The Ghosts of Mystic Springs

by Mona Marple

  “Ugh.” She says. “Those people have no standards. I really hoped Anish would do better.”

  “You know him?”

  “He was a student.” Desiree says. She’s travelled a lot, moving from place to place to teach, never staying as long as she’s been in Mystic Springs. There were rumours for years that she had something to hide and, if they were true, she’s doing a damn good job of it.

  “Well, he’s only doing his job, I guess.”

  “That excuse doesn’t give people a pass to get out of doing the right thing.” Desiree says. “I’m sorry I butted in on your quiet time like this, I know we don’t even know each other too well. But I saw the headline. Just wanted to show my support.”

  “Thank you.” I say.

  “Ask her about the argument.” Sage whispers, making me jump. I didn’t even notice her float in.

  “It’s so sad… about Lola.” I say, stumbling for the right words. “Did you know her much?”

  Desiree shakes her head sadly. “I wasn’t her favourite person.”

  “You’re kidding?” I ask, my false surprise a little too obvious. Desiree is lost deep in her memories, though, and doesn’t notice.

  “She was anti-education.” She says after a few moments. “Anti-rules. We clashed a few times.”

  “Oh, she didn’t like you because you represented education?” I say.

  “Well, no, it’s more than that.” Desiree says as she shifts in her seat uncomfortably. “I probably overstepped my mark a little, trying to get her to enrol.”

  “Yeah.” I say. “Seems like she was all about freedom.”

  “I’d say she was all about manipulation.” Desiree says, holding my gaze.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. This wasn’t the way she had made it sound at the Town Hall meeting.

  “She was manipulating Desmond Frasier.” Desiree says. “And she manipulated me.”

  I’m about to ask for more information when I spot the time on the wall clock. If I want to make it to the funeral, I need to set off. Desiree catches the distraction on my face. “Are you going to the funeral?”

  I nod.

  “Me too. Shall we walk together?” Desiree says to my surprise.

  We finish last sips of our drinks and leave the coffee house together, walking in a strained silence until my curiosity can’t stand it.

  “What happened, with her and you?”

  Desiree sighs. “I broke the rules.”

  Now that was impossible to picture.

  “They warn you about it, when you’re training. But training isn’t like real life, with real kids. She was so messed up when she arrived, I found her sleeping in the gymnasium. Begged her to enrol. She wouldn’t hear any of it. I let it go that once, just gave her some cash for food and told her to stay safe. But the next day she was back. I told her the best way I could help her would be getting her enrolled, so she could start getting some options for her life, but she wouldn’t hear it. I had to call the police, that’s what my training says. She was a runaway, I should have called it in. But she started blackmailing me.”

  “What?” I ask, her words stopping me in my tracks. I gaze at Desiree, mouth open.

  She nods. “I’d been paying her for a year before she was killed.”

  I can hear the music from the church up ahead. We’re late. I increase the pace of my walking, even as my mind reels from her confession.

  “But.” I begin. “I don’t get it. What could she possibly have as ammunition to blackmail you with?”

  My words are lost in the noise as we enter the church. I’ve never seen such a crowded service. The whole town, apparently, are here. Several Mystic Springs High students are here, in uniform, and several spirits are gathered around the edges of the room. Spirits love funerals. They rarely get to see their own, because of the issues with appearing so quickly after their own death, and so they jump at the chance to see other services.

  Desiree catches my eye and flashes me a tight smile, but as I turn into a row at the back of the space, she strides down the nave and stands next to the group of students who are, I realise, the choir.

  I stand, shellshocked, while people around me talk and cough.

  I spot Violet Warren a few rows ahead of me, her outfit making no concessions for the sombre occasion.

  “I know I’m the prime suspect.” She announces, to anyone who wants to listen, it seems. “Anyone want a sweet?”

  She hands out a paper bag of boiled sweets. In my shock, I take one - pineapple - and by the time we’re asked to rise and sing the first hymn, several of us have to mumble as best we can with our mouths full of the damn things.

  “And now we’ll hear Lola’s favourite song, performed by the Mystic Springs High School choir.” The vicar announces, his voice low and thick with remorse, even though I can’t imagine when his path has ever crossed with Lola’s.

  Desiree moves out of the aisle and the choir file past her. She touches the arm of each student as they walk up to the chancel.

  For a small town, the quality of the choir is staggering. I haven’t heard them perform often, not being a regular church-goer and having no reason to attend the school for events. Some people who are child-free, or with grown up kids, still attend the high school events, so I’d be welcome. But I think that’s one Americanism that I haven’t picked up. I have no children. I don’t get involved with school.

  I listen to the beautiful voices of the young men and women, all around Lola’s age, and am surprised by how emotional it makes me. The last funeral I attended was Sage’s, and I have never been more sad on any day of my life before or since. I’d been living in America for a few years by then, and our contact had dwindled so much that on the one trip she made across to see me with her two daughters, she’d flippantly introduced me as some second cousin. Her words had stung, because she’d been as bad at staying in touch as I had, but I could hardly correct her in front of those two beautiful nieces I barely knew.

  The trip had been heartbreaking for me. The plans I’d had, of showing my wild and carefree sister around, quickly fell down around me. I barely knew her any more. She carried life’s burdens so visibly, it was as if she were walking with a stoop. Underneath that, though, was the anger. The pure, bitter anger that life had conned her. Her grand adventure hadn’t arrived, and she’d given up hope that it was on its way.

  They flew back home as planned, and contact between us reduced even further.

  She was dead a few months later.

  The choir stop singing and I realise I am sobbing. Like, full on, snot-bubbles ugly crying. A few people around me are watching me with interest.

  I shake my head and run out of the church, stopping after a few moments as my body reminds me that I’m no runner. Still sobbing, but now out of breath as well, I slow down and walk across the empty town towards my house. All I want is to climb into my bed and sleep.

  A noise from across the street catches my attention, and I turn to see Nettie Frasier, hair pulled into a tight bun, watering the hanging baskets by her front door.

  She has plenty of reasons not to mourn Lola, of course, but I’m still shocked to see her so publicly boycotting the funeral. She turns and notices me and for a few seconds we watch each other, then she turns and walks into her home, slamming the door behind her.

  “Oh my goodness, what’s wrong?” Sage asks, appearing by my side. She hates to see people crying. It distresses her to watch perfectly applied make-up be ruined, or clear skin become puffy.

  I continue crying and she floats along beside me, waiting for me to catch my breath.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better sister.” I finally say.

  To my surprise, she laughs. “Geeze! You’ve been named and shamed by the newspaper, we have a murderer to catch, and you’re dragging up things that are 20 years old? You’re crazy.”

  I force myself to laugh. I am crazy.

  I’ve got more than enough to worry about without focusing on the past.
/>   “You’re right.” I admit. “And… I think you could also be right about Desiree.”

  Sage grins as if she’s just got a free pass out of detention.

  “Come on, sis.” She says. “Let’s solve this case.”

  10

  Connie

  Mystic Springs is a wealthy town, which makes no sense because until Atticus created the illusion of the springs having magical healing properties, there was no industry to support the town and no determined work ethic among the inhabitants. It’s one of those odd things about this place. It seems to have attracted people with independent wealth, and by far the wealthiest is Violet Warren. A respected, perhaps even famed, artist, she rarely mentions her work or her success, but there are parts of the country where, if she went out in public, she would be recognised and mobbed.

  Her home is the largest in the town, a sprawling waterfront mansion that I’ve never had cause to enter before.

  When I knock, she doesn’t seem surprised, and grabs me in a hug. Her bones are all in the right place and I can feel every one of them poking into my flab. I tactically move away an inch, uncomfortable with her feeling the curves of my body in such an intimate way.

  “Come in, come in!” She cries, and leads the way through the whole of the house. I peek into beautiful rooms housing a grand piano, a home gym, a kitchen that looks fresh out of an ideal living magazine, and then finally we walk through the art studio. The huge space has double-height windows along one wall, and the light that pours in and highlights the art pieces strewn across the room is incredible.

  I’m not an art fan. I’m pretty clueless and I don’t know my oils from my watercolours even, but I see instantly why Violet has the big house.

  “These are amazing.” I say.

  Violet wrinkles her nose up. “They’re average.”

  “Oh, don’t be modest. They’re incredible.”

  “No, trust me.” Violet says. She pulls the rag from another piece, but I don’t know what I’m looking at. While the others were instantly recognisable paintings of people; a man smoking a cigar, a woman crying, a child eating an apple - this one is, clearly, art. Vivid lines and shapes, all arranged in a way that I know isn’t haphazard, but which looks like it. It’s the type of art that I don’t understand. “This is the best one I’m working on.”

  “Wow.” I say, because I can’t find a more specific response.

  “It’s okay.” Violet says with a laugh. “Everyone prefers those ones. A dear friend asked me to paint for her, and I know she’ll love them - it’s her family on canvas after all, but they’re like everything else out there. It’s funny, art’s the only industry there is where the more commercial something is, the less it’s worth.”

  “I don’t…”

  “This one.” She says, gesturing to the confusing artpiece. “This will bring in more money. It has more meaning. It’s unique. But the other kind are commercial. If you were a working artist, trying to get by month to month, you’d do the commercial stuff and it would pay the bills. But you’d never make real money. You have to be prepared to starve for a while so you can find your real style.”

  I can’t imagine Violet ever starving. In fact, I’d always assumed that she came from money and went into art because she didn’t have to pay the bills.

  “Come on, let’s sit by the water.” She says. We walk out of the studio into the mudroom, and out into the lawn. Two wooden chairs sit by the water’s edge, and we take one each.

  “It’s beautiful out here.” I say. The river separates Mystic Springs from Rydell Grove, and as I sit in Violet’s chair, I can make out small dots of people who must be sitting out in their lawns watching us. I’m tempted to wave, but don’t want to look like a tourist.

  “So?” Violet says.

  “I wanted to pick your brains.”

  “Ha, good luck with that. Go for it.”

  “Nettie Frasier.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you know much about her?”

  “Why are you asking?” Violet asks.

  “Well, erm…”

  “This isn’t going to end up in the Tribune, is it?”

  My cheeks flush. “No! I didn’t speak to the reporter, he rang me and I told him I wouldn’t talk. He wanted to get a quote from Lola.”

  Violet snorts. “Don’t we all. I still can’t find my purple shoes.”

  “I’d never speak to a newspaper.”

  “Okay, I believe you. So, you just want to know, what? General… stuff?”

  “I guess.” I say. For some reason, I’d expected her to share whatever she knew freely, but I can’t blame her for being cautious after my appearance on the front page of the Jefferson County Tribune.

  “I know she had the patience of a saint to put up with that man.” Violet says finally. She sighs and looks back towards the house. “I’m still waiting for the damn girl to come out and offer drinks. Keep forgetting she’s dead. Do you want a drink?”

  “No, no, I’m fine, don’t worry.” I say.

  “Good.” Violet says. “I don’t even know if there’s anything in the fridge.”

  I smile, getting a better understanding of the work Lola did for Violet. It sounds like she was used as a housekeeper, or personal assistant, not a carer.

  “So…” I encourage. “Nettie?”

  “I don’t know anything you won’t already know, Connie. She was very tolerant, turning a blind eye to affair after affair.”

  “There was more than one?”

  “Of course. Men like Desmond always have a woman on the side. I mean, she only discovered the truth of it the day he died. No, she’s probably still discovering the truth of it. He was putting Lola up, you know that, paying all her bills. I don’t know which one was to blame for that, he’s never gone that far before. Could have been Lola pushing him for that.”

  “Blackmailing him.” I say. A shiver runs through my body.

  “Well, you know what, I guess she could have been. Never thought of it like that before.” Violet says with a shake of her head. “What an awful business. They probably deserved each other.”

  “Maybe they’re together now.” I say.

  Violet lets out a laugh. “I doubt it very much. He’ll be watching Nettie like a hawk, won’t want her to move on.”

  “What?”

  “He was a very jealous man. Terrified she’d find someone else and leave him, realise she could do better. Not that he’d admit it, of course. Men who cheat are all the same. He’d got a beautiful woman, way out of his league, and he thought he’d cheat before she did.”

  “And did she?”

  “Nettie?” Violet asks as her eyebrows jolt so high up her face they almost connect with her hairline. “Never. She’s far too classy for that.”

  **

  I head across town to Bill’s, where I grab a trolley and feel the familiar frigid blast of air conditioning as I enter. I’ve learnt to always wear an extra layer when doing my weekly shop.

  The supermarket is a yuppie’s dream - Sage loves the place.

  Organic this, hand-reared that. I roll my eyes as I walk past the spirulina and add a bag of potatoes to the trolley.

  A man with a trolley full of frozen lobster and nothing else strolls past me in shorts and sandals. The hairs on his legs stand to attention. First timer.

  Bill’s does it’s best to look like an independent, high-end retail store, but it’s just the expensive arm of a huge supermarket chain.

  I turn up the next aisle, where I need to fight my way through at least 86 different varieties of organic granola to find some good old fashioned corn flakes, and bang into a woman with electric blonde hair and the sweet scent of honeysuckle emanating from her.

  Devin Summer.

  “I’m so sorry!” I exclaim.

  I haven’t come across the supermodel since her much-talked-about arrival in town a few months earlier, but I know it’s her because I’ve seen her face every day on the huge billboard that features her face n
ot once but twice. On the left side, her chin is raised, her eyes closed. On the right, her chin is lowered and she stares off to the side. In both, she appears to be topless, although the camera only shows down to her shoulders. She’s all scapula, clavicle and humerus.

  The billboard was here (advertising a perfume that definitely isn’t honeysuckle) before she was, and some of the townfolk were sent in a spin at the thought of a supermodel sharing their locale.

  The excitement has died down now, and Devin keeps herself to herself.

  She turns to look at me and I try not to gasp as I find myself looking at a real life supermodel. She’s striking, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t call her beautiful. Or attractive, really. You’d look twice at her, sure, but I think she almost looks like an alien. There’s something not quite human about her eyes; something unseeing, or maybe too seeing.

  A chill runs through me.

  “I didn’t see you.” I blurt out, which must be something she’s not used to hearing. I want her to do something to make this less awkward, but she just stands there. I realise after a few dumb moments of silence that I’m not just picking up on my nerves, I’m feeling her emotions as well. Sadness radiates from her. I feel an overwhelming desire to put as much space as I can between us.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. What can I say? I’m a helper.

  Devin makes eye contact with me and I force myself not to look away.

  “Yes.” She says. Her accent is clipped, impossible to trace. I believe she’s American with Scandinavian roots. “You’re the psychic?”

  “Medium… yes.” I say, then hold my hand out. “Connie Winters.”

  Devin allows me to shake her hand, and I become aware of her painful body proportions. Her wrists are almost the same circumference as my thumbs. “Devin Summer.”

  “Oh, we’ve got half the seasons covered, girl!” I exclaim with a stage laugh.

  Devin gives a nod. She’s clearly not in a rush to move away, so I push my trolley forwards.

  “Bye for now.” I say, and even offer a little wave, just to prove that I am a complete loser.