THE CAMBODIAN CURSE AND OTHER STORIES Read online

  “I got blood on my hands when I was trying to save him,” Markus said, his voice quivering.

  “Then I suppose there won’t be traces of a knockout drug in his system?”

  Markus didn’t respond.

  “You pushed my buttons just right, too,” Sanjay said, shaking his head. “Egging me on so I’d go looking for Wallace, and so I’d prove I could unlock this door.”

  “Markus?” Lizette whispered. “How could you?”

  Markus’s eyes narrowed as he faced Lizette. “How could I? You’re the one who did this. Did you think I’d let you get away with the affair? That I’d let either of you get away with it?”

  Before Sanjay realized what was happening, Markus lunged toward Wallace’s body. He was going for the razor-sharp scissors.

  Standing in the doorway, Sanjay knew he wouldn’t have time to reach Markus before he grabbed the scissors. But there was something else he could do. He lifted the hat from his head and flung it at Markus, spinning it like a Frisbee. He aimed for Markus’s head. The throw almost succeeded. It hit his neck.

  Sanjay cringed as Markus cried out. Pushed off balance, Markus fell across Wallace’s desk. Sanjay ran forward and snatched up his hat. He quickly pulled a piece of rope from inside the hat and bound Markus’s hands behind his back.

  “What the hell?” Markus asked in a daze, blinking furiously. “What hit me?”

  Sanjay finished tying the knot—more tightly than was strictly necessary—and stood back to look at his handiwork. He picked up his hat and knocked his knuckles on the rim of his specially constructed hat. His fingers rapped as loudly as if he’d knocked on a door. “I knew there was a reason I never wanted you to know the secrets of my illusions.”

  Markus groaned.

  Sanjay lifted his steel-rimmed magician’s hat onto his head.

  The Haunted Room

  This Jaya Jones short story originally appeared in Murder at the Beach, the 2014 Bouchercon Anthology, edited by Dana Cameron and published by Down & Out Books.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I said.

  I believed what I said. At the time. But what Nadia was about to tell me made me question what I thought I knew.

  “Jaya,” my landlady said to me with a shake of her head. “Though your experience in Scotland had a rational explanation, that does not mean it is always so.”

  I eyed Nadia skeptically. “I didn’t know you were superstitious.”

  We were sitting together on a park bench across the street from the “haunted” house Nadia had brought me to see, a San Francisco mansion from the post-Gold Rush boom in the late 1800s. Because I’d recently solved a mystery that involved folklore and a legendary Scottish fairy, Nadia wanted to tell me about her own unsolved mystery.

  Nadia shrugged. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  Nadia had come to California from Russia as a young woman and had lived in San Francisco for decades. She spoke perfect English, but with a strong accent. And she loved being dramatic. Which included quoting Shakespeare.

  “Your ghost story has to have a rational explanation,” I insisted. A swath of fog descended around us as I spoke, making my statement less convincing. I shook off the feeling. It was summer in San Francisco. Chilly weather was to be expected, especially on the hilltop that gave the Pacific Heights neighborhood its name.

  After leaving India as a child, I grew up in the Bay Area, but on the other side of the bay. My father raised my brother and me in Berkeley, which, while only ten miles from San Francisco, has a completely different climate. After spending my childhood in scorching Goa and sunny Berkeley, I still wasn’t used to San Francisco weather.

  “I will tell you the whole story,” Nadia said, wrapping her black stole more closely around her elegant shoulders. “You can be the judge of whether or not you believe it.”

  I nodded, not taking my eyes from the building. A gust of wind blew my bob of thick black hair around my face.

  “It was in October,” Nadia continued, “nearly two years ago, before you moved here for your teaching job. I have always thought of Halloween as a holiday for children, but Jack made it sound exciting. Plus, the profits from this haunted house go to charity.”

  “I remember hearing about this place.” It sounded like the kind of thing Nadia’s on-again off-again paramour would like.

  “It is still a popular attraction,” Nadia said, “but I will never again step inside. Not after what happened there.” She shivered as she looked at the dark windows of the house.

  The effect was contagious. Nadia was not a woman who scared easily. The haunted house was in a part of the city I rarely passed by, and based on Nadia’s reaction to it, I found myself wondering if this imposing Victorian structure had unconsciously caused me to avoid the neighborhood, in spite of its gorgeous views of bridges and beaches. This house was one of the oldest in the area, having survived the Great Earthquake of 1906.

  “I wore a gown from that thrift store Aunt Cora’s Closet down the street,” she continued. “Cream-colored satin, reminiscent of Countess Volkonskaya. A brocade, matching satin gloves, and a crimson silk hat.”

  That was more like Nadia. She noticed my amused reaction and shrugged.

  “Even though the holiday is childish,” she said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “if one chooses to participate, one should do so in the spirit of the occasion. Jack did not mind my smoking that evening—I was playing the part of a countess, you see, with an elegant cigarette holder—”

  “Nadia,” I cut in.

  “Yes, yes. You young people are so impatient. You must allow an old woman an excuse to ramble.”

  I had never learned Nadia’s exact age. She looked like she was barely old enough to have retired, but I had a suspicion she wore her years well and might have been much older. And I wasn’t so young. I’d recently turned thirty. I’ve been told I look younger, which I attribute to the fact that I’m only five feet tall. It’s an image I’ve had to fight against. As an assistant professor of history, it’s rather embarrassing to be mistaken for a college student.

  “Jack said it would be a romantic evening to go to a haunted house.” Nadia continued, “There was a full moon that night. He said we could go on a moonlit walk afterward.”

  “So you went to the haunted house and it was spooky?”

  Nadia ignored my sarcastic remark. “You will not be able to dispute what I experienced. After waiting in line, we were placed into groups to walk through the rooms of the house. The darkness was nearly complete. The brightest lights were the dim EXIT signs above the doors. Only the light of electric candle chandeliers lit up the displays—dry ice around tombstones in a cemetery room, animated skeletons in caskets in a morgue room, mannequin figures masked with beaked bird masks in a plague room. It was the plague room where it occurred.”

  Nadia paused, and in spite of myself I waited in rapt anticipation for what she would say next.

  “This room, it was not like the others. As soon as I entered, I knew this. A strong sensation of cold washed over us. You may be aware that cold spots in a house can indicate the presence of a ghost.”

  I was tempted to think Nadia was re-imagining the past, since she had a dramatic personality. A more rational explanation was that cold air was piped into the room for exactly the effect Nadia described.

  “One of the plague figures in this cold room was not a mannequin, but a teenage boy working at the haunted house. He was very still at first—then reached out and grabbed a woman in front of me. I was not frightened, but it was a shock, you understand. That is why I dropped what I was holding in my hands: my gloves—which I had taken off in the heat of the stifling rooms—and a large ring that slipped off when I removed the gloves. It was not a ring that was especially valuable, but it was meaningful to me. Blue sapphire costume jew
elry. As soon as my gloves and ring fell, I alerted Jack. He found a light switch hidden next to the exit door. The other six visitors in the room complained of ruining the atmosphere, but they did not stop him. My gloves were where they had fallen, but the ring was gone.”

  “It must have rolled away,” I said.

  “Jaya, do you think us stupid? We searched everywhere. The others moved on, but Jack and I searched the entire room. The ring was gone. And before you say that one of the others must have stolen it, remember this was not a valuable ring. Nor did it look like one. Even if someone had thought it to be valuable, none of the people we were with crouched down to the ground. They did not have an opportunity to pick it up.

  “It was then,” she continued, “that I learned the history of this haunted room. There was a crime committed there almost three-quarters of a century ago. A crime that was never solved. Because it was committed by a ghost—a ghost who is still there.”

  As if on cue, a light rain began to fall.

  “Come on,” I said, “let’s get out of here.”

  Nadia lingered a moment longer before following.

  “Tell me the rest of the story,” I said, ducking into the awning of a nearby café as the rain began falling harder.

  We grabbed a table at the front of the café. With the rain pelting against the window, I ordered hot coffee and a piece of the thick, gooey apple pie I saw another patron eating. There was sure to be enough butter and sugar in that pie to solve any problem.

  “The house,” Nadia said, “was built by a man with money from the Gold Rush. Several workmen died during its construction, which explains the ghost.”

  “Naturally.”

  “You mock me, but you should not. In the early 1900s, he lavishly entertained many wealthy people who would visit. On this famous visit, a portly scholar was visiting from his East Coast university. They shared a good meal with wine, and the owner saw his guest to his bedchamber. It was no ordinary night. The scholar locked himself into the room and put a chair under the door handle. You see, he was traveling with something very valuable to the academic community. This is why he wished to stay with his friend rather than at a hotel. But his precautions were for naught.

  “The good professor reported a strange, ghostly noise shortly after lying down to sleep. He would not have thought much of it, for his girth made most beds squeak with all manner of sounds under his weight, except that this noise came from the other side of the room.”

  I had to hand it to Nadia. She was a great storyteller. “You sound like you were there,” I said.

  “After I experienced it myself, I read a history book. May I continue?”

  I nodded and took a sip of the coffee that had been set in front of me without my noticing.

  “When the scholar rose from the bed,” Nadia said, “he saw that the historical scroll he had discovered was gone.”

  “That sounds like a strange thing for a ghost to steal,” I commented.

  “It was the reason he was visiting San Francisco. The ghost must have sensed its importance and wished to be malicious.”

  “Or someone in the house stole it because it was valuable.”

  “The room,” Nadia said with a raised eyebrow, “and the whole house was searched. But that was unnecessary since he had secured his room from the inside.”

  “There must have been a false panel in the room.”

  “The room was carefully inspected by a police officer, and then a private detective. There were no false panels. Even if you do not believe that, you must believe what has happened in the decades since then. The man who owned the house was long dead when Alan Marcus bought the house and opened it up for a Halloween charity.

  “Yet,” she continued, “whenever people go into that room...something disappears. It began with children’s toys. The ghost stole marbles from a child. This was decades ago when marbles were popular. The ghost has continued to steal, most frequently from children. It can only be a matter of time before the ghost takes not only crayons, but a child.”

  This time my shiver wasn’t from the cold. I didn’t feel nearly as warm and cozy as I should have sitting across from Nadia with a steaming coffee in my hands.

  “I know that expression of yours,” Nadia said. “I have convinced you.”

  “You’ve got me curious. I admit that much.”

  Two hours later, I sat surrounded by books and printouts from the newspaper archive at the library. As a professor of history, piecing through history is what I do, and I do it well. Absorbed in research, I was in my element—but I failed to come up with answers. Instead, I was more intrigued than ever. Much like Sarah Winchester’s desire to build new rooms onto her sprawling San Jose mansion until she died, the wealthy man who built this house wanted to renovate his home until his death. Unfortunately, he didn’t care much for the safety of his workers. At least two men had died in construction accidents while working on the house.

  I didn’t blame Nadia and countless others for assigning supernatural significance to the events that had taken place in the mansion. Though Nadia had exaggerated—it wasn’t every time someone entered the haunted room that something went missing—the disappearances had happened enough times that something was going on.

  Had the new owner Alan Marcus figured out the secret of the room and decided to use it to rob people? Initially that seemed like the easiest explanation, but none of the facts supported it. Not only was Mr. Marcus a wealthy man with no financial troubles, but the things that went missing were very rarely valuable.

  Another strike against that theory: when I called Mr. Marcus, the retired gentleman wasn’t the slightest bit evasive. He said he’d be happy to meet with us and show us the peculiar room.

  On my way downstairs to tell Nadia of my plan to visit the inside of the house, I ran into my neighbor, Miles, a poet who was stopping by to invite me to a poetry open mic night that evening. When I told him what I was busy doing, he asked if he could come.

  “I thought you had to practice reciting your poem,” I said.

  “You’re going now?” he asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on a course syllabus or something?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  I wished Miles good luck preparing for his poetry reading, then found Nadia, who wasn’t any more helpful. True to her word, she refused to go back to the house. Was I the only one who cared about the baffling mystery of the haunted room?

  “What if we could get your ring back?” I said.

  “Tempting,” Nadia said. “Very tempting.”

  That’s how I found myself heading back to the mansion with Nadia that afternoon. At least the rain had let up.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said as we approached the house. “What if Mr. Marcus wanted to throw the police off the scent by stealing seemingly random items to disguise the theft of a few valuable ones?”

  “You found a historic treasure, Jaya, and now you think you are an expert at all types of crime-solving?”

  Nadia’s sarcasm be damned, I was feeling quite pleased with my deductive abilities until Mr. Marcus opened the door. I liked him at once. The octogenarian greeted us with a hearty handshake and a mischievous smile as he asked us if we were going to be the ones to solve his mystery. Most importantly, he also offered us coffee and cookies before we got to work. A man after my own heart.

  He explained that he only used part of the house during most of the year. The haunted house section wasn’t currently in use, its sparse furniture covered in sheets for ten months of the year. “After my wife passed away,” he said, “I no longer entertained. There wasn’t much point in keeping up the whole house.”

  I ate several cookies while listening to stories about his wife, who threw a wicked party in her day. Nadia sat stiffly, barely touching her coffee. I, on the other hand, was quite comfortable. Mr. Marcus kept the heat turned up, l
eaving me contentedly cozy on the plush couch. If it hadn’t been for my curiosity, I would have been happy to spend the afternoon looking out the sweeping bay windows with views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  Once I declared I couldn’t possibly eat another cookie, Mr. Marcus led us across the sprawling house to the room. We walked on beautiful Persian rugs in the hallways and passed original oil paintings that looked vaguely familiar, plus a series of impressionist paintings of San Francisco beaches. The perspective of the scenes suggested they might have been painted from the main room of the house, long before the city had grown up around it.

  Inside the supposedly haunted room, Mr. Marcus tossed the sheets aside and stood back, letting me have a closer look. The thick floorboards creaked beneath my feet.

  I had learned a thing or two about false panels from my best friend, Sanjay. He’s a magician, so I would have called him except I knew he was out of town preparing for a show. Even though he didn’t trust me with all his secrets, I had a good understanding of how many of his illusions worked. The same principles stage magicians used could be applied to situations like this. But that knowledge wasn’t helping me here. I was fairly confident I wasn’t missing any secret panels. But I had to be missing something.

  “Intriguing, isn’t it?” Mr. Marcus said. “The unsolved theft was one of the reasons that initially drew me to this place. My wife was a history buff. She loved the idea of living in a piece of history.”

  “So you two looked into the construction of the room.”

  “Oh yes,” he said, “most certainly. But we never found any hidden entrances to the room.”

  “The walls—” I began.

  “That,” Mr. Marcus said, “is the strangest part. Even if we missed a false panel, there’s no extra space between these walls. An electrician did some poking around years ago. There’s nothing there—and no room for anything to be hidden.”