Haunted House Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “Thanks, Doc!” Danny said.

  “I’ll give you some time with your wife,” Dr. Rose said while nodding to Hayley as he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  “No need to worry, babe. It’s just a little flesh wound. The bullet grazed the foot. It didn’t go in all the way.”

  “Who shot you?”

  Danny slid off the table and hugged Hayley, slightly embarrassed. “I did.”

  “You shot yourself?”

  “Yes, it was an accident,” Danny said sheepishly. “I was on the lawn raking leaves when I saw Damien Salinger come home. He had a gun with him and said it had been the one that was out getting repaired, so I figured if it was the murder weapon, I should get a closer look at it.”

  “And he just let you handle it?”

  “Yeah, he was proud because he loves his guns and is a full-throated supporter of the Second Amendment.”

  “And then you shot yourself in the foot.”

  “I just grazed it! But it hurt like hell.”

  “Oh, Danny . . .”

  “I was on the ground writhing around, yelling that I needed to get to the hospital, and Damien said he would bring me here, but before he did, he made sure to look around for the bullet . . .”

  “Did he find it?”

  “Yes, he found it in the grass near the driveway and he put it in his pocket. Only then did he help me to his car and bring me here.”

  “Is he still here?”

  Danny shook his head. “No. Once the doctor said I was going to be okay, I told him he didn’t have to hang around until you got here.”

  “Well, I’m grateful he took care of you and got you here safely.”

  Danny hopped forward on one foot closer to Hayley. “We need to get that bullet.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Danny gripped both of Hayley’s shoulders to maintain his balance. “That bullet could prove that Damien shot Wendi Jo Willis if it’s the same kind as the two bullets they took out of her body.”

  “Danny, we should just let the police . . .”

  “If we don’t act quickly they could get rid of all the bullets and the gun and then we’ll never have proof he did anything!”

  “I am not going to do this. Do you hear me, Danny? I am not breaking into the neighbor’s house and that’s final!”

  Hayley stuck to her guns until the next day when Danny invited Damien and his two kids, Casper and Carrie, over to carve pumpkins in the backyard. It was clearly a distraction, which would allow Hayley to slip across the lawn and sneak inside to search the drawers of the gun cabinet for a box of bullets belonging to the pistol in question. After serving lemonade and cookies to the budding pumpkin carvers, who watched Danny intently as he scooped out the pulp and seeds, Hayley sighed as Danny tried to signal to her that this was the time, it was now or never, their only chance. He was never going to stop, and as horrified as Hayley was, the possibility that their neighbor might be a cold-blooded killer finally drove her to the decision to go through with it.

  “Where’s Rosemary today?” Hayley casually asked as she brought back a paper plate piled high with more cookies shaped like little mummies and ghosts.

  “She went to run some errands in Ellsworth,” Casper said, disinterested but still laconically partaking in the pumpkin carving.

  Hayley set the cookies down on the table as everyone focused on shaping their pumpkins with eyes, noses, and mouths with Danny’s expert coaching. Hayley nonchalantly wandered away, and when she was confident there was no one looking, sprinted across the lawn to the house next door and slipped through the front door, which was unlocked. She turned back to see Danny distracting Damien by showing him how to carve the features by keeping the pumpkin in your lap and cutting clean up-and-down slices. Gemma and Dustin were also keeping Casper and Carrie occupied, and Hayley hoped that Danny hadn’t enlisted the kids to help out in any way with this harebrained scheme.

  Hayley knew, according to Danny’s recollection from his last visit, that the gun cabinet was located in a corner in the living room. Once she found it, she dropped to her knees and opened the bottom drawers. She cleared away a few boxes that she knew were for a rifle, not a handgun. She only found one box of nine millimeter caliber. She opened the box to find a handful of bullets left. She was about to pluck one out and stuff it in her pocket when she noticed in the corner of the drawer a piece of metal. She had almost missed it because it was in the shadows, but as she pulled the drawer open all the way, she saw it was a bullet. The top was crushed and it was scuffed and had clearly been fired. This had to be the bullet Damien found in the grass after Danny accidentally shot himself with his gun. She picked it up, looked it over, and was just about to close the drawer and get out of the house when she heard a familiar voice behind her say, “What are you doing in my house?”

  Hayley’s heart nearly stopped and she closed her eyes and dropped her head.

  Her worst fear had just happened.

  She had been caught.

  Hayley crawled to her feet, took a deep breath, and then turned around to face Rosemary Salinger, who stood across the room, clutching two shopping bags, glaring at Hayley, infuriated. This wasn’t the Stepford Wife Rosemary that she had first met when the Salingers moved into the neighborhood. This was the cold, detached, angry-acting Rosemary she had last encountered. And there was no question that Hayley was very scared of this Rosemary.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Rosemary, let me explain,” Hayley said lamely, taking a step toward her.

  “Damien!” Rosemary screamed, holding up her hands, warning Hayley to stay right where she was.

  Seconds later, Damien raced through the front door with Danny close on his heels, hopping along on his crutches. Damien’s eyes widened at the sight of Hayley standing in front of his gun cabinet. Danny audibly gasped, acting completely surprised to find his wife inside the Salinger house.

  “Rosemary, I didn’t see you pull into the driveway,” Danny said, mustering as much innocence in his tone as he could.

  “There was a starter issue with the car, maybe a low battery, so I dropped the car off at the mechanic and walked the rest of the way home,” Rosemary said evenly.

  “Oh,” Danny said, trying to act casual, as he turned and smiled at Hayley. “Hey, babe, what are you doing here?”

  Hayley sighed and shook her head. “You are unbelievable, Danny Powell! Selling out your own wife? You’re the only reason I’m here and you know it!”

  Damien looked confused. “What’s going on? Why did you break into our house?” He then noticed the bullet Hayley was holding. “What’s that in your hand?”

  Hayley knew it was time to come clean. If the Salingers were planning on shooting them, they would have to come through her first to get to the gun cabinet. She slowly raised the bullet she had between two fingers. “I came for this. The bullet you took from the grass after Danny stupidly shot himself in the foot.”

  “The gun just went off,” Danny said defensively. “I think there was something still wrong with it. You really should take it back to whomever fixed it!”

  “Shut up, Danny!” Hayley yelled.

  Danny obeyed, and looked down at the floor like a scolded child.

  “You broke into our house for a bullet? Why?” Rosemary asked.

  “We wanted to compare it to the bullets that shot Wendi Jo Willis,” Hayley muttered.

  Damien’s mouth dropped open. “You think I shot Wendi Jo?”

  “No, of course not!” Danny interrupted, nervously eyeing both Damien and Rosemary, fearing they might charge the gun cabinet, grab a couple of weapons, and shoot both him and Hayley on the spot.

  “Yes,” Hayley said matter-of-factly. “We saw you having a heated argument with her on Halloween. She was shot twice. You are obviously a gun aficionado.”

  “A what?” Danny asked, puzzled.

  “A fan of guns, Danny!” Hayley snapped.

  There was a long a
wkward pause and then both Damien and Rosemary burst out laughing.

  “So . . . let me get this straight . . . You think I was the one who shot Wendi Jo just because I collect firearms? Half the men in the state of Maine own guns!” Damien said, trying to catch his breath as he giggled. “That’s . . . that’s hysterical.”

  “I don’t think a woman shot dead in the woods not too far from here is remotely funny,” Hayley said flatly.

  Damien finally managed to control himself. “You’re right. What happened to Wendi Jo was a tragedy, and I feel sorry for her family, but I had nothing to do with it.”

  “So what were you two fighting about?” Hayley asked.

  Rosemary stepped forward and slipped her arm through her husband’s in a show of support. “We had every right to be angry with her. When we bought this house, Wendi Jo was representing the seller and she convinced us to use her cousin for the inspection. Well, he failed to disclose that the house needed a whole new roof, and we paid the full asking price. She purposely withheld that information in order to make a fast sale and her full commission. It was wrong and when Damien found out about it, he confronted her over the phone and threatened legal action! That’s when she showed up at the house to try and talk him out of it and he chased her off with the ax.”

  It made sense, but Hayley still wasn’t ready to let them off the hook just yet. “What was rolled up in the tarp that you were dragging across the lawn to your work shed?”

  Damien looked honestly perplexed.

  A light bulb seemed to go off in Rosemary’s head. “Did you think it looked like a woman’s body?”

  “Yes!” Danny shouted. “And I saw Damien cutting it up with his power saw in his tool shed!”

  “Come with me,” Rosemary said calmly.

  They followed her to the door leading down to the basement. Both Hayley and Danny stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs, fearing they might be walking into a trap, but Damien put a reassuring hand on both their shoulders from behind. “It’s fine. We’re not monsters. I promise.”

  Hayley wasn’t so sure, but by now her instincts were telling her they were in no danger, so she took a chance and headed down behind Rosemary.

  In the basement, there were about a dozen mannequins in various states of dress, a sewing machine station, and piles of fabric on a rack of metal shelves.

  “I’m an amateur dress designer. My dream is to one day be a contestant on Project Runway. I adore Heidi Klum!”

  Hayley perused the various dresses that some of the mannequins were wearing. “You’re really good. I’d wear one of your dresses.”

  “Thank you,” Rosemary said brightly.

  It was the first time Hayley had seen a genuine smile, and Rosemary did indeed have a lovely, non-threatening smile.

  “Rosemary had ordered some new mannequins, and so instead of just dumping some of the old ones I decided to cut them up for kindling to use in the fireplace this winter. I had wrapped one up in a tarp and left it outside because it was going to rain and I didn’t want it to get wet.”

  Everything was making sense, and Hayley got a dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach that they had made a terrible mistake.

  Danny wasn’t quite there yet.

  “I’d still like proof that the bullets from your gun weren’t the same kind that were used to kill Wendi Jo Willis,” he demanded.

  They all trudged back upstairs and Damien picked up the phone and called Sergio. Rosemary offered to make coffee, but Hayley and Danny politely declined. Within five minutes, Sergio was at the Salinger front door. He examined the gun for perhaps five to ten seconds before he handed it back to Damien.

  “It’s not the same gun or bullets,” he said confidently.

  There was another awkward silence. Hayley felt nauseous.

  Rosemary scowled at them and asked, “Was there anything else?”

  Hayley wanted to slap Danny upside the head for dragging her into his paranoid fantasies about haunted houses and neighbors possessed by evil spirits. She had been rightfully skeptical and should have remained the adult in the room, but Danny could be pretty persuasive, and because of that, she was now supremely embarrassed. “We should probably go check on the kids and see how they’re coming along with their jack-o’-lanterns.”

  Hayley and Danny waved good-bye and then sheepishly retreated out the door. When they got back to their house, the kids were just finishing up carving their pumpkins.

  “Look how talented you all are!” Hayley exclaimed. “Gemma, I see you’ve made Harry Potter again this year, and Dustin, that’s the best Batman you’ve done yet.” She turned to Casper and Carrie who were proudly showing off their own creations. “Casper, who is that supposed to be?”

  “Freddy Krueger,” Casper said, smiling.

  “Oh . . . yes, I can see it now . . .” Hayley said before turning to inspect Carrie’s carved pumpkin.

  “Do you recognize him, Mrs. Powell?” Carrie asked, more excited than Hayley had ever seen her before.

  “He does look familiar . . .” Hayley said, studying the face.

  “Charles Manson!”

  Hayley slowly backed away. “That would have been my first guess . . .”

  The Salinger family may not have turned out to be homicidal maniacs, but that didn’t make them any less strange.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hayley was bending over an open kitchen drawer tearing off a piece of plastic wrap when Danny, already off his crutches, wandered into the kitchen and spotted a freshly baked pie cooling on top of the stove.

  “Looks delicious,” he said. “What kind is it?”

  “It’s a chocolate banana cream spider web pie,” Hayley said. “It took a long time for me to make the chocolate on top look like a spider’s web, but I think it came out great.”

  “I bet it tastes great, too,” Danny said, reaching for the spatula lying next to it to cut himself a piece.

  Hayley quickly snatched the spatula away from him and slapped the back of his hand with it. “You don’t get any!”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I didn’t make it for you and I’m still mad at you,” Hayley growled, setting the spatula down and then covering the pie with the plastic wrap.

  “Look, so I was wrong about the neighbors. But you have to admit, any rational person would have assumed the same as me. Look at them. It’s obvious they’re a little off. They don’t act normal.”

  “No, Danny, you’re the one who doesn’t act normal. You got this whole family all worked up over nothing, and now, thanks to you, I could go to jail for breaking and entering!”

  “They’re not going to press charges,” Danny scoffed.

  Hayley picked up the pie. “Well, I’m just hoping this little peace offering helps calm the tensions between us.”

  “You only made the one pie?” Danny asked, crestfallen.

  “Get it through your thick skull, Danny! I’m punishing you for starting a feud with our new neighbors! You’re not getting any pie. Do you hear me?”

  Hayley stormed out the door with the pie, crossing the yard to the Salinger house. With her heart beating faster as she approached the door, she took a deep breath and rang the bell.

  After about a minute, the door flew open and Damien Salinger appeared, grimacing, clearly not happy to see her. “What do you want?”

  Hayley held out her pie. “I made you a dessert for tonight. It’s a chocolate banana cream pie with a spider’s web topping and it’s dairy-free and gluten-free so Casper can enjoy it.”

  “Carrie hates bananas,” Damien said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I should have asked . . .”

  “We don’t want a pie from you. We don’t want anything from you except for you to leave us alone!” Damien barked.

  “Damien, I am absolutely mortified and embarrassed about what happened, and if there is anything I can do to make it up to you—”

  He cut her off. “Do you realize I could have you arrested for breaking
into my house?”

  “Yes, I’m keenly aware of that possibility, but I was hoping—”

  “I want you to get off my property! I don’t want anything to do with you, or your husband, or your nosy kids who like to spy on us through the windows! And if you don’t stay off my property, I’m going to file a lawsuit and claim harassment!”

  Damien slammed the door in her face. Defeated, Hayley quietly walked back to her own house, carrying the pie. As she entered the front door, she set it back down on the stove. Danny was standing by the refrigerator, shoveling vanilla ice cream in his mouth directly from the carton with a spoon. “Didn’t go well?”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Danny,” Hayley said, seething.

  “Look on the bright side, babe,” he said, giving her a wink. “At least we have one of your delicious pies to eat tonight at dinner.”

  He set down the carton of ice cream, and like a hungry seagull circling an unsuspecting fish, hovered over the pie and picked up the spatula.

  Hayley wasted no time grabbing it out of his hand again and whacking him on the arm. “If you dare touch this pie, you’ll be sleeping on the couch for the next six months!”

  “Come on, Hayley!” Danny moaned.

  She shot him a stern look so he knew she was dead serious.

  Hayley was humiliated by what had transpired with the Salingers, and she put the blame squarely at Danny’s feet. They were no more murderers than her own family. But that still left the burning question. With the Salinger family finally and unequivocally in the clear, then who did shoot Wendi Jo Willis and bury her body in the woods?

  Bar Harbor Cooking

  by

  Hattie Jenkins

  I am quite sure by now that most of you have had your fill of sugary treats. I, for one, do not indulge in all that business when Halloween rolls around every year. But when this chilly weather settles in upon us for the next five months, I do admit to craving some good old-fashioned comfort food. And let me tell you, there is nothing more comforting than my delicious Easy Chicken and Dumplings. Trust me, my recipe, handed down by my grandmother, is a real keeper.