Jessie Delacroix: Fright Night at the Haunted Inn (Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 4)

by Constance Barker

  “Of course.”

  Anika was right. That’s just the way Beth is – and they knew it.

  Tramador’s performers looked well and happy now. They were wearing brightly colored body suits, the women’s outfits trimmed in sequins. One slender man and young woman were warming up on the high wire while an exuberant couple practiced on the flying trapeze. Another pair was on the stage perfecting their acrobatic hand-balancing act.

  A squeal of feedback came from the public address system on the stage, and then we heard Zach Fontaine’s booming baritone voice.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! And welcome to the only performance of the amazing Trans-Siberian Circus in America! Please take your seats and order your snacks and beverages. The show will begin in ten minutes!”

  Beth was in the back of the stage at the controls and piped some lively music over the PA.

  “Huh. That sounded pretty professional, Ginny.”

  “Yep. Ever since he announced that sheep rodeo for the kids back here a few months ago, it’s hard to keep him away from a live microphone. I guess he likes the sound of his own voice as much as we enjoy listening to him.”

  “He has a commanding and fun presence,” Anika added, “so you can’t beat that.”

  “Evening, ladies.” The bright moonlight cast a hazy shadow of the tall approaching man over us, and I knew that Sheriff Muldoon had arrived. “Do we need tickets for this fancy shindig, or can we sit anywhere?”

  The Sheriff was in his uniform as always, and Audrey was on his arm in a form-fitting red dress, looking a bit like Jessica Rabbit. Wally and Molly were beside them. He had obviously let them stop at home for a change of clothes, and they were both dressed casually and colorfully in short-sleeved summer attire.

  I took the Sheriff’s arm. “We have a special table for your party, Sheriff.” I led them to the head banquet tablet, front and center, right in front of the stage. Kyle and Lexi were already seated there, and they greeted the Sheriff and Audrey. “And Zach can sit at the end of the table during the acts and have easy access to the microphone. Are your deputies coming?”

  “Edgar and Rodney are here on duty. They’ll be walking the grounds and watching the ingress and egress points.”

  He gave me a steely look, probably indicating that I shouldn’t try to escape with his prisoners.

  “That’s perfect.”

  “Here you go, Sheriff – compliments of Chef Carlo Pinochet!” Ashley set down a steaming platter of beautifully decorated appetizers with a decidedly Irish flair. “Small baby red potato halves, partially scooped out and filled with fresh corned beef and cabbage and a wee bit of Ardsallagh goat cheese, topped with green sour cream, and garnished with bits of corned beef and green herbs. I’ll go get your beverages. Enjoy!”

  Muldoon turned his beaming face towards the platter of about two dozen of the bite-sized potato appetizers. “Well, it’s really a shame she didn’t bring anything for the rest of you folks,” he said popping a whole one into his eager mouth.

  The others laughed and grabbed one of the morsels.

  “The girls and I will sit with Wally and Molly right there at the next table, Sheriff.”

  He nodded slowly and suspiciously, keeping his eyes on mine the whole time. Audrey shot him a disapproving look and slid her hand down his shoulder and upper arm.

  “Thanks, Jessie,” she said with a smile. “That will be just fine.”

  The music was low enough for easy conversation, but loud enough to block out conversations from neighboring tables, which was perfect. Anika and Ginny joined us as we all sat at our round table with Wally and Molly.

  The spotlights began to swirl around the lawn and courtyard, and a huge laser star took shape in the sky above the stage. Zach introduced the first act, and a daring couple started on their way across the high wire, with the woman standing on the skinny man’s shoulders. She was juggling three flaming batons as they slowly crossed the 30-foot wire, and the crowd was spellbound.

  Ashley lit the candle in the center of our table and dropped off a pitcher of iced-tea and some glasses.

  “Wally…” I looked at him and saw a more rested and hopeful look in his eye. “…we don’t have much time. You were back in the woods when Tramador was killed. Was he murdered? Or was he killed by a mindless beast? I have to know the answer so I can help you. I realize that you know me as the little girl at the end of the street, but I…I have ways of helping you that…well…just tell me. Who killed Tramador?"

  It was Molly who spoke. “I waited nearly a century and a half to find out that answer, Jessie, And it turns out…it was me.”

  I was confused, and wanted to get the conversation back to Wally. “But, Molly you weren’t even there. You were home, sick and sleeping.”

  Wally held his forearm up to the flickering candlelight. I saw the snakehead tattoo near his wrist, but it was followed by the whole body of a snake winding back to his elbow. I felt an uncomfortable chill come over my body. I looked at Anika and then at Ginny. Then Molly spoke.

  “Jessie, what happened here two nights ago for you happened 130 years ago for us.”

  I looked in her deep golden brown eyes and realized that the familiarity I saw there was not just from knowing Molly, the bakery lady, all my life.

  The crowed let out a small gasp, and we all looked at the tightrope walker as he skillfully regained his balance as the woman kept juggling.

  I took Wally’s arm in my hand, and my heart raced as I pulled it closer to me. I looked at him, and then at his tattoo…and I ran my finger along the back of the snake. I could feel the same wide scar from the wound that I had just healed on Leo’s arm last night at Oktoberfest in Munich.

  My hands began to tremble, and I looked quickly up at Wally as I released his arm.

  “I told you I was going to get a snake tattooed over it,” he said with wan smile.

  “Leo…”

  He nodded. Then, as our minds labored to comprehend this sudden and surprising reality, Anika, Ginny, and I turned our heads in unison towards Molly.

  “Then…”

  She nodded. “Yes…I’m Lilianna.”

  It must have been a joyous tear that started to roll down my cheek, and I hugged her.

  The crowd clapped and cheered as the high wire performers got safely to the other side. They bowed deeply several times and then got on a bicycle-built-for-two and rode back to the other side of the wire, where they bowed for the crowd once again.

  “Wow!” Zach got back up on the stage and took the microphone. “I can hardly put on my pants without falling over. That was amazing! Let’s have another nice big hand for Ana and Alexi!”

  Alexi ran along the wire to the center and did a full splits. Then he grabbed the thick braided wire, rolled forward, and swung around the cable once…twice…and then released with a high-arching double flip and landed on the ground in front of the audience. Ana did three back walk-overs along the wire, and then held the fourth, with her hands and feet together on the wire and arched over backwards above it, She swung in that position three times around the wire, released, and landed in Alexi’s arms. The crowd was on their feet as they cheered and applauded.

  Zach waited for the crowd to settle down and then introduced the next act. “Let’s have a warm welcome for out next performers, Adelina and Victor, on the flying trapeze!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sheriff Muldoon looked across the courtyard at me wondering when we were going to give him the promised solution to the Tramador incident. I nodded and mouthed soon.

  “Anika, the Sheriff is getting impatient. What are we going to do?” She was looking around toward the driveway, waiting for somebody it seemed. “We told him we were going to solve the crime here tonight.”

  “And we will, Jessie. I just need to get one more duck in a row.”

  “…but we can’t just tell him that…well…”

  “That I did it,” Molly said, quite matter-of-factly.

  �
�Yes. But it wasn’t murder, Molly. You did nothing wrong.”

  “Mmhm…except tear a man limb from limb.”

  She really didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, she killed him, but it wasn’t murder.

  “So let me get this straight.” Ginny rubbed her chin and then cradled her head on her fists as she leaned forward on the table with her elbows spread wide apart. “You can do a little shape-shifting too, since you got that werewolf blood…”

  “Oh! That’s right,” I said, recalling our conversation with Tramador in the courtyard. “You can morph into three animals that begin with ‘P’… um…panther, poodle, and python, right?”

  Molly nodded. “And a lot of other things now too.”

  “Hmm…” Ginny was getting into her deductive Sherlock Holmes mood. “…and so you change yourself into a dog every time there’s a full moon. Kind of like Moondance isn’t a vampire when he turns into a cat, maybe because felines haves fangs and possibly other characteristics of a vampire. And being a canine is probably close enough to being a wolf, so the full moon doesn’t turn you into a wolf – it just makes you a little itchy and uncomfortable, I suppose.”

  “That’s right, Ginny. I was the big black dog that Wally came here with that night. But that super moon was so big and powerful, I could feel that I was losing control and was going change – right here in the courtyard in front of everybody.”

  “Yup. So you pulled Wally here back into the woods with you, behind the pine trees to get out of sight.”

  “Yes…well, I wanted to go into the woods anyway to find out who that other werewolf was that I saw when I was just 17 years old – the one that killed Tramador. And that’s when the Colonel came running across the lawn and into the woods. The moonlight came over the top of the Inn, and I looked into his eyes just as I began to change. I hadn’t seen him since 1883 when I escaped, but I knew who he was at once, and I became enraged. Just as the change was almost complete, the werewolf of my younger self ran into the woods too, and Tramador called to her…to me. And then…” She put her head down in shame.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Molly. While you’re in the process of changing you have no control over your animal instincts,” I said, putting my hand on hers.

  The trapeze act finished, and just the acrobats were left. Muldoon looked at me with raised eyebrows as they took the stage, and the woman performer did a handstand on top of the man’s hands. I held up ten fingers to let him know that we would be keeping our promise in ten minutes, when this act was finished – I hoped.

  I was still confused and had so many questions for Molly. But before I could ask, a dark panel truck backed into the driveway near my carriage house, and two uniformed men got out.

  “My park rangers are here,” Anika said with a sense of relief. She got up and took Molly’s hand and led her away from the table.

  “Little girl’s room!” she sang to Muldoon as she passed his skeptical face and headed inside the Inn through the solarium.

  Ralphie Moore was standing by the entry, and I saw her whisper something to him. Ralphie saw me looking at him and waved to me, and then he walked over to say something to the two mysterious park rangers as Anika and Molly disappeared inside. I saw Deputy Edgar follow behind the women.

  “Well, I’m not sure what Anika’s got up her sleeve, but I’ll bet it’ll be interesting!” Ginny snorted twice. “Anyhoo, what happened back there next, Wally?”

  “Well, Lilianna came back there just then, and she was already simmered down from her change in the glass enclosure out front. She wasn’t dangerous now. I knew who it was because I had seen young Leo and Lilianna in the Tea Room that morning when I tapped on the window. Molly and I were very pleased, because we’ve been waiting for this day. I wasn’t here…the young me…when this happened…”

  “Nope,” Ginny nodded in agreement, “Leo was in France with Kaya and us when all that was going on.”

  “Yes, but Lily’s told me all about it so many times. She wanted to find out who the other werewolf in town was, the one that killed Tramador…and I had been waiting so we could reveal ourselves to you, and maybe…”

  “Get your curse lifted again.”

  “Yes. Of course, Lilianna had no idea who I was – or who the other werewolf was. Lily and I never suspected it was our older selves. We just went into the woods the other night to spy.”

  “Ah!” The light bulb finally went off in my head. “So, when you told me in the cell that there were two werewolves, but really just one…”

  “They were both Lilianna – the young Lilianna from 1886 and Molly, who is actually Lilianna too.”

  “So, Lilianna was trying to protect Tramador from Molly – from herself?”

  “Yes. Molly was still partly human when she first saw Tramador. She had hated him for so long, and that just added to her rage when she was completing the change. You see, when the young Lilianna left here that night and met Kaya and you, that was when Kaya told her – on the way from Paris to Munich, I think – about the horrible things that Tramador had done to her as soon as she turned 18. Lilianna was horrified and knew she would have soon shared the same fate of abuse when she came of age in a few months too. Kaya also told her how Tramador had given Lilianna injections of Kaya’s werewolf blood to change her too. He was the one who made her a wolf.”

  “I get it.” Ginny jumped in. “So Lilianna was still kind of devoted to Tramador that night, before she found out these horror stories, but they made Molly – the present-day Lilianna – even more full of blind rage when she was changing into a werewolf under the super moon. She hated him now for the way he abused Kaya and for turning her into a werewolf.”

  “That’s right. I tried to hold Molly back. Maybe you remember that Kaya told me not to let Lilianna take revenge for things that happened to her in the past. But she was just too powerful. Lilianna tried to pull Tramador away from Molly but just ended up pulling him apart like a wishbone. She clawed Molly’s face and arm, and that’s when I jumped in between them. I got clawed too, but when I smelled all that fresh human blood I just couldn’t control myself. My vampire instincts kicked in, and I drank most of his blood before Molly ripped his head off. Then she fell into the shadows, out of the moonlight, and turned back into a dog. That’s when she ran away, and Lilianna brought the remains of Tramador’s body out onto the lawn. My wounds healed quickly, of course, since I’m…immortal. And you know the rest.”

  I felt something furry brush by my leg and looked down. I saw Moondance’s glowing eyes looking back at me over his shoulder. There was another black cat with him.

  “I hope we can pull off this shape-shift, Jessie. I’ve been practicing all day, but Molly hasn’t had much time. I didn’t know there would be two of us, but that’s better because people heard two beasts.”

  “But, Moondance, you can’t shift in front of the Sheriff! This has to look like a logical occurrence.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Then they slunk off through the darkness unnoticed toward the pine trees.

  Arthur came promenading out of the Inn and sat right in front of our table. “This should be good. I figured I’d take a front row seat, Jessie”

  “You missed all the circus acts, Granny.”

  “I’m not interested in the circus acts, sweetie.”

  Zach closed the show when the final act finished, but people were on their feet chanting for more.

  “Encore! Encore! Encore!”

  The Sheriff looked at me from his table and was about to get up and come over. Fortunately, just then a loud cheer went up from the crowd as two dark figures came bounding out of the pine trees doing cartwheels and handsprings, and one of them leapt up to a trapeze swing in a single bound. He was very tall, black, and furry, and a little larger than the other – it was probably Moondance, since he was accustomed to generating black fur. The other, Molly, was brown and looked a lot like the creature that we saw come out of the woods on the night of the full moon.

 
The crowd laughed when they saw the furry animal “costumes,” thinking this was a clown act. They looked like Chewbacca and his girlfriend. Moondance swung from his hands, released, and did a single flip, and landed on the grass next to Molly with the lithe deftness of a cat. The crowd applauded and waited for more.

  They were large, maybe seven feet tall, and jumped up on the stage now, right in front of the head table. Moondance roared and jumped down right across the table from Sheriff Muldoon. The crowd gasped, but nobody left. The deputies, Edgar and Rodney, pulled out their handguns and walked from the solarium (where they were still waiting for the ladies to return from the restroom). They went to opposite sides of the head table and trained their guns on the beasts. Molly jumped down and roared at them, taking her place next to Moondance.

  Ginny and I looked at each other nervously, but the Sheriff stood and waved to his men to lower their weapons. The two park rangers were starting to walk over to the stage now too.

  “Good evening there, Sir.” Muldoon said fearlessly to the black beast. “Nice costumes you got there.” He reached across the table as the beast snarled and leaned into the Sheriff’s face with a roar. Muldoon squeezed the animal’s arm, examined his paw, and then plucked a few hairs from its furry cheeks and gave them to Audrey.

  Muffled chatter could be heard from the crowd.

  “It’s Skunk Ape!”

  “A Swamp Ape!”

  “No, they’re werewolves!”

  “That one’s a Bigfoot!”

  There had been legends and sightings of smelly ape-like creatures in the Okefenokee swamp and down to the Everglades in Florida for years, and these creatures certainly did fit the bill.

  “Okay, Mr.…” Sheriff Muldoon looked up at the no-longer full moon. “…werewolf, or whatever fairytale creature you’re pretending to be. Let’s see you do something, you know, superhuman…something a regular man like me can’t do.”

  Moondance very slowly grabbed the front of the Sheriff’s shirt with one hand and gently raised him two feet off the ground. He held him there with a snarl as the Sheriff and the beast locked their eyes in a stare down. Moondance snarled as he set him back on the ground, but Muldoon seemed more curious than rattled. The crowd responded with sounds of awe.