Mystic Mayhem

by Sally J. Smith

  That was something I didn't intend to see happen. Toward that end, I used my lunch break to seek out the Elways.

  I found Billy first.

  I was on my way to his mother's room on the second floor when I saw him go into the House of Cards to see Cat. He was having his fortune read—again. If Cat counted right, this was the sixth time in four days. Wouldn't you think he'd take notes or something? Or at least take a picture of Cat to carry around with him in case any other hotel guests might want to set up an appointment with her.

  I hung around in the outer room amusing myself with a copy of Soothsayers' Journal while she took him back to her "office" for the reading. When they came out twenty minutes later, Billy looked peeved, and Cat looked fed up.

  "Don't y'all forget what I've been telling you, Mr. Whitlock." Cat shook her finger at him. "Stay away from those loose women. They may tell you they're having safe sex, but they don't even know the meaning of the term."

  He shrugged and lifted his hands sadly. "I wouldn't need any loose women if you'd just be my woman, Catalina."

  "Now, now," she said, hustling him toward the door. In a low-pitched aside, I heard, "Like that's gonna happen before hell freezes over."

  I stood. "Billy?"

  He looked over, just noticing me.

  "I was wondering if maybe you had a minute to talk." When he looked me up and down and grinned, I hurried to add, "I have a few questions about…you know…what happened at the séance Sunday night."

  "Sure," he said, tossing a take that sort of look in Cat's direction. "How 'bout you buy me a drink?"

  We went downstairs to the Presto-Change-o Room, where we sat at the bar and ordered drinks—a hurricane for Billy and a Diet Dr Pepper for me.

  He took out the straw and drank it in big gulps. He lifted the empty glass toward the waitress on shift, signaling for another.

  "You might want to slow down there, Billy," I said. "Those things'll sneak up on you." It was a mixed bag, wasn't it? I wanted him a little loosey-goosey so he'd tell me what I wanted to know, but at the same time, it didn't seem like a great idea to be the reason a hotel guest had to crawl back to his room.

  At least he was taking a little more time with the second cocktail. Maybe I wouldn't have to carry him upstairs after all.

  "So, Billy," I began. "Have you heard the police are calling Cecile's death a homicide?"

  He licked the red stain of the grenadine off his upper lip, plucked the Maraschino cherry from the glass, and began to suck on it suggestively while staring into my eyes. Really?

  "Yeah, I heard. Too bad for her, huh?"

  "Why do you think someone would want to murder her?"

  He crunched some ice and seemed to be considering my question. "I'm sorry she's gone. She was in charge of my trust, you know." He rolled his eyes. "Can you believe the old codger, my grandfather, had my inheritance held in trust until I'm thirty? Thirty! Hell, I might as well be ninety. All those years, wasted."

  "Imagine that." I steered him back on track. "What does Cecile's murder have to do with your trust?"

  "Well, she was administrator, you see." He leaned an elbow on the bar and attempted to rest his head on his upturned palm but somehow missed and nearly smashed his chin onto the bar. He recovered admirably and went on talking as if nothing had happened. He was three sheets gone already. I better hurry and get what I need out of him. "But it was working out pretty sweet for me. I had the old biddy wrapped around my pinky." He wiggled said digit at me. "When I needed money, she was Johnny-on-the-spot with the checkbook." He looked down the bar and lifted his hand to signal the bartender. I reached over and lowered his hand.

  "But nobody else seemed to like her much, except Terrence the Caterpillar Man." He giggled. "The Society of the Lepidop-whatsit Alien Caterpillar, yada yada yada. Baby, did he have her snowed. Ya gotta hand it to him."

  "Him?"

  "You know, Terrence. That worm—get it, worm?—was soaking the old girl for every nickel he could get out of her."

  "He was?"

  His lids were getting droopy. I hoped he didn't nod off to sleep while I was trying to interview him. "Mmm, he thought she was going to boogie down the aisle with him, and he'd be Mr. Moneybags. Sucker."

  "She wasn't going to marry him?"

  "Hell no. She found out his fuzzy little caterpillars weren't exactly endangered after all. In some places they're so hardy, they're trying to get rid of them. She was going to break it off with him and find herself a new squeeze to keep her warm at night. Maybe one who didn't take money from her under false pretenses."

  "Oh." Sounded like excellent motive to me—about to lose your payday and murdering your intended before she could cut the purse strings and change her will. People kill for less. At least that's what they say on TV.

  And speaking of money… "Billy, were you aware your grandmother—"

  "Cecile was my stepgrandmother. You know step—like Cinderella? Snow White? Only she didn't make me scrub floors or try to poison me with apples." He seemed to realize what he'd said and sat pensively while the moment passed.

  "Did you know she had a hundred thousand dollars in cash with her?"

  "I do now," he said. "But she didn't tell me about it, if that's what you want to know. I heard it from that swamp cop." He must have liked the sound of that. He said it a few times. "Swamp cop. Swamp cop. He said she had it, and someone took it." He shrugged. "That's all I know. She had it. I'd like to have it, but someone else beat me to it."

  Billy leaned closer, squinting at me. He nearly fell off his barstool. "So whatcha think 'bout that, sugar britches?" He was slurring now.

  Sugar britches. That was a new one. For some reason, an image of Cap'n Jack popped into my head. Now that was some sugar britches, all right.

  "What I think is," I said, "we need to get you upstairs to bed."

  "Hallelujah!" He slid off the stool. I caught him under the arms, but he still draped all over me like an old quilt.

  The bartender, a pretty girl I didn't remember meeting before this, walked over and shoved her princess hat back off her forehead. "You need me to call someone?"

  I nodded. "Mr. Whitlock's had a little more than he can handle."

  "No, no." He looked up at me through unfocused eyes. "I can handle it." He lifted his right hand and put it square on top of my boob. "See?"

  * * *

  Lurch picked up Billy like he was a six-year-old and put him over his shoulder. He grumbled all the way up the stairs, down the hall, and into the room. Billy hummed the theme song from the Addams Family, snapping his fingers at the appropriate moment.

  Before Lurch deposited him on top of his bed, he pulled out his cell phone and snapped off a selfie of himself and Billy Whitlock's butt.

  Just as Lurch shut the door to Billy's room, Penelope Devere, Cecile Elway's psychic consultant, came up the hall.

  Lurch grumbled and reached for his cell phone. I laid my hand on his arm, which brought another grumble as he lumbered off to the stairs.

  "Is there something going on with William Whitlock?" she asked.

  "Billy? Not really, Ms. Devere," I said. "He sort of over-imbibed on hurricanes."

  "Oh, my lands, that young man," she exclaimed. "And, by the way, if you don't call me Penny, I won't know who you're talking to."

  "Do you mind if I walk with you?"

  She shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'm heading downstairs to the Hidden Passage Spa. I hear it isn't easy to find. Maybe you can show me?"

  Penny Devere was about my height, five foot two or three, and slightly stout. If I had to guess her age, I would have said midfifties. It didn't appear she'd lived a privileged life—her face sagged at the jowls and her neck reminded me of a turkey. If I had to choose a color for Penny, it would be khaki. Her hair was a nondescript brown, and she wore it pulled back away from her face caught in the back with a wide barrette. The tone of her skin was a little on the sallow side, and her eyes were a light hazel. She wore brown plastic-framed eyeglass
es. While she wasn't ugly, she wasn't attractive either—the sort of person you could pass by every day for a year, yet still not have noticed her enough to be able to describe her accurately.

  "Such a shame about Mrs. Elway. I'm sorry for your loss." It was that lame statement everyone makes when they have no other words to express their regret your life has been turned upside down. But Penny didn't seem to notice the triteness of it.

  "Thank you," she said. "A loss is exactly what it was. Cecile was like a sister to me."

  Of course. So far, it seemed like Cecile Elway was all things to all people. Everyone loved her, or at least said they did. "You know, the police have determined she was murdered. Poisoned."

  "Right," she said.

  "Oh, you knew? Who told you?"

  "Well, my dear," she said patiently, "I am psychic."

  And I am the Queen of England. "So, do you also know who killed her?"

  Again, the sigh and condescending attitude. "The cosmos doesn't work that way, but I'm fairly certain the hand of death struck her from beyond the grave."

  Okay. "You think she was murdered by the ghost of Theodore Elway?"

  She shrugged. "Well, he did order the clams."

  "I thought Cecile asked for the clams."

  "In essence, I suppose she did. In fact, if you want to get all technical about it, I suppose you could say I ordered the clams."

  "You?"

  She nodded. "The spirit of Theodore came to me in a dream. He said his soul was restless, and he needed Cecile to help him find peace, that I was to bring Cecile here for a séance with the Great Fabrizio. He told me he had to communicate directly with her, that to prove her good intentions and love for him, during the séance she should provide a dozen clams on the half shell." She was thoughtful. "But no wonder he killed her. The ignorant fool forgot the hot sauce."

  I said, "Spirits are known to get riled up pretty easy."

  She looked sideways at me. It was hard to tell if she suspected I was putting her on.

  "Of course, if you ask Rosalyn…"

  Rosalyn—Theodore's daughter, Cecile's stepdaughter.

  "…the ghost of Theodore Elway had better motive than forgotten hot sauce for offing his widow."

  "And that would be…?"

  "Revenge." So matter-of-fact. "Rosalyn has always believed Cecile Elway in essence murdered Theodore."

  Whoa. Hold your horses. "Rosalyn Elway Whitlock believes her stepmother murdered him?"

  "Her words, not mine. She never said murdered. She said 'caused.' 'She caused my father's death.'"

  "Wow," I said. "I had no idea. It doesn't sound as if Cecile Elway was all that popular after all."

  "Well, I wouldn't say that." The look on her face was smug. "She always had old Terrence, you know, of the Society of the…"

  "Lopsey-dopsey-whatever Alien Caterpillars?"

  She nodded, smiling.

  "But I heard she was about to cut him loose."

  She looked a bit surprised. "Really? Who told you that?"

  "Billy."

  "Oh, well, he never liked Terrence. Always felt threatened by him. Worried that Cecile's marrying Terrence would somehow threaten his inheritance. He was wrong of course. His trust is airtight. Theodore—Mr. Elway—saw to that. It figures Billy would try to put Terrence in a bad light. He didn't like him."

  "What about you," I asked. "Did you like him?"

  "Well, why not? I figure live and let live. Right? I say, 'Attaboy, Terrence. You go get her.'"

  Her cell phone went off. It was Gordon Lightfoot "If You Could Read My Mind." She snatched it from her purse and silently read what was on the screen then she squealed like a twelve-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert. "Oh, joy, it's happened. It's happened." She twirled in a circle. "I'm officially the president of the International Paranormal Society." She was beaming. "I've waited a long time, you know."

  Right, and such an honor it is, too.

  We stopped in the hallway just down from Dragons and Deities. To the casual observer, it appeared to be nothing more than the hallway of an old-fashioned plantation house. No real purpose. Nothing sinister or hidden. But when you looked more closely, you could see that the wainscot panels were about seven feet high and about three and a half feet wide. Just the size of a doorway. And when someone just happened to reach up and pull on one of the light sconces, the middle panel would groan and moan and slowly swing open to reveal the Hidden Passage Salon and Spa.

  "If you don't know who murdered Cecile, do you know who took the money she had hidden in her room?"

  "The money she brought down as incentive for a successful séance?" She nodded. "I do. Don't you?"

  I shook my head, waiting. My heartbeat kicked up a notch.

  "It was that Fabrizio fellow, wasn't it? That's what the police told me."

  I was crushed. "That's what the sheriff's office thinks. Yes. That Fabrizio stole it."

  "But you don't?" She took off her glasses and began to chew on one of the tips. "Who do you think took it?"

  I shrugged. "Only part of it was found in Fabrizio's room. Just enough to make him look suspicious. Whoever has the rest of it might just be the same person who killed your friend. But I don't know who that is. I was hoping you could tell me. You're the psychic."

  Her smile was wry. "Like I said before, the cosmos doesn't work that way. If they did, I'd play the five-hundred-dollar tables in Atlantic City, have a heavy-duty stock portfolio, and have won the lottery five or six times already." She looked at her watch. "I need to get to the spa now, or I'll miss my appointment. I thought you were going to walk me there."

  "I did," I said and pulled the sconce just above my head.

  Penny squealed in delight as the panel slid open. "Oh, my. Isn't that just too much? You know, I forgot all about these. When we took a tour of The Mansion our first day, the guide showed us several of these creepy passages." She thanked me and went inside.

  The panel closed behind her, squeaking and creaking the way it was designed to by Harry Villars's whacked-out architect, who was like a kid in a candy store when Harry asked him to turn his plantation home into a "haunted mansion."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Deputy Quincy Boudreaux showed up at the hotel sometime after 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. It was an official visit complete with a squad car and wingman—make that wingwoman, Sergeant Mackelroy.

  I was on my way to "my room" from the main kitchen where I'd had dinner, coffee, and conversation with the fabulous Valentine Cantrell, who'd whipped up some awesome shrimp creole, and per Jack's pre-approval, had made enough for the entire staff on duty to have a serving. My last appointment for the day hadn't left my parlor until after six thirty, so I was later than most of the rest of the staff to head down to the kitchen. Valentine hadn't eaten yet either, so she filled a bowl and joined me, and we sat together and commiserated over how to help Fabrizio out of this mess.

  Who should I run into but Cap'n Jack, looking extremely fine in snug, straight-leg grey slacks and a French blue shirt with the collar unbuttoned and sleeves pushed up on his forearms. A silver-and-blue-striped tie hung loosely knotted around his neck, lending the impression he'd been interrupted in the middle of getting dressed. That thought alone made me warm in places a Southern lady doesn't mention.

  "Nice to see you, Melanie." His voice was low, intimate, barely audible over "Skylark" from the piano bar in the main salon.

  I swallowed the Cap'n and just said, "Jack."

  One corner of his mouth turned up. His eyes moved over me top to bottom and back up, seeming to stop on my mouth. It made me catch my breath. Gosh, I wished he wasn't my boss, but if he weren't my boss, I never would have even met him.

  "On your way to your room?" The way he said room sounded more like bed to me, but that was probably just the frame of mind I was in.

  I nodded. "Thinking about making it an early night."

  Something flickered in his eyes, and it occurred to me the idea of a bed in my hotel room hadn't gott
en completely by him either. "Well, good night then."

  That was when Quincy and said wingwoman walked up and handed Jack a folded document. "Mr. Stockton?"

  Jack turned. "Just Jack's fine."

  Quincy grinned. Jack hadn't yet learned not to give a Cajun a straight line like that. "Okay. Just Jack, this is a duly processed search warrant covering the public areas of The Mansion for the purpose of determining the source of poison used in the homicide of Cecile Elway on Sunday last."

  Jack's face paled. "Why would you…?"

  "The tox screen results indicate she was done in with a grade of poison used in several commercial products that might be used in the maintenance of a property such as this one." He smiled, showing even, pearly whites.

  I was impressed. That was way more words than had ever come out of Quincy's mouth at one time. And he was still on a roll.

  "I'd like to start where your housekeeping staff stores their supplies, also the maintenance shed. Once I determine the source of the toxins, I'll be in the mood to interview a few people who have access." He turned that brilliant smile on Jack, whose business demeanor was back in place.

  "I understand," Jack said. "Please, Deputy, if you need anything, let me know. I'll put out the word my staff should cooperate with you any way they can."

  Quincy nodded. "If you'll just point Sergeant Mackelroy in the direction of the housekeeping supply stores, I'll head on over to the maintenance building."

  I jumped at the chance to talk to him. "This way, Quincy. I'll take you."

  * * *

  As we neared the boat dock and old boathouse, Quincy's radio hissed and Sergeant Mackelroy's voice announced, "Didn't find nothing in housekeeping, Boudreaux."

  So none of the chemicals they were looking for had been used in any of the cleaning supplies. Next up was the boathouse.