by Bobbi Holmes
“We’re just starting,” Julius told her.
“Is Phoebe up?” Polly asked Seraphina. “I was wondering if she’s coming down to breakfast this morning, since she missed dinner last night.”
“I knocked on her door,” Seraphina said as she sat down at her seat and then grabbed the napkin and shook it out before placing it on her lap. “I thought we should talk this morning, before breakfast, but she didn’t answer. I assumed she was down here. Since she’s not, she’s obviously ignoring me.”
Danielle stood up. “I think I’ll go see if she’s coming down. Like Polly said, she did miss dinner.”
Seraphina shrugged. “She’s a big girl. She knows what time breakfast is being served.”
“I’m still going up,” Danielle said.
Walt stood. “I’ll go with you. “I need to get something from our room anyway,” he lied.
“Please don’t let Phoebe be dead,” Danielle said under her breath as she and Walt hurried up the stairs.
“If the ghost was telling the truth, it has to be her,” Walt said.
“Gosh, I hope not. Because you know who looks like the guilty party,” Danielle groaned.
“Seraphina,” Walt said.
Danielle nodded. “They had a physical fight yesterday. But dang, Chris seems to like her. I don’t want her to be a killer. Crap, a serial killer.”
Walt paused at the second-floor landing and looked at his wife. “Who said anything about her being a serial killer?”
“How many people do you have to kill to be a serial killer?” Danielle asked. “That ghost is one…Phoebe would be two.”
“If Phoebe is dead. I’m still holding out hope the ghost is nothing more than a troublemaker. After all, if Seraphina is his killer, I don’t see why he would want to protect her.”
Danielle reached out and grabbed Walt’s right hand for a moment, giving it a brief squeeze. “I love it when you’re optimistic.”
Together they continued down the hall to the room they had given Bentley and Phoebe. When she reached their door, Danielle knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked again, this time saying, “Phoebe, it’s Danielle. Are you up?”
Again, nothing.
Before trying the door, Danielle went to the bathrooms to see if she might be in one of them. They were both empty. She returned to Phoebe’s bedroom and knocked again. When there was still no answer, Danielle took a deep breath and opened the door, Walt right behind her.
She was surprised to find the room empty.
“There’s no one here,” Danielle said as she walked into the room, Walt following her.
Danielle glanced around. She couldn’t tell if the unmade bed had been slept in, as Joanne did not make up the beds during the guests’ stay.
“There’s a note,” Walt called out, picking up a note from the dresser. “It’s from Phoebe.”
“What does it say?” Danielle asked. She looked over Walt’s shoulder and read the note.
Sorry for everything, Sera. I got a ride to the airport. Phoebe.
Twenty
Their guests were in the midst of a lively conversation around the breakfast table when Danielle and Walt returned from Phoebe’s room, note in hand. After they walked into the dining room, all the guests stopped talking and looked at them.
“Is she coming down?” Polly asked.
“I don’t think so,” Danielle said. She walked to Seraphina and handed her the note. “I think this is for you.”
Seraphina silently read the note and then shook her head. “She must have called an Uber.”
“She left?” Birdie asked.
“It looks that way,” Seraphina said, handing the note to Birdie.
“Does it look like her handwriting?” Danielle asked.
Birdie handed the note back to Seraphina. “Who else’s handwriting would it be?”
Danielle glanced around the table and found them all looking at her as if she had asked the lamest question, which from their perspective, she had.
“Silly question,” Danielle muttered as she sat down at the table with Walt.
“You didn’t talk to her when you got back last night?” Teddy asked.
Seraphina looked to Teddy, her face expressionless. “Didn’t I already say that?”
“It’s for the best,” Jackie said, picking up her cup of coffee. “Those personal dramas just get in the way of our work.”
“Who’s going to drive my rental car now?” Birdie asked.
“I’m perfectly capable of driving the rental,” Seraphina said.
“I don’t know. Are you on the insurance?” Birdie asked.
“Seriously, you’re worried about that?” Teddy said with a snort.
Birdie turned a frown to Teddy. “A person in my position can’t be too careful. Someone out there always wants to sue you, and it is in my name.”
“I’m sure you can add Seraphina to the rental car’s insurance,” Julius said.
“Or you could drive it yourself,” Jackie suggested. “I imagine they have you on the policy if you rented the car.”
Birdie shrugged. “I don’t like to drive.”
“Why do you need to drive? You don’t want me to drive anymore?” An unexpected voice broke into the conversation. Yet only two people in the room could hear it.
Walt and Danielle both looked to the doorway and saw Phoebe standing just inside the dining room, wearing a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt. By the way the others continued chattering on, it was obvious they couldn’t hear the new arrival.
Danielle looked to Walt, who was still staring at Phoebe. She cringed.
Hands on hips, Phoebe stepped closer to the table and looked from one person to another, her brow furrowing into a frown. “Hello!”
“Bentley, looks like you get the room to yourself,” Jackie told him. “No more sleeping in the parlor.”
“He didn’t have to sleep in the parlor last night,” Phoebe snapped. “No one said he couldn’t sleep in the room. But don’t expect me to sleep in the parlor.”
Phoebe started to say something else when something unexpected caught her attention—snow. It fell from the ceiling. Wide eyed, she looked up and started to point. “Look! Look, you guys!”
Everyone at the table—except Walt and Danielle—continued talking, oblivious to the snow falling on their breakfast plates and disappearing. The next moment Eva and Marie appeared, and together floated down from the ceiling, landing on the center of the dining room table.
“That was rather fun!” Marie laughed. “I don’t know why I didn’t try that before!”
“Holy crap!” Phoebe stammered, her eyes wide as she stared at the two strange women.
Marie glanced over at Phoebe and said, “Eva, I think she can see us!”
“Perhaps it’s your energy!” Eva said excitedly. She quickly looked around the table. Yet all the seated guests were talking amongst themselves, and none of them seem to be aware of her or Marie.
“What is going on?” Phoebe shrieked.
“Goodness, I think she’s a ghost,” Marie declared.
The next moment Phoebe disappeared.
Danielle stood up. “If you will excuse me, I forgot I have to call my friend Eva Marie.”
“I’ll go with you. I need to talk to her too,” Walt said.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Marie asked after she and Eva joined Walt and Danielle in the parlor, the door closed for privacy.
“It certainly looks that way,” Danielle said with a groan as she slumped down on the sofa.
Walt took a seat next to Danielle. He reached over and patted her knee while saying, “And she doesn’t know it yet.”
Danielle shook her head. “No. She definitely doesn’t know it yet.”
“How did she die?” Eva asked.
Danielle then explained their morning encounter with the mystery ghost.
“Oh dear, I saw Chris this morning, and he was quite enamored of Seraphina. I hope she isn’t the
one,” Eva said.
“And you have no idea where her body is?” Marie asked.
“We looked around the house. But if she was murdered here, as the ghost said, maybe her body is in one of the bedrooms we couldn’t check. After all, if one of those people out there bumped her off, maybe her body’s in their room,” Walt suggested.
“The ghost never said anything about two killers,” Danielle said. “So if the killer has her body in their bedroom…then it would be Birdie or Seraphina. After all, if Jackie or Julius is responsible—or Teddy or Polly—would they be able to hide a body in their room without their spouse seeing it? And none of them looked especially anxious at breakfast. And Bentley slept in here, and I don’t see a dead body.”
“I would assume if your husband or wife murdered someone and made you help hide the body in your room, the innocent spouse would be quite shaken,” Marie said.
Eva stood up. “We need to check those bedrooms.”
“Please, while they’re still at the breakfast table,” Danielle said. “And if you see Phoebe, find out who killed her.”
“She doesn’t even know she’s dead yet,” Marie reminded.
When Marie and Eva left the parlor to go check out the bedrooms, Danielle remained on the sofa with Walt. She leaned against him as he put his arm around her shoulders.
“She could be somewhere outside,” Danielle suggested.
“I doubt she’s in the side yard; Joanne came in that way. But if Marie and Eva don’t find anything, then we should go check,” Walt said.
“Seraphina seemed so nice,” Danielle moaned.
“You think it’s her?” Walt said.
“It has to be. And I handed her that note. Silly me,” Danielle said. “I should have taken it back.”
“At this point, that would have looked odder than you asking if the handwriting was Phoebe’s.”
“I know,” Danielle agreed, still leaning against Walt. “But that note is evidence. Whoever wrote it is obviously the killer.”
“Unless, of course, Phoebe wrote it,” Walt suggested.
“Why do you say that?” Danielle asked.
“Maybe she was going to leave. After that embarrassing confrontation, perhaps she decided to slip out last night when everyone was sleeping so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. She did hide out in her room the rest of the day after the fight. Maybe she wrote that note, and before she left, she had an altercation with the killer,” Walt said.
Marie and Eva reappeared in the parlor, sans the glitter snow.
“There’s no sign of her anywhere,” Marie announced.
“We need to go check outside,” Danielle said, starting to stand up.
“Don’t bother,” Eva said. “We did that after we checked the bedrooms—got a nice aerial view of the neighborhood—no sign of a body anywhere. I also looked in your garage, and Marie looked in their cars.”
“And we checked all the closets,” Marie added. “The hidden staircase.”
Danielle settled back down on the sofa and asked, “How about pink suitcases?”
“Pink suitcases?” Marie asked.
“Phoebe checked in with two pink suitcases. They weren’t in her room when we found her note. And it looks like all her clothes are gone too,” Danielle explained.
“No. We didn’t see any pink suitcases,” Eva said.
“If that ghost hadn’t said she was murdered in the house, I would assume she was killed somewhere else, like on her way back to Portland, maybe in a car accident. With no body, none of her suitcases in sight, it seems as if she had to have been killed somewhere else, but her confused spirit found its way back here.”
“The only problem with that, the ghost insists she was killed in the house,” Walt reminded them.
“There is no way Seraphina murdered Phoebe,” Chris insisted. He sat with Walt, Danielle and Heather in his office in the foundation headquarters, Hunny sleeping by his feet. While it was Sunday and Heather’s day off, Danielle thought it best if they circle all the wagons, so she had given Heather a call before leaving to see Chris, telling her they were picking her up—there was another ghost in the neighborhood.
Marie and Eva had stayed back at Marlow House. Their duties included being on the lookout for Phoebe’s ghost while eavesdropping on all the suspects.
“How do you know that?” Heather asked.
“Because Seraphina and I talked for hours last night,” Chris told her.
“Only talked?” Heather teased.
He flashed her a glare. “Shut up.”
“I don’t think you can get to know someone after spending just a few hours with them,” Danielle said.
“I just know she wasn’t upset with Phoebe,” Chris said.
“She gave her a black eye,” Danielle reminded him.
“True, but that doesn’t mean she’d kill her,” Chris said.
“What are you going to do?” Heather asked.
“I think we need to talk to the chief,” Danielle said. “Let him know what’s going on.”
“And what, tell him you think Seraphina killed two people?” Chris snapped.
“Someone killed her and whoever that ghost used to be,” Danielle said.
Heather sat back in her chair, considering the possible scenarios. “I think I know how she did it.”
“She didn’t do it,” Chris said.
“When she got back to Marlow House, she found Phoebe had packed and had written that note,” Heather began.
“She didn’t do it,” Chris repeated.
Heather flashed Chris a shut up look and then continued. “She offered to drive Phoebe somewhere. After all, you say Phoebe didn’t have a car, and according to the note, she was going to call an Uber.”
“No, she didn’t say she was calling an Uber,” Danielle corrected. “She just said she was calling a ride, Seraphina suggested that’s what she had done.”
“We should be calling Uber and see who picked her up last night,” Chris said.
“Let me finish,” Heather snapped.
“According to the ghost, she was killed at Marlow House,” Danielle reminded her.
“Yes, I get that,” Heather said, sounding annoyed. “Anyway…they are sitting in the car right in front of the house, and Phoebe pisses Seraphina off again, but this time she whacks her with something. Maybe her cellphone. You should check her cellphone for blood. And—”
“Your scenario doesn’t work,” Chris argued. “According to the ghost, she was killed in the house.”
“Wait a minute, Chris,” Danielle interrupted. “I’m not sure if he said she was killed in Marlow House—or at Marlow House.”
“What difference does it make?” he asked.
“I see what you’re saying,” Walt said. “He might have just meant on our property—or the general location. In front of the house could be interpreted as being bumped off at Marlow House.”
“Exactly,” Heather said with a nod. “And then after Seraphina realized she had just bashed her friend’s head in, she drives her somewhere and dumps the body and suitcases. Which is why her spirit wasn’t there this morning when you guys first got up. She was on her way back to Marlow House from wherever she was dumped.”
“If it happened that way, Seraphina isn’t the one who did it,” Chris insisted.
“When you see her, ask to see her cellphone,” Heather said.
“Why?” Chris asked with a frown.
“To see if it has blood stuck in its cover or around the edges, of course. Or maybe she already threw the cover away, or tossed the cellphone in the ocean!”
“You seriously think the murder weapon is a cellphone?” Chris asked dryly. “Based on what evidence?”
“Do you have a better suggestion?” Heather asked.
Twenty-One
Police Chief MacDonald leaned back in his recliner, his hands folded together and resting on his chest, as he peered at the three people sitting on his living room sofa looking at him expectantly. What they wanted f
rom him he had no flipping clue. He would like to toss them out of his home and never deal with them again.
Each had caused him more problems than any other Frederickport resident. Since meeting them, murder stats for Frederickport had risen, and one or more of them had been involved in each one of those recent murders. If he could run them out of town on the proverbial rail, he would. There was only one problem; they were his friends.
“Well, Chief? What do you think?” Danielle asked, leaning forward, waiting for his response. To her right sat Walt and to her left Chris.
“I think you three should take a long trip,” the chief said.
“A trip?” Danielle frowned. That was not the answer she had expected.
The chief sat up in his chair. “Maybe buy an RV, go cross-country.”
“What are you talking about?” Danielle asked.
“Or maybe a trip to Europe. I hear Paris in the spring is beautiful.” The chief grinned.
“You don’t want to deal with this, do you?” Chris asked.
“I just wanted a peaceful Sunday,” the chief began. “And now you tell me there’s been a murder, but you have no idea where the body is. And there is no crime scene.”
“I’m sure there is a crime scene. We just can’t find it,” Danielle said.
“Any possibility she wasn’t a ghost? You said she got in a fight with the singer, and two of them had to break it up. Maybe they were just ignoring her?” he asked hopefully.
“She saw Marie and Eva,” Danielle reminded him.
“Maybe she’s a medium? You have to admit, we have a lot of mediums around here. Frederickport seems like a regular medium magnet,” the chief said.
“She disappeared before our eyes,” Danielle said.
“Have you been drinking?” MacDonald asked.
“In the morning?” Danielle countered.
“Bloody Marys? Mimosas? You know that Hollywood crowd.” The chief grinned weakly.
Danielle rolled her eyes and slumped back, crossing her arms over her chest.
MacDonald glanced to Walt and Chris, who looked at him with bemusement and a hint of sympathy.