by Angie Fox
Frankie jerked his head back toward me. “We were just enjoying the show.” He joined the inspector. “What have we got going tonight?”
“This party offers us an excellent opportunity to observe and interact with each of our suspects,” the inspector said. “Starting with him,” he said, inclining his head toward Graham Adair, who waved the lightning rod theatrically for the crowd. “He’s confident. He’s clever.”
“He has keys to the snake cage,” I finished.
De Clercq didn’t appear impressed.
He addressed Frankie. “I’ve conducted interrogations on this night every year for the last ninety years, so stay close and observe well.” He twisted the edge of his mustache as he studied the gangster. “I’ll be counting on your powers of criminal observation to uncover something I have not.”
“Sounds peachy,” Frankie said, glancing to make sure I had his back as the ghosts set off toward the house.
No worries there.
“We’re going to start questioning,” I said under my breath to Ellis, who walked briskly at my side.
“I think I can handle that,” Ellis replied.
“You will not speak to the suspects,” De Clercq said to me over his shoulder.
“For now,” I agreed.
We didn’t know what would happen once I had a suspect to speak with.
Too bad Ellis wasn’t wearing his police uniform. Maybe then the inspector would take at least one of his live investigators seriously.
I respected De Clercq and his incredible powers of observation, but what he had been doing wasn’t working. He was stuck.
He’d been investigating this case for a year when he died in the wreck of the Sugarland Express in 1929. My guess was he hadn’t been able to rest without catching the killer. I wasn’t a big fan of the inspector, mainly due to the way he liked to dismiss me as just another living girl. But if I could help him find justice and peace, I’d do it.
We followed the inspector as he walked up behind Mr. Adair. The static electric coil hummed and crackled, just about to snap. The hair on my arms stood on end, and I could feel the current down to my bones. Our host swung his wand down, and I jumped at the spectacular lightning strike. The crowd cheered. Adair held his wand aloft.
De Clercq cleared his throat.
Mr. Adair turned, impatient. “Again?” he said through a clench-toothed smile. “I told you last year, and the one before, please wait until the end of my show.”
“Murder waits for no man,” the inspector said crisply. He drew his notebook from the inside pocket of his suit coat, the same notebook he’d used to catch Frankie in his lies. “Where were you last night between the hours of six and nine?” he asked Adair.
Our host lowered the wand. “You know where I was. I was overseeing preparations for the party and welcoming guests.”
De Clercq ticked off the answer in his notebook. “Who can verify your claim?”
Unlike Frankie under questioning, Adair appeared bored and annoyed.
This was bad. “He’s asking the suspects the same questions he always asks them,” I murmured to Ellis. “Trying to catch them in some sort of inconsistency, I guess, but it hasn’t worked in ninety years. I don’t see how it’s going to work now.”
De Clercq shot me a frosty look.
I offered him a sweet Southern smile. We were here to unstick him, and if that made him a little uncomfortable, well, it was a small price to pay for catching a killer.
“That’s what he brought you and Frankie along for, right?” Ellis said. “To see the things he doesn’t and ask the questions he won’t.”
“Frankie, maybe. I think he’s mostly annoyed with me.” It was mutual, that was for sure. The inspector was brilliant, but he needed to change tactics. He also needed to let me talk.
“Sometimes, a repeated line of questioning will trip a suspect up,” Ellis added.
“For ninety years?” I asked. That seemed like a stretch, even for the most dedicated cop.
The old detective ignored us. “Do you have a key to the snake cage?” he asked Adair.
Adair gritted his jaw. “You know I do.”
This was going nowhere. We had to do something different.
We’d start by having a more open dialogue with the host of the party, even if he was a suspect. Adair might very well have done in the crooked judge, but he also knew every single person at this party, and he was too valuable to antagonize.
Before De Clercq could begin to read his next question, I stepped up. “Mr. Adair?” I smiled as brightly as I could while dodging a giggling nymph. “I have to tell you how impressed I am with your machine here. It’s a Tesla coil, right?”
“Excuse me,” De Clercq snapped.
But Adair’s face brightened. “Ah, you know your transformers, Miss…”
“Long. Verity Long. And I don’t know transformers at all.” I was just impressed by them. I’d seen them once on a History Channel special. “Thank you so much for having us at your party. It must have taken a lot of work to get all of this set up.”
“Winkelmann,” the inspector fumed behind me, “get your live girl under control.”
“Easier said than done,” the gangster groused.
But I had Adair talking. And I was genuinely interested in what he had to say.
“The Tesla coil was worth the effort.” He beamed. He raised the metal rod in his hand, and another bolt of lightning shot to him. “After all, how can I be Zeus without my lightning?”
“I’m never going to forget seeing you hit that coil for the first time,” I confessed. It was true. Some of the things I’d witnessed on the other side were downright amazing.
“This has nothing to do with our investigation,” De Clercq insisted, trying to insert himself between us. “Mr. Adair, you were seen speaking with the deceased less than an hour before he disappeared. What were you discussing?”
Mr. Adair smiled thinly. “The weather. It is about the only subject he and I could ever agree on.”
“Have these discussions ever become physical?” the inspector pressed.
“No, never.” Mr. Adair indicated himself. “Look at me. Larry Knowles had four inches and fifty pounds on me. I didn’t become a successful businessman by ignoring the odds, Inspector. I know a bad deal when I see one.”
“Hmm.” De Clercq flipped his notebook closed. “That is all for now, Mr. Adair. Don’t leave the premises. I’ll have more questions for you later.”
“Of course you will.” Adair adjusted his tilted laurel wreath. “As always. Right in the middle of my champagne toast.”
I winced at that. Poor guy. The inspector could use some people skills. “Maybe we’ll try to wait until after your toast this year,” I suggested.
“We will not,” the inspector barked.
Mr. Adair dipped his chin at me. “At least you tried.”
“I have a question,” I said. Something that had begun to bother me. “Why invite Greasy Larry to your party if you don’t care for him?” From the way Adair treated the inspector, I could see our host wasn’t the type to humor those he didn’t like.
Mr. Adair hummed thoughtfully. “Well, it turns out that—”
“Mr. Winkelmann, let’s not waste our valuable time on flights of fancy,” De Clercq said deliberately to Frankie. “Come with me.” He began to head inside. Frankie looked back at me, shrugged, and followed him. I decided to stay.
“Odious little man,” Mr. Adair muttered, watching De Clercq walk away. “I appreciate what he’s doing, but it’s pointless. Things happen as they always have. There’s no stopping it now.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “Was there a time you could have stopped it?”
He glanced at me and cleared his throat. “No.” He waved away the question. “Never mind. I misspoke.” He drew me away from the coil and the crowd. “You want to know why I invited the judge?” He huffed. “I didn’t. A guest of mine included him with their invitation. I’ve never been able
to discover whom.” He clenched his jaw. “It’s not as if they’d admit it now.”
That was interesting. I told Ellis what I’d learned, and Mr. Adair watched the exchange with interest.
“So you can see us and he can’t?” he asked. “Fascinating,” he added, noticing Ellis for the first time. “How did you come about your marvelous gift, my dear? Could it be replicated in other living souls?”
“I’m back! I’m back,” a new voice announced. Mrs. Adair hurried through the crowd, peacock feathers swaying. Guests parted for her like the Red Sea before Moses, and she swanned over to her husband’s side.
“Ah, excellent,” Mr. Adair said, reaching for one of the glasses she carried.
“Ah-ah,” she tutted. “Put down the magic wand first, dear. Let’s not mix our pleasures when one of them is electrifying, hmm?”
He smiled indulgently at her and put the metal rod on the ground. “Always looking out for me. Thank you, Jeannie—I mean, Hera.” He motioned toward me. “This is Verity Long.”
“I’ve heard about you,” she enthused, “the live girl. It’s great to have someone new at the party after all these years.”
“She’s working with that inspector,” her husband added, “although she doesn’t seem to agree with his tactics.”
“De Clercq doesn’t like me much,” I admitted.
“Then you’re in good company.” Mrs. Adair rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean to give him trouble. I honestly don’t. But that man has no sense of style, or privacy, for Heaven’s sake. We’re under siege here.”
“For eternity,” her husband added.
“He could stand to be more sensitive,” I agreed. “But he is devoted to justice, if not manners.” I might not care for the inspector, but he was doing his job the best way he knew how.
Just then, Ellis’s phone went off.
“Sorry,” Ellis said, looking at me, “but it’s work. It could be about the girl’s identity. I have to take this.”
“Of course you do,” I told him. He had his job, and I had mine. “I’ll keep chatting. Don’t worry about me.”
The raised eyebrow I got reminded me that Ellis knew how my chats could turn sour, but he nodded and left, answering the phone with a, “What have you got?” as he walked off.
“Fascinating,” Mr. Adair said breathlessly. “Is that a wireless telephone?”
That was one way of putting it. “Yes. They’re quite popular nowadays.”
He kept his eyes glued to Ellis like he’d pulled the hope diamond out of Al Capone’s vault. “You must employ a tremendous number of operators.”
“Darling, don’t bore her,” his wife chided with a smile. Then she looked at me. “Gadgets and gizmos are Graham’s specialty. Ours was the first house in all of Sugarland to have a telephone.”
“No kidding,” I said. “You know, I’m supposed to take some pictures for the Sugarland Heritage Society while I’m here. Would you mind showing me?”
She beamed with pride. “I’d be delighted.” She touched a hand to her chest. “It would be nice to get some good press for this old place. And call me Jeannie. Mrs. Adair was my mother-in-law.”
“Would your friend mind if I watched him use his wireless telephone?” Mr. Adair asked. “I won’t touch, I promise.”
“He’s working on a case,” I said, by way of dissuading the ghost, but Mr. Adair was already floating after Ellis. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”
There was nothing but love in Jeannie’s expression as she watched her husband go. “We’ll be in by the telephone,” she called.
“You two seem happy,” I ventured as she led me toward the side of the house.
She nodded. “Oh, we are. I met him on New Year’s Eve 1919, and that was it for me. I even kissed him that night. There’s never been anyone for me but Graham.” She made a little face as she sipped her fruity drink. “That’s one reason he dislikes Larry so much. Old ‘Greasy’ made a play for me that same night.” She snorted. “As if he had a chance.”
“Did you know Larry well?” I asked, “before or after?”
“I tried to avoid him,” she sniffed.
Then she might have kept tabs on his movements from time to time.
The remains of the menagerie loomed ahead. “Did Larry go in there by himself often?”
“You mean did he hang out by the snake cage?” she asked pointedly. We passed the darkened door and she gave a small shudder. “No. My theory is that he was using our house, our party for some sort of nefarious meeting. Larry was as crooked as they came.”
She guided me to a side porch and disappeared through a gleaming white side door. In the world of the living, layers of paint peeled off in chunks. I dug out my house key and inserted it into the rusty lock. It opened with a creak and I entered a darkened kitchen. Pots and pans hung in racks overhead, barely visible in the light that shone through the doorway leading to a bare white servants’ hall.
“Jeannie?” I called, stepping inside.
She hovered near an old-fashioned icebox.
“This way,” she said, leading me away from the light.
I pulled out my mini flashlight. The glowing gray form of Jeannie Adair retreated through an arched doorway. I hurried to catch up, and there, in a tiny room off the back stairs, I found her next to an old-fashioned telephone attached to the wall.
“Ta-da,” she said, going for Price is Right model once again. “It’s not as fancy as your friend’s calling device, but look.” She pointed out a handwritten list of numbers framed on the wall. “We are connected to everyone in Sugarland who owns a phone.”
All twelve of them.
The flowing, slanted script had faded to light purple, yet I recognized a few of the names: Adolphus Banks, the then-mayor, as well as Jack Treadwell, a Victorian-era Egyptologist I’d met on another adventure.
“I’d like to get a picture of this, too,” I told her, pulling out my phone and snapping several shots.
She laughed and jumped at the flash, and then clucked in delight when she saw I was taking photographs with my phone. “My stars. Graham will bust a gut when I tell him about this.” And when I backed up several steps to get the entire phone and “directory” in the shot, she even stood and posed next to them both.
“I wish someone besides me could see you,” I said.
“I don’t care.” She posed with her hands on her hips, then in the air, then like an Egyptian wall painting. “This is the most fun I’ve had at this party in years.”
“I hardly believe that,” I said, finding myself smiling back. “You have to realize what an amazing time this is. I mean, last night, I saw monkeys.”
“Ernest and Klyde.” She grinned, but then it faltered. “This party’s getting old,” she admitted. “It’s the same thing every year. We’ve wanted to bring in different drinks, different music, a few other guests…something. De Clercq makes us do it the same every time.”
I sighed. I could understand her dilemma. I lowered my phone. “The trouble is, De Clercq needs it as uniform as possible so he can investigate.” The ghostly realm was always changing, and this was the best way he could “see” the party as it was.
“It’s his ego,” she said, leaning against the wall. “He can’t let go. De Clercq is convinced he was close to breaking this case, and then he died with it unsolved. He won’t move into the light until he learns who killed the judge, and he’s determined to drag us all down with him.”
That was new. “You think he’s trapped?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I know it.”
No wonder he was nailing Frankie to the wall on this one, and why he was so willing to let him go if we helped solve the case.
“Who do you think killed Larry?” I asked point-blank.
She snorted, and I could tell I’d surprised her. “How would I know?”
“You must have some clue,” I said. She hadn’t outright denied knowing. “De Clercq asked me here to help him solve Larry’s murder,” I
said, stretching the truth a bit. “I’ve solved cases like this in the past. If we put this one to rest, you can throw your party any way you like next year—or not have it at all, if you want. Is there anything you can tell me that will help bring the killer to justice?”
Her expression hardened. “Greasy Larry is dead. His killer is dead. Tell the inspector to move on. Quit the Red Hot Ritz. Let it go.”
I didn’t want to tick her off, not in a deserted hallway. Not if she was the killer. But it had to be said, “We’re going to solve this, with or without your help.”
She let out a short huff. “Talk to me after eighty more years of doing this and we’ll see how you feel.”
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have eighty years. If Frankie and I failed now, we wouldn’t get another chance.
I started to explain, but she waved me off. “Let’s go,” she said, leading me into the narrow servants’ hall. Gaslights flickered in simple brass sconces, casting the hall in more shadow than light. “I used to think like you did. That we’d find something new one year. That we’d make this right. Now it’s like being forced to host Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve for one hundred and twenty people. Every year. With no end in sight.” She shook her head ruefully. “Still, we persist. We entertain. After all, our reputations are at stake.”
I stood still as the implication washed over me. “You’re not even the dominant ghost in your own house.” The killer controlled the unfolding events. And the Adairs joined in as unwilling hosts.
Then again, she could be lying to gain sympathy. Or perhaps Graham did it and he was the dominant ghost, but she just didn’t know.
“It’s not all that dire,” she said, without emotion.
Yes, it was. If what she was saying was true, Graham and Jeannie were hostages of a sort, with their home under someone else’s control for ninety years, in the middle of an ongoing murder investigation they were forced to endure, playing the part of the happy hosts.
She drained her glass. “At least Greasy Larry is dead and gone for good.” She dropped the glass in the hallway and it shattered. “I hated him.”
“You’d better not say that too loud,” I advised.
She laughed. “It’s not a secret.” Jeannie glided toward me, stopping almost close enough to brush me with her feathers. “Do you know Irene Smith?” She shook her head before I could answer. “Doesn’t matter. Anyhow, that woman—and I use the term deliberately because she’s certainly no lady—Irene broke into my jewelry box during my coming out party and stole my Great-Aunt Emily’s sapphire tiara. I loved that piece. And Aunt Emily. That’s why she left it to me. I caught Irene afterward and had her arrested, but who was the judge on her case? Greasy Larry Knowles.”
