by K. J. Emrick
“I’m not sure of that yet, either,” he said, and rapped his knuckles again. This time the sound was hollow, and echoey, and it made him smile. “But I’m hoping that I’m about to figure all of it out.”
With his fingernails, he pried at the edge of the wallpaper section over that last spot, and it came easily away. There was a sound like old tape being peeled away, and the whole strip fell away to the floor. Behind it, a metal door with a recessed handle was revealed.
“A safe?” Kyle exclaimed. “Skye Rogers had a safe hidden in her room?”
Miranda was just as surprised as he was. She could tell that the safe had been put in only recently. The wall had been cut into unevenly to make space for it, and some splinters from the newly cut edges were still stuck to the backside of the wallpaper. “How did you know that was there, Jack?”
“The wallpaper was uneven in this spot,” he explained. “Even for a place like this that seemed a little out of the ordinary. I figured Skye was trying to hide something. Now, the question is, what’s inside?”
“I’m guessing whatever it is,” Miranda said, “it was important enough to draw Josh Bates here.”
“That’s a safe bet,” Jack agreed, chuckling at his little play on words.
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Oh, this guy of yours is a riot, Miranda. I just don’t know how he comes up with them.”
“Kyle thinks you’re amazing, too,” Miranda told him.
“That is not what I said!” Kyle protested. “Seriously, Miranda, what’s the point in being able to hear me if you aren’t going to actually tell people what I actually say?”
“Well,” Jack said, “be sure to thank Kyle for me. Now. Let’s see what’s in here.”
Taking Caleb Owen’s key out of his pocket, he fit it into the keyhole on the safe.
Miranda got it now. “So that’s what the key was for.”
“Right,” Jack said, full of himself now, “and that’s why Skye was searching Caleb’s room so frantically. She wanted to find the key. She didn’t realize that Caleb had the key on him when he was killed and that I already had it.”
“So she wasn’t looking for the the murder weapon,” Miranda said. “Yes, I was thinking the same thing about the key.”
“Exactly. She knew Caleb had the key hidden somewhere when he was killed, and she knew it would give the police—us—access to her safe if we ever found it.”
“Do you think Josh Bates got into it?”
He shook his head. “No. I think we scared him away before he had the chance. Otherwise I’m pretty sure Skye would be dead. Also, there’s no way he took the time to put the wallpaper back in place as he was making his rushed escape. So.” He took a hold of the handle and pulled. “Let’s see what’s behind door number one.”
“See?” Kyle said. “He’s hilarious.”
Miranda craned her neck to see around Jack. She wasn’t sure what she had expected to find inside, but it was kind of a letdown when all that was there was a thin notebook with a black cover.
Kyle sank lower to the floor, obviously disappointed too. “Is it weird that I was hoping for some stocks and bonds or gold bars or something?”
“No, because I was thinking the same thing,” Miranda told him.
“What’s that?” Jack asked.
“Kyle and I were just saying we were hoping for something more exciting.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Jack flipped through page after page, and then turned it around to show Miranda. “It depends on what your definition of exciting is.”
Miranda looked at the open page. It was a ledger sheet, all neatly written in what was obviously a woman’s handwriting. Each line had a date, and a location, and then the description of a car. Make, model, year. To the far right was a dollar amount.
At the end of several of the lines was a precise capital letter ‘M.’
It didn’t take long for her to get it. “These are records of stolen cars! The same cars that Caleb Owen stole, like the one he was talking about on the recording Ginger Peck gave us.”
Jack took the notebook back and ran a finger down line after line. “This is several months’ worth of records. Some of these places are hours away from here! This little car theft ring was operating under the noses of everybody. I guess it’s the smart way to do it, though. If you steal too many cars from one area you’re bound to get caught. Do it like this, a car from here and a car from there, and no one would ever suspect it was all the same people.”
Miranda was surprised to hear him say it that way. “You almost sound like you admire what they were doing. Skye Rogers and Caleb Owen were criminals.”
“It’s not that I admire them,” he said, thinking out loud. “It’s just that I can recognize a good criminal organization when I see one. I have to believe that Ben Clark, our illustrious Melbourne detective, had to recognize it, too.”
“He did,” Miranda said confidently. “I know he did. At least, he suspected what Caleb and Skye were up to. It’s in everything he said to Ginger, and in everything he didn’t say. He knew those two were crooks. And remember, according to Ginger her Uncle Ben spent plenty of time up here in Skye’s room. I doubt a police detective would be that into a girl and not have the faintest hint that she was into something illegal.”
“She had her notebook locked up,” Jack pointed out, “in a safe, behind a strip of wallpaper.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “So what? I know men become morons when pretty women flash their eyelashes, but he must have had some idea.”
“I’ve been known to forget the rest of the world, sometimes, when you flash those eyes of yours at me.”
“Hey, mister,” she said with a smile, “flattery will get you everywhere. Still, you don’t lose all your IQ points whenever you’re around me. I’m willing to bet it was the same with Ben when it came to Skye and Caleb.”
“So the question becomes, why didn’t he have Caleb Owen arrested if he knew about it? Him and Skye Rogers, too?”
“Ginger seemed to think that Ben and Skye had something going on,” Miranda remembered. “And I suppose he might have left Caleb alone out of concern for what it would do to Ginger if he arrested her boyfriend.”
“Maybe,” Jack agreed, snapping the notebook closed, “but considering how he felt about Caleb being with his niece I would think he’d take the first chance he had to get rid of Caleb. An arrest for car theft would have done that, and very nicely, too.”
“But what’s with the letter M at the end of all those different lines?” Miranda asked.
“I noticed that, too. I have to wonder if maybe it refers to our mysterious Mel from the phone conversation you overheard Josh Bates having. Somehow, Mel seems to be in charge of all of this.”
“That’s true. So who,” she asked, “is Mel?”
“Beats the living daylights out of me,” Jack said, slapping his hand against the notebook. “Just one more mystery to add to the pile.”
“Guys,” Kyle said, rubbing his arms like he was spooked, “that’s great and all, but we need to get out of this room. It’s giving me the creeps.”
Miranda laughed at her friend. “You’re a ghost, Kyle. What do you have to be scared of?”
“Believe me,” he said, his voice more serious than usual, “there’s things worse than death. Trust your spirit guide.”
She did, actually. God help her, but she did trust Kyle and all his buffoonery. If he said it was time to go, then there was definitely a reason for it.
“If that’s Kyle telling you it’s time to go,” Jack said, “then I have to agree with him this time. I don’t think it’s safe for any of us here. Skye Rogers is in our custody, and with all of the patrols around I don’t think Josh Bates is going to try anything else, but you never know. Let me get some photographs of this place and then we’ll go give Alfie Parker the bad news.”
“Bad news?” Miranda asked. “What bad news?”
“This whole place just became a crime scene. He’s going t
o have to shut down the Blue Jay Bed and Breakfast.”
Miranda looked around at the dirty walls, and the cracked floorboards, and the stains on the ceiling. Would anyone even notice if this place shut down?
Somehow, she doubted it.
Chapter 16
As the three of them walked through the corridors heading to Alfie’s office, Miranda tried to motion with her eyes to Kyle that he should go and check on Sapphire and Jean-Paul and Butter. They had been fine when she and Jack had gone to Skye’s room, but considering what had just happened she was going to feel a lot better if someone could check on them, just the same.
What she quickly came to realize was that trying to get Kyle to read her mind wasn’t going to work.
“What?” he exclaimed, moving his hands like he was a mime in a box. “What are you saying? Do you want me to go on ahead and look in Alfie’s office? You want me to go scout around outside for Josh Bates? You want me to fetch you a pencil? What? Seriously, you expect me to read your thoughts now? I’m a spirit, Miranda, you’re the psychic.”
She sighed, loud and long. “I was trying to be quiet in case anyone’s around, Kyle, but if you need me to spell it out will you please go and check on our friends? And, yes, actually. Going around and seeing if you can spot Josh Bates anywhere would be most helpful.”
“Too right, it would,” Jack agreed. “Thanks, Kyle.”
“I never agreed to…!” He didn’t even bother finishing. “Fine. Whatever I say is just going to be misquoted by Miranda, so I might as well go and do it. You guys make me miss all of the fun stuff.”
He zipped off, right through the walls on a straight line that would take him directly to the dining room. Not ten seconds later Miranda heard him shout, “Everyone in here is okay! In fact, they’re still flirting with each other and I’m very uncomfortable with what I’m seeing!”
Miranda chuckled, trying to imagine what the usually uptight Jean-Paul Devereux could have said to the wildly eccentric Sapphire Moon-Flower that would have made Kyle embarrassed. In life, Kyle had been no prude, that was for sure.
“I’m leaving now!” Kyle shouted again. “I’ll be back soon. I won’t leave you guys alone for long. Just for the record, my job is to protect you, not to go searching for homicidal tour boat captains!”
“I take it,” Jack said to her, “that everything is okay with our friends and our dog?”
“Yes,” Miranda told him with a relieved nod. “Kyle was just shouting to me from the dining room. Everything’s fine, and he’s off to look for Josh Bates.”
Miranda had no idea how that worked, actually. How far could a ghost’s voice carry, for crying out loud? Could Kyle call to her from the other side of the world, from the United States, even? After a lifetime of seeing and hearing and interacting with ghosts, she realized that there was still so much she didn’t know about them.
At the door to Alfie’s office, off to the side of the main room, Jack knocked. The door wasn’t actually closed, and as he knocked it swung inward, revealing a messy and dingy little space with an old metal desk and a single metal filing cabinet and a dying bamboo plant tucked into the corner. There was an oil painting on the wall of a boat riding waves on the ocean that looked like it had probably come from someone’s garage sale. It was the room’s only decoration.
At the desk, looking surprised to see them standing there, sat Alfie Parker.
“It isn’t bad enough,” he said to them when he got his composure back, “that you came here with news that one of my boarders, my friend Caleb, was murdered? You had to bring a couple of uniformed patrol officers here too? I mean, at least Ben Clark was decent enough not to throw his being a cop in everybody’s face.”
“Alfie,” Jack said, with a smile that Miranda recognized as insincere, “I’m really sorry to bring this trouble to you… oh wait. That’s right. We didn’t bring it here. This trouble was already here.”
He held up the black notebook they had found in Skye’s room. Flipping to a page near the middle, he settled it on the precarious stack of paperwork on the desk in front of Alfie.
“What’s this?” he asked Jack.
“This is Skye Rogers’ personal account of vehicles she and Caleb Owen stole, going back for months.” He waited for that to sink in. “They were operating an illegal, criminal enterprise right out of your Bed and Breakfast. So. You tell me, Alfie. Did you know about this?”
“What? No! Of course not.” Alfie sat up straighter in his squeaky chair now, leafing through the pages under Jack’s watchful eye. If he made a move to destroy this evidence Miranda had no doubt that Jack would have him pinned to the floor before the first rip or tear. “How could I know? Skye and Caleb? Both of them? No. I don’t believe it. Caleb was a good man. I wanted his name cleared and his killer found, I didn’t want…”
He shoved the notebook back, and shot up from his chair, glaring at Jack and Miranda together. “You two have brought me nothing but trouble!”
“Well,” Jack said glibly. “I can see how you might believe that. I mean, we show up, one of your friends is dead, another is assaulted, it turns out they’re both criminals. How does that look? Well, I’ll tell you what it looks like to me. It looks like you’ve been allowing people to commit crimes in your Bed and Breakfast.”
Alfie’s eyes went wide in his rough, weathered face. “Now, wait a minute. I never knew. I never pry into the lives of my boarders. No, sir. No way. Their private business stays private when they’re here. That’s just the way it is.”
“Well, that’s just grand of you,” Jack said. “Unfortunately, in this case, your laissez faire attitude has made you an accomplice to a felony crime.”
“Several crimes,” Miranda added.
“Why, yes,” Jack agreed, pursing his lips as if he was really upset by this. All of those stolen cars. Such a shame. A guy like you could end up spending the rest of his life in jail, you know. Kiss this place goodbye. Kiss your freedom goodbye with it.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Alfie said, suddenly very defensive. “Now, now, just wait. I’ll cooperate with your investigation. Of course I will. I had no idea, I’m telling you. None at all.”
“You didn’t know what Caleb and Skye were up to?” Jack asked him.
“No, I tell you. None at all. I just thought they liked to stay here. If it wasn’t for those two and Ginger and Ben Clark I’d hardly ever have anyone staying here. It’s hard enough to make my expenses as it is.”
“You know what I’ve noticed?” Jack said to him, tapping the cover of the black notebook. “There’s an awful lot of cars registered to Skye Rogers around this place. The one out back. The van that Miranda here saw going down the road earlier. I’m willing to bet that once they stole the cars and changed the VIN numbers, they registered each and every one to her. You didn’t notice her driving a bunch of different cars all the time?”
“Well, sure I did,” Alfie said, tugging at an ear. “But, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change cars. Just like she changes her shoes, you know?”
Miranda kept a glare from her expression, but just barely. That was a truly sexist thing to say. Ignorant, too, if Alfie was going to excuse his not knowing about the stolen cars by saying it was just some sort of ‘woman thing.’
“Look, guys,” Alfie kept going, “I thought Caleb was a banker. He told me he was in acquisitions.”
Miranda and Jack returned his blank stare. They stood there, and looked at him, until the light bulb came on behind his eyes.
“Oooh,” he said, drawing the syllable out. “Acquisitions. He meant acquiring cars. He stole cars. I guess I should have put all that together. But I swear, I’m not helping anyone commit crimes. Please don’t take this place away from me. It’s all I have.”
Jack held up a hand in a friendly way. “Alfie, I have no interest in taking away your place of business from you. This is an active crime scene now and it’s going to have to be shut down for a day or two while the forensics guys go over everything
with a fine-tooth comb, but after that you can have it back far as I’m concerned. As long as you cooperate, that is. I have to admit, I have no idea why you still try to make a go of a place like this, out here in the middle of nowhere, but as long as you cooperate with us then I have no reason to lean on your livelihood."
“It was my mother’s,” Alfie said, his voice taking on a distant quality. “She was from America originally, you know. She moved out here when she married my dad. I never knew him, he died when I was just a little baby. She could have gone back then but decided to stay. She had the Blue Jay built when I was just five years old. She named it after her most favorite bird, the Blue Jay. They’re not native to Australia and she missed them. It was like having a part of her old home in her new one.” He paused for a moment, his eyes glistening as the memories came out. “My most distant memories are all about the construction and the building of everything from the foundation to the roof, and the way my mother would smile to see it all coming together. Back then, you see, the lake was really something. Lots of good fishing, gentle waves for boaters, the whole cracker. That was before the weeds grew up and they stopped stocking the tributary. Now… well. There’s not much cause to stay in a dump like this anymore, I suppose.”
Miranda was glad to see that she’d been right about Alfie. He was just a man trying to live his life. She got the feeling that there wasn’t an evil bone in his whole entire body. “Thank you for sharing that, Alfie,” she told him. “I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy.”
“Oh, what does it matter now?” he complained. “One of my long-term guests has been murdered, another assaulted near to death, and the two of them together were running a criminal syndicate out of my rooms! I’ll have to shut down after this anyway. Please. Just tell me what you want from me and then go, won’t you?”
In response to that, Jack took his mobile out of his back pocket and swiped through several screens until he found what he was looking for. Turning it around, he showed Alfie a photo.
“Do you know this man?”
Miranda saw only a glimpse of it herself, but it was enough for her to know that it was a picture of Josh Bates. Alfie squinted at it, and pursed his lips, and then snapped his fingers. “I remember him. He’s stopped by the Blue Jay a couple of times. Once I even offered to rent him a room, but he just smiled and said something about living on a boat.”
