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

by Kirsten Weiss

  Ouch. What sort of medical care had Martin received in 1898 San Benedetto? I skimmed forward. As there was nothing further about Martin and his ankle, I assumed it had healed. The journal was filled with other reports of injuries of various neighbors and relatives. Farm country in the 1890s was a high-risk place and time.

  The journal was thin, the penmanship excellent, and I finished reading in less than an hour. I tapped its spine on my chin. Cora’s observations about her neighbors were penetrating and lively; she’d described one pompous lady at an elegant tea in terms that had left me snorting with mirth. But there was not a word about Martin’s abuse. Perhaps she’d been too ashamed to admit to it, even in the privacy of her own journal. But for an unhappy woman, Cora seemed awfully cheerful. She delighted in the rhythm of nature, writing detailed descriptions of the froth of blossoms in the spring. Her tales of the wicked little animals who dared raids on the chicken coop were Beatrix Potter–like. Her references to her husband were casual and reported with no air of fear, sadness, or regret. At least not until the final entries.

  I reopened the faded notebook:

  God, dear God. My Martin is dead. How can he have left me?

  And then the final entry:

  God Almighty, control Thou our lives, that through the vicissitudes of life we may yet win the goal—heaven. Grant we, each one and all, may find our places in the vineyard to serve Thee with cheerful hearts and so fulfill our mission.

  Sighing, I laid the book on the coffee table. Cora didn’t sound like a killer. Was she?

  twenty-two

  Murder on my brain, I should have felt wired. But that night, lying on the overstuffed gray couch, Cora’s journal in hand, my lids sank to half-mast. When the phone rang, it startled me. I dropped Cora’s journal onto the coffee table and staggered to the kitchen to grab the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Madelyn, this is your mother.”

  “Hi, Mom. I was about to call you.”

  “You were?” She sounded pleased, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Shane had been right—I’d been avoiding her. And what had she done that was so awful? Nothing.

  I settled on the couch, adjusting the waistband of my jeans. Seriously, no more junk food. “It’s about the Ladies Aid Society,” I said. “Adele said something to me that made sense—I should figure out what they really care about. And I’m having a hard time believing that they really care that much about the tackiness of the Paranormal Museum, especially when they help the Dairy Association with their stupid Christmas Cow.”

  “The Christmas Cow is hardly stupid,” my mother huffed. “Straw animals at Christmastime is an old Scandinavian tradition. The cow has become a big tourist attraction. I just wish it wouldn’t get set on fire so often.”

  “Mom. That’s the only reason why the cow is a tourist attraction. So why is your organization involved with it?”

  “For the money, of course.”

  “There’s money in it?” That surprised me. I had no idea how much straw cost, but the cow was two stories high. Considering the permit fees and the annual payoffs to the fire department, I figured the cow was lucky to break even.

  “Oh, yes. The live webcam is popular, and we sell ads on the webpage. And we get half the profits on the sale of the merchandise. It’s a terrific fundraiser.”

  I shifted Cora’s journal away from an open bottle of cider. “I’m surprised the Dairy Association is willing to share.”

  “They’re willing to split the work. Setting up that blasted cow is a huge endeavor. And marketing the cow is another kettle of fish. They’re quite happy to let us do that work and get a share of the profits and publicity.”

  “I noticed Ladies Aid was hosting a wine tasting class at the Wine and Visitors Bureau. Is it the same sort of deal?” I picked at the label on the bottle.

  “Of course. The Visitors Bureau gets half the profits, and they provide the space. We provide the marketing and the wine expert. It’s win-win. We’re involved with the Historical Association as well.”

  “Why not the Paranormal Museum?

  “Because, darling, the prior owner, Chuck, wasn’t interested in co-sponsoring fundraising events, or in Ladies Aid. I suspect he considered us a bunch of uptight snobs.”

  “What a crazy idea,” I said. “I can’t imagine where he got that impression.” I was getting an idea of my own. “Is there any chance you could help me get a meeting with the head of Ladies Aid?”

  “What are your intentions?”

  “I’m going to make her a deal she can’t refuse.”

  There was a long pause, then a chuckle. “I see. A meeting shouldn’t be a problem. When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Done. I’ll call you back when I’ve set an appointment for us. Or, er, do you want a private meeting?”

  “Actually, I’d love it if you were there.”

  Twenty two and a half minutes later, my mother called back. She’d arranged a meeting with the president of the Ladies Aid Society, Mrs. Gale, on Sunday. I thanked my mother, wondering if Mrs. Gale was the battle-axe who’d presented me with the petition. No matter—I’d charmed corrupt Armenian cops. I could handle one small-town society matron.

  I hoped.

  No sooner had I hung up then the phone rang again.

  “Hello?”

  “Mad, this is Mason.” His voice rumbled over a background track of AC/DC.

  “What’s wrong? Has there been another break-in? The museum hasn’t burned down, has it?”

  There was a long pause. “You sound almost hopeful, but no. Why would you think it burned down?”

  Because Adele’s contractor was a possible arsonist? I laughed weakly. “No reason. So what’s up?”

  “A local motorcycle club had their event space cancelled, so I’m letting them use my shop tonight. I thought you might enjoy getting out, meeting some new people.”

  I don’t really like big parties. I’d just taken off my bra. It was late. All good reasons not to go. But my social circle in San Benedetto was limited to Harper and Adele. I needed to meet more people, though I wasn’t sure a motorcycle club was the place to start. On the other hand, there was my hunky work neighbor.

  Enough said.

  “What’s the dress code?” I asked.

  “Jeans and a T-shirt will do. Leathers are optional.”

  “Then … sure! Thanks for the invite. Or are you inviting all the neighbors so you won’t get noise complaints?”

  His chuckle was rich, masculine. “Since you wouldn’t have known about the noise if I hadn’t called, I think you know the answer. See you when you get here.”

  It was just a casual thing. I didn’t have to impress anyone. But I took a quick shower, touched up my makeup, and fluffed my hair into a tousled it’s-just-a-casual-thing-and-I-don’t-need-to-impress-anyone look. It went well with my faded jeans, white T-shirt, and cowgirl boots. I hoped they were an acceptable substitute for motorcycle boots, even if blue flowers twined up their sides.

  I frowned at my reflection. My hair needed highlights. Since I wasn’t going to get them tonight, I turned the frown into a pucker, slicked on some lipstick, and headed out the door, cash and credit cards tucked into my back pocket. I hate carrying a purse to a party.

  The street in front of the museum was packed with motorcycles. I drove around back and parked in the alley, then walked through the museum to the street. Clubbers spilled onto the brick sidewalk. A heavy beat thrummed the air. Mason’s motorcycle shop was standing room only.

  Feeling awkward, I edged through the crowd, an upscale mix of men and women. A few wore leather pants. They all wore leather jackets or no jacket at all. Women’s fashion consisted of tank tops and gold chains. In comparison, I looked like an insurance salesperson in my brown leather blazer.

  Guests faced each other in little groupings,
their backs like walls that kept strangers from trespassing on their conversations. This had been a bad idea. I considered leaving.

  Someone laid a hand on my shoulder. “Mad.”

  I turned. Mason pulled me into a hug. A rough, manly, hard-

  muscled hug scented with motorcycle oil and pine that sent my heart thumping. His hands slid up my back and brushed my neck. I shivered. He stepped back, gripping my upper arms and smiling broadly. “You made it,” he shouted over the din, his gaze sliding to my mouth. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  I felt pathetically relieved to have found him in the crowd. Then

  I wondered what Mason looked like beneath his T-shirt and jeans. Bad Maddie. But it had been a long time since a man had made my blood race or looked at me that way. “Did you think I’d chicken out?”

  “Never.” He jerked his head. “Come on, let me introduce you to some friends.”

  His broad hand on my lower back, he guided me through the crowd. We stopped near an impromptu bar—a wide strip of wood set upon two sawhorses. They looked suspiciously like Dieter’s.

  Mason clapped a gray-haired man on the back of his red leather jacket.

  The man turned, pulling an elegant blonde in black leather pants with him. Discreet threads of silver hair and faint lines around her cornflower-blue eyes belied her age.

  “Hey, Doug, Sarah,” Mason said. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is Maddie. She runs the Paranormal Museum next door.”

  Sarah grasped my hand, pulling me close for an air kiss. She smelled of cigarettes and roses and beer. “The Paranormal Museum? This is why I love San Benedetto. It’s crazy! The Christmas Cow, the no-fuss wine tasting, and, of course, the best motorcycle shop in Central California.”

  “Aww, go on.” Mason grinned.

  “You are a godsend,” she said, and then turned to me. “We thought we’d rented a bar for the evening and this morning discovered we hadn’t. Mason saved our skin.”

  “My skin, you mean.” Doug raked a hand through his wavy hair. “It’s our club’s twenty-fifth anniversary. We’re a good group, but you do not want to get a motorcycle club angry.”

  “So what do you do when you’re not biking?” I asked.

  “Sarah’s a software engineer. I’m a coroner in Sacramento.”

  I might have squealed. “A coroner? Really?”

  “That usually doesn’t get women so excited,” Doug said.

  “No, you can … I’ve been looking into a nineteenth-century murder. A photo of the supposed murderess and her victim are in my museum. She was said to have hanged him.”

  He raised his brows. “Hanged him? It’s rare but not impossible. In most homicides by hanging—and let me say, that’s one of the least common forms of murder—the killer is male. It would be difficult for a woman to manage it unless the victim was somehow incapacitated first—drunk, for example.”

  “I’ve got a photo of the corpse,” I said. “Could I get your professional opinion?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’ll be able to tell you from a photo, but sure.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “After what happened last night,” Mason said, “I’ll go with you.”

  “What happened last night?” Sarah asked.

  “Just a break-in,” I said. “It’s been a strange week.”

  “Well, you do run a paranormal museum,” she drawled. “And I’d love to see it at night. I’m coming too.”

  Doug laughed, a thin, reedy sound. “Count me in. I could use some air.”

  We trooped over to the museum. Wary, I unlocked the front door.

  Mason drew me aside. “Allow me.” He grasped the door handle and strode inside, stopping dead about two feet in.

  I hovered on the threshold, the coroner and the engineer pressed behind me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Where’s the light switch?”

  I reached around the door and flipped it on. No criminals leapt at us from the shadows. We walked inside, and I scooted behind the counter.

  GD Cat slunk from the Fortune Telling Room, yawned and stretched, then sat in front of Sarah, waiting to be admired. She obliged him, scratching between his ears. They swiveled like antennae.

  “Mind if I check out the Creepy Doll Room?” she asked me.

  “Be my guest.”

  Mason went with her, a protective hand at the small of her back. Well, okay, so I wasn’t the only woman he was touchy-feeling with. It had been a simple, meaningless hug. I found the photo of Martin beneath the counter and slid it across to Doug.

  He studied it, frowning. “You say a woman did this?”

  “That’s what the prosecutor in 1899 said. The jury agreed.”

  “Strange. You see these ligature marks? They’re straight rather than V-shaped, which indicates he was strangled rather than hanged. But the man’s neck is clearly broken, which indicates hanging.”

  So Slate had been right. “She may have strangled him first, then strung him up to make it look like suicide,” I said. “Can you tell me anything else?”

  “Well, you’d need a drop of at least six feet to break his neck. Where was he hanged from?”

  “From the interior second floor banister.”

  Doug pursed his lips. “He looks like a big fellow. Whoever did it would have had to lift his dead weight over the banister. How big was his wife?”

  “Cora was a lot smaller than Martin.”

  “You say you have a photo of them both?”

  I pointed to their picture hanging on the wall.

  He shook his head. “I’d question her ability to pull this off. Under other circumstances, I’d be willing to believe she used a rope and pulley system to string him up. But he clearly dropped from a height. It’s odd that she was convicted, but they didn’t have the sort of crime-scene analysis in the nineteenth century that we do today. I’m assuming there was other evidence against her. Could she have had an accomplice?”

  Yes, she could have.

  But I didn’t believe it.

  Sarah emerged, giggling, from the Creepy Doll Room.

  “I hate those dolls,” Mason said.

  “Me too, but they’re a strangely popular exhibit,” I said. And I wished I could get rid of them.

  Something clanged from the back of the building. We all froze, staring at each other.

  “Wait here.” Mason brushed through the plastic curtains and into the tea room.

  “Maybe it’s a ghost.” Sarah’s laugh was brittle, uncertain.

  “If only.” I hurried after my neighbor, fumbling for the light switch in the tea room.

  From down the hall echoed another clang, a metallic rattle, and a curse.

  I found the switch, flooding the main tea room with light. The hallway to the alley remained dark. A metal door slammed shut.

  “Mason?”

  No response.

  I hurried down the hall, the shadows lengthening the deeper I went until I was fumbling my way. I kicked something metal and it rattled against the wall. I moved more slowly and my fingertips brushed cold metal—the closed door. I fumbled for the latch and pushed it open.

  Beneath the yellowish outdoor light, Mason scowled, hands on his hips.

  I braced the door open and joined him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.” He swung around and strode back to the door, then squatted beside it, examining the latch. There were scratch marks in the metal. “Someone was trying to get in. They must have heard me when I kicked over that bucket in the hall. You shouldn’t leave stuff out like that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  His expression twisted. “Of course. Dieter.” He looked down the alley. “I could have sworn I saw someone by the corner, but they disappeared.”

  Sarah and Doug walked to the do
or.

  “Disappeared?” she asked. “Like a ghost?”

  “No,” Mason and I said in unison. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Mason growled.

  A ghost wouldn’t need to break open the door. Still, I was starting to wish one had. Someone wanted inside the museum, badly. And I had an inkling about who.

  I just didn’t know what I was going to do about it.

  twenty-three

  I slept late the next morning, barely making it to the museum before opening time. No line of tourists waited for me, pockets full of money.

  I grasped the knob, jamming the key in the lock.

  My stomach turned to ice.

  The door was open.

  I swore. I’d definitely locked it last night. After the scare at the back door, Mason had watched me lock up, rattling the knob to satisfy himself that it was shut fast. I remembered this because it had annoyed me. Maybe Dieter had opened the front door for some reason? But why would he need to go inside the museum?

  Dreading what I’d find, I pushed the door open.

  Men’s voices emanated from the Creepy Doll Room. My shock evaporated, transforming to irritation.

  Dieter!

  I stormed inside, colliding with Sam the squire. His scarecrow arms clasped a baker’s dozen of dolls.

  “What are you doing?” Blood pounded an angry drumbeat against my skull.

  Dieter sauntered up behind Sam, further clotting the doorway. He also carried an armful of antique dolls. White splatters flecked his biceps. Paint? Spackle? Ectoplasm?

  Sam straightened. “We’re getting started on transforming the doll room into a gallery space. Of course, we’ll build new shelves for the dolls in the main room. I told you I’d take care of it.”

  I took deep breaths. Calm, I would stay calm. “You can’t just remodel the museum without telling me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because … because it’s Saturday, one of the museum’s biggest days, and people are expecting to see creepy dolls in the Creepy Doll Room.” My voice had taken on a serrated edge.

  The lawyer tilted his head. “So Monday then?”