by Marja McGraw
“Don’t worry, pumpkin pie, we’ll get through anything that comes our way.” Felicity smiled encouragingly at her new husband.
“Pumpkin pie?” Racheal looked surprised. “Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “They’re trying to drive us crazy with cutesy little pet names. This isn’t the way they normally talk to each other.”
While my mother spoke to the newcomers, I called Tyler aside. “Say, Tyler, are there any neighbors around who lived here when the murders were committed?”
He didn’t look surprised. “I had a feeling you might want to know more about what happened. I started to tell you yesterday, but Racheal showed up. Yes, as a matter of fact, there are two families who lived here at the time. Want me to introduce you to them? Well, I was here, too, but I was pretty young. My brother was staying with a friend for the night, so he didn’t know much about what happened, except what he heard.”
“Yes, please, I’d like to meet the neighbors. And would you mind not mentioning this to Pete? We’re having a little competition.”
“No, just let me know when you want to talk to them. I think I mentioned that I work at home? Well, I’m a mystery writer and I’ve been thinking about doing a book based on this house. I understand you’re a private investigator. Maybe we could collaborate a little. Would you mind answering a few questions for me after you talk to the neighbors? It might encourage me not to mention our agreement to your husband.” His grin told me he was happy to join our game.
“I love a good mystery. You betcha. I’d like your input, too, since writers seem to have such creative minds.”
Pete had been watching us and finally decided to join us. “What’s going on over here?”
“Nothing, sweetums. We’re just having a little talk. Did you know Tyler is a mystery writer?”
Tyler laughed. “Sweetums? So you two are playing the name game, too?”
Pete didn’t reply. “Don’t tell me, he wants to know if we’ve seen the ghost yet.”
“Why, Petey, you know I don’t believe in ghosts.” Did my tone sound innocent enough?
“What ghost?” Tyler played dumb quite well.
Chapter Ten
With Micah and Tyler’s help, Pete and Stanley finished installing sinks and faucets in record time. They found Frank outside, beginning to put up fencing for the corrals, and jumped right in.
In the meantime, the plumber installed the toilet in the bathroom on the upper level. Now if we only had water.
When I walked out to the garage to grab a couple of extra buckets I could hear Micah’s booming voice talking about farming. From what he’s said earlier, it sounded like he and his wife had a large place somewhere in New Mexico.
In comparison, Tyler was very soft-spoken. He and Racheal’s farm was quite small.
In the meantime, Zoë and Rachael took a tour of the house before picking up brooms and helping us clean.
“This place is going to be quite a showplace by the time you’re through with it,” Zoë said. “I heard you’re going to turn it into a bed and breakfast and bring horses in. Kind of a dude ranch, huh?”
“That’s the plan,” my mother said.
“Do you already have your horses?” Zoë asked.
“Frank is looking into it.”
“Talk to Tyler. He knows everyone around here and I think he can fix you up with a mare and maybe a stallion. Do you know what breed you want?”
While my mother and Zoë talked about horses, Felicity, Racheal and I worked our way around the house pulling off more baseboards. After we got the floors as clean as we could, we wanted to start painting.
Mother wandered through and explained she was going to fix lunch for all of us. Felicity and I offered to help, but she said she had everything under control.
“So, Racheal, what more can you tell me about what happened here?” I tried to sound casual, but it didn’t feel like I quite pulled it off.
“I only know what Tyler’s told me. Barbara Stockholm was a nice woman, but maybe a little scatterbrained. Although, she kept the llama ranch going. Her father was up in years so she took things over. Let me back up a little. Barbara was all business when it came to the ranch, and she knew exactly what she was doing. It was a going business, believe it or not. But she was a scatterbrain when it came to men.
“Both the ranch hand and the neighbor were in love with her and she played one against the other. From what Tyler said, I’m not sure she really meant to pit one against the other, but still, that’s the way it worked out. One of the neighbors said she’d never had time for a social life and at her age she was waaaay flattered about the attention.”
“How old was she?” Felicity asked.
“I understand she was in her early fifties. She’d been some kind of hotshot attorney who lived and breathed her career until settling down with the llama ranch.”
“Hmm. She was older than I’d imagined,” I said.
“Tyler told me when he was a boy she’d invite him in for cookies and milk, and in return he’d help clean out the barn. Somehow I think my husband got the short end of the stick.”
Felicity chuckled. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“Anyway, the story goes that Barbara’s father told her she was making a fool out of herself and needed to make a choice. Long story short, she chose the neighbor, the ranch hand went nuts, and the rest is history. He killed them all.”
“Well, that’s short and sweet.” I was hoping for more detail.
Racheal looked thoughtful. “You know, something about the story never quite set right with me.”
My ears perked up.
“Tyler said the ranch hand never struck him as crazy, and what he did was nuts. In fact, the ranch hand befriended my husband because there weren’t any other kids living nearby. The only time he saw other children was at school.” She smiled. “Maybe that’s why he’s quiet and such a computer nerd. Oh, he’s not really a nerd, but he spends an awful lot of time working on his books. Sometimes he barely comes up for air.”
“What about his brother?” I asked. “Didn’t they hang out together?”
“Not really. Micah is eight years older than Tyler. They’ve only become close as adults. When they were kids, Micah was always off somewhere with his friends from school. He had a car. He’s definitely the more outgoing of the two boys.”
Felicity stood by quietly, taking in the conversation. “If the father shot the ranch hand, then that seems to clinch his guilt. Why doesn’t it set well with you?”
Racheal chewed on her lip for a moment before replying. “Those murders are the biggest thing that ever happened in this valley. The neighbors still talk about them from time to time. Every one of them says they never would have guessed Clyde Stipple would turn out to be a killer. They still have trouble believing it, even when you think about him feeling jealous. Yes, it’s a motive, but they all say Clyde was more the type to walk away with his tail between his legs and write it off.”
“Hmm. The name Clyde makes me think about someone with strength of character, not someone weak enough to commit murder.” Felicity looked around the room thoughtfully.
“But, Fel, you don’t have to be weak to kill someone. You just have to be angry or conniving enough to do it.” My experience so far had been that greed, relationships and… Well, yeah, sometimes there really wasn’t a good reason.
Felicity and I looked at each other and smiled.
I spoke first. “Maybe there is more to this than meets the eye. How many times have hunches paid off? If it doesn’t set right with Racheal, then it doesn’t set right with me. We just might beat our husbands to the answers on this one.”
Racheal looked at us with questions in her eyes.
I explained. “We don’t know the whole story about what happened here. My husband and I…” I smiled. “I love saying my husband.” I shook my head, getting back on track. “We don’t know the whole story, and our husbands have challenged us to see who can come up with th
e answers first. I should explain. My husband and I, and Stanley, are private investigators.”
“Oh! Does Tyler know that?”
“He does, and he wants to pick my brain while we’re here. In return, he said he’d introduce me to some of the neighbors so I can get their take on what happened here twenty years ago.”
Racheal grinned. “Can any outsiders get in on this competition?”
I nodded. “But you have to keep quiet about it. We don’t want our husbands to know you and Tyler are helping us with this.”
“Zoë,” she yelled, “come on back here.”
While we waited for Zoë, Racheal moved closer to us. “You know about the ghost, right?”
Felicity and I glanced at each other.
“No. Tell us.” I wasn’t about to admit I’d heard ghost stories about the house.
“Well! Lights have been seen in the upstairs bedroom – ”
“Which room?” I asked, remembering the sight of a face at the window when we pulled into the driveway the day before.
“Front left. It’s the only bedroom window you can see from the front of the house. The other window is the bathroom, and the master bedroom is at the rear. Why?”
“Have I mentioned, I don’t believe in ghosts?”
Racheal turned her head and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You might change your mind about that after staying here for a few days.”
Chapter Eleven
We explained the challenge to Zoë while we worked.
“I don’t know what I can do to help, but it sounds like fun.”
While we continued sweeping, Racheal told us about the few neighbors who’d lived in the area when the murders were committed.
“Zetta and Bill Ellison have lived here for something like forty years. They’re old people, I think maybe in their sixties. Although, it seems like Tyler mentioned them being in their eighties once. I’ll have to ask him.”
I laughed. “Don’t let my mother hear you calling them old. She and Frank are in their fifties, not that far away from the Ellisons, unless they’re in their eighties.”
Racheal nodded. “Oh. Maybe that’s not really old, but it seems like it to me. Anyway, they bought their property around the same time Harry Stockholm and his wife bought theirs. They were good friends until Harry’s wife died. Zetta said after that Harry was kind of like a hermit. He didn’t want to be social anymore. Barbara was an attorney and she lived back east somewhere and hardly ever came to see her father until she took over the ranch.”
“Just out of curiosity, what was Mrs. Stockholm’s name?” I asked. If I was going to do this, I needed to do it right. That meant knowing who all the players were, past and… Well, they were all in the past.
Racheal closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. I’ll ask Tyler, if it’s important. She died even before he was born, but he might know.”
“I guess it’s not that important. Like I said, I was just curious.”
“Shirley and Jeff Shaw have lived here forever, too. They moved in not long after the Stockholms and Ellisons. Before Harry’s wife died, they all hung out together. Their kids all played together, too.
“There was another couple, but I don’t know their names. The neighbor that fell in love with Barbara bought their house and he lived here for about five years before Barbara came back.”
“Do you know what his name was?” I asked. “The neighbor, I mean.”
“Mike Hamilton. Tyler remembers him. He might be able to tell you some stuff, too.”
Before we could talk more, my mother called us for lunch. She invited the plumber and the electrician to join us, too, but they’d brought their own lunches.
Mom had cleaned off the outdoor kitchen countertop and set up sandwich fixings, along with paper plates. While we brought chairs, she walked out to the men and told them to come eat.
“I’m going to have to get a dinner bell or something.” She paused for a moment. “You know, that’s not a bad idea, now that I think about it. The guests might get a kick out of having me call them to dinner with a bell. I’ll have to look for something big and loud.”
“Look no farther,” Racheal said. “We’ve got two of those triangle things at our place. You know, you run a thingy around them and they call everybody in.”
“You have such a way with words,” Zoë said, laughing. “The triangle thing that you run the thingy around to make noise. You’re priceless, Racheal.”
Racheal smiled at her sister-in-law. I could see it was good-natured banter by the way they looked at each other. “Yeah, you’re a real wordsmith compared to me, Zoë. So what’s the triangle thing called?”
“A triangle dinner bell.”
“Oh. That was too easy.”
Felicity and I started to laugh. The sisters-in-law looked at us to see what was so funny.
“It’s just that you sound like Felicity and I do sometimes,” I explained.
That seemed to satisfy them and they started preparing sandwiches, adding leftover potato salad to the plates. When Micah and Tyler joined us, the women handed them their plates and started making their own sandwiches.
Taking note of the wifely thing to do, Fel and I glanced at each other and made sandwiches for Pete and Stanley.
“I hope they don’t expect this kind of treatment all the time,” I said. “I have a feeling our husbands could get used to us doing everything for them.”
“Yeah, we could.” Pete tapped my shoulder and reached for his plate.
Stanley took his plate and uncharacteristically gobbled up his food. He was usually so slow and careful about eating, making sure he didn’t drop any crumbs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry,” he said. “We’ve been doing manly man’s work, and it sure is different from sitting at a desk.”
He dropped his napkin. Felicity and he both bent to pick it up at the same time and knocked heads, which was interesting because that’s what had happened when they first met each other. My two favorite people were somewhat accident prone, and I loved them all the more for it. Lifting their heads, they looked adoringly at each other.
“Sorry, little dumpling,” Stanley said.
“That’s okay, pookey bear.”
Micah looked at them and when I thought he’d say something about their pet names and how silly they were, he turned back to his food instead.
“We were newlyweds once, too,” he said softly. “It’s okay to be silly when everything is new.”
I was impressed with his thoughtfulness. He could have made fun of them, but chose not to. I liked the Hansen boys and their wives.
I chewed and swallowed a bite of sandwich before turning to my mother. “So what’s next?”
“More sweeping, sweetie. If you’re going to paint while you’re here, we need to get the floors as clean as possible.”
“More sweeping. It figures.”
Frank dropped his empty plate into a trash bag. “These boys are something. We’re almost done with the corrals already.” He smiled. “Even Stan has done a full day’s worth of work.”
Stanley beamed. “I can come through in a pinch. I know our time here is limited. We need to get as much done as we can.”
“Good job, Stan, my man.” Pete slapped Stanley’s back.
For just a moment I had an overwhelming sense of love for my family and friends. My heart felt as full as it ever had. I had a strange desire to cry, but I swallowed, willing the feeling to go away. I wasn’t a crier, and never had been. I wasn’t about to start being a weepy woman now.
I stood and blinked a few times before dropping my plate in the bag. “Back to work,” I said. “Lots to do and not much time to do it.”
Mother watched me with a look on her face that made me feel like she might know exactly what I was feeling. She smiled and winked at me.
The house beckoned to me and I returned to the bedroom I’d been sweeping before our lunch break. While I worked, I thought about
Barbara and Harry, father and daughter, dead for some twenty years. I’d bet they loved this old house. It had character. Even in disrepair, I could see so much potential.
I saw something move in my peripheral vision and glanced up, expecting to see anything but what my eyes met.
There was someone outside the window. I blinked and the person was gone. Running to the window, I looked out. No one. I tried to open it for a better look, but it wouldn’t budge. The face lingered in my mind. While I didn’t have a good look at it, I’d still noticed two things. It was a woman, and she had long blonde hair. The window was so dirty. It made the woman’s face look almost ethereal.
“What are you doing, Sandi?” It was my mother’s voice.
“Nothing, Mom. I just wanted to let some fresh air in, but the window’s stuck.” I didn’t want her to know someone had been peeping in. I turned and smiled at her.
“Are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I swallowed. “You know I don’t believe in ghosts, Mom.”
Chapter Twelve
A moment later I heard voices. The other women joined us and we worked with renewed vigor. I debated about the face I’d seen for no more than a split second. We had a job to get done, but frankly, I wanted to go outside and explore that side of the house. Maybe whoever had been there had left footprints, or maybe she’d dropped something. So much for split second thinking.
I swept like a mad woman for about five minutes before I decided I’d simply take a break. No one would care.
“Potty break,” I said, leaning my broom against the wall.
No one even acknowledged me.
In my rush, I took a wrong turn and had to stop to get my bearings. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up in the dank basement. I found the correct stairway and hurriedly descended to the apartment Felicity and Stanley were staying in. Out the back door, left turn, and around the house. Up a grade and within moments I was outside the bedroom where I’d seen the face.