Murder Under the Mistletoe

by K. J. Emrick

  “Nothing much, really. He said his name was Rupert, and he likes trains, and he laughed at this joke I told him about a chicken crossing railroad tracks. See, it goes like this. Why did the chicken cross the railroad tracks?”

  Darcy thought maybe jokes could wait until later. “That’s cool, honey, but right now I need to know about the boy. Did he stay there and watch…I mean, did you just put your stuff in the bathroom and leave again, or did you have to use the…you know?”

  If her daughter kept rolling her eyes like that, Darcy was worried they would get stuck. “It’s called a toilet, Mom. Geez, I’m thirteen years old. I’m not a little kid anymore. You can use the grownup words. And, no. I asked him to leave before I did that, but what’s the big deal? He’s just a ghost.”

  There were a dozen different reasons why it might be a very big deal. Darcy had seen people possessed by ghosts before. She had seen them interact with the physical world and move things around, and in extreme cases even hurt people. Her own daughter had almost become the victim of a complete possession not so long ago. Colby had the same gift Darcy did, but not the same level of experience.

  This might not be the time to remind her of all that, however. Not with her little brother as an audience.

  Instead, she kept it simple. “He might be a ghost now, sure, but he’s still a boy. A boy shouldn’t be in the same room with you if you’re going to ever remove more than your socks. Okay?”

  “Maybe,” Jon added gruffly, “not even then.”

  Zane snorted a giggle behind his two hands, picturing the rule about keeping socks on in that little five-year-old boy’s imagination of his.

  Colby’s face turned red, up to the tips of her ears. “Mom! Come on. I’m not dumb. I asked Rupert to leave, and he did. Besides. I don’t care if some dumb boy sees me without my clothes on.”

  Jon was quick to jump on that. “You better care. I’m going to pull the dad card here and tell you that better not happen until you’re forty.”

  Colby sank down in her seat, her face getting redder by degrees. “You guys don’t understand.”

  “Maybe not,” Darcy said gently, “but your father has a point. Make sure Rupert isn’t in the bathroom when you’re going to do anything except brush your teeth, okay?”

  Colby obviously wasn’t impressed, but she managed a nod. “Sure. ‘Kay.”

  That was going to have to be good enough. Darcy knew better than to push her daughter too hard on things like this. They’d gotten their point across. Even if Colby had answered with her favorite slang term that sounded more like ‘stop talking’ than ‘yes I understand,’ that would have to be good enough. For now.

  So…there were four ghosts in the Inn. There was the woman in black on the stairs—Jennifer Bylow. The ghost of that klutz in the hallway. The old woman in the library with the piercing gaze. And now, the boy in the mirror. This place was crawling with ghosts, and that was just the ones they knew about. At this point, she wouldn’t be surprised to know there were more.

  There had been a few times that she had seen houses with more than one ghost in them. Old houses with long histories that included a few sad stories. Sometimes the ghosts in those places were associated with each other—from the same family, or the same tragedy. Sometimes they weren’t.

  Which was it, Darcy wondered, in the case of the Hideaway Inn?

  Jon turned the car off the road and into the Inn’s driveway. At the same time, he cleared his throat. “So, I take it you’re interested in the mystery now, my wonderful wife?”

  She shot him a glance from the corner of her eye. He knew exactly who she was when they got married. He knew her even better now. “I’m curious, yes, but I’m not going to let this take over the rest of our vacation. We’ll have a couple of fun days together and then on Thursday, the day before Christmas, we’ll let everyone open their presents in the morning and head back home. We won’t have to worry about work or school or anything.”

  “But we’re going to check out the story with these ghosts first,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

  “It’s not like that,” she said, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean, okay, maybe it’s a little bit like that.”

  Settling the car into a parking space with the sound of snow crunching under the tires, Jon made a know-it-all sound at the back of his throat. “Uh-huh. If I was a betting man, I could have put money down on this. I would have scored a bundle.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Darcy caught herself just before she rolled her eyes. That was something Colby did that drove her nuts, and she didn’t want her daughter thinking it was okay because Mom did it. “All I’m saying, is that it can’t hurt to take the tour the owner of the Inn mentioned. See what might be interesting.”

  “Hmph. I don’t know. Our host…this Maxwell Bylow guy? There’s something about that guy. Don’t you think he’s a little weird?”

  “I wouldn’t say weird. Maxwell is eccentric, maybe, but not weird. That’s not really a word I like to use to describe anyone.”

  Zane was already undoing the buckles of his child seat, now that the car had stopped. Now he stopped and put a serious look on his face. “Is ‘weird’ a bad word, Mommy?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that one. “It’s not a bad word, no. You just have to be careful how you use it. Actually, it can be fun to be a little weird, if you ask me.”

  Sticking out her tongue, she made a goofy face, pulling down one side of her mouth with a finger. Zane laughed, and did a face of his own. Weird could be fun.

  “Anyway, Jon,” Darcy said, going back to the conversation. “I wanted to learn more about this place before all this came up, and if the owner happens to mention something to us that explains why all these ghosts are here, then that’s a bonus.”

  He started laughing when she said that, and Colby joined in with him. Even Zane was smiling, as he made goofy faces at his sister. Darcy looked around at all of them. “What’s so funny?”

  Jon leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Only in the Tinker-Sweet family would anyone call it a ‘bonus’ to find out they were sharing a house with a bunch of ghosts.”

  Darcy was glad to get inside and out of the weather. The skies had turned a steely gray on their way back and the wind had picked up, cold and biting. New England winters were always unpredictable, warm one day, freezing the next. There was snow and there was sun, and sometimes both at the same time. At least they weren’t buried under ten feet of snow this year, unlike last winter.

  Just like every time she walked into the Hideaway Inn, she felt warm and welcomed. The main room was cozy and smelled simply wonderful. At some point Maxwell Bylow had lit candles that were pine scented. With the tree in the corner and a fire crackling in the fireplace, it really felt like Christmas in here—even if the tree was artificial and the fire was gas instead of wood.

  And of course, there was mistletoe all around. The two in the doorways, the ones on the edge of the counter, and now there was even some hung on strings in the windows. A box in the corner was marked “Fresh Plants/Open Immediately.” Maxwell was still doing his best to make the Inn look festive, even if he only had them as guests.

  Smiling, she took Jon’s hand and pulled him across the floor to the doorway of the East wing of the building. “Come here,” she told him.

  He looked confused. “Huh? What’s over here?”

  “This.”

  She stopped them right in the curved archway, directly under the hanging sprig of festive holiday plant…and then she kissed him.

  The little red berries in the mistletoe, clustered together among the green leaves, were aromatic. Jon’s lips were soft and warm. The moment took her, and she closed her eyes, and melted against his strong chest.

  “Ewww,” she heard her little boy protesting. Zane wasn’t much for kissing. That would probably change when he was older, but for now, he saw it as gross.

  Colby, on the other hand, was making a point of not watching her parents. Whe
n Darcy opened her eyes again, she saw the pink spots on her daughter’s cheeks. Unlike her brother, Colby was looking forward to having the kind of relationship her parents had with someone special of her own. Someone to kiss under the mistletoe, not to mention other places. Maybe, Darcy thought privately, her daughter already had someone in mind.

  She kissed Jon one more time, and the smile she left on his face definitely said ‘Merry Christmas’ to her.

  “Hey, all of y’all are here.” Maxwell Bylow popped in from the doorway on the other side of the room, sporting a wide smile and wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. The bow tie was gone. So was the British accent. “Perfect timing. What say we take us a little look around the place. Got me lots of fun facts about the olden times here at the Hideaway to share with you. Come on, now. Let’s get to going.”

  Darcy blinked at him, unable to hide her surprise. His voice had become a pure southern drawl, like he was from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee or something. She looked over at Jon, and he gave her the same question back with a flick of his eyebrow. Was Maxwell faking his accent earlier, or was he faking now? Why would he do such a thing? It wasn’t like he needed to impress them. Usually people didn’t take on different personalities unless…well, unless they had multiple personalities.

  Maybe Jon wasn’t too far off when he called him ‘weird.’

  “Um, hi Maxwell,” she said to him when the silence got uncomfortable. “Thanks. We’d love to take that tour now.”

  “Well, that’s finer than frog’s hair. Let’s get to it, then.” Maxwell slapped his hands happily and then waved for them to follow. “Y’all follow me and we’ll get a real nice tour of the whole place, get a look see right down to the bones of the Hideaway Inn, so to speak.”

  Zane’s eyes were very wide as he leaned in close to his mother’s side and whispered up to her, “Did he just say frogs has hair?”

  “Come on, now,” Maxwell said before Darcy could answer. “This way to the fun stuff.”

  “Aw, Mom,” Colby griped at her other elbow, “do we have to? I don’t want to hear a bunch of boring facts about people who used to live here a hundred years before I was born.”

  Darcy favored her with a smile. She was glad that had been said quietly, and that her daughter was remembering to be polite even if she was complaining. Colby hadn’t even mentioned Maxwell’s changing voice. Good for her.

  She supposed this really wasn’t going to be something Colby and Zane would enjoy. The history of places like this always fascinated Darcy, but she wasn’t a kid anymore. They would be bored stiff if Jon and Darcy made them follow along.

  “That’s fine,” she told them both, tousling Zane’s short, unruly curls. “You two go back upstairs. Watch TV or play a game or something. Maybe read those new books you brought with you. Your dad and I will be just a little while and then we’ll come up to the room. Um. That is, if you want to come on the tour with me, Jon?”

  “You kidding?” he said, slipping his arm through hers. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  Whether he really meant it or not, Darcy loved him for it.

  “Come on, Zane,” Colby told her brother. “Before they change their minds.”

  He followed along behind her, the tip of his finger in his mouth, thinking hard about the stuff he’d just heard. “He said frogs has hair. Frogs don’t has hair.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Colby told him.

  “But they don’t.”

  “I know. Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

  “But they don’t has hair.”

  They were at the stairs now, almost out of sight, when Colby tried correcting Zane’s grammar. “It’s ‘have’ not ‘has.’ They don’t have hair.”

  “I know!” Zane insisted. “That’s what I said, dufus.”

  “I’m not a dufus, you are.”

  “Am not!”

  “Am so!”

  “Am not, and I has hair!”

  Darcy could almost hear her daughter rolling her eyes. “You are such a little brother.”

  “Am not! I mean…am too!”

  Jon laughed as their voices faded away, and kissed Darcy’s ear. “Those two will be arguing with each other when they’re both living in a nursing home, chasing each other around in their wheelchairs.”

  Now that was something Darcy would love to see. Those two grown up, and still the best of friends. Maybe she could come back as a ghost, she told herself, and watch over her kids like Great Aunt Millie had come back to watch over her. She’d like to think that could happen. If it was within her power at all, she was going to make sure it did. She loved her kids. Crossing over to the other side wouldn’t ever change that.

  Turning to look back over her shoulder at the stairs the kids had just taken, she saw a shadowy woman in a black dress standing there instead. One hand on the railing, she stared back at Darcy. Mrs. Bylow was watching, waiting…expecting something to happen. She still wasn’t asking for Darcy’s help, but that was pretty close as far as she was concerned.

  “Come on, Jon. Let’s go see the history of the Hideaway Inn.”

  Maxwell started them down the hallway to the West wing of the Inn. He was going on about the current status of the Inn, about how many guests they typically got here—close to a thousand in a good year—and how they shut down every year from January first to March first.

  “I head down to Florida round about then, spend some time in the sun. I do love me the warmth.”

  “Is that where you’re from?” Jon asked him. “From down south?”

  “Nope. Not me. I was born and raised right here in the land of snow and ice. I just prefer me the heat, is all. Why’d ya ask?”

  The accent, Darcy almost slipped and said, but she caught herself just in time. “No reason. Just curious.”

  “Fair enough. Now here,” Maxwell said, waving a hand at the next room and forgetting their question, “is one of the two original rooms we keep in perfect order, just like they was back in the day of my great, great, great granddaddy. He had the original house built in 1810. He lived here for just about forty years, until he died at the ripe old age of sixty-eight, happy and content like a pig in mud.”

  Darcy coughed to hide the laugh that nearly bubbled out of her. That was certainly a colorful way of putting it. “Ahem. So, your grandfather—”

  “Great, great, great granddaddy,” he repeated.

  “Er, right. That would be Orson Bylow?”

  “Ah! So you’ve heard of him.” Maxwell was obviously pleased. “Yep, good ol’ Grandpa Orson was a great man. He owned this whole place and the land around for as far as the eye could see. The town y’all were just at, Pittsfield? That used to be all Grandpappy’s property. He gave the deed to the town as a gift. There’s a statue of him in the middle of Main Street, and everything. Captures his likeness right well. This here was actually his study. I can just about picture him sitting right there in that chair, going over the books for his many businesses.”

  Darcy followed him and Jon inside, into a room that was lavish in its use of wood trim and stuffed leather furniture. Everything gleamed. Maxwell must polish the chairs and the desk and even the empty bookcases every week to keep them looking like this. Overhead lamps cast a pleasant light over everything and highlighted the gold thread in the wall-to-wall carpet. Only people with real money to their name could have afforded a place like this, especially back in the 1800s.

  Maxwell was right, though. Darcy could easily picture a rich old man sitting here in that wing-backed armchair, smoking a pipe and gloating over pages in a ledger book that detailed his wealth. It probably wasn’t the way Maxwell pictured his grandfather, but it fit in nicely with Darcy’s image of Orson Bylow, a man whose wife had died under suspicious circumstances.

  But there was more than one ghost in this house, and Darcy needed to lead the conversation toward that.

  “So, Maxwell, tell us something.” She ran a finger along the edge of the big desk, pretending her questio
n was completely innocent. “How many children did your grandfather—”

  “Great, great, great grandpappy,” he interrupted again.

  For ’s sake, Darcy said to herself, they would all get old if they had to say that many ‘greats’ each time. “Well, yeah. Him. How many children did he have?”

  “Excellent question!” Tapping a finger to the side of his overlarge nose, Maxwell gave her a nod. “I like it when my guests get to asking questions about the patriarch of our family. I tell you guys, Grandpappy was a great man. A truly great man. Now, as far as children, his wife Jennifer was only able to give him two sons before…well, before her untimely death. One of those sons, Rupert, also died when he was still young. The other son was named Peter. He became my great, great grandfather. The family has lived here in this house ever since his time. I actually got my rooms at the end of this hall. Except when I’m down there in Florida, of course.”

  Orson had two sons, and one of them died. First Orson’s wife, now his son. If that wasn’t suspicious Darcy didn’t know what was.

  She remembered the boy ghost that Colby had told her about, appearing to her in the mirror of their bathroom. Some ghosts had a hard time when it came to communicating with the living. They needed some sort of anchor to even exist in this world. An object like a mirror, something that was already used to help people see things, helped them interact with the living. Usually, they left messages scribbled in the steam from a shower, but someone with Colby’s strong gift would be able to see them in the surface of the glass easily enough.

  So now Darcy had to wonder…two deaths in the same family…did that mean Orson Bylow killed his own wife and son? Was that why their ghosts were still here? Maybe, but not necessarily. Maybe the son’s death was just so traumatic that Orson’s wife decided to take her own life. They could both be trapped here as ghosts for that reason alone. Darcy shouldn’t accuse Maxwell’s great, great, great granddaddy of being a murderer without proof.