Rummaging beneath the cash register, I found kitty litter and office supplies. But I’d seen boxes somewhere. Boxes with papers in them? I closed my eyes, struggling to remember.
“The Creepy Doll Room!” I opened my eyes. Two women in expensive track suits stood before me.
“We wanted to buy tickets?”
“Of course. That will be twenty dollars.”
They handed me the money. I gave them their tickets and dashed for the Creepy Doll Room. Sliding back a cupboard door low in the wall, I pulled out a box and pried off its lid. It was packed tight with dusty manila folders stuffed with papers. Sneezing, I brought the box to the front counter.
Two hours later, I slammed the lid down on the cardboard box in disgust. I hadn’t found a single receipt with Herb’s name on it, and I’d gone through the box three times.
Sunlight slanted low through the windows, blinding, and I lowered the shade. Soon the sun would disappear behind the low mountains to the west.
From behind me came a low growl.
“Oh, what now?” I looked over my shoulder.
The cat hissed at me, back arching.
“Look, I’m sorry about the twenty bucks, okay? But Adele’s in jail, and Herb might have information that can get her out.”
“Adele’s in jail?”
I started. “Agh!”
Dieter pulled a piece of the plastic sheeting aside.
Gulping, I pressed a hand to my chest. “The police arrested her a couple hours ago. Hey, that guy who ran out of here earlier—are you sure you haven’t seen him before?”
Dieter shook his head, sawdust drifting to the floor. “Adele’s really in jail? What are the cops thinking? She couldn’t hurt a fly. Literally. When I find bugs in the building, she makes me catch them and put them outside.”
“Yeah, at least she and Michael had that in common.” Adele had motive and maybe she had opportunity, but a killer she was not.
Dieter slammed his fist into an exposed beam. “This is garbage.” He clumped from the room, rubbing his knuckles.
“I can’t believe they arrested her.” Harper slumped in the booth, one arm on the damp table. The Bell and Brew’s stained-glass lamp swayed gently above us, casting bars of red and gold light across Harper’s fitted blue blazer.
The microbrewery was in full swing that Saturday night, the raucous atmosphere giving us a measure of privacy even if we did have to lean close and shout.
I finished the remnants of my third zinfandel. “I get that Adele’s a suspect. The body was found in her building, and after the break-up, she was no fan of Christy’s. But can the police have any real evidence? Isn’t this all circumstantial?”
“Unless the police have something we don’t know about.”
“What could they possibly have?” I remembered Adele picking up that obelisk and groaned. “Her fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
“What?”
“There was a replica of an Egyptian obelisk lying by Christy’s body. Adele picked it up.”
“How could she do something so stupid?”
“We were both pretty rattled,” I said. “But I told the police I saw her grab it.”
“All right. We both know she’s innocent. Let’s think.” Harper stared at the ceiling, pursing her lips.
Our hunky waiter came by and slid the bill onto the table, his gaze fastening on Harper’s full lips. “Whenever you’re ready, ladies. No hurry.”
Harper licked her lips, thoughtful, and his eyes filled with longing.
“Thanks,” I said loudly.
“What? Oh. Yeah.” The waiter bustled to another table.
Harper sighed. “We need to talk to Michael. The killer’s usually the spouse.”
“Christy and Michael weren’t married.”
“According to you, they were engaged, and that’s close enough.”
“He did know Christy best. If someone was out to get her, maybe he’d know who.”
“Let’s go!” Harper grabbed her briefcase off the seat.
“Now? It’s nearly eleven.”
“He’ll be awake,” she said uncertainly, replacing the briefcase.
“But I’m not.” My head felt fuzzy. I looked at the bill and winced. “Ouch. Six glasses of wine really adds up.”
Harper buried her head in her hands. “Six glasses? I know better than that.” She looked up. “A bottle would have been cheaper.”
“Ever the financial advisor.”
“How much is it?”
“With the bread pudding and the bruschetta plate—”
“They make great bruschetta.”
“Seventy-two dollars and seventeen cents.”
She jerked upright, paling. “What? Seventeen cents?”
“Ye-es.” More disturbed by the seventy-two dollars, I eyed her. I really needed to pay more attention to my spending. But Adele’s arrest had knocked me for a loop.
“The number seventeen looks like a man on the gallows,” Harper said.
“What does that even mean?”
“It’s Italian, and it means terrible luck. We need to do something.”
“When did you get superstitious?” I asked.
“Oh … ” She waved her hand. “It’s an Italian thing.”
I eyed her. It might be an Italian thing, but I’d never remembered Harper giving evil eye signs and talking lucky numbers before. “You’re drunk.”
“You’re right. Can you give me a ride home?”
“I’ve been drinking as much as you have,” I pointed out. How was I going to get home? San Benedetto didn’t have a taxi service. If my job hunt didn’t pan out, maybe I could become a taxi driver?
“We should stay here and sober up.” Harper lifted a finger and the waiter apparated to our table. “Another round of Haunted Vine zinfandel,” she told him. “In honor of Adele!”
“Adele.” I toasted.
The waiter scooped up our bill and hustled into the crowd.
“I can’t believe they arrested her,” Harper said mournfully.
I shook my head, feeling like we’d gotten caught in a loop.
The wine arrived, brought by the microbrewery’s owner—first name Jim, last name unknown (to me at least). He was a blond with a beer gut and one of those cherubic faces that didn’t seem to age, though I figured him for around fifty.
“Hi, Harper, Maddie. Where’s Adele tonight?” He placed the glasses before us.
I twisted the paper napkin in my lap. “She couldn’t make it.” News would get out soon enough about Adele’s arrest, but I didn’t want to be the one to spread the story.
“So what are you two troublemakers up to?” he asked.
“We’re trying to figure out who killed Christy Huntington,” I said. In vino veritas and all that.
Jim slipped the round tray beneath his arm. “I’m putting money on the boyfriend.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he and Christy had a big fight in here the other week. I had to ask them to leave. They were disturbing the customers.”
A trio of bikers strolled past, helmets dangling from their meaty fingertips, a flaming skull on the back of their matching leather vests.
“This is a family place,” Jim said.
Harper took a sip of her wine. “What were they arguing about?”
“I don’t know, but there was a lot of yelling.”
“Wait,” I said, remembering Sam Leavitt. “Which boyfriend? Was she with Michael St. James?”
“Who?” Jim asked.
“Christy had more than one boyfriend?” Harper put down her glass with a clink.
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Tall. Young. Well dressed. These young professionals all look alike.”
“Did he have brown hair?�
�� I asked. “Or sandy hair?”
“Yes,” Jim said.
“Yes to which?”
“It was brown or sandy.”
“Urgh.” Harper dug her phone out of her leather briefcase, her fingers dancing across the keys. “Was it this guy?” She handed the phone to Jim.
“Yeah. That looks like him.” He gave me the phone. Harper had pulled up a photo of Michael from a social media site.
“Have the police talked to you about this?” I asked.
“No. Do you think I should tell them? I hate to get involved.”
“It might be a good idea,” I said.
He shrugged. “If they ask me, I’ll tell ’em. You two girls take care.” Waving to a customer sandwiched between two cowboys at the bar, he headed in that direction.
“Amazing,” Harper said. “You could be a private detective!”
“Huh.” The way my job hunt was going, no options were off the table. I sipped my wine.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sorry. I’m losing my sense of humor over my job hunt.”
“You’ll find something. Your company was stupid to let you go.”
I rubbed a trace of my lip gloss off the glass. “They didn’t actually let me go.”
“What do you mean?”
My mid-section pooled with dread, heavy and thick. I cleared my throat. What the heck? I had to tell someone. “They sort of told me to leave.”
Harper’s brown eyes widened. “They fired you? What happened?”
“This government official was giving us problems over permitting. He let it be known he wanted to be bribed. When I explained to my boss about the hold-up, he told me to pay the guy off. I wouldn’t, and they told me my services were no longer required.”
“You’re kidding! But why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because I was fired.” Corruption was the cause of endless misery in the developing countries where I’d worked. Only the poor went to jail—successful criminals had the funds to bribe their way out of prosecution. So I’d dug my heels in and lost.
“But you’ve never been fired. Every other employer you had wept tears of regret when you left. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You did the right thing!”
But it still felt awful, more so since I was having such a hard time landing interviews.
Harper shook her fist. “I’d put a curse on them … if I was the sort of person to put curses on people,” she finished quickly, flushing.
“The thing is, I wonder if the reason I’ve been having so much trouble finding work is because of them,” I went on. “I can’t exactly use anyone at that company as a reference, and it looks weird. The few interviews I’ve had went nowhere. I know they checked with my previous employers. They had to. What did they tell them?”
“You think they’re blackballing you?”
“Maybe I’m imagining it. I do have an unusual resume, and I don’t quite fit into the jobs I’ve applied for. Maybe that’s the problem.”
“You do have a big imagination.” Harper belched delicately and signaled the waiter for the bill. “Don’t worry, you’ll find something. And I don’t think Adele was kidding about you taking over the museum.”
“I’m not taking over the museum.” Though I had to admit, the work was intriguing.
The waiter dropped the bill on the table, and Harper snatched it up. “Eighty-eight dollars and thirteen cents!” She whooped. “Lucky thirteen!”
“Oh!” I slammed my palm on the table, shaking the glasses. “I’ve figured it out!”
“You know who killed Christy?”
“No.” I stared into my half-empty wine glass, a garnet pool. “Poor Christy.”
We meditated on that.
“So what did you solve?” Harper asked.
“I know how to get home. Shane can drive us!”
Marveling at my brilliance, I dug my phone out of the messenger bag on the seat beside me and called my brother.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Shane, it’s Maddie. I’ve been drinking. Can you drive me home?” I winked at Harper.
“It’s nearly midnight!”
“Did I wake you?”
“No, I was having a heart-to-heart with Mom—”
“Who’s that?” my mother called faintly on the other end.
“It’s Maddie,” he said, his voice muffled. “She wants me to drive her home because she’s drunk.”
“Go get your sister. She’s doing the responsible thing.”
Shane growled. “Maddie? Where are you?”
“The Bell and Brew.”
He blew out his breath. “Fine. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, and Harper needs a lift too.”
Snarling, he hung up.
“Well?” Harper asked.
“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. He didn’t want to come, but my mother made him. He sounded a little mad.” I, however, was feeling good. Not only had I discovered another clue to help out Adele, but I was a responsible drinker. My chest swelled with virtue.
“He’s angry? But we’re being responsible!”
“I know!”
“And we found out about Michael’s fight with Christy.” Harper’s eyes unfocused. “I hope it helps. I can’t believe they arrested Adele.”
And we looped around again.
nine
The next morning, I opened the Paranormal Museum. Fog hung low on the streets, watery light filtering through the windows. My tongue felt like cotton, and my eyes burned from last night’s drinking.
GD Cat trotted to me, meowing. When food was at issue, he seemed able to put aside his contempt. I poured kibble into his bowl and explored the museum. I’d already searched the obvious places for receipts or records that might have Herb’s name on them and come up empty. But there were all sorts of cupboards and cubbies built into the lower part of the walls. I wondered if any records had been stored in non-obvious places.
I wrenched open a stuck cupboard, releasing a Vesuvius of dust, when someone knocked at the door. Sneezing, I shut the sliding door. The museum didn’t open until ten o’clock, and whoever it was could wait.
Someone rattled the knob.
I stalked to the door. “All right, all right!” With two fingers, I pried the blinds over the door apart.
Harper stood outside, framed in the top glass panel. She shifted her weight, hugging herself in her puffy blue parka. Her long dark hair was knotted in a bun.
I opened the door, and she hurried inside. “Cold. Cold.” Her teeth chattered. “My head is killing me. Please tell me you’ve got a coffeepot in here.”
“Sorry.” I sniffled.
She nodded. “Expect a housewarming gift. Or business-warming. Have you heard anything about Adele?”
“No. And since it’s Sunday, there’s no paper. I don’t want to bother her family and ask.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“I know.”
“She couldn’t have.”
“I know.”
But I read my own doubt written across her face. Could Adele have done it?
Harper looked around, and the tightness in her expression released. “This place really does have atmosphere.”
“The stench of failure?”
Her green eyes grew thoughtful. “That bad?”
“No.” I sighed. “I think the problems are fixable. But I’m not sure who’s going to do the fixing.”
“Are you kidding? This place was made for the Mad Kosloski touch. Besides, do you really want to work for someone else? You know you don’t play well with others.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you knew.”
Harper snorted. “What are we going to do about Adele?”
“Find Herb. Like I told you the other
night, he heard Christy arguing with a man inside the museum the night she was killed. But he ran off when the cops showed up. I’ve been going through our records, trying to find a receipt or invoice with his name on it, but so far haven’t had any luck. I was just going to start looking through that wall cupboard for more files.” I pointed.
She sighed. “Let’s do it then.”
We ransacked the shelves. I found an old Ouija board planchette, a broken doll, and a mummified mouse. The cat nudged it with his nose.
“Not for you,” I said.
“What about this?” Harper dragged a dusty cardboard box from the shelf and unfolded the lid. “Ah ha! We’ve got paperwork.”
She grabbed a fistful of folders and handed them to me, then sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through those in the box. “You said his name was Herb?”
“You found him?”
“No. Someone named Harold. Sorry.”
We reached the bottom of our respective stacks.
Harper blew her bangs out of her eyes. “And this guy Herb is the only lead that points away from Adele?”
“The only one I know of, but the police haven’t exactly taken me into their confidence.”
“And they’ve arrested Adele.” Harper bit the inside of her cheek. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Someone rattled the handle of the door.
I checked my watch. It wasn’t even nine o’clock. “Why do people think it’s okay to do that when the sign says ‘closed’?”
Whoever it was banged on the door.
“Urgh.” I hauled myself to my feet and stumbled. One foot was asleep. On pins and needles, I hobbled to the door and cracked it open. “The museum’s not open for another hour.”
A fat man in a stained hunting jacket peered at me through reddened eyes. “Is Dieter here?” he asked on a cloud of alcohol.
“No!” I slammed the door shut. “Dieter gets almost as many visitors as the museum. It’s a plague of oddballs. Why is he so popular?”
“You haven’t heard?” Gracefully, Harper unfolded herself and stood, brushing off the back of her jeans. “He’s a bookie.”
I eyed her askance. “No, I didn’t know that. How did you?”
“One of my clients made twenty grand betting on the Christmas Cow two years back.”
The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum (A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery) Page 7
