A Ghost for Christmas (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Winters, J. D.

  I shrugged. “The intruder was gone. What good would you have done?”

  He stared at me and then a smile broke on his face, as though he’d realized I was trying to get his goat and wasn’t going to go for it.

  “If you would stay in at night and not go off on your own little encounters, we’d all be safer,” he said.

  I made a face at him and just barely stopped myself from sticking my tongue out at him. Actually, I was afraid he’d take it as encouragement instead of an insult.

  “I talked to Bebe about that investigation into her finances Kyle hired someone to do,” I said instead. “She knew all about it.”

  “Oh yeah?” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Then why didn’t she tell us when we questioned her?”

  I shrugged. “It probably didn’t occur to her.”

  “Right.”

  I suddenly realized that this was a stupid thing I was doing. I was talking to a police person as though he were just Joe Schmo on the corner. Tell him anything. What can go wrong?

  But he wasn’t Joe Schmo, and a lot could go wrong. I ought to keep my own counsel. I rose abruptly and nodded at him. “See you later alligator,” I muttered, and I headed for home. That seemed a safer place to be.

  Bebe was out and I was restless. I went into the front yard to look around and see if the reason the place was so popular with murderers could suddenly jump out at me—the perfect epiphany. I looked for a bit, wandering here and there, looking under bushes, moving rocks. Nothing lent itself to cries of eureka. I went inside to get the wreath Bebe had prepared for her front door and hadn’t hung yet. I thought I could do that little chore for her, and I found a hammer and a nail and completed my mission. She was using flowers, Hawaiian-style, and a little sign that had the Hawaiian version of Merry Christmas painted on it—Mele Kalikimaka. It looked very nice and very appropriate, seeing as how there were now two of us refuges from the islands living here. If you didn’t count Aunty Jane and Dante.

  Ginny came running by.

  “Hey Ginny,” I called, waving at her.

  She saw the wreath—and the sign.

  “Mele Kalikimaka, Mele!” she responded, then gave a chortle of laughter. “But I repeat myself,” she joked, and I laughed too.

  “Same to you,” I called after her as she ran on. Today she was resplendent in electric blue running clothes. For some reason, it made you happy just to see her run by.

  Bebe got back from some last minute instructions she’d been giving to Hank out in the fields. We chatted back and forth, nothing serious, but as we did, I resolved that that had to change. We had to get to the bottom of a few things as soon as we could.

  “Okay,” I told Bebe after we’d had dinner and done the dishes. “We’re going to sit right down here at the kitchen counter and we’re going to go over all the suspects and we’re going to solve these murders.”

  “Oh good,” she said. “I was hoping for a game of Clue, but this will do instead.” She sat down and slapped her hand down on the counter. “Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the candle stick. I’d bet my life on it.”

  I looked at her sharply. You never did know—I wouldn’t put it past her to get a little sarcastic from time to time. But she seemed to be on the up and up this time. Just fooling around a little. I told myself to relax and I answered her smile with one of my own.

  “Okay, first off, I have to say something about Adrian getting killed that way. That really shook me up. I never expected it. What did Caroline say when she got the news?”

  “She turned deathly pale and began to cry hysterically. I gave her tea and washed her face and we went up to take care of things at the winery together.”

  I nodded, thinking that over.

  “Did she say anything?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. It all happened so fast. And once we got to the winery, there were so many police officers and all the questions. We didn’t really have any time to talk.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “I’m serious. I really think we should get this cleared up as soon as possible.” I pulled out a small pad of paper and a pencil. “And I’m going to take notes.”

  “You mean you think we should find a way to save me, quick, or I might be in danger of being indicted. Isn’t that it?”

  Her dark eyes were huge and sad and I grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “You think what you want,” I told her. “I just want to make sure a mistake isn’t made.”

  She nodded, looking sad but willing. “Let’s go,” she said. “Shall we start with Caroline?”

  “Why?” I said sharply. “Do you think she….” My voice trailed off. I didn’t want to say it. She was shaking her head vehemently.

  “No. I do not. She’s my best friend and I believe in her.”

  “Uh huh.” I took a deep breath. This had seemed like a good idea at the time. “Well she does have alibis that have been accepted by the investigators. And I’m not real clear on what her motive would be.”

  Bebe shrugged. “They were having problems. And he was threatening to divorce her.”

  “But that’s not really a good reason to kill him, is it? Things like that happen all the time.”

  “True.” She smiled. “So as I say, scratch her off the list.”

  “Okay. What about Adrian.”

  “For Kyle’s murder? I don’t know. I think we can still cite him on that one. Detective McKnight didn’t buy his alibi and his father was about to cut him off and kick him out.”

  “Once again, reason to be angry, reason to maybe beat him up, but not a reason to kill and risk going to jail.” I shrugged. “But maybe that’s just me.”

  Bebe made a steeple with her hands and stared at it. “Maybe. I say we don’t write him off yet.”

  “Okay. But you can’t accuse him of killing himself.”

  “Why not?” she said, joking of course. “He usually seemed ready to do anything that might make him obnoxious. That would certainly count.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Onward,” I said. “How about any of the employees of the winery?”

  She shook her head. “Neither they nor the house staff seem to be in any way suspected.”

  “Here’s a dark horse. How about Ginny Genera?”

  “Ginny?” Bebe gave a hoot. “What on earth makes you think of her?”

  “No one else has brought her up. It’s always the quiet ones.”

  “Yeah, but not Ginny. She’s a little ray of sunshine in our days.”

  I wrinkled up my face until I remembered it might start to stay that way and quickly flattened my features back to normal. “Yes, but that little ray is always floating around. She sees everything. She knows everyone. Mighty suspicious if you ask me.”

  Bebe laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, you find me a motive. Then I’ll pay attention to that one.”

  I shrugged. “You can’t win ‘em all.” I gave up on Ginny. “Well, then there’s Sherry.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip. “I just don’t know what to think about her. She’s been a good worker. Did you buy her story the other night?”

  “You saw those cabinets. They’d been renovated recently. That seems to fit her narrative.”

  Bebe nodded slowly. “I just wonder why Caroline hadn’t told me about that. It sounded like it was quite a scene.”

  I thought that over for a moment. “Embarrassment?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But then--why kill Adrian?”

  She sighed. “Maybe that was someone else.”

  I thought for a minute. “Or maybe it really was an accident.”

  “Unlikely.” I groaned. I’d really hoped we would be making more progress by now. “How about Hank?” I asked. “Your foreman.”

  “Oh, don’t go accusing Hank. If they cart him off, I’ll have no one to take care of the Christmas specials.”

  “Granted. But how about his chances?”

  She thought for a minute. “Motive?” she asked.

  I shrug
ged. “He seems totally hot for Caroline.”

  She nodded, thinking hard. “Yes. But I think the motive would have to be stronger than that. Having a crush on a married woman doesn’t mean you conk her husband in the head. What good does that do you anyway? And why add Adrian to the mix?”

  That I didn’t have an answer for.

  “Michael?” I asked, ready to cringe if she hated me for it.

  “Michael.” She looked at me like I was a little girl who didn’t know nottin’. “Dear, sweet Michael. You can dig all you want, you’ll never find a motive for him. He’s not a killer, anyway. I just don’t buy it.”

  Wow, she really did have a thing for him, didn’t she? That worried me. He was perfect for the part of villain—because he was so much the opposite of that. Still, that was not necessarily the way it worked in real life.

  “So that about does it.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She dropped both arms on the counter and leaned forward in pathetic supplication. “What about me?”

  I sighed. “Aunt Bebe, you know you’re innocent. There’s no point in…”

  “Let’s go over the facts.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat straight again. “I was in the back yard working all by myself for about two and a half hours that evening, obviously during the time Kyle must have arrived in my front yard. I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t talk to anybody. I have no proof of anything. But I could have gone out to say hello when Kyle got here and he could have come on to me like he was wont to do and I could have hated it when he tried to paw me and picked up a rock and hit him, just to get him to stop—and then, there he was, dead. So I might have gone into the backyard and gone back to work and pretended I didn’t know there was a dead man in my yard.” She looked directly into my eyes. “I have no proof that it didn’t happen that way.”

  “And there’s no proof that it did, either.”

  “Right. Still….”

  “Motive?”

  “I hated the man. He’d almost seduced me when I was at my lowest point in life. He’d made my best friend miserable. He’d tried to find ways to steal my land from me. He was sifting through my finances. He killed my dog.”

  “What?” Here was something I hadn’t heard about. “What are you talking about?”

  “My little dog Kookaburra. He was a wretched little thing, always barking and making himself impossibly hateful. But still, he was mine. And one day I found him out in the backyard, dead of poisoning.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible. How do you know Kyle did it?”

  “Because he threatened to do it a hundred times. He was on this weight loss regimen and he would walk every morning. When he would come by here, Kookie would bark and jump and act like a maniac. It almost seemed like he’d picked Kyle out as a spawn of the devil and he was trying to convince everyone of it and have them take him away. Kyle would swear at him and threaten him. And then, one day, he was dead.”

  “No proof?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. But I was pretty sure it was him.” She suddenly remembered something. “In fact, Aunty Jane told me so.”

  My eyes went wide on that one. “She talked to you?”

  “No. But she gave me a significant look and shook her finger at him.”

  I nodded. “Definitely a sign,” I said. I bought it.

  “Oh yes.”

  So what was our conclusion? We still didn’t know.

  “I was pretty happy with Adrian as the murderer,” I said sadly. “And then he had to go and ruin it all by getting murdered himself.”

  Well, we’d tried. I went to bed feeling a bit grumpy about it. And then I realized the true reason why I was feeling down. I hadn’t seen Dante in two days.

  Maybe that was over. But wasn’t that what I wanted? I mean, who needs a ghost hanging around getting in to your business every day? Not me.

  Still, I was looking over my shoulder all the time and my heart would begin to beat faster every time I looked into the mirror. The day slipped away and still no visits from ghost town. And so I went to bed grumpy.

  “Hey,” Detective McKnight said, nodding as we came face to face at Mad for Mocha the next day. “Want to go with me to the parade of lights tonight?”

  My jaw dropped. “What?” I said, and I must have looked as though I was receiving the invitation with a sense of horror, because he added very quickly, “Don’t worry. It’s not a date or anything like that.”

  “What a relief,” I said, only half joking. “I’ll bet you’re not supposed to fraternize with suspects.”

  He coughed. “So you still consider yourself a suspect?” he said. “That’s interesting.”

  I made a face at him and he almost smiled.

  “I just thought maybe you could help me do a little surveillance work, keeping an eye on some of our suspects when they’re at play and don’t know they’re being watched. See if we see anything interesting.”

  That actually sounded like fun. “Do we get to wear disguises?” I asked.

  He hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not. Can you think up a good one?”

  I tried, but he’d put me on the spot. It wasn’t Halloween. You couldn’t dress as a Jedi knight or the lead in the Nun’s Story without people getting suspicious. So real costumes were out.

  “How’s this?” he offered. “We both wear hoodies with hoods up and slouch along, side by side. No one would suspect us to be together. They’ll never even recognize us, as long as we try to avoid looking people we know in the eye. That ought to do it.”

  I made a face. “I’d rather be Spiderman,” I said. “But I get how it’s going to be. Too bad.” I grinned at him, though. “I’m in. Where shall I meet you?”

  For just a few seconds, he looked sort of happy—but he killed that as quick as he could and managed to look unconcerned again. Still, something about his attitude made me laugh.

  I met him right on time, a little after sunset, down by the marina in Destiny Bay. He was standing out in front of a café called Mickie’s on the Bay, hands in his pockets, hood down over his eyes, looking like an ordinary seaman and I almost walked right past him.

  “Hey babe,” he said in a low growl. “Got a light?”

  I turned and stared. “Is that really you?”

  “See? Good disguise, isn’t it?”

  “How about mine?” I turned, modeling for him. “Looks a lot like yours.”

  “Same wrapping,” he muttered. “Different package inside.”

  It was a simple and very true statement, so why did I feel my face getting hot? I turned away. “Where are we going to go to do our sleuthing?”

  “Right down here by the judging stand. Let’s go.”

  The whole event was gorgeous. Boats came in one by one, each drenched in lights and various signs with music playing appropriate to each theme. My favorite was a piece of Hawaii, a boat with neon palm trees and dancing hula girls, playing Hawaiian music and throwing flowers at the crowd. The boats were like floats in a normal parade, only the lights were reflected in the water, turning the whole bay into a magical place.

  When the judging was over we went back to Mickie’s on the Bay and had a warm cup of cocoa. We hadn’t seen anyone we knew doing something suspicious, which I guess was what we came for. But we’d had a lovely time.

  “So what are your current thoughts on things?” he asked me, leaning back and letting the hood of his jacket fall away. “Have you figured out whodunit?”

  I sighed. “Bebe and I went over the suspects last night,” I said carefully. I was having a good time with the man but I still didn’t trust him. “You might be interested in what we decided. Want to see our score card?”

  “Sure. Why not.”

  I pulled the paper with my notes on it out of my pocket and handed it over. He studied it for a moment, then grinned at me. “Still no solid leads, huh?”

  “And you?”

  He shrugged. “We’ve got a few lines going, but nothing I
can talk about yet.”

  That sent a shock of outrage through my system. “Hey, no fair. I told you what we came up with. Your turn.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t do it. It would be unprofessional of me to….”

  I leaned forward. “Hey, I’m not asking for the department’s view. I want to know what you think. As a person.”

  “What do you think? As a person?”

  Oh, why not? “Personally, I think it’s Caroline with a bullet. But I’m not allowed to say that since she’s Bebe’s best friend.” I nodded. “Now you.”

  He made a face and looked away. “Okay. I’ll tell you this at least. I know you didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t think your aunt did either. Michael? Not so much. Caroline?” He shrugged. “Who knows? But I can promise you this. We’ll know by the end of the week. And we’ll have an indictment soon after.”

  That was all I could get out of him. He walked me back to where my car was parked and just as I was reaching for my keys, he popped an elbow into my ribs and nodded his head toward the car going by. It was a dark green compact. Hank was driving. And Caroline was sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  And just that quickly, they were already gone. We looked at each other and grinned. “Okay then,” I said. “At least I think we’ve got that relationship nailed.”

  Small pickings, but it was something.

  “Good night Hawaiian girl,” he said. He hesitated for just a moment. I wondered if he was going to kiss me. And then I wondered if I was going to let him. And then he jammed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and went off into the night, whistling a “Guns and Roses” song.

  Chapter Twelve

  What to do? Where to turn? I was full of those questions as I took a shower the next morning. There was a whispering in the ambient noise of the room. For a second or two, I thought my little Menehunes were talking. But then the whisper became closer, more intimate, and I knew in a flash it was Dante.

  “Hey,” I said, jumping out of the water and grabbing a towel to wrap around myself. “No fair.”

  I left the water running. Something told me he wouldn’t say a thing if I didn’t do that. And I waited, heart pumping hard.