Chapter 12
At ten minutes after six on Saturday Abigail arrived at Frank’s cabin. Louisa and her husband Michael O’Neal and Martha and her friend Ryan Sutcliffe were already coffee klatching on the front porch. They introduced each other and Martha told Abigail that Frank was inside playing cook.
On her way to the kitchen she bumped into Frank’s son, Kyle, who was lurking in the living room, sitting on the couch with a laptop computer on his knees. His long fingers clicking away as fast as a magician’s. “Hi, I’m Abigail. You must be Frank’s son, Kyle?”
“Guilty.”
She put her hand out and he just looked at it and returned his attention to his computer. She waited for him to say something else but he didn’t. Kyle, olive-eyed, with a hairless face and short cut hair, was so unlike Frank that Abigail couldn’t believe he was his son. His clothes were the standard college uniform of T-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes and he didn’t look like a future doctor as he hunched over his laptop, his thin face serious. He looked like a kid.
Frank’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Kyle, you need to get the fire started for us, Son.”
“Okay, Dad. Doing it.” Kyle got up, shambled past her like a brontosaurus and headed for the deck.
“Nice laptop. A Macintosh,” she said to his back. “I used to work all the time on Macs doing ads for the newspaper. If you’re an artist, you need a Mac. Pretty shade of green.”
The boy paused a second in the doorway to look at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. “Thanks. It’s a good computer. I like the color. An artist’s computer, huh?” He smiled slightly, then went into the kitchen.
Abigail followed and found Frank busy preparing the steaks for the barbeque grill. The rear door slammed as Kyle exited to the deck.
“Are any of Kyle’s friends coming for dinner?” She put the plate of brownies on the kitchen counter. “I don’t see any other young people hanging around.” The kitchen was overflowing with brought food. Frank was supplying the meat and drinks.
“No. He insisted he didn’t want them over tonight. Too many grownups. He’ll see them tomorrow. I think he’s ashamed of us.” Frank chuckled. “I didn’t argue and count yourself lucky. Have you heard the music they’re listening to these days? Rap or hip hop. I can’t understand a word they’re singing. Drives me wild. It makes me want to pull out their hair.”
“I know the feeling. Rap isn’t one of my favorites, either. But my parents didn’t like the Beatles much, if I recall. They said they sounded like a bunch of off key girls.”
Frank glanced upwards, pursing his lips, and a smile slid out. “Neither did mine. Care for the Beatles, I mean.”
Abigail sampled the potato salad, her stomach growling. “Samantha couldn’t make it?”
“No. Something about going home to see her parents for the weekend. She said to say hi and let you know she’s working on the next chapter of the Summers’ saga. Told me to tell you there’s some letter marked personal waiting for you at the newspaper from some woman. You should come by Monday and she’ll give it to you.”
“I can’t read it until Monday? Darn. What else is new?” She watched him salt and pepper the meat and stack it on a plate.
He turned to Abigail. “I made a call to the sheriff this afternoon. He’s gotten complete forensic results on the bodies you found and on the two elder Summers.”
“The M.E. said it’d be a while for the results. Whew, they sure got it done quickly.”
“I pulled some strings is what happened because being a big city ex-detective has its advantages.”
“And?”
“According to the forensic anthropologist, someone whose specialty is osteology, the study of bones, the three bodies were an adult woman in her late twenties to early thirties and two children around ten to twelve years old, a male and a female. They’re Emily, Jenny and Christopher all right. I have little doubt of it.”
“Could they tell how they died?”
“When dealing with bodies dead three decades, forensic anthropologists can only assess age, sex, stature, and analyze trauma and disease with the bones which are left. Without any soft tissue, death by other means is hard to pin down. It takes longer. We got a break from the adult female body, though. Her bones showed she most likely died by strangulation. Her neck was broken and that was the probable cause of death.
“The two kids had no obvious traumas or injuries. They weren’t in any kind of accident. Car or otherwise. But the bones did show signs of poison, which permeates into the marrow. The same with the old people. They’re going to run more tests, but they wanted us to know what they’d found so far.”
“Broken neck and poisoning,” she echoed. “Jenny wrote in her diary how sick Christopher was that last week or so and her mother was also missing. If Christopher was being poisoned it would explain his mystery illness. And it’d explain how someone was able to get away with poisoning them so easily. No one was watching out for them.”
“That could be a possible scenario.” Frank had known those three piles of bones when they’d been walking, talking and feeling human beings with problems and dreams. His expression was unreadable, but Abigail suspected his memories were torturing him.
“Since you’ve found those graves, Abby. I can’t stop thinking about them, and how wonderful, but fragile, life is. It makes me grateful for this moment in time with good friends on a lovely summer’s evening and a terrific meal ready for us to enjoy.” His smile was bittersweet. “I’m a lucky guy.” He nodded and went to put the steaks on the grill.
She trailed after him, thinking of what he’d said about cherishing the good moments in life when they came and realized he was right. This was one of those times.
“You did a fine job with the fire, Kyle. Thanks.” Frank’s face softened when he was around his son. He put down the plate of meat, threw his arm over the young man’s shoulder, and gave him a hug. Kyle tolerated the show of affection, but made a face over his dad’s shoulder.
“I have to get something from my room.” Kyle grunted, sweeping his gaze across Abigail. He acknowledged her with a quicksilver grin and a hand gesture as he moved past. She’d been accepted. His shuffling footsteps made their way up the stairs to his room.
“He’s a good kid,” Frank said as he worked over the grill. “I only wish he were more outgoing and had more friends. He’s so darn smart, so in a world of his own most of the time there’s no room for anyone else.”
“He’ll grow out of it.” She voiced the observation and felt comfortable enough to make another one. “And that I-don’t-give-a care-about-anything attitude? It’s a façade to protect him from being hurt. He’ll open up to people in his own time. I think he misses his mother.”
“He does. He took her death real hard and, I think, blames himself for the car accident. Jolene died on the way to pick him up from a party one night. A party she didn’t want him even going to but he’d badgered her until she took him. I was on duty and wasn’t home. Weather was bad with snow and ice. She ran off a bridge. Kyle locked himself in his room for days and wouldn’t talk much to anyone, even me, after it happened. He seemed to pull himself together when he went off to college and I thought he was on the road to recovery. He’s not entirely, but he’s working on it.”
“And given more time and space, and your love, he’ll eventually heal.
“By the way, while we’re alone. Who is this friend of Martha’s, this Ryan fellow?”
The smell of the sizzling meat curled around her nose and made her eyes water.
“I was going to ask you the same question. This is the first time I’ve met him. All Martha told me was he was another realtor from Chalmers she’s known for a long time and he’s recently divorced. He seems like a nice enough guy. Except, as all salesmen, he talks too much.”
“Then Martha and he are perfect for each other.”
Frank laughed.
“I met your sister’s husband on the front porch. He’s
not very talkative, though, is he?”
Frank made a funny noise in his throat. “No, he isn’t. They’ve been married fifteen years and I don’t think we’ve exchanged more than a handful of words. He works in a mortuary and sells cemetery plots and stones on the side. I guess that explains it. His clients don’t talk much so neither does he. But my sister loves him and he’s been good to her so I put up with him.”
“Oh, you’re a good brother.”
“I am,” Frank affirmed with a mischievous grin. “Let’s join the others on the porch. I can hustle back here every so often to check on the steaks. They won’t take long.”
“Hey, how’s your novel going?” she asked as they reentered the house.
“Done and in the hands of my agent.”
“You promised you’d tell me what it’s about once it was finished.”
“I’ll give you a synopsis before you leave tonight I promise. Now comes the waiting. My agent told me not to dwell on it but move forward and start another one. I’m thinking, if it’s okay with you, of doing it on Emily, Jenny and Christopher. She thinks it would make a good story.”
Abigail wasn’t surprised. The newspaper had gotten such an amazing response to the articles, so Frank putting the mystery into a book made sense. “Okay with me. It’s quite a story, especially if we can find out who killed them and why.”
“Hopefully if we keep digging, we’ll solve it. Or, at least, get more answers. I won’t give up and I know neither will you. Emily’s counting on us.”
“Spoken like a true detective,” she muttered, trying not to let her uneasiness show, and then she returned to the earlier topic. “I’m going to hold you to that promise of a synopsis on your book tonight–even if I have to camp out on your porch. I won’t go home until I have it.”
“Hey, now that could be fun. I have extra fluffy sleeping bags and marshmallows we could toast over a fire. We could have a porch camp-out. It’s not supposed to rain.”
She let out a laugh and thought how good a friend Frank was becoming. He could make her laugh and that was rare. They joined the guests on the porch and the seven of them sat in the rocking chairs and got to know each other, or tried to, discussing trivial or important matters and the main themes of the night which were the Summers’ mystery and Frank’s book. They even got a few words out of Michael.
Ryan turned out to be a friendly man and Martha seemed smitten with him. They held hands and smooched when they thought no one was looking. They were so cute together, comparing notes on their work and making eyes at each other, though Ryan did talk a lot.
Which balanced out Michael’s muteness and Kyle’s holding back in the shadows.
They were waiting for the steaks to cook and Louisa was perched on the porch railing bathing in the warm twilight. “Abigail, I have a story to add to the Summers’ folder. Something I’ve never told my brother about Jenny and Christopher. I’m younger than Frank and though I was a deal older than Jenny, we hung around together some that last summer. I hadn’t thought about her and that house, that strange family, in years and years…until Frank gave me copies of those newspaper stories the Journal’s doing and I saw their pictures. It all came back.”
“You knew Jenny and Christopher?” Abigail was interested. Here again, another coincidence.
“I did. I met Jenny one day in the park, she and her brother were on the swings and she asked if I was Officer Lester’s sister. I said yes. My brother had been kind to them after a car accident where Christopher was hurt. She wanted to be instant friends and tagged around after me for weeks. I liked her but she was younger and a pest. They were peculiar kids, always daydreaming, drawing pictures and yakking about stuff like aliens coming to earth and…ghosts.
“Jenny believed there was a ghost living in her basement. Her grandma. And she believed the ghost talked to her all the time. One night I was stupid enough to spend the night. We slept on the front porch on cots, Jenny, Christopher and me. We ate popcorn and drank soda pop from cans. It was sweltering that summer night and we couldn’t sleep. The katydids were noisy and the dark was spooky.
“I remember that night very well. How sweet Jenny’s mom was to me before she left on her date. She asked if we needed anything else for the sleep over and made us a supper of cheese macaroni and oven-baked fried shrimp, the frozen kind you get from a box. She was so happy Jenny had a friend staying over. She was so pretty for a mom, I remember thinking. She wore make up and looked like a movie star with her blond teased hair and the jewelry. Her perfume smelled heavenly.
“I also remember how much fighting was going on in the house between their Aunt Edna and their mother before their mother left for the night. I was a child and didn’t take notice of what they were arguing about…something to do with a man…with the house. But it was terrible, the hatred between the women. I was glad to be out on the porch and relieved when the yelling stopped and Jenny’s mom left. We didn’t have that kind of arguing at our house. Our parents were happy and rarely raised their voices at us or anyone.
“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t stay friends with Jenny and Chris. Their Aunt Edna was a mean spirited witch. She had this malice towards her niece and nephew which was so strong you could feel it. Jenny told me she found glass in her breakfast cereal one morning and was sure her Aunt Edna put it there. She saw it before she put the spoon to her lips and tossed the whole bowl away. There were other times her Aunt tried to hurt her and Chris, she said, but I guess when she saw the look on my face about the glass in the cereal, she kept those to herself. I never knew whether to believe Jenny or not. She was always making up stories.”
Louisa looked at her brother. “And those two kids made me feel guilty because I had so much and they had so little. The clothes Jenny and Chris used to wear were used and frayed. Her mother got them from the church donation boxes. Jenny didn’t mind. But can you imagine a kid these days not caring how they looked? Kids today want designer labels, their own cell phones and computers.
“At midnight after Aunt Edna and Chris were asleep Jenny dared me to go into the basement and talk with her dead grandma. I didn’t believe in ghosts so I went. I thought it would be fun to show her up. That and I didn’t want her to think I was a scaredy-cat.”
Martha was unable to stand the suspense when Louisa paused. “Well, did you see the ghost?”
Louisa’s profile was faintly outlined in the fading light. “I’ll never know if I did or not. That’s the weird thing. Jenny and I went into the basement and she had this candle. She said her grandma always liked candles. It was eerie down there, so dark. You know how scary basements are when you’re a kid. And there was something down there…a pulsating shadow…which I never could quite get a focus on. A presence. I heard a voice, not mine and not Jenny’s, and it called Jenny’s name. Then something, like fingers, gently stroked my cheek. I started shaking so badly I ran out of the basement like it was full of snakes. Later, of course, back up on the porch, I told myself I’d imagined it.
“Here’s the clincher. Jenny claimed her grandma’s ghost was sad because her daughter Edna poisoned her and her husband. It gave me the creeps. I never went back there and avoided Jenny afterwards and it was a short time after that they left. Or so we believed. The stories in the newspaper brought the memories back. Sad to think they’ve been dead all these years, not away.” She shook her head. “Sorry, Abigail, I know it’s your house now, but I think it’s haunted.”
“It could be,” Abigail replied good-naturedly, “though I don’t really believe in ghosts.”
Frank announced the meat was done.
Martha stood up. “Now that I’m thoroughly creeped out, let’s go eat. We can have more ghost stories later when it’s dark so we can really get the full effect. I’ll even run out and hide in the yard and make spooky noises.”
After dinner everyone sat in the kitchen and played cards. Abigail talked Kyle into joining them and she thought, all in all, he had a good time. Later in the evening ev
eryone ended up back on the porch rocking in the chairs and talking, except Michael and Kyle, who rocked and listened.
The night was soft dry velvet, the moon above a huge white medallion which cast an ivory glow over the porch and yard. There was a faint breeze as Frank exposed the plot and the story of his novel.
Louisa rocked her chair slowly, seemingly in thought. “It sounds intriguing. It’ll sell, Brother. Soon we’ll be seeing your novels in the book stores and you on the talk shows acting the big shot writer.”
Frank’s laugh was spontaneous and humble at the same time. “Spoken like a baby sister.”
“I like the title,” Michael surprised everyone by blurting out loud and people laughed.
Michael and Louisa left first, then Martha and Ryan. Abigail, Kyle and Frank remained on the porch talking about and dissecting their favorite horror movies. Kyle had let down his defenses, behaving like a normal human being as he entertained them with tales of his college classes and his teachers. The evening had been so much fun Abigail didn’t want it to end.
“Thought I’d warn you early, Abby,” Frank said as she was leaving. “Next week there’s another town picnic. No crafts, but homemade chili and ice cream, rides, and a bonfire later.”
Leave it to her to relocate to a town which celebrated something every other week of the year.
But as she steered her car home, her mind wasn’t on the upcoming festivities, it was on Emily and the kids and what had happened to them, on the bodies’ forensic results, and what Brown and then Louisa had said about them…and whether there really was a ghost in her basement.