A Place of Vengeance, page 19
I must have looked confused, because Ab paused her story.
“They don’t hand those slots out to just anyone, Wolfman, and Archie’s school grades were nothing to write home about. My guess is that Mommy and Daddy sent him there hoping that Army officer training would straighten him out, and they had to pull a few strings to do it—probably more than a few. You still with me?”
“So far, yeah.”
“Archie didn’t last long,” she went on. “He was kicked out the following spring. Here’s a copy of the letter the Army sent his parents.”
I took the page she offered, skimming the brief note on faded West Point letterhead. “What do you think they meant by repeated violations of the Cadet Honor Code?” I asked.
“I was curious about that too, so I looked it up,” Ab told me. “The code just says, A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
I shook my head. “Wow. Ol’ Archie must’ve been quite a guy.”
“Oh, it gets even better,” she said. “Next, his father put him to work helping to manage the warehouse, where he lasted all of seven months.Apparently, he was just as suited to the nine-to-five life as he was to the military.”
“So, what did he do?”
“Why, Archibald did just what any self-respecting, spoiled rich kid would do when he didn’t want to work,” Ab told me, grinning. “He ran away to New York City and married a woman with money.”
I had to snicker. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” Ab reported, handing over another photo. “Meet Eunice Applegate. Her father was a big-time banker who was part of Manhattan high society.”
The picture was of a plain-looking woman with thin hair and a pleasant, although slightly vacant expression. She was round-shouldered, with a neck that looked too slender for her head and a nose too long for her face. I imagined that picking her up probably hadn’t been too tough for Mr. Leading Man. “How did they meet?”
“I’m not really sure, but since Archie had grown up surrounded by all the Spiritualism shtick, my guess is he traded on his family name to get his foot in the door of society circles. He might have been a deadbeat and a loser, but by all accounts, the guy was drop-dead charming. In less than six months, his name was appearing regularly in the newspapers, billed as a gifted medium who specialized in putting people in touch with their ‘spirit guides.’ He met Eunice not long after, and I figure either she or her father must have been believers—maybe both—because Archie and Eunice were married in less than a year. That would be December of 1910—a Christmas wedding, and it was big news. Archie was twenty-two. Eunice was thirty-seven.
“Now, I don’t know if his parents had any actual gifts,” Ab went on, “but I couldn’t find anything to convince me that Archie was anything but a fake. He traveled a lot over the next couple of years, leaving Eunice at home while he went up and down the Eastern seaboard, booking lectures, conducting exclusive séances for the rich, and basically living it up. His reputation began to take hits, though, when—surprise, surprise—word got around that all those predictions the spirits supposedly shared with him almost never turned out to be right. This would have been sometime around 1912, when lots of other so-called mediums were being exposed as frauds. Here…check these out.” Ab handed me a stack of old newspaper articles, and I skimmed them as she went on. “I was amazed at the lengths some of those folks would go to, rigging all kinds of special effects to convince people that ghosts were in the room—tiny wires to make objects move, sound effects, even partners in hidden rooms who would wear ghost makeup and seem to appear in mirrors that were actually one-way glass. If there ever had been anything real about the Spiritualist movement, all the charlatans ruined it for everyone else.
“By 1913, Eunice must have finally had enough,” Ab continued, “because she divorced him, claiming neglect and infidelity. That cut him off from his in-laws’ money, and between that and his trashed reputation, Archie was all but ruined.”
“What happened then?” I asked, looking up as Ab drained the last of her mocha.
“Then,” she said, smiling knowingly, “Archie met Cozanna Vale.”
TWENTY-THREE
Something about the exotic name—or maybe it was just Ab’s tone—sent a tingling sensation over my skin. I sat forward eagerly, sensing that the story was about to get a lot more interesting, but then I straightened as Ab got to her feet. “Where are you going?”
“Potty break,” she said, heading toward the short hall at the far side of the room. “Can you grab me some water?”
I rose, picking up our empty mugs and taking them behind the service counter. I washed and dried them, then filled a couple of paper cups with ice water and dropped them off at our table. Instead of sitting, though, I crossed to the big picture window that looked out on Main Street. The fog was creeping back in, bringing an early twilight with it, and I watched as wispy tendrils probed blindly at windows and doorways, as if seeking a way inside. I thought about Archie Lynch and the fame he had made for himself by taking advantage of people. I thought about the genuine opportunities he had wasted—his father’s warehouse business, a career as an Army officer—all because lying was easier. Then I frowned, wondering what I would end up doing after high school, and hoping my life wouldn’t turn out to be a waste, too.
“What are you thinking about?”
Ab’s sudden reappearance startled me. I caught myself right away, though, and hoped she hadn’t noticed. “I was just thinking about what a douchebag Archie turned out to be,” I replied.
“Yeah, he was a real piece of work.”
“Do you think Darren and Gina know?”
Ab shrugged. “I hope not. Who would want that kind of loser in their family history? I think the saddest story, though, was poor Eunice. I can’t get over how thrilling it must have been for her when a handsome, younger man swept her off her feet, then how crushed she must have felt when he ignored her once he had access to her family money.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Did her life turn out okay?”
Ab shook her head. “No.”
Her answer hung heavily on the air for a moment while I decided whether I wanted to know more. I didn’t want to feel even sorrier for the woman than I already was, but then curiosity got the best of me. “What happened to her?”
“I wondered the same thing, so I looked into it. According to the society pages, Eunice died of ‘melancholia,’ which is a kind of depression. The tabloids had a better explanation, though. A local drugstore owner told them that she had been going through bottles of this stuff called Laudanum. It was sold as an over-the-counter pain-killer back then and was, like, ten percent pure opium. The article didn’t come right out and say so, but from what they hinted at, my guess is she OD’d.”
I shook my head, wishing I hadn’t asked.
“C’mon,” Ab said, tugging at my sleeve, “let’s finish up. My mom is making pot roast, and I told her I’d be home in time for dinner.”
I followed her back to the table, and she took a long drink of water before continuing her story. “So, there was Archie, with Spiritualism losing popularity and his reputation trashed. One minute he’s being wined and dined, all cozy with the high-society types, and the next he’s all but broke, sleeping in barns and barely supporting himself by working small towns off the beaten track.
“Then, just when he’d pretty much hit rock-bottom, his luck changed. He was passing through some little farming town—one account I read said it was in Maryland, another said it was West Virginia—when he heard about a Gypsy woman telling fortunes outside the local grange hall, and he went to go see her. That was Cozanna.” Ab slid another photo across the table. “Remind you of anyone?”
I looked down, then felt my eyes widen. The old black-and-white was of a slender woman leaning against a willow tree with a lake or river in the background. Dark hair fell well below her shoulders in thick, loose curls. Her head was cocked slightly to the right, with one corner of her mouth upturned in a smile that looked both mysterious and vaguely seductive at the same time. She was barefoot, wearing long skirts and a loose, white top that was unbuttoned partway down in a way that had probably been pretty racy back then. But I only noticed those details later. What drew my attention right away was her tapered chin, prominent cheekbones, and large eyes. Even though generations separated them, the resemblance was definitely there.
“It’s amazing,” I said, shivering as if I had just seen a ghost. “She could pass for Darren’s older sister! Gina’s, too.”
“I know, right?” Ab asked, grinning. “From what I could find out, it was love at first sight for both her and Archie, and she left her people to be with him. Once they started working and traveling together, they became the new “It” couple within just a few weeks. Archie still had a few connections left—enough to open a door or two, anyway—and he knew just how to market Cozanna to put her squarely in the spotlight. They weren’t major-league famous like Mata Hari or anything, but they were definitely big in the minors.”
“What’s Mata Hari?” I asked, frowning.
Ab rolled her eyes. “Do I have to do everything? Google her, Wolfman.”
I shrugged. “So what made them so special as a team?”
“It was all her,” Ab explained. “Maybe Archie was just a fraud and a huckster, but Cozanna…she was the real deal. By all accounts, she was a heavy-hitter as a psychic—like, on a level with you and maybe even Lisette—and wherever she and Archie went, the papers were flooded with rave reviews about her abilities. Maybe she had started out as just a fortune-teller—or drabarni, to use the Romani word—but Archie turned her into a star. They performed to sold-out crowds, with Cozanna able to take anyone from the audience and not only rattle off details about their personal lives, but advise them and predict outcomes with dead-on accuracy. Archie had her dress in over-the-top Gypsy costumes, and she used props like tarot cards and a crystal ball and whatnot, but my guess is all that was just for show. The woman was a natural.”
“How about cursing people? Could she do that, too?”
Ab shook her head. “Not that I found any mention of. She could pick pockets like a pro, though, and perform slight-of-hand tricks, which they used to spice up her act. Oh, and get this: apparently, she could control birds and small animals.”
Another shiver hit me, like icy pinpricks all down my back. In my mind I saw Brianna silhouetted against a backdrop of flames, flailing as a whirlwind of birds attacked her, and all at once my initial suspicions about Darren started creeping back. Could it be that Cozanna’s abilities had been passed on to him through the generations? And if so, what else could he do? Maybe the idea of keeping an eye on him hadn’t been so stupid after all.
“You’re thinking about that night at the beach, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“I thought the same thing.”
“But it’s just a weird coincidence, though, right?” I insisted hopefully. I was not sure why I even asked, since it wasn’t really what I was thinking. Maybe part of me was still looking for a rational explanation so I wouldn’t have to face the crazy one. “I mean, that had to be just part of their act—trained birds that they used for props, like her crystal ball.”
Ab shook her head. “I don’t know, Wolfman. Maybe, maybe not. What bothers me is that it’s the only possibility we’ve found so far that could explain what happened to Brianna, so even if the theory turns out to be off-the-charts dumb, I can’t see writing it off just yet.”
I sighed, giving in…at least for the time being. “Okay. Go on.”
Ab looked back down at her notes. “Archie and Cozanna kept raking in the cash for the next couple of years, only slowing down when their son was born in 1914—Marik Randolph Lynch, named after both their fathers. By then they had bought an apple farm in upstate New York and built a big house there. After their kid was old enough to travel, though, they were back on the road every year from May through August, and they kept at it until the fall of 1918.
“What happened then?”
“That was the year a pandemic of Spanish Flu hit the country, brought over by soldiers coming back from World War I. It was huge, killing something like 700,000 people in the United States alone, and all three of them caught it. Archie and Marik ended up pulling through. Cozanna didn’t.”
“That had to suck for Archie.”
Ab nodded. “It did. He must have been devastated, because he disappeared from the limelight for the next couple of years, and only went back on the road when his money started to run low. The problem was, without Cozanna he really didn’t have anything, and trying to use his old Spiritualism tricks turned out to be a dud. He returned to Rome for a while, where his apple farm was making just enough for him and Marik to live on, but then something weird happened.” She leaned forward, handing me a brief newspaper article:
26th February 1921
ROME, NY: Police were summoned to Rome Cemetery to investigate the desecration of a prominent gravesite. The corpse of renowned psychic Cozanna Lynch was found exposed to the elements, her casket broken open and the lid missing. As the body was otherwise undisturbed, the incident appears to be one of malicious mischief, and no suspects have been identified as yet. Detectives postulate the ghoulish crime was interrupted in progress, as cemetery officials found the grave partially refilled when it was discovered during the early morning hours. Mr. Lynch, the widower, was notified, and is offering a $500 reward for any information that may lead to the apprehension of the person or persons involved. The investigation is ongoing.
I looked back up at Ab, raising my eyebrows.
“Weird, right? Now look at this.” She passed me another paper, this time an advertisement printed on a handbill:
By Limited Engagement: 14th–27th May 1922
Archibald Lynch and his Mystical Spirit Board
Purveyor of wisdom and vessel of ancient knowledge!
Past—Present—Future
Why trust chance? Let benevolent spirits guide you to success!
Money! Luck! Love! Fate!
By Appointment Only
Inquire at the Evans Hotel, Baltimore
“So Archie found another way to bring back his Spiritualist act,” I said after reading it, and then set the page aside with a shrug. “So what? No big surprise there.”
“Nope,” Ab agreed. “No big surprise at all...not unless the two events were connected.” She sat back, staring at me.
I frowned, not sure what she was getting at. I picked the two pages back up, comparing the advertisement to the newspaper article, but nothing jumped out at me. “You must see something I don’t,” I said, looking up in confusion. “The two are nothing alike, and they happened over a year apart.”
“Think, Wolfman…Spiritualists were all about communicating with the dead, and one of their beliefs was that the souls of the departed maintained connections with places or objects. C’mon…you of all people would know about that, right?”
Oh, yeah, I thought, nodding. Since moving to Windward Cove, I had lost count of how many times that had proven to be true.
“And the only thing missing from Cozanna’s grave was her coffin lid,” Ab went on. “What if—and maybe I’m going way out on a limb here—but what if it was Archie who dug up his wife, just to get a big enough piece of her coffin? A year would be more than enough time to have a spirit board made, as well as to let any suspicions die down. Graveyards have always been centers of paranormal activity, and graveyard dirt is still used for rituals in some religions. Not only that, but I found a couple of articles saying that coffin wood was especially prized for spirit boards, with some makers even using a coffin nail as the pointer for the planchette.”
“Planchette?”
“It’s that heart-shaped thingy that moves around like a cursor. It has a little window to show which letter the spirit is pointing to. Didn’t you ever play with a Ouija board?”
I hadn’t, but I’d seen enough horror movies to know what she was talking about: the Witchboard series, Ouija I and II…it was even a Ouija board that got Linda Blair possessed in The Exorcist. “I just didn’t know planchette was what it was called,” I said. “So a Ouija board and a spirit board are the same thing?”
Ab nodded. “It’s sometimes just called a ‘talking board,’ too. They’re mostly just seen as a parlor game nowadays, although there are still plenty of people who take them seriously and consider them dangerous. They were used widely back when Spiritualism was in full swing, and Archie would have known all about them.”
“Okay, so let’s say you’re right, and he took a piece of her coffin to make a board. Why hers, and not someone else’s? I thought he loved Cozanna.”
“He did, and maybe that was the point. I think Archie didn’t want to channel just any random spirit…I think he wanted her.”
“He was that obsessed with Cozanna?”
“Maybe,” Ab conceded. “But I think it’s more likely he thought he could still make money from her abilities…even if he had to reach across to the other side to get them.”
“Did it work?”
Ab shrugged. “If it did, there was nothing I could find on it. Archie was shot and killed in 1929 during a card game in Atlanta. The shooter, a man named Harold Mercer, told police that he had caught Archie cheating, and Archie had pulled a knife when he accused him.
I frowned. “That doesn’t really sound like Archie…does it?”
“It didn’t sit right with me either, but who knows? Anyway, Mercer’s story was backed up by a man named Stanley Beeman, who was the only other guy in the room, and the police wrote it off as self-defense.”
