothing on him in the case of his Uncle’s poisoning, and he would beat this drug dealing charge.

  Clare was shocked and angry when she had learned that the attempt on Patricia’s life had failed. Then, later, to have her to arrive at the manor like the long lost relative was more than she could take. After Patricia arrived at the manor, Clare had covered her tracks. As Flannel Grayson’s nurse, she had used a fake name, and along with the nurses uniform, she wore a wig and disguised her face with makeup. Making herself anonymous by taking her meals in her room, and keeping to herself when she was not with her “patient” also helped to hide her identity. The authorities would have a hard time finding “Millie Finney” even if they searched for a million years. Even old Aunt Hannah had been fooled. Clare had stopped by a couple of days ago sans the nursing uniform, and the wig, and Hannah had not even recognized her.

  Because all else had failed, Justin intended to marry Patricia. Again, Clare had come up with the idea. What difference did it make to her if Justin married Patricia? She and Justin were inseparable. The marriage would not change a thing except that they would have the money to realize their goals. Besides, who knew? Maybe Patricia would have a fatal “accident” and then it would be just her and Justin again.

  It wasn’t that Justin was broke. He had money. There was the money that he had inherited from his father, and dealing drugs was profitable, but that was not how he wanted to live his life. He was born of the elite, and he deserved better. Uncle Flannel’s estate was crucial. This was wealth handed down from his grandfather, and his father before. It was more, and Justin wanted more.

  Now, here he was in jail. Cooped up like an animal. He couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. Oh, yeah. This was all Patricia’s fault. Where was Clare? He needed her to bail him out. He knew not to call Flannel Grayson. He and his uncle had always been at odds. Flannel Grayson had always disagreed with what Justin was doing. Justin knew that he could not count on his uncle.

  Now, he
re he was trapped. Well, if he went down, Clare would go down with him. She was out there, free as a bird while he sat in jail. Wait. She would probably be more useful where she was. He wouldn’t turn her in.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The relentless rain filled the drains and tributaries up and down the Ohio River. Everything drained directly into the river causing the water to rise to dangerous levels and carrying anything in its path downriver. The water crashing down past Grayson Manor carried all manner of debris. Logs rolled crazily in the swift current, limbs and trash merged sometimes being caught on the bank creating a large entanglement of debris, then would sometimes break loose to be carried by the swift current further downriver.

  Hannah Ivy sat watching the rain slam against the window in her bedroom; as if it would beat it’s way in. She was worried about Justin. She suspected that he was involved in something illegal because she had overheard his side of the conversation on more than one phone call that, when pieced together, told a story. Though she knew the dark nature of her son, there was nothing she could do to stop him. In fact, there was part of her that was afraid of him. Yet, nothing kept her from loving him with a stubborn, loyal heart.

  One of the conversations Hannah had overheard revealed that he planned to meet someone in the old cave on the eighteenth, but she did not know the time. Justin almost always dropped by to see her by four in the afternoon. She had not seen him in two days.

  What Hannah did not know was that Justin had been arrested two days before when he went to pick up the drugs in the cave before the water crested. He was in police custody. He was also under investigation for plotting to kill Flannel Grayson, with the help of his lady friend Clare who passed herself off as his nurse so she could give him the lethal injections. She would also be indicted, when they found her.

  It had been raining torrents off and on for three days. Over the many years that Hannah had lived at Grayson Manor, the Ohio had flooded many times, but it had never reached the manor. The cave, however, had been often flooded. Looking out her window at the river, she thought it looked like the river was going into the cave. Today was the eighteenth, the day that Justin was going to meet someone there. Maybe he had gone into the cave and couldn’t get back out because of the swollen river. She felt a wave of panic and reached for her cane as she visualized her son trapped, or his body floating lifeless in the dark cave.

  A sense of urgency made her take the service stairs down to the kitchen. There she opened the door to the basement. Slowly and deliberately she moved down the stairs into the basement, Her arthritic body wracked with pain, she was determined to help Justin if he was in trouble.

  She took a rusty key from the wall of the basement, and then shuffled over to a door, and inserted the key. After much effort, she felt the tumblers give, but the door would not open. It was swollen from the damp. She pushed against the door, but it still would not open. Not to be beaten, she kept heaving against the door until she felt it give. The panel she put her weight against broke away just as the door opened a crack. Working the door back and forth, she finally made an opening large enough for her to squeeze through. Taking a flashlight from a shelf, kept in the basement for emergencies, she flashed the light through the door. What she saw was daunting. The tunnel to the cave was not only damp, but was dripping water from the ceiling with a musty stench that was overpowering.

  Hannah, determined, squeezed through steadying herself with her cane. The tunnel slanted downward which made walking difficult on the wet floor. In the distance, she could hear the water slapping against the wall of the cave. As she steadied herself, vivid flashes of memory from her younger days at Grayson Manor came to her like familiar shadows from her past. Haunting ghosts reminding her of her wasted life. As specters of gay parties, and her long lost love hung visually in her mind, in the damp stench of the old cave, she thought of Justin, her only child. He was like a shining light guiding her to the cave where her worst nightmare would be to find him there drowned.

  Tears of frustration lined her face as she struggled to stay on her feet on the slippery floor. It was difficult to focus physically and mentally as she moved forward towards the opening of the cave. She must live up to this task she had set for herself. She must succeed for Justin. He hadn’t come home. Why hadn’t he come home? He always stopped by to see her each evening right before dinner. Hannah had not seen him for two days. If he was in trouble, she had to help him. She had always been there for him, and she would be there for him today.

  Moving slowly, and painfully, the old woman shuffled her way to the end of the tunnel fearful of what she might find. A few feet from the doorway that led into the cave, water began sucking at her feet slapping up into the tunnel only to be drawn back by gravity into the cave. Although, it became extremely difficult, Hannah stood in the door searching the swirling water for her son.

  She remembered as a young girl, going to the cave with Jack Grayson and her sister Phoebe. There was a stairway that led down to the floor of the cave at the end of the tunnel. Justin could save himself by climbing the stairs. Or, she thought, hopefully maybe he wasn’t even in the cave.

  Now close to the door that led to the steps that led down into the cave, Hannah flashed her light into the stairwell, noting the missing stairs. Standing there, watching the murky water swirling at her feet, she felt dizzy. The water crashing into the tunnel sucked at her unsteady footing, and Hannah losing her grip on her cane experienced a strong sense of foreboding and despair as she was pulled by the undertow into the cold murky waters of the cave. A cave that, if it could talk, would tell of drama more intriguing, more heartbreaking than the death of Hannah Ivy, who had hung her love more than once on changing shifting sand. Her last thought was for Justin, whom she knew in her heart had met a dark fate.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rand realized that he owed his friend, Flannel Grayson, an explanation concerning the events of the last few days, including the arrest of his nephew Justin Grayson. He still carried the letter that he had confiscated from Justin, and he thought that this would provide him with the opportunity to talk to Patricia and to return the letter to her. Rand had not seen Patricia since last Saturday night when he had followed her into the rose garden at Grayson Manor. He was anxious to see her again, and the letter was the perfect opening.

  As he drove up to Grayson Manor, Rand saw Patricia dash across the front lawn, and down to the swollen rivers edge where her little dog, Snuffles, was barking at something in the water. Rand recognized the little dog as the one he had encountered in the cave the day that he had discovered the cave. Concerned for the safety of both the dog and the girl, Rand rushed down the sloping lawn to see if he could be of any help.

  As he moved down the lawn, Rand was aware that the dog was barking at something in the water, while the girl, desperately tried to coax him away from the riverbank as she ran towards the dog. Snuffles however, continued barking at something only visible to him. Before Rand could reach them, the dog ran out into the swirling water, and then began swimming towards a pile of brush being carried downriver by the flood. Rand, running as fast as he could, watched as the girl, too far away from him to hear him yell over the noise of the rushing flood waters, ran into the swirling swill to save her dog. The roar of the raging river, again, drowned out his voice as he yelled for Patricia to stop. He watched as the swirling water swallowed her up.

  Reaching the waters edge, he sliced the water with all of the force he could exert with the hope of reaching the girl before she was dragged out into the middle of the flooded river. As he left the bank, Rand lost sight of the dog only focusing on Patricia as she bobbed into sight ahead of him. He could see her swimming frantically trying to control her progress, but the swift current was too much for her.

  Rand, aware of their perilous situation, swam with all of his strength to reach the girl to help her. Seeing her grab onto a tree limb extending from a clump of debris entangled around the limbs of a tree gave him hope, and he
swam harder to reach her. Partly swimming and partly being carried along by the current, Rand caught up with Patricia, who was desperately hanging on. Grabbing the limb, he would have to work his way down the log to get to her. As he worked his way towards Patricia, partly swimming, sometimes just moving along the log, Rand prayed that Patricia and the log would not be dragged by the current out into the middle of the river.

  He knew that he could not out-swim the current, but he might be able to work his way over towards the shore-line where debris had began to pile up. If he could maneuver the log close enough to shore, and then anchor the tree they were holding onto into one of the pileups, he felt they would have a chance. Checking on Patricia, he could see that she was still desperately holding on, keeping her head above water. She did not seem to realize that he was there. He yelled encouragement, and he thought she heard him, but she did not acknowledge him.

  As they moved down the river, Rand held onto the log near Patricia ready to catch her if she lost her grip. He had no idea how long they had been in the water, but he would guess that they had moved down the river at least a mile. There was still light, but the sun was setting. Soon it would be dark, and they were in a perilous situation caught in the incredibly strong currents of the river. It would take every ounce of strength that he had to save himself and the girl.