Ghostly Paws (Mystic Notch Cozy Mystery Series)

by Leighann Dobbs

  So, I straightened my shoulders and walked toward it.

  I marched past the rows of books to the end of the aisle. Rounding the corner, my breath caught in my throat as I came face to face with … Lavinia Babbage.

  ***

  “Eeek!” Lavinia screeched, her ghost turning to static like an off-air channel on an old television set.

  “Lavinia!” I squawked, my heart thumping in my chest. I knew the swirl meant a ghost was around the corner, but I wasn’t expecting it to be Lavinia’s ghost.

  Ever since my accident, I’d been seeing ghosts. It started off as just random sightings of misty swirls. Then the swirls started to form into human shapes. Then they started talking to me. It wasn’t something I wanted, it just happened … and it was impossible to ignore them. Each one of them seemed to want something and would pester me until they got it. I wondered what Lavinia wanted.

  “Sorry, Willa,” she said, her form materializing into a semi-solid shape. “I wasn’t expecting you to come barreling around the corner like that. And I’m sorry you had to find me … you know … at the library.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry you … umm … died.”

  “Thanks.” She held her hand up toward the window and we both watched the sunlight filter through it. Lavinia waffled her hand back and forth, apparently fascinated with the effect.

  “So, did you want something?” I prompted as I glanced over my shoulder into the shop, praying no customers would come in and find me talking to thin air.

  She put her hand down. “Yes, sorry, I’m still getting used to being dead. It’s not easy, you know.”

  “I’m sure it’s not.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t fall down the steps.”

  I was afraid she was going to say something like that. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I didn’t trip and fall. I got whacked on the back of the head and was pushed!”

  “Pushed? Are you sure?”

  “Sure as shinola,” Lavinia said, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I was on my way to church to … umm … light a candle for my Harry. I often did that before opening the library. Anyway, I was on my way when I saw the lights on in the library. I knew I didn’t leave them on, so I went in to investigate. I thought I heard something downstairs, but as I approached the steps, I heard something behind me. I turned to see what it was and then … whack! Lights out!”

  “You didn’t see who it was? Did you get any sense of whether it was a man or woman?”

  “Nope. All I saw was a big shadow … like the person was wearing a cape.” Lavinia pressed her lips together and looked out the window. “Oh, and they wore a big ring.”

  “Ring? What kind of ring?”

  She looked back at me, her ghostly form rippling like water disturbed by a pebble. “I’m not sure. It was chunky, like a class ring. I remember hearing the noise, seeing the shadow, feeling pain and getting pushed. I saw the ring in a blur as I went down. Next thing I know, I’m waking up on a steel table inside Stilton’s funeral home. Scared me half to death. Of course, I didn’t realize I actually was dead at first. Anyway, once I figured it all out, I knew I had to come here and get your help.”

  “You did? How did you know to come to me?” I felt a little disturbed by this. Was there some sort of sign in the afterlife telling these ghosts to seek me out? I certainly hoped not.

  Lavinia tilted her head. “You know, I’m not rightly sure about that. Might be because I know you were a crime journalist down south. Anyway, I just got this feeling and it must have been right because you’re the only person that’s been able to see and talk to me since I … err… died.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m not sure what you think I can do for you. I didn’t see any evidence of anyone being there in the library. Maybe you’re confused about what happened, you know—with being so newly dead and all?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, I don’t think so. I’m sure someone did me in.”

  “But, who would break into the library and why would they want to kill you?”

  “I have no idea,” Lavinia said. “That’s for you to find out. All I know is that I need your help to find the killer and neither one of us is going to be able to rest until you do.

  Chapter Three

  Lavinia’s ghost started to fade, her final words barely above a whisper. “Only you can help me, Willa.”

  Pandora batted at the last trailing wisp of ghost mist, then looked up at me and meowed something that sounded like, “You have to help.”

  I frowned down at the cat. “Did you just say—?”

  My words were cut off by the sound of the bells over the door. I looked between the bookcases in time to see Pepper St. Onge bustle in carrying a silver tray complete with teapot and two porcelain teacups on dainty saucers. She wore a cute vintage skirt set in violet, which complemented the mass of auburn hair piled on top of her head. Pepper usually wore her hair up like that. She’d been growing it since kindergarten, where we’d met and become best friends. Last I knew it fell below her waist. My heart warmed thinking of our close friendship that had lasted for forty-three years, even though I’d spent almost half of those years “down south” in Massachusetts.

  “I heard what happened at the library, so I figured you could use a nice calming cup of tea.” Pepper peered down the aisle at me as she put the tray down on the coffee table.

  She settled her tall, slim frame onto the couch, then patted the seat beside her as an invitation for me to sit.

  “Thanks.”

  I sat beside her and she poured the tea, then added a splash of cream from the tiny silver creamer she’d brought.

  “I put something a little special in there to calm your nerves,” she said as she handed me a pink chintz cup perched atop its matching saucer.

  I looked into the cup dubiously. Pepper had fallen in love with herbal teas when we were in high school. It was no surprise to me when she opened a tea room in our small hometown. People came from all over New England to drink tea and eat finger sandwiches and cakes in her cozy shop. Pepper claimed that her teas had healing powers.

  At first, I had thought she was just being fanciful, but after witnessing several examples of her healing teas in action, I believed they did have some sort of powers. The problem was that they usually backfired and had the opposite effect than was intended.

  I sipped the tea politely, wondering if it would have the opposite effect and make me more anxious.

  Pepper watched me from over the rim of her teacup. My heart warmed at the concern in her emerald green eyes.

  “How did you find out about Lavinia already?” I asked.

  “The twins stopped by for a bag of peppermint tea,” she said, referring to Hattie and Cordelia.

  “Ahh…” I nodded sagely. The grapevine in our small town worked quickly, so I wasn’t surprised that word had gotten out already.

  “So, what happened?”

  She clucked with sympathy as I told her how I’d seen the library door open and light on and then found Lavinia at the bottom of the stairs.

  “And that’s not even the worst part,” I said.

  “Oh?” Her brows crept up her forehead.

  “Lavinia’s ghost claims she was pushed.”

  “Ohhh.” Pepper’s eyes grew wide. She was the only one I’d told about my strange new ability and was fascinated with it. “What did she tell you?”

  “Just that someone hit her on the head and then pushed her, and she won’t rest until I find whoever did it,” I said.

  “And you’re going to find whoever did it?”

  “I don’t have much of a choice, because I know that when she says she won’t rest, it really means that I won’t rest because she’ll keep pestering me.”

  “So what’s your plan? Did she give you any clues?”

  “Two clues. The person was wearing a cape and had a big ring.”

  Pepper frowned. “A cape? Like a super hero?”

  I laughed. “More like a super villain. I’
m not sure if her account is reliable … she only saw a shadow of the killer and their hand, so I think it could have been just a loose coat they were wearing. I mean, who wears a cape?”

  Pepper sipped her tea. “So what are you going to do?”

  I sighed, leaning back on the couch. I was starting to feel more relaxed—maybe Pepper’s tea had worked its healing magic as intended this time.

  “Well, I guess first I’ll have to ask the other shop owners if they saw anyone around the library early this morning,” I said. “Not too many people are here at that time.”

  “I know Myrna comes in to the coffee shop early,” Pepper said. “Maybe she saw something?”

  I glanced out the window toward the coffee shop. “I’ll pop down and ask her later. Lavinia said she was lighting a candle at church and that’s why she was here early. Maybe Pastor Foley saw someone.”

  “What about the police?” Pepper started to stack the teacups back on the tray. “Surely they’ll investigate?”

  “Yeah, that’s the problem,” I said. “It looks like Lavinia fell. I thought that’s what happened and I’m sure Augusta thought so, too. So, unless something comes to light, I don’t think there’ll be an investigation.”

  “But, Lavinia told you—”

  “Not Lavinia,” I said, cutting her off. “Lavinia’s ghost. And who’s going to believe I found out about the murder from her ghost? Nobody. In fact, it’s probably better if I don’t say anything to the police. I have a funny feeling that if I did, it would only point the finger of suspicion at me.”

  ***

  I woke up to Pandora digging her razor sharp claws into me. In my dream, I swore she was talking. Get up now. Now. Now.

  “Meow. Meow. Meow.”

  “Ouch!” Pandora was crouched on my chest. I swatted her away before her claw ripped a hole in my black knit turtleneck.

  I glanced at my watch. Noon! Had I really fallen asleep in my bookstore?

  I sat up and wiped the drool off my cheek. Good thing no customers had come in. Or maybe they had come and found me sleeping.

  Pandora trotted over to the large front window, hopped up onto the wide ledge where one of her overstuffed cat beds sat and stared pointedly down the street.

  My eyes followed her gaze straight to the coffee shop—The Mystic Cafe. Come to think of it, I was getting a little hungry. The cafe had a great selection of sandwiches. I could close up for lunch, get something to eat and drink … and ask Myrna if she saw anyone this morning.

  I pushed up from the couch and wiped the cat hair off my sweater, then grabbed my wallet, locked the bookstore and headed down the street. I was halfway to the cafe before I realized my leg wasn’t even hurting anymore. I felt thankful that the pain was slowly lessening with time.

  The Mystic Cafe was abuzz with activity. Almost all the local merchants came here for lunch. It was off-season now—too late for the crowds that came for skiing and too early for summer tourists, so the cafe wasn’t quite as crowded.

  I made my way to the counter, nodding at the locals I knew, which was most everyone in there, seeing as I’d grown up here and most people didn’t leave Mystic Notch. Ever.

  I was the exception, going “down south” as they called it, to become a journalist. I felt a pinch in my chest at the thought of my former life. Best not to think about that now. Fate had stepped in and I was happy to be home again and starting a new life at the age of forty-eight.

  As I walked through the cafe, I caught myself sneaking a peek at people’s hands to see if anyone was wearing a large ring. What was I doing? These were my friends and neighbors. A shiver went up my spine as I realized that anyone could be the killer—even someone I trusted and had known my whole life.

  Myrna Littleton stood behind the counter, her gray hair piled in a bun, her vintage red cherries apron barely covering her plump figure.

  “What can I get’cha, Willa?” Myrna pulled a pencil out of her bun and poised it over the long pad of paper she held.

  “I’ll have a tuna on rye … and if you have a second, I’ve got a few questions.”

  Myrna wrote down the order, ripped the paper off the pad and clipped it onto a round metal holder, then twirled it so the order was facing Bud, the guy who made the sandwiches in the back.

  Her steely gaze assessed the crowd, then she nodded at me and shouted to one of her employees, “Alice, can you watch the front?”

  Myrna pulled me to the side, out of earshot of the workers and customers. “What’s up?”

  “Well, you probably heard Lavinia was found dead this morning,” I said tentatively. There was no love lost between Myrna and Lavinia and I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be.

  “Darned old fool fell down the steps, I hear.”

  “Maybe…”

  She looked over her blue framed cats-eye glasses at me, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “What are you saying—she didn’t fall?”

  “It’s possible she had some help.”

  Myrna snorted. “Well, I know a few people that would have liked to help, but I thought the police were ruling it an accident.”

  “They are. It probably was. But I was just wondering if you saw anyone around this morning. I know you open up early, and it looks like Lavinia went in early for some reason, so I was wondering if someone else was in there.”

  Myrna crossed her arms over her ample breasts, scrunched up her face and tapped the pencil on her lips. “Let me think … I came in to set things up early—you know we get an early morning coffee crowd—so I spent most of my time out back.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Well, now come to think of it, I did. I took the trash out to the dumpster in the alley. The church is right at the end of the alley and I happened to glance down and saw that woman that runs the new real estate business.”

  “Ophelia Withington?” I asked. Ophelia had come to town about ten years ago and opened a real estate business. She was hardly ‘new’, but these Yankee old-timers considered anyone not born here to be ‘new’. Ophelia had married auctioneer Pete Withington, who had passed away a couple of years ago.

  “Yeah, that’s her. I thought it was strange that she’d be out that early in the morning and even stranger what she was wearing,” Myrna said.

  “Why? What was she wearing?”

  Myrna looked at me with a funny look on her face. “She was wearing one of them big old raincoats … a trench coat, I think they’re called. I can’t imagine why she’d want to traipse around in that thing. Heck, they weren’t even forecasting rain.”

  Chapter Four

  I couldn’t wait to interrogate Ophelia, so I grabbed my sandwich and raced to my old Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot. The bookstore wouldn’t suffer too much if I kept it closed for a few hours over lunch.

  The day had warmed to an invigorating seventy degrees. The fresh mountain air gave me a burst of energy as I pulled out onto Main Street. I drove past the early 1900s storefronts. Some were brick, some clapboard, but all had been recently renovated so as to keep the nostalgia of the town’s past while looking neat as a pin.

  Withington Real Estate wasn’t much more than a mile’s drive. I munched on my sandwich as I drove, enjoying the mountain vista view revealed by the steep drop to the left. On the right, the stark granite face of the mountain jutted up into the sky.

  I pulled up in front of my destination just as I swallowed the last of my sandwich. The building was an old colonial Ophelia had purchased and retrofitted into office space. I recognized her Beamer in the parking lot.

  Brushing the crumbs off my lap, I trotted up to the door and opened it, revealing the wide pine flooring of the reception area that used to be the living room of the house.

  An antique oak desk sat at one end of the room. Comfortable looking upholstered chairs and a sofa sat along the walls. It almost looked like a regular living room, except for the receptionist sitting behind the desk.

  I approached the
young girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but the way she caked on the makeup made her look older.

  “Can I help you?” she asked through bright red lips.

  “I was hoping to talk to Ophelia.”

  The girl looked at me uncertainly and I got the impression she was about to give me the brush-off, so I said, “Tell her it’s Wilhelmina Chance. I know she’ll want to talk to me.”

  I knew Ophelia would want to talk to me because she’d been pestering me to sell my grandmother’s thirty-five-hundred square foot Victorian on twenty acres since I’d inherited it. If she got the impression that’s why I was here, it certainly wasn’t my fault.

  The receptionist picked up the phone, told Ophelia I was there and replaced the receiver, then stood up. “This way, please.”

  She scooted out from behind the desk and I followed her down the hall. I couldn’t help but notice her skirt was a bit too short, but if I still had legs like hers I’d probably wear one that short, too. Not that my legs were that bad, especially for pushing fifty. I exercised a lot and was still slim, but they were scarred up from the accident and I didn’t like to show them off anymore.

  Ophelia met us at the door of a bright blue and yellow room that boasted a tasteful, marble-mantled fireplace. Her frosted blonde hair was perfectly coiffed and a strand of creamy white pearls hung around her neck, the only accent to her tasteful beige and black dress.

  I pushed my frizzy red curls into place self-consciously.

  “Wilhelmina; how nice to see you.” Ophelia held out her hand and I got a whiff of Chanel No. 5. Although her voice sounded pleasant, her dark eyes bore into me with a predatory glare. It was clear to me that Ophelia was interested in only one thing—getting big commissions from selling houses.

  “Same here,” I lied as I shook her hand.

  She gestured toward a chair and I sank down into the tufted leather while she went back around to the other side of her desk.

  “So, what brings you here?” Her brows raised in hopeful arcs. “Did you finally decide to sell? That property is so much for a single woman to manage.”