by Mary Bowers
I looked at her sidewise and stepped over the threshold.
“Tough night, huh?” she said, trying to play the sympathy card.
I got a grip on myself. Bernie was my friend. This was sympathy. I took a deep breath. “You got any coffee?” I said. “I finished mine on the way over while I ate the muffin in the car, and I think the last bite is still stuck in my throat.”
“Sure,” she said, turning to smile at me. “That happens when you stuff the whole thing into your mouth at once, you know. Eating while you’re driving will leave you with food all over your face in the morgue. Decaf for you, I think.”
“Thanks, mommie,” I said, calming down at last. I went into her kitchen and hiked myself up at the breakfast bar.
Bernie was not dressed yet, which didn’t mean she’d just gotten up. I think she sleeps about three hours a night, and not consecutively. She’d just gotten up and walked into her office and gone to work in her lavender-and-lace PJ’s and hadn’t needed to go outside yet. She had a pair of lavender socks on, the kind with the non-skid treads on the bottom, and there was an unlit cigarillo hanging from her lips. She doesn’t smoke unless she’s working on her newspaper, but she likes the taste of tobacco.
As she got the coffee, she talked, bouncing the cigarillo around in the corner of her mouth. “Kyle called me about it last night. You got anything to add to the official story?”
“No.” She set my coffee in front of me, along with the sugar bowl and some powdered creamer. I began to shift gears.
“Hey, Bernie?” I said.
“Yup?”
“What do you know about Elizabeth Cadbury drowning out there in the river?”
She took the cigarillo out of her mouth and laughed. Setting it down on the counter, since it wasn’t lit anyway, she told me, “Betsy died in her bed. Who told you she drowned?”
“Those reality-show people. Somehow they dredged up a story about her jumping into the river to save Vesta.”
She thought hard for a moment. “You know, that does ring a bell. Wait a minute –“ Then she got it. “That was a dog! She jumped into the river to save little Vesta’s dog, way back, oh – it must’ve been around 1950. No, earlier. They’re saying she dove in to save Vesta?”
“And drowned.”
“Heck, Betsy was an old lady when she died. She wasn’t even jumping into the swimming pool by that time. You gonna set ‘em straight?”
“Now why in the world would I do that? Let them make fools of themselves on national TV.”
“International,” she said with a grin.
Now that I was here, looking at my old friend, I felt ashamed. I’d been dreading this, and Bernie was taking it easy on me, even giving me information.
“So, Bernie, what do you know about this show, Realm of the Shadows?”
She took a sip of coffee. “Well, I looked it up when I heard they were coming to St. Augustine. I don’t know much. They’re just like the rest of those reality ghost shows. People running around in the middle of the night with video cameras, talking a lot of nonsense and giving one another the willies.”
“Did you hear about Edson Darby-Deaver making a fool of Teddy Force over a haunting?”
“There was something about it in Facebook, but with all the backbiting among those ghost fanciers, it’s hard to know who to believe. They’re worse than politicians.”
I laughed, and she shook her head. Then she leaned back against the kitchen island, set her coffee cup down on it, and said, “Now, my friend. What about last night? How did they manage to drown a cast member?”
With no embellishment and as little drama as I could help, I described how Seth had jumped into the river and drowned, holding back details like Jazz’s earrings and the black mark on the seawall. I wasn’t sure what they amounted to anyway, and I didn’t want her to start speculating.
When I’d finished, she nodded, digesting it. “So, you think it had all been planned ahead of time?”
I shrugged. “There’s no way to prove it, but yes. Don’t quote me on that. All I need is a lawsuit from those bozos. Let me ask you for just one favor: when you do write the story up, can you emphasize that the drowning had nothing to do with Orphans of the Storm? We haven’t even moved the animals onto the property yet.”
“That I can do,” she said, reaching across the breakfast bar to shake my hand. I took her hand gently, knowing how much those arthritic knuckles must hurt.
“Great.”
I hopped down, feeling so much better. The Beach Buzz didn’t come out until Friday, and it was only Wednesday. By the time it came out, hopefully Teddy and the gang would be on to the lighthouse.
Being in that neighborhood, on that block, made me decide it was time to just grit my teeth and do something I’d been thinking about. Without waiting until I could talk myself out of it (because I knew I would), I walked right down the sidewalk to my faithful Florence’s house, marched up to the door and rang the doorbell. Florence, I knew, would be at Girlfriend’s, manning the shop, but her sister, Myrtle, just might be home – unless she was at Girlfriend’s too, annoying Florence.
Myrtle insisted on volunteering at the shop, to the dismay of everyone there. Any time Myrtle helped somebody, the job became twice as complicated, took three times as long, and gave everybody a 4-star headache – everybody but Myrtle, that is.
It turned out that Myrtle was at home, and she answered the door after a very long delay. She had cookie crumbs around her lips, and when she saw me noticing, she wiped them away and glared.
“Well?” she said, as if I’d accused her of stealing cookies.
“Nice to see you too, Myrtle. Mind if I come in?”
“Florence is not at home.”
“I know. She’s at the shop. I wanted to see you.”
Her brown eyes widened, then narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
I stepped into the house, edging around her, and went into the living room. I still thought of the house as belonging to Florence, though she had inherited it jointly with her sister, and Flo had always welcomed me in. I saw no reason why I should stand on the doorstep like I was selling magazine subscriptions while Myrtle gave me attitude.
Before involuntarily retiring a few months before (actually, she was fired), Myrtle had been the Huntington family housekeeper and had lived at Cadbury House ever since Vesta had inherited it, decades ago. It was possible she had information about the strange goings-on in the barn, but it was equally possible that her fierce loyalty to the Cadbury family’s good name would keep her thin lips sealed. She had kept quiet about their secrets before when it would have made more sense to tell somebody (me) about them. I hadn’t been able to talk myself into tackling Myrtle up till then because she was such a difficult old cuss. But things were getting more complicated.
I still wasn’t sure she’d cooperate, so after agonizing over it for a day or so, I had decided to make the one offer that was guaranteed to get her cooperation.
“I was wondering,” I said, gazing straight into her eyes to show her that I was serious, “if you’d be interested in taking up your old duties at Cadbury House.”
She sat down. Whump.
“The house is proving a bit much for me,” I lied. “In addition to trying to deal with moving the shelter, I just can’t keep everything in order, and I’m having a heck of a time finding things.” That was true. “I can’t be there all the time, and if we’re going to run it as a shelter, somebody needs to be on site at all times. I hate to admit it, but I need your help. You already know how to run the house. I need a housekeeper, and I wouldn’t even have to train you. Your salary wouldn’t be much, but you’d have room and board –“
“You want me to come back and live there?” she said eagerly.
“I know it’ll be hard moving away from Florence. You two had been separated for so long, you’re just getting to really know one another again.” Her eyes had narrowed, so I decided to drop the baloney. “Look, Myrtle, you and Florence are a
bsolutely nothing alike, and you get on one another’s nerves. Wouldn’t it be better for everybody if you went back to only seeing each other on birthdays and holidays?”
“And you really want me at Cadbury House?”
I leveled with her. “Let’s put it this way, Myrtle. You’re needed there. Let’s give it a try. If it turns out that you don’t like the situation, you can move back with Florence any time you like. Why don’t you think it over, and if you want to come, I’ll pick you up tomorrow and bring you out there myself.”
“You sit right there,” she said, popping out of her chair and moving like someone half her age. “I’ll call Florence and tell her I’m leaving, then pack. Won’t take me but a minute.”
I waited in the antique living room, wondering if I was about to make everything ten times worse.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said about twenty minutes later, dragging a suitcase into the room.
“That’s all?” I said, looking at her medium-size suitcase.
“If I need anything else, I’ll call Florence and have her pack it up and get it to you. Now let’s go. Can I have my old room back?”
“Of course,” I said, picking up the old-fashioned suitcase and carrying it out to the car. She was like a kid going off to camp.
On the way back to Cadbury House, my cell phone rang. I looked at the Caller I.D. and saw that it was Edson.
“Hey, Ed.” I put him on speaker.
Myrtle spoke before Ed could. “I heard about you hiring that silly man from St. Augustine,” she said to me.
“We’re on speaker, Myrt,” I said. “He can hear you.”
“Who’s that?” Ed asked.
“Myrtle Purdy,” we said simultaneously.
I glanced at my passenger. “Do you mind?” She made a sniffy noise, then turned her head away and stared out the window.
“Go ahead, Ed.”
“Well, I did as you asked,” he told me.
So much was going on in my world that I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh, good. And that was . . . .”
“You wanted me to set up an interview with Frieda Strawbridge to see what she knows about the history of Cadbury House.”
There was another loud sniff from the passenger seat. I ignored it.
“And?”
“Well, I wasn’t optimistic, but I gave it a try.” In a voice of wonder, he told me, “She said yes.”
He may have been surprised, but I wasn’t. Lonely old ladies like to talk, especially about the days of their youth. “Good.”
“I’ll be coming back tonight to observe in the cemetery.” Myrtle’s head snapped around, and I ignored her. “We can leave in the morning for Santorini around 9:30. She’s expecting us at ten.”
“Excellent. We’d better take both cars. Then you can go back to your house afterward and compile your notes.”
“Okay. I’ll have dictating equipment, so we have a record of the interview. Just exactly what is it you want to know?”
“Off the top of my head, we can start with the lady in the barn.”
Myrtle said, “Lady?” and I shushed her.
“I wouldn’t,” Ed said.
“Oh, really? Why not? It’s where the trouble started.”
“Not Frieda’s trouble, and she’s not going to be interested in anything that doesn’t directly involve her. We need to get her going on other things, then work our way around to the barn. You’d better let me handle this.” Pause. “Are you there?”
“I’m here. Sure. Fine. You’re more used to this kind of thing than I am. You take the lead.”
“Thank you. We’ll talk more about our plan of attack when I see you.”
“Okay.”
I hung up, muttering. Northeast Florida’s premier crackpot had just told me that he had better people skills than I did. Well, we’d just see about that. I may not have interviewed people on ghostly infestations before, but I’d been around a lot of old ladies, and I made a bet with myself that I’d get more out of her than Edson.
Myrtle was cackling for some reason. I ignored it. I was going to see if I could get the information I wanted out of her later. But first, I was going to get her installed in the house, pacify her by letting her feel like she was in charge, and keep her the heck away from the people from Realm of the Shadows.
I managed to get Myrtle into the house without anybody noticing her.
Once we were indoors, I carried her suitcase up to her old room and sat down to talk to her.
“I’m sure you noticed all the hubbub outside,” I began.
“It’s the people from The Realm of the Shadows. I know. It’s all over town.” She picked up a few pullovers and began to hang them. “Is the leading man – Teddy Force – is he here too?”
She said it very nonchalantly, and I groaned. “Don’t tell me you watch that show, Myrtle.”
“And why not?” she said. “It’s an excellent show. The hauntings they’ve investigated are very interesting.”
“Myrtle, I want you to stay away from those people. And don’t, for goodness sake, tell them anything about the Cadburys.”
“The Family? I’d never!”
I relaxed. “I know you wouldn’t. Sorry. I’m sure you know about the trouble we’ve been having with the work crew? It’s all over town. They don’t want to go into the barn. You know, because of the loft. I suppose there’s been trouble with that for many years now.”
Myrtle gave me a knowing look, and I could see that I’d blown it already. “I knew that was why you were bringing me back here. Well, I hope my job here doesn’t depend on you getting information out of me, because I don’t have any.”
“About the lady in the barn?”
“There is no lady in the barn. And shame on you for letting that silly man spend the night in the cemetery! I never heard of such a thing. But as for The Family, they were not in the habit of airing their dirty laundry in front of the staff, and I, for one, would never have presumed to ask.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I said, but I didn’t believe her for a second. Myrtle and Vesta had been close; toward the end, she had been closer to Vesta than she’d ever been to her own sister, Florence.
So much for Round One. Oh, well, it had been worth a quick try.
I got up. “I’ve got things to do. See you later.”
I went outside looking for Charlie. My plan for the cat house (actual cats, not the other thing) didn’t involve the barn or the seawall or any of the other hot zones we had developed, and I figured now we could get on with that part of the project.
I had reckoned without Pluto.
The show’s wrap-up, where he displayed his tech toys and replayed moans and creaks for the rest of the cast, was his time in the spotlight. Nobody hijacks the spotlight of a ‘personality,’ no matter how minor.
These wrap-ups were done with him enthroned in his equipment van, pushing buttons and displaying green screens full of pulsing horizontal lines. He’d replay an audio recording three or four times, and suddenly they would all hear, “Mother, please!” or whatever. And as I was beginning to realize, it took hours to come up with a mere ten minutes of show time.
I was out in the yard with Charlie, who had shown up with his crew as usual, and we were going over the blueprints for the old kitchen and servants’ quarters. The elusive blueprints had finally decided to stop flying away by themselves and then popping up again in the wrong place. Charlie was probably sleeping on them now.
“I want to combine these two cabins at the end for the ferals to use,” I was telling him.
About that time Wizard came wandering over the lawn toward us, wearing bib overalls and a plain, rust-colored tee shirt. He looked like he’d been born in them, and I realized he was the only member of the on-camera cast who didn’t gear up like a commando and go into the danger zone on the show. He had a strangely calming presence, which was probably why. “Don’t worry, children,” I could just hear him say. “Fester is a friendly ghost.” Not what T
eddy would want. But Wizard’s Dr. Zarkov persona added a dash of scientific grounding to the show, and he definitely added variety.
“Mornin’ folks,” he said. “What’re we doing today?”
We looked up from the blueprints. “Trying to get some work done. Do you mind?” Charlie said.
“I don’t mind. What kind of work? I hear you’re putting in an animal shelter of some kind?”
Surprisingly, Wizard was truly interested in what we were doing. He asked intelligent questions, made a few suggestions, and gradually I found myself edged aside as Charlie and Wizard pored over the plans like a couple of old buddies.
“Yeah, that could work,” Charlie said. “But I’m worried about taking out the wall. I don’t know if it’s load-bearing.”
“Let’s take a look,” Wizard said. “Maybe a pass-through would do just as well.” They began to walk off together.
Remembering me suddenly, Wizard lowered his head and turned back, saying, “Dang it! I’m sorry ma’am. I’m Walter Sheets. This bunch,” (he jabbed a thumb at the camera and audio men milling around by the cemetery) “calls me Wizard, but I’d druther you’d call me Walter.”
Suddenly I loved this guy. “Taylor Verone,” I told him, extending my hand to shake his. “One of your fans just told me to give you a hug, but let’s just shake.”
At the mention of a fan, Wizard looked abashed. “Who was that?”
“A nice little old lady who volunteers at the animal shelter I run.”
He perked up. “Ah. I get all the nice, elderly ones. The ones who send me homemade cookies and hand-written letters, not e-mails. Teddy gets the hotties, and he’s welcome to them. They’re a pain in the . . . hey, listen,” he said, coming closer and lowering his voice. Charlie closed in behind him. “The gang here might be getting in your way today, just a little. They decided to go ahead with the show, making it a memorial to Seth.”
“I was afraid of that,” I told him. “What about tonight? I’ve got Edson Darby-Deaver coming over to spend the night in the cemetery.”