“I have no idea,” I said as I pulled a stack of dishes to me.
Harper tossed her phone on the table. “He’s not answering. I’m gonna have to cancel the show. We cannot risk that kind of bad press, viewers accusing us of making our own ghosts. You know, just like that other ghost show did.”
David came into the room. He no longer had his phone on him but was shrugging on his jacket. “You might not be doing the show, period. That was the sheriff. There’s a body at the Delaney House.”
Everyone stopped and stared at him.
“A—a body?” Melody said, and put her hand to her lips. “They found a body? Like, an old body?”
“No.” David shook his head as he looked at her, and then looked at Harper. “A new one. Someone murdered one of your crew.”
SIX
I’d forgotten how impressive the Delaney House could be in the dark. Especially when it was surrounded by flashing red and blue lights. The coroner’s van was already here as well. David had left before the rest of us piled into cars and headed out, so it made sense his car was parked near the front. Mama D, Max, me, Beverly and Cass piled into Granny’s ancient Mercedes while the others piled into Melody’s car.
It was brisk outside, and given it was mid-October, I wasn’t surprised. I was pretty sure the look of the house only intensified in the daylight when the crunchy brown, gold and red leaves from the surrounding trees were visible. Luckily, I’d grabbed my cape—yes, I have a cape. It’s easy to carry, keeps me warm and is quick to put on and take off. And I like the way it looks on me.
The house looked like something out of an Antebellum coffee table book. A long, cracked and weed-strewn asphalt drive led up to the impressively large, shadowy house. I remembered it had two stories, with a full basement. The front was impressive, with columns, a chandelier and a fourteen-foot-high door. The door was open as we approached, and someone had put up familiar yellow crime scene tape.
“This is terrible,” Melody said beside me as we were stopped at the tape’s edge. “What are we going to do?”
“Answer questions, I’m sure.” Deputy Perrin stepped up. He was a nice guy, with a heart of gold, and a shifter, though not a vampire. His beast was a large panther, and it was impressive. And beautiful. He checked everyone’s IDs and allowed us all inside. Apparently Sheriff Danvers had either been informed we were on our way or he really did need to talk to us.
I discovered on arrival inside the house that it was both.
“Ginger,” Danvers said with a tight smile. “I had a feeling you’d be involved in this.”
“Billy, you cut that out right now.” Mama D pointed her finger at him. “Ginger’s been with me nearly all day.”
“Nearly. When wasn’t she?”
“This morning, when she went out to get groceries.”
Danvers looked disappointed. “That’s outside the kill window. Eh, I guess you’re good to go this time.”
That was when I realized he was play-acting—though I didn’t know why, so I glared at him and noticed him looking at the gathering crowd behind me. When I looked back, I realized not all of us had been allowed in. Mildred Thumper stood on the other side of the tape, fuming, along with Cass. Cass winked at me, and I smiled.
“This place is impressive. Can I explore?” Max said next to my ear. He’d perched on my shoulder, hiding in my hair as we stepped inside.
“Sure,” I said in a soft whisper. “But don’t mess anything up.”
When I looked at him, he cocked his head to the side. “This is me we’re talking about.” And with that, he scampered off.
A few uniformed men and women nodded to Mama D and I as we followed Danvers. The mayor, Beverly Norris, Brett Anderson and Harper Van Wesson were right behind us.
We made our way through the ostentatious foyer to the right and into a living area, complete with two fireplaces, four sofas, tables, chairs, a covered baby grand piano and a portable bar on wheels. My dad used to have one of those. It was at Melody’s shop now, though not for sale.
I assumed the body would be in this room, but it wasn’t. Danvers walked to the fireplace and pushed on a candlestick, and the entire fireplace, hearth and all, moved forward as if on wheels. He motioned for everyone to follow. I chanced a look at Brett, who was completely gobsmacked at the secret passage…
Which led into a library. Wow, and what a library. The walls were shelves, and on those shelves were books. Lots of books! There was even a ladder on a track that moved around the room. “I am really impressed now,” I said.
“Don’t be,” Danvers said. “We’ve known about this room for decades. This is where Peewee always installs his group for the Halloween tour. Sets up monitors we can watch from. Only”—he stopped and nodded to the right—“we don’t usually find those.”
The body lay on the floor in front of another fireplace. This was one was dark and ash-covered, unused and cold. Above the mantel hung a portrait of a young woman in period clothing. Her olive skin made the white dress shine, and her raven-black hair fell in curls over her shoulders.
“Brigit Delaney,” I said to myself. I’d always heard there was a portrait of her that once hung in the main room, but it’d been stolen. Was this it? Had it just been moved into the secret room?
“Hey,” David said from where he knelt on the floor next to Dr. Helena. Helena was the actual medical examiner for Castle Falls and sometimes the other local towns. When David took over the former doc’s job, he also became the backup ME.
I smiled at him, and he looked back at the sheriff as he stood. “Body is definitely that of—”
“That’s Nichelle!” Brett yelped as he moved in close. “Oh my God…she’s been stabbed!”
“Someone get that kid out of here,” Danvers said.
“Billy, he’s part of the Ghost Watchers. He knew the victim,” Mama D said.
“Yes, I did.” Brett looked around. “Where’s Phil?”
“Phil?” Danvers said. “Who’s Phil?”
“Phil Boscawen,” Brett said. “Our producer, researcher and medium. He and Nichelle were up here going over some things together—”
I could see it looked as if Brett was about to lose it, so I stepped up. “Mama D and I were hosting the Ghost Watchers at a welcome party. Miss Corvis and Mr. Boscawen were late and hadn’t shown. Brett tried several times to call.”
On cue, David handed Danvers a cell phone wrapped in a plastic evidence bag. Danvers pressed the on button through the plastic, and the light seemed oddly bright in the dim room. “She’s got five missed calls.”
“Oh, I never called her. I called Phil.” Brett licked his lips. “Did you find Phil?”
Danvers held up his hand as Harper marched toward him and opened her mouth to speak. “We got the call about the body from a Phillip Boscawen,” Danvers said. “He’s the one who found the body. But you said he was meeting her here.”
“Yes. That’s what he told us.” Harper put her hands on her hips. “I demand to know what’s going on here. Who the hell killed our psychic? I have to make calls. I need to talk to Phillip!”
“No one’s calling anybody right now. Perrin, get all of these people down to the station so we can get statements.”
“Oh no, you are not sweeping this under the rug.” Harper stamped her foot. “Not like you did with the Kell murder! We wouldn’t even be here if Phil didn’t want to rekindle his romance with her.”
And that was when she turned and pointed at me. Right. At. Me.
David was standing beside Danvers and stared at me. I looked at him and made a face.
“Ginger?” Danvers stepped closer. “You have a relationship with Mr. Boscawen?”
“No…well, yes…but that was over a year ago,” I stammered, though I wasn’t really talking to him. I was talking to David and looking at him.
“Billy.” Mama D moved to stand in front of me. “I need you to focus on me and answer some questions.”
He shifted his attention to Granny. �
�I’m not supposed to answer. I ask.”
“Right now, there are nine merchants in town you will have to answer to once they find out this house is a now a crime scene. They’ve invested a lot of money in this house, and many depend on the influx of tourists this house brings in every year at Halloween. Now if the house isn’t going to be open in time, I need to know so I can handle the situation.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Or would you like for Melody to just refer their calls directly to you? She’s got your home and cell phone numbers.”
That threat did it. He gave a short sigh. “I can’t answer that right now, Mama Donahue. All we know was Miss Corvis was stabbed in the back. Just once, but it was enough to kill her. David and Dr. Helena will know more once they get her to the morgue. Phillip Boscawen is in the parlor across the foyer under guard. He called us to report the body.”
“So you automatically think it’s him?” I said before I could stop myself.
“There’s always a higher chance that the one who finds the body is the one responsible for it. But I won’t know anything until I can get everyone back to the station and do my job, so David and Dr. Helena can do theirs.”
I looked at David, but he was already turned away and speaking with Dr. Helena, who was looking a little frazzled. I was sure driving between towns could wear anyone out. “Can I see him?” I heard myself say.
Wait…why did I ask that?
David didn’t flinch, or move, or look back at me.
Danvers moved away from the body and touched my elbow as he steered us closer to a bookshelf. “If you think you can get something out of him, go talk to him now. But my deputy will be listening in.”
“That’s fine. I just want to see him.”
Danvers glanced back at David. “Okay. Just be careful.”
I excused myself from the room, very much aware I had Harper’s eyes boring into me. The mayor patted my shoulder as I walked by, and I noticed Beverly looking closely at the room and the portrait and wondered, as the town historian, did she know the painting was actually moved and not stolen?
I left the hidden library, walked through the living room and the foyer and spotted one of the deputies standing outside another door. She smiled at me, and I entered.
Phil was pacing. But he always paced when he was thinking, or nervous. And finding a dead body would make anyone nervous.
I stood just inside the door and waited on him to notice me. It didn’t take long. He stopped and pivoted, and we stared at each other. He hadn’t changed much in a year. Except maybe he was thinner. Broad-shouldered, with a handsome face and square jaw, his salt-and-pepper hair had grown out and he wore it pulled back in a small ponytail. Wisps of hair framed his cheeks as he moved his silver wire-framed glasses up and set them on top of his head. He still wore the same uniform, though. Nice jeans, boots, a large button-down shirt and a vest. He always looked like a renaissance man.
“Ginger,” he said in his deep voice.
“Hi, Phil.” I smiled. “I still think you should have done commercials. I mean, that voice…”
It didn’t take him long to cross the room, and the next thing I knew, I was in his arms. It felt awkward, and I instinctively wanted to pull away, but I didn’t. But he sensed it and stepped back. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“With me, everything is good. But I’m more worried about you and this situation.”
“You’ve moved on, haven’t you?” He was looking at me, and I noticed his gaze lingering on my neck. “Ginger…”
“Yes, I’ve moved on. It’s new and he’s kind and sweet and considerate—”
“And he’s a vampire.”
I had not expected him to say that. I mean…mine and Phil’s relationship had been pretty much just…well, regular tumbles. Yeah, we talked about the occult—mostly he talked. It wasn’t as if he ever wanted to hear what I had to say, which was why I never told him what I was. Even though I was in denial. I stepped to the side and clasped my hands behind my back. “I’m not here to talk about my love life, Phil.”
“It looks like you need to.” He pointed at me. Or rather, he pointed at my neck. “That is a mark.”
“I know what it is.”
“He’s marked you. You know how I know this? Because in one of our shows, we uncovered a vampire. Bastard and I went around and around about it, too, but he won.”
“He bit you?”
Phil frowned. “No, he won the rights to that episode. It never aired because the law said he owned that old warehouse and we were trespassing. Never mind that his ownership had never been recorded anywhere we could find.”
“Wow…so you lost a legal battle with a vampire.”
But he wasn’t moving past the mark. “You do realize that you can’t get rid of that. And he’ll own you. Did you drink from him?”
“Phil!” I said. “Please. My boyfriend isn’t the problem here. The problem is someone killed your show’s psychic. Was it you?”
“Nichelle?” He made a face. “Of course not.”
“But you were supposed to be meeting her here instead of having dinner at my granny’s house.”
“That”—he held up a finger—“was not my idea. Missing your dinner. I wanted to see you. I wanted to see how you were doing. In fact, I’d been thinking about you a lot, and—”
“Dead body, Phil.” I held out my hands. “Focus.”
“Yes. Nichelle.” He sighed. “She called me after we left this house and I was on my way to the hotel. Said she wanted to talk to me alone. Wanted to show me something she’d sensed in the house earlier. I said okay and called Brett to let him know what I was doing and that I’d join you guys as soon as I could. But I decided to go ahead and get showered and changed before I met up with Nichelle. That way I’d be ready and I could go straight to your place.
“I saw her rental parked outside, but she didn’t answer when I came in and called out. I went in that living and that’s when I saw the fireplace was rolled out, so I stepped in and damn near tripped over her. I hit something when I did that, and the fireplace rolled back to where it was and I didn’t know how to reopen it. And if you’ve been in there long enough, you’ll notice there’s no other visible doors. So…” He sighed. “I called the cops. And with me on the phone, they were able to make the fireplace work.”
“So while we were eating dinner, you were stuck in that room with a dead body.”
“Yes.”
“And no idea who killed her.”
“No.”
I winced. “You know that sounds really bad, right? And weak?”
“It’s the truth, Ginger.” He stared at me. “You look good.”
Nope. I wasn’t gonna say it. He did look good, but not as good as my David. “Phil, what was it she wanted to show you?”
“No idea. Oh.” He glanced behind me, and I turned to see that the door was cracked but the officer wasn’t actually in the room. I looked back at Phil.
And he was right there. In my space. I stepped back as he reached behind him and then pulled out a small book and handed it to me. “I found that beside her body.”
Forget the fact he’d removed something from a crime scene—the book itself was a little wonder. It was maybe four inches high by five inches wide, and its spine was stitched. If the title had been embossed or stenciled on the book, it was long gone. I opened it up and someone had written something on the blank page facing the title page.
Hey diddle, diddle; the cat and the fiddle; the cat jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed; to see such craft; and the fork ran away with the spoon.
I made a face. “I think this was written down wrong. It’s ‘the cow jumped over the moon.’”
“There are several things written differently. And also, the book itself is in German, so…” He shrugged.
“So.” I closed the book. “Why was this by her body?”
“No idea. I picked it up and found the rhyme in it while I was trapped in that room.” He pursed hi
s lips. “It’s a rather odd thing for someone to just scribble down inside a German book, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” I thought I saw a movement behind him and frowned. But there wasn’t anything there, just the window and the dark nighttime behind it.
“What?” He turned and looked. “You seeing things too?”
“Too?”
“Yes.” Phil smiled. “Been that way since I got here. I got the feeling I was being watched, and I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye. Of course, Nichelle insisted the house was dead and this was a waste of her time.”
“Then she called you and told you she had to show you something?” I wasn’t sure I agreed with the psychic. There was something here, or my nerves were just frayed endings from worrying about David. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“And why won’t we?” His grin was contagious.
“Because there’s been a murder. This house is now a crime scene, and you’re the number one suspect. There isn’t going to be a show.”
I’d seen Phil angry before. Not, like, wrath of God kind of angry, but I’d seem him to the point where I didn’t want to mess with him when he was in that state. He had a temper, but he did keep it in check.
Or so I thought, until the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as he said, “We’ll see about that.”
SEVEN
I spent three hours at the Castle Falls Sheriff’s Office. I told Danvers what I knew, how I knew Phil Boscawen and Brett Anderson, and I told him what I thought. He didn’t like my opinion very much.
“Helena’s sent the blade out for prints, which we put a rush on, seeing as how the mayor’s on my back about getting this wrapped up ASAP.”
“Why?” I should have known the answer to that, but I’d been texting David and he hadn’t responded. I needed to talk to him. And I hadn’t seen Max either. I’d looked all through that house—in the parts I could go, since a few rooms were blocked off by piles of furniture. But my familiar hadn’t answered me either. Mama D waited in the lobby of that station. She’d already given her statement.
The Cat Jumped Over the Moon Page 5
