by Tamara Berry
I don’t care for the way he phrases the question—or for the way he’s captured the donkey’s baleful expression. “Well, I put cameras in several different locations, and that one held particular interest to me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Why did I place the cameras, or why did I choose that one?”
He waves his hand, casting even more ashes all over a threadbare Aubusson carpet, which I suspect is worth more than both his and my life combined. “Either one.”
“Well, I placed the cameras in hopes of catching video surveillance of the entity that’s been haunting the castle. And I chose the kitchen because Thomas—that’s the man who works for the family—told me about a broken step on those stairs when I first arrived. It was one of the first things I investigated.”
“As a ghost hunter.” It’s not phrased as a question—or, if I’m being honest—with much credulity.
“Yes.”
“You must not be a very good one if the ghost managed to pull the step up again without you knowing it.”
His words rankle more than I care to admit. “Yes, well. You must not be a very good policeman if you think it’s acceptable to fling ashes over an active crime scene.”
Inspector Piper is not, as I hope, upset by my attack. He glances around the room, as if he’s just now realizing where he is. “I don’t see any bodies. Or did you find one in here, too?”
“Of course I didn’t find one in here. I don’t make it a habit to stumble across corpses, Inspector. Strange though it may seem, these two are my first. I tend not to deal directly with the dead. Usually, I just burn some sage and say a few chants.”
“Interesting,” he says in a tone that implies he finds it anything but. He then takes a different tack, leaning back in his chair as though he has every intention of making a prolonged stay. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be the witch who told Mrs. Brennigan to steal the sacramental cup from the church vestibule yesterday, would you?”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s asking. The name Mrs. Brennigan doesn’t mean much, but sacramental cup and witch have an all-too-familiar ring. A brindle-headed, accosting-me-in-a-public-museum ring, in fact.
“I believe my exact words were golden chalice,” I say, rising to my own defense. “And I didn’t tell her to steal it—I only told her to get her hands on one for a situation she needed my help with. Gold is a powerful stimulant for positive energy.”
He reaches the end of his cigarette and drops the butt in my teacup. “Do you often direct your clients to procure gold for you?”
Oh, dear. This is exactly why I try to avoid things like taxes and government officials. It’s so easy to spin the service I provide into something sinister. Especially if the people I help make it a habit to steal from churches.
“No?” I try.
If the way he doesn’t even blink is any indication, he doesn’t believe me.
“I’m sure she intended to put it back once her task was done,” I say. And then, because it seems as though this whole dead-body-under-the-stairs thing is getting off course, I add, “I don’t see what any of this has to do with the man I found.”
“Ah, yes.” Inspector Piper flips through his notepad once more. “Xavier, I believe the family calls him. The source of your ghost.”
“He’s not my ghost,” I protest. I’m starting to feel terribly misrepresented here. Just how much of this village’s problems are to be foisted onto my shoulders? “And I’m not talking about the old bones—I’m talking about the new ones.”
He studies his notes as if through a microscope. “I thought you said it was a freshly dead body.”
“It was.”
“But there were bones?”
As screaming my frustration doesn’t seem likely to get this interview over any faster, I press the fingernails of one hand into the palm of the other. “I was speaking metaphorically,” I say. “I meant, of course, the bones inside the body. The fresh one. The one that broke my fall. I don’t suppose you guys have located it yet?”
Inspector Piper gives me a sharp look and snaps his notebook shut. “No. But rest assured you’ll be the first to hear if we do.”
“That sounds ominous. Is this the part where you tell me not to leave the country?”
“Do you have plans to leave the country?”
“Eventually, yes. It was never my intention to relocate here.” I pause. “Do you always answer questions with another question?”
Something like a smile twists the side of his mouth. I say something like a smile, because the expression falls short of its goal. I get the impression Inspector Piper isn’t a man to drop into regular bursts of hilarity. “Why? Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“A little, yes,” I confess and extend a hand—the one with the half-moon impressions left by my fingernails. With any luck, he’ll take the hint and move on to interrogate the next witness. “I’m sorry that the woman took a cup from the church, and I’m sorrier still that you don’t believe me about the body. But there’s nothing illegal about me being a guest of the Hartford family or about accidentally stumbling upon an ancient pile of bones buried under the stairs. If anything, I’m the victim here. My equipment—”
“We’re looking into it,” he promises. Although he seems reluctant to do so, he takes my hand and shakes it. His skin is dry and papery, almost like the withered flesh of a decades-old corpse. “And, ah, if it’s not too much trouble, Miss—Ma’am— Madame, it would be best for us both if you don’t leave the country anytime soon.”
* * *
“I bet the bones could walk.” Rachel sits cross-legged on her bed, her face alight with pleasure at the prospect of skeletons rattling down the halls. Her bed, like mine, is some kind of two-ton brick that looks as though it was built with the original home. “That’s how they got in the cubby. Xavier put himself there so we would find him and bury him.”
“It’s possible,” I say, unwilling to curb the young woman’s tongue. This is too good of an opportunity to get information out of her to point out that perambulating bones stretch even the bounds of my imagination. “It wouldn’t be the first time a ghost has called on me to find his mortal remains.”
She lifts her pencil from the sketchpad on her lap. “It wouldn’t?”
“You made his mustache too big.” I indicate the long, drooping bit of facial hair off to one side of her drawing. “Think less Tom Selleck and more Clark Gable.”
“Who are they?”
I bite back a sigh. Even though I’m only a decade older than Rachel, it feels as though it could be centuries. Nothing ages a girl quite like medical bills and regular communication with the dead. “American actors. Never mind. Give him a little trim, if you don’t mind.”
She shrugs and begins erasing her sketch. I don’t think her portraiture is good enough to turn her into a professional forensics artist just yet, but there’s no denying the girl has skills. She’s also willing, which is a big plus. I offered to sit down with a specialist from Inspector Piper’s team so they could see if my body matches any recent missing persons reports, but all he did was look at me as though I’d offered him a ride on my broomstick.
“His eyes were closer together than that, too,” I suggest, watching as she tilts her pencil and begins scraping it over the notepad. “And his forehead was smaller.”
Rachel keeps sketching. “Well, I don’t recognize him, that’s for sure. And I know every man under the age of fifty who lives in the county.”
“Really?” I lean back in my chair. Although our beds are similar in shape and size, the rest of the furniture couldn’t be more different. Rachel’s is well-worn, comfortable, and most likely worth a fortune. The club chair I’m currently seated in is upholstered in leather that feels like butter under my derriere. I’m starting to wonder if the uncomfortable guest room furnishings are just another in a long line of treats Mrs. Hartford keeps in store for those unfortunate enough to pay her a lengthy visit. “You must have a very
photographic memory.”
She frowns, her pencil halted in midair. “No. Just a mother who doesn’t like to be alone. She’s dated most of them.”
Her confession strikes me as both painful and pathetic, and I’m hit with a sudden urge to wrap the poor girl in a hug. Teenagers thrust too soon into adulthood have a way of developing the kind of cynicism most people take a lifetime to perfect.
Trust me. I know.
“Where did she meet Cal?” I ask, as though the question has just occurred to me.
“Cal met her” is the automatic response. “At a dinner party about six months ago. He paid the hostess a thousand pounds to seat him next to my mom—and then he made sure she found out about it before the meal started so she’d be impressed. How gross is that?”
“Revolting,” I say, but I can’t help being secretly impressed. That kind of move requires a suavity unexpected in a man of Cal’s caliber. Nicholas was right about him being no fool, despite the eighties clothes and blustering affectations. “She fell for it?”
Rachel’s glowering look is meant, I’m sure, to put me in my place. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I say with complete and somewhat depressed honesty. “No one has ever tried something like that on me before.”
“Me either. It happens to Mum all the time, though. It must be nice, don’t you think, to attract men the way she does?”
I reply with an airy and vague “There are many different ways of attracting men.”
“You mean love spells?” she asks.
Thinking warily of Mrs. Brennigan and the stolen chalice, I linger over my answer. There’s no way I’m heading down that path with Rachel if I can possibly avoid it. If a grown woman will resort to theft—and from a church, of all places—for the sake of romance, how far might a moony-eyed teenager go?
“Among other things,” I eventually say. “Money is a type of love spell, when you think about it. It calls and seduces, blinds the unsuspecting to a lover’s true intentions.”
Rachel’s eyes grow wide. “I’ve never heard it put like that before. You think my mother is under Cal’s spell? That he’s . . . bewitched her?”
“It’s difficult to say.” I place a hand to my temple. “The human heart is a mystery, even to the spirits. His intentions seem pure, but greed is one of the most powerful forces on earth. There aren’t many who can resist it.”
“I can,” Rachel says with all the vehemence of privileged youth. I’d like to ask her how well she thinks those morals would stand up against hardship—true hardship, like watching a loved one slowly waste away—but I don’t. She’s seen enough of the world’s horrors today.
She applies herself to her picture with renewed vigor, asking a few questions about the placement of moles and the size of his ears—neither of which I can help her with, since my look at the corpse was cursory, at best. Within a few minutes, she finishes and holds up the completed sketch for me to inspect.
“There. Does that look like the dead man?”
Provided I cover up the eyes, yes. It’s impossible to explain to Rachel that she made the eyes too lifelike—gave the man verve and sparkle and whatever that indefinable something is that makes us who we are.
Erase his humanity, I want to tell her. Take away his soul.
“It’s perfect,” I say instead. “You’re sure you’ve never seen him before?”
She wrinkles her nose and studies her own handiwork. It’s not at all in her usual style—those grotesque, twisted figures that line her bedroom walls—but I sense that she’s proud of the picture in spite of it. Maybe because of it. It’s always nice to know you have access to more than one wheelhouse.
“No. If I squint, he looks a little like my art teacher, but Mr. Corigliano doesn’t have a mustache. He says he can’t grow one. It comes in all patchy.”
A knock at the door draws our attention. Rachel bids the guest to enter, and unsurprisingly, Nicholas’s head appears around the side. “Ah. Here you are, Madame Eleanor. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
There’s a question in that remark, so I do him the favor of answering it. “I’m hiding until Inspector Piper is gone. I don’t care for the way he looks at me.”
Nicholas’s face is perfectly grave. “And what way is that?”
“As if there’s nothing he’d like to do more than put me in handcuffs and lock me in a cell for the rest of my life.”
“Surely he’s not the first person to feel like that.”
Alas, he’s not. He’s probably not even among the first dozen. “Did you tell him my idea about bringing in the cadaver dogs to find my dead man?” I ask.
“Er, yes. Unfortunately, he seems to believe the other dead body will only throw them off.”
“Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess that means scouring for a DNA trail is out, too.” I point at the picture in Rachel’s hand. “Do you recognize that man?”
In this, as in all things, Nicholas acts in a polite, methodical manner, giving my words a weight that any other man—Inspector Piper included—might feel unnecessary. He takes the sketch from Rachel and studies it for a full thirty seconds before shaking his head. “Not to my recollection. But then, I don’t live here full-time, if you’ll recall. You’d be better off asking my mother. Or Thomas. He’ll be the one most in contact with people passing through.”
I’m about to ask when Thomas is expected to return, but Nicholas turns his attention to his niece. “You drew this?”
She nods.
“Impressive. Is your mother still refusing to send you on that art exchange?”
She nods again, this time with a growing scowl. “Cal thinks a cultural education is a waste of time. He says all the value these days is in either real estate or tech.”
“Spoken like a true Machiavellian,” I say with a sad cluck of my tongue. “But then, that’s an ironic title in this situation, isn’t it?”
When the Hartfords look a question at me, I explain, “Machiavelli might have been mercenary, but he was also Italian. Even he wouldn’t have objected to a semester spent abroad there.”
Rachel squeaks loudly and allows her bottom jaw to fall. “How do you know the art exchange I want to go on is in Italy? I never breathed a word. Uncle Nicholas, I never breathed a word.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. Madame Eleanor has her ways.”
It’s true. Madame Eleanor has a lot of things, including common sense. An art teacher named Corigliano and a tendency toward the baroque in Rachel’s artistic style leave little room for anything else. Besides, I remember a fervent wish to visit Italy when I was of a similarly tender age. It was probably the young drinking age that did it.
“For what it’s worth, I think you should go,” I say. “You’re much too talented not to.”
“I agree,” Nicholas says, startling both me and Rachel. I doubt that’s a duo of words that leaves his lips very often. “When all this is over, remind me to have a word with your mother. I’ll gladly cover the cost.”
“Oh, Uncle Nicholas—do you mean it?”
“Why not? It’s better than keeping you sitting around here, dancing attendance on your grandmother.”
He offers the promise with a careless air, but I can see the impact it has on Rachel. She shows every sign of flinging herself at her relative’s generosity, so I take the picture out of his hand to avoid its being crushed.
I also make a discreet exit as quickly as possible. Intruding on touching family moments always makes me uneasy. My voyeuristic tendencies end where real human sentiment begins.
Since I assume Nicholas still wants that word with me, I hang out in the hallway for a few minutes, waiting for him to emerge. It’s not an ideal place for me to linger; the smashed hole in the plaster is a painful reminder that I’m still out several thousand dollars with this day’s work. Someone wanted to make sure I didn’t see what was going on inside this house, and they went to extreme lengths to ensure it.
That, or someone killed an
innocent man and realized there was audio-visual evidence that could pinpoint them as the murderer. I don’t like the underlying message either way. I glance down at the picture in my hand and barely repress a shudder.
“Ah, you waited.” Nicholas appears behind me, closing Rachel’s door with a quiet snick. “Thank you. Could we have a word?”
“To be honest, I’d like more than just one,” I reply.
“You’re angry.”
Angry is hardly the word I’d choose to describe my current state of being. Bewildered, bemused, be-really-freaking-confused, yes. But angry? How can I be, when I don’t know who—or what—to be angry at?
“Yes, well,” I say primly, “I’d suggest we go to my room to talk, but I doubt that’s a good idea in the current circumstances.”
For a moment, I consider telling him about those exact circumstances. In other words, about my nocturnal visitor and the tea-stained note I have tucked carefully away inside my pocket. It doesn’t take a psychic to make a connection between the man standing over my bed and the body at the bottom of the stairs. Even in a house as large as this one, there’s a limit to how many people can prowl around in the dark at the same time.
But what that connection is, I daren’t hazard a guess. Was the dead man in my room? Was the murderer? Was Nicholas?
I fight a shudder as the possibilities start hurling themselves at me. The only things I know for sure are that someone died in this house last night, someone else died under the stairs years ago, and the police have asked me not to leave the country until at least one of those mysteries is solved.
I’m not taking any chances.
“Afraid for your virtue, Madame Eleanor?” Nicholas asks.
“No,” I reply somewhat tartly. It’s not my virtue I’m worried about so much as my life. “I’m afraid of eavesdropping. I still haven’t figured out how Xavier got in and out of there without any of us seeing him.”
