Ghostly Trails

by Paula Lester

  Uh-oh.

  Steve stood to the side, a helpless look on his face, and Kelli was wringing her hands.

  “I’d be happy to bake something for everyone’s lunch.” Sweet Maria, the eldest of the home’s residents, stepped forward. She’d been a baker before she retired, and she was always looking for a chance to get into the kitchen and make a treat for someone.

  “The last time you made cookies in my kitchen, I was cleaning melted chocolate chips out of crevices for days,” Susan blustered, her hairnet slipping and getting dangerously close to popping off. “You’re banned from baking in there.”

  Maria’s face crumpled and her shoulders sagged so far that Zoey was afraid the rest of her body would follow and the poor woman might completely melt to the floor. She hurried forward, putting an arm around the elderly lady and giving her a squeeze. To Susan, she asked, “What’s going on?”

  “No groceries,” she shouted. “I’ve been waiting all morning for them.”

  Zoey glanced at Steve and Kelli. The receptionist stepped forward and spoke in little more than a squeak, “I’m so sorry. I misplaced the list you left with me, and we haven’t been able to find it.”

  “I see. Well, it must be in your office somewhere. I’ll help you find it. Susan, you can take the rest of the day off if you like. Steve and I can do the cooking.”

  The cook looked suspicious. “Will I still get paid?”

  “Of course!”

  “And you won’t let her into my kitchen?” She nodded at Maria.

  Zoey sighed and squeezed Maria’s shoulders again. “We’ll be fine. See you tomorrow,” she said firmly.

  Susan squinted at her for a second and then hurried away, mumbling to herself about chocolate chips and groceries.

  Zoey turned to the woman next to her. “Can you make everyone some quiche for lunch, Maria?”

  The woman’s face brightened to the point she appeared to be glowing. “Of course I can,” she said. Then her eyes darted toward the direction in which Susan had disappeared.

  “Don’t worry about her. Last time I checked, I’m still in charge around here.” Zoey smiled warmly and patted the woman’s back before heading across the room. When she stopped near Steve and Kelli and turned around again, she saw that Maria was babbling happily to the other residents about her quiche plans, and they were all smiles.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelli said. “I have no idea what happened.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll find the list.” Zoey went into Kelli’s room and looked around. “In fact, I think I have a good idea where to look first.” She rounded the desk and grabbed the magazine Kelli had been flipping through when Zoey left earlier. A tiny piece of paper stuck out of the top like a bookmark, and she plucked the grocery list out and held it high in the air. “Here we go!”

  Kelli’s jaw dropped. “Wow. You’re like a detective or something.”

  Zoey chuckled. “That’s good because I’ve been asked to help Luke solve a murder mystery.” She perched a hip on Kelli’s desk and told them everything she knew about Demi and the case. She finished by saying, “And to top it all off, I have to work with Hope Vega on it.” She winced.

  “That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.” Steve wrinkled his nose.

  “Not really. That’s why I was hoping maybe you two could give me some help. So I’ll have more ammunition to present my case to her with.”

  “Sure thing, boss. What do you need?”

  “I want to research Demi and her paranormal investigation business. We need to find out everything we can.”

  “I’m your man for that,” Steve smiled. He loved messing around on the computer, poking into nooks and crannies that most people would never be able to find on the internet.

  “And I’ll take this list and get the groceries,” Kelli said sheepishly, snatching her purse off a hook and hurrying out the front door.

  Zoey’s phone rang and she excused herself to answer it, moving back into the lobby. The residents had dispersed, so she sat on a gray suede couch and kicked her slip-on shoes off. “Hey, Doug,” she answered.

  Her boyfriend’s deep voice responded almost instantly. “Hey. I’m on lunch break and just figured I’d check in and see how your day’s going.”

  “Oh, you know, just another day in paradise. This morning, the residents were trying to break their necks playing badminton in midair. This afternoon, I’m investigating a murder and eating quiche.”

  Doug chuckled. “That does sound like an average day. What’s up with the murder investigating—did you get a second job?”

  “Luke asks me to help him from time to time. Usually if there’s something magically mysterious about a case. I have a talent for figuring out the culprit when magical mischievousness is involved, you know. I guess that’s because I deal with it a lot at my day job.”

  “That makes sense. So this murder was magically mischievous? And, by the way, that sounds like a cereal jingle.”

  Zoe laughed and then sobered. “There’s something odd about this murder, that’s for sure. Hope thinks it was a run-of-the-mill witch murder, done with a spell or hex. Oh, Luke called Hope Vega in to help too.”

  “But you’re not so sure about the hex thing?”

  “No.” Zoey chewed her lip. “Not at all.”

  “And you have to work with Hope Vega, huh? I bet that’s just brightening your day like crazy.” He chuckled again. “Does it kind of make naughty, floating elderly people look like a walk in the park?”

  “I little bit,” she affirmed. “How’s your day going?”

  “Actually, it’s pretty boring compared to yours. But I’d better get back to it before I get fired. I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Okay. ‘Bye.”

  Steve sat down next to her, laptop in hand. “I have some dirt for you, boss,” he said.

  “Wow, already? That didn’t take long.” She pulled her feet up under herself. “I knew I hired you for a reason.”

  “I thought it was my dashing good looks and amazing sense of humor.”

  “Oh, it was. Totally.” She hid a smirk behind her hand, and he stuck his tongue out.

  “So Demi Hill had her own paranormal investigation business,” Steve began. “Thin the Veil, LLC. She had a few employees, and they helped people with problems relating to ghosts and poltergeists.”

  “One of Demi’s neighbors said she got rid of a poltergeist for her,” Zoey said. “But the other neighbors seemed a bit disbelieving about that story.”

  “She had a good reputation. In fact, she wrote a book and published it late last year. It was just starting to do pretty well.” Steve turned the laptop screen toward her. A book cover was displayed there. The title was Paranormal Stories through Time and Space,” and there were spooky pictures of ghosts all around the words. “Now, here’s where it gets interesting.” Steve tapped a few keys and turned the screen toward her again. This time, a book entitled Tales from Beyond the Furthest Reaches was on the screen. The cover was plain blue with just a hint of mist over the words. “This book was written by another paranormal investigator in Sunnyside—Peter Lynchmin. He has his own business, Clear the Cobwebs, LLC, and he wrote this book and published it just before Demi launched hers.”

  Zoey’s eyes narrowed. “Did they know each other?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll dig into it and see if I can find out. I do know that Peter claims she stole a lot of the stories for her book from his publication. I’d just started to get into that when I stopped to come report to you.”

  “Wow.” Zoey’s fingers flew across her cell phone screen. “I’m buying both e-books. I want to see for myself how similar they are. Can you get an address for Peter Lynchmin’s business? I’d like to go talk to him.”

  “Sure thing.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before Steve said, “Bingo. They definitely knew each other. Look.” He showed her the screen, which displayed a professional picture of Peter Lynchmin and a short bio. “He worked for her when he first moved to Su
nnyside about ten years ago.”

  “So she actually could have stolen his stories.” Zoey chewed the inside of her lip for a second and then said, “You know, Grant Simons is the leading suspect right now. I think he’s the one Hope believes is guilty. But it’s just not sitting right with me. I know I haven’t talked to him yet, but I don’t think he did it.”

  Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at the screen before swiping it and answering, “Hey, Luke.”

  “Hey, Zoey. I know you probably just got back to the Community Center, but I’m going to need you to come down to the station. I have some news for you.”

  Five minutes later, Zoey was heading out. “No quiche for me.” She pouted as she rounded the corner of the building to her car, which sat parked on the sleepy street there. She didn’t have to use it much since Sunnyside was a very walkable town, but the police station was about fifteen minutes away—not too far to walk, but Zoey wanted to get back as quickly as possible afterward so she could spend the rest of the day reading Demi’s and Peter’s books.

  When she pulled her old Chevy into the station’s parking lot, she saw Hope’s Camaro already there and had to fight back a surge of irritation. It irked her that Hope must make more money than her. She took a deep breath, pulled the sun visor down so she could apply a swipe of lipstick, and got out of the car. When she arrived inside, the officer at the front desk knew who she was and took her right to Luke’s office. Sure enough, Hope already sat there, her long legs crossed and her foot dangling lazily. Her elbows were on the arms of the chair and she had her fingers laced in front of her. Zoey sat in the other chair and waited.

  “Thanks for coming, you two,” Luke said from where he sat behind his desk. “I just finished questioning Grant. Turns out he had been feeling jealous and ignored over the past six to eight months. Demi was writing and then publishing a book, and her business was taking off. He says she was rarely home, and when she was, she was distracted. He cried about her death while we were talking but also sounded pretty bitter about how things had been going between them.”

  “Well, that sounds like a motive to me.” Hope’s chin jutted forward and she smirked.

  Zoey felt a surge of annoyance. What a smug jerk.

  But Luke interrupted her thoughts. “He does have a good alibi. Says he was cheating on Demi. Claims she hardly noticed when he’d stay at his girlfriend’s house and not return home until late, or at all. I’ve got officers out picking up the girlfriend, Chrissy, for questioning, but I expect her to confirm that he was with her.”

  Hope looked less smug, and it was Zoey’s turn to jut her chin forward. Then she remembered she knew Chrissy. She was the distraught neighbor who hadn’t been making good eye contact that morning. The wisp of a thought began in her mind. Could Chrissy have killed Demi to get her out of the way so she could have Grant to herself?

  “But the girlfriend’s house is definitely close enough that Grant could have snuck out, killed Demi, and snuck back in while the mistress was sleeping. Chrissy lives two houses down from Demi. So, we’re operating on the assumption that he’s the killer right now. I need you two to figure out how he did it.”

  “It had to have been a hex.” Hope’s smirk was back, and her tone was matter-of-fact.

  Zoey disagreed. In fact, she wasn’t ready to buy that Grant was the killer at all yet.

  Luke sighed. “You two work it out. I’m going to hit the physical evidence angle and you can attack the magical evidence one. We’ll see what we dig up on both sides. But, I’ll tell you what, if you’d combine forces instead of pulling and pushing against each other as hard as you are, you’d get to the answer a lot faster. You could make a very formidable team.”

  The women mumbled their agreement and left Luke’s office, ignoring each other all the way out to the parking lot. As Hope reached for the Camaro’s door, Zoey took a deep breath and forced the words out. “We should plan a time to meet and go over what we know about the case. Would you like to come to the retirement home tomorrow morning?”

  Hope looked over her shoulder. “I’m pretty busy tomorrow. I’m having a sale at the shop and some friends and I are going out to lunch. But I’ll keep digging on this, and you can too. We’ll meet up soon.”

  Zoey glared at Hope’s back as the woman finished getting into her car. Then she turned toward her Chevy and stopped in her tracks. She let Hope drive away before continuing, telling herself it absolutely was not because she didn’t want the insufferable woman to see her beat-up old car.

  Chapter 5

  After Zoey finished reading Demi’s book, she set her phone on the table in front of her and frowned.

  “What’s with the face, boss?” Steve sat down next to her, setting his laptop next to the phone. They were in the retirement home’s backyard. A few of the residents were out there, some talking to each other and others simply strolling around and taking in the lovely day.

  “The paranormal investigation books were both really interesting,” she said. “But I actually didn’t see much similarity between them at all. Demi’s was more geared toward discussing the mechanics of tracking down and communicating with spirits, while Peter’s was almost totally focused on stories—stuff he says happened during his investigations. It really pulled on the imagination and included lots of plugs for people to call his team in for their paranormal work.”

  “That is interesting because I contacted an author friend of mine, Chet Snyder, to see if he’d heard any buzz on either of these books, and he knew all about them.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, he was at a local author’s conference about six months ago, and he said Peter and Demi argued there. Peter was pretty loud and made quite a scene about Demi stealing his work. Apparently, he contended that she’d used some stuff word-for-word from his book in hers.”

  Zoey’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t see anything like that, and I read both books cover-to-cover. Unless Demi changed her manuscript after their argument, his allegations were not true.”

  Steve shrugged. “My buddy Chet says Peter went on a kind of rampage after that. He was really trying to stir up the local and wider author communities against Demi. He was doing it in the back author channels, not in the wider general community. Chet chalked it up to jealousy. Demi’s book was getting more and better reviews. It seemed to be heading up the charts pretty fast and was probably making more money.”

  “Peter doesn’t sound like a very nice guy.”

  Steve nodded and punched at his laptop.

  Zoey shaded her eyes as a figure approached and mentally switched to her Head of Staff mindset when she recognized Maria. She greeted the elderly witch warmly.

  Maria sat down, sinking low into the patio chair. She was so small that sitting in it made her look like a child. Her face was long and lined, and she wore a blue and pink flowery button-up shirt with short sleeves, which was a signature look for her. She’d pulled her gray-and-white hair back from her face and clipped it in the back with a silver barrette.

  “Thanks again for handling lunch yesterday,” Zoey said. She exchanged a quick look with Steve, who grinned and stared at his laptop. Maria hadn’t made the promised quiche. She’d baked chocolate chip cookies instead, and Steve had stepped in to scramble some eggs for everyone.

  “Any time, dear. Any time. I do so love to bake. And now I have a nice plate of cookies for when my grandchildren come on Saturday.”

  Steve closed his laptop and stood. “I need to check Howie’s room,” he explained. “He says his DVD player isn’t working and he can’t do his exercises.”

  “That won’t do!” Maria said. “Howie just loves his fitness routines. He’s always trying to get the rest of us to join in and tone up.” She chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll get it all fixed up, though, dear. You always do.” Maria gave Steve an adoring grin that was missing several teeth. He winked at her and strode away.

  Maria sighed as she watched him go. “Such a nice young man,” she said. “Smart and han
dsome.”

  Zoey chuckled. “He’s a great assistant.”

  “A good friend, too, I’ll wager.” Maria peered at Zoey, and she nodded at the older woman.

  “That’s good. There’s no place for jealousy in working relationships. It does nothing but corrode teamwork and eat productivity like a cancer.”

  An image of Hope sprang into Zoey’s mind, and she felt a stab of guilt. Was their rivalry negatively impacting the murder investigation?

  “When I was younger, I worked in the Sunnyside Library,” Maria continued. “I was up in the special section, you know. The area where the magical books and information is. The other librarian up there, Celia, had an issue with me. So many librarians wanted to get assigned to that section, and she was jealous that I’d been given a spot right after graduation. It had taken her longer to earn her job there, of course, and she was pretty bitter.” Maria shook her head and patted her hair. “But instead of taking it out on the admins who’d been responsible for it, she turned her bad feelings toward me. For fourteen years, every day at work was clouded with the ugly haze of her green emotion.” Maria’s gaze took on a faraway look as she remembered, and her lips made a chewing motion when she paused. “I should have talked to her candidly about it as soon as I realized the problem. As it was, we didn’t become friends until everything blew up around us.”

  Zoey listened raptly. As Maria’s story unfolded, her thoughts turned from her situation with Hope to Demi and Peter’s rivalry.

  “One of the magical books that were under lockdown somehow got loose one day,” Maria continued. “Celia and I had been doing our normal bickering all morning, and one of us didn’t re-lock it properly after a witch used it for research. It went totally nuts, whirling around and trying to destroy everything in the building. There was even a non-magical family on the first floor, who had stopped by on the way through town to look up something. Celia and I had to work together to contain the book and shield the family from seeing anything they shouldn’t.” Maria broke into a wide smile. “It was stressful and tough, but we did it. Once the book was back in containment, we sank into a sofa together and just laughed. Celia pulled out a tiny flask, and we shared a nip. From that day forward, Celia’s jealousy and my bitterness were gone. The cancer was cured, and life at work was much more fulfilling for both of us.”