(4/10) The Julius House Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  Don’t miss any of the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries

  Praise for The Julius House

  "Roe is so charming, you will want to go back and read the first three.” —Mostly Murder

  "A witche’s brew of decorous old bones, whiffs of international intrigue, and helpful wedding tips interspersed with nightly bouts of tasteful, enthusiastic offscreen coupling. Hands down Roe’s most bizarre adventure to date.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Good reading, augmented by solid characterization and occasional humor.” —Library Journal

  Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

  “[A] high-spirited southern cozy.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Nicely done southern, small-town ambience . . . [A] breezy, unpretentious style.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Delightful . . . Clearly focused plot, animated description of character and real estate, and sparkling prose commend this breath of fresh air to all collections.”

  —Library Journal

  A Bone to Pick

  “Harris provides some genuinely funny scenes as Aurora breezily unravels the murderer’s identity . . . supported by an appealing cast of southern gothic characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A pleasant, fast read . . . Enjoyable.” —AllReaders.com

  “Entertaining.” —Booklist

  “Pleasant reading . . . Heartily recommend[ed].”

  —Pen & Dagger

  Real Murders

  “Real Murders is the first adventure for Harris’s perceptive protagonist and I eagerly look forward to the second . . . Harris’s story alternately charms and chills, a difficult combination she manages with aplomb and brilliance.”

  —Carolyn Hart, award-winning author of Set Sail for Murder

  “An ingenious plot and sufficient flow of blood keep the pages flying in Harris’s novel . . . Harris draws the guilty and the innocent into an engrossing tale while inventing a heroine as capable and potentially complex as P.D. James’s Cordelia Gray.” —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Charlaine Harris’s

  Southern Vampire novels featuring Sookie Stackhouse

  “The goofy charm of Harris’s world, with its humor and occasional terror, is what makes Dead Until Dark so delightful.” —The Denver Post

  “Harris brings off this blend of mystery and vampires better than most.” —San Francisco Chronicle

  “A fun, fast, funny, and wonderfully intriguing blend of vampire and mystery that’s hard to put down and should not be missed.”

  —Susan Sizemore, New York Times bestselling author of Primal Heat and the Laws of the Blood series

  Praise for Charlaine Harris’s Harper Connelly Mysteries

  "Too much fun.” —Wilmington (NC) Star-News

  "Harris debuts a series that just might surpass all her others in popularity . . . Will have readers dying for more.”

  —Booklist

  “Fast pacing, excellent character development, and a strong story line . . . This fabulous opening gambit affirms that every series Charlaine Harris creates is utterly fantastic.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Praise for Charlaine Harris’s Lily Bard Mysteries

  “Lily Bard [is] the equal of Kay Scarpetta, Kinsey Mill-hone, and V. I. Warshawski.” —Library Journal

  “First-rate mystery.” —Midwest Book Review

  “Lily Bard gives as good as she gets. The reading is fast and the action’s faster, proving that women really are the better half.” —Mostly Murder

  “One of the best-drawn and most compelling characters in contemporary mystery fiction—complex, smart, street-wise, tough.” —Booklist

  Praise for A Secret Rage

  "Compelling... Powerful.” —The Boston Globe

  "Not many novels, and no mysteries, have shaken me as brutally as A Secret Rage.” —Los Angeles Times

  “Absorbing tension . . . Effective crime fiction.”

  —Booklist

  “A thriller built on a vital issue . . . Riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Sweet and Deadly

  “A first-rate mystery with special character . . . As convincing as it is surprising in the final revelation.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Harris writes neatly and with assurance, and she avoids the goo that makes equivalent books so sticky.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Packs a perennial punch. It offers a rarity in popular fiction: an unromanticized portrait of a southern girl.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  Ace Books by Charlaine Harris

  The Sookie Stackhouse Novels

  DEAD UNTIL DARK

  LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS

  CLUB DEAD

  DEAD TO THE WORLD

  DEAD AS A DOORNAIL

  DEFINITELY DEAD

  ALL TOGETHER DEAD

  FROM DEAD TO WORSE

  MANY BLOODY RETURNS

  edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner

  Berkley Prime Crime Books by Charlaine Harris

  The Harper Connelly Mysteries

  GRAVE SIGHT

  GRAVE SURPRISE

  AN ICE COLD GRAVE

  The Lily Bard Mysteries

  SHAKESPEARE’S LANDLORD

  SHAKESPEARE’S CHAMPION

  SHAKESPEARE’S TROLLOP

  SHAKESPEARE’S COUNSELOR

  The Aurora Teagarden Mysteries

  REAL MURDERS

  A BONE TO PICK

  THREE BEDROOMS, ONE CORPSE

  THE JULIUS HOUSE

  SWEET AND DEADLY

  A SECRET RAGE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for aut
hor or third-party websites or their content.

  THE JULIUS HOUSE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1995 by Charlaine Harris.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-22111-5

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  My thanks to

  the Reverend Gary Nowlin,

  attorney Mike Epley,

  Arkansas state park ranger Jim Gann,

  chemist Glenn McCelland,

  Dennis of the Georgia State Forensic Department,

  and Dr. Aung Than

  for their help with various parts of this book.

  Mistakes are my own, not theirs.

  Chapter One

  The Julius family vanished six years before I married Martin Bartell.

  They disappeared so abruptly that some people in Lawrenceton phoned the National Enquirer to tell a reporter that the Juliuses had been abducted by aliens.

  I had been home from college for several years and was working in the Lawrenceton Public Library when— whatever it was—happened to T.C., Hope, and Charity Julius. And I was as full of speculation as anyone else.

  But as time went by with no trace of the Julius family, I forgot to wonder about them, except for an occasional frisson of creepiness when the name “Julius” came into a conversation.

  Then Martin gave me their house as a wedding present.

  To say I was surprised to get a house is an understatement: “stunned” is more accurate. We did want to buy a house, and we had been looking at fancier homes firmly anchored in the newer suburbs of Lawrenceton, an old southern town that itself is actually in the regrettable process of becoming a commuter suburb of Atlanta. Most of the houses we’d been considering were large, with several big rooms suitable for entertainment; too big for a couple with no children, in my opinion. But Martin had this streak that yearned for the outer signs of financial health. He drove a Mercedes, for example, and he wanted our house to be a house where a Mercedes would look at home.

  We’d looked at the Julius house because I’d made a point of telling my friend and Realtor Eileen Norris to put it on the list. I’d seen it when I was searching for a house for myself alone.

  But Martin hadn’t loved the Julius house instantly, as I had. In fact, I could tell he found my affection for the house strange. His arched dark eyebrows rose, the pale brown eyes regarded me questioningly.

  “It’s a little isolated,” he said.

  “Just a mile out of town. I can almost see my mother’s house from here.”

  “It’s smaller than the house on Cherry Lane.”

  “I could take care of it myself.”

  “You don’t want a maid?”

  “Why would I?” I don’t have anything else to do, I added privately. (And that was not Martin’s fault, but my own. I’d quit my job at the Lawrenceton library before I’d even met him, and as time went on, I regretted it more and more.)

  “There’s that apartment over the garage. Would you want to rent it out?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And the garage being separate from the house . . .”

  “There’s a covered walkway.”

  Eileen tactfully poked around elsewhere while Martin and I conducted this little dialogue.

  “You do wonder what happened to them,” Eileen said later, as she locked the door behind her and dropped the labeled key into her purse.

  And Martin looked at me with a sudden illumination in his eyes.

  So that’s why, when we exchanged wedding gifts, I was stunned at his handing me the deed to the Julius house.

  And he was equally bowled over by my gift. I’d been amazingly clever.

  I’d given him real estate, too. Choosing Martin’s present had been terrifying. The

  plain fact was we didn’t know each other that well, and we were very different. What could I give him? Had he ever expressed a want?

  I sat in my brown suede-y chair in the “family” room of the town house I’d lived in for years now and cast my thoughts around frantically trying to think of the perfect gift. I had no idea what his previous wife had given him, but I was determined this present would be more meaningful. Madeleine the cat spilled over from my lap to the cushion, her heavy warm mass moving slightly with her purring. Madeleine seemed to know when I began thinking she was more trouble than she was worth, and she would make some demonstration of an affection I was sure was false. Madeleine had been Jane Engle’s cat, and my spinster friend Jane had died and left me a fortune, so I suppose Madeleine reminded me of good things—friendship and money.

  Thinking of Jane led me to think of the fact that I’d wrapped up the sale of her house, so now I had even more money. I began thinking of real estate in general— and suddenly, I knew what Martin wanted.

  Sophisticated corporation man Martin was from rural Ohio, oddly enough. The only obvious tie-in this had with his present life was that he now worked for Pan-Am Agra, manufacturing farming products in conjunction with some of the more agricultural Latin American countries, principally Guatemala and Brazil. Martin’s father had died early in Martin’s life, and his mother had remarried. Martin and his sister Barby had never gotten along with husband number two, Joseph Flocken, particularly after the death of Martin’s mother. Martin had told me bitterly that the farm was falling to ruin because the stepfather was too consumed with arthritis to work it, yet he wouldn’t sell, to spite Martin and his sister.

  By golly, I’d buy the farm for him.

  The tricky part had been thinking of a good reason to be absent from town for a few days. I’d finally told Martin I was going to visit my best friend Amina, now living in Houston and into the second trimester of her pregnancy. I phoned Amina and asked her if she and Hugh would mind letting their answering machine screen their calls for a few days. I’d call her every night and if Martin had called me, I could call him back from Ohio. Amina thought my idea was very romantic, and reminded me she’d be driving over to Lawrenceton soon, with her husband, Hugh, for the festivities preceding the wedding and the wedding itself. “I can hardly wait to meet Martin,” she said happily.

  “Don’t turn on your charm for him, now,” I said cheerfully, and suddenly became aware I meant it. I felt quite savage when I thought about Martin being charmed by another woman.

  “How charming can I be?” Amina shrieked. “I’m poking out to China, honey!”

  I figured Amina probably had a slight convex curve to her tummy.

  We closed with our usual chatter, but my jealous reaction gave me thinking material for that flight to Pittsburgh (the nearest airport), and on the drive west in the rental car to the town nearest Martin’s family’s farm. This town, Corinth, a little smaller than Lawrenceton, boasted a Holiday Inn where I’d reserved a room, not being sure what else I’d find.

  You have to understand, for me this was an exotic adventure. Though I told myself repeatedly that other people traveled by themselves to unfamiliar places all the time, I was highly nervous. I’d studied the map repeatedly during the plane trip, I’d sat in the airport parking lot anxiously checking over the Ford Taurus I’d rented, I’d marveled over the fact
that no one in the world knew exactly where I was.

  My first impression of Corinth, Ohio, was of how familiar it seemed. True, the land configuration was slightly different, and the people dressed a little differently, and maybe the prevailing architecture was more heavily red brick, more often two-story . . . but this was a small farming center grouped around a downtown with inadequate parking space, and there were plenty of John Deere tractors in the big sales lot right outside town.

  I checked in to the Holiday Inn and called a Realtor. There were only three listed; Corinth was modest about its salability. The company that advertised specializing in farms (“agricultural acreage”) was Bishop Realty. I hesitated, my hand actually on the receiver. I was about to do some lying, and I wasn’t used to it.

  “Bishop Realty, Mrs. Mary Anne Bishop speaking,” said a brisk voice.

  “This is Aurora Teagarden,” I said clearly, and waited for the snicker. It was more like a snort. “I want to look at some farms in the area, specifically ones that are not in the best shape. I want somewhere pretty isolated.”

  Mary Anne Bishop digested this in thoughtful silence.

  “What size property did you want to see?” she asked finally.

  “Not too big,” I said vaguely, since I hadn’t wriggled that information out of Martin.

  “I could line some things up for you to see tomorrow morning,” Mrs. Bishop said. She sounded rather cautious about it. “If you could tell me—are you actually planning to farm the land? If I knew what you intended to do with it, maybe I could select properties to show you . . . that would suit you better.” She was trying awfully hard not to sound nosy.

  I closed my eyes and drew a breath, glad she couldn’t see me.

  “I represent a small but growing religious community, ” I said. “We want a property that we can repair ourselves, and modify to suit our needs. We’ll be doing some farming, but mostly we want the extra land for privacy.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Bishop said, “you’re not Moonies, are you? Or those Druvidians?”

  Druids? Branch Davidians?

  “Gosh, no,” I said firmly. “We’re Christian pacifists. We don’t believe in drinking or smoking. We don’t dress funny, or ask for donations on street corners, or preach in the stores, or anything!”