Chapter 5
“Walk me through it again Sherry Lynn,” Santi said, moving toward the front door instead of toward the stairs where Mrs. Willoby fell, or “was pushed by unseen forces,” if Mrs. Willoby’s family members were to be believed. Which he didn’t.
Pushed. Hell, the older woman had probably tripped in all this damn gloom, Santiago thought. He’d been in caverns in Afghanistan brighter than this.
Propping the front door open, he went about opening the front room’s heavy brocade curtains which were a shade lighter than the eggplant purple paint on the walls. Shadows and gloom—not from supernatural forces—continued to hang heavy over the place.
“Why the hell would y’all paint the walls this color, Sherry Lynn? In broad daylight I almost need a damn flashlight to see in here.”
“It’s what Mama wanted, Sheriff,” Sherry Lynn said, adjusting her three-year-old daughter on her hip. “You know when she got a thought in her head there was no changing her mind.”
Farther down the hall, Edgar, another of Ms. Willoby’s seven adult children, stepped from the kitchen.
“And she done gone and got herself killed over that damn stubbornness,” he said, fresh bruises on his face. “Every White family that’s lived in this house since them Moors have died from this damn curse, but did that stop Mama, oh no, not our mama…not until today.”
“It’s the grief Sheriff,” Sherry Lynn said apologetically. “It makes us say heartless things.”
Edgar was just an asshole, and Sherry Lynn knew it.
The only reason Santiago felt remotely satisfied with his decision not to arrest Edgar at the parking lot brawl last night was because it allowed the man to be here and grieve with his family.
It didn’t matter if Edgar’s eyes were red, watery, and swollen from crying or his alcohol and drug use, he’d just lost his mama, and the Willoby clan may be spread all over Tennessee and West Virginia, but they were committed to their family.
“Doc Cleveland has your mama now and he’ll let us know cause of death. In the meanwhile, I’m gonna have to ask you all to clear the house now. We’ll let you know what we find upon the conclusion of our investigation. Roan?”
When he didn’t get a response, he turned to see his deputy still standing outside the front door.
“Roan,” he called out again, demanding her attention.
“Sheriff?”
“You wanna escort the family out so we can finish up in here?”
Most of the family, the superstitious part, were outside in the yard or on the porch with Roan. Three of Mrs. Willoby’s siblings were in the back of the house talking low.
“Ya’ll come on out,” Roan called, waving Sherry Lynn, Edgar, and their uncle and two aunts toward her.
Everyone left dutifully except Sherry Lynn and baby Anna, who watched Santiago from where her head rested on her mother’s shoulder.
“I’ll leave you to your work Sheriff, but whether my mama’s death is due to a heart attack or an accident, I saw what I saw.
There was a shadowy spirit standing near Mama’s body when I came into the house.
It disappeared into thin air right before my eyes.
This house, it needs to be torn down before another innocent person dies in it. ”
Ms. Willoby was far from innocent. That old woman had been raising hell since his grandparent’s time.
“What happens with the house is you all’s business, Sherry Lynn. I’ll let you know when you’re able to return. Roan!’’ He snapped out before turning back to the grieving daughter. “I’m sorry about your mama, she was a hell of a woman and a good neighbor.”
A fresh set of tears spilled down Sherry Lynn’s face.
Kissing the crown of her baby girl’s head, Sherry Lynn mumbled a tearful “thank you, Sheriff” and left the house.
“Be careful,” he heard her warn Roan as she stepped beyond the threshold of the front door.
Santiago walked toward the back of the house to the area where the body was found.
“Don’t you find it strange that she’d die the day all her family had come up the mountain to visit her.”
“Mrs. Sadie, Mrs. Willoby’s older sister, is up here from Natchez, Mississippi. She said the family came up for Mrs. Willoby’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration. Her deathday may be the same as her birthday. If that ain’t the creepiest thing.”
Walking toward what he knew to have been a mirror due to the fragments of reflective shards on the stairs, Santiago pulled back black silken material draped over a mirror mounted on the wall opposite the stairwell landing.
He heard Roan’s sharp intake of breath.
A concave, spider-web fracture with traces of blood dripping down onto the bottom of the brushed-gold frame had dried before falling onto the floor.
“The whole scene has been compromised.”
“The family says Mrs. Willoby had been getting sicker and sicker for the last two weeks but refused to go to the hospital. Her cousin Bigalow says she’s been nearly bedridden for the last week, too weak to walk much farther than her bedroom and back.
The fact that she got out of bed and made it all the way down here means she must’ve been too terrified of something in her room to stay there. ”
“Or too terrified of someone. Given that we investigate crimes of humanity, Roan, let’s look for concrete evidence and leave the ghost hunting to second-rate reality show hosts.”
Something crashed upstairs and there was a sudden putrid smell that floated down from the upper floor.
Santiago unholstered his weapon and crept up the steps, shoulder against the wall.
It took a few seconds for Roan to shake the wide-eyed terror that seized her, then her years of military training kicked in, and she took up position against the banister and two steps below him pointing left as he pointed right.
The upstairs area had been cleared once they’d gotten here. Besides them, there shouldn’t be another living person in this house.
When they neared the top of the stairs, Santiago crouched low and Roan knew to hold. No one was in the hall toward the right, and he shook his head. Roan took another step and peeked around the wall to the left. She shook her head.
The hallway was clear. Nothing but deep shadows and whisps of midmorning light.
Turning, Santiago indicated he’d take the rooms to the left and Roan take the rooms to the right.
Roan shook her head so vigorously one of the braids laying against her back flipped onto her chest. Santiago rolled his eyes.
Mrs. Willoby’s room was at the end of the hall to the right, and apparently searching Mrs. Willoby’s room was a line the best special ops tracker he’d ever worked with refused to cross.
Santiago started with the bathroom directly across from the stairwell; Roan walked up the last two steps and veered left down the hall.
Was the house haunted? Yes, as was the lake.
He was the only person who ritualistically chose to enter this side of the lake.
Who chose to see, feel, and hear the spirits who’d died there.
Inside the house, the only spirit he’d encountered was that of a child.
He’d only encountered her once before. When Ned Tate, the owner before Mrs. Willoby, had hung himself in the attic.
The spirit had been there near the window overlooking the front of the house.
In the direction Roan was walking. In all the years he’d lived and visited Shrouded Lake, he’d only seen her the once.
The upstairs bathroom was large, the size of a bedroom. It had been that way from the time the family transitioned from the outhouse still existing on the property to indoor plumbing in the rooms.
Unlike Santiago’s and Julian’s homes, Mrs. Willoby hadn’t done much renovation outside of the hideous paint.
Like the first time he’d checked, there was nothing out of place in the bathroom.
Santiago looked out the rectangular window above the toilet, and nothing looked out of place on the leaves scattered on the ground below. Scanning the tree line, he didn’t see anything that made him pause.
“All clear back here, Sheriff,” Roan called out.
Santiago stepped out into the hall and shut the bathroom door behind him.
“Make sure the family’s cleared the property and do a walk around,” Santi directed, walking toward the open bedroom door. Quickly scanning the room, he re-holstered his weapon.
“You sure you want to go in there alone?”
“You want to come with me?” he asked with raised brow.
“I’ll be right outside,” she said, holstering her gun and trotting down the stairs. “Holler if you need me. And if the dead rise up and rip out your tongue making it so you can’t holler, you’ll die alone because I won’t be stepping foot back into this house.”
Santiago laughed.
His smile disappeared the moment he stepped into the room.
Just like his initial walk through, there were no obvious disturbances other than the smell.
Mrs. Willoby’s queen-sized bed was against the far-left wall centered between two long vertical windows.
The window on the far side of the bed was open.
On the nightstand beneath it, the cream porcelain lamp with painted pink Begonias was intact.
As was the lamp on the other side of her bed.
Nothing appeared to be shattered or broken in the bedroom.
Striding across the room, he pulled back the lace cream curtains and opened the intact double glass doors that led to the balcony.
If there was ever a place he thought Mrs. Willoby would die, it was out here on her rickety wooden balcony overlooking Shrouded Lake.
When she was well, hell, even when she was ill, she sat out here drinking her morning coffee, afternoon tea, and evening whiskey.
She hadn’t owned the home for long, but the older woman enjoyed her days looking out over the water.
Stepping back inside, Santiago shut the French doors. When one sense didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, he knew to lean more heavily onto one of his others.