by Kylie Logan
“I was supposed to be . . .” Chandra heaved a breath. “Noreen thought . . .” She pulled at her hair. “Noreen wanted me to pose as Sleepy Harlow. You know, so she could get a video of the ghost.”
I wasn’t surprised by the subterfuge. After all, I knew Noreen was planning something. The bit of video Hank found proved that. What did amaze me was Noreen’s choice of a coconspirator. “Why?” I asked Chandra.
She spent a few seconds breathing hard, steeling herself to tell us the story. “It started last year,” she finally admitted. “When the ghost hunters were here on the island. Noreen approached me. She said she wanted me to do something for her. Something that would help her establish herself as a leader in the paranormal community.”
“You were the ghost in that video?” I stared at Chandra in stunned amazement. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I thought . . . Okay, I admit it, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but Noreen, she told me that if she could just get some kind of evidence, then she’d get her TV show, and once she had her TV show, she’d have more money to investigate and more equipment and more backup. And she said once that happened, then she could find the real Sleepy because she said she believed Sleepy’s ghost really is on the island, just like I believe. And she convinced me that’s what she was really looking for, and if only I’d help . . . just that one time . . . if only I’d help, then she’d get all the resources she needed and then she’d really be able to find Sleepy’s ghost.”
I thought back to that snippet of video. “Then this year when she came back, she asked you to do it again.” Chandra’s fresh tears told me all I needed to know. “You refused. That’s what you two were fighting about.”
Chandra’s jaw dropped. I promised myself I’d explain it all to her later. For now, there were more important things to worry about. “When you told her no—”
“I realized she never really wanted to find Sleepy. Not the real Sleepy. All Noreen wanted was to get famous. That’s why I said no, Bea. I met her in the storeroom, just like I said I would, and that’s when I told her I wasn’t going to do it. That’s when I lost my earring, too.” Chandra tucked the little witch hat in her pocket. “I thought for sure if Hank found it, he’d figure out I was there and he’d think I was the killer. I was so worried, I didn’t know what to do. He’d ask me if I was angry at Noreen, and I’d have to admit I was. She lied to her investigation team. She lied to the public. But I . . . I swear I didn’t kill her.”
“No, but someone else sure did.” Again, I thought about that video. “She convinced someone else to play Sleepy that night,” I told both Chandra and Kate. “And that someone is the murderer.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.” Chandra’s shoulders shot back.
“And it wasn’t me.” Kate sat up a little straighter.
“And it wasn’t Jacklyn or Dimitri,” I grumbled.
That left me right back where I started from.
* * *
“Watch out for snakes!”
I was about to hop off the Miss Luella, and I froze, one hand on the railing, the other one flying automatically to my heart. Yeah, like that might actually stop the sudden, loud clattering from inside my chest.
“Snakes.” As if I hadn’t heard her—believe me, I had, which would explain why my knees were knocking together like maracas—Luella came up beside me and pointed toward the shoreline. “They like to hide in the rocks,” she said. “There. There. There.” Her finger arced over the rocky outcropping where I was determined to go ashore. Now that she’d pointed them out, they were easy to see, Lake Erie water snakes (lews, some of the islanders call them), sunning their fat gray bodies in what little warmth the afternoon sun provided. “You’ll probably run into a whole bunch of ’em. Not to worry.” Luella clapped a hand to my shoulder. “They bite, but they’re not poisonous.”
A wave licked the side of the Miss Luella, pitching it toward the spit of land where I intended to disembark, and the resulting ripples splashed the rocks. The water swished perilously close to one of the snakes, and it raised its head, opened its beady eyes and gave us what I could only call an indignant look before it slithered away.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Luella asked.
I was.
Or at least I had been.
Before I saw the snakes.
Though I tried not to, it was impossible to keep my gaze off the remaining two reptiles. They were maybe three feet long and plenty plump, and the one closest to the boat—closest to where I’d have to step ashore—had a fat white belly.
I swallowed hard. “I need to do this.”
Luella knew better than to argue, but she was, after all, a woman of a certain age, and if experience had taught me nothing else, it was that women of that certain age feel free to speak their minds. It was one of the things I admired about them. Except when I was the one on the other end of what they had to say.
“You could have asked Levi to come along. You know, for backup. I know, I know . . . you can take care of yourself. So can I. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the seventy-some years I’ve been around, it’s that it never hurts to have a guy around when it comes to things like snakes.”
“I could have asked him.” Though I wasn’t anywhere near that certain age, I was never shy about speaking my mind, either. “But I don’t want him here.”
“He might not be afraid of snakes.”
“I might not be, either,” I said, because it was kinder than pointing out that no matter his assets (and there were many), Levi was, in fact, afraid of birds. Could snakes be far behind?
Along with jeans, a sweatshirt, and a thick jacket, I’d worn a pair of sturdy hiking boots, and I pointed down at them. “I’ll be fine,” I assured Luella. “With any luck, I’ll be all the way over to Wilder’s in just a few minutes.”
“Uh huh.” I pretended not to hear the skepticism in Luella’s voice. She swiveled her head to the right and squinted. As a lifelong islander she knew what I knew—Wilder’s was a little more than a mile away. Even on flat land, it would take me more than a few minutes to get there. “Why?” she asked.
I knew she would ask, and she had every right. After all, I had begged this favor of Luella: a few minutes on the Miss Luella to get to the beach close to where island natives claimed there were hidden caves. She had a group of fishermen waiting for her back at the dock, and I had no business wasting her time.
“Marianne consulted the harbor master’s records pertaining to one of the trips Sleepy took to Middle Island. According to what she found, it took him two hours to get back here from there.”
She turned to peer north. “Impossible. Unless he rowed across the lake! It’s only seven miles.”
“Exactly. I just wonder what else he might have been up to.”
One of Luella’s silvery brows slid up. “And that matters because it’s important to that book you’re trying to rewrite.”
Luella had, after all, been at the B and B the morning Jerry Garcia paid a visit and ruined the manuscript. She knew exactly what I was up to.
“I guess I’m just curious,” I admitted.
She pursed her lips. “Sleepy might have stopped at Middle Bass or North Bass,” she said, indicating the two nearby smaller and less-developed islands we could see not far offshore of South Bass.
“He might.” I’d already thought of that, too. “But if there’s any truth to the story, he might have had a secret spot where he offloaded his liquor.”
Luella waved a hand. “And you think it might be around here somewhere.”
“I looked over maps of the island last night. Lots and lots of maps. I talked to the old-timers who hang out at the café. This spot makes the most sense. Sleepy could have come from Middle Island, stowed the liquor, then gone to the harbor and docked his boat there. That would explain the missing two hours.”
“But what happened in those missing two hours more than eighty years ago doesn’t really matter, does it? You don’t care about
this just because of Sleepy.”
I wasn’t surprised that Luella saw right through me. Chandra never would have. Chandra takes everyone and everything at face value and believes people are, at heart, good and honest. Kate, of course, wouldn’t have waited this long to ask me what I was really up to. But then, Kate’s as no-nonsense as anyone I’ve ever met. These days, she was also worried, silent, and disconnected from the friends who desperately wanted to help her.
Luella was more subtle. But no less practical.
I laid it on the line. “Kate was at the winery waiting for Noreen the night Noreen was killed. But Kate didn’t see her come in on any of the cameras. That means Noreen found another way in, and I wondered if it was through the series of caves that are supposed to be around here. Chandra confirmed it. She and Noreen got in through the caves.”
“You think that’s how the killer got in, too.”
“Either they were together, or the killer followed Noreen. Noreen knew the killer was coming. She was waiting for him so they could film that phony ghost scene together.”
“And that person wasn’t Kate.”
I puffed out a long breath of frustration. I’d told Luella all about what had happened with Chandra at the winery earlier in the day, so I didn’t need to catch her up on that part of my thinking. “You know it wasn’t Kate, Luella. And you know it wasn’t Chandra. So do I. I thought if I could go in through the caves the way Noreen and Chandra did—the way Noreen and her killer might have—I thought maybe I’ll see something or find something or . . .” I squeezed my hands into fists and grumbled with frustration. “Or I don’t know what! But I know I have to do something.”
“And what if you run into ol’ Sleepy down there?”
“You think I should be more afraid of the ghost than I am of the snakes?” I asked Luella.
“I think you should be careful.”
I assured her I would be, and that I’d be perfectly safe, too. I had experience as a caver, if only a casual one, and I wasn’t dumb. I had a personal GPS tracking device on me, as well as a lantern, flashlight, and a first aid kit in the backpack slung over my shoulder. Before she could convince me that it wasn’t the best idea in the world and that maybe I should reconsider, I hauled myself over the side of the Miss Luella and hopped onto the nearest large, flat rock. The snake that had been basking there in the sun did not appreciate the interruption. It reared, hissed, and—thank goodness—decided I wasn’t worth the effort. The last I saw of it, it was slithering over to another, smaller rock where there was just as much sun and less human interference.
One snake down, and who knew how many hundreds more to go.
Before the heebie-jeebies got the better of me, I turned to signal to Luella that it was all right for her to leave. I watched the boat head west toward the harbor and felt suddenly like a shipwrecked sailor marooned in the middle of nowhere.
“Ridiculous!” I reminded myself in a voice loud enough to annoy that third snake lounging nearby. It gave me a snaky little glare, settled down, and went right back to sleep. I was as ready as I’d ever be, and besides, I had no choice but to move forward. Now that the Miss Luella was long gone, I could stay exactly where I was and accomplish nothing at all, or start out along the beach. I was twenty yards from where I’d hopped off Luella’s boat when I finally found a dark, damp entrance tucked into the hillside.
“Like you expected a cave to be anything else?” I reminded myself.
I got out the flashlight and the battery-operated lantern and, thus armed, I edged into the cave. I’d gone no more than ten feet when I met a solid stone wall. So not what I’d been hoping for! I arced the beam of the flashlight left and right and relief washed over me. There was another opening not far away.
I splashed my way through nasty-smelling puddles and stood in openmouthed awe in a cavern with a high ceiling where stalagmites (or were they stalactites?) hung in suspended animation like stone icicles.
A noise from the coal-black darkness behind me sent me spinning around.
A footstep. I swear it was a footstep.
I glided the beam of my flashlight around the cavern, fighting to block out the noise of my own suddenly frantically beating heart.
Silence pressed on my ears, disturbed only now and again by the ping of dripping water.
Nothing else. No footsteps.
I told myself to get a grip and kept right on walking, and was rewarded for it when I finally saw a crude wooden door positioned in the rock wall in front of me.
I set down my lantern so I could use both hands to give the doorknob a tug. That’s when I heard another noise from the darkness behind: the sharp slap of a footfall against stone.
“Hey! Another cave explorer! I’ve got lanterns and flashlights,” I called out, forcing myself to sound like discovering someone else down there in the dark was actually a good thing. “Come on and join me and let’s see where this passage leads.”
Brave words.
Or at least they would have been if the dull echo of my own voice didn’t fall dead in the musty silence.
Like it or not, my mind flashed to Crown Hill Cemetery and that disturbing bit of shadow that had played hide-and-seek with us.
That is, right before it flashed to that long-unused storage room where I’d found Noreen’s body.
Panic manifested itself in my suddenly damp palms. I grabbed the doorknob in shaky fingers, but the wood around it was wet and rotted. When I pulled, the knob came off in my hand. I tossed the old knob on the ground, stuck a hand through the opening left by the missing doorknob, braced my fingers against the far side of the door, and pulled.
The door whooshed open and a sickening, rotted smell filled my nose. I found myself in a room walled with bricks laid in a basket-weave pattern, just like the room in which I’d found Noreen and the battered plasmometer, and I forced myself to visualize what these rooms had been like back in the day when both Grandma Carrie and Sleepy Harlow had lived on the island. The winery had used this room and others like it for storage, but I could also see why they had been eventually abandoned. This close to the shoreline, mold stained the walls in long black streaks, and water pooled on the floor. If I bent an ear and listened very carefully, I could hear the sound of the lake just on the other side of the wall. There were rotted wooden shelves here, too, just like there were in the room where I’d found Noreen, and there was something on one of those shelves.
I froze, the beam of my flashlight trained on an old wooden box.
“Treasure chest?”
Even to my own ears, the words sounded ridiculous. But the siren call of them was impossible to resist. I carefully stepped around a wide, deep hole that must somehow have been directly connected to the lake; the water in it swished back and forth.
Like there was some primordial creature breathing in there.
I slapped the thought aside, grabbed on to the box, and flipped open the top.
There was a layer of fabric inside, and I carefully unwrapped it and found a stack of letters wrapped with ribbon, along with something else—something that winked and flashed in the beam of my flashlight.
I was so busy reaching inside to see what it might be, I didn’t realize that I felt a change in the air and by the time I did, it was already too late. A cold gust of musty air crawled over my neck and down the back of my jacket, and I spun around.
I barely had time to react before something hard whacked me in the side of my head.
My arms flew out to my sides and my knees locked. Right before stars burst behind my eyes and I crumbled onto the wet stone floor, my flashlight beam arced across the room, and for one terrifying moment, I caught sight of my attacker.
There was no mistaking the black, gaping hole where his head should have been.
19
Cold water tickled my nose.
Somewhere inside my thumping head, I knew this was a bad thing, and automatically, I lifted a hand that felt as if it were made of cast iron to brush the water away.<
br />
Just as I had hoped, the slimy water retreated. For like half a second. Then it washed back at me. I gasped, and it rushed into my mouth.
I choked, and spit and gagged. I sat up like a shot, and when my eyes flew open, I found myself in total, impenetrable darkness.
My heart raced, and panic didn’t just lick at the edges of my composure—it tore it away completely with sharp-edged teeth. My jeans were soaked. My hair was wet. My head felt like a split coconut.
For I don’t know how long, it was all I could do to keep from falling back down onto the wet floor and curling into a fetal position. That is, until consciousness rose like the quickly climbing water. Or maybe it was that chilly, foul-smelling water itself that made me shake myself back to reality. With what felt like a kick from a mule, I remembered that I’d been attacked, and the quick glimpse I’d had of the man without the head.
At least his didn’t hurt like hell.
Not funny, I told myself.
This was no time to be funny.
The water inched up to my ankles and I remembered the hole I’d seen in the floor, the one I’d guessed was directly connected to the lake. Looks like I was right. There are no tides on the Great Lakes, not like there are in oceans, but there are what are called seiches.
“Saysh.” Slowly and carefully, my tongue too thick and my throat too dry, I pronounced the word the way I’d heard islanders say it, and thought about how they’d explained it: When wind pushes down on one part of a lake, water in other parts automatically rises. It made sense. Even to a physics-challenged person like me. Those waves undulate back and forth, back and forth, like water in a bathtub. Seiches can affect the lake for days after the kinds of strong storms we’d had earlier in the week. I’m no scientist, never have been, but I knew the seiche was making the water rise out of that hole and fill the cavern where I’d been lying unconscious since being attacked.
“You’ve got to get out of here, Bea,” I told myself. Good plan. Too bad the voice that echoed back at me from the darkness didn’t sound anywhere near as brave as I’d hoped it would.
