Swamp spirits, p.9
Swamp Spirits, page 9
I leaned toward Ida Belle and whispered, “No filter.”
Ida Belle unclenched her hands and scanned the land. I had to admit, he had a point about the property. The pink nightmare sat in a nice flat clearing about two acres in size, and huge old oak trees lined both sides, creating a nice border for the property. It backed up to a good-sized bayou with plenty of room to put a pier.
“This is a nice lot,” Ida Belle acknowledged. “I don’t know that I want the hassle of building, but it’s definitely something to think about. Fortunately, we don’t have to be in a hurry.”
“If you say so,” he said, looking at Ida Belle as if he was afraid she was going to keel over right there in the driveway. “But building would probably take six months or better. Don’t wait too long.”
Gertie started coughing, clearly to cover her laugh, and I was struggling myself to hold one in. I didn’t dare look at Ida Belle, because I was certain the expression she must be wearing would send me right over the edge. How on earth had this guy convinced Harrison and Cassidy to buy that house? I would have thought he’d ‘tell it like it is’ until they were no longer interested.
Or wanted to shoot him, which seemed equally viable.
“I think you were the Realtor who helped my friends out,” I said, turning the conversation to the real point of this somewhat amusing exchange. “Ben and Cassidy?”
“Oh yeah!” Travis gave me an energetic nod. “Nice couple. Bought that huge haunted house. I never thought I’d sell the thing.”
“Haunted?” I asked.
“Oh yeah!” he said again. “That place is practically crawling with ghosts. I don’t know why anyone would want to live in it, but I guess if you only look at the cost per square foot, it was a great deal.”
“Not if you’re sharing it with people who aren’t paying rent,” Gertie said.
He laughed. “You always were funny, Ms. Gertie.”
“How long did you have it listed?” I asked.
“Not long at all,” he said. “Maybe a month or so. No one else in our area would take the listing of course. We all know the stories. Some outfit in New Orleans had it before me. They didn’t even bother to put it online, but the agent with the listing got testy with me when I told them the estate had signed me on to take over.”
“She’s probably even madder now that you got the commission on the sale,” Ida Belle said. “What agency was that? I’ll make sure I avoid them.”
He nodded. “Good idea. It was Duval Real Estate—they’re a pretty big outfit—the agent’s name was Karmin Blay. I got the impression she was kinda new. Probably got in trouble over not putting up the listing and losing it. She sounded hot, though. Shame she had that attitude. We could have had some beers.”
“Ben said it had been sitting empty for some time,” I said, turning the conversation back to the house. “Did you have problems with vandals or squatters? I noticed it didn’t have a security system.”
“None of those kind of problems that I ever saw,” he said. “But then, unless you’re local, you wouldn’t even know the place was out there, so it’s not like it’s going to get random passersby. And if you know it exists, then you know it’s haunted. People don’t want that stuff following them home—ghosts or squatters, really.”
“You’ve really thought this out,” I said. “But you had no problem being in the house.”
He shrugged. “I think it might be kinda neat to have a ghost. Especially if you could teach them things. I mean, think about all the time you could spend fishing or drinking if you had a ghost doing your laundry.”
I glanced over at Ida Belle, who was staring at Travis as if sizing up a target. I couldn’t really blame her. I could feel my IQ dropping with every minute of our exchange.
“So did you ever see a ghost?” I asked.
“Oh yeah!” he said. Apparently, it was his favorite phrase. “I saw this woman wearing a white dress several times. But I never could catch up to her.”
Gertie stared. “You chased the ghost?”
“Well, sure,” he said. “How else was I going to swing that laundry thing? Anyway, the first time I saw her was when I was pulling up to the house, and she was looking out at me from one of the bedrooms upstairs.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“The one at the end of the hall on the north side. But when I got up there, she was gone. Then I saw her walking into a room on the opposite side of the second floor one day when I was taking measurements, but she disappeared again before I could catch her.”
“Did you hear her?” I asked.
He wrinkled his brow. “You can’t hear ghosts. I mean, unless they’re playing a piano or something—hey, I have an old guitar—”
“So you only saw her,” I interrupted. “You never heard any noise like footsteps or a door opening?”
“She wouldn’t need to open doors,” he said, looking confused. “She’d walk through them.”
“Right,” I said. “Did you see her any other times?”
“Oh yeah! I saw her outside the house walking in the woods one night when I went to put my listing sign in the yard.”
“And did you follow her then?”
“Nah, I was late for a poker game, and I was the one bringing the beer.”
Of course he was. “Did you ever notice things moved around in the house?”
He shook his head. “Don’t see why a ghost would move things around.”
“Well, it might be that she can’t,” I said. “Which means she couldn’t do laundry either.”
He frowned, giving that thought far too much consideration.
“I guess you’re right,” he said finally. “I suppose it’s just as well I sold the place. I can use the commission to have my clothes laundered.”
“Did you take a lot of pictures for the listing?” I asked. “I noticed there were only five online when I checked after Harrison told me he was considering it.”
“Oh yeah! I took a bunch, but my broker told me to only put up a couple and maybe that would get people curious. I think it was really because he just didn’t like all the clutter in the place. He’s one of those guys who prefers his house to look like no one lives there except for the furniture. I suppose it’s easier to clean, though.” He brightened. “Or, I could clean off those family pictures on my living room shelves and use them to store chips and ammo.”
Since it was the first thing he’d said that made sense, I nodded.
“Would you mind sending me those extra photos?” I asked. “I have someone who might be interested in cataloging the antiques for Ben and Cassidy, and that way I could give him an idea without having to spend half a day taking my own pictures.”
“Oh yeah! I can do that. No problem.”
I handed him my business card and pointed out my email.
“Despite the ghost thing, I’m surprised no one else was interested in the house,” I said. “I mean, it is rather impressive in a Stephen King sort of way.”
“Oh yeah! There was this one dude who looked at it before your friends, but I don’t think he had the money for it. We get that sometimes—people just wanting to see the inside of something. He asked a lot of questions too about the previous owners and the guy who built it. Not sure why he thought I’d know anything about all that. Dude built that house like a thousand years ago.”
“I don’t suppose you remember that guy’s name? Maybe you have it on your calendar?”
“Matthew? Mark? Mac? Something like that. I dropped my phone in a beer stein last week and lost everything on it. Did you know you could do this thing called ‘backup’ and then if your phone dies, those smart guys can just put it all back on a new phone?”
I held in a sigh. “You don’t say. Can you describe him?”
He shrugged. “Tall.”
Given Travis’s height, ‘tall’ might be anywhere from five foot eight to seven foot even.
“Age?” I asked.
“Heck, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t spend time scoping out dudes, you know? Older than me, maybe? Why do you want to know so much about him?”
“Just wondered if anyone might have been disappointed that my friends bought the house first. It’s a lot of house, so if they ever wanted to sell, then he might be a good place to start since he’s already shown interest.”
“Oh, I get it. But they could just list it with me again. I mean, I sold it to them. I can sell it to someone else. Sure would be nice to make a big commission on the same place twice. I’d get my truck repainted.”
“Something less apparent—maybe a nice navy blue?” I asked.
“Heck no! That green’s awesome but it’s starting to fade. It used to really pop.”
“Well, Travis,” Ida Belle said, “you’ve given me something to think about with this lot. I’m going to talk to Walter about building versus buying an existing structure. That might be a better direction for us.”
He nodded. “You let me know. I have a couple other lots, but this is the best one. Honestly, I don’t have any houses nicer than what you guys already have, so there’s not much point in showing you any.”
“I appreciate your time,” Ida Belle said. “Say hello to your grandmother when you see her.”
“I will.” He headed off to his truck, and we climbed in Ida Belle’s SUV and all sat silently for a couple seconds.
“Someone pull up a Stephen Hawking workshop on their phone,” Gertie said. “We need a palate cleanse.”
“I know you warned me,” I said, “but can I just say, ‘wow.’”
“Oh yeah!” Gertie said and Ida Belle and I groaned.
“Well, the one interesting thing is that Travis saw the same ghost that Cassidy did,” I said. “So we have some corroboration. And he saw her more than once and one of those times was in the same room Cassidy saw her in.”
Ida Belle nodded. “It is rather interesting. I mean, I certainly didn’t think Cassidy was seeing things or being overly dramatic, but when someone with no filter and a lack of creative thought says the same thing, it adds another layer of credibility.”
“I don’t know…that whole ghost-doing-the-laundry thing was fairly creative,” I said.
Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “That was just extreme laziness pushing through.”
“What about the agency who had the listing before Travis?” I asked. “You ever heard of them?”
“I’ve seen the name online when I’m looking at listings in New Orleans,” Ida Belle said. “But I’ve never talked to anyone there.”
“I wonder how willing this Karmin would be to talk to us,” I said.
“If she’s mad, that could go either way,” Gertie said.
“True,” I agreed. “So what do you think about this guy who asked to tour the property? Lookie-loo?”
“Quite possible,” Gertie said. “But I wish Travis could have remembered the name.”
“Yeah,” Ida Belle agreed. “Unfortunately, I think the Travis avenue of inquiry is tapped out.”
“Maybe the additional pictures will tell us something,” I said. “I want to compare them to the items in the house, and maybe we can pinpoint if anything is missing.”
“That would be a big break,” Ida Belle said. “All it takes is finding one stolen item that’s been hocked and we might be able to track it back to the thief.”
I nodded. “Well, now that our patience has been tried and our trigger fingers are itchy, let’s go see Scary Mary.”
Chapter Nine
Mary lived in one of the original neighborhoods close to downtown Mudbug. It looked a lot like our neighborhood except the houses were older. It had large lots with huge oak trees that were probably a hundred years old. The houses were set farther back on the lots than mine was, and giant azalea bushes created borders on the sides of most properties. The bushes were beautiful when blooming, and they provided some privacy, although anyone could just step right through them. Until Godzilla had chased him up a tree, Ronald had made a habit of doing it. Now he made a habit of using the front door.
Mary’s house had the old white clapboard siding and could have used a good power wash. The front porch was sagging a bit but overall, the place looked structurally safe, which surprised me a bit. Usually, contractors weren’t all that happy to work places where they might get shot, and I couldn’t imagine someone Mary’s assumed age climbing onto her roof to make repairs. But then a flash of Gertie and the stripper pole went through my mind, and I switched my thought process to ‘anything’s possible.’
Ida Belle backed into the driveway so that we were getaway ready and left the keys in the ignition. We’d donned our vests back at my house, so we were as good as we were getting. We climbed out of the SUV and headed onto the porch, Gertie clutching a casserole at almost neck level so that Mary could see we came observing Southern rules for visiting without calling.
We stood on the sides of the door, just in case Mary answered by firing first and asking ‘who’s there’ later, then I reached over and knocked. Almost immediately, I heard someone ranting inside. So on the plus side, she was still alive and verbal. On the negative side, her mood didn’t seem all that grand. A couple seconds later, the door flew open and a shotgun barrel came out.
I could have easily grabbed it and disarmed her, but I didn’t figure that was a good way to get her to talk. So instead, I grabbed the casserole and held it in the doorway.
“Mary?” Ida Belle called out. “This is Ida Belle and Gertie from over in Sinful.”
“Sinful?” Mary asked. “This ain’t Sinful.”
“I know,” Ida Belle said. “We came to visit you. Gertie brought you one of her famous chicken casseroles.”
“Hmmmph,” Mary said. “Might have heard something about those. You going to show your faces or just stand there lurking like those religious men I sent packing last week?”
Ida Belle and Gertie poked their heads around. Ida Belle’s eyes widened, and Gertie started shaking as though she was trying not to laugh out loud.
“We brought a friend with us,” Gertie said, sounding somewhat strangled. “Her name is Fortune.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Joseph,” I said, still holding my position. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I don’t like strangers in my house,” Mary said.
“She’s dating Deputy LeBlanc,” Ida Belle said. “That’s Emmaline’s son. You remember Emmaline LeBlanc, right?”
“’Course I do,” Mary said. “She’s a God-fearing woman of class and high moral standards. Don’t have too many of those among the young these days.”
As Emmaline was well into her fifties, I had to smile at the ‘young’ comment. It really was all relative.
“Well, seeing as she’s stepping out with Emmaline’s boy, I guess she’s okay,” Mary said. “But she better not try any funny stuff. I won’t have no one pilfering my silver.”
“No ma’am,” Ida Belle said. “She’s actually the one holding the casserole, so her hands aren’t available to pilfer.”
“Then you best come in,” Mary said. “Can’t have you standing around on my porch or those religious men will get the idea I’m open to such things. I was in the first pew Sunday morning and night and every Wednesday evening for over seventy years, like any good Baptist. Just cause my back gives me problems and I don’t go to the Lord’s house anymore don’t mean I need strangers on my porch telling me about Jesus. I know all I need to know.”
“That’s because she used to babysit him,” Gertie whispered to me as Ida Belle stepped inside.
I rounded the corner, still clutching the casserole, figuring it could be used as a weapon if things went south, and got my first look at Mary. I blinked. It was like watching a historical film.
Old as Sheriff Lee or better. Five foot five. A hundred pounds and at least ten of that was her outfit. Muscle had probably fled along with Moses and his people when they left Egypt. The rifle was good quality, but there was no way she could aim to shoot me before I got away. Threat level low but still somewhat questionable. She did have a purse looped over her elbow.
But the outfit was the real kicker. It was one of those long gowns with big ruffles and sheer fabrics, and the entire thing was canary yellow. Her hat was an enormous wide-brimmed straw one and had more flowers on it than my bushes produced in a year. I was surprised her neck was supporting both the hat and her head.
She gave me a long stare, then hitched the rifle up on her shoulder like a soldier and headed down the hallway. Since she didn’t fire or slam the door in our faces, I assumed that was our cue to follow her. Ida Belle looked over at me and shrugged as we headed after her. The hallway opened into a kitchen at the rear of the house with big windows on the back wall that looked out over a large yard.
“I’ll bet your bushes are beautiful when they’re blooming,” Gertie said.
Mary sat in a chair at the kitchen table, one hand still clutching the rifle. “Of course they are. Any Southern woman worth her salt has mature azalea bushes and some roses. Planted those roses myself—won at the state fair five years running. Will you all sit down? It’s hurting my neck staring up at you. And don’t be thinking I’ll be serving you anything. Didn’t ask for visitors, and I’m not inclined to act like the hired help in my own home.”
“Of course not,” Ida Belle assured her, but she didn’t look remotely mollified.
“Do you still maintain everything yourself?” Gertie asked, obviously trying to get Mary to relax and talk about basic things. “Looks like you’d need a ladder to trim some of them.”
“Of course I maintain them,” Mary said, sounding indignant. “Takes a while with my knees and my back but I don’t want fools traipsing around my yard, butchering my bushes. Young people can’t be depended on for anything these days. The whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.”
