Deader Homes and Gardens

by Angie Fox

  Sakes alive. “Word does get around,” I agreed. This was Sugarland, after all. “Now that you’ve found me, what can I do for you?”

  He cleared his throat. “I need you to be honest,” he said tersely. “Are you serious about that ghost-hunting business?”

  “Serious as the grave,” I assured him. It might not have been the best choice of words, but I was too focused on the fact that Lee could actually have a job for me. Lee Treadwell was well known in this town, respected. If he hired me, maybe everyone else would start to take me seriously as well.

  Lee exhaled sharply. “I need you to come over right away.”

  “Is it an emergency?” I’d need to prepare. “I’ve left my ghost at home.” Frankie couldn’t go anywhere without his urn, which was resting in a barrel full of dirt in my parlor. How it had gotten there was a long story. Suffice it to say, I had no power without him.

  “I’ve stumbled across something peculiar,” Lee said, his voice strained. “I need you to see it. Grab your ghost. Pick up a crucifix while you’re at it, because I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything like this.”

  I’d seen plenty. The newspaper hadn’t revealed all my secrets. “Hang tight,” I told him. “I’ll be over as soon as I can.” I hung up.

  Ellis stood a few feet away, with Lucy snuggled in his arms, her head buried under one of his biceps. “What’s the crisis?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I smiled, despite my trepidation. “But I’ve got my first ghost-hunting job.”

  Chapter 2

  I swung by my house and grabbed my ghost friend, Frankie—or more accurately—Frankie’s urn. We had no time to waste. The sun would be setting soon, and I didn’t want to go into the ghostly unknown at night. That was just asking for trouble.

  Lee Treadwell’s estate stood clear on the other side of town. His family had owned the Rock Fall property for at least a hundred years.

  My 1978 Cadillac lurched over a pothole as I turned right onto Main. I swore the avocado green land yacht had rubber bands holding the suspension together. But I’d inherited it free and clear from my grandmother—God rest her soul—and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  My ghostly companion’s urn rattled on the seat next to me as we hit a rough patch of pavement.

  “How are you doing, Frankie?” I asked as we turned left by the Trinity Baptist Church and headed north toward the historic part of downtown Sugarland. “Frankie?” I prodded.

  “I’m not talking to you,” the ghost’s disembodied voice grumbled.

  “I realize you’d planned to stay in tonight.” Still, his mood surprised me. He usually enjoyed a trip into town. “I’m taking you somewhere fun,” I promised, passing the town square. “There will be other ghosts there.”

  “Yeah, I’m supposed to like someone just because they’re dead.” He shimmered into view in the passenger seat next to me, wearing a pin-striped suit coat with matching cuffed trousers and a fat tie. Frankie appeared in black and white, his image transparent enough that I could just make out the urn rattling beneath him.

  “We have our first ghost-hunting job,” I said, willing him to be as excited as I was.

  It didn’t work. “For your information,” he informed me, quite haughtily, “I was in the middle of something big.”

  “Hardly. I found you on my back porch, smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey from the bottle.” I’d scooped up his urn from the parlor and had him in the front seat of my car faster than you could say Bob’s your uncle. “Come to think of it, how did you get a bottle of whiskey?” Ghosts only owned what they’d had on them when they died. And Frankie certainly hadn’t passed away with a flagon of booze—I’d have seen it by now.

  I admit I’d given him a few occasions to drink.

  He glared at me. “Suds came over. We were plotting ways to get me free.”

  Ah, Suds—his old partner in crime, whom we’d uncovered on our last adventure. “Tell him I said hi.”

  He tossed his hands up. “You ran straight through him on the steps.”

  “Whoops.” I shot him an apologetic look. “My mind was somewhere else.” Besides, while Frankie appeared to me because he was grounded on my property, the old gangster had to lend me his energy in order for me to interact with anyone else on the other side. It wasn’t like I had any special ability of my own. “I’ll make it up to Suds. And you,” I assured my prickly companion. “In the meantime, we’re in business. Let’s get excited!”

  “Oh, sure.” He leaned back in his seat. “It’s a real gas.” He ran his fingers along the edge of the window as we passed the brick storefronts on Main Street. “Your life plan is to use my power to fix things on the other side.”

  We paused for a nice older couple to cross the street on their way to The Frothy Coffee. “You say that as if you don’t enjoy helping people.”

  “Sure I do,” the ghost mused wistfully. “I enjoy helping them part with their money, their jewelry. The occasional luxury car…”

  Poor Frankie couldn’t steal anything now that he was dead. He’d pass straight through whatever he tried to sticky-finger, which had to be frustrating. Maybe that was why he was in a funk. Being with Suds again only reminded him how things had changed.

  “Look at the bright side,” I urged. “This could be the start of a whole new life for us.”

  He gave me a long look. “You realize one of us is not exactly alive.”

  “A technicality.” We could still be coworkers, of a sort.

  I let him mutter to himself while we drove past a pair of snarling lion statues a few blocks north of downtown. The gates were new, at least according to local standards. They’d been erected in 1924 and marked a historic neighborhood that had prevailed in one form or another since the founding of Sugarland. Each lion stood atop a thick limestone base done in art deco style, with pink marble accents and round bronze lights dripping green patina.

  Mature trees lined the street, and beyond them stood large homes, most constructed at the turn of the last century. They were solidly built and sat far back from the street, behind stretches of grass and carefully placed landscaping.

  “Excuse me for thinking through all your big plans.” Frankie turned away from the window and regarded me with a serious expression that meant trouble. “Consider this. What happens when I get free?”

  It was quite a hypothetical. We didn’t know how long that would take. Nothing we’d tried so far had worked.

  Of course, it wouldn’t be kind to bring that up. “When you are free,” I said, as if it were that simple, “we’ll still see each other.” I couldn’t imagine it otherwise. For better or worse, we made a solid team. “You have to admit we’ve done a lot of good in the short time we’ve been acquainted.” We’d brought killers to justice, we’d uncovered family heirlooms, and we’d helped ghosts find purpose and joy, even on the other side.

  Frankie looked at me like I had two heads.

  He sighed and pulled off his Panama hat, revealing the stark, round bullet hole in the center of his forehead. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Listen up, legs. You’re a swell dame and we’ve had some laughs, but I ain’t spending my afterlife as some perky blonde’s plus one.” He returned the hat to his head. “I got Suds now. We’re planning a new score. We can’t lose. He’s the Michelangelo of safecracking. I’m the Raphael Sanzio of stealing.”

  He was something. I tossed a lock of hair over my shoulder. “Maybe you’ll have so much fun with me, you won’t be able to resist an adventure every now and then.”

  “Then I suggest you start investigating more speakeasies and hot dames,” he said stiffly. “This place looks dead.”

  Not dead. Preserved. I loved driving through this little slice of the past. “These might not be the very oldest homes in Sugarland, but they’re certainly historic. Think of it.” I pointed to a white stone home with a green tiled roof. “The people who built that house walked outside, picked up the newspaper, and read about the sinking of the Titanic. Th
ey installed the house’s first telephone. They bought new inventions like the toaster.”

  “I’m happy for them and their toast,” the gangster muttered. He rubbernecked when we passed a gray stone home with an honest-to-goodness turret. “Now the doll that lived in that pile of bricks when I was alive,” he said, jabbing a thumb at the gray house, “she coulda made history with her enormous set of—”

  “That’s enough,” I said quickly. I didn’t need to know that much about the neighborhood.

  My attention was captured anyway as we approached Rock Fall mansion. The Treadwells had constructed their towering legacy on a limestone cliff overlooking the historic area.

  Built to impress in 1886, the Rock Fall estate had been a jewel in the crown of Sugarland, and it still was. Mostly. If you were willing to overlook the green moss clinging to the tan brick exterior and white marble window casings. And if you discounted the way a pair of stately chimneys leaned, as if ready to topple.

  The lowering sun on our left cast eerie shadows over the colonial revival mansion. “That’s the spot,” I said, pointing, and I swore Frankie went even whiter when I revealed our destination.

  “Not for me, it ain’t,” the gangster gritted out. “We don’t know what’s in there.”

  “Ghosts,” I ventured. The whole town knew it was haunted. “You just don’t want to go anywhere tonight.” And I didn’t even know how to get up to the house, I realized as we drew closer. The rock face was at least six stories tall and appeared to be a sheer drop in all directions. I took a chance and turned onto a small side road at the base of the cliff. It didn’t seem to lead up, though.

  Frankie shifted in his seat. “A couple of the fellas and me tried to rob Rock Fall in ’28.” He stared out the window, refusing to look at me. “It didn’t go well.”

  From what I could tell, that described the bulk of his criminal career. “This time, we’ve been invited. We’re here to help.”

  “Oh, joy,” he mused.

  “You’re right,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “It is a joy.” I was good at ghost hunting. I had a talent for making real, heartfelt connections with spirits on the other side. We found ways to help each other and solve real problems. There was no reason to think I couldn’t handle this job as well as the ones before it. And this time, we’d be getting paid.

  “See? Here we go,” I said as we came upon a narrow driveway off to the left. Iron markers sagged toward a narrow, weed-infested entryway.

  Frankie leveled his gaze at me. “You’re more bullheaded than any crime boss I ever knew.”

  “Thank you.”

  We rumbled up the curved driveway, spitting rocks. I smiled through the whine of my engine as it took on the giant hill. We’d be there soon and everything would work out.

  “It’s a shame what happened to this place,” I said, making conversation, wincing when an overgrown wisteria branch whacked my windshield. The mansion was designed to be one of the grandest homes in the area. It would be still, if it hadn’t been taken down by its tragic past. “The man who built this house, Lee’s grandfather, was a famous Egyptologist,” I said, eyeing an unimpressed Frankie. “Well, I suppose he was more of a hobbyist. It was quite the thing back then. Jack Treadwell made his money selling lumber, and then he tomb hunted for fun.”

  “So he was a grave robber,” Frankie concluded, his expression darkening. “I may be a thief, but I never sank that low, sweetheart.”

  He didn’t get it. My motor protested as we chugged up the hill. “Excavating ancient tombs isn’t grave robbing. It’s archeology.”

  The gangster rested an elbow on the car door and eyed me. “Was it a grave?” he drawled.

  “Well… yes…” I admitted. That wasn’t the point.

  “Did they take things from it?” he prodded, as if he could argue it in a court of law.

  “That was the goal…” I granted, my fingers tightening on the wheel.

  “So it was grave robbing,” Frankie concluded, as if he were judge and jury.

  “Okay, fine!” My old Cadillac lurched over a particularly deep rut in the road. “It was grave robbing, but can we stay focused for just one minute?”

  Frankie huffed out a breath. “I’m not the one talking about stealing from the dead.”

  “I can see where it could be a sore subject.” Honestly, it was good to know the ghost had some standards. “The point is Jack Treadwell was happy. He had everything—a loving family, a good career. Crazy nice house.” I cringed as we drove over something that ground hard against my undercarriage. “Then in 1910, Jack opened the tomb of a lost king, despite the warnings of a curse. The day after he arrived home with his relics, he dropped dead in his office.”

  “I heard about it when it happened.” Frankie shifted uncomfortably. “A dame I knew used to work there before they dismissed all the servants, which by the way, is ten kinds of strange.” He ran a hand over his chin. “She said he went to Egypt looking for valuable, mystical loot. Some kind of jewel.”

  “That’s what you wanted to steal.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not like Jack needed it anymore. Heck, I don’t even know if it’s in there.”

  Nobody knew what was in that house. It had been locked for decades.

  I tightened my grip on the wheel as we approached the overgrown yard with the dead trees out front. The slate roof appeared to have been red at one time…when one bothered to see past the discoloration and the missing tiles.

  Frankie looked at the house like it could reach out and grab him.

  “Lee lives in the old gardener’s cottage out back,” I said, slowing as we passed the mansion.

  “Smart man,” Frankie mused, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the empty house. “Me and Suds figured the Treadwell place would be an easy score. Then we saw her standing in the window, with her face all twisted and melted.”

  “Who?” I whispered. The windows appeared dark—for now.

  “The old governess. She stayed long after the family died out.”

  “What happened to her face?”

  “Beats me. We thought we’d wait until she hit the hay, sneak in real quiet like, but then this little girl ghost stepped out from behind her.”

  “Yikes.” I could see why he and his buddies ran. “That’s good for us, though,” I said, trying to see the positive. “At least we know there’s one ghost in the house.”

  “I’m betting on more than one,” Frankie said. “The Egyptologist wasn’t the only unlucky stiff to die in that house. The rest of his family bit it, one by one, in the days after that. The governess was the only person who survived.”

  “And Lee’s father.” He had to have made it.

  Frankie shook his head. “Jack Junior was off in New York when it happened. He never set foot in the house again.”

  “All right, then.” We stuck to the outer road and passed by the house’s long, circular drive. We’d visit my potential client first. “Did you know Lee’s dad?”

  “Nah,” the ghost huffed. “We didn’t exactly run in the same crowd.”

  Good point.

  “For all we know, the whole family’s nuts,” Frankie insisted. “Take the governess. The creepy old bat shut herself up in the house, growing food out back, living like the hermit on the hill. Then in the 1940s, they found her dead in the kitchen. What was left of her. They said she’d been dead at least ten years.”

  His words scared me. Still, I refused to buy into Frankie’s rush to judge. “Do you ever see the governess on the other side?”

  “Playing poker and hanging out with the fellas?” he scoffed. “No.”

  “I guess it would make sense for her to stay in her home.” I drove a little faster, despite the ruts in the road. “Perhaps we’ll meet her as well.”

  When I was a kid, my grandmother’s sewing circle had often discussed the Treadwell family’s downfall while I sat on the floor and cut patterns for doll clothes and played with antique buttons. Lee Treadwell had inherited the estate
and returned to town when I was a child. He had taken up residence in the gardener’s house and become a respected member of the community. He’d never married. He’d never spoken about his family’s personal business.

  And tonight, he’d called me.

  The skeletal remains of a garden stretched out to our left as we followed the drive along the outskirts of the property toward a cottage on the other side of the hill.

  “All I’m saying is if we see the governess, I’m out of there,” Frankie vowed.

  “She might be a perfectly lovely soul. You can’t judge her by her appearance.”

  “If she looks evil and creepy, I can,” Frankie shot back.

  I kept driving, glad to leave the house behind us.

  For now.

  I was good at befriending the ghosts I met, finding common ground. The governess might have secrets, as we all did, but if she’d indeed resided in the house alone for all those years after her death, I had to think she’d be glad to see someone.

  I slowed the car as we approached the small cottage beyond the dilapidated garden. The home had been constructed with the same tan brick as the mansion, but unlike the main house, a cheerful light glowed in the window.

  Lee lived there. As far as anyone knew, he’d never set foot inside the family mansion.

  I pulled into the driveway and parked. Sticks and debris littered the walk.

  The sheer size of the property, coupled with the sudden silence when I turned off my car, was unsettling to say the least. I kept my hands on the steering wheel, listening to the clicks of my engine settling down.

  “Nobody knew what to do with the governess after she died,” Frankie said. “Rumor has it, they buried her in the backyard.”

  “Where?” I asked. I didn’t want to accidentally walk over her grave.

  “Nobody knows,” Frankie said ominously.

  Now he was just trying to scare me.