The Ghosts of Notchey Creek

  Harley smiled and stopped beneath the barber pole, preparing for their visit as she always did. “Wow, look at that pole. I bet that pole’s got a lot of history.”

  He gave a wry grin. “I knew you were gonna ask.” He pivoted his body past the checkerboard and to her. “Harley, did you know that barbers were among the first priests, the first surgeons in the world, datin’ all the way back to Ancient Egypt?”

  She feigned ignorance, and he continued. “And did you know the barber pole symbolized the practice of bloodlettin’?”

  “Didn’t know that either.”

  “Sure did.”

  And given that Harley was a particularly keen listener, he added, “And ancient priests would cut, trim, and shave people’s hair to the keep the evil spirits from possessing their souls. And did you know that during the Middle Ages barbers would drill holes into peoples’ heads to release the evil spirits? I bet you didn’t know that.”

  “Nuh uh,” Harley said with a smile. “I never heard it before.”

  Ed had told Harley that sometimes he, too, wished he could drill holes into his clients’ heads, let those evil spirits just ooze out like a puff of smoke, let the ugly drift up and die in the ceiling fan.

  After forty years of practicing his profession, Ed told Harley he was still surprised how often people would tell him their personal sins, no matter how grave. It was as if his shaving cream held a magic truth serum, one that forced people to confess their secrets—secrets he often times wished he hadn’t heard. “God don’t like ugly,” he always told Harley. “And there’s been an awful lot of ugly people in these chairs over the years.” And after he was done with their haircuts and done with their shaves, those same men would look up at Ed, flashing their big pearly whites, and act like they ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody never, acting like Ed had just absolved their sins somehow. And while Ed had made them look pretty on the outside, he said he knew they were still ugly. Only the good Lord could forgive sins.

  Ed knew everyone’s secrets. Harley thought it was his cross to bear as a barber, and he agreed, saying he he hoped it was a cross that helped him be a better person. And Ed was a churchgoing man. He went to church every single Sunday, every single chance he could get through the good Lord’s door. He said he figured a man needs as much help as he can get in this life, and the closer to Jesus, the better. And after hearing some of things he’d heard over the years, he said a man needs to try and live a good life. “Yes, ma’am,” he’d once said. “Goodness knows I don’t want to have to drill a hole in my own head, let all that ugly out before the day’s over.”

  And Harley understood this.

  The ugly seemed to be all around her that day, too, like a cesspool of nasty breaking through her interior walls, drowning her soul. Two innocent women had been murdered, and in the wake of it, one of her close friends was being mentally tortured. In one of their talks over checkers, she had asked him when she would be able to escape life’s ugliness.

  “Never. Not until you’ve left this life,” Ed had told her. “Not until you’re at the pearly gates, face to face with Saint Peter.”

  Ed stood from his straight-back chair and greeted her with a hug. “How you doin’ sweetheart? And look. You brought me some of my favorite happy juice.”

  Harley handed him the bottle of single barrel whiskey, and pecked a kiss on his cheek.

  “You all right?” he asked. “Don’t look quite yourself.” He examined her a moment and asked, “You dealin’ with some kind of ugly?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Very ugly.”

  70

  Gifts of the Wise Man

  “You come by for a trim?”

  Ed peered through the barbershop’s glass window and located his granddaughter, Reg, at her salon station, hairdryer in hand. “She’s got herself a client right now.”

  “Actually I came by to see you.” He looked at Harley expectantly, and she added, “It has to do with the ugly I mentioned.”

  “Ah.” Ed pulled out a straight-back chair across from him and offered it to Harley.

  The high school marching band passed by just then, playing “A Marshmallow World.”

  Ed called over the music. “You mind if we play a game or two while we talk and watch the parade?”

  Harley nodded and took a seat across from him. He was dressed in his usual attire, a cotton button-up shirt and slacks, an outfit that never changed, regardless of the temperature or the season. Occasionally, Ed would rotate the shirt color from blue to white to beige, but the khaki pants remained constant. In the twenty-six years Harley had known Ed Atlee, he’d worn the same style of glasses as well, ones with large square lenses and brown rims.

  “Aren’t you cold out here?” she asked.

  “Naw. And heck, it ain’t even that cold yet. Wait ’til we get to February.”

  This was true.

  Ed looked so sweet as he sat across from her at the checkerboard table that evening, with little snowflakes collected on his hair and shoulders. However, she knew the game would not end well for her. Ed Atlee was a champion pool checker player, and he had a reputation for wiping out opponents in three quick moves. In pool checkers, players could move backward or forward, kings could jump on the same diagonal, and if you touched a player’s piece, you moved it.

  This did not bode well for someone like Harley who was terribly distracted at the moment. She had no idea which direction she wanted to go on the checkerboard, in this murder investigation, or in her life. But Ed always seemed to know where he was going. It was like he had futuristic vision.

  “So,” he said, moving his first piece, “tell me about your ugly.”

  The high school marching band had passed, and now the Shriners drove by in miniature cars, waving at the crowds.

  Harley paused, considering whether she should unload on Ed, whether he, too, needed to be saddled with the burden of Jennifer Williams’s murder investigation and Beau Arson’s dilemma. Actually, she decided, he was the perfect person to talk to. He knew everyone in town, and he collected secrets like priests collected confessions.

  “I’m investigating Jennifer Williams’s murder,” she said. “And I … I think it has to do with Briarcliffe.”

  She told him of Jennifer having worked at Briarcliffe valuing the antiques and how she’d said she’d seen or found out something unbelievable—maybe there—before her death.

  The two sat in silence, their checker pieces tapping and sliding across the board. But Ed wasn’t avoiding Harley. He was thinking.

  Finally, he said, “Folks in town’s been talkin’ about Margaret Reed a lot lately, sayin’ she’s come back from the dead. Hauntin’ the woods up at Briarcliffe. And word is, too, that the Sutcliffes wronged her family way back when, drove ’em off their land, took it from ’em … even caused her to kill herself in the woods there.”

  Harley nodded. “That’s the story.”

  Ed stopped playing and stared at Harley. “Ain’t none of it true.” He returned to the game, sliding a checker piece into position. “That ghost hunter … the one that’s been goin’ all around town tellin’ tall tales about the Sutcliffes … well …”

  He stopped and shook his head. “Harley, one thing you’ve got to learn is that history’s only true for the ones who are tellin’ it. Now, I don’t know what this man’s endgame is, this Justin Wheeler, what he’s got on his mind, maybe money—and if you ask me—something more. But I do know that my ancestors—they were alive at one time or another when all of this with the Reeds was goin’ on, and I can tell you for a fact ain’t none of it true.”

  “It’s not?”

  “’Course not. First of all, the Reeds didn’t get that land from no land grant. Heck, land grants didn’t even exist in East Tennessee after the Revolutionary War. Maybe in North Carolina. No, that was Cherokee land up there next to Briarcliffe. Your grandmama’s people’s land. And the Reeds, they’re the ones that took it, took it from the Cherokee. Killed ’em for it.”


  Harley stared at him in surprise, and he said, “And the Reeds … they did themselves in, not nobody else. You can call it karma, whatever you want … but they were a strange bunch of folks. Kept to themselves. Too much. Didn’t have nothin’ to do with nobody. Wouldn’t even get medical help when they were sick.” He moved one of his checker pieces with emphasis. “Finally did ’em in.”

  He looked up at her on this last point, and she realized the implications of what he had just said. “Ed, are you saying they killed themselves?”

  “More or less. TB got ’em. All of ’em except the one, one of the boys, but he’d already moved away years before that. Like I said, they wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with no modern medicine.”

  This was a new and interesting piece of information. Harley had assumed all of the Reeds had died. That Margaret had been the last of them. “Do you think Justin Wheeler might be related to them? That maybe he’s a descendant of that last-surviving son?”

  “Well, that would explain his middle name.”

  “It’s Reed?”

  Ed nodded. “He came in for a haircut a while back and paid with a credit card. Name on the card was Justin Reed Wheeler.”

  She had suspected as much.

  “And what about Margaret?”

  He considered. “Well, I reckon she did hang herself in those woods, that’s true, but it wasn’t ’cause of anything the Sutcliffes did to her. I reckon she just wanted to put herself out of her misery after the disease got hold of her real good. And so, you see, by the time the timber industry got here—and the Sutcliffes with it—the Reeds were already dead.”

  A vintage red Corvette idled by on the parade route, with the Notchey Creek Homecoming Queen perched atop the back seats. She wore a green formal gown with a tiara on her head, her bright smile fighting against a shiver of cold.

  She waved to the crowds, and Harley and Ed waved back.

  “And that Justin Wheeler’s right about one thing,” Ed said. “The Sutcliffes did take over the land, but they bought it from the town, not stole it out from under the Reeds. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else, too, about the Sutcliffes. They had their faults, yeah, just like any great and powerful and rich family in history, and they did kill a whole lot of trees around these parts, and made a whole lotta money from doin’ it, too, before the national park came in. But they weren’t all bad. They were … well, I guess they were what you’d call complex. They were destructive in some of their ways, yeah, but they were also very creative and generous. Built most of the buildings in town here—the library, city hall, the courthouse. Beautiful buildings. And they were active politically, too. Very active. Long lines of senators and congressmen in their blood. And if you ask me, the Sutcliffes did more for fightin’ Jim Crow and pushin’ desegregation than anybody.”

  “Ed, what do you know about Briarcliffe in particular?” She told him of the apparitions she had seen at Briarcliffe and how they had seemed to disappear inside the walls. She leaned forward, and in a lowered voice, she asked, “Are there secret passages in Briarcliffe?”

  He did not hesitate. “Tunnels, Harley. Big tunnels. Augustus Sutcliffe had ’em put in back when the house was bein’ built.”

  Harley sat forward in her chair. “I knew it.”

  “Used ’em to run liquor during Prohibition.” He grinned. “You see, what they’d do is they’d get it from the local distillers here—probably one of ’em was your great-great-granddaddy—and they stored it up at Briarcliffe for safekeeping. Then the runners—and my great-uncle was one of ’em too—they’d run it up through the mountains in their jalopies in the middle of the night, get it up to the borders, sell it in Canada.” He scratched his chin. “I figure that whole network made a fine fortune doin’ what they were doin’. And then they gave the money back to the town. Town needed it, too. The Depression was awful rough on a lot of folks around here.”

  Harley reclined back in her seat again. “Wow.”

  He gave a smile. “Dang straight.”

  “But I thought you said the Sutcliffes were senators.”

  “They were. Some of ’em. But they were also what you might call gentlemen bootleggers. They were law-abidin’ patriots, yeah, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a streak in ’em when they thought the law was bein’ unfair to the common folk. And that’s what they thought Prohibition was doin’, that the government was overreachin’ at the cost of the little folk.”

  “And they were never caught?”

  “Nope. Folks around here knew about it, yeah, but nobody was gonna bite the hand that was feedin’ ’em.”

  Ed lowered his head back to the checkerboard, then with three diagonal jumps, he cleared the board of Harley’s pieces. He laughed, leaning back in his chair. “I’m glad we ain’t playin’ for money right now, Harley, ’cause you’d be plumb broke.”

  “I’m already plumb broke,” she said with a grin. “In more ways than one.”

  Ed’s granddaughter, Reg, poked her head out the barbershop door and interrupted them. “Granddaddy, are you playin’ nice?”

  Regina “Reg” Atlee towered in the barbershop’s doorway. That day she wore a pair of three-inch black heels and a pair of black leggings with a red tunic sweater that hit her at mid-thigh. Her black hair was braided in cornrows down her back, and her face was free of makeup but for a bit of blush and lip gloss.

  She stepped onto the sidewalk and placed her hands on her hips. “Granddaddy, you know you’re supposed to give the other players a chance to move. That’s why nobody ever wants to play with you. You’re too aggressive.”

  Ed shrugged and grinned at Harley. “Ain’t my fault.”

  Harley returned his grin, and then looked up at Reg. “I’ve never been any good at pool checkers anyway, Reg, you know that.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, “doesn’t help to be any good with him. He’d still just win.” She gave her grandfather the evil eye, then followed with a playful wink. “Harley, you do know Aunt Wilma made some appointments for you, right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And are you actually plannin’ on comin’?”

  “Unless I want to suffer her wrath, yes.”

  “Hair and makeup’s the day of Beau’s party.” Reg rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Oh, I can’t wait to get a hold of that pretty head of hair. The things I’m gonna be able to do!”

  Harley was glad Reg was excited about the prospect because she certainly was not.

  “Well, look who’s comin’ down the street, y’all,” Reg said, watching the parade.

  Harley turned her attention to Main Street, and her mouth gaped open in stunned silence. Coming down the street was Floyd in his red El Camino, pulling a trailer by its hitch. On the trailer was Matilda’s little house, and the pig stood beside it in her elf costume, absorbing cheers from the crowds.

  Uncle Tater sat on the other side of her, beside a whiskey barrel. He tossed little plastic bags to the crowds, and kids and parents alike jumped to catch them.

  One fell at Harley’s boots, and she picked it up. The plastic bag contained a piece of Tina’s whiskey fudge, along with a note advertising Henrickson’s Whiskey, and Tina’s Treats.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Ed said with a laugh. “Your Uncle Tater and Floyd’s brought some class into the parade tonight.”

  “Yes,” Harley said with pride. “Yes, they have.”

  “Look at Matilda!” Reg said, grinning, then placing her hand over her mouth. “She looks so cute! Is she Robin Hood?”

  “Robin Hog,” Harley said. “I mean—Elf on the Shelf.”

  “Elf on the Shelf! I love it!”

  Harley leaned across the checkerboard toward Ed, and her voice adopted a serious tone. “Ed, did the … did the Sutcliffes keep any valuables in the tunnel—near the house?”

  He paused in thought, then said, “I can’t speak with certainty on that point, but my granddaddy did mention one time he’d heard talk of a safe room back up in there somewhere—where th
e family kept their most expensive valuables. But like I said, that’s just talk.”

  71

  A Revelation

  “Jed!”

  Harley struggled down the sidewalk, pushing her way through the parade crowds, holding her phone to her ear.

  “What?” he yelled over the noise on his end.

  “Jed, I know! I know what’s been going on at Briarcliffe!”

  “Hold up!”

  Jed disappeared from the line momentarily, the muffled sound of footsteps and high school band music in the receiver. A car door opened and closed, then the line grew quiet.

  “All right,” he said with a sigh. “Now, calm down. What is it?”

  “It’s Samantha,” she said. She ducked inside an alleyway, and lowered her voice. “Samantha’s been stealing from Briarcliffe.”

  “Wait. What? Who?”

  “There are secret tunnels in Briarcliffe. I think they lead from the house to Briarwood Park. And there’s a safe room, too, I think—full of the Sutcliffe family valuables. Samantha’s been stealing from there and selling them on the internet. And the woman—Meredith Roberts—I think she saw them online, realized they were stolen.”

  “But how would she know?”

  “Because she used to work there—at Briarcliffe.”

  “What?”

  “She used to work at Briarcliffe years ago—in the kitchen. Then, she traced the items back to Notchey Creek, but instead of finding Samantha, she confronted Jennifer about it instead. Jennifer put two-and-two together, and that’s why she was killed, too.”

  “Harley, you better not be makin’ this up.”

  “I’m serious, Jed.”

  “But how would Samantha know about the tunnels?”

  “I don’t know. I think she might’ve found a map of them—probably in Beau’s father’s desk—the one she’d been refinishing. That explains all of the drafts in the house, the strange noises in the walls. That’s why … Oh, my gosh, Jed, that’s how the body disappeared!”