by K. J. Emrick
Only… having Richard back in my life—albeit as a ghost—kind of made things crowded for me. It’s very difficult to be affectionate with my boyfriend, when I know my husband’s spirit might pop in for a visit and decide to look over our shoulders? Not that James can see him, but I can, and I have to believe that would kill the whole mood. James and I do seem to be past that particular rocky patch though, having consummated our relationship a while back. Even though it was a little uncomfortable for me, expecting Richard to pop up at any time. He didn’t though and I’m glad for that.
What I need to do is have a sit down with Richard. His ghost, I mean. Clear the air between us. I had just about moved past him leaving me when I’d started dating James, and now… well. I didn’t exactly know where I stood now. In love, certainly, but other than that where was I?
Blinking, I looked around me at the houses and the streets and the people. Where I was, right now, was two streets over from Revelation Way, where Barnaby Thorne and his family lived. Pastor Albright had mentioned that Barnaby had been helping out around the church at the same time that his dog went missing. I’d meant to go and talk to Barnaby anyway, before people started showing up dead in my walls.
Guess now was as good a time as any to do just that.
I’d meant to ask Rosie if she knew anything about young Barnaby, too, but that had fallen by the wayside, all things considered. I could talk to the kid now, though. Make myself useful for something.
For a small town so back of Bourke that dingos have to use a map to find us, Lakeshore has a lot of small, interconnected streets. White painted houses line most of them, and Revelation Way is no exception. The whole length of it is only enough for four houses before it dead ends, two on each side, but they’re the pricier sort of home you find in places like this. Bigger yards. Two stories tall. Shrubs lined up outside that are all neat and trim, with creatively spaced flower gardens lining walkways of dolerite flagstone. That was what they mined in the rock pits just outside of town. I use it around the Inn, too.
Guess you might say this town survives on its rocks.
That bit of quarry humor didn’t do much to brighten my day as I went up the driveway of the Thorne home, to the little porch at their front door. A black number four was hammered in place under a peephole, stark against the white paint. I’ve seen people in Lakeshore put up white house numbers, and as you can expect they pretty much disappear against the background. S’okay, though. Our mailman knows where everybody lives. A lot of families, like the Thorne’s, have lived in the same house for generations.
I rang the doorbell. Or I tried to, at least. The little plastic rectangle to the right of the door had obviously been sitting unused for a while. The last time the house had been repainted, the doorbell had been painted over too, and now it was all sealed up. There were other signs that the house wasn’t being properly tended to. The shrubs under both front windows were growing wild. The flowers were all dying in the heat. Little things, to be sure. Nothing obvious. Just enough to make me think the Thorne’s were just as hard up as rumor said they were, regardless of what street they lived on.
Giving up on the doorbell, I knocked instead. Then, I knocked again.
“Hold on,” someone called out. There was the sound of something falling with a dull thud, and the creaking of floorboards, and then a very colorful string of curse words followed before the door was unlocked from the inside.
A woman with stringy brown hair tied mostly into a ponytail looked out at me through the small space she had opened for me, just enough for her to hold the door braced on her inside foot and for her to look out past me, up and down the street, like she was worried someone would see us talking. There were enough lines creasing her face to make me believe worry was a constant state of being for her.
“What d’ya want?” she asked me. “No soliciting. I’m very busy. What is it?”
I’ve had warmer welcomes. “Mrs. Thorne?”
“I’m Beverly Thorne. What of it?” She squinted her eyes at me. “I know you. You’re that woman runs the Inn, ain’t ya?”
“Yes. I’m Dell Powers. I think we’ve met once or twice?” Actually I wasn’t sure of anything of the kind, but in a small town everyone meets everyone else eventually. “I was actually hoping I could talk to your son. Barnaby. Is he home?”
She took a few steps back, narrowing the opening of the door that she held to so tightly. “Barnaby ain’t done a thing wrong. He’s a good boy.”
I had to wonder what had happened in her life, behind these doors, that would make her so defensive about her son. I knew from past experience that whenever you went into someone’s home you never knew what you might be stepping into. Lots of screwy things went on behind closed doors, to be sure. It wasn’t my place to ask, I guess.
Then again, it sure looked like someone should.
“Mrs. Thorne, is everything all right?”
Her expression hardened, and I could see by the way she set her jaw that she was about to shut the door on me. “Barnaby’s not here,” she snapped. “Ya got no business with him, no how. Get on with ya.”
“It’s about Pastor Albright’s dog,” I said as quickly as I could.
She hesitated, the door almost closed, her eyes flicking up at me and then away into the gloomy interior of the house. “My son don’t have a dog,” she said after another moment. “Just go.”
Then the door really did close, leaving me on the porch.
Well. That was less than a smashing success. Chance would be a fine thing, if someday there was a mystery in this town that just sort of solved itself. Pastor Albright’s dog could come home on his own, for instance. Whoever murdered that poor man in my Inn could just show up to have lunch with me. It could happen.
It just wasn’t likely.
For a moment I stood there, stringing my unicorn charm along its necklace cord, considering whether to knock on the door again and try a different approach with Mrs. Thorne. When the blinds at the front window snapped closed I gave that idea up. She obviously didn’t want to talk to me. Or anyone.
I wondered if Barnaby would be that closed-lipped. If I could even find him, that is. If memory served he was still a teenager. Where did teens hang out in Lakeshore?
Stepping off the porch I had to laugh, although I stifled it in case Mrs. Thorne was watching me through her shuttered blinds. Teens didn’t hang out anywhere in Lakeshore. There was no place for them to hang out here. They went up to Geeveston or Hobart, if they wanted to do anything.
Or they went swimming.
Lakeshore got its name exactly because it’s situated on the shores of three big lakes. There’s Pine Lake, of course, where my Inn was built. Then there’s Gallipoli Lake, and Lake Bowen. Pine Lake is more of a fishing and birdwatching spot. Gallipoli lends a nice view to hikers out on the trails but I wouldn’t want to take a dip in it. The water’s been turned to this deep turquoise color thanks to some interesting algae growing there, courtesy of the dolerite mining operation nearby.
Which leaves Bowen Lake. That’s always been a favorite spot for people to go swimming, especially teenagers looking to spend the last of the warm summer days goofing off in the cool, placid waters.
Bowen Lake is huge, though. I know some of the favorite spots the kids use, and I could start there. I mean, I’m not so old that I don’t remember being a teenager myself. There’s this one spot with a rope swing and a few sheltered alcoves along the shoreline. Maybe Barnaby is there. Maybe he has a girlfriend, and that would be a good spot to get away from parents for a day, under the sun, in the cool water, with your girl in a two-piece…
A flash of memory from when Richard and I had started dating came to mind, and I blushed on my way up the street to the Milkbar. Well. If Barnaby was anything like me and Richard were, then I’d say it was more than a safe bet that Bowen Lake was where I’d find him.
I wasn’t going to walk all that way right now, though. That kind of a walk out there would take more than an h
our. I didn’t want to be away from town for that long. Not now, when there was so much going on in my Inn.
No call from Kevin on my mobile. Guess he hasn’t solved the mystery of the dead man in the wall yet.
Of course, I hadn’t solved the case of the missing dog, either. At least that victim was probably still alive.
My stomach was growling by the time I got a turkey sandwich at the Morris Milkbar. I bought a couple soft drinks to go with it. One to drink with lunch, one for after. I’d decided to call Kevin when I was done eating. If there was no word about what was happening at the Inn, then I was going to go track down Barnaby.
Cathy’s place was doing a pretty good business today. Customers lined up at the counter, although I was the only one sitting at one of the three round tables set up for customers who didn’t want to just get their food and go. In the coolers lined up along the walls Cathy sold wrapped sandwiches made fresh daily and fruit and even boxed meals. Up at the front counter she could make almost any kind of sandwich you might want, and she was a master of her craft. Maybe not as fancy as Rosie was in our kitchen, or as diversified, but the tourists who made a stop at the Milkbar never went away disappointed.
I finished the first half of my sandwich, watching Cathy Morris in her button up white butcher’s coat cutting slices of salami to put on thick pieces of brown bread for a young man and woman who had walked in with smiles on their faces, arms round each other. A young couple taking a day down here in Lakeshore to see the sights. I watched them as much as I watched Cathy, reminded again that I hadn’t called James yet.
That would have to be next on my growing list of things to do. I took out my mobile anyway, deciding I could at least give him a text.
Cathy was just in her early twenties and I kind of envied her being so successful so early in life. Her blonde hair was tied back into one of those hairnets while she worked, and her blue eyes returned her customers’ smiles. She worked hard, and no doubt she deserved her success, but when I was that young I was still trying to get my Inn off the ground, so to speak. Richard and I had more or less just started our life together and we had no idea what the future would have in store for us. I wonder sometimes, looking back, if we would have done anything different if we’d known what was coming.
Probably not. We had our years together, and I have our son and our daughter, too. Time moves on, as I like to say.
Taking another bite of my sandwich, I noticed someone had stepped up to my table. My mind had been so wrapped up in thoughts of James, my boyfriend, and Richard, my dead ex-husband, that I’d forgotten to pay attention to what was going on around me.
I swallowed, and looked up into the mashed face of Mick Pullman.
Mick had been a boxer in his younger years, as he fancied telling everyone who would listen, and the experience of God alone knew how many professional fights had left him with squinted eyes and a swollen nose and puffed up cheeks. Basically, his face was frozen in the expression of someone who had just been struck in the face by a two-by-four. He was a nice enough man, and he made an honest living as a general contractor, but I think I’ve told you my opinion of his work. If you wanted someone who worked cheap, you rang up Mick Pullman.
If you wanted it done right… well, you called someone else.
He was wearing his usual blue overalls with a red shirt that had only a few major stains on it, and that blue baseball cap that I’ve never seen him without.
He looked down at me now with an uncertain smile. “Miss Powers.”
“Um. Hello, Mick.” I took a quick sip from my soft drink bottle to clear my throat. “Sorry, I was thinking.”
Thinking about the two men I’ve loved in my life, but Mick doesn’t need to know that part.
“I could tell,” he said, taking the fact that I’d spoken to him as an invitation to sit down at the table with me. “Begging your pardon, Miss Powers. Don’t mean to break into your meal, but I saw ya here through the window and, well, I figured we needed to talk.”
“We do?” I racked my brain but couldn’t come up with anything that I needed to talk to Mick Pullman about.
“Er, yes, Miss Powers. We do. I heard tell about what happened at yer Inn this morning.”
Well, can’t say that’s surprising. There was no helping it, really. In fact, if every last man, woman, and child in Lakeshore hadn’t heard about it by now I’d be surprised. Even old Arthur Loren, town coot, must’ve heard this rumor by now.
And I still needed to call James. A bit late to be the first one to tell him, I’m sure, but better late than never.
I swiped at the screen on my mobile while Mick fidgeted, which gave me a reason to keep from staring at him. “I’m still confused,” I said. “What d’you think we need to talk about, Mick? That business at the Inn is bad, sure, but—”
“Exactly, Miss Powers. Bad business, but nobody’s fault, right? We’re both adults here, and we can sure agree that it ain’t nobody’s fault.”
I had a simple message ready to send to James—Did you hear what happened at the Inn?—but now my finger hesitated over the send button.
What was Mick on about?
As I continued to sit there in silence, Mick took his hat off, fisting it in his hands. Tangled curls of perspiration-damp hair fell loose across his forehead. It wasn’t that warm out. It made me a little curious why he was sweating.
“Now, look,” he said, pursing his lips. “I redid that fireplace nice and sound last time. Just like ya asked me to. It was solid as the ground we walk on, it was. No need to be blaming me for this, right?”
Now I understood. Mick was worried I’d blame him for the fireplace coming apart, because it had been him that I hired to fix it up last time. I’d forgotten all about that. George had even said something about it this morning just before we found the body in the wall, too. Sure. That had been almost six years ago. The last time I hired Mick to do anything at all. I remembered now.
“It took you almost three days to rebrick that fireplace,” I said, talking through the memory as it came back to me. I didn’t mean it as an accusation. Mick took it that way anyhow.
He winced, and on his face it was like watching a mountain curl up on itself. “Now, see, that was because I wanted it to be done right. I took me time with it, is what I did. I know there was all them rumors about me drinking heavy and sleeping through the next morning, but none of that was true. You got what ya paid me for, and that’s fair dinkum. I mean, that part of me life’s over anyway. Haven’t touched a drop of liquor in three… well, two years now.”
I was only half-listening to him. There had been a lot going on back then. No wonder I’d forgotten about who I’d hired to fix the fireplace. Richard and I had just found the cracks in the mortar between the bricks right before he…
Before he…
Oh, snap.
“See,” Mick said, barreling on about why the fireplace falling apart again wasn’t his fault, “I even stayed on to complete me work after your husband left and I wasn’t sure if I’d be getting paid for that fine bit of handiwork.”
I looked at him, looked right through him, his words turning into a soft droning that mixed with the buzzing sound in my ears. Richard and I had found the cracks in the fireplace. We chose to hire Mick even though he’d screwed up on projects for us before, because George said he wasn’t any good at laying brick. That night, Richard and I had gone to bed… no… I went to bed...
Richard said he had some errands to run. He said not to wait up for him.
Tears stung my eyes. I went to bed, and… and…
That was the last time I saw Richard.
Right before the fireplace got rebricked, and sealed up.
Then, today we found a body wrapped in a tarp in the space between the walls, behind a poorly patched section of bricks.
It couldn’t be.
No. I refused to believe it. I refused to!
I stood up, pushing my chair away hard enough that it fell over backward with a clatte
r that drew every eye in the Milkbar to me. I didn’t care. I needed to get out of here. I needed to talk to Kevin. Now.
Most of all, I needed what I was thinking to not be true.
The body in my wall, the body that had been there right along… was Richard.
No. Oh, please God, no.
“Miss Powers,” Mick said, standing up as I raced for the door, “you won’t sue me now, will ya?”
Outside, on the sidewalk, I realized I still had my mobile in my hand and the text message to James typed out and ready to send. I erased it, and as I half ran up the street I typed out another one instead.
Meet me at the Inn. Please.
No sooner had that gone through, and my phone rang.
It was Kevin.
“Mom. Um. You need to come back to the Inn. We got the body out and… Mom. Come home.”
“I’m already on my way,” I told him. I could hear it in his voice. There was no use trying to deny it anymore.
The mystery of where my ex-husband had died was over. Now there was a new question to be answered.
Someone had killed Richard. Someone here, in this town.
The question… was who.
Chapter 4
If I thought the Inn had been a hub of activity before, now it was practically the Sydney Airport on a holiday weekend.
The circular drive was a parking lot of cars. People had started parking there after our small lot had filled up. There were even cars on the slope of Fenlong Street. I saw the town’s two police cars, and a black van with the word “Coroner” on the side. Some of the others were the Inn’s guests. The rest didn’t belong here, I knew, and the only reason they were was because of all the excitement.