by Lynn Bohart
“Well, at least we have that,” I said. “Jake’s already been to see Frank Miller, and he found Miller’s sister, Gramley Miller’s granddaughter. He wanted to partner with us on the story, but I was honest in saying that we weren’t sure where we were going with all of this.”
“Did you tell him about Lolllie?” Blair asked.
“No. But I might if for some reason we don’t do the book.”
÷
Rudy and Blair left to do some shopping, while April and I went back to work. Around 4:00, I excused myself to catch a nap. I ended up sleeping for almost two hours. A soft knock at my door woke me. It was early evening, and April stood there holding a ceramic dish with freshly made macaroni and cheese.
“Oh God, that smells good,” I said, stepping back to let her in. “But where’s Blair?”
“She’d promised to have dinner with her sister-in-law. She’ll be back later. So you’re stuck with me.”
“Never,” I said with a smile.
April and I sat at my small kitchen table to share dinner.
“By the way, right after you laid down, that young man, Jake, called,” April said. “He had an appointment this evening up in Leavenworth with Mary Haley, Gramley Miller’s granddaughter, and was hoping you’d go with him. I wonder what he hopes to find out from her.”
“She might be the keeper of old family photos and stories passed down from generation to generation. Actually, I wish I could’ve gone with him.”
As we ate, I filled April in on our findings thus far, and then April took the dishes back to the main kitchen. I changed into my nightgown and settled into my recliner to catch up on a mystery I was reading.
It was after nine o’clock, and I was well into a rather twisted psychological thriller when there was another knock at my door. It was Crystal, who had agreed to work a little late to pick up some extra hours.
“That young reporter is here to see you,” she said. “I told him you’d turned in for the night, but he says he has something important to tell you.”
I sighed. “Okay. I’ll meet him in the library. I’ll be there in just a minute.”
It took me a few minutes to get dressed again, and then I joined Jake in our library. He was standing at the floor-to-ceiling bookcase perusing the books.
“How was your trip to Leavenworth?” I asked.
He turned. “Good. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Not a problem. Please, sit down.” I gestured to a leather sofa, while I took an upholstered chair nearby. “Crystal said you wanted to tell me something you learned.”
“Yes. I saw Mary Haley today. She confirmed that Miller abducted young women and forced them into prostitution. That was the reason her mother left him. She said he often went to Canada and brought girls back.”
I nodded. “We pretty much knew that. In fact, Frank Miller told us that his grandfather used to transport his ‘product’ in the false bottom of a big chest.”
“That’s what she said, too. But it gets worse. She says he murdered at least one of the girls, and maybe more.”
“How would she know that? Her grandmother left Miller pretty early on, didn’t she?”
“Yes. But remember, her grandmother left her son, Joshua, behind. He was very close to his dad, and his dad confided in him. Gramley died shortly after he left Mercer Island, and then Joshua was sent to live with his mother in Leavenworth. Mrs. Haley said he didn’t get along with his mother. Joshua was too much like his father. Mean. Dishonest. Even cruel. But he talked a lot.”
“And he talked about what his father had done.”
“Bragged was more like it. Miller made it look like the first girl he killed had fallen into the lake and drowned. The second girl he killed because she was pregnant and had talked to a private investigator.”
“Lollie,” I said sadly.
“What?”
I gave a deep sigh. “That would be a girl named Lollie Gates. We found a letter from her mother telling her they were coming to rescue her. The private investigator you mentioned had snuck it to her through another one of the girls. But Lollie never actually talked to him. Anyway, we also have her diary where she talks about not feeling well. The way she described it, we assumed she was pregnant.”
“Well, Mrs. Haley says that there’s an old wooden jewelry box with inlaid ivory flowers on the top that was left to her by her grandmother. It has a ledger and some letters in it that can prove what she says. But she doesn’t know where it is. She thinks Frank stole it when he stayed with her for a week several years ago.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because I’m hoping you’ll help me get it back.”
“Whoa,” I said, holding up a hand. “My first encounter with Frank Miller wasn’t anything I want to repeat.”
I related the story about what had happened to me and Blair at the Hardliner Pub.
“So he’s hiding something,” Jake said. “He didn’t threaten me in any way when I was there, but he pretty much stone-walled me and told me not to come back.”
“And now that’s exactly what you want to do.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Not necessarily through the front door.”
My eyes opened wide. “You want to steal the box back.”
“I don’t even know that he has it,” Jake said.
“Oh, he has it,” I responded, remembering the jewelry box sitting on Miller’s bookshelf. “It’s in his office.”
Jake looked like he’d just won the lottery. “So, let’s get it!”
“And how do you propose we do that? He knows both of us.”
“Like I said, we wouldn’t go through the front door.”
“So we’d break in and steal it? Not interested.”
“Why not?” a voice said from the hallway.
We both looked up to see Blair standing there. She swept into the room and sat next to Jake on the couch.
“We’ve done riskier things than that,” she said.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“A while,” she said with a shrug. She turned to Jake. “I say we go in under the cover of darkness.”
He turned to me with a conspiratorial look. He had an ally.
Damn!
“Look, I already called the bar and Miller will be gone this weekend,” he said.
“How did you find that out?” I inquired.
“I said I was coming into town for the weekend and was hoping to get an interview. The woman who answered the phone said Miller was leaving town.”
Blair turned to me with a look of glee on her face. “See?”
“No, Blair. I am not getting arrested for this.”
“We won’t get arrested. We can go to the bar to hang out. And then we’ll go looking for the restroom, which I might add is down that same hallway,” she said.
“And what if the office door is locked?”
“I can handle that,” Jake said. We both looked at him in surprise. “Hey, I’ve learned a few things in college.”
“How to pick locks?” I asked. “What happened to U.S. History and Algebra?”
He smiled. “Some things you learn don’t show up on a mid-term.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The question of whether and how to break into Frank Miller’s office kept us busy for the rest of the evening. Jake volunteered to spend the next two nights casing the bar to gather information, and then we promised to confer with him on Sunday afternoon to make our final decision.
I climbed into bed knowing that if I didn’t go along with the plan we’d cooked up, Blair would go without me. So I slept little that night, pondering all the things that could go wrong and how I might look in an orange jumpsuit.
The next day was Friday. The pest control guys were done, and Blair was scheduled to return home. Friday was also the day the Welches were scheduled to leave. So, after breakfast I was kept busy checking out members of the family and helping turn rooms. Mr. and Mrs. Welch were the las
t to go.
“I hope you enjoyed your stay,” I said, as Mrs. Welch approached the desk.
I knew they hadn’t, but felt obliged to ask. She ignored me while she searched her purse for her glasses. Harvey wandered over to my bird display and lowered himself into one of the antique chairs I had for sale.
“I can’t imagine why your inn is rated so highly,” she said, putting on her glasses. “You have very little in the way of entertainment, unless you consider your ghosts a form of entertainment. I assume that’s who you’ll say kept knocking on our door in the middle of the night, because it certainly wasn’t any member of my family.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But, yes, I think it was Chloe. She’s the little girl who died here, and she likes to play tricks on people. You aren’t the first of her targets.”
Mrs. Welch’s face constricted as if she was passing gas. “That’s ridiculous and you know it. There are no such things as ghosts.”
The front door was closed, and yet a sudden gust of wind swirled around us. The small whirlwind circled Mrs. Welch for a moment, lifting her skirt, and then moved to the end of the counter, where it threw the myriad of local sightseeing brochures sitting in a rack into the air.
Harvey jumped up, and Mrs. Welch flinched back in alarm as the tiny tornado of wind approached her once again. As suddenly as it started, the tornado inside the room disappeared and the brochures fluttered to the floor.
Mrs. Welch clutched her chest and looked truly alarmed.
“Yeah, I didn’t believe in ghosts at first, either,” I said without sympathy.
She turned back to me with an icy look. “Please get our bill.”
I stepped into our office to run a copy of their bill. “Here you go.” I handed it over, thinking she would scrutinize every single charge. But she didn’t. She folded it up and stuffed it into her purse just as the taxi flashed past the front windows.
“Would you like help out with your bags?”
“No. Let’s go, Harvey,” she commanded. But this time her voice lacked the authority it normally carried.
Harvey came to attention and stood up as the door opened. The driver confirmed his fare and grabbed their bags. Mrs. Welch stomped out without a word, but Mr. Welch stopped at the door and turned to me. He pointed a gnarly finger at the framed picture behind the reception desk. It was the Wicked Witch of the West flying over Oz, spelling out ‘Dorothy’ in pink smoke.
“I see that you admire the Wicked Witch of the West.” He smiled ruefully and shook his head. “You wouldn’t if you lived with her.” He gave me a wink and then left.
÷
We spent the rest of the morning doing laundry, cleaning rooms and adding amenities to get ready for new guests.
Around noon, Doe called to say she had the afternoon off and wondered if I wanted to drive up to Camano Island to get the photo albums from Emily Foster. I called Emily, who readily agreed to a visit at 3:30 that afternoon.
We drove north in Doe’s Mercedes, chatting about the book and some of the strange things that had happened so far. I said nothing about the potential theft of Frank Miller’s jewelry box. I knew Doe would try to talk me out of it.
We took the Stanwood exit again, and I guided Doe to what Mansfield Foster had described as the family compound. The second time there, the reference made perfect sense.
The property covered at least twenty acres and had no close neighbors. It was fenced off from the rest of the world by barbed wire and butted up against the western cliffs of Camano Island. The only thing missing was a vicious guard dog.
Once again, we announced ourselves at the front gate, and Emily buzzed us in. As we stood waiting for her to answer the door, I couldn’t help but glance up to the second floor window again. The curtain was partially open, and I thought I could see the shadow of something just behind the curtain. Was that the judge sitting in his wheelchair watching us again?
It was a few moments before Emily unlatched the heavy wooden door. Two dark eyes peered at us from the shadowed interior. When she noticed Doe, her eyes flared, and she swung the door wide.
“I thought you were coming alone,” she murmured.
“I brought my friend, Doe Kovinsky. She’s helping with the book.”
Emily stared openly at Doe, as if she were seeing a ghost. And then I remembered how much Doe looked like Emily’s mother.
“Welcome,” she said stiffly. “Come in.”
She stepped back and allowed us inside. She was wearing the same denim jumper, but with a dark green blouse. We followed her into the living room again, where she had already set out two glasses of lemonade. As I sat on the sofa, I noticed that she was still staring at Doe.
Doe looked up and caught her gaze. “Thank you for seeing us,” she said.
That seemed to short-circuit Emily’s brain, and she blinked. “Of course,” she said, glancing away shyly. She turned to me. “I’m glad to see you again, Julia. You said you were hoping to see some photos.”
“Yes. We visited with your brother. He said you had the family photo albums.”
The moment I mentioned her brother, she seemed to tense up. “How is Mansfield?”
“Um…he’s fine,” I said. “I take it you don’t see him often.”
She gave a halting shake of her head. “Only when he wants something. He’s very busy, you know. Just like my father was.” Her gaze drifted over to Doe again. “Do you have children, Mrs. Kovinsky?”
This took Doe by surprise, and she glanced my way. “Uh…no, I don’t. Were you and your brother close growing up?” she asked, probably hoping to change the subject.
“No. I wasn’t close to either of my siblings.”
“Your brother said the three of you used to play over in the old barn. I bet that was fun,” I said, hoping to find out more about the attic.
Her head jerked in my direction. “Play?”
“Yes, he said you used to crawl under the rafters until your father made it off limits.”
Her breathing sped up, and she took a couple of deep breaths. “Yes, yes, of course, we played over there. What else did he say?”
“He said you thought a woman was living over in the barn. You told us about the little girl who lived in the walls, but not about a woman.”
I watched her closely, and every muscle in her body seemed to clench. “No. No.” She shook her head, and one hand flew to her temple. “There was no woman. I…I was just pretending.”
Her breathing had become ragged, and I realized that this was something that might have put her in the hospital so many years before. Something she’d probably worked very hard to forget.
“He also said something about being sent off to boarding school,” I said quickly, hoping to redirect her thoughts. Her breathing began to return to normal.
“Yes. He didn’t want to go, but my father insisted. It was right after Chris Stephens died. That was my sister’s boyfriend.” She sat up straight again, more relaxed. She turned to rest her gaze on Doe. “What does your husband do, Mrs. Kovinsky?”
Again, Doe threw a concerned look my way. “Uh…my husband died several years ago.”
“I see. I’m sorry,” Emily said. ‘You look just like my mother, do you know that? Just like her. Would you like some lemonade?”
She offered one of the glasses to Doe, who seemed to have frozen in place. Doe finally took it. “Thank you. Do you have a picture of your mother?”
Emily sucked in a big breath and smiled broadly. “I’ll get the photo album.” She got up and hurried out of the room.
“Jeez, Julia. This woman is creepy,” Doe whispered, putting the glass back down.
“I know,” I said, getting up and wandering around the room.
The living room was probably decorated exactly as it had been when Holly Foster was alive. But if the rest of the house looked like this, Emily had never hired a housekeeper or moved into the 21st century.
I began perusing the bookcases as Blair had done on our first visit. When
I found a couple of original Oz books on one shelf, I felt a thrill down to my toes. I pulled one off the shelf just as the sound of a door closing brought me to attention. Emily returned, holding a large padded photo album. She saw me at the bookcase.
“Do you like the Wizard of Oz?” she asked, noticing the book in my hand.
“It’s my favorite movie, and I collect Oz memorabilia.”
“Julia is somewhat of an expert on the Wizard of Oz,” Doe said.
“Just the movie,” I corrected her.
Emily dropped the photo album on the coffee table and hurried over next to me. “Really? I love the movie, too. Who’s your favorite character, Julia?”
Oh, my God. I had something in common with Emily Foster.
“Uh…well, I guess the Wicked Witch of the West.”
She gave a little laugh. “Oh, I’m so glad. I thought you would say Glinda. Everyone loves Glinda, but I think she’s horrible. Don’t you? She’s so pretty and that voice drives me mad. I just want to…I just want to…” She brought her clenched fist up to her face for a moment and then let her hand drop. “I like the Cowardly Lion,” she said, her eyes glinting. “I always wanted to be him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
A hesitant smile flickered across her face. “Because he took charge of his life and was finally free.” She paused and then returned to her chair. She pulled the chair forward so that she sat on the opposite side of the coffee table. “Let’s look at photos,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. She flipped open the album. “This book holds the pictures from when we lived on Mercer Island.”
I sat down again next to Doe, while Emily flipped some pages and then turned it toward us.
“Here’s a picture of my mother,” Emily said, pointing to a black and white photo of a tall, elegant woman with short, wavy, dark hair. She turned her dark eyes on Doe once more, with an anticipatory stare.
Holly Foster did indeed look like a younger version of Doe. She had high cheekbones and wide-set eyes. Doe stared at the photo a moment, her face a blank slate. She was probably weighing whether or not to acknowledge the fact they looked like one another. I decided to do it for her.
