The Roxbury Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 1) 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

  About the Author

  THE ROXBURY HAUNTING

  ∞

  ROBIN G. AUSTIN

  Kindle Edition

  © 2016 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.

  Prologue

  §

  December 20, 1916

  Chester Road, Roxbury, Texas

  He wrapped each in a small blanket: two pink, one blue.

  After three trips down three flights of stairs and back again, he had to rest a spell to regain a more steady heartbeat and dry his perspiration. There was still plenty of time though. The officials would not arrive for another thirty minutes, if even that soon.

  He considered making a cup of tea or filling a bowl with the stew that set on the gas range awaiting his evening meal, though he doubted his stomach could tolerate either. Instead, he poured a glass of Belle Meade Bourbon and sat at the kitchen table.

  By the time he finished a second glass, there was pounding at the front door. That’s when he noticed the dried mud on the floor, his boot prints clearly visible. How foolish, he thought. Why had he not noticed in time to clean his footmarks? Now it was too late to do it properly.

  More pounding at the door and he was in a panic. He found a broom and swept through his traveled path as best he could. Good thing too.

  Despite his grief, once the officials entered his home they went through the entire downstairs as if taking full ownership of his property, and his things as well, before attending to the only reason they had been summoned… and then some.

  Perks of the job one had said. Cost of doing business the other said, through blotchy green teeth, rotting from anise flavored absinthe. The man’s liver would not last him another season.

  It was nearly time to retire when his home was finally free of the greedy and wearisome interlopers. He sat again at the kitchen table and ate the stew, now cool to his lips. Then he finished another bourbon or two.

  At last there was clarity. It was for the best. Better this house be the death of her than the hangman’s noose.

  When the clock struck midnight, he went to the third floor and closed the attic door behind him.

  Tomorrow there was much work to be done. And he would do it all himself; all of it, alone.

  Chapter One

  §

  I’m a house cleaner of last resort. Not the type who steam cleans carpets, washes windows, or scrubs the grime from toilet bowls. No, what I do is clean out things that growl, scream, bang, slam, and hiss in the night, daytime too.

  There’s much fancier names for what I do: shaman, seer, thaumaturge, ghost hunter (all of which I’m not)– and ghost buster, but please don’t go there with me on that one.

  I don’t wear jumpsuits, take the ghosts’ temperatures, video tape them, or record their voices. Most of all, I don’t freak out with eyes bulging and scream, What was that! at the sound of every bump, thump, and crash.

  If I must have a label, and for many people I know I must, it’s Psychic Medium.

  My business card reads Raven Eradications, and all jobs are guaranteed. I’ve been talking to spirits since I first learned to speak, about twenty five years now. The dead understand and even trust me, most of the time. My job is to assist them in moving onward– up or down as the case may be. In my experience, giving directions works best.

  Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Where there’s evil, I’m willing and able to step over the bodies of failed priests and weekend paranormal hobbyists to stomp out demons and poltergeists. For those, I leave the cross and holy water behind and work with quantum physics and the wisdom passed down by my distant ancestors of the Navajo Nation. It’s a complicated process and double my standard fee.

  Today, I’m packing for a road trip to Texas. That doesn’t make me as happy as it normally would. The drive is about five hours from my home in New Mexico and it’s December 19, meaning no Christmas tree for me. Not that I planned on having one, but there’s nothing like untangling last year’s holiday lights. Too bad though because ghosts don’t much care about such things and when Dorothy Matthews called me this morning, I knew waiting wasn’t an option.

  Mrs. Matthews, who insisted I call her Dorothy, sounded a lot like my grandmother Maybelle when she’s off her meds. I know it’s serious when the haunted whisper, when their voices creak and crack, and they hang up and call back then choke on their tongues when telling me he (or she or it) is listening. Dorothy did all those things.

  First off, I’d gotten a call from Dorothy’s daughter, Hayley Sanders. She’d seen my video ad on YouTube and wanted to make sure I was legit before giving my number to her mom. Hayley was as sweet as apple pie so I figured Dorothy would be the same. That’s usually the way it works. Nice makes nice, mean more mean, and crazy gets even crazier.

  Before me and Hayley could get down to business, as always, I had to explain my name. It isn’t Jacqueline or even Jackie. My parents wanted a boy.

  Years ago, Johnny Cash– a country singer in case you’re too young to know who he was– wrote a song he titled A Boy Named Sue. In it, Cash sang about a dad who abandoned his son to go off and do whatever, but not before naming the boy Sue. He wanted his kid to grow up tough and be able to fight his way through life.

  It’s a good song but a bad idea. Years ago– before transgender acceptance– having a boy’s name made me on the spiteful side; as an adult, it makes me tired of explaining.

  I didn’t go into all that with Hayley, I just said, My name’s Jack. Jack Raven. My folks wanted a boy.”

  She almost seemed sad. Then she told me her mom had this here man in her house. I told her that was nice, and she assured me there was nothing nice about it. The man, as she kept calling him, was making noise, moving stuff, and… her mom woke up one morning with a black feather on her pillow.

  I shivered when she told me that last part. While black feathers are good for working their magic in spiritual rituals, when they’re offered up by a ghost in the house, all my senses scream: danger ahead.

  Still
, I try not to read too many supernatural messages into the normal and mundane, so I asked Hayley if there were crows in her mom’s yard. She wasn’t interested in the normal and mundane; she was way past all that stuff.

  She told me she thought her mom was getting senile, but now she knows the man is real. By way of proof, she said two house cleaners, the regular toilet bowl cleaning type, had come and refused to come back. “El espectro,” one had said. The other said, “Lady, I ain’t cleaning no haunted house.”

  As soon as Hayley had whispered the women’s comments, I could see her clearly. That’s something I can do when talking to a person, even reading their emails. My take on Hayley was a woman of nice sturdy stock with blonde bouncy curls, pink pouty lips, poreless skin, and the tendency to keep the barn door wide open when it came to her emotions.

  Once Hayley determined I wasn’t on drugs or newly released from a mental ward, she got down to business. “Momma keeps saying, well she said, I didn’t know what to think, but….”

  I’d been tapping my fingers on my desk, watching the clock, and wanting to shake it out of the woman already. I had a tarot card reading scheduled on Skype in ten minutes, and I knew we weren’t even close to getting done at the rate Hayley was going, so I said, “She keeps saying there’s a ghost in the house?”

  Hayley’s voice went from nervous to jerky to creepy hollow. “She’s got herself a dead man living in the attic.”

  When I just said, “Uh-huh,” like it was something I heard every day, she relaxed a little but not before saying that she’d seen him too, or at least thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye once. Then the snot producing tears started pouring.

  Once she got herself back together, Hayley explained that she had the local minister come to her mom’s house to bless it, then found a guy who knew a guy who fixed things like that. Neither got rid of the man.

  On this last part, Hayley went from hyperactive to eardrum breaking loud– cheerleader loud. Still, she’d whispered the man like he could hear her even though she’d already mentioned she wasn’t at Dorothy’s house.

  So, she went on telling me, when the minister and the guy who fixed things didn’t do the trick, she searched for house cleaning rituals online– planning on doing it herself. You know: burn a few candles, wave some incense, maybe read a couple of Bible verses and throw in a chant or two. After a while, she ended up on YouTube where she found my ad.

  Just type how to get rid of a ghost, help for a haunting or something of that sorts in the search box and you’ll get my ad, upper right hand corner. The video’s a little dopy, done by a kid for thirty bucks. But here, let me save you the trouble of watching it.

  Picture this: Dark, windy, graveyard, headstone close-up, trash blowing across the graveyard (spook factor), cliché shadow man, headstones again, then rain that washes the images away. Then: Raven Eradications. Apparitions, Ghosts, Specters, Shadow Beings, Ecto-mists, Possessions, Demons, Poltergeists. USA and Canada. 505-321-9977.

  Here’s the part that grabs people: right before the rain washes everything away, you see 666 all stretched out and running down the screen. I’m no fan of the beast, but that part totally seals the deal.

  The rest of it, like I said, is a little dopy, but lots of people watch it and a few click through. Hayley clicked through.

  It was because of my logo’s feather, she’d said– Raven. Crow. That works good enough for me.

  My only question is, is this coincidence a sign from the spirit gods or the goings-on of the man in the attic?

  Chapter Two

  §

  Once Hayley gave me her seal of approval, I set up a time to talk to Dorothy the next day. My tarot card reading was paying my electric bill, so that’s the way it had to work. When my phone rang early this morning, I knew January’s house payment was getting made.

  Now like I said before, nice makes nice, mean more mean, and crazy gets even crazier. My read on Dorothy is that she’s one foot plus one big toe on crazy’s doorstep. While Hayley’s a loud talker, Dorothy’s a fast and confused one. She was so fast and scattered, I was having trouble visualizing her.

  I’d closed my eyes and listened to her repeat most of what her daughter had already told me. It gave me the time I needed and sure enough, I saw where Hayley got her sturdy stock. I also got hair that’s a big ball of steel blue frizz combed to the top of her head and a bum hip due to arthritis. Despite the pain, she’s a pacer as well as a mouth breather– these I could hear more than see.

  “This house is going to be the death of me,” she’d yelled, and my eyes had popped open.

  “Don’t say that,” I’d told her. “You don’t want to give him more power than he already has.” She’d plopped down somewhere and heaved a heavy sigh.

  “Well, that would suit some of my kin just fine. But you hear this: I’m not going without a fight or giving that thinks-he-knows-it-all Boyd Sanders a reason to lock me up in a nursing home so he can bulldoze my land. I’m only seventy two. I’m not old enough for the old folks’ home. I want to stay in my own darn home and die peacefully in my sleep, but not for another fifty years.”

  I’d said, “I can’t make that happen, Dorothy. But I can get rid of your ghost problem—

  “Man,” she corrected me. “Oh, I know he’s dead, but he’s as real as me just, you know, transparent. But he’s there all right, watching my every move. And he’s doing everything he can to make my golden years rusty red. He hides my eyeglasses and shoes and house keys, then gloats when I can’t find them. He turns the lights on and off and has no respect for my privacy. He even comes in the bathroom. He knocks on every other door in the house except that one. What kind of man does such a thing?”

  “Hum… one you’re familiar with?” I’d asked. I already knew from Hayley that Dorothy’s been a widow for twelve years, but that doesn’t mean her dear, dead husband has left her. When I suggested this, she assured me, in a mortified tone, that her Harold would never walk in on her while taking care of personal business.

  “Plus,” she’d said, and this one took her a while to get out, “that man’s been here all along, all the fifty three years I’ve lived in this house. I’m sure of it now.”

  She’d said that for years, her and Harold figured his goings-on were nothing more than the kids’ mischief, plumbing pipes, and electrical wiring. Then about the time Harold became senile, with much weeping and nose blowing, she’d said she blamed him for moving things and wandering around making strange noises. She knew that wasn’t the case after Harold died.

  Interesting, I’d thought. An oddly slow, progressive haunting. I was wondering what was causing it so I asked Dorothy when things changed enough for her to ask for help. She’d said it was about three months ago when he became so dang impolite.

  “What changed in your life around that time?” I’d asked.

  “That’s when the kids wanted me to go to the nursing home. It was only after insisting that Hayley spend a few nights at the house that she finally believed me, and that’s when we decided to get a ghost buster.”

  At this point, I tried to explain that attention seeking behavior is due to a spirit being lost or confused or needing something or other, but she was having none of it. She’d already told him to go to the gosh dang light and he wasn’t listening.

  Still, my explanation didn’t explain the sudden change. The sharp increase in activity could be due to Dorothy’s own fears or anger about being told to move out of her home. So far though, she didn’t seem the type who would keep quiet when being bossed around.

  “Besides the matter of the nursing home, did anything else start going on with you three months ago?” I’d asked.

  At this point in the conversation, Dorothy’s train of thought was jumping the tracks. When she got back to the question, she said that’s when all the construction started. I’d tried to clarify what that was about, but Dorothy was up pacing again and her train had left the station.

  She told me she had
a house full of guests planned for Christmas dinner, and the man wasn’t on the invite list. At least five minutes was spent on Dorothy’s Christmas menu. Then she got back to telling me how important it was that I got rid of the man no later than noon on Christmas Eve because it would be awful to upset the baby Jesus.

  We’d ended the conversation with a prayer, and I was seriously regretting the job already, but I told her I’d hit the road as soon as I saw her deposit in my PayPal account. She didn’t have a clue what that meant but assured me Hayley did.

  Sure enough, not more than fifteen minutes later I had three thousand bucks in my account. I’m good at what I do, but I’m not cheap and certainly not free. You get what you pay for.

  “Okay, Mojo,” I say, to my ninety pound Tamaskan wolfdog, “it’s time to go kick some ethereal butt.” He isn’t impressed. He’s been watching me pack and load up the jeep for the past hour. Mojo’s the type that’s always ready to rumble with the living or the dead, but he has a wake me when you’re ready kind of attitude.

  My father, who likes to boast that he’s Navajo when he’s barely sixty percent, said Mojo came to him in a dream before the dog was even born and told him he was being sent to earth to protect me from angry and evil spirits. My father, Arthur the short-order cook at Lacey’s Diner, talks that way.

  One day, four years ago, he stopped by with this ball of black and gray fur with two weird amber eyes, and told me I’d been blessed by the spirits and no harm would ever come to me.

  When my weird pea soup eyes looked into those weird amber eyes, I agreed not many would dare associate themselves with a woman who owned a wolfdog, including a boyfriend. Dad was good with that until he took to wanting grandkids, but that’s another story.

  Mojo– the name picked by the Great Spirit, according to Dad– means magic, talisman, sorcery, and a few other amazing things. To me, it means about a hundred bucks a month just for kibble. Mojo’s not a light eater and not open for discussion about that fact.

  “You coming or staying?” I ask, but he knows it’s not an option. I’ve already told him about Dorothy, who’s paying his food bill next month, and the man, who he told me in a long deep amber stare is one ornery hombre.