The Haunting Of Bechdel Mansion (8 page)

“Thank you,” she said, walking away.
Even with her back turned, she could sense him watching her.
Perhaps he was reaching for his phone to alert the others that a
newcomer was snooping around; an outsider. She stopped at the
newspaper room and glanced behind her, only to see Hal going back
to his own paper. She sighed with a troubling thought.
These people are making me more paranoid of them
than they are of me.

She turned the light switch on as walked
inside the room, about the same size as her walk-in closet at the
mansion. There were two old beige sofa chairs with a circular
coffee table between them where a reading lamp sat. There were four
tall book shelves aligned on the side of the room filled to the
brim with newspapers. Each shelf had a small printed label
indicating the press year, and as she walked between the first two
shelves, she already felt overwhelmed.

There was a history that the residents of
Redwood seemed very protective of. Hal had made that much obvious,
though she was curious how long he and his wife had lived here.
Maybe if she got to know him better over the weeks, she could find
out. She trailed the shelves examining the old, stacks of papers
that had long turned yellowish and faded. There were papers dating
back to the 1950s. Farther down the aisle she saw some as
identified from the 1930s. It was remarkable to see so many old
papers stored together in a dusty room. For the time being,
however, she wasn’t concerned about those decades. She was looking
for one particular decade—one particular year.

She reached the end of the aisle and turned
to walk between the next one over, eyes scanning up and down for
something of interest. In the middle should could see a label on
one of the shelves for 1974-1975, encompassing over five shelves
from top to bottom. “Well,” she said to herself. “Here we go.”

Suddenly, her cell phone rang from inside
her purse. She paused and pulled the phone out. Curtis was calling
her. She answered speaking softly even though there was no one in
the library at the moment to disturb.

“
Hey, babe. Did you make
it to the library okay?”

“
I sure did,” she said. “Currently
standing in a stack of old newspapers.”

“
Already in the thicket of
it, eh?”
His voice cut out a little as a gust of wind
blew into the phone.
“Hey, listen. Bob
Deckers wants to take us to lunch. There’s a little diner here
across the street open for business. How about you meet us for a
bite?”

“
That’s fine,” she said without
hesitation. “I’ve got to finish what I came here for.”

“
Come on, Mary. It’s
Sunday. You’ll have plenty more times to go to the library this
week.”

“Sorry, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll
meet up with you when I’m finished.”

“And how long will that be?”

Mary paused and looked around the endless
stacks of old newspapers surrounding her. “In a little bit. Meet
you in an hour?”

Curtis sighed but held his
tongue.
“Okay. I’ll text you what they
have on the menu.”

“Sounds good. Thanks, honey,” she said. She
hung up as he offered a sad-sounding “bye,” and then went back to
her search. She guided her hands along pile in the second shelf in
front of her and pulled a few folded paper out of the stack almost
by instinct. The papers were dated between June and July of
1975.

“Perfect,” she said, walking away toward one
of the sofa chairs. She took a seat as a couple walked inside the
library. She could see them through the pane glass in the window.
They seemed friendly with Hal and walked off together toward the
bookshelves. For some reason, Mary found that the people in town
made her nervous. It seemed a natural reaction for anyone who was a
newcomer, like herself.

She set the papers on her lap onto the
floor and grabbed the first one,
The Dover
County Sentinel
. Dover County, she had been told, was
the county in which Redwood was located, but the town seemed to
exhibit a boundary all its own. The closest town over, Jasper, was
at least twenty miles away. Its headline displayed national news on
inflation and gas prices. She flipped through the rough, dry pages
feeling as though they would tear with the slightest
force.

It was interesting seeing the advertisements
for old television sets and refrigerators, right next to news
articles with men dressed in vintage jean jackets and turtlenecks
and women with their long yellow button-down dresses. As she
flipped through more old news and captured moments of the past, her
eyes stopped on one tiny article in the local section.

She recognized the man in the picture. He
looked much younger than before, but there he was wearing a plaid
jacket and tie, dark brown hair, but brushed back the same way as
before. It was Pastor Phil, and he was standing at a podium with
several microphones attached to it. The headline verified her
suspicion immediately:

Local Pastor calls for Peace and Calm During
Time of Tragedy

She brought the paper closer and read the
article, completely engrossed.

“
Following the tragic murders at the
Bechdel Estate, Pastor Phillip F. Winstead led his congregation in
vigil for the victims while urging the town not to fall prey to
elements of darkness and fear.”

She lowered the paper, thinking to herself.
It all seemed pretty straight forward with nothing suspicious on
the outset. However, something told her there was more to the story
than what she saw. She reached for another newspaper in the stack
and pulled it out, completely engrossed. It was the exact paper she
was looking for. “Massacre at the Bechdel Estate,” it said in big
black letters. Her head rose as she looked around. The couple were
strolling the bookshelves outside the room, Hal was still at his
stool.

She didn’t know exactly what the articles
would tell her, if anything, but she felt that she was closer than
before. She grabbed the entire stack of newspapers and then stood
up in haste, walking out of the room and approaching Hal once
again.

“
Do you have a copy machine
here?”

His eyes rose up with their usual
uncertainty. He examined her for a moment, hesitant, as she stood,
arms clutching a stack of old newspapers.

“
Back there,” he pointed.

She turned and could see a large copy
machine next to the restrooms in the far corner, past the newspaper
room.

“
Ten cents a copy,” he
added.

She set the stack down on the counter and
fished through her purse, handing him a few dollar pills for
change. He stopped and nearly sighed as his hands slowly went to
the cash register and gave her a handful of change. She thanked him
and went to the copy machine, feeling satisfied, even excited.

After a ten or so minutes of fishing through
relevant articles detailing Redwood or the Bechdel mansion, she
made her copies, one by one, not even realizing that the hour she
had told Curtis had already passed. With over twenty copies folded
and jammed into her purse she brought the newspapers back to the
shelves, realizing that her foray into the room was far going to be
her last.

Before leaving, however, she scanned the
bookshelves, looking for anything crime related in the nonfiction
section. She came across a few travelogue books detailing the
“Redwood experience,” and then oddly enough came to a few books on
understanding the world of the supernatural. The books were all
from small independent publishing presses, and she wondered if the
authors were the very locals Hal had boasted about. Odder still was
that she knew exactly where to look for every book that ended up in
her hands. She’d never had such a seamless experience in a library
before.

Hal’s eyes widened as she approached with
ten books in hand, plopping them down on the counter. “This’ll be
it for today,” she said with an exhausted smile.

“
Well, all right then,” Hal replied,
marking the books with his scanner. She had more than enough to
keep her busy. For the time being.

***

Later that evening, Curtis and Mary took a
breather in the master bedroom, admiring the setup. Their dressers
and nightstands had been moved in. The bed frame was set up. Mary’s
bookshelf was intact along with their television stand and flat
screen, and most of their boxes had been unpacked. The walk-in
closet was full of shirts, dresses, and pants on hangers along with
their shoes, but there was still plenty of room left. It was the
first, and only room they had deemed livable in the two days they
had been at the house.

In the corner of the room, near the bed sat
Mary’s stack of newspapers and books. She had showed up to the
diner much later than planned, but Curtis gave her a pass. Bob, the
realtor had to go to a meeting, and she never got to meet him. It
was a small town, though, and she was sure she’d get the
opportunity again soon enough.

“
Well, we have one room almost ready
to go,” Curtis said, falling on the bed, back first. He held up his
hand, counting along his fingers. “That leaves us about… fourteen
more rooms.”

“
We don’t have enough furniture,” Mary
said, pacing barefoot in a pair of black Yoga Pants and white
T-shirt. The power had been miraculously turned on while they were
out for the day and although the standing lamp in their room worked
fine, there was a series of electrical issues throughout the house,
leaving many of the rooms without power. Curtis had explained that
this was to be expected.

Mary was beginning to miss the simplicity of
their apartment in Chicago. She tried her best to understand
Curtis’s vision and share it with her, but the endless amount of
work ahead was exhausting to consider. Curtis sat up and grabbed
the remote, turning on the TV and receiving a screen of white noise
instead.

“
That reminds me,” he began. “Cable
and Internet should be out here tomorrow.” He turned the TV off and
tossed the remote aside.

“
You know a house like this is going
to need permanent upkeep. How are we going to afford it all?” she
asked, still pacing.

Curtis groaned and grabbed a notebook lying
on the floor, flipping it open. “I’ve charted out our finances
right here for the next year. Things will be a little tight through
the summer, but as soon as I open up my own practice, we’ll be back
in the green.”

Mary initially said nothing. Curtis sounded
so sure of himself and confident of their future that she didn’t
want to dispirit him, and she certainly didn’t want another
argument for their second night in the house. “What’s the plan for
tomorrow?” she simply asked.

“
Well…” Curtis said, flipping to the
next page in his notebook. “The painters will be here to work on
the interiors. Got an electrician coming out to sort out the bad
wiring. Lawn maintenance begins their long slosh through our jungle
of a backyard. Cleaners will be here to take care of the other
rooms.” He paused, thinking to himself. “Is that it?”

“
Sounds like plenty,” Mary said,
taking a seat next to him in bed.

Curtis glanced over at her library find
stacked next to the bed. “You never told me much about the library.
Did you find what you needed?”

“
It’s just a start but yet. The
librarian was an older man named Hal. A bit off-putting at first,
but I think he warmed to me eventually.”

“
Who could resist?” Curtis said with a
smile.

Some of Mary’s blond hair had fallen in
strands from her hair tie in the back. Her ponytail reached just
below her neck. Her face was free of makeup and tired looking.
Curtis’s face was thick with stubble from the past few days. It was
fair to say that they were both in need of a good night’s
sleep.

“
He suggested that I go to the office
of records near the courthouse,” she said.

“
To find what?” Curtis asked,
curious.

She turned to look at him. “The history of
this town. Of this house.”

“
I knew it,” Curtis said with a laugh.
“You are planning on writing a book.”

Mary smiled, not wanting to go into too much
detail. “Maybe so.”

He took her hand, kissed it, and pulled her
closer to him, kissing her soft lips. With a heavier embrace to
follow, Mary backed up, holding him at bay. “Honey, please. We’re
filthy.”

“
I don’t mind,” he said with
that
look
in his
eyes.

It suddenly occurred to Mary that they
hadn’t made love in quite some time. Not since she went to the
hospital. Not since the miscarriage. The feeling in her bones was
enough to go on. It was time. She fell back into his arms as they
kissed with deep-seated passion. His hands caressed her back,
moving her shirt up. She broke away and raised her arms as he
pulled the fabric off and tossed it on the floor.

Mary awoke in the dead of night on her side
of the bed, lying naked next to Curtis. The sheets were pulled up
halfway, and she felt a dryness in her throat that she could no
longer ignore. The room was dark beyond the blueness of the moon
shadowed in through the open windows. The overhead ceiling fan was
on, making a strange buzzing noise. The air conditioning unit
needed to be replaced and Curtis had told her to expect a new unit
there within the week.

Feeling spirited, not to mention thirsty,
Mary rose and stepped out of bed, leaving Curtis asleep on his
stomach. She grabbed her T-shirt and a pair of boxers lying on the
floor and put them on. She wasn’t sure which lights in the house
worked yet, so she picked up a flashlight next to the TV stand and
left the room to venture toward the kitchen, where there was plenty
of bottled water in their new refrigerator.