Page 39 of All You Want
Of all the rooms and stories, Ma Belle’s is my least favorite. Her real name was Belle Marie Andre, and she was either French or pretended to be French. Back in the mining days, the French were looked up to and charged extra for anything Frenchified, including French prostitutes who got the top billing.
Belle Marie, apparently, served tea to her johns, and well, let’s just say, I don’t particularly like tea parties, especially haunted ones.
“That leaves the Weeping Widow’s Walkway for me, unless someone books it last minute.” I twirl the mouse wheel to scroll through my reservation list. “I was hoping the Jewells would come grand opening night, but they said they’d show up later. Guess I can test the widow’s walk haunt effects and see how it feels.”
The Jewells, Dave and Jen, were hugely successful tech entrepreneurs who owned the online shopping giant, Mississippi.com. Getting them to invest in my ventures is the big buzzing bee in my bonnet.
“The widow’s weeping is super creepy.” Molly’s smile is sly. “Let me know who your date is, so the widow can call him by name.”
“Sorry, no date for me.” My phone rings, saving me from being probed on my nonexistent love life. “Hello? This is Tami King. How may I help you?”
“It’s Ms. Van Dirk,” a rough, female voice rasps through my eardrum. “The Bee Sting Bordello belongs to me, and I can prove it.”
Diana Van Dirk lives by herself next to the old sawmill her family used to run, quite lucratively in the heyday of the gold rush.
Lumber was used to build the flumes that redirected water to wash gold out of the veins in the mountains. Wood was burned in the forges to temper the steel used to make the drills and more wood burned to power the drilling, crushing, and extraction of gold ore. Soon, the rich forests were denuded, streams diverted, and waste gravel and rock piled up in the gulches.
Most of the miners moved on to the Comstock Lode in Nevada, leaving a few Van Dirks scrabbling for a living in these hills. The only ones I know are Diana, a physical education teacher, and her nephew, Dillon, a mechanic who works at the gas station.
“We’ve been through this before.” I firm up my voice. “The title was clear, and I bought the property fair and square.”
“I can prove it once I get the original deed. My grandmother had it in her trunk, but I’m betting it’s in the walls of the Bee Sting somewhere. Did your workers find it?”
“It doesn’t matter if they did. Your grandmother failed to pay property taxes, and she mortgaged it to the hilt.”
“But it was always mine!” Diana’s voice hisses through her teeth. “Grandma promised it to me.”
“Judge Stevens already explained it to you.” My voice seethes, but I try to remain patient. “When your grandma passed, she owed so much on the property, which had fallen into disrepair and was condemned, I might add, that the bank ended up owning it.”
“It’s still mine, and I’m going to get it back from you land thieves. You Kings think if you own the bank, you get to take everything.”
“We buy it in the bankruptcy auction fair and square, pay the back taxes and liens. If you wanted it so much, why didn’t you bid in the auction? Everyone had a shot at it. You only want it now because I put money into it and fixed it up.”
“Why should I pay for what is mine?” The woman is like a looping earworm, or as my mom would say, a broken record. “Your efforts are doomed to fail without my blessing.”
Like any small town, we have our share of characters, and Diana Van Dirk is always inserting herself and her pronouncements of doom and gloom over every new development. She never lifted a finger to improve Colson’s Corner through the recession years, and now that we have a mini-boom in business, she throws ice water over every new venture.
“Ms. Van Dirk, you could have gotten the bordello ruins for a song before I was ever born, but no one wanted to take on the property until I got the zoning laws changed, the permits approved, and put in the money to renovate. However you feel about this, the hotel is legally mine, and I’m the one who invested to make it a going concern.”
“This is your last warning.” Diana Van Dirk lowers her voice into a rough whisper. “There’s blood in the Bee Sting, and only a Van Dirk can keep tragedy from boiling over.”
“What are you suggesting?” I quell the rising of my heart rate. She’s only trying to scare me, as if I don’t have enough jitters already. “Is it a job you want?”
“Heavens no. Why should I work at the Bee Sting when it belongs to my blood? I can be a reasonable woman,” Diana intones in a solemn tone, the kind a soothsayer would use to add gravity to a spell.
My hackles rise, knowing she’s going to make another one of her unreasonable demands. She once asked me to sell her the property for a literal song—one Madame Goldilocks used to sing to keep her soiled doves from flying the coop.
“I’m very busy right now. Have tons of things to do to get ready for the grand opening.” My finger pauses on top of the phone cradle.
“You need me to sprinkle ashes over the threshold and scatter rose petals over the beds to keep the ghosts quiet. I’m warning you, when the bordello opens, I need to be staying in Madam Goldilocks’s Boudoir, or tragedy will sting everyone under my roof.”
“Are you saying you want a free stay during the grand opening?” I wonder if she can be so easily mollified. Maybe all she wants is attention.
“Not only the grand opening, Miss King, but forever. The Bee Sting is mine, and I will rule all the spirits again from my boudoir.” Diana Van Dirk’s voice is so loud Molly looks up from her mouse-clicking.
“I’m afraid the room is already booked,” I stammer, knowing my parents will be disappointed. My mother’s favorite bedtime story isThe Three Bears, and I had specially commissioned a painting of Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Little Girl Bear to vaguely resemble the three of us.
“I guarantee you whoever dares stay in my room will be sorry,” Diana says in a creepy voice. “I am the one who is the true Goldilocks, not you.”
