Blackvine Manor Mystery (7 page)

A
LEXIS SMILES TO HERSELF
, SNEAKING up the stairs of Blackvine Manor Apartments like a giddy teenager out past curfew. A quick glance at her watch reveals it’s past 3 a.m. and she shakes her head. Her strange interview with Otto Charles turned into dinner with Maxwell; dinner went long and then they walked. They walked until they found an all-night diner that served real malted milkshakes and time completely disappeared in their comfortable high-backed booth.

Her happy review of the evening ends as abruptly as her footsteps when she sees her neighbor, Doug, backing out of his apartment. His hand is over his mouth but it doesn’t cover up his look of horror. Alexis quietly joins him and all he can do is point inside his still dark apartment.

His carry-on suitcase is still in the doorway and just beyond it is chaos. Drawers are open, clothing strewn everywhere, papers scattered, and everything else is upended.

“You’ve been robbed.” Alexis turns to grab her phone and call the police.

“That is not a robber,” Doug whispers hoarsely.

She squints at where he is pointing, freezing when she sees the shadow move. No one is there, no noise is made, but the shadow of a man moves through the wreckage. It bends to look through drawers and reaches up into open cupboards.

Her neighbor starts pushing her back down the hallway and Alexis doesn’t want to go until an eruption of voices comes from the stairwell. Two police officers clatter down the hardwood staircase from the penthouse apartment and try to comfort another distraught neighbor.

“There is no one there, ma’am. There’s no sign anyone has been up there tonight.”

Mrs. DuBois reaches for Alexis’ hand to steady herself. “But it was such a horrible argument. He was yelling horrible things at her.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there is no one there and there is nothing else we can do.”

“Is everything alright?” The second officer notices the look on Doug’s face.

He looks helplessly at Alexis who tells the officer, “Late nights can be a little rough.”

The police officers tip their hats and head down the stairs to their waiting squad car.

Doug helps Mrs. DuBois onto the antique settee on the stairwell landing. She is shaken but there is no other reason to disbelieve her story. It sounds very familiar to Alexis. Hearing an argument was the first encounter she had with the ghosts of Blackvine Manor and the first experience she had of her extrasensory abilities.

“Mrs. DuBois, I think maybe Doug should sleep on your couch tonight. Would that make you comfortable?” Alexis glances at Doug who gives her a relieved nod.

Mrs. DuBois doesn’t let go of Alexis’ hand. “A wonderful idea; thank you. I was coming to find you, dear. I don’t want to upset you but I think you should know. I heard a name; the man was yelling a name.”

“Was it Delia?”

“No, dear, he was yelling about your mother, Amelia.”

M
AXWELL LEANS BACK FURTHER
IN his desk chair. “Two more residents just gave their notice. I think that supports my plan to sell this place.”

Alexis shifts uncomfortably in one of the straight-backed chairs that furnish his small superintendent’s office. She sips at the tall coffee he brought her and thinks aloud.

“The anniversary of Delia’s death is coming up. Maybe that’s why the activity around here is getting stronger.”

“You mean worse. Whatever is happening around here is getting worse and I’m out.”

“Then why are you here at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday?” Alexis teases him.

Maxwell smiles. “Someone needed to bring you coffee.”

“Besides”—his smile fades—“I thought you might be following up on this and I want to go with you.”

He produces the envelope Otto gave them yesterday. Maxwell has his suspicions about his hard grandfather but he trusts the evidence the retired police chief passed along to them. If Alexis wants to find her mother, then he wants to help her follow real leads instead of unraveling ghost stories.

Alexis snaps the envelope out of his hand and slides out the police report. “Amelia was arrested for trespassing at the Lakeview Cemetery. Did you notice the date?”

Maxwell comes around to lean on the corner of his desk. “Same date as today, just about 50 years ago.”

“One week before Delia’s murder. Don’t you think it’s a sign?”

He sneers. “A sign we should check out Lakeview.”

His sneer is still firmly in place when they get out of his car at Lakeview Cemetery. “How about we start by finding the lake?”

Alexis nods, looking around nervously. “What if I can’t sense anything here? What if my abilities only work at Blackvine Manor?”

Maxwell heads into the undulating rows of headstones. “Don’t you think that would be a good thing? Maybe once you have real leads on your mother, your imagination won’t have to fill in the blanks.”

“My imagination? That’s how you explain me finding the connection between Fenton and Delia?”

He leans on a moss-covered pedestal holding a weeping angel. “It’s much more likely that you brainstormed possible connections and got lucky instead of seeing a ‘vision’ of a man you don’t know wearing a school insignia pin you don’t recognize.”

Alexis scowls at him. “And that’s what you believe even though I told you how it happened.”

“What’s that saying, ‘seeing is believing’? Well, I’m not seeing much around here that will help us find your mother.”

Alexis turns her head away and contemplates the other side of the headstone he is leaning on.

“What, are you giving me the silent treatment?”

“No—” Alexis hushes him “—I’m listening.”

Maxwell rolls his eyes. “Is the angel telling you something? I hope it’s about your mother.”

“No, it’s about the woman who’s buried under that angel. She says the drunk driver who killed her visits every week. She’s glad he is sober now.”

“Seriously? You looked up this woman’s name on your phone just to fake a point?”

“His name is Peter.” A voice behind Maxwell makes him jump two feet in the air. The caretaker pauses to lean on his rake by the weeping angel.

Alexis turns to him. “He still drives the same blue sedan; it reminds him every day.”

The caretaker nods. “And he visits every week.”

Maxwell shrugs. “A lot of people drive blue sedans; that was a lucky guess.”

“She’s happy when he visits; she loves the wildflowers the best. He makes her proud.”

The caretaker looks at Maxwell’s cynical frown. “I’ll tell Peter. A message like that can save a man’s life.”

Maxwell ignores his comment. “Do you know if anyone by the name of Tennon is buried here?”

“It doesn’t sound familiar but I can check the registry. Feel free to keep walking, living people are easy to find around here.” He continues on to his golf cart and drives off towards the main gates and office.

Alexis can’t help a small smile as she and Maxwell continue to thread their way through the headstones. “Seems like my abilities might work outside Blackvine Manor after all.”

“Why would that make you happy?”

“Because now that I realize what I’m able to do, it would feel like losing my eyesight or ability to taste if it disappeared.”

Maxwell makes a face. “Alright, how about another test? If you happen to see another ghost, let me know and I will check out the headstone before you can see it. Then we’ll see if you can give me any information that matches the engravings.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Alexis can feel herself getting nervous and tight again.

“Just let me know. And I still say we try to find the lake this cemetery is supposedly named after.” Maxwell strikes out in a new direction.

Alexis tries to distract herself and dissipate the pressure of Maxwell’s test idea. “You know, the caretaker was right; living people are easy to find around here. There is no one else around but us. Maybe that’s why Amelia was coming here.”

“To get away from the living?”

“No, to find something that Fenton hid. Lots of hiding places around here and no witnesses to see you bury it.”

Maxwell scrubs his chin. “True. And repeat visitors are a normal thing for a cemetery.”

Alexis doesn’t respond. Her attention is captured by a stocky man waving to her over to a tall, white headstone. “There’s your test.”

Maxwell is surprised but goes to the front of the white headstone. “Alright, gimme anything you can.”

“He’s a sailor, he has an anchor tattoo. He’s mad because he’s in his family plot instead of with his fellow servicemen.”

“Name?”

Alexis closes her eyes for a moment and sees the stocky man in uniform, “Cordon.”

“Hey, there’s the caretaker.” Maxwell spins away from the headstone and goes to meet the caretaker on the gravel lane.

She is about to confirm what she sensed when Maxwell returns with a shrug. “No Tennons buried here. I asked him to look into the security files to see if there’s a report on her trespassing. He’ll get back to me.”

Alexis comes around to the front of the white headstone. Underneath the engraving of an anchor is the name Robert Cordon.

A
LEXIS FLINCHES SHARPLY
, ENTANGLING HERSELF further in her quilt. She struggles wildly for a moment before realizing it was just a dream. Relaxing back against her pillows, she tries to recapture the details of the dream before it disappears.

The dream started off warm and sweet with Amelia tucking her into bed. They were in their small house, in her room with white clouds painted on blue walls. Alexis painted over those clouds when she was ten, after realizing Amelia was never coming home again.

Alexis sits up and rubs both palms over her eyes. It’s not a dream; it’s a memory, one of her last of Amelia before she left. Her mother tucked her into bed, sang her favorite song about the blackbird, and turned off the light. In the glow from the hallway, Alexis saw her mother clap her hands over both ears. Amelia turned around, her mouth open in shock.

“Delia?”

Now Alexis can’t separate the memory from the dream. Did her mother really call out Delia that night? All Alexis can remember is how her mother whispered to someone she could not see. How she cried and apologized. How she promised she would be there soon. Amelia didn’t know her daughter was awake and watching. She didn’t know how the kiss she blew to her would be the last solid memory Alexis would have of her.

Alexis wraps herself back up in her quilt as the memory replays in her mind. There’s something strange about it and she closes her eyes to see it all again: her mother’s silhouette against the glow from the hallway, Amelia crying and apologizing. Alexis remembers being scared as her mother talked to someone she couldn’t see.

Her eyes fly open. The hallway in her old house had a hideous fluorescent light that everyone hated. Amelia never turned it on at night because it was too bright and made a faint buzzing sound. Alexis had been comfortable in the dark and didn’t object. So what was the glow?

Despite her clock radio telling her it is only 2 a.m., Alexis jumps up and goes to sit at her built-in vanity. The white-painted drawers are just the right size for make-up, jewelry, or a well-used paperback book. She pulls out her mother’s book on extrasensory abilities and starts flipping through the pages. Her mother used it as a reference but also as a diary of sorts, recording her own experiences in the margins.

Alexis skims through the clairvoyance chapter until she finds the tightly written note she is looking for.

A. J. won’t confirm what I see. He slipped once and asked me about a glowing light. It was her ghost but I said nothing.

Alexis puts her head in her hands, trying to fit the pieces together. A ghost visited Amelia and Alexis was there to see it. She remembers the promises her mother made, promises Alexis now knows she made to Delia.

She is standing up but doesn’t remember pushing back her chair. Her hand holds up the paperback book and she realizes it’s open to a section on spirit possession. The reflection in the mirror is strange, a man’s suit coat, Alexis thinks, before turning around and leaving her apartment.

Somehow she has tweezers and a bobby pin in her hands, approaching her neighbor’s apartment silently despite the creaking hardwood floors of the hallway. The lock slides open and she enters, moving straight towards her neighbor’s dresser and jewelry box. They are on vacation, she knows, and their little dog is at the kennel. She moves quickly through each drawer, unable to stop herself.

Keeping her breathing slow and even, Alexis takes stock of what is happening. A spirit is determined to show her the ease with which he is able to take what isn’t his.

“Fenton,” she whispers though her voice sounds strange.

Alexis starts to struggle, willing him to leave her body, clenching her fists though an unseen force still moves them. She lurches into the bathroom, facing the mirror in the dark. A man with salt and pepper hair smoothes down the part in their hair before smiling wickedly.

“Accomplice,” Alexis hears herself whisper.

Using all her strength, she forces herself to turn on the faucet. Her arms push back as she tries to lean down but finally she wins. Splashing cold water on her face, she cries out triumphantly. The spirit leaves her body and she is left standing in her absent neighbor’s apartment with the water running.

“Alexis?” a timid voice calls from the door.

She pats her face dry quickly and meets George at the door, turning on lights as she goes. “Hi, George. What are you doing up so late?”

“I was sleeping, until my EMF meter went crazy. What are you doing?” He is peering over her shoulder, dressed in striped pajamas and thick socks.

“Taking care of the Johnsons’ plants.” She catches his cocked eyebrow and realizes there are no plants in the apartment.

He ruffles his black, curly hair. “At two in the morning?”

Alexis has a sinking feeling. She didn’t get rid of Fenton’s spirit; he abandoned her to take the blame. If she’s arrested for stealing then she won’t be digging around at Blackvine Manor, seeing and hearing things he might not want her to know. Glancing down, she is horrified to see Mrs. Johnson’s rings decorating each of her fingers. She slips her hands in the front pocket of her sweatshirt before giving George a sheepish look.

“I guess if anyone would believe me, it’d be you.”