All Those Who Came Before Read online

  Most of the glass windows, with warped shutters flanking both sides, were cracked or broken out, the remaining glass heavy with grime. The curtains were tattered strips of moldy fabric.

  The boarded up well with an attached corroded pump was entrenched in the grass on the right side of the lawn. A broken swing set was outlined against the sapphire sky. One of the swings was missing, leaving one lone one hanging from the frame; the slide was bent. No child was sliding down it that way. A section of an ancient Jungle Jim was an incomplete skeleton beside the swing set.

  The yard, as the house, was in terrible shape. Weeds sprouted everywhere. Chunks of sharp-edged concrete hid among the tall grass.

  For a musical soundtrack, the house had a pulsating chorus of insects, squirrels and frogs, one moment as soft as a whisper and the next as loud as a scream. The sound reminded Abigail of summer. Of Michael, her childhood and their old homestead. It was as if she’d traveled back in time and she experienced a disorienting feeling of déjà vu. For a moment she stared at the forest behind the house and almost thought she could hear Michael laughing somewhere among the trees. In her mind he would forever be out there exploring the woods and creeks with a ten-year old Abigail. Just like her childhood home. Those times were frozen and cherished in her heart, soul and mind. Enough. Focus, focus, she whispered to herself. Get out of the past and return to the here and now and the task at hand.

  She stared at the Theiss house. To her, as she moved further away from her subject, closer to the road, and set up her easel, the house with all its flaws was still hauntingly beautiful, storm or no storm. This is what time, weather and abandonment did to all things. Nothing lasted forever.

  Abigail opened her folding chair, settled her butt on it and brought out her sketch pad. Taking a baseball cap out of her purse, she slapped it on her head. Otherwise, sitting in the sun like she was, her face would turn into a ripe tomato. Biting her lip gently in deliberation, her eyes on the house before her, the sketch pad, balanced on her knees, she began to sketch. As she did, the thoughts she didn’t want to come came. A frown played on her lips.

  Ever since that darn envelope from Bracco had appeared Abigail had been flooded with memories of Joel. Her and Joel. Their love, their marriage. Her old life before Spookie, their old life. She couldn’t shake them. Oh, for a long time after Joel’s body had been found in his wrecked car, a fatal victim of a random–or not–mugging she’d wanted desperately to know what had happened to him. She’d have done anything to learn that. Once. Not now. Because time and her new life with Frank and the kids in foggy Spookie had helped her leave all that sorrow behind. Her new happiness had cleansed her heart. It would do her no good now to rehash any of her old anguish by continuing the search for what had happened to Joel. She should have taken that file away from Frank, stuck it in the shredder, burned it, sent it to the moon...because she knew her husband Frank. What he’d been poring over when she left the house, she was sure, was that darn file. He hadn’t thrown it away as she’d asked. She’d bet on that. And, if that was true, he wouldn’t give up until he solved the mystery of Joel’s death, or wore himself out trying to uncover that truth.

  Did she want Frank to discover how and why her first husband died? Did she want to really know if someone had actually killed him? She was no longer sure one way or the other, and the indecisiveness made her head hurt.

  Since seeing Bracco’s scribbling, seeing that dossier, Joel was alive again in her heart and soul. He was everywhere she looked. Joel had been in the bathroom, his phantom body floating in the mirror, as she’d brushed her teeth that morning. Outside on the porch, waving at her, before she’d driven away. He’d been in the car in the passenger’s seat with her, smiling with his sad ghost smile, as she’d made her way to 707 Suncrest. He had tried to talk to her but she had refused to listen or answer him.

  “Go away,” she’d begged. “You don’t belong here anymore. Please...just go away. I loved you long ago, I will never forget you, but you’re gone now. I’ve cried enough tears, felt enough grief. I want it to be over. I have to live my life, be happy. Go away.”

  She looked around. Strange thing was Joel hadn’t shadowed her when she got out of the car in front of the Theiss house. Joel wasn’t with her here. Hmm. Could the house’s spirits or some other evil have chased him away? Was Joel afraid of something here? Now that was a scary thought, though not so far-fetched. Did murder leave behind some sort of lingering evil? Now that was an interesting notion.

  Frank’s words returned to her. “There are more things in heaven and earth...”

  But Frank didn’t believe in ghosts.

  Abigail, on the other hand, wasn’t as sure of anything anymore as she’d once been. She’d heard, experienced, and seen too much since she’d moved to Spookie to be a complete doubter. Myrtle and Glinda would say, of course, there were ghosts. They were all around them. In the woods, in the houses and floating around the town. Who knew who was right? Myrtle told her often enough that the world did have so much more of the supernatural, even of evil, in it–imagined and real–than most people thought. So why wouldn’t there be remnants of evil around a house that had seen cold-blooded murders?

  She forced thoughts of her dead husband, spirits, and evil, away as she became engrossed in her drawing. The house and what she was doing crowded every other thought out of her head. Time flew by as it always did when she was doing her art. Nothing else existed. It was a relief not to be haunted by Joel, if even for a little while. A smile played on her lips as she worked.

  She drew the house from many different perspectives, sweat popping out on her skin; moving around to get a better viewpoint, as the sun climbed across the sky. One sketch, two, three, four. Notes on what colors she was going to make what. How she was going to shadow this part or that part. What season she was going to frame the first painting in. The house in the storm. Yes, the storm would be first. Angry, violent, wind-whipping chaos in shades of smoky blue, gray and white-streaked lightning. It would be a haunted picture and, if she did it right, people wouldn’t be able to take their eyes away from it. Humming an old Beatles’ song she’d always adored, The Long and Winding Road, Abigail got lost in the world she loved as she continued to create.

  HOURS LATER, SHE WAS pleased with the handful of sketches she’d produced and could absolutely see them in her mind as finished masterpieces. Massive landscapes whose very size would command attention. She hoped they would turn out as fascinating as what she saw in her imagination. Either way, as she looked at the house, she recognized its magic. Even in the sunlight, it was so spooky looking. When the sun began its descent to the horizon, her head hurting from the hours of extreme heat and her intense concentration on what she was doing, her fingers cramping, her stomach growling with hunger, she packed and loaded up her stuff into the car. Standing beside it, ready to slide in and drive home, that’s when she heard the voice.

  Don’t go.

  For a moment Abigail paused, frozen, her hand still on the vehicle’s door handle. Had she heard something? Someone? Or was it her imagination? Her eyes searched the shadows around the house, peered into the broken windows and scanned the spaces around the building. Nothing stirred. The silence had returned; even the summer soundtrack all around her had been muted. Shaking her head, she stood there for another minute or so but didn’t hear anything else.

  She knew she should go home, but somehow, found herself at the house’s front door as if the building had beckoned her, and she’d unthinkingly obeyed. She was a little surprised to find where she was, standing on the front porch. How did that happen?

  Staring inside, at first, there was only blackness. Yet, briefly, she thought she saw something moving beyond the door. She reached out to open it and found it was unlocked. Suddenly Frank’s voice came to her: please don’t go inside. Promise me? She’d promised. It woke her out of the trance and she backed away. Time to go.

  On her way down the steps, the top one collapsed and splintered into p
ieces with the first touch of her weight and, at the last second, she jumped before the gaping hole captured her feet. She stumbled and barely righted herself as she hit the ground. Too close. She could have broken an ankle or something if she hadn’t reacted as quickly as she had. Frank had been right. The place was a death trap. If the front porch was in such a state of advanced disintegration, heaven knew what the inside was like. A shiver crept up her body. The thought of barely avoided pain did that to her.

  How odd, though, she brooded as she got into the car. She could have sworn she’d heard a bodiless voice coming from the house, or something that had sounded like one. With one last glimpse of the place, she drove away. She’d been there most of the day, had lost track of time, and she sure as heck didn’t want to be there when the penumbra morphed into full darkness. She didn’t want to hear any more strange voices.

  Switching on the vehicle’s air conditioning, she debated whether to go straight home or take a side trip into town. Necessity and curiosity won. They needed milk and a few other things so she decided to go into town first, make two stops there, then go home.

  Because there was something else on her mind. If she hurried she might just catch Claudia before she closed up the bookstore. Claudia, Myrtle had alleged, might know more about the Theiss house’s history and Abigail definitely had some questions for her.

  Her final stop would be the grocery store because it was open until nine.

  “WELL, HI THERE, FRIEND.” Claudia came up front to greet Abigail as she entered the bookstore. “I saw you outside ogling the books I have displayed in the window. What do you think of the titles I’ve chosen?”

  Tattered Corners was having a huge murder mystery sale and the front window had been full of Frank’s novels and others of the genre. Abigail had loitered out in front her gaze taking them all in.

  “Nice selection of murder mysteries you have in your window there. The covers catch your eye right off. I especially like that one with the spooky looking house on the front. I approve of your selection.”

  “You should. That is one of Frank’s novels. The third I think. I have all five of his front and center.” Claudia was dressed in a classy pants suit, ivory hued, with a flowing brown chiffon scarf, which matched her eyes, tied loosely around her throat. Her long hair was pinned up in a loose bun, some stray strands wispy around her face. Her hair had more gray in it these days, and the woman’s face had more lines but, otherwise, Claudia had barely seemed to age much since Abigail had first met her. Some women held their beauty, their youth, far longer than others. They were also the sort who then, at a ripe old number, seemed to wither almost overnight into cronehood. Claudia was probably one of those women.

  “I noticed that and, believe me, Frank will be appreciative,” Abigail replied as she moved past Claudia and into the store.

  “Tell him I expect a book signing in the store one day very soon. He has a legion of fans in town and they’ve been pestering me to get him in here.”

  “I know. Just give him a day and time and I’m sure he’ll gladly do a signing. He likes an audience; loves to sign his books and prattle on about them with his admirers.”

  “Oh, I will. I’ll call him later tonight. Lock down a date.”

  “You do that.” Abigail walked beneath the clock on the wall. The time was five-thirty. A half-hour until closing. She’d been grateful for Tattered Corners since the first day she’d moved into town so many years ago. The shop had provided her with an endless stream of free swapped paperbacks when that was about all she could afford. These days she still rummaged through the bin, replacing any she took with her old paperbacks, but she also bought other books off the shelves. With Frank being a writer, she was acutely aware authors needed their income.

  On their way through the shop Abigail commented, “Looks like the worst of that tornado yesterday missed the town. I didn’t see much more on my way here than surface damage, limbs down and trash blown around. Myrtle and I were at Stella’s when the storm began and we fled pretty quickly, so I’m so glad to see the town was spared. Our cabin got a bit of wind damage, but not bad. We were all lucky, if you ask me. Myrtle and I both saw the tornado, it chased us for miles before it changed direction, and it was gigantic. Biggest twister I’ve ever seen.”

  “As you said, Abigail, we were all so lucky. Or blessed. It was some storm, though, wasn’t it?”

  “It sure was.”

  In the rear of the store where Claudia had her welcome alcove, and served her customers the refreshment of the day, Abigail took a seat before the small table. Claudia sat across from her. There was part of a chocolate cake under a fancy glass cake cover. Two pots. One of coffee and one of tea. The cake cover had a delicately etched flower motif around the circumference. It was absolutely exquisite.

  “Would you like a piece of cake? I made it myself fresh this morning. My mother’s special recipe. You put Cool Whip in the batter. It makes the cake sweet and extra fluffy.”

  “Sounds yummy. But have I ever turned down a slice of chocolate cake before, or any kind of cake for that matter?”

  “Not to my knowledge. I don’t know how you stay so slender.”

  “High metabolism I suppose.”

  “Lucky you. I only have to look at cake or anything fattening and more pounds spontaneously appears on my hips. But I don’t care. I need cake today.” The book seller sliced two pieces and put them on plates. She gave a plate to Abigail. The clear platters were also etched in the same pattern as the cake cover. Claudia did like her nice things.

  “How is everyone,” Claudia began with, “at the Lester household?”

  “They’re good. Laura will be starting her third year at the art college in the fall, and she’s doing great at her summer internship at the Art Gallery. She’ll be home for a week or two before she has to resume classes; after she spends a little time with her other sisters and brothers. They’re all meeting up at their Aunt Bessie and Uncle Edward’s for a get together, even Giles, who’s still in active service and is often stationed in other countries. The seven siblings do gather together a couple times a year. Bessie and Edward share the gatherings with us. So I’m not sure exactly when Laura will be here, but she’ll let me know.”

  “How are the other Brooks’ children doing anyway?”

  “They’re all doing so well. I can’t believe how much time has gone by since their parents died. I can still see them in that run-down house of theirs, hungry and lost, after their father was murdered. Still see how thankful they were when Frank and I stepped in to help.”

  “I remember them back then, too. What a family. Poor, but they had love. What are the other kids up to?”

  “Giles is still in the army. He’s making a career of it. Penny, Charlene, William, and Eunice are fine, happy, and growing up as children do. Laura says Eunice is turning out to be quite an artist herself, wants to follow in her older sister’s footsteps and go to art school when she graduates from high school. William wants to be a scientist, paleontologist I think, and Charlene wants to be either a singer or a history teacher. Nick has heard her sing and says she’s good. Who knows, maybe when she’s older she can sing in Nick’s band. Last time I saw them they had all gotten so big.”

  “That’s great,” Claudia said. “You and Frank were so good to take two of them in.”

  “More like they took us in. We’ve never regretted it, not ever. They’re our kids now and have been since the beginning. We love them and they love us. I can’t imagine our lives without them.”

  Abigail paused. “That only leaves Nick and Frank. Let’s see. Nick’s band is moving forward in their musical career by planning a tour next year as soon as all of them are out of high school, hopefully after the December semester. All three of them are graduating early. Also, we found out that his band, The Young Ones, are playing center stage at the Summer Festival the end of August in the new park’s open amphitheater. He’s so excited and has been writing new songs for weeks.

  “A
nd Frank...he’s busy writing his sixth murder mystery. Actually, he’s thinking of taking some time off from his consulting job at the sheriff’s department to finish it. Oh, all his novels are going into audio books, as well. He’s stoked about that.”

  “Also,” she lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I think in the near future we’re going to see a wedding.”

  “A wedding?”

  “Kyle and Glinda’s. As you know, they’ve been seeing each other seriously for a long time. Frank hopes, with Kyle finishing his medical residency in Chicago and moving here to take over Doc Andy’s practice, the wedding will be soon. I hope so, too. Frank and I can’t wait until they’re hitched and Kyle is established in Doc Andy’s practice. It’s what Frank has always wanted, for Kyle to be our town physician, since his son first said he wanted to be a doctor. And all those years attending medical school in another city far away has been hard on Frank. He’s missed his son.”

  “I’m tickled to hear about the impending–fingers crossed–wedding,” Claudia spoke up. “They do make a perfect couple. Each heals in their own ways.” She took another bite of her cake.

  “So...how are your kids doing?” Abigail asked the obligatory question on her end after they’d finished discussing Abigail’s kids and family.

  “All five are doing well. They’re still scattered across the country. You know, living their own lives, busy with the grandchildren. No time for the old folks anymore. We still see them on Thanksgiving and Christmas...most years anyway.” A fleeting sadness glinted in the woman’s eyes, yet disappeared just as swiftly, replaced by an accepting smile. Claudia had long ago accepted her children were grown and they were busy doing their own things. The book seller had always been of the mind, as Abigail was, that parents raised their children and then set them free into the world. They were all proud of their offspring, yet as long as their kids were happy, doing well, that was what was supposed to happen. Claudia never guilted her children about not giving them enough of their time or living too far away. She and Ryan lived their own lives and enjoyed every minute of them they could.