Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Early the following morning, with some trepidation, Harper headed to the Perles Mansion. She drove past the front gate, still strewn with flowers and candles, and headed around the corner to the rear entrance.
Alastair Highbaugh was there, looking dapper as ever, writing something in a palm-size notebook. Surprise registered on his face as Harper parked her car and approached the back gate.
“Hello,” she said, holding out her hand to shake.
“Oh no, I don’t shake hands,” Highbaugh replied, giving no sign he recognized her. “Not since the pandemic. My apologies.”
“Sorry,” Harper said, pulling her hand back. On top of devastating lives and the economy, the pandemic had made social interactions even more awkward than they already were. “We met the other day, when I dropped by your gallery to look at some of Delilah Mason’s work. I’m Harper Grae.”
“Yes, of course! Took me a moment to place you. And I am sorry about the handshake. It feels rude, doesn’t it? It’s just…I’ve been careful, ever since what happened with my mother.”
“I understand. Such a sad loss.”
He cleared his throat and looked away. Highbaugh was silver-haired and wore a fine Italian suit, but in the light of day Harper realized he was probably only in his early fifties, if that.
He was one of those people who seemed older than his years and maybe always had.
She had a sudden visual of him showing up to the first day of kindergarten in a tiny little suit and bow tie, wee briefcase in hand.
The image brought a smile to her lips until she imagined Highbaugh clad in a mask and protective gear, sitting by a hospital bed and stroking the tissue-thin skin of his mother’s hand, praying, bargaining, hoping beyond hope that she would pull through.
That she would be all right. That she would not leave him. Were such prayers ever answered?
“Where is he?” Highbaugh muttered, checking the time on his phone. “Mr. Mason is late. I find tardiness unbearably rude, don’t you?”
“It’s only ten after. I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Maybe he got caught in traffic.”
“On a Sunday morning at this hour? I drove up from Carmel, and yet I made it here on time.”
“Good point,” Harper said, not feeling compelled to invent another excuse. “Maybe he’s already here. Did you check the garden?”
“I did not. Mr. Mason was very clear: I was to meet him outside the back gate. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s where I am.
Where we are, I should say.” There was silence for a moment, then Highbaugh continued.
“I admit I was relieved when he said that. I did not want to see where poor Ms. Mason was found. Buried under the cypress tree? Of all places.”
Harper nodded. “Indeed. You must have known her well.”
“Not especially,” he replied curtly. “I was a business acquaintance, not a personal friend. We were both clear about that.”
“I see,” Harper said. “Tell me, how did you come to own a gallery? Have you always been an art lover?”
Highbaugh appeared to relax a little. “I’m a failed artist, I’m afraid.
I learned the hard way that enthusiasm can’t make up for a lack of talent.
I wasn’t sure what to do next, but then my wife suggested I try representing artists.
A different role in the art world, to be sure, but every bit as important.
If an artist can’t sell her work, she can’t eat. ”
Highbaugh was married? That was surprising. He struck her as a solitary creature, catlike, observant and calculating. But maybe that just showed how bad she was at reading people.
“Does your wife—?”
Harper’s question was cut off when the gate swung open and a large man emerged, holding a sizable ax. Highbaugh and Harper both took an involuntary step back.
Gruff-looking and muscular, but handsome in a roughhewn way, the man appeared to be in his early thirties. He looked as surprised to see them as they were to see him. After a brief moment, Harper recognized him: He had been on the ghost tour, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hello,” she said. “I remember you from the other day. Mario, right?”
He nodded, but did not reply.
Harper glanced at Highbaugh, who looked as if he were about to hightail it back to his car.
“Did Asher Mason ask you to let us in?” Harper asked.
“Asher’s coming here?” Mario replied. “Now?”
“I certainly hope so. He was supposed to be here at eight. He wanted to meet early in the day, he said,” Highbaugh replied. “I do detest tardiness.”
“I’d better get going, then,” said Mario, frowning.
“Wait, what were you doing here?” Harper asked.
“This is private property,” Highbaugh added.
“I left a few tools here. Need them for work.” His voice broke, and Harper was surprised to see tears in his red-rimmed eyes. “Delilah and I were…”
“Seeing each other?” Harper suggested.
He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. The police have been all over me. I would be the last person who would ever hurt her.”
“You ran away that night,” Harper said. “When we found her.”
“I freaked out,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t even realize it was her until after, and let me tell you, I felt awful. She always told me there were spirits in the house, or whatever, so I really lost it when I heard something under the tree.”
“It was an extraordinary situation,” said Harper.
“Delilah was getting sort of paranoid, you know? Thought the renovations had stirred up the spirits, and then she started saying things were being stolen from the house.”
“And you didn’t believe her?”
He shrugged. “Why would anyone want weird old things? Or, like, an ancient medicine cabinet?”
“She said a medicine cabinet was stolen?”
“Yeah. The portable kind that I guess old-timey doctors used to have. I figured it must’ve belonged to the old doc who lived here a long time ago. It was old and funky, always gave me a weird vibe. Can’t imagine who would want to steal something like that.”
“Did it have markings on it?”
“I didn’t look at it that closely. And after that, Delilah asked me to dig under the tree.”
“The big cypress in the front yard?”
“The Witch Tree, yeah. Not easy, I had to cut a bunch of roots to dig there. It wasn’t meant to be a—” his voice caught “—a grave. To think someone used it the way they did…”
“What was she looking for?”
“She said something about bones.”
“Bones?” Highbaugh blanched. “Whose bones?”
Mario looked uncomfortable. “This is going to sound weird, but I swear it’s true.”
“Try us,” said Harper.
“A baby, I guess? Delilah said she was being haunted, but not in a bad way. That she needed to find a baby’s bones, and bury them with Isabel Perles.
And it’s weird because at first she seemed like she liked this ghost, but maybe she was sort of afraid of her at the same time?
I told her that didn’t make any sense, you know?
” Mario said. “She wanted me to learn more about the spirit world. So I went on that ghost tour. But you ask me, that Joel guy is full of crap.”
“Can’t say I disagree with you there,” said Harper.
“I was here today finishing up something in the mirror room, and even though it seems pointless now that she’s…gone, I felt like I should get it done. She would like me to make things whole.”
“Is it still a mess?”
“A mess?” He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The blood and chicken feathers?”
Mario and Highbaugh stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.
“It looked the same as always to me. I was patching a floorboard.”
Just then Harper saw a man half jogging, half walking toward them: Asher Mason.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Asher demanded, glaring at Mario. Asher’s hands were down by his sides, but his fingers were twitching like a gunslinger’s in an old Western movie.
Mario held the ax in front of his chest in a defensive stance.
“Mario was retrieving a few of his tools,” Harper intervened, hoping to calm things down. Men’s anger made her nervous, especially when potential weapons were involved. “He was just leaving, right, Mario?”
Mario nodded slowly. When he spoke, his voice was tight with sadness rather than anger. “I just had to finish up one thing, Asher. Promised your sister I would. That’s all. I’m so…I mean, I can’t…I can’t believe what happened.”
Emotions played over Asher’s face: rage and grief and doubt. A muscle worked in his jaw, and after a long moment he nodded and let out a harsh sigh.
Mario relaxed and lowered the ax to his side. “I just wanted to get my things. I’ll get out of your way now,” he said, picking up a duffel bag sitting next to a toolbox just inside the back gate.
“What’s in the bag?” Asher demanded.
“A change of clothes and my toothbrush,” Mario said impatiently. “Whether you liked it or not, I was seeing your sister, Asher. I kept these things and my tools here.”
“Show me,” Asher said, his tone threatening.
Mario hesitated, then yanked open the zipper of the duffel. Inside were a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt, and a black toiletries bag. “No priceless heirlooms, as you can see. Satisfied?”
With an imperious twitch of his head, Asher said, “All right. Now get out of here.”
“With pleasure.” Mario picked up his ax and the toolbox and left.
Asher sighed again and, as if he had not just been threatening someone, smiled in greeting. “Good morning, Harper, Alastair. Sorry about the unpleasantness. And for being late,” he said. “I was awake all night, finally fell asleep at dawn, then slept through my alarm. Insomnia is a terrible thing.”
“I know the feeling,” said Harper.
He gazed at her, sympathy in the blue depths of his eyes. “You, too?”
She nodded. “Slept better last night, though. Now that we’re all here, shall we go in?”
“Of course.” Asher pushed the back gate open wide. “After you.”
Harper steeled herself, remembering what they had found in the garden a few days ago, and then what happened when she was here with Detective Serrano. She was not at all sure she wanted to set foot inside again. Maybe she should have listened to Tariq.