“Bernie?” she called out, even though it was way too early for her sister to have gotten to the shop and returned. Maybe she’d forgotten something.
No one answered.
Suddenly, Libby was aware of how quiet the room was. And how large. Another door slammed.
“Bernie?” Libby repeated.
Her sister’s name echoed in the silence.
“Hello?” Libby cried.
No one answered.
“This is ridiculous,” Libby said out loud.
Obviously, the sounds were being made by people walking back and forth in the hallway. She looked down. She didn’t remember doing it, but somehow she’d taken the amulet Amber had given her off of her neck and was clutching it in her hand. This was what came from listening to Amber and those ghost-hunter freaks. Libby shook herself. She hated when she got like this. She was acting the way she had when she was five.
Libby shook herself again, took a deep breath, and went over her to do list, holding it in her mind the way she was holding the amulet in her hand. She had to focus on finishing setting up. She had to finish plating the cookies, pouring the waffle batter into jugs, putting out the pies, slicing up the pumpkin loaves, arranging the drinks, and setting up the urns for hot coffee, tea, mulled cider, and hot chocolate.
She started humming Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” to herself. That always helped. She didn’t know why, but it did. It had since childhood. She was finishing up overlapping the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when she felt something funny around her.
It was like static electricity on her arms, neck, and shoulders. Then she felt a blast of cold air on her cheeks. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She didn’t know how she knew they were doing that; she just did. It isn’t a figure of speech. They really do that, she thought as she noticed the goose pimples on her arms. Suddenly, she was very, very cold. Colder than she’d ever been. The air around her seemed wavy, as if she was looking down the road on a hot summer’s day, with the heat beating down on her.
A young female voice whispered in her ear, “See you later, alligator.” Then she giggled.
Libby whirled around. For a second, she thought she saw the outline of a girl wearing a button-down oxford shirt and a long, pleated skirt, and then the image vanished. A moment later the prickly sensation on her skin and the coldness surrounding her were gone as well.
Libby told herself she was imagining things. Or that she was going crazy. But she knew she wasn’t. Her mother was right. She was weird.
Libby cleared her throat. “Are you Bessie Osgood?” she asked.
There was no answer. Of course not, Libby thought. What had she expected? Some sort of rapping? Two raps for yes, one rap for no?
Yeah, right. There had to be another explanation, had to be, even though she knew in her heart there wasn’t. Maybe this was some kind of trick. If it was, she didn’t think it was one bit funny.
She went out in the hallway and took a look around. Bob Small, who was wearing his skeleton costume, waved at her as he walked past. Guess they haven’t arrested him yet, Libby thought. She wondered why. Her dad had been sure that Bob Small would be behind bars by now, and he usually wasn’t wrong about things like that.
“Did you see anyone out here?” she asked Bob.
“The Ghost of Christmas Past. Whoops. Wrong holiday.”
“Seriously.”
“Nope.” Bob shook his head and hurried along.
For a moment, Libby thought about going through the rooms of the Haunted House, but she quickly ruled that out. She didn’t have the time, and even if she did, what was she looking for?
She didn’t know. That was the problem.
Chapter 7
Marvin looked at Libby, who was perched on her bar stool, trying to make a bird out of a cocktail napkin and failing.
“You actually saw a ghost,” he said.
Libby smoothed the napkin out and tried again. “I didn’t say that. I said it seemed as if I saw a ghost.”
“Seemed?” Marvin repeated.
“Seemed,” Libby said firmly.
“Well, I’m still envious. I’ve never come close,” said Marvin.
Brandon put the beer Marvin had ordered down in front of him and then got Libby and Bernie their Irish coffees. “Not once?” Brandon asked after he’d given Bernie a quick hello kiss. His shift was over, but his replacement hadn’t come in yet.
“Never,” Marvin said. Then he pointed to the napkins with R.J.’S BAR AND GRILL printed on them in green and blue. “These are new,” he observed.
“The owner’s son is starting a printing business, and his dad is trying to help him out,” said Brandon.
Marvin nodded as Bernie turned toward him
“Has your dad ever seen a ghost?” she asked.
“Nope. He doesn’t believe in them,” replied Marvin. “He says that when you’re dead, that’s it.”
Brandon surveyed the bar. Everyone seemed satisfied for the moment, so he asked his next question. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Not in the least,” Marvin said, with a great deal of conviction.
“He’s had plenty of opportunity to see them, too,” Libby pointed out.
Bernie lifted up her glass, changed her mind, and put it back down. “Not really,” she said. “Ghosts tend to haunt places.”
“Like funeral homes,” Brandon said.
“No. Like places where they died a violent death. Personally, I think they’re some sort of leftover energy that’s just stuck there,” said Bernie.
Marvin frowned. “I agree with my father—for once—on this one. I think when you’re dead, you’re dead. You go in the ground, and that’s the end of the story. You don’t go to heaven. You don’t get reborn as something else. You just disappear. In all the time I’ve worked with my dad, I’ve never seen or felt anything that was vaguely ghostlike.”
“How long has your dad been a funeral director?” Brandon asked.
Marvin took a sip of his Brooklyn Brown and wiped his mouth on one of the napkins on the bar. “Maybe thirty years. Maybe thirty-five. I’m not exactly sure.”
Libby toyed with her glass for a moment and then took a sip. She could feel herself begin to relax. Who was it that said that Irish coffee was the perfect mix of fat, sugar, and alcohol? “I think I was meant to see Bessie Osgood’s ghost,” she blurted out.
“Obviously,” Bernie said.
“No. I mean, I think someone wanted me to see her,” said Libby.
Bernie raised an eyebrow. “Someone?”
“The someone who did this,” replied Libby.
Bernie snorted. “And who would that be?”
“I don’t know,” Libby told her.
“But why would someone do that?” Brandon asked Libby.
“Because,” she replied, “Curtis and Konrad are ready to swear that Bessie Osgood killed Amethyst, and my seeing her backs up their story.” Libby explained what the ghost hunters had told her dad.
“Those two guys are nuts,” Brandon scoffed. “They also believe in UFOs. In fact, one of them offered to hook me up with a ride.”
“And you didn’t go?” Bernie asked.
Brandon laughed.
“I think,” Libby continued, “that what I experienced in the kitchen might be an attempt to keep us from investigating any further. Whoever did it is betting that we’ll buy into this fantasy they’ve created.”
“From the way you describe it, you have to admit it’s a pretty elaborate fantasy,” Brandon said.
“Exactly,” said Marvin as he picked a handful of peanuts out of the bowl and began to shell them. “The sensations, the cold, the vision. If what you experienced was created by someone, the question becomes, how was it accomplished? Who has the technical know-how to do this?”
“That’s easy,” Bernie said. “FX Productions, the outfit that set up the show.”
“What do we know about them?” Marvin asked.
Brandon whipped o
ut his iPhone. “I’ll Google them and find out.” A moment later he said, “Here they are. They seem pretty legit to me.” He passed the phone to Bernie.
“Expensive,” she said after she’d read the company’s Web page. “Lots of references.” She handed the phone back to Brandon.
“I bet they can’t be too pleased that they’re involved in something like this,” Brandon said. “There’s a contact number. Maybe I should give them a call and see what I can find out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Bernie. She tapped her fingernails on the base of the glass holding her Irish coffee. “And in the meantime, maybe we should talk about who disliked Amethyst.”
“Now that,” said Brandon, “will be easy.” He excused himself for a moment to wait on the people down at the end of the bar.
Marvin swept the peanut shells onto the floor and looked around the place. R.J.’s never seemed to change. There was the dartboard over on the right, the pool table by the window, the tables for two shoved up against the wall, the historical pictures of Longely hanging slightly crookedly on the wall, the spindly ficus tree fighting for life in the window, and the peanut shells on the floor.
“There aren’t many people here,” he observed.
“Monday nights are always slow,” Libby replied. “You know,” she continued, “I just realized that they never put up any holiday decorations around here.”
“A good idea if you ask me,” Bernie noted. She sucked her thumb. It was still sore from using the edge of a spoon to dig out the seeds from all the pumpkins she’d carved in the last two days.
“Our regulars come here to drink, not to be reminded of Halloween,” Brandon noted as he planted himself in front of Bernie. “The only decoration they need is a glass.”
“I don’t understand. How can you not want to be reminded of Halloween?” Bernie asked.
“Because they don’t,” said Brandon. “They want to forget everything when they come in here. That’s what serious drinkers do.”
Libby interrupted. “Can we get back to Amethyst?” she asked, annoyed. She felt as if no one was taking this seriously enough.
“Sure,” Brandon said. He unscrewed the top of a bottle of water and took a drink. “I’ll tell you who’s on the top of my list. Inez Colley.”
Bernie took another sip of her Irish coffee. “I thought she went off to Arizona.”
“She did, but she came back,” said Brandon.
“When?” Marvin asked.
Brandon looked at the ceiling while he calculated his answer. “About three months ago, give or take a couple of weeks.”
“Where’s her husband?” Marvin asked.
“Still in the monastery in Kyoto. I don’t think he’s coming back from Japan,” Brandon replied. “A guy who works for his former boss told me Kevin was taking the precepts, or doing whatever it is you do to become a Buddhist priest.”
“Usually, it’s the criminal, not the victim, that finds religion,” Bernie noted.
Marvin took another drink of his beer. “Obviously, not in this case. Do we know what happened specifically?” he asked.
“No,” Bernie replied.
“Yes,” Brandon said at the same time.
“How do you know?” Bernie demanded.
“Because he told me,” said Brandon.
“He did?” asked Bernie.
“Yeah. He was drunk off his ass,” said Brandon.
“And you never told me?” said Bernie.
“A man never reveals what another man tells him when he’s under the influence of alcohol,” Brandon said.
Bernie rolled her eyes.
“Hey,” Brandon said, “I have my code of ethics. But I’ll tell you now because it’s important.”
Bernie patted her chest. “Be still, my heart.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?” said Brandon.
“We want to hear it,” Marvin said.
“All right, then,” replied Brandon as he took another sip of water. “You know that Amethyst was working for Inez’s husband, right?”
Libby nodded. “As an office manager.”
Brandon leaned forward. “Well, according to him, one night, when they were working late, Amethyst slipped something in his drink, had sex with him, and videotaped it.”
Bernie snorted. “Yeah, right. Poor Mr. Innocent.”
Brandon shrugged. “It’s possible.”
Bernie rolled her eyes. “But not likely.”
“Okay. Not likely,” Brandon agreed. “But I definitely believe what Kevin said happened next, which was that Amethyst threatened to show the tape to his wife unless he paid her off. Which he did by refinancing his house and taking a loan out on his business.”
“Stupid,” Marvin said.
“It must have been quite a tape,” Bernie observed.
“I’d say,” replied Brandon as he scanned the room again. “So here was Kevin, thinking the problem was taken care of, when Amethyst came back, asking for more money. Kevin freaked. He wimped out and took off for Japan to become a Buddhist monk, leaving Inez without a pot to pee in.”
“Nice guy,” Marvin commented.
“But, Brandon, Inez doesn’t know about Amethyst, so she can’t want to kill her,” Bernie protested.
“She does know. Kevin told me he left Inez a note,” said Brandon. “Explained everything in it. Asked her forgiveness. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
Libby blinked. “Wow. Poor woman.”
Brandon took another drink of water and screwed the top back on the bottle. “I saw her at Sam’s Club last week. She doesn’t look so great.”
“I can imagine,” Bernie said. “What’s she doing now?”
“She’s on a cleaning crew,” replied Brandon.
“You’re kidding,” Bernie cried.
“Nope,” said Brandon, shaking his head.
Libby clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. This was a woman who used to come into their store and order four hundred dollars’ worth of food at a go without batting an eye.
“Jobs are tight these days, and with her problem, this was the only job she could get, and that’s only because Ian felt bad for her,” Brandon explained. “My friend Ian White runs AAAPlus Clean.”
“Didn’t she work in a lab doing something with remote sensing?” Libby asked.
Bernie finished her Irish coffee. “She did before she got married and became Mr. Rich Man’s wife and started drinking and got two DWIs. Now, I’m sure she couldn’t get a security clearance to work at Wal-Mart.” Bernie stretched. “I’d say she had a motive to kill Amethyst.”
“I’d go for the husband,” Libby said.
“Yeah,” Bernie said. “But Kevin is in Japan.”
“Good point,” Libby said. “And Inez has never been too stable.”
“Just because she threw a tantrum in our shop when she found out we were out of broccoli cole slaw and we had to call the police to get her out?” Bernie asked.
“Something like that,” Libby said.
“You want me to find out if she’s working tonight?” Brandon asked.
“So late?” Libby asked.
“That’s when Ian’s crews work,” said Brandon. And he punched his friend’s phone number in and walked to the end of the bar. A few minutes later, he was back. “Funny thing,” he said. “But she’s cleaning at the Foundation as we speak.”
“Huh,” Bernie said. “Curiouser and curiouser. I think we should go have a chat with her.”
“Now?” Libby said.
“When better?” Bernie asked.
“Tomorrow is better. I want to go home and go to bed,” replied Libby.
“Then Brandon and I will go,” said Bernie.
“We will?” Brandon asked. “I thought we had other plans.”
“First things first,” Bernie said firmly.
“And then we can go to my place,” said Brandon.
Bernie grinned. “That depends on your performance.”
Brandon leered. “My perfor
mance is always stellar.”
Bernie laughed and ate a peanut.
Chapter 8
Bernie watched the Peabody School rise in the moonlight as Brandon rounded the bend in the road. She hugged herself as she turned toward Brandon.
“This would make a great set for a horror movie,” she said.
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “The only thing it lacks is bats and a belfry.”
“It has a colony of bats.”
“I was being metaphorical.” Brandon pointed to the top of the building. “It also has a widow’s walk.”
For a moment Bernie thought she saw a faint shape, a large, light spot in the dark, but when she looked again, it was gone. Probably an optical illusion, she told herself.
Brandon headed toward the main entrance. “Senior year, Ben Altman bet me I couldn’t get all the way up there on Halloween night.”
“And did you?”
Brandon shook his head. “I chickened out before I got to the second floor. I thought I heard voices.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe someone else was in there.”
“There were no cars in the lot.”
“Maybe it was a couple of squatters,” said Bernie.
“Maybe. But I wasn’t about to stay and find out.”
Bernie rubbed her arms. For some reason, she was cold. “You think Libby saw something earlier this evening?”
“Definitely. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do. She was really freaked out.”
“Do you think she really saw Bessie Osgood?” asked Brandon.
“Don’t tell anyone, but yeah. I think she did.”
“Freaky.”
“Halloween is a freaky time of year.”
Brandon turned into the parking lot. “There’s the cleaning van,” he said, changing the subject.
Brandon parked right beside it, and he and Bernie got out.
“And no cops,” Bernie observed. According to Clyde, they’d packed up and left the crime scene a couple of hours ago. “Did your friend Ian say anything about Inez?” Bernie asked Brandon as they walked to the front door.
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