Chapter 5 #2
Now familiar with the furniture in the room and the room’s dimensions, he walked the perimeter of the space and returned to the bed where the smell was the strongest.
It wasn’t the smell of death or sickness. More like rot and mold.
Opening his eyes, he squatted down and pulled back the bed covers. He ducked to look beneath the bedframe and pulled back sharply as the acrid scent singed his nostrils.
On the hardwood floor, in the centermost area beneath the bed was what appeared to be a small, shattered vessel. Something dark and oily seeped from the broken shards of what may have been a palm-sized jar.
“What the hell is this?” he said, rising, and pushed the foot of the bed over until he could clearly see the dark-blue glass jar, like something you’d see at an antique sale.
The broken object had been placed dead center of the bed.
The oily substance contained flower petals, slimy looking leaves, and other herblike bits, but that wasn’t what made the fine hairs on his forearms stand on end.
It was what looked to be two little chicken hearts that had apparently rolled from the oily container and left a trail about a foot away.
Santiago rubbed the tension building at the back of his neck.
The warmth of his hand against his cooling skin made him realize the room had become extremely cold. Unnaturally so.
“Well shit,” he muttered, rising. Maybe he’d delay telling Roan about this turn.
He’d been through too much, seen too much, not to know when he was in the presence of something from the other side.
Life in Appalachia had always been woven within the material of the unknown and unseen.
Life on Shrouded Lake more so…enough so that he couldn’t rule out the implications on Mrs. Willoby’s death.
Roan’s blood curling scream echoed through the house, and Santiago ran out of the house, ready to take out whatever and whoever hurt—
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” His neighbor, Julian St. James shouted, arms up. One hand was spread wide, the other held a small, fully intact, dark-blue jar sitting inside a handkerchief.
“Roan?” Santiago asked, making sure she was okay as he holstered his weapon.
“He scared the shit out of me,” his deputy shouted, rising from the ground, the side of her uniform now muddy. “I was circling back from the front yard, and this idiot just steps from behind a tree, smiling like a fucking psycho.”
“I thought you’d be as pleased to see me as I was pleased to see you, Deputy Gray,” St. James said smoothly.
The man was cultured, more handsome than he had a right to be, and wealthy, and a good friend.
“I was smiling because I was a man who could bring you a possible clue. I thought it would put me higher in your regard.”
“This is not one of your stupid crime thrillers, St. James,” Roan snapped, shaking mud from her hands. “It’s tampering with possible evidence, evidence that you probably planted.”
“No, my wild Roan. I walked over here to say hello and find out what was happening with Mrs. Willoby. I saw you going toward the woods and started to follow but something strange, like a phantom moving through the woods nearer to the house, shifted my attention. I walked over to that tree but no one was there, just this little bottle laying on its side. The whole thing, the phantom, this curiously clean jar, the tension I felt…I got lost in my imagination, thinking of ways I could use it all in a novel. Then I saw you and imagine—”
“Julian, did any of the contents get on you?” Santiago interrupted.
“I may be overly imaginative, Stillwater, but I’m no amateur.” He held out the jar to Roan. For all his eccentricities and urban ways, Julian had a hardness about him that came out at unpredictable times. It’s why the folks in town didn’t fully trust him.
“Roan, get our gear. I know Deputy Hall went over the scene but now that we have us some possible evidence, we’re going to be as thorough as we can given the Willoby family’s early presence.”
“Did you find something in the house?” Roan asked, suspiciously.
He looked from Roan to St. James and back to Roan.
“Roger that, League,” Roan said. “I’ll go get the gear and try to get some of this mud off me. Don’t trust St. James, his story’s flimsy at best.”
Roan might not like St. James, but she wasn’t wrong. Julian’s story was thin. At best.
Santiago looked at his neighbor. Julian’s gaze followed Roan a little too pointedly.
“You might not believe me, Stillwater,” Julian said, watching Roan until she disappeared behind the back of the cruiser.
“But I did see something moving near the tree. It’s the only place you’ll find any trace of my presence.
Have Roan follow my tracks if you need proof of my comings and goings, but just know this, something feels off. ”
His gaze settled back on Santiago.
“If you’re up to it, swing by after your shift, I have a few scenarios I want to run past you about the book.”
He nodded and Julian walked back toward the lake.
Santiago never had cause to wonder much beyond what he instinctually knew about Julian and what the other man chose to tell him. Now he wondered.
“Haunted you say?”
“For hundreds of years,” Derry said, sliding the nearly empty box of beignets to Lauren, who was sitting at Roan’s desk. Lauren shook her head. She’d probably gained five pounds in the less than twenty-four hours of being here.
“The house Mrs. Willoby died in was one of three built in 1863,” Ms. Audrey said from her desk.
“Mind you, there’s been a number of renovations to that house over the decades, but the man who built the original with his own two hands was Ezekial Moor.
He helped his friends Daniel Freeman, the sheriff’s ancestor who was a Black-Indian, half Chickasaw and half Black, along with Orlando St. James, Julian’s ancestor, build their homes.
The three men had been friends before the civil war and had been recruited by the Union for their skills.
The sheriff’s ancestor knew this mountain and the lowland areas like the back of his hand, and when the Union came calling, the price of their service was the land surrounding the lake.
Back then Shrouded Lake was a wild untamed area, hard to get to and harder to live on.
St. James’s ancestor, who was a scholar, drew up the agreement outlining that only their descendants could ever own the property.
The three men were decreed the deeds for the lake area, but only if the Union won the war.
Josiah St. James made sure the brotherhood’s achievements, their agreement with the government, their property ownership was all documented.
If you go to the Shrouded Lake Memorial Museum, you can find all about the history of our town. ”
“I don’t understand. Why did Ms. Willoby live in the Moor house if it could only go to their descendants? Was she a Moor?” Lauren asked, intrigued.
“They were massacred,” Derry blurted out.
Ms. Audrey nodded. “A day of celebration was turned into the bloodiest day in Shrouded Lake history. The whole family, generations in one household, was murdered up there. In the house, in the lake.”
“Part of the house was burned down too,” Derry added.
“The Moor deed was lost, or destroyed, and without proof of ownership, it allowed anybody to purchase the house and the parcel of land. Which is why the massacre happened in the first place. The cultivated land was now valued by the ones who didn’t care about a bunch of colored folks having it then. ”
“But there’s always a cost to evil, and the land, it remembers.
Every person that has purchased that home since has died in terrifying ways.
Every person who enters that lake not a blood descendant of the brotherhood dies in the water or dies soon after.
That land up there don’t let people forget what happened up there. ”
“What won’t it let be forgotten?”
“That its roots are buried as deep as the earth’s core, and those roots have fed off the blood and spirits of man. Now it’s a centuries old appetite for them.”
Lauren sat back in the chair, folded her arms over her chest, then raised a skeptical brow. She knew when she was being punked. Stereotypical small-town behavior; scare some unsuspecting stranger with local folklore.
“All that, yet you all still live here,” Lauren emphasized. Because logic.
“This town is dying Ms. Lauren,” Derry said, nearly convincing, but he looked to Mrs. Audrey and there was something coded in the look.
Was this the let’s get one over on Lauren phase of her life?
From one coast to the other, people trying to fuck with her mind.
“We’re here because we are the blood of this town.
This is our home, good and bad. The sheriff, the mayor, they’re trying to bring life back here, but I believe there’s a curse on this land that won’t be lifted until…
actually I don’t know what it will take, but like the sheriff, I’m going to continue to fight for the good of Shrouded Lake. ”
Lauren thought of Saige and her shop and swallowed her anger. Whether the folklore was true or not, she’d seen the boarded up and vacant buildings. She also saw the charm and potential.
“I’ll be talking to Saige and her wife about their business plan later tonight, because business can’t prosper if the vision, the implementation, and the numbers don’t make sense.”
“Maybe you can talk to Lina, Draya, Diedre, who owns the bakery where Roan got the beignets, and Miya as well. Except for Miya, they are business owners in here and I know for a fact that Draya and her father are talking about moving to Memphis within the year if things don’t turn around.
Folks are tired of working hard but barely scraping by. ”
“Wait, the barbeque owners? The beignet bakery lady?” She snatched the box of beignets and cradled them against her chest.
“If you don’t have a lot of folks to feed, doesn’t matter how good your food is,” Derry shrugged.
Lauren stood and began to pace.
Until two weeks ago, she had spent the last ten years of her career as CFO of a multi-million-dollar company in San Francisco. It hadn’t turned into a multi-million-dollar company until she stepped into the role.
She was damn good at her job because to her, money was freedom. It was an energy that magnified or destroyed based on how you wielded it, and how you wielded it exposed who you were and what you valued in this world.
She wasn’t going to abandon a career that felt like her calling.
She and Derrick agreed that she would take a sabbatical from the company and later determine what felt best for them.
She hadn’t shared her musings about starting her own consultation business; he wanted them to take time and start their new life without the distraction of her job.
Walking back to her cell, she plunked down on her cot and dropped her head, throat constricting around a resurgence of sadness.
She’d been ready to shift her life for a man who didn’t have the courage nor the moral integrity he purported to value oh so much.
He’d betrayed her in the most emotionally cruel way; would’ve let her walk down the aisle; bind herself to his bullshit knowing full well he’d made a baby with her sister.
I never would’ve believed he’d turn out to be such a fucking coward. And Lahn…
She crumpled the box against her chest. She’d been such an oblivious fool.
“Lauren…sweetie, you okay?” Ms. Audrey asked, concerned.
Lauren blinked and looked up.
“You mentioned an initiative for Shrouded Lake businesses,” Lauren said.
“Called the Revitalization Initiative,” Ms. Audrey provided.
“Do you think the city controller would be willing to work with me?”
Maybe she could consult with him about building a new plan for the city.
In normal circumstances one would take that kind of proposal to a city’s mayor first, but she had a feeling that if the mayor of Shrouded Lake was anything like his mother, they’d come to blows, and she’d end up right back here. With actual charges this time.
“I don’t see why this place couldn’t be as popular as a Gatlinburg, a Pigeon Forge, or an Asheville,” she told Ms. Audrey.
Maybe all the revitalization plan needed was another pair of eyes to reassess the areas of weakness.
Maybe she could review methodology and implementation.
Discover who the investors were, what and how they were investing.
Did they need a more diversified portfolio?
She needed to see the checks and balances before she…
Grabbing her purse, she stepped out of her cell and handed Derry the crushed box.
“Tell your grim fucking neanderthal of a sheriff that if he even thinks about laying his grubby hands on me again, I will break his fucking face.”
“No ma’am,” Derry said, as she walked to the exit. “I promise you I won’t be telling him that. I like you Ms. Lauren, but you ain’t getting me fired.”
“I most certainly will relay your message,” Ms. Audrey called out as the door closed.
Lauren took a two plus hour walking tour of the downtown area.
She set pin drops in her maps app for city hall, the public library, a commercial and residential real estate agency, the Shrouded Lake Memorial Museum, and a few of the downtown business.
She arrived at Ms. Lina’s bed and breakfast sweaty and smiling and proceeded to get more information from the longtime resident about the governing of the town, about the residents it might be good to follow up with, and most importantly the town gossip.
After extracting information from Ms. Lina, Lauren showered, pulled her laptop out of her bag, and plopped down at the desk facing a window overlooking the side yard, then she got to work.