A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (7 page)

“Those will have to go, but otherwise, this should do quite nicely. I’ll be close enough to hear your screams and, if I don’t miss my guess, that door leads to the tower just like the other one at the opposite end of the hall.”

And it did. It was a small sitting room, or had been once. Now it was filled with the boxes that hadn’t made it to the attic. One window was broken…the one they had seen the crow fly into, when they first arrived. Bird droppings and feathers littered the floor that had warped from the onslaught of rain over how many years? More than enough to do a lot of damage.

“This will be the perfect place to write. Something I have to get back to or I’ll have to return my advance, which is not a good thing for either of us. Let’s look around downstairs and then hunt up Mr. Watts, if he hasn’t run screaming into the woods yet,” Charlie told Meg.

They found the door to the servants’ stairs just outside and followed it down to the kitchen. It looked and felt different today. It was the sun pouring in the window, and the absence of whatever had been there yesterday, that had completely changed the atmosphere. All in all, the house and its inhabitants seemed to be on their best behavior today and both sisters were grateful.

Poking around the kitchen area, they found the scullery, the staff dining room, the pantries, and the cook’s small bed-sitting room. Then, one by one, they walked through each of the remaining rooms on the main floor. The rich paneling was scarred, the floors were stained and worn, the plaster crumbling from the damp. The list went on and on, but they marveled at the beautiful mouldings, the elaborate marble mantles, the ceiling rosettes and hanging chandeliers. Some of the heavy Victorian furniture they saw up in the attics would be beautiful down here. Hopefully, they would find enough pieces to furnish the place if they stretched it a bit thin. A few potted plants could fill in a lot of space!

But the library wing was much more than they could have imagined! It was floor to ceiling bookcases filled with old, beautifully bound books that had both Meg and Charlie wondering why Mrs. Brown hadn’t absconded with the lot! A fireplace, bracketed by French doors that led into what might have passed for the Amazonian jungle, gaped blackly along one wall.

“Guess I have all the gardening I need to keep me busy for the rest of my life!” Meg said with just a hint of desperation.

Charlie smiled. “You can garden, while I write. Which reminds me. I need to finish that chapter I began yesterday and you need to take Freddie out for a walk. Let’s find Watts, shall we?’

“You do know that this place is absolutely beautiful under all this” Meg said with a sigh.

“All this grime, mold, dust, bird poop and falling down on our heads disrepair? Yes, it is. And someday, not soon and praying we don’t run completely out of money, this will be all we hoped for. I know it will,” Charlie finished for her.

“And if we can just get the Hensleys…all of them…to cut us a little slack, it will happen. What are you going to call it, anyway?”

“I assume you mean our B&B? We’ll need to give that some thought,” Charlie replied with a grin. “Needless to say, we won’t be sending out brochures any time soon!”

Watts inspection report wasn’t
entirely
bad. The copper plumbing, and wiring had been updated sometime in the seventies. The well and pump were in working order, but the drainfield was another matter, as was the roof. Water damage in the attics and walls would need to be addressed, but the basic structure was sound right down to the stone foundation and dirt floor cellars.

The needed repairs were daunting. Ivy would need to be torn away and the brick walls and chimneys re-pointed, where the mortar had crumbled. Fireplaces, “if they wanted them to work”, needed stainless steel double walled flues inserted. And that was just the beginning of a very long list that didn’t even begin to include the grounds.

Once they’d transferred their entire life savings to the local back, Meg and Charlie began the hunt for a ‘honest, reliable’ general contractor. After a number of interviews, they agreed on Moe Swenson. His references checked out…everyone thought he was ‘excellent’, ‘very professional’ and knows how to ‘work in budget’. The last bit was the deciding factor, though his appearance didn’t hurt. While accusing each other of being ‘shallow’, Meg and Charlie both couldn’t help but notice his lumberjack size, curly blonde hair with just a touch of gray, and intelligent blue eyes fanned with laugh lines. He was a hunk right down to the jeans hugging a tight, well-shaped rear end. “We know we aren’t picking him just because he has a nice you know what, but I still feel a little guilty I’m even thinking along those lines,” Meg told Charlie.

Charlie laughed. “Neither of us is so long in the tooth we can’t appreciate a guy like that. Let’s just give him a call and see when he can start.”

And she did. They met him at the house the next day. “You two have taken on a load,” he told them, pushing his baseball cap to the back of his head and giving a low whistle. “I’ve heard about Hensley Hall all my life, but this is the first time I’ve been here. It’s a beauty! You sure you both know what you’ve gotten yourselves into here?”

“Only too well,” Charlie replied. “Here’s the inspection report. We’ll need you to tell us where to even begin!”

Taking the report, Moe disappeared inside the house, while the sisters waited outside. Both were quiet…the only sounds were a few rustles and twitters from the overgrown bushes. Birds they both hoped. “Don’t you think he should be back by now?” Meg asked. “You don’t think something happened to him, do you? We don’t want him scared out of his wits before he even begins!”

“Better than ‘after’ he begins. But something tells me it would take more than a ghost or two to frighten Moe Swenson” Charlie began just as the door opened behind them.

“Well, roof first. Then the drain field needs to be redone and the hot water heater replaced. You’ll need to tell me what bathrooms you’ll be needing. The stove and refrigerator both work but… You can check that out for yourselves after you’ve eaten lunch. We can get you out of that motel and here pretty fast if you don’t mind living with all the mess. This renovation is going to take a lot of time and money. What kind of budget are we working with here?” he asked looking from one to the other.

“Well, as to that, we’ll need some figures from you so we can see how far we can go,” Charlie began.

“And we can help! Charlie’s good with tools and I know about gardening and stuff”

Moe grimaced and then grinned. “Not usually a good idea having the owners on the job site, but I’m not going to turn down a pair of ‘experienced’ hands. I’ll make some phone calls and round up a crew. But first I have to get the permits we need.”

“Any problem with that?” Meg asked before Charlie could.

“You might be dealing with the Historical Society for one. They’ll want everything restored to their standards. But they might want to cut you some slack, considering this house has been an eyesore for years. As far as getting the help we need goes, with things as they are in town right now, there’ll be plenty of guys willing to work out here, but I’d be surprised if anyone stayed after dark.”

“Because they all have wives and children waiting at home with their nice hot supper, right?” Charlie found herself asking dryly.

He laughed and she liked the sound of it. Deep and so very male! “Not exactly! Something tells me you already know the reason. I’m headed down to deal with the bureaucracy. If all goes well, I’ll see you bright and early Friday morning!”

All went well. Permits were rushed through and the Historical Society gave them a free, if ‘dismissive’ hand, so Moe and his crew pitched right in. If they didn’t look all that happy about being there, they made sure neither Meg nor Charlie heard them grumble. And the house, surprisingly, appeared willing to cooperate. It seemed just like any other huge, moldering mansion with no hidden agenda. And, if Meg heard or felt anything stirring about, she wisely kept it to herself.

Freddie remained at the motel (under Hannah, the maid’s capable care), as, day after day, Meg and Charlie tackled whatever needed doing. First, they emptied out the kitchen, hauling out boxes and bags of yellowed newspapers, outdated can goods, chipped and cracked dishes, and stuff that time and damp had reduced to mush. The stove was filthy with years of accumulated grease, while the fridge was full of food that had morphed into moldy lumps years before. Gagging and choking, Meg and Charlie dug in.

Finally, hours later, after the floor, walls, cabinets, sinks and windows had been scrubbed clean, they each pulled up a chair and sat down. “It looks great! I mean it needs paint and new appliances and the cupboards replaced, but we did a great job, don’t you think?” Meg asked, looking around proudly.

Charlie nodded. “I think we should keep the glass fronted cupboards. And I really like this table. The tile floor is really beautiful now that we can see it. It’s quite a nice room and usable now.”

Meg smiled. “Which means one of us will have to cook. I was kind of enjoying the ‘eating out’ thing.”

“That makes two of us…three if you count Freddie’s doggie bags.”

***

They moved their efforts to the second floor bedrooms they had chosen….the ‘Rose Room’ and the ‘Blue Room’. .Stripping the beds, including the remnants of the lace canopy, they bagged it all, then rolled up the carpets and dragged them into the hall. They gathered the clothes from the armoire and dresser and boxed them neatly for the nearest thrift store. Going back inside the ‘Blue Room’, Charlie looked at the butterfly cases hanging on the walls and grimaced. “These will have to go before I’ll sleep a wink in here. They really give me the creeps.”

Meg nodded. “Why would anyone want to do that to a butterfly! And hundreds of them to boot! What will we do with them?”

“How about donating them to the public library,” Moe said from the doorway, his long length taking up all the space. “Not the thing I’d want hanging around either, but Mrs. Shotz might be interested. She’d be the one to talk to and, if you have them with you, it might be harder to say ‘no’. By the way, the plumber wants to get in your bathrooms. The one in the pink room has a leak around the toilet, needs a new wax seal, and the one in here has a busted faucet. Meanwhile, I’ll get these taken down and hauled to your truck. And I’ll get those carpets out of the hall. What do you want me to do with them?”

Meg replied, “It needs a good cleaning, but I want to keep the pink and white one. The other can go in the dumpster, unless you want to keep it, Charlie?”

“No, there’s not much in here I want to keep. Thanks for helping with the cases, Moe, they do look awfully heavy,” Charlie said with the first hint of feminine helplessness Meg had ever heard her big sister utter. Despite Charlie’s pointed scowls, she was still laughing, after Moe had loaded the truck and they were headed towards town.

***

As it turned out, Mrs. Shotz was more than happy to accept their ‘donation’ and she was even happier to have cornered the pair who’d
won
Hensley Hall and taken it off the town’s hands.

“Would have been there to greet you, when you first came to town, but some of us have to work for a living, don’t we? I know the real reason you’re here, girls. You want to find out about that house of yours, right?” she asked with a glint in her close set eyes, then continued without waiting for a reply. “Now what would you like to hear about first, the suicides, the disappearance, or the murders?”

With a smorgasbord of horrors like that to choose from, where to begin, Charlie thought dryly, then said. “The murders…that was probably forty years ago? What happened?”

Mrs. Shotz paused for a long moment strictly for dramatic effect, Charlie thought, then began. “Of course, I was barely a child myself back then, so I do hope you’ll understand if my memory is a bit spotty. Anyway, Merritsville had three girls dead and one missing. Breanna…the missing one…was one of the Hensleys. The Hensleys of Hensley Hall. Your place now.

“They found the others. Dead as door nails…all beautiful girls still in their teens. Went to high school with Breanna. Were friends of hers. It was monstrous. Simply monstrous! All found naked as the day they were born and…you know…molested. Brutally, like some wild animal! It was shocking…just shocking! They called him the ‘Stoneman’.” She paused again savoring the anticipation.

“The ‘Stoneman’?” Charlie prompted her.

Mrs. Shotz used the well practiced stare of the seasoned librarian…one that was meant to shoot down the most hardened offender and Charlie had just trod on Mrs Shotz story. “Sh-h-h-hh! If you want to hear the rest you will need to be quiet. Now where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yes! He was called the ‘Stoneman’ because of the way he left his victims.” Another long pause that had Charlie opening her mouth again, just as Meg pinched her underarm. Hard! “He put a stone in their mouths and taped it shut….their mouths, can you believe it?. Then he taped their eyes shut, .though I don’t know if it was the eyes or the mouth he taped up first. Neat job of it from what I heard!

“It was really horrible. Nobody slept sound around here for months. The police had several persons of interest in mind.”

“Who were they?” Charlie asked, risking another ‘shushing’.

Mrs. Shotz smiled thinly and without humor. “A couple of outsiders, at first, but they didn’t amount to much. After Bea’s autopsy, she was the second victim, they thought her boyfriend was the killer. Can’t remember his name. Wild as the devil, he was, and just as mean from all I heard. The papers said that Bea was in a family way and he didn’t want to be saddled with a wife and kids. Ended up hanging himself before they arrested him, which was kind of strange. Didn’t seem the kind to take that way out. More the bolt and run type. Then there was a third murder and he was dead, so they looked elsewhere.”