by Penny Brooke
“Excuse me? I’m not 200 years old. How could I possibly have murdered someone and done this?”
“Well, I don’t know. You’re pretty smart. You might’ve done it from the other side.”
“Ben, maybe you did it when you were running new wire.”
“Oh, no, you’re not going to hang this one on me.”
“You guys are creepy. I want to go home,” whined Gretchen.
I heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll go back to my room and call Peter. Please don’t say anything to any of the guests. We’ll see what he wants to do and take it from there.”
“How about the little vermin?” Ben asked.
“He has a name, you know.”
“He could run out of here and right across the hall to the Smiths’ new room. I think she might kill you this time.”
“You don’t suppose…”
“It’s possible, Fiona. They like to hide in tight places. Maybe he got into the wall through another hole we haven’t found yet and all this time has been hiding in the coffin, making a nest out of it. Only one way to find out…”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I am not going to open a 200-year-old coffin. The smell alone will probably kill you or might be filled with some horrible plague. Maybe it died of the plague?”
“If you’re going to make me find that ferret, I bet it’s likely in that coffin. I don’t think it’s a coincidence we found the ferret right by it, do you?”
“Go get your crowbar and take the lid off, or at least crack it wide enough that he’ll run out.”
“I’m not going to like this, and I’m going to make sure that you don’t either.”
“Quit complaining, Ben. Just do it quickly and get it over with.”
He glared at me with a stormy face, and I had a feeling I was opening more than a coffin lid. I had sensed the energy along that wall—in fact, it had practically burned my hand. When I envisioned a man pleading to me for help, I had a sense that I wasn’t going to like whatever was behind that wall.
Gretchen backed up into the hallway, but still peered around the corner because the action was just too interesting to ignore.
“Do it, Ben.”
“You’re a witness, Gretchen. She ordered me to do it.”
Ben inserted the crowbar under the lid edge and tapped it with his hammer. He moved slowly around it; I could see his shoulders shaking as he worked. He was scared to death.
“Here, this ought to do it,” he said as he gave it one big whack. Crack!
The entire coffin lid split in half, and we all screamed as we could see a figure in the light of the flashlight. It was glittery.
“What the…?”
I was the least scared of death of anyone in the room. I pushed Ben out of the way and went in for a closer look. It appeared to be a mummy, and all around it was a series of shredded paper, grasses, small stones, and a few pieces of jewelry.
“That looks like one of my new earrings,” Gretchen complained, reaching for it.
Ben slapped her hand away. “That, for the time being, is evidence. Fiona, go and call Peter.”
“Can’t this wait until morning? Let’s just put a nail in the door frame to lock it, and everyone go back to bed like nothing’s wrong. Tomorrow, I’ll get Peter in here and see what he wants to do.”
Ben was shaking his head. “You can’t postpone a murder investigation.”
“Ben! It’s not like he’s going anywhere. He’s probably been in there for two hundred years!”
“I’m going on the record for calling Peter now.” Ben was adamant.
“It’s my house, and I say I’ll call him in the morning. Now, put in the danged nail, and let’s go to bed.”
“Can I sleep in your room with you, Fiona?” Gretchen asked.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. He’s just like us, only dead. C’mon. You can have half my bed if it’s going to let me get some sleep.”
I turned and walked out into the hallway, waiting to make sure Ben nailed the door closed, as promised.
Back in my room, Gretchen turned down the other half of the bed and slipped in. “I don’t know why I didn’t ever think of knocking off my worst husbands and putting them in the wall,” she commented just before I fell asleep.
7
Mummy Take-Over
I lay there, Gretchen snoring deeply next to me, and thought. Of course, I couldn’t sleep. It was like sleeping in the casket myself. From that angle, the guy in the mummy outfit was better off than me. At least he knew what lay ahead. Wait! How do I know it’s a man? I mean, the mummy was about my height, but surely there had to have been… shrinkage?
Then my thoughts turned to the energy he’d emitted. It was intense and very, very hot. If I had to guess, he died in a fire, but he was obviously whole enough to mummify. Then I remembered. We’d never found out where Sherlock had gone!
If that little rascal could make his way in and back out of a coffin, I’d underestimated his athletic abilities. What else could he do? Was there even another discovery waiting for me, but just in another room?
I realized that I’d guessed the corpse was nearly two-hundred years old, but what if it was younger? Could Aunt Mable have murdered someone and stuck him in to simmer? Could the Smiths have somehow sneaked a murder victim into the room without my seeing them? Or maybe Ben—he’d been in and out of the house, tearing open walls as he went. Perhaps the murderer was someone we didn’t know; someone who had stayed at Mortimer House over the years—a guest. But there was still that mummifying. That wasn’t a technique taught in grade school. It had to be someone with some familiarity, a knowledge of chemistry and also some carpentry because they’d built that back wall to be removable.
Gretchen rolled onto her side, giving me the full benefit of her snore breath. Ugh! I turned, as well, putting my back to her. This was certainly going to ruin my boarding house business. Who wanted to sleep in a building with dead bodies secreted in the walls? Word like that traveled quickly, and it took generations to die off before people forgot about it. I didn’t have that long to wait.
Suddenly, I sat straight up in bed. Where were Lizzie and Etta? “Oooooh, nooooo,” I cried out as I bolted from the bed and down the hallway. I couldn’t get into the mummy room! The door was nailed shut!
“Lizzie? Lizzie, are you in there?”
I heard a whimper. Oh, my gawd, the dog was in there. And what do dogs love to do? Chew on old, smelly things. What better treat than a mummy?
“Ben!” I ran to his door, knocking loudly. “Ben, I need you!”
All down the hallway, doors were popping open, and guests were coming out of their rooms. Gretchen even awoke and was sleepily, but gracefully, making her way toward me. “Good gawd, Fiona, I didn’t even think Ben was your type, but okay.”
“No, you don’t understand! Lizzie Borden was in my room, and with all the commotion, she found her way into the other room and managed to get left behind! Ben nailed the door shut.”
I motioned her closer and put my finger to my lips. “Play along.”
“Sorry, everyone,” I said, louder. “I was sleepwalking, no doubt. Sorry to have alarmed you.”
Gretchen shook her head. “Fiona, get back to bed before I have to drag you. I’ll give you a sleeping pill. Folks, breakfast may be a little late in the morning. I’ll be making pancakes and sausage, but Fiona will be sleeping off the pill. Nothing to worry about; she does this once in a while.”
The guests nodded sleepily, and door after door banged shut. “Geez, Gretchen, you didn’t have to make me out to be some kind of narcoleptic psychopath.”
“Sorry, as if I know what that means.”
Ben’s door opened, and there he stood in his muscle shirt and boxer shorts.
“Oh, Fiona, you lucky girl.” Gretchen giggled and, with that, turned around and went back to the bedroom.
Ben scratched his head. “What’s up now? I just got back to sleep.”
“Ben! Lizzie Borden got left behind in the mummy�
�s room, and you’ve nailed the door shut! You know she’s going to smell that thing and start chewing.”
He dropped his head to one side. “Do you remember I told you to call Peter? If you’d done that, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Now, I’ll have to pry that nail out somehow, and people might step out to see what’s going on.”
“They already are. Please, get your tools and meet me? I don’t have a hammer, or I’d do it myself.”
“I’m wondering what kind of a mess I’ve gotten into.”
I looked around at him. “I wonder the same thing.”
Ben managed to use the claw end of the hammer to extract the nail, and I immediately opened the door. Just as I’d feared, Lizzie was sitting at the feet of the mummy, tail wagging in pride. One mummy foot had been pulled off entirely, and the second looked like the poor guy had a triple compound fracture. “Lizzie! Naughty girl!” I picked her up, took one look at the mummy, and rolled my eyes. “Lock it back up, Ben. I’ll deal with this in the morning.”
“You do realize it’s after six in the morning.”
“Wonderful. Then, I’d better shower, get dressed, and start breakfast. And I’ll call Peter, I promise!”
Gretchen looked up sleepily when I came in. “Why can’t we get a night’s sleep?”
“It’s time to get up,” I said in the cheeriest voice I could manage.
“Maybe for you, but not for me. I haven’t had a contiguous five minutes all night total.”
“You can make up for it tonight. Remember, you promised the guests you’d make them pancakes and sausage.”
“Cut out my tongue the next time I say something stupid like that, will you?”
“Gladly, but for now, we’ve got a dozen guests to feed, and I have to call the sheriff. Then who knows what will break loose. You won’t want to be in your nightie when that all goes down, so you’d better get up.”
“Agh! At least tell me the sheriff isn’t an old fogey who wears a Smokie the bear hat.”
“He’s not.”
She sat up, her interest suddenly piqued. “What’s he look like?”
I could recite that without thinking. “He’s tall, muscular, with dark, stylish hair and the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen.”
Now her feet were on the floor. “Is… he—”
“Married? No. He was widowed at a very young age.”
She was upright and shuffling to the bath, pushing me out of the way. I heard the handle creek in the claw-foot tub with the shower rail overhead. “One more thing,” she said, poking her head around the bathroom doorway. “What’s his name?”
“Peter.”
“Oh, my gawd, just kill me know so I can go to Heaven.”
I smiled. I let Gretchen have hopes because I needed her help badly. It was going to be a madhouse, literally.
The guests were at breakfast, and platters of Gretchen’s pancakes and sausage were being handed around the table. I stood by, filling syrup decanters and pouring coffee. Ben came in sleepily, and I purposely didn’t look at him.
“For those of you who have nothing planned this morning,” I said, “might I suggest they’re having a downtown arts festival. The artists are here by invitation only; their work is juried. It draws quite a crowd of well-known people, and they come early, so I’d advise going down right after breakfast.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun,” agreed Karen Van Dam, although her husband was rolling his eyes. They were New Yorkers, in for two weeks’ vacation, and he was apparently allergic to anything that required spending money. She saw him and elbowed him hard. “Don’t worry, Kevin, I’m sure there’s a bar or two where you can watch the game while I check out the booths.” He did brighten a little after that, and I realized she knew him pretty well.
Another guest, Lois Parsons, wasn’t going to be as cooperative. “I thought I’d stick around and practice on the piano. I had to get rid of mine in the last move.”
I looked at Gretchen, who shrugged.
“It’s not available today; it’s being tuned,” I invented, and Lois frowned.
“Well, I guess it’s the art fair for me, too, then.”
I scanned my table of guests, my hands clasped with the gentle joy a teacher feels when all her students are doing as they’re supposed to. I walked back into the kitchen. Gretchen had batter on the tip of her nose. “I don’t even want to know why your nose was in the batter,” I commented as I piled dishes into the sink.
“My nose itched. When is Peter coming?”
“Calm down. Not until the guests are gone.”
“Then I have time to wash my face,” she concluded. I knew she liked to make an entrance, and it would be in full make-up and the prettiest top she currently owned.
“You’re sleeping in your own bed tonight,” I informed her, not wanting to be kept up by her extolling his virtues. I knew she’d be bowled over—as I’d been. Unfortunately, I’d distinctly felt the cold shoulder and knew he was no longer interested in me. That made me sad, but I told myself I needed all my time and resources dedicated to keeping the house going, especially now that we were wall-stuffing bodies.
Between Gretchen and myself, we began cleaning up breakfast before people were entirely done in an attempt to get the house empty so we could call Peter. Gretchen, dedicated to her quest, literally pulled a plate of half-eaten pancakes from beneath Kevin Van Dam’s face, his fork en route to his mouth. “How were they? Did you enjoy them?” she asked cheerily. She handed him his coffee cup. “Better drink up before it’s cold,” she urged. Turning to Karen, she advised, “You know what they say about the early worm…” and looked off in the direction of downtown.
Women have a mode of silent communication, and this was one time Gretchen used hers well. She had the house empty in ten minutes. She disappeared upstairs, and five minutes later was down with enough make-up to go on stage. “Okay, call him,” she demanded.
I could smell trouble coming from that direction. “He doesn't make that much money, Gretchen. He’s a county employee.”
“I don’t need too much right now. Just enough to cover my house payments, so I don’t lose it.”
I wasn’t going to argue with her. Everyone had something in their future that was their motivation, and in her case, it was alimony. I knew Peter would never fall for that, even if he did become interested in her.
“How is it you’ve never met the sheriff? You’ve lived here forever.”
“I never got into trouble,” she explained.
“Gretchen, you do know this is the same Peter that I dated in high school?”
“He is? Oh, for heaven’s sake. He was a doll!” Her eyes were bright with the possibilities. “Wait, you might want him for yourself…” She said it with the lightest touch of consideration, praying I turned it down.
“Have at him, Gretch. I’m not after anyone. I have enough on my hands at the moment.”
“Fair enough!” she proclaimed and happily went to the library to wait.
I found my phone and made the call. Peter came on the line. “Peter? It’s Fiona. I’m afraid we have a situation over here at the house. I’d appreciate your discretion, and I know you’ll understand when you get here. Can you come right away? We’ve managed to shoo the guests out of the house for the time being.”
“I’m on my way,” he said brusquely.
“Great! See you soon.”
Okay, so I admit I ran up to my bedroom and brushed my hair and put on a light pink lipstick and my pearl ear studs. After all, one had to be presentable, didn’t they?
I heard the double-knock, and the front door opened. Peter must’ve read the “Walk Right In” sign. Then I heard Gretchen’s voice greeting him. She was like a male peacock who spread its feathers at the first sign of an eligible mate in the vicinity. I came down the stairs and paused midway. Peter looked up, and I swear, perhaps hopefully, there was relief in his eyes. “Fiona,” he said, nodding, and I heard Gretchen’s voice fade away like a tire losing air.
&nb
sp; “It’s up here, Peter,” I answered, motioning with my head.
He nodded again and came up the stairs. “So, what am I looking at?” he wanted to know.
“I’ll try to make this brief. One of my guests thought they saw a rodent in their room and screamed, waking everyone. We went to check it out, opened up a hole in the closet, then Sherlock came bolting out.”
“Sherlock?”
“My Aunt Mable’s missing ferret. We think he might have been holing up in the walls. If you don’t know, they love to drag things into little nests for themselves.”
Peter nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard that. Go on.”
“So, like I said, Ben discovered the back wall of the closet was removable and when he pulled it out, Sherlock rushed out, then back in again, and then well… you’ll have to look for yourself to believe what else we found.”
Peter shifted forward, and I held out a hand. “Now, wait, before you go in, I have to warn you that Lizzie Borden came in to see what was going on and she… well, she got trapped in here and was naughty.”
“Naughty?”
“Oh, no, she didn’t mess on the floor; this is probably a new kind of naughty, as these things go.”
“Fiona?”
“Yes?”
“Can I just look?”
“Oh! Yes, of course. Here, I have to use the hammer claw to pull out the nail.”
“Nail?”
“Don’t ask. It’s the least of your worries.”
“Wonderful.” Peter took a deep breath and opened the door. He looked around. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Look in the closet.”
He gave me a sidelong look and then stepped toward it. Whipping his long Maglite from its hook on his waist, he pointed it inside. “Whoa!”