5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

by Valerie S. Malmont

  "Rodney," she whispered. "Oh, Rodney."

  Today was supposed to be his wedding day. How could this have happened?

  She gently placed his hand on his bloody lap and turned to the boys, who hadn't moved.

  "Who did this?" she demanded.

  They didn't answer.

  "Jim Bob," she said to her nephew. "Tell me you didn't do this to him. Tell me you found him this way. Please tell me..." She hated the hysteria in her voice and fell quiet.

  Jim Bob, who hated his name and hoped some day to use his initials only, stepped to her side. His feet slipped in the pooled blood, causing him to lose his balance and nearly fall.

  He was crying. They all were. Seven fifteen- and sixteen-yearold boys who were the elite of Lickin Creek High School now resembled small children caught making mischief in kindergarten. Except these were not toddlers, they were teenagers on the cusp of manhood.

  She lowered her voice an octave and turned to the tallest of the boys. "Bruce, you'll tell me the truth, won't you?"

  Instead of speaking, the boy handed her a large book.

  She carried it to the window to take advantage of the light and saw that it was a photo album. She opened it.

  What she saw there was even more horrible than the bloody body in the chair. After turning several pages, she let it drop onto the floor. The disgusting pictures she'd seen had shocked her even more than seeing Rodney's mutilated corpse.

  Now the revulsion that filled her heart was not for the blood and gore she saw but for the perversions her lover had acted out on innocent boys.

  She was calmer now. Definitely under control. "Who took the pictures?" she demanded. She swirled toward the shortest boy, her face a mask of anger. "Eddie, who took the pictures?"

  When no one answered, she said, "Bennie? It was Emily, wasn't it." That pig, that bitch who had stolen Rodney away from her.

  The boys looked at one another, and then Eddie nodded.

  "And this?" She waved one arm at the disfigured corpse. "Who did this?"

  Bruce began, "We all did. Together."

  The others began to speak. "We asked him to meet us here this morning."

  "Told him we had a surprise wedding gift for him."

  "We blindfolded him. He thought it was a new game."

  "We tied him to the chair. More fun and games, he thought."

  "We all brought knives with us."

  "We took turns."

  "I cut his throat so he could never talk dirty again." (Maribell was shocked to hear her nephew say that.)

  "He had it coming. He wouldn't leave us alone."

  She listened, with mounting dread, as the boys told her of their crime.

  "His feet," she whispered. "Why?"

  Jim Bob spoke again. "I did it. He had a thing for feet. Now, he doesn't have any." He began to laugh, a tinny sound that ending in a coughing fit.

  "With what?"

  J.B. pointed to a hacksaw lying on the bloody floor next to several kitchen knives. Maribell was overwhelmed with the horror of realizing that the entire thing, the murder and the mutilation of the body, had been preplanned by the boys. But family was family. The "take-charge" person Maribell Morgan was so famous for being surfaced. The fiend in the chair was no longer someone she had cared for, but garbage to be discarded. "You boys get out of here," she ordered. "Don't ever think about today again. Don't ever talk about it to each other. It never happened. Do you understand me?"

  The boys ran for freedom, and Maribell turned herself to the task of disposing of the dead body. She already knew what she was going to do. She was going to make it look like he'd run away rather than marry a woman he didn't love.

  Earlier that week Raul, the gardener, had uncovered a small cave in the basement of the springhouse while looking for a termite infestation. The cave, walled up, would be the perfect place to hide the body. It was fairly easy getting him to the lower level. She simply pulled him across the room, then dropped him down the stairwell.

  Darkness filled the lower level, and she had to light a kerosene lantern before she could do anything. She tugged Rodney's body over the rough slate floor, and over the pile of rocks pulled from the wall, and dragged him into the cave, placing him against the back wall.

  The next few hours were full of backbreaking labor as she rebuilt the wall Raul had so carefully removed, stone by stone.

  She was exhausted by the time she finished, but there was more still to be done. She hauled buckets of water up the stairs and scrubbed the floor and walls until she could see no more bloodstains. Then she washed the knives and the saw. The water in the holding pool below the spring ran bright red before she was through.

  Satisfied that the place was thoroughly clean, she stepped outside, carrying a small package, and locked the door behind her. She was determined that nobody would ever set foot in there again.

  The knives went into her kitchen. The saw into the shed. Nobody would ever have to know where they'd been or what they'd been used for. The package containing Rodney's severed feet went into the garbage where they belonged. In a day or two, they would be buried forever in the borough landfill.

  She wasn't finished, though. Raul, who would come to work tomorrow expecting to keep working in the springhouse, had to be sent away. When he did arrive the next morning, Maribell was ready for him.

  "I'm closing up the house and moving to Florida," she told him.

  He looked as if he didn't believe her, but she didn't worry about that. His English was not up to understanding long explanations. She gave him a briefcase full of cash, more than he'd ever seen in his life. "It's for you," she said, when he tried to give it back. "It's your retirement money. I owe it to you for your faithful service. And I have purchased an airplane ticket to take you to Mexico City. Your flight leaves tomorrow, so you must go home and get ready to go."

  She wasn't sure where he was from, but it seemed like a central place, where he could travel onward. And so far away from Lickin Creek. As he sped off in his beat-up pickup, grinning at his unexpected good fortune, she knew she'd never hear from him again. That was what she wanted.

  She still had to get rid of the incriminating scrapbook. After tearing out a few of the least offensive pictures, she threw it into the leaf-burning barrel in the backyard and watched as the last tangible evidence of Rodney's crimes vanished in a cloud of black smoke. She wished she didn't have to do that, that she could publically expose the man for the monster that he was. But that wasn't possible. Not if she were going to protect her own nephew and his friends. As juveniles from prominent families, she felt certain that they would not be charged with murder but be sent away to detention centers. But when they came back to Lickin Creek as adults? They never would be able to. There would never be a place in the tiny community for men who would always be known as teenagers who killed. As she saw it, she had no choice.

  Later, Maribell laughed inwardly at the turmoil surrounding Rodney's disappearance. When he hadn't shown up at the church for his own wedding, and the best man came to Morgan Manor looking for him, she voiced the suspicion that he'd simply gotten cold feet and left town. People believed her. For several weeks, Maribell watched Emily going about town, her martyred head held high.

  But finally, Maribell could stand it no more. She put the photographs she'd taken from the scrapbook into her purse, pulled on her white gloves and best hat, and paid a call upon Emily Rakestraw's mother.

  If Mrs. Rakestraw was surprised to find the town's most illustrious matron on her porch, she gave no sign of it and invited her in.

  After the ritual of tea and cookies, Maribell came to the point of her visit. She pulled the photographs out of her bag and wordlessly handed them to Mrs. Rakestraw. She watched as the woman turned red, then white.

  "I don't understand," Mrs. Rakestraw said, dropping the pictures face down on the tea table as if they were burning her fingers. "Why are you showing those filthy things to me?"

  "Who do you think took the pictures?" Mari
bell asked her.

  "I have no idea.... No. Not my Emily. She wouldn't..."

  But Maribell was sure that even as Mrs. Rakestraw denied her daughter's involvement, she knew the truth.

  At just that moment, Emily appeared in the doorway, wearing shorts and T-shirt and carrying a tennis racket. "I'm going to meet some friends at Municipal Park for practice," she said. "I'll be home for supper."

  "Come in here and sit down," her mother ordered.

  Emily flounced in and perched on the arm of her mother's chair.

  "What's up, Mumsy? Stop frowning. You know how you always tell me my face will freeze that way and..." Emily realized her words might as well be beamed into outer space for all the attention her mother was paying to them.

  Mrs. Rakestraw handed Emily the pictures. Emily turned them over and looked idly at the first one as if she had no interest in someone's old snapshots. Her smile faded immediately. "Oh my God, it's Rodney. Oh no. I can't believe he would..."

  "Stop playing me for the fool, Emily. I know you developed these in your darkroom."

  The next few seconds were a blur. The mother and daughter leaped to their feet at the same time, crying, screaming at each other, hitting, clawing. And suddenly the girl in the tennis outfit lay on the floor with blood pouring from her forehead where she'd hit her head on the tea table as she fell.

  Mrs. Rakestraw dropped to her knees next to the girl. "Emily. Emily. Oh, no. Help me."

  Maribell moved Mrs. Rakestraw aside and touched Emily's neck in the hope of finding a pulse. She felt nothing. She stood. "I'm so sorry." She saw Mrs. Rakestraw picking up the telephone. "You fool. Put that down."

  "Why?" But she replaced the receiver.

  "Because ...because you surely don't want anyone to know what Emily was up to with Rodney, do you? Or that you killed your own daughter." That was cruel, Maribell knew it had been an accident. But because Maribell didn't want anyone to know what Rodney had been up to with her nephew she didn't hold back.

  "I...no...I don't know what to do."

  "Is anybody home? The maid? Your husband?"

  "No... It's the maid's day off. And my husband's at the office." Her eyes grew wide with panic. "He should be home in an hour."

  "We'll have to hide her, then. We can take her out later when it's safer and bury her. Where's a good place? The basement?"

  "No. The attic.. .nobody ever goes there...."

  "Good. I'll give you a hand. You take her feet, I'll take her head."

  With Mrs. Rakestraw sobbing uncontrollably, the two women slowly carried their burden up two flights of stairs to the large attic.

  Maribell looked around wildly. They didn't have much time left. Her gaze fell upon an old trunk with rope handles. "Is there anything in that?" she asked.

  Mrs. Rakestraw shook her head.

  "Then open it up. We can put her in there for now"

  "No. Please. I can't do it." It was Mrs. Rakestraw's last attempt at protesting.

  "You have to." The take-charge Maribell was back, and nobody in Lickin Creek, least of all the distraught Mrs. Rakestraw, could challenge her authority.

  After they'd stashed the young woman inside the trunk, Maribell told Mrs. Rakestraw to hurry downstairs and bring back Emily's wedding dress. "That way, everyone will think Rodney came back and they eloped."

  With the dress stuffed into the trunk and nearly hiding the body, Maribell brought the lid down. She was grateful to see there was a sturdy padlock in the hasp, and she locked it securely, checking it twice to make sure it wouldn't pull open. "This way, nobody's going to get curious and open the trunk," she explained. "It's safer that way." They locked the attic door behind them as they left.

  Emily awoke in darkness. Where am I? she wondered. She raised one hand and encountered something hard. She shoved against it with all her might, but it wouldn't give. She was inside something. A box. She could hardly move. Her legs were twisted under her awkwardly, and she couldn't straighten them out. She pounded on the surface above her. She tried to claw her way out. She screamed for help. But nobody came.

  Maribell was out of the house before Mr. Rakestraw came home. A few weeks later she took a much-needed vacation, and while she was away she sent postcards to the Rakestraws, purportedly from Emily, telling them of her elopement and her desire to never see them or the gossipy town of Lickin Creek again. She continued the practice of mailing cards to Emily's friends and fellow teachers from various locales over the next twenty years, until travel became too physically challenging for her.

  Maribell's intention had been to move Emily's body from the mansion after the talk about her sudden disappearance died down. But Mrs. Rakestraw died, not as some said from the heartbreak brought on by her daughter's elopement, but by committing suicide due to the stress brought on by her own guilt. The heartbroken husband and father wasted no time in leaving for Florida. He took only his clothes. His memories were locked in the deserted house, along with his daughter's body.

  Maribell grew older, but her conscience was clear. She felt no guilt about protecting her nephew and his friends, and it was with pleasure that she watched the boys grow up, go away to college, and then return to have successful careers and become outstanding Lickin Creek citizens. That, if nothing else, proved she had done the right thing.

  Over the years, the fog rolled in slowly. Maribell couldn't remember where she'd left her book or her keys, and often she got lost on her way home from a friend's house. But as she stopped being able to recall what she'd had for breakfast, or even if it was morning or evening, the memories from forty years ago grew clearer in her mind. To her, it was something that had happened yesterday.

  She never knew why she was taken by an ambulance to an ugly building to stay in an ugly room, but she guessed she must be ill and waited patiently to recover so she could go home.

  She didn't know that her nephew, now the administrator of her estate, had agreed to show Morgan Manor on the annual Lickin Creek house tour.

  One day a strange man came to visit her. She had never seen him before but found him pleasant. After a while, though, his chatter grew annoying. He kept claiming to be her nephew, J.B., but she had no nephew by that name. Only a boy named Jim Bob, who never came to see her anymore. And what was he talking about? The house. People going through it? No! She couldn't allow that. Morgan Manor held too many secrets.

  He noticed her distress and took her hand. "What's wrong, Aunt?"

  "The springhouse," she whispered. "He's there. Below. In the cave."

  Fear enveloped J.B. Morgan. He knew who she was talking about. "I'll move him," he promised. "There's no need to worry."

  That night, J.B. entered the springhouse for the first time in nearly forty years. He shuddered at the sight of the circle of chairs, waiting for the students who would never arrive. And for a moment, in the flickering glow of his lantern, he thought he saw something else. Rodney Mellott waiting for him, his pudgy arms open, ready to embrace him. Ready to... J.B. shook the image out of his head.

  He went immediately down the stairs. And there, he found the wall, which had been haphazardly reconstructed by Alice-Ann and Tori. It took only a few minutes to make an opening and crawl through. Once again, he was face to face with his nemesis.

  The wall had obviously been disturbed recently, and he already knew who had been down here. Toby Merkle, that nosy young woman from New York, had come to his office to apply for a loan. While she was there, she'd casually mentioned that she'd been in the springhouse. There was no doubt in his mind that she'd seen the skeleton. He didn't know why she hadn't reported it to the police, but he was sure she would before long. He needed to get rid of the body first, and then he'd deal with Toby Merkle.

  The skeleton fell into hundreds of pieces as soon as he touched it. Only the indestructible polyester fabric of the tuxedo had held it together. J.B. swallowed hard to hold down the revulsion he felt and placed the bones, one by one, into a heavy-duty plastic garden bag. It weighed next to nothing w
hen he was done. The moonless sky, lit only by stars, provided the cover of darkness he needed as he drove to the tire dump that had been the bane of his aunt's existence for years, and hid the bag of human remains under a stack of old tires. He knew it would be undisturbed there, for the dump had been deserted for years.

  J.B. didn't have much time to feel safe, though. Within less than a week, it was as if the world turned upside down, and he held that meddling out-of-towner Toby, no Tori Miracle, responsible. It started the night of the house tour, when Emily Rakestraw's body turned up in a trunk at the hardware store. How had she gotten there? He had no idea, but he knew that the discovery would trigger more interest in the missing music teacher.

  His fear grew stronger the next day when he learned that Tori Miracle had taken Luscious to the springhouse to show him the skeleton she'd found. He allowed himself to enjoy the irony of her standing in an empty cave, looking foolish. Perhaps everything would have been all right, but then his cousin called from Hoopengartner's Garage.

  "J.B., I don't know why, but that Tori Miracle has been snooping around Aunt Maribell's house. She told Luscious she found a diary there what might explain Rodney Mellott's disappearance. I heard your name mentioned. Just thought you'uns oughta know"

  J.B. had received a lot of useful information from his cousin, one of the part-time garage receptionists, over the past few years. Most of it he had used to his financial benefit. This was far more serious.

  He picked up the telephone and called the Chronicle. By the time he was finished, P.J. was terrified he was going to call in her mortgages, on the newspaper building itself and on her home. She'd used the money to keep the Chronicle going. Without it, the paper would fold. That, he knew, would be enough to make her come down hard on that nosy reporter from New York. But he needed to do more. Something that would permanently put an end to her prying ways.

  He made another phone call. This one was to Bruce Laughenslagger at the BL Deer Hunting Preserve.