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

by Mona Marple

  He got to the circus site fast but with no sirens. No point warning everyone that he was on his way. He slowed when he reached the Big Top, its structure eerie by night. He had a hunch that the trailers would be behind it, where the paying public didn’t go, and he was right. He let the vehicle approach at a crawl, headlights dimmed.

  The trailers were in a semicircle, one large trailer in the middle and an assortment of smaller ones on either side. They were all in darkness, and for a moment he had no idea where to begin. Then a movement at the door of one of the smaller ones caught his eye, and in his world-weary, exhausted state, he let out a laugh.

  He couldn’t imagine what there would be worth stealing in an old trailer like that, but he’d heard of things more crazy.

  He stepped out of the vehicle at the same time as he radioed it in, “I’ll be bringing in a suspect, classic burglary 101.”

  He sauntered across the field, the ground crunching beneath his boots.

  “Drop your weapon and stand with your arms raised,” he called. It was a woman and he’d bet the item in her hand was a crowbar. It clanked on the step on its way down to the ground.

  “I can explain,” the woman called across to him. He shook his head. They could always explain. Oh, man, he’d heard the best explanations. People could be creative when they were caught out, he had to hand them that.

  “You’ll get your chance,” he said. “I’ll take you to the station and you’ll get your chance to explain everything. Now, do you have any other weapons on you?”

  “That wasn’t a weapon,” the woman objected. “I used it to get in, because I was concerned.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he said. The crowbar was never a weapon, until the home owner interrupted the burglary and the felon panicked. He began to pat her down but she was clean. “Hands together so I can cuff you.”

  She was obedient, and sometimes they were the worst. He’d had more than one highly co-operative suspect lull him into a false sense of security before their accomplice burst out and tried to attack him.

  “You working alone?” He asked.

  “I work at the Big Top,” she said. “I handle the sales.”

  He sighed. She could play dumb all she wanted. He was too tired to care.

  “Who’s this trailer belong to?”

  ”Mr Wellington,” she said. “Rufus.”

  “He your boss? Or you that formal about everyone you burglarise?”

  “I haven’t!” She objected. “I was worried about him and he wasn’t answering. I used the crowbar to get in. I haven’t even been inside. You arrived and…”

  “…and stopped you?” Taylor asked. “I do apologise if I disturbed you, ma’am. Now, follow me. Mind the step.”

  She allowed him to lead her to the patrol car, but her eyes didn’t move from one of the other vans. “Something caught your eye?”

  “My ca… my dog. Zoey. She’s all alone,” the woman said.

  “I’ll get someone to take care of that,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Frances Hampton,” there was a tremor in the woman’s voice as she answered. He opened the back door and she slid in.

  “Okay Frances. I need to go check what damage has been done inside. You’re going to stay here and not do a bit of damage to my car, and I’ll make sure someone checks on your pet real soon. Is that a deal?”

  She nodded. The mention of the dog - or was it a cat? He couldn’t remember - had made her emotional. Or it could have been the guilt setting in.

  He closed the door, locked her in there, and stalked back across to the van. He pulled his weapon and opened the door slowly, called out for anyone inside to show themselves, but there was only silence. He located the light switch on the wall and flicked it on.

  The Wellington guy kept a tidy van, and the burglar hadn’t messed anything up. So, she’d been looking for something in particular. Not a random smash and grab. Maybe he had a bundle of cash he stored somewhere. A china cup and saucer sat on the table, filled with milky tea cool to the touch. Beside it sat a novel, some science fiction thing by the look of the spacecraft on the cover. Taylor had never understood the desire to read that kind of thing. Real life was strange enough in his opinion, and Lord knew he’d seen enough of it to judge. The book was tattered and old, the pages yellowed. The bookmark was a photo, probably as old as the book itself. Taylor pulled on gloves and took the bookmark out, glanced at the chubby baby in the picture. She wore a yellow flower barrette despite having barely enough hair to keep it in place.

  Taylor returned it to the book and moved across the room.

  He opened one door and revealed an impossibly small toilet and shower room, then a second door to an empty room containing unmade twin beds. With one door remaining, Taylor gave another call out even though he was certain the place was empty.

  He opened the door slowly. The room was pitch black, with the curtains drawn, and it took him some time of groping around before he found the switch on the wall.

  “I’m turning the light on now, don’t be alarmed,” he called out, and he flooded the room with light. The figure on the master bed had to be Rufus Wellington, and he appeared to have been tucked into bed for the night. The covers were pulled up past his chin and his eyes were closed. “Sir, can you hear me?”

  Taylor approached the bed and took in the scene for a split second, his mind racing with possibilities. It was the pinprick red marks on the face of Rufus Wellington that made him consider calling for back up. First, he checked for any signs of life and found none. He pulled the covers down to the man’s chest and groaned as he saw the bruising on the lower neck.

  With gloves back on he opened the man’s right eye and felt his stomach churn at the bloodshot mess that he saw.

  He radioed it in then. “I have a fatal strangulation, victim believed to be Rufus Wellington, suspect in custody. Suspect’s name, Frances Hampton. I repeat, fatal strangulation and a suspect who will be transported to the station for immediate questioning. I’m going to need a 2IC to assist with interview and evidence gathering.”

  He finished the message, returned the radio and rubbed his temple. It was going to be a long night.

  6

  Ellie Bean had stayed behind at Screamin’ Beans Coffee House long after she’d swept up the last crumbs and picked the last piece of gum from the floor. It never failed to horrify her how disgusting people could be when they didn’t have to clear up after themselves. From the look on Godiva’s face, her feline friend felt the same way.

  With the broom packed away and the room infused with the beeswax scent of the organic polish she’d been given a sample of, Ellie had curled up in the comfy leather seat in the corner and opened her textbook.

  Godiva had raised an eyebrow.

  “You can be quiet,” Ellie had hissed across the room. The cat said nothing, of course, but sat in silent judgement. That was Godiva’s speciality.

  There was one spell that Ellie simply couldn’t get right. Luckily, it wasn’t the kind of spell that could cause too much chaos, but still. She preferred to practice it without an audience. Especially since the inhabitants of Mystic Springs had no idea that their friendly coffee shop owner was really a garden witch.

  She sighed and tried to calm her mind.

  A frantic mind creates a frantic spell, her tutor liked to say. Ellie closed her eyes and imagined herself as a calm and powerful witch, the kind of witch she had always dreamed of being. She thought she heard Godiva let out a derisive laugh and squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. She covered her ears too, for good measure.

  Her mind wandered and she pictured herself with a flower crown atop her auburn curls, tending to a magical garden outside a tumbledown stone cottage. In her hand was a wicker basket and she realised that she was collecting ingredients for a spell. The kind of spell she had always been able to do. Good, honest witchcraft using common ingredients. She felt herself relax into the fantasy.

  Emergency.

  The word crossed her min
d so unexpectedly she stopped breathing for a second, then pushed the word away and tried to return to the image of herself tending a garden.

  Emergency! You need to see this!

  Ellie felt her skin begin to tingle. That voice inside her head wasn’t her own. She cracked open an eye and saw Godiva gazing right at her.

  “You’re talking to me?” Ellie squeaked. Sure, witches had familiars, but not in Ellie’s family. In fact, Ellie’s family liked to downplay their powers as much as they could. They could do great things with cloves and wolfsbane, and knew their way around the nightshades like regular people knew their way around different types of candy, but it was easy to convince themselves that they were just really, really good gardeners.

  Godiva rolled her eyes and strutted her way across the coffee house. Ellie heard the distant sirens, saw a flash of lights on the road out of town.

  “What is it?” She asked, still 80% certain she was mad to be talking to a cat. “You heard the sirens?”

  Sirens were unusual in Mystic Springs, but why would Godiva imagine that she would want to know about them?

  The path will reveal itself to you as soon as you begin to trust in your abilities, her tutor’s voice came to her. Was that what was happening? Ellie had spent her life trying to blend in after failing dismally at a magic school that believed garden witches to be an old fashioned, dangerous breed. Her regular life had never quite fit her, but neither had being a witch. At least, being the kind of witch they wanted her to be.

  “Okay,” she sat across from Godiva and let out a deep breath. “I’m listening.”

  Godiva gave her a nasty dose of side eye and walked away, sat by the front door, then looked back towards her. Ellie waited. Godiva had never shown too much of an interest in the outdoors. It was too cold or too hot, too windy or too still, too noisy or too quiet, too dry or too wet.

  You wouldn’t know a sense of urgency if it slapped you in the face.

  “Hey!” Ellie exclaimed as she got up from the seat. “I’m coming. You could be a little nicer to the person who feeds you, ya know?”

  Feeds me dry food? I doubt it.

  “You can’t live off fresh salmon,” Ellie muttered. Godiva hissed at her. “I can’t afford to live off fresh salmon and I’m the one going out to earn the money. Anyway, what made you decide to start talking to me today?”

  Godiva began to hurl until a fur ball landed on the welcome mat by the door.

  “Gross,” Ellie said as she unlocked the door. Godiva stepped out cautiously. It wasn’t as cold as it had been the night before, but it was still chilly and Ellie dashed back indoors to grab her coat. Godiva glared at her when she returned. “Don’t look at me like that. You have a fur coat on already. And you didn’t answer my question - why start talking now?”

  I’ve been talking to you for years. You’ve just never heard me before.

  “You’re kidding?” Ellie asked, but she already sensed that Godiva didn’t have a joking kind of personality. Permanent outrage and dissatisfaction? Yep, that sounded like Godiva. “Well, I apologise. You must have thought me pretty rude all this time.”

  Not rude. Just dumb.

  Ellie scoffed. “I could have you re-homed, you know? Remember that.”

  Godiva picked up the pace and Ellie had to burst into a sprint to keep up. They were leaving the main thoroughfare of town and the street lamps were fading out.

  “You know where you’re going?” Ellie asked. Godiva didn’t respond. Ellie followed, even as the street lamps finished and the dark night enveloped them. Godiva took a sharp right and Ellie followed up a muddy track. The trail of discarded cotton candy and deflated balloons allowed her to guess where they were headed. “We’re going to the circus? Are you planning on joining it?”

  Hilarious.

  Ellie frowned. What had her life become? Following a talking cat into a dark field, presumably chasing the emergency services? That wasn’t her. She was a 10pm-bedtime, hot-chocolate kind of witch.

  You’ve got no idea what kind of witch you are. You’ve never let yourself find out.

  “Okay, stop doing that,” Ellie said. “I don’t like you being inside my head like that. Hey, can you do that to everyone? Can you hear what everyone’s thinking?”

  Shh.

  Godiva stopped as they reached a clearing. They’d come at the field from the side, so they’d passed around the perimeter of the Big Top and were facing a semi-circle of mobile homes. A squad car was parked in the middle and, as they watched, Sheriff Morton was chatting to a couple of paramedics.

  “What’s happened?” Ellie whispered.

  A man’s been killed.

  “What? You know that? How?” Ellie asked.

  Godiva shrugged. Maybe it was unexplainable, or maybe just unexplainable to dumb witches. Ellie stood and watched as Sheriff Morton returned to his vehicle, then glanced back at one trailer in particular. A dark cloud hovered above the roof and Ellie felt her stomach churn at the sight of it.

  You should hide.

  “What?” Ellie hissed.

  I can be out here, but you? Dang, do I need to tell you everything?

  Ellie crouched behind a bush and peered through. The ground was hard, iced over, and the chill seeped through her trousers at the knee. She shuddered. The paramedics entered the trailer, and there they stayed.

  “They’ve found something,” Ellie breathed.

  Godiva’s head shook back and forth.

  “Okay, enough,” Ellie said. “This is all a bit of a shock to me. My cat is talking to me, and not saying very nice things I might add. And I’ve followed you across town to sit in the mud and watch the Sheriff do his job. How about you start being open with me?”

  Godiva said nothing, and Ellie wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Maybe Godiva had never said a word. Maybe Ellie had convinced herself she could hear voices. Or, maybe, she could hear voices but they were inside her own head.

  The whirl of approaching sirens distracted her from that line of thought and she watched as a second ambulance roared onto the scene. Two medics disappeared into the trailer and, while they were still in there, Sheriff Morton drove away. Ellie tried to get a look at the person in the back but, whoever it was, they had the sense to cover their face.

  When the medics emerged with a body bag on a stretcher, Ellie thought she was about to be sick. She forced herself to watch as the figure was loaded into the back of the ambulance, and even when the medics had driven away silently, her heart continued to hammer in her chest.

  “Let’s go home,” she said eventually. Her voice shook and she felt the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her lip so hard she had broken the skin.

  You need to get in that trailer.

  “Heck no,” Ellie said. “Do you have me confused with someone else? I make coffee and clean up after people. I’m going nowhere near that place.”

  Godiva gave as close to a shrug as a cat could, and stalked away from Ellie towards the trailer. Ellie watched in horror as Godiva sauntered right up to the step, then sat and stared right at her. Ellie swallowed and sprinted across the mud, grateful for the frost that allowed her to run over without leaving footprints. Whoever the killer was, they’d probably had the same thought. Her heart thundered in her chest and when she reached up to open the front door of the trailer, her hand shook.

  “We don’t have long,” Ellie said. “Sheriff Morton will be back to seal off the area.”

  You better get in there quick, then.

  “I’m going,” Ellie said. The door opened easily, which was no surprise. The trailer was so rickety it was hard to imagine it offering any warmth or security. Ellie slipped inside and Godiva ran in with her, then she closed the door to. The trailer was in darkness and Ellie knew that any light would attract attention, so she stood still for a moment until her eyes accustomed to the gloom.

  Can you feel the energy in here? I bet he was killed right here.

  “In the lounge?” Ellie asked.
The room was perfectly neat. Whoever the dead man was, he must have put up a fight. Surely the room would have signs of a struggle? “This place is too neat. Isn’t it?”

  Feel the energy.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Ellie protested. “I can’t feel anything.”

  Just do it. Quit with the excuses.

  Ellie pursed her lips, then allowed herself to quiet her mind. Nothing happened at first and her head tried to distract her with thoughts of what would be for dinner and how long she’d spend in prison if she was caught in the crime scene, but she persisted. And then, she felt it. A dark energy, an overwhelming sense of fear and something else… anger? No, not anger. Fear and opportunity. She looked around the room and as her attention moved, the energy changed. Over by the kitchen she couldn’t tap into that energy, the bedroom gave off nothing but peace, but as soon as she looked at the galley style seating area, the emotions roared back to her.

  “I think it happened here,” Ellie said.

  Godiva had apparently known that immediately and gave her a tut.

  The area was so neat. It was almost too neat. Ellie crouched down and looked at the underside of the table, then the material of the chair. She imagined the area would transform into a second bed but wasn’t about to touch anything to try out that theory. She looked down at the floor and there, right by the wall, was a glint. She reached her arm into the darkness and felt the object, pulled it out and held it in her open palm.

  A freshly polished signet ring, now covered in her DNA.

  7

  Frances Hampton had prepared for such a turn of events.

  While she sat in the stark, empty interview room, she rifled in her pockets and pulled out the sheet of paper.

  The Sheriff - a haggard man who had manhandled her gently out of the car and into the station - had left her alone, and that was such a stereotypical thing for him to do that she had had to stifle her laughter.