Murder Ghost Foul: The Complete Mystic Springs Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series

by Mona Marple

  “Any names that spark an interest.” Taylor explains. “Anyone who we know had an interaction with Bruce Skipton in the day before his death. Anyone he had problems with. Anyone who may have had motive.”

  “Okay.” I say, with a firm nod. I begin reading through the list, willing my eyes to stay open. Most of these names mean nothing to me and it’s hard to pay attention to them.

  Bob Anderson. Carol Anderson. Daniel Anderson. Emily Anderson. Finley Anderson. Giselle Anderson. Harry Anderson. Isla Anderson.

  I wonder if the Andersons are all one family, and if Bob and Carol are the parents, naming each child in alphabetical order. The thought makes me squirm a little.

  Billy Butler. Tracie Callow.

  I yawn.

  “Get some rest, Connie.” Taylor says, glancing across at me over his thick rimmed glasses. His own eyes look alert.

  “I’m okay.” I say.

  Sage scours her own list, then picks up her highlighter and places a tick beside a name. I feel as if we’re back in school taking a test, and for once I’m failing.

  Marcus Cerney. Fraser Coolidge. Kim Coombs.

  I don’t know any of these names.

  I plod on, my A-F section of the guest list not producing a single person who I can link to Bruce Skipton.

  “I’m done.” I announce.

  The others look at me, their pens all on the table. They’ve all finished before me.

  “There’s nothing in my section.” I say. “At least, I don’t think there is. How many of these people came from out of town? I feel like I don’t even recognise most of the names.”

  “Yeah, mine was the same.” Sage admits, giving me a supportive smile.

  “I saw you highlight someone though?”

  The colour drains from her face. “It’s Coral.” She says, and I hear the shake in her voice. “She’s… I…”

  “It’s ok.” Taylor says, his tone soft. “You know we have to include her until we can rule her out.”

  He’s set up a flip chart in the room and he goes across to it, writes Coral’s name as the first suspect.

  “I got Barb Wright.” Patton says. “The secretary.”

  “Motive?” Taylor asks, and it makes my heart flutter a little, seeing how he interacts with another law enforcement professional. How commanding he is. How in control.

  “Financial benefit.” Patton says. “Bruce made no secret of the fact that he was going to look after her in his Will. Although, I wonder how much she actually believed that.”

  “Okay.” Taylor says, adding her name to the list.

  “So, people we’ve already considered. Atticus? He wasn’t there?”

  I shake my head, even though he wouldn’t have been on my section. I saw him leave the site before the gig started.

  “He should have been in my section. Do we know if the spirits were all accounted for?”

  “Well.” I begin. “I guess we can’t rule out a spook sneaking in, through the door kind of thing, without a ticket. But that’s not the kind of thing Atticus would do.”

  “He sees the importance of a guest list.” Patton says with a wry smile.

  “And we’ve all cross-referenced these names against this list of Bruce Skipton’s known associates?” Taylor asks, holding up the single page of names that he had already identified from Bruce’s business dealings. He looks closely at me in particular.

  I nod. “None of those on my section.”

  Taylor lets out a long breath. “So we’re down to two suspects? Two people who could have heard about the curse and had a reason to want him dead?”

  “One.” Sage corrects. “One of them is Coral, and she had no reason to want him dead. She just had the bad luck of finding his body.”

  “So it’s the secretary.” Patton says with a shrug. “Not that surprising. If he was telling the truth about the Will, she gets to benefit, and even if he wasn’t, she gets rid of her pig of a boss.”

  “I don’t know.” I say, my interruption surprising the group. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Because…?” Taylor asks, his marker pen ready to add whatever I say to the flip chart. I feel my stomach growl; hunger or nerves. I’m too tired to let my opinion change the course of the investigation.

  “Just a feeling.” I say weakly. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll get her in for questioning tomorrow. We’re getting somewhere.” Taylor says. He addresses Sage and Patton. “You guys did good, thinking to check for the guest list. And finding the vial.”

  “I wonder whose jacket it is.” Sage says.

  “That doesn’t matter so much.” Taylor says. “The killer’s unlikely to leave it in their own jacket. It’s probably been hidden in there after being used.”

  “Oh!” I say, his words dislodging a memory.

  “Connie?”

  “We haven’t counted everyone.” I say, my words coming fast and slurring with exhaustion. “We didn't include Vera and the Vamps.”

  The realisation hits Taylor’s face immediately; the performers wouldn’t be on the guest list! He flashes a winning smile at me. A smile I could so easily fall in love with, I think in terror. Then he turns his back to me and adds another name to our shortlist.

  Kim Kane. Present at the gig, naturally, and had an interaction with Bruce Skipton before his death.

  “Motive?” Patton asks.

  “None.” Taylor admits. “That we know of.”

  **

  I wake up after twelve, my bones heavy and stiff, on the day of my date with Taylor. I slowly move to a sitting up position and make the mistake of glancing at the mirror of the dressing table.

  The dressing table itself was a mistake; a purchase made for Sage, after much begging, from a thrift store in the next town. She’d always wanted one, she told me. She’d love a little place to sit and feel like her old self. The old self who had preened over her appearance and experimented with make-up the way I experimented with how much I could eat without making myself throw up.

  I’d relented, handing the cash to the weathered volunteer behind the desk, arranging for delivery a few days later. It had been a bargain, for the right buyer. I just wasn’t sure the right buyer was me.

  The trouble with buying things from thrift stores is the darn shop was so crowded, it was impossible to judge the size of anything inside it. The delivery guys brought it inside and tried to get away, but I was on them quick, imploring them to take it up to the attic, where Sage had made a space for it.

  The two had looked at each other, bug-eyed, probably volunteers themselves, then protested on some health and safety grounds.

  If you won’t take it upstairs, I won’t be keeping it, I’d said, and something in my stance told them I meant business, because they finally shook their heads and struggled to get the thing upstairs. It was enormous, and not in the good condition the front exterior had suggested in the shop.

  By the time they’d got it up to the first floor, the thing was close to falling apart.

  It’s not gonna make it up any higher, ma’am, the tallest of the volunteers had said, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. They wanted it on the ground floor, I wanted it in the attic. We all lost.

  Just take it in here, I’d commanded, annoyed beyond belief. I’d chop the thing up myself and use it as fire wood, I thought as I simmered.

  They found a good spot for it, I have to admit. Set into the bay window of my bedroom, so the bits of it that were damaged with age were hidden. And it fit well in the space.

  They weren’t the reasons I kept it, though, long past the next bonfire night and all the ones that came after.

  The reason was Sage’s reaction, when she saw it for the first time. The way she covered not only her mouth but her nose as well, leaving only her wide open eyes, the memory of tears within them.

  I was a sucker for that reaction.

  And so, the dressing table stayed, its novelty wearing off over the years, until it had become a fancy storage shelf
for whatever I couldn’t be bothered to put away on any given day - laundry, magazines, collections of books hoarded from thrift stores and garage sales.

  Right now, as I look in the mirror, I see exhaustion. I see bags below my eyes and fear for a moment that they’ll soon reach my chin and I won’t have cheeks anymore, I’ll just have a nose in the middle of my face and an eye bag on either side of it.

  What a great day for a date.

  And then I remember.

  We have a shortlist of suspects.

  There’ll be no date today.

  I pull myself up out of bed and get ready. My record is twelve minutes; shower, brush teeth, brush hair, pull on clothes. I step into a pair of navy slacks but they fall back down, and so I go searching to the back of my wardrobe. The back of my wardrobe is a treasure trove of clothes that I bought without trying on in store, only to discover at home that they were too small. Too proud to return an item, knowing the shop assistant would look at the size tag and then at me with pity in their eyes, I’d fling the item to the back of the wardrobe, promising myself - one day.

  And one day has arrived.

  I grab a pair of blue jeans, remember the day I bought them, the way I had fallen in love with the exact shade of them but discovered they had none in my size. I’ll buy the size down! I’d told myself. It will motivate me to lose weight! I’ll be in them in no time!

  The lies we tell.

  They’re a little snug compared to the slacks I’ve been wearing, but they hug my thighs in a way I like. There’s nothing special about the shade of them, I see, and I wonder who’s changed - me or the jeans.

  A black tee shirt and I’m set.

  The house is silent, and I don’t want to disturb whatever is happening silently, so I grab my keys and leave, passing a trail of pre-school kids in Hallowe’en fancy dress as I walk the distance across to the police station.

  I find Taylor at his desk, sucking on the end of a pencil. He turns as I walk in, looks me up and down, then glances behind me.

  “The front door was open.” I explain with an apologetic shrug. “I wondered if you need any help, with the interviews today?”

  “We’re gonna have to get you to the academy soon.” he says, then cracks a smile. “Sure, I’m just planning strategy.”

  “You have a strategy for interviews? Don’t you just ask questions and see what they say?” I ask.

  “Not really.” he says, with a gentle smile. “There’s a little more to it than that. Some bluff and blunder at times. Ya know, working out how far to push someone, when to show your hand.”

  “They teach that at the academy?” I ask.

  He laughs. “Ya considering it?”

  I shrug, the idea seeming fanciful and indulgent. I’ve never once imagined myself as a police officer. Definitely not a Sheriff.

  “You’d be good at it, Connie.” Taylor says.

  We’re disturbed by a knock on his door. A female police officer stands there, hair neatly tied into a bun. She’s tiny, with a waist the size of my wrist, and my new-found confidence crumbles a little.

  “Barbara Wright’s in interview 2 for you.”

  “Okay, great, thanks Liz.” Taylor says. He stands and I do the same. He waits until we’re out of earshot of the woman, then moves so close to me that the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. He whispers, “I can’t wait for dinner.”

  **

  Barbara Wright is highly amused to find herself being interviewed. New money, I guess you’d call her, although she won’t get a penny until the murder case is closed. She shows no signs of caring about her windfall at all, which makes it hard to believe she killed Bruce Skipton for financial gain.

  “So, erm, Ms Wright, you knew that you were going to be looked after in Mr Skipton’s Will?”

  “That’s what he said.” Barb says, chewing on a hangnail.

  “And you believed him?”

  “I didn’t give it a second thought, Sheriff. I do my work and I get paid. I’m not here waitin’ for the lottery. I don’t even play the darn lottery! Ya know those lottery winners, they all poor again within a year. Would ya believe? They win and then all these relatives come on poking out, they got all these new friends and they blow the money away. I heard, jobs now, if you win the lottery and you a good worker, your company gonna keep your position for a year cos they know you be back!” she says with a laugh. I try not to smile. It’s a good story. I can believe it, too.

  “How are your personal finances, Ms Wright?” Taylor asks. The question surprises me and I wonder if he’s allowed to ask it. I guess he can ask anything he needs to, to try and solve a murder.

  “Just fine, Sheriff.” Barb says, an easy manner about her.

  “If I was to run a file on your credit score, anything in there I should know about? Any debts?”

  She shrugs. “Credit cards here and there, like the rest of the world. Nothin’ to go worryin’ about. I’ma be right.”

  “Well, you’ve inherited a substantial amount of money, Ms Wright. So I’m sure things will be okay now. But without that inheritance, would things have been more challenging?”

  “Only if I’da gone and lost my job, Sheriff.” she says, eyeballing Taylor. “And I weren’t gonna do that now, were I?”

  “You have no dependents?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Live alone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were at the gig?”

  “Vera and the Vamps? Yes, sir.”

  “Alone?”

  “I went with a couple of girlfriends. It weren’t my thing, really.” she says.

  “I was wondering if you could clear something up for us.” Taylor says, a small cough clearing his throat. “Mr Skipton visited the Town Hall before the gig, but he didn’t attend the gig. Why would that be?”

  She shrugs as if she has no curiosity about the life her dead boss lived when he was out of her sight. “I can’t help ya there, Sheriff, I’m afraid.”

  “Was he a… fan?”

  Barb laughs. “Of who? The group? He had no time for music. No, my guess, and it’s just a guess, but if Mr Skipton was there, it’d be for business. Everythin’ were business for him.”

  “One last question, Ms Wright.” Taylor says. “Was there any romantic involvement between yourself and Mr Skipton?”

  Barb’s face blanches. At first I think she may be embarrassed to be caught out, but then I realise she’s offended. “I’ll have ya know Sheriff, I have never crossed a professional line in my life. I won’t lower myself to answer that question.”

  **

  There’s a message on Taylor’s answerphone when we get back to his office after the interview.

  It’s the lab.

  Taylor punches in the number from memory and puts the call on speaker.

  “Yo, it’s Taylor.” he says, his attempt to be down with the kids making me cringe.

  “It’s definitely the poison. But, here's the thing, it doesn’t act quick. I mean, this is the way to kill someone if you want to be out of the country before the person even starts to feel ill. Ya know?”

  “What are you saying, Glenn?”

  “Nobody used this after the curse was announced. It was done before.”

  17

  Sage

  I’m in the living room, in the dark, when my little sister creeps in like a teenager breaking curfew. She manages to sneak past Igor without waking him and having his brains steam away at her, which tells me she’s not drunk. Connie, drunk? You’d hardly notice a difference, except her spatial awareness goes straight out of the window and she doesn’t know when to stop talking.

  “In here.” I call, and then there’s a thud as she knocks something to the floor. I smile to myself. Maybe she’s been drinking after all.

  “Sage?” she asks, emerging in the doorway. “What are you doing up?”

  “Can’t sleep.” I admit, patting the cushion next to me on the settee. “Come and tell me all about your big date.” />
  “Oh.” Connie says, nervous. “I… erm…”

  “Just tell me.” I say. “You’ve had to listen to me often enough, let me repay the favour.”

  Connie lowers herself and beams at me. Even in the darkness I can see that she’s glowing. Not in a pregnant way. Or, at least, I hope not. Surely she’s too old for that. And now I’m picturing her naked with Taylor Morton. Geeze.

  “What?” she asks. I must have pulled a face.

  “Nothing!” I exclaim, ridding my mind of its thoughts until I’m a sponge, ready to soak up whatever she tells me.

  “Well, we went for Italian.” she begins.

  “Nice!”

  “I hardly ate a thing, I was so nervous.” she admits, and it’s like we’re teenagers again sitting in one of our bedrooms while mom worked the late-night shift, before she’d return home, greasy and exhausted. “Taylor was so nice, so attentive. Like, he didn’t look at his phone all night. He had the volume on so he could take a call if anything happened, he got this woman at the station to basically man everything for the evening.”

  “Liz? She’s a bombshell.” I say, realising how insensitive my words are the second they leave my mouth. Connie just smirks at me.

  “Yeah, her girlfriend thinks so too.” she says. “Anyway, we chatted about literally everything. Our childhoods and the mistakes we’ve made in life. The case, a little - it turns out Bruce was poisoned before the gig started. So I guess the curse was a bit of a red herring. And just silly things like what we like to watch on TV.”

  “He talk about the babies?” I ask. His baby twins were with his parents for a weekend and then Bruce Skipton was killed, and the grandparents suggested they keep the babies out of town until the case is solved.

  She nods, a steady up-down motion that speaks a thousand words.

  “What?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I don’t want to get carried away, but I guess I have to consider…”