Phantoms Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #13

by Connie Shelton

  “I feel like I’ve hit one roadblock after another,” I told her after filling her in on the basics of last night’s vigil. “Are you sure you want to keep me on the job? I got the impression this morning . . .”

  “I do. Even though Archie and I had some words over it.” She took a sip from her tea. “I need to know.”

  “Dolly, there’s no physical evidence that someone has been trying to find something hidden in the shop. And I have to admit that the local lore on the history of the place is rather mixed. One person told me the old bike shop had a history, but none of the written accounts back that up. I don’t really know where to turn next.”

  She looked discouraged. “I suppose until something else happens . . . It’s just that it never seems to happen when anyone else is around. I feel like I’m the sole target of the incidents.”

  She pushed her teacup aside. “Charlie, it’s not normal for me, feeling so vulnerable.”

  I remembered my first impression of Dolly, the day we’d met. From the precise cut of her hair to her sometimes abrupt manner of speaking, there’d been nothing fragile or weak about her. Now, after several of these scares, she was looking almost timid. Whatever the explanation, the strain of it was wearing her down.

  I took the final sip from my cup and handed it to her.

  While she carried the cups to the stock room I glanced again around the shop. After staring at it half the night I didn’t expect to see anything different. Only one thing caught my eye this morning. A display rack of cashmere scarves near the door had fallen over, and the scarves were lying in a heap.

  “I’ve still got to put those back,” Dolly said, coming up beside me. “I swear, sometimes that man makes me absolutely livid.”

  She bent down and pulled the wooden rack to its upright position then shook out one of the scarves and draped it attractively over a wooden peg, humming as she worked.

  I reached for the doorknob. “I’ll keep checking. See if I can learn something new.”

  But how? I had no experience as a ghost tracker and had certainly found no evidence so far that would tell me how to solve this.

  I walked aimlessly to the end of the block and turned right, opposite the way I normally traveled. Maybe I would circle through the old section of town, perhaps even stop in at Louisa’s office and brainstorm some ideas if she weren’t tied up right then. But before I’d gone three blocks I spotted a police station. Hmm . . . On a whim I entered.

  “Is it possible to find records of police reports by address?” I asked the female clerk behind the first desk I came to. Her brass name tag said C. Smith.

  Her eyebrows crinkled in a puzzled expression.

  I decided to tell almost the whole truth. “A friend owns a shop where there’ve been some recent small incidents.” I didn’t dare bring up the paranormal nature of those events. “I’m trying to learn whether anyone filed a police report relating to them.”

  Anticipating a host of questions, starting with ‘Why is this any of your business’ I braced myself. But the clerk didn’t seem to care. She turned a computer monitor to get a more straight-on view of it.

  “How long ago did this happen?” she asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure when they began—”

  “Within the past twenty-five years?”

  I tended to forget that anything within a hundred years around here was considered new history.

  “Probably within the last few months,” I said.

  “Address?”

  I’d seen it printed on Dolly’s sales receipts and recited the information to her. She clicked a few keys.

  “The Trahorn Building. Nothing that recent,” Ms Smith said, reading from the monitor. “There was a break-in in 1997 where the tenant reported some merchandise missing. But the investigation revealed that his partner had merely taken the things home for personal use.”

  “Is that the most recent incident?”

  She nodded. “A shoplifting report in 1989 . . . Before that, we’d have to go to the old records section. It’s a large, dusty room in the basement.”

  I couldn’t see where anything that old would be relevant to Dolly’s current problems, plus I got the distinct idea that the clerk was no more eager to go into the dusty archives than I was.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said. A thought came to me. “What about personal complaints? Anything under the name of Dolly Jones?”

  “The lady with the knit shop?” she asked. “I know of her.”

  “Really? Personally?”

  “Just heard the name, round about, you know.” She typed a few more words as she said it. “Um-hmm. All right . . .” A couple more keystrokes. “Here in the telephone logs.”

  She turned the screen so that I could see it.

  “We have to log every call, whether or not there’s basis for police action.”

  I scanned the white letters on their blue background, not making immediate sense of what I was seeing.

  “This is the date,” Ms Smith explained, pointing to the left-most column of numbers. “Followed by time of day, caller’s name, caller’s phone number, summary of the complaint. To get the entire text of the complaint, you just hit F1.”

  I noticed Dolly’s name at the top of the page. There were at least ten complaints.

  “Mrs. Jones certainly complained quite a few times,” I said.

  “Oh no,” she answered. “These are complaints against Mrs. Jones. Notice that the calls all came from others.”

  Oh boy. I started to read across the lines.

  Sally Darcy, clothing store manager. Complaint: Dolly Jones tried to return obviously used merchandise for refund. Caused a scene upon being denied the refund.

  James Gilcrist, restaurant owner. Complaint: Mrs. Jones entered his restaurant, carrying a dog. Refused to acknowledge signage warning that no pets were allowed and refused to place the dog on a leash. Set the pet on the floor where it proceeded to do its business in front of other customers. Jones caused a scene when Gilcrist threatened to call police.

  Joshua Raintree, plumber. Complaint: Performed work for Mrs. Jones for which she refused to pay, saying the bill was too high despite the fact that he had quoted her the same amount before doing the job.

  And on and on.

  “Did the police act upon any of these?” I asked.

  “Let’s see.” She turned the monitor a bit and opened another page. “The plumbing contractor was advised to try the small claims court. Most of these charges don’t actually violate an ordinance. We usually advise a business owner to try to make private arrangements for reimbursement, if that seems warranted. Most of them won’t—they are usually more worried about adverse publicity for their establishments. Unless the subject actually strikes someone or causes physical damage . . .”

  “There’s nothing you can really do.”

  “Exactly.”

  I thanked her and walked back out to the street. This certainly put a whole new spin on things. I’d never quite put two and two together, but when I thought about it I’d not seen many customers in her shop. Maybe Dolly really had few friends and word of her reputation had spread. And maybe one of those who went far enough to make a call to the police had gone even further.

  I realized I’d come back to Abbeygate Street and decided that another of those Cornish pasty lunches would be in order. I would have to decide how to proceed, whether I could actually offer any help to Dolly at all, or if it would be best to steer completely clear of her.

  An hour later, appetite sated, I gave myself over to a leisurely stroll through the Abbey Gardens. Deep blue skies and sunshine had returned during the morning and I enjoyed walking among the older ruins which dated back to the Middle Ages and reading the placards that showed the old abbey as it would have once stood. It felt like I’d covered miles and a seat on one of the benches beckoned me.

  “Poor chap, you have to feel for him,” a male voice said, from the next bench over.

  “Can’t be easy, that’s sure
, losing the job at his age, being stuck home with the woman all day.”

  I sent a glance to my right and saw two men in business suits, late forties or early fifties in age, obviously on an afternoon break from work, both spooning ice cream from cups that must have come from the vendor I’d seen outside the gate.

  “Ha, especially that one. I’d go packing in a trice.”

  The other man sighed. “Yeah, poor Arch.”

  I would have filed the whole conversation away as nothing until he said the name. Archie Jones? The circumstances certainly fit. I realized that I’d turned toward the men and that they’d noticed my unabashed eavesdropping. I covered by noticing a scrap of litter on the ground beside the bench, picking it up and heading for a trash bin with it.

  My impressions of Archie had been of a man solicitous of his wife, caring and right there at her side. Was the other side of it perhaps that Dolly tended to push him around, to be a bit too controlling? Why not? It certainly seemed to fit with the way she treated other people in this town.

  I climbed three steps built of rocks and ducked through a narrow opening in a hedge, coming to another section of the garden, this one much closer to the towering Gothic Abbey. Maybe a dose of peace and brotherly love would help settle my mind.

  The cloisters, where I found myself entirely alone, provided a little haven. The Gothic arches rose on my right, while a walled rose garden to my left gave the sense of seclusion. I paused to contemplate a stone mandala set in the walkway.

  “It’s not exactly a work of art, is it?” a male voice said.

  I must have jumped three feet. He stood a few yards away, dressed in khaki pants and a checked shirt with a soft-brimmed hat sitting a little crooked on his head. I guessed him to be in his late 70s. Beside him a wheelbarrow held clippings from the bushes. He’d certainly arrived quietly.

  “That emblem,” he said, nodding toward the object of my attention. “It’s not really of high quality.”

  “I’m not exactly an expert on that type of thing,” I said. “Mainly, enjoying a stroll through the gardens.”

  “It probably dates back to only the seventeenth century or so.”

  And people are allowed to walk on it? I thought of the ancient abbey ruins in other parts of the garden, where I’d seen children climbing. Aside from one discreet sign advising that defacing the ruins was illegal, apparently the townsfolk believed in accessibility to their history.

  He set his shears down in the wheelbarrow and tipped his hat back to wipe his very high forehead.

  “You’re American, right?”

  I laughed. It was pretty obvious, I supposed.

  “Enjoying Bury, are you? Have you met any of the town ghosts?”

  “I’m visiting my aunt, actually. She gives tours of the haunted sites in town and has promised to take me along on her next one.”

  “Ah, you’ll enjoy it. I’ve never seen one myself, but my late wife—she was a great believer. Swore that The Grey Lady used to help with little chores around the house. I have my doubts about that part of it. But it seemed to make her happy that she had company whilst she did her work.”

  I could tell that he was a little eager for company. But when he launched into the third tale of the Abbey’s more ethereal inhabitants I knew I would have to say goodbye or I’d never get out of there. I used the excuse that I was meeting someone and would be late.

  It was nearly true. After my visit to the police station I’d decided that I should just tell Dolly that I couldn’t be of help in her search for the poltergeist in her shop. There were just too many people in town who might have reason to get back at her. How was I going to narrow it down? And what would she do anyway—retaliate by filing a complaint against the perpetrator? I could see the whole spiraling into a quagmire.

  I left the Abbey grounds, crossed in front of the Angel Hotel and started up the street toward The Knit and Purl.

  The small bells at the door tinkled softly, but Dolly spun around as if she’d been shot. Her eyes were wild and her normally precise hair looked as if she’d been trying to yank it out.

  “Charlie!” My name came out in a whoosh. “Look at this! It’s happened again!”

  I followed her pointing finger to the spot where I stood. There on the floor were large muddy boot prints.

  “When—?”

  “Just now! I’d taken a moment to visit the ladies room, walked back in here, and this!”

  Chapter 13

  I knelt down. The prints were, indeed, still a bit damp. They appeared to have been made by large feet, with the kind of treads common to hiking boots. They led from the front door to the sales counter. I followed the trail and saw that the prints circled the desk and ended in front of the register.

  The cash drawer was standing open. I pointed at it. “They may have taken your money.”

  She rushed to the spot, her eyes darting back and forth, her hands reaching for the contents. “No, it seems the notes are all here, and the coins . . . But the mess! Look!”

  I didn’t immediately see what she was getting at.

  “Everything’s in a jumble,” she said. “Look, all the coins are mixed together every which way, pounds and pence together, and the notes look as if they’ve been shuffled.” She picked up a handful.

  Sure enough, the multi-colored bills were combined in a bright bunch.

  “This drawer was in absolute order not five minutes ago.” Her eyes were wide, her voice shaky. “How can this be happening to me?”

  Karma? I didn’t know what to say.

  Her hands shook as she sorted the money back into the proper denominations. One by one she placed the paper money back into the long slots. Then she began on the coins.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her my original reason for coming in, to quit investigating her case. While she concentrated on getting the drawer back in order I looked around the room.

  Then it hit me. The boot prints went from the front door to the register . . . but they never left. There was no trail back to the door, to the stockroom, or anywhere.

  “No one else was in the shop at the time?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Gabrielle comes in at noon on Thursdays. Archie went out early. I was here entirely alone.” Her voice shook a little. The idea of being by herself and an intruder showing up clearly had her rattled.

  I tried to bring her back to the facts. “Are these prints the same as the ones you mentioned before? Do they look like they were made by the same boots?”

  She looked up from her stacks of coins and stared at the prints. “Definitely not. The others were smooth, these have a pattern.”

  That was at least a firm clue. Either two different people had made the tracks or the prankster was smart enough to wear different footwear each time. Perhaps it was his way of making Dolly believe she had more than one ghost.

  “Okay. Take me through it again. You were here by yourself.”

  She nodded.

  “You went into the bathroom.”

  Another nod.

  “You never heard a sound out here? Not the front door bells, not the cash drawer opening, nothing?”

  “Not a thing. I couldn’t have been in there more than two or three minutes.”

  “Of course there is the music,” I said. “Maybe it drowned out any sounds?”

  “I’m very accustomed to the background music,” she insisted. “I hear any little noise, even with it playing.”

  I let it go. Clearly, there was no point in arguing. I was beginning to see her stubborn side. I turned my attention to the physical evidence instead.

  The door chime consisted of four small brass bells hanging by a cord from the wooden bar that bisected the door. Motion caused them to clink against the glass inset on the door. I supposed that someone who noticed the bells hanging there could open it cautiously enough that they wouldn’t ring.

  A low spot on the sidewalk outside tended to hold water—I’d noticed that before and usually just stepped around
it. But someone not paying attention or anyone who wanted to leave prints on purpose could step into it and, if their boots already held some dirt, the tracks were easily explained. But how did they get away without leaving a single print in the opposite direction?

  That was the question I could not answer.

  Dolly, meantime, had arranged the cash drawer to her liking and appeared from the stock room with a sponge mop in hand.

  “I’d better get this cleaned up before a customer sees it,” she said.

  I glanced at my watch, hoping for an excuse to leave. I didn’t have any easy answers for Dolly, but thought I would ask Louisa for ideas. I have to admit that I probably scurried away from the knit shop a little abruptly.

  Back at Louisa’s house I calculated the time difference and decided I might be able to reach Drake at home. He answered on the second ring and we followed our prearranged plan—he called back immediately so we wouldn’t run up Louisa’s phone bill.

  “I contacted that boarding place for Freckles, the one we’d planned to use before,” he said. “I’ll take her by there this afternoon and make sure everyone gets along fine.”

  “Should I come home? I feel like I’m not exactly there to help you with all this.”

  “We talked about that when we first got the puppy, hon. We’re on the go a lot. When she can travel along, she will. When it’s not feasible she’ll learn to stay in a doggy hotel. She’ll adapt easily if we start her out young.”

  He was right of course.

  “I did a little research on the company I’ll be working for. Good outfit, and my knowing the chief pilot from years ago in Hawaii is a plus. He knows my work and gave a high recommendation to the owner. If I jump through a few hoops now, they’ll hire me again next summer and the money for that will be very good. And, you can come along if you want.”

  A little mental yippee went through me. Missing out on Alaska was the main reason I’d felt the tug to catch up with him this time.

  “I can get home early next week and rescue Freckles,” I said. “Louisa and I haven’t gotten a lot of time together, but there’s a weekend coming up for that.” I filled him in on how I was spending my days and he chuckled over the fact that I’d latched on to a mystery to solve.