Life Eludes Him by Jennifer Suits Read Free Book Online

Chapter One
     
     
    As a professional property assessor, I took the job of the West Creek Manor case; I received orders to appraise the property up for sale for a construction company. This company wanted to buy the land, tear down the mansion and pour pavement for future commercial development. I lived in the states several years ago, but moved to Ireland for its majestic beauty.
    Four hundred miles away from the city, I rented a small loft at an apartment complex and decided to stay for vacation after I completed my work at the property. Having no historic background on the location I would be investigating, I researched the local library, scanned through the internet and asked the locals about the manor.
    The nearby town was a quaint little settlement. The buildings were small and placed close to each other. The people were initially kind and generous, giving me a set of keys to the manor and its neighboring buildings, spoiling me with the area’s history when I asked and allowing me free reign of their resources.
    Most of the responses I received from them were that they rarely heard anything from the place. It was rundown and dilapidated, and it needed tearing down long ago because of its structural instability.
    When asked about their personal experiences with the manor, they could not deliver anything they knew factually. Feeling uneasy with the mixed results, but not really surprised, I planned an initial outside exam the following day.
    The research materials I looked over covered around two hundred years of history, most of which involved several owners that occupied the residence and left within a year’s time. Most accounts from the previous inhabitants came up with stories of ghostly encounters, hallucinations and ethereal dream-like accounts.
     
    The next morning, I rose from bed, showered, dressed and left the apartment. On the way to the outskirts of town, I noted the unusually sunny day for this area. Close to the coast, in the summer months, the weather was usually overcast, with fog rolling in from the ocean.
    Past a large lot of woods to the right, I noticed a tall tower peeking over the tree line, centered within the property’s perimeter. A small, overgrown dirt road appeared through a small gap of protruding branches.
    Quickly braking, I turned my vehicle into the woods and slowly followed the rough, uneven path to the aged, locked gate.
    Upon first examination, I noted the weatherworn mansion through the bars. Its walls were several shades of gray, lighter on the outside of the stones, darker within their cracks.
    The overgrown path wound tightly around a semi-worn statue of a pan pipe-playing court minstrel. Windows of stained glass, some boarded up, lined the upper walls.
    The trees and bushes had overgrown in the area, making it difficult to imagine what it would have looked like in its prime days, but with some thought about its layout and structure, it came together as one beautiful residence to dwell within and hold social gatherings.
    I left my car and walked toward the entrance, rustling with the keys until I found the correct one for the gate, which opened stiffly. I returned to my car and drove onto the property—where I heard an unexpected sound.
    Locking my vehicle, I spun around to scan the woods near the house for anything that might have caused a small branch to snap. With alert-driven haste, I shuffled to the front door.
    A simple padlock had held its security. I fumbled through the keys until I found a match and labeled it with a permanent marker. I decided that today was going to be outside assessments and tomorrow would be the inside examination.
    Heading around the left side of the main, large mansion, I carefully treaded through the brush to a small, carved, marble bench in an overgrown garden of weeds and pavement. When it was manicured at one time, the garden had a concrete pathway curving throughout and heading to a small shed-like building about fifty feet away. The