Trick or Deceit

by Shelley Freydont

  “Who else?”

  Ted took his cup and leaned back in his chair. “That I don’t know.”

  They both sat studying their cups.

  “Edna said that Barry lost a lot of money because of Lucille’s husband.”

  “Ancient history.”

  “A dish served cold,” she reminded him.

  “Revenge?” asked Ted.

  Liv shrugged.

  “Okay, just for argument’s sake, let’s say he lures her into his horror museum and kills her, then wrecks his own display, for which he just won ten thousand dollars.”

  “He loses twice,” Liv said. “First from the investment and then from his prize money. Hmm. Maybe he caught her vandalizing the displays.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Liv sighed. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense. And you know Gilbert will be coming through that door any minute now, wringing his hands in a panic and wanting to know what we’re going to do about it.”

  “We’re going to let Bill find the killer. We’re going to tell Ernie to stand by, unless Bill has evidence that we’re not privy to, and in that case, we’ll have to make sure Barry gets back up and running and in less than a week.” Ted shuddered. “I refuse to go to a haunted house where all the accoutrements are made for munchkins and I’m greeted by Casper the Friendly Ghost.”

  “Oh,” said Liv, “and we also have to find a way to get rid of that end-of-the-world guy before he starts accosting families and scaring them away.”

  “I’ll call down to the permit department and find out if he’s legal.”

  “I don’t care if he is, he’s not going to yell doom and gloom during our Halloween activities.”

  Ted grinned. “We could always have Yolanda and her sisters scare him away.”

  “She has sisters?” Liv asked, horrified at the thought of a family of witches running a business in town, even if they were good witches. Someone was bound to complain.

  “Of the sisterhood variety.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think they’re planning to have their Samhain around here somewhere.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Ted shook his head and took a large bite of orange roll.

  “How many?”

  Ted shrugged. “Are you one of those people who thinks witches worship the devil?”

  She gave him a look.

  “I didn’t think so. So what’s the problem?”

  “Right after a murder isn’t a great time to introduce the occult into the neighborhood. People might freak and run them out of town.”

  Ted finished chewing and brushed off his fingertips. “Or figure out how to exploit them for the rest of the town’s events.”

  “That would be even worse. I guess I’d better get over to the store and introduce myself properly and welcome her, belatedly, to town.”

  “Good idea, but wait until we figure out how to deal with the . . . kerfuffle, and get a plan before we have to present it to the remaining judges panel. Which you know we’ll have to do. And probably sooner rather than later.”

  Liv nodded and pushed her plate away. She wasn’t looking forward to that. All these meetings, whether town council, or town wide, generally solved nothing. They only stirred up the inhabitants more than necessary and ended with the command for Liv to fix things.

  She booted up her computer. “Okay. Where do we start?”

  • • •

  Two hours later, the only plan they had consisted of crossing their fingers that Barry would get his house back together in time. And wondering what was taking Bill so long.

  Liv drummed her fingers on the desk. “BeBe said Lucille was responsible for Janine’s divorce.”

  Ted stretched back in his chair. “If you ask me, Janine was responsible for that. But yes, I’ve heard Lucille might have had a part in it.”

  “Did it create a scandal?”

  “Not really. No one much liked Janine’s husband anyway.”

  “So Lucille might really have had an affair with the man?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wait. You sound like you’re not even surprised. Was Lucille known for having a roving eye?”

  Ted choked out a laugh. “If only it stopped there.”

  “You mean there was more than one?”

  Ted nodded.

  “A lot?”

  Ted shrugged.

  “I hate it when you withhold information.” Not getting a reaction, she said, “You don’t think Lucille and Ernie . . .”

  “No.”

  “Lucille and Barry?”

  “Not likely. Considering his history with the investment bank.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Not Barry’s style. Besides, his attitude would not be appreciated in all quarters. A lot of people have their money tied up in investments that Carson steered them to. And have done well.”

  “So he wouldn’t win any friends by attacking Carson.”

  “Exactly. And even if she was meeting Barry for some reason, why did she die in a vacant lot?”

  Liv grasped at her last straw. “Maybe she had a heart attack and he panicked and dumped her body.”

  “In the weeds next to his museum?”

  “Maybe they saw someone had broken in and went to investigate and she collapsed in fright, and he panicked, et cetera.”

  Ted raised his eyebrow and one side of his mouth, his that’s-so-farfetched-it-pains-me expression. “Then went home, crawled in bed, fell asleep, and waited for someone to notice that he’d been burglarized, and give him a call? Where he proceeded to act like a crazy person over the loss of his exhibit? Liv, he worked hard on that haunted house. It may sound stupid, but he put his heart and soul into it. Besides, I don’t think it was a heart attack.”

  “Aneurism?” Liv asked hopefully.

  “Give it up, Liv. Let’s just wait for Bill.”

  They both fell silent. Neither of them wanted to say the obvious, that Lucille had been murdered.

  They went back to working on Plan B.

  They were still at it when a weary sheriff walked into the office that afternoon.

  “Have a seat,” Liv said. “Can I get you some water? Coffee? Tea?”

  “I’m coffee’d out. I want my breakfast, lunch, heck, I’d settle for an early bird special at Buddy’s Place.” He held up a hand. “Don’t even suggest we go out for dinner. I’ve still got a bucket load of work to do.”

  “I’ll order take out and have Ginny send over the special,” Ted said. “Liv, you want anything?”

  Liv shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  Ted went out into the outer office to make the call.

  “Bill, can you just tell me whether Lucille died of natural causes?”

  The look on his face said it all.

  Liv’s stomach dropped. “You mean . . .”

  “I’m afraid so. But I won’t know anything for sure until I get the coroner’s report, which could be a while. Evidently they’re really backed up at the moment.”

  Liv sighed. “Do you have to know how she died before you start investigating?”

  “Heck no. But it makes it that much harder. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I already know how she died.”

  Liv leaned forward. Ted stuck his head in the door, the telephone still in his hand.

  “Death by asphyxiation,” Bill said.

  “Meaning?”

  “She stopped breathing,” offered Ted wryly.

  “Duh,” Liv said. “I mean what was the method of asphyxiation?”

  Bill winced. “I wanted to get statements from you before I start giving out details. Don’t want to taint your memory.”

  “She was strangled, right?”

  “How—” Bill slumped back in his chair. “Of c
ourse, you’ve been discussing this since you left. Don’t you know—”

  “Yes,” Liv assured him. “We know not to discuss things until we give our statements, so we don’t monkey around with the facts by mistake. But you took a really long time. Besides, we didn’t really get very far.”

  “Well, that’s one good thing that’s happened today.”

  “Did something else happen besides the murder?” asked Liv. “And the vandalism, of course?”

  Bill clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. “I had to notify Carson—no easy way to do that. And take him to identify the body. We all knew who it was, but it had to be done. Then I had to tell him he couldn’t have the body until they finished with the autopsy. Ugh. Awful.”

  “So he wasn’t with her last night,” Liv said.

  “Not according to Carson.”

  “He didn’t pick her up at all?”

  “Says he didn’t.”

  “He didn’t report her missing?” Ted asked.

  Bill shook his head.

  “Didn’t you think that was weird?” Liv asked.

  Bill glanced at Ted but didn’t answer.

  “If your wife didn’t come home all night, wouldn’t you call the police?”

  Two blank expressions looked back at her.

  “Ugh. Why am I asking two bachelors?”

  “It’s not that, Liv. It’s, uh . . .” Bill shifted in his seat. She didn’t think it was his sciatica making him uncomfortable. “I guess it isn’t the first time she didn’t come home at night.”

  “She—?”

  Bill nodded.

  “Did her husband know about her affairs?” asked Liv.

  “How could he not,” Ted said.

  “But not from any one of us,” Bill added.

  “Is there a chance he’d finally had enough?”

  Bill and Ted shook their heads simultaneously.

  Liv saw it. The closing of ranks. Their locals to her outsider. They wouldn’t even consider that someone they obviously liked and respected could kill his wife, even if she’d cheated on him more than once.

  “Then,” Bill took up the thread of his conversation, curtailing any excursions into the Fosters’ marital problems, “Barry reamed me for not ensuring proper security. At which point A.K. said that it was Barry’s responsibility to hire additional security, because it was on private property. I thought they were going to get into it. But I tell you, that A.K. is cool as a cucumber.”

  They’d obviously ended the discussion about Lucille and Carson Foster.

  “We spent the rest of the morning trying to collect data from the most mucked-up crime scene I’ve ever seen.”

  “We didn’t know it was a crime scene,” Liv said. “I mean we did, but we thought it was just vandalism. And knowing there’s not much the police can do if they don’t catch the vandal red-handed, everyone just started helping out.”

  “They were being good neighbors,” Ted added. “Good neighbors, not very good detectives and Lord, most of them can’t act at all.”

  “Do you think Barry can refurbish the exhibit before next weekend?” Liv asked.

  “He says he’s going to try, and since all those dummies had already been handled, I told him to go for it. Hope I wasn’t mistaken.”

  “Do you think it would be possible for us to go over and check on his progress? Or at least talk to him about his expectations?”

  “Sure, at this point why not. Like you said, there’s not much evidence to collect from vandals. We swept the house for anything out of the ordinary.”

  Liv wondered what, at the Museum of Yankee Horrors, he’d considered ordinary.

  “We looked for any signs of a struggle, even though the body was not found in the house or even for that matter on Barry’s property. The vacant lot is still off limits. But we’re working quickly. Rain is on its way.

  “If you’ll just wait until I eat, I’ll go with you.”

  Ted and Liv both gave their statements while they waited for Bill’s lunch. Then they let him eat in peace—except for Whiskey, who was tired of being ignored, and came over to demand attention . . . or food.

  Ted took him out for a quick walk, and they were soon all piled into the police cruiser. They made a quick detour to drop Whiskey off at home, then headed for the Museum of Yankee Horrors.

  • • •

  Bill pulled into the parking lot at the side of the museum. The vacant lot was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, but the crime scene and coroner’s vans had left. A small knot of people stood across the street watching, though there wasn’t much to see.

  An officer was standing in front of the tape, guarding the pathway through the weeds they had created earlier that morning. Piles of garbage and castoffs littered the back of the parking lot. On closer inspection, Liv saw that the piles had been gathered and separated by the police force. Bottles in one pile, cans in another, paper, garbage, scrap metal, and what looked like pieces of clothing.

  As soon as the cruiser came to a halt, Bill got out and went over to talk to the officer. Liv tried to see if there was anything interesting in the piles of detritus, but either whatever might be evidence had been taken away or there was none to begin with. Probably destroyed by the helpful theater group.

  Ted waited at a discreet distance, though Liv had no doubt he was on high alert. She certainly was.

  After a brief chat, Bill came back, and the three of them went up the front steps to the house.

  Henry had been true to his word. The cast members from that morning had been joined by several others. It looked like his entire cast was busy refitting arms and legs, and re-dressing mannequins into their proper clothes. Two sewing machines had been set up and Henry Gallantine was leaning over one.

  “Amazing,” Liv said.

  Henry looked up at that, and gave a regal wave. “Needs must where the devil drives,” he intoned in a theatrical baritone.

  “Please, no more talk about devils,” Liv said. “Which reminds me. Bill, that ranting idiot is still in the square.”

  Bill nodded distractedly. He was looking at Officer Meese, who was sitting on a kitchen chair frowning at the piles of clothing and body parts. “I told Meese to stay here and look out for anything that might be a clue. Not that I expect you people left anything possibly recognizable.”

  “Doesn’t look like he’s found anything,” Liv said.

  A skill saw started up from somewhere out back, followed by hammering.

  “Structural damage?” Liv asked Barry.

  “Some, not too bad, mainly where the jackass yanked the figures from their moorings. Wrecked some parts though. Hope I can get replacements quick.”

  “So do I. Do you think you can make it?”

  Barry looked daggers at her. “You think I can’t?”

  Ted stepped up next to her. “Barry, if she knew, she wouldn’t be asking. Can you get it up and running by the weekend?”

  Barry turned away, looked from one scene to the next. Some of the scenery, like the Salem pillory, had been partially rebuilt. Liv had shuddered the first time she’d seen it during the judging. A puritan scene of a man whose head and hands were stuck through holes of a wooden yoke and a magistrate leaning over to nail his ear to the wood. That had been a shock, especially with the accompanying recording of the man’s screams.

  Today he had been returned to the pillory, though his legs lay unattached on the floor below him, while the two people working on the exhibit paused for a soda. The daylight did nothing to soften the experience. Today was all the more frightening since the magistrate, fully clothed in colonial gear, a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other, was as headless as the Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. And a lot more real looking.

  “The Grave Diggers of Salem” was completely missing except for the red velvet ropes that kept the
audience at bay.

  It looked like an impossible job to reconstruct all of the scenes. Anything that could be torn down had been demolished, like someone had done it in a fit of rage, which didn’t bode well for Ernie Bolton. He was the only person they knew of who had been angry that Barry won.

  Partial displays were everywhere. Tests of sound systems fought in the air until the shrieks drove Liv back to the foyer where she found Barry gazing up the staircase, his hands shoved in his overalls.

  “Well, at least he missed the ghost on the staircase,” Barry said dejectedly.

  She looked up the staircase where a track ran along the ceiling, and from it hung a frame with a diaphanous gown. At the preview Liv had attended, the “ghost” had swept down the stairs, blown by the wind from a fan and sparkling in the theatrical lighting. It had greeted them as they’d entered. It had been pretty impressive the night of the judging. Today it just looked like a piece of fabric on a coat hanger.

  “You’ll make it,” Liv said and patted his arm. But she didn’t have much hope. It was too bad. Ernie’s Monster Mansion had all the standard features of a haunted house—spooks, and screams and wet spaghetti, and skeletons jumping out of coffins—but the museum had been special.

  “You’ll make it,” she said again and watched Barry wander off into the parlor. She continued on to the dining room where half-clothed mannequins were being glued back together. Two young women leaned over a table full of latex masks that would have to be repaired and reapplied to the mannequin’s expressionless faces.

  The future wasn’t looking too rosy for Barry Lindquist.

  Liv walked through the archway into the kitchen. Bill and Ted were talking to Officer Meese, who still sat at the kitchen table sorting odd bits of fabric and logging them into his notebook.

  She reached them just as Barry stormed down the hall, a torso wearing a bloodied dress held under one arm and the presumably accompanying stocking-clad legs stuck under the other.

  “Sheriff! We can’t find Lizzie’s shoes. They have to be out there somewhere.”

  Bill looked to Meese, who consulted a piece of paper. “We didn’t find anything but what’s in those piles over there and what’s left out in the parking lot. And that’s mainly garbage that’s been there for I don’t know how long.”