Mistletoe & Missing Persons

by Teresa Michael

  She pulled her hand away, slipping it behind her back. “I cut myself with a knife back in August. It’s healing fine. Besides, it would probably be good rehab for me to do something like this. Mimi hasn’t let me handle anything sharp since the accident.” Libby left out the part where she was held hostage and that she’d cut herself in the process of stabbing her captor.

  “If you’re sure, I could use the help.”

  Steve tossed her a pair of work gloves, and Libby gripped the board he had been trying to remove. He hit the other side with a hammer, and the nails finally came loose. She pulled the drywall and board off and laid it on the floor. They removed more drywall, revealing an open space between the drywall framing and a brick wall that was the main wall between Steve’s building and the clothing boutique next door.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “What?” Steve asked, stepping in behind her.

  “There’s a good deal of space in here,” she said, stepping inside the area between the brick wall and where the drywall had been. “This is a false wall. Maybe it had to do with the way the closet was built.”

  “Wow, look at that brick. That would be an awesome accent wall,” Steve said, running his fingers across the red brick. “Let’s pull off some more and see what we have.”

  Continuing to pound and pull off drywall from the false wall, they soon uncovered insulation bunched together inside a four-by-four-foot framed-in section. They removed the boards from around the framed-in area and pulled out the insulation. When they finished pulling off all the drywall around the area, they stopped, stood back and surveyed what remained. There was rolled up plastic inside the smaller framed-in area. It was as if someone had built a compartment just for this roll of plastic tarp taped up with silver duct tape.

  “What are you two doing to Eleanor’s store?”

  “Fletcher Smith,” Libby gasped, her hand coming to her throat. “You scared the living daylights out of me.”

  Fletcher was in his early seventies and wore a golf shirt and a cap from the Mariposa Beach Country Club pro shop. He had just come from the café where he had had lunch with his three companions whom Libby called the ‘The Company’ as she was almost sure they were retired spies.

  Smith introduced himself to Steve and offered his hand.

  “Steve Devereaux,” Steve said, pulling off his glove and shaking Smith’s hand.

  “What have you uncovered?” he asked, moving past them to take a closer look.

  “I’m not sure. I was helping Steve remove these boards when we uncovered this plastic tarp. I’m almost afraid to go any further,” Libby said.

  “It’s probably just a bunch of junk stuck in there,” Steve said, starting to pull at the duct tape that was wound tightly around the plastic tarp. “Just like every other bit of space in this building.”

  “Wait,” Smith said.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Libby asked. Before moving to Florida from Ohio more than three years ago, she had spent five years working in the County Prosecutor’s Office.

  “I think so,” Smith said. “Let’s proceed very carefully.”

  “I don’t understand,” Steve said, giving the tarp another yank.

  “Stop,” Libby called out. “Smith and I think it could be a body.”

  “A dead body?” Steve asked, turning from Smith to Libby. “What would a body be doing inside my wall?”

  “Good question,” Smith said as he picked up a box cutter from the work table and started slowly slicing through the first layer of the tarp.

  “Just open it up enough for us to see what’s in there,” Libby said. “If it’s nothing, we’ll have a good laugh.”

  “It’s probably some junk my aunt stuffed in there maybe when they built that storage closet.”

  “We don’t know what could be in there or how long it’s been in there. It could have any kind of bacteria growing in there,” Smith said.

  “Seriously? Why would you two think it’s a body?” Steve asked.

  “Past experience,” Libby said. “Recent past.”

  “Oh, my,” Steve said. “Would that have anything to do with your injured hand?”

  “Inadvertently,” Libby murmured, watching Smith as he carefully continued to slice the tarp, taking care not to cut too deeply while making meticulous slices with the box cutter. Finally, he cut through the edge of the tarp and the duct tape. He carefully pulled apart the edges.

  When Smith uncovered an empty eye socket, Libby gasped, and Steve turned away.

  A dusty, earthy, rotting smell emanated from the opening. Steve covered his mouth and choked. Libby stepped backward as her hands flew to her face covering her nose and mouth. Smith cut the tarp a little higher to reveal a skull with strands of long, blonde hair attached to a scalp that was barely clinging to the bone.

  “Libby, what has taken you so long? I should have…” When she realized what she was seeing in the wall of Eleanor’s gift shop, Mimi let out a blood curdling scream.

  • • •

  By the time Detective Jack Seiler arrived, the group inside the shop had grown. At Mimi’s ear piercing scream, the sales guy from the souvenir and surf shop next door came running. He continued to hang out by the door, near enough to see what was going on yet close enough to keep an eye on the customers and the other clerk working in his store.

  After Mimi stopped hyperventilating, Libby called the police. Mimi returned to the café and soon after she left, Simon Jones, the British member of Smith’s little group, arrived. He was giving his assessment of the scene when Mr. Chevkov and Mr. Strauss appeared and chimed in.

  “Who are these guys,” Steve asked as they watched the four men examining the discovery.

  “The Company,” Libby said, under her breath.

  “Why do you call them that?”

  “Mariposa Beach, the little town where old spies come to retire,” Libby said, barely loud enough for Steve to hear her.

  “Oh my,” Steve said. He ran his fingers across his forehead and leaned against the wall.

  When Libby saw Jack Seiler in the doorway, the corners of her mouth involuntarily curved upwards. She crossed the room to meet him. “I was hoping you would catch this call.”

  “It’s good to see you, too,” he said, lightly touching her forearm, perhaps lingering a bit too long. He leaned down and whispered, “What is it with you and dead bodies and crime scenes?”

  “There’s no blood this time,” she said, referring to the crime scene where they’d first met.

  Steve offered his hand. “Hello, I’m Steve Devereaux.”

  “Detective Jack Seiler, Sarasota Sheriff’s Department.” Jack shook Steve’s hand. “Who are you?”

  “I own this place. We were pulling down this wall, and we found that.” He gestured towards the wall.

  “Looks like an old murder to me,” Mr. Smith proclaimed.

  “What was your first clue?” Mr. Jones asked in his crisp British accent. “The bullet hole to the head?”

  “Right between the eyes,” Mr. Strauss said, his faint German accent still noticeable. He held the flashlight so that Chevkov could peer inside the makeshift body bag.

  “Detective, to preserve the scene, we only opened the tarp enough to see what was inside,” Smith said. “We didn’t want to bother you if it was nothing.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Smith.”

  Jack stepped up to the tarp-wrapped corpse, motioned for the people in the room to step back, then extracted rubber gloves from his pants pocket and pulled them on. He carefully slid aside the flap that Mr. Smith had cut away, but then folded back over the remains.

  “Gentleman, I think you’re right. I’ll get the crime scene guys down here to check this out. It does look old, but in this heat, you never know. Decomposition can happen quickly.”

  “As soon as you start to move that skeleton, it will dearticulate,” Mr. Chevkov said. “It’s slightly upright only because it has been packed in there so tightly. A
s soon as you pull more of this packing away, the bones will fall apart.”

  “No one is going to touch anything until the crime scene techs get here,” Jack said.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  They all turned to see Ida Sullivan standing in the doorway, pushing her walker in front of her.

  “Poor thing’s been here all these years.”

  “Ida, do you think you know who this is?” Libby asked.

  “I don’t think,” she said. “I know.” She pushed herself closer and then turned her walker around and sank onto the seat. “When I came into the café, Mimi was carrying on something fierce about what you all found in Eleanor’s wall. I couldn’t believe it. I had to come to see for myself.”

  “Mrs. Sullivan, who is it?” Jack asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Annaliese Hobson and…oh my goodness, she’s been in there for forty years.”

  Steve sank into a chair. “You mean, she was in there when Aunt Eleanor bought this place?”

  “Holy Mother of God,” Libby said.

  Chapter 4

  Photographs and Memories

  Jack declared Steve’s shop a crime scene, called for the Medical Examiner and Crime Scene Techs and began to take witness statements. Steve drove Libby and Ida back to Ida’s house to find a photo of Annaliese.

  Libby was worried about Ida’s heart. She had had some health problems recently, and Libby thought that getting her away from the crime scene and concentrating on the task of searching through her boxes of photos would help calm her.

  They were sitting at Ida’s dining room table with six shoe boxes of photographs going back sixty years. Ida opened the first box and spread the photos across the table. ZsaZsa ran around their feet, sniffing and barking at Steve, a new person invading her domain.

  “Annaliese’s mother’s name was Mary Alice. She, Eleanor and I were good friends. Mary Alice died of breast cancer when Annaliese was about twelve and going into the years when a girl needs her mother.”

  Libby picked up a black and white 8x10 photograph of a showgirl dressed in a glittery costume and wearing a huge feather headdress in the shape of a fan. “Is this you?” she asked, holding the photo up for Ida to see.

  Ida nodded and went back to emptying the shoe box.

  Steve took the photo, looked at Ida, and back to the picture, and then asked, “Mrs. Sullivan, you were a Rockette?”

  Libby met his gaze and raised her eyebrows.

  Ida nodded. “A lifetime ago, but I could do a pretty good high kick in my day.”

  She took the photo, set it aside and continued her story, “The Hobson family owned most of this town and were bigwigs way back before there was even a Sarasota County. They owned the Mariposa Inn when it was nothing more than a pit stop on the trail.” She shuffled through the pictures and held up a photo of the Inn with an old sedan sitting at the curb. “They owned the whole block where Eleanor’s shop was. It used to be a general store. You know, like a five and dime.”

  She shuffled through another stack of pictures before she continued, “After Mary Alice died, Albert pretty much ignored the girl. He just went about running his businesses and catting around town. Eleanor and I tried to be there for her, but…” Her voice trailed off.

  “What do you think happened to Annaliese?” Libby asked.

  Ida continued her story as if she hadn’t heard Libby, at all. “Annaliese was a beautiful girl with that white blonde hair and bright blue eyes.” She looked up at Libby. “Mimi reminds me a little bit of her, just in looks. Mimi can be a bit flighty. Annaliese was more free-spirited.”

  Libby smiled at the description.

  Ida sighed, opened another shoebox and began to shuffle through the contents. “I keep saying that I’m going to put these in a photo album, but…Here it is. I knew I had a picture of her.” She held up a black and white photo of a young girl of about seventeen with long, pale blonde hair. She wore cutoff jeans and a flowy peasant blouse. She stood in front of a large, two-story brick house with pillars and a veranda.

  “That’s the big house a few miles up the beach,” Libby said.

  “That’s the old Hobson house. The estate used to be much bigger and included horse barns and beautiful lawns. It was a showcase. But after she disappeared, Albert was rattling around that house all by himself. When he died, what was left of the place sold at auction. I always hoped that Annaliese was out there somewhere, living her life far away from her ass of a father. Albert Hobson sure was a mean old bastard.”

  “What do you think happened?” Steve asked.

  “Albert said she ran off with a circus boy, but if that’s her in your wall, Albert must have killed her in a fit of rage. He had a terrible temper.”

  “A circus boy?” Libby asked. “Do you remember his name?”

  “I only met the boy once. My husband, his name was Sid, was an accountant. He worked for Hobson’s. We went to the big house for parties and such. When Mary Alice was alive, they had glorious parties.” Ida’s eyes welled with her memories.

  “That must have been beautiful,” Libby said, patting her hand.

  Ida nodded and continued her story, “After Mary Alice died, Albert still had Christmas parties for his employees but not like when Mary Alice was alive. The time I met the boy was at the employee Christmas party in early December, just a week or so before she disappeared.”

  “What happened?” Steve asked.

  “Annaliese loved the horses, and this boy worked for the horse trainer at the circus.” She looked at Steve and then said, “You know Sarasota is a big circus town, right?”

  Steve smiled. “I heard that somewhere.”

  “Albert wanted her to make an appearance at the party. It was a tradition for the whole Hobson family to be at the Christmas party. But, she was in the barn with her sick horse and that boy and the vet. Albert went into a rage. It was a terrible row. She was devastated. I felt bad for her. A week later, she was gone.”

  “And everyone thought she ran away with the boy,” Libby said.

  “That’s about it,” Ida said.

  “It’s too bad we don’t know his name,” Libby said.

  “Maybe if I saw him, it might jog my memory, so I’ll look through these pictures some more.” She handed the photo of Annaliese to Libby. “Here, give this to your detective.”

  “Thanks, I will. I’m sure Jack will get it back to you as soon as he can.”

  Ida met Libby’s eyes with a look of recognition. “I just realized something. That was the last Hobson family Christmas party.”

  • • •

  Libby and Steve left Ida searching through her photos for pictures of the party.

  “Your detective?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah, well, that’s another story, but I should probably drop into the café. It’s been a long time since I left for the bank.”

  “Okay.” He started the car. “Do you think Mimi is all right? I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a scream. My ears are still ringing.”

  “Mimi has a big voice. Her parents are into opera.” Libby motioned for Steve to pull into the parking lot behind the cafe. “Let’s go in the back through the kitchen.”

  The kitchen was a square room with a rectangular prep table in the middle and an industrial-sized refrigerator against the opposite wall. The wall to the right of the back door held a grill, stove, sink and work counter.

  Libby heard voices in the café and pushed the saloon doors open to find the cafe quite busy. Mimi and Louisa were working behind the counter. Lisa, the part time afternoon barista, was at the cappuccino machine.

  “Libby, I heard you found another dead body,” Lisa said.

  She was a tiny young woman with a curly brown bob who was always full of questions and witty comments.

  “Another body?” Steve asked.

  Before Libby could answer, Mimi asked, “How is Ida?”

  “She’s looking through old photos hoping to find any that could help identify the
remains,” Libby said. “Did you know that Ida was a Rockette?”

  “No! Are you serious?” Mimi asked, blue eyes widened.

  “She sure was a looker,” Steve said. “I’m hungry. Can I order something?” He stepped around the counter and picked up a menu.

  “Rachel,” Lisa called out. “Here’s your cappuccino.”

  Rachel, a young woman with a long dark ponytail and big brown eyes, stepped up to the counter next to Steve. “Excuse me,” she said.

  “Oh, sorry,” Steve said. He looked up from his menu and added, “Hello.”

  “Rachel, this is Steve. He bought Eleanor’s shop,” Libby said.

  “I think you should ask Rachel to smudge your store or do something to chase away any bad mojo,” Mimi said.

  Rachel read Tarot Cards on Saturday evenings at the café and was in the process of opening a new shop across the courtyard from the cafe.

  “Pardon me?” Steve asked.

  “It’s done to clear the space of any negative energy,” Rachel explained. “Mimi told me about your wall. I’m going to cleanse my place of anything left over from the accessories shop.”

  The previous owner had a run of bad luck, bankruptcy, and had to close the shop in the space that now housed The Mariposa Mystic, Rachel’s new shop.

  “That might be a good idea, considering what we just found,” Libby said. “That is, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

  Turning to Steve, coffee cup in hand, Rachel said, “Once the police and crime scene people are finished, I’d be happy to smudge your shop. I have everything I need, but I need to finish unpacking to find it.”

  “I’m so excited that we’ll have two new shops this season,” Mimi said. “That’s more hungry customers for the café.”

  “When are you opening?” Steve asked.

  “The grand opening is planned for Black Friday.”

  Mimi held up her coffee cup. “Here’s to The Devereaux Gallery and The Mariposa Mystic. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  Chapter 5