Trick or Deceit

by Shelley Freydont

  Thank goodness they’d gotten all the mannequins out of the lot yesterday. She wondered how Ernie Bolton’s haunted house was faring with Ernie held for questioning. His wife would not be able to cover everything to protect it from the rain. Liv looked at the time on her laptop. Maybe BeBe could pick her up early and they could swing by to see if she needed help.

  She made the call. “I’m on my way,” BeBe said, and hung up.

  Liv stood up.

  Whiskey jumped off the couch, shook himself, and looked at Liv before he shot off down the hall to hide.

  “You’re in luck. You get to stay here. But if you want to go out, it’s now or much later.” She walked down the hall to the kitchen and stood at the door. After a few seconds Whiskey came out of hiding. Liv opened the door.

  Whiskey looked out, looked back at her.

  “I know, just get it done.”

  Whiskey shot out the door to the shelter of the bushes. He was back and shaking off the rain a minute later. Liv grabbed a towel she kept for just that purpose and gave him a good rub.

  A treat quickly snatched from her hand and he was headed back to his doggie bed.

  Liv did a quick cleanup and put on boots and her rain slicker.

  BeBe’s Subaru pulled into the driveway a minute later. Liv opened the door and made a dash for the car.

  “That was fast,” Liv said as she slammed the front door.

  “I was bored stiff. I’m afraid I’ve become a workaholic, and since hiring a staff, I have several hours a week with nothing to do.” She looked over her shoulder to back out to the street. “I guess I have to retrain myself to enjoy doing nothing.”

  “Yeah, I can relate.”

  “So, it’s crazy about Ernie, isn’t it? I don’t think he would kill anybody, even for all that money. It would be smarter to kill Barry. Though I’m not condoning that, either.”

  “I don’t think so, either. Even if Lucille caught him wrecking Barry’s museum, why didn’t she just drive to the corner and call the police?”

  “Exactly.” BeBe turned up the wipers. “Maybe he caught her vandalizing and tried to stop it? And her death was an accident?”

  “What motive could Lucille possibly have to destroy the display?”

  They had to drive past Barry’s museum on their way to Ernie’s Monster Mansion. There were lights on inside, but only one car that Liv could see through the rain. Barry was probably camping out there to prevent further breaking and entering.

  Three blocks later they turned onto Baxter Street. The community center was dark, only two security lights burned at the corner of the building. Across the street, Ernie’s haunted house was also dark, except for one light upstairs, and a dim porch light.

  Just enough light to see two shadowed figures moving about the displays in the front yard. The rest of the street was deserted, and for a split second Liv thought it might be another case of vandalism. But when BeBe pulled up to the curb, Liv saw that it was two women, pulling tarps over the Halloween decorations. And not having too much success.

  Liv and BeBe both jumped out of the car and ran up the walk to help.

  “Mrs. Bolton, we came to help,” BeBe said. “What can we do?”

  Liv had never met Ernie’s wife, really only knew Ernie through the community center. From what she could tell, Harriett Bolton was a dumpy, middle-aged woman with dark hair hanging wet and limp in the rain. The other woman was younger, and looked vaguely familiar. Probably a relative.

  Harriett thrust one end of the tarp at BeBe and motioned for her to pull it over Dracula’s casket. Between them the four women managed to cover the wooden casket and tuck the tarp into the bottom. That’s when Liv noticed the electrical cables still attached and getting wet.

  An accident waiting to happen. The second woman was already in the yard shaking a plastic drop cloth, attempting to open it up. Liv grabbed the other end and they covered most of the gravestones, Ernie must have cut some corners toward the end, because while the majority of the stones were made from polyresin, a few were nothing more than foam board and had already begun to disintegrate.

  When they had covered everything in the yard, Liv and the other woman joined BeBe and a frowning Mrs. Bolton back on the porch.

  “I think it’s salvageable,” Liv said optimistically.

  “Don’t matter. But thank you for coming. I don’t know what we’re gonna do now. They took my Ernie away, saying he killed that Foster woman. But Ernie’s not like that. And he didn’t wreck Barry’s house, neither. Guess we’ll have to pack it in and go stay with my mother ’til they let Ernie go. If they don’t get him on back taxes. Then we will be in a fix.”

  Beside her the other woman let out a wail.

  “Hush up, girl,” Mrs. Bolton said.

  Liv recognized that screech. “Marla Jean?”

  The woman looked up, and sure enough, it was Marla Jean Higgins. Liv could see a Greek toga beneath her transparent rain coat.

  “You know my daughter?”

  “Your daughter?” Liv tried to smile. “We met briefly yesterday. I’m Liv Montgomery. I’m the town’s event coordinator.”

  “I’m Ernie’s wife, Harriett. Glad to meet ya. Though I know who you are. Just never had call to say hello before now.”

  “Well, I’m sorry it isn’t under happier circumstances.”

  “I am, too. Especially now that Marla’s back at home.”

  Marla turned and fled inside.

  “She always had self-esteem problems,” Harriett confessed. “Then she just up and married that Eddie Higgins, and wouldn’t you know it, he took off less than a year later . . .” She sighed heavily. “You want to come in for some coffee or something? That’s about the best I can do.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bolton,” BeBe said, “but we have dinner plans.”

  Harriett Bolton nodded, like it was inevitable that they would have dinner plans.

  “I’ll try to get by tomorrow and see what we can do to help you get this back up and running,” Liv said.

  Mrs. Bolton nodded again.

  Liv and BeBe got back in the car and drove away.

  “That was depressing,” BeBe said as soon as the house was out of sight.

  “No kidding. And no wonder Ernie was so desperate to win that money.”

  “Desperate enough to destroy Barry’s entry?”

  “I don’t know, but it is kind of weird that Marla Jean was at the play rehearsal yesterday morning and helped collect the damaged parts and clean up the mess. Barry was blaming Ernie at the top of his lungs and she didn’t say a word.” Liv paused. “Actually, she was the one who found the body.”

  “Yikes, that must have been horrible.”

  “Yes,” Liv said. “Horrible, very loud, and—coincidental?”

  • • •

  BeBe cut into her Buddy’s Place homemade meat loaf. “You think maybe Marla knew the body was going to be there? That’s psycho. Though she is a little weird.”

  “She’s definitely into costumes. Saturday morning she was wearing a fifties cocktail dress and tonight a toga.”

  “A lot of people in town are into costumes.” BeBe smiled at their waitress, who was wearing a cat ears headband and painted whiskers. “There’s a long way between being a little weird and being willing to kill.”

  “True,” Liv said.

  Buddy’s was a diner luncheonette crossover eating experience. Home cooking with a wine and beer license. Genny Parsons—proprietress, hostess, sometimes waitress, and self-professed chief cook and bottle washer—set down her mug of coffee and slipped into the booth beside Liv.

  “Just sent the other two waitresses home.” She reached for the sugar packets. “The rain is keeping everybody away. It’s like that TV show about fashion designing. One day you’re covered in customers, the next . . .” She looked around.
r />   There were two guys sitting at the counter and an older couple sharing a piece of lemon meringue pie.

  “You have us,” BeBe said.

  “And I love you both for it. But you didn’t get this wet running from your car to the diner. What have you two been up to?”

  “We went to check on Ernie’s Monster Mansion.”

  “Terrible news. You don’t think he did it, do you?”

  Liv shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “So what happened over there?”

  “Harriett Bolton and her daughter, Marla Jean, were trying to cover up everything. We stopped to help.”

  “It was Liv’s idea.”

  “Why am I not surprised. Just like Liv to mix doing a good deed with a little light sleuthing.”

  “No,” Liv protested. “It was purely selfish, in case we need Ernie’s haunted house as backup. I had no intention of sleuthing. Though I was sort of surprised to find Marla Jean there. I had no idea she was Ernie’s daughter.”

  “I went to school with her,” Genny said. “We were in the same chemistry class. But we were never friends. Had an odd kick in her gallop.”

  “Still does,” BeBe said.

  Genny snorted a laugh. “Liv, you’re looking shocked. Is that because I look young for my age?”

  “You do,” Liv said. “I just . . . Mrs. Bolton said Marla Jean had just gotten out of a marriage.”

  “Now that’s a story. And I hate to talk out of school, but Eddie Higgins was a flimflam man. We used to call him Fast Eddie when we were in high school. He could con the socks off you without you even taking off your shoes. I don’t know how Marla caught him even for a couple of months.”

  “So what did he con Marla Jean out of? Certainly not her looks or her youth. She’s got to be forty if she’s a day.”

  “Forty-mmmph-mmmph,” Genny said, mumbling the last number so that it was unrecognizable.

  “Let’s just say early forties,” BeBe said.

  “Anyway, Fast Eddie made her life a misery for a few months, and when she finally got that he didn’t really love her, she hauled her butt back home. That was a couple of years ago. They say Ernie’s fortunes began to go the way of all flesh after that.”

  “Why? Did he have to pay Eddie off?”

  “Eddie conned him into giving him a little strip of land that belonged to Ernie’s mother, rest her soul.” Genny paused to drink some coffee.

  “And?” Liv coaxed.

  “And it was right near the highway. Ernie had been holding on to it for years in case the highway department ever decided to widen the road. Wasn’t worth two nickels. He thought he was getting off easy to get rid of that parasite. Of course what Ernie didn’t know was that some folks were interested in building some condos nearby and they were going to have to widen the road that ran right past Ernie’s property.”

  “So Fast Eddie turned around and sold it,” Liv said.

  “Yes, he did, to Carson Foster. And he made a pretty penny off it. Dumb skunk. If Eddie had held on to it for a few months longer, he could have sold it for a lot more. Now, Carson, he made a fortune off it.”

  “What happened to Fast Eddie?”

  Genny shrugged. “Nobody’s seen him since.”

  Chapter Nine

  Liv didn’t see how the cheating and absconding of Fast Eddie Higgins could have anything to do with the current vandalism and murder. It was just one of those strange phenomena of small towns that she was still trying to understand and get used to.

  Sometimes it seemed like everyone knew everyone else, and most of them seemed to be kin to each other. Thousands of tourists came through their town each year and yet Celebration Bay was still the quintessential small town.

  Liv liked it but she wasn’t always comfortable with it. And Monday morning was no different.

  She’d left Whiskey with Ida and Edna that morning. She was sure there was going to be fallout from Lucille Foster’s murder, starting with the mayor. Liv didn’t understand why he hadn’t already made an appearance or at least phoned.

  She picked up her usual pastries and drinks but didn’t stop to talk to Dolly or BeBe. She hurried past the other stores on the block, though she did make a mental note to stop around the corner to the new occult store and say hello. Made a second note to get rid of the soapbox spouter who had moved across the street to place himself in front of the Corner Café and next to the alley that abutted Yolanda Nestor’s new store.

  She handed Ted their morning tea, coffee, and pumpkin sunflower seed muffins and went straight to her office.

  “What’s the rush?” he called after her. “It’s not even ten o’clock.”

  “I’m calling downstairs to Permits and Licenses to find out if that nutcase in the park has a permit to . . . to . . . rant.”

  She picked up the phone.

  Ted came in a minute later, bearing a silver tray with their muffins on little china plates. The tea and coffee he always left in cardboard in case of a sudden emergency. Emergencies generally required on-site caffeine.

  Their office of two ran on enthusiasm, energy, and copious amounts of coffee and tea.

  “I already called. They said they hadn’t been sure what to do and asked the mayor. He said to give the guy a permit to set up in the park.”

  Liv drummed her fingers. “But he’s moved to the sidewalk across the street.”

  “You don’t think he adds a little drama to the occasion?”

  “I think he’s bound to cause trouble.”

  “True. I’ll go down and see exactly what his parameters are. Maybe we can get him on a technicality. But more importantly, I was hoping you would bring Whiskey to work today. I was going to ask you if he could be in the zombie parade with me.”

  Liv stared at Ted. “Why am I always surprised? The candy cane socks and red bow tie I can live with, I even got used to the green striped vest with the cloverleaf tie, but somehow the image of you painted gray and dressed in rags as you stumble down Main Street is going to be a little difficult.”

  “I’m going to be a sophisticated zombie. And I need a dapper dog.” He set one of the plates in front of Liv along with a napkin and fork. “The muffins are a little delicate.”

  He sat down on the other side of her desk. The office did seem quiet without Whiskey, not that he ever barked or bothered them. He was just good company.

  She sighed. “Well, if we don’t get—”

  The phone rang. Ted stood. “I’ll get it. You drink your latte before it gets cold.”

  “Thanks.” She flipped the tab off her cup and sipped. Exhaled as she fell into her morning routine. Pinched off a corner of her muffin. Dolly never let them down. Everything she made was delicious, and the reason Liv was having to exercise more than she usually did.

  She took another bite out of the muffin. She could hear Ted on the phone in the outer office. She wondered who was calling this early and hoped to heaven it wasn’t more trouble.

  He came back in and sat down. Picked up his tea. “That was your VanderHauw Foundation rep on the phone.”

  “Jon Preston? What did he say? Is he back from Thailand? He isn’t cancelling, is he?”

  “Not only is he back, but he’s here.”

  “What? He’s here in Celebration Bay?” Liv looked down at her everyday work clothes.

  When she looked up again, Ted was grinning at her.

  “And he’s hoping you’ll have time to have lunch with him today at the inn. I graciously accepted for you.”

  “Look how I’m dressed.”

  “You look like you do every day. Absolutely superb.”

  “Thanks, but Jon might be expecting something a little more . . .”

  “Sexy?”

  She glowered at him. “Businesslike.”

  “You look fine. Now drink your coffee.”


  “But he wasn’t coming in until Thursday. Do you think this is a good sign?” Liv slumped. “Or do you think he’s heard about Lucille’s murder and is going to wig out? How did he sound?”

  Liv knew that was a stupid question. She hadn’t lived and worked with the movers and shakers without knowing and learning not to ever give anything away—including opinions—until it was necessary.

  “Only lunch will tell. Now, where were we?”

  Liv thought back. “I was about to say we need to get rid of the doomsday prophet and figure out this murder before the zombie parade. I was hoping it would all be cleared up before Jon’s arrival. Mayor Worley will have a coronary. And where is he? I thought he’d be here wringing his hands first thing.”

  The outer door opened and closed.

  “Perfect timing,” Ted said, and took a bite of the moist muffin. “DHL should model their delivery drones after him.”

  Gilbert Worley whisked through the door and into Liv’s office without slowing down.

  Liv braced herself.

  Ted said, “Good morning, Gilbert.”

  “Good? You call a murder of one of our finest citizens good?”

  “You’ll be happy to know our taxpayers’ dollars are at work, and Bill has already taken Ernie Bolton in for questioning,” Liv assured him.

  “Ernie?” Gilbert’s black brows snapped together. “Ridiculous. Ernie is no murderer. Has Bill Gunnison lost his mind?”

  “Ernie had reason to vandalize Barry Lindquist’s Museum of Yankee Horrors. Lucille’s body was found with the other . . . um . . . bodies.”

  The mayor pulled up a chair, collapsed into it, and began kneading his hands. “This job is making me old before my time.”

  Liv and Ted exchanged looks. Middle age had come and was quickly exiting; politics could do that to a person. He had worry lines, his jowls were beginning to sag, and the Grecian Formula that kept his brilliantined hair black could not stop it from receding from his forehead.