Blackvine Manor Mystery Read online

  Chapter Six

  Dearest Alexis,

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I was not able to give you and everything that was taken away from you when I left.

  For everything you grew up without, please know the one thing that was never missing was my love.

  I love you and miss you every second of every day. I’m also sorry for everything you did get from me—the sweet tooth, the tangled hair, the drive to always know more. Be careful. If you are reading this, I’ve given you more than you know.

  Love always, A

  Alexis lets the letter drop to the floor next to her red sofa and slowly leans her head back. Staring at the ceiling she takes a few deep breaths as her mind battles over the weird coincidental discovery. Part of her knows she was led to Blackvine Manor, while the other part warns her and wants to dismiss it all as a strange, cruel joke.

  She lifts her head up. The worst part of the discovery is not the letter, but an earmarked, coffee-stained paperback book with Amelia’s careful notes in the margins. The author covers the entire range of clairvoyance from empathy to psychic medium and every extra sense in between. Alexis’ first response is of course her fanciful and irresponsible mother would believe in such nonsense. Though, if she can bring herself to believe it, then the strange experiences she’s had since moving into the reputed haunted building are all explained.

  “I just have to make the jump from aspiring ad executive to clairvoyant.” Alexis heaves a jagged sigh.

  She snaps the book back up and heads into her narrow kitchen to make a cup of tea. Leaning against the gleaming black granite counter, Alexis squares her shoulders and makes a decision to read the book. Maybe it’s the comforting closeness of the galley kitchen—the ceiling is nearly ten feet high but the built-in cabinets make it feel snug—or maybe it’s the familiar routine of the tea, a habit given to her by her practical, and non-fanciful, father, either way, she takes a deep breath and opens the first page.

  She immediately finds Amelia’s margin notes more interesting than the text itself. It only takes her two pages to realize the margins act as a diary for Amelia, recording her experiences at Blackvine Manor. Next to the definition of “clairaudient,” Amelia recounts hearing the pleading voice of Delia.

  She pleads with him, always telling him she loves him. Then she whispers to me to forgive. To love is to forgive, to forgive is to love – this haunts me most of all.

  The kettle whistles just as Alexis sees an entry that cracks open her heart. With a shaking hand she turns off the burner and lets the whistle slow to a whisper as she reads, everything fades outside of Blackvine Manor. Seeing is just blurs in the corners of my eye like everyone experiences. I can’t catch any words or whispers. A. J. is relieved. So I can’t tell him. The rent is low and I pay in cash from waitressing at a North side café. He thinks I’m restless and wandering but I’m here trying to master this, trying to hear and see. I owe her that much.

  It feels disloyal to continue and Alexis drops the book, turning her back on it to finish making the tea. Her father loved Amelia, suffered when she kept disappearing, and raised Alexis all on his own. He would be livid at all of this and rightly so; she shakes her head at how far astray she’s gone from just a week ago. Her mother is right about her drive to find answers but this feels crazy.

  She turns around to find her phone and the book falls on the white-tiled floor. When she stoops to pick it up she sees a chapter on meditation. The only note from Amelia is a quick exclamation-pointed line reading: clear your head!

  Alexis smiles at one of her father’s favorite lines, his most used piece of advice. So she takes the warm tea and that chapter and settles down to read. The writing is hypnotic, meant to be a meditation in of itself and she finds everything around fading as she continues.

  “He needs to come so I can forgive him. Come, come here.” The voice is soft but distinct over the sound of running water.

  As the voice repeats, Alexis recognizes the running water as the sound of the faucet in the laundry room. “Please, come, come find me. Bring my love so I can forgive and be free.”

  In a trance, Alexis rises from her red sofa and leaves her studio door open as she treads lightly down the hallway. The voice is soft as is Delia’s face when Alexis sees her reflection in the stairwell window. She sees her smooth hair tied in a bun disappear down the stairs in front of her and Alexis follows.

  The faucet is running again in the laundry room and Alexis goes in to turn it off. Her heart is starting to thump wildly as the meditation is giving way to reality. The faded wisp of a woman is beckoning Alexis to an unused corner of the laundry room. There the floor has crumbled and she now realizes what she assumed was water damage is actually the cleaned up result of a sledgehammer. Her mother must have sought out the same corner.

  Alexis turns sharply, suddenly afraid someone is behind her, but she doesn’t see anyone in the laundry room. She has to know but the terror is starting to choke her so she quickly drops to her knees and starts flinging the rubble away with her hands. She doesn’t have to dig far before her worst fear is uncovered and a scream tears from her throat.

  The white bones of a hand reach out and Delia whispers, “Thank you.”

  Chapter Seven

  ALEXIS STUMBLES BACK AS MAXWELL races into the room. He catches her and, seeing the remains, pulls her close and guides her to the opposite side of the laundry room.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asks breathlessly.

  She manages to stand up but is shaky and glad for his arm around her waist. “What are you doing spying on me? I knew there was someone behind me.”

  “I was coming up the front steps when you walked by. I waved and you didn’t say anything. Your eyes were strange, I thought maybe you were sleep walking or something.”

  Alexis considers taking the out he has inadvertently given her. She could agree she was sleepwalking and leave it at that. A quick glance at the corner reminds her that the truth always comes out no matter how it gets buried, so she decides to tell him everything.

  “I know you’re not going to believe me but the truth is my mother is … was … Amelia Tennon.”

  Maxwell cocks an eyebrow at her already. “You don’t know if she’s alive or dead?”

  Alexis grits her teeth. “No, I don’t. She ran away when I was young and I was raised by my father.”

  She tries to pull out of Maxwell’s embrace but he tightens his arm to keep her there as he mutters, “God, sorry. You don’t think that’s her, do you?”

  “No, I know that it’s Delia Charles.”

  A bolt of recognition shoots through Maxwell’s entire body and though he can’t hide the physical reaction from Alexis, he says, “Did you just pull that name out of a hat or what?”

  “No.” Alexis starts thinking aloud. “I think my mother knew her, your grandmother. They both lived here. Except something happened to Delia. She helped a man hide something, something valuable. Her husband found out and accused her of adultery.”

  “And how do you know all that?” Maxwell drops his arm away, interrupting her.

  “I’ve been experiencing strange things ever since I moved in.”

  “You said you’d been pranked, remember?”

  She crosses her arms against the chill of her shock and squares off against him. “I thought I had but we didn’t find any proof, remember? Then I discovered that similar things happened to my mother here. She saw and heard things. So I followed what I saw and heard and I found evidence.”

  Maxwell turns to peer at the uncovered corner of the laundry room, his face paling. “It’s not that hard to read about Delia Charles’ disappearance, it was in all the newspapers. Why make up that stuff about being psychic?”

  “I didn’t make it up. I saw her.”

  “Prove it,” he mutters as he takes a few steps closer and gingerly examines the skeleton Alexis uncovered.

  Alexis shuts her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Pressing her palm
s to her eyelids she thinks about the image of the woman who led her here. Instead she sees a little boy smiling in the basement window well. He carefully catches a frog that had jumped in and couldn’t get out. After he releases it he puts in a few long sticks to help out any other curious frogs.

  When she describes his childhood memory to him, Maxwell stares at his shoes briefly before turning and gesturing to the door. “I think its time we called the police, don’t you?”

  He sends her back up to her apartment before going to his small office on the main floor. Alexis paces her studio until he returns with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  “Aren’t the police going to want to question me?”

  Maxwell sits on her red sofa and starts to pour. “It will help with the shock. I explained your suspicions about it being Delia, so the coroner is coming first. If the age of the … um … remains fits that time period there won’t be any police at all.”

  Alexis keeps pacing and sips at her drink before a wave comes over her. “Oh, God, Maxwell, I’m sorry!”

  “For what?”

  “I told you what happened to her. I mean, I don’t know if it was him or the man she helped hide something. If it was him, then I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”

  He finishes his drink and decides to pour another one. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your grandfather!”

  “He was never warm and fuzzy. Cops are like that, and he was a police chief. After my grandmother disappeared he never mentioned her again, but I don’t think that means he murdered her. It was just his way of dealing with it.”

  “Didn’t he investigate it? She was murdered.” Alexis grips her glass with both hands.

  “Of course. The department decided it was some enemy of Otto’s out for revenge. Though, like I said, he wasn’t a people person and he was a cop so he easily had a hundred enemies.”

  Alexis finishes her drink and sits down next to him. “I’m really sorry to bring all of this up again. You really loved her, I saw it.”

  He gets up abruptly. “I’ve got to go meet the coroner. Stay here. I’ll call you if they need to ask you anything.”

  Curled up on the couch, Alexis watches until she sees a black van arrive. No one else comes and she has a sinking feeling Maxwell called in a favor instead of calling the police.

  Chapter Eight

  “YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS ASKING FOR you. Your mother lied and said you had an emergency at the property, a burst pipe and flooding. You better get that old goat Barry to corroborate your story because you know your grandfather will check.”

  “My story? I didn’t make it up.” Maxwell refuses to stand up from his desk, his hands flexing over week old paperwork.

  His father stands in the door of the small office, frowning at the dusty “superintendent” sign. He never visits Blackvine Manor, usually preferring to pretend it doesn’t exist. David Charles grew up in a large suburban home on two acres where his parents moved when he was born. It was his mother, Delia, who insisted she and Otto move back to Blackvine Manor when David left for college. After she disappeared, he helped his father move and never spoke of the apartment building again. When Maxwell took over its management, David only ever called it “the property.”

  “A lifetime achievement award ceremony and you couldn’t be bothered to show up. After all your grandfather has done for you.” David moves stiffly from one foot to the other.

  “After he’s given me a few decades worth of nightmares and last night’s horror, I thought I could take a day off.”

  Maxwell’s mother, Maria, can’t listen quietly from the foyer anymore and pushes past David into the small office. “Despite your childish assumptions, your grandfather is a great man and you should have been there to honor him today.”

  Maxwell stands up, towering over his 5’ 2” mother on the other side of the desk. “When are we going to talk about my ‘childhood assumptions’? I think Otto killed my grandmother and I found her skeleton in the laundry room last night.”

  Maria hisses at him to be quiet while David stands pale and silent in the doorway. She takes a quick minute to smooth down the front of her Chanel suit before holding out her hands to Maxwell.

  When he doesn’t take them she comes around the desk. “What a horrible discovery. Why on Earth did you let that woman go digging around?”

  Maxwell evades her. “I should have called the police.”

  David speaks up. “You did the right thing. Your grandfather promoted Arbuckle to county coroner and it was only right for him to come and … ah … collect what you found quietly.”

  “That’s right, it was quiet. Almost as if your mother was never murdered.”

  “Sometimes the past should stay buried,” David says before turning sharply and leaving.

  “Maxwell, honestly, think of your father. His campaign is just getting off the ground and he doesn’t need a scandal.”

  Maxwell slumps against the old filing cabinet in the corner. “Yes, of course, we should focus on father’s political career. What about Ms. Cole’s career?”

  “It has simply come to light that Ms. Cole has a drug problem. That explains her visions and her wild stories.”

  “You bribed her H. R. Department and then paid some doctor to trump up drug tests just to keep her quiet. She found Delia; she gave us all a chance to face the truth. Doesn’t Delia deserve that much?”

  “I know you loved her, we all did.” Maria pulls herself up tall. “Remember that Otto loved her more than anyone. In fact, he spoke to the press about it this morning. If you’d been there you would have heard him.”

  “Heard another cover up? No thank you.”

  Maria blinks back tears of frustration, gives him a kiss on the cheek and leaves. As the front doors swing closed and their town car drives away, Maxwell leaps up the stairs two at a time.

  Alexis hears Maxwell coming before he pounds on the door but she stays on the floor where she’s been lying all morning. She spent the entire night reading the chapters in her mother’s book about shielding herself from unwanted psychic encounters. She didn’t experience anything more than the nightmare replay of finding Delia’s skeleton. Then her phone started ringing at six a. m. with friends calling out of concern mixed with co-workers assuring her they knew it was lies and the occasional journalist trying to get the scoop.

  “Alexis, please open up. I’m done covering up for them and they know it. I want to help, please!”

  She stays prone on the floor but reaches up to her steamer trunk coffee table and fumbles for the television remote control. In less than twelve hours she’s gone from an unemployed but employable straight-laced worker to a budding psychic and a drug-addled liar. Alexis clicks on the television, intending to drown out Maxwell’s pleading voice.

  He hears the television and increases his volume so the entire floor can hear. “They lied and they paid people to lie about you. I can make them tell the truth. They have to this time!”

  Alexis sits bolt upright and turns up the volume on the news report. As the reporter reads a special statement she leaps up and yanks open the door. Maxwell stumbles forward, mid-pound, and almost falls at her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Alexis. Please believe me.”

  “Shh, stop. Just listen!”

  Maxwell clenches his jaw as he hears the reporter recounting his grandfather’s illustrious career as police chief. “A career untarnished by the personal tragedy Chief Charles suffered over 50 years ago. Now the decorated police chief has solved his final and most personal case: the mysterious disappearance of his wife, Delia Charles. On the same day he received a lifetime medal of honor award from the police department, Chief Otto Charles uncovered his wife’s body. The county coroner has confirmed, through DNA testing, how Mrs. Charles was strangled by Collin Fenton. Locals will recognize that notorious name as the jewel thief who once robbed each of the city’s top families, stealing countless heirlooms that have yet to be recovered.�
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  Alexis turns on Maxwell. “How would I have known she was strangled? Do you believe me now?”

  She doesn’t wait for his reply. “Fenton. My mother’s letter mentioned him. I’m one step closer to finding her. You want to help? Help me find Fenton?”

  Part II

  Prologue

  GEORGE CARLETON SWEEPS SILENTLY TOWARDS the laundry room door, giving himself the chills through the viewfinder of his camera. The dramatic shot is ruined when he steps on a paper cup and he hops along trying to shake it loose from his shoe.

  “Apparently the coroner drank a lot of coffee,” he says to the camera as he pans across the laundry room, wishing it looked more like a crime scene.

  A single shop light aims at the broken up floor in the corner. Rubble was taken out and placed in a pile against the far wall. Of course the coroner was a thorough and methodical excavator.

  “At least there’s dust,” George mutters as he picks up a ghostly tracking shot of footprints on the cement floor.

  He then sets up the camera on a tripod facing the corner and goes to turn off the light. As the basement room falls into darkness, he crosses his fingers and kisses them for luck.

  Hitting the record button, he starts to narrate. “Delia Charles met her fate over 50 years ago in this very room though the circumstances of her death remain a mystery to this day. Ever since her tragedy, residents here have reported paranormal activity, some even claiming to see the figure of a woman descending the stairwell. No one could explain why most of the activity centered in this laundry room until just days ago when her body was discovered here, buried under the cement floor.”

  Happy with his piece, George sits down on the floor to eat a candy bar and wait. Three hours and ten vantage points later, he gets up and packs away the camera. Back upstairs in his apartment he settles in to listen to the audio in hopes of hearing Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Slumping down lower and lower on his saggy couch, he falls asleep with the headphones still in place.