The Haunting Of Bechdel Mansion Read Online Free PDF Page B

lounge…” she said softly. “Is
this where it happened?”
    “ Sorry?” Curtis said, holding the
layout under his mini flashlight.
    “ Nothing,” Mary said. “How big is the
kitchen?”
    Curtis scanned around the layout,
trying to answer. “Kitchen?”
    Mary turned to her right and began
walking.
    “ Yeah, that way,” he said, looking up.
He hurried to catch up with her as she continued down the dark
hall. Mary stopped in her tracks and looked up as Curtis stopped
beside her.
    “ You okay?” he asked.
    “ Yeah…” she said in a distant tone.
She closed her eyes and touched her forehead, sighing.
    “ What is it, honey?” he
asked.
    “ Nothing,” she said, lowering her
hand, eyes open. “I’m fine.”
    He caressed her shoulder with
concern. “Maybe you should lie down. I don’t want to
you to another… incident.”
    “ I’m fine. Let’s see the kitchen,” she
said, walking ahead. She looked up to where the ledge of the second
floor ended and stopped again.
    Curtis halted as his shoes squeaked
against the floor. “Now what is it?”
    Mary scanned the area in deep
concentration. “How much do you know about the
Bechdels?”
    “ Who?” Curtis asked, clutching the
layout.
    “ The Bechdels,” Mary repeated. “The
family who were murdered here.
    Curtis dropped his arms to the side. “Honey,
that forty years ago. We’ve been through this. I didn’t know you
were so superstitious.”
    “ As home owners we have a right to
know exactly what happened here.”
    Curtis turned around, unsure of what
to say. A smile hit his face as a thought sprung to mind. “How about we go to town tomorrow. They have this quaint
library, you’d love it. And I’m sure they have plenty of crime
books if you’re into that kind of thing.”
    Mary nodded with a blank stare, seeming
neither taken with or against the idea. She continued down the hall
and entered a long, empty room with two windows on both sides—caked
with enough dirt and grime to block the sunlight from entering.
    “ I believe this is, or was, the dining
room,” Curtis said, shining his flashlight around.
    Mary looked around in awe. “Enormous…”
    The air was stuffy and smelled of old
wood. Curtis went to the first window at his right and tried to
open it, but it wouldn ’t budge. He handed the map and
flashlight to Mary and turned back to the window, pushing up
against it. “This is ridiculous,” he said grunting. “We need to get
all the windows of this place opened, and air this place
out.”
    Suddenly, the front doors swung open
down the hall at the foyer. Two well-built men wearing white pants
and shirts with a moving business logo entered. Curtis turned
toward the foyer and signaled to Mary. “I gotta keep
things moving, babe.”
    Mary nodded. With Curtis gone to help
the movers, she felt free to explore. She approached the window he
couldn’t open and ran her hands down the warm glass, trailing lines
of dust. Now that they had started, she felt the urge to explore every room in the house, top to bottom. She
approached a set of double doors at the end of the dining room,
eager to see the kitchen beyond its simple amenities.
    She turned both knobs and pulled the heavy
oak doors open as dank, musty air hit her senses. Like the rest of
the house so far, all the windows were closed and caked with dirt
and mildew buildup over the years. She entered the kitchen,
fearless, and turned on the mini flashlight. Dust rained down as
she moved the light through the darkened room. There were several
counter tops and cabinets that reached the ceiling. The kitchen
looked as though it could have been considered at one time the
height of elegance.
    There as a large industrial-sized antique
over in the corner. She wondered if it was still operational. To
her immediate right was a sink the size of a bathtub along flat,
dusty countertops that stretched the entire length the room with
more cabinets overhead than she knew what to do with.
    She walked along