The Secret of the Pines

By Roxanne Hunter

When Silas Blackburn is found dead in a locked bedroom, his estranged granddaughter is suspected of murder by the private detective hired by Blackburn on the day of his death. After all, the old man had a healthy heart and he intended to disinherit Lauren the next morning. Complicating matters, the authorities believe Blackburn died a natural death, but when extraordinary events reveal foul play, no one can determine how the crime was committed.

Lauren Blackburn can’t remember what happened that night. She started the night partying in Boston and ended up seventy-five miles away in a deserted cottage near The Pines. Her sister Kate, who lives with and cared for their grandfather, found his body in the early morning after being awakened by strange noises in the old house. Everything seems to point to Lauren, except when it doesn’t. Lauren is grateful that Kate and her friend, Hart Spencer, are doing everything possible to help her, especially since their relationships have been strained by a terrible argument, but is Kate hiding something? Lauren hates to think it, but Kate and Hart seem a little too eager to sabotage the search for the truth. At least that’s how it appears. Then Carlos Paredes, a friend from Lauren’s dissipated city life and the last person to see Lauren in Boston, shows up at the dilapidated estate uninvited and unwelcome, claiming he is only there to help Lauren. But is that why he is really came to the Pines? Is he part of a plot to frame Lauren for a murder she may or may not have she committed? And if she didn’t kill her grandfather, who did? How did the murderer get into the locked bedroom? When a second death occurs and key evidence goes missing, it’s clear that otherworldly forces are at work in the old house, because there is no other explanation for what is happening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roxanne Hunter
• Release date: May 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310369070

Roxanne Hunter

Roxanne Hunter lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After spending way too many, many years working at a job she didn’t really like, she realized she could do what so many other people her age have done – retire on Cape Cod. She now spends her days taking long walks on beaches, riding her bike, traveling to warmer climates during the winter and searching for enjoyable but forgotten old stories. Best of all, it’s not work!

Book preview

THE SECRET OF THE PINES

AN OLD FASHIONED STORY

BY ROXANNE HUNTER

The Secret of the Pines

By Roxanne Hunter

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Roxanne Hunter

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual event, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

AFTERWORD

ABOUT ROXANNE HUNTER

BOOKS BY ROXANNE HUNTER

CHAPTER I

The night of her grandfather's death, Lauren Blackburn was, at least until midnight, in Boston. She was kept there by the unhealthy habits and friendships that had recently angered her grandfather to the point of threatening a corrective and punitive change to his will.

Seventy-five miles away at the family estate, The Pines, her younger sister, Kate, lived with old Silas Blackburn, who seemed increasingly apprehensive about an approaching disaster.

At twenty-five, Kate was too young to attend to her aged grandfather’s needs but she insisted on caring for him as an antidote for Lauren's many shortcomings. She was never in harmony with the musty old house or its surroundings, which were uniformly bleak and unfriendly, but her sense of familial responsibility kept her there.

Lauren and Kate had frequently urged the old man to give up the decrepit mansion and to move, so to speak, into the light of an assisted living facility. He always answered angrily that his ancestors had lived and died in the house since before the Revolution, and what was good enough for them was good enough for him. So that night Kate was alone with her grandfather when she heard the sly prowling of death in the house. She told Lauren all about it the next day, everything that happened, and all about the people who came when it was too late to save Silas Blackburn.

She said the old man had been behaving oddly for several days, behaving as if he were afraid of something. That last night, he had eaten practically no dinner. He couldn't sit still. He wandered from room to room, his tired eyes seeking something known only to him. Several times she tried to speak to him.

What is the matter, Grandpa? What's bothering you?

He grumbled unintelligibly or failed to answer at all.

She went into the library and tried to read, but the winter wind swirled about the house and roared down the chimney, causing the fire to cast disturbing shadows across the walls. Her loneliness and nervousness grew more intense with each passing hour. The restless, shuffling footsteps of her grandfather played on her imagination. Perhaps dementia was responsible for the change in the old man’s behavior. She was tempted to call Jenkins, the equally ancient caretaker who lived over the garage, to share her vigil; or his wife, but they were comfortably settled in their apartment for the night and she didn’t want to disturb them.

Lauren, she said to herself, will have to come down here tomorrow to help me. I can’t do all this all by myself any longer. She's going to have to get over her anger and help me take care of Grandpa.

But Silas Blackburn shuffled into the room just then and she was ashamed of her selfishness as she watched him standing with his back to the fire, glaring around the room, fumbling with shaking hands in his pockets, rattling its contents. It was unfair to be afraid of him when it was he who was terrified. There was no question about it. The man was afraid, terribly afraid.

His fingers trembled so much he had difficulty putting on his glasses. His heavy brows, gray like his beard, contracted into a frown. His voice quavered unexpectedly. He spoke of his absent granddaughter, Lauren, that damned irresponsible good-for-nothing. God knows what she'll do next.

She's just young, Grandpa, and she likes to go out on the town and have a good time. She’ll settle down soon, you’ll see.

He brushed aside her customary defense. As he continued speaking, she noticed that his voice shook much like the way his fingers shook, and his stooped shoulders jerked spasmodically.

I asked Lauren to be here tonight and I heard not one word from her. I've made up my mind anyway. My lawyer's coming by in the morning. Her inheritance will all go to the Bedford Foundation, everything except for your share, Katy. I know it's hard on you, but I've got no faith left in my flesh and blood.

His voice choked with sentiment, which Kate thought repulsive in view of his ruthless nature and unbending egotism.

It's sad, Katy, to grow old with nobody caring for you except to covet your money.

She arose and moved closer to him. He drew back, startled.

You're not being fair, Grandpa.

With an unexpected, nearly savage movement, he pushed her aside and started for the door.

Grandpa, she cried. Tell me, please tell me. What are you afraid of?

He turned at the door to face her but he didn't answer. She laughed nervously.

It, it's not Lauren you're afraid of?

You and Lauren, he grumbled, are thicker than thieves.

She shook her head.

Lauren and I, she said wistfully, aren't very good friends lately, mostly because of the life she's been leading since she found out about John and they are no longer seeing each other.

He left the room, mumbling again incoherently about his granddaughter’s love life.

Kate resumed her vigil, unable to read because of her misgivings, staring at the fire, flinching with each harsh gust of wind or unaccustomed sound. And for a long time, she listened to the shuffling, searching tread of her grandfather on the floor above her. Its cessation around eleven o'clock increased her uneasiness. He had been so afraid. Suppose the thing he feared had finally overtaken him? She listened intently. Even though she heard nothing, she seemed to sense the soundless footsteps of disaster straying into the decayed house in search for its victim.

Hoping to satisfy herself that her grandfather's silence meant nothing sinister, Kate went upstairs to check on him. She stood in the square main hall at the head of the stairs, listening. Her grandfather's bedroom door was straight ahead at the top of the stairs. To her right and left were narrow corridors leading to the wings of the old mansion. Kate’s room, Lauren's and a spare room were located in the right-hand wing.

The left corridor led to the oldest portion of the house, dating to pre-Revolutionary times. The old master bedroom was in this wing, with its private hallway and narrow, enclosed staircase descending to the library. Originally the head of the family slept in that room and its ancient furniture still remained there, rotting against the grime-stained walls. When the house was first electrified at the turn of the twentieth century, this wing was not wired since for many years no one had entered the room, let alone slept there. The room had sheltered too much suffering and witnessed the reluctant mortal departure of too many Blackburns for it to be considered a desirable master bedroom suite by the succeeding generations. Twenty-five years had passed since any Blackburn had used the master bedroom, and even then, old ghost stories had inspired generations before Lauren and Kate with an inordinate fear of the hallway and old bedroom.

Instinctively Kate shrank back from the dark entrance of the left corridor, but her anxiety was focused on the door ahead. She was about to call out when a sound beside her momentarily reassured her.

The door opened and her grandfather stepped out of his bedroom. He wore an untidy pair of pajamas. His hair was in disarray. His face appeared grayer and more haggard than it had downstairs. A lighted flashlight shook in his right hand.

What are you doing up here, Katy? he quavered.

She broke down at the sight of his increased fear. He shuffled closer.

What, are you crying? What are you crying for, Katy?

She controlled herself. She begged him to tell her what was bothering him.

You are making me afraid.

He laughed scornfully.

You? What have you got to be afraid of?

I'm afraid because you are, she said. You've got to tell me what’s going on. I'm all alone here. I can't stand it. What are you afraid of?

He didn't answer. He shuffled toward the unused wing of the old house. Her hand tightened on the banister.

Where are you going? she whispered.

He turned at the entrance to the corridor.

I'm going sleep in the old bedroom.

What? Why? she asked hysterically. You can't sleep in there. The bed isn't even made.

He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper.

Don't you tell anyone I went in there. If you must know, I'm afraid. I'm afraid to sleep in my own bedroom any longer.

She nodded, hoping he would continue to explain his behavior.

And you don't think they will look for you in the other bedroom. What is it? Tell me what it is. Why don't you send for someone, the police?

Leave me alone, he mumbled. There’s nothing for you to be worried about, except Lauren.

Yes, there is, she said. I know there is.

He paid no attention to her fear as he walked down the corridor. She heard him shuffling between its narrow walls and watched as his flashlight disappeared within its gloomy reaches.

She ran down the right hall to her own bedroom and locked the door. She hurried to the window and leaned out, her body shaking, her teeth chattering as if from a sudden chill.

The quiet, assured tread of disaster continued its approach.

The two wings, stretching at right angles from the main part of the house, formed a narrow courtyard. Clouds obscuring the moon failed to limit its glow so that she could see across the courtyard to the facade of the old wing and the two windows of the large room where a dim light now glowed. She heard one of the windows open with the grating noise of disuse and then she could even hear the shuffling feet of the old man as he approached the bed. The glow of his flashlight vanished. She heard a rustling as he stretched out his lanky body on the bed, and a sound like a long, drawn out sigh.

She tried to tell herself there was no danger; that his peculiar behavior sprang from an old man's imagination, perhaps the inevitable onset of senility, but the house and her loneliness contradicted her. To her over-wrought senses, the thought of Silas Blackburn alone in that bedroom so often consecrated in death suggested a special and unaccountable menace. Under such a strain, supernatural forces assumed a vague but real shape.

She slept for only a little while. Then she awoke, listening with growing expectation of a message slipping across the courtyard. The moon had ceased struggling against the clouds, the wind whistled through the trees, and a coyote’s howl echoed in the distance. It was like an alarm that vibrates too perfectly, whose resonance is too prolonged.

She sat upright. She jumped from her bed, heart pounding, and found her way to the window. From the other wing of the house, she heard the message come through the night air. It was a soft, shrouded sound, another long, drawn out sigh.

She tried to call across the courtyard to the old bedroom where her grandfather lay sleeping. At first, no sound came from her tight throat. When it did at last, her voice was strange, the voice of one who has to know something but resists asking the question.

Grandpa.

The wind carried her shout away.

It's nothing, she told herself, nothing. I’m letting my imagination get the better of me.

But her vigil had been too long and her loneliness was too complete. Her earlier premonition of the arrival of death in the decaying house tightened its grip on her. She assured herself that Silas Blackburn slept untroubled. But the sound she had heard was peculiar and he hadn't answered her call from across the courtyard. The dark hallway at first was an insurmountable barrier, but as she put on her slippers and bathrobe she strengthened her courage.

As she stood in the main hall she hesitated and wondered if she should call for Jenkins, her grandfather’s elderly caretaker. But it would probably take a long time, provided he heard her at all before Jenkins could answer her. The dim hall lights outlined the entrance to the musty corridor. She thought - just a few quick steps down the hall, a fast knock on the door, and, then with the sound of her grandfather's voice, she would be able to return to her own room and go back to sleep.

Still, her fears grew and she called on her pride to allow her to accomplish her brief, unpleasant journey.

Then for the first time, a new doubt assailed her. As she waited alone in the darkness of the old house, she cringed at the thought of a different kind of intrusion, and she wondered if her grandfather had been afraid of some sort of phantom lurking in the ancient wing, with its memories of birth and suffering and death. But he said he had gone there to escape from his own bedroom. Surely he was afraid of mortal men, not phantoms. It embarrassed her that her fear attempted to define itself ever more clearly as something indefinable. With a passionate determination to banish such thoughts, she held her breath. She tried to close her mind. She entered the hall. She ran its length. She knocked on the locked door of the old bedroom. She cringed as the echoes of the sound rattled off the dingy walls. There was no answer. Frustration made her want to cry out for brilliant light, for electricity, for help. She screamed.

Grandpa, Grandpa.

In the silence, she finally understood that death had accomplished its mission. She ran into the main hallway and hollered incoherently. The sound of her voice steadied her, stimulated her mind back to reason. One slender hope remained. The oppressive old bedroom might have driven Silas Blackburn through the private hall and down the enclosed staircase. No doubt she would find him asleep on the sofa in the library.

She stumbled down the stairs, hoping to meet Jenkins. She crossed the living room and the dining room and entered the library. She bent over the high back of the sofa. It was empty. She glanced at the face of the clock on the mantel. Its hands pointed to half-past two.

She pulled at the cord by the fireplace that connected to Jenkins’ apartment over the garage. Why didn't Jenkins come? Alone, she was afraid to climb the enclosed staircase to try the other door. It seemed impossible that she would be able to wait another minute alone.

Then the caretaker, himself as old and as gray as Silas Blackburn, tottered in. He was taken aback when he saw her.

My God, Miss Kate. What's the matter? You look like death.

There is death, she replied morbidly.

She pointed to the door of the enclosed staircase and led the way. The paneled, narrow hallway was empty. That door, too, was locked and the key, she knew, must be on the other side of the door.

Who, who is it? Jenkins asked. Who would go in that old room? Has Miss Lauren come back?

Kate descended the stairs to the library before answering. She spread her hands.

It's happened, Jenkins. Whatever it was that he feared has happened.

Not Mr. Silas?

We have to break into the room, she said with a shiver. Get a hammer, a chisel, whatever tools are necessary.

But if there's anything wrong, the old man objected, If anybody's been in there, then the other door has to be unlocked.

She shook her head. She knew the other door was locked; she had already tried to open it. How had a murderer entered and left the room with both doors locked on the inside, and with the windows too high to used for entry? They went to the upper floor of the old house. She urged the caretaker into the dark hall.

We have to know, she whispered, what's happened on the other side of those locked doors.

She still vibrated with the energy of the unknown forces in the old house. Jenkins, she saw, was having the same irrational misgivings. He inserted a chisel in the doorjamb with clumsy hands. He forced the lock back and opened the door. Dust arose from the long-disused room, flecking the white light of the flashlight’s beam. They hesitated on the threshold and then forced themselves to enter the room. They looked at each other and smiled with relief. Silas Blackburn, in his pajamas, was on the bed, his placid face upturned, as if sleeping.

Well, Jenkins gasped. He's all right.

With something almost like confidence, Kate walked to the bed.

Grandpa, she began and touched his hand.

She fell back until the wall supported her. Jenkins must have read everything on her face, for he whispered.

But he looks all right. He can't be…

Cold, already. If I hadn't touched him …

Horror descended upon her, stifling all thought. Automatically she fled from the old bedroom and left it to Jenkins to do what needed to be done. He telephoned police headquarters. The officer on desk duty was unimpressed and Jenkins was told to summon Dr. Groom, Silas’s personal physician, who would attest to the unattended demise of the old man. The police were indifferent to the superstitious rumors surrounding the old bedroom and saw no need to send an ambulance to the old mansion in the middle of the night. Afterward, Kate sat without words, huddled close to the library fire.

She was therefore surprised when the private detective, a man named Howell, and Dr. Groom arrived at about the same time. Assuming an air of authority, the detective made Kate accompany them upstairs while he questioned her.

I must repair this lock, he said. Immediately, so that nothing is disturbed.

Dr. Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent upon entering the room. For a long time, he stared at the body in the beam of a flashlight, making as much of an examination as he could.

Whatever possessed him to come in here to sleep? he asked in his rumbling bass voice. Nasty room. Unhealthy room. Ten to one you're a formality, detective. The coroner will be a formality, too. He smirked a little. I imagine he died what we call a natural death. Wonder what the coroner will say.

The detective didn't answer. He shot rapid, uneasy glances around the dark room in which a single candle burned. After few minutes of contemplation, he pronounced with complete conviction, That man was murdered.

Perhaps the doctor's ominous words, when added to her earlier dread of the abnormal, made Kate read into the detective's manner an apprehension unknown to the brutal routine of his profession. Her glances were restless, too. She had a feeling that from the shadowed corners of the faded, musty room, invisible faces were mocking the detective's presumed authority.

All this she told to Lauren when under extraordinary circumstances neither of them could have anticipated, she arrived at The Pines many hours later.

CHAPTER II

Lauren Blackburn had a limited memory of the early events of the night of her grandfather's death. The remainder was like a dim, appalling nightmare; much of her memory remained hidden.

That evening, when she went to her apartment to get ready for another night on the town, she found the letter Silas Blackburn had told Kate he was sending to Lauren. It told her about the impending change in her grandfather’s will as if it were a done deal, which nothing could alter. Lauren believed the old man was merely looking for the opportunity to terrorize his granddaughter by cutting her out of his will, using all the ugly words at his command. Still, many millions aren’t relinquished lightly, as long as a chance of inheritance remains. But Lauren had already made plans for dinner. She would mull over the situation until after dinner, and then she might drive down to The Pines.

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that at the first club where she stopped for a drink she ran into several friends, who pulled her into a corner and bought her far too many cocktails. As she drank her anger grew, and it wasn't all directed at her grandfather. She asked herself why during the past few months she had avoided visiting The Pines, why she had drifted into too sordid a lifestyle in Boston. Her anger increased when she hesitated to admit to herself the honest answers. But always at such moments, it was her sister Kate, not her grandfather, who entered her mind. She loved her sister, and lately, beyond any question, the bond of their affection had been weakened.

It hadn’t always been like this, for the sisters were orphans, raised by their only living relative, their selfish and demanding grandfather, Silas Blackburn. They had lived at the Blackburn family estate in Brewster, a small seaside town on Cape Cod, for most of their lives.

It was during their college years that Lauren met the handsome and willful John Mason. Attracted by his reckless and sensual nature, they had quickly become a couple. Hart Spencer was a more stable and dependable man, and he was immediately drawn to Lauren’s sister Kate, who like Hart, was quiet and responsible by nature. Regardless of the starkly difference personalities, the four quickly had become constant companions. It was widely speculated by their friends that someday the two couples would be married.

It was, therefore, unfortunate that Lauren’s choice of a future husband proved to be indiscriminate. Six months ago, Lauren and Hart had stumbled upon Kate and John locked in a steamy embrace, which was quickly ended by Kate, who at least had the decency to be ashamed of her behavior. John, however, declared his undying love for Kate and his desire to marry her, and he rejected Lauren, who it must be said, immediately decided that John and she were finished. Kate, mortified by the compromising position in which she had been caught, pledged her love to Hart if he would forgive her seeming infidelity.

After several long and painful arguments, Lauren and Hart understood that it was John who had pushed his unwelcome affections on Kate, who had been quietly doing her best to fend off his overtures for several weeks. When his usually effective persuasive skills failed him, John engineered the scene Lauren and Hart had walked into, anticipating that graphic evidence of an apparent affair would drive a wedge between Kate and Hart and end their relationship. He then planned to step into the breach as Kate’s new lover. He didn’t care what became of Lauren, but perhaps she and Hart