Murder Wears White

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  Hunter stroked the cleft in his chin. “Wherever would be out of your hair. We’ll keep it short. Besides,” he paused, “there’s a producer who’s interested in featuring the séance and your B and B.”

  “Oh, Hunter!” Rachel squealed and swooped down to give her beau a hug. “We’ll be on TV!”

  My antennae went up on high alert. “What show?” I wasn’t sure if being featured on a ghost-hunting show would help or hurt the business.

  “Haunted Histories. It’s their special episode on historical buildings. I hope you don’t mind. I sent them some pictures of the house, and they thought it would be a beautiful place to shoot. And with the genuine phenomena going on around here, they wouldn’t want to miss it. We’re wrapping up here, and now’s the time to get them in.”

  Haunted Histories was a paranormal reality show. They would probably do a good job showcasing the house in a favorable light. If all went well, our renovations would just about be wrapped up the day before the wedding.

  “This could be just the boost in recognition that we need.” Rachel paced the floor in her excitement.

  “It would be fun to be featured on television.” Mom fluffed her hair, and I stared at her, incredulous. She was bitten by the same bug as Rachel. It was Rachel’s dearest ambition, besides becoming a famous pastry chef, to be discovered. She’d been scheming and dreaming all summer of ways to get her cakes featured where someone in Hollywood would take notice. She’d love to have her own show making cakes and confections. And Hunter appeared to be the star she was going to hitch her wagon to.

  “Let’s do it.” I was getting excited. “But we really will be scrambling to put together all of the pieces for Whitney’s wedding.”

  Rachel brightened. “We’ll work like crazy to do both!” Her eyes sparkled, and she impulsively grabbed Hunter’s hand. “Let’s scout out places to shoot on the third floor. That will be well away from Whitney’s wedding. It’s still unfinished, but the living room of the apartment is presentable.”

  They left, nearly skipping out of the kitchen, my mother in tow.

  A minute later, Hunter bounded back down the back stairs, alone. “Mallory, I have another thought. Has Whitney ever mentioned feeling the presence of her mother? The producers would love to explore that angle.”

  “Not that I know of,” I said guardedly. “And I wouldn’t want to upset Whitney with that kind of questioning. She’s had enough people interested in her only because of her mother’s horrible death.”

  Hunter held up his hands. “Sorry. Just wondering. Sometimes people who usually don’t see ghosts are able to in a place with such high spectral energy. Like a DNA connection or something.” He sighed and took his inquiry off the table. “Of course, I won’t bother her.”

  Something skittered across my mind. “What did you just say about DNA?”

  Hunter looked at me like I was crazy. “I just meant Whitney might have felt her mother’s presence in this particular house. Like they have a connection.” With a shrug of his shoulders, he bounded up the back stairs to join Rachel and my mother.

  “DNA,” I whispered. “I know who sent those notes.”

  * * *

  “I know where I saw that notepaper.” I didn’t even say a proper hello to Garrett when he answered his cell.

  “I’m coming over.” He was equally abrupt, and ten minutes later, Garrett returned to Thistle Park with a copy of the note sent to him professing Eugene’s innocence. “I gave the original to my dad, and they’ll dust for prints.”

  “You won’t find any prints. He wouldn’t leave any, not that it matters.” I explained my epiphany.

  “Hunter mentioned DNA, and it triggered my memory. I remember where I saw that pattern.” I tapped the copy of the note at the bottom edge, where a delicate double-helix pattern laced across the page. “The same notepad was on the kitchen island at Rusty Dalton’s apartment. It’s from a pharmaceutical company. His place was filled with prescription medicine.”

  Garrett’s eyes went wide. “The former chief of police?”

  “The very one.”

  “Let’s go.” We nearly ran down the drive to Garrett’s black Accord and drove as fast as we could to Whispering Brook.

  * * *

  “Well done.” Rusty gestured to a plate of Oreo cookies and urged us to partake of his hospitality.

  “No thank you.” Garrett’s eyes were cold, and he remained standing over the disgraced former police chief. “Do you have any idea how many people you’ve terrorized with your anonymous notes?”

  Rusty hung his head and coughed. The phlegm rattled in his chest, and he hacked for a moment. Garrett stood unmoved.

  “I deserve that. But the current prosecutor doesn’t want to overturn a murder conviction, and he wouldn’t listen to me. So I decided to go another route.” His eyes were filmy and dull, and he looked more ill than the last time I’d seen him. My heart surged with pity until I reminded myself of all the trouble Rusty’s notes had caused and how his tampering with evidence had helped to put away an innocent man.

  “You really shook up Whitney,” I said softly. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  “I know. I’m dying. Just like Porter. I don’t have much time, and I’m a selfish old man. I wanted to get it off my chest that I planted the hammer in Eugene’s shed. I sent those letters to Eugene and to Whitney where she worked in Baltimore. Her father mentioned she’d come back to Port Quincy to get married, and I started sending them to her care of her aunt at Pellegrino’s.” His eyes brightened, and he seemed marginally less tired and frail. “And it worked!” he crowed. “Now you’re actually doing something.”

  “We’re going to turn you in.” Garrett finally sat down.

  “That sounds right, son.” Rusty chanced a glance at Garrett. “And I deserve whatever I get for it. But I won’t be around long enough to be really punished. My maker will take care of that.” He let out another rattling cough and sank back.

  “Were you behind the break-in at my office too?” Garrett leaned forward intently.

  “Your office?” Rusty’s milky blue eyes clouded over. “I hadn’t heard that. Definitely not me.” He looked as sick as Porter, and it would be a stretch for him to break into Garrett’s office, no less climb the three flights of stairs.

  Then who broke in and stole Eugene’s case files?

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So you think I can help you prove Eugene Newton’s innocence?” Marcus Callender, the Presbyterian minister sat before me at his glossy desk and rested his chin on his plump hands. His office was awash in the gingery smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap, and classical music gently played from a small stereo behind him. Marcus’s face was pleasant and round, an even mask that gave nothing away. I couldn’t read whether he thought I was crazy or if he was humoring me. I’d called him yesterday under the pretense of Whitney and Ian’s wedding and set up this meeting. It was a last-ditch effort to prove Eugene’s innocence before I turned full bore to Whitney’s wedding. I segued into a line of sleuthing that would surely make Truman livid.

  “Well, I spoke to a . . . former member of the police force.” I wasn’t going to give Rusty away. I stilled my nervous hands. “According to him, and to Eugene, Eugene was painting a mural here the day Vanessa Scanlon disappeared.”

  The minister nodded. “That was long before my time.” His voice was gentle, and he crossed the small office to look out his window. He plucked a picture from a shelf and handed it to me. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “It’s gorgeous.” The photo showed a large mural spanning the back section of the church. It featured a rising sun, with lambs in a meadow. It was startlingly lifelike, with an especially realistic sense of depth, perspective, and light.

  “Eugene Newton painted this mural the summer Vanessa disappeared. No one knew at the time that they were having an affair. When her body was found ten years later on Eugene’s property, he said he was here at the church the day she went missing, painting the mural. But he
couldn’t prove it. The mural was painted over the same week Eugene was charged with Vanessa’s murder. The former minister didn’t think it was right to keep it in the church. It’s just a white wall now.”

  I nodded. I was to be married in this very church once upon a time, and I was familiar with it.

  “My predecessor passed away before Eugene was even accused of murder, and no one could remember if Eugene was here or not.”

  I offered him a polite smile. “Thank you for considering my question. I didn’t think there would be any evidence all these years later, but I thought I’d give it a shot.”

  “How is Whitney’s wedding coming along? I’m looking forward to the ceremony.” Marcus deftly changed the subject and peered at me over tented hands.

  “Between ghosts, random accidents, and attacks, it’s just dandy.” I pressed my lips together.

  He definitely thought I was crazy.

  But Marcus’s brows furrowed with concern. “I know about Lois’s unfortunate passing. But what’s this about ghosts?”

  “Do you believe in them?” I asked the minister point-blank.

  Marcus sat and rubbed his chin. He swiveled his chair around to study the late-October light and turned back around after a minute. “Not all is as it seems, Mallory. There are things in this world that can easily be viewed and understood. And there are things that are unseen. Beautiful things, like faith. And love that endures after death. So maybe,” he cocked his head, “there are the kinds of presences you think of as ghosts.” He chuckled. “Some think this very office is haunted by our former minister.” A strange look lit up his face, and he cracked a crooked grin.

  “On second thought, that reminds me. I may have something to help you after all.”

  I perked up and turned. He crossed the room to a small wooden curio. He withdrew a key ring hanging on a peg and extracted a tiny silver key.

  The minister’s eyes twinkled, and he knelt next to a filing cabinet. He produced a small, brown, leather-bound book.

  “A diary?”

  “Of a sort. This belonged to my predecessor, the Reverend Lawrence Rast. He was something of a detail man and wrote down what happened each day. Whom he met with, what sermons he was working on, and what community gatherings he’d attended. A carpenter found Rast’s daybook wedged behind a shelf in this office a year ago.”

  I took the book from Marcus and flipped it open gingerly. The spine gave a groan and cracked down the middle. I cradled the small book to keep it from breaking apart and leafed through pages with neat, slanting blue ink filling every page. Each entry provided mundane details of the goings-on of the church.

  “Have you looked at this?”

  Marcus shook his head. “I’ve had no reason to. Lawrence was meticulous about his days, but there’s nothing in there that would be of any use to me, and I do consider it to be private. But if it could prove a man’s innocence, I have no qualms about you inspecting it.”

  I sank into the chair facing Marcus’s desk and flipped through to the day in question.

  My finger traced down the page to the entry for July eleventh, nineteen ninety-five.

  “Spent the day in the pleasant company of one Eugene Newton, a young muralist,” I read aloud. “He sketched the sheep and lambs in pencil, preparing to paint next week. Mr. Newton joined me for a lunch of lentil soup and ham sandwiches and packed up to leave at five.”

  I snapped the diary shut. “Whitney went running to a neighbor and told about her mother being kidnapped around two that day. Eugene would have been here painting the mural. An innocent man has been locked up for ten years.” I held up the book. “May I keep this?”

  “Certainly. Provided you use it to set that man free.” He folded his hands carefully in front of him. “We need a little more forgiveness in this world. It would be wonderful to see Eugene get a new chance, a new beginning.”

  * * *

  “He’s really innocent.” Whitney paced around the parlor and slipped her engagement ring on and off again and again. “To think he’s spent the last ten years languishing in prison and the person who really killed my mother is still at large.” She sat on the window seat with a huff. The upholsterer had removed almost every scrap of furniture from the first floor for my mother’s makeover, and the window seat was the only place to sit. A little cloud of dust rose up around her. “Those creepy letters were right.”

  “If Rusty hadn’t been so intent on retiring with a perfect record, he wouldn’t have moved the murder weapon into his shed, and he might be free.”

  “And maybe they would’ve focused on finding the real killer.” Whitney’s eyes flashed.

  “There was a lot of evidence that made it look like he did it. Your mother’s body was found on his property. They were having an affair. Still, I don’t think he did it.”

  “And neither do I. Tell Garrett I’ll do anything I can to help get that man free and to find who really murdered my mother.”

  I took a deep breath and brought up something I’d been avoiding. “Whit, your aunt Lois was the only one in your family who knew your mother was seeing Eugene at the time of her disappearance.” I let the statement hang in the air for what seemed like infinity.

  “Aunt Lois did have a terrific temper.” Whitney’s voice was small and laden with misery.

  I was surprised she readily took the bait.

  “Lois and Angela helped my dad raise me. Angela was a little cold and distant. Lois was the warm and funny one. But she did fly off the handle. Nothing too bad,” she quickly amended when she saw my alarmed expression, “but Angela is the type to use guilt to make you regret not living up to her expectations.” She chuckled without mirth. “Whereas Lois would have a gut reaction. Her bark was worse than her bite, but still . . . I wonder if she confronted Mom. That isn’t something my mom would have taken lightly. I didn’t spend too many years with my mother, but she stood up for herself. She didn’t let my aunts push her around.”

  Whitney paced over to the mantle and ran her hands over the newly finished decorative tiles, her ring sparkling off the peacock design, reflecting bits of indigo, violet, and azure. She shivered though the room was toasty and warm. “They could have been the ones fighting. Lois had a pretty deep voice. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Lois confronted Mom.”

  “Did she ever wear white?” I reminded her of the key piece of evidence her five-year-old self had provided.

  Whitney returned to the window seat in a daze. “It was before Labor Day. It’s possible. She wore sundresses and linen jackets and light airy things back then to work; some of them must’ve been white. She always worked at the Senator, for as long as I can remember. Hotels are in our blood.” She said this last bit fondly. “That’s why I went into HR at the Ferris Hotel in Baltimore. Ian works in security there. That’s how we met. And everyone in my family worked at the Senator when I was growing up, except Dad. Mom was manager of the housekeeping department. Lois worked her way up through HR, and Aunt Angela was the cook.”

  “I thought Angela worked at Pellegrino’s with her husband for years.”

  “Oh, no.” Whit shook her head. “She was the cook at the Senator forever. She wanted her own restaurant more than anything, though. She started the restaurant when she married Mr. Pellegrino, my uncle, and he passed away about five years later. To tell you the truth, my dad was a little miffed I didn’t have my wedding at the Senator. That’s where he married my mom, of course. But I’m glad the way things are working out, despite all of the madness.”

  I offered her a small smile. “Me too, Whit.”

  * * *

  That night I crawled into bed with trepidation, expecting to keep Evelyn McGavitt’s ghost company while she knitted from the great beyond. But it was blessedly quiet. Whiskey curled up on an armchair and peered at me with one keen eye opened, and Soda hunted my toes beneath the comforter. I fell into a deep sleep in minutes. Unofficial sleuthing was hard work, especially since I expected Truman to find out at any moment.


  CRASH.

  I sat up and groped for the alarm clock on the bedside table and peered at it through slitted eyes. It was three in the morning. Had I imagined a noise? All was still, and I debated getting up to investigate. Hunter and the Paranormal Society weren’t here tonight. After the sun rose, they’d be setting up for the séance, but no one was supposed to be inside but Rachel, Mom, and me.

  A clammy hand gripped my arm, and I screamed.

  Rachel flicked on the light. Then I got a good look at her face and broke into a jagged laugh.

  “I thought you were the ghost. Or a monster. What’s on your face?”

  Rachel gave me a sheepish shrug. “It’s a Dead Sea salt mask.” She gingerly touched her cheek, and a piece of green plaster-like material fell off and crumbled on the floor. “I forgot I was wearing it. Did a noise wake you?”

  I nodded. “And look, the cats are acting weird.”

  Whiskey’s soft calico fur stood on end all along her spine, and Soda’s apricot tail was as puffy and full as a bottle brush. A low guttural growl coursed through the kitten. They were spooked.

  “Let’s investigate.” I reached for my fluffy aqua robe and slid my feet into my slippers.

  “I’m not going out there!” Rachel raised a hand to her temple, and more green flaked off.

  I grabbed the poker from the fireplace set (purely decorative since Jesse had installed surprisingly lifelike, safe electric inserts) and handed Rachel the matching miniature shovel.

  “This is so dumb,” she muttered as we quietly tiptoed out into the hall.

  The thick, flowered runner masked our footsteps as we tiptoed away from my room, our ears alert for the slightest sound. “If there’s someone in the house, we should be barricaded behind the bedroom door, calling nine one one.”

  “There.” I ignored my sister’s sensible plea and pointed to the back stairs. “I heard a creak.”

  “The third floor, of course. Only the spookiest part of the house.” Rachel hit my rear with the back of the shovel. “You first.”