“I know, Miss Eidt. I’ll take over.”
Debby liked nothing more than to sit at Miss Eidt’s desk and rule over the dozen or so patrons who sat at tables reading or browsing in the stacks. One day she aspired to be the head of her own library.
Miss Eidt opened her office door. “Let’s go inside and be comfortable. Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing new. That antique television is driving me over the edge.”
She frowned. “How can it do that?”
“It plays the same movie, when it wants to, only that one. I’m hooked on the story and baffled by what makes the set tick. I have an idea I’d like to run by you.”
She plugged in her electric teakettle. Good. Everything seemed better when accompanied by a cup of Earl Gray, Miss Eidt’s current choice of brand.
“Let’s hear it,” she said.
“I don’t think the TV suddenly exhibited its strange properties when I brought it home. Someone else must have been aware of its weird ways.”
Miss Eidt nodded. “The person who owned it before you. The lady who passed away. It was an estate sale, remember.”
“True and somebody put the estate sale together or authorized it. How did you hear about it?”
“In an article in the Banner about weekend activities. I don’t remember any names mentioned, but we’re in luck. I clipped the article for my vertical file.”
Miss Eidt’s vertical file was a holdover from another age. She refused to retire it, as she had refused to discard her favorite teacup when its handle broke. She clipped articles of note and filed them in pastel manila folders. An Internet search would be easier but lacked the charm of handling actual news clippings.
My anticipation rose as she brewed the tea and searched for the maple cookies she’d ordered from the Vermont Country Store Catalog.
“It’ll just be a minute,” she said. “It was the last story in.”
She soon found the folder. “Here it is. I remember thinking this would be fun and you’d enjoy it, too.”
She set the article on the table and we read it together:
Estate Sale Set for September 7
Sponsored by the Foxglove Corners Historical Society, an estate sale will be held at the home of the late Eustacia Stirling on 51 Grovelane on September 7. Sale items include rare first editions, original art and sculpture, and collections of all kinds, along with nineteenth century furniture for all rooms.
“And a collie,” I murmured, remembering Bronwyn.
“A collie? Oh, yes, of course. Where is she now?”
“Bronwyn found a loving mistress,” I said. “But back to the sale. I’ll have to contact a member of the Foxglove Corners Historical Society. I didn’t know we had one.”
“Neither did I, until I saw the article. It must be new.”
Miss Eidt busied herself arranging cookies on a paper plate. “What do you hope to find out?”
“The name of a person who knew the owner. Possibly the heir.”
“Everything inside the house was for sale,” she reminded me. “Do you think anyone would know the properties of one old television set?”
“Possibly, if the original owner confided in a friend unless, of course, she bought it and never once used it. I have an electric knife that would fit into that category.”
“Here’s another option,” Miss Eidt said. “Take the set apart. Maybe you’ll find the miniature CD player Brent thinks is inside or something else that causes this weird glitch.”
“In other words, dissect it?”
“You could say that.”
A disturbing image formed in my mind. A vaporous spirit lying still on Crane’s workbench, its innards spread around it, all of them warm and pulsating with life.
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “It would be like murder.”
“Surely not, Jennet. You’re overreacting. All you’d be doing is destroying an intangible object for a good cause.”
I thought about what she said but still wanted to keep the television set intact. Maybe that was the only way I could see the rest of Susanna’s story.
“It’d be easier to find another person who heard about the TV’s unusual qualities or maybe experienced them,” I said.
Would anything be easy about solving this mystery, though?
“Do you remember the name of the woman who took our money at the sale?” I asked. “Something Bell? Christa Bell?”
“No, she had a more common first name,” Miss Eidt said.
“Somebody at the Historical Society would know.”
Research was the key. Along with the name of the previous owner, it would be helpful to know where the set had been made and where it’d been sold. Incidentally, how many of them had been produced? Was mine the only haunted television set in the lot?
Finally, if the antique television set I owned was truly one of a kind, how had it gotten that way?
Too many questions. I couldn’t wait to start searching for answers.
Twenty-six
Her name was Anna Bell, and she was the founder and president of the Foxglove Corners Historical Society which had recently celebrated its third birthday. Anna’s office was located in a renovated farmhouse, circa 1890, on the outskirts of Foxglove Corners. It had been purchased with funds raised by Mrs. Bell. The first (and presumably most generous) donor was Miss Eustacia Stirling.
All this I learned on the society’s website, along with their contact information. I sent an e-mail to Anna Bell, expressing my interest in an antique television set acquired at the recent estate sale, then resigned myself to wait.
This waiting period gave me time to create a credible story. I didn’t want to tell anyone about the Western movie that came and went apparently on a whim. Not at first anyway. And I wouldn’t describe the television as being haunted.
What could I say then?
Perhaps a little bit of the truth. It didn’t pick up local channels. Sometimes it didn’t work properly at all. I couldn’t find the one program it aired in any TV guide.
Well, that was certainly strange.
If I hoped to be successful, I had to be clear about what I wanted. Which was… I had to think about that. What would satisfy me?
The name of another person who might be familiar with the TV while it was in Miss Stirling’s possession—if such a person existed.
There was another name, one I’d never known. I recalled the woman in the pink sundress who had been so disappointed that I’d already purchased the TV. I’d been afraid she’d grab it out of my hands and run. I felt she would be impossible to trace and probably had no prior knowledge of the television. Her eagerness to possess it, though, was suspicious.
It was as if she knew something about it that I didn’t—at the time.
I had to settle for the possible. If I were lucky, Mrs. Bell would provide me with a name. In the meantime, I set out to do my own research. First, what company manufactured the television set?
You’d think that would be easy to find, a fact my mind had already registered during one of the many times I’d turned the TV on or dusted it.
You would be wrong. There was no name on the cabinet, not on the front where I expected to see it, nor in any other place. How exasperating!
How impossible. Everything had a name. Panasonic, Sony, Kenmore, Spectra, Dixie…
It’s there somewhere. You just haven’t found it yet.
Or for some reason it had been removed, leaving no trace of its existence.
I was well on my way to obsessing about the lack of manufacturer’s information when I stopped myself. Why be surprised when I was dealing with a television set that was the essence of ghostliness?
I checked my e-mail before shutting the computer down, even though I knew it was too soon for Mrs. Bell to respond.
~ * ~
That evening, Lucy called. I knew immediately that something was wrong even as she said, “Don’t be alarmed, Jennet, but I think you should know about this.”
&nbs
p; I glanced at Crane, feeling a need for his support even before knowing why.
“It’s Charlotte,” Lucy said. “She went home for a while this afternoon, and she isn’t back yet. She said she’d only be gone an hour.”
How could I be anything but alarmed?
“Why did she do that?” I asked.
“She wanted her wool skirts and turtleneck sweaters, she said, and her boots. She only brought one pair of shoes.”
“Did she take Bronwyn?”
“Yes. Bronwyn went, too. They go everywhere together. This time they’ve been gone for almost three hours. I’ve been debating about whether to drive over to her house and check on her.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’m closer. Did you call her?”
“She doesn’t answer, and her mailbox is full.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Charlotte impressed me as being considerate of other people’s feelings. She knew I’d be worried about her.”
“Something happened.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it did,” Lucy said. “Let me know what you find out. I’ll call you if she shows up.”
As I ended the call, Crane folded his paper. He’d been listening. “I’ll drive you, honey,” he said.
~ * ~
She wasn’t there. Neither was the blue car. There was no sign that anyone on two legs or four had disturbed the layer of leaves that carpeted the walkway. Her neighbor wasn’t at home either.
A sense of déjà vu settled over me. Charlotte had gone away again, taking Bronwyn with her.
I looked up and down Sagramore Lake Road and didn’t see her car. The lake was still and silent, shimmering in the late afternoon sunshine. I half hoped to see Molly and Jennifer with Ginger, but the beach was deserted. They’d probably been in school when Charlotte had left Dark Gables for her own house.
If they had anything to tell me, they would call.
“What do you think?” I asked Crane.
“She never reached her house.”
“I wonder if she went back to her cottage up north,” I said.
“That would be foolish. She was safe with Lucy.”
We walked back to Crane’s Jeep. “I don’t believe Charlotte lied about wanting her warmer clothes. That was her intention. Someone derailed it.”
“The hit-and-run driver,” Crane said. “Who just happened to be where she was?”
“That’s unlikely, but possible. I hope we’re not too late to change the outcome.”
An unwelcome image took shape in my mind: Charlotte lying dead in an autumn field or wood, buried under leaves. We might never know what happened unless a hiker or hunter stumbled on her body.
And Bronwyn?
She went where Charlotte went.
From the beginning, that adoption had been steeped in mystery.
But that was unfair. When Charlotte had taken Bronwyn home, she couldn’t have known that a leisurely drive on a country road with her new dog would lead to danger for both of them. It was fall, for heaven’s sake. People took color tours all the time. They viewed the changing leaves and marveled at nature’s wonders, and nothing untoward happened.
“Do you have the address of Charlotte’s cottage?” Crane asked.
“I didn’t know she had one till she mentioned it,” I said.
“Does Sue Appleton have it?”
“I doubt it, and I’d rather Sue didn’t hear about this.”
“You and Lucy can try to call Charlotte.”
“We can.”
Would her mailbox still be full, though? Would she have a signal, wherever she was?
“I can try,” I added.
And if Charlotte never got in touch with us, well then she was lying in that deadly autumn field covered with leaves.
With Bronwyn at her side.
Twenty-seven
The days whirled by with the blowing wind. Leaves danced through the air on their downward flight, and pumpkins of all sizes grew on vines or decorated porches. While the mornings were cool, the days remained unseasonably warm. September stepped aside to make way for golden, glorious October.
The hours filled with everyday concerns: dinner, the needs of seven collies, lesson plans, classes, then dinner again.
Julia had accepted an offer to teach at Maplewood University and set out to find a suitable house to purchase. From Foxglove Corners she would have a long commute of an hour and a half in good weather.
“A half hour tops is what I’m looking for,” she’d said.
After school one day I took Halley, Gemmy, and Sky on a walk to Sue Appleton’s horse farm, needing to breathe fresh air and enjoy a taste of freedom, albeit a brief one. The fall day was picture perfect with cotton-fluff clouds in an azure sky and sunshine that set the maple leaves on Sue’s trees on fire.
We sat on the porch surrounded by six collies. In other words, in collie heaven. In spite of being surrounded by brightness, our mood was somber.
Neither Lucy nor I had heard from Charlotte. She was officially a missing person. By now I’d told Sue about Charlotte’s second disappearance.
“Charlotte must be dead,” Sue said. “That man killed her to keep her from identifying him. Otherwise she’d be in touch with one of us. And what became of our Bronwyn? I can’t bear not knowing.”
“Let’s not bury Charlotte yet,” I said.
Sue didn’t seem to hear me.
“All because she stopped to help a stranger at an accident scene. She should have just driven on.”
A stranger who subsequently died of her injuries. Ignoring an unuttered cry for help simply wasn’t human.
“You don’t mean that,” I said.
“If she had, she’d be alive. So would Bronwyn.”
There was no point in trying to change Sue’s mind. She was upset, but at heart she was a good person who had often gone out of her way to help others.
“I’m going to believe that Charlotte is alive until I see her body,” I said.
“You realize we may never know what happened to her. Or to our poor rescue.” She paused. “A retired couple inquired about available collies this morning. They want to adopt an older dog, perhaps one nobody else wants.”
“Do we have a collie for them?” I asked.
“There’s Dasher, who’s nine. Emma Brock is fostering him. His picture isn’t on our website yet.”
“That’s good. When will they meet him?”
“Tomorrow. It sounds perfect, but I’m leery.”
“Why?” I asked.
“After what happened to Bronwyn. Something similar could happen again.”
We’d had this kind of conversation before. It couldn’t be allowed to affect our new program.
“If everything is perfect, as you say, there’s no reason not to approve the adoption,” I said.
“I suppose so.”
“You know I’m right.” I tugged gently on the leashes. “It’s so lovely here I’d love to stay longer, but I’d better go home.”
I had four collies waiting for me and dinner to make. Always dinner.
~ * ~
The next day after school I stopped at Dark Gables to visit Lucy. Leonora had called in sick which gave me ten free minutes. We sat in the sunroom drinking tea and talking about Charlotte while watching the wind blow golden leaves into the fountain.
“Sue thinks that Charlotte is dead,” I said.
“I feel she’s still alive but in danger.”
“Based on what?” I asked.
“One of my feelings.”
“And Bronwyn?”
“I don’t know, but Bronwyn was always at Charlotte’s side. You’d think they’d been together since Bronwyn was a puppy. What happens to one happens to the other. I miss them,” she added. “So does Sky.”
Sky nudged my hand and set her gaze on a plate of oatmeal cookies, the picture of a happy, expectant collie.
“Are you saying that Bronwyn is in danger, too?” I asked.
“I guess I am.
”
Silently I drained the excess tea into the saucer and watched the tea leaves form their patterns.
“Let’s see what the teacup says,” I said.
Lucy studied the arrangement of leaves in my cup. She was frowning. That was never good.
“I still see the Viper,” she said.
Veronica. Crane’s not-so-secret admirer. She’d been silent lately, but isn’t that the way of vipers? Stay out of sight until it’s time to strike?
“I wish she’d slither out into the open so I could smash her,” I said.
“That may happen sooner than you think.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“Each time I read your tea leaves that initial V is closer to your home.” Lucy pointed her lavender-tinted fingernail to an innocuous light leaf. It did look like a capital V.
“When she makes her move, I hope I’ll be ready for her,” I said. “What else do you see?”
“Your wish. And here’s a crossroad. Soon you’ll have to make a major decision. One road leads to darkness.”
“And of course I won’t know which one to choose,” I said.
“You’ll have to follow your heart.”
Well, that was vague. Lately my heart had been uncommunicative.
“Do you see any sign of Charlotte and Bronwyn?” I asked.
“Not today,” she said. “Not in your cup.”
~ * ~
Julia was home for dinner that evening. It was an occasion. She had been seeing an English professor who taught at Maplewood University. He was only a friend, she insisted, but he was extremely knowledgeable about Victorian literature. Presumably they had much in common.
She cut carrots and radishes for a salad while I prepared breaded pork chops, both of us supervised by Candy and Misty.
“I’d love for you to see the house I’m considering,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Could you go with me then? We can stop for lunch on the way back.”
“Sure,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, it’s perfect for me. It’s white with gables and purple trim. There are mature trees on the property and a small old-fashioned flower garden that looks sort of droopy at this time of the year. I can see myself planting larkspur and foxglove and cloves. I love the scent of cloves.”
The Deadly Fields of Autumn Page 13