The Cathville Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  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

  About the Author

  THE CATHVILLE HAUNTING

  ∞

  ROBIN G. AUSTIN

  Kindle Edition

  © 2017 Robin G. Austin. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process or by photographic recordings nor stored in a retrieval system transmitted or otherwise copied for public or private use including words and illustrations, other than brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews, without written consent of the author. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Reference to brands, media and trademarks are used fictitiously and under the fair use doctrine.

  The Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Series

  The Roxbury Haunting

  The Cathville Haunting

  The Shem Bay Haunting

  The Eton Bluff Haunting (June 2017)

  Prologue

  §

  February 9, 1945

  Marian Road, Cathville, Arkansas

  “Get up,” the voice whispered in her ear.

  She sat up and looked around the room; there was no one there. Still, she got out of bed and walked out the front door of her cabin.

  She moved through the thick woods lit by the full moon. Her feet were bare, her nightgown too thin to provide any warmth against the bitter winter cold, but she did not feel so much as a chill.

  For over two hours, she walked to the north end of the property; farther than she had walked in twenty years or more.

  When she came over the hill, she stopped to sit next to a birch tree. A copperhead slithered out of some low hanging sassafras leaves. She recognized him straight off even though she hadn’t seen him in eighty years.

  Seeing him, she could once again feel the rough wood of the wash bucket she’d been dropped in. She could taste the blood in the cold water that had been thrown on her tiny, naked body. And she could hear that copperhead hissing as it was brought to the girl’s face.

  “You come back to strike me too?” she asked the snake. It slithered next to her. Their eyes met and she fought back a tear. “Go ahead, I’m ready to go and see that girl’s face again. That one face in this whole spiteful world that looks like me.”

  The snake turned away and made its way up the tree.

  Ten feet long that thing was, she thought. Just a baby too when she’d first seen it. Not its fault it had killed the girl. Not any more than it was the girl’s fault what happened to her. And it sure wasn’t her own fault for having been born to that girl.

  She glanced down at the dirt where the snake had sat watching her. There was a glass bottle about the size of the one she kept her cod liver oil stored. She picked it up and turned it around: three rusty spikes, some stick pins, mustard seeds, hair tied with a string, cudweed, and some brown liquid. She pulled the cork and held it to her nose. Whiskey. She laughed so hard she wondered if she’d drank that whiskey.

  “Thank you, Silas,” she said to the snake who was watching her from the tree. “Take them a while to find my remains in the woods, but they’ll never find this here potion you give me. I’ll bury it deep in the soil of my land to make sure of that.”

  She struggled to stand and headed into the woods. Then she stopped and said to the snake, “And even if they want, they’ll never forget my name.”

  Chapter One

  §

  “Call me Madame Raven,” I say, into the amethyst crystal ball. “Tell me where Forrest Fenn hid his diamonds, sapphires, and gold nuggets. Tell me where his wife hid his body after cutting off his head and feeding it to the feral hogs.”

  My new crystal ball, a Christmas present from my best friend since grade school, Charlotte Pascal, is stone cold silent. Actually, my last inquiry was bogus. As far as I know, Mr. Fenn still has his head. Most husbands who bury two million dollars in the mountains wouldn’t be as lucky.

  But back to my crystal ball. It’s a mess of purple and pink and tangled black threads that are nice if you like chaotic. According to some blog Char read– she won’t answer to Charlotte these days– amethyst is a grounding crystal; one that grounds a person to the ethereal realm. For someone who speaks to the dead, I have to work much harder staying grounded to mother earth.

  Char said the thing spoke to her. Later today, I hope it has a lot of insightful things to say because I’m doing a tarot card reading for a woman named Anna who sent me a number of questions after she booked her appointment.

  She had the usual ones about love and money, and a most troubling one about whether or not the authorities would find out something. That question ended with her wanting to know if she should leave town. I sense the answer is yes without looking at a single card.

  Me and Mojo, my Tamaskan wolfdog, have taken up a daily ritual of hiking in the rugged mountains near our home in Las Trebol, New Mexico. Not in search of Fenn’s treasure, but to stay strong and centered– critical in our profession, which isn’t tarot reading. Still, I figure I’m going to need both qualities in dealing with Anna since I’m also sensing the woman is spinning more than a few mental crop circles.

  Tarot reading is something I do on the side. My main business is helping the haunted, and that business, Raven Eradications, has been non-existent since my last job in Roxbury, Texas, almost two months ago. Dorothy Matthews, who unfortunately departed this world shortly after I arrived to deal with her resident spirit, has been on my mind all morning; more so her outstanding bill than the woman herself.

  When me and the wolfdog get back from our hike, I stop to collect the mail. There are two bills, a flier from a new dentist in town, and a very official looking envelope from the law office of Charlton Q. Buchanan.

  My sixth sense about Dorothy’s outstanding bill was spot on. Inside is a check for fifteen hundred dollars along with a loopy cursive note from Dorothy’s daughter Hayley thanking me for my hard work. At the bottom is a bubble gum pink kiss that looks like it was planted by a drunken sailor. Hayley is a sweet but strange woman.

  “We have a roof over our heads for another month,” I tell Mojo. He isn’t impressed.

  After a trip to the bank, I get ready for my tarot reading with Anna, the name of which I’m sensing is a fake. She wouldn’t be the first to use
an alias and since we’re doing business over the internet, I don’t blame her a bit. Seeing as she’s already confirmed her appointment and paid my fee, she can call herself anything she wants.

  I put my fingers over her email on my computer screen to see if I can pick up any early messages. Definitely a fake name, the nervous type, and a few secrets she’s not planning on giving up, not even to my crystal ball. I do a quick tarot spread to tune into what I fear is some culpable vibes.

  Things don’t look good for the woman. The Seven and Nine of Swords: dishonesty or betrayal and worry. All are coming from too much rambling thinking, a common affliction of the living. The next cards are the Devil: more lies or bondage and Judgment: liberation or a need for atonement? I sense the latter. The woman’s sliding down a slippery and bumpy slope.

  I turn to my new crystal ball, the only one I’ve ever owned. “What do you foresee for Anna?” I ask. Silence. I guess the amethyst is off in the ethereal realm. It’ll make a nice paper weight.

  I make a cup of clarifying tea: cumin, coriander, and fennel– improved immensely with honey and milk– and meditate in front of my Skype screen while I wait for Anna to call. Ten minutes past her appointment time, I smell something that resembles burning tires and peppermint lifesavers. The smoke from the lemongrass incense next to me is trailing off sideways.

  Mojo has stopped gnawing on a rawhide bone to watch my Skype screen as if he sees someone. I don’t see anyone, but I do get a tap on the shoulder. Since I’m home alone, I whip around and leap out of my chair at the same time.

  There’s no one in the room, not anyone visible anyway. The tap was disarming, but nothing to get too excited about if you’re used to communicating with the dead. I ask the wolfdog if someone is here. His amber eyes still glare at my computer then he does his ghost growl, which he only does when he thinks a spirit is questionably friendly.

  “Welcome… I think. How can I help you? Is there something you need or want to say?”

  It’s rare that I get visitors, either from the dead or the living. Thoughts of friends and loved ones who may have just departed this world rattle my mind. I close my eyes and try to sense a presence. No icy chill, no flickering lights, dizziness, or twisting in my gut. The minty, burning tire smell is dissipating.

  I ask again. “Is there something you need? You can tell me and I’ll hear you.”

  When I hear nothing, I look up to see that it’s half past Anna’s appointment time. I doubt more than five minutes has gone by in the physical realm.

  I gather my tarot cards and ask for a new and clearer message as I shuffle. “What message do you have for Anna?” I ask, and one card flies out and falls under my desk. On hands and knees, I retrieve it facedown.

  There’s no reason to assume my visitor was Anna just because she hasn’t called. I hate to jump the gun on her departure from this world. She could have scratched her winning lottery ticket right before her appointment or got that visit from the authorities. She wouldn’t be my first no-show.

  I sit back and turn the card over, hoping for the best. Nope. The Death card. I hear what sounds like the front door slam– if it were in a tunnel. Mojo’s gone back to his rawhide like nothing strange just happened. In our world, it hasn’t.

  After another hour, I give up on Anna. I consider emailing her, but if it was her who paid me a visit, I’m going to take it as a last minute cancellation or worse, a warning not to contact her or the authorities.

  Instead of worrying about the woman, I set to work on my ghost business, which pays the best and comes with highly motivated and dependable clients. When most people are dealing with a ghost, there aren’t many things they want more in life than to not be dealing with one.

  Just when I’m thinking there are so many dead people and not nearly enough ghosts haunting the living, my phone rings. It’s a call from Joubert Realty. I’ve never heard of the place, but I figure it’s an agent doing the same thing I’m doing: trying to drum up business after the holidays.

  He or she picked the wrong woman– and the wrong house: the one I bought just before the real estate bust. Still, I sympathize with anyone tough enough to make a cold call, so I answer on the third ring.

  “Good afternoon, may I speak to Jack Raven, please.” His voice is barely post-teen, still with that sudden, unexpected, and embarrassing up-pitch followed by throat clearing.

  “This is Jack Raven,” I say, and get the usual silence.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “Must be short for Jacqueline, like Jackie O. You know, President Kennedy’s wife?”

  “No,” I say. “More like Jack Nicholson. You know, the psycho in The Shining?” Then I disconnect.

  Chapter Two

  §

  Jackie O? No one’s ever made that comparison to me. Plus, the kid sounded too young to even know who she was. Studied his history lessons, I guess. I’m already back to writing a new ad for the All Supernatural Talk forum when the kid calls again, which doesn’t make me too happy.

  He claims we got disconnected and I don’t correct him. He’s nervous and that makes me feel a little guilty. Years from now he could look back and remember me as the woman who ruined his career in real estate. He tells me his boss, Dexter Joubert, wants to talk to me about my eradication services.

  Crap, I hung up on a client. Some psychic I am.

  “That is if you have the time,” he says.

  “I do. I’d be happy to talk to him.” Groveling always pains me.

  I’m on hold so long that I’m back to writing my online ad. Then I get some loud throat clearing in my ear followed by, “Ahh, this is Dexter Joubert.”

  “Call me Jack,” I say, still groveling.

  There’s an awkward pause followed by, “Right,” drawn out like it’s a four syllable word. He yells to someone and asks me to hold on just one little second.

  Here’s my psychic read on Dexter Joubert, real estate broker. He always has a ready smile and a firm handshake, and he’s a first class sizer-upper.

  How much they got to spend? Are they pre-approved? What’s the lowest they’ll go on their place? How much can they borrow? Can we get them to go a little higher?

  He likes baby blue suits, don’t ask me why. His wife picks out his clothes every night, don’t tell me why. He drives a Lexus, baby blue­– a safe bet– and drinks bourbon, no wait, scotch. He takes his male clients to strip joints and his female clients to trendy sandwich and latte restaurants.

  “You still there?”

  I confirm I am.

  “Listen, Jack.” He pauses. “I got your name and number from Hayley Sanders.”

  This surprises me. I got on fine with my last client’s daughter– the bubble gum pink lipstick wearer and thank you note kisser– but it’s rare to get referrals in this type of business. The majority of people never encounter a single ghost– or realize when they do– and the haunted don’t usually like to brag about it.

  “Former client,” Dexter goes on to say, all puffy like. “I lived a few years in Texas and sold houses to all the high rollers. Harold Matthews was rolling to the top of his cowboy boots in it before the oil bust.” Dexter waits, I guess for recognition or congratulations.

  I’m busy on the internet sizing him up, thinking I may be heading back to Texas. Nope. Google finds Joubert Realty in one point three seconds– in Arkansas of all places.

  “Her mother’s house? Mrs. Mathews? God rest her soul,” he says.

  I’m busy being impressed by some listings on his website and almost forgot about the guy. The man’s not selling in the low rent district.

  “Yes, of course. Lovely woman,” I say, with a smile. Sometimes I like to play the part of the spooky psychic who sees dead people. Most clients like to know that I’m at ease with the dearly, or long ago, departed.

  My morbid sense of humor appears to have unnerved Dexter. I don’t even hear him breathing. I’m afraid I’m about to lose the job and in an unbelieving world, mediums can’t be choosey.

>   Of course, I’m not thrilled about driving all the way to Arkansas, or even being in Arkansas. Nothing against the place, but I once heard some group was lobbying to have the state bird changed from the mockingbird to the mosquito. Still, I know– some from his cocky attitude and some from his gaudy website and high priced listings– that Dexter Joubert’s got money. I’m not above taking a generous portion of it for a week’s work.

  In my soothing voice, I ask him how I can help and hear a light swoosh like he’s relaxed. That’s good. It tells me he needs help and people who think they have a ghost hanging around will pay almost anything to get that help.

  Don’t think less of me for coming off greedy. I’m not, but ghost eradicators are rare. I don’t document the dead, I convince them to move on. I ask earthbound spirits to stop haunting and go to the light or the dark, as need be. My work is fast, efficient, and confidential. It’s not made for TV or publicity stunts, and it’s guaranteed.

  “Hold on one second,” Dexter says.

  I hear him cough and clear his throat. Definitely scotch. I think he’s probably in his mid-fifties based on that raggedy throat. When I find his picture on the website, I’m guessing he still has a few years from the big five-0.

  He’s tall and well-fed with a thick head of hair, blue eyes that can pierce your purse strings, and a wide smile that’s flashing horse-size teeth. He seems to be a likeable guy in a goofy sort of way, but I’m sensing that smile sucks more than a few into his high-end financial web.

  When he gets back on the line, his sales pitch cheer is missing. His words are precise and razor sharp; he’s got the voice of someone arranging a hit.

  How much to kill my wife? I can’t stand the clothes she picks out. I can do better. I am doing better down at the strip club.

  He doesn’t say any of that; I share in context so you get an idea of the way he sounds. I can tell by his voice that he’s done with this problem he’s got, but he still hasn’t gotten around to telling me what it is exactly.

  What he does tell me is that he’s got sixty acres just outside of Cathville where he’s building a supermall. Super comes out supper– or close enough– and he loses me for a few seconds. That’s okay though because I don’t think I missed much.