A Specter of Justice Read Online Free Page A

You’ll be the on-site storyteller. You’ve heard of Helen’s Bridge, haven’t you?”
    â€œNo. Does it have something to do with Helen Wilson?”
    Shirley’s eyes widened and she seemed to be peering into a different time zone, one measured in decades, not hours. “Maybe,” she said to the corner of the ceiling behind me. “They both lost their daughters.”
    â€œHello? Shirley? It’s me. Sam. I’m down here.”
    She blinked and stared at me as if I’d materialized out of thin air. “Very weird. I wouldn’t have made that connection, Sam.”
    â€œExactly what I was thinking. Weird.”
    â€œHelen’s Bridge is up on Beaucatcher Mountain near where College Street ends. It’s a stone arch bridge that once was a carriage road for the old Zealandia Mansion. College Street passes under it.”
    â€œIs that the big house that’s now the office of some online timeshare rental company?”
    â€œYes. But the bridge was reinforced and preserved by a special fund raised to protect it. The shock waves from the blasting for the I-240 loop around Asheville threatened to bring it crashing down if repairs weren’t made.”
    â€œI take it the bridge is old.”
    â€œ1909. Thomas Wolfe mentioned it in Look Homeward, Angel . How he would shout beneath it to hear the echo.”
    â€œDid he call it Helen’s Bridge?” I asked.
    â€œNot that I remember.” Shirley returned to the leather chair across from me and sat. “The legend is a woman and her young daughter lived in a small house near the Zealandia Mansion. This was in the early nineteen hundreds. The mansion was unoccupied at the time, and the daughter would sneak inside to play. There was a fire in the house. Maybe the child was playing with matches, or it started from some other cause. Anyway, the girl died in the blaze. The mother was so distraught, she hanged herself from the bridge. Only her first name remains to tie her to the story. Helen.”
    â€œAnd she haunts the bridge?”
    Shirley nodded solemnly. “Yes. Not as a hanged woman, but as a mother desperately trying to find her child. The story is if you go up there at night under the bridge and call out three times, ‘Helen, come forth,’ she will appear.”
    â€œHave you seen her?” I asked.
    â€œNo. But I’ve felt the chill of her presence. I drove up alone and gave the summoning cry. The air temperature must have dropped ten degrees, and my car, which was idling, stalled. I managed to jumpstart it coasting down the mountain, and when I got home, do you know what I found on the hood?”
    â€œA hangman’s noose?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. How could a hangman’s noose stay on the hood of a car all the way down Beaucatcher Mountain?”
    I felt defensive, even though the whole discussion was nonsense. “I don’t know. It seems to fit your story.”
    Shirley held up her hand. “A palm print. Not just surface grime but a discoloration of the paint itself.”
    â€œIs it still there?”
    â€œNo. I totaled the car five years ago.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And every bit of the hood was dented except for that print.”
    â€œToo bad she didn’t run her hand over the entire car.”
    Shirley stiffened. “Go ahead and laugh. Cory and I are just trying to help two little boys who’ve lost their parents.”
    The rebuke stung. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of what you’re doing. But really, is that the best use of time and resources? A ghost tour? It’s not very dignified, given that Heather Atwood was murdered.”
    â€œThis isn’t about dignity and it’s not about murder. It’s about raising the most money so that these kids have a decent shot at life. What do you think Heather would want? Dignity or her children taken care of?”
    Heather