“What I find fascinating, even your manner of dress reminds me of the man in the portrait. Tell me, do you always wear a hat?” Loyd asked.
“That’s the oldest uncle,” Marie told Eva.
“I could have guessed that. He looks old,” Eva observed.
“What are you talking about, Uncle Loyd?” Chris asked.
“Mr. Marlow here was wearing a hat last night when he came into the restaurant. I haven’t seen one of those hats for a good many years. My father used to wear one. You probably didn’t notice his hat because he took it off before he sat down. That’s also something else you never see these days.” Loyd shook his head at the thought and then bit off a bite of biscuit, dropping crumbs on the tablecloth.
Chris frowned at his uncle, confused. “You never see people take off hats?”
“I’m talking about manners. Young men these days think nothing about sitting down to eat while leaving their baseball hats on, and half of those are on backwards!” Loyd grumbled.
Eva looked down the table at Chris and said, “Your uncle seems a bit grumpy.”
Simon changed the direction of the conversation; he told Chris they would love to see his house, and then Loyd added he was interested in seeing the foundation office. When they were finally finished with breakfast, Noah excused himself to go upstairs while Chris went to help Danielle clear the dishes. Walt remained at the table with the uncles. But he wasn’t the only one. Eva and Marie also stayed, eavesdropping on the conversation.
“Walt, I have a question I would like to ask you,” Loyd said when he and his brother were alone at the table with him—and the two ghosts.
Walt eyed the uncle curiously. “Yes?”
“Is there some animosity between that girl who works for our nephew—Heather—and Danielle?” Loyd asked.
“Animosity?” Walt frowned.
Simon looked at his brother. “I understand what you’re asking. I noticed it too.”
“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Walt said.
“I understand our nephew used to date Danielle. Perhaps that was before you came here,” Loyd suggested.
Walt studied Loyd curiously. “That’s my understanding.”
“We know why he’s no longer seeing her, don’t we?” Simon gave Walt a little wink.
“What am I missing here?” Walt asked.
“It’s just clear to us that you and Miss Boatman are an item.”
“We have been dating recently; that’s no secret.”
“I don’t think Heather understands that,” Simon said.
“Why would Heather mind if I’m seeing Danielle?”
Loyd shook his head. “It’s not about you. No. But it is obvious Heather has set her sights on our nephew, and she still sees Danielle as a threat—as her competition.”
Simon nodded. “Which would explain her attitude last night.”
Eva turned to Marie and asked, “What in the world are those two talking about?”
Marie shrugged. “I have no idea.”
When Noah returned to his room after breakfast, he found Zara standing by the window, looking outside, her arms folded across her chest.
“How was breakfast?” Zara asked without turning around, her back to Noah.
“It was really good. I wish you could have had some.”
“Missing a good breakfast is the least of my regrets,” she murmured.
Noah shut the bedroom door and locked it. “If Loyd is trying to make points with Chris, I’d think he’d make more of an effort to not be such a jerk.”
Zara chuckled. “It’s impossible for some people to change their stripes.”
“I assume you got them together?”
“Yes. They were both in Loyd’s bedroom. They’d already gone over things by the time I got there, and they had to cut the conversation short because they were afraid Chris was going to arrive at any moment.”
“I don’t imagine they want Chris to overhear what they have planned.” Noah sat on the foot of the bed and readjusted one of his socks while leaving his shoes on.
“The plan has changed. Which I thought might happen. They’re focusing on Heather now.”
“I don’t think I’ve met Heather yet.”
“I showed you her house. She’s the one I ran into when I was here before.”
“After meeting Danielle, I didn’t think the original plan was going to work. I think they may have a problem with Walt. Especially after what we found out.”
“I could warn them, I suppose,” she suggested with a laugh. “But what fun would that be?”
“Fun? You find any of this fun?”
Zara turned to face Noah. “Considering what happened—considering what those two narcissistic, greedy, evil old men are making me do, yes, I intend to find fun whenever possible.”
Noah stared at Zara. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
She shook her head. “No. I got us into this.”
“No. I shouldn’t have told you in the first place. You would think I would have known better. After all, look what happened to my mother.”
Twenty-One
Barbara Jenkins drove her car down the street, humming along to the Christmas carols blaring on her car radio, totally oblivious to her son’s glares. Sixteen-year-old Tad Jenkins slumped back in the passenger seat, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest as he pouted. When his mother failed to notice his silent tantrum, he cleared his throat, only to be drowned out by “Jingle Bell Rock.” Frustrated at being ignored, he lurched forward and abruptly turned off the radio.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, still steering the car down the street.
“Do we have to listen to lame Christmas music?” he grumbled.
“Tad, why are you such a grinch?” she teased.
“I don’t know why I had to come with you. All the guys were going to the comic-book store. It’s Christmas vacation. I don’t know why I can’t do what I want; it’s my vacation.”
She glanced over at him and then looked back down the street. “Yes, it is Christmas. Don’t you want a Christmas tree?”
“I don’t know why I had to go.”
“Because, Tad,” she began, her tone less friendly. She was suddenly no longer interested in coaxing him from his sullen state. “I can’t get the Christmas tree down from that shelf in the storage unit by myself, and your father had to work an extra shift. But if Christmas is just too much of a bother for you, then I will be happy to turn this car around, go back home, we can just forget Christmas this year, and you can go to the comic-book store with your friends.”
Tad started to respond with a flip comment, but then noticed his mother’s expression. He had pissed her off. Barbara Jenkins was normally laid-back and easygoing, but when she got mad—well, like his dad always said, you don’t want to go there. Tad swallowed nervously, shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and mumbled, “No. That’s okay. I’ll help you.”
“What did you say?” she shouted. “I didn’t hear you!”
“I said I’ll help you. I’m sorry,” he said quickly.
Barbara took a deep cleansing breath, exhaled and smiled. Relaxing her tense muscles, she leaned back in the seat. When they arrived at their destination a few minutes later, the front office was locked up, with a note on the window saying they would be closed through Christmas. Since she, like other tenants of the storage complex, had the combination to the front gate, she let herself in and continued on to her unit.
She parked her car and handed the key to Tad, who hopped out and went to unlock the padlock and open the roll-up door to their unit. Just as Tad finished opening the door and his mother reached his side, it hit them. The unholy stench of death.
“Oh crap!” Tad groaned, holding his nose. “What’s that?”
Waving her hand in front of her face, Barbara pulled up the collar of her shirt to cover her nose. “Something must have got in there and died. A cat maybe or possum. Smell’s too bad to be just a rat.”
“That’s gross!” Tad whined.
Still holding the collar of her blouse over her nose, she waved at her son to go into the unit. “Go find it.”
“I’m not going to touch it!” he protested.
“Just go look,” she told him, “so we can tell your dad. He’ll have to take care of it.”
A few minutes later he came back outside and said, “The smell’s not coming from our unit. It’s coming from the one behind ours. Smells super nasty back there.”
Barbara frowned and considered his words a moment. Finally, she said, “You stay here. I’m going to go look.”
“Don’t you believe me?” he asked when she entered the unit.
“Just stay here!”
A few minutes later Barbara hurried back outside to her son and asked, “Where’s your cellphone?”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You calling Dad?”
“No, the police.”
He frowned at his mother as she punched numbers into the phone.
“Why are you calling the police?”
“Because I just realized what that smell is. It’s not a dead animal. It’s a dead person.”
Tad was no longer anxious to go home and meet up with his friends at the comic-book store. He wanted to see if his mother was right. Was there a dead body in the storage unit behind theirs?
Twenty minutes later he and his mother stood outside the entrance of the smelly storage unit, watching. After the police had arrived, they had called the emergency number on the office window to gain access to the unit. They agreed with Tad’s mother; the odor was highly suspicious.
On the plus side for Tad, he didn’t have to lift the old Christmas tree off the shelf to take home. According to his mother, she was going to trash it. There was no way she was dragging that smell back to her house.
After the manager opened the storage unit, he turned on the overhead light and stepped aside for the police officers. Officer Barnes entered first followed by his partner, Officer Clark. They took a quick visual inventory of the unit. A fishing boat took up most of the space, and by the thick coating of spiderwebs and dust, it didn’t look as if it had seen water in years. On the far wall was a chest freezer.
“Is that thing plugged in?” Barnes asked the manager.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “There’s electricity in these units, and some of our tenants keep freezers in here.”
Officer Clark approached the freezer hesitantly, resisting the temptation to vomit. When he got about ten feet from the appliance, he pointed to its cord. “The thing’s plugged in alright, but by the looks of that cord, some rat gnawed right through it.”
“It’s probably full of meat gone bad.” The manager groaned.
“If that’s the case, then this is your problem, not ours,” Clark told him. “Go ahead and look.”
The manager held his nose and walked to the freezer, expecting to find it filled with rotting meat that had thawed after the freezer had lost power. When he threw open the freezer lid, he didn’t expect to find a decaying body—yet that was exactly what he found, just seconds before he puked.
Barbara had seen enough. More police officers had arrived, along with someone from the coroner’s office. She decided it would be best to get out of their way. After getting permission from one of the police officers to leave, she locked up her storage unit and drove with her son to Walmart to buy a new artificial Christmas tree. Meanwhile, a frazzled storage-unit manager sat in the front office, looking through records, trying to find the contact information for the person who had rented the unit with the dead body.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. “Here it is.”
Barnes took the ledger sheet from the manager and glanced over the information. “What do you know about this tenant?”
“Not much, really. He’s had that unit since before I started working here. I don’t remember ever seeing him come in. But I do know he was always late on his payments. He usually ended up paying a late fee a couple of days before we were getting ready to lock up his unit. But then about six months ago, his payments started coming in like clockwork. Every month by the first we would get a money order from him. In fact, last month he prepaid for the year. Of course, now it makes sense. He obviously didn’t want us to seize his unit since he had a body stashed there.”
Thirty minutes later Officers Barnes and Clark showed up at the address given to them by the manager of the storage complex. It was a small ranch-style house in a quiet residential neighborhood. A woman in her early fifties opened the door.
“Hello, Officers, is something wrong?” She peered over their shoulders, expecting to see some commotion outside.
“We’re looking for Butch Peyton; we understand this is his address,” Barnes said.
“Mr. Peyton doesn’t live here anymore. I moved in five months ago.”
“Do you happen to have his address?” Barnes asked.
“I don’t have his address, but I know you can find him at Tranquil Gardens.”
“Does he work there?” Clark asked.
“No, he’s buried there. Mr. Peyton died this past spring.”
“Do you know how he died?” Clark asked.
“I didn’t know the man,” she explained. “But I do know his sister, that’s who owns this house. From what I understand, it belonged to their parents, it was left to both of them, and Mr. Peyton lived here until he died.”
“Can you tell me where we can find his sister?”
It didn’t take long to find Butch Peyton’s sister. She lived just down the street in another house she owned.
“I don’t understand, why are you looking for my brother? He died over six months ago,” Helena Peyton explained. She stood with the officers by her front door.
“Would it be possible for us to come in so we can ask you some questions?” Officer Clark asked. Ten minutes later the three sat at her kitchen table.
“What do you know about a storage unit your brother rented?” Clark asked.
“I know he used to have one for that old boat of his. But he got rid of it before he died.”
“How did your brother die?” Clark asked.
Helena fiddled with one sleeve. “He had an allergic reaction.”
Barnes cocked a brow. “What kind of allergic reaction?”
Helena shrugged. “He liked to drink tea—especially that herbal stuff that’s supposed to be good for you. He had an allergic reaction to one of them. They aren’t always that safe, you know, especially if you’re on heavy medication, like my brother was.”
“Do you know who has been paying for your brother’s storage unit?” Clark asked.
“I assume he paid for it himself.”
“No, I mean since he died.”
She frowned. “He didn’t have the storage unit when he died. Like I said, he only had it for his boat, and he got rid of that before he died.”
“So you don’t know anything about a storage unit?” Barnes asked.
“Just what I said, he used to have one. And when I went through his things, I didn’t find any bills for a storage unit.”
“Did you know he kept a freezer there?” Barnes asked.
“Yes. In fact, I gave it to him. He used to keep bait in it. Sometimes the fish he caught. But he started having medical issues a few years back and stopped taking the boat out. That’s why he got rid of it. That and the fact he really couldn’t afford to keep it.”
“Do you know when he sold his boat?” Clark asked.
“He sold it about a month before he died.”
“Do you know who he sold it to?”
“Officer, why are you asking me all these questions? My brother has been dead for months now. I don’t know why you’re asking me about a storage unit that he didn’t even have at the time he died. What is going on?”
“Someone has been paying the rent on your brother’s old storage unit.”
“Well, I imagine if that is the case
, it’s whoever rented it after him.”
“No, Ms. Peyton, the storage unit is still in your brother’s name. In fact, his boat is still parked in the unit, along with his freezer. We checked the registration on the boat; it belongs to him.”
“Is it possible that when my brother sold the boat, he let the new owner use the storage unit as long as they paid for it?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Barnes conceded.
“I still don’t get why you’re investigating my brother’s old storage unit. If the guy who bought the boat is paying the rent each month, why would anyone care? Is it because he failed to register the boat?”
“No. It’s because a dead body was found in your brother’s freezer.”
Twenty-Two
Crouching, her butt in the air and tail wildly thumping against the inside walls of the crate, Hunny whimpered, barely able to contain herself as she waited for Chris to let her out. It wasn’t that she disliked being in the crate, she just liked being with Chris better.
“How’s my girl?” Chris greeted her as he knelt down to release his dog.
“You’re not going to let it out, are you?” Loyd gasped. Loyd and Simon had just been given a tour of Chris’s house, and the last room on the tour was his bedroom—which happened to be where he kept Hunny’s crate.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Chris told them as he reached to unlatch the crate’s door.
“Is that a pit bull?” Simon asked, taking a step back from the crate.
“Yes, she is, but don’t worry, she’s a lover.”
Gripping his cane defensively, Loyd took a step back, prepared to whack the dog if she came too close. “Chris, please don’t let her out.”
Still crouching by the crate, Chris paused a moment and looked up at his uncles. “I have to let her out, because she’s coming to work with me. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll put her on a leash.”
Chris stood briefly, much to the consternation of Hunny, and grabbed the leash and collar off his dresser.
The Ghost of Christmas Secrets Page 14