McCann's Manor (12 page)

He stood and waited for McCann to regain consciousness, looked over his handiwork to make sure he had left no signs of the struggle. After a few minutes, McCann began to stir. Spencer laughed long and hard into the hole. “Last chance. Talk"

McCann struggled but found it impossible to regain control of his limbs. He at last managed to scream at Spencer, “Devil, you will pay for this!"

"Certainly I will,
partner,
but not as much as you. Now, come; tell me where you hid it."

"Go to hell,” McCann spat.

Spencer laughed again. “You have a lot of balls, man, telling me to go to hell when you are at least eight feet closer to it than I am."

McCann was silent.

"You know, I
will
find it anyway, don't you? Why not go ahead and tell me and spare yourself this ordeal?"

"Spare myself how? You know you are going to kill me either way.” McCann spat.

Again the flagrant laugh. “That is true, but if you tell me where it is, I will go ahead and shoot you. Refuse and you and your stupid cat will die a slow death as you breathe all the air out of this tight little box you created. Or maybe I will just light a nice big fire on top of you and let the flames suck all the air out of your little vault. You are running out of time, Benjamin."

"No, David, you are the one running out of time. Every day for the rest of your miserable life you will wonder if that day is the day I will get my revenge. I will be right there with you every day, and when you least expect it, I will have my turn."

"Certainly you will, I am so sure of that,” he cackled.

"And another thing, David. No matter where you look or what you do, you will never have the gold. In fact, you will watch your entire fortune dwindle away to nothing.” McCann's eyes burned with fury. “By the time you die, your family will have to struggle to rake enough money together to bury you in a rough pine box."

"I have heard enough!” Spencer shouted.

"No! By the great God in heaven, you have not! It has nothing to do with the gold, or me or the cat or even the injustices you have made me suffer all these years. ‘Tis for the love of Constance I will have my revenge."

Spencer shook his head, “Poor pitiful fool, then so be it. Let's just see how much revenge you can exact from here!” Spencer stepped back, pushed the stone again and watched the floor of the fireplace slide back into position. As McCann's shouts and obscenities became too muffled to be heard through the density of the heavy metal plate that slid into place first and the thick mortar-like layer that followed, a slow diabolical grin distorted Spencer's face.

Liz was near shock at the events she had just witnessed. She watched Spencer leave the room, whistling a happy tune, then turned her attention to the stone he had pushed. She placed her hand on it, shoved with all the force she could muster. Nothing happened. She tried again; still nothing. Spencer must have done something to it later that broke or deactivated the devise that had opened the fireplace floor. She had to get McCann out. She felt the room begin to spin as she became aware she couldn't breathe. She groped at her throat, tried to get the air to fill her lungs, but it was no use. She was suffocating....

Liz opened her eyes, looked into John's anxious face. “Boy, am I glad to see you!"

"I was just about to say the same thing to you. What happened?” John asked.

Liz sat upright on the sofa, looked around the room, “What are you doing here?"

"Well, I remembered Kim had said she was going to be in Austin this afternoon and I thought I would call and see if you wanted to come over and see my house, maybe meet some of the other neighbors.” John sat down beside her, concern etched on his features. “I called, but you didn't answer, so I thought maybe you were out in the garden or something."

"So you came over?” She felt trashed and probably looked it.

"Yes. When I didn't find you outdoors, I knocked, rang and pounded, but you still didn't answer,” he said. “The dog was barking and when I looked in the window and saw you lying on the floor there, I thought maybe I should come in. You were so pale I thought ... well, I thought the worst."

She smiled at his obvious dismay as he dabbed at her head with a damp cloth, “Ouch!” She touched her head, felt a knot under the cloth.

"Oops, sorry.” He parted the hair while she winced. “You must have hit your head when you fell. I think we should get you to the doctor. You might have a concussion."

"Oh, I'm okay.” she moved as if to stand up.

"Not so fast, there, little lady,” he said in his best John Wayne impression, “I figure whenever a pilgrim knocks herself out, it is cause for alarm."

She looked at him, confused. “No, I didn't knock myself out. I passed out."

Her attempt at reassurance somehow failed. “You what?” he asked.

"It is not what you think. I was having what is known as an empathic episode and when I got to the part where McCann was suffocating, I ... well I kind-of ... suffocated, too."

John stared at her, his disbelief apparent. She filled him in on the details of her sightings of McCann and his cat as well as Spencer and his muddy boot prints, though she left out the parts about Missy and the library because she wanted to know more about what John knew about Missy before she went into deeper explanations. When she finished her story, she waited for his reaction.

He kept looking at her for a while. “You contend McCann was buried alive here under his own fireplace by Spencer?” he asked.

"Benjamin and Timothy were both buried alive, John,” she stated, sounding like someone talking to a dunce.

"Timothy?” he was getting more confused

"The cat. You remember, you mentioned the ghost cat? Timothy is the cat!” she explained.

John scratched at his chin, his cool steely eyes fixed on hers. “Are you sure you feel all right?”
There was a genuine concern behind his eyes, but there was something else as well. Skepticism,
she admitted.

"You don't believe me? What is it? Are you jealous that I saw something you didn't? Maybe if you had followed the cat when you saw him instead of panicking about muddy prints in the hall, you would have seen the same thing.” Did she
really
say that? That was a low blow, she thought, but it was already said.

John handed the wet cloth to her, stood up and walked to the fireplace. “I'm not jealous you saw something I didn't see, Liz. I'm concerned about your ... frame of mind. This house makes people see things that aren't there."

She joined his side. “No, John, this house doesn't
do
anything. Some people may lose sight of reality here, but it is not the house's fault. It is a wonderful, beautiful house built with love by a man who adored the woman he built it for. Maybe his disappointments and his sorrow over the years crept into the spirit of the house, but it is
still
a beautiful house. McCann didn't disappear, John; he was murdered by his partner, a man whom the community, what there was of it, revered. Spencer got by with it and now the truth needs to be told. That, more than anything else, will heal this house."

"You're sure about what you saw?"

"Look, I don't drink, I don't do drugs and I never, ever hallucinate. I'm quite sure what I saw. If you don't believe me, that is another matter, but I'm telling you, I
know
what I saw,” she insisted.

John led her back to the sofa, patted her hand. “Okay, so calm down. It isn't that I don't believe you. You do have that rather large, nasty bump on your head and I still think you should see a doctor. And to tell the truth, I'm not any too anxious to be the one to find a murdered corpse hidden in this house, or anywhere else, for that matter."

Liz smiled. “Oh, like I am? I understand, but if McCann was maligned and murdered by Spencer, we have to set the record straight, don't you think? And don't you think it's about time? He has been in that vault for two hundred years with the world thinking he simply disappeared. No telling what all Spencer told people about him."

"I agree it's about time his spirit was set free, if everything you've told me is true. All this time I thought McCann was the menacing spirit. It must have been Spencer all along,” he said.

"Yes, it must have been. I have to confess, I didn't like him any more than the cat did."

"Well, that worries me a little. Once we set McCann free, he will leave, right?"

Liz shrugged, “I suppose. That
is
the idea in setting spirits free, you know."

"Well, yes, I do know. What if it's McCann's presence that has kept Spencer at bay all these years? If McCann leaves, there will be nothing to keep Spencer from doing whatever he wants here."

Liz considered the possibility of what John said. “I guess you might be right, but I don't understand what that has to do with freeing McCann. We have an obligation to free him now that we know his story."

"Let me tell
you
a story, okay?” John looked embarrassed as he touched her arm.

"Okay, John. Tell me a story.” Liz was willing to hear him out.

"My involvement with this house is ... well it's deeper than you might think. I used to spend a lot of time here with ... with Missy.” Abashed not to have shared this revelation with her before, he watched for her response.

Liz waited for his explanation. Previously, she had suspected there had been more between John and Missy than he had let on, but there weren't really any words she could say to ease the story he had to tell her. As he began to speak, she listened.

"We played here as kids. She was clever, brilliant in fact. She found all the secret passages. At least she found several, and she would never tell me where any of them were. She always waited for me to find them and she would never give me so much as a hint. I found one in all the time I was looking. She used to laugh at me and tell me I just didn't have what it took to find secret things.

"'Guess she was right, because I still know where only one of them is. Anyway, as we grew up, I guess I fell for her in a big way. She was so beautiful; I always thought she was the finest woman in the world. Then time came for me go to graduate school. I didn't want to, but my father insisted I needed a couple of years
away somewhere
to finish up my education. He said I wouldn't know anything about anything until I had gone farther away from him and the family than I had ever been and spent some real time there.

"I don't know why he believed it, but when your father tells you that you have to do something, you do it. I wanted to be an actor, like him, but he wanted me to have something else to fall back on. That was when the whole world fell apart, while I was gone. I was so far away. Dad wanted me to go to an Ivy League School on the east coast.” John put his head in his hands, lost in thought.

When he went on, Liz noticed his expression was grave. His whole essence seemed to shift. “Leonard shot himself; Missy and Betty both seemed to lose all touch with reality; Dad became seriously ill and nothing could return to the way it was before. Missy was withdrawn and didn't want to see me. I was devastated, but I went back to finish law school, thinking, hoping all she needed was a little time and that when I came back, we could continue where we had left off. She was
worth
waiting for. But that wasn't to be."

Liz could feel his pain, but she didn't know what to say. She put her hand on his arm, waited for him to continue.

"Next thing I knew, my dad called to tell me Missy had killed herself in the institution in New York. I came back to try to be a comfort to Betty and to try to deal with my own grief, but the house was so cold and sad with Missy not here. Betty tried to stay because she loved the place so much, but even she couldn't stay here with both Leonard and Missy gone."

Liz nodded. “I can imagine,” she whispered.

"There had been talk about my father and Betty having an affair and that being the reason Leonard killed himself. When Missy insisted Leonard hadn't killed himself, they even pulled Dad in on suspicion of homicide. I guess even I began to consider the possibility, because Missy had been so insistent that Leonard hadn't killed himself. I loved Missy, Liz. I loved her like a sister, and I loved her like a man loves a woman. I would have done anything she asked of me. I loved her enough to believe her over my father."

"But she never said your dad killed Leonard, did she?"

"No, it was always this Ptarmigan person, a mysterious man/monster who was about my age, about my build and looked somewhat like me. I thought she somehow was trying to blame me for the whole thing. There was no such person anywhere that anyone could come up with, except me. And I was in Boston the whole time. It might have helped had she known a name, a real name, but she didn't. It was something no one, not even Missy, could prove.

"Anyway, when I asked Dad if he had killed Leonard, I think it took away the last of his will to live. My mother died when I was seven and he had never remarried, but he was in love with Betty. Everyone was. He would have given anything to be the man she chose to be with. But Betty was devoted to Leonard and that was all there was to it.

"With Leonard gone, she would have been free to be with him, but he was too sick and she was too grieved. When he passed away, she told me she could have loved him a great deal if she hadn't spent so much time missing Leonard and Missy. Then she started grieving over losing Dad, too. Said he was her best friend and that she had a deep and abiding love for him.” He ended the line with a sad shrug, looking over at her.

"Strange, isn't it? Life is full of those little quirks of timing,” Liz remarked. “I often wonder how things might have been different in my life had the timing been better."

"Yes, I know what you mean. If I had been here, would Missy still be alive? I married after she died ... twice, but I was such a chump, I compared every woman to her. None of them could be Missy, so I lost two wonderful women and a lot of myself in the process.” John shook his head. “Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, after Betty finished her grieving, she asked me to help her set up all the legal aspects that would allow whoever could heal the house to be given free and clear title to the place and everything in it. And so began the seemingly endless saga of parapsychologists and charlatans who came and saw and left screaming, or in straight jackets."