4 Plagued by Quilt Page 17

  No ghost or hackle sat on the mantelpiece. The fireplace tools stood handy, where I remembered. I thought about using the shovel to pry the cap off the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, the way TGIF and I had before. But the note Elihu Bowman left in the hollow post when he finished building the house didn’t answer any of my questions, and having it in my hand wouldn’t either, as far as I could see. I put my hand on the newel and looked up the stairs. There was a low-ceilinged bedroom up there and a small bathroom. I put a foot on the first step up, but stepped down again. Was that my inner prude hesitating to intrude in a dead man’s more personal space? Maybe. Instead I went back to the desk.

  The books on Phillip’s desk were less interesting than his herbs and spices. Less varied and less exotic, anyway. The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds piqued my interest, but the rest of the books looked like textbooks he must have used in his graduate museum administration classes. A manila folder under one of the stacks intrigued me more than the books, and the stack of books sitting on the folder cooperated more quickly than Argyle had when I’d asked him to move.

  I considered the ethics of opening the folder. It was thin, light. There couldn’t be more than two dozen sheets of paper in it. Or three dozen. If I leafed through them quickly, my ethical lapse would be over in a twinkling—ignoring the fact that I was still inside the cottage without invitation. But, after all, it was that kind of cottage, and I knew from personal experience that people frequently turned up in the pantry or the kitchen uninvited. Ghosts, too.

  Inside the file, right on top—I caught my breath. A photocopy of Elihu Bowman’s note looked up at me.

  Finished this house this day for this family

  My dear wife and our dear children

  Elihu Bowman

  29th April 1853

  Good for Phillip for not falling into the camp of architectural historians and preservation experts who pooh-poohed stories of people finding documents stashed in newel posts. I’d known a few homeowners who’d found the blueprints of their houses in newels. Elihu’s charming note, even in facsimile, was a pleasure to see again.

  The next page in the file was a photograph—but again, it was a copy, not an original. It looked as though Phillip had done a cut-and-paste into a document and printed the document page. He’d printed it in gray tones, instead of color, and the lack of contrast made it hard to decipher. But there appeared to be names scrawled on a lined surface. Not paper—it was too dark to be paper, and the lines looked more like dimensional spaces than something ruled onto a surface. The scrawls were a childish mix of upper- and lowercase letters, one short name per line. Ezra, Thos, Uley, Whit—four little boys leaving behind their marks? Without any reference points—who, what, when, and especially where it had been taken—the photograph didn’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t worthless, though; it gave us names, possible access points.

  The rest of the papers in the file were photocopies from county record books—ledgers dating back to when they were kept by hand in spidery script, their ink now fading. They looked to be a combination of census, deed, and land records. Maybe tax records, too, but it would take time to decipher the handwriting and interpret some of the abbreviations and jargon. There were more like four dozen pages in the file. The first date on the first page was July 30, 1814. I turned to the last page and saw March 11, 1918, but scanning through the pages in between showed dates drifting back and forth and possibly beyond in both directions.

  Phillip had highlighted certain names throughout. He’d been thorough and systematic, using a different color for each surname. The name Holston rated blue. I saw a couple of Bowmans, but they were a Francis and a Benjamin, not Elihu. With more time and more care, I might find Elihu, but I didn’t want to get caught up in details. I didn’t want to get caught, period. Murphy was a name new to me, and it showed up several times in green. And Severs in yellow. Related to Mattie Severs? Levi Severs had sold a fifteen-acre tract of land in 1872. Why had Phillip thought that was significant? Why were any of these documents significant?

  “Your life of crime is much less exciting than mine,” a voice said in my ear. It was a familiar voice, but that didn’t matter. I jumped and scattered photocopies from the file as I spun around.

  “And although I am not as easily spooked as you are, I do not sound like a startled kitten when I do scream. Let me show you.” Geneva kindly demonstrated a bloodcurdling scream.

  The photocopies I hadn’t initially strewn, hit the floor when I dropped the file to cover my ears. When I opened my eyes, she was floating in front of me.

  “Have you found any clues yet?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure I have any memory of my life before your scream.”

  She tipped her head and looked thoughtful. “Perhaps that is what happened to my memory, too.” She said that without any of the usual signs of distress she showed when she talked about trying to remember.

  “Did you have any trouble getting here?” I asked.

  “I did wonder if I would get lost and be left to wander as though in a wasteland. But no, I knew the way here without thinking. And then I wondered why I ended up haunting this house—uselessly, I might add, if one measures one’s success by traditional haunted-house stories. I thought perhaps the reason I came to live, as it were, here, and the reason I was drawn back so easily is because I am buried in the foundation.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course not; this house is much older than I am. But I looked around the foundations anyway, and under the house, too. As a theory, that did not pan out.”

  “You’re handling this all very well,” I said. “How do you feel being back here? Do you miss the place?”

  “It is not a happy house.”

  “You weren’t happy when I met you here, but the house is cute and comfy enough.”

  “It is not easy to be comfy or cute when one is dead and gone. You should try it sometime. In fact, you probably will. But I remember that you were not happy living here, either.”

  “For other reasons, though. For good reasons. Not because of the house. You had good reason, too.”

  “That is true. It is not any easier being happy than it is being comfy when one lies moldering graveless, so perhaps you are right, and everyone’s unhappiness here has nothing to do with the house. What are all these papers you threw around with such wild abandon?”

  “Something Phillip Bell was researching.” I started gathering the photocopies. Getting them back in their original order would be impossible. I was more or less shoveling them back into the file when the name Levi Severs caught my eye again. I sat back on my heels. “Geneva, did you really look around the foundations of the house for your body?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it didn’t upset you? Talking about your death and trying to remember your life usually do.”

  “Trying to remember and failing is depleting. Searching for clues and answers feels like strength.”

  “That’s a good way to put it. Have you found any clues or answers?”

  “Only if you count the woman who arrived here before you did. Oh, now look. You have gone and thrown those papers all over the room again. Are you having a heart attack?”

  * * *

  We cleared up her mistaken notion that I was having a heart attack fairly quickly. Finding out what she meant about another woman took some frenzied whispering on my part and affronted huffing on Geneva’s. She thought I was overreacting by accusing her of underreporting. From her description—unless more than one sultry woman in Blue Plum had a red feather tattoo behind her ear—the other woman was Fredda Oliver.

  “I would have told you immediately that you were not alone, when you climbed so clumsily through the window, had that been true,” Geneva said.

  “You didn’t tell me you were here immediately.”

&
nbsp; “But we are here together, now, and Fred is not here, and that is all that matters, except that she has an unusual name, which must be hard on her, so perhaps we should not be so hard on her.”

  “Her name is Fredda, and she might have killed Phillip. That was kind of hard on him.”

  “And you should not be so hard on me, either, because I am the one who was Geneva-on-the-spot to see everything she touched and took. Unlike some, who had given up and turned their backs on crime solving.”

  “What did Fredda touch and take? Anything on the desk? Was there a computer on the desk? Did she take it?”

  “She went upstairs first.”

  “Darn. I’ve been here longer than I should have already. How long was she here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do you know how she got in?”

  “No.”

  “But you said she arrived—”

  “Well, she must have, because she was here.”

  “You mean she was here when you got here?”

  “Yes.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Can you show me what she did upstairs? Then we’d better scoot.”

  This time I didn’t hesitate at the stairs. I dashed up them to the room under the eaves and flashed my light around. It was not the room as I remembered it. The narrow iron bed frame that had made the room look like a Victorian housemaid’s garret was gone. Now it had the air, figuratively and literally, of a college flophouse. A pizza box and beer bottles, empty except for their stale smell, shared the floor with strewn clothes and a queen-sized mattress.

  “Geneva, what did Fredda do up here? This is important. If she took much, I should make a list.”

  No one had made the bed the morning Phillip died. The top sheet and blanket were twisted together near the foot. The wrinkled bottom sheet looked cold. He hadn’t closed the closet door, unless Fredda left it hanging open.

  “Geneva?”

  She didn’t answer, and when I looked around, she was sitting between the pillows at the head of the bed.

  “Do you remember what she took?”

  “I’ll have to think,” she said.

  “Okay.” I went into the bathroom and looked in the medicine cabinet. Didn’t see anything interesting. The usual assortment of personal hygiene products and over-the-counter stuff. But what had I expected? Empty spaces labeled with Fredda’s initials? I stuck my head back into the bedroom. “Did it look as though she knew her way around? Was she hunting for something, or did she go straight to the things she touched and took? This morning, she told Nadine she’d never been inside. But Deputy Dunbar says she’s an excellent liar, and the night before Phillip died, I called and a woman answered his phone. I’m almost certain it was Fredda. She could’ve answered his phone while he was at her place, but he said “I live here,” and he joked about how awkward it would be for me to meet him here for breakfast. Have you remembered anything yet?”

  “Hmm.”

  What was up with her? She sat there, just staring at the wall. No. At a television. Phillip had mounted a flat screen on the wall above the bureau. I’d missed it by staring at the bed and dashing into the bathroom.

  “Geneva, when Fredda was up here, did she turn the TV on?”

  “It is high quality and high def.”

  “Did you see anything Fredda touched or took?”

  “I saw her turn the television off in the middle of Magnum, P.I.”

  Why had she even turned it on? If she was sneaking around like me, why would she want the distraction of background noise? Wouldn’t she want to be alert to any other sounds? So—maybe she wasn’t sneaking around. Maybe she was comfortable here.

  “Are you coming back to the Weaver’s Cat with me?” I asked.

  “Yes. Unless you think she might come back and turn the television on again.”

  * * *

  It was torture leaving the file of photocopies behind. I didn’t know what they meant, and now they were scrambled, but they represented a lot of time spent poring over old ledgers and a small investment in copies. It looked as though Phillip had been making connections between the names, and I would have loved trying to make the same connections, or asking one of the posse members to work on it. Before tapping the photocopies back into a stack—which might have been easier to do and neater without the gloves—I took pictures of the first ten pages with my phone. They weren’t the first ten pages as Phillip had arranged them, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I did find the photo with the names and Elihu Bowman’s note and put them back on top. I patted the note for old times’ sake, then tucked the folder under its pile of books.

  Other than snickering when I heaved myself inelegantly back out the pantry window, Geneva was quiet and stayed close on the way down the dark road to the Quickie Mart. When we reached the car, she apologized for not finding any important clues.

  “I wanted to bust the case wide open,” she said.

  “Busting would’ve been nice, but I wasn’t really expecting that to happen tonight.”

  “Busting what?”

  That wasn’t Geneva. It was another familiar voice. Not quite in my ear, thank goodness, or I couldn’t have been responsible for what I busted.

  Chapter 20

  “What is it with you?” I swung around on Clod—both hands open and firmly on my hips so there could be no chance of his misinterpreting one of them as a fist. Also to hide the white museum gloves that might be sticking out of the pocket of my dark jeans. “Why do you always show up when I—” With effort, I swallowed the rest of my words. When I’m in the middle of an investigation would have been a bad way to end that sentence. When I’ve just snooped around a murder victim’s property after illegally gaining access would have been a worse way.

  “When you’ve been out for a moonlight stroll with the invisible friend you were talking to?” Clod asked.

  Geneva floated over so that she hovered next to him. “Do you think he can see me?”

  I answered both of them. “No.”

  “Then what were you going to say?” Clod asked. “Really. I’d be interested in knowing.”

  “You should count to ten before you answer,” said Geneva, “so that you do not say anything I will regret. For instance, if you are arrested and cannot drive me back to the Weaver’s Cat, then I will regret having to find my own way back there alone. Alone in the dark.”

  “You surprised me,” I said to Clod. “You scared me. That’s all.”

  “A woman out walking alone at night should be aware of her surroundings so that she isn’t surprised,” he said.

  “My darling mama warned me about the foolishness of young women walking out alone,” Geneva said. “My dear daddy, too. They were right, I fear, and I am dying proof of that. Although broad daylight is just as dangerous, depending on who sees you, and what terrible thing you have seen him do.” Her voice quavered toward a higher pitch.

  Clod stepped between Geneva and me. “Hey, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” I tried to move around him. Geneva was beginning to keen, and I thought if she could see me, it might calm her. It might give her something to hold on to in this time—here and now. It might give her back some of the strength she’d felt when she came looking for clues. “Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “No,” Geneva wailed. “After he follows you into the dark wood, you will never be fine again.”

  These were her nightmarish memories resurfacing—her memory of Mattie and Sam lying dead in a grassy field, and what must surely be the fractured memory of her own death. She hadn’t just seen a picture. She must have been there that day and must have seen Mattie and Sam. She either witnessed the shooting or she came upon the scene immediately afterward. The murderer must have seen her there, and then killed her, too.

  Reliving the deaths and the grief was almos
t too much for Geneva. Watching her relive them was almost too much for me. And if she dissolved into a gray fog of weeping, what could I do? I couldn’t scoop her up and pour her into the passenger seat of my car. I couldn’t leave her there in the parking lot of the Quickie Mart. But maybe I could get through to her by using Clod’s stubborn faith in his own conclusions.

  “Deputy, how is your case coming?” I asked. “You caught the killer, right?”

  A wrinkle of suspicion at my emphasis creased the starch in Clod’s face.

  “You’ve got the killer behind bars, right?” I looked at Geneva each time I said “killer,” hoping to catch her attention. “The killer isn’t still at large, following innocent women into the dark woods?”

  “But he got away with it,” Geneva wailed.

  “What are you playing at?” Clod asked. “You’re up to something, and whatever it is, don’t think you’re going to get away with it.”

  “That’s right. You’re right, Deputy. No one gets away with anything. So we can all get in our cars and go home now.”

  Clod looked left and right. That made me look left and right, too. But the three of us—the two of us, as far as Clod was concerned—were alone in the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. Not even the clerk in the Quickie Mart paid us any mind. Then Clod leaned close and asked, “Have you been drinking?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Because I can give you a ride home if you need one.” He stayed close and took a large sniff. I could hardly blame him.

  “Are you happy?” I asked, giving him an extra gust of breath on the word “happy” to help him out. “I am stone-cold sober.”

  Clod pulled back, one eye narrowed.

  “I am not happy,” Geneva moaned. “I am stone-cold dead and nothing can change that.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Clod said. “Maybe you haven’t been drinking, but you are definitely craz—”

  I held a hand up. It might have looked ready to slap. “Don’t say it, Deputy. Don’t. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for your concern for me and my ‘invisible friend.’ Shall I tell you a story about her? Once upon a time, a long time ago, my friend’s dear mama warned her against strange men in dark places. And her dear mama was right.”