Haunted Be the Holidays: A Krewe of Hunters Novella

by Heather Graham

  Did this have something to do with her personally? She had been disturbed by the performer in the street. And she had been the one to receive the line about dying in a pool of blood.

  He shook his head. No—there would be no reason. Kody was from Florida—she had only been involved with the theater in the last month or so.

  He thought that, in a way, all the members of the Krewe of Hunters were performers themselves—always pretending to the rest of the world they did not seek and often receive assistance from the dead in solving cases.

  He reached the dressing room. The door was ajar; he went in and found Ginny Granger seated at the dressing table, staring down at her hands.

  Today, Ginny had streaks of mauve and orange in her hair, a few shoots of pink, and one streak of emerald green. She looked up at Brodie, misery in her eyes.

  “I would never hurt Brent,” she vowed. “Never. In a thousand years. He’s a good man. A talented man. He gives to every bum on the street. He’s polite and courteous to everyone, and that isn’t every actor who has worked on Broadway, trust me. I would never hurt him.”

  “Okay, Ginny. Please, what I’m trying to figure out is what might have happened. I understand you delivered the tea, but you weren’t here when Brent came in at intermission. So, tell me everything, from when you brewed the tea until when you left it here.”

  Ginny nodded, brushing away a silent tear. “I brew the tea in the green room,” she said. “Adam Harrison had that set up beautifully—you know, most theaters don’t even have one. They’re more for television studios and the like. But Adam is always thoughtful. The green room has a refrigerator and a microwave—and a pod coffee machine and a little thing that boils water. I use the little water-boiler. We have a teapot, naturally, and we have an assortment of teas—tea became Brent’s thing. I selected the tea he said he wanted and put it in the little strainer in the pot. I boiled water and poured it in. I put a couple of cups on the tray—I always do. When it was set, I put the tray in his room, and then…”

  She broke off, frowning.

  “What, Ginny?”

  “I left…I hurried out to the rack where the costumes were.”

  “Why were you frowning? What were you thinking?”

  “I saw someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but…I remember. I saw someone…something…out of the corner of my eye. I figured it was just Barry heading in ahead of the intermission…with the mask.”

  “I believe Barry did go in with the mask.”

  “Yes, I remember, it had been fixed. But I thought later—I mean, I saw him go back again when Brent was in the dressing room.”

  She appeared to be perplexed, not certain of what she had seen. “I didn’t even think about it. I mean, when the show ended, it was chaos, and no one knew…well, Brent denied he just fell back into taking drugs, and I believe him.”

  “Thank you, Ginny,” he said quietly.

  There was a tap at the door. Timing couldn’t have been better if it had been staged.

  “I…don’t know what to do. I can’t really work on anything—the cops or whoever they are have the place rather torn apart. I’d been going to spend the day working on the Puritan show…”

  “Go home. Go to a museum. Go have fun doing something or just getting some rest,” he suggested.

  She smiled and walked toward the door just as it opened. Charly Atwood was there. He nodded somberly to Ginny.

  She hurried on out as Charly came in. He didn’t sit.

  “Special Agent Crow said that you wanted to talk to me—something about a street performer,” Charly said.

  The door closed behind Ginny.

  “Did she do it?” he asked softly and anxiously. “I’m guessing that you think that someone else drugged Brent, and that it had to be someone behind the stage.”

  “We don’t know what to think yet, Charly,” Brodie said. “But I am curious about someone who was apparently wearing a mask similar to the one Brent used. Clara and Kody saw him—or her. I was hoping maybe you’d seen him. Maybe knew who he was—or knew if anyone had come in or out, perhaps managed to slip backstage, after the performance started.”

  “I am strict,” Charly said. “My ushers all know—ticket, ticket, ticket. Unless it’s a well-known Krewe member. Or consultant, such as yourself.” His eyes widened. “You don’t think you have a rogue agent, do you? Or associate. I know Jackson was here, you were here…Clara, stage managing. Angela was here earlier. Most of the Krewe—even those who had hoped to attend—were out of town or engaged. Halloween. It always draws out the crazies.”

  “So, to your knowledge, no one other than someone with the Krewe—or working the show—could have gotten backstage?”

  He winced. “We don’t have cops in the wings, but…someone would have noticed, don’t you think? And what fool would be crazy enough to sneak into a theater associated with an elite unit of the FBI?” He paused, shaking his head. “But then again, everyone loves Brent, so I can’t imagine how anyone working with him would have done such a horrible thing.”

  “Did you see the street performer, Charly?”

  “No, I’m really sorry—I didn’t.”

  “And nothing struck you as unusual about the audience last night?”

  “It was Halloween. Everything was unusual,” Charly said.

  Brodie nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, thanks.”

  As he spoke, there was another knock at the door. This time Charly left as Percy Ainsworth, set designer and head of the stagecraft department, stuck his head in.

  “Hey, Brodie, I may have something for you,” he said.

  Charly waited, as if he needed to hear what was said as well.

  “Thanks, Charly. Percy, come on in.” He made it clear that Charly was to leave, knowing that he and Percy were friends so they would probably talk later.

  But right now, he wanted to hear what Percy had to say—without Charly present.

  Charly nodded and left. Percy came in and closed the door.

  “I didn’t think of this until…until now. I wasn’t paying that much attention to people coming and going from the stage. But Ginny mentioned to me someone went into Brent’s room—this room—before the break. With the mask.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I saw Barry later with the mask, and he was saying he was going to show Brent how it had been repaired. I can’t imagine why he would say that if he’d already brought the mask back here. And it got me thinking…there had been a street performer outside with a similar mask. I don’t know how the hell he would have managed it, but…I don’t know. Maybe someone with a grudge came in off the street, holding the mask up…and anyone working here would have thought whoever it was belonged. I mean, I’m no detective, but hey, that’s kind of a no-brainer.”

  “Did you see anyone at any time?” Brodie asked him.

  “Just Barry—right at the intermission.”

  “Thank you,” Brodie said. “If you think of anything else—it doesn’t take an investigator to be observant, so…thanks.”

  “Sure.” Percy grimaced. “I’ll be hanging around all day, trying to put things back when the cops finish tearing the place apart.”

  “Okay. I guess there will be a bit of a mess.”

  Percy headed on out and Brodie followed him. He’d find Jackson and start talking—or listening—with him to the actors who had been “townspeople” in the chorus.

  He hesitated outside the dressing room. The theater had a “stage” door, but only because of fire regulations. Thanks to the levels of the ground and the way the theater had been built, it was a stage door that was never used. It was a fire exit at the end of a small hall and almost directly across from the steps that led down to the dressing rooms and prop and set rooms in the basement.

  It couldn’t be opened from the outside.

  The only way in would be if someone opened it from the inside—and then an alarm would go off.

  He walked
the short distance to the door that was marked “Emergency Exit Only.”

  He was staring at it when Jackson found him there.

  “What?” Jackson asked.

  “Charly Atwood swears he didn’t see anything unusual—other than Halloween craziness—last night. And he said his ushers know that no one gets in without a ticket. Unless it’s one of us.”

  “We’ll get the forensic team to dust,” Jackson told him. “There’s an alarm—if this door opens, there’s an alarm.”

  “I know. Still, it’s worth checking out. Whatever happened, happened from within here.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Someone—both Ginny and Percy Ainsworth thought it was Barry—went to Brent’s dressing room before the intermission.”

  “Our person from within here,” he said. “But we need to leave this to the forensic team now. We have someone else to interview.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve gotten a call from a museum employee. She saw our victim—our dead vampire woman, Helena Oldham, leave the museum.”

  “We knew she’d left it.”

  “Yes, but this woman—Vickie Bostwick—was leaving, too.”

  “Don’t tell me…there was a street performer in a death’s head mask outside, and Helena stopped to watch him?”

  Jackson shook his head. “You’re partially wrong.”

  “There was a street performer out there—wearing some other kind of a mask?”

  “You got it. Only, this time, our man—or woman—was dressed up as something else.”

  “What this time?”

  “President Abraham Lincoln.”

  “The man some consider to be our greatest American President--and the one President assassinated in a theater,” Brodie said.

  “The one and only.”

  “Let’s get over there—asap.”

  Chapter 8

  Kody gave her attention to the construction and beginning of the theater.

  That was in 1842.

  Nineteen years before the first shots of the Civil War had been fired. Arthur Rutledge had managed and maintained the theater himself for five years before he passed away.

  She searched out his death records. By every account she found, Arthur Rutledge had died at home, in his bed, of natural causes at the age of seventy-seven.

  No pool of blood.

  After his death, the theater had fallen vacant for several years. Then it had been purchased by Timothy Bainbridge, a man who had appeared from nowhere, and was suspected to have made his money through ill-gotten gains—he had been a later-day pirate, or so many claimed.

  A sea captain, by his own declaration. But apparently, he tended to be where other ships went down, where crews disappeared without a trace, and where other evil things occurred. Nothing could be proven against him, and he was never prosecuted.

  “This could be something,” Kody said aloud.

  Clara looked over at her.

  “In 1859, Captain Timothy Bainbridge had ‘business’ with one of his ships. His journey coincided with the disappearance of the Kiley Marie, a merchant vessel. Bainbridge was gone for a year—and he wasn’t paying his debts. He seemed to disappear. Rumor went around—supposedly started by one of his men—that he had been injured. So the theater was considered abandoned. And that’s when Judson Newby bought it, and he and Caroline—died. Clara, what if Bainbridge was nursing his wounds somewhere, but he got better. And he came back—bitter and vengeful? What if Caroline and Judson didn’t die so peacefully, as those who discovered them believed? What if Bainbridge came back and murdered them?”

  “Where was your pool of blood?” Clara asked.

  “I haven’t found a pool of blood yet,” Kody said. “But okay, suppose he hid out at the theater, hating the two for taking it over. What if he killed them, and…”

  “Someone knew—and killed him?”

  Kody nodded. “In a pool of blood—one they managed to get picked up before anyone else ever discovered it? They weren’t lighting up crime scenes with luminol back then.”

  “It’s possible—anything is possible. We’re talking about events well over a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “Okay, how would we ever prove that? Especially since it was so, so long ago, and you’ve got a dozen books in front of you and can’t find more information. If he had been assumed ‘disappeared’ or ‘lost at sea,’ there won’t be any records on him. And a vengeful ghost—if the man did turn into a vengeful ghost—wouldn’t be capable of mixing up the cocktail that downed Brent and Barry.”

  “No—but any member of the Krewe will tell you that a human being is always involved. The past may influence the present, but there’s a flesh and blood killer out there.”

  “Piracy—as in our old concept of Blackbeard piracy—began to die out in the 1820s. But Bainbridge was supposed to have assailed ships at sea much later, almost into the 1860s. He was never caught, but it seems that most historians credit him with the loss of many ships from different nations. He kidnapped a few ‘wives’ and had—according to this researcher—about a dozen illegitimate children. He seldom supported them—or their mothers—and there must have been resentment on that. But the wives were all over the place—Florida, Texas, Mexico, and New England.” She looked up at Clara, tapping the book she was reading. “The first printing on this book was 1880. And the author tracked down police reports on Bainbridge. He was last seen going to the theater—to the theater! Clara, I think he was killed there. Stabbed or shot—and that whoever is doing this knew about Bainbridge.”

  “Possibly. When did he disappear?” Clara asked.

  “Several years before Judson bought the theater.”

  Clara’s phone rang, and she answered it quickly. She spoke for a minute, listened, and then hung up. “Let’s get to the theater. Adam Harrison wants to meet us there—we need to make a few decisions. Jackson and Brodie just left, investigating the death of the poor woman they found on the decorated lawn of that mansion yesterday. But Adam assured me the place is still crawling with cops. Oh—or I can leave you here, if you’d rather?”

  Kody smiled at that. “Neither of us is really kick-ass. We could use Sophie Manning, my almost-sister-in-law. She was a cop.”

  “We’ll draw on her if we need to,” Clara said. “For now, I do think we should stick together.”

  “Yes, that’s fine. Now that I have a name, I can work on the computer. Clues to follow. We’ll head to the theater.”

  “You really think something happened there that no one knows about—that someone was murdered there, and it was covered up? Seriously, whether it was done to him by some other hand or not, Brent was higher than a kite on stage—and you did pull it out of the fire.”

  Kody blushed. “Thanks. I think Brent could have been suggestible. And he might have been fed those lines.”

  They left the library and headed to the theater. It was after they’d found parking and started to walk the few blocks to the entrance that Kody suddenly stopped cold, a shop window drawing her attention.

  Halloween was being transferred into fall and Thanksgiving. Pumpkins and multi-colored leaves were artistically spread about. A small cornfield had been created and a Pilgrim couple stood together at the far side of the window. The wife was holding a pottery bowl filled with ears of corn and other vegetables. She and her husband smiled, looking out over the bounty of their fields—where, Kody saw, a life-sized scarecrow provided protection.

  The scarecrow would have scared anything—any bird, no matter how big—with any sense. He was supposed to be a seventeenth-century scarecrow, so he was dressed in a loose white cotton shirt, breeches, and boots. His head appeared to have been fashioned by sliding a burlap bag over a pumpkin, or some other such-sized object. The eyes were buttons and the mouth was leering.

  “There you go—Thanksgiving,” Clara said. She walked on by the window.

  Kody didn’t know why she paused, but she did.

  The scarecrow was creepy
—ridiculously creepy for a display window for Thanksgiving.

  “Halloween is over,” she murmured under her breath.

  Then the scarecrow moved. It turned and looked at her, jumped off its wooden frame, leaned against the glass, looked at her and pointed with its straw arms.

  “Clara!” she called.

  She wasn’t terrified, but she was as frozen inside as she had been seeing the dancer in the death’s head mask.

  She was angry—and determined.

  She raced to the store, throwing open the door, pushing past several women who were leaving, and racing to her left and to the sheet drawn “tapestry” that covered the rear of the display.

  “Miss!” a clerk called out, coming quickly toward her.

  Kody didn’t hear. She reached out to jerk the tapestry aside.

  * * * *

  “You know how early everything starts for Halloween—theme parks, stores, everything and everyone!” Vickie Bostwick, a curator for the museum, told them.

  Bostwick was in her mid-thirties, with short brown hair, thin-rimmed glasses, and a no-nonsense manner. “I didn’t think anything of it—we had a lot of ‘living statues’ out on the lawn, and over several days, many of them were presidents. There were at least five George Washingtons, some Tricky Dickies, and naturally several Lincolns. When I saw the man in the mask dancing on the steps, I didn’t think anything about it. Halloween—as I said. Well, it was before Halloween, but everyone goes crazy all October, so it seems.”

  “What made you think this costumed character had something to do with Miss Oldman’s disappearance?” Jackson asked her.

  “When I saw the information about the murder—and the picture of her and her dog on the news—I couldn’t help but call because she followed him. He was doing some crazy kind of stuff with his dancing, and beckoning people. He had a small crowd and they were laughing and imitating his dance steps…Some people walked away, but a few of them followed him. I was just leaving—walking over to the metro station. When I got there, I noticed that two or three people were still following him over to the side street—by the station where I was going—and I think he got into some kind of a vehicle. There were only a couple of girls with him then, but I swear, that poor young lady—Miss Oldman—was with them.”