Journaled to Death

by Heather Redmond

  ‘We all know you’re rich,’ Mandy said. ‘But you’re wrong about everything. I didn’t push my cousin down the stairs. I was filming at the time, so I have an electronic alibi.’ She hoped.

  ‘Then why is everyone gossiping that you’re going to be arrested?’ Reese asked, all wide-eyed and innocent.

  Mandy sighed. ‘How can they not suspect me or Vellum? We were the only other people they know were in the house.’

  ‘It’s definitely murder, though?’ Reese examined her French manicure.

  ‘So the police say.’ Mandy leaned in. ‘I don’t want to have to sell my business, but I’ll keep you in mind if it comes to that.’

  ‘You can’t count on Moffat family money anymore,’ Reese said sweetly. ‘You let that ship sail.’

  ‘For good reason.’

  ‘Hmmm. I guess you’d better figure out what happened to your cousin.’ Reese tucked her cookie into her Coach purse.

  Mandy wanted to think Reese had picked it up from the discount mall down in Centralia, but probably not. She couldn’t compete in fashion with her younger neighbor anymore. ‘Feel free to help,’ she invited.

  Reese’s lips curved. ‘Me, solve a mystery?’ She drummed her fingers on the countertop. ‘I could do that.’

  ‘So says the next victim in murder mysteries. Honestly, it’s a police matter.’ She noticed the time. ‘I have to clock out or Fannah will have my head.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ Reese offered. ‘It’s creepy in the parking garage after dark.’

  ‘OK.’ Mandy shook her head, amused. Reese, being a no-filter sort, said the most off-putting things at times, though they really did get along. ‘Have a seat at one of the tables. I have to clean up.’

  ‘Off the clock?’

  ‘Afraid so. I have to duck into the back room and then I’ll finish up. Ten minutes, tops.’

  Reese nodded. ‘I’ll just sit here, looking like a girl pretty enough to kill.’

  Mandy felt queasy at the turn of the conversation. She wondered if Reese had even seen a dead body. Podiatry didn’t have a lot of corpses coming through, just diabetes, bunions, and plantar fasciitis. Having just seen one herself, though, she felt horrified at her unpleasant joke. Why did Reese bring out the worst in her?

  Mandy spent an uneasy night in her own bed, the first one since Ryan had died. She woke early, as if it were a work day, and started doing chores even before coffee. After putting away the laundry she’d done at Linda’s, she stripped beds and dusted bedrooms, then ran a mop over the hardwood bedroom floors and wiped up the bathroom.

  After that whirl of activity, she picked an espresso pod for her coffee maker. While it warmed up, she went into the art studio and reset the table for the April journal spread.

  She couldn’t imagine using the take they’d made, culminating in the horrible noises of Ryan falling, so she carefully cut out a page from an extra journal and pasted it over the page in Vellum’s journal, then redid her daughter’s cherry blossom and Space Needle sketch. After that, she drank her coffee and redid another sketch for herself, and taped it down to their desk. Poor Vellum. Her journal had been sitting here unused for four days. She hadn’t been able to update her habit trackers, write in her Dear Diary spread, or anything. Mandy flipped through the pages, seeing that Vellum did faithfully keep up with her journal.

  She was careful not to read the diary part but did have a pang when she saw one of Vellum’s daily tasks was to message her dad. Did Cory know how much his daughter tried with him? Did he even care?

  At eight, Mandy stood in front of the refrigerator, debating scrambling some eggs, when she heard the back door open. She whipped around, holding her spatula like a weapon, then recognized her daughter. Her heart began to beat again. ‘Hi sweetheart, you’re home early.’

  Vellum closed the kitchen door and dropped her backpack inside. ‘Dad had a golf lesson.’

  Mandy refrained from commenting and gave her daughter a hug. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’

  Vellum untangled her scarf and tucked it and her mittens into her knit cap. ‘We have a lot of catching up to do.’

  ‘You bet. I was awake early too, so I’ve set us up again.’

  ‘Do I have to redo my pencil sketch?’

  ‘I even did that.’ Mandy shrugged. ‘It was strange being here alone after the week we’ve had.’

  ‘You went to your happy place. I get it, Mom.’ Vellum peered into the open refrigerator. ‘Anything for breakfast?’

  ‘I haven’t gotten that far.’

  ‘Rats. I was hoping blueberry muffins had magically appeared.’

  ‘Why don’t you run over to the Shangri-La?’ The bakery was across the street from Linda’s house.

  ‘You always say it’s cheaper to make our own.’

  ‘Didn’t your father give you any pocket money?’ Cory refused to do anything as reasonable as give his daughter an allowance, but he usually passed her a twenty-dollar bill when she came for one of their scheduled weekend visits.

  Vellum brightened. ‘Fifty bucks! I could totally go to the bakery. Do you want a latte, too?’

  ‘Now that we can do at home,’ Mandy said. ‘But you don’t have to buy me a muffin with your money. I’ll just make eggs.’

  ‘You deserve it, Mom.’ Vellum kissed her cheek. ‘After we eat, we’ll shoot our video, OK?’

  Mandy nodded. ‘Can’t wait! Our business is booming, so much so that Reese O’Leary-Sett offered to buy it.’

  ‘She’s not nearly as good as we are,’ Vellum sniffed. ‘It’s no wonder.’

  ‘She offered to buy it so I could pay my legal fees if I was arrested,’ Mandy said sourly. ‘It makes me wonder what she knows.’

  ‘Or did,’ Vellum said.

  ‘Yeah, God forbid,’ Mandy agreed, her thoughts flashing to Ryan’s crumpled body. Her throat went tight and she turned away from her daughter to better control her emotions.

  An hour later, they’d finished their muffins. Mandy ran across the street to give Linda her fifteen dollars back. She’d been able to verify her paycheck deposit on her phone the night before and had grabbed cash after leaving work.

  ‘I’ll start the laundry,’ Vellum said.

  ‘I set the basket with sheets at the top of the stairs. I suppose I should have done it.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Vellum said. ‘I have my clothes from Grandma’s and Dad’s to do. I spilled root beer down my shirt at the movie last night and it’s going to take some work to get the stain out.’

  ‘I checked the basement. It’s back to normal,’ Mandy said. ‘I’ll set my phone to record.’

  ‘I hope we can earn enough to get a better camera soon. Are we on track?’

  ‘Sure,’ Mandy said, remembering that conversation with Reese the night before. They were on track for something, at any rate. ‘In fact, I’d better check sticker orders. We might have a backlog. It’s been such a crazy week.’

  ‘Not having your phone is awful,’ Vellum agreed.

  Mandy watched Vellum toss her backpack down the basement stairs, then handed her the laundry basket. She had just opened her phone screen to check her online store orders when the doorbell rang.

  Odd. No one who knew her ever came to the front door.

  SIX

  Mandy opened her front door. Dylan Tran and Alexis Ivanova waited on the second step from the top. She didn’t think they’d ever come to the front door before. The wind bit through her soft fleece pants. While she didn’t want to entertain Ryan’s ex-whatevers, she didn’t want to stand out here and get rained on, either.

  She stepped back and gestured them in. Dylan shook out his Mariners ball cap on the outside mat before he stepped in, and Alexis dropped her faux fur jacket hood to her shoulders.

  ‘What brings you by?’ Mandy asked. ‘You probably know I work two jobs and I don’t have more than a minute free.’

  ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ Alexis said. She had a heavy Russian accent and an emaciated body, with legs that
looked like sticks under her jeans.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mandy said. ‘I’m sorry you lost your friend as well.’ But she didn’t sense a condolence call here. People who made condolence calls brought food. Because of the crime scene factor, no one had thought to bring any to the house in the first couple of days, but Linda had brought brownies over to her mom’s house on Thursday night, and Mandy’s ex mother-in-law had sent a sausage-and-cheese gift basket that arrived yesterday. Kit and Fannah had signed a condolence card for her at work, along with some of their regulars.

  Mandy was honestly surprised Reese hadn’t stopped by with an offering. The fact that her neighbor, Crystal, had not was no surprise at all.

  Dylan’s thick black brows knitted together. ‘Is there going to be a funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mandy admitted. ‘His sister would be in charge of that, and since the police had my phone for a while I haven’t caught up on calls.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Mandy waited for him to ask for Jasmine’s contact information but nothing came. She didn’t have time for this. ‘Was there something else I could do for you?’

  Alexis pulled up her hood, then let it drop again. ‘Can we go downstairs?’

  ‘No. I don’t want anyone down there until Jasmine can look through Ryan’s things.’

  Alexis sniffed and lengthened from her slouched position. ‘We helped Ryan build his coin collection and we’d like to have it.’

  Dylan grabbed Alexis by the shoulder. ‘To remember him by.’

  ‘You want a keepsake?’ Mandy asked, just to be clear.

  They both nodded, a little too eagerly for her liking.

  ‘I can’t authorize that,’ Mandy said. ‘I’m sure Jasmine is the legal owner of Ryan’s possessions. All I have in my part of the house are a couple of his coin-collecting magazines. You can have those.’

  Alexis looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Mandy suspected they were looking for spendables.

  ‘Why don’t you let us come down to the basement?’ Dylan asked. ‘We can show you what we’re talking about.’

  Mandy moved quickly as Alexis tried to get around her. Her muscles tightened in flight or fight mode. Letting them in had been a bad idea. Were they going to try to take something valuable? The front door remained open and Mandy’s only goal was to get the two of them out of it before Vellum came upstairs from the laundry room.

  ‘Did he give you keys?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘No,’ Dylan said.

  Alexis tried to edge around her again, but Mandy hopped in front.

  ‘Stop that,’ she ordered, as if Alexis was one of the Roswell twins. She wished she could afford a locksmith, just in case.

  ‘Why were you two over Wednesday afternoon? I didn’t hear you come in. Were you here before I came home?’

  ‘What are you accusing us of?’ Alexis asked.

  ‘My neighbor said you left ten minutes before Ryan fell. Where did you go?’

  Alexis’s eyes narrowed. ‘The police asked us all that.’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ Dylan said.

  ‘I’m the homeowner. I have the right to know if unauthorized people have access to my home.’

  Dylan scratched at a sore on his cheek. ‘You’re sad. I get it. You loved Ryan a lot.’

  ‘So did we,’ Alexis piped up.

  ‘I’m going to ask you to leave now. I have to work.’ Mandy took each of Ryan’s young friends by the arm and moved them backward a couple of inches toward the door.

  Thankfully, they took the hint and left. She watched them go through the archway and down the stairs to the street, waiting until they drove away.

  Despite the cold, she stood there, thinking about how her mother had pointed her finger at the pair, how Ryan could have died because of them, until she heard a shriek from inside the house.

  Mandy shut the door and ran into the hall. Oh God, had Vellum been attacked, too? ‘Vellum?’ she cried.

  Mandy found her daughter at the top of the stairs. Vellum’s skin had taken on a translucent hue. Her hands shook and her eyes were wide, staring.

  Mandy grabbed her shoulders and pivoted her under the overhead light, her eyes scanning her daughter, looking for injuries. ‘What happened?’

  ‘G-g-ghost.’ Vellum’s teeth chattered.

  Mandy frowned. ‘Ghost?’

  ‘D-downstairs.’ Vellum coughed, then swallowed. ‘He’s down there, Mommy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ryan. I saw him in the washer.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Mandy wrapped one arm around her daughter and peered into her eyes.

  ‘You know how things reflect into the outside of the washer? Like you can see the basket reflected when you put it behind you?’

  ‘Umm, no,’ Mandy said slowly.

  ‘Maybe you’re not looking,’ Vellum said. ‘But I always see reflections. I saw Ryan just now.’

  ‘I’m sure you imagined it. Stress.’ Mandy walked Vellum into her bedroom. ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’

  ‘I slept fine,’ Vellum said impatiently. ‘It was him.’

  ‘Like his entire body? Or just the outline of a man?’

  ‘No, it was his face, like something out of A Christmas Carol. You know, when Marley appears in the door?’

  ‘Did he look like himself?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Mandy squeezed her shoulder. ‘I don’t know. Did he look tortured, like Marley?’

  ‘His lips were moving. He wanted to tell me something.’ Vellum shivered. ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘You’re telling me you saw our dead cousin, and he was trying to tell you something,’ Mandy summarized. ‘Any idea what?’

  Vellum shook her head. ‘Sorry, Mom. You’re going to have to go down there yourself and see if he appears to you.’

  ‘But we have to do our video.’

  Vellum put her hands on her hips. ‘Seriously, Mom?’

  Mandy waved hers in the air, trying not to laugh. ‘He knows I’m busy. We don’t have his rent money any more. It’s more important than ever to get our videos out in time to sell our stickers.’

  ‘Wow, Mom.’ Vellum dropped onto her bed and curled up.

  Mandy sat next to her. ‘You are teasing me, right?’

  Vellum shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’ll hold your hand when you go down there.’

  Mandy grimaced. ‘You’d better stay up here if you feel sick. We don’t want to have to call the crime scene cleanup people again.’

  ‘Mom!’ Vellum shrieked. ‘You can handle a little vomit.’

  ‘You can,’ Mandy shot back. ‘I guess I’m going downstairs. Call your grandmother if I don’t reappear and tell her to call an exorcist.’ She went into the hall.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ Vellum called behind her.

  ‘I know something spooked you,’ Mandy called back. She investigated the dark stairwell. Having second thoughts, she went into the kitchen and grabbed her emergency flashlight.

  Vellum came out of her bedroom and gave her a thumbs up. Mandy flicked up the light switch and went down four steps. Nothing happened when the light came on. The memory of finding Ryan flashed through her brain. She kept stepping down.

  Something niggled at her. Something had changed. Not the cheap laminate flooring on the landing. The cleanup company had taken care of it. When she reached the landing, she turned slowly in a circle, and then she realized what was different.

  The tiny built-in cabinet in the wall above the second step up from the landing hung open. Not good for much due to the size and place, it was original to the house. She had no idea what the original purpose would have been back in 1940. But it was never open. No one used it. Until now.

  Mandy turned to face her daughter.

  ‘What’s wrong, Mom?’ Vellum called from the top.

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Mandy asked, finding it hard to believe what she was seeing in the cabinet.

  ‘Grandma does. She sees Grandpa all the time.
’

  ‘Huh.’ Mandy had never been receptive to that sort of thing. But Vellum claimed Ryan had tried to tell her something, and now she was looking at what was probably the murder weapon. What hadn’t the police been sharing with her?

  ‘What’s wrong, Mom?’ Vellum bent into the doorway.

  ‘The cabinet is open. Was it open when you came down here?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Vellum started down the stairs. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I found a bloody hammer.’ Mandy put up her hand. ‘I need my cell phone, honey. Don’t come down here.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Vellum disappeared.

  Mandy stared at the hammer and the dark substance smeared on it. Shuddering, she wondered if the killer had hit him with it. ‘What did you do, Ryan? What did you get mixed up in?’

  ‘I have your phone,’ Vellum called.

  Mandy stepped up and took it. ‘Thanks, honey. Just wait a minute.’ She went back down and took pictures, careful not to touch anything while she tried to get better angles, even using the flashlight as a spotlight.

  Feeling five years older, Mandy walked back up the steps, closing the door behind her. ‘The question is had it been there all along, or did someone sneak into the house and put it there?’

  Vellum’s lips trembled. ‘Now what?’

  ‘I need to find Detective Ahola’s phone number and give him a call.’

  ‘OK.’ Vellum followed her like a puppy as she walked into her bedroom and pulled the card from her purse.

  Mandy sent a text message with her address and the date, then loaded up the two best pictures. After her phone sent them, she dialed the detective’s number.

  He picked up on the fourth ring. ‘Ahola.’

  ‘This is Mandy Meadows. Did you see the messages I just sent?’

  ‘I did not.’

  She visualized his face, deepening the bags under his eyes to match his tone. ‘You told me that Ryan looked like he’d been beaten up. I was assuming someone punched him. Was I wrong?’