The Harry Starke Series Books 4 -6: The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set 2 (The Harry Starke Novels - The Boxed Sets)

by Blair Howard

  “Oh, Mr. Strong,” Amanda said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a word. Would you sit with us for a moment?”

  “Of course, and please call me Art.” He sat opposite us.

  “Please, do have some coffee,” she said. He fetched a spare cup and saucer from the next table and poured a cup for himself, black.

  “So,” he said. “I assume this will be where you give me the bad news.”

  “Bad news? What do you mean?”

  “Well, this is where you tell me you’re going to sell the place and let us go, right?”

  “Ah. No. That wasn’t it at all. I simply want to get an idea of what it’s like to run this place. I have a copy of the accounts, of course, but those only tell one side of the story. I will say this: we do need to talk about the future, but you should know that I do not intend to stay here any longer than I must. There’s something funny about this place and about that sitting room. I can feel it. Grandmother Tyler could feel it too.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear you say that, Miss Amanda. You’re right, she hated the place. I’m surprised she didn’t get rid of it way back when, but she didn’t, and she continued to pour money into it. The house is in constant need of maintenance. Mary and me, we don’t need much, although she was very generous, was Mrs. Tyler.” He peered expectantly over his gold-rimmed glasses, first at Amanda, then at me, then at her once more.

  “You say she hated it here,” I said. “Did she ever tell you why?”

  “Oh yes, sir. She was convinced the house was haunted.”

  “And is it?” I asked. Please don’t say yes.

  “Lord bless me no, sir. If it is, I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of it. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “So,” Amanda said. “Did she ever talk about it? Did she ever see a ghost?”

  “No ma’am, not a ghost, but….” He paused, seemed reluctant to continue.

  “Well, go on.”

  He sipped his coffee, looked at each of us in turn. “During the few times she visited, she refused to stay on the top floor. She insisted on staying in one of the guest rooms, as close as she could be to our rooms, in fact. The first time she visited, back in 1985 it was, when she inherited it, I put her in the room you’re in now. She didn’t like it. Came to me the next morning and insisted I move her. I asked her why, but all she’d say was that she could feel a presence….” He paused again and looked at Amanda.

  I turned and looked her. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. She grabbed my hand beneath the table and squeezed.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Amanda. I didn’t mean to….”

  “No, no. It’s all right. Go on. Please.”

  “Well, I asked her what she meant. She said she didn’t know, just that she’d woken up in the middle of the night and felt there was someone in the room. She said she turned the light on, but there was no one there—of course—but she did say that the room was very cold. The same with the sitting room. She wouldn’t go in there either. She said that the one time she did venture inside it, Mrs. Elizabeth, her in the painting, was watching her, that her eyes followed her right around the room. She also said there was a cold spot right outside the sitting room door… and, well that’s about it.” I could tell he didn’t believe what he was saying, and I was sure as hell that I didn’t, but I could also tell from the way she was squeezing my hand that Amanda believed it wholeheartedly.

  “No other ghostly events other than that one time in our room?” I asked.

  He drew in a deep breath. “Well, one time she was sitting right where you are now and she said it suddenly went very cold, and she felt that someone was sitting beside her….” He shook his head. “Look. I don’t know. I’ve never had any such experiences, other than the cold, but the whole house is cold, especially in winter. There are no ghosts here.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Amanda said. She looked at me, “Will you tell him, or will I?

  I closed my eyes, slowly shook my head, and said, “Tell him what?”

  “Oh God, Harry,” she said, angrily. “You know damned well what.” She turned toward Strong. “Someone was playing the piano in the sitting room at three o’clock this morning, that’s what.”

  Strong stared at her, his mouth wide open. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I heard it. He didn’t,” she twitched her head in my direction. “Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata just as plain as… I heard it plainly, and when we went to see what it was, the music stopped just before we reached the door to the sitting room, which, by the way, was open. No one came out. Not only that, the Tiffany lamp on the piano was on, the lid was open, and the seat had been pushed back. How about that? Now, if it wasn’t a damned ghost, what or who was it? You? Is there another way out of that room? Was it you? Are you trying to scare me, Mr. Strong?” Oh she was angry.

  “I… I… don’t know what to say,” he stammered. “I’ve never heard the like, not even from Mrs. Tyler. I don’t believe in ghosts. There has to be a rational explanation.”

  “Oh don’t you dare go there. I’ve had enough of that from him. I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m crazy. Don’t you?”

  I put my hand on her arm. “That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s thinks, and so do I, that there has to be an explanation. I think you might be onto something. Maybe there is another way in and out of the room.”

  “But, Harry. You didn’t hear it. And if you didn’t, what the hell did I hear?”

  “Well, it could have been music coming from one of the guest rooms on the floor below,” Strong said.

  “If that were so, Harry would have heard it too, and he didn’t. Either I am crazy or…. Well, I’m not.”

  “Nobody said you were, Amanda. Could it have come from the floor below, Mr. Strong? I don’t see how it could be. It was after three in the morning, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Hah, that don’t mean a thing. Guests get up to all sorts of crazy stuff at all hours of the night. Why, one time I…. Oh, never mind. The answer is yes, it could have come from the floor below, though it’s not very likely. Not them two anyway.” He inclined his head toward the two ladies. “Usually it’s kids or young folk that cause a racket in the middle of the night, and we don’t have any of those staying here at the moment. Look. Let’s think on it. I need to get back to the kitchen. Can we talk later?”

  “Umm, yes,” Amanda hesitated. “I still need to talk to you about the future, but we can do that later…. Oh don’t worry. I’m not going to fire you. Just the opposite, in fact. In the meantime, I need a set of keys to the house.”

  “Yes, of course. I have a set ready for you. I’ll go get them.”

  “There’s no need,” she said. “Just leave them on the front desk and I’ll pick them up when we’ve finished here. Oh, and I’d like more coffee, please.”

  She waited until he’d brought it and gone again, and then she let go of my hand. She poured what couldn’t have been more than half a teaspoon of milk into her coffee and began to stir it, looking thoughtfully down into the cup.

  “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you, Harry?” she whispered, without looking up at me.

  “Come on, Amanda. Of course I don’t…. But okay, look. I have to ask you. Is it possible you imagined it? Hold on, let me finish. Think about it. We had a hell of a long day yesterday; we were both tired out… and, well, you know, it was after three o’clock in the morning. It’s possible. Isn’t it?”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were watering, and she slowly shook her head.

  No. She mouthed the word silently, exaggerating it.

  “Okay,” I said, more to myself than to her. I took her hand. “Then I believe you. So let’s get to the bottom of it.”

  “Okaay….” She drew the word out, her eyebrows raised quizzically.

  “We have to start with the basics, with what we already know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if something is going on, someone or something is responsible. W
e know the where: the sitting room. There could be more places, but that’s the place to begin, right? What we don’t know is who or what could it be. How it’s being done, or why.”

  She nodded, slowly, her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t believe in the supernatural, Amanda. It’s not logical. There are no such things as ghosts. If you did hear the piano, it was being played by a real, live person, or it was electronic. There’s no other logical explanation.”

  “No, I suppose not. So where do we start?”

  “With the fact that someone is screwing with us. I know it, and you need to believe it. It’s the only logical explanation, because I ain’t buying that the place truly is haunted. Someone’s flipping the light switches and moving the furniture, and by God I’ll find out who it is.”

  “Harry, my love,” she said quietly, “you’re forgetting the music and the changes in temperature….”

  “The music is easy to explain, as I said before. There must be speakers; we just can’t find them. The temperature: we imagined it.”

  “Harry, only I hear it. You didn’t hear it, and Strong said he’s never heard it, or his wife. You can’t explain that away.”

  “I don’t know about the music,” I said. “Maybe it’s pitched too low for me to hear, but there are no ghosts, trust me. And if someone is screwing with us—and someone must be—it has to be either Strong and his wife, Perkins, whom we’ve never met, or those two guys here for the fishing. It can’t be the two grannies, can it?”

  “Or it could be Elizabeth,” Amanda said defiantly. “No, no. Hear me out. I know you don’t believe in the supernatural. But suppose there is life after death, and suppose she is trying to reach us. She’d need to attract our attention, right?”

  I just stared at her.

  “Oh don’t look so stupid. I’m only supposing.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “Well, I guess as her next of kin, so to speak, it would be me that she’d try to reach. So maybe you wouldn’t hear it, the music. Just me.”

  “I’d rather believe it was Strong, or some other son of a bitch with a motive, and motive is almost always about money. So who would benefit by scaring the crap out of you? We need to think about that, Amanda. Why would anyone want to scare you, make you believe the house is haunted?”

  She thought about that, and then said, “As far as we know, there are only seven other people besides us in the house, right? The Strongs, the fishermen, the two old girls and Perkins, whom we’ve yet to meet. Now, you tell me. Is it likely that any one of them could be fooling with us? I don’t think so. What motive would they have?”

  I sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t see it either. Motive usually means either money or revenge and, as far as I could tell from what we’d already learned, there was no way to apply either.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But think hard. Is there anyone, anyone at all?”

  “No. I have thought about it. I have no relatives, except that cousin in Australia…. Hmmm. I wonder where those two old biddies are from.” She paused, then shook her head. “No, look at them. They’re too wrapped up in each other, not to mention how old they must be. But they’re here, and we’re here, so we might as well start with them.”

  She got up from the table and walked the few feet to where they were drinking what I figured was their last cup of coffee before heading out.

  “Good morning, ladies. Do you mind if I sit with you for a minute? I’m Amanda Cole, the new owner of the Towers.”

  They didn’t mind, and so she sat. They, the two ladies, had their backs to me, and they spoke quietly, so I could hear only Amanda’s side of the conversation. They talked together for several minutes, mostly small talk: where were they from, why the Towers, were they enjoying their stay, could she do anything for them, all the usual stuff. Then she rose, said goodbye, and returned to our table.

  “So?” I asked. “Anything?”

  She shook her head. “Apparently they’ve been coming here for years. They’re from Boston, like the solitude, and bird-watching. It makes sense. And no,” she said, smiling, “they don’t have Australian accents. So that’s a bust.”

  “It has to be Strong, but if so, why, and who’s in it with him? Must be someone. The fishermen, maybe.”

  “So. What do we do next?” she asked.

  “I want to take another look inside that sitting room. You up for it?”

  She stared at me for a long moment, and then slowly nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 9

  Thirty minutes later, Amanda had picked up the keys and we were once again outside the sitting room door. I tried the knob. The door was still unlocked, so I pushed it open and we went inside and closed it behind us.

  Amanda stood with her back flat against the door, watching as I walked slowly around the room. Everything seemed to be as it should be. The piano lid was closed, the chair in its rightful place. I opened the door to the left of the window and looked inside. It was a small closet, perhaps eight feet by eight feet, lined with shelves stacked with books and boxes of all shapes and sizes. I grabbed hold of the shelving and shook it, but it was solid, immoveable. I tapped the walls behind the shelves: solid. I came out of the closet and closed the door. I went to the piano, lifted the lid, closed it again, turned the lamp on, then off. All this I did without thinking, automatically going through a routine that was supposed to stimulate ideas, but nothing came to me. Nothing. Nada. Zero.

  I went to the bookshelf to the left of the fireplace and started pulling out books and replacing them. I felt every inch of the shelving, looking for buttons or levers: nothing. That alone must have taken ten minutes or more. When I’d finished, I went through same routine with the bookcase to the right. All of the books were real. And, as far as I could tell, all of the bookshelves were solid, and there was nothing­­—no secret door­­—behind them.

  I shook my head, exasperated, and dumped myself into one of the easy chairs in front of the fireplace. Amanda sat down in the one next to me. For several minutes we sat together in silence, until finally we looked at each other, and I could tell that she knew.

  “There’s nothing, is there?” she whispered.

  I slowly shook my head. “If there is, it’s going to take a whole lot more than a cursory search…. She was lovely, wasn’t she? Your great-great-grandmother.”

  I was looking up at the full-length portrait of the young woman that hung over the fireplace. She was perhaps in her mid-thirties. Her dress was one of those neoclassical affairs that went all the way to the floor. A gold watch and chain hung from around her neck almost to her waist. It was, I supposed, the same one Amanda had received from her grandmother. Elizabeth’s long blonde hair was gathered into some sort of pile on top of her head, from which two cascading ringlet curls hung, one on either side of her face, to her shoulders. The look on her face was... enigmatic.

  1890, 1900? I thought. Yes, she’s lovely. She’s not as beautiful as Amanda, but there’s a striking resemblance, and she does look real, almost three-dimensional.

  In the painting she stood beside a small round table. She held the watch in the fingers of her left hand, her arm bent slightly. The case was open, as if she were checking the time. The fingers of her right hand rested on a small box on the tabletop.

  I squinted, then stood up and stepped to the fireplace. Up close, it was clear: it was the box.

  “She has her hand on the box, Amanda, and watch and chain. It looks like the one in the banker’s box. You brought all that stuff with you, right?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you want me to go and get it?”

  “Not right now. If you don’t mind, I think maybe we should sit here for a few moments, try to get a feel for the room. I dunno… maybe something will hit me.”

  She heaved a long, shuddering sigh. “Okay. If you think it will help. Harry, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was imagining things.”

  There was no right answer t
o that.

  For several minutes I sat quietly, my eyes closed, thinking, daydreaming, trying to clear my head. I think I must have been nearly in a trance, because all of sudden I had a very weird feeling. It was so real that the hair on the back of my neck seemed to move, and I was suddenly very cold. I came back to earth with a jolt, sat bolt upright, and opened my eyes. The damned woman was looking at me. Her eyes were looking directly into mine.

  My mouth went dry. Shit. What the hell is that?

  I must have imagined it, because after I’d blinked, it was over; she was staring straight ahead, just as before. Christ, I must have been dreaming. What the f…. Okay. That was friggin’ scary, and too damn real.

  I looked at Amanda. She too was staring up at the portrait, and she had a faraway look on her face.

  “Amanda?”

  She twitched, blinked, seemed to gather herself together, and then turned to look at me. “What?”

  “Where the hell were you? What were you thinking about?”

  “Where was I?” She asked, and turned again to look up at the painting. “I don’t know what you mean. I was thinking, about her, Elizabeth, trying to figure out what she must have thinking about the day the portrait was painted…. Harry, why is that box so important? Of all the objet d’art there are lying around this house, why the box? The watch and chain I can understand; those are family heirlooms, but….” She trailed off, still staring at the portrait.

  She was right, of course. The mere fact that the box had been passed down from mother to daughter for over a century must mean something—but what? I had no answers. Whatever it was I’d felt a few moments earlier was no more. I was no longer cold, if in fact I ever had been, and yes, I was beginning to wonder about that. I stared up at her, the lady in blue, the mysterious Elizabeth Miles.

  What the hell is that expression on her face? I’ve seen it before, mostly when I’ve been interviewing victims. It’s like she’s… pleading? Questioning? Beseeching? I dunno…. I dunno!