The Ghosts of Notchey Creek

by Liz S. Andrews

  Harley and Samantha followed behind him through the dark foyer and closed the door after them. Locating a light switch by the door, Jed flipped it on, illuminating the hallway that led into the kitchen and living room.

  Jennifer’s hat and scarf hung on the coat rack by the foyer, and before Harley’s feet, a series of black scuff marks left by boots or other heavy footwear marred the rug.

  In the kitchen someone had removed a tea kettle from the stove and placed it on a hot mat on the counter. Beside the kettle was a ceramic dish filled with sugar cubes and a matching carafe for cream. A cup of tea sat cold and untouched, the bag immersed in what was now dark brown sludge.

  “She drank a lot of cups of tea after Larry and her mom died,” Samantha said. “Said it helped her relax.”

  The joyful moments of Jennifer and Larry’s union were on display throughout the long hallway—on vacations, at family gatherings, in quiet moments at home, with Larry reading a book in his favorite chair, and Jennifer laboring over a home-cooked meal in the kitchen. The two were never blessed with children, Harley remembered, but instead of allowing an imperfection of nature to pull them apart, they used it as a force in bringing them closer together. Not only had they been spouses, but the very best of friends, only separated by life’s one guarantee.

  And there were several photos of Jennifer and her mother, the two of them at the store, as they posed before seasonal displays, behind the checkout counter, and with various customers holding the antiques they had just purchased.

  “She loved Larry,” Samantha said, “but it was her mom—she was the one she loved most of all. Her and the store.”

  Harley paused in the hallway. Among the collage of old photographs was one she recognized and knew quite well. It was of she and Jennifer standing outside the school book fair, the twenty-five-year-old Jennifer smiling beside an eleven-year-old Harley, small, slight, and dark, looking bashfully from behind her glasses as she held a paperback book.

  “That was one of her favorites,” Samantha said, noticing Harley’s interest in the photograph. “And look how happy y’all both look.”

  “I didn’t know y’all knew each other that well,” Jed said, glancing over his shoulder at Harley.

  Harley swallowed a lump in her throat. She was beginning to find it hard to breathe. The hallway blurred.

  When they entered the living room, Jed came to an abrupt halt, his gaze darting about the room.

  Samantha grabbed Harley by the arm and pointed. “Look!”

  41

  Among the Ashes

  Colorful hardbacks lay scattered across the accent rug, the chintz sofa, and the red leather chair. Drawers were pulled out, their contents spilled on the floor. Lamps were turned over, paintings torn from the walls, and vases smashed.

  “They were looking for something,” Harley said.

  Samantha turned to her, a perplexed look on her face. “You don’t think it was a burglar?”

  “Look at the first editions, the paintings, the vases. They would’ve taken those for sure. No, they were looking for something.”

  “But what?” Samantha asked.

  “I don’t know, but it was obviously something very important.”

  Past the red leather chair, a mound of ash sat uncleaned in the fireplace. Among the mound of ash was a tiny piece of paper, its edges ridged and waving from the previous night’s fire.

  Harley moved closer and, kneeling beside the hearth, removed the paper and held it up to read.

  Little of the original message remained, but what she could decipher read:

  I’m in love with you

  our bond is one of a kind.

  I adore you

  my one desire

  always

  “What is it?” Samantha asked.

  Harley studied the scrap of paper once more, reciting the lines in her mind. “It’s a love letter, or at least what’s left of one anyway.”

  She turned and looked up at Samantha. “Was she seeing anyone?”

  “I don’t think so. No, I know she wasn’t. She would’ve told me. She told me everything.”

  “Well, obviously somebody thought she was,” Jed said.

  Harley handed the scrap of paper to Jed. “And,” she said, “they obviously weren’t happy about it either, so unhappy as to trash Jennifer’s apartment.”

  “But where is she?” Samantha asked. The question came forth as a shriek. “Where’s Jennifer?”

  “Where was the last place anybody saw her?” Jed asked.

  “Last night,” Harley said. “After the meeting. She was walking home—through the park—with Jeremy Griggs.”

  Jed started for the front door. “Come on. Let’s go. Harley, you and I’ll head to the park. Samantha, you head back to the store—see if she’s showed up.”

  Samantha nodded in agreement, and the three headed for the front door.

  “We need to take Matilda with us,” Harley said to Jed.

  “Why?”

  “Her sense of smell. She can help us find her.”

  “Okay, whatever.” He waved her away with his hand. “Get the pig and let’s go.” He considered this for a moment, then added, “I ought to just be goin’ myself. I don’t know why I’m lettin’ you … it’s just that you and that pig’s got an uncanny way of … anyway …” He shook his head, abandoning his reasoning. “Get movin’.”

  42

  The Searchers

  Harley, Jed, and Matilda stood at the entrance to Briarwood Park. Though the Small Town Christmas Festival was starting and Main Street was awakening with tourist traffic, the park was quiet. Only intermittent echoes of Justin Wheeler’s voice as it rang through the pines, broke the silence.

  Jed groaned. “Oh, great. Just what I need. Justin Wheeler.”

  They traveled along the main trail until they reached a fork, which divided the trail into two smaller paths.

  “All right,” Jed said. “You and Matilda head right. I’ll head left. Call if you find anything. Meet you back here.”

  “Got it.”

  They parted ways, and Harley and Matilda hurried along the trail, the pig with her snout grazing the ground, and Harley calling Jennifer’s name. They rounded a curve and stopped in the middle of the path.

  About a hundred feet ahead, beneath an ancient oak tree, Justin Wheeler stood with his tour group.

  “It was here she died, Margaret did, on that fateful Christmas morning, hanged herself from this very tree. And while she might’ve put the noose around her own neck, it was the Sutcliffes who killed her, killed her with their greed.”

  Noticing Harley and Matilda, he glared at them with disapproval and continued his oration.

  “Margaret’s come back to take her vengeance and seek justice for her family’s fate.”

  Seeking deliverance from Justin and his stories, Harley and Matilda veered off the trail, the pig’s snout burrowing through the snow as she tracked a smell. They were about thirty feet from the path when Matilda came to an abrupt halt, sniffing feverishly at something.

  Harley peered over the pig’s shoulder, wondering if someone had dropped some food.

  “What is it, Matilda?”

  Harley looked closer.

  Waves of auburn hair spread like a fan across the snow, traces of snowflakes resting among the threads.

  She choked on the cold air, and collapsed to her knees, her hands falling like anchors before her in the snow.

  Jennifer Williams lay face up, her lifeless eyes peering up at the canopy of pines. She almost appeared peaceful lying there, her arms resting by her sides, her legs splayed straight before her and slightly apart. It was almost as if, after a long walk, she’d decided to take a rest there among the trees, watching the stars, catching a bit of winter slumber before she headed home.

  But Harley knew her final moments had been anything but peaceful.

  A series of bruises etched the length of her neck, and a noose was draped down her chest.

  43

/>   “The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep”

  “It’s Jennifer Williams.”

  Eric Winston, the county medical examiner, crouched beside Jennifer’s body in a wool coat and hospital scrubs. The gray light of shaded forest darkened his sandy hair, throwing his light-blue eyes into striking contrast.

  Jed towered above him, peering down at the body. “Obviously.” His tone conveyed a mixture of frustration and remorse. He had not found her in time, had not been able to save her, and now he blamed himself for the tragedy.

  In the surrounding woods, uniformed police officers scoured the area in search of evidence.

  At the base of a nearby tree, where she had tied Matilda’s leash to the trunk, Harley stood listening to their conversation. Now that the shock of having found Jennifer’s body had passed, she found it replaced by her own deep sense of loss. The cold on her cheeks warmed, and she felt the edges of her eyes moisten.

  Opposite her, Justin Wheeler had dismissed his tour group, and now only he and his assistant, Heather, remained behind, waiting to be questioned. The color had drained from his cheeks, and he appeared shaken. But given his flair for the dramatic, she wondered if this, too, was just an act. After all, finding a body in the “Haunted Woods of Briarwood Park” added even more sensationalism to his ghost tours.

  Harley returned her attention to Eric Winston, who probed Jennifer’s neck and skull with care. “She was strangled.” He extended a gloved finger to the noose around her neck. “By this, I imagine, and sometime late last night.”

  “You got anything more approximate than that?” Jed asked.

  Eric considered. “Given the cold, the snow—would’ve probably been sometime between eleven and one last night.”

  “Eleven and one?” Jed paused in thought, then called to Harley over his shoulder. “Harley, get over here, please.” She did as she was told and joined them beside Jennifer’s body.

  “You said you saw Jennifer last night after the meeting?” he asked.

  “Yeah. She, um, had a bit of a run-in with Alveda—and then Jeremy Griggs offered to walk her home.”

  “What kind of run-in?”

  “Well, Jennifer said something in her speech about Alveda’s ideas being outdated and alienating.”

  “I remember. And Jeremy Griggs?”

  “He was her psychiatrist.”

  “Anybody else around besides them?”

  “Rebecca—Jeremy’s wife. I ran into her a little bit after that, and she said she was going home.”

  “Did she know Jeremy left with Jennifer?”

  Harley nodded again. “I told her. I had to. She asked me right after they’d left and—”

  “What about Alveda?”

  “Not that I know of. I saw her head for home, Ernest following her and—”

  Jed held up his hand like a stop sign, interrupting her. “Give me a minute to think.” After a moment or two, he said, “Jennifer’s not been livin’ back here that long, has she? When’d she move back from New York?”

  “Last year,” Harley said. “Not long after her mom and husband passed away.”

  “Awfully young to be a widow.”

  “Barely forty.”

  “Looked even younger.”

  Harley agreed.

  “And I heard her husband left her some money when he died.”

  This time Eric spoke up. “A lot, actually. He was a stockbroker. Invested well. Left her with quite a mint. She’d bought the Johnson house beside my parents’, was in the process of remodeling it.”

  “Now, that I did know,” Jed said. “And then after her husband died, she moved back here to take over her mama’s antiques store?”

  Harley nodded.

  Again Jed grew quiet as he mulled over the patchwork of information. “So something obviously happened on the walk home last night. But what?” He ran his hands through his short brown hair. “And that noose down her neck …” His gaze fell on Harley, and though he did not say the words, they were both thinking of the woman she had found in the park. He returned his attention to the body once more and said, “I just can’t make sense outta any of it.”

  “Margaret Reed.”

  Justin Wheeler approached and stood beside Jed.

  “Now, I don’t want any bull crap out of you, you got me, Wheeler?” Jed said with his index finger cocked. He turned back to Eric. “You know, it’s a good thing I’m still rich ’cause I really don’t get paid enough to put up with this crap.”

  “I only speak the truth,” Justin said. “Margaret’s making a point with this woman’s death. I’m sure of it. And I was called here to her this morning, beckoned by the dead.”

  Jed rolled his eyes. “Last time I checked, the pig found the body, not you, and I think it’s funny you and your entourage have been hangin’ around here at all hours of the day and night, and then somebody magically shows up dead.”

  “I only report, Sheriff. I don’t cause.”

  Jed turned his back to him and cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “Just give your statement, Mr. Wheeler. To my deputy. Now. Then I want you to beat it. Scram. Out of these woods.” He snapped his fingers in dismissal.

  About twenty feet from them, a uniformed police officer pointed to something in the snow. “Sir, we’ve got something over here.”

  44

  A Piece of silver

  The police officer lifted what appeared to be a piece of jewelry from the snow, the silver band gleaming in the morning light. It was a bracelet—no, a watch.

  “Looks like somebody dropped their watch,” the officer said.

  The officer held the watch out in his palm for Jed to examine. “And somebody rich,” Jed said. “It’s a Rolex.”

  Justin Wheeler joined Jed and studied the watch alongside him. “Well, well,” he said. “Who would’ve thought? Isn’t that Beau Arson’s watch? I think so. Looks like he’s got some trouble on his hands.”

  “Butt out, Mr. Wheeler,” Jed said. “And I thought I told you to leave.”

  Justin opened his mouth to say something else, and Jed held up his hand.

  “No, Mr. Wheeler. Leave. Now. I mean it. I ain’t tellin’ you again.”

  And he did not tell him again. At last Justin begrudgingly did as he was told, and taking Heather by the hand, the two left the crime scene.

  When they were out of seeing and hearing distance, Jed said to his deputy, “Ron, go get their statements … and do it as far away from here as you can.”

  The deputy left, and Jed asked Harley to join him.

  “Is this Beau’s?” he said, motioning to the watch he held in his palm.

  In the center of the watch’s face was a guitar made of diamonds. The only of its kind in the world, Rolex had exclusively crafted the watch for Beau.

  “Yes, but he hardly ever wears it,” she said. “He doesn’t really like flashy things.”

  “Where’s he keep it in the house? You know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Any ideas on how it might’ve gotten here?”

  “Well, obviously somebody took it from Briarcliffe.”

  “Who?”

  Harley shrugged. “There were a lot of people in the house last night for the meeting. You know that. Any of them could’ve done it.”

  Jed seemed to agree with her reasoning but did not say so.

  “I need y’all to head out for now, too, okay?” he told her. “I’ll come catch up with you in a minute. There’s more things we need to talk about.”

  45

  The Long Way Home

  Harley and Matilda followed Jed’s orders and started for the park entrance. A depressive heaviness caused her limbs to sag and her boots to trudge through the snow like anchors. The tears kept coming back to her eyes, causing the path to blur, and she kept pushing them back. She wondered how she would ever make it through the rest of the day.

  She did not want to open the shop, did not want to see anyone. She wanted to go home, sit by the fire with Matilda in her t
iny cottage, and mourn. But with the Small Town Christmas Festival only hours away, taking time to mourn was not possible.

  When they had reached the trail marker, a hand came to rest on her shoulder. She turned to find Eric Winston standing over her. The cold, damp air left his cheeks in a flush and his light-blue eyes in a glisten.

  Harley directed her gaze past Eric to the two uniformed officers who guarded the perimeter as they surveyed the woods.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, searching her face.

  She hadn’t seen Eric in a few weeks, and the distance had been a blessing for her. There was something about Eric Winston that, despite her better judgment, lured her in, each and every time she saw him. It wasn’t just that he was intelligent and thoughtful and handsome, but there was something mysterious about him. He had an undisclosed inner layer she longed to peel back, discover, and love.

  Yet Eric was in a relationship serious enough to warrant a cross-country move by a woman he loved, a woman Harley Henrickson was not and never would be.

  In addition, Clarissa was socially acceptable. She was beautiful, Ivy League–educated, a medical doctor, and from a wealthy family, all qualities lauded by Eric’s father, Dr. Peter Winston.

  Harley decided it was her fault for allowing herself to develop feelings for someone who, by society’s standards, was so far above her. She decided the best way to protect herself from those feelings was to keep her distance. However, Eric’s graciousness, at times, made this difficult.

  “I’m okay,” she said, at last responding to his question. But they both knew this wasn’t true.

  “Do you need to talk?”

  She shook her head. “I think … I think maybe I just need to be alone for a while if that’s okay.”

  “Of course.”

  She turned to leave once more only to have him take her hand in his. He’d removed his gloves, and the tips of his fingers were warm and soft and caring—just like him.