by Etta Faire
“We stopped running the society section when we bought the paper from Grace’s grandmother,” I heard Dan explain to the millionaire. “But we’re thinking about bringing it back, just for tonight, in special memory of Dwight and Frederick Linder. The Linders and Donovans shared many society photos together.”
Myles smiled. “My father would have been proud to hear that.” He chuckled. “Maybe he is hearing it. You never know who will show up to a seance.”
They all laughed like seances were a joke.
Lynette stepped in beside Dan and filmed them. Grace scowled at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Not surprised you don’t know,” Lynette said, pointing to her lanyard. “It’s called journalism. Look it up.”
Dan turned his nose at Lynette, trying to ignore her, but the camera was pretty much right in his face the entire time. He directed his attention to the Donovans. “We just wanted to thank you personally for the invitation,” he said to Myles, holding his hand up so his face was shielded from the camera.
Dan’s sleeve fell back against his watch, revealing what looked like a long, red scratch peeking out from underneath it.
A bear scratch, maybe?
Could they have seen me give back that notebook?
I excused myself to the coat check so I could text Justin and tell him to check out Dan Herndon as a possible suspect, see if they owned a large, black truck.
That’s when I noticed Shelby sitting behind the coat-check counter with a basket full of makeup samples next to her, and my shoulders finally relaxed. I hadn’t even noticed I was clinching up until then.
“Thank goodness somebody decent is here,” I said. “This place is full of old, rich, and awful.”
She nodded. “Three things I hope to be someday.”
“So what happened with Bobby and your ultimatum?”
She straightened her makeup samples, her eyes tearing up.
“Nuh-uh,” I said. “He chose his brothers?”
“All three of them walked out together about a week ago. I haven’t seen him since. He left his own baby. It’s why I’m here, working all the jobs I can get. I gotta pay the rent on my own soon.”
“He’ll be back.”
“That’s what my parents say,” she said. “I’m not so sure I want him back after this.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I hugged her then offered to get her a plate of food.
She happily accepted. “I left Spoony’s so fast to get here, I didn’t have time to eat.”
I glanced over at the buffet table and knew I’d have to act fast.
The college kids had started trickling in, and things were getting crowded. About twenty people in torn sweatshirts and jeans grabbed plates at the buffet table. “I didn’t know there’d be food,” one of them said loudly. “Sweet.”
Paula tried to tug the plates from their grasps, but hungry college kids can be pretty strong. “May I see your dinner tickets?” she asked again and again, like that was going to mean something to them.
I rushed over during the commotion to help myself, not even caring that Paula was watching me out of the corner of her eye the entire time. She pushed past the college kids and grabbed my arm, pointing to the second plate in my hand. “At a hundred dollars a person, I cannot afford to feed the coat-check girl.”
I shook myself free of her grasp. “This has already been paid for.”
“Not by Shelby Winehouse.”
“Then you should probably tell that to Lila,” I said, pointing to the woman in the perfect up-do who was bouncing over to say “hi” to Shelby. She handed her a full plate of what looked like shrimp, bread, and pasta.
Paula’s mouth dropped. “What the…”
“They met at my library story time,” I said, matter-of-factly. “So, go ahead. Tell Lila what you just told me. Her lower-class friends shouldn’t be eating the good stuff, after Lila’s family paid for every single ticket.”
Paula stomped off but quickly found her fake smile again when she saw Mayor Bowman and Mayor Wittle with their wives at the buffet table.
Mayor Wittle looked almost the same as he had 60 years ago. He was a lanky, bald man with a bit of a nervous twitch but nothing that really screamed his age. It was funny how that whole group of equally horrible friends had aged the best out of everyone in town. It was true; only the good died young in Landover County. With the exception of my ex-husband, of course.
As if on cue, Jackson appeared next to me. “So, how many windows do you want me to break tonight?” he said.
We both knew he was joking. He didn’t have the energy for that kind of ghostly display. Only experienced, well-charged apparitions like our friend the suffragette could manage something so spectacular, which was good. It was a huge sore spot the last time we’d had a seance here, so it was one of the main things Paula made sure we put in the contract, stating in triplicate that the Purple Pony would pay for the windows this time if it happened again.
But then, we had technically cancelled that contract when the tickets hadn’t sold.
“Break them all out,” I said. “But wait ’til the end, or we’ll freeze.”
I looked around. It was really getting crowded. One of the waiters brought in more chairs from a back room and Paula was busy making sure paid guests got all the best spots.
At about 8:00, Paula grabbed the handheld mic and introduced the seance by calling out all the distinguished and honored guests she had in the audience, the very ones I was about to call murderers.
“Saved the best for last,” she said after introducing the mayors and the sheriff. “Myles Donovan and his absolutely stunning granddaughter, Lila.”
They both half-stood and waved to a mostly standing ovation, minus the college kids who had no idea who the man was, except maybe “that creepy old dude on the wall at the gym.”
After about ten minutes of Paula spewing out upcoming events at the “historical Landover Bed and Breakfast” and the 20% off coupon you could grab in the back on your way out for locals, she finally dimmed the lights and put the spotlight on the black-clothed table in the middle of the living room, just like last time.
Rosalie, Paula and I all clipped our mics onto our collars, and I began the show, thanking everyone for coming and introducing myself. I explained the items on the table. The spirit bell, the EMF meter, and the crystal ball that was “just for show because I actually didn’t know how to use that.” The audience only laughed awkwardly at my jokes.
“Tough crowd,” Jackson said, as he plunked the spirit bell. Nobody even gasped.
Most of them knew the story I was about to tell and the people who were about to be involved in it — the mayors, the Gazette, and Myles Donovan— and they liked them. Or, they were scared of them. There was very little difference when it came to this town.
“You see, not everyone comes back to the physical world after they die. Only if they are clinging to a person, a place, or an event. Maybe they have something they want to tell you or maybe you have a need to connect with them and they sense that, and come back to tell you they’re okay.” I looked around at the audience, but spoke to no one in particular. “So at the end, if there’s time, we’ll see if there are other ghosts here that would like to make their presence known to someone too. But right now, we have a story to tell.”
Lynette had been able to check out a projector, so I turned it on.
The senior photos of Nettie and Gloria took up most of the large screen in the dining area of the bed and breakfast.
“More than a hundred dollars a ticket for a powerpoint presentation,” Mayor Bowman chuckled loudly from his seat at the table, like he actually paid for stuff.
Jackson shook his head. “Don’t mind him, Carly doll. He obviously doesn’t know you have an Excel sheet and bar graphs coming up.”
I took a deep breath and ignored them both. “As you all know, we’re here to tell the real story of the boating accident on July twentieth, 1957 on Partiers Loop, other
wise known as Accident Loop. Only, those girls weren’t partiers and this was no accident.”
The audience didn’t even stir, except for the lawyer next to Myles, who sat forward, obviously letting me know I needed to tread cautiously.
“First, I’m going to let the ghosts tell their story, and then I’m going to back that up with evidence from today, so it won’t at all be libelous.” I looked right at Lynette and her camera when I said it then over at the bald lawyers.
That’s when I noticed a gorgeous, Marilyn Monroe-looking blonde hovering by an older woman sitting by herself in the back of the room. Nettie was here, and she was right next to a woman I was guessing was June.
The blonde girl looked exactly the same as I remembered her looking from the channeling with the same tight-fitting black dress as the night she died, hair in a high ponytail. She and Gloria both hovered by June, chattering away to one another, probably reconnecting.
“I… I just noticed Annette Jerome is here,” I said, to no applause. “Gloria Thomas too.”
Myles looked at his Rolex and yawned. The jerk. He was trying to look bored and so were the rest of his gang. They wanted this seance to bomb and for the news of my massacre to make it to the Gazette, the Daily Bear, and the gossip around town.
They could control a lot of narratives in life, but not this one. “I won’t bore you with the details, Myles. You know them already, seeing how you and your father beat the girls to a pulp when you discovered them on your yacht then tossed them overboard to die.”
The audience gasped. The lawyers sat forward.
“Libel!” A few voices yelled from the crowd.
“How dare you,” someone else screamed.
“I see that got your attention,” I said, my voice echoing through the mic. “Good. These girls deserve at least that.”
Chapter 32
The Optional Murders
Myles and Lila stood up to leave, and I casually flipped to my next slide. “Don’t go yet. You’ll miss the best part. The proof I have. Plus, the whole seance thing with ghosts and stuff. But then, you might just have come tonight to pretend to be offended by it all.”
“We’ve seen enough, thank you,” Myles said, taking his granddaughter’s hand. Shelby handed them their coats and Myles opened the front door, only to have it flung closed again, straight from his grasp. Myles grabbed the knob, but couldn’t get the door to open. Gloria appeared in front of it.
Dan from the paper stood up. “Let the man go.”
A chorus of angry yells from the audience followed.
I looked over at Paula Henkel. She glared back, shaking her head like I was somehow controlling this, probably wondering what her own liability was if the old, rich man didn’t get his way.
My voice barely rose above the yelling and I had a mic. “Gloria Thomas is holding the door.” I shrugged. “I guess these ghosts have a lot to say to Myles Donovan tonight.”
Myles leaned casually against the back wall, coat draped over his arm, and waved to me to go on, probably because at this point, he didn’t really have a choice.
The next slide was already on the screen. The ten grainy photos from that night.
“Then, when those 18-year-old girls didn’t die fast enough, the Donovan boat located them in the water and purposely ran them over. The police stood by and did nothing.”
“Lies from an out-of-towner,” I heard from more than one person mumbling in the crowd. “Everybody knows the police ran them over.”
“And here’s how we know it wasn’t the police boat.” I showed them the photo of the Knobby Creek logo being reflected in Mason Bowman’s glasses. Then, a photo of the dummies in the front of the boating company. “Same hat,” I said, explaining that the Knobby Creek didn’t service government vessels.
Mayor Wittle wiped the sweat from his brow as he whispered something to Mayor Bowman. Mayor Bowman shot him an angry look.
“And now, we’ll talk about why.”
I then invited Nettie and Gloria to tell their version of events, relaying everything to the audience as they spoke.
Nettie’s voice didn’t have that youthful lilt anymore like it did in 1957 as she hovered around the room talking about how she met Freddie and how they snuck onboard the yacht.
“I thought he was the cutest,” Nettie said. “I was also thrilled that one of the richest boys on the lake was interested in me.”
“Like many people,” I said, knowing full well what most of this crowd thought of girls who went out with rich boys. “She was impressed by dumb things like wealth. I was, too, back when I was her age. None of us are the same people we were as teenagers, and I think most of us are pretty thankful we were given the chance to grow out of our dumb phases.”
Nettie was a fierce sight to see in her powerful black dress, the rest of her a ghostly white contrast. “We were introduced by that man,” she pointed to Myles. “He’s older now but I still recognize his spirit. Freddie and I were the reason the chaperone ended the dance early. We made out in a closet, and she said we were drunk…”
“I am wondering if you see Freddie Linder in this room,” I said. This was the part I was guessing at.
She looked around, doing a double take. “Why there’s Freddie now,” she said. She touched Mayor Wittle’s cheek, and I could tell he felt her, the cold slicing sensation people receive when brushing up against a powerful ghost.
His face shook and he fell over in his chair a little.
“She is pointing to Mayor Darren Wittle,” I said, watching as the mayor’s already pale face lost so much color I thought he might pass out.
I put the two images of Mayor Wittle and Freddie Linder’s senior pictures side by side on the screen. Both were lanky, dark-haired boys with a penchant for bow ties and side-parts.
“P-lease,” one of the lawyers sitting with Myles Donovan yelled to the crowd. “Everyone knows that just because the photos of two men look similar does not mean anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is not a courtroom, so any and all objections will have to shut the hell up.”
A few college kids laughed when I said that.
I was playing to my new customer base, and I was loving it. Jeans-and-t-shirt outsiders were my kind of people. “Leave if you want. We’ll see if Gloria and Nettie let you. Ghosts can get pretty angry. They’ve been known to throw things. Break windows.”
I looked over at Paula. She had her head in her hands.
Mildred was sitting with her son, Benny, toward the back, and I motioned to her to come forward.
She adjusted her thick cardigan as she took the handheld mic and introduced herself. She held up a small yellow book with flowers on the cover. “My diary,” she said, like that would make sense to the crowd. She coughed. “I have been asked to corroborate this story, so I looked over my diary to make sure I got everything right. I was a chaperone at that party in 1957, and I did not see Freddie Linder there.” She opened her book. “Let me read straight from a passage…”
“Don’t bother,” Clyde Bowman yelled from his seat. He stood up, voice so loud he didn’t need a mic. “This is nothing new. This has always been Mildred Blueberg’s version. It’s exactly what she said when she begged the country club not to fire her father. It was a weak argument then and it still is. It’s sad how she worries more about her family’s reputation than the truth about that night.”
“Maybe,” I replied, standing so the squatty man would see me clearly from across the table. “She, for one, will fight for her family’s reputation. Or did you think that was a trait only admirable in Bowmans?”
He sat back down, swallowing hard to hear his own words used against him.
One of the lawyers took over. “I’m sorry, but it was under Ms. Blueberg’s supervision that Frederick Linder got drunk and out of control, went swimming in the dark, and drowned. End of story. To suddenly say he wasn’t there is crazy. Plenty of people saw him at that dance, including the other chaperone who walked in on him and
Ms. Jerome making out in a closet.” He sifted through his notes. “What was her name?”
A voice from the back of the room yelled. “Deborah Ford. Deborah Nebitt now.”
I looked over, trying to focus on the parts of the bed and breakfast that were dark. A tuft of white hair bobbed through the crowd. Lynette followed her every step with the camera as she took the handheld mic from Mildred.
Thank goodness that woman really did love a freebie.
“It’s true,” Mrs. Nebitt said. Her voice was shaky but loud. “My name is Deborah Nebitt. I was the chaperone who walked in on Darren and Annette.”
The crowd gasped.
“Yes, I said that correctly. It was not Freddie. When I opened that closet, I got a good look at the young man guzzling punch in the letterman sweater Freddie always wore, his arm around a gorgeous blonde. He turned and tried to pretend to be too drunk to look at me, sneezing and coughing, looking as if he was going to throw up. I knew it was Darren Wittle all along. Even when Myles’s father scolded Mildred and me for letting Freddie Linder get too drunk.”
Mrs. Nebitt’s voice cracked and shook as she looked around the dark room. “Mr. Donovan offered to find a generous donor for the library while also suggesting that it had been dark and chaotic the night of the party, so no one would blame me if I didn’t remember things correctly.”
She turned to Mildred. “I’m very sorry. I should have corroborated your version of events back then.”
“My father would’ve been fired anyway,” Mildred said as the two hugged.
Gloria hovered near me and I gestured toward her. “I don’t believe it was a coincidence these girls were involved. I think they were targeted. Because they were out-of-towners. Darren Wittle was supposed to wear Freddie’s clothes, find the only two girls at the party who would believe he was Freddie, drink enough punch to pretend to get drunk, and then leave on the Donovan boat. Isn’t that right, Mayor Wittle?”
He didn’t answer. He only shook.
“But you didn’t expect the girls to follow you onboard. And we all know what happened then.”