Windwood Farm (Taryn's Camera) (25 page)

“Well, it was still a pretty good hit,” Taryn reasoned. “It knocked me out and my head still hurts.” She had no idea why she was trying to make this mad woman feel better about trying to kill her.

“You weren’t supposed to come out here tonight. In a few minutes, my son will be here and he’ll take care of you,” she whined. “Why are you here so late? It’s too damn dark to paint!”

“I forgot something,” Taryn lied
and found herself almost on the verge of apologizing. “I had to come back.”

The bird-woman shook her head. “We know that’s not true. I know you’ve figured out what happened here, and what happened to my uncle. Poor Uncle Jonathan. He should never have gotten messed up with them folks. They ruined him, they did. He loved that little girl, Lord knows why. Would’ve done anything to marry her. Even had her daddy believing there was a gas well on here just so he could have her. Said he’d make him a rich man. He told my mama that on his death bed. There weren’t no gas wells here, of course. But that old fool didn’t know it. He was greedy, wanted money. He’d believe anything.”

Taryn was taken aback. So it was just a lie? And Jonathan really had feelings for Clara? Well, that was different. She’d been wrong.

“But Jonathan didn’t kill her, Phyllis. He had nothing to do with it,” she reasoned again. “
And it happened a long time ago.”

“What’s time,” Phyllis snapped. “Nobody forgets. And I won’t have you dragging my family’s name in the mud. No, he didn’t kill her. And when Robert told him what he’d done to that other boy and that she’d died, he went out of his mind with grief. He was a good man, my uncle. Tried to make things right.”

“All towns have a haunted house, Phyllis, it’s just for fun. It’s part of their history. It’s nothing personal,” she tried again.

“You say that when it’s part of
your
history,” she snapped. “You’re dragging my family through the mud! Uncle Jonathan would have married that girl and her no good daddy would’ve gotten out of debt. But he went insane. Did what he did and my uncle couldn’t help it. It was all over greed. Uncle Jonathan told him that if he ever tried to drill and get another oil company involved, he’d bring the authorities right to that well, even if it meant that his name got dragged in the mud right along with it. He didn’t care! He was a good man. He tried to make things right in the end and hoped everyone would forget. And they did! Until you come around.”

Taryn wanted to ask what she meant, thinking that stalling was her best option, but Phyllis’ agitation was becoming more pronounced.

“I won’t tell anyone. Nobody even
knows
, Phyllis. Believe me, they don’t. I’ve asked everyone. They just think this house is haunted, they don’t know the story behind it.”

Phyllis snorted. “You’ve been all over town asking questions. Everyone knows.
And how do you think I feel, having this house and this place like a freak show, a carnival ride? Right next to my family homestead? It’s a joke! How long until they put it together and my family’s name is dragged through the mud? My son’s here to dig up that well. We know what’s down there and you do, too. He knows about you, too. Was his idea for the tea and the tires. We thought maybe it would be enough. But you’re ornery.”

Taryn felt prickles of pride that she knew were silly. She tried to take a step back. “Just let me go home. Take whatever is in that well and I’ll leave
and forget about it.”

“I’d like to, of course. I don’t want no
death on my hands. I’m a good,
Christian
woman. But when you die, your family’s name is all you got left. When my mama told me our secret, I promised to take it to my grave. And that means taking it to yours, too.”

They both heard the car turning into the drive at the same time. Taryn screamed and lunged at Phyllis the same time she decided to pull the trigger. As the bullet raced through her shoulder and Taryn felt the ground under her once again, she just hoped
the son wouldn’t be too hard on her or as sadistic as some of the killers on the crime shows she liked to watch.

O
nce again, Taryn found herself waking up to bright lights and the soft sounds of voices. Both her head and shoulder hurt, but she also felt a little floaty and drowsy and it was nice. She couldn’t be on the ground anymore because the surface under her felt too soft. And her jeans were gone. She knew because she could feel her bare legs. The material under her was a little scratchy, a little cottony. She was too uncomfortable for this to be Heaven, though.

“Hey,” came a soft female voice. “You’re awake! Look at you!”

On experiment, Taryn tried opening her eyes and was amazed to find herself back in the same hospital room. Melissa sat at her side, a carton of apple juice in her hand. “Sorry, but I drank your juice. You didn’t look like you’d be wanting it and my mouth was really, really dry. It’s still hot out there.”

“Hey, I’m not dead,” Taryn smiled. “What the hell happened?”

“Reagan got the voicemail you left him before you left the hotel. He decided to come out and check things for himself. Be glad you’re in Kentucky where men carry guns in their trucks or else you might be dead. We heard the shot on our farm, too, and my husband was heading over. He got there the same time as Phyllis’s son and the police. They’ve both been arrested. It’s kind of sad, really.”

Taryn nodded. “And so pointless. Does reputation really mean so much? I mean, for people who
have been dead for so long?”

“I guess so. Heritage is a big deal. People want to protect it,” Melissa explained. “It was Phyllis’
s life, apparently. She didn’t want her family associated with something so horrible. She was afraid you’d bring it all out into the open.”

They both stayed in companionable silence until Taryn broke it again. “I hoped they liked the painting
, anyway.”

Melissa giggled. “Oh, and I talked to your friend
Matt. I got in touch with him on your phone. I hope that’s okay.”

Taryn nodded. “Thank you. He would’ve killed me a second time.
Or third. Whatever. I’ve lost count.”

“
He came up with something on his own. He did his own research and guess what he found? Until the house sold, Jonathan Fitzgerald paid the taxes and kept the house up. So he must have really loved Clara.”

“Or at least felt
responsible for what happened,” Taryn added. “And no wonder. A combination of his greed, Robert’s greed, and Robert’s lies killed two people.”

“
Well, maybe…Some of it might not have been lies. They found Donald’s body in the well. Reagan had them dig it up. Nobody even knew it was there. Of course, it’s just bones now. But we know it’s his. We won’t know until they do a bunch of testing, but who else? There was a lock on that well, too, an old one. Police figured it’s been on there since the ‘20s.”

“I bet I know where the key is that fit
s the lock,” Taryn murmured.

“And guess what else they found?” Melissa added.

“What?”

“
Oil wells. In the back.”

Taryn’s eyes grew large. “Holy shit!
They’ve been busy.”

“No kidding!
Reagan’s got that place torn apart. Robert wasn’t lying. Of course, he might not have known he wasn’t lying at the time, but yeah, they were really there all along. They
all
would have been rich,” Melissa said a little sadly. “Well, the Fitzgeralds were already rich, but they would have been even richer. That should have made them happy. That’s what Jonathan wanted all along. To be richer.”

Taryn
closed her eyes and thought about poor Donald, going to see Clara. For what? Had they decided to run away together? Was he going to ask Robert for permission to finally be with her? Or was he just concerned and checking on her? “We’ll never know how Donald died. But I have theories. My worst one is he simply threw him into the well and Clara, tied to the bed, had to listen to him drown or scream until he died.”

Melissa shuddered. “That’s mine, too. I’m hoping maybe the bones show a gunshot
wound or something. I don’t know if that’s possible. But she had to know he was dead. Do you think he killed her, too?”

“I don’t think so. In her diary she talked about her stomach hurting, feeling pale, and not being able to eat but feeling hungry. I’d say that under all that stress she worked herself up a good old
-fashioned stomach ulcer. I believe she died from complications of it, or she vomited blood and choked on it. The coroner probably couldn’t tell the difference, especially with the blood on the sheets and her mother’s history of TB.”

“So he did kill her, just in a different way,” Melissa said
unhappily. “So many lives ruined. I heard that Jonathan married that woman Maizie he used to see and they were never that happy. She was a weird, cold woman.”

“And poor little Clara’s life was snuffed out before it even got started,” Taryn added.

Melissa nodded sadly.

“So Phyllis’
s uncle is going to be tied into an eighty-year old murder case and Donald will finally get the burial he deserves. But what about Clara? Who cares about her and what happened?”

“I do,” Melissa said, a touch of stubbornness showing through. “I care about her. And my family will, too. She’s our family now. We’ll take care of her. I’ve already visited her grave and I’ll keep doing it. We’ll make sure she’s not forgotten.”

Despite the awkwardness, the members of the Stokes County Historical Society loved the painting. A few even openly cried when they saw it. As they walked around the room and hugged and patted on her, she felt both pride and embarrassment at their displays of affection.

Shirley seemed particularly upset. “I am just so sorry that…so sorry. I’m sorry that
—”

“One of your members tried to kill me?” Taryn finished helpfully.
“Twice?

That seemed to break the spell and
put everyone at ease, although Taryn couldn’t wait to get out of the building and Vidalia itself. She still wasn’t sure why the well hadn’t shown up in her last pictures, but she knew that the part that centered on her wasn’t finished. She might have known what happened to Clara, but her story was really just beginning. Rob was right. She had changed. She felt it. Something was starting to unfold inside of her and awaken. It was a prickling at the edges of her mind, but she couldn’t ignore it. In the hospital, after the attack, it grew stronger. She itched to take more pictures and see what developed, no pun intended.

T
here wasn’t much left to say goodbye to. Taryn stood awkwardly in the middle of her hotel room, taking one last look around. The mirror over the standard, hotel dresser showed a reflection of a woman who, to Taryn’s mind anyway, looked older and more tired than she was when she’d first arrived. Taryn felt like she’d aged by at least ten years over the past six weeks. “Probably the Pine Sol,” she joked aloud and her voice felt dim and hollow in the empty room.

Nobody knew what happened to the mirror in Clara’s room.
Not every question was answered in the end. Perhaps a vandal really
had
taken it sometime over the years. Or maybe one of the other owners removed it. Taryn liked to think that Robert, left alone with his anger and whatever madness he had inside of him, removed the mirror himself because he felt Clara’s spirit wandering through the house.

Reagan
gave the keys to Melissa. Nobody spoke of them aloud, but they all knew what those keys were for. The smaller ones would have been for the padlocks that held the chains on Clara’s bed. And the larger key fit the door that covered the old well once it was uncovered. Had Robert left the keys there for Clara to see, so close and yet unable to reach them? What would drive a person to be so insane? No amount of criminal shows on television could help Taryn reach that level of understanding. Her own parents were aloof and distant, but they loved her. Maybe, in his own way, Robert also loved his daughter. Had his debts pushed him into believing that keeping her tied down and forcing her to marry someone she didn’t love was the only way out for him? Obviously, Taryn didn’t really know them, but if he had talked to Clara she had a feeling that Clara’s sense of duty to her family would have pushed her into the marriage if nothing else. His actions had been senseless, pointless. She wondered what he was like when his wife was still alive. So many questions left unanswered but at least the living knew the answers to the most important questions and that would have to be enough.

T
aryn made one last stop at the diner for pancakes before leaving town. Tammy was waiting for her when she walked in and immediately pounced on her with a hug. “I don’t care if you’re not the touchy type, you’re getting one,” she said into Taryn’s shoulder.

“I’m the hugging type and I probably need one about now,” she sighed and then realized she would really miss the meals and companionship she found
there.

“I’m sorry we tried to kill you. Twice.” Tammy looked so forlorn
that Taryn couldn’t help but laugh as she slid into the booth.