The House of Memory (Pluto's Snitch Book 2) Read online

  PRAISE FOR CAROLYN HAINES

  “A writer of exceptional talent.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Them Bones

  “Southern storytelling is indeed a very special art form.”

  —New York Times Book Review on The Darkling

  “Written with a languid sensuality, this rich and complex work features quirky, fully developed characters involved in an unpredictable story, with Mattie’s long-awaited revenge providing a bittersweet but satisfying coda.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Touched

  “So vivid, so energetic, so poignant that it seems to move on reels rather than pages.”

  —Chicago Tribune on Touched

  “Like the heat of a Deep South summer, Ms. Haines’s novel has an undeniable intensity; it’s impossible to shake its brooding atmosphere.”

  —New York Times Book Review on Touched

  OTHER NOVELS BY CAROLYN HAINES

  Deception

  Summer of the Redeemers

  Touched

  Judas Burning

  Penumbra

  Fever Moon

  Revenant

  Skin Dancer

  Shop Talk

  Pluto’s Snitch Mysteries

  The Book of Beloved

  Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries

  Them Bones

  Buried Bones

  Splintered Bones

  Crossed Bones

  Hallowed Bones

  Bones to Pick

  Ham Bones

  Wishbones

  Greedy Bones

  Bones Appétit

  Bones of a Feather

  Bonefire of the Vanities

  Smarty Bones

  Booty Bones

  Bone to Be Wild

  Rock-a-Bye Bones

  Sticks and Bones

  Writing as R. B. Chesterton

  The Darkling

  The Seeker

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Carolyn Haines

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477819937

  ISBN-10: 1477819932

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Life ends with a snap of small bones, a head cracked from its stem, and a spirit unmoored.

  —Sarah Kernochan

  CHAPTER ONE

  The bow of the steamboat Miss Vandy cut through the dark water of the Alabama River as we moved north against the current. We’d left the subtropics of the delta behind and motored past the landing and boatyard at Saint Stephens, steadily progressing toward Montgomery. Impenetrable forests marked each bank of the broad river, and even in the daylight, it seemed as if the woods were filled with the spirits of the long-departed. Indians, trappers, French and Spanish explorers, the ravaged soldiers of the Union and Confederacy. The Alabama River had provided transportation for all of them. And, for many, a watery grave.

  I stood on the deck, reveling in the fitful breeze, thankful that the July sun was on the decline. Night would bring the bloodsuckers out, but the harsh sun’s glare would be gone. My first adventure in travel by steamboat had proven exciting and tedious, with tedium taking the greater balance. The paddle-wheeler, though well appointed, had only so much space where a passenger could stroll, and many of the landings were nothing more than primitive docks for loading and unloading goods. The river towns, where settlements had managed to thrive, were delightful and a pleasure to explore while Miss Vandy took on wood for fuel and supplies.

  I stood on the boiler deck outside my first-class room. Reginald Proctor, my partner in our spanking-new private-investigation agency, remained in the saloon playing cards with two Montgomery businessmen who had no idea of Reginald’s talents. I’d watched my partner fleece the men for half an hour, until the heat in the saloon and the repetition of the businessmen’s foolish desire to hurl their money into Reginald’s pocket had driven me outside. Besides, I had an appointment to keep. Gossip among the crew had given me an avenue of interest to pursue.

  At last the young man I’d been waiting for came to stand beside me. “Mrs. Raissa James? I’m Kerry McBride, ma’am. The captain said you wished to speak with me.”

  He was maybe eighteen, lean and muscled from the hard work on the ship. Although I was only in my early twenties, I was a schoolteacher, a widow, and now an investigator into the spirit world—older, if not wiser, than my age indicated. I had questions for the deckhand, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I opened the conversation with the mundane details of the steamboat business. My uncle had told me the boat carried sugar, cloth, furniture, and an illegal supply of rum upriver to Montgomery, where it would be off-loaded. On the trip back downriver, the paddle-wheeler would pick up passengers and merchandise to sell in Mobile.

  The young man confirmed the details in monosyllables. He was shy and couldn’t hide his discomfort. His duties called, but he also knew I was the shipowner’s niece, leaving him caught between duty and expediency.

  “Kerry’s an interesting name. How do you come by it?” I asked.

  “Named for the county in western Ireland where my grandda was born. He came to America to work.” He shifted and looked pointedly at the men on the lower deck moving cargo about.

  “I won’t keep you long,” I said. “The captain tells me you’ve had a number of unusual experiences.” Captain Abner Blythe had, in fact, told me that young Kerry had the ability to see spirits. Since I shared the ability to some extent, I was curious to know what he actually saw.

  His restlessness stopped, and he looked chagrined. “It’s just some foolishness to entertain the crew when we’
re docked and waiting.”

  “I write stories. Ghost stories.” That won Kerry’s full attention. “I wanted to talk to you about some of the things you’ve seen.”

  “Like I said, it’s just old yarns my grandda told us kids. The men like a chill of an evening when we’re havin’ a sip of rum.”

  “But you don’t see spirits?”

  “Miss, I’d better get to my work.”

  I tried once more. “I see spirits, too.” I pointed to the riverbank. “Do you see the woman there?” She stood just behind the first growth of trees. Her gingham dress blended with the gray-and-brown trunks of the trees, and her blonde hair blew in the wind. She watched us with an unbearable sadness.

  “You see her?” he asked, amazed.

  “I do. You share my gift.”

  “Gift?” He looked at me. “Likely more a curse.”

  “Maybe you won’t feel the same when we’ve finished talking.”

  He looked back to the water and pointed. “See that wooden chute?”

  We’d come upon another of the makeshift docks that stood empty. A narrow wooden chute clung to the bluff.

  “I do.”

  “There’s a cotton gin atop that bluff,” Kerry said. “When the cotton crop is picked come September and October, the planters’ll gin it and bale it.”

  “I’ve seen the bales on the docks in Savannah ready to be shipped to England,” I said.

  “We’ll stop at the dock on our downriver trips and pick up the bales. They’ll slide them down the chute to the stevedores, who’ll load ’em up on the ship.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be the person at the bottom of the chute,” I said. It was a tremendous drop, and the weight of a cotton bale could easily crush a man.

  “Back before the war, the slaves worked the top, and we Irish worked the bottom. The top workers were called rolladores. Slaves were too valuable to risk at the bottom, so it was the micks who took the job. My grandda was crushed at a chute like that.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t prepared for the sense of loss that swept over me.

  “He died at Wigham Bluff. That’s just upriver from here. Sometimes when we pass that landing, he’ll be there wavin’ at me.”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  Kerry smiled at last. “Not as long as he stays on the landing and I stay on the ship. If he starts to walk across the water, though, I’m swimmin’ to the other shore.”

  He had an easy smile, and if he relaxed, he’d be a great storyteller. “Would you mind sharing some of your stories with me before we dock at Montgomery?”

  “Later this evening, when the work is done, I’d be happy to tell you a yarn or two. On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You tell me if you see my grandda on the dock when we pass Wigham Bluff.”

  “Agreed.” I held out my hand, and we shook on it. “My uncle Brett tells me the Miss Vandy is haunted. Could you tell me anything about that?”

  He nodded. “I will, but I’d best get on with my work now or the captain will think I’m a loafer.”

  “Thank you, Kerry.”

  He doffed his hat and strode away.

  We left the chute behind us and paddled upriver, following the bends and crooks of the waterway. Reginald and I were answering a call for help from a young woman in Montgomery who’d recently seized the nation’s imagination. Southern belle Zelda Sayre had married the highly regarded novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the pair had almost single-handedly launched the Jazz Age in America. I was on my way to consult with Mrs. Fitzgerald about a friend of hers she believed to be possessed. She’d learned about Pluto’s Snitch Agency from a friend of my uncle’s and had sent a desperate letter to Uncle Brett’s home in Mobile, requesting Reginald’s and my help. Reginald and I had just founded Pluto’s Snitch, a private-investigation agency specializing in the occult, and we’d agreed to look into the troubles of Camilla Granger, a young woman whose sudden violent behavior had landed her in a mental institution. The threat of extreme therapy now hung over the young woman’s head, and time was running out.

  The deck door for Reginald’s cabin opened, and he stepped out. “Shall I butt you?” he asked, offering the cigarettes.

  I shook my head. I smoked occasionally but hadn’t really acquired the habit. “Another two days to Montgomery,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not a sailor, I guess. I’m eager for land under my feet.”

  “Thank your lucky stars we haven’t run aground or hit a snag. Your uncle knows how to run a boating company. And these boats of his are racehorses compared to other fleets.”

  “I’m sure Uncle Brett would glow with your praise.”

  “You’re worried about the case, aren’t you?” He lit up, and the smell of burning tobacco was a bit of comfort.

  “I am. Camilla Granger’s only seventeen, and Mrs. Fitzgerald sounded desperate. She said something about dire medical treatment. I wonder what that means.”

  “We’ll know in two days. No point getting the cart before the horse.”

  He was right, and it was one reason I liked him so much. Reginald had come into my life only weeks before as an assistant to the world-famous medium Madam Madelyn Petalungro. At her suggestion, Reginald had returned to Mobile with my uncle to help us resolve the haunting of Caoin House, my uncle’s estate.

  In the course of our work to help the spirits of Caoin House move along, I’d come to discover that Reginald wasn’t truly a medium. Instead he was an astute observer of human nature who knew every trick of the spiritualist’s trade. As such, he made a perfect partner in Pluto’s Snitch. After resolving several tragedies—both past and present—at Caoin House, we’d embarked on our first paid case.

  “Once we see the lay of the land, we’ll figure it out,” Reginald said.

  “We’ll certainly do our best.” I lacked the confidence Reginald came by so naturally. He was a handsome man with an olive complexion and straight, white teeth—some would say a cake-eater—who’d made his way from an orphanage into the front parlors of some of the wealthiest people in New Orleans. Hardship had taught him composure and comportment. And how to hide his deepest secrets.

  “Oh, come now, Raissa. You have a talent. Stop selling yourself short. If this young woman is bedeviled by a spirit, we’ll figure it out and set her free.”

  I reached over and took the cigarette from his lips and inhaled lightly. “Yes, we will.”

  “That’s my girl.” He took his cigarette back.

  “You’re every bit as talented as I am, you know,” I told him.

  “Hardly.” He threw the butt over the railing and into the dark water of the river. “I really would like to see spirits . . .”

  “I know. We’ll practice.”

  “Do you really think it’s something I can learn?”

  “I don’t know. I saw them as a child, and apparently my mother saw them, as does Uncle Brett, to some degree. But growing up I somehow taught myself not to see them. I believe it was my husband’s death that awakened me to the supernatural world again. Maybe all people have the ability when they’re young, but most never turn it back on.”

  With the breeze cooling us, the ride upriver was pleasant. The sun was slipping behind the trees on the riverbank, and soon the evening temperatures would drop enough so that dinner would be served in the saloon.

  “When we get to Wigham Bluff,” I told Reginald, “you can help me look for a crew member’s grandfather. He died, crushed by a cotton bale that came down one of the chutes. The young man sees him every time he passes.”

  Reginald smiled. “Do you think you will?”

  “I don’t know. But we can only look. I haven’t figured out why I can see some spirits and not others.”

  “Madam believes the spirits have to use extraordinary energy to manifest. Perhaps we see only the ones who have that kind of energy.” He nudged my arm. “I know you want to see your parents.”

  “I do.” I missed my mother and father, a longing t
hat overtook me at strange moments. “And Alex.” My husband had been killed in the Great War. He’d died a hero, which gave me no comfort.

  “Have you ever considered that maybe your dead don’t want you pining for them? Maybe that’s why they don’t show up.”

  It wasn’t a thought that had occurred to me, but I liked it. “So they don’t appear, lest I seek the company of the dead instead of the living?”

  He shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  “Thank you.” Reginald was a kind man, though he tried to hide it.

  “My pleasure.”

  “How much did you take those gentlemen for in the card game?”

  “Enough to pinch but not enough to holler.”

  I laughed out loud. “And that would be how much, in dollars?”

  “Twenty each, roughly.”

  That did indeed pinch. Reginald was a sharp. “I hope they aren’t sore losers.”

  “Not in the least, and I’ll buy you the fanciest dinner in Montgomery when we arrive.”

  “And I’ll hold you to it,” I said, putting my arm through his. “Ill-gotten gains should be spent only on pleasurable activities.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The next two days passed in conversation and the kind of drowsy heat that makes an afternoon nap irresistible. The motion of the boat and the July weather sent me into my stateroom not long after lunch. I returned to the world of the living at night, much like the villain of Bram Stoker’s horrific tale. I’d thrilled my students with the Irish author’s gothic story of the living dead who fed on the blood of innocent maidens. The students weren’t the only ones affected by Mr. Stoker’s prose. I’d given myself more than a few chill bumps.

  I’d managed two additional conversations with Kerry McBride and learned more about his gift. I had no doubt that, before long, he’d blunt that ability. And who was I to discourage him from doing so? To see things that others couldn’t wasn’t always easy. But tonight we were due to come upon Wigham Bluff, and I’d promised the young man I’d look for the spirit of his grandfather.

  When I slipped out of the saloon and onto the deck, Reginald was deep in conversation with a young lawyer. I’d call him when the landing approached. If he wanted to practice seeing spirits, this would be a perfect opportunity. A full moon slipped in and out of clouds as I stargazed in the bedazzled sky. I’d heard the sailors predicting rain, but it wasn’t supposed to start until we docked at Montgomery.