Page 43 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
“No doubt,” I said. “So, I don’t know how much you recall about the photo, but was there anything you noticed that was memorable about the figure?”
“Apart from the fact that he wasn’t there in person and only showed up in the photo? That’s kind of hard to forget.”
“Sure. But what do you remember about his clothing?”
“Oh. It was definitely late eighteenth century.”
“Are you sure? Because in the picture, it appeared he wore a cravat with folded collars.”
“A lot of people can’t tell the difference between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century men’s fashions unless they study that kind of thing—unlike women’s fashions. You can always tell by the width of their skirts what decade of what century they’re from. Cravats were worn fordecades overlapping the two centuries. But I know it was eighteenth century because I distinctly remember his hair was pulled back, like in a ponytail, and not cut short. That’s the main difference between the two centuries.”
I’d been harboring a hope that this specter had nothing to do with the woman on the stairs or the soldier at Gallen Hall. Because then they would be separate entities, to be dealt with one at a time. But three eighteenth-century apparitions pointed in another direction entirely. “Was there anything else?” I asked, forcing myself not to hold my breath as I waited for her answer.
She began to shake her head, but stopped. “I’ve tried to forget it, but there was something about his eyes. At first I thought they were just hidden by shadows. But then...” She stopped, looked at me. “But after printing the pictures and looking at them closely, it looked as if they were... not there.” Her brown eyes opened wide. “I hope I’m not scaring you, Mrs. Trenholm. It was probably just dirt on my iPhone. My mom has always said I have an active imagination, so I naturally made a smudge into a person. Because ghosts aren’t real.”
“So they say,” I said. As if in afterthought, I said, “Did you ever do any work at the cemetery at Gallen Hall?”
“Oh, yeah. When I was an undergrad, we went out there a few times with the FARO laser scanner in our digital documentation class to document the headstones. It was really fun.”
“Sounds like it,” I said. “So, did you or any of your classmates ever... see anything there? Any dirt smudges on camera lenses that looked like a ghost?”
She went very still. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, yes?” I prodded.
“Yeah. A bunch of us saw something once and everyone ran, including me. But I tripped—I’m a little clumsy—so I got a better look. He was standing by the mausoleum.”
“Did it look like the same person that you saw here?”
She took a moment, then nodded. “Yeah—it was definitely the same... thing. I know because there was a... stain or something onhis shirt, where you could see beneath his jacket. It must have been unbuttoned or something, because I could see the white shirt underneath.” She rolled her shoulders as if to shake off the awareness of someone staring at her. “I don’t talk about it because I’d rather just forget it.”
I forced a bright smile. “Totally makes sense. If I’d seen something like that, I’d want to forget all about it, too.” I finished my ice-cold coffee. “Well, thanks for speaking with me. I don’t want to hold you up, so I’ll let you get back to work. Have fun.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Don’t worry—I will!” She replaced her earbuds as I stepped away from the yellow tape and made my way back to the house, the awareness of someone watching me making my skin crawl. I entered the kitchen without looking back, content with telling myself it had been Meghan.
CHAPTER 16
I held the step stool for Veronica so she could place the angel at the top of the dining room Christmas tree. I hoped no one would notice that half of the angel’s yellow yarn hair and one of the felt wings were missing thanks to Sarah, who’d mistaken the angel-doll tree topper for a chew toy. I had no idea how she’d reached it since I’d had to put it in a closed box after she’d spotted it in the dining room, but it had managed to find its way into her crib. I wondered if Louisa might be exercising her indulgent-grandmother instinct postmortem.
“Perfect,” Veronica said, stepping down from the stool. “I think all of the trees look lovely, but this is the prettiest in my opinion.”
I stood back, admiring the effect of handmade dolls hanging from pine boughs, and strings of popcorn and pinecones wrapping around the tree. “My arms are so short. I’m glad you were here to hang the ornaments on the upper branches.”
She smiled, but her eyes were sad. “Adrienne was five feet eleven inches by the time she was seventeen. She was always the go-to person for tree decorating or getting something off a high shelf. Everybody thought she played basketball or volleyball, but she wasn’t athletic at all.She preferred to read and play the piano. It was really unfair—all that height wasted.”
“I bet,” I said, aware suddenly of her sister’s perfume settling in the air around us. I pretended to continue studying the tree while I tried to decide if I should say something. “I, uh... When I was in your house taking photos for Sophie, I ended up in the attic.”
She looked at me without surprise. It was almost as if we were challenging each other to see who could pretend the longest that they didn’t see the elephant standing in the middle of the room.
“I know. Michael told me. He said he thought you were only planning on taking pictures of the first floor.”
“I thought so, too. But your house is so beautiful, I couldn’t stop. I hope you don’t mind me being so nosy.”
Veronica shook her head. “Not at all. I hope you got what you needed.”
She kept her eyes leveled on me, and I knew she wasn’t talking about the pictures. “I think so.” I stopped, then found myself feeling the need to say more. “I found the box full of Adrienne’s things.”
“I know. I saw that her little heart pillow was missing.”
