Blackvine Manor Mystery (12 page)

A
LEXIS SAYS
GOODBYE TO NURSE Diaz at the bakery but cannot bring herself to go back to Maxwell’s condo.

“Hey, sweetness, where are you?” He answers the phone sleepily.

“I’m heading over to Blackvine Manor to pick up a few things. I’ll see you a bit later?”

There’s a pause before he agrees. “How about I pick you up there around 5 p.m.?”

“Great, see you then.” Alexis hangs up quick, sure Maxwell can hear her plans.

She walks quickly the few blocks to Blackvine Manor, sighing happily as she turns up the sidewalk. Despite the small square footage of her studio apartment and all the restless spirits, she loves it there. It’s the place she found ways to connect with her mother, the place where she met Maxwell, and the first place she realized her abilities might stretch further than a ‘normal’ day job.

It’s also the place she met the awkward and unlikely man she is starting to think of as her best friend. She knocks loudly on George’s door, hoping he is home this time.

“Alexis! You’re back?”

“I’m just stopping by, but don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

George looks at his messy living room, “I’d invite you in but. . .”

She laughs, looking at all the cords, cameras, and video equipment. “That’s alright. Actually I was wondering if you’d help me with a little field trip.”

He pushes up his glasses and gives her a wary look. “Sure?”

“Come on, any good paranormal researcher should love a peaceful day at the cemetery.”

He throws a baseball hat over his curly, black hair. “Somehow I doubt the word peaceful is going to describe what you have planned. I don’t need to bring a shovel or anything, do I?”

Alexis laughs again. “Not this time. We’re just going to visit a gravestone. Simple and peaceful, I promise.”

He mutters under his breath but quickly grabs a handheld camera and follows Alexis downstairs. She heads straight for his junked out pick-up truck and he shuffles up to open the door for her.

“What, Mr. Charles isn’t around to chauffeur you?”

“Like I said, I want a simple and peaceful trip.”

George starts the car with a rough rattle. “He’s still not big into your abilities, huh?”

Alexis snaps her seatbelt on. “Let’s just say he’s making me hate the word ‘normal’.”

“Yeah, I was never a big fan.” George is vague as to whether he means the word ‘normal’ or Maxwell himself.

When they reach Lakeview Cemetery, Alexis directs George to take the gravel road around the back of the property to the oldest section. There he parks under a huge oak tree, careful not to slam his door out of respect.

They amble along between the headstones and George finally clears his throat. “So, have your abilities … um … recovered?”

Alexis shrugs. “No, not completely. Though something new has been happening. Think of this as an experiment. Do you remember when I asked you about psychometry?”

“Yeah. You mean you can touch things and find out what happened? What’s it like? How does it work? Can you describe it?”

“Calm down, George, we’re here. Let’s just see what happens.”

Alexis leads him under the dark shade of the largest trees and to the cluster of oldest headstones in the cemetery. There, near the stretching roots of a tree, is the moss-covered headstone marked Willow.

Standing arm’s length from the headstone, Alexis breathes deeply. Feeling her energy get stronger, she stretches her arms out and creates a circle around herself. Slipping off her necklace, she lays it on the headstone and puts her hands on the cool marker.

“Do you see anything? Or is more like hearing?”

“Shh, George, let me concentrate.” Alexis opens herself up.

The vision sweeps over her like a dark cloud blocking out the bright afternoon sun. The day fades away completely as she sees a shovel breaking into the dirt on a dark night. A woman’s running shoes steady the shovel before pushing it into the dirt next to the grave again and again.

Alexis tries looking up and around, trying to find anything that will tell her whose memory she is seeing. A hand rests on top of the headstone as the woman leans far down, pulling a dirty burlap sack from the ground. There is a tiny flash in the darkness and Alexis sees her mother’s filigree wedding ring.

Her hands pull at the wrappings and a pearl necklace slips from the folds. It is Fenton’s lost jewel stash, just as Alexis suspected. Amelia gathers it up and runs, leaving Alexis behind to blink in the sun of the present day.

“She found it,” she tells George. “Then she must have hidden it before the security officer spotted her, before the incident that got her arrested.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes,” Alexis stops, remembering something else. “She wasn’t alone. Someone was watching her.”

George shifts uneasily, looking over his shoulder. “I know the feeling.”

“What?”

“I think there’s someone watching us.”

Alexis shrugs. “It’s probably just the caretaker. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. A few rows from where they are quietly talking a woman is watching them. Amelia waves before arriving at Alexis’ side faster than humanly possible.

“What? What is it?”

“My mother. She’s here. You don’t see her, do you?”

George admits softly, “No, I don’t.”

Alexis feels tears well up. “I don’t know whether you’re a ghost or a wraith. Please, Mom, tell me, are you still alive?”

The spirit of Amelia evaporates as another fierce spirit breaks through. Alexis stumbles back as an angry young solider advances on her and George. He thrashes his arms, warning them away, the burns from a blast clear on one side of his body.

Alexis pushes George. “Move, get back.”

“What? Why?” He is slow to move, fumbling for his handheld camera.

“I don’t know, he’s just telling us to get back!”

She shoves George just in time as a heavy limb cracks from the tree above and crashes down, narrowly missing them and the headstone marked Willow.

M
AXWELL IS TIPPED BACK
IN his office chair when Alexis and George return to Blackvine Manor Apartments. He’s not surprised to see them walking in together but he cannot hide his annoyance.

“Out ghost hunting again?”

Alexis is immediately irritated. “Following up on a lead. Have you got to that lesson yet?”

He scowls but calms himself down. “You went back to the cemetery? Did you find anything?”

George excuses himself and leaves Alexis standing in the doorway of the small office. She refuses to sit down, fiddling with an old lamp on top of the file cabinet.

“Careful, it might be ugly but I loved that lamp.”

She closes her eyes, hoping what she senses is really happening but regretting the timing. When she opens them, Otto’s spirit is standing behind his grandson, shaking a finger at her.

“It’s not good to keep secrets from a loved one.”

Alexis ignores both Charles men and instead asks, “Is there any way you could figure out what jewelry was in Fenton’s stash? I mean, there has to be a list from the police reports, right?”

“Sure, in my file.” Otto shrugs.

Maxwell scrubs his chin. “I don’t know, I could ask. Otto still has a few buddies working in the precinct.”

“Could it be in the file he kept on Fenton?”

Maxwell pins her with a look. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Otto crosses his arms and smiles.

Alexis shakes her head before carefully starting, “I think I know a way to prove that Amelia moved Fenton’s jewel cache from under the Willow headstone.”

He sits up, letting his shoes slap the floor. “And what makes you think she moved the supposed jewels?”

She struggles for a moment, wanting to tell him she saw it happen through Amelia’s eyes, but she knows he will never believe her.

“Wait, I have proof! Amelia was receiving threatening letters.” Alexis pulls the envelope from her purse.

“Hold on, you found Amelia?” Maxwell stands up. “You think to tell me about weird visions you get from touching objects but you forget to tell me you found your mother!”

“I didn’t find her; I found where she’s been: St. James Care Facility.” Alexis sinks into one of the straight-backed chairs. “I didn’t tell you because I … I didn’t want you to know she’s been in a mental institution. You already call me crazy enough.”

He slumps against the side of the desk, and Alexis realizes she’s holding her breath when Otto fades and Maxwell says softly, “I don’t really think you’re crazy. I’m sorry, Alexis. You should have been able to tell me.”

“Well, I’m telling you now. Amelia ran from Blackvine Manor that night, just like I saw. My father finally admitted he drove her to a friend’s house. Her name is Jane Dalton.”

Maxwell sits down next to her. “Its okay, I believe you.”

“Jane told me she dropped Amelia off at a street corner way out in Ridgedale. The closest place to that corner is St. James Care Facility. That’s where I met Nurse Diaz … Ted. He gave me this.”

Maxwell opens the letter, his frown deepening. “And you said she’d gotten other letters like this?”

“Yes, but then they stopped. This one came out of the blue and Amelia decided to leave St. James that same day.”

He leans back and thinks for a moment. “But that doesn’t prove that she moved Fenton’s jewel stash, if there was even one there.”

Alexis’ eyes flash as she stands up to leave. “I think I’ll have enough proof for even you if I could just see the list of stolen jewelry.”

Maxwell goes to his desk drawer and pulls out the file Otto collected on notorious jewel thief Collin Fenton. Otto obsessed for years over the fact that Fenton never sold any of the items he stole. That meant somewhere there was a cache of jewels worth millions of dollars.

When Alexis takes the file, Otto reappears. “It could have been a career-maker, finding that stash. I worked on it for years. Then I found out Delia was helping him, they were meeting in secret.”

His spirit falters, as if some mottled darkness sweeps across him. Otto tries to tell her something else but the deepening shadow blots him out.

“Alexis!” Maxwell is about to come around the desk and shake her. “Are you okay?”

“Just fine,” she mutters.

“What?” he snorts. “You touched the file and saw something? Is the case closed?”

She snaps and lunges for his desk, grabbing a worn paperback book from the select stack he keeps there. “An ex-girlfriend gave this to you and you hate Hemingway but you loved her. Plus you like the macho image you think it gives.”

He scoffs, moving away from her around the desk. Alexis advances, sick of him shrugging off every test of her abilities. She yanks open the top drawer and pulls out a hockey puck.

“You quit hockey after Ian died. Cancer. This is the last puck you hit.”

“Stop.”

“Do you believe me yet?” She reaches up to the windowsill behind his desk and picks up a bronze turtle. “This was Delia’s. Otto gave it to her for their 8th wedding anniversary.”

“Enough, Alexis! What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

Maxwell puts up both hands to calm her down. “You think this is normal behavior?”

Gripping the bronze turtle in her hand, Alexis spins to the door. Maxwell catches her arm and tries to stop her but she yanks free. “I’m sick of you telling me I’m not normal. I don’t know what we had going but it was all pretend.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t accept what I can do, you can’t think of me as ‘normal’ and I’m not going to pretend to be for you. It’s over.” Alexis slams the office door behind her.

A
LEXIS IGNORES
THE EMPATHETIC YET hopeful look on George’s face as she tells him, “I’m done with Maxwell. If he can’t accept me or the ‘crazy’ things I believe are real, then it will never work.”

“So, does that mean your abilities have come back?”

She trips over an extension cord in his studio apartment and lands on his sagging Futon. “No. Except for this whole psychometry thing. It’s weird; I think there is something blocking the spirits here.”

George perches on the arm of the Futon. “Actually I was going to talk to you about that. I haven’t gotten a single good video since the anniversary of Delia’s death. The footage just fades to black. I’ve checked every piece of equipment I have and it’s not on my end.”

Alexis flops back. “I just saw it happen. Otto was telling me something when he was smudged out.”

“Wait, Otto is telling you things?”

She rolls her head away. “I know, I know, it does sound crazy. Now I’m not just seeing and hearing spirits but having full blown conversations with them.”

“That’s amazing!”

She smiles, glad George is on her side. “I’m glad you believe me. Now all I have to do is find proof that Amelia moved Fenton’s jewel stash and Maxwell will have to believe me too.”

George slumps his shoulders, “Why do you care if he believes you? After everything that’s happened it seems like he is never going to change his mind.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s just I can’t stand knowing the truth and having him ignore it.”

She sits up and opens the thick file Otto kept on Collin Fenton. “Help me sort through this. If we can find all the mentions of the stolen jewelry, I think I can find the proof I need.”

He slides on to the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table and grabs a stack of paper. “What am I looking for?”

“Pearls.”

They start sorting through the police reports, finding all the descriptions of the stolen jewelry. “Wow,” George breathes, “there is a lot. He must have stashed millions of dollars worth of jewelry.”

Alexis tries not to be disheartened, “And mostly diamonds. Diamond bracelet, diamond solitaire, diamond brooch, and diamond choker.”

“Here’s the mention of pearls: three strand necklace, pink cultivated pearls.”

“Nope.”

George shrugs his shoulders and keeps sorting. “How about single strand gray pearls?”

“Nope.”

They shuffle papers and Alexis thinks aloud, “This file is a mess. It would be a lot easier if Otto could tell us what he found.”

Both George and Alexis look around but there isn’t so much as a shadow.

“How about ‘pearl choker, freshwater, blue’?”

“Nope.”

George finally bristles, “Why don’t you just tell me what I’m looking for?”

Alexis holds up a single page police report and reads, “Large freshwater pearl, teardrop pendant.”

“How do you know that’s it?”

Alexis pulls her mother’s pearl necklace out from her blouse. “Psychometry works when the object is associated with a person or an event. Every time I touch this, I see something to do with the stolen jewels. This isn’t an heirloom from my mother, it’s proof she found Fenton’s stash.”

George pulls himself up on the Futon. “And that explains why she is being threatened. Fenton wants his stash back.”

She frowns and pulls another piece of paper from the file. “The only problem with that is Fenton died in prison.”

“Well, that would explain what happened to Doug and to you. Fenton’s spirit has been here looking for his stolen stash.”

Alexis rubs her forehead, “But it’s all stopped. Both Doug and Mrs. DuBois told me everything has been quiet around here.”

George stands up, frowning. “That can’t be right. Just yesterday Doug admitted things have been moving around in his apartment on their own. And Mrs. DuBois told me she’s going to stay at her sister’s because every morning all her drawers and cupboards are open.”

“Why would they lie to me?”

They both head out the door and down the hallway to knock on Doug’s door. He looks sheepish as soon as he sees Alexis. “I told him you’d never believe me. And it keeps happening. You gotta help me.”

“Wait, who? What?”

Doug opens his door all the way. “Maxwell told me to shut up about all the strange things happening around here. He said you needed a break and it was worth a chunk off this month’s rent.”

Alexis reels back before clenching her fists. “Never mind that. What exactly has been happening around here?”

“Things are moving around all on their own: drawers sliding open, cupboards, closet doors. Melissa’s front door won’t stay closed.” Doug gestures to his neighbor.

“And Mrs. DuBois?”

Doug shakes his head. “Poor thing. She’s gone to stay with her sister because every morning she’d wake up to all her drawers and cupboards hanging wide open.”

Alexis turns to George who says, “And she agreed with Maxwell that you didn’t need to know. She was worried she’d upset you when she mentioned hearing your mother’s name.”

“Enough of what Maxwell thinks. I think we need to call Alice and find out what is happening.” Alexis squares her shoulders.

* * *

A
lice Manetti
, the psychic medium, arrives within the hour and finds a small knot of Blackvine Manor residents milling around Alexis’ studio apartment. George, Doug, Melissa, and even the surly handyman Barry are ready to hold a séance and hear any possible answers.

“If it saves me one more door repair, I don’t care what hocus pocus you use,” Barry grumbles as he shakes Alice’s hand.

They stand in a loose circle as Alice claps her hands, opening the room and herself to spirit communication.

“Something strong, something dark is blocking. It wants something, demands it.”

Maxwell bursts through the door. “What is going on?”

Before anyone can answer, he is picked up, turned upside down and held suspended above the séance by an unseen force.

Alexis asks, “Now do you believe me?”