Harper Grant 03-A Witchy Christmas

by DS Butler

  Eventually, Madeline hovered slowly back over to us. “So, Bernie and I are both ghosts?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And you can see us?”

  I nodded again. “I can see you and talk to you, but nobody else in Abbott Cove will be able to.”

  Madeline let out a wail of frustration. “So what do I do now?”

  “I know it seems overwhelming. But let’s take it one step at a time. What can you remember?”

  Dr. Madeline thought for a moment and then said, “I can’t remember anything. I didn’t have any clients scheduled, so I planned to watch some television. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “Do you have any idea who could have done this to you?”

  Dr. Madeline shook her head. Then her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Bernie and me sharply. “How do I know it wasn’t you? What are you two doing here anyway?”

  I shrugged. “We didn’t do anything to hurt you. We came here because I’m trying to help Bernie discover who killed him. We thought it may have something to do with your counseling sessions. Before Bernie was murdered, he told Violet Morton that he had found out some information and wanted to share it with her, but before he could, he was killed. Because Violet and Bernie both attended your therapy sessions, we thought you were the common link.”

  Dr. Madeline looked confused. “I can’t think why. They both came to see me for completely different reasons.”

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how Madeline was going to take the news that we had discovered she was a fraud, but there was no point hiding it from her now. “Well, we were looking into things and found out that you didn’t graduate from NYU. I think Bernie found out and was going to tell Violet.”

  Madeline shimmered in front of us. “Oh… I…” She blinked a few times and appeared completely lost for words.

  “Do you even have a degree?” Bernie asked, his tone thick with contempt.

  Madeline sighed and shook her head. “No, but I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I just wanted to help people.”

  “And you moved here because your deception was discovered in the last town you lived in?” I predicted.

  Madeline nodded miserably. “Yes.”

  I turned to Bernie and said quietly, “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Two things. One, Dr. Madeline isn’t your killer, and two, Abbott Cove has a serial killer.”

  Bernie looked taken aback, but before he could reply, we heard footsteps followed by a knock on the front door.

  Frozen, we all looked at each other in terror.

  “Has the killer come back?” Madeline asked breathlessly.

  Both ghosts hovered behind me, using me as a human shield. Charming. I was really the only one who had anything to lose. As they were both ghosts, I didn’t see how anyone could hurt them.

  All three of us edged forward slowly to peer into the hallway and see who was at the door.

  “It can’t be the killer,” Bernie said. “They’ve already done what they intended. Why would they come back?”

  When I saw who stood on the threshold of Dr. Madeline’s house, my stomach sank down to my shoes.

  Of course, I was glad it wasn’t the killer, but at the same time, I wished it hadn’t been Chief Wickham and Deputy McGrady.

  “Harper!” Joe’s eyes widened as he saw me step out into the hall.

  If he was surprised now, that was nothing compared to how shocked he would be when he saw Madeline’s dead body.

  “I was just about to call you,” I said. “You’d better come in.”

  Chief Wickham and Joe followed me into the front room, and I stood back so they could see poor Madeline’s body.

  For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then I said, “I guess this looks pretty bad. I can explain…”

  CHAPTER 24

  Chief Wickham’s face turned purple, and I gulped as Joe strode over to me, clasped my shoulders and marched me out of the house.

  When we were safely outside, Joe asked urgently, “Did you touch anything?”

  “No,” I said, and then I remembered the cabinet that I’d stumbled into and put my hands all over. “Well, I may have touched a few things, like the door and the cabinet and I think I moved a vase back in place after I almost knocked it over…”

  Seeing the look of horror on Joe’s face, I quickly added, “But I didn’t touch the body.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies,” he muttered.

  His face was hard as he looked down at me. “I told you to stop investigating. The chief told you he would go and speak to Madeline when he got a chance. We checked out the information you gave him and found out you were right, Dr. Madeline Clarkson wasn’t qualified.”

  I nodded, feeling hopeful that being right would mean I’d get let off lightly. After all, I had provided them with the lead. If it hadn’t been for me, who knows when Madeline’s body would have been found.

  “Don’t look so smug, Harper,” Joe said sternly.

  Smug? I narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t smug.

  Bernie and Madeline zoomed out of the house to join us, although, of course, Joe couldn’t see them.

  “Oh, boy! Chief Wickham is livid. He looks like he’s about to blow a gasket.”

  I shot Bernie a look and barely resisted rolling my eyes. Honestly, did he really think that was what I needed to hear right now?

  Joe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Why couldn’t you wait for us? Why did you have to go poking around?”

  “I wasn’t poking around,” I said indignantly. “I was paying Madeline a visit.”

  “Really?” Joe folded his arms across his chest and smirked. “And why exactly were you paying her a visit?”

  He had me there. I couldn’t think of anything on the spot, so I said, “I was just being neighborly. There’s no law against that.”

  “Give me some credit, Harper. You’d just telephoned Chief Wickham to say that Bernie’s therapist had falsified her degree certificate. The chief asked you to stay away, and you decided that was the perfect time to pay a neighborly visit?”

  Well, if he was going to put it like that, I guess it didn’t sound very logical.

  “He’s got you there,” Bernie said. “You really could have come up with a better excuse than that, Harper.”

  I watched with horror as Madeline floated right in front of Joe, trying to get some reaction. She clearly hadn’t believed me when I told her nobody else in Abbott Cove would be able to see her.

  I closed my eyes as she ran her hand through his head. It was very disconcerting.

  “I need to get inside and help the chief. Stay here,” Joe ordered and then walked back inside the house.

  “I guess you are right, Harper. Deputy McGrady didn’t even blink when I put my face right up against his.”

  We were standing out in public, so I didn’t answer. The last thing I needed was for any neighbors, the chief or Joe to hear or see me talking to thin air. But Madeline didn’t pick up on that and thought I was being rude.

  “Harper? Did you hear me? Why are you ignoring me?”

  Thankfully, Bernie answered for me. “She can’t talk to you in public, Madeline. Think about it. Nobody else can see us, so she’d look like a crazy loon,” Bernie said matter-of-factly.

  Madeline nodded slowly. “Oh, I see. So what do we do now?”

  “Hopefully the chief and his deputy will discover some clues and apprehend your killer. I think whoever killed you was also responsible for my murder.”

  I stamped my feet and rubbed my hands together, trying to keep warm as I waited for Chief Wickham and Joe. It wasn’t long before residents started to notice something unusual was happening at Dr. Madeline’s house.

  Within minutes, a small crowd had gathered, and they all wanted me to fill them in. I was in a difficult position. I didn’t want to gossip and spread the news about the investigation, thereby making Chief Wickham and Joe even angrier, but at the same ti
me, the Abbot Cove gossip network was a force to be reckoned with.

  Betty from the Lobster Shack was acting as their spokesman today and was intent on pumping me for information. I really didn’t stand much of a chance.

  “You may as well tell us what’s happened, Harper. We’ll find out eventually.”

  That was true, I supposed.

  I stepped toward Betty. “I know, but I don’t want to make the chief any angrier than he already is.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him,” Betty said. “The chief is a pussycat.”

  I blinked a couple of times, not quite picturing Chief Wickham in the same way as Betty. But I was getting cold, and my resistance was failing.

  I sighed. “It’s Dr. Madeline. She’s been murdered.”

  Although I’d only whispered the words to Betty, a collective gasp ran through the small group and immediately a couple of people headed off to spread the news. It was a ghoulish reaction, and I shot a sympathetic glance at Madeline’s ghost.

  “Oh, dearie me,” Betty said. “How tragic. You just don’t expect it in a town like Abbott Cove. I mean, Bernie Crouch didn’t have many friends, but Dr. Madeline was very popular.”

  “Hey!” Bernie objected. “I hope you’re going to stick up for me, Harper. I was very popular.”

  But I had already decided that the less I said, the better. I had a feeling this was going to come back and bite me in the tail, and I had gotten into enough trouble today.

  “She was such a sweet lady,” Betty said. “Who would want to kill her?”

  I watched sadly as Madeline floated off to go and see what Joe and Chief Wickham were doing inside the house. Bernie followed her.

  “Dr. Madeline was always friendly and warm. She fitted into Abbott Cove well, even though she’d only recently moved here,” I said. “I can’t imagine who would have wanted to hurt her.”

  Betty nodded her agreement. “That’s true, but now that I come to think about it… As a counselor, she dealt with people’s secrets… Their deepest, darkest secrets.” Betty waggled her eyebrows, which was quite disconcerting.

  I had been going on the assumption that the person who had murdered Madeline had also murdered Bernie, but what if this was a separate crime? What if the motive for Madeline’s murder was a secret a client had confided in her during therapy sessions? This whole case had gotten a lot more complicated all of a sudden.

  I didn’t mention the false degree certificate. I felt sorry for Madeline. Although she had lied about her qualifications, I didn’t think she’d done so maliciously. She’d lost her life, and that was punishment enough.

  CHAPTER 25

  I stuck around until Chief Wickham was ready to question me. He and Joe asked me a ton of questions, but I got the impression they had no more idea who the killer was than I did.

  When I had asked Chief Wickham if he thought the same person who killed Bernie had also killed Dr. Madeline Clarkson, his face began to turn scarlet again, and I realized I had pushed my luck too far.

  It was going to take a while for Chief Wickham to forgive me for this.

  I’d had a pretty strong feeling when I’d agreed to go with Bernie to see Madeline that it could be a bad idea, but things had turned out much worse than I had expected.

  Once I had been dismissed by the chief and told in no uncertain terms to stop meddling, I passed through the crowd gathered outside Madeline’s house and headed toward the diner.

  Bernie and Madeline trailed after me. Both looked as miserable as I felt. The investigation seemed to have ground to a halt just when I thought we might be getting somewhere.

  “Where are we going?” Madeline asked.

  I felt mean when I didn’t reply, but I couldn’t risk it. There were too many people around today.

  Bernie answered for me, “I guess we’re going to the diner. Not much else we can do. I’ll introduce you to Loretta.”

  “Loretta? Who is that?”

  “She’s a ghost who lives at the diner,” Bernie said casually, obviously forgetting his own shock when he’d found out Loretta had haunted the diner in Abbott Cove for years.

  “Another ghost? How many of us are there? I had no idea that Abbott Cove was such a hive of paranormal activity.”

  “Well, there are only three of us, as far as I know. You can ask Harper about it later, but she can’t talk to you right now because—”

  “I know, I know,” Madeline said. “She can’t talk to us because there are people around.”

  Bernie and Madeline continued to chatter as they followed me down Main Street. I had to admit perhaps having two ghosts was easier than one. At least Bernie was able to explain things to Madeline, and that saved me trying to communicate with her in public.

  I wanted to ask Madeline again whether she had any theories about who could have killed her. Now that she had a little time to calm down after the trauma of seeing her own dead body, I thought her mind would be a little clearer.

  But when Bernie asked a question, suggesting one of her patients could be the culprit, Madeline gave a little huff under her breath and said, “I can’t possibly talk about my patients. Any secrets people shared with me during their counseling sessions will stay private.”

  Bernie took the sensible decision not to argue. He floated ahead of me and passed straight through the diner door. Madeline gave a little yelp in surprise. She didn’t try it herself, though, and waited for me to open the door before following me inside.

  The diner was quiet, and Archie was just wiping down the tables. He looked up as I entered. “Harper, you are early today!”

  I was early for my shift, but I hadn’t really felt like going home. I wanted to keep busy. Besides, if there were any new developments, I wanted to be first to hear about them, and being at the diner was the best chance I had of keeping up with the gossip.

  I quickly told Archie what had happened, and his face grew pale.

  He put a hand to his forehead and shook his head. “Poor Madeline. How awful. That’s the second murder in a week in Abbott Cove. I can’t believe it.”

  I knew how he felt. It was horrible to think that a murderer was lurking amongst the residents of our small town.

  I poured Archie a cup of coffee, and we sat down. He insisted I tell him everything about how I had discovered Madeline’s body, and I did my best to fill him in, but it felt strange to do so with Madeline’s ghost floating nearby and watching us.

  I wished Bernie would take her into the back room and introduce her to Loretta, but no matter how many times I tried to quietly signal to them when Archie wasn’t looking, Bernie seemed oblivious.

  When Sarah came back from her break, Archie immediately told her what had happened. Sarah was horrified, and I left them talking things over, telling them I was going to get my apron from the back room.

  Bernie finally got the hint and led Madeline into the back room just ahead of me.

  We found Loretta humming along to the radio. When we entered the room, she stopped abruptly and spun around to face us.

  “It’s polite to knock!” Loretta said, looking peeved.

  I gestured for Madeline to move closer so Loretta could see her.

  “Oh, Dr. Madeline,” Loretta said. “Whatever happened?”

  “Someone stabbed me,” Madeline said, now looking angry rather than sad. “In my own home, can you believe that?”

  Loretta shook her head sympathetically. Loretta was normally cautious of ghosts she referred to as newbies. The first two ghosts I had been involved with in Abbott Cove, Elizabeth Naggington and Yvonne, the yoga instructor, hadn’t exactly gotten along well with Loretta. But she’d warmed to Bernie, somewhat — at least, she had until she realized what a ladies’ man he was. I watched her reaction to Madeline closely.

  “We are not certain, but we think the person who killed Madeline may be the same person who killed Bernie,” I said. “I hoped you might be able to give Madeline a crash course on what it’s like to be a ghost.”

  L
oretta nodded. “Of course, that won’t be a problem. It must have been quite a shock, dear.” She smiled at Madeline. “I can still remember my first day as a ghost. It was quite disturbing. People adapt differently. Bernie has taken to it like a duck to water.”

  “That’s really very kind of you,” Madeline said. “I do have a lot of questions.”

  “Of course you do, dear, but before we get to them, I have something to ask you. You’re a doctor so you might know the answer to something that has been bothering me for years. I’ve been wondering…when I get a shiver every now and then, does that really mean that somebody is walking over my grave?”

  Madeline shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. I have no idea.”

  Bernie cackled with laughter. “I bet you thought you would get away without being bothered by all the hypochondriacs now that you’re a ghost. I bet you got sick of people asking you about their aches and pains and their ailments.”

  Loretta tilted her chin in the air. “There’s no need to be rude. I was asking the doctor for her opinion. No one asked you, Bernie Crouch!”

  Madeline tried to smooth things over. “That’s not really my field of expertise.”

  As I listened to Loretta and Bernie bicker, it occurred to me that I didn’t know where Loretta was buried or the year she died. The only thing I knew was that she had to have died a long time ago, considering the clothes she wore — a frilly blouse and bustle skirt.

  I lifted my apron from the hook and began to fasten it at my waist.

  “Do you have any idea who is behind these murders?” Loretta asked.

  I sighed. I really wasn’t any further along than I had been at the start.

  “I still think the most likely candidate is Boris Barrymore, but there’s no evidence.”

  “Why would he want to kill me? I never did anything to upset him,” Madeline protested.

  “And the bad blood between us was a long time ago,” Bernie added.

  “So, Boris wasn’t one of your patients?” I asked Madeline.

  She shook her head. “I barely had anything to do with the man. I think I probably only spoke a couple of words to him the whole time I’ve been in Abbott Cove.”