“This is a really horrible joke. I demand to know why you’re doing it,” he sputtered, disbelieving still. “This is a very busy weekend for me.”
“That’s clearly a theme,” said Charlie.
“It’s very important to everyone at the Club,” said Greer.
“Yes, exactly,” said Mason, relieved that at least one of us understood him. “You’re Mrs. Dice’s disgraceful daughter, but you’ve been many times over the years, so you know what this weekend means,” said Mason. “So why would you want to ruin any of this for Goldie?”
“In fact, we’re trying to do the opposite,” said Greer quietly.
“You there, stop trampling the flowers,” Mason cried. “Don’t they know how much time and effort has gone into this lawn this past week?”
“I don’t think they care when there’s been a murder,” said Charlie.
“There can’t be a murder at the Iriswood Country Club this weekend! I won’t stand for it. Tell them to move it,” said Mason.
“Move what?” Charlie asked in bewilderment. She did a quick check to make sure Hansen Gregory was still standing an acceptable distance from any useful information. He was, and she brightened a bit.
“The date of the murder,” Mason sputtered again.
“Maybe the best thing would be for no one to have been murdered, but now that they have been . . .” I trailed off.
“I need to talk to a scheduler,” said Mason under his breath. “Poor planning is unforgivable!”
“We should probably return to your office to have this conversation,” I said to Mason.
“In a minute,” he replied. Then he paused, thought for a minute, and said in a tone that suggested the light was finally dawning, “Are you saying I’m dead?”
But the poor man still wasn’t done. He stepped forward and ordered a couple of police officers to move. When they didn’t appear to hear him, he stomped over to Hansen, who was watching from a short distance away. He tried to grab the reporter’s arm, but his hand just went through it.
Mason began to understand the truth at last.
He trudged back to us. “Very well, let’s return to my office.”
As he walked, he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. Trotting alongside, Paws said, “He really is a professional. He’s accepted all this rather quickly compared to other ghosts I’ve met soon after their deaths.”
Back in the office, Mason sat down near the table and gestured for us to sit across from him. He adjusted some of the papers in front of him, and his glasses.
“Now, you say you’re a witch?” he asked, his ghost eyes boring into mine. “Is that a metaphor for something?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question,” I said.
“You say you’re a witch, so I’m wondering what that’s a metaphor for,” he explained patiently.
“You’re a ghost, like spooky haunted houses,” said Greer. “My friend here is a witch, like magic,” Greer said.
“Can you prove it?” he asked.
I made a face.
Knowing that if this helped the man come to terms with what had just happened I needed to do it, I fished my wand out of a hidden pocket in my dress. Mason’s eyes widened as if to say I was crazier than he had originally suspected. I waved my wand and sent sprinkles of butterflies out of its tip.
At that Mason’s eyes widened even further. “I really am a ghost,” he breathed, gazing at his hands as if he had never seen them before.
“You really are,” I said.
There was a long pause, then Mason jumped to his feet, howling in delight, stomping around in a little jig. All of us, including Paws, looked on in confusion.
“We had thought you’d be upset,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, what the yeah yeah yeah,” was all Mason would say.
We all exchanged confused glances, and I looked at Paws to see if I could get some clarity there. Turned out, even the world-weary cat was surprised.
“I thought he was way more boring than this,” said the cat.
After a long while Mason calmed down enough to sit, but he still looked jubilant.
“Was it your secret dream to be a ghost?” I asked, risking a small smile.
Mason chuckled. “No, of course not. Nothing like that, it would be silly.”
“One must not be silly,” said Greer. I had a feeling she was quoting her mother.
“So then why are you so pleased?” Charlie asked.
“It’s an adventure. I haven’t been able to leave this club in twenty-five years. It’s been partly my own fault, of course, but I just didn’t think the place could run without me. Now I don’t have a choice but to let it,” Mason explained.
“That makes sense. Kind of,” said Charlie.
“You’ll understand when you’re older and hate your job,” snapped Mason.
“But you came back to your office to look at papers even after what happened at the pond, as if you were still determined to be dedicated to your work,” I said.
“I am very dedicated. I like to do a good job and I do do a good job. This weekend is for Goldie, the display aspect of it stopped being important to me a long time ago,” Mason explained.
“Well, if you’ve accepted the circumstances, can we get to talking about what happened tonight?” Charlie begged. She burst forth with the question as if she’d been waiting to ask it for a long time and could resist no more.
Mason blinked at her and said, “What do we need to talk about?”
Charlie made a dissatisfied noise.
“We need to talk about the fact that you were murdered,” said Greer.
“Yeah, you didn’t just die, you were killed,” I said.
“I’d forgotten about that,” said Mason. He still sounded like he was at some planning meeting instead of discussing a brutal crime committed against him.
“I don’t suppose you saw who did it,” I said.
“No, I didn’t,” said Mason.
No, I thought, that would’ve made my job entirely too easy.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Charlie asked.
“I was here in the office going over seating charts for tomorrow. These are the plans right here,” Mason said, indicating the papers spread out in front of him. “I remember thinking what a real mess it was but how good a job Goldie was doing,” he said. “Then . . .” He trailed off. “I don’t remember anything after that.”
“Can you try to remember whether you went to the Lily Pond and someone was already out there? Or maybe you went out by yourself,” I asked.
Mason bit his lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
Realizing that we weren’t getting anywhere on this tack, I decided to take another one. “Was there anyone who wanted to do you harm?”
“You mean like threatening letters?” Mason asked.
“No, like flowers! Of COURSE like threatening letters,” Paws sputtered.
Luckily, Mason couldn’t hear the angry cat; he must still have been too new to the ghostly realm.
“No one’s threatened me,” he said, sounding proud. “In fact, I’m on great terms with everybody.”
“You aren’t on great terms with Simon,” I pointed out.
“You know about that man!” Mason’s whole demeanor changed.
“Of course we know about him,” said Charlie in frustration. “Everyone who was at breakfast at a decent hour knows about him.”
“In case you’re wondering, that excludes Greer,” I pointed out.
“I’m a big brunch person,” said Greer.
“Brunch literally does not exist. Brunch is lunch,” Charlie huffed.
“We can agree to disagree,” said Greer.
“You do that, and I’ll agree that you’re wrong,” said Charlie.
“Ladies, if you wouldn’t mind, I’ve just been murdered,” said Mason.
“Have a little sympathy for the man,” said Paws. “Where is your compassion?”
“I get along well
with everyone,” said Mason, returning to what he thought was the main point.
“Except Simon Simone,” I pointed out, not letting him get away with it. He’d been murdered, after all; did he want to help us find out who did it or not?
Mason took himself in hand and didn’t explode, but he looked like he wanted to.
“He and I have our differences. We’ve known each other a long time, and you know how those creative musician types are,” he said.
“How are they?” Charlie asked. She thought they were awesome and sometimes a little less direct than, say, someone who taught math, but that probably wasn’t what Mason was about to say.
“Volatile and irresponsible,” said Mason. “We usually have rotating musicians in the summer months, with a few regulars. About five years ago Goldie set it up so that Simon was our main entertainment for the summer. We promoted his presence all over the place. He’s popular and well-known, of course, and other places had tried to get him to do such a residency since his music is extremely popular among the country club set. He refused everyone but us; Goldie has a special touch, and she’s the one who got him to agree. At the last minute, after we’d done a lot of work to make sure he was happy, he backed out. All that promotion and all sorts of tickets sold and we got nothing. He left us high and dry.”
“From what we saw, Goldie’s forgiven him for that,” said Charlie. “And he’s here this weekend. So how did that come about?”
“She needed him for this weekend to be a success. He truly is one of the great performers. He’s just difficult to pin down.”
I could tell from the expression on Charlie’s and Greer’s faces that they didn’t agree with Mason’s assessment. Goldie was in love with Simon, and she had forgiven him for whatever indiscretions he had engaged in in prior years. It wasn’t just her own success that she cared about in having Simon at the club.
“Besides,” said Mason, “if you saw the disagreement we had this morning, you’ll recognize that I was the one who was angry with him, not the other way around. But even so, I certainly wasn’t angry enough to kill, and as you have so kindly pointed out, I’m the one who’s dead.”
With that, Mason turned his attention away from us as if he had more urgent things to do. As we left, he was looking around his office as if he was trying to memorize every detail. I followed his eyes to a violin case propped in the corner and remembered that Simon had taunted Mason about his violin playing. The sight of the instrument made me wonder if it had any bearing on the case.
I thought not. Mason was right. He was the one who was dead, and everyone at the Country Club was now a suspect.
Chapter Twelve
We left Mason sitting at his desk for the night. He said he wanted to look over as many papers as he could before someone else took over his job, after first clarifying with me that ghosts couldn’t work as resort managers. Charlie put a glove on (in case the police dusted for fingerprints) and spread out as many papers as possible for him to read.
“That’s only going to cloud the investigation once they find the office,” Greer argued.
“Who cares. We’re the ones who are going to solve the crime anyway,” said Charlie.
On the way back to our room it was clear that Charlie was checking to see if Hansen was still around, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“My family went to bed a long time ago,” said Greer. “I’m sure I’ll be getting an earful from my mom in the morning.”
“For what?” Charlie asked.
“Bags under my eyes, if nothing else,” Greer muttered.
“Do you think I should write something up for Lena just in case?” Charlie wondered.
“No,” Greer and I chorused.
“You took the weekend off,” I pointed out.
“That was before the Country Club director was murdered in his own pond,” said Charlie. “I’ll write something up tomorrow. It’s not fair, Hansen’s surely writing an article for the Chronicle.”
“Hansen can win for once. It’ll be a new experience for him,” said Greer.
At that Charlie brightened.
The night had been crazy. So crazy, in fact, that I hadn’t checked my phone since we’d sat down to dinner. To be fair, since I often couldn’t get text messages anyhow and didn’t have a habit of checking for incoming ones, this wasn’t as unusual as it might seem.
It turned out that I had four texts from Jasper and three missed calls. My heart twisted and my stomach did excited flips flops.
Jasper must have heard about the murder. The clock read well past midnight, so it was too late to call him back now, but I reveled in the fact that I could send texts even if he couldn’t receive them. I took the risk of waking him up and sent a quick text telling him everything was fine and maybe we could talk tomorrow.
Maybe my hot almost boyfriend really did care.
We got up early the next morning, even Greer. Even before the shocking events of the night before she had promised her mother she’d be up, and now we wanted to get down to breakfast as quickly as possible to get the latest developments in the Country Club Murder case.
“Should we inform the Witch of Iriswood?” I asked Paws. Witch protocol was still unfamiliar to me, and given that I was already in trouble with the Witches’ Council I didn’t want to do anything that would make it worse.
“Why interrupt her spa vacation?” Paws asked. “You’re here. I’m sure she’ll be happy you’re on the case so that she doesn’t have to be.”
“Will she be happy like furious or will she be happy like really happy?” I asked.
“You don’t trust me?” Paws sounded hurt.
“Not after you lied and made me think I’d be in horrible trouble with the Witches’ Council,” I said.
“Well, it’s not good to get their attention,” the cat muttered.
“You made me think they’d strip me of my witch powers!” I pointed out.
“I didn’t think you’d really believe me,” said Paws.
I scoffed.
“I’m going to the Business Center,” said Charlie, trying to veer away before we got to the breakfast room.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Greer. “You’re going to eat breakfast before you start writing badly.”
“I’m already behind,” complained Charlie. “Lena knows I’m here. She’s threatening to come and take over the story for herself if I don’t produce something soon.”
Lena, Charlie’s editor, was a force of nature, but Greer and I knew that was an empty threat. “No way she leaves the office. The world would collapse,” said Greer.
“She’d never care about a story that much,” I added.
“Well, okay, maybe she isn’t going to come here. She is curious, though,” Charlie insisted. Greer and I waited Charlie out. “Okay, I’ll eat breakfast first, but then I’m writing my article and I’m not stopping until it’s finished,” Charlie insisted.
I don’t know what I was expecting when we walked into the breakfast room, but entirely deserted was not it.
“Wow,” said Greer, frowning. There was delicious food as usual, rows upon rows of trays, and not one looked like it had been touched.
“Why isn’t anyone here? How are we supposed to get gossip if we’re all alone?” Charlie wondered.
“I’m shocked you’re up,” said a sharp voice behind us. I literally saw Greer’s ghost leave her body and shudder.
“Morning, Mrs. Dice,” said Charlie, spinning around with a bright smile.
“Where’s Dad?” Greer asked.
“Is that any way to greet your mother?” Mrs. Dice asked. She was dressed in a blue pantsuit with pink high heels and looked as perfectly put together as always.
“Morning, Mom,” Greer said obediently.
“Where are your brothers?” Mrs. Dice asked.
“No idea,” said Greer. The three of them had a pact. They never admitted to knowing what the others were up to. By the suspicious look her mother gave her, Mrs. Dice suspected as much.
“I’m sure they’ll be along shortly. Until they arrive, I’ll sit with you three.”
“Great,” I said.
We gathered our food in silence. Greer took the longest, which meant that Charlie and I were sitting alone at the table with her mother for several minutes. To my surprise, Mrs. Dice hadn’t argued when we made a beeline to the window seats where we’d have the clearest view of the Lily Pond. That lovely spot had come down in the world and was now a crime scene wrapped in yellow police tape.
“So, what’s the gossip?” asked Mrs. Dice, taking a bite of butterless toast. Charlie and I looked up in surprise.
Mrs. Dice’s eyes sharpened. “What do you take me for, a fool? I know very well that if there was excitement to be had, you three would be in the thick of it. Greer might think I’m a stick in the mud, but I’m not oblivious.”
The way she said it made me think she didn’t think of herself as a stick in the mud at all.
Greer finally set her plate down and joined us, and we all ate and chatted quietly until we were interrupted by a new arrival.
“Hi, Charlie,” said a young man’s voice.
Charlie’s eyes went wide. We all knew that voice. It belonged to Charlie’s ex-boyfriend. The one who had dumped her.
“Hi, Andy,” said Charlie, going pale.
Andy looked awkwardly around the table, apparently surprised to find himself staring down the faces of so many women all at once. Greer’s expression, which had already been grim and closed, now looked remarkably like a storm cloud.
Greer disliked Andy for the way he had treated Charlie, and she didn’t care if everyone knew it, including Andy.
“I wasn’t expecting to see all of you,” said Andy.
“Hadn’t you heard we’d be here?” Greer demanded.
“Yeah, I just . . .” Andy trailed off lamely. He looked helplessly at the girl standing next to him, a wisp of a thing with brown hair and bony elbows and knees. “The Dices are always here.”
Witch Way Round (Witch of Mintwood Book 6) Page 9