CHAPTER TEN

“So Ben Wittes isn’t a suspect?” was the first question Steve asked when he entered Candy’s house.

“We sure don’t think so. But nobody’s ruled out yet. If we can find someone else, of course.” Candy caught herself. He was familiar with how this worked. Sometimes she forgot his background. Well, he knew the procedure better than she did.

He just nodded, seeming unoffended by the rookie explaining the obvious to the pro.

“Tell me about the former sheriff,” he asked as they drove toward Nate’s house.

“His name is Nathan Tate, known everywhere as Nate. Regardless, I understand he came from the wrong side of the tracks, as they say. Went to Vietnam at eighteen, served in the Green Berets.”

“That’s impressive.”

“It is,” she agreed. “Anyway, a few years after he came back from the war, after serving with the sheriff’s department, he was elected sheriff and remained in the job until he retired. After that his forensics expert succeeded him. Gage Dalton.”

She snorted, feeling a sudden amusement.

“What?” he asked.

“Gage doesn’t seem like a man people around here once called hell’s own archangel.”

“Seriously?” He twisted on his seat. “I’ve been wondering about his story since I met him.”

“A helluva story. He was DEA. Undercover. His cover was blown. He was targeted with a car bomb that killed his wife and kids and he was badly burned. Someone told me he screamed so much after learning they were gone that he permanently ruined his voice.”

“My God!” Steve fell silent.

“Yeah. The tragedy is damn near incomprehensible.” Except she’d seen variants of it before, in war. War was an atrocity-making situation, something that was hard to live with afterward.

She shoved those thoughts back. Not now. She was as interested as Steve in what Nate Tate might know about the history of the Castelle house. God knew he’d been here long enough to have heard something.

But then so had Miss Emma. Surprising, the silence surrounding the Castelle house. Candy had begun to think everyone around here knew nearly everything there was to know about this area.

“Heard anything from the recorder’s?” she asked as they pulled up before the Tate house.

“Not yet. Maybe another couple of days. I suspect someone is spending a whole lot of time sneezing from dust.”

She laughed. He could be funny at times.

Together they walked to the door and were soon greeted by the former sheriff himself. He wore his years exceptionally well, only a dusting of gray in his dark hair, with the lines of a face marked by years of wind and sun. His voice was deep, a bit gravelly, and even at his advanced age he still managed to be an imposing figure.

He invited them in, saying, “Let’s go to the family room. Marge is out, but I like that room even if it’s big for one person. This house rambles every which way, which is why you’ll notice we’re walking past bedrooms, offices and so on. It’s practically a warren. We had six daughters and were constantly expanding. Anyway, I like it because of the memories. No kids hanging around with their friends anymore, and we rattle around in here like dried peas. We’re thinking about selling.”

Interesting view of the man, Steve thought. Six daughters? It must have been overwhelming at times. But he also liked a guy who’d choose a room because of the memories it contained.

The family room was large and warmly decorated. There were even some colorful beanbag chairs left over from an earlier time.

“Sit wherever you like,” Nate said with a wave of his hand, then settled into a Boston rocker.

There were two sofas and an assortment of upholstered chairs. Candy picked a blue one, and Steve a green one. When she was seated, she pulled out her small notebook and a pen to write information down if need be.

Nate spoke. “I hear you’re wanting to pick my memory. It’s a long one, all right.”

Steve leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “I want to do exactly that. Are you aware of the house the Castelle family moved into?”

Nate rocked slowly. “I know the house. Saw a young family moved in. It’ll do that place and this town some good. Need more young folks like Candy here.”

Steve smiled and Candy felt her cheeks color a little. That was a sideways compliment, she thought. It touched her.

“Anyway,” Steve continued, “it’s like a cone of silence has dropped over that house. I’m having a devil of a time trying to learn its history. Who owned it before, are there any stories about it?”

“Now that’s a place.” Nate nodded as he continued to rock. “Became quite something when I was in high school, just before I shipped out. Old man lived there. His name will come back in a moment, but it’s been decades since I really thought about it.”

Candy’s interest quickened. It was amazing how she was getting drawn into this story, her curiosity growing more with each day. That was a good description from Steve: a cone of silence. This in a town where it seemed that if you wanted to know what you were doing, you just had to ask a neighbor.

Nate spoke. “Let me go back to the beginning, as much of it as I know. During my misspent teen years, it was occupied by a man who lived alone. A hermit, in the truest sense. People hardly saw him. He chased away kids who turned up to have a good time. Antisocial, but some of that was understandable, mainly because he’d lost his wife and no one knew where she went.”

Nate shook his head a bit. “Sad how people can seize on something like that. The guy just wanted to be left alone. Instead, some folks created stories that he’d killed his wife and she was haunting the property. I heard it became a thing for youngsters to go out there at night on ghost hunts. The old guy chased them off, sometimes with a shotgun.”

Nate suddenly leaned forward, his gaze becoming intense. “I was young and foolish. Everyone that age is. But I wasn’t foolish enough to buy that crap or think those thrill-seekers had any right to bother a grieving man.”

Steve spoke. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Nate’s gaze went from intent to piercing. “Isn’t that what you’re doing over there? Thrill-seeking for millions who want to get scared in the security of their own homes?”

Man, Candy thought. Full-frontal attack. And clearly Tate was still as plugged into this county as he’d always been. She’d heard there wasn’t a person or a secret that Nate didn’t know. He was certainly up to date.

“What I’m here for,” Steve said firmly, “is to help a seven-year-old girl who’s scared to be in her own bedroom. She thinks a man is talking to her, one she can’t see. And in case you’re curious, her parents have even taken her to a child psychologist. Anyway, helping that child is my priority, and if I can get it done before we start filming and unless that family still wants to do the show, we won’t. Plain and simple.”

Tate’s eyes narrowed, as he digested what Steve said.

“I also have a reputation to preserve,” Steve continued. “I’m hunting for reasonable, logical explanations. I am not hunting for a ghost, and frankly I haven’t met one yet.”

For the first time since their arrival, Nate smiled faintly. He nodded, then rocked for a few minutes.

“All right, then,” he said presently. “Let’s talk about the house. The stories kept growing while I was overseas. It wasn’t enough that the wife had disappeared. Nope. Then it was claimed the old man had killed some teens who had trespassed. For some reason, by the time I got back, the tales had stopped in their tracks. I heard some talk about it all becoming campfire stories after that. Maybe the talk of murders shut it down.”

“That’s interesting,” Steve remarked. “Were there murders?”

“I don’t know. Seems like that might have turned this entire county upside down, and the old man would have died of something other than natural causes. I never looked into it. Wasn’t part of my job, not an open case, and I wasn’t especially tuned in to what teens were telling themselves sitting around a fire. I’d been away for eight years, didn’t come back but once for a lot of reasons. Dead history by then.”

Steve looked at Candy. “Would you be willing to look into this? Murders? Did the wife just run away?”

Candy nodded. She felt a strong need to know if this county had swallowed murders quietly and if so why. As for the wife? If there was an explanation, she’d find it, not that it would change much of anything. What people said to each other couldn’t be silenced by an official explanation. But then, people liked a good conspiracy theory. If anyone years ago had claimed to have found the wife in Denver or New York, some would have insisted it was a cover-up. “I’ll check it all out.”

“Good,” said Nate, leaning back again. “If this is going on, then it’s not dead history after all. At best it could help a kid. At worst it could fire up all the legends again. As if folks don’t already have enough to talk about.” He cocked his head a bit to one side. “Well, around here I guess there’s never enough for people to talk about.”

Steve flashed a smile. “I’ve already begun to notice that.”

“As for since then, there’ve been a couple of absentee owners. Probably thinking the land would be a good investment, which it might be if ever this town got back on its feet economically. There’s hardly a building boom. At least they kept the place from going to ruin. Put some people to work with their money fixing things up, then eventually it went back on the market. This new family is the first to actually move in.”

“Now that’s definitely interesting,” Steve said.

“I always thought so when I thought about it at all. Empty houses don’t create a lot of police work unless they’re vandalized.”

Steve nodded. “No kids breaking in?”

Nate snorted. “Probably too afraid of a ghost with a shotgun. Yeah, I imagine old man Bride became part of the lore, too. Just too good to pass up.”

Nate drummed his fingers briefly on the arm of his chair, then said, “I hear you were a cop once, Steve.”

“Yes, sir. Detective after six years on the street.”

“Good job. Anything else?”

“If I think of questions, can I call you?”

Nate smiled. “Hell yeah. I got plenty of time to reminisce these days. Candy has my number, obviously.”

Candy laughed. “I’ve plagued you enough.”

“Didn’t mind at all. I hear there were two kids killed up near the old mining camp. Anything yet?”

Candy shook her head. “Early days.”

“It would be. Sometimes I miss the harness. I generally behave myself and just bug Gage. He takes it well.”

Candy grinned. “He’d have to. He’s just the new sheriff after all.”

It was Nate’s turn to laugh. “Poor man. Well, hell, I get to be the old sheriff, so maybe I should complain.”

Steve spoke. “You said the hermit’s name was Bride. I’ve heard the last name before, just recently.”

“It did come back to me, didn’t it? Yeah. Samuel Bride. Wife was Ivy.”

Candy jotted it down.

Nate turned back to Steve. “Let me know if I can do anything else.”

Steve was nothing if not bold. “There is one thing. If we get to taping this show, would you mind doing an interview about the lore surrounding the house?”

“Why not? It’s time that man’s memory got laid to rest. And Candy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You find out anything about what happened to that woman, let me know, too?”

She was happy to agree. “It would be nice to figure this one out.”

* * *

OUTSIDE AGAIN, CANDY paused to look up into the night sky. “So many stars here. Like Afghanistan.”

“Less city lighting,” Steve answered, but he watched her closely. A beautiful woman who didn’t deserve the memories she carried, and he hoped like hell that staring up at the stars didn’t bring any of them rushing back.

She’d probably hate to realize that he was feeling protective toward her. A ridiculous thing to feel when she was evidently a very strong woman, and when there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about her memories. He just hoped she made some new, good ones.

But the murders had really shaken her. He wondered how hard she was hanging on to her thoughts.

Then she lowered her face, smiled and started walking toward the car. “That was fascinating.”

“I thought so. It sounds like most of the scary stuff was made up.”

“That’s what I thought, but I’ll look into it.”

“But, of course, none of this tells me why a little girl is hearing voices in her bedroom. And none of it tells me if this is threat to her or that family.”

Candy paused with her hand on the car door. “You mean as in physical threat?”

Steve’s insides tightened. He didn’t like to think of these possibilities. Unfortunately… “I came here expecting to find something relatively innocuous to help the Castelles out. But if a real person is doing all this, then I need to wonder why. Anything I think of doesn’t look good.”

Candy looked poleaxed, but there was no point in pretending. He’d been ignoring the feeling that had been growing slowly in him since yesterday. A psychic, a spirit and two murders?

He’d been a cop too long to be a great believer in coincidence.

She looked at him over the top of the car. “But why? Who? My God, Steve, they just moved here.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean a thing.” He motioned her to get into the car, then slid in himself. With the doors closed, he felt more comfortable talking to her.

“It’s like this,” he said. “Any time I go into one of these cases, I’m looking for causes other than the paranormal. While it doesn’t come out on TV, the fact is there are a lot of possibilities that are ugly. Lots. I’m a cop, I’ve seen too much to think that what looks like cotton candy on the outside doesn’t have a cyanide pill at the center.”

She stiffened at the wheel, and even in the dim light he saw her hands tighten around the steering wheel. “Damn,” she breathed.

“Yeah, it’s a terrible world. My thoughts run along ugly paths. But take the Castelles’ situation. They moved to the middle of nowhere. Why? For a backyard? Or to leave something in the past? What if their relationship is rotten at the core? Or if one of them is? What if one of them is using Viv in some way.”

He turned his head a little and saw her staring straight at him in the dark.

“That’s just…” She seemed unable to find the words.

“I know. But you’ve been around, Candy. You know how horrible people can be. That child needs help. That means I look at every possibility, no matter how unthinkable it would be to most people. That’s the part of this job that I don’t talk about on screen or even in blurbs. It doesn’t have to be ghosts. It doesn’t have to be creaky plumbing or bad wiring. It can also be bad people. I don’t skip looking into that.”

He and Candy parted ways at her house. “I have to get my equipment out to the Castelle place for the night investigation. See you in the morning? I’ll stop by with coffee.”

“Sure.”

He was aware of her eyes on him as he went to get into his rental.

And after listening to Nate Tate, the tension in him was growing stronger.

Maybe he’d been a cop too long. Or maybe he was right. If he was, he had to find out what was going on as quickly as possible.

* * *

BEN WITTES WISHED he could stuff cotton into his brain to shut the spirits up. They’d become excited about something and were yammering like a classroom full of kindergarteners.

Damn it. Imagine that the one strong voice in his head had been right about coming murders. The thought chilled him to the bone.

But the voice had been wrong about one thing. The murders weren’t coming, they had already happened.

He clung to that, wanting no more even slightly accurate information about such things.

He wanted to give voice to the spirits lingering around that house, but not this kind of voice.

Although he didn’t have much choice, like today.

Possession. The word floated into his head once more. What if Samuel Bride was trying to say something? What if this spirit had taken over someone else?

And if it were Samuel Bride, how could he have had anything to do with yesterday’s murders?

But that one voice seemed to be slowly taking over, driving him to make that awful introduction of himself to the Hawks guy.

Closing his eyes, he began to pray for salvation.