Supernatural Psychic Mysteries: Four Book Boxed Set: (Misty Sales Cozy Mystery Suspense series)
Page 22
We both got out of the car and Jamie turned to look at me over the roof. “You could be onto something there.”
Chapter 17
Jamie and I were sitting in my tiny kitchen opposite each other at my old, wooden table that I had bought some time ago for five dollars at the local Salvation Army store and then shabby chic’d it. It went nicely with my white painted walls and old, dark, tallow wood floorboards. Diva was sitting on Jamie and purring loudly, while occasionally shooting me glares. I still hadn’t been forgiven for leaving her with Melissa, clearly.
My head was in a spin. I had figured out that it was Joe Crawley who had murdered poor old Baxter Morgan, but who had tried to kill me? And were these incidents, over one hundred and fifty years apart, somehow related? On the surface, that would seem a ridiculous proposition, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were. I was also a little uncomfortable having Jamie in my home.
I jumped when Jamie spoke. “Misty, did you hear what I said?”
“No,” I answered truthfully, and then frowned when he winked at me. “I was thinking about Scotty,” I continued. “He said I had to find out who killed Baxter Morgan, and it’s obvious to me that it was Joe Crawley. I mean, he had the most to gain, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who falsely accused Baxter Morgan. I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to this, though.” I didn’t know whether I should tell him that the letter also instructed me to solve the murder of Baxter Morgan. He did know about the letter, but given the fact that he had not mentioned the contents, I thought I should keep quiet about that, at least.
Jamie nodded. “But Joe Crawley’s descendant, David Crawley, can hardly object to you finding out. That’s no reason to try to harm you. Who would care about a murder that happened two hundred years ago?”
“It wasn’t quite two hundred years ago.”
Jamie shrugged and changed the subject. “Fake Ghost Man’s name is Mason Halls. He has no criminal record. Gavin King, on the other hand, has convictions for shoplifting, possession of cannabis, and being drunk and disorderly in a public place, but that was all years ago. Nothing since. Crawley has no criminal record, and I couldn’t find Scotty’s actual name.” Jamie shut his laptop.
I scratched my head. “Thanks for that. Is there anything else?”
“That’s all I’ve got, apart from the fact that Mason Halls is Gavin King’s brother-in-law. He’s married to Gavin’s sister Lucy, and they have three boys under the age of seven.”
“Aha. Any of them ADHD?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find out, we can ask around town. We don’t know for sure that you were given Ritalin, though,” Jamie cautioned. “It could have been one of any number of things, although Ritalin does seem the most likely.”
“I suppose. The connection with Gavin is interesting, though.” I leaned over the table, pen and paper in hand. “Okay, what do we have? We need to formulate a plan. Ask around about Mason Hall’s kids, find out Scotty’s full name, and then what’s our next move?”
Jamie tapped his pen. “How much of a look did you get at Crawley’s house?”
I tried to recall. “I saw every room. I didn’t get down to the barn though, as David Crawley turned up when I was in the room with the African art.”
“It stands to reason that he wouldn’t have anything out on display. It would be hidden away from anyone doing viewings.”
I nodded. “And as it’s up for sale, he might have moved it all to his Newcastle house.”
“Still, it’s worth a good snoop around.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How? I can’t go back, as the realtor will likely tell David that I’m there for a second viewing. Plus we can’t break in because he has a security system. Unless you know how to disable it?”
Jamie looked a little smug. “Won’t have to. It’s still for sale isn’t it?”
I nodded again, and then added, “As far as I know.”
“I’ll call the realtor and say I want a viewing. You can hide in the car. I’ll tell him I want to see the barn or something at the back of the house, and text you when it’s safe to go in. Then you can have a good look around that room. If David Crawley’s implicated, you will surely find something.”
I thought it over. It seemed foolproof, but I had a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. “I’ll have to be fast, because the realtor will turn on the security system when he leaves.”
Jamie considered that. “You can text me if you need more time and I’ll delay the realtor, but try to be as fast as you can. Take lots of photos, and video. Aim to be in there for no more than five minutes.”
“I suppose.” It sounded easy in theory, but I wasn’t used to such things.
Jamie said he would call for me and then we would drive to Morpeth the following day, and then he left abruptly.
I went to my laptop in my office. Diva was sitting on the computer keys. “Diva,” I sighed, “can’t you find somewhere else to sit?”
Diva let out a loud meow.
I carefully picked up the cat and set her on the floor, but she jumped back up onto my desk. She looked at me and then tentatively reached out a paw for the laptop while keeping an eye on me.
“Diva, no!”
Diva glared at me and sat on my desk next to the laptop. I shook my head at her. I sat down and looked at my blank screen, hoping for inspiration, and I was surprised when it came. I tapped myself on the head. Why hadn’t I thought of that that before? It seemed so obvious now. Baxter Morgan was a well known man; whatever happened to him would have to be in a newspaper. I knew the Maitland newspaper with the long name was founded two years after Baxter Morgan’s death, but there was surely an earlier newspaper in existence.
After a solid five minutes of googling, I had only found out that The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, which was started two years after Baxter Morgan’s death, had been the first newspaper in the entire district. To my delight, I also discovered that the first newspaper in the state was The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. Clearly they were into long newspaper names back in the day. It was founded in 1803 and continued until 1842.
In no time at all, I had found scans of every edition of the Sydney newspaper. I hoped it would have some mention of Baxter Morgan. It was hard to read, even with zoom. I was distracted for a while reading about bushrangers and fugitives, and had almost given up hope when I found an entry entitled ‘Accidents’.
Under an entry about a servant who fell off the side of a cart and broke his arm, and another entry that said that police constables were loading their muskets to go after fugitives, when one of the muskets accidentally went off and killed a laborer, there was this entry:
On Monday last, as Mr. Joseph Crawley, of Morpeth, was walking along the Morpeth River with Mr. Baxter Morgan, Mr. Morgan slipped and stumbled backwards into the river. Mr. Crawley reported that Mr. Morgan’s body was carried down the river. His body has not been recovered.
Aha! “That was no accident,” I said to Diva. “I’ve solved the mystery! Joe Crawley murdered Baxter Morgan to get the inheritance.” Sure, there was no concrete proof, but the pieces fitted together. I was quite pleased with myself.
A loud knock on the front door startled me.
I hurried to front door, wondering if it could be Jamie. I wasn’t expecting Melissa, and I couldn’t imagine who else would visit on a Saturday morning.
I opened the door to find Julie, the post parcel lady.
“Misty!” she exclaimed. “I don’t have a parcel for you.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “It’s Saturday.”
Julie thrust a small, dirt encrusted plastic pot at me. “I was just returning this.”
“Oh, no need to do that. I said you could keep it or throw it out.” I had given Julie a cutting of one of my French lavenders about two months ago.
“I can come inside and wash it for you.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s fine. Thanks.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. So that’s what this visit was about. If Julie saw him, it would soon be all over town.
“No, he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Who is he then?”
I had to think fast. “He’s my editor’s boyfriend,” I lied. “We’re working on an article together.” The thought of Jamie being Skinny’s boyfriend made me shudder. My stomach churned.
Julie took a step closer to me. She had never been good about not invading one’s personal space. “Misty, are you all right? You’ve gone white.”
“I suddenly feel quite sick.” I wasn’t completely lying. “I’d better go. Bye, Julie. I’ll talk with you later.”
Julie looked disappointed but removed her foot from the door and handed me the dirty plastic plant pot.
I hurried to shut the door, and then waited until I heard Julie’s van drive away. I shuddered and shook my arms to disperse the thought of Jamie and Skinny together. “Ewwww!” I said to Diva, who had been watching the conversation.
I threw the pot in the recycling bin, and then walked back to my laptop and tried to blow the cat hair off the keys. How could I tell the Society that Joe Crawley was responsible for Baxter Morgan’s death? They had blocked out the return address on their letter. I mulled it over, but then decided that the letter had told me to solve the murder, not to report the results back to them, as strange as that was. I shrugged. I had done what they asked.
Now I just had to figure out why someone was trying to murder me.
Chapter 18
All went according to plan, at least at first. The threatening thunderstorm that could thwart our plans was still a while off. The realtor would likely balk at taking the long walk to the barn in the approaching torrential rain that typically accompanied a thunderstorm in this region of the central east coast of Australia.
I hid in the back of Jamie’s rental car, and waited for him to text me the all clear. Text received, and having ascertained that no other cars were in sight, I made a beeline for the front door.
I’m not cut out to be a spy. Goose bumps broke out on my flesh and my heart thumped as if I’d had five double shot espressos on an empty stomach. I jumped at every boom of thunder and flash of lightning.
Crawley’s study was easy to find, and the door was open. I walked around the room as fast I could, videoing on my iPhone. Nothing stood out as suspicious. The videoing didn’t take as long as I had expected so I decided to open the desk drawers and film the contents. Sadly, they were all locked, all six of them.
I thought it strange that the desk chair was sitting off to one side of the desk. While I was looking fruitlessly underneath the desk for any sign of a key stuck down there, I noticed a trapdoor.
I could see no possible way to open it, as there was no latch or even a handle. It fitted seamlessly into the polished wooden floor. Then it hit me. This section of the building wasn’t original; it was an extension. It would have been easy to build a room underneath this one. We don’t generally have basements—or even attics for that matter—in Australia, which I suppose is why the possibility hadn’t occurred to me. But how to open it? It must have some sort of electronic locking device.
I needed a few more minutes to find it. If anything suspicious was in this house, it stood to reason that it would be through that trapdoor. I carefully peeked around the heavy, drawn curtains to the right of the desk, but there was no sign of Jamie and the realtor. I tiptoed to the kitchen door and looked down to the barn; still no sign. I texted, Can u give me 5 more mins?
There was no immediate reply, so I hurried back to the room, put my phone on the desk, and prepared to search for the trapdoor device.
When I turned back to the trapdoor, it was open. My first response was, “Great!” followed by “Ugh!” and then my world turned obsidian.
Chapter 19
I was alive. That was the first sensation when I came to awareness. I was lying on the floor. I opened my eyes. Pitch black enveloped me. Thunder boomed overhead. Gingerly, I moved my limbs, one after the other, and did an inventory. Arms, okay. Right shoulder, sore. Left foot, okay, right foot, hurt to move. I moved my hands over my head. A lump the size of an egg, not so good. Could feel no blood dripping. That had to be good. Took a deep breath. Ribs not sore. No pain. Even better.
How had I gotten here? I couldn’t remember. Slowly, I pulled myself up into a sitting position. When the inevitable nausea passed, I took some deep gulps of air.
The air smelled stale, but not deprived of oxygen. There was a musty scent, reminiscent of the back rooms of antique stores, or rooms in grandmothers’ houses where the lace doilies are found in abundance, enclosed by shuttered, double sets of drab curtains and long-closed windows.
I raised my arms above my head, but felt no low roof pressing down upon me. Things were looking up, no matter how marginally.
Thunder rumbled again. It sounded close. I crawled a short distance, but came up against some sort of furniture. A few changes of direction provided me with a clear passage ahead. A few more paces, and I reached what seemed to be a wall. I stood carefully and felt along it. It was cold and with grooves, perhaps concrete blocks.
Without warning, the wall ahead of me became visible. I spun around, but had no real glimpse of the scene in front of me before it all went black again. I did see what appeared to be a small to medium sized room. Perhaps the lights had been on, and the electrical storm had caused the power outage. I could only conclude that when the power company did whatever they had to do to get power back on to the area, the lights in the room would come back on.
I sat down to think more clearly. One thing was for certain, I was sure I had been alone when I was attacked. I had been facing the doorway and would have seen anyone who entered from that direction.
Slowly, my mind was beginning to cooperate with my attempts to recollect. I had been struck from behind and had been pushed into an opening in the floor. By whom? It would have to have been David Crawley or someone closely associated with him. It was his house after all. That meant that this room was in fact directly below the room I had been searching. Not so good. That meant no windows through which to escape.
Another flicker of light, and then the lights came on. I greedily surveyed my surroundings.
The vista before me mimicked an overcrowded storage room in a museum. Three painted skulls hung from a support beam. Behind them, shelves were packed with all manner of items. There were bottles everywhere, some covered with sequins and cowrie shells, others with skeletons inside. More African art. Bottles everywhere, all labeled. I felt as if I had stumbled onto the set of a potions class in a Harry Potter movie.
I recognized shelves of zombi bottles from the anthropological journal articles I had read. That explained the Crawley family’s continuing success and luck.
I took stock of my situation. The researcher in me warned that someone had already tried to kill me, and so would be intent on finishing the job. My would-be murderer would return, possibly at any minute. I had to find a weapon, and fast. No sharp knives were apparent. I tried to think what Sam and Dean Winchester would do in this situation. I ran the last season I had seen of Supernatural through my mind, episode by episode. Then it hit me. Salt, and there was a large jar of it on the shelf in front of me, kindly labeled.
When I had finished, I turned my thoughts back to processing my predicament. Why had my attacker hit me over the head and thrown me down the stairs into this room? I supposed as I had surprised him. Why hadn’t he finished me off then? That question was soon answered.
I heard a grating, a thump, followed by footsteps. A man’s shoes came into view, followed by a figure cloaked by the dark, steep stairway.
David Crawley stepped into the light. Clearly he was not here to rescue me.
“Who else knows what you know?”
I bit back a smart reply. “I didn’t know you were the killer until I saw
you just now.”
Crawley’s tone dropped to a venomous tone. “Killer? I personally haven’t killed anyone—yet.”
Gone was the manner of the suave businessman, replaced by a more primal and far more unpleasant aspect. “Who knows you’re here? How much do you know about me?”
“Jamie Smith knows I’m here.”
“That useless English gentleman?” Crawley laughed. It was a menacing laugh, even more so as a rank power was radiating from him.
“Not so useless, he’s MI6.” I thought that was better than saying, “He’s something like MI6.”
That just made Crawley laugh even harder. “You should write novels with an imagination like that. How much do you know about me?”
“Obviously you poisoned my food, and tried to kill me two other times.”
“Two other times? I called your motel and heard your voice, and when you spoke, I knew the poison hadn’t worked, which I suspected might be the case as you hadn’t eaten much due to your incessant talking, so I tried to run over you with my truck. Anyway, enough boasting from me. Tell me exactly what you know about me.”
“I know you’re into some sort of black magick.”
Crawley snorted. “There’s no such thing as black magick. Magick itself is neither black nor white; it’s what it’s used for that is good or evil. You cannot say electricity is good or evil. You cannot say a car is good or evil. Both provide benefits, yet also kill.”
“Okay, well I know you use magick for evil, using your whosiwhatsits.” I gestured around the room.
“What is your tradition?”
I was taken aback. “Mine? I don’t have one. I dabble in a bit of this, a bit of that. I only know what I’ve researched for the magazine.”
Crawley appeared to be summing up the truthfulness of my words. “Then why did you go to the University of New England?”