Janet McNulty - Mellow Summers 07 - Two Ghosts Haunt a Grove

by Janet McNulty

  “I am here at his invitation,” I said.

  That last bit had a desired effect. Apparently, if he invited someone over it was top priority. “Name?”

  “Mellow Summers.”

  The woman picked up a phone and pressed a button. “Yes, Mr. Kellmore, I have a Mellow Summers claiming to be here at your invitation…Yes, right away.”

  She hung up and faced me. “He will see you immediately. Take that elevator to the fourth floor. His office is straight ahead.”

  The woman’s tone had completely changed. She even smiled at me and coated it with a little extra sugar.

  “Thank you,” I said, in an effort to be polite.

  I walked briskly to the elevator and their gold doors. A bing sounded as one opened. Stepping inside, I pressed the button for the fourth floor and waited. Soft jazz played in the background which was remarkably more entertaining than the typical elevator music. The smooth ride had barely started when it ended. Most elevators I had been on were jerky and made me a bit nauseous. This one was so smooth that I never felt a thing.

  I stepped off onto a well-lit interior with big windows that let the sunlight in. Vases full of flowers lined the hall along with paintings of various landscapes. They had spared no expense on decorations. Slowly, I made my way down the length of the hall to the only door in front of me. The entire fourth floor must have been devoted to Kyle’s office.

  Another woman sat at a desk just outside the door. “Go right in,” she said, sweetly.

  Smiling, I opened the door and went inside. The conservatively decorated office did not match the more elaborate hallway. Maybe Kyle just didn’t like clutter.

  “Mellow,” he greeted me.

  “Please, call me Mel,” I said returning the greeting.

  “I must say that I am surprised to see you up here so soon. Most people take weeks to answer my invitations.”

  “Well, I must admit, that I was excited when you invited me. I have always wondered about this place and what you all do here.”

  “Well, allow me to show you around,” said Kyle waving me over to the giant window. “We are a development firm. My father had a keen sense of what properties to buy and develop which always turned into a profitable enterprise. I only hope that I can follow in his footsteps.”

  “What sort of properties do you develop?” I asked.

  “Mostly abandoned areas that no one frequents. Such as the Bourtonson place, my father’s most recent enterprise. In fact, that was the reason he came to see you.”

  “Yes,” I said, “He insisted that he had seen Smiley’s Ghost and was about to be murdered.”

  “Did he use the term murder?” asked Kyle.

  I looked at him. The question seemed strange to me and his facial expression had changed from friendly to probing. “Probably not,” I replied, “It all happened so quickly.”

  “I am curious. Why would he come to you after supposedly seeing a ghost? You never met him before, had you?”

  “No,” I said, “I think he thought I could talk to ghosts.”

  “Can you?”

  Again, Kyle looked as though he probed for information. Sweat formed on the back of my neck as I suddenly felt like I was being interrogated. “I would hardly testify to that. People might think I’m crazy.”

  I wished Tiny would hurry up. I did not like where this conversation went.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Kyle, “A lot of people can talk to ghosts.”

  I noticed a picture on his desk. It looked like a family portrait. “Is this your family?” I asked changing the subject.

  “Yes,” answered Kyle, “that was taken over a year ago.”

  “Who’s this?” I asked, pointing at a woman with blonde hair in the photo.

  “My sister, Spacy Stacy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Stacy, is her name. She doesn’t live with us anymore. Sort of an outdoors, free spirited type. A bit odd really. We don’t talk about her much.”

  The disdain for his sister clearly came through. And where was Tiny?

  As though in answer to my unspoken prayer the buzzer on his desk sounded. “Yes,” said Kyle when he pressed the button.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we have a problem down here.”

  “Call security,” said Kyle with anger in his voice.

  “I did, but they can’t handle it.”

  A series of crashes and yells came through the intercom.

  “Please, sir, we need you down here,” said the panicked voice.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Mel, while I take care of this. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Kyle left the room firmly shutting the door behind him.

  I sprang into action. Carefully, I peeked out the door making certain that he had gone. His secretary was absent too. Perfect. I hurried over to his desk opening drawers and rifling through them. Mostly all I found were loose papers and pens. One drawer had a pair of woman’s underwear. Why was I not surprised?

  I opened another drawer. Nothing. Come on there had to be something here. Finally, I yanked open the top middle drawer. Bingo! Two legal documents lay inside. Carefully, I pulled them out. Each bore the words, “Last Will and Testament” at the top. Why, would Kyle have two wills?

  I scanned one. It seemed to be standard. Quickly, I checked the date. It was signed two years ago. I scanned the other. It was dated a week ago, but wasn’t signed. Then it dawned on me: these were Philip Kellmore’s wills!

  A scuffle sounded outside. I waited anxiously holding my breath as the footsteps faded. That was close. Not wasting another second, I searched for a copy machine. Naturally there wasn’t one in the office.’

  Knowing I couldn’t just run off with these, I peeked out the office door again. No one was there, but a copy machine was. Stealthily, I slipped out of the office and crept to the copy machine.

  “Please work,” I said to myself as I lifted the lid. I pressed the green button and the thing hummed to life; too loud for my taste. Someone was definitely going to hear me. I quickly scanned the second document. Once the machine had finished, I grabbed the papers and ran back into Kyle’s office, shutting the door behind me. I ran to his desk and put the originals back into the drawer just as I had found them.

  “No, don’t bother calling the police,” said Kyle from the hallway.

  With only moments to spare, I folded the copied documents and shoved them in my back pants pocket. The handle to the door turned. Racing to one of the chairs in the office, I sat down just as Kyle walked in.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, trying to control my breathing.

  “Yes,” sighed Kyle, “a bunch of bikers mistook this place for some kind of bar. How I’ll never know, but they were drunker than a bunch of sailors.”

  I pretended to be genuinely concerned and interested.

  “I’m afraid, I’ll have to cut our meeting short, Mel,” said Kyle.

  “No problem,” I stood up tucking the files deeper into my pocket.

  He walked me to the door and saw me to the elevator. “I do hope you understand,” he said.

  “It’s perfectly all right. Some other time.”

  “Yes, well, good day.”

  The elevator doors closed. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. When the elevator dinged and I was let out, I rushed past the front desk and straight outside and to my car. The engine started immediately. Quickly, I put it in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. The moment I turned toward the freeway, I saw Tiny and his gang in one of the “park and rides”: a small parking area where people who carpool can park their cars. Knowing they expected me to meet with them, I pulled in.

  “So,” said Tiny, “how’d it go?”

  “I might have found something.” I handed him the two wills.

  “Sombrero,” said Tiny giving the man the documents, “This needs your expertise.”

  Sombrero took the two wills and studied them. I hoped he understood the legal speak within them because I ce
rtainly didn’t. I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited. Could it get any hotter out? I felt like I was melting.

  “These are very interesting,” said Sombrero.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “They’re wills, but two different versions,” said Sombrero. He showed me one of the copied wills, “This one is dated two years ago and is fairly standard. But this other one is an updated version and has a very distinct change.”

  “Like what?”

  “The first will makes no mention of the Joseph Bourtonson property. But the updated one does. The thing is, it split the property between Kyle and Stacy Kellmore.”

  “What?’ I said, in disbelief. “Kyle insisted that he rightfully inherited everything.”

  “He did because this will was never signed. But it is dated on the day he died.”

  I snatched the will. I thought it was dated a week before, but on closer inspection I found that Sombrero was right. I had misread one of the numbers. Dated the day he died. That is really odd.

  “You know what this means,” I said, “Philip Kellmore was murdered.”

  I scanned the faces around me. The entire gang felt and thought what I did. Somehow, Kyle managed to keep his father from signing the will and the guy died.

  I had to see Detective Shorts. “Thanks guys,” I said, “I need to go.”

  I got in my car and left waving one last farewell. The trip to the police station was short and easy to get to since I used the freeway. I parked on the side of the road and jumped out of my car, barely unbuckling my seatbelt. Without wasting more time, I ran to the doors and burst inside heading straight for Detective Shorts’ office.

  “Hey!” shouted the man at the front desk, “Hey, you can’t go in there like that!”

  Oh, yeah? Watch me. Ignoring the man completely, I burst through the door into the wing where the detectives were making a beeline for Detective Shorts. I stormed through the door to his office. The poor man must have been a bit startled by my sudden presence because he jumped a bit.

  “Miss Summers,” he greeted, warily.

  “Philip Kellmore was murdered!” I shouted. Instantly, people glanced our way.

  “Please calm down,” said Detective Shorts.

  “I will not calm down. Philip Kellmore was murdered!”

  Detective Shorts walked over to his door and shut it. It did little to block out my rampage. “Will you please sit down?”

  I took a seat.

  “Now, what makes you think he was murdered?” he asked, not in a patronizing way, but with a definite note of calm and insistence that I should follow.

  “Look,” I pulled out the copies of the wills I had made. “One of these was dated the day he died and it is very different from the other.”

  Detective Shorts took the two wills and studied them; his brows furrowed. “How did you come by these?”

  Suddenly, I clammed up. Breaking and entering is a crime. “I’d rather not say.”

  “No, but I can probably guess,” said Detective Shorts. “Though these are interesting bits of evidence, the coroner still insists it was a heart attack that killed Philip Kellmore.”

  “The coroner be damned,” I slammed my fist on the table.

  Detective Shorts jumped a bit at my outburst. He had never seen me so angry and even I was surprised by my fury.

  “There are ways to induce people into a heart attack. Philip Kellmore had a weak heart, right? How difficult would it be to give a man like that such a scare that he would have one?”

  “Like making him believe he saw a ghost?”

  “Exactly! He ran into the Candle Shoppe to see me insisting that he had seen Smiley’s Ghost. Now I don’t know if the ghost is real or not, but Mr. Kellmore believed in it and the legend. Then he died. And he died on the same day he was supposed to sign the updated will denying his son a portion of the Bourtonson property. It’s too coincidental for my taste.”

  “And mine,” muttered Detective Shorts, though I wasn’t supposed to hear it. “Miss Summers, I know you have helped us in the past with cases. Usually against my wishes, but I am begging you to stay out of this one.”

  “But—”

  “Mel,” Detective Shorts rarely used my nickname, and only when he was really concerned for my welfare, “I know you mean well. But this particular case is very dangerous. Kyle Kellmore is not a man to be trifled with.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He had a few run-ins with the law in his youth. I was just a uniformed officer then and on more than one occasion I had to bring him in. The man is known for violence and disregard for the law.”

  “So why isn’t he in jail?”

  “Most of the charges were dropped and he suddenly turned over a new leaf. Too sudden if you know what I mean. Besides that the whole family is weird. Stacy stays out in the woods near the Bourtonson place doing research or something.”

  Detective Shorts stopped speaking the moment he noticed my intense interest. He knew he had said too much. “Do not get any ideas.”

  “Well, you must open an investigation into Mr. Kellmore. I’m telling you he was murdered.”

  “On what evidence?” demanded Detective Shorts.

  “This!” I held up the wills.

  “Which you got by illegally searching Kyle Kellmore’s office.”

  “He invited me in there.”

  “Which he will deny and who do you think the courts will believe.”

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “We? No. You are going home and I will arrest you if I catch you investigating this case.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?” I demanded.

  “Best if you don’t know.”

  I reached for the copies of the wills.

  “I’ll keep those,” Detective Shorts snatched them from me, “It would be best if I am caught with them and not you. Now go home.”

  Infuriated, I stomped out of his office. Why didn’t anyone believe me? Kyle was a sleeze. I needed answers. I needed—

  My phone rang.

  “Mel,” said Jack on the other end when I answered.

  “Yes?”

  “I know you’re here at the station. Come down to my office. I have something to show you.”

  He hung up. I glanced behind me. Detective Shorts watched me carefully as though he knew what I was up to. Quickly, I turned back around and marched out of the area and into the main lobby. Once the door had shut behind me I headed for the stairs and to the basement where Jack’s office was. Curiosity really took hold of me. Jack rarely called with information. Usually I had to twist his arm to get his help.

  He waited impatiently for me when I walked in. “Shut the door.”

  I did.

  “What’s up?”

  “Well, since the other night when I went ghost hunting with you guys I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. So I looked up the transference of deeds for the Joseph Bourtonson’s place. The county owned it before Philip Kellmore bought it. He had received the deed last month.”

  “I’m not seeing a connection,” I said.

  “On the surface there isn’t any. But then I delved into the dispute filed by Stacy Kellmore against her brother Kyle. The dispute is not over the inheritance like the paper portrays, but over the Bourtonson property itself. Only the property.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I was up with Detective Shorts over a copy of an updated will by Philip Kellmore. But it wasn’t signed.”

  “Updated will?”

  “According to it, the property was to be divided between the siblings.”

  “That would fit the dispute. She claims her rights to it were violated. Anyway, there is Philip’s sister, Alicia Kellmore. She is basically the matron of the family and runs everything, especially now that Phillip is dead.”

  “How does this tie into the Bourtonson place?”

  “According to Philip Kellmore’s credit card statement, he gassed up at the Last Stop once a day for the last
week.”

  The Last Stop was a small, family owned gas station about halfway between here and the Bourtonson estate. “Not unusual if you’re planning to develop the property.”

  “Except he rarely visited his developments, especially to this extreme. And these stops were all done at around 2 in the morning.”

  Okay, now that was odd and Jack had my attention. “Two in the morning? What was he doing there at two in the morning?”

  “Good question,” said Jack. “And he had gone there the night before he died.”

  “And talked to me.”

  “I told you I had something.”

  “Jack, do you think Mr. Kellmore stumbled upon something? I mean something illegal, not a ghost.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Pot farm?”

  “No,” said Jack, shaking his head. “College kids go up there all the time and plant a few, but no one bothers doing an entire farm there.”

  “I wonder what it was and would have been worth killing for. Is there a way to make someone with a heart condition have a heart attack?”

  “Plenty,” said Jack, “I knew a guy with a bad heart. The slightest scare would have triggered an attack. Philip Kellmore was old and known to have a bad heart. His constant trips up to that place and the stress at work wouldn’t have helped. So he may have seen something that scared the hell out of him, I’d say it’s possible.”

  “Like if he was a big believer in the ghost legends and then thought he saw it.”

  “Possible,” said Jack, “Anyway, I’ll keep digging and let you know what I find.”

  “Thanks.”

  I left his office and headed for the exit. Once outside, I yanked out my phone. Thanks to Detective Shorts, I now knew where Stacy lived. I dialed Greg first.

  “Hello?”

  “Greg, you off work?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Meet me at my place in twenty minutes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I hung up and dialed Jackie. “Jackie?”

  “Mel, where have you been?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, “I’ll pick you up in twenty.. Wear boots and jeans.”

  “Mel—”

  I flipped my phone closed. Okay maybe I was a bit rude, but I hadn’t time to waste. I needed to talk with the family and Stacy Kellmore was a good place to start.