Murder Down Under

by K. J. Emrick

  On the way to the Inn Darcy thought over everything else they had heard today. For a mystery that no one in town was supposedly giving much thought to, there was a lot that she and Jon had found out in just a short time.

  It was when they got back, and the pleasant aroma of freshly baking bread reminded her of their nice breakfast this morning, that a few bits and pieces of information came together.

  “Jon, I think there’s someone else we can talk to. Besides Lindsay’s ghost, I mean.”

  “Who? We talked to half the town today.”

  “Yes, we did. Except for one very important person.” She grabbed his arm and held him back in the driveway, just short of the front steps. She lowered her voice, too. “Lindsay’s sister. We haven’t talked to Lindsay’s sister.”

  “Well, sure, we can try to track her down but Australia’s a big country. Lindsay’s sister could be anywhere.”

  “That’s true, but I think she’s right here. At this Inn.” She gave him a second or two to let that sink in. “Remember Maureen saying Lindsay’s sister was the only other person who cared that Lindsay was dead? And how she was staying in town. Well, there’s almost no visitors in town right now because people are scared they’ll be poisoned. There’s just us, and the two other people staying in this Inn.”

  Lights went on in Jon’s eyes. “One of those people is a man.”

  “And the other,” Darcy finished, “is a woman. That’s Lindsay’s sister. I’d bet on it.”

  “There’s one way to find out. Come on.”

  He took her hand and led her up the steps into the Inn. The hardwood floors echoed under their feet. No one was at the registration desk and a little sign read “Out To Lunch.”

  Jon went right up to the sign-in book. Looking both ways down the hallways and seeing no one around, he opened it up to where the thin fabric place holder marked the last page used. Darcy caught on to what he was doing and scanned the page with him. There, just two lines above their own names, was what they were looking for. A name. Ellie Burlick’s.

  Lindsay’s sister.

  They heard the floorboards creak just before Dell asked them, “Can I help you two?”

  Sheepishly, Darcy wished that she had been watching behind them instead of looking over Jon’s shoulder. They’d been caught redhanded.

  Jon didn’t miss a beat, however. “Hi, Dell. I was making sure we put down our contact information correctly when we signed in. I couldn’t remember if I put our area code down. Not much use to you without it.”

  Dell regarded him closely, then looked down at the book, then back up at Jon. “Well, thanks for that. We always post a survey to our guests after your stay. Like to know how we did. We don’t usually call people—”

  That beige phone on the registration desk rang again. Dell frowned at it, then excused herself as she stepped past Jon to pick up the receiver. “G’day, Pine Lake Inn.”

  She listened for two seconds, then hung up without saying anything else.

  “Problems with your phone again?” Darcy asked. She thought maybe it was something else, and she was beginning to realize what that something was.

  “The phones have always been a bit dodgy here. Like someone’s trying to ring us up and can’t get through.”

  She shrugged, but Darcy could see Dell thought there was more to it. The phone calls to the Inn weren’t wrong numbers.

  “Jon,” Darcy said, “can I meet you up in the room?”

  He seemed surprised, but he didn’t ask why. He trusted her hunches. “Sure,” he said. “We can talk about maybe getting some lunch.”

  “Oh, Rosie’s fixing a mutton stew for lunch if you want to stay in,” Dell said enthusiastically. “With a nice pav for dessert. To tell you the truth, she’s been a bit down in the dumps. She loves to cook. When there’s not a lot of people staying here she doesn’t get to show off her skills.”

  “That sounds nice.” Jon leaned over to hug Darcy quickly. “Meet me upstairs and we’ll come have some of that stew.”

  “Thanks, Jon,” she whispered, not talking about lunch.

  Dell was back around the registration desk, checking something on the computer. “Got a few more check-ins coming end of the week,” she said to Darcy without looking up. “You and your hubby are going to have some company after all.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” Darcy said as she leaned her arms on the counter.

  “Hm?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  She didn’t look up, but Dell’s fingers stopped typing, hanging just above the keyboard. “Do I believe in ghosts? That’s a right strange thing to ask.”

  “Is it?” Darcy waited, knowing she was right. The phones constantly ringing, the way the portrait of that man with the mustache would not stay on the wall no matter what the handyman did. It was still on the floor now, leaning up against the wall and waiting for his next attempt.

  There were ghosts in the Inn. One, maybe more, and Dell knew about it.

  With a few final taps on the keyboard she finally met Darcy’s gaze. “Too right I believe in ghosts. I think everyone does, least a little bit.”

  “Have you ever seen any? Here in the Inn, I mean.”

  Dell laughed, just a little. “I’ve seen things I can’t explain. Shadows moving on their own. That phone won’t stop its ringing and if I answer I swear somebody’s there, listening. Do I believe in ghosts? Why yes Mrs. Sweet, I do. Thing is, I can’t say that to nobody because they’ll think I’ve gone round the bend. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

  “Oh, you might be surprised.”

  Darcy had never been comfortable telling people about her gift. She’d been laughed at, and stared at with pity, and even her friends back in Misty Hollow thought she was a little strange. Not that it mattered to Darcy. She would always be who she was. She’d made her peace with that a long time ago, and nobody’s opinion was going to take away her confidence in herself, or her abilities.

  There were always a few people she could open up to. People who knew that ghosts were real. Who knew that the spirits of the deceased didn’t always go straight on to the next plane of existence. Sometimes spirits were trapped here with the living, and anyone who was sensitive enough could understand that.

  Adelle Powers was one of those people. Darcy became even more convinced of that as she told Dell about some of the ghosts she’d seen. She deliberately didn’t mention the Pilgrim Ghost, or angry spirits showing up on her doorstep to scream bloody murder at her. She talked about the ghosts who reached out for help. Her friend, Chloe Marrin, leaving a ghostly message in a fogged bathroom mirror. The ghost of a lost soul showing up on the television in the middle of Meet Joe Black. And, of course, Great Aunt Millie with her antics around the bookstore back home.

  “I know about ghosts,” Darcy finished. “I’m glad you believe in them, because I think you have more than living guests staying at your Inn.”

  Dell had listened to everything Darcy had to say without a word. Now, she cleared her throat and shifted on her feet. “I’m not sure what to think about all that. You seem like a right nice woman, Darcy, and I believe…well, at least part of what you’re telling me. I think I’m maybe just being foolish here, though. I mean, why would there be ghosts here at the Inn?”

  Any number of reasons, Darcy thought to herself, from murder to curiosity about what the living were up to. She couldn’t be sure without doing a lot of investigating of her own and she was already looking at maybe doing one communication to talk to Lindsay’s ghost. Communications were never as simple or as easy as they looked on television. Every one that Darcy did required a little bit of her own life force added into the mix, and left her tired and drained.

  “I’m sure your ghosts have a reason for being here,” was what she decided to say. “Maybe try listening to them? You never know. If a ghost wants to communicate badly enough, they always find a way.”

  The phone ringing made both of them startle. Darcy looked at Dell
, and they both laughed. “Just the phone,” Dell muttered as she picked up the receiver. “G’day, Pine Lake— Oh, hey there Kevin. I thought you were, uh, someone else. How’s my boy?”

  Darcy smiled again and waved to Dell before turning away. She didn’t want to eavesdrop on the conversation. Dell followed her with her eyes until she was out of the room. Hopefully, Darcy had helped the woman, at least a little. This was something her aunt used to do, educating people who had the gift for communicating with spirits, however small the talent. Millie always believed that it was a responsibility to pass on her knowledge to whoever could use it. She’d even written a few books on the paranormal and how to interact with spirits. Darcy still referred to her aunt’s journal for inspiration, even this long after her death.

  That thought sparked more speculation for Darcy on why her aunt’s spirit was still here among the living. That strange book must have something to do with it. Now she really did wish that she’d brought it with her. She could already be reading through it for clues to what it meant.

  In the hallway upstairs, on her way to her room, she saw Lindsay’s sister. The woman from breakfast this morning. Ellie Burlick.

  Her long blonde ponytail was still neat as a pin and her dress still perfect and Darcy had to wonder what she’d been up to all day. If she was here because her sister had died, what did she do with her time? Had she given up trying to get the police to do anything? Maybe she was grieving in silence in her room, wandering the streets aimlessly, paying the nightly fee just to have somewhere to cry.

  Somehow, she doubted it. Darcy knew what she and Jon were paying for the room they were staying in.

  Ellie glanced at Darcy on her way by, then looked away again. Her dangling earrings swung with the motion. Soon she’d be on the stairs and out of sight.

  Darcy took a chance.

  “Excuse me, are you Ellie Burlick?”

  The woman froze. Absolutely froze, one hand on the stairway banister. Her voice was tense. “I don’t talk to reporters.”

  Just like Maureen had said. “I’m not a reporter,” Darcy assured her. “I’m actually a visitor. I’m not from around here.”

  “I know. I can hear it in your accent.” She turned, clasping her hands down by her waist. “Whad’ya want?”

  “We—my husband and I, that is—went to see Maureen today. To ask her about Lindsay.”

  Quick as that, Ellie was standing nose to nose with Darcy, her eyes narrowed to hazel slits. “Now why were ya doing that, if you aren’t reporters?”

  She was taller than Darcy. It was more than a little intimidating to be standing there like that and now she wished she’d waited for Jon. Clearing her throat, she took a step back only to meet the wall behind her. “We don’t think your sister’s death was an accident.”

  That made Ellie’s thin eyebrows shoot up. “Well, then. You’d be the first. Other than me and Maureen, that is. So what? You just decided to add this in to your holiday, did ya? A little sightseeing, a little trek through the Outback, a little murder? You’ve got no right intruding on my sister’s death. You think you’re the cops, or something?”

  A door opened, and Darcy was grateful to see Jon coming out of their room. “No. She doesn’t think she’s the police. But I do.”

  ***

  After a few awkward introductions, Ellie agreed to join them for lunch downstairs. In words full of emotion and sharpened by her accent, she told them about her sister.

  Lindsay had come to Lakeshore to be with her college sweetheart. They had been madly, deeply, crazy in love. Maureen had talked about running away to New Zealand so she and Lindsay could get married, where it was legal, but Lindsay wouldn’t hear of it. Australia was her home. It was enough for her that she and Maureen were together.

  They had bought that house over on Humes Street and had started fixing it up just over a year ago. That was the last time Ellie had heard from her sister. Their lives went on, as lives will, and they lost touch. Until Maureen had called her up three weeks ago to say Lindsay was deathly sick and in hospital. Ellie had made plans to come out immediately.

  The next day, before she could even get here, Ellie got a second call saying her sister was dead.

  “I’m sorry,” Darcy said. It seemed so inadequate.

  “Not your fault, now was it?” The woman sipped from her teacup, back stiff and straight, face set, the very picture of grace.

  At least, on the surface.

  Darcy could see the anger boiling in her eyes. Her sister’s death was affecting her more than she wanted to admit.

  They had finished the mutton stew, hot and tangy in a thick sauce. Bowls placed aside, they sat and waited for their dessert to come, talking in low voices so Rosie wouldn’t hear them. She’d been out to their table several times during the meal to ask how things were. All three of them had agreed it was very good. Rosie had smiled and thanked them each time, and managed not to knock over a single chair on her way out. Although she did knock a glass off a table only just managing to catch it before it smashed on the floor.

  “It’s nice that you believe me,” Ellie said. “I couldn’t get the police here to listen to a word. Bunch of yobbos, the lot of them. You believing me doesn’t do a wit of good, though. Might be you’re a cop back in your own home, but here you’re just a tourist. Come to see the sights and snap pics of the roos.”

  “You don’t need to be a police officer to help people,” Darcy pointed out.

  “Yes, you do. If you want to do more than annoy people.”

  Jon leaned forward on his elbows. “You’d be surprised what my wife can do.”

  Darcy felt Jon’s gaze on her. It felt nice.

  “So what’re ya going to do?” Ellie asked them. “What can ya do? We’ve no idea how my sister was killed, or why any of them got poisoned. Who would do that? What sort of mongrel tries to kill four people?”

  “We don’t know,” Jon told her. “But you can bet we’re going to find out.”

  Setting her teacup aside Ellie folded her hands in her lap and levelled the heat of her stare at both of them. “You do that. When ya find out who the ratbag is, I want my peace with him.”

  “Pav all around!” Rosie exclaimed cheerfully, completely missing the hostility in Ellie’s voice. She brought out a tray with three plates, each holding a round meringue base generously smothered with whipped cream and topped with a mixture of mixed fresh berries and pistachios. The room was filled with a fruity aroma.

  “That looks delicious.” Darcy hoped it tasted as good as it looked. And smelled! “Um, just one question. What exactly is pav?”

  Chapter Seven

  When they got back to the room Jon dropped down onto the bed, sitting on the edge, scrubbing his hands back through his hair. “I guess trouble really can find you anywhere.”

  “Ha. I guess so.” Darcy sat down next to him. “So. What are we going to do about all this?”

  “Well, there’s no arguing that something is going on here. Someone is poisoning people in this town. On purpose. If I wasn’t convinced before I am after today. I think I’ll try to find Lakeshore’s police chief tomorrow. Cutter, I think his name was. Maybe he and I can figure out something together. In the meantime…” He brought out the letters again and put them in her hand. “Maybe it’s time to get some information straight from the source.”

  The pages felt stiff and dry between her fingers. Not like love letters at all. Love letters should be soft. Personal. They should be handwritten, too, not typed. These were impersonal, like the man who sent them was afraid to put any of himself into them. Still, they had belonged to Lindsay. That would be enough to make a connection.

  She kissed him on the cheek, then slid off the bed and onto the floor. “I guess that’s my cue.”

  Folding her legs up, holding the letters in her lap, Darcy closed her eyes. She heard Jon walk softly across the floor to lock the door. Privacy was important when she was doing a communication. Not that she had to worry about a casual ob
server breaking the trance. There had been times when she had reached out to the other side for hours on end, totally unaware of what was happening around her. Still, if someone tried shaking her awake it could bring her out of the communication too quickly. Doing that hurt. A lot.

  There had been this one time when she’d come out of a communication bleeding from both ears and throwing up for ten minutes straight because her friend Sue Fisher and former employee had thought something was wrong and tossed a cup of cold water in her face.

  Yeah. Not fun.

  She really wished she had candles with her. More than that, she wished Smudge was here. Jon would watch over her while she was…out of it, but Smudge had a way of making the whole technique easier. He helped her slip into the bridge between life and death faster, helped her focus, kept her grounded. She imagined his warm, comforting weight in her lap as she took deep, slow breaths, and began.

  In her mind there was an endless, blank space.

  Into that space she imagined thick, rolling fog. Nothing, in all directions, hidden behind the coiling and undulating tendrils of mist. This technique had helped her since she was a teenager just learning to use her abilities. Thanks to Aunt Millie, she had come to understand her powers. To use them to help people. Without her help, things might have gone differently. The psychiatric hospital had been a real possibility for a while. Millie had saved her from that.

  Thank you, Millie. Darcy smiled, and the mist began to fall away.

  She was losing focus. The mental image she had constructed fell apart into thick droplets of nothingness, and she had to start over.

  Deep breaths. In. Out. Feel the paper in her hands. Concentrate. Focus.

  She imagined the fog again. Everywhere. Coiling, crawling out through the space between life and death. Darcy was here, in the world of the living, but she was in the other place at the same time.