Cherry Street

B. J. Conner

Description

An enticing mystery that will keep you guessing whodunit!
Rebecca Hall, a lovely young nurse from Louisiana, travels with her family to a thriving riverboat town on the Ohio River in the late 1800’s and eventually married Charles Thain. Rebecca happiness is short-lived as things quickly deteriorate and her marriage ends in tragedy, digging up the nightmare that has haunted her since her early days in Louisiana. Rebecca finds herself embroiled in circumstance beyond her knowledge of nursing when she becomes the victim of a series of attacks. Could the curse of the notorious voodoo witch, Grandma Phoebe be to blame? Her journey is a tangle of lies and deceit through which she struggles to separate the truth from the façade.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Romance
• Romance érotique
• BD Erotique
• Historical
• Evansville, Indiana
• Erotica
• Mystery
• Serial
• Gothic
• Evansville
• Fiction
• Indiana

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 23 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663245397
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Other books by B.J. Conner
Roses are Deceiving
Shades of Grey
Irish Legacy
Black Diamond Lavaliere
Dangerous Expectations
The Butcher, the Bake. The Candlestick Maker
Hawley Hill Manor
Deadly Connections
Cherry Street
B. J. Conner


CHERRY STREET
 
 
Copyright © 2022 B. J. Conner.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4538-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4539-7 (e)
 
 
 
 
iUniverse rev. date: 09/22/2022
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two

For my children: Angie, Scott, Megan and Gina
A special Thank You to my friend,
Carol Haller,
for all of her help.
Author’s Note
During the nineteenth century, my hometown of Evansville, Indiana was a bustling harbor town. Its rich history and historic buildings inspired me to choose it as the setting for this mystery. The Vieles, Williard Carpenter, Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon and the F. J. Reitz family were actual well-known people who lived in Evansville at that time. I took the liberty of adding a balcony to the Viele’s ballroom for storyline purposes. Celeste Carpenter is a fictional character and not a real relative of Wiliard Carpenter. All other characters and the storyline are purely fictional and any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. Historical information about Evansville and its residents in the late nineteenth century was obtained through research at Williard Library
Chapter One
T he afternoon sun barely penetrated the dense trees with only small shafts of light streaming thorough the dark grim woods. Tiny beads of perspiration surface on my forehead as the perpetual hum of insects drones in my ears. I detest walking through the woods. I am furious with Sarah for dragging Quinn and me along with her to Grandma Phoebe’s cabin. The dank smell of undergrowth is overwhelming, and the moss hanging in the trees seems to make it darker than usual, it only adds to my uneasiness. I hate the swamp. Sarah and Quinn rush ahead with no consideration for me. Try as I might, I cannot keep up with them instead I stumble in the twisted roots, which grow wildly on the floor of the woods. It is as if fingers are grabbing at my feet demanding to imprison me there on the foul smelling soil beneath my feet. It is nauseating.
“Sarah!” I call “Wait for me!”
“Come on, Rebecca!” She shouts back and continues on without hesitating. I can barely see her blonde curls bouncing as she steps lively through the woods. “We don’t have all day, slowpoke!” Her voice seems to be getting farther away and I was becoming weary of trying to keep up with them. Finally, they disappear out of my sight; I am alone. The sound of the locusts intensifies to an ear-piercing level, screeching a warning to go away. I place my hands over my ears to block out the sound and trudge on for I know that Sarah and Quinn would be waiting at the cabin. When I reach the rickety old hut, I do not pause and I pull hard to open the door, which is made out of uneven wooden planks that have turned gray with age. The rusty hinges creak with resistance as the door swings open. The smallest amount of light is seeping into the room, it serving only to limit my vision. Through the murky gloom I can see Sarah’s silhouette already seated at the small table across from Grandma Phoebe. Quinn is standing just inside the door. Grandma Phoebe glares at me as I enter; she jumps to her feet and pointing at me, she cackles like a hen, “Be wary girly for when darkness falls the wicked one will be waiting for you!” The sudden airlessness of the room seems to crush the breath out of me; I begin gasping for air as I scream and bolt straight up in my bed.
It was just a nightmare, the same nightmare that has plagued my sleep countless times in the past year, since a series of murderous attacks began. The newspaper has labeled the attacker the Cherry Street Strangler, three of the attacks occurred on, or near Cherry Street. The nightmares began just after the first young woman was killed. I sat on the side of my bed for several minutes just to allow my heartbeat to calm. I began thinking about everything that had happened to my family and me, since we came to Evansville. The nightmare reminded me of the morning I learned of my husband’s death.
That morning I awoke to rapping at our front door. I had noticed the dim glow of dawn creeping into the room through the cracks beneath the window blinds. I reached for my robe and assumed that my husband, Charles had forgotten his key. I descended the stairs and suddenly had a sense of dread, as if a premonition pervaded my spirit. I opened the door and peered out at the grave face of a police officer. Fear overtook my senses, instantly I knew that Charles was dead. James Weeden, Ross Macfaden and Charles’ closest acquaintance, John Michael Clark, stood solemnly on the steps behind the officer. The expressions on their faces only confirmed my suspicion. The uniformed officer standing before me introduced himself as Officer White. He spoke to me in a consoling tone, although his words could not penetrate the thick veil of numbness that had embraced me. I felt as if I might faint as the blood rushed from my head. I gasped for breath and wondered how I could survive having my heart plucked from my chest, in a flicker of a moment.
Officer White explained that Charles and his cronies had been out drinking and roaming along the flooded banks of the Ohio River. Charles had lost his footing, falling into the swift current of the river and was carried away. The others were too intoxicated to provide details of the accident.
After that day, I tried countless times to visualize the scene and each time speculated on what could have been done to change the outcome.
Charles’ body wasn’t recovered for more than a week later, long after the floodwater had receded. His funeral was a sobering affair for his friends. I cannot recall much of the experience, since my father insisted that I be sedated. However, I do remember the faces of the pallbearers as they carried the casket and placed it at the gravesite. John Michael, James Weeden, my brother-in-law Leo Johnson and the three Macfaden brothers, Ross, Raymond and Rudy. Their sorrowful expressions were apparent to everyone there, and I was profoundly moved by their overwhelming grief. Not long after that fatal night, Ross married his fiancée; Gloria Brentwood and John Michael left the city for parts unknown. James Weeden started spending quite a lot of his time with my sister, Quinn; he was her escort to many of the social events around town. Since Charles’ death James had stopped drinking.
I had no doubt that Grandma Phoebe would have warned me that my nightmares had only just begun, with the death of my husband, but Grandma Phoebe was in the Louisiana swamp; and we now lived near the Ohio River in Indiana. The life that we led in Louisiana seemed so far away, although I can remember vividly the day we arrived at the Evansville wharf.
It was in the late eighteen-eighties when my father, mother, my two sisters and I the youngest at fifteen, had traveled by steamboat up the Mississippi River to the Ohio River. It was an enormously pleasant trip for my sisters and me. It was particularly difficult for us to contain our excitement as we boarded the Amanda Bell at Natchez, Mississippi. My father, Doctor Edgar Morris Hall, was distinguished for his service to the poor in the South. He was appalled at the poverty, misery and disease that was still prevalent among the poor population, decades after the civil war. He was dedicated to serving the poverty-stricken, so it was quite rare for my parents to neglect their calling to attend a social function, especially one so far from home. Our arrival at Evansville’s cobblestone wharf, where the waterfront teemed with liveliness, was the highlight of our journey. Of course we had traveled through cities before, however we had never actually stayed in one for any length of time, so the thought of being a part of the city for at least a week delighted my sisters and me.
I became caught up in the enormous quantity of passengers and merchandise being brought ashore to the various stores and businesses that lined the riverfront.
Sarah quickly grabbed my arm and said, “There is no time to be dilly dallying here on the wharf,” she reminded me, in a sophisticated tone of voice. “We have come here for Cousin Ellen’s weddi