The Girl On Legare Street (24 page)

“Don’t be so hard on him, Mellie. He’s a military man. Seeing things in any way besides black-and-white could mean the difference between life and death. His training is in his blood, and it would take something pretty significant to make him change his mind. Watching you and your mother converse with thin air probably isn’t going to do it.”

I leaned toward him. “Then why are you so accepting of all this? You’re a military guy, too.”

He grinned a true grin for the first time since I’d been there, and I relaxed a little. “So you’ve been Googling me again.”

“Nice try. It’s on your last book jacket.”

“Oh, right.” He frowned for a moment. “I guess maybe it’s because I wasn’t career military, like your dad. And maybe it’s because of all the stuff I saw happening in your house. Things flying through the air, doors locking when they weren’t supposed to. Phone calls coming from nowhere. In writing, we refer to it as a ‘suspension of disbelief.’ I simply chose to go with that rather than question my own sanity.”

“Great. Well, hold on to that thought because I have something new to throw at you. My mother held the journal yesterday. I wasn’t sure about giving it to her, but she insisted. It makes her physically sick to touch some things, which is why I didn’t want her to, but in the end I’m glad she did.”

He moved closer until our knees were touching, and I was surprised when he quickly moved his leg out of the way. “Why, what happened?”

“She went into a sort of—trance. It looked like she was trying to speak, but only one word came out.” I watched him closely, wondering what his reaction would be. Slowly and deliberately I said, “Rebecca.”

He didn’t say anything right away, his expression unreadable. Then, “Rebecca? Rebecca Edgerton? She’s sure?”

I nodded. “She has no idea why. Sometimes, a spirit uses an object as a portal of communication with somebody who’s sensitive—like my mother. The message isn’t necessarily about the book; it’s about whatever image is projected. That’s what the writer was trying to communicate with my mother.”

His stubble bristled as he rubbed it with his palm. “Did you ask Rebecca about it?”

“No. She doesn’t even know about the journal yet.”

He raised an eyebrow in question.

“Sophie neglected to tell Rebecca when she discovered it, and it just hasn’t come up since.” I looked away, not wanting to tell him the real reason was because neither Sophie nor I completely trusted Rebecca.

“But you’re going to, right?”

“I guess I’ll have to. She wanted to be there for the wall demolition, so she’ll be at the house later and I’ll tell her then. Maybe she’ll have something to add.”

He stood, then offered his hand to help me stand. After hesitating for a moment, I took it. I expected him to hold it longer—or to pull me closer—but he let go of it quickly. “Come here,” he said, leading me to the partitioned area of the space that he used for his office.

The mahogany partner’s desk was littered with paper and empty Coke cans, his Mac computer nearly buried in the mess. The couch was unrecognizable in its new incarnation as a laundry basket. “I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied with a tight grin. As he’d done with the coffee table, he shoved everything off the couch onto the floor. “Have a seat.”

He moved to the desk and began shuffling through papers. “Contrary to popular belief, I do occasionally work. While working on my final draft of the Confederate diamond story—which, by the way, I’ve tentatively entitled
The House on Tradd Street
—and waiting for my editor to call me back, I’ve been reading through some of the material Yvonne gave me.”

“Yvonne told me you’d been to see her with Rebecca. I could have sworn that Rebecca told me that her appointment with Yvonne wasn’t until next week.”

He glanced at me for a moment, but didn’t say anything before returning his attention to the mounds of paper on his desk. Finally, he pulled out a folder very similar to mine and came to sit next to me on the couch. “I know better than to ask you how much you know of your family’s history, so I’ll just start right off by educating you.”

I gave him a smug look. “I happen to know that my ancestors started out as farmers on Johns Island before moving on to growing sea-island cotton.”

His smug look matched my own. “Yvonne told you that, didn’t she?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Uh-huh. Then you may also know that the location of their former cotton plantation was on Bohicket Creek, which leads right to the Edisto River, then out to the ocean.”

“Fascinating.”

His eyes flickered up at me and I realized that his casual tone was only meant to keep me off my guard. “It certainly is. Especially when the source of your ancestors’ income is called into question.”

“They were farmers. You just said that.”

“They started out as farmers and then seemed to have had a sudden reversal of fortune that led them to become very successful cotton growers in addition to purchasing the house on Legare. It wasn’t cheap, even by 1700s standards.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

He shuffled through some of the papers in his hands. “Actually, as much as I’d like to take credit for this, I have to give credit where credit is due. I got this from the family history compiled by a Robert Ravenel Prioleau, some distant relative of yours from what I can tell. It certainly explains why multiple copies of the book weren’t made and distributed. I’m actually surprised that they allowed a single copy to survive.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, wondering if the whole Prioleau clan had been burned at the stake for witchcraft because they could see dead people, then somebody sued for defamation of character. But this was the eighteenth century we were talking about, not the twenty-first.

He turned his blue gaze on me full force. “They were wreckers, Mellie. Your illustrious ancestors started out as wreckers. Slightly higher on the food chain than pirates, but much lower than the leisurely planter class they assimilated into once they’d made enough money to stop plundering ships.”

“Excuse me? What on earth is a wrecker?”

Jack shook his head. “Mellie, Mellie, your knowledge of local history is horrible. I should send a letter to your high school and have them revoke your diploma.” He leaned an elbow against the back of the couch, which had the unfortunate effect of tightening his T-shirt against his chest. I tried to focus on his eyes but found that just as difficult.

“A wrecker, Mellie, is a person who uses offshore lights that mimic those of a lighthouse to entice ships into unsafe waters. When the ship founders, the wreckers scavenge the cargo. Or, sometimes, wreckers would simply scavenge ships following a storm, letting Mother Nature do their dirty work.”

“What about the passengers and crew? What would happen to them?”

“Most of the time, they’d be left to drown. Any survivors would most likely be killed so as to prevent witnesses from talking. Much worse than just making somebody’s pet cat disappear, isn’t it?”

My eyes widened. “That’s—despicable. I don’t—no. That can’t be right. That just can’t be my family. Besides, what kind of proof do you have?”

“Careful, Mellie, or people will start thinking you care about bloodlines and all that. As for proof, well, I would guess there really isn’t any definitive proof unless we can find mention somewhere of someone on your family tree winding up on the wrong side of a gallows. But this Robert Prioleau implies that it’s no mere coincidence that reports of missing cargo ships along the coastline near Johns Island coincide with an upturn in your family’s financial position.”

I stood. “It’s an interesting hypothesis, sure, but I’m not banking on it. Besides, what does it have to do with anything? You’re talking 1700s. The
Rose
was about one hundred and fifty years afterward.”

Jack stood, too, and stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “True. But remember the picture hidden in the outside of the window of your house? There’s the ocean, and a plantation house, among other things. It started me thinking, that’s all.”

I was silent for a moment, thinking, too. “Because there’s no such thing as a coincidence,” I said slowly, using his oft-repeated adage.

He raised his eyebrow again, but something was gone from his eyes. I realized that for the first time since I’d met Jack Trenholm, he wasn’t hiding behind his usual guise of happy-go-lucky guy and it saddened me. I didn’t seriously think that I’d had anything to do with it, though, and assumed that as soon as he heard from his editor he’d be back to true form. In the meantime, maybe thinking about the next book and helping me solve the mystery of what was lingering in my mother’s house was what he needed to raise his spirits.

I began to walk to the door. “So are you coming? They’re demolishing the wall in the kitchen today. No more longhorn cow.”

Jack studied me for a moment before answering, and I began to think that I’d been wrong. “No. I don’t think so. Rebecca will be there, and she can tell me what I missed. If anything.”

I was surprised at how much it hurt hearing his words. I forced a smile. “My soldier keeps telling me that what I seek is behind the wall.”

His expression was unreadable. “Tell Rebecca to take pictures.”

I started to tell him what Yvonne had told me, about his guilt about Emily and his supposed feelings for me, but I stopped, not sure even I was ready for that topic of conversation. His aloofness was what I wanted, and if I kept telling myself that, maybe I could even begin to believe it, too. “The journal,” I said instead, remembering I’d left the book on the coffee table.

Jack left to retrieve it, then handed it to me while standing as far away from me as he could without being rude. I reached for the book and he let go before I realized I didn’t have a good grasp on it. It flipped in the air between us, landing on the right top corner before coming to rest on the hardwood floor next to Jack’s feet.

He moved to get it but I held up my hand. “I got it.” I bent to retrieve it, noticing the bent back corner before opening it up to the back page to assess the damage.

“Look,” I said, holding it up for Jack to get a better view.

He took a step closer and I watched a smile climb up his face. “What have we got here?”

On the back page, behind the paper binding that had been glued to the back cover, the edge of what appeared to be a heavy-stock card poked up through the loosened edge.

“You’ve got nails, Mellie. Pull it out.”

I grabbed the corner of the card between my thumbnail and forefinger and pulled it up easily, figuring it had just been stuck inside after the glued edge had been worried open.

I stared at the block-printed words for a long moment before finally flipping it over and showing it to Jack.

“It looks like an old-fashioned calling card.” Slowly, he read the words out loud. “Meredith Prioleau. Thirty-three Legare Street.” Our eyes met above the card, and for a moment he was the old Jack. With the familiar sparkle in his eyes, he said, “I think we just found our M.”

I reached the house on Legare right after the demolition crew and the plumber, Rich Kobylt, a familiar face from all the work he’d done in the Tradd Street house. The decorator had called on my way back from Jack’s to let me know she’d been delayed.

My mother had led everyone into the kitchen, where she was serving them coffee and donuts from Ruth’s Bakery. I placed my purse, briefcase, and Yvonne’s folder on the table before pointing to my watch when I got my mother’s attention to remind her of the tight schedule, but she pretended she didn’t understand.

Rich turned to me, powdered sugar on his lips. “Good morning, Miz Middleton. I appreciate you recommending me to your mother for this job.”

“You’re welcome, Rich. You did a wonderful job in my house so it was easy to recommend you. And I appreciate your punctuality.” I shot a glance at my mother to see if she was listening.

Rich turned serious. “If you don’t mind, Miz Middleton, I’d like to have a word with you in private.”

Worried that he might tell me that refurbishing the red-velvet-walled bathroom of my nightmares couldn’t be done, I led him into the hallway. “What is it?”

He seemed a little embarrassed and did a lot of fiddling with the tools on his belt. “Well, you remember that little problem I had at your Tradd Street house?”

I raised my eyebrows, hoping it wasn’t what I was thinking.

“About the ghosts?” he prompted.

“Ah, yeah. Right.” It never ceased to surprise me when I ran into other people like myself. Being psychic was apparently an equal-opportunity offender.

“Um, this house isn’t haunted, too, is it?”

“Why do you ask?”

He frowned as he looked down at me. “I thought I saw a young woman in an upstairs window when I opened the front gate. She didn’t look happy to see me.”

“It could have been my housekeeper, Mrs. Houlihan,” I lied, knowing that she was driving General Lee to my father’s apartment to keep him out of the way while the workmen were in the house.

“Could be,” he said, sounding less than convinced. He pulled a gold chain with a large crucifix out from his collar. “I wore this, just in case.”

I tried very hard not to laugh. “Well, there certainly aren’t any vampires. And if you see any ghosts, try not to let it slow you down.”

He was still frowning as we both realized I hadn’t answered his question. We were distracted by my mother’s laugh in the kitchen and turned in that direction.

“Your mama sure is a pretty woman. Y’all look more like sisters.”

I stared hard at him, wondering if I should ask him to clarify if I looked older or my mother looked younger. Either way, I wasn’t taking it as a compliment. “Thank you, Rich, for that observation,” I said as I walked away from the kitchen. “Why don’t I go ahead and show you the bathroom I want to demo? If you could get all the water sources turned off so I can send the guys upstairs when they’re done in the kitchen, that would be great.”

“You don’t need to show me, Miz Middleton. Your beautiful mama already showed me, so I’ll just mosey my way on upstairs.”

“Thanks, Rich,” I said, averting my eyes as he headed up the stairs, exposing the ubiquitous plumber’s rear cleavage.

I returned to the kitchen at the same time Rebecca arrived through the back door. She made a beeline for the donuts as the workmen gave her admiring glances.

“I’ve got a bunch of stuff to show you, Melanie, when you have a moment,” she said as she patted the satchel slung over her shoulder and took a bite out of the last cream-filled donut—my favorite.

“Excuse me, ladies,” one of the workmen said as he lifted the donut plate off of the table to place a drop cloth. “It’s going to get pretty dusty in here when we cut through the drywall.” His smile broadened when he looked at Rebecca, then let it slip when he caught my expression. “Are you sure you don’t want us to save that picture of the cow?”

“No,” my mother and I said in unison. We looked at each other for a moment before I turned away, lifting my things from the table as he finished with the drop cloth.

My mother said, “Mellie, I need to go and run some errands. Will you be all right here without me?”

Her face seemed drawn, the skin tight around her eyes and lips. “I’ll be fine. But are you feeling all right to go?”

She raised an elegant eyebrow. “And you’d offer to go with me if I weren’t?”

I flushed, then blurted out, “No. I’d call Daddy to do it.”

She smiled as she slid her coat off a kitchen chair. “Not to worry, then. I already have.”

She said her good-byes to the workmen and Rebecca, then left, leaving me to wonder again what had happened all those years ago that made my mother leave not just me, but her marriage behind as well.

Rebecca and I stood back and watched as the men used sledgehammers and saws to break through the wall, obliterating the longhorn cow for good. Rebecca took photographs while I waited impatiently for them to remove all drywall and expose what lay behind it. When Rebecca got tired of taking pictures, she pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat, then began jerking her foot up and down as she waited. I frowned at her until I realized I was tapping my foot to the same rhythm.

I wasn’t sure what Rebecca was hoping to find, and I had given up guessing.
Within the waves, hide all our guilt.
That’s what Wilhelm had told me, and that behind the wall lay what I sought. I wanted to find at least one answer to all the questions, to find one thing that would move me forward to my goal of once again leading a quiet, productive life without the intrusion of family members, workmen, or ghosts.

I looked up when the hammering stopped. “Are you done already?” I was surprised. I’d figured that something that ugly would take a long time to remove, but it had been less than an hour.

The foreman approached and took off his hard hat before wiping his forehead with his sleeve. The air was thick with dust and sweat—and something else that I should have recognized. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve taken off all of the drywall and exposed the original brick fireplace.”

I stepped forward to see the fireplace, original to the house. It was deep, and the back bricks were blackened with use and age. I studied the darkened bricks, looking for whatever Wilhelm had wanted me to see.

“You need to break through the bricks.”

We all turned to Rebecca.

The foreman, with drywall dust forming a raccoon pattern on his face from his goggles, wrinkled his forehead. “Well, ma’am, there’s no need for that. The fireplace is completely functional, just needs a little cleaning . . .”

“Break through the bricks,” she repeated as if the man hadn’t spoken. She walked to the side of the fireplace, where a bank of polished cherry cabinets and granite countertops now stood. “There were shelves here, and a hidden door that led behind the fireplace.” Rebecca looked at me. “I would think it would be cheaper to break through the bricks than these custom cabinets.”

I nodded, not needing to question where she got her information from, but hoping she was right. “Go ahead,” I said to the foreman. “Just try to do a little bit first, maybe just a couple of bricks, to see if there’s anything behind there. And if there is, we can move on to plan B.”

With a little more argument, I finally persuaded him to break through the bricks. Rebecca and I stood back as he hoisted a hammer, aimed it at what appeared to be a brick surrounded by crumbling mortar, and let it go. As a testament to old workmanship, the brick didn’t give in, but the mortar shifted, giving the foreman room to use a screwdriver to dig out enough mortar to give him a fingerhold at the side of the brick. With a little more scraping, he removed two bricks, giving me a vantage point to whatever lay within.

I stepped forward. “Can I borrow a flashlight?”

One of the other workmen handed me one, and after flipping it on, I shone it through the opening and looked. The room behind the fireplace was windowless and bare, the air stale and stagnant, and the trace scent of gunpowder and salt water crept through the opening. The beam of the flashlight hit on brick walls and a dirt floor before finally coming to rest on a large nautical chest sitting in front of the far wall.
Your illustrious ancestors started out as wreckers.
I remembered Jack’s words as I stared at the chest, half wanting to close up the fireplace and forget what I’d seen.

Instead, I turned to the foreman. “Take as much brick away as you can. Enough for a person to fit through.” I worried my lip for a moment, trying to think of what Sophie was going to say when she saw the fireplace. “Maybe you can remove a brick at a time to contain the damage.”

“Oh, great, an old-house hugger,” one of the workmen muttered under his breath.

The foreman shot him a warning glance. “I understand, Miz Middleton. We’ll take it nice and slow and do it one brick at a time.” He scratched the back of his neck. “And just so you understand that the price I quoted you for the job didn’t include this type of work, so there’s gonna have to be some adjustments.”

I sighed inwardly, having already had way too much exposure to building contractors during the Tradd Street restoration. “I understand. Just do what you need to do to give us access to what’s behind without damaging too much of the original fireplace.”

Rebecca took my elbow and gently dragged me away. “It’s a room, isn’t it? With a sea captain’s chest.”

I looked at her and nodded. “Another dream?”

“Yes.” She glanced back at the fireplace. “It’s going to take a while. Let’s go in the other room so we can compare notes.”

With one last look at the workmen, I allowed Rebecca to lead me back to the foyer. Since the majority of the house was unfurnished until we could decide on paint colors and get the interior painted, we sat on the bottom step.

As Rebecca began to take things out of her satchel, I said, “I visited with Yvonne yesterday afternoon. She said that you and Jack were there earlier in the morning. But I could have sworn that you told me your appointment was next week.”

She continued to focus on her satchel, peering into the dark depths. “No, it was always scheduled for yesterday. You must have heard incorrectly.”

I didn’t point out to her that I’d put it on my BlackBerry so I wouldn’t forget to ask her what she’d discovered afterward. I thought about pointing out how it seemed she’d planned to get there first to find out what she could so that she might or might not pass the information on to me. But then I thought of the journal and how I hadn’t told her about it yet, and closed my mouth. A secret kept was sometimes as good as a secret shared.

She put the satchel down at our feet. “Not to worry, though. I actually didn’t end up finding a lot out with Yvonne, anyway. She made all of these photocopies but kept giving them to Jack instead of me. He said I could look at them afterward, but I like to have my own materials to go through on my own time. Besides, when Jack and I get together, he rarely wants to work.” She giggled without looking at me as she sorted her folders.

I pretended that her words hadn’t felt like a paper cut dipped in vinegar and instead eyed the stack of folders on her lap. “Looks like you made out all right, anyway.”

“These aren’t from the historical society.” She placed her hands over the stack, and I thought again how familiar they looked. “I got them through the archives at the paper. Remember when they first found the human remains on the boat and I told you I could help narrow down the list of possible candidates? Well, I borrowed the Prioleau family tree from Jack’s folder and wrote down all the names on a spreadsheet I made, then I spent a lot of time with the microfiche machines to see if I could find any newspaper articles or photographs of any of the family members. Since we know the gender, approximate age, and height of the person, I thought it might shed some light on who we were looking for.”

I looked at her closely. “I’m dying to see what you found, but I have to ask you how you think this might help with the article you’re writing about my mother.”

She seemed confused for a moment before managing to look insulted. “As any good journalist could tell you, I need to have a good grasp of my subject—her family’s history, her past, her present—before I can write the first word.Your mother, and her family, is fascinating to a lot of Charlestonians, myself included, and I want to make sure that I do her story justice. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I don’t skimp on details in any of the other citizen profiles I’ve already done in the series.”

I stared at her blankly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t read the paper. I take out the real estate listings and trash the rest. No time,” I said weakly.

“I see,” she said, although it was clear that she didn’t. “Speaking of which, though, I could use a face-to-face interview with your mother, and I was hoping you’d work as an intermediary to set something up.”

“She’s still not taking your calls?”

“Still.” Rebecca smiled, but it appeared as if she might be gritting her teeth. “I was hoping that if she saw us working together, she might be more willing to speak with me.”

“Why would you think that? Believe me. I have no influence over her at all.”

This time, Rebecca’s smile was genuine. “You have a lot more influence than you think. I see the way she defers to your opinion, or waits until you speak. I think she means it to protect you.”

“To . . . ?” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Really, Melanie, for somebody who sees so much, you see so little of the things right in front of your face.” She took a deep breath and before I could stop her from continuing, she said, “I used to think that your mother was trying to protect you from public opinion should news of your psychic gift be made public. But it’s something more. It’s—I don’t know—more personal than that. It’s beyond motherly love, even. It’s as if you share a bond that most people only dream about.”

I wanted to protest, to use my old excuses about how she couldn’t have cared very much because she left me, but the picture I had of the mother who’d abandoned me no longer fit the image of the woman who’d reentered my life almost four months before. She wasn’t who I thought she should be. She was warm, had a sense of humor, and wanted to throw me a birthday party, albeit thirty-three years too late. Fitting the old image into the new was like trying to fit into somebody else’s shoes—foreign, tight, and uncomfortable. But no matter how hard I tried to make the images fit, nothing could ever change the fact that she’d apparently not wanted to be my mother until now.