by Kathi Daley
I looked up Trent Mason and found a home phone number. I called the number, but another male who I assumed was a son, brother, or roommate answered. They informed me that Trent was at a local burger joint where he worked as a short-order cook. I still needed to finish my route, but whoever answered the phone said that Trent would be at work until seven, so I decided to wait to talk to him until after I was done for the day.
By the time I made it to the burger joint, it was almost five. I headed to the counter and asked to speak to Trent. The kid I spoke to informed me that Trent was in the kitchen, but it was fine if I went in to speak to him as long as I didn’t touch anything.
“Trent?” I asked just to confirm that the man I was speaking to was the right man.
“Yeah, I’m Trent. You’re the lady running the haunted house.”
“I am. In fact, the haunted house is the reason I’m here. I have reason to believe you are the one who painted our walls black.”
The man had the decency to blush. “Yeah. That was me. How’d you find out?”
“That isn’t important. What is important is the fact that you have been coming and going from the house with ease, so I have to wonder if perhaps you aren’t responsible for Joe’s death as well.”
The man held up his hands. “I had nothing to do with that. I swear. I have been in the house a few times, but that was to look for a treasure I heard about when I was a kid. I’ve always wondered about the treasure, so when I heard that you were going to open up the house, I decided to look around before someone else found it. I guess I might have punched a hole in one of the walls in the downstairs while following a hunch that didn’t pan out. I fixed the wall, but I didn’t have the same color paint you’d used, so I used the green paint I had in my garage. I went back a second time to take another look around and decided the green was pretty hideous, so I bought the black paint and repainted all the walls downstairs. It really does look better.”
“It does, but that isn’t really the point.” I paused as I considered what the point might be. I remembered that Mike had already gotten an alibi from Trent for the night Joe was killed. I supposed that our killer and our prankster could be two different people. “So I get why you painted the walls, but what was up with the skeleton in the bathtub?”
The guy shrugged. “I figured if all I did was paint the walls, someone might figure out why I’d painted the walls, so I did some other stuff to divert attention from the walls. I tried to make alterations that would enhance the experience. I really wasn’t trying to sabotage you or the fundraiser.”
“Then why did you change the locks?”
“I was afraid you’d find the open vent and secure it, so I figured if I changed the locks, I’d have a key and could continue to get back in as often as I wanted.”
“Were you there on Tuesday?”
He nodded.
“Are you the one to leave a puddle of water and wet footprints in the attic?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “No. That wasn’t me.”
“What about the crying?”
“Crying? What crying?”
Well that was interesting. Maybe we really did have a ghost. “Have you found the treasure?”
“No. At this point, I’ve decided it most likely never existed. I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Did you know about the hidden staircase and secret room before we found them?”
He flipped a burger. “Actually, no. I suspected there might be hidden passages, which is why I was punching holes in the walls, but I didn’t know for certain if they existed or where they were located. I don’t suppose you’ve found the treasure?”
“We have not,” I confirmed.
“Look, I didn’t mean to cause you any heartache. I guess once I got started with the pranks, they sort of got away from me. I’d offer to pay for the damage, the paint, and other supplies I charged to you, but I’m broke. This job doesn’t even pay enough to cover my rent even though I have three roommates.”
I wanted to be mad, but somehow I wasn’t. I guess I understood how what happened might have happened, and he really did make the haunted house better. “When you were at the house, did you ever see anyone else lurking around?”
“No. It was just me. I assume you are asking if I know who killed Joe. I don’t. I wish I did. I actually liked the guy. But I was bowling the night Joe died, and I didn’t go to the house at all that night.”
“Bowling? I remember that Grange was also bowling on the night Joe died. I assume you are in the same league?”
“We are. Different teams, but the same league. I don’t remember seeing Grange there that night, but maybe he was. The bowling alley was packed, so I might have missed him.”
I noticed that the man who’d been working the counter had poked his head in the door to check on the progress of the meals Trent was making.
“I should go,” I said. “We are still looking for Joe’s killer. If you’ve been in and out of the house, you might have seen something. It could even be something that didn’t stand out as being relevant at the time. If you think of something, call me. I’ll leave you my cell number.”
“There probably aren’t a lot of people who know about the secret staircase. I’ve spent a lot of time poking around that house, and I never found it. In my mind, if you can figure out who knew about the staircase, you’ll find your killer.”
“I suppose that’s true unless Joe was the one who knew where the staircase was located and whoever was with him accessed the staircase and the clock tower with him.”
He bobbed his head. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. I didn’t think to look at things from that angle.”
I turned to leave.
“Listen,” Trent added, “if you do find the treasure, will you tell me? I don’t expect to claim it at this point, but I have always wondered. It’d be nice to get an answer to that particular question.”
“If I find it, I’ll let you know,” I promised.
Chapter 15
By the time Tilly and I got home, Tony was waiting at my cabin. I’d missed him a lot more than I’d expected to. In a way, it bothered me that I’d become so dependent on his presence. I liked to think of myself as an independent sort who didn’t need anyone to keep me company, but I guess that somewhere along the way, I’d gotten used to Tony’s presence, and now I feared I not only enjoyed it but had come to need it as well.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” I wrapped my arms around his neck, and planted a big kiss on his lips.
“Me too. It was nice to spend some time in DC, but I missed you.”
I hugged him hard one more time and then took a step back. “Any news about our skeleton since we last spoke?”
“Not really. It appears possible that the skeleton we found actually is the remains of Edward Vandenberg, but so far, we haven’t found any markers that would definitely identify him as such. It does appear that the man had a poor diet based on his bone density when he died. There are many reasons for that, but poverty is the most prevalent reason. We know that Edward was a wealthy man, so that doesn’t really fit. Of course, the man could simply have been a finicky eater, or he may have had dental issues he never dealt with, which led to his dietary issues. He could even have had digestive issues. It is hard to know any of this based on the remains after all this time.”
“So what is the plan from this point?”
“My friend is going to run some additional tests, and I am going to get on the internet and start digging around. Maybe I can find something somewhere in one type of historical document or another that will provide us with information we don’t currently have. At the very least, if he did return to England, maybe I can find proof of that. If nothing else, it would eliminate the possibility that he had ended up in the sealed secret room.” Tony bent down to pick up Tinder who was trying to crawl up his leg. “So how are things here?”
“I found out who our prankster is.” I filled Tony in on my conversation with Trent.
> “I guess all that makes sense,” Tony said after I’d shared the details of why Trent had broken in, and why he’d put his own touch on the decorations.
“I’m not happy he did what he did without informing us as to what he was doing, but I don’t suppose any real harm has been done. At least we shouldn’t have to worry about any more late-night visits.”
“Do you know if Mike has made any progress on Joe’s murder?” Tony asked.
“Not as of the last time I spoke to him. I know he has interviewed a lot of people, but so far, everyone he has talked to has an alibi for the night Joe died.”
“What if the timeline Mike has been working from is off?” Tony asked.
“What do you mean?”
“According to Joe’s wife, he was at the house doing the volunteer thing, he came home and had dinner with her, she went to bed early while he was still watching television, and he was missing by the time she awoke the following morning. I seem to remember the wife saying something about going to bed at around nine. If Mike has been operating under the assumption that Joe returned to the house right away, then he would have been looking for the location of his suspects at around that time. But what if Joe didn’t go back to the house right away? An alibi such as the fact that Grange was bowling would work if the murder occurred at nine or maybe even ten, but what if the murder occurred at two or three a.m.?”
“So you think Grange did it?”
“Not necessarily,” Tony corrected. “I was just using Grange as an example. Mike said that Joe most likely died at some point between the time his wife went to bed and daylight. There are a lot of hours between those two points. The alibis Mike has been gathering only work if Joe was killed shortly after his wife retired for the evening. If he was killed later that night, then none of the alibis Mike has gathered really work. Or at least none of the alibis I know of.”
“I think Jack was out of town, so his alibi probably stands, but I do remember that Grange’s alibi was bowling as was Trent’s. Both would have been done by eleven. Maybe even sooner.”
Tony nodded. “Exactly. I’ve given this some thought, and I think that Mike needs to establish a timeline for each suspect that includes the overnight hours. Unless, of course, he has already done so, but just hasn’t mentioned it, which I assume is a possibility.”
“I’ll call and ask him. In fact, unless you are too tired, I’ll see if Mike and Bree want to come over. We can order a pizza and go over everything one more time.”
“Sounds good to me. I need to make a few calls, but I should be done in twenty minutes or so.”
A quick call to Mike netted me with the information that he and Bree had not eaten yet and that they’d like to get together. He suggested we go over to their place since Bree had made lasagna, which only needed heating, and we agreed. Tony grabbed a couple of bottles of wine while I changed out of my uniform. Tilly had been walking all day, and Tony had walked Titan when he’d gotten home, so we fed all the animals and headed out.
Mike and Bree currently lived in the house which had belonged to Bree for quite some time before they even started dating. There had been talk about them looking for a house that was “theirs” rather than “hers,” but so far, they hadn’t gotten around to it. Bree had a nice home in a pleasant part of town, but I knew she still considered the place “hers.” She’d make comments about Mike messing up her kitchen or leaving his socks on the floor of her bedroom. In my opinion, a home that represented neutral ground might be a good idea. Of course, Bree’s home was close to both her bookstore and Mike’s office, and it was on a quiet street, so in terms of location, it was going to be hard to beat.
The first thing I noticed when arriving at Mike and Bree’s was the smell of garlic. I’d always loved Italian food, but since I began dating Tony and he started cooking for me, I’d come to appreciate really good Italian food in a way I never had before.
“It smells wonderful in here,” I said to Bree, who was working in the kitchen when we arrived.
“I made two casseroles the last time I made lasagna and froze one, so we could just heat it up on a weekday. It’s warming in the oven, and I have garlic bread under the broiler.” Bree glanced at the wine in my hand. “I see you brought some of Tony’s stash.”
I nodded and then crossed the room to the drawer where I knew Bree kept her corkscrew. “Tony has started leaving some of his good wine at my place for those occasions when we stay at the cabin. I was never a wine snob before, but now that I’ve had really good wine that I could never afford on my own, I find that I have become a bit more discriminate. Which glasses do you want me to use?”
Bree grabbed four glasses out of a cupboard and set them on the counter. I poured wine into all four glasses, and then set them on the table next to the water glasses someone had already filled.
“This is basically ready,” Bree said as she slid the garlic bread from the broiler. “I have a salad in the refrigerator if you want to grab that. I’ll cut the lasagna while you grab the guys.”
By some sort of unvoiced agreement, we all seemed to understand that talk of murder and long-hidden bodies would wait until after we’d consumed the wonderful food Bree had made. During the meal, we discussed the upcoming harvest events in town as well as the Christmas events such as Christmas on Main which were really just around the corner. Bree hadn’t heard that the committee had planned to add a carnival to the long weekend, and she had some input on the idea which we ended up discussing at length. Once the meal was over, Tony cleared the table and started the dishes, while Bree and I put the leftover food away. When Mike grabbed a beer and headed toward the living room, I gave him the evil eye which had him offering to help Tony, while Bree and I relaxed. It didn’t take long to get the kitchen in order, so by the time Bree and I had opened the second bottle of wine, Tony and Mike joined us near the white brick fireplace.
“So what did you learn in DC?” Mike asked after we’d all gotten settled.
Tony filled him in. We didn’t really know a lot, but we did know that the skeleton at least had the potential to have belonged to Edward Vandenberg, but even Mike expressed his doubt when Tony informed him that the person whose body had been left in the sealed secret room had suffered from nutritional deficiencies in life. As Tony and I had discussed, it was possible the man had health issues or simply bad eating habits that led to the deficiencies, but the more likely explanation was poverty.
Once we’d exhausted the discussion of the skeleton in the secret room, Tony brought up Joe’s death. He started off by asking Mike about the time limitations of the alibis.
“A lot of the alibis are indeed based on the premise that Joe headed back to the house shortly after his wife went to bed,” Mike said. “I guess it just made sense that the guy would head out as soon as he was able, but I may need to rethink things. There is still the problem of finding anyone who had both motive and opportunity. I can come up with a list of people who had a beef with the guy who could not have physically gotten up into the clock tower and killed the man, and I have a list of folks who we know knew about the clock tower and had the physical ability to access it but don’t seem to have a motive, but I’m short on folks who fall into both categories.”
“It does seem that the number of people who even had the potential to know that Joe had gone back to the house that night is limited,” Bree said.
“What if he was followed?” I asked.
Mike frowned. “Followed? Followed how?”
“What if someone had been watching his house and when Joe left, his killer followed him.”
“Why would someone be watching Joe’s house?” Mike asked. “Even if someone had a beef with Joe, it makes no sense the killer would just be sitting there looking for an opportunity to act.”
I supposed Mike was right. The idea that someone would be sitting outside the man’s house waiting for him to leave was pretty thin.
“What about the wife?” I asked.
Mike raised a brow, bu
t he did give me his attention.
“The wife was the one to report him missing,” I pointed out. “She said he was watching television when she went to bed and that when she awoke, he was gone, but do you know this for certain? The couple didn’t have children and lived alone. Isn’t it possible that she followed him to the house?”
“Why would she do that?” Mike asked. “If she wanted to kill the guy, she could have just put cyanide in his meatloaf.”
“What if she didn’t mean to kill him? What if she saw him leave and followed him. Maybe she suspected an affair and wanted to see where he was going. Once they got to the house, she followed him into the secret passage, and something happened. I don’t know what exactly, but maybe he ended up dead, and the wife panicked and fled. After she got home, she made up the story about going to bed early.”
“Seems unlikely,” Mike said.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “But what about Grange?”
“What about Grange?” Mike asked me.
“You said that Grange and Joe had discussed the treasure, and you said that Grange’s alibi was bowling. Grange has made it sound as if he was fine with the fact that his friend and employee went into competition with him, but what if he really wasn’t as fine as he is trying to make out?” I asked, continuing my line of questioning. “I like Grange. We’ve known each other for a long time, and I want to believe he wouldn’t kill anyone, but he really does make a good suspect. Even Grange said that if Joe was going to go after the treasure, it made sense that he would be the person Joe would call for help. Maybe Joe did just that, the two men met up at the house, there was a struggle of some sort, and Joe died. Other than Joe, and possibly Trent, Grange is the person most likely to have known about the secret passage, and he has the physical ability to both kill Joe and to leave him in the clock tower.”
