A Vision of Murder:

by Laurie, Victoria

  “That was one determined young lady,” Dutch said.

  “That was Eliza,” Helsa said, her head shaking back and forth as old memories seemed to replay themselves in her head. “To this day, I don’t know how she found us, because it’s remarkable really that a girl so young would remember the last name of her newly married aunt. But Eliza was a bright woman, and she had a way with names and places. I remember how beautiful she was, and I wanted very much to be just like her when I grew up.”

  Just then a phone rang in the kitchen, and Dutch and I looked up as the sound pulled us back to the present, but Helsa ignored the distraction and continued.

  “Eliza lived with us for a few years before going to university. When she graduated she moved back to Lausanne and taught school just down the street from us. Then, one day she came to my mother with news that greatly upset Mama. Eliza had discovered the whereabouts of the Frenchman who betrayed and murdered her family. She said she was leaving Switzerland for the United States to find this man and get back what he had stolen from us.

  “My mother begged her not to go, she said it was too dangerous, but Eliza wouldn’t listen to her and packed her bags and left. We got word from her once a month for the next three months, and then we never heard from her again.

  “Years later I met and married a Canadian, and we moved here, and I tried to find out what happened to my cousin, but to no avail. Now at least I know, and a part of me can finally put Eliza to rest.”

  “Maybe this will help too,” I croaked as I reached into my pocket and pulled out the leather pouch I’d hidden from the border guards.

  Helsa took the bag and opened the top sash. Curiously, she emptied the contents into her hand, and all three of us caught our breath as three thirty-carat diamonds of near perfect cut, color and clarity tinkled together in Helsa’s palm. “Schwalbe Eier,” Helsa said, the words rolling off her tongue and making a beautiful sound. Just then something else tipped out of the bag, and we all looked as Helsa picked up a small folded piece of paper and pulled it open to read it.

  “What’s it say?” Dutch asked.

  “It’s the oddest thing,” Helsa said as she studied the weathered parchment. “It has my uncle’s name and the words ‘Schwalbe Eier’ along with several other names and some French acronyms for gemstones.”

  “The missing page of the notebook,” I whispered to Dutch.

  He nodded as Helsa refolded the paper and tucked it back into the pouch, then surveyed the diamonds in her hand again.

  “I’m glad we could return those to their rightful owner,” Dutch said, standing and grabbing my hand.

  Helsa looked up at us, her eyes full of moisture as she said, “On behalf of my family, I thank you.”

  “Ma’am,” Dutch said and gave her a small salute as he led me back to the front door, grabbing our coats along the way.

  “You done good in there, Edgar,” he said to me as he helped me into my coat and gave me a tender kiss on the back of my neck.

  I smiled and mouthed, “Ditto,” to him as we headed back to the car.

  Three hours later Dutch and I were checked in to the Toronto Park Hyatt and as the hotel room door closed behind us, I’ll have to admit, I was a little nervous. “Tired?” Dutch asked, taking my luggage out of my hand and placing it on the suitcase rack next to the closet.

  “A little,” I croaked.

  “Hey,” he admonished, coming up behind me and wrapping strong arms around my waist, “no talking.”

  I smiled as he began to nibble on my neck and answered softly with, “Then stop asking me questions.”

  He turned me around to face him then, and moved the collar away from my neck to examine the bruises there more closely. After a moment he cradled my face in his hands and said, “Don’t ever take a chance like that again, Abby. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded at him. I knew now that he wasn’t trying to control me—he simply cared too much about me to let me take chances. “I mean it,” he said after a minute, searching my eyes for confirmation.

  I smiled wryly at him and leaned in for a kiss. He’d have to be satisfied with that.

  I don’t know why I thought I would need to pack so many clothes that weekend, because I sure didn’t wear much. Not even the teddy. It, along with most of the rest of my clothing, stayed packed away in my suitcase, and for the next two days, pretty much the only thing I put on was tall, blond and muscular. And since I never kiss and tell, the only thing I’ll admit to . . . is that it fit purrrfectly.

  Epilogue

  I waited in my car with the heater going until I saw the rental car snake its way down the street, headed in my direction. I smiled with anticipation and got out of the Mazda, shivering slightly in the crispness of the day.

  Dutch and I had gotten back from Toronto a few days earlier, and my voice was slowly returning. I’d made the call when we got home, and I was happy to see that I’d received such a quick response.

  The car pulled up alongside me in the driveway, and the doors opened to reveal a very pretty brunette who reminded me a lot of Sandra Bullock, and an equally handsome man with jet-black hair and ebony eyes. “M.J.?” I asked, extending my hand in greeting.

  “Hi Abby, it’s great to meet you,” she said as she took my hand and pumped it a few times. Turning to her compatriot she said, “And this is Steven Sable. He’s working on a documentary.”

  Steven came around the car and I smiled up at him. “Nice to meet you,” I said as he took my hand and lifted it to his lips for a gentle kiss.

  “Likewise,” he said and I noticed the hint of an accent. “Is this the house with the dead woman at the bottom of the stairs?”

  “Yeah,” I said, only barely holding back the nervous giggle that wanted to erupt from my throat as I noted his accent. The combo of his baritone voice and an accent that seemed a mixture of Latin and European sounded a bit like he was melting a bite of chocolate on the back of his tongue. “This is the one.”

  “Come on Sable,” M.J. called. “Cut the flirt and let’s head inside.” Steven winked at me and turned toward M.J. who was already halfway to the door. “Coming, dear,” he said sarcastically.

  I stood out on the lawn and stared after them as they disappeared through the door. I had no intention of following. I’d seen enough of the inside of that house for a while. I could only hope that whatever spirits still haunted its insides could be evicted by M.J. Holliday and her Latin sidekick.

  Intuitively, I felt there was at least one less spirit haunting the house. I knew that by encountering Liza in James’s home that she had at last given up guarding her family’s treasure, and it meant the world to me that she had trusted me to get them safely into the hands of her cousin.

  As for Jean-Paul, I figured he’d go pretty easily once he figured out the diamonds were no longer hidden on the property. The one worry I had was that his grandson, Jean-Luke, might be the newest ghostly tenant. I didn’t know what ghost busting involved, but I sure hoped it worked.

  Dave, Cat and I had decided that once the house was clean of all ghostly inhabitants, we’d hire a crew to do the work. I couldn’t very well make Dave go back in there, especially since he’d started to develop a skin rash due to all the garlic he’d been wearing. Plus, it was unfair to expect he’d be able to work in a place where he’d killed a man. Self-defense or not, it was still a tough thing to have to live with.

  Feeling chilly again I hopped back into my car and started the engine, cranking up the heat and warming my hands underneath the blower. I watched the clock and kept track of the minutes, and after about an hour the front door finally opened and M.J. came out and made her way to my car. I rolled down the window so we could talk. “I hate to tell you this, Abby, but that house is clean.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve checked it from top to bottom with all our instruments, and nothing’s registering. I’ve checked the place against my own antennae and I’m not picking up anything either. So, whatever you did to so
lve the mystery must have worked, ’cuz no one dead is hanging out inside.”

  “So I flew you guys out for nothing?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “ ’Fraid so. If it’s any consolation, I won’t charge you anything more than airfare,” M.J. offered.

  “That’d be great,” I said, feeling relieved on a multitude of fronts. “So where’s your partner?” I asked, making small talk.

  “He’s inside snapping some pictures. You guys gonna renovate the place and sell it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling at her perceptiveness.

  “You sure got a lot of work ahead. That place is a dump!”

  “I know. It’s bad isn’t it?”

  “And the smell,” she added, scrunching up her nose. “Jesus, it’s ripe in there, don’t you think?”

  “Ripe?” I asked, thinking perhaps she was talking about the cigarette smoke I had smelled.

  “Yeah,” M.J. insisted. “It’s like a garlic factory in there.”

  I looked askance at her. “Did you say garlic?”

  “Uh-huh,” she answered. “It just reeks of raw garlic.”

  “You don’t say,” I said thoughtfully, a small grin creeping at the corners of my mouth as I remembered Dave’s firm belief that a good dose of garlic would ward away any old evil spirit. Perhaps this was Liza’s doing, or perhaps Jean-Paul and Jean-Luke had gotten to the pearly gates, seen the evil of their ways, and imprinted some sort of aromatic energy on the place. Whatever, I knew that the house on Fern was permanently de-ghosted.

  Months later when we’d finished fixing up Fern Street and sold the house to a lovely middle-aged Italian couple, we learned that although they appreciated all the new renovations and conveniences, the thing the wife loved most, and convinced her it was the home she had to have, was that the house smelled just like her mama’s kitchen back home. That, and as she told us at the closing, “The house has wonderful energy, don’t you agree?”

  “If you say so,” I said and, just in case . . . signed those papers lickety-split.