Southern Gothic

  Other Books by Dale Wiley

  The Intern

  Sabotage

  Kissing Persuasive Lips

  Coming Soon

  The Jefferson Bible

  Southern Gothic

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Dale Wiley

  All rights reserved.

  Author Photo Credit: Robyn Lyn Anderson

  www.robynlynphotography.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN: 978-1-944109-07-3

  Published by Vesuvian Books

  www.vesuvianbooks.com

  To Mary, Sara and Matt, who continue to surprise and amaze.

  To Jennifer and Terrie, for their love of books and all the memories and inspiration.

  Table of contents

  PART I - Heaven

  PART II - Purgatory

  PART III - Hell

  PART I

  Heaven

  “To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,

  But life without meaning is the torture

  Of restlessness and vague desire—

  It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

  —Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

  Chapter 1

  The letter came to the bookstore Wednesday morning, postmarked Savannah. The stationery was expensive and regal, and although it was not embossed with any initials, it felt important. It was addressed to Ms. Meredith Harper, Southern Gothic Bookstore in a powerful script, the angular letters formed with a fountain pen. The thick strokes of blue ink looked familiar to the recipient; she knew the handwriting but couldn’t place it.

  The envelope’s inner lining was the same dark blue as the ink. She lifted the note card out gingerly, not wanting to smear any message:

  Dear M:

  I will call you today. An opportunity awaits.

  Yours forever,

  M

  She thought about showing it to her assistant, Nate, but something stopped her. She liked the mystery. She probably should be a little more alarmed by such a personal letter, but she couldn’t help being thrilled at the thought of a secret admirer—and one who wrote her a letter. It felt like an entry into another world, one not marred by insistent emails and the soul-killing ping of never-ending text messages. On a day when she had much to do, it lifted her spirits and gave her a little secret to carry in her pocket.

  Months before a space on Broughton Street had opened up near the City Market, where the smells of good pizza and the light, drunk laughs of passersby made every trip seem an adventure. It guaranteed year-round foot traffic and plenty of late-night visitors on the nights she kept the place open later than normal. The bookstore was Meredith’s gift to herself, a reimagining of her life and priorities after she divorced Lance, her one-note song of disappointment. She asked for the divorce, afraid she might join him in the river of constant, mild annoyance, which had pulled him under. She needed to pull back the drapes and let some light into her house to remember what inspired her in the first place.

  She wanted to write, to tell the world the story of Red Ribbon, a tale that had haunted her for years. She had painstakingly written and revised until the manuscript sparkled—good enough to make it on the shelves of her bookstore—but nothing ever materialized. She wanted to be in the company of Flannery and Eudora and other writers she adored, but she would have to settle for being a purveyor of their work.

  Although Lance had lost his drive, his wit, and his waistline, he never lost the ability to sit heavy on her dreams. One evening, while she struggled to find the right character motivation, Lance had come home drunk and told her to quit wasting her time—she’d never be more than a fan girl, a writer wannabe chasing a dream she’d never catch. It still felt like a clammy hand on her shoulder.

  Over the last year, she almost quit caring what Lance thought, but he still knew how to stick a landing in her brain. He constantly told her she was too pretty to be a writer. He didn’t mean it as a compliment. Just another example of a person being completely out of touch with how his words felt to anyone else but himself.

  Lance was right about the pretty. Meredith was tiny, barely reaching five feet, with deep blue eyes. She kept her brown hair long, unlike many of her friends who reached forty and immediately chopped it all off. Since she opened up the store, she heard every variation of sexy librarian, but in her case, it made some sense. Although she didn’t flaunt it, she had been blessed with curves and could rock a little black dress when she needed to. She didn’t dress up much, preferring jeans and a button-up to the more formal get-ups sported in Savannah, but her bright personality made everything she did seem effortless.

  The men who frequented the shop doted on her, testing to see if she was ready to start dating again; she was—but not with them. Yet it comforted her to know they admired her for her brains and book choices as well as the way she looked in a cocktail dress. Chalk one up for sexy librarians.

  At least the bookstore gave her the feeling of being in demand, involved in something important and worthwhile. And now she had a mysterious admirer. Hopefully a new opportunity to lose herself in the right kind of romance.

  Her shop also had a kitchen to bake in—her nonliterary passion—so people came by to eat and browse the shelves. The bookstore smelled heavenly, a wonderful combination of cinnamon and books—dusty literary relics and fresh new novels straight from the publishers. She christened the place Southern Gothic, and a star was born.

  Meredith graced the cover of many regional magazines, left hand on her hip, her story on everyone’s lips. She added a small musical collection up front, featuring Lucinda Williams and John Prine and the queen of strange Southern songs, Tanya Tucker. The establishment struck the perfect mood for downtown Savannah, half hip and unusual, half buttoned-up and on point. Thanks to the bookstore, Meredith presided over all of it, the new dame of downtown.

  Meredith fiddled with the display. She absent-mindedly rearranged a Harlan Coben endcap, interacted with guests, and made decisions with Nate about the next day’s reading. But mostly, she thought about the letter. She picked up the envelope and opened it again. Who was M?

  The call finally came in the afternoon.

  From the back of the store, she heard Nate answer the phone and mumble something before walking toward the bakery.

  “It’s for you.” He handed her the cordless phone.

  She sighed and put it to her ear. “This is Meredith.”

  A man’s voice hissed at her, a combination of contempt and what might be amusement. “You need to come home.”

  “Excuse me? Who is this?”

  “Come home,” the voice hissed again.

  Then the line went dead.

  Meredith, rattled, handed the phone back to Nate, who looked at her expectantly.

  “Wrong number, I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders and went back to her inventory.

  Several minutes later, Nate returned with the phone in his hand.

  “It’s for you again,” he said apologetically.

  She stared at it for a moment before putting it to her ear.

  “Come—”

  “Who is this?” Meredith yelled.

  The line went dead, again.

  Nate looked at her in alarm. “Is everything okay?”
r />   Meredith shook her head. “Just another creeper.” She handed him the phone and went back to working on the end cap.

  Nate reappeared sometime later with an unnerved look on his face. Meredith’s heart raced and she quickly glanced to see if he was bringing her the phone again, but his hands were empty.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I need you to come look at something. Just to make sure I’m not reading it wrong.”

  Meredith nodded, mildly annoyed and a little uneasy. A prank call would never rattle Nate. She followed him over to the main checkout area, confused. Nate still wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  “What is all this cloak and dagger routine?”

  Nate finally looked at her. “Before you pick up and talk to him, please look at the caller ID and tell me what you see.”

  Meredith’s heart plummeted. What did he mean?

  Then she saw it.

  The phone displayed 912-555-7769. She looked at it and blinked, then read the row beneath it. HARPER, MER. It was her landline.

  The call was coming from inside her house.

  Chapter 2

  Blood pounded in her ears. What the hell was going on? Meredith picked up the phone, but the line was dead. She looked at Nate. He met her gaze this time. She tried to look calm for him, but panic welled up inside her.

  She grabbed her cell to dial 9-1-1 but then thought better of it. There had to be some reasonable explanation like neighborhood kids. Except she had received the note followed by these suspicious phone calls. She didn’t want to go home without some kind of back up.

  Meredith turned toward Nate, knowing he had a crush on her. “Want to help me solve a mystery?”

  Nate looked surprised. “Aren’t the police more suited for that?”

  She suppressed an eye roll. “I agree, but there’s no use wasting valuable taxpayer dollars on a prank call. I just want to know what’s going on. It’s probably nothing.” She grabbed her keys from the counter and headed for the door.

  “Wait.” Nate ran to catch up.

  Nate was a catch for her professionally. He had attended Emory, studied literature, and was in the middle of a first novel she had asked to read, but he had yet to give her. He was thin and dressed very well—lots of sweaters and scarves. He wore glasses that begged to be taken off his face for a kiss. If he were fifteen years older, she would sweep him up. But she didn’t want to babysit. She needed a man.

  And the crush. She knew it would come someday—the awkward moment when she would have to parry his thrust. Oh, she didn’t want to do that. This boy was nice and sweet and everything you’d train your son to be. He was probably more mature and interesting than her ex-husband, but she wanted more. She loved her life and her surroundings enough now—yes, she wanted companionship again, and yes, she would love a little romance. But she wasn’t going to take herself out of her comfort zone unless it felt right.

  Outside, it was cool and breezy; fall waited just around the corner. Clouds blocked half the sun, weakening the heat that typically beat down on the coast.

  The quick drive to her house seemed to take forever.

  “What are we doing?” Nate asked.

  Meredith laughed. “I don’t think there’ll be a serial killer involved if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  He toyed with his glasses. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

  She didn’t know why she wouldn’t tell him about the letter, but she didn’t. Before she had to make up an answer, they had arrived.

  She parked across the street from her house and looked around. Her neighbor Mrs. Coleman sat on her porch sipping iced tea.

  Meredith went in the back way and past the carriage house like she always did. She used the carriage house as a garage. Years of prior residents’ projects, including a couple of old cabinets and an army trunk, too heavy to move, filled every nook. She looked for the Louisville Slugger, a Dale Murphy model, Lance kept in the corner. It wasn’t there. Had Lance finally picked it up?

  She expanded her search, but it still eluded her. Was Lance behind all of this? She shook her head. No, it was way too colorful for him. Meredith ignored Nate’s look of a thousand questions and headed around the back side of the house and on to the porch. She slowed her breathing, hoping to hear anything.

  “Do you smell a cigar?” Nate asked, commenting on the strange whiff in the air.

  She shook her head. “Cloves.”

  “We should call the police,” Nate said, eyeing his way back to the car.

  She turned to face him “Oh, come on, we’ve got this.” She felt sheepish saying that while sweat poured from her armpits. She hoped Nate didn’t notice how close she was to retreating too.

  “Anyone here?” she said forcefully. The kitchen appeared just as she left it, dirty dishes piled in the sink. She couldn’t help but feel momentarily embarrassed about Nate seeing the mess. She tiptoed through the hall to the living room. Nothing looked out of place there either. Now the upstairs.

  Halfway up, the closed bedroom door worried her, but she couldn’t remember whether she had closed it or not. At the top of the stairs, she grabbed a pair of old brass candlesticks from one of the bookshelves, like something out of Clue, and handed one to Nate. Then she flung open the bedroom door.

  Nothing.

  They peered in the closet, under the bed, and behind the doors. Then they combed through each upstairs room, finding nothing and looking at each other uneasily. She still held her breath, nerves getting the best of her.

  Then Meredith burst out laughing. “I think we can talk now.”

  Nate sighed and laughed too. “I’m not cut out for this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “Well, I can at least pay you in chess pie.” She smiled as Nate’s eyes caught fire.

  “Love it. No extra withholdings.”

  She gave them each big slices, and they sat down, eating the first few bites in silence.

  “Thanks for coming. I know looking for serial killers isn’t really in your job description.”

  “Happy to. I always love a good damsel rescue.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Nate.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “It’s probably neighborhood kids like I said.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Meredith. Let me look in the living room again. Maybe we missed something the first time.”

  She couldn’t be mad at him for being protective. “Ok. Thanks, Nate.” She watched him leave and turned to scan the room one last time as well—and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Inside on her kitchen doorknob, someone had tied a garish red ribbon.

  Chapter 3

  The red ribbon, made of silk and tied neatly in a bow, rested on her door, mocking her, a reminder of her biggest failure. Without thinking, she raced over to it and undid the bow before Nate saw it. She stuffed it in her back pocket, feeling oddly embarrassed.

  No one else had seen the greatness in her book. Her friends were encouraging, but no one remembered it now. She thought it had the right combination of ancient ghosts and modern troubles that would be appeal to readers, but she couldn’t find the right advocate, someone who shared her passion for the book and would actually do something about it.

  She understood how rare it was to get published. So many people had dreams of being writers, but few actually succeeded. With Red Ribbon, she had never wanted anything so bad and had failed so miserably.

  “Hey, Nate, I’ve got this,” she called out to the living room. “You mind walking back to the store?” She hoped she sounded confident.

  Nate came back around the corner, looking skeptical. “Of course. But are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll try and stop by later.”

  When Nate disappeared around the corner, she sat down on the porch swing, woozy from the adrenaline still coursing through her body. She pulled the ribbon out of her pocket and rubbed her thumb across the smooth satin finish. A r
ed ribbon. Only someone who knew her very well could hurt her so perfectly. She lived two years with her book baby, the one she knew without a doubt would make her a fortune. But it arrived stillborn, never to breathe this world’s air.

  Lance seemed like a prime suspect, but he didn’t smoke clove cigarettes, and he certainly wasn’t deep or creative enough for this kind of gameplay. She had sent the manuscript to so many people; but who was mean enough to tease her about her failures like this?

  “Meredith. How are you, darling?”

  Meredith snapped her head up. “Hi, Mrs. Coleman.” How long had she been staring at the ribbon? She quickly put it back in her pocket and pasted a smile on her face.

  Mrs. Coleman shuffled up the walk, garden shears tucked in the pocket of her smock, wearing her ancient floppy-brimmed hat with the chinstrap cinched tight, and carrying a tray with two glasses of iced tea.

  The sweet thing ... she shouldn’t have. Originally from Sea Island—Georgia’s wealthiest neighborhood—Mrs. Coleman had lived in Savannah for over twenty years and took her neighborly duties seriously. Meredith sprang to her feet and ran down the steps. Out of all her neighbors, Meredith liked Mrs. Coleman the most. She doted on the old lady, who, like an eccentric spinster aunt, was a little wacky but still charming. “Let me take the tray.”

  “It’s so unusual to see you home during the day. I thought you might need a little refreshment.”

  An inveterate gardener, Mrs. Coleman kept a meticulous yard, and Meredith had the impression Mrs. Coleman must sneak over to her yard while she worked because her yard had stayed nicely trimmed over the past few months, and she hadn’t done a thing.

  She settled Mrs. Coleman onto the swing and handed her a glass of tea. Sitting beside her, Meredith placed the tray on the side table.

  “What are you doing home? A day off from the bookshop, I hope? You work so hard, my dear. You really must take care of yourself. How do you think I’ve lived so long?”