Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) (2 page)

“I—”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Of course you did. You know how Moira’s missed you, don’t you? You wouldn’t believe the racket she made last night when you didn’t come home.”

Pale blue eyes stared at me behind Coke bottle glasses. They seemed to bounce up and down like a pair of googly eyes. You know, the kind you glue onto elementary school crafts.
 

I knew I should brush his paws off me and high-tail it out of there, but there were tears filling his eyes—real tears. Instead of feeling completely creeped out, I felt sad for him. Wary, yes, but mostly sad for this confused man. Maybe I could ease his fears about Julia—whoever she was—a bit before I extricated myself from the situation. I put my hand over his and gently slid it off my shoulder. Instead of letting it go, I clasped it. I don’t know why. I must’ve been channelling Blythe or something. I wished I knew his name. Or his relationship to Julia.
 

I said, “I’m sorry I’m late. Please tell Moira I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?” He wriggled his hand out of mine and pushed his ancient glasses up with his finger. “Do I know you?”

I looked into those eyes, as much as I could with two inches of good, old-fashioned glass lenses between them and me, and I saw that the sheen of tears was gone. His countenance had changed completely. I did my best to roll with the sudden shift.

“Ahh
 
…
 
no. I guess not. I’m Brenna Battle. I’m new in town.”

“New to Bonney Bay! Well! You must be here to see the house, then. Normally I don’t give tours unless you call ahead. Reiner House is in high demand. It’s a very important historical landmark. But since you’re new.” He shrugged. “I’m Harvey, and I can show you everything. Me and Reiner House, we’re old friends.” He laughed, an odd, light laugh.

Then he gestured for me to follow him. Toward the front steps. Into the house. I scaled those eight wide brick and nine wooden steps to the porch. A plaque alongside the front door read,
Reiner House. 1886.
Harvey pushed the front door open. It wasn’t even latched. What if this wasn’t Harvey’s house? What if the owners had accidentally left the door unlatched—or he’d broken in?

Not that I would know anything about breaking and entering. I didn’t really want to go there again.

“So, Harvey, is this your house?” I asked.

Harvey laughed, that same odd, light laugh. “My house! Certainly not!”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t—”

“Nonsense! It’s Moira’s house, and she trusts me. Wouldn’t let me live here if she didn’t, now would she?”

“Oh, okay, then.” So he was renting, maybe? From this Moira lady? Maybe he was the caretaker. I wondered if Moira lived far away, if she knew Harvey was losing it. Maybe someone ought to let her know. Then again, maybe Harvey was making everything up. Or, his mind was making it up, through no fault of his own.

Harvey slowly opened the door and stepped inside. The dim interior beckoned me to investigate its shadows. A sunbeam shone in through a stained glass window above, scattering color across dark hardwood floors. “Aren’t you coming?” Harvey said.

“Of course.” I stepped inside. Okay, so sometimes I do pretty stupid things. Shocking, I know. And I’ll never admit it to my sister, Blythe, Miss Careful. Miss Conscientious. Except when it came to guys. Blythe had no sense in that department.

Why was I doing this? I was curious. I was dying to know who Julia and Moira were. But if I brought them up, would I dredge up whatever he’d been so upset about? I may not be the most sensitive lady in the world, but the last thing I want to do is make an old man cry.

But it was more than curiosity driving me to enter this strange old house with this much, much stranger old man. I wanted to make sure Harvey, if that really was his name, got returned to his rightful caretaker. Hopefully he or she was inside. Harvey couldn’t possibly live here alone. For one thing, the house was huge. Someone had to be helping to look after it, and looking after him, with his
 
…
 
issues. A wife of thirty or forty years, a son or daughter maybe. A younger brother.

“Hello,” I called into the foyer. “Anybody home?”

Harvey turned around and narrowed his eyes at me over his shoulder. “Now, Brenna. The spirits aren’t just going to answer you, just like that. If you want to see them, you’re going to have to be patient.”

“Spirits?” I froze, midstep.

“Spirits, ghosts. I prefer
spirits
.
Ghosts
just has such a ghastly ring to it, don’t you think? Although Moira’s temper
can
get pretty ghastly.” He chuckled, a deep sound that should’ve warmed the heart. Instead it raised the hair on the back of my neck and gave me a little chill.

3

“Moira? She’s a ghost? A spirit?”

“Only for the last hundred years or so. Everyone wants to visit the Haunted Mansion of Bonney Bay. Nobody really wants to
know
Moira, you know?”

“I’d like to know. Know her, I mean.”
 

“Yes, she told me you would.”

I swallowed hard. “Oh.” What else could I say to that?

Harvey gestured at our feet. “These floors are genuine walnut.”

“Beautiful.” And they were. Someone had swept them clean. Not a speck of dust marred the dark surface, though the finish was a bit dull and scuffed.

He nodded, so confident, I think he even stuck his slightly red nose up a bit.

Though it was clean, compared to the exterior of the house, the inside looked more than a bit neglected. Peeling wallpaper here, missing wainscoting there. The foyer opened up into a sitting room, furnished with couches from the eighties. Not the eighteen eighties, but the other eighties. The loud floral pattern eighties. A newer flat screen TV stood on a mismatched table, looking too sleek for the rest of the furnishings, and, well, everything else about the house.

“In Moira’s day, this was the reception room. The dining room is to the right. And to my left, the grand ballroom.” His arm swept in a gesture that certainly conveyed grandness.

“I’d love to see it,” I couldn’t help saying.

The room was empty. I’m sure that added to the impression of vastness. But the grand ballroom truly was grand. I could easily picture it filled with perfectly coiffed ladies and gentlemen, dressed to the hilt.

“So, do you have any family—living—around here?” You know, instead of
lurking
. Devoid of earthly bodies. I figured, with Harvey, I’d better specify.

“Derek. He wants to fix this place up. Restore it to its former glory, he says.”

“That sounds good.”

“Good? No! No, no, no!” I saw the outrage on his face soften as he registered the look on mine. “I’m sorry. I guess it would be good, but he’s doing it all wrong. Take the outside of the house. The paint.” He shook his head.

I was about to open my mouth and express my shock that someone wanted to change that absolutely perfect color. Good thing I didn’t, because he said darkly, “Green! Moira hates green. It’s supposed to be blue. She tells me that just about every day. Derek is the one who got it certified as a historic landmark. To protect it, he said. Ha! Now he wants to bring all kinds of people in here, stirring things up. Well, the girls don’t like the idea of a bunch of strangers coming through their house, and they can protect it just fine themselves. The last thing we need in here is the kind of know-it-all historians who told Derek the house should be green, stirring up all kinds of things. Things best left buried.”

“Um, did you say, ‘buried?’”

“Come this way. Upstairs. You’ve got to see the stairs,” he rambled, as though he hadn’t heard me.

I comforted myself with the thought that nothing would be “buried” upstairs. I hoped whoever lived here wasn’t up there taking a nap in their underwear or something.

I followed him across the ballroom and up a sweeping staircase clearly designed for the grand entrance of someone very important. I imagined the guests quieting, standing in rapt attention as they watched some beautiful young Belle glide down the steps and into their midst. It felt odd to walk up those stairs after Harvey, in flip-flops and jeans and a Judo US polo shirt. These stairs were made for silk slippers and polished leather shoes; the sense was unmitigated by the creak that sounded every step or two. I paused halfway up and looked down on the ballroom. That’s when I noticed the chandelier. It must be an incredible sight when it was turned on. Was it electric? Had it always been? I wondered how people had lit chandeliers before electricity. Maybe there was an oil lamp in the center. I didn’t remember those kinds of details being covered in History class. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention.

A long, slow creak. Not from the stairs. From somewhere else in the house. Harvey froze. His eyes were enormous, about to pop through his lenses. Now that we’d reached a landing, the ballroom was out of sight.
 

“He’s here! Julia, hide! He’s here!”

“Who—” downstairs, a door slammed violently. I think my heart stopped beating for a second.
 

Harvey threw open a door on the landing, revealing a dark, cobwebby closet. He gave me a shove. “You can’t let him see you. Quick. Get inside.”

Okay, now. Hold on. I was all for making friends with this nice, crazy old man and his ghosts—well, maybe not Moira—but no way was I letting anyone lock me in a closet.

“Um, wait just a—”

Another bang from downstairs. Footsteps. Harvey dove into the closet himself. “Fine,” he said. “You’re on your own, then.” He shook his head sadly and clicked the closet door shut.

Another, bigger door on the landing stood open to a hallway. Now it sounded like the noises were coming from that direction. Noises distinctly like footsteps. I gulped. Great. I took a deep breath and fought to control my racing heart. There were no ghosts in this house. I did not believe in ghosts. I was going to do the logical thing and investigate. I left Harvey in the closet and slowly worked my way along the hallway, listening for more footsteps. I followed the sound to another set of stairs. These must be the ones I’d glimpsed from the living room downstairs when we first came in. I made my way down one flight of stairs and stopped on the landing. A small window was pushed partway open, letting the spring breeze in. The house fell quiet. I couldn’t hear a sound, apart from the faint murmur of the waves and the breeze outside.

As I headed down the last flight of stairs, I thought about calling out to whoever was down there, announcing myself. But what if it was really an intruder of some sort? You know, the earthly kind. With flesh and bones and—

A gun pointed right at me. I froze. I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu. Perhaps because I had been in this position just over a week ago. That time, I’d nearly been killed. Not exactly a moment I cared to relive.

My hands shot up in the air faster than you’d believe. The long, dark barrel was fixed on me. The silhouette of what seemed to be a man darkened the archway at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t really blame him. If this was his house, I was an intruder. He had every right to try to defend his property.

“Don’t shoot!” I said. “Harvey invited me in here. He lives here
 
…
 
I think.” I forced a shaky smile and tried to look innocent and harmless. I wished I could make out his expression. See if my words had any affect on him. But he and his weapon were a dark shadow. I held my breath and waited for his response.

4

“Who are you?”

“My name is Brenna Battle. I—”

“You’re the one who was on the news. The one who was accused of killing that reporter.”

Actually, technically it was my sister who’d been accused of murder. Though I’d been accused of other things. Funny how he saw me as the one who’d been accused of murder, and not as the one who’d ended up solving that crime! I mean, come on, it’s not like I ever really wanted to be a hero, but it sure would beat playing the role of small-town villain over and over again.

“What are you doing here?” he said.

I held one of my hands out to greet him, and kept the other up in surrender. “It’s nice to meet the owner of this beautiful historic home, Mr.
 
…
 
?”

“Thompson. Derek Thompson.”

He didn’t take me up on my hand-shake offer. I let both of my hands drop to my sides. Mr. Derek Thompson took a step closer. I thrust my hands back up over my head. And then Mr. Thompson lowered his umbrella. Yes, it was an umbrella that had me smiling and hand-shaking—or trying to, anyway—for my life.

I could see him quite clearly now that he’d stepped into the beam of sunlight shining through a small window of rippled, antique glass. He was in his mid-thirties, with bright blue eyes that reminded me of Harvey’s, only much smaller, without the magnification of those old glasses. I found myself wondering if he wore contact lenses. His dark, wavy hair was neatly parted and combed back. He wore a pin-striped gray shirt tucked into black slacks. But the top button was undone and his steel-gray tie loosened, as though this were the end of a very stressful day. Maybe I should give Derek and his umbrella and his accusations a break. I’m sure coming home to relax, and instead running into me, was a less than pleasant surprise.

“Are you related to Harvey?” I asked.

“
Uncle
Harvey?”

“Yes. He’s just up the ballroom stairs
 
…
 
um, in the closet on the landing. We just met outside. I was admiring the house and he invited me in. Normally I wouldn’t, but he seemed a little lost.”

Derek groaned. “He’s hiding in the closet again? I’m so sorry.”

Upstairs, a door banged open, and footsteps thundered down the hall, then the stairs. Harvey jumped in front of Derek. “You leave her alone! Moira’s warned you. This is it, Derek!”

Whoa. I wasn’t quite sure if I should put myself between them, or if that would be an incredibly stupid move. Derek still had the umbrella. “Hey!” I said. Then I tried to channel Blythe’s soothing voice—the one she used to talk me down when I got all fired up. “I’m okay, Harvey. Everything’s fine.”