“Nope,” she answered at last. “Their cousin Morley was the last one. He died…let’s see…about three years ago. The rest of them cleared out of here way back when.”
Karla joined Mary Ellen in the kitchen. “I’m curious. If, as you say, this house was Martha’s love, how did you end up with it?”
“Faithfulness, I suppose. Although I didn’t really deserve it, considering Jenny’s death.”
“Jenny? You mean Jennifer, Martha’s sister?”
“Yep. Been dead for years. But you wouldn’t want to write about that.”
“Why not?”
Mary Ellen studied Karla for several seconds then turned back to her stew. “You think you’re a smart cookie, don’t you?”
Karla remained silent.
Mary Ellen ladled some soup into her bowl. “Anyhow, it’s Jenny’s death has most of the town talking that there’s some kind of curse on this cabin, and a curse on the McKenzies on account of the other deaths. Sure you won’t join me? I make a mean soup.”
“I’m sure. Thank you.”
The old woman carried her bowl over to an elegant dining area a few steps from the kitchen and sat at the table. She gestured at Karla to join her.
Karla sat across from Mary Ellen, on one of the stylish age-old chairs that surrounded the table. “Tell me about the sisters.”
Mary Ellen looked over at Karla and chuckled. “You’d like that, huh? Well, it won’t do no harm anymore, I suppose.” She scooped up a spoonful of soup and blew on it. “Martha had two sons.”
“Yes. Twins. Daryl and Andrew.”
Mary Ellen squinted at Karla, as if this action might provide deeper insight into the young woman across from her. Karla averted her gaze, and looked at the old stove.
Mary Ellen frowned. “You’re very aware of some things, and others you don’t have a clue about. Why’s that, I wonder?”
Karla made a feeble attempt to laugh the question off. “I’m not well informed, just getting started. Please go on.”
“Yes, you’re right. Twin boys, Daryl and Andrew…he was a strange one, that boy. Least, people around here thought so. Poor soul.”
Intrigued by this assertion, Karla leaned forward. “Andrew? Why?”
Mary Ellen slowly got to her feet and headed toward the cupboard. “He used to stroll these forests all by himself at night. During the day, too, mind you.” She found the saltshaker and returned to her seat. She shook some salt into her soup and sipped loudly, nodding before she spoke. “You’d spot him walking the roads at night or trudging through the forest during the day. Marching forward like he had someplace important to be, something urgent to do. People said it was his aunt Jennifer’s soul that haunted him. She died in this very house. That’s the reason nobody comes here at night—they’re scared. Most everyone said I was crazy to move in when Martha gave me this here house. Be honest with you, it makes me feel that much safer knowing how scared people are.” She chuckled to herself.
“Tell me about Andrew, please.”
Mary Ellen squinted at Karla and sneered. “That’s it—you’re after Andrew’s story.”
Karla blushed.
“There you have it. This reporter business was a damn poor excuse. You can’t even answer the question as to whom you write for. What’s your interest in Andrew?”
This time, Karla didn’t avoid Mary Ellen’s penetrating gaze. “He’s disappeared and I’m trying to find him.” Tears welled in her eyes.
The old woman was clearly taken aback by this unexpected revelation, but then she frowned. “And? What’s he to you?”
She cleared her throat. “He was my lo—my boyfriend for a short while.”
“Boyfriend, huh? Now I get it. Have to admit it surprises me, though.” Mary Ellen returned to her soup, slurping with gusto. “Have you wondered whether he wishes to be found?
“No. I’m certain he’s in trouble.”
“I get that.”
A long silence ensued, interrupted only by slurping as Mary Ellen ate her soup.
Karla finally spoke. “Why did Martha give you this house?”
“’Cause of …” Mary Ellen stopped eating and turned toward the fireplace as if someone had called her name.
Karla followed her gaze. “Anything wrong?”
Mary Ellen turned to Karla as if remembering where she was. “Nope.” She sipped her soup and took a big bite of chicken.
“You were telling me why Martha gave you this house.”
“No I wasn’t. You wanted me to. But that’s for me to—it’s not my secret to share.”
“It’s a secret?
“Never you mind, missy.”
“Could Andrew be around here somewhere?”
Mary Ellen set down her spoon and glared at Karla. “I suppose Daryl told you that.”
Karla nodded.
“Well, Daryl would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“So?”
She shook her head and returned to her soup. “I doubt he’d come here.”
“On account of Jennifer’s death? Why? How did she die?”
Mary Ellen seemed lost in her memories. After a few seconds she looked at Karla.
“I blamed myself, at first,” she said. “I had to go to my sister Isabella’s that week. She was terribly sick. I wouldn’t have gone, but she had nobody else to take care of her.”
“What happened?”
“I used to take care of the boys, as I’d done with their mama and auntie when they were little girls. They spent more time with me than with their own mothers.” She rested her eyes on Karla and waited for a reaction.
“Yes, I knew you were their nanny. The girls grew up in these parts as well?”
Mary Ellen shook her head and continued eating. “No, up north. Ferndale.”
“What about their husbands?”
“Ah, yes. The first McKenzie twins.”
Karla gasped. “What do you mean, first?”
13
The Alliance
Loud knocking jolted Sarah from a deep sleep. It took a moment to recognize where she was. The Cozy Cabins. She’d fallen asleep on top of the bed while reading the book. A stressful night without much sleep and a nap had left her groggy. More knocking, this time more intense.
“One moment, please,” she yelled. She stood up, straightened her clothes, patted her hair down, and went to the door.
“My God, Sarah,” James said with a broad smile, “you’re a sight for sore eyes. What on earth are you—”
Sarah flung her arms around him. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.”
James laughed in her embrace. “I get it.”
Sarah blushed and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
“Not at all.”
“Please come in.”
He stepped in and looked around. “This one is in pastels. Mine’s done in fall colors. I wondered if every cabin was different.”
“You’re staying here?”
“I am. Number 6.” He walked about, taking in the decor.
“You’re helping them with the murders of the women dumped in the lake.”
James halted and gasped as her words sunk in. “Dear God. Your story.”
Sarah nodded.
“You have information about these murders?”
“Only what Mar—”
A screeching cry pierced the room.
“Oh, boy.” James breathed in as he covered his ears. “No names, Sarah, please.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“All right, no names,” she said, glancing up. “I promise.”
James made his way to one of the chairs around a small table by the window. “Your entity is very protective.” He sat with a sigh.
�
��Can you…oh,” Sarah sat in the opposing chair. “I’m not sure if I should tell you if it’s a he or a she.”
“I can’t sense that, but I most certainly heard a female scream. I do sense a ton of energy around you—like I felt back in Eureka—but no one has materialized for me. It’s allowing me to be with you, but continues to be very protective of his or her identity and information. I sense an incredibly strong barrier.”
“So do I, although I’m starting to understand why. I’m being fed the story and the history, but without the real names or the real locations. It’s a bunch of images and information—or misinformation.”
“Let’s try to glean the facts a bit at a time. Tell me what you’ve learned as it relates to the murders, without any names. We’ll start with that, and hopefully the communication will be permitted.”
“The first death shown to me back in the bookstore in Eureka, when I first met you, was of a woman in her mid to late sixties. A man caused her death. I should say, the shadow of a man, because that’s all I perceived, except for—” Sarah paused, unsure about whether she could reveal the next bit of evidence. But then she went on, “a birthmark on his left hand.”
“Good. No problem with receiving that. Do you have any idea who the woman was?”
Sarah took Martha’s silence as approval to go on. “I do, in relation to the story that is being told to me, but it’s not her real name or when she actually died. It could’ve been last week or last year. That part is a mystery. I’m convinced it’s recent, but I could be wrong.”
James arched his eyebrows. “How did she die?”
“She reached for this man, but he slapped her hand away, and she fell down the stairs.”
“An accident?”
“It could be. But his actions afterwards were extremely bizarre.” Sensing no opposition, she continued. “He first straightened her limbs and fixed her hair and nightgown, then he carefully carried her corpse into a living room. He placed the body in the center of a circle of votive candles, and then he…cuddled up to her. Afterwards I saw—” she paused to ascertain permission, listening, then said, “I saw him row a boat out onto a lake and dump her body like it was last week’s trash.”
“Cuddling first, then dumping the body into the lake. Opposing behaviors. Anything else about her?”
“Yes. The poems in the book were written for her.”
“Wow. That’s interesting, particularly from the point of view of the book itself. Who’s the author?”
“I’ve seen him, but I have no clue of his identity.”
“Husband, maybe?”
Sarah shook her head. “Lover.”
“Mm. I’m beginning to understand the protective nature that surrounds this entity. Can you tell me about the murders?”
“The man with the birthmark, he follows a ritual. He surrounds the women with votive candles, and—”
“Are they alive when he does this?”
“No. I don’t see their deaths. I observe them after they’ve died. Strangled, I’m guessing.”
“With his bare hands?”
“A pink sheer scarf appears to be a significant part of it.”
James tilted his head. “Go on.”
Sarah took a deep breath. “Once they’re dead, he cuddles up to them.”
“Cuddles. A pattern. Part of this ritual you mentioned.”
She nodded.
James reached over and patted Sarah’s hand reassuringly. “What happens next?”
She shrugged. “He rows out and dumps their bodies in the lake. It’s so—unnatural, so gruesome. Does any of this help?”
“Actually, it does. You’ve described to perfection the manner in which these women have died. In fact, the coroner has found that they’ve been strangled by something tied around their necks.”
“Have you identified the women? How many? Hold on a minute—how were they found? He dumps them in the lake to hide them.”
“He hasn’t weighed them down.”
“That’s right. He simply shoves them out of the boat. Their bodies sink.”
“But soon they come back to the surface. It’s almost as if he’s taunting us. He wants us to find them. What can you tell me about the boat.”
“It’s a little, rinky-dink, very old rowboat. It’s tied to a small pier at the bottom of a hill, right below the home where the older woman died.”
“Her home?”
“It could be. At least I assumed it was. She was wearing a nightgown.”
“That might be a very important clue.”
“Have any of the dead women come to you, talked to you, I mean?” She glanced around the room. “Are they here?”
James held Sarah’s hand. “No, they’re not here. And yes, I’ve spoken with them. They didn’t know him. One thought she’d met him, or had worked with him, but in the end she wasn’t sure. He didn’t behave as she remembered him.”
“How can that be?”
“She said he’d changed. He looked like the same man she’d met or worked with, but up close he was completely different.”
“I wonder why and how? What about the others?”
“They’d never met him before. Sarah,” he tightened his grip on her hand, “they were all paid to have sex with him.”
“Oh.” She stood up and paced the room.
“What is it?”
“One of them wasn’t a…” She turned to face James. “She was a model in a big city that could be San Francisco. But it’s all assumptions.”
“Really? A model? Like in magazines or fashion runway?”
“No, for artists. For portraits or sculptures.”
“How—?”
“She first appeared in a bar where… the person I’m supposed to help was. This person asked the bartender about her.”
“Where was this bar?”
“I’m not exactly sure. I’m given names of people or places that may or may not be right. But, in this particular instance, I looked up the names of the bar and the galleries in the story, and actually found them in San Francisco’s gallery row on Geary Street right by Union Square.”
James jumped to his feet. “Get your purse and jacket, Sarah. We’re off to chat with the investigating team.”
“I’m not sure I can. It might interfere with my task. I’m supposed to be helping…a person that is or will be in trouble in the very near future. Maybe she’s the next victim.”
“What do you need to do? How can I help?”
“I’m being spoon-fed the story in bits and pieces.”
“But how? You’re no longer reading pages in the book.”
Sarah nodded. “I’ve surmised that the entity connected to the book and the story determined that I would accept this Jackal in the Mirror tale if it was shown as a book, title and all. It started as the most effective way of communicating with me. Now it pops into my mind or I dream it or…I detach from the present and view it.”
“And you feel you lose control?”
“Yes. Conrad said—oh, dear… I have to call him, but the entity is messing with my phone. You’ll have to call him for me. He has no idea where I am.”
“Tell you what, Sarah. Get your stuff and I’ll call him while we’re in the car. C’mon.”
Derivation
“Are you saying that Martha and Jenny married twin brothers?” Karla asked.
Mary Ellen studied her for a moment. “I don’t buy your story that you’re ‘sort of aware of Andrew and Daryl’ yet you don’t have an inkling about their history. It all sounds a bit fishy.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll have an answer for that, too. You look all right and you come across as sincere, except for the reporter business, and I trust you’re worried about Andrew. Otherwise, I’d have shot you.”
“You wou
ldn’t have.”
Mary Ellen chuckled. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Tell me about the girls’ husbands, the McKenzie twins, please.”
The old woman pursed her lips and mulled over Karla’s request. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Robert married Martha, and Gabriel married Jenny.”
“Did the four of them meet in school?”
“Nope. The twins’ grandfather, Robert senior, came from Canada some time back in the early 1900s. Big Bob, they called him. He struck it rich in the mines when he was young. He was no dummy and realized what mining did to people, so as soon as he made his fortune he got out of that racket, bought some land, and got into tree farming.”
“Tree farming?”
“Orchards, walnuts, pears, all kinds of fruit. Eventually he noticed that grapes found the weather around the lake to their liking. He started a few vineyards and went into wine making. He was real sharp, that one.”
“And the girls?”
“Well they were home-grown and came from railroad money—and dairy, mind you.”
“In Ferndale?”
“Yep, and Eureka.”
“How did they meet the twins?”
“Well the girls, they’d come to Clear Lake every summer and on holidays. They had a real nice home, not too far from the McKenzie’s big house down toward the southeastern part of the lake in the Buckingham area. Both homes were right on the water. That’s a real beautiful part of the lake. The whole lake’s beautiful, in its own way.”
Karla smiled recognizing Mary Ellen’s love for the area. “So they had a big house and this house as well?”
“Martha didn’t care for the uppity high-end society around there. She liked hills and mountains, so she made Robert build her this here house. They called it a cabin.” She sniggered. “She called it home. She loved being up here, away from the racket down there. The boys enjoyed being out in the woods. So different from the lake scene.”
“The love she invested in this home is tangible. Please tell me how they met.”
Jackal Page 16