The Supernaturals Read Online Free Page A

Detective Agency, but to no avail. The official report states that the German socialite left the estate unbeknownst to her host, and that her present whereabouts were unknown. The police report from 1925 cites possible death by misadventure.”
    The slide changed from a photo of the police report of the time to a gay scene of Christmastime at Summer Place.
    “There were other strange instances at the house, to be sure. The Christmas party of 1927 is one of these. The Lindemanns very rarely spent Christmas outside of New York City unless Mrs. Lindemann was there for the birth of one of her children.”
    Another slide. This one was of a woman most in the room recognized, but most failed to come up with her name.
    “The incident in the winter of 1927 involved Vidora Samuels, a silent film star of some renown. She retired from acting at the height of her popularity, after claiming she had been attacked at Summer Place during Lindemann’s Christmas gathering. Although there has been evidence put forth from Hollywood circles that Vidora was more frightened by the microphones used in motion picture “talkies” than by any occurrence at Summer Place, most respected her for her talent and did not challenge her claim of an attack. She had a prowess for making anyone who heard her relate the story, a believer.”
    A paragraph from a magazine filled the screen.
    “When questioned about the incident several years later by Variety Magazine, Vidora denied ever claiming to have been attacked. Follow-up with the immediate family after her death in 1998 revealed that Ms. Samuels actually lived in terror from that night in 1927, and went to her grave never revealing the name of the person who assaulted her. Her personal maid and assistant of sixty years, and later her only companion, admitted to one person that once during a lucid moment in her last year of life, Ms. Samuels finally admitted that indeed, she had been assaulted that Christmas Eve seventy-one years before. She confessed that she had been brutally beaten and raped, but claimed that there had not been another living soul in her room at the time—she had been quite alone, with the lights turned on. A trained psychologist once offered that she may have actually blocked out the horrific event, which may have prevented her from seeing the attacker in her memory, but that hypothesis still remains just a theory.”
    The slide changed to a gorgeous view of the mansion in summer.
    “The most famous incident occurred in the very next turn of the seasons. In the summer of 1928, gossip columnist Henrietta Batiste, eminent in her literary slashing of the world’s most popular authors, was invited to visit for a short weekend getaway. Miss Batiste, an accomplished rider and renowned horse lover, was out riding alone one sunny Saturday morning before breakfast. As she trotted out the $120,000 thoroughbred from the richly appointed stable, her demeanor was one of a woman who had died and gone to heaven—according to the account that stablehand James McCeevy gave to the local constabulary that evening. Usually harsh and ill-tempered toward any of the hired help, the columnist seemed almost human on that fateful morning long ago.”
    The slide switched to a scene from the Bright Waters Sunday Chronicle, the local newspaper. It showed a large group of searchers on the grounds surrounding Summer Place.
    “The next anyone saw of the columnist was at five-thirty that evening. Lindemann had just returned with an unsuccessful search party to find the woman sprawled on the Persian rug in the entryway. She was bleeding from her mouth, and one arm was almost completely ripped free of her body. The same police report states that the thirty-six year old was in a state of shock from loss of blood—but I must note here that there was more than one quote from the house staff after their dismissal a few years later, stating that it wasn’t only loss of blood that precipitated the shock, but sheer