“Y’all, the smell of poop doesn’t go with evil. I’ve never been to a house that smelled of number two.” I raised a hand. “Wait. Let me take that back. There was a crazy cat lady who had half a dozen litter boxes strewn all over the place. Now that—that was evil. Having to pick over them. If ever there was a scent of evil, six litter boxes will do it. But this, it just smells like the septic needs to be pumped.”
Ruth’s eyes narrowed. “Evil. Mark my words.”
“I’ll tattoo your words on my butt if you turn out to be right.” I hooked my hands through each woman’s arm. “Let’s go.”
I had to drag them before they decided the stench of evil was too much and ran for the hills.
I rang the doorbell. Deep chimes echoed through the house, rising and falling in an eerie gothic sound reminiscent of Guns N’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I started to wonder if someone was pulling my leg. The stench, the obviously haunted looking house and then the eighties hair band song was almost too much.
“What is it?” Alice whispered. “Does the house sound evil, too?”
“Shh,” Ruth snapped. “Someone’s coming.”
The door swung open, and standing in the frame was a tall, lithe woman who looked like she’d applied makeup in the middle of the night just to greet visitors. Beside her stood a dark-complected man with a receding hairline.
“Are you the Ghostbusters?” The tension in his voice was so strong that if it had been a stick, it would’ve been able to poke through steel.
“We’re not actually called that for legal reasons.” He stared at me, waiting for me to finish. “Um. Well. Technically we’re called Southern Ghost Wranglers.”
“You could be called Duke and Hazzard for all I care,” the woman said. “Come in. We need your help.”
She grabbed my arms and dragged me across the threshold. “I’m Brownie and this is my husband, Wallace.”
“The Jarvises,” Ruth informed me.
“Nice to meet you,” I said casually.
My boot heels clacked atop the wooden parquet floor. I absorbed the house’s bones quickly. Floral wallpaper lined the skin of the foyer. Antique sitting chairs sat before a massive fireplace. A sweeping staircase polished to gleaming swept down from the second floor.
Anyone walking down it would make a grand entrance whether they wanted to or not. Off to the right and left were open doorways. In one room sat a baby grand piano, and the other looked like a family room.
A crystal chandelier hung overhead, and wall sconces as well as floor lamps cast an amber light inside.
“You have a beautiful home.” I walked a few more paces and stopped by the staircase, sliding my hand over the glossy surface. “Truly remarkable.”
“Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee?” Brownie offered.
Clearly she was Southern to the bone. She looked perfect, but a touch of fatigue bordering on frazzled filled her voice.
I raised my palm. “No, thank you.”
“I could use a cookie,” Alice said.
“For God’s sake, Alice,” Ruth snapped.
Brownie shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s better when my hands are working anyway. Gives me something to do. Staying busy helps me forget about”—she glanced at the ceiling—“our problems.”
She shot Alice a warm smile. “Let me see what I can round up. Wallace, will you bring them to the kitchen?”
“Yes, dear.” Wallace watched us with small, beady eyes.
A skeptic, I could tell. Well, what Wallace didn’t know was that I was a skeptic, too. We’d been called out to many houses that were supposed to be haunted. But when we had arrived, the invader happened to be a squirrel in the attic.
So yeah, I was a skeptic.
