THE SPIRIT IN QUESTION

by Cynthia Kuhn

  “I mean, when I found you here, you acted as if you didn’t have a care in the world. Right after you hit Bella and shoved her into the staircase.”

  She laughed. “What? That’s ridiculous. I didn’t do that.”

  “I know it was you, Zandra. You’re the only one who could have texted her from Tolliver’s phone. I already asked him, and he said he didn’t call a meeting.”

  Her eyes widened slightly.

  “So what’s going on? Just tell me, please.”

  Zandra looked away for long time, as if she was deciding something, then turned back. “Okay, fine. I needed her out of the way for a little while.”

  “So you could stop the sale of the Opera House?”

  She surveyed me grimly. “If you must know, that’s what I had hoped.”

  “But she’d already closed on it beforehand.”

  “So I heard,” she said sourly.

  “What were you hoping to do?”

  “I just wanted a chance to talk to Chip. He’d promised me—” she stopped abruptly and clamped her mouth shut.

  “What did he promise you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s all over.”

  “Why is it all over? Bella said you’ll be part of everything related to the Opera—”

  “That little slut!” Zandra said bitterly. “He was mine.”

  “Wait, you and Chip were a thing?”

  “Yes. When he first came to town, he took me out to dinner. He told me that he’d seen me perform in Tolliver’s last play and thought I was magnificent.” She lifted her head and preened. “I was, actually.”

  “And...” I rolled my hand to invite her to finish the story.

  “He said he was going to stage a production just for me.”

  “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

  “You remember. Well done.” She brushed back her hair. “But it was more than that. We were going to be together.”

  I bit my lips to hide a smile. “You and Chip? I thought you loved Tolliver.”

  “I did. I mean, I do. In a way. But Chip is my soulmate.”

  “Does he know that?” I winced. I didn’t mean to blurt that out, especially in such an incredulous tone.

  She didn’t seem to be bothered by it. “Trust me. When we started working on the play, he would have fallen for me. All my directors do.”

  “But Chip isn’t a director.”

  “He was a director before and would have been again. I had plans for him. And honestly, it may not be too late.” She reached toward her bag, as if she were going to leave.

  I needed her to keep talking, so I dialed my tone down a few notches. “What about Tolliver? Do you think he would just move out of the way for Chip?” I mentally crossed my fingers for the next lie. “I could see how you and Chip would make a great couple.”

  Zandra stopped moving and glowed at that. “Thank you. And don’t worry. I have plans for Tolliver too.”

  “Plans he would like?”

  “He’ll be taken care of.”

  “Do you mean ‘taken care of’ as in having a new job or as in swimming with the fishes?” I said it lightly.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Kidding, of course.”

  “Very funny, Lila.”

  I softened my tone again, aiming for confidant mode. “Just between us, why did you push Tolliver through the trap door?”

  Zandra narrowed her eyes. “Who said I did that?”

  “No one. I’m just assuming.”

  She sighed. “I already told you, Lila, the night it happened. It was Malcolm.”

  “You did say that.”

  “It’s true.” Zandra lifted her chin defiantly. “Ghosts can do all kinds of things.”

  “But you also said you needed Tolliver out of the way, so—”

  “Tolliver’s not dead,” she said flatly.

  The unspoken yet hung in the air between us.

  I wanted to cajole a confession out of her, but it was hard not to shriek in her cruel face.

  She shrugged. “Don’t say I never did anything for him. I gave him this play, after all. And it’s going to be a success.”

  “I’m sure he’s grateful.”

  “For more than you know.”

  I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows, trying to radiate confusion.

  “Honey, I got him this director gig.”

  “Meaning...” I trailed off intentionally and held my breath.

  She hesitated but I could see that she wanted to brag. Somehow I summoned up the ability to smile at her encouragingly. “You can tell me. Do you mean—”

  She smirked. “Yes, okay? I killed Jean Claude.”

  I made a big production of gasping, even though she’d finally said exactly what I’d hoped she’d say.

  She took it as a gasp of admiration and a smile stretched across her face. “You have no idea how good it feels to say that out loud. Yes, he needed to be out of the way so that Tolly could take over as director.” She mimicked one of his signature hand gestures. “Though I did have a moment of panic when Jean Claude tried to tell you all during the séance. I had to pull myself out of the depths of the trance in order to nip that in the bud.”

  “How did you ever pull it off?” I attempted to infuse admiration into the words, though I was gritting my teeth.

  “It wasn’t even that hard,” she said gleefully. “Just had to create a reason to get him into the wings during the party scene by rigging the catwalk to break. Then it was just a matter of timing my real shot to coincide with the blank one. I’d seen the rehearsal of that scene so many times that I had it down.” She stretched her arms up and laced her hands behind her head, the picture of relaxation. “You have to admit, it’s partly Jean Claude’s fault. If he wasn’t such a perfectionist, I wouldn’t have had a chance to perfect my timing.”

  Rage was spiraling up from deep within, and I struggled to sound calm. “And you ran down the secret staircase afterwards.”

  “Yes.” The smugness on her face was intolerable.

  “Was anyone else helping you? That was a lot to pull off.”

  “No,” she said. “It was all me.”

  “How did you drop the gun on the floor at the séance?”

  “It was resting on my thighs the whole time. My legs were bent, so it was flat enough. After I pointed at Clara, I just straightened them and let the pistol tumble down the slide.”

  “You were trying to frame her?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She frowned and let her arms fall to her sides. “Though that could have gone better. No one took it seriously until she was caught hammering away at the wall last night.” After a moment, she brightened. “Still, she’s a suspect now and she did that to herself, so...we’ll see how it goes.”

  It was hard not to address her blaming of everyone else, but I managed to press on. “So let me see if I have this right: you broke into the Historical Society office twice—first, you stole the journal, then you went back and stole the gun.”

  “Correct. Jean Claude was becoming a nuisance. He had found the journal, which had fallen from my bag somehow at rehearsal. He didn’t know whose it was and thought it had been abandoned, so he tore out the page about the jewelry because he wanted to use it somehow in a future play.”

  “He didn’t know that it was Althea’s?”

  “Not at first. I saw him looking at the page scrap at rehearsal one day and confronted him. That was my mistake. Once he knew it was real, he made me tell him the whole legend. Then he said he would give the page back if I’d let him help look for the jewelry.”

  “Did you tell him you’d stolen the journal from the Historical Society?”

  “No. I never said where it came from. I just told him about the scandal.”

  Tha
t warmed my heart a bit, to hear that Jean Claude was telling the truth about not knowing who Clara was when we’d first seen the protestors. It sounded as though he’d simply been engaged by the dramatic aspects of the story as an artist, then was intrigued by the idea of finding treasure. I was glad to hear he wasn’t scheming with Zandra.

  Something else occurred to me. “Clara’s going to have a conniption about the page being torn out.”

  She tilted her head. “You’re right. How marvelous.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “I refused to let him help, of course. He didn’t even want the diamonds themselves—just the adventure of finding them. Or maybe he was planning to steal them from me later.”

  “He wasn’t a thief.”

  Zandra made a tsk, tsk sound. “Doesn’t matter. He had no idea who he was dealing with.” She reached down into her bag and removed a pair of gloves, which she pulled on quickly before plunging one hand back into the depths. “And neither do you.”

  She raised her arm, which held a stainless steel knitting needle. “Feeling lucky, Lila?”

  Adrenaline coursed through my veins and it was difficult to think straight. “What about bad karma?”

  She affected a small pout. “I think that ship has definitely sailed. Don’t worry—I sharpened up the end of this needle in the workshop. It should go in quite smoothly.”

  Her oppressive perfume was filling the warm room. My stomach clenched. Then the scent of something else washed over me—was it roses?

  I stood up abruptly, then wished I hadn’t. Swaying, I grabbed on to the back of the chair to steady myself. “Zandra, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Sorry.” She smiled. “But I only told you about Jean Claude because I know what’s going to happen next. And not just because I’m psychic.” She laughed.

  I thought about making a break for it or yelling for help, but she would definitely run at me. I didn’t have anything to defend myself and if she stuck that point into my neck, it would be over fast. My entire body was drenched in sweat, and I had begun to tremble, but somehow I kept my voice steady. “I promise I won’t say anything. You don’t need to stab me.”

  “No, you won’t say anything. I’m going to make sure of that, trust me. We just need to wait for the music...in case you scream.”

  The overture began to play directly above us as she said that. She was right. No one would hear anything.

  She gripped the needle with both hands and took a step toward me. “Say goodbye, Lila.”

  Just then, the staircase door flew open, pushing her forward to the ground, and police officers swarmed into the room. She dropped the needle as she fell.

  Lex came directly over and wrapped his arms around me. I gladly breathed in his spicy scent. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded but stayed right there, shaking. After a minute, he moved his head down to look into my eyes. “We got it all,” he said. “On tape. Well done.”

  “What took you so long?” I edged away from him.

  He let go of me and rubbed his chin. “Sorry about that—it escalated faster than we thought it would. We couldn’t tell what was going on at the end until you said the word ‘stab.’”

  “I’ll be sure to yell out the method of my impending demise sooner next time.”

  He grinned.

  I slid out of my jacket, ripped off the bulletproof vest he’d insisted I wear, and shoved it at Lex.

  He dropped it on the ground beside him.

  Then he kissed me. Right in front of everyone.

  It was so worth the wait.

  Chapter 27

  Once the adrenaline had subsided and the last officer had gone through the lobby door, I asked Lex if he would come with me back downstairs.

  He handed me one of the bottled waters he was carrying. “Aren’t you ready to go?”

  “Soon, but there’s something I think we should check out. And it’s going to sound a little odd, but bear with me.”

  “You certainly do keep things interesting, Lila Maclean.” His voice was low and teasing.

  Ignoring his undeniably alluring tone for the time being, I recounted the odd dream I’d had about Althea sitting in front of the mirror. The whole time I’d waited for Lex and the police officers to process the scene, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

  “Haven’t you spent enough time in that dressing room today?”

  “Yes, but I need to look. I can’t explain it.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  I led the way, shivering as always at the icy blast at the bottom of the stairs. Once we were at the dressing room door, Lex gestured for me to go in first.

  “What’s next, Professor? You’re in charge of this investigation.”

  I moved to the antique table, patting the top of it lightly. “Althea and Bella were here, looking into the mirror. Althea was seated in the chair, dressed in black but covered in diamonds—she had stones sewn all over her clothing. Bella was standing behind her, wearing white from head to toe. She didn’t have any jewelry on. But Althea did something with her hands, a sort of twist of the wrists. Instantly, all of the jewelry appeared on Bella. Her clothes sparkled so much, it was almost blinding.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I woke up.”

  He blinked, clearly expecting more of an explanation.

  I blushed. “Don’t you ever have dreams that you feel are vitally important?”

  “No,” he said, lifting up his bottled water. “After I wake up, I mostly just have breakfast and get on with my day.”

  “Well,” I said, “my mother has always stressed that we need to take them very seriously. Both of us have had dreams about things that came true later. She says we have a bit of a sixth sense.”

  He took a sip of his drink and regarded me curiously. “Example, please?”

  I thought back. “Once I lost a ring and dreamt I found it under my bed. And the next morning, it was actually there.”

  His lip twitched. “Could have been your memory in action.”

  “I guess so. But it’s happened many times. And my mother gets half of her ideas for her art from dreams.”

  He leaned against the rose wallpaper. “Dreams can be a source of inspiration for many people.”

  “Although you sound kind of patronizing right now,” I gave him a warning look, “I’m going to let it slide because I want to focus on the dream. Do you think that’s what it meant, that Althea wants her jewelry to go to Bella?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, taking another sip. “But why wouldn’t she just send them to her in the mail, if she wanted her to have them?”

  “She could have left them here on purpose. Clara and Braxton certainly thought they were here. She wrote in the journal that she hid them, right? So maybe it was intentional.”

  “But wouldn’t she have taken them with her?”

  “Maybe she was worried that they’d be stolen or lost if she brought them. Maybe she was going to come back for them later. Maybe she left town so fast she didn’t have a chance to pack. Or maybe she wanted to leave them for Bella to find? Who knows?”

  Lex looked skeptical.

  “And you’re a detective, after all. Maybe you’ll be able to help me find something everyone else missed.”

  He gave a brisk nod. “Fair enough. So what happens now?”

  “We look for a secret hiding place.” I slid my hand slowly over the wood of the antique table, moving inch by inch across the back, underneath, and along each leg. I pulled the shallow drawer out of the top and checked it for a false bottom but didn’t find anything.

  I moved closer to the mirror, ran my fingers across the ornately scrolled frame, and tilted the bottom edge away from the wall. “Can you help me take this down? I want to look behind it.”

  “To see if there’s a safe?” He
perked up.

  “Exactly.”

  Together, we lifted the mirror completely off of the wall. Nothing there either.

  Lex re-hung the mirror while I flopped down on the velvet chair. Where else could she have hidden them?

  “Let’s do the light next,” I said.

  We went to the corner and gave the light a thorough going-over. All that showed us was it hadn’t been dusted in a long time.

  I closed my eyes and thought back to my dream.

  “Wait,” I exclaimed and turned the velvet chair carefully upside down. The bottom was recessed and open—no place to secure any secret compartments there—but I felt around the sides of the frame just in case. Althea’s wrist-twisting motion flashed in front of my eyes, and I tested the fat wooden chair legs, one by one. They were all rock solid until I hit the fourth one, which turned. I held my breath as I unscrewed the leg and pulled it from the frame.

  Lex knelt down next to me.

  I examined the leg carefully, noticing a thin line of separation halfway down. I compared it to the other legs, which did not have the same mark.

  “I think it opens here,” I said to him. I turned the two pieces in separate directions, twisting with all my strength. Nothing.

  “Is it stuck? It’s been a long time since it’s been opened, I bet,” said Lex. “Keep trying.”

  Eventually, it gave way and I was able to separate the two parts. I set the top half down and looked inside. A blue velvet bag was visible.

  “Look!” I cried, sliding the bag out and pulling apart the gathered neck carefully. I reached inside and touched something cold and metallic. What emerged in my hand was a ball of jewelry. I gasped and began untangling. There was a thick gold necklace with an egg-shaped center diamond set in an ornate pendant as well as numerous smaller diamonds at two-inch intervals all the way around the chain, a wide hammered gold bracelet with eight almond-sized diamonds embedded in a circle pattern, and a pair of large diamond drop earrings.

  “Gorgeous. These must be worth a fortune, Lex.”

  “How did Camden ever get the money for these? Not on a professor’s salary,” he said. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” I stared at the jewelry on the ground in front of us. “We need to get these to Bella immediately.”