Fixing To Die

CHAPTER 2

Benjy braked the car gently to a halt, shifted into Park, and switched off the ignition. His shoulders ached lightly from the long drive, as did his head, but he figured a little pain was a small price to pay for having arrived at Cliffwood in one piece. Miss Dickce had pouted for a few minutes when Miss An’gel asked him to drive them all the way to Natchez. Miss An’gel refused to budge over her sister’s protests. Miss Dickce acted like a good sport and hadn’t sulked for long.

If Miss Dickce had driven them, Benjy reckoned, she would have received several tickets coming down the Natchez Trace. The speed limit was only fifty miles an hour, and Miss Dickce had trouble driving less than eighty no matter where she was going. He enjoyed the more leisurely pace because it afforded him the opportunity to appreciate the hues of the fall foliage—rich golds and yellows, vibrant reds, browns, and greens. Where he grew up in Southern California, there was nothing like this panoply of autumn colors.

The scenery during the drive distracted him from the concerns he had about their reason for going to Natchez. At first he had been excited about ghost-hunting with Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce, but during the early hours of the morning he awoke from a disturbing dream and had trouble going back to sleep. In the dream he found himself in his old home in California, pursued by ghosts with terrifying faces. They wanted something from him, but he was never able to discover what. As ghostly hands reached for him and brushed against his face, he awoke to find Peanut licking him and Endora sitting on his chest. Reassured by the presence of his four-legged friends, he had eventually thrown off the immediate effects of the dream and gone back to sleep.

In the early morning light, however, as he prepared for the drive to Natchez, he found it difficult to push away the memories of those horrible faces. The malevolence in them had terrified him in the dream, and he wondered what he and the sisters might find lurking in the atmosphere of Cliffwood. He found himself fretting over that same question now that they had arrived. Their stories of the weird things that happened at Riverhill hadn’t made him feel any better, though they assured him nothing really terrible ever happened. He was glad he didn’t sleep in the house, though. The ghosts at Riverhill—if that’s what they were—had so far not touched anything in his apartment.

“Thank you, Benjy,” Miss An’gel said from the seat beside him as she unbuckled her seat belt. “You really are an excellent driver. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip down. Didn’t you, Sister?” She turned to glance at Dickce in the backseat. “Especially since I could actually see individual trees, rather than a blur as we zoomed by.”

Benjy watched Miss Dickce’s expression in the rearview mirror. For a moment he thought she was going to stick her tongue out at her elder sister, and he had to suppress a laugh. He had seen her do it before.

Instead, Miss Dickce shrugged. “Yes, it would have been a shame to miss the scenery. The Trace is always beautiful.”

Peanut woofed in Benjy’s ear. Benjy knew the Labradoodle was eager to get out of the car and explore—and to do his business, as the sisters always referred to it. He slid out of the driver’s seat and prepared to open the rear door. First, however, he held up his hand, palm toward the window, to let Peanut know he had to stay. The dog whined but remained on the seat when Benjy opened the door. He quickly attached a leash and grabbed a plastic bag.

“I’d better let him explore a little before we go inside,” Benjy told the sisters. “Otherwise he might have an accident.”

“Excellent idea,” Miss Dickce said. “I’ll bring Endora while An’gel rings the doorbell to let them know we’re here.”

While he and Miss Dickce let the animals wander around the neatly clipped expanse of front lawn, Benjy gazed at the house. He had found several pictures of it in a book on antebellum houses Miss An’gel had.

Cliffwood stood on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, and when Benjy shifted his stance and gazed to the west for a moment, he could see where the land dropped away, with a hint of water. From the second-story gallery of the house, he knew he would have an excellent view of the river. He turned back to look at the house and recalled what he had read about it.

The original structure was built in the 1780s, but a lightning strike during a fierce storm in 1852 resulted in its complete destruction. The family rebuilt on a grander scale, this time in the Greek revival style popular at the time. Cliffwood had two stories, each surrounded by a gallery on all four sides. Columns lined three sides of the house, and inside there were fifteen rooms. Benjy remembered reading that there were several outbuildings as well, among them a building that would have housed slaves, a kitchen, and a laundry. That had been converted, along with a former dairy and an old carriage house, into suites for the bed-and-breakfast started by Mary Turner’s parents in the late 1970s.

Miss An’gel’s book hadn’t offered any information about ghosts or other supernatural manifestations at Cliffwood, although it did mention such things about other houses, such as Stanton Hall and its spectral Confederate soldiers.

Benjy thought Riverhill, the ancestral home of the Ducote family, was one of the most beautiful and imposing homes he had ever seen. But with its white columns, white walls, and dark shutters, not to mention its grand size, Cliffwood outshone Riverhill. The midday autumn sun seemed to envelop the house in a golden haze, and for a moment Benjy’s eyes dazzled from the effect.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?” Miss Dickce said. “Look, you’d better pick that up before you tread in it.” She pointed at the ground near Benjy’s feet.

“What? Oh, yes, ma’am.” Benjy stooped, the plastic bag around his hand, to scoop up the bit of business Peanut had left on the immaculate lawn. He stood and gazed at the house again as he pulled the sides of the bag up and tied a knot in it to trap the droppings inside. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house as beautiful as that.”

Miss Dickce sighed. “I do love Riverhill with all my heart, but every time I come to Cliffwood, I experience such pangs of envy that I feel like a traitor to my family. Well, looks like An’gel finally roused someone with the doorbell. Come along, Endora.” She bent slightly, and the cat jumped into her arms.

Benjy and Peanut followed them across the lawn toward the house. They climbed the broad steps that flowed gracefully down in a wide V from the porch and joined An’gel at the open door. She patted the shoulder of a young woman whom Benjy judged to be around thirty-five.

“Mary Turner, this is our ward, Benjy Stephens, and Peanut and Endora.” Peanut stepped forward to greet his hostess while Benjy gazed raptly at the lovely young woman who smiled so graciously at him. She was beautiful, like the Hollywood starlets he had sometimes seen in Los Angeles.

“It sure is nice to meet you, Benjy, and you, too, Peanut and Endora.” Mary Turner Catlin stroked the dog’s head, and Peanut barked his approval. Endora surveyed her hostess from the safety of Dickce’s arms and yawned. Mary Turner laughed in response. “Just like a cat, impressed by no one.” She stepped aside. “Y’all come on in. Henry Howard and I will get your bags in later. Right now y’all must be about to perish from hunger, and we have a delicious lunch ready for you.”

“I’d like to wash up first,” Miss An’gel said, and Miss Dickce echoed her.

“Let me show you to the powder room.” Mary Turner led them to the staircase that swept upward in a gentle curve on the right side of the hall. “We’ve added it since you were here last.”

After accepting custody of Endora from Miss Dickce, Benjy gazed around, awed by his surroundings, while their hostess showed the sisters the new powder room. Every piece of furniture he saw looked old. According to what he had read, much of the furniture in the main house dated from the time of the Civil War, with some additions in the 1880s and early 1910s. He spotted a settee that reminded him of one in the front parlor at Riverhill, and the large carpet that covered much of the wooden floor looked like the Aubusson in that same front parlor back home. Benjy wondered how much help Mrs. Catlin and her husband had to keep the room appearing spotless. At Riverhill, the sisters and Clementine spent a lot of time dusting and polishing furniture.

Suddenly recalling his dream, he wondered where unfriendly spirits could be lurking, if there were any here. What if his bedroom was inhibited by one of those nasty horrors? Maybe he could sleep in the car instead. Then he felt ashamed of himself. Neither Miss An’gel nor Miss Dickce had shown any signs of fear in front of him, or expressed any concerns in his hearing. So he told himself to man up and stop acting like a kid.

Mary Turner placed a hand on his arm, pulling Benjy out of his reverie with a slight start.

“Let’s take Peanut and Endora to the kitchen and introduce them to Marcelline Beaupré. She’s our cook and housekeeper, and she adores animals. I’m sure she’ll have a few tidbits for these sweet creatures. If that’s okay, of course.” She smiled at him.

“Sure, it’s fine,” Benjy mumbled. He felt shy with this beautiful young woman and berated himself inwardly for being so awkward. He drew a deep breath as he followed Mary Turner. He promised himself he’d do better. He didn’t want her thinking he was an antisocial idiot. Or even worse, a scaredy-cat.

• • •

An’gel waited, none too patiently, for Dickce to finish in the powder room. Mary Turner and Benjy had not yet returned from the kitchen, and thus far there was no sign of Henry Howard Catlin. An’gel knew that running the bed-and-breakfast kept both wife and husband busy, but she still found it odd that Henry Howard hadn’t been present to greet them.

Given the signs of strain she had noticed in Mary Turner’s face, though, An’gel would not be surprised if there had been further incidents of the type Mary Turner had mentioned and Henry Howard was busy dealing with another weird happening. An’gel was eager to hear more about what had been going on. She wanted the details of each incident. There had to be a pattern to them, a pattern that could lead to the discovery of their origin. Their human origin, she thought with determination.

An’gel wandered from the area outside the powder room to the foot of the stairs. Surely Dickce will be done soon. She felt a bit on edge, and she wasn’t certain why—unless she expected a ghost to pop up at any moment.

An’gel chuckled at the thought and at once felt more at ease. She ran her right hand along the burnished mahogany of the banister rail. Her eyes followed it as it curved gently upward to the second floor. At the point where it mounted beyond the opening in the ceiling, she noticed an elongated, horizontal shadow in the rough shape of a body in the dim light that emanated from the floor above.

Who was standing there? she wondered. Why wasn’t he moving?

An’gel hesitated a moment, then called out. “Henry Howard, is that you? Come on down and say hello.”

For a moment nothing happened. Then the shadow disappeared.

It hadn’t moved away, An’gel thought, uneasy now. There had been no movement, she was sure of it.

The shadow just vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.