The Hostess With the Ghostess

by E. J. Copperman

  Sure enough, that got him going. “We have two unsolved murders,” he said. “Keith Johnson was discovered in a bathtub at a bed-and-breakfast in Cranbury. He’d been drowned, and not a long while before. As we’ve discovered, although his stepdaughter, Cassidy Van Doren, was present at the scene and actually called the police, his business partner, Hunter Evans, and his biological daughter, Erika, were in the hotel and possibly in his room not long before he was murdered. They must remain active suspects.

  “But there is also, whether Richard cares to consider it or not, the matter of Richard being killed with what appears to have been a steam iron in his hotel room in New Brunswick. We have no idea how the killer got into the room or why an iron other than the one already in the hotel closet was used.” Paul shook his head at the thought of it. “We have no particular suspects for Richard’s murder. Miriam seems to have known about his infatuation with Cassidy but was, at least outwardly, relatively unconcerned about the matter. The more I think about it, the more it seems the two murders can’t possibly be unrelated. If we investigate Richard’s more deeply, we might very well find out who killed Keith Johnson.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like the Paul I knew before you went gallivanting about the country,” I said.

  “I did stop into Canada once or twice as well,” he noted. “See some of my home country.”

  “There’s also the question of who in the house swiped Maxie’s laptop, took Richard’s files off of it, and then returned it,” I reminded him. “We haven’t looked into that at all.”

  “Surely that’s related to the murders as well,” Paul said, nodding. “There is no motivation to vandalize Maxie’s laptop other than to remove some information the person did not want us to see. In this case, the only advantage we have is that Richard had seen the files before they were removed and the person who stole them doesn’t know we can use him as a resource, assuming he is willing to discuss the situation when he returns.”

  “And there’s the stretching noise in the upstairs bedroom to the left of the stairs,” I said, thinking aloud.

  Paul’s eyes indicated I might have actually had a mental breakdown before his eyes. “The . . . stretching noise?” he asked.

  “That’s right. You weren’t here for that. The night Richard arrived, Vanessa DiSica told me she heard a stretching noise in a guest room upstairs, but it was one that wasn’t being used and was locked. I thought maybe Richard had gone in there, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found, and neither was anybody else when Maxie and I went in to look. Vanessa hasn’t said anything about the stretching sound again, but we never did figure out what that was all about.”

  “Sounds like it’s a good thing I came back when I did,” Paul said. “There are many mysteries to be solved here.”

  “You came back because I took out an ad,” I reminded him.

  He looked at me a bit askance. “By the way . . . Casper?”

  “Friendly ghost,” I said.

  Paul shook his head. “We have a great deal of work to do.”

  I had to agree. “What’s first?”

  “Nothing has changed. Our next stop is exactly what it was going to be before you spoke to Robin Witherspoon.”

  Chapter 20

  Hunter Evans did not do FaceTime. He would not submit to Skype. Either he was a technophobe or a control freak, but at least I got him to agree to a telephone call. I supposed he was comfortable with any device that had been in use at the turn of the century. The twentieth century.

  I put the call on speakerphone on my end so Paul wouldn’t be thrusting his ear into mine and distracting me the whole time I was talking to Evans. If you’ve never had a ghost stick his head inside yours, do not judge me. Evans, who had been on countless conference calls in his life, never so much as asked why I needed to put him on speaker when I was, as far as he knew, the only person on my end of the phone.

  “I can’t tell you anything more than I told the police, the county prosecutor, and the court,” he said with some air of irritation. I got the impression Hunter Evans was irritated a good percentage of the time. “Everything I know about Keith’s murder is already a matter of public record. Who is your client, Ms. Kerby?”

  “I think you’ll understand that my client prefers to be kept confidential,” I told him.

  “I don’t understand that at all. You are not bound by any privilege like an attorney or a doctor. You’re a private detective working a case and you have a client. Why can’t you tell me who that is? Do you have an agenda other than helping to convict the woman who drowned my friend and partner in his bathtub?”

  “You believe Cassidy Van Doren is guilty of the charges against her,” I said, although I had no doubt Evans already knew what he believed.

  “Of course I do. I was there when it happened.”

  Paul stared. “Does he mean—”

  “You saw Cassidy put Mr. Johnson’s head under the water?” I asked Evans.

  “No, of course not.” Paul’s eyes narrowed back to their usual size. “I didn’t mean I was in the room when Keith was murdered. Of course I would have stopped her from killing him. I mean I was in my room, in the same hotel, at the time he died, and I heard her inside his room. They were right next door.”

  That required some clarification as well. “So you heard Cassidy call out for help and scream for nine-one-one,” I said.

  “A clever ruse to deflect suspicion,” Evans said. “But I heard them before she did that. I heard Keith’s voice speaking in anger and then I heard a struggle.”

  Now I could feel my eyes narrowing. “So you heard a struggle in the room next door, where your friend and business partner was meeting with his estranged stepdaughter, and you didn’t do anything about it until you heard her scream for help?” Nice friend.

  “I knew Keith and Cassidy didn’t get along. I was accustomed to hearing them shout at each other. There was no reason for me to intervene; I had no idea there was violence going on in the room.”

  Except he would have heard a lot of sloshing, I was guessing. “The bathroom was off to the far end of the little master suite Mr. Johnson had,” I said, based on information Robin Witherspoon had given me. “It was the farthest point from your adjoining wall.” Paul was feeding me the question, but I had an idea of where he was going. “Did you hear the water running?”

  “I don’t remember hearing the water, but like you said, it would have been far away from where I was sitting, and I was trying not to listen to the heated conversation.” There was some change in the tone of Evans’s voice; he was going from irritated to annoyed, which was to be a quick stop on the route to downright resentful. “I don’t see why you’re asking . . . Do you consider me a suspect in Keith’s murder? Is that how far that little harlot wants you to go?”

  It wasn’t easy to maintain my demeanor when I was being yelled at like that, but Paul was motioning with his hands, palms down, reminding me I had to keep calm. “The one thing I will tell you about my client, Mr. Evans, is that it is not Cassidy Van Doren.”

  “It’s not? Who is it?”

  “We’ve covered this ground. Now I want to ask you about your room key.”

  Evans had no doubt been prepped by the prosecutor and already had testified in Cassidy’s trial, so he had a prepared answer ready and waiting. He sent it out without inflection like a fourth-grade student reciting Trees by Joyce Kilmer. “I had the wrong room key but I didn’t know it. I tried opening the door to my room and was unable to do so. I took the key to Robin at the desk and asked her what the problem might be. She examined the key and saw it was the wrong one for my room, so she replaced it. The new key worked and there was no further problem.” Very concise, to the point, and definitive. I came close to believing him.

  “There’s only one problem with that,” I told him. “You had already been in your room before you asked about the key. How did you get in the first time?”

  I waited. This was a question Evans had not readied himself to a
nswer, and it had implications he was bound not to appreciate. It took him a good long moment before he could address it. And even then he fell back on the most time-honored dodge in history.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Evans said.

  “It’s simple.” I wasn’t going to let him up off the mat that easily. “You say you had a key for the wrong room at the bed-and-breakfast.”

  “That’s right,” Evans said. Apparently he thought that ended the discussion.

  He was wrong. “So you couldn’t get into the room you’d rented until Robin gave you the right key and you could open your door. But the problem is, when Robin helped you with that key, your bags were already inside the room. That means you’d gotten in there earlier. So I’m asking, if you didn’t have a key to that room, how did you drop off your bags?”

  “That’s a fallacy,” Evans said. “You are operating on the assumption that my luggage was inside the room when Ms. Witherspoon let me in with the proper key, and it was not.”

  “So you had your bags with you out in the hallway when you asked her for help?” I asked. I knew I could confirm with Robin that was not the case. I just wanted to hear if Evans was going to try to change his story or flat-out lie.

  But Evans was not a stupid man. He had clearly picked up on the fact that I’d already spoken to Robin, and he knew what he could say that would deflect suspicion without being immediately verifiable as wrong. “I don’t remember,” he said. “I did stop in with Keith when we first checked in. I might have left my one suitcase in his room. I was not made aware of whether the police found it there after he died.”

  “Robin Witherspoon says you were out walking in the garden before you came to her and asked for the key,” I told him. I felt that didn’t betray any secrets Robin might have divulged. I didn’t want to hurt another innkeeper’s business. “Could you have left your bag outside in the garden?”

  Paul shook his head. He hates it when I give a witness a possible answer to hide behind. But in my view, this scenario was so ridiculous that if Evans decided to use it, he would be copping to more than simply lying; he’d be casting serious suspicion on his whereabouts when his business partner was drowned in a bathtub.

  “No, I don’t believe I had it with me in the garden,” he said. Like I mentioned, he was not stupid. “I must have left it in Keith’s room, although I was there only for a minute before I went down to the garden. He was tired and wanted to rest up for a while.”

  Now to start broaching the really touchy topics. “I’m told you weren’t alone in your room,” I said.

  Beat, two, three, four . . .

  “I beg your pardon?” A common delay tactic. I waited because I knew he’d heard me correctly. “I was alone. Whoever told you that was lying, or mistaken.”

  “So there was no woman in your room with you? One who might have . . .” And that’s when it hit me how ridiculous the scenario I was going to bring up actually was.

  “I was alone,” Evans asserted. I was not going to challenge him.

  “Mr. Evans, I have to ask you a question, and I want you to know it’s meant with all the respect due to someone of your accomplishments and experience.” I thought that was a nice way of saying, hey, I have a rude question to ask.

  “Ask your question, young lady.” Even my father has never called me young lady.

  “Why weren’t you a suspect in the murder of Keith Johnson?”

  I couldn’t see Hunter Evans, but I guarantee you he didn’t even blink before he said, “That’s something you would have to ask the police and the prosecutor, Ms. Kerby. Now if you don’t mind, I have a meeting in five minutes.” And before finding out if I minded or not, Evans disconnected the call.

  For the record, I didn’t mind all that much.

  I had to ask Paul about my revelation. “Why would a woman who drowned a guy in the bathtub take off her wet jeans and then dump them out the window when she was staying with a man in a nice dry room next door?”

  “Because she knew both rooms would be searched and didn’t want the wet jeans found if they could incriminate her,” Paul said. And that seemed logical. Sort of.

  I looked over at Paul even before I put my phone back into my pocket. “Well, that’s one thing I’ve gotten out of today,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Paul followed me as I started out of the room. Melissa would be ambling through the door at any second, and I needed to check on my guests. Maybe I’d even play Cyrano for Abby Lesniak and Mr. Lewis.

  “I’m pretty sure now that Cassidy Van Doren didn’t kill her stepfather.” I walked down the stairs, and Paul did his floating thing.

  “What convinced you?” he asked.

  “Everybody who’s lied to me for the past few days has told me straight out that she did,” I said. “That’s got to count for something.”

  Paul smiled his oh-that-Alison smile. “It’s not empirical, but it’s a start,” he said.

  But that wasn’t the odd part.

  The odd part was that out of nowhere, Adrian Johnson called me at that very moment. And before I could express any surprise at that, she was already saying something that surprised me more.

  “I want to hire you,” she said.

  Chapter 21

  Now, you have to understand how my mind works. The whole private investigation racket, that’s Paul’s thing. In my head I am not at all a detective despite what my license and the state of New Jersey might think. I am an innkeeper. That’s the license I really wanted and the one that I worked hardest to get. So when Adrian Johnson wanted to hire me, it took me a second to realize she didn’t just want to take a room in the guesthouse.

  “You want to hire me?” I said, largely for Paul’s benefit. We were standing—in our own ways—at the bottom of the main staircase, and I looked around to see if any of the guests were nearby, but no one was.

  “Yes,” Adrian said with her best fake royal voice. She hadn’t been rich for that many years and still wasn’t all that comfortable making other people feel inferior, although I got the impression she was working on it. “What are your rates?”

  Wow. A paying customer. That was a rarity in my investigation business. Paul looked at me strangely, probably because he didn’t know my avaricious side very well. “That depends on what it is you want me to do,” I answered. And I said that largely because I had no idea what to charge Adrian.

  “I want you to stop investigating Keith’s murder,” she said.

  Well, that took me by surprise. “I’m sorry?” Sure, I can think of snappier comebacks now, but I was under time pressure.

  “I said, I want you stop investigating Keith’s murder. I’m willing to pay you quite well to do so.”

  I looked at Paul, who I was sure had heard the exchange. He looked . . . interested. That didn’t help.

  “So you want to pay me not to do something,” I said. Yes, I was reiterating what had already been covered in this conversation, but I was processing, and maybe it takes some of us a little longer than others. You ever think of that?

  “Exactly. I think your investigation has been a distraction. It’s been disrupting my family while we go through the difficulty of losing my husband and seeing my daughter go on trial for killing him. I think it’s in the best interests of everyone involved for you to stop asking questions and upsetting people.” Adrian sounded like that was the most reasonable argument anyone had ever put forth. Surely Socrates himself would have been proud of that one and asked Plato to write it up for posterity.

  I fell back on the defense I’d been using since I’d started doing what Richard had asked me to do. “I’m not investigating your husband’s murder,” I told Adrian. “I’m investigating the murder of Richard Harrison, but there is some overlap between the two.”

  “That’s crazy. Cassidy didn’t kill the attorney.”

  Oh, well, there was a compelling argument. “Still, that is what I have been asked to find out, and the investigation leads in a number of dire
ctions.” That sounded pretty true.

  “If you are only trying to find out who killed the attorney, why are you talking to my son and both my daughters?” Adrian asked. It took me a moment to realize she was referring to Braden and Erika Johnson as her children. “Why are you asking Hunter Evans about the night Keith died?”

  Wow. That meant Evans had pretty much gotten off the phone with me and called Adrian to complain. About me. You had to wonder who was really pulling the strings here, or at least I did.

  “Like I said, there is some overlap, and some of the questions pertain to both cases,” I said. I didn’t even believe it myself, but it sounded like something. “It is quite possible that the same person killed both your husband and Mr. Harrison. It would be foolish of me not to try to discover who that person is, don’t you think?”

  Paul gave me a half nod of approval, but Adrian wasn’t buying what I was selling. “What I think,” she said, “is that you can have ten thousand dollars if you stop your investigation right now, but that offer will be withdrawn the moment we end this phone conversation. Now what do you think?”

  Ten thousand dollars? I was seriously considering the idea until I realized exactly what she was asking. I swallowed heavily and said, “I’m afraid I have to turn down your generous offer,” I said. “I have a client who has asked me to do a job, and I can’t renege on that agreement.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars.”

  I know Paul was listening that time because he actually shuddered a bit. I must have given him something resembling a pleading look because he regarded me and then shook his head negatively. Sure. What did he need with money?

  I closed my eyes. Believe me when I tell you I have more willpower than I would have thought possible because I took a breath and then told Adrian, “I’m sorry. I wish I could, honestly I do, but I can’t.”

  She hung up.