The description matched what little Val could see in the dark room. A second spotlight focused on the fireplace. The disembodied voice said, “Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a red wax candle.”
“The candle doesn’t look red,” the Grim Reaper said loudly.
It immediately turned red. Writing appeared on the yellow wall for a split second, long enough to grab Val’s attention, but not for her to read it. Then the wall went dark as the light went off.
The disembodied voice spoke again, “My attention centered upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon the boards.”
A spotlight trained on the floor illuminated a black-bearded man in a horrible contorted position. His eyes were open but vacant. Val and the teenagers gasped. The man’s hands were clenched and his legs twisted like a pretzel. His face was a mask of horror.
“I have seen death in many forms,” the British narrator said, “but never has it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect. A murder had been done. A word written on the wall drew our notice, written in blood.”
As he spoke the last sentence, the light changed in the room and the red letters Val had glimpsed on the wall earlier appeared again. RACHE.
“Rachel?” Val muttered. Had the victim used his own blood to write his killer’s name and then died before finishing it? That would make sense if he had a bloody wound on him, but he didn’t.
After a brief silence, the narrator said, “What did the word on the wall mean? The police assumed the killer had intended to write Rachel. Sherlock Holmes disagreed. Rache is the German word for revenge, he said. The blood belonged to the murderer, not the victim.”
With a clash of cymbals, the curtain closed.
The Grim Reaper stepped forward. “I hate to leave you in suspense, but that’s the end of the show. You can find out who the murderer is by reading a story called . . .” He waited for someone to finish his sentence.
“A Study in Scarlet,” Bram and the middle-aged woman said simultaneously.
She nodded. “The speaker mostly used the exact words from the original story.”
“Bravo!” The Grim Reaper handed her and Bram a coupon for a free cookie at the bake sale. “I told you this would be a treat.”
Once outside, Val breathed in the night air, thankful to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the haunted house.
Bram surveyed his options at the bake sale table. “I want to use my coupon for the dessert you made, Val. Which is yours?”
Val scanned the table. “Looks like my Chessie monster cookies sold out.”
While he pondered which of the remaining treats to choose, Val took out her phone. Granddad had left her a voice mail. Not sure how late she’d return home, he wanted her to know that Sandy would be staying overnight at the house. She’d found out Suzette’s body would be released tomorrow and offered to handle the arrangements for Suzette’s mother, who’d readily agreed. Granddad had then invited Sandy to stay in a larger spare bedroom upstairs for as long as she needed to deal with the formalities.
Val tucked the phone back into her shoulder bag.
Bram ended up with an assortment of sweets. He’d used his coupon for the most expensive item, an iced jack-o-lantern cookie. He also bought a chocolate witch hat, a rum-ball eyeball, and a pumpkin-chip cookie.
They sat on a wood bench outside a gift shop. Bram munched on the jack-o-lantern.
Val took a bite of the witch hat, a dark chocolate cookie with a flat part as the hat brim and a chocolate kiss for the peak of the hat. “Tell me about A Study in Scarlet. Was revenge the motive for the murder?”
He nodded. “Revenge for a crime decades before. The killer stalked his prey from Utah, where the crime occurred, to Ohio, and eventually to London. He devoted his life to vengeance. Shortly after he took his revenge, he died . . . and with a smile his face.”
Within a more compressed time period, Suzette’s tormenter had followed her across the state from Frederick, where Sandy lived, and then to the Eastern Shore. Val knew of only two people who could have pursued Suzette that long—her mother and her mother’s ex-boyfriend. Hard to believe that Wanda, for all her faults, would run over her daughter, but the man in Suzette’s memoir wouldn’t think twice about hurting a young woman. Still, a parallel between Suzette’s situation and a Sherlock Holmes plot did not make Lloyd guilty.
Val warned herself against letting what she’d seen in the haunted house influence her too much, but her mind kept going down that path. “So many things in that house reminded me of Suzette. The misty graveyard made me think about the fog the morning she was killed.”
“I was trying to figure out where the fog machines were hidden in the house.” Bram brushed cookie crumbs from his lap. “On Sunday morning the Chesapeake Bay created the fog. It burned off quickly when the sun came up, like a machine running out of fog juice.”
Val had never heard of fog juice. She’d have asked how it worked if she weren’t so preoccupied with the haunted house. “The room with the engine noise frightened me the most. If Suzette had heard that sound, she’d have jumped into the bay to save herself. I certainly would have.”
“Are you sorry you went into the haunted house?”
“Definitely not. My wrist didn’t ache at all while I was scared silly.” But it bothered Val now. She flexed it. Time to apply ice again.
“You must have liked something there. No, don’t tell me. Think hard about your favorite spot, and I’ll try to read your mind.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples, waited two seconds, and said, “I’m ready.”
He leaned toward her and gazed deeply into her eyes. He looked more like he was going to kiss her than read her mind. Her heart sped up.
He sat back. “A murder victim is on your mind. The last room appealed to you most.”
“You used deduction again, not telepathy. The first time you saw me, I was dressed like Nancy Drew. My costume told you who I was. Yours was a ruse. You’re not anything like Dracula.” Whereas the other vampire, Nick, had revealed his character with his costume.
He took advantage of women desperate for jobs and burgled the homes of seniors, both crimes of opportunity with little risk. He had only a slim chance of being caught and severely punished. Killing someone was another matter. Val wondered why she was now less convinced of Nick’s guilt than she’d been an hour ago, before going into the haunted house.
Bram watched her intently. “I can see the wheels turning in your mind.”
“I wish you’d tell me where they’re going.”
“I’m not sure, but you and I could go for a drink somewhere.” When she didn’t respond immediately, he said, “On second thought, let’s do it another time. You look tired, your wrist hurts, and you want to go home.”
“You read my mind. Thank you.”
* * *
When Val returned home, she put an icepack on her wrist and then joined Granddad and Sandy in the sitting room. Granddad wanted to hear about the haunted house. Val described the highlights, starting with the bugs crawling on the corpse. By the time she got to the final room, Granddad’s eyes had closed. She told Sandy about the scene from A Study in Scarlet and the word on the wall that signaled the killer’s motive—revenge.
“I remember that story,” Sandy said. “The desire for revenge took over the killer’s life. Maybe that happened to Lloyd.”
“Can you think of anyone besides him who had had a long-standing grudge against Suzette?”
“Not aside from Wanda, but I don’t believe she’d hurt Suzette physically.”
Val had other candidates. “Did Suzette ever talk to or about the people in the car she hit?”
“No. Ambulances took them and Lloyd to the hospital while she was still in shock. She asked about them the next day. My mother told her they’d been treated and released.”
That didn’t square with what Val had read onl
ine about the accident victims. Either the family member who’d been in serious but stable condition had made a miraculous recovery or else Sandy’s mother had lied, possibly to ease Suzette’s guilt about the accident. “Do you remember what type of injuries they had?”
“I knew nothing about them. I was away at college. Your police chief could probably find out, if it’s important.”
“I’m sure he could.” But in the past Val had gotten a better response when she gave the chief information than when she asked him to dig it up. Chief Yardley had made it clear to her that the police weren’t a detective agency at her disposal.
She removed the ice pack from her wrist and said good-night.
Granddad opened his eyes. “I almost forgot to tell you. You don’t have to get up early tomorrow. I called Irene and told her you hurt your wrist. She’s going to manage the café tomorrow.”
Val and Irene alternated Fridays, when the café closed at two. “That was good of her. Thanks, Granddad. I’m looking forward to sleeping in.”
Though anticipating a restless night, Val slept peacefully, possibly thanks to the painkiller she’d taken. She woke up to sun streaming into her room. A nice change. It was usually dark when she got out of bed. She’d expected nightmares after her haunted house visit, but she could remember only one dream, and it was puzzling rather than scary. People shouted Read the writing on the wall. She turned to look at the wall, but before she could read what was on it, she woke up.
Lying in bed, she thought about how important writing had been to Suzette—her own writing, her writing group, her writing teacher, and the anonymous note-writer. Then there was the writing on the wall in the haunted house, where nothing was what it first seemed. With the haunted house’s illusions at the back of her mind, Val reviewed what the Fictionistas had said the night of the costume contest, at the get-together when they’d discussed their writing, and during her one-on-one talks with them. Details stuck out that she hadn’t realized were important until now.
Every room in the haunted house had given her a clue to the culprit. The more she thought about those clues, the surer she became that she was right about who’d killed Suzette and why. Though Val could gather facts that fit her theory, proving it would be another matter. Maybe she could coax a confession from the killer with the help of an illusion. But would Chief Yardley go along with it?
Chapter 25
Chief Yardley looked up from his desk as Val came into his office. “You have to cross off one of your suspects. Lloyd Leerman couldn’t have been the hit-and-run driver. He’s behind bars, serving a prison sentence. Been there for a couple of years.”
Val sat down in the metal visitor’s chair. “That’s what I’d call an iron-clad alibi.”
“I thought you’d be disappointed to hear about Lloyd. Instead, you made a pun.”
“He’d already fallen from the top of my list.” Before Val told the chief who had taken Lloyd’s place as the number-one suspect, she wanted to make sure the other main suspect hadn’t confessed to the hit-and-run. “Where do things stand with Nick?”
“When we started questioning him about Suzette’s death, he copped to the burglaries. He said his sister roped him into it. According to her, it was the other way around. I think the sister’s the brains of the operation. She was the quality controller checking the houses after the cleaning teams finished, supposedly for missed cobwebs, but really for valuables.”
“What did Nick say about Suzette?”
“He admitted she confronted him Friday night. He was furious over what he took as her blackmail attempts. But he swore he didn’t kill her. He even offered to take a lie detector test.”
“Does he have an alibi for Sunday morning?”
“He was at the inn early, helping the night manager deal with a leak in a guest bathroom. Nick’s alibi isn’t watertight.” When Val smiled, the chief said, “One bad pun deserves another. The staff at the inn backed up Nick’s story. He might have managed to slip away long enough to drive to the peninsula road for the hit-and-run, but I doubt it.”
“Me too, Chief.”
She told him who she was convinced had killed Suzette and what the motive was.
The chief jotted notes and, when she finished talking, studied them. “Your theory explains the most puzzling aspect of this case—the weapon. But the motive you’ve come up with rests on an assumption. Let’s see if it’s valid. When did that accident happen?”
“November or December eight years ago. That’s as close as I can get.”
The chief picked up his phone, told the person at the other end what to check, and then hung up. “Even if we confirm your guess about who was in that car, there’s not enough for a search warrant, much less an arrest.”
“I have a plan that will get you the evidence you need, straight from the horse’s mouth.”
The chief rolled his eyes. “If your last plan to expose a murderer hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t even listen to this one. But I owe you that.”
As she outlined her scheme, several phone calls came in for him. By the time she finished, half an hour had gone by, enough time for an officer to confirm her guess about who’d been in the car Suzette had hit.
“It will surprise me if your ploy works,” the chief said. “But it can’t hurt to try. To get the evidence, you have to do this in a public area where there’s no expectation of privacy. We need a location where the suspect can be watched, heard, and cornered if necessary.”
“The Cool Down Café would be perfect.”
Within an hour Val had arranged for her assistant manager to prepare the food for this afternoon’s encounter and for Suzette’s cousin and Granddad to play key parts in the ruse.
* * *
By three o’clock Val and Granddad had created the illusion that the café was something other than a sleek eatery in a fitness club. With tablecloths and mini-vases of flowers on the bistro tables and a lace-edged runner on the granite eating bar, the room looked as if it belonged in a Victorian bed-and-breakfast.
Granddad sat at a table with no cloth or flowers on it. Hunched over a chessboard, he wore a stars-and-stripes bandanna headband, gray sweats, scuffed athletic shoes, and tinted glasses instead of his bifocals. No one who’d seen him briefly once or twice before would recognize him. The chief sat on the other side of the chessboard, dressed for a gym workout in a T-shirt and shorts, the brim of his baseball cap low on his forehead. The actors were in place, and the stage was set.
A tiered tray held the dainty sandwiches and sweet morsels Val’s assistant manager had prepared. Irene had owned a teashop in Bayport for years and relished the chance to prepare food for a high tea. Val put the tray on the table near the café entrance and within earshot of the chess players. Though set for two with vintage china and cloth napkins, the table had only a single chair at it. For Val’s scheme to work, her guest had to face the club’s reception area and therefore could not have a choice of seats.
Val set a pot of tea on the bistro table. Too bad she couldn’t spike the tea with truth serum, but she hoped to get to the truth anyway by unnerving her guest, using a combination of fact and illusion. She looked toward the café entrance.
A woman crossed the club reception area and paused at the sign on a stand. It said that the café was closed for a private event. She wore a cardigan over a beige turtleneck. Her slinky brown knit skirt skimmed her ankles. Not the usual attire at an athletic club. Val was relieved that Morgan’s clothes hugged her body. She couldn’t have a weapon on her or it would create a bulge. Her shapeless tapestry handbag, though, could hold a small arsenal. Val would do her best to separate Morgan from her handbag.
Morgan smiled as she came into the café alcove. “I didn’t expect this place to be so homey.”
“It looks rather basic, but it only takes a few touches to change that for special events. We hold children’s birthday parties here, but I’d also like to attract civic and women’s clubs with a different menu and ambiance.” Now Val wou
ld appeal to Morgan’s vanity. “I thought high tea would be perfect, and I was hoping you’d give me the benefit of your expertise and sample some of the food. Maybe you’ll decide that high tea here is what you’d like for your next Novels and Needles Club meeting.”
Morgan glanced at the chess players. “Are they going to sample food too?”
Val shook her head and said in a low voice, “They sat down just before I closed the café. I figured their game would be over by now, but I can’t ask them to leave in the middle of it. They’re regular customers. Sorry.”
“No problem.” Morgan pointed to the tiered plate on the table. “It all looks scrumptious. I love high tea.”
“Take a seat here, and I’ll grab another chair.”
If Morgan thought it was weird that only one chair was at the table set for two, she didn’t show it. She sat down, put her handbag on the floor near her feet, and adjusted her glasses.
Val positioned her chair across the table, but at an angle so she didn’t block Morgan’s view of the area outside the café. She poured tea for herself and Morgan, tea brewed with leaves instead of teabags.
Morgan sampled the savory items. She approved of the ham on a mini corn muffin and the chicken salad with watercress on white toast. But she didn’t care for Val’s cucumber sandwiches.
“The hummus overwhelms the cucumber,” Morgan said. “The only thing you spread on the bread should be butter so the flavor of the cucumber comes out.”
Val tapped her temple. “I’ll make a note of that.” She bit into a cucumber sandwich with hummus.
After devouring more of the ham and chicken salad, Morgan put each type of sweet on her plate. “I hope these taste as good as—” She broke off, her attention on the reception area. Her jaw dropped. She took off her glasses and held them up to the light as if inspecting them for smudges.
Crypt Suzette Page 21