The Realm of the Shadows (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 2) (6 page)

“You’re right. Anyway, have a look at this.” I went to the disk menu, randomly selected an episode and forwarded through it until Jazz made her appearance. “See that?”

“See what?”

“There. The earrings.”

Jazz was running around a decrepit mental institution from the 1930s, sustaining minor injuries from some unseen force.

“
Do not touch her
!” Teddy commanded the ghost as the whole gang ran through the tumble-down halls on the TV. Wasn’t much help. A few seconds later, Jazz got it again and grabbed her shoulder, yelping.

“What about them?”

“Remember when we were standing around with Pluto and Jazz while they filmed Teddy in the cemetery? She took those earrings off and threw them into her bag.”

“Did she? I didn’t notice. She’s a twitchy little thing. She’s always making some jerky little movement.”

“You were standing on the other side of me. She made one of those sudden moves – maybe remembering the plan for last night’s shoot – and ripped those earrings off. I noticed them because they looked expensive. I thought she took them off because they weren’t part of her macho get-up for the show, but look – she’s wearing them in every show. So why did she take them off last night –
before
the shoot?”

“She also ripped her earrings off when she was trying to get me to sign the release without changing it. It’s just a nervous habit.”

“Yes, but why get all geared up for her part in the show and put the earrings on in the first place? Force of habit. Then she remembered she was jumping into the river later, and took them off. If it was just a nervous habit to play with her earrings, she wouldn’t have thrown them into her bag, where she’d have trouble finding them again before she went on-camera. And she’s in the habit of wearing them on-camera.”

He looked at me, then sipped at his coffee. “Yeah. I suppose that’s a point.”

“Whatever they planned, she was in on it, and she didn’t want to lose those earrings.”

About four in the morning, Kyle came in for coffee and an egg sandwich, and told us that unless they heard different from the Medical Examiner, they were going to treat it as an accident. Actually, his exact words were, “We’re treating it as death by dumbassedness.” I had little nagging doubts, but I’m sorry to say that at the time I just wanted my property back, and so I was glad it wasn’t going to be complicated.

“By the way,” Kyle said, “do you know some guy named Edison?”

Michael and I exchanged a weary look. “It’s Edson,” I said. “I hired him to investigate some problems we were having.”

“He showed up this morning and we had to run him off. And you knew that Charlie Kermit and his son were hanging around last night, didn’t you?”

“They were? No, I didn’t know. Did you, Michael?”

“No, but we probably should have. He was going to defend the barn against the TV people while they filmed.”

“Defend the barn? Isn’t that above and beyond the call of duty for a contractor?”

“He’s got some work projects going in there,” I said, thinking fast. “He didn’t want the reality-show people messing around where his crew has been working.”

Kyle gave me the “my eye” look, but let it pass. With the exception of the fools from the reality show, everybody in town seemed to know about the barn, and I was pretty sure Kyle did too. After letting me know I wasn’t fooling him, he shrugged, also letting me know he wasn’t going to go into it – yet. I was grateful.

Instead, he finished the egg sandwich I’d made for him and got ready to go, saying, “We had to send them home, which is where any sensible men would’ve been all along. Shame about that young fella that drowned. He was a good-looking kid with a lot of years ahead of him and a lot of hearts to break. What a waste.”

I went back to bed, and this time I was able to sleep. Michael let me sleep in, and it was nearly noon by the time I got out of bed staggering around and groaning like I’d been out on a bender. Looking like it, too.

Michael brought me coffee and toast, then sat on the edge of the bathtub and watched me eat, dress and put a little make-up on while he caught me up on the latest.

“The crew’s still out there,” he said. “At least some of them are. Teddy’s gone off in his little sports car to wherever a star takes himself when the cameras are off. The others are wandering around the property like lost souls. Every now and then, one of them goes up to the seawall and looks down into the water for a while. Then they walk away, kind of downcast. I’d feel sorry for them if they all weren’t at least partly to blame.”

“I hope they feel guilty,” I said, grumpy and headachy. “What are you up to today?”

“Well, we’ve got to stop by the Sheriff’s Office sometime today; Kyle wants us to give written statements. We can get that out of the way early. Let’s take both of our cars so we can go our separate ways afterward. My foursome plays on Wednesdays, and I don’t see why I should have to cancel. What about you?”

My list of commitments ran quickly through my head and I let out a groan. “First Orphans – then home to check on Shiloh – then Bernie, blast her, and her little cigarillos too, because if I don’t give her an interview about this, she might start getting creative – and I suppose I’d better call Ed and see if he’s coming back today. I’d love to tell
him
to go over and give Bernie an interview, but he wasn’t there, and I’m not sure I trust him that much just yet.”

“Sounds like fun,” he said.

“Be glad you’re golfing.”

“Oh, I am. See you back here tonight?”

“All of Teddy’s groupies forming a jiggle-blockade around the place wouldn’t keep me away.”

“Hmmm – I think I’d like to rush that blockade myself.”

“Hey, watch it, buster. By the way, have you talked to him, or anybody else in that gang? I can’t believe they’re still here. They’re not going ahead with filming an episode here after what happened, are they? I’d like to give them more credit for class, but all they’re probably thinking about is what this is going to do for their ratings. Tell me I’m wrong – please!”

“Who knows? I haven’t gone out to talk to them, and I’m going to avoid them if I possibly can. I’ve never spent much time around showbiz people before, and I’m not sure what they’re capable of, but I think we can go ahead and assume the worst.”

“I know. Let’s convince Teddy that it’s an evil omen. One by one –
they’re all gonna die!
He seems pretty dim. He might just buy it.”

“He may be dim, but he’s crafty. And ambitious. There are all different kinds of intelligence, and he was smart enough to get himself a reality show instead of a real job. Apparently, that’s everybody’s dream these days. No, he’s going to believe what he wants to believe, and what he wants to believe is that the show must go on. He’ll probably dedicate the episode to Seth, and then go merrily off after the next ghost.” He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “If I could talk to Graeme, I’m sure I could get his okay to throw them out on their keisters, especially with that wild story about his grandmother they’ve come up with. Where did that come from, anyway?”

“I have no idea. Maybe Ed can find out. He may as well earn his fee somehow. With all this going on outside, the lady in the barn is probably hiding.”

With our agendas straight, we carefully locked up the house (we weren’t putting anything past Teddy) and headed for the Sheriff’s Office.

At the Sheriff’s Office, we sat down with a deputy for a short time and gave her the bare bones of the story. Just the facts, ma’am. Then we signed the statements and went our separate ways.

I didn’t mention my suspicions about the mark on the seawall, or Jazz removing her favorite earrings before the shoot. At the time, I just didn’t want any more complications, and I didn’t feel I had enough to show the tragedy wasn’t just because of, well, dumbassedness.

With that taken care of, I looked forward to checking in at Orphans. We had a new stray, a German Shepherd mix we’d named Tuesday, for the day she was found, and I wanted to see how she was settling in.

“Omigodwhathappenedlastnight?” Angie blurted when she saw me. She was at the reception desk, and a volunteer, Vivian Dear, was sitting down chatting with her.

“A guy drowned,” I said.

“I know
that
! Everybody in town knows
that
! How did it happen?”

“Honey, all I know is, I didn’t do it.”

“What’s he like in person?” she asked. “Are his eyes really – you know – like that.”

“Seth?”

“No! Teddy. On TV his eyes look all misty and hypnotic. Are they like that in person?”

“Good lord.”

Vivian, who was old enough to know better, said, “My favorite is Wizard. He’s so sad, you just want to cuddle him.”

I stared at Vivian. She’s a small, round lady, close to 80 years old, with wispy white hair and an air of good old-fashioned innocence about her.

“Teddy’s obnoxious,” I snapped. When their faces fell, I regretted it. “Oh, guys, I’m sorry, you have to excuse me. It was a long night and somebody died. It was awful. Yes, Angie, Teddy’s eyes are very attractive in person. A really strange green. I guess you could call them hypnotic. Word is
he
thinks so. And I liked Wizard best of all too, Viv, but I haven’t actually met him yet.”

“So Teddy Force is some kind of prima donna, is that what you’re saying?” Angie asked.

“What can I say? He’s a star, and he knows it.”

“I don’t care,” Angie said. “He can park his EMP meter on my night stand any time.”

Vivian smiled prettily and said, “Give Wizard a hug for me.”

“Okay.” Wouldn’t Wizard be surprised? Or maybe not. He probably had his groupies, just like Teddy.

I was finally able to get to the point of my visit, beyond generally checking in and making sure the roof hadn’t fallen in. “Is Tuesday settling in?”

“Oh, that poor thing,” Angie said.

I froze. “What?”

“She’s been Porterized, poor baby.”

“Porterized? That bulldog Porter got at her? What did he do?”

She lowered her brows and gave me a dark look. “He tried to play with her.”

“Oh no!”

“I think he likes her.”

“Poor Tuesday! How is she?”

She tried to think of a better word, but “Porterized” about said it all.

I went back to the gentle Shepherd-mix and gave her a good looking-over. Her traumatic encounter with fifty-plus pounds of solid British beef was all too apparent. I could see a rim of white showing around her eyes, and when she saw me, she let out a low howl.

I let myself into her suite and checked her over. She wasn’t hurt, just a little bug-eyed. “Don’t worry,” I murmured, massaging the rich fur of her nape. “We’ll keep that wild critter away from you from now on.”

I didn’t need another
thing
right now. Somehow we were going to have to deal with that four-footed force of nature, because I was beginning to think Porter was unadoptable, unless Zeus was looking for a pet.

I gave her as much time as I could, but I couldn’t settle down myself, knowing what the rest of my day was going to be like, and Tuesday was picking up my agitation. I gave her flat brow a pat between her upright ears and looked deeply into her eyes. “Be a good girl, now,” I murmured. At least the whites of her eyes had disappeared.

I moved on to the house. Angie, who was due for her lunch break, came along with me while another volunteer took over at reception.

Angie had been cleaning for me. I could see it right away.

“You don’t have to mop the floors!” I told her.

I reached down and patted Shiloh. I had only adopted her a couple of weeks before, and we were still settling in together, so it wasn’t a good time for a separation. I fussed over her for a little while, feeling guilty.

“I gotta do
something
,” Angie said. ”Want to have lunch with me? I’ll make some sandwiches. Hey, relax! Shiloh was all nice and happy to see us, and now you’ve got her panting. You need to slow down, Taylor.”

“No, I need to speed up. I have to go into town now and give Bernie and interview, and I want to get it out of the way as fast as I can, because I’m dreading it.”

“Not even a muffin? Your favorite: blueberry. Nice and fresh; I made them this morning.”

I got my go-cup out of the cabinet. “Okay, coffee and a muffin to go. And let me have one of those cleaning wipes. After grilled cheese yesterday and a muffin today, my steering wheel’s going to need it.”

I cornered Bernie in her lair – a house in Tropical Breeze on Palmetto Street, just down the block from my faithful Florence’s house. Bernie operates
The Beach Buzz
out of her home, in a back room that looks like the remains of an explosion at a paper factory. On the drive into town I tried to work on my spin-meister skills, but there just wasn’t any way to spin this.

I was wound up and ready to go when she answered the door, and before she could say anything I blurted, “Yeah, a guy drowned. What else do you want to know? They’re a gang of idiots, and they’re making up stories and cooking up lame-brained stunts because Teddy’s afraid he’s about to lose his show. But that’s got nothing to do with me or Orphans.”

She waited till I wound down, gazing up with intelligent brown eyes. “Well, what a surprise, you dropping in like this. Won’t you come in?”

I looked at her sidewise and stepped over the threshold.

“Tough night, huh?” she said, trying to play the sympathy card.

I got a grip on myself. Bernie was my friend. This
was
sympathy. I took a deep breath. “You got any coffee?” I said. “I finished mine on the way over while I ate the muffin in the car, and I think the last bite is still stuck in my throat.”

“Sure,” she said, turning to smile at me. “That happens when you stuff the whole thing into your mouth at once, you know. Eating while you’re driving will leave you with food all over your face in the morgue. Decaf for you, I think.”

“Thanks, mommie,” I said, calming down at last. I went into her kitchen and hiked myself up at the breakfast bar.

Bernie was not dressed yet, which didn’t mean she’d just gotten up. I think she sleeps about three hours a night, and not consecutively. She’d just gotten up and walked into her office and gone to work in her lavender-and-lace PJ’s and hadn’t needed to go outside yet. She had a pair of lavender socks on, the kind with the non-skid treads on the bottom, and there was an unlit cigarillo hanging from her lips. She doesn’t smoke unless she’s working on her newspaper, but she likes the taste of tobacco.

As she got the coffee, she talked, bouncing the cigarillo around in the corner of her mouth. “Kyle called me about it last night. You got anything to add to the official story?”

“No.” She set my coffee in front of me, along with the sugar bowl and some powdered creamer. I began to shift gears.

“Hey, Bernie?” I said.

“Yup?”

“What do you know about Elizabeth Cadbury drowning out there in the river?”

She took the cigarillo out of her mouth and laughed. Setting it down on the counter, since it wasn’t lit anyway, she told me, “Betsy died in her bed. Who told you she drowned?”

“Those reality-show people. Somehow they dredged up a story about her jumping into the river to save Vesta.”

She thought hard for a moment. “You know, that does ring a bell. Wait a minute –“ Then she got it. “That was a
dog
! She jumped into the river to save little Vesta’s dog, way back, oh – it must’ve been around 1950. No, earlier. They’re saying she dove in to save
Vesta
?”

“And drowned.”

“Heck, Betsy was an old lady when she died. She wasn’t even jumping into the swimming pool by that time. You gonna set ‘em straight?”

“Now why in the world would I do that? Let them make fools of themselves on national TV.”

“International,” she said with a grin.

Now that I was here, looking at my old friend, I felt ashamed. I’d been dreading this, and Bernie was taking it easy on me, even giving
me
information.

“So, Bernie, what do you know about this show,
Realm of the Shadows
?”

She took a sip of coffee. “Well, I looked it up when I heard they were coming to St. Augustine. I don’t know much. They’re just like the rest of those reality ghost shows. People running around in the middle of the night with video cameras, talking a lot of nonsense and giving one another the willies.”

“Did you hear about Edson Darby-Deaver making a fool of Teddy Force over a haunting?”

“There was something about it in Facebook, but with all the backbiting among those ghost fanciers, it’s hard to know who to believe. They’re worse than politicians.”

I laughed, and she shook her head. Then she leaned back against the kitchen island, set her coffee cup down on it, and said, “Now, my friend. What about last night? How did they manage to drown a cast member?”

With no embellishment and as little drama as I could help, I described how Seth had jumped into the river and drowned, holding back details like Jazz’s earrings and the black mark on the seawall. I wasn’t sure what they amounted to anyway, and I didn’t want her to start speculating.

When I’d finished, she nodded, digesting it. “So, you think it had all been planned ahead of time?”

I shrugged. “There’s no way to prove it, but yes. Don’t quote me on that. All I need is a lawsuit from those bozos. Let me ask you for just one favor: when you do write the story up, can you emphasize that the drowning had nothing to do with Orphans of the Storm? We haven’t even moved the animals onto the property yet.”

“That I can do,” she said, reaching across the breakfast bar to shake my hand. I took her hand gently, knowing how much those arthritic knuckles must hurt.

“Great.”

I hopped down, feeling so much better.
The Beach Buzz
didn’t come out until Friday, and it was only Wednesday. By the time it came out, hopefully Teddy and the gang would be on to the lighthouse.

Being in that neighborhood, on that block, made me decide it was time to just grit my teeth and do something I’d been thinking about. Without waiting until I could talk myself out of it (because I knew I would), I walked right down the sidewalk to my faithful Florence’s house, marched up to the door and rang the doorbell. Florence, I knew, would be at Girlfriend’s, manning the shop, but her sister, Myrtle, just might be home – unless she was at Girlfriend’s too, annoying Florence.

Myrtle insisted on volunteering at the shop, to the dismay of everyone there. Any time Myrtle helped somebody, the job became twice as complicated, took three times as long, and gave everybody a 4-star headache – everybody but Myrtle, that is.

It turned out that Myrtle was at home, and she answered the door after a very long delay. She had cookie crumbs around her lips, and when she saw me noticing, she wiped them away and glared.

“Well?” she said, as if I’d accused her of stealing cookies.

“Nice to see you too, Myrtle. Mind if I come in?”

“Florence is not at home.”

“I know. She’s at the shop. I wanted to see you.”

Her brown eyes widened, then narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

I stepped into the house, edging around her, and went into the living room. I still thought of the house as belonging to Florence, though she had inherited it jointly with her sister, and Flo had always welcomed me in. I saw no reason why I should stand on the doorstep like I was selling magazine subscriptions while Myrtle gave me attitude.

Before involuntarily retiring a few months before (actually, she was fired), Myrtle had been the Huntington family housekeeper and had lived at Cadbury House ever since Vesta had inherited it, decades ago. It was possible she had information about the strange goings-on in the barn, but it was equally possible that her fierce loyalty to the Cadbury family’s good name would keep her thin lips sealed. She had kept quiet about their secrets before when it would have made more sense to tell somebody (me) about them. I hadn’t been able to talk myself into tackling Myrtle up till then because she was such a difficult old cuss. But things were getting more complicated.

I still wasn’t sure she’d cooperate, so after agonizing over it for a day or so, I had decided to make the one offer that was guaranteed to get her cooperation.

“I was wondering,” I said, gazing straight into her eyes to show her that I was serious, “if you’d be interested in taking up your old duties at Cadbury House.”

She sat down.
Whump
.

“The house is proving a bit much for me,” I lied. “In addition to trying to deal with moving the shelter, I just can’t keep everything in order, and I’m having a heck of a time finding things.” That was true. “I can’t be there all the time, and if we’re going to run it as a shelter, somebody needs to be on site at all times. I hate to admit it, but I need your help. You already know how to run the house. I need a housekeeper, and I wouldn’t even have to train you. Your salary wouldn’t be much, but you’d have room and board –“