A Fright to the Death (15 page)

Wally rushed up to us as we exited the dining room. “Detective McKenzie! Detective Harris is on the phone—he needs to speak with you.”

Mac and I followed him to the front desk.

Wally silently handed the phone to Mac.

“Pete? What’s up?” Mac said.

Wally and I watched Mac as he listened.

“I’m not surprised. No, that’s fine. We’ll see what we can do from our end.”

Mac caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head.

“Okay. Yup. We’ll see.”

Mac hung up and Wally and I almost pounced on him.

“They can’t get through. The tree that came down took some power lines with it.” Mac grimaced. “I’m glad Kirk and I didn’t touch it or wander around too much in the vicinity.”

“So, are they going to clear the tree?” Wally asked.

Mac nodded once. “They have to get the power company
out to secure the lines and then they’ll have to cut the tree into pieces to move it. It might take a while. They’re dealing with power outages all across Southwestern Michigan.”

Wally left us in the reception area and went to herd the knitters into the lounge for the big reveal of more yarn bombing.

We sat on one of the comfy couches that graced the entryway. I looked out at the white landscape, the trees outlined in snow, and the drifts that had piled up outside. After a few minutes we heard them noisily make their way to the library.

I wondered how long we would be stuck here with our families and the progressively more anxious knitters. “What was your mother talking about?” I said.

“Nothing. We had a little argument last night.”

“What about?”

Mac sighed. “About you.”

I opened my mouth to speak and we heard a shriek from down the hall followed by screams and exclamations from multiple voices.

I got to the hallway before Mac and we both raced to the workshop room.

The knitters were crowded around a pile of yarn, talking and pointing and wringing their hands. Yarn and needles lay on the floor near the chairs as if they had all jumped up and flung their projects down. It must be something serious.

Isabel gestured at everyone to stand back.

“What’s going on?” I said over the noise.

Isabel pointed a shaky finger at a pile of yarn.

I stepped closer and saw what was causing the ruckus. A Maglite sat halfway buried by the yarn. A brownish-red substance covered the side and part of the bulb. Of course, without a crime lab, we couldn’t be sure, but I was convinced that this was the murder weapon.

Mac held his arm out to keep everyone back and knelt
down to examine the flashlight. He pulled out his cell phone and took a picture and then asked the knitters if anyone had a large paper bag. Isabel opened a box in the corner of the room and pulled out a folded shopping bag.

“Can I use one of these?” Mac asked, pointing to a box of zippered plastic freezer bags that sat on the coffee table. According to Vi, knitters stored projects in plastic bags to protect the yarn from dust and moths.

Isabel nodded and handed him the now open shopping bag.

Mac used the plastic bag as a glove and gingerly picked up the flashlight and yarn. He placed it in the paper sack, turned the plastic bag inside out and stuffed it in along the side of the paper one.

“We’ll need to keep the yarn for evidence,” Mac said.

“Evidence?” Isabel squeaked.

“It looks like you just found the murder weapon.”

A murmur went through the crowd, punctuated by Vi’s “I knew it!”

Selma covered her mouth, her eyes large. Mavis clutched Selma’s hand. Amy and Heather backed away from the bag of yarn while Vi and Mom stepped closer to it.

“At least the murderer hid it with the acrylic,” Tina said. “If they had put it in with the silk-mohair there might be another murder.”

Nervous chuckles spread among the group.

“How could this happen?” Selma asked. “I thought the room was locked up at night.” Her face was pale and I worried she might faint.

“Unless it was one of us,” Mavis said. She glowered at Vi and then turned angry eyes on Isabel.

“It doesn’t matter who it is!” Selma said. “We’re all stuck here with a murderer. We could all be dead by the end of the weekend just like that Agatha Christie story.”

Mom went to Selma and patted her on the back. She talked quietly to her and I saw Selma’s shoulders relax.

“
Was
the room locked?” I asked Isabel.

Isabel tore her gaze from Selma and looked at me. “I haven’t locked it the whole time we’ve been here.” Isabel held her hands out. “I didn’t see the point. We’re the only guests, and it’s not like there’s a black market for knitting supplies.”

The knitters murmured agreement and Mavis humphed.

“Clyde and I will take the light and yarn and store it in case we need to send it to a lab,” Mac said.

“
If
we ever get out of here,” Selma said.

“The snow will melt eventually,” Mom said in her “look at the bright side” voice. “In the meantime, we should enjoy the time we have to knit.” She went back to her seat and pointedly picked up her needles.

Mom was a professional worrier, but she also was great in a crisis. It was one of her many contradictions.

The rest of them also returned to their seats and rescued their projects from the floor.

Mac spoke quietly to Isabel, who nodded and darted glances at her group.

“Okay, ladies,” she began. “Let’s try to get back to work.” Her hands shook as she picked up her needles and yarn.

We left the workshop room with the offending flashlight and yarn. Mac gestured up the stairs.

“I want to put this somewhere safe,” he said.

We walked down the hallway to the room he shared with Lucille. He pulled the old-fashioned key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. I couldn’t remember the last time I used a key at a hotel. The sound of a real lock is more satisfying than the beeps of the key-card locks so many hotels use.

Mac swung the door wide and gestured inside. I stepped in and surveyed the room. It was decorated in light yellow
and green with dark wood twin beds flanking a large bureau. They also had a small sitting area near the window. Their room boasted a view out the side of the building and down the hill into the woods. I wandered to the windows while Mac rummaged in the closet with the wall safe.

I glanced at the small table between the chairs and caught my breath. A manila file folder sat on top of a knitting magazine. Stamped on the front was the seal of the Ann Arbor police department and my name was typed on the tab. The envelope with my name scrawled on it sat on top.

I took a deep breath and glanced at the closet. Mac was mumbling to himself about old safes. I flipped open the file and saw exactly what I was expecting—a report on the shooting that had occurred almost a year ago.

It had been the catalyst that sent me back to Crystal Haven. My partner and I had chased a suspect through backyards and eventually ended up in a cemetery. When the man had turned to face us, I was certain he held a gun. I didn’t actually
see
the gun. I
felt
the malicious intent with some other sense. I shot him, but aimed for his leg and he went down. That one decision had effectively ended my career, at least as far as I was concerned. If I was sure he was aiming a gun, I should have aimed for the largest target—his torso. In that situation the surest way to protect myself and my partner would not be to simply wound the gunman. However, he wasn’t holding a gun. I was thankful that I hadn’t killed him, but he would always walk with a limp and had to undergo surgery to repair his knee. He was only seventeen, not much older than Seth. The guilt from harming another person ate away at me and the knowledge that I couldn’t shoot to kill ate away at my reputation with the other officers.

I picked up the file and flipped through the pages. Interviews and witness accounts were followed by my report of the shooting. I flicked the folder shut and realized Mac was now quiet.

I turned and saw him looking at me with a mixture of concern and obstinacy. We had been over this ground before. But just before Christmas I thought I had finally convinced him that I didn’t want to pursue any more investigations into the shooting. Apparently Mac had other ideas.

“Clyde, let me explain,” he said. He took a step toward me.

I held up my hand. “There’s nothing to explain, Mac.” I dropped the file back on the table. “You’re checking up on me even after I asked you to let it go.”

“No, I wasn’t checking up on you.” He took another step forward and stopped when he met my gaze.

“Then what are you doing with the police report on the shooting?”

Mac sighed and looked away from me.

“I planned to talk to you about it while we were on vacation,” he said.

“Talk to me about what?”

“I think you’re being much too hard on yourself,” he said. “Your lieutenant says you won’t even consider his opinion that you acted well within the bounds of what would be expected—”

I stepped forward and held up my hand.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I completely misread the situation and shot an unarmed man. Nothing will change that fact.” I stopped and took a moment to control both my anger and my sadness.

“Clyde. You have to listen to me,” Mac said. He held his hands out in a pleading gesture. “You did what you were trained to do.”

“I need a few minutes, Mac.” I strode to the door and pulled it open. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

I went straight to my room, figuring I could grab a few minutes to calm down and get some perspective. Mac and I had covered this ground before. He felt I was overreacting and that all police officers face this kind of guilt along the line. He also didn’t want me to throw away my career at such an early point.

We frequently found ourselves at an impasse, and my reluctance to name another career seemed to prove Mac’s point that I needed to return to my job in order to be happy. I knew that I was dragging my heels and was grateful that my financial situation allowed me the time and space to figure things out. I needed to decide what to do with my life now that I had stopped running from who I was. But I wasn’t ready to share all of that with Mac yet and so he didn’t understand my reluctance to return to my old job.

I shook my head to clear it as I turned to shut the door behind me.

“Oh! I didn’t expect you,” Vi said from the couch by the window.

I’m embarrassed to say I actually jumped at the sound of her voice. I had been so intent on my own thoughts I didn’t see her sitting there in her multicolored array of shawls.

“Vi,” I said, “I thought you were at the workshop.”

She shook her head. “I needed a break from the knitting.” She said this while clicking her needles along a sage green scarf.

I cocked an eyebrow. “I see.”

She glanced at her hands and snorted. “Not that kind of a break. The gang couldn’t stop chattering about the blood-covered flashlight. Selma has them all thinking they’ll be murdered in their beds. I needed to think.”

“Me, too.” I sat on my bed and stared at the whiteness outside.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I’ve been hoping we could go over the case together.”

“I really—”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she said and held one hand up to stop me. “You want me to just sit back and let you and Mac have all the fun.”

“I hardly think of trying to solve a murder as fun. Especially when the murderer is likely having dinner with us every night,” I said stiffly and again wondered how Vi always managed to make me feel like the older, more mature person in the room.

“Okay, you keep telling yourself that,” she said and went back to her knitting.

“What are you talking about?” She was irking me despite my intention to remain calm.

“I mean you’re made for this kind of thing.” She set her project down and turned to face me. “You loved working
cases when you were a police officer and you’ve loved solving the murders in Crystal Haven this past year.”

Great. Another person trying to push me toward a calling that wasn’t mine.

“I don’t want to go back to police work, Vi.”

“Who said anything about the police?”

My head snapped up and I narrowed my eyes at her. “You just did. I can see right through you. You want me to join the Crystal Haven police force, and move back home for good.”

Vi came to sit with me on the bed. She put her arm around my shoulders.

“I do want you to move home for good, but I think you’d lose your mind if you joined the Crystal Haven police. You’d have to work with li’l Tom Andrews and take orders from Mac whenever anything interesting happened.”

Tom was a junior officer on the force, but Vi still saw him as the twelve-year-old neighborhood hooligan—her words. And Mac’s job as a homicide detective meant he took the case whenever there was a murder in Ottawa County.

I laughed and turned toward her. “Then what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you and me. We should open our own business.”

My mother and Vi had been nagging me to join the family business for years. They each had a psychic niche—Vi as a pet psychic and Mom as a tarot reader—but felt they could build an empire if I joined them and used my premonitions and touch sensitivity to tell clients their future, help them find lost objects, or warn them of doom.

I shook my head and stood up to get away from her.

“We’ve covered this, Vi,” I said. “I’m not interested in a psychic career.”

She sniffed and looked away from me. “I gave that up a long time ago.”

“What? You did?”

“Of course,” she said. “You made it very clear how you felt and these past few months I noticed that you only really seem satisfied when you have a puzzle to solve. Psychics don’t tend to solve puzzles.”

“So, what are you suggesting?”

“Well, I don’t want you to become a fortune teller, but if you use your gifts and your police training you could help a lot of people.” She paused and held my gaze. “I think we should open a detective agency—together.”

I laughed, so glad to realize she was just trying to cheer me up.

“That’s a good one,” I said, still giggling. “I needed a good laugh—thanks, Vi.”

Her face turned stony.

“I’m not joking.”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

Vi took a step toward me. “Think of it, Clyde. It would be great. You could help people find things they’ve lost, and solve mysterious disappearances. And I could deal with any strange psychic events. Plus, I’m going to learn more about ghost hunting.”

I shook my head and backed away from her.

“With my ability to interview animals, and your multiple abilities to see the future and find things, we’d be great together. Your mom said she’d pitch in with tarot if we need it.”

“Mom is in on this as well?”

“Yeah, we all think it’s a great idea.”

“Who thinks it’s a great idea?”

“Me, Rose, Lucille, and your father.”

“You’ve all discussed this? Dad would never think it’s a good idea. And what about Seth? Does he know?”

Vi shook her head. “We couldn’t risk telling Seth—he can’t keep a secret.”

I took a deep breath. If Vi only knew about the secrets Seth could keep.

“And why are you discussing this with Lucille?”

Vi looked down and hung her head. “That was an accident. Your Mom slipped up and mentioned it. Lucille thinks Mac is worried you might move away when your year is up.”

“Wait, what?” Mac thought I was going to leave? Now I was less concerned about the detective agency and more concerned about my mother and Lucille discussing my life.

“We all want you to be happy and to stay in Crystal Haven.” She stood up to pace and gesture wildly to make her point. “I think this would solve everything.”

“And all of you have
decided
this is a great idea?” As usual, Vi ignored my threatening tone.

She nodded and grinned. “They see what you’re good at and know we’d make a great team. C’mon, it’ll be great!”

“No offense, Vi, but you don’t know anything about solving murders.” I turned away from her.

“I think I’ve done a good job so far when it comes to asking the right people the right questions. I could figure it out. You aren’t the only one with a deductive mind.”

I snorted and sounded like Vi. Then I sighed. Everyone had ideas on how I should live my life.

Vi and I could argue about this until the next winter, but I didn’t have the mental energy to keep fighting her. And yet, I needed some space, so I told her what I knew she wanted to hear. “Let me think about it.”

She shook her head. “No. I know what that means,” she said. “You’ll just keep putting me off, hoping I’ll give up.”

Damn, I hated it when she did that.

I opened my mouth to respond, but she wasn’t finished.

“I have a deal for you,” she said.

This was classic Vi. With nothing resembling a winning hand, she would continue to up the ante.

“Okay, let’s hear it.” I crossed my arms.

“Let’s have a contest,” she said. “If I solve this murder before you do, you’ll give the business a try for one year.” She held up one knobby finger. “If you solve it before me, and without any help from me, I’ll let this drop.”

“You’ll move on with no more sneaky plans to get me to change my mind?”

“Correct. If you solve it first, you’re free to make your own plans.”

I chose not to point out that I was
already
free to make my own plans without her blessing. This was going to be interesting. At the very least, it would leave Mac and me to investigate on our own. Vi would have to gather her own information and wouldn’t be badgering us. I wondered what Mac would think of it. I didn’t know if he would love it or hate it. However, if I lost the bet, Mac wouldn’t have to worry that I would leave Crystal Haven anytime soon. I was almost willing to just agree to work with Vi for a year to get Mac to back off on the police idea. And to reassure him that I was sticking around.

“Okay, Vi, you’ve got a deal.”

She grinned.

I stuck out my hand and we shook on it.