The House on Lake Jasper: A Tilton Chartwell Mystery (Tilton Chartwell Mysteries Book 1) (2 page)

“Check your email,” he answers.  Then he hangs up. 

Chapter Three

Almost instantly the email alert
at the bottom of her computer screen begins to flash, but Tilt hesitates to click on it. 

There’s as many e-bills waiting in her inbox as there are paper envelopes piled high. 

A thousand dollars would make a serious dent….as well as pay for her listing in the Psychic Referral Network.  So why’s she feeling like she’s at the beginning of a bad horror movie?

The bell on her little storefront jingles and Tilt peeks out from behind the curtain that shields her office nook from her reading space.   Wendy, yoga teacher and holistic networker supreme, as she likes to call herself, steps inside, carrying a spattered cardboard box.  “Yoo-hoo, Tilt?  I have the brochures for the fair next month…though seriously, I doubt it’s going to be anywhere near the circus it’s getting to be outside.”

“Oh, man,” says Tilt.  She gets up and peeks outside, where the police are using bullhorns to disperse the crowd.   Most are going quietly, but the group from Peter’s church, are marching up and down on the opposite side, singing hymns, holding hands, and praying.   “I’ve got two clients coming in…they’re not going to want to walk down the street with all this going on out there.”

“Don’t worry,” says Wendy.  “It’s starting to rain…I think that’s going to chase the crazies away…if nothing else does.” 

“I can’t believe Peter’s doing this,” says Tilt, with a shake of her head.  “I know he’s behind all this... I think he really does want to see me wear a scarlet letter and get run out of town on a rail.  You have time for some tea? I could use some down to earth advice.”

“I’m not sure how down to earth my advice is, but I’d love the tea.  What’s up?”

As she busies herself with the tea, Tilt outlines the conversation she’d just had with Mike Cahill.  “You ever hear of the place? Of the ghosts?”

But Wendy grabs her cell phone and starts typing in words even as Tilt asks the question.  “I don’t know I’ve ever heard of the ghosts, but I thought the disappearance rang a bell.”

“Disappearance?”  Tilt cranes her head over her mug, peering at Wendy’s tiny screen. 

“Like I said, I thought it rang a bell the minute you mentioned it.  Jonathon was at school up that way back then… this was… yeah, just about eight or nine years ago now.”   She h olds out the phone.  “Here.  See for yourself.  Basically, two women agreed to meet at the house, two women disappeared.... as in… completely disappeared.  They found the one woman’s car at the house.  But neither was ever seen again.  They think one murdered the other… but they’re not sure which one.”

The shudder that goes through Tilt makes the hot tea splash on the floor.  She puts it down on the surface of her reading table and stares at Wendy.  “What makes them think it was a murder?”

“One woman was having an affair with the other woman’s husband.”  Wendy squints at the phone.  “I think Unsolved Mysteries did a segment about it.”  She looks up.  “Maybe you don’t want to know any more?”

“I don’t think I do.” She takes a deep breath.  “I think one of the ghosts might’ve already come to me.”

“Really?” 

Tilt nods as Wendy sips her tea.  “A woman.  Very sad, very persistent.   Worried about people forgetting her, I think.”  At once she feels a chill.  “No, that’s not right.  Something else… no, someone else.”

“Wow,” says Wendy.  “She tell you all that already?”

Tilt hesitates.  “I saw her …heard her… this morning in my shower.”

“How can you say no?”

Tilt hesitates again.  She can’t deny that as tempting as the offer is, as sure as she is that at least one of the ghosts of Lake Jasper House are trying to communicate, there’s still a part of her that’s hesitant.  Maybe it has to do with Mike Cahill and his voice that remind her just how long it’s been since she even thought about saying yes to a man’s invitation for anything at all.  But somehow, she doesn’t think so. 

Under the lure of the money, the messages of the dead, and her own need to get out of town, this job feels like it could be dangerous, for reasons she just can’t understand.  She can’t even begin to put her feelings into words; they’re too vague, too diffuse.  But she can to say something because Wendy’s looking at her, waiting for a response.  Tilt picks up her tea cup, and takes a deep breath.  “Because part of me just isn’t sure I should say yes.”

“If you go, don’t go alone.”
That’s the best advice Wendy has to offer as she hugs Tilt goodbye.  “And don’t let the crazies get you down.”

Finding someone to accompany her on the other hand…. That’s another story all together.   Wendy, Carol, and Jasmine all have classes or clients.  Kim’s going to Vermont for an herbal conference.  Phillip’s recuperating from foot surgery, and Rick, his partner, is nursing him all weekend. 

Tilt’s seen too many horror movies to even consider asking one of her daughters.  They’re both finishing up finals these next couple weeks anyway. 

In desperation she calls her sister.  Her normal, picket-fence, white bread sister, with the two kids and the two cars who lives in suburban Hartford in her house with the 4.3 bedrooms and 3.5 baths.

“Me?” Aubrey asks.  “Me?  You want me to go to the Lake Jasper Mystery House?”

“Are you telling me you’ve heard of this place?”

“I’m looking at it on the internet now.  The whole area is supposed to be haunted…the lake didn’t even exist until the 18
th
century, when a bunch of miners working in a quarry accidentally broke through an underground aquifer.  The valley flooded in a matter of hours, and hundreds of people died.  And wow… listen to this.  About 30 years ago, someone hired a diver to go down and tell them what was at the bottom, and he came back up and refused to say, but made everyone there promise they’d never send anyone else down there again.”

“What?  Are you making that up?”

“I’m serious… haven’t you googled this place?”

“That’s not how I work, Aubrey.  The less I know, the better.  But you’re so down to earth…so grounded.  You’ll be able to tell me if these people are crazy or ax murderers, or…well, whatever.”

“In other words, you’re going to rely on me to save your ass.”

“Not exactly, but… well… maybe.  You’re so… down to earth.”

“I get that.   What’s in it for me?”

“What do you want?”

“How about a week with Auntie Tilt for Nathan and Noah?  They miss you.”

“In other words, I don’t have to be psychic to know their Mom needs a break?”

“That, too.” 

“So come with me this weekend and we have a deal.”

“I’m your last resort, huh?”

“Well…on such short notice, yeah.”

There’s a long pause.  Finally Aubrey answers.  “Okay.  I’ll come.  But we’re going to be in constant phone contact with everyone – right?  And we’re not … not going to do anything stupid or… risky, right?”

“No,” says Tilt, as a wave of feeling rolls through her, intense as the one before.  This time, though, it’s definitely relief. 

Chapter Four

They arrive at Lake Jasper
as the evening shadows are turning the light purple and the water inky black.  The roads are dark, and marked only by battered signs that look as if local kids have deliberately twisted them in different directions.  Tilt slows and squints into the rapidly falling night, as they approach the lake.   Even in the twilight, it’s easy to recognize which house is Lake House.  It’s the enormous white Victorian dominating one end of the lake.  “Wow,” she mutters. 

Even in the twilight, she can tell these are the turrets and gables and gingerbread-laced porches she’s been seeing in her minds’ eye since Mike Cahill’s call on Wednesday. 

“Wow,” says Aubrey.  “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

That’s what Aubrey said when they left Connecticut two hours ago.

I can’t believe you agreed to come, thinks Tilt, which is exactly what she thought two hours earlier when Aubrey showed up – on time – at her door.  On the drive, she’s been dying to ask her sister exactly why the quintessential soccer mom has abandoned her job at the height of soccer season, but Aubrey’s kept a pretty tight lip. 

As much as Tilt can tell she’s hiding something, there’s no way Tilt can tell what it is without some serious psychic prying.  And that’s just not cool when it’s your sister.  

Besides, most of the conversation is taken up by the recent events in Tilton’s life.   Aubrey rolls her eyes when Tilt explains what happened.  “I can’t believe you said that,” she says, when Tilton pauses for breath.  “What were you thinking?”

“Of all the times I wanted to talk back to Peter,” says Tilt with a guilty expression.  “I know that’s what I was doing, now that I think of it.  I guess… I guess it just all just … came out…you know I’ve been biting my tongue for years.”

“What did you ever see in him?” asks Aubrey. 

“I thought he was as spiritual as he was religious,” replies Tilt with a sigh.  She turns into the oncoming rest stop mostly to have a reason to change the subject.  “And that’s all I have to say about that.”

Now, as she flicks on her high beams, Tilt gets her first sense of the imposing structure looming ever larger.  In the gathering gloom the place feels like it has “good bones” – a solid frame and a strong foundation - as their realtor father used to say.   But there’s a sense of dignity that borders, at least to Tilt’s way of thinking, on rigidity.  It’s like the place wants things done a certain way, its way.   Or maybe just the “right” way – whatever that is. 

Whatever that is, because it’s definitely a little run-down around the edges, Tilt notices, as she turns the car between the iron gates and heads down the curving drive.  Gravel crunches under the tires, the strong scent of lilacs and moist air wafts through Aubrey’s open window.  Peepers pierce the evening air with their plaintive call and mist drifts over the surface of the lake.  

A flash of light appears somewhere over the lake, hovers, then blinks out. 

“What was that?” asks Aubrey, peering into the dark. 

“Probably a ghost,” mutters Tilt, as the scent of lilacs pervades the car, filling it with almost a suffocating intensity beyond the point of pleasure. 

Don’t let them forget.  The voice in her ear is so clear she jolts upright. 

“Tilt, watch it!” 

With a start, Tilt realizes she nearly ran into a VW beetle, parked behind four or five other cars.  Its New York license plates reads DRMCTCHR.  There’s enough light to see that a Native American dream catcher is hanging from the rear view mirror. 

“Wow, quite the party,” says Aubrey, as the front door opens, and a tall man in khaki shorts and a faded polo shirt comes down the broad front steps, waving. 

“You’re fine right there,” he says.  “Behind the VW.”

As Tilt puts the car in park to oblige, she glances up at the house.  In the fading twilight, the house gives the illusion of the grand old lady it could be with the amount of work Aubrey is remarking that it needs. 

The windows above the first floor are dark, shimmering frames that reflect the moon.  Except there’s no moon tonight, at least not yet.  As the opalescent oval fades from her sight, Tilt feels gooseflesh rise on her arms. 

She barely has the key out of the ignition, when Aubrey’s bounding out of the car, hand extended to shake the hand of the man who’s come forward to greet them.  Tilt opens her door, puts her foot on the grass.  The dew has already fallen, or at least it feels that way.  The ground gives beneath her feet, and the long grass licks at her ankle.  It’s an unpleasant sensation, and she glances down, noticing for the first time how worn her shoes are looking. 

That’s an odd thought for Tilt, and so she pauses, pays closer attention the energy attached to that thought.  It comes with a sense of measuring up… or in Tilt’s case, not measuring up.  There’s someone in the house with very high standards. 

And it doesn’t feel like the woman worried about someone forgetting.   

On the other side of the car, Aubrey and the man – who Tilt recognizes as Mike Cahill by his voice – are chatting about the drive.  Tilt takes a deep breath and gets out of the car.  She shuts the door with a firm slam, refusing to be intimidated by the dead.  You’re not looking so great yourself, sweetheart, she thinks. 

“Tilton Chartwell,” Mike’s saying as he walks around the car to shake her hand.  “You’re the one we’re all eager to meet.”

Tilt takes a step or two forward and immediately the ground starts to squish.  She has the distinct impression she’s walking on a graveyard, or worse, a battlefield.  A lot of people have died on this land, a long time ago.  The house – or the dominant energy in the house – seems to be sending her a message.  I won’t look down, she thinks.  I won’t look down.   Somehow she makes it onto the porch.  The door opens wide, and in the vestibule, she can see a crowd of at least five or six gathered. 

She takes a deep breath, steadying herself to walk into the house.  The whole place feels like an enormous battery, as if contained within its walls was enough energy to power the entire town. 

Make that state, she thinks, as she pauses, just outside the door. 

Don’t let them forget.
  The voice, even louder now, and much more distinct, catches her unaware. 
Don’t let them forget
. 

Against the darker cushions on a white wicker swing, Tilt can clearly see the foggy form of a woman, garbed in the style of a more than a century ago, dark hair piled in heavy coils above her pale sad features.  The scent of lilacs rises, again to a nearly nauseating level. 

But before Tilt can say anything, or even react in any way, both scent and spirit fade, leaving behind only faintest whiff of lilacs.