by Krista Davis
“I’ll talk to Karl, but it’s going to be a long, long time before I set foot in that building again—if I ever do. Besides, I think I see that black cat Nina has been trying to catch. I believe he might be cornered now.” He nodded in the direction of Ray’s show window. The cat lounged in front of stacks of books, leisurely washing his fur.
I wished Frank luck but had my doubts. Ray’s shop would be like a minefield of objects for Frank to trip over, but a cat would navigate the mess and disappear in it. I wanted to ask him what he’d seen in the house, but there wasn’t time. We had a show to put on, and people were waiting for us to begin.
Natasha’s mother, Wanda, arrived in her fortune-telling outfit and paused on the doorstep. Her smile wavered and disappeared as she entered and looked up the stairwell. “This house is haunted.”
I knew she was serious, but I suspected that everyone else thought it was part of her act.
Nina snagged my elbow and whispered, “You have bigger problems than that. The kid in the vampire costume is the same one I saw in the alley last night after Patrick was killed.”
TWELVE
Dear Natasha,
I watched your show on Halloween parties and want to recreate the fog coming out of the punch bowl. It’s spooktacular! I’m a little wary of dry ice, though. Are you sure it’s safe?
—Ghostly Mom in Fogg Corners, New Hampshire
Dear Ghostly Mom,
It’s so easy! You need two bowls, one that fits inside the other. Place the dry ice in the bigger bowl (be careful not to touch it because it will burn you). Pour the punch into the smaller bowl. Set the smaller bowl inside the larger one and add warm water to the big bowl. Instant fog! You don’t have to be afraid of dry ice. Handle it with gloves and never touch it or eat it.
—Natasha
“Are you certain it was Blake whom you saw?” I asked.
Nina cocked her head sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Sophie. There’s no doubt about it.”
Had Patrick pushed Blake too far? Had Blake taken advantage of the costume party to disguise himself and kill his mother’s boyfriend? He was only a kid, but it wouldn’t have been the first time a boyfriend drove a kid to murder. Had he hoped that removing Patrick would mean his parents would reconcile? I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to turn him in. On the other hand, what if he harmed someone else?
As though in a trance, Wanda walked up the stairs. The kids, silent for once, followed her, and I was right behind them. She drifted into the vampire’s room and closed her eyes. “Very dark things . . . unspeakable things . . . have happened here.”
Wanda held out her hands, palm sides down, and snatched them back. “The spirit in this room is very strong. He had a deep, terrible secret.”
I didn’t realize that June had arrived. Behind us, she chimed in, “Of course he did. Viktor was a vampire. He couldn’t let anyone know.”
“This is so cool,” said Jesse. “Neither of my grandmothers would play along like this.”
Wanda fixed him with a sharp look. “This isn’t pretend, young man. There’s a malevolent spirit in this room.”
I could hear voices downstairs. Excusing myself, I returned to the foyer and found Wolf having a look around. Blake’s father, Dash, was with him, his expression grim.
“Great job, Soph! The place is scary beyond belief.” Wolf bussed me on the cheek. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need to have a word with Blake. Is there somewhere we could talk in private?”
“There are a couple of chairs in the kitchen. It’s far from private, but I can try to keep everyone else out of there.” I showed them into the kitchen, and the clock chimed with a moan. “We’re supposed to open very soon.”
“Shouldn’t take long,” said Wolf.
I ran up the stairs, culled Blake from the little haunted house gang, and sent him to the kitchen. Whispering, I asked Bernie and Nina to keep everyone upstairs and suggested they do a few run-throughs to make sure everyone knew what to do.
I crept down the front stairs to prevent anyone from barging in. Squeals and giggles came from upstairs, but the first floor was so quiet that I couldn’t help overhearing Wolf and Blake from the witch’s lair.
“I didn’t kill Patrick.”
Wolf responded, his tone calm. “That wasn’t what I asked you.”
“You wouldn’t have brought my dad otherwise. Look, I can save us all a lot of time. I hated Patrick.”
“Blake!” Dash’s voice carried a note of warning.
“The cops are going to know that soon enough, Dad. It’s not like it was a secret. Even Patrick knew I hated him. But I didn’t murder him.”
“Where were you last night?”
“Home. Dad can verify that. He dropped me off.”
“You’re talking about your mother’s house?”
“I know what you’re getting at. Obviously, Mom and Patrick had gone to the party.”
Wolf began to sound a hair testy. “Was anyone there with you?”
“No. I watched a video.”
“You didn’t go anywhere?”
“No! We just didn’t like Patrick. Okay? He ruined everything for us.”
Wolf started to speak, but Dash interrupted him. “I think that’s enough. He told you he doesn’t know anything. Isn’t that what you needed?”
Chairs scraped along the floor, and I skedaddled to the foyer.
Wolf came through first. “What did you think?”
“About what?”
He laughed so hard it echoed in the stairwell. He kissed me, with less zeal than the night before, but it was sweet and adoring. He nuzzled my hair and whispered, “The kid’s hiding something. If you find out what it is, let me know.”
I already knew Blake was lying. My heart sank. I almost choked when I said, “You’d better talk to Nina. She’s upstairs.”
Dash and Blake joined us in the foyer, and Wolf calmly climbed the stairs, not even flinching when the automated ghost swooped down upon him.
Dash pointed at Blake, said, “Behave,” and left as Ray from next door barged in.
“I believe I was promised a spot in the first tour?”
I couldn’t help laughing. What was it about Halloween that got even adults excited?
I closed the door behind him. “Sure. Wait here a minute.”
Blake didn’t appear upset. “Do you want to take the afternoon off?” I asked.
“And miss out on the fun? No way!”
I wanted to give him a hug, but all I could think was that he might want to harm the girls if he thought they could identify him. Had he left the grisly doll on our doorstep? Had he thrown a cape over my head? He was tall enough.
“Time to start,” I shouted. “Places, everyone.”
We scattered to our destinations, and I played a CD of spooktacularly creepy music. Jen took the first group through. The ghost swung over their heads as she led them up the stairs, giving them their first little surprise. I could hear Jen telling the tale of Viktor Luca. A few minutes later, screams came from Viktor’s bedroom, letting me know Blake had startled them. Happily, the shrieks from Viktor’s room set the tone for the next group, who were having their palms read by Wanda in the foyer. Chains rattled overhead, courtesy of Nina, and something heavy dragged along the floor. I watched the expressions of the kids in the foyer. Their eyes large, they eagerly anticipated their turn.
All went well until Vegas’s third tour. She motioned to her group to follow her, and they started up the stairs. But when they reached the top, a genuinely hysterical scream sent a chill through me.
“Sophie!” screamed Vegas.
I ran upstairs and found the group standing back from a snake on the floor. I don’t do snakes. Not even a little bit. As horrified as I was, two logical thoughts made it through my hysteria. Snakes tend to slither close to walls, yet this snake was in the middle of the floor. And it wasn’t trying to get away. In fact, it hadn’t moved at all.
My heart pounding, I scooted closer and touch
ed the tail with the toe of my witch boot. It didn’t react. I scuffed my boot along the floor, managed to turn the snake over, and realized that it was plastic. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, and a fear of snakes, I picked it up by the tail. “Go ahead with the tour. It’s not real.” But it had been a very scary moment, and I wondered who had tossed the snake there.
I carried it downstairs—which produced a few screams among those waiting in the foyer—through the kitchen, and out to the backyard.
Even in daylight, Humphrey cut a creepy figure in his top hat and ragged duds. The hat dipped low on his forehead. He leaned against the fence and concentrated so hard on texting that he didn’t hear me coming. As I drew near, he glanced up. “You scared me! My gosh, is that thing real?” He drew back and shuddered.
“One of the kids must have thought it would be a fun prank. Probably the same one who found the cigarette case with Viktor’s initials on it.”
I walked to the back of the yard and propped the snake on a tree branch. Humphrey followed me with a snazzy phone in his hand. When I turned to talk to him, I thought I spied makeup on his face. I reached out and lifted the brim of the hat a little bit. Under the best circumstances, Humphrey’s skin was pasty, but gray circles around his eyes made him appear cadaverous—as though he’d just risen from one of the graves in the backyard. “Yikes! Who did your makeup?”
He laughed. “One of the women over at the mortuary. I think she had entirely too much fun making me look ghoulish. I’m glad you came out here, though. I just heard from one of my contacts at the medical examiner’s office.”
“About Patrick?”
He nodded. “He died of asphyxiation.”
“Like someone smothered him?” I inhaled deeply at the memory of not being able to breathe during my assault.
“Something like that,” said Humphrey. “It means he wasn’t getting oxygen.”
I feared I knew the answer, but I asked, “So he probably didn’t die of natural causes?”
“I’m no physician, but I think there are a few natural causes of asphyxiation.” He looked at me with those ghastly eyes. “Like medical conditions that make a person stop breathing, but that probably wasn’t the case.”
The fresh memory of something clamped over my nose and mouth made me think it more likely Patrick had been suffocated. “Did your contact say anything about the wounds on his neck?” I was not going to refer to them as a vampire bite!
“Only that it’s very bizarre.”
We already knew that. I glanced up at the windows. “The next group will be through any second.” I touched his arm. “Keep me posted if you hear more.”
I scurried into the house and ran into Wolf.
He rubbed an uneasy hand over his chin. “Nina’s the third person who saw Blake in your neighborhood last night wearing his vampire costume.”
“So you already knew.”
“What I don’t know is why he’s lying about it.”
I breathed a little easier. “You don’t really believe he’s the killer.”
“I didn’t say that. I have to consider him a suspect. He had motive and he was in the right place. If he had a good reason to lie, other than murder, I sure would like to know about it.”
I hugged Wolf and melted into his embrace. Humphrey’s revelation made me wish I could stay in Wolf’s safe arms all day. My hat fell off, and I giggled like a girl when I bent to pick it up. “Have you ever heard of a Living Dead Doll?”
He made a sour face. “A woman at the medical examiner’s office collects them. Pretty gruesome.”
“Collects them?”
“They’re not my taste, but she says they only make so many and the dolls go up in value, like other collectibles.”
“Someone left one at my front door last night. The girls think it’s some kind of warning because it has a vampire bite on its neck.” I tried to make light of it. “I think it’s just a kid playing a prank.”
“I’d better have a look at it.” Wolf pulled me close in a bear hug. “Don’t let your guard down. Even if the doll is a joke, the killer has you on his radar.”
Wolf left through the graveyard, and I hurried to the witch’s lair, where June, who made an adorable witch with silver curls peeking from beneath her hat, offered a little cowboy a candied apple. I pulled aside the filmy fabric that covered the window and peeked outside. “I don’t see any sign of Heather or her father.” I hoped they had given up and gone home.
“Wanda put a spell on them,” said June.
“What?!”
“We didn’t care for their behavior, so Wanda went outside and put a spell on them.” She smiled. “You should have seen the horror on their faces!”
Oh no! They would probably report us for practicing witchcraft.
“Don’t be upset. It was just a silly rhyme. Wanda picked up a pumpkin”—June pretended to hold one in her hands—“and then she said, ‘When this pumpkin’s face you see, you will flee and leave us be.’ Isn’t that a hoot? And the best part is that it worked! They left right away.” She chuckled with glee.
I hoped Heather and Karl shared June’s amusement about it. I had a bad feeling their version of the event would be drastically different.
“Sophie, dear, the cauldron isn’t fogging quite as much anymore. Do you know how to fix that?”
I withdrew an old pitcher from under the counter where I’d stashed it. “We just have to add warm water.”
She took the pitcher from me. “That’s easy enough.”
While she fetched the water, I supervised the tour that had just ended and made sure everyone went home with a treat. I loved hearing the comments—at first.
“Man, I’m coming back at night. This is the coolest haunted house.”
“The axe murderer guy was scary, but the guy in the backyard—do you think he always looks like that?”
“I bet that vampire still lives here.”
“They made that up. A vampire never slept here.”
“Oh no? I heard some guy died last night from a vampire bite. He probably came back here afterward and slept in that coffin.”
June returned and poured water into the cauldron. Mist wafted out immediately. She cackled and wiggled her fingers at a little girl, who squealed but ran out wearing a delighted grin. “My word.” June peered out the window. “There’s a mob outside.”
Mob? I hoped Karl hadn’t brought back reinforcements.
“There you are.” Officer Wong drifted into the lair gazing up at the cobwebs and purple lights. “No one expected this kind of turnout. Must be one scary haunted house.”
I didn’t see any paperwork in her hands, but I waited for her to tell me the bad news that the haunted house would be closed. Jen brought another group through, and June immediately handed out goodies to children, who laughed and smiled. I was glad Wong could see the kids weren’t distressed.
She examined the treats on the table. “I’m sorry to put a damper on things, but I’ve brought a couple of cops to make sure the crowd outside stays orderly.”
“You’re not shutting us down?”
“Are you kidding? Why would I do that?”
She couldn’t have surprised me more. My knees went weak, and I realized how much Karl and Heather worried me.
“Hey, can I bust in line and get a tour?” she asked.
Jen nodded. “We’ll say you have to make an official inspection. You can go on my next tour.”
I joined June at the window. A cluster of people blocked us from seeing the end of the line. “Where did they all come from? I never anticipated this many. Especially not so many adults.”
“Heather texted everybody and warned them that the house was dangerous because it was haunted by a vampire,” said Jen. “And people have been texting friends when they hear the story about Viktor. I’ve seen them do it.”
Wong laughed. “Heather the Horrid from last night? She’s a piece of work. But she made your haunted house go viral. Just goes to prove that a
s soon as you tell people something’s haunted or dangerous, they’ll line up to take a peek.”
“Coming through . . . coming through.” I heard Natasha before I saw her. She broke through to the witch’s lair and snorted in disgust. Brushing off her lavender sweater and matching trousers, she marched straight toward me. “How could you do this to me?” she hissed.
I was losing my patience with her. “What now, Natasha?”
“Don’t get snippy with me. I’ve had to deal with fire cleanup crews all day. The kitchen was loaded with candles for ambiance and they melted all over the place. Between the hole in my kitchen wall and Patrick’s death, I’m at the end of my rope. People are saying you staged Patrick’s death last night to get attention for some dumb vampire story.”
“I’m sure Patrick will be pleased to know he’s not dead.”
Wong snorted. “People can be so stupid.”
Jen wasn’t laughing though. “He’s not dead. A vampire bite makes you immortal.”
“Don’t you dare start that rumor,” I cautioned. What a nightmare.
Natasha examined the people in the lair as though she was sizing them up. “She doesn’t have to start that rumor, it’s common knowledge.” She clapped a hand over her mouth when she realized what she’d said. “Not that I believe in that sort of foolishness.”
I should have realized that anyone raised by superstitious Wanda would believe in vampires. Natasha was a no-nonsense person on so many levels, but apparently, this wasn’t one of them.
I massaged my temples. “Would you be willing to make a candy run? We’re going to need more of these little bags”—I held one up to show her—“and candy corn to fill them.”
“Leon can do it.” Natasha pulled out her phone, but before she called him, she tucked it away. “On second thought, maybe I will do it myself. Mother has suggested we buy more garlic.”
“Would you get us some, too?” asked Jen. “We used ours up last night. Come on, Officer Wong. It’s my turn.”