Murder Wears White

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  Had he told Rachel that? It was one of her dearest ambitions to be on TV.

  I steered our conversation back to Lois. “So she busted people’s balls, huh?”

  “Yeah. It sounds awful, but I’m not surprised she was murdered. She cracked down on people for legit things, like when she caught them moonlighting on company time. But she was also plain old nosy. She made it her business to be in everyone’s personal business, things that had nothing to do with work. It was a little unethical.” He stroked his cleft chin for a moment.

  Unethical, just like her shaking me down for a bribe in return for my permits getting approved.

  “Her snooping must not have endeared her to the other employees.” I added a tidy mountain of mushrooms to the skillet, and they sizzled and popped.

  “She had a lot of enemies.” Hunter blinked, his large gray eyes filled with sadness. “But that doesn’t mean she deserved to be murdered.”

  Truman opened the back door and gave my jangly nerves a start.

  “I don’t like to be proven wrong,” he muttered and wiped his feet on the mat. “There are footsteps in the mud under the tree closest to the fire escape. They lead around the house to the front and the driveway, where the puddles washed away any trace of them. Someone shimmied down the ladder and hightailed it out of here.”

  Hunter looked more shocked than I did. “Then why did my EMF go off?” The deep furrow of disappointment between his brows matched his cleft chin. “And Mallory saw a ghost. Mrs. McGavitt’s ghost.”

  All eyes lasered on me.

  I recalled the woman on the widow’s walk. After Garrett’s office break-in and Whitney’s guest room being ransacked, I would have happily welcomed a prank of the supernatural variety.

  “I thought I saw something,” I admitted.

  Someone rapped on the back door.

  Truman opened it, and Charity Jones stalked in, bleary-eyed and furious in a fluffy bamboo robe.

  “And you are?” Truman inquired with a sardonic smile.

  “Charity Jones.” She sniffed and looked around the room until she spotted me and my sister. “Their neighbor.” She drew her robe around her like a cocoon and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how to put this.”

  Truman interrupted. “We’re plenty busy here, Ms. Jones. If you could return home, it would be helpful. There’s a crime scene out back, and I don’t want you—”

  “Do you have any idea what time it is? What’s with the flashing strobe lights and all of this racket?” Charity addressed Truman, her nose an inch from his.

  “Those ‘strobe lights’ are from my police vehicle, ma’am. And I suggest you take a step back.”

  Charity’s eyes glinted, and she stood her ground. “Believe it or not, some of us are trying to sleep!”

  She whipped around and faced Rachel and me. “I thought this was a quiet neighborhood. I left Vegas for some much-needed peace and quiet. What a mistake I made.” She wheeled around on her heel and stalked back across our yards.

  “What got her panties in a twist?” Truman shook his head and tried to suppress the rueful smirk spreading across his face.

  “There go my free yoga classes,” Rachel moaned.

  * * *

  The contractors arrived as we tucked into breakfast. I’d made triple the amount we needed, and they helped themselves, chatting with Whitney, Rachel, Hunter, and my mom. The bananas Foster French toast was a big hit, and every bite was devoured. I was grateful they were willing to start working so early in the morning in a bid to finish the B and B on time. They were happy for the overtime.

  Ezra fixed himself a plate and gave his brother, Hunter, and Rachel a frosty hello before retreating to the third floor. It seemed like it would take him a while to get over my sister hooking up with his brother. It had to be hard to compete with Hunter, and it bothered him to see his older brother sweep Rachel off her feet.

  Delilah rolled into the kitchen and looked my sister up and down. Rachel had the good sense to blush. She still hadn’t changed out of her silk robe and shorts getup. She tied the sash around her waist a bit tighter and held her head high.

  “I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Delilah muttered under her breath in a loud whisper.

  “Excuse me?” Rachel bounded forth like a pugilist, and Hunter neatly stepped between her and Delilah.

  He gathered Rachel’s hand in his and gave it a squeeze.

  “Now, Delilah, that’s no way to talk about a lady.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was a good thing my mother had left the room to let the Westies out or there would have been hell to pay.

  Rachel sighed as if he’d sung her a troubadour’s song, and Delilah immediately hung her head. She grumpily picked at her omelet.

  Jesse wasn’t quite as soothed by Hunter’s performance. “And just what were you insinuating, Mother?” He glowered over Delilah.

  “I’m sorry, son. I just don’t want you to forget how Carole broke your heart.” She glanced up to make sure my mother was still out of the room.

  “Losing Carole was the biggest mistake of my life. Loving and losing really is worse than winning it all.” Jesse carried his dish to the sink and stalked out of the room. I stifled a chuckle at his malaprop.

  After Jesse left, everyone calmed down, and breakfast continued with pin-drop silence and scratching silverware on plates. I wanted to take a nap, but I had three guests to take care of. Keith and Becca left for work, and Whitney was visiting her father. Rachel and I stood outside of Keith and Becca’s room.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Rachel carefully wiped down the door handle, blackened from the police’s attempts to take prints. After Truman’s admission that someone had entered and exited the house via the fire escape, they had gone into high gear, dusting for prints on the bedroom doors and around the circuit breakers. They hadn’t found any.

  “It’s okay. I can handle it. I’m sure we’ll have other guests someday that give me the creeps. I may as well get used to it.”

  Rachel unlocked the door with our master key. I breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like a normal hotel room. The bed was turned down, there was luggage scattered about, and the curtains were drawn. We got to work freshening up the room.

  Until I saw the panties.

  “Ack!” I jumped back as if the offending scrap of lace were a hissing copperhead.

  “What is it? Oh.” Rachel stared at a pair of red crotchless panties marring the smooth fawn carpet. “I bet she put them there to get a rise out of you.”

  Well, it worked. I stared at the undies as if they were nuclear refuse and made no moves.

  Rachel picked up the offending scraps of cloth with a pen from the desk and tossed them on top of Becca’s suitcase. We hurried through the rest of our task, prettying up the room and wiping down the bathroom.

  We took our time in Whitney’s room.

  “Hunter still thinks it was a ghost.” Rachel fluffed Whit’s pillows.

  “But Truman found actual footprints, Rach. The ghosts are just a front.”

  Rachel put down the pillow and placed her hand on her hip. “Are you insinuating the ghost hunters were behind that stunt, locking everyone in their rooms? Why don’t you just come out and accuse them? Besides, it’s impossible. Hunter was with Mom when everyone was locked in. And you saw the ghost!”

  “I saw something, or someone. It didn’t have to be a ghost.” I told Rachel about the old lace handkerchief I’d found and hidden from Hunter on the widow’s walk.

  We finished the room and padded downstairs.

  “Mom, tell Mallory where Hunter was last night.”

  “Well, we were all looking at that ghost-o-meter thing around three-thirty in the morning when the mêlée began,” my mom offered.

  “Ghost-o-meter?”

  “Yes. The needle was dancing all over the place. It was so fun. We were drinking coffee and making a night of it. We were about to walk through the rest of the house when the lights went off.” />
  I frowned. My mom’s corroboration let Hunter off the hook. But that didn’t mean other ghost hunters weren’t afoot in the house.

  “Maybe it was the contractors,” Rachel mused.

  This time my mother got upset. “Jesse would never do something like that! He’s an honorable man.” She stopped and blushed. “And it wouldn’t be in his interest to sabotage this project.”

  “Then who did it?” I asked. “And the same evening Garrett’s office was ransacked and Whitney’s room was tossed at Keith and Becca’s house. Who knew we’d all be here?”

  The three of us racked our brains but couldn’t come up with a suitable answer. We went about the rest of our day.

  * * *

  “I’m sure it was an intruder, not a ghost.”

  It was after six, and Becca and Keith had returned from work in Pittsburgh. I silently agreed with him. Ghosts didn’t shimmy down ladders and leave footprints in the mud.

  “If this is the way you run this establishment, you can kiss a rezoning to commercial business good-bye.” Keith was still dressed in his work suit, and he pulled his and Becca’s matched luggage behind him. Becca brought up the rear, peering down her nose at me.

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “That’s what he does best,” said a dry voice behind me. Garrett entered the kitchen.

  Keith startled. “Davies. What are you doing here?”

  “They finally finished processing my office. My dad told me what happened here.”

  I gave him a grateful smile and moved closer to him. I was ecstatic to see him, although it could have been under better circumstances, like our canceled date. “I’m happy you’re here. Are we on for another time?”

  Keith jerked his head to stare first at me and then Garrett and redoubled his efforts to rattle me.

  “What I said about the rezoning is true. This isn’t a professional establishment. You can barely keep this circus under control. It’s a mockery of my Grandma Sylvia’s house. She never would have wanted her home to be a place of business. And the Planning Commission will agree.”

  “Cool your jets. She loved people and excitement and fellowship and celebrations and, most of all, talking about and showing off the history of this house. Of course she’d want it to be a B and B!”

  Keith shook his head. “I will strongly recommend to the other members of the committee that they deny your application to turn this into a place of business.”

  “Don’t try to intimidate her.” Garrett’s voice was deceptively soft, and menace clouded his hazel eyes.

  “Stay out of things that don’t concern you.” Keith gestured to his luggage. “We’re leaving. I like our chances back at my house better than here.” He strode out of the room.

  “That was intense.”

  Garrett shook his head. “It’s not unexpected. I’ve been thinking, though. Is it really wise for Whitney to go through with the wedding?”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t like the sound of this.

  “My office was ransacked, the locks picked by a professional, from the looks of it. My entire case file on Eugene Newton’s defense for the murder of Vanessa Scanlon was stolen. Then Whitney’s room was destroyed, and she was warned to go back to Baltimore. And your bed-and-breakfast was broken into and everyone scared to pieces. I don’t like it.” Garrett echoed his father, and an icy shiver ran through me. I’d never seen both Truman and Garrett so unsettled. But a kernel of annoyance bubbled up too.

  “Whitney wants to get married. It’s still two weeks away. She’s going to get married, and I’m going to throw her the wedding, and everything will be alright.” I hoped I could deliver on that promise.

  “I just want you to be safe.”

  “I will be. Don’t worry.”

  His concern was sweet and annoying all at the same time. I appreciated his chivalrous worry, but there was no way I was canceling the wedding.

  Whitney emerged from the back stairs, a borrowed backpack of belongings slung over her shoulder, since all of her luggage had been torn to smithereens. Bruce in a black sweater, and Maisie and Fiona in matching white sweaters sat obediently at her feet, like doggie salt and pepper shakers.

  “I heard Keith going on at you from the second floor. I can’t believe Becca is marrying him.” Her face twisted in a frown, equal parts sadness and disbelief. “But I’m going back with them. The police are done with the room I was staying in, and Becca assured me I can stay in another guest room.” Her mouth ticked up in a wistful smile. “Maybe I can convince my cousin to not marry that horrible man. And besides,” she smiled and knelt to pat the pups, “these guys can act as guard dogs.” Bruce barked once in assent, and with that, Whitney left Thistle Park with Keith and Becca.

  “I can’t say I’ll miss the dogs.” Rachel held up one acid-green snakeskin Jimmy Choo, the heel chewed down to the nub.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day I woke up and fumbled for my alarm clock.

  Something was missing.

  I’d placed the delicate, aged lace handkerchief I’d found on the widow’s walk under my alarm clock, and it was gone.

  “You must’ve put it somewhere else and forgotten it,” Rachel said airily, but I detected a thin current of fear threading its way through her dismissal.

  I shook off my doubts and drove to my friend Bev Mitchell’s new bridal shop to meet Whitney and find her a dress. She had called the store in Baltimore where she’d bought the gown destroyed at Keith and Becca’s, but the owner sadly informed her they couldn’t get another one in time for her wedding. I hoped Bev would have something in stock that would please Whitney and that we could get it delivered in time and alter it, or better yet, that she’d fall in love with a dress right off the rack.

  I parked and hurried over to the store. I was ten minutes early, and if Bev could spare me a minute, I wanted to pick her brain about Lois. Bev was the biggest gossip in town. Although her mouth sometimes got her into trouble, I couldn’t resist. If anyone knew about Lois’s bribe attempts, it would be Bev.

  Bev’s store, Silver Bells, was nestled at the corner of Poplar and Main Streets, and she’d gone all out in her decorations for fall. A dress form stood in the window clad in a dazzling ball gown. Tiny crystals scattered over a full tulle skirt sparkled like a mini galaxy of gold stars. A chocolate sash circling the waist and a vibrant paprika-colored scarf around the shoulders completed the look. Bev had suspended hundreds of leaves from the display ceiling in rich shades of yellow, sienna, and orange, so it looked like they were blowing in a gentle wind around the bride. I stood spellbound in front of the display and heard the tinkling of bells as Bev bustled into the street.

  “Come in!” Her excitement was infectious, and I found myself grinning as I stepped over the threshold. Bells chimed again as the door closed behind me. Her store was cozy and sophisticated all at once, with plush gray velour couches lining the walls, three-way mirrors, and discreet dressing rooms tucked into nooks along the sides. Dress forms were placed at different depths throughout the store displaying showstopper gowns. Shorter dress forms with bridesmaids’ dresses surrounded the bridal gowns.

  Bev enveloped me in a crushing hug, and I breathed in her familiar Snickerdoodle smell of cinnamon and sugar.

  “Two new business owners! Can you believe it?” She gestured around her store, pride lighting up her pretty plump face.

  “I hear things are going well. This space is lovely.”

  Bev nodded, her acorn earrings jingling. “Sales are booming. I can hardly keep up with my regular seamstress work. How’s the wedding planning going?”

  I filled her in on Whitney’s drastically moved-up wedding and gave her the truncated version of the demise of her dress.

  “That’s awful!” Bev clucked her tongue. “Things like that don’t happen around here. What a dreadful welcome back to her hometown. We’ll have to find her something she loves and feels comfortable in. I’ll start looking.”

  I described Whit’s
ruined dress to Bev, and she pulled samples off her racks, clearly knowledgeable about her inventory. She amassed ten gowns similar to Whitney’s original dress, all sheaths with elaborate beadwork.

  How should I broach the subject of Lois? Bev’s curiosity opened the door for me.

  “I can’t believe what happened to Lois Scanlon.” She moved to select veils to accompany the dresses and flipped through frothy confections of netting and rhinestones. “I hear she left Whitney quite the bequest. She was already wealthy, due to inheriting from her mother, Vanessa, once it was proven she was murdered, although I’m sure she’d rather have her mother than the money.”

  I checked myself from gasping, but said, “How do you know Lois left Whitney a lot of money?” Garrett hadn’t said not to tell anyone, but surely it wasn’t common knowledge.

  Bev dropped her eyes, suddenly sheepish, and murmured, “I have my sources. And I’m sure Whitney Scanlon would rather have her aunt, too, than her money.”

  Now that Bev had cracked the door, I could plunge in. “Lois seemed like a jolly sort of woman. Who would want to kill her?” I didn’t add I knew from Hunter that she spied on her fellow employees at the Senator Hotel.

  Bev fingered a pretty veil laced with luminescent seed pearls and dropped her voice, though we were the only ones in the shop. “This space used to be a soda fountain. I had to make some structural changes, but luckily I know someone who did it quickly for me.” Her eyes twinkled. “But I did have to apply for a construction code permit.” Her dancing eyes clouded over. “When I applied for the permit, Lois tried to get me to pay her a bribe.”

  Bingo.

  “I think she did the same to me, about thirty seconds before she died.”

  Bev’s eyes opened wide, and she nodded. “We’re not the only ones. I asked around a bit after it happened—”

  Of course she did.

  “—and no one would confirm it, but I saw the fear in their eyes. I think several people ended up paying Lois.”

  “You didn’t, though.”