Lisa Miscione - Twice

“What?” she said. “I wasn’t listening.”

“What’s going on in there?” said Jeff, looking at her with a little worry and putting a hand on the back of her head.

“Nothing,” she said. She looked into his eyes and smiled.

“Well, curse or no curse, I gotta head back to the city,” Ford said, wiping the grease from his mouth. He threw ten dollars on the table. “No offense, Lydia. I can’t handle this hocus-pocus bullshit. I have to deal with the facts, find out who crawled up through that hole, if anyone, who let him in, which of them killed Richard Stratton. We’re not going to figure that out digging into some town legend.”

“And what about Eleanor’s mysterious missing brother? And the town recluse, Maura Hodge? What if the answer to your question is right here in Haunted?”

“Call me on my cell. But watch out for the Headless Horseman, will ya?”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously, keep me posted. I’ll call you when I’ve finished with Eleanor and the twins.”

“Ford, what about the autopsy results? When do those come back?” asked Jeff.

“Should be today; they’ve been a little backed up. Busy homicide month. But they pushed mine up because it’s high-profile. There’s a meeting in the morning-ME, crime scene technicians, junior detectives, ten A.M. Midtown North. You guys can drop by afterward if you keep a low profile. I’ll fill you in.”

“We’ll be there,” said Jeff as Ford slid out of the booth. He stopped a second before walking out the door. He regarded them with a frown and pointed a paternal finger at them.

“You two be careful,” he said, thoughtful, as if his mind were already on something else. “Call me if you run into anything tangible.”

Lydia watched him as he muddled out the door. With his worn old beige raincoat and bad navy blue suit, he looked like a sad cliché of himself. Run-down middle-aged cop, nothing in his life but the job. Anything tangible … she thought. As far as she was concerned, the information the librarian gave her was the most tangible thing they had.

“ Isay,” said Dax with a wicked smile from the backseat, “we go in, guns blazing. Ask questions later.”

The three of them sat in the Range Rover in front of a giant elaborate wrought-iron fence, its bars formed to look like a network of vines and thorns. A sign was posted to the right of the gate explaining that the owner was legally entitled to shoot anyone who set foot on her property. It also warned that trained Dobermans roamed the property and that the owner was not responsible for the actions of said animals in the event someone decided to trespass. However, the gate was ajar. It felt oddly to Lydia like a dare.

“As much as I appreciate your input, Dax,” said Lydia flatly, “I think we’ll try a more civilized approach.”

She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her black leather blazer.

“I’ve seen Chiclets bigger than that thing,” Dax said, pointing to her tiny cell phone. “I’d have to have a six-pack of them. I’d crush one a day at least.”

Lydia smiled in spite of herself. She was trying to treat both of them with a disdainful distance for their actions of yesterday. But they were hard to stay angry with, especially since she knew they were motivated only by concern for her.

“There,” said Dax, catching her smile in the rearview mirror and issuing a triumphant laugh. “I knew you wouldn’t be a bitch all day.”

“Just keep talking. You’d be surprised how long I can hold a grudge,” she answered, turning away so he wouldn’t see her smile widen.

“ I wouldn’t,” said Jeff, with his best henpecked sigh. Lydia smacked him on the arm with her free hand.

A small Post-it that she’d tacked to the back of her phone had scrawled on it Maura Hodge’s number. Lydia dialed and waited while it rang three times before a machine picked up. “Leave a message,” said an angry voice. “Though there’s no guarantee I’ll get back to you.”

“Ms. Hodge, my name is Lydia Strong. Marilyn at the library said you might be willing to speak with me. I’m in Haunted, at the bottom of your driveway, to be exact, and I’d like to take a little bit of your time. Please call me when you get this message. And by the way, the gate is ajar. Thought you might like to know.” She left the number and hung up.

“Now what?” said Dax.

“We wait a few minutes.”

“What makes you think she’ll call back?” asked Jeff, skeptical.

“Because she’s lonely. Lonely people always like to talk. Especially when they think they have a cause.”

“Maybe we’ll get points for not busting in even though the gate was open.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

They waited a few minutes in silence before the phone rang and Lydia picked up.

“Hello?”

“What do you want?” came the same voice from the machine in even less pleasant tones. She knew she’d have exactly one chance to enter the property with Maura Hodge’s permission. Otherwise it was going to be B &E, with the possibility of either getting shot or mauled by Dobermans.

“I’m writing an exposé on the Ross family. Marilyn told me that you know a lot about their history. I was hoping you would share the truth about them with me, Ms. Hodge.”

There was a moment of silence during which Lydia held her breath. Then, “Come up and make sure the gate is closed behind you.”

“Okay,” Lydia said, and hung up the phone. She looked at Jeff. “Let’s go up.”

Dax jumped out to open the gate, waited until the Rover was through, then closed it behind them. Closed it mostly, anyway. There was no way he was going to lock the only exit he knew of from the property. When he was back in the car, they headed up the narrow drive, shaded by a canopy of trees so thick that after a few feet it seemed like all the light had faded from the sky. Jeff turned on his headlights, wondering why they always seemed to be headed into the dark unknown.

Maura Hodge was a goddess with a sawed-off shotgun. She stood on her porch waiting, the gun cradled in her arms like an infant. Her hair was as black and wild as a storm cloud, reaching out every which way and down her back nearly to her waist. In a diaphanous patchwork skirt and long black wool tunic, she was a large woman, with big soft breasts and wide shoulders, legs like tree trunks, arms like hams. She looked at them as they approached, with a withering stare that probably turned most people right around. Luckily, they weren’t most people. Though Lydia was starting to wish they were.

“Those your bodyguards?” asked Maura, nodding toward Jeff and Dax as Lydia exited the vehicle.

“They’re my associates,” said Lydia vaguely, but looking Maura straight in the eye. You couldn’t give an inch to a woman like Maura Hodge, otherwise she’d bulldoze right over you. Anyone could see that. Lydia could also see that she was mostly bark. Though she couldn’t speak for the Dobermans lying on the porch behind Maura, their black and rust coats gleaming in the rays of sun that sliced through the tree cover like fingers reaching down from heaven. They looked a little lazy, though. They hadn’t even raised a head at her arrival.

“Now, I’ve had two calls. One from Marilyn telling me you are a writer interested in the Ross case. And one from Henry Clay telling me that your ‘associates’ here are investigators. Which is it?”

“A little of both,” said Lydia.

If Lydia had to imagine what the descendant of an angry voodoo priestess might look like, Maura came pretty close. Generations of mixed races had lightened her skin to a coffee-and-cream color, but her eyes were as black as rage itself and they fairly glowed with intensity. The burden of a lifetime of bitterness seemed to have bent her back into a permanent slump. Her mouth was a hard cold line that looked as though it might never have smiled or spoken words of love.