The Murder of Shakespeare's Ghost

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “How about a network of narrow passageways? That would explain why the realtor gave Robyn a smaller estimate of the interior in the place she was going to rent compared to the larger footprint evident from outside.”

  “If there’s an entrance in the hallway as well as the pantry, that would explain how, to Robyn, Shakespeare appeared to pass through the walls. In a way, that’s what he did,” Marty said excitedly.

  “We stood there, staring into that pantry today. Police investigators have been in there twice now. Robyn’s kept that pantry stocked for almost two years. If it’s there, the entrance is well-hidden. I can’t come up with a better explanation for how he got in there.”

  “I’m not really talking anything like you might have found in the creepy old cursed Seaview Bluffs Manor house. Given the De Voss families’ disreputable activities during Prohibition, they may have added a priest hole or a hidden trap door under a rug leading to the cellar. There’s a whole new technology being used to build panic rooms nowadays. I’ve never researched it, but a builder must be able to equip panic rooms with escape routes. A fancier version of the tunnels Al Capone supposedly built under the Two Bunch Palms resort near Palm Springs to get away.”

  “I can just hear that buffoon, Devers, bellowing that this is the craziest idea we’ve come up with yet,” Midge argued.

  “Then, let’s prove it. We’ll show him rather than tell him. I’m still the legal tenant in the Shakespeare Cottage. Let’s go find the entrance that’s hidden at the back of the pantry.” I gulped, not relishing the idea of doing that in the dark of night with a killer on the loose.

  “Okay, Robyn, I agree,” Charly said enthusiastically. “That’s what we’ll do the first thing tomorrow, assuming the police don’t still have the place under wraps. We’re still expecting a visit from Hank. If he’s also seen the video clip, he may already have a team in there, or on their way, to find out how Shakespeare got in there.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t get too excited about the police acting quickly. Even if Hank, or someone else at the Sheriff’s Department has reviewed all the video footage, the authorities are more likely to believe we goofed up the recording somehow than to reach the conclusion that there’s a hidden entrance to a secret passageway,” Marty added.

  “Unless Hank brings it up, I suggest we put off any discussion of the matter until we’ve had a chance to look around tomorrow,” Carl argued. No one hesitated to agree.

  “I need a cookie break,” Joe said as he jumped to his feet. The rest of us stood and headed to the kitchen with him. I called Domino and Emily to come inside for a treat, too. When Domino sauntered into the house with Emily at her heels, she still had that stick in her mouth. She followed me into Charly’s kitchen. Midge gasped.

  “I’m sorry. It’s a dirty old stick, but Domino won’t part with it.”

  “That’s no stick, Miriam. That’s a bone from a human forearm—part of one, anyway.”

  14 A Wise Father

  “It is a wise father that knows his own child” – The Merchant of Venice

  ∞

  We were all dumbfounded by Midge’s assertion about Domino’s new favorite toy. I was also completely grossed out wondering where it had been in my house. I hoped not in my bed, but I was going to change the sheets when I got home just in case.

  Everyone was silent as I offered Domino a chunk of chicken to get her to drop the bone. It worked, but as you might expect from any good, suspenseful moment in a mystery, the doorbell rang. We all yelped. Domino wolfed down the chicken treat, picked up the bone, and ran with it to the front door. We all dashed down the hall after her.

  “Come in, quickly, Hank,” Charly said. “We’re in the middle of a situation with Domino. Domino who stood there wagging her tail, suddenly decided to show Hank her bone the way she had done with me the first time I saw it. There was no trickery required. When Domino placed the bone at Hank’s feet, he bent down, and picked it up.

  “Don’t throw it! That could be evidence!” I shouted as I ran and plowed into Hank almost bowling him over. He grabbed hold of me to steady himself, wrapping his arms around me, which wasn’t all that bad except that we had an audience.

  “Smooth, Hemingway,” Joe said. “You should have saved that move for when you two were alone.” He snickered and he wasn’t the only one who found it funny. I wanted to be annoyed by the teasing, but Hank had on some fragrance that was intoxicating. The big grin on his face made me feel loopy, too.

  Somehow, I managed to take a step back. As Hank released me, he examined the bone he held. Domino was so sure the game was on, she woofed and wiggled, and did the little bowing thing she does when she wants to play fetch or another of her favorite games.

  “Here, use this,” Charly said and handed Hank a large dog chew. Hank tossed it down the hall and both dogs flew after it. “Here’s one for you, too, Emily.” Charly sent a second treat skidding down the hallway as she handed me a large zip lock plastic bag. I unzipped it and glanced over my shoulder to make sure Domino was still busy.

  “We ought to get it out of sight. It won’t take Domino any time at all to figure out she’s chasing a fake.” Hank dropped the bone into the plastic bag which Charly then slid into a padded envelope.

  “Where did she find it?” Hank asked, as I walked to the nearby powder room and washed my hands. I’d only touched it for a second before the doorbell rang and Domino snatched it back, but I felt like bugs were crawling up my arms. Hank followed my lead and scrubbed his hands.

  “In what looked to me like a sinkhole or a trench that’s been dug. It has that orange webbed fencing around it that’s used to keep anyone from straying into it. Not that it stopped Domino and Emily.”

  “Is it on the golf course or the De Voss property?”

  “It’s outside the fencing around Shakespeare’s Cottage, although it’s not too far away. Joe can probably tell you if that means it’s on the golf course or the De Voss’s private property.”

  “Let’s go ask him,” Hank said as he smiled at me again. “You look great, by the way.” I sort of bumped into the doorway as I walked backwards exiting the powder room.

  “Thanks,” I replied and quickly moved on. “My guess is Joe has returned to the kitchen for a cookie break. I’ll fix you a plate of cookies if you haven’t had dessert yet.”

  “Show me the way,” he said, with the padded envelope tucked under one arm. The room was full of grinning people when we walked into the kitchen. Joe’s cheeks bulged like a squirrel gathering acorns to store for winter.

  “Joe, if you can spare a minute from your cookie binge, Hank has a question for you.” He nodded, swallowed, and downed a big swig of milk.

  “Sure, Hank. There’s no need to ask though. Hemingway will be happy to go out to dinner with you. She sent me a note saying she really, really likes you.” I gasped as the room erupted in laughter.

  “Ghost buster, barstool dancer, and matchmaker—is there no end to your hidden talents?” Robyn asked. She’d asked that question with apparent sincerity, but she had to be joking. Then she batted her eyes at Joe in an exaggerated, flirtatious fashion, and more laughter followed.

  “You want me to pass him a note for you?” Carl asked raising both eyebrows.

  “I wouldn’t mind.” Then she batted her eyes at Joe again. I laughed, too. The flummoxed expression on Joe’s face was priceless.

  “I’d say that cinches it. Robyn would be happy to go out for dinner with you, Joe.” Carl’s ruddy complexion was flushed with good humor.

  “Hey, why not? I’ll pop for a burger if you want to celebrate your new house.” Talk about smooth! Right in front of all of us, he and Robyn had just arranged a first date. “What’s your question, Hank?”

  Joe scooted over and motioned for Hank to step closer to the bar area where we’d set out the food. I followed, grabbed a dessert plate, and handed it to Hank as he spoke to Joe.

  “Do you know the spot out behind the De Voss property that’s cordoned off?
”

  “Yeah, Miriam told us that’s where Domino dug up her treasure today.”

  “Is it on the golf course or private property?”

  “Technically, it’s a large greenspace that belongs to the De Voss family. No one else can build in that area so they’ll always have privacy. Because it’s not enclosed space or posted as private, residents and members of the public who come to play golf wander onto it. The managers of the golf course are charged with maintaining the area. That usually involves routine lawn care and maintenance, but something happened in that spot.”

  “Miriam said she thought it might be a sinkhole.”

  “I could be. The ground in that spot has shifted. The water to the sprinkler system has been shut off while the golf club management team tries to figure out how big a problem they have, and how deep the hole is. This is no DIY job. They’ve called in civil engineers to review the developers’ plans from back in the sixties, find out what’s caused the problem, and recommend a fix.”

  “Gosh, they ought to have George Pierson look at it given how much he knows about dirt,” Marty muttered.

  “How could Domino have found a human bone in there?” I wondered aloud. “It’s not built on an old burial site or anything like that, is it?

  “I’ve never heard we have sites like that up here on the high bluffs. Down below, and closer to the beach in the preserve, yes. Besides, the bone must have been placed in the ground more recently than what’s under it. When the ground sank, what was above it shifted, and filled in the hole ending up on top.” I nodded at Joe’s explanation which made perfectly good sense to me.

  “Are you suggesting that a body buried nearby tumbled into the pit?” Marty asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Then there must be more bones,” I said.

  “I’ll call forensics and get them to send a team out there tomorrow.” Hank put down the cookie he was eating, pulled out his phone, and made a note. “Will someone be able to show them to the spot?”

  “Sure. If they stop at the gate, security will escort them to the spot. They’d better bring the County engineers with them, though, before they poke around too much,” Carl warned. “Depending on how much dirt those dogs kicked up today, it could be even more unstable than it already was.”

  “Those hounds are lucky they didn’t trigger a landslide while they were partying like wild animals,” Joe added.

  “Can someone from forensics figure out who was buried there with one bone?” Marty asked. “Or how long the body’s been in the ground?”

  “They can get DNA from the bone, but that won’t help much unless the person’s DNA is already in a database or on file somewhere,” Midge replied. “They should be able estimate how long it’s been buried.” Hank nodded.

  “They can tell if it’s a man or woman from the DNA, right?” Robyn asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If it’s a woman, maybe it’s Cookie De Voss,” Robyn added. Hank did a double-take.

  “What do you know about Cookie De Voss?” He asked.

  “Only what Miriam and Charly told me.”

  “Which isn’t much,” I said, defensively. Even though Hank hadn’t asked me anything, his eyes had settled on me after searching Charly first.

  “It was enough for Bernie De Voss to get her nickers in a twist,” Marty snapped. Hank put up both hands, signaling us to stop.

  “Start at the beginning and tell me the whole story,” Hank said as he stuffed a triple ginger snap into his mouth. He scarfed down one cookie after another as we filled him in on what Charly and I had learned about Constance De Voss and how Bernie De Voss had reacted to my question about her cousin who went missing so long ago.

  “Okay, if it turns out to be a woman, I’ll have forensics look for a comparison sample of DNA from the missing De Voss woman. Maybe they can find more skeletal remains and that’ll help determine the person’s identity—if they can get the bones out of that pit without getting themselves killed.” Hank stopped speaking and I thought he might be about to leave. Instead, he loaded his plate with more cookies.

  “I came here thinking I’d share a bit of news with you.” We all went on alert. Hank shook his head. “It’s impossible to keep ahead of the active adults in this room.”

  “Don’t hold out on us,” I implored him.

  “Yeah, we know how to keep a secret.” I glanced at Robyn before she could go on. Since he hadn’t said a word about the video footage taken at Shakespeare’s Cottage today, I didn’t want her to let anything slip. Robyn zipped her lips.

  “Please do keep this quiet. We’ve discovered the Shakespeare impersonator’s identity. It’ll hit the news in a day or so, but we’ve just notified the family, so we’d like to give them a chance to come to grips with what’s happened.”

  “So, who is it?”

  “Danny De Voss,” Hank replied.

  “You can’t mean Ted De Voss’s brother. He was already dead.”

  “Not his brother. His son.” I was stunned as I went over what I’d learned about the De Voss family. I hadn’t considered the prospect that Ted and Bernie De Voss had children. Any mention of their offspring would probably have shown up in more recent HOA history or events than the ones I’d reviewed. I wondered if Danny De Voss was as antagonistic toward his father as his mother seemed to be this afternoon.

  “Were Ted and his son on good terms?” I asked.

  “No. That wasn’t news to us. Ted De Voss doesn’t appear to have ever shown much interest in his son.”

  “Shakespeare had something to say about that,” Midge offered. “‘It’s a wise father that knows his own child.’”

  “I don’t know how much Ted De Voss knows about his son. We learned early in our investigation you stumbled into by chasing Mikey Paulson, that father and son have been estranged for years. Danny De Voss may have had knowledge of his father’s activities, but he doesn’t appear to have become involved in them. Like his parents, he went away to boarding school in Santa Barbara and then went to college. He eventually got a degree after switching colleges several times—mostly because of lousy grades, but he got into trouble for cheating on exams and public drunkenness.”

  “The cheating incident sounds like Danny was following in his father’s footsteps, if you’re investigation proves that Ted De Voss is leading a smuggling ring.”

  “The jury’s not in on that yet, but it won’t be long now before Ted De Voss has his day in court. We’re close to making arrests in the case which is another reason not to talk about any of this to anyone.”

  “Danny De Voss must be in his late thirties or early forties by now. What did he do after he finished college if he didn’t join the family business?” Charly asked.

  “The family owns legit businesses, too. Danny De Voss runs a chain of restaurants the family launched decades ago. At the time, they were fronts for serving bootleg liquor in backrooms where they also sponsored illegal card games and betting. He seems to have done a credible job, but they’re not hugely profitable.”

  “Did his father give him the watch or did he steal it?”

  “I don’t know yet, Carl. That’s only one of the many questions we hope to answer. Given what you’ve told me about your interactions with Bernie De Voss today, I’m betting she’ll be happy to help us if she believes her husband had anything to do with their son’s death.”

  “If she lives long enough to do that,” I commented.

  15 The Greatest Sound

  “But the saying is true: ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.’” – Henry V

  ∞

  Our get-together ended soon after Hank’s revelation that the mysterious intruder masquerading as Shakespeare’s ghost was Daniel De Voss. I’d walked out with Hank to give the box of cookies I owed him. He’d taken the opportunity to point out that a dinner date wasn’t a bad idea. I didn’t argue with him and we settled on a time and place. Charly grinned from ear-to-ear when I told her about it. When Domino and I reached home, I
still had butterflies in my stomach about it. It was nice for a change to experience them from excitement about a pleasant event.

  When I woke up the next morning, I called Charly to tell her I was on my way. It was only seven-thirty. We’d agreed to get to Shakespeare’s Cottage early and search for a hidden passageway, hoping to stay ahead of whatever ripple effects there might be from yesterday’s shocking events. Last night, Carl had spotted a headline that had already reached social media sites referring to “The Murder of Shakespeare’s Ghost.”

  Even though Hank had succeeded in keeping the identity of the victim secret, it hadn’t taken a crafty local newscaster long to find out that a murder had occurred in the Seaview Cottages community. That the incident had occurred at Shakespeare’s cottage was easy enough to discover by intercepting the police dispatch after Robyn had called 911. How the reporter learned that the victim was disguised as Shakespeare’s ghost wasn’t clear to me or anyone else.

  When Charly and I arrived at Shakespeare’s Cottage, we went straight to the kitchen. I was shocked to find Neely already in the pantry and on her knees running her hands along the base at the back of the wall. Robyn was doing something similar but higher up. When Neely looked up at me bleary-eyed, she pushed her glasses up on her nose with one hand, and then gave us a little salute.

  “Greetings,” I said. “How can we help?” We’d left our doggie delinquents home alone today after their close call yesterday.

  “Can you drag a ladder in here so we can reach higher?” Robyn asked. “I keep a step ladder in the laundry room. If you think we need a bigger ladder than that, I’ve seen one in the garage that I’ve never used.”

  “Let’s start with the step ladder and if we can’t reach as far as we need to, we’ll look for a larger one. Have you found any clues yet?”

  “Possibly. Before we cleaned up, we noticed a streak of what looked like blood, here, close to the back wall. I’m sure the forensic investigators must have seen it, but they might not have given it a second thought. Considering its location in the context of searching for a hidden passageway I felt it might be a hint that Shakespeare left that streak as he entered the pantry from behind the wall.”