by Krista Davis
Mars didn’t let me get away with avoiding him. He paraded up to the kitchen island and plucked a piece of sausage from the pan, making sure he caught my attention.
When the door knocker sounded, I dropped my paring knife, glad for the opportunity to escape to the foyer. Expecting to see Natasha, I whipped the door open, only to find Officer Wong on my doorstep.
“Wong! Come on in. How about a cup of coffee?”
She followed me to the kitchen. “I’d love a cup of java. It’s been a long morning already. I’m here on official business, though.” Wong gazed from Humphrey to Mars to me. “Guess I should have worn my PJs. What is this? Some kind of adult slumber party?”
“We’re sleeping over to protect Sophie from the killer.” Humphrey poured a cup of coffee for Wong and handed it to her. “Sausage?” He pointed at the skillet.
“Don’t mind if I do. You have good friends, Sophie.”
“What’s the official business? Have I been accused of stealing a baby again?” I sipped my coffee.
“Nope. This time you’ve been accused of stealing a husband.”
I choked. Literally choked. Mars patted me on the back as my eyes watered, and I gasped for air. Had Natasha figured out that Mars was interested in me? “I haven’t stolen anyone . . .” I wiped my eyes and glared at Mars.
TWENTY-FOUR
Dear Natasha,
We’re having a Halloween party and we’ve been poring over magazines for outdoor decorating ideas, but nothing seems original enough. What could we do that’s different?
—Going Batty in Transylvania, Louisiana
Dear Going Batty,
Cut bat shapes out of sturdy cardboard and cover with black plastic garbage bags, leaving extra for a flutter effect at the wings. Use glue to secure the plastic. Place two holes in each bat body and string fishing line through the bats, knotting them in place. If you want them to flash at night, outline or paint them with glow-in-the-dark paint. Attach the top of the fishing line to your gutter and the bottom to a heavy brick or block. When the breeze blows, your bats will come alive!
—Natasha
“Yeaaah.” Wong sounded bored and didn’t seem to equate my choking episode with guilt. “That’s what I figured, but they sent me over here to have a look around.”
Mars was standing in front of her. Since when did the police get involved in affairs anyway? “They?” I coughed and swallowed coffee in tiny sips to settle my throat.
“His wife called when he didn’t come home last night. Normally we wouldn’t react this way to a missing husband, but with the killer on the loose and attacking people, we’re checking it out. He’s probably shacked up with some honey.” Wong smiled at me. “I told them it wasn’t you, but they wanted me to come over and have a look around.”
Mars held up his hands. “No searching anything without a warrant.”
Wong’s mouth swung to the left in annoyance. “That’s probably good advice most of the time, but his wife is pressing us to get a search warrant for your house.”
It felt like my world had spun out of control. “Who? For heaven’s sake, who are you talking about?”
Wong blinked at me. “Frank Hart.”
“Ohhh.” I fell backward into one of the fireside chairs. “What a relief.” I waved a hand at her. “That I know about.” I pointed at Mars. “Mars was with me and can back me up. Frank is having an affair with Maggie.”
Wong’s brow furrowed. “Patrick’s Maggie?”
“The very same.”
“Jumpin’ jiminey! Does Wolf know about this? If their affair started before Patrick was killed, then there’s a good chance Frank is the killer.”
Mars squinted at her. “Jumping jiminey?”
“Have you got a problem with that?” Wong eyed him with cop intensity.
“No. Nooooo.”
“Wolf knows.” I was breathing normally again. And I knew something about myself. I was not cut out for having an affair. Not that I would have anyway for the basic moral reasons, but I could barely live with the guilt of a kiss from a man who used to be my husband and technically wasn’t married. Nope, nope, nope. Not even a chance of that.
“Mind if I have a look around, just to quell everyone’s fears?” Wong gestured toward the family room.
“Go ahead. Nina is asleep on the second floor, and Bernie and the girls are sleeping in bedrooms on the third floor.”
“Sophie! That’s extremely unwise.”
“Mars, I have nothing to hide. Frankly, I’d rather have Wong or Wolf take a stroll through the house than have some overly eager team come in here and turn my house upside down. Besides, if Frank is really missing, I don’t want them wasting their time thinking I’m hiding him here.”
I flicked my fingers at Wong, motioning at her to go ahead. The oven timer trilled, and I pulled the cakes from the oven and set them on racks to cool. With any luck, I would have a chance to whip up the frosting and ice them before the birthday girl bounded down the stairs.
“I thought they needed some kind of evidence to get a search warrant. You know, a good reason to believe that they’ll find what they’re looking for,” mused Humphrey. “Wonder what they have on you?”
“Nothing!” How could he even think that?
“It’s probably a bluff.” Mars poured more coffee for me, and added sugar and cream, just the way I liked it. “Wonder what happens when it turns out he was at Maggie’s? Do the cops tell Frank’s wife and the jig is up?”
“I suspect the jig was up when he didn’t come home last night—with or without cops involved.” I took my mug from him. “Thanks for fixing my coffee.
Wong ambled into the kitchen from the foyer. “This is a really cool house. Nina says to tell you she’ll be down shortly.”
“I gather you didn’t find Frank Hart hiding in a closet?” I sipped my coffee, a little bit aggravated that, after all these years, Mars remembered how I took it and had gotten it right.
“Not even one rattling skeleton.” She sniffed the air. “It smells great in here. My mouth is watering.” She cast a wistful look at the cakes cooling on the counter. “Gotta go. Duty calls.”
Mars saw her to the door, and I turned out the cakes and cut them.
Humphrey looked over my shoulder. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
I offered him a piece of cake that I had trimmed. “I hope you’ll see in a minute.” I cut the sheet cakes into mirror images of each other, placed them on a long rectangular cake board, and wedged the small round cake between them, but a little bit low.
While Humphrey and Mars studied my creation and guessed what it might be, I covered the cake with a thin layer of raspberry buttercream, flavored with Chambord raspberry liqueur. It wasn’t until I began to pipe a rich dark chocolate frosting onto the cake that they exclaimed, “It’s a bat!”
Jen and Vegas bounded into the kitchen full of energy, just as I slid the cake into the refrigerator. Jen twirled around. “I’m thirteen! Do I look more mature?”
Her purple pajamas featured black Halloween cats and laughing bats, which made Jen look more like a seven-year-old, but we all assured her that she had miraculously turned into a sophisticated teenager overnight.
I checked the time. Jen’s mother, the micromanager who’d had trouble leaving her daughter on her birthday, had provided instructions for the entire day. In fifteen minutes Jen’s parents would be calling. I hustled to the closet where I’d hidden her birthday gifts and brought them into the kitchen singing “Happy Birthday.”
Jen had just ripped open a fancy box when the phone rang. “It’s the watch I wanted!”
I handed her the telephone so she could talk to her parents.
After breakfast, the girls changed clothes, and Mrs. Ferguson, the mother of Jen’s other best friend, Lilly, arrived to take the girls on a day of shopping, mani-pedis, and lunch at Tysons Corner—all prearranged by Jen’s mom and dad.
Humphrey and Bernie left, and Nina, with a sly grin that I
didn’t like one bit, went home to shower and change, leaving me with Mars.
We tidied the kitchen, and although there wasn’t a reason in the world for me to be uncomfortable, I was. Not to mention that I had a little snooping in mind and wanted to get away from Mars for a while to sleuth. When a tap came at the kitchen door and Bernie returned, I flew to open the door and kissed him on the cheek.
“Mars, would you be a sweetheart and take Daisy out for a walk?” I handed him her leash.
For one horrible second, I thought he might kiss me when he took the leash from my hand. I ducked and kissed the top of Daisy’s head to avoid him.
As soon as he left, I grabbed Bernie by the forearms. “I’m begging you, please tell Mars that you’ll walk me to town. You don’t have to stay with me.”
“But what about the killer?”
“It’s broad daylight! What’s he going to do? Jump me in front of a gazillion people on King Street?”
Bernie pulled me into a hug. “Promise you’ll stay out of danger.”
I high-fived him. “Thank you!” I hurried upstairs to shower and change into black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with three delicate sequin pumpkins on the front. I wanted to be ready to fly out the door.
Mars accepted Bernie’s proposal, not surprising since I suspected Mars was itching to go home and change out of his jammies. For safety’s sake, and for fun, I took Daisy with me on my little excursion. True to his word, Bernie turned off at his restaurant, The Laughing Hound, leaving me blissfully alone for the first time in days. Daisy pranced among costumed people on the sidewalk, apparently undisturbed by their odd attire and masks.
We headed in the direction of the haunted house because I wanted to have a word with Ray. If Leon could be believed, Ray knew quite a bit about Patrick. I didn’t imagine that the looney old guy could be the killer, though. Somehow, he just didn’t seem the type to bite someone’s neck.
The bell at the door of Le Parisien Antiques clanked softly when we entered. I hoped Ray wouldn’t mind a dog in his shop. After all, Daisy couldn’t exactly make a bigger mess of the place. We wound our way to the middle of the store where the cash register sat on a counter. “Ray?” I looked around but didn’t see anyone.
In the dim light, it appeared that the door leading upstairs to his living quarters stood ajar. Maybe he’d gone up for a minute. I wandered through strange collections of old yard statues, weather-beaten fence gates, and the occasional piece of vintage furniture—to the door. I knocked on it. “Ray?”
A second later I heard giggling. “Oh, Ray!” A woman’s voice. It seemed vaguely familiar. Feeling enormously guilty, I waited for her to say something else so I could identify her.
When no more words burbled forth in the next few seconds, shame overcame me. What did I think I was doing? I came to talk to Ray, not to uncover the identity of his lady friend. That was none of my business!
I steered Daisy away from the door, wondering what kind of woman would find crusty old Ray attractive. All I wanted to do was leave, get out of there before Ray and his friend discovered us. I could feel my face flushing at the thought of it.
Daisy had other ideas. She plunged through a graveyard of old sinks and stuck her nose under a drop cloth that looked like it might have been a tent once. Just what I needed. I tugged at her, but she had hold of something. “Drop! Drop, Daisy!” She knew the command but didn’t comply. Imagining how filthy it might be, I lifted the cloth. Daisy had discovered a set of deer antlers.
“For heaven’s sake, Daisy—let go already,” I hissed.
If dogs could sigh, I think she did. I turned in a rush to leave the store, but in a flicker of ominous recognition, I shifted back around. Ray had mounted another set of antlers on the wall, and there, neatly draped on a clothes hanger, a vampire cape, complete with stand-up collar, dangled in the air.
Blake thought Ray killed Patrick, but I hadn’t taken him seriously. The expansive space loomed around me, dark and sinister. A corpse could disappear in there far too easily. “C’mon, Daisy!” We jumped over sinks and boxes of old paperbacks in our eagerness to reach the door. I flung it open and we raced outside into the cool, crisp air of fall, where everything seemed heavenly mundane. Daisy looked up at me, wagging her tail as if she wanted to run that obstacle course again.
I rubbed under her chin. “How about a nice, boring ride to the grocery store?”
After I unloaded groceries, I made myself a turkey sandwich with mayo and a touch of raspberry jam, wistfully looking forward to Thanksgiving and cranberry sauce. Daisy and Mochie shared my turkey lunch. While we ate, I boiled potatoes for Ghost Potatoes to serve at the Halloween potluck that night, glad I could mash them in advance.
With the potatoes stashed in the refrigerator, I collected the bags of candy I’d bought to replenish our diminished stash at the haunted house. The unexpected response to the haunted house had resulted in a depletion of our caramel apples. Visitors would have to make do with little totes of candy.
Daisy and I walked back to the haunted house to meet Bernie and Humphrey, with Detective Kenner following us at a distance. I waited for him at the front door of the haunted house. He crossed the street and pretended he didn’t see me. “Hey, Kenner! Want to come in?”
He couldn’t have looked more surprised if I’d confessed undying love. He gave me a little wave and disappeared into a shop. I hoped I’d embarrassed him enough to make him stop tailing me.
Humphrey set up orange and black bags on the table in the lair like little soldiers, while Bernie and I ripped open sacks of candy and chocolate bars and started filling the bags.
“Do you hear that?” Humphrey gazed upward.
“It’s a haunted house, silly.” I dropped miniature chocolate bars into the bags. “There are supposed to be eerie noises.”
“Everyone stop speaking. I hear it, too. So does Daisy.” Bernie held up his palm to quiet us.
A faint scrabbling came from the second floor. Wordlessly, we followed Bernie up the stairs.
“Did we leave this door closed?” He pointed to Viktor Luca’s room.
“One of the kids might have.” I mentally kicked myself for not touring the entire house every night before we left.
Bernie’s eyes met mine. He wasted no time opening the door.
Cool air and a breeze hit us immediately. “The window is open again. How does that happen every night?” I walked over and pushed the curtains aside to examine it. “Just an old double-hung window.”
The scrabbling noise came again, and a squirrel jumped from the roof to a tree in the backyard.
“One mystery solved,” Humphrey quipped.
“We’re lucky it didn’t come in through the open window.” Bernie’s eyes met mine, and I suspected we were thinking the same thing.
Bernie laughed. “I bet that little scamp has been getting inside the house. He’s probably the one making the noises that scared Frank and the kids. I hope he doesn’t have a nest or a family inside the house.” Bernie opened the closet door.
Fortunately, it was empty—no sign of a squirrel home. He started to close it when I thought I saw a tiny glimmer. “Wait a sec.” I walked into the closet, just wide and deep enough for one person. Bending down, I peered at the old wood floor and almost missed the little glint. I couldn’t get a good hold on it. It seemed to be stuck under the wall. “I need something very thin to pry with.”
Bernie immediately produced a Swiss Army knife. He leaned over me. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s probably an old gum wrapper wedged in a crevice.” I worked the knife next to the object and wiggled it gently. A tiny bit slid forward. “It looks like a chain. Like jewelry.”
Bernie tried so hard to see it that he nearly tumbled on top of me. And suddenly, soundlessly, the back wall of the closet opened like a door.
TWENTY-FIVE
Dear Sophie,
It’s my year to throw a party for the kids on the block. They range in age, and I can�
��t imagine how we’re going to entertain them.
—Black Widow in Spiderweb, South Carolina
Dear Black Widow,
Get them out of your house and let them run through the neighborhood! Arrange with the other moms and dads to provide spooky items for a scavenger hunt. Divide them into two or three age groups so the little ones have a chance, too.
—Sophie
“What’s going on?” Humphrey asked.
Bernie and I shushed him.
I stood up, and for one long minute, Bernie and I stared into a chaotic storeroom. A rolltop desk and leather office chair in a corner appeared to serve as a home office. We crept out, and I tiptoed to the window. A perfect view of the graveyard in the back of the haunted house!
Humphrey whispered, “Where are we? I feel like I went through a time-warp portal.”
“This has to be the apartment over top of Le Parisien Antiques.” I crossed the room and peeked out the door into a hallway.
“Has to be,” said Bernie. “Plus it reeks of smoke.”
I motioned to them. “Get a load of this!” I tiptoed into the hallway. At the top of the stairs was a built-in bookcase with an arched top. Nearly identical to the one in the haunted house.
We clustered before it and Bernie stifled a laugh. “That explains the bouncing red ball! I’ve heard about these things. Most of them have been closed up by now, but they hark back to Prohibition. When the authorities came, they would pass the liquor over to their neighbor to hide. I bet this has a hidden door that opens. In some towns, you could walk an entire block through hidden doors of houses with shared walls.”
“We’re going to get caught!” I detected a tinge of panic in Humphrey’s tone.
We skittered back to the closet. “So Ray is behind all this,” I said. “He must have been the masked man Natasha saw in the casket. What a rascal! He’s had a grand time scaring everyone. Instead of confronting him, we should use the door to play a trick on him!”
