Blue Moon: Mundy's Landing Book Two

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  The windows are wide open on this warm night, and her voice floats through the screen.

  “How about sprinkles?” she asks. “Do you think you guys have any of those?”

  Holmes sees that she’s leaning against the counter holding a cell phone, rapidly typing on it with her thumbs while talking to a young boy. He’s standing on a wobbly-looking chair rummaging through a cupboard.

  “Hey, I found sprinkles! What else?”

  “Is there any of that marshmallow cream stuff? I love that.”

  “Nope. There’s nuts, if you like nuts. Sometimes my dad puts them on ice cream.”

  “I hate nuts.”

  “Me too!” the kid says, as though it’s a remarkable coincidence when, in fact, Holmes also hates nuts, just like Catherine.

  Where, he wonders, is his nickel? It isn’t in his pocket.

  That’s a bad sign.

  Inside, the boy asks, “What else can we put on our sundaes?”

  “Um, what do we have so far?” The girl’s gaze doesn’t waver from her phone. Holmes will have to rid her of it the moment he gets his hands on her.

  Maybe the nickel doesn’t matter right now. Things are going so well without it.

  “We have ice cream, sprinkles, cereal, and maple syrup,” the boy is saying. “I wish it was chocolate syrup.”

  He’s whiny, Holmes decides.

  “It’s better than nothing, right?”

  “I guess. I just hope it doesn’t make us sick.”

  “Why would it make us sick?”

  “Because it’s kind of weird, and sometimes weird food makes people sick.”

  “I never get sick.”

  “That’s good, because my real babysitter got strep throat.”

  “Well now I’m your real babysitter.”

  “Except I heard you telling your mom that you didn’t want to be.”

  At last, Catherine looks up from her phone. “No,” she agrees, “but I’m glad I am. You’re a good kid, Oliver. A lot better than my brother.”

  “I miss him. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah. But don’t tell anyone, okay?” she adds, scooping ice cream into a pair of bowls. “Especially him. And my mom.”

  For a moment, there’s companionable silence.

  Then the little instigator asks, “Why do you hate her?”

  “My mom?” Holmes can’t see Catherine’s face, but he admires the way her hair sways on her back as she shakes her head. “She’s the one who hates me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Have you heard the way she talks to me? She never says anything nice to me.”

  “Nope,” the kid agrees. “If my mom hated me, I’d probably cry, like, all the time.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do.”

  Holmes sincerely hopes that isn’t the case, and he’ll bet Indigo Edmonds would agree. Then again, she was pretty shaken up when she realized the other crybaby was dead. Even more upset than Holmes himself.

  After his initial shock and dismay, he realized that it was no great loss. Not when there’s another, better Catherine waiting to take her place.

  She’s perfect, he decides, admiring her long blond hair and tiny build. Better, even, than the other Kathryn. She was such a baby, always fussing. It’s better this way.

  He has no way to dispose of her without taking chances, so he left her to rot. As he ascended the ladder, her cellmate—who has, until now, been a pillar of strength—finally lost her cool. And, perhaps, her mind.

  Even now, he can hear Indigo Edmonds’s howling shrieks.

  “Don’t worry,” he called down to her before he slammed the trapdoor. “It will only be a couple more days. You’re the one who really matters. And you’re next.”

  Driving around the corner onto State Street in her Honda, Deb Pelham is relieved to see that there’s no sign of a traffic jam and police blockade at the intersection with Prospect. Even better, the crowd in front of number 65 is considerably smaller than it was last night.

  Thank goodness.

  Deb uses the remote to release the electronic gate as she drives down the block. The moment it begins to slide open, the onlookers turn and spot her. She ignores their stares and shouted questions as she pulls into the driveway, just as she did last night.

  “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Do you live here?”

  “Can I come inside?”

  Yeah, sure. She’ll just turn around and invite the whole gang to join her for a party in the Murder House.

  As she reaches to disarm the alarm, she remembers what happened last night. A police officer immediately materialized to question her as she stepped out the front door, asking who she was and what she was doing there.

  As soon as she explained and showed her ID, the cop relaxed and smiled at her. “The Yamazakis told us you’d be coming, Ms. Pelham. But we can’t be too careful. Burglar alarms have been going off all over The Heights lately.”

  In light of that news, it’s hardly surprising to hear about the break-in across the street.

  The alarm, Deb notices, is already disarmed. Did she forget to reset it after she left last night?

  Probably. She was thrown off as soon as she saw the cop, and in a hurry to get away from the Mundypalooza crazies and—speaking of crazies—go meet her friends.

  Nursing her hangover all day, she’s been looking forward to some solitude in a quiet house.

  The Akita greets her at the door as she steps into the hall, tail wagging and excited to see her.

  “Hey, there, lovely Rita. I’m so sorry, sweet girl,” Deb says, kneeling to pet her. “I couldn’t come this morning. You must be starved. Come on, let’s go feed you.”

  The dog is happy to chow down, as always, but even more eager to be sprung from her prison after a day in quiet solitude. Leaving half her bowl of food, she waits at the door until Deb gets the leash. She’d been planning to walk the dog through the neighborhood, but revises the plan. She’s too tired, and she doesn’t feel like parading past the people outside.

  Instead, she opens the French doors off the kitchen and takes the dog out into the secluded backyard. She misses having a lawn for her own dogs, as she did back when she was married to Bob. But she sure doesn’t miss Bob.

  Rita tugs the leash, eagerly sniffing the patio.

  “What do you smell, girl? A cat? A squirrel?”

  Rita pulls her along onto the grass, then tries to expand the search toward the wooded rear of the lot.

  “I hate to break it to you, babe,” Deb tells the dog, holding her ground, “but I’m not in the mood to get scraped up and mosquito bitten. How about if you just find a nice spot to do your thing, and then we head back inside?”

  The Akita has other ideas, nosing deeper into the pachysandra. Deb steps gingerly, keeping an eye out for poison ivy and sticker vines. Rita is pawing at something on the ground, tail wagging eagerly like a drug-sniffing dog at the airport.

  “What do you have, girl? Here, let me see.”

  Deb spots a small packet lying among the leaves. It appears to be a small wad of light-colored fabric.

  At least it’s not a dead rodent, she thinks. Her own dogs used to bring her squirrels. Well, the remains of squirrels.

  Rita picks up the object in her mouth, willing, at last, to return to the house as long as she can carry her booty.

  That’s fine with Deb. She’s exhausted and ready for bed. There’s no way she’s driving home tonight.

  Back inside the house, she texts her roommate to feed and walk her own dogs. Then, leaving Rita in the kitchen, playing with her filthy little treasure, Deb walks up the back stairs.

  She opens the door to Evelyn Yamazaki’s bedroom, glimpses her lying in the bed, and cries out, startled.

  “I’m so sorry!” Deb presses her hand over her racing heart. “I didn’t realize you were here. I was just . . .”

  She was just what?

  As her mind races for an explanation that doesn’t trans
form her into a guilty Goldilocks, she waits for the girl to sit up and start flinging accusations. Accurate ones, at that.

  When it doesn’t happen, an icy chill skids into Deb’s gut. Her instinct is to flee, but she forces herself to take a closer look at the figure in the bed because she knows. She knows . . .

  Hell, everybody knows what happened in this house one hundred years ago today.

  And now, Deb realizes, as she backs out of the room, fumbling in her pocket for her phone with a violently trembling hand, it’s happening again.

  While Catherine was in the kitchen eating ice cream with the kid, Holmes snuck into the house using his key to the back door. He slipped into the natatorium, strewn with construction materials, being careful not to bump into anything.

  The statue looms like a sentry in the darkness at the far end of the room. He found the inscription the night he slipped into the house when Augusta was still alive. At that time, he had no idea who Z.D.P. was. It took months to figure it out. Even now, there is no solid proof. Only a series of educated guesses based on evidence he picked up through a meticulous investigation of the events—even the rumored ones—that took place in the spring of 1904.

  From the kitchen comes a clattering sound, and water running at the kitchen sink. They must be finished with their ice cream, washing out their bowls.

  “It’s time for you to go to bed, Oliver,” he hears the girl say.

  “I’m afraid,” is the boy’s prompt reply.

  “How about if you get to stay up in your room and play video games?”

  “I’m not allowed to do that.”

  “Not when your mom and dad are here.”

  “You mean I can?”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t. Just turn off the Xbox before you fall asleep so you won’t get caught, okay? Because if you do, I’ll have to pretend I didn’t know you were doing it.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Catherine.” A pause. “You want to come up and play?”

  “Not tonight. Go ahead.”

  “You mean . . . just put myself to bed?”

  “Yeah. I mean, my brother does, and . . . you’re twelve, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So it’s not like you get tucked into bed every night, right?”

  The hesitation is a dead giveaway.

  After a moment, the kid says, “Right.”

  To her credit, and Holmes’s relief, Catherine doesn’t offer to tuck in the big baby. She just wishes him a good night. After a few moments, Holmes hears footsteps padding up the stairs.

  In the kitchen, only silence.

  Holmes waits five minutes, ten, fifteen.

  He replays her question: So it’s not like you get tucked into bed every night . . .

  How about you? he wants to ask Catherine. Does someone tuck you into bed every night? No? Well I’ll be doing that for you very soon.

  Finally, he creeps from the natatorium through the service porch. With painstaking care, he turns the knob on the kitchen door, fraction by fraction, until he feels the latch release and he can edge it open silently enough to peek in.

  He thought she must have left the room, but there she is, standing near a table piled high with crap—boxes, folded stacks of clothing, small appliances, books. As oblivious to his presence as she appears to be to the Binghams’ household clutter, she is focused, as before, on her phone. Only this time, she’s using it to take pictures.

  Holmes watches as she snaps a photo or the hallway looking toward the front door, then rotates her back to him to get a shot of the back parlor, visible through the archway. From the corner of his eye, he glimpses a shadow in the hall.

  Did the kid sneak down the stairs?

  He turns, but sees nothing. He can hear a car passing on the street. The headlights falling through the windows might have cast the shadow. Or perhaps it was an apparition. He’s read the ghost stories about the suicidal girl who haunts the third floor.

  But I know the truth behind them.

  Catherine pauses to type something on her phone, and he hears the electronic swish of a sent text message.

  So she is communicating with her friends—sending them pictures, apparently, of the home’s interior. He wonders how the Binghams would feel about that—not that it matters. He’s about to nip this little photo op in the bud.

  Holmes reaches into his pocket and takes out his gun.

  Trib isn’t exactly “killing it,” though Ross Winston just claimed he is, catching Annabelle’s eye and mouthing the words across the table between bites of dessert.

  Unlike Stanley Vernon, her husband isn’t a natural at the podium, striding around with the mike and tossing casual quips like confetti. But he’s sweetly earnest and genuine, and his affection for their hometown runs as deep as that of the Mundys and Ransoms, whose roots stretch back over three hundred and fifty years.

  A strawberry confection, billowing real cream and dusted with powdered sugar, goes untouched on the china plate before Annabelle as she hangs on her husband’s every word. Watching him at the podium, she loves him not in spite of his stage fright but perhaps because of it. All dressed up, his hair neatly combed to one side above wide eyes behind his glasses, he reminds her of Oliver. He’s doing his best to put on a brave face and conquer his fear. He’s not making it look easy by any stretch—there’s no energy to waste on keeping up appearances. She can see the speech shaking in his hands even now, fifteen minutes in, as he welcomes Mayor Cochran and Ora Abrams to the stage.

  Ordinarily a commanding presence, the curator is showing her age tonight. She leans heavily on her walking stick as she makes her way to the front of the room, and Dean Cochran’s hand at her elbow is more necessary than showy. Which, considering Dean’s style, is most unusual.

  The mayor gives a short, perfect speech about how lucky he is to be here tonight to witness history and make history anew.

  “Are we doing another time capsule?” Kim asks Annabelle under her breath, wearing an evil grin. “Because I can think of a few people—oops, I mean, things—I’d love to bury for a hundred years.”

  Annabelle wonders if she’s talking about the mayor, or her husband. Ross dutifully returned to her side as dinner was served, and all seemed to go well between them until Kim decided to ask the detectives about the Armbruster case.

  “My wife worries that it might happen again.”

  “We have a teenage daughter,” Kim said, as if that explained everything. And maybe it does.

  Between the salad and main course, Annabelle had wondered aloud to Trib how things were going at home, but let him talk her out of calling to check.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the woman who started it all, Miss Ora Abrams.”

  Taking the stand to resounding applause, Ora reaches up to adjust the microphone like a child straining for the forbidden bookshelf. After making an adjustment, she looks hard at the mayor. “Started it all?” she echoes, deadpan. “Just how old do you think I am, young man?”

  The line brings down the house.

  Even Trib seems to relax a bit after that.

  He informs the crowd that there will be plenty of time later to inspect the historic cache, as the contents will become a permanent exhibit at the museum.

  Then he passes a crowbar to the mayor, who passes it to Ora.

  “What a moment,” she says into the microphone, pronouncing the h sound in what as many people of her generation tend to do. She struggles a bit as she wedges the tip of the metal tool into the crack beneath the lid of the chest. But of course it’s just for show. Annabelle happens to know that the city officials already opened the box this afternoon. The contents, safely tucked beneath a layer of muslin, weren’t examined or disturbed. They just wanted to make things easier tonight.

  “Welcome back to 1916.” Ora’s voice, like her hands, quavers with age and excitement as she lifts the lid.

  The room is hushed with anticipation.

  Stanley leans into the mike, saying, “And now, as Ms. Abrams
takes each item from the chest, Mr. Bingham will read the corresponding description.”

  Ora lifts out a large packet of papers tied together with a ribbon and confers briefly and quietly with Trib. They nod, and he announces, “These are letters to the future, written by Miss Wolken’s class at Mundy’s Landing Secondary School. They were born in 1904 and many of their names will sound familiar.”

  He reads off the list of names to murmurs and exclamations of recognition from the audience.

  Then it’s on to the next item. Ora holds up a newspaper, which Trib announces is the perfectly preserved edition published the morning of July 15, 1916, the day the time capsule was sealed. Even with Annabelle’s faulty vision, one bold black word is clearly visible in the front page headline: murders.

  Ora puts it aside and removes a glass ball jar filled with something dark. Trib’s chuckle spills into the microphone. “Here’s another one that’s easy to recognize. It’s Mildred Haynes’s blueberry preserves. Who wants to try some?”

  A ripple of laughter puts him more at ease. He warms to the task, identifying and describing each relic as it emerges from the chest: a pair of women’s shoes, a Bible, a dinner menu from the Titanic dated a year before it sank, a pouch filled with newly minted 1916 currency, and . . .

  Ora holds up a leather-bound book.

  “Let’s see . . . there should be a couple of books in there that were important in 1916. Is that Seventeen by Booth Tarkington? It was a best-selling novel published by Harper that spring. Or is it Dear Enemy by Jean Webster? That one was set right here in Dutchess County and it’s a sequel to Daddy Longlegs.”

  Shaking her head, Ora turns it to check the spine, then looks at the back, apparently searching for a title. She opens it and shakes her head.

  “It looks like a journal. It’s filled with handwriting. Let’s see . . . the date on the first page is August 1, 1893, and . . . oh my.”

  Holmes wasn’t expecting the girl to believe his whispered ruse. But she takes one look at the gun, another at his face, and she bought everything he just told her. Trusts him. Maybe even recognizes him.