A Fright to the Death (9 page)

“Unless the killer did this to make it look like she was a slob,” Vi said.

She was examining a tall bookcase that sat on the wall opposite the door. It was built in and a different style from the white bed and dresser. Its dark wood and intricate scrollwork made me think it was probably original to the room.

Vi ran her hand over the carvings, while Mac’s lips pressed into a white line. She was ignoring the “no touching” rule.

“Hey,” Vi said. She pushed her finger against one of the scrolls and the bookcase swung away from her like a door.

“What did you do?” Mac said and took three strides over to where she stood gaping at the dark passage that had appeared out of nowhere.

I hung back, half expecting a mummy to lurch out at us, shredded linen dragging.

“I just pushed this little button thingy,” she said. “It looked different from the other ones.” She pointed to a small round carving in the center of a scroll. It looked the same to me, except it stuck out just a touch more.

We peeked into the opening and saw only darkness.

“Is it storage? Or another closet?” I said. “Didn’t women have huge dresses back then? Maybe this is some kind of cedar closet.”

Mac turned the flashlight on and shone it into the void. A few feet from the opening, the floor dropped off. He stepped forward and his light bounced off the walls, finally resting on a set of steep steps.

Vi said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Of
course,
the castle has a secret passageway. And, of course, Vi would be the one to find it. I peered into the dark. After the first five steps, there was only inky black. I took the flashlight and shone it up toward the ceiling, where heavy cobwebs hung in the corners as if the stairs had not been used in decades.

Vi charged ahead and motioned for Mac to follow.

“Wait, Vi,” I said and grabbed her arm. “We don’t know where it leads and there’s no light.”

She shrugged off my hand and turned toward me. “How are we going to know where it leads unless we go down those steps?” She put her hands on her hips and looked at Mac for backup. “The flashlight is bright enough to show us the stairs.”

I knew she was right. We’d been assuming the killer could only come in through the one door, but if this stairway led to another room, then maybe more people had access than we thought.

I felt my shoulders slump. “Okay, but let Mac go first, Vi. I don’t want you breaking a hip.”

Vi gestured for Mac to lead the way.

We carefully descended the staircase following Mac’s flashlight beam. It only illuminated as far as the next few steps. For all we knew, the stairs could dead-end or drop off into a crumbling pit. I kept one hand on the stone wall for balance and one hand on Vi’s elbow. It was slow going and the skittering of creatures in the dark didn’t add to the enjoyment. I sent up a request to the universe that Mac’s light wouldn’t fail.

Finally, we came to a wooden door. I was certain it would be locked and we’d have to turn around and make our way back up in the gloom. Mac tried the handle and it turned. He gave the door a gentle shove and we peeked out into the hallway that Wally had said contained offices and the back entrance to the kitchen. It was empty, but we heard René and Emmett in the kitchen. The three of us looked at one another in various states of surprise. The door was one of several in the hallway. There was a sign affixed to it on the hallway side:
STORAGE—STAFF ONLY
. This opened up a whole new avenue of investigation.

“I knew it!” Vi said. “It’s the chef. He did it.”

I chose not to mention her last suspect had been the maintenance guy and we hadn’t even interviewed him yet.

“Why would René want to kill Clarissa?” I said.

“I don’t know yet, but he has a back entrance to her room. That’s pretty suspicious.”

“It
is
pretty suspicious,” Mac said. “Mostly it’s suspicious because the staff and the family must have known this staircase is here, but none of them chose to tell us.”

“Staff and any curious guests might be aware of the staircase,” I said. “It’s not locked on either side.”

Mac nodded. “Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can talk in private.”

Vi insisted we return to “our” room. Mac’s look of dismay made it clear he had meant that he wanted to talk to
me
in private, not Vi.

“Should I get Rose and Lucille?” Vi asked. “Wally might be helpful, too.”

Mac opened his mouth to speak, but Vi held up her hand.

“He knows lots of stuff about this place, you just have to ask the right questions with him,” Vi said in a lecture-y tone. “There’s no way he could be the killer because he was with us from the time Clarissa left until Linda found her.” Vi rummaged in her purse and pulled out a small black notebook that looked remarkably similar to the one Mac carries. She flipped it open and began writing a note while we walked along the back hallway toward the stairs.

“What’s that you’re writing, Vi?” I said.

“I just don’t want to forget anything. You never know what will be important to an investigation.”

“Ms. Greer, you aren’t investigating anything. Clyde and I will figure this out.”

Vi’s mouth turned down. I could tell by the softening of his expression that Mac interpreted this as sadness.
I
knew it was her stubborn streak expressing itself.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you—” Mac began.

Vi cut him off by saying, “I understand. You haven’t worked with us before so you probably don’t know what a great team we make. But Clyde and I have done some good work in the past when we had murders to solve.” She elbowed me in the ribs. “Tell him, Clyde.”

Mac turned his incredulous face in my direction.

I couldn’t look him in the eye, so I addressed his snowman.

“Actually, Mac, they do sometimes have some good ideas, and they have helped me in the past.”

“In the past? You mean the times you took it upon yourself to solve a murder and almost got yourself killed, not once, but twice?
Those
times?” Mac’s face had turned stony and red. It was as if he didn’t know whether to be outraged or terrified.

I lowered my voice and leaned closer to Mac.

“It’s easier than fighting it.”

Mac took a deep breath and let it out.

“Okay, go get Wally and Rose,” Mac said to Vi. “But leave my mother out of it.”

Mac took my hand and stormed up the stairs toward my room.

“I’ll be right there! Don’t say anything until I get back,” Vi said, and scurried off toward the front desk.

Mac dragged me to the room and waited while I pulled out my key. He closed the door quietly behind us and took a moment before he turned around.

“I don’t like the idea of getting civilians involved in a murder investigation,” he said to the door.

“I know, Mac, but honestly, we can’t stop them from talking about it and throwing around ideas. I think it’s better if they think they’re part of the action. Otherwise, they’ll go around talking to everyone and we won’t be able to keep any information to ourselves.” I put my hand on his shoulder to turn him around. “This way we have some control over them. Plus, technically, we’re
all
civilians in this case.”

Mac nodded. “I get it. Wally might actually be helpful anyway. He’s in a unique position—we know he’s not guilty and he knows all the suspects better than we do.”

“Besides, if we hadn’t come here, Vi would probably be in charge of the investigation all by herself,” I said.

Mac shuddered and held his hands up. “Okay, okay. You’re always looking on the bright side, aren’t you?”

I smiled at him, glad he wasn’t going to fight Vi on this. Arguing with Vi was always a losing proposition.

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into an embrace. “This is not the way I planned on spending our first full day of vacation,” he said into my hair.

“Oh, what did you have planned?” I asked and moved a little closer.

“First, breakfast on a balcony looking out over the ocean.” He tightened his hold and kissed me. “Then, maybe a stroll on the beach. Followed by—”

The doorknob rattled and we sprung apart.

“Here we are!” Vi announced as the door opened.

Mom came in first, followed by a nervous-looking Wally and then Vi.

Vi was breathing heavily. “They weren’t in the lounge, so I had to track them down in the library. Good thing Rose was looking at the door when I cracked it open,” Vi said. “Lucille was focused on her cables so I gave Rose the special signal and she snuck out without anyone noticing.” Vi turned to Wally and said, “Detective McKenzie doesn’t want his mother mucking around in the investigation. She doesn’t have any experience in this sort of thing.”

Mom cleared her cards off the coffee table and we sat by the window.

“Rose, you won’t believe what we just found!” Vi said.

Mac cleared his throat to interrupt her. She glanced at him and miraculously fell silent.

“Wally, do you know anything about a back staircase that leads to the kitchen from the turret room?” Mac asked.

Everyone looked at Wally, who turned bright red.

He nodded. “Yes, I know of it. I’ve never used that staircase. It was put in when the house was built. Ada Carlisle liked to cook even though in those days, everyone had
servants and it was considered unladylike to be involved in the household duties.”

Wally stopped and looked at us.

Vi crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him.

“Once they moved in and she was so sick, her maid used it to get her meals and tea from the kitchen without going all the way through the house,” Wally said. “I think it had been closed up for a while after she died. But the family knew about it. I only found out when Ms. Carlisle moved into the turret room because she said she wanted Gus, the maintenance guy, to check it out and be sure the staircase was still safe.”

I watched Vi carefully. Her gaze kept straying to the velvet bag that held her pendulum. Mom gripped her tarot deck and I could tell it was all she could do to refrain from laying them on the table. My family liked to get a small amount of information from humans and then consult the oracles. I shook my head at both of them. If they started pulling out their psychic solutions, Mac would never confide in them again.

“Do you know if anyone has been using it?” Mac asked.

Wally’s face went blank and he wouldn’t meet Mac’s eyes. He shook his head. “Not that I know of, no.”

“Who do you think was using it, Mac?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know, but it opens up a new avenue of discussion if there was another way into that room.”

Wally adjusted his tie and looked at his lap.

“Okay, well, thanks for the information, Wally. You can go,” Mac said.

Wally jumped up and banged his leg on the table on his way out.

“He’s hiding something,” Vi said. In the absence of her pendulum, she had begun knitting. She claimed it helped her think.

“I agree,” Mac said.

“Then why did you let him go?” I said.

“I’ll follow up with him when he has a smaller audience. He might talk then.”

“I feel like I’m out of the loop,” Mom said. “How did you find the staircase?”

“I found it when we were searching Clarissa’s room,” Vi said. She sat up straight and puffed out her chest—her demeanor and wildly colored clothing brought a peacock sharply to mind.

“You searched her room without me?” Mom looked at us as if we had just told her we had gone to Disney World and left her at home.

“Not exactly, Mom. Mac and I went to check on a few things, and Vi was snooping around in there,” I said.

“It’s a good thing I was, or you never would have found the secret staircase.” Vi’s knitting project fell, forgotten, to the floor. “This castle is so amazing! Secret staircases, a ghost, a blizzard—the knitting is like the icing on the cake!”

Mac sighed.

Mom had grown quiet while Vi exulted over the castle. “There was a murder, Vi. I’m not feeling very cozy knowing there’s a killer lurking in the shadows.”

Vi’s smile faded and she adopted a more somber countenance. She quietly picked up her needles again.

“We should head back to the workshop,” Mom said. “I told Wally I’d read his cards later today. Maybe I can get a sense of what he might be hiding. . . .”

Mac took a deep breath and was about to say something, but I interrupted.

“I think Mac and I are going to go sit in the lounge for a while before lunch,” I said. I stood up and headed for the door, pulling Mac along with me.

“Tarot cards?!?” Mac said as I closed the door behind us.

“Mac, you know how they feel about that sort of thing. They think it helps. And how can it hurt, really?” I pulled him farther away from the room in order to have this conversation somewhere away from my mother’s ears.

His bristling calmed a bit. “Look, it can’t really hurt, but you know how I feel about all that mumbo-jumbo. Charging people money to tell their future is dangerous.”

Mac’s father had died when he was twelve and his mother had spent a lot of money over the years trying to contact her dead husband. Mac didn’t have a benign relationship to all things psychic.

“I doubt Mom is charging Wally for a reading, she just really likes to read cards and in this case, she thinks she’s helping.”

Mac sighed. “I’ll try to keep an open mind. But I’m not
going to start investigating based on tarot cards and ghost stories.”

We had reached the lounge while talking and I peeked in. It was empty. We sat on the couch closest to the fireplace, where Mac took off his ridiculous sweater. I glanced around the room, soaking in the atmosphere and enjoying a moment of quiet with Mac when I noticed it.

All the legs of the couches were wearing socks. Pink and yellow and neon green. I don’t know why I didn’t see it immediately. I started giggling and Mac turned to look at me.

“What? I know the sweater is silly, but it’s drafty in this place . . . ,” he began.

I shook my head and pointed to the sofa feet.

He put his head in his hands, but I could see he was smiling. “I thought I had seen all the crazy I was going to see.”

We got up and looked around the room. It was like an Easter egg hunt and now that we were looking for it, we saw little flashes of woolly color all over the room.

Tiny hats adorned the bishops of the chess set. The statue of a rider on his horse sported a striped scarf and the fire poker had a knitted cover on its handle.

“These people really need to get out more,” Mac said.

“I think it’s funny.”

We were returning to the couch when a ladder carried by a rugged Marlboro man entered the room. The man and the ladder stopped abruptly and Wally bumped into them.

“Kirk! Why did you stop, you have to put this up on that portrait.”

Wally held a long piece of rainbow-colored knitting that looked like triangular banners. He followed Kirk’s gaze and froze.

“Hi, Wally,” I said. “Are you the yarn bomber?”

He turned pink and shook his head. “No, but I was
volunteered to assist. Ms. Garrett said I should put this up over the portrait of Alastair Carlisle.” He gestured toward the fireplace where Alastair glared imperiously at the room.

Kirk shuffled his feet and looked at Wally.

“You remember Kirk.” Wally gestured at his partner in crime.

Mac stuck out his hand. “Thanks for your help last night.”

Kirk shook hands and nodded.

“Kirk, this is Clyde Fortune,” Wally said. “She’s working with Detective McKenzie to figure out what happened to Clarissa.”

Kirk stuck out his hand and bestowed a dazzling smile. I noticed how clean his hands and nails were—my stereotype of a maintenance guy tended toward a balding, potbellied, older man with a cigar clamped in his teeth. In my imagination, his nails are always filthy with grease and dirt from all the repair work he does. This guy was nothing like that. He was in great shape, with longish dark hair that fell forward over his dark eyes. He sported a day-old beard and looked more like my idea of a sexy pirate than a maintenance man.

“Actually, Kirk, we were hoping to talk to you about Ms. Carlisle’s death,” Mac said.

“I don’t think I can help—I didn’t see her yesterday.” He set one end of the ladder down and gave us a look of careful patience.

“Anything you can add about your whereabouts and the location of any of the other staff would help,” Mac said. He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at Kirk, who studied the floor.

Wally looked at his watch. “Can we get this knitting up on the picture first? Ms. Garrett really wanted it up before the knitters take a break.” He lowered his voice. “They’re
getting agitated over Clarissa’s death and Jessica wants to keep their minds off the . . . murder.”

Kirk took the ladder to the painting and climbed up. Wally handed him the multicolored banner of wool and Kirk draped it along the top.

“No, I don’t think that looks right,” Wally said. “Can you make it drape a little more? Just there on the right?”

Kirk adjusted the knitting.

Wally stood back and nodded.

“You know, that’s not as subtle as the rest of them,” Mac said. “It’s hanging right over his face.”

My head swiveled rapidly in Mac’s direction—who knew he cared about the yarn bombing?

I definitely saw Kirk’s eyes roll toward the ceiling. He pulled the banner up so it just ran along the top of the frame. Not exactly subtle, but not as obvious.

Wally nodded and Kirk climbed down.

“Do you have a minute right now?” Mac asked Kirk.

“Sure. Let me go put this away.” Kirk gestured to the ladder as he clicked it closed.

He took the ladder out of the room. Wally checked his watch and rushed out as well.

Mac and I resumed our seats on the couch and admired the new yarn installation. I wondered if there were other little yarn-y things hidden around the castle. I’d have to ask Vi what the rules were. I hoped there was a prize for the most things spotted. I didn’t care about knitting needles, but the hidden-object part of the contest was fun. Maybe it would entertain the knitters and keep them from whipping themselves into an anxiety-fueled frenzy.

We heard the door open down the hall and voices made their way in our direction.

“We better get out of here before the knitters come in,” Mac said and jumped to his feet.

“Are you afraid of them?” I asked jokingly.

“No. I would just rather not get sucked into another conversation about tarot cards and yarnovers.”

I grabbed his snowman sweater off the back of the couch and followed him out of the room.

We waited for Kirk in the front reception area. Wally went to herd the knitters into the lounge for their break and the big reveal of more yarn bombing.

Mac and I 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. It would have been a perfect romantic getaway—if only we were somewhere else, or the knitters were, and no one had died.

Surprisingly, even though the weekend had been altered, I wasn’t upset. I liked working a case with Mac, and even Vi had been helpful. I filed this feeling away to examine later. As I sat with Mac, I realized I didn’t want to move on. I needed to find a way to stay in Crystal Haven that didn’t involve rejoining the police force, or setting up shop as a fortune teller.

“Mac, what do you think—” I was interrupted by Kirk, who strode toward us, apologizing for taking so long.

“Sorry, I got delayed talking to Mrs. Garrett. I keep hoping the power will come back on because I really don’t know how to fix the generator.” He sat across from us and leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that we suspect foul play in Ms. Carlisle’s death,” Mac began.

Kirk nodded.

“We’re hoping you can help us piece together the movements of staff and guests that evening,” Mac said.

Kirk sat back. “Like I said, I don’t think I’ll be much help because I didn’t see many people yesterday. I was outside trying to keep the walk clear for an hour or so during the afternoon. I think I finished around five thirty. Then I stopped in the kitchen to grab some dinner—Ms. Garrett said any employees that stayed could help themselves in the kitchen. After I ate, I went down to the staff rooms and took a shower. Just as I finished, the lights went out.”

“You didn’t see anyone, then, before the lights went out?”

Kirk shook his head, but then stopped. “I did see René come down to the freezer to take something out, and then I saw Emmett a little while later, but that’s pretty routine. They had moved things to the downstairs freezer earlier in the day when the storm started to pick up. The freezer has its own generator—apparently René insisted last year when the power went out and he lost all the food for a wedding reception.”

“So, that generator is still working?” Mac asked.

“Yup, the frozen food is safe, even if the rest of us are shivering and using flashlights. The upstairs refrigerator does not have its own generator, so I think they’ve been storing some things in the snow.”

“Do you think you can fix the generator?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Kirk leaned back and crossed his arms. “Gus is the head of maintenance and he has all the manuals tossed into a filing cabinet. I’ve been trying to sort through them with my flashlight and checking the landline every ten minutes in the hope I can call him and get some advice.” His mouth quirked up on one side. “This is my first gig in a maintenance department and I don’t have a lot of experience with generators. If Gus’s wife hadn’t been sick, he would have stayed this weekend instead of me. I’d probably be further along if the knitters would quit with the yarn
bombing. I have one or another of them finding me every half hour needing help with something.”

I suspected I knew the reason for the exuberant yarn bombing and it had nothing to do with yarn, or the contest. It was all about Kirk.

“We won’t keep you,” Mac said. “Let us know if you think of anything else. Anything you saw out of the ordinary or anyone in a place they didn’t belong.”

Kirk nodded and stood.

“Yeah, I’ll let you know if I think of anything.” He shook my hand and then Mac’s. The two men looked at each other longer than was necessary and I wondered why Mac was using his stare-down technique on Kirk.

After Kirk turned the corner, I said, “What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

Mac nodded. “I think so. You don’t believe him?”

“Yes, I believe him. You just looked at him weird.”

“No, I didn’t. I looked at him in the normal way.”

“Looked at who in the normal way?” Vi came toward us from the lounge.

“Nothing, Vi. We were just talking to Kirk,” I said.

“Mavis can’t stop talking about him. She says he’s a hunk.”

I turned to Mac. “Looks like you’ve got some competition.”

Mac grunted and said, “Thank God.”

Vi had been watching this exchange like a tennis match. “Have you been in the lounge today? There’s more bombing and it’s fantastic! You should come and see it. I don’t know how they’re sneaking out and getting it done. I’ve been keeping track of all of the knitters—even if they’re using the hunk as an accomplice, they have to meet with him at some point. . . .”

“We saw it, Vi,” I said.

“The little hats for the chess people? The banner on Alastair’s portrait?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Hey, you two aren’t helping, are you? That would be really sneaky.”

We shook our heads, Mac much more vigorously than me.

Vi cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”

Mac and I stood still and listened. Then I heard it. It sounded like a motorcycle. Or maybe two motorcycles.