The Ghosts of Landover Mystery Series Box Set

by Etta Faire

  Martha’s eyes scanned the room as she rambled on about how she hated birthdays too, mostly noticing the mess she’d have to clean up later. Shoes and books took up a lot of the floor. I noticed a bunch of clothes under the bed too.

  “I guess you know what happened downstairs,” Bessie said. “Sorry for making such a mess with the cake. I’m too old for that.”

  “I was upstairs when it happened, but don’t worry, miss. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yes, it was. I shoved Troy into the cake.”

  “I could hardly believe that one,” the housekeeper said to me in her head. “And boy, was I sure sad I’d missed it. That Troy was nothing but trouble. Mean as a mad dog. He had that shove comin,’ and a few more, to boot. I always liked gossiping with Bessie about it. I tried to tell her a bit of my own gossip that night, but I could tell she was too tired to hear it.”

  Bessie’s head rested on the backboard of the bed, her longish golden brown hair spilling out along her shoulders, her eyes half-closed.

  “I’ll tell you later, missy,” the housekeeper said, kissing the top of Bessie’s head. “You sure you don’t want me to help you out of your party clothes?”

  “Not yet. I’m starving, Martha. I didn’t eat a bite all night.”

  “I told you that corset was too tight.”

  “Stop lecturing me, and be a dear. See if you can bring me a plate. And look around to see if Sir Walter’s still here.”

  “Now I see why you’re keeping your dress on.” Martha walked across the room to a pitcher on the dresser at the connecting wall. She poured water onto one of the soft white cloths stacked up to the side of the basin then handed it to Bessie.

  “You rest your eyes. I’ll… I’ll…” Martha’s voice trailed off. She pulled a small blanket from under the bed, picking something up with it: a dark pair of men’s pants and a suit jacket. “What in the…” She put them back down on top of what looked like clean, tan driving gloves.

  The glove wasn’t from a distraught guest after all!

  “What is it?” Bessie asked, pulling the cloth off her eyes and sitting up.

  “Nothing,” Martha said, smiling. “I’ll see what I can bring you. I only hope I can do it without Esther seeing me. Your sister has her watching those devil kids of hers, and I know that poor girl’s looking for me to relieve her.”

  Martha closed the door and headed downstairs.

  “Did you recognize the pants and jacket?”

  “Of course I did,” she said. “I’ve only been doing the washing around here for longer than Bessie’d been livin’. They were her father’s.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her about them?”

  “I didn’t want to know the answer. Most women who acted like Miss Bessilyn, you know, driving fast and marching in them marches, they were also known to wear men’s clothes at times. They were different. A lot of people already talked about missy like that, and I just thought I shouldn’t be one of them, is all. She didn’t need to feel different everywhere.”

  Martha moved fast for a woman close to 60, her bones ached and cracked after each step down the stairs, pain shooting through her knees, but it didn’t slow her down one bit.

  Downstairs now, I looked around the party to see who was there and could possibly have an alibi, and who was not. But Martha wasn’t interested in the guests as much as I was. Her gaze went to the cake mess all over the floor, the toppled wine glasses, the spills and stains. She took a second to admire the mess, smiling at the two waiters who were busy cleaning it up. They didn’t smile back. They threw Martha the evil eye like she should have been helping. “They were hired help just for the party, not family,” she said, like she was family. “They didn’t know what a joyous mess that was.”

  The other housekeeper I now knew as Esther ran up to Martha when she saw her, her blonde bangs had fallen out of her bonnet, cake smeared all along her dress. She handed Troy junior over to her. He smelled awful along our hip, like he needed changing, bathing, and maybe some of that lemon cleaner.

  “Your turn,” she said, taking a breath. “I’d rather clean up cake, thank you.” She hustled off toward the hall. “But first, I’ve got bags and coats to fetch. Half the guests are leaving. Mrs. Hind is apologizing all over the place,” she said. “Bessie sure knows how to end a party fast.” She smiled and winked after that last remark.

  Troy junior fidgeted to escape Martha’s grasp, kicking the side of her thigh harder and harder, making her knees ache even more. She clutched him tighter and he burped, the smell of salami and milk rising up with it. I almost threw up. She put him down and he toddled over to where his brother and sister were dripping candle wax into a blob on the tablecloth. “Good riddance. Not my job anyway,” Martha said.

  Bessie’s father, James, approached us as we searched the room for food to bring to Bessie. “Martha, is she upstairs?” he asked.

  Martha nodded. “Resting.”

  “Good,” he said. “She’s not a girl anymore. Yet, she acts like one, right down to the tantrums. Probably because we treat her like one.”

  Martha just nodded. I looked around at the guests out of the corner of Martha’s eye.

  “Don’t bring her a thing to eat. Do you hear me? She doesn’t deserve to eat…”

  That’s when we heard it. The sound I knew was coming. It was loud, no mistaking it. Louder than I thought it’d be. The sound of a gun. Bessie’s life, ending. The final moment.

  The band stopped. The room filled with screams so loud they echoed off the walls. Bessie’s father’s face drained of its color. The front door swung open and the guests who were in the process of leaving were suddenly back. Loud chaos ensued.

  “Everyone okay?”

  “It sounded like a gunshot,” Troy said, staggering across the dance floor, his uniform still full of cake.

  Henry Bowman bolted down the stairs. “I believe it came from one of the rooms,” he said.

  Bessie’s father exchanged a worried look first with Henry then with Martha. He darted up the stairs, with Martha and several guests at his heels. He tried to turn the knob but it was locked. “Bessilyn Margaret Hind, open this door,” he yelled, pounding on it, fist over fist. He threw his weight hard against the door, but bounced back.

  “Let me try,” Henry said. He was more than a head taller than James, a lot broader too.

  “It’s my fault,” James said, looking at Henry, his eyes filled with tears. “I was warned. We were warned… The curse. Henry, the curse.”

  “Not now,” Henry said, throwing his weight against the dark, heavy door.

  It was at this moment that I finally recognized James, with his head lowered, and his eyes looking up. He’d been one of the men with Henry in the desk-dancing Eliza photo.

  “Not Bessie. Not Bessie. Not missy. Please no…” Martha said, over and over as someone shook and tugged on her shoulders. On my shoulders.

  “I think she’s having a stroke,” a voice said. “Carly, dear.”

  “Stop filming, Bobby. This isn’t funny.”

  “It is from my end.”

  I recognized one of the voices. Rosalie. I blinked, my head throbbing, my eyes not focusing right. It felt like my tongue was about six inches too wide for my mouth.

  “Oh yeah. Drool away, baby,” the man’s voice said. My eyes focused. Rosalie, Paula, Shelby, and Bobby all stood around me. Bobby had a cell phone about two inches from my face.

  Shelby scooted by him. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Just channeling,” I said, still dazed.

  Bobby chuckled. “I don’t know what that means, but it was awesome. Totally made up for the boring seance I came all the way out to Gate House for. I thought we might need an exorcist over here.”

  “Oh, Bobby, shush,” Shelby said, stroking my hair. “You’re gonna ruin our anniversary.”

  He ignored her. “You were doing all sorts of voices. Low-pitched ones, ‘Open this door,’” he said lowering his voice, mocking me. “A
nd a high-pitched shaky one, ‘Not missy. Oh no…’”

  “Great,” I said, kicking myself for being so public. I looked around, remembering where I was, that it wasn’t 1906 anymore.

  I shook myself out of my stupor, taking out my phone so I could jot everything down from the channeling into my notes app, as I wiped a little drool from my lip. I knew the information wouldn’t last long. “This was your surprise anniversary gift?” I asked, furiously typing everything I could think of. “A stay-cation?”

  Shelby nodded. “One year since he proposed,” she said, holding out her hand to show off a dainty ring with a tiny blue stone. “He even got my mom to watch all the kids, all five of them including the baby and everything. More romantic than anyone thought.”

  “I re-proposed,” Bobby said, proudly. “I got down on one knee this time, surprised her at the diner. I told her I’d do it every year.”

  I didn’t bother to tell them engagement anniversaries weren’t a thing.

  Paula smiled. “I gave them quite a deal. A lovebird special.”

  “Special?” Rosalie rolled her eyes. “You should check your credit card. That means she charged you double,” she said, making me realize she and Paula probably hadn’t negotiated anything about the seance while I was channeling. But they both dutifully admired Shelby’s ring, “oohing and aahing” at just the right moments while Bobby sat on the couch next to me and replayed his video over and over again, probably making a boomerang-looping gif with my drool moment.

  That’s when it came to me. The bear’s face.

  I leaned over to him. “You need to delete that video, Smoky,” I whispered.

  “Excuse me?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

  I stared at him, the same way I had when we exchanged looks outside, when he was shifting forms. “Does Shelby know?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “But if you have something crazy to say, that wouldn’t surprise me. Crazy people often talk about crazy things.” He patted his phone like the video was proof of that.

  I leaned in so close one of my curls brushed his shoulder. “She has a right to know, regardless of you deleting that video,” I said. “And you know it. You and Shelby have a child together, for crying out loud. He could be a shape…”

  Bobby handed me his phone. “Delete it. She needs to know, but I’ll tell her later, on my own terms. Got it?”

  I nodded, snatching the phone before he could change his mind. The last thing Youtube needed was a drooling video of me doing weird voices. Shelby looked over and nodded her approval, sauntering across the living room, her black and white rockabilly dress swishing out in all directions. She gave Bobby a huge lipstick-smeared kiss on the cheek.

  “What was that for?” he asked.

  “We are on a romantic weekend, and you are earning all sorts of brownie points,” she said, running her hand down his cheek. “That was real sweet of you to let Carly Mae delete that video.”

  “Yep,” I said, scrolling into his “recently deleted” folder to make sure everything was gone for good and couldn’t be recovered. “He’s a regular teddy bear.”

  I glanced over at the glove on display. There was no doubt it was the one under the bed. The murderer had placed it there along with a change of clothes. A disguise to look like Mr. Hind?

  My gaze went from the glove to the dress and back again, my heart suddenly racing as an idea came over me. “I’d like to borrow the evidence from the display cases, please.”

  Everyone stared at me.

  “I’m not one-hundred-percent sure who murdered Bessilyn Hind yet, but I can prove it wasn’t a suicide. Can I borrow some things?”

  “I charge a fee for borrowing my displays,” Paula said.

  Chapter 22

  Hard Evidence

  The full moon lit the way as Rosalie and I walked through the parking lot just before 9:00 that night. I couldn’t help but wonder how many shapeshifters were out tonight, besides Bobby. How many there were in Potter Grove, for that matter.

  She stopped and lowered her voice as soon as we were far enough away from the house that no one could hear us. “You weren’t you back there. Your eyes were half rolled into your head. You were doing voices I didn’t know you could make. If I hadn’t shook you out of that trance, they would’ve called the paramedics. They were close to doing that.”

  I looked down at my $10 boots. They were either breaking in or I was getting used to the numbness. Probably the latter. I was getting used to a lot of weird things lately.

  She continued. “You can’t channel anymore. That, whatever that was, it couldn’t have been safe and it certainly wasn’t normal.”

  “I gave up on normal years ago,” I said, smiling at her. She didn’t smile back. “I’m very close to figuring out Bessilyn Hind’s murder. I wouldn’t have gone through that if I wasn’t close.”

  “But, is it worth it?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer, and we both walked in silence. I knew she didn’t understand why solving a 100-year-old murder was important. I didn’t understand it too much myself, but I’d grown to like Bessie. I thought of her as my friend now.

  I went on. “Look, I had to get that evidence. Bessie’s window somehow didn’t latch right. That’s why it was locked when the police checked it. Or at least I think. And when I channeled with the housekeeper back there, I found out there was a pair of pants, a jacket, and those gloves under Bessie’s bed. Her father’s. Her murder was premeditated and calculated. Whoever it was wanted it to look like her father.”

  Rosalie gasped. “So, who did it?”

  “I have my suspicions, but if I’m going to prove this to the police, I’ve got to link the evidence to the murderer.”

  “So, that’s why you sold us out for a box of junk. So you could look it over better? Good to know your priorities.”

  She didn’t give me a chance to reply. “But did you really have to say we’d pay half the damn damages? She signed a waiver saying we weren’t responsible for damages. And she didn’t pay for half of my damn damages when she trashed my place.” She yelled toward the house.

  “I thought a wild animal did that,” I said.

  “I’m not saying I know how she did it.”

  Rosalie was really dragging her leg while she walked. Something that happened when she got upset, that and the Tourette-like cussing.

  She wasn’t done. “I don’t think we’ll see dime-one from that seance anymore. Not now that she’s been given the green light to fudge the numbers on those million-dollar windows.”

  I ignored my friend and listened to my boots clunking along the gravel for a minute. Their rhythm seemed almost poetic. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, allowing the cool night air to chill into my lungs. One breath after another.

  As a ghost, Jackson always said that life is wasted on the living. Probably because it’s so easy to get caught up in petty squabbles when you’re in the middle of life, like money or politics or gossip. “I can’t believe he did this” or “she needs to pay for that” kind of stuff. The kind of stuff that consumes you and makes you forget just how good it feels to take a deep breath or listen to the sound of your own boots clanking along through gravel. The living moments.

  “Damn it, Carly. I can’t believe you agreed to that. At least we didn’t sign anything,” she said, under her breath. I was pretty sure me picking up the evidence tomorrow was the same as me saying that we agreed to Paula’s terms, but I didn’t mention that to Rosalie. Instead, I opened the door and held my arm out so she could use it as leverage to slide herself into the driver’s seat.

  I knew she didn’t really need my help. It was just one of those living moments.

  I watched her drive off then headed back toward the house to check out the one piece of evidence I was hoping still existed after more than 100 years. I had a good shot since ninety percent of them were original to the house.

  I stared up at the moon a second. It had been bright the n
ight of Bessilyn’s death in 1906 too. The murderer probably had no problems getting down from Bessie’s window. I only hoped I wouldn’t have any problems getting up. I needed to see how the latch worked, to see if my theory was even possible. I took a deep breath.

  Was I really about to possibly kill myself to help a woman who’d been dead for more than 100 years?

  The decorative rock jutted out in almost perfect foot and hand holds, plus there was a trellis too, but I didn’t trust that. It looked even less sturdy than the ladder in Henry Bowman’s library. Pulling myself up the first couple of foot holds, I tried not to look down. I wasn’t even that high off the ground yet, but my lip still quivered and it wasn’t just from the wind.

  When I was almost to the window, I thought I heard voices and I stopped dead in my tracks. It sounded like someone taking a stroll, maybe. How on earth was I going to explain scaling the bed and breakfast’s wall?

  I grabbed the trellis and prayed it would hold my weight as an older couple passed just underneath me hand in hand, leaning into each other. The man had a blanket in his free hand, the woman a picnic basket, probably filled with the kind of stuff they both pretended to like in their dating profiles. “Late-night strolls with wine and cheese at the bed and breakfast…” I almost wanted them to notice me. Then, I’d yell down like a crazy person that he was probably a creeper with debt problems and she wasn’t really a teacher.

  They never looked up, never yelled that there was a crazy stalker climbing the wall, which made me realize this trellis was at a perfect angle, enough in the shadows not to be seen, and still pretty sturdy.

  I continued up as soon as the couple had passed me. The thick Victorian-era curtains were closed on the inside of what used to be Bessie’s room. I had no idea if anyone was on the other side of the window, though. I would need to be quick. And quiet. Just check the mechanisms of the latch then scurry down before anyone saw.