Anna Denning Mystery Series Box Set: Books 1–3

by Karin Kaufman

  Bee took a handful of napkins from a holder on the counter and put them on the tray before turning back to Anna. “The ritual was simple, probably so children at Halloween could perform it. You take a piece of blue paper—it has to be blue—and write ‘Come to me tonight’ on it.”

  Anna felt a prickling at the back of her neck. “Why blue paper?”

  “I don’t know for sure, though blue was Matthew Birch’s favorite color.”

  Blue paper, the words “Come to me tonight”—exactly as described in the first yellow letter. “What do you do with the paper?”

  “You fold the paper, twice, three times, then put it around or even into the house in some way.” She chuckled. “The bravest trick-or-treaters run up to the house and stick their papers into cracks in the mortar. The less brave ones throw their papers into the greenhouse or drop them on the lawn. Every year Mitch spends the day after Halloween picking up pieces of blue paper.”

  “Is that the end of the ritual?”

  “Not quite.” Bee switched off the coffeemaker, put the coffeepot in the center of the tray, and carried the tray to the island. “Then they run back to a place on the grounds. To the greenhouse or one of the gardens—or back to the gate if they’re very afraid, which they usually are.”

  “And then?”

  “And then they wait. All night sometimes.”

  “Are you sure this ritual didn’t start before 1970?”

  Bee considered the question. “The ritual I’m describing started in 1970, I’m certain. Though there might be an earlier ritual I’m not aware of, maybe a first version. After all, if there’s one thing I know about this house, it’s that things in and around it have a way of repeating themselves.”

  “I’ve noticed that in my research. The characters change, but the actions remain the same.”

  “But that’s supposed to be Sparrow House’s charm,” Bee said. The smile was gone from her face.

  Anna hopped off the stool and reached for the tray. “Thanks for this.” She wanted to take the tray in her hands and make a quick exit, but she couldn’t let pass what needed to be said. “You know, Liz was sincere about selling your sandwiches.” Bee opened her mouth and Anna held up a hand. “Not that that’s what you want to do, I know. She just meant . . .”

  “I know what she meant, and it was kind of her to say. I reacted badly.” Bee let out a sigh and sunk onto the barstool. She looked longingly toward the kitchen door, and it seemed to Anna that she wanted to spring for it at that very moment, to run from Sparrow House and not look back. For the first time since Anna had met her, she seemed sapped of energy, vulnerable rather than defiant.

  “I can see how you’d take it the wrong way.”

  “No, it was stupid of me. I get frustrated and overreact. This house, all the demands on me.”

  “And not many of them having to do with why you took the job.”

  Bee looked embarrassed. “I’ve been taking things out on you and Liz, and I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been a great help.”

  “It’s just that . . .” Bee wavered for a moment, deciding whether to finish her sentence. “Your job was supposed to be mine.”

  “I see.” Anna had suspected as much.

  “I’ve always wanted to organize the records in this house. Paxton and Nilla know that. For crying out loud, it’s a library.” She put a hand to her breastbone. “I have a degree in library science. I’m not trained in genealogy, but I could have organized the records for you. I could have done Lawrence’s job—easily. But they hired him and then hired you, not considering me for one second. I just, just . . .” Bee sputtered to a halt. “It’s not your fault or your problem.”

  “I’m sorry, Bee. From what I’ve seen, you’re the one who keeps this house running.”

  “Giving house tours is the only thing I enjoy. Sometimes I think all those years of college were a waste.”

  Bee was way too young to be tossing in the towel. Anna wouldn’t hear of it. “Knowledge is never a waste. If the house sells, you can get a job that uses your degree and your skills.”

  “I could try.”

  “Imagine the places you could go if the developer buys Sparrow House.”

  “I’d lose my job.”

  “But—”

  “I guess.”

  Bee was closing up, like a spring bloom in cold weather, as their conversation shifted from tender matters to private ones.

  “Thanks again.” Anna lifted the tray and headed for the kitchen door. At the door she pivoted and put her back to it, ready to push her way through. “One more thing. Who brought that red Buddha into the house?”

  “That monstrosity? Charles Warren, Paxton’s grandfather. He bought it in Indonesia.”

  “He went all the way to Indonesia to buy it?”

  “He traveled to Indonesia ten or more times, and he always brought back tourist junk. He took Matthew there in the 1960s, and Matthew took Charlene there on their second honeymoon.”

  “When was that?”

  “The late 1970s, 1980 maybe.” Bee removed the towel from the dough and poked the mound several times.

  “I thought they had a bad marriage.”

  “They might have been trying to repair it.”

  A crash of thunder rattled the kitchen window.

  “Not more rain,” Bee said, looking at the kitchen ceiling as though she could view the leaden sky through the floor and roof above. “Will you let me know if the library window leaks?”

  “I sure will.” Anna lifted the tray an inch or two. “Thanks.”

  Anna could hear the rain beating against the roof’s slate shingles as she crossed the entryway. She maneuvered through the sitting room, focusing on the tray in her hands and avoiding the fireplace mantel.

  “I was about to send Jackson out for you,” Liz said as Anna entered the library. “Tie a little cask of rum around his neck and set him loose. Here you go.” She pushed aside a stack of books.

  “I had a nice talk with Bee,” Anna said, setting down the tray.

  “Are you using ‘nice’ ironically?”

  “No, I mean it.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, pushed the pot handle toward Liz, and sat. After explaining that Bee had wanted her job, or Lawrence’s, she told Liz about the ghost-calling ritual and reminded her that it mirrored the story told in the first yellow letter. That reminder was unnecessary, Anna realized, as Liz’s eyes had grown wide at the mention of blue paper and wider still at the words “Come to me tonight.”

  “As if we had any doubt, everything’s pointing us toward Kurt Ellison’s death,” Anna said. She took a long sip, warming her hands on the mug. The day had grown chilly and her light sweater was no match for the house’s damp air.

  “Let me see . . .” Liz leaned forward, finger on her laptop’s keypad, maneuvering and clicking.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I wonder if anyone has emailed in response to my query about the letters.”

  Liz was silent, her eyes riveted to her laptop screen. Anna waited, then asked, “Anything?”

  “Yeah. An advertiser canceled. He was going to pay for a month’s worth of banner ads.”

  “No.” Anna put down her cup. “Why?”

  “All he says . . .” Liz pulled her eyes from the screen and looked up at Anna. “All he says is that he wants to advertise on a reliable news site. Reliable. How am I not reliable?”

  “Can he cancel? Didn’t he sign a contract?”

  “I allow people to cancel twenty-four hours before an ad runs, in case something comes up, like they decide they can’t afford it. Stupid of me, huh?”

  “No it’s not.” The discouragement in her friend’s voice took Anna by surprise and she responded with a tone of unshakable certainty. “It’s decent. It’s a decent way to run your business. Don’t you dare say it’s stupid.”

  Liz didn’t speak as she typed in a new address and again slid her finger over her laptop’s keypad.

  “Wha
t are you looking for?”

  “I smell a rat.” Liz lowered her chin in her hands and began to read from the screen. Her mouth tightened. She muttered.

  “An Elk Park Herald rat?” Anna said.

  “Listen to this,” Liz said. “It’s written by the editor of the Herald. ‘The nighttime reports from the house are one thing. They are relatively harmless. But an article about the death of a young man? That takes cynicism to a new low. Now we’ve received information about a supposed disappearance at Sparrow House. Another publicity stunt? You be the judge. A well-known University of Denver history professor goes missing in a so-called haunted house. A house that is up for sale and a house in which the editor of ElkNews.com happens to be staying. Some may wonder at the convenience.’”

  Anna was speechless. Liz had done nothing but report the news. And what was this about Lawrence and a publicity stunt? As far as Anna knew, Liz hadn’t even written about the professor since they’d arrived. Why would she?

  Liz glared at the screen. “Now I know how you felt when those monsters tried to ruin your business last year.”

  Anna remembered vividly. Even Jazmin Morningstar, the girl she’d helped find a job, the girl who now treated her with something just short of contempt, had been in on it. Jazmin and her friends had sent text messages to ElkNews.com and the Herald asking them to drop her online ads. Anna knew then that she was one rumor campaign away from losing her only source of income. She knew exactly how her friend felt.

  “You’ve got to fight this, Liz, and I mean hard. What did you write last night? You said you added a note to the Herald in your post.”

  Liz sniffed and wiped her nose with a napkin. “I asked why the editor wanted to deny me my encounter with a ghost when he no doubt had his own ghosts. Like the Ghost of Readership Past.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, well he hit back, didn’t he?” She wiped her nose again, scrunched up the napkin, and tossed it at the wastebasket. It fell short, but no one moved to pick it up.

  “And what’s this about Lawrence being missing? How did the editor know about Lawrence? All anyone in this house knows is that he left a note on his bed saying he’d be in town for breakfast. So we haven’t seen him—so what? We don’t even know if he is missing.”

  “You’re right,” Liz said, raising a hand to her cheek. “How would the editor know anything about it? Lawrence doesn’t want to work in the basement, so maybe he’s just taking his time getting back. No one’s said he’s missing.”

  Anna latched onto her coffee cup again, enjoying the crumb of warmth if offered in the chilly library. “This is as puzzling as the second yellow letter, the one that was sent to you. How did the person who wrote it know I’d be staying at Sparrow House so I couldn’t pick it up at my post-office box?”

  “And how does the Herald editor know about Lawrence?”

  Immediately Anna knew. “Because someone in this house told them.”

  17

  Bee had arranged the place settings as before, Paxton at one end of the table, near Anna, and Nilla at the other end. Liz was to the left of Anna, and Bee was across from Liz. Lawrence and Mitch were nowhere to be seen, though Bee had arranged a place for one of them across the table from Anna.

  Paxton drove a serving spoon through the crust of the chicken pot pie just as Bee placed a basket of rolls on the table. He was scooping out his second steaming spoonful by the time she reached her seat.

  “I take it Lawrence isn’t back yet,” Nilla said, passing Bee the basket of rolls. She had again drawn back her hair and wrapped it into a bun, and the string of pearls from Monday night had reappeared at her neck.

  “I don’t think so. I looked in the basement and his room.”

  “And Mitch?”

  “No,” Bee replied. She leaned to her left and extended her arm as far as she could until Paxton noticed and took the basket from her hand.

  “But Anna and Liz will be gone Friday, and after that it’s just family for dinner.”

  “He knows.”

  “All I’ve heard from Lawrence is that note he left on his bed,” Paxton said, slicing into a roll. “Butter?”

  Bee stood, picked up the butter dish from the center of the table, and walked it to Paxton’s end.

  “Thank you. Just a note on his bed,” Paxton continued. “On small blue stationery, folded in the middle and propped on his pillow like a note from a hotel housekeeper asking for tips. Weird, if you ask me.”

  Anna glanced sideways at Liz, wondering if she’d caught that Lawrence’s stationery was blue. By the look on her face, she had.

  “What’s weird is that someone so eager to work on the papers would disappear for a whole day,” Nilla said. “He’s only been here a week.”

  “He went through an awful lot of papers in one week,” Anna said. “Judging by all the records he put to one side in the library.” More like he was looking for something than organizing papers for a university collection, she thought. She took a sip of her wine and looked from Nilla to Bee and then to Paxton, her eyes moving slowly, studying each face. One of them had told the editor of the Elk Park Herald about Lawrence, and one of them—that same person?—knew something about the yellow letters.

  “When did he leave the house?” Nilla asked.

  “No idea,” Paxton said, working his mouth around a spoonful of pot pie.

  “It must have been before eight. I was cutting roses at the front of the house by then and I would’ve seen him come out the door.”

  “Why do you do that?” Paxton laid down his spoon, annoyance in his voice. “That’s Mitch’s job. And Bee’s. Look at your arms. You’re always scratching yourself on those things.”

  Bee shot a look at Paxton then pushed her pot pie around on her plate, rearranging the chicken and vegetables with care but never lifting the spoon to her mouth.

  “I enjoy it, dear. They’re my roses, after all, and next month they may belong to someone else.”

  “Was it Lawrence’s stationery?” Anna broke in. “What he wrote on, I mean.”

  Paxton, distressed that Lawrence still reigned as the subject of the moment, turned to Anna. “I don’t know. Does it make any difference?”

  She shrugged. “I was just wondering. I’ve never known a man to own small blue stationery.”

  Bee looked up from her plate. Gravy dripped from her spoon as she stared at Anna.

  “You’re right,” Nilla said. Elbow on the table, she held her spoon in the air, shaking it slightly as she considered the issue. “Men don’t use stationery at all, do they? And if they did, it would never be small or colored. It would be large and white, no frills. Right, Paxton?”

  Paxton, who had returned to eating his pie, could only mumble a frustrated “I guess.” He swallowed. “Could we talk about something other than paper? I’d like more rolls.”

  “Right in front of you,” Bee said.

  “I have a question,” Liz said, dabbing her mouth with her napkin before continuing. “It might help with our research.”

  “Fine.” Paxton leaned back in his chair.

  “The rumors were that Kurt Ellison was murdered, but who did people say murdered him?”

  Nilla scowled as she seemed to picture the culprit in her mind’s eye. “Someone at that ridiculous conclave, that’s who.” She downed the rest of her wine and cast her eyes over the table for one of the bottles.

  “Here,” Bee said, reaching for a bottle and passing it to Nilla.

  “I don’t know about ridiculous,” Paxton said. “Foolish and naive, maybe, but they had lofty goals.”

  Bee snorted. She glanced quickly at Paxton. “It’s none of my business,” she said.

  “Not at all,” Nilla said, pouring wine into her glass. “I want to hear your opinion. You know more about that meeting than almost anyone.”

  Paxton spread his hands in resignation. “Go for it, Bee.”

  “Right.” Bee plunked down her spoon and folded her arms. “How were eight spoiled brats go
ing to change the world? They couldn’t even change themselves. None of them even had a job, for crying out loud. They called their meeting a conclave because they couldn’t let on that it was just eight cowards and malcontents getting together for a few days of sex and drugs. They solved nothing, they did nothing. Children never do. And if they had done something, what a tragedy that would have been.”

  She picked up her spoon and put it down again. She wasn’t finished. Anna had the feeling Bee had waited a long time to say her piece on the subject. “I take that back. They did do something. They murdered a man.”

  “Excuse me, folks.”

  Nilla gasped and Anna swiveled in her chair toward the dining-room entrance, where Mitch DeBoer, wearing an ill-fitting navy suit jacket over a pair of jeans, was standing.

  “I thought I’d join you,” he said. He moved haltingly for the empty seat at the table. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “That’s fine,” Nilla said, her hand still at her collarbone, where it had flown at the sound of Mitch’s voice. “I’m glad you could come.”

  Mitch sat and scooted himself closer to the table, his chair’s legs scuffing and tugging at the oriental rug. Nilla grimaced.

  “Talking about the conclave, were we?” he said. “The old days.” He looked across the table at Anna.

  “To a genealogist, 1970 isn’t long ago,” she said.

  “You must have a different view of the past,” Nilla said. “The old is new to you, isn’t it?”

  “It’s this house.” Mitch lifted himself a few inches from his chair, grasped the serving dish with both hands, sat, and spooned what was left of the pot pie onto his plate. “Everything in it is old. I’ve thought about writing a horror story. There’s a family that lives in an old house. No one in the family ever dies. They change their names every seventy-five or so years, but they never die.”

  “Sounds like a hit,” Nilla said, endeavoring to smile but failing to raise the corners of her mouth sufficiently.

  “People visit and die in the house,” Mitch went on, “and they become its ghosts. The family feeds off the ghosts.”