The Ghosts of Notchey Creek

  Her back ached, and her neck was stiff. She was not sure how much longer she could withstand the cold. She continued on, scouring the ground with her hand.

  She paused. The forest floor had turned to a softer texture. Like wet moss it covered a hard, flat, metal-like surface.

  The door!

  She ran her hand along the surface, then felt along the edges where the moss transitioned back to hard ground.

  A hatch door.

  In the center of one of its four edges was a small, heavy handle, obviously used to pull the door open.

  She rested her flashlight in the snow, then grabbed the handle, and pulled back with her entire weight.

  It cracked open about an inch, and she dug her boot heels into the snow, pulling harder, until gravity took over. The door fell backwards and thudded against the snow.

  She stood over the opening and shone her flashlight into the darkness. A narrow, steep staircase led into immutable darkness. The steps had no railing, and with her boots slippery from the snow, she would have to take extra precautions descending them.

  She tossed her bag over her back, and guided the flashlight along with her feet—one, two, three, four. She held her breath, and she progressed further, one step after another, the fresh outside air replaced with the odor of damp earth. The farmhouse cellar had a similar smell in the winter months, she remembered, and the air was thick, and wet, like cold syrup, seeping into her clothes, straight to her bones.

  She was now surrounded by stone walls that stretched in a long, seemingly endless tunnel. The Sutcliffes had been master builders, as was evident from the artful construction, with walls that were at least a foot or two thick and wide enough to run wagons of whiskey.

  The floor was a mix of rough stone and dirt, etched by footprints, leading along the tunnel, then disappearing in the darkness ahead.

  Perforating the walls, several stone doorways opened into cavernous, dark rooms. Harley shone her flashlight inside one, revealing wooden shipping crates, stacked one upon another. In the 1930s those crates likely held liquor, which was transported up through the mountains and across the northern border to Canada.

  A light shone from a cracked doorway ahead. Harley slowed her pace, and turned off her flashlight. As quietly as possible, she crept toward the door. She held her breath and peered inside.

  Oh.

  She released a silent breath.

  She and Ed had been right.

  The room was about the size of the others in the tunnel, but warmer, the product of a temperature-controlled climate and electrical lights added over the course of the twentieth century. The Sutcliffes had taken great care in assuring their valuables would remain well-preserved.

  Renaissance oil paintings graced the walls, and ancient Chinese vases and bronze statues sat atop Chippendale furniture, along with crystal, silver, and diamonds.

  Harley entered, her gaze dancing about the many treasures, glistening in the light. In the room’s center sat a large antique chest, and on the other side of that chest, with her hands and legs tied with ropes, her mouth covered in duct tape, was Samantha Jacobs.

  Seeing Harley, Samantha’s face flushed red, and she shook in the chair, bobbing up and down, her cries muffled by the duct tape on her mouth.

  Harley dropped the flashlight. “Samantha!"

  She rushed over, knelt behind the chair, and tugged at the ropes bound to her wrists. When those would not budge, she moved to the front of the chair, and pulled at the ones on her ankles. But it was no use. Whoever had tied the knots had done an incredible job, and without her pocket knife on hand, she’d be unable to undo them.

  “Samantha, it’s okay!” she said.

  Still crouched, she placed her hand to one side of the duct tape, and said, “This might hurt a little, okay?”

  The duct tape ripped from Samantha’s mouth, and she spat out air. “Harley! Harley! We have to get out of here! Now!”

  Harley placed her hands on Samantha’s forearms.

  “He wants the map!” Samantha said. “He killed Jennifer! Oh, Harley, it’s my fault! It’s all my fault!”

  Harley braced her hands to Samantha’s forearms. “Samantha? Samantha, you need to tell me what you know.”

  “I’ve been stealing, Harley, stealing from here. I found a map—in Beau’s desk. And I was just gonna take a few things, just a few things to help me out ’til I got better off and … and then Jennifer—I don’t know—she must’ve found out somehow. That lady that was here looking for that necklace—she must’ve told her. Told Jennifer. And then Jennifer must’ve seen the stuff I had at my house. I know she did because I saw some of it—at her apartment—that day, when we went there looking for her and …”

  “And what?”

  “That lady. The one that was here. He killed her, too.” Her eyes moved from Harley to the antique chest nearby. “I found her in there—in that chest earlier and …” Her lips quivered, and her body shook. “Harley, there’s …”

  Samantha’s words came forth in a tremble, and the roundness of her eyes were glassy.

  “Samantha, what is it?”

  “There’s another one. Another body. Inside the chest.”

  Mariselle.

  “Samantha, where’s the map?” Harley asked.

  “In the desk. I put it back in the desk. I wanted to make things right, I wanted to—”

  Samantha froze, and her eyes peered over Harley’s shoulder. The color drained from her face. Her words came in a trembling whisper. “Oh, no.”

  Harley stood, and turned around, ready to confront the murderer of Jennifer Williams, Meredith Roberts, and her younger sister, Mariselle.

  76

  An American Tragedy

  “It’s him!” Samantha said, staring over Harley’s shoulder. “Harley, it’s him!”

  Henry Trainor stood in the doorway, a length of rope gripped in his right hand.

  Slowly he entered the room, his gaze fixed on Harley, ignoring Samantha’s cries. He wore black from head to toe, and beneath his wool hat, his amber eyes, usually so filled with warmth and kindness, held a sadness in them. She had seen a similar sadness in his eyes the day she had spoken to him outside the stables.

  His breathing was slightly labored, and she recognized its sound too, from when he had been outside her room that night in the east wing, pausing at her door.

  At the time, she had thought he was a ghost, and he had been one in a sense: He had been haunting Briarcliffe right along with Mariselle Roberts.

  “You killed Jennifer!” Samantha said, shaking the chair.

  He gave Samantha a cursory glance of annoyance, then his eyes met Harley’s once more. “Cover her mouth, would you please, Harley? That way I don’t have to quieten her using other methods.”

  Harley hesitated, but then relented, deciding the wisest thing to do in that moment was follow his orders.

  “Harley, please!” Samantha said. “Please, Harley, don’t, no!”

  With her back turned to Henry, Harley tried to give Samantha a reassuring look, that this was only temporary. Then she pressed the duct tape to her mouth, muffling her cries.

  I’m sorry, Samantha.

  She turned and faced Henry once more. She found she was no longer afraid but angry. She had confronted bad people all of her life, whether they were the small kinds like bullies on the school yard, or ones who were far, far worse—murderers like Henry Trainor. And she found her courage reserves strengthening.

  The two stared at one another across the room, each searching the other’s face. Harley could not remember when she had last drawn breath, and when she opened her mouth, it was not air that came forth. It was a word.

  “Mariselle,” she said. “You’ve done all of this because of Mariselle. That love letter—in Jennifer’s fireplace—it wasn’t written to Jennifer. You two were never seeing each other. You wrote it to Mariselle. You were lovers.”

  His stare broke, and for a fleeting moment, his gaze fell on the antique chest
, before returning to Harley once more. “You always were different, weren’t you? Even when you were a child, your mind—it … there was always something unusual about you.”

  Harley’s eyes narrowed at him, and he said, “And yes. I did write that letter to Mariselle. Years ago. Jennifer must’ve found it in some of the things Samantha stole from here. But I didn’t mean it. Those words. What I wrote. Not afterwards. I mistook … mistook lust for—for infatuation, a crush, whatever you want to call it, but not love. I was young. That’s all. And I never would’ve gotten involved with her, not if I’d known …”

  “That you were going to meet Caroline Wellington,” Harley said.

  He nodded slowly. “Mariselle was working here—at Briarcliffe. Gifted cook. Her parents were chefs. She was an orphan, had run away from her older sister in New York. Said her sister was controlling, overprotective. And she wanted her freedom.” He released a sigh. “She was so beautiful, Mariselle was … so—so charming … but she had nothing, Harley. Was nothing. And I had plans for myself. I just couldn’t …. And then I met Caroline through James …. and she was everything I’d ever wanted. She opened up a world to me that I’d only ever dreamed about, only ever come close to through my friendship with James. And I knew from the very first time I ever saw her, met her, I had to have her. She had to be mine.”

  “Was Mariselle pregnant?” Harley asked. “Is that why you killed her?”

  He paused for a long moment. “I should’ve been more careful. Really, I should’ve. But like I said, she was sensuous, beautiful, charming, and I was young, inexperienced … I gave into it. Gave into her. Then she got pregnant, wanted me to marry her, and … and I’d only just started seeing Caroline at that point. I knew if she found out about Mariselle, it would end things between us so …”

  “So you killed her,” Harley said. “In the boat house—strangled her with one of the ropes.”

  “How did you know?”

  Mariselle had led her there. That was how she knew. At first, she had thought it had been Meredith Roberts haunting Briarcliffe. Now, however, she knew it had been Meredith’s younger sister—a sister who held a strong likeness to her. But she did not say this to Henry. She did not say anything at all.

  “It was right after James’s funeral,” Henry said. “She’d come back from the memorial service. I’d asked her to meet me at the boat house just like I had so many other times. She still had on her mourning dress.”

  “And then you brought her body here, thinking no one would ever find it.”

  “Yes. The house was shut up after James died, and his baby son sent away. I knew no one would be at Briarcliffe for decades. But then the thing with Beau happened recently, his true identity was revealed, and here he was—back at Briarcliffe—wanting to renovate the east wing, turn the stables into a studio. I knew I had to get the body out of here and do it soon … but moving that chest, that would be so loud, cumbersome … Beau was bound to hear or see something, so I …”

  “Drugged him,” Harley said. “With GHB.”

  “I bought it from some teenager in Knoxville. Knew it wouldn’t have any lasting effects. And I knew Beau usually had a night cap before going to bed, so I put it in his whiskey decanter. But I was only going to do it for a short time, so I could get the body moved to the stables, where I’d bury it in the foundation.”

  “But the body was found, wasn’t it, by Samantha and Jennifer …”

  “It was Jennifer, I believe, who found it first—after she learned Samantha had been stealing from here. After Meredith told her what had been going on, I think she must’ve followed Samantha to the park, saw her go in the tunnel. Then Jennifer came back on her own that night after the meeting.

  “I ran into Jennifer when she was in here. I knew she’d put two-and-two together. I knew what I had to do. I grabbed a rope from the room next door, and … and then afterward, moved her body to another part of the park—away from the tunnel—so the police wouldn’t suspect.”

  “And did you plant Beau’s watch at the crime scene?”

  “No. That fell from Jennifer’s pocket when I was moving her body. She must’ve taken it from the things Samantha stole.”

  “And Meredith?” she asked.

  “Well, Meredith found out too, of course. Saw Mariselle’s necklace online after Samantha stole it and tried to sell it. I saw her on Main Street a few days ago—Meredith. The resemblance … my goodness, she looked so much like Mariselle. I almost thought it was her at first, that she’d somehow returned from the grave. I had to talk to her, had to find out who she was. She was in line for coffee on Main Street at one of the cafes, and I came up, made small talk with her as we stood there, found out why she was here. She said she’d been by to talk to Jennifer Williams at her store about a necklace she’d seen online, that the necklace had since been delisted from the website. She showed me a picture of it, asked me if I recognized it, knew who’d bought it. I said yes, that I was actually the one who bought it, believe it or not—for my daughter, I said, for Christmas. And I did have it at that point. I’d taken it from Jennifer’s apartment after I’d found it there, and before I burned the letter.”

  He continued. “And then I told her if it meant that much to her, the necklace, I’d sell it to her. She agreed, and I invited her to come to my house for lunch the next day, which she did.”

  “And she never left.”

  He shook his head. “But it wasn’t quite as straightforward as it was with Jennifer. I made a mistake. I tried drugging her first, thinking I’d given her enough to kill her. Then, I brought her body here. Left it. And obviously … obviously it hadn’t killed her. She must’ve woken up sometime in the night, crawled down the tunnel, gotten out the trap door. But she wasn’t strong enough to make it any further. I found her collapsed just outside there the next morning, nearly frozen to death.”

  “And then you finished her off by strangling her?”

  “It didn’t take much at that point.”

  He shook his head, searching the ground at his feet. “Why couldn’t you just mind your own business, Harley?” he asked, lifting the rope in his hand. “Why couldn’t you stay out of it? You make it so hard for me, you know, having to do this to you—after all you’ve been through in your poor life. But I … you see, I can’t stop now. I have to protect—protect Caroline, protect the life we had together. Our legacy.”

  He moved toward her with the rope, and she grabbed a bronze statue from the table and hurled it at him. It struck him in the forehead, and he collapsed to the floor as dead weight.

  She walked over and knelt beside him, picking up the statue. Gripping it in her hand, she peered down at him. A line of blood trickled from his hairline and he looked up at her with partially closed eyes.

  Harley felt her anger rising. “Jennifer was kind and smart and beautiful,” she said, her face heated and her eyes moistened. “She was my friend … and you killed her.” She gripped the statue tighter, so the bronzed edges nearly cut into her skin. “Meredith and Mariselle … they were innocent—that baby, your child—was innocent.”

  “Please,” he said, with a pleading look. “Please don’t.”

  She gripped the statue once more, then relaxed her hand. “You will get justice for what you’ve done,” she said. “But it won’t be from me.”

  He peered up at her with sad, pathetic eyes. “You can’t help who you love, Harley Henrickson. Remember that. You’ll go to the ends of earth, do absolutely anything for them. Your poor mother … she knew about that … all too well.”

  The statue fell to the floor, his words hitting Harley like she had hit him. What had he meant by saying that about her mother? What had he been implying about her father’s identity? She had never known her father, had always assumed he was a soldier, serving with her mother overseas. Her mother had come home pregnant from one of her deployments, given birth to Harley, and not a word was ever spoken about it afterwards.

  Harley opened her mouth to speak, but th
en a sound came from the wall behind them, the scrape of stone against stone. She pivoted around, and behind Samantha, the wall opened.

  Beau Arson appeared, the map in his hand.

  Harley rushed toward him and fell in his arms, burrowing her head into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and cupped the back of her head with his hand.

  “It’s over, Beau,” she said. “It’s over.”

  77

  The Metamorphosis

  Two Weeks Later

  “Prepare yourself to be amazed.”

  Reg Atlee sprayed one last cloud of hairspray on Harley’s hair, and unfastened the buttons on her salon smock. She whirled the salon chair around so Harley faced the mirror.

  The last three hours had been an uncomfortable experience for Harley Henrickson, who was not accustomed to salon visits requiring more than a basic haircut. Today had been a marathon, from her hair being shampooed in the sink, then blown dry with a series of huge round brushes, yanking and brushing at the strands until they were silky smooth. Then, the curlers sat in her hair, burning her ears, cheekbones, and the top of her neck.

  She thought the worst was over until Reg came at her face with a series of little brushes, creams, sponges, and a small metal torture device, meant to curl her eyelashes. Afterward her lashes were lacquered with thick black stuff, which in the hands of a less-skilled cosmetician, might have made them resemble tarantula legs. Her eyes itched, and she resisted the urge to rub them, not wanting to get in trouble with Reg. Then once Reg had finished her facial transformations, she had artfully piled Harley’s hair on top of her head, and stuck about a million bobby pins in it.

  She feared the wind outside might turn her hairstyle from an up-do to a down-do, but when she moved her head, her hair did not move a strand. It was there to stay for the evening.

  Reg grinned at Harley, looking at her in the mirror. “Somebody must’ve kidnapped Harley Henrickson,” she said, “replaced her with this gorgeous piece of femininity.”