“Yes, of course I remember Argus Pudge.” She pats the poodle. “I heard on the news last night that they finally found the head.”
Chapter Nineteen
§
I don’t know how long it took me to register what the woman said about the head, but she was gone before I collected my senses. A housekeeper had come into the room to announce that lunch was served and Grace went without me.
The housekeeper comes back to retrieve me. I follow her to a large formal dining room where the surprises don’t end. Grace is sitting at one end. Argie the Seventh is in a booster seat at the other end. My seat is in the middle. The menu is cabbage soup with tiny marshmallows, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the crust, and chocolate covered cupcakes. Weird enough, but each cupcake is topped with of all things, a… spider.
“They’re not real,” the housekeeper whispers to me, apparently seeing the look of horror on my face. She pats my shoulder and smiles. You’d think Russ and Loren could have told me this side of the woman.
Grace seems to have forgotten all about our conversation as well as Argus’ head. As I’m taking everything in, the old woman is rambling about the Christmas parade and her ball gown.
“Now who did you say you were again?”
“Jack,” I say. The spiders seem to be made out of gelatin. Grace is devouring one, one leg at a time.
“Of course, Ms. Raven. The writer. What do you want to write about me?”
How about how you knew Argus’ head was in the ground? I almost say, but don’t. Still, I’m willing to play along. “I want to write about the Eton Bluff love story of the century. Argus Pudge and Grace Parker.”
She sighs and tips her soup bowl to her lips. After a slurp, she says, “More like the scandal of the century. You do know he was married, don’t you, dear?”
“I’ve heard rumors. Why don’t you set the record straight.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Long, long ago, a handsome and very serious young man stole the heart of a very beautiful and talented young girl. That girl was me, of course.”
“Of course.”
“He was married to a very drab and unpleasant woman, nasty really, who refused to grant him a divorce. A servant woman.” Grace goes back to eating.
“So you met him one night in the barn off Hedge Road to run away together.”
“There was no road back then, but yes, it was foolish, grand, dangerous, and wonderful too. Until Edith showed up. With a shotgun. She shouted and fired. Argus saved my life and lost his. The love affair ended with a single blast below the belt. Aren’t you going to eat your spiders?”
“Of course. What’s the significance of spiders?”
“Oh, dear. That is such a long story. All that matters is that Argus loved spiders. He raised them, cared for them like children, was totally devoted really. Whenever I find a spider in the house, I know it’s him reminding me that he will always love me. Then I smash it dead.”
Not charming, eccentric, or senile. The woman is crazy. “Well, Ms. Gracie, here’s the deal. I think Argus has been reminding a few people of the love he has for you.”
“Really? What has he done now?”
I do my best to explain what’s going on in the barn, but I can tell that Grace’s attention span is not long lasting so I give her the short version. She thinks it’s all very interesting and wants to know what she can do to help. Good question, and I’m so glad she asked.
“I want to take you out to the barn so you can talk to Argus and help me help him crossover.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
I jump and turn around to see a woman who looks like she’s ready to throw a punch in my direction.
“Oh joy, look who’s here. My nosy, grumpy, rude, stupid relative, Diana. She thinks she owns me, but she’s only after my money. If I turn up dead tomorrow, she’s the one who did it. Call the police.”
Grace screams at the woman that she’ll never see a dime of her money then picks up a spider and throws it at her before gliding out of the room.
“Don’t bother to follow,” the woman hisses at me. “She won’t remember who you are when you get to wherever she’s headed.”
“I should probably be going,” I say.
“Not so fast. Who are you and how did you get in this house?”
I tell her I’m a writer, writing about love stories across Minnesota. It sounds ridiculous even to me. I say I’ll need to check with my assistant on just how she found Grace. Oddly enough, she buys both stories with only an irritated shrug.
“Well take Grace Parker off your lovelorn list or I’ll sue you for everything you ever hope to be worth and probably won’t. The woman doesn’t know the difference between truth and fantasy, and you’re not making a dime off either.”
“She seems to know the truth about what I came here to talk to her about.”
“Let me tell you what the truth was about Argus Pudge. He was a cheat, a liar, and a thief. He fooled Grace into believing he loved her when all he wanted was her money.”
“What money did a fourteen year old have?”
Diana’s lips curl up to reveal bulldog teeth. “All she wanted and then some. Grace remembers the fantasy, not what really happened that night. Before you ask what that was, forget about it. Her family came to her rescue. We’re still coming to her rescue. That means putting a stop to any stories anyone attempts to write about her.”
“Sounds like you’re saying Edith Pudge wasn’t to blame for what went on in that barn sixty years ago. Is that why Grace has been kept in this house for all these years?”
I don’t get the answer to my question. Diana marches me out of the house with a blistering threat never to return. When I drive out and the iron gate locks behind me, I look back to the window where I saw the woman watching me.
“She’s still there,” I tell Mojo. “And she hasn’t moved. Must be a mannequin.”
∞
I have no clue what to do next, but I have a gut feeling I need to check in with the Spider crew so I drive out to the barn. The kids are just getting back from lunch and Zeda’s excited to tell me that the peppermint spray has gotten rid of all the spiders and made the place smell delicious. She thinks it might even have gotten rid of Argus. I should be so lucky.
Todd assures me that no one has called or been out to the barn to harass them. He’s sure the storm has passed. He has also been doing a little research on hauntings and thinks that now that Argus’ head has been found, the man can rest in peace. Of the three, only Owen seems unimpressed. He goes inside to wither up behind his computer screen.
I want to believe my work is done, but I know that even though Argus’ spirit is quiet, it’s not gone. Hauntings are never that easy.
“I’m going to spend the night in the barn to make sure,” I say. “I’ll be back later.” Todd wishes me good luck and Zeda tells me not to sleep in the loft. Owen’s not making eye contact again.
As I’m in the field by the barn waiting for Mojo to run off some energy, a very familiar unmarked vehicle pulls in and parks next to the jeep. I’m far enough away to avoid being seen by Detective Coleman. I’m torn between keeping my distance and going back to the barn to run interference. I decide to watch from a log behind some brush.
I suspect she’s come to question the kids about the Spirit Searchers and collect their equipment. I already know what they have to say about the paranormal group so I’m not concerned. That is unless she brings them out of the barn to put them in the back of her vehicle.
I’m watching and waiting and wishing I’d taken Mojo to the park instead of the field when my phone vibrates. It’s a blocked call that turns out to be Detective Coleman. She’s outside the barn now trying to see through the blackout windows of my vehicle.
She tells me she needs to talk to me right away and wants to know where I am since she standing in front of my jeep and knows I must be close by. Wow, no wonder she made detective.
“What can I do for
you?”
“You’re a potential suspect in a murder investigation, Ms. Raven. The Department is willing to make a deal in exchange for your cooperation. Before I have an arrest warrant issued, I suggest you come out, or we’re coming in to find you.”
Chapter Twenty
§
When I was barely past the crawling stage of life, Maybelle would take me out to the desert everyday for my hozho naasha– my Navajo walk in beauty. I learned to step with my toes first, to shift my weight to opposite feet, to listen to the twigs before they could be heard, to place my hands at my side with my palms down for balance, to let the scents in the wind lead me.
A potential suspect in a murder investigation? That threat isn’t the way to get my cooperation. Coleman’s moved to the passenger side of the jeep and is trying to see inside. I hope no one is counting on her to find the Spirit Searchers.
“Hozho naasha,” I say to Mojo. He always walks in beauty and is happy to lead the way. When I place my hand on Coleman’s shoulder, she spins around ready to shoot me.
“You wanted to talk to me?” I say.
She jerks around in all directions then orders me to the side of my vehicle. “Dog too,” she snaps. Mojo turns around and walks away. Coleman says I need to come downtown with her.
“For what?”
“Like I said, you’re a potential suspect in a murder investigation.”
“I’ve only been in town a few days. If you’re talking about the skull, I think you can take me off your suspect list.”
“I’m not talking about the skull. I’m investigating the murder of Morgan Nordquist.”
“I wasn’t in town when he died either, and I thought the coroner ruled his death an accident.”
Coleman slumps. She’s checking out the trees behind me. When she looks back, she gives me a crooked smile. “Would you mind coming to the station to talk?”
I would mind terribly. I’m working and the Eton Bluff Police Department isn’t paying my fee, though I know Loren would want me to take the time. “I’m listening. Go ahead.”
“Not here.” Coleman glares.
My answer should be here or nowhere, but I tell her I’ll follow her.
The Eton Bluff Police Station is about twenty minutes from the barn. Coleman takes me to an interrogation room and leaves to get sodas. When she comes back, she’s serious and uncomfortable. She still has that ugly brown of self-doubt swirling around her, but the magenta is gone. Apparently within these walls she plays by the rules, and doesn’t like it one bit.
“Here’s the thing, Raven. Can I call you Raven?”
“Sure,” I say, taking a sip of soda. If the woman wanted my DNA, she could have saved herself a buck and gotten it from the FBI database. On my last job in Shem Bay, I had no choice but to turn it over.
Coleman leans in and says, “I know what’s going on with you.” She pulls back and smiles.
I smile too and sip my soda.
She folds her arms and closes one eye. “I checked and you don’t have an exterminator’s license in the state of Minnesota.”
“Busted,” I say, and try not to laugh. “Detective Coleman, do the citizens of the State of Minnesota really pay detectives to investigate bug killers? If so, I left evidence in the barn. If you investigate, you’ll find a highly nontoxic peppermint potion that has chased the spiders back to the fields, for now anyway.”
Coleman throws up her hands. “Okay, here’s what’s going on. I don’t think Mr. Nordquist’s death was an accident.” She gives me the one-eyed glare again. “What do you think about that?”
“Same thing I did before. I had nothing to do with his death.”
“No, you didn’t. But I believe the Silvers did. And I want you to help me prove it.”
“Or you’ll report me to the bug killers’ union?”
“This isn’t a joke.” She slaps her hand on the table and winces. “Three months ago, Rice and Alice Silvers took out four life insurance policies. I think you can guess who those policies were on.” She waits, I’m silent.
“The Chief is pressuring me to close the case. The Silvers are demanding the insurance company pay up on Nordquist’s death. I need someone on the inside to help me prove they killed the guy.”
I feel a little dizzy. I start to ask how the Silvers would have known Morgan was alone in the barn and in the loft waiting to be pushed to his death, but Coleman is looking too satisfied with herself. “I thought the Silvers were out of town.”
She points a finger at me. “Were. The insurance company is cooperating with the investigation. They’d like nothing better than to get out of paying. Based on my demand, their investigator insisted the Silvers return to Eton Bluff to discuss the payout. He’s arranged an interview at the barn for tomorrow afternoon. I want you there too– wearing a wire.”
∞
Coleman’s logic almost prompted me to ask if she’s related to Grace Parker, but I didn’t want to open the door to anything that would waste more of my time. I needed to get back to the hotel to get ready to stay in the barn tonight.
I left the station telling Coleman that I’d think about it, but that I thought it sounded dangerous. She didn’t buy my excuse. It was the best I could come up with. Coleman told me the Spider crew would be asked to vacate for the interview that would last about an hour.
I’d asked her how an exterminator fit into this little set up. She told me I was to arrive a few minutes after the meeting started and say I couldn’t reschedule. I told her that her plan was absurd. She told me it was brilliant and that the spiders made for a perfect diversion.
There were so many things wrong with her brilliant diversion I didn’t know where to start, but I did anyway. She told me it was illegal for the investigator to wear the wire when I’d asked. She said if the recording device was just positioned somewhere in the barn there would be no one to testify at trial. Her shabby plan was only getting me in deeper, so I told her I would call her in the morning. I was thinking it would be easier to agree and be a no-show.
I started to ask Coleman about the Spirit Searchers then realized their association with the paranormal was the real reason Loren and the kids didn’t report them missing. I assume the guy’s mom called and gave the police the group’s name, but who knows if it’s made it to the woman’s to-do list.
I stop for take-out then head back to the hotel. I have to call Loren and I need a nap if I’m going to stay awake all night.
After a shower to clear my energy field of Coleman, I open the containers that comprise the May Special at Lou’s Deli and Drinks. The special is a Juicy Lucy, which is a cheese stuffed hamburger, salad, which turns out to be mushy fruit and marshmallows in red dye 40 jello, and fruitcake, which turns out to be lutefisk. I think Lou was drunk when he dreamed up this special.
Coleman told me to keep everything we discussed confidential. I call Loren, and since it’s her dime paying for my time, I tell her the whole story with the exception of the insurance policies on the Spider crew. I don’t think this is something she needs to hear about her cousin from me. However, leaving out that tidbit is leaving out the motivation for murder and this doesn’t get past her.
“Why would the Silvers put so much into the project then kill one of their investors?”
I should have planned this out better; I blame Coleman for my poor execution. Her muddled mind has muddled my own or maybe it’s the mixture of lutefisk on top of the cabbage soup and gelatin spiders from lunch.
“Coleman’s tying up loose ends,” I say. I tell her I just wanted her to know what was going on. She’s good with that and anxious to hear about my meeting with Grace Parker.
I’m disappointed to have nothing to tell her other than Grace’s mind has slipped off the reality tracks, and that Argus may have been a con artist who intended to scam Grace out of some money.
Loren doesn’t seem surprised. “Men,” is all she says. Then she tells me she talked to the kids about working elsewhere and they adamantly ref
used, claiming that Spider Central is “the crowning catalyst to their creation.”
She again denies knowing a thing about Edith, who has her deepest sympathy. I ask about Diana. She says she heard a long lost relative of Grace’s had moved here last year to take care of her. I can almost see the woman’s eyes roll.
After I’ve finish recounting Grace’s run home through the field, the possibility that she put the head in the hole, and Diana’s escort out the mansion’s door, Loren’s quiet for a few seconds.
Then she says, “I don’t blame either Edith or Grace one bit for chopping off the man’s head, but why would either go all that way to bury it and leave another choice part of the body behind?”
Chapter Twenty One
§
Loren had a point about burying the head so far from the long ago gruesome crime scene. I’m not sure how she knew other parts weren’t part of the chopping, but she’d moved on to her latest wedding planning before I got to ask.
I did get to ask why she thought Grace was the head chopper when Calvin told me it was Edith’s doing. All she said was that there was a rumor for every side of the story. She said the Grace she knew could never do such a thing. If it wasn’t for the path that led straight to the blue mansion, I wouldn’t be having my doubts about that.
At some point in Grace’s life more than a few marbles fell out of her head; chopping off someone else’s head could certainly cause that to happen. If Diana was correct about Argus’ con job, Grace certainly had motive. Though I doubt sixty years ago many fourteen year old love stricken girls would decapitate a lover and run miles with the man’s head in their hands.
After I promise not to disappear or fall out of the loft, Loren wishes me good luck in the barn tonight. She says she’ll have her phone on all night in case I need her help or just want to talk. She might be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
The Eton Bluff Haunting (Jack Raven Ghost Mystery Book 4) Page 10
