The Murder of Shakespeare's Ghost

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Okay, so the game is afoot—what game is it?” Neely asked.

  “If we were in the middle of one of your beloved Alfred Hitchcock psychological thrillers, Neely, I’d say someone has it in for Robyn and is trying to drive her mad.”

  “That’s interesting, Marty,” Charly commented. “The motive for a game like that is usually money or revenge. She told us she has no money, what about men?”

  “She’s never told me much about her love life, so I pried into it a little this morning before she left to supervise the cleanup. What I asked her is if there’s an ex-husband or an old flame who could have broken in to her cottage for some reason. Maybe to take back an engagement ring that has sentimental value even if it’s not worth much money. Robyn scoffed at the idea. For good reason, too, since she’s never been married. In fact, she claims she never had another serious relationship with anyone after her fiancé was killed in Viet Nam in the early seventies.”

  “How sad is that?” I asked as Neely paused to eat a big mouthful of the dense pink cake on her plate. The rich icing is chock full of strawberries which gives it a delicious flavor to go with the cheery pink color.

  “What’s sad is that she’s not eating this cake. I’m already getting a sugar buzz after two bites.” As Marty said that, Scheherazade appeared out of nowhere and levitated up onto the arm of the club chair in which Marty sat. She reached out and pawed at Marty’s arm trying to move it toward her so she could get a bite of cake. Maybe she was enticed by the butter and cream in the icing.

  “No, Princess, this is Mama’s. All Mama’s.” Marty pulled a tiny treat from a pocket and gave it to Scheherazade who took it. The cat made little throaty sounds that sounded like grumbling to me. Marty must have thought so, too.

  “She can gripe all the wants. Even I have my limits. Strawberry cake isn’t cat food.” Marty scarfed down another bite before speaking again. “What Robyn has told me about her past is that she lived a very boring, quiet life in Fresno as a librarian. She always dreamed of being able to walk along the beach every day. The location, plus the appeal to a former librarian of living in the Writers’ Circle, made Seaview Cottages the perfect choice. She may not have money, but she’ll come into some once she sells her condo in Fresno. When Robyn moved here, she put her condo up for rent instead of selling it. That way she could move back to Fresno if she didn’t like it here.”

  “That’s what she told me, too,” Midge added. “Her condo is on the market, now. Has she ever said anything to any of you about a family member who might have a grudge because Robyn inherited grandma’s china or a vintage brooch, or something seemingly petty like that?”

  “I know she has a married sister in Fresno who’s a widow. Maybe Rose has kids with an axe to grind against Aunt Robyn, but I’ve never heard anything about a troubled niece or nephew. If her sister has children and they’re anything like their mother and aunt, it would be hard to imagine them turning out to be monsters who would break in to Aunt Robyn’s house and terrorize her. Rose is an oncology nurse with hospice care and Robyn volunteered with her sister’s organization. They’re a couple of strong, caring, independent women, as far as I can tell. What do I know?” Marty asked.

  “Robyn comes across as a sweet, self-effacing woman who doesn’t enjoy talking about herself. It’s also possible that she’s said so little about her past because there is a skeleton or two in her closet, too,” Neely suggested with a tone of reluctance in her voice. “Robyn’s never experienced anything like this latest incident. The ghostly intruder has been pretty stealthy during his previous visits.”

  “The Shakespeare’s ghost ruse is pretty sophisticated for a niece or nephew out to reclaim a family heirloom. The scary ghost routine makes more sense if someone is searching for something in the cottage and is trying to conceal his identity or would prefer to search an empty cottage. Especially if the ghost is now moving on from stealth snooping to demolition. I don’t have your experience dealing with criminal minds, Charly, so I’m in the ‘what do I know?’ camp alongside Marty.”

  Pete’s smiling face had triggered that wave of uncertainty about my ability to judge people. My husband’s sudden death had left me with a financial mess to untangle rooted in a series of surprisingly bad decisions he’d made without revealing them to me. The man I’d married had been keeping secrets from me for years, including taking out a second mortgage on our house in Ohio. I’m not sure those secrets could be characterized as skeletons in a closet, but now that the shock of his death has worn off, I find the revelations disturbing.

  “Would it be wrong to run a background check on our client?” We all glanced at Charly waiting to hear her response to Marty’s question.

  “I’ll bet we won’t need to do that. We’re not the only ones trying to understand why someone has been in her cottage. Robyn Chappell isn’t Hank’s friend or neighbor, nor is she a client, so I’d be surprised if he didn’t run a background check on her today. If she has a history of legal or money problems, he’ll find.”

  “What were he and Darnell doing there last night? My head hurt too bad to stick around and interrogate him. I heard you ask him, Miriam. Confess! What did the attractive detective who finds you so amusing tell you?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said blushing. “I’m still Mrs. Webster as far as he knows, and I’m not sure I like being a source of amusement to him. He didn’t give me an explanation for why he and the irksome deputy were out after midnight and responding to a call about a prowler. If anyone knows more about Hank Miller’s agenda, it’s Charly.” All eyes were on Charly again. If she’d intended to keep it to herself, she yielded to the pressure and let out a big sigh as she responded.

  “They’re working a different case. I’m not privy to all the details, but it has something to do with smuggling counterfeit goods. I’m almost certain it’s an offshoot of the investigation into one of Diana Durand’s little sidelines. That probably explains why both Hank and Darnell are involved. If the smugglers are bringing goods in along the coast near here, my guess is that they were on a stakeout not far from here and responded to the call about a prowler thinking it might have something to do with their investigation.”

  “Hank may not tell us what’s going on, but Darnell will. If I run a scenario like that by him as if I already know what’s up, he’ll bluster and accuse me of eavesdropping. Then, we’ll know you’re on the right track.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Midge,” Charly argued. “I’ve already been assured that I’m on the right track. As I said, I don’t have the details, but I understand they have a body on their hands. A drowned man washed up on the rocks near Woolf Point. From the police report, it appears if he hadn’t drowned, he probably would have died from a fractured skull. Even though there’s no indication in that report about a tie-in to the smuggling investigation, it was brought to my attention as a reason to be careful with our snooping.”

  “All we need is to get mixed up in someone else’s game,” I said.

  “The members of the smuggling ring are ruthless. Devers found one of the locals who transported goods for them, dead in the trunk of an abandoned vehicle on the highway. That was the same day we found Diana’s body.”

  “Oh, no!” Marty exclaimed. “No more dead bodies!”

  “We’ll be fine if we stay focused on Robyn, the cottage, the cottage’s owners and tenants—current and past. Before they left, I reminded Joe and Carl that they’re already in enough trouble with the authorities. So, surveillance cameras, yes. More night patrols, no. If they hadn’t hit that tree, they would have chased Shakespeare’s ghost down to the beach. Given how close we are to a number of spots with excellent anchorage and easy access to the beach from the water, they could have had more than one prowler on their hands.”

  “What about George Pierson?” I asked. “Shouldn’t the landlord get more scrutiny as well as the tenants and owners?”

  “Yes. I’ll check him out, although it wouldn’t surprise me if
someone at the Sheriff’s Department has already done that, too. How much do you know about him, Marty?”

  “Not much more than I shared with you already. He’s never done anything that I regarded as suspicious, but to be sure he’s on the up and up, why not check him out? Maybe Scheherazade dislikes him for a reason.”

  “If he’s mixed up in whatever’s going on in Shakespeare’s Cottage that would explain why he hasn’t already installed a surveillance camera—on the porch and patio if not inside the house. He also seemed to dismiss Robyn’s concerns awfully quick.” I ate a bite of the luscious strawberry cake that always makes me feel like it’s spring, no matter what time of the year it is. “Robyn’s not the first tenant in the cottage, is she the first one to complain about Shakespeare’s ghost barging in on her?”

  “I don’t recall everyone who rented that cottage before Robyn. Dottie Harris was a tenant for a while before she bought the O’Connor Cottage next door to you, wasn’t she, Charly?”

  “That’s entirely possible. It’s been several years since she moved in next door. I never asked her which cottage she rented, and she never said a word to me about anything odd going on while she was a tenant. Dottie did appear concerned when I spoke to her today, though. Why not? The police lights woke her in the middle of the night, and I told her we’d had a prowler on the loose in the neighborhood. I didn’t say that it had anything to do with Shakespeare’s Cottage.”

  “Ask her about it. If she did rent the cottage, maybe she saw Shakespeare’s ghost.” Marty leaned over and set her plate on the edge of the coffee table. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scheherazade running with her belly low to the ground. I lost track of her until I felt her soft fur brush against my leg as she dashed under the coffee table.

  “That’s exactly what I’ll do. I’m going to stop by and see how she’s doing when I get home. I’ll take her a piece of this amazing cake, which will put her in a talkative mood. I’m sure I’ll crash when the sugar rush drops me, but right now, I’m not the least bit sleepy. If Dottie didn’t have any encounters with intruders, she might know who rented the cottage before or after she did, and we can get the name of another former tenant,” Charly said.

  A big white paw reached up from under the coffee table. The first time Scheherazade whacked the table with it, she missed Marty’s plate. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, the furry princess struck again. This time Marty’s dessert plate and fork flipped onto the floor. We all startled. Not just at the clanging of the items hitting the tile floor, but the doorbell rang, too.

  7 Who’s There?

  “Knock, knock, knock! Who's there?” – Macbeth

  ∞

  “Who’s there?” I hollered as if I were at home, in my Hemingway Cottage. My heart was pounding wildly. I’d jumped to my feet as Marty dove for the floor to start cleaning gooey pink crumbs from the fluffy white rug. Scheherazade licked her paw and hissed before flouncing away again.

  “Princess doesn’t approve,” I observed as I picked up my plate and headed for the door.

  “Either she’s not a fan of strawberries or she doesn’t approve of the fact that I wouldn’t share,” Marty said.

  “I’ll get the door.” I set my plate on the gleaming stone counter in Marty’s kitchen on my way. Still wary after our conversation about prowlers and ghosts and smugglers, I peeked through the peephole. I removed the chain from the door and yelled so the others could hear me. “It’s Robyn!”

  “Hello, Miriam. I know I missed dinner. Am I too late for dessert? Do you have enough for Detective Miller who was kind enough to escort me here?” I opened the door wide and tried not to say or do anything stupid as I invited them in. Hank’s car was parked at the curb; his eyes were parked on me.

  “There’s plenty of cake. We can fix you both a plate, too, if you’re hungry. We needed comfort food, so it’s old-fashioned baked macaroni and cheese. You can have that, or the wonderful salad Marty prepared, or both like the rest of us.” I shut the door behind them as Scheherazade came running down the hall ahead of Marty. She ignored Robyn and went straight for Hank. She was still checking him out when he reached down and swept her up.

  “Wow! What a beauty you are,” he said holding her in both hands to examine her. I held my breath waiting for her to hiss or swat at him, but she went dish rag limp when he spoke those words. He tucked her into his arms the way you might do with a baby. I could hear her purring from where I stood a foot or so away. “What’s her name?”

  “Scheherazade—Princess Scheherazade of Chat du Marrakesh, but I just call her Scheherazade or Princess. I also have a few other names for her when she’s naughty like she was few minutes ago.”

  “Naughty? How could a beautiful princess like this ever be naughty?” The cat blinked her big gold eyes at Hank and snuggled closer.

  “She sure likes you,” Neely commented as she joined us. “How are you doing, Robyn?”

  “Tired, but most of the cleanup is done.”

  “The locksmith installed new locks, too, and the alarm’s been reset,” Hank added as he set the cat on the floor. She swished around his legs before trotting over to Marty.

  “Someone will come by tomorrow to patch and paint gouges and scrapes on the door, and in the foyer, hallway, and pantry,” Robyn said wearily. “My watercolor needs to be reframed and I’ve got to restock the pantry, but that can wait a few more days. By the way, Joe called me to tell me to get over here and try the cake. He also said he wants to install cameras, so I already gave out the brand new alarm code. Hank said it was okay.”

  I glanced at the detective who was eying me again. Maybe he was evaluating the changes in my appearance. I’d splurged on a visit to the salon once we’d received the amazing news that Edgar had sent a check to the HOA and paid our special assessment fees. I’d had it cut, and the gray hair was gone now that I no longer felt I had to hide my age.

  Something in his gaze reminded me of the way he’d looked at that cat—appreciative, I suppose. I tried not to go all limp like Scheherazade had done, but I couldn’t resist smiling. The blue in his eyes deepened as he returned my smile. Then he addressed Joe’s idea of installing cameras.

  “It can’t hurt to have cameras set up, although I’m not sure what they’ll catch on video if you’re still convinced your visitor is a ghost.” Scheherazade meowed and looked over her shoulder before walking slowly down the hall with her tail held high. We all followed her.

  “Sometimes cameras capture images of ghosts if they’re in a fully materialized state,” Robyn asserted and then shrugged when he didn’t appear to be convinced. “The detective came by to give me updates about what the crime lab has found so far. I thought you’d want to hear it, too. Macaroni, salad, and cake sure sound good to me. All I’ve had since breakfast was a granola bar.”

  “It sounds great to me, too. If you don’t mind feeding me, I’ll share a couple of things we’ve discovered about what went on in Robyn’s cottage. It won’t take long since they haven’t gone through all the evidence collected overnight.” I fought off the impulse purr, but I did feel a little weak in the knees as Hank put his hand on my elbow and walked alongside me.

  “Miriam doesn’t mind feeding you. You’ve got to try the dreamy strawberry cake she brought us. It was one of her husband’s favorites before he died.” I stopped abruptly, feeling as if the wind had been sucked out of me.

  “If Peter Webster enjoyed it that much, I’m sure I will too. He seems to have been a man with excellent taste. I’m sorry for your loss, Miriam. A year’s not a lot of time to deal with the sudden death of a man to whom you were married for more than a quarter century.” My mouth popped open.

  “Did you run a background check on me?”

  “Of course, we did. How else would we have ruled you out as a suspect in Diana Durand’s murder so quickly? The rest of these folks have been in the area for years then you show up, and three months later there’s a murder and you find the body. It’s always better to be sa
fe than sorry.” He tugged at my arm, urging me on toward the kitchen.

  In the kitchen, we fixed plates for Hank and Robyn then all settled in to hear what Hank had to say. It was a tight squeeze at a table that normally seats six, but we made do by dragging an extra chair to the table. When I’d brought a pot of tea to the table and poured cups for us, I noticed that the chair left empty for me was next to Hank. What choice did I have but to sit down—short of creating a scene?

  “So, I heard what you and Robyn had to say about putting the cottage back together, what other news did you bring us, Hank?” Charly asked. I was grateful that she’d gotten the ball rolling. Crammed in as we were, Hank and I kept bumping into each other if either of us moved much. It was distracting, to say the least.

  “The crime lab guys have found odd streaks of a white substance in the pantry. They’re still analyzing what it is, but I’ve told Robyn already that it must have been left by the ghost.”

  “Ghost dust,” Robyn muttered as she swallowed and then went back to eating.

  “Does it glow in the dark?” Neely asked. That stopped Hank in his tracks for a moment. Then Neely reminded him of what Charly, and I had seen, and filled him in about on what she’d already told us about glow paint.

  “I’ll find out if they found traces of anything like that,” he said.

  “I’ve seen it before after Shakespeare visited. It’s ghost dust, I tell you.”

  “We’re not disagreeing with you, Robyn, except to say that the ghost is a fake. He’s obviously on the hunt for something and wearing the disguise to send you running so he can have his way with your belongings.”

  “Then how do you explain how he gets into the cottage without setting off alarms or breaking the locks on doors?” She asked. “You saw him vanish, too, didn’t you?” Neely explained how we thought he might have been able to pull that off with the ‘cloak of invisibility.’ Robyn liked that part.