Murder Wears White

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  “What does your tax return have to do with rezoning this place?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I can’t believe they need to dig further into my financials. I already gave them a stack of paper half a foot high—everything they asked for, and more. This has to be the work of Troy Phelan, acting on behalf of his wife. She wants to make sure hers is the only B and B in Port Quincy. This smells so fishy.” I reached for my laptop. “They’re trying to change the requirements. It isn’t fair. The ones in place when I originally applied should govern, not some fake, made-up ones. Troy probably cooked up some special new requirements just for me.”

  But the website told a different story.

  “Well, this is interesting,” I smirked and turned the screen around for my sister.

  “Keith is a member of the Planning Commission?” she squeaked.

  “Newly appointed as of Friday, by the mayor.”

  So that’s why he hinted my permit won’t be approved.

  The application section of the website enumerated the new ridiculous documentation requirements.

  “What’s the big deal?” My mother shuffled into the room, looking slightly less spiffy than usual. I squinted at her, trying to decide what was off. “Keith is a reasonable human being. Just talk to him, and you’ll get your permits approved.”

  I raised my eyebrows at my mother.

  “It’s too bad Lois had to kick the bucket before you could bribe her,” Rachel mused, picking at a cuticle.

  “Rachel Marie Shepard! I raised you better than that! Do not speak ill of the dead!” My mother regained some vigor to chastise my sister, but then sunk into a chair and rested her chin on her hand.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s true, Mom. Lois made it sound like I could get this place rezoned if I sweetened the deal for her.”

  “You don’t know how messed up the local government is,” Rachel chimed in.

  My mother wasn’t listening. She moved wordlessly to the kitchen. Rachel and I exchanged a glance and followed her, in time to see her pour a healthy slug of orange juice into her coffee.

  “Um, did you just wake up, Mom?” I asked tentatively.

  Her usually smooth hair, dyed to match Rachel’s, was crunched next to her ear on one side of her head, and the other side lay flat against her scalp. Her eyes were red, and she was wearing a quilted bathrobe. Something was definitely up. My mom was always made up and ready to go before the sun rose, and she wouldn’t even get the mail if she happened to not look her best.

  “I’m fine, just a little under the weather,” she snapped and ran a hand through her hair. “This place is so dusty. You really need to do something about it. It’s exacerbating my allergies.”

  “It’s Jesse,” Rachel mouthed beside her.

  “I heard that!” My mother flounced up the back stairs to her room and barricaded herself inside for the rest of the morning.

  * * *

  I retired to the yellow bedroom early that evening after compiling all of the documents the Planning Commission claimed they needed. I had my first real date with Garrett scheduled for that night, a late dinner and a movie, and I wanted to decompress first. I tried to think of the finished product that would now have to happen in less than two weeks. I thought of the cracked ceiling in the parlor and the peeling and fading mural there. I hadn’t been able to find a muralist to work on it and doubted I would on such short notice. I’d probably just paint it light blue with some clouds and call it a day. Not to mention the gaping hole in the library ceiling, compliments of a poltergeist or, more likely, a flustered worker. Though Ezra claimed the saw had been off, I couldn’t really chalk it up to a ghost.

  Though I was knee-deep in renovations, I knew this was what I was supposed to do. I loved the history in this big hulking mansion and couldn’t wait to show my guests hospitality like the people here had shown me. I had inherited the place this summer from my ex’s grandmother, Sylvia, and I vowed to make her proud. I closed my eyes and pictured the B and B perfectly renovated. It was going to work. It was going to be awesome.

  And though Natalie obviously had designs on Garrett, he’d made his preference known.

  The wind howled, and the rain pelted down faster, and I realized, with a start, that my kitties were nowhere to be seen. They had the run of the house on the weekends, but they always made their way up to me by early evening. By the time I went to bed, they nestled around me as I slept. Bruce and Fiona had taken a liking to Rachel and could be found curled up at the bottom of her bed most evenings, and Maisie liked to sleep beside me on the opposite side of the bed from the cats. I left the room and padded around the second floor, listening for any signs of them. Maisie trotted next to me and stopped to sniff the carpet every few feet.

  “What’re you doing, sneaking around in the dark?” Rachel popped her head around the back staircase, a cup of cocoa in hand.

  “Ugh, don’t scare me like that!” I explained the missing cats, and Rachel, Maisie, and I set off to find them.

  We paused at the back stairs, and I craned my head back to take in the entrance to the third floor.

  “It’s off limits now,” Rachel reminded me, since the contractors were working like mad to replace the water-damaged floor.

  “It’s the last place to look.”

  My sister shrugged, and we climbed the stairs anyway and pushed open the door. Maisie scampered in. I padded around the plywood subfloor and reached for a light switch. None of the lights worked.

  “That’s odd,” Rachel let out a gust of nervous breath.

  “They must be working on the electrical, too.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  We felt our way around the third floor. A bead of sweat trickled down my back, despite the frigid air. My mind was hyper alert. Maisie trotted ahead, her little nails clicking on the new subfloor. Finally I reached the end of the hallway. No kitties.

  I was about to retreat downstairs when Maisie stopped and cocked her head, her pointy white ears quivering in the near darkness. Like a switch had flipped, she let out a piercing series of barks and jogged to the last door on the third floor. She looked up. I heard a soft mewling above me and gasped. The cries were coming from the small flight of stairs leading to the widow’s walk. I took them two at a time and flung open the door to find my two kitties, soaking wet, huddled and scrabbling against the door to get back in. I scooped up the matted balls of fur.

  “You poor dears!”

  A soft, sibilant whisper slipped between the raindrops and barely reached my ears. “Beware . . .”

  A low guttural growl started in Maisie’s throat.

  “Arrgh!” I grabbed Whiskey and pivoted down the slick short staircase.

  “Ohmigodohmigodohmigod.” Rachel grabbed Soda and banged the door shut behind us.

  Chapter Seven

  “Just try to blame that on my overactive imagination.” Rachel grabbed a kitchen towel and briskly rubbed Soda until she returned to her normal fluffy orange self. My sister was spooked and excited and triumphant all at the same time. The battling emotions made her pretty features appear even more animated than usual.

  “I heard it too,” I admitted, with a guarded note in my voice. I clutched Whiskey close to me and enveloped her in my fleece robe. We’d retreated to the kitchen to tend to the frightened and damp cats. Rachel and I nuzzled and doted on the two kitties until they were purring and warm, then set them on the ground before dishes of albacore tuna, a special treat after their ordeal in the rain. Maisie hadn’t left our side, and now she nosed in to sniff the fish. She backed off when Whiskey stood her ground and hissed. The pint-sized calico guarded her dish of food with jealous, narrowed ochre eyes. She stared dolefully at the dog, not impressed with the canine.

  “Maisie saved one of your nine lives,” I admonished the calico as I scratched under her chin. “You should share your food.” I put the electric kettle on to make us some tea. I was chilled to the bone from my brief dash onto the roof to get the cats and hoped some hon
ey tea would warm us up.

  Soda was more grateful. Maisie tentatively licked the orange fluff ball on the nose, and the little cat let the Westie tend to her before she returned to her bowl of tuna, her tail jaunty and held high, no worse for wear.

  “Let’s go back up and see if we can find any evidence on the widow’s walk. Someone must have been up there to lock out the cats and to whisper that warning.” I stood and grabbed my raincoat from the hook near the fridge.

  “I’m not going back up there. Are you crazy? The sun’s set already. And we know the source of the noise—Evelyn McGavitt’s ghost!” Rachel’s teeth began to chatter, from the cold seeping through her damp sweater or from fear, I wasn’t sure which.

  “Who would put two cats out in the driving rain?” I was baffled and wanted to throttle whoever had played this heartless and cruel joke.

  “Thank goodness Maisie let us know.” Rachel knelt down to scratch the little white dog behind the ears.

  I frowned and did a double take. The pretty tartan fabric tying back my sister’s hair looked vaguely familiar. Why haven’t I noticed it before?

  “Are you wearing Maisie’s scarf?”

  Rachel blushed and adjusted the petal-colored plaid fabric. It hung jauntily down her back, tied around her ponytail. The soft pastel perfectly matched her angora sweater, which was shrunken enough to moonlight as a child’s mitten.

  “She let me borrow it,” Rachel began ruefully.

  The Westie gazed adoringly at my sister and blinked her large sable eyes rimmed with white. “Ruff!” She barked and sat closer to Rachel and nuzzled her outstretched hand with her black button nose.

  “See?” Rach cocked her head approvingly in Maisie’s direction and tied the scarf more firmly around her ponytail.

  “She’s a dog! She can’t give you permission to borrow her stuff.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Dogs shouldn’t have stuff. And I had it dry cleaned and everything!” But Rachel gave an exaggerated sigh and undid the scarf. She carefully tied it back around the little dog’s neck, and Maisie batted her eyes at my sister, placing a paw on her knee.

  “Maybe one of the contractors let them out.” Rachel neatly deflected my attention from the subject of her pilfering designer textiles from a dog and focused blame on someone else.

  “Maybe it was the ghost hunters who let our cats out on the roof.” I tried to gauge my sister’s reaction since she was so smitten with Hunter. “We’re lucky they didn’t try to climb down!”

  Rachel scoffed. “Impossible! The ghost hunters weren’t here today, and they don’t have access to the third floor. Whenever they’re here, I personally accompany them.”

  “You mean you flirt with Hunter,” I amended, a slow smile twitching up the corners of my mouth.

  “Why can’t you just believe in the supernatural?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a ghost agnostic. I don’t believe in them, but I could believe. I guess it’s a matter of unproven possibility.” I hadn’t heard the knitting needles or smelled lilacs since the ghost hunters had arrived, and with each passing day, I was more willing to chalk the incident up to my vivid imagination.

  “Stop being so practical,” Rachel grumped as she flicked through an upholstery sample book. “When we were kids, you reasoned Santa out of existence.”

  “Maybe so. But when you found your presents in Mom’s trunk, necessitating an explanation, I tried to tell you Mom was helping Santa out because he was so busy.”

  “You two girls always were very curious,” our mother startled us by speaking from the other room.

  “How long have you been listening in?” Rachel poked her head out the kitchen doorway to converse with our mother.

  “I just got back a few minutes ago from the hairdresser. They squeezed me in as their last appointment. Why are you all wet, Rachel?”

  My sister ignored my mom’s question and dashed back into the kitchen.

  Rachel leaned close to my ear and hissed out a whisper, “Mom got her hair done.” Rachel looked stricken. “She did this for Jesse. She’s out of control, like a lovesick teenager. I’m scared. What does it mean?” Her green eyes were wide with panic, and she gripped my damp sleeve with her sharp acrylics.

  I laughed and dropped my voice so Mom wouldn’t hear. “She’s never out of control, Rach. Mom invented control. And what do you mean, ‘What does it mean?’ Like she’s trying to win Jesse back?” I poured hot water into three mugs and inhaled the sweet, mellow fragrance of Lady Grey tea and honey.

  “You don’t get it!” Rachel wheeled me around, and I sloshed hot tea over my foot with a yelp.

  I resettled the mugs on a tray and took a step back.

  She gently pushed me into the breakfast room, where our mother sat at the table, tentatively touching her hair.

  I was mesmerized by her, and Rachel plucked the tray out of my arms as I stopped and stared.

  “See what I mean?” she hissed. Rachel did have a point.

  Mom’s hair had been the same for decades—a layered bob that brushed her shoulders and gently curled under, dyed to match Rachel’s natural shade, with subtle golden highlights woven in. Today her pretty face was framed by edgy layers up to her chin in the front that reached a dramatically short shelf of feathered fringe at the nape of her neck. Wide highlights were painted through her locks, in shades of burnt sienna and wheat, and the look was great, but startling.

  “Spill it, Mom.” I thrust a mug of tea into her hands and sat on one side of her.

  “Yeah, is this makeover for Jesse?” Rachel sandwiched herself on the other side of our mom.

  “Of course not! I just decided to freshen up my look.” Mom ran a hand uncertainly through her short, razor-cut hair and burst into tears.

  “It’s alright, Mom.” I patted her back and glanced over her at Rachel. “Your hair looks great, by the way.”

  “Thank you, dear. It’s just a shock seeing him, that’s all. Things ended rather badly, and I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.” She sniffed and accepted the box of tissues I handed her. “And it was time for a new look. I didn’t cut my hair because of Jesse.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Did you cheat on Doug with Jesse?” Rachel clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as the words were out, but it was too late.

  Our mother jumped up, spilling tea down her front and whirled around to place her hands on her hips.

  “I’ve never cheated on your stepfather! How could you make that assumption! Seeing Jesse just dredged up memories of a very vulnerable and chaotic time in my life. One I worked very hard to shield you girls from experiencing.” She drew in a shaky breath and sat down again, opting for a rocking chair facing the breakfast table rather than resume her seat between her daughters, the inquisitors.

  “I dated Jesse for a brief period after your father left, and before I met Doug.” Our mother smoothed down the front of her sweater set, a dull gray merino wool, uncharacteristically bland for her. It was jarring with her new haircut. She must have been dressing to mirror her mood.

  “It’s just . . . Jesse mentioned that he proposed, Mom. I wonder why we never heard about him? And why you turned him down?” I didn’t want to pry, but things were getting uncomfortable around here. And Mom’s new haircut was downright bizarre.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” My mother’s voice was nearly hysterical, pitched high enough I was surprised a dog didn’t come running. She cleared her throat and took a delicate swig of tea. “That woman! Delilah is the reason I broke things off with Jesse, and he countered with a proposal I couldn’t accept. I wasn’t going to bring a man like that into our family, regardless of how I felt about him. He let her run his life then, and I see he hasn’t changed in a quarter of a century.”

  “We won’t bother you again about it, Mom,” Rachel said, contrition softening her tone.

  “I’m fine. It’s all in the past.” But her rheumy red eyes told a different story. “Just don’t be rude again, dears. I raised you better than that. Now,
” she brightened a degree, “tell me about your new beau, Rachel. That ghost hunter is awfully cute, and he has one of those chin dimples I know you adore.”

  Rachel picked at a thread on her cuff, and two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “I’m not interested in Hunter because of his chimple. He’s an amazing guy.”

  “Nonsense,” my mother smiled. “In high school there was Jason Sparks. He was a lovely boy, and he had a chin dimple, and then there was Derek Lampher, who had a butt chin and wasn’t nice.”

  Rachel’s eyebrows shot skyward at my mom’s use of the term “butt chin.”

  “That young man has been spending a lot of time around here in the evenings, taking his measurements.” Our mother paused and fluffed her new hairdo. “I wanted to remind you not to move so fast.”

  “Mom!” Rachel’s embarrassment curdled to annoyance, and I decided to switch gears to rescue my sister.

  “Tabitha told me you had some ideas about decorating the first floor. I can’t wait to see them.”

  My mother brightened and excused herself to get her presentation board.

  “Whew! That was intense.” Rachel let out a sigh. “She just brought up Hunter to get us to stop talking about Jesse.”

  “She’s not over him,” I whispered. “And Doug doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  Rachel smirked. “I wanted to tell him from the get-go.”

  I glanced out the window at the lashing raindrops and sodden night. I wondered about my mother and Doug, but now wasn’t the time. Mom had returned with a spring in her step, even though her eyes were still puffy and red. Maybe this trip back to Pennsylvania would be good for her. She carried a large presentation board and set it up on a small collapsible easel she’d brought. The board was covered in white cloth.

  I put on my best poker face. Mom was retired, but she was a professional, and her clients always loved the rooms she’d staged and redecorated. The house had good old bones, and it had come a long way since the day Rachel and I first moved in. The first floor was an empty canvas right now, with most of the furniture removed and stored in the carriage house and shed. It was bare and cavernous except for the workers’ tools and equipment, when before it used to suffer from the opposite problem, being stuffed with dusty knickknacks and glass from long ago. I wasn’t sure what pieces to bring back, or what effect I was going for. Elegant or cozy? Slavishly following the time period when it was built or a focus on modern comfort? I felt my eyes widen in confusion, and my mother picked up on it.