The Haunted Heart: Winter (13 page)

A muscle moved in his jaw. He said stiffly,
“Whatever. I’m not going to pretend I have money to burn.”

We reached the third floor, our floor. The
elevator doors slid open with a loud ding. Silently we walked along
the narrow hall. The rooms were next to each other, which I thought
was handy, though I didn’t say so. Kirk slid his key card in and
pushed his door open.

“What time tomorrow?”

I hesitated. “I was hoping to get an early
start, but if you —”

“Just give me a time.”

“Nine?”

“Nine. I’ll meet you downstairs in the
lobby.” He stepped inside his room, then looked out again. “I’m
going downstairs to work out in the Fitness Center. If you need me,
that’s where I’ll be.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

His door slid heavily into the frame and
automatically locked.

P
lump and grimy
angels, some cracked, some missing heads or wings, some with
features obliterated by moss giving them a leprous appearance,
perched on short columns positioned regularly along the long
sweeping drive to the main house of Bellehaven Plantation.

“Nice,” Kirk commented, gazing out the
rental car window. “Maybe we’re on the right track after all.”

West Feliciana Parish’s great claim to fame
was having more plantations open for public tours than anywhere
else in Louisiana — and possibly the entire South. All eight
plantation homes were within a twelve mile radius of St.
Francisville, but the word was that any of the other seven would be
preferable to visit than Bellehaven. In fact, Polly, the Southern
Belle in Training at the Best Western front desk, told us not to
waste our time on Bellehaven, concluding, “I don’t know how them
folks stay in business.”

“But it is open weekdays this time of
year?”

“I guess so. I don’t know many folks who
bother to go out there. At Oakley House you can visit with Gus, the
talking turkey.”

“Hmm,” Kirk said. “That’s pretty tempting.
What do you think, Flynn?”

“Could you tell us how to get to
Bellehaven?”

Kirk and Polly exchanged commiserating
looks.

“Can you imagine what Gus would have to say
about this?” I said now. “Even the trees look depressed. What do
they call those droopy ones? Are those weeping willows?”

Kirk made an amused sound. “That’s Spanish
moss growing on live oak. You see a lot of it on cypress and oak
around here.”

I was happy to note Kirk was back to his
normal dour self this morning. He’d made a serious dent in the
continental breakfast supplies for the next month, grazing his way
through fruit and cereal and yogurt, so his appetite was healthy
enough and he seemed alert and ready for action.

Not that I pictured much demand for Ranger
type skills in the next few hours. Now that we were here, I was
wondering at the impulse that had driven me to drop everything and
fly down to Louisiana. The odds of actually finding out anything
useful were pretty slim. Plus I didn’t even like gumbo.

“What do you think those old shacks are?” I
asked, braking to let what appeared to be an armadillo waddle
across the road and vanish into the undergrowth of camellia
bushes.

“Slave cabins? It’s the Deep South, Flynn.
Who do you think worked these plantations?”

“I know who worked the plantations. I just
thought maybe those were smokehouses.”

“Smokehouses? Are you sure you didn’t think
they were guest cottages?”

“What the hell, Kirk?” I said, starting to
get genuinely irritated.

“You’re from Virginia. You grew up in the
Shenandoah Valley. Don’t try to tell me you never saw any traces of
the Confederacy or slavery before.”

“Am I arguing with you?” I added shortly,
“All I can tell you is Louisiana is a lot different from Virginia.
Even the Shenandoah Valley.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Damn Yankee,” I added darkly.

Kirk’s laugh was friendlier.

We reached the end of the drive and parked
beside a Volkswagen van that looked like it had been there since
the 1960s. Mounds of pink and red azaleas formed a tall hedge, and
beyond the hedge was Bellehaven House. Neither of us said anything
as we gazed out the windshield. Beneath stormy skies, the
plantation house stood on a slight hill overlooking the remaining
150 acres of the estate. Two stories tall, not counting the
belvedere, surrounded by a stately colonnade and second floor
gallery with lacy iron railings, Bellehaven was the classic
antebellum mansion. From a distance it looked untouched by time. I
could easily imagine women in enormous hoop skirts and gentlemen in
uniform promenading along the wide covered porch.

To the east of the house was a large pond
surrounded by flowering shrubs and trees. On the west side sat a
small gazebo with what appeared to be stained glass panels.

“Wow,” I said finally. “It looks like it
should be starring in a very special episode of
Ghost
Hunters
.”

“No shit.” Even Kirk sounded impressed.
“Your ghost left a prime piece of real estate behind when she lit
out for Connecticut.”

“Maybe she got tired of mint juleps.”

“Or jambalaya.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. If I start
speaking French hit me with the nearest spinning wheel.”

“Roger that.”

We got out of the car. The mild air was
threaded with the fragrance of wild honeysuckle, decayed wood and
the promise of rain, though it was not raining yet. We made our way
through a rickety arbor, past a sign reading:
HOME OF JOHN JAMES
WHITAKER, NOTORIOUS RIVERBOAT PIRATE BEFORE HIS PARDON BY THE
GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA. BELLEHAVEN PLANTATION WAS BUILT IN 1780 TO
GROW SUGAR CANE.

“Arrrr, pirates,” I commented.

“Aye, matie,” Kirk growled.

We continued up the long, pastel-hued stone
walkway. Overhead, ink-edged clouds coiled and uncoiled in sinister
helixes, squeezing out a few drops of smoky rain. The walk was in
good shape, but the pond was choked with lilies, and the lawns were
as patchy as a threadbare carpet, the flowerbeds mostly neglected.
As we drew closer to the house it was plain the building had not
been painted in recent memory. A couple of upstairs windows were
shuttered, but others had simply been boarded up.

We went up the wide, low steps, crossed the
long entry porch and went through the open doors of the once grand
entrance into a reception lobby.

Despite the gloomy weather, it took my eyes
a second to adjust to the even gloomier interior. The hall was huge
and mostly empty. A couple of somber oil portraits decorated — to
use the term loosely — the walls. Next to a roped-off grand
staircase was a tall desk. On a stool behind the desk sat a trim,
middle-aged woman with very short dark hair. She was absently
dunking shortbread in a thermos coffee cup while she read an issue
of
National Geographic
.

She jumped at the sound of our footsteps and
nearly fell off her stool.

“Good morning,” I called across the empty
expanse of wooden floor. “We’re here for the tour.”

“Good morning!” Her voice echoed back.
“Welcome to Bellehaven House. I’m afraid the tour is pretty much
self-serve. But I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. My
name’s Daphne.”

“How much is the self-serve tour, Daphne?”
Kirk asked as we reached the desk.

“Er…five dollars, but it all goes to the
maintenance and upkeep of the house and grounds.”

Kirk’s look was what they call
speaking
.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m all for historical
preservation.” I dug my wallet out and paid the fees.

Daphne was looking more cheerful by the
moment. But her face fell when I asked, “Is the house haunted?”

“Not really. If you really want haunts, you
should try The Myrtles. They’ve got all kinds of ghosties and
bogles over there.”

“That’s okay. This is the house we’re
interested in,” I assured her. “Can we start looking around? Is
there any area off limits?”

“The upstairs is closed off while we do
renovations.”

That was disappointing, especially as I
couldn’t see any sign of renovations in progress.

“You said ‘not really,’” Kirk observed.
“Does that mean you
have
seen some things around here?”

Daphne laughed self-consciously. “Well,
we’re usually here by ourselves all day long in this giant old barn
of a place. It’s only natural that our imaginations are going to
get the better of us now and again.”

“See, that sounds promising,” I said. “Are
there any stories to go with the ghosts?”

“Now! I didn’t say there were ghosts.”

“Yeah, but you hinted.”

She chuckled. “Well, it’s true sometimes we
all get the feeling we’re being watched. And of course, we are.”
She nodded at a security camera in the corner. “Truth to tell,
sometimes I think I see someone out of the corner of my eye or I’ll
get the impression that someone is standing just behind me. Of
course there’s never anything there.”

I surprised myself with a shiver, and Kirk
laughed like he thought I was kidding, but Daphne’s experience was
unsettlingly familiar. “Is the house still owned by the original
family?”

“No, no. The Whitakers died out in the
forties. The house went to some distant cousins New Orleans way.
They sold most everything in the fifties, auctioned it all off
except for the few pieces you’ll see here in the house today.”

“So who owns the place now?” Kirk tipped his
head back to study the ornate ceiling medallions.

“The family name is Bankston. I think they
leave it all to the property management company. That’s who we deal
with.”

“My uncle bought a mirror here in the
fifties. It’s a beautiful piece. I guess that would have been when
most of the furnishings were auctioned off.”

Daphne nodded. “That sounds about right.
Everything of real value that wasn’t nailed down was sold. That’s
what I’ve heard.”

“Is there anyone still around from that
time?”

She looked interested. “What time would that
be?”

“The fifties, I guess.” I looked
self-consciously at Kirk. He raised his brows, offering no
help.

“I’m sure there are. I was born in the
fifties. Lots of folks were!”

“Why don’t we take a look around?” Kirk
suggested.

“You be sure to come back with any
questions,” Daphne said, returning to her magazine and coffee.

It didn’t take us long to explore the
downstairs of the twenty room mansion. The floor plan was simple
and the bones of the house were still beautiful. Hardwood floors
and floor to ceiling windows that could be raised into a recess so
as to remove the wall between the terrace and parlors. A fifteen
foot wide central hall ran from the front to the rear on both
floors. Among the rooms on the first floor were the kitchen, double
parlor, library, dining room, and powder room.

“It’s a shame this has all gone to hell,”
Kirk commented as the floorboards creaked beneath our
footsteps.

“It would cost a fortune to renovate this
and another fortune to maintain it. Do you think a ghost can be in
two places at once?”

“Huh?” Kirk turned away from his examination
of a bookcase stuffed with leather volumes. Nothing of real value;
I’d already checked. Once an antique dealer, always an antique
dealer.

“If Daphne and the gang are experiencing
paranormal activity here, it can’t be related to our lady in black,
can it?”

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“Or maybe it can.”

“Maybe there’s something in the water
here.”

We walked into the dining room. It was
obviously the dining room because there was a dining table and
chairs, but the table was dwarfed by the enormous space. It looked
like a set of playhouse furniture on a bathmat. Maybe not quite
that bad, but originally the room would have been a showpiece,
furnished with imported art and textiles as well as fine European
furniture. The museum staff had done its best to fill in with the
pieces available, but it was obvious that with the exception of the
faded wallpaper, and a French cut glass and ormolu chandelier,
nothing in the room was original to it.

At the far end, a large round mirror in a
gold leaf frame hung over a fireplace. I walked over to the mirror.
Kirk appeared behind me, his reflection tall and dark and a little
piratical compared to my own blond, spiky haired image. He was a
good head taller than me and a lot broader.

He scowled at his reflection and said, “I’m
glad I don’t shave. I’m kind of leery of looking in mirrors these
days.”

“I thought it was just me. I’m thinking of
growing a beard.”

“Nah. It wouldn’t suit you.”

“I’m tired of getting carded every time I
order a beer or a glass of wine.”

“You’d just look like a little kid with a
fake beard.”

“How do you know what I’d look like with a
beard?”

He shrugged.

I said, “Well, you look like one of those
portraits in the main hall. Only not so cheerful.”

He laughed.

I peered more closely at the discolored
wallpaper. “Does the wallpaper around the mirror look darker to
you?” I stepped back, narrowly avoiding his feet, and stared up at
the wall. “Hey, look at this.”

He joined me and we both silently inspected
the wall. Once you knew what to look for, the subtly darker
cartouche outline stuck out like a giant thumb print.

“This is where the mirror hung,” I said.
“After it was sold, they didn’t have anything large enough to cover
this much wall space.”

“The dining room?” Kirk said
skeptically.

“Why not?”

Kirk shook his head. “I don’t know. I just
never thought of that mirror hanging in a dining room.”

“Where did you think it would hang?”

“Bedroom.”

“Kinky.”