In a rush, Katie tried to bounce out of bed only to get one of her feet tangled in the blankets and then pitch forward onto the floor with a little, unlady-like umph. Lying on the floor for a moment helped her catch her bearings.
Mel’s face hovered above her as she bent down over Katie. “Katie? Katie, what’s wrong. Why are you on the floor?”
She extricated herself from the blankets with some difficulty. “Never mind that. I’m just...I fell, okay? We have to go. Get dressed because we have to go.”
“Chickie, what in God’s green Earth are you talking about?”
On her feet again Katie went straight to the little bathroom to scrub her face and push her long, heavy curls into place. The face staring back at her looked older than it had yesterday.
“Back when Mom died,” she explained to Mel, “I changed the locks on the doors for security reasons. They’re all brand new.”
Mel nodded her approval from the bathroom doorway. “Very smart. Speaking as someone who makes their living in real estate as well, I mean.”
“Thank you,” Katie said. “That means a lot.”
Mel had been a big name in real estate sales for years now. She knew the business just as well as Katie did. She might not renovate the homes before selling them, but she knew security was an important part of protecting your investment.
In this case, Katie being careful had just pointed her in the direction of the most obvious person of all.
No, Riley didn’t have keys to house. Katie had the one set. The other set belonged to the woman who was taking care of the house.
“Marlena Strohm,” Katie finished her thought out loud. “She had the other key. She’s the one who unlocked the door.”
“Marlena?” Mel’s face twisted up in confusion. “Who’s Marlena?”
“She’s the housekeeper. The housekeeper who doesn’t want me to sell the house because she wants it for herself!”
Mel gave a low whistle. “Wow. So you think she’s been messing with you?”
“Yeah I do. Come on. I know where she lives.”
“What are we going to do when we get there?” Mel asked her.
“We’re going to get answers. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“Not much of a plan.”
“I’m making this up as I go,” Katie admitted. “Some things are starting to make sense to me but for the most part I’m lost.”
Mel chuckled. “I understand. I think.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
“Sure. Just let me get some pants first.” She finished off the rest of her fried dough, too. “I have to tell you, Katie. Visiting you is never dull.”
Marlena Strohm had always lived in a cluster of little houses in a small corner of Fount Azure. Katie had been here a couple of times. It was nice enough in its own way. Certainly it was good enough for one middle-aged woman living by herself.
The Volkswagen Beetle that Marlena had driven for years was in the driveway. Mel parked them behind it, and they got out.
“Looks like she’s here.” Mel smacked the piece of bubble gum she’d started chewing at the motel. “You want to be good cop, and I’ll be bad cop?”
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that.” Even as Katie said it though, she knew it might take something like that to find the truth. “Should we call the police, maybe?”
“Mmm, uh-uh,” Mel murmured. “This girl doesn’t like the police. Let’s not go that route unless we have to, okay?”
“Sure. You know, I’ve been thinking back over every time I’ve seen Marlena. Everything I’ve ever heard her say. She was good for my mom. She was even sort of my friend, I guess. I just can’t imagine her doing such a horrible thing. I mean, killing my mother? Could she do that?”
Mel reached over and held Katie’s hand. “Let’s find out.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Mel.”
“Hey, what are best friends for. I will always drop everything to come and help you. No matter where you are.”
After a moment, Katie took a breath, and then faced the house. “Come on. Let’s go find out what Marlena has to say for herself.”
A little walkway of stones led from the driveway to the front porch. To their surprise, they found the door was open. It was just a little bit which was why they hadn’t seen it from their car. Now they looked at each other with the same question.
It was Katie who reached out to push the door open. “Hello?” she called out. “Marlena? Are you here? It’s Katie Pearson. We want to talk to you.”
Silence.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Katie said to Mel.
“You think? Maybe she’s taking a bath. Or maybe she’s got a boyfriend upstairs in bed with her and she can’t hear us.”
“Mel. Really?”
“What? Every woman dreams of spending a day at home alone with the man she loves every now and then.”
Katie smiled at her friend. Mel was in a steady relationship, and it was obviously affecting the way she thought. In a good way, maybe, but still.
She went down the short hallway from the living room. The house was laid out oddly but then again there wasn’t much space to work with. “I’m just going to look through the house real quick. Maybe there’s something we can find to show it really is Marlena that has been messing with me, and not Riley.”
“Because he’s cuter?” Mel suggested.
Katie ignored that and tried not to picture the way the strap of his toolbelt hugged his hips and his butt...
The kitchen lights were on. Katie decided to start there.
She wasn’t two feet inside when she stopped. There, on the linoleum floor, she saw Marlena. Her eyes were open and staring. Blood had pooled underneath her.
Marlena Strohm was dead.
Mel leaned around Katie’s shoulder to see what she was looking at. When she did, she whistled one long, low note.
“Well,” she said. “You wanted to call the police. Now seems like a good time to me.”
Chapter 9
“I don’t believe this.”
That was all Katie could say. They sat on the couch in Marlena’s living room waiting for the police officers combing through the house to come back and speak to them. They had been told, in no uncertain terms, to sit on their behinds right here and not move until someone came back for them.
That had been an hour ago.
Mel leaned her head against the back of the couch. She closed her eyes with a sigh. “When you asked me to fly out here I figured it would be to sit up late with tubs of ice cream and a couple bottles of wine to reminisce about your mother. You know, cry it out and stuff. I never expected to become part of a police investigation.”
Katie looked over at her friend. “You’re being very calm about all of this.”
“Not the first dead body I’ve seen,” Mel shrugged. “When you buy and sell houses you never know what you’re going to find. Sometimes people die in their house and no one finds them for weeks. Believe me, that scene in the kitchen isn’t anything new for me.”
“Yeah, we really picked great jobs, didn’t we?”
Mel popped open just one eye again. “Well, yes. We did. I’m happy with what I do. Make good money at it, too. So do you. Your life isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Katie ticked several points off with her fingers. “I’m alone. I don’t even have a permanent residence although I rent a condo in two different states. I wasn’t there for my own mother when she died. And, oh yeah, the woman who had been taking care of my mother and who was still taking care of her house was just murdered. Sure. My life is fantastic.”
Now Mel shifted on the couch, reaching over and putting her hand on Katie’s knee. “You have me, your very best friend. You’ve got money in the bank. Plus, there’s no way you can convince me you don’t love the whole flipping houses thing. You’re good at what you do. That’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”
Katie took in a shaky breath. “I wasn�
�t there for Mom. I should have been there for her. Maybe...maybe none of this would have happened if I had just come home more often.”
“What were you going to do, live here forever? If your mom was really killed by someone Katie, that’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known that was going to happen.”
“Well, I know it now.”
“What do you mean?”
No going back now, Katie thought to herself. She dropped her voice down low so none of the police officers around them would hear. “I’ve seen Mom’s ghost.”
“What? You mean, like in your dreams?”
“No...well, yes. That too, but I saw her yesterday in the graveyard. At her grave. She told me she was cold.”
For the longest time Mel didn’t say anything. She just sat there staring at Katie. Then she sat back with her eyes wide. “Wow. That’s deep.”
“She died in that freezer in the house, Mel.” Katie shivered as she said it, as if it had been her locked behind that door and not her Mom. “I even found a note in there that she left before she died. Someone killed her, and then laid her out in her own bed like nothing had happened. Nobody questioned it. Nobody thought twice that an old woman might have lived another five, ten, fifteen years. And the worst part about it is, I didn’t question it either.”
“So who did it? Do you think it was Marlena?”
“I did,” Katie said, “until now. Someone killed her as well. My guess? It might be the same person.”
“Katie, you sell houses for a living. You’re not a private investigator.”
“I know, I know, but I can’t help the situation I’m in. Besides, there’s more.”
“Really? What?”
“Marlena and my mother were close, apparently. I’ve been told she thought of Marlena as her own daughter. I refused to believe it at first. Then it all seemed to fit with her not wanting to sell the house and the thing with the key...I just don’t know.”
Mel wasn’t having any of that. “You think it’s Riley, don’t you?”
Katie wasn’t sure anymore. Things had happened that pointed to him, certainly. The freezer door being closed on her--and locked--twice while Riley was standing right there. His toolbelt left at the bottom of her stairs...
But was it him?
She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”
Into the middle of their conversation, a man in a rumpled brown suit came walking into the living room. His upper chest and arms were bulky with muscle but his pants flapped around scrawny legs. A handlebar mustache was starting to go gray just like the thinning hair on his head.
He greeted them with a smile that was obviously forced. “Ladies. I’m Chief Bernard Aikens. They call me in for all of the major incidents.”
Mel sat with her back very straight. “Oh, is that what we are now? A major incident?”
“You found a dead body in my town. Yes. That qualifies.”
Katie interrupted Mel before she could say something that they would both regret. “I know who you are, Bernard. I haven’t been gone so long that I don’t remember the cop who arrested me for skinny dipping with Bobby Braddish.”
“Heh,” he laughed. “I’d nearly forgotten about that. If you don’t mind my saying, Katherine, you haven’t changed all that much.”
Self-consciously, Katie crossed her legs and settled her arms over her belly. “Nobody calls me Katherine. Not anymore. My mother was the last one who called me that.”
“Right, right. You prefer Katie. Well, Katie, let’s go over your story again. You came here to talk to Marlena, and you found her like that?”
Katie nodded. She and Mel had agreed on the story they would tell before they called the police. It seemed best to stick to the truth. “That’s right.”
“And you have no idea who might have wanted to hurt Marlena Strohm?”
Yes I do, Katie thought. Riley Harris had a lot to answer for.
Out loud, she said, “No. No idea at all.”
“Uh-huh,” Chief Aikens said, digging in one of the pockets of his suitcoat and pulling out a little spiral bound notebook. He opened it to the front page. “So who’s Riley Harris?”
Katie’s eyes widened. “Riley? Why are you asking about Riley?”
“Oh, so you know him?”
“Of course I know him,” Katie answered. “I, um, sort of hired him to do some contract work on my mother’s house before I sell it.”
“I see.” Chief Aikens wrote something down in his notebook. “You’ve been gone a long time, Katie. You just got back into town and now I’ve got a murder on my hands that you’re directly involved in.”
“Hey!” Mel snapped. “She is not directly involved. We just came here and found her lying there. What, did you want us to just leave without calling?”
The man’s hard eyes turned to regard Mel. “When I say directly involved, I mean that Marlena Strohm was in Katie’s employment. She found the body--and so did you, I might add.”
That took some of the wind out of Mel’s sails. She sat back, arms crossed over her chest, and pouted. “This is what happens when you get involved with the police.”
“Mel,” Katie said in a loud whisper, “that isn’t helping.”
“There’s more, too,” the chief continued. “Now we have Riley Harris to fit into the equation, and here Katie tells me that Riley was in her employment, too. I’m not a firm believer in coincidence.”
“Bernard...Chief,” Katie corrected herself. “You still haven’t told us why you’re asking about Riley.”
“I’m asking about him because I believe he may have been involved. You say you knew him. I know the two of you went to the same high school, Katie. You’ve been gone a long time but you aren’t dumb. So. Mind telling me why his wallet was left in Marlena’s bedroom?”
The question didn’t make any sense to Katie. Riley’s wallet in Marlena’s bedroom? That would mean he was in the bedroom. That would mean...what? That he and Marlena were together? No. Katie couldn’t even begin to picture that. There was no way Riley was intimately involved with Marlena. She was twice his age!
Then a new thought occurred to her. Maybe he wasn’t, um, dating Marlena, but if his wallet was here, did that mean he killed Marlena?
“Katie?” Chief Aikens prompted her. “Any idea why this man you hired to work on your house dropped his wallet at the scene of a crime?”
Mel leaned forward. “Well there was--”
“Actually no,” Katie interrupted her. “I have no idea. We don’t know why Riley was here.”
The pen tapped against Aikens’ notebook. “Uh-huh. Well. In that case we’re done here. Just don’t leave town.” He handed Katie one of his business cards with his name and the police department phone number on it. He gave Mel another long stare. “We’ll be in touch.”
Katie took the chance when it was offered to her. Taking Mel’s hand she pulled them both off the couch and right out the front door. The police officers had been careful to park their cars on the side of the street so they weren’t blocking them in. Katie took the wheel in Mel’s car again, and then they were driving away.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Mel asked her. “You should have told him all the stuff that you told me. Can there be any doubt now that this is all Riley? Your mom, Marlena, all of it? They need to lock that boy up!”
“They will. I know Bernard Aikens. He’s the kind of cop who locks people up first and then asks question later. That isn’t my concern right now.”
“Oh really, then what is?”
“My mother. I need to talk to her. Please tell me you brought it?”
She didn’t have to explain what she was talking about. Mel reached into the backseat to where her luggage had been sitting unnoticed. Katie heard her open a zipper and rummage around for something. When she sat back up front, she had a heavy piece of brown board in her hands. It had an old look and feel to it, and it was painted with letters, and numbers, and the words ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ With it was a planchette, a
pointer piece that had a round glass window near the top point.
Mel’s Ouija board.
She and Mel had used this together once before. Katie had been against it at first. Ouija boards were for having drunk fun at parties, or for those weirdos on YouTube who insist they’re talking to demons who want them to sacrifice a llama and write backward messages on the wall. In their own feces.
Only, when Mel had convinced her to try, they’d actually made real contact with a ghost. Then the ghost had tried to kill her.
She was hoping when she tried to contact her mother it would go better than that.
“Thanks, Mel.”
“Hey.” She winked at Katie. “What are friends for?”
They were back at her mother’s house in no time. Katie held her breath as she turned down the street, half expecting Riley’s contracting truck to be parked there, waiting to do more work on the house. When it wasn’t, she breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently her last conversation with him had put him off.
Either that, or he’d just been too busy killing Marlena to come to work this morning.
“Where do you want to do this?” Mel asked her, hugging the board and its heart-shaped planchette piece to her chest as she got out. “Where’s a good place to call on your mother’s ghost?”
Katie felt so strange hearing those words. Yes, she had desperately wanted to talk to her mother and she knew the only way to do it was to get in touch with her ghost. This was getting real, though, and he no longer knew what to expect.
The scene at her mother’s grave had rattled her.
She took a breath and made her decision. “Let’s do it in the kitchen. Actually...in the freezer.” She didn’t like the idea, but if that was the place her mother had died then she figured it would be where they could feel her mother’s spirit the strongest.
Mel hesitated on the steps to the front door. “Um, didn’t you tell me that the freezer door keeps closing on you? And, you know, locking you in?”
“Riley was doing that,” Katie insisted. “We’ll wedge the door open somehow so it can’t close. We’ll be fine.”
“Hmph. Famous last words.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 31
