Secrets of the Greek Revival Read online

  “Are you going to tell me or not?” Mitchell demanded.

  “I’m not telling you where it is until you answer a few questions,” Ellen said to Mitchell. “First of all, the girl that you shot at on Halloween night…”

  “You mean the ghost?” he interrupted.

  “She’s not a ghost,” Ellen said. “Her name is Amy. Bud Forrester has been taking care of her all these years. It’s a long story, but the short of it is that she’s missing. You know anything about that?”

  Mitchell gawked at her. “Are you bullshitting me?”

  “I promise I’m not,” Ellen said.

  He fell onto a rocking chair and put his hand to his mouth. She could see the wheels spinning in his head as he processed what he’d just been told. “Are you saying that ghost in the white dress isn’t a ghost? That isn’t the same Marcia Gold that haunts me in my dreams?”

  “She’s a living breathing young woman, and her name is Amy. Bud found her years ago and has tried to help her, but she refuses to leave the house because she thinks her mother’s coming back for her.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  “So Bud helped her keep up the pretense of being a ghost to protect both her and the property from outsiders.”

  “How old is she?” Mitchell asked.

  “Bud said late twenties.”

  “I’ve been casting spells against her all these years,” he said. “No wonder they never worked. The spells are meant for evil spirits.”

  “Okay, so you can’t tell me where she is, I guess,” Ellen muttered. “But what about the cats? Why do you have six or seven cats locked up in your storage shed?”

  “Those are strays,” he said. “And none of your damn business.”

  “Do they have food and water? And a litter box that gets changed regularly?”

  “Yes, they do. Look, no one wants those damn cats. I’m doing the neighborhood a favor.”

  “Keeping them locked up like that? Why not take them to a shelter where they can be adopted by people who want them?”

  “Look, you don’t know what kind of hell I live in, so you just keep that judgmental tone to yourself.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m listening.”

  Ellen noticed Sue climb out of her car and head up the sidewalk, with Tanya behind her.

  “What are y’all doing up there?” Sue asked.

  “Negotiating,” Ellen replied. “I told him he could have Marcia’s diary if he answered a few questions.”

  “Well, why don’t we all go over to the Gold House and talk?” Sue suggested. “That’s where the diary is, anyway, and more chairs to sit on. Plus, I found a pizzeria around the block that delivers. Can I order us a pizza?”

  “I would agree to that as long as Mr. Clark leaves his gun behind,” Tanya said.

  “Are we seriously ordering a pizza?” Ellen asked.

  “I just gave a two-hour Power Point presentation, and they didn’t have any refreshments,” Sue said. “I’m tired and hungry, and I want to sit down. But I also want to hear what Mr. Clark has to say.”

  As soon as they entered the Gold House, Mitchell Clark stood before the newly painted portrait of Marcia Gold and froze.

  In the next instant, he took a pouch from his jacket pocket and, with his other hand, sprinkled powder from the pouch onto the floor in front of him.

  “What are you doing?” Ellen shouted. “You’re making a mess!”

  Mitchell returned the pouch to his pocket and spun on his heels to look at Ellen and her friends. “This is goofer dust. It keeps the bad spirits away. And this woman,” he pointed to the portrait of Marcia, “she’s the worst of them all.”

  “Now, Mr. Clark,” Sue began, “I want to know why you think Marcia Gold is a bad spirit, but I want to sit down first. Can we please all sit at the table? Our pizza should be here soon.”

  Once they were seated, Mitchell took out his pouch and sprinkled more of the powder near his feet.

  “Please don’t pour anymore of that dirt on our beautiful hardwood floors,” Sue said. “We already had the house cleansed with a smudge stick ceremony. There are no more bad spirits here.”

  “Look, my great-grandmother has been haunting my family for over a hundred years, so please excuse me if I seem a little paranoid.”

  “Do you know why?” Ellen asked.

  “She wants us to find her father’s gold,” he said. “My father tried, his father tried. She won’t let us rest.”

  “At least we know she married Joseph after all,” Tanya said. “I’m glad.”

  “They didn’t marry,” Mitchell said. “Joseph’s parents wouldn’t allow it. She gave birth to my grandfather out of wedlock, and then Joseph’s parents took the baby away. Joseph died shortly after. My grandfather was raised by my great-great grandparents. They said Marcia was a witch. She’s a witch who won’t let any of us rest until we find the gold.”

  “What do you mean she won’t let you rest?” Sue asked.

  “She comes to me in my dreams,” he said. “Or should I say nightmares? Lord knows I’ve tried. Over the years, I’ve dug up every place possible on this property.”

  “Why do you think she wants you to find the gold?” Ellen asked.

  Mitchell sat back on the wooden chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Bring me the diary, and I’ll tell you.”

  Ellen glanced first at Sue and then at Tanya. They both nodded. Ellen got up and went to the trunk they’d been storing in the master bedroom. When she returned, she handed it over to Mitchell.

  The pizza arrived. Ellen was surprised that Mitchell didn’t try to leave with the diary. Instead he scoured the pages right then and there and even ate a couple of slices of pizza. They had a stash of Styrofoam cups in the kitchen, which Tanya filled with water from the kitchen sink for each of them.

  The three women watched Mitchell’s reactions to the diary as he read. Ellen wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a tear escape one of his eyes. As he reached the end, his hands began to tremble.

  “Are you okay?” Ellen asked.

  He cleared his throat. “She sounds different in her diary.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t the witch your great-great grandparents made her out to be,” Sue suggested.

  Aloud, he read, “He recorded the location of the gold in permanent ink in several places beneath the wallpaper.” He looked up at Ellen. “Did you find anything written on the walls?”

  “Just a bunch of algebra,” Sue said.

  “No map,” Tanya added.

  “What kind of algebra?” Mitchell asked. “And where?” He jumped up from the table.

  “We’ve already painted over it,” Ellen said.

  “I’ve got some paint stripper in my shed.”

  “No!” Tanya cried. “Throwing dirt on our floors is enough for one day.”

  “Wait, I took photos, remember?” Sue said.

  “Where are they?” Mitchell demanded.

  “I don’t have my camera with me, but I included some of the photos in my Power Point presentation. If you would have stayed for the whole thing, you would have seen them.”

  Mitchell frowned. “Where’s that presentation? On a computer?”

  “I’ve got my laptop out in the car. Just a minute, and I’ll go get it.”

  Mitchell walked with Sue. Tanya began clearing off the table. Ellen’s heart was beating fast.

  Sue returned with her laptop. She set it on the table and opened it, powered it up. The four of them stood around the table waiting as Sue pulled up her Power Point presentation and skipped through her slides.

  “Not that one.” She clicked on the next slide. “Wait for it.” She clicked. “Wait for it.” She clicked again. “There it is. Can you see those algebraic equations? We assumed they had something to do with the building dimensions, but we did think it might be some kind of code.”

  Mitchell leaned in to get a better view of the screen. “That’s not algebra…or code,” he said, suddenly very excited.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “What?” the three women said at once.

  “Those are coordinates. Very precise coordinates in latitude and longitude.” He pulled out his phone. “I have an app that can tell us the exact location of those coordinates.”

  Ellen held her breath as he entered the numbers into his phone.

  “This app will tell me when I’m standing in the right location.” He took a few steps one way, and then another, the whole while staring down at his phone.

  He headed toward the back door and then stopped. “That’s not right. Wait a minute.” He turned and headed toward the front door.

  Ellen, Sue, and Tanya followed him outside. He stepped from the porch onto the sidewalk. He took a few steps to his right, toward the Forrester’s Victorian, and then stopped. He pivoted. He took a few steps toward the Robertson’s Victorian, still staring down at his phone. Then he turned toward the street and halted right before the dead tree.

  He looked up at them, his face full of astonishment. “It’s pointing here, beneath this goddamn tree.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Clues in the Attic

  “I’ll be right back with my tools,” Mitchell Clark, full of excitement, said, as he stuffed his phone in his pocket.

  Sue put her hands on her hips. “You realize this is our land, don’t you Mr. Clark?”

  Mitchell gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “That gold belongs to my family. You wouldn’t have found it if it weren’t for me.”

  “That goes both ways,” Tanya said.

  “Now hold on,” Ellen said. “We don’t even know if it’s still there.”

  “Well, we’re about to find out,” Mitchell said. “I’ll get this tree down with my chainsaw and then dig up the roots. I’ll find it before sundown!”

  “You will do nothing of the kind,” Sue insisted. “We already have a tree removal service coming on Thursday. If you touch that tree, I’ll call the cops. You’re trespassing on our property.”

  “Who’s trespassing on who’s property?” He gave Ellen and Tanya an angry glare.

  “Listen to me,” Ellen said. “Both of you listen. If there’s gold under that tree, we should split it three ways: Mr. Clark gets one third, Amy gets one third, and we get one-third, to be divided evenly among the three of us.” She motioned to Sue, Tanya, and herself.

  Mitchell started to object, but Ellen continued, “You won’t have a leg to stand on in court, Mr. Clark. You have no proof that Marcia Gold is your ancestor other than stories your family has passed down to you and a few bad dreams. And we believe Amy is also Marcia’s descendant, and she needs the money more than any of us. And since the three of us own this land, we have the best legal claim to it of anyone. So before anybody starts digging, I think we need to agree—right here, right now—that that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  That night, Ellen told Paul all that had been happening at the Gold House. She had expected him to be concerned about Amy, moved by the fact that they’d found her mother, and excited about the possibility of gold; but, instead, he was angry.

  “Why would anyone break into the house of a suspect?” he asked. “You should have let the police do the investigating. You could have been killed.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  “You’re lucky. It was really stupid, Ellen. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  He shuffled away from the den toward their bedroom—his bedroom.

  Tuesday after work, Ellen met Tanya and Sue at the Gold House where they were determined to make progress on the attic. As soon as she reached the top of the stairs and saw her two friends sitting on folded metal chairs with papers in their hands, she could tell something was up.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  The bins they had marked as “donations,” “trash,” and “keep,” were mostly empty.

  “We found something,” Tanya said. “And it’s really strange. Come here.”

  Ellen crossed the room and looked over Tanya’s shoulder.

  “They’re letters,” Sue said. “Some are written by Joseph Clark. They were scattered all over the place.”

  “That’s not the strange part,” Tanya said. “Look at this. This letter is addressed to Marcia and is signed ‘Joseph Clark.’ But this letter is almost an exact copy and it’s addressed to someone named Jason.”

  “Let me see those.” Ellen took the letters from Tanya and held one in each hand. One page was yellowed but neatly creased with three folds. The other page was a piece of white wide-ruled notebook paper with the standard three holes punched in the left-hand margin. The yellowed letter, dated November 8, 1882, was written in Joseph’s neat handwriting:

  My Dearest Marcia,

  Without my family’s support, I will need to put our future on hold until I find employment.

  But do not allow this wrinkle to dishearten you or to make you doubt my love for you. Our love is like a solid rock. It is thick and hard and cannot break, even under pressure. Water and soil wash away. Animals and plants grow old and die. But the rock of our love grows bigger and more solid with the layers of time. When everything else passes, the rock of our love is still there.

  I was unsuccessful at finding work in Dallas, but do not despair. Tomorrow, I leave for Houston, where I am told the opportunities are overflowing.

  Yours Always,

  Joseph Clark

  Ellen compared that letter to the other, which was written as if by a child in cruder form:

  My Dearest Jason,

  Do not allow this wrinkle to dishearten you or to make you doubt my love for you. Our love is like a solid rock. It is thick and hard and cannot break, even under pressure. Water and soil wash away. Animals and plants grow old and die. But the rock of our love grows bigger and more solid with the layers of time. When everything else passes, the rock of our love is still there.

  I was unsuccessful at meeting with you last night, but if you come again tonight, I will be here.

  There was an additional line that followed, but it was scratched out beyond recognition.

  “I don’t understand,” Ellen said after she’d read and compared the letters.

  “This one is signed ‘Amy,’” Sue said. “Come take a look. I think Amy has been using Joseph’s letters to Marcia to help her compose her own letters to someone named Jason.”

  “The letters by Amy aren’t dated, though,” Tanya said. “So we don’t know how old they are.”

  Ellen took the two letters from Sue’s hands and read the first, dated January 3, 1882, from Joseph:

  My Dearest Marcia,

  I cannot wait to introduce you to my family. I have told them much about you, and, as anyone would expect, they are impressed that, at such a young age, you are already a successful teacher at a reputable school for girls. They have invited us for a visit so they can meet the girl of my dreams in person. I hope you won’t mind.

  I am more nervous about your impression of them than I am about their impression of you. You are like an exquisite crystal—pure, beautiful, strong, and clear. All who gaze upon you cannot help but be transfixed. I have no doubt they will covet you as they would a high-quality diamond.

  But your impression of them is not as easy for me to guess. They are a strict pair, set in their ways, and not very tolerant of those who think differently than they. I hope you can bear to be around them for my sake if you cannot love them as I do.

  I will write as soon as they have settled on a date. Until then, be safe, my love.

  Yours Always,

  Joseph Clark

  Ellen compared that letter to the second, which read:

  My Dearest Jason,

  You are like an exquisite crystal—pure, beautiful, strong, and clear. All who gaze upon you cannot help but be transfixed.

  The lines following it were scratched out with thick ink and the paper was crumpled.

  “And here’s one more match I was able to make from the pile.” Sue handed two more pages to Ellen.
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  Ellen glanced at each and then read the one dated August 10, 1882 and signed by Joseph:

  My Dearest Marcia,

  While I agree that my parents’ expectations are old-fashioned and unfair, I’d rather hoped your love for me would be greater than your need to stand on principle. You must know that it’s true what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks. My parents are old dogs who believe a wife and mother should forego her own ambitions and put her family above all else.

  You are not malleable gypsum, my love. No, you are crystalline in your convictions, like granite and gneiss. I love you for it, though it may be the death of me.

  Yours Always,

  Joseph Clark

  In Ellen’s other hand was the crumpled copy by Amy:

  My Dearest Jason,

  I’d rather hoped your love for me would be greater than your need to stand on principle. You are not malleable gypsum, my love. No, you are crystalline in your convictions, like granite and gneiss. I love you for it, though it may be the death of me.

  Yours Always,

  Amy

  No lines were scratched out, but the multiple creases in the paper suggested that the page had been crumpled like a piece of trash.

  “Who do you suppose this Jason is?” Ellen asked Sue.

  “I think that’s a question you should ask Bud,” Sue replied.

  “Maybe Amy hasn’t been abducted,” Tanya added. “Maybe she’s run off with Jason.”