The Mystery Sisters series Box Set

by Karen Musser Nortman

  “It seems like we’ve eaten big meals constantly since we’ve been here. Pizza sounds just perfect,” Lil said.

  Chapter Ten

  Max

  The Pizza Plaza reminded Max of a cafe she had frequented in college. In a gallant, but low-cost attempt to duplicate an Italian plaza, cozy secluded booths surrounded a small fountain set on a floor of faux stones. Hanging baskets of plastic flowers provided splashes of garish color.

  The four women took a booth and perused the menu. They finally decided on a vegetarian and a chicken pesto pizza. Cathy added an order of breadsticks to the order. “I know it’s overkill but bread is my weakness,” she said. She went to place the order and came back with a tray of soft drinks.

  While they waited for their order, Max asked about their afternoon. The group had visited several gift and antique shops.

  “But none of them were as cool as that quilt shop this morning,” Mary said. “Thank you again for taking us out there.”

  “No problem,” Lil replied. “I loved it myself. By the time we get home, I’ll have enough projects for the whole winter. Actually, I got so excited about the choices, I forgot to ask you a couple more things about Barbara. You know that my son works for the bank that sponsors the haunted house, and they’re trying to raise money for a new auditorium at the school. But they can’t really reopen unless the murder is solved. So we’re trying to find out what we can to help out.”

  “Really?” Mary said. “I love it—you’re just like Nancy Drew, only a little older.”

  Max laughed. “Thank you for that. More like Jessica Fletcher, but still ‘a little’ older. We were wondering if Barbara ever showed anyone in your group a photo of this guy that she knew from Burnsville?”

  A waiter brought their pizza, plates and forks.

  Mary appeared in deep thought. “I don’t think so.”

  But Cathy slapped the table and turned to Mary. “Yes, she did! We were in that wine bar at the last hotel, and you had gone to bed. That was when she told me when the cruise was and that she met this guy…she had a picture on her phone.” She sat back in the booth. “It was weird. He was kind of frumpy looking and she made him sound like a dreamboat.”

  Max smiled, wondering when was the last time she had heard the term ‘dreamboat.’

  “It was a selfie and you could see the ocean in the background. It must have been windy because his hair was kind of sticking up.”

  “Thank you,” Lil said. “That’s good to know. I imagine the police have found her phone and they can check it out. You see, we have speculated that Al Carson wasn’t his real name, and maybe he killed her to avoid having anyone here in town know about his romance with her.”

  “Oh, gosh,” Cathy said. “That’s awful. Do you know what the guy’s name really is?”

  “We might,” Max said. “The police are working on it.” At least, she hoped they were.

  “Is there anything else Barbara said that might indicate who would murder her?” Lil asked.

  “No,” Mary said. “How do you know it wasn’t just random?”

  “We don’t. But we wonder what she was doing there, or if she was killed somewhere else, why did the killer move her body to the haunted house?” Max lifted a piece of gooey pizza from the pan to her plate, swiping at the long string of cheese, and continued. “It was a deliberate attempt to stage the body, and the main customers were children, for heaven’s sake. That’s really sick.”

  “Well, Barbara certainly didn’t seem worried or scared. She was really hoping to meet up with this Al Carson guy. Or whatever his name was.” Cathy took a big bite of her slice. “Mmmmm. This is yummy.”

  Mary shivered. “Can we talk about something else? This murder spooks me out. Cathy said you sisters travel together a lot? That sounds wonderful. My sister died three years ago from heart problems, and I miss her so much. I wish we had done some traveling together.”

  “Do you have any other siblings?” Cathy asked.

  Lil laughed. “Actually we have two younger sisters and a brother. But they all have families and our sisters think we’re nuts. I’m not sure they would go with us even if they were alone.” She looked at Max.

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t.”

  The rest of meal, Max and Lil recounted some of their adventures, and Mary and Cathy talked about some of the tours they had taken.

  “We met a year ago on a bus trip to Kentucky,” Mary said. “It followed the Bourbon Trail.” She smirked at Cathy. “Cathy likes her bourbon.”

  “Oh, hush,” Cathy said. “I didn’t notice you avoiding it. One night—omigosh!”

  They all swiveled their heads toward the pickup counter where Cathy was staring.

  “It’s Art Carnel,” Max said. His back was to them but his face was easily visible in the overhead curved mirror.

  “I think that’s the guy in the picture with Barbara!” Cathy said in a low voice.

  Just then Carnel looked up into the mirror and frowned. He paid for his pizza and turned around.

  “Ladies,” he said with a faint smile, nodded and walked out the door.

  “Are you sure?” Lil asked Cathy.

  “Well, I couldn’t swear to it but it sure looks like him.”

  “You may have to identify a photo for the sheriff. Especially if they never found Barbara’s phone,” Max told her.

  Mary shuddered. “Because he might be the murderer.”

  Max nodded. “It’s possible.”

  They finished stuffing themselves as they rehashed the killing, in spite of Mary’s unease about the subject, and asked the waiter for carryout boxes. Max and Lil didn’t learn anything else new. Mary paid the bill and they headed back to the Hilltop Inn.

  After exchanging email addresses and good luck wishes on their respective travels, Mary and Cathy waved goodbye, and Max and Lil left for Terry’s house.

  On the way, they approached the country road that led to the haunted house. Max slowed down.

  Lil frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “I know we can’t get in the house, but I’d like to take a look around. All that rain, there should be tracks left by the murderer.”

  “Unless the rain washed them all away.”

  “I won’t know unless I look.”

  “It’s dark out.”

  “Of course it is. It’s—” Max looked at her watch in the streetlight—“7:30 pm in October. It’s always dark then.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Lil said, and gripped the door handle just in time as Max spun the wheel toward the country blacktop.

  “Look at it this way—we can take a quick look around without anyone questioning where we are—Terry, Camille, the police chief…”

  “Maybe if we are worried about accounting to those people, there’s a good reason. They would say we are nuts! This is probably dumber than breaking in to Dutch Schultz’s apartment last summer.”

  “Probably,” Maxine said cheerfully.

  Lil sighed and folded her arms, but made no further comment.

  They reached the lane and Max drove carefully up to the house. The headlights only picked out the drive and the dead leaves alongside. The signs of course were still gone, and when they pulled up in front of the house, the porch was wrapped with crime scene tape.

  “Hand me the flashlight out of the glovebox,” Max ordered.

  “Yes, Ma’am!” Lil shot back.

  Max ducked under the tape and climbed the steps to try the door. Locked, as she expected. She descended the steps and headed around the side of the house. The other door opened on the Studebaker.

  “Wait!” Lil called.

  Max turned and used the light to guide Lil’s feet as she stumbled as fast as she could through the piles of leaves and brush. “I thought you’d stay in the car.”

  “Not by myself.”

  “Oh, right,” Max laughed. “Like I’m any protection.”

  Lil bent over to catch her breath. “But I don’t want to die alone.
”

  “That’s encouraging. Okay, let’s see what we can find.” Max swept the flashlight back and forth ahead of them.

  The shrubs and plantings along the house suffered from both overgrown weeds and early frosts. Some appeared to be beaten down by the storm and others possibly trampled. The trampled areas weren’t necessarily near windows, though, so no logical explanation for them came to mind.

  At the back of the house, rather than go through the garden, Max turned away from the house and walked along the garden fence. At the corner, a barely discernible path led into the woods. Max followed it.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Lil whispered.

  “Of course not. But I think there are some outbuildings down this way. I saw them from an upstairs window the first day we came here.”

  “Don’t you think the police have checked this all out?”

  “Maybe. But maybe not.”

  Lil scoffed. “You wouldn’t admit it even if you had watched them do it.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “This is stupid.”

  “Jeez-Louise, Lil, what did you come along tonight for?”

  “A free pizza. Why are you stopping?”

  “Because of this fence across the path.” Max stepped to the side and aimed the flashlight at a barricade ahead.

  Lil moved around her and peered past the fence into the darkness. “It’s another farm or something, you think? Looks like the woods end. I can tell there are large buildings around an open lot.”

  “I can’t see if there’s a house or not, but it doesn’t feel abandoned. Let’s go back. This doesn’t feel right.” Max led the way back up the path.

  “It never did feel right,” Lil muttered.

  When they reached the garden fence, they skirted it toward the back of the lot. The unearthly ballroom dancers swayed in the breeze, barely visible in the ambient light.

  Max remembered a tool shed and perhaps another building behind that on the other side of the garden. They walked between the garden fence and more overgrown woods. The normal night sounds seemed amplified—an owl hooting in the distance, scrabbling noises in the underbrush, and distant traffic noises from the nearest highway. A twig broke.

  Lil grabbed Max by the shoulder. “What was that?”

  “Just an animal. Relax.”

  Lil listened harder and tried to walk more quietly. She thought she heard a cough. Her ears playing tricks maybe.

  Maybe not.

  They reached the tool shed.

  “Here, hold the flashlight.” Max turned the simple chunk of wood nailed to the doorframe and pulled the door open. “Shine it in here.”

  Lil made none of her usual comments on Max’s bossiness and pointed the light toward the interior of the shed. The usual rakes, shovels, and spades stood along the walls. A rusted push mower took up most of the center and a few chipped clay pots lined the high shelves.

  “What is that in the corner?’

  Lil gasped as she illuminated the pile of cloth and recognized an arm poking out to one side.

  Max answered her own question. “I think it’s a manikin.” She took the light and maneuvered around the mower.

  “The one that was in the bedroom?”

  Max pulled the lumpy object, like a large rag doll, upright. It had no clothes or hair but sported dark eye makeup and bright garish lips.

  “I don’t think so. It didn’t have this kind of makeup. This one—or one like it—was at the dining room table. It reminded me of Morticia Addams.”

  “Who?”

  “You know—the Addams Family. My favorite TV show back in the day.”

  “Oh, ick.” Lil shuddered. “I hated that show.”

  “Yeah, well. There’s the difference between us.”

  “I wondered why they replaced this manikin. Doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with it,” Lil said.

  “Unless…” Max said. “Nobody from the crew went into the dining room the night of the murder, did they?”

  Lil looked around the rest of the shed. A high shelf to the left of the door held containers of chemicals, clay pots, and a bag of potting soil. “Terry shined his light in there but it looked like there wasn’t any disturbance.” She lifted a tattered jacket off a hook below the shelf. Underneath, a long-handled lopper and a ring of old keys hung on the same hook. A coiled extension cord hung on the next hook and an old apron on the next.

  “And we went through the dining room later to get the lanterns, but I didn’t look around,” Max continued. She noticed a pair of rubber boots and galvanized bucket sitting below the hooks. There didn’t seem to be much else in the shed.

  “I didn’t either.”

  “So when we left, the police were there, but the house hasn’t been left unlocked since. No coming and going except the investigators, correct?”

  Lil looked at her sister, puzzled. “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe the killer hid the manikin from the bedroom in plain sight. None of the people who know what’s supposed to be where have been back in there. Let’s go do some window-peeping.” She led the way out of the shed, leaving Lil to close up the shed in the dark.

  “Dammit, Max, wait up!”

  She did so reluctantly, and they returned to the side of the house. “These would be in the dining room, right?” She pointed at a pair of long windows in the middle of the side wall, two dark rectangles, barely distinguishable from the only slightly lighter siding, once white but now a weathered gray.

  “Should be,” Lil said. “Actually, maybe someone could have gotten into the house. There was a ring of keys hanging in the shed under that old jacket.” Max didn’t answer.

  Lil followed her through the weeds, cringing as she felt burrs sticking to her good slacks. Max stood on her toes and aimed the flashlight in one of the windows. The dusty velvet drapes were tied back with heavy gold cords but the sheers behind them still made visibility difficult.

  “I can’t tell for sure.” Max strained with the effort of standing on her toes and holding the flashlight over her head. “I think there’s one maybe that has blood on the face. They must have redressed it and used the wig from the one in the tool shed. But it’s facing away from the door and toward the windows so we wouldn’t have noticed it from inside.”

  A gruff male voice came from behind them. “Aren’t you the clever old biddy?”

  Max yelped, dropped the flashlight, and ran along the house. Lil screamed and tried to follow but strong hands grabbed her arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  Max

  Max crawled behind a brambly bush and peered back at the spot she had left. Her flashlight was half buried in the leaves and pointed toward the back of the house. The obstructed beam was no help. She could hear Lil whimpering and scuffling. Without thinking beyond the next moment, she heaved herself to her feet, wincing at the pain in her knees, and charged toward the sounds.

  She crashed into the bodies.

  “Lil! Grab my hand!” Fumbling in the dark, she was able to see Lil’s pale hand close to her face and clutched it. At the same time, she stiff-armed the dark shape behind Lil. She and her sister started tumbling back.

  “Hey!” the voice yelled. Max just managed to stay upright and pulled Lil toward what she thought was the front of the house and her car. As they got close, a flashlight wielded by their pursuer lit up the red Studebaker ahead of them. It stood out against the dead trees like a beacon.

  Max searched her coat pocket for her keys. No luck. Fear clutched at her heart. As she found the keys in her other pocket, she noticed the driver’s side front tire was flat and totally slashed to shreds.

  Lil’s voice shook behind her: “He’s coming, Max!”

  “We aren’t going to get out with the car,” Max growled. “Follow me.” She took off around the other side of the house, but listened to make sure her sister was still behind her.

  On the opposite of the house, Max headed for a large rectangular shape along the side of the hous
e. She felt around in the middle, grabbed a handle, and jerked the wooden basement door open.

  “Quick!” She said to Lil. “Down the steps.”

  The man’s voice yelled again. “Hey!” Max didn’t think he had rounded the corner of the house yet. Max followed Lil down into the black hole. Both of them slipped and stumbled down the rickety wood stairs. Max was suddenly blinded by the smallest of flames. Lil held a cigarette lighter up so Max could see to reach up and close the door.

  Once that was done, Max turned on her sister. “I thought you quit,” she hissed.

  “I did. But I’m not going to throw out a perfectly good lighter.” She flicked the lighter again and pointed at the side of the door. “There’s a bar there that goes through those brackets. If we put that in, he won’t be able to get the doors open. Here hold this.” She thrust the lighter at Max. “I’ll do it. Just hold that still.”

  She grabbed the bar at the side and worked it through the brackets just as they heard their pursuer pounding on the door.

  The two women ducked into the basement and realized there was another door, standing open, at the bottom of the steps. Lil pushed it shut. Max searched the area with the lighter held high and spotted an old dresser.

  “Quick, help me drag this over in front of the door.”

  The uneven brick and dirt floor made pushing much harder, but they managed to get the door at least partially blocked.

  “Do you have your phone?” Max asked. “I left mine in my purse in the car. So stupid!”

  Lil felt her jacket pockets. “I do!” She pulled it out.

  “Call 911. And then we can use it for a flashlight.”

  Lil dialed. The basement echoed with a wrenching screech. An axe blade split the door above the dresser. Just barely but enough for the edge of the blade to glimmer in the dim light.

  “C’mon! We need to find the stairs!” Max grabbed the phone from Lil and aimed it toward the back of the basement. “Gotta be back here—I think the stairs are off the kitchen.”

  A voice from the phone saying, “What is your emergency?” was punctuated with another hit to the door.