Crap, not only had I been wrong, but I was completely out in left field. And my heart went out to Gillian, another orphan like me who’d lost both of her parents. We didn’t just look alike, our lives were so similar it was unnerving. Was it any wonder I wanted to help find her mother’s killer?
A thought struck me then. “Mr. and Mrs. Grant, is there any way I could talk to Gillian?”
Mrs. Grant frowned. “Aye, she’ll be home tomorrow night.”
“No, I mean, sooner than that. Does she have a cell phone? I could call her.”
“Now wait just a minute.” Mr. Grant’s tone grew stern. “There be no need to upset poor Gillian about this old business. She’s in school and she’s got enough things to worry her mind.”
“Right, I didn’t think. Sorry. Of course the weekend will be soon enough.”
We said our goodbyes. I forced my expression to blandness, knowing we were being watched from a squeaky clean front window.
“What the hell was that?” Neil turned around in the front seat to look at me.
I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. We were safely ensconced in the car and the Grant’s place grew smaller and smaller behind us.
“I had a thought,” I whispered. “If you were a kid and your mom was murdered, what are the chances you’d look into it at some point?”
“Pretty damn good, especially if Gillian Grant is anything like you.” Leo nodded as he turned up the hill to the Grey’s estate.
Neil asked, “Do we have a new theory for this one or are we just going off the cuff?”
“Basically, I want to find out why the Greys bought the Grants’ estate, did nothing with it and then turned around and sold it to your parents over two decades later when the market is at an all-time low. They could have hired someone to do the same thing we’re doing at any time, but they let it fall into disrepair. There’s got to be a reason for it.”
Leo parked in the graveled lot off to the side of the Grey's circular drive. Neil helped me down from the car and hissed in my ear, “Pick your words carefully.”
He wasn’t happy. I knew he wanted to cut and run and forget we’d ever heard the name Aileen Grant. But he respected my choices and, despite his misgivings, he was there to back me up
I nodded in total agreement. After the last humiliation, I really didn’t need to throw any more wild ideas out there just to be eviscerated.
The door was opened by a large and scary woman with a severe bun and small piggy eyes. She looked oddly familiar. The flat black eyes narrowed on me and her nostrils flared as though she caught a whiff of manure on my boots. “You!”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” My eyebrows drew down. Damn it, where did I know her from?
“Virginia Beach,” Leo hissed, not half as subtle as he probably thought. “You got her ass fired and I took her job.”
It clicked in my brain like a shotgun being ratcheted back. Well, if anyone in this town wanted me dead, dollars to doughnuts I was looking right at her. What were the chances? But then again, considering the Grey and the Senior Phillips families were acquainted, probably better than I’d thought.
“Hilda,” I said to the scary woman and swallowed hard. “How’ve you been?”
She glowered at me from beneath bushy eyebrows, but didn’t speak. I shifted back into Neil. His hand landed on my shoulder, a reassuring weight. He might want to take a strip off of me in private for continuing this investigation, but in public we were united. A team, for better or worse.
“Hilda?” A young woman’s voice called and light footsteps echoed down the massive entry hall. “Did I hear the door?”
And then there was Veronica Grey, all big blue eyes and curly brown hair, innocent as a lamb. The photographs hadn’t done her justice. They’d missed her pixie-like movements and quicksilver smile. She was older than me by almost a decade—I knew by the dates on some of the articles I’d found that she’d been doing charity work when I was still in high school—but she looked several years younger.
“Mrs. Grey.” Neil stepped forward and offered his hand.
She eyed him warily, probably because the bruises around his broken nose and unshaven jaw had taken on a sickly yellowish green tinge. He was dressed well enough, in slacks and a navy sweater, but the mask of healing flesh lent him a sinister air.
“I’m Neil Phillips, Laura and Ralph’s son.”
Her face lit up at the name and her shoulders relaxed. “Oh, I’d heard you were in town. You look just like your father. It’s the chin, I think. Ralph has such a strong chin.” Her voice was accentless, in the way only someone who’d undergone stringent grammar and elocution lessons could achieve.
Neil introduced me as his wife and Leo as a family friend, then got down to business. “Do you have a few minutes? We wanted to ask you some questions about the property my parents purchased.”
“It would be my pleasure.” She smiled genially and asked Hilda to fetch a tea tray. Hilda cast me a dark look and I vowed not to ingest anything she could tamper with. There’d already been one poising on the premises. No need to tempt fate. Or Hilda.
“Come, sit down.” Veronica Grey waved us into a sitting room with a massive river stone fireplace along the far wall and an incredible view of the river. Neil and I sat side by side on the loveseat and Leo perched on an ottoman. We looked hopelessly out of place amidst the splendor of the white and rose room, all of us with our red rimmed eyes and rumpled clothes.
Veronica waited until Hilda had served delicate china cups full of fragrant tea and taken up residence behind her employer before she asked, “What is it you want to know?”
Neil poked me in the back. His gesture was subtle but the message was clear. This is your show, Uncle Scrooge. I set my full cup and saucer down on the blindingly white end table and squared my shoulders. “Well, we were wondering if you had heard about the ghost rumors when you bought the place from the Grants.”
Veronica’s eyebrows rose but she answered easily enough. “Of course. Have you met the Grants?”
When we nodded, she continued, “Mrs. Grant is incredibly superstitious. She tells stories to our son, Jacob, all the time about “the wee folk.” So yes, we were well informed.”
“But you bought the place anyway?”
Veronica hesitated. She also set her delicate tea cup aside in a careful manner that spoke more to her embarrassment than care for the fragile thing. “Well, yes. The Grants were having some…well…solvency issues I guess you would say.”
“You mean financially?” Neil clarified.
Veronica’s cheeks flushed. “It’s really not my place to discuss their personal business, but I want you to understand. Mr. Grant came to us and asked if we would purchase the place from them. His asking price fell well below market, but he needed the money up front. Chris and I discussed it and decided there was no harm in investing in the property. We bought it from them, with every intention of selling it back to them in a few years’ time, once they had a chance get back on their feet.”
“That’s why you never remodeled the place.” Leo kept his opinion about that to himself.
“How generous,” I murmured.
“Not at all.” Veronica waved my praise away like a cloud of cloying perfume. “They’d worked for Chris’s parents, had practically raised him. I met them soon after I met the Greys and became friends with Aileene. They were like family to us by then.”
“Can you tell us about Aileene?”
Veronica Gray laughed. “Oh, she was wild. A party girl. She knew every bar in three counties inside and out. Chris and I went out with her a few times, but that really wasn’t our scene, you understand. Still, she restrained herself when she worked here and she had a terrific sense of humor.”
I wondered if Aileene Grant had seen the friendship in the same light as Veronica Grey. Somehow, I didn’t think so. In my head I had a picture of a wild young girl, trapped by circumstances and desperate for a different life.
“What did Aileen
e think when her parents sold the house to your family?”
“Oh, she was furious. She was a redhead and had the temper to match. She and Chris actually got into it here a few times.”
“Over what?” Leo leaned forward, a man ready to get with the gossip already. From beneath her unibrow, Hilda scowled.
“The house. Aileene told him the place was cursed.” Veronica laughed and shook her head. “There were always rumors about the place of course, the ghost and all, but no one took it seriously until Aileene added fuel to the fire.”
“Rumors?” I squeezed Neil’s hand and shot Leo a warning glance. If Mrs. Grey wanted to believe they were only rumors, we weren’t the ones to enlighten her to our experiences.
“Oh you know, the usual sort of nonsense. Reports of music playing late at night, lights on, voices. Chris went to inspect after each reported incident and every time he found the place exactly how we’d left it.”
“And you told all of this to my mother?” Neil said. I knew the wheels in his head were turning around and around.
“Of course. Laura and I had a good laugh over it. Not here. In the city of course. I wouldn’t want to offend Mrs. Grant.”
“Did you know Gillian Grant’s father?” I asked. It was a little off the topic of the haunted house, but Veronica was a font of information.
She shook her head. “No. By that time, Aileene had changed and I think she liked to keep her home life separate from her work here. And then of course, she passed on.” She looked genuinely upset about it and I felt a pang for suspecting her.
I wanted to ask if Aileene had changed because she resented the Greys for buying her childhood home, but that seemed rude, so I continued to focus on the property. “But obviously, you finally decided to sell.”
She sighed. “Yes. It’s been more of a headache to us than anything else. Because of our history with the Grants, it didn’t seem right to flip it ourselves. We offered the Grants the house back for the same price we originally bought it, but they declined. So, we made a tidy profit and here we all are.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about the ghosts?”
She smiled. “I wish I could. The only disturbances down there in recent years have been teenage kids looking for a spot to cause mischief. I think any tales of ghosts are just smoke screens to draw attention away from their own actions.”
I sensed an end to our chat and rose, extending my hand. She shook it and Hilda showed us out. She didn’t say anything rude, but I doubted she would in front of Mrs. Grey.
“Well, that was interesting,” I said as we loaded back into Leo’s car.
“As in the old Chinese proverb, ‘may you always live in interesting times?’” Leo quipped.
“Yeah, just like that.”
“Do you still think the Greys are involved?” Neil asked.
“I think the Grants, the senior Grants at least, wanted to be rid of the place. I don’t think they had any intention of buying it back. The Greys aren’t superstitious and have deep pockets. And I think their daughter, for whatever reason, was attached to it. Still is, if she’s the one haunting me. What I don’t know is why. I needed to talk to Gillian Grant. She was about two when her mother died and if she’s anything like me, she’d dig until she found something. Tenacity, I believe someone once said it’s called.”
“Or stubbornness. The point is that whatever you call it, it works.” Neil took my mangled hand and raised it to his lips. “We’ll make it happen.”
Chapter Eighteen
“What the hell are you doing?” Leo stood, hands on hips and stared at the mess I’d made of the upstairs room. Pieces of flowered wallpaper had been peeled away in a random and completely half-assed manner. The destruction left a big white space in the center, which I’d been filling to suit my purposes.
“I needed a murder board. Under the circumstances, this was the best I could do.” I stood back, capped my permanent marker and surveyed my handiwork. “Don’t worry, we were going to paint this room, right? We’ll just paint over it.
“Who is this we you speak of?” he asked with raised brows.
“Me and Neil and Sylvia. You can sit back and supervise.”
“So long as we’re clear. Now, tell me what all this is for.”
I didn’t have pictures, so I’d written names. “This is Aileene Grant, our murder victim and possible ghost.”
“But not the bean nighe.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t think about the bean nighe right now. Still, I wished Neil would hurry up with his phone calls. Having him out of my sight had my guts roiling like I’d eaten something rotten. “One specter at a time, please.”
Leo nodded. “Hit me with your best theory.”
“Okay, so here’s Aileene Grant, who grew up here. At first blush she looks like your garden variety wild child, out bar hopping and biding her time to move on. Yet she goes nuclear on Chris Grey.” I drew a line between Christopher Grey’s name and Aileen Grant’s along with a little ka-boom in between them to illustrate. “She lost it when Grey took her father up on the offer to buy this place. The question is, why?”
I wrote WHY in big block letters under the ka-boom and circled it.
“You know, if you used different colors the important parts would pop more. Do you want to go to Walmart and…?”
I cast him a black look.
He held up his hands defensively. “Just FYI. So, why then?”
“Can’t say for sure. Do you have any ideas?”
“I….don’t know.” Leo tapped his chin. “What else have you got?”
I drew a line between Chris Grey and the senior Grants and connected them with a dollar sign. “For some unknown reason, the Grants sold their property to the Greys. They might have made more money if they listed it conventionally, but they chose to sell it privately. Maybe it was for the convenience, or they didn’t want to deal with a realtor. Or for something else.” I add a question mark next to the dollar sign.
“I’m with you.” Leo nodded.
“Good, because I have no idea where I’m going with this.” Under Aileen’s name, I wrote the years she’d lived, 1969 - 1991. Death due to arsenic. Pos. rat poison.
“Creepy,” Leo said.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. “What?”
“She was the same age as her daughter is now when she died.”
He was right, that was super creepy.
Beneath Aileene’s death I wrote in small letters to fit it all, property and then next to that I add haunted since 60’s, when Grants buy old lock house. Reports increased after sale 2 Greys.”
“Really?” Leo asked. From his snide tone, I knew he was trying to make us both forget that unnerving coincidence. “Because the letters t and o take up so much more room than the number two.”
“Hush, you. It’s my murder board. Go make your own if you don’t like my methods.”
Outside a little Prius hummed to a stop and I saw Neil unfolding himself from the passenger’s seat. The knot in my chest loosened a bit. “They’re back.”
“I hope they brought some inspiration for dinner, because I’m fresh out of ideas.”
“Focus, Leo. You’re my sounding board.”
“Are you going to write on me next?”
I ignored him. Leo grew extra quippy when he was unsettled. And talk of murder was unsettling, at least to most people. Leo’s last lover had been killed by the same murdering jackass who’d tried to blow me up.
“Okay, I’ll just finish up here.” I sighed. Not like I’d made any real progress anyway.
I listened to his light tread on the stairs and then heavier footsteps as Neil ascended. The fact that he made any noise at all testified to just how exhausted he must be. Neil typically moved like a big cat, stealthy and graceful. I moved more like a herd of charging water buffalo.
He stood in the doorway and I stared at him as he took in my makeshift murder board. “NCIS?”
“Castle,” I corrected with a smil
e. He knew I was a sucker for detective shows.
His gaze returned to the wall. I shifted my weight and asked, “Any progress contacting Gillian Grant?”
“Not yet. I have a few calls in. I’ll go up in a few hours and check.” His tone sounded off, distracted by more than just my half-assed attempt at hieroglyphics.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t try to deflect me or claim that everything would be fine. “The insurance lapsed on the truck. They won’t cover the damage from the wreck.”
I blinked, completely stunned into silence. “Lapsed?”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I forgot to pay it while you were in the hospital.”
Shit. I could see it happening, too. All our other bills were on an automatic payment, but the cheap car insurance I’d located was a mom-and-pop operation that had been in business since the fifties and the old lady who ran the office wasn’t set up for auto draft. I’d faithfully mailed them a check every month, but with everything that had happened, it was one thing in the sea of chaos and I hadn’t given it a second thought. So much for my fifty dollars a month savings.
“I’ll talk to them when we get back. Maybe they’ll understand.” Yeah, and maybe Atlas would start a conga line.
His focus remained on some spot on the floor halfway between us. “We’re in deep, aren’t we.”
It wasn’t really a question but I forced out an answer. “Yeah.” That was putting it mildly, between my medical bills, Penny’s delivery/surgery and now the truck. We weren’t set up to take hit after financial hit. “It’s not your fault, Neil.”
He did look at me then, a look full of challenge. “Whose fault is it?”
My chin went up. “Mine, so if you’re going to beat someone up over it, it’ll have to be me.”
I stared back at the murder board, took a deep breath then asked, “Do you want to go home? Maybe you can pick up some overtime or I can find some cleaning gigs.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re not done here.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Not compared to real life or the people who depended on us.
The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag: All Washed Up: (Book 3 in the Misadventures of the Laundry Hag series) Page 15