Trapped (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 5) Read online

  The woman gestured to the man accompanying her. “Roy is.” She glanced at him knowingly. “I would say he’s an expert.”

  Roy let out a hearty chuckle. “I know a thing or two about a thing or two.”

  Jenny smiled; they seemed like a very pleasant couple.

  “Well, would you possibly be able to tell us a little bit about the battles that led those guys to be there?” Zack gestured over his shoulder toward the cemetery. “I know so much less about this than I should, and I’d like to remedy that.”

  “Sure thing,” Roy replied, the gleam in his eye revealing his passion about Civil War history. “You want to come back there with us and I’ll tell you the story?”

  “That’d be great.” Zack turned to Jenny with child-like zeal. “Look, we get our own personal tour guides!”

  After working their way back to the cemetery, Roy pointed to some of the earlier headstones with their deaths being listed in the latter half 1862. “I’m guessing those boys were most likely victims of the Seven Days Battle. There were six separate skirmishes in that one very deadly week in late June of 1862. If memory serves, I think there were thirty-five-thousand casualties in that week alone. That’s both sides together, of course.”

  Jenny thought back to the small town she’d grown up in; the entire population was smaller than the number of wounded soldiers in that one week of fighting. She couldn’t wrap her head around it.

  Zack remained much less affected. “So where did those battles take place?”

  “Right around Richmond,” Roy said, “on the western side. Now it’s all suburbs there; it’s amazing what a hundred-fifty years can do.” Shifting his weight with his walking stick, he added, “I imagine a lot of the people who live there now have no idea of the horrors that took place in their own backyards.”

  Jenny swallowed, well aware that she just might be witness to some of those horrors first-hand over the next few days. Redirecting her mind to the issue at hand, she jotted down the information that Roy had just told them. Andrew Owens had died in July of 1862; perhaps he’d been one of those thirty-five-thousand casualties of the Seven Days Battle, living long enough to come to the hospital, only to die from complications a month later.

  Roy walked over to another headstone, gesturing to it with his walking stick. “This here’s from 1863. So far it’s the only one I’ve seen from that year. That makes sense since the biggest battles around that time were in the Fredericksburg area. I can’t imagine many of those boys came this far for treatment. In fact, I’m not even sure this one’s due to battle; he may have died from illness. Tuberculosis and typhoid fever were rampant in those army camps. All those soldiers shared extremely tight quarters, and the living conditions were terrible…that’s a breeding ground for disease. If one of those boys came down with TB, before you know it they’d all get it.”

  Jenny furrowed her brow and shook her head; even when they weren’t in battle those soldiers were putting their lives in jeopardy. Placing her hand on her belly she hoped that somehow the world would be able to find peace within the next eighteen years.

  Although she doubted it.

  Roy continued his lesson, walking over to a pair of headstones dated 1864. “May and June of 1864 were particularly bloody in this part of Virginia as well. Grant’s Overland Campaign started up there by Fredericksburg and worked its way down to the Richmond area, leaving over seventy-thousand casualties in its wake.”

  That was another unfathomable number to Jenny. Although she knew Roy hadn’t gotten to the battle that had claimed Andrew McDermott yet, she decided she couldn’t take it anymore. Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the death and destruction, she silently handed her notepad over to Zack and walked toward the woman who had accompanied Roy. She was standing quietly on the sidelines, listening intently to the stories her husband had been sharing.

  “Hi,” Jenny said quietly as not to interrupt Roy. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced. I’m Jenny.” She stuck out her hand.

  “Florence,” the woman replied as she returned the gesture.

  “Your husband seems to know quite a bit about the war.” Quickly making a face, Jenny added, “At least, I assume he is your husband.”

  “Yes,” Florence replied with a smile, “for fifty-two years.”

  Once again Jenny was awed by the size of a number. “Wow. That’s amazing. Although, you don’t look old enough to have been married for fifty-two years.”

  “Well, we were young,” she replied with a laugh. “I was only nineteen when we got married.”

  That’s how old Jenny had been when she’d met Greg, and what a mistake that turned out to be. She wondered how Florence had been able to make the right choice at such a young age. Had she really been that astute, or did she just get lucky?

  Jenny diverted her gaze back to Roy, who was still spewing facts as Zack jotted down notes. “So how does he know so much about the war?”

  “It’s always been a hobby of his,” Florence began, “but since he retired a few years ago, he’s really gotten into it.”

  “Are you as into it as he is?”

  “No,” Florence said with a wave of her hand, “but I’m glad he does it.”

  A small smile graced Jenny’s lips. “Why is that?”

  “Because he was driving me crazy.”

  Jenny’s subtle smirk turned into a full-fledged giggle.

  “Things were fine until he retired,” Florence continued, “and then it all fell apart.” Her pleasant, soft-spoken demeanor made her comments seem even funnier to Jenny. “He spent decades looking forward to his retirement, and then when it happened, he was bored silly. It’s like he was completely lost without his job to keep him busy. In order to occupy his time, he started micro-managing everything around the house. Now, mind you, I’d been running the house just fine for more than forty years by myself and he never had anything to say about it—but as soon as he retired he decided that the pantry needed to be rearranged. He’d check over my grocery list to make sure we actually needed everything that was on there. He even pulled out the refrigerator and asked me how long it had been since I’d cleaned behind it.”

  Jenny bit her lip.

  “So I told him to get a hobby,” Florence continued with a straight face. “It was either that or I hit him over the head with a frying pan. I suggested he pursue his interest in the Civil War, and that’s been a blessing. He spends hours every day doing research, planning war-oriented vacations and shopping for memorabilia. In fact, he planned this whole trip. It’s been a nice little getaway, and it kept him out of my hair for two good weeks while he organized it.”

  “Are you actually interested in this Civil War stuff, or are you just going along with it?”

  “I find it interesting, yes,” Florence said with a subtle nod. “Not as much as he does, but that’s okay. I do enjoy these trips.” She placed her delicate hand on Jenny’s forearm. “It helps that he weaves in visits with the kids and grandkids. After we leave here we’re going to see my new great-grandson in Alabama. He was born back in December, and we haven’t met him yet.” Florence beamed with pride.

  “Is that your only great-grandchild?”

  “Yes, he’s the first one. I can’t wait to see him.”

  “I’ll bet,” Jenny declared as Zack approached her. Once he arrived, Jenny focused her attention on him.

  “That was fascinating,” Zack said definitively. “You should have kept listening.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean to be rude,” Jenny explained. “I just couldn’t bear to hear such high numbers of casualties. I think being pregnant has made me soft.”

  Florence placed her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “You’re pregnant?”

  Jenny smiled sheepishly; something about being unwed took some of the joy from the moment. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is this your first?” Florence asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful,” Florence declared. “Bei
ng a mom is the hardest thing in the world, but just keep in mind that it’s all worth it in the end.”

  “Don’t scare the woman,” Roy said curtly. “Having a baby around isn’t that bad.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Florence retorted. “You didn’t raise the kids. I did.”

  Mercifully, Zack turned to Roy and loudly said, “Well, thank you for sharing your knowledge about the war. I feel a whole lot smarter now.”

  “Glad I could help, young man.”

  After bidding their goodbyes to the couple, Zack and Jenny once again headed back to the house with Zack explaining, “It looks like Andrew Owens may have been a victim of that Seven Days Battle, and McDermott probably got hurt during the campaign at Appomattox.”

  “Appomattox,” Jenny repeated with recognition in her voice. “Isn’t that where the war ended?”

  “Yup. Apparently it’s not all that far from here. The end of the war started with the capture of Richmond, and the fighting gradually moved west to Appomattox, where Lee ultimately surrendered to Grant.”

  Jenny nodded. “Then it does make sense that a soldier involved in that campaign would end up here.”

  “Unfortunately, knowing where and when they got wounded doesn’t help us figure out where they’re from, or anything else about them for that matter. It’s not like today where they keep records of which troops are in which area. According to Roy, it was much more makeshift than that. Kids just picked up guns and joined the Confederacy. There were records of which general was at each battle, but the forces themselves weren’t well defined.”

  Jenny twisted her face. “I guess we’ll need some other way to figure out who this Andrew is and what he wants.”

  Putting his arm around Jenny, Zack noted, “Then Andrew is going to have to tell you more than just his first name.”

  Jenny looked around with just her eyes, hoping he’d heard that.

  “By the way, I am sorry I bailed on you back there,” she noted. “It’s just all that talk about death was getting to me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I mean, I’m about to have a baby. I’m going to love it and hold it and rock it to sleep. I can’t imagine in twenty years that a single gunshot will take this child away from me. And then when you consider that thirty-five thousand mothers went through that very same horror in a single week?” Jenny shook her head. “I can’t even listen to that.”

  “I’m not sure casualty means death,” Zack said.

  “Not right away.” Jenny pointed back toward the cemetery. “But we just witnessed proof that somebody who didn’t die on the battlefield might still have died from something else directly related to the injury.”

  Zack didn’t reply. She imagined he was unsure of what to say.

  “We’re a civilized society,” Jenny went on as they approached the inn. “I can’t believe we still rely on war to solve our problems. Couldn’t we just negotiate?”

  “Some people aren’t up for negotiations.”

  “Okay, so then we arm wrestle to determine the winner. Or play chess. Why do we have to kill each other?”

  Zack held the front door of the inn open so Jenny could walk through.

  She continued her rant. “Don’t you find it odd that if two individuals disagree and one kills the other, it’s considered murder and punishable by law…but if two governments disagree and they send masses of people to kill masses of people, it’s called war and it’s perfectly legal?” They ascended the curved stairway to the second floor. “It’s just so barbaric.”

  Jenny froze at the top of the stairs; instead of turning right to get back to her room, she was inclined to go left. Stepping slowly, she was led to one of the rooms she hadn’t seen on her tour with Jessica because it had been occupied. Placing her palm on the door, she closed her eyes and absorbed the vision. After a few moments, a gust of wind sailed through the hallway, and with it came another message perceptible only to Jenny.

  Elizabeth.

  Chapter 3

  “Whoa,” Zack said with awe. “There was that breeze again.”

  Jenny lowered her palm from the door and looked at him. “It was the same whispery voice as before. He gave me another message; this time he said ‘Elizabeth.’”

  “I wonder who that is.”

  “I don’t know,” Jenny informed him, “but I did get a visual to go along with the message.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  She nodded in response. “It was a woman, lying in bed, looking like she was very ill. Her face and hair were very sweaty, and she moaned as if she was in a lot of pain.”

  “Was she in this room?” Zack posed, gesturing to the door she’d just been touching.

  “I imagine so,” Jenny said, “but I’ve never seen the inside of the room, so I can’t be sure.”

  Zack shook his head. “Wait a minute. If this was a hospital for recovering wounded soldiers, why was a woman lying in bed? I didn’t think women fought in the Civil War.”

  “I don’t think they did either,” Jenny agreed, looking up at Zack. “Maybe we’re not dealing with a soldier.”

  Zack and Jenny sat across from Jessica at a dining table in the lobby as Jenny sketched the image of the room from her vision. “Artistic ability sure comes in handy sometimes,” she noted as she quickly completed the rough drawing of a square room with two windows surrounding a brick fireplace. Spinning it around to face Jessica, she asked, “Is this what the room to the left of the stairs looks like?”

  Jessica placed her hand on her chin. “Not anymore, but it’s possible that it used to look like that. It’s been so long since we’ve renovated that I don’t remember what any of the rooms looked like before. Give me one second.” She disappeared from the table into a back room, emerging a short time later with a photo album.

  “I took pictures before and after the renovation. I’m sure I’ll be able to find some pictures from when I first bought the property.” She flipped through some pages, mumbling to herself out loud. “It’s the Plantation Room…let me see…no, I think it’s after these…oh! Here it is!” She studied the album for a moment before saying, “Wow. I think this speaks for itself.”

  She spun the picture around, along with Jenny’s sketch, and the two images looked nearly identical.

  “I guess we have our answer,” Zack noted. “That’s definitely the same room.”

  “The one thing we don’t know the answer to is why a woman was in that bed,” Jenny said.

  “Could she have been one of the nurses who took care of the soldiers?” Zack asked. “The guy outside seemed to think that some of the soldiers here weren’t necessarily shot, but rather had disease. Maybe she caught something from one of them.”

  “It could be, I guess,” Jessica said with a shrug. “I don’t know how we’d find that out.”

  “The spirit did give me a name,” Jenny noted.

  “Oh really?” Jessica said.

  “Apparently her name was Elizabeth.”

  After some deliberation, Jessica shook her head slowly. “I’m afraid that doesn’t help me.”

  “None of the previous owners were named Elizabeth?” Jenny asked.

  “The Davies were Jeremiah and Sarah, and the Sheffields were James and Ann.” Jessica looked helpless. “I honestly don’t know who Elizabeth and Andrew could have been.”

  Impatient by nature, Jenny felt her frustration surface, although she kept her tone pleasant. “In every other case I’ve worked there’s been a living, breathing human who has had some direct contact with the deceased. Unfortunately with this case, everyone with information is long dead by now. There’s nobody to ask. We don’t know who these people are or what message they’re trying to send, and I don’t even know how we could find that out.” She rested her chin in her hand.

  “I could try to do some research,” Jessica suggested.

  Jenny smiled. “I appreciate that.”

  “You know,” Zack began, “you could call Rod and see if he has any advice.” Zack turned to Jessica and exp
lained, “Her father is also a psychic.”

  Jenny mulled that over for a moment before declaring, “That’s not a bad idea.” She checked the time on her phone. “I may be able to catch him before he goes to work; it’s still early on the west coast. Give me just one minute.”

  She got up from the table and dialed, indeed getting a hold of him while he was still on the road. After a short conversation, she hung up and returned back to Jessica and Zack at the table.

  “So what did he have to say?” Zack asked.

  “Well, he said he didn’t think he could help me,” Jenny confessed, “but he did direct me to somebody who can.”

  Zack looked curious. “And who might that be?”

  Admittedly feeling a little nervous, Jenny sheepishly said, “My grandmother.”

  “Her name is Ingunn,” Jenny began, “and she’s psychic as well. Apparently over the years she’s been able to contact a few spirits by actually summoning them, which is something I never knew before.”

  “Like a séance?” Zack asked.

  “I guess.” Jenny shook her head. “It’s all new to me.”

  “This is amazing,” Jessica said with awe. “Your whole family is psychic?”

  “Well, not the whole family,” Jenny confessed. “I actually just found out a few months ago that the man who raised me wasn’t my father. It turns out my biological father was psychic, as was his mother, but apparently his siblings weren’t. It’s hit-or-miss, I guess, and I just happened to get it. But I’ve never met my grandmother; I’ve only talked to her on the phone.” A smirk graced her lips. “I’ve got to warn you, she appears to be quite a pip.”

  “Does she live close by?” Jessica asked. “Will she be able to come out here?”

  Jenny shook her head. “She lives in Florida.”

  “Well, she’s welcome to stay free of charge for a while, too,” Jessica replied. “It’s the least I can do if she’s willing to help me out.”

  “I’ll be sure to extend the invitation to her.” With a shrug of her shoulders Jenny added, “I actually hope she can come out here; it would be great to see her face…in person, that is. I’ve only seen pictures.”