Fixing to Die

by Miranda James

  “I don’t know what Nathan thinks he can accomplish by coming here,” Mary Turner said. “Nothing’s going to change the fact that the alleged will has never turned up. There’s no written documentation, in fact, that the story is true. That’s all it is, a story.”

  “A story passed down through several generations, as I understand it,” Wilbanks said. “Isn’t that right?”

  Serenity nodded. “Yes, it is, and I don’t care what you say, Mary Turner, it all really happened.”

  Mary Turner glanced at An’gel and Dickce. “I know this is confusing for you, because you have no idea what we’re talking about.”

  “No, we don’t,” An’gel said, “but we don’t have to know, if you think it’s none of our business.”

  “You might as well hear the whole thing,” Mary Turner said. “Once Nathan gets here, that’s all he will talk about. He’s obsessed with it.”

  “What is the story that’s been handed down?” Dickce asked.

  “It goes all the way back to my fourth great-grandfather.” Mary Turner paused and counted silently on her fingers. “Yes, that’s right, fourth great-grandfather on the Turner side. He was the one who rebuilt Cliffwood after it was destroyed in that fire. Once the house was rebuilt, he and his wife started to refurnish it because they had lost almost everything in the fire. At the time his youngest sister, another Mary, lived here, and she evidently loved everything French. So he imported all the furniture for her room from France and decorated it with mostly French things like those Baccarat vases.”

  “So that’s how the French room got its name,” An’gel said. “Now that you’ve told us, I remember your grandmother telling us this story years ago.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Serenity said. “But the important part is that this baby sister of his was my fourth great-grandmother. She married a man from Vicksburg named Jedediah Gamble. Her brother had told her she could take everything in the room with her, but his wife pitched a fit because she was horribly jealous of my great-grandmother. So he backed out on his promise but he swore he would leave it all to her in his will, and if she died before him, to her heirs.”

  Mary Turner took up the story once again.

  “She lived to be quite old and outlived him, as it turned out, but this will—if it ever existed—never turned up. The will that he did leave made no mention of any legacy to his sister. He hadn’t wanted her to marry Jedediah Gamble.” She stared hard at Serenity. “You left out that part.”

  “Because it doesn’t really matter,” Serenity said.

  “Why did your great-grandfather not want his sister to marry Mr. Gamble?” Dickce asked. “Was he a poor man?”

  “No, he was not,” Serenity said. “His family lost a lot during the war, like most people did, but he was smart and ended up restoring the family’s wealth before he married my great-grandmother.”

  “Then what was the issue about the marriage?” An’gel asked. “Is it really pertinent to the story?”

  “Yes,” Mary Turner said. “I think it explains why there was no will leaving the contents of the French room to my four times great-aunt. I know this will probably sound ridiculous to you, but it was because he was from Vicksburg. After the war, there was a lot of dissension between the people of Natchez and the people of Vicksburg.”

  “Whatever for?” An’gel asked. “I suppose it had something to do with the war.”

  “It sure did,” Serenity said, her tone becoming increasingly heated as she talked. “The people of Vicksburg stood up to the Union Army. They refused to give in, but the traitors in Natchez let them in. They didn’t want anyone to hurt their precious houses.”

  “Seriously?” Dickce asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mary Turner replied. “Families, particularly in Vicksburg, refused to have anything to do with their relations in Natchez for years afterwards. There was a tremendous amount of resentment. Naturally, people in Natchez didn’t like the attitudes of the people in Vicksburg.” She paused for a moment. “Supposedly, Jedediah Gamble had been pretty outspoken about all this because his family lost their home while Cliffwood wasn’t really harmed. But he fell in love with Great-Aunt Mary and was determined to have her.”

  “If I understand all this correctly,” An’gel said, “the reason that your great-grandfather didn’t leave his sister the contents of the room in his will is because he disliked his brother-in-law so much, he didn’t want even his sister’s children to have it.”

  “Basically, that’s it,” Mary Turner said. “And that’s why the Turners are sure there never was a will leaving anything to Great-Aunt Mary.”

  A voice from the doorway startled them all. “That’s a damn filthy lie, and you know it.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Given the aggressive attitude and the contents of his statement, this had to be Nathan Gamble, An’gel thought.

  Mary Turner quickly confirmed it. “Why do you always have to sneak into my house, Nathan? And then behave like a crazy person, I might add.” She rose from her chair to confront her cousin. “Why are you here?”

  Nathan seemed not to have heard her. An’gel could see that his attention now appeared to be focused on his sister. “Why are you here, Serenity? If you think you’re going to badger me into giving you that money, you might as well save yourself the effort. I’m not going to let you have it.”

  Serenity jumped to her feet and let loose a string of profanities directed at her brother and his stinginess and other unpleasant qualities. Wilbanks put out a hand to get her attention but she brushed him aside.

  An’gel and Dickce exchanged glances of distaste and disapproval. This young woman was downright nasty, An’gel thought, debasing herself this way. She was screaming now but her brother didn’t appear to be affected by it, other than by continuing to shake his head at her.

  An’gel had had enough. No one else seemed willing to stop this tirade. She might as well do it. She got up and positioned herself practically in the young woman’s face and glared at her. Serenity appeared startled by An’gel’s actions and sputtered to a halt.

  “You sit down right this moment, young woman,” An’gel said, “and close that nasty mouth. I don’t want to hear another vulgar word out of you, or I will slap you so hard you’ll think it’s next week. Do you understand me?”

  Serenity shrank against the back of the sofa and nodded in a jerky fashion. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered.

  Nathan Gamble grinned at An’gel. “I don’t know who you are, lady, but you’re the first person since my mama died who’s ever been able to shut her up once she gets going in one of her hissy fits. Thank you.”

  “You need to learn to control your temper and your language, young woman,” An’gel said. “No one is going to move an inch to assist you when you behave like a deranged lunatic.” She turned to Nathan Gamble. “I realize this is really none of my business or my sister’s, but I will not be forced to listen to such carrying-on.” After one last glare at Serenity, she resumed her seat.

  Dickce laughed. “An’gel the Terminator at your service.” She introduced herself and her sister to Nathan Gamble, and he responded with the traditional, “Nice to meet you.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question, Nathan,” Mary Turner said. “Why are you here? I know it’s not a social call.”

  “I’m having some work done at my house, and I need a place to stay for a few nights until they’re done,” Nathan replied. “I figured here was as good as any. Do you have a family rate?”

  Now that relative calm once more reigned, An’gel had a more thorough look at Nathan Gamble. Late thirties, she thought, rather short, probably no more than five foot six, and scrawny. He had thick, curly dark hair that could use a good trim, and he wore dark-framed glasses. His clothes appeared to be clean, but they were old and worn in places. Was he that poor, to go around looking like he wore charity-bin rejects?
An’gel wondered. Or was he too cheap to buy newer clothing?

  “If he’s going to stay here,” Serenity said, suddenly assertive again, “then I’m going to stay here too. He’s going to talk to me one way or another.”

  Mary Turner closed her eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath. After releasing it, she spoke. “We already have other guests staying here, and it’s supposed to be vacation time for Henry Howard and me. Marcelline isn’t expecting to have to provide meals for a lot of extra people, only those who were invited to be here.”

  That was pointed enough, An’gel thought, but would Nathan Gamble and his sister be deterred? She doubted they would.

  “Marcelline doesn’t have to cook most meals for me, maybe just breakfast,” Nathan said, “as long as you knock the price down. I can go out and get my other meals.”

  “We can do the same thing.” Serenity poked Wilbanks. “Can’t we?”

  The lawyer did not appear pleased by this appeal. An’gel was surprised he had been quiet through the recent ruckus, not doing a thing to curb his client’s intemperate behavior. “If you say so, I guess we can.”

  Mary Turner glanced at An’gel as if she were asking for advice. An’gel thought it would be better not to have these people around while they were trying to work out what was behind the odd happenings at Cliffwood, but she didn’t feel it was her place to tell Mary Turner this in front of Nathan, Serenity, and Wilbanks.

  After a moment Mary Turner nodded. “Okay, then, I guess you can stay for a few days. The rooms in the annex are clean, so you can all stay there.”

  “No, I want to stay in the house,” Nathan said. “I want to stay in my great-grandmother’s room. The contents belong to me by right, no matter what you say.”

  “Miss An’gel has the French room,” Mary Turner said, “so you will have to stay in another room.”

  An’gel foresaw a prolonged argument over the room, and she decided that, peeved as she was over Gamble’s behavior, the simplest thing to do would be to let him have the room. There was another bedroom upstairs unoccupied that she could take.

  When Nathan started to object, An’gel interrupted him. “Mary Turner, it’s quite all right with me. I haven’t unpacked, so it’s easy for me to move to another room. I did, however, take a short rest in the bed, so it will need to be remade with fresh linen.”

  Mary Turner looked as if she wanted to override An’gel’s offer, but a stern glance from An’gel quelled her. Instead she said, “Very well, Miss An’gel. If you’ll come up with me now, I’ll help you move your things to the room on the other side of Miss Dickce.”

  An’gel rose to go with Mary Turner, and Dickce rose also. “I’m coming with you,” she said with a bright smile to the others. “I’m sure y’all will excuse us while we take care of this.”

  Gamble said, “Sure thing,” and Wilbanks and Serenity nodded.

  Mary Turner shut the door to the parlor behind them once An’gel and Dickce had followed her into the hallway. She leaned against the door for a moment. “I’m so sorry about this, Miss An’gel,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to give up your room this way. Nathan is always determined to get his way, and he’s got an obsession with that room. He’s convinced the will is somewhere in the room, despite the fact that it’s been gone over many times and nothing has ever turned up.”

  “The problem with an obsession,” An’gel said, “is that the person obsessed tends to lose his sense of proportion and his ability to see things objectively. Nathan apparently is desperate to believe the will still exists, so therefore he is sure it will be found.”

  “Sounds a bit like Heinrich Schliemann,” Dickce said.

  “I’d hardly equate this with the discovery of Troy or Mycenae,” An’gel said.

  “Of course not,” Dickce retorted. “It was simply an observation.”

  Mary Turner smiled. “The French room contains some valuable antiques, though. Maybe we ought to sell them and redo the room to match the others. Get rid of the reason for the obsession once and for all.” She headed to the stairs and began to climb.

  An’gel said, “Now that would be a shame, though you’re correct about the value of pieces in that room. There’s a small fortune in there, and if you ever really needed the money, I don’t think anyone could blame you for selling the things.”

  “Nathan would blame me,” Mary Turner said, “but he has no legal claim on anything in this house, no matter what he thinks.”

  “Do you think he wants the contents of the room in order to sell them?” Dickce asked as they stepped onto the upstairs landing. “Or does he want them because he thinks they’re rightfully his?”

  “Nathan loves money more than anything,” Mary Turner replied. “I’m sure you saw the clothes he’s wearing. He can afford new clothes, but he wears things until they’re practically in tatters because he can’t bear to part with the money.”

  “You mean he would probably put the things from the French room in his home so he could sit there and gloat over them?” An’gel asked.

  “Yes,” Mary Turner said. “Silas Marner, but without many of the redeeming qualities.” She opened the door to the French room but stood aside to let the sisters enter first.

  An’gel had been apprehensive over what they might see, but a quick survey assured her that everything was as she had left it.

  “Everything looks fine to me,” Dickce said.

  “Yes, thank goodness,” An’gel replied.

  “What made you think it might not be?” Mary Turner asked.

  An’gel told her young hostess about the items that seemed to have moved on their own, and Mary Turner grimaced.

  “I hope you weren’t frightened by this,” she said. “Frankly, though, I’m almost glad it happened, so you don’t think I’ve been imagining things. It’s a relief to know that someone besides me has seen it.”

  “What about Henry Howard?” An’gel asked. “Surely he has witnessed this, too.”

  Mary Turner shook her head. “Not in this room. He never—well, almost never—comes in here. I’m the one who has been treated to the moving objects show.”

  “And this only started recently?” Dickce asked.

  “Well, no,” Mary Turner said, then seemed reluctant to continue.

  “My dear, both Sister and I suspect that you haven’t told us quite everything yet,” An’gel said kindly. “We do want to help you, but you have to tell us the whole story if we’re going to accomplish anything.”

  Mary Turner sank into the armchair near the window. She threw up her hands in a gesture that was half surrender, half apology. She let her hands fall into her lap.

  “Okay, then, the whole story is that weird things have been happening in this room for years. I didn’t become aware of it, though, until about a year after Henry Howard and I got married and came here to take over running the bed-and-breakfast after my parents died.”

  “Did your parents ever say anything about strange activities in here?” Dickce asked.

  “Not that I can recall,” Mary Turner said. “But Daddy and Mother were always the kind of parents who thought their little girl shouldn’t know about anything bad that was going on.” Her eyes suddenly pooled with tears. “Like Mother’s cancer or Daddy’s heart problems. By the time I found out how sick they both were, it was too late for me to do anything but come home to make the funeral arrangements.”

  “Oh, my dear,” An’gel said, “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Mary Turner said. She wiped away her tears with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry to go on like this, but sometimes it just hits me all over again.”

  “We understand,” Dickce said.

  “You were telling us that you didn’t notice anything odd in this room until after you had been back here a year,” An’gel said gently.

  Mary Turner nodded. “That
’s right. At first I thought I was just imagining it, and I put it down to one of the maids doing it while she dusted. It didn’t happen that often at first, and I didn’t come in here every day either. But the maids didn’t like dusting or cleaning in here, and I could never get a clear answer as to why. They simply told me they didn’t feel comfortable.

  “It turned out that they had noticed things being moved around but were afraid to tell me,” Mary Turner said. “I decided to take over cleaning and dusting in here myself rather than make a fuss about it. And of course, with me being in here more often, I began to notice things more.”

  “Were you ever truly frightened by it?” An’gel asked. She herself had not really felt afraid for her life, but she had been a bit spooked by what had happened to her.

  “No, and that’s the strange thing,” Mary Turner said slowly. “It’s spooky, of course, but I’ve never felt it was intended to scare me or warn me. Whoever or whatever is doing it doesn’t seem to mind me being in the room. We never let guests stay in here, you see, because of the value of the contents. It’s just safer in the long run to keep them off-limits to guests.”

  “But you were going to let An’gel sleep here,” Dickce said.

  Mary Turner looked slightly abashed. “Yes. For one thing, I knew we could trust her not to damage anything because you live with valuable furniture and objects like this every day. Then I figured you wouldn’t be scared out of your wits, maybe only spooked a little, like I was at first.”

  “You were correct on both counts,” An’gel said, her tone rather dry. “It’s just as well that I don’t frighten easily, however.”

  “But now you’re going to let Nathan Gamble stay in this room,” Dickce said. “He’s never stayed in it before, I gather?”

  “No, he hasn’t.” Mary Turner grinned suddenly. “Frankly, I hope something happens while he’s in this room that will spook the life out of him.”