FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery

by April Campbell Jones

  Katie took a step toward me. “What do you mean?”

  I turned back to the wall, shone the candlelight over the red splotch.

  I used my index finger for emphasis, trying to put it all together like a police detective, pointing here and there as I went. “Garbanzo comes toward us out of the dark…that way, north. You pick him up. He snuggles with you…”

  “Go on…”

  I scratched my chin. “Suddenly he hears or smells the rat. He jumps from your arms and makes a bee-line this way--due south--where he kills the rat…” pointing at the blotch “…here.” I moved the light closer. “The blood mark is against the wall—but high, in fact, higher than my waistline, certainly higher than the cat. Meaning the cat had to jump to reach him.”

  Katie watched intently as I glanced back south again. “So?”

  “A rat running from a cat in an enclosed room would run instinctively for the only exit, in this case the crypt door. It wouldn’t try to escape up a flat stone wall…”

  I stretched on my toes, held the candle as high as I could. “…unless it knew previously of another exit…in the ceiling maybe, where those cracks get bigger. Where maybe there’s a crack or a hole it used to enter the crypt in the first place, not the door.”

  I heard Katie’s breath catch. “Oh, Elliot, do you really think it’s possible?”

  The more I considered it, I did. “Don’t get too excited yet…a hole the size of a rat, or even a cat, wouldn’t allow passage for us.”

  “Unless Katrina blew off more of the roof than anyone knows!”

  I strained to see past the crescent of light above me. “But they would know, that’s just it. Even a small hole would let some rain in…”

  “But maybe not much! Maybe just a small puddle which dries before anyone has time to see it!”

  “Maybe.”

  “Elliot, if it’s a chance then we’ve got to check!”

  She was right about that. And I was already sitting down on the cold floor, pressing my back to the stone wall.

  “What are we doing?”

  “You’re going to stand on my shoulders, Katie. It’s all we’ve got for a ladder and I’m too heavy to stand on yours. Come! Climb on. Carefully! Use the wall to support you.”

  She kicked off her shoes, got a foot on one shoulder, took my hands and got the other foot up. Once she was in place, I carefully handed her up the candle.

  “Okay,” I puffed, “I’m going to stand up now, slide myself up on my back using the wall. When I reach full height, I’ll signal you. Now comes the hard part…”

  “I stretch up as high as I can with the candle while balancing on your shoulders, and try to get a view of the ceiling--look for anything that could be a large enough crack or opening.”

  “I’ll try to steady you with my hands on your ankles.”

  “I used to do this in high school cheerleading.”

  “Uh-huh, too bad I didn’t. Ready?”

  I should never have quit pressing iron in the gym.

  But I finally made it up on my feet again full height without spilling Katie. I gripped her ankles. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you! Take your time!”

  Her weight shifted onto my shoulder tendons; I grit my teeth.

  “See anything? Rain damage? Anything?”

  “There’s a crack up here all right. Much too small for us to get through, though. Wait a second…”

  There was a lilt of hope to her voice. In a moment I felt her heels sink deeper into my shoulder as if she were straining for or against something.

  “Oh…oh! Wow!”

  “What?”

  “Elliot, you’re not going to believe this!”

  “What is it?”

  It was a rope.

  Just a small, trailing length of yellowish hemp.

  Hanging down no more than an inch through the small ceiling crack.

  But what happened when Katie pushed on that crack was a miracle. The ceiling lifted away under the heel of her hands into a near-perfect square--like a submarine escape hatch someone had chiseled into the plaster ceiling--lifted away on metal hinges to bang down opposite on the red tile roof.

  A trapdoor.

  And lying on the roof next to it--completely out of sight from anyone on the ground--was a lot more rope, a coil of it, with thick knots about every four feet or so. Once Katie had uncoiled and dropped it through the roof opening, it became a crude but entirely usable rope ladder.

  A ladder its last user had--in haste perhaps--left just an inch of exposed and dangling through the trapdoor seam. Without that small slip, without the candles, without Katie still able to balance like a cheerleader—and most of all without that stupid cat—we’d never have found the small crack in the trapdoor. The same crack Garbanzo had used to chase the rat through and enter the mausoleum. No wonder we hadn’t seen him at our feet when we were coming through the front door; he wasn’t there.

  * * *

  I helped Katie down the drainpipe on the outside wall and we stood there a moment in the blessed night air getting our breath and dusting our hands.

  “But who?” Katie kept repeating on the way to the car, Garbanzo trotting proudly beside us. “Diane?”

  I shook my head. “Diane had the key, remember?”

  “Maybe that was just to lure us into the crypt and trap us!”

  “Too complicated. I don’t think Diane made the trapdoor or even knew about it. We wouldn’t have known without the cat.”

  Katie smiled. “Remind me to buy him some extra fancy cat food tomorrow.”

  “He’s eating graveyard rats off mausoleum floors, Katie, I don’t think he’s that finicky.”

  “He’s getting it anyway!” she laughed.

  I came up short. “Shit—“

  “What’s the matter?”

  I pointed to the T-Bird; the left rear tire was flat.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket and popping the trunk, “I’ve got a spare. Won’t take a minute.”

  “Good,” Katie nodded with a forced smile.

  She grabbed up the cat before her and huddled against a big oak, wide eyes sweeping the dark markers and silent statuary around us. “You know what, Elliot? I think someone really wanted us to stay in this cemetery!”

  I thought about it on the way back to town.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but if someone wanted to get rid of us, why leave an expensive antique sports car standing outside the crypt like a calling card, why not get rid of it, too?”

  Katie’s head was back against the headrest, eyes closed, already nearly asleep from exhaustion. Her body, at least, but not that ever-buzzing brain. “It would look more suspicious without the car. Everyone at the funeral saw it. The idea was to make it look like we sneaked into the crypt somehow—which we did—and locked ourselves in. It had to be Diane. We were getting too close to the money.”

  “Katie, we never found the money.”

  “Didn’t find it there. But to her mind we were still getting too close.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “Well, we’d better be more careful then the next time we tail her.”

  “Not tonight, though, okay? All I want now is to sleep in a warm bed. No, a stiff drink, then to sleep in a warm bed. No, a hot bath, a stiff drink, then to bed.” She heard me punching buttons behind the wheel, rolled her head languidly toward me. “Who’re you calling at this hour?”

  “My fiancée. If she still is my fiancée. She should have called by now to let me know she got back to Austin safely. I haven’t heard a peep.”

  “Wow.”

  I snapped closed the phone, pocketed it.

  “Not there?”

  “Her recorder.” In a moment I turned to Katie. “’Wow’ what?”

  “What an understanding woman she must be, that you want to make sure you know she’s all right after you’ve been with another woman.”

  “I haven’t been with another woman! Not that way.”

  “Still. You must really kn
ow each other. That’s worth something. Worth a lot, I’d think. Better hang on to that one, Elliot.”

  I said nothing the rest of the way to the motel. I was too bushed.

  It was just coming up dawn when we pulled into the gravel lot.

  No, not ‘bushed’: wrung out. I could still feel Katie’s imprints on my shoulders.

  I pulled the car in front of Katie’s cabin chivalrously so she wouldn’t have to walk any further than necessary, and put it in gear.

  “Home sweet home. That’ll be seventeen–ninety-five. Hello—?”

  I had to shake her awake.

  She opened her eyes and looked around listlessly.

  “Tired?”

  “That would describe it. Hey. Remember Shredded Wheat when it had that picture of Niagara Falls on the boxes?”

  “Sure.”

  “’Shot from guns,’ it said. That’s how I feel, shot from guns.”

  “I never knew what that meant, but I can empathize. Shall I carry you?”

  She rolled her head toward me on a rubbery neck. “What about that drink?”

  “Still want one?”

  “Still got that bottle?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Closed eyes is not sleep. I’m wound tighter than a…” She couldn’t think of a metaphor.

  I grinned and backed the car up to my own cabin.

  Once inside, I cranked up the air-conditioning and poured us both an Old Fashion neat. Katie guzzled hers.

  “Wretched sot.”

  “Fuck you, Professor,” and she held up a flat palm. “See that? When that stops trembling I’ll quit guzzling and start sleeping.”

  She was perched on the edge of the bed, cute as a rain-soaked sparrow; I was in the single chair beside the antique TV. I took another hit to make sure I was sure, then got up and locked the cabin door. Double locked it, actually, including the chain.

  Katie watched me, held up her empty glass and reached for the nightstand bottle. “One more jolt, then you can rape me.”

  I shrugged off my jacket, threw it over the chair back and began unbuttoning my shirt as she tipped her second glass. “Take your time,” I said, “you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Fast talker.”

  “I mean it. Things are too hairy out there for us right now,” nodding toward the blinds, which I then crossed to and pulled tight.

  When I turned Katie was already stumbling toward the bathroom. “There’s only one bed, sailor, and no couch,” peeling off her blouse.

  “Live with it,” I called after her, and unbuckled my jeans.

  * * *

  I’d love to tell you how warm and cozy and grabby-feely Katie was lying beside me all night but I don’t remember a moment at it. My head hit the pillow and…well, you know.

  The next time my eyes opened the room was glowing with outside sun against the blinds and someone who I fervently hoped was Paranormal Investigator Kathleen Bracken was running the shower.

  I heaved up, combed fingers through my hair and hitched my jeans up over a growling stomach. The belt cinched in an extra hole: I’d lost weight. “Well!” I muttered, “Try the new paranormal investigation diet!”

  I listened to the shower for a moment. Thought about Katie under it, hair plastered flat, spray-dripping body…

  Then I thought of Rita.

  Snagged my cellular and prayed for a decent connection. I punched in Rita’s number, waited. Recorder.

  I closed the phone and stood there staring at it. Why wasn’t she calling me?

  I jumped as the phone went off in my hand. I recognized the prefix but not the number in the little window. “Hello?”

  “Professor Bledsoe?”

  “You got him.”

  “Hi, this is Sally Watkins in Administration?”

  “Oh, yes, Sally, how are you?”

  “Just fine. I’m calling to remind you that you and Miss Blaine are scheduled to chaperone a field trip to Galveston next week.”

  Shit.

  “Professor Bledsoe--?”

  “The field trip, yes. Glad you reminded me, Sally. I’m…I’ve been out of town.”

  “Ah. So, may I put you down for attendance?”

  “Sally, have you called my fiancée Rita Blaine yet?”

  “I’ve called, only gotten her machine so far. She’s not with you?”

  “No. No, this was a business trip, Sally, just me. Listen, I’m having trouble hearing you, probably my cell phone, could you try again, please, let me know when you reach Rita?”

  I looked up to find Katie standing in the steam-flushed bathroom door, wrapped in a towel.

  “Sure, Professor. You’ll be available for the trip then?”

  I met Katie’s eyes. “Uh…yes. I’ll be there. Thanks.”

  I rang off. Put the phone in my pocket, looked up to find Katie still watching me.

  “Rita?”

  “No. School secretary.”

  “Ah. Everything okay?”

  I nodded. “Fine.”

  “Good! So. Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  She gave me a patient look. “Be there?”

  “It’s a field trip. I signed up for it months ago, Katie.”

  “I see. You’ll be going back, then. To Austin.”

  “In a… couple of days.”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “Katie, we both knew this was only temporary.”

  She was silent a moment. Then: “Sure.”

  She just stood there. I didn’t know what to say.

  Finally she came to the small dresser and retrieved her halter top and white shorts. And dropped the towel

  I turned away gallantly. But I’d seen enough. More than enough to get my heart going. Katie was…well, let’s just leave it at ‘well-proportioned.’

  I heard the zipper on the shorts. “You don’t have to, you know…”

  “Have to what?”

  “Turn your back on me”

  Something caught in my throat. “No, it isn’t that—I was just trying to be a gentleman, Katie.”

  She nodded. “I know.” She buttoned her blouse. “You don’t have to do that either.” Shrugged petite shoulders. “Your choice.”

  * * *

  Over a late breakfast(we’d both slept past 11:00) Katie said: “I think it’s time to visit the family historian.”

  I looked up from pancakes and sausage. “The attorney? Breedlove?”

  “Still got his card?”

  I dug in my pocket, handed it to her. She glanced at it, held her coffee in one hand, thumbed her cellular with the other.

  “This is Miss Bracken. I met Mr. Breedlove at the Robichou family funeral. Yes, and Mr. Breedlove was kind enough to…oh? Oh, dear. Must have been quite recently. I see. Where’s that again? Fine. Thank you.”

  She put the phone away, took a sip of coffee. “Attorney Breedlove is away from his office.”

  “Vacation?”

  “Not unless the Shady Oak Nursing Home is a vacation.”

  “What?”

  “Congestive heart failure. Apparently.”

  “Since when? He looked healthy as a horse at the funeral!”

  “Since sometime last night. Apparently.”

  “That was his secretary?”

  “Apparently.”

  “I don’t like the sound of your apparentlys.”

  “I don’t either. If the guy had a heart attack, why’s he in a nursing home and not a hospital?”

  “Maybe it’s not the first time.”

  “Maybe we should go and find out, before…” she trailed off.

  “’Before--?”

  “Before we see him at the cemetery again.”

  I wiped my mouth, dropped a bill on the table. “Did you write down the address of the nursing home?”

  Katie winked, tapped her temple twice: all up here!

  I didn’t trust the spare tire on those country roads so we stopped off at the first gas station we saw to have the
flat patched. I wished later I’d taken a picture of the place, it was like going back in time: those old-fashioned pumps with the glass globe lamps on top spelling CROWN in glowing red-and-blue. Old-fashioned station house too, with what looked like original stucco walls and red tile roof. But not old-fashioned enough to have some guy in a crisp uniform and cap come running out smiling to fill the tank, check the oil and tires and wipe the windshield cheerfully. The owner—if the grease-stained kid in the antique garage was the owner—was alone, head stuck up under a 4x4 resting on the rack. Just to speed things up in a town that’s never speedy, I took the flat out of the trunk myself and rolled it into the garage.

  Fifteen minutes later when we were back on the road, Katie said: “What’s the matter?”

  I refused to turn to her. “Who says anything’s the matter?”

  “Your face.”

  It was hard to repress the smile. “Think you know me pretty good, that it?”

  “Pretty ‘well’--and yes.”

  “’She corrected the college professor.’”

  “So--?”

  “So I rolled the wheel up to the garage kid and he sticks his head out from under the rack for all of half a second, glances over at me, and guess what the first words were out of his mouth?”

  “Tell me, so we’ll both know.”

  “’Who slashed your tire, Mister?’”

  “Really. And what did you say?”

  “I said: ‘What makes you think it was slashed?’ And he just grinned and went back to his grease rack.”

  Shady Oaks Nursing Facility was about twenty minutes out of town. It was small and plain and not nearly as attractive as the surrounding swamp. All I can recall about it was the color beige, inside and out.

  And on the nursing station’s attendant’s face.

  “Hi. We’re the Bledsoes. Can you tell us Mr. Breedlove’s room number, please?”

  A gum-snapping, near-adolescent blonde in a beige uniform with no nurse’s hat; hats were out-of-style now, I guessed.

  “We’re family.”

  She didn’t seem to care. Snapped and checked a clipboard on the desk beside her. “Birdlove?”

  “Breed-love.”

  Snap, check, flip sheet. “One twenty-one.”

  Short foyer to short hall to small Room 121, all beige.

  Breedlove lay in a hospital-type bed, asleep and hooked up to an I.V. and oxygen mask. There was no other medical equipment in the room, no TV and only one small bedside table and one faux Eames straight back chair that was occupied. The orderly’s name was ‘Trent,’ or so his uniform pocket said. He was big and muscular and black, reading a car magazine. He only looked up once from when Katie and I entered.