Dreamscape (13 page)

“Arghh. I forget you don’t watch detective shows like I do. The south was beaten into submission in the war and beaten into the ground financially after. There were a lot of northern investors coming in. A lot of Southerners chafed at that, but there was nothing else to do, they needed northern money because their own was worthless and they had to rebuild. Lanie, what if Jason didn’t abandon his wife as she initially stated?”

Lanie zipped up her cut-off denim shorts and sat on the bed to put on her socks and shoes. “She had him declared dead.”

“
After
his good friend the sheriff and Aunt Celia denounced the idea of abandonment as ridiculous. But what if there’s more to the story? Cathy remarried awfully fast, even by today’s standards.”

“Well, you just read Cathy and Richard grew up together…”

“Exactly! Lanie, what if Cathy and Richard Mason planned this all along? What if they bumped off Jason Bowen for his money?”

Chapter 12

“Wow, what a difference a little paint makes! Squint your eyes and imagine the electrical wires and phone line gone and…” Zack snapped his fingers. “You’re transported back in time. I gotta bring Dad over here. He’ll love it.”

Ben agreed with his older brother. “Gordy and Lenny and their guys did a really nice job, didn’t they?” He adjusted the large sprinkler head to soak and took another pass over the foxgloves before drenching the roots of the yews. He’d have to untangle the hose before he could reach the hollyhocks on either side of the newly sandblasted and refurbished iron gate. “Dad asked me about the progress when Janice and I had dinner over there the other night. He said your house is one fine example of Victorian opulence.”

Ben added, “He wanted to know when your crew was starting.”

“Yeah, I talked to him this morning. I was hoping for Monday, but we should start the carriage house Wednesday once it dries out.”

“Bad weather coming?”

“Oh yeah, there’s a hell of a storm coming in Sunday, maybe hail. Benny, don’t you ever watch the news?”

Hail.
Ben frowned. All those new atrium windows. “Is that what you call that babble? Nope, Janice and I never had a TV when it was just us, and we’re not gonna get one now with the kids. They don’t need to be exposed to all that crap.”

“Well at least get a weather radio…”

“Got one.”

“Then turn the damn thing on!” Zack laughed.

Ben chuckled. “Yeah, yeah.” Redirecting, he said, “Hey, I don’t know if Lanie talked to you about the cellar floor yet.”

“Yeah, we talked the other day. Kenny’s
still
hauling shit out of there, cut himself good, too, I hear.”

“Yeah, Lanie stitched him up—seven stitches on his calf. Good thing she was home to do it and he didn’t have to go to the ER and no accident report. Have you talked to him yet?”

“No. Bonnie told me. She was going to send the twins to help their dad, but Kenny said no, it’s too dangerous down there.”

“That’s wise. What else did sis say?”

“That Ken’s just blown away by the pile of shit in the cellar and that both Jimmy and Al are helping now because it’s like a fucking clown car down there. The more he takes out, the more there is. They’ve got one area’s pile low enough now they can at least see how big the room is. They can’t get to the end, but they can see the far wall. He says he’s guessing it runs the entire length of the footprint.”

“Wow,
that’s
big. I think I convinced Lanie about the benefit of a cement floor.”

“So she said.” Zack nodded. “I asked Dad about that. He says it would be worth her while to do it. Less mice for sure.”

“I’m more worried about moisture. The fuse box is down there. I’d hate to think she’d get zapped trying to change a fuse.”

“I agree.”

“Cleaning it out though. I’ve been down there for the last two mornings. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s a hazard.” Ben shook his head. He’d been down there as far as the stairway. Aside from the boiler area, which was basically clear to begin with, the cellar was stacked like Dr. Seuss himself piled it. “It’s good Kenny said no to the boys helping.”

“I wouldn’t want the nephews getting cut up either, but I don’t have a problem with them hauling the crap from the yard. We have to work with the weather from here on out and the cement comes when it comes. I told sis that.”

“What did Bonnie say?”

Zack chuckled. “She said just because you and I were working since we were nine and ten didn’t mean her boys had to.”

“The kids are fifteen and seventeen for Christ’s sake. We ran our own crews at their age!” He shook his head. They all worked from an early age and they all had houses with mortgages paid off. If there was one thing they all got from Dad, it was a sound work ethic.

“Oh, they’re coming to work all right. They told their mother they want to. Go figure.”

Ben laughed. “I think that has more to do with them wanting to get inside the haunted Bowen mansion than making money.” An odd thought came to him the other day. Having seen chair legs unnecessarily entwined and crates and boxes stacked in such a way so that in order to get to one piece you had to move several others first, it seemed to him like the junk had been deliberately set that way to deter anyone from venturing further inside. Though he couldn’t say exactly why, the cellar really creeped him out.

Chapter 13

“Hey, Lanie.” Ben’s voice came through the cell phone. Lanie precariously propped her phone on her shoulder so she could finish rinsing the frying pan she’d just washed. “Hi, Ben, what’s up?”

“Two things. First off have you seen the weather report today?”

“No I haven’t seen anything. My TV
still
isn’t working.”

“You should really dump that old thing, Lanie.”

“I gave up trying to watch the ancient one Margaret Mason left behind. My friend took it the other night. She said the old cabinet would make a great litter box.”

He laughed.
“What?”

His laughter made her laugh. The smile lingered in her voice when she explained how you take out the electronic parts, put a pan of litter inside. “Creative camouflage she called it.”

“I never would have thought of that.” He was still chuckling when he asked, “So your
flat screen
isn’t working now?”

“No, it’s not and it’s new! Barely out of the box. Do you think it’s the wiring in the study?”

“I don’t think so. The wiring isn’t all that old.”

Thinking of a house full of small appliances with cloth-wrapped cords, she found it hard to believe the electrical wires in the house weren’t old. “They’re not?”

He explained, “It was Janice’s and my turn to have dinner out at my dad’s, all of us kids try to do that at least once or twice a week since our mom passed away.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Yeah, we’ve always been a really close family that way, even before mom passed. So anyway, he’s telling us how he knew the electrician who worked on the house back in ’66 after an electrical storm blew the transformer down the road. It actually started a fire on the porch…you know where that clapboard was replaced and didn’t quite match? That spot Kenny fixed?” He paused waiting for her to picture what he was talking about. “Well George and his two sons were hired to rewire the whole place, so it’s sound.”

“I had no idea.”

That Lanie had bought this place sight unseen without looking into the basics still surprised Ben. He said, “Given the rest is sound, I think it would be wise to replace the fuse box with a circuit breaker. They’re safer, and if you ever get an overload, the circuits flip off. That’ll save your appliances from power surges, too.”

“The fuse box is in the cellar?” She remembered Mom and Pop had a fuse box in their basement and using any small appliance in combination with her blow dryer would regularly blow a fuse. She’d gone to school with wet hair more than once because of that.

“It is, near the stairs on the right. You’re wise to pour concrete down there. You wouldn’t want to be standing on packed dirt with its varying degrees of moisture when you have your hand on the fuse box.”

“No, I wouldn’t. Would you set that up for me, please?”

“Sure, and I’ll have my brother-in-law Bob take a look at your flat screen, too. He’s a whiz with electronics. It might be a simple settings issue.”

The wind chimes hanging above the back door began making a racket. Lanie looked out the screen door, the wind had picked up. She told Ben, “I think we’re getting rain today.”

“And
that
was my main reason for calling. There’s severe weather on the way, high winds, hail...”

“Oh, that sounds bad. Should I close the louvers?”

“Don’t bother. There’s nothing to do about hail anyway. Victorians dealt with hail, too. If we lose some panes, we lose ‘em. We’ll just replace them again like they did.” The chance of hail they were calling for did have him a little concerned. He hoped it wouldn’t be an issue for the atrium. Good-sized hail could take some of those panes out if they hit the glass just so. They’d finally finished replacing all the rusted louvers and dozens of broken windows, and he’d hate like hell to start all that work over again.

“Good point.”

The phone muffled suddenly as if Ben held his hand over the mouthpiece. “Sorry, Janice was talking. Hey, how’d you like to get in the car and drive over here…she was thinking about putting some pizzas in for dinner and wanted to know if you’d like to come over.”

Seeing through his offer, she declined. “Tell her thanks, but not this time. Don’t worry, I have the cellar if I need to take cover.”

He tried again in his most tempting voice. “She dresses them up with extra cheese and mushrooms and all that good stuff…”

She bit her cheek. “Yum. But really, I’ll be okay here.”

“All right, but if you need anything, call me.” Ben told her. The cellar still gave him the willies.

“You know I will. I even call for directory assistance!”

He laughed. “Lanie, the other reason I’m calling, is to ask a favor.”

Without hesitation she said, “Sure, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to bring my dad here when the house is done. He’s never seen the inside, and I know he’d love the place with the built-in cabinetry, gingerbread and all those spindles.”

“Ben you’ve been great helping me with
everything
.” Lanie smiled. “Of course, you can bring the entire family over if you like!”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t do
that
to my worst enemy.”

She offered, “Why don’t we plan on lunch some Sunday when the house is done? How does that sound?”

“That’s perfect. He’s gonna love it. Thanks, sweetie.”

“No, thank
you.
I don’t know how I could have gotten through this immense project without you and your family.”

“Our pleasure, kiddo. Oops. There’s the rain. Gotta go roll up my truck windows.”

“Bye, Ben.” Ben Danowski had to be the sweetest man on the planet, followed by every other man in his family. She made a mental note to compliment his father for raising such a fine bunch of sons.

“See you tomorrow, kiddo. Bye.”

Jason sat on the three-step stool in the corner, listening to their conversation. He remembered when the porch caught on fire. That had been the first night Margaret was able to see him without him trying to be seen. He’d scared the hell out of her. He thought about that from time to time and determined it was due to the electrical static in the air as a storm thundered past. Though he never put stock in the fad at the time, mediums and psychics with crystal balls were all the rage in the larger cities. More than one spiritualist in his day likened the soul to the invisible forces of electricity and magnetism as both were comprised of charge and current.

Lanie peered out the kitchen window. The night seemed even darker with the approaching storm. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and jagged streaks of lightning occasionally flashed behind the clouds. The back door opened and slammed into the wall with a crash. Letting out a squeal, she rushed to close it. The sound of shattering glass came from the other room. Rushing there, she found a vase of hollyhocks knocked to the floor. No time to see to that—this storm was moving exceptionally fast.

The next several minutes saw her dashing through the house closing windows and wondering all the while just how many there actually were. It also had her thinking central air was something to consider after all. Finished with all three floors, she let out an exhausted breath
then
remembered the cupola windows. She’d opened them that morning to create a draw that would cool the rest of the house.

“God
damn
it.” Lanie ran back down the three flights to the kitchen where the stairway to the topmost part of the house was. Now panting from her efforts, she nearly tumbled down the extremely narrow stairs twice. By the time she made it to the small, octagonal tower room suddenly the sky broke loose and hail pummeled the copper roof in a deafening roar. Taken by surprise, she ducked with her arms protectively over her head.