Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 19

ELL? WAS I RIGHT? AREN’T YOU JUST LOVING YOUR house?” Joni Fletcher asked, fixing Myra Sullivan with a look of such utter triumph that Myra half wished she hadn’t agreed to have lunch with her sister. “I’m telling you,” Joni plunged on, “it was an absolute steal!”

The dining room of the Roundtree Country Club had barely begun to fill, and Joni’s final word seemed to bounce off the walls, echoing through the room like a gunshot. Three women at the next table — women Myra had never seen before — turned to look at them, and Myra felt her face flush with embarrassment. She’d known it was a mistake to come here; she’d never felt comfortable with Joni’s country club friends. And it wasn’t just because she had nothing to wear, though she was honest enough to admit that her wardrobe — or the lack of it — was at least a factor. Nor was it the fact that she knew there was no chance at all that she and Marty would ever be members here. For Myra Sullivan, the biggest problem was the people who were members here.

At the moment, that applied to the three women who had looked at her just long enough to make her uncomfortable, then pointedly looked away again without even acknowledging her presence when she nodded to them. They could have at least nodded back, she thought, but she rejected her own notion. “We must always be charitable to others,” Father Raphaello had always said, “even when others are uncharitable to us.” I’m sure they’re very nice women, she told herself, shifting her attention back to her sister, who seemed not to have noticed the other women at all.

“I’m telling you, Myra — you owe me big-time for this one, if I do say so myself.”

“And don’t you always say so?” a new voice said. Myra looked up to see two more women standing just behind her, both of them as perfectly dressed as Joni Fletcher. One was a pretty blonde whose hair was cut in the kind of pageboy that never seemed to go out of style for the kind of women who always fit perfectly into places like the Roundtree Country Club. The other woman had glowing auburn hair drawn up into a severe twist. A square-cut emerald hung from a simple gold chain around her neck, and she wore a smile that looked no more real than the color of her hair. It was the second woman who had just spoken. “I’m Gloria Dunne, and this is Jane Baker.”

“I’m My—” Myra began, but Jane Baker didn’t let her finish.

“Oh, you don’t have to tell us who you are — Joni’s been an absolute bore on the subject for simply weeks now! And I want you to know how much I admire you for buying the house out at the Crossing!”

“We all do,” Gloria Dunne added as she and Jane Baker took the two vacant chairs at the table. “Although frankly, I can’t imagine living there. If even half the stories are true—”

“For heaven’s sake, Gloria,” Jane Baker cut in. “We were all children!”

“I’m not saying I believe all of them,” Gloria Dunne said. “But you know what they say — where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“Now there’s an unfortunate choice of words,” Jane remarked, signaling the waiter with a single uplifted finger, and getting an immediate response. “A martini, Gloria?” she asked. Then she glanced at Myra and Joni. “Anything for you two, or is Gloria going to be drinking alone again?”

“I’ll have iced tea,” Gloria Dunne said, her voice as tight as the twist in her hair.

When the waiter finished taking their orders, Myra turned back to Gloria Dunne. “What did you mean, ‘half the stories’?” she asked.

Gloria Dunne’s perfectly shaped left eyebrow rose a fraction of an inch. “You mean Joni didn’t tell you?” Her gaze shifted to Joni Fletcher. “I thought there were full disclosure laws in Massachusetts,” she said, a little too sweetly.

“There are,” Joni replied. “But they only apply to actual circumstances, not rumors.”

Myra’s eyes clouded. “Rumors? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing!” Joni declared before either Gloria Dunne or Jane Baker could speak. “Just stories kids tell — you know, the same kind we used to tell. The man with the hook? The girl in the prom dress on the lonely road? That kind of stuff.”

“Not exactly,” Gloria Dunne said. Ignoring Joni Fletcher’s glare, she turned to Myra. “I’m assuming she told you about the murders,” she said. Myra nodded. “Did she also tell you about everything else?”

“Everything else?” Myra echoed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean,” Gloria Dunne said, “the fact that no one has ever lived in that house for more than a few months at a time.”

“Why?” Myra asked.

“The ghost,” Gloria Dunne pronounced. When Jane Baker uttered an annoyed groan, Gloria’s expression hardened. “Groan if you want, Jane, but I remember when you wouldn’t walk past that house even if you were on the other side of the street!”

“When I was eight,” Jane Baker shot back.

“When we were both fifteen,” Gloria corrected her. “And it wasn’t just us either.” She shifted her attention back to Myra. “I’m sure you don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not saying I do either. But that house—” She took a deep breath, then let it out in a deep sigh. “All I can tell you is that no one ever seems to be able to live in it very long. And there are all kinds of stories of people seeing and hearing things out there.”

“What kind of things?” Myra pressed.

Gloria shrugged. “All the usual things — noises at night, people smelling smoke, seeing things. I think half the people who ever lived there wound up killing themselves—”

“Gloria!” Joni Fletcher cut in, and now she sounded genuinely angry. “You don’t have any idea if any of that is true or not!”

“Everyone in town knows perfectly well—” Gloria began, but Joni didn’t let her finish.

“Everyone in town knows perfectly well that one man cracked up, and believe me, I told Myra and Marty all about it when I showed them the house. The rest is just rumor, and frankly, I’m surprised you’re spreading them.” As Gloria’s eyes darkened with anger, Jane Baker quickly stepped in.

“Every town has its haunted house,” she said, smiling at Myra. “And all the kids are terrified, and all the adults — except, apparently, this one”—she tilted her head toward Gloria Dunne—“know they’re just stories. This is not the seventeenth century, and no one believes in ghosts and hobgoblins and witches and devils and all the rest of the stuff that scares kids half to death. So why don’t we just leave it at the fact that you and your family have bought what has always been the ‘haunted house’ in Roundtree, and assume that now that we have a nice, normal family living in it, the silly stories will finally dry up and blow away.”

“Hear, hear,” Joni Fletcher said, raising her water glass.

Gloria Dunne started to say something else, but once again Jane Baker preempted her. “Why don’t we talk about something else entirely? For instance, what about the Family Day that’s coming up this weekend?”

“Family Day?” Myra asked.

“Here at the club,” Jane Baker explained. “It’s wonderful fun — this month there’s a father-son golf tournament and a mother-daughter tennis tournament, then a barbecue and a dance. Or there’s a barbecue if it’s not too cold, and so far it never has been — Indian summer always seems to last just long enough to cover Family Day.”

Myra shook her head. “I’m afraid my husband doesn’t play golf, and neither my daughter nor I play tennis.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jane Baker declared. “I don’t play tennis either, so you and I and your daughter will hang around the pool while the boys and men play golf.”

“But I really don’t think—” Myra began.

Once again Jane Baker took charge. “It doesn’t matter what you think,” she said. “You’re coming, and that’s final. Everybody at the club has been dying to meet you and your husband, and I’m sure all the kids will love your daughter. So that’s that.”

The waiter arrived with their food, and Myra nodded mutely, knowing there was no way out.