Murder on the House: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (Haunted Home Repair Mystery) (7 page)

The overhead lamp flickered out.

“Bad sign,” said Stephen.

“Could be a bad bulb. Or old wiring. Or both,” I responded.

We all turned on our flashlights and waved the beams around the room.

Claire chewed nervously on a Red Vines. “Creepy.”

“They had a lot of foster children. It’s just a playroom.”

“Playrooms are
creepy
. Haven’t you ever seen horror movies? This is where the you-know-what goes down.”

“The you-know-what?”

“Another New Year’s resolution: Stop swearing. Those are the two biggies: Stop smoking, stop swearing. But by God, I’m gonna keep on drinking.”

“Atta girl,” murmured Stephen.

“Let’s go get the equipment Olivier lent me and set it up in here,” I said. “It seems a likely spot for . . . activity.”

On the way out we noticed something on the hallway floor, passing from the master bedroom through the door of the nursery. Gouge marks.

I crouched down to inspect them. They felt rough under my fingertips, and looked fresh. I lifted the carpet runner and sure enough, the scratch went all the way under the rug.

“Could they be claw marks?” asked Claire.

“
Please
don’t bring werewolves into this. It’s more like something heavy was dragged along here. But I can’t see what.”

“Dragged
under
the carpet?”

I had no answer for that. We hurried to set up the ghost-detecting equipment. The needle of the EMF detector was fluctuating crazily. Claire and Stephen kept their flashlights trained on me so I could see to set up a tripod with a night camera. I placed a sensitive recorder and a baby monitor on a bureau. Then I clipped the baby monitor receiver to my belt and slipped the EMF reader into my pocket.

When I finished, we searched the room one more time with the strong beams of our flashlights.

Scrawled on the opposite wall with bloodred crayon were childish letters, spelling out,
STAY AWAY. DANGER.

“Okay,” said Claire, biting off a hunk of licorice. “I’m getting really creeped out. I feel sort of . . . funky. Dizzy.”

I was feeling pretty disoriented myself.

“Let’s get out of here.”

As we were leaving, a mechanical voice rang out:
I drive a dump truck!

We all jumped, then huddled together, looking down at a nearby towel-covered basket as though it were filled with snakes.

Stephen reached out, snatching the towel off the top to reveal yet another bundle of toys. He dug down and pulled out a bright yellow dump truck with a driver. When you pushed down on the back, the driver declared his profession:
I drive a dump truck.

Stephen smiled. “We must have set it off when we walked by.”

Claire and I let out a mutual sigh of relief and turned toward the door.

And there was the silhouette of a man.

We screamed. Stephen flung himself in front of us, crouching slightly with arms splayed out to the sides, for all appearances ready to die first. Since I probably had a good twenty pounds or so on the guy, I had to hand it to him.

“Sorry,” said a man’s voice, filled with amusement. He stepped into the room, his face still obscured with the hall light backlighting him. But we recognized him: Josh Avery.

“You missed pizza,” said Claire in a shaky voice.

“I ate earlier, thanks.” He passed his flashlight beam around the playroom. “Wow, talk about scary. In the movies the nurseries like this are always bad news.”

“That’s what
I
said,” said Claire.

His beam alighted on the scrawled message on the wall.
“Huh.”

“We were just leaving,” I said, pushing past him to stand in the hallway. No doubt about it, there was something off-putting about that room.

“Where have you been?” I asked Josh as he joined us in the corridor, closing the playroom door behind him.

“Just exploring, checking out the garden, and the basement. So how do we want to go about this?” Josh asked.

“Go about what?”

“To tell the truth, I was so flabbergasted by the idea that I was supposed to spend the night in a haunted house that I didn’t ask for a lot of extra detail. Like, for example, am I supposed to stay in my wing and ignore you all?” He grinned, showing white even teeth. Again I was struck by how this guy could be featured on a World War II poster, sort of a cross between an all-American boy and a Nazi ideal. “I’m here all by myself, just chicken feed for the ghosts.”

Just then, I caught sight of Anabelle. She was standing right behind him at the end of the hall, looking just as she had appeared the other day, long dark hair, purple dress. This time, though, she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she seemed to be softly crying.

I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart. Josh noted my gaze and followed it, looking over his shoulder.

“What is it? You’re trying to freak me out, right?”

“No, I . . .” I glanced at Stephen and Claire. Neither of them appeared to be seeing anything out of the ordinary. “Nothing.”

Anabelle opened her mouth as if to say something. I couldn’t concentrate on both of them at once, and I really didn’t like the idea of chatting with Anabelle with Josh at my side. I didn’t even know if anyone but me could see her.

“Look, I might as well put my cards on the table,” Josh began. “I—”

“Um, do you mind if we go downstairs to the kitchen and discuss this over a drink?”

He shrugged. “Sure, I could use a drink. Why not?”

There was no sign of Mrs. Bernini as we all took seats around a small wood-block table in the brightly lit kitchen, a room so big it was clear it had been built for a cook and her staff. As I reached for some small juice glasses I found on an open shelf, I noticed my hands were shaking from the aftereffects of our close encounter.

“Here’s the deal,” said Josh, leaning his muscular forearms on the wood block. “This project could make my name. How can I get you to back off?”

Apparently Josh didn’t believe in small talk.

“Um . . . you can’t?”

“You’re pretending you can see these ghosts? Kim mentioned something about a little girl? Don’t you think it’s a little low, cashing in on a family tragedy?”

“Mel’s the real deal,” said loyal Stephen. “If she says she saw the girl, she saw her.”

“I know it sounds far-fetched,” I said, “but the truth is that I’ve had some experience with the, um, departed.”

“She even has ghost-hunting equipment,” said Claire as she brought the leftover pizza out of the industrial-sized refrigerator. At Stephen’s look, she responded, “What? I’m stressed.”

“What kind of equipment?”

“An electromagnetic-field detector, a night camera, a baby monitor. That sort of thing. I’ve got the EMF reader with me, but we set the rest of the stuff up in the nursery.”

“You’re pulling my—”

At that moment, the receiver started to crackle. We heard crying, and the clicking of the camera. And then a mechanical voice:
I drive a dump truck.

Claire dropped her pizza. We all looked at one another for a moment, frozen, cartoonlike.

“What the . . . ?” Josh said.

“Is that clicking, whirring sound . . . the camera going off?” whispered Stephen.

Next we heard the carousel start up, cranking out its tinny tune. And then the sound of cymbals crashing, and more
I drive a dump truck
,
I drive a dump truck
 . . . over and over.

I headed for the stairs.

“Wait,” said Josh, then louder as I started to mount the steps, “Mel,
wait
!”

“What?”

Josh looked white as, well, a ghost. “I’m not going up there.”

“That’s fine. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I wasn’t going to let Anabelle scare me. As for any other spirits . . . well, I had been okay before. Plus, I was getting aggravated. I’d noticed that always seemed to make me brave, perhaps beyond reason.

“I’m going with you,” said Stephen. “Come on, Claire, Josh, we should all stick together.”

But when I turned to proceed up the stairs, I heard something rolling across the wood floor.

It was a marble, falling down the stairs. It tapped my foot.

I climbed another tread, but several more small glass balls fell down the stairs toward me.

“Careful of the marbles,” I said as I climbed another step. Freezing cold air enveloped me.

Once again I heard a loud scraping noise as though something was being dragged. But this time it sounded like it was headed for the top of the stairs.

I stopped. Josh, Claire, and Stephen followed suit, several steps below me.

And then something appeared at the top of the stairs. One of those glassy-eyed dolls, walking along as though propelled by invisible hands. And then the monkey with its cymbals crashing. And the dump truck.

As though the whole nursery was coming after us.

My heart pounded. My bluster was gone. Anabelle’s ghost was one thing, possessed toys something else entirely. This had turned seriously creepy.

I turned and rushed down the stairs. My entourage beat me to it, running straight out the front door and into the wet night. A dozen more marbles poured down the steps, their clackety sounds seeming to mock us as we ran.

Out on the portico, we tried to catch our breath. The air outside was damp and chill, but no colder than the stairs had been.

“Look, this might be a little more complicated than I first thought,” I said as soon as I was able to speak. I
really
wanted a shot at that AIA award, and getting this job was contingent on staying the whole night. Plus, I had an undeniable link to ghostly spirits. But Stephen and Claire were in this only for friendship. “If you guys want to leave—”

“Hey, where’d Josh go?” Claire said.

“Maybe he went screaming into the night,” muttered Stephen. “Maybe he’s smarter than he looks.”

“Well, I guess that would mean I’ve got the job,” I said. “Seriously, I shouldn’t have asked you guys here. It’s too much—”

“I’m staying if you are,” Stephen said, cutting me off.

“Me too,” said Claire. “This is beginning to piss me off.”

“If you’re sure . . . look, from what I’ve read, ghosts can’t actually hurt you.” I said this as much to myself as to them. “They might freak you out enough so that you hurt yourself, though, so we should try to remain calm. If you can resolve not to be afraid, it seems to be a much easier interaction.”

Claire smiled and lifted her eyebrows.

“I know, I know. I should take my own advice. What can I say? I lost it.”

I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked back into the haunted house.

The French doors leading to the backyard blew open with a gust of wind, picking up and scattering paper clippings around the foyer.

Solar path lights subtly illuminated the yard. Stone pathways meandered through and around planting beds, while in the center of the garden a circle of plants surrounded an old fountain. The stone was cracked, but still beautiful: a spritely young Pan playing his pipes.

Clank, shuffle, clank.

Mrs. Bernini was still outside, shuffling down the garden path.

“She shouldn’t be out there so long in this kind of weather,” I said under my breath, then called out:
“Mrs. Bernini.”

She didn’t pause or look up.

“Mel?” Claire said. “Who are you talking to?”

“Mrs. Bernini.”

“Where?”

“In the garden.”

Claire and Stephen exchanged glances.

“She’s walking down the garden path.” I pointed to her. “Right there.”

“No one’s there, Mel,” Stephen said softly.

But I saw Mrs. Bernini, clear as day. She wasn’t transparent, wasn’t appearing only in my peripheral vision, wasn’t levitating off the ground.

As I ran out the French doors, I was hit by a frigid blast of air. A chill ran through me, to my core. I spun around, but I could no longer see the elderly woman.

The flashlight in my hand wavered, flickered, went out.

It couldn’t be what I was thinking.
Surely
it wasn’t that.

Please don’t let it be that.

Chapter Seven

S
omethin
g glinted dully on the path . . . Mrs. Bernini’s aluminum walker. On its side, lying on the wet pavers near the fountain.

And Anabelle stood over the round stone wall of an old well, looking down into the hole. I could hear her high-pitched singing:
“With garlands of roses, and whispers of pearls, a garden of posies for all little girls, la la la la la . . .”

She threw a flower into the well and walked away, the path lights extinguishing one by one as she passed. Then she faded, and disappeared altogether.

I rushed to the well and leaned over the stone wall, wishing my flashlight still worked. Stephen hurried up next to me, and after him Claire. They shone their lights into the inky black of the well’s interior.

There was a flash of something, some sort of fabric. Orange. Crocheted.

Mrs. Bernini’s shawl.

Our eyes met over the well.

“Mrs. Bernini?”
I called into the pit, saying a little prayer under my breath. Part of me harbored a tiny flame of hope that Mrs. Bernini was still alive, perhaps just hurt or unconscious. “Can you hear me? Betty?”

My voice echoed eerily, sending my words back to me:
“etty . . . etty . . . etty . . .”

I brought my cell phone out of my pocket to call 911. It was dead.

“Check your cell phones,” I said. “Are they working? We need to call for help!”

Stephen started punching buttons on his phone, then held it up against the night sky as though he could catch an errant sound wave floating along on the soft breeze. Claire held hers to her ear, trying several keys before shaking her head.

“This is so bizarre,” said Claire. “I just charged it this morning.”

“Mrs. Bernini used a landline to call for pizza earlier,” said Stephen.

“You’re right.”

I ran toward the house, Stephen and Claire hot on my heels. There, on a marble-topped sideboard, sat a beige phone, an old-fashioned landline with the handset connected to the base with a coiled cord, the kind my father insisted on keeping in his house in case of earthquake.
When the towers go down, these phone lines are underground,
he would growl.
You mark my words, that cell phone won’t be worth the metal it’s made of.