The parking lot outside the beautiful house had three cars. I recognized Melody’s old Volkswagen Beetle. Not the newer one, but the Herbie the Love Bug model. I didn’t recognize the other two cars, but they had South Carolina plates. Melody’s store was sort of a tourist trap itself. I mean, how many road signs announced a place to buy antiques and get your fortune told?
Max perched on my shoulders again as I stepped in. The bell above the door rang, and I stopped in my tracks to the scent of Dragon’s Blood Rede and… What was that other smell? I couldn’t identify the other aroma, but I had a hunch it was cheap and could be had at any retail store for nine ninety-nine.
“Hey, sis,” Melody called out to my right. The interior of her store was a combination showroom and vendor area. A lot of her things were on consignment, so she paired them up into tiny “rooms” with stuff she had for sale. That way, customers could see things mixed and matched. I assumed it worked for her because Mama D said she made pretty good bank (I nearly choked on my coffee when Granny used the word “bank”).
My sister’s usual garb today wasn’t much different than it had been last night. Lots of scarves, flowy and fringy. Her hair was in what looked like a Victorian upsweep today, and her earrings looked like she’d plucked them off a Tiffany chandelier. She smiled at me and waved. If there was one thing about Melody I admired above everything else, it was that I’d never seen her hold a grudge. She and I could fight like cats, and two minutes later, she was fine and all was well.
Except when it came to David. She seemed to be breaking the mold with her dislike of him.
I realized the little group sitting with her on facing sofas around a low coffee table was none other than the Ghost Watchers. All of them. Phil, Harper and Brett.
Lovely.
Smoke spiraled out of a brazier sitting in the middle of the table. That was where the Dragon’s Blood Rede came from. The cheap perfume? I’ll give you one guess.
Harper Van Wesson stood up and faced me. “Ginger—it’s so nice to see you!” She came forward, grabbed my hands and did that kissy-kissy thing on the sides of my face. Ew.
Brett stood and nodded.
But Phil—ooh, boy. Phil got up, came around the sofas and put his arms on my shoulders. I was pretty sure his intent was to give me a kiss, till Max poked his head out from my hair and made a pffft noise. I managed not to laugh when Phil stepped back, obviously surprised to see a cat. “When—”
“Oh, that’s just her familiar, Max,” Melody said.
I gave her a why are you telling him that? look and then faced Phil again. “It’s nice to see you, Phil. Everyone okay?”
“Familiar?” Phil’s eyes widened when he looked at me. “You’re like Melody?”
“No. I’m nothing like Melody.”
“He means you’re a witch too?” Harper said, and her voice was just a bit too cheery.
Something was going on here, and it was making all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I pointed to all of them. “What’s going on here? You’re all pretty happy-faced after just having a member of your team murdered.”
“That’s because Melody here”—Harper moved to stand by my sister—“has generously offered to help us find her killer. She’s going to do a seance.”
I smiled. “Melody, can I have a word with you?”
“Does that cat sit there all the time?” Phil said, still staring at Max. “Did you train it to do that? And did you have it when we were lovers?”
I cringed at that last statement. I gave him a smile and moved past Melody to the register, then to the counter, and stood at the room she used as hers and waited.
Melody excused herself and preceded me inside. I shut the door and, with a wave of my hand, fashioned a wall around it. It wasn’t a literal wall, but it was something Max had taught me to make a week ago so that I could talk in private with no sneaker snoopers.
My sister looked around, and her eyes widened. “Wow…my ears actually popped. Mama D teach you that?”
“No. My familiar did. The same one you just outed to TV people!” I pointed at the door. “Melody, do you not realize what you’re doing?”
“I’m helping!” She smiled at me. “Look, don’t be like Granny. It’s not as bad as you all seem to think.”
“Bad as what? That you’re taking to people who debunk hauntings for a living? Debunkers you brought in to take a look at the one house our town uses as a Halloween attraction for revenue? You do realize all the money gained from that house goes into its upkeep because it’s a historical monument to Castle Falls, right?”
“Of course I know that. I grew up here too.” She put her hands on her hips. “But Harper and them are in a bind. Danvers won’t release the house—in fact, he’s got this pride of big cats up there that won’t let anybody in. Not even me.”
“You didn’t tell him what kind of cats those were, did you?” I gave her the stink-eye. We did not need her outing the shifters to these people.
“I don’t know—panthers maybe? They’re well trained, and Deputy Perrin would not let us in the gate.”
“That’s because it’s a crime scene, Melody. Don’t you get it? He’s not going to release the house until the murder is solved. And right now, all of them out there are persons of interest.”
She made a face. “You watch too many cop shows, Ginger. Look, that’s what I’m doing here, in my store. We’re doing a few seances to see if Nichelle can tell us who her killer is.”
“You’ve already done a seance?” I was a bit surprised. Not that many hours had passed since Mama D left Melody stranded at the police station. “Did you not sleep last night?”
“I don’t need much sleep. And, apparently, neither do Hollywood people. I figured with Granny all mad at me, we’d just sneak in and try, and then we could see if it worked before we wasted time recording. But like I said, Perrin wouldn’t let us in. So we came back here and did a few rounds.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “And?”
Now her expression looked reasonable. I wasn’t really sure if “confused” was reasonable to most, but for Melody, it was. “I’m not sure.”
“How many seances have you done?”
“Oh, this is my first.”
I did a mental head-desk.
“Oh dear,” Max piped up. “What is it you’re not sure about?”
“Well, I kept getting images in my head. We did it three times, and the same ones kept showing up.” She ticked them off with her fingers. “First was an image of money. Like gold. Not like our money.”
“You mean like coins?” Max asked.
“Yeah, like that. And they were on a bar, but an old bar. Like a tavern bar you see in fantasy movies. Second, I kept seeing an image of that room where the psychic’s body was. But I was looking down at it, and there were two people. But they were shadowy and I could never make out who they were. I don’t even know if they were male and female or what.”
That image was odd. Looking down? Was it possible she was seeing something from the killer’s point of view? Maybe she’d been looking down at Nichelle and Phil? There had been a ladder in that room, the one to reach books on the top shelves.
“Now, the third one”—she pointed at me—“don’t you laugh, but I keep seeing a cat jump over the moon.”
My jaw dropped. I felt Max stir against my neck.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. ’Cause I know that rhyme. The diddle, diddle one?” She pointed at him. “Did you know that diddle means to cheat or swindle? I know, weird, huh?”
“Why do you know that?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I read it back in high school. We had to take apart old poems and rhymes, find their origins, and my teacher gave me that one.”
I was getting a fluttery feeling in my stomach. “Is there anything else about that rhyme you remember?”
“There was one other thing…” She tapped her cheek. “Oh, you know that next line? The cat and the fiddle? There was an
inn or a tavern with that name in Castle Falls right as the town formed. There was a painting of it made by some big settler. Eh, I can’t remember all of it. Anyway, I’m betting if you ask Miss Beverly, she’d know about it.”
The historian.
Was it possible that my sister had just given me clues to why that very same rhyme had been scribbled down in the book that was now in my bag? I almost pulled it out and showed it to her, but given her chummy relationship with those three beyond that door, I thought it was a bad idea. Apparently Phil hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Yet. “I’ll ask her. Thanks, Melody.”
“No problem.” She started to leave the room, then stopped. “Is that why you came by here?”
“Oh, uh…” I sighed. “Danvers wanted me to emphasize there will be no seances in the Delaney House. And that’s coming directly from the mayor.”
“Why not? I mean, if we solve the case, they have a show to do, and time’s ticking away.” She smiled. “I got that from Harper.”
Yeah. Yay. “Need I remind you, as I’ve been reminded, that Castle Falls is a haven? People like you, and me, Mama D, Perrin and his family, and even those like David, settle here because we protect them? We look out for the…odd and the strange?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’ve never left.”
“Well, there are those in the town who see the Ghost Watchers as a threat that could expose this town and bring unwanted attention.”
“Oh, that’s silly. We already have tourist sites here. What’s one show?”
“One episode on a popular show could bring all kinds of weirdos here.” I licked my lips. “Especially Hunters.”
She pursed her lips. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Yeah. So more powerful heads than mine, or yours, or Danvers’, have said no seances. No show at the Delaney House.”
“That might be harder to cancel than you think.”
Max sighed. “Lemme guess,” he said as he jumped down and then jumped on the table with the crystal ball. “You signed a contract with them?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t just me. It was the Historical Society.”
“And who signed for them?” I asked.
“Beverly Norris. They agreed it would be a great burst of publicity for the house, and it would make a lot of money. They’re paying us to film the show there. I’m trying to solve this murder so they don’t sue us. I mean, we’d be in breach of contract if they’re not allowed to film.” Melody’s flighty personality seemed to melt. “Ginger, Beverly knows people like us exist, and that we all live here. I’d like to think she might not realize how dangerous this could be.” She put her hand on her chest. “I’m a witch and I didn’t realize it till just now. But we’re also in a weird spot with those guys and the production company.”
Contracts had loopholes. I just had to find one for this. And besides, I wasn’t sure the contract would stand up against a murder on the vicinity. I’d just have to ask Beverly, but I needed to find her first. And I was pretty sure Cass could help me on that.
Melody abruptly moved in close and gave me a tight hug. I hugged her back. “I’m so, so sorry, sis. I wasn’t putting things into perspective until you said that. I just wanted to help the society. To help the town.”
“I know.” I stepped back. “We can all get hung up on the notion we’re helping. And the town gets by with just enough tourists to keep that economy going. But if you noticed, most of that traffic comes into the falls, and they hang around over there. That’s why the city council had the second post office, grocery store and clothing stores built over there.” That had been the plan. I remembered when my dad was hired to build the buildings and the council literally gave the buildings to thriving businesses. That way, merchants could serve the conventional and the unconventional simultaneously, but in different location.
Yeah, Castle Falls was a beautiful place, and a complicated one.
I dismissed the wall and we stepped back into the store. But it was empty. The Ghost Watchers were gone.
“Where did they go?” Melody said.
“I dunno,” I said as Max and I headed to the door. “But you better find them and keep an eye on them.” I called Cass on my way to the car and asked how to get hold of Beverly Norris.
And what do you know? She was in the library!
ELEVEN
Cassandra, Beverly and I met up in one of the research rooms upstairs, behind the stacks. Apparently the two of them had started their morning looking up information on the Kell murder. The two of them were so excited with what they’d found that I tucked away any questions about the contract with Ghost Watchers and the little blue book. I was interested in this murder mystery myself.
“So what do you know about it?” Cass said. She looked very head librarian today, with her blonde hair pulled tight into a ponytail, jeans and a white collared shirt with a gray sweater. Beverly looked as classy as always in a nice dress suit and matching pumps.
“Not much. Only what Danvers knew, and that’s zero. There is a file with the name on it, but it’s empty. Which made the two of us wonder—if someone wanted the case to do go away, why keep the file there as evidence that it once existed?” I answered as Max jumped down and settled on the top of a bookshelf in the corner of the room. “But Mavis was at the table, and she said she remembered Brenda Kell was an heiress. She was how they were able to afford the Delaney House and all its back-debt and repairs. She paid the society a huge down-payment on it. But Danvers said he knew that when Brenda died, and her husband ran off, the Society did not keep the money.” I looked at Beverly.
And she looked dubious. “I don’t ever remember seeing anything like that in our records. I mean, no large-sum payments, and for the society to give the money back, there would be a paper trail.”
“Maybe that’s a good place to look into?” Cass said.
Beverly pulled out her phone and started thumbing on it. “Making myself a to-do note on that.”
“Good. So,” Cass said as she pointed to a layout of plastic-encased newspapers. They were of the Castle Bridge, the local newspaper. And they were… “Wow, these things are 1998.”
“Yep, haven’t been converted to digital yet. But we’re getting there,” Cass said as she carefully sifted through the individual pages. When she found the one she wanted, she pointed. “There. One of three pieces of information that hasn’t disappeared.”
There it was. An article printed on the front page. Dated October 12, 1998. MURDER AT DELANEY HOUSE. I took a picture of the article with my phone before I started reading it. There wasn’t much more than what I’d already been told, that Brenda Kell’s body had been found in the library of the house. She’d been stabbed and her husband couldn’t be found. And that the lead detective wanted him for questioning. There was one thing I noticed, though—names. There was the lead detective’s name, Thomas Blue. I pointed at the name. “Danvers said there was a detective on the local force back in the day—was that him?”
Beverly and Cass leaned in. “Not sure,” Cass said. “But I can look him up. Be right back.” She left the research room.
“I guess that’s a start. I wasn’t aware there was ever a detective in the Castle Police Department.” Beverly looked impressed.
“I didn’t either till I asked Danvers. He said there used to be one, and his family moved north after he died.” I looked at the date. Danvers said there had been a detective twenty years ago. 1998 would make this twenty years—it had to be the same dude. I put my phone back in my bag and my hand touched the book. I pulled it out and straightened up. “Beverly, you ever seen a book like this before?”
She took it and held it like a precious jewel. “Not many of them. This is a classic, Ginger! Where did you get it?”
“It’s a classic what?”
Beverly’s grin widened. “This is a naughty book.” She laughed. “Books like these were hand-crafted, made specifically as gifts from men to paramours. This one is German, and very old.” She opened it and blanched.
“Oh no…someone took out the title page and wrote all over the first page. It’s ruined!”
“That’s why I wanted you to look at it. Can you tell when that was written?”
Beverly turned the book around. “You mean this? Rather recently, within the past eighty years. That’s modern ink from a modern ballpoint.” She was still making a face. “Why would someone scribble that rhyme on a priceless book like this?”
“Maybe they didn’t know it was priceless.” I moved around the table. “What do you know about that rhyme?”
“Eh…that it’s basically a droll little poem that talks about betrayal, love and deceit.”
“It does?” I chewed on my lip. “Diddle means to cheat or swindle?”
“Yes. And the second line could be referring to an inn or tavern—in fact, Castle Falls once had a tavern inn with that name, the Cat and the Fiddle. Long time ago. In fact, there was a rumor once that it was located where the Delaney House sits.”
Max perked up but didn’t say anything.
“Interesting,” I said. “And the rest of the rhyme? I noticed they used the word ‘craft’ instead of ‘fun,’ and ‘fork and spoon’ and not ‘dish and spoon’?”
“These are the original words—but don’t quote me on it. But it’s the same. Craft, in my opinion, refers to a job or a craft of some kind. Like a craftsman. And I always interpreted it as meaning a thief, because the whole thing starts with calling out a swindle. But the last is the same, whether you use dish or fork—someone ran away with someone else.” She frowned. “But this use of cat over the moon is familiar.”
“It is?”
“There is a painting called The Cat Jumped Over the Moon. It’s a local thing—not something you’ll find in the history books. It was painted by one of the town’s founding members, but I can’t remember which one. There should be a picture of it here somewhere, but I believe it used to hang in the Delaney House.”
My stomach fluttered again. Max jumped down and onto the table. Beverly nearly jumped out of her shoes and let go of the book. I caught it and stared at it. Melody said there was a tavern by that same name, and she knew that because she’d researched it. And now Beverly confirmed it. And there was a painting called The Cat Jumped Over the Moon.
The Cast Jumped Over the Moon Page 8
