“Are you done watching me sleep?” he growled.
I chuckled and ducked under the covers. “I guess I am,” I said, my voice muffled.
Chapter One
We started our drive back to Autumn Vale in a fog of happy weariness. It’s a long way and takes seven or eight hours, at least, but Virgil likes driving, so I got us out of the city and then he took over. I let him pick the tunes. He’s not fond of opera or show tunes, preferring old Motown, the lingering tutelage of his buddy and now partner in detective work, Dewayne Lester. I like all kinds of music, so I bopped along with the Temptations, the Supremes, Smoky Robinson and both the Queen and the Godfather of Soul.
At a certain point, though, he decided to take his own route. We hit a construction zone that wasn’t indicated anywhere, and he got impatient. He’s the kind of driver who taps his thumbs on the steering wheel while he gets more and more agitated. We then got backed up in traffic, and in no time we were quarreling, finally lapsing into sullen silence when he refused to go where I wanted. That lasted until we arrived in Geneseo (not far from Autumn Vale), got out to stretch our legs and started kissing; we quickly discovered a nature preserve and used the gorgeous, quiet, lush grassland for what I assume officials meant by the allowed activities, including “low-impact recreation.” As chilly as the air was on my skin, Virgil kept me warm. Afterward, we shimmied back into our clothes—luckily, I was wearing mid-rise boyfriend jeans, a T-shirt and cotton cardigan, instead of the jeggings I had considered—picked the dead grass out of our hair, got back on the highway and were on the best of terms again. Late in the afternoon, as the sun began to sink toward the treetops and the air got chillier, we pulled up to the castle exhausted and utterly blissful.
Which lasted about thirty seconds until I registered the array of vans, cars, and a cube van parked willy-nilly over my flagstone parking area. Several guys and a few gals in jeans and golf shirts emblazoned with the letters HHN bustled around carrying orange reels of black wire, lights on tripod stands, black suitcases rimmed in steel, steel suitcases rimmed in steel, tripods with screw mounts, and assorted other kinds of electrical and electronic equipment.
“What’s going on?” I said, slamming Virgil’s car door as he circled and popped open the trunk.
“You expecting company?”
“No. Why do I have a feeling this is Pish’s doing?” Pish, my best and one of my oldest friends, had gotten me into numerous scrapes over the last year, from a murder among his aunt’s group of friends I had labeled the Legion of Horrible Ladies, to Roma Toscano, a histrionic and hysterical opera diva who was detained by the FBI and almost arrested for murder. I have to admit, though, that he was not responsible for problems previous to those, including the body I found just days after arriving at my inherited castle near Autumn Vale, New York, more than a year ago now.
But this most definitely spelled trouble, with a capital Pish. It appeared to be some sort of television or movie shoot. Had he booked a commercial? A movie of the week?
“You talk to Pish,” Virgil said. “I’ll get our stuff organized and start taking it in and upstairs.” Virgil had moved into the castle with me while putting his house on the market to sell. Jack McGill, our real estate agent and my best friend Shilo’s new husband, had sold it quickly to a couple from out of town, but closing was still a few weeks away. We had plans for how and where we were actually going to live and had started the process with the help of Turner Construction, but hadn’t shared the full plans with anyone but Pish and a couple of select others.
As Virgil started toting his first load into the castle—I had, of course, shopped while in New York, and bought presents for friends, as well as myself—I approached one of the men, a slim guy in his thirties, olive complexion, and with jet black hair and black eyes framed by black glasses. “Pardon me, but who are you?” I asked.
He looked up from the silver metal case he was rummaging in and frowned. “Who’s asking?”
“I don’t mean you in particular, I mean all of you, all of this,” I said, pointing toward the trucks and stacks of equipment. “All of you!”
“Chi-Won Zhu. But just call me Chi.”
“And what do you do, Chi?”
“I’m an effects creator.”
“Effects, as in special?” My nerves frayed just a skosh.
Just then Pish came trotting out the door, waving his hands in the air. “Merry! My darling. I just spoke with Virgil. How is the blissful bride? You are glowing; it must be happiness.”
Uh-oh. He was speaking in italics, which meant he was hiding something or feeling scattered. “Right now it’s confusion with a hint of panic, Pish,” I said. “What is all this? These vehicles, HHN, an effects creator?”
“Ah, well, yes.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “You’re home early! I told you when we talked on Monday to stay through the weekend, and here it is just Thursday.”
“We have to talk to the construction company. You know that, Pish!”
“Yes, yes. Of course! Anyway, come inside, tell me all about your honeymoon, then I’ll tell you what fun we’re having.”
I took his arm and we entered. Inside was worse than outside . . . much worse. The great hall, normally a calm echoey oasis, the heart of my real American castle, was filled with people consulting each other in loud tones, more cases of equipment, wires and cords snaking up the stairs, draped on the banisters and hanging from the gallery railing. There was even a burley fellow with a camera on a body mount. He was filming a guy with sandy hair who mounted a small camera on a tall tripod. Why was someone filming a guy setting up a camera? It made no sense.
Virgil, who had gone back outside, followed us in with my second suitcase and dropped it, chuckling. I turned and glared at him. “Don’t you start.”
He cast a sympathetic look at Pish. “You’ve stepped in it now, pal.”
“If Merry will just hear me out—”
“Don’t even.” I stepped over some wires, dodged a boom mic that was headed my way, ignored the sandy-haired guy who was glaring at me for ruining his shot, and said, over my shoulder, “Pish, kitchen!”
In my sanctuary, the commercially outfitted kitchen my weird old uncle Melvyn Wynter had designed before he was murdered and I inherited the pile of stone called Wynter Castle, I sat down at the long trestle table with a cup of tea from McNulty’s, a specialty tea and coffee shop in New York. Away from the mysterious hordes in the great hall, I felt the calm of my two-century-old castle seep into my bones. Pish was my saving grace, my guardian angel for many years, the friend who saved me from self-immolation after the death of my beloved first husband, Miguel Paradiso, almost nine years ago. He deserved much more than I could ever repay, and his wild ideas always had a way of turning out. Pretty much.
Okay, usually.
“So what’s going on?” I asked, and took a long sip of tea, rolling my eyes back at the wonder of the taste. Good black tea is like honey: warm, delicious, full of flavor.
He took a long breath and sighed. “It all started when you were in Spain—”
“Pish, I mean what’s happening now!”
“I know, I know, but I have to go back to the summer to tell you.”
I had gone, in June, to visit my former mother-in-law, Miguel’s mother, Maria, who was dying and wanted to make peace with me before she did. She had never liked me, and had demanded, after Miguel’s death, that I change my last name back to Wynter. We made our peace but I stayed on weeks after her death, cocooned in the protection of the Paradiso wealth. I realize now I was just figuring things out, but I had happily made the right decision, to come home where I needed to be, at Wynter Castle and in Virgil’s arms.
“Okay, so tell me your way,” I said.
He composed himself as I watched. Pish is a lovely man, slim, exquisitely dressed in slacks and a polo neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up, long-fingered hands with just a signet ring on one finger. His longish hair, just touching his collar, is a n
atural (or natural-looking; I know his secrets, as does a certain hairdresser in Autumn Vale) light brown despite him being somewhere north of sixty. He is cultured and wise, talented and deep, and I love him like the father I’ve never had, combined with the wittiest New York friend a girl could ask for.
“While you were gone to Spain this summer I had a few odd experiences in the castle.”
Odd experiences? Every experience in Autumn Vale and its environs tends to end up odd, mostly because the people are odd. Endearing, likable, but odd. “Like what?”
“Things being moved from one room to another, voices whispering, shadows moving . . . I didn’t know what to think.”
“How does that relate to all of this?” I said, waving my hand out toward the great hall area.
“I’m getting to it,” he said with a frown, faint lines of worry and exasperation bracketing his mouth and underlining his eyes. “I called a friend, Chuck Sandberg, who is in charge of programming for HHN.”
“Ah,” I said, recognizing now the symbol on the trucks, shirts and jackets of the busy bodies. “That’s Helping Hands Network. They started out as a craft and gardening channel a few years back, now they’re kind of an anything goes channel.”
“They have a show called Haunt Hunt. Lush is obsessed with it; swears she has seen spirits all her life.”
I remained silent with just a lift of my eyebrow, not surprised in the slightest by his flighty and charming aunt’s ghostly visions.
Pish ignored my expression. “I spoke briefly with the producer, Hugh Langley. He was perfectly lovely. We talked about Wynter Castle, and I told him too much, probably, about what had happened in the last year here. I was rattled.”
That seldom happens. “I’m sorry, Pish,” I said, covering his hand with my own. “You’ve never said anything to me.”
This time he gave the look and I felt a moment of vexation at myself. Maybe I’m not as open as I like to think. And maybe the murders that have happened had left him feeling more shaken than I knew.
“Anyway, I then talked to one of their experts, Todd Halsey, a paranormal investigator, and he gave me some tips to understand what was going on. Did you know there are different types of hauntings? Two types are intelligent and residual. Residual is like an echo of things that have happened in the past and intelligent is when a spirit is still stuck in one place, interacting with the living.”
I was silent, wondering where this was going.
“Todd was very helpful, spent a good hour on the phone with me. He’s had the most amazing experiences.”
Why did it sound like he was trying to convince me? “And . . . ?” I was starting to understand what this all was about, and I didn’t like it.
Pish moved his cup in a circle, sloshing a little tea over the edge. “I thought that was the end of it, but about two weeks ago—just after you kids left for New York—Todd called and said, would it be okay if we moved the shoot up a little, since they had a sudden cancellation.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“But . . . you hadn’t arranged the show to come here?”
“No, I honestly don’t believe I did, but Todd was under the impression I had. We got muddled, I’m not sure how. Todd sounded so disappointed when I said I didn’t think we could do it.”
Ah, now I was beginning to see a glimmer of light. In his business dealings as an investment counselor and even as a writer of nonfiction to do with scam artists and their cons, Pish is cool, reflective and unflappable, but in his interpersonal relationships he is a people pleaser. “And so . . . ?”
“He had been so kind and had spent so much time with me on the phone. I said if he and his people could come right then, I supposed it would be okay.”
Pish hates to disappoint, especially when someone has done him a favor. Just what I needed, some whackadoodle crew of paranormal wonks peeping around looking for ghosts in my unhaunted castle. “Pish, I hope . . .” I paused, not knowing what to say.
“I know, my darling, I know, but he said they only take three or four days to shoot an episode.” He cast me a guilty look. “I truly thought they’d be here and done and long gone before you and Virgil got home.” I was about to protest, but he jumped back into speech rapidly, hands splayed out in a beseeching gesture. “I didn’t want to disturb you about it, not on your honeymoon!”
“In other words, you thought you’d present it to me fait accompli.”
He shrugged, tacitly admitting that. “But then they were at a paranormal convention and had to put off coming here until they were all available, so . . . they arrived this afternoon.”
All I wanted was a nap. However, with the amount he has done for me, and with the love I hold in my heart for him, Pish could ask me to make the castle into a rocket-launching pad and I’d probably say yes. Eventually. And our honeymoon in New York was perfect mostly thanks to him: the loan of his condo, his theater tickets, his housekeeper, and numerous other treats he arranged. Life’s too short to sweat the small stuff, and this was definitely small stuff. “How does this work?” I asked, giving in.
“Well, they film at night.”
“All night? Starting tonight?”
He winced. “We could put them off for tonight, I suppose, but that would only prolong the shoot.”
I considered my options. Virgil had entered the kitchen but stood by the door, lounging against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, grinning. I was distracted, as always, by my handsome husband—how weird to say that again—and muttered, “Okay, all right. Did you hear that, Virgil? We have a haunted castle on our hands.”
He crossed the room, took my face in his big hands and kissed me. “Dewayne left me a message,” he said, looking into my eyes. “We’ve got something starting tomorrow that’ll take me to Rochester for a day or two. Duty calls.”
I melted into a puddle of slush and my day turned mellow yellow. “Okay. But I’ll miss you. We still have tonight . . . oh, wait.” I was snapped out of my happy, sensual dream by reality. “No, we don’t.” I glanced over at my friend. “They start filming tonight, right?”
Pish shrugged. “Sorry, lovers. But yes.”
“Come for a walk with me now,” Virgil said, holding out his hand. “I want to see how far along they are with the foundation work near the Fairy Tale Woods.”
“Okay.”
So . . . what are the Fairy Tale Woods? They are a part of my past. Wynter Castle and its environs is the huge property I inherited from my great-uncle Melvyn Wynter. It has taken me a while to explore and discover it all. In the spring I found some odd structures in the far woods, strange little broken-down buildings, one of stone and one that appeared to be a wooden gingerbread house, among others. Then with Lizzie, my teenage friend’s help, I found a picture, the only one I know of, that shows me as a toddler, my father, my great-uncle Melvyn and my grandfather Murgatroyd Wynter. In it I am being held by my father, all of us posed near those odd buildings, only half built.
It turns out that my paternal relatives were building them for me, a fairy-tale forest of magical hand-built stone and wood houses. Unfortunately, their work was interrupted by my grandfather’s death and an estrangement between my father and great-uncle Melvyn.
As for that foundation being constructed near what we now call the Fairy Tale Woods . . . that is Virgil and my semi-secret project. More about that later.
I ignored Pish’s salacious chuckle as I agreed to the walk. “We’re just going to see how far along Turner Construction is on the foundation, and if they’ve located a spot to drill the well,” I said with a virtuous sniff.
Virgil dropped Pish a wink and made an okay sign with his thumb and forefinger. “Yup, that’s all. We’re just going to see about some drilling.”
Books by Victoria Hamilton
See all of Victoria Hamilton’s
books at Amazon!
Vintage Kitchen Mysteries
A Deadly Grind
Bowled Over
Freezer I�
��ll Shoot
No Mallets Intended
White Colander Crime
Leave It to Cleaver
Merry Muffin Mysteries
Bran New Death
Muffin But Murder
Death of an English Muffin
Much Ado About Muffin
Muffin to Fear
About the Author
Victoria Hamilton is the pseudonym of nationally bestselling romance author Donna Lea Simpson.
She now happily writes about vintage kitchen collecting, muffin baking, and dead bodies in the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries and Merry Muffin Mystery series. Besides writing about murder and mayhem, and blogging at Killer Characters, Victoria collects vintage kitchen wares and old cookbooks, as well as teapots and teacups.
Visit Victoria at: http://www.victoriahamiltonmysteries.
Contents
Leave It to Cleaver
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
From Jaymie’s Vintage Kitchen
Leave It to Cleaver (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery Book 6) Page 27