Belle Manor Haunting

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “Speaking of others ... what if there are others out there with similar abilities to yours? If there were, you could work together.”

  She had questioned the possibility many times.

  “I asked my grandmother once, and she told me she’d never come across anyone else who was gifted like we are. I feel like there has to be more of us, but even if there are, I’m not sure how to find them.”

  Addison spent the day with Luke and Amara Jane. She woke the next morning, thinking about the strange dream she’d had of a man she’d met several years before, a man she knew little about, who had once helped her find information on a missing woman. In the dream, he’d called out to her. She didn’t know why. She only knew she needed to see him.

  A few hours later, Addison parked the car outside the library in New York City. She placed Amara Jane into her stroller and wheeled her into the library. She scanned the main level of the first floor and smiled when she found the man she’d come to see. He glanced at her from behind a long, oval desk, stood, and walked in her direction, bending down when he reached her. He poked his head under the blanket covering Amara Jane and said, “Well, isn’t she precious?”

  “Thank you,” Addison said. “It’s been a while.”

  He nodded. “It has. I remember you.”

  “I was hoping you would.”

  He tapped a finger against the side of his head, thinking. “Let’s see now. I’d guess it’s been about six years or so since you were here last, but you don’t look like you’ve aged a day.”

  “Your name is Larry, right?”

  He frowned. “It’s Barry. Close enough.”

  When Addison first met Barry, he’d been a fair bit larger than the man standing before her now. He’d slimmed down, but he didn’t look healthy. He looked frail and unwell.

  “You’ve lost weight,” Addison said.

  He patted his belly and nodded. “Yep. I had a heart attack a few years ago, and I made a lot of changes to my diet. I still eat a lot of the same food. I just don’t eat as much.”

  “I see you’re still wearing suspenders.”

  He looked down at the blue-and-white striped suspenders clipped to his jeans. “Yeah, it’s a comfort thing, I guess. What brings you in today?”

  “I need information on a missing woman.”

  “Last time you were here for something similar, if I recall, but you scampered out of here before I ever knew if you’d found what you needed.”

  “I did.”

  “What do you do for a living, anyway?” he asked.

  Addison bent her head toward her daughter. “I raise this little one.”

  He laughed. “There isn’t a better job in the world. You got a name?”

  “She’s Amara Jane.”

  “Amara Jane. She’s a beauty, but I’m after the name of the person you want information on.”

  “Oh, right. I have a first name, but not a last. It’s Libby.”

  “What time period?”

  “Earlier seventies, I believe.”

  “Alive or dead?”

  “Dead.”

  He stroked his chin. “Mmph. I wonder ... you happen to know what she looked like?”

  “Thin and petite. Long, blond hair. She was young. Early twenties.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m off in twenty-five minutes. You think you could wait until then?”

  Last time Addison visited the library, Barry had escorted her downstairs where the old newspapers were kept and then left the room, allowing her to peruse the boxes at her leisure. This time, he seemed keen to join her treasure hunt. She wondered why.

  “If you’d just point me in the direction of the right box like you did last time, I should be able to locate what I need myself.”

  He crossed his arms. “You’d find a few things, I would guess. Depends on what you’re after. If you can hang around until I’m off the clock, we can grab a cup of coffee in the café, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Everything I need to know about ...”

  “The woman you’re looking for. Libby Carrington.”

  Addison sipped on a cup of coffee and glanced at Barry. His phone rang. He looked at the name of the caller, excused himself from the table, and walked into the hallway, returning a few minutes later.

  “You know something?” he said. “I’ve worked at the library for over thirty-five years now. Guess you could say it’s where I’ve spent most of my life.”

  Amara Jane fussed in her stroller. Addison reached for a bottle and lifted her out.

  “It’s a long time to work at one place,” Addison said. “You must like what you do.”

  “It’s been good. It isn’t always what I was interested in, though. When I was young, I had other ambitions. I wanted to be a cop. After I graduated high school, I entered the academy and became one.”

  “Here? In New York?”

  He nodded.

  “For how long?” Addison asked.

  “A couple of years.”

  “Why did you switch jobs?”

  Barry leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “It wasn’t for me. The first time I saw a dead body ... I, well ... threw up on the side of the road. Everyone said it was normal, and maybe it was, but I’ll never get the image of the dead woman’s face out of my mind. It haunts me even now. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old, and she had a face as pure and innocent as any I’d ever seen. I kept asking myself why anyone would do something like that to such a sweet woman.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She was stabbed four times and left for dead.”

  “Did you ever find out why?”

  He nodded. “Detectives caught the creep, and his excuse was pathetic. Turned out the guy was after her backpack. He assumed because she was dressed nice and had nice jewelry on, he’d find a lot of money in her bag. He was wrong. All she had was a couple of tens and a five. She had defensive wounds, which means she put up a fight, and she lost her life over it, over a measly twenty-five bucks.”

  “At least her murder was solved.”

  “Guess so, but for me, the damage had been done. Every night for the next three weeks, I dreamed about her death. I saw the guy standing there, hovering over her as if I’d been there when it happened. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and I couldn’t go back to sleep again. After a couple of weeks, I swear I looked like I’d aged ten years. I drank to escape, to wash away the reality of the harsh world we live in sometimes. I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a cop, and I quit.”

  Addison had a better stomach for it than he did, she guessed. She wasn’t sure why. Her because her interactions with the dead were different. She picked up where the cops left off, solving the cases they couldn’t, exacting justice for victims when they entered the afterlife. Barry seemed to be building to something by sharing his story, but she couldn’t figure out what yet.

  “I can’t stay much longer,” Addison said. “I need to get home.”

  “Sure, I won’t keep you. I’d like to show you something.”

  “All right.”

  He reached into his pocket, pressed the screen on his cell phone, and flipped it around so she could see it.

  “Is this her?” he asked. “Is this Libby, the woman you’re interested in?”

  Addison narrowed her eyes, taking in the woman’s features. In her vision the night before, it had been hard to get a clear view of Libby’s face. But her hair was unmistakable.

  “Yes,” Addison said. “I believe so. Where did you get this picture?”

  “Off a buddy of mine. When I was a rookie, he was my FTO.”

  “FTO?”

  “Field Training Officer. He had a lot more staying power than I did. Not long after I left, he got bumped up to detective.”

  “What’s his name?” Addison asked.

  “Harry Briggs.”

  “Were you still a police officer when Libby died?”

  He shook
his head. “I’d left the force by then, but I’ve kept in contact with Briggs over the years. He worked the Carrington girl’s case. He never solved it, but he sure tried hard. When you came in today looking for information on her, I messaged him and asked if he could send me the photo from her file.”

  “What can you tell me about her?” Addison asked.

  “Not as much as my buddy can.”

  “Anything would help.”

  “All right, let’s think here. She went missing somewhere around 1972. The day before she disappeared, she had breakfast with her mother and then she drove to the college and attended all of her classes. After school, she went to work.”

  “Where did she work?” Addison asked.

  “She worked for Lawrence and Cecilia Belle.”

  “Doing what?” Addison asked.

  “She was their nanny. The Belles threw a lot of parties on the weekends back then.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Lavish ones.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes they hired Libby to stay the weekend with Sara, their daughter.”

  “Why did they need her for an entire weekend?”

  He shrugged. “Based on rumors I heard back then, guests of the Belles frequently stayed overnight, and sometimes all weekend. The Belles had the rooms for it, and they doted on their guests, which made it easy for them to stick around. I imagine hiring someone to look after Sara allowed the Belles to be carefree so they didn’t have to worry about tending to their daughter. If she needed anything, the sitter was there to take care of it.”

  “So the night before Libby Carrington went missing, she stayed the night at Belle Manor and looked after Sara. Then what?”

  “The next day, Libby took Sara to the park. When they returned, they went for a swim in the pool and, then had dinner and headed to bed. The next morning when Cecilia went to wake her daughter, Libby was gone. She checked Libby’s room, and the bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in.”

  “Who was the last person to see Libby alive?”

  “Hard to say. Sara, I imagine.”

  “Strange,” Addison said. “You’d think at least one person would have had an interaction with her.”

  “Her job was to take care of their daughter, which means she may not have mingled with any of the other guests. If I remember right, Sara’s room was on the first floor of the house. Guests mingled on the third, and those who stayed over slept on the second. Libby would have been on the first floor in the adjoining room to Sara’s.”

  “What about her car? Was it gone, too?”

  Barry wagged a finger in front of him. “Patience. I’ll get to it in a minute. When the Carrington girl didn’t return home the next morning, her mother called Cecilia Belle, and that’s when the search began. Libby’s mother called the police. They went up to the manor and questioned Sara’s parents. Lawrence remembered seeing Libby and Sara in the pool, and Cecilia said Libby was reading Sara a bedtime story when she went in to kiss her daughter goodnight.”

  “What time was this?”

  “You’d need to ask Briggs. I believe it was right before the party started.”

  “Did the police question Sara?”

  Barry shrugged. “From what I heard, they tried. Her parents put a stop to it. They were afraid she’d be traumatized over the ordeal. She was young, about six or seven, if memory serves. The Belles said they’d question Sara themselves.”

  “And did they?”

  He nodded. “Sara said the nanny read her a bedtime story. She was thirsty, so the nanny left the room to get her a glass of water. When she returned, she told Sara there was some leftover cake in the kitchen, and if Sara went right to sleep, she would set a piece aside for her to have the next day. Sara fell asleep while Libby went to get it, and when she woke up the next morning, she went into Libby’s room, and she wasn’t there.”

  The man Addison saw in her vision mentioned Libby saw something she shouldn’t have. What had she seen?

  “How many guests attended the party?”

  “I’m not sure. They were all questioned, and to my knowledge, none of them had anything relevant to say. It’s sad, you know. In the space of a year, the Belles went through their fair share of strange, unfortunate experiences. The Carrington girl disappeared, and then their daughter died in a car accident along with the replacement nanny. What a tragic story. It’s no wonder their lives changed so much afterward.”

  A tragic story, indeed. Addison wondered if they’d brought it on themselves.

  “After Libby disappeared, were there any leads? Did anyone come forward with any solid information?”

  “A few things trickled in here and there. Nothing much.”

  “Nothing significant?” Addison asked.

  “There was one thing. About six months after Libby went missing, her car was recovered at the bottom of Oak Hollow Lake, and since it didn’t get there on its own, it was obvious the car had been sunk on purpose. Kind of a stupid place to dump to a car, if you ask me. Divers combed the lake for Libby’s body. They didn’t find it.”

  Oak Hollow was a twenty-minute drive from Rhinebeck and a little out of the way for a person trying to dispose of a car.

  “Someone was involved in her disappearance, and they tried to get rid of the evidence,” Addison said.

  “You’re right. Plus, Libby had a lot going for her. It wouldn’t have made much sense for her to drop off the radar without telling anyone. After the car was found, Briggs was convinced foul play was involved. Guess we’ll never know for sure.”

  Addison knew better.

  Foul play was involved, and she’d find out how.

  “Did they find any clues in the car?” Addison asked.

  He shook his head. “Not a bit. The car was empty. It wasn’t in great condition when they brought it to the surface, which didn’t help.”

  Amara Jane drank the last of her bottle and cried out for more. Addison grabbed a pacifier out of the diaper bag and put it in her mouth.

  “You may not have been on the case, but you know a lot about what happened to Libby.”

  Barry nodded. “I met up with Briggs for a drink or two many times back then. The Carrington case came up in every conversation. He assumed the worst, and it irked him when he couldn’t prove it. We’d sit there for hours, poring over the evidence. The case still haunts him to this day. It’s the only one he never solved.”

  “Did he work for the Village Police Department?”

  Barry shook his head. “He was over in Saugerties. I have a question for you now.”

  “All right.”

  “Why are you interested in this case? It’s decades old.”

  Addison thought about the best way to answer and came up with nothing. “It’s ... complicated.”

  “Complicated, how?”

  “If I told you, it would be hard for you to believe.”

  He swished a hand through the air. “Oh, I doubt it. I’ve heard a lot of crazy stories in my lifetime. Try me.”

  None as crazy as mine.

  Addison stood.

  Barry frowned. “I answered your questions, and now I ask one of you, and you’re going to run off on me?”

  “It’s a long story for another time. I’m not trying to be rude or ungrateful. If you can give me Briggs’ contact information, I would appreciate it.”

  “Let me talk to him first, give him a heads up about our meeting today.”

  “All right.”

  Addison placed Amara Jane into the stroller and reached for Barry’s hand. They touched, and a series of visions flashed through Addison’s mind. She felt Barry’s heart pumping, the blood coursing through his veins, his lungs, diseased and weak. She saw a yellow cottage with white trim on a street named Baskerville. Inside, Barry was standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom with powder-blue walls, coughing up blood into a tissue. He discarded the tissue into the wastebasket and gripped the edges of the sink in his hands, ogling himself in the mirror. His eyes were watery and sad, his face riddle
d with worry.

  It pained her.

  She didn’t want to see any more.

  She jerked her hand free, and Barry stepped back, confused.

  “What just happened?” he asked. “What’s wrong, Addison?”

  “Nothing. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.”

  “I mean, sure, I was glad to, but something has upset you.”

  Addison shrugged. “I’m all right. Don’t worry about it. I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Call me crazy, but when I touched your hand just now, it felt like I’d stuck a fork into an electrical outlet.”

  Addison mustered a nonsensical, “How odd.”

  He ran a hand through his ashy hair. “It is odd, right? Well, never mind.”

  Addison felt bad.

  She was cheating him, protecting herself instead of speaking the truth.

  “Maybe it isn’t odd,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “There’s something about you. I felt it the first time we met. Something different.”

  “Do you have any kids?” Addison asked.

  “Sure do. A son and a granddaughter.”

  “Are they close by?”

  “Not far. They live in Manhattan. Why?”

  “Spend some time with them today. Maybe grab dinner together. Let them know how much you love them.”

  He raised a brow. “They know how I feel.”

  “You’re a kind man, Barry. It was wonderful to see you today.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t be a stranger. Come back for a visit again soon, okay? I work Monday to Friday, ten in the morning until five.”

  Addison nodded and walked away, stopping once to turn and wave, knowing his eyes were still on her as she made her way to the car.

  There would be a next time for her and Barry, she could feel it.

  And the next time would be their last.

  Addison poured a glass of lemonade and sat beside Luke in the living room. He looked at her and switched the television off. “Everything all right? Looks like you have a lot on your mind.”