A History of Murder

by Lynn Bohart

  I set a round glass table by the patio door for dinner and had the sunken fire pit crackling just for ambience. The evening was warm and clear, and Lake Washington was a picture of white clouds and sail boats. Our large, earthen pots were strategically placed around the deck, filled with an assortment of flowering annuals to add color, and several birdfeeders served as fast food joints for the birds and squirrels in the area. The view could have been a page right out of a travel magazine.

  David arrived in a long-sleeved shirt, tie and crisp dark slacks. His broad shoulders were slumped, and those brown eyes that I counted on to cheer me up seemed bleary. He carried a brown paper bag filled with aluminum trays of eggplant parmesan, noodles, and garlic bread. He placed the trays on the table and then straightened up and stretched.

  “You look exhausted,” I said.

  I popped open a Coke and handed it over to him and then began to serve up the food. He slumped into one of the cushioned deck chairs and loosened his tie.

  “It’s been brutal,” he said. “You know, I worked as a cop in Baltimore before we moved here. I even worked two serial murder cases back then. And yet, I’ve never seen anything like this. These deaths are clearly related, and yet there is not a shred of evidence to go on.” He took a long drink and then reached out and grabbed my hand and drew me to him. “Sorry, I didn’t properly say hello.”

  I leaned down to share a moment of bliss as our lips touched. “Not to worry,” I said when I re-emerged. “I’m just glad you could get away for a few moments. Where’s Sean now?”

  “He went back to Seattle. He and Angela went out to grab a bite.”

  “And then everyone’s back at it, I guess,” I said.

  He took another long drink and then sighed. “Yeah. Sean spends most of his time with the task force over there, while I handle stuff here. He was here this afternoon because we ID’d the body that washed up under the bridge.”

  I was about to scoop some eggplant parmesan onto his plate. “And?”

  “It will be in the paper tomorrow. She’s from the island. So now it really does bring the case home.”

  I finished serving and dropped into a chair. “Who is she?”

  “A girl named Melody Reamer. Seventeen. Been missing since just before Christmas. So she’s obviously the most recent victim. Now we’re trying to recreate her life before she disappeared.” He sighed again before picking up his fork.

  “And she’d been murdered in the same way as those other girls you found?”

  “Yes.” David stopped talking and just stared at his plate.

  Three other bodies had been found over the course of two months; two of the bodies appeared to have been in the ground several years. All were young women in their late teens, with long blond hair. The reason a serial killer was suspected was that each of them had been killed by using a garrote. David said the medical examiner had determined this because the bones at the base of each throat had been thinly sliced with something like a wire under pressure. In one case, the wire had cut almost two inches into the neck bones.

  “Do you have any idea why these bodies are suddenly showing up?” I asked, cutting off a piece of eggplant.

  He looked up and rotated his neck to release tension. “We conferred with a geologist, and he thinks it’s because of the harsh winter we had. The bodies had been buried in shallow graves or on hills. Rain washed away the topsoil or the hillsides gave way.”

  “What about the one that washed up on shore here?”

  He paused a moment, as if reliving seeing Melody Reamer for the first time. “She’d been weighted down with something tied around her ankles. But she must have gotten caught in some rocks, and the ropes were cut loose. She just floated to the surface.” He rubbed his eyes, as if that might dispel the image.

  I reached out and placed my hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry, David. This must be a really tough case.”

  “Yeah,” he said, sitting back. “You know, my wife, Jolene, always wanted a daughter. It was something that just wasn’t meant to be though, and something that always bothered her. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my son. But I knew there was a hole in Jolene’s heart for the girl she never had.” He stared out at the lake for a moment. “We talked about adopting, but she just wasn’t interested. She went to her grave carrying that sadness. So, I think about these girls and what it must be like for their parents. It was hard enough to watch my wife go through life without ever having had the chance to have a daughter. Imagine what it must be like to lose one?”

  His haunted expression cut me to the core. I thought of Angela and how I would survive if anything ever happened to her, and all of a sudden I didn’t have an appetite.

  I pushed my plate away. “It would be a pain that would be with you forever.”

  There was a long moment of silence between us. The sound of a motor boat coming close to shore brought us out of our reverie.

  “Well, we have a mystery of our own,” I said with false enthusiasm.

  He turned tired eyes my way. “What’s that?”

  I filled him in on the secret room and the idea to write a book. He looked mildly interested and seemed to force his mind away from the gruesome details of the investigation. He reached out and put his hand over mine.

  “I like this idea, Julia,” he said. “You’re creative. In fact, all of you are. And Rudy could do the writing. Just don’t get in trouble again. I won’t be available to help you out for a while.”

  I smiled. “I won’t. This is more of a mystery of manners. We’re just very curious as to why someone would have had a locked room up in the attic and then cover it up with drywall. Doesn’t it seem odd to you?”

  He shrugged. “Yes. But you never know what secrets are worth keeping secret.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning…you never know what someone will do to keep their secret. Just be careful.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  After David left, I called Goldie and asked if I could come over. Although her incessant talking and urge to carry a shotgun drove Doe nuts, I usually enjoyed her quirky personality.

  She and Ben lived in a large, ramshackle home that sat just north of the inn. I often walked over the back way, through a short grove of trees along the water. But tonight, I went out the front door to the street and down their driveway, passing a myriad of colorful gnomes on the way. Goldie had hundreds of them inside and out, some peeking out from behind a leaf or bush, some arranged into family groups.

  A large gnome guarded the front door. Its big, pointy red hat looked slightly lethal under the fading evening light, and its leering grin gave me a little chill. It was hard not to imagine that he had strange, devious thoughts. And yet a light-spirited melody jingled when I rang the doorbell. I shared the porch with the creepy gnome until the distorted shape of a small woman appeared through the cut glass sidelight.

  “Hey, Julia,” Goldie said opening the door. “Come on in.”

  I stepped across the threshold into what I thought of as Goldie’s alternate universe. Her home was filled with an eclectic collection of souvenirs, artwork and furniture from their travels around the world. As I glanced at the dark hardwood floors and dark wood paneling, mosaic carpet runners and a mix of framed prints and paintings, I wondered where in the world Goldie would put a piece of her own artwork, since every nook and cranny was filled. A cloisonné́ vase from Tibet. A framed original poster from the movie Chinatown. An ottoman made to look like an elephant’s foot. A collection of Murano glass jars from Italy. A pewter teapot from Poland. Everywhere you looked, there was something to catch and hold your interest.

  “Sorry to bother you guys so late,” I said, shifting my gaze away from a snow globe from the Black Forest. “But I wanted to tell you about a project we’ve decided to undertake.”

  While I only stood 5’2”, Goldie was even shorter than me, although heavier in the hips. She and Ben were holdovers from the seventies. In fact, Goldie still dressed like a college student. Bu
t Ben had served in the military and had earned the nickname “The General” from people in the neighborhood for the way he strode the streets with his walking stick. He was close to six-feet tall, with a barrel chest, broad shoulders and a booming voice. And he walked and talked as if he were commanding, or at least reviewing, the troops.

  “You and the girls have a project? Wow, that sounds interesting. Go on into the living room. I just brewed some coffee,” Goldie said, bustling into the kitchen.

  I stepped down into the sunken living room, with its thick, plush carpet and large river stone fireplace. Ben was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, reading under a Tiffany lamp.

  “It’s good to see you, Julia,” he said, closing his book and standing up. I caught a glimpse of the title as he set the book down. It was General Stanley McChrystal’s, Team of Teams. Ben gestured to a chair opposite his. “Have a seat. What can we do for you?”

  “I wanted to tell you guys about a project and get your input.”

  “I saw the Piper Construction truck over there the other day. I hope you’re not renovating the inn. It seems perfect the way it is,” he said. He reached over and grabbed a match to relight his pipe.

  “No, we’re not renovating. We just have to fix the roof on the carriage barn. With all the rain we had last winter, we found some leaks. This is something different.”

  “Different how?” Goldie said, coming in with a tray of mugs filled with steaming liquid. She set the tray down on a large, Moroccan coffee table inlaid with abalone. She gave me a mug and then took one to her husband. “What’s up?”

  I leaned forward and added sugar and cream to my coffee and then sat back in my chair, cradling the mug between my hands. “The girls and I have decided to do something different with our book club this summer. Instead of reading a book, we’re going to write one.”

  Goldie’s gray eyes flew open and her impish face came alight. “Are you gonna write a mystery? Cuz, boy, you could come up with some good ones after all the mysteries you guys have solved.”

  I smiled to myself. “No, it won’t have anything to do with a murder mystery. Although it does involve a mystery of sorts.”

  “What’s that, Julia?” Ben asked, chewing on his pipe.

  I shifted uncomfortably, wondering how much I should tell them, remembering David’s warning. “Mr. Piper had to remove a wall up in the barn’s attic and he found a tiny, hidden room. There were some…uh…toys and furniture in it, as if someone had used it as storage, but of course we wondered why it had been covered up.”

  “Oooh, oooh,” Goldie uttered. “Maybe someone was living up there.”

  “We thought of that, but there isn’t any electricity or plumbing. Anyway, when we found it, we thought there must be a lot of interesting stories about the property, all the way back to when the hotel was there. So we’ve decided to write a book. Maybe in the process, we’ll uncover the story about the hidden room.”

  “Oooh,” Goldie cooed again. “You could call it The History of the St. Claire Inn.”

  I paused. “Um…yes, that would be a good title.”

  “Seems like you should pay a visit to the museum,” Ben said thoughtfully. “I bet they have boxes of stuff.”

  “Doe and I were down there today. But I was hoping that maybe you might have some stories to tell. You’ve lived here long enough to see at least a couple of families go through there.”

  “Oh, more than that,” Ben said, rolling his eyes. “We’ve seen some strange things all through this neighborhood, haven’t we Goldie?”

  Goldie was like a self-contained energy source. She had quick, frenetic movements and always seemed to be in motion. Just then, she was sitting at the end of the sofa almost bouncing up and down like a child.

  “Sure have, Ben. Like that couple on the corner who were into S & M.”

  Ben scowled. “I doubt that’s the kind of story Julia’s interested in.”

  “Well, we’ve been here since the Pattisons, and they moved out in…something like 1975.”

  “Seventy-six,” Ben corrected her.

  “Oh, yeah. We built our home in 1974.”

  “They were an odd pair,” Ben mumbled. “Always touching each other.”

  A laugh bubbled up in my throat. “Really? Touching each other?”

  “Yeah,” Goldie said with a chortle. “They had two little girls, you know? The girls always held hands. And every time we saw the parents, one of them had a hand on the other. In fact,” Goldie said excitedly, “I remember Mrs. Pattison liked to smooth out Mr. Pattison’s shirts. Just smoothing,” Goldie said, demonstrating in thin air. “All the time…smoothing.”

  “And Mr. Pattison liked to tap his fingers on his wife’s shoulder. I never could quite understand that. Was he reminding her of something? Or just making sure she was still there?” Ben said with a smile.

  “They were weird, let me tell you,” Goldie added.

  I pulled a small notepad from my pocket. “Do you mind if I take notes. This is great stuff.”

  Goldie’s eyes opened with enthusiasm. “Oh, there’s more,” she said. “The Kettle sisters were my favorite. The property stood vacant for years after the Pattisons left, you know, probably because of the ghosts. But the Kettle sisters finally came along and bought it. They were twins. Tall. Skinny. And really old.”

  “Now, Goldie,” Ben admonished her.

  “I don’t mean anything by that. After all, I’m old as dirt,” she said with a laugh, followed by a snort. “But they musta been in their seventies when they bought that big property. Just the two of ‘em. And then all of a sudden they started holding séances.”

  That got my attention. “I never heard about that.”

  “Oh, I musta mentioned it to you once or twice,” Goldie said with a wave of her hand. “Didn’t I ever mention the Kettle parties?”

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t realize they were séances. So the sisters knew about the ghosts.”

  Ben chuckled. “There were all sorts of rumors about the ghosts, Julia. If people didn’t know about them when they moved in, they found out quickly enough. And we’re pretty sure that’s why most people moved out so quickly. But the Kettle sisters were different. They wanted to communicate with the ghosts. They had some phony-baloney psychic named Miss LaFontaine who would show up in long, colorful robes.”

  “Did she wear a turban?” I asked, holding back a chuckle.

  “No, but she had everything else, including big, gaudy jewelry. In fact, she wore a pendant with an eye in the middle of it.” Ben shook his head in disdain.

  “She even had a crystal ball,” Goldie added, almost clapping her hands in delight.

  “You’re kidding.” This was better than I’d imagined.

  Ben smiled. “We got invited to one of the parties, and the only thing that happened was a scarf that Miss LaFontaine was wearing kept falling to the floor.”

  “It was funny,” Goldie snickered. “She kept wrapping it back around her neck, and then it would fall to the floor a few minutes later. She’d look around to see if someone was yanking it off and playing a joke on her.”

  “Oh, someone was playing a joke on her, all right,” I said. “I bet that was Chloe. She loves to do stuff like that.”

  Goldie’s eyes grew wide. “So you think the ghosts were there?”

  “The ghosts are always there,” I confirmed. “It’s just that they pick and choose when they’ll make themselves known. Remember that Chloe was just ten years-old when she died. She loves to play tricks on people.”

  “Well, if that scarf trick was Chloe, it’s the only supernatural thing that ever happened at one of those parties that I’m aware of,” Ben said.

  “That must’ve been a disappointment,” I lamented.

  “Yes, but the sisters musta seen the ghosts at other times,” Goldie added. “I heard a scream or two from over there during the summer. Curdled your blood, I tell you. I’m not sure how you do it, Julia. We were in the living room when Elizabeth sho
wed up at that party you had back in February. That was as spooky as it gets.”

  “You’d never seen her before?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I’ve been over there when odd things have happened,” Goldie said. “When a cupboard closed by itself or a cup moved.”

  “Me too,” Ben said with a nod. “But I always explained it away. As a military man, I don’t usually give in to flighty things like believing in ghosts,” he said, looking at me over the rim of his glasses. “So I’ve been a skeptic all these years. But there was no ignoring that night your friend disappeared.”

  He was referring to the night we’d invited Jason Spears to do a little ghost hunting at the inn. He’d written a book called, The Most Haunted Hotels in the Northwest, in which the inn was featured. It was the same night that Dana Finkle had been abducted and almost killed. Elizabeth had appeared in order to alert us that Dana was gone.

  “Elizabeth has helped out on numerous occasions. But I doubt she would like to be used for entertainment,” I said, bringing the discussion back to the Kettle sisters. “Where did the Kettle sisters hold the séances?”

  “Up in the attic,” Goldie said.

  My heart rate sped up. “The attic? In the barn?”

  “No. Upstairs in the main house,” she replied. “But I heard they held one out in the old horse barn, but even Miss LaFontaine wouldn’t stay up there. She said she kept hearing voices and then she got a bad headache and had to be taken back to the house.”

  I wondered if Miss LaFontaine had more psychic talent than they realized, since that was exactly what had happened to April.

  “Their niece died shortly after that,” Goldie said, “And the sisters moved to Queen Anne Hill to take care of her daughter.”

  I was furiously taking notes. “Any idea what the niece’s name was?”

  “Sure,” Goldie said. “She married the son of Anthony Ferrar.”