Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They refuelled the Beast at a nearby gas bar. The car was running on fumes when they pulled into the station. It was moments like this that Charlie was happy that this was a company car. The fill-up came in at a hundred and five dollars.

It was just before six p.m. when they made their way up the drive to Hoodoo House. All looked peaceful. Charlie and Declan got out of the car and took a quick look around the perimeter of the house. Where the entrance to the kitchen door had been, there was now a board and police tape. They walked around to the front door and knocked. There was no response. Declan knocked again, louder. The curtain covering the upper pane of glass parted and an eye peered out.

"Henry, would you let us in?" Charlie asked.

"Gramma Carol told me not to open the door under any circumstances."

"Henry, you know you can trust us."

The eye disappeared from the windowpane and Henry opened the door, then quickly locked it once they were inside.

"Gramma Carol's just preparing some food," he said, then ran towards the back of the house.

As they walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, Charlie saw the door of the writing room lying in pieces on the floor. In its place, police tape crisscrossed the opening. The office furniture had been tossed around like a tornado had been through the room, and the books were stripped from the shelves. What Charlie found more disturbing was the wall that ran up beside the stairs. The wood panelling was stained with a spray of dried blood, along with bloody handprints. Charlie felt sick at the thought of thirteen-year-old Henry being involved in all of this.

When they reached the kitchen, Mrs Cameron stood by the stove stirring a large pot of soup. Charlie could smell freshly baked buns.

Henry stood close to Mrs Cameron.

He's probably still scared. Who could blame him?

"Come on. Sit down," she said. "I'm assuming you'll both eat."

"Thank you, Mrs Cameron. We'd love to," Declan replied.

There was a knock at the front door. Henry looked towards it, but didn't move.

"I'm closer," Charlie said. "I'll get it."

He opened the door and let Sinclair Yamada in.

"What a damned mess this has become," Sinclair said, looking around.

Charlie nodded and led Sinclair back to the kitchen.

They all sat down around the table like a dysfunctional family at Christmas. Mrs Cameron and Henry served. Sinclair tore his bun apart and started to shove it into his mouth. Henry cleared his throat. The young man lowered his head and said, "God, please bless this meal, and everyone around this table and the people they care about, both here and in heaven." He looked upward. "And Mom, I promise to eat all my soup, including the beans. Amen."

"Amen," Mrs Cameron said, followed by muttering from the others.

Declan began, "So we've got some news to share with you."

Mrs Cameron stared him down. "If you don't mind, before you share your news, can we just enjoy the food without talk of the recent nasty business? There'll be time enough to talk after we're done."

Declan nodded, and the only sound for the next ten minutes was the clattering of spoons on bowls, and Henry slurping his broth.

When the main meal was cleared away, Mrs Cameron brought out coffee and a sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.

Declan said, "Thank you Mrs Cameron. Is it all right to start now?"

She nodded.

"I have some bad news, Sinclair," Declan began. "The computer's been stolen."

"What!" Sinclair snapped.

Charlie interjected, "We had to turn it over to the RCMP anyway—"

Sinclair turned red in the face. "You turned the computer over?"

"We were going to—minus certain sensitive files as requested," Declan continued, "but we never got it to the cops. We were held up by a group of armed bikers who took the computer off our hands."

Sinclair thumped the table with his fist. "This whole thing is a bloody disaster."

"As I said," Declan reiterated, "certain sensitive files had been removed."

Sinclair scowled. "None of it matters anymore. Now that Malcolm Tull is dead, Mount Temple Press is seriously considering not continuing with the book series. The company's owner is well past his best-before date—his words, not mine—and he wants a break. He's currently looking at a take-over bid for the back-catalogue, and that's it. He'll be closing down operations."

"So how will this affect you?" Charlie asked.

"I'll be out on the street, looking for a job," Sinclair said. He took a sip of water then continued. "And as goeth Mount Temple Press, so goeth the Heart's Shadow Foundation. In a meeting earlier today, I found out that, in light of the potential sale and the recent events here, the foundation will begin winding down its operations. That includes the liquidation of all of its tangible assets. Hoodoo House will be sold, and there will be no more ghostwriters."

Henry looked panicked. "Mr Yamada—shhh," he said, putting his finger to his mouth. "You can't tell the secret. Declan and Charlie aren't supposed to know about the ghostwriters."

"They already do. I had to tell them," Sinclair snapped. "There comes a time when all secrets come out."

"How long have you known?" Declan asked Henry.

Henry pushed back from the table and stood up. "I saw what Mr Tull was writing and told Gramma Carol. She said we had to keep it a secret. We were never supposed to talk about this to anyone but ourselves. She explained that, to the rest of the world, everything was written by Marjorie Ellis. We have to protect her legacy! And now it's all ruined because everyone's going to know."

Henry started to cry.

"Henry, Declan and I had to be let in on the secret," Charlie said. "It was important for us to know everything so we could find the last Heart's Shadow manuscript. And we've promised not to tell anyone."

"But Mr Yamada should have told me you knew!"

Sinclair raised his hands in the air. "Like I said, none of it matters anymore. Look around you. Tull is dead. A psychopath attacked the house, which put you and Mrs Cameron in danger. And there will be no more new Heart's Shadow books. All good things must come to an end."

Mrs Cameron stood up from the table. "They can't do this. They promised to keep the series alive as long as the sales were decent. And it's about more than money, Mr Sinclair. What about the readers? What about those poor people who look to The Heart's Shadow books as their escape from their humdrum lives? Surely the buyers will want to continue the series?" Mrs Cameron shook with anger. "And if the foundation gets rid of Hoodoo House, where will the boy stay? Where will I be left? This is your fault. If it wasn't for you, Tull would still be alive. I overheard your argument with Malcolm on the night that he died. It was a barn-burner. I've wondered since that day if it was you who somehow managed to get rid of him. I didn't hear clearly, but I did hear the word blackmail."

Sinclair's face hardened into a mask of fury. "If we're pointing fingers here, Mrs Cameron, according to what the police told me, Malcolm Tull likely died of an overdose of primidone, which was found in his glass of kumis. Isn't that something that you always prepared for him? I know that you had no love for Malcolm Tull. Maybe you should have thought about the consequences of your actions before you spiked his drink."

Mrs Cameron marched up to Sinclair and leaned in close to his face. "He had no respect for Marjorie Ellis. He was destroying her creation, unlike Thomas Pritchard who carried forward the original tone of her work. It was one thing to have to abide the disdain he had for the thing that kept a roof over his head—it was another thing to have to tolerate the company of the shady men he…associated with."

"So you did kill him?" Sinclair demanded.

"No, but a small part of me wishes I'd had the courage to do it."

"Now why would you say that?" Declan asked.

Suddenly it all made sense to Charlie. He turned to Mrs Cameron and said, "Perhaps because you are Marjorie Ellis."

The room went very still.

Then Henry cried out, "I knew it! Gramma Carol—you are, aren't you?"

Mrs Cameron looked directly at Henry and said, "No. That's not true."

"It is true. I can prove it," Henry said, then ran from the room.

"Henry!" she cried out. Mrs Cameron shook her head. "I don't know what's gotten into that boy."

They heard the sound of Henry's footsteps running up the main stairs, then back down again. He appeared at the door to the kitchen. In his hand he held a picture of three women. Charlie remembered that he'd seen the photo on his tour of the house. It had been taped to Henry's dresser mirror. Henry brought the picture to the table.

"What's this all about?" Mrs Cameron asked.

"You gave this to me. And there's three people in the picture." He pointed at it. "That's Gramma Rachael, that's your sister Florry and then there's you. It is you, isn't it? The third person?"

"Of course, Henry, you know that's me."

"And here," Henry continued, "see how it's labelled?"

He indicated the words written on the back—‘RACHAEL, FLORRY, ME'.

"It's like a puzzle, isn't it?" Henry said. "ME are the initials for Marjorie Ellis. I never said anything, because I figured you wanted it to be kept a secret, but I always knew. You're not only Gramma Carol, you're really Marjorie Ellis."

Henry hugged Mrs Cameron.

She reached down and touched him gently on the shoulder. "No, boy, you're so very clever, but here you've got it wrong. It is a picture of Gramma Rachael, Florry, and me. But it's simply the word me."

Declan asked, "So you aren't Marjorie Ellis?"

Mrs Cameron nodded her head. "Too many secrets. It's time to tell the truth. I'm not Marjorie Ellis…but my sister is."

Sinclair drew in a quick breath. "Florry? Your sister that's in the home?"

Mrs Cameron nodded.

"All this time you knew where the mysterious Miss Ellis was and you never said anything." Sinclair huffed.

"It was nobody's business. Marjorie Ellis was just a nom de plume. She wanted her privacy. She's in Red Deer Mansion, and she's there because that bloody publisher of hers pushed her into a complete breakdown. She never got better. At least the Heart's Shadow Foundation had the decency to keep paying her royalties which cover the cost of her care, but it's a pittance compared to what they've made over the years."

"How did you end up here?" Charlie asked.

"I saw the housekeeping job advertised by the foundation. I did everything I could to ensure I got the position which gave me a home, a paycheque and a way to watch over my sister's legacy."

Henry pulled away from Mrs Cameron and began pacing around the kitchen. "But, Gramma Carol, you have to be Marjorie Ellis. You have to be!"

He started to cry.

"Henry. What's wrong? Tell me," she said.

"I'm a horrible person. I've done something really, really bad. Everyone will hate me because I'm so…" His voice was lost in uncontrollable sobbing.

Mrs Cameron rushed to him, knelt down and held him by the shoulders. "Henry. Tell us what's wrong."

"Mr Tull said a lot of nasty things about you and Marjorie Ellis. He shouldn't have been talking about her like that and saying all those bad things about her writing!" Tears streamed down Henry's face.

"What did Mr Tull say?" Declan pushed.

"He said horrible things about her books. He was planning on ruining them so no one would write any more of them, and that wasn't right! He was going to ruin the legacy of Marjorie Ellis. I thought it was Gramma Carol. He had no right!" Henry yelled. He turned to his Gramma Carol. "I had to protect you."

The boy clenched his hands like he was about to punch someone.

"Henry," Declan said in a calm, quiet voice, "tell me what you did."

"I can get into the walls. There's passageways in there, just like the secret panel up to the tower. I could spy on Mr Tull in the writing room, and see Gramma Carol in the kitchen and I could even see into some of the rooms upstairs. That's how I found out where Mr Tull kept his pills. And one night when he was down in the writing room, I snuck into his room and I took some from the bottle. I wanted to stop him.

"And then on the night before Mr Tull died, I was out watching the stars, and Gramma Carol asked me to take him in his tonic. He'd been so mean that day. So I crushed up the pills and mixed them into his nighttime drink. I wanted him gone. Forever!"

Henry started to shake.

"Once I'd given it to him and got back to the kitchen, I knew I'd done something horrible, so I ran back to the room to get it away from him, but he'd already drunk it down. He yelled at me, so I ran."

The story poured out of Henry. "I was scared. So I prayed to my mom and asked her what I should do. I told her I was so sorry and asked her to help me. She's in Heaven now and she should have been able to help me. She could ask God to help me but…she didn't answer. She's always answered me when I talked to her," he said through tears, "but this time she didn't. I thought I'd been so bad that she didn't love me anymore. Or maybe God had kicked her out of Heaven because of what I did. She's being punished because I'm such a terrible person. I was scared, so I decided to pretend like I'd never done it."

Mrs Cameron held him tightly. "You should have said something."

Henry looked up. "It was just another secret. I did it for you…to protect you. But I can't keep it a secret anymore. I did it. I killed Mr Tull."