The Ghostly Hideaway (2 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Mills.”

“Your witness, Counselor.”

“No questions, Your Honor.”

“You may step down.”

“I call Nick Pullium, Your Honor.”

After Mr. Pullium was sworn, Attorney Niles got down
to business. “Would you tell the court where you are employed, Mr.
Pullium?”

“I work the night shift at the bus station.”

“And were you working on the night of March 14?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Was it a busy evening, Mr. Pullium? Did you have
many customers—say, between ten o’clock and midnight?”

“No incoming buses were scheduled during my shift
and only one outgoing and it left at nine o’clock. No people were
in the station at all until the red-eye arrived at two the next
morning.”

“But another witness said he had seen my client rent
a locker from you at about ten-thirty that night. Are you sure no
one rented a locker between ten o’clock and midnight?”

He consulted his records that he had brought with
him. The last locker I rented was on March 10. There just isn’t
much demand for that service these days.”

“Okay. Let’s review. You had no people in the bus
station between nine o’clock that evening until two o’clock that
next morning. Is that correct? And you didn’t rent a locker to my
client during that time period. Is that also correct?”

“Both statements are correct.”

“No further questions.”

“No questions of this witness,” the defense attorney
said.

“I call Mrs. Penny Wroe, Your Honor.”

“Come forward and be sworn, Mrs. Wroe.”

“Mrs. Wroe, I call your attention to the evening of
March 14 of this year. Can you tell me, please, approximately at
what hour you and/or your husband retired on that specific
night?”

“We usually go to bed at ten-thirty. That evening
Eddie was on the phone with Mr. Mills until about ten-forty-five.
We went to bed, both of us, immediately after he ended his business
call. No lights were on in the house after eleven o’clock.”

“You’re quite sure of that?”

“Yes, Sir. Eddie was in bed with me at the time he
is accused of committing this crime. He couldn’t have done what
that man said he did.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wroe.”

“No cross, Your Honor.”

“I call the defendant, Edward Allen Wroe.”

“Mr. Wroe, can you account for your fingerprint
being on the key found in the door at Mr. Mills’ property?”

Ed gave his explanation about the ‘lost’ key.

“Can you confirm your conversation with Mr. Mills
during the time frame as he stated?”

“Yes, I can and I do.”

“Have you ever rented a locker at the bus
station?”

“No, I have not.”

“Did you steal any property of any kind from Joe
Mills?”

“No, I did not.”

It took the jury only forty minutes to find the
defendant not guilty. When the police subsequently went to pick up
Norman Jones for further questioning, he had apparently left for
parts unknown.

Edward had tried to pick up the pieces of his life
and go on; but, even though he had been judged innocent, people
still didn’t seem to want to trust him in their homes. He guessed
he couldn’t blame them but it sure did ‘put a hurtin’ on him’ as
his Granddaddy would have said. He had spent a great deal of his
life’s savings defending himself in court. Also, carpenter work is
actually a two or three-man job. He finally just gave it up.

He and Penny had talked about going back to Kentucky
for a long time. Penny had lived in Kentucky until she was six and
she thought of the Bluegrass State as her home. In fact, she was
fairly sure she still had some aunts, uncles, or cousins back
there. Since her mother and dad had died in an auto accident when
she was eleven she had had no contact with any of them. Her
mother’s sister, Genevieve, had taken her in and cared for her as
if she were her own. All she knew about her father’s family back in
Kentucky was that for some reason they—or at least most of
them—hadn’t approved of his marriage to Anna Lou Starnes. But that
hadn’t stopped Jimmy Langley from doing what he wanted and he was
madly in love with Anna Lou Starnes. He couldn’t see why Anna Lou’s
having grown up in a trailer court had anything to do with their
wanting to get married. Of course, he understood it somewhat better
when Anna Lou's father and two brothers had ended up with life
sentences in LaGrange Penitentiary after having been convicted of
murder in the first degree. He agreed that it had hurt Anna Lou
badly but it still had nothing to do with his love for her or hers
for him. Sure, her sister, Genevieve, had become pregnant before
she was married but she had still made a good life for herself and
her husband and all her kids were happy, healthy, and well-adjusted
people. Jimmy’s mother, Gertrude Langley, had agreed with him. And
if she ever wished Jimmy had chosen a well-educated college girl
from a well-to-do family, she had never said so. At least not to
him.

They had tried to stay near their Kentucky roots but
his family around Lexington had totally ostracized them. His mother
was the only one who had seemed to accept Anna Lou. However, Gertie
had been ill for several years and when she passed away, they had
no reason to stay there any longer. Finally, when Jimmy had been
offered a good job in North Carolina, he had taken Anna Lou and
their six-year-old daughter, Penelope, and moved there. Genevieve,
Anna Lou’s only sister, had stayed in Lexington for awhile but
after corresponding for a couple of years, Anna Lou managed to
persuade Genevieve to move to North Carolina near where they lived.
Most of this information, Penny had learned from reading letters
that her aunt had written to her mother before she had also moved
to North Carolina. Her mother had saved the letters and Penny had
read them over and over.

One of the few memories Penelope had of her father
was of an incident that happened at suppertime one evening. Her
mother had told her to wash her hands before she ate and she had
rebelled. Her reasoning had been that her daddy hadn’t washed his
hands. “See that dirt on the back of his hand? He didn’t wash it
off. I’m not going to wash my hands until he gets his clean,” she
had replied stubbornly.

“But, Penelope, that isn’t dirt,” her father had
explained patiently. “That’s what’s called a ‘birthmark’ on my
hand. Come on, we’ll wash our hands together and you can see it
won’t wash off." He had let her put soap on the back of his hand
and she had scrubbed and scrubbed, but he had been right; it really
wouldn’t wash off. And while she couldn’t truly remember his facial
features, she still vividly recalled the dark brown birthmark on
the back of his right hand. She did have a picture somewhere, old
and faded, but the birthmark had been visible even in that
picture.

Now Penny—Aunt Genevieve had shortened the Penelope
to Penny—and Ed were planning to move back to Kentucky. Somehow,
she thought her mom and dad would approve of that idea. Just as
there had been nothing to keep Jimmy and Anna Lou in Kentucky at
that time, thirty-some years later there was nothing to tie their
daughter, Penny, and her family to North Carolina now. With
Edward’s business almost non-existent, that certainly wouldn’t be
worth holding on to. Chrissy had just graduated from high school
and it was two years until the twins would start school. Therefore,
they had no compelling reasons to stay. They made the decision,
then, to sell their house, head for Kentucky, and look for
adventure. Someone should have told them:
Be careful what you
wish for—it just might happen!

The Wroe Family made their way across Tennessee
without mishap. They stopped in Nashville—well it was just a few
miles south of Music City at a town called Smyrna. Edward had
managed to get tickets to see the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night
and even though they couldn’t get close to the stage, it was still
exciting. They got to see a couple of their favorite country music
singers—Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers and they even sang one of
their favorite songs: “Islands In The Stream.”

On Sunday, they crossed the Tennessee – Kentucky
border and took the toll road that goes by Bowling Green and ends
at Owensboro. About the time they got to Owensboro, it started to
rain. And not just a light drizzle but a total downpour. They
weren’t sure of the number of the exit they meant to take. They
weren’t really sure where they were going; but they exited off the
bypass and were soon disoriented and— even though Ed didn’t want to
admit it—completely lost. Actually, since they had nowhere in
particular they had to be at any specific time, they weren’t too
concerned. Finally, though, they came to a fork in the road and
took a left turn. It seemed okay for a short distance but soon the
road began to narrow to something like a bare country lane. The
asphalt turned to gravel and the gravel became a muddy path—with no
place to turn around. Deep ditches on both sides of the dirt road
were filled with muddy rainwater run-off.

Now they were somewhat worried. Penny was almost
frantic when she checked the gas gauge and saw they were almost on
empty.

“What on earth will we do if we run out of gas, Ed?”
Penny wanted to know.

“I don’t know; but we’ll think of something. Weren’t
we looking for adventure? Truly, I didn’t think about that pulling
the big trailer behind us would take so much extra gas.”

Andy and Candy, the four-year-old twins were asleep
but Chrissy heard their conversation. “At least it’s stopped
raining and it isn’t dark for two or three hours, yet." Chrissy was
trying to look on the bright side.

“What’s that up ahead? I can see what appears to be
a building of some kind through the trees." Penny was peering
through the dirty windshield that the wipers couldn’t quite clean
when they made their half-circle swipe. About that time, the engine
coughed a couple of times and glugged its way to a shuddering stop.
Then with what seemed like a tired sigh, the engine died
completely. Looking at the gas gauge, Penny saw that it had dropped
down even below the big red ‘E.”

The lack of motion and the sudden silence woke the
twins. “Did we get there?” Andy asked sleepily.

Candy rubbed her eyes. “Where is ‘there?’ I don’t
see anything. We can’t be ‘there’ because ‘there’ has to be
somewhere and this looks like nowhere to me." Not too well phrased
perhaps, but accurate nonetheless. This looked like nowhere to all
of them.

“I still think I can just make out the shape of a
building through the trees. Let’s go for a walk and find out—what
do you say? Let’s begin our adventure." Penny opened her car door
and undid the childproof locks on the other doors. “We’ll follow
the ‘yellow mud road.’”

Of course, the first thing Andy did when he got out
of the car was to stomp in the middle of the deepest and muddiest
puddle he could find. And, again, of course, Candy wrinkled her
nose and shrieked. “Mama, make him stop that. He’s getting my
clothes all wet and dirty.”

Penny grabbed a hand from each twin and they started
on down the road. Ed locked the doors and he and Chrissy followed
them. When they got to the bend, sure enough, an old three-story
house with tall pillars and a wide verandah was standing there.

“It looks like a cross between a plantation house
and a haunted castle,” Chrissy exclaimed. “Those spiral things at
the top look almost like turrets, don’t they, Mom?" Actually, that
was a pretty apt description. The house had once been painted white
and the shutters were still a faded green. Some of the shutters at
the front of the house were open, some were closed and a couple
were hanging askew where the hinges had pulled loose. A swing was
attached to the porch ceiling at only one end with the other end
swaying slightly as one corner balanced on the floor. The yard
looked as though it hadn’t been tended in a very long while and the
flowerbeds that still showed some color were choked with weeds.

As they approached the house, their first thought
was that it had been completely abandoned and was vacant; but
Chrissy spied the mud-caked footprints on the verandah steps and
across the floor toward the door.

“Look, Mom, someone has been here not too long ago.
The muddy footprints would have been washed away with wind and rain
after a week or two, wouldn’t they?”

“I suppose that’s true. Oh, and I can see a light on
in the hallway inside near the door. That’s great! Maybe they have
a phone, too, so we can call the auto club to bring us some
gas.”

Ed stepped to the door, knocked and when nothing
happened, he knocked more loudly.

“Did you see that curtain move at the upstairs
window, Candy?" Andy was sure he had seen it move as though someone
looked out and then moved back. “Knock again, Dad. Maybe they
didn’t hear you. They might be deaf or something.”

After knocking loudly several times, however, still
no one came. While they were standing there, it began to rain
again; not quite the downpour it was earlier but enough to soak
anyone caught out in it.

“Maybe they’re in the back and can’t hear us. You
all wait here and I’ll go around to the back door and see if
anyone’s back there." Edward took off in a run around the side of
the house and discovered a side door near the back of the house. He
started to knock on that door but realized the door was slightly
ajar. He still knocked, but again nobody came. The door appeared to
open into the kitchen area and he could see a light in that room,
too. He didn’t know what to do. They were fairly well sheltered on
the porch but they couldn’t stay there all night. After knocking
several more times with no results, he opened the door wider and
called, “Hello, is anyone home?” into the kitchen. Still no answer.
He stepped inside and looked around. Maybe someone was hurt and
needed help. He noticed several dirty dishes stacked in the sink
but they didn’t smell. That meant they hadn’t been there a really
long time. The room to the right of the kitchen door where he had
entered appeared to be a pantry with ample food supplies. To the
left was the dining room. Directly ahead of him was a doorway into
a hall and he opted to take this direction. Just inside the door,
he saw a telephone on the wall. He picked it up and put it to his
ear. There was no dial tone. Well, so much for calling for help. He
passed two closed doors on each side of the hall before he reached
the front door where his family waited.