by Annie Irvin
“You girls standin’ there waitin’ for Christmas?”
“Just enjoying the nice weather,” Harper answered loudly.
A minute later, Alice joined Harper and Lonnie, while Ezra and Mead set off for the one of the rose gardens.
The three women strolled toward the shed. When they reached the little building, they walked around the exterior a couple of times, then opened the door on its creaky hinges. After the yellow crime scene tape was removed, Ezra had cleaned the fingerprinting dust from his workbench and tools, and scrubbed away all traces of blood. Harper knew as far as Ezra Sanders was concerned, no corpse had ever taken up floor space in his shed. The jury was still out as far as Alice was concerned, however.
Alice stood in the middle of the shed, the late afternoon sun filtering through the dusty glass of the window. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the tool bench before warily gliding around the rest of the room. When she faced the west wall, she pointed toward the floor directly underneath the window and said in a strong, firm voice, “That’s where she fell.”
Harper felt a tingle at the realization that Alice had picked the exact spot where Grace had lain. Harper and Lonnie had seen Grace’s body but this was Alice’s first trip to the shed. She certainly hadn’t been out here at the same time as Grace’s body.
Lonnie glanced around the small shed. “Grace must have faced her murderer since she was attacked from the front.”
“You’re right,” Harper said. “Lonnie, let’s act out what probably happened. I’ll pretend to be Grace and you pretend to be her killer.”
“Okay,” Lonnie said, picking up a small hammer from the workbench. “Imagine this is the murder weapon,” she said, turning sharply and taking small, deliberate steps toward Harper.
“She might have begged for her life,” Harper exclaimed and dramatically held out her hands, palm upwards.
“But it would have been too late,” Lonnie hissed fiercely, raising her arm and crossing the room with a menacing look on her face. “The killer had already decided to kill. Did Grace recognize her foe? Did she try to escape? Go ahead, try to stop me if you can.”
Lonnie clutched the hammer and purposefully closed in on her sister. Harper reached out and grabbed the front of Lonnie’s shirt, a feeling of panic suddenly flowing through her veins as the scene began to feel real. Harper opened her mouth and sucked in her breath, struggling to stop an actual scream from rushing out of her throat. Instead of Harper’s scream, however, Alice’s shriek filled the shed. Harper and Lonnie jumped aside as Alice moved rapidly across the floor to the window. She’d turned deathly pale, her eyes as big as Mars.
“Yes,” Alice wheezed in a raspy voice. “I feel it. It happened exactly that way.”
How the heck does she know? Harper asked herself right before Alice crumpled in slow motion onto the floor, landing on her back, her right arm flung out to her side, her body positioned in the very way Harper recalled seeing Grace when she peeked in the window before the sheriff arrived.
Harper sat down on the floor and took one of Alice’s hands in hers. Unexpectedly, a bone-chilling cold seemed to seep up through the old wooden floorboards and goose bumps popped out on her arms. She shivered as Alice opened her eyes and stared blankly around.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the garden shed,” Lonnie told her, holding out a hand to help Alice to her feet. Alice pulled herself up, gave her head a shake and, with Lonnie’s help, slowly walked over to a low bench where she gingerly sat down.
“Are you okay?” Lonnie asked, noting the color had returned to Alice’s cheeks.
“Yes, I’m okay,” Alice responded. “When the spirits want to make a point they’ll do most anything to get your attention. It’s passed.”
Harper, still in a sitting position on the floor, rolled onto her hands and knees in order to push herself to her feet. The effort caused her to groan softly.
A snigger escaped Lonnie’s throat. “Need my help to stand up?”
“No, I do not,” Harper shot back. A few of her joints creaked as she gently positioned herself on her knees. She’d have to be careful on the rough, wide flooring planks so she wouldn’t snag her slacks.
She began to shove herself upward when an object close to her right hand caught her eye. The thing lay nestled in a gap between two of the old flooring planks and she knew immediately what it was. Reaching out her hand, she used her fingernail to pop the item out of the crack. After struggling to a standing position, she contemplated the object resting on her palm. Lonnie edged next to Harper and stared at it, too. Harper held a novelty button which looked like a real acorn.
The three women hurried back to the Inn and the comparative tranquility of the sunny kitchen. Harper placed the button in the middle of the kitchen table and the three stood looking at it as if it might explode or at the very least say something. If only it could say something, Harper thought to herself.
Lonnie voiced Harper’s thought. “If that button could talk.”
Alice touched it with her finger. “How cute. It looks just like a little acorn.”
“Mom sewed them on all of the aprons to be worn during the pumpkin festival,” Harper enlightened Alice before walking over to the butler’s pantry and opening the drawer where Olivia kept the aprons. Counting the freshly laundered, neatly folded butternut-colored garments, she called over her shoulder, “I only have five here. There should be six.”
“Are any of them missing buttons?” Lonnie asked, excitedly.
Harper rummaged through the aprons again.
“These all have their buttons in place.”
“I suppose we need to ask Violet where the missing apron went,” Lonnie mused.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Harper stared at her sister.
“One of our happy worker bees wearing one of our aprons killed Grace. You’ve suspected Summer for awhile. And Summer wore an apron.”
“Let’s consider the evidence,” Harper said, glancing from Lonnie to Alice. “What do you think, Alice?”
“If the button came from a server’s apron, it looks as though one of them must have been in the shed during the course of the evening.”
Lonnie interjected. “It doesn’t mean one of them killed Grace.”
“It might have been lost last year,” Alice said, her voice thoughtful.
“Look at the damn thing,” Harper sputtered. “This button is way too clean to have been there a year.”
“Maybe a server was there earlier and left before Grace was killed,” Lonnie suggested while Alice nodded her head in agreement.
Harper disagreed. “When would they have had time for that? None of them got here until it was time to go to work and they were busy right up until the bonfire was lit. No, the servers were all pretty much accounted for the whole time, except for Summer.”
“Maybe it fell off during some other event,” Alice theorized.
“The aprons are only worn during the festival,” Lonnie informed Alice.
“Well, then, there you are,” Alice sighed.
“I wonder why the cops didn’t find it,” Lonnie mused.
“Well, if I hadn’t been down on my hands and knees in that particular spot, I wouldn’t have seen it wedged in the crack,” Harper said.
“Feel anything when you look at the button?” Lonnie asked Alice.
“No,” Alice told her, “but it’s a nice button. It’s so distinct.”
“Yes,” Harper agreed, “and that’s the problem.”
“We don’t tell Mom about this,” Lonnie insisted.
“No, we don’t,” Harper agreed, “or Violet. Let’s just keep it to ourselves for now.”
“It would be great if we could keep my little fainting spell quiet, too,” Alice said. “I know I felt a presence out there and I’m convinced it was Grace, but there isn’t any reason to worry anyone else about it, is there?”
“As long as you’re feeling okay,” Harper said.
“Oh,
I’m fine now,” Alice assured her as Mead came into the kitchen looking for her.
“Sweetie,” he said, putting his arm around her waist, “Ezra wants to show us how he winterizes the roses. We want to keep them healthy and growing.”
Throwing the sisters a conspiratorial look, Alice left the kitchen with her husband. Harper slipped the acorn button into the pocket of her slacks just as Violet and Olivia entered the kitchen to prepare a pan of Shepherd’s pie. Lonnie and Harper helped out in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon and everyone spent a good part of the evening eating leftovers until no one could swallow another crumb.
Yawning, Alice said she felt tired to the bone and turned in around nine o’clock. Mead soon followed.
“Listen,” Lonnie said quietly to Harper after the Hoovers were upstairs. “I’ve talked Paul into the two of us spending the night here, too. Since Violet always keeps our old rooms made up it wouldn’t be a bother to anyone. Heck, I’ve still got pajamas in my dresser. And I’d like to stick around in case Grace pays Alice a visit tonight.”
“But you don’t believe in that supernatural stuff,” Harper said.
“No, but Alice does. You have to admit it would be extremely interesting to see a little paranormal phenomena taking place. Besides, it might lead to a clue. You never know.”
“That’s what I thought when Mom asked me to spend a night,” Harper agreed. “How did you get Paul talked into staying?”
“He’s so stuffed from eating all evening he’s happy to climb into bed in a few minutes. He’s practically asleep on the sofa right now.”
Alone in her room later that night, Harper took the button out of her pocket and reflected on what it might mean. This could just cook someone’s goose, she thought. Tomorrow she would talk to Summer again.
Harper climbed into bed and snuggled under the same mauve flowered comforter she’d snuggled under in high school. She smiled. The whole room hadn’t changed much over the years. While she relaxed, beginning to feel warm and cozy, she thought about the cold chill she encountered earlier in the shed. She hadn’t said anything to Lonnie about it because she would have felt a little silly mentioning it since she didn't think she believed in ghosts. She’d never seen an apparition and she was more than happy to leave that area to Alice. But remembering the icy blast, she got up and threw another blanket on her bed.
It was after midnight when screams brought Harper out of bed. At first she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or not but hearing footsteps pounding on the stairway and in the hallway upstairs convinced her it wasn’t a dream.
After taking the stairs two at a time, she dashed along the dark hallway until she could just make out the shadowy figures of Mead and Paul standing next to Alice. Lonnie, only steps behind Harper and puffing heavily, almost careened into her sister’s back.
Footsteps clattered behind Harper and she swung around, stifling a scream as she witnessed what appeared to be some sort of apparition hurtling down the stairway from the third floor, its white gown billowing out at the hemline, its long straight hair flying out in all directions from its head.
“What the heck is going on?” the specter demanded to know, not sounding ghostlike at all to Harper but actually sounding suspiciously like Violet. When Ezra bolted down the stairway and stood next to the vision, Harper realized the ghost in the murky light was indeed the housekeeper.
In the meantime, Mead muttered, “Alice, Alice,” and grasped his wife’s arm before turning back toward their room. Alice moaned slightly.
“Is she awake?” Paul asked quietly as he followed Mead to the Hoover’s room.
“She seems to be asleep,” Mead said.
By then, Olivia had made her way up the stairs and followed Mead and Paul into the bedroom.
“I think we can all use some chamomile tea,” Violet said, starting down the back stairs to the kitchen followed by Ezra, Harper and Lonnie.
By the time Mead, Paul and Olivia joined them at the table, everyone was well into their tea. Ezra and Harper wanted coffee but Violet told them it wasn’t going to happen. They would never get back to sleep if they drank coffee now, she said. Harper wasn’t sure she could go back to sleep anyway but knew better than to argue with Violet.
“I guess Alice was sleepwalking,” Mead said as he sat down and took a cup of tea from Violet.
“Has she ever gone sleepwalking before?” Harper asked.
“No, never,” Mead replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his hands. “I wonder if anything happened this afternoon which might have upset her. Made her scream in that way? I can’t believe with a shriek that loud she didn’t wake herself up.”
Harper and Lonnie exchanged a look and Harper decided full disclosure at this point was the only way to go.
After explaining about the strange occurrence in the shed, she finished up by saying, “I have to admit I felt something myself. I can’t put it into words, but it became extremely cold there on the floor. It was almost as though I felt a presence of some kind.”
“Great,” Violet snorted, “now we have another one who feels all spooky!”
“Really, Violet,” Olivia chided, “Harper isn’t given to fancy.”
“I saw something when we were in the shed,” Lonnie whispered, her eyes wide. “I didn’t want to say anything because I wasn’t sure at the time. But now I’m certain I caught a brief glimpse of a figure standing where the sunlight came through the window. It wasn’t much more than a shadow but it was where there shouldn’t have been any shadow at all.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t a ghost,” Violet grumbled. “No matter what you all might think.”
“Now, Violet,” Ezra scolded his wife. “We all have our little idiosyncrasies. Remember your mamma?”
“Leave my mamma out of this,” Violet barked. Grumbling under her breath, she shot a withering look at Ezra before taking off her apron and flinging it over the back of a chair. Then she stomped out of the kitchen. Ezra shook his head and followed his wife.
“Come on, Lonnie,” Paul said. “I’m sure it was only your imagination. It’s easy to get carried away about creepy things after a murder.”
“I should get back to Alice,” Mead said, looking at the tea things on the table.
“Go ahead,” Harper told him, “I’ll clean up down here later. No problem.”
Harper helped Olivia back to her room and waited until her mother settled in. Then she returned to the kitchen and gathered up the cups and teapot. Before flicking off the light, she picked up the apron Violet had draped on the chair and hung it on a hook by the door to the butler’s pantry. Something plucked at the back of her mind. Something to do with aprons perhaps? She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it might be. And she was much too sleepy to worry about it now. She’d tackle it tomorrow. As she headed for her bedroom, she yawned, suddenly feeling almost too tired to make it back to bed.
Chapter Twenty
The following morning, Violet served a light breakfast in the dining room. By the time Harper made her way to the table, Olivia, Lonnie and Paul were making inroads on apple cinnamon muffins and toasted homemade bread with Olivia’s strawberry jam––washing it all down with fresh, hot coffee.
“How are all of you this morning?” Harper asked.
“Okay,” Lonnie replied. “Considering the excitement last night, I actually feel rested. I’ve got to get in to the store soon.”
“I’m off on another two hour road trek to earn money so I can keep my wife happily living her exotic lifestyle,” Paul bantered. “And tonight I am sleeping in my own bed where I can be certain to have a complete night of peace and quiet.”
“I’m feeling all right,” Olivia said. “I hope the Meads are feeling okay, too. Oh, by the way, you girls do remember this Wednesday we’re having our post-festival tea for the girls.”
“Goodness, with all the commotion of the past week I’d forgotten all about it,” Harper admitted.
Every year, a few days after the Pumpkin Pat
ch Festival, Olivia played hostess to a tea for the helpers as a way of thanking them for all their hard work.
“Maybe this year, a paycheck is enough,” Lonnie suggested.
“Nonsense. All the more reason to do something everyone enjoys. It will help take our minds off the murder, for an afternoon anyway,” Olivia said.
The unexpected sound of a door slamming shut made everyone jump. Harper listened to footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Violet joined the others at the table in time to glimpse Alice scurry downstairs and storm through the front door. Mead, moving somewhat slower, followed his wife but instead of going outside he made his way into the dining room.