Amateur Hour

Lisa didn’t accompany Kelly, on her second foray into the church, to begin setting her traps. She did advise her to block the basement door open, and to keep her phone on her, just in case.

“I always do,” Kelly smiled, as she stepped out. A few minutes later, Lisa saw her, once again clad in her coverall, and a heavy duty face mask, carrying a box away from her truck.

Lisa cleared the table and washed out the cups. What was to be done, next, she wondered. How had she managed to find herself living in a murder house? How could any real estate agent get away with selling such a house, without disclosing that fact?

A Google search told her that what Tuck had said was true. In the state of Georgia, there was no duty to disclose this information, unless the prospective buyer specifically asked about it. Some malarkey about “stigmatized properties” was to blame. To her chagrin, she discovered that Florida, too, was exempt from disclosure of any murder/suicide/haunting stigma.

Well, Lisa reflected, she had hit the trifecta, here. Which caused her to again wonder, what was she to do about it?

“Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters?” she asked Gil, who was staring at her with the look that she was beginning to recognize as his I-want-to-go-for-a-walk, expression. It was another nice day for it, and soon they were on their way.

Lisa decided to multi task, when she got to the point where Gil could be trusted, off leash. Once he had galloped off into the enticing woods, she pulled out her phone, and called Liam. After they traded the usual insults, she gave him the lowdown on everything she had learned and experienced, so far. To her dismay, he laughed.

“Only you, Lisa. Only you would buy a house with not one, but several ghosts!”

“Yeah, it’s really funny, college boy,” she snapped. He hated it, when she called him that.

“It’s no reflection on your educational choices, Lis—just your luck.”

“Really? Because, it was my thought that I hit a trifecta here. Murder, suicide, and haunted.”

“With a bonus of death by misadventure,” Liam nodded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed. That was mean. I think you should start by going back to the library. Find out who all of the ministers were, historically. A woman would stick out, like a grain of rice in a pepper pot. In fact, if you find out when women were first ordained to serve as Episcopal ministers, you might not have to go back, very far. In an official capacity, women are pretty new to the scene.”

Lisa had been on the verge of frustrated tears, but they dried up, at this common sense. Finding out who had been killed was the key to finding out what had happened, and why.

Liam watched these thoughts flow through her mind, and consequently, across her face. “Do you want me to come?” he offered. “I could get away, for a few days.”

“No. Not yet, anyway,” Lisa frowned. “I’ve heard and seen things, but nothing physical has been directed at me. I don’t feel unsafe, just… Well, I feel a bit pissed off.”

“Can’t say that I blame you. Unless you can find something wrong with the property that wasn’t mentioned, other than your haunts, there’s nothing you can do but sell it.”

“Much luck I would have, with that. Besides– I don’t know if I want to sell. I’d never get what I paid for it, and I’m already putting money into it.”

“Is your exterminator going to fumigate?”

“No. She thinks traps will do the job. Unless I have termites, too, that is.”

“Well, they don’t always have to fumigate, for termites.”

“I’m so lucky to have a brother who knows a little about everything,” she razzed him, less angrily, this time.

“I only know that, because I had a few, last year,” he grinned. “Your church is mostly brick, right?”

“Stone. Can you believe that? The congregation went to the expense of building in stone, and then just walked away from it.”

“Walked? I’ll bet they ran,” Liam joked.

Lisa allowed herself to smile. “Whereas I’m made of sterner stuff?”

“More practical stuff, at least.”

Just then, Gil decided to burst out of the woods, and into frame.

“Good Lord!” Liam exclaimed. “Is that your dog?”

“This is Gil,” she said, turning the phone around to show him.

“Looks like a bruiser.”

“He’s a sweetie,” she objected. “And, he’s not that big.”

“Is he smart?”

“Not particularly. I wanted a companion, not a chess opponent.”

Liam made a face, at that. Rarely was he able to beat her, at chess. Lisa saw it, and laughed.

“Well, he does look like a nice dog.”

“He is, but I’m going to have to build him a play yard, of some kind. There aren’t any off-leash dog parks in town, and I can’t rely on being able to walk him several times a day, every day, with all the work that needs to be done, around here. I guess I should have thought of that, before I got him.”

“You’ll work it out. He looks happy enough, for now. Spike manages.”

“Spike’s a Pomeranian. You can walk him for a block, and call it good.”

“First of all, he’s a spaniel, and second, you know you like him.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Lisa admitted. “How is the little jerk, anyway?”

“He’s good. Ornery as ever. I just wish I could get him to stop peeing on Janice’s shoes, when she stays over.”

“Ha! Put them in a couple of baggies.”

“Be nice. Janice likes you.”

“I doubt it. She just says that, because she likes you.”

“Well, think what you want.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“You do realize that you have no poker face, right?” he observed.

“Three times, Liam.”

“Yeah, she’s been married three times. What of it?”

“Ask your dog. He’s the one peeing on her shoes.”

“That makes zero sense. I’ll forgive you, though, because you’re under duress, at the moment. Look,

I’ve gotta go, for now. Lunch is almost over.”

“Okay. I should head back, soon, myself. Kelly will probably be done, before long. She may want to touch base, before she leaves.”

Lisa felt a bit dissatisfied, at the end of the conversation with Liam. She didn’t know why. She decided it was because of his defense of Janice. There was something about the woman that rubbed Lisa the wrong way. Liam had had other lady friends. Lisa had liked some, been indifferent to others, but Janice was the only one, so far who had actively gotten on her nerves. It was more than just her thrice-married status. Indeed, husband number two had died, in a freak accident, at work. Still, she did have two divorces under her belt. No one could accuse her of being a fortune hunter. Liam had a nest egg, but no fortune.

Janice was a sweet thing. Too sweet. Lisa would have bet her haunted house that Janice laughed, every single time Spike decided to take a piss on her shoes. “And that, my friend,” she addressed Gil, “is not natural.”

She led Gil back toward the church, curious to see how Kelly was getting along, marveling again at how well he walked at her side, without pulling. She was brought up short, by the site of the Sheriff’s cruiser, parked right behind Kelly’s truck. Then, she spotted Kelly and Tuck chatting on the porch of the church, and was relieved.

Tuck had spotted her, too, and he waved. “Hi, there!” he called. Lisa waved back, but Gil hesitated, for a second, with a low, chesty woof, and a suspicious look.

“It’s okay, Gil. He’s a friend.” She tugged a little at the leash, and Gil complied, but once she reached the other two, he wasn’t as polite in his sniffing, as he had been, with Kelly.

“Gil,” Lisa began.

“No, it’s okay. Let him have a good sniff. He’s not growling,” Tuck said, easily. “Doesn’t look like a biter, either. Relax, Lisa.”

She tried to, but it wasn’t easy.

“I hope you didn’t have to rescue Kelly,” she said, keeping an eye on her dog, ready to yank him away, if he showed any signs of becoming aggressive.

“Not at all. I saw her truck here, and decided to drop in and say Hi. Aren’t you a good boy?” he asked Gil, who was now sitting, gazing up at him. Gil thumped his tail, in agreement, and allowed Tuck to pet his head. “It’s the leather, I think,” Tuck said, to Lisa, indicating his belt and holster. “Dogs always find it interesting to sniff. Nickie does it, too, and she lives with me.”

Lisa nodded. “How goes the trapping?” she asked Kelly.

“They’re hungry. I was about halfway through, when one trap snapped, out in the sanctuary. So, now you’re down one rat.” She held up a white trash bag, with the corpse in it.

“It looks huge.”

“Nah. It’s the one the trap took, plus the other we saw that was already dead.”

“Do you think that’s going to work, in the vestment room, where most of them seem to be?”

“I put a different kind of trap, in there. The baits are poison, but they can’t get out and die, then poison anything else– or die inside the walls.”

“See? I told you she knows what she’s doing,” Tuck said.

“I do see,” Lisa agreed. “Could I offer you two something cool to drink?”

“I still want to have a look outside, for entry points, but maybe in a while,” Kelly said.

“I’ll walk over,” Tuck said. “I guess we should talk, a bit. Kelly told me you got her to spill the beans about the rectory, Perry Mason.” His tone was joking, but there was something else under his chagrined expression.

“What can I say? I won’t be kept in the dark,” she retorted. “Don’t get too close to any of the graves, if you can help it, Kelly. I don’t know what the ground is like.”

“I’ll watch my step,” Kelly assured her.

“C’mon, Gil,” Lisa said, which was unnecessary, as the dog was already on his feet, and ready to go.

Tuck shot a sheepish look at his former sister in law, and followed. He didn’t say a word, until Lisa had placed a bottle of tea in front of him, and seated herself, with another.

“I reckon you’re going to read me the Riot Act, now,” he observed.

“Any reason I shouldn’t?” Lisa glared at him.

Tuck took off his hat, and hung it on the back of his chair. “Probably not. I just… Well, I just didn’t want to make things worse. No one has ever reported or even whispered anything about the rectory—only the church. For all I knew, there was nothing going on in the house, other than a couple of odd noises that only you had heard.”

If it was true, it sounded reasonable. Lisa said nothing, though, only sipped her tea. To his credit, Tuck didn’t squirm. A poker player, for sure. Her lips twitched a bit, at the thought, as she recalled the conversation with Liam.

“What?” Tuck asked, seeing it.

“Just thinking that I wouldn’t want to play poker, with you, though you’d make a hell of a bridge partner.”

Tuck snorted. “And I wouldn’t want to play chess with you. It was beyond crafty, the way you got Kelly to run her mouth.”

The chess reference startled her, but she tried to conceal it. “It wasn’t hard,” she said. “Kelly is outgoing and chatty, once she warms up.”

“That, she is. Her customers don’t spend enough time with her to get that, though. I salute your intuition.” He raised his bottle to her.

“But, you don’t like it, much.”

“I don’t like to see her played, no. I understand why you did it, though. It’s on me, for not being straight with you.”

She didn’t contradict him, but she heard the implied apology, in his voice.

“So, who was she—the priest who was killed?” she asked, instead.

“She wasn’t the priest, she was his wife.”

“Kelly said ‘clergyman’.”

“Kelly was right. The wife was a deacon, so she was an ordained minister, herself. Not the rector of the church, though.”

“Sounds like I have more to learn about Episcopalians.”

The mood in the room shifted, and the tension dissipated, somewhat.

“It’s no big mystery. Deacons serve as ministers inside the church, as the priest’s assistants, but also outside the church, ministering to the sick and needy. Community outreach, if you like. Sometimes, they also carry the sacraments to shut-ins.”

“I don’t suppose you have a name to go with this particular deacon.”

“I don’t, but if you mean to research it, it will be 1970, or later. That’s the year the church began ordaining female deacons.”

“I suppose it would be the last one, in any case.”

“No… There were a couple of attempts to revive the church. It was beyond any succeeding rectors. The tragedy was too raw, and there was a lot of talk of the place being cursed. By the time a scar had formed, the church was long out of use.”

“Where do people go, now?”

“St. Peter’s or St. John’s. I attend St. John’s, myself. Funny– I kind of took you for an Episcopalian, at first. You seemed to know a bit about the church. The nomenclature of things, at least.”

“I’m… borderline. Lapsed, whatever they call it.”

“I see,” he nodded. “Well, if you ever feel like going back, you’ll be welcomed. And, yes—I’ll leave it at that. I get a sense that you don’t like to be pushed.”

“I don’t.”

Shortly after Tuck finished his tea and took his leave, Lisa found her little toolbox, between two larger boxes in the front bedroom, and extracted a small chisel and a hammer. She also grabbed a large nail, from the plastic box that held an assortment of them. Then, to Gil’s obvious disgust, she left the rectory alone and headed toward the church. He barked a few times, and she grinned a little. He sounded like a Pitbull.

She met a tired, dusty Kelly, coming in the opposite direction, chugging a bottle of water. Kelly raised the bottle in a salute.

“Not all of my clients are as hospitable as you,” she said, when they were in easy earshot of each other. “I was half dead of thirst.”

“Well, the door’s unlocked, if you want to go in and help yourself to something colder,” Lisa offered. “I doubt Gil would mind.”

“And, you’re on a mission, I see,” Kelly said, nodding toward the tools in Lisa’s right hand.

“I had a thought that some old records might be down in the basement, and I don’t want to get shut in, again. Thought I’d pop the door off the hinges, and eliminate that problem, for good.”

“Good idea. Want some help?”

“I think I can get it, and you look pooped.”

“I could use a sit down, while I fill out some paperwork,” Kelly admitted.

“The ferocious house beast will probably be your friend, for life, if you toss him a biscuit. They’re on the counter.”

“I’ll do that.” Kelly smiled, and they started to go their separate ways, when she stopped. “Hey, Lisa– there’s a box of masks down front, on the seat of the first pew on the left. You might want to put one on. No telling how much literal crap I stirred up, in there.”

Mask in place, and already annoying her, Lisa stood at the top of the door to the basement, and inspected her project.

She was glad she had brought the chisel, because she was going to need it, to break away several coats of white paint that had been cheerfully slathered right onto the door’s hinges. Of course, the natural movement of the door had broken it loose, everywhere but the tops of the hinge pins. There were three of them. The nail was too long to employ it to tap the pin up, on the bottom, so she had to use hammer, chisel, and brute force to loosen that one. It did, however work beautifully, on the remaining two. The door was hollow and fairly light, though the bulk of it threatened to pull her off balance, when she first took the full weight of it.

She had just settled it against a wall, when a loud snap echoed through the church. It startled her, for an instant, then she began to hum “Another One Bites the Dust”, under her breath, though she was winded from the battle with the door.

Another song–”I Won’t Back Down”–was the next soundtrack to enter her mind, as she faced the basement steps. Lisa hadn’t realized how little she wanted to go back down there, much as she might want any treasures of information that might be found.

“Bullshit,” she told herself. “You can walk right out, now. No door, no trap.” The mask muffled her words, and despite the coolness of the building, she felt too warm. Well, better safe than sorry, she shrugged.

The basement was as she had left it, the only exception being three or four of Kelly’s peanut butter loaded traps, in plain sight, on the floor. The question now was, where to start? The bookcase seemed a likely place, especially if she didn’t want to find herself crawling with bugs. The books were likely buggy, too, but probably less so than the boxes.

She ran her finger along the the books at the top. They were ancient, and brand new, at the same time. When she tried to extricate a Bible, it wanted to stick to the two books it was between, and it came away with fragments of the other book covers clinging to its own. Evidently, leather binding trumped pasteboard. She riffled the pages. They were foxed from age, but still readable. She decided it was a keeper, and set it aside to take with her. For no particular reason, she pried loose a Book of Common Prayer, and shook it to loosen the pages, and any bugs that might be hiding inside. To her chagrin, the body of the book fell to the floor, leaving her holding the covers. She had better luck with another; there were plenty of them. This one shed a few silverfish and a couple of baby roaches, but otherwise remained intact.

At the end of the third shelf, Lisa hit paydirt. The books were fragile, but they were record books. The oldest ones were bound in leather, held closed by rotting leather bands that wound around their bodies. The paper inside was cut irregularly, and was frankly ready to crumble to dust. She disturbed them as little as she could, while trying to extract the newer volumes, dated from the late 1960’s. She realized that she probably shouldn’t be touching these, either. The ones from the 60’s would be merely vintage, though, not antique. She would definitely have to call in an expert to deal with the older ones. If she was lucky, maybe one would be in good enough shape to be preserved under glass for display in the store.

The records in the shelf ended with the 1977 volume. She ended up with about ten books of records, the Bible, the prayer book, and a photo album. It would probably take her two trips to get them into the house. Lisa blew a loosened strand of hair out of her face– or, she tried to. The mask put the kibosh on that, so she swiped it away, with the back of her hand. She was sweaty and grubby, and wanted to get the hell out of this place.

“Lisa–” a female voice called, from somewhere upstairs. “Lisa?”

“Down here!” she called back. In a moment, Kelly appeared in the doorway.
“You’ve been busy,” Kelly observed, eyeing the piles of books on the stair risers.

“Just getting ready to come up.”

“I was starting to worry, and so was Gil, I think. He was giving me ‘where’s mommy’ looks.” Kelly came down and picked up a stack of books, handling them gently.

“Thanks,” Lisa acknowledged her help, with gratitude.

“No problem. I see another ratty little parishioner met its maker, up there.”

“Collect him, later,” Lisa suggested. “You’ve been babysitting Gil, for quite a while, now.”

“He’s a great dog. Never offered to bite me, once he saw me, but did he bark?” Kelly laughed, at the memory.

“That’s his one job,” Lisa replied, as the reached the top of the stairs. “I’m not interested in sharing my home with a biter.”

“I took something else upon myself,” Kelly confessed. “Stuffed his toy with biscuits, to keep him busy, while he was alone.”

“Thank you– that was thoughtful.” She meant it.

“He didn’t seem all that interested in it, as I was leaving, but I thought I’d make the effort. I think he really just wants you.”

“Ugh– I hope he doesn’t end up with separation anxiety.”

“He was quiet enough, until I opened the door, and nothing looks like he’s been chewing on it.”

As the two women approached the door, Gilligan began barking again, but it was higher pitched.

“He knows you’re back,” Kelly said.

Gil bolted toward Lisa, when she opened the door. “Down,” she warned him. The dog subsided into whining and skipping in circles, but didn’t jump. “You’re such a doofus, Gil. Just put them on the counter, and thank you. It would have taken me a couple of trips to wrestle these all inside, by myself.”

“Happy to do it. I guess I’d better bug out, now, though. I’ll drop by tomorrow, and check the traps. It might take a week or so to be sure you’re rid of the rats you already have. In the meantime, I’ll work on filling the holes they’re using, to get in. My fill ins are only temporary, you understand. You’ll need to get a legit carpenter or mason in, to make the fix permanent. But, they should hold you, for a while.”

“Thanks again, Kelly. Do you have a website or somewhere I can leave my five-star review?”

Kelly laughed. “It’s on my business card. You might want to bag those in plastic, and stick them in your freezer, for a few hours,” she nodded toward the books.

“Really? That works?”

“Yep.”

When Kelly had gone, Lisa sagged onto the couch, worn out. Gil, the doofus, jumped up, and collapsed next to her. “Drama queen,” she accused him. He huffed and rolled his head so that it looked almost like it was on backwards, to gaze at her. She scratched his chest, and he rolled onto his back, to make the task easier for her. She guessed some of the books would have to spend the night outside, in a bag, of course. He freezer wasn’t full, but she doubted there was room of all of the books at once.

The thought of getting up from the comfort of the couch made her groan. Instead, she picked up the remote and turned on her TV. She’d watch a movie, first and chill. With a sandwich—she was starving. She leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.