Haunted House Murder

by Leslie Meier

  While I was puttering around my kitchen looking for the ingredients for this traditional fall/winter staple, I could not help but recall a memory from years past about a dear old friend of mine, Liz Caldwell, that involved chicken and dumplings.

  Liz had been a spinster most of her life, until the day she met Pat, a Pennsylvania transplant who had been hired by the post office after the regular mailman for the past fifty-two years, Arthur Fielding, passed away from old age. Pat was personable and funny, and Liz looked forward to him showing up at her front door every day with her mail. Well, it didn’t take too long for that spark to blossom into a romance, and the two were eventually married on a crisp fall day in 2006.

  As with most couples who meet later in life, both Liz and Pat came into the marriage with a little extra baggage. Hers was in the form of her collection of ceramic cats and his was his mother! Apparently, Pat couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his poor mother, Eileen, alone after all their years living together outside Pittsburgh, and Liz, although reticent about the whole situation, was just so darn happy to finally be married, she agreed to let his mother move to Maine and live with them.

  It started out smoothly enough as the couple settled into married life, and Liz told her confidantes in town that it was actually a blessing to have her newly installed mother-in-law around to help with the cleaning and cooking since both Liz and Pat had full-time jobs. But pretty soon a disturbing trend seemed to emerge every night at dinnertime. Pat simply adored his mother’s chicken along with her made-from-scratch dumplings, and so Liz held her tongue when Eileen served it practically every night of the week. Week after week. Her new husband didn’t seem to mind or even notice the repetition and he consistently dove into the dish with childlike abandon and enthusiasm. Since Liz’s culinary skills were spotty at best, she decided it would not be helpful to criticize.

  But let’s face it, after a few weeks of eating the same meal every night, anyone is bound to go a little stir-crazy. And sadly, Liz did. After three weeks, she politely but forcefully suggested that it might be nice to incorporate a steak or a nice piece of fish into their weekly rotation. Her mother-in-law stared at her as if she had just asked her to cut off her own hand. But after a few tense moments, Eileen smiled and nodded, and then turned on her heel and walked away. Liz, who had been holding her breath, finally exhaled, proud of herself for finally speaking up and, more importantly, being heard.

  Well, the next night when Eileen called the newlyweds to the dining table, Liz was shocked when her mother-in-law plopped down two piping hot bowls of chicken and dumplings in front of them. Pat gleefully dug in, not even bothering to lift his head from his bowl as he greedily slurped it up. Liz even caught Eileen smirking at her as she popped a generous piece of chicken into her mouth.

  Something snapped inside Liz and she stood up, picked up her own bowl of chicken and dumplings, circled around the table, and dumped it all over Eileen’s head. Well, needless to say, Eileen began screaming bloody murder and wailing at her son to do something, but Pat just had this surprised look on his face, and then after a few tense moments, just went back to eating.

  Liz left the table, collected her ceramic cats, packed a bag, and walked right out the front door, never to be heard from again. Rumor has it she moved to Pittsfield where she met a nice mechanic who appreciated her limited cooking skills. As for Pat and his mother, they’re still living together, and once a week, like clockwork, I see Eileen at the grocery store, stocking up on chicken and dumpling fixings. I hear she even crocheted an apron that says THE WAY TO MY SON’S HEART IS THROUGH HIS STOMACH, but to be honest, I’ve never seen her wear it so I can’t say it’s true although I’d say the betting odds are pretty good.

  Hattie’s Easy Chicken and Dumplings

  Ingredients:

  4 tablespoons butter

  1 medium onion, diced

  1 cup sliced carrots

  1 cup sliced celery

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon pepper

  ¼ cup all-purpose flour

  4 cups chicken broth

  3 cups cooked chicken, rough chopped

  2 teaspoons poultry seasoning

  1 teaspoon garlic powder

  1 teaspoon onion powder

  1 bay leaf

  1 cup heavy cream

  2½ cups Bisquick baking mix

  1½ cups milk

  salt and pepper, to taste

  In a large pot on medium/low heat melt your butter. Add the diced onion, carrots, and celery. Season with the salt and pepper. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the veggies soften and begin to turn brown.

  Add your flour into the cooked veggies and stir to coat. Add the chicken broth, chopped chicken, poultry seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, bay leaf, heavy cream and stir well.

  Turn your heat up to medium/high and bring to a boil.

  In a separate mixing bowl mix your Bisquick and milk together.

  Using a tablespoon, scoop generous spoonfuls of the dough and add to the boiling pot until all the dough is gone.

  Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cover pot for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove the lid and flip the dumplings and continue cooking for 10 more minutes.

  Remove from heat and let rest for 5 minutes before ladling scoops of chicken and dumplings into bowls. Serve with salt and pepper to taste.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The following morning on her way to the office, Hayley decided to drop the spider web’s pie off at the police station for Sergio and his officers to enjoy. It was also the perfect opportunity for her to get caught up on any progress in the Wendi Jo Willis investigation.

  Sergio gleefully dove into the pie and was happy to oblige as they sat in the chief’s office. “Her married boyfriend, Buster, is in the clear. He has an airtight alibi. He wasn’t even on the island. He and his wife, Kathy, were in Portland at a Rustic Overtones concert.”

  “Did he have an idea who might have wanted to harm Wendi Jo?” Hayley asked.

  Sergio moaned as he took another healthy bite of the pie. “Oh, that’s the best pie I’ve ever tasted, Hayley . . .” He chewed some more and swallowed. “Yes, he did.”

  Hayley was dying of curiosity. “Who?”

  “Her mother . . .” Sergio managed to get out between bites.

  “Dottie?”

  Sergio nodded.

  “But that’s ridiculous!”

  “He said the close mother-daughter relationship was a joke! They despised each other!”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “According to Buster, everything. But their biggest row was about selling Dottie’s house. Wendi Jo was worried Dottie couldn’t take care of herself anymore, and so she wanted to sell her house and check her into a senior assisted-living facility and Dottie cried, ‘Over my dead body!’ Maybe after she thought about it, Dottie decided it would be over Wendi Jo’s.”

  Hayley was not inclined to buy into the theory of Dottie as the killer, especially considering Dottie’s fragile, almost feeble condition, and the fact that her daughter, hardly a waifish model, was about three times her size. “Are you saying you think Dottie shot her own daughter twice, killing her, and then had the physical strength to drag her body into the woods and bury it?”

  Sergio sat back in his creaky chair and stretched out his arms, clasping his hands behind his head, as he yawned and said, “No, I’m saying Buster thinks so. But Dottie could have forced Wendi Jo at gunpoint into the woods and shot her there to avoid having to drag the body.”

  “Even if that’s what happened, you would still have to believe Dottie had the strength to dig a big deep hole, roll Wendi Jo into it, and shovel a mountain of dirt back into the hole to cover up the body? Really? A frail, old woman?” Hayley asked incredulously, standing up from her chair. “I just can’t imagine it.”

  “I know, it does not sound very plausible,” Sergio admitted.

  “We have to be missing something!” Hayley said as she paced back
and forth in Sergio’s office at the Bar Harbor Police Station.

  “We?”

  Hayley stopped suddenly. “I mean you, of course. I’m just a concerned citizen who just happens to want to know what happened to poor Wendi Jo Willis.”

  “I hope this does not become a habit, Hayley.”

  Hayley raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

  “It has not been lost on me that you have been very interested in this investigation, questioning people, showing up here to pump me for information. This is not going to become your new calling, is it? Playing amateur detective?”

  “Of course not, Sergio! I have a life, you know. This is a one-time thing. I promise. And I have only questioned maybe one or two people about the murder.”

  Sergio eyed her skeptically. “I will not even show you the complaint I received about you hounding your new neighbors.”

  “That was Danny! He got me all worked up with his scary ghost stories, and I may have gone a little too far, and I fully regret my behavior . . . and his!”

  “Other than you witnessing an argument between Mr. Salinger and Wendi Jo over a bi-curious house inspection, there was no evidence that he ever—”

  “I don’t mean to interrupt, Sergio, but a bi what?”

  “What did I say?”

  “Bi-curious house inspection? How can a house inspection be bi-curious?”

  “Unfairly prejudiced! The fix was in! She hired a relative to do it in order to hide the fact the roof needed to be replaced!”

  Hayley pondered this for a moment. “Biased! You mean biased!”

  “Yes, whatever! That family is completely innocent!”

  English was Sergio’s second language.

  Sergio sighed, frustrated. “And I have very few clues to go on except the locket you found at the scene. I took it to Bar Harbor Jewelry and showed it to Mr. Linscott, but he said he sells dozens of those lockets a year and had no idea who it belonged to.”

  “May I see it again?” Hayley asked.

  Sergio picked up his phone and pressed a button. “Stuart, go to the evidence drawer and bring me that locket from the Willis crime scene, would you, please?”

  He hung up.

  “I thought you would have an evidence room not just a drawer,” Hayley remarked.

  “This is Bar Harbor, Hayley, not New York City.”

  A few minutes later, one of Sergio’s younger officers, Stuart, popped in and handed his boss a plastic bag with the locket inside. He was a large young man with a baby face and had doughnut sprinkles on the sides of his mouth. He licked frosting off the fingers of his free hand.

  Sergio stared at him and shook his head. “Your lunch break is in twenty minutes, Stuart.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Chief,” he said, before nodding and smiling at Hayley and ambling out of the office.

  Sergio unzipped the bag and removed the heart-shaped silver locket. “It was already dusted for fingerprints, but we didn’t find a match in the database. The only thing we’re sure of is that the one print we found on it did not belong to Wendi Jo.”

  Hayley carefully examined the locket. As she turned it over in her hand, Stuart raced back into the office with a box of doughnuts. “Would either of you like a doughnut?”

  His sudden appearance startled Hayley and she dropped the locket. It smashed on the floor and broke in half. They all stared down at it in shock.

  A nervous Stuart spoke first. “I have a chocolate glaze and one with cream filling left. I realized I should have offered before when I brought in the . . . locket.”

  “Get out of here, Stuart!” Sergio growled.

  Stuart scooted away.

  Hayley bent down to pick it up. “Wait, Sergio, it’s not broken. It just popped open. And look at this. . . .” She handed Sergio a tiny picture that fit perfectly inside the locket. It was an old photo, at least from the 1970s, of a young couple clearly in love. The man was in a white military uniform, most likely the Navy.

  “Do you recognize them?” Sergio asked.

  Hayley shook her head. “The woman looks familiar, but I’m certain I’ve never seen the man before.”

  Sergio squinted at the photo. “Do you think that’s Dottie Willis?”

  “Her features are too sharp to be Dottie . . .” Hayley suddenly had an idea. “Can I borrow this photo?”

  “I’m afraid not. I can’t let any evidence leave this office until the case is closed.”

  Hayley took the photo from Sergio. “Then can I borrow your xerox machine?”

  After copying the photo of the young couple, Hayley scurried out of the police station, hopped in her car, and drove straight over to Bar Harbor Jewelry where she knew the owner, Irving Linscott, sold silver heart-shaped lockets. Mr. Linscott was a chatty one, and it was common knowledge if you went shopping for a wedding ring or came in to get a necklace repaired, you were probably going to be there for at least an hour and a half while Mr. Linscott regaled you with his long, drawn-out, seemingly endless stories. Still, Hayley found him to be a jolly old man with sparkling eyes and a sweet demeanor. He just told boring stories.

  Some bells jangled as she hurried through the door and she found Mr. Linscott, who some said resembled Santa Claus with his white beard and red complexion, helping a young man pick out an engagement ring for the girlfriend to whom he was about to propose. “Back in 1988, I think it was, I had a young man in here just about your age, and he was going to propose to his girlfriend and wanted to make it special so he had his uncle, who was a police officer, pull her over one day when she was driving home from work, and he approached her car and said, ‘Sorry, ma’am, I’m pulling you over because you are a suspect in a theft crime.’ And the woman says, ‘I have never committed any crime in my life!’ And then her boyfriend gets out of the back of the squad car, and his uncle the cop points to him and says, ‘I believe you stole this man’s heart!’ And then the man got down on one knee and proposed. Well, good thing she said yes, because then the uncle gave her a ticket for speeding!” Mr. Linscott guffawed as the young man stared at him, smiling politely, before asking as he pointed to a ring behind the glass case, “Can I take a look at this one?”

  “Most certainly,” Mr. Linscott said, opening the case and removing the ring. As he handed it to the young man, he was still chuckling over his story. “I got another one that’s even crazier. You just hold on while I deal with another customer.”

  The young man nodded, not sure if he wanted to stick around to hear it.

  Mr. Linscott ambled over to Hayley. “Well, I haven’t seen your pretty face in ages, Hayley. I think the last time was about two years ago at the Fourth of July parade. I have a funny story about that day—”

  “Mr. Linscott, I’m sorry, I don’t have a lot of time. I just need you to take a look at this.”

  She handed him a copy of the photo. He studied it carefully.

  “Someone lost one of those heart-shaped silver lockets you have here . . .”

  “My best seller in the whole shop.”

  “I recently found one and there was this picture inside. I know it’s a long shot, but I was hoping you might be able to tell me if you have ever seen this photo or recognize the people in it.”

  “Sure do. I was the one who cut down the photo to fit inside the locket. That’s her husband, Nate. He died in nineteen ninety-seven, but this picture was taken on their wedding day, must have been back in the early seventies maybe seventy-one or seventy-two. She brought it in about six months ago. I remember the day she came in because, well, it’s a funny story—”

  “Mr. Linscott, who is it?”

  “Beatrice Lumley.”

  It took a moment for Hayley to recognize the name and then it dawned on her. Of course. That’s why the woman in the photograph looked so familiar. She had just seen her recently. Beatrice. One of Dottie Willis’s best friends with whom she played cards every week.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Beatrice’s eyes widened in surprise. “You f
ound my locket? That’s wonderful news! I could not imagine what could have happened to it! It has such sentimental value. You see, inside there is an old picture of me with my late husband, Nate, and when I couldn’t find it the other day, I was beside myself with worry—”

  “I know. The locket accidentally opened, and I saw the photo. Your husband was very handsome.”

  “Thank you,” Beatrice said, standing expectantly in the doorway of her modest home tucked away at the end of Hancock Street, not too far from the Island Times office. “Would you like to come in for some tea?”

  “Perhaps another time. I have to get back to the office.”

  “I see . . .” Beatrice said, smiling, glancing at Hayley’s empty hands. “So do you have it with you?”

  “No, that’s the thing. Police Chief Alvares wouldn’t let me return it to you just yet on account that it was found so close to the crime scene.”

  The blood began to slowly drain from Beatrice’s face. “What crime scene?”

  “In the woods behind our house where poor Wendi Jo Willis was found shot and buried.”

  “I see. How on earth did my locket wind up there?”

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell me!”

  “What would I know about any of that nasty business?” Beatrice wailed, suddenly nervous, her hands fidgeting.

  Hayley shrugged. “It’s just odd that of all the places for your locket to show up . . .”

  She let the suggestion hang there until Beatrice, who now was on the verge of some kind of emotional breakdown, blurted out, “I must have lent it to Wendi Jo! Yes! Now I remember! She was going on a date, and had coveted my necklace with the locket, so I let her borrow it for the occasion! Wendi Jo must have dropped it before she was killed. Yes, that’s it. That’s what must have happened!”

  Beatrice nodded, happy with her explanation although Hayley didn’t buy it for a second. And Beatrice, whose eyes were fixed on Hayley’s skeptical face, couldn’t help herself. She pointed at Hayley with a crooked finger. “What? You don’t believe me? You think it was me who shot Wendi Jo? I had no ill will toward her! We never had a negative word between us! And I don’t appreciate you accusing me of murder!”