The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  “I hate algebra, and I hate Flynn.”

  “Well, that’s too bad because like it or not, you’re going to encounter a lot more things you don’t like in life and you can’t always just close your eyes and hope they all disappear.”

  “I didn’t expect anything to just disappear,” Robin mumbled. She plucked at her nail polish, a gaudy shade of maroon with flecks of silver in it. “I just thought I’d do better next time and you’d never know the difference.”

  “You thought wrong,” said Claudia. “Anyway, I expect that grade to come up fast, and I expect you to get it there by concentrating on your homework.”

  Claudia waited for Robin to say something, but she didn’t. “Mr. Flynn told me he would spend some time with you to get you back up to speed. I want you to get with him and make an appointment first thing tomorrow.”

  “I get the point,” Robin said dully. “Can I go now?”

  Water dripped relentlessly from the kitchen tap. Claudia listened wearily. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “There’s one more point for you to get,” she said at length. “You’re grounded—six weeks. No telephone. No television until your homework’s done. No one over, and you don’t go anywhere.”

  Horrified, Robin looked up. “That isn’t fair!”

  “It is fair,” Claudia said quietly. “Your free rides are over. I’ve been letting you get away with murder and we both know it.” She raised an eyebrow. “End of the road.”

  For another five minutes Claudia reiterated household rules and expectations, laying down the law precisely the way her mother had and precisely the way she’d vowed she never would. And then she let her daughter make good her escape.

  Later, she brooded awhile over her oboe, seeking comfort through the familiar weight in her hands. Her long fingers slid along the barrel to the ring keys, solemnly sounding out “Desperate Dreams,” and then, “Sojourn of the Moon.”

  Destiny might have put her in an orchestra pit, a natural extension of a surprising talent discovered in junior high. Things hadn’t gone that way, of course, but still, the precision required by the instrument was usually enough to pull her back into orbit during casual play. Twenty minutes into it, however, Claudia returned the oboe to its case. No magic this evening.

  Her life was not in a concert hall. Her life was in Indian Run, with a pile of dirty dishes, a headache, a dead woman, and an angry child.

  Much, much later, Claudia peeked in on Robin. Sleep demanded a truce, and the girl’s face was slack against the pillow. Claudia brushed a hand gently against Robin’s hair, then called it a night.

  Chapter 6

  They were all there: Chief Suggs, Sergeant Ron Peters, Officer Mitch Moody and Officer Emory Carella. Suggs wore a sour face. All but two Tums remained in the roll he’d opened an hour ago and he eyed the crimped package disgustedly. Then he tossed it on his desk and watched it skitter to the edge.

  “What I’m basically hearing is that we’re nowhere on this thing,” he said. His eyes floated to Claudia’s face. “No real suspect. No real evidence. No real nothin.’ Overton gets planted tomorrow and she’s goin’ to her grave without anybody bein’ able to say why.”

  “Maybe not even her,” Moody said softly. He tugged at the corner of his mustache. “And for all we know whoever killed her is in another country by now.”

  Claudia didn’t think so, but she said nothing. Moody had dropped out of law school after three years, aghast at the sluggishness of the legal process. He thought he could accomplish more as a cop and so two years ago he’d returned to Indian Run where he was born, pinned on a badge, and took to the streets. Moody was bright, intuitive, and persistent, but just now he was discouraged. They all were.

  “Four days now,” said Carella, a bookish officer with a long face and a nasal voice. “We’re getting our tails kicked on this thing.” He shook a cigarette loose from its pack and lit up. Ash floated to his lap. “I should’ve listened to my wife and stuck with accounting. Numbers always add up one way or another.”

  “Yeah, but that’s about as exciting as watering your lawn,” offered Peters, ever the pragmatist.

  Through a shroud of smoke, Carella said, “So who says this thing’s been exciting, anyway? We’ve goosed dozens of people—some of them twice—spun the fingerprints through Clearwater’s fancy computer, pulled a partial history on the victim—”

  “And we’ve only just begun,” Claudia interjected firmly. She stood to shake the cramp from her leg. “Before we’re through with this thing we’ll have talked to hundreds of people. Get used to it or bow out now. There’s no time to indulge in whining.”

  No one said anything and the silence made the chief’s small office seem smaller yet. Claudia sighed. She longed to bum a cigarette from Carella, but she’d given them up on the long drive to Florida. She also longed for police officers whose experience matched their intellect, but this was it. This was what she had to work with.

  “How are we coming on breaking down Overton’s client list?” Claudia asked Carella. The medium’s practice of scheduling clients by initials only was great for assuring her visitors anonymity, but it was playing hell with the investigation. “We need that appointment book stripped down like a Cadillac in the wrong neighborhood.”

  Carella pulled on his cigarette. ““Yeah, I know. And it’s not coming as good as I’d like,” he said. “Some of Overton’s friends knew flat out the names of some of her steadiest visitors. We’re already talking to them. And a few of the people who saw her for readings have called in on their own. But we still got a cluster of initials we can’t match up.”

  “Shit,” Suggs murmured. “Any one of ’em could be the killer.”

  Shrugging, Carella said, “Problem is, a lot of people who see psychics—especially on a regular basis—don’t want anyone else to know. Figure it makes them look foolish. Short of trying to match initials with names in the phone book for Indian Run and hell, all of Flagg County, there’s not a lot more I can think to do.”

  “Then do that,” Claudia said flatly. “If it comes down to it, get Roselli in records to come up with a computerized listing from the phone company,” said Claudia. She studied the twelve-pound bass mounted above the chief’s desk. Ugly thing. “He can feed in the initials and run a sort—”

  “Damn it, Hershey!” Suggs protested. “You’re forgettin’ where you are. We ain’t got a computer that can do all that.”

  “Whatever ‘all that’ really amounts to,” Peters added softly.

  “Rent a computer if you have to. Lean on Flagg for support. Buy a program. I don’t know,” said Claudia. “But we can’t just sit on our thumbs. We need to have a match for every initial in Overton’s schedule.”

  Carella made a note.

  “Meanwhile, shake Overton’s friends a little harder. My bet is they know more than they’re saying.”

  The door to Suggs’ office opened hesitantly. Officer Bobby Ridley’s gaze settled uneasily on Claudia. “Sorry to, uh, disturb everyone, but the video Sergeant Peters asked for? The one from that teacher, fella named Tom Orben?” Ridley held a hand out. “Here it is. Orben returned our call from Boston and told us we could enter his premises to pick it up.”

  “I hope you didn’t bust the damned door to get in,” Suggs muttered.

  Ridley’s face colored. “No sir. Orben, he keeps a key hidden under the third brick leading to his porch.”

  “Thanks, Bobby,” Claudia said. She smiled briefly and took the video. “Good work.”

  When Ridley left, Claudia turned to Moody. She hefted the video thoughtfully. “Go round up Lucille Schuster, no matter what she’s doing. Bring her here. She can ID the people at the seance.”

  “Bag of popcorn, too?” Moody asked.

  The damned fish hanging on the wall looked like it was smiling. “Tartar sauce might be a better bet,” Claudia answered.

  Moody grinned. He was starting to understand her.

  Claudia grinned back. Small victo
ries counted.

  * * *

  The VCR, anyway, was state of the art—the chief’s personal machine—and after fiddling with the controls for a few minutes Claudia slapped the cassette in and pushed “play.”

  They were reassembled again, the five of them, this time in the police station’s all-purpose room. The room served as a place to eat and write reports. It also contained the only storage closet sufficiently large to hold evidence, which at the moment was crowded with three bicycles, a water pump, a BB gun, someone’s tattered overalls, a hand-made bird feeder, and a cardboard box containing some of the Reverend Donna Overton’s possessions.

  Lucille Schuster sat rigidly on a metal folding chair, her hands knotted together and her eyes straight ahead. Moody had whispered to Claudia that the woman was horrified to be called out of class. She’d whined in Moody’s patrol car, but it ended the moment she fell under Claudia’s gaze.

  Orben’s ability with a video recorder would win him no prizes, but the quality of the film was suitable and like a relative with a camera at a wedding, he hadn’t missed anyone.

  Claudia, positioned beside Schuster with a legal pad on her lap and a pen in her hand, perched forward. She ran a hand through her hair. Although she had no great expectations for what the video might reveal, that it contained a snippet of the victim’s last hours was enough to make a viewing critical.

  The video began with an unflattering close-up of Lucille Schuster’s face. Orben shot her dead on when she opened the door to greet him Halloween night. The red-haired teacher was dressed as Pollyanna—a fitting costume, Claudia thought—and she giggled into the camera, waving self-consciously at Orben as she ushered him into her house. The camera followed her lasciviously, angling at bosom level whenever she turned toward Orben.

  More silly footage followed as Orben panned guests and took a lingering shot of the buffet table. Food was artfully arranged between Halloween decorations; plastic forks, spoons and knives in orange and black lay like railroad tracks on both ends of the table.

  “Nice spread,” Carella whispered.

  “Thanks,” said Lucille Schuster.

  Claudia bet she was blushing, pleased.

  In the absence of Schuster’s husband, the party worked out as boy-girl, boy-girl. Those in attendance beside Orben and Lucille Schuster included Alice and Russell Keefer, she a social studies teacher and dressed as a geisha girl, he an insurance salesman and dressed as a sumo wrestler; John and Julie Kawalski, neighbors who both had dressed as clowns; Elliott and Jane Brown, he a French teacher and she a Spanish teacher—both bowing to their names in outfits appropriate to farmers; Barbara Reed, an English teacher in an Annie Oakley costume; Jennifer O’Reilly, a gym teacher whose feline grace perfectly suited the cat costume she wore; Steve Goodman, a chunky mathematics teacher in an Abe Lincoln costume; and Robin’s algebra teacher, Victor Flynn, preposterously dressed as Zorro.

  Orben had persuaded someone to take the video recorder long enough to shoot footage of him personified as Batman. He wrapped an arm around the gym teacher-turned cat and tried to sweep her off her feet. Both landed in a giggling heap.

  “What would your husband have worn if he’d been at the party?” Carella asked Schuster.

  Lucille smiled shyly. “Well, he says because he has lofty goals he would’ve probably worn an astronaut’s uniform,” she answered. “He’s really a fun-loving guy. He loves these kinds of parties.”

  While the video rolled on, Claudia jotted down names and details of those at the party. Now and then she used the VCR’s remote control to press the pause button long enough to ask Lucille Schuster a question or to get some clarification. She noted who drank what, and who drank fast, who mingled with whom, and who said what. In her role as hostess, Lucille Schuster stood alone in keeping an arm’s distance from alcohol.

  Orben, bless his heart, had been obnoxiously thorough. He followed people to the bathroom, caught them scratching at the unfamiliar fabric of their costumes, ogled them up close and at a distance, and tuned into as many conversations as he could.

  But as entertaining as the opening was, the video drew its heart from Donna Overton’s visit. The camera fixed on her almost reverently, following her through quick introductions to the guests and then to the table where she settled in for the seance.

  Overton in life displayed a professional demeanor calculated to reduce skepticism without sacrificing the mystic quality she was being paid to demonstrate. She wore no costume and she worked the crowd without props; a warm smile here, a penetrating look there—she radiated knowledge, but in a way that was non-threatening. And when everyone was settled and the nervous chatter subsided, she moved her eyes from one guest to the next, slowly, curiously . . . piercingly.

  Then she began. First, Overton explained that she would attempt to contact “friendly spirits,” and she cautioned that even if she were successful she might not know who it was that would respond through her voice and body. Spirits, she confided, had minds of their own. She went on to explain that whatever message a spirit might choose to impart very likely would seem obscure, or perhaps so selective that only one person in the room would understand. She herself, she told the guests, was merely the channel through which spirits elected to communicate.

  “It’s important for everyone to understand this because otherwise some of you will probably be disappointed,” she said, her voice soft and convincing. “I have a gift—not a talent, a gift—but just because spirits find me receptive doesn’t mean that they’re always as cooperative as I’d like them to be. Spirits don’t necessarily tell me what’s going to happen.”

  “Can we ask the, uh, spirit questions?” Goodman wanted to know.

  The medium chuckled lightly. “You can, but you might not get an answer—or at least not anything that makes sense. The truth is, sometimes what they say just sounds like a lot of gibberish.” Shrugging modestly, Overton continued, “Still, they almost always convey something and if what they tell me is useful to someone in this room, well, then I’ll be happy to have served some purpose beyond entertainment.”

  After that, Overton requested that the lights be dimmed. Lucille Schuster raced to the wall switch. All but illumination from a hall light and street lamp outside the window died. Faces were cast in shadow.

  Overton nodded her approval and asked everyone to join hands. A self-conscious rustle followed, but Orben’s camera, equipped for available light conditions, rolled on.

  “This is goddamned spooky,” Chief Suggs said in a stage whisper.

  Carella grunted affirmatively, and Claudia felt her own muscles contract in anticipation.

  “Just wait,” Lucille Schuster said breathlessly.

  Claudia glanced over. For the teacher, the point of the video had become a celebration of a masterful party coup. Claudia suspected that the death of Donna Overton merely increased the status of the party.

  For long minutes, nothing happened. Orben took a chance and quickly panned the table. The geisha girl’s mouth was an oval. The clown couple clenched hands tightly, and gave each other looks only intimates could interpret. Annie Oakley’s eyes betrayed a creeping anxiety. Flynn’s face was inscrutable—perhaps calculating the mathematical possibility that a spirit could be summoned, Claudia thought without humor—while Pollyanna herself worked to hide a nervous giggle. The others wore similar expressions, all of them intersecting on a plane of anticipation.

  Suddenly, Overton’s body turned rigid. Her spine straightened so completely she appeared to be off the chair and her hands dug into those of Annie Oakley and Farmer Brown. The gun-slinging Barbara Reed caught her breath audibly; Brown’s face seemed to shrink.

  “Wow,” said Moody. “The special effects are almost as good as something straight out of Hollywood.”

  A moment later and just as abruptly, Overton’s head lolled recklessly and her eyes closed. She moaned. Someone at the table reflexively moaned simultaneously. Then slowly, in seconds measured by heart beats, Overton’s head
straightened to something of a normal position and her eyes fluttered open, revealing only the whites.

  Gasps accompanied the demonstration.

  Then, in a voice startlingly old and weary, and that came from somewhere deep within Overton’s diaphragm, the medium began to talk. The words at first were halting and thick, as if Overton had been drugged.

  “Never . . . the right thing,” the voice began. “Try, try, try . . . have to try again. Have to try until you get it . . . right.”

  A shiver sped along Claudia’s arm. The woman was good, very, very good. Claudia could only imagine what the experience must have been like for those buzzed with alcohol and without the safe filter that the film provided now.

  The voice repeated the same admonition in slightly different words, then took on a sharper, clear edge. Overton inched forward, but her eyes remained white and dead.

  “You know what you’ve done to me and you know that I know. You know . . . that it was . . . the wrong way.” A shrill laugh pierced the quiet. “You can’t stop me, though. You’ve tried for a lifetime, but you’ll never stop me. I’m with you always . . . you know that, don’t you?”

  A minute passed, maybe two. The video picked up restless movement, but it strayed too briefly from Overton’s face to reveal what anyone may have been thinking.

  And then: “One day, we’ll be back together. It’s for . . . the best. You need me. I need you.” The cackle again. “But don’t ever think that I’m not with you now.”

  Another silence fell, this time broken by Russell Keefer, the sumo wrestler. Gently, he asked Overton—the spirit—who she was.

  The answer was immediate, and almost angry, it seemed to Claudia. “You know me, you can’t pretend you don’t! You know where I walk and that I walk alone. You thought you were glad, but you’re not—”

  “I don’t understand,” Keefer persisted.

  “You know me!” the voice shouted, and Overton stood so suddenly that her chair nearly toppled over. Her eyes snapped open wide. She raised a quivering finger that roamed across the table, aiming first at Keefer, then lingering briefly at others.