Giulia replaced the dress and Mac fitted the rods and fishing line back into the box.
“What else is up here?” Giulia said, thinking of the footstep-like sounds she’d heard on her Friday exploration.
“Garlands of imitation fall leaves.” Mac touched the boxes as she named their contents. “Victorian dolls in costumes, ghosts and witches, crêpe paper pumpkins, costumes for the cats and the dog.”
Giulia walked through the attic, listening for creaking boards and assessing the shrouded furniture and shelves of seasonal decorations for noise potential. Mac followed her like a fretting shadow. Frank stayed out of the way by the staircase.
“Look,” Mac said when Giulia ended her explorations at the splintered window. “Even if I have an ancestral ghost who carved this message and the scratches on the lighthouse wall, why would she play along with a stranger’s games after all this time? Besides, Solana’s ‘possession’ seems phonier the longer I think about it. I’d bet the utility money those two are complete frauds. I didn’t need them to be genuine to be entertaining.”
Giulia let the silence lengthen after Mac stopped talking. Not ten seconds later, Mac started again.
“It’s all because of that newspaper article. I’ve been telling the story of my stagecoach-robbing ancestor for years. Suddenly my ghost is obsessed with the nonexistent Stone gold hoard? I don’t believe it.”
Giulia said, “If you have a ghost.”
“It’s easier to believe those two Ouija board performers have been secretly messing with my business all month. She changed her face so little during that séance, yet she looked like an entirely different person. She must have amateur theater experience. Plus it’d be easy to sneak in here at night or when I’m busy.”
“Speaking of that, Cedar picked the lock on either the lake door or the porch door to get inside. I advise deadbolts on both doors.”
“He what? Of course he did. I should’ve figured that out. Well, they’re fired as of right now.” Mac stomped toward the stairs. “Deadbolts won’t blend with the restoration décor.”
Giulia mimed swatting the back of Mac’s head.
Thirty-Eight
When Frank came out of the shower a little before ten that same morning, Giulia had been waiting eight minutes for the first fingerprint picture to upload.
“What’s that face for?” he said.
“The Wi-Fi here doesn’t like photo attachments.” She wriggled her mouth and nose. “My face is going to freeze in this expression if this blasted picture doesn’t send. I have eleven more after that.”
“Come with me, fair lady, and I will lead you to the promised land of stronger Wi-Fi signals.”
Giulia hopped off the bed. “You’re a lifesaver. Where?”
“There’s a hot spot on the beach near the boat rental place. I figure it’s the confluence of all the stores. Or something. Zane would probably know.”
“Not probably. Definitely. Let’s go.”
They walked out through the sunroom onto the already populated beach.
When they got within twenty feet of the boat dock, all the bars on Giulia’s phone lit. She plopped herself onto the nearest bench and opened her email. The first attached photo was in her sent folder at last.
“My hero.” She kissed Frank and attached the next photo to a new email. Ten minutes later, all the fingerprint photos had finished sending and she called Zane.
“I sent you a dozen fingerprint pictures.”
“The last upload is almost finished.” Zane’s voice sounded even more Bogart-esque with waves hitting sand in Giulia’s other ear. “What did you use to lift them?”
“Cornstarch, thanks to the internet. Could you run those through our usual processing place as a rush with my apologies?”
“Will do. What if they want to charge extra because of the reverse image?”
“Agree to anything up to thirty percent more than their usual fee. Call me if they try to go higher.” She thought a moment. “If you guys want to keep the door locked while you’re there, do it. Tell Sidney I don’t want her walking to the parking lot by herself even though it’s still light out when she leaves.”
“Yes, Mom.” Sidney’s voice from across the room.
Giulia made a face at the phone. “I’m serious. Can Olivier meet you or even drive you to work for the next week or two?”
Zane said, “Ms. D., I was thinking that if Sidney drives to my house in the morning, I can drive us both here and home again at night.”
“Perfect. Sidney, you know better than to dismiss any threat offhand. Will you please change your schedule to make Zane’s plan work?” Giulia sat up. “What about Jane?”
“Jane says,” Jane’s voice came from close to the phone, “that if pencil-dick comes in here again I’ll shove his head so far up his ass he’ll have to punch a hole in his navel to breathe.”
“Awesome,” Sidney said.
“You rule,” Zane said.
“Jane, I applaud your attitude but do not under any circumstances put yourself in danger. If he shows up again, call 911. Remember, we should be getting the order of protection today or tomorrow.”
Sidney said, “So if we can’t punch his lights out the courts will.”
“Bingo. Zane, email me when you have fingerprint answers. If we’re lucky, they won’t all be the owner’s.”
Breakfast didn’t make it to the table until eleven fifteen, which wasn’t a problem since no one came downstairs before eleven. Fruit-filled crêpes and bacon and egg popovers were a good excuse for lack of table conversation. Yawns and requests to pass the milk or sugar or whipped cream did not count in Miss Manners’ rules as table conversation.
Cedar and Solana appeared in the dining room doorway when Mac began collecting plates an hour later. Frank and Joel grabbed chairs for them and helped them sit. Cedar’s cast stretched from mid-thigh to ankle and he would’ve fallen over his crutches if Frank hadn’t steadied him. Solana had no visible injuries.
“We checked ourselves out of the hospital,” Cedar said. “They weren’t happy. Like I care. I refused to let them put me under to set my leg. Don’t trust any doctors anywhere. My leg’s still numb from the Novocain or whatever they used. I quit counting at ten shots.”
“What did the doctors say?” Mac said.
“My leg’s broken in two places. Cast for six weeks; physical therapy for another six. They gave me a prescription for some controlled substance or other. Stupid drones. All-natural is the way to go.” He winked at the room. “Solana makes these terrific brownies, you see.”
Mac hid her hands beneath her gingham apron. “Solana, did you have a concussion?”
“Not at all.” Her serene smile took in everyone around her. “Temporary inhabitation of the body by a spirit causes certain physical changes, one of which is dilated eyes.”
“But we heard you scream when you fell,” Giulia said.
“That wasn’t me. It was Dorothea Stone reliving her fall from the Widow’s Walk through me.”
Mac said after a long silence, “I see.”
Cedar said, “Any breakfast left?”
Mac returned to the kitchen. A minute later a microwave beeped and she returned with two full plates.
Lucy followed with coffee and orange juice.
They ate like two starving people forcing themselves to a sensible pace. Everyone watched. Marion brought out her moleskin notebook and began writing. Giulia sneaked a glimpse and caught the name “Dorothea.” More fodder for their copycat haunted bed and breakfast, perhaps.
“You should’ve seen the glop they tried to feed us at the hospital,” Cedar said around a mouthful of crêpe. “If that mound of yellow paste they called eggs had even one natural ingredient in it I’m Harry Houdini.”
“Mac,” Solana s
aid after dabbing her mouth with a napkin, “your stress is filling the air with blacks and reds. We are not going to sue you. The accident in the lighthouse was my doing because I didn’t properly integrate Dorothea’s spirit into my own.”
Cedar pushed away his empty plate. “That was delicious. We’re heading home to a well-deserved nap.”
Solana, still serene, smiled at Mac again. “You have to keep working on those colors. You have too many reds.”
Giulia wondered if it really was serenity. Detachment, perhaps, from the head injury? From her own supply of pain pills? Probably not from weed-laced brownies if their stash was back home.
Solana floated to her feet. “Would you mind if I took a few photographs of the lighthouse? I’ll send you a link to the story when I publish it on my website.”
Mac turned on her business side. “Of course you may, and thank you. I’ll be interested to read it. Cedar, could I see you in my office for a minute?”
Giulia rose from her chair. “Would you like me to go with you up the lighthouse stairs, Solana, in case you need help balancing?”
“That may be a good idea,” Solana said. “We’ll be back next week, Mac. We want to talk to you about keeping the sessions through the end of October.”
Cedar hauled himself upright. “Damned cement shoe.”
Solana crouched in front of the model in the souvenir room. “Yes…yes…up and down those winding stairs. Night after night, year after year. Circling the gallery and staring out at the lake. So many nights…they blend into each other after so long…”
Giulia wanted to kick her. This dreamy shtick was as bad as a cheesy Saturday night horror movie. Then Giulia wanted to kick herself. The detective business wreaked havoc on her Franciscan values of peace and forgiveness. She supposed there was a slim chance Solana wasn’t showing off her Stanislavski acting skills.
Speaking of the Franciscan mindset, cynicism was not one of the attitudes to cultivate.
Solana patted the lighthouse model and stood. “I’m not wholly back in this century yet. Would you mind taking pictures for me as I point things out?”
“Not at all.” Giulia gave her Bright Smile Number Two, reserved for medium-sized annoyances.
She followed Solana to the base of the spiral stairs and took photos at her direction. The stairs. The windows. The light. They climbed halfway up, Giulia behind Solana in case she got dizzy, and Giulia took the same photos from that angle. They climbed to the top and captured the Widow’s Walk and the view out to the lake.
Giulia went first down the stairs to continue as dizziness fall blocker if needed. Solana didn’t converse. Giulia’s newfound cynic put the odds of Solana in deep thought at twenty percent, Solana communing with the spirits at ten percent, and Solana calculating her next move to fool the rubes at a solid seventy percent.
Giulia’s conclusion: She herself needed a refresher course in how to compartmentalize work and spirituality.
Frank and Roy hovered outside Mac’s office. Raised voices behind the closed door warned Giulia in time.
She led still-floating Solana past the office and out onto the porch, talking in her ear all the way about the experience of being inhabited by Dorothea Stone. Solana sat in the basket chair. Giulia hurried back into the house.
The voices grew loud enough for Giulia to hear the exit interview.
“You can’t blame us for your lack of security,” Cedar said.
“I can completely blame you for breaking and entering. Do you treat all your clients’ property as your personal playground?”
“We did nothing of the sort.” Cedar’s voice cracked when he got defensive. “You hired us to contact your family ghost.”
“Read your contract,” Mac said. “I hired you to conduct a weekly séance to entertain my guests.”
“Now you’re objecting to our success?”
“What success? Your wife gave a convincing performance Sunday night. I admit that. Don’t try to claim she contacted a ghost that doesn’t exist.”
“What?” His voice cracked again.
“Now you’re claiming selective amnesia? I told you and your wife about my family legends so you could use them effectively in your performances. You—”
“You liar! Your friend Rowan told us you were a true believer. You sure believe everything she tells you. What’s so different about us?”
“Rowan never broke into my house in the middle of the night. Lucy’s inventorying the heirloom case as we speak.”
Cedar abandoned complete sentences for disjointed excuses and profane accusations. Frank and Roy reached for the door handle at the same instant, but it opened before either of them touched it.
Mac held the door wide and pointed to the porch. “You’re fired. Get out and don’t come back.”
Giulia opened the screen door. Cedar crutched out by himself. Tweedledum and Tweedledee eyed the crutches and flexed their claws. Roy, CeCe, Marion, and Anthony crowded onto the porch. Mac blocked the doorway.
Cedar gave the cats a threatening grimace and said to Mac. “Thanks for nothing. Let’s go, Sol.”
Solana had apparently heard none of the argument, since she and Mac air-kissed. She pressed Giulia’s hands with deep sincerity, and Cedar hobbled down the porch with his wife at his side.
“He’s not going to drive, is he?” Roy said in a stage whisper.
“I think she is,” CeCe said in the same tone of voice.
“She told me in the lighthouse that she couldn’t operate her camera phone because she wasn’t fully in the twenty-first century yet,” Giulia said.
“This won’t end well,” Frank said.
“Should we warn the police?” Marion said.
Anthony shrugged. “What would we say?”
“A psychic channeling a nineteenth-century ghost is driving a Prius down South Lake Road. The ghost does not have a valid driver’s license.” Frank chuckled. “They’ll tell us to stop drinking at breakfast.”
The group watched the slate blue car navigate the oval driveway.
“She avoided the grass.”
“Good thing the gate is still open.”
“She’s turning without a signal.”
“Holy cripes, she almost sideswiped that garbage truck.”
No one moved until the Prius was out of sight. As they filed inside, Giulia’s ears were anticipating the screech-crash of Solana/Dorothea’s inattention, but only the usual traffic noises reached them.
Thirty-Nine
Giulia slipped away from the porch and tugged Mac back into her office.
“I only caught bits and pieces. What happened?”
Mac’s neck and ears still burned a blotched crimson. “He actually tried to blame me for their break-in because my locks were so easy to pick. I don’t know what Rowan was thinking when she recommended them to me.”
“Perhaps Rowan didn’t suspect a legitimate supernatural contact would alter their moral compass.”
Mac’s righteous anger drained away. “Once I knew they broke in, I assumed the whole possession scene was an act. Do you think it could have been real? I thought you were anti-ghost.”
“I’m open to all possibilities until the case is solved.” Giulia expected a trapdoor to open at her feet and drop her straight down to Hell for the unending series of lies she’d told since entering Stone’s Throw. “Is Lucy really checking for stolen valuables?”
Back to mottled anger. “No. But she will.” Mac opened the door and shouted Lucy’s name.
Giulia climbed up to the Sand Dollar room for more research, which lasted until the district attorney called seven minutes later.
A three thirty slot had opened in his favorite judge’s schedule and could she please drive back to Cottonwood immediately?
Giulia primed herself w
ith two cans of Coke and hit the road. Jane, Sidney, and Zane met her at the courthouse and the entire order of protection process wrapped up in twenty-three minutes. In the parking lot afterwards, she gave them a theatrical rendition of the three a.m. break-in and shouting match of dismissal.
“You might as well be living in a bad episode of Beach Bum Ghost Hunters,” Sidney said.
“Is that really a TV show?” Jane said.
“No, but it could be.” Sidney unlocked her phone. “Jessamine rode on Belle’s back with a lot of help yesterday. I have adorable pictures.”
Sidney moved into the shadow of the courthouse wall to avoid glare from the sun on the screen. Giulia and Jane “aww”-ed.
“I notice Olivier out of spitting distance,” Giulia said.
“He takes no chances now.”
Jane said to Giulia, “When are you coming back for real?”
“I’m not sure. If the psychics were behind the plot to get hold of the B&B, then it all should stop and we’ll work up a case for the owner to nail them. I’m banking on definitive fingerprint results from the fridge containers. Zane, anything yet?”
Zane looked up from his phone. “I left a message before we headed here. The minute I get the results I’ll email them to you.”
“Okay. Anything else I should know about?”
Three headshakes.
“You are model employees. I’d better head back while I’m still on a caffeine and sugar high.”
Giulia stopped at the Jimmy Buffett burger place a few minutes before six to pick up the order Frank had called in. The low sun shone on the packed outdoor bar but the restaurant inside held all the takeout orders, so she got in and out in ten minutes.
He’d set up beer and napkins on the patio table. She fell onto a chair and raised her face to the sun.
Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) Page 19