The Ashford Place Read online

  “Will do,” he said with a wave and headed back into the store.

  “Okay, Red,” she said as she drove away. “Since this is my first official night here, my fridge has only the basics, nothing fancy. It’ll have to be takeout, so if you have a better dinner offer somewhere else, I won’t be offended.”

  He didn’t answer, just plopped down on the seat and closed his eyes for the rest of the ride back.

  ***

  After dinner and a short nap on a couch that didn’t appear to have anything crawling on it, Belle decided to prep the master bedroom for painting tomorrow. She got up slowly so she didn’t wake Red, who was asleep on the floor in front of the couch.

  She turned on her new iPhone playlist, some kind of jazz fusion, music she’d never listened to before. She wanted something different, a genre that didn’t have a collection of age-old memories hanging off it like cobwebs. Glancing around the room, she bopped her head to the funky beat. Had she been delirious when she’d presumed, after a few Home Depot workshops, she could flip this joint on her own in one summer?

  She stopped twirling the roll of painter’s tape on her index finger and began running strips of it along the faded wood trim.

  Sliding along the floor on her knees, she stopped at a small arched door to a crawl space locked with a rusted miniature padlock.

  “This is weird.” She tugged on the lock.

  What the hell was in there that it had to be padlocked from the outside? She stopped yanking on it when her head began to fill with images of the Bates Motel and episodes of Cold Case Files. Perhaps alone and in the dark of night wasn’t the best scenario in which to start opening up crawl spaces that someone didn’t want to be opened. She shuddered as her imagination taunted her with dreadful possibilities.

  She let out a shriek when she heard what sounded like a light tapping of nails on the crawl-space door. Red skidded to a halt, apparently considering whether he should make a run for it to another house for the evening.

  “Red!” She patted the floor. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  He licked her chin as if to apologize.

  “Well, I’ve had a bitch of a day and clearly need to get some sleep, so you better skedaddle now.” She led him downstairs to the foyer and opened the front door.

  He sat down and looked up at her.

  “What are you waiting for? Go ahead.”

  She glanced up the staircase. The bed she’d be sleeping on was in the same room as the ghoul hiding out in the crawl space—with nothing between her and it but a warped wooden door and a tiny, rusted lock.

  “Okay, if you insist. But no snoring.”

  After taking a quick, cool shower and brushing her teeth, she fitted the mattress with sheets from home and cranked up the air conditioner. Even with the list of tomorrow’s tasks cluttering her mind, it still found space to entertain thoughts of that attractive deputy from this morning—the light sheen of sweat on her face, those kissable lips, her handcuffs…

  Red suddenly jumped on the bed, scaring away her pleasant visions.

  “Jeez, Red. How about giving a girl some kind of warning first?”

  He circled a few times at the foot of the bed and plopped by her feet. Belle laughed quietly at the sound of him licking his chops in the dark as he settled down. Relieved that he’d chosen to spend the night with her, what with that monster sound asleep behind a locked door, Belle finally fell into a deep slumber.

  Chapter Two

  After finishing breakfast, Belle indulged in a second cup of coffee on the front veranda with Red, savoring the quiet ambiance of a true country morning. The sun was shining its reassurance, so she felt better about revisiting the master-bedroom situation. It was only eight thirty a.m. Nobody in horror movies ever gets murdered that early in the morning.

  Armed with a pair of pliers—plundered from her father’s toolbox—which could’ve extricated someone from an auto wreck, she knelt in front of the crawl-space door and assessed both the risks and rewards of the task. With one eye closed and the other merely a slit, she slowly, gently closed the pliers around the lock.

  “Dear God, please don’t let anything jump out at me.” She glanced down at the dog. “You ready for this, Red?”

  He yawned and rested his head on his paws.

  After one good squeeze, the lock dropped to the floor in a pile of rusty crumbs.

  “On a positive note, if something horrible happens, I’ll have a great excuse to call the authorities.”

  She bobbed her eyebrows at Red, but he offered only a few sweeps of his tail across the dusty floor as encouragement.

  After applying some elbow grease to open the swollen door, she shone a flashlight inside the crawl space, blinking rapidly in case a bat or some multi-legged creature shot out and latched onto her eyeballs.

  Nothing but a bunch of spider webs, dust bunnies, a screw, a ball-and-paddle set, and a crunched-in shoebox that looked purposefully shoved back against a support beam.

  “Okay. Here’s where I find the body parts.”

  She pulled out the box and, after a breath of mental preparation, flicked the top off. No physical remains of any once-living species, but the headless, naked baby doll did give her a bit of a start. How intriguing—and thoroughly macabre.

  She placed the flashlight on the floor and sat Indian-style as she picked up the doll. Glancing down the neck hole, she noticed rolled up papers. “What the hell?” she whispered. Scrolls of paper stuffed inside a doll stuffed inside a shoebox stuffed inside a locked crawl space like one of those Russian dolls. The government should be so careful concealing classified documents.

  Maybe they were love notes sent to her old aunt by a secret lover, some yokel who said “shucks, ma’am” a lot and operated a tractor. Or maybe a map to a fat bag of cash and jewels buried in the backyard. That would certainly come in handy right now.

  Whoever the papers belonged to, they obviously contained someone’s darkest secrets. Shame on her for salivating at the chance to invade that privacy.

  Then she remembered her father telling her about his cousin, Judy, whom he had barely known, who’d died when she was a teenager. She carefully pulled the scrolls that appeared to have been torn from some type of composition notebook, crisp and yellowed with age, from the torso cavity.

  After thumbing through pages of animal sketches, Beatles doodling, and references to a kid named Frankie surrounded by hearts, she concluded they weren’t the musings of a lovelorn widow but of an innocent girl. She smiled when she saw the name Annette Funicello written in cursive.

  She flipped through a few more pages.

  He hurt me again.

  I hate when he hurts me.

  I hate his guts. I wish he would die.

  Belle swallowed hard as she reread the lines that sounded like a sick poetry stanza. Her stomach churned her breakfast at the implication of “he hurts me.”

  Her breath slid out in a hiss. “Were young girls ever safe?”

  She tossed the papers aside in disgust but grabbed them again, as curiosity had her in its grip.

  He is mean. I don’t want to go there anymore.

  Underneath the phrases was a sketch of a large head, a man’s clean-shaven face with big scary eyes, angry lines over them pointing down, a squiggly line for the mouth, and a large shock of angrily scribbled hair on top. The pressure from the girl’s pencil stabs had nearly perforated the paper.

  The messages sent Belle’s mind into a whirl.

  I hate when he touches me. I want to be good.

  Beneath the phrases was another sketch of a round head with pigtails and tears under the eyes. At the bottom of the paper, Judy’s name written several times in neat cursive, and doodled hearts and sunflowers contrasted the sinister suggestions.

  Belle sat quietly in a sea of painting supplies scattered about the floor. Who was this bastard that did this to her? Was he ever caught? Hopefully, he was rotting in hell or at least still rotting in a jail cell. After another mom
ent of reflection, she placed the papers and the doll into the box and pushed it back into the crawl space.

  After about an hour spackling various dents and holes throughout the second floor, unable to shut down the haunting reverberations from what she’d read, she returned to the master bedroom and FaceTimed her father.

  “How’s it going, princess,” he asked. “I knew you couldn’t get along without my expertise.”

  Belle laughed. “I do need you, but not for what you’re thinking.”

  “What’s up?”

  “What do you know about your cousin, Judy?”

  “Only what I’ve already told you,” he said. “My uncle, Wes, was killed at work in an accident at the old mill when we were kids. I was only about four or five at the time. Our families never were close, even when he was alive. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I found what I think is Judy’s diary, so I wanted to learn more about her.”

  “Wish I could help, honey,” he said. “She was an only child and died when she was a teenager. I’m the youngest of all the cousins, so I don’t remember much.”

  “You know anything about your aunt Marion?”

  “Only that she was never the outgoing type, but she really became like a recluse after Uncle Wes died. And this is only what I remember from your grandmother’s stories.”

  “And Judy died how?”

  “Aunt Marion said some kind of infection or something, but nobody knew for sure. I remember them saying she was a troubled kid, but if your father drops dead when you’re that young, it can happen.”

  Belle was quiet as she absorbed the details about Judy.

  “Too bad your grandmother wasn’t still around. She could’ve told you more.”

  “Yeah. I wish she was here, too,” Belle said.

  “What’s in that diary,” he asked in a playful tone. “Some kind of juicy mystery?”

  “Kind of. I think she was abused.”

  “Oh boy.” He was silent for a moment. “Does she name anyone?”

  “No, and it’s driving me to distraction wanting to know if the guy who did it was ever punished.”

  “Jeez, Belle. You’re talking over fifty years ago. You better let it go, or you’ll never get anything done. You sure you don’t want me to come help you?”

  “Dad, you just had your knee replaced.”

  “Two months ago. I’m almost one hundred percent.”

  “Almost.” She took on a motherly tone. “Let’s wait another month until you’re fully recovered, or Mom will break both of my knees.”

  Her father laughed heartily. “Okay, kid. Don’t make yourself crazy over this diary thing.”

  “I know, but I feel so bad. How could someone hurt a child like that?”

  “I can’t imagine it, honey. But I know what I’d do if someone ever hurt you or your sister like that.”

  “I want to find out what happened to him. What if he’s still out there molesting kids?”

  “If he’s even alive after all these years.”

  “Good point,” she said, her thoughts racing several steps ahead. “Maybe I can ask some locals if they knew Judy and Marion.”

  “Or you can run it by the police. Just don’t go around pissing everyone off up there questioning them like you’re Angela Lansbury.”

  “Grandma loved Murder, She Wrote,” Belle recalled in amusement.

  “I know. I can’t tell you how many times she watched those reruns while she lived with us.”

  “I loved watching them with her when I came over.” She paused to visit with some fond memories. “Okay. Let me get back to work in here.”

  “Okay, kid. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Always. You, too,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him.

  After they ended the call, she thought about a trip into town later on. She wanted to stop by the farmer’s market anyway. Maybe she’d run into some chatty folks who looked like they knew everyone’s business.

  Better yet, maybe a certain local law enforcer could offer some insight.

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Belle ventured into civilization on her bicycle instead of by car since the oppressive humidity had yielded to fresh, New England summer air. As she pedaled along the quiet road shaded by a canopy of trees, Judy reappeared in her mind. She’d texted her father asking if he could locate a picture of Judy from his old family album. In the meantime, she’d already created her own image. Probably blond hair, flowered sundress, red sneakers, scraped knees, cherry-Popsicle stains trimming her lips—and a crushed soul hidden beneath all that sweetness and innocence.

  “Good afternoon,” Belle said as she pulled up to a produce stand and left her bicycle against a nearby tree.

  “’Afternoon.” The old woman seated under an umbrella attached to her chair smiled as she glanced up from her copy of Country Home. “We have a nice variety of greens and the sweetest strawberries around.”

  “You have any kale?” Belle asked, rummaging through the varietals of lettuce.

  “Sure do. First year for it.” She dropped her magazine and moved perilously close to invading Belle’s personal space. “Last year I decided I’d plant some after you city kids passing through on your way to the new winery kept asking for it.”

  “Shrewd business move,” Belle said. “Except I’m not passing through. I’m here for at least the summer.”

  “Are you the gal who bought the Ashford place?”

  Belle smiled good-naturedly. “Do you guys send out a newsletter or something?”

  “Better than that,” the woman said. “We got a town crier who never misses a scoop. Happens to be my husband, the sheriff.”

  “Yes. I’ve already met him. I’m Belle Ashford. Pleasure to meet you.” She wiped a hand wet from veggie-caressing on her shorts before extending it.

  “Shirley Morgan. How’re you liking it here?”

  “I love it,” Belle said. “Very quaint.”

  She grabbed a basket for her bundles of kale and lettuce and proceeded to gently pick through the mountain of ripe strawberries. When it came to gossips, she got the feeling she’d hit the jackpot with Shirley Morgan.

  “Tell me something,” she said casually. “Why is the Ashford place such a big deal around here?”

  Shirley was silent for a moment. “In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly a hotbed of scandal and intrigue. Something has to keep people talking.”

  “For a minute I thought my photo would end up on the wall in the post office’s rogue’s gallery for preventing the sale of it.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Shirley said, spraying rows of greens with a hose. “Why would we be upset by you coming in and fixing up the place?”

  “It’s almost two acres of buildable land. You guys would’ve made a killing selling it off to a developer.”

  “Now that’s the problem with this country, ain’t it? People selling off beautiful things to make a fast buck.”

  “I’m sure you could find a few Native Americans who’d give you an ‘amen’ to that,” Belle said.

  “You said you were here for the summer? You gonna use the place for a vacation home?”

  Belle’s smile quickly collapsed at the reminder of her treasonous motive for being there to begin with. “Yeah, uh-huh,” she lied.

  “Good for you,” Shirley said. “You have a husband and kids joining you?”

  Belle shook her head and wondered if she shouldn’t get the coming-out thing over and done with now. One word to Shirley and by tomorrow the whole community would either throw her a Pride parade or burn an effigy of her on her front lawn. It would be nice to eliminate the suspense.

  “Well, I’ll keep an ear to the ground for you,” Shirley said. “I know a few ladies with single sons if you’d like a hand getting the ball rolling.”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay. I have my hands full with the house.” She moved away from Shirley and her matchmaking offer as though they were a contagious disease. After a few minutes faking
interest in a rack of handmade wind chimes, she felt safe resuming her mission. “So did you know the Ashfords at all?”

  “They were quiet folks, kept mostly to themselves, but sure I knew them. Wes died young in that accident at the mill. But I got to know his widow and the daughter fairly well. My mother-in-law used to teach catechism when I started dating Bob, so I got to know some of the kids.”

  “You’re not harassing the sheriff’s wife, are you?”

  The low, sultry voice so close to her ear startled Belle—as well as sending a ripple of chills up her neck. She whipped around to find Deputy Alexandra Yates smiling at her, but the real show was the tan, muscled arms straining against her rolled-up short-sleeve uniform.

  She regarded Shirley with mock authority. “She’s not giving you a hard time with bad country-bumpkin wisecracks, is she?”

  “Not at all, Ally,” Shirley said. “We’re having a lovely time shootin’ the breeze and getting to know one another.”

  Belle flashed Ally a cool, ‘so there’ smirk, but Ally’s return smile was so smoldering Belle nearly squished her handful of ripe strawberries.

  “The Ashfords were her people,” Shirley said to Ally. “Did you know that?”

  “Of course she did,” Belle said.

  “I liked Mrs. Ashford,” Ally said. “She was a little batty in her old age, but I never minded going to her house on wellness checks. She’d always have a snack waiting for me.”

  “You knew her well?” Belle said.

  “As well as anyone could. She wasn’t really big on socializing. She ended up with dementia for a while before she passed, but you could still have a conversation with her…sort of.”

  “Interesting,” Belle said. “I didn’t know either of them, but since I’ve taken over the house and learned more of their story, I wish I’d had the chance to get to know Marion before she died.”

  “She’s been gone for five years now,” Ally said, “but I’d be happy to answer any questions about her if I can.”