Phantoms Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #13

by Connie Shelton

  “The Abbey Gate,” Louisa explained. “This part of the town has been inhabited since the Middle Ages. We’ll take a walk through the Abbey Gardens in a bit, if you’re up to it.”

  A walk sounded like the perfect antidote to the long hours confined in airplane and car, and I readily agreed to the plan.

  “This is the Angel, here on the right,” she said. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and stay at my house?”

  The Angel Hotel, where I’d made reservations, had operated in its present location since 1452, an imposing three stories of gray-brown stone completely covered in ivy with lush purple petunias sprouting from planters beneath each window. When the plan was for Drake to travel with me, it only seemed sensible to stay in a hotel rather than impose on my aunt’s hospitality. Her offer was tempting but seeing the historic building kind of took my breath away. I needed to experience this at least once.

  Louisa sensed my hesitation and pulled into the parking area in front of the hotel. “Here we are, then.”

  “I really appreciate your offer,” I said. “They would have charged my account for at least one night anyway—”

  “Charlie, it’s absolutely not a problem,” she said, switching off the ignition and turning toward me. “You will love this place. And if you spend a night or two and want to switch, I’m sure they can accommodate the change. My home is only about a ten minute walk from here, and I work at the tourism office just that way—” She waved vaguely toward the next block. “You can find me whenever you want.”

  We stepped out of the car and met at the back where she reached for my bag in ‘the boot.’ “Besides,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “if you’re here at the Angel you might get a chance to see one of the ghosts.”

  Ghosts? Sure.

  I might as well admit right now that I’m a supreme cynic about that stuff. Not one supposedly haunted old house or hotel or graveyard that I’ve ever visited has shown me any evidence whatsoever of the famed supernatural residents. Louisa, on the other hand, had told me during the long drive that she studied astrology and ancient folk legends in college—hinting that this curriculum may have led, in part, to the rift with my ultra scientific father. I could vouch for his distrust of the unproven—every childhood alibi I tried to construct met with the strictest of testing before he accepted it.

  She registered the skepticism on my face. “The Angel Hotel,” she said, adopting an official tone, “is reputed to be home of not one, but two, ghosts. One is said to be the fiddler who was sent into the tunnel connecting Angel Hill to a pub in Eastgate Street. The man entered, playing his fiddle so onlookers could track his progress, but he never came out. Modern day spirit activity still seems to center around the cellars of the hotel near the now-bricked up entrance to the tunnel.”

  She grinned at me. “My job these days is to give tours of ‘Haunted Bury St. Edmunds’ through the tourism office.” She switched back to her tour-guide voice. “Of course, those fortunate enough to stay in the Charles Dickens Room often report odd noises in the night and strange little episodes where items go missing from the room.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’m in the Dickens room,” I assured her. “But I’ll try not to disturb any of the old residents.”

  A uniformed bellman appeared just then, rushing down the front steps of the hotel and approaching the car to ask if I was checking in. He hefted my suitcase and headed indoors with it.

  “Take a moment to settle in,” Louisa suggested. “I’ll check in at my office and come back for you. Then we can find some lunch and take that walk around the gardens.”

  We parted with a quick hug and a plan to meet in thirty minutes. I trailed the bellman into the lobby which consisted of a series of cozy, low-ceilinged rooms, the central one featuring a wide rock fireplace flanked by large overstuffed couches. I completed the check-in paperwork at a reception desk of dark wood and was directed to follow the bellman—a lengthy trek up a flight of stairs, around a series of sharp turns, along a squeaky corridor which included two steps up and two steps down for no readily apparent reason, a few more turns until we came to a hallway with numbered rooms on the right hand side only. He cheerfully unlocked the door for me and placed my baggage on the floor.

  I’d reached for my wallet in hopes of figuring out the strange bills I’d exchanged at the airport when the man cheerfully bade me goodbye and disappeared out the door. No hand fidgeting for a tip? Now that was something you never saw in the States.

  It was a good-sized room with a desk in one corner, an antique wooden wardrobe offset by the modern touch of a flat-screen television mounted on the wall beside it, a small round table with full tea service that included electric kettle, a choice of black tea or Earl Grey or coffee, along with every desired sweetener and creamer, plus two packets of cookies. I was loving England already!

  The large bed was made up for two—a twinge—how nice it would have been for Drake to be here with me. It was pre-dawn back home so I called Drake’s cell, left him a quick message that all was well and suggested that he give me a call once he woke up. A quick brush through my hair and a retouch of lipstick. Short of a six hour nap there wasn’t much else I could think to do to myself at the moment. I straightened my jeans and put a wool jacket on over my wrinkled T-shirt and hoped we weren’t going anyplace dressy.

  Louisa sat tucked into a corner of one of the deep sofas in the lobby when I descended the stairs, miraculously having found my way back along the convoluted tangle of hallways and steps. She tapped a few buttons on her phone and dropped it into her purse.

  “There now. Texted my supervisor and I’ve got the whole afternoon free,” she said, practically bouncing up from the couch. “Would you like a sit-down pub lunch or something we can carry to the gardens while we walk around?”

  Walking, definitely. She led me out the front of the hotel and we strolled past a dress shop and a place called the Really Rather Good Coffee House. Seriously. I looked twice and smiled at the sign.

  The September air felt crisp with a chill on this half-cloudy day. Abbeygate Street was closed to car traffic but the pedestrians were out in force—young mothers pushing strollers, sturdy older women with mesh shopping bags, businessmen who looked barely out of high school striding between the slower groups.

  “I grab lunch at this shop at least twice a week,” Louisa said, steering me toward a brick building where large windows showed rows of baked items. “Cornish pasties. Like pie crust wrapped around various meats, potatoes, veggies, warm gravy.”

  The scent coming from the shop was pure meaty, saucy heaven and I felt myself practically begin to drool as I stared at the rows of pastry packets on display. Louisa turned to me from the doorway with a question in her eyes.

  “Whatever you normally have,” I said, still processing the sights and smells, never mind deciphering whatever quick question the man behind the counter had posed to us.

  “Two, traditional, take away, please,” Louisa said. She thrust forward a bill with red printing on it and got some coins back in change.

  The warm paper envelope with its treasure of hot meat pie felt good in my hands. If I hadn’t been a little faint from hunger I could have held it in my chilly fingers and taken pleasure from that simple act. As it was, by the time we hit the street again we were both unfolding the paper and picking off bits of the flaky pastry and sneaking them into our mouths. The steam that emerged brought back memories of Sunday roast beef-and-potato dinners at Elsa’s. I think I moaned at my first real bite of it.

  “Yummy, isn’t it?” Louisa said. “The chicken and mushroom one is another of my favorites.” She had folded her paper packet closed, saving the treat until we could settle somewhere.

  We strolled back the way we’d come, emerging from Abbeygate Street and crossing the parking area in front of the hotel. Two-way traffic on Angel Hill Road gave us a moment to pause and stare up at the elaborate stone gate leading to the Abbey grounds. Louisa gave some details of the history o
f the ancient abbey and the current, more modern one which had received its finishing touches in very recent times. At a glance, I would have never guessed the construction of the elaborate building was completed over more than a thousand years; it all blended seamlessly.

  “I’ll tell you more of it, if you’re interested, another day. You seem to be a little overwhelmed at the moment.” She smiled at me with a cheerful sparkle in her eye.

  I nodded. “Long trip. By tomorrow I’ll be as energetic as ever.”

  We’d crossed the road and walked under the high arch of the stone gate and the gardens spread out before us. Coming from a high-desert region where cactus are considered ornamental plants and lush greenery is a city park that actually has both grass and trees, I’d had few experiences to compare with a formal English garden. Walkways quartered the open space and in each quadrant closely clipped lawns formed the backdrop for precise plantings of bright flowers in patterns of purple, yellow, pink and red. Benches lined the walks and we found an empty one.

  Unwrapping our portable lunch again we savored the scrumptious meat and potato combination. A white-haired gentleman in a three-piece suit gave a sidelong glance. Americans and their informality, his expression seemed to say. About three minutes later, two ducks found us. They each accepted a crumb of our crusts before they politely moved on to solicit the charity of someone else.

  “I don’t want to tire you too much on your first day,” Louisa said, “but there’s so much I want to show you. I’m sad that you could only be here for a week.”

  With no idea what I was getting into I hadn’t wanted to commit too much. Now, without Drake’s schedule pressing us, I probably could manage to stay longer if things worked out. For now, we would just see how the visit went.

  “So, I’m sure you’d like a bit of a rest this afternoon,” she was saying. “If you don’t mind my popping by the knit shop on the way back, I’ll pick up a little more wool for a project I’m working on. I belong to a little weekly knitting group there. Then later, we can have dinner at my house.”

  “I’m getting my strength back now, I think. Whatever you’ve planned sounds good to me.” There were at least a dozen questions on my mind, mainly about family and why her relationship with my father had gone so far south. We’d barely touched on the past yet, focusing mainly on our present-day lives during our few brief phone conversations, but I didn’t intend to leave England before I knew more about this mysterious new relative of mine.

  “Explore around here anytime during your stay,” Louisa was saying. “The Abbey grounds are extensive, farther in you’ll find the ruins of the oldest sections that date back to the Middle Ages. I’ve also requested a flexible work schedule this week so we can spend more time together, and it would be a joy to show you all around.”

  We’d finished our pasties by this time and tossed the wrappers into a discreet trash barrel on the way back out to the street. Heading west on Abbeygate Street, I followed Louisa’s lead through several turns into progressively narrower lanes until she abruptly stopped on a picturesque street called Lilac Lane and opened the door to a tiny shop.

  “The Knit & Purl” was painted in gold on a carved wooden sign depicting a set of knitting needles thrust through a ball of purple yarn, which hung above the doorway at a ninety-degree angle to the sidewalk. Tiny bells tinkled as the door closed behind us.

  A thin woman with angular features and steel-gray hair in a straight page cut looked up from the sales counter. Her body seemed all planes and angles, from the minimal chest to her sharp shoulders and spider-like fingers. She wore navy trousers and a print blouse with a cardigan of blue wool that looked like her own creation. Her face softened when she saw my aunt.

  “Ah, Louisa, there you are! I’m so glad you’ve come.”

  “Well, I said I’d be by today for the blue heather. Did it come in?” Louisa stopped in mid-stride. “Oh, where are my manners? I want you to meet my niece from the States.” She reached out to shuffle me to the forefront.

  “Charlie, this is my dear friend, Dolly Jones. She owns this lovely shop. It’s only been here a year or so, right Dolly? But hasn’t she done a beautiful job with it?”

  Dolly regarded me with suspicion for a moment, her light blue eyes squinted nearly shut. “Charlie? Unusual name.”

  Louisa went into the whole explanation of how I’d been named for her and I added that my brothers had shortened Charlotte to Charlie when we were kids. Dolly’s smile brightened, as if now that she knew something about me I had passed muster.

  I returned the smile and began to browse the shop when their conversation turned back to the subject of Louisa’s blue heather yarn which, it so happened, had not yet arrived. In addition to two walls full of specially constructed bins filled with precise balls of yarn arranged by color, the shop sold candles, cards, and some handmade cloth purses and bags. A shelf near the register held small bottles of essential oils and herbs. One of the cloth purses caught my eye as a possible gift to take home for Elsa and I’d walked over to get a closer look, half listening to the scraps of their conversation I could catch above the soft classical music that played in the background.

  “And what about that incident last week? Did you ever find out what was behind that?” Louisa was asking.

  “No. And now there’s been another.” Dolly’s voice seemed strained as she straightened some cards in their display rack.

  “You know,” Louisa said, “people say many buildings in this part of town are haunted.”

  I moved from the purses to the candles, eavesdropping shamelessly now.

  “It was not the work of a ghost,” Dolly declared in a tone that permitted no argument. “No offense, Louisa, but you know that I don’t believe in those things.”

  Louisa only looked momentarily chastened.

  “I spent the entire morning putting the wools back in order. You know how I keep my shop, neat as a pin. The yarns are always arranged by color—the reds, the oranges, the yellows, and so forth.” She waved a hand toward the bins of perfectly stacked skeins.

  “Oh, I know you do,” Louisa murmured. “Neat as a pin, Charlie.”

  I nodded and stepped over to the sales counter.

  Dolly kept talking. “This morning I came down to find everything a complete hodgepodge. All the colors mixed together, the dye lots intermingled, the merino was in with the cashmere for god’s sake!”

  Her face had grown very pink. She blew out a breath and turned toward me. “It took Gabrielle and me the entire morning to sort it all out. Gabrielle Tukson is my shop assistant.”

  “Dolly and Archie live right above,” Louisa said, pointing toward the ceiling.

  “A small apartment comes with the lease,” Dolly added. “Not my husband’s first choice but—” She waved the rest of the thought away vaguely.

  “So someone came in during the night, while you were right upstairs?” I asked.

  Dolly shook her head. “I simply don’t see how. I am not a heavy sleeper. And Archie was right in bed beside me the whole night. We never heard a sound. The door bells alone would have wakened me, to say nothing of someone moving about throughout the place.”

  Louisa raised an eyebrow toward me. “And there was the incident last week . . .”

  “Muddy footprints across my shining wood floor. This room was spotless when we turned in the night before. I come down to open shop in the morning and there are large boot prints from the front door, over to the register. But, they didn’t lead back outside. Just stopped. Practically right on this spot.” She pointed toward the floor at her feet.

  “Sounds like a poltergeist to me,” Louisa said knowledgeably. “They tend to play tricks, move things around but not do real harm.”

  Dolly squirmed to remain quiet. I got the feeling that she didn’t want to alienate a good customer and friend but she didn’t for a minute believe that there was a supernatural cause to the mischief in her shop. She brought the subject back around to Louisa’s yarn order and ass
ured her that it should arrive in the Tuesday shipment.

  We’d turned to leave and were met at the door by a man.

  “Archie,” Louisa greeted. “Good to see you again.” She performed a quick introduction to Dolly’s husband.

  I registered a man in his sixties who’d once been tall and slender. Now his shoulders were hunched and he decidedly favored his left hip when he walked. His long, thin face was smooth-shaven with crevices along both sides of his mouth. He raised his cap, revealing a head of thick gray hair, and gave a pleasant smile and fluttered his long fingers toward us as we said goodbye.

  Chapter 3

  The scattered clouds earlier in the day had thickened and lowered, giving the streets a shadowy feel and the possibility of rain seemed very real now. We hurried past shops that were clearing—a bookstore, a clothing store featuring woolens from Scotland, a coffee shop, a newsstand—as shoppers picked up the pace, finishing their purchases and heading toward home. In minutes we found ourselves at the front steps of the Angel Hotel again.

  My jet-lag was catching up to me. I made a halfhearted offer to have Louisa come up to my room for tea and wasn’t terribly disappointed when she suggested that I take a little rest and then come to her house for drinks and dinner. She sketched me a little map on the back of an envelope, assuring me that it was a ten minute walk if it wasn’t raining. And if it was, I was to give her a call and she would pick me up.

  The phone rang on the nightstand as I entered my room.

  “Hi, hon.” Drake’s voice came over the trans-Atlantic miles as if he were in the next room. I wished that he were.

  I filled him in on the flight and the ride to Bury and the day’s events.

  “Sounds like you could use a nap,” he said after the third time I yawned. He assured me that all was going well with his job. I tried to get it straight that he’d flown for the customer while I was on the plane then slept while I was walking around town with Louisa. It was early morning at home and he was ready to head for his helicopter once again. Freckles was doing fine. We were training her to stay in her crate whenever she was home alone, and that seemed to be going well. By the time he got through all the details I’d peeled off my jeans and crawled under the duvet on the bed. My eyes slammed shut at approximately the same time I set the phone receiver back in its cradle.