Chapter 13
THE Boyd house certainly wasn’t what you’d think of as a haunted house. It was a typical suburban ranch house, with white aluminum siding and hunter green window shutters. There was a pink girl’s bicycle on the front porch. Ellen Boyd answered my knock. She looked like she hadn’t slept much since I’d seen her. Before she let me in, she gave me a warning. “Tanner’s furious that I’ve talked to you about this. He says you’re just going to take my money for nothing.”
“And what do you think?”
She closed her eyes wearily. “I want this done.”
The inside of the house was tastefully furnished and was a bit of a surprise. Ellen Boyd had either had an interior designer in or had a knack for decorating. The front door led into the living room, and it could have come straight from a magazine. Even with the bright cheeriness of the room, though, I could feel that something was amiss as soon as I stepped inside. “Nice place,” I said, more to try to relax Ellen than anything else. I examined my reflection in the large mirror over the fireplace. I was also looking for any anomalies in the glass. Spirits like hiding in mirrors.
She smiled slightly. “I like to make things nice for my family.”
A man entered from the hall, obviously having heard our voices. Tanner Boyd was tall and muscular and looked more like a college football player than a married father of two. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed his age in the mid-twenties, maximum. He was wearing jeans and an Indianapolis Colts jersey. With his long brown hair and his well-developed biceps, Tanner Boyd didn’t seem to fit either the house or his wife. He shot me an angry glare.
“You must be the detective, Duncan Andrews.”
“I must be.” I didn’t offer to shake hands with him. His Macho-ness would only try to squeeze the hell out of my fingers.
He stepped up to me and looked down his nose to get a good look at me. He was several inches taller than me, and I’m sure he thought I’d be intimidated. I wasn’t. I know how to kick someone in the balls if I have to.
“You don’t look like a detective,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “I’m much too pretty.”
Ellen Boyd stepped between us and glared at her husband. “Tanner, Mr. Andrews is here as my guest, and I expect him to be treated as such.”
Tanner tried to look innocent. “What? I just said he didn’t look like a detective.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. Turning to me, she asked, “Would you like to see the rest of the house, Mr. Andrews?”
Before I could answer Tanner butted in, shaking his head. “I still say there’s nothing here for him to look into. Just a lot of overactive imaginations.”
I shrugged. “If that’s the case, then this won’t take very long, and I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
Boyd didn’t look happy, but his wife took me by the elbow and showed me around the house. There was a sizable kitchen which kept the color scheme of white and hunter green going, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a den. The living room seemed to be the hub for most of the home’s activity, and it was there that I had the strongest feeling of something paranormal in the air. When we returned it was even stronger. Ellen Boyd was jumpy and kept looking over her shoulder as if expecting to find a specter in every darkened corner. Tanner Boyd, despite his insistence that we were wasting our time and that the existence of ghosts was but a foolish notion, was just as wary. He walked on the balls of his feet, ready for action. I’m not sure what action he was expecting to take. It might have been flight or punching me in the face. I was hoping for flight.
Outside the sun was fading and some rather nasty storm clouds had appeared, making the night come on a little quicker than normal for the time of year. Ellen turned on several lamps around the living room, her hand shaking a little. She crossed her arms and rubbed her biceps briskly. “It’s cold in here,” she said, a note of apology in her voice.
“Actually, it isn’t,” I said. I walked over to her and waved my hand in the air in front of her. “Something is drawing in energy, trying to manifest. That’s what’s causing the cold spot.”
Tanner snorted. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just a draft coming from a vent or something. Really, the sooner we get this ghost nonsense out of everyone’s heads—”
He stopped because the logs in the fireplace suddenly ignited. I could feel a wave of heat as it crossed the room. The lamps that Ellen had lit suddenly went out and the room was lit solely by the blaze that had spontaneously started. Tanner, who was closest to the fireplace, paled as he stared in disbelief at the flames.
“A spark, that’s what it was. Some spark that just hit the right bit of wood….”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s a convincing argument. Now try explaining why some of the smoke is blue.”
Among the orange and yellow tendrils of flame leaping up was a thin stream of blue smoke. The stream rose and got thicker. The blue smoke came forward out of the fireplace and began to form a figure. Ellen Boyd gave a strangled yelp as she covered her mouth with both hands. Tanner rocked back and forth, his eyes registering shock.
In moments a female figure stood in front of the fireplace. She looked to be in her late twenties and was obviously the same spirit that had been spotted previously by Ellen Boyd. Unlike Robbie, this spirit seemed unable to appear in any color other than blue, so details such as hair or eye color were impossible. The ghost slowly turned her head, taking in the three of us. She then turned to Tanner and raised her hand, pointing a finger at him. Her mouth opened and an unholy wail filled the room.
Tanner chose flight. Unfortunately he didn’t plan his escape route well, and his shins collided hard with the coffee table. He fell but quickly scrambled back to his feet and was out of the room in seconds. I heard a back door opening and slamming shut.
As soon as Tanner was gone the ghost vanished. The flames slowly died in the fireplace and finally extinguished with a small hiss. Once the last lick of flame was gone, the lights came back up. I looked at Ellen Boyd.
“I’d say that you were right. Not only do you have a ghost, but the ghost and your husband seem to have a connection.”
Ellen, her hands still covering her mouth, merely nodded.