The House on Hallowed Ground

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “He would if he could connect you to Lacey’s murder.” Crystal came from the hall with her bag and cell phone in her hand. “Somebody put a bloody doll in my closet, and it looks like it was used to knock Lacey out.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Romero said.

  “Well, then, Detective, you don’t mind if I leave the three of you to hash things out.” Crystal pushed by Romero. “I promised Zoey I’d meet her at the studio in time for lunch.”

  Romero took a step back and raised his hands dismissively. “As long as you don’t care if I wait around for my print guys to show up. Though it doesn’t really matter to me if you do, Crystal. We still need to pick up the doll and dust for prints, and you and I, we’ll be in touch.”

  Crystal paused at the door and smiled. Her sparkling whites as genuine as her bleached hair. “Be my guest. Just be sure to lock up, will you? There’s a spare key on the rack in the kitchen by the back door. You can leave it under the mat.”

  I couldn’t resist. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  Crystal flashed me the finger and stalked out.

  “Not really a fan of yours, I see.” Romero locked the door and looked back at Kelsey. “You mind answering a few questions.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time, Detective.” Kelsey looked small framed in the archway of the hall’s grand entrance.

  “Won’t take but a few minutes.” Romero gestured to the oversized stuffed sofa in the great room.

  Kelsey glanced back at me. “She got to be here?”

  “Why? Psychics worry you?”

  “No,” Kelsey answered. “I just don’t like what she’s done to Zoey, and it’s not like I was close with Lacey. ’Sides, Zoey and I don’t have much in common.”

  Kelsey sat down on the couch and Romero nodded for me to take a seat in one of the swivel rockers.

  “You mean other than what you had in common with Chad and the band?” Romero asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Kelsey looked down at her feet. She could barely sit still.

  “So, you’re more or less along for the ride. That how you describe it?”

  “Excuse me?” Kelsey narrowed her eyes at the detective. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do. Zoey finances the band, Chad’s happy, he’s got money to spend, and so do you.”

  “I don’t know anything about who finances what. I write music. And sometimes I sing a little. That’s all.”

  “You didn’t know anything about Lacey and Chad. That they were involved?”

  “Like I said, I wasn’t friends with Lacey, and Zoey and I, we barely speak. She’s not usually around when I’m here.”

  “But if you did know about Lacey’s affair with Chad, I would think you wouldn’t like it. You might be afraid it’d break up the band. And where would you be if that happened? Not like you had a big career going before you and your boyfriend signed on with Chad.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Zac and I weren’t here the night Lacey was murdered, and we weren’t part of Zoey’s inner circle. I don’t know anything about Zoey and Lacey or Chad and Lacey for that matter. And unless you’re going to charge me with something, I think it’s time for me to go.” Kelsey got up off the couch and started to head for the front door.

  “Hey, didn’t you forget something?” Romero asked.

  “What?” Kelsey stopped and looked back at the detective.

  “Your jacket. Isn’t that what you came for?” Romero pointed to the window.

  “Yeah, right.” Kelsey turned around and headed toward the back door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll let myself out the back gate.”

  “The one by the side of the yard or on the hill leading into the park?”

  “Shove it, Detective.”

  “You think she’s guilty?” Detective Romero sat down in the swivel rocker next to me, and we watched Kelsey pick her jacket up off the chaise and throw it over her shoulder, then head out the side gate.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but from the way you talked to her, I suspect you do.”

  “I talk to a lot of people a lot of ways. Doesn’t mean I think they’re guilty.”

  “I should hope not.” I couldn’t shake the thought of my conversation with him yesterday. “And if that means you no longer think of me as a suspect, then I—”

  “You can stop right there, Misty. If my questions about Lacey’s murder bothered you yesterday, I apologize. Far as I’m concerned, you’re not a suspect. You don’t appear to have a motive. You didn’t know Lacey, and the night of the murder you and your landlady were out to dinner together. Petite Trois. New restaurant in the valley. Have to try it myself sometime. It any good?”

  I was stunned. “How did you know that?”

  “I’m a detective. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t. But if it will make you feel any better, Denise told me. After you kicked us out yesterday we had coffee. The woman likes to chat.”

  Of course, Denise would tell him. She probably would have given him her life story if asked. And with the least little bit of prodding, shared enough information about me to make him wonder. Goodness knows I had enough.

  “Is there anything else you’ve discovered about me that you’ve found interesting?” I asked.

  If Romero knew anything, he knew Misty Dawn was an alias, that my real name was Agnes Butters, and I’d come to the Golden State back in the sixties in my VW Van, selling love potions that didn’t exactly mesh with the laws of the land back then.

  “Not that I’m willing to share.” Romero winked. “‘Least not now. But the restaurant? Any good?”

  “Yes, Detective, it was good. Excellent in fact.”

  “Good to know,” Romero said.

  “Now that I’m no longer a suspect, what’s next? Do you plan to ask for my help?”

  “I do. I’ll admit it’s a stretch for me, since I’m a skeptic when it comes to all this psychic stuff. But, be that as it may, you appear to know these people. Zoey seems to trust you, and I could benefit from whatever it is you want to call it, your insight, maybe.”

  “What is it you’d like to know?”

  “Let’s start with Kelsey. You get any kind of read on her?”

  “If you’re wondering if I think Kelsey killed Lacey, I couldn’t tell you. She was nervous and frightened when she saw you. But then why wouldn’t she be? She didn’t expect to find you here. As a psychic, I can sense if someone’s upset or nervous, but anything more I’d have to have time alone to read them. Otherwise, it’s just too general. And I couldn’t read her if she didn’t want me to. No psychic could. It’s impossible to read someone who doesn’t want to be read. They have to be open to it.”

  “Alright, then if you couldn’t read her, let’s start with what we do know.” Romero took out his notepad and began checking off the facts. “Kelsey had a key to the house. Which means she had access. She could come and go as she pleased. She might have come back here after we searched the place the other day, put the doll in the closet, and left without her jacket. Maybe to frame Crystal or...” Romero clenched his jaw and looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe even your ghost. I don’t know, but I can tell you this, her jacket wasn’t in the backyard last time we checked the house.”

  “You might have missed it,” I said. “With everything going on, it’d be easy to overlook.”

  “Not for my men,” Romero said.

  I couldn’t sit silently by and let Detective Romero think Kelsey had put the doll in the closet when I knew better.

  “Could have been anybody,” I said.

  “But who?”

  I looked down at my lap. How could I begin to tell Detective Romero about Wilson? That I knew Wilson had moved the doll? Explaining one ghost was hard enough, but two?

  Romero put the notepad down and c
rossed his arms. “Alright, so tell me this. If you can’t read Kelsey, how is it you were able to read me yesterday? You knew about my wife. How she died. When. You even said a few things that made me think you knew what she’d be thinking if she were still here.”

  “That’s different, Detective. I wasn’t reading you. I was observing your wife. You brought her into the room with you when you came to see me. She goes everywhere with you. You’ve been hanging onto her since her passing. It’s exhausting. For her too. It’s time to let go.”

  Romero flushed. “You’re quite the mystic.”

  “Perhaps it would be easier if you thought of what I do as more like what you do. Observing people, only with a little bit of a third eye.”

  “Where you going with this?”

  “You talk to people all day long. Make observations. You probably even get a read off of them because of the way they’re dressed. The way they walk. The way they talk. What they do for a living.”

  “I’m a detective. Talking to people, listening to them, following up on hunches, it’s what we do.”

  “Exactly, and when you talk to people long enough, you begin to understand what makes them tick. What they like, what they fear, what baggage they carry with them.”

  “I’ll agree with that.”

  “Well, I do the same thing. Only in addition to hearing what they say, I frequently see their loved ones or spirits around them as well. Usually, they’re trying to lift the burdens of the person I’m reading because that person’s been carrying around a lot of stuff they don’t need to hold onto anymore. Mostly it’s guilt. We all carry a lot with us.”

  The detective arched his brows. “That what you see with me? Guilt?”

  “Your wife loved you. Still does. She doesn’t blame you because you weren’t home as much as she would’ve liked or that you forgot your anniversary the last year you were together. She doesn’t let it burden her. Not like you do.”

  “People really pay you for this stuff, huh?” Romero drew his lips in a firm closed smile.

  “Yes. And sometimes, I offer my advice for free. Like when I think someone’s open to it and ready. Her death wasn’t your fault. It was her time.”

  Chapter 19

  I left Detective Romero in the house and returned to the car. Wilson sat behind the wheel with a very pasted, smug grin on his face. While I had been inside talking with Crystal and Detective Romero, Wilson had been in the backyard sipping tea with Alicia Mae and was bursting with news.

  “I don’t know about you, Old Gal, but I found out a few things that blonde ice queen of a personal assistant wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Crystal?” I asked. “Like what?”

  “Like Lacey wasn’t the only one carrying on with Chad.”

  “C-C-Crystal and Ch-Chad?” I choked on the names. “They had a relationship? A physical relationship? How did you find that out?”

  “Alicia Mae.”

  “Alicia Mae? How could she...”

  “According to her, when Zoey traveled, which has been a lot lately, Crystal kept Zoey’s bed warm with her fiancé.”

  “Alicia told you this?”

  “Not in those exact words, but when a four-year-old sees two people sleeping in the same bed together, she understands something’s going on.”

  I laughed. “No wonder Crystal doesn’t want me around. She was afraid I might pick up on her extracurricular activities.”

  “And that’s not all. It gets better. So much better.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “It appears our little Alicia’s a bit of a pickpocket. Evidently, when Zoey was away, and Crystal would come over, Alicia would go through her purse and take things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this.” Wilson reached into his pocket and took out a small, round, plastic pink caddy. She thought it was candy, but turns out, it’s—”

  “Birth control pills?” I grabbed the pill caddy from Wilson’s hand and opened it to see how many pills remained. The caddy was half full.

  “She thought they were bitter, and don’t worry she didn’t take any, but she gave them to Mariposa.”

  “Mariposa?” The name was familiar, but why?

  “Her doll. The one she and Heather used to have tea parties with. Alicia keeps the doll in the playhouse. It was a gift from her mother. But wait, it gets even better.”

  “What?”

  “Right after Crystal moved into her room, Alicia Mae went through the trash, and she found this.” Wilson took a blue and white pregnancy test tube from his pocket and held it out for me to see. “It’s positive.”

  I grabbed the stick and stared at the positive plus sign. “You’ve got to be kidding. Crystal and Lacey were both having affairs with Chad, and they’re both pregnant?”

  “Or one of them is anyway, considering Lacey’s no longer in the picture.”

  We rode in silence, Wilson driving much slower than his usual breakneck speed, the both of us wondering who killed Lacey.

  Finally, it was Wilson who spoke. “My bet’s on Crystal. I think she found out Lacey was pregnant and figured if Zoey knew about the baby it’d mess up Zoey big time. So Crystal killed Lacey.”

  “Which takes care of one mommy-to-be, but what about the fact Crystal’s also got a bun in the oven?”

  “I doubt Crystal plans to tell Chad or Zoey for that matter. Unlike Lacey, I don’t see the Ice Queen settling for a home and marriage. For Crystal, I think the pregnancy had to come as a big surprise, and something she may intend to take care of. But Crystal knew Lacey was out for more than just Chad’s baby, and she needed to stop her.”

  Wilson had a point. Crystal had admitted she was at the Pink Mansion for dinner the night Lacey and Zoey were running lines, and had made it very clear to Detective Romero that she left early. But what if she hadn’t? What if that was all a lie?

  “You think Crystal took the doll from the house, and instead of going home snuck into the backyard, then waited until it got late and she heard Zoey and Lacey say goodnight? And then she triggered the doll’s cry box to make a whining sound and waited for Lacey to come out of the house and hit her over the head with the doll and killed her?”

  “Exactly. Crystal knew Zoey had to be up early the next morning. All she had to do was wait until Zoey went to bed and Lacey came outside. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Crystal slipped Zoey an extra sleeping pill, put it in her food to ensure she got tired early. Once Zoey heard what she thought was a cat-like sound, Crystal turned on the spa’s bubblers to attract Lacey’s attention, then snuck up behind her and hit her over the head with the doll. The perfect crime. Even Lacey didn’t know who killed her.”

  “Except Crystal didn’t take the doll, and she’s too detailed to have left it behind.”

  “She might have panicked.”

  “Not Crystal. She’s cool under pressure. She would have picked up the doll, and she wouldn’t have dropped the squawk box on the trail.”

  “Then who?” Wilson asked.

  “Kelsey maybe. I get the feeling Detective Romero likes her for the murder. If she suspected Lacey was trying to break up Chad and Zoey, unlike Crystal whose ticket to success is Zoey and would do anything to protect her employer, Kelsey may have thought the future of the band was threatened by Lacey, and killed Lacey herself.”

  “Why not Chad?” Wilson asked. “He had everything to lose if Zoey found out.”

  “Chad has an alibi. He claims he was at a recording studio that night, and until Romero finds out differently, Chad’s off the hook.”

  Wilson pulled the Jag into the drive. “Of course, there’s always the possibility its none of them. Much as I hate to agree with my sister, it could be some random stalker looking to make a name for himself. Maybe someone followed Zoey home one day or bought one of those Hollywood Star Maps for sale on every corne
r. It’d be easy enough to locate her home, notice it backed up to the park, hike up the trail, and come in through the back gate. At that hour, anyone stalking Zoey would have seen Lacey in the backyard, thought it was Zoey, and killed Lacey by mistake. They did look a lot alike.”

  “But what about the doll and the cry box?” I asked. “A stalker’s not going to have access to Zoey’s dolls.”

  “Not unless somebody gave it to them,” Wilson said.

  Chapter 20

  Zoey called the following afternoon on the verge of tears and said she needed to talk to someone. Through controlled sobs, I got that she couldn’t talk to Chad, not after what he had done, and Lacey was...well...Lacey was dead. I tried to bolster Zoey the best I could through the phone and quickly realized it was a losing proposition.

  “I miss her, Misty,” Zoey’s voice cracked, “I can’t believe my best friend would betray me like that. And...and, I can’t talk to Crystal. Not about Chad anyway. Besides, she’s out shopping for a few things I need around the house.”

  Superstars like Zoey, particularly one in the middle of a murder investigation, didn’t go out shopping like everyday people. Too many paparazzi with cameras and overly curious fans who wouldn’t respect boundaries and wanted selfies with the star.

  “At times like these, I miss my mom.” Zoey paused. I pictured her, the phone in her hand, her eyes welled with tears, alone in the house without anyone to talk to. “I know it’s been a long time. My mother died years ago when I was just a little girl. But I really wish I could talk to her. Can I talk to you instead?”

  “Of course you can talk to me, but not on the phone. I think this is more of a person-to-person type of thing.” I promised I’d be right over and roused Wilson from the study. “Zoey called. She needs me to come by.”

  “Is she okay?” The quick response and concern in Wilson’s voice surprised me. Since the night of the séance, I was beginning to see a new, softer side to Wilson, one despite his snooty airs, I was starting to like.

  “She’s fine. She needs someone to talk to, that’s all.”