by Maddy Hunter
“There’s always tonight,” I said, not trusting the status quo.
“It doesn’t matter what happens tonight, darling. It will be of no concern to you.” He found the lobe of my ear and stroked it softly with his thumb. “You’ll be otherwise engaged.”
A tingling sensation arrowed down to my toes. I liked the sound of this. Could that Wishing Chair really work? Nuts. Maybe I should have included an addendum about an open date for the Knights of Columbus hall. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
“Are you ready for dinner?” he whispered against my hair.
I had a better idea. “If we skipped dinner, we could toodle down to my room and get a head start on the evening.”
“In the interest of our continuing investigation, I’d like to sit down with some of the guests this evening to see if I can tease any information out of them. A relaxed setting, a little food, a little drink—even the most recalcitrant of people can be forthcoming.”
Despite my eagerness to cut to the chase, I could see merit in his suggestion. He was the crime expert. Who knew what would happen if he had a chance to strut his stuff? “All right,” I conceded. “But I’ll warn you ahead of time, these people are hard nuts to crack. All I’ve come up with is goose eggs.” As I started to detach myself from him, I thought about the footprints I’d found in the dungeon last night and wondered if he’d thought to pick up the flashlight and skeleton key I’d asked for earlier. “Did you happen to run across a hardware store in your travels today?”
He snapped his fingers. “I nearly forgot. I didn’t have any luck at the hardware store, but I believe I found just the thing at a craftsworks gallery two villages over.” He removed two small packages from the inside pockets of his sportcoat, freed them from their tissue paper wrapping, and set them on my lap.
I looked down at a paperweight and a dog. The paperweight was the size of a bagel with a series of triangular kites in bright jelly-bean colors floating in the center of the crystal. The dog was a shaggy little porcelain terrier who stood about two inches high, was attached to a wooden base, and carried a shamrock in his mouth. They were lovely, but terribly impractical. I wouldn’t dare use them for breaking and entering, especially if the paperweight was Waterford.
“A paperweight and a dog,” I mumbled, confused. Hmm. Okay. Maybe the paperweight lit up. Maybe the terrier’s tail doubled as a key!
Etienne seemed confused by my confusion. “Isn’t this what you asked me to pick up for you this morning? A glass kite and a Westie?”
“Umm…not exactly. But you were close. I asked you to pick up a flashlight and a skeleton key.”
As far back as the days of the caveman, women have accused men of not listening to them. A recent study explained why. A man listens with only half his brain. That’s because the other half is too crammed with thoughts of sex, money, football, beer, and maintaining possession of the remote control to absorb any new information.
“I’m sorry, Emily. I misheard. The taxi…the engine…Vehicles are much quieter in Switzerland.”
“No problem.” The study further indicated that this erosion of listening skills only occurred in married men. Etienne had been married once, so I guess he’d already suffered partial damage. “I’m going to be otherwise engaged tonight anyway,” I assured him. “Why would I need a flashlight and a skeleton key?”
When we entered the Great Hall, I noted the configuration of the dining tables had changed. Instead of dozens of separate tables, arranged in random order around the room, the staff had pushed all the tables together in an E pattern, with chairs situated on all sides. And the buffet tables were empty. I guess this meant we were being served our meal tonight, and if any rowdiness broke out, we’d be confined in a small space rather than spread out all over the room. All the better to deal with the uprising. Good thinking.
I scoped out the diners, apprising Etienne of a few odds and ends as we made our way to the seats Nana had saved for us. “I caught Ira Kuppelman in a private discussion with Michael Malooley this morning. A paper passed hands. Instructions? Money? Who knows. It’s very suspicious. Something is definitely going on there. But at least Gladys made it through the day so far. Ira might be trying to knock her off, but I still don’t see how that relates to our ghost. And I think the Englishman who built the castle fathered an illegitimate child whose present-day descendants might have reason to haunt the place, but I don’t have anything concrete to go on yet. I don’t see Michael here tonight. That’s not a good sign. I bet he’s in the dungeon. I bet he—Hi, Nana. Thanks for saving us a place.”
She’d reserved two chairs for us in the middle of the E, at the junction of where the short, center table right-angled with the long, outer table. Etienne pulled out the corner chair for me, then seated himself beside me. “I’m glad you came along when you did,” Nana confessed. “I didn’t know how much longer I could hold those chairs. They’re in a real prime spot.”
People surrounded us at every compass point. Nana and Tilly were seated opposite us at the short table. To Etienne’s right sat the Minches. Opposite them, on Tilly’s left, were the Kuppelmans. To my left, on the outer side of the long table, were Jackie and Tom. Behind me sat Osmond Chelsvig. Behind Nana sat George Farkas. We were packed in tighter than sardines. If anyone moved, he’d bump into himself. But it wasn’t the close quarters I was worried about. It was the group dynamic. With Jack on my left and Etienne on my right, I feared I was one step away from disaster.
“You dried out pretty good,” Ernie Minch called down to Jackie. “That was a real heroic thing you did today.”
Jackie shrugged modestly. “It was nothing. My outfit was wash ’n’ wear, so it wasn’t a big deal. Besides, I bet all of you have done things in your lives that were a lot more heroic than plucking an old woman from the jaws of imminent death.”
A thoughtful pause traveled around the table. “I never done nothin’ heroic like savin’ someone from drownin’,” Nana offered. “Mostly on account of I can’t swim.”
Tilly chimed in next. “When I was doing field work in the Amazon fresh out of grad school, I lopped the head off an anaconda who was crushing my guide to death. Of course, in subsequent years I’ve come to think that what I did was based more on survival than heroics. Without a guide, I never would have found my way out of the jungle.”
“And you never woulda seen the real survival show on CBS.” Nana gasped her horror. “Think what you woulda missed.”
“I once took a taxi ride with a cabbie who didn’t speak English,” Ethel volunteered. “I thought that was pretty heroic. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to the place I wanted to go.”
“That surprises me,” Etienne said to her. “I’ve discovered that cabdrivers in foreign capitals sometimes speak four, maybe five languages. Where were you traveling?”
“Manhattan.”
“Pretty stupid, huh?” hooted Ernie. “She ends up in Newark and I gotta fight rush-hour traffic to pick her up. I ask you, who’s dumb enough to get in a cab with a guy who don’t speak English?”
Ernie obviously traveled exclusively by subway these days.
“Are you starting with me?” Ethel fired back. “I’m warning you, don’t start with me because I got stories to tell too.”
“You got a short one?” asked Nana. “The food’s not here yet.”
Ethel boosted her elbows up on the table. “Heroic? You want to hear heroic? I’ll give you heroic. I get up last night to use the toilet. I hear someone crying in the hall. I peek out and I see wet footprints all over the carpet.”
I came to attention. Wet footprints in the hall? Wet, not bloody? Oh, my God. The other ghost. I’d seen footprints in the dungeon that I knew belonged to Michael, but how could I have missed the ones in the hall? Had Michael made those too? Busy guy, being able to be in two places at the same time. I wonder how he did that.
“I run back to the bed to get Ernie,” Ethel continued. “I drag him out to the hall. I point at the footprints. ‘T
here’s something not right here,’ I says to him. ‘Look at these footprints. There’s something real odd about them.’”
Uff da. I bent forward to catch Ethel’s eye. “Were they webbed?”
“No. They were big. Really big. Abominable Snowman big.”
“Had to be at least a size eighteen,” Ernie conceded.
I swallowed slowly. I knew the footprints in the dungeon belonged to Michael, and they hadn’t been that big. So if the supersize prints in the hall didn’t belong to Michael, who did they belong to?
Ethel went on with enthusiasm. “So Ernie opens an eye and looks at the footprints and says,‘This guy has flat feet, a narrow heel, and probably stands seven foot tall. You see someone like that, let me know. I’ll be in bed.’ Some hero, huh?”
The ghost was a giant? A ghost, I could believe. A giant seemed a little over the top. “Did you notice any smell in the hall when you were studying the footprints?” I asked Ethel.
“I sure did. It about knocked me over.”
Ta da! Michael Malooley.
“It smelled like lavender. And lots of it.”
Lavender? As in lavender bubble bath? Uh-oh. Not Michael Malooley. I swung my head around to slant a look at Jackie. She slanted a look back. Oops. We both slumped in our chairs and tried to look invisible.
“What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done, Emily?” Tilly asked in her professor’s voice.
“Umm…” No-brainer. Sitting between Etienne and Jack and worrying what was going to happen next, but I couldn’t really say that. “I don’t know if I’ve ever done anything really courageous,” I admitted.
“That’s not true,” Nana objected. “She rescued a hair-piece from the River Reuss last year,” she announced to the table.
“She saved my leg from sinking to the bottom of Lake Lucerne,” George proclaimed.
“She faced a maniacal killer single-handedly,” Etienne said softly, holding my gaze to his, lifting my hand to his lips, warming my flesh with his mouth. Unh. Excuse me while I melt. “Emily is the bravest woman I have ever known.”
I blushed at their flattery. They were making me sound pretty good. Etienne had even remembered about my facing the maniacal killer. What a good memory he had. It was nice to be in love with a man who could remember what you were like on your good days.
“I didn’t hear anyone crying in the hall last night,” said Gladys Kuppelman. “Why didn’t I hear anyone crying?”
“It’s your snoring,” accused Ira. “Who can hear anything over that racket?”
“Oh, sure, and I suppose if I’d heard something, you would have run right out to investigate, you being so heroic and all. Bugger you.”
Gee, Gladys was really picking up the language.
“I always thought Ira was pretty heroic to agree to the number of operations he’s been involved with,” said Ethel.
Ira froze in place. Gladys froze too—everything except her mouth. “I told you never to say anything about that,” she spat at Ethel.
“What? You think people don’t know? People aren’t as dumb as you think.” She addressed the rest of us. “You all know about their little secret, don’t you?”
I knew it! I knew Ira Kuppelman was involved in illegal operations. “I know,” I said, shooting my hand into the air as if expecting to be called on. Ira snapped out of his deep freeze to fix his gaze on me.
“There’s nothing wrong with what I did,” he defended. “Everyone else is doing it. Why not me?”
I imagined a laundry list of crimes everyone else was doing. Insider trading. Embezzlement. Extortion. Murder for hire. Jaywalking. Boy, Ira was going to have the book thrown at him.
“Why don’t you tell us what everyone else is doing,” Etienne encouraged with the ease of a master interrogator.
“Aesthetic surgical recontouring,” confessed Ira.
Nope. That wasn’t on my list.
Nana sidled a look at Tilly. “You know what that is?”
“I think it has something to do with landscaping.”
“It’s plastic surgery!” squealed Ethel. “You’ve never heard of aesthetic surgical recontouring? Where are you people from? Mars?”
“Iowa,” said Nana. Although I’d seen it happen where news of certain trends had indeed traveled faster to Mars than to the Midwest, mostly in the fashion industry.
“Ira’s had more surgery than the Frankenstein monster,” Ethel cackled. “He’s had a full face-lift, a mid face-lift, cheek implants, drooping eyelid repair, a chin implant, collagen injections in his lips, nose surgery, pectoral implants, calf implants, and laser resurfacing. He’s practically bionic.”
“Don’t forget the abdominoplasty,” Gladys said. Then to the rest of us, she explained, “Tummy tuck. He used to be a real porker.”
My mouth fell open so far it almost banged on the table. “You said your youthful appearance was a result of your diet!”
“It is!” Ira shot back. “Diet…enhanced by a modest amount of facial and body rejuvenation. Mother Nature needs a little help every once in a while.”
Eh! What a bunch of bull he’d fed us. What a phony! Diet, my foot. He’d had more bodywork than the Six Million Dollar Man. “Have you had all that surgery too?” I asked Gladys.
“Not as much as Ira’s had. There’s only so much money, so we’re talking big out-of-pocket expense, because Medicare won’t cover it. We used to be rolling in dough, but with the expense of some recent investments and the cost of our quarterly Botox injections, we’re about living on the edge.”
Recent investments? How could people living on the edge afford to make investments? I guess everyone was looking for that elusive pot of gold, whether they could afford it or not. And that thought tripped something in my brain. Investments? Pots of gold? That was it! That was the connection! All the pieces fit together now. I narrowed my eyes at Ira Kuppelman. Hadn’t heard any crying in the hall last night, had he? Huh! Not only was he a phony, he was a liar to boot!
“I’ve heard a those Botox treatments,” said Nana. “They jab a needle full a food poisonin’ into your face and it makes your wrinkles go away. That’s real progress. Used to be all food poisonin’ could do was make you barf.”
“The botulism paralyzes the facial muscles,” added Tilly. “You can always tell a person who’s had Botox injections because his face becomes virtually expressionless.”
“That’s not true,” argued Gladys. “I have full range of motion of every muscle in my face. You want to see? This is happy.” She strained the corners of her mouth and looked bland. “This is sad.” She strained the corners of her mouth and looked bland. “This is frightened.” She strained the corners of her mouth and looked bland.
“Can you do bewildered?” asked Ernie.
She strained the corners of her mouth and looked bland.
“Are you sure that’s bewildered?” questioned Nana. “I think it looks more like happy.”
“I think it bears a rather strong likeness to frightened,” said Tilly.
“Can we cut the million-dollar-makeover crap?” griped Ernie. “I wanna know who was doing all the crying in the hall last night.”
“The ghost,” said Jackie.
A beat passed before all eyes riveted to the end of the table. “What ghost?” Ernie asked her.
“The one who’s haunting the castle. Emily and I tried to find her last night, without any success, I might add.”
Uh! I gave her “the look.” She furrowed her brow at me. “What? Is the ghost a secret? You didn’t tell me it was a secret!”
“What the young lady is referring to,” Etienne interjected, diffusing the situation, “is the fanciful legend ofa…friendly ghost who was purported to have roamed the halls of Ballybantry in centuries past.”
“Like Casper?” asked Ethel. “Ernie junior used to read all those Casper comic books when he was growing up. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little ghost like Casper. You think the image would show up on Fujifilm? Maybe I should ha
ve bought Kodak. The grandkids would like that a lot better than a picture of some fake rocks.”
“It’s Ireland,” Etienne explained in his beautiful French/German/Italian accent. “Ghosts are part of the country’s charm. But I assure you, you’re all quite safe.”
I could feel the tension level decrease with Etienne’s assurances. He really did have a wonderful knack for handling potentially volatile situations. I squeezed his knee under the table, beside myself with pride.
“Say, doll,” Ernie called down to Jackie, “what was your husband doing while you and Emily were out ghostbusting last night?”
Jackie looked at Tom askance. “He inflicted his choppy cut on some unsuspecting victims, hid my fuzzy pink slippers on me, and then he probably continued his conversation over the phone with the woman who’s trying to break up our marriage!”