Chapter 6

Cecil was waiting for us at the door when we pulled into the drive and got out of the car.  The temperature was just above freezing, but the sun shone so intensely that we forgot about the bitter cold for a brief moment while we turned our faces toward the glowing orb to bathe in its warmth.

His face took on an odd look when he saw that Nora had accompanied me. “What a surprise to see you here, Nora.  I was under the impression that Esmerelda worked alone.”

“She does,” Nora sweetly explained as she moved past him through the doorway, took off her coat, and handed it to Henry.  We’d decided to explain my stiffness with a lie.  I was amazed at how smoothly it rolled off her tongue. “I’ve just come to help her set up some equipment.  She slipped on the ice and is a little stiff today.”

His eyes opened wide with concern as he addressed me, “Are you alright?  Should you be out of bed?”

I smiled and shook my head.  “It’s nothing.  I was just a little clumsy and lost my footing.  I pulled a muscle.  I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

He accepted my explanation at face value and turned his attention back to Nora.  It was clear that he was completely smitten with her as he said, “How long will the setting up take?  Will you  have time for some tea and a little discussion on art or antiques before you leave?”

She looked at me for guidance in how to answer him.  I hadn’t paid close attention to how she’d been responding to him since we’d met him and we hadn’t discussed him in any context other than the case.  Was she attracted to him? Did she want to stay and chat with him?  Would her staying encourage his friendship or possibly more?  What about Roger?  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know how close she was with him either.  I’d been so wrapped up in my own drama and misery that I’d paid minimal attention to what was happening in the life of my very best friend.

I felt selfish and self-centered.  It was an awful feeling.

Hoping that I was correctly interpreting the look in her eyes, I took a chance and said, “Unfortunately, Nora has commitments this afternoon.  If she stayed for tea today, it would be a short conversation and a small cup of tea.  I think that you’d be left wanting.  Perhaps you can plan on a day when her schedule is more forgiving?”

I could see the ‘thank-you’ in her eyes and did my best to smile back with my own without Cecil being any the wiser.  He expressed his disappointment, but accepted Nora’s promise to check her calendar and get back to him on a time that would offer them a good long afternoon session of tea and conversation.

After escorting us to the attic door, he reminded Nora that I worked alone and should be left to do so after we’d set up.  He even went so far as to offer her transport back to our house before begging off entering with us.  From the look in his eyes, he was more than a little unhappy about what lay behind it.  Rather than frighten me, I was all the more curious to discover the cause for the nightly raucous that they were forced to endure.

We entered the attic with caution.  For me, it was because of my experience as an investigator and exposure to unsavory people like Jason and Tillman.  For Nora, it was the possibility of us encountering a rat or a bat.  Interestingly, neither of us expressed a concern about the fact that we might see a ghost.  Perhaps Agatha’s haunting of my house did some good after all.

Nora set down the tripod that she’d lugged through the house and up the stairs.  “What do you want to do first?”

I thought for a moment while I gently and absent-mindedly rubbed at various parts of my sore body to help ease the discomfort.  “If I was on a normal case, I’d be setting up cameras and recorders in inconspicuous places.  Since we don’t know who or what’s causing the raucous every night, I say we do the same here.”

“Do you think it’s a who?” she asked; more with curiosity than with fear.

I nodded.  “If it was an animal, it would be impossible for it to lock the door each night.  I’m thinking that maybe Cecil and Archie are hosting some homeless people without realizing it.”

She raised a brow.  “I never thought of that, but it could be possible.”

“There are homeless people out there who wouldn’t think twice about setting up in someone’s attic with this type of weather to deal with; especially in a house this size with only two older men living in it,” I said.

“What about all the noise?” she asked. “That’s pretty dumb if they’re making it.”

I thought for a moment. “That’s a good point. Maybe they don’t realize they’re making so much noise.  Remember when I lived in that apartment with such thin walls and ceilings that I could hear the people pee?  They got so mad at me whenever I complained about their stomping and insisted that they were only walking.  Yet, to me it was amplified.  It might be something like that.”

She chewed on my words for a few seconds and, then, nodded.  “Okay. Tell me where you want this set up.”

In truth, the hair on the back of my neck was standing at attention and warning chills consumed my entire body.  This never happened on a case before, but, then, I’d never deliberately taken on a paranormal investigation.  If I had actually worked a case that involved the paranormal, the paranormal part of it eluded me and I remained ignorant of the fact.

I didn’t think that it was advisable to mention my body’s reaction to the environment to her.  Instead, I focused on setting up in the most effective way possible for a successful remote investigation.  Since I’d always been a hands on investigator, this was something else that was new to me.

After scoping out the nooks and crannies of the attic, it was decided that we’d put the tripod on the far end of the room.  It was in a direct line with an excessively large garish painting of humans, demons, and angels.  It  leaned against the wall in a way that made it look as if it was hastily dumped there.   The thing was so creepy looking that neither Nora or I was tempted to touch it and set it aright. 

We probably spent more time than was necessary studying the painting, but it was so captivatingly ugly and grotesque that it was almost impossible to focus on much else.  It took considerable will to pull ourselves away from our discussion of what frame of mind the artist must have been in to paint such an artistic atrocity and complete the setup for the investigation.

Since we weren’t able to be physically present to operate the equipment, we secured the EMF detector  and a thermometer in front of one of the cameras so that we could remotely monitor them.

Several hours later, when the last of our investigation equipment was in place, we stood back to survey our handiwork.

“It took longer than expected, but I think we covered as much as we can without being here,” Nora said as she looked at her watch.

“What time is it?” I asked as I collected the empty sacks and cases that we’d brought our equipment in and set them, neatly, behind an oversized trunk in the corner of the large room.

“We have about thirty minutes before the sun goes down,” she replied with a tone that hinted of concern.

“I wonder if we’ll get locked in if we stay until dark,” I mused. “Didn’t they say that the door doesn’t lock until seven?  It gets dark around five.”

Her eyes grew big. “I didn’t sign up for that.  I came to help set up.  Not to experiment with when the door does or doesn’t lock.”

I smiled. “I was just thinking out loud.  I’m ready to leave if you are.”

She vigorously nodded.  “Oh, yeah.”

We were just closing the attic door behind us when a very worried Cecil met us on the stairs.

He looked directly at Nora and said with angst, “I was on my way to warn you about the time.”

“It took longer than we anticipated to set up,” I explained.  “We had to make sure that the equipment would operate in our absence.  We are normally present in an investigation.”

“We?” he said with an agitated voice that I assumed was because of his concern over the hour and didn’t take personally.  “I thought that you worked alone.”

“Nora wants to start joining me on a few of the investigations,” I replied.  It struck me that he was mighty concerned about Nora assisting me.  Did he think that I would place her in a jeopardizing situation?  Nora and I were equal partners.  If I needed her to help with an investigation or if she simply wanted to join me, it was our business.  Not his.  Working hard to hide my annoyance,  I shrugged. “I’ll  work some investigations alone and others we’ll work together.”

Hearing my response to his query, my friend gave me a grateful smile.  I knew that she longed for what she considered the adventurous side of the business.  When she realized how tedious and boring it could be, I wondered how long she’d want to continue partnering up with me.

As we followed him down the stairs, I found it interesting that the house would possess a stairwell that bypassed the second floor.  I mentioned this to Cecil and he pointed out a door that we’d only just passed while assuring me that it led to the second floor.  I hadn’t come across a stairwell like this in my own house, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t one.  The place was so large and I’d experienced so much drama since meeting Lance that I still hadn’t taken the time to check it out in its entirety.   I made a mental note to do that soon.  Since I was fairly certain that both houses had the same designer, the odds of my house having such a stairwell were great.

“Are you certain that you cannot stay for a bit of tea?” Cecil asked Nora as he led the way to the main part of the house.

Nora gave a barely detectible shake of her head while giving me a pleading look.

“I wish that we could,” I replied, “but it is late and we still need to finish setting up our remote location.”

“Oh?” he said with raised brow. “Where will that be?”

“Since your house is so close to ours, we’ll just use the equipment at our office to monitor the attic,” I explained.  “We have computer programs that will allow us to connect with the cameras.”

“Will you hold vigil all night?” he asked with curiosity.

“It’s a full moon tonight,” Archie said as he stood in the doorway of the parlor as we made our way to the mansion’s front entrance and before I could respond to Cecil’s question.  Seeing our startled reaction to his unexpected appearance, he added, “Good evening, ladies.  I hope I did not startle you.”

“You took me by surprise, just a little,” Nora admitted while I smiled and nodded in agreement.

“What’s the significance of a full moon?” I asked with a hint of suspicion as I silently begged that they not confess to being werewolves or some other creepy supernatural creature that I was only just beginning to have a semblance of belief in.

When Archie shrugged and remarked on its beauty and the fact that it would help to illuminate things, I inwardly laughed at my own ridiculousness.

The sun just slipped behind the mountain for the night when we bade them “good-bye” with the promise of returning the following day with our findings.

“I didn’t want to say anything in there,” Nora said as she slid into the passenger’s seat of my car, “but that attic had a really creepy feel.”

“Well, we’re investigating it because someone or something is locking the door from the inside and making all kinds of noise every night,” I offered.  “I’d call that creepy behavior.”

She nodded. “I can’t wait to get a look.”