The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum (A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery)
Page 2
In front of the tea room—once Chuck’s Chicken Shack—Adele fumbled with her keys. At the top of the building was the number 1910: not the address, but the year it was built. The light from the motorcycle shop next door spilled onto the sidewalk. I stopped in front of the shop’s window, blowing into my clenched hands for warmth and admiring a baby-blue Harley. I’d never ride one—they were way too dangerous. But they sure were pretty.
“Got it,” Adele trilled. The paneled wood door snicked open. “Isn’t the door marvelous? I considered updating it, but I love its shabby-chic feel.”
I followed her inside, and she flipped a switch. Above, a fluorescent lamp flickered to life. The Chicken Shack had been stripped to its concrete floor. Translucent sheets of plastic covered part of one wall, and they rustled in the draft. Shivering, I jammed my hands into the pockets of my frayed gray pea coat. I should have brought a hat. It was colder inside than outside.
Adele tugged me to the front corner of the room. “I’m going to build bay windows over here. And the counter will go there.” She pulled out her drawing and frowned at it. “There’ll be white-painted shelves behind the counter with teas and tea accessories for sale. Probably some houseplants as well, because plants warm a room. I’m going to close up the wall next to the Paranormal Museum, build more shelves over there …” She pointed to the plastic sheeting and faltered.
Dutifully, I turned in that direction.
One corner of the plastic fluttered back, like a tent opening. Beneath it a woman lay sprawled, her face angled away, her blond hair a golden tangle. A dark pool of blood stained the concrete floor.
two
Adele squeaked and grabbed me around the waist.
My reaction wasn’t any better. I stared, disbelieving. Prying Adele loose, I hurried to the fallen woman on the cold cement. Her eyes stared, sightless. Shocked, I took an involuntary step back.
It was Christy Huntington.
That was bad.
I glanced at Adele, wide-eyed, frozen.
My hands went clammy, my muscles growing rigid. I didn’t need to take Christy’s pulse to know she was dead. But I did it anyway, squatting beside the fallen woman, pressing my fingers to her still-warm neck. “Call 911.”
“Is she …?”
“Dead. Call 911.”
Adele gulped and dug in her Chanel bag.
The plastic shifted again, covering Christy’s shoulders. With the back of my hand, I lifted the makeshift curtain and peered into the darkened museum next door. The light filtering into it from the tea room made weird silhouettes of the objects in the museum. Christy’s torso lay on the bare concrete of the tea room, but her legs sprawled on the Paranormal Museum’s checkerboard linoleum. It looked like she’d been leaving the museum when she’d fallen.
A charcoal-colored Egyptian obelisk, about eighteen inches long, lay beside Christy’s red stiletto heels. Bits of blood and hair stuck to its base.
“Yes … yes …” Adele was saying into the phone. “The Paranormal Museum. Hurry!” She hung up. “Are you sure she’s dead? I know CPR.”
“She’s gone.”
Something small and black shot toward me. I shrieked, wobbled, and fell on my butt.
A black cat arched its back, hissing at me, one of its paws raised as if to strike.
I clutched my chest to keep my heart from slamming free. “A cat! What’s that doing here?”
“Poor GD Cat. Did the big lady scare you?” Adele pressed her face to the cat’s side and turned from Christy’s body.
“What’s a cat doing in a museum?” Rattled, my mind clung to trivia. Christy. I’d seen her parents in the grocery store last week. This was horrible.
“It’s GD Cat.” Adele’s voice wobbled.
“GD for … gosh darned?”
“Ghost Detecting. Chuck claimed the cat sees ghosts.” Taking a deep breath, Adele put the animal on the floor and brushed black cat hairs from her jacket. “Okay. I’m calm. It’s an empty building. These things happen. This poor woman, a vagrant no doubt, broke in through the museum—”
“Adele—”
“This sort of thing happens all the time. Not here of course, in San Benedetto, but it happens.”
Christy was no vagrant. Adele couldn’t see her face, angled as it was. But I wondered how much of this was denial. I cleared my throat. “What did the police say?”
“The dispatcher said they’ll be here in ten minutes. That’s enough time to move the body. Grab her feet.”
My head jerked back. “What? I’m not going to move the body!”
“Of course not. Not by yourself. We’ll do it together.” She pushed back the plastic. Heels click-clacking, she walked inside the museum, stopping by Christy’s feet.
“You’re contaminating a crime scene! We can’t move her. It’s illegal.”
“Madelyn.” Adele straightened and put her hands on her hips. Her dark eyes glittered. “A corpse cannot be found in my tea room. We have to move her into the Paranormal Museum.”
“Adele, I think you’re in shock,” I said gently. “This isn’t you. You cannot be seriously suggesting we move the body.”
“Why not? It’s perfectly reasonable.”
“It’s a felony. Besides, the police will know in a minute what happened. There’s blood on the concrete in your tea room.”
“We have to,” Adele wailed. “Don’t you see—a corpse is perfectly proper in a paranormal museum, but not in my tea room!”
“Adele … it’s Christy Huntington.”
Adele’s face sagged. “Oh.” Emotions shifted across her face. Sadness. Horror. And … relief?
“What was she doing in here?” I asked.
“How should I know?” Adele’s voice was threaded with hysteria. “She probably came to torment me, or steal my ideas, or sabotage the tea room. I was telling Harper about a new menu item—a coconut cinnamon scone—while we were shopping yesterday. I caught Christy eavesdropping. She’s out to ruin me.”
I rocked back on my heels. None of that seemed likely. I didn’t know Christy well, though I knew firsthand she had a temper. But she was also a lawyer, and I didn’t think she was stupid enough to cross the line into criminal trespassing.
Adele looked down. “What’s this?” She reached for the obelisk.
“Don’t—”
She picked it up and stared at it, a crease forming between her brows. “Do you think it fell from one of the shelves and hit her?”
“Adele! That might be a murder weapon.”
“I certainly hope not. If it fell and hit her, you know someone will sue me for negligence. The museum is still mine—unless you took ownership before she died.”
I gaped at her from my crouch on the floor. “Adele!”
Distant sirens wailed.
Shuddering, Adele dropped the obelisk. It clattered on the linoleum. She covered her mouth with her hands and moaned. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry. What’s wrong with me?”
I clamped my jaw shut, wondering the same thing. “Wait outside. I’ll check the doors.”
“Alone? You can’t stay here alone.” Clinging to my side, Adele watched me examine the museum’s front door. It looked okay.
“There’s a door to the alley too, through the tea room,” Adele said. We checked it out, and it didn’t look broken into either.
Wordlessly, we went out front and stood on the brick sidewalk.
A black-and-white police car screeched to a halt at the museum. A uniformed cop jumped out of the car and jogged over to us. “What happened?”
“We found a body.” I pointed to the open tea room door.
An ambulance, lights staining the street red, pulled up, followed by a fire truck.
“Stay here.” The cop hustled into the tea room, one hand on the butt of his gun.
A black SUV rolled to a halt in front of us, and a long-legged blonde stepped from the passenger side. Her hair was in a bun, and she wore a black windbreaker with a gold badge embroidered on its chest. A gun belt was slung low about her hips.
From the driver’s side, an African-American man exited. High cheekbones, chiseled face, and dark-chocolate complexion. Our gazes locked. His eyes were flecked with gold, and the connection jolted me. The moment froze, a hitch in time, and it seemed as if he looked all the way inside me. And then the seconds resumed, ticked forward. He walked past, into the building.
His companion strode to us and flashed a detective’s badge, a spark of recognition lighting her eyes. Scrunching my brows, I tried to remember how I knew her. She looked about my age—early thirties—and there was something familiar in her rolling strut. A sense of defeat, humiliation, and claustrophobia wormed in my stomach.
Her lips thinned. She dug a notepad from her inside pocket and flipped it open. “What happened here?”
Adele gaped at the fire truck, her almond-shaped eyes dull.
I nudged her to answer.
When she didn’t respond, I picked up the slack. “We came to see Adele’s renovations,” I said, “and found a body in the building.”
“Kind of late for a tour, isn’t it?”
I glanced at Adele, who was still in the Land of This-Is-Not-
Happening. “It was a spur of the moment thing,” I said.
“You two been drinking?”
I blew out a breath. “Just a beer. We came from the Bell and Brew. You can ask them if you want.”
“Thanks for giving me your permission.” Her upper lip curled.
Great. A cop with attitude. I could see where this was going, and attempted to make nice. “I’m Madelyn Kosloski, by the way. This is Adele Nakamoto. It’s her building.”
“I know who you are. Did either of you know the victim?”
“Slightly,” I said. “It’s Christine Huntington. And, er, you are?”
Her pen paused over the notepad. “The same Christine Huntington who got caught schtupping your friend’s fiancé?”
Adele roused herself. “In a Buick.”
I didn’t know where Adele’s Buick obsession came from, but I didn’t think the detail helped.
“What was she doing in your building, Nakamoto?”
Color rose in Adele’s cheeks. “How should I know? She didn’t tell me she was coming.”
“How did she get inside?” the detective asked.
“She must have broken in somehow,” Adele muttered.
“How?” I asked. “The doors and windows look okay.”
“Who has a key?” the detective continued.
Adele looked at the fire truck. “Only myself, my contractor, and the Wine and Visitors Bureau. They’ve been running the Paranormal Museum during the transition.”
The detective sighed. “Does your contractor have a name?”
“Dieter Finkielkraut.”
“Finkielkraut?” She spat the word, her lips twisting.
“What’s wrong with her contractor?” I asked.
Ignoring me, the detective turned to go. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Uh, it looked like Christy got hit in the head with a miniature stone obelisk,” I said.
“I’ll decide what she got hit with,” the detective snapped.
“I brought it up because Adele might have accidentally picked up the obelisk,” I said.
Mouth slackening, the detective rubbed her brow. Adele looked at me like I’d returned her favorite Manolo Blahniks covered in mud.
“She was sort of in shock,” I added.
“You two stay here.” The detective slapped her notebook shut and strode inside.
“Thanks a lot,” Adele hissed.
“They’re going to find your fingerprints on it anyway. Better you tell them now.”
“But I didn’t tell them. You did.”
I hunched my shoulders. “Sorry.”
Adele stared at her designer shoes. “No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have touched it. It was like the thing hypnotized me.” She crossed her arms. “Laurel must be loving this.”
“Laurel?” A coldness knifed my core.
“The detective.”
I stepped backward, shaking my head. It couldn’t be.
“Laurel Hammer?” Adele said. “From high school? She was a year ahead of us. Ran with the smoker crowd? Had three tattoos by the time she graduated? Shoved you into your gym locker? How could you forget? The fire department had to pry you free.”
I swallowed. “I must have blotted it from my mind.” But I hadn’t. You didn’t forget being stuck inside your ninth grade gym locker for over an hour, wearing only your ninth grade cotton underwear.
Laurel Hammer. She’d been shorter and bulkier in high school. But she still had the same hard edges.
My high school bully emerged from the tea shop with two uniformed officers. “We’ve got more questions.” She motioned toward the squad car. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride to the station.”
“No need,” Adele said. “My Mercedes is a few blocks from here.”
Laurel’s expression was granite. “Leave it. Gonzalez?”
One of the uniforms nodded and came to stand beside us. The other opened the back door of the squad car. Feeling criminal, I slunk inside. Adele, muttering, slid in beside me.
“Cheer up,” I said. “We’re not cuffed. They only want to talk to us.” But even I knew this wasn’t a good sign.
At the police station, they put us in separate cinderblock rooms, and I waited. And waited. The floor was green, and somewhere I’d stepped in something sticky. I lifted my boot experimentally, listening to it peel off the floor. Ewww.
The good citizen in me was programmed to help the police. And I wanted to help. A murder in San Benedetto was shocking. Of course the police had questions. What was Christy doing in Adele’s locked building? Why had we been there so late at night? The sooner I cleared things up, told them what happened, the sooner they could solve the crime.
I tried to think zenlike thoughts and look innocent for the video camera high up in one corner of the wall. But the longer I sat, the more I thought about Christy and Michael and Adele. Picking up the obelisk had been stupid, and I half-wondered if Adele had done it intentionally.
Berating myself for my disloyalty, I propped my head in my hands, elbows on the table. It wobbled beneath me. Adele might be pampered, privileged, and pushy, but she was a good person at heart. She didn’t spend time at the head of all those charitable committees because she wanted to network. She cared about her projects. And she’d been a good friend, there for me for everything from my senior prom disaster to my latest career hiccup. Adele wasn’t a killer.
I’d know if she was a killer.
Wouldn’t I?
Laurel Hammer banged open the door to the interview room. “So which one of you two idiots killed her?”
I sat up. “Um, neither?”
She sat across from me and braced her elbows on the table. I removed mine, and her end thumped to the ground.
She scowled. “If you cover for her, that makes you an accessory. It’s not looking good, Kosloski.”
My gaze darted around the room, landing on the metal door in front of me. I willed someone—anyone—to walk through it. If Laurel was playing bad cop, where was the good cop? Unless Laurel was the good cop, in which case Adele was in real trouble.
“I’m not covering for anyone,” I said. “We met for drinks with Harper Caldarelli at seven o’clock. We were at the Bell and Brew until nine. Then Harper went home, and Adele and I walked to the Chicken Shack. I mean the tea room.”
“Why?”
“Adele wants me to run the Paranormal Museum. Taking me there was her way of talking me into it.”
My voice hardened. “She isn’t giving it to me.”
“Right. Nakomoto said you bought it for a dollar.”
“I’m not buying it. I don’t want it. I’m doing a favor for a friend.”
“Like covering for a murder?”
“Of course not.” I ground my teeth into a smile. High school was more than a decade ago. I’d changed. Laurel had changed too, at least on the outside. She was doing her job.
“Let’s go over this again.”
“I’ve already told you—”
“And I’m asking nicely. Let’s go over this again.”
And we did. And again.
I rubbed my eyes. “Detective Hammer, I can’t tell you anything more.”
“Don’t tell me what you can’t do.”
The door clanked open, and her partner with the remarkable golden eyes entered the room.
“She’s free to go,” he said.
Laurel jerked to her feet. “What? Slate, I’m in the middle—”
He silenced her with a look.
Her hands balled into fists.
“Thanks,” I muttered. Heart thumping, I scuttled past him.
He touched my arm, his expression impassive. “By the way, the mayor wanted me to tell you that you can reopen on Saturday.”
I stared, taken aback. The mayor? Was the Paranormal Museum that important? And how had the mayor found out about the murder so quickly? But the answer was obvious: Adele and her connections.
My stomach bottomed out. It was the worst sort of favoritism. If I were Laurel or her partner, I’d despise us.
I fled the station before they could change their minds.
three
Slumped on Adele’s snow-white couch, Harper stretched out her legs, bumping the briefcase near her feet. It wobbled but didn’t fall. She wore gray wool slacks and a starched white blouse, and I assumed she had an appointment later with a client. As a financial adviser, she set her own hours. I knew they were long.
“I can’t believe someone killed Christy,” Harper said. “San Benedetto hasn’t had a murder in at least a decade. What happened?”