Eat, Drink, and Be Scary (A Ravenmist Whodunit Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Olivia Jaymes

  Dan cleared his throat and placed his napkin beside his plate. “Actually, sweetheart, we were worried about you after we heard the news. This is just awful.”

  My mom nodded vigorously, casting a glance over her shoulder at the kitchen staff before leaning closer to speak. “Do you think this will hurt business?”

  I’d thought about that quite a bit in the past few hours and come to a conclusion.

  “I don’t think so. We already have a reputation as a haunted hotel. I think we’ll be fine.” They weren’t going to sidetrack me. “You still didn’t say what happened to you last night.”

  Peggy put her hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. “There’s a few things we’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  I knew it.

  “This is about Aunt Hattie, isn’t it? Has she been arrested? Or is she missing? Have they checked the taverns within a hundred-mile radius?”

  My dad’s brows shot up and he shook his head. “No, pumpkin. This isn’t about Aunt Hattie. It’s…well…I’m not sure how to say this.”

  My heart froze and I laid a hand on my chest, sure I was not going to hear a heartbeat. I was wrong. It was beating but far too fast.

  “Are you…sick?” I was afraid to even put my worst fears into words. “Oh my God, is one of you dying?”

  “Dying?” Mom echoed, her guileless brown eyes wide. “You think we’re dying?”

  I hopped up from the barstool and began to pace the small space, the words tumbling out quickly one after the other. I don’t remember the last time I was this scared. “What else am I to think? You’re acting all strange and this isn’t about our relatives. One of you must be sick. Which one of you is it? We’ll get the best doctors. I still have friends in Chicago and they know people at Northwestern University. We’ll get you into a medical trial. I have savings, too. We can fly you out of the country for treatment if we have to.”

  Jumping up from his own chair, my father came around to stop my pacing, placing his hands on my shoulders and holding me still. “Pumpkin, we’re not dying. We’re not sick.”

  I was so frustrated I couldn’t even be relieved.

  “Then what is going on that you don’t want to tell me? And don’t lie, because I can see that there is something wrong. What is it?”

  Dad looked at Mom and she sighed. “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

  My gaze darted back and forth between them but they didn’t appear to be joking. Just in case I waited before replying, hoping that my dad might break into laughter and tell me it was only a prank. A tasteless one, but a prank nonetheless. Nothing like a good scare so close to Halloween.

  My mind was having a hard time wrapping around my mother’s statement, though. A divorce. They’d been married forty-one years at this point. Were they indecisive? I knew pretty quickly that I’d made a mistake. It didn’t take me forty freakin’ years to figure it out.

  Oh God. What if one of them was having an affair? Eww.

  “A divorce?”

  It seemed safer to simply parrot what they were saying and hope they would explain.

  Dad nodded, his arms falling to his sides. “We’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time but we didn’t know how to do it.”

  A long time?

  “How long?”

  Mom fidgeted on her barstool. “Awhile. A few months. Your dad moved into the space over the garage right after the Fourth.”

  How had I never noticed this? I saw these people practically on a daily basis.

  “Of July?” I asked, my voice getting louder. The kitchen staff came to a halt and a quiet spread over the kitchen. That’s when I realized we had an audience. I turned to the cooks and mustered what I hoped was a smile. “How about everyone take a little break? Get some fresh air. I need to speak with my parents.”

  Sitting heavily back onto the barstool I waited until all of the kitchen staff had shuffled out, leaving me alone with the two people who had raised me. That right now I wanted to smack some sense into.

  “You cannot get a divorce,” I said once we were alone in the kitchen. “You’ve been married forever. You’re…old.”

  I didn’t mean it to come out quite like that but…they weren’t twenty-two anymore. At their age, they had to be slowing down, if only a little bit. I was in my early thirties and half the time felt like I was seventy.

  Slapping her cup down on the island, Peggy’s lips flattened into a line. “I am not that old, young lady, and I’m certainly not too old to turn you over my knee. When you’re my age you won’t think you’re old.”

  I imagine being old is a little like being crazy. You’re the last one to know you are. So my parents were having some sort of late mid-life crisis. That was normal, right? People all over the world were doing this. Probably.

  “Fine, you’re young.” A thought occurred to me. “But you are definitely too old to spank me. That is so not going to happen.”

  “Then I’ll send you to your room.”

  That wasn’t exactly a punishment.

  My father cleared his throat again. “What we’re trying to tell you is that we’ve separated and are planning to divorce. I’ll be moving out in a few days so we knew we had to tell you now.”

  My vision blurred for a moment and the room spun before righting itself. “Moving out? You’re moving out. Listen, every marriage has issues but you have to work on them. See a counselor. Go on a second honeymoon. Buy a Harley. It worked for Aunt Hattie.”

  My mother shrugged and fiddled with her fork. “We’ve done all of that. Except for the motorcycle, of course. It didn’t help. We don’t have forever on this planet and we want a chance to be happy.”

  I was still floored from hearing that they’d seen a marriage counselor but then I thought about my sisters. They were going to be extremely upset, especially Amelia. She cried at the drop of a hat. She even cried when she thought something bad might happen. Sort of a preemptive sob session.

  Rubbing my temples, I tried to slow my racing heart by slowly inhaling and then exhaling. My parents were being impetuous, which wasn’t like them at all. Well…it wasn’t like my father.

  That was it. This was my mother’s idea. It had her fingerprints all over it and Daddy was just going along with it to make her happy. Like he always did. He was simply humoring her and eventually it would all go back to the way it was.

  “When are you going to tell the others?”

  Another guilty glance. I was hating this day more and more. They had to tell my sisters.

  My dad shifted on his feet, looking everywhere but directly at me. He finally lifted his gaze, apology written all over his features. “We already have, pumpkin. A few months ago.”

  A few months ago.

  The words echoed in my brain and I heard them over and over but I couldn’t quite comprehend their meaning.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We told them when they were in town for my birthday in August,” Mom said, her chin lifted as if to dare me to complain about it. She’d also practically dared me not to go to Chicago and look how that turned out.

  “You told them but not me? Am I getting this right?”

  I realized my mouth was hanging open in shock and that I was feeling angry. Very angry. I loved my parents but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t honk me off at times.

  “It’s just…you’re so emotional,” my mother sighed. “And we didn’t want to bring back the memory of your own divorce. This is nothing like that. We’re happy about this and we’re still friends.”

  Oh no, they just didn’t…

  “Don’t turn this around on me,” I said, my voice quivering with emotion and just plain hurt. “This is about you two being too chicken-livered to tell me. All my sisters have flown the coop and don’t have to deal with it day in and day out so it was easy to tell them. But me? Nope. You waited until the last minute. I have to give props though, my loving parents. You told me on the perfect day. I’m just sorry your news was eclipsed by som
e poor dead guy.”

  Dad reached out for me but I dodged his hand. I was in no mood to deal with this.

  “I have an inn to run and a murder to deal with. But hey, thanks for making my day even better. Have a great divorce. Will you let me know if you’re getting married to anyone again or will I have to read that in the paper like everyone else? I guess I can just ask my sisters.” I began to walk away and but then stopped and turned around. “And I am not the emotional one. Amelia is.”

  Before they could reply I stomped out of the kitchen, a righteous head of steam built up. What a horrible day and yet I didn’t have much to complain about. Jerome Bergstrom was having a much worse day. Had Garrett found the killer yet?

  Chapter Six

  Sheriff Jackson Garrett was on my last nerve.

  “Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Missy didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Garrett sighed and I could see a muscle jerk in his jaw. He was mad. Too bad, so was I. Between a dead body on my back lawn and my parents splitting up I’d had the day from hell.

  “She was seen walking toward your backyard, Tedi, by a credible witness. Your own paper boy. Why would he lie?”

  “I have a better question. Why would Missy kill a guy she’s never met?” I shot back. “It doesn’t make any sense and you have to admit that. She has no motive whatsoever while there are others who have lots of motive. Tons of it. Besides, he could have been mistaken. It was dark and he could have seen someone that just looked like Missy.”

  I was ready to argue with Garrett until my last breath if I had to. He appeared to be gearing up to do the same until we both heard a voice behind us.

  “It was me. He wasn’t mistaken.”

  Whirling around, I saw Missy standing there in my personal living room where I’d dragged the sheriff when he started in on wanting to speak to her. I didn’t need the staff and half of the town gossiping about something that wasn’t even true.

  Except that it was and it didn’t make any sense at all.

  “What were you doing out at that hour?” I asked, ignoring my law enforcement nemesis. “Is everything okay? Were you coming to see me?”

  Missy nodded and closed the door behind her, stifling the noises from the inn. The food had officially run out but people were still milling about. “I was and then I realized that it was ridiculous to come over at that time of the morning. I’m sorry but I was just upset.”

  “Upset about what?”

  This time Garrett beat me to the punch and asked his question first.

  “That’s kind of personal isn’t it?” I asked testily. “It’s none of your business. She gave you the reason she was out and about and now you need to leave her alone.”

  “There is nothing private in a murder investigation. So I’ll ask the question again. Miss Harper, what were you so upset about that you needed to come over before five in the morning, walking in the dark?”

  I rolled my eyes at his hyperbole. “This is Ravenmist, Sheriff. Nothing is going to happen to her in the dark or the light. We don’t even have a bad part of town.”

  The sound of Garrett’s pencil hitting his notepad sounded loud in my ears. He was ticked.

  “First of all, you most certainly do have a bad part of town. The old downtown is none too safe.”

  “It’s not dangerous. It’s haunted.”

  “Have you ever found a ghost there?”

  I couldn’t believe that the town thought he was attractive. All he needed was a mustache to twirl and he could be a real live villain in an old silent movie.

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, I found some vagrants so I win.” He turned back to Missy, turning his back on me. “Miss Harper? Could you answer the question, please?”

  “My boyfriend and I had a big argument. He’s talking about leaving town to take a new job and he wants me to go with him.”

  This was the first I was hearing of this. Dylan and Missy were very happy together. At no time had I ever heard him expressing interest in leaving Ravenmist. His family had lived here for four generations and ran the feed store in town. What kind of job was he going to take?

  “Are you going?”

  Of all the questions I could have asked it wasn’t pertinent to getting Garrett off of my best friend’s back, but it was the first one that came to mind. I didn’t want to lose Missy. She was my rock in this town, especially now that my parents had officially lost their minds.

  Missy smiled and shook her head. “No way. I’m here to stay.”

  Turning on Garrett, I shrugged nonchalantly. “See? A perfectly reasonable explanation. Now you should go out and find the real killer before they leave town.”

  I must have said something funny because the sheriff chuckled. “You’re so sure that no Ravenmist citizen did this?”

  “No one knew Jerome Bergstrom.”

  That’s when it hit me. Angela Warner knew him.

  “Miss Harper, don’t leave town. I may need to speak to you again.”

  With her finger, Missy crossed her heart. “I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Of course, you didn’t. He must have lots of suspects other than you, right, Sheriff?”

  I gave him my best mean look but he wasn’t fazed in the least. I could picture him twirling that mustache.

  “No.”

  “A few then?”

  “No. Just one.”

  Then I’d find him some more. Garrett Jackson wasn’t going to pin this murder on my best friend just because she’d had the bad luck to be walking around in the middle of the night. If he couldn’t find who murdered Jerome Bergstrom then I would.

  And I’d start with the girlfriend.

  “I need a new house,” I announced to Angela Warner as I sat down in her guest chair. Her real estate office wasn’t far from the inn and I’d walked there as soon as I could get away from Sheriff Jackass. Oops. I mean Sheriff Jackson Garrett. “I’m tired of living in the inn. It’s like I’m always at work.”

  “Of course, I can help you,” Angela said with a smile. She was an attractive woman with short dark hair and expressive green eyes. Right now, those eyes were looking at me with sympathy and I felt a twinge of guilt being here, but then I remembered she might be a murderer. “After today, I can imagine that you’re looking for peace and quiet. A place you can go to retreat from your day to day stresses.”

  I wasn’t for real looking for a house but that didn’t sound too bad. Maybe I should seriously think about it. Because I lived in the inn I basically worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I loved the inn but a girl could only take so much, you know?

  “You heard about Mr. Bergstrom?” I asked, my gaze sweeping around the office looking for…what? I didn’t know. I wasn’t a cop, after all. I’d been a research analyst at a financial firm in my previous corporate life but all that meant was that I had the patience to do limitless grunt work. “The whole situation is just shocking. I can’t imagine why anyone would want him dead. He was so friendly and charming.”

  Hopefully lightning would be busy elsewhere since I’d just told a whopper of a lie. My hair didn’t singe and the electricity didn’t go off so I figured I was safe for now.

  Angela leaned forward, a solemn look on her face. “It’s awful. What is this world coming to? I mean, what is wrong with people? The poor man comes into town on vacation and ends up dead. It’s shocking, that’s what it is.”

  Leaning back in the chair, I casually crossed my legs hoping to look innocent and nonchalant, not like I was trying to find out any secrets she might have.

  “Did you get a chance to meet him at the party last night?”

  Not a flicker of a reaction. None.

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t at the party long. I stayed for less than and hour as I was a little under the weather.”

  “I hope you’re feeling better today,” I replied with the appropriate amount of concern in my tone. Angela Warner was a smooth liar and I kind of admired h
er for it. I, on the other hand, sucked at it. “I can come back another time…”

  She waved away my concerns. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Now let’s talk about what you’re looking for in a house. Bedrooms, bathrooms, size of the yard. Will you want something close to the inn or are you looking to move farther out of town?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” A deep voice boomed behind me and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Jackson Garrett. So he did have other suspects. Turning around in my chair, I checked to see if his pants were on fire but surprisingly found them untouched. It appeared lightning and fire were occupied today. Lucky us. “I had no idea, Tedi, that you were planning to make a change in your living situation.”

  “The news will be in the paper next week,” I replied with a saccharine smile. “I’m taking out an ad.”

  Angela’s brows shot up at my tone and her gaze bounced back and forth between us. Clearly Garrett and I were more interesting than how many half baths I wanted.

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Garrett nodded his head but there was a glint in his blue eyes. I was going to be hearing about this later. “Now Ms. Warner, do you have a few minutes to talk? It’s very important. I’m sure Tedi wouldn’t mind coming back later.”

  The jig was up. I was caught. I wouldn’t be getting any more information from Angela Warner, at least not right now. Hopefully the sheriff – an actual professional – would have more luck.

  “Of course, I can come back. In fact, I’ll make a list of what I’m looking for and email it to you.”

  Angela hopped up from her chair, not happy about losing a possible commission. “I’m sure this won’t take but a few minutes. We could drive out to the new housing development near the highway and look at some of the models.”

  I wouldn’t live there for free. Every house looked exactly the same. How incredibly boring. What did it say about the residents there that they lived in beige cookie cutter houses? The only way they knew which one was theirs was by the house number on the mailbox.

  Garrett pulled himself up to his full height and noisily cleared his throat. “That’s where I live.”