The Uninvited

Adam Harrison was the reason Tyler had left a career with the Texas Rangers to join this extremely unusual unit of the FBI.

Tyler didn’t know everything about Adam Harrison; he didn’t think anyone did. But Adam seemed to have friends everywhere. A call from him and a rough road could be easily traveled. But then, years before Tyler and his Krewe had ever met the man, Adam Harrison had been putting the right people in the right circumstances. And while other government agencies might consider the Krewe units as something completely separate and even an embarrassment at times, they were respected for their prowess. They had yet to fail when it came to finding the truth in any of their investigations.

“And she knows who I am?” Tyler asked.

Harrison shrugged. “She knows you’re FBI.”

“She must be ready to crawl the walls. It took me a little over three hours to drive in from northern Virginia, and we didn’t receive your call until an hour or so after the body was discovered.” He checked his watch. “It’s after midnight.”

Harrison sighed, shuffling his feet slightly. “The police were left with no recourse, really. There was the dead man. There was the woman who called it in. Tour groups had been at the house all evening, along with a couple of other docents, and when Ms. Leigh dialed 9-1-1, she was the only one on the premises. She was shaken when they got there. With a death of this nature, you have to be suspicious of anyone in her situation. The sad thing is that I believe she’s entirely innocent. And she’s just lost a colleague.”

Tyler saw that Harrison’s empathy for the young woman was strong.

“Did she suggest a ghost killed him?” Tyler asked skeptically.

Harrison didn’t look at him; he continued to look through the one-way glass at the young woman. “No. Ms. Leigh—technically Dr. Leigh—is a professor, historian and scholar. She teaches history at the university, except that she’s off for the summer. She also writes papers. Even when she’s teaching, she gives tours at the house, but the point is—she does not believe in ghosts.” He spoke with a grimace. Her feelings on that might change in the near future.

“I’d like to see her, get her out of here and then read up on everything that’s happened in the house,” Tyler said. “They aren’t charging her, are they?”

“No, but they made the right call in asking her to come down here,” Adam told him. “I’ll bring you over and introduce you.”

“You know her? Or you just met her?”

Harrison smiled. “I’ve made it my business for many years to meet and greet politicians and those in law enforcement and, thankfully, many remain grateful for help they’ve received. I was here when the house hosted a dinner for up-and-coming men and women in the city, sponsored by municipal leaders. Ms. Leigh was very charming and of great assistance in arranging the evening. I think you’ll find that she can tell you more than you’ll read in most history books. So, we’re not best friends, but yes, I know her.”

The door to the observation room opened just then, and a middle-aged man with fine, intelligent eyes and a bloodhound’s weary jowls walked in. Tyler had already met him; he was Detective Jenson, assigned to the “suspicious” death.

“All the paperwork for the evening is complete. Ms. Leigh may leave whenever you’re ready. Agent Montague, you wanted to go to the house tonight?” Jenson asked.

Tyler nodded. “I’d like to get in while the evidence is still fresh.”

Whatever Jenson thought of the “special” FBI unit that had been brought in, he didn’t let his feelings show. “The crime scene people have just finished up,” he said. “They’ve been in there for about six hours collecting everything they can, but, of course, the house is a tourist location so they have hundreds if not thousands of prints. I’ll get you Ms. Leigh’s key to the house and the code to bypass the security system,” he told Tyler. “And, needless to say, we’d appreciate it if you shared any findings with us immediately.”

“I can’t find anything without the help of the police,” Tyler said, “so, yes, of course.”

Judging by his quick smile, Jenson seemed to like that. “You’re free to speak with Ms. Leigh.” He glanced at Adam. “And get her home.”

Adam thanked him. They left the observation area and entered the interrogation room.

Allison Leigh sat up stiffly, regarding Tyler with narrowed eyes that gentled as she looked at Adam Harrison.

The man just had a way about him.

“Allison, I’d like you to meet Agent Tyler Montague. He’s here to investigate the situation—and the Tarleton-Dandridge House,” Adam said.

Allison Leigh gave Tyler a long cool assessment. “The house?” she asked skeptically. “The house caused Julian to slit his throat on his bayonet?”

“There’ve been a number of incidents at the house, Ms. Leigh,” Tyler said.

Allison turned to Adam. “He believes he can arrest the ghost of a Revolutionary soldier?”

Tyler answered. “No, Ms. Leigh. But the number of strange occurrences at the house, especially in recent years, suggest that someone who’s alive and well is playing deadly pranks. Actually, we’re here to see you home if you’d like.”

She frowned, and Tyler thought her hostility toward him had relaxed somewhat. “You’re not going to ask me to go through everything that happened again?”

He shook his head. “I’d rather you went through the house with me. If you’re up to it, that is. Otherwise, we’ll take you home, as I said.”

She stared at him, then blinked. He could see her mind working, and it was fascinating to watch the emotions that flashed through her beautiful if red-rimmed eyes. She’d been up for hours; she’d just lost a colleague, possibly a friend. She’d been in the interrogation room forever. She wanted a drink or simply to collapse for a while and forget the horror she’d witnessed.

But he also knew that she understood why he needed to see the house now, as quickly after the event as possible. She didn’t want to go back and see where her friend had died, but she understood that anything that might be discovered would be most easily found before too much time had elapsed.

She lifted her hands. “Of course,” she said with a nod. “Are you coming?” she asked Adam, her voice hopeful.

“If you wish, my dear.”

“Please.”

Tyler admired the effect Adam had on others. He knew that Harrison had once had a son, Josh, and that Josh had been killed in an accident at a young age. Josh had apparently been born with a sixth sense, and when he’d died, Adam had spent years trying to reach him. Tyler had recently heard that the father could finally talk to the son, although Adam didn’t usually have the ability to communicate with the dead.

What he did have was an uncanny ability to connect with the living.

Tyler definitely wished he had a little more of that ability himself. He wasn’t sure why he seemed to lack it. Maybe it was his height, which people often considered intimidating, since he stood at about six-five. From the time he was a kid, he’d wanted nothing but to be a Texas Ranger and now, although he loved the change in what he was doing, he wondered if he carried some kind of aura from the years he’d spent working in tough areas of Texas. He didn’t know if it was his appearance or his no-nonsense demeanor, but people seemed to find him imposing, and it always took him a while to convince them that he wasn’t a swaggering, gun-toting cowboy.

“Well, then, let’s get going,” Adam said. “I know you must be emotionally drained, my dear, but we’ll get you home soon.”

“That’s it? I can just walk out?”

“That’s it.”

She stood, a bit clumsily. Tyler saw that she was a respectable height for a woman, maybe five-eight or nine, and that she wore the historic dress exceptionally well. She seemed fragile for a second, as if she’d been sitting too long and couldn’t quite find her feet. She didn’t shake him off when he touched her, but she said regally, “Thank you. I’m fine.”

He released her elbow and they exited the station. Detective Jenson was waiting for them at the precinct door. “Thank you, Ms. Leigh. Thank you for your patience with us. And please accept my deepest sympathies.”

She nodded. “If I can do anything, provide any more information…” She paused. They’d already kept her long enough to glean anything she was likely to know.

Tyler’s SUV was just outside the station and he nodded toward it. “We’ll get you home as quickly as we can,” he promised.

Adam politely ushered Allison into the passenger seat and took the rear himself, insisting that even at his age, he’d show courtesy to a lady until he keeled over.

Although he was silent during the drive, Allison began to speak. “It seemed like such an ordinary day,” she murmured.

“There were a lot of tours?” Tyler asked her.

“Yes, it was busy, which is good. We work hard to make the tours interesting and informative, and to keep the house sustaining itself.”

Tyler asked a few questions about historical tours as he drove, trying to put her at ease. They reached the house, parking in the adjacent lot.

Maybe it was fitting that there’d be a full moon that night. The house seemed large and alive in the light, encased by the shadows surrounding it.

By day, he thought, it was probably a handsome Colonial house, built to withstand the ages. But now…

Now it seemed as if it were waiting.

There were warnings posted by the police. No Trespassing! Invasion of the Premises in Any Manner Will Result in Immediate Arrest!

The warnings covered the sign beyond the podium that usually advertised the property’s hours of admission and the prices of tours.

“There’s—there’s tape all over the house.” Allison spoke blankly, obviously too tired to be shocked.

“Yes, your chairman has ordered the house closed for a few weeks, long enough for a real investigation,” Adam said.

Tyler slipped a knife from his jacket pocket to cut through the tape. He keyed in the code on the gate alarm.

“A real investigation?” Allison repeated.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “We’re trying to find out if the security’s been breached and determine whether there’s another access. Also, if there’s someone who knows the code and has dangerous concepts of history, dangerous beliefs about this house. That’s why it merits investigation.”

Allison’s eyes narrowed again as she studied him. “You’re a ghost hunter.”

“I’m not a ghost hunter—I’m an agent,” Tyler said. “Hunting ghosts would be a rather useless effort.” He forced a smile. “They only appear when they choose to. Inviting conversation—now, that’s another thing.”

Leaving her to Adam, he strolled up the walkway. He wanted to spend some time in the house alone.

At the front door he once again slit the tape before typing in the alarm code and using the key he’d received from Detective Jenson to let himself in. When he entered the foyer, it felt as if he’d stepped back in time.

Tyler stood there for a minute. You didn’t need to be a Krewe member to “feel” a house, a battlefield or any other historic place. He’d seen the most skeptical, steel-souled Texas Ranger take on a look of grim reverence when standing at the Alamo. It was a feeling that touched most people on the battlefields at Gettysburg or in the middle of Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame or other such historic places.

This house had it. That feeling. It was a sense of the past, a past that was somehow still present. Perhaps the energy, passion and emotion of life that had once existed here lingered in these rooms.

This was a beautiful house and maintained in a period manner that no doubt added to the feel.

Tyler didn’t stay in the entry long. He could hear Adam and Allison following behind him, Adam explaining that what they investigated was history rather than ghosts.

He knew that Julian Mitchell’s death had occurred in the old study, and he strode down the hallway toward it. He stared at the old maple desk; blood stained the wood and the Persian rug beneath it where the deceased man had been found. A few spatters lay on the reproduction ledgers and account books covering the desk. Initial contact with the blade had caused a spurt, and the blood had drained straight down. A lot of it.

Tyler tried to picture the scene as it had been described to him—the young man seated in the chair, the musket between his legs, the bayonet through his throat and mouth as if he’d used it to prop himself up. He had bled out quickly, according to the pathologist who’d first examined him. He hadn’t appeared distressed and he didn’t appear to have fought with anyone. He had simply sat down, set his chin upon the bayonet as though to rest on it…and skewered himself with it.

Who the hell accidentally put a bayonet blade through his own chin?

But he hadn’t cried out. Tourists leaving the premises would have heard or, at the very least, Allison Leigh would have as she locked up for the night.

Tyler remained near the entrance to the room, noting its location. There was the door that opened off the entry hall, and another that led from the study to the next room. This meant there were two points of access, as well as a way to exit.

But how did you get someone to die on a bayonet in such a position and leave no sign of a struggle? Talk him into it?

He looked at the paintings on the wall, which were authentic period pieces. Two men had been depicted at somewhere between the ages of thirty and forty. Beneath one, he made out the name Angus Tarleton; the other was labeled with the description Brian “Beast” Bradley.

The eyes of the latter seemed to have an unusual power. The artist had managed to depict a handsome man—and also a cruel and cunning one. He’d read that the Mona Lisa’s eyes seemed to follow her viewers. Bradley’s did the same, apparently focusing on him as he moved about the room.

He turned to the hallway. Allison Leigh was pale as she stood next to Adam, who watched and waited for Tyler to take the lead.

“Allison, can you tell me exactly what happened leading up to your discovery of Julian?” he asked her.

She winced. “I should’ve written it down earlier, I’ve had to repeat it so many times,” she muttered. She was hostile again, he thought. Hostile and angry, but that was good. If she’d fallen apart, broken into tears, she wouldn’t have been much help.

“I didn’t run into a bloodthirsty ghost,” she told him.

“I would’ve been surprised if you had,” Tyler said. “I’m sorry, but you do want to catch the killer, right?”

She stared back at him with eyes that were as clear and beautiful as a summer sky.

“I don’t think there was a killer,” she said. “Julian could be a clown. He was full of himself, an entertainer. He had a tendency to piss the rest of us off with his unwillingness to accept responsibility, but he also made us laugh and…he was a friend.” She took a deep breath. “It looked as if he sat down, started fooling around with the musket and set his head right on the blade. Yes, we use real muskets and bayonets, and never, ever, have we had a problem. The costumed interpreters don’t carry bullets or gunpowder and no one’s ever gone crazy and tried to bayonet a tourist. Who’d imagine that anyone could die on one?”

“He wasn’t in any way suicidal?” Tyler asked.

“Julian? He was convinced the world was waiting for him,” she said. “No, I don’t believe he committed suicide.” She hesitated for a moment. “We were all angry with him, figuring he’d had some kind of great offer and decided just to disappear.”

“He was supposed to be working—and he wasn’t?”

“Yes. Well, he showed up for the morning tours. He took off after lunch, probably for an audition.”

“But you found him in his period costume?”

She nodded. “He was with a bar band that had higher aspirations. They did a lot of auditioning and sometimes they had permits to play in the historic areas, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to stay in his work clothing.”

“But none of you saw him after lunch?”

She shook her head.

“Are there places in the house where he could’ve been and you wouldn’t see him?” Tyler asked.

She glanced at him. “A closet?” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Or,” she said, her tone serious, “the attic. We don’t go up to the attic with any of the tour groups.”

“May I see it now?”

“If you want.”

“Shall we?” Adam suggested.

Allison seemed to go back into tour-guide mode as she led the way. She pointed out the ladies’ parlor, the music room and, across the entry, the dining room and parlor. As they walked up the first flight of stairs she talked about the owners of the house and the bedrooms used by the family—and by the British invaders.

Tyler paused at Lucy Tarleton’s bedroom; from the doorway he’d noticed another painting of Beast Bradley.

It was different from the one in the study. The light of cruelty wasn’t apparent in the eyes. He’d been depicted in a more thoughtful mood, his eyes conveying wisdom and strength rather than cruelty.

“One more floor to the attic,” Allison said. “If you’ll—”

“I’m curious about this painting,” he interrupted.

“It’s Beast Bradley. I don’t really know why the painting’s in here. Bradley took over the master bedroom while he was in residence at the house.”

“This is a nice painting of him.”

“I’m sure he had friends.”

“It’s interesting that the foundation chose to keep the painting here, since he moved into the master bedroom,” Tyler commented.

“The house was owned by the family until it was turned into a nonprofit institution,” Allison said. “That’s where the painting was. The board determined to keep everything as it was, getting rid of modern additions and buying a few authentic pieces to bring it back to the Revolutionary period. But in the 1930s, when the work was being done, the painting was in Lucy’s bedroom and the board at the time decided to keep it there.”

“Adding insult to injury for poor Lucy. The original family must be rolling in their graves,” Tyler said. He tried to keep any irony from his voice.

A derisive sound escaped her. The expression might be a common one, but in her world, people did not roll in their graves.

Some old houses had stairs that were pulled down for access to the attic. Not the Tarleton-Dandridge House. At the end of the upper hallway he saw a staircase leading to the door; a sign on it read Staff Only! He assumed the door was usually locked, and he was right.

“The front door key opens the attic, as well,” Allison explained.

He used the key and pushed the door open. It led to a few more stairs. He climbed them and found himself standing on the attic level of the house. It was dark up here, but the moonlight and streetlamps offered some relief from the black shadows as his eyes grew accustomed to the change.

Someone had been there. Someone had tossed the place, rummaging through the old boxes and trunks and the modern equipment that had sat on a desk. A computer lay on the floor, along with a printer. Letters and correspondence were everywhere and, scattered among them, posters for special events and other paraphernalia.

“My God!” Allison breathed.

Tyler turned to Adam. “We need to get the crime scene techs back here. I doubt we’ll find fingerprints other than those that belong here, but you never know.”

Adam nodded and pulled out his cell phone.

Allison continued to stare at the mess. She seemed almost punch-drunk, as if the day itself had just been way too long. He empathized with her, even if she considered him an oversize caricature of a slime-seeking ghost buster.

“They’ll be here shortly,” Adam said.

“Ohhhh.” Moaning, Allison sank down to the floor, her period dress drifting in a bell around her.

* * *

It was natural that the death of Julian Mitchell drew headlines across the country.

He had died in a historic home—a “haunted” house, according to just about everyone—and whether or not people believed in ghosts, it was undeniably a house riddled with tragic history.

Allison saw the headline minutes after she woke the next morning. She still had a newspaper delivered each day. She loved flipping leisurely through real pages while she drank her coffee.

As she picked up the paper, she felt tears stinging her eyes again. Julian had often been a jerk, but he’d still been a coworker and a friend. She blinked hard and realized how exhausted she was. She’d spent most of the night with the police. She was still horrified that they saw Julian’s death as “suspicious” and knew that any suspicions of murder certainly included her. After all, she’d found him. She couldn’t believe the number of hours she’d spent at the station and then at the house when the crime scene techs had arrived again.

She glanced over at the clock—it was already eleven, and she still felt exhausted. It was a good thing the house was closed down until it had been “investigated.” She couldn’t begin to offer a tour today, and she was glad she didn’t have a crowded schedule in the coming semester, just a few lectures. She felt numb about history, even though it was the love of her life. Rich and giving and…

Taking. It had somehow taken Julian’s life. She didn’t understand how or why, but she sensed that the past had something to do with it. She’d claimed that his death had to be an accident. And yet…

Allison set the paper on the counter of her small house on Chestnut Street and walked over to the coffee machine, popping a pod in place and waiting the few seconds for it to brew.

The coffee tasted delicious. She figured she needed about a gallon of it. She’d been at the Tarleton-Dandridge until nearly 3:00 a.m., when one of the officers had driven her home.

She wished she could’ve slept the entire day, and then thought she should just be grateful she hadn’t had horrible dreams, considering how Julian had looked....

A shower seemed in order, although she’d taken one the night before. A psychiatrist would probably tell her she was trying to wash away what she’d seen but she didn’t care. It might make her feel more human. Or at least more awake.

While the water streamed over her, she thought about Julian and let her tears flow. She thought about the many times they’d been ready to smack him for his lack of responsibility or for leaving one of them in the lurch. It didn’t matter. He’d still been a friend. Worse, it was such a ridiculous way to die.

When she’d first found him, after the initial horror and disbelief, she wondered if he’d sat there to play a prank on her, maybe planning to apologize for disappearing. Maybe he’d tell her he’d gotten the gig of a lifetime because he’d taken off that afternoon.

It had never occurred to her that anyone had killed him. His death had looked like a tragic, stupid accident. And that was terrible enough, but…

Why would anyone kill Julian Mitchell, and why would that person go up to the attic and trash everything there?

And how had it happened with her and Jason in the house, not to mention the thirty or so people in their tour groups?

She’d barely dressed and her hair was still dripping when her doorbell rang. She cringed, not wanting to see anyone, but curiosity got the better of her and she walked to the door to look through the peephole.

It was the Texas ghost buster.

She watched him as she ignored the buzzer. He rang again.

He didn’t go away.

She considered it bizarre that the police had called in the FBI—and that they’d called in this unit. Allison had to admit she didn’t know that much about the FBI or the “Krewe of Hunters,” but she’d checked the internet when she first met Adam Harrison and read that they were a special unit sent in when circumstances were unusual. Unusual meant that something paranormal might be going on, or seemed to be going on, and it appalled Allison that a historic property like the Tarleton-Dandridge House could be turned into a supernatural oddity. Of course, the ghost tours in the city loved the house and the tales that went with it, but those tours were for fun. And that kind of fun was great as long as it didn’t detract from the real wonders of Philadelphia.