The House on Lake Jasper: A Tilton Chartwell Mystery (Tilton Chartwell Mysteries Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Ten

The door to their room barely shuts
with a click when Aubrey turns to Tilt.  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Tilt settles her overnight bag on the bench at the end of the queen size four poster bed.  It’s a beautiful room… Olivia had been in the process of restoring the place when she disappeared.  Apparently, Olivia, too, was thinking of turning the place into an inn, after the death of her husband.  It was another eerie parallel Tilt hadn’t wanted to point out.

“Tilt? You okay?”

“I’m fine.”  Tilt grabs a sweatshirt from her bag and pulls it over her head.  “A little freaked out, but I’m fine.”  She takes a deep breath and sinks down into the pale pink wing chair in the corner of the bay window overlooking the lake. 

“So what exactly are you seeing…picking up around here?  Are you seeing stuff you don’t want to say?”

“Yeah… exactly.  Not even Chuck… even though he seemed to know immediately that I did.”

“Well, what was it?”

Tilt shakes her head and glances out at the lake.  A long dock extends from the shore into the water.  It’s so long the end disappears into the mist.  A few lights pierce the darkness and the fog, houses dotting the opposite ends of the lake, she decides.  “Just before we heard the rock break the window, I saw a woman… a different woman, not the one that could be named Sarah, and not one of the twins, either, unless one of the twins died from a bullet to her head.  This woman was…enraged.  She came at me….well, like a bat out of hell, to resort to clichés.  I’ve never had an experience like it, in fact.”

“Wow… you think she could the cousin who disappeared?”

“I hope not.  Because what she screamed at me was…‘Tell that bitch to get the fuck out of my house.’”

Aubrey plops down on the bed.  “That’s what she said to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Really.” For a long moment the sisters stare at each other.  “I can see why you’d be a little wigged out,” says Aubrey at last.  “How are you going to tell Connie about that one?”

Tilt shakes her head.  “I’m going to have to tell her tomorrow.  But before I do, in the bright light of day, I have to try and connect with her… the spirit, I mean.  I’m having a hard time believing she’s Olivia, the cousin…she didn’t know Connie, and Connie wants to continue her work.  But she’s not one of the twins people have seen in the house.  She’s not the same person as Sarah – or whoever she is – the one who won’t come inside the house.  This new one was furious.  I don’t get why she wouldn’t want Connie to be in “her” house… if it is the cousin, you know?”

“Maybe it’s the other woman… after all, two women met here, and two women disappeared.’ That’s what the internet article said.”

“But if it’s the other woman…”  Tilt pauses, gathers her thoughts.  “First of all, this was never ‘her’ house…and secondly, that would mean Connie’s cousin is alive and well somewhere… and quite possibly guilty of murder.”  

For a long moment the sisters stare at each other.  “Yeah,” says Aubrey finally.  “And I sure wouldn’t want to have to tell that to Connie.  She’s already hitting the wine bottles pretty hard.”

Tilt nods.  “Exactly.”

“So what will you do?”

“Well, like I said… in the bright light of day… try to tune into the energy.  Try to see who she is, why she’s so angry.  I mean, after all…Connie wants to make the place beautiful again. Even the twins seem to be okay with Connie…they’re not keeping
her
out.”

“What do you mean… they’re not keeping her out?  You think they ARE keeping someone else out?”

Tilt shrugs.  “I’m not sure… tonight, outside, when I went to move the car… it sure felt that way.  But I don’t know for sure, not yet.  You know, I have to tell you, Aub, I never expected… well, I don’t know what I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting all this.”  She turns to look out the window, as Aubrey comes to stand beside her.  “That’s interesting.  I thought those lights were houses…but they seem to have moved closer.”

Aubrey touches her shoulder and looks down at her with a strange look on her face.  “Tilt, honey, there’s no lights out there.  There’s no lights out there at all.”   Abruptly, she yanks the drapes shut.  “Jesus, Tilt, that’s the creepiest freaking thing I’ve ever heard.  Do you really see lights out there?”

“Yeah,” Tilt nods, pushing the drape away from the window.  The lights are there, drifting through the mist.  “Yeah, I do.  And if you don’t see them…I guess they’re spirits.”

“What do you think they are?”

Tilt shrugs.  “The spirits of people who’ve died in the lake.”

“How many you think?” 

Tilt glances out the window.  “Fifty.  Give or take.” 

Aubrey sinks down on the bed beside Tilt.  “Jesus, that’s creepy.  And you said they’re coming closer?”

Tilt nods, takes another peek.  “Yeah…definitely.” 

“So are you saying the house is about to be invaded by a fleet of ghosts?”  Aubrey’s eyes widen. 

Tilt gets up and hugs her sister.  “You okay?”

“I thought I was… but now you tell me there’s a whole gang of ghosts out there…what are you going to do if they all come in here?”

“Tell them to go away, I guess.”  Tilt takes another peek.  The lights are gone now.  “But they seem to have done that on their own.  Interesting.”  She turns away.  “They’re gone.  I don’t see anything out there now but a lot of mist.”

“Maybe something is keeping everything out of the house… not just the spirit you saw on the porch.”  Aubrey has pulled the covers up to her chin.  “I’ll tell you what I didn’t expect.  I didn’t expect this place to be so… so creepy.  I’ve been in places that are supposed to be haunted… but this place… even if you weren’t here to tell me about all the stuff I can’t see…whether or not it really is, this house sure does feel … occupied.”

“Speaking of occupied,” says Tilt, “any chance you want to tell me the real reason the world’s most serious soccer mom suddenly is free as a bird on a weekend in May?”

Aubrey sits up.  A red flush creeps up her neck.  “You mean you can’t read my mind and know?”

“Not if you don’t want me to know.”  Tilt smiles, shrugs.  “People don’t realize it’s possible to hide things from psychics.  If you don’t want me to know something, you can hide it.  I might know you’re hiding something, or holding something back, but I won’t know what it is.”

“Really?”

Tilt nods.  “Of course.  I mean… I guess some psychics might try and snoop past a boundary like that… but I won’t.  That’s not ethical, in my opinion.  And you’re my sister.  If you want me to know something, I figure you’ll tell me, sooner or later.”

“And immediately if you ask, right?”

Tilt shrugs again.  “I don’t mean to pry.  You know that.”

Aubrey nods.  “Yeah.   I do.”

“So you going to tell me?”

Aubrey opens her mouth, then hesitates.  “Not yet.  Okay?  You have enough on your hands here.  And me… well, I’m still thinking things through.”  She pauses again.  “I’ll tell you on the way home.  Deal?”

“Deal.”  Tilt reaches over and hugs Aubrey.  “And thanks for being here with me.”

“This place is crazy, huh?”  Aubrey looks up.  “Can you believe the woodwork, the parquet? The stained glass?”  She breaks off.  “What’s that?”

Tilt pauses in the middle of searching through her overnight bag for her nightgown.  “What’s what?”

“That…” Aubrey cocks her head and points up.  “Don’t you hear that?”

Tilt looks up, listening intently. 
Tap-tap.  Tap-tap.  Tap-tap. 
It’s faint and faraway, and sounds as menacing as a loose shingle.  “I hear it now.”  She smiles reassuringly at Aubrey’s little-girl expression.  “This is an old house, Aub….we’re going to hear things that have nothing to do with ghosts…and besides, it’s the stuff you see and hear in broad daylight that really freaks me out.”

“I’m not planning on hearing or seeing anything.  Except maybe Mr. Sandman.”  Aubrey holds up a prescription bottle, then disappears into the adjoining bathroom. 

Tilt slowly undresses and slips on her nightgown.  It’s been a long time since she spent a night with her sister, and even longer since they spent a night together, in one bed, the way they used to sleep until Tilton went to college.  It brings her a measure of comfort and security, but something’s ringing alarm bells.  Maybe it’s not a great idea if Aubrey knocks herself out. 

She tentatively touches the bottle her sister left on the dresser.  Aubrey used to sleep like a brick.  Tilt bites her lip, troubled by what could be keeping her little sister awake.  But she won’t pry, she can’t pry.  When Aubrey’s ready, Aubrey will tell her. 

What sounds like footsteps – a child’s footsteps – runs clearly across the ceiling. 

Tilt looks up.  She’s not sure where everyone else is staying in the huge house – Connie explained that wings were added in the later part of the 19
th
century to accommodate a burgeoning family.   But she’s quite sure there are no children. 

Aubrey comes out of the bathroom, patting her face with a pink towel.  “You have to check out the claw-foot tub in there.  If I weren’t so tired, I’d take a bath tonight.”  She hands the towel to Tilt.  “Hang this up for me, will you?”

Once the little sister, always the little sister, thinks Tilt, as she folds the towel over the rack on the other side of the door.  The bathroom is a magazine vision of updated charm, the claw-footed tub in its separate alcove overlooking the lake.  For a moment, the mist over the lake parts, and, in the light cast by a light on the garage, she can clearly see the dock that extends out, onto the lake. 

And for a split second, she’s sure she sees a woman standing on the end of it. 

Then she’s gone.  A chill goes up and down Tilt’s entire body.  Tomorrow, she tells herself. Tomorrow in the clear light of day, when the sounds in the house aren’t playing tricks on her tired mind, she’s going to systematically track down each and every one of them.  If it means she goes over every square inch of the property to do it.

She’s moisturizing her face when she hears what sounds like those same footsteps again, running overhead, followed by the tap-tapping noise they’d both heard before.  Then it occurs to her that only she has heard the footsteps.  She pauses, looks up.  If there’s a ghost above her, it’s keeping to itself, and if there’s a human, it’s stopped.  And if it’s an animal… well, Connie needs to know about it. 

Aubrey’s snoring by the time Tilt’s finished.  She’s about to turn off her bedside light when she remembers Chuck’s warning to lock the door.  Careful not to disturb Aubrey, she slides out of bed and tiptoes across the creaking old floor.  She’s just about to turn the antique key in its old brass lock when she clearly hears what sounds like footsteps coming down the hall on the other side of the door. 

Swiftly, she turns the key, and removes it. 

To her horror, the doorknob rattles. 

Tilt’s blood literally freezes.  She glances over her shoulder but Aubrey’s snoring.  For a split second, Tilt thinks she might faint with fear.  No, she tells herself.  That can’t be a ghost on the other side of that door.  That just can’t be.  In all her years of talking to dead people, she’s never seen a ghost in the flesh, so to speak. 

As quickly as she locked it, Tilt inserts the key back into the lock.  At the very same time, she hears those same footstep sounds.  That doesn’t sound like a ghost, Tilt tells herself.  Those footsteps sound too… too substantial.  With a deep breath, she pulls the door open and is surprised to see Krystal Brix walking with obvious care down the hall.  “Krystal,” whispers Tilt.  “Was that just you?”

“Oh!” Krystal jumps, then turns.  “Oh…oh my God, I…I…” 

The poor woman looks like she’s afraid she’s seen a ghost.  Tilt almost feels sorry for her.  “You know you just about made me pee my pants,” says Tilt.  “Why didn’t you just knock?”

“I…I’m so sorry… I was just a bit turned around… I was just looking for my room.”

She seems nervous, Tilt thinks, but then, who wouldn’t be nervous creeping around a truly haunted house at night.  “No worries,” says Tilt slowly.   “Sleep well.”

“Okay,” says Krystal.  “I will.  Good night now.”

Tilt watches Krystal head down the hall. She listens to the other woman’s footsteps fade, then shuts the door firmly.  She’s about to get back in bed when something makes her lock the door. 

Just as she settles herself down for the night, she hears the same tap-tap-tapping as before, coming quite clearly from just above her head.   I must mention this to Connie, she thinks, as she falls deeply into sleep. 

Chapter Eleven

At breakfast the next morning
, it’s immediately clear that just about everyone has had an experience that defies rational explanation.   

“Imagine if we could guarantee every guest a supernatural experience!”  Norah’s exclaiming as Tilt and Aubrey walk into the dining room. 

Connie pauses in the middle of refilling her mimosa glass with the champagne from the bottle on the table beside her plate and smiles weakly.  “How about you two?  You have a visit from one of the resident ghosts?”

“I took a sleeping pill,” says Aubrey.  “How about you, Tilt?  Wow,” she mutters under her breath, as she and Tilt take chairs side by side, “you sure can’t complain about the food.”

And you sure can’t, because first of all, it’s fabulous – pancakes, Canadian bacon and a strawberry Bavarian cream laced with chunks of fruit – and secondly, when she tells Connie that the only thing she heard was a tapping noise that sounded like a loose shutter, Connie’s face drains of color. 

“That’s what I keep hearing.  That’s what I heard – all goddamned night.  Mike doesn’t hear it, do you?”

Mike shakes his head.  “But last night I smelled the tobacco smoke, sweetheart.”   

Norah swears she saw something in the mirror.  Neale had the lights in the shower turn on and off.  Mike smelled tobacco smoke, Connie heard tapping all night long. 

June leans over her shoulder and pours coffee into Tilt’s mug.  Tilt takes it with a grateful smile.   “It really did sound like a loose shingle.”

“I know,” says Connie.  “But we’ve been all over the roof – the roof, in fact, is relatively new.  The Bennetts replaced it the year they bought this place.  It’s not much more than ten years old.”

Before anyone can say more, June comes back with Chuck, who’s bearing a bouquet of enormous roses, accompanied by a woman, who looks as if she hasn’t had much sleep, and a boy about twelve or thirteen, who looks suitably abashed. 

“Good morning, everyone,” says Chuck.  “I’d like to introduce my ex-wife, Nancy, and my miscreant son, Bobby.  Connie, these are for you.  Bobby, I think you have something to say to Ms. Moore?  To everyone?”

Bobby’s a skinny kid, nearly as tall as his father, but still too young to shave.  He speaks with downcast eyes and clasped hands.  “I’m sorry, Ms. Moore, for what my friends and I did.  I won’t participate in anything like that again.  If you need help around here, I’m available.”  He pauses, and his mother pokes his arm.  “And I’m going to pay for the window.  No matter how expensive it is.”

“Thank you, young man,” says Connie.  “We’ll talk about that after we get some estimates of how much it will cost to fix the damage.  Thank you for the apology.”  She hesitates.  “I hope you’ve learned a lesson here, and aren’t planning on doing anything like that ever again.”

“I’m sorry, too,” says his mother.  She looks at Chuck with a glance that carries the weight of a marriage’s worth of disappointment.  “Here’s my phone number.  There won’t be any more trouble with Bobby… right, Bobby?  But if you even suspect there might be, call the police.  And then call me.  Please.”

Neale stands up, offers Chuck his hand, and then the boy.  “All right, young man.  We’ll work out the details with your parents.  But you understand how serious this was, right? This is criminal mischief…you don’t want to get involved with people who do this kind of thing.”

“I’d get to get a look at the damage, now, if you don’t mind,” says Chuck.  “You mind if we go look at it?”

“Not at all,” says Connie.  “Go right ahead.  Chuck, will you join us for breakfast?”

“Just save me a cup of Junie-toon’s most excellent coffee, please?” 

“Boys,” says Aubrey, shaking her head as Chuck, Nancy and Bobby all disappear in the direction of the foyer.  “Every gray hair in my head I owe to mine.”  

Mike and Neale excuse themselves and follow Chuck. 

“Your what?” asks Krystal.  She walks in, looking breathless and windblown, her make-up perfect, her  

“Good morning,” says Tilt.  “Out walking?”

“Oh, I didn’t stay here last night.  I have asthma… this place has been shut up so long I had to assume there’s just too much dust.”  She takes a place at the table and June slides a mug of coffee in front of her. 

But didn’t you say you were looking for your room last night, wonders Tilt.  But before she can say anything, June puts a cup of coffee in front of Krystal. 

“Just the way you like it, I think?” June smiles.  “Refills, anyone?”

Krystal digs into her food.  “And this is perfect, thanks, June.”

Tilt wonders how June knows Krystal well enough to know how she likes her coffee, but then she remembers that Krsytal’s writing a book about the area.  She must spend a lot of time here, she thinks.  She tunes back into the conversation long enough to hear Connie say, “So as soon as everyone’s finished, anyone have any ideas how to proceed?”

“I’d like to tour the house and grounds,” answers Tilt.  “I’d like to try and sort out what’s going on here and maybe even figure out what that tapping that you keep hearing is, Connie.”

“And maybe even figure out what happened to Olivia?” Connie drains the last of her mimosa to the dregs. 

“I’m going down to the library,” says Krystal.  “I want to find out more about Harriet and Emmeline.”

“I think June can answer most of those questions,” says Chuck.  He stands just behind Krystal’s chair.  “Wouldn’t you rather stay and hear what Tilt and I can tell you?”

The other men join him, Tilt sees the flash of a car driving by the house.  As Chuck reaches for his mug, Tilt notices June glance at Krystal, then back to Chuck, and nod.