Murder Ghost Foul: The Complete Mystic Springs Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series

by Mona Marple

  The second one nodded, then added. “But, yeah, they keep their clothes on. Normally.”

  The first one scowled at his colleague and stood, shepherded Connie out of the room.

  Halfway down the stairs, Christopher sat, crumpled in on himself. Connie sat on the step next to him.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He’d been crying, and his face still hadn’t returned to a healthy skin tone. He stared at her and said nothing.

  “They’re saying it’s suicide,” she indicated back up the stairs with a tilt of her head.

  “Of course they are,” he snapped. His voice rose a notch and betrayed his high emotions. “She left a darn note.”

  “It’s her writing?” Connie asked.

  The question staggered him for a moment. “Well… I don’t know. It has to be! Who else could have wrote it? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying some things here don’t make sense,” Connie said. “You went up to her earlier. How was she?”

  Christopher met her gaze. “What are you? Some kind of detective? My wife’s just died, for Lord’s sake.”

  “I know,” Connie took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry for your loss. Don’t you want to make sure you know the truth about what really happened?”

  Zeb walked across the hallway downstairs and Christopher’s body recoiled. “I think I’ve had enough truth for one night.”

  “Okay,” Connie said. She rose to her feet and returned downstairs. Eliza was in the hallway, alone. She scowled at Connie.

  “They finished snooping around up there?”

  “Who?” Connie asked. The woman’s attention was like the full heat of the sun; it made her sweaty and a little nauseous.

  “Those medics. They’re taking a long time and they won’t let me go to bed until they’re done.”

  “Oh,” Connie didn’t know what to say.

  “I bet you didn’t think to lock my bedroom door, huh?”

  Connie frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  “You should be. Just because a person wears a uniform doesn’t mean they’re honest. They might be in my room right now going through my belongings!”

  “Eliza,” Connie bent down and looked the woman in the eye. She raised her voice, sure that the woman simply hadn’t understood, hadn’t realised what had happened upstairs. “They’re up there with Lottie. She’s dead. She drowned.”

  “Good riddance to her,” Eliza batted the air with her good hand. “Let’s not ruin a good situation by having my jewels stolen!”

  “You’re not making sense. This is a horrible situation. Your daughter-in-law’s dead up there.”

  “And if I could get out of this darn thing,” she gestured to the wheelchair, then offered a slack-faced grin, “I’d be the first to dance on her grave.”

  The words sent a chill down Connie’s spine. “I’m going to…” her words trailed away and she walked at a fast pace away from Eliza, desperate to find Taylor. He was in the corner of the lounge, away from everyone else, and looked as relieved to see her as she was him.

  “Where did you go?” He asked as he pulled her on to his lap. There was no other chair nearby and she allowed herself to sink into the comfort he provided.

  She took a deep breath but couldn’t find the words.

  The relatives dotted across the room all looked in varying states of excitement and exhaustion. Only Zeb looked remorseful, and who could say what for? For Lottie’s death, for his betrayal, for his secret being revealed, or worse?

  “Huh? Connie? Are you okay?” Taylor asked again.

  “I spoke to your mom,” Connie said. “She seems pretty delighted that Lottie’s dead.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s no surprise. My mother would celebrate most people’s deaths.”

  “I get that,” Connie said. “But something isn’t right here.”

  He let out an awkward laugh. “Nothing’s right here.”

  “I don’t think it was suicide, Taylor.”

  “What?”

  “Things don’t make sense,” Connie said. She lowered her voice, not wanting to attract attention to her theory. “She got in that bath naked. Isn’t that strange? For a suicide?”

  Taylor considered her question. “That is strange. But suicidal people often don’t make sense.”

  “There was a huge amount of water on the bathroom floor.”

  “Signs of a struggle, you think?”

  Connie nodded. “I think she got in that bath on her own but someone stopped her getting out. She was killed, Taylor, I’m sure of it.”

  He closed his eyes. “We need to call it in.”

  “Can’t you…”

  He shook his head. “I can’t investigate this.”

  “How quick do you think they’ll send someone?”

  His eyes shot up to the left as he considered each person on his team. The Mystic Springs police department was a small affair and he could list off all of the serving officers on his fingers and still have some digits left over.

  He groaned. “I just can’t do it, Connie. I can’t investigate my own family.”

  “You believe me, though?” She asked.

  “I wouldn’t say that exactly. It takes more than a naked body and some water on the floor to prove a suicide isn’t a suicide,” he said, his tone gentle. He reached for her hand, cupped it in his. “But, I do trust you. I trust your judgement.”

  “What if I investigate?” She suggested. “I’ll be subtle.”

  He grimaced. It was a sure fire way of his family never liking her, having her accuse them of murder. And yet, he knew her. She wasn’t dramatic. If she’d caught a sniff of foul play, he’d bet on following the scent.

  “Just remember,” he leaned in close, so it would look as if he was kissing her cheek, and whispered. “Don’t trust any of them.”

  Connie gulped, moved away from him a little and looked across the room.

  One thing was clear immediately.

  She suspected every single one of them.

  15

  “Hey,” she found Zeb in the kitchen, staring into the open fridge. He startled at the sound of her voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. Are you okay?”

  “Sure, sure. You need anything?” His head bobbed towards the fridge. She shook her head and he closed the door, made to leave the room.

  “Zeb,” Connie called after him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He let out an awkward laugh. “Don’t let Christopher hear you say that.”

  She shrugged. “Why would Lottie do such a thing?”

  “She wouldn’t,” Zeb said. His eyes were fierce. “At least, the Lottie I thought I knew wouldn’t.”

  “You knew her better than anyone, surely,” Connie suggested. “If she was unhappy, she’d have told you?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Our time together was limited, of course. We couldn’t be together as much as we wanted. But she opened up to me when she needed to, sure.”

  Connie considered the dynamics of the affair. One of them would have been more invested than the other. That was always the way, really, with any type of relationship. Had Lottie fallen a little too hard for Zeb? Had she threatened to leave her husband, to reveal their relationship, to ruin Zeb’s life?

  And yet, if Zeb had killed her, why would he leave the note? Connie was sure that the note wasn’t penned by Lottie herself, meaning the murderer had to be someone who knew of the affair and didn’t mind revealing it. That couldn’t be Zeb. Unless he wanted to see his brother suffer at his own expense.

  “And she never mentioned any serious worries?”

  “Lottie wasn’t the kind of woman who had serious worries,” Zeb said with a wan smile. “She had a good life. She got a little bored with Christopher and her eye wandered. The whole thing was a silly mistake.”

  She heard his voice catch at the end of the sentence.

  “Two people with wandering eyes managed to find each other, how sweet,” Dottie’s prim voice came from behind Conn
ie. She stood, pencil thin, in the doorway with her arms folded. The glare she gave her husband was not so much angry as resigned. “What’s your interest in my husband’s latest affair?”

  “Latest…” Connie began.

  “Oh, yes, hasn’t he told you? He struggles to resist temptation. That’s what he told me last year, when it was the intern at the newspaper. What happened again, Zebediah? She came into your office after hours and threw herself at you? You poor man.”

  “Dottie, we’ve put that behind us,” Zeb stuttered.

  “Well you sure did. You put her behind you so well that you had a vacancy to fill!” Dottie said, then sighed and turned her attention to Connie. “Aren’t you a bit new to the family to be in here stirring up trouble?”

  Connie met Dottie’s gaze. The woman was a professional, a medic. There was nothing for it but to be honest. “Dottie, I’m investigating. Lottie didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.”

  “Ah,” Dottie said. The revelation didn’t surprise her at all, and Connie thought back to Dottie asking the paramedic the cause of death. Had she spotted something in the bathroom that told her it wasn’t suicide, or was she the murderer wondering how well she had covered her tracks? “Then I’ll be the prime suspect.”

  “You will?” Connie asked. “You’d only be the prime suspect if you knew about the affair.”

  Dottie held her gaze.

  “You knew?” It was Zeb who broke the silence.

  “Of course I knew,” Dottie said. Her tone was hard and unwavering. “You’ve had so many little affairs, I know the signs to look for.”

  “Did you hurt her?” Zeb asked.

  Dottie smirked. “We’ll leave that to the detective here to figure out.”

  And with that, she flounced out of the room. Connie let out a breath, unaware that she had been holding it. Dottie was cool as a cucumber and it was a little unsettling.

  “You think she killed Lottie? Really?” Zeb was wide-eyed.

  “I don’t know,” Connie said. “Is she capable of it?”

  “Hell hath no fury…” Zeb muttered, more to himself than anyone else. Connie considered it. Dottie didn’t seem that furious, but maybe she was just good at playing her poker face.

  Zeb left the room and Connie pulled out a chair at the kitchen island. She needed a moment to clear her thoughts. Most murder investigations focused on finding a suspect, but she feared that this one would be a challenge because it had too many. Almost everyone had the motive and opportunity to have wanted Lottie dead.

  She thought back to the time before midnight, when Lottie was supposedly in bed with a migraine. Every single person had left the room.

  She thought of Zeb, leaving to fetch his book, then returning empty handed. He’d been up to no good in one way or another. Perhaps he shouldn’t be ruled out so quickly.

  And Dottie, she’d been disappearing into rooms to take and make phone calls ever since she’d arrived. Her career was the perfect opportunity for her to dip in and out of family life as she needed to.

  Laughter filled the hallway and shadows revealed two people approaching. Connie put her thoughts to one side and watched, listened, waited.

  Grace and Bobby piled into the room, Bobby’s hands all over his wife, who giggled and pushed him off in a way that suggested she loved the attention. Connie raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh!” Grace exclaimed. She pulled away from Bobby and patted down her apron. “Are you hungry? I can fix you something.”

  “Connie,” Bobby greeted, then cleared his throat.

  “I was just taking a moment,” Connie explained. It felt as if she was behind enemy lines, being caught in the kitchen by Grace. As if she was trespassing. “It’s such awful news.”

  “You know,” Grace said, her eyes wide and sincere. “I always worried about that girl. It wasn’t natural, having a husband so much older. Of course she wanted to live the young, single life for a while. Who can blame her?”

  Connie smiled, encouraged the woman to keep talking. Grace was allowing her Stepford Wife act to slip a little and Connie was fascinated.

  “My guess? She fell hook, line and sinker for Zeb and knew he’d never leave Dottie.”

  “You don’t think he would have?”

  Grace shook her head. A strand of hair fell out of a bobby pin and curled along the side of her face. “He’s never left her before, right? He gets bored and these women are like holidays for him. They last a few weeks and then he gets bored of them. Poor Lottie. She must have realised he’d never leave Dottie, and just couldn’t live with the guilt.”

  “You know about Zeb’s affairs?” Connie asked.

  Grace laughed. “He’s never been able to keep a secret. I don’t mind being discreet, I mean whatever he does is his business, but I told Bobby, he shouldn’t be involving family. Didn’t I, darling? Didn’t I say that?”

  Bobby had taken up Zeb’s place in front of the open fridge and when he turned to address his wife, he held a chicken drumstick in his hand. “You sure did, my queen.”

  “Oh, love, don’t eat like that. Let me set you a plate up. Come on, sit down,” Grace insisted. She manoeuvred Bobby to the island, where he sat opposite Connie and avoided her gaze. Grace grabbed a plate and made quick business of filling it with the chicken drumstick, a mound of potato salad and a few cocktail sausages. “I don’t know how you can eat at a time like this, but men and women are just different I guess. How are you holding up, Connie?”

  “Oh,” Connie shrugged. “I’m okay. I don’t understand why she’d leave the note.”

  “Hmm,” Grace pondered. “That’s a good point.”

  “She wanted to get it out in the open,” Bobby said as he chewed a mouthful of chicken. “Makes perfect sense.”

  “It doesn’t, love, not really,” Grace said. “We all knew what was happening, anyway. The only thing that letter did was make sure her husband and children know. Oh! Those poor children.”

  “Some people need to confess,” Bobby said with a shrug. “And others don’t.”

  Connie climbed down off her stool. “I’ll go and find Taylor.”

  Instead of Taylor, she found Rose, pacing the hallway.

  “Rose? Are you okay?”

  The girl’s face was streaked with tears and she collapsed into Connie’s arms. The intimacy of the act took Connie by surprise, but she allowed Rose to cling to her. She wrapped her awkward arms around Rose and rubbed her back, muttering nonsense sounds and hoping they would provide some form of comfort.

  “It’s okay,” Connie heard herself say, although her words were clearly a lie. The paramedics had just carried a dead woman from the house. It certainly wouldn’t be okay.

  Rose took a shaky, ragged breath and pulled away from Connie’s embrace, looked up at her and opened her mouth. “She’s dead, and it’s all my fault!”

  16

  Connie settled Rose in one of the bedrooms. Her legs shook and Connie draped a blanket over her.

  “Tell me everything,” she encouraged.

  Rose sniffled and drew in another breath. “We had an awful argument. I told her that she was selfish for having three children. The planet can’t support so many children! It’s a drain on the natural resources! I called her some awful things. I didn’t think she’d hurt herself, I promise!”

  She descended into tears and Connie rubbed her back.

  “You think that Lottie killed herself because of your argument?”Connie clarified.

  Rose managed to nod.

  “She didn’t,” Connie said. “I can promise you that.”

  “You can?” Rose asked. She looked up, hopeful.

  “She was murdered, Rose. She didn’t kill herself.”

  Rose shuddered as if someone had walked over her grave. “You mean… so, hold on. You’re saying someone in this house is a murderer?”

  Connie nodded. There was no suggestion that anyone had broken in. The danger came from someone within the house.

  “You have any ideas wh
o might want to hurt her?” Connie asked.

  Rose gave a snarky laugh, already getting back to herself. “Pretty much everyone, I guess. Dottie for sure. And Christopher. Maybe even Zeb.”

  “Why Zeb?”

  “Maybe he wanted to get back at Christopher; take his wife and reveal the affair.”

  “Why would Zeb want to do that?” Connie asked.

  “He loved her,” Rose said.

  “What?” Connie asked.

  “Uncle Zeb, he really loved Lottie. I’ve grown up watching him have his affairs. This one was different. He was pretty obsessed with her.”

  “And how did she feel?”

  “Oh, you know Lottie…”

  “Not really,” Connie reminded.

  “It was all a bit of fun for her. She’d never have left Uncle Christopher.”

  “Hmm,” Connie said. She considered Zeb’s grief. He was devastated, but plenty of murderers regretted their crimes. Connie had heard something on a documentary a while ago; that most killers are so gutted by their actions, they never kill again. It could be possible, she imagined. Maybe Zeb had gone upstairs and tried to convince Lottie to leave her husband, and when she refused, it had all got out of hand. Maybe his grief was genuine because he couldn’t believe what he’d done… a crime of passion. Connie shuddered.

  “I’m going to get some sleep,” Rose said. Connie nodded and the two went their separate ways, Rose off towards her bedroom and Connie back down the grand staircase.

  “You know what he’s like,” Bobby’s voice came from the hallway. Connie hung back, lowered herself onto one of the stairs. “He can’t keep his hands to himself.”

  “He’s meant to be my brother!” Christopher raged.

  Bobby let out a cruel laugh. “That doesn’t mean so much in this family, apparently.”

  “I could kill him,” Christopher said. “I should kill him! He’s got it coming!”

  The stair creaked under Connie and Bobby glanced in her direction, appeared to see her hiding in the shadows, or perhaps not.

  “You’ve always had a temper,” Bobby said. “Try not to do anything too rash.”