The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum (A Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Mystery)

by Kirsten Weiss

  Grace hurried inside, her teeth chattering, a green knit scarf wrapped around her neck. “Whoo, it’s cold out there.”

  It was cold enough inside the museum to see my own breath, and I offered to turn on the heater.

  “No,” she said, “you’d better leave it off. It’ll create air currents and noise, and that will confuse our recordings.”

  It would also save on heating costs, so I nodded wisely.

  GD Cat leapt onto the counter beside the cash register. Grace scratched his head.

  There was a knock at the door and ghost hunters streamed inside, bundled in parkas and woolen hats.

  Grace did a head count. “Eight. I think we’re all here. Madelyn, is there anything we should be aware of?”

  “The tea shop next door is under construction and off limits. I don’t want anyone falling over equipment or stepping on a nail.”

  “Since it’s never been part of the museum, that area isn’t our target anyway,” Grace said. “We’ll stick to the main room, the Creepy Doll Room, and the Fortune Telling Room.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll pop down at eleven to make sure you’re okay, and then when you’re finished to close up. You’ve got my cell phone number if there are any problems. I’ll be with Mason upstairs.” Feeling suddenly awkward, I avoided Mason’s gaze. My cheeks heated. That hadn’t come out right.

  A lanky, twenty-something woman raised her hand. “The woman who was killed here—where did that happen?”

  The police hadn’t told me to keep quiet about what I’d seen. But I also didn’t want to encourage them to explore the tea room looking for Christy’s ghost. I gave them an edited version. “Her body was found here, in the main room of the museum.”

  Mason frowned but said nothing.

  Another woman, short and round, unzipped her parka, revealing a photographer’s vest stuffed with electronic equipment. “Have you experienced anything unusual here?”

  Aside from finding a dead body and discovering that the contractor was a bookie? “No, but I haven’t worked here long.”

  She nodded.

  “Thanks, Madelyn,” Grace said, dismissing me. “We’ll see you at midnight.”

  Mason and I escaped upstairs.

  “I thought Christy was found in the tea room,” he said as he opened the door and ushered me into his studio.

  “You’re half right.” I watched him stride to the kitchen—his movements economical, fluid—and remove the pizza from the oven. The scent of melted cheese and pepperoni filled the room. “She was lying between the two, though from the position of the body, I’d guess she was hit in the museum and fell into the tea room. The mystery is why she was there at all.”

  Mason shrugged, muscles rippling. “She was a troublemaker.”

  “You knew her?”

  “She had a bike. I saw her around.”

  “And when you say bike, I take it you don’t mean a Schwinn.” I tried to picture the uptight lawyer in leather, but failed.

  “A Kawasaki. She’d come by the shop and hang out on weekends.”

  I’d noticed a lot of bikers hanging around his shop during the day. They took up all the street parking in front of his business but were careful not to infringe beyond that. “How did she cause trouble?”

  “She was a flirt. Liked to get a rise out of the guys—or out of their girlfriends.”

  “I wouldn’t have pictured Christy as a biker.”

  “Why not?” He dropped the pizza on the coffee table with a clatter. His Nordic-blue eyes hardened. “You think bikers are all anarchist thugs?”

  Sheesh. Sensitive. “No. My father rode a motorcycle. I thought Christy wasn’t the sort to mess up her hair with a helmet or wind.”

  Mason grunted and dropped onto a black leather lounge chair across from me, a slice of pizza in one hand. “What did your father ride?”

  “A Harley.”

  “Wait … your father wasn’t Fred Kosloski?”

  “You knew him?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I knew him. He was a good guy. A straight shooter. I was sorry to hear about his passing.”

  I swallowed. Not a day went by that I didn’t miss him.

  “So what’s your story?” Mason asked.

  “I grew up here and couldn’t wait to leave. Got an MBA with a specialization in international management. Went overseas for nearly a decade. Came home.”

  “Why’d you come home?”

  “I was fired.” I sank onto the couch, trying the admission on for size. I didn’t like it. I’d suspected I’d get fired for the decision I made. But the truth shamed me, stinging my cheeks, forcing my gaze down to the plate in my lap. And that annoyed me.

  “Downsized?” He bit into a slice of pizza.

  “Something like that.” I didn’t regret refusing to pay that bribe. So why did I feel so small? “What about you?”

  “Grew up in Fresno, couldn’t wait to get out. Joined the Army at eighteen. Got a degree while I was in. Left the service ten years later and started building custom motorcycles. I still do, but most of my business now is selling bikes other people build.”

  “Why San Benedetto?” I sensed there was something important he’d omitted.

  “It’s affordable, and I like the vineyards. Are you really taking over the Paranormal Museum?”

  “I don’t know.” And with a shock, I realized that was true. There was a possibility I might buy the place. Was I settling, as my mother had suggested?

  I took a bite of the pizza and followed up with a slug of beer. “It feels good to be home,” I said slowly. “And I can’t get an internationally flavored job in San Benedetto. I’d have to work in a big city, like San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York, and I’m not really a big city kind of girl.”

  The conversation was easy and relaxed, and more tension leaked from my shoulders. When we ran out of things to say, we watched old Rockford Files on TV. I fell into a semi-doze on the couch.

  At eleven, Mason nudged me awake. “Time for you to check on the ghost hunters.”

  I stumbled downstairs, expecting to go on my own, but again, Mason accompanied me. Warmth at his chivalry warred with guilt. He surely hadn’t played bodyguard to Chuck when he ran the museum.

  Tensing, I stopped inside the darkened alleyway entrance to the tea room. It was black as pitch, silent as a tomb. When I’d left them, the lights had been on.

  Mason prodded me in the back. “It’s okay,” he said in a low voice. “They keep the lights off for their hunts.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I tossed my hair and strode down the hallway, stumbling over a can of paint. It clanked to the floor.

  The Paranormal Museum hadn’t burned to the ground. No one had been sucked into another dimension by hungry poltergeists. So we retreated upstairs until one o’clock, when once again Mason saw me to the museum. This time, yawning, he left me inside the door, and I entered the museum alone.

  Someone had flipped on the lights. Grace waited beside the front counter, fiddling with a digital recorder.

  She looked up when I approached. “You missed the others, but I wanted to ask you to listen to something. An EVP we picked up.”

  “EVP?” And what had Herb been talking about? EMFs? I’d have to learn the ghost hunting acronyms if I was going to work here.

  “Electronic voice phenomenon. We caught it on the tape recorder in this room. It sounds like a woman’s, saying … Well, I’ll let you hear it first. I don’t want to taint your opinion.”

  The framed photo of Cora and her husband lay face-up on the counter. Forehead creasing, I picked it up. I thought I’d hung it back on the wall before I’d left for the day. Had the ghost hunters been messing with the museum exhibits? I hadn’t told them not to touch anything.

  I scanned the room. Everything else seemed in place.

  Sh
e coughed. “Ready?”

  On tiptoe, I hung the picture on the wall. “Yeah, sure.”

  Grace pressed play, and a burst of static erupted from the machine. Something creaked. “That was my chair,” a voice said.

  “We ask everyone to call out whenever they make a noise,” Grace explained. “That way, later, we don’t mistake the sounds for paranormal phenomenon.”

  “Makes sense.” I edged closer to her, craning my neck toward the recorder.

  There was another blare of static.

  Grace looked up, her expression gleeful. “There! Hear it?”

  All I’d heard was an earful of white noise. I shook my head.

  She rewound the recording. “I’ll turn it up.” Static again, then something that sounded like a sigh.

  “Was that a breath?” I asked.

  “Listen again.” She raised the recorder to my ear and clicked play.

  Static blasted, and I winced.

  A woman hissed, “Innocent.”

  The skin prickled on the back of my neck.

  “Did you hear it?” Grace asked.

  GD Cat sat beside my feet.

  “Play it again,” I said.

  She fumbled in one of the pockets of her parka. Pulling out a pair of earbuds, she plugged them into the recorder. “Try it with these.”

  I examined them for cleanliness, and, finding them acceptable, stuck them in. The static was loud enough to make my teeth hurt. And then a breathy voice: “I’m innocent.”

  GD Cat pawed at the cuff of my jeans. Adrenaline spiking, I yanked the earbuds free.

  “Did you hear it?” Grace raked a hand through her long brown hair, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

  “It sounded like a woman,” I said, grudging. But there was so much feedback, it was hard to tell if I had imagined the words or not.

  “It was Vincent! She said, it was Vincent! Do you know of a Vincent associated with any of the objects in this museum? Or maybe with the murder of that poor woman?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t think of any, but I’m in the middle of an inventory. If there’s a record of a Vincent attached to an object, I’ll let you know.” Now I was sure we’d imagined the words. I’d heard “innocent,” she’d heard “Vincent,” and it was all probably just a bunch of random static.

  “Do you mind if I post this online?” she asked.

  “Go for it.”

  “And you’ll let me know if you find anything?” Grace fingered the gold chain around the throat of her turtleneck.

  “Of course.” The museum could always use good press, and if I could dig up a creepy story on someone named Vincent, all the better.

  “We got some great orbs as well, around your counter and around the entryway between the museum and the tea room. I’ll send you copies.”

  Orbs between the museum and the tea room, where Christy had died? Weren’t orbs supposed to be ghosts captured on film? I swallowed. “That’s great news.”

  We agreed do it again on Saturday. Grace left, and I locked the door behind her. I took a quick tour through the museum, the cat at my heels, to see if anything else had been disturbed. The creepy dolls stared balefully from their shelves. My skin twitched, and I moved on to the Fortune Telling Room. It, too, appeared undisturbed. I gazed at the Ouija board on the table. A psychic had once told me to never, ever, ever bring a Ouija board into a home. As far as I was concerned, the board was just wood and paint. A game. But was there more?

  A chill rippled up my spine. Two spots heated between my shoulders, burning.

  I wasn’t alone.

  I whipped around. The cat startled into a crouch, teeth bared. He bounded from the room, tail low.

  The feeling of being watched intensified, stripping my nerves. I yanked open the doors of the spirit cabinet.

  Its wooden bench was empty. A spider crawled down its back.

  There was no such thing as ghosts, and my only living company in the museum was the cat. I was imagining things. Perfectly normal when someone I’d known had been murdered here days before. But there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

  I returned to the main room, jingling the keys in my pocket. I stepped beside the cat, who was seated in the center of the checkerboard floor. He stared at me, emerald eyes unblinking.

  “I’ll need to do something about these drafts,” I said.

  Another chill prickled my scalp. It wasn’t my imagination. Someone was watching, their gaze heating my skin. I turned. An apparition blurred in the darkened window.

  I gasped, clutched my chest, then realized I’d caught my own reflection. I laughed, an uncertain sound. “Yes, GD, I really am afraid of my own reflection.”

  I looked over my shoulder. The cat had vanished.

  thirteen

  Tightening my jacket around me, I scanned the museum for the cat. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered. GD really had vanished. He might as well have exited into another dimension.

  I snatched my purse off the counter. Right. GD could take care of himself.

  A thunderous banging sent me leaping skyward, a personal high-jump record. I whirled, clutching my bag to my chest. A face in the window, its mouth contorted, pinned me with its gaze.

  My throat closed, stopping my breath. And then the face resolved itself—Herb.

  Nostrils flaring, I wrenched open the door. “Herb! It’s after one a.m.!”

  He scuttled into the museum. “I am well aware of the time. I was passing and saw you inside.”

  “Passing or lurking?” Blood pounded in my head. How long had he been watching me?

  He drew himself up, his barren skull gleaming beneath the fluorescent ceiling light. “I do not lurk. Given recent events at the museum, lights on after midnight seemed suspicious, and I came to investigate.”

  “I thought you were just passing.”

  “I came to investigate as I was passing.”

  “Whatever. Herb, you’re the closest thing to a witness to Christy’s murder, the only person who can say it was a man with Christy. My friend Adele is in jail, because the police think she did it. You need to let them know what you saw.”

  “I agree that in spite of my quite logical aversion to law enforcement, we do have a civic duty.”

  Blowing out my breath, I muttered a thank you to whatever higher power might be listening. “Fantastic. Detective Slate is in charge of the investigation, and he seems reasonable.”

  “Then you can tell him something else I’ve remembered—something the murdered woman said. ‘You dug your own grave,’ she said.”

  “You dug your own grave?” But Christy was the one who’d died. “You’re sure? Did she say anything else?”

  “I’m quite sure she did, but I didn’t hear it. That’s all I remember. Good evening.” He sidled toward the door.

  “Wait! Herb, it won’t matter if I tell the police. They need to hear it from you.”

  “I don’t see why.” He grasped the door handle. “Information is information, and you appear to be a fairly reliable source, in spite of your bizarre employment.”

  “Because you’re the one who heard Christy.” Even I could hear the high whine of desperation in my voice. “You’re the witness!”

  “And I have told you everything I know. Please relay it to your lieutenant.”

  “At least tell me where I can get in touch with you if the police have more questions.”

  “I think not.” He darted out the door.

  Cursing Herb, the police, and myself for getting in the middle of this, I ran after him, slamming the door shut behind me. Its bang echoed down the fog-shrouded street, and my teeth clenched. This would not win me points with the Viking upstairs.

  The fog swirled, leeching color from the street, pressing against the streetlamps. Some people find fog eerie. I find it comf
orting. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t see Herb. I could hear him, his footsteps thudding ahead on the sidewalk. I took off in pursuit.

  A car door slammed. An engine revved. Two red lights blinked on, blurs in the fog, illuminating the mud-spattered license plate of a yellow VW Bug. I made out the first number and letter—4G—and the car roared off.

  Stumbling to a halt, I considered returning to my pickup and trying to follow. But my romance with fog does not extend to driving in it. In this gray soup, not even Dieter would give odds on me catching Herb. But at least I had the beginnings of a license plate. Add to that the make and model of the car, and the police should be able to track Herb down. Shouldn’t they?

  I walked back to the museum, careful not to trip over the sidewalk’s cracks and crevasses. I passed a gleaming motorcycle in a shop window and turned back. I’d gone too far, missed the museum door.

  The open museum door. A gust of wind caught it, and it swayed.

  My hand shot out, steadying it.

  I’d closed that door.

  My hand clenched. I knew I’d closed the front door. I remembered wincing as it banged shut.

  Blood thrumming, I pushed the door wide and edged my head inside. The plastic curtains billowed … stirred by the breeze from the open door? Or had someone walked through them into the tea room?

  “Hello?” My heart thudded against my ribs. Stupid. I was being stupid, imagining things.

  A low, feline growl was my response.

  My shoulders slumped. The cat. It had probably disturbed the curtains. But that didn’t explain the open front door.

  I bit my lower lip. Had I locked the alley door? The thought of checking left me cold, but I forced my leaden legs to move forward. I found the unopened bottle of Kahlua beneath the counter and grasped it around its neck like a weapon. The liquid gurgled as I tilted it upside down. The bottle was satisfyingly heavy.

  I crept toward the plastic drapes. Of course it was just me and the cat. I paused beside the plastic sheets. How many times had I done this in my own home, half-afraid someone had broken in, only to find I was wrong?