Ghost Walk

by Laurel Pace

  "Who is it?" Richardson sounded as tense as he looked.

  "He wouldn't say, sir, and I didn't recognize his voice. But he claims it's urgent." The housekeeper took a couple of steps backward, beckoning toward the house.

  "Will you please excuse me, Dani?" Richardson's face had taken on a pallor not unlike that of the drama troupe's ghost.

  "Of course." Dani watched as he pushed his way through the guests, almost rudely, and then hurried into the house.

  Maybe he had been expecting this important call all night. Maybe that was what had been bothering him, some complicated business deal or a chancy investment. But as Dani tried to refocus her attention on the drama that was now in full swing, she could not shake the memory of his worry-clouded face. In the limited time she had spent around her old family friend, she had never seen him this preoccupied or depressed.

  Except for his sister, his niece and his two aging aunts, Richardson had few living relatives; his sojourn in Brazil had probably weakened ties with friends in Charleston. Perhaps he needed someone to share his troubles with. Dani glanced back into the now-deserted hall. Of course, he might interpret her concern as an invasion of his privacy. On the other hand, hadn't he been extraordinarily supportive when an unexpected stroke had claimed her own mother's life five years ago? Richardson had flown all the way from Sao Paulo to offer his condolences. The memory of his heartfelt sympathy was enough to decide the issue. Turning her back on the performance, Dani walked back into the house.

  In the hall, she paused. When she and Elaine had unloaded the Moveable Feast van that afternoon, Dani had noticed a telephone in the library. Not wanting to butt in on Richardson's conversation, she waited a few seconds. When she heard nothing, she carefully opened the library door a crack. Finding the book-lined room empty, Dani retreated into the hall.

  She was on her way back to the ballroom when she spotted Ken McCabe. The bartender was loitering in the alcove beneath the free-flying staircase; unlike the helpers she had employed in the past, he made no effort to look busy as she approached.

  "I took that break you suggested." McCabe clasped his hands behind his neck and stretched wearily. For the first time, Dani noticed the well-developed musculature of his chest and shoulders, now outlined clearly beneath his white shirt.

  "Good. Have you seen Richardson Whyte?"

  McCabe nodded. As he joined her in the hall, Dani was suddenly aware of his powerful build, of the energy housed inside his deceptively compact frame. "I saw him go upstairs just a few minutes ago. Why?"

  It was only a casual question, but for some reason Dani felt that McCabe was prying into her business. "I need to talk with him," she said, a little curtly.

  Dani turned on her heel and headed up the stairs. Prompted by a sixth sense, she glanced over her shoulder and found Ken McCabe watching her. His movements were studied, almost calculated, as he smiled and then sauntered toward the piazza. Something about this bartender had gotten to her—and when she tried to put her finger on it, she felt even more at a loss. Although he was far from a pro, he wasn't completely incompetent, either. No, it wasn't his performance behind the bar that bothered her. It was more the enigmatic looks he gave her, the way he made her feel. Trying to think that through was something she didn't have time for right now.

  On the landing, Dani hesitated. From the courtyard below, she could hear the Ghostwalk's performance building to a climax, the sounds of staged threats and feigned swordplay. A strange apprehension suddenly gripped her, a vague uneasiness that sent a shiver rippling down her spine.

  "Silly! You're like a kid watching a stupid horror movie!" Dani muttered to herself.

  At the far end of the hall, a thread of light outlined a partially closed door. As Dani made her way down the corridor, her shadow loomed and then receded between the dim wall sconces.

  Without warning, a piercing cry rose from the pit of the stairwell. Dani froze, motionless save for her heart pounding furiously against her rib cage. Only when a swell of applause followed did she release the breath she had been holding. The audience's clapping had just subsided when another shriek shattered the silence of the deserted hall.

  Dani's throat went dry and for a split second, she could only listen to the blood thrumming through her ears. For this last horrendous cry had come not from the players below, but from behind the lighted door at the end of the hall. Urgency suddenly goaded her into action. Dani raced down the hall and threw open the door.

  At first, she could only see a pair of feet extending from behind the big desk. A hideous, numbing dread mounting within her, Dani dashed across the room to find Richardson Whyte sprawled on his back against the balcony doors. One hand was pressed to the front of his shirt in a vain attempt to stanch the blood trickling between his fingers.

  "Oh, my God! Richardson!" Dani's head throbbed from the scream wrenched from her throat.

  Richardson's glazed eyes stared up at her. His mouth opened, releasing a rivulet of blood from each corner.

  "Dani!" His voice was so weak, she could barely discern her name.

  "I'm here, Richardson. You're going to be all right." The words tumbled out as Dani knelt beside her friend. Her hands were shaking, but she willed them to be steady as she tried to comfort the wounded man. "Just lie still. I'll get help."

  Richardson's clammy hand grappled for hers as she attempted to rise. He choked and gasped, and Dani could tell he was struggling to speak. She instinctively grasped the cold hand and felt something hard pressed into her palm.

  Richardson's eyes widened with strain. His crimson-stained mouth gaped. Then the hand holding hers relaxed, and Dani knew he was dead.

  Chapter Two

  No! No! Richardson, please. My God, say something. Please! Dani's mind reeled as she knelt over the lifeless man, her hand still clutching his unresponsive fingers. But she knew her efforts were futile.

  Dani struggled to her feet. A murder had been committed. The chilling awareness penetrated her shock, put her numbed senses on alert. The killer could still be around, on the balcony or somewhere in the courtyard below—even hiding in that very room. Her legs felt unstable, her muscles as if they had turned to jelly, as she lunged through the door.

  A scream broke from her tight throat as strong hands seized her from behind. Dani struck out with her fist, but the assailant nimbly pinned her arms to her sides and spun her around.

  "What the devil's going on?" Ken McCabe demanded, glaring down into her ashen face. "I thought I heard a woman scream..."

  Dani shook her arm free and pointed into the room. "It was me. Richardson has been murdered," she gasped out.

  She felt a tremor pass through the steely hands clasping her arms. Then McCabe released her and pushed the door wide open. His lean face contorted into a grimace when he spotted the victim, but he quickly took action. Rushing to the supine body, he dropped onto one knee and passed a hand closely over Richardson's colorless face. Dani's heart sank anew when he only shook his head and stood up again.

  "Was he like this when you found him?"

  "He was still alive." Dani's voice threatened to break, and she hastily swallowed. "I was in the corridor when I heard him cry out."

  McCabe walked to the balcony. Ripping off his bartender's apron, he edged the French doors apart with the folded cloth."Did you see anyone?"

  "No." Dani waited in the doorway. She kept her eyes riveted on McCabe's back, avoiding the hideous sight of Richardson's outstretched corpse. Only when the bartender disappeared onto the balcony did she force herself across the threshold. "We have to call the police." When McCabe didn't answer, she added in a tone that said she wouldn't compromise, "Right now."

  McCabe backed into the room with noticeable reluctance. "You're right," he conceded. "But let's try to keep things quiet. The last thing we need is for that crowd to get wind of this and panic."

  Dani nodded numbly. "I'll use the phone in the kitchen."

  Still covering his hand with the folded apron, McCabe clos
ed the door behind them. "Good. In the meantime, I'm going to enlist someone reliable to help keep tabs on the doors. We don't want anyone—guests, servants, those actors, anyone—to leave until the police get here."

  Dani gave him an uncertain look. "You think someone connected with the party is the murderer?"

  At the bottom of the stairs, McCabe paused for a second and then looked up at her, standing behind him on the stairs. In the dim light, his blue eyes had darkened to the shade of a starless midnight sky. "At this point, I just don't want to take any chances." As McCabe turned toward the piazza, Dani headed for the kitchen. The big marble-and-gray-tile room now looked surreal, the crystal and polished trays a bizarre contrast to the dark tragedy that had occurred upstairs. She rushed to the wall phone and dialed 911. Only after she had talked with the police clerk and hung up did she notice her red handprint smeared on the receiver. Recoiling in disgust, Dani plunged her hands into the pockets of her apron, rubbing them furiously against the smooth mien. When her fingers scraped a small, hard object, they paused and then closed around it.

  In the aftermath of the horrendous murder, Dani had almost forgotten the tiny nugget that Richardson had pressed into her hand. She must have dropped it into her pocket without even thinking about it. Now as she lifted it up to the light, she could see that it was a miniature replica of a yacht, the head of a stick pin worked in fourteen-karat gold. A short chain, apparently broken, dangled from the stern of the boat.

  Dani started and looked up as the door swung open.

  "Well, it's just about time to pack it in—" Elaine broke off, halting stock-still in her tracks when she caught sight of Dani. Her round, brown eyes widened and she sucked in her breath. "What's happened to you? Oh, no! You've cut yourself!" With each dire conjecture, Elaine's voice grew more shrill.

  "Calm down, Elaine! I'm not hurt." Dani was surprised by the sharpness of her tone as she seized her assistant's wrists and gave them a settling squeeze.

  The young woman continued to shake her head, her eyes still glued to the front of Dani's apron. "For heaven's sake, Dam, that's blood!"

  Dani pulled her companion to the kitchen island and gently eased her onto one of the stools. "The police are on their way."

  "Police!" Elaine's voice soared to a terrified shriek.

  Just then Ken McCabe charged into the kitchen, followed by a man in the unmistakable dark suit of a plain-clothes detective. Another man, whom Dani vaguely remembered as one of the guests Richardson had introduced her to, someone named Kennedy or Cannaday, posted himself in front of the door.

  "This is Detective Butler, Miss Blake—" McCabe began, but the man in the nondescript suit cut him short.

  "You discovered the body, Miss Blake?"

  "The body?" Elaine wailed. "What on earth is going on?"

  Dani laid a reassuring hand on her assistant's shoulder for a moment and then turned to the detective. "I had gone upstairs to talk with Mr. Whyte when I heard a cry somewhere down the hall," she told him. "There was only one room with a light on in it, and that was where I found Mr. Whyte lying on the floor behind the desk."

  Detective Butler's eyes narrowed, two black specks of bird shot embedded in a doughy, pink face. "Mr. McCabe, you don't recall hearing this cry, do you?" he asked, his beady eyes still trained on Dani.

  "I had been standing in the door to the piazza, watching the play for, oh, about five minutes. When I walked back into the hall, I heard a woman yell. That was when I hurried upstairs to see what was wrong," McCabe explained.

  "Then the person you heard scream was Miss Blake?" Detective Butler paused long enough for McCabe to nod. "But you didn't hear this cry that alerted Miss Blake to the murder taking place?"

  "The troupe was in the middle of its performance," Dani interjected before McCabe could answer. Much as she resented the detective's calling her testimony into question, she kept her tone deliberately even. "The actons were shouting. I'm sure Mr. Whyte's cry blended in with the noise."

  "Miss Blake is right. There was so much commotion on the piazza, it was impossible to distinguish a single scream," McCabe put in. Over the stocky detective's shoulder, he telegraphed Dani a supportive glance. "I'm sure Mr. Cannaday can vouch for that, too."

  The man stationed in front of the kitchen door nodded emphatically. "I was watching the act. None of us in the audience could have suspected that something was amiss upstairs."

  Detective Butler stroked the tip of his bulbous chin. He cast a skeptical eye around the kitchen before turning toward the door. "I'd like for you to show me exactly what you saw and heard in the room upstairs, Miss Blake."

  Dani felt as if her feet were anchored in cement, so great was the effort required to follow the police detective upstairs. Her emotions had taken such a battering that evening; the last thing she wanted to do was walk into that room again and relive the ghastly experience. In the doorway, she hesitated long enough to comfort Elaine, buying herself some time in the process.

  "Is Mike home with the kids tonight?" When Elaine nodded, she went on. "Good, then call him and have him come pick you up."

  "What about you?" Elaine's voice quavered. "And we still haven't packed up yet."

  "Don't worry about the stuff—or me. I'll be all right," Dani assured her. But as she turned to the men waiting at the foot of the stairs, a renewed wave of uneasiness roiled within her.

  "Where were you when you heard the cry from Mr. Whyte's study?" Detective Butler demanded from the top of the stairs.

  Dani forced herself to resist the detective's high-pressure technique. She thought carefully, trying to reconstruct events accurately in her mind before answering his questions. Still, when she reached the study door, she felt the blood drain from her face. A chalked outline marked the place where Richardson had lain. Dark stains splotched a crude Rorschach on the pale blue Aubusson carpet.

  Two police officers were completing their inspection of the room. Detective Butler stopped to talk with them briefly before resuming his questioning. Fighting to suppress her emotions, Dani did her best to reconstruct the sequence of events.

  "Mr. Whyte managed to say my name." She paused, clamping her trembling lips together. "Then he took my hand and pressed this into it." Dani fumbled in her pocket and produced the gold pin.

  Detective Butler's small dark eyes squinted at the trinket. "Any idea where he got it?"

  Dani shook her head. "I don't know. Mr. Whyte and my father sailed together. Maybe it has something to do with that." She hesitated. "Actually, I got the feeling that Mr. Whyte was trying to tell me something."

  "What do you mean?"

  Dani hesitated, trying to give form to her inchoate instinct. "He was struggling to speak, but couldn't. I'll never forget the look on his face, so desperate and yet so helpless. It was as if the pin was all he had to communicate with." She stared at the tiny pin cupped in her palm.

  Butler's pudgy fingers plucked the miniature yacht from Dani's hand with surprising dexterity. "I don't know if I buy this 'feeling' of yours, but there's no question that the pin is evidence. The chain's broken. Whyte could have ripped this stick pin off his assailant's lapel during a struggle." He jiggled the pin inside his closed hand for a moment. "I'll have to keep it, Miss Blake, at least until the case is closed."

  Reluctant as she was to surrender Richardson's parting gift, Dani saw the hopelessness of arguing with Butler about anything. Then, too, she longed to conclude the wearying interrogation, to get away from that oppressive room and its hideous memories. Unfortunately, Detective Butler seemed bent on prolonging the interview.

  "And you're certain you didn't see or hear anyone—except Mr. Whyte, of course—before or after you entered the room?" he repeated, stalking back to the desk.

  "No." Dani's voice was heavy with fatigue. Butler had asked her that question at least three times already. With each repetition, she felt less like a witness and more like a suspect.

  Ken McCabe had been hovering in the door, talking in a low voice with
Richardson's friend, Mr. Cannaday. Now, however, he interrupted before Butler could launch another battery of questions. "You've already surmised that the murderer used a gun equipped with a silencer, Detective Butler. And it seems likely that he escaped from the balcony right after he shot Richardson Whyte. The drop isn't more than twelve feet or so, and the courtyard walls would have offered a lot of cover. It's very unlikely that Miss Blake would have heard or seen anything."

  Butler looked up from the chalk outline and gave McCabe a sarcastic smile. "You seem to have thought this through real carefully, Mr. McCabe."

  If the bartender was fazed by the detective's implication, his impassive expression kept his feelings secret. "I'd like to see the murderer brought to justice," he said evenly.

  Detective Butler's heavy shoulders rose and fell as he sighed. "Wouldn't we all? Okay," he conceded. "We know where to reach you people if we need to. We'll be questioning everyone who was on the premises tonight in depth."

  With the brusque gesture of a veteran homicide investigator, he ushered them out of the room and down the stairs.

  Mr. Cannaday and McCabe followed the detective to the piazza, leaving Dani alone in the hall. When the well-muscled V of the bartender's back disappeared through the door, a fleeting pang of regret nipped at her, as if she had lost her only ally in the night's disastrous turn of events. Of course, she and Ken McCabe had only the most fleeting acquaintance. He had defended her testimony to Detective Butler, but that was insufficient reason to imagine any sort of bond between them. The fact that she found him very attractive had probably clouded her judgment.

  Through the arched entrance to the ballroom, Dani could see the sad remains of the celebration. Another plain-clothes detective was questioning guests, while the members of the five-piece dance band packed up their equipment in the background. Just as if it were a normal party. Just as if nothing had happened, Dani thought. It seemed so callous, and yet she realized that nothing remained for her to do but pack her things and go home.