by K E O'Connor
A cold sweat broke out along my hairline as the five guys looked at me.
I cleared my throat and shot a glare at Helen. “Hi. We couldn’t help but hear you talking about Luke Walsh.”
“Did you now?” The tallest guy in the group said. “What’s he to you? Are you chasing him, or has he already broken your heart?”
“My heart’s very much intact,” I said. “But in a way, I am chasing him. We work together.”
He smirked. “Sure you do. What about you, bombshell? How do you know Luke?”
“The same as Lorna,” Helen said sharply. “What can you tell us about him?”
“He’s a good guy. A real saint.”
The other guys grinned and nudged each other.
“Luke has a less than glowing past,” I said. “You seem to know about that.”
“What if he does have a past? That’s none of your business.”
“It is if he’s wanted for murder.”
The guys all stared at me, their eyes wide and mouths open.
The one wearing the baseball cap stepped forward and took hold of my arm. “We should talk elsewhere. You don’t want to be accusing Luke of something he’s not involved in. He has friends in here, and they may not be so friendly if you badmouth him.”
I shook his hand off my arm. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It might just be, but it’s not my threat to make. Luke won’t be happy if he hears you’ve been spreading lies about him.”
“I’m not spreading lies. We’re trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious death, and the police think Luke is involved.”
“What’s this about?” The barman strode over. “What’s going on with Luke?”
“It’s nothing, Mac.” The guy in the baseball cap gestured to the door. “Let’s take this outside before you meet the hard end of Mac’s baseball bat.”
“Isn’t either end of a baseball bat hard?” Helen asked as she peered over the bar.
“Cute. If you stay here much longer, you’ll get attention from guys who are less obliging than me. This is a working men’s club for a reason. We like down time, away from the hassle of our women and their complaints.”
“I’m sure they’re only hassling you because you’re not giving them what they want,” Helen said. “Women hassle because you’re letting them down. They—”
“Enough!” The guy’s eyes narrowed. “Outside. Now!”
I glanced at Helen and nodded before being led by the guy out of the front door.
We stopped outside, and I turned to face him. “What do you know about Luke?”
He shook his head. “No way. You first. Why are you poking around in his business?”
I sucked in a breath. “We think he killed our boss, Felicity Fleur.”
His brow wrinkled. “She wasn’t murdered. I read about it in the papers. Luke even talked about it when it happened.”
“Who are you?” Helen asked. “How do you know Luke?”
“I’m Clive. I’ve known Luke for years. He used to labor for me when he needed extra cash. Not so much in the last year or so. He comes in for a drink now and again, and we catch up over a game of pool.”
“When was the last time Luke worked with you?” I asked.
“It’s got to be over a year since he asked for extra work. He said he had a more lucrative gig on the side. I know he’s come into money. I saw him flashing it around town. He had some woman on his arm and took her to a fancy restaurant. She must have wanted to go there because that’s not Luke’s sort of thing. He’s more a pie and ale kind of guy.”
“Was he with Felicity?”
Clive chuckled. “Not a chance. I knew Felicity. I occasionally worked around the estate when Luke was busy and needed an extra pair of hands. She was a funny one. You could tell she was clever but had no clue how to talk to you. It was like she didn’t understand other human beings. Luke wouldn’t be interested in her.” He grinned at Helen and winked. “He likes his women more curvaceous.”
Helen shook her head. “I like my men with manners.”
Clive laughed. “I can’t argue with that. Luke’s a rough son of a gun. He’ll tell you what’s on his mind, even if you don’t want to hear it.”
“How do you know Luke is in trouble?” I asked.
“I heard from a friend.” Clive scratched the stubble on his chin. “Are they really questioning him about Felicity’s death?”
“It’s one line of questioning they’re following,” I said. “He’s also been caught stealing from the family.”
“It sounds like he’s back to his old ways. That must be how he made all his cash. I told him to be careful. There’s so much temptation in that place. I thought he’d sorted himself out and was happy with his lot.”
“Do you think Luke is capable of hurting another person?”
Clive took off his baseball cap and scrubbed his fingers over his cropped hair. “He’s always sharp with people he doesn’t like. He doesn’t have a temper as such. If he isn’t into someone, he just ignores them. It’s hard to get a rise out of Luke. He walked away from fights; he didn’t start them.”
“But he could be calculating?” Helen asked. “If he wanted to, do you think he’d know how to poison someone?”
“Poison! I can’t imagine Luke doing that. It’s a sneaky way to kill someone. If he wanted you dead, I imagine he’d want to look you in the eye and tell you what a jerk you were. Hold on, remind me again when Felicity died?”
“The very end of April this year,” I said.
“The last week of the month?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t think Luke’s your man. I worked for two weeks in April with him at the Fleur estate. We had this mad schedule they’d put in place to get a barn renovated. Luke called in me and one other guy. We worked around the clock to get the job done. They paid well, so we had no complaints. It would have been hard for Luke to sneak off, poison Felicity, and come back without us noticing. The only time he was out of my sight was when he went to take a, well, you know, went to powder his nose.”
My heart skipped a beat. Luke had an alibi for the time of Felicity’s murder. “It would have been hard but not impossible. You must have had breaks for lunch, or he’d get supplies without you. Maybe he disappeared for half an hour, and that’s when it happened.”
Clive placed his baseball cap back on his head. “It’s possible, but it’s a big risk. We slept on site because there was so much to do. We’d get up at dawn, work through until dusk, then stick on the generator and turn on the lights so we could keep working. I don’t remember Luke disappearing for any length of time. Once we’d finished work for the evening, we’d collapse, share a few beers, and listen to sports on the radio.”
I glanced at Helen, concern hitting me. If what Clive said was true, it would have been difficult for Luke to sneak to the greenhouse and plant the poison that killed Felicity.
I chewed on my bottom lip as I considered the options. It looked increasingly likely the police had the wrong person for Felicity’s murder. We should never have taken our attention from Julius.
Clive tipped back on his heels. “I know Luke’s not a straight up guy. He’s been caught stealing, and it sounds like he’s done it again, so the police are right in taking him in. But I’d be willing to testify in regard to Felicity’s murder. Luke didn’t do it. He’s not a killer. I’d back him up if this goes to court.”
“Thanks for the information,” I said. “Luke will appreciate you coming forward if he is innocent.”
“Not a problem. If anyone wants to talk to me, they’ll find me here most evenings,” Clive said. “I don’t want my buddy behind bars for something he hasn’t done. He might be a light-fingered bugger, but he’s no killer.”
“I’ll pass that on to the police,” I said as I turned and walked away with Helen.
“That was not the information we were looking for,” Helen said as we reached the car.
/> “This does muddle things up.” I sighed as I leaned against the car and looked at the casino. We’d come out to see what Julius was sneaking around doing and discovered an almost cast-iron alibi for the prime suspect in Felicity’s murder.
But if Luke didn’t kill Felicity, was it Julius? And if so, how could I prove it?
Chapter 15
Helen drove us back to the house following our surprising revelation about Luke and his innocence.
My head was full of conflicting thoughts about Luke and Julius. Which one of them killed Felicity?
“We need to speak to our ghost,” I said as Helen stopped the car outside the house and we climbed out. “Let’s see if she’s come back and find out why she reacted so badly to Luke’s arrest.”
“And what she thinks about Julius’s dodgy behavior. If he’s gambling the profits from the business, it makes him a more likely murder suspect.”
“If she’s no help, Gunner mentioned there is CCTV in the greenhouse. I wonder if there’s a copy of the recordings somewhere. The police might have all the evidence they need to discover who murdered Felicity but they just haven’t looked.”
“It’s late. Zara won’t be working. We could take a look at her computer without anyone knowing.”
I looked at the house. Its creepy, dark windows loomed over me, daring me to chicken out and scuttle to the safety of my warm, cozy bed. “Okay. Five minutes. It can’t hurt.” I took a deep breath and hurried inside with Helen.
We dashed to the sitting room where the office equipment was set up. I fired up Zara’s computer and ran a quick search. “Look! This must be it.” A file labeled CCTV appeared.
Helen peered over my shoulder and groaned. “There are dozens of recordings.”
I scanned through the files, looking for the month of April. “We only need to look at a few of these.”
Helen stiffened behind me and gave a tiny squeak. “Something cold is creeping up my leg.”
I slowly looked around. Five ghosts stood behind us. I gulped and focused on the screen. “There’s nothing there.”
“Are you sure? It’s freezing.”
“I’m positive.” I could not get distracted by the house ghosts and their games.
“We should leave,” Helen whispered. “Make a copy of those files, and we can look at them when we aren’t in this spooky old place being felt up by ghosts.”
I couldn’t agree more and hurried to upload a copy of the relevant files to my cloud storage site before logging off. Another look over my shoulder confirmed my worst fears. Another four ghosts were hovering around us, all looking curious as to what we were doing creeping around their home so late at night.
“Please, can we go?” Helen gasped. “Someone just pinged my bra strap.”
“Yep. We’re out of here.” I hurried her out of the room and to the front door, being sure not to make eye contact with any ghosts, in the hope they wouldn’t follow us.
Only when we’d reached our rooms did I exhale. That place was the stuff of my nightmares.
Helen’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it out of her purse. She gestured for me to follow her into the lounge. “Hi, sweetie. How’s it going?” She placed her phone on the table and switched it to loud speaker. “Lorna is here, so no smutty talk.”
Gunner laughed. “Hi, Lorna. I wanted to let you know the results of the tox screen on Felicity. They found angel’s trumpet in her system.”
“What’s that?” I settled on the couch and stroked Flipper’s head as he ambled over to greet me.
“A poisonous plant, according to the boffins in the lab.”
“They didn’t find it the first time they examined Felicity?” Helen asked.
“They didn’t test for it. They were looking for confirmation of the bee venom theory. And Felicity was definitely stung. She had two sting marks on her arm. Since they didn’t consider her death suspicious, they put it down to an accident. The level of angel’s trumpet found suggests it was ingested. It’s not something you get on your skin and it kills you. Oddly enough, she also had low levels of several other plant toxins in her system. Hemlock, monkshood, and foxglove.”
“Her killer mixed a deadly combination to make sure she didn’t survive?” I asked.
“We’re not sure. They were small doses, nothing deadly on their own. Maybe the combination would have made her sick. Felicity’s death was not accidental. We have Luke in the frame.”
I let out a sigh. “You’ve got the wrong person. We met someone this evening who will testify he was with Luke at the time of Felicity’s death.”
“Who have you been talking to?” Gunner asked.
Helen gestured for me to stay quiet. “We ran into some people in town.”
“Some people? What were you doing in town?” Gunner sounded suspicious as he launched into interview mode. He could always tell when Helen was being evasive.
“We were looking around and getting to know the place, not doing anything wrong. We thought we’d go see a movie.”
“And you just happened to bump into someone who can provide Luke with an alibi?”
“That’s pretty much exactly what happened,” I said. “We heard them talking about Luke and his arrest—”
“And they were happy to tell us everything,” Helen said.
“A likely story.” Gunner did not sound happy. “You’ve been poking around, as usual. I thought you two were going to stay out of trouble.”
“You don’t have to worry about us, sweetie. It was perfectly safe. We were together, and no harm was done.”
I noticed Helen deliberately didn’t mention how we’d blundered into a working men’s club and almost been thrown out by a baseball bat wielding barman. There were some things not worth sharing.
“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll need details of this guy, so we can confirm Luke’s alibi. Whatever happens in regard to Felicity’s murder, Luke will still spend time behind bars for theft.”
Helen passed on the details about Clive and where to find him.
“Have you got any idea how long the poisonous plant would take to have an effect on Felicity?” I asked Gunner.
“At that dose, angel’s trumpet would have been quick acting,” Gunner said.
“Could Luke have slipped several doses into Felicity’s food or drink over a few days? He could have slowly poisoned her without her realizing.”
“Doubtful, you’d need a massive dose to kill you. If you have several smaller doses, it will make you sick, but you won’t die.”
“We’re going to try to communicate with Felicity again and see what she thinks about this,” I said. “Maybe she’s remembered something. If we focus her mind on the poisonous plant, she might recall something useful.”
Milly had been nudging Helen’s calf to get her attention, without much success. She yipped loudly and jumped on the couch.
“What was that?” Gunner asked.
Helen grabbed Milly and tucked her under her arm, which was exactly where she wanted to be. “Nothing.”
“It sounded like a dog.”
“Oh, yes! That was Flipper.”
“Has Flipper had some vital bit of his equipment stepped on? He sounds high-pitched.”
“Nonsense. He sounds just the same.” Helen shook her head at me as she stroked Milly’s head.
“Anyway, let me know what your ghost thinks about this development,” Gunner said. “We’ll need to investigate the rest of the family if Luke didn’t poison her. Somebody knows what happened to Felicity. I don’t like you both being there with the killer still free. Be careful. You’re at risk because you’re nosing into this murder. I don’t want either of you to come to any harm.”
“Don’t worry. We can’t get into too much trouble,” I said.
“We all know that’s not true. I know what you get like when you have a puzzle to solve.”
“Sweetie, we don’t get like anything. We’re righting a wrong. We’re like a pretty version of what you do. We solve crimes and
look great doing it.”
Gunner snorted a laugh. “I’ll be in touch.”
After we said our goodbyes, I sat on the couch with the dogs as Helen made us a late supper.
Flipper jumped off the couch and headed to the door, Milly right behind him. I let them out for a quick run as I waited for the food.
“Can you call Felicity?” Helen said. “She must know more about this. She was so adamant it wasn’t Luke, but she must have her suspicions.”
“Our other main suspect is Julius, and Felicity doesn’t think it was him.”
“Maybe she didn’t realize Julius was gambling so much,” Helen said. “That might change her mind when she knows what a sneak he is.”
I glanced around the room. “I’m no expert in summoning ghosts. They either appear or they don’t. It’s up to them.”
“We should light a candle and call her name,” Helen said. “Will that help?”
“Some like candles. Some couldn’t give two hoots about them.” I sat back in my seat. “Felicity, if you can hear me, it would be great if you show yourself. We need to know what you think about Luke’s arrest.”
“And we need to know what you think about your death not being an accident,” Helen said. “We have to figure out who poisoned you before they turn their attentions on us and make my lovely husband angry.”
We waited a few minutes, but there was no sign of Felicity.
As Helen served supper, a delicious dish of roasted vegetables and goat cheese, the temperature slowly dropped, and Felicity’s ghost appeared at the end of the couch.
“She’s here,” I said to Helen.
“It’s about time,” Helen said. “Anyone would think you don’t want your murder solved.”
Felicity scowled at Helen and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know you’re sulking about what happened to Luke, but we weren’t responsible,” I said. “In fact, he has a good alibi. We think he’s innocent.”
She shook her head and lifted her hands to the sky.
“Since we’re in agreement it wasn’t Luke, why don’t you tell us what you know? Who wanted you out of the way?”
“Hold on. I’ll get the flour.” Helen hopped up from her seat and pulled out a bag of plain white flour from the cupboard. “Felicity can use this to spell out her answers.”
