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Stella’s Diner was barely half full when Abigail strolled in that morning. She’d driven into town instead of hiking in, as she typically did, because rain had been predicted for later in the day, and Abigail had errands to do before she returned home.
Sliding through the open door, careful not to drop the drawing tablet clutched beneath her arm; a large leather satchel full of art supplies hanging from her shoulder, she headed for a table in the far corner. The table offered more privacy than some of the others. Since she wanted to observe and sketch the humanity around her, and not be bothered, privacy was a good thing. Plopping down on a chair, she covertly scrutinized the customers close by.
Seeing something she wanted to paint, she rose, walked over, and spoke briefly to a table of customers before she reclaimed her chair.
It wasn’t merely the people she wanted to sketch; it was the location. Stella’s Diner had this humble ambience, an old-fashioned charm from a by-gone era, which Abigail loved to replicate on paper or canvas, and had many times.
The year before she’d revived the idea of capitalizing on the affection the townspeople had for their quaint village by creating more drawings and paintings of the local people; businesses, parks, and official buildings along Main Street, inside and out. Some were detailed and realistic, a section of a Spookie street with the street name sign, or a partial of one of its storefronts; while others were whimsical, a familiar field or section of town woods in the twilight misty with fog. The townspeople seemed to love the paintings.
She’d begun the original series years before when she’d first arrived in Spookie. In those days she would display and sell the artwork in John Mason’s General Store along the top of the glass counters that contained the old-fashioned penny candy. The man had been her first fan. Well, until he turned out to be a serial murderer, attempted to kill her, and was carted off to prison. The general store closed. Now it was an IGA. They didn’t sell the penny candy anymore, but the product and produce selection was so much better. The IGA was a much nicer store. Not to mention, the owner wasn’t a murderer.
So she was producing new town pics, as she liked to call the renderings, and peddled them to the local business owners or managers to exhibit in their stores for her. She’d sketch the people or places first and then, using photos to aid her, she’d finish the paintings at home. The businesses took fifteen percent of the sales, and she got the rest. It had turned out to be an excellent partnership because selling the town pics had developed into a lucrative sideline. The drawings and paintings were now spread all over town. There were even a number of them in the City Hall and Courthouse. All in all, the town pics were a smart move. Their sales, along with her normal commissions, provided her a nice steady income. It was an income she had now come to depend on.
Besides, capturing the townsfolk in their natural habitats was something she enjoyed doing. She always asked the person first if she could draw or paint them, and sometimes, if they asked, kept their figures or faces a little misty so they couldn’t be easily recognized. Once in a while her subjects let her make their faces clear and then bought the paintings for themselves. For her, most times it was the locale where they were featured that interested her most. She captured her models sitting at Stella’s having a meal, munching donuts at The Delicious Circle, walking in the park or reading a book at Tattered Corners. One time she painted all the reporters at their laptops at the Weekly Journal. Samantha, the paper’s publisher and now the town’s mayor, ended up buying the painting for her office. Some of the ones she was most proud of were Myrtle in her eccentric glory hanging around outside Stella’s on a sultry day with her rickety old wagon; Samantha behind her mayor’s desk; Sheriff Mearl in his squad car and Kate selling donuts behind the counter at the donut shop. The possibilities were endless so Abigail never ran out of things and people to paint. All in all, the town pics were a gold mine.
She settled herself at the table and began to sketch. Stella brought her a cup of coffee, set it down in front of her, but otherwise left her alone. Later the waitress would ask if she wanted something to eat. Stella knew the routine well.
Today Abigail was concentrating on a group of teenage townies laughing and playing with their iPhones at another table, with the vivid ruby colored bar stools behind them. It’d make an appealing painting. Of course, when she’d first come into the diner she had asked the patrons’ permissions to paint them beforehand and, curious at what she’d come up with, they had agreed.
After she had the preliminary drawing pretty well rendered in her sketch pad–not bad, she mused–Abigail ordered a sandwich, and Stella carried it out to her.
“How are you doing today?” Abigail smiled up at the elderly waitress.
“Ah, as good as I can be doing with this darn arthritis of mine.” Stella grimaced as she slipped her order pad into her apron pocket. “My doctor has just put me on these new pills. Can’t recall the name of ’em but they make me sleepy as all get out. After a week or so of falling asleep everywhere on my feet, even here, I got smart and now I only take them at night before I go to bed. That works.” A quick grin. “How are you and the mister doing?”
“We’re doing good,” Abigail replied. “And Frank is exceptionally good. Since Kyle finished his medical internship in Chicago and this weekend will begin his search for an apartment near Doc Andy’s office, which you and everyone is aware of, or knows, is not far down the road from here. Frank’s son will commence his doctor’s career by sharing the practice with Doc Andy, our long-time town physician, but he’ll be taking over the practice one hundred percent when the doctor retires the beginning of fall.”
“That’s fantastic. I was praying someone would take Doc Andy’s place when he flies off to Florida, or wherever he’s flying off to for retirement. I like being able to go right down the street here for my medical care. For me, I’m just grateful we’ll still have a local doctor. Every small town needs a general practitioner.
“Speaking of Kyle. Are he and Glinda still dating?”
Abigail snickered. “Still dating? They’ve been keeping company now for over two years. Two years. These days we’re taking bets on when the wedding will be. Kyle is head over heels for her, and she for him. Since he finished his schooling in Chicago, and is temporarily staying with us until he gets his own place, he’s at her and Myrtle’s house most nights. Now that Kyle has finished his internship hundreds of miles away, the two can’t be kept apart any longer. We’re so happy for them both. They’re a great couple together.”
“I would say so. They both help people. She with her psychic gifts and he with his doctor gifts. Frank must be so proud of the boy.”
“Oh, Frank is proud of him all right. Mostly he’s just thrilled Kyle will be living and practicing medicine here in Spookie. Close to home. He’s missed his son the last eight years.”
“I know he has. He talked and bragged about the young man often enough.
“How does Myrtle feel about Glinda and Kyle being a couple? I suppose if or when they get hitched they’ll be living at Glinda’s house?”
“Oh, Myrtle’s tickled about all of it. She’s known Kyle all his life and likes him. You know her, the more people the merrier.”
“Yeah. I know the old woman likes people. Being a talker, she would. Though I’ve seen her yakking a wild streak often enough to people who weren’t there, were invisible, as well.” The waitress chuckled. “But I guess we all have our little eccentricities. Myrtle grows on you.”
“She does,” Abigail answered.
“Is that son of yours still in that crazy band of his?” Stella’s weary blue eyes had rested on the teenagers at the next table. They were throwing food at each other. She tossed them a stern glance, clenched her fist in their direction, and the food stopped flying. Brushing her white hair away from her forehead in a habitual gesture, she sighed. Just another hard day at the diner.
“Oh, he’s still in that band. They’re really good, too. Or I think they are.” Abigail’s fingers had resumed drawing in the sketch pad resting on the table before her. “Music and songwriting are Nick’s passions; have been for years. He has announced he’s going to make it his life. The band is getting so popular; they have gigs most weekends. As soon as he’s out of high school, next year, he and the band plan to go on a national tour. He wants to make a real living out of being a traveling musician, singer and song-writer.”
“I knew a traveling musician, a friend, once. He was one of those long haired hippie types...but, oh, could he play that guitar of his. He had a mesmerizing voice, too. Wonder what ever happened to him?” Stella speculated aloud, tilting her head up as if she were gazing back into the years, remembering. Someone a couple tables over gestured for her, so she began to move away. “Talk to you later, Abigail. Duty calls.”
Abigail nodded; her head lowered as she gave her full interest once more to her drawing.
As she sketched, as it always did, time sped by, and she was so distracted she didn’t see her friend Myrtle hobble in until the old woman was standing in front of her.
“Hey there, Abby, have you looked outside the windows lately?” Myrtle’s voice was more high-pitched than usual and it gained Abigail’s attention right off.
Abigail glanced up. “Well, and a good day to you, too, Myrtle.” She hid her smile at the odd combination of faded clothes, (a cotton print dress, mauve-colored tennis shoes and bright yellow socks), the old woman was wearing; a floppy purple hat tamed down her white halo of hair. At least, she wasn’t wearing a coat of any kind, which was good because it was the middle of a scorching summer and the temperatures had been playing around the upper nineties for weeks. It was not outer-garment weather by any means.
“I mean it, Abby. Take a peek out the window.” The old woman was poised with a hand on her hip and a worried frown on her wrinkled face. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, balancing with the help of her cane. The cane was a new accessory she’d acquired since she’d broken her arm falling into the creek on her grandniece’s property two years before. These days she maintained she wasn’t as steady on her feet, at her advanced age, so best to be safe than sorry. The cane, a stick of wood with a marbled grain topped with the silver shape of an owl’s head, was unique. Eye-catching, actually. Glinda had given her the cane as a gift, and since it was so beautiful, Myrtle had decided to use it.
Abigail’s eyes examined the outside. On the sidewalk Myrtle’s battered red-slatted wagon waited where it had been left. These days Stella would no longer let Myrtle drag the thing into the restaurant where people might trip over it, so it remained exiled outside as it often did when Myrtle was in a business somewhere in town. The wagon was chock-full of sundry objects Myrtle had salvaged from somewhere (most likely someone’s trash pile) and was transporting to somewhere else, and the heat was churning in waves around it. Her eyes moved to the space around the wagon and then upwards into what sky she could see through the glass windows.
“Yikes, Myrtle, it’s green out there. Green.” And it was...the strangest hue of green Abby had ever seen. When had that happened? Higher in the sky there were swirling, threatening ebony-tipped clouds and the wind had picked up. Wow, it was really blowing out there, she thought, closing her sketch pad, putting her pencil away. A bad storm was coming.
So far August had been the hottest in a decade, but it looked as if it was going to break records for violent storms, as well. The relentless thunderstorms had developed remarkably early in the spring and hadn’t ceased since, but had been growing more ferocious each month, as if they were building on the one before and rising higher each time. Everyone in town would be the first to admit the summer weather had been bizarre. Sometimes Abigail felt like Dorothy in Kansas right before she was rocketed to Oz.
For a quick moment Abigail watched a woman hustle down the sidewalk past the diner’s windows, her head and shoulders tucked down against the wind, going somewhere in a hurry; probably to get inside somewhere to safety.
“Yep,” Myrtle stated, her eyes sliding again to what was brewing outside. “It’s the same shade of pissed-off green that can only mean a tornado is coming. Trust me, I’ve been around a heck of a long time–I’m old–and I know when a twister is a ‘coming. We got to get out of here and get to someplace safe. Into a basement or a deep cellar or something. Straightaway. I saw you in here and thought I would save you.”
Uneasy, Abigail pressed, “How long do you think we have before whatever is going to hit us hits us?”
Hand on her cane, Myrtle spun around and stole another sharp gander out the windows. The mouth in her wrinkled face scrunched up. “Not long. We need to get out of here. Now.”
That’s when the town’s alert sirens began to wail. Well, that answered that.
“Do you think we can make it to our cabin? The basement will keep us safe if the tornado, if there is one, decides it wants to chase after us. I have the car outside.” Abigail’s thoughts touched on her husband, Frank, and her son, Nick. Frank, off doing a wrap-up of a case he was conducting for the sheriff’s department, as a consultant, could take care of himself. Nick, with school out for the day, was most likely already at home.
“Maybe we can make it. Either to my house or yours. If we leave now. Let’s go.” Myrtle was already heading through the diner towards the door.
Abigail took out her iPhone and called Frank. He said he was almost home and not to worry. Just get herself home. Then she called Nick. He was aware of the coming storm and told her he was ready, in an instant, to flee to the basement. That took care of that. Both her men were safe. Now to get herself and Myrtle out of harm’s way.
Cramming her drawing tablet and the rest of her colored pencils into her art pouch, slinging it over her shoulder, Abigail jumped to her feet. The diner had practically emptied around them. The people she’d been sketching were the only other ones remaining in the restaurant and, seeing what was threatening outside, they were also running for the door. Good thing she’d finished the preliminary drawing. She had taken photos on her iPhone before her subjects had scattered, so she had more than enough to complete the painting.
“Goodbye, Stella! A bad storm’s coming and we’re heading to my house. Money’s on the table. Tip, too,” Abigail shouted at the harried waitress who was now busy behind the counter.
Seeing what was outside, Stella was obviously getting ready to close the diner and get her grandson, who was cooking that day in the kitchen, and herself to the basement below them.
“Goodbye, Stella!” Myrtle echoed. “Get to the basement if you want to live. It’s going to be a whopper of a squall, I’m telling you.” Myrtle rushed out the door with Abigail trailing behind her.
Outside, the wind had shifted into high gear. The sky had darkened even more. An empty trash can noisily bounced down the street followed by a fluttering flock of loose newspaper pages. She and Myrtle had to move quickly to dodge the empty trash can. Whatever had been in the can was long gone.
Abigail grabbed Myrtle’s old wagon by the handle, yanked it to her car, opened the hatch back area and threw it in.
The wind was shoving her around like a crumpled wad of paper and Abigail wondered if they’d make it to the cabin before the worst of whatever was going to happen would happen. Thank goodness there wasn’t a funnel cloud anywhere in sight. Yet. So that was a good thing. Perhaps Myrtle was wrong. Perhaps it was just going to be another storm.
Once in the car, Abigail put in another quick call to update Frank on what was going on, where she was, then she turned to Myrtle. “There’s no sign of a tornado yet. Do you want me to try to get you home first? I think we can make it.”
“Maybe.” Myrtle cranked her head downwards and peered out through the windshield. “Okay, since I don’t see no tornadoes yet, and I imagine Glinda is wondering when I'm getting home, let’s make a run for it.”
“Call her,” Abigail advised, “so she doesn’t worry.”
“My grandniece worry? Ha! She probably already knows what’s going on and what’s going to happen, being a psychic and all.” But Myrtle pulled her big-numbered cell phone, the one she now carried everywhere with her, out of her dress’s pocket and called her niece. “I’m with Abigail, Glinda. We’re coming home now. Don’t worry. Be there soon. Don’t fret, the tornado is nowhere in sight.”
Abigail heard the young woman on the other end of the call say something she couldn’t make out. Then the old woman hung up. Short and sweet.
“Glinda said okay. She’d see us soon. Said to drive safely. She also said we should stay off Highway Sixty-One. Don’t know why, but I always listen when she tells me not to do something.” Myrtle put her phone back in her pocket.
It still amused Abigail to see the old woman using a cell phone. She’d resisted having one for so long, but these days, since the creek incident where she’d been hurt, she listened to the people who cared about her and now always had her phone with her. Almost dying in that water, and the ringing of her phone locating and thus saving her, had cured her of being so anti-cell phone. These days her phone was a close friend.
The car sped away from Stella’s and drove down Main Street toward the road that would take them to Glinda’s place. Rain from the skies had begun to sprinkle around them. The wind’s voice was a low hum growing louder every second. Myrtle’s eyes were studying the troubled skies. There was a crackle, an electricity, that rippled all around the car in waves.
A limb, or something that looked like one, flew by Abigail’s window and crashed into the side of the hardware store. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the wind was yanking leaves, twigs and dirt from the forest floor beyond the town’s buildings and swirling them high into the sky in mini tornadoes. In moments all the flying debris had been sucked up into the atmosphere. The olive hue in the air around them had deepened even more. Everything appeared to be shades of it. The buildings, the streets, the cars whizzing by, the sky. The whole world was green.
They did not take Highway Sixty-One.
Yet they barely made it half-way to Glinda’s when the old lady, still gawking out the window, muttered, “Oh, oh. I might have spoken too soon. I think–holy cow! Look at that, would you!” Myrtle’s trembling finger pointed upwards through the window to her right. “Get a load of those clouds, thick as blankets, black as soot, traveling like crazy–and, wow, now there’s a funnel coming down. Tornado! By the looks of it, it’s going to be an enormous one...and it’s heading this way.”
Abigail decelerated the car as the rain drops pelted against the vehicle in earnest. Visibility had become difficult. She focused her gaze where Myrtle was staring and, as the funnel descended from the sky to the earth, she caught her breath. She’d never seen a tornado as close, as big, as this one was. It filled the green sky.
“Lordy,” Myrtle exclaimed in a loud voice, to be heard over the din, “I bet it’s at least an EF-4. Whoa! Look at that thing go.”
“It’s between us and your house, Myrtle. Between us and my house.” Now what do we do, Abigail thought frantically. The tornado was hurtling towards them, smashing and gobbling up everything in its path. They couldn’t continue on their present route or they’d run right into it. Thank goodness the twister was heading away from town and not towards it. Problem was, it was aimed in the direction of Abigail’s house. Under her breath, she sent up a swift prayer that everyone she loved was somewhere safe, and her home, as well as Myrtle’s, would be spared.
“I just remembered,” Myrtle piped up, her eyes reflecting the tornado barreling down at them. “I know a short-cut and it’s in the opposite direction. Guess fear brings things up you thought you’d forgotten forever. But it’ll get us away from that wind monster coming at us.
“Here,” she pointed to something on their left, “go down that road.”
“What road? I don’t see anything.”
“There! By that broken tree.” Myrtle pointed with one of her fingers to a tree that was split down the middle. “The road used to be called Suncrest. Long ago. I guess the old sign got run down, blown away, or something. Road is still Suncrest, though. I remember.”
In the sudden storm darkness, Abigail could barely see the road’s faint borders because it was so overgrown with age and weeds, yet she saw the rent tree clear enough.
“Also, as I recall, there’s an old house down this way somewhere,” Myrtle added. “What was its address? Let me see. Oh, yeah, 707 Suncrest. I remembered those numbers because seven is my lucky number and because the place has quite the history.”
At that moment, though, Abigail was too concerned over the tornado gaining on them to ask about that history.
“All right. I’m taking your mystery side road.” Wrenching the steering wheel around just in time to make the sharp turn, she took the nearly invisible road, then her foot shoved down hard on the accelerator. The darkness of the day had made seeing the thoroughfare completely impossible, so she hoped they didn’t end up in a ditch. They didn’t. The car sped forward.
A short way down the road there was a decrepit picket fence. The fence, with half the wooden slats missing, rambled down along the edge of the road and through the middle of what appeared to be thick woods. The car, buffeted by the wind, bumped and rattled over the gravel road, spraying tiny rocks everywhere.
“This is a shortcut to where exactly?” Abigail’s heart was pounding, her thoughts had scattered on the air. She could hear the tornado eating up the distance between them. She’d never been caught in a twister before but, people were right, it did sound like an approaching train. A loud noisy train. Under the difficult conditions, she drove as fast as she could. The lane was full of rocky ruts, the wind a vicious enemy. “Where are we heading?”
“Oh, it’s just another way to Glinda’s I used to take when I was much younger. When the house belonged to my sister.” To be heard over the storm, Myrtle had begun speaking louder and louder. “Hadn’t thought of this shortcut in ages. No one ever uses it anymore. The road is so bad and the creek washes it out more times than not every year. Then you need a boat to navigate it. No one lives on this road anymore, but it’ll get us to Glinda’s quicker. And if we’re lucky, in one piece.”
“Or we hope so.”
The trip took longer than it should have, what with the rough terrain and foul weather. The tornado was screaming somewhere behind them but with the unnatural night it was hard to see where it was. After a while, though, and more driving, Abigail did think the noise was lessening, and that the tornado was no longer right behind them. Thank God.
As she slowed the vehicle down, maneuvering a tricky curve in the lane, there before her, embedded in a patch of furiously swaying trees, rose a hulking structure framed against the cloud filled sky. It took a minute for Abigail to make out the structure was a house, and one that had long ago seen its best days. Its condition was ramshackle; its outside paint long gone, boards missing, shattered windows, weed and tree surrounded, sad and abandoned, but it was still a house, or had been. There were thick woods behind it, with those spooky clinging Kudzu vines over many of the limbs, and snaking between the branches, that made the trees look like weird animal shapes. The whole landscape was spooky to Abigail, and it wasn’t even near Halloween.
Abigail had never seen the house before, but then she hadn’t been down that way before. She hadn’t known the road or the house were there. The building, so massive and imposing, was in such disrepair, to her it mostly resembled a disintegrating castle.
A broken mailbox lay on the ground, in the weeds with the faded number 707 on it. 707 Suncrest. She couldn’t make out the name on the box. The name was too small and she drove by too fast.
But she saw the house–couldn’t miss it–and she had the uneasy feeling it saw her. The house and its eerie surroundings would make an intriguing painting, she ruminated, and knew immediately she wanted to paint it. She was going to paint it. It possessed such a haunting atmosphere. So much character. Envisioning the works of art on huge canvases, she believed they would make a great series of paintings. Hmm.
“Whose house is that?” Abigail inquired as her eyes lingered on the eyesore they were passing. The house was having the strangest effect on her. It made her troubled and excited at the same time. Somehow, in some strange way, it was familiar to her; as if she’d been there before, when she knew she hadn’t. It was begging her to come and paint it; to freeze its edifice forever in time on canvas. Paint me. I need you to paint me. You must paint me. I have been so lonely for so long.... A shiver caressed her neck and crept down her spine. The house was calling to her. How strange.
Myrtle hesitated and waved her hand at the place. “Oh, that house? It’s the old Theiss place.”
The dwelling was in the rear view mirror and was receding into the twilight along with the thundering tornado, which had roared off in the opposite direction. Abigail could hear the natural world again around her as the noise level also dwindled. They were out of danger. Lifting her sweaty hands one at a time from the steering wheel and wiping them off on her jeans, she breathed an inner sigh of relief.
“The old Theiss home?” Abigail repeated, as she stole one final glance of the house in the rearview mirror. “I never knew it was here. Out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Most people don’t know it is or don’t remember it is. Or don’t care it is. It’s a falling-down wreck with a ton of bad juju sticking to it like old glue. Good thing it’s hidden in the woods and nobody has to look at it. Time has not been kind to it.” Myrtle had swung around in her seat, her eyes scanning the land around them searching for something. Probably the tornado.
The wind had fallen to a soft growl so Abigail could hear her passenger’s words well enough. “Whew, Abby, I think the tornado is gone. Thank the Lord! We’re saved!” Myrtle was practically bouncing in her seat. “I hope it hasn’t done any real damage anywhere.”
“Me, too.”
They’d come to the end of the lane and Abigail brought the car to a full stop. “Which way?”
“Left.”
Abigail went left, recognizing where she was. She’d driven by the concealed road endless times since she’d married and moved in with Frank, but had just never noticed it before.
The wind was now a strong breeze churning around the car as it sped down the road. By the sound of it, the tornado had moved on or dissipated into history. Even the sky had lightened. The ugly green color was gone.
Abigail felt compelled to ask, “The house we just passed, the Theiss house you called it? Wow, it is a shame it’s fallen into such disrepair.” Abigail was shaking her head. “It must have been something in its day. It’s as big as a castle.”
“Oh, I heard it was something in its time. The biggest, most gorgeous home in a hundred miles. I was never invited there, but other people I knew were.” Myrtle glanced at her, astonishment on her face. “We just escaped death from a killer tornado, for sure, and you’re wanting to yak about a ghost house that’s crumbling into the grass and dirt on the side of the road. You’re a trip, Abby.” Myrtle laughed, slapping her thigh.
Abigail ignored the other woman’s reaction. “I’m just curious. I can’t believe you don’t find that decaying mansion as fascinating as I do. What’s its story? Why hasn’t anyone bought it? Why is it still empty after–how many years?”
Myrtle took a minute to think about the questions, lightly scratching the side of her face. “I don’t know. But it’s been empty for at least twenty years or so to my knowledge. Could be longer. I’m not so good with remembering the years anymore. I’ve lived so many of them, sometimes they all blur together.”
“So you don’t know who lived in it last and what happened to them?”
“The Theiss family, I reckon. I don’t remember much else about the place or why it’s still empty. But...wait...I do remember one thing.”
“What?”
“Our book lady, Claudia, has some connection to that house, something or other, I believe.” She let out a soft chuckle. “Cause once, in her bookstore I was looking for a good cozy murder mystery. I’d run out of things to read and you know how I get when that happens. Oh, boy, did she recommend a great one. It had this crazy cat in it and a foggy, spooky town full of eccentric characters. I–”
“Myrtle. The house?”
“Oh, yeah. That.”
“What connection does Claudia have with that old house back there?” Abigail had begun to come down from the earlier adrenaline rush that fear could create. Now she was feeling relieved they’d escaped any harm from the tornado, but she was also exhausted. All she wanted to do was get Myrtle and herself home; make sure her family was all right, eat a toasted cheese sandwich, then take a nap. Her hands on the wheel were trembling. Must be a delayed reaction.
“I think maybe the book lady knew someone who used to live in the house, or she knows someone who knew someone. Something like that. Could be she read something about the house and its history. I only recollect she mentioned the deserted place a couple of times in passing, so to speak. She said it had a tragic history or something. Real tragic. Go ask her about it.”
Myrtle’s attention was now on her house, now also Glinda’s house, as they drove up the driveway and parked by the front porch. “Whew, my home is still here and it looks to be untouched. Am I r-e-l-i-e-v-e-d. Whew.”
“Have you ever been in it?” Abigail asked, as she watched Glinda come out her front door, the cat Amadeus trundling behind her, and walk toward the vehicle.
“Been in what?” Myrtle snipped as she put her hand on the door handle, ready to exit the car.
“That old house in the woods? The Theiss house?”
“Oh, that. No way. It’s for sure full of bugs, spiders, rats and...ghosts. I stay away from dilapidated houses. Who knows when their floors will collapse, or their walls fall in on a person? It’s too dangerous. What? Don’t tell me you want to go and explore it now?”
“I might. It would make some painting. Don’t you think?” The feeling she had about the house in the woods, how it beckoned her like a siren’s song, confounded her. But she knew she would see it again because she was going to go back out there tomorrow, weather permitting, and start painting a picture of it. She’d made the decision as she’d watched the old house disappear in her rear view mirror.
“Agh! For Halloween maybe.” Myrtle threw her hands up. “Do what you want, but if you go poking around that rotting old house, be careful. There’s probably wild animals skulking in it and the ceilings might fall in on top of you.”
“I can take care of myself. I’ll be careful.”
Before Glinda reached the car, Abigail called Frank to let him know she and Myrtle were okay, but he didn’t answer. “I’m with Myrtle. Just wanted to let you know we’re fine. I took her home.
“Glinda and her house seem to be unharmed, too. I am looking at it and Glinda right now. Be home soon. Love you. Call me when you get this,” she left the message for him, and hung up as Glinda arrived at the open window.
Leaning down, Glinda murmured, “I’m happy to see you two. I was so worried. The weather report claims the tornado was a big one, but, so far, not much damage has been reported. Anywhere. Except for a lot of downed trees.” Her eyes went to her aunt. The two exchanged a smile.
“I told Abigail you’d be worried,” Myrtle spoke from the passenger’s seat, her smile fading. “We almost got blown away by a giant tornado. Did you see it? It was as big as a stadium.”
“I saw it. It passed by the house and flew down to the creek. It didn’t come close to our place at all.”
“You were afraid it would get our home, huh?”
“No,” Glinda replied. “I knew it wouldn’t.”
“The cards told you so, huh?” Myrtle spoke again.
Glinda’s face had a humorous expression on it.
Of course, Abigail assumed, like the tarot cards had told the young woman they’d be all right or one of her psychic insights had.
“I just knew. But I am glad the tornado didn’t get either of you, and relieved to have you home, Aunt Myrtle. Supper is about ready to go on the table.”
“Yippie. What are we having tonight?”
“One of your favorites. Oven baked round steak.”
“With those little roasted potatoes and carrots?” Myrtle seemed smugly pleased.
“Of course, Auntie. And yeast rolls. I know what you like.”
“Ah,” Myrtle winked at Abigail sitting next to her, “my niece just wants to fatten me up. She thinks I’m too skinny. Trying to feed me healthy. Sheesh! I keep telling her being skinny is normal for me and always has been. There’s no way she can fatten me up.
“But,” she grinned, “I do like to eat, so keep trying to fatten me up. I won’t complain.”
Abigail was observing the two women comfortably banter back and forth. Over their time together they’d perfected an easy relationship. They cared for each other and it showed. Myrtle moving in with Glinda two years before had been the best thing to happen to both of them. After Myrtle broke her arm Glinda had insisted the old lady rent out her own house and come live with her. It had worked out wonderfully in many ways.
Myrtle was still spry for a woman of her age, but she’d been slowing down increasingly of late. She’d been forgetting things. Even Abigail had begun to see it. A lot of people had seen it. Some days, too, Glinda had confided in Abigail, Myrtle’s arthritis was so painful she didn’t want to leave her bed, or the couch. Glinda’s herbal concoctions had helped Myrtle with the pain; helped her to sleep when she couldn’t. More importantly, Abigail knew the old woman had been isolated before, but living with Glinda had changed that. These days Glinda was a social person. Myrtle had even accepted all the crazy cats in the house. Which was hilarious to Abigail because the old lady had always made fun of her animal hoarder late sister, Evelyn, because of all the cats in the house she’d had when she’d been alive.
The only thing that mattered, though, from Abigail’s viewpoint, was that Myrtle was no longer lonely and neither was Glinda. So Abigail was happy they were living together. An added plus, was that she and Frank didn’t have to fret so much about the accident-prone and overly inquisitive Myrtle anymore. Most of the time Glinda kept a pretty close eye on her.
Glinda went around to Myrtle’s side of the car and helped the old lady out. Supported by the younger woman, her cane in the other, Myrtle was escorted inside the house. The day, the terror of the tornado, had worn Myrtle out, and she thankfully accepted the aid.
When Glinda returned to the car, Abigail got out, and she and Glinda tugged Myrtle’s wagon full of oddities out of the hatchback and put it on the porch beneath the roof.
Conversing through the screen door, as she leaned against its frame, Myrtle said wearily, “I guess I’ll deliver that stuff tomorrow.” She motioned at the wagon.
Glinda looked back and rolled her eyes at Abigail, but neither one of them uttered a word. Myrtle collected necessities for people at the nursing home and delivered them by her wagon. Her personal delivery service had slowed some the last couple years, but she still tried to get there at least once a week; claiming the old people depended on her so, she had to help them.
“Come on in for a sec and tell me about your tornado experience,” Glinda voiced over her shoulder at Abigail as the young woman went through the front door.
Abigail had followed Glinda to the house but hadn’t gone inside.
“I would,” Abigail said, “but I need to get home and make sure my house is still there; that Nick and Frank are okay. Myrtle can give you the lowdown on the tornado adventure. She was there.”
“I was and I sure will,” Myrtle replied, still in the doorway. “After I get some food in my belly and can sit down, rest a bit. I’m pooped. Being scared practically to death wore me out. Bye Abigail. See you soon.”
“Goodbye, Myrtle. Bye, Glinda.”
“Goodbye, Abigail.” Then the young woman, halting in the open doorway, spun around, stared straight at her and tacked on an odd request. “Be careful tomorrow, Abigail. Real careful, you hear?”
Glinda and Myrtle disappeared into the house before Abigail could question the psychic on what she’d meant, so shrugging, she got back in the car and drove off. She couldn’t get home fast enough, praying all the way her house and family were as untouched as Glinda’s property.
*****
THING WAS, THEIR CABIN wasn’t unscathed. As Abigail arrived home she saw their home hadn’t been spared; but, after examining the house and yard, she was only grateful the destruction wasn’t worse. At least the cabin was still there. Sections of the roof shingles were scattered across the yard, along with a mess of other debris and shattered tree limbs. One of the large oaks at the rear of the property was now root side up, its bottom sticking out of the dirt into the sky. The tornado had pulled it up by the roots and slammed it back down again. A wide swath of fresh dirt scarred the earth across the yard on the west side of the cabin. The shed in the backyard was nowhere to be seen. The wind had stolen it away. So the tornado’s path had clipped the edge of their land, but hadn’t done a fraction of the destruction a direct hit would have done. Like the town, Glinda and Myrtle, they’d been so lucky and Abigail, aware of that, sent a thank you up to heaven.
She came across Frank, who was in the yard collecting limbs and other flyaway trash, and gave him a hug as the German Shepherds romped around them, barking and yapping; probably out of relief the storm was over because they were terrified of them. The rare physical exertion had her husband breathing heavily, sweating profusely. He produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“You better take it easy,” she cautioned him half-teasingly. “You’re not as young as you once were...and, as hot as it is, it wouldn’t take much to give you–or anyone for that matter–a heat stroke.” With the storm gone, the heat had ratcheted up into the triple digits again. Abigail couldn’t wait to get inside into the air-conditioning.
Frank, for the second time, wiped the sweat from his forehead, picked up the rake that had been on the ground at his feet, and stood straighter. His face was flushed, his movements slow.
The dogs, woofing and bounding, ran past them and around the side of the house. Frank had left the gate open.
“Husband,” she announced, taking in the rubble all around them, “it looks like a tornado went through here.”
Frank wasn’t too busy, or exhausted, not to laugh. “It did, Wife. But we were darn fortunate. What you see is about all we got. It could have been worse. The most important thing is you, Myrtle and Glinda are okay.”
“As I said in my message, Glinda’s place wasn’t touched, either. Luckily. The town? Have you heard if it’s still there?”
“I called and talked to Sheriff Mearl. He reported that Spookie was mainly spared, except for downed trees, electrical lines and a flood of miscellaneous items the twister had snatched up and plunked down somewhere else. We were all incredibly lucky. The tornado skimmed along the town’s boundaries like it did here. As far as I know, there were no direct hits.”
“Thank God.”
Leaning on the rake, covered in grimy perspiration, Frank appeared exhausted. Abigail was as conscious as he that his doctor had been worried about his heart’s health for years, so she knew he should take a break.
“Come inside, Frank,” she coaxed, wrapping her hand around his arm, “you look like you’re about to topple over. Enough cleanup for now. It’ll be better this evening, or first thing tomorrow morning, when it’s cooler out here. I’ll even help you. But for now, I think you need a cold drink and something to eat. A rest.”
Frank swiped one last time at his forehead with the handkerchief, staring up at the sky. “That sounds like an excellent idea. I am tired, hot, and hungry. It has been quite a day.” He grinned. “I think I’ll finish cleaning this mess up tomorrow morning. Relax now. You’re right. It is too darn hot.”
“Like the sun.”
“Or close enough to it.”
Arm in arm, they moved toward the house. Abigail was relieved to be home. The day had been challenging and she ached to feel safe. Home was safe and, with the air-conditioning rushing through the rooms, home was blessedly cool.
“Where’s Nick?” Going up the steps to the back porch and then through the rear door into the kitchen, Abigail’s eyes scanned the room. If Nick was home, he’d typically be there. That’s where the food was.
“He’s up in his room devouring a plate of leftovers from last night,” Frank supplied. “He helped me clear away the largest limbs that came down in the yard first, but said he was working on a new song for the band. So I let him off the hook and freed him from the chain gang for today anyway. He said he’d help me more tomorrow if I need him.” Frank was filling a glass with water from the kitchen tap. In between gulps, “I bet, though, he’ll be down later for more food.”
Nick was going to be a senior when high school resumed in September. An honor’s student, he was hoping to graduate early in December so he and his band, The Young Ones, could start touring. As he put it, then he could begin his real grown-up life. The band, his music, his songwriting, were all he cared about. It was what he wanted to do for a living, and wanted to do forever. Abigail and Frank were proud that he was growing into an accomplished young man and, as Abigail thought, exceptionally talented. Not only could he play guitar like a pro, he’d self-taught himself the harmonica, keyboards and the fiddle, and he wrote beautiful songs. He was a born musician who, when he heard a song once or twice, was instantly able to recreate it. His music was a true gift.
They were proud of both of their adopted children. Their daughter, Laura, would be a junior at the Chicago Art Institute in the fall and, for the summer, was on a coveted internship at a high-end Chicago Art Gallery learning the basics of the world she would one day be part of. She came home when she could but her life, more and more, with school and now the summer position, was in Chicago. For the three summer months she was renting a tiny apartment close to where she was doing her internship. She and Frank missed her, yet were happy for her, as well. She was moving forward in her artistic life; doing what she wanted to do.
“Talking about food. Supper in this case,” Frank’s body was propped against the sink, “I was thinking we should have something quick. Easy. It’s been a day, we’re tired, and I don’t think either one of us wants to cook anything. Should I call in a pizza from Marietta’s and have them deliver it?”
“Sounds like a winner to me. Italian sausage and mushrooms. Cheesy Bread. Please.”
“Doing it now.” Frank had his cell phone out and was speaking into it.
“What’s this?” She paused at the kitchen table and picked up a thick manila envelope addressed to her. It looked as if it had been through a lot; sent first to her old address she and Joel had lived at once long ago, then the first house she’d lived at in Spookie, and finally it had found its way to her and Frank’s cabin. She took note of the return address on the back of the envelope and her stomach lurched ever so slightly.
It had been mailed from the office of Andy Bracco, the private detective she’d hired almost ten years ago now, to find her missing husband. But Bracco hadn’t found him, the police two years later had found her husband...dead in his wood-hidden car. Seeing that name and address on the envelope brought the private investigator’s image back to her along with a flood of unwanted memories.
Bracco had been a middle-aged, over-weight man, with odd light gray eyes and thick glasses, usually wearing blue jeans and often with a days old scruffy beard. She’d known him as a humorless, but very diligent, intelligent man who drank an awful lot of coffee. He’d worked out of a messy cubicle of an office in a strip mall not far from her old apartment. Not the best office, not the best investigator. He’d been only what she could afford at the time. Even after all the money he’d drained from her, over the months of his so-called investigation, he had not been the one to find Joel. There had been times, in her darkest days, when she’d feared Bracco had just been playing her. That he’d been steadily taking her money but would never find what he’d been hired to find. She was his meal ticket in those days. At the time all she knew was she had had to do something, Joel was missing, and Bracco was her something. As hard as doling out the money continuously had been, she hadn’t regretted it. She’d do it all again. But that was then and this was now.
Sure, the police had never found who had contributed to or perhaps caused Joel’s death, but as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. Not now. She didn’t want to reopen the wound that resuming the investigation would cause. Even if they discovered what had truly happened to Joel that night he had gone missing, nothing would change. He’d still be dead. And she didn’t want to revisit that dark time. Didn’t want to relive it or even think about it.
“What is it, honey?” Frank, off of the cell phone, was beside her, his eyes on the package she held. He could read her so well he must have grasped immediately something was wrong.
She told him. “It’s so strange,” she murmured afterwards. “Why would Andy Bracco send me a package? Now, almost eight years after the case was closed?”
“Well, open it and see.”
Abigail crumpled down in a chair at the table, her hands shaking; tore open the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers with a note clipped to the top of them. She didn’t want to see what was inside, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself.
The note read:
Dear Abigail Sutton,
I am sending you this file per request by my father, Andy Bracco, upon his death. Yes, sadly he passed away last month–he had a massive heart attack–and I was cleaning out his office, packing things up in boxes for storage or disposal, and discovered this file with a note from my father attached.
There was a separate scrap of paper included with the note she was reading. That note said:
Please, Evie, if anything happens to me send this to Abigail Sutton...her address is inside. I feel bad I never found her missing husband and after all was said and done, the police finding his body years later, I felt as if I owed her, at least, attempting to uncover what actually happened to him. I never found that out, either, I’m sorry to say, though I kept looking for years after his death. Perhaps these files on what else I did learn, most collected after his body was discovered and, if you’re reading this now, before I could gather them to send to her, might help the next person or next detective to discover the truth. Tell her I’m sorry I never did what I promised her I would. But I did try my hardest.
The main letter in Abigail’s hands, resuming the explanation from Bracco’s daughter to Abigail, continued on to finish: Abigail, he wanted you to have the file on the event that he died before he could find your husband’s killer. Yes, he believed your husband had been murdered and he never stopped looking for the killer. So, with my father’s death, I’m sending the file to you. Yours sincerely, Evie Bracco.
Abigail riffled through the crinkled, stained or dog-eared pieces of paper, her eyes widening as she took them in. There had to be over a hundred pages of neatly typed data decorated with hand-written notations in the margins, in what Abigail recognized as Bracco’s own distinctive, curvy letters and tightly packed, handwriting.
“Oh my god.” Abigail ran her fingers gently over the stack of pages on the table before her. She didn’t know what she felt. Shock. Sadness. Memories were flooding back she’d been trying to forget for years. It had been a decade since Joel had disappeared and eight since the police had found his body in his car in that ravine. Her life with and loss of Joel had been so long ago and, in her new life, she was happy. So why had this happened now?
Bracco’s daughter’s words: Yes, he believed your husband had been murdered...hit her again.
Murdered?
Damn you, Bracco, she fumed.
Abigail skimmed portions of some of the pages, then stopped and angrily shoved them back into the envelope. It was too hard to read what Bracco had written. Details of Joel’s vanishing, her report of him missing, the police search and interviews with witnesses and friends. All the horrible minutia of the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her life. The words on the pages jumped out at her and imprisoned her heart. All over again. She felt the old anguish and tears came to her eyes before she wiped them away. No! She wouldn’t cry. No, she wouldn’t let the tortures of Joel’s disappearance and death pull her down again. This envelope from another dead man resurrecting an old tragedy wasn’t going to upset her life. No way.
She rose from the chair, her legs unsteady. “After the day I’ve had, I can’t read any of this now. If I ever read it. I need time to digest this. I can’t believe after all these years that I have to deal with it again. No matter what this report says, Joel will still be dead. Even if Joel’s killer is found–if there even is a killer–Joel will still be dead.” Then, as hard as she tried to hold them in, the tears came and Frank took her into his arms. The day had been so exhausting and all she wanted to do was eat pizza, cheesy bread, and go to bed.
“It’s okay, Abby. It’s okay. You don’t have to,” he whispered, holding her closer. “You don’t have to open that envelope again if you don’t want to. You don’t ever have to read what’s inside if you don’t want to.”
She grabbed onto his words as a lifeline. “No, I don’t, do I? Or at least not tonight.” She drew away from him and swiped the tears off her face with the back of her hand. “I think I’m going to go upstairs and get freshened up before the pizza arrives.”
But, as she paused at the bottom of the stairs and caught a brief glimpse of the kitchen, she saw Frank pick up the envelope, open it, slide out the pages and begin reading. There was a look on his face she knew well. Intense cop curiosity. Anticipation. Without having to ask, she suspected what he was going to do now. He was going to scrutinize the information the late Andy Bracco had sent her, and he was going to attempt to unravel the mystery it held. What else could an ex-homicide detective, who loved her, do?
And Abigail knew what she was going to do. The first chance she got she was going to collect the envelope and stick it somewhere dark and hard to find; never read what was inside it. She was going to forget she got it until she had the courage to burn it, and its contents, to ash.
Then she had a better idea. Before she went up the stairs, she paused on the mid-way landing and spoke out loud, “Frank, do me a favor, would you? Throw that envelope in the trash for me? There’s nothing in it I want to see.”
After a moment, Frank’s voice answered, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” And then she went upstairs to clean up. That took care of that.