by Nic Saint
With the coffeehouse being this busy and Ginger in a lousy mood, there was no way she’d be allowed to try out any new experiments. Not that she felt like doing so. After everything that had happened, food experiments were the furthest thing from her mind right now.
Sam strode from Brigham Shatwell’s, coffees and cupcakes in hand, when he suddenly remembered something. He quickly returned to the coffeehouse, trying to draw the attention of the coffee girl. “Um, Miss!” he bellowed.
The woman turned, eyeing him with large eyes that seemed shadowed somehow. “Edelie,” she said, and only now did he check her name tag.
He frowned. “Are you by any chance related to Ernestine Flummox?”
“She’s my sister,” the woman said. “Why? Is there a problem, officer?”
“No, not a problem,” he said with a grin. “Just an awfully big coincidence. I was just talking to your sister twenty minutes ago.”
“About Gran?” Edelie asked, eyes wide. “Something happened to her?”
“No, no, not about your grandmother. A different matter entirely. I was at your house yesterday, though. Your sister might have told you about that?”
“Yes—yes, she told me. Though I didn’t know it was you.”
“Yeah, every time someone’s granny goes missing, I’m the one they call.”
He got her to smile at that, and he was glad. She looked better when she smiled. “Look,” he said, “I forgot to ask for some cream. My partner…”
“He doesn’t like his coffee black,” she supplied. “Got it.” She quickly added some cream to his bag, and he gave her a nod in appreciation.
“Say hi to your sister for me,” he said, “and tell her that if you guys need anything, anything at all, just give me a call.”
“Will do, officer.”
“Detective,” he said. “Detective Barkley. But you can call me Sam.”
“Edelie,” she said. “Though my sisters call me Edie.”
“Have a great one, Edie!” he said, striding out.
She was a great gal, he thought as he left the coffeehouse for the third time that morning. Completely different from her sisters but very nice. Then he berated himself. What was up with him? Why did he keep hitting on those Flummox sisters? Good thing he hadn’t been flirting with Estrella, or else it would have been three for three. And shaking his head, he stepped into the car and handed Pierre his coffee and cupcakes. That would keep him happy.
“Where to now?” Pierre asked, licking his lips as he checked out the cupcakes.
“Let’s take another stab at Lyndon Bloom, shall we?”
“The guy finally turn up?”
“He turned up all right. Spent the night in Paris, apparently.”
“Paris! Good for him.”
“Yeah,” he said as he started up the trusty Crown Vic. “Living the good life, buddy. Living the good life.”
“Not so good if his wife got murdered,” Pierre put in.
His fingers paused on the ignition. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Having your wife killed, even though she’s almost your ex, probably isn’t much fun.”
Not that he would know. He’d never been married, so no wives or ex-wives to worry about. Then he put the car in gear and, for the second time that morning, peeled away from the curb, leaving a hubcap in his wake.
Chapter 22
Estrella was sitting cross-legged on her bed, phone in hand. Her brow was furrowed and her mood low. She’d called half a dozen production companies but none of them had any work for her. Either a sudden crisis had broken out in the advertising business—and overnight at that—or they’d all been informed about her latest stunt and preferred to keep their studios intact and not demolished by her surprisingly muscular vocal shenanigans.
She brought her phone to her ear again, a little bit worried about the bill she was racking up. The moment the call connected, she affected her most chipper voice.
“Boon? Estrella. I wanted you to be the first to know I have an opening in my schedule, so if you wanted to book me now, I’m pretty sure I could squeeze you in.”
“Estrella, yeah, hi,” a laid-back voice sounded. Then a long pause, followed by, “Look, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, babe, but I got a call from Mike last night. Something about you demolishing his studio?”
“That was an accident,” she was quick to say. “And I promise you it will never happen again, Boon.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure you didn’t mean no harm, babe, but the thing is, this is a very small industry, and word kinda spreads fast, you know…”
She closed her eyes and cursed inwardly. “Don’t tell me I’m being blacklisted, Boon.”
“Yeah. Yeah, basically you are. I’m sorry, Strel. I always loved working with you. You may not have the greatest voice, but you’re way cool. Sorry.”
After the call disconnected, she sat staring at the wall for a bit, then dropped the phone and flopped back on the bed, her arms under her head.
So she was being blacklisted, huh? How about that? She stared at the ceiling, taking in the sparkly lights she’d hung up there ten Christmases ago and had left up ever since. She loved Christmas. It was her favorite time of the year. Always had been, always would. If she could have Christmas year round, she’d be the happiest almost-twenty-one-year-old in the world.
So she wasn’t going to be a singer and she wasn’t going to be a voice-over artist. What was left? She could be a stylist, of course, like Kim. If only she could manage to keep her own clothes in her own wardrobe and not go flouncing around the house, harassing her sisters and disturbing their sleep.
And then she heard the door slam downstairs and sat up. Gran was back! It had to be her, for Ernestine and Edelie were still at work—unless they’d both been blacklisted as well, which she didn’t think was likely.
“Gran!” she yelled as she hopped from the bed. “Wanna hear the latest?”
But when she arrived on the landing and peered over the old wooden balustrade she saw no one. She decided to go check and hopped down the stairs, her brand-new yellow Crocs silent on the red runner. When she arrived in the hallway, she saw no sign of Gran. She wasn’t in the living room, the parlor or the kitchen either, and when she checked the terrace, she didn’t see her in the garden. So she returned to the kitchen, filling a glass of water at the tap and taking a big gulp. All this talking to producers had made her seriously thirsty. And when she was tipping back the glass of water, she noticed a spot on the ceiling and groaned. Probably a bit of Edie’s rat bits.
So she dragged a chair from the breakfast nook to the sink and stood on top of it, trying to reach the spot. She was the shortest of the three sisters, and she couldn’t quite reach the ceiling. So she stood on her tippy-toes and slapped a kitchen towel at the recalcitrant piece of frittered rats’ guts. It finally peeled away from the ceiling and dropped on her face.
“Yuck!” she yelled and frantically brushed it off in a flurry of movement.
And that’s when she noticed that the ceiling was vibrating and she stood stock-still, listening intently. It was a soft rhythmic tapping. And since Gran’s room was located just over the kitchen, it was obvious what the source of the tapping was. But how had Gran managed to sneak past her?
She hopped off the chair and trotted into the hallway, then up the stairs, humming a little tune, characteristically off-key. She arrived upstairs and strode over to the door to Gran’s room, and listened for a moment. Someone was moving around in there, all right, but why would Gran sneak into her room like this, when she knew Estrella was home? Usually, she dropped by for a chat or called out to join her in the kitchen for a cup of tea and biscuits.
And that’s when she heard it.
A hoarse chuckle, in a voice that was definitely not Gran’s!
Someone was in there with her! Someone whose voice she’d never heard before. And for some strange reason a sudden fear gripped her, and her hand, which had been poised to knock, lowered and dropped down to her side,
and she took a step away from the door. Something very weird was going on. Ernestine and Edelie were right. Something was wrong with Gran.
But before she could return to her own room, the door to Gran’s room was suddenly yanked open, and the woman appeared, glancing around suspiciously. When she caught sight of her granddaughter, a smile crept up her face, but it was a smile of such fakeness Estrella had to suppress a groan.
“Hello there, dear,” said Gran in the sweetest possible tone. “Were you looking for me?”
“I was,” she admitted, then took a step closer, trying to look past Gran into her room. “Do you have a visitor in there?”
Gran blocked her view, and said, “No, of course not. Just me, myself and I. How was breakfast? Did Edie fix you guys up something nice and tasty?”
“Edelie fixed us up the worst breakfast in the history of the world,” she said, her stomach turning at the recollection.
“Oh, that’s such a pity,” said Gran vaguely. “But she did whip up something, didn’t she? I can feel it.” She held out a hand as if trying to determine if it was windy or not. “Yes, I can definitely feel the magic in the air.”
“Yeah, I guess she did her best.”
“That’s just wonderful,” said Gran, rubbing her hands with glee. “Now we’re just waiting for Ernestine to perform her magic, and we’re all set.”
“All set for what?” she asked, puzzled.
“Oh, that’s nothing for you to worry about, dear,” said Gran, patting her hideous hair absentmindedly. “Now run along. Granny has some stuff to take care of.” And promptly she returned to her room and slammed the door shut. This time, Estrella heard the key turning in the lock, and she gasped. Gran never locked her door! What the heck was going on?!
Then an idea occurred to her. She remembered Edelie once telling her there were secret passageways that ran all through the house. She’d been using them for years and liked to curl up in the walls to read one of those depressing novels she loved so much. Estrella had never taken an interest, either in the novels or the passageways, being more the outdoorsy type, and neither had Ernestine, who didn’t do creepy and bug-infested. But maybe now was a good time to find out if there was a way to peek into Gran’s room.
Returning to her own room, she picked her phone from the bed, and while she waited for the call to connect, strode to the window and looked out across the street. All the houses on Nightingale Street were old and well-maintained, with big gardens and lots of space, which was exceptional in this part of the city, but none of them were as nice as Safflower House. At least as long as Gran didn’t insist on turning the garden into a patio and the greenhouse into a garage for this new ‘muscle car’ obsession of hers…
Edelie finally picked up with a morose, “Yo.”
“Edie!” she hissed, “Gran is behaving weird again. This time she’s locked herself up in her room. And I could swear there’s a guy in there with her!”
“Yeah, what else is new?” Edie asked, and Estrella could hear the hustle and bustle of the coffeehouse and someone yelling, “Edelie! Customers!”
Poor Edelie, Estrella thought. She wasn’t having a lot of fun at work.
“I can’t talk now,” her sister said. “My psycho boss is acting up again.”
“I need you to tell me how to get into those secret passageways you like so much. I want to find out what Gran is up to!” she quickly told her sister.
“Later,” Edelie said gruffly, then promptly disconnected.
“Aargh!” Estrella cried in frustration and dropped down on the bed. If things didn’t go back to normal very quickly now, she was going to murder someone! Which suddenly reminded her of Detective Barkley. Maybe she should give him a call? Something weird was going on with Gran, and it had all started when she met this Ronny Mullarkey guy. Maybe he was the one in there with Gran! Maybe he’d put a spell on her!
Detective Barkley… She pictured the handsome cop and felt her stomach go weak all of a sudden. He was gruff and rude but also intensely and irresistibly virile. She was sure that if she called him right now and told him Ronny was in the house, doing weird and suspicious stuff with Gran he’d come right over! Or would he? He hadn’t seemed particularly keen the previous day, expecting dead bodies where no dead bodies were.
No, the fact that Gran had taken up entertaining untrustworthy men in her room hardly seemed like a good enough reason to call the police…
“Aargh!” she groaned again and jumped up from the bed. Suddenly she wanted to get out of there, and started changing into her running clothes. She needed some fresh air—and to put this entire situation out of her mind. Edelie and Ernestine would be back in a couple of hours, and they could decide what to do then. Right now she needed to work off some of her frustration!
So she called out, “Going for a run, Gran!” and raced down the stairs, then out of the house. Safflower House had always been her home, and she loved the place, but the moment she closed the door behind her, such a wave of relief washed over her that she was momentarily floored. What was going on?
Chapter 23
“I just had to get away,” Lyndon said, wringing his hands incessantly.
The guy seemed a nervous wreck, Sam thought, his face white as chalk and his eyes red and bleary. He was one of the city’s best-known financiers, and one of the mayor’s friends—he’d funded his last campaign—and there were even rumors circulating he might run for mayor himself when his friend’s term was up. This divorce had taken a huge toll on him, however.
“So you’re telling me you spent the night in Paris?”
“I have an apartment in the 7th arrondissement, near the Eiffel Tower.”
“Of course you have.”
“You can check my plane’s arrival time with the airport. I keep all my planes at the private airstrip, but flight data is all logged in by the pilot.”
“Of course,” he repeated, wondering how many people he knew who had private planes—plural. It was a very short list: Lyndon Bloom. Well, that put him in the clear for his wife’s murder, of course. Not that he’d ever seriously considered the possibility he was involved. The case had all the hallmarks of the invisible choker, and this guy didn’t look like a serial killer.
“Did you and your wife break up a long time go?”
“Only last month,” he said, nervously bringing a hand to his face. “But we’d been living apart for almost a year. She had her own place, and we rarely spoke.”
“So the divorce didn’t come as a surprise?”
“No, not really. I’d been giving it a lot of thought, and finally decided that I was better off without her. Living apart had shown me I could live without her, so…” He broke off and rubbed his face with his hands. “I can’t believe she’s gone!” Then he looked up, eyes pleading. “Who did this to her, Detective?”
“We’re working on the supposition the invisible choker is involved.”
Lyndon’s eyes went wide. “The invisible choker! Not that… monster!”
“I’m afraid so. Unfortunately the murder of your wife fits the same MO.”
“But why? What’s the connection?”
“Well,” Sam said, settling back, “Your wife fits the profile to a T, I’m afraid. All the victims so far were between twenty-five and thirty-five, all beautiful, highly successful and prominent figures of society.” There was another feature they shared, but he didn’t know if it was a good idea to get into that right now.
They were conducting the interview in Lyndon Bloom’s apartment, overlooking Central Park. It was probably the nicest pad he’d ever set foot in. From the furniture to the furnishings, everything looked like it had cost a small fortune, which it probably did. Parts of Lyndon’s art collection were on display here that any collector would salivate over, and he figured Lyndon must have a state-of-the-art security system to keep the bad guys out.
He had to hand it to the guy, though, the place was also cozy. You could feel that actual people lived here and that they�
�d made this place their home. He wondered how much of it was Selena and how much Lyndon.
“There is one other trait they all shared,” he finally said after a quick look at Pierre. “All of the victims reportedly dabbled in the occult.”
“The occult?”
“That’s right. Your wife took an active interest in the paranormal.”
“But that was just a hobby. I mean, Selena loved to consult tarot cards and palmists and was into Kabbalah, but that’s hardly dabbling in the occult.”
“According to our information, she did a lot more than that. She and a group of her friends used to meet in Central Park from time to time to…” He eyed Pierre again, but the man was studying a sculpture of a swan with particular interest. “… to dance naked under the light of the full moon.”
Lyndon laughed, an astonished look on his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“No, we have it from a reliable source. Selena and her friends reportedly did this because they believed it would help them stay young forever.”
“Now that I can believe,” Lyndon said, nodding. “She was obsessed with staying young. She hated growing older and battled every wrinkle with a ferocity perhaps better reserved for a worthier cause. I didn’t think her devotion to youth and beauty went that far, however. Who told you this?”
He checked his notebook. They’d interviewed two of Selena’s friends before finally being granted an interview with the great Lyndon Bloom. “A woman called Zada Fundus and another one called Ola O’Regano.”
“Yes, they were two of Selena’s best friends.”
“They both took part in these rituals, along with four other women.”
“Dancing naked under the full moon,” said Lyndon, that look of astonishment still on his face. “I never would have thought Selena was into that kind of stuff.”
“Well, that’s the link that connects her to the other victims. All of them were into the occult to some extent, whether it was trying to get in touch with their ancestors through a medium or toying with witchcraft, they all believed in the paranormal—in a higher power not of this world. Hell, I don’t know,” he said, raking his hand through his hair. “I don’t even know if it’s important. Just one of those things we hope will help us catch this murdering maniac.”